Pone Family Game Night
The Ponyville Library opened its doors as five multicolored ponies walked in, some carrying a box with them. The lights from inside shone out into the night and when the door closed chatter could be heard over the crickets of the night.
“Hi everypony! Thanks for coming over tonight!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, levitating a table towards the center of the room. It was the first Tuesday of the month and since last Hearth’s Warming Eve, it was the monthly Board Game Night. “Did you guys bring the games I asked you?”
Three ponies nodded, as each placed their game on the table. Rarity placed a wooden box labeled “Horstego” with a portrait of several war-ponies mid battle on the table, while Fluttershy delicately set her copy of “Ponopoly” on the table. Applejack brought out a rectangular box labeled “Jenga” Twilight smiled as she marked the items off on her check list. Spike entered the main room from the kitchen wearing an apron. The purple dragon was carrying a tray of cookies that were in the oven for a bit too long.
“I brought the refreshments!” The dragon announced through a toothy grin. “Help yourselves!” he said as he placed the tray down at the table (Pinkie Pie immediately began to dig in) and began to retreat towards the upstairs portion of the library. “Hope the game night goes well!”
“Spike, dear. Why don’t you join us? We could always use another player.” Rarity said with the typical kindness she uses towards the dragon.
“Yeah! I think we need someone to partner up for the game of INSERT HORSE PUN HERE.” Applejack added.
The purple Dragon scratched behind his ear. He planned on getting some sleep and leaving the girls to their own devices. It isn’t very often that he isn’t up late writing something or other for Twilight. “I’d love to, but....” Rarity cut him off with a smile. The dragon stopped abruptly and sighed. “One board game couldn’t hurt, I guess.”
“Alright! So it looks like we need two players for Horstego, three for Ponopoly, and two for Jenga.”
Rainbow dash spoke first, grabbing the Horstego box. “I wanna play this one. It looks like it’s full of action!” Her eyes grew large as she examined the battle going on the cover of the box. Rarity laughed as Dash continued to take in the picture. When the blue horse noticed, she pointed her squinted eyes directly at the offender. “What’s so funny? Why don’t you take me on in this? There’s no way that you could beat a pony of action in a game like this!” Rarity laughed even harder and agreed, levitating the box to a section of the floor and began to take the pieces out of the box.
Fluttershy approached Twilight. “I’d like to pklay my game, if that’s alright. When the tower in Jenga falls over, I get startled. I don’t like getting startled and I never get startled with-“
“That’s fine, Fluttershy.” Interrupted Twilight, “Who else wanted to play Ponopoly?”
“I would!” Pinkie Pie said, cookie crumbs flying out of her mouth. “I LOVE Ponopoly! So many funny cards, the money is all sorts of silly colors, and rolling the dice is so so so so so so much fun!” At this point Pinkie had begun to bounce around the table. She bounced on top of the table and sent the Ponopoly box flying. Applejack scrambled to catch it, but when the box hit the ground, the pieces and money flew out and landed in a perfect set up for three players. Eyes widened, she first looked to Twilight, shrugged, and sat down in one of the spots for Ponopoly.
Twilight looked over to Spike. “Looks like we’re playing Jenga!” The small dragon flexed his claws then straightened them out. While most games and sports in Equestria can easily be won with magic, strength, or speed this is one game that he clearly had the edge in. He massaged the scales on his palm and blew on the ends of his fingers as twilight set up the tower of wooden blocks.
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“So there’s this pony in a funny hat, and he has a nine above him. Where do I put him?”
“Anywhere you want, Rainbow Dash. That’s part of the strategy,” replied Rarity, levitating several pieces to onto the board at a time.
“Why are you turning the pictures away from me? How am I supposed to know what your pieces are?”
Rarity rolled her eyes and sighed. “You aren’t supposed to know. Put your flag piece somewhere on the board and use the other pieces to protect it while searching for mine. When you use a piece to attack one of mine, we reveal our pieces to each other. Would you like the copy of the rules?” She began to float the copy over to her friend.
The blue pony looked over her pieces. All the ponies wore hats; each one had a number one through nine while on had an S over its head. There were some bomb pieces and one flag piece as well. “Protect the flag and find yours? Seems easy enough.” She replied, tossing the rulebook aside. “I haven’t lost a game of capture the flag in real life, I’m pretty sure I can handle it in a board game.” Dash placed her flag in the middle of the row closest to her, and surrounded it with bomb pieces. At this point, Rarity had already finished setting up her side of the board. Seeing this, Dash began haphazardly tossing the rest of her pieces on the board in an effort to catch up.
Rarity wore a devious grin as she saw her friend recklessly set up her side of the board. This is simply going to be fantastic!” she thought.
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“My turn! My turn!” Pinkie Pie shouted as she grabbed the dice. Even though she had already lost 700 hundred bits to income taxes and rent, she was still eager to roll. Seven spaces later she landed on Rainbow Works. “OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo, I’ll take it!” She said as she put the money in the bank and grabbed the property card. Applejack rolled her eyes. She was one property away from her first ponopoly, and couldn’t help but feel bad for ponies that fall victim to the temptations of such a worthless property. She looked over at Fluttershy’s property: Appleloosa Station, and Canterwalk; Two properties after three laps on the board, not very surprising.
“Hey Fluttershy, maybe you should consider buying more property? You gotta start building stables soon.” The country pony said.
“Well, if I buy property I might not have enough money for when I have to pay rent… And if I don’t have enough money to pay rent I’ll lose… so…” Fluttershy began mumbling and shuffled her money around. Applejack once again rolled her eyes and picked up the dice. Her toss yielded a 5 planting her on Manehatten, the last property she needed for her set.
“Whoooooeee! I got myself a ponopoly!” She put several hundred bits into the bank and retrieved her card, while picking up some green stables. “I’m gonna upgrade my lovely few acres with some stables as well. Feel free to come and visit whenever ya like.”
“Sure thing, Applejack! I’d LOVE to visit your stables, look at them all stacked and neat in a row. They’re probably the best stables in Manehatten!” Pinkie replied as Fluttershy rolled the dice.
“They’re the only stables in this Manehatten, and I make sure that they’re up to snuff.” Applejack eyed the board as Fluttershy moved her piece. Fluttershy’s hoof shivered as she counted aloud; her piece was on the same side as Applejack’s recently upgraded property. Applejack’s green eyes widened as her friend moved her dog-shaped piece ever closer to her lovely green stables. Applejack began to count as well, “One, two, three, four… Drat. Community Chest.” She stamped her hoof on the ground as Fluttershy recovered from the terrifying ordeal and read the card.
“ ’You won ten bits for second place in a rodeo competition!’ That’s nice!” She trembled less as she took her free money from the bank and replaced the card at the bottom of the deck. “I’ll just put it away for safekeeping.” Applejack did not even waste the energy to roll her eyes at this.
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“All finished!” Twilight backed away from the tower as the purple haze of her magic faded from its edges. She eyed the structure and squinted as the tower teetered a little bit. Panicking, her horn glowed and tore the tower down. Spike leaned his elbows on the table and watched as she pieced the tower back together brick by brick. From a distance the tower seemed fine, but this did not please Twilight. She leaned in close checking the alignment of each layer of blocks. From all angles it seemed fine and Spike sighed with relief.
Spike produced a bit from twilight’s satchel, flipped it, and called heads. The golden coin landed on the table and Spike snapped his claws as he told Twilight that she had the first move. Twilight’s horn began to glow as she moved to take a piece from the tower. “Hey! No magic!” Spike objected, flicking her horn in the process. Rubbing the horn with her hoof, Twilight snorted then began to reach for the tower. Spike leaned down on the table once again, and the tower quivered. Twilight’s hoof stopped abruptly.
“Uh, Twilight?”
The foreleg did not move.
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“Alright, I wanna attack your guy with this piece,” Rainbow dash declared as she moved a piece with a7 on it towards Rarity’s side of the board. Rarity smirked as dash selected a bomb piece as her target.
“Boom!" She giggled as she turned the piece around to show her friend.
“So? I’ve got a seven!”
“Only the Miner Ponies with an 8 on them can remove bombs, dear. Every other piece loses.” The 7 piece was surrounded by a light blue haze and put back into the box.
Dash flared her nostrils and frowned. “How was I supposed to know that?”Rarity replied with a stare, and tossed the rulebook at Dash’s hooves. “Oh, right.” She eyed the ground, and then the rulebook. “Mind if I give it a look through?” Rarity shook her head as Dash turned to page one.
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“6, 7, 8! Free Parking!” Pinkie Pie squealed. The Ponopoly board was littered with green stables and red barns; most of them belonged to Applejack. Pinkie Pie moved her top-hat shaped piece to the corner space happily tapped her hooves on the ground. Her hooves tapped over modest pile of property; while not having as much property as her orange friend, she did manage to put together two Ponopolies. She quickly darted her eyes over to Applejack’s numerous lines of property and large stack of colorful bits. She then looked over to Fluttershy’s side of the board which held only Canterwalk and her two railroad properties alongside her smile pile of money.
Applejack picked up the dice and rolled. She advanced her piece past the unclaimed Pony Parkplace and towards her own property of Coltic Avenue. Collecting her two-hundred bits from the bank, she passed the dice to Fluttershy. The Pegasus tossed the dice gently on the board, and advanced her piece from the community chest she was placed on. Space by space she approached go, but fell three short and landed on Pony Parkplace.
“Oh, I guess I don’t get my money this turn. Your turn Pink-“
Applejack interrupted her friend and started to grab money from her side of the board. “You’re buyin’ this property.” She put the correct number of bits into the bank and placed the property card on Fluttershy’s side of the board. “Now start building on it. I think you can afford some stables.”
Fluttershy tried to object, but nothing came out of her mouth. She counted her money and put two stables on each property before handing the dice over to Pinkie.
“Yay! Now everyone has a Ponopoly!” The pink hoof tossed the dice and she moved her piece to a light blue space. “Aww Connecticolt Avenue… How many bits is that, Applejack?”
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Rainbow Dash looked over her side of the board. After reading the rulebook, she realized how badly her set up was. Her most powerful piece attacking piece was hardly protected and her miners didn’t have any sort of protection either.
“It’s your move, Rainbow.”
Dash didn’t really have much of a plan with this set up, she moved one of her scouts forward, investigating Rarity’s front line which was mostly untouched. “Scout” Rainbow dash declared. Rarity smiled and revealed a piece with a rank of three. Dash sighed and put her scout back into the box, which contained many more of her blue colored pieces than Rarity’s red colored ones.
On the other side of the board, Rarity was perfectly content. She placed her flag piece in the corner, protected by her pieces with a rank of one and two. With bombs scattered out randomly throughout her side of the battlefield, Dash could lose dozens of pieces before finding the real objective. Her frontline was still strong, excepting the bomb she had diffused and the few scouts she had sacrificed to figure out Dash’s general lay out. She decided to advance her Colonel with a rank of three down the center of Dash’s board.
“Three.” She stated.
“Five.” Dash muttered as she removed yet another piece from the board.
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The purple hoof was shaking now. Spike was visibly concerned. Twilight had not moved since he had accidently shifted the tower. “I’m sorry Twilight, but do you think you can take your piece? I didn’t mean to shake the tower…”
Twilight didn’t hear him; she was too focused on the tower. Her eyes widened as she inched her shaking hoof towards the unsteady obelisk. “Don’t you fall down now…” managed to escape from her mouth before moving towards the tower. A bead of sweat formed on her forehead and began to fall down her face. Spike threw his hands up in the air and left the table to grab a chair. Twilight remained stationary.
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Pinkie did not have the best luck tonight. When it was her turn she looked down at her side of the board. After landing on two of Applejack’s fully upgraded properties and one of Fluttershy’s spaces she was left with eight mortgaged properties and a handful of bits. She picked up the dice and rolled an eight. She inched her piece across the board, and discovered her final destination. “Baltimare, that’s yours too isn’t it Applejack?”
“Yup, sorry. I don’t think you can pay rent this time, Pinkie.”
Pinkie’s ears flattened as she handed over the rest of her money and property. “I didn’t think I’d be out that quickly. But it was fun!” She laid herself down on the floor next to the board; at least she could watch the rest of the game. Applejack rolled her dice after un-mortgaging her newly acquired property.
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Rainbow Dash was in utter disbelief. Rarity had torn through nearly her entire battlefield. She had seven pieces remaining: Her flag, her rank 1 Marshal, and the five bombs that encircled her flag. It was her turn, and she somberly moved her marshal towards her own flag in a desperate attempt to defend it from Rarity’s onslaught.
The high-society pony was calm on the outside, but maniacal on the inside. She had never thought that her plan would work out so perfectly. She had lost ten pieces, mostly scouts, during her march towards Rainbow’s flag, and now she simply had to make one final push on her friend’s poorly guarded stronghold.
“I dare say, this game should have gone on a bit longer.” Rarity gloated. “But I think you did well enough for your first time.”
“Just move.” Dash wasn’t happy about this outcome at all; it was worse that she was losing to Rarity.
“I’m just complementing you, dear.” Rarity replied, lacing her words with a small layer of sarcasm.
Dash scowled and extended her wings while stretching her forearms towards her side of the board. .“You know what’s left on my side of the field, just end it already!”
“As you wish,” Rarity moved one of her miners towards Dash’s flag.
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Spike looked at the library clock. Forty-five minutes had passed since they began their game and not a single brick had moved. Twilight’s eyes were red from being so strained, and spike had gotten tired of this “game” that they were playing. “Twi, it’s been nearly an hour. We haven’t even started yet!”
Once again, Twilight did not hear the purple dragon. She had entered a Zen-like state. The tower. The wooden obelisk. It was all she could think about. She couldn’t let it fall, if it fell then everything would be for naught. That tower needed to remain skyward, at all costs.
Spike stared at his entranced friend. Her mane was slightly out of line, and more sweat had formed on her forehead and was welling the bottom of her chin. Her eyes had not blinked within the past minute. He should’ve just gone first. Spike leaned forward onto the table and put his face to the surface of it.
The sweat drop on her chin began to fall.
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“Alright, Fluttershy. One more roll and I think we can call this a night.”
Applejack was right. With her only bits being invested into her one Ponopoly, Fluttershy knew the end was near. “I really should have saved my money,” she thought aloud. She began to roll the dice.
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Drip.
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“Miner.”
“Bomb…” Dash removed the final bomb piece from the board. “I’ll move my marshal to attack your miner.”
“Okay,” rarity removed her miner from the field and moved her hoof to a scout on her end of the field. “We should play again some time. It really was a good game.”
“Maybe for you….” Dash crossed her forelegs as Rarity went to make the final move.
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Twilight didn’t know what it was that hit her with such force on the hoof. The presence of something other than the Jenga tower took her by such surprise that she screamed. She was shocked out of her meditative state and her eyes went white as a bolt of magic erupted from her horn. The laser beam rebounded off the ceiling, off the floor and around the room. Every pony in the room ducked at the scream and tried to hide from the purple laser beam. Fluttershy and dashed under the table and was shaking. The bolt jumped from surface to surface as it finally hit the lamp that was fastened to the middle of the ceiling. Immediately, the room was flooded with darkness.
“What the hay just happened?” Applejack shouted.
Twilight looked around in the darkness and tried to stand. She yelped as she slipped on a Jenga brick; the tower obviously didn’t survive the commotion. “I got carried away, I think. Sorry guys, I think this ends game night.”
Spike threw his arms up into the air and shook his head, “I’m going to bed, we’ll get a new lamp in the morning.” He headed up the stairs, stumbling over the first step. He crawled into his basket and shoved a pillow over his head.
Pinkie Pie heard Fluttershy still shivering under the table. She grabbed the Pegasus from her hiding spot and set herself upright. Twilight illuminated the room with a dim glow from her horn. “I’m so sorry girls. Maybe we can finish tomorrow night?”
A muffled “No!” could be heard from upstairs. Applejack laughed and patted Twilight on the shoulder. “I’m sure we can just have another one next month. We’ll pick up our games tomorrow when it’s light out, that sound fair everypony?” The group nodded and headed towards the door. After Twilight closed and locked the door, she made her way into bed.
Under the blanket she turned towards Spike’s bed. “I’m sorry about the whole Jenga thing, Spike. I shouldn’t have taken it so seriously.” Spike accepted her apology, but was once again muffled underneath his pillow. “Maybe we can finish tomorrow?”
Spike removed the pillow from his head and marched down the staircase. At first a dim green glow could be seen while the sound of stacking blocks could be heard. Shortly after the stacking had stopped, the library below was lit up by a giant green flame. Spike marched back upstairs and collapsed onto his bed. Before drifting off to sleep he turned to Twilight and smirked. “I’ll buy Applejack a new set tomorrow.”