The small store was quiet as was usual for a Sunday morning. The stock colt sat behind the counter and let out a yawn. No customers so far today, he couldn’t imagine why the boss had wanted to set up shop here of all places! In the small country town of Ponyville he was surprised that they had sold as many computers as they already had. He wasn't complaining though, it was 8 bits an hour for no work.
The shop bell jingled and he straightened up.
“Welcome,” he said to the purple unicorn that entered the small shop. She glanced around nervously and looked up at him.
“I’m, uh, looking for a computer.”
“Well that is what we sell here.”
The unicorn stepped back nervously, the stock colt sighed. Lose your patience, lose a customer. he forced a smile onto his face.
“What kind are you looking for?”
“Just one to do work on, nothing fancy.”
It was obvious that this unicorn knew nothing about computers, she would be easy.
“You’ll like our PKX122 model, fastest processor in Equestria!”
“I don’t think-”
“No, don’t think, just try it!”
He lead her over to the display model and pressed the small button to turn the machine on. it came to life with a hum like the sound of a purring cat. The unicorn stepped up to the monitor and surrounded the mouse in her magic.
“This little kitty has 25 gigs of RAM a 1,000 Gig hard drive and, like I said, the fastest processor in Equestria.”
“And… that’s… good?”
Perfect.
“It’s the best, and for a pretty young mare like yourself I’ll let you have it for only 5,000 bits!”
The unicorn shuddered and stepped away.
“Do you have anything cheaper?”
“well…”
The stock colt went behind the counter and came out with a large black laptop in on hoof.
“It’s not as nice as the PKX, but for your budget it should be perfect.”
Yeees, just like a GameBarn employee.
The unicorn examined the lap top.
“How much?”
“This will only cost you 1,500 bits.”
She doesn't even know I almost doubled the price!
The young mare sighed and pulled out a bag of bits and plopped it on the table. The stock colt smiled.
“Thank you for your business.”
***
The Purple unicorn was, of course, Twilight Sparkle, the resident genius librarian of Ponyville. She left the shop happily thinking that she had Saved a good deal of money. She whistled merrily as she levitated her purchase alongside her.
For months her friends had been telling her about all the benefits of having a computer. by friends she really only meant Rainbow Dash, but Rarity never failed to mention how much more work she could get done with her little laptop. This was why twilight had decided to buy one, not for games or any of the frivolous things that Rainbow did in her spare time. no she would focus, she would be a responsible young mare.
She skipped happily as she opened the door with her magic and stepped into her tree house that doubled as the town library. She passed her roommate Spike the dragon and skipped up to her room ignoring his greeting shouted to her as she ascended the steps.
She placed the laptop onto her desk shoving aside the mound of quills and parchment that had built itself up over the work week. (She made a mental note to later organize it into recyclables and non-recyclables, so that they could be thrown away in proper order). She lifted the top of the small computer, it let out a warm humming noise and a screen popped up telling her to enter a greeting for the computer to give her. Twilight glanced over her shoulder to check that spike was out of the room. Tuning back to the screen she typed [Hello, Master] in the little box, grinning sheepishly. the computer booted up and a little voice piped “Hello, Master.” Twilight blushed, she hoped Spike hadn’t heard that.
Twilight had begun to examined the walk through menu that had popped up on the monitor when a ear splitting BOOM echoed through the air. A blur of rainbow colors burst through her room and smashed into her book case. Twilight groaned.
“Rainbow, why is it that you can never use the front door?”
“Oh! Hey Twilight,” the intruding mare replied adjusting her skewed saddlebags. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I thought the mayor banned you from doing Sonic Rainbooms above the town after what happened last time.”
“Well you know what they say, it’s only illegal if you get caught,” she replied brushing a few bits of glass out of her rainbow mane. “Is your basement unlocked?”
Twilight was about to remind rainbow dash that she didn’t have a basement when the pegasus dashed across the room landing next to Twilight with a heavy thud.
“You finally bought a computer!” She said excitedly. “That’s so awesome!”
“Don’t get your hopes up, I’m planning on using it only for work,” Twilight replied.
“But there's sooooo much cool stuff you can do!”
Twilight bumped rainbow to the side.
“I’m not a fan of cool stuff.”
Rainbow bumped twilight back.
“Yes you are! Here, let me show you!”
Rainbow Dash pulled a detachable mouse out of her saddle bag, plugged it into the computer and got to work. Twenty minutes later, Twilight had three games she needed to play, a month's worth of videos to watch on YouCube and more pages to follow on Stumblr and AberentArt then she could count.
“That should do it for now,” Rainbow said, putting the mouse back into her saddlebag. “Now, I’ll be hiding in your basement for the remainder of the week. Tell me if you want anymore help.”
Twilight examined the swath of programs that Rainbow Dash had forced onto her poor computer. ‘Bnet’ ‘Cattle of Duty’ ‘Minecart’ ‘Smog’. All utter gibberish to her, she would delete them later. One small icon caught her eye though.
“What’s Guild of Greatness?” she asked to the retreating Rainbow Dash. Rainbow let out a dramatic gasp.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard!” She said excitedly. Twilight turned to see Rainbow Dash charging up the steps, a wild smile on her face. “It is only THE BEST M.O.B.A. of all time!’
“M.O.B.A.? What in Equestria is that?” But Rainbow Dash ignored her question and proceed to rifle through her saddlebag until she pulled out a battered laptop that seemed to be held together with several rolls of rainbow duct tape. She paced this on the desk next to Twilight’s.
“It stands for Multipony Online Battle Arena.” Rainbow booted up her laptop.
“What the F*** do you want?!” I piped in the same voice as Twilight’s it then booted up, a picture of Spitfire from the Wonderbolts posing flirtily on a bed was displayed for the background. Rainbow chuckled nervously.
“Heh, what’s that doing there?” She clicked on the screen and it quickly changed to a background of an overly muscular stallion punching a dragon into the ground. Twilight decided to act as if she hadn’t just seen that. Rainbow handed her a pair of headphones with a microphone attached.
“Prepare to have the time of your life!”
Twilight plugged in the headphones and put on over her ears. She then clicked on the little icon and was led into another world. The screen now showed a unicorn battling a Timberwolf clad in armor, a empty bar requested her password.
“I went to the trouble of setting an account up for you, your password is: RainbowRules, all you have to do is make up your player name.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and typed the code on the keypad. another bar popped up “please enter your Guild Name.” Twilight looked at rainbow for help she saw rainbow had already booted up the game on her computer.
“What should I put?” She asked, Rainbow Dash shrugged.
“Whatever you want relay.”
Twilight turned back to the screen. what should she name herself? something sophisticated, yet not too showy. Cool but not arrogant. something to show that she was a force to be feared. Then she typed.
[PrincessSparkle]
[Name taken]
Well, let’s try this again.
[PrincessSparkle82]
[processing…]
[Welcome to the Guild]
Play top, they said. You'll be fine, they said.
View Online
Play top, they said. You'll be fine, they said.
“OK, we’ll pay a practice game to start,” said Rainbow Dash over the headset. She plopped herself in front of her computer. A box popped up on Twilight’s screen [RadicalRainbow invites you to a game]. Twilight accepted the offer and was quickly taken to another screen. Hundreds of small screens popped up, each with the face of a different pony.
“Those are the Champions,” Rainbow explained. “In each game you choose one to control and fight with.”
“There are so many!” Twilight observed, scrolling down the seemingly endless list.
“Play one of the recommended ones,” Dash suggested. “Those are good to start with.”
Twilight clicked on one with the thumbs up indicating a recommended character.
[Guren, Might of Dematia]
“He’s easy, just spam his E.”
“His what?”
“Match is starting!”
Twilight focused back on the screen, it had changed to the overhead view of a battlefield divided into three rows. Twilight saw her name float above the head of a heavily armored stallion. Twilight clicked on the ground nearby and the character moved to that point. Rainbow's character, a mare with considerably less armor than her character, moved toward the middle lane.
“You go to top, I’ll go mid,” she said. It was bizarre sensation hearing Rainbow’s voice both over the headset and five feet from her. Twilight obeyed and moved her character to the top lane.
[Minions have spawned]
“Have fun!”
“Wait! Rainbow! What do I do? How do I play?”
It was too late an enemy hero approached her, a unicorn mare, wielding two pistols and dressed in what looked like pirate garb. A storm of bullets rained down on her. She ran away behind the army of tiny soldiers that she assumed where the minions. But it was no use, the mare made short work of the swath of miniature soldiers and headed for her! Twilight panicked, she clicked a random button! Her character slammed down on her assailant. A word bubble appeared above her with a crossed out circle.
“Nice! You silenced her!” Rainbow Dash called from her position on the bed. “Attack her now!”
Remembering what rainbow had said Twilight pressed the E key on her keyboard and her champion began spinning wildly, slashing the mare with each rotation. The pirate began to flee, but Twilight followed keeping her in range of her attack, the mare collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain.
[PrincessSparkle82 has drawn first blood!]
“Hey, not bad,” Rainbow Dash said. “Careful I think the another one is-.”
[Double kill]
Rainbow Dash looked up in shock at Twilight.
“You sure you’ve never played this game before?”
Twilight was giddy with excitement, this game was wonderful! It involved extensive thinking and planning, two areas she excelled at! She might find some time this week to play it again.
The two played and won several more practice games but a while later Rainbow began to pack up her stuff, preparing to leave.
“Don’t go!” Twilight begged. “We haven't even played a real game yet.”
“Trust me, you don’t need me to hold your hoof anymore, you can play on your own.”
“But didn’t you say that the community is really rough?” Twilight shifted anxiously in her chair and glanced at her computer screen nervously, as if it would pounce on her if she didn’t keep an eye on it, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to face the people that Dash had described to her.
“You’ll be fine!” Dash said reassuringly, putting her laptop into her saddle bag. “You have allot of potential.”
Suddenly a barrage of knocks sounded from the library door and Mayor Mare’s voice echoed upstairs.
“Twilight! Are you home? Is Rainbow Dash with you?”
A look of horror flashed across Rainbow Dash’s face, she turned to fly out the broken window and escape her fate, but Twilight grabbed her wing and frogmarched the squirming pegasus to the front door.
***
After a stern lecture from the Mayor about responsibility and respecting authority, Rainbow Dash marched gloomily away to help with the repairs that she had made necessary. Twilight meanwhile skipped back up to her computer. When she reached it though she froze. A single message had appeared on the screen.
[PrinsessofTehNight invites you to a game]
