Playing Cards

"Alright. Princess, I need you to make a public announcement." Bruce said.

"Well it will take some time for all my subjects to arrive here." Celestia said.

"No no.....they need to be here now! Pronto."

Celestia rolled her eyes, just barely out of the view of Bruce.

"Fine."

With a sigh, her horn glowed a golden yellow, and all ponies, either from Fillydelphia or Los Pegasus, were teleported within earshot of the princess. Thousands of ponies were crammed into the small town of Ponyville or the skies of Cloudsdale. Most of the space was taken up by one thing, the Blue Eyes White dragon. Everypony got used to it eventually, after they realized it wasn't going to eat them.

Celestia walked up to her balcony, and Bruce followed; the crowd went silent, and all eyes and wings were on the princess.

"My faithful subjects," Her voice rang across all of Equestria, with an even tone of authority. "For those of you who have not come here before, welcome to Ponyville and Cloudsdale. Now, as I'm sure many of you know some strange things have happened in the past few minutes. I am going to shed some light on the events that have brought you here today."

"YEEEAAAAH!"

Bruce looked up at the sky and saw a muscular pegasus flexing his arms.

Ah, good ol' Roid Rage. He kept his thoughts to himself however, as the princess was not amused.

"That dragon you see there, is known as a Blue Eyes White dragon. And this creature right next to me, is a human."

"SQUUEEEEE! I TOLD YOU BON BON! HAH!"

"If you are all done with you needless outbursts, I would like to finish. According to this human....Bruce, these monsters are from a card game. A human card game. Now he tells me the beasts are harmless, and are controlled by anypony who summons them with their respective card. They will not attack the towns in anyway, shape or form so have no fear."

The crowd let out an audible sigh of relief.

"However," Bruce started. "These cards are for entertainment purposes. And you should all enjoy them. Now that said, let me explain the rules."

Glad these are Yu-Gi-Oh cards not Pokemon cards. That would take hours to explain. He thought.

"Ok, anymore questions?" Bruce asked.

"Yes just one." The voice came from a small filly who was standing on another ponies back. "If the Yu-Gi-Oh monsters are summoned, and none of us knew how to summon them before, who summoned the dragon?"

"Thats a good point. Any pony know who did it?" He shouted.

"OHOHOH I do! Me me me me!" Pinkie Pie could be seen bouncing in the front row of the crowd.

"Pinkie, you summoned the dragon? How?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Well, when I'm bored I like to go peek in on other dimensions and stuff and one time I saw one with the same cards! I was only there for a few seconds but I heard them say 'I summon you! Blue Eyes White dragon!' So I tried that and it worked."

So there are other universes. The princess was right! If only I landed in the Lucky Star universe..... Bruce thought.

"Ah. No harm then. Has everypony got their cards?" All the ponies shook their heads.

"Good. These cards are going to be part of your lifestyle from now on as I've just told you. Go forth, and duel!"

The crowd stomped their hooves in applause and Bruce made two peace signs, and thrust his hands into the air. Celestia smiled.

"Thats all for now everypony. In about two seconds you will all be returned back to your hometowns. Farewell."

Celestia's horn turned into a bright gold once more, and a large majority of the ponies below disappeared.

"Bruce, considering your'e our only expert on this....game, would you mind teaching Twilight and her friends how to master it? It is the least you could do for them." Celestia said.

"Of course."

"Well well, looky here." Applejack said.

"Yes I'm back." Bruce sighed. "Look I'm sorry for what I did before and such. The princess said she spoke with you mares already so lets get this over with."

"I don't know about A.J, but those cards look sick!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Yes. Anyway, I explained the rules before and you all know them pretty well, but in order to win at this game; or any other game for that matter, you need skill. But first, I need to see where your skill levels stand. Mine is over....heh nine thousand."

"Whats the scale go up to?" Twilight said, un-phased by Bruce's vain attempt to lighten the mood.

"That was a joke. It goes up to eleven." Bruce laid out his deck on the floor, and gestured to the ponies to sit. They complied, some more willingly than others. But their eyes all grew wide when they saw the fantastical cards that covered most of the floor.

"Wow. Thats a pretty impressive collection you have. Its quite shiny too. Do you think I could use the dresses they're wearing?" Rarity asked.

"You mean the outfits on the card characters? Why not. People do that all the time where I come from."

"Really? And how do they look?" Rarity's eye for fashion was kicking in.

"Well they look nice. Some are even better then the picture on the card. Maybe even better then some of your dresses Rarity." He mused.

"Well! I don't see how a human can produce truly artistic and fashionable clothing, but-"

Spike turned to Rarity, along with everypony else and her tone immediately changed.

"I suppose I'll just have to better then I suppose." She blushed, and Bruce grinned.

What an adorable marshmallow.

"Alright, Twilight, lets say somepony summons a monster with four hundred attack points, and two hundred defense points in attack position. You have a monster with six hundred attack points and five hundred defense points. What do you do?"

"Play a magic card from your deck, and set at least one trap card. Then attack the enemy's monster. Simple."

"Excelent! I didn't doubt you for a second Twilight." Finally someone who's around my skill level. Bruce thought. "Fluttershy, what would you do when you first summon a monster?"

"Um...put it face down in defense mode?" She whispered.

"Good! Now what about the second monster you summon?" Bruce asked.

"Um....the same thing?"

"Ok..a bit odd but could work. What about later on in the game?"

"Put them all in defensive mode? Sorry I'm not very good at this..."

"Its alright Fluttershy...." Bruce sighed. "If it wasn't for your cuteness......OK! Everypony listen up. You can't be afraid to attack. Attacking is the only way you can win. That said, defense and magic cards and other tactics are just as effective. Understand?"

"Yah I got this. Easy peasy dragon quesy." Spike's confidence brought Bruce to smile.

"Ok Spike," Bruce turned his head to the rest of students. "I want you all to pay close attention, this is how you duel."

With speed that rivaled even Rainbow Dash, he swiped up his deck from the floor and reshuffled all the cards. Spike grabbed his deck from the from his bed and winked towards Rarity.

"I challenge you, lets duel!" Spike said.

Bruce could only smile devilishly. Everypony in the room knew he was hiding something, but Spike was far too blind with confidence.

They each drew six cards, and Bruce motioned to Spike to go first.

"Oh no its fine, after you." He said. Humans before dragons.

"HAH!" Bruce's hearty laugh sent an eerie chill through the room.

Spike's smile dropped.

"Heh, heheh, hehe, hahah, HAHAH!" Bruce had his face hidden behind his cards, but he quickly flipped them to show Spike and the others. "You see these six cards? One is an ordinary trap card....but these five cards, these are the five pieces of Exodia."

He placed the five holy cards on the ground and they light up. Then out of all the pieces, the mighty Exodia himself appeared. How he managed to fit inside the library was unbeknownst, especially to Twilight.

"When Exodia is summoned, its GAME OVER MAAAAAAN!"

Bruce pointed to Spike dramatically with one finger, and a ball of pure, unadulterated energy formed in Exodia's palms.

"WWOOOOOOHHHHOOOOOO!"

Exodia unleashed his limitless energy, and the beam ripped through the library walls. Spike took the full impact of the blast, and Rarity just stared. The monster returned back to its respective cards, and the smoke cleared. Spike had lost all eight thousand life points.

"Pretty impressive eh?" Bruce said, his face beaming with pride.

"My books!" Twilight said.

"Oh. Uh sorry about that. Heh you can uh...you can replace them right? Right?"

"I suggest you run mister." Applejack said.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Twilight screamed as her mane burst into flames.

"FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Bruce shouted at the top of his lungs, as he ran away from quite literally, flaming mare.

"That Exodia was pretty crazy, but nothing is crazier then Twilight." Spike lectured.

"What was that!?" Twilight's head whipped around and she gritted her teeth.

"Bruce wait up!" He shouted.