“Duel Monsters?” Nabiki queried. “I didn’t know you played, Ukyou!”
“Well… it’s been a while since I last played properly, but I used to have a few friendly matches with Ran-chan when I was younger…” Ukyou responded with a small blush. “I had enough pocket money saved up when we first met to buy two starter decks and a few booster packs for us to share and trade. It was one of the few things I could match him in! But after his father took off with him and the family cart, I stopped playing the game… My father made me focus on making him and Gemna pay. To ensure I focused on them only, he burnt all the cards I owned! When I came here, I actually thought I had a chance to start over, both with Ranma and the game. But with all the crazy events happening around here, I just never really had a chance to buy more cards from the stores... But when I managed to find these in the attic of the restaurant, I just couldn’t believe my luck! Turns out, the restaurant once was a game shop… It closed down a few years back. I wouldn’t have pegged you as a gamer though?”
“I’m more of a collector actually! Some of the cards I picked up over the years are worth quite a bit, which makes them a good investment and emergency source of income…” Nabiki trailed off, wearing a sad look. “Also, mum used to play a quick game with Akane, Kasumi and me every night when we were younger. We always had a lot of fun playing the game!” She paused, remembering better times. “Kasumi always used a very defensive deck loaded with traps and hardly ever attacked; you just couldn’t provoke her into any rash actions and she would always redirect the attack back somehow! Akane, on the other hand, would always go on the attack quickly and use the heaviest hitters she could summon, but only a few spell and trap cards. She was also quite the hot-head, rushing into an attack without thinking it through or considering the other player’s face-down cards! My own style remained firmly in the middle of the two extremes with a bit of a reliance on spell and chance cards. Mum however, she used a mixture of all our styles… None of us could ever beat her on our own. Even when we all worked together in a three-on-one duel; it was still a tight match that could go either way! When mum died, we tried to play some matches by ourselves. But it just wasn’t the same, so we stopped playing… I kept the cards, but I hadn’t looked at them for years,” Nabiki finished, with all three Tendo girls now sighing wistfully as they remembered the good times with their mother. “Sorry about bringing up bad memories! I didn’t mean to…” Ukyou started to say but Nabiki raised her hand, cutting Ukyou off.
“Don’t be! You couldn’t have known about that… We never told anyone. But enough about us! You know how to play Shampoo?” she asks before she spots something on one of the cards that makes her do a quick double-take.
“Shampoo have basic idea… That about it,” the Chinese girl replied while rubbing her head sheepishly in a Ranma-like fashion. “Shampoo no hear of game until Shampoo arrive here!”
“Well that’s good enough for now; we’ll teach you the more advanced stuff as we go along…” Ukyou answers for a distracted Nabiki, who’s wearing a small frown as she is now examining the cards more closely. “How about you Kodachi? I take it you know how to play…”
“But of course!” Kodachi replies. She’s about to go into a long-winded rant about her skills, when Nabiki speaks up, a touch of puzzlement obvious in her voice…
“Hmmm, that’s weird! I’ve never seen any cards that look like this before…. But they still look like the real deal! Ukyou, have you seen any other card like this before in any of the official packs for example?”
To prove her point, Nabiki picks one of the cards and hands it to Ukyou. The card has the name “Dark Magician Girl” and all the stats and rules are the same, but the artwork is unlike any other card of the same name! The hair and eye colour are the same, but she’s wearing a black Zorro-style mask over the top half of her face instead of her usual hat… Around her neck, a thick black collar now sits, with embedded blunt spikes arranged in two rows along it and some studs spelling out something in between them located just under her face, but it can’t be made out clearly. On her torso, she’s sporting a tight black corset-leotard combo, with some blunt spikes sticking out in various places... She’s also wearing latex stiletto heel boots which come up to about her thigh and rubber opera gloves which cover her arms up to above the elbow! On each wrist, a spiked bracelet is tightly fastened. In her wand hand, she now carries a whip… To top it all off, she’s wearing a smirk that’s quite unlike her normal expression!
Ukyou blinks in surprise and starts to speak: “Well, that’s certainly very different all right! I’ve never seen any version of Dark Magician Girl like that before… Maybe it’s one of those first edition cards that got changed because of political pressure? I do remember reading in a magazine once, that the first printing of Exodia actually had a pentagram instead of the magic circle! But due to pressure from right wing politicians and some religious groups, they changed it to the circle… Another example would be the Cyber Harpy, which was once called Cyber Bondage Harpy.” Nabiki ponders the answer Ukyou gave for a moment before slowly nodding…
“Oh yeah, now I remember that article you’re talking about and you could be right about that! Also, a complete set of those 1st edition Exodia cards would be worth well over fourteen million dollars nowadays… But they’re almost impossible to find these days!” She sighs. “It’s a pity really, they really would be something to own…” She shakes her head, “But enough about that whole topic! Shall we get on with this or is anyone now having second thoughts about this game?” After waiting a few minutes and getting no answer she continues on: “Alright then, let’s start building our decks now! Akane; quit looking at the cards like that, would you… (Akane is looking at the cards with open disgust now that she sees that some of the cards are very hentai) They’re just cards; no-one here will call you a pervert for playing with them and if you don’t like the idea anymore, you can just leave!”
Akane grumbles a little, but stays put...
The next few minutes pass by in silence as each of the girls look through all the cards and they make their selection. Akane takes the longest to make her choices, trying to find the least “hentai-looking” cards that she could find in the briefcase! But finally they’re all ready, with the cards having been divided up into six separate decks with only six cards left over. The reason for these cards not being selected by anyone was that these cards were left completely blank!
“That strange… Shampoo not know much, but card not meant to be blank, right?” the purple-haired girl asked while wearing a puzzled expression on her face. This expression is mirrored on nearly everyone else’s face, while Nabiki is wearing a thoughtful expression. After a few moments, she speaks up…
“That’s right Shampoo, but it should be safe to take them…” she states confidently. On the inside however, she’s not so calm! ‘I sure hope I’m right about this, this could be a big risk we’re taking…’ she thinks. Over the years, she had developed a danger sense for things that may be risky and it’s starting to tingle! Out loud she says: “Alright then, on the count of three, we each take one of the cards. One, Two… THREE!”
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(Posted Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:53)
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