Stall for time

Seto had to think fast. He dragged out his own monologue to stall for time. "You think I'm that gullible? You're wrong. My heart has never been more alive. My whore has shown me the good, the beauty in this world. Today, we went to the redwoods. I wasn't expecting to be moved by mere trees, but being there with her showed me how small we humans are in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't matter how we met. It doesn't matter if she's been with only me or a thousand other men. She's reminded me what's worth fighting for and what isn't. I draw!" Seto drew his next card and stared into the ghoulish face of another weak fiend.

"You're fooling yourself, Seto," came Kayla's response. "How many draws will it take before you see that?"

"If I'm a fool, you're an outright imbecile. Do you want to know what else I love about my future wife? She's honest." Seto felt a pang of guilt at the dirty trick he tried to pull on Joan. He couldn't tell her about that, not ever, but he promised himself he'd never try to get her pregnant without her consent again. "She would never stoop to your level to get something she knows she can never have. Besides, she already has one husband, not to mention a boyfriend, and because of that, she doesn't need to go around begging for scraps of affection like a lost kitten."

Kayla's face went red, but it barely showed through her makeup. "If you don't make your move in the next thirty seconds, you'll be disqualified!"

At least she spoke a few words of truth. A timer had popped up on the battlefield displaying the seconds counting down. "I set a monster facedown and end my turn," Seto relented.

Kayla's attention turned to a commotion in the crowd. "Move aside, move aside! Boyfriend coming through," came an authoritative feminine voice. Slowly the people parted and Laura stepped through, followed by her husband Marc.

"Welcome to the party, Mr. and Mrs. Aurelio," Seto said.

"We grabbed a Lyft as soon as we heard," Marc replied. He'd gotten a heads up from his cosplayer friend, who'd been approached by an incognito avatar of Rebecca Hawkins as a candidate to fill the position in which Kayla now stood. He and Laura had seen the entire broadcast thus far.

Laura went immediately to Joan and hugged her. She lowered her voice, "I'm impressed with how you turned Seto around. I don't know how you managed to do it, but we're here to back you up." Laura released Joan and went to stand beside Tamara.

Marc came up to Joan and brushed her cheek with his thumb, then kissed her. The warmth of it relaxed her trembling body. "I know this is hard for you, but hang in there. Seto's going to lose and have to date that harpy, but I'll make time for you so you won't have to go through it alone."

"And I'll let him take time off work if he needs it," Mokuba added.

"Thanks guys. That means a lot to me." Joan settled between Marc and Mokuba, the fingers on her T-shirt now properly pointed at two of her favorite men.

"Disgusting," Kayla scoffed.

"Look who's talking," Seto said.

"One man and one woman. Adam and Eve. That's how human beings were created to love. Anything else is debauchery. I now summon Justice of Prophecy and equip it with the spell card Spellbook of Power!"

A woman draped in green holding a set of scales and a dagger appeared on the field. Her original attack points of 1600 rose to 2600 as Spellbook of Power's effect activated.

"You're even more of a twit than I initially took you for," Seto remarked. "Adam and Eve is a useless fable that implies the entire human race spawned from the incestuous union of their offspring. Explain to me again how Cain and Abel got pregnant?"

"That's not the point. The point is that Adam and Eve were loyal to each other," Kayla declared.

"You don't have to be monogamous to be loyal. My whore doesn't back down when someone is important to her. Even when that someone isn't me, I respect that because I trust her."

"Silence! I now attack your facedown monster with Strength of Prophecy!"

The red woman swung her ax through the facedown card. It cleaved in two and briefly revealed Ryu-Kishin, a red fiend with a horn on its head and a malevolent toothy grin.