It did not take long for the elevator to arrive at their destination – a distance of around two floors below the main one, if Phil had to guess. The steel doors of the elevator opened to reveal a room similar in appearance to that of a sports stadium. Its size was somewhat unexpected of an underground room, being noticeably than an average school gym, but smaller than a football field. The room itself was like a pit. Wooden bleachers lined walls, starting around the height of the elevator and extending downwards and forwards about 20-odd feet each way to reach the floor. The walls were solid concrete, with small openings every ten to twenty feet. Shiny steel fans spun within those openings, providing a sort of industrial-looking ventilation system that certainly helped the occupants to avoid suffocation, but did little to disperse the always-present stench of cigarette smoke.

  Phil assumed that before long, he wouldn’t notice that smell anymore. Already the smell of smoke was far less pungent than it had been the previous day, and that certainly wasn’t because fewer people were smoking underground.

  The bleachers were half-full with a broad assortment of people, all with deck boxes strapped to their waists. None of them were characters Phil recognized, though the sight of some of the more colorfully dressed individuals felt like they should have rung a bell in his head. A few of the duelists looked tense, standing while gripping at their arms in nervousness, while others projected an aura of confidence as they sat, like this underground arena was their home.

  On the concrete ceiling above were similar lights to those that had been in the elevator. Fluorescent and making an unsettling buzzing noise, they rained a sickly yellow light down to the room below.

  The middle of the room (or perhaps the middle of the ‘duel stadium’, as it seemed to be) was mostly empty. Undecorated concrete made up the floor, providing an aura of brutalism that wouldn’t have looked out of place in some housing block in Soviet Russia. However, there was one thing that stuck out of the concrete like a wart on skin – a glass box, with a table and two chairs inside. The box seemed hardly larger than a ten-foot by ten-foot cube, being just big enough to fit the furniture, two duelists, and perhaps three or even four spectators inside at most, if those spectators were willing to forgo elbow room. Several tubes stuck out of the bottom of the box, running across the floor to disappear out of sight under the bleachers.

  Above the box were four massive TVs each sticking out to cover a different direction. Each TV showed the same view of the two duelists within the box, allowing even the people on the top row of the bleachers to clearly see the duel transpiring within. Next to the TVs hung massive speakers that transmitted every word the duelists inside spoke.

  “A battle box…” Phil whispered with a tinge of wonder in his voice. Chet quirked an eyebrow, clearly surprised that Phil recognized the contraption in the middle of the duel stadium.

  It was a sight Phil knew quite well from his familiarity with the manga. Introduced in the Death-T arc, the battle box was used until the end of Duelist Kingdom to provide a more realistic dueling field. Only then would the battle box be phased out by the invention of the duel disk. The boxes looked small, cramped, and unassuming to the unknowing observer, but Phil knew any card played on the table within that box would be brought to life by the solid vision technology created by Kaiba Corp with enough accuracy to look completely realistic. The presence of one was quite interesting. Seeing one here, with his own eyes? It confirmed his suspicions that this world was following the manga canon, at least to a certain extent.

  The question remained, what was a battle box doing here, of all places? From Phil’s rough grasp of the timeline, Death-T, the event that first publicly introduced the battle box, shouldn’t have happened yet. Now, it was possible that in the handful of days since he’d seen Solomon Muto, that the initial duel between Yugi and Kaiba had happened, but it would still be far too soon for Death-T. Phil knew that for certain since Solomon Muto’s Blue-Eyes White Dragon was still in one piece when he had visited the game store just a few days ago.

  If he remembered correctly… their first duel would happen at their school after Kaiba attempted to swap the Blue-Eyes with a fake. The second duel would be reserved for Death-T. Solomon would lose to Kaiba in the opening event, culminating with the Blue-Eyes getting ripped up. Then Yugi would fight his way through Death-T to duel Kaiba for a second time.

  “So, you’ve seen these babies before?” Chet’s oily voice broke Phil out of his spiraling thoughts as the man stepped forward to place a foot on the top row of the wooden bleachers. “It’s a battle box. These little beauties are somethin’ special, let me tell ya’ that. They ratchet the craziness of a duel up by a full ten notches. They’re stuck full to the brim with this ‘solid vision’ crap that makes the monsters look as real as you or me. Anyway, the boss got paid a pretty penny to stick one of them here for testing. We duel in it, the data gets collected, and then it gets sent back to whichever rich fella greased the boss’s palms. Something about ‘further improvement’ for a big event later on.”

  A big event. It only took Phil a few seconds to guess it was Death-T. The only other option was Duelist Kingdom, and he knew for sure it was too early for that.

  Phil’s eyes flicked upward to glance at the TVs showing the duel inside the box. On the TVs were two duelists. One of the duelists, a woman in a black, gothic-style dress, had just summoned a monster, a card called ‘Blood Sucker’. With 1300 attack points and 1500 defense points, it wasn’t bad, but the real thing that drew Phil’s attention was the realism of the hologram. While the monster wasn’t quite the size of a human (which made sense, if it wanted to fit on the table or in the box itself), the ghoulish, red-skinned monster looked like it was seconds away from jumping out and devouring the woman’s opponent alive.

  The two duelists’ names were displayed on the TVs, hovering in the top left corner. Underneath the names were the life point counters, and the rest of the display was dedicated to showing the duel at hand.

  “Tilla Mook versus Pete Coppermine.” Phil muttered the names. Neither name meant anything to him.

  “Card Professors.” Chet smirked. He stepped forward, beckoning Phil and Jean to climb down the bleachers with him to the bottom of the room. “That’s the name of the group those two belong to. A bunch of pros, all famous prize-chasers known overseas in the States. Real heavy hitters. They’d wipe the floor with you in a heartbeat. Looks like they’re about done.”

  Chet’s words proved true, though Phil had his private doubts about their rumored strength. As soon as Phil’s worn shoes touched the bare concrete floor, Tilla Mook’s Vampire Lady (1550/1550) dealt the final blow to Pete Coppermine’s life points. Phil unconsciously held his breath. He had an idea of what would happen next – the experience of death, the artificial imitation of a brutal penalty game inflicted on Seto Kaiba by Atem after the conclusion of their first duel.

  Yet, once again, Phil was surprised. Instead of the illusions of countless monsters being brought forth to torment Pete Coppermine into near insanity, there were a series of agonized screams. Inside the box, Pete Coppermine writhed in his chair, his long black hair standing on end and his face smudged with tears of pain.

  The man was being electrocuted. It hardly seemed enough to kill, but it certainly looked painful.

  Before Phil could do as much as gasp in surprise, the screams stopped. Pete’s head hung limply as the man gasped for breath, before standing with shaking legs and leaving the battle box without another word to go sit on the bleachers with his head hung low. Tilla Mook left as well, her silverish hair slicked with a small amount of sweat from the difficult duel. She, however, walked in a different direction, coming to a halt at a table with several yakuza sitting around it. One of the yakuza, a fellow with short-cropped black hair and a gold chain dangling around his neck, adjusted the lapels of his grey suit with one hand while his other hand pushed a pile of chips toward Tilla.

  Phil nodded his head, finally understanding what was going on. Chet’s ‘testing’ comment finally made sense. The battle boxes were still in their development cycle. The experience of death hadn’t been added yet. If it had, there was no way even the yakuza would agree to test the boxes. Instead of getting blasted in the face by an artificial penalty game, there would be a nasty electrical shock zapping anyone who took damage. Something like that wasn't unheard of in the Duel Monsters universe, as creating some sort of backlash for a monster attack was an easy way to make a duel more tense for the crowd, which would also influence any bets they would make.

  “I see…” Jean muttered, a wry look on his face, “I assume the crowd is betting on who wins and who loses.”

  Once Phil translated Jean’s hypothesis to Chet, the man nodded.

  “A-yup. The crowd is a fine mix of your fellow duelists and rich fellas who want some entertainment. Win, and you have a chance of getting some chips. Lose, and your nuts get fried. Makes the duel real intense, that’s for sure.”

  “And no one likes fried nuts.” Phil grinned despite the painful stakes at hand. “Is there a line we gotta wait in?”

  “Knowing you, Phil, your nuts will get deep fried with how much damage you tend to take in a normal duel.” Lumina said. Phil ignored her (probably correct) snark.

  Chet gestured with his palm toward one of the two doors leading into the box.

  “It’s a buy-in of one black chip. Payout depends on who wins and how well the crowd likes ya’. A lot better than upstairs, am I right? Step inside, and we shall see if one of our fine duelists wants to do some newbie crushing today. Shouldn’t take long to find one.”

  Phil shared a glance with Jean. Which of them would go first? The prospect of getting shocked wasn’t particularly tempting, but it wouldn’t even compare to some of the shit he’d been through in shadow duels in the past. And if this was a chance to make some good cash?

  Jean brought up a fist. Phil, understanding in a heartbeat, brought up his fist to match him.

  “Rock! Paper! Scissors! Shoot!” Phil and Jean roared as one. Once the results were revealed, Phil howled with victory while Jean crumpled to the ground in mock despair.

  “Rock beats scissors! Let’s fucking go! Chet, find me an opponent because I have a great desire to kick some ass!”

  “Frere, you have some serious rock-paper-scissors skills,” Jean grumbled.

  “My secret is that I always pick rock first. No one expects rock.” Phil said. They bumped their fists together and parted. Phil tossed a chip to Chet, who took it over to a side table laden with chips and scraps of paper. Phil then stepped inside the battle box while Jean turned toward the bleachers to sit next to the gothic woman, Tilla Mook. The last thing Phil heard before the doors to the box closed was Jean saying ‘Hello, beautiful woman,’ in rough Japanese, followed by Jean offering a surprisingly clean and well-kept handkerchief so she could wipe the sweat from her brow.

  Phil took a seat at the table. Dangling from his steel chair were several cables and an assortment of wired electrodes, all of which he assumed dealt with the whole electricity thing. The table itself was rather simple. Like the chair, it was made from steel, and there was the standard set of monster and spell/trap zones etched into it. It looked as if the table itself was the playmat.

  “Ladies! And! Gentlemen!” A voice boomed out from a speaker hanging from one of the corners inside the box, “This is your MC, Nando! Bringing in our next game of the day, allow me to introduce a new man to this sacred, blood-filled battleground of duelists! Coming out here all the way from where he lives under a fucking bridge, it’s…. Phil!”

  Phil extended his middle finger to wave it in the direction of who he assumed was Nando, a man who was sitting slouched on the bottom row of bleachers. The man wore a red beanie around his head and a cordless microphone dangled comfortably in his hands. Nando’s chuckles soon drifted out from the speaker, and the man with the microphone raised a cheerful middle finger in response.

  “Man’s got some fire in his belly, that’s for sure. Anyway, for our challenger… this man’s rumored to have bitten off the head of a newbie who asked too many questions during a duel. He’s got a rap sheet of questionable length, and is in fact wanted by the police for questioning over something he did last week in the McDonald’s a few blocks from here. You all know him, you all fear him! It’s our very own delusional schizophrenic, Mac N’ Cheese!”

  At that moment, a new man entered the battle box. The man was shirtless, and two pairs of basketball shorts were wrapped around his bottom half in layers. His eyes were unfocused, with his left eye staring in Nando's direction, while the other one was locked onto Phil. His hair was cut short into spikes, with the spikes dyed to resemble frost. Frosted tips, Phil noted with amusement. He hadn’t seen that hairstyle in a long while.

  “Wassup.” Phil grinned at the strange man.

  “My name is Mac N’ Cheese.” The man growled back with all the intensity of a man looking death straight in the eyes, and spitting in its face. "I'm an animal. I can't be contained. They tried to put me in a zoo, but I chewed the bars off and escaped because I'm built different. There is no weapon on this good earth that can kill me, but I wish there was. I do not sleep. I cannot sleep because the world of dreams is scared of me and uses foul, otherworldly magic to keep me away. I have worms in my head. I can feel them moving around.”

  Each word sounded like it was being scraped out behind gritted teeth, while the man’s voice sounded like he smoked fifty packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, and then ate the carton.

  “Perfect, always good to hear from ya’, Mac ol’ buddy! How’s the wife doing, by the way?” Nando said supportively. “Now, before you two duke it out and I have to send for a cleaning crew to haul out what remains of Phil, please attach the electrodes dangling from your chair to your body.”

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  As Phil stuck the electrodes onto his arms, he glanced up. Mac N’ Cheese was still staring at him with blatant hostility. He hadn’t even blinked once since his introduction, and the electrodes at Mac N’ Cheese’s chair were stuck firmly to the man’s own nipples.

  “My wife left me two months ago. She took the kids.” Mac N’ Cheese’s voice rumbled out, even as a hologram of a coin spun out from the table to flip itself.

  “Heads!” Nando shouted energetically, chopping down his hand toward Mac N’ Cheese. “Mac N’ Cheese goes first, Phil goes second! Begin!”

  Phil: 4000 Mac N’ Cheese: 4000

  “Draw.” Mac N’ Cheese barely glanced over his cards before he made his move. “Petit Angel (600/900) in defense mode. One card face-down, turn end.”

  “So, your wife left you. That’s rough, buddy.” Phil said, drawing a card. “Did she say why? Oh, and I summon Mystic Tomato (1400/1100) in attack position. Battle phase, Tomato attacks your Petit Angel.”

  The scene was brutal. On Phil’s side, a tomato with an evil-looking face hopped over to attack the innocent-looking winged sphere on Mac N’ Cheese’s field, tearing through its body without much effort to leave tiny holographic angel feathers scattered around the area. It wasn’t quite as good as what a duel disk could do, but the solid vision was still impressive.

  “Set one face-down, pass turn.”

  “She made me choose.” Mac N’ Cheese replied. He was clenching his teeth so tight that Phil could hear several molars crack. “Her, or my demons. I chose the demons.” Without elaborating any more on that point, Mac N’ Cheese revealed a monster in his hand.

  “Flying Kamakiri #1 (1400/900) will serve me. Bug, destroy the demon tomato!”

  A large, green grasshopper roared to life, its four clawed arms tearing greedily into the evil tomato and taking equal wounds from its teeth in response. Both monsters fell to the ground, and after a second, faded to nothing.

  “Mystic Tomato activates!” Phil shouted, followed closely by Mac N’ Cheese declaring the effect of Flying Kamakiri #1.

  “I can special summon another Mystic Tomato to take its place.”

  "And I'll bring forth a wind monster with 1500 or fewer attack points! Soitsu (0/0)!"

  As a small, faceless green man flew onto the field on the back of a paper airplane, Phil had one word to say: “Shit.”

  But Mac N’ Cheese wasn’t done yet. “Second main phase!” He said, “Spell card, Last Will, activates! A monster was sent to my graveyard this turn, so I can special summon one monster with 1500 or fewer attack points or less from my deck during this turn. Do my bidding, Doitsu (100/200)!”

  “Fuck!”

  “Doitsu’s effect activates!” Mac N’ Cheese roared to the jubilation of the crowd watching from the bleachers. Another strange, faceless small man on a paper airplane had landed right next to the first one “Equipping itself to Soitsu as an equip spell, it will increase Soitsu’s attack points by 2500!”

  Soitsu (0/0 -> 2500/0).

  To put it simply, Phil was somewhat familiar with this monster archetype. Starting out weak by themselves, each one of the paper airplane men had another color they would correspond with - a union monster that could be equipped while on the field to drastically boost their attack points. In addition, as most union monsters would, the equipped union monster would serve as a second life for the other monster, sacrificing itself if the monster it was equipped to would have faced destruction.

  Phil watched as the green man, now linking arms to a yellow man, flew around the table on their paper airplanes to perform several impressive barrel rolls before making their landing back on Mac N’ Cheese’s side of the field.

  “HOW THE TURN TABLES!” Nando roared, standing up from his seat to pump a fist in the air. So great was his excitement that flecks of spittle rocketed from his mouth to splatter against the glass walls of the battle box. “WILL PHIL REVEAL A REVERSAL, OR WILL MAC N’ CHEESE PUT ANOTHER MAN IN THE HOSPITAL?”

  To Phil, the kicker was that the archetype relied on the ‘union’ mechanic. In fact, it was the old version of unions, where the union monster and the equip target both had to be on the field at the same time, instead of the newer version that often allowed the duelist to equip from their hand. Meaning, his opponent would have to use crutches like Last Will to get the strategy off the ground.

  However, those actions were taken during Mac N’ Cheese’s second main phase, meaning he had no other plays left other than to end his turn.

  “Let’s see…” Phil muttered to himself, taking a glance outside the battle box to observe the bleachers. A decent-sized crowd had formed to watch, some merely checking out the duel with a sense of mild curiosity, while others screamed their hearts with each twist of the duel. Moreover, it appeared Jean’s charms, even as hampered by his basic knowledge of the language as they were, had worked quite well on the demure gothic woman. The two were arm-in-arm, Jean chattering away in a hodge-podge of French and Japanese while Tilla Mook nodded away with a tiny, almost indecipherable smile on her face. Meanwhile, Lumina sat back next to Jean, sipping on her always-present thermos of tea with a sense of barely suppressed amusement toward Phil’s strange opponent.

  Phil raised an impressed eyebrow. Jean, the self-proclaimed ‘lover of women’, was certainly working hard.

  “Man, I can’t believe the game I love is in such a state where running a card like this is a good move,” Phil turned his focus back to the table, “but as Jean would say, c’est la vie! Let’s flip the script by activating my spell card, Approaching Darkness! By discarding two cards from my hand, those being The Wicked Worm Beast and Rescue Cat, I can flip your Soitsu into face-down defense position.”

  That was a weakness all union monsters collectively shared. Because they acted as equip spells when equipped to a target, they would also be forced to follow the rules of an equip spell – namely, if the target was flipped face-down, the union monster (or equip spell) would be sent to the graveyard pronto.

  Mac N’ Cheese neatly flipped his Soitsu into face-down defense position, and then let out a scream of animalistic rage and punched the side of the battle box so hard that the glass creaked in protest. He’d finally realized what Phil was doing.

  “That means my Doitsu goes to the graveyard. How does a noob like you know that would happen? Are you in my head? Are you talking to the worms in my head? Get out of my head! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

  “A-yup. I know things. It’s what I do. No worms about it, just solid game knowledge.” Phil confirmed. “Now that it’s back to zero attack and defense points, I can punch right on through. I summon Witch of the Black Forest (1100/1200) in attack position and move right into my battle phase! Witch, destroy Soitsu!”

  The faceless green man fell with a tiny scream under the pulsing waves of dark magic emanating from the purple-haired witch’s fingers.

  “Now that he’s open, Mystic Tomato, swing directly in for a cheeky 1400 strike!”

  No sooner than the second after Mac N’ Cheese’s life points dropped, the man let out a series of pained yet excited whoops as electricity surged through the electrodes attached to his nipples to give the man a nasty shock.

  “PAIN INCREASES MY STRENGTH!” Mac N’ Cheese roared out, arcing his head back to follow those words with a long, wolf-like howl.

  Phil: 4000 Mac N’ Cheese: 2600

  “Alright dude, you do you.” Phil said, ending his turn.

  Mac N’ Cheese let a wide grin settle over his face. “I always do me! Hope you enjoyed destroying my monster, because I’ll be taking one of yours in return! Change of Heart activates! For this turn only, I can take control of your Mystic Tomato! I’ll follow that with Mother Grizzly (1400/1000) in attack mode!”

  Without a second of hesitation, Mac N’ Cheese ordered the stolen tomato to destroy Phil’s Witch of the Black Forest, while Mother Grizzly struck directly. However, as the black-furred bear’s claws struck home, Phil bore it all with a grin. He could feel the electricity surging through his arms, causing his hands to involuntarily clench, but he made no noises in response to the pain.

  “Just a shock, ay? I’ve eaten far worse hits before. Built me up one hell of a pain tolerance, that’s for sure.” Phil directed the words with a grin toward Nando’s exclamations of surprise.

  “JUST A SHOCK, HE SAYS!” Nando’s voice boomed in response, “WHILE WE SET UP THE ELECTRODES TO HIT LIKE A JUICED-UP TASER! DON’T GET ME WRONG, MAC N’ CHEESE IS MY HOMEBOY, BUT THIS NEWBIE’S GOT SOME SPIRIT!”

  Phil: 2300 Mac N’ Cheese: 2600

  "Oh, and since my witch died," Phil explained, "I can add a monster with 1500 or fewer defense points from my deck to my hand. My choice is simple – Shadow Ghoul!”

  It was really the only play Phil had, other than trying to stall some more with ‘recruiter’ type monsters until Lady Luck threw some favor his way. His hand lacked the pieces to assemble Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon, nor did he have Soul of Purity and Light readily available. However, his graveyard had two monsters in it, with a third guaranteed to slide in after the tribute summon for the five-star Shadow Ghoul was completed. Of course, another Change of Heart at that point would be nearly fatal, but that spell card was so ludicrously good that one could apply that line of thought to nearly every part of the game.

  Mac N’ Cheese ended his turn with no further moves, allowing Mystic Tomato to fall back under Phil’s control.

  “Draw.” Phil muttered, more to himself than to his opponent. “I’ll start things off by sacrificing my Mystic Tomato to summon Shadow Ghoul (1600/1300)! Its continuous effect comes into play as soon as it hits the field, boosting its attack points by 100 for each monster in my graveyard.”

  A green, almost insectoid monster with countless numbers of baleful red eyes littering its hide lumbered onto the field, chittering with joy as it soaked in the faint aura of death emanating from the direction of Phil’s graveyard.

  Shadow Ghoul (1600/1300 -> 1900/1300).

  Phil flashed a cheeky grin at Mac N’ Cheese. His next play wouldn’t be so well-received.

  “Then, since I have a feeling you want to summon another one of those paper airplane fellas off the destruction effect of your Mother Grizzly, how about I say no to that? I activate Fissure! This spell card will destroy the weakest monster on your field. Since you only have one monster, that’ll be Mother Grizzly!”

  Phil’s prediction rang true. As the bear was dragged down into the depths of a fissure in the ground to be crushed to death, Mac N' Cheese let out a scream of pure, undiluted rage. At first, the man flexed his considerably sized biceps, but then in a flash of movement, Mac N’ Cheese slammed his own head several times into the table until rivulets of blood wept freely from his forehead like gruesome streaks of warpaint.

  “AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH! I GOT TO WHERE I AM TODAY THROUGH VIOLENCE AND I REGRET NOTHING! YOUR END WILL MAKE THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS LOOK LIKE A JOKE!”

  Nando let out several whoops of laughter, which the crowd eagerly imitated. Several of the people watching, however, could only let a bit of nervous laughter drop from their mouths before they fell silent. Jean was still busy telling Tilla Mook precisely how beautiful she was, but Phil could see him occasionally shoot a wary glance or two at Mac N’ Cheese, as if he was trying to judge if he needed to run into the box to help Phil survive a potential future physical altercation.

  Without blinking an eye, Phil ruthlessly moved on to the battle phase. “Shadow Ghoul, direct attack! Make him feel some pain!”

  Phil: 2300 Mac N’ Cheese: 700

  The man’s emotions rapidly changed, switching from rage to loud exhilarated whoops and howls as the electricity coursed through his body.

  “Ah! It feels like I’m a kid again, getting beaten by my dad with jumper cables behind the woodshed!”

  “What? Do you need someone to talk to, dude?” Phil said in confusion.

  Without any further elaboration on that topic, Mac N’ Cheese tore the top card off his deck so hard that he put a dent in the card. Then, he grinned. That action was by far the most unsettling thing the man had done so far, even more so than the screaming outburst that had happened moments before.

  “Tremble before my combo!” Mac N’ Cheese said, “Firstly, the spell card, A Feather of the Phoenix! By discarding one card, I can return a card from my graveyard back to the top of my deck. I discard Koitsu and return Change of Heart. Then, my second combo piece! By activating another spell, Ancient Rules, I can special summon the level five normal monster, Aitsu (100/100) from my hand in attack mode. My third and final combo piece, however, has been lying in wait from the start! My face-down trap, Call of the Haunted, which will revive Koitsu (200/100)!”

  In quick succession, the red, faceless figure of Aitsu flew onto the field on its paper airplane, followed by the blue, faceless Koitsu. Each of the monsters performed several impressive barrel rolls as they flew around Mac N’ Cheese’s side of the field, with Koitsu in particular awing the crowd (now filling the bleachers to the brim) by performing a one-handed handstand while in the middle of the final barrel roll.

  Phil knew precisely what was next. Koitsu, a union monster, used its effect to equip itself to its counterpart, Aitsu, as a spell to increase its attack points.

  Aitsu (100/100 -> 3100/100).

  It was, in essence, a combination capable of creating a monster that was a hair stronger than Blue-Eyes White Dragon, followed up by access to Change of Heart during Mac N’ Cheese’s next turn. It made sense that Mac N’ Cheese was a newbie destroyer. To any other normal duelist, between the attack points and the second life provided by the union monster, the situation would have been nigh-impossible to overcome. But to Phil, this was a Tuesday.

  As Mac N’ Cheese ordered his monster to annihilate Shadow Ghoul, Phil revealed his own face-down card, one that had also been lying in wait for several turns by now.

  “Cool move dawg, but it ain’t enough!” Phil laughed loudly and freely. “You keep forgetting the downsides of union monsters! I activate my quick-play spell card, Book of Moon!”

  A single second before Aitsu’s attack made contact with Shadow Ghoul’s claws, a great blue book covered in hieroglyphs and many other mystical symbols appeared in midair between the two clashing monsters. The book opened, the pages of it turning rapidly through the influence of some unseen force. Each page flip generated a powerful gust of wind that served to blow Aitsu’s paper airplane off course, spinning the red, faceless monster through the air until it crashed near the edge of the table.

  "That's the big downside." Phil said as he happily observed his handiwork, "Flip ‘em face-down, and like any regular ol’ equip card, your equipped union monster goes right to the graveyard and your red dude becomes nothing but a sitting duck.”

  Mac N’ Cheese had nothing to say to that other than to glower at Phil as he ended his turn. Once more, the big strong union monster was disarmed, but the duel wasn’t over yet. While Mac N' Cheese was a hit away from reaching zero life points, there was also a Change of Heart on the top of his deck and a few cards left in his hand. If Phil’s opponent survived, the course of the duel could very well change once again.

  “Let’s see what I’ve got.” Phil mumbled as he drew a card. He took a long, hard look at both the field and his opponent. Mac N’ Cheese had no monsters left other than the defending Aitsu, which only had 100 defense points. The cards in his hand were unknown, but his next draw was both known and terrifying. Meanwhile, Phil had his normal summon left, and a Shadow Ghoul with 1900 attack points.

  “Okay.” Phil let out a solid breath. “I have a strategy for this. You know what it is?”

  Mac N’ Cheese shook his head, and Nando shouted in excitement from outside the box.

  “JUST WHAT DOES OUR NEWEST DUELIST HAVE IN MIND? WHAT STUNNING STRATEGY WILL WE SEE NEXT?”

  Phil revealed one card in his hand, the very same one he’d just drawn. “Thunder Dragon’s effect will activate, discarding one copy to search for two more in exchange. This'll pump Shadow Ghoul's attack up a tick more."

  Shadow Ghoul (1900/1300 -> 2000/1300).

  “Once that’s done, I summon The All-Seeing White Tiger (1300/500) in attack mode. Ready to hear the strategy name now?”

  "YES! PLEASE!" Nando shouted out almost desperately. Tension filled the air like a thick fog, though only Phil knew that even if there was a Kuriboh, he could probably still survive the next turn now that he had two monsters on the field. Then he could hope for a polymerization or another one of his power cards.

  Phil kept his face stoic for several seconds, but soon enough his mask broke and a huge, shit-eating grin spread across his face.

  “Here’s the name! It’s called, keep attacking and pray to your deity of choice that your opponent doesn’t have a Kuriboh in their hand! Tiger, destroy that face-down Aitsu! Shadow Ghoul, give me a Kuriboh face-check! Attack directly!”

  The tiger, its shining white fur covered in several pitch-black stripes, pounced across the field to tear out the cowering red man's throat with a single claw, while Shadow Ghoul chittered in acknowledgment and homed in on Mac N' Cheese. For the briefest of moments, every person in the room held their breath as the insectoid monster neared its prey. Did Mac N’ Cheese have a Kuriboh, or another card that would perform a similar function? Would the attack go through, or would Phil have to face the Change of Heart that Mac N’ Cheese was only a turn away from drawing?

  The Shadow Ghoul almost appeared to move in slow motion. Its claws inched toward Mac N’ Cheese, getting closer and closer in what felt like minutes, but wasn’t even two seconds.

  And then the claws hit home. No effects were activated, and no monsters were revealed. The crowd went wild, some even throwing their hats in the air. To Phil’s amusement, Jean, the scraggy, yet suave Frenchman he was, had managed to draw a smile and a quiet laugh from Tilla Mook, which looked somewhat out of place amidst her somber gothic outfit.

  Phil: 2300 Mac N’ Cheese: 0

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