Cut N. Paste was eager for the next game. Her last match had gone incredibly well. One could almost say it went too well, and now a certain giddiness had started to blossom within her. Seeing the look on her opponent’s face after she had perfectly countered her strategy, and watching all that trash that mare had been talking come crashing down on her had felt… good. Really good. So good that for the last ten minutes, Cut had just been standing in front of the tournament bracket, waiting in anticipation to see who she’d be battling next.

‘Anon might just have been right about this! I am better than these mares! I can do this!’

“So, who’s next?” Anon asked in his familiar baritone voice.

Turning to look at the green unicorn beside her to the left, Cut answered with an anticipatory uncertainty. “I don’t know, guess the other match hasn’t finished yet.” Turning back to the board, she made an idle hum. “They’d better hurry up, they’ve only got a few minutes left in the round.”

Pike, who was on the other side of Anon, squinted at the board before speaking up. “Looks like it’ll either be Broken Game or... The Squeaker?” Cut could see her lean out past the stallion to look at her. “Any idea what that means?”

Cut could only shrug. “No clue.”

Anon was looking at the board himself, and he groaned when he caught sight of the name ‘squeaker.’ Looking more closely at him, Cut realized he’d grimaced to an almost exaggerated degree. Something that Pike had apparently noticed as well. “Something you want to share with the class, hon?”

Relaxing his face just a tad, Anon grunted in annoyance. “Let’s just hope that’s not who Cut ends up facing next. God if that nickname means what I think it means, she’ll be super annoying.”

As if on cue, a judge shuffled past the trio to cross out the name ‘Broken Game’ on the bracket.

Anon’s grimace returned in full force. “Aw hell.”

Cut N. Paste couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Awkwardly pulling the chair out from under the competition table, the mare took her seat across from a filly.

A little earth pony filly.

She couldn’t believe it when she first got in view of the table, and she could scarcely believe it now.

‘How is she here?’

‘Where are her parents!?’

No answers were forthcoming, though.

As Cut struggled to comprehend the notion of playing against such a young filly, Anon’s words from when the three of them first laid eyes on her next opponent rang out in her head once more.

‘Alright, babe, this kid’s gonna come at you hard and fast. You better be ready to hit back just as hard.’

Cut did not like how he seemed to be speaking from personal experience.

Attempting to scooch her chair in, she winced as it made an unfortunately loud “eeeeeerk” as it scraped against the store’s tiled floor. Thankfully, the filly seemed too engrossed in poring through her deck to even look up.

‘Buck, I never was good with foals, this is going to suck.’

Putting the impending awkwardness out of her mind, Cut decided she ought to pick out a deck for the match. Popping open her saddlebags, she took stock of the ones she’d brought.

‘Hmmm, maybe my blue/black—’

“You better not even be THINKING of bringing a stupid-ass blue/black deck to face ME,” the filly suddenly said. Cut’s sheer shock at the prepubescent voice sitting across from her nearly knocked her out of her chair.

‘She doesn’t even have her cutie mark and she’s throwing out racial slurs!?’

It was only then that the filly glanced up from her own deck to see Cut’s stunned expression. “Oh my bucking Celestia, you were weren’t you?! Are you bucking stupid?”

‘Seems like Anon was right.’

After Cut stared for a moment longer, the filly started to glare at her. “Just pick your stupid deck already, fatass.”

Cut was thankful that the sheer absurdity of the situation was protecting her from actually feeling any of the filly’s insults. After deciding just to go with the blue/black deck after all, Cut’s curiosity drove her to stutter out, “Wh-where are your parents?”

The filly sneered at her. “They’re at home BUCKING your Dad! Just like what I’m gonna do to that SLUT you brought after I beat you!”

In that instant, something inside Cut changed. “Excuse me?”

Anonymous was simultaneously feeling a deep sense of pride, and a tinge of embarrassment. The game between Cut and ‘The Squeaker’ should’ve been well underway by now, but he was pretty sure neither of them had drawn a single card.

“HEY YOU, TALL GREEN DICK! WHY DON’T YOU GET OVER HERE AND EAT ME OUT? DON’T YOU WANT TO BE WITH A REAL MARE?” he heard the child scream.

An enraged Cut slammed both of her forehooves on the table. “LISTEN HERE YOU SNOT-NOSED BRAT! YOU DON’T TALK TO MY COLTFRIEND LIKE THAT!”

The kid promptly shrieked, “OH YEAH? WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT YOU FAT SOYMILK COW?” with even greater vitriol.

Anon was honestly glad the conversation had shifted to him so quickly. Who knew if Cut would have been able to withstand it otherwise?

“HOW ABOUT YOU GO HOME AND GET BACK TO FAILING ALGEBRA!”

“SHUT THE BUCK UP! MATH IS HARD! I BET YOU DROPPED OUT!”

Anon could hear as Pike’s hoof impacted her face. “Please tell me I’m hallucinating and Cut isn’t screaming at a middle schooler.”

He could only chuckle. “Ahaha, no can do!”

Nocturnal Pike needed to have a talk with Cut when this was all over. Pike had long admired the ferocity Cut had been willing to defend Anon with, but things were getting a little ridiculous. This was just a filly she was screaming at! A filly! Sure, a terribly behaved filly, but come on! It was just hard to watch at this point.

Looking away from the shouting match, Pike realized with mounting horror that effectively every other game in the building had ground to a halt. All eyes were on Cut as she screamed in abject fury.

The sound of clattering cards brought Pike’s attention back to the mare. It seemed that Cut had taken the filly’s deck and scattered it all over the table. “GREEN/RED? GREEN-BUCKING-RED? THIS COMBO HAS BEEN NERFED INTO THE DIRT SINCE BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!”

In her exasperation, all Pike could do was sigh. Glancing at Anon, she was troubled to find he was somehow getting more into it with each passing shout.

“YEAH! Tell her her parents think she’s a loser!” he cheered.

‘What kind of experiences has he had that he’s cheering this on? He practically looks like he’s watching a boxing match!’

“NOW HIT HER AGAIN!”

‘What the buck, now he’s even talking like it's a boxing match!’

Pike groaned, burying her face in a hoof. It seemed she was going to need to have two long talks later tonight.

The joyous high Anonymous had felt while watching his fillyfriend trash that annoying brat had broken down and given way to a deep, depressing low.

“S-See? I’m cucking you right now!” came the filly’s muffled voice from his side.

Once again, Cut seemed to have done too good of a job fighting back against her opponent. Before they knew it, the filly had broken down in tears. And as the only male in the store, and with absolutely no heed paid to the way he’d goaded Cut throughout their fight, quite literally every head in the store had turned to him, expecting him to comfort the crying child. He’d ignored them at first, but as the shrieking quickly got louder, pleading looks quickly turned into the judges explicitly asking him to do it.

He didn’t know why he’d said yes.

Now she had buried herself in the fuzz of his thicker than average forehoof, shouting at Cut while bawling her eyes out. “I’m the sigma mare here! Me!” It seemed that crying wasn’t going to stop her from belting out insults. Cut had thankfully elected to put herself at the other end of the room to cool off. Anon could tell she felt bad about making the kid cry, but every word the filly spoke visibly threatened to throw her into another fit of rage. “Y-You’re not even a beta mare! Y-you're just a gamma! Or even a delta!"

‘Okay this is getting really annoying.’

“Look honey!” he called to Pike in his most patronizing tone, “She’s making up her own words! Isn’t that cute?”

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, Anon’s sarcasm was lost on the child. “S-See! hic, He called me cute! Dad couldn’t have left Mom because of me!”

He choked back a sigh as he awkwardly patted the distraught brat on the back.

‘God damn it, where the fuck ARE this kid’s parents!?’

Suddenly, he caught sight of one of the judges approaching him from the corner of his eye.

‘Please be here to relieve me, please be here to relieve me.’

“Thank Celestia you were here to give your paternal touch.” she said to him. “Your daughter has been so well behaved tonight that I knew you’d be the perfect pony for this.”

‘Huh? My daughter?’

‘Wait, does she mean...?’

The corner of his lip started to twist up in a smirk.

‘Oh boy, I love it when this happens!’

“I don’t have a daughter.”

The judge looked confused for a moment before falling into her own unwitting trap. “Then why’s that bat filly—”

“You do not want to finish that sentence,” he heard Pike growl.

Stacked Deck, owner of the Board Game Barn, was reaching the end of her rope. She’d thought that things would finally quiet down when that filly’s parents finally showed up, but the mare who beat her and those two ponies hanging out with her had found themselves with a lot of time to kill. Time they’d decided to spend by pulling up some chairs, sitting behind her, and backseat gaming!

“What about that card she just played?” asked the stallion.

“Ooooh, I wouldn’t have done that,” the fat mare replied.

‘ARRRRRRG!’

They’d been doing this for nearly her entire game! She didn’t even know why that stallion was even here; she knew he was a fake gamer colt. He couldn’t even name every board game when she’d asked him to! All Stacked wanted to do was pwn some n00bs, and she apparently wasn’t even allowed to do that without harassment in her own store!

She had some serious misandrist slurs she was going to drop if this kept up.

“See, she should have played that program just then. But she did the stupid thing and just ate the damage.”

‘That does it!’

“JUDGE!” Stacked shouted to the appropriately named Judge, “Get these yahoos out of my store!”

“And why would she do that?”

The sudden intrusion caused every one of the gathered ponies to jump. Whipping her head around, Stacked realized the Grandmaster herself had somehow approached from her left without a single other pony noticing.

“When the fuck did she get there?” the stallion asked.

Either unbothered or oblivious to the shock her sudden appearance caused, the Grandmaster proceeded to lean in uncomfortably close. All Stacked could see were the enchanted eyes on her mask, but Stacked could somehow still tell the Grandmaster was sneering at her.

“What are you, some kind of bastard?” The sheer aura of the mare was doing wonders to intimidate the shopkeeper. Not to mention the fact she funded 90% of the events her store hosted. “I set up this tournament to have NO rules. But what are you trying to do?”

Stacked didn't answer at first, thinking it was a rhetorical question, but after a few awkward moments it became apparent she was waiting on her. “E-Enforce a rule.”

The Grandmaster ‘mmm hmmm’ed, before immediately turning toward the stallion. Clearly already done with Stacked, she didn’t even glance back her way as she spoke once more. “Need I say more?”

Anonymous the unicorn was still freaking out a little. She had to have teleported, right? There was no other way the “grandmaster” would have been able to appear without anyone noticing, right? But Anon didn’t have time to focus on that; he had more pressing concerns.

It seemed that, after staring down that bitch at the table, the grandmaster had switched to staring down Cut. “Win your games, Paste. Get strong.”

Cut, obviously unsure of what to say, just blinked owlishly at the mare. “Um, sure. Will do.”

Seemingly satisfied, the white mare turned her gaze toward Anon. She looked almost... disappointed? “And I see you still aren’t wearing that make-up I got you.”

‘...Huh?’

Pike and Cut both looked to him for some sort of explanation, but he could only shrug back at them in confusion, before turning back to grandmaster. “I’m... sorry?”

“I’m not mad,” Her magically altered voice nearly cuts him off. “It was only some of the finest imported Saddle Arabian make-up, and it only cost me several hundred bits. I’m not mad you never used it though. Nope.”

‘Okay, what the actual fuck is going on here? This is some major passive aggression this mare is putting out.’

It was so… much, that he could feel himself instinctively leaning back into his chair, trying to put some distance between himself and the mare. Thankfully, his knight in amethyst armor was there to save the day.

“That’s it!” Pike suddenly shouted. With all the speed of a trained thestral, she leapt off her chair and flew right in between Anon and the grandmaster, thankfully cutting off the creepy mare’s view of him. “I’ve seen you eyeballing my colt all night!” Hovering in place, she jabbed the mare right in the chest. “Just who the buck do you think you are? No, better question, who the buck are you?”

Anon just barely caught the mystery mare mutter “you dare,” under her breath before clearing her throat. “Ahem, Well, I certainly never took you for the janefilly type, Sergeant Pike!”

“WHAT?” Anon, Pike, and Cut all shouted simultaneously.

Before the grandmaster could elaborate—or more likely so she wouldn’t have to—, a smoke bomb suddenly went off. All the other ponies in the general vicinity were caught off guard, crying out and descending into pained coughs as the cheap costume-shop smoke filled their lungs and blinding their eyes. After a few moments though, the haze parted just enough for Anon to catch sight of the grandmaster fleeing behind a curtain that had been hung up next to the tournament bracket. He’d previously assumed that was just for decoration, but the fact she was able to disappear behind it meant it must lead somewhere.

“What the, cough cough, buck! What a bucking flankhole!” Pike yelled in between coughs. She turned to Cut, who’d nearly thrown herself out of her chair in an attempt to escape the smoke’s radius. “We ought to teach her a lesson once you get to the top!”

“Oh sweet Celestia, SOMEONE SHUT OFF THE SPRINKLER SYSTEM BEFORE IT GOES OFF!” Anon heard the store owner scream.

“Already did!” came the muffled reply of the grandmaster from behind the curtain.

Author's Note

Remember kids, set a good example and don't take your children's card games as seriously as Cut and Anon do.