//------------------------------// // Forerunner // Story: The One Who Leads The Way // by TundraStanza //------------------------------// "Final Turn!" Céri Dylanson's eyes snapped open at his opponent's declaration. His hand shook as he chanced a glance at the cards he held. He didn't have any Sentinels available. If his opponent drew a trigger during this next attack, he wouldn't have enough to guard against it anyway. What was worse was how this enemy was somehow influencing the cards to get exactly the triggers they needed when they needed them. "Darkness takes you!" The enemy cackled. Darn it, thought the 'hero'. If only I hadn't accepted that card... --- Several months earlier... Bored. So bored. There was no word in the Britannica dictionary that could grasp how bored he was. A supercomputer calculating for a thousand years could not even come close to the level of how bored he was. He was just that bored. "Yo, Cherry, wake up!" A light impact temporarily displaced his shoulder. He quickly reached up his opposite hand to massage the sudden ache. When he turned around, he noticed his ever so friendly acquaintance. Said acquaintance was smiling like an idiot... or maybe a sneaky savant. He couldn't tell these days. "Could you not call me by that nickname in public?" he asked as politely as possible. "I don't want some random stranger to try and drug me, dump me at the nearest McDonald's, and steal my wallet." "You're too paranoid, Dylanson," insisted the acquaintance. "That's why I asked you here, to try and lighten up a little." "How am I supposed to lighten up in a place where I spend three-quarters of my time waiting in a freaking line?" The acquaintance scoffed. "It's only been two-thirds of the day. Don't be such a drama princess." He rolled his eyes. "It's pronounced 'drama queen' and shut up." There were stories about how people would kill each other for tickets to a convention of any sort. Some of the rumors even extended so far as committing genocide when it came to the more specific conventions. Rituals were said to be performed to both the Heavens and the Seven Layers Below, often by the exact same person, for the means to travel to this specific convention's location. If those kinds of reminders were supposed to make Céri feel happier to be here, then it was lost on him as to how that was supposed to make sense. Still, his acquaintance wasn't completely heartless. He could tell when it was time to bring in a distraction. So, he shoved a couple twenties against Céri's chest, prompting the young man to lift up a hand to find out what was going on. "Here. Go browse the stands and find yourself something nice. I'll text you when I'm close enough to the autograph table." "What?" He kept holding the legal tender in place. "I can't just take this-" "Consider it your reward for putting up with my dumb antics all day." The acquaintance smiled. He smirked. "What happened to it only being two-thirds of the day?" "Maybe find a joke book, Mr. Literal-Pants." For the first time during that whole wait, they shared a round of laughs. Deciding to leave it on a positive note, Céri slowly walked off and did his best to shift around the multitudes of other attendees to the other side of the building. Though, along the way, he spotted a couple kids that were knee-deep in a competitive card game. "Ha! I drew a critical trigger," boasted the red-head. "Your Goku is toast!" "No way," groaned the kid with a smiley-faced T-shirt. Céri took a moment to lean down and observe the game mat a little more closely. "Um, Tobihiko is from the Nubatama clan," he pointed to the little word imprinted on the card's description. "All of your units on the field are currently Granblue. Your trigger can't activate." "Wait, what?" The red-head's eyes skimmed over all of his cards currently in play. "Oh crud! I completely missed that!" The other kid's smile outshone his shirt's. "So... does that mean I still have a chance?" "Looks like it," affirmed Céri. "Yay!" the kid cheered. He decided to leave them to their fun and continued to make his way toward the overpriced, special merchandise. Freestyle art, character quilts, entire fan-made comics and manga in laminated backs... The stands had the works. The only thing they didn't have were show-related foods. Scratch that. He saw a stand with food specifically made to mimic those in the show, and calmly walked to the next stand. He wasn't feeling anxious and trying to get his mind on literally anything else. What are you talking about? Céri happened to pick up a random item from the next stand and tried to clear his thoughts of, er... the booth at which absolutely nothing happened. It was a deck of cards with backsides exactly like the ones that those kids from a few minutes ago were playing. Each of them had the illustrated phrase, "Cardfight!! Vanguard". Bad grammar aside, he was at least familiar with most of the rules and a handful of episodes of the source material. "Like what you see, stranger?" The young man flinched at the sudden voice, practically imitating a child who had gotten caught with his hand in the candy bowl. After catching his breath, Céri said, "Sorry, I didn't see you there." The seated gentleman gently grabbed his trilby. "Well, I've only been here for about two-thirds of the day. So it's only natural that I've been missed." His lips grinned, yet his eyes remained hidden. "Would you be interested in bartering for that special deck?" "Um, what's so special about it?" Céri asked as he turned the deck over to look through the cards' faces. "Hey, these cards are all blank." "Why yes, Mr. Observant Pants," commented the man. "The cards you hold are only limited by the power of an image." Céri assumed the man was just referring to how a blank card could be drawn on in one's free time. He wasn't really looking for anything in particular. He was only here at his acquaintance's request anyway. So, he decided to just go for it. "Okay, how much for this 'special deck'?" he asked. What happened next was rather peculiar. It almost looked like a trail of blood flattened itself against the gentleman's face. He lightly shoved his trilby up to reveal an empty abyss where his eyes should have been. At the same time, the deck of blank cards made Céri's arms feel like they were falling asleep. Actually, it made every single one of his joints lock in place. "Oh... you'll have plenty of time to figure out how to pay me back... in Tartarus!" The not-so-gentle man giggled. The stinging sensation was spreading all the way to Céri's lungs. He gagged for air. Everything around him was going blurry and blood red. Then, he dropped. Unbeknownst to him, the two pieces of legal tender with Andrew Jackson's face floated to the floor like a pair of bat's wings. --- *Bzzzzz* *Bzzzzz* Ugh. It was too early. He didn't want to get up. *Bzzzzz* *Bzzzzz* Who the heck was calling him this early? *Bzzzzz* *Bzzzzz* Tch. Fine. He'd tell the dumb telemarketer that he was sleeping and then imply sarcastically that they should go take up beekeeping or some other equally irritating occupation. Céri reached over to the pocket on the table, fumbled with the buttons a bit before finally sliding the touch screen to answer. "Cherry, where the hell are you?! This is a new kind of low, especially for you!" What the...? His acquaintance's voice? What the heck did he have to yell at him about? "I'm in the middle of sleeping. Where else would I be at this hour?" "Where are you sleeping? In some white van with candy? Because I texted you at least ten times within the past ten hours and I can't find you anywhere at the center or the suites. I didn't want to call the police, but if you don't get your rear end somewhere sensible soon, I'm about to!" Céri held his other hand against his head. "Wait, wait, wait, back up. Center or sweets? Why would I be at... Ah!" His eyes went wide. That's right. He was at the convention center with his acquaintance. He had taken a break from lines to go buy a souvenir. There was a card fight that he had helped out with, a bunch of stands, food that looked really disgusting when too much thought was applied to it, and then... He quickly scanned his surroundings. This looked like the insides of a house with a really rustic feel. He had no idea where he was. "Um... I don't want to alarm you," started Céri. "It's a little late for that, you dingus!" "But... I think I've been apprehended by some guy in a trilby." "... what." A door opened within a couple rooms' distance from the couch that Céri was seated. Two sets of footsteps sounded along a tile floor. An indiscernible shadow stretched along from the outdoors' light. At least, that was the case until somebody turned on the lights. A creature wearing a cap like Nurse Joy's and what must have been a pink wig stared in surprise. To be fair, Céri wasn't exactly eyeing the... pony(?) with any less uncertainty. "I'm also pretty sure he drugged me," he added into his phone. "Because I'm seeing something that looks like it belongs in a Vine... or a CGI snuff film." "Dylanson, you're scaring me." "Me too." He slowly hung up and slid through his phone's options before activating its GPS signal. He hoped he would come down from this hallucination soon. "H-Hi there," said a woman's voice as it looked like the pony's mouth trembled. "I see that you're, uh... feeling better?" Céri sighed as he let his arms hang on either side. "That's debatable. If I was really feeling better after getting knocked out by some crazy man behind a card table, I doubt I'd be seeing white ponies talking to me and questioning the very idea." "Wait... what do you mean by that?" Now the pony was imitating the universal cartoon expression (one side of the eyebrow raised higher than the other) for disbelief. "Is there something you find wrong with white ponies?" He shook his head. "No, no, no. It's nothing against you personally. I just don't usually wake up in the morning to some cross-dimensional space where Stuart Little meets Dr. Doolittle." He then scratched his head. "Come to think of it, why hasn't anyone tried to make those characters interact? That actually sounds like a good what-if novel." The pony bent her back legs and sat down. "I... think I'm starting to see what you meant by 'debatable'. You're saying a lot of strange things." "I know, right?" He held his arms out in a shrug. "By the way, name's Céri. What's yours?" "Oh, how rude of me." The pony sounded like she cleared her throat. "My name is Redheart. When I found you yesterday, you were closer to my house than to the hospital. So, I figured convenience made more sense than dragging you across the ground for so many kilometers." Well, that was just great. Apparently, his drugged up subconscious preferred the metric system. He hoped his real body wasn't beating up innocent kids and demanding money for cool ranch chips while he was having this trip. At least this illusory pony sounded like a woman with a good head on her shoulders. Wait... did ponies even have shoulders? He shook his head, supposing that it didn't matter. "Well, thank you for looking after me, Redheart." He smiled. "I hope I can find someone just as nice as you when I actually wake up." She blinked a couple times. "You're awake right now, Sary." "No, it's pronounced Say-ree, and I have to be in a drugged up dream right now," insisted Céri. "It's the only way this whole situation makes any sense." Before the pony could object to his logical deduction, there was a sound coming from outside that squealed and groaned in the span of less than a second. Céri pressed his hands against his ears. Redheart had her ears flattened atop her head. "Attention Ponyville, please feel free to panic and/or worship your new ruler and master: Platinum Quill! Failure to do so can and will result in a fatal blow from my personal army." "What?" Redheart was already galloping across the house. Seeing that he didn't have anything better to do in this dream that had severely deafened him, Céri ran to catch up with her. What they both saw upon entering the street was either really terrifying or really over-the-top. For Céri, it was difficult to tell the difference. Dragons of all shades of black and purple littered the sky. But at the moment, he was feeling a little too amused by the Vanguard character role-player... standing next to a creature wearing a black and red necklace. Said creature had a beak and outstretched wings, and was singing into a megaphone. "Hey, gryphon!" called out Céri, briefly catching the half-bird creature off guard. Though, it quickly resumed speaking into the megaphone. "Excuse me, sir, but I'll have you know that I am a hippogryph, not a gryphon, a hippogryph." "Really?" wondered Céri, practicing a cartoon eyebrow expression of disbelief of his own. "Then where's the hippopotamus in you?" ... The gryph-whatever sighed, putting a clawed limb over his face. "Anakin, could you be a good manservant and deal with this idiot?" The role-player placed an open palm against his chest and bowed. "As you wish, My Vanguard." Before Céri could laugh again, there was a sudden rushing of wind followed by a dark cloud. It manifested itself as the dark-clad man with an oversized weapon. The pointy end of said weapon was dangerously close to Céri's cheek. A small droplet dribbled down to his chin and dripped. Céri slowly lifted a hand to his chin, then pulled his hand to the side without the sword being too close. His hand had a red smear. He wasn't laughing anymore. "I'm... bleeding? And it... stings?" His eyes went wide. "I... that... how...?" "I am Blaster Dark!" declared the man with cold, blue eyes. "You will no longer disrespect My Vanguard." Céri couldn't move, and his mind was having just as much difficulty comprehending his situation. "What... the... fumble...? What the actual Friday?" "Stop!" Blaster Dark suddenly found himself sliding back. He grunted in surprise and looked down at what had collided with him. At the same time, Céri was able to shake his head out of scared stupor and look down. It was the first face he had seen since this whole illusion... no, this whole new reality had bombarded his senses. "Redheart!" he called out. "Insolent horse!" Blaster Dark growled before slapping the pony away with a backhand. Before Céri knew what he was doing, he had run over to catch his momentary savior. Though, the force of impact caused him to fall backward. Redheart ended up atop his lap. What was he supposed to do? He was in real danger here, and so was Redheart. He looked up just in time to see Blaster Dark bring his blade down to the ground. A bunch of purple sparks snaked around the ground, heading right for them in a giant, grounded lightning bolt. The human from lands unknown and the pony held each other tightly, waiting for the end. ... "Perfect Guard!" "Huh?" Céri opened his eyes, surprised that he hadn't been harmed. A flurry of bright lights surrounded him. Out in front and flying just a few feet above him, it looked like a giant pair of blue wings were attached to a young lady. She was holding up a feather pen and a clipboard, and what appeared to be a magic circle composed of several dots. The purple lightning attack was being shoved away into nothingness. "A...Aniel?" "W-What?" Redheart peeked as well. "Who is that?" "Adamantine Celestial, Aniel," Céri muttered the name again. The unit looked back and smiled at the two of them before seeming to fade from existence. Céri felt something in his pocket vibrate. When he pulled it out, he was surprised to find a box for a deck of cards that was glowing. He slid some of the cards out. What was once a blank-faced stack was quickly transforming into a fully comprised Cardfight Vanguard deck. Many of the entities on the faces resembled humanoids with wings, though there were a few cyborg equines mixed in as well. "Angel Feather..." whispered Céri. "Okay, screw tactics." Blaster Dark pulled his sword up and held it ready to swing. "I'll just destroy you both!" He leaped forward with enough force to shatter a few of the nearby windows. Céri was still a little anxious, but he now had an idea of what to do... and the Angel Feather clan was the first step to doing it. He stood up, pulled out a card and held it up high, allowing its glow to shine the most brightly. "Chief Nurse, Shamsiel! Ride!" The card emitted a circle made of yellow light and edged with points like a star. Blaster Dark grunted as a sudden force in the atmosphere halted his advance. When he was able to look up, a new figure had taken to floating in the air. This figure was quipped with a half-ring of gold and several syringes of all colors. The "Chief Nurse" adjusted her glasses before holding out her gloved hand. The syringes flew ahead and peppered the area like machine-gun bullets. The dark warrior let out a deep yell before getting launched a few feet and subsequently landing on his back. His weapon went flying and dug into the ground right next to the hippogryph, scraping a few feathers off his wing. "Uh... could I get a redraw?" But as quickly as the hippogryph had avoided impalement, the sword evaporated into a cluster of purple lights. Blaster Dark followed his weapon's example. All of these lights slowly floated around the hovering nurse and into Céri's hand. They assembled into a card, with a picture that resembled the swordsman that had just been defeated. "Huh." Céri flipped the card over once before examining it carefully. "I wasn't expecting that." "W-What just happened?" Redheart was coming around and groggily stood up. "We just got the means to turn this half-gryphon's plan around," answered Céri. "Blaster Dark! Call!" This time, a circle of purple with spikes shone from the card. Immediately afterward, the dark warrior stood on the street again. This time, however, he was casting his death glare at the bird with the megaphone. He glanced back at his card's holder. "You have shown me your strength; allow me to show you mine." He held his blade straight up and a stray lightning bolt crashed right onto its tip. "Shadow Paladins! We have a new Vanguard!" The dragons that were terrorizing the village all circled back. Some other creatures also floated or flew over, waiting for the new call to action. Just up the street, Platinum Quill looked like he was crying. "Blaster Dark, how could you? I thought what we had was special." Blaster Dark pointed his blade forth. "Fullbau, sick 'im." A dark canine that looked like it was wearing cyan shades growled and then ran forth. It barked a few times during its approach. The hippogryph screamed, threw his megaphone, and ran away as fast as he could. Why he didn't use his wings to try and fly away, our heroes would never know. The skies brightened up from what was once a dark storm. As the sun shone brightly, the various Shadow Paladin units disappeared in a flurry of lights. Shamsiel also faded in her yellow sparkles. Before Céri knew what was happening, he was holding onto two full decks of Cardfight Vanguard cards. Conveniently, Shamsiel was on top of the Angel Feather deck and Blaster Dark was on top of the Shadow Paladin. "Let's see where your strength takes us, My Vanguard," echoed the voice of Blaster Dark. Céri sighed and looked down to the side. "Are you alright?" Redheart slowly nodded after a breath. "I will be." She gasped. "You're still bleeding!" Céri felt the warm liquid dribbling down his face. "Oh... right... thanks for letting me know." He dropped to the ground. ---