Chapter 2
Early the next morning, Mark and Alex met on their walk to Ravens Pass Middle School. Alex filled Mark in on the forum post. “That’s it?” Mark asked. “He just said to destroy the card?”
“Nope,” Alex said, chuckling. “His second message said we should send it to him because he has to recite a certain spell while burning the card.”
“Yeah, right,” Mark said. “He just wants the card for himself.”
“Agreed,” Alex said. “It must be pretty valuable.”
“Must be,” Mark said. “So, nobody said anything about the demon faction?”
Alex shook his head. “Nothing worth repeating,” he said. “A few people said we made it up, that it was fake, stuff like that.”
Mark pulled open the double doors to their school. “Figures,” he said. “See you at lunch.”
“Later,” Alex said.
* * *
The school day went by slowly. Mark couldn’t keep his eyes off the clock. He was counting down the minutes until lunch, because he was planning to challenge Greg at Epic Warriors.
Greg had the best deck in school, and he always knew what card to play. He had never lost a single match.
When lunch finally came, Mark sat down at the corner circular table in the cafeteria. Greg was already there. His coat was over the chair next to him. He had a big smirk on his face as he shuffled his deck.
“So,” Greg said as Mark took out his own deck, “you looking to get embarrassed by me again, Mark?”
Mark glanced at Alex and returned his smirk. He pulled out DeathBringer and slid the card across the table to Greg.
Greg scooped it up smoothly. He whistled. “DeathBringer, huh?” he said. “Nice stats.”
He read the abilities out loud. “Demon Dagger: ‘Plus 100 attack power against demons,’” he said.
“That’s kinda useless until there are some other demon cards in the game,” Greg said.
Mark smirked. “Just check out the other special abilities,” he said.
Greg glanced at DeathBringer’s other attacks. “Four special abilities?” he said. “Most only have one or two. That should come in pretty handy.”
Greg handed the card back to Mark. “Then again, if you can’t get through my warriors,” Greg said, “none of that will do you much good.”
“We’ll see,” Mark said. “You ready?”
“Always,” Greg replied. He passed his deck to Mark, and Mark shuffled it. Then Greg shuffled Mark’s deck. The battle began.
Mark’s first few attacks did no damage. Whatever he tried, Greg’s warriors blocked.
“Thought so,” Greg said. “I’ll wear down your warrior eventually.”
Almost all of Greg’s attacks were landing, since most of Mark’s equipment cards weren’t very good. Then Mark came up with an idea. He decided to use one of DeathBringer’s special abilities. He said, “I cast Armor Decay.” Then he turned his warrior card to show that one of the warrior’s abilities was being used.
Greg had to remove all his equipment cards from the game. Now only his warriors and their allies could protect him.
“Now you’re in trouble,” Alex said from over Mark’s shoulder. “Mark will definitely land his next —”
“Actually,” said a voice above them, “now you’re all in trouble.”
It was Mr. Snyder, their gym teacher. “You boys have been told you’re not allowed to play this game in school,” he said. “Now put the cards away before I take them.”
Greg nodded and smiled. “Yes sir, Mr. Snyder,” he said. He scooped up his cards and put them back in his deck case.
Mr. Snyder grunted and walked away. “You’re lucky,” Mark said to Greg. “If Mr. Snyder hadn’t ended that battle, I would’ve beaten you.”
Greg shrugged as he got up from the table. “Not likely,” he said. “But Armor Decay is a great ability. I’ll be sure to wait until the next expansion before I face you again.”
“Chicken,” Alex said.
Greg chuckled and walked away.
As Greg passed the lunch line, three big guys wearing letter jackets bumped into him. Greg stumbled into the garbage bins against the wall. His books and his bag fell to the ground, spilling papers and books everywhere. Even worse, Greg’s deck case slammed into the tiled wall. The case sprang open on impact, sending his cards flying into the garbage bin.
The guys in the letter jackets laughed as Greg jumped to his feet and ran to the bin. As Greg lifted a handful of cards from the garbage, Mark saw that the cards were covered in tomato sauce and warm milk.
The cards were ruined — every single one of them.