NOVEL NEXT I Guess We’re Rivals?
'Thoughts'
"Speech"
Jack was suspecting to see many things when he arrived at Annie's house, the usual. Annie's dad talking to the neighbours, or maybe Annie playing with the stray dog that lives nearby. He even thought he might see men in dark robes assaulting the house. 'Ok, maybe the last one was a bit out there. I should maybe cut back on the number of edgy web novels I read.' What he wasn't suspecting to see when he left the car was Annie wearing what looked like a cape, Duel Disk out, chest puffed out and wearing a confident grin on her face. Her dad was right next to her, wearing an amused grin.
Jack looked back at his parents giving them the most confused look they ever saw. His parents couldn't help themselves and smile at the scene. Jack looked back at Annie hoping that he was just seeing things at first, however, the only thing that changed was that Annie looked even more proud of herself. Jack stood there mouth agape trying to find the right words, he eventually settled with greeting her first. "Uh good morning Annie." When he heard his mom snicker behind him, he realized maybe he should have given his greeting more thought.
"HELLO, MY RIVAL! WE MEET AGAIN!"
"Rival?"
"WELL OF COURSE! You were my first opponent, THAT MEANS YOUR MY RIVAL!"
"I don't think that is how that works."
"What do you mean? That is how it always works, the first non-villain opponent a hero fight is their rival! You're not a villain, and you were my first opponent, that means you are my RIVAL!" Jack was left speechless, not even sure if there is a proper response to that declaration. Jacob took this opportunity to save Jack from his predicament.
"Annie dear why don't you bring Jack inside, and show him your new cards?"
"THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!" Jack gave Jacob a grateful glance as Annie pulled him inside. Her cape fell off, as she rushed inside. Jacob chuckled at the sight, picking up the fallen cape before walking toward Jack's parents.
"She's quite lively today." Kate's smile hasn't left her face during the whole exchange. "How long were you two waiting?"
"We weren't waiting long, Annie misplaced her cape."He motioned towards the cape that he was holding. "She started to panic when she couldn't find it, when I asked her why she couldn't greet Jack without it, she replied saying that 'The reunion between rivals has to be epic." The adults laughed at the image of Annie pouting as she said that. "Yea, she even refused when I asked why she couldn't just wear a towel as a cape. She got upset saying that it won't be the same. She quickly perked up when she found though." The 3 adults talked for another 5 minutes.
"Well, we should go before we're late." Kate handed a box full of packs to Jacob. "Can you pass this to Jack? He forgot to grab them when he left the car, and I think both of them will enjoy opening them." Jacob waved both of them goodbye as they drove away. Walking inside the house, when he reached Annie's room he was greeted with the sight of the kids looking at Annie's new cards, both of them too immersed in the activity to notice him enter the room. "You two look like you're enjoying yourself" Jack almost jumped at the sound. He looked up, his ears turning red when he saw Jacob smiling at them.
"Morning Mr.Spark, sorry I didn't notice you." Jacob laughed.
"Oh don't mind me. Also Annie honey remember to not cause too much trouble for Jack, ok?"
"Hmph! I don't!" Annie huffed as she crossed her arms. Jacob glanced at Jack, who shook his head at him.
"She isn't causing me any trouble."
"That's good. Oh and before I forgot." Jacob passed the box full of packs to Jack. "You forgot this in the car, your parents asked me to deliver this to you." Jack's face redden as he realized his mistake.
"Oh, uh, thank you, sir." He grabbed the box and bowed at Jacob who just chuckled at the sight.
"Well I have some work to do, I'll be in my office if either of you needs me." The kids watched Jacob leave the room. When the door closed Annie stood up and walked next to Jack.
"Come on Jack let's see what you get."
"Do you want to open them with me?" Annie shook her head.
"No, these are your first packs. You should open them up." Jack nodded and started to open them up. After the 6th pack, they came open a black card. "What's that?"
"Oh, I think I remember reading something about this." Jack opened up his Duel Watch, clicking on an app in the shape of a book. "When I was tinkering around with the Duel Watch I found that they have a rule book. It has more in-depth rules like advanced summoning methods."
"Really?" Annie looked at her own watch in awe.
"Yup." He quickly looked through the section about advanced summoning methods. "Here it is, it's an Xyz card. Xyz's are monsters that go into your extra deck and have special summoning conditions."
"Oh, is it like my HEROES fusion monsters?'
"Yea. But its summoning condition is a bit different. You need to overlay 2 or more monsters of the same level to summon them." Annie's eyes lit up.
"Really?! That sounds so cool!" However, she qly frowned as she thought back to her own cards. "I don't remember seeing any non-fusion HEROES cards that go into my extra deck."
"Well maybe you just didn't pull any, also I'm surprised you didn't know about Xyz monsters. I thought you knew a lot about Duel Monsters." Annie gave him a smug smile.
"Of course I do!" But her smile quickly turned into a shy one as she touched her fingers together. "But I really only cared about cards in HEROES decks, so I don't know much outside of that." However, Annie's mood quickly did a 180. "But that means I just have to learn. Like all young heroes, I'll learn and improve." Jack only nodded. Jack then continued to open packs as Annie watched. Sometimes stopping to look up what certain cards are. Reaching the last pack, Jack decided to slow down. He wouldn't admit it but he found opening packs fun and wanted to savour the last one. He slowly went through the last pack, only stopping at the last one when he noticed it was different from the others.
"-GASP-IT'S SHINY!!!" Annie was about to say more before she remembered her own shiny card. Jumping up she dashed towards the nightstand to get the card. While Jack looked at the card, wondering what made this card so special for it to justify it looking so different. It wasn't any of the extra deck monster types or a ritual monster. Before he could go too deep into his musing, Annie called out to him, when he turned to face her, he was greeted by the sight of Annie holding a similar shiny card.
"LOOK JACK WE BOTH GOT ONE!!" Jack looked at the card Annie was holding up, like his own he couldn't find anything special about it.
"Yea but what does it mean?" Annie tilted her head at his questions.
"What do you mean?"
"Like what makes these shiny cards different from others?"
"Does that really matter? They're shiny, and the fact that we both only got one means they're rare! Even my dad said I was lucky to get one!" Jack looked at Annie's card and then towards his own. After staring at it, tilting it so the light can hit it at different angles. Jack smiled.
"Yea your right. Their cool to have and that's what matters." Annie nodded. Shortly after she jumped up, and struck a pose, her Duel Disk out, ready to draw.
"-Gasp- You know what it means for both of us to get shiny cards as both of ours last cards"
"Your shiny cards were also your last one?" Annie nodded. "Well, what does it mean?"
"It means we're FATED RIVALS! Only rivals would have something like this happen to both of them." Jack wanted to say that it was just a coincidence but decided to just nod at her. "Now that is done. Let Duel my rival!" Jack looked at her, before glancing at his deck, then towards his new cards.
"Don't you want to edit your deck with your new cards first? Because I do." Annie stilled, she looked at her deck in her Duel Disk then at the pile of cards on the nightstand.
"Well, you have a point. Let's duel after we improve our decks. A hero should improve after every battle." They next spent the next several hours adding and removing cards from their deck. Occasuationly asking each other for their opinion of a card. Sometimes they would lookup using their watch how a card works, or how to perform a certain summon. Only stopping to eat sandwiches Jacob had prepared for lunch.
When they both were satisfied, they put their decks into the Duel Disk. However, before they started the duel, Annie spoke up. "I just remembered something. My dad showed me something yesterday, but we need more space." Jack nodded, then they both started to move Annie's stuff away to make room. When Annie deemed the space large enough, she taped her Duel Disk several times which caused a disk attached to a wire to shoot out of her Duel Disk, landing in front of her. A hologram of the words 'Waiting for the opponent' hovered above it.
Jack stepped back in surprise, before asking Annie how she did it. After Annie showed Jack what she did, Jack took a couple of steps back and did what Annie told her. His Duel Disk shot a disk attached to a wire, landing in front of Annie's disk. Both of the disks started to grow and transform, each turning into one half of a mini arena. The words 'Waiting for Duelist conformation'.
"Cool right?" Jack nodded. "Great then let's get this started!" Both clicked the ready button displayed on their Duel Disk. However, both stilled when the words turned into, 'select punishment.' With both their Duel Disk showing 3 options on their display. Shock, vibrate, and off. Annie after seeing the options without hesitation pressed the shock option. However, she was disappointed when a message saying she was too young to choose that option popped up. Grumbling she pressed the vibrate option. Jack chuckled seeing Annie's disappointment and pressed the vibrate option himself.
-Both Duelist Ready. Choose who is calling.-
"I called last time, you can call it this time." Jack thanked Annie before clicking heads on his display. On each side of the mini arena, a hologram avatar of formed. The words above the arena turned into a coin before flipping, landing on heads.
"I choose to first." Annie nodded. They both draw their starting hand, looked at each other, nodded and grinned.
'IT"S TIME TO DUEL/It's time to duel!"