Daigo stood up and brushed himself off.
Where am I now? He thought as he looked around him.
He seemed to be in some kind of apple orchard. All around him, were trees laden with delicious looking shiny, red apples. Healthy grass covered the ground like a pleasant green carpet, broken now and then by apples that had fallen to the ground.
“Wow, this place is nice.” He said to himself excitedly.
“Eeeeyup.” Came a voice from behind him.
Surprised, he turned to find the speaker, but saw no one around but a small horse. It immediately stood out as strange to him, being a red color with a yellow mane and tail and rather small for a horse. He suddenly remembered another animal he’d heard about and realized this must be a pony, a rather big one if he remembered their size correctly.
Hello? is anyone there?” He called out after he finished identifying the creature.
“Eeeyup.”
Daigo stared, he coulda sworn that the pony’s mouth had moved at the same time that he heard the voice again. Running a hand through his brown hair, he shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
C’mon Daigo, pull yourself together. Ponies don’t talk, you’re still just a little disoriented from being dropped here. Maybe someone’s playing a joke on you.
“Can you hear me? Is someone there?” he called again, this time watching the pony closely.
“Eeeyup.” This time, it sounded a bit exasperated and it seemed the pony was giving him a look like he doubted his intelligence.
Daigo gawked at it, unable to believe his eyes, but he’d seen that it really was the pony who talked. He realized that if it could talk, it was most likely intelligent, and that if that was true, he was being rude. To amend this and also to give him something to concentrate on to get over the shock of talking animals, he put out his hand in introduction.
“Hi, my name is Daigo, what’s yours?”
The stallion stared at the hand, not sure what it was for. Then, with a shrug, ignored it and answered, “Big Macintosh, but my friends call me Big Mac.”
“Big Mac? Have you ever heard of Mcdonalds?” Daigo blurted out before he realised what he had just said and cringed, hoping he hadn’t offended the pony.
“Nope.”
Daigo let out his breath in relief. Big Mac seemed to not have taken offense, but if he hadn’t heard of Mcdonalds before, where was he? It had never happened before, but he was starting to suspect the vortex had dropped him on another planet. That was disturbing. He hoped if it continued to do this, the aliens stayed friendly and not dangerous.
“Is this your farm?” he asked, looking again at the fruit laden trees all around them.
“Eeyup.” Big Mac said proudly.
“You don’t say much, do you?” Daigo chuckled.
“Nope.” Big Mac said with a big grin on his face.
At that point, an awkward silence came upon them as neither knew how to proceed from there.
They may be different here, but I bet they enjoy games, and it’s been a bit since I last found a challenger, so might as well see if he’d wanna try a new game.
“Hey Big Mac, how would you like to try out a new game, or maybe you’ve heard of it, Cardfight Vanguard?” he asked, breaking the silence and gaining the stallions undivided attention.
The stallion brought his right hoof up to his chin in a kinda disturbing parody of a human trying to recall something. “Nope, never heard of it, but I got some time, so I’ll try it.”
“Great, it’s really fun, now do you have a table around here or some flat raised surface we could use?” After he asked it, Daigo realized that Big Mac might not know what a table was, but decided to forge on ahead as if he did and address the problem if it came up.
“Yup, follow me.” The red pony turned and started to make his way through the orchard, Daigo was surprised to see what seemed to be a big, green apple picture on his flank. His first thought was a tattoo, but it seemed to be part of the fur, not in it.
Although curious, he kept his mouth shut, not wanting to seem rude by bringing up the pony’s rump in conversation. He was soon distracted though by a sudden growl from his stomach and, looking down, blushed a bit. Big Mac looked back with a knowing smile on his face.
“Hungry?” Big Mac asked with a slight chuckle.
“Eyu- erm Yes. It’s been awhile since I last ate, would you mind if I had a few of your apples?” Daigo asked, grinning sheepishly.
“Nope, go right ahead.” Mac replied.
Reaching up as they passed close to a tree, Daigo grabbed an especially juicy looking one and brought it to his mouth. For a moment, he hesitated as he pondered on the possibility it might be poisonous to him, how should he know if alien apples were the same as ours even if they did look the same. Another rumble from his stomach decided for him and he sank his teeth in, taking a big juicy bite.
Involuntarily, he let out a groan of pure delight, he had never tasted an apple so good. Its juices flowed down pleasantly and a sweet wonderful taste assaulted his taste buds. Each bite was a pleasure as it released more of the flavor, and before he knew it, he was holding just an apple core.
“Best in all Equestria.” Big Mac said, grinning as he looked back at his visitor.
“No doubt!” Daigo said as he pulled off a few more after tossing the finished core, he assumed they were as biodegradable as back on Earth and wouldn’t hurt to have left on the ground. With no protest from Big Mac from what he did, he felt sure he was correct and enjoyed the rest of the apples.
After four apples, he was feeling quite content and seemed to have finished just in time as they were entering a clearing. At the center of it was a big tree stump that was probably about two to three feet across and stood up to around his waist.
“Wow, that must have been an impressive tree, what knocked it down? a storm?” Daigo asked as he ran over and inspected the stump and was pleased to find it would make a great playing surface.
“My sister.” Mac said matter of factly.
“Your sister?” Daigo looked up with a look of disbelief.
“Yup, she was a bit upset.” Mac continued as if it was nothing.
A bit upset, good lord. How big is she?! note to self, if you meet her don’t get her mad!
Bringing himself back to the present, Daigo had Mac stand on one side of the stump and made his way to the other side, still shaking a bit, but getting over it quickly.
“Ok, Cardfight Vanguard is, as it sounds, a card game. Luckily, I have a spare deck you can use. Here you go.” Daigo reached into his pocket to pull out a deck of cards and held it out to Big Mac, then froze as a sudden realization came to him.
How is he gonna hold the cards? Daigo you idiot, he doesn’t have hands! why did you suggest this in the first place?
While he internally argued, Big Mac got up on his hind legs and reached across taking the deck from Daigo with his front hooves. Daigo stared in amazement, wondering how he was gripping the cards, but could not see anything to explain the phenomenon.
“Now what?” Big Mac asked as he looked through the cards, looking at the pictures curiously.
Coming out of his stupor, Daigo pulled out a double playmat he rarely used, but had just in case, and spread it over the stump, then pulled out his own deck.
“Right, on the top of your deck should be a card that says grade zero on the top left corner of the card.” Once again, a brief worry that this pony couldn’t read or didn’t have the same sense of left or right as him was put to rest as Big Mac nodded his comprehension.
Just how similar are we? Now that I think of it, we also use the same language and writing. Is this another world or another dimension? He wasn’t sure which, but decided it wasn’t that important to dwell on.
“Good, place that face down on the front center circle.” Daigo instructed and almost shouted out when the pony bent down and grabbed it with his mouth.
Biting his lip, Daigo watched as the stallion then placed the card in the indicated spot with his mouth. Trying to not be too transparent about what he was doing, Daigo bent down to see how damaged his card was. To his delight and surprise, it appeared completely unharmed. When he straightened up, he looked at the pony with a new sense of respect.
“Good, I do the same, now we shuffle our decks like this.” Daigo demonstrated the procedure, and Big Mac copied it with his unfathomable hooves. “Next, place the deck face down to your right in the indicated outline on the mat and draw five cards.”
When they both had their decks in the right place and held a hand of five cards, Daigo continued, “Okay, in your hand, check the grades in the top left. You want at least one of a grade one, two and three. If you have these, then see if you have any grade zero in your hand. You’ll notice that they are yellow at the bottom, unlike all the other cards. That’s cause they’re called triggers and you want them in your deck.”
Daigo stopped for a moment to be sure that Mac was keeping up. When the pony gave him a nod, he continued. “Now if you’re missing one of the grades, hold on to one of each of the others you have in your hand, er hoof, and shuffle in your other cards, then draw the same amount you just shuffled in. This is called mulliganing, and you’re only allowed to do it once. If you do have all three grades already, then just shuffle in any triggers you might have in your hoof, got it?”
“Eeyup.” Big Mac answered as he shuffled two cards deck into his deck and drew two more.
Daigo sent back three, “Ok, flip up your face down card and I’ll start to give you an idea what to do. First thing I do is draw, after that is the ride phase. What that means is that I can put a card with an equal or greater grade than my card in the vanguard circle on top of it. This is referred to as riding the vanguard. By the way, that’s what your starting card is called, the vanguard. You can only do this once per turn, and the highest you can get to is grade three.”
To demonstrate this, he put Little Sage, Marron on top of Barcgal, “Now my starting vanguard has the effect of moving back to a rearguard when I ride over it with a Royal Paladin card, Royal Paladin is a clan, and you can see what clan a card is in the colored bar on the bottom right of the card. The rearguard is any of the other five circles around the vanguard circle.” As he explained, he put the Barcgal card in the bottom left circle. “Barcgal has another ability. On the description of the abilities, which are right under the picture, there is a white box with an arrow pointing right. This means I can rest it, which is shown by me tapping it, like so, to activate the effect.” He turned the card sideways and Big Mac gave a slight nod of understanding.
“This particular effect allows me to search my deck for the card flogal and place it on a rearguard, and after that, I have nothing more to do, so it will be your turn.” Daigo said as he searched his deck and put the flogal card in the middle back rearguard circle behind the vanguard circle.
Big Mac drew a card with his mouth and added it to his hand, then he put Embodiment of Armor, Bahr on top of Lizard Soldier Conroe. Daigo was about to say something, but stopped as Big Mac moved Conroe back to the middle back row rearguard circle behind the vanguard.
Wow he catches on quick, I didn’t even need to tell him he could do that.
“What now?” Big Mac asked.
“Ok since I went first, you get the first attack.”
“Attack?” Big Mac’s ears laid back.
“Yeah, you know, like in a battle or war.” Daigo elaborated, but by the expression on the pony, he knew something was up. “You do have wars here, right?”
“Nope!” Big Mac said in an appalled voice.
“You must have had them before though, you know what they are.” Daigo said as his disbelief grew.
“Almost a thousand years now since we had one.”
As he had been several times today, Daigo found himself stunned, “No wars.” he mumbled in awe.
“Are you crying?” Big Mac asked in concern.
“Maybe. “ Daigo answered, quickly wiping a tear out of his eye, “It’s just such a wonderful idea, no war. How do you do it?”
“What’s the point?” Big Mac asked.
“Yeah, what is the point? Wish my world could learn that, anyway.” Daigo said as he pulled himself together, “This game has fighting, but consider it gaining points rather than killing, ok?”
Big Mac looked a little dubious, but nodded his assent.
“Ok, on grade one and zero cards, you will notice a symbol beneath the grade, this means they can boost or lend their attack strength to the card in front of them, and you show that you’re doing this by tapping them.” Daigo explained and nodded to Big Mac that he was doing it right as he turned Conroe sideways.
“Good, now only cards in the front row can attack, to signify this, you tap them . You can also have them attack any of the opponent’s cards in the front row, but only hitting their vanguard will give you points. To hit, your attack has to be equal to or greater than the attack of the opposing card.” Daigo said as Mac turned Bahr sideways and indicated he was attacking Marrion.
“Now only your vanguard does this. When it attacks, you get a drive check. That means you flip over the top card of your deck.” Big Mac did so, revealing Dragon Monk, Goku, “Since that’s just a regular card, nothing happens except you add it to your hand, I mean hoof. Now with your boost from Conroe your attack is 1300 to my 8000, so it hits. This means I take one damage. To do this, I put the top card of my deck in this zone on the left side of the mat.” Daigo did so, putting a Soul Saver Dragon there.
“This is the damage zone, if it reaches six cards, you lose, got it?” Mac nodded an affirmative. “After you attack, your turn is over, so I untap all my cards and draw. First, I ride Knight of Silence, Gallatin, and tap Barcgal to go get Future Knight, Llew and place him in my rearguard.” Daigo said as he put the card in his left back rearguard circle. “Now I attack Bahr with Gallatin and boost him with flogal, drive check.”
He revealed another Future Knight, Llew, “This is a trigger, when I reveal it through a drive check, I get two effects. The first is I add the amount in the top right corner of the of the trigger to my total, so my attack goes from 1400 to 1900. Secondly, I get the effect under the attack, which on this trigger is critical, which means I do one extra damage.”
Big Mac put the top card of his deck in his damage zone which was Blue Ray Dracokid. Before he could do the next one, Daigo stopped him. “That’s a trigger too, when a trigger goes to your damage zone, you can add the attack to one of your cards till end of turn. In this case, it didn’t matter, but often, it can prevent an attack. You also give one of your cards the effect, but critical doesn’t matter on your opponent’s turn, so it doesn’t matter who gets it.” This made sense to big Mac and he put the next card in the damage zone, another Dragon Monk, Goku.
Big Mac stood his cards, drew, and rode Dragon Knight, Nehalem. Before he could attack, though, Daigo spoke up again, “Your Conroe has an ability with a curved purple arrow going right and a one next to it, this means you can flip one damage face down to activate it and do what it says, also when a card is retired it’s put face up in a pile to the right of your deck.”
Big Mac considered this for a minute, then flipped over Dracokid, retired Conroe, and added Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara to his hand. Then, he put it in the rearguard circle behind the vanguard circle. Finishing this, he tapped both cards and declared his attack on Gallatin, his drive check revealing another Dragon Monk, Goku. Daigo took one damage, a Pongal.
“This is where things get interesting.” Daigo said as he stood his cards and drew for the turn, “I ride King of Knights, Alfred, and call Blaster Blade to my front right rearguard circle. One thing I forgot to mention before, you can’t call a card to the field unless it’s equal or below your vanguard’s grade, but I don’t think that would have affected you much. Now I attack with Alfred. Due to his effect, I can’t use Pongal to boost him, but he does get 2000 additional attack for each other royal paladin on my field.”
“Also, the symbol on grade three means that I drive check twice.” As he said that, he flipped up his top card, revealing Yggdrasil Maiden, Elaine, “Another trigger, I add the 5000 attack to my Blaster Blade. This is a heal trigger. If my damage is equal or more than yours, I get to send one of my damage to the discard zone.” Daigo put Soul Saver Dragon in the discard pile, and after adding Elaine to his hand, flipped the next card to show Lake Maiden, Lien.
Big Mac took one damage, putting another Dracokid in the damage zone and adding the 5000 attack to Nehalim. Daigo attacked, with Blaster Blade boosted by Llew, for 1800 to Nehalim’s 1500, and Big Mac flipped Dragon Monk, Genjo, a heal trigger. He put the flipped Draco in his discard pile and put the heal trigger in the damage zone.
Big Mac went through the opening steps of his turn and put Dragon Monk, Goku on the vanguard circle, then put another one in the the left front rearguard circle and a Dual Axe Archdragon in the right front rearguard circle. In the back right rearguard circle, he put another Kimnara, then moved to attack. Goku, boosted by Kimnara, attacked Alfred with his 1600 attack, outweighing Alfred’s 1000. The first drive check was a Nehalim and the second was Dragon Dancer, Lourdes. A Lien was added to Daigo’s damage zone and Archdragon attacked Alfred for 1600 and Elaine went to the damage zone, giving Alfred 5000 till end of turn, but didn’t heal since he had less damage than Big Mac.
Score Daigo 3 damage Big Mac 2 damage
With Alfred too big to hit, Big Mac swung his rearguard, Goku, at Blaster Blade, “Ok here’s a new thing, I held off telling you this as new players usually waste cards early when they learn about this, but it is around the time when you’ll have to start doing this. By placing Llews from my hand in the guard circle in front of the vanguard circle, I’m able to add the shield amount on the left side to my attack amount, so your 1000 loses to my 1900. After that, Llew goes to the discard pile. Also, a grade two has a symbol under the grade number which means that if they are in a front rearguard circle, they can move to the guard circle to add their shield to the card being attacked.” Daigo explained as he proceeded to do so, then began his turn.
Big Mac seemed to think this new info over as Daigo flipped his three damage cards to activate Alfred, putting Gallatin in the front left rearguard circle, “You can also retire one of your own cards if you’re gonna put a new one in a rearguard circle, like this.” Daigo said as he put Llew in the discard pile, replacing it with Marron, also retiring Barcgal with Lien taking its place.
Moving to attack, he had Alfred attack Mac’s Vanguard, and after Big Mac indicated he wasn’t gonna block, flipped over Margal, adding the 5000 attack to Gallatin. “This is a draw trigger, and it does what it sounds like. I draw a card.” As he said this, Daigo added the Margal to his hand and drew a card. The next trigger check was a Marron, adding nothing new. The Embodiment of Spear, Tahr, was then put in Big Mac’s damage zone, adding 5000 attack to his Vanguard Goku.
Blaster Blade’s attack against Mac’s vanguard was stopped by a Nehalem from the hand, and Gallatin’s attack was also repelled, this time by a Tahr from the hand. Things began to go quicker now. As Big Mac started his turn and felt confident in his grasp of the game, Lourdes was placed in the last open rearguard circle, and Big Mac’s assault began.
Vanguard Goku attacked Alfred, and the first check was Cross Shot, Garp, the second being yet another Bahr. Lien was added to Daigo’s damage. He guarded against Big Mac’s other two attacks with Elaine and Bringer of Good Luck, Epona. Now it was Daigo’s turn again, and he moved straight to the attack. Alfred attacked the vanguard and Big Mac used Wyvern Guard, Barri, discarding Dragonic Overlord as the cost.
“Nice, you figured out the perfect guards without help.” Daigo congratulated the pony, who blushed a bit at the praise.
The drive checks were Gallatin and Lien, giving no bonuses, but Gallatin still made it through, sending Beserk Dragon to the damage zone. Mac was forced to use Garp and Gattling Claw Dragon to stop Blaster Blade’s attack. Big Mac was in trouble as his turn started, he needed to break through his opponent’s defenses quickly.
“What’s soul?” Big Mac asked.
“Thats the all the cards under your vanguard.” Daigo answered.
Mac flipped over Berserk Dragon in the damage zone and added the Kimnara in the back right rearguard circle to his soul, retiring Daigo’s Lien. Dracokid was flipped next, using the other Kimnara to retire Marron, and in the now empty slots, Big Mac put a Dracokid in the rearguard behind the vanguard and Bahr in the last spot.
The vanguard swung for 1500 and Epona and Margal were used to bring alfred to 2500, meaning two triggers were needed to hit. First check was Nehalim and the second was the final Dracokid, who Mac gave all the effects of to the rearguard, Goku. He then swung at the vanguard with it for 2100 attack plus one crit, but was repelled by Blaster Blade, intercepting and guarding with a Margal and another Blaster Blade from the hand. Archdragon hit though, and Flogal was put in the damage zone.
Daigo considered calling final turn, but decided against it, as Mac was proving to be quite the opponent and not to be underestimated, so he stayed quiet and called a second Alfred to the empty rearguard and put Marron behind it with Lien behind Gallatin. The vanguard, Alfred attacked and Mac didn’t block, the drive checks proved unimportant as the damage was an Archdragon, giving Mac his sixth and final damage.
“Good game. That was fun, wasn’t it?” Daigo said, offering his hand again and, as before, Mac just stared at it, not sure what the human wanted.
“Eeyup.” Said with a little conservation in his voice, but overall seemed to be honest about his answer.
“You know, something has been bugging me. Have you seen anybody like me before?” Daigo asked.
“Nope.”
“Really, but you seem so unsurprised by this. Why aren’t you more worried about meeting a weird new species?”
“Why should I?”
Once again Daigo was left speechless by the response for a moment, then he grinned. “Well put, you really do say a lot for saying so little.”
“Eyup.” Big Mac grinned back.
Behind Big Mac, a vortex was opening up, “Well, looks like it’s time for me to go.” Daigo said as he quickly gathered up his cards and began to glow.
Big Mac watched calmly as Daigo waved goodbye and vanished into thin air. For a bit, Big Mac stayed, thinking about what had just happened, then turned to head back to the farmhouse. One last thought came to him though.
I wonder if I should make Cardfight Vanguard and show others........ naw.