Sugarcube Corner was just as busy as it always was when Pinkie was throwing a party, with ponies going in just for the celebratory atmosphere at times. However, Red, the one it was intended for, seemed content just sitting at a table in the corner talking with Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike.
“And that, is how you play Duel Monsters.”
“So it’s a game of quick strategy with high amounts of risk?” Twilight asked “I think I love it!”
“Sounds like a good game ta’ play over a cup of cider after a hard day of work!” Applejack added in “But too bad about mah’ lack’a magic to hold the cards with.”
“I LOVE IT!”
“From the way you described it, it sounds like it could be big, but I sure would like to see those Gem-Knights of your in their full glory…”
“Eh, looks pretty boring.”
“So, sounds like most of you like it, but trust me, once you factor in Duel Disks, it gets way better!” Red excitedly added “Say, Twilight, Luna must’ve used some spell to replicate my Disk, you think you could do the same?”
“I think so, but I think I’d only be able to maintain one, and even then it’d be a limited amount of time if we include the cards, but regardless, I can do it!” Twilight’s horn lit up as a pinkish aura enveloped Red’s Duel Disk, with a copy of it, except with the red highlights replaced with purple ones appearing on Twilight’s front left leg “Alright! I did it! Does anypony want to try?”
“Ah’ would, but ah’ can’t hold the cards, remember Twi?”
“Yeah, I can’t hold them either, but I don’t really care, so go ahead.”
“I just want to admire Red’s Gem-Knights in their full glory~”
“I DO!”
“Pinkie, ah’ hate t’ be a killjoy, but we can’t hold the cards, remember?”
“Oh yeah, right…”
“Well, I guess I’ll be Dueling you!”
“Alright Twilight, but let’s go outside where there’s more space first, and don’t expect me to go easy on you just because it’s your first time!”
“Alright, and trust me, I’m a fast learner!”
DUEL
RED 8000 LP
HAND: 5
TWILIGHT 8000 LP
HAND: 5
“I’ll go first!” Twilight called out, using magic to hold her cards “First, I’ll summon my Berry Magician Girl!"
(Level 1, 400 ATK 400 DEF)
"When Berry Magician Girl is Normal Summoned, I can add a Magician Girl to my hand! I’ll add Kiwi Magician Girl. Now I’ll set two cards and end my turn.
“My turn! Draw!”
RED 8000 LP
HAND: 6
TWILIGHT 8000 LP
HAND: 3
“First, I activate my Gem-Knight Fusion! O’ll fuse my Gem-Knight Garnet and Gem-Knight Tourmaline in order to summon-”
“I activate Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell!”
“Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell?”
“That’s right! By discarding a Spell Card, my Terraforming in this case, Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell negates a Spell Card, and you can’t activate any other copies of it for the rest of the Duel!”
“What!?” Red’s Duel Disk screen was showing his Gem-Knights melding together in a vortex, but as Twilight’s Trap Card was activated, the animation rewound itself to the beginning “Alright then, so I summon my Gem-Knight Garnet!"
(Level 4, 1900 ATK 0 DEF)
"Now, Gem-Knight Garnet attacks Berry Magician Girl!”
“Berry Magician Girl’s effect activates! Once per turn, when Berry Magician Girl is targeted for an effect or attack, I can change its battle position and summon a Magician Girl from my deck! I change my berry Magician Girl to defence position, and from my deck I Special Summon my Dark Magician Girl!”
(Level 6, 2000 ATK 1700 DEF)
“The battle continues! Gem-Knight Garnet attacks Berry Magician Girl! Flaming Iron Fist!” Despite the appearance of a stronger monster, Gem-Knight Garnet obeyed Red without hesitation, punching cleanly through Berry Magician Girl, causing it to explode into shards like a mirror “I now set two cards and end my turn.”
“My turn! I draw!”
RED 8000 LP
HAND: 2
TWILIGHT 8000 LP
HAND: 3
“Now, I play my Foolish Burial Spell Card! This lets me send a monster from my deck to the Graveyard! I’ll mill out my Magician of Black Chaos!”
“Now, Twi, ya mind tell us why you’d want to get rid of a card before ya get the chance ta’ play it?” Applejack questioned
“Well you see, for every Dark Magician or Magician of Black Chaos in either player’s Graveyard, Dark Magician Girl gains 300 ATK!"
(Dark Magician Girl 2000 ATK -> 2300 ATK)
"And that’s not all! Now I summon my Chocolate Magician Girl!"
(Level 4, 1600 ATK 1000 DEF)
"Now, Chocolate Magician Girl’s effect is that I can discard a Spellcaster to draw a card. I’ll discard this: my Dark Magician! (Dark Magician Girl 2300 ATK -> 2600 ATK) Battle Phase! Dark Magician Girl attacks Gem-Knight Garnet!”
“I activate my Trap Card! Pyroxene Fusion!”
“Not so fast! I activate my Dark Bribe Trap Card! This negates your Trap Card! Although you do get a free draw out of it.”
“Fuck!” Red thought to himself “Dark Bribe is a Counter Trap, putting it at Spell Speed 3, meaning that I can’t even save Garnet with my Prideful Roar Trap!”
Dark Magician Girl fired a shadowy fireball at Gem-Knight Garnet, who was shattered into pieces like Berry Magician Girl was just a minute ago
RED 8000 LP -> 7300 LP
HAND: 3
“Now, Chocolate Magician Girl attacks directly!” Chocolate Magician Girl attacked by launching a stream of bubbles at Red, connecting directly in the abdomen.
RED 7300 LP ->5700 LP
HAND: 3
“Now, I end my turn.”
“Fucking hell...I draw!”
RED 5700 LP
HAND: 4
TWILIGHT 8000 LP
HAND:1
“Alright, now what’s the plan…” Red was using his Duel Disk’s screen to look at all the cards on the field and see all everything that was considered public knowledge “She has Dark Magician Girl at 2600 ATK, and Chocolate Magician Girl is all but indestructible by way of battle...I’ve got Raigeki in my hand, but based on how she’s playing, I better wait until I have a way to OTK her...I can’t use Gem-Knight Fusion anymore, so if I want to summon Master Diamond, I’m gonna need Absorb Fusion, but then I can’t use my Fusion Cancel combo to seal the deal...I got it! I’ll use Brilliant Fusion to bring out Master Diamond, then discard Gem-Knight Fusion to restore his ATK and go for the kill!” Red thought to himself before starting to act for that turn “I activate my Painful Choice Spell Card! I reveal 5 cards from my deck, and you add one to my hand, with the rest going to my Graveyard!”
“A card that lets your opponent decide the outcome? How interesting! Spike, are you writing down the play by play?” Twilight asked
“Yep!”
“Now, your options are Gem-Knight Garnet, Gem-Knight Emerald, Gem-Knight Sapphire, Gem-Knight Fusion, or Gem-Knight Obsidian. One goes to my hand, and the rest go to my Graveyard! Now pick one!”
“Hmm, you can’t use Gem-Knight Fusion, so you’re clearly trying to goad me into picking it, I’ll add Gem-Knight Obsidian to your hand!”
“Alright. I mill out Gem-Knights Garnet, Emerald, Sapphire, and Fusion.” Red began thinking about the current situation to himself “Fuck! I needed that in the Grave to strengthen Master Diamond! But wait a minute! I’m overthinking this again! I just need to use Prideful Roar to kill that Magician Girl!” He began to initiate his plan “I summon Gem-Knight Tourmaline!" (Level 4, 1600 ATK 1800 DEF)
"Battle Phase! Gem-Knight Tourmaline attacks Dark Magician Girl!”
“What? But my Magician Girl has more attack than your Gem-Knight-”
“Not for long she doesn’t! I activate my Prideful Roar Trap Card! When my monster battles an opponent’s monster with a higher ATK value, I pay Life Points equal to the difference, and my monster gains Attack equal to the difference +300!” (Gem-Knight Tourmaline 1600 ATK -> 2900 ATK)
RED 5700 LP -> 4700 LP
“What!?”
“Gem-Knight Tourmaline! Thunder Cracker!” Gem-Knight Tourmaline rushed at Dark Magician Girl, and threw two balls of electricity connected by what appeared to be a string of lightning.
“I’m sorry Red, but I activate the ability of the Kiwi Magician Girl in my hand! All Magician Girl Monsters on my field gain 300 Attack for each Magician Girl on my field and in my Graveyard with different names! That currently encompasses my Berry, Chocolate, Kiwi, and Dark Magician Girls, so my Dark Magician Girl gains 1200 Attack!”
(Dark Magician Girl 2600 ATK -> 3800 ATK) Dark Magician Girl returned fire at Gem-Knight Tourmaline, overpowering its Thunder Cracker and destroying it in a similar manner to Garnet
“WHAT!?”
RED 4700 LP -> 3800 LP
“Fuck...! I’ll set two cards face down and end my turn!” Red thought to himself “Fuck! Hopefully she’ll panic and think one of these is a Mirror Force or some other battle trap, and I manage to Pot of Greed into the cards I need next turn.”
“It’s my turn! Draw!”
RED 3800 LP
HAND: 1
TWILIGHT 8000 LP
HAND: 1
“This is good! I activate Heavy Storm! All Spells and Traps on the field are destroyed!”
“WHAT!?” A powerful wind came and raised Red’s face down cards, shattering them like a mirror.
“Now! Chocolate Magician Girl attacks you directly!” Red took another barrage of bubbles to the abdomen, having no effects to save him.
RED 3800 LP -> 2200 LP
“Let’s finish this! Dark Magician Girl! Attack him directly! Dark Burning Attack!” Dark Magician Girl fired a shadowy fireball towards Red, landing a direct hit, and sending him flying backwards.
RED 2200 LP -> 0 LP
“Oh no! Red, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m good, it’s just that Solid Vision technology is able to enhance itself when attacking for game, is all, nothing’s broken. But I gotta say, for a first timer, that was simply amazing!”
“Oh, it’s just what anypony would’ve done with those draws.”
“Twilight, that was awesome!” Rainbow Dash said as she got flew up to Twilight “Although, I’d still like to see one of those Riding Duels Red brought up.”
“THAT WAS THE GREATEST GAME I’VE EVER SEEN!”
“Yeah, Pinkie Pie gets excited easily like that.”
“Twilight dear, I don’t exactly appreciate how you could destroy such radiant jewels like that without letting us see all of them in their full glory, but that was still extravagant!”
“Oh, thanks everypony! But really it was nothing! Say, what was your plan for the night Red?”
“I don’t really know, I was kinda thinking about the early morning today, the closest form of a night plan I had was to head back to the Castle of the Two Sisters, seeing as nobody’s using it for anything.”
“Right, well, if you want, you can stay in my guest room until we figure out how to send you home.” Twilight offered “It’s a big castle, so I have plenty of space to fit you in if we need to!”
“You know what? I think I’ll take you up on that offer. Not like I have many other options available.”
“Alright! So, how about I show you where it is?”
“Sure.”
“Alright, see you girls!”
**************************************************************
“Ok, let’s see, Speed Spell Count up, discard Backup Secretary and Cyberse Wizard, increase my Speed Counters by 6, now Speed Spell End of the Storm...Ok, now end turn.
RED 1900 LP
HAND: 0
??? 1000 LP
HAND: 0
“Goddamnit! Fucking Vorse Raider topdeck…”
RED 1900 LP -> 0 LP
“Hey there, you’re Red, right?”
“Huh? Who’s there?”
“Hi, I’m Starlight Glimmer,” a pink unicorn walked into the room Red was occupying for the time being ”So, uh, how’s it going for you?”
“Starlight Glimmer...You’re the one who got me in this situation to begin with, right?”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I was just trying to teach my friend Trixie teleportation spells, and when trying to show her how to teleport a teacup in from another room, I kind of lost my concentration and...accidentally rended the fabric of space and time again…”
“Again?”
“Well, I kind of used an unstable spell to go back in time and stop Twilight from ever meeting her friends, indirectly resulting in several alternate timeline, including one where everything in Equestria was dead and turned to dust in the wind to get back at Twilight and her friends for saving an entire village of Ponies that I was ruling with an iron hoof, forcing everypony to give up their special talents and be perfectly equal to each other.”
“...You’re seriously fucked up.”
“Yeah, but I’m learning! Say, what are you doing right now?”
“I’m simulating Riding Duels on my Duel Disk. I just pilfered a new Riding Duel deck from Sector Security before you ‘interrupted’ me, and I’m trying to learn everything about it.” Red gave Starlight a death glare while putting emphasis on ‘interrupted’ “And I gotta say, it’s fucking trash, it runs out of steam so fast, I’m just gonna go back to Gladiator Beasts, my old Riding Deck.”
“Wait, what do you mean by ‘pilfered it from Sector Security’?”
“Well, where I’m from, the local police force is extremely corrupt, with police brutality and wrongful arrests being commonplace, and because we’re so far out in the country, the higher ups just don’t give a shit, so they’re able to do as they please most of the time. I got fed up with it, so me and my best friends started to basically throw a wrench in whatever it is that they do, and we use a card shop as a front, so because Security confiscates someone’s cards if they get arrested, they store them in a vault. So, about once a month, I go in and steal a bunch of cards, bring them back to the shop, keep whatever ones I want to myself, and we sell the rest, either as singles, or in custom packs.”
“Wow, ok, I’m really sorry for snatching you away from that.”
“Yeah. The worst part is that my friends are terrible Duelists, so if some guy gets too pissed off at the shop or Security finds us out, they’re almost defenseless without me.”
“Oh, but don’t worry! My friend Sunburst is coming over to help us find a spell to get you home! He knows a lot about magic, and I have a lot of raw power, so we should be able to get you home, no issues!”
“Right, well, I’m gonna go to bed. See you in the morning Starlight.”
“Right, goodnight!”
**************************************************************
Somewhere, deep in the pits of Tartarus, a dark creature was chained to a wall guarded by Cerberus, when suddenly its eyes began gloring red, as it gained a sense of consciousness. “Yes...I can feel it...Somebody has introduced Duel Monsters to this realm...I can feel my power returning...But I need time...Time to restore my power...And then...Equestria...No...The entire world shall burn…”
****************************************************************
“Good morning!” Twilight woke Red up the next morning, basically yelling right in Red’s face, terrifying him in the process “Oh! Sorry! But last night, I was talking with my friend Sunset Shimmer through this magic journal, and we think that she might know where you came from, and as a result, how to get you home!”
“Huh? You think that she might know?”
“Yes, and it’s worth a shot, right? Grab your stuff and follow me!”
“Right…”
“So, a few years ago, not long after I became an Alicorn, I had to go through a magical portal to a world full of humans in pursuit of a Pony named Sunset Shimmer, but after all was said and done, we became great friends! Then, sometime later, I had to go back to their world, but it only opens every 30 moons, so to get around that little issue, I made a replica that works all the time!”
“So, you’re saying that you have a working, two way portal between two worlds, that you could’ve used to send me home earlier, and you didn’t use it until now?”
“Well, I wanted to ask Sunset if she thought it’d even be the same version of the human world, because you look and act almost nothing like everyone I’ve seen in the human world, and they certainly don’t have Duel Monsters, or at least I think they don't, so it might be a different world than what you’re familiar with altogether.”
“Right, well, it’s been nice knowing you, you’ll know if it’s the right world or not soon enough.”
“Alright, I guess this is goodbye…I just want to let you know I’m glad to have met you”
“Maybe, maybe not, we’ll see.” Red started walking for the portal before turning back to say “Later.”