The mares were nervous; the whole chain of events was stressful for them, well except for Pinkie she was just playing along for the fun of it.
“Twi, why don’t you make the honors? You’re the leader and all that.” Rainbow said.
Twilight was nervous, the confidence she had before banished, Heishin was a threatening being even for her, and something made her think this wasn’t a normal game.
“I-I would love to, but I want to let you have this one Rainbow. I mean, you can totally beat him right?” Twilight fired back.
“Sure thing! I can wipe the floor with this dude, it’s just that I want somepony else to feel victory for once. I’m awesome like that.” Rainbow’s voice cracked slightly a few times.
“This is getting ridiculous, being afraid of a game like some scared filly, you should be ashamed,” Rarity spoke up.
“Why don’t ya do it then Rares? Shows us the way to be as brave as ya,” Applejack suggested.
“Umm… why don’t we just go at the same time?” Fluttershy asked.
“Yeah everypony, let’s do it! We’ll be just fineeeee,” Pinkie reassured.
The others looked at each other for a moment before sighing in defeat and getting some of their confidence back, and went to the duel. It can’t be that bad right?
BGM Heishin
The game field started as dark type field from the start, and the music that played on this duel gave them a chilling sensation.
Twilight started with an average hoof; with no hesitation she combined Mystical Sand (2100/1700) in hopes of it to be enough. Any hope got shattered as soon as Heishin used one of his cards and attacked revealing his monster which was Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth (3500/3000) the duel just went downhill from there, she combined more cards but none of them were strong enough. She at least managed to scratch Heishin’s life points with an attack to Heishin’s second monster Cosmo Queen (2900/2450. 3400/2950 due to dark field) with Summoned Skull’s combination (2500/1200. 3000/1700 with dark field) and its guardian star advantage, but the duel was already lost.
She had no words for what just happened; her mane was all over the place.
In Applejack’s duel it began basically the same with the same combined monster from her part, but it was destroyed by Meteor B. Dragon (3500/2000). She wasn’t able to do anything either, even when she attacked the monster that Heishin weirdly put in defense position, it was still too powerful it being Wall Shadow (1600/3000). She lost soon after against the dragon and Zoa (2600/1900. 3100/2400 with dark field).
“What intarnation?” she said in disbelief.
Rarity’s duel was different, she started setting Raigeki on the field, but it got quickly destroyed by Heishin’s Harpie’s Feather Duster, then Rarity summoned a monster without combining and attacked, this was destroyed by Heishin’s first monster Gaia the Dragon Champion (2600/2100). This was when Rarity combined Twin Headed Thunder Dragon (2800/2100) using three cards from her hoof and defeated Gaia. Rarity was able to control the duel for a while even got Heishin down to 1250 life points.
“Ha! Serves you right, you ruffian.” She said.
But her early celebration was cut short by Zera the Mant (2800/2300. 3300/2800 with dark field) and went downhill from there. After that she wasn’t able to outmatch Heishin’s monster and lost.
Her shocked expression said everything, if it weren’t for that dark field Rarity would’ve won but she didn’t knew that, she was petrified with shock.
Rainbow’s duel was massacre, her deck was clearly the worst between them, and with this in consideration Heishin didn’t even need to use his strongest monsters and to rub salt in the wound, he defeated her by using Tremendous Fire (Deal 1000 damage to the opponent).
“No way…” she said in a quiet tone before going up in volume “What the hay was that!?”
Pinkie got quickly wiped out by Heishin, but it was like she knew she couldn’t win and made it out as quickly as possible.
“Oh, well! You win this time mister meanie! But I’ll be back better, stronger and pinkier!” She said while kneeling in her bed in a way that ponies shouldn’t be able to.
“That’s not a word Pinkie,” Twilight corrected from her messy area.
The others noticed Twilight’s messy mane.
“Woah, are you alright there Twilight?” Rainbow asked after hitting a night lamp with a pillow she angrily threw, fortunately the lamp didn’t fall.
“Yes, I’m ok. I just wasn’t expecting something like this to happen, it doesn’t make any sense!” Twilight was trying her hardest to make sense of this.
Pinkie was looking at something and had a smile that was growing every second.
“Ya don’t look ok sugarcube, maybe ya should-“ then something was ringing Applejack’s ear, it was the victory tune. “Is that?”
Everypony hear it too.
Then a quiet “yay” was heard, everypony turned to see the only one who was that quiet, Fluttershy. Upon looking at her screen they saw the victory screen with a C rank two strachips and Nekogal #2 (1900/2000) has rewards.
Pinkie suddenly appeared in Fluttershy’s room and hugged her, “you did it! You beat the big meanie!”
“What!?” the others shouted.
“How? What did you do!? I don’t get it!” Twilight was even more confused now.
“That’s easy silly, Fluttershy just took advantage of the dark scary field to power up her thingies and used equip cards to beat the big moth thing, and the boney dragon thing, and all that weird things the big meanie had.” Pinkie explained.
“I’m so beating this guy the next time,” Rainbow said dryly.
“Well, at least we can see what happens next,” Twilight composed a bit and was curious to see what happens next.
To their surprise Heishin just challenges Fluttershy again.
This time they actually saw how the duel went, and yet again Heishin attacked with Black Skull Dragon (3200/2500) but Fluttershy had one Bright Castle in her hoof, and took control of the duel by combining Twin Headed Thunder Dragon and equipping it with Bright Castle, and won the duel again from that point. This time the reward was Monstruous Bird (2000/1900).
“Whoa, this guy gives some tough stuff, but it still is weaker than any of what he has, that’s so unfair!” Rainbow complained.
But then Heishin challenged her again.
“This Heishin fella doesn’t want ta give up,” Applejack pointed out.
Twilight being calm but with a messy mane, thought about it for a moment, then an idea came to her, “I think this is a plot device.”
“A what?” Rainbow asked.
“A plot device, it’s something you use to make the story go forward, in this case it seems that the creators of the game threw this person against us because they wanted us to lose. This worked for most of us, but Fluttershy managed to get strong enough to beat him, and it seems there was no other route coded into the story to follow in case of victory, so they opted for the simplest way, a loop. The duel will be executed until the player loses, then the story should go as planned.”
“In equestrian please, not all of us are egghead level,” Rainbow said even more confused after Twilight’s explanation.
Twilight groaned, “If you win, you get stuck. If you lose, you advance.”
Meanwhile Fluttershy won another couple of times, but eventually lost due to a bad hoof. She didn’t go down without getting something useful thought; she managed to get Serpent Night Dragon (2350/2400) Gaia the Fierce Knight (2300/2100) and Rose Spectre of Dunn (2000/1800) before losing.
“So we aren’t forced to beat this guy to continue?”
“No, Rainbow we don’t have to beat him to continue,” Twilight kind of tired already.
Seeing that no game over popped up after losing, they went ahead with the story.
Heishin said they were a waste of time and he will tear the Millennium Item from their lifeless bodies.
“I’m so going to kick this dude’s butt the next time, he’s annoying,” Rainbow said the others agreed.
But before Heishin could do anything Simon stopped him and told them to shatter the item so Heishin wouldn’t get it.
“That doesn’t make any sense, what’s stopping them from assembling the thing again?” Rainbow asked.
“Well duh, it’s because magic Dashie!” Pinkie answered.
Continuing forward with the story, the saw Simon again but this time in a maze-like area and he wasn’t injured anymore.
Told them that their souls were trapped in the puzzle, and that it was the only way he had to save them and the puzzle from falling in Heishin’s hands. Then they have to wait for the next person able to put the puzzle together and that person would help them get back to their world.
“What Simon said makes sense in this context; he probably used a spell to get us inside the puzzle and teleport the pieces to a safe place somepony else is able to assemble it again and cancel the spell, or that’s my theory at least.” Twilight told her thoughts to the rest.
Something curious happened in the next part, another character called them by their names, not the in-game names they chose but their actual names. In Rarity’s case it was the same name though.
The character in question was Jono again but he looked different in fact everything looked different, more modernized.
He mentioned a tournament being held that day and they were between the contestants, the tournament was being hosted by somepony named Kaiba which was a familiar face once again when he appeared on screen.
“Hey is that loser Seto, he teleported too?” Rainbow was quite tired of this person.
“Well, he introduced himself as a mage, so I suppose?” Twilight was just guessing.
“ ‘Ah don’t think so, Jono is here as well and he ain’t no mage, it’s probably somepony that lookslike them.”
In their little discussion they didn’t paid attention to the dialog in the game, not that it matters since it only said details of the tournament that hold no significance whatsoever.
Then they found Teana, in a shop. She told them that she was working mid-time in the shop during the tournament, after that the same option that were on the card shop appeared.
“Oh, this is our checkpoint,” Twilight let out a tired sigh, “finally, this was very stressful. I suggest stopping here for tonight and continuing tomorrow.”
“I agree dear, this wasn’t the most enjoyable session, a well deserved rest is in order.”
“I’ll see if any of the new guys gives something useful, I want that rematch with this cheater Heishin and I’ll beat him when that happens.” Rainbow told them.
“It’s ok, but like Konata said to us this morning don’t overdo it Rainbow, she would feel bad if gets to know you’re doing that, so please be careful.” Fluttershy was a little worried.
“OK, ok. I’ll just be playing a little more.”
“Alright, let’s save the game girls and get it done for tonight,” Twilight said.
Everypony saved and to bed for the night, they needed the rest after this “experience.” Rainbow went a played for another hour instead.