Equestrian Legends Online: Tale of the Misfits

by bluemoon1996

Chapters

January 27: Good Ol' Fashioned Spelunking
January 27: The NOPEiest Fight in Existence
January 27: An Unexpected Surprise
January 27: Mi Oversaturated Hermano (unedited)
January 29: The things I do for Friends
January 29: Never give Myst a Soapbox
Febuary 4: A Message is Sent
January 22: The games begin
January 23: The legend is born

January 27: Good Ol' Fashioned Spelunking

Captain's log:
Stardate: .... I have no idea how to do stardates... So, January, 27, 2020.

I have decided to start keeping a journal of sorts to keep track of my thoughts and the events that'll happen. I can't shake the feeling that we might be here for a while. So here goes the first entry...

The events of the four days since the formation of the Misfits have been rather uneventful. Phoenix and myself have both taken turns training alongside Myst. Though what I've heard from Myst is that his training sessions with our resident unicorn just involve him dodging fireballs (Phoenix calls it "agility exercises" though I believe it's him getting back for waking him up.)

Today, we're heading out to tackle our first dungeon out in the Everfree; a place called Wolfskull Cave. This will be our first excursion as a team and I have a feeling it'll go off without a hitch.
-Cassius01

P.S. If you're reading this Phoenix, piss off. This is a private journal and not damn Fimfiction!

"Wolfskull Cave...Wolfskull Cave? Why does that name seem familiar," I said as I lazily flew along next to the rest of the misfits as we made our way through the Everfree.

"No clue," Phoenix shrugged as he klunked along through the foliage, wiping some sweat from his brow, "I just hope get there soon; this trek is killing me."

I couldn't help but feel a little bit sorry; our poor firebug tank was the only one of our group who wasn't a pegasi so he did have to hoof it wherever we went. But his magic gave us an advantage that we needed

"Maybe you shouldn't have equipped your armor already," Myst stated, "that would make hoofing it there easier for you?"

"Well excuse me for not wanting to get my ass mauled on by a timberwolves Mounty!"

"I was just making a suggestion Bubbaloo," Myst mock pouted.

"Bubbaloo?! Why I oughta~"

Shaking my head, I tuned out their argument, keeping my eyes on the trail ahead of us as I watched for any monsters. This area seemed to be far more misty than the other parts of the forest. It had already hid two timberwolf ambushes; but that wasn't what had me keeping an eye out.

The NPC who we had learned the location of the cave from had warned us that this part of the Everfree was home to particularly nasty monsters. He didn't specify but he had said they weren't your average timberwolves and with the danger of death an ever present concern, I wasn't taking any chances with our lives.

"~and that is why Rocky Road shall forever be the superior flavor of ice cream!"

I groaned; "Guys, will the two of you can it! How are we supposed to know if we're tro-walking into an ambush?" Damn it, we've only been here less than a week and I'm already starting to go native.

They quickly shut up and I smirked, "besides cookies and creme is the best flavor."

This earned a whole new bout from the two which I quickly sile-

*ggggggrrrrroooooooaaaannnn*

The two of them stopped mid sentence as a long, hollow, and pained groan echoed through the misty trees off to our left. Followed by another behind usIt was an ambush!

"Back to back guys! Back to back!" I barked as I unholstered my rifle. "Scattershot!" I added as I pulled back the hammer.

Scattershot was one of the abilities I got with my rifle that basically turned it into a shotgun.

I felt Phoenix and Myst's backsides touch mine as a pair of figures came out of the bushes hobbling out of the woods. They were both half decayed earth ponies with faint blue light emanating from their eyes with large as hell greatswords clenched in their yellowed teeth. The names above their heads read: Hollow Stallions.

"We got three more back here!"

"Alright guys, we need a pla-"

"WAAAGH!!!"

"And there went the plan," I groaned as Phoenix charged towards their trio of walking corpses, the unmistakable sound of a fireball roaring through the air as he went.

I just facehooved, "Myst, make sure he doesn't kill himself."

"Got it Sarge," I heard him say as he took off after him.

"Great, he has a nickname for me too," I grumbled to myself as I took aim and fired.

The shotgun-like spread tore mostly into one of the zombies bringing its health down to half with the other only dropped a tiny bit. Well, I know who to focus my attacks on for now.

"Autoload!" I shouted, activating another ability; this one doing basically what the name said. It automatically reloaded my rifle and it's next shot.

Using my wings, I flung myself at the weaker one, bayonet aimed straight for the bastard's chest. It sliced in, earning a loud moan from the stallion, dropping it's health only a tad bit.

I grinned and fired directly into his chest, dropping it's health into red just in time for the second shot to tear into it, causing the zombie to explode into blue code.

"Got one guy- Fuck!" I let out a yelp as the second one's greatsword came down on my back. His hit caused me to fall down onto my belly as my legs gave out underneath me. Thank god this was only a tenth of the actual pain; otherwise I'd be outt-

He dropped me to half health! I looked up to see him raising his sword for a killing blow. I barely managed to roll out of the way in time; I could feel the air that my head once occupied getting sliced into! Okay, that was too damn close!

"Umm guys, a little help!" I hollered out as I jumped to my hooves, getting out of the blades way in time to see a both a crossbow bolt and fireball slam into the zombie's head. This caused the stallion to stumble back disoriented.

Using my friend's distraction to my advantage, I quickly took to the skies, flying as close to the canopy as I felt safe going. Unable to reach me, the hollow stallion snarled up at me, circling like a shark, its health just below a half. "Well this will be really easy," I smirked as I started reloading.

Just as I started to take aim, Myst came zooming towards my zombie, his sword at the ready. He slashed his blade across the monster's chest, leaving a nasty red streak of code. That dropped the zombies health down a tad bit just enough that my next shot killed it.

I landed as Phoenix came trotted up next to me and Myst, a cocky grin on his face. "Told you I could handle them," he then turned to me and his expression turned to one of alarm, "damn, that bastard nearly chopped you in two Cass!"

I nodded as I opened my inventory and selected a health potion. "Yeah, note to self: stay to the skies," I grumbled to myself after downing the potion.

Phoenix just gave me a flat look that screamed 'no shit Sherlock'.

I just facehoofed; okay stupid comment was stupid. "Let's just get to the cave and get us some loot okay?"

"Whadda ya know, it actually is a Wolf's skull!" Phoenix said in surprise as we finally arrived.

True to the name, the entrance of Wolfskull Cave actually shaped much like a dog's skull with the mouth being the actual entrance. Huh, for once the name of a cave in a game actually makes sense.

I turned around to Myst and Phoenix; "okay guys, this is our big dungeon and we need a plan as well as lay down some rules." I looked at Phoenix, "No WAAAGH! charges."

"B-but WAAAGH!" He pouted, looking a little hurt.

"No WAAAGH! while we're in dungeons," I said flatly, "I know you're our tank but there is some problems you can't solve with just plain brute force."

"B-b-but-"

"No buts mister," I said sternly. "We need a plan if we wanna come out of this damn game alive! Only WAAAGH! with my permission."

I then turned to Myst, "Myst, since I got the ranged area covered. You stick to your sword and just harass any baddies we find, comprende?"

He gave a mock salute, "you got it, Sarge!"

I facehooved before sighing, "let's just get inside." And with that we ventured into the cave.

Myst cautiously opened the wooden door, it's rusted hinges creaking loudly. The pegasi peeked his head inside and looked about. "It's clear guys," he said, just loud enough for us to hear and we advanced.

Our adventure into this dungeon was, to be totally honest, rather damn boring so far.

I had been expecting at least a timberwolf or something when we entered the main cavern but it was dead empty. When we scoured the cave looking for loot and whatnot, Myst had found a old wooden door hidden behind some moss and that brought us to where we were now.

As I stepped inside, I looked about the area. It was a large room carved out of the stone and split into three different tunnels: front, left, and right.

Are you flipping kidding me?! The damn game was pulling a fucking Scooby Doo split up and search for clues on us!

"I call middle!" Phoenix suddenly blurted out as he began trotting towards the tunnel.

"Wait goddamn it!" I yelled, stomping a hoof, "we need a damn plan before we go splitting up like this is a horror movie!"

"Okay," Phoenix simply shrugged, "you go left, Mounty goes right, and I take the center. If we find anything that resembles a boss door or something important we send the others a message over group chat."

My jaw hit the floor; a plan from Phoenix that didn't involve punching things in the face, and a good one at that.

Phoenix smirked at my reaction, "I can be smart too you know."

And with that we split up down the tunnels. The feeling that something was going to go wrong constantly spiraling down my neck

Wicked_Phoenix

I klunked down the tunnel for a good dozen yards or so before the scenery began to change. The bare rock walls began to start being covered by glowing mushrooms; only one or two at first but soon the both walls were practically covered with the things. It was actually kinda cool looking; reminding me of the Dwemer caves in Skyrim.

Hmm, I wonder if I can pick them? Maybe give them to Mounty to sell when we get back to town?

Trotting over to them, I tugged at one with my magic and it came off the wall with hardly a struggle. The thing soon disappeared into my inventory and I looked at all the mushrooms all around me. "Might as well get 'em all," I muttered to myself. "More money for me." My horn lit up as I began plucking several off at a time for them to stash away in my inventory.

Soon all the shrooms were off the walls and there was now 65 of these Skyrim knockoffs in my inventory. I could be a damn drug dealer and sell me some magic mushroom; Puff the Magic Dragon would be so prou-

*rattle creak rattle groan*

My ears perked up as I grinned; that sounded like some spooky scary skeletons farther down the tunnel. Time to purge me some daemons!

With a positively insane grin on my face, I began trotting deeper, humming the spooky scary skeletons song as I went. Oh this was going to be so much fun!

Soon, the tunnel widened out Into a decent sized cave and a LOT more of those mushrooms. The whole damn cave was practically coated in the bioluminescent bastards. I let out a squee filled giggle of delight as I started plucking up more of them, I was going to be rich! Sure; I’d give Cass and the Mountie some of the coin, probably just 40 percent or something; a guys gotta have some pock-

It was then that I noticed a group of four skeleton shambling it's way towards me from the far side of the cave; maybe fifteen feet away.

And there's the Daemons that need some purging! My special ability allowed me to extra damage to undead or supernatural enemies with holy fire or sunlight. I was basically a damn Gray Knight and it tickled me pink!

I lowered my horn at the shambling warp spawn, a ball of bright magic starting to form at the tip, "Back to the warp you unholy abominations!"

With that, I launched the ball of holy light towards them; it landed in the middle of them and detonated, making the room as bright as the sun for a brief moment before dying down and the skeletons were missing.

Level up!
Lv. 5-> Lv. 6

"Woo, level six!" I cheered, and started picking more mushro-

"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

Shit, that sounded like Cass!

MystRyder

I kept my wings half open and at the ready, poised to flap hard in case I needed to move fast to avoid trouble as I trotted down the right tunnel. Part of me was still marveling that Phoenix came up with a relatively cautious and non-aggressive plan. The other parts were wondering if the Scooby Doo approach was the best thing. I thought everyone knew you never split the party…

I sighed and ignored the feeling of dread. To be honest; it was a nigh constant feeling ever since the while death game stated. To survive till all the elements were found meant being strong enough that monsters couldn’t kill you, getting strong enough meant facing monsters, facing monsters risked death. Rinse and repeat.

The game hadn’t set convenient lighting in my tunnel, so I had the handle of a lamp clamped in my jaws as I explored, mumbling the various theme songs from Scooby Doo around it. My dad had been a big fan. The flickering light played off the irregular stone walls and ceiling of the tunnel, occasionally casting back reflections from unusually shiny patches, but not revealing anything of interest to me. In fact, with the weird echoing from my muffled singing, the effect was sorta creepy.

I was at the ‘What’s New Scooby Doo’ theme by that point, trudging along the slightly twisty tunnel that didn’t seem to have much intentions of getting any larger its two-pony width. Honestly, I was beginning to reach the point of thinking I should call the whole thing a bust and trek back to the others and see if they had had better luck.

The ground fell out from under my hooves.

I squawked and tumbled a few feet, losing my lamp in the process, before I managed to get my wings working. A few heavy flaps got me level and upright before I let them lapse into the steady pattern of a hover. The lamp hit the walls a few more times before it tumbled freely. I watched with a stunned expression as the spot of light dwindled before finally hitting the ground far below with a crunch and going out.

“Holeey… I am so glad I have wings,” I murmured into the darkness. Would I have even been able to survive that fall? Hell… I brought up my inventory and pulled out one of my back up torches, clenching is in my jaws. I strengthened my flaps a bit, passing the passageway I had taken into this shaft, trying to get a better look at it. It was pretty deep, that was for sure, and pretty high as well, as I soon confirmed. I just didn’t understand what the purpose of it was. Was there a chest at the bottom? More passages that led to it? Perhaps a hidden KFC franchise?

A pair of red eyes, reflecting the light of my torch, snapped open in the gloom above me. A monster tag made itself known. Cave Bat.

“… wua?”

More, and uncomfortable amount more, eyes and tags quickly followed as the first bat shrieked shrilly and launched itself at me.The rest dived down after it.

Oh crap, oh shit, oh hell, oh damn! I yelled mentally as I pulled my sword out, refusing to let the torch fall. I darted to one side as the first bat barreled past me, shrieking, and lashed out with my sword. The angry shriek turned into one of pain as my strike severed the wing, leaving the bat to tumble to its doom, its former limb plummeting independently.

‘Never thought I’d be thanking Phoenix for his target practice,’ I thought frantically as I tried my best to dodge and weave the remaining bats of the swarm as they attacked, depending on the skills I built up from dodging Bubbaloo’s fireballs. And I wasn’t even kidding; Driven Feather Dodge was in my skill list.

They were large, about half my size, but they were also weak; both in defense and offense. Even with their clever flying skills, they weren’t that much of a threat on their own. But there were a lot of them. A wild swing drew a spray of red code as my sword cut a long, through shallow mark across one of the furry bodies, but the bat merely screamed and pulled away, another taking it’s place.

“Fug cuveer!” I yelped out, triggering my ability. One of the bats buffeted me with its wing even as plumes of cool and thick fog started to billow out from my wings, obscuring my immediate vicinity as I tried to buy myself some breathing room.

They ignored it. They kept swooping in to rake at me with their hind claws or try and snag me to bring their fangs to bear.

‘Stupid!’ I berated myself, stopping my wing beats just long enough to fall a few feet under another bite attempt before pumping hard to thrust my sword into the bat’s chest. ‘Bats have blindsight! Echolocation or whatever they call it in this game!’

My head suddenly swam as a bat hit me with a sonic attack. God dammed Zubats! I managed to keep my grip on my sword, but the torch fell. I swore and dove after it, the bats following. Without the light from the torch I’d be suck. I could see through some obscuring effects, but that was limited to my fogs, not darkness.

I felt a bat clipping at my tail and hooves, refusing to let me get away. I ground my teeth, tearing my eyes away from the falling torch to take a quick gander at my unwanted fanclub. The ground wasn’t too far away if my math was right. “Fine. You wanna fight like that? I can fight like that!”

Thanks to Sarge, and I suppose Firebug Phoenix, my combat skills had improved vastly since that embarrassment with the wolves and trees we first met through, almost as much as my flying had. Sending Prayers to God, Luna, Celestia, Cadence and even Twilight, that the torch would survive the fall, I pulled off a simple stunt. I hit the breaks; flaring my wings to drop speed hard, grunting at the pressure that buffeted them. But the trick let four of the bats that were inches from my tail blow past me.

I quickly dropped back into the dive and downed them; slicing the wing off one, gutting a second, spearing a third through its neck and using the final one as my landing cushion cum scabbard. The torch survived the fall, still casting its light from where it landed. I think it was helping me, the light affecting them. Either way, I didn’t stay on the ground for long.

A few more powerful flaps and a well-timed leap launched me back up towards the remaining bats. It didn’t last long now that I wasn’t surprised and their numbers were more than halved.

“Damned zubats,” I swore under my breath when it was all over. I was panting heavily, and my health bar was missing a decent bit from it. From stupid cave bats! Didn’t even get a level from it. I chugged one of my health potions to push it back up as I collected the pitiful loot. Maybe I should consider getting a spear, since somepony was insistent on me not getting hoofblades… First Bubble, now Cass… What was with the hate on hoofblades?

A few bits richer and a couple Cave Bat Fangs in my store, I grabbed the torch again and considered where to go from there. As I thought, there were a few more passage openings branching from the shaft. I suppose I could explore a few of them…

"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

The scream belted out from one of the tunnels. Without thinking, I covered the short distance on wing before galloping down the tunnel. That was Cass’ voice, and he sounded utterly terrified.

Cassius01

"Okay, there's nothing creepy about this tunnel," I said to myself, a hint of fear in my voice and my heart pounding like a Congo drum. Of course there was something goddamn creepy; the whole damn thing was covered in spider webs!

I goddamn hate spiders! Even if they are the little tiny ones or Daddy Longlegs, they will get smashed with extreme prejudice. Those fuckers are just plain unnatural with their eight legs, fangs, an-

Okay, I was going to stop thinking about those damn spawn of Satan before I gave myself a heart attack.

Thankfully, I had not run into any that were bigger than your garden variety banana spider as I slowly crept deeper down the tunnel. Eventually the tunnel widened out into a small room and on the far wall was a door... With a piece of parchment nailed to it?

Trotting over I looked it I was able to read it.

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

"The fuck?" I said out loud as I reached for the nope but the door creaked open wide enough for me to stick my head inside.

I wish I hadn't.

"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!"

Author's Note

Edited by Greycait

And remember WAAAGH! Is not spelled correctly without at least 3 As and a exclamation point

January 27: The NOPEiest Fight in Existence

Cassuis supported himself with his hindlegs, his back pressed against the door, wings and forelegs spread to bar it further. His breaths were hard and ragged, his expression locked in wide eyed vacant terror.

That’s how Phoenix found him, having raced all the way from the chamber of mushrooms and undead. “Cass! What happened?” Phoenix demanded as he quickly scanned the room. The fact that he found nothing to account for Cassius’ fear worried him more.

Cassius didn’t react even when Phoenix nudged him, who then shoved him when that failed. Cassius just toppled over, something fluttering to the ground. Curious, Phoenix grabbed it in his magic and was about to read it when the clatter of stones alerted him to something’s approach. He spun, orienting on the sound, coming from a hole in the ceiling he had missed before. His horn glowed and three soft ball sized balls of blue fire burst into being, launching in rapid succession at the hole, rapidly igniting the webs that clung to the opening.

A moment later Myst dropped out of the hole, a bit miffed with traces of ash on his coat. “Seriously? Are you trying to kill me!”

“Mountie,” Phoenix said, hiding his sigh of relief.

Myst rolled his eyes and shook himself to get the ash off. “Okay, I he-,” his statement died off when he spotted Cassius stiff on the ground where Phoenix left him. He raced over and quickly accessed him. “HP fine… He’s still got his stuff… paralyze effect? What’s wrong with Cass?”

“I dunno, I found him like this,” Phoenix admitted as Myst sorted through his inventory for a curative. He prodded the prone pegasus a few times. “Come on, Cass, this isn’t funny.”

Myst got the vial of paralyze heal out and deftly poured it into his friend’s mouth. The orange lightning symbol faded, but popped back up a moment later. Myst’s wings flared in confusion. “What?”

“Okay, that doesn’t make sense,” Phoenix said, pointing at the symbol. “You sure you used the right item, Mountie?”

“Of course I did!” Myst retorted, doing another full body examination. “Maybe there’s a dart or something in his armour…”

The door opened with a rattling creak. There wasn’t much in terms of lighting inside, just a few distant glowing clusters. Cassuis twitched slightly.

“So… how much you want to bet whatever hit Cass is in there?” Phoenix smiled.

“Bubbaloo… I know that look, don’t you dare…” Myst warned.

“WAAAGH!” the combat happy unicorn yelled, his brandished in the blue glow of his magic as he galloped into the room.

“DAMMIT FIREBUG! NOT THE TIME!” Myst yelled, scrambling to follow Phoenix, hoping to grab his tail and pull him back. “We got Cass to worry-”

The door slammed shut the moment Myst’s tail cleared the threshold, the impact echoing with an undeniable finality.

“- about,” Myst finished lamely, on the verge of panic. He quickly got his sword out. “Oh, this is such a trap… so much a trap…”

“Don’t worry, we can handle it,” Phoenix scuffed, his eye open for enemies in the dark.

“Without Cass?” Myst retorted. “Who, I should remind you, is outside the room we are trapped in with who know what, paralyzed!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Phoenix insisted. “We are trapped in herewith something, something is trapped in here with us.”

A slight chill washed over them. Large mushrooms started glowing brightly in turn, steadily progressing from a pair flanking the doors and defining the limits of the room. It was still below typical lighting levels, but anything was better than the darkness it was before. Myst groaned. “This is such a boss trap…”

“I know!” Phoenix was in his element. “We can take it!”

Something rattled above them, with a large form fell from the roof with a rush of displaced air. It remained in the shadows as it rose from it’s crouch, the light of the mushrooms not yet reaching it save for giving a reflective glow to several clusters on the form. A tag above it declared it the WolfSkull Cluster Mother.

“That explains it…” Phoenix remarked as their foe was revealed. “Cass is petrified of spiders…”

The signs were obvious to that point, but even the prepared would pause when faced with a manticore sized arachnid, hairy legs shifting as its mandibles rapidly shook, making the rattling sound, eight forward facing eyes, two far larger than the other six, gleaming in the lighting. Several smaller spiders, only the size of dogs, which still easily placed them in the ‘far too large’ category. WolfSkull Brood Hatchling hung in the air over them.

“Wait… you can give yourself status effects in this game?” Myst realized, shooting Phoenix a panicked expression.

“WAAAGH!” the battle hungry unicorn roared before charging the spiders.

“Dammit, PHOENIX!” Myst wailed as he took to the air. The room had good clearance, letting him put a good amount of distance between himself and the monsters. Phoenix was going for the direct route, wading into the mess, his axe swinging at the hatchlings as he yelled out “Great Cleave” with each swing. He wasn’t taking them down with a single strike, nor had he managed to slay any just yet, but he was keeping the press of them at bay with his attacks, each strike knocking its targeted unto its back, causing the spiders time as they were forced to flip themselves upright before attacking again. Still, it was one unicorn and his axe against eight determined spiders. Well; seven, as one of his strikes dug deep into a spider’s head, the red glow of an injury spreading slowly before the creature burst into code.

Unfortunately, the hatchlings had back up.

The Cluster Mother must have been programmed with a maternal instinct, for she hissed as Phoenix attacked her brood. She reared, waving her four forward legs in the air before dropping back down and launching herself at him with a mighty pounce.

“Swift Slice!” Myst yelled, crossing her trajectory with his sword at the ready. His aim was less than perfect, and he only got half the blow he wanted across her abdomen, but it was enough to make her abandon her initial attack, crashing to the ground and skittering to the other side of the room.

“Phoenix! Switch up!” Myst yelled as he turned his momentum into a swoop, bowling over one of the hatchlings as he skidded to a landing.

“What?” Phoenix demanded, leaping at the hatchling Myst’s landing upset, sinking his axe into it’s underbelly. The spider spasmed, oddly silent as it expired, bursting into code.

“Fog Cover!” Myst activated his ability, flapping to spread the conjured fog effect outward as much as he could without the whole thing breaking apart into useless wisps. The spiders initially backed away, but it wouldn’t last long. It was only a few seconds of time purchased.

“I hit faster than you, you hit harder than me,” Myst explained quickly, not wanting to waste any of the time he had to share his plan. He lunged suddenly; swinging his sword in a low arc, knocking the hatchling that had braved the fog right back out of it, sans on of its legs. “Switch from your axe to your magic. Keep the Mother at midrange. I’ll try and take out the little ones and keep them off your flank!”

“You want me to burn the sucker? I’m loving this plan!” Phoenix grinned maliciously as he stowed his axe.

“Yeah, I thought you would,” Myst rolled his eyes. Able to see through his own fog without much issue, Myst swallowed when he realized the boss was approaching again. “Now go already! She’s coming! On the left!”

“How far?” Phoenix asked, reorienting himself, his horn aglow.

“About twenty meters, why?”

“FIREBALL!” Phoenix roared, launching a soccerball sized flame. The attack burned the fog in the immediate area way with a fizzle that was lost in the roar of it’s flames, the mass of fire soaring with surprising accuracy to strike the Cluster Mother amidst her right legs.

Phoenix charged out of the fog even before the blow landed, his horn glowing as he prepared another blow. “FOR THE IMPERIUM!”

“For- gah…,” Myst snorted. He crouched and used his leg strength to help launch himself skyward, bursting out of his cover, trailing wisps of fog.

“Spire Fall!” He stopped flapping at the peak of his ascent, only using his wings to aim as he dropped, his sword’s sharp point leading, right into the abdomen of one of the hatchlings.

Across the room, Phoenix unleashed his second attack. His horn’s nimbus flared, then shrank to the tip before his magic burst out as a stream of blue flames as water from a hose. The torrent spilled over the ground at first as he reigned in control, before he played it across her head and back.

The Cluster Mother hissed again, using her oversized and powerful legs to leap out of the way after the first second or two of damage, launching herself unto the roof. With movements that seemed too swift to be natural, she covered several meters before leaping back to ground level, striking Phoenix with a pedipalp.

“Fuck!” Phoenix swore as he was knocked off his hooves and into a tumble. The Cluster Mother rushed at him, but a wild shot of flame, one that unfortunately missed, warded her off just long enough for him to pick himself up.

“You okay over there?” Myst yelled, struggling to ward off the attentions of two of the hatchlings.

“I can handle this!” Phoenix yelled, igniting his horn again. This time, he used the faster, though weaker, shots he had accidentally used against Myst earlier, trying to keep up a steady stream of them turned on the Mother. “I think she wants to go after you!”

“That’s just dandy!” Myst ground out as he reared up on his hindlegs, using his wings to help keep his balance, and cephalothorax of his closest adversary, his blow just missing the potential kill strike, instead lobbing off a leg and pedipalp. Another spider arched itself up, bending it’s abdomen under it and sprayed Myst’s right hindhoof with white gunk. Webbing.

Myst yelped when he found himself snared. His glance back at it almost cost him when another spider leapt at him. Still, it was an opening. He leapt through the opening it formed and charged after the hatchling that forsook taking him on and choose to try and go after Phoenix.

Two strikes, one from the ground up lashed through the exposed lower body and sent the spider tumbling back, the second sundering it in half, bring the kill count up to four of eight. With a powerful flap, Myst torn himself free and quickly made his way to Phoenix, casting a frustrated look at the remaining hatchlings. “Switch for a spell?”

“Got a plan?”

“NOPE!” Myst yelled, taking to the sky again.

Phoenix, battle mad, laughed and turned, blasting the hatchlings. The rate of fire cut down on how much magic he could pack into each burst, the individual blasts now about golf ball or small in size, but he fired a lot of them. One of them has strayed too close in its attempts to keep up with Myst and got the brunt of the attack. As they fled the fiery assault Phoenix took the chance, stomping and pumping out a sustained wave of fire that spread a few feet along the rocky ground, washing over the closest bug.

The fire didn’t last long, and the spider soon burst into code. On the other end of the power charge, Myst was circling the Mother, trying to find an opening. His feints were met with powerful swipe attempts from leg and pedipalp alike or lunging attempts to snag him out of the air with fangs. At best, he was getting in a few glancing counter strikes.

In short; no opportunity. It was frustrating. Equally frustrating to the Cluster Mother, as well. Fang’s rattling her war cry, she reared up, waving four legs and her pedipalps at him. Myst took the risk and darted in. Wings pumping, he lashed at her exposed underbelly, going into a full rotation before plunging his blade in.

She hissed in pain then slammed her body to the ground. Myst, his sword still lodged in her flesh, was forced down with her, hitting the ground with an unhealthy crack.

“Mountie!” Phoenix yelled. Abandoning his attack on the hatchlings, he charged the Cluster Mother, an orb of flame building at the tip of his horn. The Cluster Mother hissed again, and jabbed her fangs into Myst, the pegasus crying out at the pain. Phoenix yelled again, releasing the built up flame in a short lived plume of heat and flame. It didn’t do much damage, but it made the Cluster Mother retreat.

“Fuck, Mountie! You okay?” Phoenix asked as he stood guard over Myst’s beaten form.

“No…” Myst groaned. He staggered to his hooves and fumbled for a health potion, his health bar in the red. Unlike Phoenix, you didn’t need a can opener or six to get to his soft chewy center. Any old thing would do. The price of being a mobile fighter. He groped for his sword, which fortunately had become dislodged during the Mother’s retreat. “Remind me not to do that again without backup… I think she almost broke my wing…”

“And you say my ideas are stupid…” Phoenix fumed. He launched another one of his triple shots at the Cluster Mother, who lurked at the edges of the room. Despite the less than idea end, Myst’s attack had managed to nudge the Mother’s health down into the yellow. “Tag back?”

“Tag back,” Myst agreed, rubbing the spot where the fangs had punctured his body. He tossed a mana potion at Phoenix and drank from a vial himself. “Watch out for her fangs. Pretty sure those are poisoned. Punched right through my armour…”

“And you made fun of mine,” Phoenix smirked. The Cluster Mother decided they had enough time to reflect and relax and started her next series of attacks. Phoenix laughed at her challenge. “Round Two!”

“Watch out for their webs!” Myst warned, taking to the air again and bringing up his Fog Cover. He had switched to his crossbow for a while. He wasn’t as good with it as his sword, and far from as good at sharpshooting as Cass, but he figured it would be better to go with it for a while.

Phoenix decided to try for flame tank. The Cluster Mother had turned her attention towards Myst as he stuck to the curve of the room’s ceiling, taking shots at the hatchlings with his crossbow, a lucky shot managing to take out the spider he has partially de-legged earlier. She readied herself to pounce, lowering her form, eyes trained on Myst, or at least the fog obscured form that was Myst.

Phoenix blindsided her with one of his soccerball sized attacks. For a moment, her fur kindled, but her furious movement extinguished it. She pounced, but aimed instead for Phoenix, crashing into him with wild abandon, testing the integrity of the armour he was bragging about so recently.

With her so close, Phoenix grabbed his axe with a hoof and swung it with a mighty yell, catching her just under the base of a pedipalp. She recoiled, smashing him with the sister appendage, sending him skidding a few meters.

“I’m okay! Get the little ones!” Phoenix quickly yelled before Myst could get himself involved again. To reinforce his point, Phoenix quickly let out a wash of unfocused flames.

Myst growled, but kept up his side of the fight. There were only two more hatchlings left. The faster those went down, the faster Phoenix could get back up. Myst still fired a shot in the Mother’s direction before diving and planting both hindhooves into one of the hatchlings.

He bounced off it, and it bounced away, only to be rendered code when Myst shot it from relatively close range, having reloaded in his approach. Only this reflexes and the bonus from his Dodge Skill saved his wings when the last hatchling tried to web him. Instead, it only caught his tail and hindlegs. Myst dropped his crossbow and rolled, drawing his sword in the process.

The hatchling hissed and leapt at him. Had the webbing not tangled his leg and tail, Myst would have made short work of it, but he was slowed, and forced to place keep away as he oriented himself and tried to keep his dexterity, both on the ground and in the air, with three limbs tangled. Still, he bided his time, stumbling out of the range of the first three leaps before managed to lunge into the fourth one, thrusting his sword through the hatchling’s abdomen.

Back at the main challenge, Phoenix was finding it more difficult than he anticipated. His armour was doing much to keep him alive, and his HP likely would have been down at nothing without it by that point, but it was also slowing him greatly.

The Cluster Mother had changed her tactics, probably a coding thing triggered by her HP reaching a certain point. She wasn’t content to just sit and take Phoenix’s attacks anymore. Instead, she moved, leaping from ground to ceiling to wall, barely giving him the chance to aim properly. He was rapidly burning through his magic reserves with little return.

“Would you hold still!” Phoenix yelled, frustrated. He galloped from one side of the room to the other, trying to keep up with the swift moving arachnid. Two more gouts of fire were wasted, doing little more than singeing the Cluster Mother’s legs as the leaped away. Landing on the wall, she paused for a moment before catapulting her bulk at Phoenix.

“Fuck!” the unicorn swore as she landed heavily just before him, smashing a limb into his side. Phoenix only just managed to brace himself for the hit, as was still knocked reeling. Even then he managed to retaliate with one of his unfocused washes of fire, forcing the Mother to skitter back a few feet.

Phoenix snorted with mixed frustration and exhaustion. As much as he hated to admit it, it didn’t seem like he could take he down on his own. His health was too low and his magic was dropping as well. The Cluster Mother started to approach again, but a bolt suddenly sprouted in one of her legs.

She reared, mandible rattling fiercely as she thrashed, dislodging the barb.

“Fog Cover!” Myst yelled out, landing beside Phoenix and spreading a mass of obscuring white. “Can’t keep this up for long. I can get you maybe ten seconds before I need back up,” Myst reported. “You good on potions?”

“Yeah,” Phoenix said, pulling one from his quick access. “But I’m seriously going to have to restock after this.”

“You and me both,” Myst replied grimly. He pulled his sword out again, not trusting his crossbow skills to the dart and weave tactics he’d have to depend on. Taking a breath to steel his nerves, he charged out, a borrowed war cry on his lips. “WAAAGH!”

“Idiot,” Phoenix scuffed. He didn’t waste too much time on reflection, not when he could hear Myst yelling and the Cluster Mother’s hissing and rattling in return. He flexed, testing his armour as his health and mana bars rose, and charged his horn before galloping out of the fading fog cloud Myst left him in.

The battle had moved to the other side of the room. Myst looked like he was on the defensive, but Phoenix had fought with him long enough, and actually taught him how to fight, and recognized when the pegasus was baiting a foe. Of course, it was a tactic that worked better on something, anything, not a miniboss or higher in challenge level, but it was still good enough that he had kept the Mother away from Phoenix while he recovered.

“Blue Blazer!” Phoenix roared, letting loose the spell he had been holding. It wasn’t quite a fire ball, in the conventional sense. It was more a fire comet, a blazing spheroid mass with a tail of smokeless fire erupted from his horn and soared towards the Cluster Mother.

The spider whirled and tried to leap out of the way, but Phoenix was ready for it. Blue Blazer wasn’t a spell he used often, and was only accidentally discovered while ~~getting back at~~ training Myst. It had a longer casting time than he liked, but it did have the perk of being semiguided. He yanked his head sharply to the right, his horn still glowing, and the blazing comet curved to track the spider, smashing into her side with almost physical force even as the blue flames set a few of her limbs ablaze.

In moments, one of her forelegs burst into code, having taken too much damage over the course of the fight. Myst didn’t ease up either, not when he could perceive an opening.

“Swift Slice!” Myst yelled, darting across her face, his sharp blade sending one of her pelipalps to the same code graveyard the leg went to.

With a hiss, the Cluster Mother batted Myst from the sky with one of her remaining limbs. He hit the ground hard before he had a chance to recover, his health shooting down again.

“Fireball!” Phoenix shot another blast of fire at the Cluster Mother before she could get in rank to try and finish his partner. “She’s almost out Myst!”

“Almost isn’t good enough!” Myst complained, taking wing again, circling around the far ends of the room. The Cluster Mother drew her legs under herself, lifting her body away from the ground and curling her abdomen under her.

Myst zoomed back in, ready to try for more harrying damaged, but was forced to abort, breaking off his charged with almost painful abruptness when the Cluster Mother revealed her new tactic. A burst of webbing shot out from her abdomen, almost snaring Myst midair. “Aw, come on!”

“Fuck that!” Phoenix swore. Heedless of his magic levels, he galloped around the Cluster Mother, letting loose gouts of flames as soon as his horn’s charge built up enough power, focused on just dealing damage and not staying in one place. Myst tried the same tactic from the other side.

It seemed to be working. The giant spider didn’t quite have a ranged attack that dealt damage, and this ‘last ditch’ tactic seemed to be more coded for facing a team of conventional melee fighters. It was one odd benefit of only having two fighters. Despite his embarrassing start with his wings, Myst had grown to be more agile that his teacher Cassius. By staying on the opposite side from Phoenix and attacking whenever she tried to target the slower tank, the managed to keep her spinning.

For all of thirty seconds.

The Cluster Mother simply ignored one of Myst’s strikes and focused on Phoenix. Encumbered by his armour, he wasn’t nimble enough to avoid the blast of webbing she launched at him. It left him in an awkward position. Three hooves pinned to the ground, the fourth pinned to his body, his neck arched back slightly and his tail totally covered. Needless to say, he wasn’t getting out for a while.

Myst charged in immediately, hitting the Cluster Spider with a flurry of mostly ineffective, though highly distracting slashes. “Phoenix! Burn yourself out!” he yelled, drawing back just enough to keep the Cluster Mother interested. “I can distract her!”

“Fuck that! I’m going to burn this sucker!” Phoenix cursed, completely enraged. His horn glowed, then it glowed, his building blue halo raising the ambient lighting like the rising sun. A spark formed, flickering and dancing before settling into a ball of fire in front of him. It grew. Gold ball sized. Softball sized. Football sized. Soccer ball sized. Bigger still.

Myst was forced to break off when his health hit red, putting some distance and altitude between himself and the Mother. Which his nuisance gone, she faced her trapped prey. Myst quickly yelled at Phonix. “Whatever you are doing, do it already!”

“Blast Burner Blaze!” Phoenix yelled, barely able to hold on to the over powered spell he forged. The massive orb of constrained fire shuddered before it burst; the drain of magic sending Phoenix’s bar pretty much down to nothing, the strain actually causing recoil damage to himself. Rather than a gout or a burst of fire, it was more like a directed explosion that struck the Cluster Mother, like truck smashing into a wall. The webs that bound him were set ablaze from the backwash of heat and fire, inadvertently freeing him partially, which mainly let him crash to the ground.

The force knocked the Cluster Mother back, every limb writhing, her hisses the loudest they had heard it, her health rapidly dropping. Phoenix managed a smug grin. “In your face! You smug assshit!”

The Cluster Mother’s writhing was slowing. Flames were still burning on her body, likely a status effect of the spell, but her HP’s fall had slowed. Phoenix struggled to move, but his limbs were still partially snared, and his magic was drained. The flame effect would likely kill the Mother eventually, but she would still have enough time to take them out, as neither of the pair had much HP to their name.

“SPIRE FALL!” Myst’s voice roared. From the shadowy peak of the room, Myst dived, not caring about the lack of recovery space, or even the fire that still burned on his target. His sword’s blade glowed just before his impacted the boss.

Cassius stared intently at the door. It had sealed behind them. Even after he had managed to shake off his petrifying fear, it refused to open. He had been forced to stand there helplessly, listening to the sounds of combat that faintly drifted out from the room, ignorant of what was truly happening, only sure of the fact that his friends and teammates were in a fight he should have been helping them with.

He shuddered again, remembering the spiders he saw in there. “Damn it, Cass… you could have still helped them…”

He started pacing again, threatening to wear a grove in the ground. A sudden explosion jarred him and he stumbled, missing a step. His mind ran from the worse to best case scenarios wildly. What the hell was going on in there? There was silence. Was it over? Did they win? Did… were they… killed?

With a familiar creak, the door opened again, the room behind it dark. Nothing came out. Cass nervously held his gun ready, worried that it would be those things coming out.

His ears pricked forward when he heard something. Several things. He placed them a moment later. Hoofsteps. A grin split his face as both Myst and Phoenix emerged, both with shit eating grins on their faces.

“See?” Phoenix managed, sounding like he wanted nothing more than to collapse into a bed. “Told you we could handle it.”

“You’re alive!” Cassius said, half trotting, half galloping over. He paused as he got a better look at them. “You look like shit.”

He wasn’t kidding. Phoenix’s armour was covered in bits and pieces of spider web mixed with ash and scorch marks, dented in a few places. Myst’s right wing was hanging a bit off, and he had a slight limp on his left side. Oddly, he had even more scorch marks than Phoenix did.

“What the Sam Hill happened in there?” Cassius demanded.

Myst’s grin somehow got broader and he dragged Cass into a hug. “Sarge… I got Hoofblades!”

Author's Note

This chapter was lovingly written by Greycait

And next time: they [REDACTED] and Cass hugs [
[REDACTED]

January 27: An Unexpected Surprise

"Why do you have eighty mushrooms?!" I had to resist the urge to facehoof when Phoenix told me and Myst what he had found down the middle tunnel.

"Why don't you have eighty mushrooms?"

Okay, facehoof time it is then. "That's not a valid answer Phoenix." He seriously used that to explain every stupid decision he made!

He sighed. "Fine, I was thinking about profits."

"Profits?" Both me and Myst said simultaneously.

"Yeah, profits. Just 'cause we're stuck in a death game doesn't mean we should be live like damn hobos. Hell, if I'm going to die in here, I at least wanna taste wealth once in my life. Even if its virtual money and I'm a cartoon horse."

"Candy colored," Myst interjected, "candy colored cartoon horse."

"Whatever," Phoenix rolled his eyes, "and if Mountie actually does become an alchemist like he's been talking about; he'll be needing ingredients."

My jaw hit the floor for a second time today; two plans that actually were smart coming from the pyromaniac whose main battle strategy was to run in and hit it in the face. Phoenix my boy, you provide alotta surprises sometimes.

"And since we are going to move soon...."

Okay, wat? "Wait wait wait! Hold the damn presses; I wasn't informed of any idea to move!?" I said, stopping mid flight and turning to face Phoenix.

He blinked in surprise before looking up at Myst who was still hovering. The pegasi rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, "I was planning on telling him when we got back to town, Bubbaloo."

Great, my own damn team was making plans without me! "And what might this plan be, my dear co-conspirating friends?"

"Look, we need to move onto another city. We're basically in the Goodsprings of this game," Phoenix started. "Eventually all the side quests and grinding around here will provide jack squat in the way of XP and loot so we might as well get the jump on everyone else and head out."

"And do you have an idea for where we should go actually?"

"Canterlot," Myst interjected, "it's the closest place to Ponyville and eventually we can move on to elsewhere like Manehattan or Fillydelphia."

I nodded; that was a logical idea and it seemed like a damn good course of action. "Shoulda just told me you idiots," I said simply.

"I was planning on doing that once we got back," Myst pouted slightly, "but Bubbaloo here has a big mouth."

"Well I haven't been moaning about getting my hoov- hands on hoofblades like you have for the last five days."

I groaned; this was going to be a long walk back to Ponyville.

We heard the sounds of fighting before we reached the top of the hill. When the clanging of steel reached our ears, the three of us shared a look before bolting to the top of the hill.

There was a group of three ponies fighting back to back against a group of sev- no, make that six zombie ponies with swords at the base of the hill.

I looked over to Phoenix and gave him a nod. He gave a glee filled grin in return as I looked back down at the surrounded players below, "time to be heroes guys.... CHARGE!!"

With that, Phoenix let out his trademark war cry as he charged down the hill. Myst and I both took to the skies and he zoomed down towards the fight below. I flew closer before stopping in a hover.

I took aim at one zombie attacking an ash grey pegasi with a black mane. But before I could pull the trigger, he slammed a mace into the zombie's face causing it to explode into blue code.

"Well, that takes care of that one," I muttered under my breath as I took aim at another zombie who was sparring with a silver unicorn with a blue mane. The unicorn's health bar was already in the red; and his fighting was little more than desperate blocking as he tried to keep from getting killed. The zombie's health was about half full. Damn it, no one was dying on my watch!

"Autoload," I muttered under my breath before firing off both rounds into the zombie causing it to explode into blue code.

The unicorn looked up at me with a smile on his face, "thanks mate!"

"Myst! The silver unicorn is in the red! Keep his ass clear!" I barked at my comrade zooming about like a moth around a light, slashing at the four remaining zombies below.

"Aye aye Sarge," I heard him yell back before I turned my gaze on the zombie with the lowest heal-

A fireball slammed into the zombie's face followed by Phoenix's axe and Phoenix slamming into the zombie's side, "CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKA!" The zombie let out a final pained snarl before it exploded.

The usual facehoof due to Phoenix's antics didn't occur; instead, I wanted to land and buck him square in the mouth. The idiot was literally charging headlong into a pack of enemies! There's a difference between glory charging and quite literally throwing yourself into combat and he sure as shit just crossed that damn line! He could have gotten his ass hurt or even killed if that hair brained plan of his didn't work!

Groaning, I shook the thought from my head. I could yell at him once the fight is done, but right now there was work to be done. Turning my sights on one of the remaining zombies, I fired; dropping it's health down a quarter.

That seemed to distract the zombie causing it to snarl and shamble it's way over towards me. It only made it a few feet before another shot and a great cleave from Phoenix before it exploded into code.

That left just one zed and it shouldn't last too long; it's health was already at half. The grey pegasi slammed his mace into the zombie's neck, dropping it's remaining health a quarter. Phoenix lobbed a fireball at it and dropped the health down to a mere little sliver. The zombie finally exploded after a pass and swipe from Myst.

The area fell silent except for the sounds of heavy breathing as I landed and walked over to the group we had helped save their flanks. As I drew nearer, I finally managed to get a proper look at them.

The grey pegasi was wearing a set of dark leather armor that almost blended in with his coat; the cutie mark on his flank was a crescent moon and a quill. The name above his head read: Nightingale.

The unicorn was decked out in what looked to be in some form of studded leather armor; the name above his head read: Lancer.

The third pony who I hadn't really payed much attention to during the fight finally made an appearance. He was a pegasi stallion; the coat visible under his heavy armor was a school bus yellow; his mane was a two tone black and yellow. The name above him read: Thunderbolt_Sentinel.

"Thank you guys for saving our flanks," Lancer said with a small smile as he opened up his menu, looking for what I hoped was a healing potion.

"Not like they needed to," Nightingale said dryly, "we had that under control."

"Like hell we did!" Lance snapped back, "I was one damn hit away from dying! One hit!" He shook a hoof for emphasis.

Soon, the two were arguing heatedly. Laughing to himself, Thunderbolt came trotting over to the three of us, "Just ignore them; they do that all the time."

I couldn't help but crack a grin, "yeah, I know the feeling; these two are always arguing about something. Name's Ca-"

"Cassius01," he said finishing my sentence.

"Umm... I prefer Cass and how in the hell did you know that?"

"The name above your head," he said flatly.

The resulting facehoof at my own stupidity was followed by snickers from Phoenix. Okay, stupid Cass is stupid "Yeah, this is my first MMO. Still getting used to some things."

Thunderbolt shrugged, "ehh, we all gotta be noobs at some point and time."

"Well, my terrible introductions aside, how about I introduce you to the rest of Team Misfits. That's Wicked Phoenix: our resident kamikaze and pyromaniac," I said, waving a hoof over at Phoenix.

"We ought to work together more often," he replied with a grin. Oh Phoenix, I'm so gonna chew your ass out once we're away from these guys.

"He's MystRyder," I gestured over to Myst, "our resident Canadian with a thing for hoofblades and apparently part cat; we literally found his butt up a tree surrounded by timberwolves on day one."

"There were only two!"

"And look how far you've come in the last five days," I gave him a cheeky grin, "going from a complete and utter man who had no idea how to equip their weapon to a fog wielding dodging machine!"

Leaving Myst to gush over my comment, I looked back over to Thunderbolt, "so... Whats with them two? With the amount of bickering I'm seeing, I'm half expecting them to start making out."

Thunderbolt snickered at that, looking over his shoulder at his two still arguing comrades, "no relation whatsoever; our little group just happened to land next to one another after getting teleported to the square. And after.... Well you guys know, we all decided to stick together and work together."

I nodded, sighing as the memories of Discord's little speech came back to the front of my mind.

"Times of crisis lead to strange bedfellows," Myst said simply before smiling, "Well it's nice to meet you three too. If you need some help or something, just send one of us a PM."

He nodded, "Duly noted, and the same can be said for me and Lance at least; Team Awesome! shall always come to your aid if you need it."

At that point, the argument between Nightingale and Lancer reached a new fervor; and the two of them looked like they were about to beat the crap out of each other. "Well, you guys better get on your way before these two idiots end up attracting some monsters or something."

We all said our goodbyes before turning to leave.

"Team awesome?" Phoenix laughed as soon as we were out of earshot, "what kinda name is that?"

"It's our kinda name," I said flatly, irritation evident in my voice.

"Jeez what's got your panties in a knot?"

Okay, screw waiting till we're out of earshot; I landed in front of him, a scowl on my face, "You want to know what's wrong? Your goddamn kamikaze stunt back there!"

He blinked in surprise, "umm... What?"

"You fucking heard me," I yelled, stomping a hoof, "Your. Kamikaze. Stunt!"

"But but...." He stammered , still extremely confused.

"No fucking buts! That shit you pulled back there was fucking retarded! Choo Choo Motherfucka?!? What the fuck were you thinking??"

"I thought it would be funny," he said, looking down at ground.

"Funny? You're a damn idiot! What if that shit didn't work? What if that shit caused you to get killed?!"

This caused him to frown and I couldn't help but smile a tiny bit. "Yes, what if that stupid goddamn stunt killed you? What the hell would I tell your mom when we got out? That her son died being a hero; saving the life of some player near death? No, I'd have to fucking tell her that he died being a fucking moron, pulling a retarded stunt for fucking tits and giggles because he thought it was fucking funny!"

I practically bellowed the last word of my rant, ending it with a stomp of my hoof as I gave him a death glare. Phoenix looked like a dog who just got kicked. He didn’t say a word as he looked down at the ground. My usually cocky friend looked downright pathetic and I frankly couldn’t care less. He’d get it through his damn thick skull that this wasn’t just a simple game anymore; WE COULD DIE! I don’t want to take myself or Myst dying to finally get it through to him.

“Umm… Cass."

"WHAT!" I snapped as I turned to Myst, my nostrils flaring as literal steam puffed out of them.

He let out a surprised eep before jumping back slightly. "Umm... You need to calm down a bit," he said rather awkwardly, trying to avoid my glare.

"Calm down? Calm down?! No, I'm perfectly fucking calm! I'm just having a nice civil discussion with Phoenix here about his stupid fucking stunt!" With that I turned back to Phoenix to keep chewing his flank off some more.

But when I turned back to see Phoenix, I didn't see the same kicked dog as earlier, Phoenix was looking directly at me, anger clearly evident on his face.

"Go the fuck away," he growled, his voice low.

I remained silent.

"I said: GO THE FUCK AWAY!" He practically bellowed, stamping his forehooves as he glared daggers.

"No, I don't think I will; I'm not the one at fault here. You should be the one leaving!"

"Me? You weren't even in the boss fight!"

"Well excuse me for having goddamn arachnophobia Mr. I still sleep with a nightlight despite being fucking 23 because I'm afraid of the dark!"

This just caused Phoenix to get even more pissed off. "You said you'd never speak of that again!"

"Well looks like I just did," I replied with a smug grin.

"Why you stupid little cock sucking faggot!"

Oh you son of a bitch, you did not just go there! I let out a pissed off scream of my own. In an instant, I was on top of him, my snout practically pressed up against his as I glared directly into his soul.

"You suicidal assshat, I thought we-"

"Get the hell off me you faggot!"

I let out a surprised yelp as I suddenly found myself ripped off of Phoenix and thrown a good distance.

I landed on the ground roughly with pained groan. Getting back to my hooves, I saw that my health bar had dropped a tad bit from the impact. I growled; if that son of a bitch wanted to go full trade, I'll go full trade on his as-

"ENOUGH!!!"

My head snapped over to Myst; who now bore a very unamused look on his face. "You two are supposed to be friends and you're on the verge of ripping each other's throats out!"

"But... But he started it," Phoenix stammered.

"No, he did by being a dipshit!"

"I don't give a damn who started it," Myst said with a tone that belonged to a pissed off parent. "It's obvious you two need some time apart."

He then looked over at me, "Cass, go off into town and do... something till you've finally calmed down. I don't want to see neither hide nor tail of you till then! Got it?"

"But... But..."

He then just glared at me; his unflinching gaze seriously put my own mother to shame. My resistance quickly crumbled and I nodded, "you won't see me...."

And with that I took to the skies.

I stared down at the chocolate milkshake in front of me with an almost frown. To say that I felt bad would have been the understatement of the century, I felt goddamn miserable.

I didn't mean to go off on Phoenix like that, it just kinda happened. I can't help it that anger issues tend to run in the family. The guy's probably my closest friend and I went off on him like he was some piece of filth white trash.

I took a long swig from the milkshake. I really wished that the booze in the game could actually simulate real drunkenness so I could drown my guilt in alcohol like a real man. How could I have forgotten what happened to Phoenix's mom....

My head hit the wooden table with a solid thunk. "...Ow....." I really want a damn cigarette now; but whoop dee doo, this game had to be rated T so no drunkenness and no deathsticks.

'What you did was totally necessary mate. How else was he supposed to get it through his thick skull that this ain't a game no more' the voice in the back of my head finally spoke up.

I sighed; I could have done it in a far more tactful way at least; one that didn't involve so much damn screaming. But what was I to expect: when I get stressed out, I tend to get angry and when I get angry, I tend to get a bit... shouty.

'Shouty is the understatement of the century mate'

Hey, I thought you were supposed to be on my side damn it; you're my brain after all!

'Doesn’t mean I can't be the devil's advocate'

Before I could even retort, a notification popped up in my face. I had recieved a PM from Phoenix?

I quickly opened up and began reading.

yo assshat Mcgee,

I'm still goddamn pissed off at you Chris and I would much rather be writing some hate mail to you but something just happened a few minutes ago.

Some dude showed up at the inn and was looking about for you; asking for you by name.

Your real name.

Brad

P.S. When you get back here, don't talk to me

I blinked in surprise as I read the message again. I must have reread it a good ten times before I finally closed it. The only person here who knew my real name was Phoenix and I know that he definitely ain't the type to going to blabbering about my name. Someone else I know from back in the real world has to be in this death trap of a game; that's the only logical thing!

Within a few seconds, I was out the door of Sugarcube Corner and in the air, flying as fast as my wings could carry me.

I landed in front of the inn, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath. Okay, leave the high speed aerial crap to Myst; I'll just stick to my hovering and stuff.

As I stepped inside, the first thing I saw was Phoenix sitting around a table and chatting with a few other players. He saw me too and he immediately started giving me the stink eye. Wow, such a warm welcome.

"Cass what the heck are you doing here?" My ears perked up as I turned to see Myst trotting over to me, a look of disappointment on his face, "I thought I told you to stay away from us til-"

"Phoenix sent me a letter saying some dude was looking for me and he knew what my real name was," I said, informing Myst.

"Wait," he blinked in surprise, "you're name's C-"

"He's upstairs in your room shitface," I heard Phoenix say purposely loud.

"Well that answers that," I said flatly before looking at Myst. "Well, time to see who my mystery guest is."

With that, I quickly went upstairs and soon stood before my little inn room's slightly ajar door. I took a deep breath; time to see who else I knew was stuck in here with us and I pushed open the door.

My room was small; a rectangle that was maybe six feet across and ten feet wide (kinda hard to tell measurements when you're the size of a tiny pony). A small bed laid along the long wall and a small table and chair sat in the far corner. On the far wall was a window that looked out at Ponyville and looking out it was my mystery guest.

I purposely coughed to get his attention and when he turned about my eyes just about bled.

The pony was a unicorn stallion and he was the most garish colors possible! His coat was an almost Pinkie Pie grade pink and his mane was a gaudy blue with purple highlights. He was wearing a golden breast plate with with leather boots and instead of a helmet, he had some sort of red bandana wrapped around his head just below his horn. On his back was a sword that reeked of katana. The name above his head read: Krieger.

The eyesore of a stallion smiled when he saw me. "Hi, brother."

Author's Note

January 27: Mi Oversaturated Hermano (unedited)

"Hi, brother."

My jaw quite literally hit the floor as my brain started running a mile a minute. Tim? What the fuck is he doing here?! He wasn't a brony in the slightest; hell, he flat out told me he thought the show was stupid. Yet, here he was standing before me and making my eyes bleed... Literally! My health bar dropped two points looking at him!

"T-Tim?" I managed to stammer, a dumbfounded look on my face.

"Yeah," he nodded before smirking, "and I see you still haven't learned how to english when surprised."

That was all I needed to hear. In an instant, I was hugging him, tears in my eyes. His breastplate was making the hug rather uncomfortable as it jabbed me in the chest but I didn't care. I had family here with me damn it; my own brother none the less!

As I hugged him, He wrapped a foreleg around the back of my neck and pulled me close. "Hey hey hey it's okay man; no need to cry..."

"I... I never thought I'd see any of you guys again," I croaked into his chest, as I was now fully crying.

That had been gnawing at the back of my mind for the last five days. When we do manage to get out, it could take months or even years! Who knows what the hell could happen in the real world during that time? Someone could get in a car wreck; Mema could finally die of old age, not knowing if her grandson managed to get out safely; there could be a fire and all my stuff could get burnt to cinders!

But Tim being here changed that; now whatever happened in here, I had someone blood related here with me to experience this stuff with me. Phoenix was a great friend even if probably wanted to stab me in the eye with a rusty spoon at the moment but he wasn't family.

After a good long while, I pulled away from him, tears still stinging my eyes. "W-what what the hell are you doing here man?! Hell, you told me you thought ponies were retarded."

"I'm here ‘cause of you little bro," he replied, "when I heard you had gotten this game, I de-"

"Wait? Someone told you I bought ELO?" I keep the brony stuff separate from family life; the only people I told that I bought the game was my roommate, Phoenix (obviously), and my brony friends. Who the heck told him?

"Mema," he said simply.

I facehoofed, "of course, it was Mema." I only mentioned it once to her in passing conversation and she blathered it to my brother and he was on the other side of the damn state! Jeeze, how many people know just thanks to my grandma?

He snickered at my reaction, "and as I was saying: when I heard you got the game, I decided to get it too so I could spend some time with you. Hell, I haven't seen you in over a year and this seemed like a good idea at the time."

I frowned, "y-you did this for me?" Great, now I feel guilty; he's stuck here because of me....

"Hey hey," he quickly replied, giving me a reassuring smile, "I know that face. This ain't your fault bro; no one could have predicted... That would happen. Hell, you should have heard the amount I cussed." He then laughed, "I think I probably mentally scarred some five year old."

"Wait....Where were you in the crowd?" I do remember hearing some guy cussing up a storm rather loudly after Discord's little speech but in all honesty, there was a lot of panicked swearing going on and a decent amount of it was probablyme; but that dude had one damn good set of lungs.

"I was near that building that looked like a giant gingerbread house," he said slowly, "why?"

"I think I may have been able to hear you from across the square," I said with low whistle, "and I thought the shouting was supposed to be my thing; you're supposed to be the punchy one."

Tim just rolled his eyes, "oh ha ha.... So, why don't you introduce me to your friends?"

I nodded, "yeah, just give me a sec." With that I sent him a request to join the Misfits; it would just be plain stupid not have him in the group, I'm sure Myst and Phoenix would agree. Well, Myst would at the moment; Phoenix would still try to gore me with his horn.

After a few seconds, the message appeared before Tim and he tapped the confirmation button. "Welcome to Team Misfit mi hermano" I said with a mock bow after I got the confirmation message.

He just rolled his eyes again, "so let's go introduce me to your friends?"

I nodded, "of course. Just one thing: unless we're together in private, call me Cass and I'll call you Krieg. It'll make it easier for Myst and other players who don't know who we are."

He shrugged, "fine by me; expect slip ups though."

.....

"Cass, your brother makes my eyes bleed," Myst whispered into my ear.

"Yeah, I know," I replied, watching as he chatted with some of the random other players in the inn. Introducing him to Myst went splendidly; our resident Canadian living up to his national stereotypes quite well. Phoenix, on the other hoof, wasn't even in the building when we came back down stairs. According to Myst, he had said 'he'd be back when he'd be back' and that I shouldn't come after him unless I wanted to feel what burning fur feels like.

"But why is he... Those colors? He looks like a bad OC; almost as worse than a red and black alicorn of edginess."

"He's colorblind; can't see anything but gray." Yep, my dear brother's eyes were as shit as mine are without my glasses. I snicker as I remembered the time he had worn a neon green shirt with grey slacks; I know I don't have much of a fashion sense but damn it, that wa-

"Cass, check your active effects menu."

"Umm... Okay?" I said, a little confused as I opened up the menu. I quickly scanned the list and my eyebrow raised when I saw the item at the bottom of the list

Chromatic Hyper-stimulation

Your eyes can't handle this level of saturation. You take two points of damage as you fry your poor retinas.

I burst out laughing; oh god, he literally was making our eyes bleed! It was bad enough that the game was mocking him for it. This was just too rich!

I don't know how long I was laughing but I eventually felt someone poking me in the on the shoulder. I opened my eyes; okay, when the heck did I end up on the floor. Whoever it was poking me in the shoulder harder and I looked up to see Krieg looking down at me with an unamused expression; Myst stood next to him with a look that screamed sorry man.

"You're a dick," Krieg said flatly before he turned about and gave me a kinda weak buck to the chest. It was the closest he could get to a brotherly punch to the arm so I just laughed it off.

Oh, it's good to be with family.

Author's Note

beware the oversaturation

and this is unedited to show you guys the amount greycait does to help my work

January 29: The things I do for Friends

"I was just trying to say hi you ungrateful little prick!" Krieger yelled at Phoenix. The two were practically snout to snout with each other, each glaring at the other with looks that could kill.

"Umm... Shouldn't we do something?" Myst said as hovered overhead and I couldn't help but smirk.

"Nah, it's about time someone took him down a peg; just gunna say Bubbas got one hell of a right hook." Does that work with ponies; either way, this is going to be good!

"I told you to piss off but you wouldn't listen you eyesore of a colt!" Phoenix snarled, "now get out of my damn face or I'll slash you like a goddamn butcher!" His horn lit up and his axe started pulling itself out of it's holder.

"Who you calling a kid you ungrateful little shit," Krieg growled as he started to draw his samurai sword, "unlike you, I know how to fight Mr. Hack-n-Slash."

"Then why don't we make this official?" Phoenix had drawn his axe, and from the look on his face was looking Bubba up for a weak spot, "good old fashioned duel?"

"If it teaches you to watch your tongue, I'll gladly," he replied with a cocky smirk as he gave his blade a twirl with his magic.

Phoenix opened up his menu and a few seconds later a popup appeared in front of my brother. He tapped a button and suddenly a counter sprang into the air above them, counting down from 10.

9...

The two unicorns took a several steps back from each other.

7...

Krieger looked up at me with a glint in his eye and I shouted, "Kick his ass bro!" This earned a glare from Phoenix and a odd look from Myst. What I can't pick favorites? Bros before hoes!

4...

"You can do it Phoenix!" Well at least Phoenix has got some support from the Canadian.

3...

Oh, dis gunna be good!

2...

I wish I had some popcorn.

1...

START! The game let out a chime, and the duel begun.

"WAAAGH!" Phoenix bellowed as he charged towards him, axe already poised to strike. Yet, Krieg just stood still! "What the hell are you doing bro!? Move damn it!"

When Phoenix got about ten feet away from Krieg, the stallion reared up and slammed his forehooves into the ground.

My jaw dropped as a literal wall of giant blue crystals erupted from the ground in between them. Phoenix's eyes widened and he tried stopping but he slammed into the wall with a solid thunk.

I couldn't help but snicker slightly as he stumbled back, his eye gone derpy, and missing a decent sized chunk of health. "Goddamn it! Face me like a man!" He shouted, shaking his head, making his eyes return to normal.

The wall retracted and Krieger stood there, smug as hell with his sword sheathed?! "What the hell bro! Pull out your damn blade!"

Phoenix screamed at him again and charged. As soon as the charging unicorn was in range, Krieger hopped to the side and his lit his horn. "Come on, put down the axe and we'll settle this like men."

"Like hell I will! Cleave!" Phoenix hollered and charged at Krieger again. And once more, Krieger dodged the charge as easily as the first time.

Several charges later, and Phoenix had only managed to nick him. "Okay, are you done with your games?" Krieger said, "I'll still take that apology?"

"F-fuck you, I told you I d-didn't wanna talk," Phoenix panted, glaring up at my brother, "t-though could you give me a sec?"

Krieger nodded and trotted a few steps closer to Phoenix, drawing his samurai blade. When he was within around ten feet of him, he stopped, blade fully drawn and started tapping one of his forehooves on the ground as he waited.

Okay, he wouldn't have gotten that close without a reason; maybe to get in range with a spell? And why the heck let Phoenix catch his breath; that's only gonna make this harder in the long ru-

Krieger stopped tapping his forehoof and for a brief moment looked up at me, grinning smugly as his back hooves suddenly encased in crystals. Oh yes, witty one liner time now!

He turned back to face the still panting Phoenix and I couldn't help but let out a small squee. Oh this is gunna be good!

"You should know one thing about my family by now," he said calmly, causing Phoenix to raise his head up from the ground, "Cass may be hard headed like a son of a bitch, but I got one hell of a punch!" Damn it Tim, you screwed up a good one liner moment!

With that, he spun around and bucked. His crystal encased hooves made contacted with phoenix's jaw and I winced. Damn good thing that this game is only around a tenth of the real pain because that looked like it hurt like hell!

Phoenix let out a pained yelp as he was knocked a good five feet backwards and landed on his back. Krieger rushed over towards him and stabbed his sword into Phoenix's belly, earning another yelp of pain from the unicorn. "You should learn to respect your elders," Krieg said with a smug look on his face as he pulled his blade out of Phoenix, but that suddenly was replaced with a shit eating grin when he looked up, "oh and looks like I won."

A large window of text appeared above Krieg, proudly proclaiming:

Congratulations!
You have won the duel!

I turned to Myst, "well... That ended quicker than I expected."

January 29 2020

The arrival of Tim two days ago still hasn't fully sunk in yet. I keep expecting to wake up any second only to find that it's just me, Myst and Phoenix. But that thought is slowly getting pushed to the back of my head.

He seems to be getting along quite well with Myst; Who'da thunk that a dude from Canada and a random welder from Texas could get along so well? But Phoenix is a whole 'nother story.

Yesterday, Tim decided to finally be nice and say hello to my grumpy guss of a friend despite my attempts to keep him from doing so; Brad tends to get rather... pissy when he's upset.

To put it bluntly, they somehow ended up fighting and Tim kicked his flank to the moon! Phoenix, frankly, needed to get his ass whooped if only to take the pyro down a few pegs. Also, Tim is apparently a crystal Mage... or would spellsword be the better term?

Either way, all that seemed to do was just bruise our firebird's ego even more than me screaming my lungs off at him did.

Now that the meat of this entry is outta the way, unto the big news of the day. We arrived in Canterlot last night and HOLY CHRIST this place is massive! I know this is probably just the country bumpkin in me talkin' but this place is insane! This has to be as big as Lancaster or Arlington, maybe even Dallas!

The trip here was rather in eventful. Myst and I sang the Knight of the Round Table song to keep ourselves entertained. But overall the trip was boring with Phoenix looking like he was ready to stab Tim and there was no fights except for some NPC bandits.

Today there is no real goal. We just plan on going about and exploring the city. Hopefully this'll let Phoenix cool down some and stop being such a damn whiner.

Cassius01

I hovered my way over the crowds as I made my way through the Canterlot Market. Thank god I was a pegasus, otherwise I'd be stuck in the crowd below. Pegasus master race for the win!

I hovered for a minute as I opened up my inventory. Hmm, I got some bits to burn, maybe I ought to do a little spending? But what to buy?

My mind immediately shot to Phoenix and his pissy mood at me, and more recently, Krieger. I couldn't help but chuckle as the fight came back to mind. Hmm, maybe I should buy Tim some form of face paint or something so that he doesn't make everyone's eyes bleed? Do they even see that kind of stuff in-game? Well, I'm in the best place to find out!

As I lazily floated about over the market, I scanned the shops below. Okay, that's a weaponsmith, no need for new weapons just yet. There's a alchemical shop, that could have some form of face paint? Hmm, maybe I ought to try a clothing shop? That ought to have something to help or I could always try to talk him into getting a helmet that at least covers his mane. Maybe you that'll stop the ch-

Suddenly a message popped up in my face, I tapped the notification and blinked in surprise, Phoenix had sent me a PM? Why the heck would he eve-

Suddenly three more notifications appeared; all messages from Phoenix? What the hell is going on??

You

Okay, why the hell is he just sending me the word you?!

Are

Oh I see....

A

What's next?

Dick
8====D

I groaned, rolling my eyes. "Oh how mature of you my noble and illustrious companion." With that, I opened up my own message screen and started typing up a response.

Really man? I know you're pissed at me and my bro, but please don't spam me with stupid hate mail.

Besides, you can do far better than You're a dick Brad. If you're going to spam me; at least do it with some standards.

With that, I landed and leaned up against a nearby street lamp waiting for an inevitable reply. Not a minute later, a notification popped up; this time it was a message from Tim?

Umm... I don't really know what to say but your idiot friend Phoenix just sent me a message calling me a insufferable cabbage?

What? Just what?

I sighed; great, now he's making references in his insults. I quickly typed up a message to Tim.

Just ignore it; that's his idea of being clever with his insults.

And as if on cue, Phoenix sent another message just as I sent one to Tim.

I do what I want (>^^>)(<^^<)(>^^>)

I facehoofed. "Damn it, you make me wonder why am I friends with you?"

"Because you enjoy my shenanigan and who else would ever be friends with you?"

I nearly jumped out of my coat as someone spoke practically into my ear and bef- why is everything upside down? I blinked a few times and realized that everything wasn't upside down, I was. And there was a certain white unicorn laughing his ass off on the ground below.

I pulled myself off the pole and made my way back down to the ground as Phoenix finally finished laughing at me, wiping some tears from his eye with a hoof. "You should have seen the look on your face!" He chucked as I finally landed in front of him.

"Goddamn it, man. You want to give me a damn heart attack! You know I don't handle jump scares that well!"

He chucked and nodded, "I know but I couldn't resist such an ample opportunity." Damn you Phoenix, damn you for knowing a decent number of, and God help me, if you tell any of my future p-

"I have a proposal."

Say what now? "What? You want me to say I'm sorry? I was totally justified in yelling at you for that and I won't change my stance." Goddamn it, we could die in here.

"Oh ha ha," he said flatly, "that's not what I meant genius. I have a proposal that will at least help you on the path of me not wanting to go Grazkull Thrakka on you."

"And what might this proposal be? Go do some menial side quest for you? Go buy you a second axe or some other weapon? Give you money?" I swear to god if he says to kiss his ass; I'll jam my gun up his butt so hard he'll need colonoscopy bags till we get out of here.

"I was talking to a guard NPC and he informed me that a lot of merchant caravans have been raided along a particular stretch of the road near Whitetail Wood," he said as he opened up his menu and tapped a few buttons. "The guard asked that we go out to that particular stretch of road and see if we can find any clue to what may be attacking the caravans. He also said that if we can stop whatever's causing it, we'll get extra pay."

I nodded as a message popped up in my face.

Wicked_Phoenix has invited you to a quest. Will you accept?

-Yes
-No

I tapped yes and another message appeared in my face.

Along the Friendship Road
Investigate the site of the most recent attack.

"And let me guess," I said as I closed that pop-up, "you want me to go do it for you?"

He nodded, "yes siree, you overgrown pigeon. With those wings of yours, you can just fly out there and be right back in five minutes without a hitch while it'd take me a bit to hoof it out there."

"And what if it's spiders?" I couldn't help but shudder a little as I mentioned those damnable daemon spawn.

"Don't worry, spiders aren't in Whitetail Wood you big baby," he smirked, "they're only in the Everfree; all that's out there is your generic timberwolf and probably some NPC bandits. Besides if you wanna be that big of a baby, I'm sure Myst will go with you if you ask politely."

"So you want to send me out there because you're too damn lazy to go hoof it out there yourself," I said flatly, "we better get a cut of the bits in the end or you're getting a bayonet colonoscopy."

"The guard said we'll actually get some weapons if we manage to take out the threat," he quickly stated, "if they're shit; we sell them and bat the gold. Easy as one, two, three."

I sighed; damn it, today was supposed to be a relaxing and just look around the city. But this is a chance to finally get the stick out of Phoenix's ass. "Fine, but none of that splitting the money sixty forty crap, we both get fifty fifty even," I glared at him flatly.

He shrugged, "fine by me you bird; you're the one doing the work so you can make the conditions." Oh goody, my lazy as hell best friend can respect labour it lets him do nothing.

"Good, now get the hell out of here you lazy bum," I said, "before I consider dragging you along anyways."

This caused his eyes to widen slightly and I couldn't help but laugh as he hurried off like a dog with its tail between his leg.

I opened up my message board and quickly typed one up to Tim.

Hey bro,

Phoenix decided to pull the stick out of his ass slightly and offered me a way to at least not want him to stab me. He's asked me to go do a quest for him and I'm going to take Myst with me.

See ya when we get back.

I sent the message and got to typing up one to Myst.

Yo dude,

Meet me at the main gate in a half hour. Phoenix has asked me to do a quest for him and suggested you come along too because it's far away and the master race can get there faster than if we brought along his lazy butt.

Cass

And yes I know that's speciesist but I don't care.

Author's Note

Edited by Greycait

Originally supposed to be just a silly slice of life chapter but Nah, adventure set up time! :derpytongue2:

January 29: Never give Myst a Soapbox

"Buttshit," I said flatly, "there's no way you haven't seen them!"

Myst shook his head, "nope, I haven't seen a single Lord of the Rings movie. Not even the Hobbit ones."

"Ehh, those were terrible anyways," I shrugged, "too much CGI for my tastes." There was just some stuff that computer graphics couldn't replace. "But seriously, Fellowship is like twenty years old now and you still haven't watched it?"

He shook his head.

"But your name is flippin' Rohan Myst! How could you not!?!" I could already feel my eye starting to twitch. Yep, this argument was spawned because I finally learned Myst's actual name.

To pass the time, the two of us were asking each other questions about whatever had come to mind: movies, video games, stuff we did outside. ELO definitely had amazing views but I always preferred talking to staring out windows during long car rides and this was no exception.

"You know what: your turn," I groaned. My mind needed a minute to comprehend the stupid I just heard; seriously, how in the hell has Myst never seen the movies despite being named Rohan??

"Hmm... Do you have a special somepony outside?"

I blinked in surprise; okay, I was not expecting that question. "I..... Ummmm...." I can't let him know that yet; time to change the subject now!

"Don't say that?" I quickly replied.

"Say what?"

"We've been here less than a month and you're already going native Myst."

"And that's a problem?" Yes! Operation: Change The Subject is a resounding success!

"Yeah it is, you're not a pony! You're a human trapped in the body of a pony! I know when in Rome is a thing but you're still a man Myst!" Please don't realize that I'm trying to change the subject; please please please don't realize!

"What is a human? Is a human solely the most intelligent hominid? Are you required to have hands, feet, fingers, toes and a lack of fur? Isn't it considered 'humane' to treat animals nicely? Don't we have what we call 'crimes against humanity', and don't we call the most cruel and perverse of our criminals 'inhumane'? Humanity isn't a physical thing. It's a complex result of social interactions, outlooks, beliefs, standards and abstract ideals we all instinctively hold to. Some truly are born from only instinct, others are handed down from one generation to another by observation and tutelage from mentor figures. "

"Umm... Wat?" Great, I've caused a philosophical rant.

"No, my dear Cass, Humanity is not the form or body you are in. Humanity is a state of mind. You think humanity is such a weak thing than using a few terms, little more than monikers and titles, will erode it? I might be a pony outside, but I'm a human where it counts." He tapped his temple. "I'm a human up here. A Russian uses different language and slangs from a Chinese man. Even Canadians and Americans have that difference. And don't tell me a Texan and a New Yorker are the same. But aren't they all humans?"

I groaned, nodding, "can you shut it with the philosophy now? Seriously, you're sounding like my uncle more than anything else!"

"And even if we take on a few things like words or habits that fit our bodies, it won't change the fact that we are humans."

Great, he's not shutting up.

"Humanity isn't a physical thing, it's an abstract, yet concrete, commonality that we all share, something we were born and raised into. No matter how long we are stuck in here for, no matter what we go there, in the end we are still going to be human."

Oh, is he going to stop soon?

"I've got these hooves, these wings, this tail. It's mine right now. Hay, it's more 'mine' than what I was born with. I designed this to be the way I wanted it to be."

I'll take that as a no.

"But it's just a physical shell for my mind. And that is, and always will be human. Barring some mental snap if I got all omnicidal and turn my back on everything that it does mean to be human. But just changing the body and form isn't going to do that. You can be a pony and still be a Human. Consider it a conundrum born of language. outside this world, or bodies are homo sapiens. We were Human, and also sapiens. In here? We are Human and ponies.

"The Human is the mind and outlook. The body is different. It's a challenge of thinking born from the fact that we never really had to think about who were were outside of our physical forms before. Does a war vet who returns after losing his hands and feet to a car bombing stop being Human if he starts using prosthetics and says 'hook me that cup'? If you can't tell him to his face that being disabled, that distorting or losing the body he had made him lose the right to be human, you can't claim I'm denying my Humanity just because I switch to ponyisms."

With that, Myst stopped his existential rant and gave me a smug grin.

"Are you done now Socrates," I asked dryly, eyeing the ground below as forest started stretching about before us, "I'll admit... that is not what I was expecting... " Great, a distraction got me a speech about what it means to be human.

"You wanted philosophy so I gave you what you wanted," he replied simply.

"No, that isn't what I-" Wait a tick, I stopped and opened up my map. "We can hold the philosophical debates for later, we're here," I said, closing my map and looking down at the road below us. And sure enough, there was what looked like wagons on the road below us.

The two of us started to descend a bit and I couldn't help but examine the scenery as we did so. I'm no Sun Tzu but this stretch of road was utterly perfect for an ambush. Trees on both sides of the road with canopies so thick you could only see green and only a rutted track of dirt serving as the road.

"Alright, I'll take the front and you take the back Sarge," Myst said and I nodded, "I'll see if there is some stuff to loot too." No need not to argue when it's just an in and out operation, besides free stuff is the best stuff.

We both touched down at the front of the abandoned caravan and I immediately started making my way back to the rear wagon. In all there were six wagons and thanks to video game logic all of them were in nearly perfect condition. Jeeze Devs, I know this was supposed to a T rated game but you could have at least had some smashed wagons? The contents of the wagons were thrown all over the road at least so there was that.

Trotting over to one of the crates, I cracked the lid open only for a menu to pop up in my face. Only to see that the crate had a loaf of moldy bread, a broom, a bit, and a sweet roll of all things. I quickly pocketed the bit and sweet roll before an idea popped into my head. Mold was used to make medicine does that mean that bread is actually of some worth? "Hey Myst!"

"Yeah Sarge!" I heard him yell back at me from... Wherever he was.

"Is moldy bread an alchemy ingredient! I found some in a box back here!"

"I dunno! Take it anyways!"

I did as our budding alchemist asked of me before moving onto the next crate and opening it up.

......

"We've been here for about fifteen minutes and we've found no evidence of anything at the moment," I said aloud as I sat on the top of one taller crates, allowing the speech to text software to clearly hear everything. Apparently that's what that little mic button on the PM keyboard did; I kinda feel like an idiot for never checking out what that button did in the first place.

"I'm currently performing overwatch, otherwise known as having my ass be the biggest target, while Myst keeps on with the search. This is the site of an ambush so it's best to be safe rather than sorry and I could hit them before him. On the bright side, we seem to have found some alright loot with about two hundred gold and various other crap we can see when we get back to Canterlot later."

I let out a sigh as looked about at the woodland around us; it was peaceful, reminding me a bit of the campgrounds mom used to take us to back as a kid. I couldn't help but frown a little at that; "this place... This place is reminding me of mom Bro. More specifically those camping trips she used to take us on back when I was a kid," I let out a small nostalgic chuckle, "all those summer nights me, you and Danny would get eaten alive by mosquitoes; the rather hands on approach you guys had to teaching me how to swim and mom flipping her lid at ya'll for 'trying to drown me' as she put I-"

"Hey Sarge, did you do any hunting on the outside?!" Myst suddenly called out.

"Yeah, a little bit," I holler back, "did you find something?"

"Just come here." And with that, I minimized the PM screen but left it running as I made my way over to our resident Canadian. He was standing next to the a rather large crate that had been knocked over and bashed to pieces. He waved me over when he saw that I was close and pointed at the ground and I blinked in surprise.

It was an animal track, cleanly imprinted in some flour that had been spilled on the ground. And how could I not know what that track was, it was the only animal that I had actually ever hunted, "De-"

*twang*

"PONY FEATHERS!" Myst let out a sharp scream of pain as an arrow embedded itself in his neck; his health dropping by a quarter. Shit! Shit! Shit! Where did that shot come from!

We both dived behind two of the closest crates as more arrows whistled through the air towards where we were not a moment earlier.

"Shit shit! shit! Where the hell did that shot come from! Myst! Are you okay!" I looked over at him just in time to see the arrow in his next explode into code but leave a ugly red line of code on his coat. "Yeah I'm fine," he groaned, rubbing his neck with a hoof, "that hurt like hell, a tenth of the real pain my flank," he grumbled.

"Okay Myst, I have an ide-"

*thunk*

An arrow slammed into the crate not an inch from my snout and my blood ran cold, "Fucking shit! They're behind us too, Myst! We need to get out of here NOW! Jesus Christ! I almost got shot in the face!!" If that hit me in the head, I'd be dead!!!

"Damn it! We need to get outta here NOW!" In an instant, I spread my wings and gave a powerful flap; sending myself into the sky. I looked down long enough to see Myst getting airborne before I heard an arrow whizz by my ear. Fuck we need to leave now! I started flapping my wings as hard as I aimed myself skyward

"SARG-"

I stopped and spun around on a dime and my eyes widened. Maybe a good ten yards away, Myst was falling back down to the ground frozen like a statue! I immediately started diving down after him; Damn it these cheeky dickwaffles must have paralyzing poison or something like that! I ain't letting them get Mys-

I let out a pained yelp as something stabbed into my flank and I glanced at my backside to see an arrow sticking out of my flank, right in the middle of the wreath. "No way, no goddamn way! These bastards sho-"

I never got to finish that sentence as a yellow lightning bolt appeared above my health bar and I stiffened up like a deer in headlights. And I was falling to the ground face first....

This is goi-

*WHACK*

I let out a pained groan as I found my face in the ditch and my mouth once again full of dirt. A quick glance down at my health bar saw it down at a half. Thank god Phoe- You know what, I'm going to beat the ever living shit out Phoenix the next time I see him! Maybe bust those damn teeth of his in too! He'll rue the day he se-

Something behind me grabbed ahold of my right wing and I let out a muffled scream as I felt something slowly start slicing into my damn wing!

"Ohtar!," a woman's voice snapped from somewhere behind me, "there is no need to torture the prisoner. Just hack it off and be done with it."

"Yes ma'am," a voice, directly over me replied and I let out another yelp of pain as the deed was finished and a red X appeared next to the lightning bolt above my name. Before I could even react, the same was done to my other wing.

"All done ma'am," the voice above me said in an almost happy tone, "what do you want me to do with the pony now?"

"Don't kill him," the woman's voice said, "Lord Aran wants the ponies taken alive. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," he replied, and that was the last thing I heard before everything went black.

Author's Note

Confound their OP archery skills

Febuary 4: A Message is Sent

February 4 2020

Six Days.

It's been six damn days since Chris and Myst went out to Whitetail Wood and we haven't heard a single peep from either since then.

We had spent the first two thinking the two had stopped off in Ponyville (still think that name is stupid as hell) or got sidetracked by doing some manner of side quest. But after hearing not a sound from them or seen hide nor tail, we started to worry.

Thankfully, they aren't dead; we can tell that much. If they we're they wouldn't be on the group's roster anymore. The only damn thing is that we can't find them on either of our maps and they aren't picking up any PMs we've sent. We've both gone to the admins several times and they've given us jack squat. Apparently Discord's been fucking with the game mechanics since he took their power.

Chris' friend hasn't been taking this all too well at all; apparently them flinging your friends into danger is what takes him to finally get scared. Phoenix already looked like he didn't get much sleep as is but now he looks outright on the verge of collapse. To be totally honest, I can barely stand being around the man but he is still my brother's friend so I'll at least try to like him. But the dude doesn't need to throw himself under the bus so damn hard; how in the heck was he supposed to know they'd vanish when they went out there?

Momma, if you are up there, happy late birthday; I've been busy worrying about other things. But second; please keep him safe. If anything were to happen to him under my watch, I honestly don't know what I'd do.

Krieger let out a sigh as he closed his journal as he finished his first. It has been Cass's idea for him to even have one in the first place. 'just in case I don't make it out, someone's gotta know' is what he had told him. And with the disappearance of Cass and Myst, it seemed liked no better time to start.

He let out a dry laugh; he had told Cass that thinking like that was bound to doom yourself and he was right. Krieger was utterly right and he hated it. He sighed as he heard someone coming down the hotel's stairs and looked up to see Phoenix.

The unicorn looked like hell to put it bluntly. Dark bags hung under his bloodshot eyes and he seemed to wobble a little with each step. His focus was entirely on the stairs before him or else he would fall flat on his face. When he reached the bottom of stairs, he looked up at Krieger and smiled weakly. "Hey Warhorse. Do I need to ask?"

"No, not a peep," he sighed, shaking his head. Phoenix seemed to deflate at that; his weak smile dropping into a frown almost instantly.

"Damn it," he sighed quietly. "Must have been a dream then."

Krieg raised an eyebrow, "a dream?"

"Yeah," Phoenix replied, laughing dryly, "they fucking showed up having beat all the bosses with Discord's head on a stick."

Kriger sighed, looking over at the fellow unicorn, "hey, if it makes you feel any better. I don't wanna kill you anymore."

Phoenix laughed dryly at that, "I'm sure Cass wants to kick my ass when he sees me again." He let out a sigh. "Hell, I'd let him kick my ass if it meant them showing up...Just fly through the door and just smack me so hard my jaw crac-"

As if on cue, the door to the hotel opened, casing a beam of blinding sunlight. Phoenix's eyes grew nearly three times as both he and Krieg saw the forms of two ponies in the light, the life seeming to return to the melancholy unicorn. But his spirits were dashed as soon as they were raised as the two ponies stepped inside.

One of them was a green pegasus stallion; his yellow and violet mane having a somewhat girly haircut. The mark on his flank being a cloud bank being cut in half by wind. His ID bearing the name Swift Mist. Phoenix muttered something unintelligible under his breath but from the look on his face, the stallion seemed to be angering him just by his presence.

The second stallion was a lot simpler; a pegasus as well but his coat was coal black and his mane and tail were a few shades lighter with a thin red streak through them. His eyes had this intense look to them that made Kriger cringe a little as he was reminded of several a chewing out by his mother. And the mark on his flank was simply a red asterisk. The ID over him simply read Necus.

"Hello?" Mist asked as walked up to the front desk of the hotel, "do you have rooms available for five?"

As the conversation between the stallion began, Phoenix quietly slipped closer to Kriger and let out a low growl as he plopped down on his haunches. "I swear to God the universe just hates us Warhorse," he hissed quietly, "I mean that guys names is Swift Mist man!"

"This is just coincidence Phoenix," Kriger let out a little sigh, "not everything is the universe mocking us." Yesterday, it had been a unicorn named Caligua and before that a yellow earth pony named Roman Writ.

"His name is Swift Mist and he sounds like a darn Mountie too!"

Kriger just rolled his eyes. "Coincidence, my dear pyromaniac; say it with me 'coincidence'."

"I know Canada is where the show was made and they're aren't a lot of people there so it-"

Kriger just started to tune Phoenix out as he once again opened up his PM window to try and send another message to his brother and Myst when you a notification appeared in his face.

New message sent from Cassius01

"Phoenix! I got a message from Cass!!!!!!" He nearly cheered like a little kid on Christmas morning, his eyes almost bugging out of their sockets as he just started at the pop up.

"Well what the hell are you doing!? Open the damn thing," Phoenix bounced to his hooves in an instant, shoving his head into Kriger's laps so he could read it as well.

"First off, get your damn head away from my crotch!" Kriger said, smacking Phoenix's horn with his forehoof, causing the stallion to retreat from his awkward position. "Second it's a damn audio message so you didn't even have to do that."

With that, Krieg opened the message and it started to play.

At first, all that could be heard was the indistinct sound of voices in the background and the chirping of insects.

"Okay, they're gone, Sarge. Better make this quick before they're back," Myst's voice said before another voice spoke up and Krieger's heart nearly skipped a beat.

"Okay Myst," Cass spoke up before sighing. "We don't have much time so I'll make this quick bro. Me and Myst have been taken hostage by goddamn deer elves!"

"Deer elves!? There was only supposed to be some bandits or Timberwolves the-" Phoenix was silenced with a glare from Krieg.

"And to make a long story short for the sake of time, we got ambushed at the wagon caravan and hit with paralysis poison a-"

"And the buckers cut our damn wings off!" Myst suddenly spoke up, sounding angry as hell.

"Yeah, what Myst here just said. We got our wings cut off and they won't grow back without a restoration potion or in a safe zone. And we're currently in neither so we can't escape."

"Not like that'd even be possible," Myst grumbled, "those buckers were able to pick us out of the sky with an arrow!"

"Look, I don't know where we are but we're somewhere in Whitetail Woo-"

"They're coming back!"

"Shit I gotta end this now! Bro, I love you and come save our asses!"

And with that, the message ended.

The two stallions just silently stared at one another in disbelief. "There's no way that couldn't have been Cass," Phoenix said after a little while. "No way in hell someone can mi-"

"You need help finding your friends yes?"

Krieg jumped in fright as he looked up to see Necus standing there in front of them with Mist a few steps behind.

"What?"

"You need help finding your friends?" the black Pegasus spoke up again, his voice sounding like he was from somewhere in Eastern Europe back in the real world. His intense gaze almost made Krieg want to spill his beans on everything bad he'd done recently.

"We heard the whole thing," Mist spoke up as well, "we can help if you want us to. Meadow and Ace will definitely want to save somepony if they need it."

"Of course!" Krieger said almost as soon as Mist had finished speaking. "We're gunna need all the help we can get to save them! Get as many as you can and meet us at the city gates at noon."

Both Necus and Mist nodded and quickly ran out the door to find their friends. As they did this, Krieger turned to Phoenix, a determined look on his face. "You know any other groups?"

"We did save the asses of one just before you joined up. They were...." He paused, hoof coming up to his chin, "they were... Team Awesome!"

"Good," he nodded. "Get in contact with them and get them to meet us at the wagon site."

With that, Krieger turned about face and started making his way to the door. As he reached the door, he stopped.

"It's time to save my brother," he muttered under his breath as he stepped through the door, a determined look on his face.

January 22: The games begin

I laid my head down on my pillow; the Nervegear was surprisingly light for something as advanced as a virtual reality helmet. But that was just a trivial matter, it was less than a minute till the ELO servers opened! I kept an eager eye on the clock in the corner of the screen, waiting for it to hit twelve noon.

I still couldn't believe that Hasbro of all companies allowed an Fantasy MMO to be made out of one of their biggest cash cows, complete with fangs, magic, the whole nine yards. When my amigos heard about me wanting this game, they thought I had finally gone off the deep end; well, more than before. They said a twenty-three year old shouldn't like pastel colored horses, that it was just a passing fad I should have left behind after high school. But this was going to show them and shove it in their faces!

But I wouldn't be alone in this virtual adventure; one of my closest friends and fellow brony had bought the game too. The two of us would kick some virtual flank together!

As the clock finally stuck noon, I grinned, "Link Start!"

The inside of the helmet began to light up as it's systems booted up and five bars of text appeared.

Sight: Okay
Hearing:Okay
Smell: Okay
Taste: Okay
Touch: Okay

The lines of text disappeared just in time for another text box to blink into existence:

Language: English
Username: Cassius01
Password: *********

The box disappeared as the console signed into my account. Suddenly, my vision went black displaying the most generic Welcome to... screen ever. Once that was gone, I found myself standing in a dark place with only a beam of light shining down in front of me. More text appeared:

Now choose your avatar. Select what pony race you'd like to be:

A small box appeared:

-Earth Pony
- Pegasus
- Unicorn

Huh, no minor races like zebras, changelings, or griffins; I know one guy who's gonna be rather irked about this. I tapped pegasi; might as well go with best pony race.

What would you like your avatar to be?
-Ponified Self
-OC

Ponified Self? What the heck does that mean? I tapped that option, making the box disappear. It was soon replaced by:

Please hold still.

Suddenly, a large beam of blue light shown down on me, reminding me of the transporters from Star Trek. After a few seconds, said light withdrew and like wisps of smoke, it weaved itself into the spot in front of me. The light began to wrap itself up, taking the form of a translucent pony.

After it took shape, the light subsided revealing a dark brown pegasi with an equally dark green mane. Huh, I always expected horse me to be a unicorn.

Please create cutie mark

A new window that looked like photoshop opened. I was utterly garbage at art, so it took a bit; but eventually, a golden victory wreath took shape on the screen. Once I hit the okay button in the window, the cutie mark flew up and stuck itself on the flanks of pony me. I looked at my character,inspecting my handiwork. It didn't look too shabby and the mark was the one I always had on my Ponysona so it made sense for it to be on horse me. The window in front of me changed once again:

Is this design acceptable?

I tapped the okay button and the window blinked out of existence. A bright light suddenly swept through the darkness, blinding me. Before I entered the game, I swore I heard a voice say, "Try not to die," before laughing madly. Wait, this game is rated T; there's no way in hell that would have gotten by the ESRB.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in Ponyville square as other players blinked into existence as they logged in around me.

I let out a low whistle as I looked about; the Devs sure went out of their way to make this place as show accurate as possible. Which is pretty damn impressive considering it's a cartoon. I could see Sugarcube Corner on the far square and a few other buildings that rang a bell.

It was then that I noticed that I was standing on all fours. Looking down at myself, I let out a fangirlish squee that caused my man card to grow a uterus. I was a pony; from the feathers on my wings to the unshaven fetlocks.

I took a step forward and promptly fell flat on my face. Spitting the dirt from my mouth, which tasted like actual dirt I might add, I attempted to get back on my hooves but collapsed again. I really hope Wic-

"And here's the wild brony in his natural habitat," I heard a familiar voice say behind me, in a oh so familiar mock British accent, "let us observe as he attempts to walk like a newborn foal. It's really quite fascinating." Great, I hate when I speak too soon.

"Oh piss off," I said dryly as a dirty white unicorn stallion with a flame on his flanks and a blue mop of a mane trotted up beside me, a shit eating grin on his face. The player tag about his head read: Wicked_Phenoix.

"And it appears the brony has noticed our presence," he continued, "perhaps we should make contact?"

I shakily got back to my hooves, and gave him the most bemused expression I could muster as he just gave me a smile the Joker would be proud of, "drop the accent or I'll headbut-"

*boop*

I fell back onto my haunches as my face derped from the surprise, "I... What... Why?"

"Because I always wanted to boop a pony," he said with the most blank of faces. Well, at least he finally dropped that stupid accent.

We both looked at each other in utter silence for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. And I don't mean a chuckle; no, I mean full blown you're blue in the face laughter. Once finished, I got to my hooves, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"Its great to see you face to face man," I gave him a quick hug, "even if we are candy colored horses."

"And what's with your name? You didn't go with your usual one."

"Some asshat already took it," I said in annoyance. Ahh yes, the bane of every online gamer had struck me: someone stole the name I use for everything. Screw hackers, having to keep up with fifteen separate passwords and usernames is more of a pain in the hindquarters than someone who doesn't fight fair.

"The struggle is real mate," Phoenix gave an understanding nod, "Well, let's go get some equipment."

I nodded in agreement, "yep, and after that, we can go kill us some monsters."

As soon as I said this, a mad grin grew across Phoenix's face, "Blood for the Blood God!" Now there's the crazy bastard I became friends with!

"Skulls for the skull throne!" I took one step and promptly fell on my face, "Damn these pony legs."

It took awhile, mostly due to me constantly falling on my face, but we eventually found the marketplace and more importantly, the weapons vendor.

"Good morning," the NPC shopkeep said, as we both trotted up to him.

"Good mornin' to you too," I returned his greeting with a polite smile, "we'd like to purchase some weapons."

"We'll you've come to the right place then," the AI beamed, "we have everything you'd ever want." And he wasn't joking, the stall was stocked with everything from maces and greatswords to mage staffs and daggers. With that, a window opened up before me displaying what wares he had for sale.

"Okay, what do I want?" I asked myself as I began to shift through his inventory. Mage equipment is out of the question so I scratch robes and staffs off the list. Greatswords and warhammers were a no go as well; if I wanted to be a tank, I would have picked an earth pony. That just leaves ranged and one handed weapons.

I looked over at Phoenix, who was also looking for equipment. "Hey, what are you getting? Don't wanna have two ranged or two up and close fighters."

"'Melee," he replied simply.

Okay, ranged it is then. As I started looking through that category, I spotted something that actually surprised me: a flintlock musket complete with a bayonet. Well, I know what I'm getting; who would expect a rifleman in fantasy game, I know I wouldn't. I tapped the weapon and a new box appeared:

Cavalry Carbine
Cost: 125 Bits

Would you like to purchase?
-Yes
-No

I tapped the yes and felt as something materialize on me; glancing back, I saw said musket and a cartridge pack now strapped to my back.

Okay, I got seventy five bits left; might as well get myself some armor and a backup weapon too. Eventually, I found myself a set of leather armor and a steel dagger. Once my two purchases were done, I turned to Phoenix as a war axe and some form of iron armor appeared on him. "Well look at you Mr. Viking," I said sarcastically, "out to pillage some villages I see?"

He just rolled his eyes, laughing sarcastically, "oh hardy har har; let's just go kill some monsters."

Phoenix burst through the bushes in front of me, panting heavily, "I got one and he is not a happy camper!"

"Just keep out of the way," I said as pulled the hammer back all way, "Don't wanna shoot you by accident... again." Our plan was rather simple: Phoenix would go and attack a monster, whitle it's health down a bit, and then come running back to me; then I'd shoot the baddie in the face. And if that didn't work, I always had my dagger.

As if on cue, a large timberwolf came barreling out of the bushes where Phoenix had been seconds earlier. The monster's health bar was already in the red zone showing that my friend had held up to his end of the plan.

*kablam*

The ball hit the timberwolf square in the snout as it's remaining health disappeared. The wooden canine let out a pained howl as it disintegrated into blue code. "Woo!" I cheered, hopping out from behind my cover, "another successful kill!"

"No thanks to me," Phoenix panted as he came trotting up next to me, "I did all the work." Oh look, who invited Buzz Killington.

Suddenly, a box appeared in front of me:

Level Up!
Lv. 2 -> Lv. 3

"Woo, Level three!" I cheered, flaring my wings as I hoof-pumped.

"Look at you Mr. I got extra XP 'cause I killed the monsters," Phoenix said sarcastically, "be in awe of his amazing shooting prowess."

I rolled my eyes as I reloaded my gun, "look, next fight, you can finish them off ok-"

"HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

Wow, that was utterly convenient. "Well, now is your time to shine Mr. Viking," I smirked, "let's go be heros!" And with that, I charged toward the screams for help.

When the two of us arrived finally found the voice's owner, I had to hold fight back a facehoof. A pegasi stallion who was currently screaming his head off was clinging to the branches of a tree like a cat, while a pair of timberwolves were currently trying their damndest to get another bite out of him. And from the look of his health bar, one more bit and he'd be toast.

But the fact that a pegasi was currently stuck in a tree wasn't the only reason that I wanted to facehoof. The idiot had no weapon; I couldn't see hide nor hair of a scabbard of a quiver! Seriously, did this idiot plan on punching these wolves to death!

"OI BARKBREATH!" Both the wolves turned to the two of us as Phoenix got their attention. There was utter silence as he stared dow-

"WAAAGH!" Phoenix screamed at the top of his lungs as he charged towards the wolves. So much for coming up with a plan.

Taking to the skies, I took aim at one of the wolves and fired. My shot hit it in the leg, earning a yelp of pain and bringing its health down by a sixth. The wolf looked up at me and snarled before it lept into the air, trying to take me down.

The wolf was quite easy to dodge but it still managed to graze my flank; causing a drop that landed my health at about seventy five percent. "Bastard nicked me," I growled as I frantically reloaded while trying to avoid the constantly leaping wolf.

A quick glance over to Phoenix revealed that he was holding his ground quite well against his wolf; leaping out of the way and burning it with fire spells. The wolf was already down to half health and Phoenix hadn't even taken a h-

The timberwolf sank its teeth into my hind leg. I let out a scream of pain as my health bar hit the yellow zone, dropping it past the halfway point.

"I am not a goddamn chew toy," I screamed and started beating the wolf's snout with the butt of my gun. It took several hits but the wolf eventually let me go and fell to earth with a wooden crack, causing it's health to drop into down to half, leaving it stunned.

Seeing an opportunity, I dove straight at the wolf, stabbing it in the chest several times, each wound causing red code to appear. When it was down to its final bit of health, I shot it in the chest.

As the wolf turned to blue code, I looked over to see Phoenix finishing his off with an axe blow to the top of the skull. A window appeared in front of him and an ecstatic grin on his face, "Woo! Level three!"

Ignoring him, I turned my attention to the pony we just saved; who was still currently still clinging to the tree for dear life, eyes clamped shut.

"You can come down now, the wolves are gone now," I said, trying to sound calming instead of annoyed. Seriously, this idiot walks into the Everfree Forest unarmed! That's about as retarded as going to Harlem wearing a bedsheet on your head!

"O-okay," the pegasi stuttered, and began to shimmy his way down the tree. I had to facehoof at that; the nitwit is a pegasus, all he had to do was open his wings and glide down.

Once he reached the ground, I finally for a good look at the guy. He had a bluish gray coat and his mane was two toned with orange and some sort of reddish orange. His cutie mark was a sheet of paper and a quill caught in a swirl of wind. The name above him read: MystRyder.

"Thank you guys for rescuing me," he looked like he was about to collapse.

"First off, no problem man," I gave him a polite smile which was followed by a frown, "secondly, what were bloody thinking coming to the everfree unarmed!"

"I-I am armed, I-I have a sword; it just didn't come out for the fight," Myst stammered, quite thoroughly embarrassed.

"It didn't come out?" Phoenix repeated his words, an unamused expression on his face, "Do you have it equipped?"

Myst opened his inventory and a few seconds later, a sword appeared on his side. The resulting facehoof from me and Phoenix was heard 'round the world.

"You are idi-"

Phoenix didn't get the chance to finish his sentence, because at that moment, the three of us were enveloped by a bright blue light. I couldn't see anything, not the forest, not Myst or Phoenix, not even my own hoof in front of my face.

When the light finally subsided, we were all standing in Ponyville Square. What the heck is going on? Why the hell were we teleported?! I looked about to see myself surrounded by other players who were equally confused. Almost the entire square was filled with bronies, and pinpricks of blue light contined to fill the square as more players were teleported in.

"What the hell is going on?" I muttered, as the flashes of light finally subsided.

"Gamers and Players, May we have your attention please!"

My head snapped up to the sky to see four alicorns flying in the air above us.

The biggest of the alicorn cleared his throat and addressed the crowd, "Everyone, we are the administrators of Equestria Legends Online. We are in cha~" Oh great, admins; who rubbed someone off the wrong way.

"~right now we are experiencing several technical difficulties in the system. One of which, as some of you might have noticed, was the absence of the log out button in your player menu~" Almost immediately, I opened up the menu and my eyes widened. True to their word, the button was most definitely missing.

"~since there is no other way for anyone to leave the game. We do not know the cause for this malfunction, but please bear with us as we try to fix this problem. While we try to find what's causing this, for your own safety, please remain in the Ponyville square for the time being."

The entire crowd burst into conversation. The tone around us was panicked and confused. A pegasi flew up, yelling what everyone was thinking, "What do you mean you don't know what the problem is?!"

The lead alicorn shook his head, "This problem isn't from a lack in the system, so we don't know where the problem might have originated."

Suddenly, the entire square was plunged into darkness and everyone went nuts.But during the chaos of the darkness, another voice chuckled evilly, "Oh, I think that I might know what the problem is."

No, it can't be... My eyes, and I'm sure everybody else's there widened too. I knew that voice; how could any brony not know that voice. Suddenly, lighting struck through the darkness, partially lighting it. The voice swept through the crowd again, "That would be me."

Another crack of lighting sounded, lighting the square completely for everyone to see the source of the voice. Flying high above the crowd was the only and only draconequus, Discord.

Discord laughed evilly at all us below, "Hello, my little bronies." He turned his head towards the admin alicorns who were flying in the air on the other side of the square, "And hello to you, my good administrators."

The lead alicorn glared at Discord, "How can you be the cause of the problem? You are a program in the system that we designed ourselves. You may have partial control of Equestria, but you don't have the power to change the layout of the system completely."

Discord snapped his fingers, making himself vanish. But then he reappeared behind the lead alicorn, "Oh, but you already know the answer to that. You designed me to be exactly like the 'me' in your television show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." He then reappeared in front of some unicorn in the crowd, causing him to jump back a good distance, "That really is a terrible name for a show, don't you think?"

Discord snapped his fingers and reappeared riding on one of the admin's backs, "You see, you gave me control over reality in Equestria. But with this power, I hacked into the rest of the system, giving me power over the entire program." My jaw hit the floor; who's bright idea was that!

"Oh, and to make sure that I stay in power, " He snapped his fingers and in a flash, the admin alicorns' horns and wings disappeared, making them plummet into the crowd below, while Discord still floated in the air.

"Now the admins are just plain earth ponies, and I've also taken power over their admin codes. They won't be able to do a thing to change my world. As for all of you, I will let you keep your wings and horns while you play in a game of mine."

The whole crowd burst into shouting. "You son of a bit-th mpth mir." My eyes grew to the size of saucers as my mouth was literally zipped closed.I looked over to see Phoenix and Myst with zippers for mouths and equally terrified eyes.

"My, I haven't even told you what the game is, and you're already anxious to get started. The game that I have in mind is a bit of a scavenger hunt. I have taken the Elements of Harmony and placed them all in secret hiding places, inside and outside of Equestria. Your job is to find the Elements and use them to reach me. There, we will have a fight to the death. If you manage to retrieve the elements and defeat me, then I will allow everyone to log out."

He lowered his head just over the crowd, "But it won't be as easy as you think, you see I've added a few features to the game. In the original system, if you died in the game, you would instantly re-spawn in thelast town you were in. But that's too boring for me, so I re-wrote the system so when anyone died, their avatar would be lost, and their Nervegear Helmet in the real world will fry their brains. In shorter words, if you die in the game, you will die in the real world."

A collective gasp echoed through the crowd. I looked over to see Pheonix practially turn bioluminecent.

Discord laughed as he drew a line across his neck, making his head slide off of his neck and into his hand. The dismembered head laughed as it looked down at the terrified crowd, "No need to lose your head over it." He began to laugh even more, "And also, if there is any tampering with the helmet in the outside world, the helmet will kill the player instantly. Actually, quite a few of players have already died this way."

As if to accentuate the point, a unicorn in front of me disintergrated into blue code. Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! My family is gonna unintentionally vegitibalize me!

Discord continued, "Now, in this game, there are a few rules. First, you cannot receive help from the outside world, that is, if you can even manage that. If I catch anypony communicating to the outside world, all of you will die. Second, any tampering with the system from inside the game, the rule-breaker will die instantly."

Discord chuckled, "And just so you know, I have a couple of monster friends who want to go out of their designated areas, so I'm letting them roam a bit. Maybe you'll meet them when you go out of town, but they won't follow you into a city or town. They hate crowded places."

"But a few of you might have thought, 'There's only six elements, so this will be easy.' Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble," Discord suddenly, belched out a bubble that was bigger that the length of his body. In all honesty, I would have laughed if I wasn't crapping my pants in terror. "But I thought that only six elements would be boring. So I added four new elements." He poked the oversized bubble with a claw, causing it to burst and reform into ten smaller bubbles. "They will be hidden all over Equestria, but they will be guarded by my favorite kinds of monsters, just like a boss of each element. If you find the element, and defeat its guardian in a boss battle, then you may walk away with it in hoof. But I must warn you, my guardians are no push-overs."

Lighting struck again behind Discord, "Well, there you have it. So just remember, your lives are on the line, not mine." He laughed loudly, making lighting strike behind him again, "So, my little bronies, let the games begin!" The sky suddenly was filled with thunder and lightning, blinding everyone as Discord cackled maniacally. When the lightning subsided, Discord was gone, only his laughter echoed through the streets of Ponyville.

The entire square was silent. After a few seconds, Phoenix turned to me, "I.... What... Just what!?"

Author's Note

Wicked Phoenix belongs to my friend 1020853
MystRyder belongs to graycait

Edited by tut895

January 23: The legend is born

*poke*

I let out a groan.

*poke poke*
"Come on Cass, wake up."

"Go away Myst; I'm tryin' to sleep."

*poke poke*
"You told me we were going to do some training."

I cracked open my eye and quickly opened my menu, "at six in the damn morning!? Go bother Phoenix or something."

"I tried," I heard Myst say as I slammed my eyes back shut, "he threw a fireball at me."

I chuckled, "Yeah, totally sounds like him." Phoenix was the antithesis of a morning person.

*poke*

"You're not going to stop are you?"

*poke*

"Nope."

I sighed, "You better have a damn good bribe lined up."

"I'll buy breakfast."

Damn, that's a good one. "Will there be coffee?" That was the one thing necessary for my brain to function before noon.

"Probably."

My stomach grumbled as if to support his point. Damn traitor, I thought you were on my side. "Fine," I groaned, "just give me a sec."

.....

"I swear to God if there's no coffee there, I'm going to shove my gun where the sun don't shine and give you a bayonet prostate exam," I grumbled as I shuffled along like a zombie as we made our way down the street.

Sadly, the inn that we rented our rooms at didn't sell any form of food. But luckily for Myst's hindquarters, he had suggested that we try Sugarcube Corner.

Myst laughed nervously, "you wouldn't do that would you?"

I just gave him a flat look that screamed 'try me'. Like Phoenix, I was not a morning person... Just less severe than him.

As we continued to make our way to the bakery, I began to notice a few things despite my brain not running on all pistons. There were a few other players up at this god forsaken hour; most of them were shuffling about much like I was, probably in search of the black nectar of the gods. Aside from that, the atmosphere around town seemed... somber; a far cry from the happy go luckiness of yesterday.

I frowned; yesterday seemed like it should have just been a bad dream. That I should have woken up earlier back in my apartment, laughed it off and gone about my day. But sadly that was not the case. We were stuck here; we could die here. I might never see my family again. My heart sank at this. I might never get to see my nephew Kyler go to his first day of school, hug Mema or eat her amazing barbecue. Oh god, I won't be able to eat meat; that's heresy to a Texa-

I felt someone place a hoof on my shoulder; looking over I saw that it was Myst. He gave me a sympathetic smile, "Cass, we're all feeling the same way," and he then hugged me.

I couldn't help but freeze up, "ummm Myst, what the hell are doing?!"

He broke the hug as if I backhanded him, "I... You.... You looked like you needed a hug," he gave me an awkward smile.

"If you speak a single word of this to Phoenix, that prostate examination will become a reality," and I gave him a quick hug back.

When we arrived at Sugarcube Corner, a message appeared in front of me.

MystRyder has sent you a gift.
-Accept
-Decline

"It's the bits for breakfast," he informed me as I tapped accept and received ten bits. When we stepped inside, the bakery was basically abandoned except for a NPC behind the counter. I was happy that there was none of the mane six in this game; Pinkie would have just gotten on my nerves. There was a time and place for her cocaine-esque hyperactiveness and now was most definitely not the time.

"Why hello there my fine young stallions," the NPC beamed as we trotted up to the counter.

"Do you have coffee?" I asked, getting straight to the point.

The NPC chuckled, "not much of a morning pony I see?"

I nodded as I began sifting through his inventory, heading immediately towards the drinks. My perpetual frown was replaced with a smile when I saw the divine nectar of the gods I was longing for and only for one bit too!

After buying myself two cups, I started looking through the food. Flapjacks... Nah; oatmeal... Not unless it's brown sugar; oats.... God no; fruit... Nah.

It was on the next item that the angelic choir began playing as I let out a squee filled giggle of delight, "yes yes yes yes yes!" It was there; that glorious meal that was as much a staple of my diet as beans and cornbread was though far less stinky. The breakfast that I couldn't live without: Biscuits and gravy.

Quickly buying the food, it materialized next to my coffee on a tray. But this left me with a new question: how the hell do I get this to a table without hands? "Hey Myst, any clu- Well, that answers that question," I said as I saw him bite down on the rim of his tray and began to make his way over to a table.

"Okay, you can do this," I muttered before biting into the tray. I'm are not going to spill all this painfully hot coffee all over myself. Such an incident would be extremely painful and a was-

"You going to hurry up and start eating?"

Myst's voiced knocked me out of my trance, causing all the tray to slip. And all the coffee to splash directly on my face.

The resulting scream screaming probably woke up half the town as I immediately dropped to the ground, screaming every swear under the sun that I knew of.

"That lasted nearly five minutes," Myst stated, a concerned look on his face, "I'm both impressed and disturbed."

I just glared at him, "This is why I don't get up early." After the whole incident, we had decided to simply skip breakfast and just get straight to training.

"Well, what's the plan Cass?" Myst asked as we trotted towards the edge of town, heading towards the Everfree.

"First off, we what is your equipment?"

"Crossbow and a sword." Okay, so long range and close up. That should make this training rather simple; just go aggro some ground based monsters and let him deal with it.

"Okay, I have a plan," I told him, "how good are you at flying?"

"F-flying?"

"Yeah flying," I deadpanned, flaring out my own. "We're pegasi, that's kinda what we do."

"I... I don't know how to fly."

The resulting facehoof could be heard heard 'round the world. "This just got far more interesting," I muttered to myself before turning to Myst, "open your inventory," I ordered.

He did as I ask.

"That's your flying manual. You got five minutes." I grinned; time to prepare Sergeant Dornan.

"Are you a bird or a maggot, maggot!"

"What??"

"I said: are you a bird or a maggot, maggot!"

"What?"

"Do they speak what where you're from?"

"I'm from Canada sir!"

"I'm not a sir! I work for a living; you will address me as Cassius!"

"Yes sir Cassius Sir!"

"Now answer the damn question...Maggot!"

"I'm a bird sir!"

"Thats right maggot! Now drop and give me fifty wing ups!"

"Sir yes sir!" Myst yelled and dropped down, doing the exercises.

I couldn't help but smirk at my now exercising compatriot. Damn if I wasn't good at yelling at people. If I wasn't such a nerd, I could see myself being a drill instructor. I rubbed my throat; though it does tend to screw my throat over rather badly.

After watching Myst do twenty wing-ups, I sighed. "You can stop now man," I said, my voice sounding really raspy. Damn, was it possible to blow out your voice box in this game?

Myst collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily, "y-you sure you aren't a marine?"

I shook my head, a shit eating grin on my face, "nope, just a 23 year old getting a degree for graphic design. Though don't expect anymore of that for a few days unless you want my vocal cords to explode."

Myst frowned, as he got to his hooves, "damn, I was hoping for a way to get back at Phoenix for that fireball."

"I've tried it before back home and it didn't work," I chuckled to myself at the memories, "let's just say that he has one hell of a throwing arm and bibles hurt like hell."

"Well, what's the plan for me, Drill Sergeant Cassius?"

"You're going to take out some mobs," I said simply, "equip your crossbow and follow me," and with that, I took to the skies.

......

"I got some targets for ya!" I hollered as I as I sprinted into the clearing that Myst was waiting in, four timberwolves hot on my hooves. My plan was basically the same as the one yesterday except Myst was in my place while I was the bait.

Looking up, I saw him hovering about ten feet off the ground, crossbow armed and waiting. Taking to the sky, I flew up next to him as the wolves began to circle below us like sharks.

"There was five but he got a little too close for comfort," I panted, gesturing to my health bar which was now down an eighth. Myst simply shrugged as he took aim and fired at the weakest of the pack; it exploded into blue code as his bolt struck it in the head.

A few minutes later, as the last wolf burst into code, a message box appeared in front of Myst, "Woo! Level three!"

"Well, I'd call that a good training session." Can't have Myst being weaker than me and Phoenix would only hold our little group back.

"Let's get back to Phoenix; I think he might be awake by now."

"Astartes?"

"Nope, that's been taken," I shook my head. When we arrived back at the inn, we Phoenix up and waiting for us.

"Cadian?"

Nada.

"Armageddon?"

"Taken."

"Custodes?"

I gave Phoenix a look, "We are not janitors with submarine heads," I said bluntly before turning to Myst, "Any ideas for a group name Myst?"

"Names huh? Um... Trine, Crest, Curried Chicken, Valley Forge, Spearhead, Chicken Wings, Adamant... Noble Aspirations, Blue Moon, Timberwolf, Fried Chicken, Bound Destiny, Quasar, Brave Fools, Living Cowards, Invincible Idiots..."

Both me and Phoenix turned to our canadian friend, "What's with all the chicken based names?"

'"I miss chicken..." he pouted.

"We've only been here one day," Phoenix said flatly.

"Well, I kinda like the Invincible Idiots," I spoke up and typed it in the group creator, "Bullocks, it has to be one word."

As we all sat around thinking up new one word team names; Phoenix mostly thinking of stuff related to Warhammer and Myst spouting out more chicken related things. My own thoughts traveled elsewhere; our group consisted of a firebug obsessed with the far future, a noob who nearly got killed because he had no idea how to equip his weapon, and myself. I laughed a little; it was almost like the old Bad Company gam-

"THATS IT!" I cheered as the eureka moment hit me.

"What's it?"

"The misfits; that'll be our name! I mean look at it: we are the three guys you'd never expect to be able to work together."

"I dunno," Phoenix frowned, "sounds kinda insulting...."

"I think it's got a nice ring to it," Myst said backing me up.

"Sorry mi amigo, majority rules," I said as I typed in the name on the group creator. Soon, messages appeared in front of Phoenix and Myst.

Cassius01 has invited you to join Team Misfits.
-Accept
-Decline

They both tapped yes and I got a message.

Wicked_Phoenix and MystRyder have joined Team Misfits.

"We may not be the heroes Gotham wanted but we're the ones they got at the dollar store."

Author's Note

Edited by graycait