"Wow." Hover Blade said, looking around his personal spaceship. "It's... roomy."
Indeed it was, a huge, largely empty room, with a big window at one end, and two screens, each with a computer beneath them. Four bright spotlights in the corners of the plain white roof shone down, leaving not a single shadow.
One of the two screens had a big message. 'FRIENDS LEADERBOARD IS FOR TIER 2 UPWARDS'.
The other had another big message. 'WELCOME HOVER BLADE ITERATION-1. PLEASE CONSTRUCT YOUR VEHICLE.'
Hover Blade read it aloud as he walked over to the big computer underneath the second screen. There was a virtual depiction of a seat and a flat rectangle of cubes, and an inventory at one side for cubes. "Cool!" Hover Blade said enthusiastically. He touched the screen with a forehoof, dragging an interesting-looking gun onto the front of the rectangle. Then he dragged another, and another, and another, until eventually the whole of the rectangle was covered in guns. Finally, he added four 'Wheel Steering T1's onto the four corners of the rectangle.
Turning away from the screen to look behind him, Hover Blade gasped when he saw the awesome robotic masterpiece that he had created. It was so cool! It had wheels! It had guns! It had everything!
Hover Blade saw the spacesuit waiting for him in the driver's seat and ran to the vehicle, grabbing the armour and putting it on as fast as possible.
Sadly this took about ten minutes, as Hover Blade had never put on a spacesuit before and it was quite awkward. Still, he managed it. He sat down on the surprisingly-comfy pilot seat, and pressed the big red button labelled 'TELEPORT' on the controls.
"Go go go go go go go go..." chanted Hover Blade as he repeatedly pressed the big red button.
After a few seconds the spaceship around him and his vehicle vanished, to be replaced by a red rocky landscape. Lots of little pictures Hover Blade didn't quite understand yet appeared in his vision. A heads-up display!
"COOL. Go go go go go..." Hover Blade held his foot down on the accelerator as the timer in the middle of his HUD ticked down.
The timer hit zero, and Hover Blade's awesome creation roared (well, more sputtered) into life.
"YEAH!!!" Hover Blade tried to do a donut in his vehicle, but that caused it to flip over.
"Guys... help... I'm stuck." Hover Blade said into his helmet microphone. More vehicles loaded in around him, none as cool as his of course but whatever.
"Oh my goddesses so many noobs..." a voice said over the intercom. "Uh... xXxHoverBladeProKillerxXx, do you have an alignment rectifier?"
"'Course I do!" gloated Hover Blade.
There was a silence, punctuated by sustained SMG fire from the motley crew of other Tier 1 vehicles as they announced their positions to the enemy team.
All of the other vehicles drove away.
"Guys?"
Nopony answered.
Hover Blade realised just how uncomfortable it was, being upside-down in a spacesuit strapped to an upside-down chair.
He sat there in silence for about two minutes, until he saw movement. An enemy vehicle. He knew it was an enemy because his HUD gave it a little red hexagon and a '100%' label above it. The tiny vehicle drove onto the big circular blue platform that was Blue Team's... base... beacon... power... thingy. What was it? Hover Blade didn't know and didn't care, he just knew it was important.
A siren sounded. Somebody was capturing the control point! Where? Why wasn't anypony defending?
"Oh, right." Hover Blade had a moment of realisation, and pushed the 'FIRE' button on his controls. All nine of his SMGs opened fire in unison, utterly decimating the enemy vehicle.
"Yeah! I got a ki-"
Hover Blade's triumph was marred by a huge red explosion, which vaporised him and his vehicle.
"...Wha?" Hover Blade muttered as he opened his eyes.
'WELCOME HOVER BLADE ITERATION-2. YOUR REPAIR COST THIS TIME WAS 128 RP.' the big screen he was facing informed him.
Hover Blade got himself back on all four hooves and surveyed his surrounding. He was back on his personal ship.
"Oh COOL!" Hover Blade saw his beautiful asymetrical vehicle was back intact as if nothing had happened.
Hover Blade put the spacesuit back on (this time it took him five minutes) and jumped into the pilot's seat. "GO GO GO GO GO..."
He spammed the 'TELEPORT' button, until he was taken to Mars.
"This time I've got it!" he crowed. He slammed a hoof on the accelerator, used the joystick to aim his SMGs and made rude comments about some of the other ponies' vehicles.
"Oh no, you again..." a voice said over the intercom. "Look, xXxHoverBladeProKillerxXx, try not to lose us the game." What? Lose the game? No, Hover Blade would WIN the game! Hey, wasn't that the guy from last time...?
"Don't be so harsh on the kid, dragon_slayer56. Don't listen to him, xXxHoverBladeProKillerxXx, he's just mad because he can't unlock Tier 2 guns yet." said another voice, this one female.
"Am not!"
"Are too! Anyway, first thing you should do is put some armour on that thing. Stick with us, and you can do it after this battle."
Hover Blade thought his vehicle was pretty good as it was, but he decided having some lackeys to back him up would help.
"Okay." He agreed.
Hover Blade could actually see dragon_slayer56's vehicle. It was all right, he supposed. I mean, it was brown, which probably meant the armour wasn't as good as Hover Blade's shiny new white armour, but it had a lot of guns, and six wheels.
"I'm DaringDo000, but you can just call me Daring. The grumpy one's Dragon. You can be Hover. Now we don't have to spend ages saying each other's names."
"Why can't I be Blade?" Hover whined.
"Because she said so." Dragon replied.
"Okay everyone, follow me down the left lane!" Daring ordered.
Begrudgingly, Hover complied. Daring's vehicle was an elegant brown dragster, with three Tier 2 SMGs. It looked nicer than Dragon's, but it didn't have as many guns so it was obviously inferior. And neither of them had as many guns as Hover's did.
They drove for about thirty seconds before the enemy was spotted.
"ENEMY SPOTTED." informed a robotic voice.
Aiming carefully, Hover held down the 'FIRE' button. A barrage of blue beams sprayed over the enemy vehicle (which looked kinda like a tank but with wheels).
Daring's SMGs fired in bursts from a distance, while Dragon moved in close for maximum damage. The enemy was obliterated in a matter of moments.
"Nice work guys. Now we should just go for the cap!" Daring said.
The three teammates drove together through the left lane, until they reached the enemy capture point. Just as they were about to drive onto it, though, a big red message came up in Hover's vision.
'TEAM DEFEATED'
"What?" Dragon said.
"Dammit. They sneaked 'round behind us." reasoned Daring. "Okay, I'll send you a friend request, Hover."
Before Hover could even reply, his vehicle was teleported back to the mothership.
A big message came up in his vision. 'YOU HAVE ONE PENDING FRIEND INVITE.'
Hover Blade went over to the computer to see. Sure enough, under 'SOCIAL' and 'FRIENDS' there was 'DaringDo000: PENDING'. He pressed accept. A big message came up on the computer. 'DARINGDO000 HAS INVITED YOU TO THEIR PLATOON.' Beneath that were two options: 'ACCEPT' and 'DECLINE'. After a moment's hesitation, Hover pressed 'ACCEPT'.
"Hello? Hover, is that you?" Daring said over the intercom.
"Yup!"
"Oh goddesses, he actually accepted..." greeted Dragon.
"Hey, what does 'ITERATION-2' mean?" Hover asked.
"That's what number clone you are. Your DNA and memories are stored in a huge vault somewhere, so when you die you just get replaced by a clone of you. I'm still the original me, and I plan to keep it that way." Daring said determinedly.
"I'm Iteration-28." Dragon proclaimed, as if he'd won a medal.
"Okay okay I wish I'd never asked can we shoot stuff now?"
Dragon muttered something indecipherable.
"Yes, fine. Everyone press 'TELEPORT'."
Hover Blade spammed 'TELEPORT'.
'10'
"Okay guys, this time stick together."
'9'
"Whatever." Dragon agreed.
'8'
"I'm gonna get so many kills!"
'7'
"You will if you be careful."
'6'
Hover Blade snorted.
'5'
"I'm serious." said Daring.
'4'
"Not as serious as me." Dragon butted in.
'3'
"Yeah why are you such a grumpy pants?" Hover asked.
'2'
"Well, when I was young my parents-"
'1'
"DON'T EVEN CARE GOTTA GO FAST GOTTA GET GOOD GOTTA GO SHOOT." interrupted Hover as the countdown ended. What was it Daring had said? Drive in and shoot stuff? Yup, that sounded good.
Hover drove up the hill on the left of the middle lane, randomly spraying SMG rounds into the sky. After all, gotta get good, gotta go fast, gotta shoot stuff.
When he reached the top of the hill Hover had a moment of doubt. There were THREE enemy robots coming towards him. One was a huge pyramid-shaped tank, with a load of SMGs. The next was a tiny four-wheeled platform with a single plasma cannon. The last was a mid-sized vehicle with several SMGs. Still, not to be discouraged, Hover held down the 'FIRE' button and knocked about twenty percent off the big pyramid. However, while he was doing that, the plasma cannon fired, destroying nigh all of his vehicle. All that was left was a seat and a single white cube. Within seconds, Hover was perforated by SMG fire.
