The Equestrian Gaming League

Gamers, what else could be said about such a community of ponies that are so far spread, yet so stereotyped as one single group. The gamers in Equestria were streamlined on over a hundred different communities. Whether the gamer played MMORPG’s, Team Shooters, Simulations or any genre of game, there was a group for it, with anywhere fifty to seven million players. The largest gaming community in cyberspace was none other than the Equestrian Gaming League. Some of the greatest gamers in the world played in this league, and their ranks spanned the globe.

Ember Wing was not the greatest gamer in Equestria, though he has been called such a thing. He didn’t like the idea of being the best in the world. How many games would you need to play in a day in order to keep that title current? How many gamers would come out of the woodworks to challenge you? Like a single samurai on top of a hill, after a while, slicing and dicing would get tiresome. Not to mention, that kind of competition never really interested him. He was more interested in the greatest game in the world.

He had done a lot of studying and research to find ways to plug numbers into a computer and create his own ideal game. Sure, a utopia was impossible to make, but it didn’t need to be perfect. It simply needed to be a game that did not get old and had enough to do to stretch over a good amount of time while also not having too much to do. Sure, he knew gaming, and yeah, he knew what he liked when it came to the digital medium. However, creating such a game would cost ridiculous amounts of money. Yes, he did very well for himself playing and competing online, but this would be decades of work for just one soul such as himself.

Today, he was feeling a bit more social than normal. So, after talking himself up into interacting with other ponies, he met Twin at the mall food court. Of course, there was always going to be regrets in his life. There was just no way he could have known that he was being stalked by none other than a player who was ranked #198 in EGL standings. He had his own page in the EGL Info Site and his stats for Team Shooters was something to behold. However, with Ember Wing living so close, he may as well have painted a gigantic target on the back of his mane.

Gold Smith, the golden orange unicorn glared at him as he stood beside the pegasus, who was sitting at the table and sipping on an Orange Julius while he glared at his computer. He was trying to crunch some numbers, but it was very hard when this guy was down his throat, trying to prove something.

“Gold, I’m telling you, it’s not worth the effort. We can go around telling each other we’re better until we’re blue in the face, but honestly, that’s not at all why I play.” Ember said as he finally got some time to type in a few more digits before he was, once again, bombarded.

“Then why are you on the rankings? Last time I checked, you didn’t reach #152 without having something to prove. You’re a streamer, aren’t you? We could make it a showdown between local gamers!” Gold was prancing around the real intent of this whole thing, and Ember knew it.

“So the other local gamers in Ranchtown, none of them are worthy of your time? No, you need a guy with a HoofTube channel that has ninety thousand subscribers and climbing. It’s not so much that I out rank you, but that ponies tend to tune into me because I’m a little more entertaining to watch. You’re fishing for notoriety, and what better way than to go head to head against a professional gamer?” Ember said this and Gold was getting angrier by the second as he spoke. That’s when Ember checked the time to see that Twin Tips was a little late. She must have been jogging to the mall instead of driving.

“So, you’re saying you’re not going to do it?” Gold’s eyes scowled toward the pegasus and he wetted his lips a bit as he thought. Then he shook his head and stood up on one of the chairs at the foodcourt table. Ember did a double take as he did this and looked at him as if he were crazy.

“Alright! Everyone in the mall!” He caught the attention of a good number of people in the food court and they stopped eating to pay attention. “For those of you who watch the EGL Championships and tournaments!”

Ember Wing wasn’t very happy about all of this. He cringed at this, knowing that after this, there was no way he was going to turn down this challenge, and that asshole knew it. Every part of him wanted to kick that chair out from under Gold and watch his head bounce against the hard floor.

“I am Nemesis, from the Tree of Death! I am here to challenge him to a game of Dark Matter! Now I’m gonna challenge him in front--”

“Oh my God!” A female voice called out from the side, drawing both to look. There was Twin Tips, dressed in her jogging suit and with her earbuds around the back of her neck as she walked in with a bottle of water, having worked up a good sweat. “Wow! You have my attention now!” She said, the sarcastic enthusiasm was nice and condescending.

“What the-- Twin?” Gold asked and she gasped, clapping both hands on her cheeks.

“Oh my God! Nemesis just said my name! Oh my God! This is going to be an extra long blog tonigh-- shut the hell up and sit down, Gold. It’s not Ember’s fault you suck so bad you part time as a intergalactic singularity on the weekend. Leave him alone! Go wallow in self disgust somewhere else.” Twin said all of this, and slowly, it was clear that Gold Smith was getting somewhat uncomfortable standing on top of the chair with everyone staring at him. He slowly made his way down onto the ground and slowly, people began to go about their business.

At first, Gold was about to give her a piece of his mind, his mouth was already open and his finger pointed at her. However, before a word came out, Twin grabbed onto his finger, swiped him around and slammed his head against the very tall, very thick pillar made out of white tile. The hit didn’t draw blood, but he would definitely have a bruise. She twisted his finger to lead his arm behind his back and make sure he was in a good deal of pain and very uncomfortable.

“No, you’ve said enough, now it’s my turn.” Twin Tip’s voice was very low, and very sincere as she whispered into his ear as he struggled.

Ember sighed and continued to type on his computer, agitated from Gold Smith’s vile presence. The fact that Twin was giving him the riot act didn’t bother him in the least. As she held him at bay, he took those extra seconds to save his work, turn off his laptop and start putting it all away.

“Now, you’re going to go walk past Ember without giving him the time of day, not even glancing toward him. Then you’re going to go back home to your little hovel, and whine and cry about how you beat up Ember for talking shit about the Turds of Death.”

“The Tree of De-” He started to say but was cut off as she inched his finger to the side, bending it and causing him to cry out.

“Shut the hell up! One more word and I’m breaking your finger, so your next challenge will be null and void! Now! You’re gonna gather your troops and bring them to us, because we’ve got friends, a lot of friends that can 0wn your ass to the moon and back. We’ll be gathering them today. Don’t speak, just nod yes. Do you understand?” She whispered to him as her voice gradually softened to a gentle whisper.

There was one solemn moment of indecision before Gold Smith nodded his head. She immediately released him. True to his word, he immediately began to walk away, many eyes glued to him. He was red in the face, defeated, and his finger felt ached, but otherwise fine. She knew his pointer finger was uninjured, she only aimed to make him uncomfortable. If Twin truly wanted to, she could have broken his hand in two places.

Her pulse was erratic, her forehead was sweaty, and her breath was going a mile a minute. Twin gazed over at Ember, who walked over to her with a puzzled expression, his backpack over his shoulder. “Ummm, Twin? Are you--” She grasped him by the arm, pulled him over to her, dipped him down and kissed him with all of her might! She explored his mouth with her tongue and gripped his shoulders in a firm manner, breathing in ever so deeply.

As her mouth released him, her eyes opened and he suddenly felt the stare of a very predatory unicorn, one whose pupils were dilated to the size of bottle caps. Her mouth opened in a devious grin that made him strangely aroused but also very freaked out. She breathed out onto him very loudly and then pulled him away in an instant, making him yip in surprise!

She rode him like a savage riding a beast! Twin beat her pelvis against his like he was a desert water pump and her tits flopped up and down enough to make small slapping noises. Both of them were back in their house, their clothes strewn about it as they finally got to the door.

She pounded her cunt full of his cock, feeling so full and flowing with juices from her immense arousal. Twin had already orgasmed five times and they had only been at this for maybe four minutes. Their genitals mashed with carnal savagery and their hands groped each other all over. That was when the moment came where he could no longer hold it in. She was giving him no chance to gain his bearings, and her constant pounding against him gave him no room to catch his breath. His cock gave in and fired a load deep into her.

She laid down onto him and kissed him on the lips, starting to machine gun his cock with her crotch smashing away as she moaned at a high octave into his mouth. After his last squirt inside of her, she simply sat there on top of him, gasping and panting for breath, her tongue hanging out. Her ice blue fur was covered in sweat while her blue, silver and gold mane laid flat against her in the biggest pile of sex hair ever. Her pussy ran free of the hot liquid it was filled with. His semen seeped from between them and let them both know that there was a lot of it.

“Well, now that you’ve committed a crime of passion and metaphorically fucked my brains out, I suppose now you want to start making some calls with me.” Ember said as he was also trying to catch his breath.

“Hey… don’t rush on my part.” She said, still feeling his cock all the way inside of her as she still had him between her thighs. “Your penis is in my vagina and all the sudden everything else doesn’t seem to matter.”

“I get that, Twin, but you kinda just filled our schedule for the next few days. I mean, I can do what you want us to do, but that plan wasn’t really supposed to be enacted for another--”

“You’ve already got enough resources and sponsors to pull it off. We can just schedule an appointment and go see her when she’s available.” Twin said as she reluctantly pulled him out of her.

“You know she’s going to be available for us.” Ember said as she slowly got up and popped his back. “This is the part I always hate.”

They sat in the very white, office that was decorated with flowers and many other colors that kept it feeling vibrant and vivacious. The rainbow haired unicorn smiled at both Ember and Twin as they sat in their seats across from her desk with little glasses of lemonade provided by her secretary.

“So! You told me you had a very good idea over the call?” Prisma Silver asked them both as she picked up her own glass of lemonade from her desk and drank it.

“Well, earlier today,” Ember started to speak. “I was heckled by one Gold Smith, better known as Nemesis from--”

“Tree of Death, yeah, I’m aware.” Prisma said with an annoyed look. “He’s been blogging about challenging you for a while. His PR gimmicks make me wonder why 5th Generation movie remakes started looking so good all the sudden.”

“No kidding.” Twin and Ember said in synch.

“Twin kinda held him down and challenged the entire Tree of Death.” Ember said, causing the young unicorn with cream white fur to pause.

“War?” She said, giving both of them pause. “You declared war on them?”

Both of them looked at each other, then looked back at Prisma. Neither of them were entirely sure of what to say, but after a while, Ember shrugged while Twin nodded.

“That’s awesome! I’ve been wanting to shove it to those pretentious pricks for a while now! I cannot believe this is how you call in that favor I owe you. Now I owe you another favor after paying off this favor! You need a team, and guess what. This is a team that has been a long time in the making. My contacts have been waiting for this for a long, long time. I’ll register our team with the EGL later today when we get them all in… or when you get them all in, I still need to do some set up.”

“Wait, you want to set up with the EGL already? We haven’t even played together as a team. If you’re getting who I think you’re getting, we have some experience together, but we’ve never actually worked as an actual unit.” Twin said, looking over at Ember, who shrugged.

“A lot of teams have become number one with a lot less. Ember, your skills are going to be paramount in this agenda. Obviously, the PR will work itself out on your channel, just make an announcement, and I’ll do the same in a different corner of the gaming community. I know some people with a lot of pull with the EGL advertisement. Do not make it until we get everyone, though. We need all of them.” Prisma said as she was already typing away at her computer. She pressed one more button and a paper printed out right in front of Ember from a slot in the desk.

He took out the paper and began to read it. The names were immediately familiar, and all the sudden it was all becoming clear. “Really.” Is all he could say as he smiled. “You’re swinging for the fences. The trio have their own clan, and they’re called a trio for a reason. What makes you think they’ll come with us?”

“Because they will.” Prisma assured him. There was a knowing smile on her face as she kept typing. “I’ve got facilities already picked out. It’s close enough to drive and big enough to where we can sleep there if need be.”

“Sleep there? Are you making a gaming team or a crew of fire fighters?” Twin asked, making Prisma laugh.

“You’ll change your tune when I tell you I’m putting in a free soda machine for a caffeine fix.” Prisma smiled bright.

“Sold.” They both said at once.

The Dotted Line Cafe was once a writing cafe, where people would come to order coffees of all sorts, snacks and other drinks. That was where many a fine stories were written by writers of all sorts. Now it was very much a gaming cafe where Local Area Network multiplayer games were held. It was the true hot spot for the latest gaming magazines, digital game menu as well as other fanfare such as toys, physical game copies (which now cost about twice as much as getting it digital, as they just weren’t made anymore), and clothing.

There were many tables around the very large, clean, sleek lounge, which large, floating screens at many tables, while others were used for food. That evening, they were not interested in the normal rabble gamers. Twin and Ember sat across the table from the three bat pony triplets. All three of them had an amazing score in the EGL, able to work together with minimal effort.

Midnight was the leader and the eldest among them by five and ten minutes. Codenamed Axel and is said to know every good hiding place in Cybertrooper 2. She has stealth ability out the wazoo, even in the run and gun games. She always seems to find a way to sneak around the place. She had a bluish gray coat of fur, big beautiful blue eyes and beautiful, long purple hair. She smiled at Twin and their conversation immediately went to school and how much it sucks. However, getting down to business was a little too important to put off.

“Alright, so the idea of our channels fusing into one single team came up. Prisma already has everything planned on the business side, but we need all three of you to sign off on it. Dusk… good to see you, bro.” He fist bumped the shorter, brighter eyed purple bat pony. He grinned at Ember and made his fistbump explode.

“Well, Ember, you know I got your back. You gave us our start, afterall.” He said and Ember gave him a puzzled look.

“What are you talking about? Your mom trained all three of you to beat the hell out of me. And you’ve beaten me more than once.” Ember admitted, as good a gamer as he was, their mother, Grem still defeated him on a somewhat regular occasion when they play. Dusk, the brother of the three took to Ember like he was the brother he never had and the two of them even had a duo before Twin started playing. To their credit, Grem could not beat them in a 2 on 1. She could come close, but either Dusk or Ember would finish her off before she could make a comeback.

“Well, I mean, we did, but we also gave you some big wins. Don’t forget that, Ember. We helped you in two of those damn tournaments and that’s why I think we got us a deal.” Vera said. She smiled at Ember and beamed another one over to Twin.

“Hold on, the two of you still haven’t asked the important questions. I don’t care about the money, that’s all been taken care of if Silver is concerned. However, if we’re going to keep a training schedule, we need those facilities here and now. Our house may be big enough but we can’t keep picking up and moving everywhere we go. Some of us have some serious hardware.” Midnight finally spoke, and Ember was putting on a similar face the more he thought about it. Game stations weren’t just laptops or desktops anymore. Serious gaming teams had team platforms and group servers of their own. Such a place would need to be built soon if they were going to challenge the Tree of Death.

“Gah, Tree of Death, what a stupid name.” Twin said, drawing their attention to her. Ember nodded to her.

“Yeah, speaking of which, you said you challenged them, but you failed to mention that you smashed Gold’s head against the wall. I heard it sounded like you almost cracked his cocoanut.” Dusk said to Twin, the other two sisters nodding at this. “Thanks, that guy’s a giant prick.”

“Yeah, well, he didn’t ask you out, Dusk.” Midnight said, drawing looks of sympathy from both Twin and Vera. Vera knew, but she had forgotten after trying very hard to do so.

“Alright, well, Prism already told me that I was to be given second in command, and Midnight, if you want it, third in command is yours.” Ember got them back on track. “All of our businesses will mingle and we’ll come to an agreement, of course. We’re practically family, this is not a business venture for me, if we’re being honest. The real reason I want to do this is because we’ve been looking for an excuse to do this for a while now.”

“Oh, look, if it isn’t Chicken Wing.” All five of them turned to see Lemon Slice and Flash Photo. The whitish yellow unicorn grinned as he walked up to their table, wearing his long green shirt with the Skull Tree logo in the center, representing their clan. “I heard you had a little ‘run in’ with Gold Smith earlier today. Don’t worry about it, I didn’t tell him to challenge you and I sure as hell am not taking the rap for that idiotic stunt with him standing on the chair. Now, I did hear something about you making a team.” He looked at Ember, then Twin Tips, then looked at the other three bat ponies. “Aren’t you the trio?”

“Who wants to know?” Dusk asked. He drew annoyed looks from his sisters.

“Yeah, and we’re discussing things right now. Would you mind?” Midnight gave him a stern look. She was quite tall, and had a good six inches in height on him. Not to mention her mother taught all three of them self defense, so she could make Twin’s stunt look like a firecracker as compared to a bomb. The stern look held strong against his blatant look of disdain.

“Fine, discuss all you want. We’ll counter everything you throw at us.” Lemon said, turning away with Photo and the two of them left.

“He’s their leader, isn’t he?” Midnight said, that same stern look gazing at the guy as he left. Ember hummed his affirmation. “Alright, third rank is fine by me. The Trio can be absorbed into this unnamed group for the foreseeable future. One condition.” She said before they started to get too excited. Ember and Twin both listened closely. “That son of a bitch is mine.” Midnight ate the rest of her fries on the table and tipped the waiter five bits. “Call us when--” She started to say, then Ember’s cellphone began to ring.

He pulled it out and there came a video of Prisma. She smiled at Ember and laughed a little bit. “Hi! Ember, if you would, please pop me up on everyone’s phone?” The orange pegasus looked at her for a moment, and looked at everyone else, seeing that they were pulling out their phones as well. He flicked her image onto their phones with his finger and she waved at them, speaking from just one speaker. “Hey, guys! First of all, welcome aboard! Today, we will be touring our new location! I’m sending all of you the address!”

“Wait, what?” Midnight asked, looking at Ember, who shrugged.

“Are you telling us you have the facility hooked up and ready to go?” Twin asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“Of course I do!” Prisma said with excited giggling. “It’s all spruced up and ready to go! I told you I had this location picked out for a while. I just had to put on the internet and the power, set up the water and the kitchen. Get your gear and meet me over there, I’ve already sent out more invitations for sponsors. Just come on down.”

The cat girl got out of her car and looked at the invitation on her e-mail account. She read the proper address and walked across the parking lot into the building that looked something like a stripmall. She approached the door and saw that many lights were on inside, many colorful lights coming from machinery. They were VR Stations, all of them equipped with a Reality Tread for perfect balance and realistic walking and running in all directions. The material shaped itself with the square perfectly and moved freely and not freely, depending on what happens during the game.

She opened the door and saw a group of young ponies unlocking their large cases that held their desktops and gaming equipment. They were setting up tables, cords, systems, controllers, speakers and screens all over the large, wide open gaming room.

“Twin Tips?” Mila asked and the ice blue unicorn looked up at the Abyssinian young lady and smiled big as she ran over to her. Mila and Twin embraced tight. “Hey girl! How have you been?”

“Mila!” Ember opened his arms to her and hugged her. “You remember Aunt Grem’s triplets.”

“Wow, Midnight, it’s so good to see you again!” She came up to the taller bat pony girl who smiled and embraced her as well.

“Alright! That’s all of you!” Prisma said as she stepped into the room with a box. “Well, I just got off the phone with mom, and she said that she can definitely get all of the legal crap out of the way within a week. She’s quite awesome like that. So that means we’ll just train until then. Thank you all for coming! You guys about ready to get started?” She said as she walked over toward the VR Stations.

“Whoa, shouldn’t we at least come up with a name first?” Twin Tips said as she followed the rest of them toward the head sets and game suits with sensory pads all over them for realistic gameplay without the pesky death to go along with it.

“Actually, yeah.” The striped and spotted bengal/siamese cat girl said from the side. “I know all of you, and I love all of you, but I don’t think ‘The Loved Ones’ is going to cut it in a tournament. I think we may be the clowns in that rodeo.” She snickered, while the rest of them gave her an odd look.

“The Blue Streak.” Vera said, drawing all of their attention, and getting some stink eyes.

“That sounds like we’re people in blue paint going around naked.” Prisma said, sitting down at a desk chair. After a while, they started to all sit around. The names ranged anywhere from “Turtle Teens” to “Goosesteppers” though many of them were just jokes.

“Nah, guys, come on. We need to become an imposing figure in the gaming scene. The best thing we could possibly do with this name busting in on the scene. What we need is something that is intimidating enough to sound like we mean business, while also not sounding like a bunch of pompous jackasses.”

“Whoa, Ember. Come on, bro.” Dusk said, and gave Ember a flabbergasted look. “Racial slurs, man. Donkeys are people too.” The bat pony said, and the rest of them gave him a weird look. “So umm, yeah anyway.”

“Chaos Crew.” Prisma said, drawing the attention of the group. The rest of them thought about that name. It wasn’t bad. It rolled off the tongue well enough.

“We can take it up one more notch.” Ember said, pointing at Prisma. “That is not a bad name at all. However, if we’re flying in on wings of fire, we need something that will have a little more impact. Visa vi, Knights of Chaos.”

There was a long pause among all of them. The image invoked a horse with a full plate of charred black and glowing fire armor. A massive muscular warrior with the power to break the very earth beneath him! The Knights of Chaos turned out to be probably the best name they had to offer. Not to mention, it was Vera who pulled out a blank tablet and strapped it to her arm with a stylus pen. Within five minutes, she had a fiery logo sketched up with the initials in burning red, black and yellow.

“Oh, hell.” Vera said as she realized what she did. “Let’s not go around bragging about our initials, though.” She said, holding up her tablet drawing toward all of them. The initials read KoC…

Fully strapped in with headgear over their eyes. All of them had on some very high end equipment. The most trustworthy name in VR Suit tech sponsored Prisma in her gaming career. Thanks to her training with not only Ember, but many of them in this room, she turned into one of the more successful stream gamers in Ranchtown. She was easily able to convince them that her new team were going to be the absolute best gaming team in the EGL, and their sponsorships would be paid in full within weeks. She was betting a lot on this team, but as she looked at all of them smiling at one another, she felt like she could hold onto that hope pretty tight.

They registered EGL Team Rankings where all of the greatest players go to prove their worth in this Cyber Age. Prisma created the Knights of Chaos with the clan tag [Chaos] because KoC was already taken for some reason. One would think Chaos would be taken. Prisma set up her new account [Chaos]Rainbow Angel. The name was based on a character she created in her childhood, who was sort of a cupid super mare who shot arrows to defeat enemies and spread love through the world. After that, she entered her stats and her gamer history, linking it to previous gaming accounts.

All of them did the same. Ember was now the Dragon Warrior while Twin Tips chose the name Ice Queen. Their roster came up and all of their profiles were integrated into one team. Cyberspace interface was pretty much just like you were standing in front of a video game menu, and they used their hand gestures to an exact extent. Some of the chapter VR equipment were not at all as accurate with the hand commands.

“Alright, guys. We’re officially registered as a team. Officially rostered as seven Knights of Chaos.”

“Perhaps Knightmares of Chaos?”

“Shut up, Dusk!” Prisma gave him the stink eye that he couldn’t see. “Which game we doing first?” She said as she brought up the games that she already had loaded into their system. Plenty of multiplayers to choose from, and plenty of rankings to exploit.

“I’d go for some Dark Matter.” Twin said, looking over at the virtual image of Prisma as she materialized in the blank room. Dark Matter: Space Odyssey was created a year ago, and was an MMORPG taking place on a ship. All of them already had very high level characters and gear, but now they needed to band their resources.

“Alright, all of you have starfighters, right? If you don’t, I have three spare ones you can have. I have two I have suped up for serious firepower. Now, I can buy a ship. Anyone want to chip in?” Prisma said as she brought up the menu of the ships. At first, she had three million credits. Then, with all seven of them in the blank white room, they started giving hundreds of thousands of credits each into Prisma’s account. She ended up with five million. “Wow, alright, we can get some add-ons along with it.” She said as she picked the Apollo X89. The double cannons were changed to quad cannons and the hyperdrive was given five extra charges. Their ammo capacity was widened and they even had some credits left over.

“Alright, I’m uploading my fighter and my Land Speeder for planetary missions.” Vera said as they got to the more colorful menu that started to load their bridge settings and all of the ship that Prisma partially customized and upgraded.

“I’m using my melee character for a main on this game.” Twin said, and pulled out a curved laser blade from its holder. The blade extended to about three feet as it left the sheath-like gadget and her hard tech armor appeared around her. She was positioned as the boarding crew and defender of the deck.

“Hey.” Ember said to her quietly, drawing Twin’s attention. The unicorn in power armor faced the orange pegasus who was dressed in a pilot’s helmet and had a blaster rifle in his hand along with his red and black flight suit. “You don’t have to miss practices for ice skating because of this. You know that, right? This is more my thing, I know that.” He said, and for some reason, she started laughing.

“Ember, you’re just adorable.” She said, then reached up to the top of his helmet, and kissed his lips. She broke the kiss and then pressed a button on his helmet to put the black face mask over his face with two glowing red eyes on a black interface. “I want these bastards to go down, and go down hard. We’re doing this.” She pulled him face to face as she spoke. “Alright?” She said and he started to nod with his helmet on.

“Starship, activated. Prepare for maiden voyage.” The computer voice went off.

“Alright, guys! Welcome aboard!” All the sudden, the bridge of the ship appeared in front of all of them. All of them had very similar uniforms, though the type of armor they wore pretty well defined what they were. The more heavily armored, the more combat they tended to see.There were several terminals all over the deck with chairs in front of computer screens.

“Alright, let’s see.” Prisma sat at the captain’s chair in the center of them, typing on her arm rest terminal as a screen was beamed up from it in front of her. “I’m going to start us in the ranking slots. Right now we are #3402965. I’m going to up the difficulty for us. You think top, Ember?”

“Yeah, get us at #1, one fail in the beginning isn’t going to affect our record too terribly, but a shutout start is a good way to get noticed.” He said as he put his blaster rifle into the large holster on his belt and took off his helmet. “Not to mention while we wait the two hours, we can run a simulation. What do you guys--” Prisma was interrupted by some beeping.

Vera walked over to the other side of the bridge to press a flashing button to bring up the rank game search. “It’s already found us one?”

“You set it to the top rank, right?” Dusk asked, but then the clan name popped up and his eyes went stone cold solid white.

“No fucking way!” Twin’s eyes burned with a million fiery suns!

“What?!” Prisma stood up from the captain’s chair and leaned onto the terminal to get a better look. However, her eyes did not deceive her.

The screen read “The Death Tree Squad 2.”