The next day the girls prepared for a new gaming session, they liked the game so far but weren’t totally invested into it, well maybe some of them were.

Rainbow was more confident this time for some reason; the others just thought she was in a particularly good mood today so they shrug it off.

After getting some snacks to go without interruptions, they turned the game on, skipped the intro and loaded their save files.

“What do we have in today’s agenda Twilight?” Rarity asked.

“Well I did some more reading, and apparently we need to go to the area named Duel Grounds, there are four opponents on this area and one of them is a one time duel only. If we leave the Duel Grounds without dueling this person, we wouldn’t be able to add it to our list of duelists in the Free Duel menu because we missed our chance to battle him.” Twilight explained.

“So the plan is kick everypony’s butt in the Duel Grounds? Sounds rather easy if you ask me.” Rainbow said with smugness.

Applejack had a hunch that something wasn’t right, “and what do ya mean by that sugarcube? For all we know these fellas could be way stronger than us. Or do ya know something we don’t?” she asked skeptically.

“Nope, nothing at all.” Rainbow waved a hoof dismissively.

“Fer some reason Ah’ don’t believe ya.” Applejack gave Rainbow a suspicious stare.

“Come everypony let’s have fun! Don’t go all grumpy now!” Pinkie said.

“Alright, but Ah’m watching ya Rainbow.”

“It’s normal to watch someone better AJ, I get it.” Rainbow said smugly.

Twilight rolled her eyes and they went to play after that.

Their journey started well enough, in the Dueling Grounds they found a friend of their character, it was a girl who mentioned somepony named Jono and then challenged them to a duel. Everypony accepted and Rainbow cocky smile grew even more.

That’s when Twilight noticed something strange, “Rainbow why do you have 11 cards in your card chest?”

“W-well emm, you know the dude from last night gave them to me! I was surprised too.” She tried to lie but she was terrible at this.

“Interesting, because you know, in the manual says that you can only get ‘one’ and only ‘one’ card at a time for winning a duel.”

“That’s wrong then!”

“Oh really?” Twilight said playfully. “Girls how many cards do you have on your card chest?”

All of them answered 1; Rainbow knew her charade wasn’t working anymore so she gave up.

“Ok, ok I played some more last night. I just couldn’t help myself I needed a better deck…” She said sourly, “After seeing that strong monster in Pinkie’s deck I didn’t wanted to be less. I’m sorry for going forward without telling you guys.”

“Oh… it’s ok Rainbow, don’t be too harsh with yourself if you had fun playing then I’m happy for you.” Fluttershy said.

“She’s right darling, it’s just a game after all. Besides is not like you went too far ahead, you just got some more cards am I right?”

Rainbow nodded, “Yeah I got an awesome monster! But that’s not all, I figured something else too!”

“Oh? What did you found Rainbow?” Twilight asked with curiosity.

“I know what those star thingies you chose in the monsters do.”

“The guardian stars? Interesting, what are those for?”

“Yeah, look. Each of those has an advantage and a disadvantage, like if I have a sun monster and I attack with it to a moon monster, mine gets 500 points in that attack, if it were a mercury monster then that one gets 500 points. I figured that out after seeing that dude Simon beating some of my uncool monsters and getting the points.”

“I see, that will definitely help us get over stronger monsters. But who’s Simon?”

“That’s the name of the guy at the palace; his name appeared in Free Duel.”

“Alright, anything else you discovered Rainbow?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Well Ah’ve that say that ya did the right thing there Rainbow, good job.”

“Ok, enough mushy stuff, let’s get to the butt kicking!” Rainbow said with renewed spirits.

“You heard Dashie, let’s party!” Pinkie said throwing a hoof upwards for emphasis, the others did the same and the duels started.

BGM Egyptian Duel.

The duel against the girl went on rather quickly, her cards weren’t any better compared to Simon’s, during the duel Twilight made a list with the Guardian Stars and their interactions with one another, she then showed it to the girls so they could write it down too.

After their fast victory the girl looked rather down for losing but she was still smiling and even invited them to a festival for when they finished their business in there.

Going on, their next opponent was an old looking man with moustache and bland clothes that made Rarity hiss at him in disgust. He was talking about the festival being celebrated in town, but he’d rather play games instead and soon enough he asked for a duel.

After accepting the challenge, they noticed the duel wasn’t any harder than the one before and scored another quick victory, the rewards weren’t anything noteworthy just more monsters they already had.

“Wow, these guys suck even more than Simon.”

“I don’t share your choice of words Rainbow dear, but I’ve to agree, these don’t seem to be any more talented than our rude acquaintance in the palace.” Rarity said while getting more comfortable on her spot.

“We are still at the very start of the game, it’s probably normal for them to be so weak so we can adapt better to the game mechanics.”

They weren’t totally wrong with that statement and their new knowledge about the Guardian Stars did help them. But not everything is like it looks.

The next villager appeared it looked like a young boy, he asked them if they found any rare cards, Rainbow smiled at this. Then he said he himself got a good card and if they want it they had to beat him but the same applied to them if they lose.

As all of them got into the build deck menu, Fluttershy got cravings for something sweet so she went to fetch herself some cookies from downstairs; she forgot to bring them with her before the session started.

“I hope is a not a problem if I just watch for a bit.”

“Go ahead Fluttershy, we can wait.”

“Oh no Twilight, I couldn’t do that. Please continue without me for now, have fun.” Fluttershy said while slowly eating a cookie.

Twilight nodded with smile, “alright then, let’s continue.”

“I don’t think the guys that are left are any better, Flutters will catch up quickly.” Rainbow said confidently.

Oh boy they were in for a rude awakening on this one.

The duels began, and at first it didn’t seem all that different, their opponent responded with a defense monster like the previous two. But upon attacking they noticed the monster was way stronger than the ones from the other duelists.

Rainbow, Twilight and Pinkie got surprised when their monsters got defeated by a moon star attacker, Dragon Zombie (1600/0).

“Woah. That must be the rare card he was talking about; well it’ll be mine when I beat him up.” Rainbow stated.

“Emm, Rainbow? That thing has 1600 attack points, we don’t have anything even close to that and our sun monsters are too weak to overcome it with Star advantage.”

“Talk for yourself Twi, because when I get my Celtic Guardian (1400/1200) I’ll beat that rotten thing.”

Then Pinkie’s tail twitched, “Twitchy tail! Twitchy tail! Something is going to fall.”

The mares inspected their surroundings but nothing seemed out of place and nothing fell down during the five minutes wait they took.

“Weird…” Rainbow said getting a nod from her friends.

Since nothing happened they decided to continue playing, the three previous mares defended having nothing outcome the putrid dragon, Rarity was able to out it with her The Judgement Hand (1400/700) when coincidently she selected its sun star. Applejack wasn’t doing better than the rest but her opponent didn’t used Dragon Zombie against her yet.

That was when the cpu did something they didn’t expect, it lifted some cards and used them together, the cards combined forming a new monster even stronger than Dragon Zombie.

“What in tarnation?”

“What the hay? How did he do that?”

‘There’s also a strategy guide with some detailed information’ Twilight recalled that from when Konata gave them the game, “So this was what Konata meant by detailed information…”

They got pushed and pushed eventually losing due to not being able to do anything against that. In Rarity’s duel that didn’t happen, with some difficulty she was able to beat her opponent which didn’t use the combination technique against her. Applejack drew Dark Hole in a crucial moment wiping her opponent’s side even if she was defenseless she was able to overcome the next monsters earning her the victory.

“Uff, that a close one, Ah’ reckon tis’ young looking fella was a tough one.”

“That’s not fair, and he didn’t even use that thing against Rarity!” Rainbow complained with pouty face.

“A true gentlecolt knows when to let the lady win Rainbow dear.”

“So that was what was going to fall, oh well it was fun anyways and now we know a new thing! I can’t wait to see what kind of new party members we can get with this!” Pinkie wasn’t even bothered by losing.

“That’s true; we need to test this technique out. But let’s wait until Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy finish their duels.”

Even if Fluttershy was a bit scared she had no mayor problems against the young boy, he didn’t use Dragon Zombie nor did he combine any cards, this annoyed Dash even more and she was going to have her revenge on that guy.

While Fluttershy duel was going on Rarity and AJ went against the fourth villager a very old and bald man with lots of wrinkles, he didn’t look like he was too interested in dueling but to their surprise he challenged them. Unlike last time, Rarity did not last much, she didn’t draw The Judgement Hand and her opponent was ruthless. AJ lasted longer and almost got him (Cpu was at 1200 Lp), but Dragon Zombie appeared on the verge of her victory killing any hopes she had.

Now Fluttershy was the only one who didn’t lose yet, and her previous victory earned her the card Ancient Sorcerer (1000/1300). She was afraid; the fourth opponent had some monster with over 1000 points if she didn’t drew anything over that it was pretty much over.

The duel started and no monster with over 1000 points was in her hoof just a bunch of 700s and 800s alongside Unknown Warrior of Fiend (1000/500) and Sogen. She was about to give up but something happened, it was a weird experience but something in her mind told her that this wasn’t over.

BGM Judai’s Theme.

The others had raised eye brows at Fluttershy’s play, she set sogen without reading what the card actually does and passed, her opponent attacked her with Torike (1200/600) looking at her hand they didn’t see an out to it and Fluttershy didn’t even draw her stronger monster Shining Friendship (1300/1000) or any Saturn monster.

But with a strange determined expression very rarely seem on Fluttershy she summon Unknown Warrior and activated Sogen making her monster go up to 1500/1000. Even weirder was the fact that her opponent wasn’t able to outdo her, not matter the monster she was able to beat it with her boosted warrior, Dragon Zombie didn’t even appear. Finally she managed to beat the fourth opponent without having to learn the card combination technique and received Flame Ghost (1000/800) and B/3 stars.

After the duel was over the others had their jaws on the floor except for Pinkie who had a giant smile on her face.

“Did Fluttershy just surpass us?” Rainbow asked in disbelief.

“You were great Fluttershy! You went like ‘here, show me what you got!’ and then you pulled a combo!”

“I suppose you knew what Sogen does and you planned that right?” Twilight inquired.

“Umm… no, I don’t know what went into me I just had the feeling that everything would be alright if I played that card, I don’t know how to explain it.” Fluttershy replied.

“It’s ok darling, you outdid yourself in that performance. You have to be proud of yourself.”

“Rarity is right sugarcube. That was a great play, Ah’ couldn’t have done it better.”

“Now I think we better get some cards girls, let’s do 5 duels against Simon in Free mode and let’s try again shall we?” Twilight suggested.

“Wait what? Why are we on the main menu again?”

“When you lose in campaing mode you get thrown into the main menu losing all unsaved progress, Rainbow.”

“That blows…”

“Well in a certain way you’re right, but we didn’t gain any good cards from our matches, so we didn’t lose anything valuable. So, shall we give it another try?”

They looked at their clocks and nodded in agreement.

“Perfect, now let’s see if we can get a hold on that combination technique.”

The unexpected victory from Fluttershy encouraged them to check their spells to get any possible advantages that their decks could possibly have.

Fluttershy herself was a bit confused, ‘what was that voice? Why did it help me, and why I felt so safe after hearing it?’ were her thoughts.

Even with that in mind, she sighed and decided to wait for her friends so they could continue together in their little adventure.

Author's Note

Everypony lost, oh dear what should we do!? Oh wait Fluttershy won and Dash is salty.

I'd say that's some great progress.