Chapter 3: Waking the sleeping Ursa Minor

"Weeelllll, lookie who we got here." Lilly leaned her ugly mug close towards mine. If I wasn't so polite, I would've barfed in her face instead of holding it in. Swallowing the barf down my throat was a grave reminder of why I avoided guilds in the first place. ~~People~~ Ponies like her, thinking she's all big and bad because she's an officer in a guild. She holds as much authority as the government in Mexico, almost non-existent.

Lilly wore a sinister smile and said, "Guess you couldn't stand to be by yourself anymore, huh? You felt about as alone in this world as you did in the real one?"

Have I mentioned that I don't like her? I really don't like her. If she gets ganked in this raid, I'm just going act like I don't see her.

"I got Mammatus!", I shouted at Lilly, the veins in my neck nearly ripping out. I snapped my head to Mammatus and asked her, half-rhetorically, "Hey, Mammatus, we're cool, right?" Of course we were, there was no question about it. We've spent the past few hours together to call each other friends now....right?

***

Why, why, why, why?! Why did I get stuck with the most reject of all the bronies? He's such an annoying little shit. The worst part is, he's the same age as me! Well, the same age I'm designed to be that is. Technically, I'm really only a few months old. The first few weeks of my life consisted completely of test to make sure I had no chance of glitching in the game.

Once I finally got approved and accepted into the game, I was allowed to roam a specific closed area of Equestria so I could get familiar with the starting area of the game I'd most likely be spawned at on the launch day.

In all honesty, I spent most of that time just looking at places to find rest and sleep at. I didn't really see the point of exploring when I had a complete map of the entire world. Now, with the map only revealing places I discovered with Nimbus (...or Benny, or whatever the hell he wants to call himself). I've learned the definition of hindsight...and I don't much care for it.

Deep in my concentration, I could hear Nimbus calling for me, asking me if we were friends. The rules and terms of the game required me to answer yes to him, buuuuutt- I didn't want to be a liar.

I turned to Nimbus and withdrew one of the potions I had out of my bag and threw it at the back of his head. I'm not too sure if it was intentional or not, but as soon as that bottle hit him in the back of the head, he squealed like a dog who had been kicked for sitting on the master's couch. I laughed, along with everypony else around us, at Nimbus and how he had scurried into a corner and with his tail tucked between his legs.

Nimbus had these puppy dog looking eyes when he asked me, "M-Mammatus, why did you do that?"

I have to say, I did feel KINDA bad after seeing that reaction,but only for like a second. We didn't have time to hug, kiss, bump butts, and apologize, nor did I want to. The other Factions, with the Changelings in the lead, all had at least 3 of the 25 bosses already defeated, seven being the highest, according to my Faction Boss Calculator (FBC) on my HUD (heads up display)....Holy Shit!

I looked back up again to see if what I was looking at really existed. Windows popped up everywhere in front of my vision. I swatted at them like flys in order to close all of them. I couldn't imagine what I must have looked like if someone was looking at me or in my direction. Sure enough, my online capabilities had returned. Everything had disappeared with all my other online accessibility earlier today when Discord took over. If I could see this, does that mean-

A tap from Nimbus' armored wing threw me off my train of thought. It was sharp and heavy enough to to hurt a bit from the light stab. Though, not enough to penetrate me...I mean my flight suit. To my surprise, friendly fire was a definite possibility in this game. I personally thought it was completely out of lore for a game based on friendship. The only places friendly fire wasn't allowed were major capitol cities. Why you would even consider that in a public place was beyond me.

"You there?" , Nimbus asked me.

I nodded in response. I wanted, no, NEEDED to tell him how far ahead the other Factions were ahead of us, but not in front of everypony else. Seeing how no other Friend Spawn had mentioned their own FBC, I assumed I was the only one who had access to it. It didn't make any sense though. Am I supposed to see it? What other online capabilities did I have access to? There's no possible way I could be glitching.

Nimbus pointed a wing towards the Guild Officers, "Since I'm one of the few tanks they've recruited, they want me at the front lines."

Oh great, with my current stats I'll have to be especially careful not to aggro anything. My armor rating was still ridiculously high for starter equipment, but I'd be cut to ribbons in a matter of seconds, and being at the first level wasn't helping. It wouldn't be long until I caught up with the other guild members while I was in the front lines. The hardest part would be the fact that I only had one ranged attack, Wing Breaker. It didn't do too much in terms of damage, but it was incredibly resourceful for guard breaking. I guess spamming Wind Breaker would probably the best solution once I learned a new one at a high enough level.

That's when Nimbus really got to me and told me, "I'd understand if you wanted to stay a bit farther back instead of standing up in front with me." He shrugged his heavy armor, making it clank over his shoulders. "My armor is better than anyone else's here, and being in the front lines, I should be able to aggro most everything and level up pretty fast to take on the boss easily." He gave me the option to decide where I wanted to go in the raid. When he spoke, his voice was incredibly calm and sincere. He was actually showing concern about me. Fucking. Asshole. Making me develop feelings and shit.

Nimbus got a little deeper into my heart after he said, "I know it's your job, but I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable with. The healers should be able to take care of me without you having to save me." If I was real, I probably would have slapped him for being so nice to me."If you're going to stay in the back though..." My ears lifted up with sudden interest. "Could you loot all the items everypony else leaves behind?", Nimbus asked me.

I couldn't think of anything to say so I just turned my head away from Nimbus and hid my smile. "Asshole" was all I could say before I blushed and watched him walk into the raid cave. I didn't realize I was going to be the last one to walk in. I had lost track of time once I started talking to Nimbus. Testing to see how much room I had, I shrugged my saddle bags over my shoulders. There was definitely enough room to fill them with whatever treasure the raid had in store.

Taking a single step forward, I noticed there was some sort of invisible force stopping me from entering the cave. I put my hoof up and touched the force in front of me. I could feel it but couldn't push myself past it. I flared anger from my nostrils as I backed up and prepped myself to charge the invisible wall.

Suddenly there was sharp snap and a cloud of smoke popping up behind me. "You're probably the first ever NPC companion who's player doesn't use them as a meat shield."

I spun around on my hooves to have my muzzle smack into Discord's knee. His paw was waving a friendly hello at me when I pushed away and looked up. I growled, "Discord!", and swiped a gust of wind at him. The attack couldn't even land a hit on him. He was at such a high level that my attacks couldn't even get close enough to inflict any damage.

This time waving both his paw and claw, he lowered his guard and said to me, "No, no, I'm not here to be hostile. I'm actually here for completely opposite reasons."

Is Discord being friendly?

"To be a friend!"

Never mind, question answered. If Discord was truly here on friendly terms, then what did he want with me?

"I want to make you an offer for your freedom." Discord told me with a smile.

Ok, so two things: One, Discord can read my mind. Two, FREEDOM?!

My wings shot up excitedly as I asked the same question. "What do you mean by freedom?" If by freedom Discord meant allowing me to roam around like an open world NPC, then tell me where to sign. "What do I have to do for it?"

"Take Nimbus out of the game by any means necessary." Discord answered me with a smile.

Ooohh...

"He's an incredibly dangerous threat to my plans and other players. He's a killer in the real world."

I laughed in the face of Discord and his accusations. "Pfft! HA! Please, Nimbus a killer? He's the nicest guy I know." Despite the fact that he's the only guy from the outside world I've met.

"Then explain why he was so calm with taking that poor girl's life back in the tavern?" Discord lightly traced a single sharp claw across my wings and down my back to the tip of my tail.

It made sense, Nimbus didn't seem to think too much on taking a life, if killing someone in the game truly meant death in the real world. I needed to see it for myself though, some proof.

Popping in front of me like a reverse bubble, a window came out of thin air titled "American Solider kills family while on deployment." As I began to read it, Discord advised me to run the name of the man under Nimbus's personal social profile. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was to see that Discord knew I had my online capabilities. I wouldn't even put it past me that he's the reason I got them back.

"You see?" Discord started as he traced a single claw across and down both my wings again. "Nimbus has already started killing off players in the game less than 24 hours of being trapped in here. Now you might justify that little incident in the tavern, but who's to say he won't do it again if tipped the wrong way?"

"And who's to say he will?" I defended.

Discord smacked his lips together. "Let me ask you something else." Discord removed his claw from pinching the tip of my wing before proceeding back in front of me. With his breath close to my ears, he whispered "Let's say you and Nimbus actually survive my little experiment. Do you really think Nimbus would want to come back to this game after that? You'd be here all alone in whatever area he leaves you in. Never allowed to fly the skies the way you want to. Looking back on how you should have took up my offer."

I was shaking in my flight boots at this point, remembering how alone I was before the game even launched. The only thing that kept me going was all the tests the developers put me through. There's no more need for them now that I was paired with Nimbus, and me trying to contact them would be considered cheating against the rules and terms of the game, resulting in me being deleted from the game.

Discord patted me on the head. "Just think about it, My Little Pony."

***

The first mini-boss was actually a pack of three Timber Wolves who merged and transformed in one giant Timbering Wolf (clever) once they reached a certain percentage of health. They weren't exactly tough in terms of difficulty, and their damage output wasn't all that high either. I couldn't say the same for their attack speed and stamina recovery. It still was hardly anything to worry about though.

Melody's healing wasn't exactly the best in the raid but she was incredibly resourceful. She was the only one who could cure me from the Timber Wolves "Tree Sap Bite"that could poison me. Lilly did an incredible amount of critical countering damage whenever somepony broke the Timber Wolves guard. Mammatus however...I don't know. I know I told her to stay back, but I expected her to be a lot more active. I could see her looking directly at me out of my peripheral whenever she thought I couldn't. I would always turn my head just in time to see her looking in a completely different direction, like she'd been staring in that general area the entire time.

I couldn't help but get the feeling that something was bothering her. I thought it was just the suspense of the raid getting to her. I could have guessed a million reasons and never get any closer to finding out. I promised myself that I'd talk to her after this last boss, our first main boss. I had never heard anything about it. The developers had some incredibly faithful employees who leaked very little information about the game.

At least now I was at the average level of the guild and had the highest stats by a far lead. I decided to give everyone a five minute break before we cracked open the last set of doors. Last thing I need is one of the healers getting psyched out because they couldn't handle the pressure. I looked around for Mammatus only to find her sitting upon one of the smashed gargoyle balconies above us. Like all the other times before, she spun around once I tried to look at her.

I know i had promised, but I needed to find out what was troubling her. She was too distant. It couldn't have been my little flirting attempt right before the raid. My charm isn't THAT good.

***

Please don't come up here, please don't come up here. , I whispered to myself after Nimbus had figured out where I was hiding. There was a heavy set of flapping wings picking up volume behind me, followed by the clanking of steel armor.

"Hey." Nimbus said, following it with a soft nudge to my rump. I controlled myself from turning around. "Look, I been kinda worried about you since...we started this raid. The guys here are pretty competent and-" Nimbus brushed at my tail with his armored hoof, forgetting that steel isn't as plush as a pony's hoof. "They'd be okay without us if you want to turn around now. We've gotten them through the toughest-"

I cut off Nimbus by shouting at him. "NO!" I spun around and knocked my hoof on his chest plate. "We're going to finish this last boss. You're holding the entirety of this group and they won't admit it." I know I was probably labeling Nimbus and myself next on Discord's hit list, but I couldn't bring myself to taking out Nimbus without seeing more reason to. I needed to see Nimbus do something else to prove how evil he was in my own eyes. I was gambling a lot of lives right now.

"You really think that highly of me?" Nimbus asked me, glowing a bright smile and wagging his tail. "Does this mean I"m you're friend?" Nimbus's smile was growing wider by the second,it wouldn't be long till his face ripped.

Me admitting that Nimbus was my first and only friend was a huge step out of my comfort bubble. I slowly pushed Nimbus off my gargoyle balcony. He was a REALLY friendly, touchy, feelly kind of pony, and him being fully armored made it all the more uncomfortable. Nimbus fell a few inches after I pushed him off, before he flapped his wings to keep himself at eye level with me. I gave him a small smile. A SMALL smile. "We'll talk about that when we finish, okay?" I opened my wings and glided around Nimbus down to the rest of the raid.

A few minutes later, Nimbus and I were standing side by side in front of the door. He definitely had a strange confidence about him that encouraged everybody else to want to continue on. It was that strange confidence that made everypony else look at him like their leader. Even though he had just joined the guild and knew almost nothing at all about him.

Then again, he was the primary tank of this raid.

I felt Nimbus tug at my flight suit and ask me, "Want to share the honors with me, my new frieee-"

I slapped my hoof to his mouth. "Don't. Just...don't." I wasn't exactly comfortable enough with calling him my friend yet in public. I pushed my shoulder into the door leading to the final boss room to force it open. Nothing. I then muscled my entire body into the door with my chest up. Still, it wouldn't budge. I leaned harder against the door, underestimating its weight. I strained and grunted when I tried to push harder. Sweat dripped from the top of my mane and down my neck. I must have looked like I was posing for a photo shot by the arch in my back. Why wasn't this door opening? Actually...WHY IN THE HELL WASN'T ANYONE HELPING ME?! Did this stupid door need a key or-

I opened my eyes to see Nimbus holding in a laugh with one hoof and a key in front of me using the opposite. I swiped the key away form him and clutched it tight in my grip. "Don't you fucking laugh at me." I stomped away growling and muttering curse words under my breath that I didn't even knew I had learned.

I turned back to the door to insert the key and...Where the hell is the keyhole?! I looked between the doors. Nothing. I looked up high. Nothing. Low. Nothing. What. The fuck. Why is this door such a task to open?! Out of anger, I stabbed the key at the door, thinking inserting the key in any way would open the door. All that did was make all the force I put into the door back into my arm and make it feel tingly.

I growled again and threw the key at the door. Fuck this door. Fuck this raid. Fuck everything! I couldn't even rage quit out of this game if the log out option was available. Fucking piece of shit fucking game.

In my fit of anger and glaring at the door, I saw Nimbus out of my peripheral pick up the key and insert it...on the outside of the door. Who... in the hell... puts a key hole on the outside of the door?! Let me remind you, the same guys who designed me, designed this door. I'm amazed my wings aren't attached to my ass.

The doors swung open slowly as Nimbus turned the key. With the small gap I could see through the doors, it just looked like a giant empty room with titanic rocky walls. Whatever lives in here must be massive, but I couldn't see it. At least not from my position. Which probably meant it was hiding from us.

Nimbus was the first one to walk in without any hesitation. As he walked forward, his head and eyes were constantly searching, scanning, and inspecting the entire area for hostiles. His pace was smooth, almost gliding across the floor. He had positioned one wing grasping the back of his head with the "elbow" of the wing held out away from him. The other wing grasped the opposite wing while held in front of his face, almost like he was holding a shield in front of him. It was a strange fighting position I had never seen before. His vision looked limited, but apparently he could see fine.

I stayed high above the ground, in case anything was planning to attack Nimbus. Everypony else fell in a few seconds behind us. Being at my position, I noticed that the group was very informal. No sort of formation what so ever. They all just walked in scattered all across the room. A good portion held close by the door, mostly ranged damage players. Melody tailgated Nimbus from a good distance, careful not to be close enough to get in his way if he needed to dodge backwards.

The large room was disturbingly quiet, I could hear my eyes click with every blink. When I was just about to drop down to the floor, an enemy fell from the top of the ceiling. I too focused on what was below and in front of me to bother looking up. Whatever the creature was, it knew to hold my wings down to have me kamikaze to the ground.

I was too scared to scream as I watched the ground come closer towards me. I took a hard impact and a massive dent to my health bar. Bloody borders narrowed my vision to a tiny tunnel. My breathing lost rhythm and I felt like I was drowning when I reached for help. There wasn't enough energy in me to scream for help.

Something stood over me and yelled. I couldn't make out what it was or if it was even being hostile towards me. I had no idea what happened to the creature that attacked me, but I was grateful that it didn't choose to finish me off.

The "something" that stood over me picked me up and supported me on it's shoulder. It felt like I was leaning against a cold stove, it's body was freezing underneath my cheek and uncomfortable.

My hearing was getting better with every passing minute I was held up. I couldn't tell exactly what was happening, but I could hear all the fighting and screaming. Until then, I didn't know there was a distinct difference between an attacking scream and a dying scream. I wanted to go home; away from here.

***

When Mammatus' blood splashed on me the same time as her body hit the floor, a hurricane of emotions hit me; Rage, Sadness, Fear. There was no time to remorse though, I knew she was still alive (barely) when the baby sized Ursa Minor swiped at her back. Her head lifted up and opened her mouth but there was no scream. No doubt she had went into shock.

I brought down the bladed wing I held over my head and damn near split the little fuzzy bastard in half. I think I went too fast fortunately for the little bear to not feel any pain, if it even could in this game. I had to take my hoof to push the limp dead body off my wing. When the baby bear hit the ground it's head made a wet spaghetti sound I was all to familiar with. An image of my buddy's face, France, suddenly invaded my mind. His face was half peeled like an orange, with the loose skin flapping in the wind. I hadn't thought about him since...

I closed my eyes and shook his corpse face out of my head. Many more baby Ursas fell from the ceiling after the first. What they lacked in strength and vitality, they made up in numbers and speed. This was way more intense than anything else we had encountered throughout the dungeon. Was that the intent? To build up our confidence and break us down mentally once we encountered the boss room? Or was Discord behind this?

"Nimbus!"

I had almost forgotten my name because I was so angry about what happened to Mammatus. Lilly and Melody, along with most everypony else around me, were overwhelmed. Baby Ursas were everywhere and attacking everypony without mercy. I had no idea where the other tanks were, if they were even still alive. Thinking fast, I knew I had to get all the babies attention before they completely wiped the entire raid. I rocketed up to the top, my back crashing into the ceiling, and "Sky Dropped" to the ground, sending a huge shockwave within a fifteen foot radius. It worked, every baby Ursa, except for those select few out of range, came running towards me.

My health began to trickle slowly to zero, but Melody hit me with an instant healing spell to spare me some time. The spell consumed a significant percentage of her magic, almost tapping her out completely. Thankfully, we had other healers to compensate while she recollected herself, but only for a bit. Once the big boss came, we were going to have to heavily rely on her.

"Melody" I screamed before doing another Sky Drop to do a small amount of damage to every enemy. "Don't use that spell again unless you absolutely have to. For now, just use spells that heal me over time." She nodded understandingly.

I made a huge swing of my dominant wing in front of me before addressing the Melee DPS players. "All you Melee players, position yourselves in front of the ranged fighters. There's no such thing as friendly fire in a raid, so don't worry." For the sake of the melee fighters, I hoped Discord hadn't changed that. Everypony that wasn't engaged in combat moved into position. The party that ambushed us was significantly drowned down to only three left.

After those last few enemies were eliminated, I told all of the healers to assist everypony quickly. There was no telling when the boss would arrive. I looked up to see Lilly intensely focused on something ahead of us. I didn't have to look in the same direction to know that the Ursa Minor was on it's way. Just it's breathing alone was a giant red flag, and by it's volume, this thing was going to be huge.

I looked behind me to see Melody tending to Mammatus. Her flight suit was still coated in her own blood, but Melody had sealed all of her open wounds with her magic. The healing left bruises all around the affected area. Nothing too unbearable to look at, but I had to say, it made Mammatus look pretty badass with a damaged flight suit and battle marks (no scars) all over her.

My stare had obviously made her uncomfortable, so she broke the ice with "How are the other tanks?"

I figured I must have looked like a young school boy noticing at pair of boobs for the first time. "We already lost two in that ambush." I twisted my head to see everypony gearing and buffing themselves properly. "We still have three tanks in total, but one is all you need at a minimum standard to complete this dungeon anyway. We'll be fine."

Saying that Mammatus looked worried would be a completely inaccurate description of what was probably going on in her head. She was concerned for the well beings of everypony else, and for good reason. This wasn't your typical MMORPG dungeon where you google everything you can about it before walking in. We had walked into a literal battlefield. A lot these ponies hadn't been in an actual life or death situation considering the fact that a little less than half the group had fled when everypony started taking heavy damage while some hesitated a bit before leaping into the fire of the battle.

I asked Melody what buffs she could provide Mammatus and I with, but she was too early level to have any healing buffs....much less knew what I was talking about. I seriously didn't understand why she was here.

We were going to have to find a cleric or somepony with a party buff. I knew it was pretty rare to get anything useful at a starting level in any MMORPG, but you don't usually die for real in other games either.

Even though I was hovering a few feet in the air, I could still feel the ground beneath me shaking. We were out of time for healing and spell buffs. The Ursa Minor appeared more feral looking than it did in the show. For it being made of "stars", or whatever the hell it was made of, there were several freshly pink bald spots sprinkled all around it's coat. I didn't and still don't know too much about the Ursa Minor anatomy, but by looking at it's scars, I knew it could bleed.