New Life Plus

by Hedzentails

Chapters

Level Two: Stare Eye(s)
Level Three: Meaningless Side-quests
Level Four: Overpowered
Level Six: Unskippable Awkwardness
Level Seven: Glitches
Level Nine: Relationship Quests
Level Ten: Pre-emptive Boss
Level Eleven: Training Dummy
Level One: Character Setup
Level Five: Mind Games
Level Eight: Player Vs Player

Level Two: Stare Eye(s)

New Life Plus

By Hedzentails

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Level Two
Stare Eye(s)

-=-=-=-=-

You know earlier when I said you could skip a little further in?

You can stop skipping now. This part is kind of interesting.

So there I was, charging into battle on nothing but incredible levels of adrenaline and slightly wet pants and wielding nothing but a sword that could barely even be called a sword at that size; a slightly larger-than-average dagger would’ve been a better name by my standards.

Anyway, the Eye didn’t seem to notice me as I screamed at the top of my lungs and waved a giant kitchen-knife around in the air. That usually meant things were going well. Of course, a few of the guards fighting it seemed to notice me just fine.

“Look!” yelled one of them, pointing at me as I came closer. “That thing came from the castle! Princess Twilight must have found a great warrior to help us!”

I still hate that guy to this day.

The Eye of Cthulu seemed to think I was now a much bigger threat than the very large amount of guards attacking it, so it turned its horrifying and evil gaze onto me instead. That seemed to snap me out of the crazed state I was in, making me skid to a halt before it blotted out the sky above me completely.

To describe what I was feeling, imagine the scariest thing you’ve ever seen locking the door to your bedroom with a box of flesh-eating maggots and condoms in its hands. That’s pretty much what I was feeling and I’m pretty sure my trousers would be dryer in a shower.

I’d had a lot to drink that day.

“H-hello,” I stammered up at it, going weak at the knees and drooping in terrified defeat. “D-do you m-mind… not sp-spreading terror and p-p-panic? I-I’d really hate t-to… have to f-fight you…”

Before you say anything, Fluttershy was apparently curled up under her bed and shaking up an earthquake that day, so I did pretty well.

Its only response to my very polite request was to rudely summon more Servants to attack me.

My only response to that was to do the thing that came naturally; scream in terror and start flailing my ‘sword’ again. I think I felt some squidgy bits of pixelated gore hit me as I hit a few of those things in my second blind fit of panic of the day. Seriously, their exploded bits were pixelated in such a way that it almost made them sharp.

Strangely, I didn’t feel the painful death I was expecting the Eye to deliver immediately, so I decided to investigate a little.

I managed to pluck up the courage to open one eye to chance a peek at the giant Eye and saw that he was just lazily rotating around above me. The first thing I thought was that I’d somehow beaten him by waving a pony sword at him enough. I threw my arms up in the air and cheered loudly for myself.

“Yeah!” I cried happily. “I beat you by not even killing you! Go me!”

The second thing that I thought of made me realise that Terraria bosses only ever get beaten when they explode into pixelated, bloody bits and that cheering on the spot wasn’t a good idea at all.

I could barely even move before he surged directly towards me like he did after spinning around you in the game for a while after spawning some Servants of Cthulu. The annoying thing was that he didn’t just go past me and through the ground, he actually made physical contact with me.

Physical contact meaning that he actually squashed me against the ground faster than you could say ‘stop staring’.

As you can expect of someone getting crushed, I screamed in agony for the five milliseconds that I actually had the ability to and then I snapped upright from the bed I suddenly found myself in.

“Ow?” I said in a very confused way. I started patting myself down to make sure I still existed in the physical plain. “Am I dead?”

When I received no reply from the voice of my own conscience, I decided to get up and explore a little. I took the bedsheet with me to cover myself up with – clothes couldn’t come with you when you died apparently – and headed over to the only door I could see.

Before I could open it, however, someone behind me managed to stop me before I opened it and potentially exposed myself to a LOT of people.

“Karen?!” Twilight Sparkle yelled at me disbelievingly.

Surprisingly, that voice was one that I REALLY hoped was just a figment of my insanity at that point.

“Yeees?” I replied slowly, making sure I took a really long time to turn around to brace myself for whatever horrors that awaited me, and ‘horrors’ was just a TINY exaggeration.

“What are you doing back here?!” yelled the non-imagined alicorn princess furiously. “I thought you went out to help slay that monster!! Did you come back in here to hide?! What happened to your armour?!”

Which reminded me of my present condition.

“Um…” I whispered nervously. “W-would you mind… letting me get into some clothes please?”

“Why?” she asked, mood switching from anger to confusion suddenly. “We don’t normally wear clothes here.”

Which then brought a slightly disturbing thought into my mind that there were now two almost completely naked females in the same room as each other.

You might not really care about that a lot, but I was pretty shy about being seeing naked by anyone.

And some of the fanfics I’d read really didn’t make things better.

I WAS BORED AND THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE TO DO DON’T JUDGE ME FOR THAT.

“Yeeeah out now,” was all I said as I crossed the room in pretty much the blink of an eye to start sliding her across the floor on her rump towards the door. I’d practiced on my dog when he didn’t want to have a bath on the smooth floors back home so I’d gotten pretty good at that.

I think she was still trying to comprehend what’d just happened when I slammed the door behind her after pushing her out.

Fortunately, she didn’t come back in at all, so I began ransacking what I soon found out was Twilight’s bedroom for something to wear without having to worry even more. It didn’t take long considering ponies don’t wear stuff often and she wasn’t exactly the craziest about fashion; there was only one wardrobe in the entire room.

Normally I would’ve just gone for a shirt and trousers when I needed to get dressed quick, but she didn’t normally wear trousers either. So I went with something that probably wasn’t the best thing to wear in a time of crisis, especially since I was probably going to have to be the one to resolve it, but something that I thought looked nice and I just wanted to see how I’d look in it.

Granted, I wasn’t having my coronation day as a princess, but it still looked amazing on me. I still need to ask if I can keep it.

F*$! you I do what I want.

After about ten minutes of squeezing into Twilight’s coronation dress, I poked my head out the door of the bedroom to see if Twilight was still waiting. Luckily for me she was because I wouldn’t have had a clue who to go talk to next.

“Oh good, you’re done!” she said, yanking me through the door with her magic. She stared at what I was wearing for a few seconds before asking the obvious. “Why are you wearing my dress?”

“Shut up I’m a great warrior from another universe and I can wear what I like!” I replied loudly, trying to make myself look more fearsome by standing in a dramatic pose.

She didn’t buy it.

“Whatever!” she shouted. “Can we just focus on the monster attacking Ponyville please?!”

“Right,” I said, snapping back into things. I quickly came up with a plan that probably wouldn’t go absolutely terribly. “I need a sword! Bigger than last time though, that thing was a butter knife.”

She rolled her eyes and yelled for a guard to bring a big sword while I tried thinking up what else I’d need. I didn’t think I’d be needing a large flat platform seeing as the Eye of Cthulu didn’t seem to obey Terraria physics, but I did know some other things that might work.

“Ooh!” I yelled quickly. “I also need lots and lots of shurikens!”

“What?!” yelled Twilight again. “Why do you need throwing stars?! Wouldn’t a bow and arrow be better?!”

“Bows don’t work well on this guy,” I explained quickly. “You’ve got more chance of losing arrows but shurikens kill his minions and then hit him right after.”

She stared at me like I was crazy, but she didn’t question my logic or the video game physics behind it.

“Alright…” she agreed unsurely. She shouted at another guard to get as many shurikens as he could get.

I honestly still can’t understand why they would even have those things in their armouries when they don’t even have fingers.

“Here’s the sword you asked for, princess!” barked the guard who’d gone to do that, making me jump so much I thought I’d respawn again in a second. He unsheathed the greatsword – by their standards, I’d assume – from the sheath on his back.

How hard he pulled it out and slammed it into the ground made his hat fall off and the sudden unexplainable breeze sent his loose mane flowing to one side. Ever seen a guy holding a giant sword with his hair waving in the breeze? Yes, he wasn’t human, but he still looked pretty awesome.

I actually have Rainbow Dash’s agreement on that, so shut up.

I picked up his hat and, despite the almost-insatiable urge to just keep it for myself, offered it back to him. He stabbed the sword into the ground, another feat of awesomeness considering he stood on his back legs to do it, before shaking his head at me.

“You keep it,” he said, pushing it back towards my stomach. “You’ll need it fighting that thing more than I will for keeping the rest of Ponyville safe.”

I was seriously wondering how Twilight hadn’t just tackled him to the ground and asked to marry him yet. I will admit it, I kind of was thinking that myself at the time, but he lived in a completely different universe to me and I just knew he was probably already in a relationship with somepony else anyway.

Besides, he was probably a nameless soldier that’d die like in all video games-

“Thank you, Shieldheart,” Twilight said nonchalantly, nodding at him with another eye-rolling.

-was what I was hoping so I wouldn’t have to get too emotionally attached to him so it’d be a lot easier if he died.

He’s going to die. I bet my life on it. With no respawns.

People like him usually die to make you feel better about beating the game and avenging their death, don’t they?

…

Don’t they?

“I’ll need to get back to my post,” he said quickly. He gave a quick bow. “Excuse me, your highness.” He nodded at me lightly. “Good luck, ma’am.”

And then he charged back towards the building that was somehow on fire and conveniently had two little foals on the roof screaming for help.

I really want to say he merely assisted the other five guards in putting out the fire or getting the ladder up to help the foals down, but he just kicked the front door down and leapt into the raging inferno.

HE IS DEFINITELY GOING TO DIE AT SOME POINT I JUST KNOW IT.

“That recklessness of his is really going to get him hurt one day…” Twilight commented.

“Uh huh…” I muttered in response, still staring after the mildly attractive stallion.

Hey, it should be okay to think that if they’ve got human intelligence and the ability to speak.

Mostly okay.

Shut up I’m fighting video game bosses in a fictional world I’m not thinking straight.

“Here are your shurikens, ma’am!” barked another guard, snapping me out of the trance I was in. I spun to face him and he rather unimpressively dropped a bag at my feet. “Best of luck to you!”

And then he pulled the spear off of his back, spun to face the Eye of Cthulu again and charged back into Ponyville.

Okay, if THAT generic, nameless guard hasn’t died yet, I will eat my own arm. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.

“Thanks then…” I mumbled, picking up the surprisingly light bag up. I shook it to make sure it wasn’t empty, but there were definitely rattling shurikens in there. Yes, they probably did steal J.K. Rowling’s undetectable expansion charm, but J.K. is awesome and everyone should know about her stuff.

“You’ve got what you needed!” Twilight yelled, suddenly frustrated again. “Hurry up and slay that giant eyeball!”

I just barely managed to pull the sword out of the ground and put on the guard hat before I was pushed towards the Eye of Cthulu again. As you can expect, the sword was pretty heavy. The other stuff wasn’t as bad and I did not regret my choice of attire in any way at all. I could get around really easily in that dress.

I’d just have to ask Rarity to make some adjustments and I could have the perfect dress for formal get-togethers.

Sorry, irrelevant, moving on.

Like you’d normally do when fighting the Eye of Cthulu, I just started hurling as many shurikens as possible at him. Literally JUST hurling them at him; I’d grab one out of the bag and just throw it at him like you’d throw a ball for your dog. The funny part about that was they actually spun enough to shift into the way a shuriken is supposed to be thrown.

Video game physics seemed to be on my side at that point.

Unfortunately, and for the second time, Cthulu spun to face me as soon as one of them hit him. I could see it’d injured him a little, but the shuriken just fell out of his… back? Rear? Not seeing side? It fell out of his something and onto the ground. Another funny thing was that it looked a lot bigger.

And stood on its spiky side.

Go Terraria physics.

Even MORE unfortunately, he was in the process of floating around after spawning some Servants to make things problematic for the guards attacking him. So, for the second time in half-an-hour and in my life, he charged right at me and killed me again by squashing me excruciatingly against the floor.

And, yet again, I respawned without any of my items with me in Twilight’s bed.

Resisting the urge to scream my frustrations at how OP that giant dick-bag was, I got up and headed back over to Twilight’s wardrobe. While I was just going to go for another fashionable piece of clothing, I was too annoyed to even bother so I just grabbed the really simple dress Rarity had ‘made’ while she was saying hi to Fancypants and all those other ponies.

And I’m just glad I wouldn’t have to keep THAT one.

Dressed in crappy attire and thinking nothing but stuff about blenders mixed with the Eye of Cthulu, I headed back outside to see Twilight staring at what looked like a bag, a dress and a surprisingly intact sword and helmet; a guard hat to be specific.

Helmet, hat, pick one. Hat sounds more fun to me.

She nearly jumped out of her fur when I tapped her on the back and when she spun to face me, she looked about ready to just pass out.

“K-Karen?!” she asked sacredly and loudly. “B-but… I saw that thing flatten you! And nopony can survive something like that!!”

“Oh, calm down, it happened earlier anyway…” I said dismissingly, rolling MY eyes at HER. Yeah, sucks the other way round, doesn’t it? “Turns out I actually DID need something else fighting that thing.”

I was better at thinking tactics when I was mad at the boss for killing me that much.

“Well… I’ll get whatever you need if it means saving Ponyville!” she replied. She seemed to be a lot more distressed than usual since she’d watched me get murdered by a giant floating eyeball. “What else did you need? I’ll get it as soon as possible!”

“I’m gonna need…” I said, thinking about what weapon of mass destruction would be best for this kind of thing. It took about half a second, I just wanted to look more dramatic by drawing it out. “Rainbow Dash.”

“Yep! Watcha need?” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly appearing from absolutely nowhere with a kind of creepy grin on her face. She couldn’t have wanted to be called on in this situation THAT much, could she?

…

Oh yeah. Rainbow Dash. Got it.

“Okay, thanks for getting here so quick…” I said slowly. I waved at her weakly. “First, hi, I'm Karen." Then I pointed at my stuff. "Second, grab all that stuff and bring back real fast.”

“On it!” Rainbow yelled with a quick salute. She brought each bit back individually, but she did it all in, who woulda thought, ten seconds flat. “Piece of cake! What now?”

“Wait here while I put this stuff on,” I said, grabbing all the stuff and heading back inside. She said nothing, but she was probably thinking the same thing Twilight was earlier.

I was not going to have fun explaining why humans don’t like being naked around other people that much.

This time round, it only took me two minutes to get back into that dress. Twilight’s other dress was turned into a strap to hold the sword and the bag of shurikens and, while I’m sure she’s angry about it still, she’ll thank me for it at some point.

As soon as I got back outside, I was met with an angry glare from Rainbow Dash. Twilight had more of a worried glare, but it was still a little bit angry.

“Took ya long enough!” Rainbow reprimanded sternly. “You honestly think you’re gonna save Ponyville by taking that long to put on a stupid dress?!” Then she noticed the makeshift battle harness I’d made. “Ooh, never mind. That’s a good use for a dress.”

Twilight noticed it too.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BIRTHDAY DRESS?!!” she screamed. I was starting to think I should’ve asked first.

“Sorry, but there was no other way,” I said quickly, waving my hands at her to calm her down. I never knew how that worked. “Your dress shall help save all of Ponyville and it’ll be a magnificent sacrifice!” Drama helped with things like this apparently. “Besides, that thing was terrible. I’ll get Rarity to make you a better one.”

“Alright, skip the boring part!” Rainbow cut in over Twilight’s very angry ranting about me breaking her dress. “What exactly do you need me to do now?!”

“Alright…” I said slowly. “The giant eyeball has a very simple tactic. He’ll spawn a few minions, float around for a second and then charge at you. Before he charges, I want you to distract him by kicking him and then just get out of the way quickly so he doesn’t kill me again.”

“Sounds easy enough!” she stated quickly. She was about to tear off and do that, but I grabbed her tail and pulled her back. “Ah, what now?!”

“Yeah, I’ll also need you to pick up the shurikens that fall off of him when I throw them,” I explained, pulling one out to show her what I was talking about. “Oh, and after a while, he’ll start spinning around and the front of his eye will break off and leave him with a really big mouth. When that happens he’ll just charge three times, so you need to distract him while I hurt him even more.”

“You got it, lady!” Rainbow agreed quickly. “Let’s kill this thing and kill it fast!”

“Alright!” I yelled, spinning to point at the Eye of Cthulu. “Eye of Cthulu, prepare to meet Re-Logic!”

I don’t think Rainbow got what I meant, but she charged forwards and I ran after her.

The first thing that happened was the Eye spun to face me yet again. It’d only just charged at some out-of-reach guards, so my shuriken flew straight through a minion and into the Eye’s pupil. That was repeated another few times before it started floating around lazily.

“RD, that’s your cue!” I yelled. Rainbow got the message and shot towards it, making sure to kick it a little. The Eye spun to face her, but she darted out of the way just before it charged. “Now collect some of those shurikens and bring ‘em back!”

“You got it!” she yelled back. Immediately, she started dashing (ha, dash) around to grab all the giant, geometrically placed shurikens that were around on the ground while I started hurling more.

This routine we were in now went on for a few minutes before anything interesting happened.

“He’s going into his second form!” I shouted, noticing the overdramatic spinning of the Eye. “Keep your eyes on him so you know when he’s about to charge!”

“Like I’m gonna let you take all the credit for this!” Rainbow yelled back. She actually stopped in mid-air when she realised what I’d just said. “Aw, come on! That was terrible!”

Yes, I did say that with the pun completely intended.

My giggling was silenced by the sight of giant bits of pixel-gore flying off of where the Eye’s pupil was. He really does look a lot scarier like that in 3D. That silence was then obliterated by Rainbow Dash’s screaming. Not terror screaming though, just screaming.

“Whoa!!” she screamed way too happily for seeing this kind of thing. “That thing looks so AWESOME!! The Wonderbolts are gonna be BEGGING me to join after this!!”

Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

Oh god, the eye puns are just getting to ME now.

So there we were, in the midst of the Eye of Cthulu in phase two. I was running low on shurikens because most of them probably went too far or Rainbow couldn’t see any of them. Fortunately, my giant pony-sword was still there so it wasn’t going to be impossible.

I was just hoping I wouldn’t die again.

I pulled the sword out of the dress/strap and jumped at the close-enough Eye. I managed to hit it once pretty hard, but as I expected already, that giant cut I made on him just vanished as soon as it was made.

“Remember to keep it distracted but keep it close enough for me to get at!!” I yelled at Rainbow, who seemed way too happily immersed for this kind of thing.

I haven’t read it, but if Rainbow Factory was based around Rainbow being a bloody-minded psychopath, this is really backing that up.

I still haven’t wanted to be left alone with her.

…

Other fan-fics add to that too because I don’t really swing that way.

DO NOT JUDGE ME YOU PROBABLY READ ONE AT SOME POINT TOO.

Anyway, she obeyed that better than I would’ve thought; she’d kick the eye, get on his other side when he’d charge, kick him again and so on until he was out of charge to give me the easiest, surprisingly useful, mad flailing of a sword at him possible.

Seeing as he didn’t have his health displayed above him like he usually did, it was hard to tell how long this boss battle was going to take. Considering how long it’d taken to get him to this phase and how often I could hit him thanks to miss super speed, this wasn’t going to take that long at all.

So long as Dash kept distracting it so I wouldn’t die again.

All bosses’ health went back up when you died, after all.

But, before the first victory for team bestpony – it’s a work in progress, shut up – the not very likely happened. You probably jumped to the idea that I died again or Dash got eaten by an eyeball or something like that, but it really wasn’t that dramatic.

I just stood on the tail of the dress and tripped up.

Not that bad? Yeah, the distraction got ironically distracted by that so the Eye was still focused on me as it charged. As you’re probably thinking, I screamed in terror at the idea of getting squashed a third time today.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen.

I was wondering why not while I was quivering on the ground with my hands over my head. When I looked up, I noticed that Dash and I were no longer the only people actually doing something productive against the Eye of Cthulu.

Well, technically the people part was just me, but you get the idea.

“Alright, go that guy!” Rainbow yelled at our surprise extra comrade. “Hey, Karen! Looks like you got an admirer!”

I wouldn’t have gone red at that but the memory of what he’d done earlier and what I’d thought when he’d done it made me go as red as the Eye’s pixel blood. He was stood almost over me with his horn glowing and making a magic, semi-transparent red shield, which was probably what had saved us both.

“Aren’t you gonna say something about seeing why they call me Shieldheart’?” he asked nonchalantly.

And so decent sense of humour was added to the list of reasons why that should be mostly okay.

…

Most of it should be mostly okay.

Not that kind of thing though.

Yeah, you know what I mean. You were thinking it. If you weren’t thinking that and wondering why I was, I just have to say Carl did get kind of creepy and raunchy with his horsef@!£er insults sometimes.

Honestly, I’d rather not think about them.

I’ll get back to the main subject now.

Even though I was as red as his magic shield, I was hoping that the wacky-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man technique would get me out of the embarrassment of going red in front of a guy I had a REALLY TINY feeling of attraction for. Yes, it had happened before and no, it only made things more awkward for me and them.

And I’m allowed to have an INFINITESIMAL crush on some random guy. You remember that guy or girl you saw in the street that you were kind of attracted to? Well that’s the case for this as well.

I am so good at rambling on about things like this.

“Okaythanksbyenowhavefun!” I cried at him in a very quick string of randomness. I jumped back onto my feet and ran at something that would’ve been easier to be around right now; the Eye of Cthulu. “Gottakillagianteyenowgoodluckwiththat!”

I’m pretty sure he said something about me overreacting just a little, but I wasn’t really paying attention anymore. (Un)Luckily, Rainbow Dash was, but she was more focused on poking a giant eye than how I was acting around a guy.

“We’re still killing this thing, right?” she yelled at me, doing all those cool aerobatics to keep the Eye distracted. “Cuz if you wanna go get dinner with that guy, I can take this thing myself!”

I remember throwing the nearest pixelated piece of a Servant of Cthulu at her before getting back into the game. I still wish that was literal because life games suck.

Rainbow Dash is not best pony. She’s going to see this whole adventure of mine at some point and now she knows she is not best pony. You could have settled for me not saying anything, Dash, but no. You just had to go and make a stupid joke like that about a thing that actually happened often.

“Enough chitchat!” I shouted back. “Time is candy!”

I couldn’t resist.

So again, the tactics I had so amazingly come up with went back into effect. Rainbow would pull the eye close with distracted charges and I would hit him with my sword.

As I was thinking how much longer I’d have to stab an eyeball, he suddenly exploded into pixelated, gory pieces with a really disgusting squelching sound.

“AWW YEAH!!” Rainbow screamed at that victory. “PONIES ONE; GIANT EYEBALL NOTHIN’!!”

“Technically he got two because he killed me twice already, but okay…” I said, not loud enough for Dash to hear as she shot towards me.

“That was awesome!” she cheered when she stopped in front of me. “When do we get to do that again? There’s loads of monsters poppin’ up all over the place! We should go make them explode like that guy!”

I was really hoping all those monsters were just Terraria ones at the time because the least amount of trouble I’d ever had with bosses was with the Wall of Flesh. Even then I’d lost at least twenty times to him.

In a single two hour sitting of the game.

And then another ten times after the rage at how OP he was subsided.

But I could only wish for something THAT easy.

“You did it!” yelled Twilight, finally appearing again AFTER the Eye was defeated. She was galloping over with two (presumably) bodyguards. “Great work you two! You’ve saved Ponyville!”

“Pfft, it was nothin’,” Dash said, brushing off her hoof like killing giant monsters was an easy thing she did daily. She probably did, knowing her.

“Now that Ponyville’s safe, we should probably head up to Canterlot to tell princess Celestia that you can help us with this problem!” Twilight explained.

“Couldn’t you just tell Spike to message her?” I asked, not willing to use what little energy I had left.

“Not really…” she went on slowly. “For some reason he can’t send letters anymore. It must be something to do with these monsters.”

“Well…” I continued, trying to come up with something that wouldn’t mean having to quest on up to the castle. “Couldn’t you teleport up there to tell her? You’re a super-powerful alicorn now, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Again, not really,” she replied. It wasn’t looking good for me. “Since these monsters showed up, all the princesses of Equestria seem to have lost most of their power. I was surprised that that spell to bring you here even worked as much as you were.”

“Great,” I said. Then I remembered there was a train anyway. “Oh it’ll be fine! We’ll just take the train up!”

“One of those monsters destroyed the train before we could stop it last week,” Rainbow cut in bluntly.

I went quiet at the thought of having to trek across the land to get to Canterlot.

“But not to worry!” Twilight said quickly, seeing my distress. “The road to Canterlot isn’t that long and it’s still really safe even now!”

I wasn’t paying attention to her.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing up in the sky at the flying ship in the sky.

Twilight turned to look.

“Oh, that’s just a griffin warship,” she said. “They said they’d help Equestria in any way they can, but they certainly took their time!”

She shouted that last part at the ship.

And then the giant hand on a crane came out of the ship.

“Oh for the love of-” was all I could say before it slapped me across Ponyville and grabbed Twilight.

I’m pretty sure Bowser was on that ship and laughing, but that was all I saw before I crashed into a wall and died FOR THE THIRD TIME that day.

So that happened. Bowser had taken the princess and I would probably be the one to save her.

The very next thing that happened was I shot bolt upright in the bed I'd spawned in to scream my frustrations.

"YOU'VE GOTTA BE F%!*ING KIDDING ME!!!" I screamed at the door that undoubtedly led to Bowser who was now probably guarding the princess so she wouldn't escape.

Level Three: Meaningless Side-quests

Did I seem to take what just happened a little too seriously?

Shut up this was more serious than anything someone had been pony-napped and I had been punched into a wall and I DIED.

That kind of thing was pretty serious.

I got out of the bed and headed over to the door quickly. I poked my head outside and looked for Rainbow Dash. I found her staring in awe at where I had died.

“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” I yelled at her. She jumped a little and spun to face me.

She just stared at me for a few seconds in silence.

“That is SO COOL!!” she shouted. It was a little creepy that she thought me dying was cool, but I didn’t say anything about it. “You gotta teach me how to do that some time!”

“I’d teach you if I knew how it worked myself, Rainbow Dash,” I replied. I don’t think she heard me from that far away, which is probably why she charged towards me after scooping up my stuff.

“What, no ‘thank you’?” she asked as she pushed me through the door and came into the room. I was about to say she didn’t exactly give me a chance but I went red as I noticed her observing me up and down. “Wow, you look weird without this stuff on.”

I grabbed my stuff from her, spun her around, pushed her as hard as I could towards the door and then slammed it behind her. I sighed once I’d done that and started to put the dress back on.

I panicked. What can I say? My brain was screaming at me to get her out of the room, so I did so.

“Now that was just rude!” said Rainbow Dash who’d just pushed the door back open and come back in again. “All I said is you look we-”

“OUT!!” I screamed at her as I repeated the process. I held the door shut again for a few seconds and heard her banging against it to try and get back in.

When I was sure she’d stopped, I went back to putting my clothes back on, Well, technically they were Twilight’s clothes but in this situation they were mine. I hadn’t got my actual clothes back by that point anyway.

“Okay, I get that you’re angry that you got punched by a robot thing, but you don’t have to take it out on me,” Rainbow Dash said from behind me.

The dress was half on me by that point, but I still wanted her out until I was FULLY clothed.

Unfortunately, she knew what I was going to do before I did it and flew out of my reach.

“Can you just get out please?!” I yelled up at her.

“Why?” she asked. “It’s not like you’ve got something to hide. I can’t understand why you want to wear clothes so bad anyway.”

“Where I’m from, it’s rude to watch someone get dressed!” I tried. It was, but I don’t think she cared.

“Well I bet it wouldn’t hurt you to try some of our culture!” she retorted, smirking and crossing her forelegs at me. “I promise I’ll try some of your culture later too, but right now, we gotta hurry up and save Twilight!”

“I don’t want to try Equestrian culture though!” I snapped at her. I didn’t even realise what I’d said until after I’d said it.

Rainbow Dash, however, got too many implications from what I just said just fine though.

“Wow,” Rainbow commented, sounding a lot angrier than a few seconds ago. “That’s just BEYOND rude. You better have something to say for yourself or that robot thing won’t be the only thing knocking you into a wall today.”

“I didn’t mean to say that,” I said as apologetically as I could. I think being half dressed just wasn’t on my mind now. “Sorry. I just don’t want to try the not wearing anything part of your culture. It’s kinda… really important that we wear clothes where I’m from.”

“Apology accepted,” she spat at me. She didn’t sound much better though. “What’s so bad about it anyway? Barely anypony in Equestria wears clothes around other ponies that often, so what’s the difference?”

“Well…” I started, already regretting opening my big mouth. I tried finding the right way of saying it. “Y-you know your… um… you guys have private parts, right?”

“Ew, but yeah,” she replied, going a little red in the cheeks.

“We… kind of need clothes to hide ours,” I said slowly.

“Oh,” she said simply. It took a few seconds for it to sink in. “Oh, that’s just gross!”

She was faster out the door than I could register and it was slammed shut behind her.

I shuddered as I got the dress on properly and told myself that I would forget about it in no time.

I grabbed Twilight’s other stupid dress and wrapped it around me to put the sword into it again and headed back outside. Rainbow, who was still a little red, was bashing her head against the wall to the bedroom.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting that disgusting image out of my head!” she yelled back as she head-butted the wall harder. “It’s bad enough having to think about a pony’s private parts, and I just saw the private parts of a whole different SPECIES!”

I don’t even know how they even see THEIR private parts at all because if you’d seen them from my point of view, you’d know that you can’t even see anything that HIDES their private parts. How they actually DID reproduce is something I can’t nor want to think about.

“Right…” I said slowly, going red at that reminder. “So… should we get to Fluttershy’s then?”

She stopped bashing her head against the wall and shot up to my face.

“Why the heck are we going to Fluttershy’s?” she yelled, shaking me by the shoulders. “Are you out of your mind? Twilight just got kidnapped! Fluttershy’s got Discord with her so she’s fine!”

“That’s why I wanted to go to Fluttershy’s,” I explained. “Discord.” Rainbow blinked. “You know? God of chaos?” She put on a confused expression. “Weird body parts? Yellow eyes? Horns”

“Okay, hold it right there,” she said, backing up from me. “Discord is a good guy now! There’s no way he would betray us like this, especially this bad!”

“Oh,” I said, frowning. “You got the wrong idea entirely. I was just gonna say he might know something about this.”

Yeah, I probably should’ve started with that but I wanted to make her look stupid for walking in on me getting dressed.

“Then why didn’t you say so?!” she yelled at me. “Come on! Let’s not waste any more time doing nothing!”

She raced off so fast I didn’t even know what’d happened until the dust she’d kicked up cleared. I stood there with my jaw dropped for a moment before she reappeared with her hooves on her hips and a scowl on her face.

“Any time you’re ready!” she snapped. “We got as long as you like! Next year sound line the time you’re planning?”

“You gave me like half a second,” I replied.

“That’s still too slow!” she yelled angrily. “If I knew you were gonna take so long I’d be at Fluttershy’s already!”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingers and sighed.

“Still waiting!” she yelled. God, she was impatient.

So I did the only thing that I could think of.

I jumped up at her, grabbed her by the feet and pulled her down to waist level. She started squirming and protesting loudly, but I just ignored her and sat on her back.

“What the heck are you doing?!” she screamed, starting to look angry.

“Making things faster,” I replied calmly, keeping a very straight face as I spun around to wrap my arms around her neck and get my legs in a good position for riding.

I’d done this twice before I knew what I was doing.

“Why the heck do you want a piggy-back?” she yelled at me. “You’re twice my size! How do you expect me to carry you?!”

“Well back at home we ride horses for races and stuff,” I explained. “Granted, you’re a pony instead of a horse, but you can go at the speed of a horse because you’re Rainbow Dash. You did the sonic rainboom, remember?”

“That… kinda makes sense…” she agreed slowly. She turned to scowl at me. “But this is just a one-time thing! I’m doing this once so we get to Fluttershy’s faster and that’s it! Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively, kicking my legs into her side like you see people in movies do when they’re on horseback. “So let’s go already!”

“Do NOT kick me,” she said crossly. She didn’t move an inch. “And if I’m the one doing the leg work, I’M the one in charge of when we go!”

“Um…” I said quietly. “Right. It’s just back where I come from the riders are in control of the horse.”

“Well we’re not where you come from,” she spat back. “Welcome to Equestria.”

And then she started galloping off to Fluttershy’s with me just barely able to hold on to her neck before she jumped off the ground and we were flying along at a not very impressive speed. It was still a lot faster than I could go, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

I have to admit, I always wanted to ride a flying horse and I’m pretty sure I squealed like I was five years old again.

Rainbow Dash took every squeal of delight I let out as a cue to fly faster, which led to more happy squealing, which technically should’ve made us move faster than the speed of light, but it didn’t last very long.

She got too tired to carry me and fly at the speed of happiness and crashed into the ground after a minute, sending me tumbling over her head and into a heap in front of her.

“Ow,” I groaned as I got back to my feet. I brushed myself off and looked down at her. “You were doing so well! How much farther is it to Fluttershy’s?”

“Not that far,” she wheezed up at me. “But you’re heavy. I can’t carry you anymore.”

“Aww, come on!” I tried, leaning down to help her up. “You could just run the next part!”

“No way,” she growled at me. “I’m not carrying you anymore at all.” Her grumpy, exhausted expression turned into a devious one. “Why don’t we switch it around now that I’m too tired to do anything?”

“What, I carry you?” I asked her disbelievingly. “Are you serious?”

“Why not?” she asked, smiling innocently. “I gave you a piggy-back, so you can give me one now!”

“Well it… just doesn’t seem right for a human to be carrying a pony,” I said. I’m not the only one who thinks that, right?

“Again, welcome to Equestria!” she said loudly, grabbing my arm and spinning me around so she could get at my back.

I swear, she jumped onto it AS HARD AS SHE COULD and nearly sent me flying again. Luckily, my younger cousins and their chaotic means of fun had trained me for it, so I kept upright and turned to glare at her.

“I thought you said you were too tired to do anything,” I said accusingly.

“Well I’m on you now, so let’s not put that to waste!” she replied happily, putting her arms over my front and letting me grab hold of them to keep her there.

“Right…” I whispered. Then I remembered something. “Which way to Fluttershy’s?”

“Oh, wow!” she laughed. “Looks like I’m trying some of your culture sooner than I thought! You’re doing the legwork and I’M the one in control!”

“Shut up,” I said, frowning at the idea. “Just steer me in the right direction.”

And so the horse became the rider and the human looked like a foal (yes, I know.) and the two of us headed to Fluttershy’s to talk to Discord.

I couldn’t exactly complain; she weighed less than my cousins did and she’d got us fairly close, but when we got there, she flew off my back like she’d been fine the whole time.

“Oh, come on!” I yelled at her. “You just wanted to put me in the same situation!”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about!” she replied innocently. “My energy came back on the way here.”

“Whatever…” I muttered, stepping closer to Fluttershy’s door to knock. As soon as I did, I heard two familiar voices coming from nearby. “Do you hear that?”

“Yeah, that’s Discord!” Rainbow stated. “But I don’t know who that other one is.”

“I do,” I whispered, heading to the side of Fluttershy’s house where the two voices were coming from.

Who was the other voice, you ask?

Joker.

From the end of Arkham Asylum.

So all giant and muscly and stuff.

“What the heck are you doing with him?!” I yelled as I rounded the corner on them. They seemed to be having a delightful conversation over a plastic tea set about who knows what.

“I swear, honey, we were just talking!” Joker replied, putting his claw hands up defensively and cackling evilly.

“Who the heck are you?!” Rainbow yelled at Joker, who laughed again.

“Me?!” he asked, pointing at her. “Who the heck are YOU?!”

“Now, Joker,” Discord said with a dark chuckle. “Be nice to our friends or I’ll put you in the box again.”

A box appeared out of nowhere beside Joker’s head. It was half the size of his torso so how he got into it in the first place is beyond me.

“Spoilsport,” Joker grumbled, crossing his giant arms disappointedly.

“Okay, first of all,” I started, pointing at Joker. “Why are you here and not killing anyone?”

“He’s my new friend!” Discord exclaimed, putting an arm around Discord’s shoulder and ruffling his hair. “Say hello, new friend!”

“No, she has a point,” Joker said, tapping his chin in thought. “Why AREN’T I killing anyone? There’s no big, bad bat and I’m still rippling with Titan muscles!”

“Okay, back in the box,” Discord muttered. The lid to that magical box opened up and Joker was sucked inside it in a flash. There were some muffled screams from it as Discord grabbed it out of the air and started bouncing it up and down like a basketball. “Sorry about him, he’s new to this kind of thing.”

“Don’t worry, I know him,” I said. “Also hi, I’m Karen. Twilight brought me here to help save Equestria.”

“Oh, I’m just making new friends all the time today!” Discord said happily, reaching forward to grab my hand and start shaking it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Karen! What was the second you wanted to say then?”

“Where’s Fluttershy?” I asked, pulling my hand away from him and watching the still-bouncing box.

“She’s fine if Discord’s here!” Rainbow yelled at me. “We gotta just get to the point of why we came all the way here!”

“Shh,” I said to her. “I have something I need her to do real quick.”

“Well, she’s been under her bed since Joker turned up,” Discord replied. “Want me to get her out here?”

“Yes please,” I said quickly.

“Alright, give me a moment,” he said, holding the safe out to Rainbow Dash. “Hold this, will you?”

She grabbed it and he vanished with a pop. As soon as his claw left the box, it fell to the floor with a loud clang and a muffled cry of pain, dragging Dash with it.

“Alright, why’d you need Fluttershy?” she yelled at me once she’d realised the safe weighed a ton and Discord was just being a troll.

“I just got something I wanna ask her,” I replied. I did, but I just didn’t want to tell her what it was because I knew it would just make her angry.

“Well what is it?!” she shouted impatiently. Before I had to tell her, Fluttershy’s back door opened up and she stepped out with Discord in tow.

As soon as she saw me, she spun around and tried to get back inside, but Discord spun her back around to face me quickly.

“It’s alright, Fluttershy,” he said, leaning down to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Rainbow Dash and I are here. She won’t hurt you.”

“If she does, I’ll just kill her again!” Rainbow put in bravely. Fluttershy went white and Discord turned to stare at me in wonder.

“She’s killed you already?” he asked me.

“Not her exactly, but it’s for another time,” I replied, waving it away. I turned to face Fluttershy and put on the most serious look I could. “Now, Fluttershy, this is really important and your answer may help save all of Equestria as we know it.”

“Oh my…” she breathed in pure terror, going whiter.

“Can I have a hug?” I asked her with a sweet smile.

IT WAS TO SAVE EQUESTRIA BE QUIET.

“Um… what?” she asked quietly.

“What?!” Rainbow Dash yelled at me.

“I must have missed something,” Discord said slowly. “Because I didn’t know Equestria could be saved with hugs”

“Oh it’s not to SAVE Equestria, it’s to HELP save Equestria,” I explained, crouching down to Fluttershy’s level. “So can I? I’ve had a very horrible day and it’s not even close to over yet. I think I’ve actually died three times already and I’m probably going to die a lot more if this keeps up and it WILL keep up.”

“Um…” Fluttershy whispered, shifting uncomfortably. “How can you have… died… three times already?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” I replied. “The only reason I’m still here is because I respawned by some great feat of magic unknown to me and everyone else involved.”

“Respawned?” she asked. “As in… came back to life?”

“Yeah, probably,” I said slowly. I stretched my arms out so I was ready to hug her. “So can I have a hug please?”

“Um… I guess…” she mumbled. She didn’t seem reluctant for it but she wasn’t exactly happy about it either.

She leaned in close and put a hoof around my shoulders to hug me lightly. I hugged her back as nicely as I could without squeezing her too hard. She just seemed so fragile that if it felt like if I hugged her too much she’d break in half.

“You are just the cutest thing,” I said happily, patting her lightly on the back. “And now that you’ve given me hugs, I can always stay slightly more happy about everything! Thank you for making life better!”

“Um… you’re welcome?” she said unsurely, pulling out of the hug slowly. “Why did you need a hug to help save Equestria anyway?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “I’m dying a lot and slowly losing my mind because of it. Ever play Dark Souls? Great game. I’m becoming hollow like you do in that game. Strange, right?”

“Can I just say something?” Rainbow asked from behind me. She’d been quiet this whole time so I assumed she was just slowly letting her rage bottle up and consume her.

“Shut up I needed a hug and you aren’t huggy enough for the hug I needed,” I replied, spinning to face her before she could start screaming at me.

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, crossing her hooves angrily.

“Alright, now that that adorable little cuddle session is over, did you have anything else to say?” Discord asked, tapping me on the shoulder.

Then I remembered the SECOND important reason I came over to Fluttershy’s.

“Oh yeah,” I muttered to myself. “Discord, you’re a spirit of chaos, right?”

“Last I checked, yes,” he replied with a nod.

“Okay, next question: why is Twilight’s castle all messed up now?” I asked. “Last time I saw it, her bedroom wasn’t on the ground floor and it wasn’t that close to the town.”

“It’s some great mystery that may never be solved,” he replied.

Don’t tell me you didn’t think that was strange too. Her castle had one door and it was on the edge of the town in that episode it showed up.

“Alright then…” I went on. “Secondly… I forgot that part… Help me out here, Rainbow Dash!”

“She wanted to ask you if you had any idea what’s going on,” Rainbow helpfully put in, still sounding angry about me hugging Fluttershy before asking the ‘more important’ questions first. “You know, besides monsters appearing everywhere and making bad stuff happen.”

“I can’t say I do, Rainbow Dash,” Discord replied sadly. “Well, that’s a lie. I did feel some strange presence of something very chaotic appear around the time the first monster turned up. I don’t know why I haven’t told Twilight about this yet, I just didn’t think it was important at the time.”

“Well it’s kinda important to talk about chaos things turning up when chaos happens,” I explained. “Anything else about it that may help us stop Equestria exploding or something?”

“Well…” he trailed off, thinking about his next words carefully. “That presence of chaos did seem to get bigger today, but-”

“Today is when I got here!” I interrupted rudely.

“Quiet in class, please,” he continued, putting a finger to his mouth to shush me. “Anyway, I don’t know the point of origin of this chaotic entity, but I might be able to figure it out in time.”

“That would probably be good,” I said, nodding in agreement. “I mean, that thing of chaos might be how all these monsters are coming here, but I guess we’ll have to wait until you work out where it is exactly. Can you do something that can help you search for it better?”

“I can do that,” he said, smiling slightly. “I’d just need to do something that no one can really use as assistance until the last minute when it’s more vital than ever.”

“Honestly, it’s like you think this is a badly written story or something,” I said calmly, crossing my arms disappointedly.

“Isn’t it?” he asked with a grim chuckle. “For all we know, we’re merely the pawns of a terrible writer with no sense of structure or plot. It would explain a lot that’s happening, after all.”

I started to think about that for a moment before I realised it would just make me question my own existence and make me go insane even faster.

“Stop it, you’re just confusing me,” I said quickly.

“That’s not hard…” Rainbow Dash mumbled.

“Shut up, you just don’t appreciate hugs as much as I do,” I snapped at her.

“Whatever, can we just go save Twilight now?” she asked crossly.

“Twilight’s in trouble?” Fluttershy put in worriedly.

“Yeah, but we’re saving her now!” I replied. “We just… need to find her.”

“That part’s easy,” Rainbow explained. “I saw that thing head in Applejack’s direction. She’ll know where it is!”

“Well let’s go then!” I exclaimed, spinning to point at the direction I thought Applejack’s was. “Time to actually save Twilight from pretty much no danger at all!”

“Excuse me,” I heard Fluttershy whisper. Seriously, she was so quiet and it was just adorable!

Still only second best pony though. Sorry, Flutters.

“Yes, Fluttershy?” I replied, spinning back to face her. I sincerely hoped she was going to say what I thought she would say.

“If Twilight’s in trouble, then…” she went quiet and I celebrated internally. “Then I’d like to help. Can I come with you?”

“You have no idea how much yes I can say,” I said as calmly as possible. You have no idea how hard it was to act THAT calmly about this.

“Great, we got another monster slayer with us, now let’s go!” Rainbow yelled impatiently.

“Lead the way, I don’t know where Applejack lives!” I replied angrily.

She took off way too quickly again, leaving Fluttershy and I in the dust. She didn’t come back this time, so Fluttershy and I shared a glance and headed after her at a light jog.

Author's Note

This chapter was delayed because about a billion rewrites happened and then an episode that led to the deletion of every single bit of work I had on my computer for pretty much no good reason at all.
Also the description was changed so only the story was poorly written and badly thought out.
Also also this chapter has not been proofread so feel free to despise my pathetic existence and writing inability.

Level Four: Overpowered

Well, we didn’t see Rainbow Dash at all on our way to Applejack’s, which Fluttershy very kindly directed me to, so that must’ve meant she was just waiting there for us.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy and I had slowed down to walking speed because I couldn’t be asked to keep moving around so quickly and we wanted to get to know each other better.

Okay, I wanted to get to know her better. She was just going with it.

“So…” she said after a short conversation we’d just had. “We’re... famous… where you come from?”

“Well, famous and INfamous,” I replied. “Some people like you guys and some people think you’re the fuel of things I won’t say.”

“But you do know of us?” she asked, turning her head to look up at me curiously. I squealed internally for the fifth time that journey. “And… you’ve seen some of our adventures?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I replied with a confirming nod.

“Um… then…” she whispered, reddening a little. “W-who’s… your favourite character of the show you watch? If you don’t mind me asking…”

“Aww, you are just so nice!” I said happily, resisting the urge to just scoop her up and hug her again. Yes, again. “But I won’t answer that just yet. You’ll know when we me her. You’re pretty high on my list of favourites though, so don’t worry too much.”

“Th-thank you…” she whispered, going a little redder. “I… just thought I’d ask…”

“No, it’s okay!” I said quickly. “You’re just curious about it! If I was part of something people watched, I’d be curious too!” I thought about it for a moment. “I think so anyway…”

Actually, I don’t think I’d enjoy being part of something that people watch in the first place. It’d just be… creepy.

And then we went quiet because I’d run out of things to say and she just didn’t like talking to new people that much.

The silence only lasted a few seconds though.

“So how’s things here?” I asked, almost sounding desperate to keep the conversation going.

I kind of was though.

Be quiet she is second best pony ever I wanted to talk to her.

“Um…” she whispered, looking a little uncomfortable about talking about that stupid question. “They’re… fine…”

I then remembered the situation Equestria was in at this time.

“Oh… sorry…” I said quietly. “That was kind of a stupid question to ask, wasn’t it?” I perked up again almost immediately. “Don’t worry; everyone who knows me would agree that I’m a very stupid person! How much further to Applejack’s?”

“Not that far…” she replied, turning back to face straight ahead of her. “Oh, I hope Twilights okay…”

“She will be,” I stated quickly. “Bowser doesn’t do anything to her except stop her from leaving. That’s what always happens.”

I’d explained the situation in more detail to her while we were still jogging.

“Well… I still hope she’s okay…” she went on quietly. “What she’s going through certainly does seem… scary…”

“Don’t worry,” I said happily. “I bet Rainbow Dash got bored of waiting and saved her already. Twilight’s probably a little shaken up, but she’s a princess! Being kidnapped should be something she expects to happen anyway!”

Again, we both went quiet. There wasn’t really much I could think of to say anyway.

Luckily, the next corner we turned put Applejack’s orchard in sight, and we picked up the speed again. The obstacle course with lava on the floor that I expected wasn’t there at all and when I looked harder, I couldn’t spot Bowser anywhere.

I did, however, see three ponies waiting for us.

Two of them looked a bit ticked off, probably because we’d taken so long to get there. The third just looked a little proud of themselves for some reason, but not in an arrogant way, just in a happy sort of way that showed they’d achieved something good.

“What took ya so long?!” Rainbow Dash yelled at me, one of the two ticked off ones.

“I know you’re not on four legs and not as fast as a pony is, but that was just ridiculous!” added Twilight Sparkle, the second of the ticked off ones.

Shut up I’m getting to that.

“Well, ah get what Twilight and Rainbow Dash’re sayin’, but don’t go beatin’ yourself up about it,” said Applejack happily. “Ah took care o’ that turtle thing no problem!”

Of course, that was kind of what I expected. Best pony is best pony for a reason.

Yes, Applejack IS best pony. I’m getting to that too.

“Okay, first off,” I said calmly. That calm quickly degenerated. “HI APPLEJACK YOU’RE SUPER COOL I LOVE YOU HI!!!”

That squeal came with a mad flailing of arms and a grin so wide I swear my head should’ve split in half.

Applejack probably got the wrong message because she went red and her ears dropped back.

“Well, ah…” she muttered with an anxious smile. “Ah’ve only just met ya and… ah can’t say ah feel the same way about you.”

Yeah, I’d given off the wrong impression completely.

“U-um…” I stuttered, going red myself. “I… said the wrong thing…. didn’t I…?”

I quickly glanced around at the other three; Twilight and Rainbow had their jaws almost literally on the floor and Fluttershy was looking even more uncomfortable than Applejack did.

Applejack came closer and patted me my arm gently, still looking anxious and uncomfortable about being in the presence of someone who loved her in a romantic sense that she didn’t feel the same way about.

I didn’t though; I loved her in a fanatic sense.

“Sorry to let you down like that, sugarcube,” Applejack said slowly.

“No no no no NO!” I said quickly, backing up and waving my arms at her. “I said the wrong thing you guys are just from a TV show where I come from and you’re my favourite character and I’m just not good with words sorry sorry sorry!”

Applejack looked a little less nervous once I’d said that.

“Well then, ah’m sorry I got the wrong idea,” she apologised calmly. “Hope ya don’t think any less o’ me for it.”

“Oh god no,” I said happily, perking right back up again. “I’m not gonna hate you for something like that! I just said the wrong thing because I’m just bad with words and people!”

“Well, ah guess we both made mistakes then,” Applejack chuckled. She held her hoof out at me. “Ah think we should start this again and if ah’m famous back at your home, you already know who ah am. And you are…?””

“Hi, I’m Karen, “I said with a little wave as I shook her hoof. “You don’t even know how nice it is to meet you in person.”

“Karen, I know it’s nice to meet new ponies and all, but we need to get to Canterlot!” Twilight put in quickly.

That snapped me out of my crazy trance of happiness of being in the presence of best pony.

“Right!” I exclaimed. “Canterlot! Train is broken, Spike doesn’t work right and princess-y magic is messed up! Walking is necessary!”

“Ah guess ah’ll come with ya,” Applejack put in. I actually squealed out loud which earned a look of confusion from everyone.

“Sorry…” I whispered, putting my hands over my mouth to stop any other embarrassment from getting out.

“Thanks, Applejack,” Twilight said quickly. “We’ll probably need somepony like you helping us out with this. I just don’t know why I didn’t’ think of it sooner.”

“So we can’t just fly there then?” Rainbow asked disappointedly. “Great… and I thought we’d get this over with quickly…”

“How the heck could I fly there?!” I yelled.

“Gee, I don’t know,” Rainbow replied sarcastically. “Maybe the three of us could carry you?”

“Girls, we need to get moving!” Twilight yelled impatiently.

And so we set off towards Canterlot. It only took a few minutes before Rainbow Dash and Twilight got impatient enough to suggest we pick up the pace.

“I can’t run that far,” I explained quickly.

“Then hop on!” Applejack yelled, stopping in front of me and crouching down to let me get onto her back. “Ah’ll carry ya there! Ah could use the exercise!”

So for the second time in one day I was riding a pony! Granted, not a flying one so not as much happiness and squealing, but it was still awesome.

So, with Rainbow Dash flying ahead of the rest of us, we picked up the pace towards Canterlot with me on Applejack’s back. She didn’t even seem to care I was on her back too.

I definitely squealed like a five year old a LOT before thinking of something to talk about.

“So how did you guys take care of Bowser anyway?” I asked finally, breaking the absence of words suddenly.

“That turtle thing?” Applejack replied, turning back to face me while she galloped on. “Ah dealt with him no problem! As soon as he jumped out o’ his pirate ship with Twilight, ah gave’m the biggest punishment of his life!”

“Yeah, she dealt with him pretty quickly,” Twilight added, gliding down beside us. “I saw her kick him so hard he went flying across the orchard. Rainbow Dash got there just in time to see him dissolve into a skeleton. How, I just don’t know.”

“There should’ve been lava there to do that for him,” I explained. “But you seriously took him out with just one kick?”

“Eeyup,” Applejack replied happily. “Ah really think ah shoulda gone out to help all the guards with these things sooner instead o’ stayin’ home to protect mah family.”

“Wow,” I breathed. “You’re just… so overpowered it’s not even funny. That’s just awesome.”

“So anyway,” Applejack continued, glancing back at me. “Ah’m a little curious. In this show ya watch, how come ah’m you’re favourite character?”

“Oh, lots of reasons,” I replied. “Mainly because I think you’re super cool and a really good friend to Twilight and the others! Also your voice is awesome. And your hat. I like hats like that and you were it all the time.”

“Well, ah’m glad that you think ah’m such a good friend,” she replied happily with a chuckle. She turned back to smirk at me quickly. “Am ah even cooler than Rainbow Dash?”

“Yep,” I whispered, quiet enough for Rainbow Dash to not hear it.

“Oh, that’s gonna make her so jealous,” Applejack replied quietly, chuckling to herself.

And, speak of the devil, Rainbow Dash was suddenly beside us after flying high above and far ahead of us.

“Guys guys guys!” she yelled quickly. “We gotta speed up! Canterlot is under attack!”

“What?!” Twilight yelled. “By what?!”

“I saw three dragons!” she shouted, aided by the roar I heard in the distance.

“Were they all bright and colourful like the dragon Fluttershy stared down?” I asked. It was a serious question.

“No, they were dark and gloomy!” she replied. "I've never even seen a dragon as depressing as that!"

And then I heard something that sounded like a shout, followed by an explosion.

A shout in a different language.

A video game language.

“Oh, for…” I trailed off as Applejack picked up the speed again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I never did any good at this boss…” I said slowly.

The DLC was worth it, I just hated the final boss of it.

“But you do know what they’ll do and how they work, right?” she asked quickly, not even sounding a little worried about it.

“Yeah, but…” I went quiet as I tried to remember all his attacks and skills.

“But nothin’!” she yelled. “Rainbow Dash said ya helped her take care of a giant eyeball and Twilight said you’re from a planet o’ great warriors! If ya know how to take ’em on then ah’m sure we’ll figure somethin’ out!”

Her faith in me made me smile giddily.

“W-well… thank you…” I mumbled, going a little red and shrinking down a little while my face started lighting up again.

“Ah know what you’re thinkin’,” she said with a little chuckle. “Not every day ya hear your favourite character from a fictional story tell ya how well you’ll do.”

I kind of fazed out of the material plain from being told I could do well by best pony. If you’re not like that when it happens then you’re clearly not getting enough praise and you're not so crazy as I am.

“Watch out!” Rainbow yelled, snapping me back to reality. “They’re coming for us now!”

Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? It’s not like we were actually much more threatening than the hundred thousand guard ponies attacking them.

…

That last part wasn’t sarcasm I’m just not good at this.

And then I spotted someone else on top of the dragon.

The first dragonborn, to be precise.

I hated that guy he’d killed me eleven times before I just lowered the difficulty and then another three before I just got Carl to do it.

He did it first try on the hardest difficulty and my character wasn’t even the right level.

I didn’t speak to him for two weeks after that.

The first dragon swooped overhead, making me duck out of fear of it grabbing my and flying me away. I turned back in time to see Miraak jump off that dragon and start marching towards us.

We slowed to a halt and spun back around to face him.

“Come on now,” Applejack said, crouching down and sliding out from under me. “Time for you to show us what you can do.”

“We’ll keep these dragons busy!” Twilight yelled down at us. “You two take care of that guy!”

“So,” said Miraak as he marched closer. “The first dragonborn meets the last dragonborn, on the plains of Equestria.”

“I’m not a dragonborn!” I shouted back at him, fumbling with my sword for a moment before drawing it. “Why the heck do you think I’m a dragonborn?! I can’t even…” And then the most genius idea came to me. “Wait a second.”

“Watcha got in mind, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

“Hold on, I need super concentration for this,” I replied. You knew I was going to try it shut up. “Fus…” I took in a deep breath. ”RO DAH!!”

There was a moment of silence in which nothing spectacular happened. After a little while, Miraak chuckled to himself while I went red at embarrassing myself in front of the bad guy and best pony. It’s not fun.

“So it seems you do not possess the power of dovah,” he said darkly. “No matter. You have more power than the rest of these people and you’re in my way, therefore you must die.”

“Can’t we just talk about this?” I asked quietly, lowering my sword. “I promise not to devote my existence to murdering you if you just leave everyone alone!”

“I think not, false one,” Miraak said, swinging his sword back into its sheath and readying his magic gloves or whatever they were.

“Alright…” I muttered. “Applejack, we may have a problem.”

“What is it?” she asked, turning to face me.

“I’m probably going to die here,” I said. “If that happens, just run for your life and wait until I get back. You can’t take him like you took Bowser. He’s got secret powers that I hate.”

“Come again?” she asked, looking very confused. “You just said you’d die, but then ya said you’d come back here. How is that possible?”

Miraak was very patient. Maybe he was feeling nice today.

“It’s a long story I’ll tell you later come on!” I blurted at her, suddenly charging at Miraak. He pulled his sword out and parried as I swung mine at him.

I knew how that worked, so I went with the momentum of it to fall onto my side to dodge the riposte that followed.

Dark Souls taught me that, not an actual teacher, so don't get angry at me if video games taught me wrong.

“You fight pitifully against fate, but I am stronger here,” said Miraak, swinging his sword down at me.

He was suddenly kicked away before the sword could touch me. Applejack stood over me suddenly and offered a hoof to help me up.

“You can explain it while we take care o’ this guy!” she yelled, pulling me up and spinning back to face Miraak.

“Is this really the best place to be chatting about it?” I replied, diving to one side and onto the floor again to dodge one of Miraak’s spells. “I can’t talk and fight at the same time!”

I scrambled back up and readied my sword as he charged again. I blocked the strike just barely, but he still pushed down against the sword and it got closer to my face.

Luckily, Applejack did not seem to be the focus at all – kind of like in the actual show, according to most people who watch it – and she got another kick off at him, getting him away from me.

“Fine then,” she agreed as a dragon dropped from the sky in front of Miraak. “Then at least tell me the plan!”

I watched as the soul of a dragon was absorbed before me. It was kind of scary to see that in person, especially seeing as it healed up the enemy.

But, getting back to the subject at hand, I had no idea what the plan was; Miraak wasn’t using the attacks I’d died to fifteen times and I’d never used a sword in real life prior to today.

“He’s not doing what he normally does!” I said quickly. “He should be doing more dragon shouts and not able to parry like that! He’s different now!”

I think Miraak was listening, because as soon as I’d said that, he used the dragon shout of fire.

Sadly, I wasn’t fast enough to jump out of the way this time.

Even more sadly, I caught fire.

Which was excruciating.

I screamed as loud as I could and fell down to the floor to start rolling around in agony. I felt hooves patting me down to help get the fire out, but it wasn’t enough.

After a few moments of screaming agony, I finally sat bolt upright in a bed.

“I don’t want to play anymore…” I whispered as I curled up under the covers and started crying.

This is the part where it gets a little dark and morose. Don’t worry, it doesn’t last long.

I hope.

Author's Note

This one was kinda rushed because hyperactivity so sorry if it's badly done :ajsleepy:

Level Six: Unskippable Awkwardness

When we got up to the castle, we found Celestia in that giant room where she usually awaited letters of friendship in.

“Hello, my little ponies!” she greeted us as we approached. I snorted at the use of that phrase, which earned a funny look from her. “Did I say something funny?”

“Oh no, it’s just…” I went quiet and smirked. “Nothing, never mind.”

“Indeed…” she replied with a criticising look. She quickly smiled again. “I’m sorry, we haven’t been introduced! You are…?”

“Karen,” I replied, holding my hand out to her.

She shook it lightly and nodded in greeting. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Karen,” she said happily. She regarded what I was wearing for a moment. “Are you wearing my nephews –?”

“YepshutupIneededthemtosaveEquestria,” I said quickly, waving my hands at her to get her to stop. “Can we focus on the reason why we’re here please?”

“Oh, that’s right!” Twilight put in quickly. I turned to face her. “We came all the way up here to talk to Celestia abooooout…” She was quiet as she thought for a moment. “Well, I think I just said to let her know you were here and that you could help.”

“Really?” I asked stupidly. “We came all the way up here just for that?”

“I think that was what I said anyway,” Twilight replied.

“So I died three times and went crazy just to tell Celestia that I’m here?”

“Um… it sounds bad when you put it that way, but yes.”

“Wait here a moment.” I turned and walked out of the room quickly. When I was out, I did what I wanted.

I screamed.

Very loudly.

For about a minute.

I’m allowed I had died three times just to get here and there was now a voice inside my head.

Anyway, when I had let all that stress out in one ginormous scream, I walked back in like nothing was wrong.

“Are you alright, Karen?” asked Celestia, tilting her head at me. “That sounded… well, it sounded bad.”

“Don’t mind me, just letting it all out,” I said indifferently. “As I’ve just said, I’ve been burned to death, stabbed, frozen and then on top of all that, started hearing voices!” I laughed in a normal and completely non-creepy way. “It’s fine! No need to worry about me!”

“You’re certainly not showing that,” Celestia remarked concernedly, frowning in worry.

“Look look look, what did we come here for?” I quickly asked. I then realised what I’d just said. “Okay, never mind. What ELSE can we do here that isn’t worrying about me slowly losing my mind?”

“You’re just scaring them even more, Karen,” said Voice, finally resurfacing after being quiet for so long. “What’s going to make them worry more? This, or acting normally?”

“Shut up you, you don’t exist,” I said, glaring in the direction I’d heard him.

“Karen, is that voice coming back?” asked Twilight unsurely. “Because I think it’s getting more serious now.”

I went quiet for a minute as I calmed myself down from the manic state of mania that dying to say hi to Celestia had put me in. When I was calm enough, I started taking deep breaths in and out to calm myself even more. When I’d done that, I put on the calmest smile I could muster.

“Okay, ladies and gentleman,” I said calmly. You don’t even know how calm I was. “I’m very sorry for going crazy in front of you all, but I’ve had a lot on my plate today. I’m sure we can all tell stories about it all, but right now, I think I need to just... relax for a little bit.”

“Yes, I think that would be wise,” Celestia said with an agreeing nod. “We haven’t had any reports in from anywhere else about monsters other than the ones you faced today, so I don’t think you’ll need to do anymore monster slaying today.”

“Wait, wouldn’t you be getting the reports too late anyway?” I asked.

“No, we have a very quick messenger system so we can dispatch the guard to cities in danger very quickly.”

“Are you kidding me?!” I slapped myself across the face and went back to being super calm. “Oooooookay, that’s fine. It’s not that we needed one right this minute and a certain princess forgot to mention it. It’s fine!”

“You’re doing it again,” Voice warned.

“Sorry I’ll stop.”

“Is there anything else to discuss?” Celestia asked seriously.

“Honestly, I can’t think of anything at all, because we’ve done all we came up here to do, right Twilight?” I said. Twilight nodded at me. “Great! So now, bye princesses!”

I spun around and just walked away. Before I could get anywhere Shieldheart stepped in front of me and held a hoof up to stop me. “Before you go anywhere, I’ve got some good news,” he stated calmly. He was almost super calm too! “I’ve just been told that the train is back up and running here in Canterlot, so you can take that back home.”

“When did someone tell you that?” I asked.

“There was a guard, you weren’t looking,” Celestia supplied.

“What was his name, Dark Knight?” I joked. They wouldn’t get it, but Voice and I would. I heard Voice chuckle quietly, so it must’ve worked.

“Before you do go, I would like to tell you that I am coming with you,” said Luna.

“Is that really wise in this situation?” asked Celestia.

“Actually yeah,” I replied, spinning back around to face them again. “Not trying to be funny or anything, but I think your sister is the dragonborn. She disintegrated a shout that murdered me just by yelling at it.”

Celestia stared at her sister in awe and Luna tilted her head at me.

“What does it mean to be dragonborn?” Luna asked.

“Basically, you’ve got the blood of a dragon in your veins and you are to save Tamriel from destruction at the hands of angry dragons,” I explained. “Or something. I never beat that game fully so I don’t know.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Twilight piped up happily. “Back at her home, she treats fighting these monsters like they’re just games!”

“Ooooooh, great,” I muttered to myself. “Yeah, Twilight?” She turned to face me again. “You know I said those were just games?” She nodded. “They really were. You didn’t actually fight them in real life. You fought them over a computer or a console or something.”

She stood completely still for a moment before her jaw literally hit the floor. Go cartoon physics!

“So let me get this straight,” Celestia said, rubbing her brow. “Are you telling us that you have never fought one of these monsters before today in real life?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I replied. “I’ve never even held a real sword before today too. So yeah. You may have made a mistake.”

Twilight remained completely silent. Celestia raised an eyebrow. Luna pretended nothing was wrong. Applejack and Rainbow Dash glanced at each other and frowned. Fluttershy coughed awkwardly.

“Well, this is a predicament,” said Shieldheart.

I turned to glare at him slowly. “Seriously?” I asked. “Of all the things to say, you pick that?”

“You love me really,” he replied with a small smirk.

Okay, I may have had an incredibly tiny crush on him but I just wanted to drop him in front of a horde of stampeding tortoises at that point.

Why tortoises? Because I want to give them the time to move out of the way if they so wish.

I’m not THAT mean.

Most of the time.

Anyway, I turned back to face Celestia with my cheeks gone a little red. “So yeah, this… this was kind of a mistake,” I said, smiling half-heartedly. “I mean, yeah, I beat Miraak and the Eye of Cthulu and… no, wait, that was Applejack. I killed those two, but I’m really not the warrior you wanted me to be.”

“Karen, I am so sorry that I brought you here,” Twilight said quickly, stepping in front of me to give me a better apology. “If it helps, I’ll try taking you home as soon as possible!”

“Oh, I’m not going home,” I replied casually. “Not yet anyway.”

“What?” came the voices of everyone except Shieldheart.

“I would’ve thought you’d jumped at the chance to go home,” said Voice.

“Yeah, me too,” I replied. “But hear me out first, guys.” Boring talking time! Yay! “The way I see it, you could really use the help here. I mean, if you weren’t so frantic about it happening earlier, Twilight, I would’ve said no. But, now that I’m here, it’d be a waste to just take me back home after all the trouble you went through to bring me here.”

“You do realise that you’re only putting yourself in danger by staying here, don’t you?” Celestia asked.

“Oh, I know THAT,” I laughed. “But I can’t die! I just respawn and come back!” I swung my spear around. “Look, I’ll prove it!”

“No, you won’t,” Shieldheart said quickly, levitating my weapon out of my hands. Probably the smarter thing to do, right? “I know you can die and come back, but don’t go hurting yourself like that.”

“Yeah that was a stupid idea I’m not gonna do that again,” I said.

“Good girl.”

“So anyway,” I continued, “I’ll help you out until the plot says that I can go home with Equestria happy and safe. Until that point in time, I’ll be staying here. Not to mention I’m living an average brony’s dream of being in Equestria, so yeah!”

“I see,” Celestia said, nodding slowly. “Well… we can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing, but we’re not sure when you’ll be able to leave if you’ll be staying until Equestria is safe.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said, smirking to myself. “I’m sure it’ll be soon now that I’m here.”

“Isn’t that a little pretentious?” she asked. “I mean, you did just say you’ve never held a weapon before today, after all.”

“Oh no, I meant it’ll be soon because that’s what happens in everything; the main protagonist comes along and everything gets solved almost immediately because the plot demands it!”

“That’s still kinda pretentious, thinking you’re the main protagonist,” said Voice.

“Yes, I know,” I replied. “But let’s face it, why would I be the one brought to Equestria if I wasn’t the main protagonist?”

“Fair enough.”

“So what exactly do we do now?” asked Twilight.

“Now we go save Equestria from certain destruction!” I replied happily. I did a little pirouette when I forgot who I was supposed to ask about things to find who I was searching for. Basically I faced Celestia a lot more flamboyantly than I should have. “Where do we go now?”

“Well, I’m not really sure,” she answered, tilting her head in thought. “Since we’ve had no messages come in about monsters in other cities, but we’ve got the guard distributed to most of the cities in Equestria. The only place that doesn’t have a guard is the crystal empire, but that hasn’t been attacked by anything yet.”

“You jinxed it,” I said quietly. “Sooooo... we just go back to Ponyville and wait for something to happen?”

“I think that would be best. I’ll redirect all messages regarding attacking monsters to… where will you be staying?”

“Twilight’s castle I think.”

“That’s not actually my real castle,” Twilight said slowly. “My real one got blown up by a monster so big that it took a guard to climb up it and stab it a certain point to beat it. That one’s just a replacement that somehow appeared when nopony was looking.”

“You’re welcome for that, by the way,” said Shieldheart, raising a hoof.

“First, that sounds awesome and I wish I could do that because it sounded like Shadow of the Colossus and that is an amazing game,” I blurted out almost incomprehensibly. “Second, why are you saying that about a castle appearing, Shieldheart?”

“Oh no, I meant about the monster slaying,” he explained. “I did all that climbing and stabbing.”

“Oh, I thought you looked familiar when I first saw you today!” Twilight happily put in. “Thank you for doing that the other day!”

“And the day after and yesterday and probably tomorrow as well,” he muttered quietly. I don’t think Twilight heard him, which was probably his aim.

I heard him though.

Seriously, it’s like the universe is actually trying to make me fall for him.

Be quiet you would too.

Even if you are a guy and already have a girlfriend.

Okay, probably not that far but you get the idea.

“Alright I heard enough let’s go back to Ponyville and wait for monsters to slay,” I said quickly.

And so Applejack, Fluttershy, Luna, Rainbow Dash, Shieldheart, Twilight and myself all headed back to Ponyville to wait for something to happen.

I won’t bore you with the very boring details about how we walked to the train, got on it, and then the others chatted about things while I awkwardly sat on the other side of the train anti-socially.

Actually, I’ll bore you with the last part.

The train had just left and Fluttershy had just trotted back to her group of friends after asking if I would like to join them. I had said no because, really, what could I add to the conversation except an awkward silence?

I sat back in my chair and looked at the end of my spear that I had stolen from a guard earlier. It sure was pointy. It looked a lot flashier than a normal spear. It had things sticking out of the side for some reason. My god it was so pointy.

“You’re bored, aren’t you?” asked Voice.

“No I’m just admiring the masterful craftsmanship of this spear thing,” I replied, not even sarcastically. “But… you know, I’d like to do something else as well. I wish I still had my 3DS.”

“What’s a 3DS?” asked, who else, Shieldheart as he sat down across from me. “Sorry, do you mind? I thought you could use some company.”

“I’m fine you don’t need to thanks bye,” I said, getting up and walking away very quickly.

Too quickly, actually. He put up a shield spell in front of me and I walked into it.

You’d be surprised how much walking into a magical shield at that speed face first hurts.

“Sit down, Karen,” he said very slowly, like someone telling me off for doing something bad. “Sorry about the shield, but I’m just trying to be nice.”

I sat back down slowly and anxiously, not looking at him once. I heard him snort with amusement at that, but he didn’t say anything about it. I noticed that the others were giving the two of us sideward glances, Rainbow Dash in particular.

“Um… hi,” I said quietly, waving a little. “What did you wanna talk about?”

I was a nervous wreck. Shut up.

“I just thought it would be a good idea to get to know you better,” he replied happily. “What do you like doing in your spare time?”

“Um… just things,” I whimpered, voice unnaturally high-pitched.

No offence to her, but I was worse than Fluttershy in a situation like this.

“I can see I’m making you uncomfortable.” He smirked. “I’m not trying to though. You’re just… a little shy around people that you may be attracted to.”

“Which I am NOT,” I said so quickly it would be a miracle if he didn’t spot the lie.

“Riiiiiiight.”

He spotted it I just know it and that only made me red and that just made the situation worse.

Why is it that I can handle a superhuman that will murder me very painfully with no problems but when there’s a guy that I am attracted to in a very TINY way I fail miserably?

“Let’s try this again,” he said slowly, realising my distress. He held out his hoof at me. “Hello there, ma’am. My name is Shieldheart. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Hi,” I whispered, giving his hoof a tiny and worried shake. “Um… w-we could… do this some other time. You know, if you wanted to.”

“I think if we’re going to be working together, it’s inevitable. So let’s just get it out of the way now, shall we?”

The train was moving pretty fast… Maybe if I jumped out the window I’d just respawn in Canterlot and have to take another train to avoid this!

No, that was just stupid.

I heard Rainbow Dash whisper something to the others and then there was a collective ‘oh’.

Thank you very much, Rainbow Dash. You’re a real star.

That part was sarcasm in case you didn’t notice.

He leant over to me to whisper, “I think we’ve drawn a bit of an audience.”

I glanced at the others out of the corner of my eye and saw that he was right; the others were being weird and staring at the two of us. They seemed to notice me looking their way and all of them turned back to each other quickly.

Well, everyone except Dash.

“We all know you want it to happen!” she yelled, earning a stern glare from Twilight and a solid kick from Applejack.

Yeah that was my breaking point.

“OKAY BYE EVERYONE SEE YOU BACK IN PONYILLE HAVE FUN NOW BYE!” I yelled, standing up to open the window.

I got halfway out of it before I was pulled back in by two ponies and a magical aura.

“Not the action I would’ve taken, but okay,” said Voice. “Honestly, it’s not that bad. You’re just madly in love with him and can’t bring yourself to admit it.”

“Shut up you don’t exist I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I replied.

“That’s going a bit too far, don’t ya think?” asked Applejack, one of the ponies who’d pulled me back in. “Ah get that ya wanna hide your feelings, but that’s no way to go about it.”

“No I don’t be quiet or you’re not best pony anymore,” I said. That was no idle threat too.

“Can we just get to the bottom of all this please?” asked Twilight, the other one who’d pulled me back in.

“Karen, we can all see that you like him!” Luna put in.

“Just tell him how you feel!” Fluttershy added.

My brain was screaming at me to drop a smoke bomb and get the heck out of this situation because, my god, I was so scared I think I nearly passed out.

Sadly, I didn’t have one.

“Just kiss him already!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

“Um,” was all I could think of to say. I said it in a way too high-pitched and quiet voice too, so that was great.

“Here’s the plan,” said Voice. “I’ll distract them, you make a run for the other carriage.”

The door at the end of the train opened up and closed. No one else seemed to notice it, so I helped out.

“Look!” I shouted, pointing at it. “A door that magically opened on its own!”

I didn’t even wait for them to turn before I ran as fast as I could to the opposite end of the carriage. Sadly, the door out was locked.

So I pretty much ran into a door at full speed thinking that it would open when I pushed it.

And I’m pretty sure I blacked out from banging my head against it too hard.

Great job, Karen! You sure showed them how to get away from a situation like that!

-=-=-=-=-

When I woke up, the train had stopped moving. I was also on another seat too. There were two ponies sat opposite; Twilight and Rainbow.

“Hey, Karen,” said Dash, looking angry like a child that’d been told off and didn’t think it was fair. “Twilight said that telling you to just kiss him was not a good thing to do.”

“Now what do you say, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked sternly, like the mother of that previously mentioned child.

Rainbow grumbled to herself and rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry for telling you to do something that everyone knew you wanted to do anyway, Karen.” She flapped up quickly. “Okay, can I go now?!”

“Where’d the others go?” I asked. “Did we get there?”

“Thanks Karen see you later!” Rainbow yelled, soaring towards the door of the train.

“That mare sometimes…” Twilight muttered, watching Dash leave. She turned back to me. “Yes, we did get there. Just now actually. The others are outside waiting for you.” She put on a sad look. “Look, I’m sorry to have instigated that, but you nearly jumped out a window! I was worried!”

“Yeeeeeaah I probably shouldn’t have done that,” I replied ashamedly. “Sorry for making you worried.”

“That’s okay! Everypony worries now and again!”

“Yeah but I kind of nearly jumped off a train and died. That’s something you don’t normally worry about.”

“I suppose not… But you don’t have to be sorry about that! Rainbow Dash shouldn’t have said what she did, but she’s just like that sometimes.”

“I hate to intrude on this discussion,” said a pony that looked like the conductor, “but I need to ask you to leave while we get the train ready for another journey.”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said quickly, standing up. “Come on, Twi.”

The two of us left the carriage as I questioned what Twilight had meant when she said we got here ‘just now’ and then we were met by the others. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were there too.

“Hi Karen!” said Pinkie Pie happily. “Nice ta meetcha! I’ve heard so much about you! Did you make a giant eyeball explode?”

“Hi Pinkie Pie,” I said with a tiny wave. She gasped at the idea of me knowing her name without meeting her. “No, I’m not psychic though!”

“Those aren’t the clothes I would’ve picked, dear,” Rarity said, giving my clothes a critical look. She smiled and trotted over to me. “But anyway, it’s very nice to meet you! I’ve been told you helped save Ponyville and Canterlot today! Thank you very much for that!”

“Hi, Karen,” said Shieldheart from behind the rest.

“Oh,” I said quietly. “Hello, Shieldheart.”

“Sorry about earlier,” he said slowly, kicking at a stone on the floor. “I just… wanted to get to know you better. You seem like a nice human but I think I kind of forced it onto you. Sorry.”

Aw, now I was going to feel bad.

“I-it’s okay,” I said, rocking on my heels. “You were just being nice and I was just… um… shy. I think.”

I heard Rarity whisper something to Twilight but I tried to ignore it.

“I think we should start again for the second time,” Shieldheart offered. “Maybe when all of this is over we’ll do that.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

Maybe it’ll be nice!

“So, everyone, should we head back home and meet here tomorrow?” asked Twilight. “It’s getting pretty late and monsters never attack at night for some reason.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” I said. I spun to face Luna. “Luna! Where are you gonna go this evening?”

“She can stay with us up at the castle!” Twilight answered. “I’ve got spare bedrooms like it’s going out of style in there!”

“Well that’s unreasonably convenient,” I said quietly.

“So should we all meet up here tomorrow if we get a message about a monster anywhere else?” asked Twilight.

“I certainly hope you don’t expect me to be able to do anything though,” Rarity said darkly. “I don’t think I’d be able to be that helpful in a situation like that. Do you remember when that giant spider appeared?”

Pinkie leaned up to me ear to whisper at me. “There was an ugly, giant spider that attacked one time! Rarity got insect exterminators into her house and wouldn’t leave for a week!”

“Ooh! I know what you could do!” I yelled excitedly. “How many gems do you have at the carousel boutique?”

“Why, more than I know what to do with most of the time!” Rarity answered. “Why do you ask?”

“I bet you could make some clothes out of them! Not the kind that you wear every day though, more like the type you’d wear for battles and stuff. They’d still be flashy and good to look at though, so don’t worry about that.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?!” Twilight yelled like it was more obvious than anything ever. “Rarity, your collection of gemstones that you haven’t been able to use on account of nopony wanting to buy clothes at this time could become armour for us! It’s the perfect plan! Great thinking, Karen!”

“Actually that wasn’t me. That was Minecraft,” I stated. “I just played Minecraft and remembered the strongest armour in the whole game.”

“Well I suppose it would be better to not let them just sit there…” Rarity reasoned. “I mean, I’m no blacksmith, so it wouldn’t be PROPER armour, but I could still make them so that they’re plated enough to work as such.”

“That’s great!” I cheered. “So can we expect them by tomorrow morning?”

“Of course!” she replied happily, glad to be doing something to help our cause. “I’ll just need your measurements to –“

“Oh I won’t be wearing it,” I interrupted. “I’ll probably just die and lose it so don’t waste it on me.”

“Well that’s no way to think!” Pinkie put in. “You’re not gonna get anywhere if you just think you’re gonna die!”

“No, I’ve already died a few times today,” I explained. “Seriously, I’ve been flattened like a pancake, burned to death, punched into a wall and stabbed to name most of those deaths.”

“How does that even work?” Rarity asked.

“I have no idea.”

“It’s just something that she can do,” Twilight helpfully supplied. “She doesn’t die, she just appears back at the castle. Um, castles.”

“Oh,” said Rarity. “Well, I… I’d still like to make you some clothes, dear! The ones you have look…” She regarded my clothes again and thought about which words to use. “They look like they could use a little something else.”

“They’re actually not mine,” I said. “They’re Blueblood’s.”

“They’re hideous,” Rarity said as soon as Blueblood’s name was spoken.

“Ooh! I’ve got something else to ask!” I spun to Rainbow Dash. “What happened to that dress?”

“We picked it up when you weren’t looking,” Rainbow replied. “It’s in your bag.”

“How come I didn’t notice that?” I asked quietly. I shook my head and reached into my bag of shurikens that unsurprisingly had no shurikens left in it. “Never mind. Hey Rarity!” I pulled the dress out and showed it to her. “Do you think this looks good on me? Or would it look good on me?”

She gave it a scrutinising look and then tilted her head in thought. “Hmm…” She shook her head. “I don’t really think it does. But then again, you are a completely different species, so what do I know about your fashion?”

Well then.

“Is that the dress I made for Twilight’s birthday?”

Oh yeah.

“You didn’t make it good it was a terrible dress and I’ll pay for a better one for her,” I said quickly. “Besides, it was to help me carry a sword to save Equestria with. It wasn’t a big sacrifice anyway.”

“I suppose not…” Rarity reasoned. She shook her head and snapped back into reality. “Yes, I’ll have them done by tomorrow morning at the latest. That’s a promise!”

“Great!” I cheered. “Make them for everyone here and yourself too if you’d like. Oh yeah. Not for Shieldheart either. He’s got his own armour already.”

“Oh thanks,” Shieldheart said sarcastically. “You really do love me, don’t you?”

“Okay we’re done now bye,” I said quickly, grabbing Twilight and dragging her along behind me to ‘her castle’. “See you tomorrow guys! Seven AM sharp! If you’re late I’m setting your house on fire!”

Don’t ask questions I was feeling stupid.

So anyway, when we got to Twilight’s castle (Luna had hurried after us when we’d left her with the others) pretty much nothing else interesting happened.

I mean, I asked Twilight for something to write my adventures in and she provided something, which is what you’re reading right now, and Spike said hi and pretty much didn’t care that I was there.

“Why don’t you care?” I asked. “I’m a whole new species in Equestria for crying out loud.”

“Meh, I’ve seen your kind before in a magic mirror that I go through with Twilight sometimes,” he replied.

Fair enough.

So that’s the end of day one in Equestria!

Hooray for getting it all written down before –

Oh my god it’s nearly four in the morning I should really get some sleep now.

Author's Note

Sorry for taking so long this chapter was annoying to write and I was ~~working on my other story~~ doing other stuff :ajsleepy:
Also my entire plan for this story was thrown out the window so sorry if it's very inconsistent with itself.
Also also my proofreader quit so sorry for any bad spelling/grammar/plot/etc.

Level Seven: Glitches

Hello book of my adventure and anyone reading it.

How are you today?

…

Silly Karen. You are talking to a book! Books do not speak!

Aaaaanyway, I feel like I have a confession to make.

You know back in the beginning of the story when I made all that drama about being revived and going through enough to take on the final boss with a leather hat?

Yeah, that was kind of a lie.

I was kind of buzzing about everything I’d just achieved so I thought it would be good to make things seem more dramatic than they were. I was kind of hoping that being revived would have happened by now too.

Let’s get back to the story.

The day began with Twilight yelling at me to get up and do something.

“Karen, come ON!!” she yelled, shaking me out of a weird dream about somebody taking over for Discord and being evil and stuff. “You said seven A.M. sharp and it’s nearly half past eight!”

“Nuuuuhh…” I mumbled, rolling over in my bed. “Don’t wanna…”

“Everyone’s been outside waiting since seven!!” she continued. “You’ve slept through all my yelling for two hours, so get up already!!”

I heard someone else come into the room and whisper something to Twilight. Still being half asleep, I could neither hear nor understand what they were saying, but I soon found out. I felt somepony get onto the bed and lean over me.

“Honey, it’s time to get up,” that somepony whispered into my ear. My eyes shot wide open. “If you don’t get up now, I’m going to start tickling you.”

And we hadn’t even been on our first date yet. He was really forward about it, wasn’t he?

“Oki doki I’m awake,” I said quickly, pretty much flying out of the bed.

I was very ticklish, okay?

“How did you know that would work?” Twilight asked, staring at Shieldheart in awe.

“Honestly, I didn’t,” he replied seriously. “I thought we’d have to get the others in here to drag her out of the bed.”

I looked down at myself and frowned. “Oh yeah, I need a change of clothes too,” I said. “I’m not wearing the same clothes I slept in.”

“Oh, that’s okay!” Twilight said happily, smiling and standing up straighter. “Seeing as you’re such a heavy sleeper, Rarity came in and got your measurements for some new clothes!”

I was quiet for a minute. “Okaaaaay that’s not creepy at all,” I muttered. “Wait, why?”

“She thought it would be a fun thing to try and she said you couldn’t go wandering around in that.” She gestured to what I was wearing presently. “Besides, we’ve had no messages in about monsters and nothing’s attacking the town at the moment anyway!”

“Okay... can I see them then?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Rarity cheered, strolling in with a box in her magical grip. “You’ll have to forgive me though; they were originally meant to be a one-piece dress but I changed my mind halfway through. I do however think they’ll look absolutely stunning on you!”

“Were you just waiting there for me to say that or were your fashion senses tingling?” I asked, smiling in amusement as I took the box from her.

“Can it not be both?” she replied with a smug raise of an eyebrow. “Anyway, do try them on! I can’t wait to see them on you!” She turned to the other two. “Now come on you two, you in particular, Shieldheart. We must respect a lady’s privacy while she is getting dressed.”

“Oh my god yes Rarity you’re awesome,” I said quickly, smiling as I opened the box. “I think you’re the first pony to do that without me telling them to get out myself.”

“Well, being a lady myself, I understand what a lady desires.” She shooed at the other two again. “Now out! We can see what she looks like when she’s dressed!””

“Yes ma’am,” Shieldheart muttered with a quick salute. Then he decided to bow right down to the ground. “Anything for a lady.”

He got a gentle kick from Twilight, which got him stood up straight again. With no further stupid jokes, the three of them left the room while I examined the clothes Rarity had given me.

The top was a short-sleeved, orange shirt with a small purple sword stencilled into the right breast of it. The bottoms were a pair of skin-tight, dark grey… well, kind of jeans with a dark purple, knee-length, loosely flowing skirt attached around the waist.

Honestly, they weren’t the colours I would’ve gone for at first glance, but they looked great anyway!

I threw off my other clothes that paled in comparison to my new ones and slipped into the ones Rarity had made. Credit to her, they did fit like a glove, which was also kind of creepy considering how she’d got the measurements.

“You look splendid, Karen,” said Voice in a complimentary tone.

“Oh hi voice inside my head I forgot you existed!” I said happily, looking at myself in a mirror and doing a little pirouette.

I froze up when that pirouette revealed something to me. I spun back around and stared at said revelation.

“How long have you been standing there,” I said slowly.

“I just got here,” said Spike indifferently. “Did Rarity make those? Tell her I said they look amazing, will you? Bye now.”

And then he just turned and walked away like nothing had happened. Isn’t Spike just awesome? He’s a dragon, for one, and then take into account what he just did. Hey Spike! If you’re reading this, you’re awesome!

Applejack is still best pony but you’re awesome!

So without further ado, I left the room and headed outside. When I got outside, I was met by the others; the mane six, Shieldheart and Luna. Rarity took one look at me and gasped.

“Oh my, you look simply fabulous!” she cheered, rushing over to me to check that she’d got everything right. “What do you think?”

“Um…” She pulled my shirt down at the back and brushed of the dress. “Can you… give me some space please? My mother stopped doing what you’re doing years ago.”

“Right, sorry,” she replied, backing up a bit. “It’s just… my first ever work for a human! I’m so proud of it!”

“And she made us clothes too!” Pinkie Pie yelled.

I looked over at them and, sure enough, all of them save Shieldheart and Twilight were wearing what I think were supposed to be their costumes. I couldn’t help but laugh at them in my head though.

They looked like freaking superheroes or something.

Basically, the costumes looked like one-piece spandex suits that covered everything but their heads. On the most vital points of the body, like the stomach, leg joints and neck, there were sparkly gems of different colours based on which pony was wearing them; Fluttershy had yellow gems, Dash had blue ones, and so on.

“Now what do you think of theirs?” asked Rarity, eyes beaming and just begging for some nice criticism. “They look good, don’t they?”

Straight face. Super-duper-mega-ultra straight face. God you have no idea how straight my face was. If it was a line, it’d be so straight that there’d be a new type of angle invented.

Sadly, I let out a tiny squeak of hilarity at how silly the girls looked.

Then that amazingly straight face died.

I laughed so hard that I swear I could’ve literally died right there.

“That’s what I said!” Rainbow yelled. “Well… kinda!”

“Oh, I knew it!” Rarity whined, dropping onto her rump. “They’re horrible! I should’ve gone with my fifth idea!”

“Nonononono!” I said quickly, waving my hands at her. “They’re just what we need! They just look…” I had to calm myself down before I laughed right in her face. “Funny.”

“I know I made them for function, but their appearance still matters!”

“Ooh! I got something!” Pinkie yelled excitedly. I looked over at her and saw that her whole body was twitching. “Doozy alert! Crystal Empire!”

“Which means…?” I asked.

“She’s been getting doozy alerts all the time now,” Twilight explained. “I think they correlate with the monster attacks. But how she can sense them coming from so far away is beyond me.”

“Right!” I exclaimed. “Crystal Empire! Monster attacking! Let’s go save the day! How long will the train take to get there?”

“About an hour at full speed, which I can arrange,” Twilight answered. “Pinkie gets those twitches a few hours before the monsters appear, so I’d say we have enough time.”

“Waitwaitwait! Seeing as we’re all here now, I got a name for our team!”

“Ooh! I know!” Pinkie put in. “How about team Party Cannon?”

“Team Awesomeness!” Rainbow added.

“Team Monsterslayer?” Luna supplied unsurely.

Yeah, real original, Luna.

“Team BESTPONY!!” I pretty much screamed. The others looked a little confused. “You know, because all you guys are awesome and we got Applejack and Fluttershy and Dragonborn Luna!”

“I like it,” said Voice. “Kinda catchy.”

“Why thank you, non-existent entity. Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?”

“I try,” he replied.

“Team Spandex?” Shieldheart so very rudely put in quietly. He smirked when Rarity and Twilight both glared at him. “Just a suggestion.”

“We can discuss it on the train!” I yelled. I set off towards the train station. “Come on, team Bestpony! Let’s go strike back at the Empire!”

I had to. Be quiet.

Now this time I won’t bore you with the details because we got on the train and I fell asleep. I’d had like four hours sleep after a very exhausting day so I was allowed.

-=-=-=-=-

I was woken up by the sound of screaming ponies.

That, and Rainbow Dash poking me in the face.

“Karen, get up!” she shouted at me, shaking me out of my sleepy stupor. “Pinkie’s pinkie sense was late this time and those things are already attacking!”

“Uh…” I mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “Did you say… things? As in, more than one?”

“Two of them, Karen!” Twilight yelled from the window. “That’s all I can see from here, but we’ll be in the station very soon!”

“Two…” I muttered. I sincerely hoped two hadn’t attacked at the same time because that would just be problematic. “Right, we need a plan.” I pointed at Pinkie, Fluttershy, and then Twilight. “You three get the ponies around to safety.”

“You betcha, Karen!” Pinkie replied with a happy salute. “Team Pinkie Shylight is on the case!”

I was quiet for a minute. “Yes. All my yes. So much yes you can’t even count how much yes there is.”

“Karen, focus!” Twilight barked, snapping me out of my amazement at such a cool ~~love triangle~~ team name.

“Right!” I pointed at Shieldheart and Rainbow Dash. “You two are the support! Dash, you get them distracted if they get too close for comfort! Shieldy, do shield stuff!”

“Aw, you got a nickname for me already?” Shieldheart cooed at me. “Now I’ll have to think of one for you too!”

I was quiet again, this time going a little red in front of everyone. The whole time, he just smiled innocently at me, even winking one time too. I know we were going out after this was all over, but this was no time for flirting and stupid stuff like that.

“Karen!” Luna yelled, snapping me back to reality. “Stop getting lovesick and tell us our part in all this!”

“Yes!” I shook myself out of embarrassment and spun around to point at Luna and Applejack. “You two are with me! Luna can shout at them and Applejack can kick their butts!”

“Good plan,” Voice complimented. “I liked the part where you don’t die.”

“Voice in my head, you’re on motivational support!” I picked my spear up and ran to the door of the train. It had slowed down quite a bit, but it wasn’t stopped yet. “Alright, team Bestpony! Are you ready to save the day?”

“Yeah!” yelled Pinkie, Applejack and Rainbow, each of them pumping a hoof up into the air.

“Let’s do it!” Luna added, smiling confidently.

“Alright, once I see them, I’ll tell you two how to deal with them!” I yelled at Luna and Applejack. “If I die, just keep them busy until I get back! I’ll most likely respawn in the Crystal castle!”

“Got it!” Applejack replied confidently. “The train’s gonna stop now! Let’s go!”

The train got into the station and we charged out the door. Well, most of us charged out; the sensible ones waited for the rest of us to get out of the way before hurrying after us.

“Alright, Dash! Where are they?” I yelled.

Dash flew straight up and looked for the bosses before pointing off in the distance. “They’re over by the castle!” she yelled, soaring back down to meet us. “And they’re so different I can’t believe they’re not attacking each other!”

Then I remembered a game I knew and loved. They couldn’t have been from that, could they?

I won’t say which game yet, I’ll just say that they were.

“Alright, I got a hunch about this but let’s hope reeeeeeeal hard that I’m wrong!” I said. I saw Dash give me a look of confusion from beside me. “Basically, if I’m right about who they are, I’m going to die at least fifty billion times.”

It took me about seven hours before I devised a strategy of actually getting to that boss fight and another, and this is no exaggeration, combined thirteen and a half hours before I just watched Carl do it. He was on NG++ and he did it first shot, thanks to something I didn’t even know you could do at that part.

F!£$ you, Carl. Just f$%* you so much. Because I remember that, I hate you now forever.

…

I’m sorry I didn’t mean it please don’t hate me back.

And would you look at that, we got there already!

And there was a problem.

A big problem.

A giant and tiny problem.

I was so right when I thought about who it could be.

Ornstein and Smough.

The second hardest boss of my most favourite game ever.

I should stop writing in single lines per paragraph.

My first reaction was to skid to a halt and fall flat on my face as Smough charged a house and rammed it to pieces while Ornstein shot a bolt of lightning at the only guard on scene. Probably Shining Armour, judging by how many other guards in purple armour there were, which there wasn’t.

“Why aren’t there many guards here?” I asked as I got up, watching Shining Armour skilfully dive out of the way.

“They’ve never attacked here before!” Twilight replied. “We only let the guards that were already here take care of it!”

“Alright, team!” I yelled, pointing at the only duo of bosses I’d ever had the bad luck to encounter. “Let’s go do something!”

It was much less dramatic than I wanted it to be.

The eight of us split into our different groups, with Luna and Applejack charging into battle beside me. Shieldheart and Rainbow Dash followed, but at a relatively safe distance, and I saw the others go to work on getting the citizens of the Crystal Empire to safety.

Of course, the first thing Dash did was mess up my super amazing plan by shooting forwards to kick Smough in the head. He didn’t even flinch, that stupid, giant… fatty. Instead, he spun around to her and leapt up in the air.

“Rainbow, move!” I yelled at her, seeing the move I’d died to four times before I learned to focus on him when he did that.

Luckily, she moved out of the way of his giant butt slam before he flattened her dead. Unluckily, Ornstein’s attention was drawn to us as he raised his spear behind him. He shot towards me at lightning (heh, get it?) speed, ready to stab me through the chest.

I flinched away as he bounced off a red shield in front of me. “What would you do without me?” asked Shieldheart.

“Karen, what’s the plan?!” Luna shouted from right beside me. Her spear swung around and she readied herself to follow my guidance. “We can’t take both of them on at the same time!”

“Oh yes we CAN!!” I replied, running around the shield and poking Ornstein with it. “I’ll show you, Carl!!”

I should’ve been watching Smough as Ornstein dashed backwards. He leapt up in the air right beside me, hammer back behind his head. He swung it down at me, ready to squash me like a pancake made of grapes.

Guess what I did, guys!

I performed a successful roll for the first time in the entirety of my Dark Souls history!

But seriously, I dived to one side and rolled out of the way of his hammer. It just made me feel like I could achieve something now.

Be quiet. This was a big thing for me.

“Plan, Karen!” Applejack yelled at me from beside that fading shield. “We can’t do nothin’ if ya don’t help us out!”

“Rainbow Dash!” I called up to Rainbow Dash, who was wondering what exactly she should be doing, probably. She looked down at me. “You and Applejack take care of Pikachu over there!” I pointed at Ornstein. “He’s just generally fast so you two should be perfect for that!”

“On it!” she replied before charging in to kick Ornstein in the head. He looked a little staggered, but not that much. “Come on, you stupid, lion faced… thing!”

Ha. Good one.

Applejack watched as Ornstein jumped up into the air and stabbed at the ground below Rainbow Dash before she ran over to help her.

“What do we do, Karen?” asked Luna.

“We got fatty over here!” I yelled, pointing at Smough. “Make sure to get out of his way when he jumps and run when he charges at you with his hammer on the ground!”

As if to prove my point, Smough’s hammer went to the ground and shoved along towards me, ending with him swinging it up into the air. I’d dashed away to escape it and spun back to face him.

“Luna, take his other side!” I yelled. “He can’t focus on both of us at the same time!”

Luna obeyed as Smough slammed his hammer into the ground at me. I rolled again. Go me! He followed up with a swing around before Luna stabbed him in the back with her spear. It looked so pathetic against him though.

I was focusing on Luna for too long, because he repeated the same attack again and I was right in its path. Shieldheart did try defending me, as I saw some red above me out of the corner of my eye, but Smough is just too fat to care about magic because it shattered right through it.

So yeah, I got flattened like a flat thing and died.

I was half expecting the words ‘YOU DIED’ to appear in front of me, but I just woke up in a bed somewhere.

Then there was another scream.

“Who are you?!” screamed Princess Cadence, jumping out of the bed in fright. “How did you get in here?! What do you want from me?!”

The door was kicked open and in rushed three Crystal Empire guards. “Step away from the princess, you monster!” yelled one of them. Oh look, it was Flash Sentry. “And get out of her bed!”

“Wow, rude,” I replied, pulling the bed sheet up to cover myself up with. “First off, I’m on your side. Ask Twilight. Second, could you not give a lady some privacy when she’s not dressed?” I wasn’t exactly a lady but Rarity used that earlier so it was worth a shot. “Oh yeah, could someone go tell Rainbow Dash I’m in here? I need my clothes back.”

“What is going on?!” Cadence yelled at me. “First Shiny tells me to stay in bed while he goes to sort something out, and then something appears out of thin air and says she’s on our side! What is happening today?!”

“Look, I’ll explain everything later,” I said quickly. “But first, go tell Rainbow Dash I’m in here! She’ll know what to do! She’s outside fighting a stupid bo– uh, monster!”

“Alright!” Cadence yelled. “I need to see what’s going on anyway! Guards, watch her!”

“Wow, your trust in me is inspiring,” I said sarcastically as she flew out of the room. There was a silence that I really didn’t like. “Soooo…”

“I have to ask you to be quiet, ma’am,” said Flash seriously. “I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to speak to you.”

“Just talk to me like I’m a normal pony,” I replied. “Honestly, I’m not that hard to talk to, am I?”

“I think it’s best if we just stay quiet, ma’am,” said another guard. “None of us are ambassadors for Equestria, and I’m pretty sure that’s not where you’re from.”

“Well, f*?& you too then.”

He didn’t look like he knew what it meant, so it was okay to say that. I think.

After another few seconds, the door burst open again and Rainbow Dash charged in with my stuff. She dropped it on the end of the bed with her eyes tight shut and then flew back to the door.

“Guys quick get out or you’re gonna see something reeeeeeeeal gross!” she yelled, feeling around for the exit.

Wow, she had really taken that to heart, hadn’t she?

“Sorry ma’am, we need to wait here and watch her!” Flash Sentry barked.

Okay, that was in no way creepy at all.

“Tell them, Rainbow!” I shouted.

“Her private parts are on show when she’s not wearing anything!” Rainbow shouted way too loudly, finding the door and flying through it.

The guards suddenly looked very uncomfortable. I wonder why.

“Uh… ahem, we’re gonna… let you get dressed now,” said Flash Sentry, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing at anything but me. “Just… if Princess Mi Amore Cadenza asks, just say we…” He shuddered. “Watched you.”

As embarrassing as it was, I nearly burst out laughing as they left the room awkwardly. As soon as they did, I leapt out of bed and started getting dressed again.

“I gotta say, that was hilarious,” said Voice.

“God, yes,” I agreed, pulling my shirt down and picking up my spear.

I was dressed so quick that I bet Rainbow Dash would be amazed!

I headed over to the door and yanked it open. The guards on the other side took one look at me and cleared their throats awkwardly.

“Uh… sorry about that, ma’am,” said Flash, not looking at me. “Won’t happen again. Promise.”

“Just… never ever bring it up in a conversation,” I said, not looking at him either. “I’m gonna… go save the Crystal Empire now.”

I stood there for another few seconds before just running as fast as I could to where I thought the exit was.

“Other way, ma’am,” said one of the guards.

“I knew that,” I replied, spinning around and heading the opposite direction.

I did not accidentally look Flash in the eye and go bright red as I passed. Definitely not.

Anyway, I ran towards the exit and pushed the curtains that blocked it off. It turned out that that ‘exit’ was actually a balcony high above the ground. I looked over the edge and saw the others doing their thing with Ornstein and Smough below.

“Uh, hello?” Cadence said from right beside me.

“Oh, hi!” I said quickly, spinning around to face her. “Didn’t see you there! I was too busy trying to figure out how to jump of this without dying! Oh yeah, Flash and his buddies were watching me.”

I shuddered at the very thought.

“I suppose I could… give you a lift,” she replied. “I mean, it’s not a very princess-y thing to do, but if it means you’ll help us save the city…”

“Well I wouldn’t say that,” I said slowly. “More like keeping them busy for long enough for us to get their health slowly down to zero.” I realised what I’d just said. “Yeah. Pretty much saving the city.”

“Then climb aboard!” She turned her back to me and crouched down so I could climb on. “Wait, how much do you…?” I was already on her back. “Not that much apparently. Alright, let’s go get you down there!”

She took off before I remembered something. “Oh yeah you’ll need to fly back up there in case I die again.”

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Wow we got to the ground quick.

I jumped off her back and ran away from her. “THANK YOU PRINCESS CADENCE I’LL SAVE THE DAY EXTRA HARD NOW!!” I screamed in… some form of war cry as I approached Smough again.

I jumped up to his back and hit him with my spear. Would’ve been more effective to stab him, but it worked. He spun away from Luna and swung his hammer at me. Luckily, I was close enough to avoid the first swing and jumped back far enough to dodge the second.

“How are we doing?” I yelled at Luna.

“He leaves himself wide open after he attacks!” Luna replied, stabbing him in the back as he recovered from the hammer swings. “Shining Armour has been helping Rainbow Dash and Applejack take on the small one too!”

“Good job, Shiny!” I yelled over at that ex-guard captain. It looked like I distracted him from his task so he was lucky Dash distracted Ornstein before he got stabbed in the face. “My bad!”

“Did I just hear you give him a nickname too?” asked Shieldheart from behind me. “You’re breaking my heart here, Karen!”

For some reason, I felt like I needed to justify that, even if he was only making a joke. “I’m in a nickname-y mood today!” I yelled at him before ROLLING again! Yay me! “I hope you’re in a count-y mood today because I wanna know how many times I successfully roll out of the way of stuff!”

“Better make it three then,” he replied, putting up another shield above me as Smough jumped up in the air.

And, for the third time that day, I rolled out of the way of something that was going to kill me! Fourth overall!

Okay, you’re obviously not thinking this is that big a deal. So imagine the first time you achieved something awesome like getting a medal or walking or breathing or something. Then multiply that by a thousand. That’s what it felt like for me so yes it was a very big deal.

Look I had the mind of a five year old about things like this just shut up and go with it.

“Excellent, Karen!” Luna yelled as Smough slammed his butt down on empty air. Good job, me! You sure showed him! “Do you know how long we’ll have to do this for?”

“Not long…” I muttered, stabbing Smough in the front before he got back up.

Luna couldn’t stab him in time for him to charge forward with his hammer to the ground. And, as it turns out, I couldn’t actually roll fast enough this time.

Hey, at least I tried!

Luckily, getting shoved by Smough’s hammer in real life is not the same as in game! I only got pushed along by it with no damage this time!

Still, the swing at the end threw me high up into the air. When I reached the peak of my throw-up-in-the-air-ness – or whatever the word is – I hovered for a second before plummeting back to the ground.

Of course I screamed. That’s what you did when you were on a rollercoaster falling at fifty miles per hour, so why not this time?

Luckily, Shieldheart put up a shield below me at an angle to slow my fall a little. As I slid off the end of it, another shield appeared below that one at the opposite angle. I bounced up a bit before sliding down that too.

“Point me at fatty!” I yelled down at Shieldheart. “I got a plan!” Another shield, this one directing me to Smough, appeared in front of me and I slid across that one until I was directly above him. “Drop the shield!”

Shieldheart must have had some degree of faith in me, because he did just that. My spear, which I so skilfully hadn’t dropped, was swung back behind my head before I swung it back down right into the top of Smough’s head.

Unlike in the game, it stuck there.

Which left me to drop onto the floor weapon-less beside Smough. He was still focused on Luna though, so that was kind of okay. Shieldheart trotted up beside me.

“What would you do without me, Karen?” he asked smugly, pulling the sword off of his back and holding the hilt out for me.

“Thanks for not letting me die there,” I thanked him anxiously. I knew some physical contact was needed here, but I wasn’t sure what to do right now. Hug? Kiss on the cheek? I decided what to do. “I’ll hug you later. First, let’s kill these guys!”

I grabbed his sword and swung at Smough again, slashing him across the back. It didn’t make him focus on me, so I swung again! And again.

And then he fell over onto his back, defeated. I managed to get out of the way quick enough though, so don’t worry. Before I could cheer in happiness, Ornstein ignored the other three and leapt over to his fat friend’s corpse. He put a hand on Smough’s body and then...

I beat Ornstein first when I actually did beat it, so I don’t know what he was doing.

I thought he’d just get one of Smough’s weapon abilities, like Smough did, but nooooo.

He got Smough’s giant body!

Actually, he stayed in his own body, he was just really giant now.

“What do we do now?!” Luna yelled, running around to me as Ornstein waved his spear around and some lighting pulsed out of him.

“I don’t know I never did it like this back at home!” I yelled back, watching as Ornstein charged up his lightning spear. “Just do the same again and keep out of the way of his attacks!”

Meanwhile, Ornstein looked like he was charging a lightning attack. Shieldheart, being a clever pony, put up a shield in front of me as it shot towards me. Good reactions, Shieldy! I wouldn’t have rolled out of the way in time!

Sadly, giant Ornstein’s spear does not care for magic shields either. It went right through it and stabbed me right through the chest. I would’ve screamed in agony, but I was kinda shocked out of my mind to do so. I remember being lifted up into the air by his lightning infused spear and then everything went black.

I did, however, feel something zapping me before I woke up in bed.

“Does nothing care for magical shields today?!” I screamed, sitting upright in the bed.

“Uh, ma’am?” asked Flash Sentry from right beside me, looking like he was in the process of making the bed. He took one look at me and covered his eyes quickly. “Sorry ma’am! I wasn’t looking at anything, I swear!”

I went red and snatched the sheet off him to wrap around myself. “OutoutoutoutOUT!!” I yelled, pushing him towards the door.

He gave a quick salute with his eyes closed and rushed away, running into the door frame as he did. I shouldn’t be laughing, but it was kinda funny.

I waited a minute.

“Rainbow Dash should’ve got her by now, shouldn’t she?” asked Voice.

“Come ooooon, Rainbow!” I whined impatiently. “There’s a guy outside waiting for me to get dressed so he can tidy up in here!”

After another minute of nothing, I decided to get out of the bed and head over to the door. I poked my head out and Flash turned away quickly and saluted.

“You haven’t seen Rainbow Dash, have you?” I asked him. “She should’ve brought my stuff up here by now.”

“No, ma’am! I haven’t seen her!” he said anxiously, turning his eyes away from me. At least he was polite, I guess.

“Right,” I said, stepping out of the room. “I’m gonna… just go this way.” I headed towards the balcony where hopefully Cadence was waiting. “Wait there a second.”

I headed out to the balcony and pushed through the curtains. Why hadn’t they been opened yet while Cadence was out there? Cadence spun to face me and gasped.

“How did you do that?!” she yelled at me. “That’s amazing!”

“Has Rainbow Dash picked my stuff up yet?” I asked, looking over the edge of the balcony.

And I saw… something I wasn’t really expecting at all.

“That’s not supposed to happen,” said Voice.

“Oh gee you think?” I replied sarcastically.

I’m not quite sure how, but there was another me down there, and it was kicking giant Ornstein’s butt.

Author's Note

I am so sorry about this chapter. ~~Please don't hurt me.~~
Proofread by me so sorry for bad everythings.

Level Nine: Relationship Quests

I woke up a few minutes later with nothing but a headache and a happy feeling at the same time.

Is that what you’re supposed to feel after your first kiss? It’s a nice feeling. I like it. Shame it can only happen once in your lifetime. Or in your several lifetimes, in my case.

My eyes opened up slowly as I held my head. The first thing I saw was Shieldheart’s face above me giving me an anxious look. I went red and remained completely still. He backed away a little when he saw the reaction I’d just had. Maybe he knew that the spell had worn off by now.

I knew it had worn off already myself because I wasn’t getting as lost in his eyes as before and I didn’t want to hold him forever and ever in a warm embrace of love and snuggles.

“Uh… morning, Karen,” he said after the awkward silence. His cheeks went a little red. “You… remember just now, right?”

“Um…” I whispered, going even redder. That single moment in time had been repeating over and over again in my mind since it happened, so yeah. “Kinda…”

“Can we both agree that it was mutually consensual and that Princess Cadence was at fault for making you do that anyway?”

“Bet you did something while you were asleep,” said Voice.

I willed him with all my strength to shut the f*&% up but saying that out loud with only Shieldheart in front of me would just look like a cruel rejection.

“Uh… did I… do anything else?” I squeaked. Yes, squeaked. “I mean… besides...” Internal squeal. “Kissing you.”

“You rolled on top of him and started moaning like a zom–“ Pinkie Pie was cut off by a kick in the leg from Twilight. “Uh, I mean nothing else, Karen!”

Shieldheart put a hoof over his face to hide his reddening cheeks and I just laid there silently, staring right up past him for a moment. After a moment of unbearably awkward silence, I jumped up to my feet and lunged towards the edge of the balcony.

“OKAY BYE EVERYONE I’M GONNA JUST GO NOW BYE!!” I yelled as I did so.

I actually got off the balcony before I was grabbed by a magical aura and three pony princesses. They pulled me back and dropped me back on the balcony.

“Look, I know it was a horrifying experience, but did you really have to try jumping off a building because of it?” Shieldheart joked. Neither he nor I laughed, but Pinkie Pie giggled a little.

“It wasn’t… t-that bad…” I whispered, not even looking at him. God, being embarrassed this badly sucks. “Uh… you… were okay with… me doing that… right?”

He cleared his throat and looked right up at the sky. “Uh… I know that you were unconscious and you didn’t have control over yourself and…” Cadence nudged him in the side. “Ahem, yeah. I was okay with it. It was just… uh… a strange experience.”

I squeaked a little again.

“And what do you have to say for yourself, Cadence?” Luna asked sternly, looking over at Cadence.

“I’d just like to say you’re welcome for a wonderful match with a lovely pony, Karen,” Cadence said to me with a warm smile on her face. “And the same to you, Shieldheart.”

“What my wife meant to say is that she’s sorry for putting that spell on you,” said Shining Armour, putting a hoof over his wife’s giggling mouth. “She made an error of judgement and cast the spell on you at the wrong time.”

“Honey!” Cadence whined, pushing Shining Armour’s hoof away. “It was a cute little thing they had going! It was the perfect time for it!”

Squeak.

“Are you alright, Karen?” asked Twilight. “You’ve gone surprisingly pale after being surprisingly red for so long.”

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeak.

“If it’s any consolation, at least you didn’t get too frisky with him,” said Voice. “Or did you? You might have while you were unconscious.”

I fainted again.

F?*& you, voice inside my head.

-=-=-=-=-

When I woke up for the second time after fainting again in the same five or so minutes, I saw that I was alone with (ohmygodpleasenothiswasjustgoingtobesoawkward) Shieldheart.

In Cadence’s room, no less.

With me in the bed and him sitting on it beside me too.

I looked down at myself and saw that, no, I hadn’t died, so I was still clothed.

“Um…” I said in such a high pitched voice I swear I could’ve gone beyond the hearing range of mortal ears.

“I think we should talk about some things, Karen,” he said, putting a hoof on my shoulder gently. If I was standing up, I would’ve gone weak at the knees. “Would you like to talk with me, or one of the others?”

God, I was so squeaky today!

“Right,” he said slowly, leaning down to lie beside me. He sighed. “There’s no other way to put this, Karen. I like you. I think it goes without saying that you like me too.”

“Uh…”

“Come on, don’t try to deny it,” he said with a weak smirk. “You can say it here where the others can’t hear it.”

“I… I guess I… kinda… like you…”

“Only kinda?” He chuckled and rocked my shoulder gently. “Come on, be honest.”

I took a deep breath before getting what I wanted to say out. “OkayIlikeyoualotmorethankindapleasedon’ttelltheothersIsaidthatplease.”

If that makes any sense.

He smiled and closed his eyes before letting out a small snort of amusement. “I thought so,” he said quietly. “Now then, there’s the question of…” He was quiet as he thought of the right way to put it. “Us.”

“Y-yeah,” I stammered, pulling the sheet up over my face a little. “Us.”

It made me feel warm inside just saying that. Shut up I was a lovesick little girl for crying out loud.

“I don’t think we should go into a relationship just yet.”

I felt my heart shatter into a billion pieces when he said that.

“W-what?” I said, sitting up a little straighter.

“There’s too much happening right now for either of us to be able to enter a serious, happy relationship. I think we should wait until we get this all sorted out first.”

I felt my jaw moving up and down as if I was trying to speak but words weren’t working right.

“Uh, Karen?”

I let out some gibberish before I finally plucked up the courage to do what I was thinking.

I lunged towards him, pulled him up to my face and kissed him again.

That was the adrenaline, not actual people thoughts.

I felt him nearly fall backwards and protest a little, but soon he put a hoof round me and squeezed me close.

“Don’t rush the man, Karen,” said Voice. “He was probably just going to suggest you wait until after all this.”

I must’ve been as shocked at what I’d just done as Shieldheart was, because next thing I knew, I’d fainted again.

For the third f$*%ing time in one day.

-=-=-=-=-

My eyes opened up again and I was right up close to Shieldheart’s face for some reason.

“Wow, that was quick,” he said, pushing me up off of him. “You woke up a lot faster than the last few times. Do you mind, uh… helping me out a bit please?”

I was off him so fast I fell off the other side of the bed. As I held the back of my head in pain, I saw him rush onto my side of the bed to see if I was alright.

“Okay, I didn’t mean could you get off the bed,” he muttered, reaching down to help me back up. He pulled me off of the floor and back up onto the bed. “Okay, let’s try this again.”

“Uh-huh,” I squealed, nodding a little frantically. I was panicking, okay? I’d just woken up flattening ~~my boyf~~ someone that I really liked and it was kinda awkward.

“I can tell you’re a bit uneasy about this. Would I be right in saying that?”

“Mmhm,” I squeaked. I must be related to a mouse or something.

“Then I’ll say what I think needs saying quickly.” He sighed. “Karen, I like you and you like me, but we can’t be in a serious relationship right now. There’s too much going on for it to work.”

“B-but… w-we could…” I stammered. I don’t know why I still wanted this to happen as much as I did when I was absolutely terrified about it.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Shieldheart, holding a hoof up to stop me. “You know yesterday when I said that we’d start again a second time?”

I nodded lightly, glancing away from him again.

“Let’s call it a date.”

Squeaky squeak.

“When you’ve saved the world from complete annihilation, you and me are going out for dinner somewhere. I’ll make it my treat, seeing as you… well, I don’t think you’ve got any money with you.”

Oh yeah. I still hadn’t gone after my people stuff since I’d died yesterday.

…

HOLY WOW I HAVEN’T BEEN WEARING SHOES SINCE YESTERDAY GOOD JOB ON KEEPING EQUESTRIA SMOOTH AND SAFE TO WALK BAREFOOT ON EVERYONE!!!

“N-no… I don’t…” I said slowly, looking down shamefully. “B-but… I bet I could get some!”

“No no, it’ll be on me,” he replied with a little chuckle. “You’re new to this world, so you could do with a welcome treat.”

“S-save the world. Go on a date. Okay.” It felt like some great weight on my chest had been lifted when I thought about that. “Um… so… I’ll be going h-home a little later then.”

“If you want. I’m sure Princess Twilight’s magic will come back when the world is saved so you’ll be able to go home any time you want.”

“Right.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to last that long?” he asked with a chuckle. “I mean, without doing something silly like trying to jump out of a moving train.”

I wouldn’t say that… but I didn’t say that out loud.

“I’ll just take that as a yes,” he said slowly. He motioned his head at the door. “Shall we go back to the others so they know we’re still ali- oh, that was a silly thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“Um…” I didn’t really know what else to say to that so I just slid off the bed and hurried over to the door. “Y-yeah. We probably should.”

Hey guys! Guess what! You should know already because I kinda just told you! I’m going out with Shieldy after all this! Something else to look forward to!

I’m still a nervous wreck around him though, so yeah.

When I opened the door out, the first thing I noticed was that the others were waiting outside. The second thing I noticed was that Pinkie Pie and Cadence looked like they had just hurried back to join them again after doing something sneaky. The third thing I noticed was that they all looked like they knew something and weren’t going to tell me.

“What did you do?” I asked, kind of already guessing what it was.

“Absolutely nothing, Karen!” Cadence stated innocently. It actually sounded too innocent. She even had an innocent/guilty smile on her face too. “Why would you think that we did anything besides stand here and talk amongst ourselves!”

“You did something else,” said Shieldheart from right beside me, coming to the same conclusion as I did. “I can tell. What did you do?”

“That doesn’t matter right now!” Pinkie yelled as Twilight face-hooved. “I figured out what that doozy was!”

“They were listening to what you were saying through the door,” said Luna bluntly. That got a great look of disapproval from Cadence and Pinkie Pie. “We told them not to, but they insisted it was important.”

“Aw, Luna!” Cadence whined. “Way to be a killjoy!”

“So you two heard…?” Shieldheart didn’t need to finish his question before Cadence and Pinkie Pie nodded guiltily. “Well… okay then. As long as you didn’t tell any-”

“And they repeated as much as they could out loud,” Luna added. “We all know about what’s going to happen between you two later.”

“Oh, for…” Shieldheart muttered, slamming a hoof to his forehead. “I spoke to her in private to avoid exactly that!”

“We’re sorry but we just had to!” Pinkie yelled. “Cadence wanted to make sure everything was going okay with you two and I had a hunch about what that doozy was!”

“Then please enlighten us, Miss Pie,” said Shieldheart coldly. I could feel the cold glare he was giving her without even looking at him.

“That doozy was actually you two deciding to go out on a date!”

I didn’t see that coming.

“Are you gonna pass out again, Karen?” asked Rainbow. “Because you look like you’re gonna pass out again.”

“I’m f-fine,” I said, clearly the contrary.

“I don’t think you are actually,” said Shieldheart, stepping in front of me to examine me better. “You’ve gone pale again. Here.” He grabbed my shoulders and lowered me to the ground slowly. “If you’re going to faint, at least you won’t hit your head again.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

Yeah. It happened again.

Why the heck can I manage to overcome my fear of being burnt alive in the most painful way possible, but when it comes to other people knowing about a single date I’ll be going on with one guy, I just lose it?

Author's Note

I promise I'll try harder with the next chapter. I can't promise anything though ~~so please don't hurt me~~ :fluttershyouch:
Also would I have to add the romance tag for this? Because no more romance is going to happen (that much) but there is this part that's kinda... borderline romance.

Level Ten: Pre-emptive Boss

You know where I was when we woke up this time?

I was on somepony’s back.

Shieldheart’s to be precise.

I flailed for a second before falling off and earning a slightly amused glance from Rainbow Dash.

“Oh good! You’re awake!” said Twilight happily, turning to face me. She looked over at Pinkie Pie and gestured for her to say something. “Go on, Pinkie. You know what you wanted to say.”

“Sorry for being a nosy nose and listening in on your super-duper secret conversation with Shieldy, Karen,” Pinkie said quickly, bouncing up and down as she did. “If I could go back in time, I would definitely not do it again!”

I don’t even know if that meant what she thought it meant.

“Where are we anyway?” I asked, standing back up again beside Shieldy. I like calling him Shiledy be quiet.

“We’re on the way to the train station,” Luna explained. “Pinkie Pie had another pinkie sense of a monster attack back in Ponyville, so we’re on our way back there now.”

“Cadence would’ve come to see us off but I think she was too scared of what you’d be like when you woke up,” Twilight added. “I think my brother needs to talk to her about the way she uses her magic sometimes.”

“If it makes any difference, I did tell her to keep her big nose out of other ponies’ business,” said Shieldy. He frowned as he thought of something. “Although her husband did threaten to officially demote me and then unofficially break my nose if I said something so rude to his wife again.”

“Aw, you did that for little old me? I’m just meeting the sweetest little ponies today!” I said.

Not real me, other me.

“YOU AGAIN!!” I screamed, swinging my spear around to hit her over the head with.

She stepped to one side and knocked the overhead swipe out of the way with her sword. “Nice seeing you too,” she said dully. “Actually wait. No it isn’t. I killed you earlier, didn’t I?” She turned to Twilight as I spun around to swing the spear at her again. “Yeah, I wanted to ask you something. How do I get to Ponyville besides using the train?”

She blocked my second swipe and flicked her sword up to knock my spear out of my hands. I’m actually surprised that she did that, considering that thing was super hard to control properly. As I watched it spin through the air, she stood with her hands behind her back innocently.

“Um… should I be helping you?” Twilight asked back, glancing between me and other me. “I mean, you did just kill Karen and start a whole thing that made her faint lots of times.”

“Yeah yeah yeah whatever how do I get to Ponyville besides the train, princess?” other me replied bluntly. “You are a princess and I used that term correctly, right?”

“I say you walk back!” Rainbow yelled at her.

“I concur,” Luna added harshly.

“Me three,” Applejack put in crossly. “You did betray yourself after that happy little thing you had going.”

“Wow, do one little thing wrong and everyone hates you for it,” said Nerak sadly. “I was just doing as I was told anyway.”

“Who would be telling you what to do you appeared like two minutes ago!” I yelled at her, seeing Shieldy bring my spear back over with his magic.

“You know you’ve got a voice in your head? I’ve got one too.”

I heard most of the others gasp as I stared in disbelief.

“Do I have to fight my evil clone too?” asked Voice.

“No one asked for your input, stupid head-voice,” I replied angrily. I took my spear back from Shieldy and brought it back behind me to stab at other me. “Now shut up and let me stab you back, bitch!”

She leapt to one side before grabbing my spear with both hands and slamming the end down onto her knee, snapping the pointy bit off. “Wow, rude,” she said, flicking the blade over in her hand. She looked back at Twilight and frowned. “So I take it the only way to get back to Ponyville is by train?”

“Which we’re going to be late for,” Twilight replied, glancing at a nearby clock tower. “Come on, everyone!”

She led the way to the train station at a gallop. The others gave Nerak a disappointed glance before hurrying after Twilight. Shieldy turned back to face me when he realised I wasn’t moving from the spot I was glaring at other me in.

“I’ll race you there,” she whispered with a dark smile before she gave me back the end of my spear.

She then spun on her heel and charged towards a convenient stack of crates beside a nearby building. She vaulted onto the first, leapt up onto the next and then, to top it all off, somersaulted onto the building’s roof. I just stared after her with a confused look on my face.

“Come on, Karen,” said Shieldy, trotting back over to me. “She’ll probably fall off and break her legs anyway.”

“I hope she does,” I muttered before following him to the train station.

It took a few minutes for us to get there, and when we did get there, Rainbow Dash looked very unhappy to see us at last.

“You sure like taking your time!” she yelled crossly. “Twilight had to go ask the train driver to hold up a minute! Why did you take so long?!”

“Look, I’m in a weird and wonderful state of mind right now, Dash,” I replied. “Besides, other me just said she’d race me and I was feeling too pressured to go fast.”

And suddenly, out of nowhere, a random Nerak appears!

“Aw, you beat me anyway!” she said after standing up straight from the somersault landing. “Now you’re just making you look bad!”

“F$*& you, other me,” I spat, lashing out at her with one hand. She caught it and twisted it around, making me flip over and land on my back. “Seriously, f!?£ you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Shieldy doing something. Upon closer inspection, I saw him spinning around to buck Nerak’s back. She didn’t see that coming and it sent her flying over me.

“Nice job, Shieldhead!” Rainbow exclaimed happily. “Show her who’s boss!”

Other me stood up again slowly and frowned at him. “Aw, you’d do that to me?” she asked, putting on a mock expression of sadness. “You know this means I have to kill you now, right?”

“You can try it,” he snarled, stepping in front of me protectively.

“Yeah, later!” Rainbow yelled, pulling me backwards onto the train. “But first, get on the stupid train before they do leave us here!”

“Probably a good idea, actually,” said Nerak, swinging her sword around to hold over shoulder. “I don’t really wanna get stuck here with nothing to do. I get bored easy.”

Shieldheart growled and backed onto the train quickly, glaring at other me the whole time. Other me giggled and blew a kiss at him, then followed us onto the train, much to the disapproval of Rainbow, Shieldy and myself. Of course, the train started moving, so there was no escape now.

I hate her so much there should be a whole new level of hate for the hate I am hating her with.

“What is happenin’ here?” asked Applejack from behind me as I backed into the carriage. I had to keep watching other me so she didn’t kill me again. “Why is she on the train? Did ah miss somethin’?”

“Oh, I’ve got a brilliant idea,” said other me happily, pushing past me to lean down to Applejack’s face. “Say ‘howdy-do, partner’. Please. This is just a thing I wanna hear from a real cowgirl.”

“As much as I don’t like you, second Karen, I like you,” said Pinkie Pie with a tiny smile. “You’re fun. You must be great at parties.” She blinked as an idea came to her. “Ooh! I know what we could do next!”

“Pinkie Pie, this is serious!” Luna hissed, glaring at Nerak harshly. “We don’t know if she’s going to double-cross us again! She’s an evil twin!”

“Speaking of,” said Nerak, turning back to face Shieldy. “I was gonna kill you, wasn’t I?”

She swung her sword off of her shoulder and took up an aggressive stance. Shieldheart snarled and did the same, just without a sword. I saw the others gasp at what was going to happen while I just stood in between them and looked stupid.

“Mind moving for a sec, sweetie?” asked other me sweetly, looking past me at Shieldheart. “We’re kinda gonna start fighting now.”

“I got a better idea!” I yelled, spinning around to face Nerak. I spun my stick around deftly and pointed it at her. “We all fight you!”

“Aw, come on, there’s like ten of you guys!” Nerak replied disappointedly, letting her sword flop back to the ground.

“Then that’s ten of us to beat your sorry flank with!” Rainbow yelled. Great math, Dash.

“Suit yourselves,” Nerak replied quietly before swinging her sword up at me so fast I actually felt it scratch my nose as I jumped backwards.

She didn’t even hesitate before using the upward swing’s momentum to swing the sword over her head and down at Applejack on her opposite side. A magical red shield went up ahead of the sword, blocking the attack. The shield pushed up against the sword, sending Nerak tumbling over backwards. She rolled back up to her feet and smirked.

“This is fun!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her feet as we approached her. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so evenly matched! Good job, you guys!”

“Good job on being nice, other Karen!” Pinkie replied happily. I glared at her. “W-well… I mean, being nice only some of the time. Not all the time. You’re a meanie most of the time.”

“Are we still fighting?” Nerak asked, dropping her sword a little. “Because if we’re fighting I think we should do it quick so I can make a daring escape and come back to fight you again later.”

“I’ve got a better idea!” Rainbow yelled, darting forwards. “Stand still and let us kick your stupid flank!”

Nerak moved faster than Dash did; she spun around and raised her leg high to deliver a strong kick to Rainbow’s face. Rainbow flew across the carriage and crashed into a wall. Nerak frowned mockingly and looked over her shoulder.

“Do you really think it looks stupid?” she asked, examining her ‘flank’ in more detail. “Is it too big? Not big enough? What’s stupid about it?”

I spotted Fluttershy hurry over to Rainbow Dash to check on her, but I focused on other me. I saw Applejack and Luna take up a spot beside me and Shieldheart’s horn light up. Other me didn’t seem to really care, instead looking at her reflection in the window behind her.

“Alright, guys,” I whispered, swinging my stick around to point at Nerak. “Pinkie Pie is on distractionating and Shieldy’s on shields while the rest of us work at getting her put down.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Applejack replied quietly, pulling her hat down on her head.

Other me turned her head back to us quickly. “Hey,” she said, glaring at me. “Stop whispering. How am I supposed to know what you’re planning if you whisper? Honestly, you’re so rude.”

“Go!” I yelled, leaping at her with my stick behind my head.

“Look! A cloud that looks like a sheep!” Pinkie yelled, pointing at the window behind Nerak.

Great distraction, Pinkie.

No, I mean it. That actually worked somehow.

Other me spun around to look out the window and I smacked my stick over the top of her turned head. She recovered quickly though, moving with the blow and spinning around to slash her sword at me. A shield went up before the sword could hit me, making a strong clanging sound. She jumped backwards to avoid Luna’s spear thrust and snarled at us.

“Why would you betray me like that, pink pony?” she asked disappointedly, like she’d just been denied a real treat. “That cloud looked like a butterfly, not a sheep!”

“It does?” Pinkie asked incredulously. She shot over to the window to see if Nerak was right.

Nerak smirked and swung her sword at Pinkie like the treacherous bitch she was. I saw a shield go up, but not fast enough to block the attack. Luckily, Pinkie Pie is unpredictable, and she ducked under the attack so fast it was like I blinked. The top of her hair was sliced of though, so that was a bit unlucky.

It did look kinda funny though, so that was good.

“You lied to me!” Pinkie yelled, pointing at Nerak accusingly. “It actually looked like a dragon playing hopscotch!”

“Not falling for that again…” Nerak muttered, spinning her sword around and thrusting it out at me.

I jumped to one side just in time to dodge it, but she repeated what she had done earlier; she swung the flat side out at me. Like earlier, a shield went up, but other me must’ve known that was going to happen because she spun and hit me from other side instead. I was slammed against the shield as Nerak jumped backwards, sniggering evilly.

“Thanks, second Karen!” Applejack yelled as she bucked out hard at Nerak from where she landed.

The kick actually connected, surprisingly, and Nerak was sent flying across the carriage. Right at me, to be precise. I saw my opportunity and took it; I brought my stick back over my head and slammed it down at her, knocking her flat onto her stomach.

“Yeah! Go us!” I cheered. I pointed my stick down at other me and put on a victorious scowl. “Now surrender, other me, or face some consequences that I may or may not be willing to dish out!”

“Why would ya not be willin’ to dish ‘em out?” Applejack asked, looking up at me.

“She’s an actual person and I don’t think I’d wanna kill a person,” I replied. I growled at Nerak as she rolled onto her back. “But there’s still a possibility! So what’s it going to be, other me?”

“Well firstly, I think I’m alright, thanks,” Nerak replied, smiling up at me. “And secondly…” She grabbed my legs and pulled them towards her quickly, causing me to fall backwards and onto my back. “Don’t leave yourself open to that kind of thing!”

She rolled backwards and up to her feet, standing over me. Before I could try the same thing she’d just done, she back-flipped over a spear swipe from Luna before sprinting to the other end of the carriage. She stood there for a second as I got back to my feet. When I was stood up again, she smiled and waved at me.

“I’ll be going now!” she said happily. “Good luck killing stuff! I’ll see you again when you’re at the end of your quest! That’s how this works, right?”

“Coward!” Luna yelled, swinging her spear around behind her. “Face us now and we will finish this!”

“Yeah! I still need to kick your head for kicking me in the head!” Rainbow added, jumping up. I could see a nasty bruise over one of her eyes where Nerak had kicked her.

“I would, but I think I’m supposed to be the final boss or something.” She opened the door out of the train and looked out. “Hmm… I probably wouldn’t survive if I jumped out at this speed, would I?”

“Then do it, stupid!” I yelled. I would’ve been more creative with my insult but I wasn’t really thinking right. “Save us the trouble of doing it later!”

“Nah, I think I’ll pass,” she replied blankly. She shut the door and leant against it. “Well… this is awkward, isn’t it?”

“You’re a big, dumb loser that no one likes!” I yelled, pointing at her.

“I thought I was the one who killed Ornstein. How could I be a loser?”

“Shut up no one likes you anyway!”

She chuckled and crossed her arms. “I can tell we’re going to be mature about this,” she said sarcastically. “Alright, how about this? I’ll just sit over at this end of the carriage and you can have that end. I won’t do anything as long as you don’t, and when we get to Ponyville, you give me a minute’s head-start to make a hasty getaway. Sound like a plan?”

“I don’t trust her,” Rainbow hissed, glaring at other me. “She’s gonna do something and I don’t like it.”

“Ooh! We make her pinkie promise not to do anything!” Pinkie suggested.

“What’s a pinkie promise?” asked other me. “Is that some kind of unbreakable vow or something?”

“Hold on.” Pinkie casually trotted over to other me and leant up to her ear to whisper. Other me listened and nodded when Pinkie was finished explaining. “Clear enough?”

“What happens if you break a pinkie promise?” Nerak asked. Pinkie leaned up to whisper again, and when she did, other me shuddered. “Okay, that’s definitely an unbreakable vow for anyone who doesn’t want to live their life in fear.”

“I don’t get it,” I said blankly.

“I’ll tell you about it some time!” Pinkie replied happily. She turned to look up at Nerak and scowled. “So do we have a pinkie promise?”

“I’m not going to do anything on this train trip unless someone does something to me,” Nerak stated. She started doing the actions of a pinkie promise. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Wow, Pinkie explained that really fast.

“Okay! Hope you enjoy your trip to Ponyville, second Karen!” Pinkie said happily, trotting back over to the rest of us like she hadn’t just been chatting to the one I’m going to call my arch-nemesis.

“Well that was… strange,” said Luna, glancing at other me while she sat down. “I think I’ll need a bit more of an explanation of a pinkie promise at some point too. I didn’t expect it to be so… simple.”

Neither did I, but that’s Pinkie Pie for you.

“Well that turned out to be anticlimactic, didn’t it?” said Shieldheart, frowning disappointedly. “I was actually expecting a lot more than just that.”

“We can change that pinkie promise if you want!” Nerak called over. “Is that a thing you can do? Changing pinkie promises, I mean.”

“Once it’s promised, it can’t be un-promised!” Pinkie replied.

“I’m not exactly saying we should do that it all again,” Shieldy said quietly, sitting down on a nearby chair. “I’m just saying I didn’t expect it to be over so quickly.”

“I say we betray her when we get into Ponyville,” I whispered.

“I agree,” Rainbow added. “Let’s give her a taste of her own medicine.”

“Or we could… just give her a minute’s head-start like she asked,” said Fluttershy. “If she’s supposed to be evil, we shouldn’t sink to her level, after all.”

“As much as ah’d like to give other Karen a piece of my mind, ah agree with Fluttershy,” Applejack agreed. “We’d be no better than her if we betrayed her like she betrayed you, Karen.”

“Fine we won’t be stupid and betray her then,” I said crossly, dropping down into a seat across from Shieldheart. “It’s not like she deserves it or anything…” I looked out the window. “When are we back in Ponyville anyway?”

“If we get there as fast as we got to the Crystal Empire, another hour or so,” Luna answered. “I hope you’ll be able to… cope with yourself until we get there, Karen.”

“I better hope so, for my sake…” I muttered angrily, glaring at other me from the corner of my eye.

“Did you mean other you or actual you there?” asked Pinkie. “Because you could mean two things when you said that.”

“I thought she meant herself,” Rainbow said blankly.

“There are two different things that that could mean too!” Pinkie yelled. “This is just so confusing!”

“I better stop or I’m gonna confuse myself,” I said. “Uh… real myself. Not other myself.”

“Ooh, too confusing for me!” Pinkie exclaimed, dropping onto the floor and putting her hooves over her head.

“You said it, Pinkie Pie,” Applejack added. “The sooner we get rid of other Karen, the better.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad!” yelled other me from the opposite end of the carriage.

“Yes, you are…” I said under my breath.

“At least she’s got a good sense of humour,” said Voice. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Nope,” I replied, turning to look out the window again. “She’s one hundred and twelve percent evil.”

“Why a hundred and twelve?” asked Luna, tilting her head in confusion.

“I just felt like being weird let’s be quiet now,” I said, leaning back in the seat and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m gonna just… stop existing until we get there.” I remembered the stick I had in my hands. “Actually, gonna work on this thing. Make it a thing that kills things again. Where’s the stabby thing off it?”

“Here,” said Sheildy, levitating it off the floor where it had dropped. “Need any help with it?”

“I can turn it into a stabby thing again on my own,” I said quickly, snatching the spear tip out of his magical grip. “I just need… something to stick it together with.”

“What about the dress you stole from Twilight and turned into a sword holder?” Rainbow suggested.

“I forgot that even existed,” I said blankly, taking the makeshift sword harness off. “Good job on remembering the obvious stuff that shouldn’t really be missed, Rainbow Dash.”

“Was that sarcasm?” Rainbow asked. “Because it didn’t sound like sarcasm but I have a feeling that it should be sarcasm.”

“I think it was supposed to be but it wasn’t.”

The next half hour or so was spent with me in silence and just working out how to keep the spear tip reattached to the spear that actually turned out to be kind of productive in the end, and the following twenty minutes were spent by me and Rainbow Dash passing hushed insults to each other about Nerak. We came up with some pretty creative ones too, but I don’t really feel like they should be written down to be known for the rest of ever.

No, the others just said we were criminal masterminds and talked amongst themselves the whole time.

After that was all said and done, we arrived in Ponyville. When the train was stopped completely, Nerak stood up and headed towards the rest of us. I spotted Shieldy’s horn light up and Rainbow Dash snort in anger, but they didn’t do anything. I just tensed up and held my fixed spear tighter.

“Alright then, girls and one guy,” she started, clapping her hands together in front of her, “we’ll leave this here and I’ll be off. Same time tomorrow?” She looked at her watch-less wrist and sighed. “No, I’ve got something else going on actually. I’ll call you and let you know when I’m free. So, about that minute’s head-start.”

“You better go fast,” Rainbow spat, punching her hooves together. “Because if I catch up to you, you’ll wish you could move a lot faster.”

“Oooookay, nice threat there, rainbow pony,” other me replied. “I can see that you picked brawn over brains, but you didn’t quite get the brawn you were going for either.”

She held her hand out to one side and suddenly Pinkie Pie was right beside her to slap it appreciatively. She got a look of shock and disapproval from all of us, which made her smile embarrassedly and hurry back over to our side of the train.

“Traitor,” Rainbow hissed.

“I’ll see you later then!” Nerak said happily, turning and hurrying over to the door at the end of the carriage. “Good luck saving all of Ponyville, everyone!”

And then she was out the door and gone. Rainbow turned and glared at Pinkie Pie when other me was out of sight.

“What’s gotten into you, Pinkie?!” she yelled angrily. “Are you on her team?!”

“I just think she’s silly and good at it!” Pinkie replied sheepishly. “I’m not on her team, I just like her style!”

“Well if you keep it up, you’ll turn into a bad guy and we’ll have to kill you just as everything’s gone back to normal,” I explained. I got a confused and disapproving look from the others. “That’s how this works, you know. I don’t want it to happen but it might.”

“Whatever…” Rainbow muttered, crossing her hooves and scowling out the window. “Have we given her that minute head-start yet? I’m getting bored and the town will need saving soon.”

“Thirty seconds left,” Shieldy put in. I saw his lips moving like he was silently counting down to something.

“I wonder what Twilight’s been doing…” I muttered, looking at the other end of the carriage.

Speak of the devil and all, she walked in through the door.

“Hello everyone,” she said dully. “How’s your trip been? Because mine was… not so pleasant…”

“We had to fight evil Karen and then let her get away with it,” Rainbow explained crossly. “I don’t like her. I think we should’ve just thrown her off the train.”

“She would’ve killed us all if we tried,” I answered glumly. “Probably even Luna who’s a dragonborn.”

“I still don’t fully understand what that means…” Luna muttered.

“Okay, her minute’s up,” said Shieldy. “Let’s either go after her or get ready for that monster that’s going to attack. I vote we get ready for the monster attack.”

“Agreed,” said Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie and Luna at the same time.

“Well, that already wins the vote, so let’s go!” I exclaimed, heading over to the door of the carriage.

I heard the others follow and we all headed outside. When we got outside, I couldn’t see any panic or chaos happening so that must mean the monster hadn’t got here yet. What I did see was a few floating thingies on top of a few buildings. Even at this distance, I could see what they were, and already I was dreading the incoming battle.

“We might have a problem,” I said anxiously.

“What is it, Karen?” asked Twilight. “Is it those floating things on the rooftops?”

“That too, but we have a slightly bigger problem too.”

“Then please, give us the details and we can see if we can prevent it!” Luna said, turning to face me.

“Houses may get destroyed if we don’t keep the Ender Dragon away from them. That could be a problem.”

Yes, you read right.

Ender Dragon.

The boss you can’t kill unless you were in creative or had a group of like fifty other people helping you.

Wasn’t this going to be fun?

Author's Note

Because of PiMan's very wise words, this is now tagged romance.
I don't care, he seems smart and probably knows more about literally anything than I do ~~so that's not really saying much because I know nothing about anything at all anyway~~.

Level Eleven: Training Dummy

“Here’s the plan,” I started, spinning back to face the others. “Rainbow, you and Luna are gonna work on taking out those floating healing thingies. Be careful though; they explode when you take them out.”

“That’ll be a piece of cake!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Luna, I got the right side of town! You take the left!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Luna replied. “Whose left? Yours or mine?”

“Later!” I yelled, cutting Rainbow off before she could say anything. “Twilight and Fluttershy, you two are the distraction this time! We need to keep him away from the houses so he doesn’t break anything!”

“You can count on us!” Twilight said confidently.

“What about us four, Karen?” Pinkie asked, waving at the rest of us. “What are we going to be doing?”

“We get to figure out how to use a bow and arrow!” I replied happily. “And then we get to shoot him out of the sky with them!”

“I guess I’m going to be teaching all three of you then,” said Shieldy with a sigh.

“No, I did archery before!” I stated. “I know how to shoot at stuff with a bow!”

“Oh, well there’s something we’ve got in common, I suppose,” he said with a smirk. “Maybe we’ll go do that when this is all over too!”

“Quiet, Shieldy! You’ll make her faint again!” Pinkie yelled, jumping onto Shieldheart’s back and clamping his mouth shut with her hooves.

“No he won’t, I already know I’m going to go out with him,” I explained.

“Well, you can chat about all your love life after we save the town again!” Rainbow yelled. “Luna, you take the east side! I’ll take the west!”

She flew away before I could say anything else. Luna watched her go and stayed where she was, jaw dropping a little.

In about five seconds, however, Dash was right back in front of me.

“Uh, quick question; how do we take them out if they explode?” she asked.

“Just punch them or something I don’t think they do much damage to you they just knock you back,” I said quickly. “I think so anyway. But just in case, throw a rock or something at it. It breaks if it’s hit by anything.”

“You got it!” Rainbow yelled, shooting off to take care of her side of the town.

“I suppose I’d best be on my way too,” Luna said dully. “What do I do when they’re all taken care of?”

“Uh… I guess you could come help us out fighting the Ender Dragon… You’d probably need a bow or something though because he moves pretty fast.”

“Then wouldn’t it be smarter for me to just chase him rather than waste arrows and potentially put ponies in danger even more?”

“That’s... actually not a bad idea.”

“Then I will join you once my task is complete,” Luna said, nodding at me. “Good luck, everypony.”

She took off and soared towards her side of town. I watched her go before remembering one fault in my genius plan.

We still needed bows and arrows.

“Where exactly are we going to get bows and arrows from?” I asked stupidly.

“I’ll go get some from the guard weapons locker…” Shieldy muttered, galloping off towards where I assume the guard place was.

When he was gone, I looked back at the other four. “Everyone know what they’re doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know how to use a bow and arrow,” Pinkie said, ears flapping back against her head.

“Neither do ah,” said Applejack. “Ah mean… ah get that ya pull a string to shoot an arrow at somethin’, but ah don’t get how earth ponies are s’posed to use ‘em safely while they’re movin’.”

Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that either.

“Oh, for…” I muttered. “What do we do now then?”

“Ooh! I have an idea!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Do tell,” I said dejectedly. What, were you expecting me to be ecstatic about it? My super genius plan had been put down by the fact that ponies don’t have fingers. Leave me alone. “At the moment, I think anything will be better than my plan.”

“How about we lure him away from the town and shoot at him there?”

“That would probably be safer,” said Twilight. “I know earth ponies can use bows and arrows, but if you’re not trained to use them, it would be a lot safer if we did this out of town and away from other ponies.”

“Alright, so when Dash and Luna finish up their quest, you tell them we’re headed out of town, Fluttershy!” I exclaimed, pointing at Fluttershy.

“Okay,” she replied, staring at my finger that was only an inch from her face. “Um… which way out of town?”

“Which way out of town is best, Twilight?” I asked Twilight.

“The way between here and Canterlot is most spacious,” she replied.

“We’re going slightly to Canterlot!” I exclaimed, spinning back to Fluttershy. “Wait, are you going to be alright distracting on your own, Twilight?”

“If I distract this dragon just to keep it away from the houses, you can hit it with an arrow to distract it from me!” Twilight replied. “You are good with a bow and arrow, right?”

“Eh, mostly,” I said. “I mean… yeah, I never got the bull’s-eye before, but… I’m kinda alright.”

“Oh, what am I saying?” Twilight said, slapping her forehead. “You don’t need to be that good! We’ve had some scientists create arrows that follow their target!” She frowned. “Don’t ask me why, I can’t remember myself.”

“Well then,” I said blankly. “That… kinda makes things easier. How do they follow the target?”

“You just aim at what you’re trying to shoot at and they’ll follow it until they miss it completely.”

“Because that makes perfect scientific sense.”

“They’re magical, not scientific.”

“Yeah that still doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Ah think you girls best hurry up with your discussin’,” said Applejack, pointing at something behind me. “Because ah think that dragon thing you were talking about is on its way here!”

I turned to see what she meant and, sure enough, the Ender Dragon was on its way towards Ponyville. Why it had spawned so far away, I don’t know. I guess one good thing about that is that we got to see where it was before it came and murdered us.

Yes, murdered us.

I had very little faith in myself fighting the Ender Dragon, okay?

“Alright, Princess Distraction!” I yelled, pointing at Twilight. “Do your thing for a little while! This guy doesn’t do anything except fly towards you and then heal up and then turn around and fly at you again!”

“Got it!” Twilight replied, taking off. “I’ll try getting him to head away from the town!”

As she flew up to meet the Ender Dragon, I glanced around anxiously to search for Shieldheart, who still wasn’t back yet.

“Oh, come on, Shieldy…” I muttered.

“Didn’t know you missed me that much, Karen,” he said from right behind me, making me jump. When I spun to face him, I saw another guard with him helping him carry all the bows and arrows. “I’m here now though.” He waved at his friend. “This is Longshot. He specialises in teleportation.”

“Honour to meet you, ma’am!” said Longshot, saluting at me as he dropped the weaponry he was carrying. “Good luck saving the town, but if what Shieldheart says about you is true, you won’t need it!”

“Uh… thanks?” I replied.

“As you were, soldier,” Shieldy said, hovering a bow and a quiver of arrows over to me.

Longshot saluted and teleported away. I took the bow and arrows and put the quiver over my shoulder, onto my back. When I was sure it wasn’t going to move, I turned to look at Shieldy.

“Yeah, we had a change of plan,” I said. “Come on, I can explain on the way.”

Once Applejack and Pinkie Pie had got their bows and arrows sorted out, I started running towards where we would actually be fighting the Ender Dragon. The other three followed and Fluttershy flapped up to keep an eye out for the other two. Shieldheart picked up his pace a little to match mine, and he looked up at me as he ran beside me.

“I take it we’re going for a slightly safer option than fighting a thing that could destroy buildings in the town,” he said.

“Pretty much,” I replied, looking up to see if Twilight was still okay.

The Ender Dragon had only just reached her, I saw. She dodged above an easily avoidable swoop and spun around to face it. I could see her gasp even from this far away, most likely because of the Ender Dragon healing up beside one of the undestroyed healing thingies.

I thought it was a really stupid thing when I first saw it too.

“Did you figure out that the other two might have some trouble with these things as well?” Shieldy asked, glancing back at Pinkie Pie and Applejack.

“They kinda pointed out that flaw in my plan…” I answered quietly. “But that’s slightly not important right now Twilight needs help from the Ender Dragon attacking so much!”

“You should’ve just said something,” he replied, readying an arrow in his bow with his magic.

Before I could say anything else, he leapt up and spun around in the air so his stomach was facing upwards. In about half a second, he pointed his bow and arrow at the Ender Dragon and fired the arrow. I know he didn’t need that much of a good aim, but it still looked cool as he spun back around and landed back on his feet at a run.

I get it, life. He’s super cool and you want me to see that. Lay off it a bit, will you? I have already fallen for him, after all.

I turned my head to see the arrow hit the Ender Dragon in its blocky stomach. It whirled around in the air and started soaring towards us, but Twilight got its attention again by catching up to it and kicking it in the side.

“You make this bow and arrow thing look easy!” Pinkie yelled happily.

“That’s because I am a unicorn with the ability to manipulate a bow and arrow using magic, Pinkie Pie,” he replied, pulling another arrow out of his quiver to ready his bow again. “It’s… It’s kinda supposed to be easy for me.”

“I think she meant the spinny thing…” I muttered. “But who cares?! More super awesome anime moves later! Let’s get out of town and shoot Ender Dragon’s butt off!” I looked down at Shieldy again. “We’re gonna…” Oh holy wow I just had a super genius idea. “Oh… Oh oh oh. I got an even better plan!”

“What’s an even better plan than shooting stupid-dragon-head from really far away out of the way of accidentally hitting another pony?” Pinkie asked.

Hm. Good point.

But not good enough to out-plan me!

“It involves yelling at Twilight to bring ol’ Endy down here so we can use him as a training thingy!” I exclaimed, springing up a little bit. “We get to slay a giant monster without damaging anything but my sanity and I get to learn how to slay other me without getting too pissed off with myself!”

“Actually, that is a better plan,” Shieldheart commented, smirking a little. “Training would be pretty useful for some of the less experienced members of our group. I could even coach you a little, if you’d like”

“Alright!” I yelled happily. “We get to learn how to make stuff die better!!”

“Is that really so awesome?” asked Pinkie Pie. “I mean, yeah it’ll save the day quicker, but making stuff die isn’t fun for them! The dying stuff, that is.”

“Well who cares about them? If they didn’t wanna be murdered then they shouldn’t have been so dumb and stupid and evil!”

Oh look we got here wow that was quicker than last time we ran out of town towards Canterlot.

Or was it? I’m not really paying attention to real life right now.

I’ve had a long and annoying day, okay?

“Alright! Set up time!” I yelled, pulling an arrow out and holding it like you were supposed to in a bow.

I’ve done this before and been mildly good at it! Yay for knowing stuff!

“Right then,” said Shieldy, marching towards the other two. “Now to teach earth ponies how to shoot with a bow.”

“You do that and I’ll teach me how to do other stuff!” I aimed at the Ender Dragon before shouting, “HEY, TWILIGHT!!”

“What?!” Twilight yelled back from where she was easily flapping just above Endy’s swoops each time. I already said I’m in a nickname-y mood today, okay? “Is it another plan change?!”

“KINDA!!” I screamed back, firing the arrow that I could see wouldn’t have hit Endy at all if it weren’t for the homing missile mechanic built into it. “WE’RE GONNA USE HIM AS A TRAINING DUMMY!!”

“Isn’t he going to have to be dead for that?!”

“HE’S A DUMMY AND WE’RE USING HIM FOR TRAINING SO THERE!!”

Endy was on his way towards me now anyway.

“You can handle him while I teach the others how to shoot, can’t you, Karen?” asked Shieldheart, looking back at me.

“I wanna deal with him anyway!” I answered excitedly. “Time to try some stuff that’s probably gonna get me killed again!”

“Ooh! Wait a second!” Pinkie yelled. “What do we do if you do die and your stuff stays here?”

“I got it!” Rainbow yelled, suddenly right beside me. “What are we doing again?”

“We’re using that dummy as a training dragon!” I replied. I was so excited about this for some reason. “And you get to join in however you want! All he’s going to do is fly in circles and try to hit you!”

That’s all he did when I fought him anyway.

“Nah, I’m good,” Rainbow replied, waving a dismissive hoof at me. “I’ll just keep you alive because I already got the killing part down.”

“NO TIME FOR TALKING NOW IS FOR DODGING!!” I screamed frantically, diving to one side to avoid Endy’s swoop.

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUESS WHAT I JUST DID THAT WASN’T DIE!!!

I ROLLED LIKE FIVE FEET OUT OF ENDER DRAGON’S RANGE!!!

It was kinda like a Halo Reach evade, but I wasn’t complaining about that at all. Halo Reach was awesome.

“That didn’t look easy,” said Voice. “You should be proud of yourself for accomplishing that.”

“YES I AM, IMAGINARY VOICE!!” I squealed, spinning around and (gasp) stabbing my spear into Endy’s tail. “OH MY GOD I AM JUST DOING LOADSA AWESOME STUFF TODAY!!”

Hey. I’d just dived out of Endy’s range, rolled to my feet and then stabbed him before he could get out of my range like some kind of super awesome… thing! That was like the second biggest achievement of my entire life so of course I was going to be hyper/squealy/just plain stupid about it.

“Nice moves, Karen!” Rainbow complimented. “Is that all you’re gonna practice though?”

“Of course it is!” I replied happily. “I need to learn how to be a superhuman superhero that knows how to dodge stuff! I’ll be… Dodge-girl!”

That superhero name is now mine forever copyrighted by me for use only by me but I have no way to enforce that so I guess you can take it if you want.

I’m not gonna get mad or anything.

“You know what I think you should try?” asked Voice. “You should try jumping over it next time it comes around. I bet Nerak can’t do that, and you want to be better than her, don’t you?”

“F?*% NERAK!!” I shouted, making Rainbow jump a little.

She quickly recovered and smirked. “Yeah!” she added. “Do that!” I cringed. “Wait, what does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you later and then you’ll realise why what you just said was not a good thing at all.” I turned back to the others. “How are you three doing so far?”

“I learned how to shoot stuff while you weren’t looking!” Pinkie replied happily, bouncning up and down excitedly.

“They’re doing fine, Karen,” said Shieldy. “While Applejack is getting there slowly, Pinkie is… well, she’s Pinkie.”

“Alright then!” I yelled, pointing up at Endy. “Pinkie, you are now distraction helper! Shouldn’t be too hard!”

“Yeah! I got this!” she replied happily, readying another arrow to shoot at Endy.

Yeah, she was stood up on her back legs to do that. I’m going to go out on a limb and just say that she was a very dextrous pony. Yep, now she was stood on one leg.

Pinkie Pie = Best dexterity pony.

As I thought of what dark souls characteristic would be best for my whole party, the Ender Dragon drew ever closer again. He seemed to be going for Pinkie Pie; the group archer. Remembering that I wanted to do another thing, I ran up to stand beside her.

“Alright, we’re gonna jump over him!” I told her with a big, stupid smile on my face. “That sound okay?”

“I was made for jumping over stuff!” Pinkie replied as Shieldy and Applejack backed away from us. She blinked in realisation. “Wait, no. I was made for other stuff. Jumping is just one of my secret special talents!”

“OKAY NO TIME LET’S DO IT!!” I screamed as Endy swooped down at us.

I ran towards him and used the surprisingly sturdy spear to pole-vault up and over him. I spotted Pinkie just freaking backflip over him like it was nothing, but I was more focused on a new opportunity that had popped up.

With a deviously devious snigger, I spun around in the air to hit Endy with my spear. It stabbed him in the tail before he could get away and kinda stuck there. Still holding that spear, I was pulled along behind him and was sent tumbling to the ground. On the bright side, at least I rolled to my feet!

“Aw, I liked that stupid weapon,” I whined, watching it fly away, stuck in Endy’s tail. “Now how am I gonna kill stuff?”

“Oh, gee, I don’t know, maybe that bow and arrow you’ve got just sitting there on the ground after you just abandoned it?” Voice suggested.

That plan was dumb.

“Here,” said Luna, appearing right beside me suddenly. Maybe she was always there and I just didn’t notice, I don’t know. I still jumped. “Use this. You would use it much better than I.”

“Alright, back to killing stuff!” I yelled, snatching her spear out of her magic. “Ooh I got an idea!”

“Another one?” asked Applejack. “What is it now?”

I leant in to whisper something to Luna. You’ll find out what in a second, don’t worry. She gave me a confused glance, but I just smiled and nodded at her. It was going to be amazing because she was dragonborn and it was an awesome dragon shout.

“Well this can’t go wrong in any way, shape or form,” said Voice.

“This is going to go brilliantly,” I whispered, smiling.

Endy soared around in the distance before making a beeline for us again. Luna stepped towards him slowly, putting on a determined expression. I just cackled maniacally in my head. As Endy got closer still, Luna crouched down a little to ready herself for the most un-fail-able dragon shout ever.

As he was about to collide with her, she inhaled and roared, “COMETH AT US, BROTHER!!”

I actually felt the shockwave of that definitely real and amazing dragon shout, and Endy did too. He was knocked back in the sky and went hurtling away before recovering and gliding away to look for more healing thingies.

“You know, I really thought that wasn’t going to work,” I said bluntly, smiling mischievously.

“What?!” Luna yelled, spinning to face me. “I could have died if it didn’t work!”

“Yeah but you didn’t,” I replied innocently. “So there’s no harm done. You wouldn’t have been that hurt anyway he just swoops at you and doesn’t attack you properly.”

“Well I would appreciate it if you told me your ideas might not work in future!”

“He’s coming back again!” Pinkie yelled, pointing behind me.

“Time to practice!” I yelled, spinning to face Endy again. “I think the roll-y stuff is more important, so let’s do that!”

“I’m right with you, Karen!” Pinkie exclaimed happily. “Let’s show this guy how we do it!”

“Ah’m real glad that some of us are gettin’ somewhere…” Applejack muttered.

I looked over at her and spotted that she was having about as much trouble with a bow and arrow as I was when I first used one. At least she was trying, I guess!

“You’ll get there, Applejack,” said Shieldy, patting her on the back. “I guess you’re really just support at the moment anyway, so it’s not mandatory for you to learn yet.”

“Luna take over shooting stuff we’ll need him dead eventually!” I yelled quickly as Endy swooped at us.

Before she even said anything, I leapt to one side and WOW I DID IT AGAIN rolled to my feet. I was getting good at this! The only problem this time was that I didn’t get far enough to avoid him completely.

Fun fact: getting hit by the Ender Dragon in real life doesn’t damage you, it sends you flying like you’ve just been hit by a train or something.

I was wondering what just happened when I hit the ground far away from the others. ‘Landed’ was probably a bad choice of wording. I crashed into the ground and rolled along for a few seconds. When I stopped, I realised that I was still alive and in one piece.

“Ouch,” I said when I remembered I could speak again.

I stood up and looked over at the others fighting Endy. They probably would need my help, so I started tromping back towards them. It was probably going to take a while to get over there, but luck was on my side today.

“Oh, you’re still alive!” said Dash, appearing above my head. Wow, she was fast. “Come on! The others need your help!”

“Can I have a lift?” I asked innocently. What? Riding a flying rainbow pony was awesome.

She frowned at me and flapped down to my level. “I guess…” she muttered. “But you’re not gonna be getting this that often.”

“I don’t care,” I said as I jumped onto her back.

Yes, childish squeals ensued again.

Author's Note

This chapter only took so long because I didn't have fun writing it ~~and I was working on another thing~~ :ajsleepy:

Level One: Character Setup

New Life Plus

By Hedzentails

-=-=-=-=-

Level One
Character Setup

-=-=-=-=-

Hi.

Yeah, that’s the start of my story. No, the only story I'm ever good at starting is a video game story.

You’re probably thinking I need to get a life, but if you ever say that to my face, I will stop at NOTHING to make you suffer the most agonizing K.O. imaginable. Seriously, as much as I would prefer not to, I’ve heard, and cried about, that saying too much to just let it slide.

You’re probably wondering why. If you’re not and just thinking that you can take me on, I can still say that you can’t; I’ve gone through enough to get me ready to take on the final boss with nothing but a level one hat and my fists.

And that hat could be leather and I wouldn't even put any buffs on myself.

Anyway, back to the why.

My whole life has been a game. Half of it, literally. Sorry if that’s a little confusing, but it’s the truth. The first seventeen years of my life were a game in the sense that I had a lot of fun living it and never gave up until I got what I wanted done DONE. The eighteenth year was a game in the sense it was literally a game. I had to play well or I died, and when I died, I just got revived by some of the best team-mates I’ll ever know.

Either that or I respawned in bed, back at the castle.

It’s a very complicated story and all I’ve done so far is explain it, not tell it, but I’ll start it properly now.

If you like skipping the opening cutscenes, you could probably jump to a little further on in this chapter.

This story began one lazy Saturday afternoon when I had nothing better to do than to just sit back and play video games for hours on end. It was raining too, so I’m covered for not going out with my friends. They were the people who’d be gaming too anyway so I was socialising even when I was being anti-social.

Two of my friends and I were presently anti-socialising in a game of Borderlands 2, in the process of defending that beacon thing to help Angel get us back to sanctuary. My launcher wielding, trigger happy, too-serious-to-make-it-fun commando comrade, Carl, and I were successfully holding the fort against wave after wave of loaders, but my other friend, the slightly-nooby, ever eager, gunzerking Lee, hadn’t been doing well since this mission started.

“Oh god, I need help!” he yelled over the computer, still sounding way too happy for a level fourteen in this situation. “I got hit by a nade in cover and I can’t shoot anything!”

“Cryin’ out loud, get your shit together, man!” Carl almost deafeningly roared back, switching from launcher to the most overpowered shotgun in the entire game. Seriously, he got that thing at level eight and it's still good ten levels later. “How the heck are we supposed to win this game if you keep makin’ one of us drop the ball to pick you up?!”

“Wow, get some ice, hot-head,” I whispered back, heading over to my downed comrade and reviving him. “And Lee, I really think you should’ve hosted because I’m having trouble at level nineteen. I don’t know what’s keeping Carl up but even he’s having trouble here.”

“Pfft, I got this covered!” Lee joked back, that poor, deluded, joyful bastard. He got back up and sprinted back out of cover, gunzerking with a pistol and a sniper rifle. I really do pity that fool and I know Mister T would pity the freakin’ BUTT off of him.

Oh well, he was the Pinkie Pie of this group and probably the Applejack too.

Yes, I still like that show at my age. Sorry, but I just have to say 'speak of the devil' here.

“Holy crap, what the hell is that thing?!” shouted Carl, deploying his turret and aiming at something behind me. How he spotted it with his eyesight, crappy computer and graphics options from THAT far away, I have no idea.

“What’s what?” I asked, turning on the spot with my shotgun ready. I think I froze instead of the computer, and how hard I did freeze actually felt like I’d turned into a statue.

“Oh, Karen!” Lee laughed stupidly, turning to look at the source of the commotion and putting his back to the constructor that had appeared. “It’s one of your pony things! You've made a friend!”

No, he didn't watch the show, he just tolerated it. Which is one hell of a lot more than I can say for Carl.

Oh yeah, introductions. Hi, I’m Karen. I play video games and watch ponies and stuff.

“Are you freakin’ KIDDING ME?!!” he roared, almost breaking my headphones and my ears. “WHO THE F@&* PUT THOSE IN THE GAME?!!!”

He didn’t ACTUALLY say ‘who the fatandasterisk’, I just don’t like writing that out. I prefer screaming it at Seath the Scaleless for his stupid f*%$ ing curse crystals.

“In what game?” asked Twilight Sparkle, the pony princess of friendship in Equestria, an apparently fictional world in the cartoon ‘My Little Pony; Friendship is Magic’ created, and I really hope it was just created as a CARTOON, by Hasbro. “What’s going on?”

She was behind the cover I was healing up behind, so she probably couldn’t see the giant robots attacking.

“DID THAT THING JUST F*%&ING REPLY?!!” Carl screamed in the manliest voice you will ever hear. I bet if Marcus Fenix was listening, he’d shed a tear of manly respect at that. “WHAT KINDA MESSED UP BULLSHIT IS HAPPENIN’ RIGHT NOW?!!!”

“Um, your friend seems to be very loud,” Twilight commented anxiously, hoping to keep that velociraptor of hate at bay. “What exactly is happening here?”

She began to move out of the cover we were in, but I jumped in front of her quickly so she wouldn’t get obliterated by a giant builder robot.

“Nope!” was the only thing I could think of to say, trying as hard as I could to make Maya look like she was shaking her head. I think her whole body worked enough too. “You can’t go out there! You’re an NPC and you could get killed and I really don’t think you can respawn as an NPC!”

“An NP… what?” Twilight asked, head tilting to one side. I was really starting to panic a little now. “Oh, sorry! We haven’t been properly introduced! My name is Twilight Spar-“

“SHUT THE F£&% UP, WE’RE STILL PLAYING THIS GAME!!!” bellowed the Carl that I know and love; the hardcore-MLG-360noscope-gamer Carl I’d lost so many games of anything against. “KAREN, JUST F@#* THAT THING AND GET BACK IN THE GAME!!!”

Yes, he did think every person that watched ponies liked f%*?ing them. In my defence, I only googled tiarawhy ONCE and that was the end of it.

Twilight’s confused, weak smile turned into an annoyed scowl.

“Your friend also seems… very rude, to put it nicely,” she grunted. She leaned in to whisper at me. “Can I put a muffle spell on him, please?”

“Uh…” I was just frozen there. I couldn’t even think of anything to say. If you were in the same position, you’d probably just say yes or that you really like her mane or something, but I was shocked out of my head.

“Oh, come on!!” came the over happy chuckle of Lee. “I’m down again! Help me up please!”

“Oh!” Twilight perked up almost instantly. “I’ll be right there!”

I think she was just looking for a nicer person to make friends with.

I was snapped out of my stunned statue-ness by a sudden scream of terror from where Twilight was headed, followed by the sound of a loader getting too close. I snapped into gamer mode again and spun the corner after her, equipping my trusty sniper.

My aim snapped to the loader and it only took four shots to its anywhere to take it out, a personal best with a sniper for me, and then I switched back to the shotgun again to shoot down another too-close-for-comfort loader.

“YEAH, THAT’S THE HORSEF#!*ER I WANT IN THIS GAME!!!” Carl screeched, breaking cover to unload his launcher into the constructor bot-spawner and spawn a turret to take more of the robo-horde down.

I phaselocked another bot and shot him out of the sky to heal Carl and me up, Lee still at full health due to the respawn. I think Twilight got the message that this was a real- um, VIRTUALLY real battle, but she had the idea I didn’t want her to have.

“I can help!” she cried, sending a beam of magic at the constructor. The game probably had a different idea to what she was aiming for, but shocking its shields away was good enough.

That was Lee’s cue to gunzerk with a pistol and sniper again and, credit to him, he brought it down to half health, at which point I charged in with my faithful shotgun to finish the job as quick as possible while Carl took out the things it was spawning.

As the metaphorical dust settled, I heard Lee cheering at his surprisingly valuable input, Carl laughing at how well he had done with the cover fire he’d provided and Twilight was giving a one-pers- one-pony applause to the whole thing. I think Angel was saying something too, but I couldn’t hear her too well.

“Yeah! We did it!” Twilight cheered, stamping her hooves and flapping her wings happily. She stopped her applause to smile at all of us; Lee was running over to her, I was picking up the neat assault rifle the loader attacking her had dropped and Carl was probably glaring as hard as he could through his screen at her.

“Whadda ya mean WE?!” yelled Carl, reloading his OP shotgun and marching over. I could tell what he was planning, so I quickly charged him and challenged him to a duel. “Ah, for f@!*’s sake, Karen! You want me to prove I’m better than you at this for the FIFTH time?!”

Twilight ‘ooh’ed at the duel about to take place as I switched to my sniper and aimed at his face. I don’t think he noticed me doing that as he reloaded all his weapons. The duel started and I critical-d him with an added bonus of slag. He made an angry comment while I charged him, shotgun already out as his turret spawned again.

It didn’t do him much good as I got three quick, point-blank shots off at him and won the duel.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F#@!ING KIDDING ME!!!” he roared furiously, probably just mad that a brony/pegasister/pick-one had taken him out. “WHAT F*!&ING MODS HAVE YOU GOT IN?!! YOU WERE HACKING THE F*%$ OUT OF THIS AND THAT IS SOME MAJOR BULLSHIT!!! I AM OUT OF YOUR CRAP!!!”

And so ends the tale of an MLG ragequit gamer who probably went on to be the greatest gamer of all time at that defeat.

Twilight seemed to hear the beep of him leaving the call and her ears perked up and she glanced around quickly, searching for his disconnected body.

“Okay, mission finished,” I muttered before turning to face the now non-fiction Twilight Sparkle. “I’ll say sorry to him later, but first, please explain to us why the F@!? ARE YOU IN THIS GAME AND BEING REAL RIGHT NOW?!!”

She flinched a little at my outburst, but not as much as I would have thought. Probably because Maya can’t express my rage as someone who isn’t an action-limited character.

“And here I was thinking Carl was bad!” Lee laughed. As much as I wanted to punch him, he was way too happy for me to actually do that and kill his mood.

“I’m sorry, but there’s really not much time to explain!” Twilight explained quickly (and ironically), suddenly taking on a serious tone. “I decided to look for the greatest warrior I could find to help save Equestria from complete destruction!”

“I’m missing something here,” Lee stated blankly while I listened harder.

“Then why did you pick a random game of Borderlands 2 to find one?” I asked, admittedly a very stupid question to ask a PONY that knew nothing of this game.

“This is a game to you?” breathed Twilight, as if it was the most spectacular thing I could’ve said. She shook herself out of that trance and her concerned look returned. “We’ve really got to go now before it’s too late! I’ll make sure to get you back here as soon as I can! Brace yourself!”

She started casting a spell as I tried to comprehend what was happening and Lee just stared in amazement.

“Wait, hold on!” I cried out at last, but I could tell it was too late by the tugging I felt at my waist and the tingling all over. I quickly turned to give a last dramatic look at Lee and blurt out a quick string of words. “Tell Carl I said sorry make sure you level up enough by the time I’m back bye!”

And then I disintegrated.

IRL.

DISINTEGRATED.

But the last thing I heard Lee say was something about giving my little pony a go, so there’s a pro tip for you; if you wanna make your friend a brony/pegasister/I-don’t-care, just ask Twilight Sparkle to invade his video game and disintegrate you!

-=-=-=-=-

After what felt like ninety-five billion years but was probably really only four seconds, I began to sort of put myself back together. The weird thing about tha- uh, ONE of the weird things about this whole thing was that it kind of looked like a Borderlands 2 character’s respawn, just with a flash of bright red instead of that tunnel of blue stuff and in first person.

It is NOT something you want to see happening to your own body. I seriously cannot understand how any of the playable characters in that game haven’t gone COMPLETELY insane yet.

When I was completely recreated, I fell out of the air I was somehow hovering in and landed on the bed that was beneath me. After rolling onto my back and a few very disgruntled groans, I looked up to see Twilight staring at me with a look of worried confusion which could only mean something bad had happened.

“Oh god, am I bald now?” I asked in sheer terror, reaching up to feel my head. You could not imagine how happy I was that I hadn’t suddenly gone completely bald for pretty much no reason. “Oh, that’s a relief… so what went wrong?”

“You’re not… you don’t look like the great warrior I brought back…” Twilight replied unsurely. Well that was an easy one; I don’t tie my hair in a side-ponytail, I don’t wear clothes that show off my un-tattooed arm and my clothes are also not that colourful.

“Yeah, I probably should’ve said something before you did that thing…” I mumbled, barely even contemplating the effects of the mistake she’d made that would change my life for a really long time.

“But… you have its voice!” she cried in what sounded like disbelief. Her cheeks went a little red for a second before she went on. “Oh, sorry… I don’t think I caught your name… or anything else about you…”

There was an awkward silence for a moment before I coughed in that way people cough during an awkward silence.

“Sorry, this was really not what I expected to be doing today at all,” I stated, pushing myself up to stand off of the bed. I gave a weak, nervous and tiny wave and put on the friendliest expression I could in this situation. “Hi. I’m Karen. Uh, I already know who you are, just don’t ask how; I’ll tell you later.”

She blinked at me with a confused expression of ignorance, somehow reminding me of my predicament and the question I really wanted to ask.

“Oh yeah,” I said, perking right back up again. I put on an angry/nervous/stupid look before I continued. “Why the heck am I here? Did I go insane by playing video games too hard? Am I dead?”

“I really wish I knew, Karen,” Twilight replied sympathetically. “I put the spell on a great warrior who saved me from some evil machines and her obnoxious team-mate who gave the impression that he wanted to hurt me too!”

“Oh great…” I whispered, staring at the floor as I rubbed my forehead in accepting disappointment. “This is gonna be tough to explain… Right!” I popped back upright. “Let’s skip all that stuff for now! Let’s just forget about the how part of the why and just get straight on to the why part of the why! What’s the actual reason that you needed, uh… a great warrior here?”

“Oh, well…” Twilight started, and I could tell she was about to go into a full-on lecture mode that a lot of people I know had gone into at some point. “We needed a great warrior here to help us with the problem of some monsters attacking Equestrian towns and cities. These monsters are definitely not of Equestrian origin, but we did manage to locate their actual point of origin.”

“Uh huh,” I agreed blankly. I had no idea what she was going on about, but I just pretended I did by nodding and waving her on. “Please continue.”

“Alright, so their point of origin was somewhere close to a town on the edge of a cliff that some machine things were attacki-“

“Overlook,” I put in, feeling very proud of myself for helping the super-genius princess of friendship.

“Uh, right, Overlook,” Twilight repeated unsurely. She went on anyway. “Their point of origin seemed to be near Overlook, but near in a global sense. That planet doesn’t seem to even be in the same galaxy as Equestria, according to our astronomical experts in Manehatten.”

I smirked a little bit at the understanding that that place actually existed. Twilight raised an eyebrow and her mood seemed to deteriorate a little.

“Is there something funny about this?” she asked in a slightly irked tone.

“No, sorry,” I said quickly, raising my hands in front of me like everyone does to try and get an angry person to calm down. “It’s just… there’s a place that… never mind. I’ll be quiet.”

“Thank you,” she replied with a victorious nod. “As I was saying, these monsters appear to be from that planet. In fact, some of them did look a little like your species…”

I was about to ask what that meant and why she was staring at me so accusingly and suspiciously when the door to the room burst open and a guard pony charged in. I almost laughed as he tripped and fell onto his face, but he got back up too quickly for it to count.

“Princess Twilight!” he yelled, saluting quickly as he panted and sweated harder than I would imagine for even a guard pony. “It's great that you’re back! Did you find a-” He noticed me. “Excellent work, your highness! And not a moment too soon! One of the monsters is attacking Ponyville right now and we need all the help we can get!”

“Wait, what?” I asked quietly when the guard span around and left the room as quickly as he’d come in.

“Oh no…” Twilight whispered loud enough for me to hear. She rounded on me. “There’s no time to waste! You’re from the same planet as that warrior was so you should be able to handle this!”

I still didn’t know what was going on and my confusion gave her the time to push me out the door after the guard. I flailed and protested a little, but not enough to stop her.

“What’s going on?!” I yelled, turning my head to face her.

“A monster is attacking Ponyville!” she yelled back. “Weren’t you listening?!”

“I was, but…!” I trailed off as the panic took over. “I’m… I’m not a warrior…”

“You can think this is a game too if you want!” she encouraged sharply. .“But you’re from a planet of monsters and you’ve survived this long so you must be able to handle yourself better than we can!”

It was nice that she thought I could handle this but it was the wrong way to show it.

And then I turned back to where she was pushing me to see the source of that noise. It looked like a bunch of buildings were collapsing, half a billion ponies were running around panicking and the guards were charging around shooting arrows at a giant floating eyeball.

Which looked horrifically familiar.

And shot smaller floating eyeballs out of its pupil.

No, you did think right.

I just wish I didn’t.

There was an actual, fully three-dimensional, angry Eye of Cthulu attacking Ponyville. AS IF THIS DAY COULDN’T GET ANY WEIRDER.

“Here’s a sword!” yelled Twilight over the mixture of sound, jamming the handle of a sword into my hand. “Go help the guards and I’ll give as much support as I can!”

She pushed me away from her and charged back inside, probably to shoot lasers from the windows or something. I didn’t really care about that though. I was much too focused on the present scenario I found myself in.

“What,” was all I could think of to say in that blind fit of terror.

I'm pretty sure I felt my trousers get damp as the adrenaline took over and I ran towards the guards already fighting.

Author's Note

All games mentioned or bosses slain are not property of me. Google their owners because I can't be bothered to list all of them, and yes, there WILL be a lot of them.
Also proofread by Feathrnite who still despises all of humanity and will destroy the universe one day.
Cover art in progress.

Level Five: Mind Games

Author's Note

Slightly darker than usual at first but it'll get better I promise

Level Five: Mind Games

I was under those covers for a while before I heard a door open and someone come into the room.

I just curled up a little more when I heard them come closer to the bed.

“Come on now,” they said in a voice I’d never heard before and couldn’t place. “Don’t give up just yet. You’re doing so well.”

“I don’t wanna,” I replied, sniffling and pulling the covers tighter around me.

“There are ponies out there that need your help,” said the room’s other, nameless occupant. “You’re just going to let them down like this?”

“Leave me alone!” I cried, hugging a pillow closely. “I don’t wanna go out there and get hurt like that again!”

“Then don’t,” nameless replied, sounding much more aggressive towards me. “Let them all suffer for your selfishness and stay here forever because once they’re all gone, who is there to send you home?”

“Shut up…” I whispered, feeling the bed beneath my head soak up those tears.

“Get up and make me,” they replied, taking a step closer to the bed, or so it sounded. “Or are you going to give up on that too?”

“Shut up!” I said, louder than the first time.

“Come on, what have you got to lose?!” they yelled at me, moving around to my other side suddenly. “What’s the worst that can happen?! You die and come back?!”

“I said shut UP!!” I screamed, throwing the covers off and hurling the pillow in the direction I’d heard the voice.

You can probably guess how surprised I was when I saw that the pillow flew past empty air and that I was the only one in the room.

Fear was added to that surprise.

“What’s… what’s going on?” I asked unsurely, pulling the sheet back up to cover myself with and glancing around the room.

“You said it yourself, Karen,” a disembodied voice answered from somewhere in front of me. “You’re going crazy.”

“N-no, I’m not!” I yelled back desperately, shuffling backwards on the bed slightly.

“Yes, you are,” the voice replied bluntly. “You are and you know it.”

“S-stop it!” I shot back, shuffling back even further. I went too far and fell off the bed. I quickly recovered and stood up. “I know what you’re trying! Sh-show yourself!”

“Even if I did, I still wouldn’t be here, Karen,” stated the voice from behind me, making me jump forward and spin around to where it was.

“Where are you?!” I screamed, spinning around to search the room quickly. “I know you’re there!”

And then the door burst open and someone charged in, making me jump again and trip on the sheet, causing me to fall onto the floor again. They were a welcome sight, but the voice went quiet and left me alone.

“WHO ART THOU?!” roared princess Luna in the royal caps-lock voice. “WHAT ARE THEE DOING IN HERE?!!”

I shrunk back against the wall and hugged my stomach anxiously. She must’ve seen how distressed I was because her aggressive, ferocious expression lightened a little.

Only a little though.

“Explain yourself!” she yelled, stepping closer intimidatingly. “What are you doing here? Friend or foe?”

“She’s a friend,” the voice explained from right beside me. “Just barely.”

“SHUT UP!!” I screamed, spinning to the voice’s point of origin.

“You are not in a position to vent your frustrations on me!” Luna yelled back, standing up straighter to give off more of an air of authority. “There are twelve guards outside and this room is too close quarters for you to try anything!”

“Didn’t… didn’t you hear him?” I asked slowly, turning back to face Luna and shrinking down a little more.

“Hear who?” she queried, cocking her head to one side and putting on a look of confusion. “There’s no one else here!” Her furious expression returned. “Now state your intention!”

“I’m…” I whispered, sliding down the wall and onto the floor. “Twilight brought me here… to help save the day…”

“Twilight brought you here…?” Luna replied in awe, jaw dropping a little. She shook her head and regained a more serious look. “That’s amazing! That you know who Twilight is is enough to prove that you are her friend. But how are you here right now? As in, in this room?”

“I… don’t know…” I breathed, putting my head in my hands. “I don’t want to be here anymore…”

“Of course you don’t,” the voice said darkly. “You’ve given up.”

“No, I haven’t…” I replied quietly.

Luna was silent for a moment.

“Are you alright?” she asked gently, leaning in closer to me. “You seem to be… talking to somepony. Somepony that isn’t here.”

“I’m fine…” I said slowly, wiping my eyes. “I’m just… not having a very good day…”

“Then get up and show her that you’re fine,” nameless voice ordered serenely.

I can’t really explain it, but I felt compelled to obey. I stood up slowly, sniffling a little and hugging the sheet against my chest tightly.

“You’re getting there, Karen,” the voice said in a complimentary tone. “Slowly but surely, you’re getting there.”

“Thank you…” I said quietly, sniffling again.

“But remember, I’m not here,” the voice explained calmly. “Unless you like looking crazy, I’d suggest we keep our discussions one-sided or to a minimum. Now wipe those tears off your face and give us a smile.”

Again, I obeyed, rubbing my face with my arm to clear off the last few tears. The smile part of it was slightly harder to go through with, but I still tried as hard as I could to smile genuinely. Luna, clearly seeing how hard smiling was for me right now, put her hoof on my arm and gave it a reassuring rub.

“I’m sorry to bring this on you at this time, but my sister would like you to see her,” she told me sympathetically. “When Twilight told us that she would try to bring someone along to help, we were all enthusiastic about meeting you. Now that you’re here, we have much to discuss.”

“I… I need clothes…” I whimpered, pulling the sheet up higher to cover even more of myself.

“Very well,” Luna replied. She looked down at the sheet and frowned. “I’ll need measurements so I can have some made for you. Would that be acceptable?”

I went red at the thought of someone getting my measurements while I wasn’t wearing anything. Yeah, it would be more accurate, but they’d be doing stuff that would just feel weird and it would make me feel uncomfortable.

“No, it’s fine,” I answered quickly. “I just need… just get me anything to wear… I need a shirt and trousers... or a dress that covers all of me up…”

“Conveniently, we have some of those here!” Luna stated happily, heading over to a nearby wardrobe. She opened it up and pulled out a small shirt and a pair of smart trousers. “How you managed to appear in Blueblood’s old room is a mystery to me, but at least he kept his old clothes so you can use them now!”

“Is that where I am?” I asked in confusion. I looked around at the walls, but none of them could have told me this was Blueblood’s room. “It doesn’t look like his room…”

“Yes, well…” Luna said, frowning a little. “He’s moved to Trottingham amidst this worrying situation and we… repurposed his room as a guest bedroom. The only reason his clothes are still here is because he only brought what he thought was important and we kept them in case some other misfortunate pony needed them.”

She brought them over to me and I took them from her shakily. She gave me another concerned look before politely backing out of the room and closing the door behind her.

It was then that the voice with no physical form made me conscious about dropping the sheet to get dressed.

“You’re… are you there?” I asked quietly and nervously, looking around the room.

“I’ll always be here,” the voice replied. “I’m part of your own mind.”

“C-could you… you know… leave... for a minute?” I asked slowly, shifting on my feet anxiously. “I… want to get dressed in private…”

Yes, I know how stupid that sounded, asking a non-existent VOICE to leave the room.

“Well, seeing as you did as I asked, I see it’s only fair to do something you ask too,” they replied kindly.

Then I heard footsteps heading towards the door. I get that that could’ve been part of hearing things, but then the door actually opened and closed by some unseen force.

Maybe I was hallucinating so hard that it was affecting the real world too.

So anyway, I got dressed, alone with my own mind once more. While I did so, I was wondering why exactly Blueblood had a pair of trousers that actually fit me and didn’t have a hole in the back for his tail.

Maybe Discord was right about this just being a story and the plot just demanded they be for humans.

Once I was dressed, I headed over to the door to let Luna know I was ready to go visit Celestia. It was only then that I remembered the situation I had left Applejack and the others in.

How I’d forgotten it was probably due to going crazy and crying about pain for as long as I did.

I pushed the door open and spun to face Luna, now with her guards.

“Celestia can wait!” I shouted as she opened her mouth to say something. “Applejack, Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are in danger! Which way to the exit?!”

“You should have said sooner!” Luna replied quickly. “I would’ve sent guards out to help them!” She turned to a very familiar looking guard and nodded at him. “Shieldheart! Give her your sword and take her to where she needs to go!”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

So I broke it in the best way I could.

“HOW THE ACTUAL F!&$ ARE YOU HERE?!!” I screamed at him. Yes, the same guy from Ponyville. “YOU WERE IN PONYVILLE FIVE F!*%ING MINUTES AGO!!!”

“Could you be any louder?” he replied with a little chuckle. He shrugged before he continued. “I just know a guard that can handle long range teleportation and I heard Canterlot was under attack by dragons.”

More silence.

“WHY THE F%*? WAS I NOT AWARE OF THIS WE COULD’VE COME WITH YOU AND HELPED SAVE THE DAY!!!” I screamed. This kind of thing was infuriating so I was allowed.

“Well, there was that turtle thing that I thought you could deal with and it kinda slipped my mind!” he explained happily. God, he was way too calm about this.

“Could you not discuss this on your way to save Twilight and her friends?” Luna put in, making me remember the whole reason I was talking to him in the first place.

“Right,” I said quickly. I grabbed Shieldheart by the ear and dragged him along with me. “Come on, you.”

“Yes, dear,” he muttered as he shook me off and led me down the corridor. “Follow me then!”

We ran down through the castle in silence, neither of us even looking at each other.

“Well this is boring,” said the disembodied voice in my head. “You could at least TRY to talk to him.”

“Quiet,” I snapped back.

“I didn’t say anything,” Shieldheart said with a hint of confusion.

“Not you,” I replied, shaking my head to clear my thoughts. “I’m hearing a voice in my head and I’m not sure if I should be worried about it or not.”

“That IS kinda serious,” he stated concernedly, looking up to me as we ran. “Shouldn’t you go tell somepony about that?”

I was quiet as we left the castle and we were out in the open. As we raced through the streets, we earned a few confused or worried glances from some ponies and guards that we passed, but Sheildheart and I both ignored them all.

“Why is your default weapon a giant sword anyway?” I asked at last, breaking the second silence between us.

“It’s easy to use and I’m used to it,” was his answer. “I’m sure someone like you would understand that, being some magnificent, undefeated warrior from another dimension.”

“Fair enough…” I muttered quietly. “Do you feel like you can help us fight those dragons and Miraak?”

“I’ll keep you covered, if that’s what you’re asking,” he explained, looking back to his sword. We left Canterlot entirely at that point. “You’ll have my sword, after all. I won’t be much help other than support and defence.”

There were still two dragons in the distance and three ponies that were flying around them. One of those ponies was flying around in circles around one of the dragons, causing the dragon to just hover in the air and try following her with its head.

It just looked like it was getting dizzy.

The other two were actually performing aerial manoeuvres that looked complicated and fun to avoid the other dragon. I don’t think Rainbow Dash would be jealous because Twilight and Fluttershy looked a lot more likely to get eaten.

And then there was the man on the field in strange looking armour with an orange pony in a cool hat doing all kinds of jumps and dodges to avoid his magic hands and dragon shouts.

She didn’t do as I’d asked then, and that might have been more trouble than it was worth for her.

That only spurred me on faster. How I’d not just run out of energy and passed out yet was beyond me. Maybe I had unlimited sprint now.

As we got closer, I spotted an only SLIGHTLY damaged dress and a giant sword. My/Shieldheart’s guard hat was somewhere else, which I soon found to be Rainbow Dash’s head. Probably because it was shiny and dragons like shiny things.

I think.

“Alright, new plan!” I yelled at Shieldheart, making a beeline for my sword. “You keep your sword and help me and Applejack take care of this guy!”

“This’ll be entertaining,” said disembodied voice, finally coming back to haunt me.

“F!£* off you’re not even real!” I shouted back, pointing angrily in the direction I’d heard it.

Miraak still hadn’t noticed me yet, so either my sneak skill was so high that I didn’t even need to be sneaking to sneak or Applejack WAS worth all the attention nobody gave her in the show.

I hoped it was the second one just to make people look stupid for ignoring her.

I leant down to scoop my sword up as I passed it and I swung it up to attack Miraak from behind.

“TIME FOR ROUND TWO!!” I shouted as dramatically as I could, slashing the sword across his back.

He spun around and switched to his sword suddenly, taking me by surprise at how little he’d reacted and how fast he could move. Before his sword could touch me, a magical, red barrier appeared in front of me to block the attack.

“You’re welcome!” Shieldheart yelled at me as he pulled his sword out of the sheath on his back with his mouth.

“Thank you!” I yelled back, bringing the sword up again to ready myself for the next attack.

“You are strong,” Miraak said, swinging at me again. I jumped out of the way just in time. “Stronger than I thought possible.”

“Yeah, and you’re about to see it!” I snapped back at him, swiping down at him.

He ignored the sword cutting across his front. It should’ve done something, but it left no marks at all.

Go video game logic.

Before he could get another swing off, Applejack ran back in to kick him in the side and knock him away from me.

“There’s gonna hafta be a LOT of explainin’ when this is all over!” she snapped at me. “Ah saw ya catch fire and then ya just vanished! That ain’t right!”

“You’re telling me!” I replied loudly, turning to look at her. “Nice to see you again!”

“Can we focush on thish guy?” Shieldheart put in, coming to my other side with the sword still in his mouth. “I wanna end thish ash shoon ash poshible!”

“Aww, look at you with your sword like that!” I commented happily, turning to face him. “You just look so cute like that!”

“Really?” he asked, turning to stare up at me for such a stupid comment. “You coulda picked any time to shtart flirting an’ you pick now?”

Then I remembered who I was talking to and I went red, spinning back to face something easier to deal with right now; Miraak. Unfortunately, Miraak wasn’t feeling patient anymore and he was already right in front of me. Before any of us could react, his sword went through my chest.

“Fate decreed that you had to die so that I could win my freedom,” he growled at me as he pulled his sword out and I fell to my knees.

“Ow…” I whispered, feeling my pulse fade as the blood poured out and my heart start giving out.

And then I was back in the bed at Canterlot castle that I’d woken up in earlier.

I looked around and saw the room was empty, so I climbed out and headed back over to the wardrobe I’d seen Luna get the clothes from earlier.

“Not giving up this time?” asked the non-existent voice, making me jump again.

I screamed and lunged for the sheet to cover myself with, and then I remembered that it wasn’t real. It didn’t make me feel any better about it being in the same room though.

“I’m not looking, I swear,” the voice quickly explained.

“Yes, you are,” I accused.

“Okay, I looked ONCE,” the voice said candidly.

“Get out!” I shouted at it.

The door opened and a guard stepped in. He gasped at me and lowered the spear he had pointed at me.

“How did you get back here?” he asked while I grabbed the sheet off the bed and covered myself up with it.

“Respect a lady’s privacy, for god’s sake!” I yelled, shuffling over to the wardrobe quickly.

The guard went red and backed out of the room quickly. The door was closed behind him, but I waited a moment before I decided to drop the sheet again.

“Are you in here anymore?” I asked quietly.

No reply.

With that, I decided to get dressed in some more of Blueblood’s old, no-tail-hole trousers and a shirt. While I was wondering why Blueblood even HAD this much human clothing, the voice came back suddenly.

“I was in here all along,” it said in a sly tone.

“F!%* off I hate you,” I snapped as I headed over to the door.

I pushed it open and stepped out. The guard who’d rudely come in while I was getting changed saluted quickly.

“Do you need any assistance with anything, ma’am?” he asked with ordered care. He was a lot better at being a guard of royalty than Shieldheart was, but probably only in the way he spoke.

“Yes, actually,” I said slowly, coming up with another genius idea as my eyes fell on his spear. “Can I borrow that spear, please?”

He passed it over as soon as I’d asked and I weighed it carefully in my hand. I smiled at him as that genius idea gained more proof that it would work.

“I’ll need to take this,” I said sweetly, swinging it around deftly. Sticks with pointy bits at the end were a lot easier to use than swords were, after all. “It’s to help save all of Equestria.”

“Very well,” the guard replied, nodding agreeably. “We have a lot of spares anyway.”

There was silence for a second.

“I’m not sure if you were trying to make a pun there so I’ll just go now,” I said blankly, turning and running down the hall.

Spears? Spares? See what I did there?

Yes, I’m sorry.

I’ll skip the journey there and get right back into the action.

Shieldheart and Applejack were both holding their own against Miraak and it looked like he’d drained the soul of another dragon while I was getting back, so Fluttershy, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were all focusing on one dragon now.

As I approached, I pointed the spear forward and charged at Miraak. He noticed me this time, but it was too late for him to do anything. I stabbed him in the chest as hard as I could, knocking him off his feet and sending him to the ground.

“Third time’s the charm!” I yelled at him, smirking triumphantly as I pulled the spear out of him and jumped back.

“Why do you have a shpear now?” Shieldheart asked from Miraak’s opposite side.

“Because sharp sticks are easier to use than sharp bits of metal!” I shouted back. I spun the spear around to prove my point, then blushed and picked it back up again when I dropped it.

“Hermaeus Mora is laughing at us, you know,” Miraak stated as he stood back up again.

“He’s not here,” disembodied voice put in calmly. “But someone else is laughing at you. This is funny.”

“Will you just f$*! off already?!” I screamed at him. No one else had said anything, so it looked like I was venting frustrations at Miraak. Two for the price of one!

“Yeah, we got thish!” Shieldheart yelled confidently, running in to attack at Miraak from behind.

Miraak, being more focused on me, was swiftly sliced across the back before Shieldheart jumped away to get ready for another attack. Miraak stayed focused on me though, and his shout of frostiness was directed at me as well.

I saw a magical shield start appearing as Shieldheart did his best to block it, but it wasn’t fast enough to block the whole thing. I was suddenly freezing cold, literally, and everything was going black. It must have been cold enough to stop my heart from beating, because next thing I knew, I was in the bed again.

“Wow, you almost had it too,” Voice said jokily. I’m just going to call him that now.

“I didn’t see you doing much,” I spat back at him.

“That’s because I’m inside your head,” he replied calmly. “You can’t see inside your head. It’s not possible.”

“Yeah, well…” I trailed off as I thought of something to shout at him. “Shut up!” I climbed out of the bed to grab even more clothes from the wardrobe. “Oh yeah, get out please.”

“Yes, mother,” Voice chuckled. There were footsteps and the door opened again.

Luna was on the other side, and she spotted me and hurried back in.

“How are you here again?!” she yelled. “I watched you leave the castle earlier and this guard says he saw you leave too!”

“Can we talk about this later please?” I asked, going red again. “I’d prefer to talk AFTER I’m dressed and when Miraak is defeated. Could we do that please?”

“Oh, of course,” Luna replied, bowing and backing out of the room. She closed the door behind her.

“And you get out too,” I said, directed at Voice.

“I am out,” he replied innocently.

“Get the f!?* out now please,” I snapped.

“You’re no fun,” he said as the door opened and closed again.

How it did that, I have no idea.

Maybe I was just seeing things too.

Luckily, Blueblood had A LOT of clothes wearable by humans, so I pulled out another pair of trousers and a shirt to get dressed into. I reminded myself to tell Celestia about Blueblood’s obsession with humans. I don’t even think Lyra is this obsessed.

I headed out again and Luna was waiting.

“Hello again,” she greeted politely with a little nod. “Do you need anything to help you in your defence of Canterlot?”

“Not really,” I answered, heading back down the corridor. She followed me.

“Then may I be of any assistance?” she asked. “I may not be much help, but I am trained in hoof-hoof combat and I can provide support where necessary.”

“Actually…” I muttered, coming up with another ingenious plan. “Can you use magic at all?”

“On a minimal level,” she replied. “But I can carry things around with magic if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Then you’re hired,” I said happily, picking up some speed. “We could use a princess on our team and I don’t think Twilight really counts, no offence to her.”

“Will I need a weapon?” she queried, turning her head to look at me as we ran.

A convenient guard was on the way to Miraak and his spear was just help in front of him so loosely. As we passed him, I snatched his spear away from him and ran faster.

“I’llbringitbackit’stosavetheworldsorrybye!” I said as quickly as I could to him, handing the spear over to Luna. “This should be fine! You know how to use it?”

“Do I?!” she laughed, twirling it around her dramatically. “I’ve trained most of my childhood with weapons like this! Oh, the fun we had playing pirates…”

Well, there you go. Turns out even princesses play with wooden swords when they’re little kids. I know I did.

My childhood was amazing be quiet.

We ran out of Canterlot and onto the fields where Miraak was shouting and using magic to keep the other two on their toes. The flying team looked like they were just hovering in one spot and yelling insults at the dragon to get it to keep switching its attention.

I can only imagine how hard that must have been for Fluttershy.

Alright, my stuff is…” I searched for where I’d frozen to death. I found it beside Shieldheart, now using a magic shield to defend himself with. “There! I just need to grab my stick and then I can help out! Just help the others bring his health down low enough for him to drain more dragon souls!”

“Very well!” Luna very happily replied. “Anything to help save the day!”

She went her own way to keep Miraak busy while I headed over to Shieldheart and my stuff. He gave me a quick glance as I scooped my spear up.

“You got here quick,” he muttered happily, swinging his sword around. “Do you like me THAT much?”

I went red and pushed him away, which only got an amused chuckle out of him and Voice.

“I like him,” Voice stated with a chuckle. “He’s fun.”

“Shutupwehaveabadguytobeat!” I blurted out, swinging my spear around wildly while Luna caught Miraak’s attention.

“PREPARE TO MEET THY MAKER, FOOL!!” she bellowed, royal caps-lock voice resurfacing again.

He shouted fire at her, but she didn’t even flinch. A red shield materialised in front of her suddenly, but I don’t think it was necessary.

“THEE COULD NOT HIT A BARN DOOR WITH A BANJO!!” she roared, disintegrating the shout in the air before it even touched the shield.

“I thought princess magic was broken,” I muttered to myself.

“Maybe SHE’S the dragonborn,” Voice put in.

“Who cares?!” I yelled, bringing my spear up and charging again. “She’s helping us out with it!”

I stabbed Miraak in the back and pulled away quickly as he spun to face me. He switched to his sword and ran at me, but Applejack shot in from the side and bucked him away.

“Ah’m sure this guy was gonna be harder than that!” she said with a smirk.

“He’s still got one dragon left!” I shouted back, backing away a little.

No sooner had I said that did he use the sprint shout to get away from all of us. The last dragon flew down to meet him and, as you can expect, was turned into a skeleton as its souls was sucked out of it.

“Okay, last part now!” I yelled, readying my spear again. “Hey Miraak! Number four and I'm back for more!”

“You should not have come here!” he shouted back, turning back to face me.

“Yeah, well…” I struggled to think of a witty remark to throw at him. “You’re dumb and you have no friends anymore!”

Hey, I tried.

“Shame ash before?” Shieldheart asked, horn sparking a little.

“Stop that, you sound silly,” I replied. “But yeah, and this time he’ll die for good!”

Miraak charged us with his sword out and I ran up to meet him. I had another brilliant idea that had a fifty-fifty chance of success. As he swung his sword at me, I dived to one side and rolled back to my feet.

Despite the amazing accomplishment that I had just achieved that would have made any other person go giddy with happiness and weak at the knees, I spun back around and stabbed Miraak in the back before he could retaliate. Luna, being on the other side of him, ran in to stab him in the back again as he spun to face me.

Shieldheart set up another magical shield in front of Luna as I stabbed him in the back again. When he spun around to me, Luna repeated the process and Shieldheart sent the shield around to my side. This was repeated with each of us switching roles and the shield switching places for a while.

Yes, it was kind of cheap that we were just ganging up on him, but it was working.

After that went on for long enough, he finally buckled to his knees and dropped his sword. He wasn’t dying like in the game, but at least he WAS dying.

“Had enough?” I asked, smiling as I recognised his defeat.

“Is it over?” Luna asked as Miraak looked up at me.

“May she be rewarded for her service as I am,” he growled, falling over backwards.

“What service?” I asked. “You weren’t serving anyone because Hermaeus isn’t here! Honestly, you really ARE dumb!”

He disintegrated into nothing and I heard cheers from behind me. I turned to see Rainbow Dash approaching.

“Woo, yeah!” she cheered, stopping right in front of me. “Great job on killing that guy! That was awesome!”

“I died three times and lost my mind, Dash,” I explained seriously, putting on a straight face. “That was not awesome.”

“At least be proud of yourself for achieving something!” Luna put in. “Yes, that may have happened, but at least you saved Canterlot and you’re still here to tell the tale of it!”

I gave in to the happiness that I had burning inside and I grinned widely, spinning to face Rainbow Dash again.

“Did you see that roll, though?!” I screamed ecstatically. “That’s the first time I ever did that and I didn’t even know if it would work!!”

“Heck, yeah I saw it!” she replied, holding her hoof up high. I gave her the high-five she wanted. “You gotta show me how to do that!!”

“Ahem,” Twilight coughed, flapping down beside us. We went silent and turned to face her. “Sorry to interrupt here, but we still need to go and see princess Celestia.”

“Right, let’s go do that,” I said calmly. “We can chat about everything on the way!”

And so all seven of us headed back up to Canterlot, with Rainbow Dash, Shieldheart and Luna all chatting to me about how awesome what I’d just achieved was. I was congratulated about the victory I’d helped achieve by everyone too.

I did talk about the voice I was hearing just to make sure it was a known subject, which obviously earned some concern, but I was told it could be addressed at a later date. The funny thing about that was Voice didn’t say a single thing when I started talking about him.

Maybe he was just as impressed about my victory as I was.

Level Eight: Player Vs Player

I do have a theory for that.

It’s not a very good one, but I’ll just go with it.

I think that when I died, Ornstein zapped me with lightning from his lightning spear and that jumpstarted my heart again. Because I hadn’t actually respawned yet, the universe must have thought that I could be brought back to life and so it brought me back to life at the exact moment I respawned. That must have led to me being brought back to life and then respawning at the same time, leading to two of me.

But like I said, it’s not a very good theory.

“How can you be here and down there at the same time?!” Cadence asked. Her eyes widened and she took a step back. “You’re not a changeling, are you?”

“If I was a changeling, how come I…?” I went quiet. After a minute of thought, I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m a changeling. I hope I’m not. It’d be awesome to turn into anyone but I don’t really want to be a bug.”

“Then how do you explain being in two places at once?!” she yelled.

“How do you explain me turning up in your bed in the first place?” I shot back.

She thought for a minute herself. “Fair enough,” she said. “Do you want me to take you down there again to help out?”

“I’m not going down there in a bedsheet.”

“Well you don’t really have much choice. I’ve got nothing else for you to wear.”

“Well…” I pulled the sheet tighter around myself. “I think other me can take care of it.” I looked over the edge at the battle below that was much more awesome than it was earlier. “She’s doing pretty well, I’d say.”

To prove my point, as Ornstein stabbed at other me, she vaulted onto his spear and somersaulted off of it. While in the air, she manoeuvred herself in such a way that allowed her to slash at him in the air. She even did a neat little roll when she landed.

Her awesome didn’t stop there though; when she was back on her feet, she span around and slashed Ornstein’s legs not once, but twice before she cartwheeled backwards with ONE HAND.

I stopped watching there because she was just making me look bad. Or good, depending on how you looked at it. I thought it was bad so I stopped looking.

“You’re right about that,” Cadence said, leaning back from the edge to look at me as I sat against the wall of the balcony. “But I bet if you went to help them, it’d go even quicker. Are you sure you don’t want to go down there?”

“I’d just get in the way,” I said sadly. “She’s probably gonna take him in two minutes tops.”

“Aren’t you at least going to watch?” She looked over the edge again. “I think she’d put most of the royal guard to shame. Come take a look!”

Reluctantly, I stood up again, pulling the sheet tightly around myself. I leant down to put my elbows on the railing around the balcony and put my head in my hands as I watched other me in action again.

Ornstein swung out with his spear as he leapt backwards, but other me wasn’t going to let him get away like that; she jumped backwards to avoid the swing and then forwards again rapidly to grab hold of his spear. When his swing ended, she spun around his spear and stabbed him right in the neck.

She pulled her sword free and leapt back to the ground. With her back turned, Ornstein put two hands on his spear and swung it hard at her. I could see a magical shield get put up behind her by Shieldheart and, I’m assuming, Shining Armour, but she didn’t even need it.

She back-flipped over the heavy attack, rolling backwards when she landed. In the middle of her roll, she pushed up hard and flew up above the reverse swing. She landed on her feet and slashed at Ornstein’s feet again.

“God, she’s a f!%&ing parkour master,” I muttered, jaw dropping a little.

“She certainly is pretty nimble,” Cadence agreed. She looked up at me. “Can you do anything like that?”

“I will throw you off this balcony,” I warned coldly. “I don’t even care that you can fly, I’ll do it.”

“Sorry,” she replied. “I didn’t mean it to be rude, it was just a question.”

“Well I’m not feeling too good right now because there’s another me showing me how I should be doing my job of saving Equestria.”

The others had just backed away at this point, letting other me deal with all of it. Rainbow Dash still flew in and tried getting one last shot off, but other me nearly cut her in half with a somersaulting slice at Ornstein. Luckily, Shieldheart had apparently lost all faith in me because he put up a shield spell to block the attack.

Even from this distance and with her moving so much, I could see the glare he got from her as her sword bounced off the shield and she fell to the ground. Rainbow Dash flew out of the way sheepishly as other me rolled backwards and up to her feet again.

“I get the sense I’ll have to kill her later,” I said, tapping the side of my face with my fingers. “She’s not really as compassionate as I thought she’d be.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say! Even worse, it’s indirect suicide! Killing yourself might not solve anything!”

I smirked at that. “God, this would sound so bad out of context,” I said with a small snort of amusement. “But it might; she nearly killed Dash so she’s not exactly a good guy. In fact, I’m pretty sure there actually is a game like this somewhere in my world.”

“Why are you comparing this to a game?”

Other me dived underneath a bolt of lightning shot from Ornstein’s spear before rolling up and just using the momentum to hurl her sword at him. It didn’t even touch the floor before she ran up to him and snatched it out of the air, spinning and slashing him again.

“Because these monsters are all from games back at my home.” I sighed. “You would not believe the awkwardness that brought up when I told Twilight and the others that. Twilight thought I meant this was a game as in I was so good at it that it felt like a game to do it. I meant a game as in a literal game.”

“I’ll need some context here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Basically Twilight brought me here to help with the monster problem,” I explained, looking up at Cadence. “She thought I was from some world where they killed things like this every day. We do, just in video games.”

“Like arcade machines?” she asked, tilting her head at me.

“Kinda. We’ve advanced loads from those though.”

I looked back down as other me jumped backwards as Ornstein jumped up in the air. She then somersaulted backwards to avoid a ring of lightning that shot out from Ornstein’s butt slam. God, she was good at this.

“It sounds strange.”

“Yeah, it is. You would not believe how much people argue about those games. If you do something that gets you a kill – or rather, point – your mother gets called a filthy prostitute that’s so fat that she bleeds marshmallows.”

True story.

“Your world sounds… kinda weird.”

“Believe me, I’ve been thinking the same thing for a long time now.”

Other me jumped up to avoid Ornstein’s lightning infused spear (something I should’ve done) and landed on it at a run. She actually ran up the stupid thing towards Ornstein’s face, where she slashed him across the neck as she somersaulted over his head, landing on the ground in a crouch.

He dropped to his knees, defeated at last. I was actually half expecting him to explode behind her, but he just faded with a shower of white beads of light.

“Well, thank you for doing your part in saving the city,” said Cadence, stepping away from the edge and turning around to face me. “I’ll take you down there now, if you’d like.”

“Again, not going down there in a bedsheet,” I replied. “If you want to know why not, talk to Flash Sentry about it later.”

“And again, you might not have much choice. I don’t have anything else for you to wear at all.”

“Hold on, I got a better idea.” I leaned far over the edge of the balcony. “Hey Twilight!!” I screamed, feeling Cadence grab me by the legs as I nearly fell off. “Look up here!!”

I saw Twilight do so, and I could tell that she was gasping. There was the same response from the others. Other me took her time looking up though, and I knew that meant that she wanted to kill me.

I don’t know it just did.

“Could you not do that next time?” Cadence asked, pulling me back onto the balcony.

“Sorry I was trying to get Twilight’s attention.” I leant over the edge a little less than last time. “Could you get her to come up here please?! Other me, I mean!!”

But, in that short space of time that I hadn’t been looking over the balcony, other me had vanished. Most likely into the castle to head up to me to start murdering me somehow.

“How are you up there too?!” yelled Rainbow Dash. “You were down here literally a second ago but you’re up there too!!” She shot right up to me. She’s Rainbow Dash; she’s a fast pony. “That’s awesome!”

“Actually it’s not awesome,” I replied seriously. “I think she may want to kill me now.”

“Wait… is that good?” Rainbow asked unsurely. “I mean, you might be an evil copy of her anyway! How do we know you’re the real Karen?!”

“Oh, nice to meet you, Karen!” Cadence said, ignoring the rest of what Dash had said. “I’m Princess Cadence!”

“Hi, Cadence!” I replied, holding a hand out at her for her to shake. “Sorry I forgot to introduce myself earlier but I was kinda busy saving the day or something.”

“Hello?! I just asked a really important question!” Rainbow yelled.

“She’s the real Karen,” said someone from behind me. I spun around and saw another me stood there. She looked breathless and exhausted. “Trust me. I know.” She bent over to catch her breath. “Wow. Don’t run up here… as fast as I did. You would not believe… how much that takes out of you.”

“How did you get up here so fast?” Rainbow and I asked at the same time.

“That’s what I mean,” other me replied, leaning back and stretching herself. “God, that was just stupid, wasn’t it? Especially after that fight.”

“Nice job with that, by the way,” I said. I looked down at myse- uh, the real myself. “Oh yeah, can I have my clothes back please?”

“Yeah, sure,” said other me. She looked over at Cadence. “Anywhere we can get dressed in private?”

“Karen’ll show you the way, uh, other Karen,” Cadence said slowly.

She smiled at real me before I turned and led the way back into Cadence’s bedroom. Guess who was waiting outside it! Flash Sentry again! Other me stopped and looked Flash up and down. I turned to see what the holdup was.

“Hey, Mister Orange Pony,” said other me in a… slightly seductive tone. That’s the best I can describe it and that is what it sounded like. “My, what nice armour you have.” She grinned manically and put her hands on his helmet, puling herself right up close to his face. “Can I have it?”

Well, that wasn’t weird at all.

“Uh, why d’you need it ma’am?” he asked unsurely. Exactly what I was thinking.

“I’m gonna do battle against the real me and she wants her clothes back and I don’t exactly wanna fight her wearing nothing.” She backed away from him and shrugged. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

I don’t think he was going to be okay with that because I saw him shudder yet again. “No ma’am, that’s fine.” He was out of his armour so quick it was like I blinked. “Here you go.”

“That’s not really gonna cover you all up though,” I put in.

“That’s why I brought this,” other me replied, holding her sword up. “Is it just me or was the fact that Rarity put a skirt on these trousers really lucky?”

“Oh my god wow Rarity you are f!$*ing psychic,” I said to real myself. Oh my god this is confusing.

Other me took the armour from Flash and headed into the bedroom after me. There, I waited for her to take her clothes off before dropping the bedsheet and slipping into the shirt.

The only reason I wasn’t shy about getting changed in front of her was because I’ve looked at myself naked in the mirror before and not really cared.

Shut up you’ve probably done the same.

While I got the top on, other me was cutting around the waist of the trousers to cut the skirt off. After a quick check of the measurements on her legs, she cut a bit off the bottom of it and then cut that bit in half so it wasn’t a loop anymore. She then wrapped that bandage looking thing around her chest and turned her back to me for me to tie it up at the back, which I did.

We were like people who knew exactly what the other needed!

When that was done, she put the tiny skirt on and the slipped into the armour. She didn’t really need that to cover herself up; she just wanted it to look cooler.

I got into the trousers and both of us examined each other for a moment.

“Hmm…” I hummed, scrutinising the miniskirt and the bandage thing around her chest. “It looks a bit… skimpy, to say the least.”

“Yeah, I know,” other me replied, looking down at herself. “But hey, least it keeps me covered!”

“Yeah I guess…” I regarded the armour for a second. “Colours kinda go nicely. Armour looks cool too.”

“Yeah, I only took it for that reason anyway.”

Told you.

I sighed and let my arms fall back to my sides. “You wanna do that fight now?” I asked. We all knew it was going to happen.

She crossed her arms and looked down at the floor. “Yeah, I guess we should,” she answered, picking her sword back up. “Do you have anything to fight with?”

“Nope. My spear got stuck in Smough’s head.”

“You wanna make it look dramatic so you can pick it up again?” She motioned at the door.

I nodded. “Yeah, might as well.”

We walked out of the room. When we did, Flash Sentry saluted at us both. Other me leaned down and patted him on the head kindly.

“Thanks for the armour, sweetie,” she said warmly. “I’ll call you later.”

Yeah, she was pretty much most of the things I wasn’t; confident, flirty and just plain awesome.

As Flash worked on comprehending what she had just said, we headed out to the balcony again. There, we found Twilight and Fluttershy waiting beside Rainbow and Cadence. Twilight scowled when she saw what other me had done with the skirt attachment.

“Rarity’s not going to like that…” she muttered.

“She’ll like my other fashion statement!” said other me happily as Rainbow Dash tried to discern who real me was. “Don’t I look awesome?”

“Which one of you is the real Karen?!” yelled Dash, eyes darting between the two of us.

Other me leaned close to my ear. “You wanna mess with her?” she whispered.

I sniggered. “It would be mean, but yes,” I replied.

Having another me around was fun so far!

“Alright,” said other me, backing away a bit. She held up three fingers and slowly counted down with them.

When she reached zero, both of us said at the same time, “I am!”

“You’re not the real me, Karen!” I said, pointing at other me accusingly. “I’m the real me!”

“Don’t let this imposter fool you, rainbow pony!” other me yelled. “I am the real me, not her!”

I saw Cadence giggling to herself out of the corner of my eye and the other three glancing between us both blankly.

“I shall prove that I am the real me!” I yelled, stepping back towards the balcony’s edge. “I shall fight you to the death and the winner shall be proven the real me!”

“Hold on a second,” other me said in a normal voice. She stepped towards the edge of the balcony and looked over, then back at Twilight. “Hey purple pony.”

“Um… yes?” Twilight replied nervously.

“Would we both die if we jumped from this height?”

“Uh…” Twilight did a quick calculation. “I wouldn’t say that… You might get some irreparable damage if you landed on your feet, but if you landed anywhere else, I’d say it’s very likely you would die. Why?”

“Okay okay okay,” I said, heading over to Cadence. “Pretend she jumped at me and we both fell over the edge of the balcony. We need you to carry us down there.”

Cadence bent down for me to get onto her back and Twilight did the same for other me, albeit very unsurely. Other me winked at me jokily as we mounted our flying pony princesses and I gave her a quick thumbs up in reply.

God, this was fun. If you ever get an evil clone of yourself, I hope it’s awesome as mine because she was super-duper fun. I can get Pinkie Pie’s opinion on that too.

We took off and headed down to ground level. Other me made some screaming noises and held her arms up in the air, most likely pretending that we were in freefall. Cadence raised her head back to me to talk.

“She doesn’t seem that bad, Karen,” she whispered.

“Aw, how’d you know it was me?” I whined quietly. “We went through all that to mess with all your heads!”

“You said you wanted your clothes back and now you’re wearing them,” she replied smugly, turning back to face forward. “I notice these things.”

This day was just getting more and more fun people added to it.

“Yeah, she’s not that bad at all,” I said, answering the original question. “She’s fun. I like her.”

“And there you were thinking you were going to have to kill yourself!” I saw her wince a little. “Oh wow, that sounded horrible.”

“It’s okay, I nearly jumped out of a train yesterday.”

That must’ve been the wrong thing to say because the rest of the flight down was in silence. When we got to the ground, I jumped off her back and walked over to other me.

“Alright, how do you wanna do this?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

“I’ll swing at you slow, then you jump out of the way,” she replied, pulling her sword up.

She swung her sword overhead at me slowly. I jumped to one side and it swiped through empty air.

“Haha! You are no match for me!” I looked for my spear and pointed at it to give her the message that I needed to get over there. “Curses! My weapon is all the way over there!”

“No it’s not,” said Shieldheart, levitating it over to me quickly.

“That’s cheating!” other me yelled disappointedly.

“Let’s just pretend I used the force,” I said quickly. I raised my spear triumphantly. “Haha! Now I have my weapon back!”

“What is going on?” Shieldheart asked blankly, shaking his head.

“I don’t know,” I laughed stupidly, dropping my spear and just laughing out loud.

Other me did the same. She just fell onto the ground too.

“Which one of you is the real Karen?!” Dash yelled, having followed us on our way down. “I’m so confused!”

“She’s the real one,” other me said in between laughs. “We just wanted to mess with you guys.”

I stood up straight and put on a straight face. Well, as straight as I could make it.

“Y-yeah,” I breathed, walking over to other me to help her up. “It was working too.”

“Yeah…” other me said, picking up her sword as she got up. “But, in all seriousness now…” She swung her sword around and stabbed me right through the stomach. “I need to kill you. Sorry, honey.”

“Ow…” I looked up at her with nothing but disappointment in my eyes. “Th-thanks for that…”

“We had fun.” She pulled her sword out and I fell to the floor. “Call me Nerak. It’s your name, but backwards! See you later!”

And then I died again.

I sat bolt upright in bed, eyes wide at such a betrayal of trust.

“Oh, for…!” yelled Flash Sentry from beside the bed, holding the bedsheet. He covered his eyes and turned around. “Stop doing that!”

“What a bitch,” said Voice.

“You’re telling me!” I yelled back at him.

Other me. Not Flash.

Flash galloped out of the room and then Dash shot in with my stuff shortly after. She rushed out and left me to get dressed again. When I was dressed, I stormed back out of the room with Flash’s helmet that other me forgot to put on. When I was out, I threw it against the wall.

“Bad day?” Voice asked.

“You don’t know the half of it!!” I screamed, kicking the helmet against the wall from where it landed.

“Uh… ma’am, I’m gonna need that back,” said Flash.

“Right,” I said, picking his helmet back up and handing it to him carefully. “Sorry. I’ve just been betrayed by a person I thought was my friend.” I remembered something. “Buuuut I did kinda know she wanted to kill me so it’s not as bad as I thought, I guess.”

“Karen?” called Cadence from outside. “Are you in there?”

I walked out to the balcony and pushed through the curtains again. Seriously, they needed to be pulled open. I waved at her as she landed and then just dropped onto the floor in front of her, facing the sky.

“Why, other me, why?!” I wailed, kicking my feet against the floor angrily. Yes, I was throwing a tantrum. No, you can’t tell me not to. “You were supposed to be my friend!!”

“Aw, don’t worry about it, Karen!” Cadence cooed, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “She was just being silly!” She rocked my shoulder like she was a mother telling her child it would all be okay. “I’m sure she’ll get what’s coming to her in time!”

“Do you need any more help?” asked Shieldheart. Seriously, how the flying f*%£ were ponies getting up here so fast?! Cadence nodded and he trotted over to me slowly. “Karen, come on. You’re a big girl, so you can’t be acting like this anymore.”

He laid down beside me and pulled me into a light hug. I didn’t hug him back, instead putting my hands over my face and groaning in annoyance at how ‘Nerak’ had betrayed me like that. Cadence must have seen something that needed fixing, because I heard the sound of a spell being cast.

My eyes shot wide open as I remembered what she could do with her magic.

(Un)fortunately, I wasn’t quick enough to move out of the way, so the spell buzzed through Shieldheart and I slowly and I felt… weird. I suddenly wanted to hug Shieldheart more than ever, and I felt his hug tighten a little.

“Hey there, sweetie,” he whispered, nuzzling my head sweetly.

“Hi there, Shieldy,” I replied warmly, leaning back to look in his eyes. Yes, I was slowly getting lost in them. “You look nice today.”

“You look nice every day, Karen.”

He was leaning closer slowly, and so was I.

Oh god this was happening and I couldn’t stop it and we hadn’t even been on our first date yet and I was terrified so much and didn’t want this to happen yet but it was happening now and I couldn’t stop it.

To make things worse, I could see the oth- HOW THE F$*&ING F!$£ WERE PONIES GETTING UP HERE SO F*!%ING QUICKLY?!!

And then we kissed.

My first time kissing somebody like that too.

It was… a lot of fun, actually.

Guess what happened next. Guess.

Guessed already?

I fainted.

Author's Note

I've wanted to do that last part since chapter two but I'm not adding the romance tag because I've got a plan.
Yes, you are allowed to be as angry as you like about that happening. Just keep it on the internet please.