Play Defensive

You pull three more cards, which swiftly vanish in the black energy that engulfs them and before you appears a waist high creature with a black, chitinous looking exoskeleton that spasms in place, a low buzzing sound coming from somewhere within it, a single purple eye glaring out at Harmony and her monster. "I summon Black Hive!"

A glowing ball of dark green energy forms around the small monster like a protective barrier. "And he's surrounded by a Nullify Barrier. You want him? You're going to have to give up that shield for it."

Harmony frowns thoughtfully. You wonder if she is pondering if it is worth attacking to remove more of your cards despite the fact it will cost her own monster its protection or if doing that would trigger an ability on Black Hive once the Buckler was gone. Her response is to draw three more cards, which crumble into sand and a humanoid figure resembling a knight's armor made out of gray stone and holding a diamond-bladed sword appears next the the Cyclops. "Bolder Knight," she commands, "Stand guard. Deep Sea Cyclops, destroy Black Hive."

The Deep Sea Cyclops lumbers forward again, bringing its large hand down to literally smash Black Hive like a bug. The Ability Guard Buckler vanishes from the attacking monster's arm once it passes through the barrier, but otherwise its attack is not stopped and you wince as your creature is left a sticky pile of green mush on the ground, another card being disintegrated from your deck.

To your surprise, Harmony seems relieved, perhaps worrying that there would be some form of repeat of the last turn. Her relief is quickly tempered by the fact the mush that is Black Hive's corpse begins to glow and splits into five small figures that solidify into yellow and black stripped, humanoid bee-like figures carrying small spears. You grunt as five more cards vanish from your hand and say, "It's called a 'Hive' so when it's broken open, it can summon up to five Buzz Knights."

Harmony smirks. "Trying to overwhelm me with numbers, eh? That might have worked better if you had timed its destruction right but you've left yourself wide open for Bolder Knight's attack!"

As much as you hate to admit it, she is right. The Bolder Knight swings its sword, slashes one of the Buzz Knights in half, leaving you with only four, and causes two more cards to vanish from your deck in response. That is not good as it means, however slight, Harmony's taken the lead in terms of cards. Still, you do what you can, remembering that you can have weaker individual monsters team up to take down stronger ones. To that end, you order the four remaining Buzz Knights to attack the Deep Sea Cyclops and they do so by flying low to the ground and repeatedly stabbing the larger monster in the ankles until it falls over and hits the ground face first. You almost swear you see stars circling around its head before it melts into a pool of water and vanishes, a single card dissolving from Harmony's deck.

You look over at Harmony. "Is it just me or does this game seem like it has tone problems?"

"That's how demons are," she replies coldly, "Is that really the end of your turn?"

"Huh?!" you ask in surprise, "Demons?! I thought these things were magical projections! If they're living things why are they just standing there listening to us instead of being, y'know, demon-y?"

Harmony gives you a look of intense disbelief at your ignorance. "I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer."

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Zizana give Amelia a disbelieving look as well. The slender girl shrugs helplessly as she says, "Don't look at me! I didn't train him!"

"Obviously," the Professor replies dryly, "I will have to talk to the ones that did later."

You would pity Liam and Keira for the tongue lashing you are sure they will receive but at the moment you have other concerns as you acknowledge the end of your turn and suddenly the circle around you flashes brighter for a moment. That is the signal to both you and Harmony that enough turns have passed that you can start performing summons that result in monsters that exceed the four card limit. Out of the corner of your other eye you see Viki look up from where she kneels, tilting her head to the side again as she seems to be craining her neck to try and get a look at something. Following her line of vision, you see that she is either staring at Victor, who seems to be either ignoring her or is unconcerned about her actions.

Your attention is drawn back to the match as Harmony banishes three more cards from her deck. They dissolve into puffs of wind and then standing besides the Bolder Knight is a white horse that has small, furiously whirling, upside down tornadoes in place of its legs. "Gale Calvary," Harmony says simply as another card, this one vanishing in a combination of dust and wind, "And I cast a spell that will allow Bolder Knight to mount it to become the Dustborne Rider."

With a leap that should be impossible for something as heavy looking as the stone-encased knight (not to mention the landing that should rightfully snap the horse's back) the Bolder Knight dramatically mounts the Gale Calvary, stone armor appearing on the latter as the former's armor gains a white cape and wind runes on its chest and forehead.

You swallow nervously, remembering Liam having warned you that combination monsters tended to have special attack gimmicks that made them dangerous beyond the fact that their attack power was the combination of the two monsters that made them.

"Now you're really going to regret how little you know about this game," Harmony taunts as she waves her hand, "Dustborne Rider! Charge The Line!"

You do not have to wait long to know what that means as the horse and rider dash towards your monsters, the knight lowering its sword so that it can swipe at each of your Buzz Knights in turn, the smaller monsters crying out as they are destroyed.

A monster with an attack power of six.

Attacking four of your monsters with an attack power of one.

You would have noticed the twenty cards vanishing from your deck but the backlash of magical energy, which is normally managable until you start getting deeper into the game, hits you all at once like an invisible sack full of bricks to the chest. Your head spins as a wave of diziness overwhelms you and your legs buckle, your ears ringing from the blood pounding in your temples. You do not notice when you fall to your knees, eyes momentarily glazing over as you hear Amelia, Vicki and you think even Selena call out your name in alarm.

Shaking your head, you raise your free hand to show them you are still okay (or at least okay enough to lie about how bad you feel) and stagger back to your feet, which you instantly regret doing as your stomach lurches.

Harmony seems satisfied at her work as she idly shuffles her cards. "Even if Dustborn Rider can't do that again for the rest of the game, he's still going to be stronger than anything else you can bring out with what you have left, Worm," she says, "drop the rest of your cards and surrender. If you do that, you'll still have to defer to me but I swear upon my family name I won't make you do anything to publicly humiliate yourself, as much as you would deserve it."

"If there's anyone here who deserves to be humiliated," Amelia shouts from behind, "It's you!"

"Oh be quiet! He's humiliated me several times now! I am TRYING to show I am the better person, slut!"

You lick your suddenly dry lips. It is a tempting offer as, in one turn, what was a close game has been blown wide open... and not in your favor.

Harmony has twenty-three cards. You have six.

You try to think, the pounding in your head making it hard to do. You are pretty sure you had some kind of plan at some point, something that counted on this kind of disparity existing. Yet in your current state you are uncertain of your ability to remember it, let along carry it out.