EPISODE TEN
Karle laughed manically as she glared everyone down.
“Karle?!” exclaimed Applejack, and she looked back and forth between Karle and Sci-Twi. “How in the hayfields is this possible?”
“How is she here?” asked Spike.
Sci-Twi could hardly believe it herself, though her suspicions were finally confirmed. “I knew there had to be some reason she knew how to use my deck.”
Karle snickered, “Very good; now if only you could duel as well as you deduce things like that.”
“Hey!” snapped Shining Armor, and he would have rushed over to shove her had Cadance not held him back.
“Don’t do it!”
“Yes, you’d be wise not to.” threatened Karle.
Then she went on with an explanation everyone wanted…
After Sci-Twi was defeated by Gar in the semi-finals of the tournament, she abandoned her transformer ring in her suite on the airship, as well as her deck and duel disk.
Somehow, when the ship was being pulled into the Malefic World, the magical energies seeping through found their way to the discarded ring, and combined with the evil energies contained within, Karle was given an actual life force to emerge as a living avatar.
“So the Malefic World did this.” said Shining Armor.
“That also explains why she didn’t lose her soul,” added Sci-Twi. “You can’t lose what you don’t have.”
Spike and Applejack were both flabbergasted while trying to make sense of all this, while Karle just chuckled at everyone.
“You can all duel me all you like, but even if I lose the duel, I’ll still remain to duel another day. I never get tired, never get hungry; it’s cool being artificial.” She paused and glared at Swi-Twi “…Especially now that I don’t have YOU to hold me back and mess things up anymore!”
Sci-Twi winced in a mix of fear and anger, and Karle brought up everything again-- because she and Sci-Twi used to share a body and mind, she had her memories too.
“You couldn’t handle it-- when Masquerade defeated you after the Math-a-thon, and you spent many sleepless nights haunted by your loss and working up ways to find him and get revenge…
…So you created me, you turned against your friends, and when all said and done… you cast me aside, and you failed again!”
Sci-Twi was quivering with rage and humiliation, remembering the Rainbow Dark Dragon attacking her and wiping out everything she had worked hard for…
…And of course Gar hammered it into her hard, “You really are the weakest opponent I’ve ever had.”
Shining Armor put his hand on his sister’s shoulder saying “Don’t listen to her!” but, really, how could she not when everything said was true?
Karle snickered and held up the duel disk with the deck in it, “Now I’m finally free of your miserable mercy, and I’ve stripped you of the powers you have squandered and misused.
These are all mine now, and you’ll never be getting them back, a weakling like you should never have access to such things in the first place.”
Tear were flowing down Sci-Twi’s infuriated face.
“Okay… now you’ve gone too far!” snarled Shining Armor, and before Cadance or anyone could grab him, he had already begun to rush over bent on beating the nasty lady out.
Karle just stood where she was, waiting for him to get closer. Then, she flicked her fingers pitching a teen pellet at his forehead, stunning him enough for her to grab him by the arm and judo-flip him over onto his back.
“Bro…!” cried Sci-Twi, and she and the others dashed up to him. Applejack and Terra were furious and looked ready to attack Karle themselves.
Applejack finally got a hold of herself and held Terra back as well. “No… she’s not worth it. Besides, we don’t know what else she’s capable of.”
Cadance and Sci-Twi helped Shining Armor upright.
His back ached from hitting the sandy grounds so hard, and he looked up at Karle’s nasty, grinning face.
“…Just what I’d expect from a bunch of spineless wimps.” she sneered.
She then turned to head off.
“Wait!” snarled Terra “Why did you surrender the duel when you could’ve beaten me?”
Karle gave Terra a hard stare which sent a chill up her spine. “Why else? You want to find Masquerade, and so do I. It’s simple as that. I keep my eye on you, Masquerade is bound to appear.
Then, when I find him, I’ll duel him… and get rid of him for good!”
Terra’s heart skipped a beat, and the others all thought they were staring at a would-be serial killer.
“Gar…!” Terra muttered under her breath.
“I’ll be watching all of you…” Karle said as she back away into the darkness, “And don’t try and get in my way; you know you can’t stop me as easily.”
She stopped and gazed at Sci-Twi one last time. “And thank you… for giving me a life of my own.”
She laughed wickedly as she continued to back away into the shadows, and was gone.
“Yeah, that’s it; run like a coward!” Spike barked at her. “You’re lucky I’m trapped in this card!!”
“Spike, stop it!” scolded Cadance.
Spike sulked.
Shining Armor was very livid, but he felt more worried for his sister than himself. “Twily… are you okay?”
With an extremely shameful, teary look on her face, Sci-Twi shook her head. “No… No, I’m not.
I’ve created a living monster!”
Much as Applejack could understand her friend’s misery, she spoke severely to her. “Well don’t you go feeling sorry for yourself now. It’s not going to help things. We’ve got to find the others more than ever now and warn them.
Can you imagine if they run into Karle and duel her?”
Terra bolted upright with worry, especially for Gar-- wherever he was.
She knew as much as Gar was a jerk-- and she secretly couldn’t blame him for it—at least she felt he didn’t deserve any horrible fates.
“Let’s go!” she said firmly.
“Go where?” asked Cadance. “We have no idea where any of the others could be?”
Terra didn’t want to just sit around in one place, figuring the sooner they got moving the sooner they would run into Garfield or the other groups wherever they were.
…So she kept on going and yelled at the other, “Come on…!”
“Poor gal.” grumbled Applejack.
Nevertheless, she and the others began to chase after her, trekking deeper into the shadows of the Malefic World.
The Prince Brothers had been observing Karle rather closely from within their lair. They had seen her trounce many of their warriors, which still gathered them vast amounts of energy for their plan, and yet they were deeply intrigued upon discovering she couldn’t be turned into a card.
They watched the footage twice of when she surrendered her duel to Terra, the lightning struck her, and she was still standing.
“Interesting…” mused Rubeus. “Not only is she impervious to our soul-extracting lightning, but she feels no pain during a duel; like a tree that simply cannot be chopped down no matter how much you hack it.”
Loki agreed, “It’s pleasing that she is able to gather us more power, but she still could be interpreted as a threat, especially if she challenges duelists we don’t want her meddling with.”
Naturally he referred to Celestia in particular, but his brother was just as concerned about Sunset as well.
“Perhaps it would be best if we stimulated her more.” Rubeus suggested “And in the meantime, we carry on with our own project: making Sunset Shimmer unlock the great power she possesses.”
Back with Sunset’s group, she and the other ladies were exhausted from working the makeshift charger for Vic, and after all that time, they had barely charged his batteries past the halfway mark.
Vic felt really bad for the ladies and practically begged them to stop and rest. “I’ll be okay.” he assured them. “I’m high enough to keep going for a while. My battery only drains fast if I over-exert myself. As long as I don’t’ duel or battle bad guys I’ll be fine.”
The ladies were relieved and sat to rest. Some of them even felt like drifting off to sleep.
“How long have we been here?” wondered Luna, and she checked her watch and realized that by this point, it would nearly be sundown.
“Maybe we should all nap for a while. We’ve been working and running.” suggested Celestia.
“Sounds good to me.” said Raven, and she sat down in a quiet dark corner, leaning her back up against the wall, and went into a meditative state.
Sunset was practically fighting to stay awake at this time. “I can’t. How can I sleep when our friends are still out there? And what if other bad guys come after us?”
“Sunset…” said Princess Twilight “I understand how you feel, believe me,” she referenced to all her restless and sleepless times for overworking or worrying, or just plain being unable to bring herself to quit. “…But you need rest. How can you concentrate if you’re weary and weak?”
“She’s right, Sunset.” agreed Celestia. She began to fold up her blue blazer to use as a pillow, and she yawned. “We’re not trying to be inconsiderate, but we stand a better chance if we rest up.”
Then she drifted off to sleep along with the others, leaving only Twilight and Sunset awake.
“Go to sleep, Sunset.” insisted Twilight. “Don’t worry if there’s danger. I’ll be watching. I don’t need to sleep while I’m stuck in here.”
Unable to fight it anymore, Sunset let out a tiny yawn. Then she made herself comfortable and dozed off to sleep, with Twilight’s card tucked into her jacket collar to let her see everything at the entrance to the building.
Twilight really felt bad still being trapped in her card, wishing she was free and could do more to help.
“I wonder how the others are holding out right now?” she wondered.
Far, far away, Gar had dueled and defeated a ton of Maleficans, and even he himself was starting to feel bushed. Even the most powerful of gamers needed to know when to stop and rest sometimes.
He sat up against a solid wall of a tall mountain and was deeply asleep.
Suddenly, he began to cringe and groan; having a nightmare…!
He was plain-old Beast Boy, and wearing his old hero uniform, and he was wandering through what Jump City used to look like-- nothing but businesses, workplaces, and any other place that was dull and bland without any traces of fun.
Then, as he turned around, a big pale hand would belt him across the face, and he landed in the middle of a big circle made up of shadowy silhouettes of people. They would laugh at him and insult him miserably.
“Look at the green-freak.”
“What a loser.”
“Why was he even born?”
“He’s no hero, he’s a zero.”
Then that same woman with the pale hand would smack him again, and again, and knock him into another area, where he landed in the shadows of someone very familiar… but did not come into view to anyone else.
She would angrily point at him and say, “Get out of my life. I want nothing to do with you. Grow up, and learn to let go of the past!”
Then she would toss to him a single dueling card-- “Change of Heart” and then leave him surrounded by people laughing at him, taunting him, and sent him spinning in darkness.
Then that pale hand would reach up to hit him one last time…
…Snapping him wide-awake in shock.
There he sat, panting stressfully while getting a hold of himself.
Then, he curled his fingers, clenching the sand in his glove.
“Why did they have to come…” he grumbled “They’ll pay! They’ll all pay!” He sounded like a man with a lust for bloody vengeance.
Now that he was up and about, and still feeling rather enraged, he decided to go off and find more Maleficans to duel-- his way of letting off steam, as well as carrying on his mission to find the Princes Brothers himself.
Far off, in the hollowed out rock, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Rainbow had fallen asleep themselves.
Earlier, Pinkie and Rainbow were horrified to learn what had happened to Rarity.
Pinkie had cried softly, and Rainbow lost her temper and angrily kicked the sand around; even sent a small rock across the plains like a soccer ball.
“Those monsters will pay for this! Just let me at them!”
Of course, she like the others couldn’t fight staying awake for too long after all they had been through and decided to rest, while Dick and Kori took turns watching out for danger.
Dick stood outside the hollow looking around for signs of anything in particular, and practically fighting to stay awake after all he had been through.
Kori softly came up to him, and whispered. “I can take over now.”
Her husband refused, “No, no, I’m okay.” but then he yawned softly, earning him a playful stare from his wife. “Okay, but I’m sitting up here.”
He sat down outside the edge.
“I’m still sorry for what happened to Rarity.”
Kori shook her head, “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” Then she looked a little sad as she looked at Rarity’s card, and then she thought of the creature that defeated her. “Violet’s still out there somewhere. Who knows how many others like her are out there too?”
Dick agreed, and he couldn’t begin to think of what other kinds of duels everyone could wind up getting into.
Trouble was quickly looming in towards Sunset’s camp area.
A slick and evil looking shadow was slowly approaching the building accompanied by a sinister snicker.
“So this is where she is?” the dude hissed, “Hope she’s having a good rest, because she’s in for a nasty wake-up call.”
Sunset was beginning to dream too… but was it really a dream?
There she was in that shadowy place again, with those strange, monstrous eyes glowing at her, followed by a soft growl.
“It’s you again…” Sunset called. “Who are you? What are you?”
The creature, whatever it was, did not respond or give any indications of any kind and just kept its glowing eyes staring at her.
“Won’t you please tell me, or at least show me?” Sunset practically begged, but the creature still did not budge.
Suddenly, a small glow of light emitted from Sunset’s pocket. She reached inside and pulled out, “My dueling deck…?”
Was this a clue? Did this creature in the shadows have some sort of connection in her cards?
Before she could continue observing, the creature’s eyes began to fade into the shadows again, followed by the sound of Princess Twilight calling to her.
“Sunset…! Wake up!!”
Everything faded into white as the voice got louder…
…and she finally snapped awake.
All the others were awake too from Twilight’s shouting, and they didn’t have to question why…
Someone was standing right at the entrance to the building; a strange creep wearing a malefic robe, but wearing blue crystal-like armor, and his dark hair was short and neatly combed.
“Only thirty seconds to wake up?” he asked smugly “Your wake-up systems need improvement, I could’ve beaten you by now.”
Everyone could tell this guy meant trouble.
“And just who are you supposed to be?” Raven asked.
The guy rubbed his hair casually. “Oh, totally forgot my manners. The name’s “Sapphire” dueling dynamo!
But, of course, you haven’t heard of me, since I haven’t been around so much. So I’ll come straight to the point,” he paused and motioned at Sunset “Get ready, cuz me and you are going to duke it out in a duel.”
Everyone else gawked at Sunset, and Sunset pointed at herself, “You want to duel against me?”
“Um… yeah… that’s what I just said.” replied Sapphire “It’s what the bosses want me to do, and that’s why I’m here.”
“The bosses?” snapped Celestia “You mean you work for the Prince Brothers.”
Had he any facial features, Sapphire would have given her a very annoyed expression. “Yeah… that’s right.” then he pointed to the middle of his face “Now guess what would be right here if I had one.”
Both sisters gave angry looks at him.
“Yo’ don’t you talk to her like that!” spat Vic, and he tried to get up, but remembered he was still hooked to the generator, and yanking himself from it too quickly would break it.
Sunset began to ponder, “This guy doesn’t seem like a regular Malefican, but why does he want to duel me specifically?”
Then she had a thought. “Wait! If he was really sent here by the Prince Brothers to duel me, he may know things we don’t… like where the rest of the gang is, and even where the Prince Brothers are based at.
But then again, even if I do duel against him and win, he’ll get turned into a card, and we’ll never get what we want out of him.”
Sapphire was losing his patience and sighed in boredom, “Well, this is getting nowhere.” and he held up his duel disk, ready to cast the Malefic Magic to force Sunset into dueling him
“No!” Celestia snapped as she leapt up, and shoved Sunset out of the way just as the magic was fired… and struck her own duel disk.
“Oh!”
“Sister!” cried Luna.
“Ah, man… she got hit!” wailed Vic “That means she’s got to duel him.”
“Ah! Oh, no…!” groaned Sapphire. “I wanted to duel Sunset, not you!”
Sunset was most surprised that Celestia did what she did. “Why did you do that?” she asked.
“He must want to duel you for something dreadful. So I don’t think you should duel him.”
Sunset had been so busy pondering the possibilities, she hadn’t thought of that.
Sapphire knew he was stuck. With both duel disks activated, the duel was official, and he couldn’t back down now, and he also remembered orders from Prince Loki, not to duel against Celestia.
Loki was observing everything from the lair, and he was outraged.
“What does he think he’s doing?!” he growled “If he duels against Celestia and she loses…!”
Rubeus placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “Calm yourself… perhaps this may not be such a disaster. We can use this opportunity to observe Celestia’s dueling, and who knows… she may not lose.”
Loki calmed down, and agreed with his brother, but he still didn’t like the thought of Celestia losing, or even getting hurt before he could make her his queen.
Rubeus was just relieved that his brother wasn’t complaining anymore.
Celestia stood ready to duel as she drew her first cards, but deep down her insides were starting to churn. “Come on, Celestia… you’ve got to get your game on here. Losing is not an option.”
While Sapphire was thinking “Just great-- my first actual duel, and already it could be a big mistake. Still, might as well see what she’s made of.”
The others could do nothing except watch from the sidelines.
Sunset watched with severe anxiety, but then she noticed out of the top of her eye… something seemed to be moving way up in the building rafters.
“Huh?”
“What is it?” asked Luna.
“I thought I saw some--”
“I saw it too.” said Raven “Maybe someone else is up there spying on us.”
Vic suggested the girls go and see. “We can’t have more baddies dropping in on us.”
“I will stay here.” Luna said, staying close to Vic, and to be there for her sister.
“Come on…” Sunset said to Raven.
Raven rolled her eyes, but followed her to the stairs and bounding their way up.
Sapphire had a good idea who was up there. “Probably came because I bungled things up.” he thought. “I can’t worry about that now…”
He and Celestia stood ready.
“LET’S DUEL!!”
Celestia LP: 8000
Sapphire LP: 8000
“I’ll go first…” said Celestia, and she drew her first five cards.
“I’ll play INSTANT FUSION! By paying 1000 of my life points…”
Celestia LP: 8000 ----->
“…This spell allows me to call a Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck Instantly, without any requirements.”
Her Extra Deck glowed brightly, and her monster just leapt out onto the field.
“I Fusion Summon MUDDRAGON OF THE SWAMP!”
(Atk: 1900)
Vic and Luna were impressed.
“Fusion summoning already?” asked Vic “She’s got something planned.”
Luna nodded in agreement, but hoped her sister knew what she was doing.
“Now I’ll place one card facedown, and that ends my turn. Muddragon.”
Sapphire snuffed. “Really, that’s all? Okay then… here goes.”
He drew his card.
“Perfect! Stand back, here comes the speed…!
Since I have no monster in play, I’m allowed to summon this… SPEEDROID TERRORTOP.”
His monster appeared, and seemed to resemble that of a child’s toy top, but with electrified energy sparking around it.
(Atk: 1200)
“What kind of a monster is that?” asked Celestia.
“Oh, you’ll see…” chuckled Sapphire “Right now, I’ll kick things into gear and summon SPEEDROID HORSE STILS!”
(Atk: 1100)
Yet another monster that seemed to resemble a simple toy, but charged with electrical currents.
“And when this tall guy is summoned, he lets me summon one “Speedroid” from my hand, so here comes, the Tuner Monster, SPEEDROID GUM PRIZE.”
(Atk: 100)
The three monsters all stood together, with the electrify charging between them.
“He summoned three monsters all at once!” cried Luna.
“It’s worse than that!” added Vic “He’s got a tuner in play.”
Celestia growled softly, “That means you Synchro Summon.”
Sapphire sighed, “Yeah… that’s right… I CAN Synchro Summon. Sheesh! You guys seem good at guessing the obvious.”
The trio felt insulted.
“Here we go!” hollered Sapphire “Level 1 Gum Prize tunes with my Level 3 Terrortop!”
The two monsters changed into orbs and the green Synchro Ring.
“I feel the need for Speed, so I rev it up with this creation. I Synchro Summon HI-SPEEDROID PUZZLE!”
(Atk: 1300)
“And what’s more, I can now activate Gum Prize’s ability from the graveyard; since I used him to Synchro Summon, I send the top card on my deck to the graveyard…”
He flicked his top card, and grinned at it. “Sweetness…! It’s my good pal, SPEEDROID TRI-EYED DICE, and that means trouble for you.”
“What sort of trouble?” asked Celestia.
Sapphire chuckled as he sent his card away. “Thanks to Gum Prize’s ability, because the I just ditched was a “Speedroid” monster, my Puzzle now grows stronger by 1000 points.”
(Atk: 1300) -----> (Atk: 2300)
Luna and Vic shuddered.
“Now it’s even stronger!” cried Luna “And Celestia is wide open!”
“No joke…” teased Sapphire “Now, let’s get it on! Puzzle, make a direct attack!”
His monster complied and leapt over to Celestia’s field, ready to blast her hard.
Celestia then shouted, “I activate the trap PINPOINT GUARD!”
“Whoa! What?”
“This allows me to summon Muddragon back to the field to defend me, and it cannot be destroyed for the rest of the turn.”
(Def: 1600)
Sapphire growled, and Luna and Vic sighed in relief.
“You got lucky.” Sapphire said as he placed a card facedown, “But don’t think this is over. I got plenty of surprises waiting for you.”
Celestia realized this and thought, “I plan to be ready for them, but how can I when I’ve never seen cards like his before.
That’s just like the Maleficans, to introduce a whole bunch of cards nobody has seen before so we can’t strategize against them.”
Meanwhile, Sunset and Raven had scaled the long flights of stairs, and could still see the shadow making its way up higher.
“I think it’s heading for the roof.” said Sunset.
“What gave you that idea?” remarked Raven.
Twilight was still growing concerned. “This has to be a trap. I know it is.”
Soon, Raven and sunset made it out onto the roof of the building where they could see the creature.
A Malefican, wearing a dark robe like Sapphire wore, but with he had spiky, dark purple hair that stuck up in all directions, and he wore dark armor, with small tattered cape in the back.
He seemed incredibly sinister and mysterious, that even Raven got chills looking at him.
“We meet at last.” he hissed. “I am Khaos, servant of the Malefic rulers.”
He didn’t need to say much more. Sunset was able to figure him out; that he came to duel her, obviously because Sapphire failed to effectively rope her into battle.
“Look, I’m getting really tired of all these crazy games you guys keep playing on me and my friends.”
Khaos shook his head at her, “These are far more than simple games as you know; this is conquest, and dueling is the key that unlocks it for us.
My other college, Violet has already dispatched with one of your friends.”
Sunset gasped, Raven’s blood churned, and Twilight blinked in shock.
“You mean, one of my friends lost to one of you guys?” Sunset asked.
“You lie…!” bellowed Twilight.
Khaos gave them all a hard stare. “…Do I?”
Sunset and Twilight suddenly realized he had to be telling the truth, or nothing else would explain the sickening feelings they felt within them a while ago.
Sunset barked loudly, “Who… Which of my friends did you guys hurt?! ANSWER ME!!”
Khaos liked her anger and hate, and then he told her flat out “…The one you call “Rarity.”
The three ladies all felt stunned with pain and anguish.
“Rarity’s gone?” asked Raven.
Tears began to come to Sunset’s eyes. “No…! She can’t be…!” but she knew now there could be no questioning it as she thought, “That means… she’s been turned into a card, and she’s lost her soul!”
She could only begin to picture the images of Rarity’s face slapped on a card.
Her tears were starting to flow now, but she was in such trauma she could hardly sob. “Rarity…!”
Twilight lay stunned and sore within her card, feeling crushed at the loss of her friend too.
Khaos remarked with sarcasm “Quite a pity for one so fair, but we only do as we were created for.”
“What does that mean?!” bellowed Twilight.
“Quite simple: My colleagues and I were created by their highness, Rubeus and Loki-- and our objective is simple-- to duel and harness more power, as well as to dispose of the weak filth that dares to oppose our Princes and their pursuit to revive this lost world.”
Sunset’s sadness faded into rage as she looked up with a blaze in her eyes.
She grabbed Twilight’s card and quickly pitched it to Raven.
“What?” said Raven.
“Sunset!” called Twilight, but Sunset had already made up her mind. “You guys took Rarity from us, and you plan to do even more of this horrible stuff! I can’t allow this!
…Let’s duel1”
Khaos was astounded. He didn’t even have to force her to play against him, and he could only laugh wickedly as he stood ready to go.
To Be Continued…