Button Mash grunted as he slammed into the dirt hard and lost a good quarter of his shield bar.

“Come on, Button! Move that hot little red tail of yours!” Sweetie snapped over team channel. “We’ve already got problems on left pylon! I’m going for Dinky!”

“Button, one twelve o’clock high!” Pip shouted a second later. “Jig left!”

Button immediately rolled three times, and barely missed the barrage of orange magical blasts that turned the spot he’d just been into glass. Before the dust had settled, he brought his UNI-9 up, targeted through the X-5 scope and spotted the target on the massive gleaming pylon that dominated the canyon.

“Nice gun,” Button said with a smirk, spotting the telltale orange glow of the Yakbuster 921b in the pegasus’s hands. “Too bad about the reload time.”

He took a breath and squeezed the trigger. The UNI-9 spat a single burst of compressed green magic flame and it zeroed in to land a perfect headshot. Instantly, the pegasus exploded into pixels. Button grinned to himself and jumped to his feet.

“What’s everyone’s status?” Button shouted into his mic even as his HUD brought up his team’s readouts.

A crack of the Lightweaver Sniper Rifle echoed in the dusty canyon of the right pylon. Pip’s shot struck somepony on the other side of the pylon, derezzing them in an instant.

“Right pylon secure,” Pip announced as light began to pour from numerous vents along the side of the huge metal structure.

“Good for you,” Sweetie said in her sugariest tone. “Now get over to left or you’re not getting any for a week, Button!”

Button flushed. Pip snickered.

“Get down here, Pip. Putting transmat up now.”

He pulled the transmat from his inventory and tossed it onto the still smoking earth. In seconds, a fully functioning transporter pad had materialized just as Pip came out of the blue. The armored earth pony landed perfectly, slapped his visor up and grinned. Without a word, he chucked a mana battery at Button.

“Don’t say it.” Button slotted the mana battery in. His shields fully recharged in an eyeblink and an icon showing ‘Overcharge’ lit up.

“I didn’t say anything!” Pip said, the pimento stallion grinning wide.

“Ugh, I know. It makes it worse!”

They jumped into transmat. The world fuzzed for a moment, then they were out again.

“Nice of you boys to join us,” Sweetie commented dryly just as Dinky yelped over team chat.

“For the record, I still prefer mouse and keyboard!” she cried over the sound of an automagic cannon.

“M-VR’s the future, Dinky!” Sweetie called. “Anyway, we need to smoke these newbs if we’re going to have a shot at pro in a few weeks!”

“You know we’re late for the stream right?” Pip said as he slapped his visor back down and charged into the fray where three enemy teams converged on Sweetie and Dinky’s position further down the canyon near the left pylon.

“Just fire it up now, hot stuff!” Sweetie shouted. Button heard her twin zap-pistols cracking over and over again. “Set it to auto, that way they’ll see where the action is! Which mostly means me.”

“Somepony’s feeling cocky,” Button quipped.

“Our ratings skyrocket whenever my ass is on their monitors and you know it.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

“Any objections?” Button shouted as he charged after Pip, though Pip used his rocket boots to get a jump ahead. He always got so fiesty whenever Dinky was under fire.

“Nah, let’s give them a show. Four against twelve. Sounds like a good time!” Pip called as he did a power jump into the air and managed a midair snipe of some poor newb. “Dammit! Only broke his shields! Missed the headshot.”

“Can’t all be winners,” Button said as he approached the series of buildings. There was another alien tower—this one shining gold—and somepony took a few potshots at him. He ducked to the side and let his shields handle a few glancing magic pellets. “Watch for crossfire, Pip! They might try and gang up on us!”

“Oh, just get it working, Button!” Pip shouted as Button lost sight of his friend in the smoke wafting over the warzone. “Give us some drones!”

Button ducked inside a nearby building—all chrome and steel with an already-looted chest inside—and knelt by the open window. He flung up his inventory again and brought out his Stream Drone. With the punch of a button, he triggered the system, immediately linking his HUD to a live stream service on the Scarlet Wonderland. He quickly confirmed the stupid terms and conditions, verified his account and…

“We’re online!” Button shouted into the mic as a picture of his live face appeared in the lower right corner of his HUD.

“Yeah, we could tell from the little balls suddenly floating around us,” Pip snarked.

“I never said anything about little balls,” Sweetie pointed out.

Dinky just giggled.

“Oh come on!” Pip cried. “You’re killing me, Sweetie!”

“You know you love me!”

Button grinned and did a quick check of himself. His orangish red hair was a little messy—per the norm. He’d skipped the hat tonight on Sweetie’s recommendation—not like it could fit under the M-VR anyway. His brown coat gleamed from the new shampoo Sweetie had insisted he use for tonight. Yup, his handsome twenty-something face looked right back at him, eyes sparkling with glee. He’d been looking forward to tonight all month.

But they needed to just clear this map first and his proximity alarm had just gone off.

“Hey guys!” Button shouted as he peered over the lip of the window. “How you slackers doing toni—whoa!”

Button dove to the dirt as a full fireteam unloaded a barrage of magical death through the window. Button twisted onto his back and swapped weapons, going for his compact Trance-2 zap-pistol and keeping his Shadowflame assault shotgun in reserve. He didn’t really want to deploy his riot shield. Losing that mobility made him easily flanked, but it might be what he needed right now.

“Finishing up a match here, slackers,” Button continued, talking into the screen. “Let’s talk about what’s going down tonight. So, apparently, Sweetie’s decided to sweeten last month’s pot.”

“More like dump six bags of raw sugar inside!” Pip shouted over the sound of his light carbine. He must be getting close to Dinky if he’d swapped from medium range weaponry. Good sign. “Then dipped the whole thing in chocolate!”

“Button’s even better than chocolate,” Sweetie cooed. “Downed their sentinel, going for get to green team’s respawn point.”

Button crawled to the side of the doorframe—avoiding the window—took a breath, then swung out. He sprayed the scorched street with his pistol set to full automatic to make the other team scatter. Two stayed, one tried to bolt for a doorway. Button nailed the sucker in the ass with three quick shots, turning him to little more then pixels and bad language.

He spun back around as a hail of return magic fire tried to melt the very walls as he reloaded.

“Just like all the other nights on Velvet Wonderland, we’ve got our donation goal and our like goal,” Button continued as enemy team stopped firing. They had to be out of grenades otherwise they would have smoked him out by now. “And since you all enjoyed seeing Joystick last time, Sweetie thought it’s only fair to let her come out again, if you want.”

He checked the right side of his HUD for the chat feed and grinned at the responses.

Henni4: we loved seeing u get pounded last month!

ten-ton-terror: dude, you make like the HOTTEST babe

ping4pong: I wanna do so many things to those tits!!

MaybeMayhem: DRINK IT NOW DRINK IT NOW DRINK IT NOW

“They really like Joystick,” Dinky muttered, seeing the same feed as him. The sound of her shotgun going off echoed through the channel. “Dammit, I can’t down this jerk! I don’t want his assault rifle playing with my tail!”

“Almost there, cutie!” Pip called, though Button noticed his shields were at half and he was taking constant fire. “Just hold them back! Swap to your SMGs!”

“Swapping,” Dinky confirmed. “Okay! Let’s see if he likes this!”

The team chat echoed with the sound of Dinky’s twin NanoBlast MMK-5s.

“But that’s not all that’s gonna happen!” Button called as he prepared for his next move. This one would be risky, especially live. “Pip’s gonna be chugging with me! Yes! You slackers are gonna get to see pimento earth pony tits tonight if you manage to get that far!”

“What? Showing off yours isn’t enough, buddy?” Pip snarked. “Green Team sentinel down!”

“My Pip has the best tits here!” Dinky said, defending her boyfriend with her usual level of subtely. “And I’ll pop anyone who says otherwise!”

“Except me,” Sweetie said, her voice smug and confident. “Green Team respawn point nuked. Now hurry up and take care of the last two so I can prove I have best tits!”

“Okay, yeah, she does,” Button admitted, blushing a little.

“Seconded,” Dinky said meekly.

“Haven’t seen ‘em, so my vote’s on Dinky,” Pip replied.

“Awwww!”

Button grinned. “Anyway, here’s the deal! We frag these losers, we get into Dreamwalker Saga III with the Scarlet Potion Plugin… and you watch what happens! Until then, time to wreck these jerkoffs!”

Button chucked a flash bang, then a smoke grenade out the window. He heard the cries of the last two members of Blue Team. Even better, he’d timed it so the one he’d shot would have respawned. Button charged out, dropping his zap-pistol and bringing out the shotgun. He barreled through the smoke, triggering a short-term buff that would cut through the interference and let him see infrared for up to twenty seconds.

Way longer than he needed.

Blue Team didn’t have a chance. Two blasts from his shotgun and they were both nothing but pixels. He dove behind cover just as the third charged back out, too slow to save his comrades. The unicorn actually went right by him. It was almost too easy.

After the third was down and probably spewing curses into his mic, Button went for a walk in the direction the last guy had come. The respawn generator for Blue Team had been hidden away in a small chrome warehouse. The last member of Blue put up a decent fight, but Button’s UNI-9 and two melee strikes from his Ashblade-6 made short work of him. After that, a pair of magitech explosives ensured they wouldn’t be coming back.

“How’s Red doing?” Button asked. “Got the generator and the team for Blue.”

“Nice job, hot stuff,” Sweetie replied. “Dinky, Pip and I are helping Red have a properly tragic last stand.”

“And… headshotted!” Pip cried, the echo of his Lightweave sounding through the chat. “Guardian’s down!”

Button stepped out back into the smokey false sunlight and decided to use a special. With a few commands, he zeroed in on his team and slidewalked through the game to be at Sweetie’s side.

Her armor—the same color as her mane—curved in all the right places. She slapped her visor up as he popped into existence next to her, her oh-so-freaking-hot face grinning at him, green eyes sparkling as she yanked him forward into a kiss. The chat feed went wild.

“You two done?” Pip asked as he landed beside the short unicorn mare in light purple armor. “We got a generator to blow.”

“Oh, he’s ready,” Sweetie cooed. “We’re all so very ready. Let’s show them what Sweetie’s Herd can do.”

Button rolled his eyes as Sweetie power-sprinted forward and came out into the open. Someone had set up a turret, but Sweetie just let her shields and armor handle the punishment as she zeroed in on their engineer. Cracked sounded as the Lightweave decimated the turret and the sentinel and the second guardian joined the fray.

The ensuing firefight was brutal, crazy and wonderful. And not a single member of the purple team, better known as ‘Sweetie’s Heard,’ ever reached the zero shield point. Dinky had almost single-handedly destroyed their sentinel. Button and Pip had tag-teamed the guardian until he was down to 5 HP, then Button finished him with a point-blank shot from his zap-pistol. Sweetie had danced with the engineer during most of the fight as the pegasus mare got more and more desperate, then had executed a perfect takedown, knocking the mare to the ground before derezzing her with two shots to the head.

It was one of the hottest things Button had ever seen.

The four of them posed for their victory shot and finally, Button let out a breath.

“Hope you slackers enjoyed the show,” Button said with a grin. “Time for round two!”

Author's Note

Ooooh~! I don't watch game streams, so I totes had to go watch some for an hour or two so I could write this right~! I think I watched people play APEX~? I dunno. Don't remember. Hopefully you enjoyed it all the same!

Round two is where it gets even MORE fun~!

See a mistake? Lemme know by PM, cuties~! <3