07. Rocks Fall
-PINKIE PIE-
“Rocks fall, everyone dies.” Twilight said to me as we walked along the sidewalk in the sunny morning.
“Eh?” I said with a head tilt, walking alongside her on a small ledge. All I’d asked was ‘how’re you feeling?’
“Rocks fall, everyone dies.” Twilight repeated with a tired sigh, pushing up her glasses. “It’s an RPG term. When the Dungeon Master gets fed up with obnoxious players, they’ll drop a mountain on the players’ characters to kill them all. Rocks fall, everyone dies. It’s like a metaphor for sudden, abrupt and overwhelming destruction.”
“That’s… grim.” I said with an eye twitch.
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear today. When I got up this morning I got the ‘you haven’t paid rent this is your last warning before we kick you out’ message from my landlord, and I didn’t have rent money. I started panicking and didn’t know what to do so I did what I always did when I felt overwhelmed, hang out with my friends. Even better if they had problems going on I could help them with to distract me from my own stuff and I knew Twilight did, but… I was hoping she was in a better mood than she was in.
“That’s how I feel right now.” Twilight said, kicking at the ground as we walked. “Like everything’s fine, I’m moving along, and suddenly everything’s falling apart. Rocks are falling and everyone’s dying. I realize that’s all kinds of overdramatic but…” Twilight shrugged and sighed through her nose “I can’t help it. It’s how I feel.”
“What you need to do is turn that frown upside-down!” I said, making a smiley motion with my fingers while also smiling brightly. Twilight wasn’t very receptive.
“Pinkie, you can’t become happy just by smiling.” She shook her head sadly.
“Maybe not, but it can help!” I hopped in front of Twilight so she couldn’t ignore me and started smiling even bigger than before.
“I really don’t think pretending to be happy will help me.” Twilight made a big frown and gently pushed me out of her way, which made me make a big frown.
“You don’t know unless you try!” I chirped, merrily hopping alongside Twilight.
“Pinkie…” Twilight grumbled and rubbed her temples. “I’m not just sad, Pinkie. I’m depressed. And that’s not going to go away just because I’m smiling or thinking positively.”
“But it can help at least!” I argued, a sliiiight twinge of desperation in my voice. I maaaay have been trying to convince myself more than Twilight.
“That’s not the kind of help I need right now!” Twilight barked, glaring at me and making me jump back as tears formed in my eyes. “I’m sorry, I just…” Twilight exhaled softly, trying not to make another loud sigh. She put her hand on my shoulder, gently rubbing it for a sec before her hand slid off and fell back to her side where it hung limply. “I just need you to leave me alone for a bit. I’m going to go talk to Fluttershy.”
“Um, okay…” I tried not to sound hurt but I sounded very hurt. “I’ll, um, see you later, Twilight.”
Twilight didn’t say anything as she walked away, her body all slumped and sad. Seeing her like that made me sad, which made me think of rent, which made me even more sad and I got all slumpy and my hair deflated, hanging down in front of my face.
But then I had an idea! Maybe if I fixed Twilight’s fight with Rainbow, I could make Twilight happy again and that would make me happy again! Great idea, Pinkie! I mean, it does kinda run contrary to all that stuff I told Twilight before about how we should let Rainbow deal with her stuff and support her decisions and such, but now everybody was sad so never mind all that junk!
Time to singlehandedly fix Twilight and Rainbow’s entire relationship!
****
I walked up the hill to Rainbow’s place and really took in the uh, ‘décor’ of her home as I approached it. It looked like a tornado had hit it and blown it up, then dropped the remains in a vaguely house-shaped pile. It was pretty bad.
I’d texted Rainbow beforehand to let her know I was coming, and to make sure Whiplash wasn’t there since I wanted to talk about Twilight. I saw Rainbow loitering in the gravel driveway, kicking little pebbles all around, and I sprinted toward her. She looked pretty surprised to see me running at her with such speed, but not for long since I gave her a big jumping hug that nearly knocked us both over.
“Pinkie, maybe don’t do the whole glomping thing on top of gravel, ok?” Rainbow said concernedly, putting her hands on my forearms and gently pushing me back a few steps.
“Sorry!” I said with a bright smile, grabbing Rainbow’s hands. “I couldn’t help myself, I’m just so happy to see you!”
“Why?” Rainbow scoffed, pulling her hands back.
“Because you’re my friend! Obviously!” I scoffed back and rolled my eyes, throwing my whole head back. “You’ve been gone for so long that I’m just soaking in the fact that it’s really you! You’re really here!” I’d been texting with Rainbow for a few months but it hadn’t been until a couple weeks ago that we started seeing each other in person.
“Well I didn’t really go anywhere.” Rainbow shrugged and started pacing around the driveway. “We just sorta lost touch.” Rainbow threw her hands into her hoodie pockets with her eyes glancing away from me. “It happens…” Rainbow groaned in frustration and looked up at the cloudy sky. “But I’m glad to see you too, Pinkie… Twilight, on the other hand… ugh.”
“Funny you mention Twilight…” I said innocently, tapping my fingers together. “Because that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about!”
“What’s to talk about?” Rainbow sneered and started walking over to her wooden deck. “Twilight and my girlfriend hate each other. I have to choose between one or the other, and I have obligations to Whiplash, so she gets the nod. Nothing more to it.”
“I don’t think that’s true!” I stamped my foot on the ground and followed Rainbow onto the deck.
“Think what you want.” Rainbow shrugged, placing her elbows on the deck railing and looking out over her mostly dirt but also some brown grass lawn.
“What kind of ‘obligations’ do you even have to Whiplash?” I walked up behind Rainbow Dash and wrapped my arms around her, swaying back and forth slowly. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem to mind. “And how are they more important than your friendship with Twilight?”
“It’s not just Twilight’s distaste for my girlfriend, Pinkie!” Rainbow snapped, grabbing my wrists and shoving me away from her. “Twilight treats me like I’m a freakin’ idiot! I can’t have a conversation with her without her turning her nose up at me or rolling her eyes or insulting my intelligence! It’s infuriating!”
“But don’t you remember all the good times we all used to have together?” I pleaded, tears starting to happen again.
“Of course I do, Pinkie.” Rainbow lightly tapped her fist against her forehead. “One time, the snobby rich kid at our school made some crack about my skin color so me and Twilight took all the dead frogs from science class and put them in the kid’s locker. It was hilarious!”
As Rainbow laughed at her recollection, she decided to hop over the railing of the deck down onto the lawn. I decided what the hay and to jump after her but I wasn’t quite as athletic as she was so my legs immediately gave out once they hit the dirt, causing me to collapse into a heap. Rainbow giggled under her breath and tried to hide it so I wouldn’t see but she didn’t do a good job, and that made me start laughing too.
“Then there was a time when we broke into the school late at night as teenagers, and we accidentally set the building on fire and set off the fire alarm!” Rainbow continued her reminiscing as she walked over to me and helped me back to my feet. “We had to run for our lives, completely drenched, to make sure we didn’t get caught, and the cops and school officials never found out it was us!” Rainbow was beaming as she recalled these memories and that made me super happy, but then her smile faded away and she was left with a depressed frown. “Good times.”
“See? Don’t you think your friendship with Twilight is worth fighting for?” I tried to do a little swaying hop but as soon as I shifted my weight to my right ankle a shiver of pain shot up through my entire body and I figured I it might be best to give Rainbow this speech in a slightly more stationary way than usual. “Twilight maaaay have some problems with being a know-it-all, and maybe she says stuff without thinking about tact, but she really is trying to be better! And it would be really nice if you could just give her a little bit more of a chance.”
“The answer’s no, Pinkie.” Rainbow said harshly, walking past me and leaping back up to her deck, grabbing the side and then climbing over the railing. “And if that’s all you came here to talk about, then we don’t have anything else to say to each other either. So goodbye. I’ll talk to you later.”
I tried to chase after Rainbow on my busted ankle but as soon as I got to the door she just shut it in my face, making me feel like a big jerk. My hair deflated again and fell in front of my face and I just wanted to cry. So I did. But I made sure to do it away from Rainbow’s home. I wouldn’t want her to slip on a puddle of my tears.
****
-FLUTTERSHY-
I awoke and jolted upright with a gasp as I felt a lumpy object hit me in my sleep. It was a pillow. I scowled in annoyance and looked over to the door and saw my brother Zephyr Breeze standing with a goofy grin on his face.
“Wakey wakey, sis!” He said, clapping his hands at me. “It’s another beautiful day! Plus I’m ready for breakfast!”
I sighed and fell back into bed. I loved my brother very much, and I knew he had some… eccentricities, but his behavior was starting to get on my nerves. It’s funny, nothing about him had changed since we first moved into our new house together and all his antics and all the work that I had to do for him never bothered me before. It was only recently that I started feeling tired of it… ever since I watched Twilight’s and Pinkie’s duels at the bookstore tournament.
The two of them both seemed so confident and ready to take on anything while they dueled. I remembered Twilight’s last second win against Sea Swirl using her incredible Invoked monsters, and Pinkie’s amazing come from behind victory against Button Mash. And the way Twilight stood up to Cherry Fizzy, something I could never do despite how I felt about that man… Zephyr hadn’t changed, but I had changed. And I worried that was going to be a problem between my brother and I.
“So, Zephyr…” I said as I set breakfast on the table and sat down to eat across from Zephyr at our dining room table. “Any big plans for today?”
“Weeeeell, I was thinking I would take a nap later, and then watch some stories.” He said proudly. Same as every day.
“Zephyr, you have so many grand ideas and dreams.” I said exasperatedly. “You really need to do something to follow them.”
“Oh but I am, Fluttershy!” Zephyr said unconvincingly, batting a hand at me. “Watching all these soap operas are giving me a ton of ideas for… stuff! And things!”
“Stuff… and things.” I said flatly, narrowing my eyes at my brother.
“Yeah, yeah. Stuff and things.” Zephyr said nonchalantly, not even bothering to look at me as he took a big bite of one of his pancakes and didn’t swallow it before speaking again. “Y’know, cool guy stuff. Stuff that’s gonna be cool. I just need to let these brilliant ideas of mine percolate, y’know what I’m saying?”
“And when do you expect these ideas to be finished percolating?” I asked bemusedly with an arched eyebrow, harmlessly poking my pancakes with my fork. “When do plan on actually doing something with all of your brilliant ideas?”
“You can’t rush genius, sis.” Zephyr shrugged, making me very… um, not mad exactly, that would be mean. Peeved. I was a little bit peeved. “When the time is right, everything will fall into place.”
“That isn’t…” I sighed. I didn’t know if I had the heart, or the guts, to tell him the truth. “That isn’t how life-”
I was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Now who could that be?” Zephyr asked, lifting his head up like an excited puppy. “Sis, will you go get that please?”
“Of course, Zephyr.” I said with a tired frown. As I walked to the door, careful not to trip on Zephyr’s ‘stuff and things’ that I kept telling him to pick up off the floor, I reminded myself to take deep breaths. “Zephyr’s my brother and I love him,” I said to myself “it’s totally okay to put up with some of his…” I sighed irritably “eccentricities.”
I opened the door and was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face.
“Oh! Twilight Sparkle!” Seeing a friend always put a smile on my face. “How can I help you?”
“Do you want to hang out for a bit?” She muttered. She looked distracted and a little dazed. I don’t think she had brushed her hair, although come to think of it I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen Twilight with brushed hair, and her clothes were a bit messy, like she just threw them on before leaving the house. “I know it’s early and you probably have stuff to do but I got into a little bit of an argument with Pinkie Pie and all this stuff with Rainbow Dash is a real downer and I keep freaking out thinking about her, or even about Rarity and Applejack and they’re coming home tomorrow and I just don’t know how to-”
“Twilight.” I raised my hand to put a stop to Twilight’s rambling before she worked herself into a panic attack. I knew what that was like and it was not fun at all. “It’s okay. I’d love to hang out with you. Just give me a second, okay?”
“No problem.” Twilight said politely with a little bow. “Thanks Fluttershy.”
“My pleasure.” I chirped happily. “Feel free to come in, by the way. Just mind the mess.”
I went back to the dining room to talk to Zephyr, finding he had finished the food I had left on my plate.
“Oh sorry, sis.” He said with a shrug. Again, unconvincingly. “I thought you were done.”
“It’s fine.” I forced a big smile on my face and closed my eyes so Zephyr couldn’t see them twitching in frustration. “I’m going to spend some time with Twilight and I-”
“Ooh! Twilight’s here?” Zephyr sprung up from his chair, coiffing his hair and practicing his debonair smile, which was… um, not to be rude or anything but, it was bad.
Zephyr ran out to the living room, tripping on one of his things and falling flat to the ground. I couldn’t help but shake my head in awe. He brought himself back up to his feet, fumbling a little as he almost tripped again, all in plain view of Twilight standing in front of the open door.
“Soooo, Twilight.” Zephyr said quote-unquote ‘suavely’. “How’s my favorite girl doing? I’m happy to see you. Coming to visit your old pal, Zephyr Breeeze?”
“Not really.” Twilight said flatly, crossing her arms and staring daggers at my brother.
“No need to be shy, baby.” Zephyr said, pointing finger guns at Twilight.
“Fluttershy, you ready to go?” Twilight shoved Zephyr out of her way to look at me.
“I am.” I said with a smile, walking past Zephyr and ignoring him.
“But, but Fluttershy!” Zephyr said with a whiny voice. “What about my stories?”
“It’s a weekend.” I said huffily. “You can catch up on some of your DVR’d episodes and as per our weekend tradition, there are frozen pizzas you can microwave in the freezer.”
“Oh alright.” Zephyr sighed overdramatically, putting a hand over his forehead. “I guess I can spare you for one day.” Zephyr looked back at Twilight. “I really appreciate you looking after my baby sister, Twilight, but you don’t have to do it on my account.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear that.” Twilight slapped her forehead and shook her head. “And that I don’t feel like barfing now.”
“Let’s go, Twilight.” I took Twilight by the hand and we left my house together.
“Goodbyyyyye, Fluttershy!” Zephyr said, waving at us while hanging out the door. “Goodbyyyyyye, Twilight! Have a great time together you two!”
Twilight and I headed to the city park, my bag of defrosted frozen peas in hand to feed to the ducks. We sat on a white bench near the edge of the park, like always, and I fed the birds and other critters while Twilight people-watched.
“How on earth do you put up with him?” Twilight asked irritably out of nowhere. She hadn’t spoken a word since we left my house, but I hadn’t said anything either because I figured that she was just having a rough time of things and needed someone to keep her company and not necessarily talk to her, which I was a-okay with. “I know he’s your brother but man, that can’t be easy.”
“He’s my brother and I love him.” I said quickly. “It’s totally okay to put up with some of his eccentricities.”
“Gee, that doesn’t sound rehearsed at all.” I couldn’t tell if Twilight was just teasing me or if she was actually criticizing me. She wasn’t wrong either way, but I didn’t like it.
“Well I do love him.” I said defensively. “And he’s soft. I honestly think he’s softer than I am.”
“Wow.” Twilight said.
“I know.” I chuckled nervously and nodded. “So he needs a support system to lean on, and he was driving mom and dad crazy, although they would never admit it. They were never going to kick him out of the house, so I had to take the… I had to take him off their hands, I guess.”
“But doesn’t he have friends?” Twilight asked. “Didn’t you tell me he has an active social life?”
“He does.” I said.
“And isn’t he like, an adult?” Twilight said in annoyance. “Can’t he at least feed himself on his own?”
“Well, yes.” I said meekly.
“So… why do you put up with him again?” Twilight sighed in frustration, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You could move in with me if you wanted to.”
“Maybe…” I appreciated Twilight’s offer but I felt that maybe she was a bit too intense to be my roommate. “But I don’t suppose we could drop the subject of my brother for right now?”
“Fair enough.” Twilight shrugged. “So is there anything you want to do? I’m feeling a little directionless right now.”
“Well, I’m still hungry.” I grumbled, remembering how Zephyr had swiped most of my breakfast. “Do you want to get lunch? And after, I thought maybe we could…” I started feeling self-conscious about what I wanted to ask Twilight and mumbled most of my sentence.
“What was that?” Twilight sat up straight and looked at me, a curious smile on her face.
“I was hoping we could…” I blushed and stammered and was about ready to have a nervous fit so I just blurted the words out as fast as possible. “Can you help me make a Duel Monsters deck?!”
“Of course!” Twilight said excitedly, her eyes lighting up and her entire posture becoming brighter. “I’d love to help you make a deck, Fluttershy!”
“Oh, good.” I said with a sigh of relief. “I was worried you wouldn’t want to help a newbie like me since you’ve been playing for so long.”
“You remember we used to play together, right?” Twilight said with a coy smile.
“I do.” I twiddled my fingers together and blushed. “I have a few cards in my pack that I want to use but there are too many of them and I don’t know how to make a deck so I got overwhelmed and I started panicking and then I thought about your duels and how great your deck was and how cool it was and how much you must have studied and worked to make it just right and I thought that was amazing and thought maybe you could help me make a deck but then I thought you might be busy or might not want to help someone like me since I barely remember how to play this game at all and I-”
“Fluttershy.” Twilight put her hand on my shoulder to stop my rambling. “It’s okay. I’ll help you make an amazing deck. There’s nothing I’d rather do, to be honest.” I heard a weird grumbly noise and wondered where it came from until I saw Twilight looking at her own stomach in surprise, and then I giggled. “But first let’s get some hotdogs.”
“It’s a deal.” I said with a smile.
****
-PINKIE PIE-
I tried to make some desperate headway with Rainbow Dash one more time, but after a tense and frankly short conversation about Twilight, she slammed the door in my face… again. I tried to tell her that Twilight was just doing what she thought was right and that maybe she had a point about Whiplash being maybe not the nicest person around, and then SLAM! I guess she’d already heard that stuff before.
I got out my phone while walking back down the lonely downhill road away from Rainbow Dash’s house. I’d been texting my sister Maud all day. I always did when I was having a bad day, or a good day too but today was a doozy of a bad day and it just kept getting worse.
“Maud I just don’t know what to do! OTL” I texted from underneath a tree just down the road from Rainbow’s place.
“Listen to your own advice.” Maud replied, and I could hear the passion and emotion of her voice in every word she wrote. “Don’t try to force them to come to a resolution they aren’t ready for.”
“But everybody’s so unhappy! ;-;” I shot back, getting so upset that I punched the tree I was sitting under. Well not punched so much as lightly touching it with my palm and pretending that I had explodey powers that could blow up things.
“Sometimes people just need to be unhappy.” Maud’s terrible words made me gasp loudly and dramatically, but she couldn’t hear it cuz she wasn’t on the phone we were just texting. “Sometimes the only way to the light is through the dark tunnel.”
“BUT I DON’T LIKE WHEN PEOPLE ARE UNHAPPYY!!!!!! :(” I said. I felt like the sad face emoji really captured the emotion I was trying to get across.
“I know.” Maud said. “Meet me at the train station.”
“WHAT!?” I texted but also said out loud. Very loud. There were some people walking by that gave me weird looks so I smiled and waved at them, whoever they were. “You’re coming here!? Since when!?”
“Since this morning.” Maud said. “I was already headed to the train station, and I was just one quick train ride away from Fillydelphia, so I figured I’d pay you a visit. Cheer you up.”
“YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!” I cheerily jammed the buttons on my screen, happily dancing back and forth underneath the tree and kissing it, and apologizing for pretending to blow it up. “WE’RE GONNA HAVE SO MUCH FUN TOGETHER!!! I’M GONNA INTRODUCE YOU TO MY FRIENDS AND YOUR GONNA LOVE EM AND IILL SHOW YOU MY HOUSE WHHCIH IM GONNA BE EVICTED FROM PRETY SOON AND WER GONAN HAVE A GRETA TIIMIMMMEMEMEMMEM!!!!!!!!!! XD XD XD”
“No offense Pinkie, but I’d prefer to keep things between just us right now.” Maud sent back quickly. “I want to meet your friends, but I’d rather do it when everybody’s in a better frame of mind. Especially you. I’m coming down there to see *you*.”
I slumped a little and frowned, falling on the ground. I heavy sighed but agreed that she made a good point.
“You make a good point.” I agreed.
“Great.” Maud said. “Then see you at the train station. Five minutes.”
“I’LL BE RIGHT THERE!” I said, springing up from the ground and bolting toward the train station.
Fillydelphia’s train station was mostly underground like a subway station. It was full of green and white tiling and was super dingy and gross, with overflowing trash cans and vandalism everywhere, and not like the cool kind of ‘this is a monument to my culture’ type vandalism but more like the ‘jerry sucks insert profanities here’ type of vandalism.
The whole place looked like it could be a set from the 1989 film The Wiz directed by Joel Schumacher which was a really weird movie and I felt like they could’ve done a way better job with it especially with the casting and performances cuz they have Michael Jackson in the movie but he only gets one solo song(!) and he doesn’t even get to dance during it for some reason(?????) meanwhile they give two(2!) songs to the guy who plays the tin man but I can’t remember his name anyway that guy can’t sing very well certainly not as well as Michael Jackson so it’s just kinda weird that they gave him two songs also the girl playing Dorothy is weirdly old for the part I mean she’s not bad and I’m all about older actresses getting work but it just seems a weird fit and you’d think they’d be able to find a younger actress to play Dorothy of all roles but I think she was in a relationship with one of the high-level crew members too or maybe I’m misremembering that or jumping to conclusions and all of these thoughts were going through my head as I waited for Maud’s train to come in and then I saw her and it was great!
Maud was standing on the train platform looking around for me and her eyes lit up like fireworks when she saw me! We looked a lot alike my sister and me, we were both overweight and had caramel colored skin, but she was taller! Also she had straight purplish-grey hair as opposed to my curly pink, and her sense of fashion, which basically boiled down to a simple gray dress that she always wore, was a lot more dramatic and striking than my bright hues and pastels.
“MAAAAAAAAUUUUUD!!!!” I yelled, embracing my sister in a leaping tackle hug.
“Pinkie.” She replied as we hit the ground.
“It’s so good to see you!” I said, rubbing Maud’s face with my face.
“It’s good to see you too, Pinkie.” She replied, pushing me off her with her hand. “Now get off me.”
“You got it!” I leaped up and stood on my feet, offering my sister a hand and helping her to stand up too! “I’m so glad you’re here, Maud! We should get donuts!”
“Sure.” Maud said, my eyes getting all bright and glittery from hearing that.
Maud and I sat down at a booth in the donut store, a fresh box of donuts sitting in front of us that I was inevitably going to eat most of.
“You can’t force people to be happy, Pinkie.” Maud said.
“But why not?” I asked, stuffing my face with a donut. “Happiness is a choice! Everybody should choose to be happy!”
“It’s not that simple, Pinkie.” Maud explained. “There’s more to being happy than smiling and thinking good thoughts. More to it than just pretending nothing’s wrong.” I frowned as Maud said words to my ears. I didn’t like what I was hearing.
“Yeah but, but… but Rainbow and Twilight aren’t being reasonable!” I said, pounding my fist on the table. “They’re just deciding that their relationship is over without really fighting for it! That’s-”
“This isn’t about your friends, Pinkie Pie.” Maud said, looking right through me. “This is about you. You know this about you.”
There was a moment of awkward silence as me and Maud just looked at each other, the only movement of either of us was Maud grabbing a donut and taking a small bite out of it. After a few seconds the silence was broken by the sound of me crying.
“What am I supposed to do, Maud?!” I blubbered, throwing my face into my arms on top of the table. “I’m gonna lose my home!” I’d known that I was going to lose the apartment for months, I knew I couldn’t keep up with the payments. I think that’s why I reached out to Rainbow Dash in the first place and tried to help her and Twilight get back together. I couldn’t deal with my own stuff so I looked at ways I could fix my friends’ stuff. I think that’s why I started trying to convince Fluttershy to get back into Duel Monsters too, but I dunno. It’s hard to tell what’s real sometimes.
“I wish I knew, Pinkie.” Maud said, shaking her head sadly.
“Why can’t I just travel around with you?” I sobbed.
“Because I can’t study for my degree and look after you.” Maud said.
“I know. I just…” I couldn’t help but start bawling my eyes out, my eyes shooting out tears like firehoses. Maud stood up and walked over to my side of the table, sitting next to me in the booth and putting her arm around me, letting me rest my head on her shoulder. “I don’t know what to do, Maud…”
I couldn’t move back in with my family either. As much as I loved all of them (and I really, really do!) being in that boring, stuffy old place was suffocating me. I needed to be in the city, with my friends. But now… it looked like that was the only other option but being homeless. I wouldn’t be able to hang out with my friends anymore…
I couldn’t stop crying and Maud embraced me in a big hug, patting me on the back and telling me that everything would be okay.
“Everything will be okay, Pinkie.” She said. “I’ll stay here as long as you need me to.”
“But your degree…” I said tearfully.
“Don’t worry, I have plenty of time.” Maud said.
“Are you sure I can’t come with you?” I asked desperately, my tear-filled eyes locking with Maud’s.
“Yes Pinkie.” She said. “I miss you all the time, but I need to do this. Getting this degree is important to me.”
“I know…” I sniffed loudly, leading to a snort. “I just… I’m scared. It’s like I’ve been waiting for a train to hit me in slow motion and I’ve been trying to ignore it, now I can’t anymore. Everything feels like it’s falling apart, like… rocks fall, everyone dies.”
Maud took a deep breath and put her hand on my head. “Tell you what.” She said, piquing my interest. “If you can beat me in a duel, I’ll let you come with me.”
“Really?!” I said excitedly, slipping under the table and appearing beside the booth, grabbing Maud by the hand and dragging her out the door. “Let’s go!” I slammed on the brakes as I remembered I left behind a bunch of donuts. I ran back to the table and stuffed all the donuts in my mouth. “Okay!” I said, mouth full of donuts. “NOW let’s go!”
DUEL!
Pinkie Pie vs. Maud Pie!
A climactic duel between sisters, between best friends. One woman’s dream on the line, another’s future… a duel for the ages.
“Pinkie, are you ready?” Maud said, a slight look of bemusement on her face. “You’ve been standing there talking to yourself for five minutes.”
“I’m trying to make things dramatic!” I yelled. “Gimme a sec!”
Maud and I were dueling in the food court of the local mall. Since malls weren’t exactly ‘in’ these days the mall was a great place to have a whole big duel with the holograms and everything, and the management didn’t mind since a lot of people ended up coming in to watch these random duels so it was kinda good for drumming up business!
“I’ll go first.” Maud said, drawing her opening hand from her cute gray Duel Disk. “I’ll summon Doki Doki.”
Maud’s monster was an adorable little clay pot with a scary face on it… and it was dangerous... at least, I think it was dangerous? It only had a measly 500 ATK so I dunno why Maud summoned it in attack mode, but she’s smart so I’m sure she had a great reason.
“Doki Doki’s Effect: I discard a Rock-Type Monster and summon another Rock-Type Monster from my deck with the same Attribute and Level.” Maud said. That was a pretty great reason. “I discard Gogogo Gigas to summon… Gogogo Golem.”
Maud’s new monster was a stout stone golem that kinda looked like he was made of toy bricks, with a stubby green center and beefy blue and white arms, and a glowing red eye! Spooky!
“When a Gogogo monster is summoned to my field, I can revive Gogogo Gigas from my graveyard. So I’ll do that.” Maud said.
Another monster rose from the earth in front of Maud, and it was another golem! This one had a square golden center with rectangular brown beam-like arms. Very modern looking… and very dangerous.
“Overlay. Gogogo Golem, Gogogo Gigas…” Maud raised her hand to the sky as a black galactic portal opened up overhead and absorbed the two monsters, spitting them back out as one. “I summon Gogogo Goliath.”
Gogogo Goliath… the enemy that I had to defeat. It was enormous, more like a fortress than a monster, with formidable green brick center and giant copper and blue metal arms, one punch from this mighty creature could likely level an entire mountain. And with its 2400 ATK, I had to be wary.
“Gogogo Goliath’s Effect allows me to detach an Energy card to grab a Gogogo monster from the graveyard. So I’ll do that.”
“You don’t have any Gogogo cards in the graveyard anymore!” I protested.
“I don’t have to have one to activate the Effect and detach an Energy.” Maud explained. “And once I detach the Energy, that card will be in my graveyard, so I can basically just add one of his materials back to my hand… so…”
“You’ll do that.” I said flatly.
“Right.” Maud nodded. “I add Gogogo Gigas back to my hand. Two cards face-down. Your move, Pinkie.”
“Alright! Time for Pinkie Pie to take the stage!” I proudly declared. Just because we weren’t in an ‘official’ duel didn’t mean I could stop being entertaining and fun! “Using my Scale 1 Gumgumouton and my Scale 2 Parrotrio, I set the Scales!” Just as my stalwart squishy sheep and my stylish singing songbirds set up beside me in the Pendulum Zones, they were both wiped out by a piercing gust of wind, leaving me in shock.
“I activate Twin Twisters.” Maud said. “By discarding my Gogogo Gigas I can destroy both of your Pendulums. Sorry, Pinkie.”
“Ehhhhhhh it’s fine.” I said as my eye started twitching. It was definitely not fine!!! “I’ll just have to mess up your strategy too! I summon Longphone Bull!” My adorable bovine bellhop buddy took center stage and charged at Maud’s evil porcelain pot! “I’ll have him attack Doki Doki!”
“Book of Moon.” Maud said, revealing her other face-down card. The book absorbed Longphone Bull in its pages and slammed on him, forcing him to be flipped face-down into defense mode. “Did you think I’d just leave my Doki Doki unprotected?”
“Uhhhhhh…” I stammered for a response. Uh, I mean I was just testing her defenses. Now with her face-down cards all used up, I could go for the offensive! Or at least I could if I had any more monsters left in my hand other than Lizardraw, who wouldn’t help me as a monster right now. Heck, he wouldn’t even help me as a Pendulum since I needed another Monster in the Pendulum Zone to use his draw Effect!
“I’ll set one card face-down and activate my Bubble Barrier!” A host of bubbles with little stars inside rose out of the ground to surround my defending creature. “Now my Longphone Bull is protected once per turn! Your move, Maud!”
“Okay.” Maud drew her card. “Goliath’s Effect detaches Golem and adds him back to my hand. Then Doki Doki’s Effect lets me summon another Golem from the deck by discarding a monster.” Another Gogogo Golem appeared, rocking 1800 ATK… hehe, ‘rocking’, that was a good one. Way to go, Pinkie. “Now I’ll summon Gogogo Giant.”
A towering copper structure with a single glowing orange eye looked down at me, its amazing rook-like shoulder attachments and hip cannons truly striking fear into my beating heart.
“When Giant is Normal Summoned,” Maud explained “it can go into defense mode to summon a Gogogo Monster from the graveyard. I’ll summon the monster I just discarded, Gogogo Goram.”
A stout red rock-man with beefy grey fists, one holding a silver club, and a piercing blue eye.
“Goram changes battle positions when he’s summoned.” Maud said. “Since I summoned him in defense mode, he switches to attack mode.” It had 2300 ATK, so that wasn’t good for me! Not only that, but Maud also had the 2400 ATK Goliath and the 1800 ATK Golem… and also the 0 DEF Giant and 500 ATK Doki Doki, but those were just kinda ehhhh. “Golem will attack your Longphone Bull.”
Gogogo Golem punched my poor pitiful prowler with his powerful pillar punch, but was stopped short of destroying him by my Bubble Barrier!
“Now Goram will attack it.” Maud said as her other stone soldier brandished its club against my mighty minotaur, mashing him with his mace and murdelizing him to macaroons.
“It’s okay, because now I can activate this!” I declared, flipping up my set card. “Illusion Balloon! I can check the top 5 cards of my deck, and then summon one Performapal monster to protect me, and the monster I choose is Skullcrobat Joker!” I said, summoning my giant-hatted, purple and black clad jester to the field. Of the five cards I drew, none of them were super great. The strongest of the few monsters I got was Skullcrobat and he only had 1800 ATK!
“Goliath will attack it.” Maud said. Her Goliath pounded my Joker with its giant stone fist, but Joker was still protected from destruction thanks to my Barrier. “You didn’t take damage.” Maud said.
“Oh that’s right!” I said, slapping my forehead. “I totally forgot! Bubble Barrier protects my Life from any damage during battles involving my Performapals! That’s super helpful!”
“Good card.” Maud said.
“Thanks!” I smiled and blushed and Maud’s praise.
“I’ll set one card face-down.” Maud said. “Your turn, Pinkie.”
“Alright! Let’s turn this duel aroooooound!” I said, drawing my card and doing a spectacular spinning dance maneuver. The card I drew was Performapal Guitartle and I couldn’t believe my luck! “With my Scale 6 Guitartle and Lizardraw, I set the Scales!”
On my left, a happy blue turtle that also doubled as an acoustic guitar. On my right, a dapper orange lizard in a fancy coat. Together they allowed me to replenish my resources and rally my forces to do damage from multiple sources so the winner of this of course is… Pinkie.
“Now because of Guitartle’s Effect, I can draw one card! And by destroying Lizardraw and sending him to the Extra Deck, I can draw another card! Here goes nothing!” A happy strum of Guiturtle and Lizardraw making himself disappear with a smoke bomb refreshed my hand and as I looked at my new powers I breathed a sigh of relief. I could win this.
“Maud, thank you for this duel.” I said gracefully, brimming with confidence as a winning smile came to my face. “I’ll try not to be a burden to you if we go travelling together.”
“You can’t escape your problems by running away from them, Pinkie Pie.” Maud said, looking right through me yet again. “Not by filling your life with distractions or pretending your problems don’t exist. You need to face them head-on. And you can’t do it by coming with me.”
“We’ll see about that after I beat you!” I yelled defiantly. “I set the Scale 2 Dag Daggerman in my other Pendulum Zone!” Another dapper man in a purple suit, juggling sharp knifes while his face remained shadowed by his amazing head fashion… that was Dag Daggerman. “His ability lets me add a Performapal from my graveyard to my hand and I choose Longphone Bull! Now, Pendulum Summon!”
My forces returned to my side of the field, my gumball sheepies, my trio of vested parrot pals, my bellhop minotaur and my magical lizardman. All of them ready to seal my victory against Maudlina Daisy Pie.
“Longphone Bull’s ability also allows me to add Stamp Turtle from the deck to my hand!” I proudly stated. “Now I’ll Overlay my Level 4 Skullcrobat and my Longphone to summon Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon! And I’ll Overlay my Level 3 Lizardraw and Parrotrio to summon Giga Brilliant!”
My magical jester and gentlemanly minotaur ascended into black starry energy and rose into the portal above me, coming back down as a slithering black dragon with fangs of wicked obsidian, wings of jet black annihilation and powerful claws of pitch black terror.
Meanwhile my silly songbirds and ludicrous lizard also became black starry energy, ascending to a portal etc. and came back as a giant silver and red ant creature that shone with a dazzling radiance, his powerful light illuminating and raising the strength of my whole team! But this combination of light and dark was not enough! I needed… FIRE.
“Then I’ll summon Stamp Turtle and use his effect to increase his own Level to 5, matching my Gumgumouton! So I can Overlay them to summon Volcasaurus!”
With my old man turtle and my gooey fleecy friends being absorbed into the portal they came back as my ultimate creature. A mesmerizing hybrid of powerful prehistoric beasts, the head of a brontosaurus, the claws of a velociraptor, the legs of a stegosaurus and the tail of an ankylosaur… all wrapped up into an amazing blazing beast of fiery fury that dripped with molten magma and brandished sharp claws of deadly doom.
“I’m impressed.” Maud said.
“You should be!” I threw a fist into the air and then pointed stoically at Maud’s Gogogo Goliath! “Because now my Dark Rebellion can cut the ATK of your Goliath in half!” Dark Rebellions wings shrieked with the thundering power of purple electricity, shooting beams of lightning at Maud’s Goliath to weaken it and absorb its strength. “Then my Volcasaurus can just destroy your Goram, inflicting damage to you equal to its ATK!”
Volcasaurus charged a ball of super-heated magma in its maw, blasting it at Gogogo Goram and it exploding on impact into a giant fireball and enveloped Maud’s monster in flame! Maud was unfazed even as her Life was reduced to 1700! She’s so cool!
“Now my Giga Brilliant will increase the ATK of all my monsters by 300!” I stamped my foot onto the ground as I prepared for my victory celebration as the brilliant light from my Brilliant ant spread out to cover my entire force! “Now Dark Rebellion, attack Gogogo Goliath!”
“Quaking Mirror Force.” Maud said.
“Huh?” I asked quizzically, dreading the answer.
“Quaking Mirror Force.” Maud repeated. “All your monsters go face-down. They also can’t be flipped back up.”
As Dark Rebellion moved in for the kill Maud unleashed a torrent of sand and mud on all of my creatures, burying them under all manner of dirt and mud and rocks and stuff. My field was basically empty now, ready to be picked off at Maud’s leisure.
“Oh.” I said, my posture drooping and my hair deflating as I realized the implications here. “I’m about to lose, aren’t I?”
“Yes, Pinkie Pie.” Maud said.
“Okay.” I sighed sadly. “It’s your turn.”
“Pinkie.” Maud glared at me, and she almost never glared! Her face was usually full of joy and compassion and heart, brimming with powerful emotions! So when she got mad it forced me to snap to attention! “You can’t force others to be happy just to make yourself more comfortable. Not only will that just not work, it’s also cruel. To tell others their happiness is a priority when all you care about is your own feelings… that’s cruelty.”
Maud’s words fell on me like a ton of rocks. It hurt to hear such brutal things from my sister… but she was right. I cared about Twilight and Rainbow a lot, but I wasn’t really seeing them or trying to understand their feelings past my own worries and pain and fear. I did them a disservice trying to butt into their relationship… especially Twilight.
How could I go through all the trouble of getting Rainbow to talk to her again, and then when Twilight asks me how she should proceed with Rainbow, I told her to leave her alone? That doesn’t make any sense! But I just didn’t like the conflict. But telling Twilight not to see Rainbow didn’t solve the conflict, it didn’t make it better at all! Twilight was still miserable and angry either way, and yet all I could see was that her feelings were making me uncomfortable. That’s just bad friendship.
“I’m sorry, Maud.” I sobbed as tears began flowing down my cheeks like a big waterfall of sadness and relief. “I guess my head just hasn’t been in the right place lately.”
“Don’t apologize to me, Pinkie.” Maud said.
“Right.” I managed to smile despite myself. “Let’s end this, Maud.”
“I activate Doki Doki’s ability. Again.” Maud said. “By discarding a Rock-type monster I can summon another Gogogo Goram from my deck. It’s summoned in defense mode, but then its effect switches it to attack mode. I’ll also switch my Giant into attack mode.”
Maud controlled FIVE monsters now. Her Doki Doki had 500 ATK, her Golem had 1800 ATK, her Goram 2300 ATK, her Giant 2000 ATK and, thanks to Dark Rebellion, her Goliath only had 1200 ATK. My monsters’ DEF were 2000 for Dark Rebellion, 1800 for Giga Brilliant and 1000 for Volcasaurus… theoretically I could still come back after this turn, but something told me Maud had other plans.
“This is it, Pinkie.” Maud said. “I play Solidarity. As long as this Spell card remains on the field, and as long as my graveyard only has one Type of monster in it, all my monsters on the field of that Type get an ATK increase of 800. All of my monsters are Rock-Type.”
“Ohhhh… dear.” I said dreadfully. That went from ‘I can maybe come back from this’ to ‘I’m about to get absolutely creamed’ in like two seconds flat!
“Golem attacks Giga Brilliant, Goliath attacks Volcasaurus, Giant attacks Dark Rebellion.” Maud said, her rock monsters carrying out her orders and crushing my monsters into paste one after another. “Now Goram can attack you directly.” Goram threw his club at me and even though it was a hologram and harmlessly phased through me, it felt painful just because I didn’t want to lose, and it reduced my Life to 1100. “Now Doki Doki attacks you directly.” The little clay pot monster hopped toward me, a spooky ghost jumping out of the pot and scaring me, which reduced my Life to 0.
“I lost…” I said sadly and fell to my knees, staring vacantly into space. I chose to put a smile on my face though and that reminded me… that was a fun duel. I got a little too caught up in the stakes but… how could I not enjoy a duel with my sister?
“Pinkie, I love you.” Maud walked over to me and got on her knees, delicately taking my shaking hand in her big strong hand. “And I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Even if that means I have to drop my own stuff for a bit.”
“And I love you, Maud.” I said, giving her a big hug, squeezing her like candy was gonna come out of her. “And I’ll make sure that you never have to do that for my sake. Dueling with you was so much fun, and I’m touched that you care so much about me. It’s made me think… I really did have my heart in the wrong place, didn’t I?”
“Maybe.” Maud said. “But now you understand.”
“I do.” I nodded and wiped tears out of my eyes and off my cheeks. “After having so much fun with that duel, and hearing the lessons you’ve taught me and really understanding how much you care about me, I feel a lot better. And I know that Twilight and Fluttershy and the others care about me too. We’re a family.”
Suddenly a light bulb went off over my head!
“I just got a great idea!” I sprung to my feet, dragging Maud up with me. Maud arched an eyebrow and waited for me to continue. “I can’t force Twilight to be happy, but I can remind her of the things in life that are good! I can surround her with love, support and encouragement, and even if she still can’t be happy, she’ll at least be safe and know that she’s care about!”
“So what are you going to do?” Maud asked.
“Throw a party, of course!” I said with a jubilated jump.
****
-FLUTTERSHY-
Twilight Sparkle’s home was very quaint and cozy, if a little bit, um… messy. There was quite a bit of clutter littering the tables and furniture, and dishes piling up in the kitchen sink. All of this was really odd to me because I always remembered Twilight’s house being so neat and tidy, but then I remembered I hadn’t really been over to her place since Rarity moved out of it.
“It sure is, um…” I tried to find the right word so as not to be rude. “Interesting in here.” That wasn’t a very good one.
“Uh, yeah.” Twilight said bashfully, ruffling her hair. “You’re talking about the mess, right?” I nodded with an apologetic smile on my face. “Egh, sorry about that.” Twilight sighed. “I haven’t been feeling like myself lately… I guess I kinda just lost control of the mess and now I don’t even notice it.”
“It’s not a big deal, Twilight.” I said. “My house is a mess too.”
“True, but I live alone and you don’t.” Twilight sighed. “So that makes it a little weird for me to have such a gross house. Anyway, the loft is very neat so we’ll just go up there.”
“Okay.” I said cheerfully, following Twilight up the stairs to her loft. The loft was very neat and tidy, like Twilight said, but to be fair there wasn’t a lot up there. Just a bed, a nightstand and a big window that let the late afternoon sun into the room.
“So, what kind of deck are you thinking you want to make?” Twilight asked, sitting on the floor next to the bed.
“Well that’s just it…” I pulled my tin full of cards out of my satchel and opened the lid. “I have a bunch of cards that I want to use, it’s just that there are so many of them I don’t know which ones to choose from!”
“That’s quite a conundrum.” Twilight said, stroking her chin. “But you know what I think might help?” I shook my head and eagerly awaited Twilight’s answer. “More cards!” Twilight said with a beaming smile, pulling out a large binder from under the bed.
“Um, thank you Twilight.” I said meekly. That wasn’t the advice I was expecting… or hoping for. “But I don’t think I need more cards, I really like the ones that I have.”
“Oh don’t be modest, Fluttershy.” Twilight said, batting her arm dismissively at me. “You could always use more cards. And I’ve been collecting these for years, so there’s a ton of them in here that are really good. I’m sure they’ll go great with the cards that you collected.”
“Um, okay… I guess.” I said with a concerned smile.
I pushed my tin over to Twilight so she could take a look at the cards. She grabbed a stack and shuffled through them, examining each one with a progressively more disgruntled face.
“So what kind of deck are you trying to make again?” Twilight asked, looking puzzled at me. “Because a lot of these cards are super weak, I’m not sure you could really put together a winning deck using just these.”
“It doesn’t have to be the best deck ever.” I tried to explain, but Twilight just looked very skeptical. “I just want it to be fun. I really like Beast-Type monster, like this one.” I showed Twilight one of my favorite cards, Valerifawn, Mystical Beast of the Forest. “Isn’t it cute? And it has an effect that lets it support its friends, which is just precious.”
“I guess?” Twilight said, snatching the card out of my hand and looking at it. “But it can only revive Level 2 or lower monsters, which isn’t very strong, especially since it requires a discard cost.”
“It doesn’t have to be strong, Twilight.” I said with a strong expression on my face as I started to feel a little bit huffy. “I like it and I want to use it.”
“But why though?” Twilight shrugged, tossing my card back into the tin. “There’s a ton of good Beast monsters you could use.”
“But I like that one.” I argued.
“But you’ll never win with that one!” Twilight replied flippantly.
Twilight was starting to get on my nerves a little bit. I felt like just because I hadn’t played in a long time she was speaking down to me, but I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that she really didn’t understand what I was trying to say, so I tried explaining it better.
“I don’t need to win all the time, Twilight.” I took a deep breath and sighed peacefully, regaining my composure. “I just want to have fun with Duel Monsters, so I want to use my favorite cards.”
“How are you going to have fun if you don’t win?” Twilight scoffed. “Nope, if you ask me I think you need entirely better cards. Let’s see here, I think I have-”
“Twilight!” I yelled sternly. “I came here because you said you were going to help me with my deck. I want to use the cards that I like, and if you can’t help me with that…” I was starting to get teary eyed. “Well then maybe I should just find somebody else to help me!”
I grabbed my tin away from Twilight and shut the lid, running down the stairs and toward the door with tears pouring down my face. I heard Twilight call out to me and try to apologize but my feelings were already too hurt to talk to her anymore so I just kept running, until eventually I sat down at the foot of a tree a couple of blocks away from Twilight’s home, breaking down into tears.
I knew somewhere deep down that Twilight really was just trying to help me in her own way, but the fact that she wouldn’t listen to me and kept talking over me like my opinion wasn’t even worth anything… it really hurt my feelings.
But even with that said, as I sat beneath that tree crying my eyes out all I could think was “I’m sorry, Twilight”.
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8437909
Fair enough, and i agree completely... especially not enough transgender characters written *by* transgender people. And for the record I'm trans as well, which was why i had to ask. Tbh i wanted to be sure that it wasn't a case of either someone not understanding the hardships we go through, or someone who's made up a caricature of what it is to be trans.
8442811
Yup yup. And in my experience, alot of the good stuff written by and about trans folks is dramatic slice of life stuff which, while great, isn't my cup of tea. I want stories of trans ladies who go on adventures and\or fight each other with trading cards!
Asking about your concerns before reading is a good idea tbh. I know I've felt that burn before where it's like "oh cool this character is like me! but the author clearly has no idea what that means or is! this is bad actually!".
I hope you do read the story and enjoy it. It was definitely a cathartic experience to write, and I'd like to pass that catharsis on as much as I can. :>