A Change of Heart
"What do you mean I have to play "Po-Neigh-Oh!" with you? That's a dumb game, for dumb colts! I'd never waste my time playing such—Is that a Princess Celestia card?"
"No, that's Graceful Rarity. You can draw three cards, but she only let's you keep 1. You have to throw away the rest into your graveyard!"
"It looks so pretty. Oh, this one is really shiny!"
"Oh that one's my favorite. They don't make her in Ultra Rare anymore. They do have an Ultimate version, but I still prefer this one. It's my first edition and helped me win a lot of close matches."
"Hmm. I never thought Princess Cadance and Queen Chrysalis would make such a pretty looking card." Diamond Tiara continued to star at the half Alicorn Princess and Half Changeling Queen card holding up a heart.
"If you really like it, I'll let you have it." At this Diamond Tiara looked up in surprise "IF you agree to play with me. I'll let you look through my collection and let you build up a deck."
"Pfft. Figures there'd be a catch..." Diamond grumped, but seemed not to resist the chance of acquiring such a pretty looking card. Though... "You seem to really want me to play this stupid game, huh? I thought this was your favorite card anyways. What gives?"
"Well, it is..." pausing for a bit she continues, "but you're like my best friend. So, if it's you, I don't mind giving it up. So whatcha' say? Even if you end up not liking the game and decide not to play anymore, you can still keep it. You know, case you..." Diamond Tiara felt a groan coming on, but didn't quite know why "...a 'CHANGE of HEART'" And there it went, the sound of exasperation breaking through the prissy filly's mouth, all the while being drowned out by her best friend's giggles and restrained snortles.
"FINE. Just don't ever used such a lame-o pun again, else I might just cha-" Diamond caught herself mid sentence as she realized she was falling into a trap. Her nose scrunched up as she bit her lip in annoyance. "Just, like, show me these cards already. You better have some cute ones though, I don't want just any icky old monsters!"
Silver Spoon seemed to regain her composer at this exciting news. "You bet! I have over 32 sets worth of amazingly adorable stuff to choose from! You won't regret this Diamond!" As DT stared into her friend's unusually bright happy face, she almost dared to disagree with her, though she kept shut as not to make her friend's almost infection smile falloff her face. "And that's just the beginning!"
59 sets and untold rare limited edition premium booster packs later...
Diamond Tiara Shuffled a card into her deck, as a cost to activating her card's ability from her hand. She manages to completely ruin all of Silver's laid out plans. Forcing her to send all her effect negating cards out of play, also making it impossible to use their summoning minion effects leaving Silver defenseless against a card that can't be stopped by just a face down card.
"Yeah, eat that you dumb Naturias!" DT expressed, all too consumed with the prospect of finally defeating her arch nemesis... wait, she's not really my enemy though...
Diamond seemed to have lost herself in thought, losing all focus on the game at hoof as a certain anxious filly waited on her to finish her turn. To Silver's chagrin, DT has managed to discover the one weakness to her deck and she had no way of recovering her Naturia army being removed from play. Rendering her graveyard reliant deck useless... Why did I have to let her open up that premium pack? "So, you going to end your turn yet?"
Diamond was snapped out of her internal debate, now was the time to finish this game once and for all!
"I play Graceful Rarity! I'll draw three cards and discard two!" She said almost too eagerly, this made Silver Spoon grow just a bit agitated as DT kept calling out her moves every. single. time. As if Silver Spoon didn't know the effects of all the cards by heart already.
"Diamond, I'm glad you're all into this now and all but, CAN YOU PLEASE GET ON WITH IT!" Silver cried waving her hooves in the air like some big inflatable arms waving inflatable pony.
Diamond scuffed at this, she was just about to get to the good part too. Where she cleverly discarded one of her Tuner cards to the graveyard to only have it return to the field so she can combine Rainbow Dash with the other level 4 star pony monster Firefly to create the Legendary Super Rainbow of Justice!
Instead Diamond just boringly had her Rainbow Dash take away Silver's last 600 Apple Points.
"You're no fun. I was only going to pull off the greatest feat of Po-Neigh-Oh! ever in the history of EVER!" Silver Spoon sighed inwardly, not wanting to express how overused DT's strategy, which she FINALLY managed to piece together finally after their 14 games together, a set of cards she convinced Diamond to include in her deck over the set of Pink Princess Mi'Amore'ru and Black Princess Mi'Amore'ru cards...
"Yeah, sorry. Maybe next game I guess." Silver looked at the clock and realized she onced again lost track of time. She could only hope her Daddy would forgive her for being a little late with helping her mommy at the store today. "Hey, D. I gotta go. Want to hang out again tomorrow?"
Diamond Tiara had turned her gazed to the clock behind her as she too noticed how much time the two have spent messing around with this card collection. It had taken them a few hours alone just to look through the cards, another hour to build something she was happy with. This was one Saturneigh she was not going to be spending at the salon. Diamond considered Silver's offer for a bit. The game had turned out to be less dumb than she had imagined. She still wouldn't admit that, but she couldn't hide the fact she had gotten a little too into the game during some of their duels. It was rather fun finally wiping Silver's smug grin off her face after so many beatings to those annoying plants and icky, but strangely cute bug creatures.
"Yeah, I think I'd like that. Then I'll FINALLY show you my AMAZING finishing move!" Diamond declared. "But seriously, we can't ever let anypony know about this."
Silver Spoon nodded in agreement, she had a hard enough time bringing up the courage to admit to DT she had such a geeky hobby in the first place. She was thankful to have won the prissy filly over though, maybe now she'd finally have someone to play with besides that Lickity Split who would visit the store on weekends. Another secret she wasn't quite ready to admit to Diamond, just yet.
Silver got up and began to put all the cards away, "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Yeah, sounds fine." Diamond said as she handed her deck back to Silver Spoon.
"Oh, no need. That one's yours now." At this Diamond stared, eyes slowly widening in disbelief. She had already given her her most favorite card, now she was giving Diamond her first Po-Neigh-Oh! Deck? "Come'on D. You earned it. Plus, now you'll have a reason to collect them. And we can go to that reveal next week, too!"
"Don't push your luck, Silvy." she looked down to her new deck and continued, "But... I'll think about making an exception."
With that the two left, keeping each other company down the road till they eventually parted ways. Silver began to take up pace as she hurried to make up for lost time to meet her mom, and Diamond made her way home with her new deck snuggly packed away in her small purse.
The En—
"WATCH OUT!"
Diamond only knew the sensation of flight shortly after those words were shouted by some panicky filly's voice. Something had knocked into her side, sending the poor, unsuspecting, filly who had just *almost* managed to end a fun mid-afternoon on a good note.
The saddle bag laid scattered a ways down from where she landed. Her deck box in the dirt road. Yeah, this was not going to end on a good note. Not one. Good. Note.
"The CARDS!"
Diamond Tiara awoke among a pile of disoriented, and all too aggravatingly familiar trio of fillies...