It is time to consider a new horse.
This green horse with wings is named Dawn Breeze. He is 29 years old, and in another time, another universe, he would be banging smokin' hot mares in a timeloop. In this universe, he is stuck cleaning up other people's messes as an everyman hero with a really cool gun. He is constantly pestered by his annoying but cute twin sister, who inexplicably runs intel gathering for his missions.
He speaks very calmly and clearly...until SHIT FLIES OFF THE FUCKING HOOK IN A TURNWAYS DIRECTION. This often happens when his sister gives him the wrong fucking gun.
We should probably consider the original group of horses now--
A gunshot rings out as Dawn punctuates that sentence with a single bullet point from his Snort and Whinny .500 revolver. The short, bassy report of the bullet point is very concise: There are Important Things To Do. I have to concur; we're not really allowed to return to the original horses until we've had a Proper Intermission. I only offered because some of you might be wondering why, and the answer is "because". Such is life.
Dawn tilts his head and rolls his eyes. That shot left him out of bullets; he's gonna have to put in a call for more. He gazes up at the skyscraper in front of him, cursing his timing.
There are Black Ties in the skyscraper. Dawn didn't see them, but he had expected them for years; he had been tracking their spread through the interdimensional gateways since he discovered them. Mindless thugs in the guise of wolves, seeking only to destroy. Demons, in a sense. His father had never warned him about demons.
Putting a hoof to his earpiece, Dawn sent a message out...
We now consider a similarly green horse with similarly fluffy wings. Her name is Rushing Winds and she's also 29, because she's the cute twin sister. She loves giving her bro a hard time because she knows she's one of those smokin' hot mares he'd be bangin' in another timeline, and yes, that is very lewd. Her other favorite things include convoluted steam machinery and being the center of attention, and maybe a little bit of teasing Dawn about his choice of reading material.
What reading material, you ask? Why, Little Sisters Weekly, of course! It's a whole freakin' magazine about giving headpats and platonic snuggles to your siblings. She's not really sure why he's so embarrassed by it, or why people give him weird looks when she brings it up. But hey, it's funny.
She talks with a carefree attitude and a lot of energy because she knows Dawn likes to hear her get excited even if he won't admit it.
A message pops up on her computerificator! She tabs over to it...
rushie...i'm out of ammunition.
i ran out RIGHT before the building...
...i know i shouldn't waste so many bullets, but that's not important right now...
just give me my FUCKING gun already...
She already knows it's from Dawn. He's the only one who sends her messages! He's a very dedicated big brother. Technically she's the older one, though. By, like, five minutes.
Rushie turns to her big wall o' guns. There's five guns, but Dawn's only allowed to carry two because his Modus Offensive isn't ranked up enough yet. What sort of gun does he need? A graviton cannon? A flamethrower? A big ol' assault rifle? That dinky pistol that looks really cool but Dawn complains whenever he gets it? So many choices.
She closes her eyes, spins a couple times, and boops a button!
Dawn blinks as his next gun poofs into existence...
...aw what the fuck. It's the fucking pistol. Not his good pistol, not the revolver, it's that pistol. The one with the giant fucking scythe blade on the front that makes it impossible to use right. It's too heavy in the front to use one-hoofed and too large in the front to brace against anything, and the blade's facing inward so he can't even grip it with two hooves without risking a giant cut on one of his hooves in the middle of a firefight. Who the actual fuck designed this thing, it looks like someone at a fantasy MMO design department was handed the sketch from a twelve-year-old's shitty OC and told to make it happen.
He angrily composes a fittingly-worded message back to his sister.
...WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, RUSHIE
YOU'VE GIVEN ME THIS GUN LIKE FIVE TIMES IN THIS MISSION ALONE
I KEEP HAVING TO FUCKING MAGDUMP INTO ABANDONED CARS AND SHIT BECAUSE I CAN'T BE ISSUED ANOTHER GUN UNTIL I USE THIS ONE UP
WHO THE HELL CAME UP WITH THIS SYSTEM ANYWAY
The reply comes back posthaste.
i told you Dawny
i pick them at random because i don't really know what you like
you gotta tell me what you want so i can choose the right kinda rod you know what i'm sayin
...FUCK YOU
well if that's what you want then hmu after the mission big guy
NOT WHAT I MEANT
Dawn groans, his head in his hooves. God fucking dammit this is almost as bad as last time. He has no idea why anyone would design a four-shot pistol to load three beanbag rounds and then an HE shell.
Grumbling under his breath, he stacks up on the door--as much as one can stack up without any teammates, since he works alone--and takes a deep breath.
We now consider the creatures on the other side of the door, inasmuch as they can be called 'creatures'. The Black Ties aren't so much 'alive' as they are controlled, despite appearances to the contrary. They move with a grace no puppet could hope to match, but puppets they are.
They are lurking in this building for the same reason all thugs, riffraff, and miscreants lurk in random buildings: they must be intimidating, and one cannot make an intimidating omelet without breaking a few skulls. If any of them were capable of independent thought right now, they'd be shrugging and saying c'est la vie.
KRAK
The door bursts open, and a pegasus wackjob with a handgun starts throwing hot lead in every direction. Two of the Black Ties immediately eat some of that piping hot metal, and find it to be entirely too spicy for them. The other three begin a coordinated flanking maneuver that falls to pieces because that crazy winged son of a bitch decided to do a backflip through the center of the room instead of doing anything sensible.
Speckled with blood and panting softly, Dawn checks the mag on that stupid fucking pistol, and thinks for a moment.
rushie
i am out of ammo again
please send me anything but this
Rushie blinks. Already? But there were only like five dudes in there, and he had like fifty bullets! She pulls up a video feed again.
On the cameras, she sees five dead Ties...and Dawn, standing next to the letters "F", "U", and "C" spelled out in bullet holes. There appears to be half of a "K" next to the C.
...just give me the god damn gun already
Towering houses of cards stretched across the college-ruled landscape, interspersed with the occasional mile-wide inkblot. Twilight goggled at the sheer impossibility of the view. In the back of her mind, a phrase formed out of thin air: [The Land of Papers and Prestidigitation]. She made a mental note to shorten it to LoPaP before she wondered why this world's name had formed, unbidden, inside her head.
She immediately opened her line of communication again. Surely Celestia and Luna knew what was going on; they had hinted at being veteran players.
Dear Princesses,
I find myself in a strange new world. There are cards everywhere, and the ground seems to be made of gigantic sheets of paper! I note with great appreciation that it is paper of the college-ruled variety, and not some more juvenile kind of parchment.
Regardless, I feel that this is highly concerning, mostly because of the complete lack of grass. How am I supposed to eat anything?
Your bewildered leader, Twilight Sparkle.
She made another mental note, to ensure that she continued to refer to herself as leader. Leadership was in her blood, she reminded herself. After all, Shining Armor was captain of the Canterlot Guard!
...well, until Canterlot disappeared. But still!
Within a few moments, she received a reply.
how many times do me and lulu gotta tell ya, you don't have to write these like letters
they're less formal :)
don't worry about food, you don't gotta eat anymore, it's all part of the game
anyway
the first thing i gotta do is get candyass to finish her end of things
so's i can join ya
don't go screwing up now
Twilight's eye twitched. She reminded herself that grammar was, like many things, a suggestion rather than a rule, and that committing regicide over it would be extremely ill-advised. Especially since, for all she knew, Celestia and Luna and Cadance were the only ponies she'd ever get to see again.
Frankly, she was proud of herself for taking it so well.
Celestia grumbled quietly as she switched tabs, whacking a nearby imp with a regrettably-empty liquor cabinet. It seemed as though every single bottle in the joint had been smashed when the teleportalization happened, turning Donut Joe's Bakery and Bar into a total waste of space.
The more pressing concern was why the Taurtaros these imps had bouncing baby faces, wings, and horns.
candybutt
big motherly bundle of sweetness
you incredible, completely responsible parent
why in the eternal fuck-my-sister-in-the-ass light of the evereffervescent SUN did you put your DAUGHTER in the KERNELSPRITE
While she waited for the reply, she surveyed her land. Last time it had been all time-themed, with enormous clocktowers and rivers of sand; this time around, though, it had a less obvious theme. There were doors everywhere, drifting open and shut in the wind, with sundials marked into the red-tinted stone around them. Her land's name faded into her mind: [Land of Closures and Timepieces]. She scowled. She almost got LoLCaT this time. Coulda had the perfect run.
Her Solarshades plinked at her. She pulled up the message:
i know, i know~ luna already gave me the lecture~
i thought, the kernelsprite brings things back from the dead, right~? so obviously, living things would never die~
nobody told me it would put flurry's face on all the imps~
or that she would leave~
i can tell she doesn't want to leave me~
Celestia put her head in her hooves. This is what she gets for doing New Game Plus with new players.
it's not just that
the imps are gonna get powered up by this
you just gave the power of an out-of-control baby alicorn to every enemy in the game
well, it's a good thing we're all alicorns too~
in fact, i can't help but think you'll enjoy the challenge~
Celestia tapped her chin as she drew out her favorite lance. 'Twas true, she did want New Game Plus. She just didn't want the two newbies to ruin this run.
fine, fine, maybe i do want something that'll make me sweat :p
just shut up and build aight? you've already triggered a challenge run
With that, Celly kicked an adorable imp down a flight of massive stone-carved stairs, picked a direction, and started gliding. She was gonna need a drink.
Luna had been hastily building up a tower in the midst of Cadance's [Land of Glass and Stonehenge] for the past hour. Despite the unfortunate confusion over the Kernelsprite, they had been incredibly productive--Cadance had been quite efficient at dispatching the Flurryimps. Worryingly so. She had been doubly effective at killing them when they wandered too close to Shining Armor--who was blindfolded! Luna groaned. Was Cadance really that desperate to keep her mistakes hidden, or did she think she could protect her dear Shiny forever?
She set the matter aside. Other, more important things had to be done. Cadance might be clueless, but Twilight was worse than clueless: Twilight was liable to try sequence-breaking.
TWILIGHT. WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DISCUSS.
YOU SEE, THERE ARE SPECIFIC STEPS TO THIS GAME. WHEN THESE STEPS ARE FOLLOWED IN ORDER, ALL IS WELL.
WHEN THESE STEPS ARE FOLLOWED OUT OF ORDER, WE DIE. THAT IS NOT THE ROYAL WE.
WE SHALL MAKE THIS SIMPLE. (IN THIS CASE, WE ARE--IN FACT--USING THE ROYAL WE.) YOU WILL FOLLOW OUR GUIDE, WHICH WE SHALL BE PROVIDING POSTHASTE VIA THE SITE KNOWN AS 'GAMEFAQS'.
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as she finished Luna's message. She hated, hated, hated the idea of having to order Celestia around, and she certainly didn't feel too good about ordering Luna around either. Granted, she would rather be following Celestia's instructions, but Luna's probably acting on orders from Celestia, so in a sense she is following Celestia's instructions!
Luna, you have nothing to worry about! I'll do exactly as you say. I'm sure this game will run smoother than silk, so long as I follow along.