Monoponyby TherealdraginslayerChaptersThe Game BeginsJail TimeSpike's DiscoveryStormThe First One OutThe Game BeginsTwilight Sparkle shuffled through a box of interesting trinkets in Rarity’s attic. She scavenged through, cataloguing each item in her head, and placed them in their appropriate box. Rarity remained to the side, watching in case Twilight would find something that she did not want to be kept in storage. “Twilight, deary, are you sure you don’t want me to help?” Rarity questioned. “No, thank you, Rarity. You need a break. Just go sit down for a while. I can handle it.” “I just don’t want you putting things away that don’t belong, Twilight.” “I won’t, Rarity. If I see something that looks important then I’ll come to you and ask about it. Okay?” Rarity looked at Twilight for a moment and nodded in reluctant submission. “I’ll be downstairs in my bedroom if you need me. I’ll be reading.” Twilight nodded with a smile and turned her attention back to the boxes of items. “Just one question: what in general should be thrown away?” “Any kind of old fabrics that have become wrinkled or any games that I still have from my fillyhood.” Rarity was beginning to question whether asking Twilight for help had been a good idea. After all, she did ask what was needed to be thrown away. “Okay. I got from here.” Rarity stepped down the stairs to the attic and sighed. +++ “Excuse me, Rarity?” Twilight Sparkle said, knocking on the door to Rarity’s bedroom. “Come in, dear. Is there something wrong?” “No, but,” Twilight started as she pushed open the door, “I was wondering about this game that I found.” Twilight placed a rectangular, cardboard box in front of Rarity and said, “This looks like an interesting game. What is it?” “You’ve never played Monopony?” Rarity asked curiously. “Well, I’ve heard of it, but is it fun?” “Sometimes. Other times it’s just annoying and other times it’s the most amazing time of your life.” Twilight gave a ponderous look and said, “Can we play it at tomorrow night’s sleepover? I’m sure its something everypony would love to play.” “Of course, dear, and for your labor in helping me clean my attic, you can keep it and I’ll make you your dress for the gala.” “Oh, thank you, Rarity!” Twilight exclaimed. “Your welcome, and how much more do you have to do up there?” “Oh, I’m finished. I separated garbage from valuables and valuables from things you might need. If you don’t mind, would you come up and check it for me?” Rarity nodded and stood up from her bed and followed Twilight to the attic yet again. She thought for a moment about the game Twilight had showed her and could place a memory to it. She couldn’t remember, though, but she felt that it was a bad idea to let her friends play it. She shrugged off the feeling and smiled. Oh what could happen? +++ Applejack sat closest to the window next to Twilight’s bed and looked around at her friends Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. She began to ponder where Rarity and Twilight had gone and what was taking them so long. Surely getting a board game wouldn’t be such a problem. The door shot open and Rarity and Twilight came running in hysterically and soaked from head to toe. A rectangular shape could be identified through a small plastic bag being carried by Twilight’s magic. “We’re sorry,” Twilight said, gasping for breath. “It started raining.” Applejack turned around to look at the window and saw the sun being blocked by gray clouds and falling water droplets that pelted the ground and sides of the library. “It’s okay, Twili’!” Applejack stated in her typical accent. She set her hat aside and grabbed a towel from the nearby closet and wrapped it around Twilight. She went back and got one for Rarity as well. “Thank you, Applejack,” Rarity replied. “Yeah, thank you, AJ.” The ponies all gathered around the large table that Twilight had brought up to her room from the library section specifically for them to play their game. “Why didn’t we just play downstairs?” Rainbow Dash asked, finally noticing that the table had come from the library. “This game has a lot of small pieces,” Twilight started as she pulled the game out of the plastic bag, “and we get a lot of children in the library sometimes. If we lose one of the pieces, I don’t want one of the children getting hurt because of it.” Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “I knew that.” Twilight handed the board game box over to Rarity who said, “I’m sure that most of you have played this game before, but Twilight hasn’t, so I will have to go over some of the basic rules.” “What game is it? Is it a fun game?! Is it Chutes and Alligators!? I love that game!” “No, Pinkie,” Rarity started politely. “We’re playing Monopony.” “I like that game…” Fluttershy whispered. “Me and Angel Bunny used to play it all the time until he got mad at me and threw it away.” Rarity raised an eyebrow at Fluttershy’s comment. “I wasn’t aware that Angel could be so angry at a game.” “He usually isn’t,” Fluttershy started softly, “but I think he might’ve just had a bad day.” The ponies all nodded and looked towards the game as Rarity began to pull it apart and set it up with her magic. “The rules, Twilight, are simple. We each take turns rolling a pair of dice and whatever it lands on is the number of spaces we move around the board. If at anytime you land on a square that hasn’t been bought by anypony else, you may buy it for yourself.” Twilight nodded, capturing each word in her mind. “If you can get all locations of a certain color, you can start to build houses on any of the squares of that color. Now this part usually varies from group to group, but for this game we’re going to go with four. If you can put four houses on one square, you can put a hotel which gives you a lot more money when someone lands on it.” “So how do I make money?” Twilight asked curiously, enthralled by the game in front of her. It was fascinating to look at and learn about. It was incorporating two of her best subjects: mathematics and economics. Plus, the paper money was cute. “Surely we earn more money to buy things?” “Why, of course, dear. If somepony lands on one of your properties, then they have to give you the entitled amount of money.” Twilight smiled happily, clapping her hooves together eagerly. “I can’t wait to start. Can I be this?” She picked up a green, hollow rectangle. “That’s a hotel, sugarcube,” Applejack pointed out. “That’s why there’s a lot of them.” “Oh yeah. Sorry. How about this?” “Sure,” Rainbow Dash said, cockily, “you can be the Bag of Bits, and I’ll be the boat.” Rarity took the thimble, Applejack took the hat, and Pinkie Pie took the dog, squealing happily, “I love being the puppy! It’s soooo cute!” Fluttershy looked at the remaining pieces and scratched her head in thought. Typically, she was the dog and it had become her lucky charm when she played, but she couldn’t ask Pinkie for it. That would be rude. “I guess I’ll take the horseshoe.” Everypony placed their pieces on the squared labeled “Go” and Rarity handed the two die to Twilight, who fumbled them for a moment. “I think it’s only fair that Twilight be allowed to go first, since this is her first time playing.” Twilight smiled at Rarity and looked around at her friends, all nodding in agreement. She took the dice in her hooves and shook them around for a mere moment or two and tossed the to the board. She yipped in delight as she moved her piece six times. Rarity listened to the thudding sound of the piece against the cardboard, each step it took echoing in her ears loudly until it stopped on its final step… But the echo could be heard by everypony as the game began. Jail TimeJust as the game began, Twilight had already began planning out the foundation for the rest of her game, using probability and mathematics to her advantage. Each time she would land on a property during her first time around the board, she would buy the property no matter the cost. She did this until she ran out of money of when she landed on Boardclop Avenue, the space right next to the “Go” square. It wasn’t until everypony had gone again that they noticed Twilight’s lack of funds. “Now, sugarcube,” Applejack started, “you don’t want to spend all your money at once. You might need it if you land on one of our properties.” Twilight merely smiled. “It’s okay, AJ. I’ve got this. And if I fail, then I can learn from this. By the way, Rarity, how do you win this game?” “You win when everypony else runs out of money and you’re the only one left!” Pinkie exclaimed, throwing the dice to the board. She moved her piece over a few places. “Ooh! I got a Chance card!” She looked at it intently and jumped in the air delighted. “I got the “Get out of jail-free” card! Woohoo!” Everypony smiled at Pinkie as Fluttershy took the dice in her hooves, tossing them down gently as though not to hurt the board. The dice landed in pairs six. Twilight smiled at the dice, pushing them back to Fluttershy. “Good job, Fluttershy. You landed right on the “Go”. And you get to go again!” Twilight took the money out of the bank and handed it to Fluttershy. “Thank you, Twilight,” she whispered, slipping the money in one of her neat stacks that looked exactly like Twilight’s: organized and formal. Fluttershy looked at the rest of her friends and noticed the way they held their money and how wrong it was: they all had their money in one giant stack… Except Rarity. She had hers neatly stack, but not in the same way as the rest of them. It seemed completely random the way she had arranged her paper money, but Fluttershy knew better than to question it. Rarity had been running a business for the latter half of her life and was clearly successful. “How long have we been playing?” Rainbow Dash questioned impatiently. “This is boring.” “Oh, this game picks up rather quickly when ponies start buying properties and start running out of money.” Rarity flipped her mane out of her eyes and looked down intently at the board. Fluttershy couldn’t resist the feeling that Rarity was calculating something in her mind. She shrugged off the feeling, using whatever willpower she possessed to do so. She tossed the dice and watched them land on a pair of two’s. Fluttershy moved her piece over four spaces and sighed as she landed on Dodge Junction Railroad. She shrugged and looked at rarity, awaiting the price to be listed. “I own two railroads so that’ll be…” Rarity started, making what Fluttershy could only describe as being a face of math. “...fifty bits, please.” Fluttershy nodded and handed Rarity a fifty bit bill and took the dice into her hooves. Please don’t get extra doubles. I don’t want to go to jail. The dice rolled slowly, like an eternity, and thudded against the cardboard game heavily, echoing much like Twilight’s piece when she first moved. Don’t be doubles. The first die landed squarely on a three...then the second landed… Rarity muttered something under her breath, but everypony else sighed heavily as it landed on a four. Fluttershy moved her piece over a more places, noticing that Rarity was rearranging her stacks of money. It made Fluttershy curious. Had Rarity been planning on Fluttershy to be sent to jail? Game or not, that would be rude and mean. But the longer Fluttershy thought about it, the more she realized that Rarity wouldn’t do that. She was her friend and friends look out for one another, even when against each other. Twilight Sparkle took the dice in her hooves and rolled them for a moment, calculating the possibilities ahead of her. They had gone around the board enough that only four properties remained and she could land on any of them. A utility remained, Water, and if she could land on it, she could increase her profits for somepony landing on it by one hundred percent with the addition of her electricity. But she could land on Baltimare Road and start building houses with the rest of the yellows… But she could also land on the “Go to jail” tile and her chance at any of it would. Then again it was one in eleven that she would land on it. She tossed her dice down. Clunk! Chink! Twilight felt a dreadful cloak cover her heart as her dice rolled to a four and three. “Oh, too bad, Twilight,” Rarity snickered. she composed herself quickly. “You have to go to jail.” “For how long?” Twilight asked, eyes dropping behind her head and being covered by her mane slightly. “Until you can afford bail or you can roll a double.” “H-how much is bail?” Twilight inquired worriedly, hoping it wasn’t a horrible amount. She only had four hundred bits all together and she needed to be prepared in case she landed on one of her friend’s properties. Rarity looked around at her friends and said, “When I play, it’s usually up to a certain percentage of what you currently have, but I think that since it is your first time, it should only be around two hundred bits.” The group nodded in an awkward unison, unsure of Rarity’s proposal, but Twilight immediately took the deal, handing Rarity two one hundred bit bills. Rarity placed the bill into the bank quickly and took the dice into her hooves. She rolled it confidently and smiled. She moved her piece over ten spaces and Twilight felt a cold dagger of disappointment enter her back as Rarity landed on the Water Utility. Twilight sighed and realized that she hadn’t landed on Baltimare Road…. But Rarity didn’t buy the utility. Twilight looked at Rarity curiously, unsure of her actions. She had enough money, why didn’t she buy it? Instead, she moved her stacks of paper money around and moved bills around accordingly. What was she planning in her head? Rarity slid the dice to Applejack and smiled oddly. Applejack took them slowly, throwing them to the board just as slowly. Pinkie Pie exclaimed in delight. “Woo! You landed on the Free Parking! What does she get?!” “Nothin’, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack stated quickly and in a raspy tone. She suddenly felt bad about her choice of words. “I’m sorry. I din’t mean ta snap like that.” “Oh, it’s okay!” Pinkie replied in her typical, eccentric voice. “I know this game makes people a little antsy.” “Whatever!” Rainbow Dash cried out impatiently. “This game is going way too slow. I vote for a small rule change: we should fine people for taking too long with their turn.” “I agree,” Rarity answered smugly. “This game is going too slow. If somepony takes more than twenty seconds in between game decisions, they will be fined two hundred dollars. Agreed?” Rainbow Dash nodded and she looked at Fluttershy intently. Fluttershy squeaked fearfully and nodded with them. “It’s settled then,” Rarity said. “Rainbow Dash it’s your turn now.” Without missing a beat, Rainbow Dash took the dice in her hooves and tossed them to the board and moved her piece over to the Community Chest square. She took a card from the pile and said, “Are their any houses or hotels out?” She looked down at the board and shook her head in disappointment. She simply put the card at the bottom of the stack pushed the dice to Fluttershy. Without taking a moment to waste and risk having to be fined, she took the dice and threw them quickly. She moved her piece quickly and smiled as she landed on a place that she knew she could have a strategic advantage with. She looked down at her properties and saw that she only had one of the railroads. Meanwhile, she knew Rarity had two other railroads and Twilight had one as well. She knew that Rarity wouldn’t be willing to trade her railroads for anything, as they are a steady source of income for her, but Twilight needed something that Fluttershy had. “I’ll take Baltimare Road, please. If that’s alright with you.” Twilight groaned to herself, but Fluttershy did not care at the moment. She wanted the other railroad before Rarity could trick Twilight out of it. Fluttershy completed the transaction and placed the property with the rest of hers and smiled at Twilight as she pushed the dice over to Pinkie Pie. But she was going to make Twilight ask for it. No sense in giving her idea away. She wanted ponies to think she was only an ameteur. +++ Twilight Sparkle watched the game proceed in front of her eyes, watching as her friends slowly collected more and more money. She watched as deals were dealt for each other’s properties, fines were collect due to unhasty turns, and houses were finally being built around the board. But they were Rarity’s houses and no matter how much Twilight tried to prevent herself from landing on such squares, her luck just would not turn around. “Ya just can’t git any luck tunight, can ya, Twili’?” Applejack said with a hearty laugh. Twilight smiled weakly at her friend, unsure of what her neck move would be. The dice were approaching her quickly but she needed time to think of her next move or else she would lose. She only had a two hundred bits left. Pinkie Pie took the dice in her hooves and did a dance with them until she threw them back to the board. “Woo!! I get to visit Rarity’s again!” “Uh, Pinkie Pie…”Rainbow Dash started. “You do realize that you now only have ten bits left, right?” Everypony looked at Pinkie Pie who nodded quickly and happily. “Yeah, I know, silly! It’s just a game.” Twilight felt a sudden rush of relief over her as she realized what Pinkie had just said. She was right. IT was just a game. Nothing more than a harmless game that friends could play to get closer to one another. But why did she feel like there was something hostile looming around everypony. She looked down at the game and over to Rarity who smiled with pride at her accomplishments in the game. She was the clear winner of the game even when the game seemed far from over. Fluttershy took her turn and paid Rarity her due money after landing on one of the railroads with a smug smile the entire time. Twilight used her magic to bring the dice close to her and mumbled a few words to herself. She threw the dice down… “Chance Card,” she said to herself and took the red card on top. She didn’t want to look at the other side. What if she had to pay a lot of money? What if she didn’t have enough? She didn’t want to be out of the game already. They had only been playing for an hour and it didn’t seem like it was going to end soon. Twilight flipped the card around and set her forehead on the table depressingly. EVerypony watched as her pieced moved through the air and landed on the Jail square. “Would you like to pay two hundred bits, or would you take your chances and get doubles?” Twilight looked at her small, pathetic stack of money and shook her head. “I’ll wait until it’s my turn again.” “Oh! Wait!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily. She shuffled through her properties and bills, looking frantically for something. She gasped and handed Twilight a small card. “Here! You can have it!” Twilight looked at the card closely and felt something warm bubbling in her gut. Pinkie Pie had given Twilight her “Get Out of Jail Free” card. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily. “She can’t do that!” Rarity shook her head at Rainbow Dash. “Actually, you can. You can help out anypony as long as you don’t lose because of it.” Twilight looked at her pink friend with a smile. “Thank you, Pinkie.” Suddenly, a cold draft sifted through the air ominously, but nopony else seemed to notice. Twilight looked around for a moment, hoping that the window had been closed. But as she looked back at the window, she noticed it shut tightly. She looked at the rest of her friends and smiled uneasily. But Twilight noticed something about Rarity and Rainbow Dash. They were sitting awfully close to one another…Yet that wasn’t what worried Twilight. They looked gray. Spike's DiscoveryThree Hours Earlier Spike handed Twilight her umbrella and looked at the hour. The purple mare had a giddy expression and her legs were simply mocking a run as she stayed in place. Spike had only seen Twilight act that way when there was something happening with Princess Celestia. “What’s wrong Twilight?” Spike asked nervously. “Did something happen while you were at Rarity’s?” “No, nothing bad happened, Spike,” Twilight started. “I just found a board game that I can’t wait to play when the girls get here.” “A board game?” “Yes, and I’m sure the girls won’t mind if you played too.” Spike shook his head. “Nah! I’m a really big board game player. Except for Chutes and Alligators with Pinkie. That’s always fun.” Twilight smiled happily at Spike, who continued with, “What is it though?” “Monopony.” Spike listened closely to Twilight’s voice as she said “Monopony” and felt something strangely nostalgic about the name. “Hmmm…” Spike hummed curiously, scratching his chin. “What?” “Have we ever played it before? I feel like I have.” “I don’t know if you played it with somepony else, but I know that I haven’t.” “Man...this is going to bug me forever.” “Why don’t you go find out at the game shop down the road? Or maybe it could jog your memory if you see it when it comes here.” Spike sighed and shook his head, shrugging all the while. “I can’t stay and wait. I’ve got to go and get Peewee some food. I’ve got to go all the way across town to get it.” “Well, think about stopping by the game shop on your way back. I’m sure somepony could help you remember.” Spike smiled at Twilight and said, “Okay. Thanks for the idea. I’d better get going before it rains. It’s supposed to rain a lot tonight.” Spike departed out the front door and saw that the sky was clear of all clouds but in the far distance he could make out a gray looming mass high above, ready to cast its wet shadow on the land. He bit his lip and said to himself, “I’d better run.” +++ The trek was long and unwelcoming to the small purple dragon. It seemed that every time he rounded a corner, the strong gusts of wind would try to push him down and large pellets of water would smash against his head, constantly giving him the impression that he would soon be in the middle of a deadly torrent. He ran as fast as his short legs would take him, taking shelter behind buildings whenever he could to catch his breath. He kept running until the pet food store came into his sights and his pace slowed to a quick walk. Spike pushed open the front door and let out a sigh of relief. “Woo! I didn’t think that I’d ever get here!” “Oh, hello there Spike!” a kind voice said from behind the nearby counter. The Unicorn had a gentle smile and her crystalline eyes twinkled softly, making Spike forget his worries about having to walk back in the bad weather. “I take it that Peewee is out of food again? That bird has been eating a lot lately, hasn’t he?” Spike nodded quickly. “Yep. He was also a little uneasy with me going to get him food though. I guess I should’ve listened, huh?” The storekeeper raised an eyebrow and said, “Phoenixes are the only birds that don’t predict weather patterns.” Spike shook his head in denial. “Nah. I’m sure Peewee was just lookin' out for me…” “Well, of course, but not when it comes to weather. It’s has to do with a bunch of evolution and stuff, but phoenixes don’t predict weather.” Spike shrugged and said, “Oh well. Do you have any bird feed in stock?” “Yeah. Let me go get some.” Spike looked around the pet food store for a moment, listening to the shopkeeper shuffled and fumble through boxes in the back. It sounded strangely dangerous as glass could be heard breaking and wood shattering. “Are you okay?” Spike called out worriedly. “Yeah! One of the windows blew open and knocked down a few boxes. Here I come.” The Unicorn came back with a small bag of oats and handed them to Spike who fumbled around a few coins trying to get the exact amount. “It’s okay Spike. This is on me. Just hurry on home. This storm’s only gunna get worse.” Spike smiled thankfully and departed out the front door. The ground had a massive shadow laid across it, dark and foreboding, but when Spike looked upwards, a cold chill shot through his scales. The massive cloud hovered high above, blocking out the sun completely. A droplet of water landed on Spike’s snout forcefully, making him wince slightly. He shook his head and began running for home. +++ Whoosh! Whish! Slam! Two gusts of wind was all it took for Spike to fall sideways. He clamored to pick up his bag of bird feed, but some spilled out and scattered across the ground. He didn’t bother himself with picking it up; instead, he continued running for the his tree home. It was in view and the sight of it was both a blessing and a curse. All around the treehouse was a spiraling heap of gray and black clouds that let out booms of silent thunder and lightning. The shock wave could be felt only slightly, but it was still fear striking to the poor baby dragon. “Baby dragon!” a voice called out. Spike looked around wildly, half-expecting it to be Twilight. He saw the a stallion waving his hooves at him crazily, gesturing for him to enter his building. Spike looked at the treehouse, which was about a quarter of a mile away, and back to the stallion. Without waiting any longer, he charged for the nearby building and lept through, crashing into a nearby stand. Spike felt box after lightweight box fall onto him with tiny plastic pieces thumping against his tough scales. He almost didn’t even know they had fallen on him if he hadn’t stepped on a few as he was standing. “I’m so sorry!” Spike exclaimed to the stallion nearby. He was a tall fellow, towering high above Spike in an almost displeased manner. He wore a scowl that terrified the baby dragon. But with a sudden rush of delight, the stallion smiled, adjusting his glasses and said, “Oh, it’s quite fine. You didn’t know it was there.” Spike moved aside and watched as all the pieces began moving with a magical aura surrounding them. They were placed back onto their respective place on the stand. The Unicorn stallion smiled at Spike and asked, “So what’s your name? And don’t you think its a bit bad weathered to be out and about?” “Yeah, but I needed to get some food for my pet bird. Oh, and I’m Spike.” The stallion nodded and replied, “I’m Game Changer, but everyone just calls me Jobs.” “Jobs? Why? Plus, haven’t I heard of you from somewhere?” The stallion shrugged. “Because I offer people jobs all the time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you have heard of me. I was in the news a while back.” “What for?” “Ya know. The usual things.” Spike nodded, though unsure of what the stallion named Jobs meant. He shuffled through his mind for remembrance, but couldn’t find anything, much like the game Monopony. The baby dragon looked all around himself, noting how nice the store was. The shelves were neat, organized, and pristine; the counter was clean and the walls kept in good condition. But what caught Spike’s attention was the shelves were full of toys and board games ranging from all sizes and shapes. A game was wedge between the wall and counter, though, immediately grabbing Spike's attention by its familiar look. “Is that Monopony?” Spike asked curiously, rushing to it. The stallion leapt past Spike and kicked the board game out of view. “No!” he exclaimed. “Do not touch that foul beast of a game! It is nothing but evil, evil that can only be compared and traced back to greed.” “What do you mean ‘evil’!?” Spike shook in place, worrying for his safety as the tall stallion before him glared at him from above. “It literally brings out the greed in each of us. Even I was unable to resist its power and I have no need for money or material gain.” Spike took a few steps backwards, unsure if he should tell the stallion about Twilight playing it as they spoke. So he merely nodded and changed the subject. “What do you mean that you have no need for money? Don’t you run a business? What’s the point if you’re not in it for money?” The stallion smiled at Spike question, seemingly forgetting the prior moments. “I take it you’re one to take up psychiatry? Asking questions about how things work and why people ask the way they do?” Spike shrugged. “Not really. I’m just confused.” “Oh…” the pony replied sadly. “No one likes how the mind works anymore. Anyway, take a look around the store again. What do you see?” The stallion made a sweeping motion with his hoof and forearm. “Toys and games…” “And what do those things do?” “They’re fun to play with. I...I don’t understand.” “That’s just it! Nothing more to it! They’re fun for fillies and colts of all ages! That’s why I run a game shop. Plus, it’s just small enough for me to not get greedy like everypony else does when they get too big.” “So you don’t want to make money?” “Oh heavens no! I’m in it to make a change children’s lives! I want to make them smile and laugh and have fun! Life is cruel, so very cruel. But if you can get together with your friends and smile, even over something so small and remedial as a board game, life is so much better.” “What about that one?” Spike pointed to where Monopony had been. Jobs sighed and shook his head. “Monopony is an evil, evil game. It is the only board game I have ever known to tear friends apart. Well, except Sorry, but that game went extinct long ago.” Spike watched the pony’s eyes tear up and turn away to hide his sadness. Spike felt a surge of humility course through him as he watched the grown adult cry softly. “I don’t even remember what she looked like…” Spike went to the stallion and gave him a soft hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing roughly. “Thank you. I’m gunna go lay down for a bit. If this storm passes while I’m asleep, wake me up and I’ll take you home.” “Thank you, sir.” The stallion turned around, eyes still watery and sad. “If you do ever play it, promise me something.” “What?” “Don’t bet. Don’t cheat.” +++ Spike shuffled back and forth, biting his claws anxiously. Thoughts were tossed around his head like a tornado about what was happening in the library. He had no idea of what was happening there. What if everypony was arguing or at each others throats? What if somepony was hurt? What if… The “what ifs” were becoming too much for the baby dragon and he rushed to the door. He looked outside and saw that the wind had picked up and was blowing trees into sideways positions and houses swayed back and forth from the gusts. But something was still bothering him. It was digging at the back of his mind and on the tip of his tongue. It was there but there was no memory to place and no words to describe it. What was it? Spike looked down the street towards the treehouse and could see something forming around the outside. It was a cloud but still had the same color as a cloud. Six of the formations appeared from nothingness and began to rotate around the treehouse slowly. “What’s going on?!” Spike exclaimed to himself. Without another moment’s hesitation, the baby dragon pushed the door open and exclaimed triumphantly when he succeed in pushing it against the wind. But no sooner did a the sudden force of wind knock the door back shut and slam into Spike’s face. A purple bolt flew across the room and against the wall could be heard a loud: Thud! Spike’s eyes wandered the room lazily as a flash of light took him into unconsciousness. +++ “What happened?” Shining Armor cried out. There was nothing but a blinding white light and Spike could only hear the voices of people he recognized. “I didn’t mean too!” Twilight cried, significantly younger by the sound of it. “What did you do!? It’s only a game! Spike was just trying to play a game with you!” “I know! I don’t know what came over me! He caught me cheating and...and...Oh, Spike, I’m so sorry…” Twilight began sobbing. “Will he be okay?” “Twi…” “Will he be okay?!” Her voice was harsh and impatient. “Yeah…” “What?” “I don’t think he’ll remember much of what happened. He’s got a pretty big knot on his head.” Twilight sighed uneasily. “Okay...but...I don’t want to remember either.” “What?” “If Princess Celestia finds out I did this, she won’t let me go to school under her. I...want to learn Shining! Please, help me forget.” “What? That's a bit extreme don't you think?" ”Please, Shining. Help me forget this game." +++ “Wake up!” Spike jumped straight into the air, flailing wildly, and latched onto the nearest object. Jobs pushed Spike away from him and asked, “Are you okay, little one? The door smashed you in the face quite hard, didn’t it?” “I’ve gotta go! Twilight needs me!” “Wo!” Jobs exclaimed, halting Spike in his path to the door. “What do you mean? The wind’s blowin’ like a hurricane so this better be good.” “Twilight’s playing Monopony with her friends!” Storm“What are you doing?!” Spike screamed hysterically. “We can’t go outside!” “I’m sorry, but we cannot let them keep playing that game! I will not let another group of friends get destroyed because of that game!” Jobs tied a coat around his waist and neck with magic and looked back at Spike after placing his hoof at the edge of the door. He shouted above the winds: “Come with me and I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to them.”Spike shook in place, reeling from what he had seen moments before. He didn’t want to go through it again. He remembered everything...and felt it too. It hurt so much. He didn’t want to feel it again.“But what if we get hurt trying to stop them? Twilight and I played it once and I…”“Are you really going to let your friends go through whatever happened to you? I know you’re scared, Spike. I can see it in your eyes, but do you really think they’re going to listen to me? They know you; they’ll listen to you! I don’t even know there names.”“Well, there’s Twilight and Fluttershy. Applejack, Rainb…”“Spike, please!”The baby dragon sighed and took a deep breath in, relaxing himself as best as he could. “Let’s go!”“Good! Now jump on my back! I’ll get us there.”Spike wasted no time in jumping onto Jobs’ back, but the moment he did, the Unicorn stallion shot out the door and into the torrent of rain and wind. Spike grabbed Jobs by the neck, tightly wrapping his arms around and almost choking him.But Jobs did not falter when he ran. His pace was steady and smooth for a stallion of his age, not to mention the elements of nature pushing against him.Then Spike saw his leg begin to shake and stumble as they went farther up the muddy, wet road. The roads were stubbornly aiding the storm against them, and Spike was becoming more and more worried.“Come on! You can do it! Twilight needs us!”Jobs nodded, He continued his galloping, slowly and steadily making his way towards the library ahead. He could see the clouds surrounding the outside like a fog. It worried him immensely. He had never seen such dark clouds. They clashed into one another with mighty force, thunder blasting through the near-night air. He had never seen clouds attack clouds before. They swirled around the treeBut they weren’t clouds, and the longer Jobs looked at them, the more he realized what they actually looked like. They looked like ponies; gray, plush ponies clashing into one another as though at war.“Oh no!” Jobs screamed over the howling winds. “The evil forces of Monopony are manifesting themselves!”“What does that even mean?!” Spike returned.“It means someone is about to win!” +++ Twilight looked out her window and sighed heavily. She suddenly felt like a weight was pulling her shoulders to the table. She had to use all of her willpower to keep them up.“Please, Twilight. I don’t want to shave my animals. Winter is coming around the corner and they need their coats.”Twilight looked down at her stack of money and then to Fluttershy’s. She barely had any money left, not enough to pay the bill of landing on one of Twilight’s properties. But Twilight needed revenue. She had only two hundred bits left and there was no chance that she could land on anything but Rainbow Dash’s or Rarity’s properties. They had purchased and traded--which turned out to be a major mistake by Applejack as she had been ejected from the game due to the loss of revenue only a few moments prior, and now wasn’t allowed to join any competitions for a year—the entire opposite side of the board.“But what about the library?” Twilight asked, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. “It has to be kept open. People need to read and fillies need to be enriched by stories.”“But the animals…”“Fluttershy…” Twilight replied, refusing to look at her. She couldn’t, not without yielding to her demands. She knew the animals would die if Fluttershy shaved their coats before winter, but Twilight could not, in good conscious, shut down the library for a year. What about the ponies who wanted to learn and read and enjoy stories? But what about the animals?Twilight looked up from the game board at Rarity and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash showed no emotion, but Rarity had a smug smile on her face. It infuriated Twilight, but she had to think rationally. What was the better of the two? The survival of Fluttershy’s animals, or the survival of Twilight’s sanity.“...you can keep your money, Fluttershy.”Fluttershy let out a small squeak of relief and excitement, pulling Twilight into a hug. But she was limp and numb, still unsure of her choice. She took the dice in her hooves and tossed them down carelessly.“You are the luckiest mare of the night, Twilight!” Rarity snarled. “I might have to trim my mane, after all.”Twilight watched as her piece levitated to the Community Chest square. It was the luckiest moment of the game for her...far too lucky. She had had numerous moments like that. It was as though some divine force was trying to keep her in the game for as long as possible.Twilight took the card slowly and let out a hysterical cry of happiness. She tossed to the board and said, “Collect one hundred bit for each hotel and house on the board!” She began to eagerly count the house and hotels out aloud. She looked to Rarity and said, “That’ll be one thousand-four hundred bits, please.”Rarity nodded, growling underneath her breath. She withdrew money from the plastic divider they called the Bank, and placed it neatly in front of the violet pony. She quickly took the money and organized it quickly.“Alright, then,” Rarity snarled. It was as though the money had been taken from her own neat, seemingly random stacks. “My turn.”Twilight looked greedily at the board and realized that Rarity could only land on Fluttershy or Twilight’s properties. It was a strange coincidence that Rarity and Rainbow Dash owned all the properties nearest them while Twilight and Fluttershy owned the properties nearest them—with the exception of the railroads and utilities, which were now split amongst them all. The only way Rarity could escape paying for anything was if she landed on the Chance square, but then on her next turn she would be out of luck: she would need to land exactly on Go! square, but no one had done so yet.Rarity smiled smugly and tossed the dice to the board. Twilight was beginning to hate that smile. Rarity wore it proudly and condescendingly. Twilight wanted so much to rip that smile off her face and win. She wanted to shave that mane of hers. She wanted to make her suffer.She would do anything to win, and as Twilight looked at the board as the dice rolled, she thought of cheating. A small spell would turn the dice in Twilight’s favor and it would be unnoticeable! The amount of magic needed was so insignificant that her horn wouldn’t even glow!But she couldn’t do it. She needed to play fair. She had to. Twilight wasn’t a cheater; it would eat at her even more than shutting down the library.Rarity rolled a six: two threes. A perfect number to land on the Chance square. She withdrew the card and smiled. “For every railroad I own, I get two hundred bits.”“Let me see that!” Twilight snapped angrily, snatching the card out of Rarity’s hoof. She growled and stuck the card underneath the deck upside-down. “Fine…”“Twilight…” Fluttershy whispered.“What?!” she rasped, scaring the small, yellow mare to the floor.“Please, c…calm down. You’re scaring everypony.”“Yeah! It’s just a game…” Pinkie Pie said, standing next to a slightly disgruntled Applejack, still upset over losing.“It’s not a game anymore!” Twilight yelled, glaring at the pink mare irritantly. “I can’t shut down the library!”“You didn’t have to bet…”“Whatever.” Twilight said. Rarity and Rainbow Dash snickered to one another, and Twilight growled bitterly. “Take your reroll Rarity.”Rarity smiled and did so, but this time Twilight made sure she didn’t land on Go.When the dice rolled, Twilight visualized the dice rolling on a two and three, right where Boardclop was. It wasn’t Twilight’s; it was Fluttershy’s, but Twilight didn’t care. As long as Rarity lost money.But she felt resistance as she visualized and created the event in her head. It was an oddly familiar sensation. What was it? Was it guilt? If it was, Twilight didn’t care anymore. She was tired of Rarity’s smile. She wanted it to be wiped off her face. Sanity or not, she wasn’t going to lose even if she had to cheat.Rarity’s smile faded quickly, sending a surge of glorious reprieve through Twilight. She moved Rarity’s piece to Boardclop Ave. and smiled back at Rarity, mocking her smugness. Rarity paid Fluttershy, barely taking a chunk out of her stacks that she soon shifted around again.“Thank you,” Fluttershy said kindly.“Don’t thank them…”Twilight whispered, just low enough for only herself to hear her words.Rainbow Dash looked at her piece and smiled. She was home free. She could only land on her own or Rarity’s properties and it made her giddy. She wouldn’t have to stay on the ground for a year! This was the greatest game of Monopony she had ever played!She rolled the dice and smiled when two fours appeared. She moved her piece, landing on Sherclop Road; Rainbow Dash looked at Rarity with a smile.“It’s okay, Rainbow,” she mouthed, rejecting Rainbow Dash’s money.She took the dice in her hooves again and started to motion to let them fall to the board…“I call for an additional rule!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly. “It seems that each of us have far more than two hundred bits. If somepony gets sent to jail, there is no bail. How does that sound? It would make this a bit more interesting.”“Then how would somepony get out of jail?” Rainbow Dash replied.“Rolling doubles, of course,” Twilight replied quickly. Far too quickly.Rainbow Dash looked at Rarity and shrugged indecisively. “It sounds good; I’ll do it if you do.”“It sounds like a good rule change, and it would definitely make this game even more interesting than it already is.” Rarity gave the notion a thought and looked down at Fluttershy, who shook with fright staring at Twilight. Why had she become so scared so quickly?Rarity looked at Twilight closely. There was something different about how she looked. Was it her hair? Was she sitting differently? Rarity just couldn’t pinpoint it.“Agreed. Okay, Rainbow, you can keep going.”Rainbow Dash looked at the dice as she chucked them to the board. In a moment of serendipitous irony, she rolled a pair of threes, landing on a Chance square. She took the card and let out a sigh of relief. “Go straight to Go! Collect two hundred bits.”Rarity moved Rainbow Dash’s piece, and her money, to the Go! square and slid the dice to her hooves again.“How would strange would it be if you rolled doubles again? We just made a rule relating to going to jail.” Twilight wore the exact same smug smile Rarity had been wearing not long before; the only difference was that hers was far more bitter and mocking.Rainbow Dash gave a curious look at Twilight and rolled her dice once more, but paid attention to Twilight’s horn, looking for any kind of magical aura. She heard her dice hit the board and roll for a moment, but Twilight’s horn did not glow. She did, however, have the most concentrated look Rainbow Dash had ever seen on somepony, even Twilight. She was giving out mixed signals.“Oh my Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed sarcastically. “You have to go to jail! What a shame!”Rainbow Dash snarled and watched as her piece drifted slowly over the board and onto the Jail square. It was too coincidental, but Twilight wasn’t using magic. It had to be cruel fate or something with the wind or something beyond her control.The blue mare pushed the dice to Fluttershy, who then rolled the dice. She rolled a perfect twelve. She advanced her piece, landing on one of Twilight’s railroads. She looked at Twilight with a quirky smile.“That’ll be fifty bits.”“Twilight…” Fluttershy whispered. “Please. Just a few more times, okay? I just need time to pick up my hooves.”Twilight shook her head. “I can no longer give you free meal tickets, Fluttershy.” She sounded bitter and cold; it was like a sword to Fluttershy’s heart. “It’s everypony for themselves now.”“But if we work together, we…”“Beat them? We’d still have to go against each other. Or do you not understand that?!”Fluttershy could feel the tears quelling in her eyes, but she refused to show them. But Rainbow Dash looked at her longtime friend and rushed to her side. They quickly went away from the board.“Hey, it’s okay…” Rainbow Dash started, interrupted by a silent, but ecstatic, Fluttershy.“I can’t win this game! I’ve only played it with angel once before. I don’t know what I’m doing!”“It’s okay, Flutters. Here, I’ll make you a deal.” Fluttershy looked up to her friend. “If you work with me to get the other two out first and you let me win, I’ll get a bunch of coats and jackets for your animals, okay?”Fluttershy looked back at the board strangely and back to Rainbow Dash. She nodded. She didn’t have much choice; her only levee had just denied her aid. “Wait. Aren’t you and Rarity working together?”Rainbow Dash only winked at her.“Hey!” Twilight barked. “What are you guys doing over there?”“Oh shut up, Twilight!” Fluttershy snapped quietly, flinging around quickly. A long clump of gray strands dangled over her face as she heaved with uncertain irritation.Twilight reeled momentarily from Fluttershy’s sudden rage, but calmed when she saw her move her bits and three property cards away from Twilight’s and next to Rainbow Dash.The four gray ponies all looked at one another. They felt the game of Monopony coursing through their veins now. And they enjoyed it, but loathed it at the same time. Anger, greed, treachery, and lithesome feelings consumed them all now…And Pinkie Pie and Applejack had been quiet for too long. Twilight turned around; they were gone with only Applejack’s Stetson hat lying on the floor. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and returned to the game uncaringly. The First One OutTwilight had become increasingly aware of the change in her friends color early in the game, but thought nothing of it. She thought it was simply because of how dark it was in the room. After all, the only light they had were a few candles and a lamp placed next to Twilight’s bed. But as the game progressed, and everypony had noticed what Rarity’s plan had been with all of the seemingly random stacks of bills, Twilight, Applejack, and Fluttershy had become aware of Rainbow Dash and Rarity starting to become more and more hostile. It wasn’t their actions that pointed it out. In fact, the both acted much more civilized than they ever had before, which only made Rainbow Dash look more out of place than before. It was actually the way the spoke that was emanating a large amount of bitterness and hate. “Your turn, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said with a smile. “I hope you don’t land on any of our properties. You’ll lose.” Twilight looked down at Pinkie Pie’s small pile of bills and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. She only had twenty-one bits left. If she landed anywhere, she would lose. “Oh, it’s okay,” Pinkie replied, taking the dice in her hooves. “I’m sure I’ll land on one of mine.” “You don’t have any properties, Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy stated, pointing at the empty space in front of the pink mare. “You sold them all a few turns ago so you wouldn’t be beaten so soon.” Twilight sighed, looking at the properties she had bought from Pinkie. She wanted to feel bad about it, but she kept remembering that those properties had made her enough money to start building houses and start to slowly build her empire alongside Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “Oh,” Pinkie said, still smiling. She shrugged and tossed her dice down. They landed on a three and four. Pinkie Pie took a deep breath in and sighed in relief. “For a minute there, I thought I wasn’t going to land on Free…” The dice turned. “What was that?!” Twilight exclaimed alongside Pinkie Pie. The dice had turned on their own like a ghostly spirit had possessed the pair of porcelain cubes. The dice now read four and six. “Wow!” Rarity exclaimed smugly. “What bad luck! It seems that you landed on one of Rainbow’s properties.” “No!” Twilight snapped angrily. “We all saw it land on a seven! She’s in Free Parking!” “I didn’t see anything,” Rainbow Dash said, turning her head away from the board. Twilight and Applejack glared at the blue pony as Rarity said, “I didn’t either.” Everypony glared at one another for a brief second until Fluttershy said, “Girls...c-could we all just calm down...just a little.” “Yeah, girls!” Pinkie exclaimed worriedly. “It’s just a game. Besides, I was going to lose anyway. At least now I can watch and the game can go a little faster.” Twilight smiled at Pinkie Pie’s willingness to leave the game. It made her feel a little bad about how she was acting. It was just a game, after all. There was no need to get mad over it. There was nothing to be earned from it… Or so she thought. Rarity and Rainbow Dash began whispering to one another in the quietest voices they could manage. Twilight couldn’t read their lips; their hooves were covering their mouths, but something told Twilight that there was something in winning this game. The two nodded and looked at the three other remaining players. “I think we should make this game a bit more...interesting.” Rainbow Dash carried a sly and evil grin upon her face that worried Twilight greatly. “What d’ya mean?” Applejack questioned. Twilight felt her entire body seize up. Her greatest fear had been realized: they would have to do something for losing. It was just supposed to be a game. Why was it becoming so hostile in the room? Twilight could feel it emanating from Applejack as she stared at Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Feeling it come from Applejack, however, only made the game that much more horrible for Twilight. “I don’t want to play anymore,” Twilight started before Rainbow Dash spoke her idea. “I don’t think this game is good for us to play.” “No, Twili’,” Applejack replied sternly and adamantly. She turned her head and met Twilight’s gaze, causing a brooding shadow to be cast over her soul. “We’ve gotta finish this game. It ain’t right to start it and not finish.” Twilight shook her head and stepped away from the table cautiously. She refused to hear another word from her friends. Instead, she turned tail and started for the window in hopes of finding a way to ignore them. But as she grew farther and farther away from the game, the more she was drawn to it. Her every thought was becoming engulfed with the horrid board game Monopony. She tried so hard to fight it, but she just needed to play the game. It was tearing her friends apart but she wanted to play it. What was wrong with herself? She turned around and saw Rarity smiling smugly as though knowing what was happening to Twilight. Twilight could only look at her curiously, unsure of what to make of Rarity’s reaction. Her legs began to wobble and her knees started to ache. She could go any farther without collapsing to the floor. Twilight looked at the empty void where she had sat and felt drawn to the place between Rarity and Fluttershy. She could only sigh and look over to Pinkie, who remained dreadfully quiet with apprehension, a true abnormality for Pinkie Pie who was never quiet. “Care to join us, darling?” Rarity said, smiling still. It was too smug and sly for Twilight to bare. “Good. Now on to what happens when one of us loses…”
The Game BeginsTwilight Sparkle shuffled through a box of interesting trinkets in Rarity’s attic. She scavenged through, cataloguing each item in her head, and placed them in their appropriate box. Rarity remained to the side, watching in case Twilight would find something that she did not want to be kept in storage. “Twilight, deary, are you sure you don’t want me to help?” Rarity questioned. “No, thank you, Rarity. You need a break. Just go sit down for a while. I can handle it.” “I just don’t want you putting things away that don’t belong, Twilight.” “I won’t, Rarity. If I see something that looks important then I’ll come to you and ask about it. Okay?” Rarity looked at Twilight for a moment and nodded in reluctant submission. “I’ll be downstairs in my bedroom if you need me. I’ll be reading.” Twilight nodded with a smile and turned her attention back to the boxes of items. “Just one question: what in general should be thrown away?” “Any kind of old fabrics that have become wrinkled or any games that I still have from my fillyhood.” Rarity was beginning to question whether asking Twilight for help had been a good idea. After all, she did ask what was needed to be thrown away. “Okay. I got from here.” Rarity stepped down the stairs to the attic and sighed. +++ “Excuse me, Rarity?” Twilight Sparkle said, knocking on the door to Rarity’s bedroom. “Come in, dear. Is there something wrong?” “No, but,” Twilight started as she pushed open the door, “I was wondering about this game that I found.” Twilight placed a rectangular, cardboard box in front of Rarity and said, “This looks like an interesting game. What is it?” “You’ve never played Monopony?” Rarity asked curiously. “Well, I’ve heard of it, but is it fun?” “Sometimes. Other times it’s just annoying and other times it’s the most amazing time of your life.” Twilight gave a ponderous look and said, “Can we play it at tomorrow night’s sleepover? I’m sure its something everypony would love to play.” “Of course, dear, and for your labor in helping me clean my attic, you can keep it and I’ll make you your dress for the gala.” “Oh, thank you, Rarity!” Twilight exclaimed. “Your welcome, and how much more do you have to do up there?” “Oh, I’m finished. I separated garbage from valuables and valuables from things you might need. If you don’t mind, would you come up and check it for me?” Rarity nodded and stood up from her bed and followed Twilight to the attic yet again. She thought for a moment about the game Twilight had showed her and could place a memory to it. She couldn’t remember, though, but she felt that it was a bad idea to let her friends play it. She shrugged off the feeling and smiled. Oh what could happen? +++ Applejack sat closest to the window next to Twilight’s bed and looked around at her friends Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. She began to ponder where Rarity and Twilight had gone and what was taking them so long. Surely getting a board game wouldn’t be such a problem. The door shot open and Rarity and Twilight came running in hysterically and soaked from head to toe. A rectangular shape could be identified through a small plastic bag being carried by Twilight’s magic. “We’re sorry,” Twilight said, gasping for breath. “It started raining.” Applejack turned around to look at the window and saw the sun being blocked by gray clouds and falling water droplets that pelted the ground and sides of the library. “It’s okay, Twili’!” Applejack stated in her typical accent. She set her hat aside and grabbed a towel from the nearby closet and wrapped it around Twilight. She went back and got one for Rarity as well. “Thank you, Applejack,” Rarity replied. “Yeah, thank you, AJ.” The ponies all gathered around the large table that Twilight had brought up to her room from the library section specifically for them to play their game. “Why didn’t we just play downstairs?” Rainbow Dash asked, finally noticing that the table had come from the library. “This game has a lot of small pieces,” Twilight started as she pulled the game out of the plastic bag, “and we get a lot of children in the library sometimes. If we lose one of the pieces, I don’t want one of the children getting hurt because of it.” Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “I knew that.” Twilight handed the board game box over to Rarity who said, “I’m sure that most of you have played this game before, but Twilight hasn’t, so I will have to go over some of the basic rules.” “What game is it? Is it a fun game?! Is it Chutes and Alligators!? I love that game!” “No, Pinkie,” Rarity started politely. “We’re playing Monopony.” “I like that game…” Fluttershy whispered. “Me and Angel Bunny used to play it all the time until he got mad at me and threw it away.” Rarity raised an eyebrow at Fluttershy’s comment. “I wasn’t aware that Angel could be so angry at a game.” “He usually isn’t,” Fluttershy started softly, “but I think he might’ve just had a bad day.” The ponies all nodded and looked towards the game as Rarity began to pull it apart and set it up with her magic. “The rules, Twilight, are simple. We each take turns rolling a pair of dice and whatever it lands on is the number of spaces we move around the board. If at anytime you land on a square that hasn’t been bought by anypony else, you may buy it for yourself.” Twilight nodded, capturing each word in her mind. “If you can get all locations of a certain color, you can start to build houses on any of the squares of that color. Now this part usually varies from group to group, but for this game we’re going to go with four. If you can put four houses on one square, you can put a hotel which gives you a lot more money when someone lands on it.” “So how do I make money?” Twilight asked curiously, enthralled by the game in front of her. It was fascinating to look at and learn about. It was incorporating two of her best subjects: mathematics and economics. Plus, the paper money was cute. “Surely we earn more money to buy things?” “Why, of course, dear. If somepony lands on one of your properties, then they have to give you the entitled amount of money.” Twilight smiled happily, clapping her hooves together eagerly. “I can’t wait to start. Can I be this?” She picked up a green, hollow rectangle. “That’s a hotel, sugarcube,” Applejack pointed out. “That’s why there’s a lot of them.” “Oh yeah. Sorry. How about this?” “Sure,” Rainbow Dash said, cockily, “you can be the Bag of Bits, and I’ll be the boat.” Rarity took the thimble, Applejack took the hat, and Pinkie Pie took the dog, squealing happily, “I love being the puppy! It’s soooo cute!” Fluttershy looked at the remaining pieces and scratched her head in thought. Typically, she was the dog and it had become her lucky charm when she played, but she couldn’t ask Pinkie for it. That would be rude. “I guess I’ll take the horseshoe.” Everypony placed their pieces on the squared labeled “Go” and Rarity handed the two die to Twilight, who fumbled them for a moment. “I think it’s only fair that Twilight be allowed to go first, since this is her first time playing.” Twilight smiled at Rarity and looked around at her friends, all nodding in agreement. She took the dice in her hooves and shook them around for a mere moment or two and tossed the to the board. She yipped in delight as she moved her piece six times. Rarity listened to the thudding sound of the piece against the cardboard, each step it took echoing in her ears loudly until it stopped on its final step… But the echo could be heard by everypony as the game began.
Jail TimeJust as the game began, Twilight had already began planning out the foundation for the rest of her game, using probability and mathematics to her advantage. Each time she would land on a property during her first time around the board, she would buy the property no matter the cost. She did this until she ran out of money of when she landed on Boardclop Avenue, the space right next to the “Go” square. It wasn’t until everypony had gone again that they noticed Twilight’s lack of funds. “Now, sugarcube,” Applejack started, “you don’t want to spend all your money at once. You might need it if you land on one of our properties.” Twilight merely smiled. “It’s okay, AJ. I’ve got this. And if I fail, then I can learn from this. By the way, Rarity, how do you win this game?” “You win when everypony else runs out of money and you’re the only one left!” Pinkie exclaimed, throwing the dice to the board. She moved her piece over a few places. “Ooh! I got a Chance card!” She looked at it intently and jumped in the air delighted. “I got the “Get out of jail-free” card! Woohoo!” Everypony smiled at Pinkie as Fluttershy took the dice in her hooves, tossing them down gently as though not to hurt the board. The dice landed in pairs six. Twilight smiled at the dice, pushing them back to Fluttershy. “Good job, Fluttershy. You landed right on the “Go”. And you get to go again!” Twilight took the money out of the bank and handed it to Fluttershy. “Thank you, Twilight,” she whispered, slipping the money in one of her neat stacks that looked exactly like Twilight’s: organized and formal. Fluttershy looked at the rest of her friends and noticed the way they held their money and how wrong it was: they all had their money in one giant stack… Except Rarity. She had hers neatly stack, but not in the same way as the rest of them. It seemed completely random the way she had arranged her paper money, but Fluttershy knew better than to question it. Rarity had been running a business for the latter half of her life and was clearly successful. “How long have we been playing?” Rainbow Dash questioned impatiently. “This is boring.” “Oh, this game picks up rather quickly when ponies start buying properties and start running out of money.” Rarity flipped her mane out of her eyes and looked down intently at the board. Fluttershy couldn’t resist the feeling that Rarity was calculating something in her mind. She shrugged off the feeling, using whatever willpower she possessed to do so. She tossed the dice and watched them land on a pair of two’s. Fluttershy moved her piece over four spaces and sighed as she landed on Dodge Junction Railroad. She shrugged and looked at rarity, awaiting the price to be listed. “I own two railroads so that’ll be…” Rarity started, making what Fluttershy could only describe as being a face of math. “...fifty bits, please.” Fluttershy nodded and handed Rarity a fifty bit bill and took the dice into her hooves. Please don’t get extra doubles. I don’t want to go to jail. The dice rolled slowly, like an eternity, and thudded against the cardboard game heavily, echoing much like Twilight’s piece when she first moved. Don’t be doubles. The first die landed squarely on a three...then the second landed… Rarity muttered something under her breath, but everypony else sighed heavily as it landed on a four. Fluttershy moved her piece over a more places, noticing that Rarity was rearranging her stacks of money. It made Fluttershy curious. Had Rarity been planning on Fluttershy to be sent to jail? Game or not, that would be rude and mean. But the longer Fluttershy thought about it, the more she realized that Rarity wouldn’t do that. She was her friend and friends look out for one another, even when against each other. Twilight Sparkle took the dice in her hooves and rolled them for a moment, calculating the possibilities ahead of her. They had gone around the board enough that only four properties remained and she could land on any of them. A utility remained, Water, and if she could land on it, she could increase her profits for somepony landing on it by one hundred percent with the addition of her electricity. But she could land on Baltimare Road and start building houses with the rest of the yellows… But she could also land on the “Go to jail” tile and her chance at any of it would. Then again it was one in eleven that she would land on it. She tossed her dice down. Clunk! Chink! Twilight felt a dreadful cloak cover her heart as her dice rolled to a four and three. “Oh, too bad, Twilight,” Rarity snickered. she composed herself quickly. “You have to go to jail.” “For how long?” Twilight asked, eyes dropping behind her head and being covered by her mane slightly. “Until you can afford bail or you can roll a double.” “H-how much is bail?” Twilight inquired worriedly, hoping it wasn’t a horrible amount. She only had four hundred bits all together and she needed to be prepared in case she landed on one of her friend’s properties. Rarity looked around at her friends and said, “When I play, it’s usually up to a certain percentage of what you currently have, but I think that since it is your first time, it should only be around two hundred bits.” The group nodded in an awkward unison, unsure of Rarity’s proposal, but Twilight immediately took the deal, handing Rarity two one hundred bit bills. Rarity placed the bill into the bank quickly and took the dice into her hooves. She rolled it confidently and smiled. She moved her piece over ten spaces and Twilight felt a cold dagger of disappointment enter her back as Rarity landed on the Water Utility. Twilight sighed and realized that she hadn’t landed on Baltimare Road…. But Rarity didn’t buy the utility. Twilight looked at Rarity curiously, unsure of her actions. She had enough money, why didn’t she buy it? Instead, she moved her stacks of paper money around and moved bills around accordingly. What was she planning in her head? Rarity slid the dice to Applejack and smiled oddly. Applejack took them slowly, throwing them to the board just as slowly. Pinkie Pie exclaimed in delight. “Woo! You landed on the Free Parking! What does she get?!” “Nothin’, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack stated quickly and in a raspy tone. She suddenly felt bad about her choice of words. “I’m sorry. I din’t mean ta snap like that.” “Oh, it’s okay!” Pinkie replied in her typical, eccentric voice. “I know this game makes people a little antsy.” “Whatever!” Rainbow Dash cried out impatiently. “This game is going way too slow. I vote for a small rule change: we should fine people for taking too long with their turn.” “I agree,” Rarity answered smugly. “This game is going too slow. If somepony takes more than twenty seconds in between game decisions, they will be fined two hundred dollars. Agreed?” Rainbow Dash nodded and she looked at Fluttershy intently. Fluttershy squeaked fearfully and nodded with them. “It’s settled then,” Rarity said. “Rainbow Dash it’s your turn now.” Without missing a beat, Rainbow Dash took the dice in her hooves and tossed them to the board and moved her piece over to the Community Chest square. She took a card from the pile and said, “Are their any houses or hotels out?” She looked down at the board and shook her head in disappointment. She simply put the card at the bottom of the stack pushed the dice to Fluttershy. Without taking a moment to waste and risk having to be fined, she took the dice and threw them quickly. She moved her piece quickly and smiled as she landed on a place that she knew she could have a strategic advantage with. She looked down at her properties and saw that she only had one of the railroads. Meanwhile, she knew Rarity had two other railroads and Twilight had one as well. She knew that Rarity wouldn’t be willing to trade her railroads for anything, as they are a steady source of income for her, but Twilight needed something that Fluttershy had. “I’ll take Baltimare Road, please. If that’s alright with you.” Twilight groaned to herself, but Fluttershy did not care at the moment. She wanted the other railroad before Rarity could trick Twilight out of it. Fluttershy completed the transaction and placed the property with the rest of hers and smiled at Twilight as she pushed the dice over to Pinkie Pie. But she was going to make Twilight ask for it. No sense in giving her idea away. She wanted ponies to think she was only an ameteur. +++ Twilight Sparkle watched the game proceed in front of her eyes, watching as her friends slowly collected more and more money. She watched as deals were dealt for each other’s properties, fines were collect due to unhasty turns, and houses were finally being built around the board. But they were Rarity’s houses and no matter how much Twilight tried to prevent herself from landing on such squares, her luck just would not turn around. “Ya just can’t git any luck tunight, can ya, Twili’?” Applejack said with a hearty laugh. Twilight smiled weakly at her friend, unsure of what her neck move would be. The dice were approaching her quickly but she needed time to think of her next move or else she would lose. She only had a two hundred bits left. Pinkie Pie took the dice in her hooves and did a dance with them until she threw them back to the board. “Woo!! I get to visit Rarity’s again!” “Uh, Pinkie Pie…”Rainbow Dash started. “You do realize that you now only have ten bits left, right?” Everypony looked at Pinkie Pie who nodded quickly and happily. “Yeah, I know, silly! It’s just a game.” Twilight felt a sudden rush of relief over her as she realized what Pinkie had just said. She was right. IT was just a game. Nothing more than a harmless game that friends could play to get closer to one another. But why did she feel like there was something hostile looming around everypony. She looked down at the game and over to Rarity who smiled with pride at her accomplishments in the game. She was the clear winner of the game even when the game seemed far from over. Fluttershy took her turn and paid Rarity her due money after landing on one of the railroads with a smug smile the entire time. Twilight used her magic to bring the dice close to her and mumbled a few words to herself. She threw the dice down… “Chance Card,” she said to herself and took the red card on top. She didn’t want to look at the other side. What if she had to pay a lot of money? What if she didn’t have enough? She didn’t want to be out of the game already. They had only been playing for an hour and it didn’t seem like it was going to end soon. Twilight flipped the card around and set her forehead on the table depressingly. EVerypony watched as her pieced moved through the air and landed on the Jail square. “Would you like to pay two hundred bits, or would you take your chances and get doubles?” Twilight looked at her small, pathetic stack of money and shook her head. “I’ll wait until it’s my turn again.” “Oh! Wait!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed happily. She shuffled through her properties and bills, looking frantically for something. She gasped and handed Twilight a small card. “Here! You can have it!” Twilight looked at the card closely and felt something warm bubbling in her gut. Pinkie Pie had given Twilight her “Get Out of Jail Free” card. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily. “She can’t do that!” Rarity shook her head at Rainbow Dash. “Actually, you can. You can help out anypony as long as you don’t lose because of it.” Twilight looked at her pink friend with a smile. “Thank you, Pinkie.” Suddenly, a cold draft sifted through the air ominously, but nopony else seemed to notice. Twilight looked around for a moment, hoping that the window had been closed. But as she looked back at the window, she noticed it shut tightly. She looked at the rest of her friends and smiled uneasily. But Twilight noticed something about Rarity and Rainbow Dash. They were sitting awfully close to one another…Yet that wasn’t what worried Twilight. They looked gray.
Spike's DiscoveryThree Hours Earlier Spike handed Twilight her umbrella and looked at the hour. The purple mare had a giddy expression and her legs were simply mocking a run as she stayed in place. Spike had only seen Twilight act that way when there was something happening with Princess Celestia. “What’s wrong Twilight?” Spike asked nervously. “Did something happen while you were at Rarity’s?” “No, nothing bad happened, Spike,” Twilight started. “I just found a board game that I can’t wait to play when the girls get here.” “A board game?” “Yes, and I’m sure the girls won’t mind if you played too.” Spike shook his head. “Nah! I’m a really big board game player. Except for Chutes and Alligators with Pinkie. That’s always fun.” Twilight smiled happily at Spike, who continued with, “What is it though?” “Monopony.” Spike listened closely to Twilight’s voice as she said “Monopony” and felt something strangely nostalgic about the name. “Hmmm…” Spike hummed curiously, scratching his chin. “What?” “Have we ever played it before? I feel like I have.” “I don’t know if you played it with somepony else, but I know that I haven’t.” “Man...this is going to bug me forever.” “Why don’t you go find out at the game shop down the road? Or maybe it could jog your memory if you see it when it comes here.” Spike sighed and shook his head, shrugging all the while. “I can’t stay and wait. I’ve got to go and get Peewee some food. I’ve got to go all the way across town to get it.” “Well, think about stopping by the game shop on your way back. I’m sure somepony could help you remember.” Spike smiled at Twilight and said, “Okay. Thanks for the idea. I’d better get going before it rains. It’s supposed to rain a lot tonight.” Spike departed out the front door and saw that the sky was clear of all clouds but in the far distance he could make out a gray looming mass high above, ready to cast its wet shadow on the land. He bit his lip and said to himself, “I’d better run.” +++ The trek was long and unwelcoming to the small purple dragon. It seemed that every time he rounded a corner, the strong gusts of wind would try to push him down and large pellets of water would smash against his head, constantly giving him the impression that he would soon be in the middle of a deadly torrent. He ran as fast as his short legs would take him, taking shelter behind buildings whenever he could to catch his breath. He kept running until the pet food store came into his sights and his pace slowed to a quick walk. Spike pushed open the front door and let out a sigh of relief. “Woo! I didn’t think that I’d ever get here!” “Oh, hello there Spike!” a kind voice said from behind the nearby counter. The Unicorn had a gentle smile and her crystalline eyes twinkled softly, making Spike forget his worries about having to walk back in the bad weather. “I take it that Peewee is out of food again? That bird has been eating a lot lately, hasn’t he?” Spike nodded quickly. “Yep. He was also a little uneasy with me going to get him food though. I guess I should’ve listened, huh?” The storekeeper raised an eyebrow and said, “Phoenixes are the only birds that don’t predict weather patterns.” Spike shook his head in denial. “Nah. I’m sure Peewee was just lookin' out for me…” “Well, of course, but not when it comes to weather. It’s has to do with a bunch of evolution and stuff, but phoenixes don’t predict weather.” Spike shrugged and said, “Oh well. Do you have any bird feed in stock?” “Yeah. Let me go get some.” Spike looked around the pet food store for a moment, listening to the shopkeeper shuffled and fumble through boxes in the back. It sounded strangely dangerous as glass could be heard breaking and wood shattering. “Are you okay?” Spike called out worriedly. “Yeah! One of the windows blew open and knocked down a few boxes. Here I come.” The Unicorn came back with a small bag of oats and handed them to Spike who fumbled around a few coins trying to get the exact amount. “It’s okay Spike. This is on me. Just hurry on home. This storm’s only gunna get worse.” Spike smiled thankfully and departed out the front door. The ground had a massive shadow laid across it, dark and foreboding, but when Spike looked upwards, a cold chill shot through his scales. The massive cloud hovered high above, blocking out the sun completely. A droplet of water landed on Spike’s snout forcefully, making him wince slightly. He shook his head and began running for home. +++ Whoosh! Whish! Slam! Two gusts of wind was all it took for Spike to fall sideways. He clamored to pick up his bag of bird feed, but some spilled out and scattered across the ground. He didn’t bother himself with picking it up; instead, he continued running for the his tree home. It was in view and the sight of it was both a blessing and a curse. All around the treehouse was a spiraling heap of gray and black clouds that let out booms of silent thunder and lightning. The shock wave could be felt only slightly, but it was still fear striking to the poor baby dragon. “Baby dragon!” a voice called out. Spike looked around wildly, half-expecting it to be Twilight. He saw the a stallion waving his hooves at him crazily, gesturing for him to enter his building. Spike looked at the treehouse, which was about a quarter of a mile away, and back to the stallion. Without waiting any longer, he charged for the nearby building and lept through, crashing into a nearby stand. Spike felt box after lightweight box fall onto him with tiny plastic pieces thumping against his tough scales. He almost didn’t even know they had fallen on him if he hadn’t stepped on a few as he was standing. “I’m so sorry!” Spike exclaimed to the stallion nearby. He was a tall fellow, towering high above Spike in an almost displeased manner. He wore a scowl that terrified the baby dragon. But with a sudden rush of delight, the stallion smiled, adjusting his glasses and said, “Oh, it’s quite fine. You didn’t know it was there.” Spike moved aside and watched as all the pieces began moving with a magical aura surrounding them. They were placed back onto their respective place on the stand. The Unicorn stallion smiled at Spike and asked, “So what’s your name? And don’t you think its a bit bad weathered to be out and about?” “Yeah, but I needed to get some food for my pet bird. Oh, and I’m Spike.” The stallion nodded and replied, “I’m Game Changer, but everyone just calls me Jobs.” “Jobs? Why? Plus, haven’t I heard of you from somewhere?” The stallion shrugged. “Because I offer people jobs all the time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you have heard of me. I was in the news a while back.” “What for?” “Ya know. The usual things.” Spike nodded, though unsure of what the stallion named Jobs meant. He shuffled through his mind for remembrance, but couldn’t find anything, much like the game Monopony. The baby dragon looked all around himself, noting how nice the store was. The shelves were neat, organized, and pristine; the counter was clean and the walls kept in good condition. But what caught Spike’s attention was the shelves were full of toys and board games ranging from all sizes and shapes. A game was wedge between the wall and counter, though, immediately grabbing Spike's attention by its familiar look. “Is that Monopony?” Spike asked curiously, rushing to it. The stallion leapt past Spike and kicked the board game out of view. “No!” he exclaimed. “Do not touch that foul beast of a game! It is nothing but evil, evil that can only be compared and traced back to greed.” “What do you mean ‘evil’!?” Spike shook in place, worrying for his safety as the tall stallion before him glared at him from above. “It literally brings out the greed in each of us. Even I was unable to resist its power and I have no need for money or material gain.” Spike took a few steps backwards, unsure if he should tell the stallion about Twilight playing it as they spoke. So he merely nodded and changed the subject. “What do you mean that you have no need for money? Don’t you run a business? What’s the point if you’re not in it for money?” The stallion smiled at Spike question, seemingly forgetting the prior moments. “I take it you’re one to take up psychiatry? Asking questions about how things work and why people ask the way they do?” Spike shrugged. “Not really. I’m just confused.” “Oh…” the pony replied sadly. “No one likes how the mind works anymore. Anyway, take a look around the store again. What do you see?” The stallion made a sweeping motion with his hoof and forearm. “Toys and games…” “And what do those things do?” “They’re fun to play with. I...I don’t understand.” “That’s just it! Nothing more to it! They’re fun for fillies and colts of all ages! That’s why I run a game shop. Plus, it’s just small enough for me to not get greedy like everypony else does when they get too big.” “So you don’t want to make money?” “Oh heavens no! I’m in it to make a change children’s lives! I want to make them smile and laugh and have fun! Life is cruel, so very cruel. But if you can get together with your friends and smile, even over something so small and remedial as a board game, life is so much better.” “What about that one?” Spike pointed to where Monopony had been. Jobs sighed and shook his head. “Monopony is an evil, evil game. It is the only board game I have ever known to tear friends apart. Well, except Sorry, but that game went extinct long ago.” Spike watched the pony’s eyes tear up and turn away to hide his sadness. Spike felt a surge of humility course through him as he watched the grown adult cry softly. “I don’t even remember what she looked like…” Spike went to the stallion and gave him a soft hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing roughly. “Thank you. I’m gunna go lay down for a bit. If this storm passes while I’m asleep, wake me up and I’ll take you home.” “Thank you, sir.” The stallion turned around, eyes still watery and sad. “If you do ever play it, promise me something.” “What?” “Don’t bet. Don’t cheat.” +++ Spike shuffled back and forth, biting his claws anxiously. Thoughts were tossed around his head like a tornado about what was happening in the library. He had no idea of what was happening there. What if everypony was arguing or at each others throats? What if somepony was hurt? What if… The “what ifs” were becoming too much for the baby dragon and he rushed to the door. He looked outside and saw that the wind had picked up and was blowing trees into sideways positions and houses swayed back and forth from the gusts. But something was still bothering him. It was digging at the back of his mind and on the tip of his tongue. It was there but there was no memory to place and no words to describe it. What was it? Spike looked down the street towards the treehouse and could see something forming around the outside. It was a cloud but still had the same color as a cloud. Six of the formations appeared from nothingness and began to rotate around the treehouse slowly. “What’s going on?!” Spike exclaimed to himself. Without another moment’s hesitation, the baby dragon pushed the door open and exclaimed triumphantly when he succeed in pushing it against the wind. But no sooner did a the sudden force of wind knock the door back shut and slam into Spike’s face. A purple bolt flew across the room and against the wall could be heard a loud: Thud! Spike’s eyes wandered the room lazily as a flash of light took him into unconsciousness. +++ “What happened?” Shining Armor cried out. There was nothing but a blinding white light and Spike could only hear the voices of people he recognized. “I didn’t mean too!” Twilight cried, significantly younger by the sound of it. “What did you do!? It’s only a game! Spike was just trying to play a game with you!” “I know! I don’t know what came over me! He caught me cheating and...and...Oh, Spike, I’m so sorry…” Twilight began sobbing. “Will he be okay?” “Twi…” “Will he be okay?!” Her voice was harsh and impatient. “Yeah…” “What?” “I don’t think he’ll remember much of what happened. He’s got a pretty big knot on his head.” Twilight sighed uneasily. “Okay...but...I don’t want to remember either.” “What?” “If Princess Celestia finds out I did this, she won’t let me go to school under her. I...want to learn Shining! Please, help me forget.” “What? That's a bit extreme don't you think?" ”Please, Shining. Help me forget this game." +++ “Wake up!” Spike jumped straight into the air, flailing wildly, and latched onto the nearest object. Jobs pushed Spike away from him and asked, “Are you okay, little one? The door smashed you in the face quite hard, didn’t it?” “I’ve gotta go! Twilight needs me!” “Wo!” Jobs exclaimed, halting Spike in his path to the door. “What do you mean? The wind’s blowin’ like a hurricane so this better be good.” “Twilight’s playing Monopony with her friends!”
Storm“What are you doing?!” Spike screamed hysterically. “We can’t go outside!” “I’m sorry, but we cannot let them keep playing that game! I will not let another group of friends get destroyed because of that game!” Jobs tied a coat around his waist and neck with magic and looked back at Spike after placing his hoof at the edge of the door. He shouted above the winds: “Come with me and I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to them.”Spike shook in place, reeling from what he had seen moments before. He didn’t want to go through it again. He remembered everything...and felt it too. It hurt so much. He didn’t want to feel it again.“But what if we get hurt trying to stop them? Twilight and I played it once and I…”“Are you really going to let your friends go through whatever happened to you? I know you’re scared, Spike. I can see it in your eyes, but do you really think they’re going to listen to me? They know you; they’ll listen to you! I don’t even know there names.”“Well, there’s Twilight and Fluttershy. Applejack, Rainb…”“Spike, please!”The baby dragon sighed and took a deep breath in, relaxing himself as best as he could. “Let’s go!”“Good! Now jump on my back! I’ll get us there.”Spike wasted no time in jumping onto Jobs’ back, but the moment he did, the Unicorn stallion shot out the door and into the torrent of rain and wind. Spike grabbed Jobs by the neck, tightly wrapping his arms around and almost choking him.But Jobs did not falter when he ran. His pace was steady and smooth for a stallion of his age, not to mention the elements of nature pushing against him.Then Spike saw his leg begin to shake and stumble as they went farther up the muddy, wet road. The roads were stubbornly aiding the storm against them, and Spike was becoming more and more worried.“Come on! You can do it! Twilight needs us!”Jobs nodded, He continued his galloping, slowly and steadily making his way towards the library ahead. He could see the clouds surrounding the outside like a fog. It worried him immensely. He had never seen such dark clouds. They clashed into one another with mighty force, thunder blasting through the near-night air. He had never seen clouds attack clouds before. They swirled around the treeBut they weren’t clouds, and the longer Jobs looked at them, the more he realized what they actually looked like. They looked like ponies; gray, plush ponies clashing into one another as though at war.“Oh no!” Jobs screamed over the howling winds. “The evil forces of Monopony are manifesting themselves!”“What does that even mean?!” Spike returned.“It means someone is about to win!” +++ Twilight looked out her window and sighed heavily. She suddenly felt like a weight was pulling her shoulders to the table. She had to use all of her willpower to keep them up.“Please, Twilight. I don’t want to shave my animals. Winter is coming around the corner and they need their coats.”Twilight looked down at her stack of money and then to Fluttershy’s. She barely had any money left, not enough to pay the bill of landing on one of Twilight’s properties. But Twilight needed revenue. She had only two hundred bits left and there was no chance that she could land on anything but Rainbow Dash’s or Rarity’s properties. They had purchased and traded--which turned out to be a major mistake by Applejack as she had been ejected from the game due to the loss of revenue only a few moments prior, and now wasn’t allowed to join any competitions for a year—the entire opposite side of the board.“But what about the library?” Twilight asked, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. “It has to be kept open. People need to read and fillies need to be enriched by stories.”“But the animals…”“Fluttershy…” Twilight replied, refusing to look at her. She couldn’t, not without yielding to her demands. She knew the animals would die if Fluttershy shaved their coats before winter, but Twilight could not, in good conscious, shut down the library for a year. What about the ponies who wanted to learn and read and enjoy stories? But what about the animals?Twilight looked up from the game board at Rarity and Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash showed no emotion, but Rarity had a smug smile on her face. It infuriated Twilight, but she had to think rationally. What was the better of the two? The survival of Fluttershy’s animals, or the survival of Twilight’s sanity.“...you can keep your money, Fluttershy.”Fluttershy let out a small squeak of relief and excitement, pulling Twilight into a hug. But she was limp and numb, still unsure of her choice. She took the dice in her hooves and tossed them down carelessly.“You are the luckiest mare of the night, Twilight!” Rarity snarled. “I might have to trim my mane, after all.”Twilight watched as her piece levitated to the Community Chest square. It was the luckiest moment of the game for her...far too lucky. She had had numerous moments like that. It was as though some divine force was trying to keep her in the game for as long as possible.Twilight took the card slowly and let out a hysterical cry of happiness. She tossed to the board and said, “Collect one hundred bit for each hotel and house on the board!” She began to eagerly count the house and hotels out aloud. She looked to Rarity and said, “That’ll be one thousand-four hundred bits, please.”Rarity nodded, growling underneath her breath. She withdrew money from the plastic divider they called the Bank, and placed it neatly in front of the violet pony. She quickly took the money and organized it quickly.“Alright, then,” Rarity snarled. It was as though the money had been taken from her own neat, seemingly random stacks. “My turn.”Twilight looked greedily at the board and realized that Rarity could only land on Fluttershy or Twilight’s properties. It was a strange coincidence that Rarity and Rainbow Dash owned all the properties nearest them while Twilight and Fluttershy owned the properties nearest them—with the exception of the railroads and utilities, which were now split amongst them all. The only way Rarity could escape paying for anything was if she landed on the Chance square, but then on her next turn she would be out of luck: she would need to land exactly on Go! square, but no one had done so yet.Rarity smiled smugly and tossed the dice to the board. Twilight was beginning to hate that smile. Rarity wore it proudly and condescendingly. Twilight wanted so much to rip that smile off her face and win. She wanted to shave that mane of hers. She wanted to make her suffer.She would do anything to win, and as Twilight looked at the board as the dice rolled, she thought of cheating. A small spell would turn the dice in Twilight’s favor and it would be unnoticeable! The amount of magic needed was so insignificant that her horn wouldn’t even glow!But she couldn’t do it. She needed to play fair. She had to. Twilight wasn’t a cheater; it would eat at her even more than shutting down the library.Rarity rolled a six: two threes. A perfect number to land on the Chance square. She withdrew the card and smiled. “For every railroad I own, I get two hundred bits.”“Let me see that!” Twilight snapped angrily, snatching the card out of Rarity’s hoof. She growled and stuck the card underneath the deck upside-down. “Fine…”“Twilight…” Fluttershy whispered.“What?!” she rasped, scaring the small, yellow mare to the floor.“Please, c…calm down. You’re scaring everypony.”“Yeah! It’s just a game…” Pinkie Pie said, standing next to a slightly disgruntled Applejack, still upset over losing.“It’s not a game anymore!” Twilight yelled, glaring at the pink mare irritantly. “I can’t shut down the library!”“You didn’t have to bet…”“Whatever.” Twilight said. Rarity and Rainbow Dash snickered to one another, and Twilight growled bitterly. “Take your reroll Rarity.”Rarity smiled and did so, but this time Twilight made sure she didn’t land on Go.When the dice rolled, Twilight visualized the dice rolling on a two and three, right where Boardclop was. It wasn’t Twilight’s; it was Fluttershy’s, but Twilight didn’t care. As long as Rarity lost money.But she felt resistance as she visualized and created the event in her head. It was an oddly familiar sensation. What was it? Was it guilt? If it was, Twilight didn’t care anymore. She was tired of Rarity’s smile. She wanted it to be wiped off her face. Sanity or not, she wasn’t going to lose even if she had to cheat.Rarity’s smile faded quickly, sending a surge of glorious reprieve through Twilight. She moved Rarity’s piece to Boardclop Ave. and smiled back at Rarity, mocking her smugness. Rarity paid Fluttershy, barely taking a chunk out of her stacks that she soon shifted around again.“Thank you,” Fluttershy said kindly.“Don’t thank them…”Twilight whispered, just low enough for only herself to hear her words.Rainbow Dash looked at her piece and smiled. She was home free. She could only land on her own or Rarity’s properties and it made her giddy. She wouldn’t have to stay on the ground for a year! This was the greatest game of Monopony she had ever played!She rolled the dice and smiled when two fours appeared. She moved her piece, landing on Sherclop Road; Rainbow Dash looked at Rarity with a smile.“It’s okay, Rainbow,” she mouthed, rejecting Rainbow Dash’s money.She took the dice in her hooves again and started to motion to let them fall to the board…“I call for an additional rule!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly. “It seems that each of us have far more than two hundred bits. If somepony gets sent to jail, there is no bail. How does that sound? It would make this a bit more interesting.”“Then how would somepony get out of jail?” Rainbow Dash replied.“Rolling doubles, of course,” Twilight replied quickly. Far too quickly.Rainbow Dash looked at Rarity and shrugged indecisively. “It sounds good; I’ll do it if you do.”“It sounds like a good rule change, and it would definitely make this game even more interesting than it already is.” Rarity gave the notion a thought and looked down at Fluttershy, who shook with fright staring at Twilight. Why had she become so scared so quickly?Rarity looked at Twilight closely. There was something different about how she looked. Was it her hair? Was she sitting differently? Rarity just couldn’t pinpoint it.“Agreed. Okay, Rainbow, you can keep going.”Rainbow Dash looked at the dice as she chucked them to the board. In a moment of serendipitous irony, she rolled a pair of threes, landing on a Chance square. She took the card and let out a sigh of relief. “Go straight to Go! Collect two hundred bits.”Rarity moved Rainbow Dash’s piece, and her money, to the Go! square and slid the dice to her hooves again.“How would strange would it be if you rolled doubles again? We just made a rule relating to going to jail.” Twilight wore the exact same smug smile Rarity had been wearing not long before; the only difference was that hers was far more bitter and mocking.Rainbow Dash gave a curious look at Twilight and rolled her dice once more, but paid attention to Twilight’s horn, looking for any kind of magical aura. She heard her dice hit the board and roll for a moment, but Twilight’s horn did not glow. She did, however, have the most concentrated look Rainbow Dash had ever seen on somepony, even Twilight. She was giving out mixed signals.“Oh my Celestia!” Twilight exclaimed sarcastically. “You have to go to jail! What a shame!”Rainbow Dash snarled and watched as her piece drifted slowly over the board and onto the Jail square. It was too coincidental, but Twilight wasn’t using magic. It had to be cruel fate or something with the wind or something beyond her control.The blue mare pushed the dice to Fluttershy, who then rolled the dice. She rolled a perfect twelve. She advanced her piece, landing on one of Twilight’s railroads. She looked at Twilight with a quirky smile.“That’ll be fifty bits.”“Twilight…” Fluttershy whispered. “Please. Just a few more times, okay? I just need time to pick up my hooves.”Twilight shook her head. “I can no longer give you free meal tickets, Fluttershy.” She sounded bitter and cold; it was like a sword to Fluttershy’s heart. “It’s everypony for themselves now.”“But if we work together, we…”“Beat them? We’d still have to go against each other. Or do you not understand that?!”Fluttershy could feel the tears quelling in her eyes, but she refused to show them. But Rainbow Dash looked at her longtime friend and rushed to her side. They quickly went away from the board.“Hey, it’s okay…” Rainbow Dash started, interrupted by a silent, but ecstatic, Fluttershy.“I can’t win this game! I’ve only played it with angel once before. I don’t know what I’m doing!”“It’s okay, Flutters. Here, I’ll make you a deal.” Fluttershy looked up to her friend. “If you work with me to get the other two out first and you let me win, I’ll get a bunch of coats and jackets for your animals, okay?”Fluttershy looked back at the board strangely and back to Rainbow Dash. She nodded. She didn’t have much choice; her only levee had just denied her aid. “Wait. Aren’t you and Rarity working together?”Rainbow Dash only winked at her.“Hey!” Twilight barked. “What are you guys doing over there?”“Oh shut up, Twilight!” Fluttershy snapped quietly, flinging around quickly. A long clump of gray strands dangled over her face as she heaved with uncertain irritation.Twilight reeled momentarily from Fluttershy’s sudden rage, but calmed when she saw her move her bits and three property cards away from Twilight’s and next to Rainbow Dash.The four gray ponies all looked at one another. They felt the game of Monopony coursing through their veins now. And they enjoyed it, but loathed it at the same time. Anger, greed, treachery, and lithesome feelings consumed them all now…And Pinkie Pie and Applejack had been quiet for too long. Twilight turned around; they were gone with only Applejack’s Stetson hat lying on the floor. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and returned to the game uncaringly.
The First One OutTwilight had become increasingly aware of the change in her friends color early in the game, but thought nothing of it. She thought it was simply because of how dark it was in the room. After all, the only light they had were a few candles and a lamp placed next to Twilight’s bed. But as the game progressed, and everypony had noticed what Rarity’s plan had been with all of the seemingly random stacks of bills, Twilight, Applejack, and Fluttershy had become aware of Rainbow Dash and Rarity starting to become more and more hostile. It wasn’t their actions that pointed it out. In fact, the both acted much more civilized than they ever had before, which only made Rainbow Dash look more out of place than before. It was actually the way the spoke that was emanating a large amount of bitterness and hate. “Your turn, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said with a smile. “I hope you don’t land on any of our properties. You’ll lose.” Twilight looked down at Pinkie Pie’s small pile of bills and raised an eyebrow in curiosity. She only had twenty-one bits left. If she landed anywhere, she would lose. “Oh, it’s okay,” Pinkie replied, taking the dice in her hooves. “I’m sure I’ll land on one of mine.” “You don’t have any properties, Pinkie Pie,” Fluttershy stated, pointing at the empty space in front of the pink mare. “You sold them all a few turns ago so you wouldn’t be beaten so soon.” Twilight sighed, looking at the properties she had bought from Pinkie. She wanted to feel bad about it, but she kept remembering that those properties had made her enough money to start building houses and start to slowly build her empire alongside Rarity and Rainbow Dash. “Oh,” Pinkie said, still smiling. She shrugged and tossed her dice down. They landed on a three and four. Pinkie Pie took a deep breath in and sighed in relief. “For a minute there, I thought I wasn’t going to land on Free…” The dice turned. “What was that?!” Twilight exclaimed alongside Pinkie Pie. The dice had turned on their own like a ghostly spirit had possessed the pair of porcelain cubes. The dice now read four and six. “Wow!” Rarity exclaimed smugly. “What bad luck! It seems that you landed on one of Rainbow’s properties.” “No!” Twilight snapped angrily. “We all saw it land on a seven! She’s in Free Parking!” “I didn’t see anything,” Rainbow Dash said, turning her head away from the board. Twilight and Applejack glared at the blue pony as Rarity said, “I didn’t either.” Everypony glared at one another for a brief second until Fluttershy said, “Girls...c-could we all just calm down...just a little.” “Yeah, girls!” Pinkie exclaimed worriedly. “It’s just a game. Besides, I was going to lose anyway. At least now I can watch and the game can go a little faster.” Twilight smiled at Pinkie Pie’s willingness to leave the game. It made her feel a little bad about how she was acting. It was just a game, after all. There was no need to get mad over it. There was nothing to be earned from it… Or so she thought. Rarity and Rainbow Dash began whispering to one another in the quietest voices they could manage. Twilight couldn’t read their lips; their hooves were covering their mouths, but something told Twilight that there was something in winning this game. The two nodded and looked at the three other remaining players. “I think we should make this game a bit more...interesting.” Rainbow Dash carried a sly and evil grin upon her face that worried Twilight greatly. “What d’ya mean?” Applejack questioned. Twilight felt her entire body seize up. Her greatest fear had been realized: they would have to do something for losing. It was just supposed to be a game. Why was it becoming so hostile in the room? Twilight could feel it emanating from Applejack as she stared at Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Feeling it come from Applejack, however, only made the game that much more horrible for Twilight. “I don’t want to play anymore,” Twilight started before Rainbow Dash spoke her idea. “I don’t think this game is good for us to play.” “No, Twili’,” Applejack replied sternly and adamantly. She turned her head and met Twilight’s gaze, causing a brooding shadow to be cast over her soul. “We’ve gotta finish this game. It ain’t right to start it and not finish.” Twilight shook her head and stepped away from the table cautiously. She refused to hear another word from her friends. Instead, she turned tail and started for the window in hopes of finding a way to ignore them. But as she grew farther and farther away from the game, the more she was drawn to it. Her every thought was becoming engulfed with the horrid board game Monopony. She tried so hard to fight it, but she just needed to play the game. It was tearing her friends apart but she wanted to play it. What was wrong with herself? She turned around and saw Rarity smiling smugly as though knowing what was happening to Twilight. Twilight could only look at her curiously, unsure of what to make of Rarity’s reaction. Her legs began to wobble and her knees started to ache. She could go any farther without collapsing to the floor. Twilight looked at the empty void where she had sat and felt drawn to the place between Rarity and Fluttershy. She could only sigh and look over to Pinkie, who remained dreadfully quiet with apprehension, a true abnormality for Pinkie Pie who was never quiet. “Care to join us, darling?” Rarity said, smiling still. It was too smug and sly for Twilight to bare. “Good. Now on to what happens when one of us loses…”
