Press Start to Die

by JackRipper

Rating: teen
Tags: Death, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Button Mash, Dark, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Other
Length: 2766

Button Mash finds a video game that kills him in real life if he dies in the game. He can't stop playing it.

Button Mash finds a video game that kills him in real life if he dies in the game.

He can't stop playing it.

Proofread by BootyPopperzZz and DrOcsid.
Edited by Dreams of Ponies.
Original source image by yuji8sushi, the artistic trashy edits were done by yours truly.

Published 2018-10-22 16:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2018-10-22 16:50:01 UTC

Why do the good die young? Repeatedly?

Bored.

There was no other way to put it, really. Button Mash was bored out of his mind, and it was getting worse by the second. He’d played and beaten every game in his room—and visited the arcade enough times to map it out from memory. He was so bored, in fact, that he willingly completed all of his homework for the rest of the week; he was that bored.

“Mom!” Button shrieked with the enthusiasm of a dead dog. “I’m bored!”

There was a long pause before an angelic voice called back to him. “Well, why don’t you go outside for a change~”

“But that would require actual effort!” Button emphasized his point by sluggishly moving his body to face the wall.

“If you don’t get out of bed, you’re going to end up hospitalized in a different bed~”

Button’s mother didn’t sound so angelic that time.

He lurched out of bed, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his head. “N-no! That’s okay, I’ll just—ack!”

In his fervor, Button had accidentally stood up faster than he’d anticipated, causing him to gracefully trip over his own hooves and slam his face into the adjacent dresser.

“...Button? Are you alright, sweetie? Did you trip over your Joyboy again?” Button’s mother asked, her tone now genuinely concerned.

“Nngh,” Button groaned, shaking the stars out of his vision. “I-it was nothing, mom! I’m fine.” He placed one hoof on the dresser that nearly gave him a concussion, groggily standing up. “Real frickin’ smooth, Button. You’re a real lady killer,” he mumbled under his breath.

“You could always help me around the house, sweetie!”

He shook his head at that suggestion, hastily making his way out of his room to explore the rest of the house. “Yeah, no thanks. I think I’d rather hit my head on the dresser again.”

“Achoo! Ugh.” Button rubbed his nose, immediately regretting his decision to venture into his attic, which had the air quality of a Vietneighmese POW camp. This was, of course, a last resort, as the only other option he had was to go outside.

That wasn’t happening.

He hadn’t been up here in a very long time—the amount of dust invading his nostrils was a testament to that fact. But maybe, just maybe, he’d find something up here that would make the sinus attacks worth it.

As his luck would have it, he spotted something in the corner of his eye: a retro video game console with no label. With little to no hesitation, Button leaned down to pick it up.

A strong chill ran down the length of his back. “Sweet Celestia, what was that?”

He shook off the unpleasant feeling, taking the time to further study the suspiciously inconspicuous console in his grasp. It was neither colorful nor decorated on the outside, making it impossible to determine what company made the console. As for what game was currently loaded into the machine, Button could only hypothesize. He couldn’t pry off the battery pack to see if it was powered, and trying to eject the game within the console yielded the same result: no dice.

He couldn’t help but grin. Crisis averted! The nightmare of the outside was about to be defeated, all he needed was to press the button.

So he did.

A soft bright light from the console’s screen illuminated the attic. The action of powering it on was ultimately anticlimactic, as there wasn’t even a start-up menu to greet him. There was no music either, only four options were displayed:

Continue

New Game

Options

Exit Game

Button frowned. Surely this wasn’t it, right? White text on a black background? Having not even played the game, the impression it gave off left a bad taste in his mouth. Or maybe he was just speaking too soon. It’s not like he’d actually played the game yet…

“At least it won’t have any microtransactions,” Button sighed.

He glanced over his shoulder, staring at the attic door before redirecting his gaze back to the console. He was curious and so very bored. But hey, it’s not like curiosity ever got anyone killed, right?

He sighed, muttering reassurances under his breath as he carried the game back to his room.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

The game looked dated. It was a dungeon-crawler RPG, with an art style that reminded him of Castlevania. If he had to explain this to anyone who wasn’t a total nerd, he’d say that it was an action-oriented exploration game. Despite having that signature retro look, Button could tell that the game was ahead of its time, with random level generation that couldn’t have existed way back when.

That wasn’t the interesting part, though.

The game was hard, like, old-school hard. The kind of hard that left no room for error and stole all your bits at the arcade. Button’s first death came from an arrow trap: when he stepped on a hidden panel in the center of the room’s floor. An arrow lodged itself in his avatar’s sternum, and before he knew it, he was coughing up blood in real life.

“Grk—!” Button painted the carpet red as he found himself struggling to breathe. The console hit the ground with a dull thud as he stared down at his bloodied hooves. There was an arrow in the very same place he’d been hit in the game, and the pain was right there with it.

“Thank you, Dark Souls...” Button sputtered, losing strength in his hind legs and collapsing to the ground. His vision blurred and melded into one color as he failed to hold himself upright any longer. He needed to get to a hospital as soon as he could, but without being able to move, Button knew that he wasn’t long for Equestria.

“...B-but I’m still a virgin!”

…

…

Poof!

With a flash of light and a puff of smoke, Button Mash was standing on all four hooves again, significantly less dead than he was moments ago.
“Huh?!” Button spun around, eyes wide, scanning his body for the mortal wound that should have killed him. It was gone, as was the blood.

“Those were my last words?” Button sagged his shoulders. “Sweet Celestia, I’m lame.”

Disregarding the fact that he should be dead, Button glanced down at the console now lying on the floor. Was that some kind of weird hallucination? Did Rumble slip something into his food again? Probably not the latter one, as Button had already paid him back for that particular prank.

“I don’t get it.” Button shook his head. Would it happen again if he played a second time? It’d be dangerous, sure, but he wouldn’t know unless he tried. It also helped that he was an idiot who was willing to do it.

He grinned. “The Crusaders are gonna get a kick out of this thing.”

Button waited until after school before inviting the Cutie Mark Crusaders over to his house. He would’ve brought it to class with him, but if Rumble or one of his other friends played it without him knowing…

Yeah, he wasn’t interested in getting a lecture from his mom. A game that kills you if you play it? He’d never hear the end of it.

“You’re an idiot, Button.”

Button winced. “Thanks, Sweetie, I’m really glad to have all your love and support.”

For some reason, she blushed at that response. Weird.

Scootaloo nudged past Sweetie Belle to get a better look at the game. “How many times did you say you’ve died now?”

“Three times now. One from an arrow trap, one from falling into a bottomless pit, and a pickaxe to the skull.”

Scoots’ eyes shined with morbid curiosity. “Dude, that’s frickin’ gnarly.”

“It’s dangerous is what it is,” Apple Bloom said, cautiously staring down at the contraption. “What if ya die and never wake up? Maybe ya only got so many lives and yer runnin’ on borrowed time.”

Button Mash shook his head. “Nah, I already checked that. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing like that in the game; you just infinitely respawn.”

“You should play it, Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo chirped. “Maybe you’ll even get to meet your parents for the few seconds you’re dead.”

“...”

“Come on, Scootaloo.” Sweetie pointed at Button. “You take one look at him and tell me there’s a god.”

“There’s only one god and his name is Tachanka,” Button mumbled.

“What?”

He stood up, throwing the game console in his satchel as he walked over to the door. “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going with that thing?”

“I’m gonna go talk to Princess Twilight about it, maybe she’ll be able to tell me where it came from.” Button opened the door with a newfound sense of enthusiasm, nodding back at the trio one last time before slamming the door on his tail.

Scootaloo sighed. “Sweetie, I have no idea what you see in him.”

“Me neither, Scoots. Me neither.”

“It’s hexed,” Twilight smarted, levitating the console just outside of Button’s reach, much to his chagrin. “As for what kind of hex it is, I honestly have no idea.”

He gawked at her response. “What? But you’re Princess Twilight! You’re supposed to know everything!”

“Button Mash, is it?” He nodded. “Listen, Button, whoever enchanted this console must’ve known what they were doing because it’s deceptively difficult to study it,” Twilight twilighted. “You’ve played the game, right? I didn’t catch everything you said earlier due to your panting; can you elaborate a little for me?”

“I was running.”

“The castle is less than a five-minute walk from your house.”

Button felt his mouth dry up, she wasn’t going to believe him. “Well, uh, there’s a lot of combat—”

“Okay.”

“And if you get hit once by a weapon or trap, you instantly die in the game—”

“Go on.”

“… Which then kills you the same way in real life.”

“…”

“…”

“…What?”

Button groaned. It was just as he thought, she hadn’t believed him. “I don’t know how I could explain it any better, Princess Twilight.”

Twilight let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s just that this is probably the weirdest thing I’ve heard in the last hour.”

“What happened an hour ago?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, okay. Um…” Button glanced around the room as if the answer he was looking for was somehow hidden within the castle. “So you can’t help me then?”

She shrugged. “I might be able to, but you’d have to leave the console with me for a little while.”

That wasn’t happening either.

Miss Deus Ex Machina was of little help to him, though with Button’s luck thus far, it wasn’t much of a surprise. If he wanted the answers he was looking for, the only thing he could do from here on out was to continue playing the game.

He didn’t mind, of course, minus the whole dying thing.

“Let’s just power this sucker on,” Button mumbled to himself. He pulled the console out of his saddlebag, a light illuminating his face as the machine came to life in his hooves. If he was lucky, he could go without getting sawed in half this time on level three.

“Button, where did you get that?”

Button froze in place as ice filled his veins. He knew that tone of voice. It was the kind of tone that said: “I’m going to kick your ass.”

“W-what are you talking about, m-mom?” Button stumbled over his words, clumsily switching off the game and hiding it behind his back. “Where did I get what?”

She rolled her eyes at him, he was as gullible as the word written on the ceiling. “C’mon, Button. Let me see it. I promise I won’t get mad.”

“You sit on a throne of lies.”

“Button.”

“Fine,” he said, passing it to his mom before looking away. “Are you mad at me for going in the attic?”

She narrowed her eyes. “So that’s where you found it?”

“I—” Button groaned. “Me and my big mouth…”

But there was no verbal backlash by his mother, she just stared down at the object in her hooves. “This game console belonged to your father, you know.”

“D-did it kill him for good? The game?” Button stuttered.

“No, he died from cancer.”

“I—oh, okay. So he played League too?”

Button’s mother sighed. “Listen, Button, this game isn’t actually lethal, but unlike other video games you play, this one will consume your soul—”

Button gulped.

“—Metaphorically, of course, not literally. Though, that makes it dangerous in its own way. It was hidden from you for a reason.”

“Because it’s so fun?”

She nodded. “Exactly. After I told your father it was either me or this video game, I suppose he just chucked it in the attic, and it just sat there collecting dust until now. I never told you anything about it, but I knew you’d find it eventually. After all, you’re just like him.”

“Dead?”

“Button,” she hissed, her patience growing thin, “This game’s not good for you. I mean, none of them are, but this one takes the cake.”

Button flinched at her sudden change in tone. “I don’t understand. Why did you even bother keeping it around in the first place? Why didn’t you just smash it before I could find it? Why’d you let me find it at all?”

Her serious visage cracked for a moment, before being replaced by a soft, melancholy smile. “I would have gotten rid of it a long time ago but… when I saw you playing it, it reminded me of him: your father.”

“Oh… I see.” Button looked up at her, a hopeful expression on his face. “So can I still play it since it’s not dangerous?”

Crack!

The casing of the console came apart as Button’s mother chucked the thing across the living room.

“Mom!” Button shouted, his eyes widening as she galloped across the room. “What is wrong with you?!”

She smirked, shoveling the pieces of electronics into the fireplace and lighting it ablaze. “Sorry, Button, but I’m not going to let this game take over your life too. I know you’re just like your father; even if I hid it somewhere else, you’d just try to find it again.”

“B-but… my boredom…” Button collapsed, looking up at the ceiling with a thousand-yard stare.

“Noooo!”

Sweetie Belle merrily skipped down the cobblestone road that lead to the boutique, humming the tune of a song she’d been working on, which likely sounded better in her head than it did aloud.

Nevertheless, she was in a good mood. It was Friday, she had no homework to do, and it was the first time she’d received a grade higher than a ‘B’ on one of Miss Cheerilee’s math tests, which were harder than the diamonds her sister often worked with.

“Rarity! I’m home!” Sweetie yelled. She waited a few seconds for a response, shrugging when she received no answer. “Guess she’s out right now, figures.”

Sweetie Belle unceremoniously flung her saddle bag on to a chair, glancing around the boutique in search of something to do. Food seemed like the best course of action, maybe she’d hang out with Button once Rarity came back from whatever errand she was running.

“What do I eat?” She said to herself, idly meandering into the kitchen and flicking on the light. It wasn’t the fridge or the pantry that caught her attention though; instead, there was a small object sitting on the kitchen counter that piqued Sweetie’s interests.

It only took her a second to connect the dots as her eyes lit up. “O-oh! This is the video game that Button was playing earlier, I think.”

It was supposed to be destroyed, or at least, that’s what Button had told her. Was he talking about something else then? She shook her head, that colt had the amazing ability to be so dense sometimes.

With the console levitating low in her magical grasp, Sweetie Belle glanced over her shoulder, eyeing the door for a second before looking at at the screen again.

She bit her lip, conceding with a shrug.

“I guess it wouldn’t kill me to give it a try.”

Author's Note

Days since last update: ~~22~~ 0.

Sorry for the inactivity. Please smack this story with the phat upvote if you enjoyed.