Chapter 20
"I think this duel is about over," Andre said to me as I looked up at the action.
The other kid had an attacking Armored Zombie (1500/0) and a Despair From the Dark (2800/3000) in attack mode, evilly grinning at the kid's to whom we were closest defending Tyhone #2 (1700/1900).
"Eliminate his puny dragon card!" the zombie duelist ordered his more powerful card. And in a blur of gas and claws, the dragon was torn apart. "Now deplete the remainder of his life points!" he commanded his Armored Zombie. With a poorly aimed slash from his sword, the duel between duelists #25 and #28 was over with #25 as the victor.
After the prizes were awarded, Linda announced to us all, "The duel between duelists #29 and 32 will now begin. Please approach the arena!"
"Good luck, Andre!" I said without saying much else.
"...Aren't... you coming too?" he asked trying to sound like he didn't care.
Surprised, I looked at him and said, "Well hey- you don't need US, right? Whatever happened to the 'I can win duels without your encouraging words' attitude?" I finally brought the truth directly in front of Andre. He took a bit of offense to this, as could be seen by the way he was gradually backing away. But then he noticed Jack crawling around on the floor of the stairs behind me and I continued, "Oh right, but Jack lost one of his rare cards, and I'm helping him find it; we'll be there in a few minutes!" He laughed a laugh of relief as he turned around and calmly marched down the stairs
"So what card, exactly, did you lose?" I asked Jack as I watched the two opponents shuffle each others decks.
"Aha! Here it is. Never mind, I found it-" he was happy as he showed me his found Dimensionhole.
"Hey! That's the card you played against Alex and Christina," I commented as I looked away and noticed Andre's next opponent being Alex. Both duelists were headed to their platforms. I ran ahead of Jack so I could catch the first turn.
"...To start off, I'll put one card in defense mode and two other cards face down- your move!" Alex began the duel.
Andre drew a card and couldn't help but smile, "Alright! If these are the kinds of cards I'll be drawing throughout this duel, you're already done for! First off, I'm activating Harpie's Feather Duster!" Andre slapped the powerful, not to mention rare, magic card on the field. We all watched in amazement as a huge whirlwhind whisked away the virtual duplicates of Alex's face down cards... "Change of Heart and Salamandra? WHY would you putthose face down?" Andre almost yelled as he asked. "But whatever," Andre continued his turn, "I'm setting a face down card of my own and summoning Skilled Dark Magician (1900/1700) in attack mode to get rid of your defense monster!" The dark spellcaster attacked the face down card and destroyed it with deadly accuracy. With his lightning rod-type weapon.
"That was my Fire Sorcerer (1000/1500). And she's got quite the effect. At the cost of two cards in my hand randomly removed from play, I inflict 800 points of direct damage to you. THAT'S why I put those magic cards face down- I didn't want to risk losing either of them," Alex explained as he scrambled his hand's cards and blindly sent two of them out of play. Then two fireballs spouted from two corners of Alex's field and crashed right into Andre, bringing his life points down to 7200. "You can't win this duel by card effects alone," Andre stated the obvious as Alex drew his next card.
"Okay, I'm setting one card face down and another card in defense."
"My move," Andre drew a card. "I summon Gagagigo (1850/1000) in attack mode.
"Ah- now'd be a pretty good time to activate the trap I have set, Just Desserts! For every monster you've got on the field, you lose 500 life points- so that means that you lose 1000. The green bar above Andre on that huge scoreboard shrank down to right before the 6000 LP mark. Andre, although having an advantage at this point, was losing.
"Fine, I'll soon return the favor- Lemme just get through this turn. Skilled Dark Magician attacks your defense monster." Andre said a bit agitated by Alex's almost underhanded tactics. "Okay, that was my Masked Dragon (1400/1100). And when he's sent to the graveyard by a battle, I can special summon a dragon with 1500 attack points or fewer from my deck, then I shuffle it." After a few seconds of taking a card from his deck, setting it in defense and shuffling his deck, it was back to Andre. "And now Gagagigo attacks your new face down monster."
"That's my Dragon Dwelling in the Cave (1300/2000). Gagagigo's attack is lower than 2000, so you lose 150 life points, ha ha ha! I'm doing pretty good!" Alex happily smiled as Andre's life points went down to 6050. "And now it's MY turn!"
Alex drew a card, "I tribute my dragon to summon Twin-Headed Fire Dragon (2200/1700) in attack mode. Now he attacks your Gagagigo!"
"I don't think so! Now I'm activating Magic Cylinder! It negates this attack and sends it right back at you- taking away a huge portion of your life points!" Andre announced, bringing relief to us, his fans.
"Ah crap! And I was doing so well a few seconds ago!" Alex complained as his pyro card launched his molten attack. The magic cylinder appeared in front of Andre's reptile, saving it, and used its tube shape to redirect the fireball back at Alex and his life points. The infernal blast made a loud holographic boom and sunk his life points from a perfect 8000 to 5800.
"All I did was even out the score," Andre said as he drew his next card bringing his hand up to four cards, "NOW it's time to distinguish a leader in this duel!" Andre made it quite clear that Alex's Twin-Headed Fire Dragon was going to be destroyed. "I now sacrifice my Skilled Dark Magician..." he paused as he removed that card from the field. A dark purple orb randomly fluttered about Andre's side of the field until he put down the card that would take its place, "...to summon Great Maju Garzett(/0)! He has a super special ability. His attack points are determined by the monster I sacrificed to get him on the field. In this case, I take my Skilled Dark Magician's attack and multiply it by 2 to get 3800 points!" Instantly, the dark purple orb sped and meshed into the evil fiend conjured up by who knows what. Right after the dark purple sphere combined with Great Maju Garzett, it was like he was awakened from some type of eternal slumber- his arms were somehow filled strength. He grew 7 and a half feet tall and a very visible aura of dark blue was around this guy- definitely conveying the word "lethal."
"Attack his puny dragon!" Andre commanded. With no choice, his fiend stood still with his arms slightly bent. But slowly, his hands began to spark with a navy blue energy. Smoothly, he lifted up his hands, not moving a finger, pointing them in the direction of the deformed dragon. And, not even doing anything, a huge collection of power gathered all about his arms, from the shoulder to the fingertips. Then a breathtaking display of deadly dark blue accuracy blasted from each of his arms and completely annihilated Alex's pyro card, bring his life points down a considerable amount to 4200. "And Gagagigo gets his turn now- attack his life points!" Heroically, this reptile card bolted up to Alex, jumped up and jabbed him with his spikes, bringing his life points even further down to 2350. "Now- could you remind me who's losing this duel?" Andre was apparently happy with this sudden turn of events: He had almost 3 times the life points of Alex, Alex could only draw one card on his next turn which means that if it wasn't a monster, he'd definitely be screwed. So everyone was completely silent as Alex drew his next card, despite the pandemonium that had just occurred.
Andre interrupted the silence before Alex drew his card, "It's a shame that you had that Change of Heart destroyed so early in the game, eh?" Alex glared at him, but then agreed, "Yeah, I suppose it was dumb to take such a huge risk- it sure would be useful about now..." Alex stopped talking and drew his card...
It seemed to take him forever to get that card into his hand. And while he slowly, needlessly dramatically took his time, I was thinking- suddenly reminded is more like it- that after this duel, I would be up against my next opponent. I remember that my future, duelist #5 beat that duelist #8 who gave his friend "bad advice." And then it was funny that #8, with 8 as his lucky number, lost.
Suddenly, I was brought back to the current duel where I saw Andre looking dead ahead as his platform lowered. He was wearing an almost detectable smile. "Oh, it's over?" I asked. "What'd you attack with?"
"Nothing, he surrendered when he was so close to actually drawing a card," Andre responded. "But he had 2350 life points left! Surely he could have at least defended..." I replied.
"Yeah- but what a wimp... But at least now I get to take one of his cards, which will make this whole duel worthwhile," he sounded pretty annoyed with "easy-to-beat" duelists. But it's my opinion that he relies on his Great Maju Garzett way too often. Come to think of it, he won his last duel against Weirdo with Great Maju Garzett as well. But all his opponent would need to do is activate a Trap Hole or something like that, and that monster is gone. One shouldn't put too much faith in one card and only one card- diversify.
So Andre took Alex's Shift trap card. It was a good choice, in my opinion.
And before I was aware of it, Linda was calling me and duelist #5 to the arena. I walked up to Linda and waited for my next opponent to make his way down the steps. As this was happening, I took the time to sift through my deck and make absolutely SURE that every extraneous card in my deck had been taken out; this late in the tournament, you don't want to make too many mistakes. I counted my cards... exactly 52! This was good in more ways than one... It's not too small so that I won't run out of cards so quickly and not too big that I would never draw the cards I want. Also, 52 is perfectly divisible by 13 which is my favorite number. So it all works out fine. Also, I took out/ replaced quite a huge number of cards since my last duel. You may be surprised to know that some of the cards I took out include my Cyber Jar, Berserk Gorilla and one of my Summoned Skulls: too many high level monsters in one's deck can cause problems. Okay, I got done thinking... was he here yet? No? Very well- back to my thoughts...
I thought about all this crap regarding my Black Skull Dragon. Even though it was no longer in my deck (fusion monsters are extremely hard to summon in the fact that at least three cards are needed...), I had it protected in a sleeve in that pack that I received earlier back from J and S... those two sister rare hunter duelists.
"Here comes your next victim," Jack said. I looked back at him and said, "You've got too much faith in me, I think!" Then Andre said, totally ignoring both of us, "He's a rare hunter!" in a surprised tone. I turned my head and became just as surprised as he was; this "rare hunter" was in a dark orange t-shirt, dark blue denim jeans and wearing some kind of ominous bracelet on his left wrist. This was the most un-threatening rare hunter I had ever seen. But it could just as easily be some other guy with a thing for dark colors that aren't black. How the heck is Andre able to pick out these rare hunters out of a crowd?
Anyway, Linda explained to us both the same old routine. But this time, she introduced something new, "Since we are now at the top eight, both of you are entitled to one rare card as part of your prize for making it this far. When one of you lose, you WILL be able to keep the card you get in addition to the $500 already entitled to you. But back to the cards..." She reached into her pockets and took out 8 packs each holding one card. "I have here 8 packs. Each of these packs holds exactly one rare card. The rarity can range anywhere from simply rare (with only silver lettering) to the rarity with gold lettering and a holographic background (I don't know the actual NAMES of the different types of rarities...). And the card can come from any booster pack from Legend of Blue Eyes all the way up to the current newest one... So, duelist #5, you pick first."
He looked at the eight silver foil-wrapped cards and took the furthest one to the left. I chose the one second from the right. The opened pack revealed the Mad Dog of Darkness (1900/1400) from the Invasion of Chaos booster pack, a level four monster with good stats. And it's a normal monster, too- so trap cards such as Skill Drain have no effect on it. My opponent, who actually introduced himself as Larry, opened his pack, looked carelessly at the card but didn't put it in his deck.Larry? What kind of rare hunter name IS that? I thought to myself as Andre kept himself convinced that this guy was out to get every rare card in existence.
But anyway, we shuffled each others' decks, Linda tiredly rose up on her own little platform for the 25th time during these final five sets, Larry and I each ascended in our platforms and the duel started. He said the same thing that J said to Andre, "I always let the hunted go first." So I did.
FINALLY I was dueling again. It got kind of boring watching others duel.
My first hand wasn't so bad: Black Pendant, Sangan, Big Eye, Kisetai, Spear Cretin and Summoned Skull. This made a fiend-duelist like me extremely happy to see a hand of almost all fiend monsters. I set my Sangan (1000/600) and ended my turn.
Larry drew his sixth card and smiled, "I'm summoning Berserk Gorilla (2000/1000) in attack mode! And next I'm equipping him with Fairy Meteor Crush! This super special equip doesn't increase or decrease his attack or anything like that. Instead, when he attacks a defense position monster with a defense lower than his attacks, the difference between the two is subtracted from your life points! So, Berserk Gorilla, attack his face down monster!"
A mighty stream of fire burst out of his throat and vaporized my Sangan. And since his defense was only 600, I lost 1400 life points- that's a LOT to lose from only the first attack. So the score was 8000 to 6600 and I already had to rethink my strategy. Luckily, my Sangan's special effect was now kicked in. I could take a monster with 1500 attack points or fewer and add it to my hand, then my deck's shuffled.
So then it was my turn. I had taken out Soul Tiger into my hand from my Sangan's effect and then drew Gagagigo from my deck. Then I had a pretty cool idea upon looking closer at my hand. There was a secondary effect my Kisetai had that I wasn't entirely aware about: when my opponent attacks it in face down defense position, not only is it equipped with him, but damage calculations are CANCELLED! I should have set him first instead of my Sangan. But oh well, if I was going to lose life points from an attack from a different monster of his, so be it, "I'm setting one monster face down and ending my turn." I said. Only this time, I was thinking- kinda. (Why didn't I just equip my Gagagigo with the Black Pendant and destroy his monkey altogether?)
"More defense, kid? Perhaps I didn't explain my equip card's effect well enough the first time?" he taunted as he drew his next card. "I'm setting two cards face down and summon Blazing Inpachi (1850/0) in attack mode!" Now THIS was one of the weirdest cards I had ever seen! It kinda looked like that Mokujin tree thingy from Tekken 3 on fire. I laughed when he summoned it to the field. Unfortunately, I was the only one who found it funny and looked like a complete fool being the only one laughing in the whole arena. So anyway, the duel continued, "Berserk Gorilla, attack his defense monster!" And that same force of fire destroyed my Kisetai (300/800). "Oh, too bad! Looks like you lose 1200 more life points!"
"Maybe you should look again-" I said that cliché comeback to such a comment and wanted to slap myself in the forehead as he made a grimace deliberately communicating the message, "Oh God, NO! He didNOT just say that!"
After a second or two he said, "Why aren't your life points dropping?" I answered his question by telling him all of Kisetai's effects, even about the one that raised my life points by 1000 (half of his Berserk Gorilla's attack) at each of his standby phases. He wasn't too thrilled about that, I must say. "But it's still my battle phase! Attack him directly, Blazing Inpachi!" As quick as a brushfire, he zipped directly towards me and punched me with a flaming wooden fist, brining my life points down to 4750. "Come ON, (my name)! Pick it up! Are you gonna let him win this easily?" Jack complained.Gee, what happened to this guy being my next 'victim'? I thought as I gave Jack the okay sign and turned back to the duel.
My turn, I drew my Princess of Tsurugi, which would bring his life points down at least 2000, but that Fairy Meteor Crush and his Blazing Inpachi's attack would cost me too much. So I then set my Soul Tiger (0/2100) with a plan and ended my turn.
"Defense again?" He sounded confused and drew a card. Instantly, my life points went up to 5750. I LOVE my Kisetai! "I'm gonna deal TWICE that amount you just recovered by attacking with my Blazing Inpachi first! Attack his defense monster!" I smiled as the incinerating tree thingy punched my hidden Soul Tiger.
"Sorry! That card's defense is higher than your pryo card's attack, so YOU lose 250 life points," I reported as he seemed to almost not care. "But don't forget," I reminded Larry, "about your gorilla's effect. You MUST attack with him when possible, regardless if you'll win the battle or not!" I smiled as he angrily complied, double-checking his beast's effect. "Fine- Berserk Gorilla, attack his Soul Tiger." My tiger just curled up into a ball and deflected the entire stream of fire off its fur, resulting in a small loss of 100 more life points for Larry.
"It was my turn again and I happily drew my next card. It was La Jinn! Although he wasn't useful to me right now, it was another fiend in my hand. But speaking of fiends, now was probably a good time to use my Summoned Skull and Black Pendant. With 3000 attack points out there, I'd easily soon have HIM defending instead of me. So, "I sacrifice my Soul Tiger to summon Summoned Skull (2500/1200) in attack mode! Plus, I equip him with the Black Pendant, which increases his attack to 3000!" I finally had some kind of advantage! "And now he attacks your Blazing Inpachi!" His newly equipped Black Pendant seemed to amplify his lightning abilities: a bright blue ball of light exploded from the dark piece of jewelry. The Summoned Skull grabbed this and somehow changed it into electricity: more powerful-looking than his usual lighting attack. The strike sped toward the fire card and struck it dead on, right after Larry activated a trap card, "It's Sakuretsu Armor. And when my opponent declares an attack, I can activate this and instantly destroy the attacking monster, so your Summoned Skull is now an unsummoned skull!" The lightning did hit the monster, but he had some special armor on that was so shiny and yet harshly abrasive and jagged. It reflected the strike right back at my fiend monster and destroyed it. I lost no life points, but Larry did because of Black Pendant... but what a waste! I became mad and scared at the same time. Could this be it for me? So far, I've only made little dents in his life points. He's been playing really well from the very start. And even when I was able to get one of my strongest monsters out there, he still managed to have the perfect defense lined up. I own a Sakuretsu Armor as well but never had it played against me... now I know how it feels...
"Okay! The fun continues with my turn!" Larry laughed and drew a card, bringing his hand to four cards. My life points rose to 6750 at his standby phase thanks to my Kisetai still out there...
"You're lucky that's still there, kid," Larry sounded pretty angry with my relatively high life point amount, despite his constant pummeling. "Anyway, I set one card face down and sacrfice my Blazing Inpachi," the burning monster instantly was reduced to embers leaving only a randomly floating red orb behind, "to summon my Dark Driceratops (2400/1500) in attack mode! This guy has the same effect as my Fair Meteor Crush card! But you don't even HAVE monsters on the field, so- both of you attack his life points directly!" He commanded both of his earth monsters to unleash their fury liberally onto my life points. That same river of fire from the gorilla and some spiked attack from that dinosaur together brought my life points down to 2350. This seemed hopeless. I had one turn left to at least delay my defeat. So I drew my next card and took a second to breathe before looking at it...
Of all the 52 cards in my deck, I happened to draw the one trap card that would at least give me hope of winning this duel. I set it and then set my Spear Cretin.
"Oh! Now he's trying to be strategic with a SINGLE trap or magic card. But you've still got your monster in defense," he drew his next card and my life points went up to 3350. "All I need to do is get rid of it and then attack you and I win. Ready?" He looked at the card he had just drawn. "And here we go! I'm activating the magic card Tribute to the Doomed! So by sending this Premature Burial in my hand to the graveyard, I can automatically destroy that face down monster." He finished. But in response to this, "I'M activating my Spirit Barrier trap card. As long as I have a monster on my side of the field, battle damage to me is zero!"
"You don't have any monsters, though- what good is it to you?" he asked.
"The card you destroyed was Spear Cretin (500/500). It lets us go back into our graveyards and special summon a monster in face up attack or face down defense. I'm choosing my Summoned Skull (2500/1200) in attack mode!" Larry went through his graveyard and summoned his only monster, Blazing Inpachi (1850/0) in attack mode.
"Don't forget your gorilla's negative effect!" I said with an antagonistic smile.
"Yeah yeah yeah- Berserk Gorilla, attack his Summoned Skull..." The flames hardly even bothered my fiend monster. In response, he launched his own lightning attack at it and completely annihilated the foolish mammal, resulting in a 500 life point loss for Larry. Slowly... I was bringing myself back from the brink... but what a long way I had to go!
"If you're done with your attempt at a comeback..." Larry still sounded pretty non-challant about this whole thing- as if he saw into the future with his as the victor...
He drew a card that brought up his hand to 2 cards. "Perfect," he smiled evilly, "I sacrifice my Blazing Inpachi to set one monster face down. It's your turn..."
I drew my next card, Rush Recklessly, and instantly set it down. I set my Princess of Tsurugi (900/700) face down just so I could have as many monsters as possible on the field so my Spirit Barrier wouldn't lose its effect. But then I thought about which monster I should attack. Should I attack his Dark Driceratops? It had 100 fewer attack points than my fiend. And if Larry activated a Rush Recklessly or something, I could just activate MINE and still win the battle. But what was this mysterious face down card? Not too many people SET a high level monster unless it has high defense, a good defense or both, quite possibly. Hey, wait a minute! With my Spirit Barrier out, this face down monster could have a billion defense points, and I still wouldn't feel a thing! At that instant, my mind was made up. I attacked his face down monster. He got angry as it was destroyed. It looked like that Sphinx thingy in Egypt- only this one had a nose.
"What the heck was that?" I asked as it violently exploded off the field because of my Summoned Skull's powerful surges of electricity. "That was the very rare Guardian Sphinx (1700/2400). If you let me flip summon it next turn, its effect would allow me to return ALL monster on your side of the field to your hand. So you were extremely lucky that you attacked it when you did."
My two friends behind me took a sigh of relief, "Yeah, (my name)! That's the way you do it! Make lucky guesses!" I laughed off the pressure that I had just expereinced and looked at the scoreboard. The life point values were pretty funny. I had 3350, Larry had 6650, nearly double.
"So now it's my turn- I see I'll have to be tougher," Larry said a bit disappointed. He drew a card, "Ah, HERE we go! I'm equipping my dinosaur card with Axe of Despair. It raises his attack by a baffling 1000 points! And now he attacks your Summoned Skull!" Larry forcefully declared. Somehow, the axe was meshed onto its tail. The dinosaur trodded forth and whipped his body around. The axe spun about and made a direct hit with my fiend card. It was the second time he was taken out. But, thanks to Spirit Barrier, my life points were safe and sound!
I drew my next card and stayed calm. All I needed to do was to continuously have at least one monster on the field, and I wouldn't lose life points. It turned out that I had drawn the Mad Dog of Darkness that I got before this duel started. But I set La Jinn just to have monsters on the field. Also, I flip summoned my Princess of Tsurugi (900/700) to activate her flip effect. "Now you lose 500 life points for every magic or trap card you've got there," I reported as he clenched his teeth and lowered his eyebrows all in anger. The scores were a bit closer now: 5150, Larry to 3350, me. I didn't care about her being in attack mode because of my Spirit Barrier- it was so cool!
Larry drew his next card and said, "This is getting to be irritating." He set one card in defense mode and attacked my princess the same way he attacked my Summoned Skull. She was gone- but no harm done.
I drew my next card and activated it. "I'm playing the field magic card Mystic Plasma Zone. It gives all DARK monsters a 500 point attack boost, but takes 400 of their defense." Upon the actiavtion of that card, an ominous veil of dark blue clouds sealed us all in and shrouded us in mystery. Lightning struck here and there, further conveying the feelings of danger and obscurity. Then, feeling comfortable in the majority of my monsters' element, I decided it was time to receive the kind of reconnaissance of my deck attainable only by setting my Big Eye (1700/600).
"More defense... what's wrong? Is 3400 attack points too much to handle?" he asked.Uh- 3400 attack points is too much for ANYone to handle, jerk! I thought to myself as he drew his next card. Happy with the result, his instantly activated it. And now here come the Swords of Revealing Light! All your face down monsters are now face up and for the next three of your turns you can't attack!"
Raining down from the now dark blue and clouded sky were countless swords made of pure light. It definitely looked strange in contrast with the field card I had just played. The swords of anti-darkness stabbed and got stuck into my side of the field. They were pulsing and being completely motionless as they chased away the dark. I flipped over my cards like I was supposed to and enjoyed the benefits of my Big Eye's effect, the top five cards on my deck were Bottomless Trap Hole, Change of Heart, Magician of Faith, Man-Eater Bug and Painful Choice. It seemed to be one good thing right after another. In fact, I left those five cards exactly how they were and returned them to the top of my deck.
"And now my Dark Driceratops attacks your defending La Jinn (2300/600)," Larry declared the attack. And that same axe-tail made quick work of my defending fiend. "Finally, for my main phase two, I flip summon my face down Balloon Lizard (500/1900). From now on, I put one counter on this guy for each of my standby phases. When he's finally destroyed, damage equal to 400 times the number of counters that were on him is inflicted upon the controller of the card that destroyed him.
"It's my turn now," I said as the swords made it kind of hard to see without squinting. I set the Bottomless Trap Hole that I had just drawn and set my Gagagigo. "Turn one is over, Larry!" I reported as he drew a card.
For some reason, a yellow orb came outta nowhere and absorbed into the Balloon Lizard and made it bigger. That must have been the counter for his standby phase. "I'm switching my Ballon Lizard to defense mode. Next, I'm activating Card Destruction. We each discard our hands and draw a number of cards equal to the number we just got rid of."
He was quiet long enough for us to draw our new cards, "And now I'm summoning Royal Magical Library (0/2000) in attack mode. Finally, my dinosaur attacks your Big Eye." And it was quickly destroyed with that axed tail of his.
And so began my second turn under the swords. I drew my Magician of Faith. I searched through my graveyard and noticed only one magic card in there: Black Pendant. That might be useful... I thought,But I may want to use this Change of Heart more than once. And neither of those cards would do me any good now anyway... But I need to keep monsters on the field for my Spirit Barrier to keep its effect. I thought as I looked at the swords all around my field. "I'm setting one monster and ending my turn," I reported. As soon as I said that, the swords got a bit dimmer.
Larry drew a card and another orb made his Ballon Lizard grow bigger again. Then he switched his library into defense. He kept the card in his hand, attacked and destroyed my Gagagigo and ended his turn.
"Final turn with the swords, here!" I said as I drew my Man-Eater Bug. Obviously, I set it and ended my turn.
The bright swords vanished. We were soon once again enveloped by the dark blue shadows. It took my eyes a little while to adjust again.
Larry drew his next card and smirked, or at least I think he smirked; my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness... I did notice another counter making the Balloon Lizard still larger. "I summon Element Soldier (2000/800) in attack mode. Next, I equip my Royal Library with Megamorph just for the spell counter." Just then, a glowing green orb similiar to the ones involved with that Tower of Babel Andre was hit by flew into Larry's library card (pardon the pun). "And you may be interested to know that my Element Soldier has a special ability that now activates because there's an earth monster on the field. He negates the effect of an effect monster destroyed by him. Element Soldier, attack the defending card on my right!" The Element Soldier used his spear-like weapon to slash my Man-Eater Bug and destroyed it, negating its effect as is its own effect allows. "Ooh! Nice try there, buddy," Larry said. "And now my Dark Driceratops attacks your final defending monster. It was my Magician of Faith (300/400) whose effect I used to get my Black Pendant back from the graveyard. Thankfully, he couldn't attack anymore and it was then my turn. I drew my Painful Choice and realized that I needed to play it in order to get a monster on the field. Then I renoticed my Change of Heart and got a pretty good idea regarding how to use my Painful Choice!
"I actiavte the magic card Painful Choice. It lets me pick five cards from my deck from which you must choose one to go into my hand. Then the rest are discarded to the graveyard." So I searched through my deck careful thinking out each possiblity. I wanted him to choose only one of the five cards that I had picked, so I tried to make the other four cards as unappetizing to him as possible. "Here we go!" I said as I put them face down on the special card graphic readers.
The cards were: Shadow Spell, Heavy Storm, Jinzo, Dark Necrofear and Sakuretsu Armor.
"Wow! This is a tough choice, I must say! Well, you're definitely not getting Sakuretsu Armor... or Dark Necrofear... or Shadow Spell." I put them in the graveyard one-by-one as he called them off. "So the card going in your hand will be... Jinzo, yeah." As I put Heavy Storm in my graveyard, I smiled. My plan had worked! So I proceeded with phase two, "I now activate Change of Heart and take control of your Dark Driceratops!" The huge dinosaur switched sides and was now facing his new opponent. "And I'll have him attack your Element Soldier!" For the last time in this duel, the huge dinosaur swung his tail around and shattered every holographic bone in that fiend's body. It resulted in a huge 1400 life point loss for Larry, Making the scores nearly even at 3350, me and 3750, him. "I'm nowhere near done. Now I'm using my Main Phase 2 to sacrifice your dinosaur to tribute summon the Jinzo (2900/1100) you chose to go into my hand! I now have a slight grip on this duel. Even though Jinzo's effect cancels out my Spirit Barrier, I don't have to really worry about you destroying him because now I equip him with my Black Pendant, it will increase HIS attack points to 3400. How do you like THAT!" I ended my turn.
Larry looked almost impressed. Even though I had just dished out killer damage to him by his own monster, he looked pretty confident... still... "I draw my card, my Balloon Lizard gets a fourth counter, and now I'm removing the three spell counters on my library so I can draw another card!" He calmly executed his actions and smirked (there was a whole lot of smirking going on during this duel, wasn't there?) at me in that classic, "You're toast" way.
"I sacrifice both my monsters to tribute summon one of the more powerful monsters out there, Andro Sphinx (3000/2500) in attack mode! Next, I equip him with Horn of the Unicorn, raising his attack to 3700!" I heard gasps of shock and amazement come from all directions. I, too, gasped in shock and amazement but, most of all, annoyance. My monsters have never been on the field for more than 3 turns! And now Jinzo was gonna die too? How unfair! But then he continued to speak, "But you'll be glad to know that this card cannot attack in the same turn it's summoned. So that gives you an extra turn to try and stop me- cool, eh? Take your turn."
I drew my next card not really knowing what this huge beast's attack was gonna look like. (It was amazing that I was facing this hugely powerful monster, and all I could think about was how its attack was going tolook!) So I drew my Judgment of Anubis, my absolute rarest trap card... and possibly rarest in my whole deck. Why weren't the rare hunters going after THIS card? But I set it without delay and left my Jinzo in attack mode, hoping my face down Rush Recklessly would bail me out.
"Nothing?" he almost sympathetically asked and drew his next card, "I set this one magic/trap card face down and, finally, attack you with my Andro Sphinx!
It was pretty exciting that I was going to see this huge monster attack my Jinzo. For a second, he did nothing. But then a gust of wind blew by and a white light started to gather behind him. Then he siphoned this light through his body until it glowed out his infuriated eyes. Then he jumped as high as he could, almost above the scoreboard, and that's where I activated my quick play magic card Rush Recklessly. It increased my Jinzo's attack to 4100. Jinzo tilted up his head and, with his new found strength, fired his red optic beams at the attacking beast who was suspended in mid-air as I activated that card. But Larry did the same exact thing. HE activated a Rush Recklessly as well! So everything was the way it was before, only 700 extra points on each side. When all that adding was over, Andro Sphinx came down with blazing speed and used his razor sharp claws to slice my machine monster in quarters. It all happened so quickly but looked SO COOL! My Jinzo was destroyed and I lost 300 life points. But HE lost 500 life points because of my Black Pendant, once again.
The scores were even closer now. He was still winning, barely, 3250-3050.
My turn again and I drew one of my Giant Germ cards. I set it and ended my turn.
"Hey, defense won't work. And your trap card won't save you this time," Larry began his explanation as he drew a card, "My monster has another special ability. When he destroys a defense monster, it inflicts damage to you equal to half of the destroyed monster's attack points. And it's NOT treated as battle damage! So attack his defending monster and take a bite out of his life points!" Larry commanded his beast card. And with the same show of acrobatics, his monster got rid of my fiend card. He lost 500 life points because of Giant Germ's effect, I lost 750 life points because of Andro Sphinx's effect. And then I special summoned my other Giant Germ in attack mode as is his effect.
On my next turn I drew my Witch of the Black Forest. I considered setting her but thought against it because even if he did summon a monster next turn, I had my Bottomless Trap Hole card still out there. So I switched my Giant Germ to defense and ended my turn.
Larry drew his next card and smirked... again.
"And now you can kiss goodbye any hopes you had of winning this duel when I destroy your Spirit Barrier trap card with this: a classic magic card named Remove Trap!"
As soon as he activated it, I couldn't believe my luck! All I had to do was activate my Judgment of Anubis, and I'd win- so I did. And the resulting show was amazing..
"Hold on, Larry. I've got this trap card. It's called Judgment of Anubis. It's extremely rare with a few killer effects. First, at the cost of one card from my hand sent to the graveyard, I can negate the activation of and destroy your Remove Trap since it's a magic card with the effect of destroying one of MY magic or trap cards. And as a bonus, I get to destroy one of your face up monsters and inflict damage to your life points equal to the full attack of the monster!"
As soon as I discarded that Witch of the Black Forest that I thankfully decided to keep in my hand, a sarcophagus materialized in the trap zone I activated it in. The dark setting that Mystic Plasma Zone provided was absolutely perfect for this! A dark purple orb shiverred up from the empty casket and sped in a straight line toward his activated magic card and destroyed it. Then the sky got even darker, preparing us all for a sight like no other. Suddenly a whirlwind. A torrential windstorm sprouting from the depths of the now opened sarcophagus. It seemed to form a tunnel from the Andro Sphinx to the inside of the beautifuly dark and ominous coffin. With a constant flow of immense power, the enormous beast was slowly lifted off its feet and dragged dramatically into its final resting place. Trying to resist, it wriggled its body trying to free itself from the deadly grip of the windy terminal. Finally and yet kind of sadly, the beast was released into the shadowy pit of this powerful trap card. The lid slid back on top, sealing the beast away for eternity. But it wasn't over. As soon as the lid stopped moving, the statue of Anubis's eyes lit up an evil red. Slowly, it got brighter and brighter. It seemed to visually match the attack strength of the now deceased monster that sarcophagus contained. Then with a violent, deadly display of red, a beam with the thickness of half the arena entirely submerged Larry, brining his life points down, without question, to zero. But even after that the beam kept going, and the sound of the sheer power and destruction that this trap card possessed got louder and more terrifying. I kind of liked it- having such a powerful card at my disposal. About five seconds later, the beam very slowly tapered away revealing Larry with his elbows on his dueling stand, covering his head- almost kind of shaking from that statue's massive attack.
The duel ended there, and many gasps and sighs of relief came from random people in the stands. The darkness of my field card lifted, the holograms disappeared, and I will never know what those two face down cards he had were.
I heaved a sigh of well-earned relief and descended down that blue platform making sure I had every last one of my 52 cards. Andre and Jack congratulated me with hand slaps and back-pats and whatever else including them saying numerous times, "That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!" Come to think of it, it WAS pretty cool.
Larry and I met in front of Linda. We all knew what was next. He got $500 and I picked his Guardian Sphinx card with no intention of putting it in my deck. If all these rare hunters wanted my rarest cards, I should take one of their rarest cards if I beat them, right? Larry spoke before he departed, "The rare hunters always eventually get what they set out for. I had simply underestimated your strength. Josh will not be as easy to beat as I was here. Good luck... you'll need lots of it." He finished his angry gripe of defeat and walked out of the stadium. Andre was especially proud of me as we walked back to our seats in the stands. The next two duelists would be Jon and duelist #9.
I Now it's just a matter of time... I thought.