//------------------------------// // Extra CH1: Christmas Cards // Story: Sunset Helpers // by Spirit Shift //------------------------------// “Oh, oooh!” Pinkie’s eyes sparkled as she reviewed her video. Bouncing on her spot on the couch she turned to Sunset and leaned the laptop over to her. “This is the part where AJ starts tickling Rainbow!” Sunset let out a light chuckle and pushed the machine back to her. “Pinkie, I was there remember? Focus on the game.” Shrugging, Pinkie then turned to show the video to Rarity who was sitting on her other side. In front of them, staring deeply into each other’s eyes, were Rainbow and Applejack. Their former floor-based feud continuing as one of a different kind. Now the two stood as captains, desperately trying to outmaneuver each other's ships. With careful thought and precise aiming, Rainbow armed her scarlet hued canons and pointed them blindly into Applejack’s area. Her gaze hardening and her resolve stealing, Rainbow called out her strike. “F4!” she announced. She waited and listened, dreading the inevitable response. Her first mate, Fluttershy, sat next to her and quivered in what may have been anticipation of a destroyed enemy; or so Dash liked to believe. Nevertheless, AJ furrowed her brows and waited for an impact. When none came she smirked at her opponent. “Miss!” “Arghhh!” Dash groaned, falling back onto the ground and flinging her red peg back into her unused pile. “That’s like twenty misses in a row!” Sunset stared between them, completely enthralled in the game. Her role was to be the judge, as appointed by AJ, to make sure that the game was fair. Such a prestigious role granted her the responsibility of being the only girl to know the locations of each and every ship. From her vantage point above the table she could see that AJ’s grid was comprised of mainly white pegs that were all aimed at the center of her board, with her ships strategically placed around the edges. Chuckling, Applejack picked up a white peg from her rapidly dwindling pile and stuck it into the grid from her side. “Not my fault you’re not as good at this game as you think you are.” Now her turn, AJ furrowed her brow and examined her side of the grid. She had sunk three of Dash’s ships and damaged the final one in the far left region of the grid. It was only a matter of time. After examining her options, the four possible spaces around the red peg, she made her choice. “C4!” she called out. Her own cannons charged and shot out apple colored cannonballs. With the precision of a sniper, the attack soared towards their target, undaunted by Dash’s groans of defeat “Hit…” she mumbled, flicking the small ship off of the grid. “That’s it! I lost! Can we play something else now?! Whose turn is it to choose?” Rarity glanced upwards, her brow furrowing in thought. “Since that was your choice I think Pinkie gets to choose next. Hearing the magic words, Pinkie jumped up and stood on the couch. “Finally! I have just the game!” Handing Rarity the laptop, Pinkie quickly turned and jumped onto the couch and used the resulting bounce to flip over the backrest, only to return with the reverse motions with her bookbag in tow. Rarity frowned at the girl, and threw up the now closed laptop in defence as Pinkie began to unzip a pocket. “Pinkie Pie,” she said hesitantly, only lowering her shield when no horrors exploded out of it, “darling, please take it easy on the couch and be careful. Remember we’re still guests.” Slowly she inched away still slightly nervous about Pinkie’s bag. Sitting down, Pinkie began looking through her bag for the mystery game. “I’ve been waiting forever to play this with you guys.” “What is it?” asked Sunset. While Pinkie rummaged through her bag, Fluttershy Dash and AJ made quick work of putting the previous game away and cleared the table. Rarity politely shut down the computer, knowing that whatever game it was, it would involve her participation. “Ta-da!” cheered Pinkie, holding aloft a small pink box with rainbow colored letters. Taking the box Rainbow Dash read the words aloud. “Cards Against Canterlot High?” Instantly, Rarity gasped and stood up angrily. “Oh no! I am not touching that vulgar game!” she declared, crossing her arms and turning away. Sunset looked between her and the box curiously. “Why? What is it?” she asked, looking to Fluttershy and Applejack for help. Applejack shrugged. “Never heard of it.” Fluttershy turned away with a blush, muttering, “I-I have no idea?” Rainbow Dash turned the box this way and that looking it over. “Wait, isn’t it supposed to be called Cards Against Equestria?” Smirking, Pinkie Pie put a hand to her chin and chuckled. “Fufufuu~ That may be how it is normally. But—!” Snatching the box from Rainbow she held it over her head once again, a wide and determined grin on her face. “This is a Pinkie Pie specially made custom edition all about Canterlot High and everyone we know there, and us too!” Turning around, Rarity gave her a wide-eyed disgusted look. “My word, that’s even worse. I don’t want my name on those cards!” Applejack noticed that. Grinning, Applejack raised her brow in Rarity’s direction. “Have you played the regular game before?” Her face instantly flushed. “Sweetie Bell may have convinced me to play with her and Button Mash at one point. Once I realized how depraved it was I promptly put an end to it and forbade Sweetie from ever playing it again! The point is—” she reached up and took the card box from Pinkie. “—that this… this farce of a game will not be played while I am around!” “I don’t know,” said Rainbow, her smile just a bit too amused, “I’ve heard some funny things about that game. Soarin told me that he played it with some of the guys on the team and they all died laughing.” Rarity just frowned at her disapprovingly. “Well they’re uncouth high school boys,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Of course they’d find this game humorous. They find… breaking wind to be humorous.” Sunset shrugged. “Well for the rest of us who are still clueless. What’s Cards Against Canterlot High?” Rarity scoffed. “Well first of all it’s not called that normally. The regular game is called Cards Against Equestria.” “Yeah,” added Pinkie, taking over the explanation. “It's kinda like Apples to Apples—Oh!" she paused giving Applejack a playful eye roll and continued in a mock southern drawl, "But nee'ther game gots anythin' to do wit' dem apples," and popped over beside Sunset to stage-whisper, "Applejack was pretty clear about that last time." Pinkie then resumed with her normal sugar-rush voice, "But it’s like that game mixed with Mad Libs, but no one is angry; no one’s liberal either, or maybe they are. I don’t actually know what that means. So I guess it's not actually like either of those games. Well, it is sort of…” she trailed off, seemingly lost in thought for a moment before popping back up with renewed gusto. “Anyway! There's a bunch of questions, or Mad Libby things, and there's also a bunch of cards that might be answers, or they might be strange things that shouldn't make any sense at all when you put them together but actually do in this really super-duper funny way! And it's like a card party, except cards can't have fun since they're just cards, so we gotta have fun for them. Oh, but it's also a game, not just a party, so there's points too! There's one point for each Mad Libby question thingy and it goes to the person that had the most funniest card for that round!” Pinkie finished with a wide smile, beaming with confidence at a game well explained. Everyone else stared at her, heads tiled and jaws askew in confusion. One by one, the girls turned to look at Rarity. Rarity coughed awkwardly and caught the silent request.“W-well to clarify what Pinkie said, the game is as simple as it is licentious; there are white cards and black cards. One player, the Card Czar, reads a black card and the other players use the white cards to complete the phrases  on the black cards. Then the Card Czar chooses which one she thinks is the most amusing and awards the donator of that card a point.” “Isn’t that what I said?” asked Pinkie. “Except,” continued Rarity, “the white cards are all vulgar and tasteless phrases filled with rude jokes and profanity. I absolutely refuse to play.” Rarity harrumphed with finality, sat the cards on the table, and retook her spot on the couch. Both her arms and legs were crossed with her nose raised and facing away from the box. There was a brief moment of silence, during which Fluttershy tentatively picked up the box and examined the plain pink casing. “Well, even so,” she began, “I think I trust that Pinkie Pie wouldn’t use that version of the game. Um, she did this was a special version she made.” Pinkie quickly hopped over the table and huggled Fluttershy gratefully. “Exactly! I knew that Rarity would never play the original game, so I made my own.” “Come on, sugarcube. Have a little faith in Pinkie Pie.” Applejack moved to lean onto the table, looking up at Rarity from behind the cut of her hat. “I’m interested as well,” added Sunset, leaning over and into Rarity’s view. “I mean, she did go through the trouble of making her own deck after all.” Moving in, Pinkie Pie also gave her a bright-eyed look. Cheeks flushed, Rarity suffered the combined pleading gazes of all of her friends. Her resistance, though strong, could not stand the onslaught for long. “Grrrr, fine...” she sighed, her body limping over in defeat. Suddenly she stiffened and glared in Pinkie’s direction. “But if I find so much as a single curse word—or inappropriate body part…” Pinkie did the tell tale motions of her signature promise in response. That seemed to be enough in Rarity’s eyes and she nodded. Pinkie retook her seat back on the couch in between her and Sunset. Rainbow Dash fist-pumped and let out a silent cheer. Grabbing the box, she threw open the top and peered down into it. All at once her excited grin turned into a frown. “Why are the cards red and green?” “Because it’s Christmas!” cheered Pinkie, throwing confetti of the same colors into the air. Rainbow, finding no fault in her logic for once, just shrugged and pulled the two decks out. “So how does this work?” she said, handing them back to their creator Pinkie held up the red cards. “These cards are the Mad Libby, slash, fill-in-the-blank, slash, question cards. We pick one person to be the Card Captor and read these and the green cards we pick and chose which one is the funniest. Then they win a Pinkie Point!” “A Pinkie Point?” deadpanned Applejack. “Really?” Pinkie giggled up at Applejack while her hands effortlessly shuffled the red cards unsupervised. Rainbow Dash looked on for a moment, shrugged, and began shuffling the green ones herself. “Yup, It's my game—kinda—and besides, what else would you get after combining red and green?" "Yellow," answered Sunset. “You’d get the color yellow” Pinkie stopped shuffling and went bug-eyed as she process the info. After a second she shrugged and resumed shuffling. "Oh yeah. But ‘yellow points’ sounds like a game about chickens. And there aren't any chickens in this game. Ah!" she gasped. "But I know how to add some!" Fluttershy also gasped and smiled up at her. “I would like that!” Pinkie turned and leaned in close to the girl next to her. “Sunset, do you have any feathers I can borrow?! And maybe some eggs?” “M-maybe next time,” said Sunset cringing at the much too excited looking girl. “There’s just cards in this right? Nothing else?” she asked passing a worried glance at Pinkie’s dangerous bag. “Right now there isn’t. But if you have some feathers—” “No! No, this should be fine,” Sunset was quick to press on. “Are we ready?” she asked the others, leaving Pinkie to cross her arms and pout. Rarity sighed and resigned herself to her fate. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.” Even so she gave a small smirk and raised her hand. “Though as for the role of Card Czar, or rather, ‘Captor’ as Pinkie Pie has apparently renamed it, I claim not it.” All at once everyone stopped what they were doing and went wide-eyed. They all nervously glanced at each other before most of them also threw their hands into the air. “Not it!” they all screamed. Everyone's gaze quickly locked onto Sunset whose arm was only at half mast. “Not… it?” To her confusion, everyone burst out laughing. Afterwards, Pinkie sat the red cards in her lap. “Looks like you get to read all the cards. “Alright. This is going to be fun!” shouted Rainbow. “It sure is!” cheered Pinkie, taking the green cards from Rainbow Dash. With casino-level skill she dealt them, six each, to everyone else and placed the remainder of the deck on the center of the table. Taking her own cards in hand, she brought them up to cover the lower half of her face. With squinty eyes she glanced at each of her opponents. “Let the games begin. First to six Pinkie Points wins.” Rarity took a second to look over her hand as well hmm-ing and chuckling as she did. “Well these do seem to be… interesting variations,” she commented. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash seemed to have similar reactions. Both took one look at their cards and trickled out light giggles. Sunset couldn’t help but grin in excitement. She picked up the first card and read it aloud. “What’s Flash Sentry’s embarrassing secret? Uh… no, I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone and I’m really trying to turn over a new leaf and…” Sunset looked around at the other girls’ faces ranging from confusion, to bemusement, to sheer curiosity and realized her mistake. “Oh, right, using the cards. Not the real… Let’s forget I said anything. Please.” Rainbow Dash smirked up at Sunset, then glanced over at Pinkie. “I really hope that one of these cards is his actual secret. If we get it you have to tell us, deal?” “What, no, I—” Rainbow Dash began snickering and instantly placed a card down without hesitation. “I so got this!” With confident smirks Applejack and Pinkie Pie followed suit. Fluttershy reluctantly reached out a shaky hand holding a single card and laid it on the table as well. Though instead of leaning back into the couch, she bit her lip and refused to take her hand off the card. Finally, Rarity made her choice and added her card to the circle of pseudo-insults, slash, jokes while giving a curious glance over at Fluttershy’s behavior. Sunset gathered all of the cards, nearly having to wrench Fluttershy’s away from her, shuffled them, and began to read. “Let’s see here. What is Flash Sentry’s embarrassing secret? The first card says ‘enjoys… slowly sucking the air out of balloons’?” Everyone turned to face Pinkie who just grinned sheepishly. “What?” “I think that card should’ve been saved for when your name comes up, Pinkie,” smirked Rainbow. “Alright then, the next card says “wears a wig to hide their cue-ball head.’ Oh Celestia!” Sunset threw a hand over her eyes at the mental image of Flash without his hair. “Oh Celestia!” she called again as the images of two bald Celestias, one from each world, joined Flash. Rarity also burst out in a bout of jolly giggling as she imagined him trying to cover it, only to have it revealed in front of the school. “Oh my, imagine if he lost the wig one day; what would he wear? A hoodie, a ballcap, a fedora? Or would he display his lack of tresses proudly?” Applejack burst out laughing. “Man ya think he’d look like Cranky?” “I know right!” said Rainbow, struggling to talk. “We’d all need sunglasses if they stood next to each other!” yelled Pinkie, her mind ever the random scene showed her the image of Flash Sentry and Cranky Doodle Donkey’s clear heads reflecting the sun like a pair of mirrors and blinding anyone around them. “That’s sad,” muttered Fluttershy, the only one not laughing. “I would hate to have all my hair gone.” She clutched a lock to herself protectively. Rarity waved her hand dismissively. “Oh my word, so would I, but the image is rather striking. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone completely without hair. I’ve never even seen Mr. Donkey without his hairpiece. Except for that one time,” she added, slipping Pinkie a bemused grin. “Yeah,” said Applejack sitting back up, “he sure keeps that thing on tight. Especially since that incident,” Applejack added also passing a glance at Pinkie. “It was an accident!” defended Pinkie. “How was I supposed to know the water balloon would hit him? Also, that water balloon was rated ‘extra large’, it should have been able to handle the pressure!” She groaned loudly. “Nevermind. Read the next one!” she urged Sunset. Sunset rolled her eyes. “Alright. Alright. The next one is—” “Hold on!” Everyone turned to look at Rainbow, whose gaze bore into Sunset’s. “Is that his secret? Does he wear a wig?” she asked in all seriousness. Sunset shook her head. “No. Now let’s move on. “‘Enjoys wearing ladies’ underwear’? Umm alright… ew.” Instead of laughter Sunset looked around to see nothing but disgusted looks. “Who played this one?” Rarity raised her hand. Her face had a slight tint to it, though she acted as if it wasn’t there. “I did. It was the best card for the situation.” Rainbow stuck her tongue out in disgust. “Flash in drag is a bad image.” “Worse than Bulk Biceps?” asked Pinkie with an evil grin. Rainbow blanched as soon as her mind conjured the thought. Not content to leave it purely to Rainbow’s imagination, Pinkie put down her cards and mimicked a few weightlifter’s poses. “YEEEEAHHHHHHH!” Rarity’s face flushed and she threw up a hand to block her vision. “Please put your bra back on under your clothes, darling,” suggested Rarity, not sure how Pinkie managed to remove and strap it back on over her shirt so quickly. “Anyway…” Sunset picked up the next card, hoping to remove a host of images from her mind as quickly as possible. “Flash’s embarrassing secret is that he is secretly… two dwarves in a costume?” Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. The girls traded looks, none of them amused. Pinkie Pie tilted her head and crossed her arms. “I don’t get it,” she said. “What?” Rainbow Dash blurted out. She looked around at the other girls who either shrugged or made similar expressions of confusion. “Oh come on, you don’t get it?” More blank and confused looks. “Pinkie? Not even you? You made the card!” “That one I just copied from the original.” “Seriously?” she groaned. Scoffing she just leaned forward onto the table. “Nevermind. Just read the last card.” Sunset, though she didn’t understand the joke, still let out a small chuckle at Rainbow’s defeated position. “He’s also not two dwarves in a costume by the way. “You sure about that?” Rainbow crossed her arms and gave Sunset an evil smirk. “The only way you could know that is if you’ve seen him naked.” Sunset returned the smirk with a flat look and turned back to the card in her hand. “And for the last card. Flash Sentry’s embarrassing secret is that he likes…” as she read the remainder of the card her eyes shrank and her face contorted into one of abject horror, “‘frantically licking pictures of... Sunset Shimmer’?!” she exclaimed, her jaw falling open on the last word. Rainbow Dash immediately fell over laughing while Applejack slumped over the table and began pounding it furiously. Pinkie Pie chortled nonstop while Rarity tried and failed to hide her chuckling. Slowly, Sunset’s head turned towards the only one not having an audible reaction. “Fluttershy?” The poor girl had her hands over her beet-red face. “I’m so sorry,” she muttered repeatedly, “n-none of my other cards would fit.” Though Sunset couldn’t see it, the girl was also struggling not to laugh. Still bewildered, Sunset glanced back down at the card, then around at everyone still laughing. After a second she felt something rising in her chest. Soon enough she found herself chuckling as well at the sheer absurdity of the idea. Eventually, she fell back on the couch holding her stomach and laughed along with the others. It was clear who won this round. But Rainbow wasn’t finished. “Is that worse than the real secret?” she asked between fits of laughter. Still rolling around in her reverie, Sunset weakly waved her off. “I-I am so not answering that!”