The Royal Flush

The Royal Flush

By: Grasshopper Keller

*****

Prologue

If there was one way to fully describe how his life had been for the last few years, since the beginning of his middle school years, then Casino Truecard would have taken a lot of time to tell someone (even a complete stranger, as a last resort) how much he hated what went on in his past.

During the beginning months of his middle school years, long after being transferred from a school in Las Pegasus, he was picked on by bullies of all kinds. Taunts, jeers, laughs, nasty rumors, the whole works were there. But if that was not enough, he would always come home at the end of the day with scratches, bruises, swollen eyes, and the smallest drops of blood. But to add on to his suffering, his lunch money would be mugged from him by the same kids that he only wanted to befriend. But apparently, apathy was the normal attitude for those as weak as he was.

His parents were also having the worst time of it all in the seaport city of Manehattan. The father, Irving 'Spade' Truecard, was once a lawyer who had a bad record of seeing more criminals being released into the streets than being thrown in the cells, because of how corrupted the system was in the city at the time. And all while the mother, Samantha 'Honey' Truecard, was doing her best to help the homeless in the streets by feeding and clothing them in a shelter that she once ran. But as it turned out, some of the same people that were being released from the cells had already taken refuge in that same building. This had no doubt given the family a big reason to trust no one. And they had truly suffered on both of their ends with their careers going down. When the Assistant District Attorney had Irving sacked for incompetence at his job, they were all at a loss for how they were going to get by. But the sucker punch that really delivered the blow against the Truecard family was when the same homeless shelter had been burned to the ground by those miscreants.

If there was any indication at all that they were poor, then Casino was also having just as much of that suffering as they did. And nothing could have made the young man any angrier, unless the memories of Tirek High School could add up the stress level. It had always been known to be the breeding, slash, training grounds for all types of felons that were waiting to happen. And only so few people could escape from the clutches of that place, and without having to pay anything at all in advance. The same teenager was already well-taught in his school years before, earning A's on his report cards while the rest of his classmates would blackmail their teachers into giving them an 'A', lest they find a reason to use medical leave.

It had seemed that there was no hope for the Truecard family. With no money to spend, no friends to go to, and no jobs or a good school to go to, all that was handed to them was a Joker card.

A pathological, bloodthirsty, homicidal Joker card that even made the DC rendition look like a kiddie sideshow.

But just when everything seemed lost, hopeless and out of the grasps of the Truecard family.... a miracle had finally entered into their lives. In their minds, it was a Royal Flush. But what made it really stand out, apart from how it showed them a way out of their darkest hour.... was how it played out twofold.

The first part had been shown by how much the family members had reconnected themselves. And this was all thanks to another family that had been through the same plight as them: The Fairbanks family. An extensive family, second only to the Truecard's in numbers, were well known throughout all of the city of Manehattan. Like the Truecard's, they were just the best family to know outside of one's own. And this was especially true if the ones who knew them had been introduced to them back then as children. One of the members of the family, Coach Tyrone Fairbanks, was one of the people that could actually set the children straight from out of the streets.

And Casino, while troubled at best, was in desperate need of straightening up. After much bullying was done against him, the young boy (back then at the age of ten) had finally snapped. This resolution had resulted in many of his bullies being almost severely bruised. But it was through many errors through the hard trials with the coach that the progress, as far as he knew, was so doubled by his efforts. And when he was introduced to the matriarch of the clan, Granny Marmalade, he had been opened up to the real reason as to why his former path was a bad one. This had gone on throughout his junior year in his old school. And he became a much better person. Still flawed? Yes. But he was now capable of being nice to others. Why? Because he would get such a beating from Granny if he got into trouble.

The final part of the great hand being played by fate had been shown when Casino had heard that his three uncles had already bought a house for their troubled sibling, along with the promise of a new flat for him in the city of Canterlot. The only thing that was required of the heads of the house was to move to the new destination. This was because of how, after going through their references, they were able to find new jobs for them.

A part of Casino's mind was deeply saddened because of how much he was truly going to miss his best (albeit only) friends in Manehattan. But it was quickly overcome by his praise to some holy deity playing their cards to lift him and his family out of their metaphorical, if not literal, hole.

It took the Truecard family exactly a week to get to Canterlot City. The first three days were already spent in driving from Manehattan to get to their new home, with the end result of reaching the city limits on the third day. When the night had fallen from that day, the rest of the week was spent with the parents getting trained up for their new jobs as they resided in a hotel room while the son had been waiting patiently within that same room with them. When the sixth day had passed, the whole family had become ready to face the challenges that were to head their ways. And now, it was the seventh day, thus completing the week for them.

They now had a new home. Well, a home for the adults and a flat for the teen. But that's close enough.