Breaking the Gods

chapter 1

Three Weeks Earlier

"No, no, no!" The shout echoed through all of Brooklyn House.

It was Saturday morning, but late in the morning, so most of the magicians in training were awake. Kids and teens lounged around, on the sofa, in the library, in whatever favorite nooks and acloves they'd claimed since beginning their magical education, eating cereal, or eggs, or oatmeal, reading, watching cartoons, practicing magic, or playing a little basketball . . . or in the case of one young penguin-loving magician, and one possessed demigod, playing Mythomagic.

"You're cheating!" shouted Felix. "You have to be cheating! There is no way you could have beaten me fifteen times in a row!"

"There's this thing called 'skill,'" Nico told him calmly. "You're lacking in it."

"I have skill!" said Felix. "And I put together this deck specifically to kill your death god deck. There is no way it could have lost fifteen times in a row!"

"You lost because you slapped together a deck full of any god or creatures with undead resistance or undead killer stats on them, regardless of what kind of energy cards you needed to power them with," Nico tried to explain to the younger boy. "If you don't have the right energy cards to attack me, then your undead killer means nothing."

"But I've still got the undead resistance! That halves your attacks," protested Felix. "You shouldn't be able to win against that!"

"Except my deck is full of dark energy cards, so I'm constantly drawing them, and using them, and constantly attacking. Even with my attacks halved it's still more effective than not being able to attack because I can never draw the right kind of energy for my gods." Nico wished that Felix would get a better grasp of strategy, so that beating him might actually become a bit of a challenge, but good Mythomagic partners were hard to find.

Felix made glared and looked like he wanted to say something against that reasoning, but couldn't think of any counterpoints.

"I could help you put together a sound deck, if you want," offered Nico. "You've got plenty of good cards, and if you put them together right, you could give me a run for my money."

"How do I know you wouldn't just sabotage my deck so you could win even more?" asked Felix.

Nico smirked. "Do you really think I need to?"

Felix pouted and began gathering up his cards. Nico started gathering his own and packing them away.

"Why don't you let me put together a deck for you, then let's go to the card shop this afternoon and see if there's anyone up for a game?" suggested Nico. "You can test it out there."

"You'll take me?" asked Felix, his eyes lighting up.

"Sure. It'll be fun," said Nico.

"Okay, then!" Felix pushed his deck across the table to Nico, then bent down and picked up his box of spare cards off the floor. Then he watched as Nico began pouring over them, planning out a new strategy for him.

"What's going on in here?" asked Sadie, striding into the room where they were playing. "Nico beat you again, Felix?"

"Yes, but now he's helping me come up with a better deck, which I'm going to take and shove down his throat, so nyah." Felix stuck out his tongue at both of them.

"The deck's only half the battle," Nico warned him. "It takes more than a fast car to win a race."

"You better not sabotage my deck then use that as an excuse for why I don't win," said Felix.

"I wouldn't do that," said Nico. "I don't need to."

Felix stuck his tongue out at Nico again then hopped off his chair. "I'm hungry? Is it lunch yet?"