A tongue-in-cheek story-based video-game-like series in which you, the reader, play a bigger part in the story and how it's told.

The story will be told as any other first person story, in which you take the position of Twilight Sparkle, but at the end of every chapter, actions will be open for suggestion.

Just like an old 80's computer game, the story will accept certain commands and direction, and will tackle them one by one at the story's discretion. While there will be an over-arcing plot, most of the actions of Twilight are free to be suggested by none other than the readers themselves, to which the story will shift and mutate uncontrollably like a disgusting mutant blobfish.

The story will have action, puzzles, funny humour, an inventory, and other such rubbish!

All YOU have to do, the reader, is leave comments below with the ">" tag. Everything you write will be used as an instruction for Twilight's next move!

There is no suggestion that will not be at least considered slightly for use as part of the following chapter, and where the story ultimately ends up is part of your, the reader's, evil machinations and naughty ideas, and as many suggestions will be taken as possible.

Anything can happen! Many things probably will! Except the really stupid ones involving Nicolas Cage!

But be warned... this game has many endings, not all of which are ultimately good.

Remember to save often.

So what are you waiting for?

Press start now.

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You are Twilight Sparkle, Pony extraordinaire. Personal pupil of Princess Celestia, and heir to the throne of Equestria.

At least, that's what you hope.

Maybe in a few years, if you study really hard and work at it like a gangster.

But right now there's a few more pressing issues at hoof than thinking about one's future and the potential to rule and empire.

Your assistant's in trouble!

Spike, your one and only sidekick and personal slave is in dire straits. Last night, he was kidnapped by a rather voracious lady-dragon, a thousand-year-old beast with extremely powerful magic that can counter your own easily.

And the only reason why you know this is because she was kind enough to send you a letter.

You run your eyes down it as you read it for the 24th time, just to be sure you've got it right.

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My name is Bertha. I am a thousand-year-old dragoness. I have liberated Spike from your dominating rule and have brought him to the cave at the end of Bertha woods.

I am telling you this because I want you to know that it would be incredibly foolish for you to come rescue him. So foolish, in fact, that I don't even mind telling you all this.

My magic is far more powerful than yours, and I can counter you easily.

Please don't come.

Yours,
Bertha the Cranky

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You have absolutely no idea how this happened without anypony else noticing, but it seems it did anyway.

Rolling up the scroll, you place it nicely in your saddlebags, which are deep enough to hold nearly anything you can think of. That's fine craftsmanship, that is!

From the moment you received the scroll, sent to you via Spike-flame, you hit the books to do what any pony should do in such a dire situation - research!

You found out from a book that Bertha the Cranky is in fact, exactly as she said, and has been ruling over a small piece of the Everfree forest which was later named after her, since she's a bit lazy and doesn't like to migrate like other dragons.

It might be a woman thing. Who knew? Maybe crankiness came with age. But then again, Princess Celestia…

Well, it wasn't worth thinking about at that moment.

Unfortunately, the entry on Bertha was remarkably short. The only other thing you could find out was that she was responsible for another vast Dragon liberation many hundreds of years ago, when thousands of dragon assistants, just like Spike, were freed from their pony overlord captors.

They were all then released into the forests for 'their own good'.

Of course, since all of those dragons grew up in and around ponies, they didn't develop the cojones required to survive like wild dragons did.

There were no survivors.

It was then when Bertha threw a might tantrum, blaming the ponies for this travesty, and promising that one day, all dragons will be born free.

For some reason, she seems to have targeted Spike.

Perhaps Princess Celestia should have said something before giving you like, the first dragon assistant since that little kerfuffle.

Perhaps she should have employed the element of forethought.

Ah well.

To make things worse, you realise you've been trapped in your own basement. In fact, you woke up here.

Bertha must have trapped you there so that you couldn't go chasing after Spike immediately. In fact, along with the letter, she must have been the one to have left the book there as well, as some sort of extremely unsubtle show of force.

But seriously, who does something like that?

Bertha must be one real bitch.

You've tried the door, obviously, to no avail. It's locked up tight. You can't push it open, buck it or slap it apart; you're just not strong enough. And headbutting it is out of the question.

Out. Of. The. Question.

And for some reason your magic doesn’t seem to be working right either. It must be some lasting effect of being in the dragon's magical aura.

Don't ask. It's a thing.

Either way, your spells aren't working right, so it's probably best to be a bit cautious with them.

You take a short look around the basement, trying to see if there's anything you can use in this situation to help you escape.

All the machinery that you used on Pinkie that one episo time is still hanging around, gathering dust. Turns out that after Pinkie, taking brain scans of normal ponies wasn't as interesting anymore.

Over in the other corner are a few crates. You've never really looked into these crates before. You've definitely never needed to. They must have been left here by the previous owner, which would make it Princess Celestia's crates.

Princess Celestia's crates.

Mmmm.

There are, of course, no windows in this room, since it's underground, and the light spell you cast when you woke up is slowly fritzing out. Sparks are jumping all over the place, and your entire horn is flickering around like a DJ Pon-3 gig gone terribly wrong.

Using your light spell isn't a good idea right now. You'd probably best find an alternate light source before your head explodes or something.

Roots are hanging down from above, the ones that make up the treehouse itself, and you doubt yelling would have any effect whatsoever. Besides, if a giant rampaging dragon didn't immediately make your friends seek you out for help, like they always do, the idiots, then they probably didn't notice.

What do you do?

>> Please enter command

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P.S.
To enter a command, it's real easy! Type it into the comments below! please preceed it with ">" without the quotation marks. This is so I can distinguish between actual commands and people just trying to yell at me.

Remember, the story can't proceed without your input and suggestions, so get typing!

To clarify: The list of quests isn't the commands you can choose from. Not at all. You can have Twilight do ANYTHING you want. within reason. The idea is to have you input to SOLVE the quests listed above, as a way of community problem-solving. You also have an inventory, of course, like many other games, and you can combine, use, eat, or whatver you want! Explore, discover, and go rescue the heck out of Spike!

cornholio4 >> recover magical horn powers

What? Recover magical horn powers? Just like that? Alright. Your magical horn powers are mysteriously regained, without the need for any sort of action or quest or lengthy process whatsoever! Hooray!

Oh no, wait.

You've lost them again.

Darnit. Guess you're going to have to try doing it the long way.

The dragon's magical aura is preventing you from employing the awesome magic of mary-sue. It has... anti-sue qualities. Many self-insert fic writers sudder at the amazing skill of Bertha the Cranky. They cower from her ability to actually make people think of logical plot devices and forbid the use of throw-away deus ex machinas.

One does not simply recover their magical horn powers.

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cornholio4 >> learn information about how to kill evil dragons

This would be a really good command if you weren't stuck in the basement. For one thing, the only book in here, let alone one with dragon-related content, is the one that Bertha left you. And you can't really trust what's inside, can you? CAN YOU?

You're left scratching your head as you consider how you might learn anything from a book that doesn't specify that sort of information. Besides, you've already read that particular book, and all you found was information about how awesome she was and how likely you were to die if you tried to go after Spike.

You are 90% convinced it was self-penned.

Best try this one again later.

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cornholio4 >> be prepared for anything

Why, you're Twilight Sparkle, Git Dimlits! Of course you're prepared. In fact, you think you have a secret stash of emergency goods right here in this very basement! It's lurking there, in the funny corner. But it's pretty dark in here, and you can't see too well. Maybe you should worry about finding an alternate light source before your head melts.

Your horn really isn't working too well anymore. It's starting to play the Crystal Empire anthem. The light is dimming.

You can check out the Brain-scanning equipment or perhaps Celestia's Secret Crates. Or do whatever else you want! But remember, your light's going out, and things are far harder to do in the dark.

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drsonic1 >> Quickly retrieve hooves from roots

What? What's this, now? This doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Clearly, it can't be a reference to something else, could it? No. That's just silly! This is a completely new idea, totally not a ripoff of any such popular online psudeo web-comic series where user-feedback provides most of the drive! Besides, this is in a totally different perspective. This is first-person.

Also, you're Twilight.

So many, many differences.

Anyway, you pull your hooves out from the roots, and that helps you able to walk around. You have no idea how your hooves got there in the first place, but you're glad to have them back.

In addition to looking, talking, eating, licking, speaking, touching, and other such nonsense, you now can walk. Walking is truly such an overlooked skill.Without it, you are essentially just a head on a blob.

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InspiraX1234 >> The next command

Why yes. You WILL follow the next command. Thank you for that clarification. I believe we all needed that. Celestia forbid we get stuck right here and now at the very beginning of the story because we didn't know that we should do the next thing in line. Thank Glob for people like you, otherwise we'd be seeing the game over screen every other post.

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Sketchy Markks >> recover your magic

Oh dear, another one.

Listen people. Let's be specific here. Generalities do not a Twilight make! Twilight would love to recover her magic, but there's a sort of funny puzzle thing in place. You know. Having to find items and use items and work it out by yourself. Sweeping statements about how she should do things isn't going to get the job done!

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But really, there isn't time for this right now! Your horn's running out of juice. You need to find an alternative source of light, and fast!

Better get to it, before terrible things happen.

What do you do?

>> Please Enter Command

cornholio4 >> stumble onto an item bertha accidentally left behind

Well, it seems that the only items that Bertha left behind was that book and that uncharacteristically polite letter. I mean, you can't just really stumble upon something that Bertha might have accidentally left behind. It would be really hard to do that, considering it relies on many factors of chance rather than a directed action based on things that are within your control.

You stand there and consider it for a while, as your horn starts to blow soap bubbles into the air. You really wish that thing would work correctly.

But you soon come to the conclusion that, no. You can't just stumble across something that Bertha accidentally left behind. The odds for that happening are just phenomen...

Wait.

What's that?

You stumble onto an item while you were pacing around, questioning the possibility of stumbling onto an item.

Clearly, it must have been dropped by Bertha. It is a big green scale, about the size of a dinner plate but with a much sharper edge. Also, it's about as thick as a sheet of metal and probably tougher than one. Despite that, it must be very light, since it is dragonscale, and everypony knew that the lightest, toughest thing in the world was Mithril.

Followed by dragonscale.

You wonder how that thing got loose and ended up in your basement. In fact, you wonder how the heck Bertha managed to fit down there in the first place. Could the scale have ended up in your basement another way?

You take the item. Thank Grod that your levitation abilities aren't that affected, and it only takes you 34 tries to get it into your saddlebags.

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cornholio4 >> a gem which lights the entire room

You stand there, wishing hard that you could turn into a gem which can light the entire room. But soon you question the futility of this action. Were you to be able to do this, you would be in no position, no position at all, to save your little dragon assistant. You soon give up on this strange, esoteric command.

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cornholio4 >> find trap door in the floor

Wait. What's that?

You run over to a strange metal hoop in the floor that's attached to a bunch of planks. It's...

It's a trap door! Is it the way out?

You wrench it open with your bare hooves, only to come face to face with...

bare dirt.

Upon closer inspection you realise the trap door isn't actually attached to anything. It's literally just a trap door, lying on the soil, wishing it could hide some sort of escape tunnel. Alas, this is not to be the case.

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Codelyoko12lover >> With the last of your light source from your horn depleting, look inside some of the boxes for a lantern and hope for the best.

Oh Grot. Oh Grot, oh grot. Celestia and grot.

Your horn sparks ferociously, like one of those little sparkler thingies you light on festivals and holidays. It's not feeling too good. Rushing madly across the floor, you approach the boxes. Mmm. Boxes.

Celestia's secrets. All of them.

Nao.

You wants them secrets.

Although you realise there's some sort of time constraint here, your curiousity gets the better of you as you peek into one of the crates to see what sort of horrible sordid secrets Celestia has been hiding down here, away from prying eyes.

With a triumphant gesture, you hold aloft...

What the heck?

Dolls.

The crates. All of them, are filled with hundreds of Celesta Action Figures. All of them have the wings that move and the horn that lights up when you stroke her gently on the flank.

Weren't these recalled for some reason? You remember reading something about it long ago. Something about them being a hazard... you're not sure you should be touching them further.

Maybe later you'll brush some of them. But not now. Could these be any use?

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Codelyoko12lover >>

You stand there in the slowly dimming light, dreaming of yourself. Oh, you are SUCH a pretty pony. Yes. Pretty, pretty pony. Mmmm yes, Twilight, if only you were doubled... you'd do so many terrible horrible things to yourself, like give yourself organized tests and cut your library cleaning by half.

You almost get wet at the idea.

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>> Please Enter Command