Episode 26. - The Guy With The Spiky Hair

"Oh yeah! You so deserved that!" Libra laughed, tossing her hair and grinning triumphantly. Yodaz scowled, deepening his concentration, his hands working quickly to get himself back into a position where she could not do that again. Today, they were not playing Duel Masters. Rather, the two were taking a break, and trying to best each other in a martial arts based 3-D video game. Both had been surprised that the other was as good at such things, as they had turned out to be, and this discovery had caused them to get rather caught up in it.

Suddenly, Yodaz looked up, his attention abruptly torn away from the screen by something else in the 'arcade'. He stopped altogether, tuning out the sound of the game, and of practically everything else, to confirm what he thought he had sensed.
"Did you feel that?" he asked Libra.

"Feel what? You didn't even touch me. Your counter completely missed," she grinned, her attention still locked onto the game, as her character moved in to deplete the last of Yodaz's fighter's life bar.

She suddenly stopped also. This time the spike had been far more pronounced. Kaijudo. Definitely. Only one kind, however, or at least, something was masking the Kaijudo of the second duelist if there was one. With one accord, the two put the controllers down, signaling to the attendant that they were done, and moved off to find the source of it. When they found him, the young man was drumming his fingers on the table, waiting for his opponent to make a move.

Yodaz quickly took stock of the situation. The duelist that had drawn them there with his psionic output was the one in the green backwards cap with the dark spiky hair. His glasses glinted in the light as he finally ceased his impatient drumming. There was already a Tornado Flame and a Thrash Crawler in his mana zone, and Mini Titan Gett in his battle zone. His opponent, a rotund, extravagantly dressed boy in his mid teens, now placed a Star-Cry Dragon next to the Blaze Cannon in his own mana zone, and ended his turn, moving a strand or two of his wispy brown hair out of his face. The bowl-cut did not suit him.

"You're not gonna win this week, Phil," the plump one insisted, "I'm sure I've figured out what my deck was missing now. You won't get past me today."

A grin crossed the dark haired one's face.
"You always say the same thing, Alan... You can't fix that deck. It's you that sucks, not it, though I'll admit it ain't that good, so I can see why you might keep trying to fix it. Terror Pit, to my mana zone. Mini Titan, ikei!"

The Kaijudo link finally formed, but it definitely seemed that it was made purely for the entertainment of Phil Chan. His opponent was making minimal contribution to it, something both Libra and Yodaz could easily feel. Their receptiveness to the mindscape did not escape Phil's attention, making him nod and smirk more.
"Looks like we've got spectators, Alan."

Alan looked around. He could not understand what Phil meant. There were always people watching. Yodaz and Libra were not even that close. They did not need to be. Enough to barely see the cards, and be influenced by Phil's Kaijudo pulses. Alan did not even notice them. Phil, of course, knew this, and sighed. Alan was not progressing at all. He would soon need to find a new practice dummy, but Alan was always so much fun to annoy.

He did exactly this now as his distracted mind finally created his visualization. The Mini Titan skidded up the side of the volcano and opened fire on the defense shield with its arm-rockets. There was no trigger. The human skated back down into Phil's area of the mindspace, and waited, seeming to be catching breath.

Alan drew his card, and instantly the conflict in him was apparent. He was a rather transparent person, and was not even aware that Phil, Yodaz, and Libra could all hear exactly what happened in his mind. His avatar chirped to him, a simple instruction. 'Summon me'. Phil smirked yet again when Alan charged more fire mana, his only kind, and placed the Cocco Lupia on the field. Only he knew that Alan had actually 'disobeyed'. Yodaz and Libra had no way of knowing that Alan had not, in fact, put his avatar on the field after all. The fire duelist ended his turn.

"Yep, Alan. No matter what you do with that poor deck, it's always you that's gonna suck, isn't it?" Phil laughed, drawing his card and charging fire mana, "I cast Crystal Memory."

"He's playing dragons?" Yodaz wondered aloud, "Is he serious? Mono-fire dragons? I don't think I've ever seen a mono-fire depend on dragons... well... there was that one guy..."

Libra nodded. She was far more open to odd decks than Yodaz normally was. Or, as he sometimes put it, naive. He had told her that she was always a little blind. That even if a person was building a deck to represent themselves, it should never naturally turn out to be outright bad. With this in mind, she was a little more skeptical this time, but she was not ready to dismiss the deck based purely on the fact that it was draconian.

"Mini Titan, ikei!" Phil announced. The Mini Titan skated up to the glasslike energy field again, and the words that came out of Phil's mouth were echoed by the Mini Titan as it fired its short burst cannons.
"Bang bang goes the broken glass, man..."

There was no trigger. Phil ended his turn. Alan drew his card, and again, they could hear the chirp. 'Summon me'. This time, it was more obvious that Alan did not do as advised. He charged more fire mana, and summoned his Bolzard Dragon. Cocco's tweedling call helped to awaken the dragon, and it stirred from its cave, then shot out to make its appearance with a mighty roar. Phil merely laughed again.

"You're making this too easy, Alan..." he remarked as the boy ended his turn. He drew his card and charged more Fire mana, "I cast Hopeless Vortex on your Bolzard Dragon. Mini Titan! Ikei!"
The Mini Titan quickly found its way to the third shield generator of the volcano fortress, and the head vulcans made short work of it. Again, there was no trigger card.

Alan's lower lip quivered in frustration. The chirpy voice of his avatar came again, this time with a much more urgent instruction.
"It is not too late yet. Summon me now and save the spell. Let me fight the human, and we still have a chance!"

Alan's pride, combined with his fear of his avatar being wrong, and himself losing, drove him to do the exact opposite. They could all hear the Firebird's shrill sound of frustration as Alan placed it into the mana zone. Baby Zoppe.

"This kid's a twit," Libra said simply, "He had Zoppe since turn three and didn't summon it?"

Yodaz's usual analytic mind instinctively agreed with her, even though he knew that she could see something that he could not. Then again, that was why he had brought her along. She was the 'early game' expert, and knew next to nothing about how to handle the late game, whereas he was usually just the opposite.
"And he puts it to mana now? He'd better have something pretty good coming."

"I summon Pippie Kuppie, and cast Phantom Dragon's Flame on your Mini Titan!"
The fireblast engulfed the human, finally removing the threat it posed. Libra sighed. It would have been so much better to indeed save the spell for something else if possible. Let the Zoppe take care of the Titan, since if the Zoppe had been destroyed, it would at least have been a bit better than the current situation.

"Come on, Alan, you're making yourself look bad in front of our guests. Your moves are all messed up, man. You know I was just waiting for you to do that. The sad thing is I'm never gonna know if that deck can beat me until someone else plays it. Why don't you let your sister use it? You don't seem to be learning what she tries to teach you, so at least let the deck get a few good games in."

"Shut up!" Alan snarled now. He was quickly losing his temper. Phil's taunting was always worse because he had the moves to back it up. This, he now demonstrated.

"Okay, Alan, take it easy. I'll put yet another Tornado Flame in my mana zone, since you obviously aren't gonna make me use 'em, and play Crystal Memory..."
The crystalline teleportation unit brought a new resource to Phil, and he smiled and shook his head sadly, wondering if his opponent was ever going to catch on.
"I summon Kooc Pollon. End turn."

"Oh, brother..." Libra sighed. Yodaz, on the other hand, was slightly entertained. He seldom bothered to watch two aggressive decks go against each other, and seeing one of them struggle to mount a defence, something they never did well in the first place, was funny. He understood the reason for the Zoppe now. The only good defence these decks had was quick high power, and Alan had chosen not to use it.

"If you're trying to impress the ladies, Alan, you really should have gone with the Firebird. Cute and strong is a good combo for attention, I think," Phil smirked as Alan drew his card.

"All right then. I'll give you both cute and strong, then. Kip Chippotto to mana. I summon Cocco Lupia and Garkago Dragon!"
The shrill 'wake up' chirping duet of the two Firebirds made it much easier to wake the fearsome Garkago Dragon. Phil sighed, and laughed yet again.

"What's so funny!?" Alan fumed now, practically trembling with rage at being teased so.

"Man, you could've done so much better in this duel. Now you've got your big buster blocker dragon on the field, and all those Firebirds still can't stop their little brother over here, cause you wasted your dragon flame toasting my Mini Titan. Your personal adaptability score equals zero."

In the background, Yodaz raised an eyebrow. Adaptability score? Corile was the one that caused the reaction, however. Yodaz himself was fairly sure he understood quite well, which was what caused him to be surprised when Corile asked Shtra the question. He had previously assumed that everything he could understand, Corile could also.

"Adaptability score? What is he on about now?" came the purple one's question to his smaller blue 'sister'.

Shtra's response was tinged with laughter, but not at Corile, for once.
"We can't collect our power before we adapt. We have to change tactics on the run. He did not want to change his 'big goal' at the beginning. He wanted to get his big dragons and crush his opponent 'impressively', and even when that was not working, he refused to adapt. We are not like you. We only have a few turns to get it right, or die. You can last much longer."

"What kind of fool gives up all their stamina just for a quick strike?" Corile sighed.

Shtra did not bother to answer. The answer was too simple. If you were good, you either struck with a critical strike, or had some way of fighting without that 'stamina loss'.

"Pippie Kuppie! Ikei! Cocco Lupia, ikei!"

"Oh, you're kidding me..." Phil sighed as the flock of multicolored firebirds swooped in on his defense shields and he picked up the cards, "I'm already winning, Alan. Now is not the time to be attacking me, y'know... see? Shield Trigger. Terror Pit. Garkago goes to the scrap heap. Thank you, come again!"

His grin aggravated the young dragon duelist more than ever. Both his dragons had now been consumed without so much as making a dent, after all his effort to get them into action. He ended his turn, grinding his teeth, one of his worse habits, triggered usually by stress.

"If I had to guess, I'd say that this was the card you were so afraid of, right?" Phil remarked as he placed his Comet Missile into his mana zone and summoned, "Pyrofighter Magnus! And now, because you just made it so easy... Thrash Crawler!"

For the first time, Phil actually bothered to show his Kaijudo other than to make the match pretty. This was his avatar, and the creature, odd as it was to most, seemed to exude a strange sentience when it was on Phil's side. It crawled up the side of the volcano and sat there, calmly. Its energy reversed part of Phil's world, returning his Searing Wave to his hand. Alan's fate was already sealed. He had exhausted himself too much.

"Pyrofighter! Ikei!" --the Dragonoid moved along the volcano so fast it was almost invisible. The shield generator was destroyed so quickly that it did not even finish exploding before the Pyrofighter was back at camp, leaning lazily against one of the legs of the Thrash Crawler, a cocky smirk on its reptilian face.
"Kooc, take out the last one! Ikei!" --the shield did not trigger.

The Pyrofighter shot off across the water, signaling the end of Phil's turn, but they all knew that it would be back to finish the job. Alan was absolutely helpless now. Without Garkago, there was no way to break all Phil's shields in one turn. In fact, he had probably given up his chances of that from the very beginning.

Alan charged mana, his fury clear now, causing the volcano in his mind to rumble. For a moment, Phil was a little freaked out, and his mind quickly calculated what his opponent could possibly have to use this time, but he breathed a sigh of relief when he remembered that Alan's Blaze Cannon was already in his mana zone, and Phil had been there personally when Alan's sister had stopped him from putting the second one into the deck.

"Spastic Missile, on your firebird! And Magma Gazer! On Pippie Kuppie! Pippie, double break his shields! Ikei!"

Phil raised an eyebrow. He was safe, and in no mood for losing his avatar to block a flock of flaming Firebirds. The Thrash Crawler simply moved out of the way of the lava flow, as the shrieking birds swept down to the shore, where his own defenses were. The shields shattered.

"Terror Pit. Shield Trigger. Your Cocco Lupia can go the way of your Garkago Dragon."

Alan fumed further. Phil had chosen the Lupia that had been summoned with the Garkago. Almost as if he had wasted an entire turn summoning them both.

"Hey, don't feel bad," Phil said, "The Pits would've been there anyways..."

"I told you to shut up!" Alan snarled, his tears welling in his eyes now, "Cocco! Attack! Ikei!"

"This boy doesn't know the meaning of 'concede gracefully', does he..." Yodaz remarked calmly, as he watched the Firebird rush down to the shore. The Thrash Crawler simply opened its gaping maw and inhaled the bird in one gulp, ending Alan's turn.

"Man... you're not gonna actually make me do the final attack, are you? Just go. Thrash doesn't feel like finishing you off today. You didn't even really duel. You screwed up too much."

Alan banged his fist on the desk, then, furious, grabbed Phil's Thrash Crawler card and held it above his head, about to rip it. Before he could, however, Libra's elbow thudded into his midriff, winding him instantly and causing him to drop the card. Phil caught it as it fell, sighed with relief, and placed it back with the others in his deck.

Yodaz blinked a few times. She had just been standing next to him. How had she got over there so fast?
"Oh well. I guess she's the same in life as she is in dueling," he chuckled.

Libra now stood up straight again, after being sure that Alan was indeed winded and would not be attempting to hit her. She was not going to be getting into any fights, especially if one hit was enough. She fixed her shirt, and turned to Phil, to check if he had retrieved his card.

"Hey, thanks," he smirked, as jovial as ever, "Alan ain't got the best temper, but I wasn't expecting that. Name's Phil Chan. Nice to meet you." He extended his hand to shake hers. Libra accepted, noting that, now that he was standing, that Phil was actually quite tall. At least six feet, probably more. He made both her, and Yodaz, look short standing next to him.

Phil did the unexpected then, however. He moved over to Alan, and extended his hand to help him up. Alan glared at him and got up on his own, not bothering to wipe away the frustrated tears that had dampened his face.
"I'm gonna get you, Phil. You always make me look like an idiot. Why can't you just duel fair?"

"Hey, hey now. I didn't do a single unfair thing. It's your fault you didn't summon the Zoppe when you could. Everyone knows there's no easy, turn four kill for a four thousand power creature. You could've taken out my Gett and started your whole Dragon buildup thing a turn later, but no, you wanted to go for the big show..."

Alan's face turned purple-red with anger and embarrassment.
"Don't lecture me on how to play! You sound just like my sister!"

Phil laughed, "If you'd take your sister's advice a little more, maybe you wouldn't end up looking like such an 'idiot' when you play."

Alan said nothing more, simply storming off.

"Pay no attention to him. He thinks he should be a big shot duelist around here because his sister is kinda like our champ," Phil said to Yodaz and Libra, who had now come up beside him.

"Kinda?" Yodaz asked, raising his customary skeptical eyebrow.

"Yeah, she's usually on the military base outside town, so she's not around often enough to hold the title, but most of us can't beat her usually. She went to the championships last month, but I heard she got beat pretty early and came home. I kinda thought she'd have made it further. If I'd known she was gonna lose so easy, I would probably have gone m'self."

"A military woman...?" Yodaz thought aloud, his mind momentarily turning over the possibility that it might have been her. After all, there were probably only so many Kaijudo duelists in the world, even though their numbers were obviously growing.

"Hehe, yeah, but she's pretty creepy. Definitely not my type. At least she knows the usefulness of a cost three, four thousand creature, though. How that boy can be related to her and still duel so bad, I really don't know..."

Libra nudged Yodaz, and asked Phil, "You have time for another duel? My friend here could probably give you a run for your money, hehe."

Phil pushed back his sleeve to check his watch, then shook his head apologetically.
"Nah, I'm already late for a date. Nothin' worse than having to tell your girlfriend 'Sorry hon, I was busy dueling' when she asks you why you left her waiting outside the theater... I gotta go. Maybe I'll see y'all around again sometime."

They watched as he left. Libra pouted slightly.
"He seemed good. It's too bad you didn't get to play."

"I guess. No permanent removal to get rid of Aqua Knights or Soldiers, though. I figure dueling him would turn out about the same as dueling you does. A couple of Crimson Hammers and his entire plan is shot."

Libra sighed, turning and walking back toward the area where they had been facing off in non-Kaijudo related activities, half an hour ago.
"Trust you to break down an interesting deck into 'it can't do this well enough'. You're a pretty depressing guy sometimes, you know that?"

He laughed. "Hey, I'm trying to get better. Notice, I never said he needed to get rid of Knights or Soldiers. Just thinking of how I'd beat him if I actually had to try it."

"Oh, please. You'd just refuse to attack him like you do with everyone else and hope you either got your blockers, or that he didn't topdeck Pyrofighter. Sometimes it amazes me how stoic you can be in the face of danger. It amazes me even more that no one ever seems to just get you... hits your Mana Nexus on turn three or something. Bleh. Enough talk about cards. Today is a day for eight hit air juggle combos..."

"Hear hear," he agreed, rubbing his hands together. He was going to so pummel her this time. He had been analyzing her fighting style with that character for the last hour they'd been playing...