There comes a time in every man's life where he has to be utterly and completely fucked in the ass until he's weeping on the floor...

...in the Game of Kings. Yeah. Right. Not whatever Howard was thinking earlier. It's about the game. He had to get his head in the game. If declan walsh or any of the underbosses figured out that he was gambling with a beast, his ass would be sleeping at the bottom of a river.

He's playing Ancient Gears. That's pretty cool. Howard liked that deck's aesthetic a lot. Old machines were pretty fuckin' rad.

As he throws down Wyvern, Howard gave him a look. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick. "Thinking."

Flick. Flick. Flick.

After an agonizing moment, the deep gaze into each other's eyes is broken as Howard looks at his hand. Wyvern is a pretty bold opener, he probably has a ton of extenders in reserve. Your hand isn't that good by comparison, but you suspect that you can make it work.

"Gonna Ash that, sorry. Check out this little number." You slide a card across the table. It better do something, you sold a set of Grigori's shoes to afford a copy of it.

---

Shred

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck... Yeah, that resolves."

Well, that sucks! That sucks very hard. Your hand sadly retreats from your deck, and you're left to reckon with the consequences of that negation. You look down at your board, devoid of a normal summon, and with only a limp 1700 Attack monster to show for it. All it would take is a single Vorse Raider to run it over, and you know for a fact that Howard has worse than that in his deck.

If the Ash Blossom didn't tell you that, then the fact that it was so shiny did. Seriously, there's not a single card in your collection that glimmers as brightly as that. Who knows how much he blew on that one card? Probably more than you spent on your entire deck.

But that's all the most reason you can't lose. You grit your teeth. Time to play defense.

"Polymerisation, fusing Wyvern from field and Golem from hand." You declare, swiftly dropping both the aforementioned cards into your graveyard, before reaching to your extra deck. "Making--"

ANCIENT GEAR HOWITZER

"--In defense mode. Activate his effect to burn you for 1000."

Yeah, this is rough. But, maybe it won't be so bad? After all, Howitzer is a pretty solid wall, what with being unaffected by other cards and all. Plus, he even gives you a big body when he dies! If you can just tank his next turn, then you might be able to scrape this back. Sure, you're minus three, but that's not an unwinnable position. You can do this. you CAN do this.

"Aaaaaaaand... Pass turn."

---

howard slayte

There comes a time in every man's life where he has to help comfort a friend that's had sexual intercourse performed on their rectum by another friend...

... in the Game of Kings. That was surprisingly charged-- what the fuck was going on in their minds? That went against all the Sexual Harrassment classes they've ever done.

"Mr. Shred, if I may," Grigori stepped away from his spot at the side of the table. The soft thuds of his shoeless feet carried him around and to the side of the Beast. He squatted down and took the cards from his one, solitary hand. And then, he held them in front of the beast at perfect viewing distance.

"Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you," he said. It was too sad to watch him both hold the cards and then set them down to search his deck and then have to pick them up again and then put them down to fuse and--

He flexed his toes in his neon green socks (the bubblegum pink ones were out of stock). He hoped Howard absolutely demolishing Shred in this simple game of cards was worth the comfortability of his feet.

---

howard slayte Shred

Howitzer, huh? Pretty whatever move. It likely meant that Shred was running out of resources already, given that he had trashed three cards in one turn with little to show for it. Therefore, the only reasonable conclusion was that his hand was completely and utterly terrible.

Dogshit. Trash. An utter brickfest. Arceus's divine punishment for playing a deck that hadn't gotten support since Kanto had been turned into a glass crater.

Flick. Flick. Howard should've activated Havnis in response to the Howitzer effect, but he hadn't actually read any of these cards before this duel. Truth be told, he had stolen this deck from Amor Rose and upgraded it with a few choice cards. As he drew, he found one of them.

"Hm." His eye flicked to Grigori, then to Shred, then to the card in his hand.

Nice.

"Damn, this sucks." His hand was good, but he had forgotten to activate Kelbek or Havnis during Shred's turn. This was going to fuck him in the ass during the long run if he didn't get his shit together. "Pass."

When Shred made a play next turn, oh boy would you make him cry.

---

Shred Grigori Sokolov

YES! He fuckin' whiffed his draw! Alright, c'mon, your turn, no whammies, no whammies, no whammies...!

Fuck's SAKE. An audible sigh escapes your lips as you stare at the stone cold brick in your hand. Then, with a slight shake of your head, you slip it into Grigori's fingers. As unhappy as you are, you can't really complain, can you? He faded a draw, you faded a draw. At the end of the day, your life points are 8000 and his are 7000, and that? That means you're winning.

Best not to get cocky, though. Better to stay defensive and reserve resources until you can end it in one turn, rather than going all out and getting blown out.

"Okay. Activate Howitzer, burn for 1000... Pass."

---

howard slayte

"Hold on." Howard held up a finger as he continued his hideous symphony of card tapping, flicking, and murmured 'thinking'. After a moment, Howard plucked a card from his hand and slid it across the table. "Havnis?"

This deck was apparently pretty strong from what Howard had heard. He'd rather be playing Fossils or Chronomaly or his old TeleDAD deck, but Shred was a worthy opponent. He deserved a strong opponent, and Howard wasn't going to lose a bet to a guy who couldn't even hold his cards.

"I'm gonna mill three. Check this shit out..."

Mediocre.

"Fuck's sake. Okay..." Howard's mouth became a thin line. "When Merrli fucks off, I can use it to Fusion Summon. I don't even need Polymerization. Pretty cool, right?"

The Tearlament on the field and in the grave shuffled themselves into the deck as a new monster emerged.

"Alright, now I'll use its effect to do this... Several minutes later, Howard's turn finally began. Rather than use his added Reinoheart, he elected to rush into battle. "Attacking Howitzer with Kitkallos."

---

Shred

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand shit.

As the Havnis hits the field and the Merrli hits the graveyard, the tables begin to turn. In the midst of wrestling for supremacy, you've somehow ended up on bottom, and now he's the one on top. Sure, you might have the life point lead, but even with milling those cards, he's still got way more of them than you. If you don't think of something quick, then YOU'RE the one whose going to get fucked in the ass here!

"Yeah, yeah..." You grumble, begrudgingly sliding your Ancient Gear Howitzer from the battlefield to the graveyard. Luckily, you've still got a trick up your sleeve here. "But when you destroy Howitzer by battle, I get to search my deck and summon an Ancient Gear guy!"

And so, with some generous help from Grigori Sokolov , you sort through your deck, searching for your special surprise. Seriously, Howard is going to shit a brick when you drop a 3000 Attack Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon on his stupid what--

--the hell is this guy? You don't remember putting him in your deck. You can't even read it, save for the numbers at the bottom. Though, now that you're looking at them, they do look mighty tempting... But he does look a bit like an Ancient Gear Golem, and you can't summon those. What to do, what to do...?

"Hey, Howard, you know a bunch of languages, right?" You ask, taking the strange foreign card and tossing it over to Howard's side of the board. "What does this guy do?"

---

howard slayte