Greg came to a stop in front of ‘Sweet Dreams’ and we got off, leaving him in the middle of the street. No one would be foolish enough to get close, and Bee had made it clear that the bus could still defend itself if necessary. Although, if it ate any Players, they would just get sucked into the Safe Zone, which was kind of awkward and not super effective as a defense mechanism, given that violence was banned inside the bus.

  “Do you think they’re in the dungeon?” I asked Bee.

  Before we could even get close enough to investigate the entrance to the furniture store turned dream dungeon, a large man walked out of the alleyway next to it. He froze when he saw the giant bus staring right at him with its buck-toothed smile and crazy foglight eyes.

  Like the other huge guys who’d guarded the store when we came here last time, he was wearing a t-shirt with a unicorn on it. However, this one was black and the unicorn on it was dark-grey with blue hair and had a twisted horn sprouting from its head. He had black-dyed hair, and it looked like he was wearing mascara, although it was smudged. His neck was buried under folds of flesh, and his belly was like a big meat balloon, though he carried his weight well, suggesting he had a decent amount of Strength.

  My Appraising Eye brought up his info.

  [Appraisal x ]

  Level 1 — ‘Clinton’ — Player

  “After he stole my waifu, I learned to embrace the darkness.”

  Class: Edgelord

  Main Attribute(s): Strength

  If a red flag grew a personality, four limbs, a head, and subsisted on a diet of twelve cheeseburger combo meals daily, then Clinton would be the final result. He’s what happens when a generation of chronically-online adults get way too invested in children’s shows and develop feelings for 2D characters.

  Prior to the GREAT GAME’s initialization, Clinton was on house arrest on a swatting sentence after the Madeville prison realized they didn’t have a cell big enough to fit him. The people at the MLP Society, once his sworn enemies, decided to take in their outcast brother and steer him back on the path of goodness. Apparently, the talking horses they worship have a mantra about friendship or something. I was told not to dig too deep into this, since the last guy before me killed himself after what he found drove him mad.

  Even though the MLP Society took it upon themselves to guide Clinton back to the light, he is in his self-professed ‘dark era’, whatever that means. People try to make friends with him, but he would rather pretend to be a lone wolf, even though he often cries alone when no one is looking.

  He’s scared of you and your bus, but he was told to wait for you to get here, and he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s a bitch.

  “Finally,” Clinton said, trying to make his voice sound deep and brooding. “I’ve been waiting for hours, dude.”

  “Take us to Chris and James,” I told him.

  Bee scowled at his t-shirt and the dark unicorn on it. I knew better than to ask what the fuck was going on there, since she’d made it pretty clear that this topic was off-limits. Fortunately, I really didn’t care. We had more important things to tend to than some weird horse-obsessed fan club.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Clinton led us into the alleyway while constantly glancing back over his shoulder at the bus watching us from the street.

  “What is that thing?” he asked, the fake bass to his voice suddenly forgotten.

  “It’s a Safe Zone,” I told him.

  Before he could respond, Bee asked, in a terrifying voice, “Why are you wearing a t-shirt of Queen Chrysalis?”

  Clinton stopped and looked at her as though this was the first time he’d noticed her. When he saw the dangerous look in her eyes, he took a couple steps back, pressing himself against the wall of the alley.

  “She’s uh…” he sputtered, before finding a bit of confidence and continuing, “she’s the only one who understands me and what I’m going through!”

  Bee aimed her right hand at him and stepped closer, but I quickly pulled her back.

  “Fucking hell, Bee! Don’t kill him over some dumb horse show!” I exclaimed.

  Clinton, realizing what danger he was in, suddenly took off running down the alleyway. He was a lot faster than he had any right to be.

  “Look what you did!” Bee hissed. “Now the changeling-lover is getting away!”

  “I have no idea what’s going on here,” Panda said, “but you need to calm down.”

  Bee shoved me back and then used her Moth Dash to shoot herself down the alley. Ghostly moth wings flapped behind her back as she skated along the ground, moving right through Clinton before he could even react.

  A Bee-shaped hole was carved through the big guy, and he immediately collapsed to the ground, instantly dead.

  “Ah shit…”

  I ran over to where Bee had come to a halt, stepping around Clinton’s gored body. Somehow, there wasn’t so much as a speck of blood on her.

  “What the fuck, Bee!” Panda exclaimed in a disappointed and scolding tone.

  “You guys don’t get it!” she retorted angrily. “He was a changeling! He feeds on love and turns it against you! Like a Skinstealer!”

  “Pretty sure he was just pretending to like an evil character to look cool,” I commented. “Didn’t you see his appraisal?”

  She paused. “No…”

  “You didn’t share it with her,” Panda told me.

  I looked down at Clinton’s body. “Woops.”

  Bee put a finger on the corpse and a wave of rot quickly spread from where she’d touched. “His body should be gone in a few minutes.”

  “What are we going to tell the others at the MLP Society?” Panda asked seriously.

  “We’ll just say he ran off,” I replied.

  Panda frowned but didn’t argue.

  “Where do you think he was taking us?” Bee asked.

  “No idea,” I replied, “but let me check from the rooftops and see if I can spot them.”

  I used my Blink ability to get up onto the three-story building next to us.

  [‘Blink’ x ]

  Ability

  This Ability used to be triggered by literally blinking, but people kept teleporting inside objects and killing themselves, so it was hotfixed.

  Not the teleporting inside objects part, the trigger on blinking part. You can still kill yourself with this Ability, but don’t worry, it’s by design now.

  Teleport to anywhere that you can see within 100 meters.

  Cooldown: 20 seconds

  I instantly skipped from the ground to the roof, seeing the layout of the streets and buildings ahead of me way more clearly now.

  Between the street behind me and the one we’d hit if we continued through the alleys were the backs of abandoned shops and apartment blocks. One of those back entrances led to a grassy courtyard where tents had been pitched, and I saw Chris and James there, surrounded by a lot of the big guys with unicorn shirts.

  I hopped down from the roof, landing on the ground next to Bee with a loud thud, cracking the asphalt with my heavy weight.

  “Found them,” I told her.

  She followed after me as I navigated through the branching alleyways to reach the courtyard. It was fenced in with metal and stone, but someone had just barged right through a part of it, leaving an open hole for anyone to walk through.

  Chris came over as soon as he spotted us, doing a double-take at how differently Bee now looked.

  “Are you two okay?” he asked. “We had to fight off some pretty big rats earlier.”

  “We’re fine,” I told him.

  One of the big unicorn guys came over. “Where’s Clinton?” he asked.

  “He ran away when he saw us,” Bee said.

  The big guy sighed. “I knew I couldn’t trust him with even a simple task…”

  “Guys, don’t you feel bad about this?” Panda asked.

  Bee and I both ignored him.

  “How did you know about the Great Game and all that?” Chris asked me.

  I tapped my head. “I’m from the future, remember?”

  “I really didn’t believe you until it happened,” he admitted. “It gave me a pretty awful Class though.”

  “Backstabber, right?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” he replied. “Anyway, where are you going next? Were you just stopping by to say hi?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I told him. “I’m looking for a guy called Otto.”

  “The Otter Mascot?” the big guy next to him asked. The unicorn on his white t-shirt had blue skin and rainbow-colored hair.

  “You know him, Cooper?” Chris asked him.

  “He said he was going to the lake to catch some big waves,” the big guy replied.

  “Then that’s where we’ll go next!” I exclaimed.

  “Good luck,” Chris told me and started to turn around.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

  “You’re all coming with us,” I said.

  “It’ll be dangerous for James, and I don’t want to leave him here,” Chris replied, looking like he might fight back if I tried to force him.

  “Don’t worry,” Bee told him. “We have a Safe Zone now.”

  “You’re Gambit?” Cooper asked me. “We saw the announcement but didn’t understand what it was for.”

  “I’ll show you,” I said with a grin.