Once again, Jacob found himself studying Dueling at the local library, a now common occurrence after his failure during the dueling exams at his school. He placed dead last, the place his peers expected him to place. He was lucky to even graduate from the academy at all, a surprise to his peers and himself. He knew the rules and how to play, but that didn't matter if he couldn't think ahead, try to predict his opponent's strategy. It wasn't that Jacob couldn't think ahead, it was his problem of always overthinking things, 'what if they had this card, or that card, or both', and as such never came to a good conclusion where he knew what move to make.

He let out a short sigh before closing the book he was reading, taking his sheet full of notes and leaving for home, where he would use this information to create strategies so that he could prove he wasn't an inept duelist. As he made his way down the snow-covered path, a strange light caught his attention, making him look up from his notes, and see a light, emanating from an alleyalley. Common sense told Jacob to 'not go down there', but curiosity got the better of him, and he turned towards the alley, following the light to it's source, a singular card, on top of the snow.

"How strange," Jacob muttered, picking up the card.

At first he couldn't tell what kind of card it was because of the light, but as soon as he picked it up, the light vanished, leaving the alley fairly dark. Jacob put the card into his coat and finished his journey home, to follow his original plans, and look at this card.

He quickly opened the door, just enough so he could slip in, and then closed the door quickly, so the cold air didn't get inside, all in a swift movement he had practiced all winter. He ran to a small table, that was in the center of his living room, and took a seat on the ground, not bothering to pull up a chair. He pulled his deck out, and spread the cards out on the table in a way so they weren't all mixed together, but were instead neatly organized, or at the very least arranged in a 'manageable mess'. At the center of this mess was Jacob's ace monster, if it could really be called that. A standard level 4 monster, average attack, average defense, but an ability that could be used to set himself up in the future. Then he took out the card he found in an alleyway, and it was in surprisingly good condition for a card left in an alley. Despite the general lack of theme in Jacob's deck, he always told people that 'It's a deck for setting yourself up, so that you can't lose later', of course these were empty words coming from the man with the worst dueling record in school, but he didn't care. Oddly enough, this card seemed to play into that theme as well. At first Jacob thought 'Wow, lucky me!', but then realized that out of the thousands of different card effects it could have, it had one that fit his deck like a glove, and then the fact it was glowing when he found it, and that no one else had gone to investigate the glow finally struck Jacob. Perhaps it was destiny that led him to it, or maybe some kind of magic, either way, he felt ccompelled to add it into his deck, and so he did. He then realized how long he was fixated on a singular card, and that it was late, so he set aside his normal plan, and just slept.

*

Mary's parents had expected only two things from her. They wanted her to be smart, and they wanted her to be obedient. It was only after she graduated that they started trying to shape her into what they wanted her to be. They began giving her tasks, things like 'Defeat him' or 'Win in this'. When she first got these tasks, she would ask questions like 'Why?', but the response was always something along the lines of 'Do you not trust us?'. Even when she tried to move out, they would find a way to make her stay. Over the years, she learnt that obedience was key, and disobedience was met with punishment.

Mary often found herself lying on her bed, thinking back to simpler times, and today was no different, however, today she had decided to leave her parents behind, where she would go, even she wasn't sure. She picked up her backpack, filled with everything she might need, and headed to their overly fancy entrance hall. At the door she found her father.

"I was about to call for you, but it seems as if you've come to me," He said. "Come here then, I've got a new job for you to do."

Mary approached the man she would soon leave behind, not saying a single thing.

"I would like you to find this man," He says, pulling out a photograph. "He has a card he shouldn't have, I would like you to bring it back to me."

She took the photo, opening her mouth to ask why he didn't just get the police to do this, but decided it would be better for her if she simply didn't ask questions and just accepted the task.

He opened the door for Mary, and as she walked out, he told her, "Don't come back until you have the card, everything you need to know is on the back of the photo."

The doors shut behind her, leaving her out in the cold, winter air. She flipped the photograph around, and sure enough information like his name, age, birthday, address, even the card her father wanted back.

She tore up the photo, and put the scraps into her bag, and set off for a place to stay for the night.