It was a Friday night and Sunset Shimmer was bored. Normally on Fridays she’d be hanging out with at least one of the girls but oddly enough everyone was busy. Twilight was studying for mid-terms, Pinkie was working, Applejack was busy making pies for the upcoming Apple family Christmas party (a lot of pies), Fluttershy was feeling under the weather, Rarity was slammed with making clothing and Rainbow Dash…apparently wasn’t in the mood to do anything, or at least that was what her text suggested.
It was only after six and Sunset had already eaten dinner and taken a shower, lounging around in her pj’s while she looked around to do something, anything. Looking over at her computer and her small collection of video game consoles, she thought maybe she could go online and play something, but nothing spoke to her. It was still a week before Smash Bros. came out and she knew she’d be spending a few weeks at best playing that game. Oh, the long wait between release dates was aggravating.
Now that she thought about it, she was kind of in the mood to play some sort of shooter. That was when she remembered a conversation earlier in the week.
“Hey Dash?” Sunset asked when she went up to her friend’s locker early in the morning. “I know this is kinda random but…you’ve played Fortnite before right?”
“Uh..yeah a little bit,” Dash replied. “But honestly, I kind of got sick of it. It’s not a bad game, its fun when you actually get a squad of friends together but…I’ll be honest I spend half the time muting people cause they’re literally screaming into their mics or they’re just breathing obnoxiously into it. Not to mention half of the players are probably less than thirteen.”
“…You mean their parents don’t care?”
“Apparently not but I guess it’s not a violent game since there’s no blood or anything. Anyway, you can try it if you want but knowing you, it’s probably going to leave a bad taste in your mouth.”
Sunset had obviously heard of Fortnite, since everyone (mostly guys of course) talked about it. Of course, there were those who pretty much hated it, calling it “cancer” of all things. Still, if so many people hated it why was it so popular?
As Sunset booted up her PC, the idea of downloading it weighed on her mind. It was free so it’s not like she had to worry about wasting money. Well…I honestly don’t have anything better to do right now…
After logging in, she went to Epic Game’s website and started downloading the game. While it was doing that, she went ahead and started creating her profile, going with her usual username ShimmerCode. Let’s see Fluttershy try to be better at this game too…
After about twenty minutes, the game finished downloading and she booted up the game, soon logging into her account. Once the main menu came up, she decided since it was her first time she’d do solo. She only then realized as she looked at her empty Epic Friends list she wasn’t sure who else played this game.
Sunset had only seen small tidbits of gameplay but so far the controls seemed easy enough as she transferred to the waiting lobby. Almost immediately she was getting shot at with a shotgun to the face as a few other players were dancing in her face. Is this what happens before every game? Eh, guess the developers thought it’d be funny.
It wasn’t long before everyone was in the battle bus and Sunset took a look at her map. Not really sure where to go, she placed a marker on Lazy Links since it was along the pathway of the bus. She quickly found a house nearby and landed on the roof, quickly digging through and collecting materials before falling through and finding a pistol and a shotgun along with some ammo.
As soon as she heads downstairs, another player opens the front door and manages to gun her down with what looked like an SMG, placing her at 74th. Sunset could only stare at the screen for a few moments before she finally exited the lobby. “Okay, it was my first time so it was kind of a fluke. Obviously I shouldn’t have picked a place everyone was going to.”
Once she returned to the main screen, a thought occurred to her: maybe she could actually record a video of her playing and post it on YouTube. After all, it was still the most trending game on the internet right now and it would definitely get some views. Besides, she saved her own gameplays of games she had played on Twitch. Her equipment was already set up so all she had to do was turn on her camera and put on her headphones and mic. This is going to probably be a huge train wreck…but I’ll at least get some good views!
Once the camera was turned on, she made sure her face cam was working before she spoke. “Hey everyone this is ShimmerCode and…well as you can see I’m really late to the party. I only just downloaded this game and started playing it but I’ve decided why not make a video of me completely sucking at this game…cause honestly I’m probably going to suck at this game. I think for right now I’m going to start with some solo and maybe I’ll try out a little bit of squads…rest in peace my ears when that happens.”
Needless to say, Sunset got better in a short period of time and chose her landing spots carefully, even getting a few kills in between…though she only managed to get between the top 50 and top 30. “See, I guess I’m not that bad after all. Alright, well let’s see what happens when we do Squads.”
Squads was…interesting to say the least. As Rainbow had warned her, she was grouped with three people, two who had their mics on and she could tell they weren’t even in middle school yet. Sunset tried to be friendly, saying hello but she soon regretted that decision.
“You sound pretty…”
“Um, thanks? Hope you guys can deal with me being a newb at this game…”
“Wait, this is a girl playing?” the other kid asked.
“Yeah? Is that a bad thing?” Sunset asked as they dropped out towards Haunted Hills.
“Nah, my brother jokes around about how gamer girls are just thots.”
“Is that right? Is your brother around?”
“Nah, he’s out with his girlfriend…probably having sex.”
“…Aren’t you a little young to be saying that stuff?”
“I’m eleven, my dad told me this stuff when I was nine.”
“O…kay. Does your brother play video games too?”
“Yeah, he’s super pumped about Smash.”
“Well, tell him I can’t wait to kick his ass in it.”
Both the boys laughed. “Y-Yeah don’t worry I will! What’s your name?”
“Sunset.”
“Alright Sunset, I’ll make sure to tell him when he gets home.”
The squad didn’t last too long, only surviving for about ten minutes before getting ambushed and mowed down. However at this point, Sunset couldn’t help herself. “By the way, you’re being recorded.”
“What!? Wait, you’re a YouTuber?”
“Yep. You should check out my stuff.”
“Holy shit, do you have like fifty million subscribers?”
“…No but eventually I’ll get there, maybe.”
“Alright sounds good. See you around Shimmer.”
After a few moments, Sunset looked at the camera. “Well that happened…Dash if you end up watching this, you were totally right…”
The next session was even crazier than the first. As soon as everyone was in the bus, her squadmate, named HotFuzz29, started screaming into the mic. “ALRIGHT YOU MAGGOTS, HOW’S EVERYONE DOING!?” The voice was female, which definitely caught Sunset by surprise.
“I’m doing good ma’am!” Her other squamate, named ScootnAlong, seemed to be going along with the charade. “How are you!?”
“I’M DOING WELL THANK YOU! SO WHERE ARE WE DROPPING!?”
“Well, we can go to Tomato Temple,” Sunset began.
“NO GO TILTED YOU FUCKING COWARD!” HotFuzz yelled. “WE’RE GOING DOWN THERE AND WE’RE GOING TO SHOW THESE FUCKERS WHO’S BOSS!”
Suddenly, the mic of their third squadmate, named ArrowTotheKnee59, started blasting what Sunset could recognize as vaporwave. “ARROW WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!? YOU’RE BEING LOUD AS FUCK WITH THAT SHITTY MUSIC! HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO HEAR US!?”
“Pretty sure he’s doing that on purpose,” Sunset pointed out.
“HE’S NOT EVEN GOING TO HEAR THE ENEMY SNEAK UP ON HIM THE FUCKING DUMBASS! ALRIGHT SCOOT, SHIMMER, I GUESS WE GOTTA MAKE SURE TO KEEP HIM ALIVE!”
“Yeah let’s do it!” Sunset wasn’t sure, but Scoot sounded rather familiar, though she decided to wait until HotFuzz decided to finally calm down.
At this point, it wasn’t clear if Arrow was just trying to be a troll or if he just didn’t give a fuck, considering he was trying to hog all the loot chests. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ARROW!? YOU KNOW WE’D LIKE SOME WEAPONS TOO FUCKING ASSHOLE!” At that moment, in some sort of poetic justice, Arrow was knocked down from a sniper round. “SHIT WE’RE UNDER FIRE GET TO COVER!”
To their credit, HotFuzz and Scoot were pretty good, managing to help take out the enemy squad though Arrow ended up killed. At the very least he decided to leave which got rid of the music and left a whole lot of loot. “I guess good riddance,” Sunset said.
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Again, Sunset stared at the screen as she realized it was HotFuzz who had spoken. “Piece of shit had it coming too.”
“Uh…HotFuzz…”
“Yeah, yeah I know I can’t scream like a drill sergeant anymore, it gets hard to do after a constant half hour. Honestly, I just love the reactions.”
“Aw, but I missed getting verbally abused,” Scoot said jokingly.
“YOU SAY THAT AGAIN AND I’LL COME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE AND KICK YOUR ASS PERSONALLY!”
“Sorry ma’am!”
“Hey Shimmer…I hope this isn’t getting recorded.”
“Uh…it is…”
“Fuck, well I’d better not give away my identity or I’ll never hear the end of it-OH FUCK!” She had just hit with a sniper and was killed immediately. “SON OF A BITCH! …Well it was nice playing with you both, don’t die on me while I’m gone!”
“See ya HotFuzz!” Scoot said as she left. “Oh crap, I think we’re screwed!”
The eye had been focused on Tilted Towers and as such, the place was crawling with enemies. Needless to say, both Sunset and Scoot were dead within seconds. “Welp, she’s not gonna be happy…” Sunset muttered.
“We did our best though!”
“Hey before I go…I have to ask but…is this Scootlaoo?”
“Huh? Wait who…?” She then paused for a minute. “Wait a minute…Sunset!?”
“Yep.”
“Whoa, this is amazing! You’re the first schoolmate I’ve run into on here!”
“Your friends don’t play this?”
“Well, Apple Bloom plays a little sometimes but we never got Sweetie Belle into it so it’s usually just me by myself. Damn…ShimmerCode, I didn’t even put two and two together there.”
“It’s alright, this is my first time really playing so I kinda suck at it…”
“Well hey, I’ll friend request you and maybe we can play sometime. Heck, I’ll even friend request HotFuzz, she sounds pretty cool. Wait…were you serious about this being recorded?”
“Yep.”
“Oh my gosh this is so awesome! Am I allowed to do shout-outs?”
“You’re going to self-promote your channel on someone else’s content?”
“Yeah…I see your point. Well anyway, you feel like going another round?”
“Well…
“I totally should’ve listened to you Dash,” Sunset said a week later as she sat next to Dash on her couch as the two of them played Super Smash Bros. “Fortnite is hot garbage.”
“Eh, I wouldn’t go that far but close enough,” Dash said.
“Still…Scootaloo really wants to play with me…”
“Scoots? Nah, she’s actually playing other games right now so don’t expect to see her on there for awhile.”
Author's Note
So I'm not sure if people have already beaten this theme to death but I was bored and this came into my head. Also, as nice as Sunset's intro is, I feel like this would be even better.
Edit: Just so people know, I'm not hating against Fortnite or anything, this is mostly just a parody. Also I'm surprised no one figured out who HotFuzz was.
