//------------------------------// // Green Legend Applejack Part 1 // Story: Tales of the Canterlot High Duelists // by Brony-wan-kenobi //------------------------------// Applejack walked down the hallways of Canterlot High, her boots echoing through the now silent halls of the school as she made her way to the library. It was sort of odd for her to be here since she was normally one to head straight home once that last bell had rung. After all, she had so much to do. There was farm work waiting for her, her schoolwork, helping out with whatever chore Granny needed done, helping Apple Bloom with her studies, and finally her crummy job at the mall. She was a busy gal alright so dawdling around the school grounds when she had no business being here wasn’t something she normally did. However, this day she had business…of sorts. That business was trading cards! She had heard rumors of students bringing in Duel Monster cards for trade, meeting in the library after school hours. Of course, trading wasn’t something uncommon around Canterlot High. All you had to do was head on down to Sugarcube Corner and you were bound to find plenty of duelists willing to trade with you as well as exchange strategies. Yet what made this rumor peak Applejack’s interest was the size of the trading. It was said that the person in charge had one the largest collects anybody at school had, practically giving them away even! Applejack nearly paused in her step. Sounded like something too good to be true she knew. Dealings with them Flim Flam brothers had taught her that if something did sound too good to be true then there was usually a string or two attached to it. Now if there was a person or persons doing some honest to goodness trading, why not make it more public? Why keep it all on the down low? Then thoughts of the upcoming tournament between their school and Crystal Prep popped into Applejack’s head. It was a laughable thing really; them going up against a school designed to train people into getting into the pro league. A school who had access to more types of extra deck monsters while also having more of them expensive cards that only the rich could get their hands on. A David vs. Goliath situation where the giant always won easily. It was almost like a cruel joke when you stopped to think about it. Well, this year was the year they planned on changing that! Applejack, along with her friends, had vowed that this year they were going to show them Prep students what they were made of! She had heard that Fluttershy had already looked into getting herself some xyz cards that would fit well with her deck. Rarity was also looking into some xyz, but the problem was finding some she could afford and would fit well with her deck. She had no idea what Pinkie was planning at this moment and, frankly, as much as she loved the sugar-powered ball of energy she dared not think about what was going in her mind. Sunset had that magical deck of hers so she was probably good. Rainbow Dash had been going back and forth on what sort of extra deck monsters she wanted, but leaning more towards synchro. That just left Applejack. To be honest, she didn’t know what to do. Her Flower Princess deck had always served her well in the past…against other students here at Canterlot high. But if she had any hope of winning she was going to need something better without breaking her very tight budget. Thus why she was here after school. “Just gonna take a quick look,” she said to herself as Applejack neared the library. “If no one is doin’ any tradin’ I’ll just head home. No harm there. But if there is, a quick peek wouldn’t hurt none.” Within the next few steps, Applejack reached the library. Taking a breath, she outstretched both hands to press them against the door. Then with a mighty push the opened the door to reveal…well, the library. Inside there were a few students still around. Most of them were seated in front of the computers, most likely doing some research for a project or two. She noticed a student or two mingling their way through the lines of bookshelves, their fingers on the spines of the books as they slowly made their way looking for the needed book. She also caught sight of Ms. Cheerilee sitting at her desk reading some book that had a picture or two of hands holding an apple. No idea what it was, but it sure didn’t look like any farming book she ever saw. Taking a few steps forward, Applejack noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, she spotted a figure heading towards the back of the library where the reading tables were. Not seeing much sense in just standing around like she was, she headed in that direction as well. As she walked, Applejack noticed something she hadn’t before. The long wooden tables used for reading and doing homework had been brought together as if for some massive assignment. Yet there were only two people, with large black cases taking up most of the room. Now very curious, Applejack quickened her pace to look into the cases. “Lordy,” she swore aloud as she saw what they held. Cards! More cards than she had ever seen in one place before. Each case probably held thousands of cards, if not millions, in each and there were several there! Here and there were dividers sticking out, the closest one to her reading ‘Warriors’. Looking around, Applejack quickly spotted two people sitting at the table. One of them was a girl AJ only barely knew, reading a book while several others laid stacked around her. This was Moondancer, one of the few students in school that got higher grades than Sunset and head of some fan club for Twilight. She was wearing a baggy purple sweatshirt that looked very worn along with tight fitting jeans. Her hair, which was amaranth with streaks of purple and grayish violet, was tied up on top while leaning to the side. Her purple eyes laid behind black glasses as if to shout to the world she was a stereotypical nerd. Sitting next to her, looking over her shoulder at the book she was reading, was a guy named Star Hunter. He had brownish skin and messy hair of a slightly darker color with yellow eyes. Hunter wore a red stripped shirt with jeans, nothing too out of the ordinary. There were no books in front of him, only a notebook with plenty of scribbling written on it. From what little Applejack knew about the guy was that he was a new student, transferred from a town called Hollow Shades at the beginning of the year. As she looked in their direction, she noticed Hunter moving his head up a tad while turning to look at Moondancer. The nerdy girl smiled as her eyes were still glued to the page she was reading, her cheeks turning slightly red as Hunter moved his lips closer to her neck. It was only due to a throaty sound Applejack made (unintentionally of course) that caused them to halt so fast it sounded like a record screeching. With wide eyes the two looked up to see the farmer girl. “Oh,” said Hunter, his tone awkward while Moondancer raised her book up to hide her burning red face. “D-Didn’t see you there. Haha.” Applejack, with her cheeks still red, tilted her Stetson hat down a bit before gesturing to the cards. “Ah, er, was wondering if these here were yours,” she mumbled. “Yes. Yes,” said Hunter quickly as he moved around the table to where Applejack stood. “Wh-What are you looking for exactly? X-Sabers? Union Machines? Trains? Perhaps Gladiator Beasts?” “Ah...” began Applejack as she pulled out her deck from the box hanging on her belt. “Ah was hoping ta find something to improve mah deck. Planning on competing in that tournament against Crystal Prep coming up, see. Think I might need a little help.” Hunter, to his credit, just nodded before holding out his hand. Seeing this, Applejack placed her deck in his hand. Quickly Hunter began to look through the deck card by card, his eyes scanning each one. Only once or twice he paused as if surprised by a card being there or something. Whatever it was, Hunter didn’t seem to ask any questions but went right back to what he was doing. When the last card had been looked at, Hunter handed the deck back to Applejack. “It’s a decent deck,” he said. “Nothing in the extra deck, but that can be easily fixed. With what you have, you could pull out some Rank 8 monsters pretty ok but not as consistently as someone from Crystal Prep. Could even use some synchro monsters if you added some tuners. Guess you’ll want to keep the plant theme?” Applejack didn’t answer right away, only scratching the back of her neck before nodding. “Ta be honest, ah was hoping ya might have some fusion monsters that could go with this deck. If at all possible. None too fond of them fancier methods.” At that, Hunter frowned. “Well, if its fusion monsters you want then you’re going to need a whole new deck,” he said, causing Applejack to look a little dejected. That hadn’t been what she was hoping to hear. She had with her a small binder with cards to trade, but even if the rumors were true about how the cards were given away she doubted she had enough for an entire deck! Plus with how tight her budget was she doubted she could make up the rest out of pocket. “Ya sure about that?” she asked. Hunter, to her dismay, nodded. “Sorry to say,” he said. “Plant decks really weren’t a thing before the synchro era, unless you wanted to do Fairy King Truesdale combined with DNA Surgery. Nowadays, people like to do the Sylvan, Naturia, and Aromage builds for their xyz and synchro builds.” He then looked at her thoughtfully, tapping his chin as he did so. “But I do know of one deck that can pump out fusion monsters fast enough to keep up with Crystal Prep students. Plus you’ll be able to do some synchro plays in the future with it if you ever wanted. Not a bad deck I think.” Applejack didn’t answer right away, instead looking down at the deck still in her hand. Biting her lower lip she looked back up at Hunter before speaking. “Well, might as well take a look at them. Don’t know if ah got much in the way of tradin’, mind ya.” “I’m sure we can work something out,” said Hunter as he turned his back to her and began looking through the cases. “Now where are they? I know they should be…not in this one. Mainly fiends.” Applejack watched as he moved over to another case with Moondancer getting up to help him. Together they moved from case to case, looking for the plant type monsters. After a while, both seemed to have found what they were looking for. As Hunter began to pull out cards from the case, Moondancer picked up one of them before handing it over to Applejack. Looking down at it, the farmer girl would never have thought it was a plant. Instead it looked like one of them weird lizards she saw in films with the fan around its neck and often running on its hind legs. The creature was green with three red eyes on the side she could see. There were also, for lack of a better term in her mind, ‘stems’ that were growing out of the neck fan and ending with red orbs. Raising her eyes up towards the top Applejack saw the name Predaplant Chylamydosundew. “The Predaplant archetype is basically a combination of predatory animals and plants,” explained Moondancer after Applejack mentioned this card didn’t look much like a plant, going straight into a lecture mode. “The card you have in your hand is a combination of a frilled-neck lizard and a drosera sessilifolia which is a very carnivorous plant. Most do look like plants, evil looking ones at that.” “Alright, here we are,” said Hunter. Applejack looked over to him and saw that he had spread a whole bunch of cards across the table. After walking over to them, Applejack began to look them over one by one. Moondancer was correct, they did have an almost evil appearance to them that she was sure Rarity would complain about. However, as she looked at their effects, she couldn’t help but note that their counter effect seemed almost ideal when dealing with the Prep. Any monster with a preda counter on it would be changed to a level one monster, messing up synchro plays as well as xyz. Perhaps even a few fusion summoning that required high level monsters to work. There were other effects as well pertaining to these counters that made Applejack stop to consider using them. However… “Only two fusion monsters?” she noted aloud. There were six fusion monsters present, three of each laid before her. “Seems kinda meager for a fusion based deck.” “Well, there are other fusion cards that can go with the deck,” admitted Hunter. “But those cards are in my, well, special trading binder back home. I generally don’t bring it to school with these cards. So, you interested in what you see?” “Thinkin’ about it,” said Applejack as she took off her backpack. She opened it and pulled out a small zip-lock bag which held her own cards for trade. Calmly she handed it to him. “Need ta get a handle on them before ah make up my mind. Don’t want ta go droppin’ too much into a deck ah don’t like, ya know?” “I understand,” said Hunter as he flipped through AJ’s spare cards with lightning speed. Already she saw that he had taken ten cards and put them off to the side. “Well, if you’re not really sure, we could have a practice duel in a couple days. You know, give you some time to look over your cards. If you don’t like them then I’ll give you back what you traded for them.” Hunter then paused and looked up at AJ, an odd smile appearing on his face. “If fact, let’s make this a bit more interesting. If you can master this deck, I’ll give you the last two fusion cards.” Applejack’s eyes widened for a moment, before a confident smile appeared on her face. Slowly she crossed her arms across her chest. “Sugarcube, ya do know that Ah was in the top eight of the Autumn Crown. Right?” Hunter frowned at that. Having finished looking through the stack, he put the cards he didn’t want back into the zip-lock bag before handing it to Applejack. “That…doesn’t really mean much in my opinion,” he said slowly. Applejack felt her grin fade a bit causing Star Hunter to continue. “Not that I think you’re a terrible duelist or anything. It’s just the idiotic fusion monster limitation, well, limits so many of the strategies and decks that could have been used. The reason I love this game so much is seeing people use so many different deck types, sometimes even seeing people using a strategy that isn’t normal for that deck. Figuring out what your opponent is up to like a detective would in a murder case, examining everything you can to figure out their end game in order to prevent it and then seize victory.” As he spoke, there was a passion in Hunter’s voice that seemed to ring louder and louder. There was a spark in his eyes that Applejack hadn’t noticed before. But, just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished as Hunter looked over that the cases on the table. “Around here many of these cards can’t be played. Just not usable thanks to the format this school insists on running. It just…feels like the school is purposely holding us back when they do shit like that.” “That why I never saw ya at the tournament?” she asked. “More like one of the reasons,” replied Hunter with a shrug. “I also had sort of another commitment on the opening day so I wasn’t here. But even if I were here I still wouldn’t have entered because…my favorite card STILL isn’t off the ban list!” “Then you can duel?” As soon as the words left Applejack’s lips, Hunter began slightly more rigid. Surprised by this, the farmer girl raised a hand to reach out to him only to recoil when he began to laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laugh she was used to with her friends. instead, it was a dry humorless laugh that sent chills down her spine. Quickly gazing at Moondancer, she saw that the girl was looking away from both of them. “Yeah,” said Hunter after a moment when he had calmed down a bit. “I can duel.” “W-Well,” said Applejack as she did her best to remain strong. No way anyone here was going to see her looking scared or anything. “Alrighty then. We’ll duel. How’s this weekend sound? Say Saturday at three o’clock?” “I think that’ll-” began Hunter, only to have Moondancer cough into her hand. “Oh, right. Could we do it a bit earlier? Say maybe eleven?” - It was 10:50ish as Applejack strode down the street, looking for the house whose address Hunter had written down for her. The neighborhood was a nice one, slightly more modern than the one she lived in with nearly all of them looking alike. It was almost eerie how similar they all looked. She briefly wondered if folks around here ever got mixed up on which house was theirs! There was, however, one house that didn’t match the others. This one looked like it hadn’t been taken care of properly for some time. The grass was unkempt; with patches of grass looking taller in some areas while other parts looked like it had been overtaken by weeds. The mailbox couldn’t close anymore due to the amount of mail jammed inside of it with more on the porch step, tied up and placed in plastic bags. Speaking of the porch; there were several trash bags sitting there as dozens of flies buzzed around the foul smelling things. And this was the house she was supposed to go to? Doing her best not to hang her head, Applejack approached the house while being mindful to watch where she stepped. As she walked she began to wonder if this was the reason Hunter didn’t bring his cards to trade at Sugarcube Corner. This place was much closer to the school than the bakery and she hadn’t noticed a car in the driveway. Given the appearance of the place, it seemed like the family was down on their luck. But, if that were the case, why hadn’t Hunter just sold the cards for money? He had enough of them to make a good deal of money after all. Still, it was not her place to pry into another’s business…at least not yet. So having reached the door she knocked a few times and proceeded to wait. Applejack didn’t have to wait long as the door opened a moment later to reveal Hunter with a duel disk already on his arm. “Hey AJ,” he said pleasantly while beckoning her to come in. While she was a tad reluctant to go inside, given the state of the yard she could only imagine how bad it was inside. However, it would have been rude not to so she entered. Darkness seemed to surround the farmgirl despite it being a bright, sunny day outside and the blinds were open. Looking around, AJ saw she was in a family room that had once probably been very nice. Now trash littered the hardwood floor, mostly tissues and food wrappers. The walls were so covered with awards, trophy’s, medals, and framed newspaper clippings that she had no idea what color the paint was. At first AJ was going to comment on the amount of awards Hunter had until she saw the name ‘Star Chaser’ on one of them. Light came from the active TV which was being watched by two other figures in the room whom AJ assumed were Hunter’s parents. His father was slumped in an armchair while his mother laid on the couch. Neither of them paid the two teens any mind, not even seeming to notice their presence within the room. Instead their focus seemed to be on what was on the muted scene before them. Looking at it herself, AJ saw that there was a boy who looked much like Hunter. He wore more stylish clothing as he dueled someone just off screen. He had on a grin that was, if it were possible, more cocky than anything Rainbow Dash had ever managed. He carried himself with complete and utter confidence as he slapped card after card onto his duel disk before the crowd around him began jumping out of their seats. Hunter’s parents didn’t join in on this good cheer but instead openly and loudly began to sob. “Don’t,” said Hunter as Applejack was about to approach them. “You’ll just make them mad if you disturb them. It isn’t pretty, trust me.” Applejack pulled back, slightly alarmed by this news. “What in sam hill happened here?” “I did,” replied Hunter in an icy tone that shocked Applejack. She turned to look at him, only to see his back was to her now as he walked into the next room. As he walked, he continued to whisper. “There’s a park out back that we can cut into through the backyard. Perfect for a duel.” Applejack said nothing as she followed, not bothering to look at the two poor figures behind her. Now that she had seen this, it had become her business. Silently she promised herself that before she left she would find out just what was going on here.