//------------------------------//
// The Card 
// Story: Magic in our Cards 
// by Draxonos135 
//------------------------------//

It was a beautiful night in Equestria, and in the Castle of Friendship, Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends were fast asleep, driven to utter exhaustion by their latest work day. Of course, when you had to learn how to take over the duties of the princesses, just about anybody would be left exhausted every day.

During this peaceful sleeping session, however, a portal opened, making a sound that prompted the princess to partially wake up.

"Ugh, Spike, what is it?" Twilight asked, rubbing her eyes. "I already told you to stop making weird sounds to-"

But the alicorn shut up once she saw she wasn't talking with Spike, but to a portal. A portal that had a very dark purple interior, as well as either a bunch of eyes inside it, or portals shaped like eyes. And as if that wasn't disturbing enough, a shadowy figure rose up from within the portal.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

Twilight flinched and looked around, before she sheepishly pointed at her self. 

In response, the shadowy figure opened their eyes and leaned forward, until they came out of the portal, still holding their shadow-cloaked form.

"Yes, you, silly. Is there any other Twilight Sparkle who's as experienced in magic as you?"

Having her ego stroked, Twilight's nerves and concerns about the mysterious figure, were slightly pushed back as she stood up, yawned, and dusted herself. "W-Well, no, but I'm not exactly one who's very welcoming of mysterious shadowy figures, especially not ones who know who I am."

And then, she realized something. "Wait a minute, how do you know who I am?"

"The boundary between the known and unknown is one of my favorite boundaries to practice with," the figure answered with a lighthearted chuckle. "Right behind the boundary between inexperience and mastery, of course."

The figure took out one of their arms, and revealed a card in their hand. "Regardless, I wanted to show this to you..."

Twilight grabbed the card with her wing and took a closer look at it. However, the card was completely blank on both sides: a completely white front, and while the black had a strange symbol surrounded in darkness, it still gave Twilight no hint as to what it was.

"Well, this is an... interesting object you're showing me, but uh... what is this thing?"

The figure slowly flashed a wide, sinister smile, which Twilight was quick to notice.

"Okay, that smile's making me trust you even less."





At Other-Questria, Sunset Shimmer walked to a spot in the public park, looking at the scenery as she waited for a certain someone from Equestria to arrive.

"This is the place Princess Twilight told me to meet her, right?"

"Yes, it is."

Sunset jumped, ponified immediately, and shot a magic blast at whoever said that. This whoever was, of course, Princess Twilight, who caught the blast with her hand and slowly contorted it into a smaller, weaker form, until she crushed it on her fist.

"S-Sorry, Twilight," Sunset sighed. "I swear, that's never happened to me before."

"It's okay, that happened to me a few times before, too," Twilight scratched her chin. "In fact, I remember Starlight telling me she suffered the same thing during her vacation in this world. Is that true?"

"Yeah, she definitely had the same kind of problem, though she didn't exactly ponify like we do," Sunset folded her arms. "Dragons, griffins, flash sentry, she seemed to transform into everything but a type of pony-"

"That sounds interesting, but we don't have time to think about that," Twilight reached for her back. "I called you today in order to show you this."

Twilight took out the card the figure handed her last night, only this time, the object had changed: the back was mostly the same, only the symbol was replaced by Twilight's cutie mark. As for the front, it had Twilight, her horn glowing, while a large, concentrated sphere of magical energy, similar to the one she charged while fighting Tirek.

"Magic can be sealed inside objects, right?" Twilight mused as Sunset grabbed the card. "How about, we catch some of the magic, concentrate it into a form that can be contained in this little card, and have it?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow, trying to wrap her head around the concept. "You mean, like spellbooks, but in the form of cards?"

"Yeah, something like that!" Twilight answered, snapping her fingers twice as she tried to further explain herself. "And when someone uses the card, it summons a particular spell exclusive to the user!"

"But the only people who can cast spells are unicorns and alicorns, and between our friends, only I, Rarity, and both you and your counterpart would be able to cast them, let alone use them," Sunset pointed out. "What could we do with the pegasus and the earth ponies, and their counterparts, who don't have access to magic like we do?"

"Well, what if the creation of this new system revolved around the three races?"

Twilight and Sunset turned around to see the voice had come from another portal, this one sporting the internal purple and eye-filled design of the one that visited Twilight last night.

From this portal came out a peculiar character, a woman, that caused both girls to take a defensive stance. The woman, however, didn't seem to notice their defensive stances.

If anything, she was amused they were this shaken.

"How kind of you to forget me, Your Highness."

Twilight recognized the voice, causing her to drop her guard as the woman took a couple more steps, showing her full form.

"I guess I can't be too surprised. It was such a lovely, obscure night, you probably figured I was nothing more than a dream." The woman smirked. "Or, going by your concern during our conversation, perhaps a nightmare."

"Twilight, who's this woman?!" Sunset asked, still standing her guard.

"The name is Yakumo." The woman curtsied. "Yukari Yakumo."

Then, she stood up, and flashed a little smile.

"And I'm here to lend you a hand."