Shadows of the Small Chapter 4

"The problem with brilliant plans: not so brilliant people." - Scott Westerfeld, Midnighters Vol. 3 Blue Noon

"It was way cool, being the one who did the math."- Scott Westerfeld, Midnighters Vol. 3 Blue Noon

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anna

I was afraid. My books had come to life. This wasn't the sort of thing that was supposed to happen to real people. This was the sort of thing that was supposed to happen to some character in a fantasy novel, sending them off on a mysterious quest to save the world. My books had come to life.

Of course that was nonsense. This was very real; too real. Shadows surrounded her, obscuring her friends from view. The only person she could see was the person who was to be her opponent.

This darkness wasn't properly described as shadow either. As far as I was concerned, shadow was the absence of light. This wasn't an absence of light, it was the opposite. I would have thought it was anti-matter except that I hadn't exploded. Then again, maybe it was. I wouldn't know if there was some way for anti-matter to co-exist safely with matter. Numbers and science don't work for me. If you want to know about them, ask Cari or Tim.

There I went, off on a tangent again. My thoughts were brought to bear by my opponent. "Are we going to duel or not? I'm letting you go first."

I'd already put on the plastic dual disk. It didn't fit. These things were one size fits all: all except me. My arm was so skinny that it kept slipping off. It was a good thing that I wore long sleeves; I rolled my sleeve up to almost my elbow and stuck the duel disk up there. It held; barely.

I slipped my deck into the disk and drew six cards. At least my deck fit. In that at least it would be easy to design it to work. Then I thought about the time that the six of us, because Leonard was still alive then, had divided in halves and combined our decks together. That day was exquisite and entertaining.

And if I ever wanted to have another day like that I would have to win this duel. Something bad was bound to happen if I lost though I had not the slightest idea what.

Boy: 8000

Anna: 8000

"I'll start off our duel by summoning this monster in attack mode; Poison Draw Frog (100/100). I will set two cards behind it and pass the turn to you."

He laughed. "What are you doing summoning a monster like that in attack mode?"

I sneered. "What business do you have dueling if you can't predict my strategy?"

"I can predict your strategy, and I can predict who is going to win this duel. Me; you don't have a chance."

"If you're so sure about that, take your turn."

He slapped a monster onto the field. "Fine, I summon Mad Sword Beast (1400/1200) and attack your frog."

I looked down at my face down cards in mock thoughtfulness as the monster charged at me. "Ooh, too many options. How about this; activate Spiritual Water Art – Aoi!"

A girl appeared on the field. I fancied that I might look like her if I grew my hair long. Of course I doubted that I would ever grow my hair that long. It would be an infernal pain to take care of. And the odds of my smiling like that were one in a million.

"This card allows me to tribute one water monster on my field." As soon as my frog disappeared the dinosaur turned and tramped back to its home side of the field. "And I get to look at your hand and choose one card to discard."

Huge, presumably holographic representations of the cards appeared in front of me. Dark Driceratops, Stop Attack, Spear Dragon, Shift, and Airknight Parshath were all present. I must say that I didn't particularly like my choices.

"Discard Airknight Parshath. I'm not in the mood to kill fairies."

One of the disadvantages of being so thin is that it is hard to look threatening. I'd learned to let my words do the work for me.

He discarded the card. "Now that you've finished-"

I grinned as maliciously as I knew how. "Oh, but I'm not. Poison Draw Frog allows me to draw a card when it is face up and sent to the graveyard." I drew. "Now I'm done."

The impatient boy rolled his eyes. "Finally! Mad Sword Beast will now attack directly."

I laughed out loud. "I chain with Magic Cylinder!" I did my best to turn the laugh into a guffaw. I can't say that I accomplished the transformation.

Boy: 6600

Anna: 8000He scowled at me and I did my best to suppress a laugh. What can I say; it is endlessly amusing to have someone who has just threatened your life to have such an inferior expression. Or maybe it was just hysteria that created such a hysterical irony. Psychology is for those who need an excuse for their insanity.

"I set a card. Take your move."

I knew that the face down card must be Shift. That meant that it was of no possible use to him at the moment. I drew again. My move was fairly obvious though I can't say I liked the prospect.

"I will set one monster and end my turn."

My opponent narrowed his eyes. It must have seemed too good to be true. This was going to hurt. "I sacrifice Mad Sword Beast for Dark Driceratops (2400/1500)." This guy was being a tad too cautious. He could have done more damage if he had summoned his Spear Dragon. Then again if he had done that Spear Dragon would have been an easy target. And even Mad Sword Beast wasn't al that strong.

In the meantime I did my best to stop from showing how afraid I was of his new dinosaur. It looked mighty real to me. A cry ran through the shadows around me. I immediately toughened up. One of my friends was in trouble.

My opponent looked suspiciously at my face down monster. "I'll attack your monster with Dark Driceratops."

A little slimy blob of life disappeared off the field. I winced as I took life point damage.

"You just destroyed T.A.D.P.O.L.E. (0/0). I now may add any other copies of it in my deck to my hand."

Boy: 6600

Anna: 5600

He was grinning. "I'll end my turn."

I had to admit that I didn't like how this duel was going. "I summon Mother Grizzly (1400/1100) in attack mode. I end my turn."

Right then I was hoping to make him play Stop Attack. That card could ruin me later on. It seemed that no one had told him his part. "I'll summon Spear Dragon (1900/0) and attack your Mother Grizzly with it."

Boy: 6600

Anna: 5100

Luckily he hadn't anticipated the entirety of my plans. Or maybe he had. It wouldn't have changed much. I fished a card out of my deck. "I will special summon another Poison Draw Frog (100/100) in attack mode using my monster's ability. Don't forget that your monster is turned to defense mode."

He snorted. He clearly had no idea how useful drawing more cards could be to me. "You foolish girl, your monster had only 100 attack points. You don't stand a chance."

I shrugged. "Go ahead and prove me wrong then."

"Very well, Dark Driceratops will attack your frog."

Boy: 6600

Anna: 2800

"I'll set a card and end my turn there."

I drew a card. Finally I saw a strategy coming through. Possibly, if I was lucky I might just have a chance at winning this. When he ended his turn all I was waiting for was to see what my next card would be. When I saw it I did my best to contain myself. It wasn't a guarantee of victory. No proper heroine would jump for joy at the slightest glimmer of hope.

"I summon Treeborn Frog (100/100) in attack mode and attack your Spear Dragon with it." This was one of my favorite things to do: destroying my opponents' large monsters with my miniscule ones.

"I'll set a card and end my turn."

I had no intention of giving him even a moment's peace. As soon as he drew I flipped up my face down card. "I activate my trap Spiritual Water Art – Aoi. You should be familiar with it by now. I sacrifice Treeborn Frog and get to look at your hand and discard one card."

The holographic representations appeared. He still had Stop Attack of course. Somewhere along the line he had acquired a second Spear Dragon. I knew what I had to do, no matter how much I didn't like the looks of Stop Attack. "Discard your Spear Dragon."

He said something under his breath. I can only assume that it was a curse, probably aimed at me and my incredible foresight.

He lost his head for a moment and shouted his next move. "Before I attack you I activate my face down Robbin' Goblin so that you'll lose a card from your hand. Then I attack directly."

Then again, he couldn't have been too upset because then he had told his dinosaur attack me directly. I felt pain as it bit into my shoulder and when its beak came away I was bleeding. Now that was a shock. I hadn't expected to be injured. In truth I nearly passed out at the sight of the blood. Or it felt like I would at any rate.

Instead I put up a show of defiance and glared at my opponent after I had discarded my second T.A.D.P.O.L.E. This disconcerted him. In his rather one dimensional world a direct attack for over two thousand damage isn't something that one springs back from and especially not when this is the second or third such hit.

Boy: 6600

Anna: 400

He tried to ignore that I wasn't acting overly perturbed. "Are you ready to give up now?"

I glared. "No chance in hell."

"That's a pity seeing as that's pretty close to where you're about to go."

Now I had no idea what that meant unless he was planning on killing me or letting his monster do it for him. I realized that was what it must be: a real monster. Now I didn't have the slightest idea how such a thing could exist or how it would come to be here, but that was the only explanation I could think of.

It looked to me as if my opponent had ended his turn so I drew. The time had come for me to fight back.

"You've been making fun of my monsters. Now it's time for you to see what they can really do. During my standby phase, Treeborn Frog (100/100) returns to the field if I have no spell or trap cards on the field." The winged frog appeared on the field in front of me.

My opponent scoffed. "No matter how many times it comes back all it can do is to detract 100 damage from what I do to your life points each time that I attack. A reoccurring small monster is still a small monster."

Now I smiled. This was the same mistake that my friends had stopped making years ago. Except for Cari who sometimes managed to get the jump on me by using a strategy similar to this person's when she used Dragon's Rage. On the other hand, I defeated her just as often as she did me.

"That's where you're wrong. I sacrifice Treeborn Frog for Des Frog (1900/0)." The winged frog was caught on a pink tongue extending from nowhere and disappeared. Then the owner of the tongue appeared. It was a frog about the same size as me. Then two more such frogs appeared on other side of it. My opponent looked on in shock. Evidently he hadn't been able to guess my strategy as soon as he had seen T.A.D.P.O.L.E. He must not have been as experienced a duelist as I had at first thought.

"How did you get two more? You're not allowed to summon that many monsters!" He calmed down slightly. "It doesn't matter. They're still weak."

I shook my head and reached for my next card. "That's where you're wrong. As for my extra monsters, Des Frog has an ability which allows me to special summon as many copies of it as I have of T.A.D.P.O.L.E. in my graveyard when it is tribute summoned."

"As I said; it doesn't matter. Your monsters are weak."

"Maybe so, but my monsters have power that you could never dream of. I play the spell card Des Croaking."

My frogs began to sing. It was an eerie sound from beyond the pale, and it had every intention of taking my opponent with it. When the croaks had stopped nothing remained on his side of the field.

His linear world was having problems with additional dimensions again. From the look on his face the thoughts going through his head read something like this: "Weak monsters mean a bad duelist. Bad duelist vs. me means I get a victory. Weak monsters do not mean very powerful spell cards capable of wiping out everything on my side of the field."

He swiftly gave voice to his confusion. "There isn't any card that can do that! Nothing wipes out the entire field."

The second best thing about piloting this deck is being able to seem a lot smarter than I actually am, which isn't to say that I'm not smart, but I'm not quite as smart as people think I am after I open up whole worlds of things that they never knew about. If I saw that sentence in a book I would label it a run-on and write to the publisher and the author. I keep a list of all the mistakes I find in books that are corrected in later editions. In any case, ignoring my tangent, I decided to rub salt in my opponent's ignorance.

"How wrong you are! There are several cards like Des Croaking and they all have specific activation requirements. Des Croaking requires that I have three copies of Des Frog on the field. One of the other cards like this is Ojama Delta Hurricane! It requires that all three Ojamas be on the field. There is also a card called-"

He waved me down. "Alright, alright, you don't have to list every damned card ever created." Perhaps waving wasn't a strong enough word. Gesticulated doesn't cover it down either. He used big movements like he was trying to show a plane where to land, quite funny really.

I chuckled. "All three of my Des Frog will attack now."

Boy: 900

Anna: 400

"I'll just end my turn by setting a card."

He drew a card and a grin crept slowly onto his face from wherever it had disappeared to. And it had brought friends. His hatred of me was practically tangible, and if I looked too closely at the shadows around me I could see leering faces. I did my best not to look. He slammed on card down onto the field and the card I had been avoiding for so long reared its ugly head; or shield as the case may be.

"I play Stop Attack on your middle Des Frog. With zero defense points, it's an easy target. Then I summon Mad Sword Beast (1400/1200). You're done for. Mad Sword Beast, attack her middle frog!"

I flipped up a card and the dinosaur disappeared. My opponent looked around frantically for it. He never saw it coming in from behind.

Boy: 0

Anna: 400

The shadows convened around him and he disappeared from view. The monsters dissipated into shadow. I looked down at the trap I had activated: Dimension Wall. That last turn had been too close for comfort. If I hadn't had Dimension Wall handy I'd have been done for. I walked over to see what had happened to my opponent but he wasn't there. He must have run off; the coward.

I didn't see anyone else but the shadows were thick enough that I couldn't see more than a few yards in front of me. I wandered off to try and find me friends. The heroine always finds her friends in the end.

When she doesn't they have been killed.

Then they are to be avenged.