Finally Max gets to duel in this book. He's as sharp as ever, but the events of Reaper are definitely getting to him, more than he's willing to admit to himself. Max needs to move on, and maybe make some changes in his life, and the way that he does things. Maybe something will happen this chapter that will inspire him to do that!
Chapter Twenty-Four
Max vs. Number Nine
Max
“I’m Pete Coppermine, the number nine Card Professor,” my soon-to-be opponent announced. Jen and James ignored him. I payed him only slightly more attention, choosing to instead scope out the room for myself. I figured out the purpose of the floor panels before he was even halfway through explaining them.
“So what you’re saying,” I told him, cutting him off, “is that I have to beat you to progress. Okay. Could be more original, but at least that makes things easy for me.”
I stepped forward onto the floor trigger at my feet. Knowing the nature of this place, I didn’t need to be told not to step back off of it. My opponent’s black-lined eyes and best attempt at a menacing sneer turned to a look of confusion, if only for a moment. I could tell what he was thinking. He was surprised that his appearance, plus the stakes of the game, hadn’t been enough to frighten, or, at the very least, worry me. He clearly had no idea who I was. Maybe his act would work on the typical Duelist, but Soul magic or not, I am fear. It holds no sway over me.
Yeah, I thought, despite myself, keep lying to yourself.
I felt a jolt of pain across my chest, and I scowled. I corrected myself. I used to be fear itself, completely free of its sway, but that wasn’t true anymore. After the events in New York, and then Egypt...I couldn’t even think about it. I took the memories and pressed them down hard, burying them beneath my unshakable facade, and hoping that my opponent hadn’t seen my moment of weakness. I looked him in the eyes. I saw no indication that he had.
“Well,” Pete Coppermine said, as if trying to find something to say to put me on the defensive, pointing right at Reiko, “no getting help from the traitor.”
I looked back at Reiko and asked, “How strong is this guy? Any stronger than you were against John earlier?”
Reiko looked apprehensively to Pete, and then looked me in the eyes and said, “Not really. Maybe a little stronger. I don’t duel well when I’m nervous.”
I nodded and looked back at Pete, smiling wickedly, “If that’s as strong as you are, I don’t think this will be a problem. Don’t worry, I won’t listen to another word she says until this duel is over. This is between you and me.”
Pete’s sneer returned, “Glad we agree. I summon ‘Jinzo - Returner’ in attack mode, and set one card face down.”
His monster, a humanoid cyborg with a bulbous, swollen head appeared (ATK: 600).
Odd, I thought, summoning a direct attacker in the first turn, when he can’t even attack.
I drew to begin my first turn, It gives me a pretty good idea what he might have planned.
“I set a monster,” I declared, “set two cards, and I pass.”
“Then it’s my turn again!” Pete exclaimed, as if making to his second turn was some kind of huge triumph. He drew again, “I simply use my monster’s effect to attack you directly, Teleport Shock!”
His grotesque mutant monster disappeared with a pop, and reappeared right in front of me, launching a ball of crackling dark energy at my gut (8000 -> 7400).
I sighed, Well, that’s disappointing. I was hoping that he had something unexpected and interesting planned. I guess I was wrong.
“I draw,” I announced, “and flip summon my ‘Rigorous Reaver’, forcing each of us to discard a card from our hand.”
Pete didn’t react, except to take a card from his hand, a little too quickly, and feed it into his Graveyard. Now I was sure what he had planned. But I had a plan, too. I chose a card of my own, the powerful ‘Despair from the Dark’, and sent it to my Graveyard.”
“My ‘Reaver’ attacks and destroys your ‘Returner’,” I explained, “with Wooden Sickle.”
My monster, a grim reaper made of wood, with a scythe held firm in both hands (ATK: 1600), rushed forward, and sliced the cyborg in half (8000 -> 7000).
“Reveal,” I continued, “the Trap card ‘Robbin’ Goblin’. You have to discard a card from your hand at random immediately after you take damage from one of my attacks.”
This time Pete didn’t seem so happy about having to discard a card, but once he had discarded one, he smiled, “You might have caught me off guard with that last one, but you also helped me out. When my ‘Returner’ is destroyed, I can revive my ‘Jinzo’, discarded by the effect of your ‘Reaver’. Introducing one of the most powerful Machine monsters, with the power to freeze every Trap card on the field!”
“Well yeah,” I told him, as a much taller, more threatening-looking version of the ‘Jinzo - Returner’ took the original monster’s place, “of course you planned to use your ‘Returner’’s effect to summon ‘Jinzo’ for no cost. But you know, you could have just summoned him from your hand as a Tribute Summon? And he wouldn’t go back to the Graveyard at the end of your turn if you did.”
I sighed again, “I set another card, and end my turn again.”
“Setting cards doesn’t matter anymore,” Pete insisted.
I smirked across the field at him, “We’ll see.”
But Pete ignored me, “My turn. Draw!”
He chose a card from his hand, “Prepare yourself to face off against one of the most vicious horrors in my entire deck, the most powerful Mutant monster. I summon the ‘Para Mutant’,” a monster which looked similar to the ‘Jinzo - Returner’, with a slim body and a swollen head, appeared at Pete’s side. He acted like the sight of his monster was supposed to scare me. So, or course, I made sure not to react in the slightest.
“I activate the Spell card ‘Gem of Lycanthropy’, transforming my monster, body and mind, into the terrible ‘Lycan-Thrope’!”
The ‘Para Mutant’ changed. His body contorted, and he writed and cried out in pain as a gleaming orb appeared, and embedded itself in his chest. Finally, once his flesh stopped churning, he stood up straight, a fully realized wolf man, with dagger-like teeth and claws (ATK: 2300).
“I activate another Spell,” Pete continued, “a dark grin spreading across his face from ear to ear, “‘Fierce Lycanthropy’, increasing the attack of my ‘Lycan-Thrope’ by one thousand!”
The werewolf roared and barked at me (ATK: 2300 -> 3300).
“My ‘Jinzo’ attacks your ‘Reaver’,” Pete commanded, “with Cyber Energy Shock.”
‘Jinzo’ summoned a crackling orb of dark energy into his hands and lobbed it at my monster. ‘Rigorous Reaver’ stood his ground. He threw his sickle, cutting deep into ‘Jinzo’’s arm, just as the orb hit him, ripping him apart violently in a fury of energy (7400 -> 6600).
“When he’s destroyed,” I explained, “my ‘Rigorous Reaver’ reduces the Attack of the monster he battled by five hundred (ATK: 2400 -> 1900).
Pete laughed, “Well yeah, but you even said it. My ‘Jinzo’ returns to the Graveyard at the end of my turn. When that happens, I can revive him at full power with ‘Call of the Haunted’! But first, my ‘Lycan-Thrope’ attacks as well!”
The werewolf lunged at me, and swiped across my chest with his claws (6600 -> 3300), but I didn’t even flinch.
“I end my turn,” Pete explained, “‘Jinzo’ dies, and I revive him with my face-down ‘Call of the Haunted’.”
“No,” I told him frankly, “you don’t, because with ‘Jinzo’ gone from the field I can activate my Trap card, ‘Transmigration Prophecy’, shuffling you ‘Jinzo’ and ‘Jinzo - Returner’ back into your deck.”
And for the first time, I saw Pete Coppermine truly shaken. He’d honestly thought that he had the upper hand, and now he was wondering if that was really true. Again, I didn’t react at all. Someone who includes so many weird cards in their deck, and dresses up the way Pete does, nine out of ten times they’re looking for a reaction. They’re aiming to put you off of your game. I should know. I’m the same way. But Pete hadn’t experienced even a fraction of what I had. He was just playing at having a darkness inside of him. Refusing to react to his facade turned it all around on him, throwing him off of his game. Soon his entire persona would fall apart. And the sooner that happened, the sooner I would win.
“My turn again,” I began. “I draw, and set two cards. Now I play ‘Card of Demise’ to draw until I have five cards in my hand, as long as I give up my hand in five turns.”
I replenished my entire hand, flashing a brief smile when I saw that I’d drawn exactly what I’d expected.
“Next,” I declared, “I reveal the face-down ‘Polymerization’ card that I set this turn, fusing ‘Spirit Reaper’ and ‘Nightmare Horse’ in my hand into ‘Reaper on the Nightmare’.”
Mt ghostly, sickle-wielding ‘Spirit Reaper’ appeared, wrapping in his ornate purple cloak, rising aback the mummified equine ghost ‘Nightmare Horse’ (ATK: 800). Pete scowled at the site of my signature monster.
“‘Reaper on the Nightmare’ uses its effect to attack you directly,” I announced. My monster flew straight at Pete. ‘Lycan-Thrope’ tried to intercept, but the ‘Reaper’ passed right through him, slashing Pete across the chest with his sickle (7000 -> 6200).
“The ‘Reaper’’s second effect activates,” I explained, “forcing you to discard a card at random from your hand. And ‘Robbin’ Goblin’ activates as well, forcing you to discard a second card as well. But I see that you only have one card left in your hand. So I play ‘Confusion’. This turn, when you discard cards at random, you must choose randomly from your cards on the field as well. And since the only card you control is your ‘Lycan-Thrope’, your last two cards are destroyed.”
“You can’t do that!” Pete exclaimed.
“Yes, I can,” I replied. As I spoke, ‘Lycan-Thrope’ faded out of existence, claimed by the power of my ‘Reaper’’s scythe.
“Now I finish it,” I declared, “with my ‘Call of the Haunted’, to revive the monster that I discarded with ’Reaver’’s effect,” my shadow stretched out behind me, and then sprung up from the ground, becoming a pitch-black torso that towered overhead, “my ‘Despair from the Dark’ (ATK: 2800).
“My monster attacks,” I commanded, and ‘Despair’ reached over me head and brought long, red claws to bare against my opponent (6200 -> 3400), “and I activate the Spell card ‘Self-Mummification’. I send my own monster to the Graveyard again.”
“Your own monster,” Pete asked, taken aback, “but why?”
‘Despair’ exploded into a cloud of smoke that hovered and swirled around behind me. And finally, I reacted.
“What do you see in the smoke?” I asked my opponent in a low voice, smiling wickedly. “Do you see your own death?”
Pete couldn’t help but look into the smoke, transfixed. Suddenly he yelped as a huge skeletal dragon head emerged from the smoke. I laughed evilly.
“During a turn in which a Level eight monster I control is sent to the Graveyard,” I explained, “ I can play ‘A Deal with Dark Ruler’, summoning ‘Berserk Dragon’ from my deck.”
The rest of the smoke swirled around behind the head, forming a brown skeletal dragon’s body and wings, tufts of brown hair coming off of the back of its head (ATK: 3500).
“My dragon attacks!” I commanded, and the ‘Berserk Dragon’ bombarded Pete Coppermine with fireballs, ending the duel, but he didn’t care. He was still shaking. He’d be shaken for a while.
Triumphantly, I looked over at Reiko, and I was surprised to see that she was afraid too. Another pain shot across my chest, and I almost stumbled off of the floor trigger beneath my feet. I looked down at the cards still on my modified curved, gold-colored Duel Disk. For the first time in a long time, I actually wondered if what I was doing was right. I felt something strange. It took me a second to realize that I was scared too.
I was scared of myself.
“I’m Pete Coppermine, the number nine Card Professor,” my soon-to-be opponent announced. Jen and James ignored him. I payed him only slightly more attention, choosing to instead scope out the room for myself. I figured out the purpose of the floor panels before he was even halfway through explaining them.
“So what you’re saying,” I told him, cutting him off, “is that I have to beat you to progress. Okay. Could be more original, but at least that makes things easy for me.”
I stepped forward onto the floor trigger at my feet. Knowing the nature of this place, I didn’t need to be told not to step back off of it. My opponent’s black-lined eyes and best attempt at a menacing sneer turned to a look of confusion, if only for a moment. I could tell what he was thinking. He was surprised that his appearance, plus the stakes of the game, hadn’t been enough to frighten, or, at the very least, worry me. He clearly had no idea who I was. Maybe his act would work on the typical Duelist, but Soul magic or not, I am fear. It holds no sway over me.
Yeah, I thought, despite myself, keep lying to yourself.
I felt a jolt of pain across my chest, and I scowled. I corrected myself. I used to be fear itself, completely free of its sway, but that wasn’t true anymore. After the events in New York, and then Egypt...I couldn’t even think about it. I took the memories and pressed them down hard, burying them beneath my unshakable facade, and hoping that my opponent hadn’t seen my moment of weakness. I looked him in the eyes. I saw no indication that he had.
“Well,” Pete Coppermine said, as if trying to find something to say to put me on the defensive, pointing right at Reiko, “no getting help from the traitor.”
I looked back at Reiko and asked, “How strong is this guy? Any stronger than you were against John earlier?”
Reiko looked apprehensively to Pete, and then looked me in the eyes and said, “Not really. Maybe a little stronger. I don’t duel well when I’m nervous.”
I nodded and looked back at Pete, smiling wickedly, “If that’s as strong as you are, I don’t think this will be a problem. Don’t worry, I won’t listen to another word she says until this duel is over. This is between you and me.”
Pete’s sneer returned, “Glad we agree. I summon ‘Jinzo - Returner’ in attack mode, and set one card face down.”
His monster, a humanoid cyborg with a bulbous, swollen head appeared (ATK: 600).
Odd, I thought, summoning a direct attacker in the first turn, when he can’t even attack.
I drew to begin my first turn, It gives me a pretty good idea what he might have planned.
“I set a monster,” I declared, “set two cards, and I pass.”
“Then it’s my turn again!” Pete exclaimed, as if making to his second turn was some kind of huge triumph. He drew again, “I simply use my monster’s effect to attack you directly, Teleport Shock!”
His grotesque mutant monster disappeared with a pop, and reappeared right in front of me, launching a ball of crackling dark energy at my gut (8000 -> 7400).
I sighed, Well, that’s disappointing. I was hoping that he had something unexpected and interesting planned. I guess I was wrong.
“I draw,” I announced, “and flip summon my ‘Rigorous Reaver’, forcing each of us to discard a card from our hand.”
Pete didn’t react, except to take a card from his hand, a little too quickly, and feed it into his Graveyard. Now I was sure what he had planned. But I had a plan, too. I chose a card of my own, the powerful ‘Despair from the Dark’, and sent it to my Graveyard.”
“My ‘Reaver’ attacks and destroys your ‘Returner’,” I explained, “with Wooden Sickle.”
My monster, a grim reaper made of wood, with a scythe held firm in both hands (ATK: 1600), rushed forward, and sliced the cyborg in half (8000 -> 7000).
“Reveal,” I continued, “the Trap card ‘Robbin’ Goblin’. You have to discard a card from your hand at random immediately after you take damage from one of my attacks.”
This time Pete didn’t seem so happy about having to discard a card, but once he had discarded one, he smiled, “You might have caught me off guard with that last one, but you also helped me out. When my ‘Returner’ is destroyed, I can revive my ‘Jinzo’, discarded by the effect of your ‘Reaver’. Introducing one of the most powerful Machine monsters, with the power to freeze every Trap card on the field!”
“Well yeah,” I told him, as a much taller, more threatening-looking version of the ‘Jinzo - Returner’ took the original monster’s place, “of course you planned to use your ‘Returner’’s effect to summon ‘Jinzo’ for no cost. But you know, you could have just summoned him from your hand as a Tribute Summon? And he wouldn’t go back to the Graveyard at the end of your turn if you did.”
I sighed again, “I set another card, and end my turn again.”
“Setting cards doesn’t matter anymore,” Pete insisted.
I smirked across the field at him, “We’ll see.”
But Pete ignored me, “My turn. Draw!”
He chose a card from his hand, “Prepare yourself to face off against one of the most vicious horrors in my entire deck, the most powerful Mutant monster. I summon the ‘Para Mutant’,” a monster which looked similar to the ‘Jinzo - Returner’, with a slim body and a swollen head, appeared at Pete’s side. He acted like the sight of his monster was supposed to scare me. So, or course, I made sure not to react in the slightest.
“I activate the Spell card ‘Gem of Lycanthropy’, transforming my monster, body and mind, into the terrible ‘Lycan-Thrope’!”
The ‘Para Mutant’ changed. His body contorted, and he writed and cried out in pain as a gleaming orb appeared, and embedded itself in his chest. Finally, once his flesh stopped churning, he stood up straight, a fully realized wolf man, with dagger-like teeth and claws (ATK: 2300).
“I activate another Spell,” Pete continued, “a dark grin spreading across his face from ear to ear, “‘Fierce Lycanthropy’, increasing the attack of my ‘Lycan-Thrope’ by one thousand!”
The werewolf roared and barked at me (ATK: 2300 -> 3300).
“My ‘Jinzo’ attacks your ‘Reaver’,” Pete commanded, “with Cyber Energy Shock.”
‘Jinzo’ summoned a crackling orb of dark energy into his hands and lobbed it at my monster. ‘Rigorous Reaver’ stood his ground. He threw his sickle, cutting deep into ‘Jinzo’’s arm, just as the orb hit him, ripping him apart violently in a fury of energy (7400 -> 6600).
“When he’s destroyed,” I explained, “my ‘Rigorous Reaver’ reduces the Attack of the monster he battled by five hundred (ATK: 2400 -> 1900).
Pete laughed, “Well yeah, but you even said it. My ‘Jinzo’ returns to the Graveyard at the end of my turn. When that happens, I can revive him at full power with ‘Call of the Haunted’! But first, my ‘Lycan-Thrope’ attacks as well!”
The werewolf lunged at me, and swiped across my chest with his claws (6600 -> 3300), but I didn’t even flinch.
“I end my turn,” Pete explained, “‘Jinzo’ dies, and I revive him with my face-down ‘Call of the Haunted’.”
“No,” I told him frankly, “you don’t, because with ‘Jinzo’ gone from the field I can activate my Trap card, ‘Transmigration Prophecy’, shuffling you ‘Jinzo’ and ‘Jinzo - Returner’ back into your deck.”
And for the first time, I saw Pete Coppermine truly shaken. He’d honestly thought that he had the upper hand, and now he was wondering if that was really true. Again, I didn’t react at all. Someone who includes so many weird cards in their deck, and dresses up the way Pete does, nine out of ten times they’re looking for a reaction. They’re aiming to put you off of your game. I should know. I’m the same way. But Pete hadn’t experienced even a fraction of what I had. He was just playing at having a darkness inside of him. Refusing to react to his facade turned it all around on him, throwing him off of his game. Soon his entire persona would fall apart. And the sooner that happened, the sooner I would win.
“My turn again,” I began. “I draw, and set two cards. Now I play ‘Card of Demise’ to draw until I have five cards in my hand, as long as I give up my hand in five turns.”
I replenished my entire hand, flashing a brief smile when I saw that I’d drawn exactly what I’d expected.
“Next,” I declared, “I reveal the face-down ‘Polymerization’ card that I set this turn, fusing ‘Spirit Reaper’ and ‘Nightmare Horse’ in my hand into ‘Reaper on the Nightmare’.”
Mt ghostly, sickle-wielding ‘Spirit Reaper’ appeared, wrapping in his ornate purple cloak, rising aback the mummified equine ghost ‘Nightmare Horse’ (ATK: 800). Pete scowled at the site of my signature monster.
“‘Reaper on the Nightmare’ uses its effect to attack you directly,” I announced. My monster flew straight at Pete. ‘Lycan-Thrope’ tried to intercept, but the ‘Reaper’ passed right through him, slashing Pete across the chest with his sickle (7000 -> 6200).
“The ‘Reaper’’s second effect activates,” I explained, “forcing you to discard a card at random from your hand. And ‘Robbin’ Goblin’ activates as well, forcing you to discard a second card as well. But I see that you only have one card left in your hand. So I play ‘Confusion’. This turn, when you discard cards at random, you must choose randomly from your cards on the field as well. And since the only card you control is your ‘Lycan-Thrope’, your last two cards are destroyed.”
“You can’t do that!” Pete exclaimed.
“Yes, I can,” I replied. As I spoke, ‘Lycan-Thrope’ faded out of existence, claimed by the power of my ‘Reaper’’s scythe.
“Now I finish it,” I declared, “with my ‘Call of the Haunted’, to revive the monster that I discarded with ’Reaver’’s effect,” my shadow stretched out behind me, and then sprung up from the ground, becoming a pitch-black torso that towered overhead, “my ‘Despair from the Dark’ (ATK: 2800).
“My monster attacks,” I commanded, and ‘Despair’ reached over me head and brought long, red claws to bare against my opponent (6200 -> 3400), “and I activate the Spell card ‘Self-Mummification’. I send my own monster to the Graveyard again.”
“Your own monster,” Pete asked, taken aback, “but why?”
‘Despair’ exploded into a cloud of smoke that hovered and swirled around behind me. And finally, I reacted.
“What do you see in the smoke?” I asked my opponent in a low voice, smiling wickedly. “Do you see your own death?”
Pete couldn’t help but look into the smoke, transfixed. Suddenly he yelped as a huge skeletal dragon head emerged from the smoke. I laughed evilly.
“During a turn in which a Level eight monster I control is sent to the Graveyard,” I explained, “ I can play ‘A Deal with Dark Ruler’, summoning ‘Berserk Dragon’ from my deck.”
The rest of the smoke swirled around behind the head, forming a brown skeletal dragon’s body and wings, tufts of brown hair coming off of the back of its head (ATK: 3500).
“My dragon attacks!” I commanded, and the ‘Berserk Dragon’ bombarded Pete Coppermine with fireballs, ending the duel, but he didn’t care. He was still shaking. He’d be shaken for a while.
Triumphantly, I looked over at Reiko, and I was surprised to see that she was afraid too. Another pain shot across my chest, and I almost stumbled off of the floor trigger beneath my feet. I looked down at the cards still on my modified curved, gold-colored Duel Disk. For the first time in a long time, I actually wondered if what I was doing was right. I felt something strange. It took me a second to realize that I was scared too.
I was scared of myself.
Card of the Day:
Confusion
Played by: Max
An original card as a Card of the Day? How original!
...
Actually, I don't put original cards here nearly as often as I thought I would back when I started doing the Card of the Day. Anyway, this card is excellent in Max's deck. It allows him to turn his "Reaper on the Nightmare" into a monster capable of dealing with threats on the field, instead of just in the hand. I also think it's a card that might have some actual uses in the real life game, if it were real.
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