“Ugh… I’m so bored!” Sweetie Belle cried out, pacing about Carousel Boutique. Rarity and Sweetie Belle’s parents had gone to a high-class convention that day, leaving the blank flank filly with her ever-busy fashionista sister once again. Instead of apple pie, however, the sisters were separated by a triple-headed order. Hoity Toity, Sapphire Shores, and Fancy Pants all requested dresses in the double-digits from the unicorn with a passion for fashion. So that was where little Sweetie was; alone and bored, again.
All seemed lost for the sanity of the little filly when something caught her eye, the storage room door. Painted the same color of the walls, the door acted just as its enclosed items, out of sight and out of mind. Curious, Sweetie Belle made her way inside.
“A lot of dust in here,” she coughed, searching for a light switch, “probably nothing but old fabric Rarity got bored of,” finally, her little hooves found one. A dim light buzzed from the sickly-looking sole lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
“Aww,” Sweetie Belle was disheartened. She had at least hoped for some old records she could listen to, or even a book. But no, naught but faded fabric filled the room and frustrated the flustered filly. She let out a groan and began to return to her boredom when a box fell in front of her, spilling its contents all over the floor.
“Cards?” she asked, prodding the paper rectangles. She picked one up and examined (what she supposed was) the label, “‘Mare-Gi-Oh!’?” Sweetie Belle was puzzled, but quite interested no less. She took another look at the various cards scattered about and, to her surprise, found they were a rainbow of designs They were brown-black on one side, while the other side displayed a different picture for each card and some text. There were green cards and pink cards and yellow cards and orange cards, even a few purple and white cards. They were all different, and all very pretty. She packed them up and ran out to the clubhouse, this was definitely something Applebloom and Scootaloo would think was really, really cool!
“I think this is really, really, cool!” Scootaloo yelled, looking at a few of the cards, “Look at these powerful Creature cards, ‘Dark Unicorn’, or this one, ‘Blue-Eyes Sapphire Dragon’!” Applebloom poured herself over the green and pink cards, “Ah dunno Scootaloo, these Sorcery and Underhand cards got all kinds of effects. ‘Draw two cards’, ‘Destroy all Creatures’, heck, even some bring defeated Creatures back from the Crypt!” Sweetie Belle noticed a small booklet in the pile of cards. She picked it up.
“‘Mare-Gi-Oh! How to Play Booklet’,” Sweetie read aloud. The other two Crusaders gasped.
“We should become masters at this game!” Scootaloo yelled in joy. Applebloom nodded excitedly.
“We could be-“
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADER ‘MARE-GI-OH’ MASTERS! YAY!” the three yelled in unison. Applebloom took another look at the rules.
“Uh, apparently the game’s actually called ‘Skirmish Creatures’,”
For the next three hours they poured over the various rules in the tiny booklet and carefully constructed their respective decks. Finally, they were ready to duel.
“Uh, Sweetie Belle, one question,” Applebloom asked, straightening out her compact deck, “Why d’ya think Rarity had all these cards in her closet?” The unicorn filly shrugged.
“If I had a bit for all the times I never understood Rarity,” she paused, “I’d have my cutie mark in… having bits for all the times I never understood Rarity.” The two giggled, but were cut short by a sudden bang. Scootaloo had plopped her monstrosity of a deck on the clubhouse floor, a small flare of conquest glimmering in her eyes.
“Okay Crusaders, who wants to face me in a Skirmish first?” Sweetie Belle smiled and placed her modest deck across from the orange pegasus’ insult to all that was proper deck structure.
“I’ll face you Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle’s eyes narrowed as she drew her first five cards. Applebloom jumped into the air and screamed.
“It’s time to Ska-ska-ska-skskskska-SKIRMIIIIIISH!” Scootaloo grinned in a cocky manner.
“I don’t know Sweetie Belle, I put all the leftover powerhouse cards in this deck, it’s packed to the wings with powerful Creatures, manipulative Sorcery, and mysterious Underhands,” the unicorn shrugged.
“What happens, happens,” she grinned, then stuck out a hoof, “you can go first Scootaloo, you seem much more eager to get started,”
“All-RIGHT!” Scootaloo picked up her first five cards and grinned. Heh, ‘The Conjured Cranium’, ‘Dark Unicorn’, AND ‘Ruby-Eyes Charcoal Dragon’, all in the first hoof! Scootaloo dismissed her two Sorcery cards and drew her one card and frowned, Wait, I can’t conjure anything! No four-pentagram Creatures? Oh no… Scootaloo placed her two Sorcery and one Underhand cards face down and declared her turn over. The orange pegasus began to sweat a little as Sweetie Belle’s face turned from simple amusement to absolute joy.
“I’ll puuuut, this, and this, and this, aaaaallll face down,” Sweetie Belle grinned. One Set Creature card, three Sorcery/Underhand cards. Scootaloo’s precious eight-thousand Vitality Notches were safe, for now, “and I’ll end my turn!” Applebloom’s face was in absolute awe, a real-life Skirmish! Creatures, Sorcery… oh she couldn’t wait for her turn! Scootaloo inhaled slowly, drew her card, and immediately face-hoofed.
“You okay Scoots?” Applebloom asked.
“Yeah! Fine! I end my turn!” Scootaloo glared at the ‘Predator Arachnid’ she drew. Six pentagrams? But you only have 1600 battle points! That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard! Applebloom was perplexed by Scootaloo’s lack of conjuring any Creatures of any form, while Sweetie Belle looked at her newly-drawn card with a wide grin. She promptly Set it face down and ended her turn.
And so the Skirmish went. Scootaloo eventually got around to summoning a “Combat Steer”, but was beaten back by Sweetie Belle’s Underhand card “Immediate Disposal Blaster”, returning the Creature to the pegasus’s hand. Sweetie Belle, on the other hoof, had a full Sorcery/Underhand Area and four of the five Creature Areas occupied. Other than the aforementioned Steer, all of Scootaloo’s other Creatures fell prey to “Essence Swap”, a Sorcery card that enabled Sweetie Belle to execute her opponent’s Creature in place of one of her own to conjure a higher-pentagram Creature, leaving the four face-down Creature cards probable to be packed with powerhouse Battle and Withdraw points. Scootaloo was unable to summon anything, and all her Sorcery and Underhand cards were far-too situational to be played. Oddly enough, after the tenth turn, the Vitality Notches stayed untouched, eight-thousand to eight-thousand.
It was Sweetie Belle’s turn. She drew her card and grinned in delight.
“Finally!” she cried out. She placed the card face-up and smiled. Scootaloo leaned over, perplexed.
“‘Cannon Pony’?” she asked, eyebrow raised, “He’s only got 1400 Battle Points, why put him in attack mode?”
“And now, I Flip-Conjure my other four Creatures!” Sweetie Belle declared, flipping over all her face-down cards. ‘Ocean Pony Lord - Grand Trixus’, ‘Big Rabbit’, ‘Plated Dragon Stage 9’, and the titan of her deck, ‘Blue-Eyes Sapphire Dragon’. Scootaloo’s pupils shrunk, and Sweetie declared the fateful move.
“Now I attack you with all of them!” she grinned evilly and looked over to Applebloom who was tasked with keeping score.
“Well I’ll be a talkin’ horse, seems as if Scootaloo still has 400 Vitality Notches!,” the earth pony declared, gesturing towards her unorganized math. Scootaloo exhaled a small sigh of relief, maybe she would get a lucky ‘Black Rift’ and get another chan-
“Okay then. I execute one of my monsters to inflict 500 notches of Vitality damage to Scootaloo using my ‘Cannon Pony’’s effect!” Sweetie Belle grinned innocently, an absolute opposite of the horrified look the pegasus across her carried. Applebloom wrote out some final calculations and slammed the paper down.
“Aaaand that’s game!” she grinned, “Good Skirmish you two, but now it’s mah turn to beat the winner!” Scootaloo nudged her towering deck away and started filtering it, hopefully cutting enough cards out to be able to do make some useful moves in her next Skirmish. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle sat across from each other, eyes locked in a tense stare-down. They drew their five cards an-
“Aw, shoot,” Applebloom sighed, looking at her spilled cards. Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow.
“What’s wrong Applebloom?”
“Ah, can’t, pick, up, these, CARDS!” Applebloom tried unsuccessfully again and again to pick up the paper-thin cards with her hooves, but to no avail. The unicorn filly shook her five cards about.
“Just hold them like this, see?” Applebloom struggled for a bit, and finally held the five cards tentatively in her hooves. Grinning in the prospect of victory, she drew her fist card. Her cards promptly fell from her hooves again. She sighed and placed a Sorcery/Underhand card face-down and a Creature face-down.
“Your turn Sweetie Belle,”
The unicorn examined her cards for a moment and Conjured a high-power Creature, ‘Gemini Sprite’.
“I attack your face-down card with my Creature!” she declared, knowing that few early-game Creatures could stand an attack from her ‘Sprite’. Applebloom flipped her card over to reveal,
“A Sorcery card?” Sweetie Belle gawked, “Applebloom! Those belong in the row closest to you!” Applebloom blushed and put her ‘Beginning of the Game’ card in her Sorcery/Underhand area. Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, “I’m guessing that the other card you have is a Creature?” Applebloom nodded happily, “Well then I’ll attack that instead.”
Applebloom flipped her card over, revealing an equally-powerful Creature, ‘Gearmane the Iron Pony’. Sweetie Belle face-hoofed, “Why wouldn’t you just Conjure that? It’s powerful enough to take out most early-game cards!” Applebloom shrugged in response and flipped her card back face-down.
“Nonononono, it goes to the Crypt!” Sweetie Belle placed both Creatures in their respective players’ Crypts. Applebloom raised an eyebrow and drew a card. Again, five cards found themselves spilled all over the floor. Applebloom conjured three low-level Creatures and went about examining her Sorcery and Underhands. Sweetie Belle cried out in protest again.
“You can’t just summon a bunch of Creatures in one turn, you’re only allowed one Standard Conjure per turn!”
“What is it against the rules or somethin’?”
“Uh, yeah!”
“Screw the rules, Ah have apples!” Sweetie Belle’s face contorted to a mix of rage and absolute confusion when Applebloom placed a reasonably-sized Sweet Apple Acres brand apple in her Creature area.
“Applebloom! Did you even read any of the rules?” Sweetie Belle’s lower eyelid twitched. The earth pony shook her head.
“Ah just kinda like the pretty pictures,” she drew another card and showed it to Sweetie Belle.
“Look at this one! ‘Kuripony’! So cuuuute!” the unicorn filly had had enough.
“You’re insane! You can’t show me your cards for no reason! It’s against the rules!” Applebloom picked up a bucket
“Uh, apples,” she prodded the contents. Another face-hoof was had.
“I wonder where I put those things,” Rarity asked aloud, looking through her storage room, feeling slightly uncomfortable, “Ugh, too much dust,” she levitated fabric about, searching for her special little box.
“I thought we would have grown out of this by now, but I guess one does not simply forget about Mare-Gi-Oh. It’s a surprise that Twilight’s so into the game, I’d better buckle down,” the white unicorn inhaled deeply, “Now come Rarity, you’ve just finished the titan of all orders for the three biggest names in Pony fashion; a little card game is just something you need to ease the mind.” Rarity noticed a small piece of stark white paper, unfitting in such a dusty room. She levitated the paper and examined the cutely-written text.
“Grabbed your funny cards and went to the Clubhouse. Why exactly do you have these things? Thanks!
-Sweetie Belle”
Rarity sighed, her cards were most likely scattered to the winds in some attempt at Crusader nonsense. On her way out of the storage room, her hoof bumped a tiny red velvet box. Grinning, Rarity made her way out of the Boutique.
“So? Where’re your cards? Aren’t we havin’ a tournemant?” Rainbow Dash asked. The rest of their friends nodded in agreement. Rarity smiled softly.
“Oh I have my cards, Rainbow,” Rarity levitated the velvet case higher, “and yes, we’re having a tournemant, but with a few, new, entries.”
