“I’ve been in several duels where the end was determined by the beginning. Much like life, some things are simply inevitable. And much like life, those ‘inevitable’ outcomes can be avoided or changed. And nothing more is needed than the right card at the right time. Luck. It brings us about, and it takes us out.”

- Master Tast

Ethan’s turn came and went with a hopeful draw, followed by a grumpy hand wave. None of the cards in his hand were playable with the amount of mana he currently had. His Monarch would only give him a single point of mana per turn, right now. There was a way he could gain more, but it required that he have more pegasus cards, and he’d been unable to find any more once Karion’s flock had escaped in fear.

Damn pegasuses… he thought.

Karion neighed behind him, stamping a foot against the ground. The plural is pegasi, Ethan. We’ve been over this.

Yeah, great, he responded sourly. Not only do I get a Monarch that can talk, but it can read my mind, too.

The horse laughed. That’s not too hard of a task with a mind like yours.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Ethan shouted.

Mako frowned. “It means, I’m attacking?”

The boy pointed, his two Summons surging forward and crashing against Karion’s protective barrier.

Ugh, the pegasus complained. Can’t you at least try? I mean, I know I’m forced to help you, but honestly, neither of you two buffoons have even opened those tomes of yours since this match started. You’re aware they tell you about the monsters you’re fighting, right?

“Huh? Yeah, I’m aware,” Ethan muttered, pulling out the book and reluctantly following his Monarch’s advice. Pointing the end toward each one of his opponent’s Summons like his father had taught him, Ethan allowed the book to flip to the relevant pages. He read the information on each of the monsters across the field.

Glowing Slime

Cost: 2 Mana

Summon - Slime

Destroy the Summon that destroys this Summon.

Generates 1 Light RPT.

500 / 750

Enraged Silverclaw

Cost: 4 Mana

Summon - Bear

If an enemy Summon that dealt damage to you last turn dies, Enraged Silverclaw can attack immediately after it’s summoned.

Generates 1 Earth RPT.

900 / 450

Just his luck. Mako’d gotten lucky with his Summons. Somehow, the tiny defenseless crybaby had been able to touch an angry bear. Ethan couldn’t even imagine how that had happened.

He didn’t have to imagine it, either, because after attacking with both of his monsters, Mako summoned a third. This one resembled the Enraged Silverclaw, but it was much smaller, standing at only a quarter of the larger bear’s height. Ethan pointed his tome at the Summon.

Baby Silverclaw

Cost: 1 Mana

Summon - Bear

Generates 1 Earth RPT.

100 / 100

So… The idiot angered a bear by binding its baby, for some reason, then probably panicked, wet himself, and accidentally bound the mother.

Ethan couldn’t help himself. He was mad. A kid he’d tormented for years was suddenly going to win this duel. Just because he’d gotten lucky?

“Are you done?” he spat.

Mako nodded, passing the turn.

Ethan drew a card, surveying his hand and the new prospect. With three mana—the value reflected in the palm of his gauntlet—he was able to cast something now. The baby bear wasn’t a problem. He wasn’t sure there was a card weaker than that in existence. The real problem was the mother. A Summon with almost a thousand strength was a tough card to deal with. Especially since he only had three mana right now. But… It just might be doable.

Ethan grinned, nodding. Yeah, there was a solution to his problem. And both of its steps would come from the Shrouded Plantling he’d played earlier. Thankfully, that creature had served as a guaranteed wall for two turns, so he was able to draw into something else while saving his mana.

“First, I have to summon this new guy I just drew,” he said, slapping a card to his gauntlet. Power flowed out of his hand, flooding around his fingers and firing a creature onto the field. The rush was addictive.

The new Summon was a Carnivorous Rose—a large red plant with fruit hanging from the thick vine that coiled out of the ground, its human-sized bulb closed in a way which gave the impression of a smiling mouth. Ethan almost shivered as he recalled walking through a field of them with Vincent and Pearl. The three of them had gotten plenty of Summons, sure, but he was pretty sure the experience was going to give Vince nightmares for weeks.

Mako copied Ethan, drawing his tome and pointing it toward the new Summon, remembering he could do so only after he’d seen his opponent demonstrate the trick.

Mrs. Balligan raised her hands to the sky. “Finally!” she shouted. “By the heavens’ grace! They remember!”

The two boys ignored her.

Carnivorous Rose

Cost: 2 Mana

Summon - Plant

Generates 1 Light RPT.

500 / 250

“Next,” Ethan said, continuing his cocky spiel, “I’ll cast this spell.” He grabbed the card from his hand, waving it in the air for all to see before he slapped it against his glove. Red light flew out of his gauntlet, surrounding the rose and causing it to glow a sinister crimson color. The flower puffed up, as though breathing in, then released a cloud of pollen in a puff. The yellow flecks floated through the air, surrounding the mother bear.

Mako stared in confusion and for the first time, Mrs. Balligan showed some real interest in the duel, a humph of surprise leaving her mouth as she leaned in over the podium. The bear sneezed, the pollen floating into her nose.

Then, she roared. Her furious gaze turned to Mako’s other threatening Summon. His slime didn’t react even as the silver claws rended it open, merely steaming as chunks of its body were thrown across the field.

After the slime was well and truly mutilated, even as Mako shouted to stop, the bear roared. It was a ferocious roar, a roar of savage victory. The crowd was silent as they stared at the creature covered in blue jelly.

Then she exploded. A result of the Glowing Slime’s passive effect. It destroyed the Summon that destroyed it. Only steam was left where the bear was once standing, the fragments of light joining the slime’s as they all flew back to Mako’s deck box to recreate themselves.

That was the powerful spell Turn Against, which Ethan had gotten when one of the monsters he’d encountered tried to make Vincent and Pearl fight each other. Thankfully, the spell only focused one target, so once he’d knocked them out after binding that particular Summon, the effect had faded. And he’d been able to get a copy of it when the creature had targeted him with it just before he bound it.

“Th-that’s cheating!” the scrawny punk across the field exclaimed, sniffling.

Ethan shook his head, waving his hand to pass the turn. “Aww, you gonna cry, baby? Can’t handle a little big boy magic?” He knew he had Mako on the edge. The strike from his Shrouded Plantling had hit his Monarch directly. And while Ethan’s Monarch had 6,500 health in total—5,100 before he’d lose the match—Mako’s only had 800. Well, 600 now.

His opponent frowned as he drew his card. He collected the Res from his baby bear, then summoned the same monster that Ethan had. He’d gotten himself a Carnivorous Rose, too. Not that the bully was surprised. After all, there’d been enough in the field his trio had accidentally wandered into to fuel their decks a hundred times over.

Fortunately, he had more in his deck than just the roses. Mako pointed, the baby bear waddling over to Ethan’s Summon and clawing at it weakly. Then, he passed the turn back to Ethan.

The bully drew. He’d been lucky enough to get a few components and spells on the way here, so he was at an advantage in most of the duels. He couldn’t imagine anybody else had an easy time collecting any spells. They were hard to get, after all. He examined his hand.

So, I’ve got two mana that I can’t use to summon anything right now, but… How much Res do I have? He checked the total written on his palm after collecting the Res from his rose. Okay. There’s no way I’m summoning Karion this duel. I’m not producing enough Res for that.

Even if you did, I doubt you could handle me, the pegasus chimed in. Ethan rolled his eyes.

“I’ll just have my rose attack yours, then,” he decided, pointing toward the target. The flower pulsed, the petals spreading wide in what seemed to be a sadistic grin. Then, it dove into the earth, reappearing before the enemy Summon. Opening its flower like a chomping maw, the creature snapped down over the clone of itself, swallowing it whole. Light oozed out of its mouth as it returned to Ethan, the flecks gathering back at Mako’s waist.

Ethan passed the turn with a cocky grin.

Mako drew a card. His only defense was the baby bear between him and the flower. In two direct attacks, that Summon would destroy his Monarch. He absentmindedly collected the Res from the baby bear.

After a minute of him staring at his cards without doing anything, Ethan decided to nudge him along. “Come on, crybaby! Let’s hurry up and get this over with! You don’t want everyone to think you’re stupid and a crybaby, do you? We can end this in a few turns if you just hurry up. Your Monarch is so weak I’m surprised it even survived my first attack. Stupid little rabbit.”

Mako teared up. Ethan laughed, but only a few of the kids did the same. They’d stopped laughing at his quips a while ago. But Ethan didn’t care. After he won, they’d all be too scared to say anything, anyway.

“Hey, shut up, bully!” a girl’s voice called out. A few murmurs from the crowd indicated they agreed with her, but nobody wanted to commit to anything. Especially in case the guy they stood up for ended up at the bottom, with the one they were against at the top.

Ethan rolled his eyes. Selena. If anybody was going to say anything, it’d be her. Not only did she steal Plumeria from him during the second stage of the exams, but now she was also going to harass him? And for what?

“You wanna come up here and face me?” he asked smugly, arms crossed.

“Yeah, I will!” she retorted. That caught him by surprise.

“Whatever,” he said. “You can lose next. Let me beat this idiot, first.”

Ethan turned his attention back to Mako, who still hadn’t done anything. Now, though, he was looking off to the side and frowning. He shook his head, murmuring something to himself. After a moment, his eyes went wide and he looked up. Was he talking to his Monarch? He could do that, too? He glanced between the field and his hand. And a smile broke out across his face. He nodded.

“Okay, Ethan,” Mako said, his false confidence back in his voice. “Let’s see you top this one.”

The bully smirked. “Whatever you can do, I can do better.” He gestured to the current state of the field. “Obviously.”

Mako didn’t answer, instead just reaching into his deck box and pulling out another card. His Monarch.

“Wait,” Ethan said, panic entering his voice. “You can’t summon that. You’d need a lot of Res to do that!”

Mako smiled widely. “Well, fortunately for me, my ‘stupid little rabbit’ is weak for a reason. You know how Monarchs work, right Ethan? I don’t need to explain it to you, do I? Well, maybe I should. You see, your Monarch there has a number on it. Loyalty. You know how you get that?”

Selena laughed at the smaller boy’s retort. “Tell him how, Mako!” she shouted.

He giggled at her before continuing. “Well, Ethan, your Monarch has an affinity to certain Res types—”

“I know how Loyalty is generated!” Ethan snapped.

“Okay, okay,” Mako said. “I was just going to say that since I’ve generated 5 Res that Lazarus, my Monarch has an affinity for, it counts as 5 Loyalty. And since he only needs 5 Loyalty to be summoned… You can see where I’m going with this, right?”

The boy slapped the card he was holding against his gauntlet. Rainbow light coursed around him and Lazarus the rabbit dove underground, the hole closing up behind him. A portal opened up above the field, big enough for the rabbit to fit through. He dropped out of it, his eyes glowing red, his wickedly sharp horns seeming even bigger than before.

Ethan barely remembered to point his tome at the Summon.

Lazarus the Leech, Swift of Foot

Monarch Summon - Rabbit

When this creature deals damage, it regains that much Health.

This creature can attack immediately.

Generates 2 Earth, 2 Shadow RPT.

2,000 / 800

“Uhh,” was all he could stutter out before the rabbit leapt into the air, landing on his flower and crushing it like paper. The crowd went wild, kids screaming in amazement at the first Monarch summoned at the exams. And in the first duel, no less.

“Well,” Mrs. Balligan said calmly, a huge smile across her face. “I think you’ve just lost this duel, Mr. Hargrove.”