The Long And Short Of It

The evening was late. Nocturnal Pike’s work day had been fairly unassuming, and from what she could gather, so were Cut’s and Anon’s. Pike was relaxing in the living room, basking in the heat provided by the building’s boiler as the wind whipped outside, while Anon and Cut dove into tonight’s activity. Which was Cut teaching Anon—or reteaching him, Pike supposed—how to play Cyber: The Assembly. Something the thestral had absolutely no interest in participating in.

And hey, that was a-okay! By the schedule the three of them had worked out, tonight was Cut’s night, so she got to pick the activity. A schedule that Pike was pleased to report seemed to be helping Anon quite a bit. Every so often she’d still catch him looking at her while kissing Cut or vice versa, but he was getting better about cutting back on weird things like that. So, even if she was just going to be sitting there all evening watching them nerd out, she was content.

Plus watching Cut have to physically restrain herself from wiping the floor with him had been pretty funny.

“Aha!” she cried after seeing Anon’s latest move. Reaching into her hoof of cards, she dramatically pulled one out and moved to place it on the table. “In that case, I tap all of my factories and play—!”

Only to stop herself moments before she actually put the card on the table. “Actually on second thought, ahaha, I’m just going to attack with my Terminator!”

Pike could feel Anon roll his eyes as Cut awkwardly slid the card back into her hoof. “Play the card, Cut.”

“No-no, that’s okay! I’ll just... not do that,” she said with an awkward smile.

It was obvious she was trying to give Anon an out, but Anon’s will was unwavering. “I told you not to hold back on me. Play. The. Card.”

The earth pony sighed, pulling the same card out of her hoof again. This time, when she placed it, she did so with resignation rather than triumph. “I play Seamless Merger and win the game.”

A beat of silence passed through the room as Pike and Anon processed what Cut had just said.

Needless to say, their twin reactions were night and day.

“WHAT!?”

As Anon shouted out his shocked indignation, Pike doubled over in a deep belly laugh, nearly falling off the couch.

“Hahahahahaha! Well, Anon, hahahahahaaaa, you told her not to hold back!”

Picking his jaw off the floor, he snatched the card off the table. “Let me see that!”

Pike could feel the tears of mirth in her eyes as he pulled the card up to his face to scrutinize it.

“You win the game if you control a factory of each basic type and a construct of each color,” he read aloud. Peeking over the card, he took stock of Cut’s side of the table. “Let’s see, white, black, red, blue... Aha! You’re missing a gre- wait no, you’ve got a green. Dang!” Tossing the card back onto the table, he crossed his forehooves with a harrumph. “That is one mean card. How would I have even beaten that?”

Reaching across the board, Cut tapped her hoof on one of Anon’s cards. “Well this one has Provoke. So, you could have provoked my A-mare-zon Delivery Truck for an easy kill, and then I wouldn’t have had a green creature. Destroying it would have even given your card two +1/+1 counters!”

Anon, keeping his forehooves crossed, leaned over to inspect the card himself. Pike could tell things were exactly as she said though, because as soon as he got an eyeful of the card, he dropped his hooves back to his side.

Realizing he truly got outplayed, he sighed with a smile on his face. “Well darn, I completely forgot about that.” Now it was his turn to chuckle, just as Pike’s giggles were starting to subside. “Haha, maaaaan, I suck.”

Turning toward the thestral, he gently pushed her back from the edge of the couch. “Sure you don’t want to play with us, Pike? It’d be nice to have somepony else to take some of the heat.”

With her laughter subsided, Pike was finally able to once again sit up straight. As she did, she decided to humor him, and she reached out over the table to grab the now infamous card for herself. Her eye was immediately drawn to the artwork at the top: three badass robots hoisting the flag of victory.

‘Sweet. If that’s what this game is about, maybe I can get into it.’

But just as she was starting to be convinced, she noticed the large text box below it.

‘Words, words, words, rules, rules, rules, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, nah.’

Pike glanced back up at Anon. “No thanks, this is a little too much nerd for my blood.” Tossing the card back over to Cut, the earth pony deftly caught it and seamlessly slid it back into the deck she was shuffling.

‘Ooooh, very nice!’

Pike felt her lip twitch into a slight grin. “The art’s pretty cool though.”

Anon chuckled at her assertion, before hopping off the couch and trotting over to the box where Cut kept the rest of her decks. “Alright, Cut...”

“...What deck should I pick if I want to win?”

Anonymous the unicorn apparently remembered a lot less, and was much worse at Magic than he thought he was.

Or, Cyber, he supposed.

Sure he hadn’t really played that much, but he thought he’d at least remember the basics! He figured he’d consistently lose to Cut too, but this was just getting embarrassing.

“I saw one with a spaceship on the box earlier, you should use that one!” said Pike.

Her interjection put a smile on Anon’s face. For a moment there he’d thought she was going to bounce the moment Cut pulled out the Mag- Cyber cards, but he was glad she hadn’t. Honestly, it still stressed him out a little when he spent time with just one of them. But that was the point of these scheduled days: to help settle his fears with the power of math. He was feeling less like an asshole for snuggling up to one of them when the other wasn't around, so he’d take that as a sign it was working, at least.

‘Hey enough about your problems, brain, today’s supposed to be about Cut!’

And she still needed to answer his question.

“Hmmm, the megacorp galactic destiny deck? It would compliment his playstyle of just throwing constructs at me,” she said to herself.

Knowing Cut, it looked like if he didn’t choose for her, she'd be considering the logistics of each deck for the next twenty minutes. But it wasn’t like he knew what any of the decks could do, either; how was he supposed to choose?

‘Oh wait, there is one deck that I know how to work!’

“Hey! How about you let me use the deck with that insta-win card, and I’ll pick a deck at random for you to use! That should even the odds a bit.”

That, predictably, snapped Cut out of her thinking with a start. “Ahh! A-actually that would probably work. I haven’t used some of those decks in a long time.”

‘Perfect!’

Peering inside and reaching into the box, Anon dug through it to find whichever deck was buried at the absolute bottom of the stack.

‘Deeper... deeper… Oooh! This one’s box is covered in dust, excellent!’

Pulling the deck out triumphantly, he presented it to Cut. “Here you go, babe.”

She turned quite a delightful shade of red at the pet name, but she tried to remain stoic to preserve some of her (little) marely pride. “Ahem. Th-thank you! Uh, sweetie!” Grabbing the deck out of his magic, she placed her recently used deck in front of Anon before setting the new deck down for herself.

Which allowed her to actually get a good look at it.

“Woah, wait, is this my third generation blue-red control deck? I haven’t used this in years! I thought I lost it,” she said with a look of wonder on her face.

‘Jackpot! Sounds like my ship has finally come in.’

‘Victory, here I come!’

“And that brings your life total to zero; I win.”

It was taking everything Anon had to not slam his face into the table. The universe practically handed him victory on a silver platter, and he still blew it. Cut still had ten life! Ten!

‘Jesus this mare is good.’

Speaking of that mare, she was already rushing to soften the blow as she awkwardly adjusted her glasses. “B-but you did really well this time! You’re getting the hang of it.”

He supposed she was right, but that really didn’t make him feel better about it.

‘Fuck.’

His pride was screaming at him for what he was about to say, but at some point, a man’s got to admit he’s beat. “Alright, babe, I think I’m going to have to go back on my word and ask you to go easy on me.”

Anon could hear Pike smirk into her hoof at that, which was completely fair.

Cut blinked. “Oh? You sure?”

Anon sighed once more. He hated having people go easy on him, but at this point it was obvious that the skill gap was just too great. If she didn’t, the rest of the night was just going to be him getting his ass kicked on repeat.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He started gathering his cards again, opting to stick with the deck he’d done the best with so far. “Be honest with me though: how many tournaments have you won?”

As he started shuffling, he was expecting to hear something along the lines of a bashful Cut giving an answer in the high teens.

But that’s not what he got.

Instead, she glumly hung her head as she set her deck down. “None.”

Anon was so surprised by the answer that he nearly dropped the deck he was shuffling, his magic only barely catching it at the last moment.

‘How can that be?!’

“Really?” came the suddenly interested voice from his side. “So what you’re telling me is Anon is just complete manure at this card game?”

‘What!? No I’m not! I’m alright!’

‘…I think.’

“No, no he’s not,” said Cut.

‘Phew!’

“I mean, I’ve been cleaning house at the friendly games Silken runs every so often, but I’ve never actually won any real tournaments.”

Setting his own deck down, but seeing how Cut had yet to draw from hers, Anon refrained from pulling any cards. “Geez, must be some stiff competition.”

Cut laughed out loud, although the laugh sounded more angry than anything. “Are you kidding? Those stupid bitches don’t know their aggros from their controls!”

‘I hardly know the difference between those things myself! So, what, they’re on my level then?’

Pike’s face was one of confusion. “What’s uh, stopping you from stomping them, then?”

Cut’s entire body drooped, her eyes shifting to look out the window. She mumbled something, quietly enough that Anon couldn’t hear it.

“Say that again, hon?”

Cut sighed in exasperation, before speaking at a level he could hear. “It's ‘cause they always make fun of me...”

‘Oh.’

‘Oooooooooh.’

“So it's that kind of tournament,” he said, knowingly.

Cut sighed once more. “Yeah, it's that kind of tournament.”

By then, Anon completely understood. God knows there’s a lot of ammo they could use against poor Cut.

“Hold on, I’m out of the loop here,” Pike chimed in. “What kind of tournament?”

Anon put a hoof on his chin and gave a thoughtful hum.

‘How do I put this in a way she can comprehend…’

‘...Aha!’

“You gu- ahem, gals trash talk each other at the guard hoofball tournaments, right?”

Pike quirked her brow. “Yeah?”

‘Perfect.’

“But there are lines you wouldn’t cross, right?”

Pike was following along now. “Of course. If you’re too much of a flankhole you get ejected from the game.”

Anon nodded. “Now imagine if that wasn’t the case, and all the ponies competing were a bunch of bitter bitches.”

Pike froze as realization dawned on her face. “Oh, oooooooooooh!” The more she dwelled on it however, the more her face went from understanding to disgust. “Oh. That’s... that’s terrible. Over a card game? Stars above…”

Her exclamation left the mood far more somber than it was before. Which was to be expected, really; the idea of dealing with ponies like that would put a damper on anyone’s mood. He needed to do something to bring the mood back up, stat!

‘And what better way to do that than to shit on people who deserve it?’

And so, with all the joviality he could muster, Anon quipped, “That’s why they call them, uhhh... marefoals, I guess.”

Nocturnal Pike now understood why Cut didn’t go to tournaments. A mare of her emotional constitution? There was no way she could take that kind of abuse. However, there was one thing she didn’t understand—and that was what Anon had just said.

“That’s why they’re called what now?” Pike asked. She was hoping it was some nerd thing, but a sideways glance at Cut sunk that theory. She looked just as confused as Pike was!

As Anon glanced between the two mares, he seemed to realize they didn’t get it. “You know! Marefillies...?”

Pike and Cut both shook their heads.

Pike was internally running through her mental “Anon to pony” dictionary, hoping that might shed some light on his choice of words.

‘Hmmmmm, well mare means man, and foal usually means kid. Mankid?’

‘That doesn’t help at all!’

Pike was absolutely baffled, but she had to hoof it to him: if he was just saying nonsense to help lift the mood, it seemed to be working.

“Marefoal, as in a mare that acts like a filly?” Cut asked.

Anon’s face lit up, as Cut had clearly hit the nail on the head. “Exactly! Back home we had a special term for people like that. I hoped it would translate directly.”

‘Oh! Now I know what he’s trying to say.’

“The word you’re looking for is ‘yearling,’ Anon,” Pike said.

Anon suddenly balked in apparent surprise. “What, like the author? Pffft, fuck off, you do not call them that!”

His reaction was just extreme enough to banish the last of that somber mood, and had immediately left the mares in stitches. Which, of course, also meant he definitely didn’t believe her now.

“Oh you two are so messing with me!”

“We’re not!” cried Cut between guffaws, “It's true! They’re a bunch of stuck up yearlings!”

Anon crossed his hooves and pouted, his every word dripping with indignation despite the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Oh yeah, what came first then? The author or the word?”

Which of course just made Pike and Cut laugh even harder. “The word!” Pike gasped out between fits of laughter. “Who do you think buys all her books!?”

Anon’s ire was instantly shattered as the same mirth that possessed Pike and Cut took hold of him. “Ha! Oh God, her parents must have hated her. Imagine naming your kid Manchild!”

Cut, having calmed down enough to speak, wiped a tear from her eye. “Well, it's probably a pen name.”

Anon snorted in a very unlordlike way. “So what, she just hates her fans?”

That nearly sent Cut into another laughing fit. “Ha! Have you ever been to a Daring Do convention?” Her gaze swiveled between Anon and Pike, clearly expecting the two of them to chime in with their own experiences, but they just shook their heads.

‘Honestly, what did she expect?’

“W-well they can get pretty bad,” she awkwardly amended.

Hoping to throw her a bone, Pike decided to chime in with the only Daring Do convention related story she had. “I did have to break up a bar fight after one a couple years ago, if that counts.”

She barely noticed as Cut suddenly stiffened. “It... wasn’t at the Salty Spitoon, was it?”

‘Oh hey, I’d forgotten the name of the bar it happened at!’

“It was! About five years ago, back when I was just a lowly patrolmare.”

For the briefest of moments, Cut’s fur stood on end and she started fidgeting with her hooves.

‘Odd.’

Ignoring the fidgeting, Pike continued.“Astral and I were expecting an easy patrol, despite what we heard was in town, but filly were we wrong!” She remembered the moment with perfect clarity. She’d just got done ranting about how it was stupid for the two of them to even be patrolling that night, when suddenly a chair came flying out the window of the bar. “By the time we were on the scene, that whole bar was at each other’s throats!”

Thinking back to the mental image, Pike couldn’t help but start laughing. After all...

“The best part is, every single one of them was still in costume!”

The image made Anon start laughing along. However, Cut just nervously tittered.

‘What could be bothering her?’

Cut took a shallow breath. “Do you happen to... remember why the fight started?”

‘Oooh ooh! That part’s great too!’

“It was all over one of the villains! The stallion! Oh what was his name...”

“Caballeron?” Cut added with what almost seemed to be mounting horror.

“That’s it!” Pike cried, “They were fighting over him!”

According to the witnesses after the fact, some mare was claiming that he just needed a guiding hoof to set him straight, and another questioned whether or not the former had even read the books. Then the punches started flying.

“I almost couldn’t believe it was all over some stallion. A fictional stallion!”

‘Aw mare, the mileage I’ve gotten out of that story.’

Pike stopped for a moment to consider things. Cut was obviously no stranger to Daring Do conventions, maybe she was there? Heck, maybe she even knew the mare that supposedly threw the first punch! Pike never did find her.

‘...come to think of it, Cut’s build is pretty similar to how witnesses described that mare… And Cut herself is looking awfully nervous for some reason...’

“Ahaha, s-see what I mean?” Cut nervously chuckled. “Those yearlings can get a-awfully awful about things.”

‘Is she...?’

‘Nah, I’m just imagining things.’

“Anyway, so yeah. That’s why the tournament sucks,” Cut concluded.

Anon hummed for a moment, before leaning over the table, forehooves crossed, and once again focusing on Cut. “About that,” he cut in, “It's not like there’s not a bunch of board game shops in town. Why don’t one of those just make a new tournament if this one’s so bad?”

Cut, clearly relieved, playfully rolled her eyes. “Celestia, I wish! The Board Game Barn cut some kinda deal with the company that makes Cyber though.”

‘Oh Luna, it's there?!’

Just thinking about that place made Pike (and Anon, considering the sound he just made) gag.

“Blech, It's there? Jesus, no wonder it's crap. Well now you’ve gotta go back!”

Cut N. Paste was staring at the stallion, dumbfounded.

‘Huh!?’

‘I just got done telling Anon about how horrible the ponies that enter that tournament are! Why would he suggest I go back?!’

“I’m not following,” Pike said, mirroring Cut’s own thoughts.

Anon just perplexingly pointed to himself and Pike. “Isn’t it obvious?”

He sounded far more incredulous than he had any right to be. He held his hooves there for a moment, waiting for either Cut or Pike to pick up on what he was implying. After several seconds of the two of them not making whatever connection he wanted them to though, he let them drop.

“Okay, okay, think about it like this: how would they try to make fun of you?”

Out of habit, Cut looked down at her hooves.

‘Don’t bite them, Cut! Pike had them done for a reason!’

“Th-they’d probably tell me I’m fat, make f-fun of my teats...”

“No, no, no, that’s not what I mean,” Anon cut her off while shaking his head. “Why would they bring those up? What would they use those things to say?”

‘Well probably that I’d never get a—’

Cut’s eyes shot wide open.

‘Oh, OH!’

“They’d say I’d never get a coltfriend!”

Anon did an odd motion with one of his spectral hands, making a “snap” sound. “Exactly! And what do you have?”

“A herd!” excitedly added Pike. “Anon that’s genius! There’s no way those maladjusts have had as much as a date to their name, so anything they’d try to use at Cut would just be nocking a bow with an empty quiver!”

Suddenly it all made sense!

Cut began imagining her opponent telling her that she’d die alone, only for Anon to strut up and kiss her on the lips. The looks on their faces would be priceless! Best of all, she doubted many of them could even beat her in a fair game! All they used were cheap meta decks, which she could easily counter...

Pike and Anon clearly shared Cut’s newfound enthusiasm, as they both excitedly discussed the best ways to torture the tournament goers.

Which, Cut would admit, sounded pretty dang fun. However, the fact was...

“I-I still don’t know if I really want to do that.”

They both stopped in their tracks.

Anon looked at her for a moment, before seemingly coming to a conclusion. ”...Yeah, I can see it.”

“What!?,” Pike interjected, rapidly looking between Cut and Anon, “Why not!?”

“W-well...” Cut quickly stopped herself, taking a deep breath to steel her nerves. “Ahem. I’d still have to be there and have those ponies say those things to me.”

Pike deflated as she came to understand the dilemma. “Darn.”

She scrunched her face, clearly trying to puzzle something out. “...Even if Anon and I were there the whole time?”

Well, sure, that would make it much better, but Cut wouldn’t make them do that. Those tournaments could go all night! Almost all they’d be doing would be just waiting around the whole time. “I don’t want the two of you to waste your day just so I could win some dumb tournament.”

Anon clapped his hooves, making Cut flinch just a bit. “Nonsense! Spending an evening messing with these gals would hardly be a waste!”

“And,” said Pike conspiratorially, her face turning mischievous, “It can all serve a higher purpose!” Hopping off the couch, she strutted over to the earth pony and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Cut, a mare must be assertive and stand up for herself. You can’t just let any old hater get you down.”

“I see where you’re going with this hon, and you’re absolutely right,” said Anon as he too left his seat. Circling around to the other side of Cut, he put his hoof on her other shoulder, and the two of them leaned in toward her. “I cannot think of a better place you could work on asserting yourself, than shitting on a bunch of bitter losers.”

‘...You know what?’

‘They’re right!’

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of!’

Sure, Cut would probably hear a lot of horrible things. But... but! She did need to work on not taking those things to heart! After all, she had a successful career, and not one, but two relationships that were looking very bright indeed! Outwardly, by all accounts of maredom, Cut N. Paste was a successful and productive member of society!

That was something that almost certainly could not be said for the ponies of the Board Game Barn. Ponies such as they desperately needed somepony to teach them a lesson.

Cut smiled evilly; an expression Pike and Anon immediately mirrored.

“Let’s do it.”