This is the first of these chapters which is fairly recent. A couple years ago, I went back and added some chapters into the earlier stories which were based on ideas that I chose not to explore the first time through, which serve to develop some of the underdeveloped characters. In this final version of the story, this is the first time that we meet Jen's sister, based (loosely) on one of my real life cousins, as Jen herself is, where in the original version we didn't meet her until Book Three. If the writing here feels a little different from the last chapter, these are the reasons why.
Chapter ElevenJen’s Saga;
A Tournament as Preparation
Jen
To say that my life was changing rapidly would be an understatement. You know the story, since my cousin just told it to you, so I won’t waste your time. I will say, however, that for a strategist like me, for someone who was always looking forward and planning ahead, finding out that I had some kind of unknown destiny involving magic and evil was a little more than unsettling. Ever since arriving home from Duelist Kingdom, I’d been trying to prepare for what I knew was coming, for a confrontation with an enemy that I couldn’t comprehend. It was driving me crazy. There was only so many times that I could look at the same cards.
I held my head in frustration and looked up from my deck, which was deconstructed and spread out over the game table in my basement. Everything looked in order. I stacked my cards, shuffled, and drew a test hand. I shuffled and drew again. Then I shuffled and drew again. Shuffled and drew, shuffled and drew. Every hand was a good one, but I still didn’t feel confident. I was on the verge of a potential nervous breakdown when I was saved by the ring of the doorbell.
Who’s that? I wondered, standing up and making my way upstairs. By the time I turned the corner into the living room to check the door, there was no one there, and Sarah was sitting with my sister, Kris, on the couch. Kris was busy pestering Sarah about letting her go with us to Egypt. She’d been like that ever since I’d told her about what had really happened during our time on Pegasus’ island.
“We’ve been over this, Kris,” I told her. “It’s a miracle that Mom bought the story that Industrial Illusions fed her about our trip. Taking you along would just make things too complicated.”
“But I’m a Duelist-.”
“None of this, ‘I’m a Duelist, too’ stuff,” I argued. “You just started playing. You aren’t ready. I’m not even sure that I’m ready.”
“But we never get to do anything together anymore,” Kris whined, sticking her lip out and giving me the big brown puppy dog eyes, but I ignored her. She looks almost exactly like me, so all of her cutesy little tricks are ones that I’ve used myself. I’m immune.
Sarah looked from me to Kris and back again, “I might actually have an idea of somethin’ you can do together today.”
“You do?” Kris asked, her sympathetic demeanor disappearing in an instant.
“Yeah,” Sarah replied proudly, “that’s why I came over.”
She gestured at me, “I know you’ve been bendin’ over backwards to try and prepare for this Egypt thing, so I did some asking around, and I found out about this little shop tournament at a store down toward the city where the Duelists are known for using really unique decks. I figured it would be a good way to test your deck against some unusual opponents. If we hurry, the three of us should be able to make it there by bus in time to enter.”
“Cool!” Kris exclaimed, much more loudly than she needed to. “Finally, a chance to prove how good I am!”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed. She looked at me, “You’re welcome.”
We caught the next bus heading downtown. Altogether the wait and the ride to the stop closest to the shop took about an hour and a half, but finally we arrived at our destination. It was a relatively small hole in the wall down a shallow embankment and across a ditch, right off of the highway. A section of the parking lot had been raised and flattened off into a makeshift Duel Disk arena. There were easily twenty kids hanging out around the arena, watching two kids duel on it with rather unimpressive cards.
We made our way inside the building. There were even more people packed inside. Luckily they weren’t all there for the tournament, because there were only thirty-two slots. By the time we were able to sign up, there were only six left. The shopkeeper, an overweight guy in his mid-twenties with greasy hair, was excited that there were actually some girls in his rather unpopular store, even if we were young, and allowed us to forgo the entry fee in the hopes that we would return for many years to come (so, until we were hot).
“This place is cool!” Kris exclaimed, a bit spacily, as she took everything in.
“This place is dodgy,” I told her. “If you wanna look around, be sure to stick with either me or Sarah.”
“Don’t worry, Jen,” Sarah assured me, and the two wandered off. We still had an hour until the tournament started. All we could do was wait.
I started wandering the store, looking in displays at single cards and booster packs. They had a few rare cards, but they were all overpriced. After a while, I just started walking aimlessly, waiting for something to happen, and finally it did.
I saw an African-American boy, about my sister’s age, sitting at one of the tables in the back of the shop. I was drawn to him because the look of frustration on his face mirrored the frustration that I’d felt earlier.
“Hey,” I asked, sitting down across from him at the table, “you okay? You need some help?”
“No,” he said flatly, “I’m fine.”
“You sure?” I asked. “If it’s a problem with your deck, I can help. You don’t even have to show me your deck. You can just tell me what kind of problem it is. I’m good at this kind of thing.”
He hesitated, probably suspecting me of trying to learn about his deck for my own selfish purposes.
“I’m Jen,” I told him, offering him my hand, attempting to build a rapport.
The boy finally looked up at me. He looked nervous. He shook my hand carefully, “I’m Daryl.”
“I bet I can help with your problem, Daryl,” I told him. “I’m good with strategies.”
Daryl sighed, running his fingers through his short, curly black hair, “It’s just that I wanted to be in the tournament today, and I’ve got some good cards, but I only have a couple of effect monsters, and they aren’t that good. I don’t have any destruction effect cards, or Counter Traps. My monsters are the backbone of my deck. Without effects, they’re helpless. I just don’t know what to do.”
“I’ve never had a problem just like that before,” I told him, “but you know, I’ve always found that, when you discover that you’re at a disadvantage, you have to try and make that disadvantage into your niche. If all you have are some pretty good Normal Monsters, then find a way to turn Normal Monsters themselves into your advantage.”
As I spoke, I saw Daryl’s eyes light up.
“Looks like you’ve got an idea,” I said, standing up. “I’ll leave you to figure things out. I hope I see you in the tournament.”
I killed more time until the tournament bracket was finally posted. The shopkeeper, in an attempt to be dramatic, had split the thirty-two entries into two separate brackets of sixteen, and wouldn’t let anyone see the opposite bracket. Sarah, Kris and I were all in the B bracket. The way we were spaced, we wouldn’t have to duel each other until close to the end.
As we were checking the brackets, I guess I was smiling or something, because Sarah asked, “Feelin’ better already? You’re welcome, again.”
“I guess I am,” I replied. “I got to help this kid figure out his deck. It felt pretty good to use my knowledge of strategy like that.”
“I don’t get your whole deck building mentality,” Kris told me. “All that stuff about creating multiple strategies and then using them to build one big ‘evolving strategy’ as you put it. I prefer my strategy, one big sequence of combos that builds upon itself, fitting together like a well-oiled machine. It’s really the only way.”
“It’s a way,” I replied. My sister and I have this discussion a lot.
“Well-oiled machine, Jen,” Kris insisted, “well-oiled machine.”
She walked off proudly. The first round began in minutes. Sarah and I ended up at tables close to each other. Kris had her first duel at a table on the other side of the room. My opponent, whose name was also Jennifer (note the two n’s), still had twenty-nine of her four thousand Life Points. After some clever stalling, she'd used a combination of ‘Stray Lambs’ and ‘Book of Taiyou’ to summon ‘Garnecia Elephantis’ (ATK: 2400), a monster that she was quite proud to announce as her strongest.
“Attack ‘Basic Insect’,” she commanded.
“Then I’ll use a Trap,” I countered, flipping over a card, “‘Relieve Monster’, exchanging ‘Basic Insect’ for the ‘Pinch Hopper’ in my hand. You destroy it instead, and I get to summon my best monster, ‘Insect Queen’ (2200 + 200 = 2400).”
Okay, maybe “best monster” wasn’t quite accurate, as I’ve worked hard to collect a lot of great Insect cards, but she’s up there, and I wanted to show off.
“I’ve never understood why someone would use that monster,” my opponent said. “It gets a power-up, but you have to tribute a monster just to attack, and each time it destroys a monster, it summons a weak Token monster that’s completely vulnerable.”
“The trick,” I explained, “is learning the weaknesses of the cards and evolving by learning how to use them to your advantage. Lesson one, ‘Insect Queen’ only gets a power-up from insects, and your opponent probably doesn’t use insects, so a good insect Duelist will use ‘DNA Surgery’,” I flipped over my Trap, “to change that (2400+200 =2600).
“I summon ‘Skull-marked Ladybug’ and tribute it to attack, increasing my Life Points and destroying your monster. You’re out of face-down cards, so I’m going to guess that you can't stop me.”
She nodded, mildly annoyed as she put her Beast-Warrior into her Graveyard.
“I end by setting a card,” I concluded, “and summoning a Token.”
I placed a coin on the table, face-up to indicate Attack mode (ATK: 0). My opponent drew, “You only have eighteen hundred Life, so I summon ‘Flying Elephant’ and attack the Egg for the win.”
“Not if I reveal ‘Covering Fire’,” I explained, “increasing the Attack of the Egg by the Attack of the ‘Insect Queen’ (0 -> 2800). That’s lesson number two, with the right cards, any weakness can become a proportionately greater strength. If you don’t have any more cards to play this turn, then I win.”
“You win,” Jennifer conceded, “but hey, I learned a lot. Next time we duel, I won’t go down so easy.”
We shook hands, made our way over to the counter to report the winner, and then parted ways on friendly terms. I made my way over to Sarah’s table, where they were cleaning up their cards, Sarah saying, “And that’ll teach you that nobody calls me ‘Tomboy’ except my brother, and only if I’ve called him ‘Jerk’ first.”
Her opponent, a boy a little older than me, walked away sulking.
“I assume you won,” I told her as we headed over to the counter to report her duel result as well.
“Of course,” she answered.
We reached the counter and found Kris there too.
“So, sis,” I asked, “how’d your well-oiled machine do?”
She hunched over, disappointed, “Not good, sis. Not good.”
The three of us had a good laugh. “No, but seriously,” Kris said, “even though I lost, I could tell that the skill level here isn’t much higher than mine. You guys really shouldn’t have a problem.”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, “at least not until we have to face each other.”
I was about to agree with her when I thought about Daryl (if he’d been able to enter) and all of the opponents to come, not to mention the eventual winner of A block, whoever they turned out to be.
“I dunno,” I told her. “I think this tournament might surprise us yet.”
Card of the Day:
Covering Fire
Played by: Jen
In this chapter Jen shows off her awesomeness by helping other Duelists improve. First she helps a young Duelist figure out his deck, and then she gives a lesson to her opponent regarding how to turn the perceived weaknesses of your cards into strengths. A lesson which hinged on this card, amongst others, the most interesting of which I want to save for more important Card of the Days later on.
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