How to Play Overwatch

The tired afternoon heat pressed down on the earth. It was days like these that made many a travelling pedestrian long for a cool, sweet popsicle. One such individual was none other than Sunset Shimmer, a highly advanced Unicorn mare-turned-human-turned-demon-turned-aspiring rockstar. It's a long story; one which might have any unfortunate soul who bears witness to it in its entirety cringe in their seats (although maybe a follow-up about her reformation could fix that right up. You never know with some people).

Alas, this is not a tale about fighting off mystical creatures, she-demons, or violent camp counselors. No, in this story, Sunset Shimmer was determined to find out what Rainbow Dash's urgent message was about.

Okay, maybe not that determined. Sunset found that she and Rainbow often had differing views as to what constitutes an emergency. Nevertheless, Sunset strolled purposefully down the street, silently absorbing the accursed muggy air. Rainbow Dash didn't live far, and thankfully had a decent air conditioning unit. It would be good to get out of this heat.

Upon reaching the humble home of Rainbow, Sunset Shimmer raised a finger to press it to the doorbell. After doing so, she was flabbergasted to see Applejack answer the door.

"Well, howdy Sunset!" The cowgirl greeted heartily.

"Hey Applejack," Sunset waved. "Did you get a text from Rainbow Dash, too?"

Applejack chuckled. "Y'all know I don't do them fancy smartphones."

"Right." Sunset joined Applejack, facepalming lightly.

"She did call me over, though," Applejack said, slapping Sunset on the back. "Matter of fact, the rest of the girls are here, too. We were waitin' for you."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Why? What's up?"

"I won't spoil it for you." Applejack replied with a cryptic smile.

Feeling less than assured, Sunset tailed Applejack inside and up the stairs, after shutting the door, of course. All the way up (goodness, why are there so many steps?!), she picked up the sounds of chattering emanating from Rainbow's room, where Applejack disappeared to. Left with nothing else to do, Sunset entered.

The Rainbooms had indeed piled into Rainbow Dash's room, which was kind of messy at the moment. The floor was littered with rogue socks, abandoned day-old pizza crusts, and forlon, crumpled papers that was probably homework from a few months ago. The walls were plastered with a wide variety of sports and band posters, mostly soccer-related (though Rainbow shamelessly kept up one or two of bikini-clad women).

The girls (including human Twilight, the most recent addition to the Rainbooms) crowded around Rainbow Dash's flat-screen TV, where surely some important social or political event was being shown.

"I'm here," Sunset shrugged. "What's going on?"

Twilight turned around. "Oh Sunset, come here! You have to see this!"

Sunset approached the bed, where everyone else fought to sit on or around. "What is it?"

"It's my new game!" Rainbow Dash whooped as she raised a fist in triumph. A flash of color and solid cheer of Victory! came from the TV. Sunset peered at it, and saw Rainbow's Xbox One at work displaying a very animated ninja posing heroically.

"Your new- hold on, hold on." Sunset massaged her temple. "I got a text from you saying 'Come to my house, big news', and it's just about a video game?"

"What?" Rainbow Dash frowned, genuinely confused. "It's Overwatch!"

"...Overwhat?"

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Come on, you've heard of Overwatch." Sunset shook her head. "Come on, even Rarity knows what it is!"

"Just because I've heard mention of your barbaric shooter game doesn't mean that I am at all thrilled to watch you play it." Rarity piped as she filed her nails.

"I am!" Pinkie Pie screamed through a mouthful of nacho cheese Doritos.

"That ain't why you're here," Rainbow Dash smirked. "You're all here to play it!"

Silence. Pure and utter silence.

"Sooo... who wants to go first?"

Sunset gave Rainbow a puzzled look. "Uh, not to be rude, but since when do you share video games?"

Rainbow Dash slumped. "It's not local multi-player, and I didn't want to play by myself. Come on, won't one of you at least try it?"

"Uh, I guess I would like to try." Twilight sheepishly raised a hand.

"Attagirl!" Rainbow grinned as she shoved the controller into Twilight’s hands. "Okay, just pick a character and you're good to go!"

Twilight slowly scrolled through the options, then eventually landed on an sweet-looking Asian woman bundled in heavy winter gear.

"Mei. I like her." Twilight smiled. She pressed "A" to accept, and was thrust into battle. Sunset watched Twilight control the nerdy scientist. She had a strange pistol that shot some sort of freeze ray and shards of ice. Twilight jumped as she pressed the left bumper accidentally.

"What happened?"

"Don't worry, that's just her shield ability. She'll pop back out of the ice in a couple seconds."

For the next few minutes, Twilight wandered around the map of what looked like a Sicilian getaway. She was obliterated almost instantly every time. When the timer ended, another Victory was slapped across the screen. Twilight had earned a total of sixteen deaths and two eliminations. Sunset leaned in to read the small text.

"Your GamerTag is "SoarinDash4EVER"?

Rainbow Dash's face reddened slightly. "Whatever, shuddup."

"Ooh, myturnmyturnmyturn!" Pinkie Pie raised her hand excitedly, wiggling in place. "I wanna be D.Va!"

Rarity chortled. "'Diva'? Pinkie, darling, of all the words I would use to describe you, Diva is not one of them."

"No, 'D.Va'. Dee-dot-vee-ay. D.Va."

"Yes, yes, whatever you say, darling. You know I have no idea what you're talking about, anyway."

Pinkie Pie's fingers curled over the controller. She quickly selected the adorable gamer before the next match could start. As soon as Defend the objective! rang out, Pinkie Pie was flying! Her mech zoomed across the map, which resembled some sort of stone coliseum setting. Pinkie Pie mowed down any enemies that rounded the corner, expertly timing when to deflect shots and duck away.

After a good long while, whoever was playing against Pinkie wisened up. The whole team charged at once, surrounding her. When it looked like all was lost, Pinkie's avatar ejected from her mech, then zipped away before it exploded.

Team kill!

The girls all ooh'ed at Pinkie's clever move. She looked fairly satisfied with herself when the match ended.

"Hey look, I'm famous!" Pinkie Pie pointed at the screen, on it her D.Va sitting proudly on her mech suit. Player of the Game, the text read. "Who wants to go next?"

Applejack rubbed her chin. "Y'know, I ain't never played a video game before last year. This would be my fourth. I suppose I wouldn't mind givin' it a shot. Besides, I think I saw someone that'd suit me just nicely."

"Lemme guess..." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

Applejack scrolled to the front of the list, then selected a handsome cowpoke with the likeness of a man that smoked Cubans and drove a Gran Torino.

The name's McCree, Rainbow Dash mouthed silently. Applejack's playthrough was more balanced than the previous ones. She died several times, but got a fair amount of eliminations.

"Hoo-wee, I think I'm a good shot!" Applejack cheered. "Look at me go, Rare!"

"Lovely." Rarity drawled.

When the round ended, Applejack smiled and tipped her hat. "Hey, that wasn't so bad for some sci-fi future-y game."

"Indeed. Such a flimsy peashooter in what I assume is the distant future? So tacky." Rarity tsked.

"Think you can do better?" Rainbow elbowed her.

"I don't play those silly violent games, thank you." Rarity uttered disadainfully in response.

"Okay, what about you, Fluttershy?"

All heads turned to face the shy girl, who had been silently observing up until this point.

"Oh, um, me?"

"Yeah," Rainbow Dash grinned widely. "I wanna see you play, 'Shy!"

Fluttershy folded her hands on her lap. "Oh, I don't think I would be very good at this game."

"Come on, it ain't about winning," Rainbow Dash slung her arm around Fluttershy. "It's about having fun!"

Fluttershy hesitated. "Well, okay then. I guess I'll just try one match. Maybe I'll play as that cute gorilla."

As Applejack passed the controller to Fluttershy, Sunset leaned in to whisper into Rainbow Dash's ear. "You know, she's gonna get her butt whupped."

"Yeah, yeah, but it'll be fun to watch."

"Die, die, die!" Fluttershy screamed in sync with Reaper. The Rainbooms all watched, bug-eyed as the small girl laughed maniacally, single-handedly destroying the opposing team.

"My god, she's not gonna end up Forensic Files, is she?" Rainbow Dash breathed.

Finally noticing the silence, Fluttershy turned around post-game.

"Oh my, that was exhilarating." She giggled, then paused to see her friends slowly munching on popcorn as they stared at her. "Um, was it something I said?"

Rainbow Dash grimaced. "Maybe next time we should just play Mario Kart or something."