Chapter 1: Ride of my life.

Everything around me felt like...nothing. I couldn't see, hear, smell, feel nothing, I could only think. It was peaceful. It felt like running down a hallway that seemed to have no end, no doors, nothing, only one way and back.

It wasn't until I noticed a familiar silhouette that began to fade in, I remembered I was playing a game. Any Brony would have easily known the first figure you saw once you entered the game. Celestia was a beautiful creature, even more so than she was betrayed in the show. Meeting with her eye to eye left me in awe. Her colors were flowing and bright. I wanted to just keep staring at her and the warm light she filled in my chest, but her soothing voice broke me out of my train of thought.

"It's time to wake up....youngling."

I figured her pause was due to the fact that I was quite a bit older than most the first players she had already seen. I had actually taken the day off for today, and my limited edition copy of the game was available before the stores were even open. As far as I remembered, I was the only person who had double digits in his age out of the other nine who won the game alongside me at Bronycon.

I nodded and it surprised me how easily I could move in this virtually reality. I didn't realize I had already become a pony until my mane had flipped over my eyes. I'd never had long hair before, but I could understand why people with long hair flipped their heads so much.

Celestia laughed when she saw me fidgeting with the bit of mane that found its way in my mouth. I wasn't use to having this kind of length of hair. My body felt weird all over, like I had just received an overdose of too many muscle relaxers. I knew it'd be awhile until I got any sort of feeling back into my body at the beginning of the game, like I had read in the instruction manual.

Shocking, right? Someone who actually read the instruction manual of a game console. Forgive me, but I didn't want to place a giant ass microwave on my head without learning how it works. Ironically, I figured this thing could kill me.

After flipping my mane back and forth around the back of my neck and over the right of my shoulder, I addressed myself to Celestia, but she already knew who I was. To my surprise, I didn't know Celestia was capable of reading my mind, as well as being the first character I meet in the game.

Even more to my surprise, she conjured up a mirror with her magic to show me how I looked. I was actually impressed with what the developers had done. They somehow had found a way to search my mind and design me as my own main OC pony. Every detail was right. I figured it must have been easy to design my character since I kept him fairly show accurate. I had the same long golden super saiyan 3 inspired mane I had designed. The same silver eyes I gave him. Hell, I even got the same cutie mark I created for him.

I thought about the Bronies who bought the game and had created alicorns in their imagination. Alicorns weren't an available race to play in the game. I felt bad for the poor bastards, but I guess it gave them the chance to be a bit more original. Plus, with the limited million available players allowed to play at the moment, I begged and prayed for originality from the other players and hoped everyone, or everypony I should say now, was unique in their own way.

Again, Celestia's soothing voice broke me out of my concentration again. I don't know if she was fed up with me zoning out every sixty seconds, but if she was, she had one hell of a poker face.

"Are you ready for your first task?" Celestia asked me.

Admittedly, I was relieved the programmers didn't make her say mission or quest. After awhile of playing so many RPG games, mission and quest are kind of overused, but I'm not complaining all that much about it.

If I had remembered that Celestia could read my thoughts, I would have kept them to myself.

She smiled at me and said, answering the question in my head, "I'm allowed my own canvas of personal dialog, Nimbus, very much like the rest of the NPCs in this world."

Okay, so two things. Number one, Celestia had called me by my OC's name without me telling her. I nearly had a fan-gasam in my pants. Second, the freaking characters in this game could speak for themselves? That was a feature I had not expected to see here. I had always had anticipated such a thing, but I thought I'd be a meal on wheels by the time that age of gaming came around.

I nodded again to her. I had barely said a word to her our whole time together, but how could I? I was at lost for words. This was my own slice of heaven, I didn't ever want to leave her....at first.

I don't know of anypony who could have held up a smile for as long as Celestia had, but she kept it up even as she told me, "Are you ready to meet your Friend Spawn?"

A Friends Spawn was a companion that came with the limited edition of the game, whose only purpose was to assist in the adventurers travels all across Equestria and beyond. Unlike the other companions and NPCs in the game, the Friend Spawns had no cutie marks and little to no personal back story for their unique character. They were basically grunts, soldiers for war and nothing more.

"Your Friend Spawn." Celestia started. "Her name is Mammatus, and she-"

My laughter at my Friends Spawn's name had tears coming from my eyes. Despite the unamused look Celestia had given me for being so uncivil, I continued to holler out in laughter until my stomach stopped hurting. For those unaware of the joke, Mammatus is a type of cloud described to look like...well boobs! If Mammatus was as unique as Celestia, I looked forward to interacting with her....and calling her "Boobie".

I know, I know, I'm a child.

After I finished my outburst of rolling laughter, Celestia continued, "Mammatus"

I couldn't help but smirk at the mentioning of her name again.

"Mammatus is waiting for you in the Ever-Free Forest with the rest of your Circle of Friendship gear. She is eager to meet your acquittance."

I couldn't help but wonder if every person who got a copy of the Limited Edition of the game had a companion of the opposite sex. I had never heard anything about it, but I did know they had gender recognition in the X-Nerve-Station so there were no G.I.R.L.s (Guy In Real Life) in the game.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know before you go?" Celestia asked me. She must have been through talking to me, because before I could even open my mouth to speak I began to ascend upwards and got myself transported right at the edge of the Ever-Free Forest.

I don't know if it was part of the task or not, but I was left pretty high and dry on where I was supposed to go. I knew Mammatus had to be in here somewhere, but where? I knew every beginning player was fairly safe from high level characters in the Ever-Free Forest if they didn't go past Zecora's hut. Beyond that, it was highly dangerous and filled with dangerous high level characters.

I opened up my menu with a swipe of my hoof and my mind, trying to find anything that I could to help me navigate. No map, nothing. I figured I could fly and hopefully have Mammatus see me. I opened up my wings and stayed in a crouched open wing position for quite awhile. I didn't move an inch off the ground. I didn't know how to. Never having wings before, I didn't exactly know how to fly, and I never really payed or understood how birds flew.

I gave myself a few flaps, but all that was doing was making me look stupid. My wings were absolutely uncoordinated. The left one would move before the right wing could and vice versa. It wasn't long till I got frustrated and started to throw a fit by picking up a pine cone and throwing it into the wall of the Ever-Free forest.

The pine cone sank into the maze of trees and was soon followed by a bell sound. Apparently, I had gotten a skill up in my throwing capabilities by "blind shooting" a target I didn't know was there. Somehow, by blindly throwing the pine cone, I made direct contact with a target of some sort. At first, I thought I had encountered my first enemy, but that thought was thrown away when I saw a small delicate mare with a red coat and a short yellow mane stumble her way towards me.

It was fear at first sight, this crazy ass looking mare could have inflicted damage on me with the glare of hers. She was pissed. She flared her wings at me, which I happened to notice had cute white tips on the feathers. The eye shadow she wore was a deeper and more hellish shade of red than her coat.

She kept her hoof cupped over the left eye I had hit with the pine cone. She looked at me and huffed "You're supposed to say Hi!"

Now, I don't know what bug crawled up this mare's butt and died, but I'll be damned if I was going to let her talk to me like that without me kicking her ass....or by the look of rage in her eyes (or eye I should say) the tides could easily turn to her favor. Having no familiarity with the the complex combat of this game, I did what any sensible pony would do. I smiled like an idiot and gave the strange mare an even stranger wave as I said, "uhh sorry about that Ms. ..."

"Mammatus"

And of course, the first pony I attack is my personal Friend Spawn. This game was definitely bringing me into the right direction. I knew karma was going to bite me in the ass soon. I just hoped she was gentle about it and didn't break the skin. Just like the Circle of Friendship level items, your Friend Spawn leveled up along with you. Which meant as soon as Mammatus got strong enough, she would probably get me back for the pine cone.

I sighed at Mammatus "I'm....your adventurer. The guy...you're supposed to...I'm Nimbus." I held out my hoof for friendly hoof bump.

Mammatus's response to my gesture was anything but friendly. She grabbed my hoof with her opposite hoof and performed an arm bar (or is it leg bar?) take down on me, or at least she tried to. I knew myself around these sort of techniques. I rolled chest into the arm Mammatus had a hold of and she ended up falling over on top of me when I fell backwards. I ripped my arm away from her loosened grasp and pulled her head into my chest with my hooves clasped tightly around the back of her head.

Mammatus began to freak out from the improvised hold I had around her head and the back of her neck. She squirmed, squawked, kicked , and flapped her wings around furiously. I tried to hold her there until she calmed down, but she wasn't going to let up anytime soon. I whispered into her ear "Look, we got off to a bad start. I'm gong to let go, but you have to promise me that you won't hurt me, ok?"

Mammatus understood my terms perfectly and stopped scurrying around like a rat who got his tail stuck on a trap. She let her breathing calm down and relaxed herself onto the rest of my body.

I chuckled as I let go around the back of her head. It wasn't until she picked her head up off my chest and stared at me that I realized her eyes were a magnificent color of jade green.

She let me know that she noticed me admiring her with a slap to the right side of my face.

"Don't do that!" , She snarled at me. I swore I could seen some foam leaking from the bottom of her mouth.

And just like in real life, my luck with females in this virtual reality seemed about the same. I'm sure if she had her way, she would have hit me again and left. Sadly on her part, she was sworn to be by my side all throughout this adventure.

I looked all around and so no sign of my equipment or any indication of where it could be. I was seriously beginning to doubt this was the mare I was even supposed to meet. It took poor Mammatus a good minute to finally read and understand the look of suspicion on my face.

"You're wondering where your stuff is aren't you?" Mammatus asked me. Her tone hardly seemed happy with that fact she was my Friend Spawn.

For about the seven hundredth time today, I nodded in response. "Yeah, Celestia said you'd be here with it." I looked behind her one last time, hoping to see a chest of some kind. There was no chest or anything behind her. Hopefully, I hadn't won a fault copy of the game.

Mammatus opened up her menu the same way I had. The menu hovered in front of her face in 3- D images. She used her hoof to access some panel I couldn't quite read backwards properly. Her gaming menu folded back down to a single panel and faded away when she withdrew two bags of some sort in front of her from her in-game inventory.

She gestured to the two bags in front of her. One bore the same image as my own personal cutie mark while the other was initially blank. "I hope you're smart enough to figure out which one is yours."

I felt like playing stupid with Mammatus. "Oh, yeah, yeah....it's the blank one, right?" I asked her like a virgin asking his buddy, who always got laid, about sex.

Not surprisingly, Mammatus wasn't buying anything I was trying to sell her. She bit down on the soft handle of my bag and threw it at my head. I saw the bag coming a mile away and dodged out of the way like it was a piece of loose single sheet of paper. I heard the same ringing bell sound again. By dodging out of the way of my own equipment, I leveled up on my dodging skill. If leveling up was going to be this easy throughout the whole game, it wasn't going to be long until I became the pony version of Muhammad Ali . I knew leveling up wasn't going to be this easy once I progressed farther into the game. I had already read all I could about it.

There was a vast number of skills the player could focus on. The coolest thing was that not all of them were combat related. There were even skills for players who wanted to play the role of being a bar tender at a tavern. If you saw the occupation in the show you could definitely bet every last dollar you spent on the game that you could play that same role. There were even jobs and opportunities that were even featured in show, yet.

I made a pouty face at Mammatus. "Aww, why you so-" I had pushed Mammatus's buttons a little harder than I had intended. Not even after ten seconds of digging in her own personal bag, Mammatus had found a potion bottle. Only Mammatus was capable of turning an item that was designed to save the player into a deadly weapon. The bottle struck me between my eyes and impacted a huge stinging pain right above my nose.

Now, I'm not a whimp or anything, I'm quite the opposite, but that bottle attack left me whining in pain for a good while. Laugh all you want, but there's nothing painless about getting hit by a bottle made out of crystal.

It was good to finally see Mammatus cracking a smile, I just wished her first smile hadn't been because she was amused by seeing me in agony. She nudged me with a wing and asked "If you're done crying, could you go ahead and tell me what sort of class you want me to role?"

Just like all the players, Friend Spawns were allowed open classes as well. Though, the designers created a few preset stats and unofficial classes to help everyone get an idea of what was available. Out of all those preset classes, there was one that had stole my attention from the rest.

"Are you cool with rolling as a Storm Guard?", I asked Mammatus. I don't think Mammatus could really be given the option to say no to me, but after seeing her face light up, I think I suggested a she personally liked. She was probably hiding most of her excitement from me, but I had basically given her what she asked Santa for .

Now, while every pegasus could use the gust ability, which did a very small amount of damage while temporarily blinding your target up to four seconds, the Storm Guards got a pretty cool added boost to their gust ability. The Storm Guard's gust did a significantly larger amount of damage as well as temporarily disabling the target from combat up to thirty seconds, disrupting all charged spells and channeled abilities . If the target, however, was struck while they were trapped in the Storm Guards gust, they broke from the gust and entered back into combat.

"It would be my pleasure." She tilted her head. Luckily, Mammatus already knew( more than I did)what type of equipment she should set herself with for the Storm Guard class. The Storm Guards had a choice of special armor that seemed to take a lot from the Wonder Bolts recruit flying uniform. The material looked pretty breathable and fit sung around Mammatus's entire body, all the way up to her neck, just below the chin. I think it was some sort of durable reinforced nylon. With the way Mammatus moved and flew around, I could tell the outfit was definitely light and comfortable.

I didn't know too much about it's protective properties though. It might have given her some protection to slashing attacks, but I don't think Mammatus would react too well if she got struck by a blunt weapon, like a mace or club. Hopefully, she was agile enough so I wouldn't have to worry about her.

I chose out my armor a little after watching her settle herself into her newly appointed class. I was allowed to wear plate armor that completely covered my entire back, ribs, and front side. It was much like the armor Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash wore when they were jousting in the "Crystal Empire" episode, except my steel plated boots shielded my legs a lot better.

The weight of the armor was about as I had anticipated, but it was still surprisingly heavy. Mammatus saw me trying to get adjusted to the weight of my armor and asked "Are you going to have problems with that type of armor?"

"Nah, I've actually trained in almost this same amount of weight." I had accidentally opened a door for Mammatus to get into my personal life, and she walked right in.

"Really? Don't tell me you're actually a knight in your world." Mammatus had her doubts that I actually wore armor like this before.

While, technically I never have worn legit plate armor, I had about the same concept in my career, or the career I used to have I should say.

"Not like this, but almost similar." I told her. I gave her a very vague description of what I did for a living.

Even though she was just an NPC in a video game, I really didn't want to share those kind of facts of my life with her just about now. I had no idea if she was asking out of complete curiosity or not. I felt like a bit of a dick for giving her such a cold answer, but I didn't want her to go back and start telling the developers what I did for a living, so they could fill my email with stupid spam notifications that tell me how much the girl in my town named "Ashley" wanted to meet me for drinks this Saturday....fucking online dating sites.

Mammatus took my reply a little personal, but said nothing about it and just glared at me with those beautiful jade color eyes of hers.

Thank you, Hasbro, for assigning me a companion that was the complete opposite of me. Then again, opposites DO attract.

Mammatus punched me in the under part of my wing that was unarmored by the Wing blades. "You think you're ready to learn how to fly, cowboy?"

I jumped a little from the nick name Mammatus gave me. "How did you know I was from Texas?" I didn't think Mammatus was able to read my mind like Celestia could. If so, why didn't she say or do anything when I called her a bitch in my head after she slapped me.

Mammatus had absolutely no idea where or what a Texas was. "I didn't...." She confessed.

"Oh..."

Oops. That was going to be the last bean I spill about my personal life. Now she knew where I lived, but I didn't think too much into it since she probably couldn't even find Texas if I gave her a map of the U.S.

Mammatus picked at a bit of dirt in her hoof before saying "So...yeah...flying."

"Yes, could you be my teacher?" I couldn't have sounded any more of pansy if I had tried.

At least Mammatus was finding some humor out of all this. She had that smile again. It was the kind of smile you always wanted to see even if you knew the joke was on you....no, I'm lying. I hate that stupid smile. It made me feel like a squirrel being chased by a vulture. I have no idea if vultures chase squirrels , but you catch my drift.

Mammatus flashed out her wings in front of me, with the tips pointed high to the sky. "Okay, Nimbus"

Thank Celestia she stopped calling me cowboy.

"The first step to flying is confidence!"

***
So after about like a thirty minute tutorial of flying, and Mammatus smacking me across the head, I was finally able to soar in the air and let the wind blow across my face. My mane flew through the hair freely. There was no boundaries in the air. Metaphorically, there was nothing in the air to pull you down or prevent you from going higher...or at least I thought so until Mammatus stopped suddenly and back kicked me in the face when my nose dove into her butt.

I asked her, while holding my nose to stop the blood from flowing, "Why'd you stop?"

Mammatus was acting incredibly weird. She was shivering, scared. It had seemed like she was almost lost and forgotten how she got to where she was at that very moment.

I asked her again "Mammatus, why'd we stop? Is something wrong?" Obviously something was wrong, but I still felt it was a vital question to ask.

"I'm supposed to know everything there is about every task we do from level one to ten, but now...."

"...but now?" , I repeated. There was no need for the suspense, but it sure as hell sent a shiver down my spine and to the tip of my tail.

"Now...I know absolutely nothing about the task we're on. It's all...gone! All the information is just gone!" Mammatus grabbed my armored shoulders and penetrated my comfort zone a lot deeper than I liked her to. I didn't like her forcing herself onto me.

"Launch days." I shrugged, as I talked casually to her. "I'm sure it's just a glitch or something. There's nothing to get worried about. They'll patch it sooner or later."

Both Mammatus and I received a notification ring that displayed right above our heads. I figured it must have been sent to everypony on the server, so I assumed it was vitally important. If this notification was at all related to Mammatus's missing information then it she must not be the only NPC going through the same thing.

Before either one of us could open our menu to see the notification, both our bodies started to ascend higher than they already were as we were being transported to some other geographic location. I reached my hoof out for Mammatus, She was the only who had an idea of what was going on, or supposed to. If I had known this was going to be the beginning of something much bigger than a simple game glitch, I would have waited a few days after the launch to play the game. It was too late for that now. I just hoped wherever we were being transported would help explain to us what was going on.

***
We arrived in Canterlot, almost in the front row of the crowd at the Canterlot castle. Something was definitely going down. It seemed like everypony in the Equestrian continent had gotten transported here. I only assumed that all the other featured continents in this game probably had everyone else transported to their own capital cities.

The other continents featured in the game were Sorrow Wing, Sky Ring, and The Hive. While any race could reside and explore any continent they wanted , each continent consisted of five main playable species in 'Questria: Online.

As you probably would have figured, Equestria consisted of the Earth ponies, the Pegasai , and the Unicorns. The other species were the Griffins, Diamond Dogs, Dragons, and the Changelings, each one belonging to their own continent and capital, except for the diamond dogs who shared their land with the Griffins.

Each continent had one goal, reach the middle island of the "Island of the Lost". It's not as simple as flying or floating a boat over to the island. The island is surrounded by a magical shield, much like the one casted by Cadence to keep King Sombra from entering the Crystal Empire, and there's only one entrance onto the island and it's blocked by a door with four different sets of 25 keyholes. Each set is designed and specific to the surrounding continents. Only by defeating all 25 bosses on their own continent can the species hope to open the door. As long as one set was complete, the door would open.

I could barely hear myself think with all the wild chatter going on when Mammatus and I entered Canterlot. All I heard was a blend of crying voices and frightened calls for help. I had to give the ones who reacted the exact opposite some credit for keeping it so cool. Mammatus was still a bit shaken up from losing all of her knowledge, but she seemed to be doing better when she left me to talk to another pony she was familiar with. Narrowing down the amount of other players she might have spoken to, which was none, I figured the pony she was talking to was a companion as well. Unlike Mammatus though, this companion had a cutie mark, which meant he was either a simple quest companion or a mercenary for hire.

I took another closer look at Mammatus's blank flank. I thought about how she must feel to see so many other ponies who knew their destines. I wasn't too different from Mammatus in this subject. The majority of my friends and family members around my age had their lives set ahead of them way before they even became young adults. I, on the other hoof, just did things as they came along, letting the water running currents of life carry me wherever they took me. Mammatus probably felt the same each time she saw a cutie mark.

Behind me, I felt somepony, another player, bump into me pretty roughly. A little too hard for it to be an accident, but it wasn't a hostile shove either, unless this pony was incredibly weak. Obviously, they were trying to get my attention, so I gave it to them.

When I turned around, I faced a little pink Unicorn that seemed too out of place in such an action packed MMORPG. Her face was really soft and she speak even sweater. I was too busy trying to analyze her that I had to ask her to repeat her question.

"I said, did your emails stop working too?", the pink Unicorn asked me again.

" I never got around to setting that up to begin with." I told the Unicorn rather harshly, letting her know I thought connecting your email and Facebook with a video game console was a stupid gimmick.

"Oh..." Was all the Unicorn had to say. Yep, great start on making friends. Won't be too long till we're singing about the ponies and the wrapping up of winter.

As if having a one mare I wanted to ignore wasn't enough, another one, her friend by the looks of it, came right along beside her. This new pony was definitely a character, a yellow Pegasus with a pretzel cutie mark. I didn't know what to make of it. What, did she have the power of pretzels or did she just really like pretzels? I didn't know what the fuck...

"You messing with my girl, boy?", the yellow pegasus asked me, poking at my chest armor. I'd be lying if I said I liked her better than her pink unicorn friend. The yellow Pegasus grabbed at the collar of my armor and held a hoofed fist to my heavily armored face. "I'll mess you up!"

Within less than a minute of meeting her, I hated this bitch.

Mammatus must have known I was in danger either by looking over at me or by some virtual sixth sense I wasn't aware of. She bolted and placed herself between the yellow Pegasus and me. Nothing says "little bitch" like having a your female companion rush in to rescue you from another female half your size. This was freshman year all over again. At least this time it was with ponies.

Mammatus said nothing to the yellow pegasus,but she made her back off by snorting at her. I put a hoof on Mammatus's shoulder, forgetting how heavy my leg was with the armored boot, and told her to calm down. She did as I asked her and fell back behind me.

As much as the yellow Pegasus had it coming to her, I apologized for Mammatus's hostility.

"Make sure to keep your virtual dog on her leash." the yellow Pegasus said to me, while she peered over at Mammatus.

I think I heard Mammatus growl behind me. I was debating whether or not to let Mammatus have at it with the yellow Pegasus, but the pink Unicorn had a much more civil approach to the situation.

The Unicorn was a bit assertive when she yelled "Enough, all three of you! You're acting like children!"

I don't what kind of behavior she was expecting out of adults who played MMORPGs, but some maturity was definitely a needed virtue right now.

I decided to become the bigger (and only present) man and apologized again for my actions, even though I did nothing wrong. "Look, maybe we started off on the wrong hoof." I held mine out of neighborly kindness. "I'm Nimbus. This is Mammatus." I threw my head back to address my Friend Spawn.

The Unicorn was more than happy to meet my friendly gesture. "Melody", The unicorn simply said. Her name cleverly matched the musical note that she had for a cutie mark.

I looked over at the yellow Pegasus, expecting her to give me a name. "And you?", I asked her, walking into a minefield.

"Bite me." Was the Pegasus's only response.

As tempting as her request was, I shrugged off "Bite Me's comment and talked to Melody. "You're email stopped working you said?"

Melody nodded to me. "Mm hmm. I know it's not my internet because I'm still online."

Maybe there was more to this than just a few game glitches. I wasn't going to try to investigate our scenario like some super hero detective who wore a cape. These were all just consequences, Mammatus's lack of knowledge, Melody's lost email connection, I'm was sure whatever was going on would be explained to us here soon. No need to go around looking for clues with a notepad and a blue dog to follow me.

Melody continued to talk to me about how she was talking to her boyfriend and how he doesn't listen, or something along those lines, I don't quite remember, I wasn't paying attention. My main focus was set on the two Guard ponies who had been standing in front of the Canterlot Castle gate. For the past ten minutes I been here, those two never moved a muscle. The other Guards, their comrades, were too busy trying to keep the front row of the crowd from crossing the bridge to the Castle. I wondered why none of the Pegasai had tried to fly over, but I got my answer when I saw a small squad of guards aiming three of those siege sized giant crossbows at the crowd.

After Melody pausing to catch her breath for the third time, and Bite Me still nagging at me about how she was going to "knock my socks off" ( I don't know if it was a sexual comment or not, so don't ask), I got fed up with being stuck in the crowd and gestured to Mammatus that we should hover above the crowd. Hopefully, the guards wouldn't object to us being a tad bit comfortable.

I flapped my wings and intently blew gust and broke wind behind me in Bite Me's direction while trying to act innocent about the whole thing.

When I thought the crowd couldn't get any larger, one of those two guards by the castle gate finally moved. Even being in a row close to the front of the crowd and having a clear view of up ahead, I thought the Guard was choking on something. He wasn't though, he was actually throwing up his own blood. Take my word for it when I say the amount of blood this guard was hacking looked far too much to have belonged in his body. The guard's body shrank and grew empty as the blood was leaving his body. This may be kind of dark humor, but he looked like a walking half-empty tooth paste bottle.

His buddy beside him tried to help him but he only ended up getting covered in blood that didn't belong to him. The second guard then began to throw up the same as the first but at a much more alarming rate. I had to look around to make sure I wasn't the only pony seeing what was happening in front of me. Sure enough, everypony else was seeing the same thing.

Mammatus was the only one to look at me and ask, "Are you seeing this s***?"

I had forgotten that the game featured censorship over certain words. I nodded in response. "Yeah, this game is really trying to earn that rated M for mature rating."

Looking back to the two guards, I could see that they had lost too much blood to even stand properly. They looked like a pair of fleshy mummies who forgot to close the lids to their mummy coffins. Sadly, their comrades stopping the crowd from crossing the bridge remained at their post and refused to lift a hoof to help them. After seeing how that second guard reacted to contact with that blood, I didn't blame them.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any freakier, the puddle started to quiver and shake. The puddle rose and took form of a silhouette I couldn't place on my hoof on until the blood evaporated and revealed who was underneath. Beneath all the blood, Discord was revealed and he looked a hell of a lot more sinister than he did in the show.

According to the lore of this game, we were in the time where Discord's reign first began, so it only made sense that he was standing before us right now. I had to give him props for his suspenseful entrance, despite how much it made me to never look at ketchup the same again.

"Heeeello, everypony!" Discord started. Take it for Discord to come from a pile of blood that resulted in the death of two ponies and act like this kind of crap happened everyday. "And welcome to 'Questria: Online! Is everypony having FUN?"

With the way he put so much emphasis on the word "fun", and the fact I had just completed the tutorial quest, I looked to Mammatus and answered "No" to Discords question.

It wasn't surprising that Mammatus refused to laugh or even giggle. Of all the Friend Spawns ponies I could have gotten, I landed with the one without a sense of humor. Have I told you thanks yet, Hasbro?

"I'm quite certain most of you, if not all of you, have noticed you can't log out!" Discords voice seem a little too cheery in my perspective for him to sound concerned about the issue I was unaware of.

I tested out my log out button for my own amusement, and sure enough my log out button was gone. Well, the panel where the label was supposed to be was just blank rather than gone.

I looked backed up to see Discord staring directly at me. Sheesh, and I thought Fluttershy's disapproving stare was intimidating. When Discords eyes were locked in on me like a hunters cross hairs on a deer, I thought he was going to attack me for looking away form him. The only sensible I could think of doing was waving at Discord like an idiot and say "Hi."

With a snap of his fingers, Discord disappeared from his current spot at that moment and appeared right in front of me while he hovered above the crowd like I was doing.

"And just might who you be, my little pony?" Discord asked me with his arms (or legs, I was too busy trying not to look away from his eyes) crossed at me.

As a HUGE fan of Discord, I squeed happily and screamed like a little bitch on the inside. Out of the whole crowd, Discord picked me out of crowd. Though, I guess since I was the only dumbass with my menu window open, I can't it'd be too hard to miss me.

I didn't dare tell him my true name out loud in front of the whole crowd, but if he was anything like Celestia, I'm sure he already knew. "I'm Nimbus." I told him.

Discord put a paw (huh yeah he DOES have a paw) to his chin. "Nimbus, huh? And why did you pick out a name like that? Oh, wait don't tell me, is because you shoot for the stars but can only touch the clouds?"

Discord peered deeper at me until Mammatus pushed herself in between myself and Discord. I probably would have kissed her at the moment for saving my butt for about the third time that same day, but I didn't feel like kissing my companion in front of the entire race of online crowd of ponies.

Discord knew right away Mammatus wasn't a player controlled character without even looking at her blank flank. "And here comes the trusty friend spawn to come save your hide." Discord poked at Mammatus's nose with a sharp talon of his claw, but he immediately pulled it back when Mammatus tried to snap it off with a chomp of her jaw. "A feisty one, aren't you? No matter." Discord snapped his fingers again and appeared back at the spot where he was previously.

Mammatus looked at me with a glare that told me she was getting tired of standing up for me. With all due respect to Mammatus, it kind of was her job. She took back to my side and listened to what else Discord had to say.

"Now, before I was rudely ignored" Discord pointed to me from where he was standing. I didn't take any joy from Discord making a fool out of me like that in front of all the other players. "All of you are aware of your missing log out option. Rest assured, children and those who are too old to be playing a MMO instead of being at work."

I took that as a personal jab to me.

Discord continued to further explain himself "This is by no means a glitch or an error. I, Discord: Master of Chaos, have over ridden all the boundaries this game had designed for me and disabled your ability leave this game at your own free will."

Discord was taking the phrase "Games take lives" to a whole other level.

"And your only means of escaping this is to beat the game!" Fireworks and streamers exploded behind Discord when he dropped the bomb on us.

Bite Me flew to my level and screamed at Discord, "Wait, so, you're expecting us to BEAT an MMORPG?"

"Absolutely not! I hardly expect you all to make it to the "Island of the Lost.", Discord told her.

Bite Me kind of gave a rude tone to Discord when she asked "The f*** is that supposed to mean?"

The bleeping sound they decided to use as a profanity filter was incredibly annoying and unnecessarily obnoxious.

Discord put both hands (hands?) to his mouth when he said "Oh, oops! I forgot to mention, death in the game means your X-Nerve-Station headset burns brightly and explodes."

There was an immediate gasp from me and the rest of the crowd. Death in the game would kill us in real life. What game was Discord playing at? Why?

Melody's loud yelling at Discord nearly tore off my ears "Wait, you want us to beat an MMO?"

Discord nodded in response with a sly smile and doing that weird Mr. Burns finger thing from the Simpsons "Precisely"

"Well, f*** you!" Melody held up her hoof to give Discord a rude finger gesture, but she remembered she didn't have any fingers and put her hoof back down with a stomp.

Discord seemed to enjoy seeing Melody's anger tantrum. "Oh, don't be such a poor sport. All you have to do is make sure the other races don't beat you to the "Island of the Lost" and defeat the final boss before you do."

Another pony up front, who I couldn't see, asked "W-what do you mean by that?"

Discord conjured a grail of some sort and begin to sip at it "I've already explained this to all the races, but it's simple really. Defeat all the twenty five bosses on your continent, retrieve all the keys from them, go to the "Island of the Lost", open the great door, and defeat the final boss there before the other races without dieing."

"When one of the races defeats the final boss on the island of the lost before all the other races do, that race of players are all set free" Discord's new twisted sinister smile sent a chill down my back. "And the other races are killed immediately after the last player form the winning is sent home, along with the game."

I wanted this whole thing to be a dream. My grandmother might be on her death bed right now,and i would never know it. My dad, my poor dad, he'd need me if something like that ever happened. This couldn't be happening, this isn't happening!

Discord started to chuckle when frightened and angry chatter broke throughout the entire crowd. He had brought chaos onto our world.

Some jackass thought it'd be a good idea to push past the guards and charge Discord head on. Even if he started playing right at the opening second the game launched, he couldn't be any higher than level 25, yet here he was charging Discord, who's level was so high his stats couldn't even show on my enemy tab.

The jackass charged his magic at the tip of his horn and shot a beam at Discord. The beam went straight at Discord's heart, but Discord wasn't at one bit phased. He didn't even move. He even spread his arms out and jumped in front of the attack so it hit him directly where the jackass wanted it to. Nothing. Not even recoil from the attack. Discord stood there like the wind was blowing through him.

Discord raised a hand and lifted the poor jackass with no difficulty. I could clearly see the regret on the Jackass's face when Discord smiled and said "My turn"

With a snap of his fingers, Discord one shot the Jackass, exploding him into a bunch of one and zeroes. "If you think I'm being unfair, I could easily make this a lot harder for you all!" Discord snapped his fingers again and I suddenly felt the earth shake below me, despite how high in the air I was.

Canterlot began to shatter into pieces and fall apart in seconds. The castle, which Discord was standing in front of, fell and tumbled towards the crowd. A small handful of Pegasai and I, along with Mammatus by my side, darted for the largest falling piece of debris heading for the crowd of players. Just as the pegasus closest to the debris reached for it with her hooves, the debris disappeared.

I looked down at Discord for an explanation. I had indeed snapped his fingers again and put everything back to normal. "I'm giving you ponies a fair chance to return to your lives. Defeat the final boss on Island of the Lost, or die here doing nothing."

With his last final words, as he disappeared into thin air, Discord left us all with one final thing left to say "Oh, and don't try to get smart and send the NPC's to go out and do your work either. Death is permanent for them as well." The only thing left of Discord was a winking floating head telling us "One last thing, I disabled the profanity filter for all of you now. You crazy kids, behave yourself." Then he was gone.

I had never heard true silence until that very moment. I wished I could say I enjoyed the peaceful quiet, but not after I had learned that my life could be ended by not defeating a video game.

Mammatus was the first one to break the silence when she yelled "We are so FUCKED!"

***

It took Mammatus and I a good few minutes to escape from the middle of the city and to the train station where only a few ponies had started to gather. Since we were flying ponies, I told we'd just head in the direction of the direction of the trains until we found something that caught our attention or looked like a clue to one of the bosses. It was a long shot, but since we had no clues of where these bosses might be, it was the only plan I could think of.

My ear twitched when I heard a familiar voice call out to me. "Nimbus!" It was Melody again. I didn't have to turn around to know Bite Me was behind her.

Mammatus and I stayed perched on top of our train station sign. I cocked my head at Melody when I asked her "Yes?"

Despite the fact that both their lives were now in the hands of a video game, both Bite Me and Melody seemed relatively happy. Bite Me's facial features changed to a glare when she looked to Mammatus.

"We were wondering if you could come down and talk to us?"

I looked to Mammatus about Melody's invitation. She told me "I got your back, but if that yellow one tries anything-"

"She's all yours." I patted Mammatus on the shoulder, but she wasn't too welcoming to it.

She grabbed my wing and threw it off. Mammatus held a hoof to my face. "I have one rule: Lookie, no touchy, capiche?"

That only tempted me a little more, but I respected Mammatus and her request. I gave her a small nod and we both glided down to Bite Me and Melody.

"So, what's this about?" I asked Melody.

Even though I had addressed the question to Melody, Bite Me spoke up. "We're going to form a guild." If I wasn't mistaken I think I had seen Bite Me blushing at me. Where had this come from? "We'd really like it if you two would be our first members. We'd make you officers and access to the guild bank, once we get one of course."

Melody smiled and nodded to both Mammatus and I. "Yeah, we were both really impressed with the way you two charged for that large piece of debris coming for the crowd."

"Putting yourself in harm's way to save a couple strangers, that takes real courage." Bite Me held out her hoof and added "I'm Lilly"

I took Lilly's hoof and shook it. "Nimbus" I repeated my name.

Mammatus swatted at my grip and pulled me to the side. "Excuse us one moment, Ladies." Mammatus tried a little too hard to fake a smile at Lilly and Melody. When Mammatus and I were out of ear shot form the two, she slapped me and scream whispered, "You're signing us up with them?"

"I'm thinking about it...", I admitted. The idea of having a few extra hooves in combat seemed like a good idea, but more bodies meant more responsibility and more cut from the loot.

"We'd be better off on our own. Once we get to the double digit levels we'd be pulling their weight. Our gear and equipment and way superior to theirs right now." Mammatus had her mind made up and wasn't going to change it anytime soon.

I nodded. She was right, it would just be more work for us in the later part of the run. Might as well cut them before they start to infect us. I went back without Mammatus to the duo. "I'm sorry, girls, but Mammatus and I don't want to tie down to a guild right about now. Maybe-"

Melody huffed up and punched me in the nose. "Well, fine then! Think you're too good to join our guild! Just go ahead and leave, asshole."

Mammatus had to drag me away from them when I tried to explain myself to Melody. Mammatus pulled me into the air with her and kicked me to keep up and fly. A small sniffle from me caught her attention and made her growl. "What's wrong with you now?"

I stuttered and choked on my tears. "S-she called me an asshole!"