Chapter 47. Going From Almost Scratch

Closing the door behind me, I let out a yawn while shaking the girls off me. As they did, I placed my equipment on my desk, letting the smaller spirits roam free. “Crazy day…” I said under my breath, watching the spirits enjoy being back to some semblance of home. Blair quickly took me, and dragged me to my lower cot, taking the seat beside me while tightly wrapping her arms around mine. She giggled and rubbed her head against my arm. I could tell she was getting much more prominent in her affections for me, and was honestly confused as to why she liked me so much.

I frowned watching her be so overtly loving towards me, reminding me of when she first saw Zane. ‘Now that I think about it, this was kinda how she always was. It’s definitely less forceful than before. Did the girls help give her advice?’ I let out a scoff from the idea, causing Dark Magician Girl to appear beside Blair. She had a frown while placing her arm around Blair, getting both of our attention. “What kind of cards are you trying to get me to work with…” She asked warily, making sure to protect Blair at any moment.

I nodded, silently kicking myself about my small attention span. “Right.” I said to her before turning my gaze to Blair. “Can I see all the cards she gave you?” Blair smiled happily while handing me Dark Magician Girl’s card, along with two other versions of herself. A few spell cards, and one trap card. I placed my hand over my mouth as I pondered under my breath. “Hmm… I think we should focus on spellcaster monsters… Considering this one protects only that kind… What kind of spellcaster decks do I know…?”

I finished my thoughts with a slight bitter feeling. I knew of one kind of deck that had spellcasters, linked with spell cards to play alongside them. It was a deck that made use of plentiful effects that only worked if you had the right monsters with the right spells. Something that I couldn’t do with my horrid luck. I had tried it when someone switched our decks to prove how bad I was at Dueling. I had seen how well it worked against me multiple times, but for me it was like holding a handful of bricks.

I shook away my thoughts with a sigh, and looked back down at Blair. I saw her large innocent eyes staring at me with anticipation and trust. I glanced at Dark Magician Girl’s questioning, and worrisome gaze in contrast, before taking out my PDA for the deck builder function. This was the app that most spent hours on, happily dreaming about making their perfect decks with ultra rare cards, including one that Blair had join her right now.

I added the cards Dark Magician Girl gave Blair in the artificial deck, before lowering it so Blair could watch me work. She happily leaned further into me while watching my search for good cards. “I think they had ‘Prophecy’ in their names, but I don’t want to use that prick’s deck as a template…” I mumbled unconsciously while gazing through the monsters. Blair looked at me in a surprisingly worried gaze, letting me know the slip up I made.

I shook my head while patting her head to calm her down the best I could. It wasn’t something I wanted to dredge up, and not anything for her to feel bad about anyway. “Don’t worry, this will be your own deck. I’m just going to give you a very basic deck that you can add on or take away from.”

“But I don’t want to use cards that remind you of something bad…” She whimpered, her head lowered in sadness. I sighed as I lowered my own head to meet her downtrodden gaze. I got a little annoyed that she would take my own slight irritation so seriously. “Look, plenty of people use the same cards for different decks… I don’t like that prick’s deck because of what he did with it. That doesn’t mean that a few cards that he may have used, can’t be used in a better deck that you use instead… Stop caring so much about being completely unique, and focus on the uniqueness of something we create… together.”

By the time I was done, I spoke in a whisper, too embarrassed to say that last part with a straight face. I scowled at Blair’s staring, her mouth ever so slightly agape. “Stop spacing out! Are we gonna make a deck or not!” I yelled extra loudly, trying to move my thoughts, and this conversation along. Blair smiled, placing herself on my lap. “Of course! Please show me what cards you were thinking.” She giggled while resting her head in the crook of my neck, clearly enjoying the spot she took.

I sighed as I glanced at the complicated expression Dark Magician Girl had watching. She remained silent as she took the spot where Blair sat just before, clearly wanting to see the ideas I had in mind. “Alright…” I said, moving my arms around Blair to keep her steady, and not fall as I focused on my PDA. “Spellcaster type monsters don’t have many fusions, I don’t have any in mind, so until you find one you like, Polymerization is out… The other normal spell and trap cards are standard, Mirror Force, Pot of Greed, Mystical Space Typhoon, and the like…” I paused after I was done with the bare bones of spells and traps, thinking of what to add on next.

“There are a few paths of Spellcasters you could go. Let’s find one that you like, and have the whole deck play around that.” I said Blair, causing her to jump and let out a squeak from embarrassment. “Right! Sure!” She yelled in her shame, trying to help avoid the clear excitement she had for me speaking into her ear. I forgot I spoke under my breath when I think, accidentally tickling her eardrums while her ear sat beside my mouth.

After a while, Blair finally pointed at the couple of cards she liked. I was a bit confused and stunned at her choice. “Why this one?” I was surprised that she picked this in particular, especially since Dark Magician Girl hated Zorc. Blair shrugged with a smile as she looked back up at me. “I just feel… That both of these remind me of you.” I frowned while inspecting the images of both the cards she was talking about. ‘They seem different, but if combined…’ “Are you sure they don’t remind you of Zorc?” I asked while pointing specifically at the devilish spellcaster, rather than the emperor beside him.

Blair giggled a little, and Dark Magician Girl frowned as she stared at the cards she might have to work with in the future. “Maybe a little… But I still think that I saw Zorc before… When you were talking about your past decks, I saw his hand comforting you. Even if he is scary, he’s still nice. Kinda like you.” I frowned from her phrasing me up as a scary looking, but nice person. I sighed while pointing her head back down at the PDA. “I didn’t need to hear all that… Fine, we’ll add these cards if Dark Magician Girl says so.”

Both of us looked at Dark Magician Girl. I could tell Dark Magician Girl wasn’t excited about working with something that reminded her of her mortal enemy, but one look at Blair’s pleading expression steered her decision. “Alright…” She huffed, crossing her arms. “At least it isn’t Zorc himself…” She mumbled as Blair gave her a hug. “Thank you! I’m sure that everything will be perfect if we work together on Rakki and I’s deck!” Dark Magician Girl and I shared a look while Blair was happily celebrating the birth of her new deck. She gave me a look of resignation of my help with the deck.

Earlier I noticed that Dark Magician Girl sent daggers at me when I was getting started, clearly imagining me sabotaging Blair’s deck to make sure Zorc could roam free. However seeing me let Blair steer just as much with the first direction of her monsters gave me some credit. She was still obviously going to keep an eye on me, but I could feel her hate-filled gaze lessening. Our gaze was broken apart from Blair moving back on my lap to continue the formation of her deck. “So, what kind of cards work well with these?” She asked while pointing at the ones that reminded her of me.

It was a bit tricky since she also had a card that had nothing to do with the archetype she was using. This was going to be a hybrid deck, something that gave me a grin. It had been so long since I spent hours enjoying making a deck from scratch. “We have Dark Magician Girl, Prophecy, and Silent Magician all together… What kind of mayhem can we bring to anybody that stands against you…?” I mumbled with a grin on my face. Subconsciously excited to see what kind of deck we could build together with these mish-mash of parts.