The half hour long, mostly one sided, conversation Alexa had endured during that night at the Italian restaurant was just the beginning. The two grew a bit closer over the next few days. Not anywhere near the level of closeness she had with Jazz but closer all the same.
It was just refreshing to have someone she could be a bit nerdy with. Jazz, gods bless her, was just not really into a lot of that stuff. Sean on the other hand was so saturated in it that Alexa sometimes had trouble getting the references he was making. It felt good, knowing she wasn't the biggest dork in the room.
About eight days after her arrival found Alexa and Sean at the kitchen table playing Mythomagic. To put it bluntly, he was destroying Alexa. Her HP was almost at zero and all she had on the field was a few automatons. Meanwhile he was over on his side of the six by six tiled playing field with Demeter in a full fury and barely even a notch taken from his total HP. This was their tenth game, and he had been a dominant force in the other nine. This was actually the longest she had managed to hold out, and that was entirely because of the Wall of Troy card she had played a few rounds back. It kept her monsters and heroes safe...at least the ones she could put behind it. However, after eight turns and the building firepower on his end of the table, she was starting to run out of options and the wall was running low on hp.
"Well? Give up yet?" Sean asked with a grin. "It's okay if you can't play anything!"
"Shut up! I'm thinking!" Alexa snapped back, glaring down at her cards and the figures on the field, willing them into a better place.
"You've been thinking for a good couple of minutes now." Sean teased.
"Alright, we're heading out!" Jazz said, walking into the room with Melody and Sonya hot on her heels.
"You're still more than welcome to come, sweetheart." Melody pointed out. The trio was off to the boutique, a word that never failed to get a grimace from Jazz. Today was the final round of fitting for Jazz's wedding gown, an event that Sean was completely barred from thanks to tradition and Alexa was refusing to go to.
"I'm not going to a clothing store with Sonya unless she keeps her phone at home!" Alexa said for the fourth responded with a giggle and a wink that'd put weak hearted men in the hospital.
"Fair enough." Melody chuckled.
"Please don't cream Spits too badly." Jazz added, leaning down to kiss Sean lightly on the cheek. This, as always, got a blush and a big dopey grin out of Sean. Alexa rolled her eyes, increased the counter on her temple token and moved one of her automatons closer to the wall.
The trio left, leaving Alexa and her adversary alone. Sean drew a card and then declared an attack on her wall with a newly summoned minotaur. She tried to hide her confusion, but it only lasted a second. Sean moved his Demeter figure back a space.
"I'm activating Demeter's power, she lets me summon as many plant based monsters from my hand as there are open spaces around her!" He then proceeded to summon three dryads, a satyr and...a monster called a topiary lion. The card's illustration showed exactly what it seemed to indicate; A lion shaped bush.
"That army'll be enough to crush yours next turn since the wall will be coming down!" Sean said smugly.
Alexa frowned at the map and pondered. This was bad. She had three gods in her hand, but two of them would take too long to gather the worship to summon with just one temple. A pity, too, Zeus was loaded with Attack Power, and the ability to strike anywhere on the battlefield was really good. The other powerhouse was Nyx, the night goddess. There were titans that matched Zeus' 6000 Attack Power but there were only a few Giants and one goddess, capable of beating Zeus in close quarters. Sadly she requires an even longer wait to get onto the field.
"You could always just quit now, that way you don't have to lose officially." Sean offered again.
"Cowards have no place in Sparta! You either return behind your shield or on top of it!" Alexa grunted as she continued to look over her cards. Sean just chuckled and declared an end to his turn. Alexa drew her next card.
The card she drew wasn't a monster or a god, but a spell. It was rarer than some, but certainly not the rarest in any collection. Sean had three copies of it, in fact. She probably would've dismissed it had it not been for the third god card in her hand. He was among the weaker of the gods, only 3000 points in both Attack and Defense, no enhanced movement skills, and abilities that didn't work well on a majority of the monsters in any deck...which was unfortunate since it was her dad.
However, she had unwittingly set up an epic combo, all revolving around that one card. Alexa took two of her worshipper chips off the temple and placed them to the side.
"I burn some power to summon Hephaestus." She declared, placing her card down and fishing the god's metal figurine out of her case. She set him lovingly on the field. The figure...well she appreciated that every artist had their interpretations but it looked nothing like the god as she knew him. His face was far too handsome, save for the squashed nose, he walked with the aid of a massive sledge hammer, and if she wasn't mistaken he wore a peg leg, making the god of the figure look more like an actor wearing a fake nose to portray a pirate or something.
"And I get to use his first ability after summoning him, I get to summon an Artificial type monster from my deck to the field, regardless of its power." She continued, searching through her deck until she found the card she was looking for. She placed down her Colchis Bull. The thing was strong for a monster, and way faster than Hephaestus, but it also couldn't really be summoned without some serious prep time...unless you summoned Hephaestus first.
"Cool! Didn't know you had that!" Sean complimented.
"Never got the chance to use it before." Alexa replied.
"Well still, one monster doesn't automatically mean you win the fight. You may beat my minotaur but-"
"Oh I'm not done!" Alexa said maliciously. She slaps down her spell in the battlefield section of the board. "I play Mount Etna!"
"But...but that's so dumb!" Sean said with a slight laugh. "That card destroys all your buildings and weakens all the monsters on the field, yours and mine! Your machines won't survive the stat drop! "
"Yours, yes. Mine, not so much." It was Alexa's turn to smile smugly. "If you look closely at the card it brings down the Power Level and Attack Level of Beast type, Plant type, Minion type, Spirit type, and Hero type mortals, but it leaves out Artificial Type."
Sean looked...it was true. All five of the other mortal archetypes were listed, gods, gigantes and titans were exempt from field effects unless it targeted them directly, but Mount Etna purposely ignored Artificial could've gotten a similar effect with Vesuvius...but that particular volcano killed everything, and even hurt the gods.
Alexa smugly removed the three dryads her volcano had killed. Their power was so low that the draining effect of Etna killed them outright.
"And that's not all! Now I can use Hephaestus' second ability, take the level five heat produced by Etna and channel it into all my Artificial type monsters! Hephaestus gives them a tune up and a massive upgrade, all of them have all their stats increased by 2500 points!" She grinned at him, moving her Automatons into position and eliminating first his shrubbery lion, then his minotaur. The grain goddess was brought down by an attack from her metal bull and the final automaton attacked him directly, unobstructed. His HP dropped like a stone as the monster's upgrade ate into the 3000 points he had remaining after losing the others. She had actually won one!
She wanted to gloat, she really did, but instead she smiled at him.
"Did you let me win that one?" She teased. He laughed and started clearing the board.
"Nope, you beat me fair and square." He admitted.
"Good! Because cheaters don't get prizes!" She said with a wink. She fished in her pocket and pulled out a small box.
"Got this today. Here, what do you think?" Alexa opened the box to reveal two white gold rings. One was a bit thicker and unornamented, made for Sean. The other was thinner with a perfectly cut diamond set into it, 10 carat with a round cut, and a petite twist setting with a few smaller diamonds set into it. Alexa wasn't exactly a jewelry person, but she thought it came out pretty nice. The diamonds were the hardest part, but given enough prep time and the right equipment she could make quite a bit. The hardest part was keeping the carbon liquid without just burning it so her power could crystalize it properly.
"Holy crap...Alexa that...that ring is...it's got to be worth like two thousand dollars at least." Sean said breathlessly.
"Three thousand and change, I had it appraised." She said with a smirk. She closed the box and passed it to Sean. "That's my wedding gift to you both."
Sean put the box down on the table and crossed the short distance between them to hug Alexa. Alexa chuckled sheepishly and gave him a little pat.
"Okay Sean…getting a little awkward here…" she said pointedly. After another few moments of increasingly awkward physical contact Alexa whined. "Can we please get back to me losing?"
"You don't get it! I wouldn't have been able to get her anything near as nice as this! This...this is something I can't even begin to pay you back for!" He pulled away, still beaming at her.
"Hey... we're going to be family right? It's the least I can do." Alexa chuckled. "Now seriously let go of me! This was getting awkward like half a minute ago and I wanna see if I can keep my streak going!"