PAO: Pony Art Online

No pony wanted to rush their way through floor forty-nine's boss. Primary preparations took a whole week of nonstop collecting, leveling, and organizing. But after the first spotting of the massive Roc Lord, a monstrous bird of prey with a wingspan as wide as the central city, players took another two and a half weeks to bolster their strength and grind a few levels higher. By the end of the month, the raid tenderly hunted down and killed the boss, thankfully with no casualties.

By reaching floor fifty, most of the Clearing Group felt that they deserved a break from their fight. Some went to socialize with friends, others worked on personal goals. Scootaloo continued to gather materials to forge the perfect weapon, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash enjoyed a cooling flight around floor forty-nine, and Applebloom and Applejack were busy being sisters. Sweetie Belle was helping Sunset with her investigations into the game's magic. She still carried the artifact Sunset gave her; the old katana Sunset had found on a bandit leader about six months ago still carried all sorts of magic fluctuations that were extremely difficult to bypass.

So Roseluck decided to take some time off too, and since no one had a bigger friends list than Pinkie Pie, she went to her to see what was the best hangouts in Equestrad.

"PAO's got a great party community," Pinkie Pie told her before they headed off for floor thirty-four.

It used to be where the largest guilds built their guild keeps, but ever since moving to floor forty-eight to operate, the old castles and forts had been torn down and replaced with small player-made villages.

"I didn't even know this was a thing," Roseluck said as they walked out of the central city toward the settlement on the west side of the city. "I just assumed these grasslands were barren after the Cutie Mark Crusaders pulled out."

"The Knights and the SGK stayed a little longer, but everything really got exciting once all the guild keeps were cleared out," Pinkie Pie answered. Her eyes lit up as they neared a bustling circle of player-made houses, its inhabitants already celebrating with flashing lights and party supplies.

The two mares didn't need to introduce themselves. Before Pinkie Pie had a chance to introduce Roseluck to the area, a crowd of players gathered around them and cheered unanimously. "Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie!"

The atmosphere was electric. As Roseluck looked around, players were drowning themselves in in whole kegs of beer, or dancing the center of the town, or playing some kind of party game with their friends.

Finally, the crowd set the two down at a tavern before resuming their own night of frivolity. Pinkie Pie grabbed Roseluck and dragged her in.

"This place is amazing," Roseluck said. "It's better than the dances the CMC throw at the guild keep."

Pinkie waved her hoof in the air. "That's amateur work. I've been throwing parties in college long before they even went to Prom."

Roseluck laughed. "I would've loved to be at your college Pinkie Pie."

The two sat down and traded a few shadow iron ores with the bartender, a player rather than an NPC, for a large mug of cold cider. It was refreshing on a warm night, and tasted much better than the apples and water they brought along while running through dungeons.

Pinkie Pie was through her first drink, and her third, by the time Roseluck finished her mug.

"I'm super pumped," Pinkie Pie said, leaping out of her seat and cartwheeling toward the door. "Come on Roseluck, the night is young and there's so much to do! Just wait until you see the dance pit!"

Roseluck followed Pinkie Pie into the town, catching up to her at a table where players were gambling their recent loot with a game of cards.

"I didn't know there were card games in PAO. What is it, blackjack?" she asked.

Pinkie Pie shook her head. "It's a three round mini game. The cards are based on the NPC's in the game, and have different strength values. Each player draws twelve cards and take turns playing them to gain the most strength for that round. They only draw one card per round, so you have to be careful managing your cards."

"So most of your odds are based on the first draw?" Roseluck inferred.

Pinkie Pie nodded. "Pretty much."

They watched the game continue, and by the second round the players were tied. One of them had a larger hand of cards, but it didn't seem possible to beat the other player's Wicked Wraith, with a strength value of ten.

"This is my favorite part!" Pinkie Pie squeaked.

The two players glanced at Pinkie Pie, who trained her focus on the table of cards.

Roseluck tried to intervene. "Pinkie, is it really necessary to stare at the cards like that?"

"Shh!"

The player with the larger hand ignored Pinkie, glancing back at his cards. In a moment of realization, his eyes widened as he slammed his Corpse Witch onto the table. The card carried a special effect, glowing as it transformed the other player's wraith into a useless rabbit card.

"Boom bitch!" cried the winning player. "You said I couldn't win with a Necro Deck, well now who's laughing. Pay up!"

Pinkie Pie cheered, congratulating the winner, shaking hooves with him. He accepted the gesture, nervously laughing it off, as he wasn't part of the crowd who had greeted her earlier. Excited, and evidently unaware of the awkwardness she caused, Pinkie Pie dragged the player off his seat.

"Time for the dance pit!" she beamed.

By now, with the moon at its zenith, the center of the settlement was a mosh pit of ponies moving to the music set by a band of musicians. With a combination of the game's acoustic instruments and player modifications, all sorts of sounds blanketed the village, from electronic to rock, and from symphonies to remixes.

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The rising sun hurt Roseluck's eyes. Whatever she had experimented with last night left her sleeping in a very uncomfortable position in someone's house. She shot up out of the bed, and collapsed back down as she felt her dizziness catch up. Steadying herself against the wall, she gave her head a moment to rest before she looked around.

The excess candy stored in the display cases around the house gave it all away. It was Pinkie Pie's house. For some reason it was weird that Pinkie Pie, of all her friends, had a house. She seemed the least likely to want to stay in one place.

Roseluck continued out the bedroom. It was a one-floor house, with the kitchen and dining table just across from the door. She walked over to find Pinkie Pie, but through the cracked open door she noticed the commotion outside.

"They can't still be partying, can they?" she asked herself, equipping her armor before she left. Roseluck paused, then looked at herself, wondering why her armor was taken off in the first place. She shook her head and pushed the thought aside, heading outside to see what was going on.

A circle of players formed around the center of the village, watching a duel between two players take place. Roseluck noticed that the difference in levels was more than unfair. The winning player, a pegasus clad in light armor, tossed around his opponent without a single sign of resistance. His strength alone more than overcame the other player's weight.

"Come on!" shouted the winning duelist. "The Clearing Group wants some actual fighters. Show me your best, and you might be able to join the Realm of Glory and fight with PAO's finest players!"

The crowd was less enthusiastic. Many of them, content to stay away from the front lines, tossed their junk items at the player, which either shattered into light immediately after hitting him, or satisfyingly splattering all over his armor.

Roseluck came up behind one of the players in the crowd and asked him what was happening.

"He's some hotshot from the Clearing Group," the stallion answered back. "He says his guild, the Realm of Glory, is training new recruits to take the place of the fighters we lost on floor forty-eight. But he's been harassing us all morning, even threatening to drag dissidents out into the wilds."

"What?" Roseluck stared at the pony in the center of the circle. "I've never even seen him in the Clearing Group before."

"Well, I wouldn't go near him if I were you miss," the player cautioned. "None of our players can beat him, or his lackeys." The stallion pointed to a small group of ponies dressed in plate armor, standing firmly behind their leader. One of the players in the group caught Roseluck's eye.

"Greg?" she whispered to herself. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She made her way through the crowd, but whenever she pushed through, more players pushed back. The Realm of Glory leader made everyone tense.

Over the heads Roseluck tried to get a better look of the situation. Some of the low level players were being held in a circle formed by the other guild members. She looked for her old friend Greg, the guy who introduced her to PAO in the first place, and she was sure it was him. From the mane color to his choice of weapon -a long rope dart made of a titanium chain- everything was how he would play.

Out of no where, Pinkie Pie seemed to summon herself.

"Just what do you think you're doing here?" she asked the leader. "This town's not big enough for any party poopers."

"I don't see anyone willing to complain," he replied, drawing snickers from all his followers.

Pinkie Pie simply opened her menu and targeted the leader, challenging him to a duel. There were "oh's" and whistling from the Realm of Glory members, teasing Pinkie Pie and cheering their boss.

"Be a shame to say no to a dance with a girl like you," the leader answered, accepting the duel. The duel started counting down from twenty, and their names appeared above them in large bold letters.

Pinkie Pie versus Deadly Dan

Pinkie Pie drew her mace, a heavy silver weapon made specifically for killing NPC monsters, but it was still a powerful weapon against players. Dan, a light armored pegasus, drew two daggers. They were longer than usual, almost matching short swords in size. Normally two weapons slowed down players, making dual wielding impractical despite the doubled damage, but short swords and smaller weapons barely hindered players, though even a simple sword could outmatch the damage output.

"You know, I'm a fast fighter. Got a lot of points in attack speed and agility." Dan shot Pinkie Pie a wide grin. "So after this, how about I take things a little slower and show you all my moves?"

That explained things. He had a fast build, harassing enemies with a high healing rate so they never had a chance to recover. He must have focused solely on his agility and attack speed attributes. Just like Pinkie Pie.

"Try to keep up," she responded, "I hate taking things easy."

The timer hit zero, and Pinkie Pie smirked.

Dan's first attack was a barrage of daggers. It seemed he had a few extra pairs lined up in his secondary equipment slots, and launched all but two at Pinkie Pie's head. They met nothing but air.

"What the hell?" Dan gripped his daggers staring at Pinkie Pie like some kind of mirage.

Whispers came around from the crowd. None of the players even saw her move, yet the daggers seemed to pass strait through her. Dan though the same, but knew it couldn't have happened.

He shot forward with his remaining daggers, taking precise shots and Pinkie's neck and head. They were both light on their hooves, equipped only with light armor, as they zigzagged around the circle. Pinkie Pie made sure to keep the fighting close to the center, away from the other players, manipulating the stallion with smooth, fluid motions.

It became painfully clear that Dan paled in comparison to Pinkie's level. Still, his rare choice of dual wielding daggers gave him just enough of an edge in the duel for him to catch up for one hit. It was an aimed strike, targeting the center of Pinkie's head.

Somehow, only centimeters away from each other, he still missed. His whole body fell forward, following the force of his strike.

Dan whirled around with his daggers, slashing the sides of Pinkie's armor. She didn't bother to dodge this time, she simply let the weapons phase through her. Dan staggered back, gripping his weapons as tightly as he could.

"How the hell is that possible?" he asked. "What are you, some kind of hacker?"

Pinkie smiled, her silhouette blurring slightly. Dan didn't even see her hit him with the mace, but he took the full force of the blow and tumbled back to the edge of the circle, into the crowd.

He barely took any damage, so small the percentage was still rounded up to a hundred percent. But the speed was impossible.

He expended his rage with words. "What the fuck is going on here you pink bitch! No one could have done that!"

Pinkie Pie explained, repeating the words Phoenix had told her when she began moving beyond anyone's expectations. "I put all my points into speed and agility. A player's reaction time is determined by the game based on those two attributes. You can't react because my speed numbers are higher than yours."

She blurred, suddenly appearing a hair's width away from Deadly Dan, smiling a wide grin. "Basically, I move faster than you can see."

Dan's eyes widened, stepping back to defend himself from the pink menace before him, but Pinkie Pie was behind him before he knew it. She slammed her mace into his back, shooting him back to herself on the other side of the circle. It was a ping pong match between Pinkie Pie and herself, and Deadly Dan was the ball.

Roseluck squinted hard, trying to make sense of where Pinkie Pie really was. But it was impossible. She appeared at eight different points at once, flickering as she ran between each point, bouncing Dan around at random. His health barely dropped with each hit, but after a minute of abuse the damage was clear.

"You hit like a girl," he grunted, trying to steady himself once Pinkie Pie let him stand still.

Those were the wrong words. Roseluck knew it, and braced herself as Pinkie Pie downed a flask of a blue potion. It was a speed potion Pinkie Pie had asked Roseluck to brew in bulk amounts, and now she knew why.

Everyone felt the burst of wind erupt from the players, but their eyes barely caught a glimpse of motion as Pinkie Pie struck five percent off of Dan's health. It was glorious to watch. Given her low attack strength, Roseluck guessed Pinkie Pie had hit the guy ten to fifteen times while everyone was blinking.

The only thing that gave away just how fast Pinkie Pie attacked was her hair. The game's physics loosened her puffed up mane, leaving her hair deflated, almost strait.

"This place is a place for fun," she breathed into Dan's face, with a wide grin. "And like I said, I don't like taking it easy. Now let's play rough, big guy."

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"What's that one doing?" Sweetie Belle pointed to one of the magical anomalies on Sunset's screen.

Sunset took a quick look at it, moving it over to another section of the screen. "It's an emotion, or part of one at least. It doesn't really matter what it does in this batch, since it's only useful for making lifelike NPC's."

"Really? Because one of the quest givers on the last floor..."

"It was a glitch," Sunset cut her off, still smiling in spite of the embarrassment, "nothing more. Besides, my game can be allowed to have some bugs here and there, I never said it'd be perfect."

"Oh alright," Sweetie Belle said. She watched as Sunset fiddled with another string of colors, twisting it and weaving the aura into another stream.

"I'm glad you're here, Sunset." Sweetie Belle spurted out from no where.

Sunset turned with a raised brow. "Um, thanks. It's nice to hear that."

"No, seriously. We'd be totally lost without you. You're one the best players in the Clearing Group, and you know how to fix this weird magic thing even though your admin abilities were intentionally blocked, and you never shy away from hunting down player killers."

"I don't deserve all that praise," Sunset admitted. "I started bring murderers to justice simply because I had a duty to everyone trapped in the game. And being the creator of the game kind of makes being a good player a meaningless title. You and your friends are the ones who should be thanked. The Cutie Mark Crusaders is the biggest guild in the game, and you're saving everyone by fighting for the Clearing Group."

"It'll be the Knights soon," Sweetie Belle said. "They've been growing much faster after the fiasco on floor forty-eight. They're the liberators now, not us."

"You'll still have the best guild, in my opinion," Sunset reassured.

Sweetie Belle grinned, blushing a little. It was nice to hear that kind of praise, it had been so long since she'd been so close to anyone else. She had her friends, but its wasn't the same as a sister.

Sweetie Belle's mind wandered. When was the last time she had time to think about Rarity? A month, or even two? No, it was much longer than that. It had been nearly half a year since she thought about her sister, and now it didn't even bother her. Rarity felt so distant. After two years, PAO was beginning to feel like the real world, and the other was just a fading memory, a past life.

Two years. That reminded her. Sweetie broke her train of through and turned back to Sunset. "The second anniversary of PAO's launch is in a couple weeks. Pinkie Pie was thinking of hosting a memorial for all the players that we lost on the first floor. Are you going?"

"A memorial doesn't really sound like Pinkie's style," Sunset replied. She sighed, imagining the list of names of those who died from the game. "But I'll be there. It wouldn't be right not to go."

"It's weird, how real this world feels now," Sweetie Belle added.

Sunset pushed her menu screen off to the side. "What do you mean?"

"Well, before I started playing, my whole life seemed to be just preparing for the next test, and then preparing for college. But in PAO, Equestrad feels like a legitimate world. It has its people, its losses, the ups and downs, and everything that gives life meaning."

"But your body is still in the real world," Sunset reminded, "and those colleges that you were preparing for, they're still waiting for you. This game's only as real as the data."

"I know," Sweetie Belle relented, "I'm not saying I want to stay trapped, but I'm a little afraid of going back and feeling... out of place. Like a..." she was at a loss for words.

Sunset, however, knew what she meant. "Like a pony living among humans? Or a lifelong bully trying to make friends for the first time? Believe me, I know how you feel."

"Oh, yeah. You've gone so far since then, sometimes I forget about those times."

Sunset chuckled. "I'm glad one of us did."

Eager to avoid an awkward silence, Sweetie Belle looked at Sunset's menu screen. She picked out a random strand of colors and pointed to it. "What's that one?"

Sunset turned. "Oh, that's just," she paused, taking a closer look. "Weird. It's just very weird."

The colors, a mix of orange and purple arranged in a double helix, bounced around the screen along with the rest of the colors. However, their pattern remained the same while others rapidly changed their arrangements and shapes.

"This is it!" Sunset exclaimed cheerfully. "This is a piece of the interference's source spell! It's only a small fragment of the magic, but I might be able to figure out more of the pattern. I could construct some of the missing pieces, maybe even find a way to end the game!" She grabbed Sweetie Belle and hugged her tightly.

She choked under the pressure of Sunset's excitement, her voice a strained whisper. "Glad I could help."

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Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash tried to make as little noise as possible as they leaped through the tree tops. Floor thirty-five's dense jungle made the night operation an easy one, but they still didn't take any chances.

Rainbow Dash wanted to glide through the trees, moving with absolute silence through the air, like an owl hunting its prey, but Scootaloo didn't have the same experience with pegasi wings, and was barely able to hover or glide for more than a few seconds. She felt a little bad about being a slow learner, almost every other player with a pegasus character had learned to use their wings, but Rainbow Dash told her not to worry about it. Flying wasn't supposed to come naturally.

Still, with their high agility attributes, the two barely made any noise as they jumped from tree branch to tree branch. On top of that, they had drank the invisibility potions that Roseluck brewed for them, making them unseen on top of being unheard. If it wasn't for the fact that players can see invisible party members, they probably would have lost each other a while ago.

The potion was a blessing for them, since Rainbow Dash's hair wasn't at all suited for stealth, but Scootaloo was still ashamed of the cost to get the recipe.

She cleared her head, refocusing on the task at hand. She looked to her right, and was amazed at the kind of athlete Rainbow Dash was. Rainbow Dash, who spent the whole day flying through the skies with Fluttershy on floor forty-nine, still managed to outpace her in the trees. Exhaustion was present when players were low on stamina, but it seemed like Rainbow Dash's stamina bar was practically unlimited.

Then Rainbow Dash signaled Scootaloo with her wing. They were nearly at the location they were told about from a mercenary Sunset and Rainbow Dash captured. It was totally empty.

Scootaloo looked to Rainbow Dash for a plan, and didn't have to guess what was making the look on her face. She was upset, probably thinking back to when they reported their lead to the other investigators. The SGK sent small party to scout out the location immediately, and alerted the killers waiting there when the mission failed.

But Rainbow Dash still had enough connections to dig up the guilty player killers. Sophisticata, who now directed her acting troupe in secret after an attempt on her life, found rumors of activity in the area. A few players willing to venture deep into the forests and swamps complained about resource nodes always being empty, and fast, hit-and-run players taking out all the monsters that spawned, leaving before they could be seen.

"I don't see anyone," she said. "How about you Scoots, got anything?"

Scootaloo scanned the floor and pointed to a few flowering plants. "Whoever's out here hasn't stopped by to collect those Poison Jokes."

"Think we could set a trap?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"Definitely."

They moved to the edge of the clearing that the Poison Jokes encircled, and waited in the trees above. They sensed something was not right. In their entire trip to the location, not a single jungle plant had anything to collect. Now it seemed like the players hoarding the resources weren't interested in collecting more stuff.

After fifteen minutes, Rainbow Dash decided it was useless to wait. "They might have collected everything they wanted," she said.

"It's a big forest RD," Scootaloo cautioned while taking another look around. "They might be smaller than we thought, and they're making their way around the whole map. No matter how fast they are, it takes two seconds to collect resources, and if they're clearing each node of everything, it could take a few hours."

"That's true," Rainbow Dash huffed, leaning back on her tree's thick branch. "We could be here all night, and most of it's going to be so boring."

"If that's what it takes to get them, then I'm with you all the way," Scootaloo replied. She hopped off her tree and sat next to Rainbow Dash.

"Thanks buddy," Rainbow Dash said.

It was impossible to sleep or take shifts, since the low growling of the basilisks under the trees reverberated with loudly all the way up the trees. So the two girls swapped stories, catching up on each other's adventures. Scootaloo remembered the struggle of training Crusaders to level up for the Clearing Group, and how badly they always performed in difficult dungeons. Rainbow Dash responded with her own list of all the times she had to save Sophi and the Trotting Prancers from NPC zombies or mini bosses.

And just as they predicted, they were there for most of the night.

The moon was about to set before they heard the first signs of movement. They were soft steps, but there was a lot of them. Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash both looked down, and their eyes widened in unison. There must have been at least twenty hooded figures moving through the undergrowth. Rainbow Dash looked closer at the health bars next to their heads. Not a single player wasn't marked with a red or orange border.

Rainbow Dash didn't whisper a word, but she pointed a wing at the health bars and nudged Scootaloo, who nodded back, seeing the colored borders too.

Scootaloo turned to Rainbow Dash and followed her signal. They both drank another invisibility potion and followed the players from above. Scootaloo watched as the players picked the Poison Jokes, leaving the one lush area picked clean. Without a word, Rainbow Dash took the lead and glided down to the lower branches of the trees. Above, Scootaloo kept a close eye on the whole group, watching where the farthest players went.

She expected to see them take a turn and head for the next clearing, where there were patches of Fire Saplings used for a number of resistance potions. Instead, the whole group halted their advance, and started setting up a makeshift camp. Basic alchemy and blacksmith workshops were unpacked from their inventories and quickly cobbled together.

It dawned on Scootaloo that they weren't being hoarders, or suffocating the public from vital resources -at least not intentionally. They were preparing to come back with full force, and they were collecting logs and plants to make their camp as quickly as possible. Tents were already completed, and spiked wood walls were being erected around the entire clearing, warning intruders not to go near.

Rainbow Dash leaped back up to Scootaloo, beating her wings slowly to gain altitude without alerting the players.

"This is totally weird," she whispered in the quietest voice possible. "Why would a shady organization set up such a big fortress in the middle of nowhere? I know player building is enabled around here, but there's so much traffic that no one wants to settle a house where everyone's going to be digging around in the backyard."

"I think they're planning another big attack," Scootaloo answered. It's a simple guerrilla tactic: appear out of nowhere and strike, then vanish before the enemy can strike back." She pointed to a drying rack preparing basilisk hides for leather armor and an enchanting table filled with gems. Next to those was the anvil and forge, where two players were hammering out sword blades and chestplates. Scootaloo immediately recognized the shadow iron blades that Iceblood had shown her after the last attack.

"It's a damn supply depot," Rainbow Dash hissed. "They're going for an all out invasion on this floor, and they plan use this place to resupply."

"Why the hell would they want to do something like that?" Scootaloo wondered. "They can't be gaining anything from just slaughtering players, can they?"

Rainbow Dash scowled. "They're all insane. They treat it like a game like any other, as if lives aren't at risk of being magic blasted by the Digisphere."

"Well, we know they're now, but we can't stop them alone," Scootaloo said, putting a hoof on Rainbow Dash's shoulder to steady her. "Let's get reinforcements and come back as soon as possible. Taking down a camp's longer than setting it up. They're not going anywhere."

Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. "Lets get going then."

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Deadly Dan left the player settlement in shame. He walked dejectedly out of the town, enduring the empty potion flasks and unwanted common gear thrown at him. His followers did the same, facing less shame than their leader, though there was plenty of cheap tavern goods thrown onto them.

But there was one member of the Realm of Glory that Roseluck wanted to talk to though, and through her demeanor alone, she got him to stay while everyone tossed slanders and stale bread at him.

Thanks to Pinkie Pie, the crowd was eager to celebrate her amazing display of speed, which gave Roseluck a chance to pull her old friend aside to talk to.

"What the hell are you doing here Greg?" she snapped, pushing him into the back wall of the tavern.

"Really?" he shot her a perplexed look. "We don't talk for months and that's the first thing you say to me?"

"Why are you here forcing these people to join the Clearing Group?" she persisted.

He threw his hooves up in the air. "How can you ask that after what happened on floor forty-eight? I was so worried when the word got around. I mean, you could have died!"

"What does that have to do with this?" Roseluck asked, disregarding his concern. "Being worried is one thing, but you're not doing any good by scaring low levels in joining the Clearing Group. You'll probably get them killed."

Greg shook his head. "Not with our leader. With me, maybe, but Dan's a capable leader."

Roseluck stared at him, not sure if he was delusional or overzealous, but no one could have watched Pinkie Pie wipe the floor with that guy and still favor the Realm of Glory.

"Don't look at me like that," Greg said, his voice showing a sign of irritation. "You don't get to judge me after leaving for some strangers in the Clearing Group."

"But they actually know how to beat the game," she replied. "I've never even heard of a 'Deadly Dan' in the Clearing Group."

"He's an ex-member of the Slumbering Giants, he was even injured during the fight with the manticore boss." Greg opened up his menu and eagerly showed Roseluck the homepage of the Realm of Glory. "Look, he even puts the SGK's training program for the public to see!"

"Greg," Roseluck sighed, "The Slumbering Giants of Korandale aren't the guild that they used to be."

Greg cut her off from what she was going to say. "Of course you'd say that. You're running with the elites now, why would you care about the underdogs?" Greg's face was flushed with red. "It's like you've forgotten all our friends, everyone struggling below you to get to the top."

"That's not who any of us are," Roseluck shot back. "The Crusaders are only selective when they recruit because we don't want anyone to die when we go on dungeon raids. And for the record, you were my only friend when we were with the low levels, everyone else was only your friends."

"Yeah, well, congratulations Roseluck," Greg replied, "you left your only friend for some strangers in a video game."

"I once thought I did too," she said, her face softening. She looked at him, and twisted her face with disgust. "But I hadn't forgotten him. I kept waiting, hoping he'd make his way up here when I couldn't find time to go back down."

Greg looked confused. Roseluck tone sounded like she was talking about someone else.

"And now that you're here, I realize that it'll be a long time before I see Greg again. You're not him, you're just another asshole lackey who chose the character name 'Taco Coffin.'"

She pushed Greg aside and walked back out to the town. Greg didn't follow, and he didn't leave. He just stood, with his jaw hanging in the air.

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After Sunset and Rainbow Dash's encounter with mercenaries, the guild leaders of the Clearing Group went into a criminal hunting craze. With a couple mercenaries already locked in secure, player-made buildings, a few more wouldn't hurt. Very quickly, agents from the SGK, Knights of Yore, and the Crusaders, brought in mercenaries and bandits who were suspected of having connections with the ones who attacked and killed the fourteen player on floor forty.

But there was one other player who didn't match the rest of the new prisoners. He was more than just a greedy player like all the others, he was genuine psychopath.

Sonata sat outside the square building while Grieve Blossom took out his frustrations on the old guy. He had a special mace Scootaloo made for him -bludgeoning damage alledgedly hurt the most- and enchanted it with fire and electric crystals for an added effect.

Grieve Blossom's method of interrogation was getting no where, but Sonata was content to let it run on. With the inside of player-housing a PVP safe-zone, save for a few instances, all Grieve Blossom could do was deal the pain, not the damage. She listened to Long Glider's grunts as Grieve Blossom tossed him around the room. She admired the stallion's persistence, but nothing he could muster up would ever give the bastard what he deserved.

Eventually, his stamina dropped to zero, and Grieve Blossom left the building with a heavy breath. He shut the door quickly, barely in time to knock Long Glider back as he scrambled to slip out of the entrance. The locks reactivated and threw him into the back wall. They expected to hear him scream or bang on the walls again, but Long Glider didn't make a sound this time.

"Well, at least that's different." Grieve Blossom stashed the mace back into his inventory and re-equipped his sword. Sonata shifted to the side and patted the grass next to her, inviting Grieve Blossom to rest. He accepted and dropped his body onto the ground with the full wieght of his heavy armor.

They sat silently together for a time. "He won't tell you anything. Not like this, anyways."

Grieve Blossom rubbed his forehead. "I know, Sonata, but you know what he's done. I can't just leave him here in peace."

"But we can't just do this every day and get nothing to show for it. We need to get him to tell us something, anything," she replied, "If he doesn't, I might never see my friends again. I'm worried about them Grieve Blossom, what if, while I was away, they..."

"No way, you saw the casualty list yourself," Grieve Blossom said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. "They weren't on the list, so they have to out there somewhere. If anyone can reach them, we can."

"You're right," she sighed, relieved to get the thought out of her head, "the two of them can handle themselves. They always were the ones calling the shots."

Grieve Blossom raised a brow at Sonata's comment, for it wasn't her first time making a vague reference to her past. "You know, for the amount of times you've mentioned them since we met, you don't really elaborate much. If they treated you as badly as you say they did, why do you even care if they didn't care about you?"

"It's not something you can understand," she replied. "I'm barely sure that I understand it. We're just... connected. That's all I know."

Grieve Blossom shrugged and let it go, it was about as much as she gave him every other day anyways. He leaned back and put his hooves behind his head. "Well, if that connection ever kicks in and tells us how to find them, just hit me up and I'll be there to help."

"Thanks, but this is a bit too personal to get you involved. I know you want to help, but when the time comes, I want to join my friends by myself." She looked at Grieve Blossom, hoping he'd understand.

He did, slightly, but still looked hurt. "Oh, okay. It's fine, I get it, it's super personal. Okay, cool."

"If only we could just get something out of Long Glider, anything that can help." Sonata picked a pebble up from the ground and chucked it into a tree, frustrated. The pebble shattered into a cloud of light and respawned next to her again.

"You know, we have other sources," Grieve Blossom said, trying to find a different solution. "It might take longer, but Rainbow Dash and Pinkie have a lot of contacts between them, and my guild and Roseluck's guild combined can cover pretty much every part of the game. The Knights of Yore and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are the two best guilds on PAO after all."

He pointed back to the simple cubic house. "We don't have to put up with this psycho."

Sonata sighed. "I know, but I can't let him go, not after everything he's done. I don't just want information, I need..." she paused, looking for the fitting word.

"Revenge?"

She shook her head. "No, it's justice."

Grieve Blossom wasn't buying into it, but he didn't care much for the semantics. He was sure that whatever dreams of revenge he had, Sonata had more. "Well in that case, I think there's one pony who could help us."

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The inn on floor fifty was quiet compared to what Roseluck had experienced with Pinkie Pie. There were plenty of players, but they were all part of the Clearing Group elite, and they were silently planning their next week of training. The silence was relaxing, especially after a day of nonstop revelry, which made Sonata's request a lot more irritating.

"Absolutely not." Roseluck was adamant about it, but they still pressed her to make the potion.

"Oh come on, it's not that hard of a recipe once you know the ingredients," Sonata insisted, pointing to the list of items on her menu screen. "Everything you need is right here."

"Collecting them's not the problem," she explained. "After we reported back to Scootaloo, the other guilds unanimously agreed to ban the quest you need to collect the Crystal Heart Fragments. All the ones left on the auction house was bought by the Knights of Yore and stored in a private bank."

"Can't we ask the Knights?"

"We could, but it probably wouldn't work." Roseluck opened a message sent out by the leader of the Knights herself. It clearly stated that she and her advisers were in agreement to hold the fragments in a secure bank, away from any other threat that may have knowledge of Long Glider's recipe, now renamed the Agony Elixir.

Still, Sonata was persistent. "We could seek out the bank's owner-"

"Are you even reading this?" Roseluck snapped. "No one but the leadership of the Knights know who has it, and they've made it clear that they won't tell anyone, not even us."

"But-"

"Look, I just got back from Pinkie's insane party, I'm tired, I think I just ended a really old friendship, and I just want to rest." She walked back towards her bed, throwing herself onto the mattress. Her voice was muffled in the pillow. "Besides, Grieve Blossom and I already agreed not to dwell on what Long Glider did or made. We should all just forget about it and sleep."

It was so easy to drift into dreamland. While her character's body was ready to fight, her actual mind had the last say, and it was clocking out for the night. She nearly drifted into deep sleep immediately, if it wasn't for one detail.

"Grieve Blossom actually told me that you could brew the Agony Elixir," said Sonata. Roseluck froze. She wanted to let it slide, but before she knew it, she was marching out the inn with more than just a few things to say to Grieve Blossom.

"You shouldn't follow, Sonata," she snarled through her teeth. "I don't think anyone's one is mature enough to see what I'm going to do to Grieve Blossom."

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It was midnight at the Knights of Yore's guild hall. After the the Crusaders relocated their guild keep to the fiftieth floor, the Knights were eager to expand into the new and unused plots of land. Grieve Blossom was practicing his sword technique in the newly built training grounds, waiting for Sonata to message her some good news, when everything went wrong.

"Why would you even suggest that I would make that damn potion Grieve Blossom?" Roseluck yelled into his ear.

He backpedaled himself as far away as quickly as possible, defending himself with his sword. Roseluck spun the butt of her spear and smacked the sword out of his hoof.

"Okay, mistakes were made, but I stand by what I said-" He was flat on his face before he could react.

"We had an agreement!" she shouted.

He sprung up, clumsy from fear, and faced Roseluck. "I know. I didn't forget, I just changed my mind. Sonata needs this as a chance to get some revenge for what happened."

"Revenge isn't how we do things Grieve Blossom," Roseluck argued, casually side stepping and blocking his path to his sword.

Grieve Blossom rolled his eyes. "Well maybe we can't all be as aloof as the 'Roseluck the Kindhearted.' If people are willing to be evil and cruel, then it's just karma coming for them when something evil or cruel happens to them!"

"Evil is evil," Roseluck said, glaring into Grieve Blossom's eyes. "Whether the person deserves it or not, it makes no difference. We have to draw the line somewhere, because if we cross over to that level, the lines disappear, and the differences become arbitrary. We can't use revenge torture, or else there's nothing distinguishing us, from them."

"She's not healthy Roseluck," Grieve Blossom said, "ever since we shut him in that house, Sonata's been pacing around it like a guard dog. She's convinced herself that the only way to get to her friends is through him."

"I've noticed that too, but that's not an excuse to make it worse," she replied.

"It won't, but suppressing her feelings will." Grieve Blossom said, his voice exasperated. "If we don't help Sonata... I don't know what she'll do. She could run off and look for her friends on her own, or end up killing Long Glider over it, or... something, anything!"

Roseluck stared with bewilderment. "You're worried she'll kill him but you're willing to let her torture him?"

"At least he'll live, isn't that better?"

"I'm not making that elixir Grieve Blossom, and that's final." Roseluck stepped back and let Grieve Blossom pick up his sword. The keep echoed with her hoof steps as she walked away.

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"He makes me so angry!"

The clay vase shattered into bits of light from Roseluck's frustration. It respawned almost immediately, only to be kicked over again.

"Hey, why don't recolor it red and grey?" Sunset asked sarcastically. "Helps to get your anger out if you're kicking something that looks like him."

"You can do that?" Roseluck asked, panting with rage.

Sunset nodded, swiping open her menu and switching into the home edit menu. It gave a layout of her house in floor fifty's central city, zooming onto her bedroom as she tapped the screen. The vase changed color as she set its primary color to grey and its secondary to red.

Roseluck grabbed the vase and smashed it against the wall. "That feels better," she told Sunset.

"Good. I don't think you should help Sonata." Sunset closed her menu and looked at Roseluck with a serious face. "You say she's not the same as she was back in Canterlot High, but I saw them close up, and trust me when I say they're a lot more harmful than you think."

"Do you seriously think Sonata's plotting against us?" Roseluck asked, not hiding the criticism in her voice. She still wanted to help the poor girl after everything she's been through, even if she was against the elixir.

"Not Sonata. She was always... the more passive Siren. But her friends are legitimate magic users, and evil ones too. They only want power and control, and they only use it to gain even more power and control." Sunset paused, thinking her words through. "I'm not saying we should condemn Sonata, she doesn't deserve it, but we have to be careful about her friends. Adagio and Aria are nothing like her."

"I get where you're coming from, but I can't tell her that." Roseluck admitted, softening up. "It'll break her heart."

Sunset sympathized she knew what it felt like to help and be helped. But she couldn't shake her memories of the Sirens. "Just, keep an eye on things with her."

Roseluck nodded.

There was a knock at the door. "Sunset, I need your help, I've got some shit going on." It was Rainbow Dash. Sunset groaned.

She flipped opened the door. "What the hell could you want RD? It's three in the morning. And how the hell did you get in my house?"

"I picked the lock, but that's not important. Look, I was with Scootaloo and-" Rainbow Dash paused, looking into her bedroom. It was a mess, with a vase in the middle of respawning and papers and quills scattered on the floor. Roseluck looked back at Rainbow Dash and waved.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked.

"Kind of, what do you want?" Sunset replied.

"Hold on. So, the noise I heard while I was breaking in, with the vase breaking and stuff, were you two..."

Sunset look at Rainbow Dash cautiously. "What are you implying?"

Rainbow Dash stammered a bit as she explained. "Oh, just- uh- I'm simply assuming that- er..." she collected herself and gave it to Sunset strait. "I never would have guessed that you two liked it so rough-"

Sunset uppercut Rainbow Dash strait in the gut. "Take whatever you're thinking about right not out of your mind and burn it, Rainbow Dash. Roseluck and I were just talking and -never mind that, what the hell did you want in the first place?"

"Oh, um," she coughed her surprise away. "Scootaloo and I found some kind of outpost on floor thirty-five, and we think it might be the murder guild that we've been looking for. Even if they're not, they were still all orange and red players, so Scoots and I are getting a team together to make an arrest."

"We'll meet up in a few minutes. Please get out of my house." Sunset said, closing the door. She listened and heard Rainbow Dash climb out of her kitchen window, and she sighed.

Roseluck walked up behind her, regret heavy in her voice. "You know, Rainbow Dash probably thinks we're..."

"Don't say it..."

"...lesbians," she finished.

Sunset groaned. "No, don't even- look, just... get out. Leave and never mention this to anyone."