Metallic Cross

Everyone looked at each other, "a game?", replied Blake, "yes, a game,", continued the white-haired boy, "and what would playing a game accomplish?", Blake asked intrigued. "And here I thought you could piece it together yourself, seeing as though you had the makings of a leader", he sighed and continued, "It will show us the true leader, call it a test of organization and skill". "But why not just leave it at voting?", stated Blake, "hmph, that isn't practical, just talking isn't enough, you need to show us what you can really do, then we'll trust you", answered the white-haired boy. "You think they play games to prove a point in a presidential election, no they don't, and I treat it as such", stated Blake firmly gripping his spectacles, the white-haired boy's eyes grew cold as he said, "have you not seen it, the weak fools in the other room died because of their imperfection, this has nothing to do with a presidential election. We're you not listening at the beginning when the monitor said to prove our strength, this is a series of death games, not fun games". His eyes returned to normal as he slumped back in his chair, "be my guest and don't play, I don't think you're worthy of the title if you can't win a simple game, which could've easily been a death game. But you can all play if you're not a coward of course". The white-haired boy grew silent once again. Everyone looked at each other once again, but no one stepped forward, what felt like an eternity was actually seconds. Someone finally stepped forward, it was Kayla, "now yall will have to accept me as leader", "count me in too, I'm gonna get all you ladies", cut in Johnny. Soon enough everyone stepped forward, including Juliana, "I don't really want to become leader, but if I do I'll find as much as I can about this train", she thought, she looked around at Zanthiel who was just sitting there flicking his coin, "so are you playing or what?", asked Juliana. He stopped flicking his coin then looked at her he did for a few seconds then went back to flicking her coin, "I try and be nice to this dork for less than a second and he doesn't pay me any attention, the nerve!". "Yeah right, me play a game of wits and skill, pfft I've had none of that, and never will", Juliana stood up then said, "so what are you going to sit down forever and degrade yourself, I know what your thinking, but the point isn't to win it's to have fun, just think that you could win, doesn't that prospect excite most people". "You mean she cares about me... maybe I'll do it cause she believes in me". As he was saying this a rather concerning smile spread across his face, "and just so you know I don't care about you or anything, I was just intrigued as of to why you just blatantly do nothing", said Juliana cursorily. "I'll do it on one condition", Juliana looked at him blankly, "you play my games for me?", he said with a devious smile, "what are you braindead, disabled, if you're not one of these things, you can do it yourself", "please", "shut your mouth!". "You have to pay me back remember", said Zanthiel reminding her, they had a little squabble, "was the coin not enough!", "giving me back something I own isn't paying me back", pouting Juliana said "fair point", "I might help, 'might''. Nodding in agreement, Zanthiel stood up. Blake watched as everyone gathered around the white-haired boy "why did Johnny go, the plan failed but...no I shouldn't take his chance away even though he's too in over his head to understand whatever game that white-haired brat will make us play, I can still claim what's mine, I should join the game", he walked over as well.

"So what are we playing?", asked Blake, "Metallic Cross, a game that most of us have played, but if you haven't I will explain, let's get the basics out of the way first. There are four starter cards in each deck, tin, copper, bronze, silver, and gold, of course, it goes by which is more valuable. bronze beats copper, silver beats copper and bronze, and gold beats copper, bronze, silver, and tin, so of course, it's not good to have tin if any at all. But that's where the fusion mechanic comes into play, tin and copper makes bronze, silver and gold makes electrum, and so on and so forth, so gold can be beaten if you use what I just told you,". everyone in the room rejoiced as they thought he was going to make them play some crazy game, "a game of wits that I've played before, just my style", said Blake confidently. the white-haired boys eyes grew cold once again, "don't get ahead of yourselves, the cards are dealt at random, and you only have three fuse bars you can use per match, in one game the ideal set is four, but since you will want to play as much as you can you will be given a set of twelve random cards", "so how are we going to decide who wins?", asked Juliana, "the one that gets the most cards, we'll use that ream of paper to tally the amount of cards", he pointed to paper on the table. He looked around the room and then said, "when you win a game you'll put one line next to your name, and tally it up after each win", he looked around with a suspicious eye then said, "we need an overseer, someone could bend the rules", the blonde pig-tailed girl stuck her hand up high and started jumping so everyone could see her, "Leave it to me!", she shouted. With everything being settled and everyone in agreement, one by one like a procession they wrote their names down on the sheet of paper, it was like a long caterpillar of people eating the same leaf. Shanice swiftly cut up strips of the paper using the ruler, and then made squares also using the ruler, Ray then took the squares and drawer metals on each of them, but despite that, they were still going as they had to have twelve sets of cards for fifty people. So after everyone was given their instructions they sat and chilled for quite a while until miraculously and sweating, they finished, "h-how did I do Doctor Shanice?, asked Ray, "better than I could ever do!", replied Shanice huffing and puffing like a vacuum. Without a second to spare the white-haired boy arose and said, "well let's begin".