CHAPTER 2: THE COMPETITORS
The next day Ken went back to the Genesis Cards & Comics Shop to buy another pack of cards. The pack didn't contain anything that good, aside from a Pumpking The King of Ghosts (ATK 1800 DEF/2000) and a Share The Pain magic card, which has an effect where you must discard one of your monsters and your opponent must do the same. Not worthy of Ken's deck.
And then it happened. A boy with curly blonde walked over to Ken and said, "My name's Jake. I saw you here last week. You defeated Seto Kaiba, the Japanese champion duelist! I want to duel you." And so, Ken and Jake ended up playing a duel on the mini-arena in the shop. It wasn't that interesting..
"My 7 Colored Fish attacks your Jellyfish and destroys it," Ken said, making his finishing move at the end of the short duel. "That would wipe out your remaining Life Points." It may have been a little too easy, but this duel relaxed him from the one against Kaiba.
"Wow, you're good." Jake said. "Are you going to be in the City Tournament?"
"Yeah, it'll be my first," Ken said. "Are you planning on being in the competition?"
"No, I don't think I'm good enough," Jake said. "I'm too much of a beginner."
"Well, I noticed your deck is pretty big."
"Yeah, I just loaded every single card I had into it. I'm going to need to pull the bad cards out of it, but I'm not really sure which cards are good for my deck and which aren't."
"Well, if you want, I can do it for you."
The boys sat at a table and after a while, Ken took all the weak cards out of Jake's deck."
"Wow, thanks," Jake said. "For helping me out, here, have this card." Jake handed Ken a De-Spell.
"The card that destroys magic cards," Ken said, looking down at it. "I can't take that. You should keep it."
"No, take it, let it be a thank you present."
"Okay then," Ken said, taking the card and placing it in his deck.
* * * Meanwhile at KaibaCorp Headquarters.
"I'll need you to go into Portland, Oregon in American and compete in its upcoming city Duel Monster Tournament." Kaiba told a young boy. Kaiba stared at him suspiciously. He had spiky brown hair and sharp, icy blue eyes. He wore black clothes and his deck was stored in a compartment that was on the belt he wore. The boy couldn't let anyone know he was working for Kaiba. If word got out, he might be disqualified from the tournament.
"Sure," the boy said. "But I must ask, why do you really want me to compete in a tournament that you can so easily win?"
"I told you," Kaiba said. "I haven't got the time. And I want that prize. Now listen up, when you win the tournament, don't you dare go running off with it. If you do so, I will hunt you down and burn every card in your deck."
"But I keep the prize money, right?"
"It's not the prize money I care about, but the card that I do. So you understand your job, correct?"
The boy nodded, thinking this tournament is going to be very fun. Very fun indeed.
* * * About three weeks later, back in Portland.
"Welcome to the Duel Monsters Portland City Tournament, hosted by the Esplin Association!" said the announcer over a microphone.
"And box office money being collected by," Stefan said. He and Ken made it to the tournament, held in a convention center downtown. They had set up one huge arena in the middle of the room, where the announcer was next to. Above the arena was a cube with screens on each side. It was so that the audience could see the action, because they were going to be sitting in rows of chairs surrounding the arena. And they would never be high enough to actually the see the field.
"This is going to be great," Ken said, looking around at all the duelists that were participating. The tournament would officially start in about half an hour.
"32 duelists have signed up for the tournament, so there will be four main rounds of the tournament all leading up to the final round where the two top duelists will duel for a prize of $5,000 and a rare, one-of-a-kind Golden Eyes Supreme Dragon card! And for the rest of this week, every one of the duelists you see around here will try to win those prizes!" the announcer exclaimed.
"Ken?"
Stefan and Ken turned around to find Jake standing there. "Hey, Jake!" Ken said. "You've come to watch the tournament?"
"Yeah! It's seems they've got a line-up of tough duelists."
"Definitely. Oh! By the way, this is my friend Stefan." Ken introduced Stefan to Jake.
"Well, I'll guess I'll see you on the arena," Jake said.
"See you later," Ken said. And as Jake left, Stefan and Ken continued to look around the convention center.
"Will all expert level duelists please report here?" the announcer said.
"Guess that's me," Ken said, and he walked over to the announcer. Ken was surprised to see that he, a boy dressed in black, and a teenage girl with long red hair were the only duelists who reported to the announcer. I guess there aren't that many experts here in Portland Ken thought.
The announcer took out a piece of paper and said, "Can you each tell me your names?"
"Ivan Griffin," the boy dressed in black said.
"Holly Smith," the teenage girl said.
"Ken Richter," Ken said. After Ken said his name, the boy dressed in black, Ivan, smiled suspiciously at Ken, like he'd seen him before. Then it hit Ken! This must be the guy who Kaiba sent!
"Okay, thank you," the announcer said. "Now, first I'd like to congratulate you on your performances in previous dueling events. And I'd also like to tell you that whatever pressure you feel is unnecessary because no one will be placing bets on you, no one will ask you to win; all the audience is here for is some Duel Monsters entertainment." Ken and the other two kids nodded. "But I ask you to try your best in these duels, because even though this is just for fun, the audience wants a good show." The kids nodded again. "Okay, you can go now."
The kids walked off together when Ivan said, "Just for fun? Whatever. I'm here to win, and that's what I'm going to do."
"Wait a second!" Holly said. "I've seen you in a Duel Monsters Tournament on TV! Your duels take forever!"
"That was in L.A. Here in Oregon, I think I can just take the prize away easily."
"Well, I'm going to try my hardest to win."
"I'll just walk all over you."
Ken watched as Ivan kept trash-talking Holly and she came up with non- insulting comeback. Until she finally said, "Fine, if you're so smart, how about we have a little exhibition duel right now?"
"I suppose," Ivan said. "It would be a complete waste of time, but I could use a warm-up." Ivan turned to Ken. "Do you want to be the witness for when I defeat her in a duel."
"Nobody says your going to win." Holly said sweetly.
Ivan ignored her and said, "Well, how about it?"
"Uh, sure," Ken said. "I guess I'll watch."
The three duelists went away from the audience to a place where many duelists were having practice duels on tables with dueling fields (without virtual hologram devices) They sat down at a table away from a group of a large about of duelists and Holly and Ivan shuffled they're decks.
"I'll be a gentlemen and let you move first," Ivan said, drawing five cards.
Holly drew five cards and looked at her hand. Nothing useful except. "I summon the Gyakutenno Megami." She placed down a fairy-type monster (ATK 1800 DEF/200.) "And that ends my first turn.
"You just made the move that will cost you the duel," Ivan said. "First, I will place a card face-down on the magic and trap card zone." And he did. "And now, I'll summon the mighty Launcher Spider, with a destructive attack of 2200 and a defense of 2500! But I'll raise its attack to 2700 by equipping it with the Sword of The Deep-Seated!" Ivan placed down his Launcher Spider with a magic card under it. "And my Launcher Spider attacks you Gyakutenno Megami and your weak monster is destroyed. That brings your Life Points down to 1100"
"Oh no," Holly said, discarding her destroyed monster. She drew a card and looked at her hand. The best she could do would be to place here Empress Judge (ATK 2100 DEF/1700) in defense mode. "I'll place this card in defense mo-"
"And I'll activate my face-down trap card," Ivan said. "It's called the Acid Trap Hole, and it destroys monsters that have defense of 2000 or lower, which your monster you just placed down would have, I believe."
"That means." Holly began as she discarded her Empress Judge.
"Your field is defenseless," Ivan said, "allowing me to attack your Life Points directly with my Launcher Spider, bringing your Life Points down to zero. I win the duel. Imagine, I just won this duel with only two turns."
"I can't believe it," Holly said. "I lost."
"If you call yourself and expert at dueling and you've lost to me in two turns, I should be able to win this competition easily," Ivan said, and he walked off.
"That was a cheap move," Ken said.
"I saw him do moves like that on TV," Holly said. "He has three Launcher Spiders, and some other good monsters. And his deck consists of great magic cards. Too bad he's with the forces of evil, though." Holly then walked off.
Ken toured the rest of the places in the convention center, like the card trading areas and the shops, until there were two minutes left until the tournament started.
"Hey." Ken turned around and saw Stefan. "Guess what? I just saw the battle chart for the tournament. I'm going to be in the first duel. You're going to be in the ninth, which will take place tomorrow."
"That's cool," Ken said. "It'll give me chance to check out the competition." The boys found two chairs to sit in and after short moment, everybody was in their seats and the announcer went up to the microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Duel Monsters Portland City Tournament!" he said. "We have gathered 32 duelists here in our tournament and each of them will compete for the grand prize of $5,000 and the one-of- kind, ultra-rare Golden Eyes Supreme Dragon card." We will hold eight duels each day for the rest of this week, and on Thursday there will be only 7 duels we will have plenty of action as we hold Round 3, the semi-finals, and the finals;" Round 1 will consist of sixteen duels, eight of them being held tonight! So lets get the action started!"
The crowd cheered loudly and Stefan told Ken, "I'm going to start first, so wish me luck."
"Of course," Ken said.
"Now," the announcer continued, "We will hold the first duel of our tournament. First we have a rookie duelist, Stefan Carson!" The crowd cheered as Stefan stood up and walked his way up the one of the ends of the dueling arena. When the crowd stopped the announcer continued, "Next we have a duelists in his third year of the tournament, Clyde Wilson!" And the crowd cheered as a tall boy with black hair and glasses made his way up the opposite side of the field. "Now lets get this duel started! Each duelist begins with 2000 Life Points; first duelist to wipe out all their opponents Life Points wins the duel! We will the Stefan Carson the rookie go first! Lets begin.
The boy each drew five cards and then Stefan drew his sixth. From the audience, Ken couldn't see which card Stefan was holding so all he could do was observe this duel.
"I'll place one card face down on the Magic and Trap Card Zone and I'll summons a monster facedown in defense mode," Stefan said. "Your move."
Clyde drew card and said, "I'll summon the Battle Ox, the mighty monster with 1700 attack!" He placed his card done, and automatically a large hologram of the Battle Ox warrior appeared on Clyde's end of the field. "And I'll attack!"
"And I'll activate my trap!" Stefan said, picking up and revealing his facedown trap card. "It's the Negate Attack, and I can ignore any attack that's thrown at me!" A small part of the audience cheered for Stefan. Figures. It was his first tournament duel and he didn't have that many fans.
"Uh.your turn," Clyde said, surprised a rookie like Stefan had a good card like Negate Attack.
Stefan drew a card and placed down. ".My own Battle Ox."
"This is a twist," the announcer said. "Stefan has sent out his own Battle Ox. But the strength of these two monsters is equal. Is this the end of Stefan's turn.
"I'll equip my Battle Ox with the Invigoration magic card," Stefan said. "Raising his attack to 2100! And I'll attack!" The arena showed Stefan's Battle Ox charging at Clyde's and taking a swing with its sword, destroy the opponent. "That will end my turn and you would lose 400 Life Points!" The little group of Stefan's fans turned into a big group as many cheers began.
Clyde couldn't believe he was fazed by a rookie. And he thought his next draw would do him good, but he had nothing. So all he did was place a monster facedown in defense mode. "Your move."
Stefan drew a card that was none other than one of his favorites, Ookazi. He used it right away. "That drops your Life Points down to 800 and I will attack your facedown monster with my Battle Ox." The holograms showed the Battle Ox successfully destroying the monster in defense.
Clyde definitely looked irritated. He drew a card and a dangerous smile spread across his face. "I summon the Skull Knight!" He placed a powerful monster (ATK/2650 DEF/2250) in attack mode. "Attack!" The Skull Knight destroyed Stefan's Battle Ox and brought Stefan's Life Points to 1550. "Your turn."
Stefan drew a card and a proud smile spread across his face. "I summon the Kazejin!" Stefan placed a monster (ATK 2400 DEF/2200) in attack mode."
"My Skull Knight will be able to blow that monster away," Clyde said. "He is, after all, the strongest monster in my deck."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Stefan said. "My Kazejin has a one-time, but great effect where I can reduce my opponent's monster's Attack Points down to zero, and then I attack! And with an attack of 2400, I win the duel!"
Bursts of cheers exploded from Stefan's fans!
"Stefan wins the duel!" the announcer exclaimed. "I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this rookie in the tournament!"
After the duel, Stefan rejoined with Ken and they sat down in their seats. "Nice duel," Ken said.
"One of my best," Stefan bragged. The tournament continued with five more duels which Ken and Stefan watched and enjoyed them.
"That was some duel!" the announcer said at the end of the third duel. "Okay, now for our final duel of the evening we will have Ivan Griffin, a Californian champion duelist, against, Drake Romero, last year's tournament MVP. Ken and Stefan prepared to watch this duel with great interest. "And since Ivan is new around here, he will get the first move!"
Both duelists came up to the arena and drew five cards. When Ivan drew his sixth, he immediately summoned his Launcher Spider (ATK 2200 DEF/2500) in attack mode.
Drake drew a card and placed a monster in defense mode, ending his turn.
Ivan drew a card and said, "I use the Raigeki magic card, which wipes out all the monsters on your field. Drake's monster that was in defense mode disappeared. "And now, my Launcher Spider will attack your Life Points directly and dropping them to zero leaving me victory.
"Amazing, ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer said. "I've heard rumors that Ivan ends his duels, quickly, and now I know why!" The audience was in silence. Drake looked like the Launcher Spider has swung one of its legs right in front of his face. "That concludes day one of our tournament. Come by tomorrow where we will start of the evening with a rookie, Ken Richter, against Jenny Wood, one of last year's semi-finalists!"
When Ken got home that night, his dad asked him, "So, did you win?"
"Nah, but Stefan did," Ken replied. "My first duel starts right away tomorrow."
"Well, we got new neighbors," Mr. Richter said. "They're the Griffins, and they have a boy your age. I think his name is Ivan."
"What?!" Ken demanded. "Ivan?"
"Yeah, I think so.why?" Mr. Richter asked.
"He was in the tournament," Ken answered. "He acted like he was some big shot. But all he does is cheap moves."
"Well I think if you get to know him better, he might be a good guy," Mr. Richter said.
"Sure," Ken said sarcastically, and he walked off toward his room.
The next day Ken went back to the Genesis Cards & Comics Shop to buy another pack of cards. The pack didn't contain anything that good, aside from a Pumpking The King of Ghosts (ATK 1800 DEF/2000) and a Share The Pain magic card, which has an effect where you must discard one of your monsters and your opponent must do the same. Not worthy of Ken's deck.
And then it happened. A boy with curly blonde walked over to Ken and said, "My name's Jake. I saw you here last week. You defeated Seto Kaiba, the Japanese champion duelist! I want to duel you." And so, Ken and Jake ended up playing a duel on the mini-arena in the shop. It wasn't that interesting..
"My 7 Colored Fish attacks your Jellyfish and destroys it," Ken said, making his finishing move at the end of the short duel. "That would wipe out your remaining Life Points." It may have been a little too easy, but this duel relaxed him from the one against Kaiba.
"Wow, you're good." Jake said. "Are you going to be in the City Tournament?"
"Yeah, it'll be my first," Ken said. "Are you planning on being in the competition?"
"No, I don't think I'm good enough," Jake said. "I'm too much of a beginner."
"Well, I noticed your deck is pretty big."
"Yeah, I just loaded every single card I had into it. I'm going to need to pull the bad cards out of it, but I'm not really sure which cards are good for my deck and which aren't."
"Well, if you want, I can do it for you."
The boys sat at a table and after a while, Ken took all the weak cards out of Jake's deck."
"Wow, thanks," Jake said. "For helping me out, here, have this card." Jake handed Ken a De-Spell.
"The card that destroys magic cards," Ken said, looking down at it. "I can't take that. You should keep it."
"No, take it, let it be a thank you present."
"Okay then," Ken said, taking the card and placing it in his deck.
* * * Meanwhile at KaibaCorp Headquarters.
"I'll need you to go into Portland, Oregon in American and compete in its upcoming city Duel Monster Tournament." Kaiba told a young boy. Kaiba stared at him suspiciously. He had spiky brown hair and sharp, icy blue eyes. He wore black clothes and his deck was stored in a compartment that was on the belt he wore. The boy couldn't let anyone know he was working for Kaiba. If word got out, he might be disqualified from the tournament.
"Sure," the boy said. "But I must ask, why do you really want me to compete in a tournament that you can so easily win?"
"I told you," Kaiba said. "I haven't got the time. And I want that prize. Now listen up, when you win the tournament, don't you dare go running off with it. If you do so, I will hunt you down and burn every card in your deck."
"But I keep the prize money, right?"
"It's not the prize money I care about, but the card that I do. So you understand your job, correct?"
The boy nodded, thinking this tournament is going to be very fun. Very fun indeed.
* * * About three weeks later, back in Portland.
"Welcome to the Duel Monsters Portland City Tournament, hosted by the Esplin Association!" said the announcer over a microphone.
"And box office money being collected by," Stefan said. He and Ken made it to the tournament, held in a convention center downtown. They had set up one huge arena in the middle of the room, where the announcer was next to. Above the arena was a cube with screens on each side. It was so that the audience could see the action, because they were going to be sitting in rows of chairs surrounding the arena. And they would never be high enough to actually the see the field.
"This is going to be great," Ken said, looking around at all the duelists that were participating. The tournament would officially start in about half an hour.
"32 duelists have signed up for the tournament, so there will be four main rounds of the tournament all leading up to the final round where the two top duelists will duel for a prize of $5,000 and a rare, one-of-a-kind Golden Eyes Supreme Dragon card! And for the rest of this week, every one of the duelists you see around here will try to win those prizes!" the announcer exclaimed.
"Ken?"
Stefan and Ken turned around to find Jake standing there. "Hey, Jake!" Ken said. "You've come to watch the tournament?"
"Yeah! It's seems they've got a line-up of tough duelists."
"Definitely. Oh! By the way, this is my friend Stefan." Ken introduced Stefan to Jake.
"Well, I'll guess I'll see you on the arena," Jake said.
"See you later," Ken said. And as Jake left, Stefan and Ken continued to look around the convention center.
"Will all expert level duelists please report here?" the announcer said.
"Guess that's me," Ken said, and he walked over to the announcer. Ken was surprised to see that he, a boy dressed in black, and a teenage girl with long red hair were the only duelists who reported to the announcer. I guess there aren't that many experts here in Portland Ken thought.
The announcer took out a piece of paper and said, "Can you each tell me your names?"
"Ivan Griffin," the boy dressed in black said.
"Holly Smith," the teenage girl said.
"Ken Richter," Ken said. After Ken said his name, the boy dressed in black, Ivan, smiled suspiciously at Ken, like he'd seen him before. Then it hit Ken! This must be the guy who Kaiba sent!
"Okay, thank you," the announcer said. "Now, first I'd like to congratulate you on your performances in previous dueling events. And I'd also like to tell you that whatever pressure you feel is unnecessary because no one will be placing bets on you, no one will ask you to win; all the audience is here for is some Duel Monsters entertainment." Ken and the other two kids nodded. "But I ask you to try your best in these duels, because even though this is just for fun, the audience wants a good show." The kids nodded again. "Okay, you can go now."
The kids walked off together when Ivan said, "Just for fun? Whatever. I'm here to win, and that's what I'm going to do."
"Wait a second!" Holly said. "I've seen you in a Duel Monsters Tournament on TV! Your duels take forever!"
"That was in L.A. Here in Oregon, I think I can just take the prize away easily."
"Well, I'm going to try my hardest to win."
"I'll just walk all over you."
Ken watched as Ivan kept trash-talking Holly and she came up with non- insulting comeback. Until she finally said, "Fine, if you're so smart, how about we have a little exhibition duel right now?"
"I suppose," Ivan said. "It would be a complete waste of time, but I could use a warm-up." Ivan turned to Ken. "Do you want to be the witness for when I defeat her in a duel."
"Nobody says your going to win." Holly said sweetly.
Ivan ignored her and said, "Well, how about it?"
"Uh, sure," Ken said. "I guess I'll watch."
The three duelists went away from the audience to a place where many duelists were having practice duels on tables with dueling fields (without virtual hologram devices) They sat down at a table away from a group of a large about of duelists and Holly and Ivan shuffled they're decks.
"I'll be a gentlemen and let you move first," Ivan said, drawing five cards.
Holly drew five cards and looked at her hand. Nothing useful except. "I summon the Gyakutenno Megami." She placed down a fairy-type monster (ATK 1800 DEF/200.) "And that ends my first turn.
"You just made the move that will cost you the duel," Ivan said. "First, I will place a card face-down on the magic and trap card zone." And he did. "And now, I'll summon the mighty Launcher Spider, with a destructive attack of 2200 and a defense of 2500! But I'll raise its attack to 2700 by equipping it with the Sword of The Deep-Seated!" Ivan placed down his Launcher Spider with a magic card under it. "And my Launcher Spider attacks you Gyakutenno Megami and your weak monster is destroyed. That brings your Life Points down to 1100"
"Oh no," Holly said, discarding her destroyed monster. She drew a card and looked at her hand. The best she could do would be to place here Empress Judge (ATK 2100 DEF/1700) in defense mode. "I'll place this card in defense mo-"
"And I'll activate my face-down trap card," Ivan said. "It's called the Acid Trap Hole, and it destroys monsters that have defense of 2000 or lower, which your monster you just placed down would have, I believe."
"That means." Holly began as she discarded her Empress Judge.
"Your field is defenseless," Ivan said, "allowing me to attack your Life Points directly with my Launcher Spider, bringing your Life Points down to zero. I win the duel. Imagine, I just won this duel with only two turns."
"I can't believe it," Holly said. "I lost."
"If you call yourself and expert at dueling and you've lost to me in two turns, I should be able to win this competition easily," Ivan said, and he walked off.
"That was a cheap move," Ken said.
"I saw him do moves like that on TV," Holly said. "He has three Launcher Spiders, and some other good monsters. And his deck consists of great magic cards. Too bad he's with the forces of evil, though." Holly then walked off.
Ken toured the rest of the places in the convention center, like the card trading areas and the shops, until there were two minutes left until the tournament started.
"Hey." Ken turned around and saw Stefan. "Guess what? I just saw the battle chart for the tournament. I'm going to be in the first duel. You're going to be in the ninth, which will take place tomorrow."
"That's cool," Ken said. "It'll give me chance to check out the competition." The boys found two chairs to sit in and after short moment, everybody was in their seats and the announcer went up to the microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Duel Monsters Portland City Tournament!" he said. "We have gathered 32 duelists here in our tournament and each of them will compete for the grand prize of $5,000 and the one-of- kind, ultra-rare Golden Eyes Supreme Dragon card." We will hold eight duels each day for the rest of this week, and on Thursday there will be only 7 duels we will have plenty of action as we hold Round 3, the semi-finals, and the finals;" Round 1 will consist of sixteen duels, eight of them being held tonight! So lets get the action started!"
The crowd cheered loudly and Stefan told Ken, "I'm going to start first, so wish me luck."
"Of course," Ken said.
"Now," the announcer continued, "We will hold the first duel of our tournament. First we have a rookie duelist, Stefan Carson!" The crowd cheered as Stefan stood up and walked his way up the one of the ends of the dueling arena. When the crowd stopped the announcer continued, "Next we have a duelists in his third year of the tournament, Clyde Wilson!" And the crowd cheered as a tall boy with black hair and glasses made his way up the opposite side of the field. "Now lets get this duel started! Each duelist begins with 2000 Life Points; first duelist to wipe out all their opponents Life Points wins the duel! We will the Stefan Carson the rookie go first! Lets begin.
The boy each drew five cards and then Stefan drew his sixth. From the audience, Ken couldn't see which card Stefan was holding so all he could do was observe this duel.
"I'll place one card face down on the Magic and Trap Card Zone and I'll summons a monster facedown in defense mode," Stefan said. "Your move."
Clyde drew card and said, "I'll summon the Battle Ox, the mighty monster with 1700 attack!" He placed his card done, and automatically a large hologram of the Battle Ox warrior appeared on Clyde's end of the field. "And I'll attack!"
"And I'll activate my trap!" Stefan said, picking up and revealing his facedown trap card. "It's the Negate Attack, and I can ignore any attack that's thrown at me!" A small part of the audience cheered for Stefan. Figures. It was his first tournament duel and he didn't have that many fans.
"Uh.your turn," Clyde said, surprised a rookie like Stefan had a good card like Negate Attack.
Stefan drew a card and placed down. ".My own Battle Ox."
"This is a twist," the announcer said. "Stefan has sent out his own Battle Ox. But the strength of these two monsters is equal. Is this the end of Stefan's turn.
"I'll equip my Battle Ox with the Invigoration magic card," Stefan said. "Raising his attack to 2100! And I'll attack!" The arena showed Stefan's Battle Ox charging at Clyde's and taking a swing with its sword, destroy the opponent. "That will end my turn and you would lose 400 Life Points!" The little group of Stefan's fans turned into a big group as many cheers began.
Clyde couldn't believe he was fazed by a rookie. And he thought his next draw would do him good, but he had nothing. So all he did was place a monster facedown in defense mode. "Your move."
Stefan drew a card that was none other than one of his favorites, Ookazi. He used it right away. "That drops your Life Points down to 800 and I will attack your facedown monster with my Battle Ox." The holograms showed the Battle Ox successfully destroying the monster in defense.
Clyde definitely looked irritated. He drew a card and a dangerous smile spread across his face. "I summon the Skull Knight!" He placed a powerful monster (ATK/2650 DEF/2250) in attack mode. "Attack!" The Skull Knight destroyed Stefan's Battle Ox and brought Stefan's Life Points to 1550. "Your turn."
Stefan drew a card and a proud smile spread across his face. "I summon the Kazejin!" Stefan placed a monster (ATK 2400 DEF/2200) in attack mode."
"My Skull Knight will be able to blow that monster away," Clyde said. "He is, after all, the strongest monster in my deck."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Stefan said. "My Kazejin has a one-time, but great effect where I can reduce my opponent's monster's Attack Points down to zero, and then I attack! And with an attack of 2400, I win the duel!"
Bursts of cheers exploded from Stefan's fans!
"Stefan wins the duel!" the announcer exclaimed. "I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this rookie in the tournament!"
After the duel, Stefan rejoined with Ken and they sat down in their seats. "Nice duel," Ken said.
"One of my best," Stefan bragged. The tournament continued with five more duels which Ken and Stefan watched and enjoyed them.
"That was some duel!" the announcer said at the end of the third duel. "Okay, now for our final duel of the evening we will have Ivan Griffin, a Californian champion duelist, against, Drake Romero, last year's tournament MVP. Ken and Stefan prepared to watch this duel with great interest. "And since Ivan is new around here, he will get the first move!"
Both duelists came up to the arena and drew five cards. When Ivan drew his sixth, he immediately summoned his Launcher Spider (ATK 2200 DEF/2500) in attack mode.
Drake drew a card and placed a monster in defense mode, ending his turn.
Ivan drew a card and said, "I use the Raigeki magic card, which wipes out all the monsters on your field. Drake's monster that was in defense mode disappeared. "And now, my Launcher Spider will attack your Life Points directly and dropping them to zero leaving me victory.
"Amazing, ladies and gentlemen!" the announcer said. "I've heard rumors that Ivan ends his duels, quickly, and now I know why!" The audience was in silence. Drake looked like the Launcher Spider has swung one of its legs right in front of his face. "That concludes day one of our tournament. Come by tomorrow where we will start of the evening with a rookie, Ken Richter, against Jenny Wood, one of last year's semi-finalists!"
When Ken got home that night, his dad asked him, "So, did you win?"
"Nah, but Stefan did," Ken replied. "My first duel starts right away tomorrow."
"Well, we got new neighbors," Mr. Richter said. "They're the Griffins, and they have a boy your age. I think his name is Ivan."
"What?!" Ken demanded. "Ivan?"
"Yeah, I think so.why?" Mr. Richter asked.
"He was in the tournament," Ken answered. "He acted like he was some big shot. But all he does is cheap moves."
"Well I think if you get to know him better, he might be a good guy," Mr. Richter said.
"Sure," Ken said sarcastically, and he walked off toward his room.