Title:           Lerajie Pony (google it) (wip)
Author:          Mr_Sympathy
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/ZRyVp0Qg
First Edit:      Sunday 19th of October 2014 03:13:36 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Last edit on: Sunday 26th of October 2014 05:13:35 AM CDT

>You climb to the top of the spire, rips in your clothes, and minor cuts on your body.
>If whoever is up here didn't constantly try to pull impractical trick shots, you'd be long dead.
>But they do, and so you're not.
>You're quite alive.
>Which means you are able to see your shooter.
>It's a pony. A mare.
>She's got a dark blue mane in something approximating a pixie cut.
>Her eyes are purple, and vacant, but in more of a 'disinterested' way than a 'dumb' way.
>Her ears come to a point, and stick out more horizontally than you think they should.
>The gun that was shooting at you is...well, you're no gun expert, but it's definitely a rifle. It looks old; like she got it from one of the world wars or something. Of course, that might be cutting edge in Equestria for all you know. Either way, you can tell she takes care of it.
>But her most striking features include her pale green skin, and hooves ending in claws, which is how she's holding (and firing, you'd assume) that gun.
>Her skin is...it's like from the show.
>Like, the animation makes the ponies look like they're made of plastic, but that's an art-style issue; they actually *have* a coat of fur.
>This gunner just...has skin. Like, the show's artstyle would be accurate for her.
>She's wearing something that kind of resembles a purple sailor's suit with white piping - minus the hat.
>This thinking all occurs in the space of a few miliseconds, which is good, because she jumped back and took aim at you the moment you got up here.
>If you weren't too busy trying to not be killed, you would have noticed during the jump that her hooves have differing numbers of claws on them.
>One in the back has three, one in the front has five, and the other two have four.
>But you are busy trying not to die.
>And so in the interest of not dying, you speak.
"WHY are you shooting at me?" you ask in a stern, father-like voice.
>She pauses, and actually drops her aim, before regarding nothing in particular in thought.
 
>"You know, I'm not really sure. I just shoot at things that come in the castle." Her voice is pleasantly flat and even. It's like velvet, if velvet were too damn relaxed to give a crap about being in a burning building.
>"Now", she says, taking aim again, but at the floor rather than at you, "If you're not gonna try to dodge, I think I wanna ricochet one off the floor at you, so hold still for me. And stick your neck out a little more."
Juuuuuuuuust before she properly squeezes the trigger, you manage to incredulously ask.
"Could you please NOT shoot me?"
>Another loaded pause as she drops her aim.
>"Yeah, I guess so." That first word practically sounded like a shrug.
>Another pause. This time she's waiting on you. Looking, again, remarkable disinterested.
"Just like that?"
>"Yeah. I don't really have a reason to shoot you, and you asked nicely...so I guess I won't."
>Another fucking pause as the wind just blows, somehow sounding just as baffled as you are.
 
"Alright, then...
"Can you tell me why this gigantic castle just sprang up in Ponyville?"
>"You mean the castle we're in right now?"
"Y..yeah, this one."
>"Well, I know it's Dracroupula's castle, but I don't really know why it does anything it does."
"...Dracroupula? That's a...weird name."
>"Yeah, it..is." She says in a puzzled tone, the sheen of boredom suddenly falling away from her scale-like skin.
>"I feel like...he...used to have a different name or...something." The mare scratches her cute, little, blue hairdo with her cute, little claws as she thinks about this.
>Not that you find her cu-
>Nah, forget that. You're a grown-up. You can admit when you find a girl cute.
>And she's cute.
>If baffling and weird.
"Well, who is that guy?"
>"He's the final boss.
>"He's got like, a bunch of forms or something, and I'm pretty sure if you beat them all, everything goes away."
>Final boss?
>This is a video game?
>No, no, that's jumping to conclusions.
>It's probably some kind of Equestrian concept that has nothing to do with video games.
>Man, if only you had run into one of the ponies from Ponyville today so you could ask them.
>Instead of this place- Dracroupula's Castle- just...appearing the way it did in the middle of the night.
>With Twilight's castle just somehow incorporated into it.
"Wait, you said if I 'beat' this guy everything goes away. Like, the castle leaves and everything returns to the way it was?"
>"Uhhhh...I guess so? I'm not really around to see when that part happens.
>"But, I'm pretty sure the whole castle, and everything in it, gets sucked into the moon or something. So whatever was here before we were should come back."
"So, what does it mean to beat him? Do I gotta like, kill this guy?"
>"Yeah."
"Well that's a little heavy, don't you think? Killin' somebody?"
>"No. What do you mean?" she says, staring at you with beautiful, purple eyes that you only somehow just noticed.
"Well, you know, when you kill someone..." you can't believe you're explaining this.
...they die."
>"Right."
"They're gone."
>"Uh huh."
"Forever."
>"What? No, that isn't how it works."
The fuck?
"Well... how *does* it work then?"
>"They're gone until you reload the file. Or start a new game."
*mental spittake*
"What the- Is that really how it works for you?"
>"No."
>"Since I'm not a boss, I'll also respawn if you just leave the room and come back."
...Okay you have definitely ended up in some kind of video game somehow.
 
 
>She's just...gonna let you go through apparently.
>Would all the monsters have done that if you asked?
>Sure, they were aggressive to start with, but then so was she.
>Maybe you didn't have to kill those gross fish-guys.
>Not that you felt super-guilty about that anyway.
>They attacked you first and you just kind of flailed back in a panic.
>And, they just...burst into flames and fell through the floor.
>Damndest thing, really.
"Hey, umm..."
>She looks at you with this half-lidded gaze that's either boredom or inquisitiveness. You can't tell which.
"I think I might've...killed a pair of your friends earlier."
>"Okay."
>...
>The fuck.
"