Hey. My name's Diz. I'm a pony. I live in the world of Equestria. It's a land of ponies. With earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Along with four alicorns. At least, it used to be. Two years ago, a mystical being known as Discord, brought a new activity, known as Duel Monsters (or Yu-Gi-Oh, whichever you prefer) as a new way to settle disputes. It worked for about a year. Everyone handled everything in a good way. Disputes were handled without violence. Without disorganization. Without anypony getting hurt. As it turned out, all this was for Discords evil plan. You see, there was a rumor that a so called "human" was roaming Equestria, taking out ponies with the game somehow. At first, it seemed like a silly joke. Then, the papers came in. It said on headlines that ponies were going missing. Nopony knew what was going on. Then war struck. Hundreds of humans came out of nowhere with the same type of duel disks, cards, even strategies. It occurred to the four princesses that we were in fact being invaded by humans. We were at war for a year. We still are, only, we're dwindling in numbers. There seem to be a limitless amount of humans coming every day. Soon, we were outnumbered. Day after day we lost more ponies to these strange creatures. Now, we have stragglers looking for shelter or those that are sheltered barely surviving. This was due to the lack of food. There used to be the top five duelists that protected Equestria with their dueling techniques. Number 5 was Princess Cadence, Number 4 was Discord, Number 3 was Princess Luna, Number 2 was Princess Celestia, and the number 1 duelist was Princess Twilight Sparkle. At least, they used to be. Now it's just Discord. Since he brought the humans to invade Equestria, they've all been taken out by the best of the humans. See, they've got this thing called the Shadow Realm. It apparently sends the loser of a duel to its darkest areas. This is why Equestria is in disarray. Even the changelings, griffins, or even the zebras couldn't beat them. After eight months of fighting, the humans took out most the population. I live in a small underground facility that is sheltered from these creatures. There are survivors out there. I was determined to find out just how powerful this Discord was and defeat him once and for all. After all, I'm 19. I have a green coat. I have a black mane with a dark red tail. These ponies with different than normal ponies. Supposedly, these type of ponies like me should one day beat Discord and bring peace once again. This is my story of just how far I got.
This adventure all started back in my room when I was simply looking over my deck of cards. My type was the synchros. I don't know why, but they seemed to be the coolest of the bunch. I live underground in a safe location. Wasn't quite sure of the exact location though. Last I heard, we were under a town called Ponyville. There were several underground tunnels leading to the main base at one point or another. I live in tunnel number 13. As far as I was concerned, there were a total of 23 tunnels near mine. Anyway, there are thousands of cards known to us. Even rare cards known as the Xyz, which had only been seen a few times. So we had several strategies to use against them. Except me. I preferred to learn my opponents deck by dueling. So as I was looking at my deck, the sirens went off. The only reason those were there was to let us know if a human was to ever discover us. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. I gathered my cards, put them in my deck box, and left to see what the problem was. When I opened my door, everypony was running in either one direction or another.
"What's going on?" I asked.
That's when the speakers went off: "Attention. This is not a drill. Humans are attacking tunnel 12. All available guards please report to the entrances to the tunnel. All other ponies please evacuate to the nearest tunnel."
Oh crap!
That was all I could think as I ran to my friends' room. She's known as Apple Bloom. She and I had been friends for a few years now and we enjoyed dueling each other. She used a deck I know as the zombie deck. As it says, the deck focused on zombie cards. As far as I knew, her most powerful monster was Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon. But she had pretty good strategies. Anyway, as I ran to her room, I noticed that most ponies were heading towards the central command center. Soon, I reached her room and knocked. Immediately, she opened the door. She had seemed to pack quite a few things into a bag she had over her back.
"Come on! Let's get out of here!" She yelled.
She then ran off. I ran after her. At first I thought we were running towards the command center. But after she stopped in front of our old hideout, I realized that wasn't the case.
"Come on! Let's go!" She yelled over all the screaming.
See we built a tunnel that leads to the outside, if such an emergency like this came.
"Um. Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked.
"Of course. How else will we escape?"
I didn't have an answer for that.
"Fair point. Okay, let's go."
As we went into the secret cave, I heard screams off not too far away. I tried to turn back but Apple Bloom blocked my way back.
"It's too late. We can't do anything now."
"I have to try!" I exclaimed.
"No. They're most likely taken out already. Even if they weren't, what could we do? We'd just join them right after."
I sighed in defeat. I knew she was right.
"Fine. Let's go," I mumbled.
We continued to go deeper into the cave. It started curving upwards after a few feet. After about three minutes of walking and climbing, we found the exit. It was under a rock, as to not alert the humans any way in. Moving the rock wasn't very hard, considering there were two ponies pushing on it. Once it was moved to the side, we climbed out. The sight was as shocking as it was the first time I saw it. A barren wasteland with trees here and there, on the verge of dying completely. There were ruins of houses barely standing. Then, the most shocking sight was just at the entrance of our tunnel. Several humans were walking right in. I tried to walk there, but Apple Bloom stepped in front of me.
"As I've said before, it's too late to help them. We've got to get out of h-"
"I'm afraid that it's too late for that."
That voice came from behind me. When I turned to look behind myself to look, I saw a human ready to battle.
Crap! That was all that came to my mind at the time. I probably would've said worse out loud had it not been for the fact that he couldn't just kill me.
"You want to escape? You're going to have to duel me to do that."
My instincts kicked in.
"Apple Bloom. Stay back. I'll take care of this."
We both put our decks in our duel disks and shuffled them.
"Let's duel!" We both said.
Next chapter for the duel.
