Chapter 30

Game Over

Mic was clearly getting impatient standing in the corner of the room. He looked at his watch and then back to his three clients. Their little game was taking way too much time.

Applejack cleared her throat before asking, "So, do the rest of us show up soon or what?"

Roller had been lost in though for a few seconds and AJ's question shook him out of it. He looked uncomfortable as he answered, "Yeah. Everpony is in the room by now. Uh..."

"...Right, so then this happens."

Faust sat on the floor, black flames hovering over his head from Pin Kay's magic song. He even started singing along with it, though he clearly wasn't a good singer, "No one in this world can understand... who I am. That is why I'm my own biggest fan."

Reyna was about to pounce on the evil mastermind, but something grabbed her tail and pulled her back. She snapped out of her rage when she saw Jack standing over her, shaking his head. "Didn't your folks ever teach you not to kick a colt when he's down?" the knight asked rhetorically.

"He started it!" Reyna objected as she got to her feet, "I was just trying to finish it! That's how this works, right?"

Lady Styles was about to speak, but the sound of other ponies stumbling through the door got her attention. Robin Hoof limped his way into the room with Beopony and Horsecules following. Styles gawked at the other thief's injuries as he growled, "Why is that rotter still drawing breath? Don't you lot know how to finish a fight?"

Faust took a break from singing to tell them, "It wouldn't matter now. None of this really matters. Pleiades is almost in alignment. A tragedy is coming." He resumed humming the sad melody before continuing with Pin's guitar, "Do you know what it's like to be built this way?"

"With only the power to push others away."

Twilight tilted her head as she saw Roller turn his head to look away. She asked, "Roller, are you crying?"

"No," the author answered a little too quickly, "I just..." he fumbled a few words around, but couldn't finish his statement. All he could do was insist, "I'm not crying. Nothing is wrong."

"Back to the game."

"What does Pleiades have to do with this?" Twin Star asked, "The seven sisters are just an old pony's tale. They don't really signify tragedy," she looked to her friends, "Right?"

Faust had been reduced to just lying on the floor in despair. The black flames around him licked at his hooves as he answered, "I remember being that young and naive once. I thought the stars were just pretty lights in the sky too. No, little sorceress, the seven sisters do warn us about tragedy. I don't know about the specifics, but your queen's empire will fall and somepony has to get a head-start on rebuilding it."

Flute gasped when she realized what he meant, "That's what this is about? You've been stealing ponies away from their homes because you think the empire is going to fall?"

Horsecules scoffed at the notion, "I say that's a load of bird's teeth! He's not in this for anypony but himself. This is the same stallion that went and proclaimed himself emperor. He's not taking in refugees, he's capturing slaves! Despicable."

Reyna joined in, "Yeah! What about all those monsters on the border? I bet he's the one who's leading them. This place is full of diamond dogs!"

The sorcerer moaned as the dark flames around him grew. He sounded weak and broken as he told them, "The dogs are the only ones that agreed to work with me to save at least part of the empire. None of the ponies would listen, but I had to do something. You just don't understand..." his voice trailed off and then he mumbled, "Nopony understands. That's why they all left. That's why they all want to leave now."

Jack cleared his throat before saying, "Sugarcube, the reason they want to leave is because you're bein' a jerk. It ain't hard to figure that out."

"Alright, heard enough fairy tales yet?"

Mic approached the table and gestured at a clock on the wall. "Time's almost up," he stated, "We gotta go soon. Remember? Wrap it up, guys."

Concerto gave a pathetically innocent smile and begged, "Come on, Mic. We're almost done. Besides, what's the hurry? Let us stay. Please?"

"Cut the act and just finish up."

The castle shook suddenly and violently for a few seconds. A beam fell and the telescope toppled under its own weight. Pin Kay struggled to keep the rhythm of her song and somehow succeeded, but it was clear that this place was on its last legs.

Faust looked up at the adventurers and told them, "You should go. Take as many prisoners with you as you can. I failed to stop the tragedy. I failed to warn anypony. They shouldn't pay for my mistakes."

"Leagues ahead of you, mate," Robin Hoof replied, turning to leave the room as he did so. He still had to walk with a limp from his injury, but he was moving quickly enough given the circumstances. Before he could pass over the threshold though, something stopped him.

"Shouldn't we take Faust with us?"

Everyone turned and gawked at Flute R'Shye. The forest pony had remained very quiet for so long, that they had almost forgotten she was even there. She shrank away from their gaze while repeating herself, "I mean, he might be a meanie, but he doesn't deserve to have a castle fall on him. Shouldn't we take him with us?"

Twin Star shook her head. "Flute," she said, "I know that you want to be kind, but this place is about to collapse. Besides, he's the bad guy. Remember?"

"I don't think he's really bad," Flute explained, "I mean, look at him. He looks like he's sorry for what he did now. Doesn't he?"

Pin chimed in, "He's like that because my guitar has highjacked his nervous system. Come on, Flute! My hooves are getting sore from these strings."

"No!" Flute almost shouted, "Making him stay behind would be... well, cruel! Besides, he didn't start out bad. Everypony just shunned him for being different. It's not his fault that nopony would talk to him. Also..."

"...Um, Mr. Roller, are you crying?"

The gray stallion was hiding his face in his hooves on the tabletop. "No!" he shouted through a covered mouth. His voice was shaky and came in brief bursts between long , shaky breaths, "I... am... not... Crying!"

X reached a hoof toward the author and helped him lift his head. His eyes were watery and red. His sniffled and tried to turn away. The pink pegasus smiled sympathetically and said in a soft voice, "You were always a terrible liar, CR. What's all this about?"

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes only to earn a nasty glare from Rarity and Applejack. Pinky seemed confused as if she were completely unfamiliar with the very concept of sadness being associated with a game. Twilight sat still and just listened along with Fluttershy.

Roller looked around the table while he talked, occasionally struggling to find the right word, "I'm not really popular around town. I know that and you all know that, but I at least used to have my three best friends to hang out with. When AC, XP and PC moved away, I just... I couldn't take it. At first we wrote letters to each other all the time and that made it easier to deal with. Then the letters from them stopped coming. My stories started to sell pretty well around that time and I opened the Hobby Horse, but all of my success didn't matter. My friends weren't here and that... That hurt."

A Capella replied, "Roller, we were ecstatic when we saw your adventure stories had been published. Mostly, we wondered why you hadn't told us. Right before you made it in the writing business, we stopped getting your letters. I tried to find the time to write to you, but my manager kept us all so busy that we just couldn't."

Mic rolled his eyes. "Don't try to pin this guy's misery on me," he protested, "I told you that you guys would be way too busy for fan mail. So many of your fans were writing to you that I had to find a way to, uh, discourage it."

Concerto tilted his head in confusion. "How?" he asked. All eyes turned to Mic.

"I put a 'Return to Sender' label on it," he explained, "I figured that they'd figure that they had the wrong address or something."

Twilight's eyes went wide and flashed. She remembered the box of unopened letters and looked at the one still on the table. The pieces came together in her mind and she realized what must have been going on. She knew the reason for Roller's depression, his reclusive nature and... and the look of unbridled fury he was now giving Mic.

Rainbow Dash saw Roller's enraged expression as well. She wasn't sure if she should hold him back, or encourage him to lunge across the table and do Celestia-knows-what to the poor fool who had tampered with his best friends' mail. Under her breath, she started chanting, "Fight, fight, fight, fight..."

A Capella looked equally upset as did X and Concerto. The three musicians and the author were staring particularly sharp daggers at Mic, who seemed completely oblivious to their rage. "Hey," Mic said, "Don't we got places to be? C'mon. Hurry this up so we can go."

A Capella cleared his throat before saying in a voice that barely hid his fury, "Mic, I don't think we're going to make it to whatever you signed us up for tonight. I think it would be best if you just leave without us. You know, before I decide to drop the 'posh socialite' routine and GIVE YOU A RIGHT GOOD CLOBBERING!"

The manager seemed surprised at first, but then frightened. He slowly backed away, as if from a wild beast, and left trough the front door. Just as he was past the threshold, X flew at the door and kicked it shut, making a tremendous crashing noise.

Applejack was the first of the elements of harmony to comment, "Man, that guy was a jerk."

A Capella quickly responded, "He's soon to be an unemployed jerk. Now, Roller, I believe we have an adventure to finish.

The author thought for a moment, looked up with teary eyes again and nodded. "Thanks, guys," he said in a hushed voice, "I'm sorry I doubted you."

X laughed, "Think nothing of it, CR. After all, if you can't trust your friends to stand by you, who can you trust?"

The adventurers continued their adventure a little longer into the night then expected, but they did reach the end. As Twilight and her friends left, they could all feel something was different about the shop. The smell of dust had been replaced by the sound of laughter and the dim lighting had somehow become brighter, at least to them.

Roller stopped Twilight before she left and looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the right words. She left him in his frustrated silence, but in the company of good friends.

Six months had passed since that night at the game shop. Twilight Sparkle was sitting in her library, curled up with one of her favorite books when she heard a knock at the door. By the time she had reached the door, Spike had already taken care of it and was now carrying a rectangular package over to her.

"So, what is it?" the little dragon asked. He shook it a few times, but the package made no noise. He sighed as he reached the usual conclusion, "Another book, huh? Why don't you ever get anything fun?"

The unicorn giggled, "Spike, books are fun. Well, for me anyway. Besides, this one is by one of your favorite authors."

"Really?" Spike asked, "Who? It's not like I read that much."

Twilight used her magic to unwrap the parcel and lifted a thick volume out of it. The book was purple with an image depicting nine ponies wearing ancient clothing and armor on the cover. Also on the cover and spine of the book was large, gold lettering that read, "Adventure is Magic" with smaller letting next to it that spelled, "By C. Roller"

Twilight opened the cover and read the dedication page. The first thing she saw was an image of four small foals in blue capes. One was a white unicron, one was a pink pegasus and two were earth ponies, though one was gray and the other was yellow. Over the picture was the following dedication...

To friends who you never forget

and those that won't let you forget them

AC PC and XP

She was surprised to find more to the dedication...

Special thanks to

AJ TS RD PP R and F

for everything.

Twilight carried the book upstairs and flipped to the first chapter. She spent the next few hours reading about sorcerers, knights, barbarians and all manner of dangerous beasts. It was a story about magic and iron, empires and prophecies. It was a story of horses and heroes. Most of all, however, it was a story about friendship overcoming all odds.

When she was finished reading, Twilight picked up a quill and took it to parchment.

"Dear Princess Celestia..."

A/N: Sorry that the last chapter came so late. I had a few things to take care of. Anyway, that's it. The show is over. Applaud, dear friends, the comedy is finished. You don't have to log off, but nothing's left to read here. Goodnight, everypony.