Heart of the Cards
******
Chapter Two: "And I'll YELL All I Want"
I slowed my run to a jog, and finally to a stop in front of Ivy's porch. Running a mile in an intense heat wave was not something I usually enjoyed, or wanted to make a habit of. Leaning up against the softly painted white wall to catch my breath, I once more reflected upon the time. Now I was about a half an hour late, enough time to make someone as worrisome as Ivy conclude that I had been abducted by aliens or brutally murdered.
I suddenly remembered WHY I had come there, and slipped the plastic box out of my pocket. I slid my deck out of my front jeans pocket, straightened up and pushed open the door, greeted by soft melody of a wind chime deep within the house. Within seconds, a very flustered Ivy had come out to greet me.
"Ebon! There you are! I was very worried, you know... where WERE you?" she said, rushing over and giving me the look equivalent to that of a long-lost sibling.
"Ivy, sorry, you know, I met Kennie at the park and lost track of time..." I said, rubbing the sweat off the back of my neck.
"Well, at least that's all you did!" she reprimanded, turning to walk through the living room.
I followed, shuffling my deck idly as I walked. Sometimes, for fun, I would just shuffle until I felt a pang of... something, and draw a hand of five cards from the top, just to see if I could really trust my instincts in a duel.
Flipping the first 5 cards off of the top, I felt my mouth drop open slightly.
Dark Magician, Black Magical Curtain, Doma the Angel of Silence, Ring of Magnetism and 1000 knives. What were the odds of getting all of my favorite cards in one hand?
Shrugging it off, I re-shuffled and sat down on the reclining white chair in Ivy's well-furnished den. It really was a nice place, with its off-white fluffy carpeting, crème yellow curtains, and ancient and dusty wooden shelves holding countless ancient and dusty artifacts with no names.
Ivy brushed a lock of blonde away from her face, and pulled her deck out of an old looking box. While other girls spent their money on cosmetics or clothes, Ivy could always be found tearing through rickety antique stores or raiding the library for books on the past.
After we followed the traditional rule of shuffling each other's decks, I drew my hand of cards.
I'm not all that good in math, not all that good in art, I suck like a kid with a lollypop in athletic sports, but I can say with a certain extent of pride that I am one tough to beat opponent when it comes to Duel Monsters. However, Ivy was, too. There were times I wondered if she went easy on me like I sometimes went easy on her, but I somehow doubted it. Ivy knew me well, and I her, having known each other since our diaper-days, and therefore she understood how touchy pity or cheap second chances were with me.
Our duel flew by in a flurry of flipping cards, de-spells (it felt like a hundred of them, even though we each only had two), hidden trap cards that fell my strong monsters and well-placed attacks that wiped us each down to about 500 points, and with how few cards we each had left, we were both in danger of loosing from trision anyway, which actually happened a lot. It was the most crucial point of the match.
It was Ivy's turn. She contemplated her hand for a moment, brow furrowed gently, eyes glancing her cards over carefully. I, meanwhile, stared down at our battlefield. I had a field advantage with the Yami, or Darkness card in play, and the one monster I had left on there, Dark Magician in attack mode, was pretty much going to be able to take out both of her defense monsters that were left. I'd memorized Ivy's deck, and I knew she only had one more card that could possibly win this for her, and if one of those two face downs were it, I'd already be a goner. The duel was pretty much in the bag at this point.
However, I was nowhere NEAR underestimating my best friend. In spite of the fact that we knew each other, and our decks, like the back of our hands, the constant skill and strategy that we employed always changed, so the duels were never dull, never predictable, and never, ever over until the last point was gone.
"Alright." Ivy said decisively. "I'm going to sacrifice these two to summon..."
She lay the card down on the field, and my insides went numb. There it was, a face up Blue Eyes White Dragon, cobalt eyes shining out from the card in a radiant way and ensnaring my gaze. Crap.
I didn't have any other monsters I could put on the field, and I knew my deck well enough so that when I drew my next card, I wasn't hoping to get some low-level thing to stave off the dragon's inevitable attack on the next turn. I didn't have any more monsters in my three-card deck. I got a magic card that, although excellent in other situations, was useless to me here.
Instead of turning my Dark Magician into defense mode, I let her take the rest of my points. It was an honor thing, I suppose.
"Well, that was a great duel, Ebon! Thank you!" Ivy said.
I nodded, smiling and shook her hand. I'd always known that she had a Blue Eyes, but it wasn't until I got my own Blue Eyes Ultimate that I'd started to envy it slightly. Without three Blue Eyes White Dragon and a polymerization card (all of which were pretty rare) the very best card in could ever hope to own, with level twelve, attack of 4500 and defense of 3800. was utterly useless.
**BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!** A horribly loud whamming on the door grabbed my attention.
"Uh!" Ivy started, leaping up. "I'm coming!"
I followed her to the door, but not before stopping to scoop up my deck and spilling the cards back into their holder. An angry male voice followed by Ivy's flustered tones sounded from the front of the house.
Rounding the corner, I knew what was going on the second that the scene met my eyes. A VERY angry Will was interrogating Ivy, dark eyes (I usually referred to them as black, even though that wasn't possible) narrowed and looking like the very depths of hell. Behind him, Blaine tried futilely to calm his brother down.
"Will, don't yell! Will, calm down... Ivy, I'm so sorry, but you see-- "
"Shut up, Blaine! This is important, and I'll YELL all I want!" Will snapped at his brother, whipping to face him like a provoked scorpion.
"What's going on? Where's Kennie?" I asked, stepping out and giving him a warning look. If he thought that Ivy had done something to Kennie, he had poorer judgment than I had previously thought possible.
"THAT'S what I'm here for!" He snarled, turning on me, his new victim. "You. You were with him today, right? You must have been. You said you were going to the park today, and that's where he was last!" I had to admire how hard he worked to find someone to blame. The guy had gumption.
Glancing over from the worried Blaine to the warpath Will, I was once again struck by how different from each other they were. Blaine was dirty-blonde with green eyes, gentle and soft-spoken, who never liked to make waves. He was also quite people-friendly, but a bit too much for his own good.
Will, he was auburn haired, dark brown eyed, with a fire in his gaze to match it. He was suspicious, antisocial and quite brash.
I didn't realize that I had gotten wrapped up in my thoughts until Will exploded again.
"Tell me, Ebon!"
"Huh! Wha, oh right. Yeah, I WAS at the park. Kennie WAS there. And I DID send him home. I haven't seen him since. Neither of us have. He should be home by now, did you check there?" I challenged, giving him a stoic glare.
This time Blaine calmly supplied the answer. "... Yes. He wasn't there."
"This doesn't sound good..." Ivy murmured, looking off to the right to think. I knew that she was probably upset at being accused like that, but if someone were in possible trouble, she would get mad at Will later. "We'll help you look for him, okay Will?"
"...." I guess Ivy took his silence as a "Yes. Thank you."
"Where was he headed last?" Blaine asked me, with worry etched deeply into his features.
"... Heading out of the park and heading east. Toward your house, I guess." I said, ripping my eyes from Will, who had turned bing cherry red.
"Let's go." Will stated with finality in his voice that no one argued with.
******
{AN: YESSSS, YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!! This is it! THIS is the most hated chapter in this little story!!! AND I PSEUDO-FIXED IT!!!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA... No more freakin' inaccurate dueling, no more non- existent rules!!! YEAH BABY!!!!!! ... Okay, so I just cut most of the duel out, but it's better than that horrible former BLASPHEMY!!!!!!
*cough* I'm okay. This part has just been bothering me a lot lately, ya know, haunting my sleep at night and such. BUT NO LONGER!!!!! XD XD XD}
******
Chapter Two: "And I'll YELL All I Want"
I slowed my run to a jog, and finally to a stop in front of Ivy's porch. Running a mile in an intense heat wave was not something I usually enjoyed, or wanted to make a habit of. Leaning up against the softly painted white wall to catch my breath, I once more reflected upon the time. Now I was about a half an hour late, enough time to make someone as worrisome as Ivy conclude that I had been abducted by aliens or brutally murdered.
I suddenly remembered WHY I had come there, and slipped the plastic box out of my pocket. I slid my deck out of my front jeans pocket, straightened up and pushed open the door, greeted by soft melody of a wind chime deep within the house. Within seconds, a very flustered Ivy had come out to greet me.
"Ebon! There you are! I was very worried, you know... where WERE you?" she said, rushing over and giving me the look equivalent to that of a long-lost sibling.
"Ivy, sorry, you know, I met Kennie at the park and lost track of time..." I said, rubbing the sweat off the back of my neck.
"Well, at least that's all you did!" she reprimanded, turning to walk through the living room.
I followed, shuffling my deck idly as I walked. Sometimes, for fun, I would just shuffle until I felt a pang of... something, and draw a hand of five cards from the top, just to see if I could really trust my instincts in a duel.
Flipping the first 5 cards off of the top, I felt my mouth drop open slightly.
Dark Magician, Black Magical Curtain, Doma the Angel of Silence, Ring of Magnetism and 1000 knives. What were the odds of getting all of my favorite cards in one hand?
Shrugging it off, I re-shuffled and sat down on the reclining white chair in Ivy's well-furnished den. It really was a nice place, with its off-white fluffy carpeting, crème yellow curtains, and ancient and dusty wooden shelves holding countless ancient and dusty artifacts with no names.
Ivy brushed a lock of blonde away from her face, and pulled her deck out of an old looking box. While other girls spent their money on cosmetics or clothes, Ivy could always be found tearing through rickety antique stores or raiding the library for books on the past.
After we followed the traditional rule of shuffling each other's decks, I drew my hand of cards.
I'm not all that good in math, not all that good in art, I suck like a kid with a lollypop in athletic sports, but I can say with a certain extent of pride that I am one tough to beat opponent when it comes to Duel Monsters. However, Ivy was, too. There were times I wondered if she went easy on me like I sometimes went easy on her, but I somehow doubted it. Ivy knew me well, and I her, having known each other since our diaper-days, and therefore she understood how touchy pity or cheap second chances were with me.
Our duel flew by in a flurry of flipping cards, de-spells (it felt like a hundred of them, even though we each only had two), hidden trap cards that fell my strong monsters and well-placed attacks that wiped us each down to about 500 points, and with how few cards we each had left, we were both in danger of loosing from trision anyway, which actually happened a lot. It was the most crucial point of the match.
It was Ivy's turn. She contemplated her hand for a moment, brow furrowed gently, eyes glancing her cards over carefully. I, meanwhile, stared down at our battlefield. I had a field advantage with the Yami, or Darkness card in play, and the one monster I had left on there, Dark Magician in attack mode, was pretty much going to be able to take out both of her defense monsters that were left. I'd memorized Ivy's deck, and I knew she only had one more card that could possibly win this for her, and if one of those two face downs were it, I'd already be a goner. The duel was pretty much in the bag at this point.
However, I was nowhere NEAR underestimating my best friend. In spite of the fact that we knew each other, and our decks, like the back of our hands, the constant skill and strategy that we employed always changed, so the duels were never dull, never predictable, and never, ever over until the last point was gone.
"Alright." Ivy said decisively. "I'm going to sacrifice these two to summon..."
She lay the card down on the field, and my insides went numb. There it was, a face up Blue Eyes White Dragon, cobalt eyes shining out from the card in a radiant way and ensnaring my gaze. Crap.
I didn't have any other monsters I could put on the field, and I knew my deck well enough so that when I drew my next card, I wasn't hoping to get some low-level thing to stave off the dragon's inevitable attack on the next turn. I didn't have any more monsters in my three-card deck. I got a magic card that, although excellent in other situations, was useless to me here.
Instead of turning my Dark Magician into defense mode, I let her take the rest of my points. It was an honor thing, I suppose.
"Well, that was a great duel, Ebon! Thank you!" Ivy said.
I nodded, smiling and shook her hand. I'd always known that she had a Blue Eyes, but it wasn't until I got my own Blue Eyes Ultimate that I'd started to envy it slightly. Without three Blue Eyes White Dragon and a polymerization card (all of which were pretty rare) the very best card in could ever hope to own, with level twelve, attack of 4500 and defense of 3800. was utterly useless.
**BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!** A horribly loud whamming on the door grabbed my attention.
"Uh!" Ivy started, leaping up. "I'm coming!"
I followed her to the door, but not before stopping to scoop up my deck and spilling the cards back into their holder. An angry male voice followed by Ivy's flustered tones sounded from the front of the house.
Rounding the corner, I knew what was going on the second that the scene met my eyes. A VERY angry Will was interrogating Ivy, dark eyes (I usually referred to them as black, even though that wasn't possible) narrowed and looking like the very depths of hell. Behind him, Blaine tried futilely to calm his brother down.
"Will, don't yell! Will, calm down... Ivy, I'm so sorry, but you see-- "
"Shut up, Blaine! This is important, and I'll YELL all I want!" Will snapped at his brother, whipping to face him like a provoked scorpion.
"What's going on? Where's Kennie?" I asked, stepping out and giving him a warning look. If he thought that Ivy had done something to Kennie, he had poorer judgment than I had previously thought possible.
"THAT'S what I'm here for!" He snarled, turning on me, his new victim. "You. You were with him today, right? You must have been. You said you were going to the park today, and that's where he was last!" I had to admire how hard he worked to find someone to blame. The guy had gumption.
Glancing over from the worried Blaine to the warpath Will, I was once again struck by how different from each other they were. Blaine was dirty-blonde with green eyes, gentle and soft-spoken, who never liked to make waves. He was also quite people-friendly, but a bit too much for his own good.
Will, he was auburn haired, dark brown eyed, with a fire in his gaze to match it. He was suspicious, antisocial and quite brash.
I didn't realize that I had gotten wrapped up in my thoughts until Will exploded again.
"Tell me, Ebon!"
"Huh! Wha, oh right. Yeah, I WAS at the park. Kennie WAS there. And I DID send him home. I haven't seen him since. Neither of us have. He should be home by now, did you check there?" I challenged, giving him a stoic glare.
This time Blaine calmly supplied the answer. "... Yes. He wasn't there."
"This doesn't sound good..." Ivy murmured, looking off to the right to think. I knew that she was probably upset at being accused like that, but if someone were in possible trouble, she would get mad at Will later. "We'll help you look for him, okay Will?"
"...." I guess Ivy took his silence as a "Yes. Thank you."
"Where was he headed last?" Blaine asked me, with worry etched deeply into his features.
"... Heading out of the park and heading east. Toward your house, I guess." I said, ripping my eyes from Will, who had turned bing cherry red.
"Let's go." Will stated with finality in his voice that no one argued with.
******
{AN: YESSSS, YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!! This is it! THIS is the most hated chapter in this little story!!! AND I PSEUDO-FIXED IT!!!! WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA... No more freakin' inaccurate dueling, no more non- existent rules!!! YEAH BABY!!!!!! ... Okay, so I just cut most of the duel out, but it's better than that horrible former BLASPHEMY!!!!!!
*cough* I'm okay. This part has just been bothering me a lot lately, ya know, haunting my sleep at night and such. BUT NO LONGER!!!!! XD XD XD}