Shadows of the Small: Darkness Falls

Chapter 1 – Mechanical Mayhem

"Glorious Destinies bring you Glorious Funerals." – Mercedes Lackey, Winds of Fury

Editor's Note: The long awaited companion story to Tournament of Souls: Darkness Falls. While technically you don't need to read them in any particular order, it is recommended that you read Tournament of Souls: Darkness Falls through at least chapter 13 before reading this. Updates for any given story may be less frequent, but overall updates should come at the usual rate. Also known as too slow. Oh, and since we know you are going to do this, you shouldn't confuse the author with the narrator in either story.

One more thing; the effect of one card has been changed. It will be appearing very frequently in this character's deck. So that isn't a mistake.

Author's Note: There is quite a bit of description, but it has been deemed necessary by me. It is the first chapter after all, and there is a lot that needs to be introduced.

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How am I supposed to start? I've been telling other people's stories for a little while now, yet I have no idea how to start my own. Perhaps I should start from the beginning.

I was born.

Not that far back then. My name ought to do the trick. My name is Timothy. I am usually known as Tim though this gets annoying during the holiday season. But then again, Tiny Tim isn't that much worse than Mammoth. Then again, no one calls me Mammoth. I'm too small. I'm also… well, I'd best tell you that after I tell you a bit about my life first. Because people aren't just born like me and my friends. It doesn't happen. Not yet at any rate.

I was about 7 at the time. Or some age close to that. Younger, older I don't know. It was children's visiting day at work; on a Sunday. Extraneous spouses or similar all talked in the waiting room which was placed on the top floor along with the few offices required to keep the place up and running.

I'm told that both my mother and my father worked at the same textile manufacturing plant. What did it manufacture? Nothing classy, just the common, low grade stuff you see every day being vended from carts along the streets of big cities.

While our parents worked, we kids got a tour of the factory. Our parents held on to our toys for us. At least that's what we were told. And as little kids, we believed it, every one of us. Odds are that they were locked in some locker or desk. Or already lost, no way of telling. None of us care. Not at this juncture. There was going to be a mini-duel monsters tournament later in the day, just for us kids. It would have been done with the now ancient rules from before Pegasus's island tournament. Good thing too, I think anything more complicated would have fried our little brains prematurely. But they would never have had the chance either.

While we were in the boiler room, something went seriously wrong. There was some shouting from another floor that we hadn't visited yet. I remember I was standing next to a little blond girl. We two had been the first ones there and had become fast friends. That happens with little kids. Our guide shouted for us to stay put and ran out the door slamming it behind him. Of course half the kids ran to it and tried to yank it open. It wouldn't budge. I had the good fortune not to be standing next to the monitoring equipment. If I had been, I would have seen that all of the little needles on the gages were in the red area. Alarms rang throughout the building.

Though I couldn't see the gages, I could tell something was wrong. All of us could. There were about 30 kids in that room. Most of them were crying. Heck, odds are that I was crying. I certainly see no reason why I wouldn't have been.

I heard the sound of metal grinding against metal, and then a small hose just dropped from its attachment to the wall. Within moments several others of varying sizes followed. For a moment nothing changed other than a hissing sound from the detached hoses. Steam came out of them and soon the room was a white roiling terror. It didn't stay white for long. Other colors snuck into the fog too. But the white conquered all.

All I knew was that the wall that they had dropped from was getting warmer. It reminded me of my bed near the furnace at home. Every night during the winter, little jets of hot air warmed my skin. I curled up against that wall because it reminded me of home.

Where I was sitting blocked a few of the holes in the wall. Evidently they were still attached to something on the other side because hot gas hit my skin moments after I pressed my body against the wall. Not just hot, but scalding. I screamed, but my voice wasn't heard over the rush of steam and the other screaming children.

Then the boiler exploded. Evidently the release from the disconnected pipes wasn't enough and the pressure too much. The last thing I remember from the mechanical mayhem before everything went black was metal screaming through the air toward me.

I woke up later, I don't know when. A good deal of the mist had gone. I felt weak. Moving hurt. So I didn't. All I needed to see was right in front of me. My horrified eyes took in the wreckage around me. Here and there an appendage stuck out of the mist. They appeared to be attached. But all I needed to see were the open and horrified eyes of my little blond friend to know that everyone was dead. She was no exception.

The door opened and three men in Haz-Mat suits came in. The first one in stopped and looked around in shock.

"God Frank. They're kids in here." I turned my head slightly to hear them better. One of them saw and came over. He stood over me and looked down sympathetically.

"It's all going to be all right kid. We're going to get you out of here." He called back to the third one.

"Ernest, go get some of the others. We need more men to look for survivors. We've got a precedent now." I saw something move under the rubble near me. Yes, I said rubble. Some of the ceiling must have collapsed while I was out. It didn't look to be too heavy though, just plaster, a bit of metal, and a few tiles. I turned my head towards it; and then jerked back in pain. The wall behind me hadn't had the good grace to fall down, so that hurt too. But the man standing over me turned to the pile and waved the first man over.

"Harold, check under this pile. I'll get the kid." Then he picked me up and everything went fuzzy; and from fuzzy, to dark. I was out like a light.

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When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. I knew the following: who I was, who I used to be, and most of what had happened. I also knew where I was, or so I thought. I'd never been in a hospital before (This is not strictly true. Odds are I was born in a hospital. I have no way of knowing one way or the other.) I closed my eyes again and waited for someone to come in.

I slept again, but lightly so that when the door opened what seemed like an eternity later, I sat up; or tried to. The first time I had woken I hadn't moved much if at all other than my eyes, and had not noticed that I was strapped to the sides of the bed by my wrists and ankles. The bonds weren't very tight and odds are that if I had tried, I could have gotten my hands out. I could tell that no amount of maneuvering would free my feet.

I heard footsteps coming closer and then a nurse appeared within my line of sight. She went through what I now believe to be the usual routine; checking all the various monitors that I was attached to, replace whatever was flowing into my body through the IV, and then after my constant attempts at movement jiggled the IV tube noticed that I was awake. Either the nurse was had been on duty for hours without rest or had the job because she was too dim to be a doctor.

"Oh, you're awake."

I nodded.

"Are you hungry? I could get you some food…"

"No, my tummy feels all icky."

Give me a break. I was young. I didn't know how to say "No thank you, I feel a bit queasy from the drugs you've been pumping into my body for I don't know how long."

"Well it's all for the better I suppose. I'm not sure if you're supposed to eat right after you wake up."

"Where are my parents?"

I was dazed. It had never occurred to me that the disaster in the boiler room hadn't been limited to immediate area. The nurse looked nervous while replying.

"Well, sweet pea, I'm not sure I'm the one to tell you that." This was said in almost exactly the tone that a baby sitter or elder cousin will respond to the question "Where do babies come from?" At least I hope it's the elder cousin.

"Who'll tell me then?"

The nurse just shook her head. "They've been waiting for you to wake up. The girls have been conscious for quite a few days now." I would have asked what girls she was talking about, but I was getting drowsy again. The nurse noticed and must have realized that she had just refilled the sedative or some such thing because she cursed. This was compromised of stamping her foot and saying "Oh sour cream" or a similarly ridiculous expletive. I didn't mind. I was already drifting into sleep.

When I woke up again, the same nurse was already there. As soon as I opened my eyes she started fussing over me, adjusting the blanket as though she couldn't have done so while I was asleep, and straightening my pillow. Finally she got around to realizing that I wasn't a baby, and began talking to me though she couldn't keep all of the 'goochi coochi coo' out of her voice. At least she was making an effort.

"How are you feeling honey?"

I blinked sleepily at her and yawned. "I still feel sleepy."

She immediately started fussing again, propping me up by elevating the back of the bed, and trying to get me to drink some water. After some exertion on her part, she managed to get me rolled into a different, larger room. Then I stared at the rooms occupants, and they stared at me.

I believed that I had some reason to be staring. The occupants of the room were all girls, about my age. They looked normal at first, as long as you didn't look too carefully. But if you did look carefully, you would notice that about half an inch of hair, newly grown as it was closer to the scalp, was colored differently than the rest. Least shocking was one girl, built a bit thicker than the rest who had mostly blonde hair, except for the roots which were brown and looked kind of mud colored. The other one that could have been natural was the girl whose hair went from black to red. Then the strange stuff came in. You could almost believe that some one's hair could go from blond to green with some assistance from chlorine. But when one girl's hair was going from brown to green, it reminded me of a forest turned on its head. The last one's hair went from a light brown to blue, and was by far the strangest of them all.

Finally the black going to red haired one spoke. "Why are you staring at me?"

I responded indignantly. This girl wasn't the boss of me. Ah, the naïveté of youth.

"Because you all look funny; if you put your heads together, you'd get half a rainbow."

She turned her head on its side and looked at me as if I was the silliest thing she'd ever seen.

"You aren't looking all that nice yourself you know."

I scowled. What was she talking about? I looked normal. She grinned at my puzzlement.

"There's a mirror over there." She said pointing.

It was one of the most disgusting things I had ever seen. Mostly because I realized that it was me that I was looking at. I'd gotten thin. I looked like ghost. My hair had gotten stark white. My skin had gone several shades lighter. I'd never been dark, but now I was just a few steps away from albino. My eyes were no longer their original color, brown, but had turned a steely grey. Or silver. My skin was sagged slightly at the edges. A row of stitches marched across my forehead.

I reacted fairly well for someone of my age and maturity. I didn't claim that there was some kind of conspiracy or that the mirror lied. I simply walked over to the bucket in the corner and threw up steadily for a few minutes, even after my guts had been completely emptied.

Someone walked in while I was puking my brains out. When I looked up I saw who it was; a business man in a grey suit. He looked like just about any other business man anyone has ever seen on the face of the planet. He stood near the window facing the door and looked around the room as if calculating our reactions.

"Greetings, I am Mr. Dongard, a representative of the company that your parents worked for." He paused, waiting. We said nothing. For a minute the man was nothing more than a symbol of authority from the world of adults, the world that was scheduled to be shattered.

"As you may have been able to ascertain, there was a terrible accident at the Willington Street Complex. One of the feeding pipes for dye somehow became blocked. This caused a back up that turned the entire system into a time bomb. Most of the complex was damaged beyond repair. I offer the condolences of Marked Industries. You six were the only survivors."

"You call this surviving?" A weak voice came from the doorway. The speaker was a boy covered in blankets up to his chin and attached to more equipment than I care to name. He had been rolled in while I was facing the other direction. That would make six of us after all.

Mr. Dongard talked on as if he had never heard the boy. "All of you have been injured in some way. It seems that the new dyeing materials had some slightly hazardous properties. The girls and Timothy here have all had their hair change colors to some extent. Leonard has lost most of his and what is left appears to be white and translucent. Timothy has experienced some scarring, both from shards and burns. His positioning blocking some pipes may very well have saved your lives. In fact, we are all very lucky that he survived." He neglected to mention how weakened my body was. Then again, the doctors were going to give me the run down of this later. I had yet to take note of the reporter that had entered with Leonard. This wasn't just a pity talk. It was a press conference.

"Leonard suffered a concussion, as well as prolonged exposure to fumes. His condition is unstable; he just woke up a few minutes ago. As a courtesy to you, my employers have found some people willing to take care of you six. It will be government funded as an orphanage. Technically you will be obliged to take in any other orphans, but it will be seen to that they are transferred as soon as possible."

He went on in detail about contracts and terms, but it was no longer for our benefit. He was speaking for the reporter's ears alone. Just as well. Having made the connection between him and the disaster, I was seething, as was Red. Green had started crying softly and Blue looked right through Mr. Dongard. Brownie made herself busy by twisting and untwisting the sheets of the bed she was sitting on.

Leonard was furious. If I had been asked to choose who was in control of the situation, I would have said Leonard. Mr. Dongard could say whatever he liked, but if Leonard had told us to punch him in the gut, we would have. Red and I would have at least. Now, in my condition I'm not sure that it would have done anything, but Red's blow would have hurt.

He continued talking around us for awhile. Leonard rebelled in his own way by calling a nurse to take him back to his room. The nurse looked towards Mr. Dongard for permission. The business man ignored him (it was the first male nurse I had seen) and pushed onward through his prepared speech. The nurse took Leonard out and the rest of us followed them.

A few minutes later we had ended up in another hospital room. The nurse had tried to get Leonard to go back to sleep, but he refused. I on the other hand would have paid someone for the chance to lie down and sleep. I sagged against a wall. When the nurse stopped trying to get Leonard to sleep, he turned and saw me. He stood and looked at me for a moment before rushing out of the room.

He returned with a wheelchair, a file, and many apologies. "I'm sorry; I'd forgotten how weak you are. You should get stronger with time, but odds are you'll always need a wheelchair part of the time."

Normally I wouldn't take that sitting down, but I was standing up already and eager for a change. I accepted the wheelchair and sat down. The nurse left and said that if we needed anything to press the buzzer. Leonard took control of the group.

"Well, it looks like the six of us are going to be together for a long time. We probably ought to get to know each other better. That we can do over time, but for now names will be an improvement." Leonard was smart for his age. He was at least as smart as me, and more lucid. He may have been smarter. We never really got to find out.

We all introduced ourselves. Everyone knew my name, as well as Leonard's. Even the most boring of speeches gains importance when it is about you. The red head was named Carla; Cari for short. The one with brown hair was named Mary, short for Mary. Blue was named Annalisa, though she insisted that we call her Anna. Actually, Cari insisted that we call her Anna claiming that Anna had insisted when they had first met. Evidently Anna had recently become the quiet type. The last one, Green, was named Melissa. Miracle of miracles, she had no problems with being called Melissa, Mel, or Lisa, and Annalisa wasn't responding to Lisa.

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A few days later we met our guardians. Both were female, though one looked a tad older than the other. The one with chestnut brown hair looked like she was fresh out of college and had a term paper due today; she had bags under her eyes and slouched slightly. The other one stood nearly ramrod straight but had a more amber shade of hair that dropped straight down and was held in a loose pony tail and was clearly older than the first.

They took us to an orphanage, there were a few other kids, but they were either older than us or younger, and either were adopted or left to other places for older children. We moved on again, hopping around the country at the convenience of the government and the company. The two had come to some sort of agreement that no one could really understand as to who paid for our various expenses. At some point it was decided that we would be home schooled by Elli (the younger one) and Rachel (the elder and stricter) as they were both qualified.

In addition to this each of us would be allowed one instrument of reasonable quality. Each of us learned to play a few scales on an instrument before turning them over to Mel. In the end, she was the one who got the use out of all of them though the rest of us did our best to keep up a feeble masquerade whenever some official came to see how we were doing, which wasn't often.

For a brief period of time they agreed to sponsor one hobby for each of us. We all chose the same one, namely Duel Monsters. It's fair to say that we became better than your average Joe fairly quickly. With six of us, we had more practice, and it was constant. Surprisingly Rachel was the one who had us duel to sort out minor arguments such as whose turn it was to do a certain chore. Elli had some idealistic notion of us sorting things out peacefully and without argument. Leonard was the undisputed best of us. We all defeated him at some point, but none of us could do it regularly. The rest of us came about even with each other. Cari and I had our own little rivalry going and would duel for any and no reason.

Overtime, I filled out some. My skin no longer sagged though I still looked a tad gaunt. My skin remained somewhat bleached. I did however get a full head of hair that was silver during the winter months and turned white during the summer. I found it irritating that it wasn't white during winter when it might blend in with whatever snow there may have been. I still used the wheelchair fairly frequently. For the bigger orphanages that we lived in I would use it all the time. If we took up residence in smaller quarters I usually walked. Somehow the chairs were all positioned in just the right places whenever I tired.

Leonard never really got better. Sometimes he could walk around, but even I was stronger. We kept oxygen tanks for emergencies. One time he slipped into a coma for almost a year. He came out of it, but his health just went down hill from there. He died when we were all around 12 years old. We moved again right after. Our current place in North Dakota held too many memories. We set aside his dueling deck. Occasionally one of us would take out his deck and flip through it, but we always put it back in its little glass case.

We moved to West City. We were given a building that was basically two town houses stuck together, one on each side of the block. It wasn't in the best part of town, but right on the edge near the park and across from the courthouse. Technically it was handicapped accessible. The back door came out on street level but the street wasn't well maintained. There were large trash bins on the sidewalk making it hard to get a wheelchair through. We generally kept that door locked. The front door was elevated and one had to go down a set of stairs (8, I counted) to reach street level. Usually if I was going out on a long excursion, I would walk down the stairs and Elli or Rachel would carry the wheelchair down.

Life continued as usual for a year. Elli and Rachel got part time jobs. One worked a morning shift, and the other the afternoon. A young man named Ray occasionally came to help out. It had started as volunteer work but soon he was coming on his own time. Evidently he was to type who actually got pleasure out of helping others. And I'd been thinking that they were a myth spread around by children's television and grade school teachers.

The thing that interrupted our daily schedule was the regional tournament. All of us wanted to go. Ray was also going to be in attendance and was willing to look after me incase I fell ill as I was so prone to doing. Elli however wouldn't hear of it. She had Ray duel each of us in turn. He beat us all. She said that it proved that none of us had any business going to the tournament if we knew that we couldn't win.

It was unfair. Ray admitted that he had gotten lucky a few times, and the duel against Anna had been particularly close. Elli would not be budged. The next day however, she allowed us to watch the final duel out in the park. It was amazing. The holograms attacked each other like real monsters. The two loudest personalities automatically took different sides; Mary immediately and quietly declared that she wanted everyone to win. Cari clearly admired one finalist, Alicia and her deck. I was going for Lucien. I liked the unorthodox. And his deck was anything but orthodox. The entire point of the deck appeared to be to cause the opponent to deck out. In the dramatic finale however, Lucien violated his win condition by attacking for the win. I don't think anyone complained.

Imagine our surprise when Mr. Dongard was the one announcing the victor. Rachel later told us that he had resigned his position after dealing with us and gotten a job with Industrial Illusions. Almost as soon as the bus had driven away with the duelists and many of the spectators, some of what remained of the crowd did their utmost to become the second ones to use the duel station.

Cari had other ideas. She pulled my wheelchair out from behind the stands in an unprecedented fit of helpfulness, helped me into it, and had me part way into the crowd before anyone could get themselves sorted out well enough to start a duel.

She wheeled me through the crowd until there was a small clear strip in front of us and then she gave me an extra push and let go. My wheelchair rolled on until it bumped into the entry of the duel station. Then she ran forward apologizing just a little too loud. She opened the entry gate and pushed me in. I was annoyed and made that fact clear.

"What did you do that for?"

"So we could be the next ones to duel with this dimwit!" She was cheery; a rare occurrence that usually coincided with the completion of a scheme.

"But we don't have our decks." I was getting exasperated. This type of thing was not done. Not to mention silly as we didn't have decks. She closed the gate behind me and walked to the other side.

"We do now." She looked back towards home.

I followed her eyes and saw Mary puffing her way toward us holding our deck boxes. Cari grinned as her deck was handed to her.

"I had her run up and get them for us as soon as the Championship ended." Cari wasn't hard to please. Unfortunately she was just as easy to disappoint making living with her a somewhat risky endeavor.

Mary came around and handed me my deck and leaned over me to press the button to send the lift up. She stepped out of the way quickly so as not to be pulled up with it.

"Good luck!"

I was wary of the support.

"You've already said the same to Cari haven't you?"

"Yup!" I could hear the exclamation points. Anna and Mel had taken seats in the front row of the stands. Seeing that another duel was about to start, some of the remaining spectators sat around them. We each drew our starting hands and the gems on the sides of the duel station lit up. Predictably mine was a steely gray. Cari's turned a blazing white tinted with blue. The spinner appeared and selected me to go first.

Timothy: 8000

Carla: 8000

I glanced over my hand. I had one little combo, but nothing to back it up. Well there was that card…

"I summon Bokoichi the Freightening Car (500/500). Then I will play Machine Duplication to increase my resources." One train car turned to three. "Now I will set two cards down and end my turn."

Cari drew. "You've tried that trick one too many times. I know fully well that you have a trap to spring as soon as I attack. And I have just the thing to stop it. I summon Mirage Dragon." A yellow dragon appeared. Before it got the chance to adopt a fierce pose it fell down a deep hole. I grinned.

"I activated Trap Hole. As it activates when your monster is summoned, I don't have to worry about its ability to stop traps during the battle phase." It takes a carrot to lead a donkey. For Cari all it took was a verbal sticking out of the tongue. I was an old dog and as far as she was concerned I had no business learning new tricks. You could almost see the dander rising.

"I set a card and end my turn."

I have nothing against being predictable. Sometimes it just works better than anything else, especially when nothing can be done to stop it. "I set a monster face down and now all three of my Bokoichi will run you down." One by one the train cars chugged down the field and crashed into her.

Timothy: 8000

Carla: 6500

Cari was steaming. She knew it would have been stupid to waste a defensive trap on a five hundred attack monster. It didn't mean that she had to like being attacked by three of them.

"You just had to rub it in didn't you?"

"Not really; I just had to do all the damage I could. I'm setting another card down and ending my turn."

As she contemplated her next move, I could practically see the gears in her head grinding away. Evidently they came to a stop as she reached a conclusion. "I'm going to summon Divine Dragon – Ragnarok (1500/1000) in attack mode and set a card to end my turn." Cari had come to the conclusion that I wouldn't attempt this without some kind of protection; smart girl.

The gears in my head were moving too. I had plans for the turn, big plans. "I flip summon Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive (1400/1000)." Here came the big one, the mother of all card drawing combos. "You should know how this works by now. I get to draw one card, and then another card for each Bokoichi on my side of the field. The total is four." The train chugged around my side of the field. A rather un-required show but I suppose Kaiba Corp. wanted the illusions to appeal to the lowest common denominator; aka small children.

Cari wasn't going to take this without refute. "I'm surprised you managed to pull it off. Usually you only manage… how many cards? Maybe you've gotten one or two."

"I've gotten all four previously and you know it. In any case I'm going to activate my face down Dust Tornado to blow one of your cards away before I attack." I wasn't about to get knocked off my seat of glory without a few jabs of my own. Admittedly I hadn't drawn the best cards, but I would live.

A smirk spread across Cari's face. "Sucker! I'm going to activate the card that you sought to destroy, Burst Breath. I will tribute my Divine Dragon Ragnarok in order to destroy all monsters on the field with less defense than it has attack. That includes all of yours." As a breath of flame scoured my field I scowled. The gears in Cari's brain had moved faster than mine. Good thing I had a wrench ready to be thrown.

"I set a monster face down with another card behind it. Your turn."

Cari was still riding the joy of wiping my field clean. "First I will summon Lord of Dragon (1200/1100). He won't be sticking around for long because I play Dragon's Mirror fusing him with the Divine Dragon Ragnarok to create King Dragun (2400/1100)." A dragon footed mirror appeared on the field. As she removed her monsters from play an image appeared in it. Soon King Dragun itself burst roaring from the frame, shattering it.

Cari's eyes were almost glowing. She loved her dragons and when she got on a summoning spree she was well-nigh unstoppable. "Now I will use King Dragun's effect to special summon Tyrant Dragon (2900/2500) from my hand." The giant dragon hit the field in a flash of fire and light. Kaiba Corp. was definitely going for the showiest effects possible. "Tyrant Dragon, attack his monster!"

A great ball of flame was loosed upon the field and was met by a trio of blue robed priests. "I activate Waboku. My monster and my life points are safe." My face down monster was revealed as Heavy Mech Support Platform (500/500). Cari sighed.

"I can't do anything else, its your turn."

I could get to like my hand. What I had seen as misfortune had just turned out to be a boon. "I play a second Machine Duplication on my Heavy Mech Support Platform in order to summon two more from my deck. Now I will tribute one of them for B.E.S. Crystal Core (2100/1000). As you should know Heavy Mech Support Platform is one of the more flexible union monsters in the game as it can attach to any machine monster. Now one of them will attach to Crystal Core. I'm going to leave the last one on the field in defense mode." The small machine latched onto the sides of the blue crystal that was the main body of my battleship (2600/1500).

My mechanical monster's strength grew. I grinned. "Now my battleship is ready to defeat your dragons. But first I will flip up the spell card that I had set as a bluff, Boss Rush. Now Crystal Core, decimate her King Dragun." My monster prepped a beam and fired it off, but it was lost in a large explosion. Cari slipped her trap into the graveyard.

"I activated Widespread Ruin. I can't have you wreaking havoc among the ranks of my dragons."

"You're not safe yet. Boss Rush lets me Special Summon another one. This time I think I'll select B.E.S. Covered Core (2500/800). It will attack King Dragun." The large battleship opened fire.

Timothy: 8000

Carla: 6400

"Because my monster was Special Summoned it didn't receive any of its counters. When it battles a monster without a counter it is destroyed. So that means that I can retrieve yet another from my deck. Now, welcome B.E.S. Tetran (1800/2300). It will attack your Tyrant Dragon. Before embarking on this suicide mission I will give it assistance. I activate Limiter Removal doubling its attack (3600/2300)." B.E.S. Tetran spun around, its tentacles flailing. Soon miniature versions of it appeared and approached the opposing monster. Tyrant Dragon screamed in pain and was destroyed. B.E.S. Tetran exploded.

Timothy: 8000

Carla: 5700

"Once again my monster is destroyed and another is summoned. I will bring forth a second B.E.S. Covered Core and have it attack directly." Light erupted over the entire field as a laser show played out over Cari's body.

Timothy: 8000

Carla: 3200

"I will set two cards face down and end my turn." Finally the turn passed to Cari again. Heavy Mech Support Platform self destructed because of Limiter Removal.

"It's time for this madness to stop. I summon Masked Dragon. Now that I have a dragon on the field I can play this; Stamping Destruction. It destroys Boss Rush and causes you to lose 500 life points."

Timothy: 7500

Carla: 3200

Now I had reason to be worried. But I couldn't let that show. "You don't have enough cards to do much damage to me. That was the last card in your hand."

"I don't need a lot of cards in my hand to beat you. Masked Dragon, attack." Both monsters went up in flames. Masked Dragon was replaced by a blindingly white dragon with tinted blue scales and mane.

Timothy: 7500

Carla: 2100

"Using Masked Dragon's effect I special summon Divine Dragon – Excelion (1500/800). It will attack directly."

Timothy: 6000

Carla: 2100

"End."

It may have looked like I was in a bad position, but this was not in fact the case. I had plenty to work with. "I set a monster face down and end." Once again, it didn't look like much, but it had some real potential.

Carla drew. There was something about the look in her eye that I didn't like. She grinned. Oh, now I knew what she'd drawn. This was one of those times I wished that my wheelchair had an eject button.

"I sacrifice my dragon for… drum roll please." Mel obliged only with a sardonic 'bum-bum-che' and earned herself a glare from Cari.

I called out. "Just summon it already."

"Oh alright. I sacrifice it for another Divine Dragon – Excelion (1500/800) using the ability to raise its attack by 1000 because I have one other in the graveyard. Now it will attack your face down monster." Roulette Barrel was revealed only to be destroyed by holy light.

"Is it my turn now?"

"No!"

"You can't do anything else."

"Oh alright, take your turn." Once again, my shameless logic defeated Cari's attitude.

I looked over my hand and set the cogs of my mind into motion. There was one way I could win. And there was nothing that Cari could do to stop it. She would hate me for this one.

"I summon Drillago (1600/1100). You should know that when you only have monsters with 1600 or more attack it is allowed to attack directly. Now I could just attack directly and hope for the best. But instead I think I'm going to play 7 Completed increasing it's attack by 700 points. Now my monster (2300/1100) can wreak some real mayhem on the game. Drillago, end this." The machine's many drills finished off Carla's life points.

We collected our cards and headed back home. It was Saturday which meant that the adults were more than willing to let Mary cook, and she had promised to make gnocchi, potato pasta, in honor of my victory. Eating a favorite food just made victory all the sweeter.

While Mary cooked, I took Leonard's deck out of its case and took a seat on the fourth of eight stairs in front of the house. There were beggars in the street as usual. I was on speaking terms with several of them. None of us were much for small talk though, so after a few greetings the conversation stopped and I sat there flipping through the deck.

I wondered why Leonard had died. Why not me? By all rights I should have been the one left sick and helpless by the accident. I was stupid enough to sit right by the pipes. One of the theories I had heard bounced around was that if I hadn't been knocked out by the bit of flying metal I would have died. Something about regularity of breathing and heart rate. I never understood it.

He had known he was going to die. He had never said so, but he did. If he hadn't, why would he have used the deck he did? What did he do to deserve this?

I heard the sound of shoes on pavement and looked up. A group of teenagers walked by carrying hot dogs and drinks. One fumbled with his change finally getting most of it in his pocket before turning around the corner. I caught the eye of one of the nearer beggars and pointed to the coin just as more footsteps approached. A boy turned the corner. He looked to be about my age. Then I recognized him. Our local champion, the one who had won just before my duel against Cari. What was his name again? Oh yeah, it was Lucien. He was tired and not used to walking, that was obvious. He was also proud. As soon as his brain registered the presence of other people he broke into a jog.

He noticed the coin on the pavement just as the beggar bent down. He got it first. Their eyes met. I watched. The beggar muttered something and backed off. Lucien pocketed the coin. I had been shuffling the cards nervously and I dropped one on the stairs, face down. I watched gears turn in Lucien's head. These were some well oiled gears, his decision was made with such speed that I doubt anyone else noticed the pause for thought. He brought a hand full of change out of his pocket and handed it to the man before jogging onward.

The street began to breathe again without realizing that it had been holding its breath. I picked up the card on the stairs and turned it over. I smiled when I saw Graceful Charity. Maybe it did exist in the world. It just took a pinch of guilt every once in a while to keep it alive and running.