Ammokkx

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Soul Mirror

Kei's brow furrowed when he saw how roughly the other man was treating his cards, but didn't speak up about it. He merely observed as the man played a spell card from his hand to allow him to summon a monster. Goblin Zombie's attack was only 1100, though, which fell short of Blade Knight. "You're not gonna defeat my monster with only 1100 ATK! As long as I have Blade Knight, you're not getting through to me!"

"That's not all though brat, I'll summon one of my own kin," the brutish man retorted. "Abaki, make mincemeat of this brat" he said before slamming down another card on his field. The juvenile monster slobbered all over the place as it looked at Kei with malicious intent. The man declared his attacks and Abaki was the first one to obey, smashing Blade Knight into particles of light. Kei recoiled as he felt a dull impact on his chest and his fingers started to prickle. Before he even had a chance to react to it, Goblin Zombie's sword slashed straight across his chest.

"AAAH!" Kei screamed out in pain as he felt the cold steel tear and rend through his flesh. He'd dropped to his knees and clutched his chest in shock, but the only thing he grabbed onto were his clothes. Kei looked down and, indeed, there was no wound. "Wha... what the hell did you just do to me?!" Kei shouted back, mildly freaked out. Solid vision was just holograms- it shouldn't be able to hurt a player like that. Despite that, and even though he was uninjured, the pain from just now as well as the lingering afterburn were both undoubtedly real.

The ogre of a man didn't grace him with an answer. "Turn end, don't you dare fall unconscious from that kid." was all he said to Kei. Kei, for his part, rose unsteadily to his feet.

"My... turn! Draw!" he said. This duel had barely gotten started and it was already much more than Kei had bargained for. His breathing was heavy from the stress of the situation. Kei murmured to himself: "This guy isn't normal... I get a feeling I'm going to need to win this duel, or else something really bad will happen to me...!" He looked at the card he'd drawn. "...Are you telling me you'll protect me, Blade Knight?" Kei asked that card. With a determined expression on his face, Kei immediately played it. "From my hand, I activate the spell card Monster Reborn! I'll use it to bring back my friend, Blade Knight!"

A portal opened up between the two duelists, out of which jumped Kei's monster. It took up a position in front of its master, bracing their sword and shield as if protecting Kei. "I won't let you fight this guy alone, Blade Knight... from my hand, I'll bring Command Knight out, too!" Kei continued, calling forth a new warrior. This time they were a female clad in a deep red armor, though her helmet did not cover her face like Blade Knight's did.

Command Knight: 1200 ATK

The brute snorted when he saw Kei's moves. "You talk big, but my kin is still bigger than you."

"Don't underestimate them! Command Knight's effect increases the ATK of herself and all of her allies, and as long as I control another monster, she can't be attacked either!" Kei explained. Command Knight raised up her blade as a red aura engulfed her and Blade Knight both, raising their ATK on the field.

Blade Knight: 1600 > 2000
Command Knight: 1200 > 1600

"Command Knight, take out that Goblin Zombie!" Kei's first command rang out, the female commander rushing forward to bring down her sword on the rotting corpse. It tried to block with its own sword, but Command Knight's blade cleaved both it and Goblin Zombie in two.

Opponent's LP: 4000 > 3500

The brute didn't seem phased at all like Kei was. "Weakling Zombie also have effect. It allow me to add card from deck to hand." The brute's Duel Disk automatically popped out a card which he took and placed into the hand.

"Stop calling him a weakling!" Kei yelled. "Your monsters are friends that fight for you... don't insult them like that! Blade Knight, take care of the other one!"

Blade Knight also struck true, reducing the opponent's life further.

Opponent's LP: 3500 > 3200

The man's grip on his cards became tighter. "You hurt Abaki... you'll pay for that! He mad and attack us both in anger!" the ogre said. The vortex which Blade Knight jumped out of opened up again, out of which popped Abaki's ugly mug covered in Bandages. He gave Kei a murderous glare and pulled out two large bombs from the void. He threw one each to Kei and Kei's opponent. Abaki might've aimed for Kei, but Blade Knight caught the blast with his shield. Still, Kei could feel both the shockwave of the effect as well as his arm burning as if the bomb had exploded onto it. He heaved heavily, trying to grit his teeth and endure through the pain.

Kei's LP: 2800 > 2300
Opponent's LP: 3200 > 2700

"What's wrong, brat? Can't deal with the pain? Gonna cry?"

"It's... no big deal! Turn end!"

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Well... not your only attacker. You still have your level 1, but you just can't use it again until your next turn. At the start of one, all of your exhausted attackers will be refreshed. You'll be able to attack or block again with your level 1 on this turn."

Rui watched as Sora turned over a card from his colour deck, only to have it be a level 1 attacker. "Huh?" Rui briefly reacted in surprise. "Sora, let me look at your colour deck real quick." she imposed on him. Rui put the cards in her hand to the side of her so she could grab Sora's pile and quickly sort through it. "Ah... Sora, I think your cards got mixed up at some point," she said while scooting over next to him. "You see these cards?" Rui said, flipping through a few attackers and incantations scattered among the colour cards. "These aren't actually supposed to be here. This deck is meant to only be for colour cards that allow you to play other cards. While you can put in any combination of colours into it, cards like Attackers and Incantations need to go into your main deck instead."

Rui picked the misplaced cards out of his colour deck and handed them over. "I think some colour cards might've ended up in your deck, too. If you happen to draw any of them, just place them at the bottom of the colour deck and then draw a new card; I don't really mind. Let's just add these other ones to your deck and shuffle so we can continue."

"Hehe... Sora-kun still has a lot to learn, huh?" Lumia commented on what the siblings were up to. She looked over to Wolf. "Hey, Wolf... is what we're doing really okay?" she asked him. "Every time we fight for their wishes, we trample over someone else's. Every time we make a wish come true, someone is hurt because of it..."

Lumia closed her eyes. "Nee-chan is talented. More than anyone I've ever seen. And... and that scares me."

Rui, unaware of the conversation happening on the other end of the room, picked the game back up after the interruption was dealt with. "You should have enough colour to play two level 1's, yes... but don't forget about your level 0! You can only have three attackers on the field. While you can replace your level 0 if your field is full, it'll go to the trash afterwards," she explained, but followed it up with "I think it's a good idea to do so, though!" to encourage Sora. "Let's see... leaving one attacker to block is good. I don't want to take too much damage to my life cards, so I'll block with the attacker I left just for this. Since their level is the same, both of them go to the trash."

Rui moved her cards to the appropriate location. She also said that "I can't block the next one, so I have to take it from the Life." and picked up two cards from the seven in front to add to her hand. "There may be times where you'll need to let an attack go through to get more cards into your hand and mount a comeback. You never know if your most powerful cards were used as Life Cards."

Since Sora's turn had ended, Rui picked up hers again. She drew a card and said: "Just to repeat: since it's my refresh step, I can turn my previously-exhausted attacker vertically again to attack or block with it." Rui also proceeded to play another colour card from her colour deck. So far, she had three yellows accumulated. She looked up at Sora. "There's actually one last type of card in this game; a 'trap' card." Rui picked up a card from her hand and placed it onto her field. "You can place a single one of them face-down like this. They work a bit like incantations, but the difference is that they need something else to happen first before they can activate. Be careful though; you still need colour to play these! If something happens that triggers the trap card, but you don't have the colour to pay for the effect, you can't use it."

Rui picked up a different card from her hand and played it, another incantation. "My deck is actually based around using mostly incantations. This one allows me to pay a yellow to discard a card and deal a single point of damage," Rui informed Sora, "however, this actually meets the condition for the trap card I set earlier. When I have to discard a card, I can pay a yellow to make my opponent do so instead. So, by combining these effects, now you take a point of damage and have to send a card from your hand to your trash. Do you see how traps work?" Rui gave him a smile. She also placed another level 1 on the field and ended her turn without attacking.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Mhm, just like that!" Rui encouraged her brother as he copied her moves. "Making sure you have attackers on the field is important. They may be called attackers, but they're also your main way of defending yourself," she continued to explain it. She tapped on her own cards to demonstrate.

"Then I guess I will attack your level 0 attacker with my level 1 attacker?" her brother asked in return.

"Well... yes, but not quite. It's true that if you attack a level 0 like that they're destroyed, but you can't actually choose your attack target. You have to say which unit attacks, and then I defend. But in this case, I'll use the level 0 to block," she patiently explained to him. Sora turned his level 1 on the side to exhaust it and Rui moved her level 0 to the trash. "This way I can prevent you from attacking this turn entirely, as your level 0 can't go through my level 1. On top of that, with your level 1 exhausted like this, you can't use it to block on my next turn," she continued to demonstrate.

Meanwhile, Lumia continued her conversation with Wolf. "Aha... just talking about it, huh? Wouldn't that be bad for us?" she asked the other Avatar. "After all... without their problems, we have no hope, do we?" she mused, staring at the two siblings playing their match. "And... Nee-chan is the type to keep to herself. She won't talk about what's on her mind with me, either."

"It's my turn again. I'll draw, colour boost and then..." Rui paused a bit as she got everything assembled on her field. She turned one of the Yellow cards on its side to play another Level 1 attacker, but also turned her other colour on its side straight after to play a different type of card from her hand.

"Attackers aren't the only cards. There's also one-time use cards called Incantations," she explained, sliding the one she just used over to Sora so he can read it. "With this card, using a yellow colour, I can prevent one of your attackers from blocking this turn. With your level 1 exhausted, I could launch two attacks if I wanted, but I'm only going to use one. Here I go," she further explained, turning the card in question on its side. "And since you can't block now, my attack would go straight to your Life Cards. Now we look at my attackers's level; 1. When I can attack your life cards like this, you take 1 damage plus the level of my attacker. Since he's level 1, that makes for a total of 2. Life cards that are damaged get added to your hand, so you could use them on the next turn if you wanted to."

Rui took a small pause, needing to breathe before continuing. "Even though I could use my other attacker right now, it'd leave me without anything to protect myself on your next turn. That's why it's sometimes better to wait. I still have plenty of cards in my hand, so I don't want you to get rid of too many of my Life cards. Did you get all that? It was kind of a lot, so I can go over it one more time if you need to."

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

Rui waited for a bit, made sure Sora had left and let out a sigh of relief. "I'll have to apologize later..." she muttered to herself, walking over to her closet to swap out her clothes. Once changed into something casual, Rui checked the date on her phone briefly. "We don't have school tomorrow, and I think mom's doing the laundry today..." she muttered, exiting her room so she could bring her uniform to the washing room. She passed by Sora's room on the way, pausing when she heard voices coming from it. She heard something about Life cards and Avatars.

'Sora's also trying his best, huh?' she mused to herself before continuing on her way. Rui bumped into her mother halfway down the stairwell.
"Dinner is ready." she told her daughter.
"I'll be right there. I'll let Sora know," Rui answered her, then rushed to drop off her laundry. Once that was done she returned up the stairs and knocked on Sora's room. "Sora! Dinner's ready," she said without opening the door. There wasn't much response, so Rui just assumed he wanted to be left alone for a little while.
'We're not eating together today, either?' she pondered to herself. When Rui heard her name called by their mother, though, she knew she had to run down to join her parents at the dinner table. Naturally, both didn't seem to mind all that much that Sora didn't show up. They'd just leave a portion for him to heat up at his discretion, like always.

Meals in the Kadomori household really weren't that much fun in the end.

Rui made sure to make her exit the first chance she got. Upon returning to her room, Lumia looked up at Rui. "Ah! There you are! I totally thought your forgot about me," the card-bound girl pouted.
"Sorry, sorry! Mom called me over." Rui explained herself. She rushed over to her bag and took out the box of cards she'd picked up earlier. "Let's go join Sora."

Unlike her brother, Rui had the decency to knock before entering. "I'm coming in, Sora!" she warned him, clutching everything she needed with one arm and closing the door behind her with the other. "I promised to help you out, didn't I?" she said to him with a gentle smile. She joined him on the floor without waiting for any of his input.

"Let me see, let me see... ah, are you looking at the rules again?" Rui commented. "I think it might be easier to learn by doing... I found somebody to practice with at school, but you haven't yet, right?"
"Ah, Nee-chan, wait!" Lumia said from Rui's pocket. Rui pulled her out. "If you're going to fight Sora, you can't use me or Wolf for your deck! If you do, it'll be a real fight!"
"Oh... is... is that so? Then if I could find another Avatar, would it be fine?"
"Mhm, I think so." Lumia replied.

Rui pulled open the booster boxes from the store and looked through the cards. She pulled a few avatars, but while there was a green one among them for Sora's deck, Rui couldn't find a yellow avatar to replace Lumia with. "It doesn't really work well with my deck, but if it's just to teach you the rules it should work, I think..." Rui muttered to herself as she divided the cards between them. She'd look at upgrading Sora's deck later once he actually got used to the rules a bit.

Lumia and Wolf, meanwhile, were placed against the wall on the far side. Their cards being propped up against it meant they could still see what was going on, just at a far enough distance so the two of them wouldn't accidentally have a fight as Commanders. Conveniently for them, it was also out of earshot while the siblings were talking.
"Nee-chan and Sora-kun are hopeless, aren't they?" Lumia asked wolf while pulling up her shoulders. "I swear, one moment they're squabbling and the next Nee-chan's scrambling for his attention... well, I guess I'm partly to blame for that. She probably wants to make up for the memories I stole," Lumia darkly muttered at the end.

"With our decks and avatars set, we can start playing. On the first turn I draw a card," Rui explained as she took the first move. She wanted to show Sora how the game was properly played. Next to drawing a card from her deck she also took a card off a smaller pile, placing it down on her field and showing its artwork. "Don't forget to play a colour card at the start of your turn! Without these we can't play any of our stronger cards, like this!" she explained, turning it on its side to bring forth a level 1 attacker to the field. Rui also set a level 0 from her hand.

"I can't attack on the first turn, but you could on yours. Now it's your turn to try it out, Sora!"

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Soul Mirror

The guy being about twice Kei's size didn't seem to deter the little runt from running his mouth of, but the glare of death afterwards was another story entirely. 'Crap, I think I made him mad...' he thought to himself, trying to maintain eye-contact. Maybe if he shouted really loud this guy would run off like a bear or something. The man seemed to have something to say, given the growl, so Kei braced himself for the worst.

"Vending machine is part of my territory, if your just going to keep walking about, what you expect? People come and go from my territory in happiness from taking from my vending machine. Are you insulting my territory? Are you insulting me?"

"...w-what??" Kei replied in abject confusion. His territory? What was the guy on about? And why was he talking like that? Kei took a step back. "Fine- fine! I'll look at where I'm going next time!" he tried to placate the other man, but they were having none of it. Thought Kei was insulting him. Kei, for his part, was regretting speaking up in the first place. If he ran, maybe he could avoid getting decked. Instead, though, the man thought of a different solution.

"We Duel now, I beat you, You restock Vending Machine." he said to Kei.

"I- HUH?!" he shouted, growing more and more confused. Why the hell would Kei need to restock the vending machines? This guy made no sense, but if it's a duel he wanted, then... well, he'd probably best stop picking his nose to not dirty his cards, but on the other hand...

"Gaaah! I don't get any of this, but if it's a duel you want, I don't back down from anyone!" Kei's reply boldly sounded. He jumped back and opened a little bag attached to his belt, next to his deckbox. He took out a device and strapped it to something on his arm. After the two were connected, a blade folded outward. He looked down at the card he was still holding for a brief moment.

"I'm counting on you, partner." he whispered to it, slotting it back in with the rest of his deck so he could insert the whole pile into the Duel Disk. After the auto-shuffler worked its magic, Kei and his opponent both shouted out loud:

"DUEL!"

Kei shouted "I'm taking the first turn!" and drew five cards from his deck. He looked down at it with a grin. "Let's go, everyone! I summon Blade Knight from my hand!" he excitedly shouted, grabbing the middle card and slamming it down onto his open zones. The Solid Vision projectors got to work immediately, materializing a gallant knight in light blue armor. It slashed its sword to the side once, then took a battle stance.

Blade Knight: 1600 ATK

Kei giddily began bouncing in place. "Cool... so cool...! Seeing my friends come to life like this is the best!" he said to himself. After calming down, Kei stretched out his arm and pointed at the opponent. "I'm ending my turn with this! Bring it on!"

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

dear god just lock the thread at this point

EDIT: oh shit you can still edit posts in locked threads. That's funny.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

why in the fresh hell is this argument still going

It got added to the rules, big whoop. Move on lads.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Nee-...chan?"

The sound of Lumia's voice snapped Rui out of her sobbing. She slowly pulled Lumia's card away from her chest. The girl inside had only just woken up from her slumber. "...! Nee-chan, what's wrong?!" she immediately panicked upon seeing her commander's tear-stained self. Rui got up from her bed, grabbed a tissue or two to clean herself and only then gave her answer.

"S-sorry, it's... it's nothing, Lumia." sounded Rui's reply, cagey as always.
"It's not nothing! You were crying!"
"I'll be fine, Lumia. As long... as long as I keep winning," Rui muttered, her voice still a bit shaky.
Lumia felt a sharp pain in her heart when she heard her commander talk like that. "Nee-chan, you..." Lumia tried to force out an answer, but nothing came. She looked off to the side. "Do you really want to make it come true that badly...?" she whispered to herself. The air was heavy between the two of them.

The air being heavy wouldn't stop Sora from coming through the door unannounced, though. "Sora? -ow!" Rui yelped in surprise, hitting her ankle against the foot of her desk.

"Teach me how to win." Sora asked Rui, staring her straight in the eyes. She looked away immediately.

"E-even if you say that, right now is a little..." she uncomfortably shifted in place. Her brother had the most awful timing sometimes. Rui thought up of a good excuse though. As if remembering something all of a sudden, she said: "Sorry! I haven't changed out of my uniform yet, and, and mom gets really mad if I don't! I need to get changed for dinner, so-"

...which, while not untrue, also meant she had to un- and redress. Rui's face steadily grew more embarrassed as she kept digging her hole deeper and deeper. "Get out of my room for a minute, please!" she hurriedly ordered him, shoving Sora straight back out of the room and leaning against her closed door. Heart still pounding, Rui yelled "Sorry, Sora! I really promise to teach you after dinner, okay?!" through her door.

All of that just because she didn't want him to notice her swollen eyes.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Home, huh...?" Rui repeated after him. She really didn't want to go back. It was funny; moments ago she was ready to walk through the door that was only a few houses removed from them. Now that she'd ran into her brother, though, Rui just wanted to run away again. She wanted to keep talking to him here outside, keep being free from her burdens. She knew it couldn't be that way. "I guess we should. It's getting a bit late," she agreed with Sora, turning around. "Mom's probably going to be mad that I got back late, so... just let me go in first, okay?"

The two walked the rest of the street down to their own home, but Rui insisted on being through the door first. "We're back," she shouted through the door, took off her shoes in a hurry and made absolutely sure she was in the house quicker than Sora was. As to be expected, their mother was quick to intercept Rui in the middle of the hallway. She didn't immediately spare a glance in Sora's direction.

"Where have you been?" she asked, "Why didn't you respond to my texts?" she demanded answers, "Your father and I were worried about you." she chastised. All of her attention, all of the questions, they went straight to Rui.

"I'm sorry, mom..." Rui initially apologised, but managed to weave in something else: "Actually, it was Sora that picked me up to come home. He said I should still study, so..."

Their mother narrowed her eyes at Rui. She glanced over in her son's direction, then back at Rui. "Next time, you should come straight home. And besides..." her mother continued to lecture. Rui grit her teeth.

"...shouldn't you thank Sora, mom? Without him, I..."
"He's not important! You should just focus on your studies and..."

...Rui really did hate it here. She endured her mother's lectures, stood there patiently and took the verbal bashing, even long after Sora had left. No matter what she tried, she couldn't get her parents to acknowledge their own son at all. She hated them. She really hated them. Rui couldn't do a thing about it. She endured and endured until she was finally released from the iron grip of her mother's tongue.

"Dinner will be ready soon, so go get changed."
"...Yes, mom."

Rui slumped back to her room, defeated. She closed her door behind her, took a seat on her bed and pulled out Lumia's card. The girl was still sleeping peacefully.

"You... you'll make my wish come through, right?" Rui muttered. She began to sniffle, "I-It'll def-finitely *hic* come true, right...?" and sob. Rui clutched Lumia's card to her chest, let herself fall onto her side and cried. "What... what can I even do?"

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Soul Mirror

Kei came back only to see Aiya be missing. 'Maybe she just went to the bathroom?' he thought to himself, briefly, but then the store's owner called him over. When Kei saw him slide over another damn note he wanted to slap his face and let out a groan, but the drinks in his hand prevented him from being too dramatic about things. Aiya knows where the vending machines are- the least she could've done was drop by! Why did she insist on leaving notes all the time?!

"I wanted to tell her to be careful out, but she was out the door before I could get a word in," the middle-aged man behind the counter told Kei. He popped open one of the sodas(might as well, right?), took a swig and cast a sidelong glance at the owner.

"Careful? Whaddaya talkin' about old man?" Kei asked.

"I've told you not to call me- ah, nevermind. It seems there's a lot more violent crimes happening lately... I just don't want to see kids like you two caught up in it, that's all."

Kei resisted the urge to tell the shop owner that, just because he was short and had a bit of a babyface, it didn't make him a 'kid'. "Well, don't those types usually hang out in, like, shadier places? I think my route's pretty okay," Kei dismissed the store owner's concerns. The man insisted, however, that these were no ordinary crimes. Suspects seemed to be out of their minds, acting different from how they usually were. "Well, whatever you say..." the boy handwaved the warnings again.

Kei didn't stick around the shop for much longer after that. Nobody there had much of an interest in dueling him, and it wasn't as much fun without Aiya around anyway. Kei opened up his deck case without breaking pace and almost habitually pulled out a single card from his deck.

Silent Swordsman LV3.

"It kinda sucks I didn't get a chance to use you today, partner..." Kei talked to his card, pausing his walk back home after he said that. "I really want to fight strong guys with you. I want to show the world what you can do." Kei raised his card up to the sky, towards the sun. "One day, us two are gonna reach even the heavens together! I'm gonna make sure of it!"

There was this... connection with Kei and that card. He knew it from the moment he laid eyes on it all those years back. Kei couldn't explain it, of course, but... it's like he could feel a warm presence. A friend. Satisfied with having talked to his friend, Kei took a step forward and-

*THUNK*

-crashed right into some guy, again, the second time that day. "Gah- what is with today?!" Kei complained as he rubbed his back in a futile attempt to relieve the pain felt in his rear end. He looked up and wanted to complain to the stranger, getting halfway through his sentence: "Hey, can't you watch where you're-". The reason Kei cut it short was because this was not the first time they'd met. "You're... from back at the vending machines. Are you doing this on purpose?" Kei complained anyway.