radio414

Chris didn’t immediately see anybody he knew when he stepped outside, but that was okay; schedules were more of a suggestion to him, and enforcing discipline would probably have been seen as hypocritical. He wasn’t sure if waiting outside made him look impatient or if it just meant he was really ready to greet them, but either way, there he was. It wasn’t like he was about to change his mind, not after he’d already announced to Hector what was up. “Greetings, friend! Have you been waiting long?” And yet, even when he was keeping an eye out, Estellise still managed to sneak up on him. She was as chipper as ever, Chris thought. He wondered how he looked to her. Then he wondered why he wondered that. He didn’t really care what people- okay, he cared, but he didn’t… The thought went nowhere, and all he was left with was responding to the question posed to him. “No, I just stepped out,” he said. “You’re the first one here, anyway, so I wouldn’t say you were late at all.” Estelisse's arrival seemed to open the floodgates, and all the rest of the party flowed in behind her. The next one was Lana, who made some sort of joke about rescuing princesses? Nobody really laughed, and Lana backtracked on it almost immediately, which was, well, it was about what could be expected of Lana, wasn’t it? Joke or not, though, it was certainly something Chris had thought about. What could be an easier way to get back in his family’s good graces besides that? Last, but not least, was Sergei, who, like Estellise, asked if they’d all been waiting long. “No,” Chris said. “No, everyone else just got here too. Um, I guess you’re welcome to food if you want.” He thumbed at the Drooling Dragon’s entrance. “Hector just got a huge thing of eggs so that’s the special today if you’re interested.” He lead the way back inside, holding the door open for each of his compatriots before guiding them to a nice table where they could plan out the day’s dungeon foray.

try this one

hating system of a down's vocalist but what if

long long long journey gets a 7/10 from me

“Draw!” Peter said. His emphasis was doing a lot of heavy-lifting hiding his uncertainty. The duel had turned into a Sisyphean task, after all; he’d spend resources over and over trying to clear Charlie’s board away, but setting back up seemed effortless for the captain, and they’d caused Peter to spend even more resources protecting things he’d already made. This draw was important for a lot of reasons, Peter determined (he hadn’t actually looked at it yet, but he had decided it to be so). It was important because, while he still could see a pretty clear opportunity to punch through, if he didn’t, Charlie’s Frightfur Sheep was going to eat his Twin Burst alive before the rest of their monsters turned their attention to Peter. He slowly flicked through the cards one at a time in his hand. That one was his very first draw -- if he could just find the other piece he’d be good as gold. That one was the Blue-Eyes he’d gotten, like, a couple turns ago. And just behind it was… “I activate the spell card Trade-In!” Peter said as he immediately slid the card into a slot. “It lets me discard a level eight monster from my hand to draw two new cards. I choose…” Peter hesitated. A new line appeared to him. If he could get Blue-Eyes onto the field, he could bring back his trap card, which could protect him pretty well and that could give him another draw after that. It wasn’t like he’d be in too much danger of losing with that setup. His life points were high enough and - “Oh come on.” It was his mother’s voice in his head this time. “Are you trying to win or are you trying not to lose?” He hated to admit it, but she was right, wasn’t she? He’d had this card since turn one -- okay, technically turn two but whatever -- shouldn’t he be working towards getting it on the field? “I’m going to discard this copy of Blue-Eyes White Dragon,” Peter said. “You remember this one, right? And from these two cards…” He peeled them off one at a time. The first one, well, that was no help. But when he looked at the next one, his eyes widened. Peter imagined them even literally lighting up. He looked at the card, at the board Charlie had presented to him, then back to the card. After a few deep breaths -- he wanted to really make sure he got this right -- he slid the card into place and said, “I activate the card ‘Bingo Machine, Go!!!’” As he spoke, a large hand-operated mechanism as indicated by the name appeared behind him. Its cage was about five feet in diameter, as evidenced by Peter looking like he could fit neatly inside it. “What this card lets me do is pick out three cards that mention Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and then one of them gets randomly added to my hand.” Out popped Peter’s deck from his duel disk, and he riffled through it, pulling cards to the front as necessary until he’d made his selections. He’d found all three copies of the same card, of course, but he figured he had to go through the rest of the song and dance anyway. It would be rude not to, after all. His choices materialized as tiny capsule balls inside the bingo machine’s cage, and Peter gave the crank a turn. Just one was enough -- the machine kept spinning on its own until a capsule popped out. Peter read the name on it aloud. “Chaos Form,” he said. “I think I’ll activate that right now. “It’s a ritual spell,” Peter said. “But it also lets me banish Blue-Eyes monsters from my Graveyard for its materials. Just one Blue-Eyes lets me summon a new level eight monster from my hand. So!” The lighting of the field darkened significantly and a large circle of runes -- indecipherable text -- glowed a deep azure blue right in the center. Inside the circle itself was the transparent image of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, menacing the entire field with its presence. It didn’t do much else, though; before it could, it split into eight blue orbs of fire, which then positioned themselves equidistant from each other above the runes, and their glow grew more intense. “I summon Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon!” There was a flash. A thunderclap! When the room returned to normal, a new dragon stood in the middle of it all. It only had one head, but who needed more heads anyway, especially with fangs like those? Its scales were dark -- a stark contrast to all of Peter’s other monsters -- but its eyes and highlights still glowed with that familiar blue. And it was huge! Even the Twin Burst Dragon paled in size to it, the fact that the gymnasium seemed to contain it at all was a miracle of hologram technology. “This thing has four thousand attack, did you know?” Peter said. He made no effort to hide his confidence. “And there’s a lot of text on this card. None of it makes it stronger than your Sheep, I admit, but that’s not your only monster, now is it? “And you could say that all your other monsters are in defense position, but, well, let me just read off this last bit here.” He held up the card. “‘If this card attacks a Defense Position monster, inflict double piercing battle damage.’” Peter looked back up at Charlie. “How much defense does your Mouse have anyway? One hundred, right? “Battle! Chaos MAX Dragon, blow through Fluffal mouse and continue right on to the captain!” The dragon didn’t even bother with its breath weapon. It leapt into the air, ascending with amazing force, each additional wingbeat generating its own gale. When it reached its peak, it paused for just a moment before diving back down, charging straight at the stuffed mouse. The impact blew a massive amount of dust everywhere, and the only hint of the results was Chaos MAX Dragon’s triumphant roar before things settled again. (Charlie: 2700 -> 0) It was over. The room was silent. Everything was still. Peter exhaled, and that single breath turned into a pant. Part of him still couldn’t believe that he’d managed it, and the rest of him was still dealing with the adrenaline. But it allowed the world to speed back up again. He could barely tell, but was someone taking pizza orders? How did they feel about pineapp- No, before he did all that, there were still important matters to take care of. He crossed the field over to Charlie almost trepidatiously. He wasn’t sure how the captain was going to react to the loss, but he did know he had to find out. He reached the other side. Now that he was up close, the height disparity between the two was pretty apparent. Charlie was, like a head taller than he was. He also wondered why he bothered noticing that now of all times (and also, like, that was a common occurrence) but he ignored that question for the moment too. Peter stuck his hand out. “Thanks for the game,” he said. “I think I can tell why they made you a captain.”