'Questria: Online

by Nimbus92

Rating: mature
Tags: Original Character, Comedy, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Discord, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human
Length: 20640

What's worse than being stuck in a game you can't escape unless you beat it? Being stuck in a My Little Pony mmorpg style game with 1 million other people, and the only way to espace is by defeating the game... noone "beats" an mmo

'Questria: Online- a My Little Pony mmorpg style game with a massive open world, in the lore of the loved t.v. show, where you become a pony as you enter the game. 'Questria: Online was only going to be made avaiable on the up coming new console known as "X-Nerve-Station". This was the kind of game where you knew every single mid-twenties adult (such as myself), and child, who had their barely eighteen year old parent buy them rated M games, were willing to stand in line hours for. Only the first million were going to by allowed to play, for some reason unexplained, or at least it wasn't explained to us until several hours after the games release. The programmers had given the Discord game boss a little too much power over the rules of the game, since he was the only character in the game allowed to alter the rules and the game itself. Discord didn't have much trouble taking the wheel of the game and keeping us all trapped inside. He gave us only one route to escape his grasp, defeat every major boss in the game. With Discord being the master of Chaos that he is, if we died in the game, we died in the outside world. Alas, another mmo where you could kiss your life away....literally.
_______

This story is inspired by the anime "Sword Art Online". I don't think there's enough content, other than the lore, in this story for this to really be considered a cross over. Other character tags will be included as this story progresses.

Published 2014-07-20 23:00:04 UTC
Last updated 2016-06-15 16:58:18 UTC

Prologue: Baby steps my young grass hopper

Prologue: Baby steps my young grass hopper

My friends and I had just gotten back from the latest Bronycon that year. I'd love to tell you all about it, but that's not really the pressing subject of this story. I had been one of the ten lucky winners to get my hands on the newly released game, 'Questria: Online. Why the hell they made the title sound like a Redneck saying 'Merica, I'll never know.

I don't have to tell you that I was giggling like a little kid who had just noticed his first side boob, but I'm going to anyways. I was, as Rarity would say, absolutely ecstatic! Not only had I gotten my hands -soon to be hooves- on one of the very few copies of this highly anticipated game, but I had just bagged one of the only hundred limited edition versions of 'Questria: Online!

The limited edition version of the game included your "Circle of Friendship" level in-game weapon, armor, and companion. Now, you have to understand, Circle of Friendship equipment wasn't necessarily the highest level you could receive in the game, but they were the only type of equipment that leveled up along with you. Since, the game was based on completely open classes (the type of role you choose to play your character as) the stats on that equipment were absolutely customizable, within reason.

Take leather armor for example (before you get into it, why, and how, ponies got a choice of leather armor as protection was beyond me. I don't think the creators of the game exactly thought that one through), generally, leather armor is classified as medium armor, along with chain-mail. Though both leather and chain-mail are in the same armor class, they both provide different properties and purposes.

Leather armor provided an average amount of protection, but redeemed itself in it's flexibility and it's boost to agility and speed stats.

Chain-mail provided you with a bit more protection, and slight resistance to slashing attacks. Though, you sacrificed flexibility and speed for it's added points to armor, as well as the absence of being a successful stealth combatant.

Of course, these weren't the only types of armor provided. Cloth, plate, and a various other amount of other options were made available to the players. Each one with their own unique and various stats and perks.

Just like every other MMORPG, there was no shortage in the variation of weapons included in the game. My personal favorite though was the featured wing blade/ armor provided for the Pegasus, Griffins, and other flying capable playable races. The wing blade/armor was pretty unique in itself. Offensively, the actual blades of the wing based weapons did fairly minimal damage, about that of a knife of small sword, but defensively, the capabilities were unmatched by normal shields. The wing blades not only protected you like a regular shield, but they made you increasingly resistant to flying offensive abilities like gust, strong winds, cloud throwing etc. Just like everything else in the game, they came with their own weight, literally

The wing blades were incredibly heavy and slowed down your flight speed as well as putting a major dent in your agility. They also took away the racial perk of fast-travel from the character, whether they were currently equipped or not. You could also kiss aerial transportation for your friends and companions away too. The flying characters were definitely gifted with a unique amount of utilities (just like every other race provided with their own racial utensils and perks), but they were all mostly sacrificed away with the choice of wing blades.

I had already purchased the X-Nerve-Station previously before I won the game. I had no other games for the console. Whether or not I won the contest at Bronycon, I was going to get the game regardless. If hadn't won the contest, I was still going to get 'Questria: Online by purchase or by ripping it from the hands of a child, and yes, I would steal from a child. I wanted that game. Nothing was going to stop me from getting it. Not even the sad dream broken tears of a crying child.

I don't know if he had a sixth sense or hidden cameras in my own home, but my dad was always capable of trying to get my attention right before I popped in a game. I got a phone call from -you guessed it-. I rolled my eyes before opening my phone screen to the personal ID image of Papa Bear from the Bernstein bears I had set for my father.

"Dad" I said. The enthusiasm I used to speak on the phone could be compared to the reaction one would have after winning fifteen cents in the lottery.

After hearing my dad's tone, I wished I had faked my excitement to see his name on my caller ID a little better. He told me that Grandma, his mother, was having trouble breathing again. This had been an issue for her for quite some time now, a few years actually, but it had only recently started to become a serious problem for the past few months. All the years of smoking and working had finally started to take it's toll on her. She was going to the ER this time. Dad said he'd keep me updated on anything if it came up.

I didn't know if I could pick up my phone while I had the X-Nerve-Station on over my head, much less even hear it, but I made sure to put the volume at it's maximum.

I laid my back down flat on my bed and relaxed my body as the X-Nerve-Station began to power on. I don't know if it was the intended sound, but the X-Nerve-Station powered up as dub step sounds filled my ears, increasing in bass and intensity as I let myself get sucked in the virtual world of 'Questria: Online, my unknowingly new life and possibly greatest adventure for the rest of my life.

Chapter 1: Ride of my life.

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!"

Chapter 2: I hate guilds

"It doesn't make any sense!" Mammatus slammed her hooves down on the table I had chosen for us to eat at, and to think over what had just happened. Luckily, I hadn't set down the two drinks I had bought for us or else they probably would have rattled and fallen to the floor.

I waited and stared at Mammatus for a few long seconds before setting down the mugs. These drinks were 6 bits a pop. There was no way in hell (or Tatarus now) I was going to let her throw that kind of hard earned money fall on the ground. Then again, I haven't completed a single quest since I been in this game, so the money was hers anyways, but, hey, there's still a valid point to be made here.

Mammatus caught my staring gaze and rudely asked me "WHAT?!" If I didn't know any better,and to be fully honest, I don't think she really liked me all that much.

This was going to get some getting used to.

"I'm just waiting for you to get done with your anger tantrum before I sit down." I told her truthfully. There was no reason for her to be all worked up like she was. It's not like she knew anything about Discord's plan...or if he even had a plan. He didn't really strike me as the kind of "guy" to think things out before executing them. Plus, with Mammatus's absent knowledge about what was SUPPOSED to go on in the game, I hardly doubt she knew anything about Discord.

"You don't understand." Mammatus slammed her head on the table top and pouted like a child- err or umm filly begging for ice cream. "I'm supposed to know and understand everything that goes on in this game! Discord isn't supposed to be like...well, like that!" Mammatus looked back up and threw her empty hoof at the open space in front of her, pointing at absolutely nothing in particular. "I don't think the Discord we saw is the real Discord that's supposed to be in the game."

Ok, so maybe she did know a LITTLE something about Discord's strange personality.

I asked her "What do you mean?" Hoping to get an idea of when or if I could get home. I had been checking my menu every thirty minutes to see if the log out button would come back up but I never saw anything, just a blank panel where it was supposed to be.

The two drinks I was balancing on my wing were finally starting to get heavy. I knew I was supposed to feel a bit of fatigue in the game, but I couldn't shake the fact that everything I was going through in the game was taking some sort of negative toll to my physical outside body. I also couldn't help but ask the question of what would happen if I took physical damage. Would I actually feel it? If that's the case, could my physical status from the real world transfer to this virtual world? Too many questions too early in the game, but they needed to be asked either way.

Mammatus eased her hoof back down and relieved the weight from one of the mugs off my wing. She sniffled her muzzle as she took a huge whiff of the content before answering me. "Discord isn't even one of the main bosses in the game. Like me, he's just-or he was supposed to be- an unique NPC, mainly just a quest giver towards the final boss."

"Oh." Was the only logical response I could think of to say. My imagination went wild with trying to put the pieces of this puzzle together. I had read all I could about this game before there was even a release date, and I had never even heard of Discord being featured in here.

"Maybe it's not Discord who's doing this." I finally took my seat across from Mammatus and slid the remaining mug on wing down to the flat top of the table. The mug slid smoothly down my wing and onto the table with perfection.

Mammatus didn't catch on to what I was trying to imply. "Didn't you just see Discord kill that one pony? Of course he's behind it!"

"No, no" I shook my head at her and waved my hooves. "Think about what you just said. When have you ever heard of Discord wanting to kill or even inflict physical harm to anypony?"

I could tell Mammatus was thinking about what I just threw at her long and hard. "So, are you saying maybe it was a changeling and not Discord?"

Okay, so not entirely seeing eye to eye with me but at least she was on the right track this time.

"Ehh not exactly, but maybe somebody else is trying to impersonate him and using him as a scape goat. Perhaps it's somebody with enough power to control the game to his own liking, one of the developers or something." Even listening to myself, I knew I sounded crazy, but Mammatus was agreeing with me.

"That's a pretty quick and acute accusation, but it kind of makes sense." Mammatus held her beverage above her bottom lip and her voice echoed a bit from the inside of the mug. "Why would anypony want to disguise themselves as Discord?"

"Maybe something personal? I don't know, I'm just spit balling here." I didn't think Mammatus would understand my definition of the term "spit balling" but she seemed to either understand or completely ignored it.

"Personal like what?"

I felt stupid after asking my next question. "Uhh...did you ever watch the first Scooby-Doo movie?"

The way Mammatus kept the mug to her lips and lifted her eyebrow at me told me she hadn't never heard of what I was talking about.

Being the clueless idiot that I am, I tried to explain it further to her. "In the movie, Scrappy, Scooby-Doo's younger cousin or whatever he is, tries to get back at Scooby and the gang for all the ways they treated him. Maybe somebody is using this game to keep us all trapped inside so he can get even with a group who did him wrong."

Mammatus laughed, finally took a huge swig of her drink, and said, "You don't have too many friends in the real world, do you?"

She could go screw herself, even though she was right.

"Shut up and drink." I took a drink from my mug as well and was instantly intrigued by how much flavor I had tasted. I couldn't wrap my head around at how real this world was too my own. It was pleasantly horrifying.

I knew Mammatus was thinking the same thing I thought too when we both simultaneously said "Wow."

"What did you get?" Mammatus asked me chugging another gulp for seconds.

"It's called 'Snakebite'. I had never had it before, and the name sounded kind of cool." I told her.

"You drink a lot back at home?"

I scratched the back of my mane at Mammatus's question. "Well..." I was a fairly average drinker back at home. I'd probably have six pack abs if I didn't buy a six pack every weekend for Saturday morning cartoons. Plus, being friends with a bunch of your old military co-workers, it's hard not to drink at every establishment that serves alcohol.

I thought over the best way to answer Mammatus's question without sounding like a lonely drunk. "I've...had my fine share of spirits and entertainment."

Why I chose to answer with that, I'll never know.

If expressions could speak words, Mammatus's expression would have told me how stupid she thought I was. She was about to tell me something until an Unicorn player barged in through the tavern doors and began screaming his head off.

The only reason I know he was a player and not an NPC was the color of his name title. Like mine, it was green. Where his differed from mine though, he had a guild name right below his. "The Sadistic Causers of Almighty Mayhem"....S.C.A.M. People and their guild names, I swear.

"They're coming!" The Unicorn screamed. I looked above his guild name to see that his was named "XxchaosxX". Don't ask me how to say that properly when you include the all the X.

"They're going kill me! Everypony quick, gather around me and we can...out number.... them...." Faith left the Chaos's eyes when he saw that Mammatus, the bartender pony, and myself were they only ones inside of the tavern. "W-where is everypony?"

The NPC bartender lifted his head and greeted Chaos. "Hello [XxchaosxX], and welcome to the Prancing Pony!" Hey, a Lord of the Rings reference. The bartender gestured his hoof across the entire bar and continued his automated greeting. "Take a seat and one of us will be right with you."

One of legs squeaked when Mammatus leaned farther back into her chair, strategically balancing her elbows on the counter so she didn't fall over. "Everypony's out looking for those 'bosses'. We're the only ones here."

"Oh." Was all Chaos had to say before he conjured a illuminating blue sword with his magic. "Then this will be easier than I thought." He whistled and the ponies who were supposedly trying to kill him barged in and stood strong by his sides. There was two of them, both Unicorns as well. It didn't take someone with half a mind to realize the two ponies beside him were actually his allies and not trying to hurt him.

The bartender NPC greeted both simultaneously when they walked in, but not as uniquely as he did with Chaos. "Hey there, travelers, and welcome to the Prancing Pony! Please, take a seat and one of us will be right with you."

"Well, boys, we won't get as many bits as I had hoped, but this will be easier than I thought." Chaos said to them both.

"Boys?" The only female unicorn of the group asked. "Speak for yourselves! I'll take both of them on by myself. They're still in the single digit levels."

There was no hiding that fact. Mammatus was just chewing my ear off on how we should be more focused on leveling rather than filling our bellies. The only quest line I had completed was the tutorial, and I had barely even finished that about an hour ago. I hadn't even killed a damn enemy yet.

"No shit, Vanilla Chair." The last and third Unicorn said. He was a pretty heavy set for what I expected a Unicorn to be, but that could have just been a reflection of his actual physique in real life.

Thinking the same thing I was, Mammatus asked Vanilla Chair, "How did you come up with a name like that?"

Judging by the way Vanilla Chair sighed and combed her mane back, I assumed she got the question a lot. Before she got the time to explain, I rose my mug over my shoulder and threw it in Chaos's direction. Remembering how Mammatus hit me with the health potion, I figured I could do the same with any other consumable item. I was able to connect the mug to his face and disorient him. He stumbled and wildly swung his blue magic sword in a crazy "X" swinging pattern.

The magical blade nearly cut the third Unicorn but made a impairing laceration on Vanilla Chair's back leg. She fell over tried to stand back up immediately, but her back leg wouldn't support her for any longer than half a second before she fell over again. She grunted and began to charge up a spell aimed at me.

I opened my wings and kicked the bar stool from underneath me, sending it flying in Vanilla Chair's direction. The wooden furniture disrupted her spell as I had hoped it would. I took no time to bolt over to her and put my right wing to her throat. I could see her gulp frighteningly when I pressed the tip of one of my bladed feathers deeper into her neck when her friends aimed both their horns, charged with spells, right at me.

"Fire those spells and I'll finish her with a quick slice. Your spells won't be strong enough to kill me with one shot even if they both did hit me!" I yelled at both the unicorns and slid my wing further down so the blades were just under Vanilla's throat.

I had never held a hostage before, I always the one trying to save the hostage, back at home. Holding a blade to this poor women's throat, I couldn't understand how the sick bastards at home could get any sense of satisfaction from mistreating a woman like this. I instantly felt a disgusting fuel of dominance that made me want to hurl. Despite I much I hated it, I needed her if I wanted to survive this current situation though. If dying in the game truly meant death, I was going to have to take this game in all seriousness.

I saw both the Unicorns exchange glances and cancel their spells. "Alright." Chaos said. "You're hardly worth our time or the magic expense anyways."

Typical butt-hurt PvPer. What a sore fucking loser.

They began to both turn around and leave out the front doors they entered through until Vanilla Chair called to them. "WAIT! You can't leave me!"

Chaos had already walked out the door, ignoring Vanilla completely. The second one looked at her with a smug expression. "Sorry, babe. We watch our boys' back, not girls. You can handle them both, right? That's what you said."

From my perception, I could see guilt and the image of hindsight on Vanilla Chair. If I had been anypony else, I would have made her eat those words and killed her right then and there, but I couldn't. She was trying to survive this virtual hell hole just like I was. There's no rules in survival, no mercy, but I showed mine to Vanilla Chair once the second Unicorn left outside the tavern.

I removed and pulled my wing away from Vanilla's throat. I rolled her away with a small push from my front leg. My intentions were never to hurt Vanilla, just use her as a bargaining chip. If those unicorns had actually fired both their spells at me, I would have been at a low amount of health and Mammatus would have ended up holding them off by herself as I recovered.

Vanilla's face was full of surprise, completely speechless with widened eyes. I was crazy to keep her alive after she tried to almost mug me and Mammatus, and Vanilla Chair knew that too.

The expected question I had anticipated to answer came from Mammatus. "You're letting her go?" She asked. "She was going to kill us!"

"Well, now she's not, and I'm the one deciding to her fate."

"Fuck that!" Mammatus said, running to Vanilla's tail and stomping hard on it so she couldn't run off. Vanilla shrieked when Mammatus dragged her back beneath her.

I bit down on Mammatus's tail and pulled her off of Vanilla Leg. "NO! I'm saying we let her go." I put on the most authoritative voice I could manage. My voice was about three times deeper than normal, but I had gotten my point across.

Mammatus's glare nearly set me on fire with the same flare that was burning in her eyes. I was lucky that Mammatus would only kick me in the face at worst. Her loyalty to me was too important for her to break. She was sworn to help, guide, and follow me in every way.

All I got from Mammatus was a loud "FINE!" and a quick slap to the face from her tail. Knowing women like I do, I knew "Fine!" was ten times worse than a "I hate you!", and I doubted Mammatus was any exception.

As soon as Mammatus picked up one of the fallen stools and sat back down at the table, I went to Vanilla Chair, generously helped her back up on her hooves, and asked her, "Are you okay?" A bit of a rhetorical question, considering the fact she came close to death twice in the past thirty seconds.

She gave me a confused look. It was understandable though. It's not everyday somepony who you were about to mug kicks your ass, saves your ass, and asks you if you're okay.

I asked her again, "Are you okay? What were you after?" It was absolutely clear what her and her friends were after.

Vanilla put a hoof to her head, "Head's just a little fuzzy is all..."

I looked up at her health bar to see that she was take bleeding damage from the laceration on her leg, and at a alarming rate too. I popped open my menu, hearing that stupid ringing sound it made every time I did, and requested a trade window with her. "Look, I got the collectors edition of this game. I can spare three potions with you. Take 'em."

A shout came right behind me from you-know-who. "You're giving your items away to her?!"

"Once the bleeding finally finishes, she's only going to have a chunk of health left. There's no need to kill-".

If irony had a voice, I would have heard it laughing. I heard the unsheathing of something familiar coming from my ear closest to Vanilla.

In just the nick of time, I turned around to see Vanilla Chair holding a knife, with her magic, aimed right above the back of my neck. I didn't even know she had one let alone even try to use it one me.

Before, Vanilla could stab the knife into the back of my neck, I closed my menu window, and thrusted my helmeted head towards her face, shoving the the heavy metal right where her muzzle was. The knife feel and dropped in between the two of us. I gave Vanilla no time to even think of charging a spell, and stabbed both my bladed wings deep in Vanilla's front side and out through the bottom of her shoulder blades.

I could heard the bones split and muscles rip when my blades cleaned through her soft flesh. Her low-class mage attire held no defense for the swift attack. A cry of pain left Vanilla Chair's mouth when the remainder of her health finally dropped below zero. She tried to push herself off my wing, but I held my strong leg over her back to keep her on, hugging her to the blades.

Mammatus was surprised to have seen me kill the mare who's life I just spared moments ago. She looked at me holding Vanilla with my wings and leg until she stopped moving. She stayed there motionless, lifted in the air by both my wings, her head finally bowed low. I'm not sure if she thought the could one shot me with a back-stab to my armor, but why in Equestria she would choose to do so when I graciously offered her a much better option, I'll never know now.

I was too focused on what I had just done to realize Mammatus came around to my front and carefully removed Vanilla chair from the tip of my wings. The large gaping hole from Vanilla's chest to her back made a wet popping sound when Mammatus finally removed her. I just stood in place with half of my armor dripping in blood, my wings still lifted in the air.

Even though Vanilla had intended to attack me, I didn't feel right for taking her life like that, but I had no choice. Not even a day in this game yet, and ponies are already killing one another for the other one's equipment.

My full-faced helmet proved me no good in trying to hide how I felt about killing Vanilla. Mammatus could tell that I was feeling awful and didn't bug me about the issue anytime that day. She just set Vanilla down easily back to the ground and took her seat back next to me back at our table. We actually didn't say anything at all the rest of the time we were at the tavern. We just stared at our drinks and drank a sip every now and then until they were both empty.

Sadly, I hardly felt any remorse for killing the poor unknown player, but I guess that's a result from the Marine Corps. I only got deployed once in my four year contract. Got into some fire fights, survived, got called a "War Hero". Supposedly, killing someone's son and surviving a battle is all it takes to get called a hero. ~~God~~ Celestia knows I didn't feel like one though...Taking another life as a civilian didn't make the matter any better.

We left the empty tavern after that to realize how late in the day it had gotten. Mammatus tapped on my armored shoulder and pointed to a river near by. "You might want to wash up before we go back to down town Canterlot."

The blood on my armor had dried and could have easily been peeled off, if I had my fingers. Throwing a towel in my face that she drew from her inventory, Mammatus told me, "Come on, I'll help you wash if you forgot how." There was a strange emotion in her voice that I could only describe with the word "flirty".

If Mammatus had been a human girl, I would have jumped on her offer before I could even blink. But, (and I know you're not supposed to start a sentence that way, but I'm stuck in a mmo. So, back off) being the gentleman that my father taught me to be, I restrained my sexual urges. Pulling the towel off around my head, my mane went up in a crazy pattern of messy spikes. "I'll do it myself. I don't need you to help wash me."

The next thing Mammatus said threw me for a loop, "Okay, but what if I wanted to?" She did this flirty fluttering thing with her eye lashes that I absolutely fell in love with once I saw it. (I'm stuck in a video game full of ponies, it gets pretty lonely pretty fast. Back off.)

Now, I was not expecting that sort of response from her. My jaw dropped from the rest of my body, hitting the bottom of my helmet and making a "clunk" sound that Mammatus definitely heard. I couldn't believe what I had heard. Had she really just offered to give me a happy ending? Is that even possible in this game? I'm not complaining if it is, nor am I condoning it, I was just surprised.

Repeating herself, and making my tail stiffen up, Mammatus added, "I won't even use the towel if you want."

Holy shit. No idea where all this was coming from, but I liked it. I didn't even know you could even do this sort of thing in the game. I tried to say something in response to her, but I just ended up stuttering really bad and making myself look like an idiot. No surprise there.

It wasn't until Mammatus's cheeks were turning redder than her coat already was with laughter, I realized she was just pulling a mean (and incredibly cruel) joke on me. "Sweet Celestia, I can't believe you actually thought I was serious! You're a real freak, you know? Go bath so we can get back in town, you sick bastard." With that, Mammatus pulled the towel down barely over my eyes just enough to see her swinging hips at me when she walked away.

What a tease.

....What? Don't act like you have noticed a pony's ass befo...You know what? I'm gonna stop myself right there before I finish that sentence and dig myself into a hole too deep for me to crawl out of.

Not that I'd be into that sort of thing, but I mean, come on, I'm wasn't going to pass it up if the offer is there. Wow, that statement did make my predicament any better. What I mean is...Aw, hell! I'm was going to be stuck inside a video game for the next Celestia-knows-when. Give a break, will you? Sheesh.

Almost after thirty minutes, and halfway through the cleaning of my armor and bathing, I heard the sound of another body entering the river on the opposite side. I didn't pick up my head to see who it was out of shame. I persistently avoided looking up once I saw the ripples of water move towards me. There was going to be no way in hell that I was going to let Mammatus tease me again.

"Go away." I ordered her, knowing good and well she was going to do the exact opposite of what I told her. Useless ass NPC.

A quite, "Oh", followed by a, "I'm so sorry. Were you trying to have some alone time?" That voice did NOT, I repeat, did NOT belong to Mammatus. It was way too timid and...kinda cute. The sort of cute that made you go Squee!

Faster than a Bruce Lee kick, I picked my head up to see the adorable owner of the cute voice. Oh. My. Celestia. I thought her voice was cute. When I actually saw her, I just about fell in love. She was absolutely, just, daww. I can't even describe it with words. She was a cute petite pink earth pony with tiny pigtails in her light blue and lime green mane. She definitely put some creativity (and time) in her character design by the looks of it.

Her armor was set aside at the other side of the river, a low-level, like me, but that was to be expected. Above her, her name title read "Pastel". More than likely a painter or something to do with art.

After not hearing a response from me, Pastel asked again, "Did you want some time to yourself?" I had gotten so lost in her unique character design that I forgot to respond. I was just so relieved to finally see some creativity! Honestly, you wouldn't believe how many red and black ponies there were in this game. There was more red skins here than there was on the first Thanksgiving.

,"No, I just thought you were-" and just before I was about to finish that sentence and introduce myself, the master of bitch-fu, Bitch Lee, comes out of nowhere and drops this number.

"Hey, ass hat, I found some herbs. I can't pull them, and that reminded me, you need to assign us some professions if you plan on making any money." Mammatus finally caught sight of Pastel, after reminding me of that very important matter, and immediately asked, "The fuck is she?"

If there's an anger management class in this game(there should be, you can do everything else under the sun here), I'm enrolling Mammatus the first opportunity I get.

I saw Pastel do a small flinch and back step away from Mammatus. I couldn't blame her, Mammatus's red coat reflected her personality perfectly. "I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I can leave, if that's what you would like."

....Fluttershy concept, anyone?

"Actually" Mammatus started, " I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THAT!" I'm not sure if she was intentionally referencing Princess Candace or not, but that was the impression that I got.

Like before, and many times after this, I stopped Mammatus from scaring off a valuable player. "Hey, hey, hey!" I screamed at her. "There's no need for the hostility. Maybe she could be viable to us. Who knows, she could point us in the right direction of where to find the first boss."

And just one queue, Pastel said, "I was wondering if you two could help us with defeating the first boss? You're the only one's with COF (Circle of Friendship) equipment that I could find." My point was valid after that statement. Mammatus could suck one.

m

"HA!" I laughed in Mammatus smug face and bopped her in the nose. " I told you! I told you!" I began to bounce around an sing around Mammatus the same line over and over again like a little kid. "She. Needs. Us. So. Piss. Off." I spoke one word with each boop I did to her muzzle.

Proving how right I was in front of Mammatus's face felt good, really good, until...

"And I couldn't help but notice you two weren't in a guild. If you wouldn't mind, I can invite you to my guild, and you can quest with us to the first boss. We're the only one's who are aware of where he is."

It was Mammatus's turn to mock me. She ~~booped~~ punched me in my muzzle and laughed, "Ha, Ha!" ~~No one~~ No pony likes a smart ass.

I grasped my nose tightly and faced back towards Pastel. "Who's this us?"

"Me and my friends"

"My friends and I", Mammatus corrected Pastel, interrupting her through her explanation.

I kicked Mammatus in the front of her knees and stomped on her hoof. She was fortunate that I wasn't wearing my armor at that moment. I checked behind me to make sure my armor was still there where I left it. Sure enough, it was. I swung my head back around and nodded to Pastel, urging her to continue where she was rudely interrupted.

"We...We started a small raid group, twenty players to be exact, and one friend spawn. Kind of like her." Pastel gestured her eyes to Mammatus, which, surprise, Mammatus take too kindly to. Looking back at me, Pastel continued, "The Guild master, my brother, wants to keep it strictly a twenty person raid so we have a definite chance to get the rare weapon drop."

I couldn't blame her brother wanting the rare weapon drop, but going in blindly with a twenty player raid with no information on the boss, not such a smart move.

"Oh." Mammatus smiled and winked at Pastel, kind of in a weird seductive manner. "I see what you're saying." Considering what Mammatus said next, she obviously didn't. "You want us to take out your brother so YOU can get the rare weapon drop."

What, what, what?! Mammatus, where in the hell did you get that idea?

Pastel had about the same reaction. "What? Oh no, no, no! I mean, my brother is kind of rude, but I don't think he doesn't deserve to die."

"Only one way to find for sure."

I kicked Mammatus in her knee again. "Mammatus, no!" Seriously, my Jack Russel was more obedient that her, and she eats her own turds. Not really relevant, but just wanted to mention I have a dog that needs to get feed. Hint. Hint.

"We can help." I promised Pastel. She made a smile that almost made me want to snuggle her. Mammatus, on the other hoof, made a grotesque moaning sound that made me want to suffocate her with a pillow. "I'm a tank class so I can aggro the boss while everyone else does damage to it."

"We can talk about tactics when we meet my brother, Dasani." (Yes, like the bottle of water. Creativity at it's finest!) Pastel opened her menu with the ringing theme sounding after. "I can invite you two to the guild so you can get all the extra EXP. and stuff like that. Dasani will hate me for it, but to show my gratitude, and a little thank you, for you guys joining us, I'll promote you both to Captains so you can have access to all the guild bank tabs. It's mainly just a bunch of potions and elixirs for now."

This was actually turning out not to be so bad. In most other MMOs I played, I usually just joined a guild to fill their charters and have an extra line of text underneath my name. Speaking of that, I politely asked Pastel, "Hey, what's the name of this guild anyways?" My question got answered when her guild invite finally hit my inbox with that damn annoying "bing" sound. I waved my hoof to open up my menu and looked down to see the message Pastel had just sent me, it read:

From: Pastel
To: Nimbus

You have been invited to join the Harmonized Bakeries

Please accept or decline below

Once I saw the name, I looked up just in time to see Mammatus opening up the very same message in her own inbox. When she read that name, the look she gave...even though she made no physical sound, I could hear screaming internally at me, telling me how much of a dumb ass I was and how she wanted to shove her hoof somewhere inside my body where a hoof doesn't belong.

I quietly mouthed the words "My bad" to her. It didn't change a thing, not even how tempted how she was to cut off my balls and wear them around her neck.

"Is everything okay?" Pastel asked in a very light voice. I could tell she took notice of Mammatus's and my own expression, we didn't do too great a job of hiding it. Granted, it's pretty uncommon to come across any guild with a decent name in any MMO, but come on! This was...I don't even know...

I breathed in through my nose and huffed out through my mouth to relax myself. Who knows maybe these guys aren't even that bad. Answering Pastel's question after I accepted her guild invite, I told her, with a faked smile, "No, nothing. Everything's peachy!" I must have had the smile of a serial killer. Pastel flinched at my face gesture, and if I'm not mistaken, I think I might have even saw her losing some health from looking at me.

Seconds after I got accepted in Harmonized Bakeries, I saw the guild name pop up and place itself right below my own name. Soon after that, I saw the same thing happen to Mammatus's name, I don't think she was as acceptive of the name as I was. Especially after the message she private sent me right after.

From: Mammatus
To: Nimbus

I hate you

,love, your friend spawn, Mammatus

I shrugged off Mammatus's private and more formally introduced Mammatus and myself to Pastel. I showed her our stats and even told her and elaborated more on our Circle of Friendship equipment. Needless to say, Pastel was absolutely astonished at our stats. Even though our levels were quite lower than her own, our stars far surpassed hers, thanks to our CoF equipment. Praise Celestia for collector edition games!

In return to us (more me) talking about ourselves, Pastel told us a bit about herself and her brother. Technically, her brother wasn't really related to her. They were just incredibly close online friends. They had been playing MMOs together since the World of Warcraft beta. They always played classes that complimented each other. When they heard of 'Questria: Online, they couldn't help but to try it out for themselves. Pastel went with a stealth based class while her brother rolled as a tanking class. She was worried for him because he had never tanked in any other MMO before. Plus, with her being a stealth class, she couldn't really help him, or herself, if they got stuck in between a too tough of an enemy.

Luckily, they joined the game with other friends they had met in their years of playing MMOs, one of those friends being a heavily dedicated healer. When I heard that, I didn't fell as much regret joining the guild as I did about three minutes ago.

"How good is he?", Mammatus asked Pastel about the guild's main healer.

"She" Pastel corrected. "Melody has been playing healing classes forever. Trust me she knows what she's doing."

Melody...Melody...At the time, I couldn't remember why I knew that name. I don't know why I knew it. I had only met those two mares back in Canterlot, Lilly and...Celestia damn it!

Mammatus knew and remembered exactly who Melody was, and her Siamese twin, Lilly.

I seriously don't know how much worse my could have gotten. I hate guilds. I hate those two mares. I hate this game. Celestia strike me with lighting if you're just going to keep torturing me.

Chapter 3: Waking the sleeping Ursa Minor

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.