Chapter 3: Magic Trick
The duelists took their appropriate places and after deciding that Steve would go first, began their duel.
"Alright punk, I'm gonna beat you so bad it will send you back to the stone age!" Steve threatened as he began his turn.
"I'm going to start by setting two cards face-down, and summon La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp (1800/1000)!"
Instantly the holographic images of the two cards appeared in front of Steve, in face-down position. Then his genie appeared in a shimmering of light. The green apparition was definitely intimidating, not only in size but appearance. It was extremely muscular, and had gold bands around its neck, biceps and wrists. It's massive head was decorated only with a small blue cap and a long mustache.
"Fine. Since your turn is over," Tom started, beginning his turn now, "I'll set one card face down, and summon Gemini Elf (1900/900) in attack mode!"
His card also appeared on the field in much the same way Steve's face-down cards had. Then his Gemini Elf materialized onto the field, which in fact, was two monsters as the same card. The monsters were really twins working together. The first had long blonde hair and wore a light blue colored outfit with matching gloves that ran up to its elbows. The second had red hair and wore a tight purple uniform. Both possessed strange symbols across their faces that shimmered in gold and green.
"Now Gemini Elf, attack his La Jinn!" Tom cried out, thrusting his hand forward and pointing his finger at its intended target. The elven sisters complied immediately, manifesting large orbs, then launching them forward, smashing into the genie, causing it to burst into thousands of bits which eventually vanished.
The score was now 8000 lifepoints for Tom, and 7900 lifepoints for Steve, but at such a small gap between them anything could happen.
"Alright buddy." Steve said, not particularly disturbed by Tom's decision. "I'll activate one of my face-down cards, Raigeki Break. With this card, I have to discard one card from my hand to destroy one face-up monster on the field. So I'll discard my Man-Eating Treasure Chest (1600/1000) from my hand in order to destroy your Gemini Elf!"
The face-down card instantly stood up, facing Tom. As Steve spoke, his trap card began to glow an eerie white. The instant Steve had finished, and destroyed his monster, a crack of lightning leapt from the trap card and obliterated Tom's Gemini Elf.
"Now that your defenses are gone, I'll summon Opticlops (1800/1700) in attack mode! Opticlops, attack this punk's lifepoints directly!"
"Activate trap! Sakuretsu Armor!" Tom cried out as Steve's monster lunged forward, its muscles churning its massive body forward. It's single eye filled with determination, the sunlight beaming off its deadly horn atop its head.
The trap instantly sprang to life. A shadowy-type creature emerged from it and made contact with Opticlops, instantly creating a massive struggle. The Opticlops struggled with all its might as Tom explained his trap.
"This card negates your attack, and destroys your attacking monster. So say goodbye to your Opticlops."
Suddenly, the shadow gained the upper hand, and sucked the monster back into the trap, right before it obliterated itself, leaving the field clear of monsters.
Steve began to laugh. "You think you've got the upper hand? You walked right into my trap! I wanted you to get rid of those two monsters to make my job easier!"
"What?" Tom stammered. He hadn't thought that Steve wanted him to destroy his monsters. All the duelists he'd gone against did everything in their power to avoid destroying their own monsters, but Steve was taking an entirely new approach to this, and Tom worried about what he could be planning for him.
"Now, I'll finish up my turn by removing my three fiend-type monsters from my graveyard in order to special summon my Dark Necrofear (2200/2800) in defense mode!"
"Good." Tom remarked, "Now that your turn is over, mine can begin."
Drawing he looked down at his hand. There really wasn't anything that could stop his Dark Necrofear from destroying any of his monsters. Their defenses were too low, and their attacks were even lower.
"Alright, I'll set one monster in defense-mode, and then set two cards face-down to end my turn." Tom finished, placing the cards in the card recognition slots on the Duel Disk. Three holographic card images appeared on the ground, two laying vertically and the third laying horizontally in front of the first two.
"That's it? Man, its hard to believe you even made it past the first round in the world championship." Steve scoffed as he drew his next card.
"Hmm…this should do nicely." He said as he examined his newly drawn card along with the ones in his hand. "I'll begin by switching my Dark Necrofear into attack-mode, and then summoning a monster known as Giant Orc (2200/0) in attack mode."
Placing the card on the monster zone slot on his Duel Disk, he watched as the monster appeared before his eyes. The name given to the monster fit perfectly. The creature stood at least seven and a half feet tall, with razor sharp teeth, and a large leg bone as a type of club. He had a large gut, but more impressive were the large muscles that adorned his body. Deep red eyes and a bluish-gray skin made this creature appear just as dangerous as his attack power did.
"Now, Dark Necrofear, destroy his face-down monster!" Steve commanded. The monster jumped to action, lunging itself at Tom's monster. The creature then pulled back its slender arm and stretched out its long bony fingers festooned with razor sharp nails at the ends. As it came down upon the creature, the hologram revealed itself to be a Mystical Elf. Its green dress and blue skin immediately became billions of bits of data when Dark Necrofear ripped through it with its claws.
"Then I guess I'll activate the magic card Pandemonium!" Steve proclaimed as he placed the card into the appropriate field card slot.
"Pandemonium?" Alex began.
"What is that?" Kiana inquired, slightly worried about Alex's reaction to the card.
"Well," he began, "It's a card that is mostly used with Archfiend monsters. It makes it so you don't have to pay lifepoints to summon or keep them on the field, but Steve has yet to use a single Archfiend monster."
"So what does that mean?" Kiana asked, watching the field go from the pristine green lawns and well kept streets, into a war zone. The grass died, and the ground twisted and shook until there was nothing left but mangled mud. The streets and sidewalks instantly cracked and broke upward causing many of the cars that were parked nearby to roll out of their parking spots slightly.
"It means Tom is in real trouble if Steve is doing what I think he is." Alex finished, obviously not wanting to continue to explain any more to Kiana.
"My turn now." Tom said confidently, even though he had little reason to be. With his only good monster being the Dark Magician residing in his hand, he had little to hope for, and his newly drawn card wasn't helping any.
"I'll activate the magic card, Pot of Greed." Tom announced as he activated his card. "With this card's effect, I can draw two extra cards from my deck and add them to my hand."
He examined his hand closely. It was a Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands and . Since he only had one light attribute and one earth attribute monster in his graveyard however, he wasn't able to special summon it yet.
"I'll set one monster in defense-mode and end my turn." Tom sighed.
"That's it? You took that long and wasted your Pot of Greed just to set a monster?" Steve chuckled. "You must not have a whole lot of good cards in your hand then."
Steve paused for a moment sorting out his cards. "Good. Then it shouldn't take too long to destroy you. First, I'll summon Warrior of Zera (1600/1600) in defense mode. Then I'll have my Dark Necrofear attack your face-down monster."
When Steve finished placing his monster on the Duel Disk, its sensors sprang to life and projected its image onto the battlefield. The monster was impressively tall and wore a green helmet adorned with two red horns. He had a long red scarf billowing behind him from around his neck, and a large green piece of armor protecting his chest. His arms also had the same green colored armor, where as his legs simply were protected by blue pants. He wielded a wicked sword, which due to his defense position left it in its sheath, and a whip that resided in front of him on the ground.
Dark Necrofear leapt forth to take out the face-down monster just as it had the previous turn, except this time Tom was ready with something up his sleeve. "I'll activate one of my face-down cards now. It's a trap card called Widespread Ruin. With this card I can destroy your strongest attack point monster, but since your Giant Orc and Dark Necrofear are the same attack strength, I think I'll destroy your Giant Orc." Tom finished, watching as Dark Necrofear tore through his Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands. Then, just behind the attacking monster, the Giant Orc was caught in a massive explosion that decimated the creature into nothing more than data bits.
"My Giant Orc!" Steve cried out in anger. "Your going to pay Corban!"
"Not as badly as your about to Steve-o." Tom remarked, "Your forgetting about my Manju's special ability. When its flip-summoned, or normal summoned I can retrieve one Ritual Spell card or one Ritual Monster card from my deck and at it to my hand. So I'll get my Shinato, King of a Higher Plane!"
"How can you do that? It wasn't flip-summoned!" Steve shrieked.
"Actually, whenever you attack a face-down monster your flip-summoning the creature. So I thank you for your help."
Steve cursed silently under his breath as he ended his turn.
"To begin my turn, I shall activate my spell card Shinato's Ark! Then I'll send my Dark Magician and my second Mystical Elf to the graveyard in order to summon Shinato, King of a Higher Plane (3300/3000)!"
A huge ark appeared above Tom's head. As he offered up his monsters, their images floated gracefully into the ark. Then in one swift move, the door shut and reopened revealing Shinato himself. The creature had three sets of wings and a beautiful golden crown festooned atop its head. Shinato's entire body was blue, and wore a robe so purely white, it was almost blinding to look at.
"W…what!?" Steve stuttered. "How…how did you manage to get such a powerful monster!?"
"A gift." Tom replied, looking over to Alex and Kiana, "from some friends."
"Your Shinato doesn't scare me Corban! Show me what you've got!" Steve rebelled. He was determined to destroy the little worm, even if it meant losing some of his best cards in the process.
Tom quickly thought to himself. He knew Dark Necrofear had more than one special ability but he couldn't quite remember if it was when a monster destroyed it that its effect was activated, or if it was when one of his card's effects activated it.
"Alright, Shinato attack his Dark Necrofear!" Tom commanded.
Tom's monster took little time in carrying out the attack. It immediately brought its hands towards the middle of its chest, focusing its energy into a single ball of light that began to grow immensely. After only a few seconds, the glowing orb of energy was the size of a basketball. At that moment, Shinato sent the attack straight into the chest of Dark Necrofear, draining away 1100 of Steve's lifepoints.
Now the tides had begun to turn. With Steve at 6900 and Tom at 7900, the match was still close, but Tom had considerable lead, especially since he had the strongest monster on the field now.
"Is that it?" Steve asked as he recovered from the lifepoint damage, his voice revealing his vulnerability at that moment.
"Not quite. I think I'll set one more card face-down before I end my turn.
"Good." Steve said, beginning his turn. "Since I only have two cards in my hand, I'll set the first one, and offer up my Warrior of Zera in order to special summon my Mazera DeVille (2800/2300)!"
The projections appeared on the field immediately. The monster was huge, with even more of the green armor than the previous monster had. This one possessed massive armored claws, along with a menacing one-piece helmet, cuirass-type of armor. The back of it curved out, creating a wing-like appearance to it, with red horns protruding out of the helmet.
"If I have Pandemonium active on my side of the field, you must discard three cards from your hand when this monster is summoned." Steve finished, then immediately cringed when he saw that Tom only possessed one card in his hand.
"Fine." Tom replied, sending his final card to the graveyard.
"Since your monster is clearly stronger than mine, I will simply end my turn." Steve finished, a devilish look in his eye.
I don't like this. Tom thought as he drew his next card. He intentionally summoned a weaker monster than my Shinato…granted, he didn't have any other monsters…but I should still be cautious about his face-down card.
"Alright Steve, let's see how you handle this," Tom began, "I'll activate my first face-down card, Monster Reborn."
"You don't have anything in your graveyard strong enough to destroy my Mazera DeVille." Steve scoffed, folding his arms across his chest, clearly becoming bored with what he thought was Tom's bad attempt at getting to his lifepoints.
"With this card, I can bring back one monster from either of our graveyards, and I think I'll pick my Dark Magician!"
The face-down magic card stood up on end, and began to emanate a white glow. When Tom finally declared the name of the monster and placed it from the graveyard back onto the dueling platform, it sprang forth from inside the magic card. After his Dark Magician was standing back on the field, along side his Shinato, the magic card vanished in a shimmer of light.
"Now, I'm going to activate my second face-down card, Shadow Spell!" Tom began, pushing the button that registered for it to activate. "This trap allows me to pick one monster on your side of the field for it to ensnare and bring down by 700 attack points. Since your Mazera DeVille is the only thing left standing, I think I'll choose it."
Instantly the trap unleashed a barrage of chains that grabbed the terrifying monster by its limbs, suspending it in mid-air. The creature struggled with all its might, but eventually succumbed to its doomed fate, its attack now down to 2100.
"Now, Dark Magician, attack his Mazera DeVille!" Tom cried, but was stopped before he could finish his sentence.
"I'll activate my trap card, Waboku in order to protect my Mazera DeVille!" Steve bellowed as three women in blue robes appeared between the Dark Magician and Mazera DeVille, stopping the attack from occurring.
"Thanks to my Waboku, none of your monsters attacks will harm my creature."
"That's fine with me." Tom said, motioning that his turn was now over. I've got him on the ropes…unless he manages to pull the miracle of all miracles out of his hat. He thought silently as Steve began his turn again.