Duelists of Canterlot High

Chapters

Prologue
Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 2) (by Night-Quill) Rewritten
Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 3/Final) (by Night-Quill)
Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 1) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)
Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 2) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)
Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 3/Final) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)
Duel #3: Fiery Makeover (Part 1) (By Brony-wan-kenobi)
Duel #3: Fiery Makeover (Part 2) (By Brony-wan-kenobi)
Duel #4: Test by Arrogant Flames (Part 1) (by Brony-wan-Kenobi)
Duel #4: Test by Arrogant Flames (Part 2, Final) (by Brony-wan-Kenobi)
Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 1) (by Night-Quill)

Prologue

“But you let your hatred for me infect your heart. Now you’ve been cleansed of it.” Twilight put her hand over Sunset’s on top of her deck. “And this time, they’ll be here to help you.”

My name is Sunset Shimmer. I am a student and duelist of Canterlot High School. But there are but a select few who know me for who and what I truly am. And all too many that I hurt, in so many ways, all for who and what I was. And I feel uncertain if I will every be able to shed myself of these past sins that defined me.

On the surface, I might as well be your average high school girl; I go in, go to class, I study, do homework, etcetera, just like my peers. But all that is just skin deep. I am not from around here, that is to say I’m not from out of town, another county, state, country, I am not even from this very existence I stand within. I am a pony. A unicorn. From a parallel dimension, from the land of Equestria.

What feels like it might as well have been an eternity, I was once the prized student of Princess Celestia, the immortal, wise and benevolent ruler of Equestria. And no doubt her greatest disappointment. Being the protégé to the undisputed leader was once what was most dear to me, a unicorn of humble beginnings, who also had the skill and aptitude to be something greater. Alas, there was someone else; someone better than me. Someone worthier. Someone destined. And I could not bear it. Which made her also worthier than I could ever be in my unchecked hubris.

I fled my home, crossing the limbo between worlds, to come here. A place where I could get away, start over, and not be undone by fate like I had been once. This new world of humans, with no magic or higher powers to get in my way. At least it’s what I thought at first. The human world itself does not hold magic of its own, but by my actions, I made it manifest through something endemic to it.

Duel Monsters.

It is a game, the most popular pastime of this world. Discovered and perfected by an eccentric artist as a recreation of purported dark ritualized combat practiced millennia ago by the ancient civilizations of this world. By my own inherent magic, I made it into a reality. And I used it to hurt others. And planned to hurt so many more, had I not been stopped by the very pony I’d resented for so long.

It took the words and insight of someone I’d deemed my enemy, Princess Twilight Sparkle, to finally shed myself of the darkness I’d wallowed in. Were I in her place now; I don’t know if I had been able to forgive me. For three years, I held Canterlot High under my thumb. I drove everyone to resent one another through a game that once brought people together. Despite all I did, the Princess found the heart to believe I could turn things around, and even left me the very deck she used to undo my wrongs.

I feel unworthy of Twilight’s kindness, and even now I wonder if I am deserving of the trust of my six new friends who would show me the way like the Princess did for them. Nonetheless, I have the chance now; to undo my sins of the past. I have decided to keep this diary as a reminder, to aid me in my journey…

“Hey, Sunset! You in there?!”

Sunset jerked out of her reverie, looking up from her diary to realize Pinkie Pie, the aptly named party-girl, leaning over her on her spot behind the Wondercolt statue.

“Hiii!” said Pinkie eagerly, waving her fingers down at Sunset with an innocent smile on her face, “What ‘cha doing sitting there all alone?”

Sunset saw that the four other equivalents to the Elements of Harmony were with Pinkie; Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash. In contrast to Pinkie’s exorbitant enthusiasm, they seemed far more reserved.

Rainbow Dash was the least enthused among the five, standing idly with her duel disk bearing hand to her hip. Applejack’s expression hinted at similar reservations, though she seemed more tactful as opposed to the rainbow-haired athlete, looking lax with both hands in her pockets. Fluttershy was smiling meekly, but Sunset felt it was far from genuine, given some of their past encounters. And Rarity, whom she’d gone as far as tainting with her own internal darkness to get at Twilight; it was perfectly understandable that she looked most dubious.

Sunset hugged her legs to her chest and looked away from the five glumly. That’s what she deserved, she figured.

“Come now,” came the whispery tone of Fluttershy, to which Sunset watched as the pink-haired animal caretaker extended a hand beside Pinkie.

Sunset looked up at the two girls, offering their hands to her, the one who hurt them and everyone else in the school so much in the past. Pursing her lips, Sunset slid her diary into her bag and reached out, Pinkie and Fluttershy helping her up on her feet.

Applejack walked up to them, a small smile on her lips, “Ah think…” she stopped for a moment, sighing softly as she reached out and wiped a thumb beside Sunset’s face, “Ah think Princess Twi wouldn’t approve if we didn’t hold true to giving ya a chance, right?”

Sunset looked at the farmer dumbstruck, feeling her other eye, to find her fingers stained in clear liquid. For a moment she’d felt like slinking or running away, to be out of sight and out of mind. But now she was frankly unsure of what to do. She felt as fresh tears down her eyes, wiping a sleeve against her face.

Sunset felt as Pinkie put a comforting arm around her shoulders. It did little to halt the surge of confusion and emotions running through her mind as she stood there among the five.

“M-maybe…” she hiccupped, “Maybe it’s best if you just leave me be.”

“I dunno…” said Rainbow Dash in a drawling manner, “I mean Princess Twilight did trust her deck to you…”

Sunset looked up at the athlete, eyes trained on her duel disk; specifically, the forty cards set into its holder, the very same Twilight had used to defeat her and bring an end to her misbegotten machinations.

“Maybe we should be a little more trusting too, wouldn’t you say?” asked the athlete, looking in Rarity’s direction.

The fashionista approached with crossed arms. Though seeming unsure, she complied with Rainbow’s question with a short nod. Sunset understood Rarity’s dilemma perfectly, what with having been used the way like she had been.

Sunset brought her hand down over her duel disk, over the deck the Princess of Friendship entrusted her with. She’d not used it, she’d dared not use it, not yet. For now, she would carry the Princess’ Harmony Spirits in her stead, and maybe one day when her sins were atoned, would she be worthy of them.

Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 2) (by Night-Quill) Rewritten

Author's Note

Alright, this is the final version of this duel. It took me ages because of the constant corners I wrote myself into!

Rainbow's deck is just TOO GOOD!

Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 2) (by Night-Quill) Rewritten

It came as no surprise that the declaration of Night Quill’s challenge had attracted quite the crowd come the end of the day, seeing how he would be dueling the third runner up of the Autumn Crown tournament. And with the pronounced, costly wager that the infamously confident athlete had not the wisdom to back down on.

Sunset sat with Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity, along with the Cutie Mark Crusaders along the bottom of the bleachers in the middle, both duelists taking a side parallel to the bleachers. If Sunset wasn’t mistaking, the both of them deliberately wanted the whole school’s attention. For Rainbow the reasons were obvious: She was Rainbow Dash, star athlete of Canterlot High and one of its top duelists to boot. Naturally she wouldn’t deny others the chance to see her go out and be ‘awesome’ as she often put it.

All around her and her friends duel disks switched on to spectator mode, herself complying as the touch screen of her black and red one lit up, awaiting the upcoming signal that was to trigger any minute now.

“Let’s hope Rainbow knows what she’s doin’” said Applejack, her own orange and green disk blaring to life, “Bronze, or silver or whatever she’s claimin’, especially with that wager she was so thickheaded to accept.”

“Why should she even comply to this stupid wager anyway?” asked Sunset Shimmer, the familiar pang of guilt reverberating through her mind, “We’re supposed to be past all that now.”

Pinkie Pie leaned next to Sunset, “Ooooh, someone hasn’t paid attention to theeese thiiings,” she sing-sang vaguely.

Sunset turned to Rarity in the hopes of an answer.

“It’s a matter of etiquette, darling,” said Rarity, “Of course, instead of it being pistols at dawn, Night Quill is asking Rainbow to temporarily relinquish her ability to duel.”

Sunset felt she was better left not understanding the foolishness of such a custom, instead looking over at the field as the two duelists approached one another, meeting in the middle of the field.

Rainbow Dash eyed the bowler hat wearing student with a wry smile of confidence, extending her hand, “Just to show I’ll honor our agreement, Quill.”

Night Quill took Rainbow’s hand, and promptly came to regret it as Rainbow squeezed tightly. Not hard enough to break or bruise anything, just enough to let him know she was not playing around.

She grinned as Night Quill rubbed his hand with an expression of discomfort, “Good. Maybe this will teach you to stay out of matters that don’t concern you, Dashie.”

Rainbow said nothing as the two turned around and assumed the adequate distance between one another. She watched as Night Quill activated his duel disk, a muted green like his vest and scarf, with black outlines. Rainbow followed suit, the two halves of the card tray sliding forward, combining, before sliding together along her arm with that strangely satisfying sound. Her screen blared to life as the auto-shuffler turned on, her cards rattling in their holder for a moment.

“Opponent detected.” said the synthesized voice through her duel disk, “Streaming data.”

A holographic image of Night Quill appeared over the device, “Duel mode set. Initiating.” The projection changed to the familiar split screen, her own image and field on the left, her opponent’s to the right with the grid of each other’s fields, “Commence duel?”

“You can bet on it,” said Rainbow, tapping the button with finality.

“Game start!”

-Rainbow Dash Life Points: 4000-

-Night Quill Life Points 4000-

The split screen flashed between her and Night Quill, the digital chime ringing as it stopped on Night Quill.

Turn 1: Night Quill

“Now let’s see here…” murmured Night Quill through the disks’ in-built communicator, “I draw.”

Night Quill looked over the cards fanned in his left hand and the one he just drew, “I start by setting one card,” a hologram of a facedown card materialized on his field, “Then activate the field spell ‘Geartown,’” a compartment at the front end of his duel disk’s tray slid out, placing his card into it, before he pushed it back into the tray.

The disks projected what looked like a small, industrial town rise within the soccer field. Around Night Quill and Rainbow Dash emerged a series of buildings incorporating intricate systems of gears and cogs that whirred to life.

“And from my hand I activate the spell ‘Ancient Gear Catapult:’ When I have no monsters in play, I can destroy one face-up card on my side of the field. So I’ll get rid of Geartown,” to which the town immediately began to crumble around them and sink back into the ground.

He just offed his own field spell the moment he played it? What’s his angle?

“After this I can special summon one Ancient Gear monster from my deck, ignoring any summoning conditions included,” he ran a finger across his disk’s touch screen, until the card of his choice slid out of his deck, “I summon my ‘Ancient Gear Golem’ in attack mode. (Level 8, 3000/3000)”

A large summoning portal opened before Night Quill, something big, and most definitely powerful slowly rising from the void, the first things to greet Rainbow Dash and the crowd being a single, ominous red glow from the emerging figure.

Rainbow looked on in sheer awe as from the portal emerged a towering antique looking humanoid robot. Composed of a faded brownish metal, the gaps showing off a series of intricate gearwork mechanisms. From within its head, which was shaped like the helm of a warrior of antiquity, through one of the eye holes, shone an ominous red light.

“Big robot!” cried Pinkie, pointing a perplexed finger at the gearworks automaton.

“And on his first turn,” added Applejack with a nod, visibly impressed.

“As a bonus; when Geartown is destroyed, it lets me special summon an Ancient Gear Monster from my hand, deck or graveyard,” said Night Quill with a smirk, “So in addition to my Golem, I’ll also summon ‘Ancient Gear Wyvern’ from my deck in attack mode. (Level 4, 1700/1200)”

The blue summoning portal opened: From within it emerged an antique mech in the shape of a two-legged dragon; a faded greenish brown in color with its exposed interiors also being composed of gearworks. A haunting yellow light shone from one of the gaps meant to be its eyes.

“When Ancient Gear Wyvern is summoned, I can add one Ancient Gear card from my deck to my hand,” his next choice slid out of his deck, “I pick ‘Ancient Gear Fusion’ to be added into my hand. But because of Wyvern’s effect I will not be able to set any more cards this turn. But I can still play spells, so I play ‘Ancient Gear Fortress’ to boot.”

The ground rumbled when a sandy brown, very antiquated looking tower began to rise behind Night Quill and his Golem and Wyvern, each facet adorned with a giant gear.

“I’ll end my turn there. Your move, Dashie,” Night Quill called with a determined look in his eyes.

“So, these are Ancient Gears, huh?” asked Applejack, eyeing her screen, “A 3000 attack and defense monster on the first turn and an extra to boot. Hmm, could be tough. But didn’t he just give ‘imself a mighty big liability?”

“That’s right,” added Rarity, “Rainbow Dash is most likely to send out her Dreadnought Dunker first chance she gets.”

“I’m not so sure,” Sunset replied, eyeing the towering Ancient Gear Golem warily, “He’s bound to be knowledgeable about Dash’s deck. What’s more; he has that Ancient Gear Fortress on the field too. I don’t think he’d risk such a big beatstick so carelessly…”

Turn 2: Rainbow Dash

“My move,” Rainbow drew her card, “I summon U.A. Midfielder in attack mode. (Level 4, 1200/1000)”

Emerging from the portal came Rainbow’s common starting monster, the white, green and orange neon armored soccer player that stood before her, arms crossed.

“I activate Midfielders ability; by returning him to my hand, I can special summon ‘U.A. Dreadnought Dunker!’ (Level 7, 2500/1800)”

Midfielder leapt back into the portal, followed by Rainbow’s primary offensive monster; the white and blue armored cybernetic basketball player leaping forth. He flexed his arms, grinning confidently, befitting his owner.

“Fitting; your monsters show off as much as you do,” chortled Night Quill.

Rainbow chuckled, “Hey, what’s not to look good while having fun?” she quipped before forcibly jerking a finger towards Ancient Gear Wyvern, “Dreadnought attacks Ancient Gear Wyvern!”

A shining blue ball of energy materialized in Dreadnought Dunker’s hands before rushing at the mechanical wyvern, dribbling at inhuman speeds before leaping into the air. He brought the ball up and over his head, ready to dunk it on top of the robot dragon.

“I play my facedown card; ‘Pulse Mines’!” Night Quill responded, pressing the trigger button.

Before Dreadnought Dunker could fling his orb, a series of spherical, violently crackling explosions covered Rainbow’s field, forcing him to fall back down, covering his face, along with Rainbow.

“What is that?!” called Fluttershy, the intensity of the simulation making some people in the audience hold up their hands protectively. Off the corner of her eye, she noticed how Pinkie’s cotton candy hair had somehow become even more frizzled, “How is that even possible?”

“Meh,” the party girl shrugged, “It’s always been very inconsistent…” she said flatly.

“Pulse Mines can only be activated as long as I control a machine-type monster on my side of the field; it forces your monsters to switch to defense position, thus negating your attack,” said Night Quill, “Also, any monster you summon for the remainder of this turn will be forced into defense position.”

Rainbow smirked, “Gotta admit; that was a nice opening hand on your part. Since I couldn’t deal damage, I couldn’t take out that golem of yours. But I’m not about to leave Dunker at the mercy of those things,” she slid a card out of her left hand, “I activate Dunker’s Ultra Athlete ability to return him to my hand and special summon Midfielder back. (Level 4, 1200/1000)”

Dreadnought Dunker, upon seeing the portal re-emerge behind him, performed a showy backwards somersault to dive back in, followed by the cybernetic soccer midfielder leaping out, sliding to a halt.

“At this point I play the quick-play spell ‘Inferno Reckless Summon!” Rainbow interjected, swiftly inserting the card into her duel disk, the image of the card sliding up onto the field, “I can activate this when I special summon a monster with 1500 or less attack points in attack mode while you also have a monster in attack mode. It lets me summon every copy of that summoned monster from my hand, deck and graveyard,” she elaborated, during which two cards slid out of her deck, “So I summon my other two Midfielders onto the field to join their teammate!”

A portal opened on both sides of Rainbow’s Midfielder. From each leapt out a matching duplicate of the soccer fighter, whom held up both hands for his newcomer teammates to receive a high-five from each of them.

“Though there is a catch,” Rainbow added, wincing slightly, though it was not in the least bit genuine, “It lets you special summon all copies of one monster on your side of the field as well. But I seem to recall you saying your Ancient Gear Golem has specific summoning conditions to fill…” she raised a daring brow.

Night Quill kept a neutral expression as a card slid out of his deck as well, “I special summon my second Ancient Gear Wyvern from my deck in attack mode,” at which a second mechanical wyvern emerged off the ground beside its duplicate, “And since I summoned another one, its effect lets me add an Ancient Gear card to my hand,” to which a card slid out from his deck again, flashing it as some form of trap card, “But, because of Pulse Mines’ effect, your Midfielders are switched to defense mode this turn.”

Rainbow’s assembled Midfielders all got down on a knee, bracing themselves to the ground.

“Maybe so, but it’s no problem for their other teammate;” she indicated one of the assembled soccer fighters, “I return one of my new Midfielders to special summon ‘U.A. Goalkeeper’ in defense mode. (Level 6, 1000/2800)”, to which one of her Midfielders leapt back through the portal, in return emerging Rainbow’s primary defender; a soccer goalie adorned in a full-body encompassing suit of predominately white armor with green glowing lines running through it. He took a hunched position beside the Midfielders.

“I place one card facedown, and it’s all yours, Quill,” she declared, pressing her right hand to her hip confidently.

“Alright, go Rainbow! Yaaay!” screamed Pinkie, swinging a pair of blue foam fingers she had inexplicably gotten out of nowhere.

“That was spectacular!” said Rarity eagerly, “Not only did she bring out all her Midfielders, now there’s no danger of Night Quill destroying them!”

“On top of that; since she still has two Midfielders out, she can switch ‘em both out at any point for a surprise beatin’!” added Applejack, no doubt her unwavering honesty overtaking the now much friendlier rivalry between her and the athlete.

Turn 3: Night Quill

Night Quill drew his card, “So you special summoned your deck’s main means of rotating your athletes and brought out the one monster that can protect them from being destroyed by attacks and effects. I’ll admit; a fine play on your part. Even if my Ancient Gear Golem attacks, any one of your monsters will survive regardless.”

Rainbow chuckled, “What can I say? I’m awesome.”

Night Quill frowned, “Nevertheless, time I put you in your place,” he slid a card into his disk, “I activate ‘Ancient Gear Fusion.’”

Rainbow swiftly brought a hand to her card tray, “Hold that though,” she blurted, her fingers over her remaining two Midfielders, “I activate my Midfielders’ abilities; sending them both back into my hand at the same time,” on cue, her soccer fighters retreated into the portals, “And in their place I bring back Dreadnought Dunker (Level 7, 2500/1800) and also special summon ‘U.A. Perfect Ace’ (Level 5, 1500/2500) in defense!”

Dreadnought Dunker somersaulted back onto the field, doing a needlessly dramatic landing on outstretched legs and one hand to the ground, while beside him emerged what looked to be a cybernetically armored baseball pitcher in white and dark teal armor, complete with a thick matching glove, and what looked like thrusters in the likeness of wings on his back and a visor helmet.

“I play Perfect Ace’s ability,” Rainbow declared, the new monster taking a stance like preparing for a pitch, “By discarding a card, I can negate the activation of a card or effect-” but as she moved to slide a card into her graveyard slot, her screen flashed red whilst Perfect Ace looked in his glove in confusion, “What?!”

Night Quill held an arm out the side, Ancient Gear Fusion gripped between his index and middle fingers, “Ancient Gear Fortress prevents you from activating effects in response to Ancient Gear cards and effects. Sorry, Dashie, but I’ve observed how you duel. I know what you’re capable of. So, without further delay…”

The instant the card’s image popped up, up above the fusion vortex opened. As it swirled, Ancient Gear Golem suddenly began to fall apart, armor plating being undone, unfurling its internalized systems of gears and cogs, all of the pieces being sucked in.

“Ancient Gear Fusion lets me perform a Fusion Summon using Ancient Gear Monsters in my hand and field. However, if Ancient Gear Golem is on my field, it also lets me take materials from my deck as well,” two cards slid out from his deck, which he seized and slid into his graveyard slot.

Silhouettes of two more Ancient Gear Golems appeared, which too quickly fell apart and were sucked in. Night Quill held out his arms as the vortex began to surge and crackle.

“Mechanical giants, bearing ancient souls; unite together and become a vessel of untapped power!”

Night Quill slammed his palms together, “Fusion Summon! Come forth! Level 9! ‘Ancient Gear Megaton Golem’! (3300/3300)”

Emerging from the portal came the largest monster Night Quill had summoned thus far. Its body was a much more pristine grey metal, its upper body identical in shape to Ancient Gear Golem, only in place of its normal two legs was a sextet of heavy, mechanical limbs, along with six arms matching those of Ancient Gear Golem’s. Three glowing dots emanated from within its helm of the head. A chorus of amazement permeated the soccer field as the students beheld Night Quill’s new monster descend with a muted boom.

“¡Ay-ay-ay! ¡Un robot aún más grande!” blurted Pinkie Pie, pointing at the new monster with eyes that looked like they would pop out of their holes.

“That… would be an apt way to put it, Pinkie,” concurred Rarity, raising a hand to her mouth in her amazement.

Rainbow looked at the new mechanical gestalt with a furrow, 3300 attack points for three golems? Even if he does attack I’ll barely feel it, what with my Goalkeeper, and those Wyverns can’t make a dent at all. Not to mention I have U.A. Penalty Box set, so I’m going to remove it from play anyway.

“I attack your U.A. Goalkeeper with Ancient Gear Megaton Golem!” Night Quill declared, pointing at the hunched goalie.

Ancient Gear Megaton Golem’s internal gears whirred to life as it trod towards the much smaller athletes, twisting its body to the side, its three right arms all outstretched for the strike.

“I activate Goalkeeper’s effect!” Rainbow called, on cue, a blue segmented forcefield materializing over the goalie.

The multi-limbed automaton swung all three fists in an arcing blow, shattering the forcefield.

“I activate-” but just when she pushed the trap trigger button, the facedown hologram on her field simply sparked, “Whu-?!”

“Ancient Gear Megaton Golem stops you from activating traps when it attacks until after the damage step. I told you Dashie, I’ve seen how you operate.”

Rainbow frowned, “You do know you still didn’t even destroy my monster, right?”

“Didn’t I?” asked Night Quill with a raised brow, to which he held out a hand and snapped his fingers.

The golem brought up its left, more claw-like arms and swung at Goalkeeper again in an upward scooping motion, sending him flying well off the field out of range from the holo-emitters.

“And then to get rid of your offense,” Night Quill added with a smirk.

The golem then reared up on its backmost legs and stomped down with a resounding boom, crushing Dreadnought Dunker under its sheer mass, billowing a cloud of virtual dust in its wake.

-Rainbow Dash Life Points: 3200-

“For every Ancient Gear Golem used in the fusion, Ancient Gear Megaton Golem can attack that many times each turn,” Night Quill elaborated, “Even if you were to fill your field back with your athletes, without Goalkeeper my golem will mow them down until there’s nothing left to defend you from the coup de grace.”

Rainbow grimaced, this time genuinely; the vision of Night Quill behind the large six-legged, six-armed golem and the two wyverns flanking it being positively sinister, added with the gear-embossed tower behind him. Rainbow then, oddly enough, grinned as she eyed her opponent, with the Ancient Gear Megaton Golem standing before him like the ultimate back-up pal, staring down at her ominously with the three red glowing dots that were its eyes.

“If I’d have known beforehand, I so would have sought you out during the Autumn Crown tournament!” she said, ecstatic, “Seriously, man! I feel friggin’ robbed over this!”

Night Quill stared back at her perplexed, before pursing his lips, “I end my turn.”

“Quite the spectacle, wouldn’t you say, girls?” Sunset and her friends looked up to see, to their surprise, Vice-principal Luna walk up to them along the bleachers, “May I?”

Fluttershy and Sunset graciously scooted to the side to let her seat herself between Sunset and Rarity.

“Vice-principal Luna? What brings you here?” asked Fluttershy, mirroring the rest of their surprise to see the secondary authority of Canterlot High among them.

The Vice-principal casually leaned her elbows against her knees, “Just enjoying a fine duel,” she chuckled with a smile that felt exceptionally sweet for the otherwise overly professional woman, “Those two are putting on a spectacular performance.”

“Were it not for the silly wager,” murmured Sunset.

“Hmm, I might have figured as such,” said Vice-principal Luna, shaking her head amusedly.

“You too, huh?” asked Sunset.

“Rainbow’s MyStable post said it all,” said Luna, looking over at Sunset, “I knew it would draw Night Quill’s ire.”

“Pardon me, Vice-principal Luna, but do you know the reason for this passive aggressiveness?” asked Rarity.

Luna looked over on the field as Ancient Gear Megaton Golem settled back down onto Night Quill's field, seeming to consider Rarity’s question thoroughly, “Night Quill has a… complicated relationship when it comes to his brother, Sharp Stroke. It’s had an adverse impact on him for a while now, hence what you see now.”

Turn 4: Rainbow Dash

Rainbow drew her card, “Seriously, why would you give up getting into the top sixteen of the Autumn Crown when pulling off stuff like this? You could have made top eight, if not even top four for sure!”

Night Quill frowned, “Why do you care?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes, “Because I know good skill when I see it. Even back then I was willing to admit that AJ over there,” she jerked a thumb towards the bleachers, “She was always my equal. I’d never say it in her face, especially back then, but it’s the truth. She could just as well have been in the finals. Rarity, Spitfire, Ember, you…”

Night Quill lowered his duel disk slightly, “Equal? Know what it means being ‘equal’? Nothing! You’re someone’s better, or their worse, whether you like it or not.”

Rainbow looked at her opponent with a shocked grimace, “That is some messed up thinking!”

“Not that you’d know; never having lived under someone else’s shadow, on top of the indignity of failure, Miss Star Athlete” Night Quill growled.

Rainbow reciprocated the bowler hat wearing student’s frown with a frustrated pout, before going over the sizable five cards she had in her hand so far; three being her saved Midfielders, while the other two were ‘Necro Gardna’ and ‘Hand Destruction’ that she just drew. She pursed her lips, not feeling eager to discard one of her few low-level monsters. On the other hand, leaving them out as fodder for night Quill’s Megaton Golem and Wyverns felt equally distasteful.

“I play the quick-play spell ‘Hand Destruction’,” Rainbow Declared, sliding the card into a slot, “With this, we both discard two cards, and draw twice.”

The two did as the card directed, both sliding two cards from their hands into the graveyard slots, to which their duel disks chimed in approval to draw. Rainbow looked at her two new cards; ‘Poinpoint Landing’ and ‘Back to the Front’.

“I next play the continuous spell ‘Pinpoint Landing,’” Rainbow slid her next card into a slot, “With this card in play, for the first time in each turn when I happen to special summon a monster from my hand, I can draw one card,” she then placed a hand over her tray, “I return Perfect Ace to my hand to special summon back one of my Midfielders in defense (1200/1000).”

On cue, Perfect Ace leapt into the summoning portal, Rainbow’s Midfielder dashing back onto the field, kneeling down vigilantly. To this her duel disk chimed once more, urging her to draw her new card. This should work nicely.

“I summon my second Midfielder back, also in defense,” she declared, the second copy of the cybernetically enhanced soccer player somersault out of the summoning portal, kneeling next to its kin.

“I then return that Midfielder back into my hand to bring back Perfect Ace in defense (1500/2500)” the second Midfielder skidded backwards into the portal, Perfect Ace hovering out with the thrusters donned on its back, assuming a hunch stance, one hand nestled into his glove, “I place one card facedown, and that’s all she wrote,” she quipped.

Turn 5: Night Quill

Night Quill drew, his hand being dauntingly full too with five cards. He seemed to be observing the field, keeping a rather well practiced poker face, not letting Rainbow read his expression.

“I place one card facedown,” he called, the card hologram materializing on his field, “I attack with Megaton Golem!”

Rainbow smirked, sliding a hand over the tray of her duel disk, “At this point I activate Midfielder’s ability; once during the opponent’s turn, I can return an Ultra Athlete other than him to my hand to special summon another one!”

“What point does that serve…? Unless one of the cards you drew was…” Night Quill muttered.

“I special summon, in defense mode, ‘U.A. Rival Rebounder’! (Level 6, 2200/2300)”, on Perfect Ace’s rocket propelled retreat, another, slightly less armored, and donning a different headgear, basketball player leapt out, landing into a kneeling position as he held his arms out in front protectively, “At this bit Pinpoint Landing’s effect activates,” to which she drew a card, “And when Rival Rebounder is special summoned during my opponent’s turn, he lets me special summon another Ultra Athlete from my hand, or the graveyard, so guess who’s back on the field, Quill?” she grinned daringly as her choice of card slid out from the graveyard.

“Don’t tell me…” muttered Night Quill, clearly sounding frustrated.

“That’s right; let’s welcome back U.A. Goalkeeper! (1000/2800)” Rainbow called out as the dark, purplish graveyard portal opened beside Rival Rebounder, the white armored soccer goalie emerging from within, whom Rebounder slapped firmly against the shoulder in welcome.

Night Quill grunted with frustration, as he would once again be forced to only destroying Rainbow’s monsters with little effect.

As her friends were scrutinizing events, Sunset noticed their vice-principal observing the duel with great intrigue, “Vice-principal Luna, you should know that Night Quill challenged Rainbow with an ante, that whosoever loses this match forfeits their deck to the victor for the rest of the term,” she said with urgency.

“Is that right?” she asked, glancing over in Night Quill’s direction of the duel.

“We’re past all this now, aren’t we?” Sunset said imploringly, “Can’t you call it off? We’re still on school property, under your jurisdiction. What if Night Quill’s animosity will just revert everything to the way before the Autumn Crown tournament?”

Luna closed her eyes contemplatively, “You are correct, Sunset,” she stated, looking over at Sunset, “If events don’t go favorably for Rainbow Dash, I will put an end to it.”

“Why not just now?” asked Sunset in confusion at the vice-principals strangely aloof demeanor.

“Night Quill lives under the impression that he needs to prove himself before others over a misguided sense of inferiority he’s struggling with,” she placed a hand on Sunset and Rarity’s shoulders in addressing the quintet, “This is already breaking student confidentiality, so I must ask that you keep this just between us.”

“You can trust us, Vice-principal Luna,” said Applejack with an earnest nod.

“I concur, our lips are very much sealed,” added Rarity for emphasis.

“I appreciate it,” said Luna, looking over at the duel in progress with everyone else, “You see, Night Quill himself applied for a position at Crystal Prep, after his brother had already graduated.”

“The international circuit duelist Sharp Stroke, right,” Sunset acknowledged.

“Back then an up-and-coming regional finalist,” Luna elaborated, “Night Quill’s dueling aptitude and drive were acceptable. It’s just that he has certain weaknesses, if going by grade level, to which he was decline enrollment. Hence why he’s here with us at CHS.”

“Ah always figured if you’re wealthy you can get into Crystal Prep no problem,” Applejack spoke with a hint of sourness.

“Most of the time,” Luna chuckled, “Sharp Stroke is one of few who made it based on merit alone: Their family comes from a humbler background, so he’s not just a pro-grade duelist, but an academic with high honors who went beyond what was expected of his standing. I’m not certain if any of you have had similar circumstances, but this reflected quite harshly on Night Quill’s credibility among family and peers.”

“Oh…” Sunset looked nowhere in particular, “I could sort of relate…”

“I guess he took to the…” she glanced at Sunset apologetically, “…Previous system like a fish to water where he could focus on proving his worth. I understand he’s not doing it out of any malice. He just wants to be acknowledged as something else other than just the inadequate sibling to an overachieving pro, who failed to live up to expectations.”

“Well, I could certainly understand wanting acknowledgement, but not like this,” said Rarity, sounding indignant.

“So then, why the forfeit of the Autumn Crown tournament when he’s clearly had the skill to make it?” asked Sunset.

“It’s psychological: When things don’t go in his favor or he fails in his efforts, it breaks him on the inside,” said Luna, to which she sighed, “I’ve been trying to help him understand that he does not need to compare to his brother and be recognized, but I haven’t been able to get through to him much.”

“So that’s why you’re not interrupting this,” Sunset said in realization.

Luna gave Sunset and approving look, “I believe perhaps dueling someone his equal might establish a connection other than family or faculty that would make him understand. Of course, this would require that Miss Rainbow Dash come out the victor.”

Night Quill looked over the cards in his hands, then his screen, his cool demeanor having given away slightly, as he was clearly frustrated over Rainbow’s seemingly unbreachable defenses.

“C’mon already,” called Rainbow, giving him a taunting wave, “Are you gonna attack or not?”

Night Quill appeared contemplative as he went over the field once more, “As you wish…” he smirked, “I attack Midfielder (DEF 1000) with one of my Ancient Gear Wyverns (1700/1200)!”

One of Night Quill’s wyverns revved back its segmented neck, launching its head forward, metallic jaws agape, followed by the uncanny sound akin to machinegun fire as Midfielder was pelted by a series of small explosions that obliterated him.

“I activate ‘U.A. Penalty Box’!” called Rainbow, to which four walls of wood with tall windows erupted around the wyvern, the top being blocked off by a row of energy beams. The contraption then sank underground, taking the mechanical dragon with it, “When your monster battles with an Ultra Athlete, this removes it from play until your second end phase!”

“At least I don’t need to worry about that anymore!” Night Quill retorted, “I now attack your Rival Rebounder (DEF 2300) with Megaton Golem (3300/3300)!”

Ancient Gear Megaton Golem’s internal gears revved to life once more as it swung down brutally with its left set of arms down on the kneeling basketball fighter. The strike swerved slightly sideways, missing its mark as the segmented forcefield that formed over its target shattered. The golem then brought around its right set of arms, obliterating Rival Rebounder with a resounding boom that no doubt would have left quite the sizeable crater if not for them being holograms.

“And lastly your Goalkeeper (DEF: 2800)!” Night Quill declared, snapping his fingers and pointing at the hunched goalie, which his golem subsequently smashed just as it had with Dreadnought Dunker previously with its frontmost legs, “Now you’re wide-open! I attack you directly with my second Ancient Gear Wyvern (1700/1200)!”

“I play my facedown card; ‘Return to the Front’!” Rainbow’ facedown revealed itself, the graveyard portal opening on her field from which emerged Rival Rebounder, kneeling defensively (DEF: 2300), “Yea, lucky for me your Wyverns don’t share the same trap negating effect as your golem. Return to the Front lets me special summon one monster from my graveyard in defense mode.”

“Oh for the love of-” Night Quill said with a grimace when a second graveyard portal opened beside Rival Rebounder.

“And since Rival Rebounder was special summoned on your turn again; he lets me special summon another Ultra Athlete from my graveyard; to which I choose my U.A. Dreadnought Dunker! (Level 7, 2500/1800)” from the portal in another flashy somersault leapt forth Rainbow’s basketball fighter, who proceeded to high-five its kneeling teammate before standing defiantly before the rearing wyvern.

Night Quill frowned, “I call off my attack,” his wyvern lowered its head, concealing the rotary gun nestled within its metallic jaws, “Since I now have two machine-types on my field, I can play from my hand ‘Iron Draw.’ This lets me draw two cards, but keeps me from special summoning more than once this turn,” his duel disk chimed, making his overall hand count six, “Next, I play the spell ‘Magical Stone Excavation;’ by discarding two cards, I can bring one spell card from my graveyard to my hand.

Rainbow glanced at her screen as his Ancient Gear Fusion was designated the target, the destructive spell sliding out of the graveyard slot.

“I then set one card facedown, and end my turn,” Night Quill declared with finality, his previously ebbing poker face having returned.

“Ah jus’ don’t like where this is goin’.” muttered Applejack, staring between the field and her duel disk’s screen intently.

“Two monsters and two face-down cards, not to mention him having that fusion card of his back,” added Rarity, inadvertently gripping at the folds of her skirt from the tension.

“But didn’t he send all three of his golems to the graveyard?” asked Fluttershy in a tensed whisper.

“For now, at least,” Sunset replied, eyeing Night Quill’s field suspiciously, “If he’s a fusion user like Flash and Twilight, he’s bound to have the means of bringing his materials back to him.”

Sunset glanced through her peripheral vision at Vice-principal Luna, who seemed to share the tenseness of the moment, her hands grasped together as she observed the spectacle before them.

Turn 6: Rainbow Dash

Rainbow drew her next card, to which one of Night Quill’s facedowns suddenly flipped up on the field.

“I activate the trap card ‘Jar of Avarice,’” he called over the communicator, “This lets me return five cards in my graveyard to my deck and draw once.”

Rainbow wasn’t certain whether or not she should have been relieved or remain concerned as she watched Night Quill’s disk eject five cards from its graveyard slot, which were promptly slid into the deck holder, initiating the auto-shuffler, after which he drew one card.

“I return Rival Rebounder to my hand, to bring Perfect Ace back out onto the field in attack mode, (Level 5 1500/2500)” on her field, Rival Rebounder leapt back into the portal, giving Dreadnought Dunker a smirking farewell, after which Perfect Ace came hovering onto the field with its thrusters, landing on its knees before assuming a slightly hunched pose mimicking a pitcher on the mound at the ready. Pinpoint Landing’s image flashed in response, followed by the familiar chime.

“Pinpoint Landing lets me draw once more,” which Rainbow did, making her overall hand-count six, giving her ample fodder for Perfect Ace’s effect, “Then I normal summon Midfielder (1200/1000) back out onto the field,” her opening monster slid out onto the field, “And I’ll return him immediately to special summon ‘U.A. Playmaker.’ (Level 8, 2600/2000)”

Backflipping back into the summoning portal, this time the Midfielder being replaced by a man in predominately white football armor with bright glowing orange grooves along its surfaces. He slammed an equally fiery glowing oval against his hand in threatening posture. Rainbow could see even at the distance how Night Quill’s lips became pursed.

“I attack Ancient Gear Wyvern (1700/1200) with Dreadnought Dunker!” Rainbow declared, jerking a finger towards the mechanical dragon.

Dreadnought Dunker leapt into the air as it had previously.

“At this point I activate Playmaker’s effect!” Rainbow announced, indicating the cybernetic linebacker, “By decreasing his attack points by 800 (2600 -> 1800), I can boost Dreadnought Dunker’s attack by the same amount (2500 -> 3300).

Playmaker tossed the fiery glowing football to Dreadnought Dunker, who in an impressive airborne flip snatched it and sent it torpedoing at Ancient Gear Wyvern, the impact resulting in a loud explosion that sent out a virtual dust cloud.

-Night Quill Life Points: 2400-

Finally left a mark! “And when Dreadnought Dunker inflicts battle damage, he lets me destroy one card on the field. And I’ve made the obvious choice!”

From the dust cloud the fiery glowing orb rebound and struck Ancient Gear Megaton Golem. With a resounding crash, the basketball fighter’s orange glowing sphere pierced through the robot’s chassis. It began to rattle and shake uncontrollably, its arms jerking awkwardly until its entire top section exploded into a spray of shrapnel and loosed gears, leaving only its legs standing, which then toppled into a heap of scrap, finally ending the mechanical giant.

“And here comes that coup de grace you mentioned earlier!” Rainbow shouted, pointing at Night Quill as Perfect Ace tensed in preparation.

Just then the heap of scrap metal that was Megaton Golem’s remains began to shiver, an ominous light beginning to emanate from the mess of virtual metal plates and gears. With a resounding crash, a large metallic fist erupted from atop the heap.

“When Ancient Gear Megaton Golem is removed from the field by an opponent’s card effect, it triggers its final effect,” Night Quill announced, indicating the shifting pile of scrap, “It lets me summon from my extra deck ‘Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem’, ignoring its summoning conditions!”

The scrap pile shifted and rumbled as the mass began to reshape itself. Arising, as each piece of faded metal and loosed gear found its place, a new gearworks automaton took the place of the demolished Megaton Golem. It seemed even heftier than the monster whose remains made up its body, once more bearing a resemblance to Ancient Gear Golem, though its metal assumed a sandy brown hue, and instead of walking on two legs, or six, its lower half was composed of an entirely new, quadruped body, like a centaur, with three tails composed of chains. In place of its left arm was instead a more pristine, vicious battering ram with three claws jutting out at the end. (Level 10, 4400/3400)

Pinkie Pie's jaw proceeded to drop to an almost unnatural width, “¡Dios mio! ¡Un robot que es mucho más grande!”

“At least your Reinish is coming along nicely, Pinkie,” Rarity complimented before looking back up at the aforementioned “robot that is much bigger”.

“So that’s his trump card?” asked Sunset, looking over the monster’s stats, the whopping 4400 attack points making it outclass most monsters she’d seen in Duel Monsters yet.

Rainbow smirked, “So that’s why you let me attack openly…” she mused aloud.

“Indeed, I realized trying to mow down your field with multiple attacks was proving futile, so I deliberately baited you with my Ancient Gear Wyvern so that you’d destroy Megaton Golem with Dreadnought Dunker. Now even with your Playmaker out, you won’t have enough time to build up your attack strength to outdo my Ultimate Golem,” Night Quill smirked, “Sorry, Dashie, but it looks like I’ll be the coveted bronze medalist until today is done.”

“Pity you couldn’t have earned it in the tournament,” Rainbow noted, “Seriously, you just gotta know that you’re good. Why would you just quit after losing a single duel. To Flash Sentry! It’s only Flash Sentry we’re talking about.”

Night Quill frowned again, “I can’t afford to lose,” he stated with strong finality, “Not to anyone. Not ever…”

Rainbow crossed her arms, as best as one would wearing a duel disk, at any rate, “I thought I had it bad during the…” she glanced towards the bleachers, the sight of Sunset making her immediately regret bringing up the past, “During the past system. Night Quill, the days of the Autumn Crowns back then are over: You’re not going to have authority in this school regardless if you beat me. Trust me, Principal Celestia offered the title to Sunset and Flash since Twilight up and vanished. And Sunset had just finished undoing that mess.”

Night Quill sighed, “I figured as much…”

“So that’s what this is? You want to be old Sunset point two? You want to make everyone turn against each other?!” Rainbow looked angrily at her opponent, “Do you know how much I lost over that crap trying to best AJ? She was my best friend, and is again, and I can’t be happier. I could have lost so much more if someone hadn’t reminded me of how much more dueling is…” she looked back at the bleachers, spotting the three CMC girls with her friends, specifically Scootaloo.

Night Quill grit his teeth, “Are you done with your turn?”

Rainbow looked at the angered Night Quill disapprovingly, before going back to her hand, “I return Playmaker into my hand to special summon Midfielder back onto the field in defense, (1200/1000)” she declared more glumly, as Playmaker leapt back once more into the summoning portal, followed by Midfielder vaulting onto the field, assuming a defensive kneel, “I set two cards face-down. There. Your move.”

Turn 7: Night Quill

Night Quill drew, “It’s time to put an end to this…” he muttered, “I set a card face-down,” he pointed a finger forcefully at Midfielder, “I attack your Midfielder with Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem!”

Rainbow furrowed her brow as the latest gearworks automaton trampled across the field at the kneeling Midfielder, bringing up its vicious battering ram towards him.

“Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem inflicts piercing damage, and like its cousins, you can’t activate spells or traps when it attacks! You’re finished, Dashie!” Night Quill proclaimed, grinning eagerly.

4400 attack points, can’t be stopped by traps, and my Midfielder has only 1000 defense to my 3200 life points…!

Pinkie Pie let out and overblown, wheezing gasp, her hair, and somehow, her foam fingers deflating against all logic.

“And Rainbow only has 3200 life points remaining!” Rarity fretted.

Fluttershy let out a squeaked whimper in response to everyone else’s dire commentary.

Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem’s battering ram arm connected with what sounded like an earth-shattering impact. The crowd of students watching let out a collective gasp, as another cloud of billowing virtual smoke arose come the resounding boom.

“It’s over!” Night Quill declared, holding up a fist in triumph, “It wouldn’t have had to come to this, but you just couldn’t have left well enough alone, Dashie. Though at the very least I trust you that you will honor the terms of our wager, just as you said.”

-Rainbow Dash Life Points: 3200-

Night Quill raised a perplexed brow as the dueling system hadn’t responded, “Huh? Is the system glitching?”

When the dust began to clear, Rainbow’s monsters revealed themselves, all three unscathed. The crowd let out a unanimous chorus of amazement and befuddlement, as Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem’s fist was being held back; not having quite reached its target.

“What?!” Night Quill blurted, “A trap?! But Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem prevents you from activating traps in battle! What did you…?!”

The clouds finally cleared, with Rainbow standing defiantly behind her monsters, her finger resting on her duel disk’s screen. The rainbow-haired athlete smirked with her trademark confidence as everyone’s attention turned to whatever was keeping the golem's attack from getting through:

An astral silhouette hovered just before Midfielder: A humanoid in red and blue thorny armor with long white hair and an expressionless red mask with glowing yellow eyes. Its arms, crossed protectively at its front, had stopped Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem’s attack from reaching. A card slid out from Rainbow Dash’s graveyard slot, which she took and slid into the banished compartment.

“Rainbow chose well,” Luna commented, “She banished ‘Necro Gardna’ (600/1300) from her graveyard to negate Night Quill’s attack,” Sunset and her friends’ stares did not go unnoticed by the vice-principal, to which she couldn’t help but chuckle mirthfully, “I have been around the dueling scene quite a bit.”

“Necro Gardna?!” Night Quill stood, perplexed, “But how did you…?! You put it in your graveyard using Hand Destruction…”

“Yea, just kinda forgot for a moment,” Rainbow chuckled sheepishly.

“I’ll admit; you certainly are worthy of the bronze medal…” said Night Quill in a strikingly humble manner.

Rainbow brought her hands to her hips, “You could have been too, if you hadn’t just quit so far into the tournament.”

Night Quill growled frustratedly, “I set one card facedown and end my turn…” he muttered, having three facedowns on his field.

“But before you do,” Rainbow interjected, “I use Midfielder’s effect to return Perfect Ace to my hand,” Perfect Ace once more hovered into the portal with its wing thrusters, “To special summon back Rival Rebounder in defense mode, (2200/2300)” after which the lighter armored basketball fighter emerged into its defensive kneel, “Since I special summoned a monster from my hand, Pinpoint Landing’s effect lets me draw a card.”

The purple graveyard portal appeared once more beside Midfielder, “And with Rival Rebounder, I can special summon an Ultra Athlete from my graveyard, so I’ll bring back Goalkeeper (1000/2800) in defense mode!” the armored soccer goalie emerge once more, making Rainbow’s field presence comprise of Dreadnought Dunker (3300/1800), Rival Rebounder (2200/2300), Midfielder (1200/1000) and Goalkeeper (1000/2800) against Night Quill’s only monster (4400/3400).

Just then the penalty box erupted back out of the ground, releasing the confined Ancient Gear Wyvern from its containment back onto Night Quill’s field (1700/1200)

Turn 8: Rainbow Dash

“Alright, my go,” Rainbow drew her card, “At this point I’ll return Midfielder to my hand to special summon back Playmaker (2600/2000),” she declared as Midfielder once more leapt into the portal, replaced by the cybernetic linebacker.

“I activate my face-down card; ‘Bottomless Trap Hole!” Night Quill called out, one of his three facedowns rising up.

Before Playmaker had the chance to touch the ground, the earth under his feet suddenly opened up into a pitfall with a swirling vortex of darkness within. The linebacker fell into the blackness within, after which the pitfall closed.

“Bottomless Trap Hole destroys a summoned monster with 1500 or more attack points and banishes it,” Night Quill explained, prompting Rainbow to slide Playmaker’s card into the banished compartment, “I know what you’re up to, Dashie; you’re trying to boost your Dreadnought Dunker high enough so that it could destroy my golem.”

Rainbow pouted, “Well, even if you did destroy Playmaker, I can still draw a card from the effect of Pinpoint Landing,” her duel disk chimed, allowing her to draw, having accrued a sizable seven cards in her hand, “I return Rival Rebounder to my hand to summon ‘U.A. Mighty Slugger’ in attack mode!”

Another one of Rainbow’s athletes took to the field, this time a black and silver armored baseball batter, red gauges lining the sides of his outfit, as he brandished a futuristic baseball bat with a red glowing hull.

“And I equip him with ‘U.A. Powered Jersey,” to which a white addition of armor appeared and tethered itself to Mighty Slugger, sending a surge of power through his body, causing his bat to change from a muted red to a radiant orange, “Powered Jersey increases an Ultra Athlete’s attack points by 1000, and if it destroys an opponent’s monster, it can attack a second time. And any battle damage you take from the equipped monster is doubled (2300 -> 3300).”

“I see, you’re concerned over my facedown cards, hence why you wasted your move bringing out that weaker Mighty Slugger,” Night Quill surmised, “Then let me alleviate your concerns. I activate my second facedown; ‘Limiter Removal!’”

A surge of electricity ran through the card’s image, which trailed down onto the field and flooded its way into Night Quill’s golem (4400 -> 8800) and wyvern (1700 -> 3400), “When Limiter Removal is activated, it doubles the attack power of all machine monsters on my side of the field, but at the end phase of this turn they are destroyed. I will not permit you to destroy Wyvern to get at my Golem.”

Rainbow smiled, not perturbed in the slightest, “You may have noticed I still have plenty of cards in my hand; one of them being ‘Guard Penalty,’” she elaborated, sliding said card into her disk, “This card lets me target one monster on your side of the and change it’s position, and lets me draw a card to boot.”

Night Quill watched as his Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem suddenly knelt down on its equine-like lower body (DEF: 3400), “Your monsters are still too weak to face up to either my golem or Wyvern, even if Limiter Removal only doubles attack points.”

“Wanna put that to the test?” Rainbow swung her arm forth, “I attack Ancient Gear Wyvern with Mighty Slugger!” the powered-up Mighty Slugger reared his bat, a glowing blue sphere appearing before him in the path of his swing.

“At this point I activate my trap card; ‘Battleguard Rage!’” one of Rainbow’s two facedowns lifted, “This boosts a warrior-monster’s attack by 1000 points, but instead of going to the graveyard, the monsters it destroys return to your hand!”

Mighty Slugger (3300 -> 4300) swung its bat, sending the sphere rocketing at Ancient Gear Wyvern, which exploded upon impact.

Night Quill grimaced in disbelief as the system feedback caused his left arm to jerk, causing him to teeter backwards is if by some invisible strike.

-Night Quill Life Points: 600-

“And then for your golem!” Rainbow continued with her assault, Might Slugger launching another sound-barrier breaking slug.

The second attack flew straight through the defending Ultimate Golem. Like its predecessor, it began to shake violently, but this time a series of smaller explosions racked its body internally, before falling into a heap of smoldering metal.

“Hoo-ey! Two for one!” hollered Applejack, standing up, “Great duelin’ out there Dash! You got ‘im now!”

The crowd sprung into uproarious cheers with Applejack, Pinkie cartwheeling along the front of the bleachers in cheer.

Night Quill grit his teeth as the crowd began to chant Rainbow’s name, “I’m not finished yet! I activate my final facedown; ‘Ancient Gear Reborn’!”

The ground before Night Quill burst forth as a large, forebodingly familiar metallic arm thrust forth, pushing against the ground, revealing itself as the previously thought destroyed Ancient Gear Megaton Golem, rising back on top of its six legs (3500/3300).

At the same time, the remains of Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem sprouted a similar pair of brownish hued arms that too braced the ground and pushed up, revealing a newly risen original Ancient Gear Golem (3000/3000).

“Whoa! What the hell?!” exclaimed Dash as two of the monsters she’d spent the entire duel painstakingly to try and avoid being hit by suddenly arose once again.

“Ancient Gear Reborn lets me special summon an Ancient Gear monster from the graveyard if I have no monsters on my field, and increases its attack points by 200. Also, when Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem is destroyed, it special summons the original Ancient Gear Golem from the graveyard, ignoring its summoning conditions,” Night Quill iterated, flanked by the two resurrected golems.

Pinkie stopped midway through a cartwheel, landing with her legs split apart front and back, but it seemed to not even inconvenience the party girl as she beheld what was happening on the field.

“Aw, come ooon…”

“I will not make that same mistake again. You may have shaved off most of my life points, but in terms of power I still outdo you. Your Powered Jersey equipped monster will have to return to your hand if you plan on keeping it, and without your Playmaker you can no longer power-up your monsters,” Night Quill said boastingly.

Even if she risks attacking with Dreadnought Dunker, I’ll still have 300 life points, and she knows if she destroys Megaton Golem, I’ll just summon another Ultimate Golem. In my hand I have Ancient Gear Fusion and Ancient Gear Workshop, with which I will just summon Ultimate Golem again regardless. I have plenty of fodder thanks to not summoning excess monsters because of that Dunker.

None of her remaining monsters can stand up to it. No matter what, I’ve won. And then I can move on to beat Flash Sentry, and then Sunset Shimmer, now that it’s proven she can be beat…

“Night Quill,” Rainbow called out, “Listen, I don’t know what it is between you and your brother that riles you up so bad. But I just wanted you to know, despite all the aggression, I had a lot of fun!”

Night Quill looked perplexingly at Rainbow Dash, “What? The duel is far from over! Even if you attack with Dunker, I’ll still have life points left. Or are you trying to appeal to my better nature to try and get out of our wager? News flash, Dashie; I don’t have one.”

Rainbow let out a scoffing chuckle, “Keep telling yourself that. Deep down, I bet you just want to enjoy this like everyone else, but there’s just something in you that’s stopping you and you just won’t let go.”

Sunset blinked as she saw what she though was a ghostly silhouette hovering beside Rainbow Dash. Even after rubbing her eyes, she saw as it persisted. The apparition was that of a light blue, fey-like woman, matching Rainbow’s skin tone, with a waving head of rainbow-colored hair, garbed only in a blue see-through veil, and had what looked to be wings on its back.

Pietas?! Sunset thought, looking down at her deck, when she realized the faint blue glow emanating from some of the cards. She promptly covered it with her hand and looked around flustered. To her surprise, no-one seemed to have noticed the fairy floating beside the star athlete.

“Sunset?” Rarity looked at her with concern, “Are you alright?”

Sunset looked back at the fashionista, her eyes darting between her and Pietas, who remained at Rainbow’s side still.

“Y-yea! Yea, I’m alright, just thought I heard something,” she said dismissively, noticing that her deck was still glowing softly.

“If this is what it gets you to listen, then I guess it’s what I gotta do,” sighed Rainbow, sliding a card from her hand and onto her duel disk, “I play the quick-play spell ‘Arrivalrivals.’”

Sunset watch intently as Pietas reached out into Rainbow’s hand, the two of them, herself also not noticing the Harmony Spirit beside her, in tandem placed a specific card into her duel disk. Sunset’s own duel disk’s screen showed the card Rainbow, and Pietas by extent, had played.

“This spell lets me conduct a normal summon during the battle-phase, to which I summon ‘Spell Striker’ from my hand,” she declared, taking another card from her hand and slapping it onto the tray.

Materializing onto the field was a tiny, humanoid adorned in simple blue armor, most notably a horned helmet and donning a red cape. In one hand it held onto a wand with a zigzagged tip (Level 3 600/200).

“What are you…?” Night Quill muttered.

“Spell Striker, with its effect, attacks you directly!” Rainbow declared, pointing straight at Night Quill.

Night Quill’s eyes widened upon seeing the card statistics on his duel disk, and seeing his current amount of life points, “No…”

The small Spell Striker ran forth on its stubby legs, seeming to go entirely unnoticed by the looming Ancient Gear Golems, towards Night Quill, who was looking on at the spectacle in utter disbelief. It bounced into the air, hovering just before the bowler-hat wearing duelist, and raised its wand. With a swing, it sent a jolt of electricity that sparked against the forcefield around him. Despite no feedback from the system, Night Quill, his expression retaining the look of shock and indignation, slumped to his knees.

-Night Quill Life Points: 0-

Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 3/Final) (by Night-Quill)

Rainbow casually slid her cards on her tray into a stack and inserted them back into the deck holder, to which her duel disk deactivated; the tray separating back into two parts and sliding to the sides of the main module. She approached Night Quill, still slouch over on his knees from the shock of the admittedly unexpected finish. His cards were still grasped in his left hand, his duel disk screen projecting a red glow, indicating his image as the loser.

He looked up at Rainbow, his eyes fixated on a mixture of shock and vacancy.

“So,” said Rainbow, pursing her lips looking down at her bested foe, “How are you feeling?”

Night Quill looked down on his still active duel disk, “I thought I had every possibility accounted for… Yet I still lost.”

“Not ‘how did I lose?’ I mean how are you feeling, right now?” Rainbow elaborated, bringing a hand to her waist.

Sighed, sounding weary, “Wishing I hadn’t made this challenge in the first place since I literally can’t just slink away under everyone’s notice,” Night Quill muttered, glumly sliding his cards off his disk into his hand and put them away into the deck holder, his duel disk folding up. He then ejected the entire deck before standing up, holding it out to Rainbow, looking away in resentment, “I admit defeat to my superior, and hold true to the wager. Just please take care of these things.”

Rainbow, with a solemn expression took the deck… Before promptly taking hold of Night Quill’s duel disk bearing arm and inserting the deck back into the holder.

Night Quill looked up at the rainbow-haired athlete in befuddlement, “But our wager, you beat me-”

“I wasn’t going to hold onto the wager from the first place,” Rainbow stated in earnest, “It’s not right.”

Night Quill sighed, pushing his hat deeper onto his head, “Frankly, you’d be doing me a favor. Guess I’ll just never be good enough…”

“You think that being held to the same pedestal as your brother is worth it?” came the voice of Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset approached Rainbow and Night Quill with the rest of their friends in tow. The vision of Harmony Spirit Pietas had vanished since the end of the duel when the hologram emitters powered down, though for now she would keep it to herself for the time being, uncertain as to what the reaction from Twilight’s deck might portend.

She stood before Night Quill, arms crossed disapprovingly. In retrospect, she might have come off as a tad bit intimidating, to which she brought her hands down to her hips, trying to appear more casual.

“Night Quill, we understand why you’re upset,” she took a deep breath, choosing her method of approach carefully, “We know you’re trying to achieve the same kind of recognition as Sharp Stroke by leaving a mark as the best duelist here. But do you think it’s worth it tearing the student body apart again after the past three years?”

He held onto his arm forlornly, “I wasn’t trying to do that. Not intentionally in the very least. At least believe me on that part,” a sigh escaped, “Granted, I probably would have overlooked it were I at the top.”

“Pardon me, Night Quill,” Applejack stepped forward, arms crossed, “But ya sound an awful lot like a Crystal Prepper, despite not even being accepted. If you don’t mind me askin’, but is this the kind of example your brother’s been settin’ on ya?”

Night Quill grimaced at the farmgirl’s question, “Ugh, no! My brother’s an elitist asshole who thinks he’s better than everyone just because he went to Crystal Prep.”

“So kind of what you’re bein’?” asked Applejack, raising an unamused brow at the vintage dressed student.

“I… guess you got me there Jackie- er, Applejack,” Night Quill groaned, ignoring the silent echo of his pet name from the farmgirl, “I’ve just been so angry at myself the day I was declined from attending Crystal Prep…”

Night Quill grit his teeth as the instructor’s ‘Proof of Powerlessness’ swept away Ancient Gear Knight and both his remaining Ancient Gear Soldiers, leaving him at the mercy of the Colossal Fighter (3400) standing over him. The sandy-brown humanoid brought up its hefty arm and viciously slammed it against the forcefield around him.

-Night Quill Life Points: 2200-

“I place two cards face down, and hand it over to you, Mr. Quill,” said the exam overseer, dressed in the Crystal Prep academy’s high-end uniform, complete with one of those highly advanced hard light duel disks, her expression belying an inherent air of superiority.

Night Quill drew his card, catching a glimpse at the faculty observing the examination duels up in the high-set terrace, giving them a perfect view of all the cubicles set up throughout the field of the inner-city football stadium. The entire spectacle felt needlessly grandiose, with much of the faculty and even alumni attending the entrance examination duels, including the inexplicably intimidating Principal Sombra, who looked upon the next batch of freshmen with a discerning, cold expression.

He felt a shudder as he felt the tall, black-haired man in the crimson collared suit catch a glimpse at him. With him was his ever-present assistant, Radiant Hope, as well as a sizable number of alumni, including one particular man. His skin was an ashen brown, with a plain, but neat head of slicked-back bronze hair and wore a khaki colored dress shirt with a pewter grey bolo tie. And he paid no attention to the duels in progress, instead furiously typing on a high-end tablet.

Typical Sharp Stroke; so absorbed into his work all the time even at social events that he couldn’t be bothered to address the time of day. Or the fact his own brother was down below doing his best to achieve what he had.

Night Quill frowned, turning back to his duel, his only cards on the field so far being Ancient Gear Fortress and a facedown, while his opponent had had a facedown since the start, along with the Colossal Fighter synchro monster staring down at him, and now the two additional facedowns. He slid the field spell compartment out of his personal duel disk’s tray, placed a card inside, and slapped it back in.

“I activate the field spell ‘Geartown,’” he declared, the cubicle being filled with a series of gear accented buildings that slowly revved to life, “And then I play the facedown I set using Ancient Gear Drill; ‘Heavy Storm!’”

A furious gust picked up, the only solace being that it was all just a holographic simulation. His opponent’s facedowns shattered into pixels, after which both Geartown and the tower representing Ancient Gear Fortress violently crumbled and evaporated around him.

“Heavy Storm destroys all spells and traps on both players’ fields. Since I destroyed Ancient Gear Fortress, I can special summon one Ancient Gear monster from my hand or graveyard: I choose my ‘Ancient Gear Wyvern’ in my graveyard (Level 4, 1700/1200),” to which the mechanical wyvern arose from the dark graveyard portal, “Its effect allows me to once again bring one Ancient Gear card from my deck to my hand,” he flashed the Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon that slid from his deck.

“Also, when Geartown is destroyed, it lets me special summon another Ancient Gear monster from my hand, deck or graveyard. So from my deck I will special summon ‘Ancient Gear Gadget,’ (Level 4, 500/2000)” a small, almost toy-like robot emerged onto his field, on its back a gear larger than its blocky body, “I sacrifice my Ancient Gear Gadget and Wyvern to tribute summon ‘Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon’ in attack mode! (Level 8, 3000/3000)”

Emerging from a larger portal, a fearsome roar reverberated as from within launched into the air a new mechanical terror. It was a machine in the shape of a large, winged dragon, composed of the familiar gearworks as all other Ancient Gear monsters. It had a long, segmented neck and tail, while its midsection was occupied by some complex machine that hummed with power, framed between two limbs bearing long sword blades. Glowing cables protruded from the front and back of its body, connected to the device within its chest. From the three holes on its head shone a single red ‘eye’ within each.

“I attack Colossal Fighter using Reactor Dragon!” Night Quill called out, pointing at the lumbering warrior with a rough, but restrained motion.

Reactor Dragon craned its segmented neck back, the wires in its body surging as its namesake reactor flared to life, beams of swirling light beginning to emanate from its “maw”.

“It’s at this point where I play the quick-play spell, Limiter Removal,” Night Quill interjected, sliding one of the last two cards in his hand into his disk, “This doubles the attack points of all machine monsters on my field!”

Reactor Dragon (ATK 6000) lunged forth, projecting from its maw a stream of intense, radiant energy that engulfed the top portion of Colossal Fighter (ATK 3400), which soon dispersed into pixels.

“If I may interject, Mr. Quill, that by using your spell, your only monster on the field will be destroyed at your end phase,” the overseer stated, seeming not at all phased as the loss of 2400 life points, being left with a sizable 5400 as per the advanced rulings.

“My battle phase has not ended,” Night Quill replied, motioning towards the gearworks dragon, “Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon’s effects are determined based on the monsters used to summon it; when a Gadget monster is used as a sacrifice, it gains the ability to attack twice in one battle phase. Ancient Gear Gadget constitutes as a member of both the Ancient Gear and Gadget archetypes, thus filling this requirement,” he pointed at the instructor defiantly, “Therefore I attack directly with Reactor Dragon’s second attack for game!”

Reactor Dragon unfurled its sheet metal wings wider as in the blink of an eye its coiling, segmented tail shot out at the overseer, sweeping just inches away from her head in a blur of metal, her life points quickly dropping down to zero. Upon rewinding its tail, the hologram of the large robotic dragon faded away, Night Quill’s duel disk flashing blue in note of his victory as he slid his cards back into his deck, the tray folding away.

“Well done, Mr. Quill,” said the instructor, her own disk resetting in an almost entirely automated manner as the cards sent to her graveyard slid back into the deck from inside the device, “With your completion of the entry duel, you are now permitted to exit the facilities and await your final results. Have a good day, and good luck.”

Night Quill nodded courteously, before doing an about face to head for the field exit, his path going straight below the observing faculty and alumni. He surreptitiously eyed upwards, seeing Principal Sombra scrutinizing him from up above with tented fingers. All the while Sharp Stroke hadn’t even taken a glance in his direction, his eyes still glued to his tablet, typing away incessantly.

A few weeks went by, during which Night Quill had carefully sorted through every mail delivery with scalpel-sharp focus. When at last a larger than average, light violet envelope arrived one day after getting back home. He’d wasted no time opening the envelope with a rush of excitement. But upon reading just the first few lines, his enthusiasm withered away, replaced by incredulity.

“Dear Mr. Night Quill

We regret to inform you, but you are not what we are seeking as a student of Crystal Prep Academy. While your overall academic merits show promise, your dueling capabilities, while effective in their straightforwardness and display of forward thinking (as noted by your designated overseer), are sorely lacking in variety and the finesse we expect of students wishing to enroll in our facility.

On behalf of all of us at the Crystal Prep Academy administration, we wish you all the best.”

He ignored the few other sheets included with the rejection letter, which inexplicably felt as heavy as a 50-pound dumbbell that dragged his arm down to his side. The sense of exhilaration all felt like it had dropped from his chest and pooled into a dull pain at the pit of his stomach, his mind drawing a blank on how to think and feel that very moment.

His sense of semi-conscious catatonia was interrupted at the blunt taps of fingers across a touchscreen as Sharp Stroke, immersed in his work as usual, walked into the kitchen. His eyes did not leave his screen, save for the split second to open the fridge to extract a can of cola, never paying a mind to Night Quill in the slightest.

Annoyed, as he often was, at his brother’s near machine-like demeanor when it came to his near endless working cycle, decided to try and reach out to Sharp Stroke, “I was rejected,” he said simply, watching as the ashen brown man popped the can against the sink counter.

Sharp Stroke amazingly took the moment to look away from his screen as his took a long sip, his face amazingly flinching as the fizz irritated the inside of his mouth. He looked up at Night Quill, his face blunt, nearly expressionless, the only indicator of acknowledgement being the direction of his pupils.

“What?” he asked absently.

Night Quill groaned exasperatedly, jerking the papers in his hand in Sharp Stroke’s direction, “I was rejected from Crystal Prep,” he growled, his brother’s expression remaining unchanged, “For ‘lacking variety and finesse’ and being too ‘direct’ when I focused on taking down my overseer as quickly as possible!”

Sharp Stroke looked at the drooping document with a wry expression, “You should have used extra deck monsters,” he stated in a tone implying objectivity, “Or a better deck overall.”

Night Quill grimaced, “I don’t have any extra deck monsters to use since you’re the one who got all the best cards.”

Sharp Stroke looked back at his screen, typing something awkwardly with a finger as he held onto his soda can, “Oh, I discarded my old deck ages ago.”

“Wait, what?!” Night Quill snapped, “If you’d told me I could have taken your Ancient Gears and added them to mine!” he slammed the letter onto the kitchen counter, “Seriously, I asked and you couldn’t be bothered to give me any pointers or tips or even loan me a few cards for the entrance exam!”

Sharp Stroke did not look up from his screen, “I was busy,” he muttered nonchalantly.

Night Quill crossed his arms, rolling his eyes furtively, “Yes, I can see that even now, twenty-four seven if I recall,” he remarked, “You were there, not watching, as expected, but you couldn’t even put in a good word for me for Principal Sombra or any of the attending faculty?!”

Sharp Stroke drank the last of his soda before idly placing the empty can down, retaining the use of his full five fingers against the screen of his tablet, “I told Sombra you’ve been using that same deck since you were a kid when he asked. I don’t remember the details,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?!” Night Quill asked incredulously, “You couldn’t even have the decency to help your own brother get enrolled so I could have a chance to make it in the big leagues?!”

“On a cursory evaluation; the odds of you achieving the same status is minimal to nonexistent at most,” Sharp Stroke remarked flatly, “Why you’re still using something as ironically antiquated as that deck of yours eludes me.”

“Because you taught me to!” Night Quill retorted, “Hell, we were a team once before your entry to Crystal Prep! I wanted to keep that memory alive and honor our duels of the past by updating and maintaining my old deck!”

“Sentimentality isn’t going to win you any duels,” Sharp Stroke droned, “To be honest; you wouldn’t have made it in Crystal Prep to begin with.”

Night Quill looked at his brother, his mouth agape at his brother’s lack of tact whatsoever, “How could you say that?!” he slammed a palm against his chest in indignation, “I’m your brother, Sharp Stroke!”

“Hmm, I’m just saying it like it is, Night,” Sharp Stroke continued to drone, pursing his lips at something on the screen, followed by the clear indication of multiple backspaces, “You don’t make it in Duel Monsters by being sentimental or idealistic.”

Night Quill gawked at the figurative robot of a man meant to be his older sibling, who idly hobbled past, his attention diverted entirely towards the tablet in his hand. He was left alone in the kitchen, just him, the empty can of soda, and the letter of rejection, and the hollow, unabashed implications that he was a failure.

A failure.

His hands clenched into fists, trembling at the slowly seething, burning anger. He snatched the soda can and forcefully chucked it against the wall, leaving just the slightest hint of a dent in the wallpaper, followed by resounding clattering as it bounced and rolled on the floor. With an enraged grunt, he took the letter and ripped it in half. And again. And again, before slamming the pieces on the floor. Then, without thinking, he blindly threw a punch, followed by a roar of pain as it connected with the wall. He cradled his pained hand, with that one word repeating in his mind to accompany the potentially broken knuckles.

A failure.

“Wow…” exclaimed, of all people, Pinkie Pie, her eye twitching in her expression of bamboozlement.

“Good gravy,” added Applejack, no doubt her own rapport with her siblings making it hard for the middle Apple child to believe such direct, intentional or not, disregard at someone’s family.

“I think we get the picture,” Rainbow Dash stated, giving an understanding nod to her defeated adversary, “So… sorry about the MyStable post,” she scratched her head awkwardly with a sheepish grin on her cerulean face.

Sunset Shimmer placed a hand on the downtrodden Night Quills shoulder, “I understand your anger, Night Quill. I know how it feels like you were insignificant, not good enough in the eyes of others. But this past month, I’ve learned that recognition and glory at the cost of everyone else around you will not make things better. Not for you, not for anyone. You just end up alone to stew in the anger, where you’ll never escape it,” she smiled warmly, “It took getting the crap kicked out of me by someone much wiser than I could have ever hoped to be to realize it, and I am most thankful for her.”

Night Quill looked up at Sunset. She was not quite certain, but she thought she saw a previously missing glint in the ashen grey boy’s azure eyes, tinged with the unmistakable sense of regret.

“And besides,” Rainbow came up to him, placing a friendly arm around his shoulder whilst tapping a fist against his chest, “If you had gone to Crystal Prep, you think you would have turned out any better as a person than your brother?”

Night Quill looked taken aback by the athlete’s forwardness, “I… I guess I wouldn’t have,” he admitted, pursing his lips in contemplation.

“So how ‘bout it, Quill?” Rainbow added, “Next time let’s leave the wagers out and just have a blast like the game was always intended?”

He looked at Rainbow with a wry smile, “Are you challenging me to a rematch so soon?”

Rainbow grinned, “Why not have a go right now?”

Night Quill rolled his eyes, clearly humored more than anything, “Gonna have to take a rain check on that, Dashie. Right now, I think I should probably take some time and rethink what I’ve been doing wrong for quite a while,” he jerked a finger at Rainbow, “But I will hold you to it!”

“Oh, and one more thing;” Rainbow interjected, letting go of Night Quill, “No more giving up, especially in a tournament and most importantly if I’m in it,” she emphasized with a series of pokes to his chest, making him grimace slightly, particularly the one emphasizing the word “I’m”.

Night Quill winced slightly at the definite bruising, “I hereby pledge on my honor as someone who got his ass whooped by the bronze medalist, I will not run away in the face of defeat,” he declared, holding a hand to his heart and another to his side at an upward angle.

“That sounds mighty fine to me,” chuckled Applejack, “Seein’ ya take a swing at Dash makes me wanna take a swing at ya.”

“Um, when he’s ready and willing, right?” asked Fluttershy on Night Quill’s behest.

“But above all,” Sunset stepped in, “Don’t let anger control you again. Don’t listen to your brother, and just be the best you can be as a person. Alright?”

“I’ll remember that, Sunset Shimmer,” said Night Quill with a tip of his hat, “Also I just want to say that I’m sorry for yesterday. I guess it took me learning the same lesson like you did.”

Sunset chuckled in response, “No nickname for me?”

Night Quill inhaled through his teeth, “Uh, yea… No offence, but you kinda terrified me back then…”

Sunset rolled her eyes, “Point taken. No need for that now though.”

“Duly noted,” chuckled Night Quill, after which he noticed something in the distance, “Listen, there’s some things I really need to take care of. Thanks, Sunset. And you, Dashie. I promise, we’ll be having that rematch soon. As friends?”

Rainbow gave their new acquaintance a thumbs-up in response. Night Quill turned to leave, when he suddenly made an about face, “Oh. The macarons were great, by the way!” he beamed before heading off, unaware of the impossible smile growing on Pinkie’s features.

“Mission accomplished!” Pinkie declared, pulling the two closest people, Applejack and Rarity, into a hug.

As Sunset chuckled at Pinkie’s outburst, she noticed as Night Quill walked past Vice-principal Luna, he stopped to share a conversation with her. She watched as the blue-haired woman crossed her arms, seeming to smile wryly at the student before nodding in approval. The two raised a hand in goodbye before Night Quill left proper, with Vice-principal Luna heading back towards the school building.

The next day, in between classes, the corridors of Canterlot High were once again bustling as students went about between classes or to their lockers.

Rainbow Dash groaned exasperatedly as she walked along beside Sunset and Fluttershy, “Why do we need to know what X and Y on some graph equals?! It’s not like everyone’s out to be a rocket scientist!”

Sunset Shimmer traded looks with Fluttershy, the two of them giggling among one another at their friend’s remark.

“So, have you been following the aftermath of yesterday?” asked Fluttershy, fishing out her smartphone, “Rainbow’s duel with Night Quill has been the talk of the school.”

Rainbow smirked proudly, “As if there’s any doubt,” to which her expression softened, becoming much humbler, “But I think the important thing is that Quill can join the rest of us and just duel for the sake of a good match.”

“It was very brave of you to take him on just to help him, despite the whole deck forfeiting wager and whatnot,” said Sunset, the warm sense of satisfaction over Princess Twilight’s efforts being upheld.

Of course, since Rainbow Dash’s victory, Sunset had spent the better part of last night contemplating on the appearance of Harmony Spirit Pietas. Going over Twilight’s deck, she’d seen, nor sensed, nothing out of the ordinary about Pietas’ card, nor any of the others included. She knew that the Harmony Spirits themselves were the magical embodiments of the virtues of the six Elements of Harmony of Equestria, the Princess herself and her five closest friends, manifesting themselves through the art of Duel Monsters. Initially simply formed as a counter-balance to the former manifestations of Sunset’s own ire and darkness in the form of the Infernal Spirits, and magically attuned to covertly phase themselves from the memories of those who’d witnessed them. But now Pietas, the Harmony Spirit representing Loyalty, the Rainbow Dash of Equestria, had somehow reacted to their Rainbow Dash.

“Speaking of, look who’s over there,” said Rainbow, snapping Sunset out of her thoughts.

Up ahead the three girls spotted Scootaloo engaged in a lively discussion between, amazingly, Night Quill, who himself was being flanked by Sandalwood and Micro Chip. They watched as Scootaloo turned to head off, with Night Quill giving a friendly thumbs-up to the freshman. Scootaloo came walking down towards the girls, spotting the trio, to which she hurried over to Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, Scoot,” Rainbow greeted her sister-equivalent, “What ‘cha talking to Night Quill for?”

Scootaloo beamed at Rainbow, looking pleased about something, “Hey, Rainbow! You know how Night Quill uses Ancient Gears, which are machine-type monsters? Well, since I use machines too, I thought I’d ask him for advice over a problem I’ve been having using Power Bond. He taught me how to avoid getting burned by it and offered me card recommendations!”

Sunset Shimmer looked over at Night Quill as he’d gone back to sorting through the contents of his locker. It came as a surprise, but a welcome one, to see that the (hopefully) last remnant of her time as the undisputed Autumn Crown Autocrat was over and done with and how quickly Night Quill was already becoming acclimated with the other students, despite his previous misgivings.

Rainbow Dash approached Night Quill, giving him the common courtesy of letting him finish with whatever he was doing at his locker. She greeted him quietly as he shut the door and spun the padlock dial to a random point.

“Oh! Rainbow Dash? Hey,” said Night Quill with a flick, “Didn’t expect to be talking to you so soon.”

“Coincidence, mostly,” said Rainbow, “Scootaloo seemed excited about some new move you told her.”

“Yea, she was asking if I knew any tips pertaining to the use of Power Bond,” Night Quill replied glancing over in Scootaloo’s general direction, “While not quite the exact as how I do it; I recommended she try using a few cards; see what works best.”

“It’s good to see that little ass whooping did its job,” chuckled Rainbow.

“Yea, I did a little, well, I guess soul searching if getting all meta-physical about it,” he indicated Sandalwood, “Apologies asked, apologies given. Honestly, I haven’t felt this relieved in ages,” he smirked at Rainbow, “But don’t get me wrong; I am still looking to beat you. And even if you take me down, I’ll just keep coming back until I do.”

Rainbow reciprocated his statement by holding out a fist, “I’ll hold you to it,” to which they bumped fists, no animosity to be seen, “Speaking of…” she flicked on the screen of her duel disk, scrolling through the peripherals before tapping an icon, to which a card slid out of her extra deck port, “I found this little number in my unused binder, and I felt that maybe you could put it better use than me,” she held out the violet framed card to Night Quill.

Night Quill took the card, and no doubt upon just seeing the image printed, gawked between it and the rainbow-haired athlete, “Chaos Ancient Gear Giant?!” he exclaimed, “Y-you’re just giving me this?!”

Rainbow nodded unperturbed, “It’s all yours, Quill.”

“But… I couldn’t!” said Night Quill, continuing to look at Rainbow in disbelief, “This card is among the most powerful, not to mention valuable, machine monsters!”

“Yea,” Rainbow said with a bob of her shoulders, “Consider it a show of no hard feelings. And hey, if you prefer, consider it as me lending it to you.”

Night Quill looked down at the card, then back at Rainbow, appearing to contemplate the offer, “If that’s the case,” he turned around to unlock his locker, fumbling through a binder stored inside, from which he fished out a card of his own, “Then I won’t accept unless you let me loan you this in return,” he smiled, presenting it to Rainbow.

Rainbow took the card and looked it over, Sunset being able to see it as a spell card titled ‘Transmodify’. After taking the moment to read through the card’s function, Rainbow looked back at Night Quill with a pleased expression.

“I think I can make this work,” she stated, sliding the new card into her side deck compartment before holding a hand out.

Night Quill slid the fusion monster card into his extra deck compartment before accepting the athlete’s hand, the two of them giving a firm shake.

Sunset saw how once more the incorporeal image of Pietas appeared hovering behind Rainbow, the fey’s hands resting on her shoulders, which she did not seem to notice, nor did anyone else around them. She checked to see Pietas’ card shining from her duel disk once more, which no-one seemed to perceive aside from her. Pietas looked over to her, giving Sunset a playful wink, before fading away.

Sunset placed a hand atop Princess Twilight’s deck. Though she had many questions she desired answers for; at that moment, she could not help but feel a relieving sense of optimism permeate the air around her. For whatever reason Pietas had reacted to her new friend, even if she did not understand it yet, she felt assured in her belief that Princess Twilight’s work had not gone to waste, and that Rainbow Dash had gone out of her way to maintain the camaraderie now shared among the student duelists of Canterlot High.

This chapter's top card:

Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 1) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)

Applejack walked down the hallways of Canterlot High, her boots echoing through the now silent halls of the school as she made her way to the library. It was sort of odd for her to be here since she was normally one to head straight home once that last bell had rung. After all, she had so much to do. There was farm work waiting for her, her schoolwork, helping out with whatever chore Granny needed done, helping Apple Bloom with her studies, and finally her crummy job at the mall. She was a busy gal alright so dawdling around the school grounds when she had no business being here wasn’t something she normally did.

However, this day she had business…of sorts. That business was trading cards! She had heard rumors of students bringing in Duel Monster cards for trade, meeting in the library after school hours. Of course, trading wasn’t something uncommon around Canterlot High. All you had to do was head on down to Sugarcube Corner and you were bound to find plenty of duelists willing to trade with you as well as exchange strategies. Yet what made this rumor peak Applejack’s interest was the size of the trading. It was said that the person in charge had one the largest collects anybody at school had, practically giving them away even!

Applejack nearly paused in her step. Sounded like something too good to be true she knew. Dealings with them Flim Flam brothers had taught her that if something did sound too good to be true then there was usually a string or two attached to it. Now if there was a person or persons doing some honest to goodness trading, why not make it more public? Why keep it all on the down low?

Then thoughts of the upcoming tournament between their school and Crystal Prep popped into Applejack’s head. It was a laughable thing really; them going up against a school designed to train people into getting into the pro league. A school who had access to more types of extra deck monsters while also having more of them expensive cards that only the rich could get their hands on. A David vs. Goliath situation where the giant always won easily. It was almost like a cruel joke when you stopped to think about it. Well, this year was the year they planned on changing that! Applejack, along with her friends, had vowed that this year they were going to show them Prep students what they were made of! She had heard that Fluttershy had already looked into getting herself some xyz cards that would fit well with her deck. Rarity was also looking into some xyz, but the problem was finding some she could afford and would fit well with her deck. She had no idea what Pinkie was planning at this moment and, frankly, as much as she loved the sugar-powered ball of energy she dared not think about what was going in her mind. Sunset had that magical deck of hers so she was probably good. Rainbow Dash had been going back and forth on what sort of extra deck monsters she wanted, but leaning more towards synchro.

That just left Applejack. To be honest, she didn’t know what to do. Her Flower Princess deck had always served her well in the past…against other students here at Canterlot high. But if she had any hope of winning she was going to need something better without breaking her very tight budget. Thus why she was here after school.

“Just gonna take a quick look,” she said to herself as Applejack neared the library. “If no one is doin’ any tradin’ I’ll just head home. No harm there. But if there is, a quick peek wouldn’t hurt none.”

Within the next few steps, Applejack reached the library. Taking a breath, she outstretched both hands to press them against the door. Then with a mighty push the opened the door to reveal…well, the library. Inside there were a few students still around. Most of them were seated in front of the computers, most likely doing some research for a project or two. She noticed a student or two mingling their way through the lines of bookshelves, their fingers on the spines of the books as they slowly made their way looking for the needed book. She also caught sight of Ms. Cheerilee sitting at her desk reading some book that had a picture or two of hands holding an apple. No idea what it was, but it sure didn’t look like any farming book she ever saw.

Taking a few steps forward, Applejack noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she spotted a figure heading towards the back of the library where the reading tables were. Not seeing much sense in just standing around like she was, she headed in that direction as well. As she walked, Applejack noticed something she hadn’t before. The long wooden tables used for reading and doing homework had been brought together as if for some massive assignment. Yet there were only two people, with large black cases taking up most of the room. Now very curious, Applejack quickened her pace to look into the cases.

“Lordy,” she swore aloud as she saw what they held. Cards! More cards than she had ever seen in one place before. Each case probably held thousands of cards, if not millions, in each and there were several there! Here and there were dividers sticking out, the closest one to her reading ‘Warriors’.

Looking around, Applejack quickly spotted two people sitting at the table. One of them was a girl AJ only barely knew, reading a book while several others laid stacked around her. This was Moondancer, one of the few students in school that got higher grades than Sunset and head of some fan club for Twilight. She was wearing a baggy purple sweatshirt that looked very worn along with tight fitting jeans. Her hair, which was amaranth with streaks of purple and grayish violet, was tied up on top while leaning to the side. Her purple eyes laid behind black glasses as if to shout to the world she was a stereotypical nerd. Sitting next to her, looking over her shoulder at the book she was reading, was a guy named Star Hunter. He had brownish skin and messy hair of a slightly darker color with yellow eyes. Hunter wore a red stripped shirt with jeans, nothing too out of the ordinary. There were no books in front of him, only a notebook with plenty of scribbling written on it. From what little Applejack knew about the guy was that he was a new student, transferred from a town called Hollow Shades at the beginning of the year.

As she looked in their direction, she noticed Hunter moving his head up a tad while turning to look at Moondancer. The nerdy girl smiled as her eyes were still glued to the page she was reading, her cheeks turning slightly red as Hunter moved his lips closer to her neck. It was only due to a throaty sound Applejack made (unintentionally of course) that caused them to halt so fast it sounded like a record screeching. With wide eyes the two looked up to see the farmer girl.

“Oh,” said Hunter, his tone awkward while Moondancer raised her book up to hide her burning red face. “D-Didn’t see you there. Haha.”

Applejack, with her cheeks still red, tilted her Stetson hat down a bit before gesturing to the cards. “Ah, er, was wondering if these here were yours,” she mumbled.

“Yes. Yes,” said Hunter quickly as he moved around the table to where Applejack stood. “Wh-What are you looking for exactly? X-Sabers? Union Machines? Trains? Perhaps Gladiator Beasts?”

“Ah...” began Applejack as she pulled out her deck from the box hanging on her belt. “Ah was hoping ta find something to improve mah deck. Planning on competing in that tournament against Crystal Prep coming up, see. Think I might need a little help.”

Hunter, to his credit, just nodded before holding out his hand. Seeing this, Applejack placed her deck in his hand. Quickly Hunter began to look through the deck card by card, his eyes scanning each one. Only once or twice he paused as if surprised by a card being there or something. Whatever it was, Hunter didn’t seem to ask any questions but went right back to what he was doing. When the last card had been looked at, Hunter handed the deck back to Applejack.

“It’s a decent deck,” he said. “Nothing in the extra deck, but that can be easily fixed. With what you have, you could pull out some Rank 8 monsters pretty ok but not as consistently as someone from Crystal Prep. Could even use some synchro monsters if you added some tuners. Guess you’ll want to keep the plant theme?”

Applejack didn’t answer right away, only scratching the back of her neck before nodding. “Ta be honest, ah was hoping ya might have some fusion monsters that could go with this deck. If at all possible. None too fond of them fancier methods.”

At that, Hunter frowned. “Well, if its fusion monsters you want then you’re going to need a whole new deck,” he said, causing Applejack to look a little dejected. That hadn’t been what she was hoping to hear. She had with her a small binder with cards to trade, but even if the rumors were true about how the cards were given away she doubted she had enough for an entire deck! Plus with how tight her budget was she doubted she could make up the rest out of pocket.

“Ya sure about that?” she asked.

Hunter, to her dismay, nodded. “Sorry to say,” he said. “Plant decks really weren’t a thing before the synchro era, unless you wanted to do Fairy King Truesdale combined with DNA Surgery. Nowadays, people like to do the Sylvan, Naturia, and Aromage builds for their xyz and synchro builds.” He then looked at her thoughtfully, tapping his chin as he did so. “But I do know of one deck that can pump out fusion monsters fast enough to keep up with Crystal Prep students. Plus you’ll be able to do some synchro plays in the future with it if you ever wanted. Not a bad deck I think.”

Applejack didn’t answer right away, instead looking down at the deck still in her hand. Biting her lower lip she looked back up at Hunter before speaking. “Well, might as well take a look at them. Don’t know if ah got much in the way of tradin’, mind ya.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” said Hunter as he turned his back to her and began looking through the cases. “Now where are they? I know they should be…not in this one. Mainly fiends.” Applejack watched as he moved over to another case with Moondancer getting up to help him. Together they moved from case to case, looking for the plant type monsters.

After a while, both seemed to have found what they were looking for. As Hunter began to pull out cards from the case, Moondancer picked up one of them before handing it over to Applejack. Looking down at it, the farmer girl would never have thought it was a plant. Instead it looked like one of them weird lizards she saw in films with the fan around its neck and often running on its hind legs. The creature was green with three red eyes on the side she could see. There were also, for lack of a better term in her mind, ‘stems’ that were growing out of the neck fan and ending with red orbs. Raising her eyes up towards the top Applejack saw the name Predaplant Chylamydosundew.

“The Predaplant archetype is basically a combination of predatory animals and plants,” explained Moondancer after Applejack mentioned this card didn’t look much like a plant, going straight into a lecture mode. “The card you have in your hand is a combination of a frilled-neck lizard and a drosera sessilifolia which is a very carnivorous plant. Most do look like plants, evil looking ones at that.”

“Alright, here we are,” said Hunter. Applejack looked over to him and saw that he had spread a whole bunch of cards across the table. After walking over to them, Applejack began to look them over one by one. Moondancer was correct, they did have an almost evil appearance to them that she was sure Rarity would complain about. However, as she looked at their effects, she couldn’t help but note that their counter effect seemed almost ideal when dealing with the Prep. Any monster with a preda counter on it would be changed to a level one monster, messing up synchro plays as well as xyz. Perhaps even a few fusion summoning that required high level monsters to work. There were other effects as well pertaining to these counters that made Applejack stop to consider using them. However…

“Only two fusion monsters?” she noted aloud. There were six fusion monsters present, three of each laid before her. “Seems kinda meager for a fusion based deck.”

“Well, there are other fusion cards that can go with the deck,” admitted Hunter. “But those cards are in my, well, special trading binder back home. I generally don’t bring it to school with these cards. So, you interested in what you see?”

“Thinkin’ about it,” said Applejack as she took off her backpack. She opened it and pulled out a small zip-lock bag which held her own cards for trade. Calmly she handed it to him. “Need ta get a handle on them before ah make up my mind. Don’t want ta go droppin’ too much into a deck ah don’t like, ya know?”

“I understand,” said Hunter as he flipped through AJ’s spare cards with lightning speed. Already she saw that he had taken ten cards and put them off to the side. “Well, if you’re not really sure, we could have a practice duel in a couple days. You know, give you some time to look over your cards. If you don’t like them then I’ll give you back what you traded for them.” Hunter then paused and looked up at AJ, an odd smile appearing on his face. “If fact, let’s make this a bit more interesting. If you can master this deck, I’ll give you the last two fusion cards.”

Applejack’s eyes widened for a moment, before a confident smile appeared on her face. Slowly she crossed her arms across her chest. “Sugarcube, ya do know that Ah was in the top eight of the Autumn Crown. Right?”

Hunter frowned at that. Having finished looking through the stack, he put the cards he didn’t want back into the zip-lock bag before handing it to Applejack. “That…doesn’t really mean much in my opinion,” he said slowly. Applejack felt her grin fade a bit causing Star Hunter to continue. “Not that I think you’re a terrible duelist or anything. It’s just the idiotic fusion monster limitation, well, limits so many of the strategies and decks that could have been used. The reason I love this game so much is seeing people use so many different deck types, sometimes even seeing people using a strategy that isn’t normal for that deck. Figuring out what your opponent is up to like a detective would in a murder case, examining everything you can to figure out their end game in order to prevent it and then seize victory.”

As he spoke, there was a passion in Hunter’s voice that seemed to ring louder and louder. There was a spark in his eyes that Applejack hadn’t noticed before. But, just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished as Hunter looked over that the cases on the table. “Around here many of these cards can’t be played. Just not usable thanks to the format this school insists on running. It just…feels like the school is purposely holding us back when they do shit like that.”

“That why I never saw ya at the tournament?” she asked.

“More like one of the reasons,” replied Hunter with a shrug. “I also had sort of another commitment on the opening day so I wasn’t here. But even if I were here I still wouldn’t have entered because…my favorite card STILL isn’t off the ban list!”

“Then you can duel?” As soon as the words left Applejack’s lips, Hunter began slightly more rigid. Surprised by this, the farmer girl raised a hand to reach out to him only to recoil when he began to laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laugh she was used to with her friends. instead, it was a dry humorless laugh that sent chills down her spine. Quickly gazing at Moondancer, she saw that the girl was looking away from both of them.

“Yeah,” said Hunter after a moment when he had calmed down a bit. “I can duel.”

“W-Well,” said Applejack as she did her best to remain strong. No way anyone here was going to see her looking scared or anything. “Alrighty then. We’ll duel. How’s this weekend sound? Say Saturday at three o’clock?”

“I think that’ll-” began Hunter, only to have Moondancer cough into her hand. “Oh, right. Could we do it a bit earlier? Say maybe eleven?”

It was 10:50ish as Applejack strode down the street, looking for the house whose address Hunter had written down for her. The neighborhood was a nice one, slightly more modern than the one she lived in with nearly all of them looking alike. It was almost eerie how similar they all looked. She briefly wondered if folks around here ever got mixed up on which house was theirs!

There was, however, one house that didn’t match the others. This one looked like it hadn’t been taken care of properly for some time. The grass was unkempt; with patches of grass looking taller in some areas while other parts looked like it had been overtaken by weeds. The mailbox couldn’t close anymore due to the amount of mail jammed inside of it with more on the porch step, tied up and placed in plastic bags. Speaking of the porch; there were several trash bags sitting there as dozens of flies buzzed around the foul smelling things. And this was the house she was supposed to go to?

Doing her best not to hang her head, Applejack approached the house while being mindful to watch where she stepped. As she walked she began to wonder if this was the reason Hunter didn’t bring his cards to trade at Sugarcube Corner. This place was much closer to the school than the bakery and she hadn’t noticed a car in the driveway. Given the appearance of the place, it seemed like the family was down on their luck. But, if that were the case, why hadn’t Hunter just sold the cards for money? He had enough of them to make a good deal of money after all. Still, it was not her place to pry into another’s business…at least not yet. So having reached the door she knocked a few times and proceeded to wait.

Applejack didn’t have to wait long as the door opened a moment later to reveal Hunter with a duel disk already on his arm. “Hey AJ,” he said pleasantly while beckoning her to come in. While she was a tad reluctant to go inside, given the state of the yard she could only imagine how bad it was inside. However, it would have been rude not to so she entered.

Darkness seemed to surround the farmgirl despite it being a bright, sunny day outside and the blinds were open. Looking around, AJ saw she was in a family room that had once probably been very nice. Now trash littered the hardwood floor, mostly tissues and food wrappers. The walls were so covered with awards, trophy’s, medals, and framed newspaper clippings that she had no idea what color the paint was. At first AJ was going to comment on the amount of awards Hunter had until she saw the name ‘Star Chaser’ on one of them. Light came from the active TV which was being watched by two other figures in the room whom AJ assumed were Hunter’s parents. His father was slumped in an armchair while his mother laid on the couch. Neither of them paid the two teens any mind, not even seeming to notice their presence within the room. Instead their focus seemed to be on what was on the muted scene before them.

Looking at it herself, AJ saw that there was a boy who looked much like Hunter. He wore more stylish clothing as he dueled someone just off screen. He had on a grin that was, if it were possible, more cocky than anything Rainbow Dash had ever managed. He carried himself with complete and utter confidence as he slapped card after card onto his duel disk before the crowd around him began jumping out of their seats. Hunter’s parents didn’t join in on this good cheer but instead openly and loudly began to sob.

“Don’t,” said Hunter as Applejack was about to approach them. “You’ll just make them mad if you disturb them. It isn’t pretty, trust me.”

Applejack pulled back, slightly alarmed by this news. “What in sam hill happened here?”

“I did,” replied Hunter in an icy tone that shocked Applejack. She turned to look at him, only to see his back was to her now as he walked into the next room. As he walked, he continued to whisper. “There’s a park out back that we can cut into through the backyard. Perfect for a duel.”

Applejack said nothing as she followed, not bothering to look at the two poor figures behind her. Now that she had seen this, it had become her business. Silently she promised herself that before she left she would find out just what was going on here.

Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 2) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Duel#2: Green Legend Applejack: The Beginning (Part 3/Final) (by Brony-wan-kenobi)

Applejack sat on one of the park benches, panting slightly from the intense duel she just finished. She leaned back in her seat, elbows on the wooden table as she looked up into the sky. Around her she could still hear others around her. The sounds of two people, maybe more, hitting a tennis ball back and forth. The occasional sounds of little tikes screaming as they played. A random explosion from a duel going on somewhere else. Just another peaceful day in the park. Almost enough to make her close her eyes and drift off to sleep for a bit.

That is until she heard the sound of footsteps approaching her, stepping over a few small twigs that made snapped as they got closer to her. Turning her eyes but not her head, Applejack saw Star Hunter standing there with two large bottles of water. Both of them looked cold and refreshing to her at that moment. Just the sort of thing that she needed after something like that.

“Thank ya kindly,” she said as she sat up properly. Smiling, she reached out to take one before she stopped. Eyeing the bottles with a level of suspicion she pulled her hand back towards her. Normally, she wouldn’t be so rude as to refuse such a kind gesture. The only time she would do something like this was when she thought Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie were up to one of their pranks fests. But in this case, it wasn’t what had been done to the bottle that concerned her but where it had come from.

“Relax,” sighed Hunter as if he had read her mind. “This isn’t from my house. I got it from the vending machine near the restrooms. It’s perfectly fine.”

“Sorry,” murmured Applejack as she took the water bottle this time while her cheeks darkened.

“No, its fine,” said Hunter as he sat down next to her. He paused for a moment to open his bottle…or at least trying to as he struggled with twisting the cap. “After seeing my place, I really wouldn’t blame anyone. Don’t even eat the food that’s there. Grr. Was the cap fused to this thing or something?”

“Give ‘er here,” said Applejack as she reached out her hand. Slightly flustered, Hunter handed her the bottle which she gently took. Then, with one hand, she twisted the cap off in one go before handing it back.

“Thanks,” he muttered as Applejack undid the cap on her own bottle, “And again, that was a good duel. Maybe we could have another one sometime soon. I have plenty of decks that should keep things interesting.”

“Sounds fine,” said Applejack before she took a moment to take a sip of water. “Maybe should’ve bought Apple Bloom an’ her friends along. Might have some fun dueling each other, finding some other folk to duel, or just have some fun with a ball,” Applejack paused again to take another sip but stopped just short of her lips. Slowly she glanced over at Hunter as she lowered the bottle, “But, ah, before we do that, there’s something Ah think Ah ought ta ask.”

Hunter didn’t say anything at first, simply drumming his fingers over his bottle of water with his head down. From her angle, Applejack could see that he was biting his lower lip. After a moment of this he raised his head before speaking but not looking over at her, “I think I know what you’re going to ask. And I guess it would be pointless to tell you not to worry or it’s none of your business.”

“Sorry, sugarcube,” replied Applejack as she set her bottle of water down next to her, “But…Ah’m worried about ya. The way you and your folks are livin’. Some of the things ya said. Well, that’s got me mighty worried. Don’t want nothin’ bad happenin’ to ya.”

“And if I don’t you’ll probably keep pestering me about it. That or go snooping around,” said Hunter as he glanced over in the direction of his house. Even from this side the place looked like a wreck with trash bags piling up in various places. The grass that was there was high, going well past both teen’s knees and clashing with the neighboring lawns, “Alright, I’ll tell you everything. But…just don’t go telling everyone about this. Principal Celestia and Vice-principal Luna know enough about what’s going on at my house. And of course Moondancer knows. I’d like to keep it that way. The last thing I want is people’s pity.”

“Ta be honest, that’ll depend on what Ah hear,” said Applejack, “If things are really bad, Ah’ll tell mah friends ta see if they can help. But Ah won’t go plastering it around the school.”

“Well, that’s something,” sighed Hunter as he closed his eyes. “You remember all those medals and awards that were in my house. They belong to my younger brother, Star Chaser. He’s not around anymore.”

“…Is he dead?” asked Applejack, tentatively.

“What? No,” said Hunter quickly, “He’s in jail right now. I sort of… contributed…” The teen then sighed as he began to roll the bottle between his hands, “I guess I should start from the beginning. Back when we were both much younger living in Hollow Shades…

“To be honest, I don’t remember when or how it all started. Chaser was only a year younger than me, but from an early age our parents seemed to believe that he was destined for greatness. He learned how to play nearly every sport really quickly while I struggled. He was already taller than me and, well, according to most of the girls, good looking. Then when we got our first starter decks, he also learned how to play the game faster. Me; I was more into reading and writing. I liked to read and watch shows about detectives rather than going outside to play. Honestly, sports never really interested me all that much, you know? As for Duel Monsters, I enjoyed learning all sorts of tricks and strategies over winning outright. Usually when we dueled he would win.

“Our parents weren’t mean or abusive to me. No, nothing like that. But they did insist that I try out for every sport my brother wanted to go into, even if we all knew I wouldn’t make the cut. Like I was just there to make him look better, that my failure made his success seem all the greater. And I couldn’t help but notice that he got more of everything. Every one of my birthdays were held at home while he got these massive parties that needed a banquet hall. On Christmas he always got four times the gifts. Every time his team won a match or game, they would break out a bottle of wine to celebrate while acting like it was solely because of him that they won. If the team lost, it was because the coach refused to utilize Chaser properly. Any card in the game he wanted he got, even if he wasn’t going to play with them for very long. That’s how I got all those cards by the way; they all belonged to him at one point. Anyways, I also knew that if I wanted to do something or had some school presentation, like a play they would come only if Chaser didn’t have anything going on. They made it very clear that he came first. I guess, in the end, my parents determined I wasn’t ambitious enough or something like that.”

“Dang...” was all Applejack could say. It sounded like Hunter’s parents had taken a page from Rainbow’s and then some. However, Applejack doubted Rainbow’s parents would ignore one child over the other if they had more than one.

“It wasn’t just our parents who held him on high. Because he won so many local Duel Monster tournaments and was on so many sports teams, most of the adults treated him like a local legend in the making. That he’d be the one to put Hollow Shades on the map. Most of the kids in our neighborhood wanted to be close to him, as if it came with some perks. And when he started dating, well, there was no shortage in that department.

“I guess it wasn’t too hard how all that would go to his head. The concept of not getting something that he wanted was just so alien to him. He walked around like he owned everything and at times it felt like that included people as well. I’ve heard talk about women like they were flavors that he would eventually get tired of. Chaser bragged daily about his future, about how he was going to join the Pro Duel League as soon as he was old enough, as well as a sports team. About how he’d be literally swimming in money.”

“Here ah thought Rainbow had a swelled head,” said Applejack with a whistle, “So, what happened to ‘im? Did he try ta take something he really shouldn’t?”

“No,” replied Hunter as he shook his head. “What happened was we were applying to Crystal Prep. I wanted to become a writer and thought learning more about the league would be helpful. Maybe even writing some murder mysteries about the game while using a position as a duelist to, well, make me a little more well known. Maybe use that fame to my advantage,” he let out a sigh. “So, we both took the tests at the same time. Chaser used his best deck: a Red Eyes Burn deck which he always used in tournaments while I used my Shaddoll deck. We both scored victories and, after we took the tests, our parents quit their jobs and moved here so that we could all stay together. They guessed I wouldn’t get in so they were preparing to send me to CHS at the same time as they were getting ready to celebrate Chaser getting accepted. But things didn’t go as they thought…”

“Hey retard, your rejection letter arrived!” laughed Chaser as he tossed a letter to Hunter, who was sitting at the kitchen table and deep into a book, ignored the letter as it bounced off his head.

Rolling his eyes, the young teen closed his book while his parents rushed Chaser into the family room which already had all of his trophies and awards on the walls. Without needing to look up, he knew their mother had her smartphone out to record this moment like she did with everything he did. Nor did he expect either of them to tell Chaser off for the way he had spoken to his brother. That sort of thing was common from him.

“Don’t keep us waiting,” said their father happily as he beamed with pride, patting his son on the back, “Go on son, read it!”

Fighting back a sigh, Hunter opened his letter as Chaser read aloud his response from Crystal Prep, “Dear Mr. Star Chaser. We here at Crystal Prep pride ourselves on accepting only the very best duelists within our hallowed halls. We have examined your work on the written exam and found it to be above a satisfactory level. As for your practical test, we were impressed that you were able to achieve victory on your very first turn. Not many students can boost such an accomplishment within our school’s history. Normally, we would be more than proud to welcome such an outstanding student into our ranks. However, due to the number of capable students entering our school being higher than normal, there is a need to thin out the applicants further. To that end, we have decided that a select group of randomly selected student hopefuls will be dueling each other for the chance to enter school. Your name was one of the chosen.”

“WHAT!” bellowed their father causing Hunter to look up from his own letter. Their father’s face was flushed, eyes wide with undiluted rage as he looked at the letter as if it had just thrown him a very vulgar insult, “How dare they?!? Don’t they know how lucky THEY are just to have my son apply at their school?”

Hunter said nothing, only scanning the room to see the rest of his family’s reactions. His mother had lowered her phone. While her face was far calmer than her husbands, she still seemed to regard the piece of paper as if it were a rodent she wished to stomp on. As for Star Chaser, there was an odd look on his face. He looked like he had lost a great deal of color on his face and hands, as if he had just seen a ghost. Yet that lasted only for a brief moment as a dead look on his face was replaced with his usual swagger.

“Ha,” he laughed. “So all I have to do is beat down some loser to get in? Easy. If anything, this will just prove to them how much better I am than everyone else. Look here, it even says that I can change my deck if I want.”

This seemed to calm both their parents down considerably, “That’s the spirit son!” said their father as he clapped his son on the back.

“Another brilliant showing from our brilliant son,” agreed their mother as she grinned broadly, “So when is this duel?”

“Let’s see here,” said Chaser as he began to scan the paper with his finger. His lips moved as he skimmed the letter until he finally found what he was looking for, “Ok, it says here that each match will take place on a separate day. Looks like mine it will be this Saturday. I wonder what poor sap they’ll have me dueling?”

“I guess me,” said Hunter. At the sound of his voice, the family turned to look into the kitchen where Hunter was sitting and looking at him as if they were suddenly made aware of his existence. Hunter held up his own letter, “It says I was chosen for one of the duels as well. Same date.”

“Oh,” said their father, “Well, this is farther than we thought you’d get at least. Too bad you had to get your brother as an opponent. Guess bad luck of the draw and all that.”

“We’re sure you’ll try your best of course,” added their mother, “But, try not to embarrass yourself or waste too much of your brother’s time.”

“Don’t worry,” said Chaser with a grin as he wrapped an arm around each of their parent’s shoulders, “He won’t get that chance. I’ll defeat him before he even knows what’s going on. How about we go out to celebrate in advance?”

“That’s my boy,” laughed their father.

As the family began to head out the door, lead by Chaser stating loudly where he wanted to go, Hunter sat there with the letter still in his hands and the voices of his family echoing in his head. He sat there; his breaths becoming deeper with each passing moment. His grip began to grow stronger as he held the letter until small rips began to appear. Outside he could hear the doors to the car opening and closing, loud music that his brother loved pouring out so everyone could hear. As the car began to move out of the driveway, Hunter screamed as loudly as he could.

Applejack felt something rotten trying to climb its way up her throat as she listened to Hunter recall this memory. She could see the teen boy’s knuckles turning white as he gripped his water bottle as a hardened look took over his face. Not that she could blame him. She had heard plenty about abuse or just plain poor parents on the daily news. But it was a different matter to have someone who had them sitting next to her as he recounted what it was like.

“I don’t know why it happened,” continued Hunter as he stared off into the distance, “They had treated me like that my entire life. Yet, for some reason, it hurt far worse than normal. Maybe it was because this was something I wanted and they had already written me off. Or maybe it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Honestly, I have no idea. All I knew was that, at that moment, I didn’t just want to defeat Chaser but to utterly humiliate him in front of a crowd. I wanted to see that smug look on his face ripped off. I wanted to come back home from school every damn day and talk about how great it was just to rub it in his face. That…was my corruption I guess.”

“Can’t hardly blame ya there,” said Applejack, “There’re times when all Ah want to do is shut Rainbow up when she gets all half cocked an’ stuff. So, what did ya do? Nothin’…wrong, right?”

“You mean illegal like tampering with his deck?” asked Hunter. While there was nothing wrong with his tone, talking as casually as if he had spotted an oddly looking cloud, it still caused Applejack to wince slightly, “No, I just made a brand new deck. A Red-Eyes one with a few of my own touches. He’d always been so proud of his deck I figured being defeat by something similar would be a huge blow to his ego. So the day came…”

Hunter stood on the raised platform within Crystal Prep’s professional duel stadium. Normally for the exams, the school would have rented out a football stadium or something similar to hold all of the exams. Perhaps given the nature of these duels as well as there being only one duel per day, the people at Crystal Prep had decided to hold it here instead. The room, about half the size of such a field, with several rows of seats along the rounded sides. There, students and faculty members sat with bored expressions on their faces as they looked down on the flat platform where Hunter stood. Finally, all around them, were large monitors with blank scenes.

Among the primary people there was Principal Sombra. He sat in the front row in the middle so that he could see both duelists easily. Next to him was a very pretty looking woman who was the Vice-principal. His parents were also there, smiling and holding up signs wishing Chaser luck.

Speaking of Chaser…

“Look at all this fine ass eye candy,” he said aloud as he looked over at a group of female students dressed in their uniforms. He licked his lips as a smile appeared on his face, “It’s almost like with place was designed just for me. Helps get me into the pro’s with all the snacks I want along the way. I just can’t wait to see what they all look like without those uniforms,” He then jerked his head to look at Hunter. “Say, you mind just forfeiting now and saving everyone some time? I know you have nothing but time to waste, but some of us have a future.”

As Hunter gritted his teeth, he was denied the chance to respond as a voice echoed through the P.A. system. Hunter didn’t need to look over to his side to see that it was Sombra who spoke.

“Both duelist are present and their decks have been verified. Be advised that while you are using standard issue duel disks, this stadium is utilizing hard light technology to make things feel more real. Not enough to deal any serious harm, but enough so that you will feel it for a while. This is the sort of thing that you should expect when entering Crystal Prep. If you have any issues with this you may back out now. If not, you may commence the duel.”

-Star Chaser’s Life Point’s 8000-

-Star Hunter’s Life Point’s 8000-

“It’ll be fine,” said Chaser as they both drew their opening hands. He briefly glanced at it before smirking, “He’ll never even touch me.”

Turn 1: Star Hunter

Hunter’s duel dick beeped, signaling that he was to make the first move, “We’ll see about that. I draw!” Hunter paused for a moment as he looked at his hand. It had everything he needed to make an amazing first move, but the downside was that it would leave him defenseless if it messed up. For a moment he debated on what to do before making up his mind to go all out.

“First I play the spell card ‘Pre-Preparation of Rites’!” declared Hunter as a murmur went over the crowd, “This card allows me to add one ritual spell card from my deck to my hand, as well as one ritual monster whose name is listed on the card. I choose the spell card ‘Red-Eyes Transmigration’ and the ritual monster ‘Lord of the Red’.”

“I told you not to embarrass us!” shouted Hunter’s mother as his cards popped out of his deck, “What are you thinking using ritual monsters?”

“Really sad,” said Chaser as he crossed his arms, a grin on his face, “Couldn’t you have at least pretended to try? That or just given up? At least then you wouldn’t be wasting my time.”

“Trust me, I plan on giving this my all,” replied Hunter, “Now I activate the ritual spell I just added to my hand. By tributing my level eight Dragon Core Hexer from my hand, I am allowed to summon to the field the Lord of the Red (2400/2100) in attack mode!”

Appearing on Hunter’s side of the field was a woman wearing form fitting armor that looked like it had been made from the hides of dragons. She stood there, holding a massive sword in her hands, as flames began to circle her. Without warning they rose upwards until they hit the ceiling. Hunter nearly took a step back as he felt the heat of the flames and feared they would sear him to the bone. Yet he held his ground as he began to chant.

“Great flames that burn bright red. Accept this offering to bring forth your champion! Ritual Summon: LORD OF THE RED!”

There was a sudden explosion that shot out in every direction. When the smoke cleared, a figure stood in front of Hunter. It was a humanoid who was either wearing armor designed to look like a Red-Eyes Black Dragon, or it was a more human looking Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

“I’m not done,” continued Hunter, “Because I still have my normal summon! I summon the Red Stone of Legend! (0/0)” Appearing next to the Lord of the Red was a chipped black egg with a red, crystalline structure in the middle. The Lord of the Red looked down at it and smiled fondly.

As Chaser began to laugh loudly, Hunter continued, “Now I activate its effect. By tributing the Red Stone of Legend, I am allowed to special one level seven or lover Red-Eyes monster from my deck. So I’m bringing out the original classic ‘Red-Eyes Black Dragon’(2400/2000)!”

On his command, the egg shattered and the very iconic black dragon appeared on the field.

“Lastly, I’ll activate this spell card from my hand: The Claw of Hermos,” said Hunter as he held out the card, “I’ll use it and my Red-Eyes Black Dragon to fusion summon the ‘Red-Eyes Black Dragon Sword’ (2400/2000)!”

There wasn’t enough time to chant as Red-Eyes flew up into the air before doing a backflip which sent it shooting down to the ground. It’s body began to grow brightly, shrinking more and more until it hit the ground right next to Lord of the Red. When the light faded, the dragon had become a sword with a wicked hooked black blade and a cross-guard shaped like the Red-Eyes’ head.

“Now I activate my swords effect and equip it to Lord of the Red,” said Hunter as his ritual monster picked up the blade, “Lord of the Red gains an additional 1000 attack points as well as an additional 500 attack and defense for every dragon on the field and in both graveyards. I end my turn.” (5400/4100) More people were muttering now as Hunter stood there, his monster sinking his sword into the ground before him and laying both hands on the pommel.

Turn 2: Star Chaser

“This has to be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Chaser as he drew a card, “Trying to copy MY deck, but using those loser cards. Ha! All you’ve done is get yourself a dumb looking, edge-lord wannabe beater. Looks like you’re little brother will have to show you how it’s really done.”

“Go Chaser!” screamed their father excitedly.

“Now here’s a card worth having in a Red-Eyes deck,” said Chaser as he held up a card. “It’s called ‘Red-Eyes Fusion’. This lets me fusion summon a monster using materials from my deck. The only down sides are that I can’t normal or special summon anything else for the rest of this turn. Also, my monster’s name become Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Not that either of those things matter much when I can have any Red-Eyes fusion monster I want.”

Hunter said nothing as Chaser’s duel disk spat out two cards. However, there was something off about it. Was it just him, or did he miss when the auto shuffler activated?

“Twin Red-Eyes, one of old and one of flare, come together to show burn away those in your wrath. Fusion summon: Meteor Black Comet Dragon! (3500/2000)”

Flames erupted behind Chaser as they slowly took form of a massive dragon that towered over everything in sight. It’s scales were black and cracked, flames escaping out of them and licking the tips of its many horns.

“Since two more dragons went to the graveyard and another one appeared on the field, my monster gains an extra 1500 attack and defense points, (6900/5600)” stated Hunter as he kept his eyes locked on his brother.

As Lord of the Red’s attack points rose, a chuckle rippled through the audience. Some even broke out into full blown laughter, pointing down at the stage. Out of the corner of his vision, Hunter could see that even Sombra, who seemed to have the perfect poker face whenever he had crossed paths with the man, had a the smallest of grins on his face.

“Ha, even the audience knows how pathetic your monster is,” decried Chaser as the audience as a whole broke out into uncontrollable laughter, “You think having a stronger monster can protect you, then you’re wrong! I activate my dragon’s effect: by sending one dragon in my deck to the graveyard after its been fusion summoned, I can deal damage to you equal to half of that monster’s attack points. So I’ll just send another Red-Eyes Black Dragon to the grave to burn you for 1200.”

As Hunter’s monster rose in strength (7400/6100), the flames on Meteor Black Comet Dragon began to rise. It flapped its mighty wings as the fire began to float in front of it, forming several orbs that sparked with black electricity before being launched at Hunter. As for Hunter, he let out a sigh as Lord of the Red extended its wings. The fire orbs then seemed to hit an invisible barrier while Hunter’s life points remain untouched.

“What the fuck?!?” yelled Chaser as the crowd continued to laugh. “That should have-”

“My Lord of the Red’s effect,” interrupted Hunter, speaking over the crowd. Grinning broadly he gestured to his monster, “During either player’s turn he can negate up to two effects and then destroy one monster and one spell/trap card. He negated your monsters effect so now all that is left to do is destroy your monster.”

“NO!” screamed Chaser as his eyes went wide and his pupils became mere dots.

Lord of the Red, however, did not heed his words as he flew across the field while his fist became surrounded with flames. When he got in front of Chaser’s dragon, Lord of the Red pulled back his fist before slamming it into Meteor Black Comet Dragon’s gut. The dragon clutched the area where it had been struck, taking several steps back before it exploded and sent Chaser flying through the air. When the teen landed it was face first into the metal ground with his rear sticking up in the air creating even more laughter.

Hunter paused as he looked at his brother, savoring the moment. It was now clear to everyone both of them that the crowd had never been laughing at Hunter. Chaser could have asked what his opponent’s monster did or looked it up on his duel disk. Instead he arrogantly dismissed it, thus walking right into his own defeat. And it was clear that everyone around them had seen it clear as day.

“So,” said Hunter as he crossed his arms, an amused look on his face, “Is there anything else you want to do? You can’t normal or special summon any other monsters this turn. I guess you could set a facedown.”

“You…You…CHEATER!” raged Chaser as he scrambled to his feet. “There is no way you could have stopped my perfect turn. You had to have cheated, it’s the only explanation,” Chaser pointed a finger at his brother at the same time a red light began to flash. The crowd became silent as all of the scenes above them read ‘Duel Canceled’. As Hunter looked around confused, Chaser looked like he had hit the jackpot at the lottery, “You see. Even they know you had to have cheated me!”

“Yes, there was foul play during this match,” said Sombra as he stood up and walked over to the two, “Witnessed by every single person here and recorded as evidence. However, it was not Mr. Star Hunter who cheated,” By this time, Sombra was standing next to Chaser with an expression used when looking at a pile of dog droppings.

“You…You can’t be serious!” screamed Chaser right into Sombra’s face. He then pointed at Hunter, “I had the perfect move. He-”

“The exact same move you used during your entrance exam duel,” interrupted Sombra coldly, silencing Chaser, “While at first I was impressed you managed to pull off such a feat, the proctor who dueled you said he failed to notice your auto shuffler activate. This worried me slightly so I looked up your most recent duels. All the transcripts and recordings showed that in the last ten duels, while you have used slight variations, the end result has been the same. Meteor Black Comet Dragon summoned via Red-Eyes Fusion, followed by two ‘Inferno Fire Blasts’. Each time you dueled, you have made sure to keep your duel disk away from the cameras and the judges. Most likely so they couldn’t see that you had tampered with you machine.”

“That’s…No…You can’t prove that! You can’t prove anything!” yelled Chaser as he began to look worried, taking a step back.

“Well, that’s not completely false,” said Sombra with a slight nod, “Up until this duel, I couldn’t really prove anything.”

At that moment, all of the scenes began to show the duel with an extra window focused on Chaser’s deck, “That is why I decided to hold this little ruse. You and your brother were the only two duelist who received that letter. No one else was invited to have a duel to enter our school. And with all of these students and cameras focused on you, it was easy to see that my suspicions were correct.”

“That,” began Chaser, but no other words passed through his lips. They moved soundlessly as he stared at Sombra. It took a moment, but he seemed to snap out of it and began to point to his brother, “He had to have messed with my duel disk. Yeah! He disabled my auto shuffler and probably his own. That’s how he-”

Sombra raised a hand to silence the boy, “I have heard enough of this,” he stated firmly as he moved away from Chaser, “You are an embarrassment to the entire dueling community. At least have the decency to admit that you were caught instead of these half-baked lies. Now, leave this school at once and never show your face around here again. Your dueling days are done.”

Hunter stood where he was as he watched his brother fall onto his hands and knees. The high he had been feeling earlier had vanished, leaving him with an oddly empty feeling. Hunter could hear his parents shouting something, but the words no longer made sense to him. It was like the world was turning upside down. He blinked and, like magic, Sombra was standing in front of him.

“Forgive me for putting you through all of this,” he said pleasantly. “You were chosen for this match because I needed to see if you were anything like your brother. I am glad to see that isn’t the case.” He then raised a fist to his mouth and gave a soft cough into it, “As for the duel, I will admit that I am impressed. Not many duelist would try to enter this school using a ritual monster and even few would dare to imagine pulling off a combo such as you did. It is my hope to see you when the new semester begins.”

“NO!” came Chaser’s scream as he looked up. His pupils were moving wildly, almost unfocused as he looked at Hunter, “It’s your FAULT! WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST ROLL OVER AND DIE? WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST FORFEIT? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”

“The ride home was less than pleasant,” said Hunter as he shook his head. “Before we got home, my brother had gotten dozens of calls from various dueling officials. Principal Sombra had apparently called them and informed them of my brother’s cheating. So they called to inform him that he now had a lifelong ban. All his awards were now invalidated and his records were removed. My parents tried to tell him that it would be alright, that they would fight this and that it was my fault-”

“Now wait one cotton-pickin’ moment,” said Applejack as she stood up, “How can they blame ya for something he was caught red handed doin’?”

“Well, the logic they are using is that if I had just not accepted the duel, then none of this would have happened,” said Hunter simply.

“That…That…” was all Applejack could say. It just seemed almost inane for his parents to do something like that. But then she thought back to what she had seen back in the house. The two of them sitting there in the dark, watching old duels of their cherished son. Back when he was at the top of the world.

“My aunt says that sometimes it's easier to deny something rather than accept it as truth,” said Hunter. He then ran a hand through his hair, “Well, Chaser didn’t listen to them. Instead he went right for where our parents kept the liquor and started drinking like it was the end of the world. Two days later, he ran out of drinks and tried to rob a store. Since we weren’t in Hollow Shades anymore the court didn’t care who he was. Right now, he’s doing a two year sentence with a chance at an early release. That’s where I was during the Crown, visiting him. Still blames me. As for my parents, after he went to jail they both sort of shut down. stopped going to work and spend everyday just watching Chaser on the television. With money as tight as it is, there’s no way I could have gone to Crystal Prep.”

“Ya know, that wasn’t yer fault,” Applejack said firmly.

Hunter, oddly, laughed, “To be honest, I sort of wish his downfall was my fault. There are times, dreams, when I wish I had ended that duel and he had gone insane from his defeat. I felt… angry that he cheated me out of that victory and what Sombra had revealed!” He then suddenly turned and looked at Applejack, “Does…Does that make me a bad person?”

The farmer girl sighed as she gently placed a hand on his shoulder, “Sugarcube, Ah got ta be honest here,” she said. “Ah have no idea if that makes ya a good person or not. Ah don’t know how Ah would feel in that position. But what Ah can tell ya, is that how you are livin’ right now might not be what’s best for ya.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Hunter, causing Applejack to blink. “What? I just told you I have an aunt and not to worry about me. Ever since she last came to visit she’s been talking to a few lawyers to try and take custody of me. And Moondancer’s family has invited me to dinner whenever I want.”

“Oh,” said Applejack as she looked embarrassed.

From there, the two talked for a bit longer until Moondancer arrived for her date. Applejack wished them both a goodnight as she walked in the direction of home with every intention of giving her family the biggest hug she could muster.

Author's Note

And that's the first entry from a contributor finished. By all means, if anyone is interested in making their own additions to this anthology; don't be shy to present your ideas! The more stories, the better. :twilightsmile:

Duel #3: Fiery Makeover (Part 1) (By Brony-wan-kenobi)

“Victory is mine in this duel,” said the teen in front of Moondancer smugly, crossing his arms across his yellow shirt. His slicked black hair shined brightly in the morning light. That same light also reflected upon his monster, Water Dragon, which had just destroyed Moondancer’s best monster. “As you can see I’ve done all the math. It was a simple calculation on my part.”

In return, Moondancer gave in the most appropriate expression possible in this situation: deadpanned. Ashes danced across her empty field as she pulled out her phone to check the time. Slightly wincing she saw that there was still thirty minutes before the first bell rang. She still needed to get to her locker, collect her things, and be seated. After she finished this duel that is. Honestly, she wished this idiot had challenged her at a less pressing time, making a racket while he did so until she accepted. Not to mention that little add-on challenge that if he won, she would step down from representing Canterlot High on the math team. No way could she just give up now.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Moondancer as she slid her phone back into her pocket. “Are you finished with your turn or are you going to monologue for a bit?”

Her opponent gritted his teeth a bit at that, only to sigh a moment later. “Yes, well, I end my turn,” he said.

“Then I draw,” announced Moondancer. As she took her card, her side of the field erupted with flames. They danced about as they rose high into the sky, shifting from red to a ghostly blue. The Water Dragon before her looked around as if confused as steam began to rise from its body. As for her opponent, he was looking around with his mouth hanging open in clear confusion.

“What…What is this?” he shouted as a figure appeared behind Moondancer. The teenager’s legs gave way, falling on his rear creating the cracking sound that is made when a calculator is crushed. There must have been one in his back pocket. Not that it mattered to him as he raised a hand and pointed at the monster coming out of the flames. “It can’t be! I destroyed that thing with my monster!”

“Sorry,” said Moondancer as a small smile appeared on her face as another one of her monsters appeared on the field. At the same time her duel disk began to blink, signaling her of some of her other monster effects she could now activate. “But if the math you claim to have done was simple two plus two then you clearly haven’t done enough.”

“Honestly Applejack,” said Rarity as she glared at her friend. The two girls had been walking down the hallway, having just left their lockers when Applejack had given the most undignified yawn imaginable. A few people, the fashion girl noticed, had turned their heads to look at them due to the volume.

“Sorry Rares,” replied Applejack as she tried (and failed) to suppress another yawn, “Lots’a stuff happenin’ around the farm. Got that big rodeo comin’ up in a couple of weeks, so there’s a lot ta get ready. Plus Ah had ta pick up a few extra shifts this week at mah job. Had ta cut back on mah sleep in order ta get all mah homework an’ studying done. Barely even had time ta work on mah new deck.”

Rarity let out a hum as they turned a corner. “Well far be it for me to critique someone on cutting back on their sleep. After all, I have been known to do a few all-nighters on some of my most fabulous gowns from time to time.” At this, Rarity noticed Applejack roll her eyes. While she frowned at this gesture she did not allow it to dissuade her from making her point. “However I do try to keep those things on the weekend so that I am caught up on my rest once all is said and done, before I grace the public. It would simply be bad form to go to school where I might drift off to sleep in class. Really, you should consider-wait, you got a new deck?”

At this point, Rarity had spun around so she was now in front of Applejack causing her friend to stop dead in her tracks. It was well known throughout the school that the farmer girl was one of the best duelists in the building. So much so that she was a shoe-in to be nominated to be one of the students to duel the odious Crystal Prep in the Friendship Cup along with the rest of the girls. However, she hadn’t told any one of them that she was thinking of making a new deck! Judging by the sweat running down her face as well as she shifty look in her eyes, it was clear to the fashionista that Applejack had let slip something she had planned on keeping to herself.

Making for extra juicy gossip!

“It ain’t that big a deal,” said Applejack as she continued to look away. “Just thought Ah might try out somethin’ new. Like how you’re getting some of those xyz cards.”

“Getting some extra deck cards is a tad different from making an entirely new deck,” commented Rarity. “Still, I don’t know why you would consider getting rid of your Plant Princesses. Not only are they exquisite but also very powerful with the right combinations. Plus there are not that many plant archetypes.” A thought then crossed her mind causing her to frown. “Please don’t tell me you’re picking up a more garish looking warrior or dinosaur type deck.”

“Dueling ain’t about looking pretty an all that frou-frou nonsense,” stated Applejack as she returned the frown, “An’ for that matter Ah am still usin’ plants. Just a different type so that we’ve a lick of a chance ta beat them Prep students for a change. Plus, this new deck is mighty fun.”

Rarity let out another hum as she took a step back, bringing her hand to her chin as she smiled at Applejack. It was interesting how Applejack had still not mentioned what her new deck was. Looks like she had a chance to play detective! She highly doubted it was an Inmato deck since she barely knew anything about the deck since she never saw anyone play it. Could it be a Sylvan deck? Some of those cards were pretty hard to find and a tad expensive, but it would make sense with all the extra hours she said she was putting in at work. Or perhaps it was an Aroma deck like the one Apple Bloom had. Oh, the bond between sisters was truly an amazing thing. It’d be adorable to see them both using the same decks in a tag team match! Could she be going for a classic like Naturia? Those were some very active cards, even the bugs which was saying something. Was there anything else?

“Darling would you mind giving me a teensy-weensy hint?” she asked while battering her eye lashes.

“Nothing doing Rares,” snorted Applejack as she began to look annoyed now. “Don’t even know if Ah’m gonna be using this here new deck just yet. Mighty fun, but there are some kinks ta work out.” Applejack then frowned a tad deeper as she crossed her arms. “Wanna make sure Ah know what Ah’m doing before Ah head out there so Ah don’t embarrass myself. Which was why Ah didn’t tell nobody. So Ah’d appreciate if ya would kindly not tell the whole school about this.”

“But Applejack, dear, the students have a right to know,” insisted Rarity as Applejack tried to side step her and fail. “We vote on who is going to be representing the school. If they are not aware of all the facts then how can they vote fairly? I mean honestly, me telling a few select people wouldn’t be the end of the world or anythi-”

Rarity’s eyes went wide as a loud thump sounded next to the two girls. At first when they looked to the side they spotted no one there. At least, not until they looked down. On the floor was a scruffy looking girl who, for a moment, reminded Rarity of Twilight. That is until Rarity took in the girl’s full appearance. The first thing she noted was that the girl had on glasses with a damaged looking frame and bandaged in the middle. She had on an ugly sweater that couldn’t have been fashionable even when her grandmother was alive with a purple plaid skirt. As if all of that wasn’t a horrible affront to the fashion sense of everybody, the girl had a bit of her long hair tied to the side of her head while the rest flowed down to her shoulders. Why even have something like that?

After getting past her attire, Rarity began to take notice of the other features of this girl. The colors in the girl’s hair were different than Twilight’s, along with looking like she needed to switch to a different conditioner. Her skin color was again different, clearly needing some work done on it as well. Still, even though Rarity knew this girl wasn’t Twilight, she knew she had seen her somewhere before. But where?

It was only after blinking to try and remove the sight of this from her eyes for a moment that Rarity saw what was around her. The poor girl’s backpack had come undone, causing the items inside to spill around the floor. Yet it hardly surprised Rarity that something like that would happen. Thick books littered the floor, most of them looking three times the size of one of her normal school books, as well as things like note pads and a duel disk. Before she had a chance to move, Applejack was already helping the girl pick up her things.

“Ya ok, Moondancer?” asked Applejack as she grabbed a couple of books.

“Yeah,” replied Moondancer as she scrambled to grab whatever she could, tossing it into her bag quickly. Once that was done, she gently took hold of what Applejack had picked up and held out for her, stuffing that into the bag as well. After zipping up her bag, which looked like it was about to burst at any moment, Moondancer stood up quick and almost fell back down. “Sorry AJ, but I’ve got to get going. The bell’s about to ring. Thanks again.” With that, the girl moved down the hallway as quickly as she could without running.

“Hmm, that girl looks familiar,” said Rarity as she turned to look at Applejack. “Do you by any chance know her? You seemed to be familiar with her.”

“A little,” replied Applejack. “Her name’s Moondancer. Might have seen her during the Autumn Crown. She started up Twilight’s little fan club, the Twilight Sparklers or something like that.”

“Oh yes, now I remember,” said Rarity as she brought a single finger to her chin while looking up at the ceiling. Rarity had heard of them before and perhaps they had even been there when she dueled Twilight for the second time. Honestly, she really didn’t remember much of what was happening around her during that brief time when Equestrian magic overtook her and turned her evil. They had been a thing for a while after the tournament ended, but sort of fell apart once they realized Twilight was gone. As far as Rarity knew, Moondancer was the only member remaining.

“Ta tell the truth, Ah don’t really know her all that well,” continued Applejack as she scratched the back of her head. “Normally see her when Ah’m talkin’ with her boyfriend an-”

“BOYFRIEND?!” shouted Rarity. At once, Rarity’s mind went into fantasy mode. She imagined a handsome man dressed fine suit with tassels on his shoulders in order to make him look regal even though his face was left in shadows. She could see him driving a fancy car to whisk his date away to a fancy dinner and a night of dancing. He would get out, walk to his lady’s house like a gentleman, and ring the bell before waiting there with a rose in his hand. Then Moondancer would come out wearing the same thing she was wearing right now causing the illusion to shatter.

In Rarity’s mind it was such a shame. If Moondancer bothered to take better care of her appearance she could be a real looker, turning the heads of everybody who saw her. In fact, it might be like in the story of Cinderella where the change would be so amazing that nobody would recognize her. A smile appeared on Rarity’s face followed by a burst of laughter that caused Applejack to back away. A modern day Cinderella with her being the lovely Fairy Godmother! Then everybody around her would take notice, wondering how such an amazing transformation could have taken place. Moondancer would of course mention Rarity and her amazing skills at making her look fabulous! Once that happened students would flock to her wanting the same expert skills leading to a complete change in the school!

“Rarity, Ah don’t know what your thinkin’ about but Ah got a feelin’ Ah won’t like it none,” said Applejack as she shook her head.

“Really Applejack,” said Rarity, a small smile upon her lips. “All I am thinking about right now is helping out a fellow student look her very best.” A devilish smiled crossed her lips before taking off, ignoring Applejack protests.

Moondancer let out a sigh as she sat down at her desk, backpack laying on the ground beside her. Glancing at the clock, she saw just how close she came to being late today; less than thirty seconds. If she had been late, she would have been locked out for today’s advance trig test and gotten a ZERO! A shudder ran through the girl’s body as she thought of that big, red zero on a blank sheet of paper. If something like that had happened her family would have flipped. She would have had to listen to her sister lecture her for hours followed by her parents wondering if she had too many distractions around her keeping her from reaching her full potential. Worst of all; it might have a negative impact on her future plans.

As Moondancer began looking through her bag for a pencil, she thought of that moron who challenged her to a duel so early in the morning. The one who could have made her late. Last she had seen of him was on the streets after their duel, on his hands and knees looking at the ground as Moondancer passed him by. She had failed to see him running up behind her or anywhere in the school. In fact, he was supposed to be here in this class right now. Moondancer tried to remember if she had seen him on her way in to the classroom but came up with nothing. Was he so ashamed that he lost that duel that he was still there in shock? What a drama queen.

As Moondancer grabbed her pencil, the bell rang and the girl straightened herself up…only to jump in her seat at the figure sitting on the edge of her desk. “Hello darling, I’m Rarity,” said the girl as she stared at Moondancer. “I heard from a friend that you are currently seeing somebody special.”

Moondancer became aware of all the people around her looking at them. “Yes, but I don’t see how-”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Rarity as she clapped her hands. “Now, when are you seeing him next?”

“We have something planned for tomorrow, but-”

“Excellent!” cheered Rarity as stars began to twinkle in her eyes. “That will give us plenty of time to give you a complete make-over!” Moondancer felt her jaw hanging open as Rarity got off her desk. “Nothing to fret about my dear. I’ve done this plenty of times. A little trip to the spa, a little make-up, and a new outfit will do you a world of wonders. Not that there is anything too wrong with you, but you really do need to take a tad bit more care with your appearance.”

“Ms. Rarity,” came an annoyed voice from the front of the room. As Rarity turned around to look at the teacher, Moondancer just wanted to sink deep into her seat until she completely vanished. “The bell rang two minutes ago. Unless you are here to take the same test as the rest of my class, I suggest that you leave. Now.”

“Very well,” sang Rarity as she moved to the door. When she reached the exit however, she turned around to look at Moondancer again and said “We’ll talk later”.

Later, Moondancer was walking through the hallway with her head hanging low and her shoulders slumped. After the incident with Rarity, Moondancer’s brain seemed to be on the fritz making it harder to concentrate on her work during the test. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed due to the fact that she was dating Hunter or anything like that, far from it. It was just that she didn’t want to broadcast it across the entire school. After all, what she did in private was just that: private. Now she had the feeling that the whole school was talking about what had happened and why it had happened. She could feel the eyes of her fellow classmates glancing at her every so often as she took her test, making it very difficult to concentrate. Whispers seemed to grow in intensity as she walked throughout the building. A few of the more immature freshmen even made those annoying kissy faces at her as she made her way to lunch.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Rarity seemed to be stalking her wherever she went as if she had placed a tracker on her or something. She was there at the beginning of every class to ask questions. How did she feel about a mud bath? What kind of shampoo did she use? Is she worried about budget? It was all really tiring trying to ignore the girl until the bell rang and she was asked to leave the room by the teacher. Honestly, Moondancer was considering heading to Principal Celestia or Vice-Principal Luna to talk to one of them about this.

Now, as she entered the gym locker room to get changed, she spotted the white skinned girl there with a smile on her face and a tape measure in her hands.

“How about a quick fitting before you head off to that mandatory sweat class,” said Rarity as she approached Moondancer. Clenching her hands into fists, Moondancer let out a scream of rage.

“That girl needs to learn how to take a hint,” muttered Moondancer to herself as she made her way to her locker. “There’s being nice and then there’s being a creepy stalker! And Rarity has gotten to the point where even stalkers are telling her to tone it down! Ah! I just can’t wait for this day to be over!”

Quickly dialing her lock, she opened the door to her locker only to see the last thing she expected to see: Rarity. Her entire upper body seemed to shoot out of her locker, hanging on from something but Moondancer didn’t want to look to find out what. It was like she was channeling the powers of that hyper pink friend of hers!

Rarity opened her mouth to speak, but Moondancer wasn’t going to give her a chance to talk. Instead, she slammed the door shut forcing Rarity back into her locker before bracing her back against the cold steel. In turn, there was a banging against the door along with muffled shouts from Rarity which Moondancer ignored. Acting quickly, she locked her locker again before heading down the hallway as fast as she could.

At last the final bell for the day rung, causing most of the students to head out towards freedom as fast as they could. There were a few exceptions and Moondancer was one of them. She moved like a zombie, shoulders hunched and her eyes half lidded as she moved towards the principal’s office. From time-to-time she would look around her with a nervous twitch, looking for the signs of the girl who had put her in this state.

Suddenly a door opened just as she passed it followed by a hand grabbing her shoulder. Before she knew what was happening Moondancer found herself dragged into a classroom. She was then spun around so fast she almost toppled over, ending with her placing her hands on her knees. Looking up, Moondancer was not surprised to see Rarity there with what looked like a bundle of fabric samples.

“There you are darling,” said Rarity as she waved her hand around. “Now that we have a bit more time, I figured we could go over some ideas I had.” She then held up two of the fabrics. “I honestly can’t decide which is better. I think the midnight blue would look rather striking on you personally. But there are a lot of people out there who claim that you can never go wrong with a passionate red. Perhaps if I could just get an idea of how it will look on you.”

As Rarity took a step towards Moondancer, the nerdy girl let out a scream of rage causing the other girl to back up post haste. “I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!” shouted Moondancer as she tossed her bag to the floor. “Rarity, take the hint. I don’t want a makeover or anything!”

“Well I’m just trying to help,” responded Rarity as she put her hands on her hips, looking annoyed. Something that didn’t do any good for the mood Moondancer was in right now.

“Help?!” raged Moondancer. “You’re stressing me out, not helping me! Look, I like how I look. My boyfriend likes how I look. Not everyone cares about fashion. But you just keep stalking me wherever I go! It’s enough to make me want to stay locked up inside a crumbling building for the rest of my life!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “A bit of an extreme reaction I think,” she said with a huff. “I’m sure you think you like how you look, but have you ever tried tidying yourself up a bit. Just imagine how great you’ll feel as people stare in wonder at you. The look your boyfriend makes when he is taken speechless by your appearance.”

“People are already staring at me thanks to you,” replied Moondancer through gritted teeth. A sigh escaped her as she shook her head. Rarity just didn’t get it. She liked the fact that she had someone in her life who liked her for who she was, not how she looked. Having conversations over their respective passions. But Rarity just didn’t seem to get it.

A horrible thought crossed her mind. Rarity seemed to believe that she was doing the right thing and had been willing to chase her across to school to do this makeover thing. Would going to Principal Celestia really work with that kind of person? She might be able to stop her here at school, but what about when she was out of school? Would Rarity follow her on her dates trying to ask Hunter if he thought she’d look better with blush or her hair done differently? That would get annoying quickly. What about other places, like if she ever got an internship at a lab or whatever?

“How about this,” said Moondancer as she reached for her bag and unzipped it. A moment later she stood up holding her duel disk with both hands. “I’ll challenge you to a duel. If you win, I’ll comply with this whole makeover business. But if I win then you drop it and stop pestering me. Deal?”

Rarity looked at the duel disk for a moment, a hand resting on her hips as she thought about it. “I suppose so,” said Rarity after a moment, a smile appearing on her lips as she spoke. “But darling, are you sure want to do this knowing my ranking in the last tournament?”

Moondancer’s sole reply was to put on her duel disk as she gave the fashionista a hardened look of determination.

Duel #3: Fiery Makeover (Part 2) (By Brony-wan-kenobi)

It didn’t take long to find a place for the two girls to duel. With the gym being occupied by the basketball team as well as the wrestling team and the weather outside being pleasant, it was decided that they should take this match on an empty field. Thankfully, the track team was out on a race, providing the two girls with a perfect spot to duel. Around them, the soccer and baseball teams were hard at work with their own practices meaning that they would be focusing on that rather than watching this match. If they did stop, the coaches would undoubtedly raise a stink.

Standing in the middle on the grassy field, Rarity raised her duel disk. It was a tad hard for her to fathom the extremes this girl was going just to avoid a makeover. She had never seen a girl put up such a fuss at getting a free spa treatment and a free attire made by her before. Well, maybe once or twice from Rainbow Dash, but that was an exception. Honestly, all she wanted was to help her shine…and maybe promote her own skills just a tad. However, she felt like this was in the bag. She had never seen Moondancer duel before and was very confident in her own skills as a duelist. She had, after all, gotten to the top eight at the Autumn Crown. Still it never hurt to be prepared for anything.

“Opponent detected. Streaming data.” Came the mechanical voice of the duels disks in unison after they had inserted their decks. “Duel mode set. Initiating. Commence duel?” Rarity pressed the button on her duel disk to accept with Moondancer doing the same.

-Rarity’s Life Points: 4000-

-Moondancer’s Life Points: 4000-

Rarity looked down at her duel disk as she heard a beeping noise. The order of the duel had been set with her going second.

Turn 1: Moondancer

“I draw,” announced Moondancer as she drew her first card. “Not a bad opening start. I’ll start by summoning the ‘Defender of Nephthys’ in attack position.”

As Moondancer placed her card on the card tray there was a pillar of flames that appeared on her field. As quickly as they appeared they vanished, leaving a young woman hovering in the air who slowly descended until her feet touched the ground. The woman had nicely tanned skin with long, whitish blond hair along with bright golden armor that protected her chest, shoulders, hands, and legs. Underneath that armor she wore a black, skin tight attire with a flowing white cape with a red inside. In her had was a golden sword that reminded Rarity of a flaming feather. (1400/200)

“I activate the effect of my Defender,” announced Moondancer as she threw out her hand. “Once per turn, I can destroy one card in my hand in order to special summon one other level four or lower ‘Nephthys’ monster from my hand. So I’ll destroy my Matriarch of Nephthys in order to special summon my ‘Disciple of Nephthys’ in defense mode.”

As Moondancer sent the card from her hand to the graveyard, another pillar of flame appeared; unveiling a young girl with slightly darker skin than Defender. Disciple wore an odd looking hat which Rarity had never seen before, looking crudely bird-like and hiding most of her braided black hair. Adorning her body was a mostly red outfit that had a single feather in the middle of her skirt whose sleeves were separate from her blouse, starting at her elbows. (0/2000)

“With Disciple out I can now activate her ability,” stated Moondancer calmly as her monster took a knee. “By destroying one card from my hand I can add any ‘Nephthys’ monster from my deck to my hand. So I’ll destroy my Chronicler of Nephthys in order to bring my Devotee of Nephthys to my hand. Finally I’ll place one card face down and end my turn.

‘Nephthys,’ thought Rarity as she watched Moondancer’s face down card appear on the field. ‘I’ve never heard of such an archetype. I will admit that they are certainly more appealing to the eyes than most decks run at this school. Still they seem to be rather self destructive and their effects don’t seem all that great. It’s no wonder she never competed in a tournament before.’

Turn 2: Rarity

“I guess it’s my draw then,” announced Rarity. After drawing her card, she looked at it for a moment before smiling. “Well now, I suppose I’ll play the spell card ‘Terraforming’. With this card I can search out any field spell in my deck and add it to my hand. I’ll choose ‘Ancient City – Rainbow Ruins,’ followed by activating it.” Still smiling, Rarity gracefully opened up her field card tray on the side of her duel dick before gently placing the card in it.

At once, the area around the two girls began to shimmer and change. No longer were they on the track field but in a Greek Coliseum packed with ancient Greeks in the stands. Over and over the crowd began to chant Rarity’s name as a brilliant rainbow arched above her.

“Now, now darlings,” said Rarity with a blush, holding her cards over her face like a fan. Looking across the field, she saw that Moondancer was giving her an un-amused expression with a single eyebrow raised.

Rarity sighed. “Please darlings, save some of those cheers for later. After all you haven’t seen anything yet! I’ll summon my ‘Sapphire Pegasus’!”

Appearing on Rarity’s side of the field was a large, white pegasus with blue gems in each of its wings and a large blue horn protruding from its forehead. (1800/1200)

“When my gorgeous pegasus is summoned to the field I can add one of my lovely gems to my spell and trap card zone. So I think a nice Emerald Tortoise would help make the place look more dashing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Not really,” sighed Moondancer as a large chuck of green crystal appeared on Rarity’s side of the field. She then pressed a button on her duel disk causing her face down to be revealed. “I think activating Torrential Tribute would be more fitting. When a monster is summoned to the field, this cards effect destroys all monsters on the field.”

From Moondancer’s trap card came a flood of highly compacted water. Like white water rapids, it surged across the field washing away everything in its path and destroying it.

“Well that was rather rude,” said Rarity as the water subsided. While feeling glad that it was just virtual water, not able to ruin her makeup, she did notice something odd. Floating around Moondancer’s side of the field were flakes of ash. Frowning, she pressed a few buttons on her duel disk to see if there was anything on the field or an effect on the field caused by her monsters. Finding nothing the girl shrugged.

“Since my Pegasus was destroyed, it becomes a gem in my spell and trap card zone,” continued Rarity as she gestured to the blue gem that was on her field. “But it won’t be there for long! I play the spell card ‘Crystal Promise’ which lets me revive one of my Crystal Beasts in my spell and trap card zone. So lets welcome back Sapphire Pegasus!”

Once again Rarity’s steed returned, snorting and kicking the ground as its wings extended outwards.

“And, like before, I can add another one of my Crystal Beasts from my deck to my spell and trap card zone. I believe I’ll go with my Topaz Tiger. Now, attack her life points directly!”

At its mistress’s command, Sapphire Pegasus flew into the sky, pointing its horn at Moondancer as it did so. From its position, a beam of blue light fired from its horn and struck Moondancer in the side which caused a hand to raise to the area she had just been struck.

-Moondancer Life Points: 2200-

“I think I’ll place one card face down and end my turn,” said Rarity as she slipped the card into the appropriate spot. She then looked up at Moondancer who had a hand on her deck, ready to draw with her eyes closed. She stood there, not saying a word or moving. Then, she suddenly opened her eyes showing an intensity that caused Rarity to take a step back.

“Tell me Rarity, how much do you know about Nephthys?” asked Moondancer, still not yet drawing her card.

“The archetype?” said Rarity, slightly confused. “I will admit, not much.”

Moondancer shook her head. “No Rarity, I’m not talking about the Egyptian Goddess. Goddess of the air and protector of the dead. She is also the sister of the protector of life, Isis, and the two often worked together. At least, that’s what historical texts suggest. Because of this she was associated with both life and death like a phoenix.”

“Uh, what does that have to do with anything?” asked Rarity now clearly confused.

Turn 3: Moondancer

“Let me show you! I draw!” As Moondancer drew her card, the ashes on her side of the field ignited. Before Rarity’s eyes flames spread rapidly across Moondancer’s side of the field until it was completely covered.

“What is going on?” demanded Rarity as she felt the heat before her. Nearly at the point of sweating, she wondered how Moondancer could stand there with that sweater on.

“When my cards are destroyed by card effects, they gain an additional effect that only activates during my standby phase,” replied Moondancer. “First is my Defender, who destroys one Nephthys card in my deck. So I’ll choose my Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys. Then comes my Disciple, who lets me add one Nephthys spell or trap card from my deck to my hand. So I’ll be adding my Rebirth of Nephthys to my hand. Following that is my Chronicler whose effect allows me to add one Nephthys card in my graveyard to my hand. So I’ll be taking back my Defender. Lastly, my Matriarch returns to the field in defense mode!”

As the fires began to die, a woman appeared on the field with flames spreading behind her arms like wings. She was dressed in a white gown with golden wrappings around her exposed feet and arms. On her head was a headdress that again bore a striking resemblance to a bird, helped in part by the draping that went down her chest ending in red feathers. (600/600)

Rarity frowned as she looked at Moondancer’s side of the field. ‘That must have been why she activated that trap card,’ she thought. ‘She wanted those extra effect to help reinforce her side of the field. Still, it doesn’t look like it helped her all that much. Thankfully, I’ll have my face down card to help protect me just in case.’

“Now that that’s done, I play the spell card: ‘Pre-Preparation of Rites’!” announced Moondancer as she held up her card for Rarity to see. “This card allows me to add one ritual spell card from my deck to my hand as well as one ritual monster whose name is listed on the card. So I’ll be adding another copy of my Rebirth of Nephthys along with Cerulean Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.” Moondancer paused to take the two cards out of her deck, holding onto them for a moment before adding them to her hand while her deck auto-shuffled itself. “Now I’ll activate Rebirth of Nephthys; tributing the Matriarch on the field for the Devotee of Nephthys in my hand!”

As Moondancer slid the ritual spell card into her spell/trap card slot, the ground began to break apart behind her. Erupting from the stone bricks of Rarity’s field spell came a stone temple which on top of sat the giant statue of a creature that was mostly bird like. It stood on its talons, wings somewhat outstretched on a rounded body with a long neck, its head looking down at Moondancer. Yet the creature also had two small arms for some reason. Leading up to the stature was a flight of stone steps with flaming basins helping to light the path.

“Your faith has now been witnessed by the goddess,” chanted Moondancer aloud, the flames in the basins rising as a blue light began to escape for the cracks in the stone statue behind her. “Be not afraid as you receive her blessing for death and rebirth. Ritual Summon Level Two: ‘Devotee of Nephthys’!”

The flames grew brighter and larger as at the same time light from the statue hit the Matriarch of Nephthys causing her to vanish before Rarity’s eyes. As the statue began to fade away a new woman appeared on the field. Instead of the whites and golds Rarity had seen thus far, this monster wore an attire of blue with matching wrappings around both her feet and arms. Her headdress became more elaborate with a bird’s face sticking out of the top with a bright blue feather in the middle. Long wrapped blue tassels flowed down her sides ending with flat light blue cloth. Finally, behind her were blue flames that looked like a long teal feather. (1200/1200)

“Now I can activate my Devotee’s effect,” continued Moondancer. “When it is ritual summoned, I can go through my deck and summon from it one Nephthys monster. So I will bring out my ‘Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys’!”

“You can what?” gasped Rarity as she held a hand over her mouth while Devotee raised a hand to the sky.

She watched as blue, flaming feathers began shooting to the sky where they then positioned themselves into a circle. As Devotee grinned beneath her headdress a golden creature flew out of the circle leaving behind a trail of flames as it did. To Rarity, this thing looked like a machine but after looking at her duel disk she saw that it was a winged beast. Its plated body reminded her of the statue that had been used to summon Devotee, but its arms were more human like than what she had seen before with glowing green eyes. The Sacred Phoenix let out a piercing screech causing Rarity to bring her hands to her ears. (2400/1600)

“This is an older card than what most people play today,” said Moondancer as she looked over at her Phoenix fondly. “But I will admit that I have a soft spot for it. So much so that I have three of them in my deck. But, that’s not its ultimate form. Allow me to show you its true might by playing another Rebirth of Nephthys to bring out my best monster!” Rarity’s eyes widened in shock as once more the temple rose from the ground.

“Oh great beast of the underworld, hear my call. Spread your wings and soar from the ashes of the nether flames into the world of the living. Ritual Summon! Level Eight: ‘Cerulean Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys’!”

As the golden Phoenix vanished, a blue one took its place above Moondancer’s head. Yet it was larger with ghostly blue flames coming out of its wings as well as replacing its tail feathers. (3000/1000)

“My Cerulean Sacred Phoenix has his own effects as well,” said Moondancer calmly. “During my main phase I can destroy Nephthys cards in my hand to destroy an equal number of cards you control. I’ll use this effect now; destroying the Defender in my hand in order to destroy your Pegasus.” At that, the flames around Cerulean Sacred Phoenix grew more intense as Moondancer sent a card from her hand to the graveyard slot. Before Rarity knew it, those same ghostly flames appeared around Sapphire Pegasus as it became a gem in her spell/trap card zone.

‘This certainly isn’t good,’ thought Rarity as she looked over at her trap card. ‘I had thought that Crystal Pair would have offered me some protection as well as giving me another Crystal Beast on my side of the field. But I can’t activate it now! And with four of my spell/trap card zones filled I find myself in a bit of a bind.’

“I am aware that when you have at least two Crystal Beasts in your back row, you will take half the damage you normally take,” said Moondancer calmly before pointing at Rarity. “So this will not do as much damage as this combo normally does. Still, I attack with all my monsters at once!”

On her command, Moondancer’s Sacred Phoenix launched a flamethrower of blue fire around Rarity, causing them to reach high into the air. As she stumbled around in the heat, Devotee jumped past the flames and into her field of vision. Noticing that Devotee’s dark hands were now covered in blue flames, Rarity moved her hand to try and protect herself. However she was too slow as Devotee grabbed Rarity by the head for a moment causing her to cry out.

-Rarity Life Points: 1900-

“With that done I end my turn,” said Moondancer as Devotee jumped back to Moondancer’s side of the field. Rarity, who was panting from the attack, looked up in time to see Devotee vanish from the field. “At this time, Devotee is destroyed and sent to the graveyard as cost for the effect she used earlier.”

Turn Four: Rarity

“Is that so?” asked Rarity slowly as she righted herself, bringing a hand to her deck. “Well, one less monster to deal with then. I draw!” After drawing her card, she looked at it briefly before adding it to her hand. ‘One less monster indeed. An easy target that I could have used to deal a good amount of damage to is gone. But I still have options. Thanks to having three Crystal Beasts in my spell/trap card zone I can negate any spell or trap card she activates. So if she thinks she can use another ritual card she’ll have another thing coming. Now, time to thin her life points a tad.’

“I’ll start by playing the spell card: ‘Crystal Beacon’!” declared Rarity as she slid the card into her duel disk. “If I have at least two Crystal Beast cards in my spell and trap card zone I can special summon one Crystal Beast from my deck. So make way ‘Crystal Beast Amber Mammoth’ in defense mode!”

Appearing next to Rarity was a large, grey mammoth with four tucks and an oval chunk of amber in its forehead. (1700/1600)
“And that darling is my special summon. Now I’ll normal summon my Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat in attack position!” Leaping onto the field on the other side of Rarity was a large pink, panther-like cat with a gold colored breast plate with a large purple amethyst in its middle. (1200/400)

“Now for my attack,” said Rarity as she gestured towards her cat. “While my Amethyst Cat doesn’t have nearly enough attack points to take down your Phoenix, by cutting its attack points in half she can attack you directly! So go now!”

Amethyst Cat instantly leapt into the air, claws extended as it flew over the fire bird. Moondancer only had enough time to look up before the claws came down, crying out as her life points dropped.

-Moondancer’s Life Points: 1600-

“That puts us a tad closer,” said Rarity with a nod as she surveyed her side of the field. Right now she still had a space for one of her Crystal Beast monsters plus her trap card. Then there was her Mammoth who had a power to redirect any attack launched against another Crystal Beast to itself. Meaning that if Moondancer tried to attack her Cat with her remaining Phoenix, Mammoth would take the hit and she would receive no damage. “I end my turn.”

Turn Five: Moondancer

“Then I’ll draw,” announced Moondancer. After drawing her card, flames began to reappear on her side of the field, dancing wildly and confusing Rarity.

“These flames again!” gasped Rarity.

“That’s right,” replied Moondancer as a small smile appeared on her lips. “But it’s not just from my Defender. Remember, that same card destroyed a card in my deck last turn. It was the another Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys.”

“Oh, right,” sighed Rarity as her shoulders slumped. She then let out a gasp as the flames began to move onto her side of the field, like wave after wave as they edged closer to her.

“Now, my monsters effect activates during my standby phase,” said Moondancer as she folded her arms. “First, with my Defender I’ll destroy my last Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys sleeping in my deck. Next, the effect of the Sacred Phoenix I sent there last turn. If he was destroyed by a card effect he now returns to my side of the field. When that happens all your spell and trap cards are destroyed!”

As she said that, a Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys erupted from the ground, causing the last wave of flames to grow larger and hit her back row. All of her gems caught on fire before exploding violently as did her face down and equip card. The false audience in her field card gasped in horror, some fled but the area remained.

“Not all my cards were destroyed,” said Rarity. “Since I still had at least one Crystal Beast in my spell and trap card zone, it remained safe from that horrible effect.”

“I am aware,” said Moondancer as a red chuck of crystal appeared on Rarity’s side of the field. “I’ve watched you duel plenty of times in the past. So I have a firm grasp on how your deck works.”

Rarity sighed a bit at that, hand going to her head as she did so. “Let me guess,” she said as she gave the girl in glasses a deadpanned look. “You have calculated the perfect formula on how to defeat me or something like that?”

In response, Moondancer’s eyes widened quite a bit before narrowing. “Are you serious with that old cliché?” she demanded as she hands went to her hips. “Just because I love to study and do well in school doesn’t make me a robot who thinks she can calculate for everything under the sun! In fact scientists get a bad rap for the way they are depicted in the media. They may live for science but they’re still human with thoughts and feelings like everybody else!”

“Oh…well…” stammered Rarity, a little taken aback by this.

Moondancer turned a little to her side, her head fixed towards Rarity as she crossed her arms. “Let me guess, you’re also wondering why I’m not using a Lunalight deck because my name happens to be Moondancer,” she demanded. “Or a machine type deck like Cyber Dragons because, being smart, I should use them? Agh, that really ticks me off!” Moondancer then let out a sigh. “It’s always the same.”

“Is that why you didn’t compete in the Autumn Crown Tournament?” asked Rarity as she thought about it. Moondancer was certainly giving her a run for her money. With this much skill she could have done very well for herself, perhaps ranked in the upper part of the top sixteen.

“Partly,” said Moondancer as she straightened herself a bit. “The main reason was I didn’t want the bother. If I did duel in a tournament or on a more regular basis and did well, then I would be bothered all the time by people who wanted to take my spot. Meaning less time to study and do the things I want. So I’d rather sit in the crowd, watching and rooting on other duelists and studying in-between interesting duels. The only time I duel is when I feel like I have to.”

“Now then, Sacred Phoenix take out her Amber Mammoth!” The Phoenix gave a loud screech before sending a wave of flames at Rarity’s monster and destroying it.

“The effect of my Amber Mammoth now activates, allowing it to become a continuous spell card in my spell and trap card zone,” announced Rarity as a piece of amber appeared on her side of the field. “With that, my field spell is now protected and can’t be destroyed.”

“Like I said, I know how your deck works,” replied Moondancer. “I also knew about the attack redirection ability of your Mammoth. I suppose there was a chance you could have forgotten to use it, but I doubt that. In any case, I’ll attack your Cat with my best card!” Another blast of flames, this time blue, went flying towards Rarity’s last remaining monster destroying it as it cried out.

-Rarity’s Life Point’s: 100-

“With that, I end my turn,” said Moondancer. “During my next standby phase, Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys will rise from the graveyard and destroy all your spells and traps. All that you will be left with will be a useless field spell. So make your last move.”

Turn Six: Rarity

“It’s not over yet dear,” said Rarity as she drew a card. She looked at it, smiled, and then put it into her duel disk. “I activate the spell card: ‘Rare Value’! Since I have two or more Crystal Beast cards in my spell and trap card zone, you get to pick one to be destroyed. Then I get to draw two cards.”

“Hmm,” went Moondancer as she looked at the two cards. “Not much of a choice. I suppose I’ll have your Mammoth destroyed.”

Rarity nodded as she removed the card from her tray, the amber gem on her field vanishing as she did so. Slowly, she drew two cards from her deck and looked at them. Her eyes widened. ‘Not what I was hoping for,’ she thought as she looked up. ‘But it will do just nicely.’

“I activate the spell card ‘Crystal Blessing’,” Rarity announced as she held up her card. “With this I can select two fine Crystal Beast monsters in my graveyard and place them in my spell and trap card zones. So I’ll bring back my Amber Mammoth and Emerald Tortoise.” As she said that, two more gems appeared on her side of the field. “That makes three gems for me. But why stop there when I can play my ‘Crystal Bond’? This spell card allows me to add one Crystal Beast monster to my hand as well as placing one Crystal Beast with a different name into my spell and trap card zone. So to my hand I’ll take my Ruby Carbuncle. Then, I’ll place my Cobalt Eagle into my back row. Now, since I have a total of four Crystal Beasts there acting as continuous spell cards I can use the effect of my field spell to draw one card.”

“Trying to draw your Rainbow Dragon?” asked Moondancer as Rarity drew her card. “Even if you were to be lucky enough to draw that card, it wouldn’t matter. It’s special abilities can’t be used on the turn its special summoned. You would be able to do a large amount of damage, but not enough to win.”

“Perhaps, but that’s not what I’m planning darling,” said Rarity with a smile, causing Moondancer to take a step back in surprise. “I play the spell card: ‘Crystal Abundance’!”

As Rarity played her spell card, the gems in her spell and trap card zone began to float into the air and move to the outside of the field. They then began to move in a circle, spinning around faster and faster while rainbow colored lightning began to dance between them.

“What is this?” demanded Moondancer as she looked around. “I’ve never seen you use this card before!”

“I only have one copy of this card in my deck, so it’s not a card I draw into all that often,” admitted Rarity. “But it is useful. When I have four Crystal Beast monster’s in my back row, I can send them to the graveyard in order to send all other cards there as well. And, since it’s a non-destruction effect, your monster’s effects won’t activate!”

At that moment, there was a blinding multi-colored light forcing both girls to cover their eyes. When they lowered their hands, they were back on the empty track field.

“I’ll still have a Sacred Phoenix returning my next turn,” stated Moondancer forcefully.

“I am aware,” said Rarity who was still smiling. “Good thing my spell card has another effect. I can bring back Crystal Beast monsters back from my graveyard to the field equal to the number of your cards that were sent to the grave. That means I can bring back two monsters. So welcome back Sapphire Pegasus and Topaz Tiger!”

At once, Sapphire Pegasus appeared on the field along with a white tiger with a horn on its head. (1600/1000)

“Now I enter my battle phase and end this duel!” declared Rarity as she held out her hand. “Both monsters, attack her directly!”

Like at the beginning of the duel, Sapphire Pegasus flew into the air before firing a beam of blue energy at Moondancer which knocked the girl down. Before she could get to her knees to get back up, the white tiger was standing before her and brought its claws down upon her.

-Moondancer’s Life Points: 0-

The next night, Rarity did her best to remain hidden behind some bushes by Moondancer’s home as she waited for her boyfriend to show up. She was so giddy that she wasn’t too bothered by the possible grass stains on her clothing or the leaves in her hair. Because this moment would all be worth it!

True to her word, Moondancer had submitted to Rarity’s desire to have a complete makeover after their duel. Firstly was a trip to the spa. For some reason, Moondancer had referred to it as a torture chamber. All they did was a little, teeny-tiny hot wax treatment on her face, seaweed wrap, a facial mask, as well as a few other things that were included in the elite treatment package that she got for her. When Moondancer left, her skin was now flawless with thinner eyebrows. With that done, Rarity made sure her hair got the treatment it desperately needed so that it would shine brightly in the most healthy way possible.

While all that was being done, Rarity was hard at working making Moondancer the perfect dress imaginable! Several designs were created by Rarity and quickly rejected by Moondancer for various reasons. Some of these reasons Rarity understood and felt ashamed that she thought they were good. Too skimpy. Too 80’s. Too many flamingos. That last one even Rarity didn’t know what she was thinking when she created it! But there were other’s Rarity just didn’t understand why Moondancer didn’t like them. Still, in the end they were able to come up with a compromise. The fashionista worked through the night, forgoing sleep just to make sure it was ready in time for the date.

The sound of steps walking down the sidewalk alerted Rarity to the presence of someone nearby. Hopefully it was her boyfriend this time and not another person walking their dog. Or a police officer coming to find out what she was doing here in some bushes. Again. Looking onward, she spotted a…scruffy looking boy in some shabby clothing as he made his way towards Moondancer’s home. Rarity frowned a bit as he walked over to the house, silently hoping he wouldn’t take too long. She was here to see her magic at work.

About a minute or so after knocking on the door, the teenage boy was greeted with the magnificent presence of the new and improved Moondancer. Her hair was now properly combed, flowing down the back of her head elegantly. The girl’s face was smoother and lacked those awfully tacky glasses, replaced with contacts. Her dress was the same purple color as her former sweater, having only a single strap along with a row of white diamonds positioned in the same manner as her cutie mark. All in all, she looked absolutely stunning even as she squinted slightly at the boy.

“H-Hey Hunter,” she said meekly.

Rarity couldn’t see Hunter’s expression as his back was facing her, only able to notice his head tilted slightly. “A little overdressed for the movies dont’cha think?” he asked.

Moondancer sagged a little. “Sorry, I got roped into a makeover,” she said with a sigh. “I just hope I can watch the movie with these contacts.”

Hunter chuckled a bit as he opened up his jacket and pulled out a pair of those same glasses she normally wore. “These might help,” he said as he handed them over. Moondancer smiled at this as she quickly took out her contacts and put on her glasses.

“Ahh, much better,” she said as the two began to walk down the street. “Let’s hope we can get to the theater in time. I don’t want to miss the first kill fodder get what’s coming to him again.”

“I’m sure we’ll make it,” Rarity heard Hunter say as they moved away. “You look nice by the way. But, to be honest, I like you better the way you normally look.” As they continued to move out of ear shot, Rarity remained where she was with her mouth hanging open.

Duel #4: Test by Arrogant Flames (Part 1) (by Brony-wan-Kenobi)

“Now, El Shaddoll Construct, finish this!” shouted Hunter from his spot underneath the same shady tree he liked to stand under as he pointed a finger at Applejack. The blonde cowgirl only had time to look upwards to see the largest of Star Hunter’s monsters lumbering over her before dozens of purple energy threads rained down upon her. They stuck the ground around the blonde cowgirl causing rocks and dirt to be shot into the air while other threads pierced her very body.

Applejack dropped to one knee as her life points hit zero, the holograms quickly beginning to fade. Still, she kept her eyes on the giant figure that dominated the duel; El Shaddoll Construct (2800/2500). It was a monster that looked so much like Flash’s Gem Knight Lapis, but bigger and more purple. Coming out from its back were thousands upon thousands of purple threads that almost covered the field. It dominated the field as soon as it appeared as well as setting up more monsters in the graveyard for Hunter to use. But it hadn’t just been that card alone that caused Applejack so much trouble. As soon as he had summoned her to the field, he also brought out Invoked Mechaba (2500/2100). That twisted machine like knight negated and destroyed everything Applejack nearly everything Applejack had tried leaving her mostly at its mercy.

It was then a figure moved in front of the sunlight and held out a hand towards her. “Good match,” said Hunter in an honest tone. The farmer girl looked at him in disbelief, but smiled herself as she took his hand.

“Not much of a match,” she replied as she got to her feet. As she did, Applejack noticed that there had been several passerby’s who had stopped to watch their match. Not surprising since they were still practicing in the park behind Hunter’s old house. Plenty of others were outside on this sunny day (Hunter dueling under the shade of his favorite tree like always) so there were bound to be a few who would stop to watch. Including Apple Bloom and her friends who had been sitting on a nearby park bench. Then there was Moondancer who would occasionally look up from one of her advanced book to see how things were progressing.

As for Hunter, he merely shrugged in response. “You told me not to go easy,” he said with a faint smile. “And I have been itching to use El Shaddoll Construct ever since she got off the ban list. So I figured why not.”

“Can see why,” said Applejack as she stretched. A couple of people in the crowd leered at her as her large breasts kissed the sky above, something that AJ paid little to no mind about. “That thing is harder to take down than a bucking bull at the rodeo. Well, at least it gives me an idea about what sort of things that Crystal Prep might be throwing at us. Sure as sugar they ain’t gonna be pulling any punches.” She paused for a moment as she straightened up. “Still might help to go up against a couple of your other decks. Just ta get a feel for the other types of summoning.”

Hunter didn’t say anything right away, just scratching his chin. “Well I do have a couple of good synchro and xyz decks that I haven’t used in a while,” he admitted slowly. “Even a couple that use multiple summoning methods. Might help you get ready for the Friendship Cup.”

Applejack found herself smiling nervously at that, not know what to say. She was, of course, very grateful to Hunter for all he was doing for her. Not only had he given her the cards for her new deck, the one she planned on using against the Prep when the time came, but he was also helping her with these practice duels to help her work out the kinks in her deck. Something that was very helpful since after every duel she had gone home to make whatever tweak she thought was needed. Dropping cards that had just been dead in her hand just didn’t do enough, or if she thought of something she could have done during one of the duels but she just didn’t have all the cards to make the right combos. Now her deck was stronger than it had been during her first duel with him. Still, Hunter was a very skilled duelist in his own right. She had hoped on tackling a deck that used one form of special summoning before tangling with one that used two.

On the other hand, Hunter had a point. She needed to get ready for the big match against Crystal Prep. The more she trained against all these different types of summoning would only benefit her even if she did get her ass handed to her. She just sort of wished that it didn’t happen every single time.

“Maybe I should duel her sometime,” called Moondancer as she got up. Pausing for a moment, she dusted herself off before approaching the two with a book carried under her arm. “It’ll also be good for her to duel decks that people don’t normally run.”

“Sounds like fun,” said AJ with a grin. “Heard ya gave old Rares a run for her money. Like ta see how Ah match up.”

“Guess we can do it next week,” said Moondancer with a nod before suddenly elbowing Hunter playfully in the side. “Besides, this guy here is going to be busy next weekend. His aunt is taking him out to celebrate.”

While Hunter gave a sheepish grin AJ’s smile widened as she looked over at him. Hunter’s situation was not all that well known within the school. The only reason Applejack knew about it was because she had visited his place, shocked at seeing how poorly his parents neglected everything. From what she knew, they spent all day and night watching old videos of their younger son Star Chaser while the house became almost a literal dumping ground. The lawn was a wreck, trash piling up everywhere inside, and the smell was worse than anything she had ever smelt in the pig pen. There was also the fact that they blamed Hunter for Chaser’s fall from grace as well as his later arrest. Needless to say, that it was not a place she’d want anybody in her school to live in. She was thankful that something was being done by Hunter’s aunt who wanted to take custody of her nephew.

“Well shucks, Hunter,” she said, patting him on the back…so hard that he was almost launched forward. Thankfully Moondancer caught him before his face was planted on the ground. “Uhh, sorry ‘bout that. Still, glad ta hear you’re moving out of that place.”

“Already did,” replied Hunter as tried to rub the spot where AJ had patted him. “Last week Child Services sent someone down to the house. Seeing how mom and dad went into a flying rage when she turned off the TV in order to get their attention, the agent decided that my aunts place would be better for me. Moved out the next day.”

Moondancer was smiling as well. “Yeah, now I can actually visit him at his place. Not that my parents mind having him around, it just helps avoid those awkward conversations my dad’s always trying to start with him. Not to mention the timing is perfect.”

At that, Applejack blinked at that. “The timing?”

As students moved towards the school the next morning, a lone figure trailed behind them. It was a teenage boy who had light brownish skin, darker brown hair that was slicked back, and yellow eyes that almost seemed predatory. He wore a light grey trench coat that billowed in the breeze and under it was a white shirt with blue stripes as well as high end jeans. The boy walked in his heavy looking black boots with utter confidence on his face while his eyes were glued to the rears of the girls in front of him.

Star Chaser stared at them the same way a man who had gone days without water looked at an iced glass of the life-giving liquid. For far too long he had been kept within the walls of steel and stone, his only company being the whiny cries of teenage boys he cared nothing about. Now, before him, were the rumps of one of the things he missed dearly during his rather unpleasant stay away from home. Soon he would get back everything that had been wrongfully taken away from him by his own retarded brother. He would get back his fame as a star athlete, playboy, and most important of all; as duelist!

Licking his lips, he could almost see it now. All of the girls in this shithole of a school would be lining up just for the chance to spend one night with him, perhaps two or three if they were lucky. Maybe even the teachers if any of them managed to meet his standards. He would be the star of every sports team, the envy of all those who tried and failed to match his great performance on the field. He would dominate everyone in Duel Monsters, destroying their life points as well as whatever little pride they had. And that would only be the beginning.

Of course, it would be better if he were going to the school he had deserved to enter! For a brief moment, his smile vanished as he thought about Crystal Prep. Full of fine pretty things for him to play within those wonderful uniforms just waiting to be ruined. The perfect platform for his rise into true stardom and possibly other things. Maybe a career in politics or something like that once he was done trashing pathetic losers for a living. He would make a great senator or even President! But no, his retarded brother had to go and ruin everything by not losing like he should have!

As the girls turned, Chaser moved to look at the building they as well as many other fine-looking female bodies were heading to. Slowly his smile returned. It might not be the best, but then again people love an underdog story. This place was full of losers so it shouldn’t be that hard to work his way back up to the top. It might take a little time but he should be able to become Captain of every team in this school, number one duelist, and have the entire female student body at his beckon call. All because of Hunter!

Quickly Chaser’s hands clenched into fists as he thought of his brother, feeling his blood beginning to boil in the process. One of the things he had been looking forward to when he got home was beating the ever-living daylights out of that loser. Heck, his parents would probably hold the turd in place for him if he asked. But no, when he arrived at that junkyard that now served as ‘home’ he found out that the coward had ran to their Aunt Star Chart. Never liked her anyways. He was just upset that he couldn’t give Hunter the pounding he deserved.

Chaser’s eyes fell on a pair of girls walking nearby, calming down considerably seeing that they were both hotties. One of them was not his type. Sure, the long purple hair and pale white skin were nice together, but he could tell by the way she dressed that she was too high maintenance for his taste. Probably demand that he ‘take care’ of her and had high expectations on where they went. But the one next to her, now that was a fine piece! A no doubt dumb blonde with orange skin along with ratty clothing that made her look like a country bumpkin. While she might be trailer trash, her body was very fine that was filled out in all the right areas.

Calmly he began to approach them while listening to their conversation. “For the last time, Rares,” said the dumb blonde in an accent that made her sound even dumber. Seriously, who talked in that sort of farmer slang anymore? Not that it mattered to him really since it fit her very well. “Ah know ya want to do something all special like for the Friendship Cup, but matching uniforms? They’re going ta be all frou-frou like.”

“Oh but darling,” said the other girls ‘Rares’ in a fake high society like voice that made Chaser hold back a groan. Yeah, he wasn’t even consider tapping that. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us. It is our duty to look as stylish and fashionable as we can be.”

“It’s our duty ta be bringing on our A-game,” snapped the blonde.

“I think you’re doing just fine,” commented Chaser. It took a moment, most likely both girls surprised by the manliness of his voice, for both girls to turn and look at him. Chaser gave them his best smile, the one that had always worked in the past to win over whoever he desired. He saw that the blonde looked surprised, no doubt her tiny brain taking a bit longer for something to process. Perhaps another compliment was in order. “With bodies like those, I bet you’ve both aces on the cheer team.”

As the blonde frowned, eyes narrowing at him for some reason, Rares spoke up. “The cheer team? No, no, no my dear. While I have nothing against them, the mere idea of getting all sweaty.” She paused for a moment to shiver, scrunching her face as she did so. “Not exactly my sort of thing. We were just talking about the big duel between Canterlot High and Crystal Prep. But thank you for the compliment.”

Chaser raised an eyebrow at that while the blonde crossed her arms under that lovely chest. While he would have loved to give it the attention it deserved, there was something far more pressing on his mind. A duel between this dump and Crystal Prep?! Oh, what luck! Screw beating all these chumps and making a slow return back to the top. All he had to do is join this tournament, defeat whatever moron they sent, and get the Prep to realize the mistake they made. Then it would only be a matter of time before they begged him to transfer.

“Ya listening?” came the voice of the dumb blonde. Chaser blinked, suddenly realizing that while he was thinking of important things this girl had been talking.

“Oh, sorry I was thinking about something else for a moment,” mumbled Chaser. As both the girls looked at each other, Chaser took a step closer to the blonde. “But I do mean what I said. With bodies like yours you’d be killers on any cheerleader team. Perhaps we could talk it over later tonight, just the two of us.” As Chaser said this, he eyed the blonde over once again, unable to help himself. Who could blame him? It had been so long since he had seen such an appealing treat. One that he hoped to taste later tonight.

For some reason, the dumb blonde rolled her eyes before turning around. “Let’s go, Rares. Ah got the feeling I’d only be wasting mah breath.”

“Yes,” said Rares slowly, giving Chaser a look he really didn’t like before turning around. As he watched both girls walk away, with Rares hips moving in a way he normally would have found appealing, something felt off inside of him. They were…rejecting him?!? For a moment Chaser’s eyes narrowed and his perfect features twisted in his anger. How dare they?!? Didn’t they know how lucky they were just to have him talk to them?

As quickly as his anger appeared, it faded. No, Chaser realized. They didn’t know. After all, how could they when he had been imprisoned for so long. They didn’t know how perfect he was. So he needed to prove it to them. While it was true that he hadn’t needed to do that in some time, right now it was a must. This was going to be his first impression at this school so he was going to have to make sure that both of these dumb girls were eating out of the palm of his hand before the first bell rung.

“Please don’t be like that,” said Chaser in the smoothest voice he had, approaching the dumb blonde. Before she could think of anything to say or turn around, Chaser placed a hand on that nice rear of hers. The girls back home loved it when he did that. “I think we just got off to a bad-” The next thing that came out of Chaser’s mouth was a cry of pain. The blonde had turned around and grabbed his wrist with the strength of a bear before pulling it off. Seriously, she could break a person’s bones with a grip like that!

“Never do that again,” she breathed through clenched teeth as Chaser fell to his knees, letting go of him at the same time. Then, without another word, Chaser watched as the two walked away.

“Can you believe the nerve of that ruffian this morning?!?” demanded Rarity as she sat down next to Applejack, slamming her lunch tray on the table as she did so. Everyone at the table turned to look at her as well, mostly looking on with mild confusion. The only one who didn’t was Rainbow who just seemed to keep looking at her tray which looked completely untouched.

“
“Uh, ruffian?” asked Sunset as she looked between the two for clarification.

“The new guy,” said Applejack simply before taking a bite out of an apple. Instantly, understanding filled their expressions. Fluttershy frowned deeply, playing with strands of her pink hair and looking away from them. Pinkie Pie looked like someone had switched all the candy from a piñata and replaced it with cans of moldy sardines. Sunset closed her eyes before rubbing her forehead. Rainbow was looking a little bluish green now that she looked a tad closer. Now that Applejack thought about it, she had been looking slightly worse and worse as the day went by.

“I swear, I haven’t been able to get his uncouth behavior out of my head all day,” continued Rarity as she stabbed the slice of meatloaf that was her lunch, destroying the spork in the process. “Undressing us with his eyes like that, right in front of us no less! Then grabbing Applejack’s butt! I’m surprised you didn’t go straight to Principle Celestia on this one.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” mumbled Pinkie. “When I sensed that there was somebody new in school, I ran right up to him, saw he was looking down, and offered to throw him the biggest party ever. Naturally he loved the idea until I asked him what kind of streamers he liked and if there were any soda’s he preferred. Said that stuff was for kids and started making all these demands!” Pinkie Pie suddenly narrowed her eyes and gripped the table as hard as she could. “He said the only decorations we needed were plenty of skimpy dressed girls and plenty of beer! I! Do! Not! Party! With! Alcohol! When you leave a Pinkie Pie party you are going to be in control and nobody vomits unless they ate too many sweets!”

“Did ya tell him that?” asked Applejack.

“I did!” cried Pinkie as she threw out her arms. “And then he said several things to me about my mental state and that I need to grow up.” The pink girl then brought her arms down before slumping down in her chair looking very cross.

“At least it sounds like you all had brief conversations with that jerk,” whispered Fluttershy in a harsh tone. “He sat next to me during second period and, well, I had a hard time concentrating with all his whispering. Something about going out with him and…other stuff.”

“Oh darling!” cried Rarity as she got up from her seat, moved around the table, and placed comforting hands on Fluttershy’s shoulders. “I hope he didn’t get you into too much trouble. Or embarrass you too much.”

“Well, we weren’t caught,” sighed Fluttershy which was followed up by a groan from Rainbow. “But the only thing I could hear was him whispering about how great he was, all of his awards, how good of a time the other girls he’s been with had. Now I’m going to have to ask for notes on that class.”

“Me and Rainbow had him in first period gym,” complained Sunset as Rainbow lowered her head closer to her tray. Seeing this, Sunset began to pat her multi colored haired friend on the back as she continued her story. “Asked us who the number one athlete in the school was and looked unhappy when Rainbow said it was her. Then he was all like, ‘Hope you like being the second best because soon I’ll be standing at the top A-cup’. Then he started doing that whole undressing me with his eyes thing and I guess he liked what he saw. Caught him several times leering at me before he bailed the second half of the class.” At that, Rainbow raised a hand to say something but paused before suddenly covering her mouth.

“Rainbow, if ya ain’t feeling well maybe-” Applejack never got a chance to finish her sentence as her friend fell out of her seat. Quickly all of the girls rose to their feet just in time to see her throwing up.

Principal Celestia looked out the window from her office as the ambulance drove away in a hurry, its sirens blaring loudly. Nurse Red Heart had looked her over after the girl’s friends rushed her to the nurse’s office. Seeing how they were only prepared for small cuts, bruises, and handing out students’ medications, it was quickly decided that, given her state, it would be best to send the poor girl to the local hospital. Luna had helped by informing the parents of this incident.

As for Celestia, she was more than a bit worried. A part of her reasoned that people can fall sick quickly. But to get that sick over the course of a few hours? According to Rainbow’s friends she hadn’t eaten any of the school’s lunch and nobody else who had eaten it was getting sick so they could rule out food poisoning. Could there have-

A knock on the door interrupted the Principal’s thoughts. She was about to answer when the door opened to reveal the new transfer student Star Chaser. The woman kept a neutral expression as he entered, walking in as if he were the king of the world.

“Mr. Chaser,” she said as she moved to take her seat. “So nice to see you. I hope your first day is going well.”

Chaser grinned almost smugly as he sat in the chair directly across from her. “Had a bit of a rough start. One of the student’s here attacked me for no reason. But now, I’d say things are looking better.”

“Well, if you wish to register a complaint then you should talk to Vice-Principal Luna,” said Celestia as she folded her hands. “Just be sure to wait for permission before entering her office. It’s simply good etiquette.” As she said this, she saw Chaser looked annoyed for a moment. It was hard for her not to read something like that since she dealt with teens all day. A person in a position like hers tended to pick up on things like that.

“Right,” he said in a dismissive tone as he leaned a bit closer to the desk. “I actually stopped by to ask about the sports teams. When they are meeting and if there would be any issues of me joining. That sort of thing.”

Celestia gave him a little nod. “Well, you’d have to talk to the coaches themselves,” she said as she opened up her desk. As she pulled out a pen from her pen mug, the older woman quickly consulted her memory before writing down several names and classroom followed by handing it to Chaser. “You may have some trouble convincing them to let you join so late in the season, so just be warned. If you can’t then you’ll just have to wait for the winter sports teams to start up if you want.”

Wordless, Chaser took the paper with a hungered look on his face. He read it over, not bothering to thank Celestia or anything like that, before pocketing it. “Once they see what I can do, I’m sure it won’t be any problem. Plus, from what I just heard; they might be a player down for a while.” At that Celestia’s neutral expression shattered. A very disapproving frown appeared on her face, one that Chaser took note of instantly. “Well, I guess I should get going now. Just tell me where I go to sign up for this Friendship Cup thing I’ve heard about and I’ll be out of your hair.”

Celestia shook her head, much to the surprise of Chaser. “I’m sorry but that will be impossible for you. When you transferred, I read your file and it stated very clearly that you have a lifelong ban from participating in any official tournaments.”

Instantly, Chaser stood up with a flushed expression on his face. From where she sat, Celestia could see his hands had balled into fists. Veins had appeared on his forehead looking like he was trying very hard to contain a sudden rush of anger. As he began to lean forward, Celestia got the impression that he might try to strike her yet she refused to show any sign of weakness. She stood, or rather sat, her ground unflinchingly as he instead placed his fists on her desk.

“I was one of the best duelists anyone had ever seen before,” he stated in a dark tone. “From what I’ve heard, this school needs people with real skill for a chance to not be beaten like some pathetic animal again. With me, you can bet that you will at least win one match!”

“If I were to consider allowing you to represent this school, I would need to get Principal Sombra on board to give you this chance. Seeing as he runs the very school whose entrance exam you were caught cheating in makes me doubtful that he would agree.” As she said this, Chaser flinched but didn’t back away from where he stood. As for Celestia she stood up to her full height. “But none of that will ever happen seeing that this little temper tantrum of yours has not convinced me to stick my neck out for you. So, I will abide by the ban. You shall not be allowed to submit your name on the voting ballot. Now, if there is nothing else, I suggest that you head off to your next class.”

“That stupid, old…” growled Chaser under his breath as he slammed the crappy locker he had been assigned. Thankfully nobody around him seemed to notice as the last bell had rung. Now, all of these pathetic losers were walking home to do…whatever. He was too angry with the idiotic old woman who ran this place.

Placing a fist on his locker, Chaser couldn’t help but remember how things used to be. Back when he just needed to ask and the people in charge of his old schools wouldn’t hesitate to get him what he wanted. As long as he brought those tiny, pointless places some attention they didn’t care. Even if they did have to break some pointless rules made to make things ‘fair’ for whatever reason. Who cared?! They knew how amazing and great he was and were willing to do whatever it took.

But now all that was gone. All thanks to that retarded brother of his! If he had never applied to Crystal Prep then this never would have happened. If he had just forfeited the match instead of wasting Chaser’s time by trying to win, then no-one would have ever caught him cheating. It was all Hunter’s fault! Along with that old maid of a Principal who was clearly not as smart as she probably made herself out to be! If she had even half a brain then she should be fighting tooth and nail just for him to bring home the only chance for a win they would ever get. Why did these people have to be so stupid?

The only good things to come out of this, and he used the term loosely, was that he knew where to go for the sports teams as well as who had put their names down for the Cup. It was back to doing things the hard way, proving to everyone here that he was the best. He’d talk to all the coaches right now and convince them that he would make a great addition to the team. Hopefully they weren’t as slow-witted as the Principal. From there, he had time to take on whatever passed as the best duelists around here. He would make sure to defeat them so thoroughly that the masses at this dump would demand that Principal What’s-Her-Face let him duel.

As Chaser turned, he saw something that caused his eyes to narrow. Down the hallway was Hunter! He was standing there with some ugly looking nerd, talking to that dumb blond that hurt his arm this morning! Oh, if only he knew her name so he could have reported her to Vice-Principal Whoever! Still, the fact that they knew each other…

Chaser’s legs seemed to move on their own as he made his way towards Hunter, eyes focused on the lesser, yet older of the two. Hunter still had that messy hair as well as those cheap looking clothes. It fit him so well, nothing but a lesser model compared to somebody like himself. Still, it irritated Chaser to think that they had similar faces. Sickening really!

As Chaser approached, the dumb blonde was the first to notice his approach. She tapped Hunter on the shoulder before gesturing behind him. Slowly Hunter turned to look at Chaser with an expression of mild surprise. The ugly nerd also turned to look and, for some reason, didn’t look like she was starting to fawn over him. Maybe there was something wrong with her eyesight or something.

“Heard a lot about you today,” said Hunter once Chaser was close enough, adjusting his backpack as he spoke. “It seems prison wasn’t enough to humble you.”

“There was never anything wrong with me, unlike you,” shot back Chaser as he moved in close. So close that their noses were almost touching, feeling their breathes on the other’s lips. “I am going to make you pay for what you did to me. I don’t know when, but I’ll find a way, and when I do you won’t know what hit you.”

“Yeah, well,” began Hunter, taking a step back. There was a tremble in his voice, failing to keep in conciliate. “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to keep my guard up.”

“Knock it off, ya pig-headed fool,” said the dumb blonde as she looked at Chaser. “Figured ya was his kin the moment I laid eyes on ya. What Ah heard don’t do a lick of justice ta how stuck up ya are.”

“Hey, trailer trash, why don’t you keep your mouth shut for a moment and let the men talk,” snapped Chaser before turning back to look at Hunter. “Or should I say, the man and the pathetic little boy.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dumb blonde getting flushed. Her orange cheeks were turning red while her eyes narrowed dangerously. She dropped her backpack which made a loud thud as she did before cracking her knuckles. It was in that moment that Chaser remembered what she had done to him by simply squeezing his arm. If she had the gorilla like strength to do that, what would happen if she punched him? It might ruin his perfect face!

“Applejack, don’t,” said Hunter quickly. “If you start a fight here then you might get in trouble. Trust me, he’s not worth getting suspended or expelled for.”

“Yeah,” said the ugly nerd as she took a step over to the dumb blonde. “Let’s just go.” She said more stuff, but Chaser wasn’t really listening anymore. As he stared at the dummy named Applejack, something clicked in his head. From what he had found out, Applejack was supposed to be one of the top duelists at this dump. Not only that but also one of the duelists on the ballot to represent this place against Crystal Prep! Funny, he had thought it would have been a guy and not some blonde trailer trash hick.

A smile crossed his lips. Oh, there had to be a god up there right now smiling down upon him. Here it was, the prefect chance for everything. To get back at this dummy for hurting him and putting her in her place. To climbing back up to his former standing. Yes!

“You sure you want to just walk away Applejugs,” sneered Chaser as the nerd and the blonde began to walk away, his words causing them to slow down. “I’d be more than happy to settle this right here and now. Or you could just walk away. Better than pretending to be sick like that A-cupped loser.” While Chaser had no idea why he brought up the loud mouthed, arrogant girl who thought she was better than him in any way, the effect was instant. Apple-whatever turned around with a look of murder in her eyes.

“Oh, Ah’m gonna enjoy this,” she snarled before storming over to him. But before she could take more than a couple of steps, Chaser had reached into his bag and pulled out his duel disk.

“Figured a dumb hick like you would think that I meant violence,” he said before strapping on the device. “I was thinking something more civilized for this. Heck, I’m even willing to be generous enough to make a wager. I’ll give you whatever you want if, by some great cosmic miracle, you win. But if I win, you drop out of the running’s for the Cup and help convince the Principal that I should take your place. Sounds fair, right?” He watched as her eyes fell onto the duel disk for a moment before slowly looking at him in the eyes.

“Think Ah’d duel a cheating snake like ya?” Chaser’s smile faded slightly as she said that. “That’s right, ah know all about what happened. Doubt ya even know how ta play fair. An ain’t no way Ah’m gonna go an’ say ya should represent this here school.”

Chaser stood there feeling anger creeping along his spine as he listened to her. Then he took a breath and let it all wash out of him. “Fine, I get it,” he said with a shrug. “You’re scared. Not that I blame you for being so. After all, I have more awards than your family has dollars. The only thing you could beat me in is inbred relatives.”

With great pride he watched as her face began to turn bright her, her stupid looking hat looking like it was about to burst. Right now, either way, he knew the outcome would be worth it. If she dueled him there was not a chance he would lose. If she tried to go back on this little wager, well he’d make sure everyone heard about it. Not to mention that he’d have a record of their duel proving he’d won. If she hit him, he had both her name and the proof that she had done so. Regardless of the reason, attacking another student was something that people got expelled for. Once he told the idiots who ran this school, she’d be out of the running for good. Then all he had to do was try this with the other morons on that list. Sooner or later, he would get what he wanted. It was just the way life worked.

“Fine,” said Apple-whatever as she dropped her own bag. She reached a hand inside and quickly pulled out her duel disk. With a flash she strapped it on before pointing at him. “Let’s take this ta the roof.”

Duel #4: Test by Arrogant Flames (Part 2, Final) (by Brony-wan-Kenobi)

Applejack stood on top of the roof, her long hair blowing in the wind as she slid her deck into its slot. In the distance she could hear the sounds of cars and buses going about with their business while the crowd of students below became fewer. A good thing for the southern duelist seeing that she wanted to keep her new deck a secret for as long as possible. It was, after all, supposed to help her keep up with those Crystal Prep students. Off on the side lines were Hunter and Moondancer. Moondancer had a look on her face that screamed ‘this is a bad idea’. As for Hunter, he was eyeing Chaser with mistrust.

“Applejack, you don’t have to do this,” said Hunter in a cautious whisper as he approached her, never once taking his eyes off his brother. Applejack looked at the jerk as well, who was putting his own deck in its slot as well while still appearing as arrogant as ever.

“Oh, Ah know,” said Applejack before pausing to crack her neck loudly, causing Hunter to wince at the sound. “But after what he’s been sayin’ it was either this or pounding him flatter than granny’s flapjacks. An’ not just about my kin, but ta Rainbow an all mah other friends he’s been bothering. So might as well hit him in his pride.”

“Actually, I mean…” began Hunter but his words trailed off before looking down. Applejack knew what was going on inside her friend’s head. Back when he was taking the entrance exam to get into Crystal Prep, Hunter and Chaser had dueled. For Hunter, it was a chance to do the same thing she was doing right now. Having had to deal with his brother for years, that had been his chance to humiliate him. To see him utterly defeated while Hunter got to go to the school Chaser believed he belonged at. Only it didn’t work out the way he had hoped. While Hunter had dominated the duel, the whole thing had been a set up to see if Chaser really was a cheater and was called off shortly after they had gotten the proof they needed.

AJ knew that that day still bothered Hunter like nothing else. He had told her that there were times when he felt angry that he wasn’t the one who had broken his brother. That he wasn’t really responsible for his brother for Chaser’s drinking and robbing a store in order to get more of the drink he craved. And he wondered if feeling like that made him a bad person. Right now, Hunter probably wanted to duel Chaser himself and hopefully finish this thing between them once and for all. Something which Applejack believed he could. His favorite deck, Shaddolls, would more than likely hamper all of Chaser’s moves.

Instead of finishing his sentence, Hunter shook his head as if trying to clear those sorts of thoughts out of his head. Applejack opened her mouth to say something but stopped when he reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Two cads which he held up for Applejack to see.

“I promised you when we first met I would give you these cards when I believed you were skilled enough with that deck,” he said as he reached out for her hand. Once he had it, Hunter gently placed the cards in her open palm. “To be honest, I’ve thought you’ve been ready for these for a while. I just figured that you’d feel better if I gave them to you if you beat me.”

Applejack blinked as she looked down at them. The two cards she had been training hard to get since she had first met Hunter were right there, in her hand. She looked back up, unsure of what to say only to see him giving her a half smile before quickly patting her on the arm. Sort of a ‘go get him champ’ gesture that coach would give one of their athletes before a big game as reassurance. Then, without so much as another word, Hunter walked away from the field with his hands in his pockets.

“If you’re done talking done talking to the retard,” shouted Chaser as he held up his duel disk, activating it in the process. “Then let’s get this over with. This isn’t the way I was hoping to see you on your hands and knees, but it’ll do for now.” In response, Applejack let out a growl as she slid her gifts into her extra deck tray. Once it closed, she held up her duel disk with a look of determination in her eyes.

“Just keep that there duel disk where everybody can see it,” warned Applejack before jerking her head towards Hunter and Moondancer. Her two friends were already on it, keeping their eyes locked to make sure his auto-shuffler was working as it should. Chaser frowned as he held it up so all could see his cards moving about in their slot.

-Applejack’s Life points: 8000-
-Star Chaser’s Life points: 8000-

Turn 1: Star Chaser

“I’ll make the first move then,” said Chaser as he drew (hand: 6). For a moment he looked at his hand and grinned wickedly. “Well, looks like this will be a quick duel. I’ll start out by summoning ‘Black Metal Dragon’ in attack mode!”

Appearing on Chaser’s side of the field was a long, thin dragon that looked more machine than dragon. Its almost black chrome-like body shined brightly in the sun while its tail was covered in long spikes, three of them on every segment. (600/600)

“But this monster is only the opening act! Because now I banish it to bring out something far more useful: ‘Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon’!” As Chaser slipped the card off his duel disk, the small dragon was dragged into a void before something far lager landed on the field.

It towered over the two of them, casting a long shadow that Applejack found herself trapped in. Looking up, the farmer girl could see thin red lines across the dragon’s metallic black form as well as red gems in its wings. Dear lord its wings! They were more like three blades fused together to create claws due to its lack of arms! (2800/2400)

“Impressed yet?” asked Chaser in a mocking tone. “Not surprised. Your tiny brain hasn’t seen anything yet! I now tribute my normal Red-Eyes in my hand order to special summon the ‘Red-Eyes Alternative Black Dragon’ in my hand!” (2400/2000)

From above their heads appeared another dragon which landed on the field in front of Chaser, the holograms giving the impression of the roof shaking as it did so. Applejack had seen the original Red-Eyes plenty of times before and while this version of it looked similar there were some key differences. It was thicker, more muscular than its original as well as having a more V shaped head.

“Next I will use the effect of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to special summon one dragon from my graveyard: ‘Red-Eyes Black Dragon’!” (2400/2000)

Applejack fought hard to keep taking a step back as she looked at the three large monsters staring down at her. It was a little daunting to see them all in person. And something told her that this fella wasn’t done just yet.

“Now, allow me to show you something truly amazing,” continued Chaser. “With my two level 7 dragons I am able to build the Overlay Network!” Appearing on his side of the field was a dark vortex with thousands of twinkling red lights, sucking in both Alternative and the original Red-Eyes Dragons.

“Twin Red-Eyes combining their legendary might! Coated with steel and burning with blazing power unlike ever before to serve me! Xyz summon Rank 7: ‘Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon’!”

What stepped out of the vortex was another monster that looked more machine than dragon. It had the form of a dragon, but its scales looked like they had been plated with black metal once again with exhaust pipes spewing flames out of its wings. Its front claws were larger than normal, like giant shovels ready to impale her and its tail had so many spikes on it that Applejack easily lost count. (2800/2400)

“With both of these monsters on the field, I’ll place one card face down before ending my turn.”

Turn 2: Applejack

“Then I draw,” announced Applejack. (Hand: 6) “Alright, first Ah’ll set this here card before summoning ‘Predaplant Spinodionaea’!” (1800/0)

As Applejack set the card on her tray the ground before her began to crack before a monster twice her size exploded out. Spinodionaea looked very much like a dinosaur with a wicked, thin jaw and six pure red eyes that glowed brightly. Its skin was green and its back looked like it was carrying the mouth of a Venus flytrap.

“Now that this big fella is on the field, Ah can activate his effect by placing one Predator Counter on one of your monsters. Ah choose Darkness Metal!” Smiling as she said this, Applejack watched as her monster began to hack several times before spitting a purple seed shaped like an alligator’s head. The seed flew across the flied, latching itself onto Chaser’s dragon.

Suddenly, Chaser pointed at Applejack with a smile she liked less than the ones before. “Sorry dirt-for-brains, but it looks like playing with the big boys is going to leave you burnt. See, My Flare Dragon has this wonderful effect: As long as he has at least one material on him you get burned for 500 life points whenever you use a card effect!” As he said this, smoke and fire began to pour out of the exhaust pipes of his dragon.

The smoke moved across the field towards Applejack causing her to cough violently for a moment before yelping in pain as ashes hit her exposed skin.

-Applejack’s Life points: 7500-

“Crud,” coughed Applejack as she tried her best to clear out her lungs. The taste was still in her mouth, like she had spent a day on the streets Manehatten and Las Pegasus. Not something a country girl like her would enjoy. What was worse was that Xyz dragon’s effect. Every time she used an effect it would cost it, making it so that it literally hurt to play the game. And that was just it effect with material on! Who knew what it could do by detaching them.

Still, that wouldn’t stop her. Not by a long shot. “From mah hand, Ah activate the spell card ‘Polymerization’ ta fuse the Predaplant Spinodionaea on mah field with the Predaplant Cordyceps in mah hand. Together they’ll bring out ‘Predaplant Chimerafflesia’!”

“Ah, Predaplants,” sighed Chaser, lowering his head while placing two finger on his forehead. “I remember asking my parents to buy them for me when they first came out. Thought they might have potential. Of course they didn’t. Besides, why have a bunch of useless plants when I can have fire breathing dragons. Speaking of which…” More smoke came from Flare Dragon, flowing towards Applejack causing her to cough even more.

-Applejack’s Life points: 7000-

She coughed even more this time, yet stood firm as a vortex appeared above her.

“The fearsome blooms unite the sting of the scorpion and the bite of snake. Together, their fangs breed a new flower. Fusion summon ‘Predaplant Chimerafflesia’!” (2500/2000)

From the vortex a light shot down hard and hit the ground. From that spot vines began to grow, thick vines that looked like they could hold a fully-grown adult. A red bloom began to grow with red petals that had white marks on them and in its center was another mouth just like her Darlingtonia Cobra’s. Branch like vine began to grow out of its sides, two of them ending with the mouths of a Venus flytrap making them look almost like arms.

“Now that Chimerafflesia is on the field, ah can activate its effect,” said Applejack as she raised an arm to cover her mouth. “See, if there is a monster on your side of the field with a lower level than its own mah monster can banish it. An’ thanks to my Predator Counter, that there dragon becomes a level 1. So say goodbye.”

“Fine, but remember you’re only hurting yourself by doing this,” mocked Chaser as his Darkness Dragon vanished from the field. As he slid the card into his pocket, Flare Metal dragon began to release more smoke and burning ash. Even though she was ready for it, Applejack still coughed horribly as she lost more life points.

-Applejack’s Life points: 6500-

“Now ah attack!” declared Applejack as she pointed at Flare Metal. “Predaplant Chimerafflesia, destroy Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon!”

Chaser smirked as Applejack’s monster began to grow while its vine like arms extended towards his dragon. “I’m going to guess you’re using your monsters effect to weaken my monster and strengthening yours. If not, you’re only proving how completely stupid you are Applejugs! Well, you might take down my monster but to do that you have to use a card effect!”

As the Venus flytrap like hands bit into the sides of Flare Metal both duelists could see energy flowing out of the dragon, through the vines, and into Chimerafflesia. But as its attack rose to 3500 and Flare Metal’s attack decreased to 1800, more black smoke began to pour out from the dragon right up until it was destroyed.

-Applejack’s Life points: 6000-
-Star Chaser’s Life points: 6300-

“Pathetic!” shouted Chaser as a savage smile crossed his face, his eyes glistening with sadistic glee as his trap flipped face up. “I activate my trap card: Red-Eyes Spirit! This card allows me to target one Red-Eyes monster in my graveyard and special summon it! So my Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon returns!”

Beams of ruby red light began to shine out of the face up trap card until it became a flash of light that nearly blinded AJ. When it faded, Flare Metal was back minus its material.

“I end mah turn,” said Applejack as she looked across the field. So far things hadn’t worked out as well as she had hoped. She had been willing to lose all those life points if it meant clearing his field and leaving that smug jerk with nothing. Seems he had a back-up plan.

Turn 3: Star Chaser

“I draw then,” said Chaser with a grin, slowly drawing his card which jerked slightly as he did so. (Hand: 2) He then looked up at Applejack. “I was right about you. You are nothing more than some inbred country hick. All that work and getting one half-way descent monster on the field was all you could manage. I bet you’re even thinking that I won’t dare attack you due to its effect. Well, time to show you how wrong you really are!” Chaser then held up the card he had drawn, “I play the spell card: ‘Red-Eyes Insight’! By sending one Red-Eyes monster from either my hand or deck, I can add any Red-Eyes spell or trap card to my hand! So I’ll send my Meteor Dragon Red-Eyes Impact to the grave in order to add Red-Eyes Fusion to my hand!” Applejack’s eyes widened as Chaser pulled out the two cards from his deck; sending one to the grave and the other to his hand. She knew about that card from Hunter and what kind of advantage it gave Chaser.

“I see by that look on your face you know how screwed you are,” mocked Chaser as he played the spell card. “Seems you do have a few brain cells after all. Good for you. At the small cost of not being able to normal or special summon any other monster this turn: I send Summoned Skull and the original Red-Eyes Black Dragon to the grave in order to fusion summon this little beauty.”

With a cold smile, Chaser’s deck began to glow bright red as the cards were ejected while another portal opened up in the sky.

“The cruelty of the demon combines with the might of the dragon! Their powers combine force all to bow in its presence! Fusion Summon ‘Archfiend Black Skull Dragon’!” (3200/2500)

Red lightning began to strike the ground behind Chaser, revealing his monster. From what Applejack could see, it was standing in the courtyard behind him so only its upper body was visible. Red sinews of flesh were exposed and bound tightly while bits of black dragon scales came together to form the skeleton over it. Flames were shooting out around its long neck as it hung over the roof to look at Applejack.

“This is the difference between us,” yelled Chaser. “A stupid blonde who clings to her weeds could never compare to my blazing glory! I’ll make sure to burn it into your mind. Archfiend Black Skull Dragon, attack!”

Applejack watched as the flames around Archfiend Black Skull began to turn from orange to black as its mouth opened, wondering what Chaser was thinking. When his dragon attacked her plant it would lose 1000 of its attack points while hers would go up by that same amount. Meaning he would lose his monster! However, much to her confusion, when the black flames came pouring out of the dragons mouth the power behind the attack did not decrease. Nor did the strength of her own monster increase. In horror Applejack witnessed her Chimerafflesia burned before her ever eyes, withering about until it was dust in the wind

-Applejack’s Life points: 5300-

“I suppose you’re wondering why that ugly weed of yours didn’t save you,” said Chaser as he leaned forwards a bit, a grin still on his face. “Well, that because my monster has an effect worth having. See, when he attacks, your cards and effects can’t activate until the end of the battle step making them, like you, worthless. And as an added bonus, after the battle step I can send one normal Red-Eyes monster in my graveyard and burn you for the same amount of damage. So I’ll send Red-Eyes Black Dragon back to my deck to deal 2400 points of damage!”

Too stunned by this to move, Applejack watched as another torrent of flames came towards at such a force that it knocked her on her back, rolling backwards for a moment or two. When the flames subsided, Applejack was panting hard while on her hands and knees.

-Applejack’s Life points: 2900-

“Isn’t this a lovely sight,” said Chaser as he ran a hand threw his hair, a disgusting look in his eyes. “The dumb blonde on her hands and knees. Perhaps I can see you like this again after I take your place for the Cup. But first, I think it’s best to end this waste of my time! Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon, END HER!”

The mechanical dragon opened its mouth, red lighting dancing around its jaw before it fired a beam directly at Applejack as she quickly stood up right before the beam struck.

“HAHAHA! It’s over! Did you really think you…” Chaser’s vile words trailed off as he noticed something in the blast.

A creature had appeared on Applejack’s side of the field, deflecting the blast with its body while AJ herself held up her arms to brace herself. It was a small, green insect like creature with a large pincer and trumpet flowers growing out of back. Eventually, it exploded leaving Applejack unharmed as well as a purple mist hanging where the monster once stood.

“W-WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?” roared Chaser.

“That was mah little friend ‘Predaplant Sarraceniant’,” explained Applejack. “This fella here is mighty useful. When Ah get attacked directly; he comes ta mah rescue by being summoned ta the field in defense mode. But that ain’t all he does. The poison he leaves behind, well it goes straight ta the monster that destroyed him!”

Chaser watched in horror as the purple mist crossed the field like an angry ghost, entering his Xyz monster. The two watched as Flare Metal began to melt away as it was eaten away from within before finally exploding.

“Lastly, ah get one Predaplant card added ta mah hand. So ah add mah Predaplant Drosophyllum Hydra.”

“NO!” screamed Chaser as he stomped his foot like a child over and over again. “NO, NO, NO! That should have ended this duel! I should have won! There was no way you had that card in your hand! You had to have cheated! That’s the only thing that makes sense! I’m the only one who-” Chaser’s eyes widened for a moment, causing him to stop in mid-sentence. He then turned his head, as if unable to look at AJ or any of the other duelists there. “It doesn’t matter. All I have to do is draw my Inferno Fire Blast card and with my Archfiend’s name being changed to Red-Eyes Black Dragon you’ll take 3200 points of direct damage and lose like you’re supposed to!”

Applejack glared at Chaser, her free hand gripped tightly into a fist. Glancing over to Hunter, she saw that he was looking at Chaser. Rather he was looking at the arm holding the duel disk. The spot where his hand had jerked slightly before this turn. Hunter then closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

“Applejack, I think we should-”

“Ah’m gonna finish this match,” said Applejack, interrupting Hunter.

As the teen looked at her in surprise, AJ turned her attention to Chaser with a meaningful stare. There was not a doubt in her mind right now that Chaser was cheating right now. He might not have the same trick that allowed him to move his cards around like he used to, but that didn’t mean he didn’t learn a new one. That frustrated the heck out of Applejack! She had worked with her new deck, dueling against Hunter and losing time after time in an effort to get better. She had put in the effort to get good. Yet Chaser…Despite whatever skill he had, despite having some really good card, he wanted to take the easy route. He wanted to cheat in order to be the best.

That just made her want to defeat him even more! She wanted to beat this dishonest snake in the grass with her own hard work. To see this prideful buffoon taken down again.

“Got anything else?” asked Applejack. Chaser looked at the remaining card in his hand with malice before suddenly putting it face down on his field.

“Go ahead hillbilly,” he sneered. “But don’t think your weeds will save you for long! All you’re going is wasting my time! I will win this match and then be on the road to reclaiming everything that was wrongfully taken away from me!”

“Ah doubt anything ya ever had was yours in the first place,” said AJ as she shook her head. “Nothin’ ya earned honestly.”

“Who cares?” snarled Chaser. “Shit like working hard or doing shit honestly, who really cares about that? All anyone cares about is having it all! Being famous and rich gives you whatever you want. To do whatever you want. Thing is, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to stand out from the thousands that think they deserve it. A star has to look good, act, sing, be a super athlete, and so on. Are you so stupid that you believe anyone out there can really do all that shit? What I have done is no different than using auto-tuning on my voice. So I’ll do whatever it takes so I stand out from the crowd so I can keep that life. If you were even half as smart as I am, you’d do the same thing.”

Turn 4: Applejack

“That’s where you’re wrong,” replied Applejack as she drew a card. (Hand: 3). “Anything worth havin’ is something that ya work for with your own hands. Something that ya can share with the people who are important ta ya.”

Chaser rolled his eyes. “Spare me Applejugs. Just finish your move so I can win with!”

“Fine by me,” said AJ. “Since Predaplant Chimerafflesia was destroyed last turn, ah get ta add one Polymerization spell or Fusion spell ta mah hand from mah deck during mah standby phase.” Applejack smiled as she did so, adding more recourses to her hand. “Now Ah summon mah Lonefire Blossom in attack mode!” (500/1400)

Yellow vines sprouted out from the ground, twisting around each other until they collided and created an orb with a string coming out of it.

“Now Ah activate its effect allowing me to special summon any plant monster from mah deck. So ah choose Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio in attack mode!” (1200/800)

At Applejack’s command, the string on her flower’s orb lit like a fuse until it exploded revealing a blackish scorpion. One that lacked any eyes in which to see with and its pincer claws were composed of vines. The green pattern on its back looked like a stem as well as having four leaves on the back end of its stinger tail.

“Now ah activate my monster’s special ability. All Ah got ta do is discard one card from mah hand and then Ah can special summon any other Predaplant monster to the field. So Ah discard my Predaplant Drosophyllum Hydra to special summon to the field Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra!” (1000/1500)

As Applejack discarded her card the ground began to crack again, this time revealing two stems with black budded petals with a red dot on each side. As the vines began to lower themselves to the ground the blooms began to rustle while their red spots began to glow red. The petals then hissed, opening up to show that in each of its center was a rounded mouth with row upon row of tiny fangs.

“Thanks to this here fella, Ah get another Polymerization added ta mah hand,” said Applejack with a grin.

“Grr, these things really are weeds,” grumbled Chaser as he looked at them with disgust. “They just keep sprouting. I guess you’re going to summon that piece of crap fusion monster again, right?”

“Nope,” replied AJ, getting a look of confusion from Chaser. “Ah got something a little different in mind.” Applejack smiled as she slid her Polymerization spell card into the slot, ready to try out her newest monster.

“Plants of scorpion an’ snake bloom together. Ridin’ through the air, the mighty dragon with an unending appetite. Fusion summon: Starving Venom Fusion Dragon!” (2800/2000)

All of the duelist watched as, from out of the fusion portal, emerged a very thin purple dragon. Across its body were orbs of yellow and red with yellow horns on either side of its head that looked like they were made to ram into its foe.

“No,” seethed Chaser as he took a step back. “That’s not fair! How do you have such a rare monster?!”

“When this here monster is summoned, he gains the attack of one of your special summoned monsters until the end of the turn,” said Applejack, ignoring his question as her dragon’s shoulders opened up making them look like the jaws of a snake.

Particles of energy began to race across the field from Archfiend Dragon and into the mouths of Starving Venom, causing his attack to rise all the way to 6000.

“But that ain’t all Ah’m doin’, no sir. Now Ah activate mah facedown: ‘Ivy Shackles’!”

The ground began to crack once again as vines shot out of the ground and began to wrap themselves around Archfiend Dragon. Chaser’s monster tried to rip them out, but they just kept coming. Soon they were boring into its skin and turning him a light shade of green.

Applejack watched as Chaser’s eyes widened in fear at this. It was clear to her that he knew where this was going. After all, this trap of hers wasn’t at all rare, just old. “No, no you don’t!” he yelled as he jammed his finger onto his duel disk. “I activate my own trap card: ‘Return of the Red-Eyes’! Once per turn, if I control a Red-Eyes monster then I can summon one normal monster from my graveyard. So I bring back the original Red-Eyes Black Dragon in defense mode.”

“Well shoot,” said Applejack with a sigh, seeing Red-Eyes Black Dragon appearing on the field before being wrapped in vines as well. She had hoped to end this duel now, but it looks like she would be spending more time in the ‘charming’ company of Star Chaser. “Well then, Ah play ‘Fragrance Storm’. This here card lets me destroy one plant monster on the field an’ then draw a card. Then, if that monster happens to be another plant, ah get ta reveal it an’ draw again. An I choose Red-Eyes Black Dragon.” As the named monster exploded into thousands of petals, giving off a wonderful scent as it did so, AJ drew her card…and frowned. It wasn’t a plant.

“Oh well, can’t win them all,” said Applejack with a shrug. “Still, Ah can activate the effect of the Predaplant Drosophyllum Hydra sleepin’ in mah graveyard. See, this here monster ain’t no lazy daisy. By removing one other Predaplant monster from the grave he can shave 500 attack points off your monster all lickity split. So Ah’ll do that now by removin’ Predaplant Spinodionaea. Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, destroy Archfiend Black Skull Dragon!” Starving Venom whipped around at its master’s command, its tail extending as it became another snake-like jaw that opened up wide. It grew large enough to clamp onto the upper torso of Archfiend before swallowing him whole.

-Chaser’s Life points: 3000-

“Ah place one card face down an end mah turn,” announced Applejack as she slid her card into the tray. “Take your best shot!”

Turn 5: Star Chaser

“You can’t handle my best,” growled Chaser as he drew, his hand once more fidgeting a bit as he did so. (Hand: 1) “Now I will show you your place at my feet! I play the spell card ‘Dragon’s Mirror’! With this card I can perform a fusion summon using cards in my graveyard in order to bring out a dragon type fusion monster! So I remove my normal Red-Eyes Black Dragon and my Meteor Dragon Red-Eyes Impact to summon ‘Meteor Black Comet Dragon’!” (3500/2000)

Appearing on Chaser’s side of the field was a mirror the size of the school which contained the standard fusion vortex storm inside of it.

“Dark dragon of crimson eyes, fiery dragon that fell from the heavens, come together to show burn away those in your wrath. Fusion summon: Meteor Black Comet Dragon!”

When the chant ended, the mirror shattered into thousands of tiny pieces as a dragon larger than life flew out, taking position above Chaser. Its scales were black and cracked, flames escaping out of them and licking the tips of its many horns.

“Now to taste the pain you deserve for thinking you had even a snowball’s chance in hell at defeating me!” screamed Chaser. “When this monster is fusion summoned, I can send one normal monster in my deck to the graveyard to deal damage equal to half of that monster’s attack points. So I choose Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon to deal 1200 point of damage!”

From the beating wings of Meteor Black Comet Dragon came a volley of fireballs towards AJ. The farmer girl, on instinct, reached to press the button to activate her trap but managed to stop herself.

-Applejack’s Life points: 1600-

“It’s a pity I can’t activate my trap card again,” said Chaser. “I would have loved the chance to watch you helplessly burn in front of me. Oh well, guess I’ll have to be content watching my dragon rip into your life points.” Chaser than grinned sadistically. “I am of course aware that your hungry dragon has another effect, one that lets him destroy all special summoned monsters I control. I bet you thought you might have the tiniest of chances of beating me if I lost my dragon. But when my dragon leaves the field, he allows me to special summon a Red-Eyes monster from my grave! During my attack phase! There is no way you can win! Meteor Black Comet Dragon, burn that useless monster out of my sight!” Meteor Black Comet Dragon launched itself towards Starving Venom, its taloned feet ready to pounce on it like a bird of prey. Yet…

“Ah activate mah face down!” declared Applejack as she pressed a button on her duel disk. Chains appeared from every direction, binding the massive dragon and pulling it back to Chaser’s side of the field. Meteor Black Comet Dragon tried to struggle out of its bounds while the flames seeping out of its scales began to die down, but in the end gave in.

“What…But how and…” stammered Chaser as he watched the scene before him.

“Mah trap card: ‘Fiendish Chain’,” explained Applejack. “Stop your monster from attackin’ as well as using any of them effect ya love so much.”

“But why…” Chaser words trailed off as he looked up at his monster again. He looked like he was having trouble comprehending the situation he was in.

“It was all about timing,” said Hunter from the sidelines, causing the two duelists to look over at him. Next to him Moondancer nodded, seeing the same thing as her boyfriend.

“Applejack waited to see if you were going to summon anything else,” she explained. “I myself am unsure if that dragon counts as a Red-Eyes monster since, while part of the Red-Eyes family, it doesn’t have that name. There also could have been text on your trap card that could have allowed you to activate it anyways. Once you explained everything and began the attack, Applejack felt the time was right.”

“LIKE THAT MATTERS!” screamed Chaser, veins appearing in his neck as he did so. He then pointed at Meteor Black Comet Dragon with a shaking hand. “Do any of you retards believe that she has anything in that useless deck of hers that can take down one of my best monsters? Answer: NO! Just make your move you-”

-Turn 6: Applejack-

“Ah draw,” announced Applejack, interrupting Chaser from launching out more insults. (Hand: 1) Calmly she looked at what she had drawn…and smiled. “Ah summon Predaplant Chylamydosundew in attack mode!” (600/200)

The ground before Applejack cracked once again to reveal a green lizard with a fan around its neck and six glowing red eyes, three on each side. There were also ‘stems’ that were growing out of the neck fan and ending with red orbs.

“When this little critter here is on the field Ah can perform a fusion summon with it without needin’ the spell card! So now Ah fuse Predaplant Chylamydosundew with Starving Venom Fusion Dragon ta bring out mah best card!” Applejack’s grin grew wider as Chaser took a step back, clearly knowing or at least suspecting what was about to happen.

“Endless hunger draw ya closer ta the battle. Now let greed fill ya with something new! Fusion summon Greedy Venom Fusion Dragon!” (3300/2500)

Starving Venom and Predaplant Chylamydosundew were gone, replaced with a dragon whose main body was scaly white with arms and legs of purple. It flew on wings made of purple energy that seemed to be constantly being expelled from its back.

“No,” whispered Chaser as he took a step back, shaking his head as he did so. Applejack watched as he kept his gaze on her dragon even when he fell on his rump. The jerk’s body seemed to be trembling.

“Ah see ya know what this card does,” said Applejack as she closed her eyes. “That once per turn Ah can reduce the attack of one of your monsters right down ta zero. Which Ah’m gonna do now.”

Meteor Black Comet Dragon let out a roar as its attack points began to drop, leaving it with nothing. As it did so, the energy from Greedy Venom’s wings began to reform into something like a grid with a purple energy sphere in the middle of the openings.

“There’s no way,” stammered Chaser. “I had that card once. It was useless! You have to be cheating right now! There’s no way you COULD BEAT ME WITHOUT-”

Applejack opened her eyes which began to glow bright green with power. She then pointed at Chaser’s dragon with such force that it silenced him. “Finish this.”

With those words, the energy spheres from Greedy Venom’s wings fired beams of energy running all over the place. Some missed completely while others bore holes into the target’s body. When it ended, Meteor Black Comet Dragon fell onto the ground in between the two duelists where it then reached out a claw towards Chaser in a motion that looked like it was asking for help. However, the dragon received none as if vanished from the field.

-Star Chaser’s Life points: 0-

Winner Applejack!

As all of the holograms vanished, returning the roof to normal, Applejack picked up her fusion monster from her duel disk. As she held onto it, she felt a certain odd sense of power coming from it that was…odd. To say the least. Still, all in all, it was a good duel for her. Not only had she been able to use her new deck better than ever before, but she had also used her new monsters to great effect. She felt confident that when the time came to duel Crystal Prep, she would have no regrets.

“NO!” came a scream that brought Applejack back to the moment. Pocketing her card, she looked up to see Chaser was back on his feet. In his hand was the Meteor Black Comet Dragon card. “I didn’t lose; this deck lost! These stupid cards…even with all the insurances I gave STILL LOST!”

Chaser then flung the card in his hand against the ground as hard as he could, surprising all of the others witnessing it. Before they could say or do anything, Chaser pulled out his deck and proceeded to toss them onto the ground as well with a look of savage hatred. As he did that, cards also flew out of the sleeves in his coat proving that he was cheating. Not that it surprised anyone there. Cards scattered about the roof, some lucky ones being carried in the wind while others sadly got to experience Chaser’s boots grinding into them. “I don’t lose! You lost! You all lost! I deserve better than the likes of you pathetic cards!”

Applejack stood there, blinking in shock at this behavior. Not even Apple Bloom acted this childish when she lost a duel. It was just so…unreal. As she watched it, her mid went back to the story Hunter had told her. The one where he refused to believe that his loss was anything of his own doing. How he blamed Hunter for his lifelong ban and even going to jail. Even after all of this, he seemed unwilling or even unable to accept that this loss was his own. It might have been sad, had she not known the jerk.

It was then that her attention was drawn to something else. In the wind, a card blew near her face in the wind. The farmer girl caught it easily to see that it was the monster she had destroyed to finish the duel: Meteor Black Comet Dragon. The rare card was undamaged from this prideful huff before her. Looking around, she saw that Hunter and Moondancer were collecting what few cards were being spared Chaser’s rage thanks to the wind. Nodding she pocketed the card before walking towards the exit.

“Where do you think you’re going, you dumb blonde?” yelled Chaser. While Applejack did not turn around, she was sure he was foaming at the mouth right now while spit flew with every word he uttered. All three of them just continued to ignore him. “Or you retard? Huh? Can’t say anything? Too afraid because you know you only got lucky? Well I’ll be back to challenge you both someday once I find a better deck! Then…Then everything will be right. I’ll take my place as the best where I belong!”

“He never stops, does he?” asked Moondancer when they all reached the door, ignoring as Chaser as he continued to rant and scream his head off.

“No,” replied Hunter as he opened the door for the girls. At the same time, they all heard a loud crash. Briefly they looked and saw that Chaser, in his rage, had taken his own duel disk and thrown it to the floor. With sparks still flying from the device, Chaser began to stomp on it while screaming his head off. “And I’m just…done dealing with it.” With that said, all three of them left the roof.

Three days later found Applejack walking down the halls of the local hospital. Few people were moving through the halls, those that were there were being pushed in wheelchairs by the nurses. The sterile smell of ammonia filled her nose, making her wish that she was back at the farm or even back at school. However, it was something she just had to deal with as she made her way to Rainbow’s room.

There was no door there, just an opening that lead into a nice living area for her friend. Rainbow was laid out on top of a bed dressed in a hospital gown. Her head rested upon a pillow as she held up her smartphone which was making a lot of noise. So much in fact that Applejack was surprised there wasn’t a dozen or so nurses and doctors in here telling her to keep it down. Rainbow noticed AJ almost as soon as she entered the room, pausing whatever app or video she was watching and setting the phone down.

“Howdy Rainbow,” said Applejack. “Heard their lettin’ ya out tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I can’t wait,” replied Rainbow as she sat up. “They said they want to run one or two more tests and keep me over night just to be on the safe side. But come on! They already pumped my stomach and all that other stuff! I’m ready to get back out there and tear up the field!”

AJ shook her head as she sat down on the bed. “Ya do know how lucky ya are,” she said while giving her friend a meaningful look. “Ah heard that if Principal Celestia hadn’t called that ambulance when she did an’ the doctors actin’ all quick like ya might not even be here.” The farm girl watched as Rainbow winced slightly at that, causing herself to look away for a moment.

None of the girls had taken well to how close Rainbow had been to death’s door. Fluttershy had been a crying fit the first night and Sunset had tried breaking in just to spend the night reading Rainbow her favorite books. Everybody else had helped Pinkie Pie with a get well soon party, doing their best to keep hope alive for as long as they could. Yet now that she thought about it, it must have been even more scary for Rainbow. As tough as she acted at times, Applejack knew it was mostly a front she put up. She had to have been terrified by all of this, wanting to get away from a place of the sick and where she might have-

“Uh, so…” AJ said suddenly, breaking away from darker thoughts as she turned to look at her friend. “What were ya watching there? One of them duel videos? Tortoise racing?”

“Better,” said Rainbow, her features brightening instantly. As she picked up her phone she gestured to AJ to come closer so the two of them could watch. After sliding down the bed side, Applejack was surprised to see a video news app was on. And it wasn’t some sports game or draft announcement. At least, not from what Applejack could see as Rainbow replayed the video.

“Breaking news,” said the anchorwoman as the app played. “Earlier today a student at Canterlot High was caught putting trace amounts of rat poison into a fellow student’s water bottle. We now go live to the scene.” There was a flash cut away before another woman appeared on the screen. She stood in front of the school where dozens of students were now standing in the courtyard or just sticking their heads out the windows. Several police cars were parked at the driveway with their lights still flashing.

“I’m here live at Canterlot High,” said this new woman named News Update. “For the last three days terror has gripped the student body as five students have been rushed to the hospital where it has been revealed that they were, in fact, poisoned. Many of whom have been the top student athletes and two are still in critical condition. Up until now, officials within the school had struggled to figure out if this was simply an accident or a malicious act. That was until this morning when a student named Flash Sentry spotted a fellow student entering the girl’s locker room where he was caught red handed in the act.”

At that moment, the doors to the school were burst open. News Update signaled the cameraman to get this, both moving towards the walkway as fast as they could. There, two police officers struggled to keep hold of Star Chaser who was doing everything in his power to get free. He leapt into the air only to be brought back down thanks to the might of the officers. He pulled and tussled about like a bronking bull, screaming his head off as he did while those who detained him did their best to read him his rights. Applejack had heard about this happening but had not seen it since she had been on the opposite side of the school.

“Here comes the best part,” whispered Rainbow with glee.

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!” screamed Chaser, looking like a panicked animal being led to a cage. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM? HUH?! IT’S THAT BITCH CELESTIA! SHE SET ME UP!”

“Remember; you have the right to remain silent!” shouted one of the officers. “I suggest you start now.” But Chaser refused, he just kept screaming his head off as he blamed everyone under the sun except for himself. Applejack even heard her own insult name being mentioned as she watched him getting closer to the police car.
Then, in a shocking moment, one of his jerking legs connected with one of the officers knocking him down. Seeing his chance Chaser then tried to tackle his way out, but the other officer was not startled by this. In a flash, he had grabbed his taser and used it on Chaser to bring him to the ground.

“I could watch this all day,” said Rainbow with a grin.

Elsewhere, Hunter stood in front of the place that had once been his home as the sun began to sink in the horizon. Only it had changed significantly since he had last seen it. The mounds of trash and vile order were no longer there, the lawn having recently cleared out and cut. Dark, lightless windows showed no signs of the television light that had once constantly played. Only darkness could be seen with no signs of movement from within. Not that he expected anything given the fact that there was a ‘For Sale’ sign that had been planted not too long ago. There were no signs of his parents. Not even a hint of where they had gone.

Hunter had known this before coming here. He just had to see it for himself in the hopes of getting some closure. Yet even that had been denied to him. All that was there was a sort of emptiness as words from a song he had once heard passed through his lips.

“Daddy don’t you love me, then why do you hit me?” he sang softly. “And momma don’t you love me, then why do you hurt me? Well I’ve tried to make you proud but for crying out loud. Just give me the chance to hide away. Exhaustion takes over. Will this someday be over?”

Hunter stopped when he heard footsteps approaching him. Turning he saw it was Moondancer walking towards him. Upon seeing her, Hunter wanted to say something. Maybe apologize for his horrible singing since he couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. Just something to say. But the words just wouldn’t come out now. As he stood there, he could tell that Moondancer was doing the same thing. He knew her well enough to tell when she was fishing for the right words to say. All she could do was stand there.

Then, after a minute or two of silence, Moondancer reached out to take his hand and together they walked away from the place that had once been Hunter’s home. Neither of them said a word as they walked hand and hand with each other. In that moment, nothing needed to be said.

Author's Note

Since Brony-Wan-Kenobi is among the most dedicated to Duelists of Canterlot High; on his behalf I want to mention that he is doing his own Yu-Gi-Oh story pertaining to his OC Hunter and Moondancer and would like your thoughts on the concept. On my part; go for it mate!

Duel #1: Light up the Night! Ultra Athletes vs. Ancient Gears! (Part 1) (by Night-Quill)

This… was embarrassing.

Last week she’d volunteered to help Fluttershy hand out pamphlets promoting the animal shelter. During the weekend she was coaxed into helping Rarity model for an ensemble of hers. In all honesty; she found herself quite fond of what the fashionista had conjured up, almost wishing she could have had one for keeps.

It was now Wednesday. More specifically, the day of the Canterlot High Culture Fair. And perhaps the liveliest one in the last two years ever since…

Sunset Shimmer felt like somehow kicking herself for the thought. She was meant to be mending from her past misdeeds, yet every day a stray thought or the wrong words would spring up; if not from her, but from someone else. Her current mode of dress did not help either; out of embarrassment, and the feeling that her personal resentment was only making her look worse.

She and her new, or rather, first friends in the world had settled on a Prench theme, combining a multitude of ideas, though emphasizing mostly on Pinkie’s, given the party girl’s enthusiasm when it came to her boundless sweet tooth, culminating in them hosting a Prench confectionery stand out on the soccer field among those of their fellow students. Staying true to theme, the lot of them had agreed to dress as Prench servers, complete with black and white, frilly outfits.

As Pinkie was calling to passing students in her overly enthusiastic manner, Rainbow Dash grumbled something under her breath beside Sunset, looking particularly miffed over how she was dressed, and how Rarity had insisted on doing her hair in a Prench braid, very unbecoming of the tomboyish athlete. The blush and mascara hadn’t helped either.

“Why do I have to dress all frilly?” Rainbow moaned, pouting, her arms crossed in indignation of her predicament.

“Why, Rainbow Dash,” said Rarity, naturally enjoying the attention the lot had been getting, seeing as the outfits were her handiwork, “As top athlete, surely you would understand the importance of team effort,” she cooed, “We must all look the part.”

If Rainbow’s head was a kettle, it would have been steaming, given the death glare she was giving Rarity. Even Sunset herself couldn’t help but giggle slightly at the athlete’s display, idly adjusting the ruffle headpiece she’d adorned.

“Don’t forget, Applejack’s just as frou-frou’d up as you are, Dash,” Sunset remarked, aforementioned death glare snapping towards her, enough to make her reel.

“So how come she didn’t get the face treatment?!” Rainbow growled, jabbing a finger at the farmgirl who was busy serving two students one of Pinkie’s eclairs each.

“Oh, trust me, darling,” said Rarity with a sigh, “I tried…”

“Tried?” asked Sunset with intrigue.

Rarity groaned, “‘Could you take off a little of the blush’, ‘little of the mascara’, ‘little more of the blush’…” Rarity mouthed whilst miming wiping her face.

Sunset Shimmer did her best to stifle her giggling, and failed miserably. With her lifted spirits, she turned back to eyeing the crowd, when she spotted Principal Celestia and Vice-principal Luna approaching their stand.

“Good afternoon, girls,” said the ever-regal principal with the near glistening tri-colored hair, “My, it seems you’ve been busy.”

“Darn toot’n!” came Applejack’s enthusiastic reply, “Somethin’ we can do for ya, principals?”

Vice-principal Luna dismissed her with a wave of her hand, “We just came by to thank Sunset Shimmer for her help in reworking the student council charters, now with the Autumn Crown privileges revoked.”

Sunset could only look down at her feet, or the smidgeon she could make out past the hems of her Prench server’s outfit, “It was no trouble, really. I was glad to help.”

Principal Celestia smiled softly, looking at the former biggest bully and of Canterlot High, “Believe you me, Sunset; I for one am proud of your efforts. It’s nary been a month and we’ve noticed much improvement regarding not only student camaraderie, but overall performance all round.”

Sunset rubbed the back of her neck, “I’m fairly certain that’s more to do with Prin- um, Twilight Sparkle’s efforts more than mine…”

“True, Miss Sparkle may have claimed your previous title; but it’s also by example that you and your friends have set that had made the further difference,” said Celestia, to which she looked among the rest of the girls, “You girls wouldn’t happen to have heard anything about Twilight Sparkle at all by any chance?”

The five behind their stand promptly feigned ignorance, aside from Rainbow who was still too peeved over her attire.

“I see…” the principal pursed her lips, sighing regrettably, “I was hoping you would know, seeing as you seemed to have a rapport with her. You’re saying that you’ve not seen or heard of her since the tournament?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, Principal Celestia,” said Rarity, bringing a hand to her chest, “We just lost contact with her, like she’d vanished from the face of the Earth. A shame really; she seemed so nice…”

The principal and vice-principal looked at one another questioningly, to which Luna whispered something to Celestia from behind her hand.

“That’s a shame… Well, we won’t take up your time further. Have fun with the fair!” as soon as the sibling heads of the school were taking their leave, Celestia turned to Applejack; “Oh! I think we’ll also take three-”

Luna’s head snapped towards her sister in an instant.

“Two! Two is what I meant to say! We’ll take two eclairs!” the principal giggled nervously in her younger sister’s gaze.

The girls stifled their chuckles as Applejack handed the two their eclairs. Once Celestia and Luna were out of earshot, the five let loose a round of laughter.

“Okay; that might have been worth this…” Rainbow guffawed, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye, accidentally staining herself with the mascara, “Oh for crying out loud!”

Rarity was on Rainbow Dash with a cotton pad in an instant. As that went on, Sunset watched as Pinkie Pie called to one of the students walking past. Sunset recognized him as one of the third-year students, though the name escaped her as Pinkie beckoned him over, giving emphasis on the peculiar choice of hat he wore.

He was a tad on the shorter side with a striking charcoal skin tone and neck length silvery hair that angled much to the left side of his head and azure eyes. His wardrobe could best be described as retro, if not downright archaic; consisting of a dark grey collared shirt with a matching pair of pants and navy converse sneakers, while over his shirt he wore a very vintage looking green vest with a complementing checkered scarf tied around his neck. The most striking features were what appeared to be a bowler hat atop his head and a bronze chain clasped to his vest leading to a pocket. Perhaps connected to an antique watch of some kind? A matching bronze pin was also adorned on his vest in the shape of a quill pen.

Sunset tried to smile as naturally as she could when the student approached her part of the stand, going over their selection with a contemplative look.

“Hi there! Uh, I mean bonjour,” said Sunset, “Um… I like your hat.”

He looked at Sunset with raised brows. Possibly not the best of greeting, though Sunset as she grinned awkwardly.

“…Thanks?” he spoke, grinning back with an equally awkward expression, “Yea… bowler hats are cool and all,” he chuckled, “Dig the Prench outfits.”

“Heh. Tell that to Rarity, she’d appreciate it,” Sunset nodded towards Rarity who was finishing reapplying Rainbow’s eyeshadow.

The student glanced in the direction of the pouting Rainbow Dash, before switching his attention back towards Sunset.

“Sorry about losing your title,” he said, looking like he was staring right into Sunset’s eyes.

Sunset’s body froze at the archaically dressed student’s words.

“What?” asked Sunset, sounding suddenly breathless, “It’s… It’s fine. As far as I’m concerned; I never should have had that title in the first place. I think, for all intents and purposes, relinquishing it was the best thing to happen to me in quite a while.”

He raised a confused brow, “Really?” his eyes darted to the side contemplatively, “To be frank; were I on your shoes; I’d have fought tooth and nail to keep it. Maybe that would have finally meant something.”

Right now, whatever this man was on about, Sunset felt a sudden sense of dread. Externally, he did not seem malicious, but it his eyes betrayed something that he was not expressing directly. And yet, over her years of manipulation and getting into people’s heads, Sunset felt a sickening familiarity emanating from his choice of words.

“Can we help you, by any chance?” Applejack walked up next to Sunset, her wording slow and deliberate. The farmgirl was eyeing the man warily, Sunset feeling the deepest gratitude at the intervention.

He looked at Applejack, clearly intimidated by the farmer’s defensive posturing, though his face remained neutral.

“It’s nothing…” he muttered, “I… Can I just have one of those macarons?”

Applejack complied to the man’s request and handed him one of the triads of macarons on small cardboard plates. He bowed in thanks and turned to leave, stealing a final glance at Sunset before walking off. Sunset’s gaze followed him until he melded with the crowd.

“What the hell was that about?” asked Applejack, eyeing in the direction of the bowler hat wearing student. She looked over at Sunset, “Ya’ll right there, Sunset?”

Sunset hugged her arms, “I get the feeling someone here might not be happy with the changes at Canterlot High,” she and Applejack looked at each other concernedly, “Who is he?”

“That’s Night Quill; he’s in the same history class as me,” informed Rarity, “While I always thought he pulls off the Vaultingese-era look quite nicely, I’ve never really spoken to him outside class.”

“Real barrel of laughs, I bet,” snorted Rainbow Dash, “So what exactly was he on about?”

“Just saying he’s sorry I lost the Autumn Crown title. And that he’d have fought, apparently tooth and nail for it,” said Sunset in reiteration.

“You mean back when the title meant having authority?” asked Fluttershy.

Sunset groaned, fighting the urge to slump on her knees from the frustration. Just great, less than a month and already her old influence was coming back to haunt her.

“Hey now,” said Applejack, placing a comforting hand on Sunset’s back, “We know you’re tryin’, Sunset.”

“And besides!” said Pinkie, popping up right next to the two sporadically, “It’s not like Sunset’s making him be a grade-A meanie. He’s the one being the grade-A meanie when Sunset’s been working hard to be a grade-A goody!”

Sunset chuckled, rubbing the back of her head, “Thanks, Pinkie… I think…” she mused

“Pinkie, what’s the duelist system got on ‘im?” asked Applejack, prompting Pinkie to fish for her phone out of her hair, as expected.

“Let’s see heeeere…” she fumbled with her pink smartphone, going through the app for the Canterlot High dueling database, “‘N’ for ‘nougat’, ‘I’ for ‘icing’, ‘G’ for- got it!”

Sunset held out her hand where Pinkie promptly placed her phone. Certain as can be; there was Night Quill’s profile, complete with his photo, minus the hat. Scrolling down, his personal information (third-year student, registered in the eco and game club), down to his recent dueling history. His latest deck was marked as ‘Ancient Gears’, and going back to earlier that month, his win-lose ratio had been recorded as 9-1 preceding the quarter finals.

“Nine-to-one? That’s actually not all that bad,” she remarked.

“Nope, but just looky there,” said Applejack, tapping a finger.

Gently nudging Applejack’s finger aside, the time of his last duel was at 3.45pm., after which there were no further match-ups.

“Wait…” Sunset muttered, musing over the information before her, “So he loses once, with over an hour to still duel, and he just stops?”

Rainbow shoved in between her and Applejack, “Really? Who did he lose to?”

“Flash Sentry, big surprise,” Sunset rolled her eyes with a wry smile.

“And just look at all the people he beat; there’s Ember, and Spitfire,” Rainbow chimed in, “Valhallen, Cloudy Kicks, Micro Chips, Sandalwood, Crimson Napalm, Indigo Wreath and Cherry Crash. A lot of these guys aren’t exactly second-stringers by CHS standards!”

“Wasn’t Spitfire in the top eight?” asked Applejack, taking the phone from Sunset as she scrutinized further over the defeated students.

“Yea, until I knocked her out of the roster,” Rainbow grinned.

“So, we’ve got a good duelist who is on a roll, loses once and just forfeits?” Sunset asked, sounding more incredulous than intended.

“Ah think I’m seein’ a pattern here…” said Applejack, flipping the phone to its side, “Seems this Night Quill deliberately went after the top contenders with the highest win ratios.”

“He wanted a challenge?” asked Rarity.

“But, if he’s so good and wanted a challenge, then why did he quit upon losing to the top duelist on campus?” Fluttershy chimed in.

“That… is a very good question…” said Rarity in response, bringing a quizzical finger to her chin, humming contemplatively.

The sound of someone’s clearing of their throat snapped the six girls’ attention when a familiar blue-haired male stood in front of their stand.

“Uh, hi,” greeted Flash Sentry, with an awkward chuckle, standing back being his two bandmates, Ringo and Brawly Beats, “So, are you on break or…?”

Rarity’s face beamed, “Ah, Flash, just the man we were looking for!” she stated as she took her turn with Pinkie’s phone.

“We weren’t looking for him in the first place…” murmured Fluttershy in a matter of fact tone, which went largely ignored.

Rarity showed the profile on the screen, “By any chance do you know anything about this finely dressed gentleman, Flash?”

Flash took the phone and went over what was presented, “The hat guy?” the sound of a few people clearing their throats in disgruntlement sounded in the near distance, “Err, the… dome hat guy?”

“Actually, it’s called a bowler hat,” Rarity interjected, raising a finger.

Rainbow rolled her eyes, “The guy who looks like he raided his great grandparents’ closet, yes.”

Back to looking at the phone, before handing it back to Rarity, he bobbed his shoulders, “I don’t know all that much. Just a decent duelist, I suppose. Real shame really how he just quits every time.”

“So it’s not the first time?” asked Applejack.

Flash idly scratched the back of his head, “I think your best bet would be to talk to Sandalwood. I hear he and Quill used to pal around during freshman years. Why the interest?”

Sunset Shimmer pursed her lips, looking in the direction where the archaically dressed student wandered off.

“Let’s just say I think we have one more piece of the past to put behind…”

Night Quill inserted the empty cardboard plate into the proper recycling container, wiping a stain off the side of his mouth with a handkerchief. He went back to leaning against the soccer field bleachers, looking around as the various students went about enjoying the culture fair.

“Isolating yourself from everyone will not fix your problems, Night Quill,” he almost jumped in surprise, seeing Vice-principal Luna standing beside him.

Sighing in relief as his heart settled down, he shifted his back against the bleachers, crossing his arms, looking away from the vice-principal.

Luna sighed, looking at the boy sadly, “I heard the news today.”

Night Quill looked up at her, his visage emotionless before looking back at the fair ground, “Right,” he murmured.

Luna brought a hand to her hip as she watched the student deliberately try to ignore her, “Night Quill, we’ve talked about this before; I understand your frustrations, and time and time I’ve just wanted you to realize; you’re not inadequate or a failure.”

This time Night Quill did not even bother looking back at her. His eyes stared vacantly at whatever he could focus in the distance, “With all due respect, Vice-principal Luna; you wouldn’t understand.”

Luna shook her head, “Maybe not exactly. But bear in mind, I have a sibling too. Contrary to what you think, even she and I have had our differences, and sometimes I felt I couldn’t stand her myself.”

Night Quill let out a chuckle, “Vice-principal, may I ask; have you ever felt like all your life you’ve just been living under someone else’s shadow? And how that shadow just keeps casting itself over you, no matter where you are, until it very much defines you?”

She looked at the student solemnly, crossing her arms, “Sometimes, Night Quill. But over time I learned that I am not my sister, no matter what others might have thought or expected of me. I did my thing, she did hers, and because we understood one another and our strengths, we were able to make it where we are today, and I now have the joy of sharing the same institution with Celestia. For all our differences, we felt that with our rapport, we could run CHS much more efficiently, because of that understanding.”

Night Quill this time had the courtesy to look up at her, a wry smile forming on his lips, “And I’m really happy for you and the work you two have put into, well, putting up with the lot of us. Maybe in some reality I know what it’s like to have this rapport, but…” he hesitated, before groaning, “Excuse me, Vice-principal Luna.”

With that, he stood straight and walked away along the bleachers. Luna could only watch sadly as the lonesome Night Quill walked off, deliberately avoiding the fair.

“He still doubts himself,” came the voice of Celestia, her sister approaching from the direction of the fair, watching with her.

Luna nodded, “I’ve tried my best to help him understand that he is not his brother,” she sighed, “I’m not certain what to do about him.”

“Have you considered getting on an even level?” asked Celestia, holding her arm out.

“I have, yes,” Luna concurred, “I’m just not certain that I should.”

Celestia hummed, eyeing the fairgrounds contemplatively, “Maybe this is something we should best let someone less familiar handle,” she said, a small smile on her lips.

“Sister?” Luna raised a questioning brow.

“Hmm, just a thought…”

It was Thursday’s lunch period, and Sunset Shimmer, as part of her show of good faith, was the last to be served as she’d offered her place in line to pretty much everyone else. She walked briskly to her and her friends’ usual table, seating herself next to Fluttershy, who gave a smile in greeting. As Sunset sank her fork into her helping of vegetarian three-bean chili, she noticed across from her as Rarity and Rainbow Dash were going over the contents of a manila envelope.

“What’cha got there?” asked Sunset before inserting her loaded fork into her awaiting mouth.

“Ah, Sunset, you’re here!” beamed Rarity, “I did some investigating, with my overeager assistant,” to which Sunset noticed Pinkie Pie, wearing a deerstalker cap, a fake mustache and had a toy calabash pipe in her mouth expelling soap bubbles.

Sunset decided to not question the unfathomable anomaly that was Pinkamena Pie and focused on Rarity, whom she could have sworn to have seen earlier that day wearing a wide-brimmed fedora. She motioned for the fashionista to continue.

“Well, it turns out Night Quill’s brother is none other than Sharp Stroke,” the fashionista elaborated.

Sunset, in thought, sloshed the chewed-up contents in her mouth before swallowing, her mind drawing a blank, “Sharp Stroke?”

“I know, right?!” blurted Rainbow Dash, her hands thumping the table as she leaned forward, “As in the Sharp Stroke; the local who was just accepted into the international dueling circuit! It was just announced yesterday!”

Sunset produced her smartphone from her jacket pocket, “Ooh. So that’s what your post on MyStable was about… Wait, how did you know?”

Rarity shrugged, “I may have told everyone else before you, what with your busy schedule.”

Fair dues, seeing as Sunset’s helper routines did take a drain on her time. Just yesterday she’d been tasked with the final clean-up of the soccer field after the culture fair had ended. Though Applejack and Rainbow Dash, to her joy, had decided to help.

“I’m still not seeing the big picture though,” said Sunset, taking another forkful of her chili, “What does Night Quill’s brother have to do with his demeanor yesterday?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Rainbow Dash, crossing her legs, “Guy’s just proud of his big bro!”

“Um, are you absolutely certain, Rainbow?” asked Fluttershy, who was halfway through finishing her cup of fruit cubes, “He didn’t seem all that enthusiastic yesterday.”

“If not downright passive aggressive if ya ask me,” Applejack added, “And it still don’t explain what exactly he was on about, and this whole give-up attitude of his.”

“I get that you, AJ and Rarity have a great rapport with your sisters and equivalent, but trust me on this Rainbow,” Fluttershy pursed her lips, “Not everyone is always too proud of their siblings.”

Rainbow’s eye visibly twitched at the shy one’s comment, until a shudder ran through the rainbow-haired athlete’s body.

“And didn’t Sharp Stroke attend Crystal Prep?” Fluttershy inquired, “I mean, if he were an alumnus of CHS, that would be one thing, but Night Quill attends our school. I think, um, if you permit me, that maybe Night Quill might not be all too happy about it.”

“Oh, trust me; I’m not.”

Eliciting a yelp from Fluttershy; standing at the end of their table was none other than the bowler hat donning Night Quill. Sunset Shimmer could not help but notice the sounds in the cafeteria had dulled just slightly upon the archaically dressed student’s approach. Night Quill stood, arms crossed looking a tad bit peeved over at Rainbow Dash.

“Hiii!” said Pinkie, waving cheerfully, though the intention did not seem to resonate.

“Pardon me,” said Night Quill flatly, “But could someone explain to me why my MyStable, and the school message board, are laden with crap about me?” he asked, flashing his phone for everyone at the table to see, namely the original post by Rainbow Dash and the plethora of likes and follows it had received in only a few hours.

Sunset and her friends all looked at Rainbow Dash, who could only grin awkwardly with a slight blush lighting up her cerulean face, “Umm, oops?”

Night Quill grimaced at Rainbow’s response, “And since it’s online now, everyone in the world is going to see and know how about Sharp Stroke’s ‘inadequate little brother’ who couldn’t make it himself.”

Sunset exchanged worried looks between Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

“Sorry, but I don’t quite follow…” said Rainbow uneasily.

Night Quill sighed, shaking his head, “Of course not…” he murmured, “Fine; Rainbow Dash, out of respect for you as a fellow duelist, I challenge you to a duel.”

The bowler hat wearing student’s declaration turned much of the attention in the cafeteria towards the girls’ table, the students murmuring amongst themselves at the prospect.

Rainbow smiled wryly, “Is that all?” she chuckled, “Heh. For a minute I thought-”

“With a wager…” Night Quill added forebodingly.

“This is not going to be something fun…” whispered Pinkie audibly to Rarity, still wearing the hat, mustache and pipe in her mouth.

“The loser, as a show of courtesy, will relinquish their deck to the winner, until the end of the term,” Night Quill declared, raising a brow, his expression difficult to pin down.

Sunset felt she understood what was going through Night Quill’s head. He was playing into Rainbow Dash’s ego. He knew that if Rainbow declined, her personal image when it came to bravado and confidence could be tainted. She still did not quite understand what it was about Night Quill and people knowing about his pro-league brother, but in earnest, she was strongly hoping for Rainbow to swallow her pride just this once and decline.

It did not seem likely, as Rainbow’s brows furrowed in defiance, “Alright. After school, soccer field. Bring your A-game…”

Author's Note

I like to think Night Quill as being voiced by Wendy Powell (i.e. Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist).