Marathon

I know what you're thinking. Or at least I like to pretend like I do. "You're made of metal. You're practically invincible!" is my guess. That's partially true. I'm probably pretty hard to kill. That doesn't mean that getting smacked a good thirty feet and crashing into the ground does not hurt like getting smacked said good thirty feet and crashing into aforementioned ground. True, it didn't hurt as much as it should normally, but it still hurt. Rolling over and scrambling up, I see a typical denzien of magical forests. Bat wings, scorpion tail and lion head all add up to your run-of-the-mill garden variety manticore. Is it just me or most of the time when someone pops up in Equestria somehow a manticore is involved? When the beast charged again, I used whatever small athletic skills I had and dodged to the side. I screamed inside my mind, "HELP!!!" as if someone would happen to read my mind and come to my assistance.

Quite unexpectedly, a GUI popped up in the left third of my vision that said "MJOLNIR Custom Edition HELP". Before I could read more, the manticore had charged again and tackled me. I flailed my arms about ineffectively as the ferocious beast bit me. If I could scream, I would have. Those teeth were sharp. And they were hard. And they were trying to find out what I looked like on the inside. With one bite unsuccessful the beast released and it bit again. Friggin manticore. Then next it did something that surprised me. Instead of biting me, it sniffed me. Then it licked me. It seemed rather confused and ran off. I guess that's one advantage to being made of metal. There isn't much that likes to eat you, besides dragons. And probably a few other things.

Realizing that being made of metal and who knows what all does not imply that you're invincible is rather unsettling. Thankfully, I had a friend here. A friend apparently named "MJOLNIR Custom Edition HELP". Below the title, it had a numbered list of help topics. The first one was "Read me first. Hint: OPEN TOPIC ZERO" Guessing that I was supposed to think that, I thought "Open topic zero." No effect. "Open topic zero." Nada. "OPEN TOPIC ZERO." Finally topic zero opened. Apparently thoughts are now case sensitive. Weird. How does it detect that...? Moving on before mind implodes/explodes.

The title changed to "Read me first" and the text now read as follows:

Good job kid. You found the help menu. And basic menu navigation. Yes, I'm back.

No, I didn't write this help system. It generated itself. Except for this part of course.

I just wanted to say that you SUCK AT LIFE. And probably at combat as well if you found this already.

Welcome to your MJOLNIR Custom Edition armor.

It is highly recommended that you run the command "SHOW GUI MAIN" before we proceed.

Remember, your suit is connected to your mind.

Just think in capital letters and move the suit as your body.

Any command can be found quickly with "FIND"

And most languages will be interpreted.

Being a bit of a rebel, I finished reading off the page of instructions and then ran "SHOW GUI MAIN". What appeared before me was what looked like the "Halo Reach" GUI. There were some subtle grey circles moving around on my motion detector, but that was to be expected in a forest. I noticed my shields were down. And they weren't going on. I tried "ACTIVATE SHIELDS". There was a beeping sound and a few seconds later my shields charged up. Okay so now I had some protection. Looking around the view, my focus changed to the top right corner.

What I saw there made me smile. Heck, it would probably make a bunch of people stranded in a far away place smile. At least if I didn't have the infamous Spartan poker face I would have. There was an icon for the assault rifle, fully loaded with 128 extra, and an icon for the needle rifle. Again fully loaded but with only 28 needles to spare. Oddly there was a third icon. It was for the pistol. Again 7 out of 7 bullets with 35 extra. Not exactly enough to last for a lifetime, but should be enough to last for... okay maybe 15 minutes of a solid firefight with the way I shoot? Given that I actually had these guns though, there was a funny feeling like I could somehow get more. That idea was very comforting after having been half mauled by a evil terrifying hungry manticore.

Feeling prepped and loaded, I pulled out the pistol and started shooting random stuff. The ground. More ground. That tree stump. That stump again. The ground again. That rockband guita-wait what? I saw my rockband guitar. My precious rockband guitar that I almost just shot. Not really mine but who was going to take it back? Moral of micro-story: Trigger happiness might not always be happiness. I SPRINTed over and then almost fell over myself at the sudden burst of speed. So that's what they meant by move the suit as my body. I picked up my precious then realized it wasn't even mine. For good old times and Jack Black's sake, I did the combination of frets and strums that was the GRYBO interpretation of the guitar line for The Metal. Good song. Then I realized that I could actually hear the guitar line emanating from the guitar.

ONE HOUR LATER

A certain meme very well describes this part. It's the one with the dog and "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING". It turns out that I didn't even have to play an actual song. I could just make it up as I went. There were some restrictions that I learned the hard way. Because it was powered by my mind, it could only make sound when I played. And what I played with my fingers had to match up with the sounds in my head. And the only sounds that could play would be the guitar line. No drums, vocals, background hiss or anything. Apparently I could switch to bass but that was it. Not that that wasn't fun, mind you. After playing through Another One Bites the Dust for about the 6th time, I decided it was time to see just what all the suit had.

(AN)

Blocks of suit command-response input will now use a console-type display.

Input is italicized with a preceding > and be all caps.

That may change depending on how much that hurts your/my eyes.

In all cases, it will be green. Like this computer.

And as you may have noticed earlier, AN's are RED.

Color coded text for your convenience.

And colour coded text for British convenience.

(/AN)

FIND

Not enough parameters

FIND COMMAND

Error : output too large.

FIND COMMAND HELP

HELP

FIND COMMAND ALTERNATE HELP

Nothing found.

... FINE

... TUNED?

HELP

The help window from earlier showed up again. I decided to peruse this and learn as much about my new body as I could while walking towards the nearest hill. There were other random messages from Jack Black throughout the guide. At first I thought the coolest thing I read was how besides sprint I also had active camo. Then I read that both had been lengthened. Unfortunately there was still the underlying issue of sucking at fighting regardless of shields or pseudo-invisibility, because honestly the biggest thing I ever killed was probably me accidentally killing my sister's pet gerbil. I was six, okay? How was I supposed to know that holding it like that would break its neck?

About an hour later suddenly the terrain started sloping upwards. Momentarily pulling my eyes away from obscure details such as electro-reforming plates embedded almost everywhere in the suit, the trek up said mountain started. Apparently being a suit means that I don't really get tired. Even though I still feel pain. Carefully avoiding any caves, ten minutes later the top now had an awesome looking metallic statue on it. The mountain wasn't really that big. And sprinting with the suit makes quick work of it. Looking around doesn't reveal much. Except for that thing on that mountain over there. It's rather shiny. ZOOM VIEW reveals that the shiny thing over there is none other than Canterlot. It looks... different than expected but it was still probably Canterlot.

Whether or not my life suddenly turned into a video game is irrelevant. There's Canterlot and Ponyville and who knows what all to be seen. Anything is possible. Counter-trolling Celestia. Baking, if not eating, cupcakes with Pinkie Pie. The possibilities have been DOUBLED! Nay, the possibilities are FOUR-EVER!!! HUZZAH!!! The imaginary smile is wiped off my imaginary face about half way down the mountain when a misstep and not paying attention to the ground because of recent meme generations result in falling into a cave. A cave occupied by several somethings that do not want metallic visitors.