Fight, Challenge, or Surrender?

Jayr POV - Earth, New York City - 2022

As soon as I realize that on the other side of the door together with Hughie there is the other Champion, my elusive opponent in this Random Battle, I ignore the TV, and instantly raise my guard, focusing all my senses and awareness on her.

I yell, "Coming!" get up from the couch and start to calmly walk toward the entrance door, at the same time, I analyze the female Champion as much as possible trying to grasp more information about her possible abilities and her intentions, 'From what I can sense, she is quite slim but despite that sensing how careful she is with her moves she for sure has enhanced strength and speed, way above those of a regular human but not at a level that it can be threatening as I'll put her around a regular Supe level of power, and below Homelander, and from the way her body slightly twiched when I stood up, I'll say she also has enhanced senses, but more important, all this shows that she isn't a trained fighter as she is still very clumsy with her body.'

I'm almost in front of the door, and start to notice some more details, 'More importantly, she doesn't release any killing intent, sure, all this could easily be a rouse to make me lower my guard, but her heartbeat clearly doesn't lie as she is clearly nervous... nervous but not afraid, it also seems that she has some confidence that she won't die, now the question is, that confidence comes from the fact that she observed me in action as I helped the people in these weeks and is sure of my character, or because she has a hidden ace that will ensure her safety?'

Finally, I'm standing in front of the entrance door, and without any hesitation, I open it and greet them with a calm smile, "Good morning, Hughie and fellow Champion, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

At the same time, I look at the girl standing next to the nervous Hughie, she is a young woman obviously my age, she is short, about 1,58 meters tall, with wavy auburn or dark brown hair, bright light-colored blue eyes, and full lips, she wears relaxed yet somewhat gothic clothing that compliments her full, curvy figure, and the more I look at her, the more familiar she seems, like I have seen her somewhere before.

Anyway, a more important detail is that in my eyes her soul is a light blue color, indicating that she is, in fact, a good person, and that almost makes me click my tongue in annoyance, 'Cazzo! I hoped she was an evil bitch with a pitch-black soul! Everything would have been a hell lot easier, simply kill her, and bam! I can go back home to the girls.'

While thinking that, Hughie awkwardly replies, "Y-Yeah, good morning Jayr. I don't really know what is going on, I was just about to go to the Crateris Global when this girl greeted me, after that I... I don't really know what happened, but the next thing I know is that I'm standing in front of your door with her beside me..."

Hearing that, I narrow my eyes a little while thinking, 'Some kind of mind control or hypnosis power, huh? Luckily, Hughie is under the contract's protection like all the people working at Crateris Global making it impossible to extract any information from anyone, so even if she tried to take them out of his mind, or asked some simple question, or tried to compel him in revealing some secrets, she won't be able to do it.'

At the same time, the young woman introduces herself, "Hello, my name is Nikita Mikaelson, the Champion of Gravity, nice to meet you."

Hearing that, I nod and realizing her identity I mutter, "Mikaelson, huh..." then I ask, "So that's why you feel so different from a human, you are some kind of Vampire hybrid... but is it fine to reveal something like that so openly?"

At the same time, a scared Hughie exclaims, "A V-Vampire!?" but I ignore him and go through all the information I remember about the Vampires of The Vampire Diares Universe and as I look at the more nervous woman in front of me who seems to have recognized her mistake, I comment, "That wasn't a bad choice, it gave you a balanced set of abilities, a good fundation, and a pretty strong form of immortality, because if I remember well, the only way to kill your type of Vampire is to use a weapon made of a special kind of oak tree that can only be found in your universe..." while at the same time thinking, 'Well, that or simply obliterating her body so that nothing that can be regenerated remains or destroying her soul.'

I quickly realize my own mistake, and so, I introduce myself in the same way to calm her down, "Sorry, I was rude. As you know, my name is Jayr Pucci, and I'm the Champion of Culture, nice to meet you too. Do you want to come inside?"

As I ask this, I make way for her to walk into the apartment, then look at Hughie and say, "You can go, don't worry, everything is fine."

Meanwhile, Nikita simply nods and slowly walks inside in silence as she looks around with a curious expression on her face.

Meanwhile, as Hughie nods says goodbyes and goes away, I reply, "See you later." close the door and lead the Champion of Gravity into the kitchen where I offer her, "Do you want something to drink? Water, fruit juice, frozen coffee, blood?" but she shakes her head and as she sits on a chair near the table she replies, "Nothing, thanks."

A smirk forms on my face as I tease her "Don't worry, I won't poison you... Simply because no poison I currently have on me that could work on you..."

She understands that I'm joking and making an exaggerated sigh of relief she says, "Haa... I'm so glad to hear that, it isn't like the Omniverse is full of charming evil manipulators who would put on the facade of a kind and noble hero just to screw over a beautiful innocent young girl like me... You know the likes Griffith, Aizen, Shou Tucker, Dr. Bumby, Scott Shelby... and the list goes on and on..."

Hearing that, a smile form on my face as I mutter out loud, "Damn it! Why it didn't go according to my keikaku...?" but then I sit on the chair in front of her and cutting to the chase, I turn serious I ask, "So... how do you wanna do this? Fight, challenge, or surrender?"

The smile on Nikita's face also fades away as she seriously explains, "To tell you the truth, I don't really care about winning this Battle Across the Omniverse and becoming some kind of almighty God ruling over her own Omniverse. I just want to enjoy this second chance at life that I had as much as possible something I couldn't do in my brief previous life, I want to travel to the worlds I could only dream of, meeting the heroes that accompanied me through the darker times in my previous life, spending some time with my new family, fall in love, have a family of my own... all things I can't do anymore if I die or lose Gravity's blessing."

She lowers her gaze and looks at the pendant wound around her neck as she unconsciously plays with it using her hand and continues, "That's why at the start of this Random Battle my plan was simply to hide away from my opponent and if possible find some information on him or her without being found out, and if it was a somewhat decent person try to ally with him or her, and if he or she was a total deranged individual continue to hide until the 1-year time limit pass and move on to another universe."

Then she looks right into my eyes and continues to explain, "Then the day after I came here, your image appeared all over the place, and I instantly recognized you as a fellow Champion, not only that but the way you expressed yourself and the apparent hints you consciously left behind also made it clear for me what your goal was... You wanted to be recognized, you basically painted a big red target on your back and also made it particularly easy to find you and follow your movement, all this to drive out another Champion from his or her hideout as fast as possible."

After that, she declares with a tone that leaves behind no doubt about the confidence she has behind her reasoning, "For some reason you are in a hurry to finish this Random Battle as fast as possible, maybe because some family member or girlfriend in your homeworld is in danger or ill but despite that, you still made sure to not harm anyone and even acted in such a way as to help as many people as possible. I'm scared to find out what you would do if this Random Battle takes to much time forcing you to take a more drastic action as I have seen how you almost effortlessly changed this world. But no matter the exact reason behind your actions, I'm sure that for you it is really important. But I don't want to simply lie down and give up because of that as my reasons are important to me too, and so I choose to fight... fight for what is important to me. That's why in the end I chose to come here and face you, because I was sure that with your character you wouldn't make the first move if I didn't make one against you. I came here to Challenge you!"

At the same time, she uttered those words, the rule of the world around us changed.

I sense a strong glowing barrier surrounding both me and Nikita, moreover, I'm also unable to urge my Spiral Cosmo or even move my body, but just as I'm about to panic, I hear Culture's voice as it declares, [A Champions Challenge has been issued. Right now all kinds of aggressive action are forbidden and both the Champions will be protected from all kinds of harm.]

Looking at the young woman on the other side of the table, I can't help but be impressed by her reasoning, she not only quickly understood what the intent behind my actions was, but she also somewhat theorized the motives behind them and also analyzed my character through my actions until now, and come up with a somewhat surefire way to further ensure her safety, as I didn't know that this is what happens when you challenge another Champion.

Then a wry smile forms on my face as I explain, "You were right in fearing what I would have done because if you didn't show yourself in a couple of months I was ready to teleport every living being I could sense to another habitable planet and blow up this one..."

I see her face quickly pailing at that thought, then I ask, "By the way, do you know how a Challenge does exactly work?"

She tries to shake her head but is unable to do so she simply replies nervously, "I don't know. This is my first time and I'm so nervous." making me comment, "Phrasing..." while dashing all the good impressions I had about her, 'I thought that she planned everything and that I fell into her trap, but she is playing by ear.'

But she ignores all this and adds, "In fact, I'm even more nervous now, especially as I now realize that I stand in front of a planet buster and that I was maybe too reckless in trusting my immortality too much. I'm relieved that the Challenge has an in-build protection protocol."

Before I could say anything else, a deep resonant voice is heard as it calmly explains, [A Challenge, or more precisely a Champions Challenge functions this way, a Champion issues a challenge to the opposing Champion, and declares the type of challenge and its rules, then if the challenged Champion thinks it is fair enough and accepts, then all Concepts will transfer the two Champions to the Challenge Space, a place outside the rules of time and space, then we will create everything needed for it. If, for example, it is a cooking contest we will create the kitchen, cooking wares, ingredients, and a fair judge, in a musical one, we will create the instrument and an audience, there are no limits you can compete in everything you think is possible, even something as simple as who can sleep the most or who can piss the furthest.]

At this point, Nikita asks, "Gravity! What if the challenged Champion refuses?"

Her patron Concept quickly replies with its deep voice, [If the challenged Champion deems that the task is too disadvantageous or unfair, he can refuse it, then the challenging Champion can offer another one, this can be done as much as the Champions derise and if they can't reach an agreement, then they can dismiss the Champions Challenge. In that case, both the Champions will be able to move and use their abilities once again, but the barrier protecting them won't fade until a day passes. Moreover, the Champions Challenge has a cool-down period of 1 year, where the two Champions can't challenge each other again.]

Hearing that, I realize, 'Oh, they truly think about this thoroughly, sure there are still a few loops in these rules that allow some form of exploitation, but they can be only used as a form of protection like two allied Champions find themselves in mortal danger because of a third one and so they start a Champions Challenge to take advantage of these barriers to protected themselves and maybe even escape using the 1 day of invulnerability, but even in that case it isn't absolute that they could survive, as the 3rd Champion could easily be strong enough to chase after them and deal with them after the 1 day of protection expires.'

Then I  sigh and looking at Nikita I ask, "So, did you already think about what kind of challenge you will issue?"

She smiles and replies, "My previous life was very brief, I was only a freshman in high school, I didn't have time to develop any particular skills, but I was good at something, it was games, in fact, I was great at them, I still am. And there is one particular game I was especially good at, a fairly popular trading card game..."

Hearing her say that, I already had an inkling of what she was hinting, and I actually hoped that, 'Even if more than 25 years passed since I touched that card game, I'm still quite familiar with it as I played it a lot when I was young and even when I was working at the hospital I still played casually when I had some free time at hand.'

At the same time, she declares, "I challenge you to a Yu-Gi-Oh Match using Duel Disk and Holograms like in the anime!" then she explains the rules, "It will be a best of three Match, each Duel we will have to use a different Deck with no ban list whatsoever, moreover, any use of powers, special abilities, senses, or even blessing will be forbidden, we will play as a normal harmless human being."

Hearing that, a frown forms on my face as I think about the issued challenge and any problem in her wording after all, I can't lose this, 'The challenge as is it is somewhat fine, but there is a huge problem, if there isn't some kind of limit to the card we can use to build the Deck she can easily build any kind of one-turn-kill Decks if there is one thing that's sure is that last time I played Yu-Gi-Oh became a complex game full of bullshit, you could easily start your turn with 5 cards in hand and after an infinite combo where you summoned more than half your Deck and drawn the other half, you end up with a board full of cards that will prevent your opponent from basically doing anything else... if he didn't die of old age beforehand.'

While thinking that, I quickly come up with a way to prevent that and say, "I want to change a few things, I'm fine with the no ban list rule but we can only build a deck using archetypes related to us, to our being, moreover, I also want to add the rule that one can't use the same cards for all the decks for example if you put Raigeki in one dack you can't use it for the other 2. And one last thing, I want a time limit for deck building, for building one deck you have a max time of 1 hour, for a total of 3."

Nikita thinks about it for a few seconds then a confident smile forms on her face as she says, "That's absolutely fine."

At the same time, both Culture and Gravity's voice is heard as they say, [[Challenge agreement reached. Champions Challenge beings!]]

Suddenly I find myself in an empty white space that almost reminds me of Ehit's realm and at the same time I feel a hell lot weaker losing my connection to my Spiral Cosmo as it gets sealed inside my body, and even my divinity got sealed, on the other side, I see Nikita's figure as she looks around in wonder.

Soon after that, four walls appear around me with a simple desk and an open laptop rising from the ground, the laptop is already turned on, and I can clearly see the same deck-building program I was used too.

As I'm studying the program from a distance, I hear Culture's voice as he says, [When you are ready, you can sit on the chair and start to build your decks, the timer will start as soon as you sit, and will appear on the right corner of the screen, moreover, you can test how the built decks work against the pre-programmed AI so that you can check if everything is going as you expected to work or you need to change something. Good luck, Jayr, I'm rooting for you. And kick her ass.]

Hearing that, I take a deep breath to calm down and mutter, "Here is it... I really hope I didn't screw myself with that change, as Nikita's smile was a little concerning... Wait... she is literally a witch... a spellcaster... and there are quite a few really dangerous archetypes of spellcasters! I truly hope that she is limited only to witches, vampires, and werewolves, and not the more board spellcasters, zombies, and beast-warriors, especially the first two as those are particularly nasty."

Then I sit on the chair and quickly start to check the list of cards I have available, "Okay, luckily my favorite archetype is present... these cards were expected, and I can understand the presence of these, and I even have the Egyptian Gods probably because of my divinity and these are the only "Divine" cards, well, not like I'll use these ones... But why the hell these cards are present!? Ah, wait! I understand they are connected to this other archetype...Oh, my Goddess!"

At this point, I'm looking at the image of a couple of legendary green spell cards with tears in my eyes and mutter, "The holy grail... the one and only Pot of Greed... the card with the shortest and most effective text of the game: Draw 2 cards. And let's not forget Graceful Charity, it's been so long since I last played these cards."

Giving a quick look at the list of the cards available to me, I more or less get the gist of how much I was able to limit my opponent's choice, and mutter, "It isn't as much as I hoped, but a lot better than expected... Now, let's build some decks. Let's start with the one I'm more familiar with."

Quickly I started to build the first deck, the one I used the most in my younger days, of course, I also tried to update it with some newer cards, checking how it flows, its draw power, the chances of getting a starting brick hand, the perfect deck size to give me as many options as possible while keeping the chances of a bad draw to the lowest, how it counters various strategies and how it gets countered, its versatility, adaptability, and reliability, in summary, I use the hour to the fullest to make sure that is as perfect as possible.

In the end, the first deck ends up being 45 cards big with a full extra deck of 15 cards, and as soon as I finalize my choice, a stack of cards materializes on the table.

I pick it up and control that everything is in order then with a satisfied smile I mutter, "I couldn't have made a better choice as my first deck!"

Then I once more focus on the laptop's screen and start to build my second deck, and start to scroll the card list to get an idea of what theme or archetype to focus my deck around next, and luckily the cards already used are then removed making it easier to peruse, until my gaze falls on a monster card, where I see a very familiar image, and with a smile I say, "Okay, this is it! This is the one."

Finding a target I focus on searching for the cards that can support this one and that take advantage of its strength the best, I hate to admit it, but this deck is quite a lot harder to build, especially since I don't have an internet connection here to check what cards work the best with what I'm currently building so I'm forced to quickly check one card at time, and discard the ones that are clearly useless or do not match.

After a hell lot of trial and error and quite a few trial duels where the AI completily trashed me, I was finally able to build a strong and consistent deck, with a few nasty tricks hidden in it, made of 40 cards in the regular deck and 15 in the extra deck, and so I finalize it making it materialize beside the first one.

Despite being quite satisfied with it, I still feel that this one is slightly weaker than my first one, and so after making sure that nothing is missing, I mutter, "Maybe it is better to use this one for the first duel..."

After that, I start to work on the third and last deck, but after 15 minutes, I'm still scrolling up and down the card list, unable to find something I can be comfortable with.

Just as I start to get agitated, my eyes land on a particular card, and reading its effects, I can't help but exclaim, "Sweet Goddess! This is so broken!"

But then I notice the requirement needed to pull out this card and see that they are quite steep and mutter, "This will need a lot of work to pull off, but if I'm able to pull it off it is basically a game-winner... Let's do this!"

With a plan in mind, I start to look at all the cards connected to this one, and they are quite a lot, after that, I slowly start to eliminate those that are more or less useless or not effective enough, I even get rid of those with good effects but that are way too situational.

I try it against the AI again, and again, and again, and fail many, many times, but slowly but surely, this deck gets more and more effective, until as the time I have is close to the end, I finally can consistently pull off the ace, and in those case where I'm unable to do so, the rest of the deck is still capable enough to still win.

In the end, this is my biggest deck yet, with a total of 50 cards in the main deck and 15 in the extra deck, but it is also the one that can run down the number of cards the fastest among all three of them.

I finalize the last deck, and soon it materializes next to the other two, but together with it, another object also materializes, it looks like the classical duel disk, but I instantly notice the lack of the "blade" that works as the field where the card can be played.

But just as I'm about to question that, Culture's voice explains, [Don't worry, this model will produce hard light holograms for not only the field where you'll play the cards but also for the monster you'll summon, these were made by yours only. Now equip it!]

I do not hesitate and equip the duel disk on my left arm, at the same time, I pick up the three decks and put them into the holster that appeared on my belt and say, "Let's do this!"

As soon as I'm ready, the walls surrounding me start to sink into the floor and I see on the other side, a confident Nikita waiting for me.