Chapter 1: Yeargh!

Kei was mad. During class that day, he had fallen asleep. It wasn't his fault; Mr. Abukara was the worst chemistry teacher ever. Kei wished he were one grade higher, in biology. Then he could spend all day staring at the female members of his grade, claiming to be "studying". Mayuko, his very dear friend since the age of two, would probably not believe him, but that just meant he would need a vantage point better than behind a stack of books.

But that's beside the point. He was given a week in detention for the rest he took during 5th period. That meant he would have less time with his new computer. His new, shiny, super-fast, huge, beautiful, delicious, perfect, beloved, excellent, expensive. .. well, lets just say it was a pretty darn good computer, and Kei wanted as much time on it as possible. Now, with track and detention, his calculations showed that if his life continued this way, he would only ever get .3 seconds on it each week.

I never said he was good at math.

Anyway, it was adding insult to injury that he just got the latest computer game from Nonami, Non-Metal Equipment Gas. It cost him a lot of money, too.

That Friday, there was a thunderstorm, so the track meet was canceled. Kei got the level four key card in NEG, but the power in his house went out. The lesson you can get from there: always save your game.

After a few minutes of violently swearing, he slouched into his living room. His mother was telling a story to some company she had over. Some government guy and his entourage.

"So, as I was telling the other presidential candidate, she had this gopher, and you wouldn't believe what he could do. And the lobster pencils weren't very enterprising, either. Hmm? Oh. I guess your eleventh-grade math teacher's parrot's dental floss is more important than this vote, so I'll be seeing you soon." She seemed surprised that he stood up and left before she even finished saying it, but then, her ramblings are the most evil things on the planet.

Kei went back to his room. It was around six o'clock, so Kei had fifteen minutes to sit in the dark before dinner. Instead, he messed with his digimon card deck. There were approximately five cards he couldn't decide whether to keep or put into his album. The area he lived in didn't have any fun expos, so he and his friends normally held digimon tournaments every Saturday.

His original card, Ubeekimon, was the worst among the four his friends had (In his opinion. Self-esteem problems, eh?). The worst art, too. It had an attack of 7, defense of 3, and speed of 20. His compadre Ebizo had a well balanced RubyTentomon; attack was 7, as defense was 18 and speed was 5. Mayuko, who only ever played because her mother wouldn't let her leave the area without an army of bodyguards, had one called Triggamon. It had attack of 20, but defense and speed of 5. At the end, there was the enigma Zenko. His card was named Samurmon. Perfectly balanced with 10 in each stat.

Not that it mattered much. In Kei's opinion, all that mattered in the game was powering up. You can be the weakest ever, but you win with power-ups. That's why he only had about seven actual digimon in his deck.

He decided to remove Ubeekimon from his deck and replace it with an Air Bomber.

After a bit of hypothetical matchmaking, it was time for dinner. Cheesy pasta. Again. It was Kei's favorite dish, but it was getting ridiculous!

Nothing worth noting occurred for the rest of the night.

The next morning was bad as well. It continued raining, so he and his friends stayed at Kei's pad as opposed to their usual choice of the pond. It wasn't really much of a pond, but there were more living fish in there than most other places.

Zenko rarely played cards with them, considering they hardly knew him, but he'd battle when he wanted to. He tended to win, so Kei would never bet anything on the matches.

Anyway, at Kei's house, Mayuko and Ebizo were discussing money and time and the root of all evil. Eventually, they reached the conclusion that no matter what, homework could beat cheese in terms of power and eviliciousness. After that, Ebizo got mad and challenged Mayuko to a match. He can't stand losing and such, you see.

The match began simply, with Mayuko sending a Gabumon, which she then played an Instant Digivolve card on to make it a Garurumon.

"HA! Ya can't beat me, I've got the best cards!"

Did I mention how egotistical she was?

Ebizo quickly countered with his RubyTentomon card, and then discarded two of his cards to use the Double-Stat card, which he used to get Ruby's stats up to 14, 36, and 10.

"What are you playing at, Ebizo? That's still less than my Garurumon's stats!"

"Just wait."

Kei glanced at Ebizo's hand. He only had one left, but it could win him the match, then and there.

"Well? Can I have my turn now, or do you have another digimon?" Miyako asked, her mouth half full of leftover cheesy pasta.

Ebizo hesitated, then replied, "Nah. you can go."

Mayuko drew a card. A glint temporarily appeared in her eye, but she just attacked and defeated RubyTentomon.

"dootdootdootdootdootdootdootdootdoot. . . DOOT!" Kei beeped, as though this were the Yu-Gi-Oh! television show.

"Quiet, you," Ebizo muttered to Kei.

Ebizo drew, and then he used the card he should have used last turn to be able to beat Mayuko's Garurumon quickly. Using the Recycle Bin card, powered up with his newly drawn Overdrive card, he returned RubyTentomon to its double-stat glory, and also allowed Ebizo to search his deck for another digimon, it being the card's overdrive effect. He sent out a Tapirmon, and both digimon beat the Garurumon.

Miyako responded with another Overdrive card, used on her newly acquired Triggamon. Triggamon thus had the overdrive's digimon effect, allowing it to attack twice. It beat the Tapirmon, but only brought RubyTentomon down to sixteen.

"Ha! Triggamon: the Lone Gunwoman wins again! You can't beat her now!" Triggamon: the Lone Gunwoman was what Mayuko called Triggamon. Possibly because of her double pistols.

"Not yet. I think he's got another trick here." Kei hoped. Ebizo was Kei's best friend in the world, even if he couldn't play digimon well.

Ebizo drew his salvation. Kabuterimon. He digivolved Ruby into Kabuterimon, which nearly defeated Triggamon.

"Ha! I'm going to win!"

Mayuko made a growling noise and drew. She smiled.

"Starmon. Triggamon digivolves and attacks your Kabuterimon twice to bring him down. Haha!"

Kei smiled. Mayuko was still no different.

He paused.

"Hey guys. . . Wasn't it raining a minute ago?"

"Good point, man," Ebizo concurred.

"The rain stopped, dip wads," Mayuko grumbled, "But since it's Saturday, let's go to the Pond!"

"Okay, Mayuko. . ." Kei said, reluctantly, "Let's go!"

And so they got their cards and left the room.

~ end chapter 1 ~

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