Luna stood within a classroom, the last bell of the day having rung only a few minutes ago. Looking slightly worn, the area below her eyes slightly darkened due to a lack of sleep, she kept her eyes on the clock while sipping her coffee. Behind her was a desk littered with folders full of notes she had spent a good portion of the night memorizing as well as the forms that the students would have to fill out before the match. With all this she hoped that she could at least appear to know what she was doing. The last thing she needed right now was for the students to become unruly with her.
“Seriously, sister; I will never understand what goes through your head at times,” muttered Luna darkly as she watched the seconds hand move by. Luna glanced behind her to see half of the students who had been called down: Lightning Dust, Star Hunter, and Moondancer. All three of them were sitting at desks with a small piece of paper in front of them. It was indeed the one she had written this morning, along with several others exactly the same as it. Well, she had written most of it herself with Celestia making a small revision that dropped what they were coming here for. She had said to make for a great surprise. More like wasting my time, Luna had thought when she had to quickly re-write the forms so that they could be sent out after first period. So far the three who had arrived believed that since Luna was asking them to stay after school they had gotten detention! If they didn’t want to do this then I could have used my spare time trying to find other students! But no, she’s the boss.
The door opened again and looking over at the door Luna saw that it was Pharynx. The boy was wearing a white and blue striped long sleeve shirt and jeans over his dark cyan skin. His dark crimson hair was slicked back, except for two sections that seemed to stick up like horns. A frown was on his face and his purple eyes looked desperate to get away from the figure tailing behind him: his brother Thorax.
“How late are you going to be?” asked Thorax causing Pharynx’s shoulders to stiffen. “I can’t believe you got detention on group therapy night! We were going to pass around the feeling stick and-”
“I…don’t know,” said Pharynx in a strained voice, looking over at Lightning nervously. Luna also looked over at the only other person in the room, seeing her grinning at the sight before her. “Look, I’ll call you when this is over. Best I can do.” He began to walk more into the room but was stopped when Thorax placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “What?”
Even from where Luna was sitting, she could see Thorax holding out his arms. “Hug for the road?” he asked. Pharynx didn’t say anything, but quickly shut the door on his brother’s face so hard that Luna winced. “O-Ok then. I’ll be waiting for your call. Don’t forget!”
A smile then crept onto Pharynx’s face as he turned around once more. “Thank you,” he said to Luna, his voice sounding far more cheerful. He said nothing more, simply moving towards the back where he sat down with a content look on his face. Lightning, Luna noticed, watched him as he did so but turned back around with a bored look on her face.
Moments later, Autumn Blaze came running into the classroom with a worried expression on her face. “Vice-Principal Luna, there has to be some sort of mistake,” she cried once she stood in front of Luna’s desk. “I can’t think of anything I did to get this. Whatever I did you could have given me a warning at least or talked to me. I heard we’re supposed to be quiet in detention. I can’t go hours without talking! Seriously, I can’t handle that! I can barely make it through a single class without saying anything! And my parents say that I even talk in my sleep!”
“Damn it Celestia,” growled Luna under her breath, her teeth gritted. The next time Celestia wanted something to be a surprise she would be the one to deal with the mess! When she spoke next, Luna made sure she was loud enough so that everyone could hear her clearly. “This is not detention! Nobody here is in any trouble!”
“Oh, that’s good,” said a voice next to Luna. Both she and Autumn both jumped back, noticing for the first time that Wallflower was standing next to Luna. As Wallflower began to twirl a lock of her messy green hair, Luna noticed that the others in the room had failed to notice her as well, even though she had been standing in the front of the room.
“Holy crap!” exclaimed Lightning as she placed both of her hands on the desk. “Are you some sort of ninja or whatever? I mean, you just appeared out of nowhere.”
“Actually I’ve been standing here for several minutes,” replied Wallflower, lowering her head a little as she spoke.
“Oh…ok,” said Luna slowly, surprised at this. “Well, how about you both take a seat and we can begin.”
Neither girl said anything, simply nodding as they took seats for themselves. Once everyone was seated again, including Hunter, Luna did her best to prepare herself. To be honest, she was more than a little nervous having never done anything like this before. She didn’t even think of herself as a good duelist, having lost to Celestia 70 times out of a 100! So who was she to lead a dueling team? Perhaps, if they managed to win, she would see to it that someone else took over the position.
“Thank you all for coming,” she said at last, ignoring the eye roll she got from Lightning. “Seeing how our time is limited and there is much to explain, I will get straight to the point: Canterlot High has decided to establish its own dueling team. All of you have been handpicked by both myself and Principal Celestia to represent our school.”
“You’re starting a dueling team?!” yelled Lightning with a grin on her face. Luna watched as she quickly stood up, pumping a fist into the air. “Alright! Finally a team where Rainbow Dash isn’t the captain!”
“Ah, why us?” asked Pharynx who ignored the death glare that Lightning was giving him. “I mean, I know I’ve never entered any official school tournaments before. Has anyone else?”
“No, because my deck wasn’t legal back then,” said Lightning as she sat back down folding her arms across her chest and looking sour. “Biggest jip ever. Totally would have beaten everyone out there if I could have used it.”
“Yeah, same with me,” said Autumn with a shrug. “Never really saw the point of making an entire new deck just to fit the rules here. Just felt like a waste of money, you know?”
“I didn’t even know that anyone ever saw me duel,” admitted Wallflower, a soft smile on her face instead of her normal frown.
Luna cleared her throat. “Well, yes. It is true that none of you have participated in an official school tournament. Mainly because most of you utilized summoning methods that were, until recently, forbidden. Others of you I’m sure had your our reasons not to participate, instead dueling privately. But with that said, those duels didn’t go completely unnoticed. I am sure that had more people known about your skills, a few of you might have gotten the popular vote to compete against Crystal Prep.”
“Something still feels off here,” said Hunter slowly as he looked up at Vice-Principal Luna. “I am confident in my own skills, but it seems odd that none of the people who dueled in the Friendship Cup are here right now. Sure not all of them won, but they did give duelists who were being trained to become professionals a run for their money.” Hunter paused for a moment, bringing a hand to his chin as he continued to ponder out loud. “For that matter, it feels odd we were all given invitations. Wouldn’t you have gotten more people if you had made an announcement or something? You would have gotten at least twenty or thirty students, potentially more for a try out session. Handing out private invites to the bare minimum of students needed to make a team makes me wonder if something else is going on. That you trying to keep this hush-hush for some reason.”
“Who says ‘hush-hush’ these days?” asked Lightning. “And really: who cares? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! To be the founding members of a school team!”
“But doesn’t any of this seem off to you?” asked Hunter. Behind him Pharynx nodded and to his side Autumn looked thoughtful on the matter. “Like there’s a bet going on or if they don’t know if this team will be permanent or something.”
As Lightning looked ready to make another comment, Luna made a split second decision. “He’s not wrong,” Luna said, earning a shocked gasp from most of the students in the room. She knew that her sister would not agree to her doing this, that this might put more pressure on them to succeed. However they had a right to know what was going on as well as needing to trust Luna. If they found out she was keeping something big like this a secret from them she would lose that trust. Also whether she liked it or not she was their coach and she would do this her way. if Celestia didn’t like it then she should have found someone else to do things her way!
“I’m not going to lie to you,” continued Luna as she gave them a firm look. “Both myself and Principal Celestia have been working hard to convince the school board to allow us this team. Up until now they have refused for various reasons, but have given our school a chance. At the end of the week we will be having a match against Appleloosa High. The results of the match will determine if we keep the team or not.”
“Wait, hold on!” shouted Lightning as she slammed her palms onto the deck. There was a look of mingled shock and horror on her face. “Appleloosa High?!? We have to duel against them?”
“Are they tough?” asked Moondancer, frowning as she watched Lightning sink a little in her seat.
“No clue,” muttered Lightning. “But they have annoying fans. I only played over there once and I still get headaches thinking about the place. They take team spirit to a whole different level.”
“Not a lot of time till the match,” muttered Pharynx as he crossed his arms. “Guess this explains why there wasn’t a school wide announcement. Having to organize something like that and then narrow it down the people who showed up to just six would have eaten away too much time. Then, if we don’t win or do good enough, then that would have all been a waste of time. But afterwards…”
“If the school board decides to make this team permanent, then we will be making an announcement so that others may join,” said Luna. “Naturally, if you all decide to do this then you will have a spot saved on the team.”
“So this is optional?” asked Wallflower.
“Of course,” said Luna. As she spoke, she noticed Hunter relaxing a bit. “No one here is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you are unsure, please sleep on it and give me your answer in the morning.” Luna then placed a hand on some of the papers on her desk. “If you do decide to do this, then there are some forms you need to fill out and completed before Friday. The most important will be listing the cards in your deck to ensure that it is a legal deck. Please remember that once you submit these forms and it checks out you will be unable to alter your deck in any way. If you do then you will be instantly disqualified.
“Now,” continued Luna as she turned around and took a dry erase marker into her hand. “I’m going to explain the rules for you all so please pay attention. Duel Teams are counted as both an individual sport as well as a team one, earning points towards the total team score depending on the win. In total there are seven duels but only six of them will earn the team points.”
“Ah, I think I’m missing something,” said Autumn as Luna began to draw stick figures on the white board. First she had drawn a single figure before making six more some distance apart. “There’s only six of us. Does that mean that one of us duels twice or something?”
“The first duel is between coaches,” said Luna, not turning around but drawing a line between the single stick figure and the group. Once she finished Luna turned around to face the group while keeping the end of her marker just below the lone figure. “After this duel is over, the first real match is decided upon randomly. When the two students have been selected the winning coach gets to decide if their duelist goes first or second. This gives that coaches team a large advantage.”
“How?” asked Wallflower. “Does it really matter who goes first or second?”
“It can,” replied Moondancer, answering before Luna could. “Going first gives the duelist a chance to set up a powerful board meaning that their opponent will have to not only set their up but try to break up their opponents. On the other hand, there are decks out there that do better going second with their destruction effects. As long as Vice-Principal Luna knows our decks she can make the decision that would best suit our side.”
“Oh,” said Wallflower who looked a little embarrassed. “I guess my deck doesn’t really care who goes first or second.”
Luna let out a cough to get everyone’s attention back onto her. “From then on, whichever team loses gets to decide who gets to make the first move. So let’s say that I lost my duel against Appleloosa and then they won the first duel. In that situation whichever one of you was randomly selected to duel would be given the choice to go first or second.” Luna then turned back to the white board and began to write various words in large lettering so that everyone could see it. Words like Normal, Deck Out, Forced Deck Out, Forfeit, and Instant Win. “As I said, our team will earn points based on the type of victory that is achieved. If the match is won in the normal way, getting your opponents life points to zero, then you shall receive three points.” As Luna said this she wrote a large number three next to the word normal. “If you win because your opponent decked out, meaning he or she is unable to draw anymore cards, then you will receive two points. However there is such a thing as a forced deck out, meaning that you are the reason your opponent is unable to draw anymore cards. If that is the case then the team wins four points.”
“Well that sucks,” grumbled Lightning. “Some wimp makes a cowardly deck that lets him win without really trying and gets more points because of it. What a load!”
“Actually it is a legit strategy,” commented Autumn. “But it can leave them vulnerable to attacks and can help their opponent set up their graveyards faster.”
“I can see my brother using it,” added Pharynx as he rested his head on his hand. “Wimp hates fighting, even in video games. If he ever tried Duel Monsters he would probably make a deck like this.”
“That’s right,” said Luna. “Now, these next two are very important. As you know, a duelist always has the option of giving up or forfeiting. If they do that then their opponent gets one point. However, each team is allowed only one forfeit a piece and it can only be done during the main phase of that duelist turn. This is done to prevent one side from getting an advantage early on in the duel and then forfeiting the rest of the matches to get an easy win. Lastly there are instant wins and, if you manage to pull one off, your team will receive ten points.” Now, next to each word was the appropriate number of points that could be earns.
“So there’s a max total of sixty points,” muttered Pharynx. “But that’s only if everyone on the team is using an instant win strategy. While there might be a few decks trying to deck us out, it feels more likely that most people will be going for the normal way. What happens if we are tied with points? Will there be another duel?”
“No,” replied Luna as she set down her marker. “If something like that were to happen it would be too late to have another duel. So instead the judges would total up everyone’s life points and the team with the most would be declared the winner. Now, does anyone have any other questions?”
Several minutes later Pharynx, Lightning, Wallflower, and Autumn walked out into the parking lot. Most of them carried with them the forms that Vice-Principal Luna had given them on their way out. Well, everyone but Lightning that is who had the form crammed into her back pocket. Instead she held her biker helm in her grasp, slightly swinging it back and forth with a confident swagger.
“Oh my gosh, this is going to be so much fun!” cried Autumn with a grin. “And I’ve got nothing better to do this weekend so might as well~.” She then shot a look to the others around her. “What about the rest of you?”
Pharynx shrugged. “Well, normally I stay out of stuff like this,” he said as he held up his documents to glance over them briefly. “I’d rather just stay on the slide lines than in the spotlight. But then again it gets me out of going to Thorax’s weekend touchy feely retreats where all anyone ever does is share their feelings. And if this becomes permanent then I never have to...do...that...again…” As he began to trail off both Autumn and Wallflower turn to see that he had also stopped moving. Now he was standing there with a dreamy look in his eyes while a smile began to creep onto his features. Together both girls began to wave their hands in front of his face finding that it did nothing.
“I think he’s going to do it,” said Wallflower as she backed away when Pharynx feel to his knees. Despite this the smile never left his face. “Guess he really hates those retreats.”
“Seems like,” agreed Autumn. She then turned to look at Wallflower. “So, what about you?”
Wallflower blushed a little, twirling a bit of her hair. “It would be nice to be in the spotlight for a change,” she said. Then, very quickly she slumped over as a miserable expression took over. “Just hope everyone doesn’t forget I’m on the team like in softball. And tennis. And basketball. And-”
“God, we get it!” snapped Lightning as she stopped in front of her parked duel runner. Roughly she kicked the stand holding her bike in place before swinging a leg over to straddle the mean machine. After inserting the key and turning it on, she placed her helmet on. “And before any of you ask: you’d better fuckin’ believe I’m doing this!” With that said she drove off leaving the others in her exhaust.
“So, thinking about doing this?” asked Hunter as both he and Moondancer walked away from the school. Backpacks on their shoulders and coats tightly zipped up; they made their way down the streets as icy winds hit their faces.
“Leaning towards it,” replied Moondancer with a nod. “I know I’ve been against dueling publicly before, but with the old ranking system gone I don’t think too many people will bother me if I join the team. Plus there’s an actual after-school benefit to this. My grades are good, but being on a team like this will really look good on a college application. If we manage to make it to a championship, well, that’ll look even better.”
“I guess that’s true,” muttered Hunter as he looked away.
“What about you?” asked Moondancer.
Hunter didn’t reply right away, instead pulling out the documents Vice-Principal Luna had given them. He had skipped the form dedicated to writing down his entire deck which was made mostly of blank lines under headers like Monster Cards, Spell Cards, Trap Cards, and Extra Deck. Instead he was looking at a form with more basic information like emergency contact. His eyes lingered upon it for a moment or two, pausing to look at the parent or guardian section. Hunter felt a sting in his eyes causing him to briefly close them while lowering the documents before looking at his girlfriend.
“I don’t think I should,” he said. “Given everything that’s happened to my family.”
Moondancer frowned at that. “That’s no reason for you not to try,” she stated firmly, pointing at him. “Didn’t you say you wanted to get into the pros and write your own detective novel series? Well, here’s your chance to start making a name for yourself. And even if you don’t make it then you’ll still be able to get some experience in as well as the satisfaction that you did your best!”
“Well,” began Hunter but became lost for words. It was true that he did want to mix the two professions together. Perhaps writing the novels and using her career as a pro duelist to boost the sales. Or he could write about a duelist who solved murders and the like, using his experience as a pro to get some of the behind the scenes details right. He could really make a name for himself like…
“What about Chaser?” asked Hunter as the image of his brother appeared in his mind.
“What about that lying, sexist, murderous, jackass?” demanded Moondancer, grabbing Hunter’s arm to stop him. “He’s in jail and will hopefully spend the rest of his life there! Are you worried about how he will feel about you earning what he tried to get by cheating? After everything he’s said and done to you?”
“No!” stated Hunter as he pulled her arm away. “I’m just…worried they’ll see him instead of me.” As he said this, Moondancer’s eyes widened a bit yet did not say anything. All she did was watch Hunter as he continued to speak. “Remember what I told you about Principal Sombra? He wanted me to duel Chaser not just to see if he was a cheater, but to see if I was cut from the same cloth! It wouldn’t be too difficult to believe that others…would do the same thing. We look so much alike, you know? I can just see officials questioning every move I make when I’m up there or other people holding a grudge for the way Chaser treated them.”
Hunter then felt a hand touch his shoulder. Without looking, his hand reached up to be placed on top of Moondancer’s. “Hunter, I get where you’re coming from. But if you want to change their opinion you’re going to need to show them that you’re different. And you won’t do that by standing off to the sidelines.” Hunter turned to look her in the eyes, but still said nothing. “Look, how about you try it out with me. If they give you too hard of a time or you don’t like it then you can bail and no one will think any less of you. Well, no one who matters at least.”
Hunter remained where he was for a moment before, slowly, nodding. “Ok, I’ll give it a go then,” he said before shifting topics. “So, do you want to see that new Evil Hero movie that came out? Heard it’s supposed to be pretty good.”
Moondancer gave him a sour look that wasn’t really directed at him.“Saw a pre-screening of it and those morons ruined it!” Moondancer had both her hands balled into fists as she now walked, bits of her hair standing up while her cheeks turned red as she spoke. “They had it, they really had me at the grip of my seat with that movie. The best horror movie I’ve seen in a long time. And then, AND THEN, they go and mess it all up by explaining information we didn’t need. It was far scarier when I had to wonder if that super powered kid was killing everyone around him because his power corrupted him or that was what he secretly wanted to. Not because he was genetically programmed to do so!” For a long time, Hunter remained silent as Moondancer raved about the single failure of the movie. Just listening to her and nodding. And that was ok.