"Can you go look for my sister?"

Such an innocent question. Such a simple request. Or at least, it should have been.

It had actually gone quite pleasantly from the very first second I walked in the door of that building with the strange architecture. It looked like a giant carousel, which was kind of morbid considering the motif these people had going. We had been immediately greeted by a genuinely drop dead gorgeous woman. She seriously looked like she could have been a model, with pristine fair skin, and a head of hair that probably took her hours of preparation each morning. Her dress tried valiantly to rival her own beauty, but I think it came in at a very close second.

Like the first girl... she wasn't exactly completely human. She had a horn of bone spiraling from from her forehead. At the beginning, I had just thought it a decorative head piece due to the tiara she had that wove its way around it. Upon closer inspection -she had insisted upon taking my measurements for some reason, I didn't see any problem with that plus it allowed me to actually look at her without looking like a creeper- I could see the bone like substance actually came out from the skin in her forehead, leaving a barely noticeable fold of flesh in a ring around it.

She had been very understanding of my situation, and in an act of generosity creepily mirroring the first girls she had not only offered to fix my shirt, but also lent me a simple cloth shift to wear while I waited. In addition, she also gave me a pair of simple sandles. They had apparently been left there by a girl named Rainbow Dash, and had been left unclaimed for almost a year.

Don't quite know how I feel, knowing I have feet only slightly larger than a girl. I always did have small feet... but actually having it confirmed like this... ehn. So I laced them up, and boom. Viola. No longer are my poor little toesies unprotected against the ravages of the world. Slight protection is better than none.

And yes, her name was apparently Rainbow Dash. Model lady had the name 'Rarity' floating above her head, along with the class title '<Enchantress>', while the meek little girl with the hummingbird was apparently named the inane title of 'Fluttershy'. Along with her name was the class '<Druid>', I guess that fit with her animal motif. I hesitated to ask, but the way they talked names like these were commonplace. The fuck.

If I came across a chick named Twilight, I was gonna shit sparkles for a week. Nah, there was no way anyone would name their child so foolishly. No way in hell.

It was after this simple gift of footwear she asked of me a seemingly equally simple task. If I could but retrieve her younger sister to come pick up her cape while I waited for the repair of my own garb. Sounded simple, anyway.

I wasn't given any clue as to her whereabouts, so I had to actually ask around. No one was really sure where she was, aside from the general idea that she was out with two of her friends. Apparently they were doing what I had sought to do, going around and doing random menial tasks for bits. Pretty smart, for little girls.

No one knew where they actually fucking were. I finally got fed up, and called out "Quest window," once I found myself alone in a dusty alleyway.

QUEST: Retrieve Rarity's Sister, (Sweetiebelle), and return her to the Carousel Boutique.

Well that sure helped me out a lot. "Minimap?" I asked the quest window. It surprisingly obliged, a small 2d circle that faded into view. I dragged my finger around on it, and it showed the path I had taken out of the forest -marked as the 'Everfree Forest'- and the small area I had traveled within the town.

"Quest marker? Show waypoint. Quest line. Help Line. Marker path to quest objective."

In my verbal stumblings, I actually managed to say something that did what I wanted it to. It lit up an area on the map, simultaneously giving me a little arrow that showed where I was as well. The marker for Sweetiebelle was... back in the Everfree, in an unmarked region I hadn't been to yet. Wonderful.

So I tightened my belt, relaced my new sandles, and set back out into the forest. Hax was happily panting away on my shoulder, content to keep his wooden feet away from the forest floor. Every once in a while, he would whip his head to the side and growl for a couple seconds, then go right back to panting like a dumb mutt.

I finally made it to the marker on the map. I looked around at the forest clearing I had found myself in, no little girls in sight. Not a one. I walked around the clearing, always making my way back to the same spot. It was just an empty clearing. I looked up high above me, she hadn't said so but I guess her sister could have wings and be off somewhere above me. If she could fly. If Fluttershy herself could fly.

Nothing. Did the quest marker lead me to a general area? The only other option was that she was somehow below me, but the ground was undisturbed and I didn't see any openings or anything else that would have allowed such a thing.

"Am I just blind, Hax?" I asked the miniature mutt. "I'm not seeing anything. All that's here is solid ground!" I gave a couple stomps to enunciate my point. Hax looked down, letting out a keening whine as he did so. "Shows what you know, you dumb dog. It's solid. Miles," I jumped up, landing on the ground in a loud thump. Hax need to learn some basic survival skills, if he was going to come along with me on these jaunts. "Of thick." Another jump, another solid thump. "Rock solid," Yet another jump, predictably another thump as I landed again. "Earth."

I landed for the final time, flashing jazz hands as I did so. Why not? It's not like anyone was around to see it. Certainly no little girls. Especially not the ones I was trying to find.

Hax let out another little whimper, and the ground dropped out from beneath me.

I landed bodily. I saw numbers flash in front of my eyes, indicating that I had just taken seventeen points of damage. Hax was cheekily panting away, sitting on my chest.

"Don't be so fucking smug," I wheezed out, "So there was a secret room right under the ground where I was standing. So fucking what. At least it was only one floor dow-"

The ground decided to screw gravity and drop out from under me once again, landing me in another room below where I was. I landed on my left leg, and I let out a bellow of pain. Another twenty three points of damage, and a status indicator popped up saying I had reached a status of 'low health'. I still had sixty health, it didn't know what the hell it was talking about.

I blinked the dust away from my eyes, wincing as I saw Hax once more sitting on my chest, giving me a shit eating grin.

"Not. One. Fucking. Word. Two secret rooms directly below me. What are the fucking odds. At least it was only two-"

FUCK YOU WORLD FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU-

Three. Three goddamn floors, all weak enough to collapse right out from under me. I landed on my left leg again, my blood running cold as I heard the bone snap from beneath me. It was a sudden, shocking pain that laid me low and caused a stream of obscenities to spew from my mouth. I felt like it was deserved. Just in response to the status window that popped up saying I was under the status effect 'crippled limb' for the next minute and a half. Just because of that, not because I was in suddenly REALLY bad pain.

A Skill Has Been Created Through A Special Action

Through The Power Of Your Body To Endure Pain And Damage, (Physical Endurance), Has Been Created

Physical Endurance(passive) LV 1 EXP: 42.08%
The Bodies Physical Endurance Increases, And You Take Less Damage.
3% decrease in damage from physical attacks

Fuck off! Much like the character in the manga, this was something I DIDN'T want to see at this point in time! This was not something I wanted to feel! And it was just... oh fuck...

"Fuck ALL the ducks!" I let out, reaching down to check my leg. I gave it a prod-

OH GOD WHY WOULD ANYONE MAKE LIMBS CAPABLE OF EXPERIENCING SUCH SENSATIONS???

"Fuck your goddamn mother in the face with a tire iron!" I screamed in frustration at my leg as my foot faced the wrong way. It said I still had... a minute and thirteen seconds? Did that mean in about a minute my leg would go back to normal? I sure as hell hoped so, in the manga he managed to sustain damage that should have killed a normal human. Just my luck to have about a ton of rock fall on my leg.

"I don't think so," I heard a young voice say through the haze of settling dust, "In fact, with his leg lookin' like that, I don' think he's gonna be much help at all."

"Well he did block off the door," a softer voice retorted.

"Oh great, now we're STUCK in the room with no exit?" a tomboyish voice whined.

"Hax!" I called out, just now remembering my diminutive canine. "Where you at boy?"

He let out a low huff of a bark, a puff of dust rising from the cloud beside me. I reached out a hand, giving him a pat on the head. I'd only known him a short time, but he was definitely starting to grow on me. Hopefully only figuratively. I mean, I guess he was technically a plant... monster... could I teach him a skill or ability similar to 'root'? If I could get a 'vine whip' out of him one day he would be officially better than my level ninety eight bulbasaur I had in that one game I hadn't played in over a year. I guess he was already better, by proxy of the fact that he was actually real. Couldn't let him get a swelled head, though.

"Hax?" I heard the first voice ask. "Did he bring his dog with him too?"

"Who would name their dog something like Hax?" the tomboyish voice asked. "That just sounds weird."

"Your face sounds weird!" I retorted to the best of my intelligent of responses. Childish, I know. But I still had about half a minute of 'crippled limb' I had to deal with and I wasn't exactly the happiest of campers.

"... really? A 'your face' joke the best you got?"

"Really? Your face the best you got?" I retorted snappily.

"Ooh, burn," the first voice said, a slightly southern twang audible in her voice. "Would you like some salve fer that?"

"I don't get it," the soft voice inserted.

The dust slowly settled, finally allowing me to properly see the room and the three new people... AHEM, ponies -god I hated this place- that were in it. I could see three little girls staring right back at me, looks varying from shock to confusion.

<Amateur Artificer>
LV13 Applebloom

-hung above the head of a girl standing off to the side. Her long red hair was tied off in a rather large pink bow, but beside that she looked relatively normal. No horn, no wings. She was wearing an outfit that vaguely looked steampunk. She had a simple looking yellowish shirt, but she also wore a pair of loose fitting -thick looking- brown slacks. It looked like they had large metal plates sewn in right over her kneecaps. Over her shirt, she wore a rather immaculate looking blue vest, the trim lined with golden cloth and all manner of pouches and holsters and pockets sewn into it. All manner of tools hanging from it as well. She wore a single glove on her left hand, the intricate plates of metal stretching back past her elbow. Her boots... damn. They were heavy duty. I couldn't tell if they were more metal than leather, or what. They were definitely made for stomping. She also held a thick, scary looking wrench in her right hand.

<Samanera Arcane Monk>
LV12 Scootaloo

-was hanging slightly above a girl with a rough growth of purple hair. It wasn't nearly as long as 'Appleblooms', but it was still unnaturally long to me. Must have taken years for these girls to grow their hair so dang long. She wore an interesting outfit of her own, her blue shirt looking like a simplified version of a karate gi. She had simple, loose orange shorts that were tied with a thick braided rope over the bottom of the shirt. Around her neck she had a bright orange scarf, the ends of which draped over the back of her wings. Oh yeah, she had wings. Not as large as Fluttershy's, but she herself wasn't as large as Fluttershy. Goes with the territory of being a little girl, and not a grown woman. They looked... about to scale regarding Fluttershy's, though. Maybe a little smaller. Adorning her shoulders were two slim pauldrens of thick looking material, they almost looked like scales. Hanging from her belt were two... things. I couldn't really tell what the heck they were, but they appeared to be accented with... her own feathers. Weird. Nothing to say about her shoes, besides the fact that they looked rather simple. Standard, leather, foot coverings.

<Apprentice Bard>
LV12 Sweetiebelle Von Ambrose Dilliguie The First

Sweetiebelle had the simplest of the three's outfits. A poofy white shirt with a hood, lined with pink accents fit comfily over a light purple dress. She had hair with two tones of color racing through it, a soft pink and purple. Hers was even longer than Appleblooms, as far as I could see. She was definitely Rarity's sister, if genetics was anything to go by. She had a spiral horn erupting from her brow, at any rate. Her shoes... were just a pair of soft looking, cloth coverings. Nothing impressive.

Of course, I probably didn't look all that impressive to them either. A crappy brown covering as a shirt, normal blue jeans, and lace up sandles. Sandles that while soft blue, had distinctly feminine accents on them. Marks that looked like feathers and so on. Especially with my left leg turned around like it wa-

->*CRRRRKLE*<-

My leg spun back around to the front of me, letting out a sick crack of splintering bone as it reformed itself. Among a chorus of "Ewwwwww," "groooooss!" and other cries of dissent, I noticed my leg had stopped hurting. Oh joy.

"Did yer leg just-" the girl known as Applebloom started.

"Fix itself? Yes. I heal fast," I lied. Technically. Technically a lie. I mean, I guess I healed, but it wasn't like I had an ability or spell that did it. It was just Gamers Body, hard at work.

"Cooooooool," came a chorus from the three.

"Now that that is remedied," I said as I leaned up into a sitting position, simultaneously trying out my leg and transferring Hax back up to my shoulder. "I assume you are Sweetiebelle?" I asked, directing my comment towards Applebloom. Not like I should just let them know I could see their names floating above their heads. And 'assuming' one was the other would give them a chance to properly introduce themselves. "Your sister sent me to find you. Apparently your cape is ready for you to pick up?"

"Ahm not her!" Applebloom exclaimed, pointing at Sweetiebelle.

"You aren't... your friend. Well that's all well and good Sweetiebelle, but I didn't say anything to insinuate you were," I teased. I watched as this Appleblooms faces grew red in frustration, as well as her friends who were each trying to keep from laughing.

"Ahm not Sweetiebelle! Ahm Applebloom! She's Sweetiebelle!" she belted out, pointing a shaking hand at at Sweetiebelle.

I did my best to steel my expression, looking back and forth between the two young girls.

"Well why didn't you say anything, miss?"

She let out a sharp grunt of a blast of air in irritation. Man, I loved messing with little kids. "Ah DID say so!"

"Whatever. So you're Sweetiebelle?" I said, turning to the girl in question. "I guess it's you whose sister is looking for her. Your cape is ready."

"Well that's nice and all," she replied, eyes flicking to the blocked up... doorway? Doorway. The doorway behind me. The thing that used to be a doorway. Before it got covered in all kinds of dirt, rock, and whatever the hell else the floors and ceilings were made out of. "But we're still in kind of a rough position here. There's at least a score of skeletons right behind there, and that might hold them but-"

"A score? Whats that?" Scootaloo cut in.

"Twenty."

"Twenty what?"

"A score is twenty. It means twenty."

"Why not just say twenty?"

"Because using the word 'score' is prim, and proper," Sweetiebelle ended with her eyes closed, her voice lilting in a tone of one reciting from memory.

"It sounds stupid," Scootaloo countered.

"Girls!" Applebloom exclaimed, "This ain't helpin'! We're still trapped in a room with no way out, we gotta dig out the door and take em all out one by one!"

"Or we could leave via the hole I just made," I suggested.

Three pairs of eyes tracked my pointing finger, glancing upwards towards the gigantic hole my entrance had made.

"Oh."

"That could work."

"How are we gonna get up there though?"

"You have wings?" I suggested incredulously. I leaned forward and jabbed Scootaloo in the gut. "You got wings, and the hole is large enough. just fly on up there and find a rope of something. Tie it to a tree, and let down the other end. Simple as pie."

Scootaloo fidgeted around nervously, tracing a line in the dust with her foot.

"What." I stated it without a trace of question, content they would know exactly what tone I was trying to get across.

"I can't fly."

I stared at her for a couple seconds, then jabbed a finger forward and poked her in her fucking forehead. She flinched backwards, both hands coming up to rub at the spot. She gave me an incredulous look, but didn't question me or even say anything.

"You are a pegasus, are you not?" I asked, to which she flinched again. "Those are wings I see behind you, right? Wait, is this an age thing?" I stopped. It had never even occurred to me that they might not be able to fly until they were older. The fact that she was embarrassed meant that yes, it was possible for them to fly. So it had to be another variable. "Please excuse me if my questions have been rude, we don't really have any pegasi where I come from. So disregarding the fact that you can't fly, can you still use your wings to assist you in lateral movement? Say, if you were to try climbing out through the hole, would they make it any easier?"

She stopped her cringing, giving my words thought. Finally, I had hoped I'd get through to her sooner rather than later. "That... maybe? I dunno, I never even thought about using my wings to... help me climb," she said with a slight laugh.

Without further prodding, the three of them got into a huddle, whispering among themselves. A few seconds later, they shouted "Break!" and started scurrying around. Hax watched them with great interest, even forgetting to pant for a few scant seconds. I watched right along with him, as they eventually managed to become a human ladder. They hoisted Scootaloo above their heads, her stretching fingers searching for the lip of the hole I made. Eventually they found their mark, and she pulled herself up with a flap of her wings. The other two let out a triumphant yell, toppling over into a pile of books.

I waited for a few seconds, as she called down that she had made it up another floor.

"So what the hell is this place, anyway?" I asked as I leaned back against my pile of rubble.

Both of the girls that were left stared at me, as if I had suddenly grown a second head.

"Unmarked dungeon," Sweetiebelle chirped.

"Possibly trapped room at a dead end," Applebloom added.

"Wait... what? Trapped... are we safe?" I asked, a wad of saliva sliding noisily down my throate at her words.

"Yeaaaaah... as safe as we can be with that army of skeletons outside."

"Oh." Skeletons. Right off the bat, a fucking army of skeletons. Wonder what level they were? For as young as these girls were, they actually looked pretty competent. Two level sixes, and a level seven. What the hell level was I, anyway?

"Status window," I said, covering it up with a wracking cough that frightened Hax. He dug his little claws into my shoulder like a damn cat. Little fucker.

Name: Colton Niscon
Class: Displaced Gamer
Level: LV 03

---

HP: 150
MP: 90

---

STR:9
VIT:8
DEX:7
INT:9
WIS:7
LUK:12

---

Point: 0
Money: 58 Cents

Why the heck were my stats so low? The main character of the manga started off at level 4... but I guess he did mention how he had gone up a level since the beginning of his... condition.

He had pooled all five of his points from that level up in his strength. He went from ten to fifteen... so apparently I was weaker than he had been at the start? But my luck was crazy high. What the hell did that mean? Was I lucky? I didn't feel lucky.

How the fuck would I increase my luck stat outside of level points, anyway? I knew I could grind VIT by running a lot, STR by taxing my strength in various ways, and my INT through rigorous study.

In fact, that brought to mind something important. The higher your stats got, the harder it got to level them up outside of the level up points. So... would it be better of me to save all my points, grinding my attributes as much as I could?

A knotted vine swung down from the hole above me, smacking me in the face.

"Hey! Slowpokes! You gonna stay down there all day?"

"Quite," I muttered, rubbing my forehead. "What's her name, by the way?"

"Oh, she's Scootaloo, she's a monk," Applebloom helpfully interjected. Well that didn't tell me anything more than I already knew.

They didn't waste any time with words, Sweetiebelle clinging to the rope and Scootaloo hauling her up.

"You next, mister," Applebloom said.

I stared at her for a couple seconds. "Excuse me?"

"Look, mister, ah can tell ya ain't no combatant jes by lookin' at you."

Hmm. Again, I guess I didn't look that impressive. Who was I to argue about going first? Screw being chivalrous. I was more than okay with ascending out of this hell hole. Maybe 'inventory' a few of the books here, in case some of them were skill books.

I leaned up into a standing position, reaching forward to grab the hanging vine-rope.

My progress was halted, and I nearly fell over backwards. My arm was caught.

"What are you doing?" the feisty little red head asked.

"I... just a second, my hand's stuck on something."

I pulled at my left arm, trying to jerk it free of the debris. With a might wrench of my whole body, I managed to drag it free.

Along with the skeleton clinging to my arm. Seems it had grabbed on when I landed, the weight of the rocks and other shit pinning it within the pile.

I let out a less than manly shriek, punching the half buried skeleton in the face with my free hand.

"Observe," I choked out, so I could see this stupid things HP. This let me see that I had managed to take... nine damage off of it's fifteen hundred health. God damn that would take a lot of face punching. Thankfully though, it seems that It was already at... four hundred and ninety four points. Must have happened from the rubble crashing down on it or something.

I continued hitting it, punctuating each blow with a word. "LET. GO. OF. ME. YOU. STUPID. BAG. OF. BONES!"

Ten hits. Ninety points of damage. Carrying on like this... it would take.. a hundred and seventy more strikes? If I was adding that correctly. Probably wasn't.

->CRSSSSH<-

I stared at the skeletons head, crumpled inwards as a long stem of a metal handle seemed to grow from it's cranium. Applebloom leaned past me, grabbing at her wrench and pulling it free with a splintering crack of breaking bone. Instead of playing dead, it opened up its mouth and let loose a sinister hiss.

"No!" I exclaimed, hitting it with another rabbit punch. "You do not hiss at the nice young lady! Sit! Roll over! PLAY DEAD!" A bit out of place for a human skeleton, and kinda cheesy seeing as it was already dead... I'll think up something better next time.

A skill has been created through a special act

Through reckless abandon in attacking without a weapon, a skill to capitalize on attacking an opponents face, 'Face Punch', has been created.

Face Punch(active) LV1 EXP: 5.9% MP COST; 15

Against all odds, an unarmed, untrained strike directly in the face.

5% chance to ignore all armor and defense buffs.

3% Attack Damage increase when attacking a targets face directly, without a weapon.

3% Speed increase when directing an attack towards a targets face.

5% Critical hit Chance increase when attacking a targets face directly, without a weapon.

Next I looked and the skeletons health was at two hundred and sixty eight points... did she hit over a hundred points of damage with one strike? Damn. Maybe it was because she actually had a weapon."Inventory!" I called out, dragging out my bat. I hit it three more times, wincing as it only served to show up three counts of '21' points of damage. Even with the bat, I was doing nothing more than chip damage. It looked like I got more damage out of the combination of the two blunt skills, as opposed to the new... face punch. What a... ridiculous name. Awesome.

"Hit it again!" I told her hurriedly, "You do more damage than me!"

"It doesn't matter!" she retorted, her wrench rebounding off the arm that held me as she tried a different tactic. "It's an undead, and we don't have a magic user! it'll just keep coming!"

"Trust me," I pleaded, looking her in the eye, "I have a passive magic effect currently active, it's leaching the magic from it. You're doing substantial damage to it, it started off at a numerical value of about four hundred health, and after what I did you knocked it down almost a full hundred! Just hit it again!"

She gave me a look signifying that she probably thought I was crazy, but she did oblige me by giving the half destroyed skeleton head a smack. Another hundred and twenty six points of damage. Daaaaammnnnn. And she was just smacking it halfheartedly, god knows what damage she'd be dealing out in an actual fight. She returned her efforts to the arm, "See? It doesn't do anything!"

"It's down past a hundred, give it another whack!"

"Gah!" she belted out in frustration, smacking it in the dome once more. "See? It's an undead. You can't kill an undead, you have to have a mage or magic user tear apart the magic holding them together!"

So... she couldn't kill it? Was she not governed by the rules set upon the 'gamer'? She wasn't in my party... she she herself still acted like a normal person. She couldn't deplete its health, if the aggravating 'One HP' that hung above it's head was anything to go by.

"Really?" I asked, sliding the bat back into my inventory. I gave it a quick jab in the gob, watching as the one HP turned into a zero. With a crack of displaced stone, the skeleton turned to shadow and dissipated.

Gained 2490 Experience

Your Level Went Up By One

Your Level Went Up By One

Your Level Went Up By One

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet. Wait, crap, I didn't see what level the skeleton was, I had no idea if this was actually impressive or not!

"It... wow, so you weren't lyin'?"

Ye of little faith. Wait. Technically I WAS lying to the little guttersnipe, but I was just trying to kill the skeleton. Ends justify the means, I guess.

"Of course!" cue M Bison sound bit. "You doubt me, but the proof is seen by your own eyes!"

"Hey, whats the holdup down there?" Scootaloo called down.

"The new guy just punched a skeleton in the face so hard it exploded into dust!" Applebloom called back up.

"No, seriously, just hurry up," came from Sweetiebelle.

Applebloom gave a huff of discontent, shaking her head. "They're never going to believe me... oh well. C'mon then, up you go!" she waved back towards the rope-vine.

"Gimmie a second," I stooped down, grabbing a couple books off the ground. Both were rather impressive looking, one rimmed in golden trim, the other with a motif to look like a clear night sky. Maybe they were skill books, but they had to be important to be in a secret room, hidden beneath the ground.

"Hurry up! Or I'm gonna leave ya down here mister!" she barked, so I hurriedly stuffed them in my inventory.

I tried to haul myself up the rope by my own power. Emphasis on try. In the end, I did manage to make my way to the top. Huffing and puffing as If I had just run a marathon.

You Gained 1 STR For The Continued Training Of Your Body

I stared at the floating box in contempt. Just floating there. Mocking me.

Hmph.

Author's Notes:

Edit- I didn't really feel right with how much damage Applebloom was putting out right from the start. I nerfed how much health the skeleton had when Colton 'found' it, and how much damage Applebloom was putting out.

Woooo, look at all those downvotes! Looks like my writing pisses some of you off!~ Now you might think that I should be upset by downvotes. But they just mean someone read the story and didn't like it! Someone reading and having an opinion differing from mine is perfectly normal. If I might make a small request, however. If you do end up downvoting, can you leave a comment, or failing that -if you don't want other users to know of your dissent and wish to remain anonymous- send me a message detailing why you downvoted, that will do me a world of good in future writng. Please and thank you!

ilikereadingthisshit asks: Colton, if you could change the User Interface(UI) on your powers, would you, how?

"I guess the only thing I'd do would be to change the verbal commands to completely nonverbal. Make it so I can just think them in my head."