Chapter 1: Stand up, Vanguard
Chris yawned as he stared out the classroom to the oval below, he could see one of the first year classes doing PE on the running track, he sighed and looked out at Narumi city beyond the schools boundaries, the city, while small, had its fair share of large buildings which were basically the only things that could be seen from the high school.
It was about quarter to 3, nearly time for school to finish but it was taking forever, although he moved to Japan at least a year and a half ago Chris still couldn't get used to schools in japan, Chris's father worked for the GBT, the Global Bank Trust and had been moved to Narumi city in Japan to run a new branch that was to be opened up in the city, naturally Chris and his mother were brought along as well to live, at first Chris hated it, he missed his friends, his after school activities and all the stuff he used to do, but shortly after arriving he was introduced to one of the most popular games in Japan, Cardfight Vanguard.
At first Chris was a bit skeptical of Vanguard but after playing a few games fell in love with it, and as such had found the one thing to make life in this new country not so bad. So from then on he would trek from Narumi High School to the local card shop, card shop Ryuoshi where he played Vanguard with others from the city, as the bell rang the class stood, bowed to the teacher and began to pack up, Chris gathered his things and bolted out of the building, grabbed his bike from the rack and began to ride towards the city.
The ride from the school to the Central Business District of Narumi city took about 40 minutes, mainly because of all the back streets that had to be taken, but it was all worth the ride, most of the fun stuff to do in the city was in the CBD, including several movie theaters, a few game arcades and the card shop, Chris stopped his bike in front of the shop, chained it to the bike rack and walked into the shop, as he did the shop owner, a young man in about his early 20's with short brown hair and green eyes, smiled and waved at him
"Hey there Chris, been a while hasn't it?"
"Yeah it has, just been caught up in class work lately"
Chris stretched loudly, he was about 5ft 10inches with shaggy, short blonde hair and ice blue eyes, he threw down his school bag next to the counter after removing a small black deck box, he took a look around the small card shop which had about 10 tables that could fit 4 people per table and 3 standing cardfight tables next to the counter
"Pretty dead in here, where is everyone?
Kai shrugged
"Who knows, its usually fairly busy at this time, but the only one here besides you is him"
Kai pointed a young primary school looking at the 6 Vanguard trial decks on the display case, a trial deck was a pre made deck and was a great way to learn how to play, the six current trial decks were Royal Paladins, Kagero, Gold Paladin, Narukami, Oracle Think Tank and Nova Grappler, Chris looked at the kid before turning back to Kai
"New player?"
Kai nodded
"yup, he just came in today wanting to learn how to play, unfortunately he's not sure what deck to pick"
As they spoke the kid picked up the Nova Grappler deck and put it on the counter
"Th...this one, I think I'll go with this one"
He looked pretty nervous as Kai smiled
"nova grappler, nice choice"
The young boy paid for the deck as Kai looked at Chris
"hey why don't you teach him to play seeing as you've got nothing else to do?"
Chris sighed and looked to the kid
"sure, whats your name kid?"
The boy still looked nervous as he spoke
"K...Keito Suichi, I...I'm in my last year of primary school"
"Nice to meet you Keito, I'm Chris Tyler, well lets go to the standing fight table"
The two of them walked over to one of the standing fight tables as Keito took his new deck out of its packaging, Chris removed his deck from its deck box and placed the box in his pocket
"ok seeing as this is your first time I'll explain as we go, first of all you will need a starting Vanguard"
"S...starting Vanguard?"
Chris nodded
"Yes, a starting Vanguard is a grade 0 unit which you place face down here"
He pointed to the red circle on the playmat, Keito began to look at his deck and noticed that all his grade 0 units had a small symbol on the top left corner, however he spotted one of them which also had some sort of ability, he decided to go with his gut and put it face down, Chris also placed his vanguard face down on the field and the two of them shuffled their decks and placed them on the table
"Ok then, normally turn order is decided first but for training I will go first, now the game starts with us drawing five cards, then we can chose any cards in our hands that we don't want, shuffle them into the deck and draw the same number of cards, its a good idea to return all grade 0 units to the deck and to make sure you have a grade 1, 2 and 3 unit in your hand"
"why?'
"You'll see shortly"
The two of them drew their hands, Chris only returned one card but Keito put back three, all of them triggers, the two shuffled decks again and drew the same number of cards they put back
"once we have our hands we both flip over, or stand, our vanguards, its also fun to say stand up the vanguard as you do it"
He smiles and the two of them flip over their cards while saying in unison
"stand up the vanguard"
Chris flipped over the tachikaze unit Dino Egg, a small red dinosaur breaking out of an egg while Keito flipped over the Nova Grappler unit Battle Raizer, a large red machine that looked like something out of a mech anime
"my turn, you draw a card every time your turn starts"
Chris drew a card (6 cards in hand)
"Now see how my unit is grade 0? right now I can only play cards that are equal or lower to my vanguards grade, to allow me to play stronger units I need to ride"
"Ride?'
"Yes, riding is where you play a unit that is an equal grade or one grade higher than your current vanguard, here I will show you, I ride Savage Warrior"
[Savage Warrior, G1, power 6000/Guard 5000]
Chris placed the card on top of his Dino Egg, the new unit looked like a sort of tribal human with armor and a sword made out of dinosaur bones
"Now my Dino Eggs skill activates, when I ride another Tachikaze unit over it I may call it to one of the five rear guard circles"
He moved Dino Egg to the bottom right rear guard circle
"Now you can't attack if you go first so thats my turn over"
Keito nodded and drew (6 cards in hand)
Keito looked at the cards in his hand, they all looked so strange to him but he went with his gut yet again and picked a unit
"Um I ride Battering Minotaur"
[Battering Minotaur, G1, Power 6000/Guard 5000]
"Um now Battle Raizers skill activates, I call him to a rear guard circle when I ride a Nova Grappler over it"
He moved Battle Raizer to the bottom right rear guard circle and looked at Chris who nodded
"Nice, now you can attack, when attacking you tap, or rest, your unit then declare your target, you can only attack units in the front row unless a skill says otherwise"
Keito nodded and tapped his vanguard
"So I guess my Battering Minotaur attacks your Savage Warrior"
"Yup, now when you attack a unit your opponent has a choice to guard with cards in their hand or let the attack hit, right now I'm going to let the attack hit, also when you attack with the vanguard you reveal the top card of your deck and add it to your hand, this is called a drive check"
"O...ok then, checking the drive trigger"
Keito flipped over the top card of his deck, it was Oasis Girl, Keito added it to his hand
"No trigger, oh well no matter, the attack will hit as long as power is even or greater, now when your vanguard takes a hit you do a damage check, its the same as a drive check but instead the card goes into the damage zone, six damage and you lose"
Keito nodded as Chris revealed his top card, it was Cannon Fire Dragon, Cannon Gear, he placed it in his damage zone face up as Keito ended his turn
[Damage record]
Chris: 1
Keito: 0
"Not a bad first turn, well time for me to make things a bit harder"
Chris smirked as he drew a card (6 cards in hand)
"Alright I ride Cannon Fire Dragon, Cannon Gear"
[Cannon Fire Dragon, Cannon Gear, G2, Power 11000, Guard 5000]
The unit he rode was a heavily armored quadrupedal dinosaur with large cannons on its back
"When Cannon Gear appears on the field I have to retire a Tachikaze rearguard, retiring means you place the unit in the drop zone"
He took his Dino Egg and placed it in the drop zone
"Now my Dino Egg activates his skill, when he's retired and I have a tachikaze I can counterblast 1 damage and add it to the hand"
"Counterblast?"
"A counterblast is when you flip 1 face up damage face down, once its face down you cant use it again until its face up, but thats not important right now"
Chris flipped the card in his damage and added Dino Egg to his hand
"Now time for the fun"
Chris called down two more units, Sonic Noa and Herbivorous Dragon, Brutosaraus
[Sonic Noa, G1, Power 8000/Guard 5000]
[Herbivorous Dragon, Brutosaraus, G0, Power 5000/Guard 5000]
"and now a skill from my hand"
Chris revealed a unit in his hand, Chaos Dragon, Dino Chaos, a grade 3 unit
"By revealing this unit in my hand while I control a grade 2 Tachikaze vanguard I may retire two tachikaze rear guards and superior ride it from my hand"
Chris did exactly that, he retired his two rearguards and placed Dino Chaos in his vanguard Circle
Keito began to panic, how on earth was that possible
"Wh...what just happened?"
"A superior ride, its when you ride a unit outside of your ride phase, you see turn order goes stand, draw, ride, main, battle, end"
Chris smirked as keito began to look at his hand looking for a way to stop this
to be continued
