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Cassandra’s father searched for his younger daughter in the stadium. He thought maybe she would be gathering all her stuff down in the locker room area where the Decca fighters get ready for each match. However, he stopped and thought about it. He quickly turned around and instead headed to the stadium’s concession stand where they sell the food and drinks.
Cassandra was staring at the popcorn machine watching the kernels pop in a brightly lit glass box. Cassandra’s father walked up and appeared right next to her. The moment he got there she didn’t need to even change her gaze; from the corner of her eye, she knew he was there.
“Dad, why is life like popcorn?” He began to stare at the popcorn at the stand as well, happy now that he was able to find her. He wondered what she was thinking about after that question. However, he knew that she was devastated from her sudden loss. He notices now that she has a melancholy expression on her face. “It looks so good, yet you know that the stadium staff just lets it sit there probably for two or even three days. You know it tastes super good once they put all that butter on it, but you know deep down it isn’t fresh, it’s old. It’s all a beautiful lie.”
From that moment on, after her words were finished, he truly knew what she was thinking about. It wasn’t about her loss in the tournament. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you? I can tell you know. Cassidy’s disappearance, you can’t let it go. I can’t let it go either.” Mr. Zyta knew that Cassandra entering the tournament alone for the first time this year was going to affect her. He carefully listens to her.
“Yeah, I am. I thought I could trick myself into thinking that I could do it this year. That I could win the tournament without Cassidy being here to support me, but I was wrong. I was just lying to myself really. I can’t do this without her being here cheering me on, pushing me, and guiding me through all the hard fights.” Cassandra now turns her head towards her father. “No offense dad, I know I have you and my friends but…”
“I know.” Mr. Zyta interrupts her. “No need to explain cupcake. When it comes to these Decca fights half the time, I don’t even know what’s happening, so I understand what you mean, and I don’t blame you.” He chuckled a bit. Cassandra then cracks a bit of a half-smile.
“Here take these.” Cassandra’s father noticed people now walking around in the lobby so he grabbed from a gym bag a pair of dark sunglasses and a cap so that Cassandra could put it on. He didn’t want Decca fans to see her then crowd around her while she was feeling down. She quickly realizes why he was handing it to her and began to put it on.
“Dad, should we just move? Every day I think of moving back to Earth and leaving Saturn. I mean… I like the Saturn colonies and all but, there’s just so many memories here. I just can’t handle it anymore.” Mr. Zyta took a moment to process her request.
“Look Cassandra, it’s alright to miss her, to miss Cassidy. You’re not alone. I miss her too so so much. At the back of my mind, I never lost hope, especially when it comes to that. As the police gave up the search, I’m still hopeful that one day we’ll find her, and she’ll be alright. I understand your frustration but there’s so many opportunities here on Saturn that we could ever find back on Earth.” Mr. Zyta then rests his hand on Cassandra’s shoulder. “You were brave Cassandra to at least try out there. It took everything you had but the most important part is you didn’t stay home. You came out onto the field with determination to win. That for me is a sure sign of a winner.”
“Thanks dad. For telling me all this.” She felt her father's warm sincere kindness in his voice.
The stadium employee behind the counter interrupted them. “Uh excuse me sir. Will you be buying any popcorn, or will you just be staring at it all day?” There was a bit of sass under her breath when she said that.
A bit embarrassed and not realizing how long they were there talking next to the concession stand line, Mr. Zyta ends up buying a small bag of popcorn for Cassandra. He knew that he would have been able to find her there because of how much she loves popcorn.
Mr. Zyta and Cassandra start heading back towards the locker room area. “Look, how about we get your stuff and friends and head on home. What do you say? We have an hour drive ahead of us and you know how bad it gets around here in this Saturn colony. The Crescent Colony has the worst road systems.”
Cassandra stops in her tracks and listens to the stadium announcer. “Wait dad, listen.” She points up and starts listening to what was happening in the tournament through the loudspeaker. Her eyes zip from left to right while she opens her mouth realizing something important.
The announcer of the tournament shouts very loudly. “And Sumi just took a big hit from that attack!”
Cassandras eyes widen. She inhales deeply with excitement realizing that she’s missing something important. “Oh my gosh! Sumi! I almost forgot that her fight was next in the tournament.”
“Uh, Su-Sumi?” Her father looks at her with a bit of a confused face but he did feel that the name was rather familiar.
“Dad HELLO, Sumi.” Cassandra pauses and turns her ear towards the loudspeaker to hear what the announcer says next. But she quickly turns her head back to her father in a frantic state. “That’s the android girl I told you about. I met her in the last tournament. She’s a really good fighter Dad. We would text from time to time, remember?” Cassandra doesn’t even wait for her father’s response. She continues. “Dad I really need to see her match.” Cassandra storms off to the nearest stadium gate with the bag of popcorn in her hand, to find a good area to stand and watch Sumi’s match. She tries to speed walk to the gate trying not to spill any of her delicious buttery popcorn.
Mr. Zyta sighs in frustration. “So much for beating the traffic this year.” Her father just scratches his head and shrugs while he walks as quickly as he could to catch up to her.
“Here you are.” Mr. Zyta finally caught up to her. He takes a moment to catch his breath. She was staring intensely towards the field where Sumi was, standing away from the seating area. She was glad her father gave her the sunglasses and cap, that way it would be difficult for fans in the stands to recognize who Cassandra was. She was hoping that would be the case. Mr. Zyta now takes a moment to look over to the stadium battlefield. “Hmm, oh yes, Sumi. Now I recognize her.”
“Interesting, she’s up against Rondo.” Cassandra squints her eyes and re-adjusts her sunglasses.
Mr. Zyta scratches his head. “Uh, Rondo? I don’t believe I’ve heard of him.”
“I remember him. Such a frustrating fighter. He loads up his deck with tons of deadly explosion type cards. Cassandra wasn’t responding to her father’s comments, she was simply talking to herself, and now fully in the zone of the events of what was unfolding in front of her during Sumi’s match. “I’m definitely sure Sumi has the advantage on this one. She’ll win hands down.”
“I guess you can say this Rondo fella likes to put on an explosive performance.” Mr. Zyta pauses to hear Cassandra’s response proud of his corny joke. For a short moment the bad joke takes her out of the state of mind she was in while watching the match.
She slowly turns her head towards him. “Dad, that joke was so terrible. Don’t do that again.”
Mr. Zyta sighs and then smiles. “So, what makes you think your friend Sumi will win this match? I personally think explosions are quite a deadly thing to mess with if you ask me.”
“You should know this dad. I told you about Sumi’s cards before.” Cassandra looks up at the jumbo screen then back down to the battlefield while talking to Mr. Zyta. “I guess you weren’t paying attention. Sumi has strong defensive shield cards. That would be enough to stop the explosion attacks but her specialty…” Cassandra pauses for a second as she became excited for what was occurring during the match. “…what gives her the advantage against Rondo, is her wind elemental cards.”
“Ah yes, those wind cards she uses.” Mr. Zyta points his index finger upward while finally remembering what cards Sumi uses in her deck.
“Yeah, uh… That means she can fight from a safe distance and stay away from his crazy exploding cards.” Cassandra lifts her sunglasses up from her eyes for a few seconds to see clearly what was happening on the battlefield.
Mr. Zyta took notice of Cassandra lifting her sunglasses. “Sweetie, keep the glasses down, on your face please.”
“Oh.” Cassandra realizes what she was unconsciously doing and quickly lowers her sunglasses.
“Hmm, their armor level at the moment is pretty close though.” Mr. Zyta adjusts his glasses to see as he looks at the fighter’s status board above the stadium. “Rondo’s armor is at 65 percent while Sumi’s armor is at 70.”
The crowd is now going crazy, cheering from the standings. Many around the stadium are standing and jumping with excitement from their seats.
Rondo stares attentively towards his opponent trying to read her next move. “You took a big hit from that last blast. What was your name again? Sumi, was it? Ahh, it doesn’t matter because in the next few minutes you’re going to be eliminated from this tournament anyways.”
“You’re wasting your time. I know your just trying to get into my head. It’s not going to work.” Sumi takes a deep breath and looks up towards Rondo. The last attack knocked her to the ground. She struggles to get back up.
Rondo shrugs. “You really think you can withstand another massive explosion like that? You might as well give up now and save yourself the humiliation.” Rondo drew a card and looks at it with a big smile on his face. “Well, just like I said earlier, you’re not going to last much longer. I think I got this match in the bag. I just drew my trump card.”
“Decca armor at SEVENTY percent.” Sumi’s armor tells her the status of her armor while she gets herself up from the ground trying to recover after a huge explosion attack Rondo dished out on her earlier in the match. “Your one to talk. I’m still leading you by 5 percent. Don’t celebrate just yet, this match isn’t over.” Sumi finally gets up. She proceeds to wipe the dust off her armor after getting up. “Besides your last attack was just a lucky shot.” Sumi places the cards that are currently in her hand in a hold slot on her waist. She then cracks her knuckles and puts a smile on her face. She takes a deep breath, grabbing her cards from the holding slot on her waist and proceeds to position herself in her battle pose.
“Can I get a bit of your popcorn Cassandra?” Mr. Zyta asks for some popcorn from the bag in Cassandra’s hand. He notices she wasn’t eating any at the moment because she was so engrossed in the match. He slowly reaches out for the bag, but Cassandra quickly rejects his attempt by slapping his hand away. While frowning he lowers his hand in disappointment.
“Well, is this a lucky shot?” Rondo in his hand activated an Agility card giving him the ability to run at incredible speeds up to Sumi. His card begins to glow a bright yellow light. Instantly two cards eject themselves from Rondo’s deck on their own after he activates the card. Both cards de-materialize then reappears in his discard pile. He began sprinting at an alarming speed.
“Oh no, an Agility card!” Sumi now shocked needs to act quickly. She grabs a card from the four in her left hand. Without hesitation she activates a powerful wind card. Her wind card begins to glow a bright blue light. It instantly generates a mighty gust blowing Rondo back. His whole body lifts a bit off the ground by the mighty wind coming from Sumi’s card, and Rondo is finally aggressively pushed back onto his side on the ground where he first started to sprint towards her. Dust, dirt, and sand were all over his hair and Decca armor.
His quick sprint was interrupted by her attack, that made him frustrated. “Sheesh, you sure reacted quickly.” He pats himself clean from all the dust and stands up from the ground. “You androids sure have good reflexes.” Rondo now spoke softly under his breath one more word after he made that statement. “Cheater.” Sumi however, didn’t hear his last word.
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? You’ve got something against androids?” Sumi took offense to the comment Rondo made.
“Each time she pushes me back with her wind cards I lose my shot to activate an explosion card and on top of that, the wind damages my armor’s health bit by bit. I can’t let her keep pushing me around like that.” Rondo looks at his cards trying to come up with a new strategy to attack her.
“Don’t act like you don’t know. Everybody here knows very well you being an android gives you the advantage over me, a regular human, not your cards.” Rondo has an arrogant look on his face.
Sumi couldn’t believe that in the middle of the match she would hear things like that. “Aargh, why do you believe stupid stuff like that? I’m no different than you. Just because I’m an android doesn’t mean I’m automatically better than you. How dare you say such an ignorant thing?”
“What happened just now?” Cassandra’s father asked curiously. “It happened so fast I couldn’t keep up.”
Cassandra was looking at Sumi and Rondo’s gestures and body language. “Looks like… Looks like they’re arguing down there about something. Come on Sumi stay focused, don’t get distracted.”
“Dad, you just got to pay attention, ok? Rondo played an Agility card just now. An Agility card requires that you pay two cards from your deck. That means the two cards are discarded into your discard pile in order to activate its affect, its basic Decca stuff. That’s what happens when you activate one of those. In return you get blinding speed but only for a second or so.” Cassandra lifts her sunglasses again to get a better look. “Doesn’t matter how much speed the guy has; he can’t beat Sumi’s wind cards. They’re way faster than an Agility card.” She lowers her sunglasses and begins to stuff some popcorn in her mouth.
“Hey, don’t get so bent out of shape about it. I know your advanced computer brain helps you win these matches, just like every other android in this tournament.” Rondo wanted Sumi to become completely distracted from the match. Any little thing he could do to make her lose focus could mean the difference between winning and losing his match.
“That’s it! I’m going to make sure you lose this match.” Sumi had enough of the conversation. She was furious. While she began adjusting the cards in her hand, Rondo took the chance to strategize.
“I have no choice, I’m going to have to try the same move again but this time…” Rondo was trying to figure something out. He finally realized what he had to do. “Here we go again!! Let’s try this one more time!” Rondo again activates another Agility card to run up to Sumi. He begins to sprint forward towards her once again hoping to be able to follow through with his plan this time.
“That idiot. He’s actually trying the same move, again?” Sumi prepared from her hand another wind card to blow him back.
“Yaaaahhhhh!” Rondo rushed straight towards her, but Sumi reacts quickly and did the same move again as well blowing Rondo back with her powerful wind card. “NOW!!! Take THIS!” Before Rondo was pushed back by Sumi’s mighty wind card, Rondo dropped one of his cards straight to the ground, out of range from the winds gust.
While Sumi was in the middle of using her wind card on Rondo she notices from the corner of her eye the card that Rondo discretely dropped on the ground. “What is that?” Sumi could only speculate. Everything was happening to quickly for her to move out of the way.
As Rondo was in mid-air falling back again from the gust, he uses another card to activate the one he threw on the floor of the stadium. Red lights engulf the card that is in his hand and then suddenly the same-colored lights surround the card that was thrown on the floor. 197Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpMsDPXyNcC
Rondo quietly activates his trump card. "Let's go, Mega Explosion card." Rondo whispers his final word as he is thrown back. “Boom”. From that card a massive explosion went off sending Sumi back from the blast. The shock wave rumbles the entire stadium.
“Oh no! Sumi!” Cassandra couldn’t believe it. Rondo was able to detonate a massive explosion near Sumi. The cheering crowd went silent. There was no way to tell where Sumi was due to all the smoke the explosion created.
“Critical damage. Decca armor at THIRTY percent.” Sumi got up as her armor gave her the status. Sumi struggles a bit to get up but got up faster than the first time she was knocked down. This time she was agitated about the whole android remark by Rondo. Once the dust settled, she was finally standing on both feet. The crowd, although silent, slowly began to cheer once more when they could finally get a good look at Sumi through all the dust and smoke.
“Rondo is now at 40 percent armor health while Sumi is at 30. This match is closer than you think Cassandra.” Mr. Zyta wasn’t really interested in the battle at first but now the match was getting interesting.
“I’m sure glad we don’t feel pain when it comes to these battles. I got to admit that last move really took a chunk out of my armor health.” Sumi began drawing cards from her deck on her waist until she had four cards again in hand.
“You see? Haha! That’s what happens when you mess with Mondo Rondo.”
“Huh?” Sumi looks at him all confused.
“I can’t believe I just said that in front of a girl.” Rondo starts to glance at his cards a bit embarrassed. “My friends gave me that name ok. Let’s just continue the match and pretend I didn’t say that.” Two of the cards in Rondo’s hand got his attention. “Hmm. That could work but I have to sacrifice some of my own armor’s health to do it.” Rondo picks the card’s he needed and proceeds with his next attack.
Rondo threw one card on the ground in front of him and ran up to it stepping on the card. The card instantly explodes causing some damage on Rondo’s own armor, the blast catapults him in the air towards Sumi. He rushes towards her now at a much greater speed than the Agility cards he used before. Rondo now held one more card in his right hand and it looks like he was about to strike Sumi straight on. Instead at the last second, in mid-air, Rondo threw his card downward towards her. Sumi didn’t just wait to see what his card would do. She thought of something quickly.
“This has to be another one of his explosion cards. That’s all he does. I have to avoid it at all cost I can’t risk getting hit again.” Sumi chose a card from her hand but this time instead of pointing it at Rondo she points it to the ground beneath her. “Wind’s Mighty Push card is my ultimate move!” Sumi’s card lights up with a navy-blue glow. Sumi jumps back as the wind’s gust pushed her away from Rondo’s card like a rocket.
Rondo instantly regrets the move he chose. The expression on his face turns from confident to uncertain. He knew it was risky taking damage and putting everything in that final move, but it was too late, there was no going back. His plan was to have her armor reach zero health before his, surrounding both of them in his final explosion. His plan backfired on him, he could see it all unravel in front of him, almost as if it was all happing in slow motion.
“Wait! You’re not supposed to do that!” Rondo yells out as he lands right into the middle of his own explosion card taking all the damage. The blast pushes him back as Sumi lands on her feet, stopping the air flow from the wind card in her hand.
“Decca armor at ZERO percent.” Rondo wasn’t expecting to hear that. He opens his eyes quickly taking in a deep breath. His face was flat on the ground, he laid there in shock. He was sure that his strategy was going to work. He got up onto his knees and punches the ground once in frustration as the crowd now began to cheer for Sumi.
“NOO!!! It’s not fair.” All of Rondo’s cards now began to reset itself in his main deck slot. He sighs and slowly got up. He makes his way towards Sumi who still couldn’t believe the match was over.
“What?” Sumi was a bit confused when Rondo stuck out his hand to shake hers. She thought about it twice before lifting her hand. “I thought you’d be really upset.”
“Oh, trust me I am upset but you won fair and square, I guess. You played your cards really well…” Rondo looks away from her before saying the rest “…for an android.”
Sumi was just about to lower her hand and not shake his, but she had a change of heart. Sumi was glad he wasn’t a complete sore loser, but she still took offense to his android comment. However, she wasn’t that all upset because she gets to advance in the tournament.
After shaking Rondo’s hand, she turns around and began to wave at the cheering crowd as the tournament announcer races towards them on the field to get a few words in from each of them. Before the announcer could get to them, she noticed someone in the distance in the crowd. Sumi could recognize that it was her, Cassandra, even though she was wearing her sunglasses and cap. She gave Cassandra a smile and a thumbs up.
“I can’t believe it, Dad! She did great!” Cassandra smiles as she looks at Sumi. In the back of her mind, she kind of wishes that it was her instead, that she was the one to advance on to the next round. But she was glad that she didn’t miss her match. It cheered Cassandra up a bit to have her mind distracted for a while. For a moment she had forgotten that she was no longer competing in the tournament that year.
She looks at Sumi while she gave her comments about the match. “I really need to train harder for the next tournament. I want to be strong like Cassi… like Sumi.”
Diary: The cards activate much more than just one ability at a time. I learned so much from them. It’s all based on movement, will power and discipline. Once you tap into the secret abilities of these cards, your mind, your strategies and your own abilities are on a whole other plain. The average Decca fighter just stands there and activates one ability. They don’t even know this. It takes years of fighting and gaining experience to unlock the truth… but they revealed it to me in a matter of days. I was stunned. This was a whole new game now.
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