Yu-Gi-Oh E-QUEST

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 51: Part 1: Past, Present, Predicament

Twilight dreamt that she was wandering down a long and dark realm of nothingness.

“Where am I?” she wondered.

“Can anybody hear me?” she called out, but no one answered.

Suddenly, large images of spinning duel cards seemed to materialize all around her. Their backs were plain, but their fronts were all blank.

“What is all this?” wondered Twilight.

While Sunset and Rainbow were all set and ready.

“Hope you’re ready, Sunset,” called Rainbow “Ready to lose that is.”

Sunset smirked “Oh, I’m ready, but not to lose, but rather give it my all.”

“LET’S DUEL!!”

The Prince Brothers looked at one another sinisterly, ready to enjoy this match.

“Here goes…” called Rainbow “I summon RAIDRAPTOR - RETROFIT LANIUS!”

“And thanks to its special ability, if I intend to Xyz Summon, Retrofit Lanuis counts as two Level 4 monsters.”

With that, her monsters split in two just like that and cawed at one another.

“With these monsters, I build the Overlay Network! I Xyz Summon RAIDRAPTOR – FORCE STRIX!”

Her monster cawed as it spread out its flaming wings.

“Next, I’ll use one Overlay Unit to activate his special ability: Now I can add Raidraptor – Booster Strix to my hand.”

Sunset cringed softly.

“But I’m still not done yet. Next I play the spell RANK-UP-MAGIC RAID FORCE!

I can use my Force Strix and rebuild the Overlay Network and summon a monster one Rank higher!

…Go, Rank-Up-Xyz Evolution!!”

The magic happened, and the monster bird flew up high, getting bathed in the light as it evolved.

“I Xyz Summon RAIDRAPTOR – STRANGER FALCON!”

Sunset was confused. “Why would she play it in defense mode?”

Rainbow could almost sense Sunset’s thoughts. “I’ve got her on the ropes. She’ll never suspect this happening.”

“Now I place one card facedown, and that’ll be all.”

Sunset contemplated Rainbow’s possible strategy.

“She’s got Booster Strix in her hand, which gives her the power to destroy any monster I try and attack her with.

She may want me to attack knowing it could put me in hot water, but I’m not going to let her outwit me that easily.”

She drew her card, and liked what it was.

“I’ll set the Pendulum Scale with Scale 1 STARGAZER MAGICIAN and Scale 8 TIMEGAZER MAGICIAN.”

Her monsters took their places in the pendulum zones and the pendulum began to swing between them.

“Now I can summon as many monsters between Level 2 and 7 as I need!”

Then she recited her call.

“As the pendulum swings from forth to back
My monsters come forth… to launch an attack!

…Behold my monsters!”

Two monsters jumped out into play.

Rainbow didn’t seem the least bit worried, much to Sunset’s concern, but Sunset couldn’t let herself get all worked up now.

“It’s go time!” she shouted “Now, Dragoncaller Magician, attack Stranger Falcon!”

Rainbow knew that thanks to Stargazer and Timegazer, she couldn’t play spell or traps until after the damage step, and she watched as her beloved falcon was blasted to pieces.

“Huh?” cried Sunset “You didn’t use Booster Strix?”

Rainbow smirked and shook her head. “Why would I even want to?”

Now sunset was confused. She was so certain Rainbow would use Booster Strix to destroy one of her monsters.

Masquerade looked pitifully through his mask at Sunset while thinking, “She’s falling victim to a classic move. I know what’s coming…” and he looked at Rainbow’s facedown card.

Sunset began to grasp it too.

Rainbow nodded cheekily, “Yeah… that’s why. Now that you’re not battle anymore, and you destroyed my monster, I get to activate RANK-UP-MAGIC DOOM DOUBLE FORCE!”

“Ah…!” cried Sunset.

“Now I get to use Stranger Falcon, and I can Xyz Summon a monster with twice his rank, that makes 10!

Go, Rank-Up-Xyz Evolution!”

The image of Stranger Falcone appeared, and zipped up through the portal, which spouted a huge ray of light forcing Sunset to cover her eyes.

Then appeared Rainbow’s biggest, and deadliest monster ever, cawing up at the sky and Rainbow decided to make a little chant of her own to her creature.

“Blazing winds and hurricanes roar,
This mighty creature will stop you and more!

…RAIDRAPTOR – ULTIMATE FALCON!”

The huge creature spread out its glowing wings, and let out a mighty caw so loud that it seemed to echo all through the desert.

Even Terra was forced to cover her ears, and she didn’t even need her binoculars to see it!

Down below, the others could feel the rumbling.

“What was that?” asked Rarity.

“The duel must’ve started,” suggested Appelejack “Whatever’s going on up there must be huge.”

Fluttershy motioned at the locked door, “That means we have to get Twilight out of here now!”

“Stand back!” Pinkie called as she backed up several paces.

“Um, that’s not good idea!” Applejack warned her, but Pinkie already yelled as she came charging in for the solid-steel door.

…BOOM!! The other girls cringed, not bearing to look, and when they peeked again, there was Pinkie, face-flat against the metal. Her voice was muffled as she groaned “…Okay… that didn’t work.”

…And she popped right off, dizzy and goofy, and she shook herself back to her senses.

Applejack sighed, and then tried knocking at the door again. “Twilight, this is getting really annoying! Come out of there, you here?!”

Twilight was still too far lost in her dream to hear her or anything.

In her dream, she kept walking among the spinning cards wondering what they were all for.

Then she suddenly found herself standing before a card that wasn’t spinning, and it’s glowing white surface just faced her; almost calling to her.

“Strange.” thought Twilight “What is this all for?”

She couldn’t resist her curiosity and walked right into the glowing light, and there, right before her eyes nearly made her glasses slip off.

There she was, in her old playroom when she was very little. The walls had colorful wall paper with pictures of letters and numbers, clouds and planes.

“I remember all this.” she said to herself, and then she could hear the sound of scratching and humming coming behind her.

She turned round and saw herself, when she was only four years old. She had shoulder length hair, she wore a cute little shirt with overalls, a few crayons stuffed in the front pocket, and she still wore glasses.

She was placing her dolls and stuffed animals all in a row before a big easel with paper on it, doing simple mathematics-- counting her toys, measuring their height, and estimating their weights.

Even at the playground, rather than play like most children, she preferred to sit under a tree and practice reading books that were rather advanced for a girl her age.

Even when little kids invited her to come and play she would kindly refuse, preferring to get smarter and smarter.

While her astounding progress helped her get moved ahead to grade-school early, a lot of kids would tease her and call her names.

“Brain-i-ack…”

“Nerd...”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have friends.”

The laughing, the taunting; the poor girl never realized until now just how alone she really was, and it made her run off in tears.

The memory ceased, and Twilight was back among the turning cards again.

“Oh, great, that was all I needed to see!” she grumbled, and she felt hurt inside more than before.

As for Sunset, “So that’s why you held back; so you’d get your best monster out on the field early.”

Rainbow pointed at her own face, “I figured I’d start off big this time, so here he is, and of course Ultimate Falcon is unaffected by any other card effect.”

“Oh, no!” thought Sunset “I just walked right into that one, and she still has Booster Strix in her hand. So even if I summon a strong monster, attacking would be pointless!”

She had no other option at the moment.

“I’ll place one card facedown, and end my turn!”

“And with that,” called Rainbow “Ultimate Falcon’s ability activates: Since it has a Raidraptor Xyz monster as it’s overlay unit-- which it does-- at the end of every turn, he can make your monsters lose 1000 attack points!”

Sunset growled, and the falcon gave one huge flap of its massive wings sending a powerful gale at Sunset’s field. Sunset braced herself as her hair billowed in the winds, and her monsters got weaker.

“Now it’s my turn!” hollered Rainbow, and she drew her card.

“And now I’ll use the effect of Rank-Up-Magic Raid Force in the graveyard-- by banishing it and one “Raidraptor” in my hand, I can add Doom Double Force back to my hand.”

Sunset didn’t like any of this.

“Now,” hollered Rainbow “Now I play MONSTER REBORN! Return Raidraptor- Force Strix.

And who, by the way, gains 500 attack points for everyone other Raidraptor I control.”

“Yeah, well it’s still weaker than any of my monsters.” said Sunset.

Rainbow smirked, “I know. That’s what I’m counting on.”

Sunset gasped when she realized what was coming now.

Rainbow entered her battle phase, “Go Force Strix, attack Dragoncaller Magcian!”

Sunset could only watch as her magician leapt up and countered the attack, wiping out Rainbow’s puny monster.

“It may have cost me some life points,” said Rainbow “But it was worth it, because now I can activate Doom Double Force again!”

“I’ll chain that!” shouted Sunset “I play the trap DAMAGE DIET!”

“Still doesn’t stop me.” replied Rainbow “Now I can use Force Strix to Xyz Summon a Rank 8 monster!

Go Rank-Up-Xyz Evolution!!”

Just like before, her little monster evolved into a larger and dangerous threat, and Rainbow decided to chant again.

“On the wind, cloaked in fury
It’s powerful force will make you worry!

…I Xyz Summon RAIDRAPTOR - SATELLITE CANNON FALCON!”

Her monster cawed as he flapped beside Ultimate Falcon, giving Rainbow two mighty winged beasts of danger!

Sunset shuddered with worry.

“Yeah, I’d be pretty worried too.” said Rainbow “After all, when Cannon Falcon can now destroy every spell and trap you control, and that includes your pendulum cards!”

Her falcon let out a mighty sonic blast from its glowing armor, shattering Sunset’s magicians off the field.

“No! My pendulum scale!!” she cried.

“And it’s only going to get even worse.” said Rainbow.

Her eyes began to blaze with power as she seemed to tune up her game playing, and engaged her battle phase.

“Ultimate Falcon, attack…! Destroy Xiangke Magician!

And Cannon Falcon, you take out Dragoncaller Magician!”

The two birds rushed forth, snaring the two weak monsters in their talons, and crushing them to bits.

As the shockwaves sped past Sunset, she yelled out, “Thanks to my Damage Diet trap, I only take half the damage this turn.”

Rainbow huffed. “In that case, I’ll lay one card facedown, and end my turn, and by the way: Ultimate Falcon’s ability activates again, but since you have no monsters for me to weaken, he’ll just take 1000 of your life points instead!”

Ultimate Falcon’s eyes glowed and fired powerful beams at Sunset.

“That damage is also halved!” she called out.

Rainbow’s turn was over, but Sunset thought deeply hard…

“What am I going to do now? With both of those strong monsters, they could wipe me out on my next turn.”

Even Rainbow, though she was feeling her game flowing through her, she was growing a bit concerned deep down.

“I can’t believe I actually may win this, but that means the duel will end quicker, and we can’t have that happening until the others are ready with the plan.”

Sunset was feeling the same way, but she knew that stalling, or playing it simple in the duel was not a smart idea, or The Prince Brothers would grow suspicious.

She carefully laid her fingers on her next card, “Come on! I need something good!”

She pulled out her card. “I play POT OF GREED, so I draw two cards!”

Then she really liked what she drew.

“Perfect!” she cried out. “I play the spell PENDULUM CALL! By sending one card in my hand to the graveyard, I can now add Wisdom-Eye Magician and Harmonizing Magician to my hand, just in time for me to set them into my Pendulum Zones.

The two monsters jumped into the light.

“Now I use Wisdom-Eye Magician’s pendulum ability, which lets me destroy him, and then replace him with any other “Magician” Pendulum monster in my deck, and who better than…

…OAFDRAGON MAGICIAN!”

Her magician magically appeared, and nodded over at Harmonizing Magician on the other side, and she nodded back to him.

“Now that my Pendulum Scale is set again, I can summon as many monsters between Levels 3 and 7.

Here they come!”

Two shots of light appeared, and her monster summoned themselves.

Rainbow was confused “Why would you summon just those two?”

“Oh, you’ll see…” said Sunset “I figure that the best way to fight you, Rainbow Dash, is on your own terms, so… with these two Level 7 magicians, I build the Overlay Network!”

Her monsters vanished, and she called out to her emerging creature...

“With wings so sharp and a shining light
I summon a dragon of great might!

…I Xyz Summon ODD-EYES ABSOLUTE DRAGON!”

Her dragon roared loudly.

“Nice play.” said Rainbow “Too bad he isn’t strong enough to take out either of my chums here.”

Sunset snickered, “I’m surprised at you Rainbow. You’ve seen me duel before. You should know that Harmonizing Magician’s Pendulum ability makes my monster 100 attack points stronger for every “Magician” Pendulum Monster in my Extra Deck.

Rainbow gasped, and realized there were three magicians in the Extra Deck. “That means Odd-eyes gains 300 attack points!”

Sunset smirked, “He may not be strong enough to take out your Ultimate Falcon, but he can take out your Satellite!”

She ordered her dragon to attack.

“Not likely!” sneered Rainbow “You forget about my Booster Strix? I can banish it from my hand when you try to attack my Raidraptors and destroy your monster.”

“I haven’t forgotten…” said Sunset “In fact, I use Absolute Dragon’s ability: Using overlay Unit I can cancel out my attack just before my dragon bites the dust.”

The attack did stop as promised, but the dragon still met with its end, much to Rainbow’s anger, and Sunset’s delight.

“Since Odd-Eyes used his effect, I get to special summon this from my graveyard, ODD-EYES PENDULUM DRAGON!”

Her mighty dragon roared loudly.

“And what’s more…” Sunset called “Since Absolute Dragon was destroyed, I can summon another Odd-Eyes monster straight out from my Extra Deck too!”

Her Extra Deck glowed brightly forcing Rainbow to cover her eyes.

Masquerade looked on with not too much enthusiasm, but slight interest.

“…Here comes a familiar beast!” called Sunset “I summon ODD-EYES REBELLION DRAGON!”

“No way!” cried Rainbow “That’s the monster you used to beat Celestia with!”

Sunset nodded. “And remember, my Harmonizing magician grants both my dragons 300 additional attack points.

“So what?” balked Rainbow “They’re still not tough enough to beat my Ultimate Falcon.”

“Maybe not him,” called Sunset “But your Cannon Falcon is still a good shot!”

She then called out to her stronger dragon, “Rebellion Dragon, attack! Destroy Cannon Falcon now!”

“Don’t think on it!” called Rainbow “I activate the trap DEFENSE DRAW! It cuts all the damage I take from battle to zero, and I get to draw one card.”

“Your falcon is still destroyed!” hollered Sunset, and the Cannon Falcon was gone like that!

Rainbow growled softly.

“Since I can’t attack anymore this turn, I’ll activate ONE DAY OF PEACE! Now we both draw one card each, and we don’t take damage until the start of my next turn.”

Rainbow drew a second card, and Sunset drew one card.

“Now I activate Oafdragon Magician’s pendulum ability, which lets me add Wisdom-Eye Magician from my Extra Deck to my hand.

Of course, now there’s one less “Magician” in my Extra Deck, so my monsters grow weaker.

“I place one card facedown and end my turn, and that means Ultimate Falcon weakens my monsters’ attack points by 1000 again.”

Rainbow glared at her from afar, and she glared back at her. Then Rainbow smirked at her “Not a bad move.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Masquerade could only sigh in disgust.

Then Sunset thought, “I just hope it was enough. If only the girls would hurry up and get up here already. Rainbow and I can’t do this forever.”

Twilight, still in her dream, was walking among the spinning cards again, until she came to another card that wasn’t spinning.

“What’s this one going to show me?” she wondered.

She walked into the light, and there was in her pre-teen years, moved well ahead to Grade 8 because of her excellent grades and astounding intelligence, and she was hoping to get transferred to High School immediately.

Unfortunately, over the years she had hardly any friends, and wasn’t a very sociable person due to her preferences to keep to her studies and exclude herself from non-educational or no-scientific research or meaning.

Every dean for a school she applied to would tell her the same thing.

“You are a very bright girl, but I’m afraid your lack of social lifestyle makes you, in our opinion, ineligible to attend. We want students not just to have good grades, but also to learn to live life to the fullest, not locked up in their studies.

You need to learn to balance it out. Then maybe we can accept your status.”

Poor was Twilight was crushed, and so were her parents. They wanted her to be happy, but then again they also agreed that maybe she needed to open up and start doing other activities, and involve herself with more people.

That’s when they adopted Spike when he was just a wee puppy, hoping he could help her come out of her shell a bit-- going on walks in the park, playing fetch with him.

While this did attract the attention of other dog walkers, Twilight found it hard to engage in conversation. They would talk about things like, shopping, or rallies, or fun-filled activities she herself still didn’t show much interest in.

Twilight also didn’t make it any easier by talking in big words while making calculations.

When throwing a ball for Spike, she would draw some notes to know how hard to throw the ball and where it would land.

“According to my calculations, with medium thrust force of my arm, plus a 90-degree angle vectoring in the wind drift of 10 kilometres per hour, the ball should land a safe distance of exactly 10.5 meters, allowing Spike to bring catch it and bring it back in exactly 7.23 seconds.”

People would feel awkward and walk away from her, hardly understanding a thing she said.

Twilight herself, felt really depressed at watching this scene, especially blaming herself for it. “Because of my high intellect, I didn’t feel on the same level as most people. It was hard to find proper interaction.”

It was then that she decided to engage in social activities more her style, like chess, which was something she could play in the park with people who were smart in the game, but most of them were grown-up or even elderly.

While this did help her social status, her parents figured she needed to interact with kids her age, and in a game that would stimulate her brains as well as the joys and thrills.

That’s when they decided to try her on the game of Duel Monsters. So they bought her a simple Starter Deck, and a book containing all the rules, ideals, and legacies of duelists and matches held.

At first Twilight was rather skeptical, but when she discovered how much math there was in the game, as well the mixings of types, attributes, and strategizing, she began to look at her cards and studied them well.

“That’s how I first got hooked on the game.” Twilight said.

The vision was over, and she was back amongst the spinning cards again, but still unable to wake up from the dream itself.

“What is all this for?!” she shouted out “Why am I seeing all this?!”

Her only answer was yet another non-spinning card with another memory.

“Oh, fine!” she grumbled “I’ll play your little game.”

She walked into the light and the memory showed her at age 12, and attending a Duel Camp, where Duel Monsters was all the rage, and she got to meet a ton of duelists and learn more about the game than ever before.

She even got to assemble her Lunalight Deck, which she found fascinating because their colors had striking resemblances to the colors of her hair and skin-- and the fact they had the word “Light” in their names, just like her name “Twi…Light”-- but most of all because they involved Fusion Summoning, which was one of her favorite methods of science-- combining mixtures to make or uncover new things-- practically like how the art of invention worked.

Because of her constant studying of the game, she was a most phenomenal camper who won a lot of her duels, but she also was starting to fit in with other kids her age, including The Shadowbolts: a team of girls about her age, who seemed kind of smart, but not quite on her level.

The team consisted of Lemon Zest, Sour Sweet, and Indigo Zap.

They complimented Twilight’s skills and seemingly befriended her, allowing her to become part of their group.

Each of them dueled with her, and she won every single match, impressing them further, that they dubbed her leader of their duel club.

The girls stayed in contact, via email, even when camp was over.

This was the very social status Twilight needed to finally be accepted into High School early, and even more luck came her way, when her brother, Shining Armor, a former student at Crystal Prep Academy, returned from college announced his marriage to the new dean of Crystal Prep, and Twilight’s former babysitter Cadance.

With their recommendations, and the improved social status, Twilight was accepted into the academy.

The memory ceased, and Twilight began to feel rather uneasy.

“I think I know what’s coming next!”

She really didn’t want to see such memories so she stood exactly where she was, not bothering to look for the next card that wasn’t spinning. “I’m not going to see it! I won’t!”

Sadly, the choice was not hers, whether this was her dream or not, for at that very moment all the cards stopped spinning, and all began to slowly move towards her.

“Oh, no!” she cried, and she turned on her heels and began to run, but the cards remained on her tail. Would she be able to outrun them…?

…Not very likely.

To Be Continued...