May The Best Gamer Win!by Golden CakeChaptersWarming UpThe CompetitionThe Final BattleWarming UpAuthor's Note This is my first take on a short, fun(, and hopefully comedic) story! I hope y’all enjoy!! Warming Up As Samuel stepped out of the arcade, he looked up to the sky, with his hands on his side, as he smiled with pride. “Now THAT, is how you show those newbies how it’s done!” Samuel then walked down the sidewalk, towards his parent’s house, as he continued smiling. “Poor kids never should’ve signed up for a Zombie Hunter 2 competition without knowing what they were getting into.” Samuel rummaged through his junk filled pocket and pulled out a ribbon, his prize for winning the competition. ”Wish the prize was a bit more than this, though,” he thought to himself. “Oh well.” He then put the ribbon back in his pocket, and started whistling a merry tune, as he broke out into a confident strut, not noticing the glowing colors and strange noises coming from under him, before he suddenly fell into the ground. Samuel fell about ten feet, before he face planted onto a soft, red carpet. Samuel rubbed his face to ease some of the pain, before he looked around. He was in some kind of large, fancy, marble room, with a throne at the end of it. A throne room? “The hell?” He said to himself, as he stood up. When he stood up, the doors behind him, which he didn’t notice at first, swung open, revealing the figure of… a horse. A dark blue horse, with an unnatural, flowing mane. The horse also had wings, and was wearing a bright orange baseball cap, backwards, and partially mesh , and she had a horn that was poking through the open area above the closure of the hat. She looked kind of silly. She looked at Samuel with condescending eyes, as she took a sip from a cup of soda, which was levitating next to her in some kind of magical glow. “Ok,” Samuel said, as he put his hands in the air and turned around. “This is too weird.” He then started walking to the other side of the room, with no real destination in mind, before he looked up at the ceiling. “HELLO??” He yelled, in the hopes that someone else would hear him. “I FELL INTO SOME CRAZY BASEMENT, CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT??” Just then, there was a blinding, blue flash of light right in front of him, which made him stop, as when the flash was gone, the strange horse he saw a second ago had appeared right in front of him. “Err,” Samuel groaned. “Shoo girl, shoo.” He then made a shooing motion with his hands, as the creature stood there, motionless, as it looked down at him unamusedly. “WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOU CEASING THIS FOOLISHNESS,” the creature suddenly yelled in front of him, scaring the life out of Samuel, as he fell to the ground. It wasn’t a scream of anger, but more of a monotone tone, just really, really loud. Samuel couldn’t tell if it was the fear that made him fall over, or if the actual force of this creatures yelling had actually knocked him down on his rear, but either way he was pretty freaked out. “Wh-what are you?!” The human quivered, as the creature took another sip of its soda and gave him an evil smile. The creature didn’t answer, as it scanned Samuel up and down, judging him. “This is it?” It asked, in a normal, feminine voice. “This is this other worlds ‘best gamer’?” Samuel shook his head, then jumped back on his feet. “What the hell are you on about? I don’t know who you are, or what you are, but I just want to go home!! You crazy horse thing…” Samuel said, without a hint of a filter. The horse looked at him with annoyance, before she smiled. “Well, you certainly have the attitude of an elite gamer,” she said. “Come, follow me and I’ll inform you of your situation.” Samuel and the horse then walked down a hallway, after they left the throne room, as the horse lady spoke. “I know you never asked, but my name is Princess Luna. I’m an alicorn princess and co-ruler of ponies here in the world of Equestria,” she sang, as she looked out the hallway’s windows, out at the… surprisingly beautiful countryside, which was lit up by the warm light of the day. Samuel’s eye twitched slightly. “Yep, I really appreciate that information. How silly of me to not even ask you, right?” Samuel asked, as he shot her a venomous glare. The moment he looked at her though, she looked back at him, as she stared at him dead in the face, with an expression that said ‘try me’, before Samuel quickly withdrew his aggressive expression, and blushed as he looked the other way. Samuel then cleared his throat. “So… what’s my situation, again?” He asked curiously. Luna continued walking, unfazed by his question, before she spoke about five seconds later. “Well, you see, human, I’m a big fan of video games, and I’ve been good at them for as long as I can remember.” She turned to look at Samuel, as her eyes widened. “And I remember a lot, trust me.” Her ear flicked, as she looked at Samuel for an uncomfortably long time, before she faced forward again, and continued, as the two of them were approaching a large, golden double door. “But, lately, I’ve wanted to prove myself,” she said. “To prove that I’m the best gamer in the whole multiverse, and that’s why I’ve brought you here.” She then lit up her horn, with a sparkly blue glow, and the doors opened, revealing a giant stadium, as Samuel flinched from the loud, excited cries of hundreds… or perhaps thousands, of people in the bleachers. As Luna and Samuel stepped forward, Samuel raised his hand, to shield the sun from his eyes, as he looked at the bleachers. He couldn’t see people in detail because of how far away they were, but going off of the base shape of people in the audience, it seemed that not everyone here was exactly… human. He saw some people that looked like ponies, like Luna, and she saw other shapes that straight up looked like aliens, among a plethora of others. Samuel wasn’t even sure if there was another human like him in the audience. Samuel also looked around him, and saw that there were many other ‘people’ besides him and Luna, who were also standing in the open field of the stadium. “I guess they’re here to compete, too.” “AEDE BIT!!” Luna screamed, using the same loud voice and tone that she’d used on Samuel not long ago. After she yelled, the audience quickly grew silent, and a unique figure from a balcony platform that was branching off of the stadium’s bleachers, who actually looked sort of human, with long, slightly messy hair, and a multicolored, stylized outfit with some kind of cape, stood up from what looked like a throne, as it looked down at Samuel and Luna, as he put his hands on the guardrail and tilted his head. “I’ve brought the last champion we need here, and now, we can compete!!” Luna said excitedly. Aede Bit remained silent, but spoke a second later, in what sounded like a cocky teenage voice. “What’s his name?” He asked. Luna looked at Samuel, and opened her mouth to speak, but Samuel cut her off. “My name is Samuel Weller,” he said, as he looked at Luna. “And I just want to go back home to Earth, I’m not interested in any of this.” Luna‘s ears folded, as she looked at Samuel nervously, and Aede Bit smiled. “Maybe this will change you mind,” Aede said, as he lifted a finger, and magically made the curtains of a nearby stage disintegrate into small, glowing cubes, that floated into the air and disappeared a second later, revealing a giant, indescribably beautiful trophy, that beamed in the sunlight. Samuel had to admit, he’d never been to a gaming competition with a quality reward, and he felt his mouth watering just looking at this trophy. But still, he didn’t want to get wrapped up in this. Samuel opened his mouth to say no, but Aede spoke for him. “I can tell that you like what you see,” he said with a smile. “Listen, Sammy,” he continued. “As long as you at least attend this interdimensional competition, I’ll send you home afterwards.” He then looked around at all of the audience. “I’ll send all of you home! Safe and sound!!” The audience cheered, but Samuel put a hand to his chin, as he thought. “All of them? Does that mean the audience was pulled here t-“ “Now, let the tournament begin!!” Aede interrupted. Luna then used her magic to grab Samuel by the ear, as she pulled him along with her to one of the several doors on the walls of the bottom level to the circular stadium, as all the other contestants went in pairs to their own doors, too. “Hey! Ow! What the hell?!” Samuel said painfully. Luna pulled him with her until they’d entered a pretty small, dimly lit room, that had a comfy looking couch, a large, sturdy coffee table that had several two liter soda bottles of Mountain Dew, and large bags of Doritos piled up on it, and a few different TV’s propped up on an even larger table that was against the wall. Samuel plopped down on the couch, as he rubbed his ear tenderly. “That hurt, ya know!!” He said angrily. Luna didn’t respond, and instead booted up an Xbox One that was on the table against the wall. “Silence, human,” she said blankly, before she sat on the couch next to Samuel. “Right now, I have to focus on my gaming warm up.” Samuel looked at the table that was against the wall, and saw that there were multiple different consoles on it, for all types of gamers, before he looked at Luna. “Warm up?” He asked. Luna sighed, before she looked at Samuel. “Clearly, any elite gamer needs at least a few warm sessions in their game to be at their peak efficiency for a competition,” she said, before she used her magic to levitate an Xbox controller to her, and start pushing buttons, as she set up her game. “Even Aede Bit knows that. That’s why we have these fourty five minutes to warm up.” “Oh,” Samuel said, as he felt silly for asking. “So… what are we playing?” He asked casually, as he got comfy. Luna looked at him for a second, then back at the screen. “Well… the games we play at the actual competition can be random, but I like to warm up with Zombie Hunter 3. It’s good for exercising important aspects that most competitive games have.” “Zombie hunter 3, huh?” Samuel asked. Never played it. But the second game was fun! In my world, I actually just won a video game competition with the game before I landed here!” Luna looked at him, as her expression softened a little. “I wasn’t aware that you were a fan of the Zombie Hunter games,” she said simply. Samuel gave her a small smile, then looked at the floor, as he sighed lightly. But, I’m not sure how much different the third game will be… and I do think it’d be cool to win this competition. I’ve never really gotten anything worth my while before, in any competition I’ve been too, despite how hard I work at being competitive in games…” Samuel said sadly. Luna stopped pressing buttons on the controller, and paused her practice game, before she set the controller down. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Samuel. I too have known how it feels to be under appreciated and unrecognized…” she said, as her ears folded. “But that’s part of why I’m doing this,” she said, as she looked at Samuel with determination. “So I can have something to show for my efforts, for everypony to see!” Luna then levitated another controller to Samuel, as the game was at the ‘start’ menu. “And, don’t worry about the game, Samuel,” she said assuringly, as she gave him a warm smile. “I’ve been a fan of the Zombie Hunter franchise for years, and the third game really isn’t much different at all from the second, gameplay wise.” Samuel smiled back at her, before he picked up his controller and looked at the screen. “So, Luna, shall we warm up?” he said as he looked at the screen determinedly. “Yes we shall!” Luna chirped, as she looked at the screen as well and started the game. Samuel and Luna then spent the next fourty minutes playing Zombie Hunter 3 against each other. They were playing aggressively, and were playing to win, but it also felt a bit more casual between them, like there were no hard feelings with one of them beating the other. As they played through the rounds, Samuel and Luna had almost matching scores, and by the time they were done playing, they were both sweating profusely, with multiple empty bags of Doritos and empty bottles of Mountain Dew on the floor, and the games ending stats said that Samuel had won, practically by the skin of his teeth. Samuel looked at Luna, his face laced with concern. “I’m sorry you didn’t win, Luna,” he said gently. Luna looked at the screen for a few seconds, as she used a hoof to wipe the sweat off her forehead, before she gave a small smile to Samuel. “It’s ok, Samuel. That game was really close! And that was just a part of my warm up anyways.” “Let’s just hope you can keep it up!” She said playfully, as she poked him with her hoof. Luna then held her other hoof(the one she didn’t use to wipe off her forehead with) out to Samuel for him to shake. “Good game, Samuel!” Samuel smiled, and didn’t hesitate to grab her hoof, as he shook it lightly. “Good game, Princess Luna!” Just then, there was the sound of an airhorn, as the door that they had come in disintegrated into colored pixels, before it disappeared completely. The airhorn was followed by the booming sound of Aede Bit yelling. “LET THE COMPETITION, BEGIN!!” The CompetitionAs Samuel and Luna stepped out of their room, so did all the other pairs of competitors. Everyone then moved in front of a newly formed stage in the center of the stadium, before Aede Bit manifested himself on the stage out of multicolored pixels, with his arms folded, as the warm, gentle, afternoon sunlight bounced off of his shiny, colorful clothes. Aede raised his two fingers up with his right hand, as two random competitors disappeared and reformed on the stage in a formation of pixels. In the center of the stage stood two small desks with monitors, placed against each other, both accompanying a strange looking gaming console, with a high quality looking swivel chair in front of each. There were also two giant screens on the stage, behind the gaming setups, which Samuel assumed was for the rest of the competitors to watch. Aede then turned his back to the other contestants, before he snapped his fingers, which caused rows and rows of chairs to spawn behind everyone. Samuel and Luna took this as their queue to take a seat and wait their turn. As the first pair of contestants, an orange, male pony pegasus, and a creature with the figure of a human, with antlers sprouting from his head and long, draping hair, sat down in their seats on stage, Aede Bit looked to the audience in the large, looming bleachers and smiled. “Everyone!!” He shouted, quite audibly, even though he didn’t have a microphone. “It is time! Time to truly find… THE BEST GAMER IN THE MULTIVERSE!!” The stadium’s bleacher’s were filled with the sounds of clapping, slapping, and the clopping of pony hooves. “A lot of different forms of applause, I guess,” Samuel thought, as he looked around at the audience. Samuel then felt a hoof poking his shoulder, as he turned to see that it was Luna, who was looking at him with a hint of fear. “Samuel,” she started. There’s something you should know about Aede Bit.” Just then Aede Bit clapped his hands, as there were firework explosions of pixels in the sky, as the two gaming consoles on stage started booting up. Luna, however, continued anyways. “I… I brought him here,” she said shamefully, as her ears drooped. Samuel opened his mouth, but Luna put a hoof to it, as she continued. “I know it was stupid, and I know it was selfish, but I just needed to be recognized somehow.” Samuel looked at her, confused, before he looked at Aede. “What exactly is Aede Bit?” He asked. “He looks almost human, but he seems to have some strong magical powers.” “He does,” Luna said, as she looked at Aede, too. “When I first summoned him, I wanted to have a humble tournament, maybe in an arcade in Ponyville, but Aede Bit wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to have a more ‘professional’ tournament, so he created this stadium and told me to gather the best gamers from across different worlds to compete against each others.” Luna then turned to face Samuel briefly. “I originally brought Aede Bit here so I could beat him in a game one on one, but to be honest… I was scared, so I agreed to his preference.” “Aede Bit isn’t human, Samuel, he’s a physical incarnation of the spirit of competitive video game players in your world, to put it simply.” Samuel looked at her, surprised, before she looked back at the lush, green, grass floor of the field. “But… why from my world?” Samuel asked. Luna looked at Samuel, before she looked at Aede Bit. “I… used a spell to manifest raw emotions into physical beings. It isn’t easy to do with weaker emotions, and the worldwide spirits of gamers in most world’s wasn’t strong enough to form a whole person and an entire body from.” “Your world was an exception, though. Your world has a more potent gaming spirit than any other I’ve seen as of yet, so I used samples of your world’s emotional gaming spirit to form a new being from. A being I could prove myself and my skills with, once I’d beaten him.” Aede Bit then floated into the air, doing backflips, as more fireworks shot out of his hands, as he laughed. “But it’s gotten out of hoof,” Luna said slowly. “And I fear that if Aede Bit had the chance, he would gladly put our fellow contestants welfare in jeopardy, for the sake of a good show.” Samuel looked at Luna. He felt like he was talking to a dictionary, based on her expanded vocabulary compared to him, before he brushed his thoughts to the side, and decided to just watch the show. When Aede Bit was done with his little display of excitement, the games booted up, and Aede Bit manifested himself onto a floating throne in the front row of the stage. When the game started, it was SunSwords and RainBows, a game disguised as a basic, childish PvP, but really had some pretty addictive gameplay and great weapon selection. As the two contestants played through the game, it looked like they were fighting with all their might, and were even using some dirty tactics, like animation locks, where your enemy locks you in an animation when they hit you when you’re in the air, and you can’t control your player when you’re in the animation, and they hit you repeatedly to ‘lock’ you in that animation, and keep you immobilized. It used to be a terrible thing in Super Smash Bros, truly terrible. When the game finally ended, the human looking creature with antlers looked relieved, as he’d won, as the orange pegasus’s ears folded, as he lost. The orange pegasus looked at Aede Bit fearfully, as Aede Bit tapped his fingers on his armrest. Aede Bit then floated in the air and clapped his hands, as the two contestants disappeared from the stage and reappeared in two more seats in front of the stage, next to all the other contestants. A billboard then appeared out of thin air next to Aede, which showed all the contestants, and he crossed out the name ‘Sunflower Syrup’ and circled the name ‘Ceciano’. The billboard hovered in the air next to Aede for the rest of the competition, as Aede was marking who would advance to fight others and who had lost. It didn’t take long until Samuel and Luna started playing against other contestants. They didn’t go against each other as they moved up the ranks, or… at least until they both soon enough found themselves at the top of the leaderboard. When Aede Bit crossed out everyone else’s names, and circled Luna and Samuel’s names in red, he clapped his hands and teleported them on the stage, as he smiled excitedly. Samuel could feel his legs turn to jelly as he looked around at the bleachers. He’d never been in the view of such a large audience before. Luna looked at him for a moment, concerned, as she raised a hoof to him, before she stopped herself, and gritted her teeth, and looked at Aede Bit, who was rubbing his hands together. “Well, well!! Princess Luna! Equestria’s ‘Princess of The Night’ and ‘Greatest Gamer’!!” Aede said cheerfully, as Luna looked at him with a mix of irritation and fear. “This should be fun…” He then looked at Samuel, as the excitement in his eyes faded somewhat. “And… a uh… a human!” Aede said with a forced smile. “It was Sammy, right?” Samuel opened his mouth to correct him, before he was cut off. “Yeah, of course it was. I remember now,” Aede Bit said, before he pointed at Samuel and Luna with both hands and magically levitated both of them to their seats. “Let’s get this final game going!!” Aede said excitedly. When Samuel and Luna adjusted themselves in their comfy chairs, they found out the game they would be playing was Zombie Hunter 3. Samuel and Luna done a pretty bad job of hiding their confusion, because Aede bit spoke again a moment later. “You look surprised,” Aede Bit said. “I only select the games that I know both selected players are familiar with. I’m not a monster!” Samuel didn’t want to think about how he Aede could have even known that, as he looked to the side of his monitor, at Luna. Luna popped her neck and was cracking her… hooves? to prepare for what her and Samuel both knew was going to be one hell of a fight. “Good luck, Mom!!” Aede Bit said enthusiastically. Samuel visibly cringed when he said that to Luna, but did his best to hide the display from Aede Bit. Once Samuel and Luna selected their character perks and load outs, the game started, and the chaotic, heart pounding fight began. Their players were two humans fighting in an industrial park, during a thunderstorm, which would only add to the tension of the battle. Samuel took the first hit from Luna’s character, who wielded a battle axe, but he had a fast counter, as his character swung around on a nearby rod that was poking out of the slick, concrete ground, and got a quick slash on Luna’s leg with his blade. Despite the name, Zombie Hunter 3 was mostly renowned for its smooth, engaging player vs player combat. Zombies were more of a background part of the game. As Samuel continued fighting Luna, he couldn’t help but think about what he should do. He could lose intentionally, and let Luna win the competition, and the respect from her subjects. Or Samuel could try his hardest and possibly win the competition, tearing the victory and respect away from Luna, and returning to Earth with his long awaited, truly deserved prize. Samuel had bonded with Luna as they practiced, and felt that she was the first person who he could really relate to on a deep level. He couldn’t do it. But Aede Bit had a close eye on any and all of the games, so he would know if someone was intentionally playing worse. Samuel would need to be careful about this. He needed to play hard, and play to win, but try to assist Luna in smaller, more inconspicuous ways. Samuel was knocked from his thoughts as his player was literally knocked to the ground with a mega kick that Luna had as one of her perks. Samuel’s character then quickly jumped to his feet, and was dodging back repeatedly as Luna was in hot pursuit, and he was blocking her swings, one after the other. Samuel didn’t even have a single opportunity to fight back. Luna was unrelenting in her attacks, and Samuel was running out of options, before he fell back into a pretty deep pit, losing a good quarter of his HP as he hit the ground. Fall damage was always more unforgiving in Zombie Hunter 3 compared to other games. As Samuel’s thoughts raced, he could only think of how to beat Luna for the first round. The best thought Samuel had was using animation locks, which were definitely a thing with ZH 3, though it was frowned upon by the gaming community. Samuel decided against such dirty tactics and instead used his super jump perk to jump out of the ditch, as he took Luna by surprise, and stabbed her character through the chest, as she was in the middle of jumping down the ditch to slam him with her axe. Samuel’s sword took about 35% of Luna’s HP, since it was a critical hit through the chest. As Samuel landed and slid on the concrete, he looked back at Luna, who landed in front of him, and pulled out her rocket launcher. “Oh god.” Samuel was going out of his way to play fair, but it seemed that Luna was playing to win, in any way. As Luna’s character shot the rocket at Samuel’s character, Samuel blocked with his sword, but the blast still took a good chunk of his health, and he lost the rest of his health when the blast had knocked him directly into a patch of spikes that were set up on the wall behind him. The first round was over, the leaderboards updated, and Luna only had to win two more rounds to win the whole tournament. Samuel and Luna changed their perks and weapon setup before the next game started. When the next game started, they were still in the industrial park, except it wasn’t raining, and it was later in the day, with a beautiful, almost comforting, crisp orange sunset. This time, it was Samuel who got the first hit on Luna, with his heavy sledgehammer, as she seemed a bit slower than she was last game. It was a critical hit, too, and knocked her on her back. Samuel then looked past Luna’s character and saw a patch of spikes that were poking out of a pile of debris behind her. “I’ve got to give her a chance to use those,” he thought. “She needs to win.” Samuel then got closer to Luna, and blocked her attacks with her katana, as he slowly maneuvered himself to face away from the spikes. Luna’s character froze for but a second, as if she knew what he was doing, before she used her lasso perk to grab Samuel’s character and throw him over her, away from the spikes. He only took a small amount of damage as he hit the ground, and looked back at Luna. Luna then rushed to Samuel, and tried using her mega kick attack again. Despite how strong it is, if you have a heavy weapon(like a sledgehammer), it’s really easy to counter, and make the other player suffer the consequences, if it’s used incorrectly. Samuel then used his sledgehammer and slammed Luna’s character in the leg, taking a portion of her HP. “Oh no,” he thought. “Is… is she trying to let me win? She never made such foolish moves like that when we were practicing…” Then, as Samuel’s character stepped closer to Luna, the game stopped on the pause menu, and Samuel and Luna looked at each other, then at Aede, who seemed unamused, with his hand covering his face. “Just what are you two doing?” He asked, with a bit of aggression, as he floated off of his throne. “I can sense that you two are holding yourselves back.” Samuel scratched his neck awkwardly, and Luna fidgeted with her hooves, before Aede spoke again. “Are you two trying to lose?” Aede then looked at the two of them, with his hands on his hips, before he smirked. “You two really want the other to win this, huh?” He asked. “That’s cute.” Samuel and Luna looked away, before Aede shut his eyes and pointed his fingers at the two of them, which caused the desks, monitors, and chairs to disappear, as Samuel and Luna fell to the floor and looked at him, confused. Aede then opened his eyes, revealing two multicolored, pixelized iris’s, as he smiled maliciously. “Then how about I give you two some… incentive,” he said ominously, as his hands glowed brightly with a pixelized energy, and his hair and cape flowed furiously in a non-existent breeze. He then blasted Samuel and Luna with each of his hands, which caused them both to slowly turn into small pixels, as they both looked at each other, horrified, before they were fully pixelized, and flew into a newly formed, singular monitor on the stage, with Aede Bit turning into a mass of small pixels as well, and flying into the monitor with them. When Samuel and Luna came to, they realized that they were inside the game of Zombie Hunter 3, with the same industrial park and warm sunset as before, and they were wearing their previously selected character’s outfits, as they looked at each other with wide eyes. Aede Bit manifested himself out of pixels in the air next to them, as he formed a throne behind him out of some debris around him and took a seat, as he looked at Samuel and Luna intimidatingly. “Now, as I said before, LET THE GAME BEGIN!!” Author's Note I really expected this to be the last chapter, but really, the next one will be the last, I promise!! I seriously didn’t expect to keep this story going for this long, but it just feels right, yknow? Anyways, I hope y’all enjoyed this second chapter, and stay tuned for the finale!! The Final BattleAs Samuel and Luna looked at each other, Luna lit up her horn and focused on Samuel, to which Samuel put his hands in front of his face defensively. Samuel didn’t feel any painful blast of magical lasers like he was expecting, though, and instead heard a voice in his head a few seconds later. Luna’s voice. “Samuel, your character class has a shield, you know. You don’t need to use your hands,” Luna’s faint voice echoed in the back of his mind. Samuel was about to thoughtlessly open his mouth to ask what was happening, before Luna stopped him. “Shh! No-don’t!! Aede can’t know that I’m using temporary mind connecting spells, but we need to figure out what to do here. But first, let’s sort through our classes so it actually looks like we’re doing something.” Samuel then patted himself down, to make it looks like he was missing something, before he nervously looked at Aede Bit and spoke out loud. “Dangit! I just remembered that I’m missing an important perk! I-uh, I need to check my settings real quick.” “Oh, yes! I-I do as well!” Luna said a second later. “I can’t fight without my super jump!” Aede Bit looked at them impatiently for a moment, before he rolled his eyes, and flicked his hand at them, gesturing for them to proceed. “Take off your bags,” Aede said. “You can choose your weapons and stats from there.” Samuel nodded, and took his surprisingly lightweight backpack off of his back and rummaged through it, and his bag sort of acted as his perk and weapon selection menu, as Luna did the same with her bag, too. “I’m pretty certain that this is going to be a battle to the death,” Luna said telepathically. “I don’t know the fundamentals of being IN a video game, but I do know that if we don’t stop Aede, only one of us will make it out of here alive.” Luna then looked up from her bag and met Samuel’s eyes, as Samuel looked at her. “And I don’t want that for either of us,” she said, before her eyes darted back down to her bag, with Samuel following suit. “So we need to find a way to stop him.” “How?” Samuel asked. “He’s the incarnate being of video game player spirit, right? His power probably lies most within video games, and we’re in a video game. Luna’s eyes darted to the floor for a moment, as if she was thinking, before her eyes lit up, and she searched through her bag quickly. “Samuel! Equip Will’s Chainsaw Sword and the Gauntlet of Earth. I have an idea.” “What?” Samuel asked, as he equipped both weapons. “Will’s Chainsaw Sword is the one of the best weapons for animation locks, maybe we could use that against Aede!” Luna said. Samuel looked at her for a moment, confused. “What? Do you want us to actually fight Aede or something?” Samuel laughed, as he looked through his bag. “I might as well dig my own digital grave!” “Yes,” Luna said. “We have to fight Aede, but I know we can do it.” Samuel felt a sense of fear and unease welling up in his throat, as he gulped. “Mum always did say that these games would end up killing me some day…” Samuel muttered to himself out loud. When Samuel and Luna were finished setting up their loadout, Luna looked at Aede. “Hey Aede, why are we even competing?” Luna asked. “Samuel won during practice. It’s pretty obvious that he’s going to beat me.” Samuel looked at Luna, before Luna gave him a look that said ‘just go with it’. “Yeah, bu-“ Aede said, before Luna cut him off. “I feel that it would be a much more fun and entertaining battle if it was the two of us against you,” Luna said with a shield of confidence. “Two of the best gamers from different worlds, against the manifestation of gaming spirit and skill, to see if they’re truly worthy of being called, The Ultimate Gaming Champions.” Aede But stroked his chin, as he looked at the two of them, back and forth, before a smile crept up on his face. “Wellll… I must admit that just watching players fight has been feeling pretty old…,” he said. “Alright Luna, you’ve sold me.” Aede then floated off his throne, his feet delicately landing on the ground, as he tied his long hair up in a ponytail, and opened a newly formed bag that had appeared next to him and searched through it. “I’ll play fair according to the games rules, don’t worry,” Aede said, as he pulled out dual wield katanas and a belt of grenades, before he looked at the two of them, as the bag dissipated into a mass of pixels. “But don’t think that means I’ll go easy on you two.” Luna and Samuel then equipped their chainsaw swords, and braced themselves, as they stood side by side, looking at Aede with as much confidence as they could muster. Aede then snapped his fingers, and a large, pixelated ‘10’ appeared in the air above them, and started ticking down. “You go in first, Samuel,” Luna quickly said telepathically. “I’ll be ready in case he prevents you from holding him in place. Remember the animation lock.” Samuel nodded, as the timer hit ‘1’, and Aede dashed toward them in a flash. Samuel ran to him, and tried using a power stomp to knock Aede in the air, but Aede perfectly evaded it, and slashed Samuel repeatedly, as Samuel was getting stun locked, and couldn’t do anything, before Luna jumped in front of Aede and hit him with a power kick, which Aede had blocked. The kick didnt hurt Aede, since he blocked it, but it did push him pretty far back. Luna quickly helped Samuel to his feet. “Oww! Jesus! That feels way too real!!” Samuel said, as he winced in pain. Samuel looked up at his Health Bar and saw that he’d already lost about 40% of his HP. He then looked at Luna. “Princess Luna,” he started, out loud, before he looked at Aede. “If I die here, I want you to know that you’ve been a good friend, and I wish we’d had more time to play video games, just for the fun of it.” Luna was about to speak, but Samuel was already charging at Aede again, and this time, Aede struck first, and Samuel dodged his first swing, and then his second swing, and then Samuel struck. He used his chainsaw sword to knock Aede up, off the ground, before he jumped, and slashed Aede as much as he possibly could, as Luna helped him a second later, as she slashed with her chainsaw sword. They kept Aede locked in place for a few seconds, before Aede used a self detonation perk, where the grenades he was wearing on his belt detonated and knocked Samuel and Luna back, taking a lot of their HP, since the explosion was right next to them. Samuel only had about 13% of his HP, and Luna had 42%. Samuel then weakly raised his head, to see Luna, who was lying on the ground, not moving, and Aede’s HP bar, which was at 82%. Samuel then slowly and painfully stood up, as he shakily ran to Luna, who was breathing faintly, and shook her. “Luna! LUNA!!” Samuel looked at Aede, who was standing with arms folded, seemingly waiting for Luna to get back up and continue fighting. Samuel looked back down at Luna, and could feel fiery tears welling up in his eyes, as Luna wasn’t moving. He held her close, as he thought of the brief, but enjoyable times they had together. He thought of when he opened up to her during their gaming practice session, and the fun they had playing. The genuine, simple fun. He thought of the game they were playing back then, and the game they were trapped in now, Zombie Hunter 3, and how much he enjoyed it(at least when no one’s life was on the line). Then Samuel remembered that while him and Luna were practicing, there was a little bug with some specific weapons, like the Gauntlet of Earth. The Gauntlet of Earth was really good at stun locking, if used correctly, but Samuel tried using it in one game against Luna, and the particles and special effects it had caused pretty big lag spikes, and nearly crashed the game. “Oh god, that’s it.” Samuel thought to himself, before he continued shaking Luna. After he shook Luna a bit more, Luna started taking faster breaths, as she tried to stand up, but immediately fell back to the ground. “Luna!!” Samuel said telepathically. “I know how we can beat Aede, but I need you!! Please!! I need you!!” When Samuel said that, Luna gritted her teeth, and slowly, shakily stood up, as Samuel helped her onto her hooves, before she wiped her bloody nose clean with a hoof. She looked at Aede in defensive fury, as she lifted a wing to shield Samuel. “What’s the plan?” She asked telepathically. “Equip your Gauntlet of Earth, quickly. The particles overload the games memory, and caused lag spikes when we were practicing. I’m pretty sure it can crash the game, and if the game crashes with Aede in it, I think it’ll kill him.” Luna equipped the Gauntlet, as Samuel did, too, before Luna looked at him, with a hint of fear. “What will happen to us?” Samuel sighed, before he continued speaking mentally. “I don’t know, I really don’t, but it’s our best chance. Even if we die with the game, so does Aede, and he won’t be able hurt anyone else anymore.” Luna looked at the concrete ground, before she looked forward, and let her wing fall to the side, as her and Samuel stood next to each other with their gauntlets, glaring at Aede with determination. “Let’s do this,” they both said out loud, at the same time. “Ooh! Determination! See, was that so hard?” Aede asked, as he pulled out his dual wield katanas. Samuel and Luna wasted no time, as they dashed to Aede and tried punching him at the same time from both directions. Aede blocked both of their attacks with his katanas as he grinned, before Samuel and Luna looked at each other and nodded to each other. As Aede pushed them back with his katanas, Samuel and Luna used their gauntlets to slam the ground right next to Aede, which caused the ground to crumble with green sparkles, as small plants grew in the cracks. A large oak tree with sharp branches then suddenly sprouted out of the ground, and hit Aede in the back, ripping his cape, and taking only a small portion of his HP. Aede laughed as he landed on the ground, and opened his mouth to speak, before the entire game they were in seemed to slow down and lag, as more cracks formed in the ground around them, creating more particle effects for the game to render, and some of the environment around them glitched into pixels and popped in and out of existence, as the game HUD above them, like the HP bars, started glitching. Aede’s face went pale, as he started to glitch out, like the environment around him, as he dropped his katanas and fell to his knees. “Keep going!!” Samuel shouted to Luna out loud. Luna and Samuel then both charged their gauntlets as they jumped into the air, and both slammed into the ground, creating more and more special effects. “Wh-what are you doing?!?!” Aede shouted desperately, as his voice glitched, sounding almost like static. Samuel and Luna kept punching the ground, as what was left of the environment around them was coated with a blanket of plants and sparkles, as Aede screamed horrifically, and broke down into a glitched pile of pixels, and disappeared into nothing, before Samuel and Luna phased through the floor beneath them, into a blank, black void of emptiness. As Samuel and Luna fell into the abyss, they looked at each other, and maneuvered themselves in the air, until Samuel grabbed Luna’s hooves with his hands. “Luna!” Samuel yelled. “I’m sorry you didn’t win. You’re a great friend, and a great leader who deserves respect!!” “…I-I don’t care about that!!” Luna said with tears forming in her eyes. “…I’m just glad I had you…” Luna held Samuel in a tight embrace, which Samuel didn’t hesitate to return, as Luna wrapped her wings around him protectively and formed a bright blue shield around them with her horn, as they both fell into a, now bright, white void, and held each other tightly. Back on the stage in the middle of the stadium, the audience was confused, as they weren’t sure what had happened in that last game, before the game console on the stage sputtered and shook, and spat out Samuel and Luna, as they flew into the air and landed on top of some of the previously defeated contestants who were in front of the stage, and the console exploded in a burst of fire and pixels. Luna then stood up slowly and shook herself off, and helped Samuel to his feet, as she apologized to the contestants they’d landed on. Just then, there were some strange noises all around Samuel and Luna, as the stage in front of them, the trophy, and the entire stadium they were in, started disappearing into small pixels, as the many interdimensional spectators from the bleachers panicked. Luna immediately took action and flew into the air, and focused her horn as she shut her eyes, as she casted a mega spell, and created a giant light blue bubble around the disappearing stadium, where everyone inside found themselves falling in low gravity, like the gravity of the moon. Luna landed on the ground, and was visibly straining to keep the spell going. Samuel patted her back, and smiled at her, as she opened her eyes and smiled back at him briefly. When the stadium had completely disappeared, and everyone had floated down to the ground safely, Luna released the spell, causing the giant bubble to pop, and caught her breath. “You ok?” Samuel asked. Luna nodded, as she tried to slow her breathing. “Y-yeah, I’m… I’m fine.” Samuel looked around at his surroundings, as the sun was setting with a familiar, comforting sunset. What was once a giant, intimidating stadium was now just a larger than usual garden/courtyard, next to this castle, which Samuel still didn’t know the name of. “Well,” Samuel said, as he looked at the sunset and took a deep, relieved breath. “We did it.” Luna walked next to him, and sat down. “Yes, we did.” After a bit time of time simply admiring the peaceful sunset, Luna looked back, and sighed. “But… there’s still one more thing I have to do.” Samuel turned around to look at her, as Luna stepped closer to the scared, and mostly confused crowd of audience members and contestants who were pulled from all over the multiverse. Luna then briefly looked back at Samuel, with a sad expression, before she lit up her horn, which caused a small book, a pen, and what looked like a small flash drive, to appear next to her, before she levitated the book and pen into Samuel’s hands. “Write your Xbox username on this, please,” Luna said. “And take this.” Luna then levitated the flash drive into Samuel’s hands as well. The flash drive was black, and had the design of a white crescent moon on it, which looked exactly like the strange symbol Luna had on her butt, which Samuel only just now noticed. Samuel put the drive into his left pocket(the pocket he didn’t use to carry junk, and only used for important things), and wrote his Xbox username on the paper, without thinking to ask why, and gave the pen and paper back to Luna. Luna levitated the pen and paper to her, and they disappeared in a magic flash of light, as Luna smiled at Samuel with sadness. “I guess this is goodbye then…” Luna said. Luna started to turn toward the crowd, before Samuel suddenly pulled her into a hug, which Luna was surprised by, but returned a second later. “Thanks for the help, Luna. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who feels underappreciated sometimes,” Samuel said, before he slowly retracted from the hug and looked at her. “I just wish we had more time to have fun together.” Luna gave him a more happy smile when he said that. “Maybe someday we will.” Samuel then remembered something, and quickly reached into his right pocket, and pulled out the ribbon from the gaming competition on Earth he’d won before he was brought to this world, dusted it off as best he could, and held it out to Luna. “Here,” he said. “This way you can rest assured knowing that even if your subjects don’t have your respect, I do.” Luna picked up the ribbon with her gentle, blue aura, and looked at it, before she looked at Samuel with watery eyes, as she smiled. This time it was Luna’s turn to give a surprise hug, as she nearly knocked Samuel off his feet, as she hugged him tightly with her hooves and wings, nearly squeezing the life out of him. It took about a full minute for her to slowly break the hug, as she looked at Samuel and sniffled, before she wiped her nose and eyes with a hoof. “T-thank you,” she said slowly, as the ribbon disappeared in a flash of light. “I’ll be sure to treasure it.” Once Luna took a moment to recompose herself, she then turned around and faced the crowd. “EVERYCREATURE!!” Luna yelled, using a familiar, loud tone, so she could be heard by everyone. “I OWE ALL OF YOU AN APOLOGY. NONE OF YOU DESERVED TO BE PULLED INTO THIS UNIVERSE AGAINST YOUR WILL, SO I WILL NOW REVERSE MY SPELL AND RETURN YOU ALL TO YOUR WORLD’S. JUST… MAKE SURE TO CLOSE YOUR EYES.” Samuel put his hands over his eyes protectively, as nearly everyone else did. Luna then lit up her horn, and shut her eyes in focus, as she gritted her teeth. Her horn glowed very brightly, as a swirling orb of energy formed at the tip of it, growing larger, before it exploded into a giant, circular explosion of light, which seemingly extended across the entirety of the castle, and maybe even beyond. When Samuel opened his eyes, he found that he wasn’t on the soft grass of a large garden being overlooked by the sunset anymore, but was now on a concrete sidewalk, in his hometown, at night, being overlooked by the moon. Samuel stood up and sighed, as he walked to his parent’s house. He used his extra key, and unlocked the front door quietly, to not disturb his parents, since he knew they’d be asleep by now, and walked to his room, as he shut the door and turned on the light. He then laid down on his bed and reached into his left pocket, pulling out the black flash drive and inspecting it. “Hmm… could this work with an Xbox One? I don’t even know why Luna gave me this…” he thought to himself. Samuel then dragged himself off of his bed and booted up his Xbox, before he plugged the flash drive in. Samuel was relieved to find that the flash drive did fit in his Xbox, but was not as relieved to find out how much memory the drive needed him to download. “Whatever. I need to find out what this is.” After about two hours of his Xbox extracting the mysterious data on the drive, it was finished, and his Xbox restarted for some reason. “That’s weird,” Samuel thought, as he turned his Xbox back on. When the Xbox turned on though, it had a slightly different format. His games and apps were still there, and everything else he had, but it was just arranged a bit differently. He wasn’t sure if the drive even had anything on it, until he got a notification saying he’d gotten a friend request and a party invite, from someone named ‘XxM0ON8UTTxX’. Samuel looked at the notifications curiously, before he smiled, and put on his headset, accepted the friend request, and joined the party. Author's Note Boom!! Happy, wholesome ending!! This might actually be my very first, fully completed story!! And it’s been pretty fun to write! I hope y’all enjoyed, and let me know what y’all thought of it!!
Warming UpAuthor's Note This is my first take on a short, fun(, and hopefully comedic) story! I hope y’all enjoy!! Warming Up As Samuel stepped out of the arcade, he looked up to the sky, with his hands on his side, as he smiled with pride. “Now THAT, is how you show those newbies how it’s done!” Samuel then walked down the sidewalk, towards his parent’s house, as he continued smiling. “Poor kids never should’ve signed up for a Zombie Hunter 2 competition without knowing what they were getting into.” Samuel rummaged through his junk filled pocket and pulled out a ribbon, his prize for winning the competition. ”Wish the prize was a bit more than this, though,” he thought to himself. “Oh well.” He then put the ribbon back in his pocket, and started whistling a merry tune, as he broke out into a confident strut, not noticing the glowing colors and strange noises coming from under him, before he suddenly fell into the ground. Samuel fell about ten feet, before he face planted onto a soft, red carpet. Samuel rubbed his face to ease some of the pain, before he looked around. He was in some kind of large, fancy, marble room, with a throne at the end of it. A throne room? “The hell?” He said to himself, as he stood up. When he stood up, the doors behind him, which he didn’t notice at first, swung open, revealing the figure of… a horse. A dark blue horse, with an unnatural, flowing mane. The horse also had wings, and was wearing a bright orange baseball cap, backwards, and partially mesh , and she had a horn that was poking through the open area above the closure of the hat. She looked kind of silly. She looked at Samuel with condescending eyes, as she took a sip from a cup of soda, which was levitating next to her in some kind of magical glow. “Ok,” Samuel said, as he put his hands in the air and turned around. “This is too weird.” He then started walking to the other side of the room, with no real destination in mind, before he looked up at the ceiling. “HELLO??” He yelled, in the hopes that someone else would hear him. “I FELL INTO SOME CRAZY BASEMENT, CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT??” Just then, there was a blinding, blue flash of light right in front of him, which made him stop, as when the flash was gone, the strange horse he saw a second ago had appeared right in front of him. “Err,” Samuel groaned. “Shoo girl, shoo.” He then made a shooing motion with his hands, as the creature stood there, motionless, as it looked down at him unamusedly. “WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOU CEASING THIS FOOLISHNESS,” the creature suddenly yelled in front of him, scaring the life out of Samuel, as he fell to the ground. It wasn’t a scream of anger, but more of a monotone tone, just really, really loud. Samuel couldn’t tell if it was the fear that made him fall over, or if the actual force of this creatures yelling had actually knocked him down on his rear, but either way he was pretty freaked out. “Wh-what are you?!” The human quivered, as the creature took another sip of its soda and gave him an evil smile. The creature didn’t answer, as it scanned Samuel up and down, judging him. “This is it?” It asked, in a normal, feminine voice. “This is this other worlds ‘best gamer’?” Samuel shook his head, then jumped back on his feet. “What the hell are you on about? I don’t know who you are, or what you are, but I just want to go home!! You crazy horse thing…” Samuel said, without a hint of a filter. The horse looked at him with annoyance, before she smiled. “Well, you certainly have the attitude of an elite gamer,” she said. “Come, follow me and I’ll inform you of your situation.” Samuel and the horse then walked down a hallway, after they left the throne room, as the horse lady spoke. “I know you never asked, but my name is Princess Luna. I’m an alicorn princess and co-ruler of ponies here in the world of Equestria,” she sang, as she looked out the hallway’s windows, out at the… surprisingly beautiful countryside, which was lit up by the warm light of the day. Samuel’s eye twitched slightly. “Yep, I really appreciate that information. How silly of me to not even ask you, right?” Samuel asked, as he shot her a venomous glare. The moment he looked at her though, she looked back at him, as she stared at him dead in the face, with an expression that said ‘try me’, before Samuel quickly withdrew his aggressive expression, and blushed as he looked the other way. Samuel then cleared his throat. “So… what’s my situation, again?” He asked curiously. Luna continued walking, unfazed by his question, before she spoke about five seconds later. “Well, you see, human, I’m a big fan of video games, and I’ve been good at them for as long as I can remember.” She turned to look at Samuel, as her eyes widened. “And I remember a lot, trust me.” Her ear flicked, as she looked at Samuel for an uncomfortably long time, before she faced forward again, and continued, as the two of them were approaching a large, golden double door. “But, lately, I’ve wanted to prove myself,” she said. “To prove that I’m the best gamer in the whole multiverse, and that’s why I’ve brought you here.” She then lit up her horn, with a sparkly blue glow, and the doors opened, revealing a giant stadium, as Samuel flinched from the loud, excited cries of hundreds… or perhaps thousands, of people in the bleachers. As Luna and Samuel stepped forward, Samuel raised his hand, to shield the sun from his eyes, as he looked at the bleachers. He couldn’t see people in detail because of how far away they were, but going off of the base shape of people in the audience, it seemed that not everyone here was exactly… human. He saw some people that looked like ponies, like Luna, and she saw other shapes that straight up looked like aliens, among a plethora of others. Samuel wasn’t even sure if there was another human like him in the audience. Samuel also looked around him, and saw that there were many other ‘people’ besides him and Luna, who were also standing in the open field of the stadium. “I guess they’re here to compete, too.” “AEDE BIT!!” Luna screamed, using the same loud voice and tone that she’d used on Samuel not long ago. After she yelled, the audience quickly grew silent, and a unique figure from a balcony platform that was branching off of the stadium’s bleachers, who actually looked sort of human, with long, slightly messy hair, and a multicolored, stylized outfit with some kind of cape, stood up from what looked like a throne, as it looked down at Samuel and Luna, as he put his hands on the guardrail and tilted his head. “I’ve brought the last champion we need here, and now, we can compete!!” Luna said excitedly. Aede Bit remained silent, but spoke a second later, in what sounded like a cocky teenage voice. “What’s his name?” He asked. Luna looked at Samuel, and opened her mouth to speak, but Samuel cut her off. “My name is Samuel Weller,” he said, as he looked at Luna. “And I just want to go back home to Earth, I’m not interested in any of this.” Luna‘s ears folded, as she looked at Samuel nervously, and Aede Bit smiled. “Maybe this will change you mind,” Aede said, as he lifted a finger, and magically made the curtains of a nearby stage disintegrate into small, glowing cubes, that floated into the air and disappeared a second later, revealing a giant, indescribably beautiful trophy, that beamed in the sunlight. Samuel had to admit, he’d never been to a gaming competition with a quality reward, and he felt his mouth watering just looking at this trophy. But still, he didn’t want to get wrapped up in this. Samuel opened his mouth to say no, but Aede spoke for him. “I can tell that you like what you see,” he said with a smile. “Listen, Sammy,” he continued. “As long as you at least attend this interdimensional competition, I’ll send you home afterwards.” He then looked around at all of the audience. “I’ll send all of you home! Safe and sound!!” The audience cheered, but Samuel put a hand to his chin, as he thought. “All of them? Does that mean the audience was pulled here t-“ “Now, let the tournament begin!!” Aede interrupted. Luna then used her magic to grab Samuel by the ear, as she pulled him along with her to one of the several doors on the walls of the bottom level to the circular stadium, as all the other contestants went in pairs to their own doors, too. “Hey! Ow! What the hell?!” Samuel said painfully. Luna pulled him with her until they’d entered a pretty small, dimly lit room, that had a comfy looking couch, a large, sturdy coffee table that had several two liter soda bottles of Mountain Dew, and large bags of Doritos piled up on it, and a few different TV’s propped up on an even larger table that was against the wall. Samuel plopped down on the couch, as he rubbed his ear tenderly. “That hurt, ya know!!” He said angrily. Luna didn’t respond, and instead booted up an Xbox One that was on the table against the wall. “Silence, human,” she said blankly, before she sat on the couch next to Samuel. “Right now, I have to focus on my gaming warm up.” Samuel looked at the table that was against the wall, and saw that there were multiple different consoles on it, for all types of gamers, before he looked at Luna. “Warm up?” He asked. Luna sighed, before she looked at Samuel. “Clearly, any elite gamer needs at least a few warm sessions in their game to be at their peak efficiency for a competition,” she said, before she used her magic to levitate an Xbox controller to her, and start pushing buttons, as she set up her game. “Even Aede Bit knows that. That’s why we have these fourty five minutes to warm up.” “Oh,” Samuel said, as he felt silly for asking. “So… what are we playing?” He asked casually, as he got comfy. Luna looked at him for a second, then back at the screen. “Well… the games we play at the actual competition can be random, but I like to warm up with Zombie Hunter 3. It’s good for exercising important aspects that most competitive games have.” “Zombie hunter 3, huh?” Samuel asked. Never played it. But the second game was fun! In my world, I actually just won a video game competition with the game before I landed here!” Luna looked at him, as her expression softened a little. “I wasn’t aware that you were a fan of the Zombie Hunter games,” she said simply. Samuel gave her a small smile, then looked at the floor, as he sighed lightly. But, I’m not sure how much different the third game will be… and I do think it’d be cool to win this competition. I’ve never really gotten anything worth my while before, in any competition I’ve been too, despite how hard I work at being competitive in games…” Samuel said sadly. Luna stopped pressing buttons on the controller, and paused her practice game, before she set the controller down. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Samuel. I too have known how it feels to be under appreciated and unrecognized…” she said, as her ears folded. “But that’s part of why I’m doing this,” she said, as she looked at Samuel with determination. “So I can have something to show for my efforts, for everypony to see!” Luna then levitated another controller to Samuel, as the game was at the ‘start’ menu. “And, don’t worry about the game, Samuel,” she said assuringly, as she gave him a warm smile. “I’ve been a fan of the Zombie Hunter franchise for years, and the third game really isn’t much different at all from the second, gameplay wise.” Samuel smiled back at her, before he picked up his controller and looked at the screen. “So, Luna, shall we warm up?” he said as he looked at the screen determinedly. “Yes we shall!” Luna chirped, as she looked at the screen as well and started the game. Samuel and Luna then spent the next fourty minutes playing Zombie Hunter 3 against each other. They were playing aggressively, and were playing to win, but it also felt a bit more casual between them, like there were no hard feelings with one of them beating the other. As they played through the rounds, Samuel and Luna had almost matching scores, and by the time they were done playing, they were both sweating profusely, with multiple empty bags of Doritos and empty bottles of Mountain Dew on the floor, and the games ending stats said that Samuel had won, practically by the skin of his teeth. Samuel looked at Luna, his face laced with concern. “I’m sorry you didn’t win, Luna,” he said gently. Luna looked at the screen for a few seconds, as she used a hoof to wipe the sweat off her forehead, before she gave a small smile to Samuel. “It’s ok, Samuel. That game was really close! And that was just a part of my warm up anyways.” “Let’s just hope you can keep it up!” She said playfully, as she poked him with her hoof. Luna then held her other hoof(the one she didn’t use to wipe off her forehead with) out to Samuel for him to shake. “Good game, Samuel!” Samuel smiled, and didn’t hesitate to grab her hoof, as he shook it lightly. “Good game, Princess Luna!” Just then, there was the sound of an airhorn, as the door that they had come in disintegrated into colored pixels, before it disappeared completely. The airhorn was followed by the booming sound of Aede Bit yelling. “LET THE COMPETITION, BEGIN!!”
The CompetitionAs Samuel and Luna stepped out of their room, so did all the other pairs of competitors. Everyone then moved in front of a newly formed stage in the center of the stadium, before Aede Bit manifested himself on the stage out of multicolored pixels, with his arms folded, as the warm, gentle, afternoon sunlight bounced off of his shiny, colorful clothes. Aede raised his two fingers up with his right hand, as two random competitors disappeared and reformed on the stage in a formation of pixels. In the center of the stage stood two small desks with monitors, placed against each other, both accompanying a strange looking gaming console, with a high quality looking swivel chair in front of each. There were also two giant screens on the stage, behind the gaming setups, which Samuel assumed was for the rest of the competitors to watch. Aede then turned his back to the other contestants, before he snapped his fingers, which caused rows and rows of chairs to spawn behind everyone. Samuel and Luna took this as their queue to take a seat and wait their turn. As the first pair of contestants, an orange, male pony pegasus, and a creature with the figure of a human, with antlers sprouting from his head and long, draping hair, sat down in their seats on stage, Aede Bit looked to the audience in the large, looming bleachers and smiled. “Everyone!!” He shouted, quite audibly, even though he didn’t have a microphone. “It is time! Time to truly find… THE BEST GAMER IN THE MULTIVERSE!!” The stadium’s bleacher’s were filled with the sounds of clapping, slapping, and the clopping of pony hooves. “A lot of different forms of applause, I guess,” Samuel thought, as he looked around at the audience. Samuel then felt a hoof poking his shoulder, as he turned to see that it was Luna, who was looking at him with a hint of fear. “Samuel,” she started. There’s something you should know about Aede Bit.” Just then Aede Bit clapped his hands, as there were firework explosions of pixels in the sky, as the two gaming consoles on stage started booting up. Luna, however, continued anyways. “I… I brought him here,” she said shamefully, as her ears drooped. Samuel opened his mouth, but Luna put a hoof to it, as she continued. “I know it was stupid, and I know it was selfish, but I just needed to be recognized somehow.” Samuel looked at her, confused, before he looked at Aede. “What exactly is Aede Bit?” He asked. “He looks almost human, but he seems to have some strong magical powers.” “He does,” Luna said, as she looked at Aede, too. “When I first summoned him, I wanted to have a humble tournament, maybe in an arcade in Ponyville, but Aede Bit wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to have a more ‘professional’ tournament, so he created this stadium and told me to gather the best gamers from across different worlds to compete against each others.” Luna then turned to face Samuel briefly. “I originally brought Aede Bit here so I could beat him in a game one on one, but to be honest… I was scared, so I agreed to his preference.” “Aede Bit isn’t human, Samuel, he’s a physical incarnation of the spirit of competitive video game players in your world, to put it simply.” Samuel looked at her, surprised, before she looked back at the lush, green, grass floor of the field. “But… why from my world?” Samuel asked. Luna looked at Samuel, before she looked at Aede Bit. “I… used a spell to manifest raw emotions into physical beings. It isn’t easy to do with weaker emotions, and the worldwide spirits of gamers in most world’s wasn’t strong enough to form a whole person and an entire body from.” “Your world was an exception, though. Your world has a more potent gaming spirit than any other I’ve seen as of yet, so I used samples of your world’s emotional gaming spirit to form a new being from. A being I could prove myself and my skills with, once I’d beaten him.” Aede Bit then floated into the air, doing backflips, as more fireworks shot out of his hands, as he laughed. “But it’s gotten out of hoof,” Luna said slowly. “And I fear that if Aede Bit had the chance, he would gladly put our fellow contestants welfare in jeopardy, for the sake of a good show.” Samuel looked at Luna. He felt like he was talking to a dictionary, based on her expanded vocabulary compared to him, before he brushed his thoughts to the side, and decided to just watch the show. When Aede Bit was done with his little display of excitement, the games booted up, and Aede Bit manifested himself onto a floating throne in the front row of the stage. When the game started, it was SunSwords and RainBows, a game disguised as a basic, childish PvP, but really had some pretty addictive gameplay and great weapon selection. As the two contestants played through the game, it looked like they were fighting with all their might, and were even using some dirty tactics, like animation locks, where your enemy locks you in an animation when they hit you when you’re in the air, and you can’t control your player when you’re in the animation, and they hit you repeatedly to ‘lock’ you in that animation, and keep you immobilized. It used to be a terrible thing in Super Smash Bros, truly terrible. When the game finally ended, the human looking creature with antlers looked relieved, as he’d won, as the orange pegasus’s ears folded, as he lost. The orange pegasus looked at Aede Bit fearfully, as Aede Bit tapped his fingers on his armrest. Aede Bit then floated in the air and clapped his hands, as the two contestants disappeared from the stage and reappeared in two more seats in front of the stage, next to all the other contestants. A billboard then appeared out of thin air next to Aede, which showed all the contestants, and he crossed out the name ‘Sunflower Syrup’ and circled the name ‘Ceciano’. The billboard hovered in the air next to Aede for the rest of the competition, as Aede was marking who would advance to fight others and who had lost. It didn’t take long until Samuel and Luna started playing against other contestants. They didn’t go against each other as they moved up the ranks, or… at least until they both soon enough found themselves at the top of the leaderboard. When Aede Bit crossed out everyone else’s names, and circled Luna and Samuel’s names in red, he clapped his hands and teleported them on the stage, as he smiled excitedly. Samuel could feel his legs turn to jelly as he looked around at the bleachers. He’d never been in the view of such a large audience before. Luna looked at him for a moment, concerned, as she raised a hoof to him, before she stopped herself, and gritted her teeth, and looked at Aede Bit, who was rubbing his hands together. “Well, well!! Princess Luna! Equestria’s ‘Princess of The Night’ and ‘Greatest Gamer’!!” Aede said cheerfully, as Luna looked at him with a mix of irritation and fear. “This should be fun…” He then looked at Samuel, as the excitement in his eyes faded somewhat. “And… a uh… a human!” Aede said with a forced smile. “It was Sammy, right?” Samuel opened his mouth to correct him, before he was cut off. “Yeah, of course it was. I remember now,” Aede Bit said, before he pointed at Samuel and Luna with both hands and magically levitated both of them to their seats. “Let’s get this final game going!!” Aede said excitedly. When Samuel and Luna adjusted themselves in their comfy chairs, they found out the game they would be playing was Zombie Hunter 3. Samuel and Luna done a pretty bad job of hiding their confusion, because Aede bit spoke again a moment later. “You look surprised,” Aede Bit said. “I only select the games that I know both selected players are familiar with. I’m not a monster!” Samuel didn’t want to think about how he Aede could have even known that, as he looked to the side of his monitor, at Luna. Luna popped her neck and was cracking her… hooves? to prepare for what her and Samuel both knew was going to be one hell of a fight. “Good luck, Mom!!” Aede Bit said enthusiastically. Samuel visibly cringed when he said that to Luna, but did his best to hide the display from Aede Bit. Once Samuel and Luna selected their character perks and load outs, the game started, and the chaotic, heart pounding fight began. Their players were two humans fighting in an industrial park, during a thunderstorm, which would only add to the tension of the battle. Samuel took the first hit from Luna’s character, who wielded a battle axe, but he had a fast counter, as his character swung around on a nearby rod that was poking out of the slick, concrete ground, and got a quick slash on Luna’s leg with his blade. Despite the name, Zombie Hunter 3 was mostly renowned for its smooth, engaging player vs player combat. Zombies were more of a background part of the game. As Samuel continued fighting Luna, he couldn’t help but think about what he should do. He could lose intentionally, and let Luna win the competition, and the respect from her subjects. Or Samuel could try his hardest and possibly win the competition, tearing the victory and respect away from Luna, and returning to Earth with his long awaited, truly deserved prize. Samuel had bonded with Luna as they practiced, and felt that she was the first person who he could really relate to on a deep level. He couldn’t do it. But Aede Bit had a close eye on any and all of the games, so he would know if someone was intentionally playing worse. Samuel would need to be careful about this. He needed to play hard, and play to win, but try to assist Luna in smaller, more inconspicuous ways. Samuel was knocked from his thoughts as his player was literally knocked to the ground with a mega kick that Luna had as one of her perks. Samuel’s character then quickly jumped to his feet, and was dodging back repeatedly as Luna was in hot pursuit, and he was blocking her swings, one after the other. Samuel didn’t even have a single opportunity to fight back. Luna was unrelenting in her attacks, and Samuel was running out of options, before he fell back into a pretty deep pit, losing a good quarter of his HP as he hit the ground. Fall damage was always more unforgiving in Zombie Hunter 3 compared to other games. As Samuel’s thoughts raced, he could only think of how to beat Luna for the first round. The best thought Samuel had was using animation locks, which were definitely a thing with ZH 3, though it was frowned upon by the gaming community. Samuel decided against such dirty tactics and instead used his super jump perk to jump out of the ditch, as he took Luna by surprise, and stabbed her character through the chest, as she was in the middle of jumping down the ditch to slam him with her axe. Samuel’s sword took about 35% of Luna’s HP, since it was a critical hit through the chest. As Samuel landed and slid on the concrete, he looked back at Luna, who landed in front of him, and pulled out her rocket launcher. “Oh god.” Samuel was going out of his way to play fair, but it seemed that Luna was playing to win, in any way. As Luna’s character shot the rocket at Samuel’s character, Samuel blocked with his sword, but the blast still took a good chunk of his health, and he lost the rest of his health when the blast had knocked him directly into a patch of spikes that were set up on the wall behind him. The first round was over, the leaderboards updated, and Luna only had to win two more rounds to win the whole tournament. Samuel and Luna changed their perks and weapon setup before the next game started. When the next game started, they were still in the industrial park, except it wasn’t raining, and it was later in the day, with a beautiful, almost comforting, crisp orange sunset. This time, it was Samuel who got the first hit on Luna, with his heavy sledgehammer, as she seemed a bit slower than she was last game. It was a critical hit, too, and knocked her on her back. Samuel then looked past Luna’s character and saw a patch of spikes that were poking out of a pile of debris behind her. “I’ve got to give her a chance to use those,” he thought. “She needs to win.” Samuel then got closer to Luna, and blocked her attacks with her katana, as he slowly maneuvered himself to face away from the spikes. Luna’s character froze for but a second, as if she knew what he was doing, before she used her lasso perk to grab Samuel’s character and throw him over her, away from the spikes. He only took a small amount of damage as he hit the ground, and looked back at Luna. Luna then rushed to Samuel, and tried using her mega kick attack again. Despite how strong it is, if you have a heavy weapon(like a sledgehammer), it’s really easy to counter, and make the other player suffer the consequences, if it’s used incorrectly. Samuel then used his sledgehammer and slammed Luna’s character in the leg, taking a portion of her HP. “Oh no,” he thought. “Is… is she trying to let me win? She never made such foolish moves like that when we were practicing…” Then, as Samuel’s character stepped closer to Luna, the game stopped on the pause menu, and Samuel and Luna looked at each other, then at Aede, who seemed unamused, with his hand covering his face. “Just what are you two doing?” He asked, with a bit of aggression, as he floated off of his throne. “I can sense that you two are holding yourselves back.” Samuel scratched his neck awkwardly, and Luna fidgeted with her hooves, before Aede spoke again. “Are you two trying to lose?” Aede then looked at the two of them, with his hands on his hips, before he smirked. “You two really want the other to win this, huh?” He asked. “That’s cute.” Samuel and Luna looked away, before Aede shut his eyes and pointed his fingers at the two of them, which caused the desks, monitors, and chairs to disappear, as Samuel and Luna fell to the floor and looked at him, confused. Aede then opened his eyes, revealing two multicolored, pixelized iris’s, as he smiled maliciously. “Then how about I give you two some… incentive,” he said ominously, as his hands glowed brightly with a pixelized energy, and his hair and cape flowed furiously in a non-existent breeze. He then blasted Samuel and Luna with each of his hands, which caused them both to slowly turn into small pixels, as they both looked at each other, horrified, before they were fully pixelized, and flew into a newly formed, singular monitor on the stage, with Aede Bit turning into a mass of small pixels as well, and flying into the monitor with them. When Samuel and Luna came to, they realized that they were inside the game of Zombie Hunter 3, with the same industrial park and warm sunset as before, and they were wearing their previously selected character’s outfits, as they looked at each other with wide eyes. Aede Bit manifested himself out of pixels in the air next to them, as he formed a throne behind him out of some debris around him and took a seat, as he looked at Samuel and Luna intimidatingly. “Now, as I said before, LET THE GAME BEGIN!!” Author's Note I really expected this to be the last chapter, but really, the next one will be the last, I promise!! I seriously didn’t expect to keep this story going for this long, but it just feels right, yknow? Anyways, I hope y’all enjoyed this second chapter, and stay tuned for the finale!!
The Final BattleAs Samuel and Luna looked at each other, Luna lit up her horn and focused on Samuel, to which Samuel put his hands in front of his face defensively. Samuel didn’t feel any painful blast of magical lasers like he was expecting, though, and instead heard a voice in his head a few seconds later. Luna’s voice. “Samuel, your character class has a shield, you know. You don’t need to use your hands,” Luna’s faint voice echoed in the back of his mind. Samuel was about to thoughtlessly open his mouth to ask what was happening, before Luna stopped him. “Shh! No-don’t!! Aede can’t know that I’m using temporary mind connecting spells, but we need to figure out what to do here. But first, let’s sort through our classes so it actually looks like we’re doing something.” Samuel then patted himself down, to make it looks like he was missing something, before he nervously looked at Aede Bit and spoke out loud. “Dangit! I just remembered that I’m missing an important perk! I-uh, I need to check my settings real quick.” “Oh, yes! I-I do as well!” Luna said a second later. “I can’t fight without my super jump!” Aede Bit looked at them impatiently for a moment, before he rolled his eyes, and flicked his hand at them, gesturing for them to proceed. “Take off your bags,” Aede said. “You can choose your weapons and stats from there.” Samuel nodded, and took his surprisingly lightweight backpack off of his back and rummaged through it, and his bag sort of acted as his perk and weapon selection menu, as Luna did the same with her bag, too. “I’m pretty certain that this is going to be a battle to the death,” Luna said telepathically. “I don’t know the fundamentals of being IN a video game, but I do know that if we don’t stop Aede, only one of us will make it out of here alive.” Luna then looked up from her bag and met Samuel’s eyes, as Samuel looked at her. “And I don’t want that for either of us,” she said, before her eyes darted back down to her bag, with Samuel following suit. “So we need to find a way to stop him.” “How?” Samuel asked. “He’s the incarnate being of video game player spirit, right? His power probably lies most within video games, and we’re in a video game. Luna’s eyes darted to the floor for a moment, as if she was thinking, before her eyes lit up, and she searched through her bag quickly. “Samuel! Equip Will’s Chainsaw Sword and the Gauntlet of Earth. I have an idea.” “What?” Samuel asked, as he equipped both weapons. “Will’s Chainsaw Sword is the one of the best weapons for animation locks, maybe we could use that against Aede!” Luna said. Samuel looked at her for a moment, confused. “What? Do you want us to actually fight Aede or something?” Samuel laughed, as he looked through his bag. “I might as well dig my own digital grave!” “Yes,” Luna said. “We have to fight Aede, but I know we can do it.” Samuel felt a sense of fear and unease welling up in his throat, as he gulped. “Mum always did say that these games would end up killing me some day…” Samuel muttered to himself out loud. When Samuel and Luna were finished setting up their loadout, Luna looked at Aede. “Hey Aede, why are we even competing?” Luna asked. “Samuel won during practice. It’s pretty obvious that he’s going to beat me.” Samuel looked at Luna, before Luna gave him a look that said ‘just go with it’. “Yeah, bu-“ Aede said, before Luna cut him off. “I feel that it would be a much more fun and entertaining battle if it was the two of us against you,” Luna said with a shield of confidence. “Two of the best gamers from different worlds, against the manifestation of gaming spirit and skill, to see if they’re truly worthy of being called, The Ultimate Gaming Champions.” Aede But stroked his chin, as he looked at the two of them, back and forth, before a smile crept up on his face. “Wellll… I must admit that just watching players fight has been feeling pretty old…,” he said. “Alright Luna, you’ve sold me.” Aede then floated off his throne, his feet delicately landing on the ground, as he tied his long hair up in a ponytail, and opened a newly formed bag that had appeared next to him and searched through it. “I’ll play fair according to the games rules, don’t worry,” Aede said, as he pulled out dual wield katanas and a belt of grenades, before he looked at the two of them, as the bag dissipated into a mass of pixels. “But don’t think that means I’ll go easy on you two.” Luna and Samuel then equipped their chainsaw swords, and braced themselves, as they stood side by side, looking at Aede with as much confidence as they could muster. Aede then snapped his fingers, and a large, pixelated ‘10’ appeared in the air above them, and started ticking down. “You go in first, Samuel,” Luna quickly said telepathically. “I’ll be ready in case he prevents you from holding him in place. Remember the animation lock.” Samuel nodded, as the timer hit ‘1’, and Aede dashed toward them in a flash. Samuel ran to him, and tried using a power stomp to knock Aede in the air, but Aede perfectly evaded it, and slashed Samuel repeatedly, as Samuel was getting stun locked, and couldn’t do anything, before Luna jumped in front of Aede and hit him with a power kick, which Aede had blocked. The kick didnt hurt Aede, since he blocked it, but it did push him pretty far back. Luna quickly helped Samuel to his feet. “Oww! Jesus! That feels way too real!!” Samuel said, as he winced in pain. Samuel looked up at his Health Bar and saw that he’d already lost about 40% of his HP. He then looked at Luna. “Princess Luna,” he started, out loud, before he looked at Aede. “If I die here, I want you to know that you’ve been a good friend, and I wish we’d had more time to play video games, just for the fun of it.” Luna was about to speak, but Samuel was already charging at Aede again, and this time, Aede struck first, and Samuel dodged his first swing, and then his second swing, and then Samuel struck. He used his chainsaw sword to knock Aede up, off the ground, before he jumped, and slashed Aede as much as he possibly could, as Luna helped him a second later, as she slashed with her chainsaw sword. They kept Aede locked in place for a few seconds, before Aede used a self detonation perk, where the grenades he was wearing on his belt detonated and knocked Samuel and Luna back, taking a lot of their HP, since the explosion was right next to them. Samuel only had about 13% of his HP, and Luna had 42%. Samuel then weakly raised his head, to see Luna, who was lying on the ground, not moving, and Aede’s HP bar, which was at 82%. Samuel then slowly and painfully stood up, as he shakily ran to Luna, who was breathing faintly, and shook her. “Luna! LUNA!!” Samuel looked at Aede, who was standing with arms folded, seemingly waiting for Luna to get back up and continue fighting. Samuel looked back down at Luna, and could feel fiery tears welling up in his eyes, as Luna wasn’t moving. He held her close, as he thought of the brief, but enjoyable times they had together. He thought of when he opened up to her during their gaming practice session, and the fun they had playing. The genuine, simple fun. He thought of the game they were playing back then, and the game they were trapped in now, Zombie Hunter 3, and how much he enjoyed it(at least when no one’s life was on the line). Then Samuel remembered that while him and Luna were practicing, there was a little bug with some specific weapons, like the Gauntlet of Earth. The Gauntlet of Earth was really good at stun locking, if used correctly, but Samuel tried using it in one game against Luna, and the particles and special effects it had caused pretty big lag spikes, and nearly crashed the game. “Oh god, that’s it.” Samuel thought to himself, before he continued shaking Luna. After he shook Luna a bit more, Luna started taking faster breaths, as she tried to stand up, but immediately fell back to the ground. “Luna!!” Samuel said telepathically. “I know how we can beat Aede, but I need you!! Please!! I need you!!” When Samuel said that, Luna gritted her teeth, and slowly, shakily stood up, as Samuel helped her onto her hooves, before she wiped her bloody nose clean with a hoof. She looked at Aede in defensive fury, as she lifted a wing to shield Samuel. “What’s the plan?” She asked telepathically. “Equip your Gauntlet of Earth, quickly. The particles overload the games memory, and caused lag spikes when we were practicing. I’m pretty sure it can crash the game, and if the game crashes with Aede in it, I think it’ll kill him.” Luna equipped the Gauntlet, as Samuel did, too, before Luna looked at him, with a hint of fear. “What will happen to us?” Samuel sighed, before he continued speaking mentally. “I don’t know, I really don’t, but it’s our best chance. Even if we die with the game, so does Aede, and he won’t be able hurt anyone else anymore.” Luna looked at the concrete ground, before she looked forward, and let her wing fall to the side, as her and Samuel stood next to each other with their gauntlets, glaring at Aede with determination. “Let’s do this,” they both said out loud, at the same time. “Ooh! Determination! See, was that so hard?” Aede asked, as he pulled out his dual wield katanas. Samuel and Luna wasted no time, as they dashed to Aede and tried punching him at the same time from both directions. Aede blocked both of their attacks with his katanas as he grinned, before Samuel and Luna looked at each other and nodded to each other. As Aede pushed them back with his katanas, Samuel and Luna used their gauntlets to slam the ground right next to Aede, which caused the ground to crumble with green sparkles, as small plants grew in the cracks. A large oak tree with sharp branches then suddenly sprouted out of the ground, and hit Aede in the back, ripping his cape, and taking only a small portion of his HP. Aede laughed as he landed on the ground, and opened his mouth to speak, before the entire game they were in seemed to slow down and lag, as more cracks formed in the ground around them, creating more particle effects for the game to render, and some of the environment around them glitched into pixels and popped in and out of existence, as the game HUD above them, like the HP bars, started glitching. Aede’s face went pale, as he started to glitch out, like the environment around him, as he dropped his katanas and fell to his knees. “Keep going!!” Samuel shouted to Luna out loud. Luna and Samuel then both charged their gauntlets as they jumped into the air, and both slammed into the ground, creating more and more special effects. “Wh-what are you doing?!?!” Aede shouted desperately, as his voice glitched, sounding almost like static. Samuel and Luna kept punching the ground, as what was left of the environment around them was coated with a blanket of plants and sparkles, as Aede screamed horrifically, and broke down into a glitched pile of pixels, and disappeared into nothing, before Samuel and Luna phased through the floor beneath them, into a blank, black void of emptiness. As Samuel and Luna fell into the abyss, they looked at each other, and maneuvered themselves in the air, until Samuel grabbed Luna’s hooves with his hands. “Luna!” Samuel yelled. “I’m sorry you didn’t win. You’re a great friend, and a great leader who deserves respect!!” “…I-I don’t care about that!!” Luna said with tears forming in her eyes. “…I’m just glad I had you…” Luna held Samuel in a tight embrace, which Samuel didn’t hesitate to return, as Luna wrapped her wings around him protectively and formed a bright blue shield around them with her horn, as they both fell into a, now bright, white void, and held each other tightly. Back on the stage in the middle of the stadium, the audience was confused, as they weren’t sure what had happened in that last game, before the game console on the stage sputtered and shook, and spat out Samuel and Luna, as they flew into the air and landed on top of some of the previously defeated contestants who were in front of the stage, and the console exploded in a burst of fire and pixels. Luna then stood up slowly and shook herself off, and helped Samuel to his feet, as she apologized to the contestants they’d landed on. Just then, there were some strange noises all around Samuel and Luna, as the stage in front of them, the trophy, and the entire stadium they were in, started disappearing into small pixels, as the many interdimensional spectators from the bleachers panicked. Luna immediately took action and flew into the air, and focused her horn as she shut her eyes, as she casted a mega spell, and created a giant light blue bubble around the disappearing stadium, where everyone inside found themselves falling in low gravity, like the gravity of the moon. Luna landed on the ground, and was visibly straining to keep the spell going. Samuel patted her back, and smiled at her, as she opened her eyes and smiled back at him briefly. When the stadium had completely disappeared, and everyone had floated down to the ground safely, Luna released the spell, causing the giant bubble to pop, and caught her breath. “You ok?” Samuel asked. Luna nodded, as she tried to slow her breathing. “Y-yeah, I’m… I’m fine.” Samuel looked around at his surroundings, as the sun was setting with a familiar, comforting sunset. What was once a giant, intimidating stadium was now just a larger than usual garden/courtyard, next to this castle, which Samuel still didn’t know the name of. “Well,” Samuel said, as he looked at the sunset and took a deep, relieved breath. “We did it.” Luna walked next to him, and sat down. “Yes, we did.” After a bit time of time simply admiring the peaceful sunset, Luna looked back, and sighed. “But… there’s still one more thing I have to do.” Samuel turned around to look at her, as Luna stepped closer to the scared, and mostly confused crowd of audience members and contestants who were pulled from all over the multiverse. Luna then briefly looked back at Samuel, with a sad expression, before she lit up her horn, which caused a small book, a pen, and what looked like a small flash drive, to appear next to her, before she levitated the book and pen into Samuel’s hands. “Write your Xbox username on this, please,” Luna said. “And take this.” Luna then levitated the flash drive into Samuel’s hands as well. The flash drive was black, and had the design of a white crescent moon on it, which looked exactly like the strange symbol Luna had on her butt, which Samuel only just now noticed. Samuel put the drive into his left pocket(the pocket he didn’t use to carry junk, and only used for important things), and wrote his Xbox username on the paper, without thinking to ask why, and gave the pen and paper back to Luna. Luna levitated the pen and paper to her, and they disappeared in a magic flash of light, as Luna smiled at Samuel with sadness. “I guess this is goodbye then…” Luna said. Luna started to turn toward the crowd, before Samuel suddenly pulled her into a hug, which Luna was surprised by, but returned a second later. “Thanks for the help, Luna. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who feels underappreciated sometimes,” Samuel said, before he slowly retracted from the hug and looked at her. “I just wish we had more time to have fun together.” Luna gave him a more happy smile when he said that. “Maybe someday we will.” Samuel then remembered something, and quickly reached into his right pocket, and pulled out the ribbon from the gaming competition on Earth he’d won before he was brought to this world, dusted it off as best he could, and held it out to Luna. “Here,” he said. “This way you can rest assured knowing that even if your subjects don’t have your respect, I do.” Luna picked up the ribbon with her gentle, blue aura, and looked at it, before she looked at Samuel with watery eyes, as she smiled. This time it was Luna’s turn to give a surprise hug, as she nearly knocked Samuel off his feet, as she hugged him tightly with her hooves and wings, nearly squeezing the life out of him. It took about a full minute for her to slowly break the hug, as she looked at Samuel and sniffled, before she wiped her nose and eyes with a hoof. “T-thank you,” she said slowly, as the ribbon disappeared in a flash of light. “I’ll be sure to treasure it.” Once Luna took a moment to recompose herself, she then turned around and faced the crowd. “EVERYCREATURE!!” Luna yelled, using a familiar, loud tone, so she could be heard by everyone. “I OWE ALL OF YOU AN APOLOGY. NONE OF YOU DESERVED TO BE PULLED INTO THIS UNIVERSE AGAINST YOUR WILL, SO I WILL NOW REVERSE MY SPELL AND RETURN YOU ALL TO YOUR WORLD’S. JUST… MAKE SURE TO CLOSE YOUR EYES.” Samuel put his hands over his eyes protectively, as nearly everyone else did. Luna then lit up her horn, and shut her eyes in focus, as she gritted her teeth. Her horn glowed very brightly, as a swirling orb of energy formed at the tip of it, growing larger, before it exploded into a giant, circular explosion of light, which seemingly extended across the entirety of the castle, and maybe even beyond. When Samuel opened his eyes, he found that he wasn’t on the soft grass of a large garden being overlooked by the sunset anymore, but was now on a concrete sidewalk, in his hometown, at night, being overlooked by the moon. Samuel stood up and sighed, as he walked to his parent’s house. He used his extra key, and unlocked the front door quietly, to not disturb his parents, since he knew they’d be asleep by now, and walked to his room, as he shut the door and turned on the light. He then laid down on his bed and reached into his left pocket, pulling out the black flash drive and inspecting it. “Hmm… could this work with an Xbox One? I don’t even know why Luna gave me this…” he thought to himself. Samuel then dragged himself off of his bed and booted up his Xbox, before he plugged the flash drive in. Samuel was relieved to find that the flash drive did fit in his Xbox, but was not as relieved to find out how much memory the drive needed him to download. “Whatever. I need to find out what this is.” After about two hours of his Xbox extracting the mysterious data on the drive, it was finished, and his Xbox restarted for some reason. “That’s weird,” Samuel thought, as he turned his Xbox back on. When the Xbox turned on though, it had a slightly different format. His games and apps were still there, and everything else he had, but it was just arranged a bit differently. He wasn’t sure if the drive even had anything on it, until he got a notification saying he’d gotten a friend request and a party invite, from someone named ‘XxM0ON8UTTxX’. Samuel looked at the notifications curiously, before he smiled, and put on his headset, accepted the friend request, and joined the party. Author's Note Boom!! Happy, wholesome ending!! This might actually be my very first, fully completed story!! And it’s been pretty fun to write! I hope y’all enjoyed, and let me know what y’all thought of it!!
