Toying Around

Chapters

Delivery
Settling in
CHIEF.MOV
The Store
Drink
Realization

Delivery

The muted sound of the television and the hum of the Xbox 360 were the only sounds that penetrated the loneliness of the apartment. It was dark and the television screen provided the sole light source. Bright colours emanated from it and slightly splashed objects nearby with constantly changing colour.

It was night but it was hardly a peaceful one. Outside, tall skyscrapers reached for the sky whilst cars roared as they drove along the busy roads. It was a city that never slept. Much like the tiny gamer who sat in the black leather office chair.

“dun wurry guyz its gon b k. the Mast3r Cheef is h33r.” Said the figure. His voice was monotonous and strangely synthetic. The white Xbox controlled completely dwarfed him. This was no ordinary gamer: this gamer was a toy.

His online avatar jumped about wildly, complying with its controller’s instructions. The armoured soldier was in a strange place indeed. Ice had frozen many parts of the interior, some icicles even making their way to the floor. A criss-cross network of bridges stood above him. The walls and structures were dark grey and very futuristic looking. Gunfire and explosions were the norm in this arena.

A skirmish had erupted between two blue soldiers and two red ones. All their armour looked different and unique but seemed to serve no practical purpose. The reds were backed against the wall and all options for escape looked bleak.

The toy’s soldier rushed into the fray to assist his blue allies. Pressing a shoulder button on the controller, his avatar immediately tossed a light blue grenade into the fight. It stuck onto one of the other blue team mates and a high-pitched hum emitted from the device.

Followed shortly by a neon explosion.

The lifeless body of the soldier was flung into the air and landed harshly on the steel floor, like a mere rag doll being tossed about by a child. The reds took this mistake as a moment to seize the day. They pressed forward, firing their weapons. One red had a plasma projectile gun, known as a plasma rifle whilst the other had a powerful pistol known as a magnum. They worked in unison, the plasma wielding red taking down the other blue’s shields whilst the pistol holding one finished off their opponent with a headshot.

The toy meanwhile, did his best to help by firing his assault rifle madly. Unfortunately, the bullets sprayed horrifically, only a few reaching their intended targets. Although it probably didn’t help that half the time, he wasn’t even aiming at his enemies. He paused to reload but in all the chaos, had failed to notice that the pistol red had gone around the back of his soldier.

Before he could save himself, the sneaky red delivered a fatal blow to the soldier’s back, instantly killing him.

“What the fuck was that?!” Yelled a voice from the Xbox headset, which encircled the toy known as the Master Chief.

“yea u guyz r sh1t” Responded Chief.

“Such a fucking idiot...” uttered another player, who had sounded like he wanted to end this whole disaster of a game.

“no u we wud hav 1 if u guyz wernt so horseshit”

“God, you’re such a massive dick.” Said the first player.

“that swat ur mom sed 2 me last nite lolololol”

Before he could continue dishing out insults, the screen suddenly changed and all the chaos disappeared. The words on the screen told him all he needed to know.

He had been kicked from the game.

“WAT TEH FUCK?!?!!1”

Chief flipped the controlled over the edge of the chair in rage. It landed harshly on the floor, causing a loud thud. The headset made its descent afterward, pulled down by the weight of the controller.

“fucking assholes”

He sat in the chair for a while, spouting out horrendous swears.

“Chief?”

The new voice sounded similar to Chief’s, but was slightly higher in tone. The SPARTAN figure peeked up over the chair’s arm rests to check the source of the voice.

“Why you still up? It’s almost 4:00am.” Said the newcomer. He too was a toy but looked very different to the Chief.

The Chief was covered in green armour and had a gold visor on his helmet. However, years of existence had not treated him kindly. The visor was now scratched and grey duct tape was strapped around his torso, upper arms and lower legs. In addition, the visor had a tendency to fall out.

“shut teh fuck up bitch”

“You’ve been playing on the Xbox all day and now you just woke me up with your raging.”

The other toy, called Arbiter, was an alien. He was covered in armour but unlike the Chief’s, it looked grand and elegant. Arbiter’s mouth was also unique, consisting of four lip like appendages, each with razor sharp teeth. He didn’t really have feet that looked human either, no, they looked more like hooves.

The two were vastly different in looks and personality yet Arbiter was also breaking down. His helmet (that mainly covered the top of his head) had fallen off in the past and had to be glued back on. And more recently, his right hand had broken off and had to be secured to its rightful place with duct tape.

“u cant tell me wat 2 do faget” The Chief pointed accusingly at Arbiter.

“No. But I can make you.” Arbiter slowly stepped forward, closing the gap between him and Chief.

“yeh rite u cant beat me check out these gunz” Chief flexed his arms but considering he was made out of plastic, this was entirely pointless.

“Wow. I didn’t realise that playing Reach all day made you that strong.”

“Yea i r assum im built liek a beast”

“You certainly have the brain of one.”

“shut teh fuck up @ least im not a drunk”

Despite the rude way in which Chief said his insult, it was a true statement nonetheless. Arbiter’s deteriorating state had made him question life and whether or not he really mattered. Having Chief around only added to the problem. Therefore, he saw the booze as the only way to get by and would spend many a night with a bottle of alcohol.

“hows teh hedaches arbiter? how r they?” Chief mocked.

Arbiter thought about punching the Chief right there and then but sense told him that wouldn’t do anyone any good. He merely turned around and walked away. “Just get some rest.” He wasn’t in the mood for arguing; far too tired.

He made the trek back to the bed. The apartment was owned by a man named Jon but he was hardly around anymore. Although strangely, he would still get the occasional package for him delivered here.

The toy’s living quarters had once seemed so big but they both soon became tired with the same surroundings. Arbiter in particular felt increasingly trapped inside an asylum.

He eventually made it to the bed and used the hanging bed sheets to climb up onto the mattress. One positive about getting used to the living space was that menial tasks for a human no longer felt like immense feats of strength to the toys.

The double bed was simple but felt extremely comfy to the Arbiter. He always slept here and would sometimes sleep to the sound of peaceful music from headphones. The alien toy pulled the covers over him and rested his head on the white pillow. He thought he had a chance of living a happy life once and that was when he was in love. Her name was Claire and she was a perfectly normal human being. They met up by chance in a game on Halo 3 and quickly became friends. Slowly but surely, Arbiter realised that he loved this woman.

But complications arose, as they always do in the game of love. She was planned to marry Trent Donnovich, CEO of the company Bad Games. The relationship seemed loving enough and Arbiter let nature take its course. However, he discovered that Trent was having an affair and as a result, Arbiter and Chief sabotaged their wedding. Of course, they didn’t do so in person; the ceremony was hosted in Halo: Reach.

Claire broke up with Trent and Arbiter saw this as an opportunity to move in. Unfortunately, she was targeted by hackers who prevented her from using any form of internet access.

Yet, perhaps by fate’s will, she reappeared on the game. During her offline time though, she had met someone else, which meant that so could no longer go online as much as she used to. After a final farewell, she went offline. Arbiter hadn't talked to her since. Ever since she left his life, he felt horribly empty. But why didn’t he decide to end his life? Was a part of him still fighting? Or perhaps it was what Claire said...

He had little time to think about this, as slumber soon swept over him, lulling him to sleep.

~~~

The toast popped out of the toaster, ready to be spread. Chief climbed the toaster and threw the two slices of toast onto a plain, white plate nearby. Oddly enough, the toys could eat. Arbiter often questioned how they could eat or even exist like this but Chief was happy to wallow in his own world of ignorance.

Hopping down from the toaster, Chief made his way to an open jar of chocolate spread. “chocolate spred on toast om nom nom”

He grabbed a knife and climbed to the top of the jar. Balancing carefully, he stuck the knife inside, coating it with the sweet substance. He pulled it back out and covered the toast with chocolate.

Once his meal was ready, he began to tuck in. Each slice was bigger than him but sometimes, Chief’s hunger knew no bounds. He was alone in his thoughts, which were mostly devices used to inflate his ego.

“Morning.” Said Arbiter, who had just finished eating some oatmeal cereal at the other end of the kitchen counter.

“hey” Chief replied. “arbiter y u always eat boring crap?”

“Oatmeal isn’t boring.”

“yes it is it tastes liek cardpoard”

“It just tastes plainer than chocolate.”

“yeh so its crap but i think only some faget liek u wud eat it”

“It helps me awaken.” Arbiter responded, walking away and making his way down to the kitchen floor. Mornings usually started like this. They would eat and then Chief would insult Arbiter somehow.

There was one extra resident in the apartment. He wasn’t a toy but he was arguably as special as Arbiter and Chief were. He was the only one in the building that Arbiter got along with, though Chief couldn’t say the same.

Arbiter hurried to the Xbox. If he was quick, he could secure it before Chief dominated it for the day. However, he bumped into something as he turned the corner around the wall that separated the hall from the ‘gaming room’.

“Aah!” Arbiter quickly stepped back but calmed down once he say who he had stumbled into. “Hey Greg.”

Greg was a spider and although his appearance repulsed both Arbiter and Chief, he was very friendly. He couldn’t talk though, so he always carried post-it notes and a pen around with him.

“How are you?” Arbiter asked.

Greg grabbed his pen and a piece of paper and began to scribble down his words. Im good :) How are you?

“I’m alright.” Arbiter answered. “Was just going to play on the Xbox actually.”

“2 slow loser” Said a sprinting Chief, bread crumbs were all over him. He raced past the two and made his way to the chair.

Sorry, I slowed you down. :( Greg wrote.

“It’s fine. He would’ve bitched at me until I got off anyway. How about we play Scrabble?”

Sure thing :3

The pair began to make their way to the ‘Scrabble Corner’. The board was exactly how it was last time they played; scattered letters all around thanks to Chief. They both began to pick up the letters and put them back in their rightful place.

Greg’s intellect rivalled Arbiter’s, hence why they played Scrabble a lot. The Chief never gave Greg much attention but when he did, he would always call him ugly. Arbiter thought he was repulsive to look at too but he blamed this judgement due to his arachnophobia. Greg was slowly helping him get over it though.

Once the game was set up, they began. It was always a silent affair, but the silence was a comfortable one. The win/lose ratio of the two was pretty much equal with each other. Arbiter tried to get Chief to play Scrabble once. It ended in disaster and a host of curse words on the board.

Meanwhile, Chief was playing his second favourite game: Halo Reach. His favourite was Halo 4 which hadn’t even been released yet.

Arbiter was a skilled gamer (and so was Greg). Chief was not. Still, Arbiter had helped him to improve once and it affected Chief’s skill for the better. Yet it couldn’t disguise the fact that all of his kill/death ratios were below 0.

Time passed and the Scrabble board filled up with letters. Greg was just finishing his move, combing new letters with old to create a new word.

“Twilight. Not bad.” Arbiter commented.

Thanks

“You don’t mind Chief’s insults, right?” Arbiter looked at Greg.

Greg’s pen danced across the paper.

I just learn to block him out.

“Yeah. I try doing that. Emphasis on the word ‘try’.”

At least you’re not like him.

“I suppose. Oh, my move. Sorry.”

Np ;)

Arbiter began to place more pieces on the board. Greg appeared to have the upper hand this time. Not that Arbiter minded; Chief was the sore loser in this group.

The sounds of gunfire and death screams from the television clashed with the peaceful atmosphere of the Scrabble match, to the point where it became unbearable.

Arbiter got up and walked over to the chair. “Turn it down a bit Chief.”

“cant u see im busy here dumbass”

“Fine I’ll do it then.”

“don’t u dare”

“Why not?”

“i need it 2 be loud so it is moar epic”

“Oh sorry, I forgot that in your old age, you’re getting deaf.”

“how can i be old when im this good at halo? only old peeple suck at games”

Arbiter looked at the screen. The Chief had just got headshotted by a player wielding a rifle. “Yeah, you took that bullet pretty well.”

“stfu he was using haxxorz liek a cowerd” Chief leaned closer to the microphone on the headset. “nice haxx asshole.”

“I’m not using hacks. You’re just shit.” Responded the player.

“lol no ur mom’s full of it”

“How original. Another ‘mom’ joke.” Arbiter uttered. He picked up the TV remote from the floor and began to turn the volume down.

“oh now ur gonna get it arbiter. after this game ill kik ur ass”

“I’d like to see you try.” Arbiter said, before returning back to the Scrabble board.

That’s better, thanks. :)

“No problem.” Replied Arbiter, who finished his move.

The sounds from the TV soon became a lot quieter but this went unnoticed by the toy and the spider.

“Looks like you wi-“ he was interrupted by a swift punch to the face that sent him reeling to the floor. “Aaah! Fuck!”

Chief stood triumphantly above Arbiter. “told u id kick ur ass”

“What the fuck?!” Arbiter rubbed the impact area, attempting to soothe the pain.

Yeah, what the hell Chief? >:|

Chief turned to face Greg. “stfu no 1 cares wat u think u ugly piece of crap”

"That’s it, I’ve had enough!”

“too late slowpoke imma go in ma roflcopter SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI” Chief flailed his arms in the air and ran off.

Arbiter slowly got up and was prepared to pursue his attacker but he found himself blocked by Greg.

It’s not worth it.

“You’re right.” He looked to the game board. “Congratulations on winning.”

Thanks :D

“Let’s clear up this time.”

And with that, the pair got to work. The letter pieces were put back in the black pouch that came with the game and the board was folded up and placed in the box. Just as they finished, they heard a knocking on the door.

Instinctively, Arbiter peered at the gateway to the outside world. “Who could that be?”

“Delivery!” came a muffled voice from the door.

Arbiter motioned for Greg to follow him to the door. Once they arrived, Greg knew what to do. He climbed up to the letterbox and began to write:

Leave it outside please.

With his note completed, he sent it through the opening. The toy’s strange voices attracted enough attention on Xbox live so they didn’t need anyone outside their door hearing them. Their lives were a secret to everyone bar a few: Claire was one of them.

“Uh...okay then. I’ll need you to sign this then sir.” The deliverer definitely sounded male. He slipped in a sheet of paper with a few details about the package and a place to write a signature. Greg didn’t bother to read it all and wrote Jon’s signature down; he had learnt to copy it a while ago. Once completed, he sent it back through the letterbox.

“Cheers. Have a good day.”

The two waited for the courier to leave. When they couldn’t hear any more footsteps, Greg shot a strand of web at the door knob and used it as a bridge to get across. Greg was slightly bigger than the toys, so he could turn the knob with relative ease.

Once the door gracefully swung open, Arbiter began to step outside. In front of him was a small cardboard box with no unique labels on it.

He shivered. It was always scary venturing outside the confines of the apartment. Someone could spot him and...It didn’t bear thinking about.

With Greg’s help, Arbiter hurriedly pushed the box inside the apartment and closed the door shut.

“Phew.” He stared at the package. “Best not open it.”

Tell that to Chief. : /

“Point taken. We better hide it then.”

Chief thought he owned the whole apartment and everything in it, going as far to steal Jon’s credit card and use to purchase items off the internet.

Using all of their strength, the two pushed the box to a closet and hid it inside. They were other, opened boxes, full of various items and junk, but they figured Chief wouldn’t be able to tell something new was inside. With their job done, the two could relax.

“How about a game of cards?”

~~~

Another night, another round of losses for Chief. He had played several big team battle matches and not even the assistance of his team mates could spare him from failure.

“fuck this shit” he said, quitting his current game. “i need sum beer: teh stuff of gods”

He jumped off the chair, landing firmly on his two feet. The light from the TV screen allowed him to see his close surroundings but the rest of the apartment remained shrouded in darkness. The menu screen of the game didn’t provide much sound so the whole place became deathly quiet.

Once again, Chief was the only one awake. Arbiter was in bed and Greg was in a maze of webs in an unknown section of the apartment.

Chief headed to the kitchen, not caring about the noise he made (which wasn’t much). He slowed down as he entered darker territory, although he did have most of the apartment mapped out in his head.

He was crossing the hallway when he froze. Something somewhere had made a sound.

“arbiter?” Chief looked around. No response.

“greg if this is u i swear 2 god ill stuff ur webs up ur ass” Again, no response.

He was about to resume walking but he heard the noise again. Someone was definitely up and about.

He began rushing in a panic to the kitchen. He climbed the cabinets and grabbed his trusty weapon; a large kitchen knife. With the knife firmly in his grip, he returned to the hall.

“come out fucker” he taunted, constantly looking about.

He paused again. He could’ve sworn he saw that closet door open...

Reluctantly he crept towards it, his knife at the ready. He peered through the gap. The closet was the darkest part of the apartment. It was where many of Jon’s possessions were abandoned. It was alright to venture in during the day but now it was completely terrifying.

He slunk closer inside. The darkness was almost unnatural. He started to tremble slightly.

“Um, hell-“

“aah fuck!!1!” Chief instantly dropped his knife and ran out of the closet. In the lack of light and his terror, he couldn’t see the source of the noise in front of him and bumped into it.

“ow!” He landed straight onto his ass and looked up at the figure in front of him. He couldn’t make it out completely but it had four limbs, which all lacked feet at the ends. It also had a horn protruding from its head.

“fuck fuck fuck demon fuuuuuuuck!” Chief ran for his life.

“Wait I’m not-“

Chief couldn’t hear the rest of the newcomer’s sentence; he was going at such a speed that he had already vanished from its sight. He hid himself from sight, giving him time to regain his composure.

That’s when he realized that he had left the knife to the mercy of the demon. He couldn’t let the demon wield a weapon!

Drawing from his over inflated ego, he built up courage for himself. This was his chance to shine and prove to Arbiter that it wasn't a lazy idiot. “this world n33ds a her0. this world n33ds a Mast3r Cheef.”

He heroically sprinted back to the closet. Upon arriving, the demon had gone but the knife was still there. He quickly picked it up and left the closet once more, closing it behind him.

“Oh you’re ba-“

Chief swung towards the direction of the sound but all the blade met was soft carpet.

“Aah! What are you, crazy?!”

“no”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“i r teh Mast3r Cheef.”

“The what?! Aah!” The figure jumped out of the way as Chief swung his knife once more.

“fucks sake st0p moving!!1!” He swung again and again, each time missing.

“Just stop it and hear me out!”

“ill hear u in hell”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”

“What the fuck is going on?!”

Greg switched on the hallway light and crawled down the floor. Arbiter raced to the scene, peering at the demon.

It wasn’t a demon at all. Stood before Chief, Arbiter and Greg was a creature unlike any they had seen before. It had long, very dark violet hair with strips of pink and lighter purple descending from its head. It also had a tail, with the same colour. Its skin was purple in colour and near its bottom end it had a picture of what could only be described as a sparkle. Its eyes were big and friendly looking, with long eyelashes. It basically looked like a cartoon pony.

“Um...hi there!” Her voice definitely sounded feminine.

Arbiter stood there, speechless at the site whilst Greg couldn’t find the strength to write anything.

“WTF”

Settling in

“So er...I’m Twilight Sparkle. Who are you?” The pony said, peering at the toys and spider in front of her.

“wtf is a gay pony d0ing here?! this is horseshit, litreal horseshit”

Arbiter turned to Chief. “Yes, she is made entirely of her own shit.” He sighed and looked at Twilight. “I must apologize for his behaviour. His brain is as thick as his armor. I’m the Arbiter and this is Greg.” He pointed at the spider.

Greg began to scribble onto a post-it note.

Hi there :) Nice to meet ya

Twilight couldn’t help but wince at the sight of the spider’s loathsome appearance.

“and im teh Mast3r Cheef and i r teh best no cont3st” Chief began to flex his plastic arms and make a variety of poses, designed to show off.

“He’s the best at pissing everyone off, so try your best to ignore him.”

“stfu split-lip dont u start turnin peeps against me”

“Oh don’t worry; you already made a big impression on me with your knife.” Twilight said.

“oh i can c were this is going every1 hate teh Cheef 4 no reason” He began to walk away from the trio. “see ya asswholes ill be on teh Xbawx”

“No surprise there.”

“Xbawx?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“Xbox actually. It’s a gaming console that Chief plays practically all day.”

Twilight kept her eyes on Arbiter nodding and slowly shuffling away from Greg.

“I was afraid of him too but he’s a nice guy. Give him a chance.”

Twilight slowly turned his head to look at Greg. He started to write once more in response.

I hope we can be friends :D

“See?”

“You seem nicer than that Chief so I guess we can be friends.” Twilight gave Greg a smile, although it was slightly forced.

“How was the journey?”

“Journey?” Twilight seemed genuinely mystified. “What journey?”

“What do you mean?”

“I just woke up in that box. I don’t recall any details of what happened before I was inside.”

Arbiter and Greg exchanged a quick glance.

“Well anyway, it’s late. I suppose you’ll want a place to sleep and luckily the bed I rest in is huge.” Arbiter looked at Greg. “Goodnight Greg, sleep well.”

Nighty you two. And welcome, Twilight, it’s good to meet you :3

"You too Greg!" Twilight waved at the the arachnid as he started to crawl his way to his hidden, webbed domain to resume his slumber.

“Follow me, Twilight.” Arbiter began walking back to the giant bed, with Twilight following close behind. The lights hadn’t been switched off yet; clearly Greg was waiting for the pair to get settled.

“So how much do you know?”

“About what?” Twilight mused.

“Everything.”

“I know that I am a toy and the fact that this world is dominated by humans.” Twilight stated it like fact, without any emotion behind it.

“That saves a lot of explaining then.”

Before long, the two had arrived at the bed. Arbiter began using the bed sheets to climb himself up. Twilight quickly followed suit but found it to be a very hard exercise. By the time she had gotten up, she was visibly worn out.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah...just fine...give me a moment to recuperate.” The unicorn said through heavy breaths.

“You’re panting.”

“Uh-huh...don’t you?”

“No.”

Twilight sat on her flank and began to slow her breathing to a normal rate. Arbiter peered at her hooves, baffled.

“How did you even get up with hooves?”

Twilight looked at her forehooves and then at the Arbiter before explaining. “I just did.”

“I guess I should stop questioning ourselves. All logic fucked off the moment we were sentient."

Once Twilight had fully recovered, Arbiter led her to his sleeping area on the bed. It was on the right side, closest to the way they had gotten up so it was a very short walk there. However, cushions had obscured it from view somewhat. The amount of folds and creases in the area was evidence enough to Twilight that this was the Arbiter’s spot.

The pathetic journey took longer than expected, as Twilight was having difficult traversing the mattress. So lost her balance as her hooves sunk into the bed.

“There’s plenty of space. So go ahead and pick a place.”

Twilight giggled lightly.

“What?”

“You rhymed, that’s all.”

Arbiter paused for a moment. “Oh yeah, so I did. Haha.” He then looked down, becoming silent for a moment. “It’s a shame you arrived in this apartment.”

“What do you mean?”

“Most of the time, you can cut the tension with a knife. Chief is an absolutely toxic being, as you might have noticed already. Greg’s the nicest one here and he is cursed with a monstrous appearance.”

Twilight shifted about uncomfortably. Her slight movements were enough to warp the mattress to the extent where Arbiter could notice.

“I’m sorry. That’s my main fault: I’m too blunt. Too cynical. Anyway, I need sleep.” He began to settle down into position, ready to continue his sleep.

“Okay Arbiter. Goodnight.” Twilight said, making her way to the far left of the bed.

“Night Twilight.”

“You did it again.” She smirked.

“So I did.”

Twilight slowly lay down on the bed, sinking slightly into the mattress. It was very comfortable, unlike the packaging she woke up in.

The moment Twilight settled down, the lights went out.

~~~

“Hello?! Anypony there?!” Twilight screamed. She was trapped in pitch darkness and could barely move.

Something was surrounding her, encasing her like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Only she wasn’t peacefully resting.

“Please?! Someone, anyone, help! I’m trapped!” She lashed out wildly but only struck something cold and tough.

She had just awoken in this nightmarish place. Only it wasn’t like waking from a peaceful slumber. It was more like being brought back violently from death itself.

From the second she was conscious, information flooded her mind. It told her that she was meant to be an inanimate object and that this world was ruled by humans. Were they responsible for this madness?

She kicked madly once more. No luck. Then she realised she had a horn. Maybe if she attacked hard enough...

She head butted the walls of her prison. She tried again. And again. Each attempt was met by failure.

If she wasn’t panicking now, she definitely was at this point. She could feel her eyes beginning to water and she felt lukewarm tears drip down her cheeks.

But if she was a toy, how could she cry?

Questions without answers bombarded her mind. Where was she? Why was she going? Why was she alive?

She kept flailing at the barriers but nothing seemed to work.

“Please! I’m so scared, someone free me! I’m begging you!”

Twilight suddenly woke up and was breathing heavily. She shivered, attempting to calm herself down. It was unfortunate that she had to recall her first few moments of life in that manner.

She spread her limbs out, sighing with relief. She could move about again. Daylight was also trying to shine through the curtains of the bedroom window.

She looked to her side. Arbiter was lying there, asleep. He looked so lifeless in comparison to her. Why was that?

Maybe it was just the way they were both made. All toys were different after all.

She raised herself and crept past the Arbiter carefully. As she reached the edge of the bed, she stared down at the floor. She couldn’t make that jump without injury. Therefore, she slid down using the hanging bed sheets.

She opened the bedroom door (another struggle for her) and began to explore her surroundings. The television was on, flashing bright images and emitting strange sounds. It caught her eye and her curiosity so she trotted over to the chair and began the long climb up.

When she got up, she saw Chief sat with the Xbox controller on his lap, enjoying his favourite pastime. He was surrounded with bread crumbs and the leftover crust of toast lay to his left.

“So this is the Xbox.” Twilight had just climbed her way up onto the chair and was staring at the dauntingly big television screen.

“yeh” Chief said simply. He was far too focused on the current game he was taking part in.

“What game is this then?” Twilight asked.

“Halo reech”

“What’s the objective?”

“cant u c u dumb whore horse??”

“Alright alright, calm down. Sorry.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

After a period of silence from the pair, the game had ended. Chief’s team had lost embarrassingly; the enemy had more than double their score.

“WTF Y DOES BUNGIE ALWAYZ PEAR ME UP WITH R3TARDS??!!1!” He slammed a button on the controller, declining an offer to search for another match.

“You seem to be missing your shots a lot. Maybe if you-“

“THATS CUZ THEY HAVE HAXX SO THEY MOVE ARUND LIEK RETARDS SO I CANT HIT A GODDAMN THING!!!” He shook around violently.

“Well yes, that is part of the problem, it seems.” Twilight said.

Chief suddenly (and perhaps surprisingly) calmed down and began to stare at Twilight.

“...what?” She began to back off a little.

Suddenly, Chief leapt into action and tackled Twilight to the ground. Being almost eight inches tall, he easily overpowered the six inch pony. She landed onto her back and was too shocked to defend herself. The toy merely peered at her some more.

“wtf theres nothing there”

“Eh?” Twilight tilted her head and stared at herself.

“WHAT TEH FUCK IS THIS HORSESHIT TEH ONLY LADAY H3RE AND I CANT EVEN FUCK HER IF IM DESPERET!1!!1!!!”

Twilight snorted angrily and bucked Chief away with her hind legs. The force of the kick was enough to send Chief fly into the back of the chair.

“oooooooooow”

Twilight quickly got back up. “Are you psychotic or something?!” She yelled.

Chief rubbed his chest, which was where the kick had impacted. “lol don’t wurry i wuldnt fuck u ever ever ever ever”

“Chief, what did you do this time?” Arbiter had now arrived, standing next to Twilight.

“she kiked me reeeeally hard arbiter”

“Only because he tackled me!”

“It hasn’t even been twenty four hours yet since she arrived and already you’re trying to fuck the only woman in the apartment.”

“y r u taking her side arbiter??? dont u remember teh timez we shared arbiter? lol remember arbiter?”

Arbiter went quiet for a few moments, looking away, before finally speaking again. “Exactly. Now apologise.”

“...”

“Apologise.”

“...”

“Chief?”

“fuck no and fuck u both” Chief said, jumping off the chair and going to the bathroom.

“Sigh.”

“What is wrong with him?” Twilight asked, sounding disgusted.

“I don’t know Twilight. I don’t know.” Arbiter stared at the television screen, then looked at Twilight. “Do you want a go?”

“I’m content with watching, thanks. Hopefully you’re better at this than Chief.”

“I’m far superior to him.”

Meanwhile, Chief had locked himself in the bathroom. The floor was covered in small, square brown tiles and the walls were a plain white. A standard toilet was opposite the door and next to the toilet was a cabinet with a sink on top. To the far right of the room and toilet was the bath.

Chief was sat on the edge of the toilet, his legs dangling in the air. The whole room was quiet.

A small post-it note then slid under the door.

You okay?

“yeh now fuck off u ugly skank"

You sure? We can talk about it.

“lol no thanks dr.phil now piss off and eat a fly fuckface”

Fine.

“good”

No other notes passed through the door.

“greg?”

There was no response.

~~~

There was a calm, casual atmosphere in Sword Base. It was an asymmetrical map with several glass walkways and bridges forming a canopy above the floor. The outward walls of the two sides were both a metallic grey but the insides were mainly white. The main difference in color between them was the fact that one side had red ambient lighting and the other had blue.

On the ground were two, shallow pools of water. The smaller one had a golden, curved structure with a hole in the middle; barely passable for art. The other body of water held something a lot more interesting; an eye striking piece of alien tech that stuck out like a sore thumb. The circular base of it was purple and in the middle was a glowing blue energy that floated endlessly. This was a gravity lift, designed to launch users high into the air.

The lighting was bright, largely in part due to the huge window that loomed at one end of the wall of the space in between the sides. There was also small, white lights adorning the bases of the side walls.

Two SPARTANs were stood chatting to one another next to the gravity lift. One was colored red with purple adorning his lower legs and arms. The other was colored in solely dark grey but unlike the other, he had a clean silver vision on his helmet instead of the dull yellow standard one. The red soldier had grenades adorning his lower torso and had two big conical shaped shoulder pads, one of which had a large knife on. The grey SPARTAN had many pouches on his chest armor and big, cuboid knee pads.

“So us two were there, right, pinned against the wall with these two blue fuckers charging towards us.” Said the grey SPARTAN.

“Don’t be a dick and leave a dramatic pause. Get on with the story.” The red sighed.

“Fine fine. Anyway, so there we were. I thought my amazing kill streak was about to be ruined until this third blue bitch comes jumping towards us all. He chucks a sticky and it lands on one of the other blues, who then runs into the other and blows up along with him!” The grey laughed smugly.

“Did you thank the final blue?” The red asked, somewhat sarcastically.

“Fuck no, dude. Took him down easily. I couldn’t tell if he was trolling or if he was just a fucktard.”

“Heh, probably the latter. I swear half the people who play this game play with their butt cheeks or something. ” The red snickered.

“They’d probably improve if they did that.”

“Hey guys.” Said a much younger sounding voice than the other two, who were deep and masculine. His armor was very basic in comparison to the others and it was coloured turquoise and green.

The red and grey turned to inspect the new player.

“How old are you?” The black asked, after a short moment of silence.

“Uh, thirteen. Why do you ask?” Answered the teen.

“Shit, they let any babies play these days.” The red turned to the black.

“You said it. Did you even read the age rating on the game cover you retard?”

“Well yeah but that’s only a guideline really.” The thirteen year old said.

“No it’s not. It’s to prevent immature shitheads like you from ruining the game.” The red said coldly.

“If you bothered to notice, I’ve been polite to you all the time we’ve talked.”

“Oh, I heard his voice tremble a bit there. I think he’s gonna cry.” The black scoffed.

“Then he’ll get his mom to scold us!” The red added, joining in with the laughter.

“Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?” An elite wearing the sangheili general armor approached the group. The armor was gold and certainly impressive. His helmet had two big crests reaching towards the sky and a big round horn protruded just above the alien’s face.

“Yeah we do. This kid is pissing us off. I swear, his kind shouldn’t be allowed to play.” Said the grey.

“’His kind’? That’s rather derogatory, don’t you think?” The elite remarked. His voice, like the harassing pair, was deep and masculine but he pronounced his words more clearly.

“Who invited the dictionary? Jesus, stop busting our balls.” The red groaned.

“Oh, I’ll do more than that if you keep on harassing the teen.”

“Yeah, like what?” The grey mused. The teenager stayed silent, merely looking on.

“Like this.” The elite quickly exchanged his plasma pistol for an energy sword. As its name implied, the blade in question wasn’t made out of steel but of pure energy that sparkled a fantastic blue. Two thin blades ran parallel to each other, getting thinner at the top. The hilt was very simple: merely a metal rod with grooves for where digits could grip onto and small holes on the side where the blade spawned from.

Before the pair could do anything, the elite immediately lunged forward and swiped his sword upward. The sword’s ethereal blade sliced into the red’s chest, blood flying out of it. His lifeless body fell to the floor.

“Oh crap.” Squeaked the grey. He quickly ran into the gravity lift, launching him into the air. He landed safely on the highest walkway. He then turned and headed towards the red side, entering a room. It was long and narrow, with the end leading to an open vent and balcony. Near the entrance was a staircase leading to a lower level.

Undeterred by this sudden action, the elite followed the soldier’s movements. Entering the room, he saw no visible sign of the enemy but his radar told him that he was below him, on the lower room.

He slowly walked down the stairs and jumped down off the side of them, turning in the air to meet his opponent.

The floor of this room was pale red and appeared to be tiled. In the center was a long white table with several holographic monitors.

The target was backed into a corner and presented easy pickings for the elite. The alien rushed up to him ruthlessly, ready to strike.

But the grey warrior had plans of his own. He had picked up a new weapon: a shotgun. He fired it at the elite and sidestepped the incoming strike. The elite’s armor flashed a bright blue, evidence of his energy shields vanishing; he was vulnerable.

The elite suddenly rolled to the side, just barely dodging another bullet. The grey fired another shot but again, the elite dived out of harm’s way.

Having enough of this, the target headed to the walkway that was to his left. If he was fast enough, he could place another ambush.

The elite followed, hot in pursuit. He managed to catch the enemy jumping off the side. He quickly lobbed a sticky grenade towards his mark.

Success.

The grey could hear the infamous hum that the grenade made before exploding.

“Ah crap.” He wailed again.

The grenade detonated, instantly killing its host. The grey’s body dropped to the floor, right in front of the stunned turquoise player. The elite landed on top of the corpse shortly after.

Sure, the two bullies would respawn but a quick check on the score board showed that two players, B1tchhoard3r and Sexxyfuck1nbeast, had left the game. Clearly the elite’s combat prowess had proved an effective deterrent.

“Uh…thanks I guess.” The turquoise said, a little baffled at the situation.

“No problem. It’s what I do.” The elite responded.

“That’s the point of this game though, killing people.” The turquoise soldier joked, snickering.

“True. But what I meant was dealing with trolls.”

“TOSERS already does that though. I was one of them, actually.”

The Terms of Service Enforcement/Response Squad (TOSERS) was effectively a policing organisation for Halo: Reach. They dealt with those who ruined other’s online gaming experience, mainly by banning the offenders. There were five ranks in the organisation and those at the top were given special hacks designed to make them a formidable banning force. Despite this power, they generally used their power responsibly.

Unfortunately, they were not popular with everyone. Their strongest opposition came in the form of a clan of hackers known as Chaos Theosis. The group tormented TOSERS and also had the power to ban players. At their height of power, they were well on the way to banning every player on the network. Unlike TOSERS, their hacks also banned their victims from Xbox Live itself.

Thankfully, they were all vanquished and all those that they had banned had their bands lifted. Since that incident, TOSERS had been reformed and been made a smaller more streamlined organisation where only the best players could take part in. Their current influence though, was minor.

“TOSERS eh? Tell me, did you leave because you found them to be useless slackers?” The elite asked.

“No, they booted me. They needed reforming and I wasn’t a part of that plan. Still, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, eh?”

“Yes.” The elite paused. “What’s your name?”

“Kevin. Yours?”

Kevin was a good apple in a truck load of rotten ones. Most children his age were crudely offensive and had a massive amount of self-entitlement. Yet Kevin was proof that you shouldn’t judge someone by their age.

“Let me tell you something Kevin. TOSERS are useless. The only way to deal with a troll is to give them a taste of their medicine. Just like what I did now.” The elite sounded stern in his judgement.

“I’m not sure that’s a good rationale.”

“Believe me, it works. Now I must say farewell. Until next time, Kevin.”

Before Kevin could say goodbye, TheEliteVindicator had left the game.

~~~

The Arbiter stood on a wooden desk where a computer monitor, black keyboard and mouse were located. He had left Twilight to play a Firefight game on Halo: Reach. This was a mode that presented the player with waves of computer controlled enemies and was a good start for Twilight to learn the ropes.

Arbiter and Greg had watched Twilight play her first match and were impressed at her skills. She wasn’t perfect but she was certainly better than Chief. Arbiter put this down to the fact that she actually had intelligence and utilised it; she took cover, was patience whilst aiming and knew when to fall back from enemies. Of course, fighting against actual players was a whole different kettle of fish.

The toy was currently looking up My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic on the internet. He had heard of the brand before but never felt the need to look it up before.

He had discovered that Twilight Sparkle was the main character in the show and was joined by five other important protagonists. It didn’t really interest him, but he thought it may help to have some background information on the show.

What intrigued him the most was the fact that a large number of adult men watched the show: bronies.

“Either Jon’s a brony or Twilight was sent the wrong address.” He said to himself.

Arbiter looked to his right. There were a couple of tissues, just waiting to be used by the Chief.

“Scratch that, she was definitely sent to the wrong place.”

A sudden pop up on the monitor threw him off his train of thought.

Claire has come online.

In his reading of ponies, he had forgotten that he had signed onto Window’s messenger. He clicked on the tab and the service opened up, replacing the web page. He stared at Claire’s name. He could talk to her right now if he wanted to. He hadn’t done so in a while...

“I can’t.”

He closed the tab and resumed his search on ponies.

“Woohoo!” Twilight shouted from the chair.

Arbiter looked at the spider and pony then back at the computer screen. He exited the web program and switched off the monitor. He had decided he had done enough research; Twilight hadn’t mentioned the program so far anyway.

“I’m back.” He announced as he got onto the chair.

“Welcome back Arbiter.” Twilight said, eyes slightly narrowed. She looked deadly determined, which surprised the Arbiter slightly. If Chief could exhibit facial expressions, Arbiter was sure he’d wear the same frown that Twilight had.

It had only occurred to Arbiter now that Twilight was a far superior being to him and Chief. For one, she could make exceedingly detailed facial expressions for a toy. Her movements were also more fluid than the Arbiter’s or Chief’s. She would’ve looked like a being of flesh and bone were it not for her synthetic looking hair and her marshmallow like skin.

wb mate :)

“Thanks. How’s she doing Greg?”

Better than the Chief by far ;)

“Well that’s not very hard, to be fair.”

Twilight ignored Arbiter’s voice, far too in the zone. Her avatar (a female SPARTAN with basic, purple armor) was busy firing bullets into the heads of hapless aliens as they stumbled towards her.

“Despite the fact that I trained Chief, he’s still quite bad.”

“Aaaah!” Twilight screamed as her soldier got smacked aside by a Sangheili, instantly killing her. Luckily she still had six lives, out of ten.

“You still have a lot to learn.”

“Yes. And I will learn it!”

Arbiter and Greg exchanged looks. Even if Arbiter had just learnt that Twilight was very studious in the show, it still took him aback that a pony would even be playing a war game in the first place. That said, Chief wasn’t exactly the embodiment of the character he was meant to be.

Eventually, Twilight had completed the game and the screen now showed the menu.

“Well, that was quite enjoyable.” She commented. “I can see why you all play this Xbox so much.”

“Chief only plays Halo. But me and Greg get the chance to play other games from time to time.”

“Tell me, is it hard living with Chief?”

“It’s certainly a struggle.”

You said it lol

“Chief has his moments though.”

Twilight blinked. “He does?”

“Yeah.”

“I find that hard to believe based from what I have seen.” Twilight sighed.

“I don’t blame you.” Arbiter scanned the room. “Speaking of the devil, where is he?”

He’s locked himself in the bathroom : / says he’s fine though.

Arbiter shook his head softly. “I better talk to him then, before he does something stupid.” Arbiter then, slightly reluctantly, made his way to the bathroom.

CHIEF.MOV

Arbiter swung open the bathroom. His first sight was the toilet, which was absence of Chief. Unless he was hiding in the bowl, which Arbiter didn’t think Chief would be in.

Peering around the room, he eventually could see Chief riding on a rubber duck in the sink, full of water.

He froze, staring at the sight. A heavy, awkward silence hung in the air.

“hi”

“What am I looking at?” Arbiter managed to say.

“wat does it look like mothaducka lol”

“Motherducker. How witty.” he climbed up the cabinet and stood next to the ‘pool’. “Are you being a pirate again?”

“silly arbiter piretes dont ride ducks”

“That may be true but it wouldn’t surprise me if you were pretending to be one.”

“im not a 4 yr old”

“No. You act more like a three year old.”

“stfu whorsefucker”

Arbiter could see a piece of paper with writing on it in the corner of his eye. He turned and approached it, staring at the drawings on it.

They were crudely done in black felt tip pen. It was a picture of Arbiter and Twilight and their bodies were awfully out of proportion. A small penis jutted from Arbiter’s crotch. It was arguably the only thing that was drawn well; Chief had a knack for drawing dicks but hardly anything else. Arbiter also had a visibly (but badly done) sad face and was talking in a speech bubble:

“theres nowere 2 fit it in :(“

Arbiter moved his eyes away from the grotesque figure that only vaguely resembled him. He focused onto the picture of Twilight now.

None of her limbs were the same size as another and no attention had been paid to her mane and tail. Her horn was also curved slightly. She had dots for eyes and her mouth was wide open as she was speaking.

“no worries arbiturd i can stik my horn up ur ass”

Arbiter looked away from the cartoon and stared at Chief.

“do u like it? rofl”

“It’s genius. I can really feel how the artist was feeling when he drew it.”

“oh rly?” Chief titled his head to the side slightly.

“Yeah. I can feel his stupidity. I think half of my brain cells just died from looking at it.”

“shut it fuckface u don’t apreciate troo art” Chief pointed objectively at his criticiser.

“If this is true art then I don’t want to appreciate it. Twilight looks like an inbred monstrosity.”

Chief raised his arms in self-praise. “exactli wat i was aiming 4”

“Right.” Arbiter picked up the paper and began walking to the toilet. “I’m putting this where it belongs.”

“on teh fridge?”

“No.” Arbiter dropped the paper into the open toilet bowl. It floated slowly towards its inevitable fate.

“noooooooooooooooo” Chief wailed.

Eventually the paper made contact with the water and absorbed the liquid, forever running Chief’s work. Arbiter then jumped onto the toilet handle, forcing the equipment to flush the paper away to the sewers.

“I’m sure the rats will appreciate it.” Arbiter deftly jumped onto the toilet seat lid and then onto the floor.

“and the alllygatorz” Chief got off his duck and out of the sink.

“Yes. Maybe even the teenage mutant ninja turtles will as well.” Arbiter muttered as he left the bathroom.

Chief dropped down to the floor and began to follow the alien figurine. “imma play on the Xbawx nao”

“You can’t. Twilight and Greg are on it.”

Chief stepped out in front of Arbiter. “wtf u let teh purpel prick on teh Xbawx?!!?1”

“It’s only fair to let her have a chance on it.” Arbiter brushed aside Chief and kept on walking.

“fien i can go on the compooter then” Chief rushed past Arbiter.

“The tissue is waiting for you.” Arbiter said then went to the chair and climbed up it. The controller was in Greg’s legs now, as he showed Twilight his skills in online matches. She seemed quite disgusted at the games. Or rather, the players.

“How can everypony be this rude?”

Arbiter looked to Twilight. “Everypony?”

She looked at him as if it was a no-brainer. “Well yeah. Everypony, somepony, nopony.”

“I think the term you’re looking for is ‘everybody’.”

Twilight blinked, realising her mistake. She then grinned sheepishly and giggled quietly. “Oh yes, forgive me.”

“It’s fine. Your grammar is better than Chief’s by a long shot.” Arbiter looked to Greg. He was far too occupied with playing the game that he couldn’t write anything to say. He listened intently though.

Arbiter looked again at the screen. “The online community allows people to say what they want without consequence. It allows people to show their meaner side.”

“I...see...” Twilight said. “I don’t think I will play online after all.”

“That’s understandable.” Arbiter replied. “Chief would probably prefer that anyway.”

Chief himself was stood before the computer monitor. He was on YouTube and after searching ‘stoopid fucking ponies” and watching several videos, he had found himself at one called APPLE.MOV.

It was a cartoon depicting several ponies, one of which looked exactly like Twilight. There was also a tiny dragon who was obviously stoner.

“roflmao” he said out loud as he watched the video. Once APPLE.MOV had finished, he watched DRESS.MOV. He did this until he had watched every MOV episode available.

Once he had seen them all, he turned around and peered at Twilight from afar. “hey twilit!!!”

Twilight looked at the source of the noise. Upon discovering it was Chief, she frowned a tad. “It’s Twilight. What do you want?”

“whatever vampier lol chek this out” Chief shook around rapidly to emphasise just how important this was.

Twilight sighed and began to trudge her way to Chief.

“Wait.” She paused, turning her head around to look at Arbiter. “I’ll come with you.”

“Thanks. I don’t think I have the strength to deal with him alone just yet.” She smiled softly.

“It’s no problem.” he walked past Greg. “Have fun Greg.” the spider waved a limb in response.

The duo made it to Chief without much of a problem. Twilight seemed to exert more effort than Arbiter but she didn’t seem as tired as she was after scaling the bed.

“ok chek this shit out” Chief turned to the computer mouse and clicked play on the video. He had selected MAGIC.MOV, since it featured the Twilight look alike the most.

He looked at her and pointed at the on screen Twilight when she appeared. “look its uuuuu”

Twilight grimaced and tore her vision away from the video. “That clearly isn’t me! That...” She repeatedly jabbed a hoof towards the monitor whilst she attempted to find the words. “That is a gross, twisted version of me!”

“It’s nice to see you embrace your pony side, Chief.” Arbiter said.

“qwiet this aint abowt u” Chief turned to Arbiter.

“No, hence why I’m walking back to the Xbox now.” he prepared himself for the journey back, walking to the edge of the desk.

“n0t so fast its my turn fuckers swaaaaaaag” Chief ran hurriedly to the chair.

Arbiter let him run and looked back at Twilight. She had figured out how to change the webpage to Google and was about to type into the search bar.

“You coming, Twilight?”

She didn’t look back. “No no, I’ll just do some research.”

“Alright. Be careful though, the internet harbours a lot of horrors.”

“I’ll keep that in mind Arbiter, thank you.” she began to type but Arbiter had already left.

Back at the chair, Chief violently snatched the controlled away from Greg and forcefully exited the current match the spider was participating in. “my turn shit fer face”

Greg hastily grabbed a post-it note and his pen.

Hey! D:<

“u can shout @ me all u want bu—oh yeh u cant lol” He sat the controller on his legs and signed in on his own Xbox Live account.

Greg didn’t bother replying to the Chief but greeted Arbiter when he arrived.

Wb :) where’s Twilight?

“Still at the computer.” Arbiter grabbed a second controller, which was tucked away at the back of the chair behind Chief. He sat down next to the SPARTAN figure. “I’m playing with you.”

“fien” Chief said. The lack of complaint either meant that he accepted this or he couldn’t be bothered to argue. Chief and Arbiter had some enjoyable exploits together on Halo: Reach but Chief found the split-screen awful so it could’ve been either.

“lol gay lololololol swag” He continued, just managing to catch a chance to use Arbiter’s words against him.

“Great. Another brilliant catchphrase from Chief.” Arbiter said as he signed into the game with his account.

With the trio’s eyes focused on the TV screen, they did not notice the fact that Twilight was looking up the very same pages that Arbiter himself had looked at earlier.

"Friendship is Magic..." she whispered to herself.

~~~

It was just another typical match in Battle Canyon.

The map was quite small in comparison to others in the game, which allowed for maximum carnage. Two steel bases stood opposite each other. One had red lights and the other had blue. Both were identical in structure and layout.

The artificial Sun shone over the map, brightening the playing field. In between the bases were big brown rocks dotted about on the grass. There was also a small river running through the map and over that, was a giant rock archway.

“Wassup faggots?!” yelled an orange SPARTAN. His gamertag was PwnersRUs. Pwners’ armor was large but certainly not in charge as it served no purpose other to make him think that he looked cool.

“Oh God not another one...” sighed a forest green colored SPARTAN. He had just exited the front door of the red base and had bumped into Pwners’ avatar.

“What did you say shithead?” Pwners stopped in front of the green soldier and stared right at him.

“You’re just another loud mouth aren’t you? Please do us the service of shutting up and letting others enjoy the game in peace.”

“Hmm...lemme think about that...” Pwners looked down. “Hmmm...Nah!” he then sprung forward and smacked the green with his pistol. The green SPARTAN’s shields flashed, a tell-tale sign he was ready for a finishing headshot, which Pwners gladly gave him.

The green’s body fell to the ground, blood pouring out of the helmet for a split-second. Pwners then stood over the corpse and repeatedly moved himself up and down, performing the classic teabag.

“Eugh, such an asshole...” The green muttered. He soon respawned and went over to Pwners.

“Oh, so you want round two now douchebag?” Pwners challenged.

“Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?” TheEliteVindicator walked up to the two players.

“Yeah, this guy is being a loudmouth.” The green muttered.

Pwners spun around, looking up. “Aaaaaaaaaaw yeeeeeeeeah and proud of it!” he proclaimed loudly.

“I’ll have to ask you to please be quiet.” Vindicator said calmly but there was a hint of sternness in his voice.

“Fuck you I’m not shutting up for no one!” Pwners replied.

“Are you sure? Last chance.”

“Damn right I’m sure!” Pwners exclaimed. “Last chance for wha—“he was cut off by Vindicator’s sword slicing into him, killing his avatar instantly.

“Oh you’re so dead motherfucker!” Pwners shouted.

“Going to need some assistance here. Some troll doesn’t quite get the message.” Vindicator said to seemingly no one.

“Who are you talking to?” the green asked.

Vindicator ignored him and ran into the red base. Up on the rocky archway, another Sangheili avatar had appeared. He was colored purple and whilst his armor did look impressive, it wasn’t as grand as Vindicator’s. Unlike Vindicator though, he had a helm that covered his entire face, with two glowing eyes for the avatar to presumably look through. He had a sniper in his hands as he surveyed the map.

Vindicator walked slowly in the red structure. The inside was certainly uninviting. Almost all the building was just a series of narrow corridors.

He turned a corner and saw his prey. Pwners quickly fired his pistol repeatedly in vain but he could not disable Vindicator’s shields in time. The Sangheili once again thrusted his energy sword into Pwners’ armor.

“Ok! Those times you got lucky but now I’m gonna bring the pain!” Pwners said arrogantly.

Both the Sangheili on the map snickered lightly. The sniper turned around and found his target. With a quick scope in to get accuracy, he pulled the trigger. A bullet burst forth from the barrel of the weapon and flew straight into Pwners’ helmet. His body hit the ground before the smoke trail from the bullet could disappear. Pwners had barely just exited the blue base where he had spawned from.

“You guys are really pissing me off now...” Pwners said angrily.

“You mean we weren’t before?” The sniper scoffed.

Again and again, Pwners tried to defeat the two Sangheili and every attempt resulted in his own death. The scene soon looked a maimed animal who desperately sought death to end its suffering. Eventually he stopped his offensive and tried to hide.

Vindicator and his teammate kept slaughtering him without mercy.

“Ok ok I’m sorry! Just please stop griefing me!” he wailed, his voice breaking. He was knelt down in a corner of blue base. Vindicator stood dominantly above him, his sword prime for the kill.

“Looks like you have learnt your lesson, yes?” Vindicator interrogated.

“Yes! Yes! Now Please! Leave me alone!” the distressed player pleaded.

“I am afraid we cannot do that.”

“Wh-what?”

“You see, people like you often do not get the message. If we had just left you to your own devices, you would have tormented people again with your trolling. My group will continue to monitor your activities. If we see you trolling again well...I think you know the rest.” Vindicator explained.

“Who are you...?”

“We are the Anti Trolling Alliance. And I am TheEliteVindicator.” he stated bluntly before finishing Pwners off once more with his weapon.

In all the hunting they had carried out, the two anti trollers had failed to notice the fact that Kevin had observed all of their actions.

The Store

“Hm, Bronycon.”

Arbiter stood in front of the monitor, gazing at information on a recent event titled ‘Bronycon’. Twilight sat next to him, reading the same information.

“It’s odd how adult men would watch colorful ponies.” Arbiter said. He went over to the mouse and scrolled down the web page.

“Yeah...” Twilight murmured, her focus on the writing.

They both went into a concentrated silence, which was unfortunately interrupted by the arrival of Chief.

“wats up faggots?”

“We’re reading.” Arbiter replied.

Chief walked to take a look at the aforementioned article. He became silent for quite a surprising while.

“wtf is this???” he turned to Arbiter. “did they r3name gaycon lol?”

“Studies show that these so called ‘Bronies’ are actually mostly heterosexual.” Twilight stated, not bothering to look at Chief.

Chief froze for a moment. “wat?”

Twilight brought her hoof to her face and sighed. “It means they have an attraction for the opposite sex.”

She peered at the Chief, who went silent again. She rolled her eyes. “It means they’re attracted to women.”

“even teh women?? sweeeeet”

Twilight stood up, preparing to go into a full depth explanation but Arbiter interrupted her before she could do so. “You’re fighting a losing battle. Just let him think what he wants to think. His mind is too thick to allow new ideas to enter.” he said.

“i need 2 preserv my Halo skillz i cant afford 2 l0se them” Chief tapped his helmet.

“Oh yes, I forgot how important being good at Halo is.”

“thats rite bitches Halo is teh bomb. teh bomb of teh bombs”

Arbiter looked to Twilight. “See? If you use sarcasm you can get by.”

“Oh really?” the pony replied sarcastically, smirking.

“fuck u 2. o w8 u can just fuck each other” Chief made a circular shape with his index finger and thumb and put his other index finger through the hole repeatedly.

“No comment.” Twilight groaned, frowning.

A eight legged beast began to descend from the ceiling using a thin strand of web: Greg. He had his post-it notes clutched on one side of his limbs and his felt tip pen with the other. He soon landed on the table, much to the horror of the others.

“Aaaah!” Twilight screamed, flinching back

“Aah, fuck!”

“wtf?!!?1”

Greg separated the web from his body and began to quickly scribbled down on a post-it note.

Sorry to scare you all like that

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. “No problem Greg. Sorry for screaming.”

“srsly fuckface if u keep doin that i sweair 2 god imma cut off ur legs”

“It’s a shame you can’t aim with a knife or Greg would actually be frightened.”

“stfu”

Arbiter has a point

Greg halted his writing. He was on his last post-it note.

brb guys going to grab more paper

“Alright.”

Greg suddenly skittered off the table and disappeared. Twilight shivered at the sight of all his eight, hairy legs moving in tandem with one another.

“I’m sorry but...I don’t think I can get used to that.” She admitted.

“It’s not your fault. Fear is sometimes a force we cannot control. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Twilight smiled lightly at Arbiter. “I suppose you’re right.”

She then blinked when she found herself being pushed forwards towards Arbiter by Chief.“now kiss”

Twilight snorted defiantly and instinctively bucked Chief away. He flew into the monitor, but luckily his impact did not damage it. He then fell onto the hard table.

“ow ow ow oooooooow”

“Nice one.”

Twilight looked to Chief, who was just getting up onto his feet, and then to Arbiter. “Uh...I guess? It was purely instinct really...” she said, sounding very unsure of herself.

“It’s standard instinct for a normal person to react that way around Chief.”

Twilight smirked, then quietly gasped at the reappearance of Greg. Oddly enough, he only had his felt tip pen with him this time.

Arbiter followed Twilight’s gaze and looked at Greg. “Couldn’t you find any paper?”

Greg shook from side to side.

“Could use A4 sheets you know.”

“That would be very unconventional.” Twilight uttered.

Chief meanwhile, had returned to the others.”teh only problim h3re is that hes still ugly as fuck”

“Well, he needs more post-it notes as soon as possible. The problem is how we do that.”

“just buy them fr0m teh interwebz dumbass” Chief pointed at the computer monitor.

“No, I’m not wasting Jon’s money on post-it notes. You spend enough of it as it is.”

“He does?” Twilight asked. Before this moment, she had already been informed of who Jon was.

“Yeah. Mostly on sexual things.”

Twilight made a face of disgust. “I don’t want to know.”

“That’s probably for the best.”

Greg stomped his limbs on the table in order to get everyone’s attention.

“Right, we’re getting sidetracked. Sorry Greg.”

“Why don’t we just go to the store? Must be one nearby.” Twilight suggested, looking up as she thought of ideas.

Arbiter turned to Twilight. “Did you even think that through properly?”

Twilight huffed slightly. “Of course I did. We’re small toys. We could easily slip in a store undetected.”

“omg shes a genius we can be liek spyz” Chief waved his hands in the air.

“Now I’m sure this is a bad idea.”

“Well, what other options do we have?”

Arbiter looked at Twilight, then at Greg. As much as he disliked the idea, Twilight was right. It did seem to be the only option. He doubted that Jon even had his credit card here anymore, as Chief hadn’t purchased anything recently.

“Fine.”

“wooo this r gonna be awesum!!1!!!” Chief started running towards the front door of the apartment. Arbiter facepalmed and quickly followed him. Twilight and Greg made their own way there at a slightly more relaxed pace.

The front door stood forebodingly in front of the toys and spider. Only a thin piece of wood separated them from the outside world, where they ran the risk of being seen and taken by any passing human. They needed stealth and cunning in order to survive. And with the Chief, the odds of doing so were significantly reduced.

“We’ll sneak through the letterbox.” Arbiter said, approaching the door. “We’ll need your help getting up, Greg.”

Greg readily complied, climbing up to the letterbox and producing a web that ran down to the floor. Arbiter used it to scale the door and then propel himself through the letterbox.

“Fuck.” Arbiter said as he hit the floor. The others could just barely hear him.

“da Cheefs next bitchez” Chief ran to the web and like the Arbiter before him, scaled the door. Although he took a significantly longer time than Arbiter to do it. He jumped through the letterbox and landed directly on Arbiter.

“Fuck!” Arbiter said again, Chief lying on top of him.

“thanks 4 breking my fall lollololol” Chief got up, taking no regard for Arbiter’s safety by stepping on him as he did so.

“Well...looks like it’s my turn.” Twilight uttered. She went up to the web and reluctantly grabbed it. “Eugh...this is so disgusting...” she muttered to herself as she climbed up. Taking a deep breath, she went through the letterbox.

Arbiter was just getting up when Twilight landed on him. “Jesus! Fuck!”

Twilight quickly got off Arbiter when she realized she was stood on top of him. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!”

“roflmao ur such a loser” Chief mocked, pointing at Arbiter, who was beginning to pick himself off the ground again.

“I’ll admit, I probably should have moved.” he promptly stepped away from his current position, although there was no need as Greg simply crawled down the door from the letterbox.

Unlike Jon’s apartment, which was warm and comfortable, the outside of the apartment was cold and uninviting. The floor was made out of concrete, a stark contrast to the carpets in in Jon’s dwelling. It was apparent that most of the effort put into creating the building had gone into the apartment rooms themselves.

The lighting was fairly poor here. Only a few lightbulbs were on the sides of the walls and they weren’t really powerful enough, so there was always a hint of darkness even at midday.

The stairs were quite big for the gang and scaling down each would require a small drop. Accompanying the steps was a simple black handrail, of which the paint had come off in places.

“Well, this is it. Let’s go.”

“hey hold on a sec who teh fuck made u leader???”

Twilight sighed, bringing her hoof to her face. “Does it really matter?”

“No. But if we don’t get moving soon we’ll get spotted.” Arbiter set off, not wanting to hang around. He jumped down the stairs, deftly landing on his two feet without injury.

“w8 4 us dipshit” Chief called out, catching up to Arbiter. Once again, Twilight and Greg found themselves following the pair.

Jon’s apartment was located on the second floor of the building, which meant a lot of stairs to go down. The toys went as quickly as they could in order to avoid being seen by anyone but luckily the structure was eerily quiet.

“Not even flies find this place appealing.”

After a while, the group found themselves at the ground floor. In front of them was a simple wooden door with a golden letterbox. Fortunately they didn’t need to climb through it; the door was already open ajar.

“No wonder Jon’s never around...” Twilight rolled her eyes.

Light poured in through the gaps of the doorway. Every one of them felt a little bit frightened about dealing with the outside world. Granted, Chief, Arbiter and even Greg had been outside before but that was only briefly, and the feeling of helplessness never went away.

“cmon faggots r we gonna do this or n0t?” Chief asked, becoming impatient with the fact that nobody had taken a further step towards the door.

“Wait.”

Chief hesitated.

“We don’t know where we’re going.” Arbiter pointed out.

Greg bounced repeatedly on the floor, which caught Arbiter’s attention. “I guess Greg knows. We’ll follow you then.” he nodded at the spider, which began to take the lead.

The four slipped out of the door and found themselves in the outside world. Judging from the Sun’s position, it was the afternoon. It was a nice day: the sky was almost completely blue, save for the occasional fluffy looking cloud.

In front of the toys were more steps but there were only several and they were slightly smaller than those in the apartment building. The group went down them with relative ease and speed.

Twilight looked around anxiously; they were now on the sidewalk. In front of them was a road but it seemed surprisingly devoid of any vehicles. The sidewalk itself was concrete and looked quite worn; they were several cracks between the tiles that made it up.

Greg gave the toys no time to look around though, as he quickly sped off to the left. The others had to run to keep up with him. Each of them was careful to avoid the splotches of bird poo that littered the street.

A car then suddenly rushed by. Every one of the group could feel the wind generated by the speeding vehicle.

Twilight jumped in shock as the car raced by. “AAAAAH!!” she screamed.

“Calm down Twilight. It was just a car. The people inside won’t have seen us.” Arbiter kept running behind Greg.

“Even so...it was very shocking...” Twilight shook regained her composure and kept following the others.

The toys kept following Greg’s lead. He took them down side streets that had filled, dirty bins and cardboard boxes. Occasionally, they saw a human but they could all easily hide behind a lamppost or in someone’s front garden. It was relatively easy to hide but that didn't change the fact that it was still terrifying.

They had been travelling for hours and it was starting to wear down all of them, especially Chief who was getting extremely bored of seeing similar, dull streets all the time.

“omfg r we there yet???” Chief looked in all directions, desperately looking for something that looked vaguely interesting.

“What do you think?” Arbiter snapped.

“we r just so sloooooooow”

“Well, taking into account our size...our speed will be dramatically reduced. I’m sure some quick calculations can tell us our speed.” Twilight said.

Chief looked back at Twilight but still ran. “omg who br0ught teh nerd??”

Twilight frowned. “I just use my brain cells more efficiently than you.”

“lol shes moar wordy than u arbiter” Chief looked forward again. Arbiter didn’t bother to answer, his attention focused on following Greg.

Eventually they were all on the street opposite their destination; a superstore. This was the most risky part of them all. Across the street lay the car park, full of still vehicles that evidenced plenty of their occupants inside the store. The store itself was quite big and it was certain that it hold the post-it notes Greg needed.

But before they got there, they needed to cross the road. Unfortunately, this one was rather busy. Cars and other four wheeled vehicles raced on the road, nothing more than a mere blur to the toys. In order to make sure they weren’t seen, they hid behind an old baked beans tin.

“well were fucked” Chief began to walk off but was stopped by Arbiter grabbing his shoulder and pulling him back round.

“I’m not giving up because of some cars. We’ll just wait for the right moment.”

“fucks sake” Chief slumped down. “i could b playing Haloz rite nao”

“I think helping a friend is more important than playing Halo.” Twilight observed the cars movements, trying to find an opportunity to rush across the road.

“gregs not my friend” Chief said. “hes just ugly”

“What?” Twilight responded, her voice both a mix of anger and surprise.

“Don’t bother kicking him again. We don’t have the time to fight on the street like tramps.”

Twilight sighed and kept observing the road. “Yeah...you’re right.”

Greg simply gazed at the superstore.

More time passed and so did more cars. By now, all of them were getting restless. But Twilight kept vigilant. “Everyone get ready...”

“What?” Arbiter said, standing up. As did Chief.

“I’ve made a rough estimate of our speed and I’ve waited for the right time for us to run across judging by the activity of the cars. And I think it’s...” she paused, waiting for the exact moment. “Now! Run!”

At that moment, she leapt into action. She galloped across the road with a blazing speed that the others barely kept up with. Chief looked to his side and saw an oncoming car to the far distance. Realizing the danger, he immediately stepped up the pace. This in turn caused a chain reaction of Arbiter and Greg running faster.

When they all got across, it dawned upon them just how long it took to get here from the apartment; the Sun wasn’t visible anymore as the day slowly gave way to night. In all the danger it had seemed that the journey was actually a lot shorter.

Greg took the land again, scuttling under the parked cars. The toys pursued him, going in between worn tires and white lines painted onto the ground.

Suddenly, one of the cars that they were under started to slowly move backwards. The low hum of the car startled all of them. Twilight froze in horror as she saw the heavy wheels turn and crush the ground below. All of them could have been squashed like roadkill at that very moment.

“Everyone stay here and avoid the tires!” Arbiter commanded, keeping a clear head. Without question, the others obeyed (even Chief) and joined him under the centre of the car. That way, they easily avoided the tires as the car left them behind and rejoined the road.

They didn’t stop to celebrate though, as Greg sped off again. Luckily, no more cars they went under had decided to leave.

They soon reached the closest car to the entrance of the superstore. They could see people go in and out like ants going back and forth between their den. This wasn’t going to be easy. The risk of getting spotted was extremely high. Their whole livelihood was being threatened here. Although Greg wasn’t a toy, he couldn’t bear to see the others get taken away for experimentation.

“Over there.” Twilight pointed at a large amount of parked trolley’s next to the entrance. “We can hide under them and wait until the human activity dies down.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Arbiter looked both ways before setting off. He sprinted to the trolleys and hid under them. Shortly after him, the others arrived. Chief was humming the Mission Impossible theme.

“Chief, shut up.”

“no lol this is epic spy stuff”

“Oh yes, our daring squad will be infiltrating a superstore to get some post-it notes for a spider. The stakes for the world are very high.”

“no but if we dont get them greg will probabli eet us”

Greg tapped his legs rapidly and repeatedly in frustration. Twilight did her best to answer for him: “I don’t think Greg would do that.”

Chief pointed at the spider and looked at the pony. “thats wat he wants u 2 think”

“Oh please, give me a break.” Twilight rolled her eyes, snickering slightly at the absurdity of Chief’s claim.

As they waited, the Sun completely disappeared behind the horizon of buildings. The sky was now a brilliant red but eventually that vanished too. It then became dark but the lights from the store provided enough light for the toys to see.

“god im so boooooooooooooooooored” Chief wailed, fiddling with a wheel of a shopping trolley.

“So am I.” Arbiter agreed, tapping his foot on the floor somewhat impatiently.

“Me too.” Twilight added, who was sitting down.

After a while, the sky was completely black but the stars weren’t visible due to the light emanating from the city. Every one in the group was now in a bored haze but an announcement from the store soon made them alert again:

“The store will now be closing soon. Please make your final purchases now.”

“That’s our chance. Let’s go.” Arbiter said, creeping under the many trolleys.

“finally!!1!” Chief said, he got up and ran excitedly after Arbiter.

“We’re almost there Greg.” Twilight smiled at the spider although he could not give such a friendly looking response in return.

The four stood under a shopping trolley that was directly next to the entrance. At this distance, the humans were incredibly close. Although their footsteps made little noise, they were no less intimidating. They all had to crane their necks just to barely see the human’s faces. All of them were beginning to leave the store with their purchases, passing through the double automatic doors.

Twilight spotted another opportunity to rush in without danger and seized it. “Now!” she suddenly said, galloping rapidly into the store just as a human was going out (who seemed very focused on getting back to his car). The others just barely managed to get in before the doors closed behind them and as if it was instinct, they all took cover behind a stack of metal baskets.

“Looks like we’re in here for the long haul.” Arbiter stated, observing the many shop aisles. This store was practically a jack of trades; it sold almost everything. Food, clothes, technology and toys.

“wat”

“What he means is that we’ll have to wait here the entire night.” Twilight explained.

Chief turned to Twilight. “wat”

“Well...yeah. The store’s about to close.”

“wtf this is fucking h0rseshit!!!1” Chief flailed his arms in the air, as he normally did when frustrated.

“Sigh.”

The staff of the store performed their final tasks with the occasional chit chat and eventually left. The store’s lights then dimmed down, leaving it in almost complete darkness. The automatic doors closed for a final time, leaving the group alone to their own devices.

“Finally. We don’t have to be so paranoid about our movements now.” Arbiter stepped out from the baskets. “We’ll check all the aisles.”

Chief started to head off on his own but was stopped once again by Arbiter. “We’re doing this together. We don’t want the store set on fire because of you.”

“lol i just mite do that nao”

“You wouldn’t. Now let’s get the post-it notes before we get into an argument about who has more balls.” Arbiter walked past the shopping tills and headed into the first aisle, the others joining him.

The dimmed shop bulbs on the roof created little pools of the light on the floor that just barely showed the items on sale on the aisle shelves. It created a quite haunting atmosphere, as no one in the group could see very far in front of them and there was no background noise to speak of.

Arbiter stared at the shelves to the sides of him. It seemed that this aisle only sold magazines and comics. Chief spotted a particular magazine that entranced him.

“chek dis shit out its me” he pointed at an Xbox magazine with a picture of the Master Chief in a heroic pose on the front cover. The words below him were in bold and read:

The Master Chief is back. Halo 4 preview inside!

“halo 4 baby”

“We can read Chief. Now put it down, we have to find the post-it notes.” Twilight said.

“no way nerd i wanna read this” Chief put the magazine on the floor and began to turn the pages. However, the magazine was soon swept from him and put back on the shelf by Arbiter.

“hey wtf??!”

“All the information will be on the internet. You can look at it when you get home.” Arbiter didn’t bother waiting for a response and began to lead the others to the end of the aisle and turning around to search the one next to it. Chief reluctantly followed.

They walked in silence, too focused on the task on Chief. Well, three of them were. Chief grew restless again. He peered at Twilight and crept up to her rear. He then rapidly smacked her side. “boooo!!1!” he shouted, then he went to the side to avoid a swift kick from Twilight.

“AAAH!” Twilight instantly kicked out from behind her but missed Chief, who had a hand over the bottom of his helmet and was snickering.

“Now I know what mothers with young children feel like on days out...” Arbiter shook his head softly. Greg merely watched the situation at hand.

“What was that for?!” Twilight shouted at Chief.

“just wanted 2 scare you lol”

Twilight groaned. “You’re such a...such a...” she snarled and resumed looking at the aisles. This one also seemed to lack post-it notes.

The aisles were very high for the toys and combined with the darkness, created a slight feeling of claustrophobia. Nevertheless, the group carried on.

They turned at the end of the aisle to enter the third one but all stopped in their tracks. A figure was stood, looking directly at them.

The group froze in fear and Arbiter swore quietly. Twilight moved behind him whilst Chief and Greg stood in silence.

Chief eventually spoke up though. “who teh fuck are u?”

The figure did not reply. It moved closer towards the group, revealing itself in the light.

It seemed to be a simple, fluffy toy bear.

Despite that, something about it unsettled the four. Perhaps it was down to the way it was made. It had big, wide open eyes with tiny black pupils in the center. It also had this grin on its face that probably was meant to make it look happy but instead it only achieved a very sinister effect. Furthermore, it looked down at the group as it was just over twice the height of Arbiter. Perhaps the most unsettling detail was the fact that its arms were behind its back...

“Um...hello? Who might you be?” Twilight asked politely but fear was evident in her trembling voice.

The bear didn’t reply. Instead, it took slow steps forwards towards the group. In response, they slowly backed away.

“New...toys...” the bear spoke. Its voice was extremely hoarse, making it sound monstrous.

“Yeah, that’s us. Except Greg.”

“Time to play...” the bear heightened its grin, achieving a new level of horrifying. It then moved its arms forward, revealing a sharp kitchen knife in one paw. At that moment, all of the group began to flee in terror.

“Jesus!”

“shit shit shit shit shit fuck fuck!!1!!1”

“AAAAAAAH!!!”

Greg was silent.

The four began running for their lives. Panic took control of them all as they separated themselves from each other. Twilight and Chief ran to the very end of the store and hid in an aisle, whilst Arbiter and Greg headed for the tills. None of them could see the bear behind them.

Arbiter and Greg hid behind one of the chairs that the till staff sat on to do their job. They peered about carefully. There was no sign of their attacker.

“What the fuck was that about?” Arbiter said quietly. Of course, Greg couldn’t respond. “Ah yeah...we need the post-it notes. Sadly, we’ll need to find the others first.” He paused, realizing who Twilight was with. “God help her.”

Meanwhile, the other two had taken refuge behind a big bag of crisps in the aisle they had found themselves in. Twilight was lying down, catching her breath whilst Chief was carefully keeping guard.

“k i think teh fuckers gone”

“Why would he attack us like that?!” Twilight exclaimed.

“cuz” Twilight looked at Chief, waiting for him to finish. “hes a faggot”

“No...he’s a psycho! Okay...don’t panic, we just need to reunite with Arbiter and Greg.” she ran a hoof through her mane.

“no we gotta arm ourselves from that assh0le”

Twilight seemed surprised. “That...actually could work!”

“wow i 0utsmarted teh nerd”

“...not really.” Twilight sighed, getting up. “Look, we need to find something to defend ourselves with. And fast. Come on.”

The pair slipped out of the lowest shelf and cautiously looked around. The bear wasn’t here either. They both clung to the sides, ready to jump back in and hide should the bear rear its ugly head again. Twilight looked at the shelves; no post-it notes or possible weapons were here. Then, she froze as she heard a rustling behind her. She slowly turned her head...

Chief was dragging a big packet of Doritos from the bottom shelf.

“We clearly don’t need that.” Twilight frowned.

“its our b0unty twilight our b0unty from this epic qwest”

“Chief, put it down! Do you want that bear to kill you?!”

“fine fine dont lose a h00f over it lol” Chief dropped the packet.

“Good.” Twilight sighed and carried on. At the end of the aisle, she turned left into the next and took a gander of the nearby items. She then decided not to go down that aisle and went further left to look at the next aisle.

“w8 u missed that 1”

“Judging from the items there, I estimated that the aisle wouldn’t sell anything we could use.” She peered at the items in the new aisle and began to walk down that one.

“is ev3rything calculati0ns and estimat3s with u??”

“Well...no...” Twilight looked away from Chief, becoming more somber. “Is that all you think of me?” Even if Chief's insults were often lies, she had a inkling that this one was true. She loved facts and although Arbiter was quite smart himself, he never spouted calculations. Was she just a mere calculator?

Chief was silent for a few moments. “no”

“No? Go on.”

“youre a pony”

“Uh...of course I am.” She stared blankly at Chief. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment from you though.” She put her focus back on the aisles; she could ask Arbiter about herself some other time. “Should be something we can use here...” She then paused as she clanging nearby. She turned around to see Chief climbing the shelves to get a knife.

He dropped one onto the floor, but it was still covering in packaging. He jumped back down and began to free the knife from its contents.

“aah my trusty roflknief” he said as he grabbed the kitchen knife. The blade was long and sharp; a perfect weapon for dealing with that bear.

“Good. Now we just need to locate Arbiter and Greg...” she looked grimly into the darkness. “...before that bear does.”

~~~

Arbiter and Greg wandered down the toy aisle. It had been roughly an hour or so since the bear attack and they had not seen it or the other two yet.

To their sides were an assortment of toys, all trapped in plastic casing. Their faces were forever stuck in one expression. For Arbiter, it was rather a grim sight; that was him years ago. It made him think about his own life, as he often did these days. So many questions would probably remain unanswered for him.

He stopped to look at a toy American soldier in its packaging. He stared at the dull expression the toy bore.

“Sometimes I think to myself: why me?”

Greg looked at Arbiter.

“Actually, I should be asking: why us? Why were we given the gift of life? We hardly do any good with it.” he tapped the packaging, just to see if the soldier responded. It was still. He then kept moving. “Sorry Greg. But seeing these toys just makes me wonder...”

The lifeless toys loomed above them. Any one of them could leap into action and possibly attack the pair. The two hurried their pace.

Just as they were about to reach the end of the aisle and be freed from the onlooking blank faces, they heard movement nearby. Something was running very nearby.

“Twilight? Is that you?”

The duo heard it again, only this time it ran behind them. They quickly turned around but saw nothing there. Soon after, Arbiter caught a blur race past him in the corner of his eye.

“Who’s there?”

The steps of their stalker were far too fast for it to be the bear; whatever was around, it had more than two legs. In addition, it seemed to be shorter than Arbiter. At least, that’s what he thought anyway.

“Um...hi...”

“Aah!” Arbiter and Greg jumped around to meet the newcomer.

“Eek!” The figure quickly fled into the shelves.

“Wait! We’re friendly.” Arbiter called out. He had gotten a good enough view of the figure to identify that it clearly wasn’t a threat.

A head hidden behind hair poked out from one of the packages on the bottom shelf. It was another pony.

She had a yellow coat with imprints of three butterflies on her flank. Her mane and tail were pink and she had green, friendly eyes. Like Twilight, just by looking at her you could tell that she meant no harm at all.

“Uh...hello...” she said, although it was so quiet it was almost a whisper.

“Hey. I’m Arbiter and this is Greg.” he gestured to the spider who waved a leg at Fluttershy.

“Oh um, nice to meet you...” She cautiously came out from the shelf. “I’m Fluttershy...” Curiously, although she was shy, she did not seem to be repulsed by Greg’s appearance.

“Good to meet someone who isn’t insane. Might you know where the post-it notes are here? Greg needs them to communicate.”

“No I don’t...sorry...I was just trying to hide from that bear.”

“He tried to attack you too then. Listen, before we get the notes, we need to find two friends of ours. Have you seen them? One of them is a pony like you and another is a human in big armor.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen them either...I’m sorry...” She retreated back slightly.

“It’s fine. But you better stay with us. Safety in numbers after all.”

“O-Okay.” Fluttershy nodded.

“Let’s get out of here. The other toys are starting to creep me out.”

The three made their way out of the toy aisle, avoiding the blank stares of the soulless toys. The next aisle appeared to be just exactly what they needed. Stationery was here so it was highly likely that post-it notes would be too.

Greg skittered onto the shelves, going past pens, erasers and rulers. Fluttershy and Arbiter tried to watch his movements but eventually he disappeared.

“He’ll be back.” Arbiter stated.

“But what if that bear gets him?”

“I’m more concerned about the other two. Greg can handle himself just fine. But Chief with Twilight...” he looked at Fluttershy, who appeared to be confused at the new names. “You’ll see.”

“Uh, okay then.”

Greg came scuttling back after a short while. He had a big stack of post-it notes carefully balanced on his back and he was now holding a new black felt-tip pen. He started scribbling his first words on a note in ages.

I’m back :D

“Awesome. That’s one thing sorted. Now we just need to survive.” Arbiter turned to Fluttershy, staring at her wings. “Can you fly?”

Fluttershy blinked. “Um...I think I might be able to...I can try.”

“Do you think you can make your way around the store without getting lost?”

Fluttershy looked into the darkness. “It’s really dark but...I can try if you want me to.”

“Good point. Don’t bother then. We need to stick together.”

The shy mare hid her face behind her mane. “I’m sorry...”

“It’s fine.”

Don’t worry about it :)

“Um, okay then. I’ll try.”

“Right, we should keep moving--” Arbiter paused himself, realizing something. “Fuck. They’ll be moving too, which means we may never find each other. We can’t shout for them either or that bear will find us. Damn it.”

“I’m sure we’ll find them somehow...”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The trio kept walking, all of their eyes focused in front of them in case they bumped into any of the others. However, this didn’t mean they couldn’t make friendly conversation with each other.

“How long have you been here Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy looked up, thinking. “Um...I don’t really know. A long while at least.”

“Well we don’t plan on staying. You can come with us, if you want.”

“Really?”

Sure. Always room for one more back home :3

Arbiter knew that Chief wouldn’t like this but he decided not to tell Fluttershy about that for now. He’d only create fear in her and she seemed shy enough. He could always defend her if Chief started throwing insults anyway.

“Oh thank you! I don’t like this place...so lonely and quiet.”

The three turned around to enter the next aisle. It was a good thing that aisles were defined by their item type, or they’d probably be walking in circles forever. Or, at least until the store opened again and the humans found them...

~~~

“this way” Chief pointed down another aisle and started running through it.

“Chief, I don’t think this one has--” Twilight sighed, galloping to catch up with Chief. “Nevermind...” Eventually the humanoid toy stopped, staring at a shelf of none other than Xbox 360 games.

“fuck y havent they get halo 4 here???”

Twilight sighed. “Maybe because it hasn’t been released yet?”

“DAMMIT BUNGIE Y U NO HURRY TEH FUCK UP??!” Chief yelled.

“You honestly think the game would be better if they rushed it?”

“yes cuz its halo 4”

Twilight facehoofed. Then she heard heavy footsteps close behind her. It couldn't have been...

“oshit run nerd!!11!”

Twilight didn’t bother to look around. Instead, she quickly galloped to the Chief’s side and then turned around to see what was behind her.

The bear was back.

“listen up mothafucka imma slice u now with my roflknife k? k faggot? k” Chief pointed defiantly at the bear.

“No...I slice you...” the psychopathic bear replied. It took slow steps towards the pair.

“Uh...Arbiter! Greg! Where are you?! We need your help right now!!” Twilight shouted.

“my roflknief goes...” Chief sprinted towards the bear, repeatedly slicing his knife in a downward arc. “SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC SLIEC LOLOLOLOLOLOL”

Twilight gasped at Chief. In amazement not of his bravery, but at his stupidity.

Chief’s blade met hard contact with the bear’s knife. The bear didn’t move a muscle. It seemed that Chief was clearly outmatched. He slowly looked up to see the bear’s grinning wickedly down at him.

“wtf u haz hax!!11!”

The bear smacked Chief aside with its free paw, knocking him out to the side and making him lose grip of his knife. With him out of the way, the bear focused on Twilight.

“Er...er...Chief are you okay?!”

“ow my face...my beatiful face”

“Okay...he’s fine.” Twilight said, then looked at her attacker who had come surprisingly close to her. It raised its knife in the air, ready to strike...

“Aaah!” Twilight leapt out of the way, feeling the wind generated by the knife’s movements. “Why are you doing this?!”

The bear turned to face its victim. “Playtime...” It swung once again.

Twilight was barely just avoiding the bear’s strikes. Chances were high that she couldn’t keep up for long. She couldn’t possibly go in for a strike either or she’d lose a hoof. Or worse. She was so focused on dodging the bear’s attacks that she had forgotten about Chief. This looked like the end for her. Where did this simple trip all go wrong?

The bear was about to make another strike, when he froze completely.

“take that faggot and that and that” Chief taunted, repeatedly stabbing the bear in the back with the knife. Fluff was spilling from the attacker.

The bear turned around but Chief kept stabbing, this time impacting the bear’s belly. Unfortunately, it seemed undeterred. “Enough...” It forcefully kicked Chief away, launching him into the air and once again causing him to lose the knife. He landed hard on his back.

“fucks sake”

“He can really take a beating...” Twilight murmured to herself, but snapped back into action when she realized the bear had decided to end Chief once and for all.

She galloped her fastest to catch up to the bear, who was stood above Chief, its knife raised up high. As much as she disliked him at (most) times, she couldn't stand by and do nothing!

“No, Chief!”

The bear put its foot on Chief so he couldn’t move away. It was about to plunge its knife into him...

“Greg!”

Greg had leapt onto the bear’s face, obscuring its view. Taken aback by this, the bear stumbled away from Chief, who took the opportunity to run the hell away from it.

“Chief! Twilight!” Arbiter and a new pony ran down the aisle to reunite with the others and assist Greg.

“Thank goodness you’re alright!” Twilight smiled at Arbiter. “Who’s the new pony?”

“I think getting rid of that psychopathic bear is more important than introductions.”

“True...”

Fluttershy jumped into the nearest bottom shelf, quivering and hiding from the bear. Arbiter meanwhile ran towards the knife but Chief had grabbed it first.

“Chief, give me the knife.”

“no its my roflknief fag”

“You’re terrible at wielding it. I’ll actually do some damage.”

“no ur just words no actien”

“Are you two really arguing over this?!” Twilight screamed.

The three were all stunned by the sight that was quite literally thrown at them. Greg was launched at them and landed on his back in the middle of the three.

“Greg!”

“Greg, are you okay?!”

“ugly r u alrite??”

The three then turned to face their attacker. Despite the fluff leaking out of the bear, it was still going. It seemed unstoppable. It was hard to accept that this was their fate; being sliced apart by a psychotic children's play thing.

“I’m hardly surprised that something that should have been so simple turned into this.”

"y wont this fucka just die??!!1"

Chief was about to go in for another attack, but all of them were shocked to silence at what happened next.

“YOU BIG MEANIE!!!” Fluttershy roared, flying rapidly towards the bear. She looked extremely enraged. It barely had time to turn around before the pegasus toy grabbed the bottom of its head and forcefully twisted it to the point where the bear’s seams started to rip apart. Fluff fell out of its neck and it soon fell to the ground, becoming lifeless. Fluttershy then landed gracefully, becoming calm.

The other four were completely gobsmacked. Even Greg, who was just getting up and collecting his post-it notes to write on. Thankfully, he seemed okay.

“Holy shit.”

“wtf was that”

“W-Wow...”

O_O

Fluttershy looked at them and began to shy away. “Well...um...I couldn’t let it hurt my friends...”

“That was...something else! I’m Twilight by the way, nice to meet you.” Twilight smiled lightly.

“Hi, I’m Fluttershy...”

“how teh fuck c0uld a pony kill a bare??!!”

Arbiter pointed at the raging Chief. “That’s Chief, by the way. Just ignore him if he insults you.”

“Oh...o-okay.”

“Right. Well, we got what we need. Let’s head back to the entrance.” The five began to head towards the baskets were they could hide and slip out of the store when it re-opened. They didn’t bother to clean up, leaving behind a ruined bear toy, fluff and two knives.

~~~

The Sun had risen up from the other side of the world; it was finally morning. The store lights brightened up as staff began to get things prepared for another working day.

The group waited for their chance to slip out of the automatic doors, hiding behind the metal baskets.

“Hey Chief.” Twilight couldn’t believe she was about to say this, but she carried on regardless. “Thanks for saving me back there.”

“its wat i do no sweat lol”

Twilight snickered, letting Chief have his moment of glory. She then turned to Fluttershy. “So you’re coming back with us?”

“If that’s okay with you...” the shy pegasus replied.

“WTF ANOTHER PONY NO WAY”

Fluttershy flinched, letting out a little yelp.

“Ignore him. You can stay with us.”

“Alright...” Fluttershy looked away from Chief.

The automatic doors suddenly opened as a member of staff walked in. The group seized this opportunity to escape the store, running through the open entrance and going under the shopping trolleys. Just as they left, they managed to hear someone yell:

“What the hell is this?!”

“I think we overstayed our welcome.” Arbiter commented.

The journey back to the apartment was uneventful and quiet, as all the group were calming down from the events in the store. Still, they had succeeded and gained new company in the process. Fluttershy was the quietest of them all on the journey, but she was still entranced by the outside world. She enjoyed the Sun's warmth and relished in the light breeze. What she was entranced by the most of all was the natural things, although there were free. She gazed at the small trees they passed and peered at birds in flight high up above.

By the time they had reached the apartment building, it was late afternoon. Greg used his webs in order to help the toys scale the stairs, although Fluttershy just flew up them. Finally, they found themselves outside Jon’s door.

“Thank fuck we made it in one piece.”

You said it

“Right Greg, you know what to do.” Twilight said.

“yeh let us in fuckface”

Greg scaled the door and extended his web down, allowing the others to climb up. Arbiter went first, leaping through the letterbox with considerable force (so it would open) and landing inside. Remembering what happened last time, he quickly moved to avoid getting landed on.

Chief was next. He used the rope to get to the letterbox and jumped through. He landed flat on his stomach. “shit”

Unlike Arbiter, he didn’t move. Just lying there. However Arbiter refrained from warning him.

Twilight soon after came through the letterbox, landing on top of Chief. “ow!!! fuck careful nerd”

“Whoops, sorry!” Twilight smiled sheepishly and quickly got off Chief, who stood up and moved away from his former spot.

Instead of climbing up, Fluttershy flew in, followed by Greg who climbed back down the door. With all of them back in the apartment, they could rest easy. However, the recent events were still running through their minds and there was still a sense of risk in all of them.

“Well, do you think we learned something from this experience?” Twilight asked.

“dunno bout u fags but imma play teh Xbawx” Chief ran towards his valued console like a child ran towards candy.

“No, I really don’t think we did.”

Twilight sighed and looked at Fluttershy. “Well...welcome to the apartment.”

Drink

“So are you enjoying your time here?” Twilight asked her new pony friend. The pair were sitting on the bed alone, their bodies forming a small crater in the bed sheets.

“It’s a nice place. Cosy.” Fluttershy replied quietly. She was reclining in the comfortable fabric, still a bit shy but relaxed too.

“I suppose it is. At least it’s safe. Not like outside...” Twilight grumbled.

Fluttershy flinched at the mention of that dangerous world. “That was terrifying.” She squeaked.

“I’ll be honest: I hope we never go back out there again.” The unicorn gave the pegasus a reassuring smile. “But you’re here now. That’s what matters.”

“Yes.” Fluttershy said, relaxing once again.

“So what do you think of the others?”

“Oh, they’re nice.” She answered simply, giving Twilight a small smile.

“I guess Arbiter and Greg are.” The purple pony agreed. “But Chief?” She raised an eyebrow, baffled by Fluttershy’s perhaps misguided view Chief’s character.

“Well he has his moments.” She stated somewhat firmly, even for her.

Twilight looked down, staring at the many folds and creases the pair had made by being here. She recalled that time in the store in which Chief’s fool hardiness which could be mistaken for bravery. It could have been bravery though...with Chief, it was hard to tell whether his actions were part of an ego trip or he genuinely was concerned for Twilight’s safety.

“He does.” Twilight responded. “Sometimes.”

“Everyone can be nice.” The shy mare stated.

Granted, what Fluttershy said could be true but Twilight found her to be a little too trusting. Maybe a little naive as well.

Note to self: Make sure Fluttershy never accesses the internet.

But everyone has their faults and Fluttershy more than made up for hers with her extreme kindness. In Twilight’s view, she was the nicest one in the apartment currently. Greg came in a close second though.

“I’m glad you're here Fluttershy.” She beamed at her friend. Before the pegasus could respond, she was engulfed in a hug by Twilight. She squeaked once again but soon returned the embrace. For Twilight, it was nice to have someone in the apartment who didn’t have just two legs. Or eight.

After a while, they broke off from each other both wearing happy faces.

“So...does Greg’s appearance scare you at all?” Twilight queried, changing the subject.

“No! Not at all! He’s lovely.” Fluttershy said quickly, perishing the thought from her head.

“Not even one bit?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

Fluttershy shook her head. “I love all animals.”

“He’s more than a beast though.” Twilight said.

Fluttershy widened her eyes and put her forehooves over her mouth. “Oh no no! I didn’t mean it like that...oh no...”

“I think I know what you mean Fluttershy.”

“You do?” Fluttershy moved her hooves away from her face.

Twilight nodded. “Yep. It’s obvious you see him as a good friend.”

Meanwhile, away from the bedroom, Arbiter saw sat on a window sill staring at the seemingly huge city sprawled out below and in front of him. He knew that Chief would be playing the Xbox as usual and he assumed that Fluttershy and Twilight were talking yet Greg’s location was harder to guess.

Not that it mattered for soon Greg swung from one of his web strands and landed next to Arbiter, breaking the toy’s train of thought. He flinched but managed to stop himself from shouting at the spider.

“Hey Greg.”

Greg began to do the usual: scribbling furiously on a post-it note.

Hi :) how are u?

“Could be worse. I was just thinking.” He looked back to the window but glanced at Greg’s words when he wrote them.

Mind if i know what?

“The ponies.”

What about them?

“A lot of things. Why they’re here for one thing. But that’s an unanswerable question which I ask myself every day.”

: /

“What?” Arbiter turned to look at Greg.

Stop questioning your existence

Arbiter was silent for a few seconds. “Maybe.” He continued to look at the city once more.

What else then?

“Doesn’t matter now.”

...okay then

“Sorry, I know that makes me a hypocritical bastard. Anyway, what do you think about them?”

Theyre nice :3

“Agreed. But being ponies I think it’s simply in their nature. Similiar to how it’s Chief’s nature to act like an idiot.”

i like how Fluttershy isnt afraid of me though :D

“I noticed that too. She hasn’t flinched from you one bit. Odd considering her shyness.” Arbiter’s gaze followed a bird in the distance, soaring freely through the air.

can u keep a secret?

“Sure.” He gave Greg his full attention.

<.< k here goes: i think i ‘like like’ her

It took Arbiter a little while to fully understand what Greg meant but he got there. “I don’t think not being scared of your looks is grounds for a stable relationship.” He froze, realizing the harshness of his words. “Didn’t mean to shoot you down like that man, sorry. What I meant is that you can’t rush into these things.”

Perhaps... : /

“Be patient and see what happens. It’ll be worth it.”

Alright then

“Good luck.” Arbiter knew Greg would need it. He still thought of Claire now and then. He wanted to talk to her but just couldn’t find the strength.

So how about u and Twilight eh? Greg nudged Arbiter in the leg with his own.

“What? Oh, no! Don’t be deluded like Chief is.” He retaliated.

Well it could happen if u wanted it to

“I don’t want it to happen. We’re just friends. Got it?”

Greg was still for a couple of seconds. Okay then He knew fully well why Arbiter was so sudden to dismiss the idea yet he knew it was for the best that he should leave the subject.

Just be happy with your life

“Yeah, I try. Should be easier with the ponies to distract Chief. Lessens the burden of idiocy from him on me. Thanks for caring though.”

No problem mate ;)

“So you know: you’re my best friend.” He then shook his head in surprise. “That was incredibly...fluffy. The ponies must be affecting me. Fuck. I need a drink.”

Haha alright then

Arbiter carefully climbed down from the window sill and onto the floor. There was a bit of a drop of course but he was fine. Greg watched him go...until he got distracted by the fly that was banging on the glass, trying to escape.

Making his way across the vast apartment floor, he climbed up the kitchen counters and opened the alcohol cupboard. Not being picky today, he grabbed the nearest beverage and sat down with the bottle. He couldn’t be bothered to get a glass, so he just drank from the bottle. Despite this, he didn’t plan on having it all at once.

It took almost all of his strength to actually life to bottom to his many lips, but he managed to drink the liquid. “Better.”

His solitude was interrupted by the arrival of the ponies (he didn’t plan on drinking alone anyway), Twilight had to climb up but Fluttershy just flew up gracefully. “Hey you two.”

“Hello Arbiter.” Twilight greeted. Fluttershy just waved, giving the bipedal toy a smile. Twilight grimaced when she saw the bottle. “Is that alcohol?”

“Yeah. What about it?” He sat on his bottom, stretching his plastic legs which creaked in protest.

“A bit early to be drinking, isn’t it?”

“I don’t plan on having too much, don’t worry.”

“Um, what’s alcohol?” Fluttershy asked innocently. She was still learning about the many wonders (and horrors) of life in the apartment.

Arbiter and Twilight exchanged looks. “Um, well...” The unicorn began.

“It’s a drink that you don’t need. That’s all you need to know.” Arbiter finished.

“I don’t mean to be rude Arbiter but um, then why are you drinking it?” Fluttershy landed on the counter beside Twilight.

“You don’t need it. But I do.”

“Uh, okay then.” Fluttershy said.

“Moving on...” Twilight interjected. “Where’s Chief?”

Arbiter looked at Twilight blankly. “Where do you think?”

The purple mare blinked. “Yeah, that was a silly question...I’m still shocked that all he plays is Halo: Reach.”

“Don’t worry. By November he will have moved onto Halo 4.” Arbiter knew for a fact that Chief has already pre-ordered the limited edition of the game, which came with exclusive bonuses. He paid for it with Jon’s card of course.

“Oh, great.” Twilight muttered sarcastically.

“What games do you play Arbiter?” Fluttershy asked.

“Far more than Chief plays. My favorite has to Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64.”

“Funny, Chief has been hogging the Xbox so much I haven’t actually seen you play it yet.” Twilight said, somewhat annoyed by that fact. Watching human soldiers in big armor shoot each other got boring after a while.

“I must show you it one day. I think you’ll love it.” Considering it was his favorite, Arbiter was understandably passionate about it. So if he had the chance to show the ponies the amazing quality of the game, he would take it.

Fluttershy looked towards the TV where Chief would be. “Um, if you two don’t mind I’ll check on Chief; he might be lonely.” Waving to the other two, she soon set off and flew away.

“I doubt he is. With his massive ego, he’s never alone.”

“You got that right. Hopefully he’ll be nice to Fluttershy at least...” Biting her lip, Twilight looked at the bottle again. “And what do you mean you need it?”

Arbiter stared at the bottle’s label. “Before you came, a lot of shit happened. I’m still getting over it.” Indeed, many turbulent things had happened. Too many things that brought up questions that were had to take in.

“Oh...I’m sorry to hear that.” She sat down next to him. “But I don’t think you should rely on the drink to make things better.”

“It certainly helps. Besides, you haven’t tried it.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“It’s not an evil drink, Jesus. If you’re responsible, it allows you to loosen up and have a good time.”

“What did I just say Arbiter?” Twilight said rather sternly.

“I know what you said. I was just defending the drink. I’m done with it now anyway.” He pushed the bottle away from him.

“Okay. You do know that you can talk to me about it, right?”

“Yes but since you weren’t there, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Doesn’t stop me from trying to help you.” She gave him a small smile.

“Well, I can thank you for trying.” He stood up, not bothering to put the bottle back. “I think I’ll play some Halo now.”

“With Chief?” Twilight asked, also getting up onto her hooves.

“You think he’d actually stop playing just because I wanted to?”

“Point taken.” She smirked.

The two clambered down from the counter carefully and made their way to the Xbox. As expected, Chief was sat on the leather chair with the Xbox controller on his lap and a surrounding him. Upon climbing up, the two could also Fluttershy sitting next to Chief, her eyes avoiding the bloodshed on screen.

“Move over Chief, I’m joining.” He slumped down next to Chief and grabbed a controller nearby, making his presence known. Twilight simply sat next to Fluttershy.

“w8 until ive finished this game dumbass” Chief replied, focus on the game. He was losing. The match he was in was situated on the Sword Base map. Arbiter complied, patiently waiting. By the look of things, the game would be over very quickly.

“fucks sake” Chief cried as his avatar got stuck by a plasma grenade, instantly killing him. Chief’s character was covered in completely green armor and his helmet had a thin, yellow visor that was faded. Other than that, his armor was surprisingly simple.

“i need a beer” He looked at Fluttershy. “hey fluttershi get me a can of beer”

“Oh, um, okay if that’s what you want.” Fluttershy flew away, all too ready to comply with Chief’s order. Both Twilight and Chief peered at her as she flew away but their thoughts were completely different.

The TV’s speakers announced the end of the match and Arbiter could now join in the game. His avatar was very different from Chief’s. Instead of using a human model, he used a Sangheili one. He wore the ‘Spec-Ops’ armor, it’s most distinctive feature being its sharply pointed helment that completely covered the alien’s face. Two glowing blue lines represented where the figure could see out of and the helmet ended in a tip, like a sharp snout. The armor was mostly white but it had red markings here and there.

Fluttershy came back, wheezing and becoming quickly exhausted from having to life such a huge can and fly at the same time. She set it down on the chair and collapsed, beginning to recuperate. Twilight blinked, impressed with such a feat of strength.

Chief didn’t care for that though, merely grabbed the can and opening it. Despite not exactly knowing what beer was, Fluttershy had got the right beverage for Chief. He began to drink it heartily before the next match started.

“thats better ill play ossum now”

“I just had some alcohol so I think my skills will ‘improve’ as well.” Arbiter raised his hands and bent his fingers on the word ‘improve’.

“Fluttershy, I think Chief should have gotten that by himself.” She frowned slightly at the toy in question.

“No no...it’s fine...glad to help...” Fluttershy sputtered between heavy breaths.

Arbiter and Chief soon found themselves in a match on the map Boardwalk. The layout was quite simple: It was a series of walkways with two buildings, one at the top and another at the bottom. There was also a lower, underground area. The flooring was a dark grey and the walls were a shiny white, most having green plants and trees growing on top of them. The map was also on a slight incline.

Chief and Arbiter next to each other and both immediately ran in separate directions, prepared to wipe out any opposition that they ran into. Chief was less serious in his way of movement; he repeatedly bounced in the air. Arbiter was more focused, sprinting into cover.

Using one his favorite weapons, the Magnum pistol, Arbiter managed to catch an opponent off guard; an orange SPARTAN. He repeatedly fired his gun at the opponent, taking him down in seconds with a clean headshot. His enemy didn’t even get a hit on Arbiter.

Chief on the other hand was less skilled with his few kills. Arbiter was clearly the superior, although he trained Chief and helped him improve. And it did show.

Running into the building at the bottom of the map, Chief headed up the short amount of stairs and spotted an opponent firing a rifle from one of the balconies. The red SPARTAN was either scoped in or unobservant, as Chief could sneak behind him undetected. Chief shoved the enemy around and followed by impaling his combat knife into the opponent’s skull. An ruthless assassination.

Fluttershy covered her eyes, flinching at the death cry of the enemy. Twilight was less disgusted; she knew it was only pixels after all.

Chief celebrated his kill by teabagging his opponent repeatedly while hitting the corpse with his assault rifle. “lolololololololololol”

The owner of the dead body respawned and reunited with Chief in the building. He was going to attack but stood still after seeing Chief’s movement.

“Hey cut that out! That’s not cool!” The player’s voice sounded quite squeaky, making it apparent the person was a young teenager with possible abrupt voice changes.

“i was planning 2” Chief stopped teabagging and looked at the other player. “ur mom was much moar fun lol”

“My mom is a clean woman and would not participate in such disgusting acts!” The player protested.

“yea she was cleen until i did her oh man my juice was all 0ver her rofl”

Twilight made a face of pure disgust. The other three were easily able to hear Chief speak into the headset’s microphone.

“You’re disgusting!” The opponent exclaimed, his voice going deep for just a moment. The embarrassing voice crack only made him an easier target to bully.

“and ur a fag. and wats wr0ng with ur voice lol? munching on 2 many cocks?”

“Eugh, I can’t bear to listen to such awful words for much longer. I’m going to find Greg, see you guys later.” Twilight sighed and left.

“Um, I’ll come with you Twilight.” Fluttershy eagerly followed her friend away from the chair.

“See you two later then.” Arbiter said, scoring yet another kill in the game. This time though his shields actually took some bullets, so he had to hide behind a wall until they recharged. Despite the drink, he was doing rather well in this match. Every other player seemed to be terrible.

The squeaky voiced teen meanwhile was stuttering, failing to come up with a creative response to Chief. “Well...at least I don’t sound like Stephen Hawking!”

“harsh. that dude has problims y wud u say that? fag”

“B-But you were just as insulting to me! If not more so!” The teenager sputtered. “You’re an asshole!”

“bitch u just jealous of my super spartan swag”

Another player, this time a Sangheili, entered through a doorway nearby the pair. Hearing the commotion, he had decided to investigate. He approached the pair and gave them both a quick glance.

“Do we have a problem here, gentlemen?”

A/N: Check out my comment just below. I got a question that needs answering.

Realization

“who teh fuck r u?”

“I did not ask a question only to receive another.” TheEliteVindicator turned to face the teenager’s character, waiting for an answer.

“This guy’s bullying me!” The teen whined.

A soft sigh could be heard from the Vindicator. “I see, I see.” He looked at Chief. “I respectfully ask that you stop tormenting this child.”

“holy shit its dicktionary man!” Chief’s avatar jumped up repeatedly.

“I’m taking that as a no then?” The Vindicator asked.

“darn rite son no 1 tells me wat to do mothafucka”

“So be it.” And with that, he brought out his Energy Sword and suddenly lunged at Chief, slicing the blade into the SPARTAN’s armor. Chief could only watch helplessly as he was killed.

“oh that’s some dirtee tactz rite there cocksucker cmon ill kick ur ass” Chief said as his avatar respawned.

The Vindicator scoffed quietly. “Oh I love it when they fight back. Truly, I do.” He swapped his Energy Sword for his other weapon: the aptly named Needle Rifle. An elegant yet distinctly alien weapon, most of it was purple and the barrel ended in a long silver snout. It’s ammo was up for display, pink needles poked from the top of the rifle, just waiting to be fired. If three of those punctured the flesh of any opponent, they would all explode with lethal force.

Chief had spawned under a bridge at the top of the map. He walked back and bit and headed up the nearby stairs that led to one of the walkways. As soon as he got up the stairs, he saw The Vindicator in his line of sight.

Even if he had spawned with a DMR (M392 Designated Marksman Rifle if you wanted to be accurate...and a lore junkie), a basic semi automatic rifle that did its job and did it well. It was a weapon of choice for many players.

Chief’s enemy started firing, hitting his mark. Chief tried to strafe to the left and right, firing back. It seems that The Vindicator was a far superior opponent, dodging all of Chief’s shots and landing his own. To end the fight, a purple needle went straight in the visor of Chief, killing him for the second time.

“go suck a donkey dick”

“Hah. Not bad.” Said Arbiter, walking up to The Vindicator from behind.

“Why thank you.” He paused, turning around to look at Arbiter’s character. “You’re not friends with the green troll, or you?”

“I have to live with him. Unfortunately. It’s a long story.”

“Aah, I see.” The Vindicator then suddenly ran off, not wanting to be an easy target. Arbiter trailed him and it wasn’t long before they found Chief again. He barely had time to react as The Vindicator threw a plasma grenade and it stuck right onto Chief’s leg. It exploded shortly after.

“goddamit!!1”

“You’re not bad at this.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m the best...although I know how to put most idiots here in their place.”

“Doesn’t take much if you know how.”

The EliteVindicator let out a short chortle. “Exactly. And since there are a lot of them...” He turned around, impaling Chief with the energy sword. “My kill death ratio is good.”

“fucks sake ur real1y pissin me off nao”

“I wasn’t before?” The Vindicator quipped.

“As much as I enjoy this charade, do you mind toning it down a bit? You’re starting to grief.”

“I am afraid that I cannot do that.” He replied, a stern undertone evident in his voice. Before the Arbiter could talk, he continued. “I’m sure you have encountered more than a fair share of trolls on the internet. Some are relatively harmless. Others just idiotic. But some...” he looked down. “Some ruin lives. You surely must have heard the stories. People committing suicide due to online bullying.” The sound of spitting could be heard.

“The amount a troll will go to just to get a cheap laugh never ceases to disgust me. I know exactly why they do it. The internet is a lawless place. There are little real life consequences. Almost everything happens online. You can say whatever the hell you want to another and never have to worry about meeting them in person.”

A bullet straight from Chief hit his armor, interrupting him. He pulled out his own gun and strafed from side to side. Yet again, Chief was killed. He screamed curse words into the mic but the other two just ignored him.

“And so I attempt to bring consequence into these wild lands. You call it griefing. I call it just. These trolls must learn the error of their ways or be dealt with. It’s the only way.”

“So you counter trolls by doing exactly what some do? Not the smartest move if you want to keep your integrity.”

“Fight fire with fire. Many people say it doesn’t work but it certainly does if you use it correctly. As a species, we will always shirk off responsibility or consequence whenever we can. But present it to them and they will often change their ways.”

“Many criminals never change their ways. No matter how much prison time they get.”

“Prison is too soft. You get free food and somewhere to live. It’s a haven for the less fortunate. And before you mention rehabilitation, I know that it works very well in most cases. It may not be a punishment, yet the concept is the exact same: people are taught to live like how a good person should live. Therefore, they realize what they did was wrong. They get guilt. Guilt is a terrible thing my friend.”

“omg r u finished fuckin hell” Chief said. He had resorted to keeping away from The Vindicator, considering he wasn’t actively hunting him.

“Well I can see that convincing you to change your over zealous ways would get me nowhere.”

“So will you choose the option of stopping me?”

“No way. Been involved in way too much online shit blowing up. I’ll be the better man and walk away.” And with that, he turned and did exactly what he said.

“A wise decision. Although your friend will continue to be targeted.”

The Arbiter stopped in his tracks.

“Are you really going to chase just one guy? That’s really pathetic dude.”

“Heh. Well I am hardly alone. In fact, I head an organisation--or clan--called the Anti Trolling Alliance. I have quite the number of loyal members, if I do say so myself. So rest assured, we have the means to find your friend wherever he is.”

There was a long silence before anything else was said or done. Suddenly, the screen turned to black.

“hey wtf did u do that 4??!!” Chief protested, pointing at the now dormant Xbox.

“We have to lay low for a few days. Maybe a week. Anything to get those dipshits to leave us alone.” Arbiter replied, standing up.

“well wat the hell do u do now smartass?”

Arbiter shrugged. “Talk to the ponies I suppose.”

“u hav no idea how gay that sounds”

“I take it you’re not coming with me then?”

Chief paused for a bit. “fien fien nothing better 2 do” He stood up, then pointed a finger at Arbiter. “but i still dont leik them tho”

“God forbid.”

The plastic duo scaled down from the chair and wandered the carpeted expanse of the apartment. They two looked for any signs for the others but to no avail.

“Where the hell is everypony?”

The pair went silent and Chief slowly turned to face Arbiter. He then shuddered with laughter and pointed a finger at the alien.

“omg u actully just said that teh ponies hav infected u lolololol”

“Shut the fuck up. It was just a slip of the tongue. Jesus. Get over it.”

“lolololol arbiters a pony lololololol” Chief swung his hips from side to side as he chanted.

“Sigh.” Was the only thing Arbiter could say.

“What’s going on? Is Chief doing something stupid again?” Twilight asked. She--along with Fluttershy and Greg--were walking towards the pair from the direction of Jon’s room.

“How did you guess?” Arbiter replied, giving them a nod as a greeting. Chief kept on dancing.

“Well based off my observations, the ‘lolololol’ call, “ she said it with mild confusion, “is what Chief spouts out whenever he feels triumphant over someone else or has done something that amuses himself.”

“You make him sound like an animal.” He glanced at the dancing Chief. “It’s probably more accurate to call him one.”

“Oh no, he isn’t an animal. I can tell.” Fluttershy stated.

“Well Greg’s an animal and he’s smarter and more civilised than Chief will ever be. Amazing, considering that he spits silk out of himself to travel around.”

Greg began his usual scribbling.

Id prefer it if you dont call me an animal, thanks :)

“Ah, sorry. But you get my point.”

That i do and i take pride in it.

“I think we should all be proud that we’re not Chief.” Twilight smirked. Chief meanwhile, had snapped back to reality.

“well teknically u ponies are animals cuz u r ponies” He pointed objectively at the two mares.

“While we may be based on Earth equines, we are far more intelligent than them and have a society of our own.” Twilight replied, with a hint of smugness.

“omg thats only in teh show”

“Well yes but--”

“no buts cuz the only 1 u shud want is mien lol. anywayz thats only in teh show so it isnt real. teh wurld isnt ruled by a princess thatd be fuckin retarded.” Going over to Twilight, he knocked her on the head. “get ur head out of teh clouds and accept that this is earth.” Everyone was stunned by Chief’s words but none more so than Twilight.

“and since this is earth u can stop fuckin sayin words like ‘everypony’ cuz now arbiter is startin to say it and it sounds so fuckin retarded. most of your language is english anyway good god u 0nly need a change a couple of werds is that so hard?”

Twilight stuttered, trying to form a response. But Chief did not let up.

“i love haloz since haloz is teh best gamez of all time but even i kno that its just a game. its not real. my little pony isnt real. ponyland or watever teh fuck it is isnt real either. get a grip on reality you pathetic l0ser. u think ur so smart but if u cant seperate fictien from reality then ur a demented dipshit”

“Chief! That’s enough.” Arbiter commanded, looking directly at Chief’s visor. There was a tense pause as Chief looked back.

“fien ill fuck off if u want me 2” Chief held up his hands defensively, looking at all the others but he had his eye on Fluttershy in particular. Twilight had her head down and Fluttershy was looking worriedly at her. “hey fluttershi come with me i wanna talk”

“Um...uh...okay...” Fluttershy responded weakly. No one else stopped her from walking off with Chief to the bathroom. She kept looking at Twilight though, desperate to make her feel better. When the bathroom door slammed shut, she knew it was too late.

Arbiter broke the silence after he heard the door shut. “Twilight...are you ok?”

The unicorn didn’t look up, nor did she speak for a while. “I...I just need to be myself for a while, okay?” Twilight said with a trembling voice. She didn’t wait for the others to respond, slowly walking away towards Jon’s bedroom.

“Shit.” Arbiter had waited for the mare to be outside audible range before speaking. “As much as I hate to say it, Chief was right.”

I guess...but he didnt have to say it like that : /

“Mhm. Hopefully Fluttershy will sort him out.” The two exchanged glances. “Okay that’s a longshot. I’ll go talk to him then.”

Greg placed a leg on Arbiter before he could go, although Arbiter did flinch from the contact.

Ill go. You see Twilight.

“Alright then. Good luck. You’ll probably need it.”

And good luck to you too ;)

And with that, the toys made their separate ways. Arbiter was thankful for the respite from Chief yet he knew that he would probably have to sort him out sooner or later. He shook his head as he walked. Chief didn’t honestly matter now. It was Twilight that needed a friend. And hopefully Arbiter would suffice.

Arbiter sussed that Twilight would have retreated into Jon’s room so he briskly made his way over there. Upon entering the room, he at first didn’t see a sign of the mare. However when he looked at the window, he saw her sitting on the sill, gazing out at the city skyline. He made his way up, having to make a few jumps off objects in order to get there. When he looked at her, he saw something he never thought he would see in real life. Tears.

He slightly envied her capacity to show emotion but knew that this wasn’t the time for jealousy. “Hey.” Twilight didn’t give him a response so he continued. “I know that you said you wanted to be alone but...” he mumbled, finding it hard to come up with the words. This wasn’t something he had ever dealt with before and truthfully, he began to think that he wasn’t qualified to help. “But you need someone right now. You think you don’t but you do.”

A silence went by, neither awkward nor companionable. It was merely silence. During which, Arbiter thought he saw the briefest of smiles appear on Twilight’s face, if only for a second. “I don’t belong here Arbiter...me and Fluttershy...we don’t belong.”

“What are you on about? Of course you do.”

Twilight shook her head. “No...I don’t think so.”

Arbiter was quick to respond. He couldn’t let the ponies leave. Not now. “Then what are you thinking of? Leaving?”

Twilight didn’t reply.

“You really think you’ll survive out there?” Arbiter pointed at the skyscrapers, “Because if you do think so, then maybe you really are deluded.”

Arbiter halted, realizing what he just said. “Crap. I’m sorry, I...I’ll be blunt: I haven’t the slightest idea of how to about doing this.”

Twilight finally broke her stare from the city scenery and looked at Arbiter, yet she was still silent. The look alone, however, encouraged Arbiter to go on.

“What I’m trying to say is that...no, you don’t belong. But neither do me, Chief...hell, even Greg. Just how many spiders do you see carrying pens and post-it notes?” Still more silence from Twilight. “Exactly. None.”

“I didn’t mean the world in general...I meant here. This apartment. Still, I suppose you’re right...we can’t just leave...” she trailed off, looking down.

“I think you do. If anything, Chief’s the odd one out here.”

“But you’re all so different from me and Fluttershy. You can see it,” Twilight looked up at the alien figure, “can’t you?”

“Yeah...but...” It was a risky strategy, considering he didn’t know much about it but Arbiter decided to act on his thoughts. “Surely the show, Friendship is Magic, surely that teaches viewers that no matter how different people are, they can still be friends?”

“But Chief--”

“Fuck him. Even if he is a little right...listen, we can learn from show’s if they give us the right lessons. Now you can probably tell what lessons My Little Pony gives us. But Chief is right in that we shouldn’t base our lives on what isn’t reality. Honestly, I’d stop saying words like ‘everypony’. One, it helps you detach yourself from the show and that will help you to fit in. And two, it won’t piss off Chief.”

Twilight wiped her eyes, the tears having stopped coming by now. “I think I understand now.” she said, standing up and giving Arbiter a warm smile, “Thank you Arbiter.”

“No problem. Glad I could help.”

Twilight stepped forward, then somewhat impulsively wrapped her forelegs around Arbiter, giving him a hug. Arbiter was stunned into silence and still didn’t speak even when Twilight broke away.

“Sorry if you don’t like hugs but...I needed one.” Twilight uttered awkwardly.

“It’s...it’s fine...it’s...” Arbiter felt like a weight was being lifted within him. But what was it? True happiness? Maybe.

“It’s nice.”

Greg was perched on the doorknob to the bathroom door, trying to listen in to Chief and Fluttershy’s conversation. Perhaps Fluttershy really was giving Chief a talk, telling him that what he said was too stron--

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaw yeah baby k33p going thats teh stuff”

Or not. Greg twisted the doorknob and the door slowly opened. He quickly scuttled inside the room, climbing onto the cabinet where the sink was and stared at the peculiar sight before him.

Chief was reclining against the side of the sink, seemingly enjoying the warm tap water that filled the sink. A rubber duck harmlessly floated at the other side. Fluttershy meanwhile, was massaging Chief’s plastic shoulders. Both looked at Greg in complete silence when he appeared.

“oh haaaaaai”

Chief what the hell are u doing?

“chillin with ma homey fluttershi wat does it look like lol?” Chief held up his hands in an innocent gesture.

Just looks like you’re forcing her to give u a massage.

“noooooooo its not like that is it fluttershi???? right fluttershi??”

“Um...r-right.” Fluttershy squeaked, focusing on rubbing Chief’s shoulders.

“c? she wants 2 do it greg so let her lol”

Greg stepped forward, writing on another post-it note and showing it to Fluttershy’s face. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.

Fluttershy looked from the words to the spider. “Oh it’s fine Greg...”

You sure?

“Yes.”

“omg can u go naaaaaaao???”

Greg withdrew, looking at Fluttershy the whole time. She was so kind, which meant that she was an awful liar. But she seemed too steadfast in her current position to do anything about it. Arbiter would have to know about this. At least she was only giving Chief a massage for now.

Ill go then, have fun you two. With that, Greg crawled away, Fluttershy watching him go. A inaudible sigh escaped from her mouth.

“oh we will” Chief replied, staying silent until he heard the bathroom door shut, signalling Greg’s exit. He turned around, looking at the pegasus. “did i say u cud stop?? no i didnt so keep g0ing”

“Um, y-yes.” Fluttershy stammered, hurriedly massaging Chief.

“thats Master Ch33f to u”

“Y-Yes Master Chief...”