"I've only seen it before a few times in casinos I was haunting, so no... not really," Shupple answered as she started resetting the cards and moving them around again. I was somewhat surprised by this. I had learned to play speed back in the smeargle colony as a kid. Back then, the idea had been to finish everything as quickly as possible. However, this often led to drawing errors and things that, later in life, were better off left out as one spent more time perfecting the picture.
"I could teach you if you don't mind..." I finally answered gaining the strange want to play more and more. I had set my sketchbook aside and sat across from her. Suddenly the wind picked up and threw a card off the deck and out into the darkness. My eye trailed after the card before a voice turned my head back.
"Shadow Sneak," Shupple had whispered. If I hadn’t been listening so intently to the silence beforehand, I would have missed what she was saying all together. However, what occurred afterwords, even I was not entirely ready for. Shupple’s shadow extended and then moved off of her completely as it started walking on its own towards the card.
I watched as Shupple put two fingers on the ground like a little stick figure and made her stick figure move over to the card and pick it up. My eyes widened as the shadow itself preformed this task to complete perfection. The shadow flicked thecard over to Shupple, and she seized it from the air easily. As suddenly as it had come, the shadow rested back into place under Shupple. After a moment of staring at the place the shadow had fallen down, my eye moved back to Shupple. She had just finished putting the card she had retrieved back.
"If you don't mind me asking, what move did you just use?" I asked. It was an interesting attack, and a part of me wanted to use Sketch right then and there to learn how to manipulate the shadow in this way. However, I waited to learn its name first.
"Shadow Sneak. It's something new I just learned." Shupple answered after a moment. I worked this over in my mind and then looked towards where I had left my sketchbook. After another moment, I looked back and then continued the conversation. Too much time had elapsed, and I would not be able to perform Sketch at that moment without causing some sort of confusion along with it. So instead, I continued on as if nothing had happened.
"I guess I should teach you speed now, correct?" I smirked.
"Yes, I should think so." Shupple answered.
“Alright then,” I answered. “The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards first. You had two piles and you have to stack the cards in order going from the regular order of numbers and faces. You can chose to go ‘up’ in which if there was a seven per say, you could place an eight then nine then ten, or you can chose to go ‘down’ which means you could place a six then a five, four, and three on the same seven. The numbers though must go in order. Once you use up all your cards, you say speed. Sound easy enough?”
I gave a light smirk, and Shupple smirked back.
“I get it,” Shupple answered, and with that, I picked up the cards, shuffled, and then started placing them out in the correct places. As we started playing, I couldn’t help but smirk as she placed a few cards at a time. I moved exceptionally fast and began placing more and more cards almost at once on the piles. After a few more seconds, I was finished and put my hands down.
“Speed,” I said a loud, and with that, Shupple froze as if in shock and then looked up at me. After a moment, I realized that I had been too fast on a person new to the game. I let out a sigh and looked down. “Sorry,” I began. “I should not have gone so fast for your first time playing. How about another practice one?”
Shupple gave a nod and we began to play again.
"Uhm. Hi Shupple!” A light voice said. Shupple appeared to look up, but we continued our game.
“Out of cards. I win," I said aloud showing my hands to be empty once again.
Shupple leaned back and sighed. "Great game, Mear! You're a worthy opponent," she answered. I half-heartedly wanted to remind her that this was still only the second game, and yet after a moment, I noticed that there was other attention to be paid. A meowth Gijika seemed to be approaching.
"Hi." The meowth smiled a little. "I'm Nyarth!" he said aloud stretching out a hand. "You're new around the house, right?"
Deciding it was better to be curtious in this instant, I took Nyarth’s hand and gave it a light shake. "Name's Mear," I answered. "I built the house, actually... it was the least I could do for Lupe and Estelle noticing me earlier by the lake... I'm a Smeargle gijinka."
"Wow.... you're an artist, right?" Nyarth said as his voice rose with something like amazement. I blinked unsure of what exactly to say. Finally I decided to answer with the simplest.
Yeah...I am actually" I answered. An internal part of me tightened my fingers over my sketchbook not really ready to have another theft occur.
"D'you think... maybe another day soon.... you could show me your drawings? I'd love to look at them. You see, I like to draw too but I need to get better...it'd be awesome to have you as an artistic mentor!"
I blinked once again unsure of exactly how to react. This seemed….. I didn’t even know how to begin to explain what I was trying to.
"HEEEYYY!!!" Suddenly, some lone voice cried out in the night, a little ways off from the edges of the lamplight. Nyarth seemed to perk up and then turned and ran off almost as quickly as he had come. I looked back at Shupple who just looked down at the cards.
“So um…” I started.
“It’s fine,” Shupple answered. “I got the jist of the game now. Let’s see round two.”
With that, I dealt out the cards once again, and suddenly as the game started again, I realized that she was moving a lot faster than before. It was as though the first game was simply a trial, and this was the actual game. She placed cards with sharp fluid movements, and before I had finished half of my hand, she had finished her entire deck. Looking up almost in denial, I found that she was smirking. After a moment, I nodded back.
“It seems you have the hang of this game,” I said aloud.
“Indeed it appears so does it not?” Shupple answered back.
I gave a nod. “Best two out of three though,” I answered picking up the deck again and starting to shuffle the cards once again. As I set the cards up once again, we began the match again. It was a quick movement, and we both worked with extreme speed. However, at the last moment, I was forced with a queen that I could place nowhere on the piles. As my eyes moved to find a place to put the queen, a voice spoke up.
“Speed,” Shupple said aloud.
My eyes moved up, and I found that she had somewhat of a dark grin on her face.
“Looks like I win,” she nodded almost to herself.
At first this notion irritated me, but after a moment, I just nodded and half laughed. “Indeed you do,” I answered. “But sadly we weren’t playing for berries or anything.”
“Indeed… we should have bet something,” Shupple answered.
I gave a shrug and resumed my drawing once again as I had left it. After a moment, I closed my eyes and muttered sketch. With that, the move Shadow Sneak appeared written on my sketchbook. With that, I placed my hand on it and couldn’t help but smile.
Another gust of wind seemed to pick up and toss the cards that I had left in a stack on the ground. Shupple made a move to use her shadow again, but I stopped her.
“May I try something?” I asked.
Shupple seemed surprised but made no motion of protest. With that, I uttered the words Shadow Sneak. Just like that, my own shadow extended and started picking up the cards. After a moment, all the cards were stacked neatly again and my shadow returned to me.
“How did you….” Shupple started.
“I’m a mimicker,” I answered. “My move Sketch allows me to copy any move I see.” I gave a shrug. “And I liked the move you used, so I copied it.”
Shupple just seemed to stare at me.
LoL sorry this was short XD;;
