Prologue: Game Start!

It was a game that was rumored for ages, before finally being confirmed. A virtual reality game, created especially for Bronies and Pegasisters. Equestrian Rivals: Online. Nobody really knew why Hasbro didn’t shut them down, but the game creators, under the alias of Team One had sold out- around five thousand copies. Of course, there were still the lucky ten or so Beta Testers. The game utilized the VR-A2000 (Virtual Reality Alpha 2000) system, bringing a whole new experience to players, as they played as, and felt like, their Ponysonas. It came naturally, and the Beta testers raved about the game, only fueling the excitement.
It was set in an Alternate Equestria, where not everypony was friendly. There were some rough Bandits, Mercenaries, but still familiar locations like Ponyville, Canterlot, as well as characters such like the Mane Six.

Finally, the servers were up again for the release date….

***

“Can’t believe you got into the Beta program.” My friend muttered, as he adjusted the VR-A2000. “You lucky dog, you. I nearly died in the crowd to get the game today.”

I chuckled. “It pays to have connections, that’s all I’ll say. I had finished putting on my Virtual Reality suit, and donned the helmet, plugging it into the machine.

“You’ll help me out, right?” He slid the helmet onto his head, pushing the wires and connections into his own machine.

“Of course.” I said, making final checks on my system. “The game discs are in. You ready?”

“Ready when you are. Let’s do this!” He smiled as he closed his eyes.

“We’ll meet up at Town Hall.” I flicked the switch, indicating for my friend to do the same. “Let’s do this. Game Start!”

***

I materialized, looking around at the bright colors of Ponyville. I sat down to wait, as the game profiled my friend, and allowed him to make his Ponysona. It only took about a minute, before he formed next to me, as a Blue unicorn. I looked up at his player bar.

[Steel Hooves | Unicorn | Classless | Level 1]

“Whoaaaa!” He said. “It feels so… natural! They weren’t lying about that!” The blue Unicorn turned to face me. “What the- you’re an Alicorn?”

“Beta testers were given that race… as a bit of a thanks.” I said, tapping my horn and stretching my wings.

“Your left wing…” He indicated the stump where it was torn roughly in half. “What on-?”

“This?” I looked at it. “An injury I got during the Beta.” I sigh. “Not only did they nerf my levels and take all my items, but they also decided to add insult to injury… well… injury to insult.”

My friend chuckled at my joke, stretching his pony body. He looked at my player bar while I checked it up myself.

[DuskShadow | Alicorn (Beta) |Dark-Mage | Level 5]

“I need to pick out a class.” Steel Hooves murmured. “Damn, you get to start at level 5. Beta tester benefit?”

“Of course.” I answered. “Now come on, let’s get you started. What class were you thinking about?”

“Paladin.” He smiled. “Paladin, all the way.”

I gave a sigh. “You can’t start at Paladin.” Shaking my head, I showed him the Class Guide. “You have to start with Warrior, and work your way up to there. Level 5 is the minimum level required to switch from Mage to Dark-Mage.”

“Well, Warrior then.” He rubbed his head with a hoof. “So I just talk to the Class Guide and I’m set up?”

“Right.” I showed him in, and he started talking with the Guide, while I checked my gear.

He came over shortly after, with plate armor and a large sword strapped to his back.

“Looking good.” I smiled at him. “You should have some basic Swordsplay knowledge from that Class Training. Of course, to gain more knowledge and skill, you’ll need to train.”

“Where do we train?” He brought his sword out, giving it a short swing before sheathing it again.

“For a newbie like you, we’ll try the Woodlands.” I say. “There’s some Minor Monsters there.”

“Hold on a minute or two.” I checked my watch. “I promised to meet someone for a roleplay session.”

“Aw, come on. We just started!”

“I know, I know, let’s both just log out. We have the games, that’s what matters. The servers won’t fill up, it’s judged to accommodate twice the amount of the game copies made.” I accessed my player menu, reaching the Account section.

“Ugh. Fine. But we’re logging back in after.” He accessed his own menu. “Uh… Dusk? Where’s the logout button?”

“It’s right below the…” I stopped. “They must have moved it.” I said, navigating through the menu. We looked for several minutes, but found nothing.

“Great bug.” Steel said sarcastically. “We can’t log out, that means that we can’t disconnect from the machine, right?”

“Yeah.” I bit my lower lip. “I’m sure they’ll reboot the servers with a patch. At any rate, once they reboot, we’ll be ejected from the game, anyway. For now, let’s just have our fun. We’ll train up your combat skills some, so you don’t get beaten up by some random event.”

Our Transponders started beeping. It allowed communication over distances with players, as well as the Server to the players. “Ah.” I said, taking the magical glass panel. “See? System Announcement. Told you that they would find the problem.”

But it was not what we expected at all.

‘System Announcement:
Welcome, all Players to Equestrian Rivals: Online! An innovative Virtual Reality game that takes place in none other than Equestria! We’ll keep this as short as possible! Some of you may have noticed by now that we removed the logout option! Isn’t that great? You can stay here forever! Aw, what’s that? Some of you don’t want to? That’s fine, too! If you find and defeat all the bosses, the servers will be shut down, freeing everypony from the game! Be warned! If you die in the game, that is to say, your Life Points reaches 0, you will die in real life, too! Isn’t that AMAZING? No point in trying to escape, the Virtual Reality mechanism you are using will kill you in an instant if you are disconnected in the middle of a session. We love to keep things interesting, so wait on our future updates! <3 ~Admins’

We stared at our screens, along with many other players around us.

“Son of a…” Steel muttered. “This… this is a joke right? It has to be a joke!”

But I knew, from deep inside... that it was not.

Author's Note

This is my first PUBLISHED fanfiction, although I have been working on/editing others.

Have fun criticizing it, I love constructive criticism.