This chapter would have been much longer, but I'm really tired right now and I cut it a little short. There would have been more detail of each round of the competition you'll read about in this chapter, but...I'm sorry. I'm exhausted today... -_-

Please forgive me? :c

Anyway, this is not a pairing chapter, just so you all know. :)

Enjoy this, and the fact that it's only ten days until Christmas Eve! :D

On a cold winter's afternoon in the park, two people- a young woman and a teenage boy- sit facing each other on a bench, eyes glaring icily and minds churning, thinking of the next move they would have to pull. Hastily, but without faltering, the boy looked over his hand of cards- nothing seemed to stick out, so he looked again, this time his eyes picking up a certain feature of the fourth card he held and smirking. This was it; the thing he needed to win the match, and he would not, and could not, lose to her.

Smiling at the boy's sudden bout of determination, the young woman swept her hazel eyes over her hand, adjusting her glasses up her nose as they started to move gradually downward. She spotted a certain card in her pile- the fourth, to be precise- and checked it out: it had an extremely good feature, but that came with a certain compromise; if the opponent chose a card with the same feature, the move was invalid. Biting her lip lightly, she decided to risk it; after all, she could not lose to the teenager in front of her- she was older, she had a job related to said game and its theme, and had been playing for much longer than he had. If she lost, she wouldn't be able to live it down for some time, but it relieved her to think that if the boy lost, she would have proven herself to him.

Peering over her glasses, she finally spoke.

"Ready?"

The boy laughed loudly, smirking a little as his laugh faded away. "I've been ready for some time, actually."

"Well, it naturally doesn't pain me to tell you that I have a pretty strong card in my hand."

"Well, I also have a strong card, and I plan to use it to my advantage."

The young woman snorted. "What else would you do with it? Use it as fuel, or something?"

After she received a piercing glare from the boy, both took out their chosen card and held it firmly, its back toward their opponent. They nodded at each other before starting the countdown.

"Three…"

"Two…"

"One…"

"GO!" They both shouted, slamming their cards down onto the space between them on the bench. It was evident, after a few excited and nervous looks at the attributes of each character on the Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo Olde Tokyo Trading Card Game cards that the young woman's card had won, but she still had one thing left to ascertain. Looking over the boy's card, she broke into a grin when she saw that the boy's card had no matching features, making her the official winner of their match.

"Ugh! Penny, why are you so good at this?!" the boy moaned, his friend Penny Nichols laughing and shrugging her shoulders.

"I don't know, Cody. I guess it's just practise," she began, "and the fact that I'm a bigger fan than you."

Cody's eyes widened dramatically as he turned to look her in the eye, his glare returning.

"…What did you just say?"

"That I was a bigger fan than you. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, except from the fact that that is a complete and utter lie."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't."

"Yes."

"Nope."

"Uh-huh."

"Of course not!"

"Look, Cody," Penny began, sighing a little, "just accept the fact that you're-"

"You're not a bigger fan than me!"

Cody looked almost like he was to burst into tears, so Penny decided to stop with her line of conversation and instead make it a win-win situation for her- create an opportunity for her to prove that she was right and also spark her and Cody's raw determination to win again.

"Hey, Cody…how about we have a competition?"

Cody looked at Penny suspiciously. "What do you mean?"

"To see who's the biggest fan out of us two. We can have four rounds- singing the theme song, testing our knowledge of trivia and episode detail, sword fighting in cosplay and having a snowball fight."

"A snowball fight?"

"Well, you know, it's still fighting. And it is Christmas and all."

"I suppose you're right, Penny."

After gathering their cards and belongings, the two made their way over to some young carol singers to begin their first test, both smirking cynically.

Throats sore, brains racked and energy drained out of them, Penny and Cody made their way to the former Samurai Dog stall to get a Samurai Dog as their mid-competition snack. At the moment, the score was a tie; Penny had won the singing, Cody had won the knowledge- albeit by one point- and the swordfight had ended in a tie, leaving the overall score 2-2. As the duo approached the redecorated stall, a man wearing a Santa suit appeared behind the counter, laughing merrily when he saw them both.

"Ho ho ho! Welcome to Santa's Snack Shack, where hot chocolate, marshmallows, biscuits and other Christmas food and drink live in abundance together! Now, young man, what would you like for Christmas?"

Cody gave him a look. "That isn't funny."

"Well, I'm sorry for disappointing you. Do you want food or not?" the man questioned back with a small frown.

"Yes, please, sir," Penny interrupted before Cody could say anything more, "we'd like a Samurai Dog, if that's possible. You did sell them this summer…"

"I'm sorry, young lady, but I don't sell them in the winter. I do have a Samurai Biscuit, though."

"Great! We'll have two of those!"

A 'Samurai Biscuit' was a giant gingerbread biscuit with an iced character on it- the Evil Magistrate, the Pink Princess, the Nickel Samurai, and the Iron Infant were just a few designs. As Cody tucked in to his Steel Samurai one and Penny polished off her Pink Princess-shaped one, they both climbed onto their bicycles and rode back to the park, leaving the Santa outfit-clad man alone once more.

Cody hid behind a giant rock he had found, making snowballs as fast as he could as more and more hit his make-shift shield. Throwing one back towards Penny, he made sure that he ducked down quickly afterward to avoid Penny's revenge. It was intense, but he managed to get through twenty more minutes before a snowball soared over the rock and hit him square on his back.

His back hurting a little, he took his biggest snowball and threw it as hard as he could- but it completely missed Penny and accidentally hit the window of somebody's house. It did not break, but the owner yelled out of said window, shouting that kids these days should be careful and to never do that again.

Cody and Penny both nodded and muttered a solemn "Yes, sir…" or an equally down-hearted "No, sir…" to the man's outbursts until he took out a cigarette and left the room with the window he had been shouting out of.

Penny looked at Cody, and Cody looked back at Penny. Both decided to call it quits for a day and, laughing at what just happened, confirmed that both of them were great fans and that the competition ended with two winners instead of one.