The closing vestige of night gave way to a cheeky ray of golden sunlight, covering all of Ponyville in its radiance. Farm ponies were already out in the fields cutting and baling hay for winter storage, and life began to bleed into the central marketplace as groggy shopkeepers set up their stalls.

Much to their parents’ chagrin, many foals already ran through the streets, for today was the first day of summer. High School was behind them for twelve weeks, so instead of the usual groaning and begging to remain in bed—which many would normally have been dragged out of, kicking and screaming—most of Ponyville’s youth were already out and about, planning their no-doubt-epic adventures for the days ahead.

Most of Ponyville’s youth, that is, except a certain brown colt.

A transparent bubble grew and shrank from inside Button Mash’s left nostril as he snored, spread-eagled on his tousled bed. A small pedestal fan on his bedside desk blew at maximum speed, blowing his blonde mane backward out of his face. The morning sunlight would have assaulted his eyes, were it not for the heavy drapes he kept tightly drawn at all times. A tall tower on his main desk near the window—the power source for his computer monitor and most of his life’s joy—gave off a gentle whirr, adding to the white noise that the fan generated. The monitor itself depicted a ‘paused’ screen, frozen with the image of a pair of futuristic fluoro pistols pointing their impending judgement down a dimly lit corridor.

“No, Maxtrael, you’re going down,” he murmured as he shifted his position. Unfortunately, said position happened to leave his head resting off the edge of his bed, and his body began to slowly follow it. He thudded onto the wooden floor, his bottom half still up on the mattress, while his head lay at an odd angle on the floor, a single arm outstretched toward his door. Despite the movement, he remained completely in the depths of slumber, continuing to snore while the sunlight struggled to pierce the veil of his personal stronghold.

Thump, thump, thump!

Button snorted in his sleep. No, he couldn’t wake up now! He had a final terrorist to take down! The leaders’ goons were already dead, the bomb defused, the hostages rescued—

Thump, thump, thump!

Before he could pull the trigger and seal his final foes’ fantastic fate, the dream vanished with a sharp crack. Groaning, Button opened his gunk-encrusted eyes and looked toward the source of the dream thief.

“Aw, what, mum? School’s out now, leave me alone.”

There was a second’s pause before Maternity spoke again.

“Oh, did I wake you, sweetie? I’ll let you get back to sleep. I suppose your new game that arrived in the post this morning can wait until later—”

A brown blur shot up from the floor and wrenched on the door handle.

“It’s here? It’s finally here? Yay! Thanks, mum!”

Snatching the box from his stunned mother’s grasp, Button pecked her on the cheek and immediately retreated into his darkened sanctuary.

Barely acknowledging the faint “You’re welcome” from behind the re-sealed bedroom door, Button leapt onto his swivel seat and placed his right hand on a twelve-buttoned mouse. Seconds later, the ‘quit’ option had been chosen and his copy of Badderlands 2 had been ejected from the tower’s disc tray and returned to its cover. Face shining with glee, he tore through the postal wrapping and unearthed his treasure: the long-awaited Elements of War.

“Over a year of hype, and finally I hold the key to my destiny!” Button punched the air and cheered as he raised the box to his mouth with his other hand. Using his front teeth, he dug through the dual plastic layers surrounding the flimsy cardboard, then opened the box and extracted a playing manual and a single disc with careful reverence.

“Confront your destiny,” the speakers on either side of the monitor said, half a minute after Button had placed gently into the disc tray. “Harness the planet’s ultimate power.”

“Whoa, man,” Button whispered. “I’ve gotta get onto the boys!”

“Jump on that mounted gun, Mayjax! Shrikefeather, cover my flank—don’t let anyone sneak up on us! Etzstab, you climb that building and scan ahead for us.”

“Sure thing, FaceMasher!”

The battle was in full swing: lasers of different hues and thickness bounced around the battlefield, miniature scorch marks and small craters denoting their final trajectories. Crouched behind cover, Button’s in-game self debated what to do from his own position. As his team split up and found their own positions, he cycled through his remaining weapons.

A single clip in the energy pistol… five rounds in my laser rifle… and one magic grenade. The enemy are entrenched and firing willy-nilly—are they covering their base, or drawing attention away from ours?

“Button…”

What are they planning?

“Button…”

I could throw my last grenade and run in with my team’s cover—

“Button!”

Button yelped and turned his head when a hand on his shoulder gave him a firm shake. He rotated his chair on the spot. “What, mum?” he asked as he removed his headphones, the sound of mayhem still perceptible. “I’m sort of busy here. I’m deep in the enemy stronghold!”

“Well, your cat’s dinner from last night is currently assaulting my nostrils,” Maternity said with a slight scowl. “You need to clean that up now.”

“Awww, can’t that wait? My team needs me—”

“Now, Button, or I’ll unplug your computer and hide the cord!”

Button gasped with exasperation and rolled his eyes. “Fine!” He turned back toward his computer screen and replaced his headphones. “Sorry, guys, I have to go AFK for a little bit. Halt the advancement and just concentrate on holding position for now—I’ll be back in two, okay?”

Without waiting for a response, Button lowered the ’phones and bolted off his chair, past his mother’s smile, and out the bedroom door. To the downstairs bathroom he ran, grabbing the pooper-scooper hanging on a nail next to the door on the way in.

“Damn it, Lazarus. You couldn’t have held it for another five minutes?”

With a soft purr, a fluffy grey cat rubbed her face against Button’s knee as he bent down, holding his breath. She looked up at him and let out a soft mewl while he scraped the bead-encrusted turd out of the litter tray.

With Lazarus’ excrement stuffed rapidly into a plastic bag and tied up at hypersonic speed, Button leapt out of the bathroom, flung the scoop back onto the hook and dropped the bag into the bin just outside the front door. The morning sun finally hit its target, and Button blinked furiously, holding his hands up to his forehead to repel the unwelcome invasion. He closed the door—tiny lights beyond his direct vision still twinkling—and returned to the bathroom, where he turned on the tap, scrubbed his hands like a madman, dried them and turned off the tap, all within ten seconds. With the fervour of a timberwolf chasing down its prey, he raced upstairs, slammed his bedroom door behind him and jumped onto his chair, which rolled the rest of the way toward his desk, rotating as it went.

“Okay, guys, I’m back,” he said as he placed the headphones back on. “How are you—”

He froze as he caught sight of the chatbar on the side of the screen that listed game statistics.

Mayjax87: killed by Dracojin

Shrikefeather: killed by Dracojin

Etzstaburface: killed by Dracojin

The battlefield was quiet; not a single laser shot or explosion could be heard. The in-game wind blew, denoting that there were only two players remaining in the game. Button looked to the other side of the screen. Where his crew would normally be listed in blue, only the tag FaceMasher remained without a strike-through. As for the red team…

Button blinked and stared again.

The entire red team had been wiped out, every name struck. But there was a new name, a purple name…

Dracojin

“Hey, guys, check this out. Look at this noob: he’s either suffering chronic lag or he’s totally AFK. Let’s have some fun.”

Button remained silent and held his hand off the mouse as a lone figure stepped out from around the corner. Four red dots and three blue dots floated above his visor. He grinned as he removed a magic grenade from his belt and placed it on top of Facemasher’s head. Button stared at the rapidly ascending number on the new player’s chest, a number that denoted people following a player’s actions from anywhere around the world.

It numbered in the eight-hundreds.

His eyes widened. No way. I’ve only ever had a handful of curious people at a time. Who in Tartarus is this guy?

“What you are about to see is a signature move of mine,” Dracojin said. “I call it the ‘double dragon toss’.” He paced ten steps back from FaceMasher and removed two golden energy pistols from his belt. “You don’t get fancier than this, folks!” With a yell, Dracojin threw one of his guns at Facemasher’s head, aimed the second gun, and fired.

A lot of things happened all at once.

Button watched the airborne gun begin to glow as it approached FaceMasher’s head. He quickly rolled forward—pulling the magic grenade off his head and flicking out the pin—as the gun sailed over his head. While he was still in forward motion and about to emerge from the roll, the fired energy beam from Dracojin’s second gun hit the glowing pistol, which detonated in a flash of flame. Coming out of the roll, Button launched the grenade right into Dracojin’s face as the player stood there with his jaw open.

A second explosion rocked the ground in front of FaceMasher as Dracojin disintegrated before his eyes.

While FaceMasher began his obligatory Round Win victory dance, back at the computer desk in the real world, Button breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Placing his hands behind his head, he leaned back in his seat.

“I did it, guys,” he spoke into his microphone. “Did you all see that or what?”

“Um… Button… you might want to look at the screen, dude,” came Etzstab’s voice.

“You have no idea what you just did, do you?” asked Shrikefeather.

“Uhhh, I beat some arrogant twat who killed everyone, because he was showing off?”

“Mate, check your messages,” Mayjax said.

It was then that Button actually, properly, looked at the game results screen. Messages were flooding in, as though the virtual Hoover Dam had burst.

He killed Dracojin!

Amazing! Incredible!

Who is this kid? He’s good.

OMG NO WAY!!!11!!1

Button swallowed. For a solid minute, he watched as the messages became a blur of information.

A ping in his mailbox alerted his attention.

Button frowned. “Direct contact?” He aimed the mouse icon over the mailbox logo and clicked.

“Bella_Donna_Kiss? Who the heck is that?” His eyes flicked from left to right as he read the message. Further and further his jaw fell, his shoulders joining them as he slumped forward in his seat, propping himself up with a single elbow.

“Uh, guys?”

“Yeah?”

“What?”

“Spill, dude.”

Button took a deep breath, held it, exhaled, and said, “I’ve just been invited... to Canterlot Video Game Academy.”