Love of the Draw.

by Zoom zoom

In which Draw Blank is given a Flier

“I summon my Exxod, Master of the Guard.”

Attack: 0 Level: 8 Defense: 4000

The young colt spouted as he placed his monster on the field. “And with it I get a little effect I can then use: my flip summoned monsters to do 1000 points of damage to you a piece. I count two of them, and one is Golem Sentry which sends your Monster back into your hand. Then I’ll use their effects to put them back into face down defense mode. Now it’s your turn.”

Draw Blank grimaced. The score wasn’t looking good. Sure he had been leading the duel at first but one good set of traps later and all he had was one monster on the field. His opponent on the other hoof had 4000 life points still with him down to 1500. Meaning this was his final turn if he didn’t do something quick.

Lucky for him all this advantage taking had caused his opponent to use up all the cards in his hand leaving him with no defense outside the monsters. Granted all of them were so high in defense thanks to the field spell he couldn’t hope to do anything but destroy that Golem Sentry and hope the next draw was in his favor. Still there was a way he could win this game here and now if he had one more spell.

The colt seemed to tap one of his hind hoofs impatiently as he waited for Draw to do his namesake. “Can we get on with this now? I kind of want to go home for dinner.”

“Fine,” said Draw Blank, “You kids just don’t like dramatic tension these days do you?” He drew. And lucky him it was the one card he needed.

“Keep track here,” he said, “First I play Jurassic World to get rid of your field and replace it with my own. Next I play the spell card Big Evolution Pill. This lets me tribute my Tyranno Infinity to summon any high level Dino monster without a sacrifice. So now I summon my Black Tyranno.”

Attack: 2600 Level: 7 Defense: 1800

“So?” The colt’s confidence was obvious, “It’s still not enough to take out my Exxod. And you can only attack once anyway.”

“True,” agreed Draw Blank, “But my Black Tyranno can attack you directly if all you have is defense monsters.”

“That’s stupid,” said the colt, “Even if you do that I’ll just win next turn.”

“I never said I was done,” replied the puke green pony. “I also have the spell card, Megamorph. This doubles my monster’s attack if I have less life points than you. Meaning my Tyranno has 5500 attack points.”

“No way,” said the colt astonished, “how could you even play that? This has to be illegal.”

Draw Blank smiled, “Fraid not. So that means I win since you only have 4000 left. Good game though kid. We should do it again next time I’m in town. Now as we agreed, five bits please.”

The colt grumbled as he gathered his cards and handed over the bits. “Can we not bet next time? That was my entire allowance.”

Draw Blank looked at his opponent’s face and said simply, “Sorry, I only take money challenges. Next time don’t bet all your money on something that is still a game of chance in some cases.” With that he gave back one bit.

“Thanks mister,” the colt said smiling again, “I’ll keep that in mind in the future. See you some other time.”

“Sure kid,” said Draw Blank waving him off and gathering his own deck. And placing it carefully in to his bag with his ten other decks, not all of them from the same card game, along with the bits into his pouch with only had ten in it before.

“Well,” Draw said signing, “Least I got enough to get some food. Looks like I’ll be camping again though. I wish there was something else I was good at so I could at least afford to rent a place.”

Draw Blank turned around to look at his flank. A spinning card similar to the back of the Duel Monsters cards he had with him. Sometimes it just didn’t pay at all to be good at trading card games, especially since most ponies that played besides him were half his size and age. Any who were his age usually had other jobs that could support them. He however didn’t.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but his legs were too naturally weak for hard labor all day and his fumbling often got him in trouble with even the most basic of jobs. Heck even when he tried relying on what he did better than most without a mark in it, talking to customers, he still wasn’t making enough impact for anyone to keep him employed since most ponies thought he looked like he was about to keel over.

Hence the “professional” Dueling for money, which to be fair did give enough when he won the regional tournament last year. That money however was running low and he didn’t have the cash to enter again this year and he had missed it. And because of his age and the filly to colt ratio it was hard finding opponents willing to bet money in general, let alone find one someone wouldn’t call the police on when he offered. It was looking like another year of being yelled at by others this year.

Draw stretched himself before walking to find a good place to camp before the sun set. As he did a pair of mares trotted past him, he gave them a smile and they whispered to each other as they pointed and frowned in pity.

Again typical, girls didn’t like Stallions who played colt games for a living it seems. Well besides the fact he was poor. His color scheme made him look sick all the time with his blood colored eyes and pale blonde mane on his puke green form, so girls wouldn’t touch him if he didn’t make the first move. Granted he had not found a complaint on a girl he did get but that wasn’t the issue.

Something in him was telling him to correct the mares. Another telling him to run with it, but as they started to walk away he changed it to just ignoring them. “If they’d just leave a sick pony in the street I don’t want anything to do with them anyway. Besides if I dated any filly now I’d just be a gold digger at some point. First thing I need to do is get the cash to support myself before I can thing about finding a hook up.”

As if by sheer destiny Draw Blank heard a familiar voice calling out to him. It was the colt from earlier and he was holding something in his mouth, a flyer. He hoofed it over to Draw and said, “I got this in the mail. It was forwarded over from my old address in Ponyville.”

Draw looked down at the flyer and read:

Dear Ponyville citizen,

I, the Great and Powerful Trixie, invite you to partake in a little event I have set up with the blessing of our princesses. The event will take up the entire town on the weekend of the 17th. Invite as many ponies from out of town as you wish but all participants in this game must be registered by the 15th.

The game you may ask? Why the greatest game The Great and Powerful Trixie has found that is sweeping the kingdom. It’s called Duel Monsters and those entering will get a discount on a starter deck and boosters at all stores in town selling the cards so that any pony can enter. Prepare for a weekend of fun so long as you have the entry fee of five bits. I know, the great and powerful Trixie is quite generous to offer such a large event at such a low price but for ones as great as I fun is more important than material gain.

However, this event is also to show just how great and powerful Trixie is, so do not expect to win in this little event when I am you opponent. If however you manage to win this event I do have a very special prize to the winner. They will receive ten percent of the combined entry fees of those who enter, and a day with the lovely Princess of the night, and Trixie’s personal friend, Luna.

For the non Trixie placement we will still reward you with five percent of the entry fees as well as your own fee given back and a free gift card of 20 bits to any store in Ponyville and Canterlot. Trixie looks forward to our day of fun and friendship.

Sincerely,
The Great and Powerful Trixie

Draw read over the letter several times to ensure he knew what he was reading. The colt under him explained as he did. “Mom said I couldn’t go but if you’re good enough to beat me then I figure you stand a good chance of winning this. I know you’ve been struggling lately so I hope this makes up for me not being able to give you a bigger anti.”

“It more than makes up for it kid,” said Draw smiling, “Thanks a lot. Ponyville right?”

The colt nodded, “But it is pretty far. You’d have to take the train to make it in time.”

“Lucky me,” said Draw, “you caught me while I still have the money for a ticket.” He started to gallop off to the train station. “Thanks again kid. I’ll win it for ya.” The child waved off the young stallion and mumbled under his breath about not being able to go but hoping he can win in spirit with his new friend entering.

“Pip,” called his mother, “get back home this instant.”

“Yes mother,” cried Pip as he galloped for her.

Elsewhere, a blue unicorn sipped her tea while organizing her cards. “Trixie is still confused,” she said to her guest across from her. “How does this help you exactly? I mean Trixie will get all the praise when she wins this and you get money to fix parts of the town sure. But how does this help you personally?”

The pony with a grey mane sipped her own tea. “For all you need to know, I had a bit of a scandal in the news paper since my last election. With one coming up soon I need everypony to love this town enough to reelect me. Is there any other reason to do such things?”

Trixie still had a bad feeling in the back of her head somewhere on this. Ever since that pink pony had a full body shudders with some ear flops and tried to warn everyone something was going to happen in fact. But then again what were the chances anything would go wrong at a simple card tournament?

“And besides,” she thought to herself, “I was able to convince Twilight Sparkle to enter. I may have failed a few times before, but this time the plan is so simple it has to work.” She had a bad flash of the last plan that went wrong somehow ending with them dating for a month before she came to her senses after the plan backfired. In retrospect she didn’t see how it was going to work in the first place. She shook her head to get rid of it and regained her confidence.

The Mayor continued to sip her tea, amused by Trixie’s obvious plotting in her head. The poor girl had no idea what this event’s purpose was. Then again so long as they both got their ends of the deal, Trixie didn’t have to know about their third silent partner in this. Ignorance is bliss after all.