ROUND THREE

Max turned his goggles on. As they came into focus, he saw Catalina standing in a field with clear skies overhead. Max could smell lilacs in the wind, the sunshine was warm on his face, and he could taste the salt from the ocean air as waves crashed in the distance. It was a welcome break after the long Minnesota winter, but he knew the relaxed feeling wasn’t going to last.

They had already cast knucklebones to determine who would go first. Catalina won, and she planned to take full advantage of her opening move. Max barely had time to blink before she released a kite that looked like a dragon. It rose into the sky and bounced in the wind as she held the strings in her hand.

Catalina cast her knucklebones. Once they settled, the artificial dragon opened its mouth to reveal a length of metal tubing. It roared, and a ball of fire erupted from the tubing to fly at Max.

He didn’t have much time to react. Quick as he could, Max scanned his cards. He tossed one into the air, and, with a pop, it turned into a doorway. Max could feel the heat of the fireball as it raged toward him. He shook his knucklebones, hoping to block the dragon.

Max smiled after a great roll. The door opened in time to let the fireball pass through. It slammed shut before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

“Sorry,” Max said.

“I bet you are.”

For his opening attack, Max summoned a Templar THOR unit. Ten men dressed in camouflaged body armor appeared in the middle of the field. They were almost invisible as they crept toward Catalina with weapons drawn.

She rolled her eyes, as though to say his play was either obvious or weak. Her contempt angered Max, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he watched as she made, at least from his vantage point, a bizarre play. Catalina had countered with an Inferno imp.

It was a tiny creature covered in a red hide, with leathery wings and a hawkish nose. The imp looked sad, if that were possible. Max cast his knucklebones. It wasn’t a very good roll, but it was enough to eliminate the imp.

As the THOR agents closed in, Catalina bit her lower lip. Then she released her knucklebones. Double sixes! She may have lost her imp for the duration of the duel, but the perfect roll meant that she’d eliminated Max’s THOR unit as well.

Max watched as the imp’s skin erupted in flames. The THOR commander called for a retreat, but it was too late. The Inferno imp exploded. The force from the blast spread through the field, enveloping the THOR agents. In a flash of light, they all disappeared.

Part of Max’s strategy was to get an early lead, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Apparently, Catalina had the same thought. She didn’t waste time before she sent a massive man with the head of a boar charging after Max.

According to legend, the giant’s name was Jimmy Squarefoot, and he smelled as terrible as he looked. Saliva dripped from curved tusks that sprouted from his jaw, his oddly shaped feet were wrapped in calico bands, and his tiny eyes were filled with rage.

Max countered with Water Leapers. As he threw his card into play, there was a pop. The air became thick with winged frogs that had tails with stingers instead of hind feet. They swarmed over Jimmy, who tried to swat at them with his long arms. There were too many, though. Leapers lashed out with their tails while others sank hooked fangs into his flesh. Jimmy fell and then disappeared.

Max sent the Water Leapers after Catalina. Her eyes grew wide as the hideous flying frogs closed in. She reached to play a card, but it slipped out of her hand. She fell to her knees, her hands reaching blindly for the card.

The first frog was about to strike when she threw her card into play. It was a spriggan. After a flash of light, the tiny creature simply sat on its haunches, licking its front paw. “Do something!” Catalina shouted.

The spriggan looked at her, as though agitated. Then it turned to see a Water Leaper bearing down at them. Before the Leaper had a chance to sting it, the spriggan morphed into an undead horse called a Kelpie.

Its nostrils flared; then it opened its mouth to swallow the Water Leaper whole. The other winged frogs tried to flee, but the hungry Kelpie was too quick. It ate at least a dozen before the others disappeared.

The game went back and forth. Max would take the lead, but Catalina would storm right back and tie the game. For one move, she used a plasma tank to obliterate one of the watchtowers Max had built. He destroyed her tank with a catapult, but Catalina tied the game with a flying warship called Winged Victory.

Max had been hoping to save the card, but he decided to put a squadron of griffins into play. Some of the griffins tore at the warship’s sails, while others swooped down to pluck members of the crew from their stations.

Catalina watched helplessly as Winged Victory fell from the sky. The warship rammed into the earth, shaking the ground and sending dirt into the air.

Once everything settled, Winged Victory was little more than a massive pile of scrap. The wreckage shimmered before disappearing back into Catalina’s card.

“This is your ten-minute warning,” Dr. Thistlebrow’s voice boomed.

Though he was starting to feel desperate, Max could hear Hale’s voice telling him to control his emotions. That was easier said than done. The game was tied, and even if he scored on this turn, with the way things were going, he wasn’t sure that it was going to be enough.

Max tossed a card into the air. It turned into a dozen iron spheres the size of basketballs. Griffins pinned their wings against their bodies before diving for the plasma bombs. They caught the bombs in their talons and then snapped their wings to fly toward Catalina.

The griffins released them as Catalina put a two-headed giant that wielded an oak tree as a club into play. Its left head shouted at the griffins as the right head spit on the ground, leaving enough saliva to fill a swimming pool.

The giant raised its club and swung. It knocked the first bomb over a line of trees and into the ocean, where it exploded with a splash, but there were too many griffins with too many plasma bombs. The giant tried to bat them away, but he couldn’t. Plasma bombs erupted, forming craters in the ground. Moments later the giant was eliminated, and Max had scored another point.

With time winding down, Max wasn’t sure if he was going to get another opportunity to go on the offensive. He needed to keep Catalina from scoring, or the game was going to end in a tie. If that happened, the duel would go into sudden death.

Max watched as Catalina studied her cards. There was no room for mistakes, and she knew it. She started to pull one but put it back into her deck. Then she reached for another but thought better of it. Finally, she tossed a card into play. The air shimmered before a wingless dragon stood on the scorched earth where the Inferno imp had combusted.

“Have you ever seen a Sonoran Whiptail?” she asked.

Max shook his head.

“They get two attacks per turn,” Catalina said. “I just thought you should know.”

Max didn’t need to be a math wizard to understand why Catalina was acting smug. If she broke through and scored with both attacks, she was going to win.

The best defensive card he had left was the Blight Spider, but after Dr. Thistlebrow’s warning, Max wasn’t in a hurry to put it into play. But his Stone Golem was too slow, and the Fireball Pixie swarm wouldn’t hold up. Max looked at the clock. There was a little over three minutes left. His hands were sweating.

“I’m counting on you,” he said. He tossed the Blight Spider into play. The air shimmered and the Blight Spider appeared, but the bizarre creature just yawned as the wind blew through its spiny coat.

Catalina looked confident as her dragon charged, its claws ripping at the dirt. Max watched, horrified, as the Blight Spider’s body started to stretch before tearing in two. Light flashed. Now, instead of one Blight Spider, there were two. Both repeated the process, as did the next batch, until there were sixteen bristling Blights spread across the field.

Before the dragon could reach Max, one of the Blight Spiders opened its mouth, releasing a sticky white substance that looked like spiderweb silk. It latched around the Whiptail’s front leg just as a second Blight Spider spit a web of its own. Soon all sixteen Blights had vomited streams of webbing until the dragon was caught in a network of sticky goop.

The Whiptail fell, and, as the dragon tossed its head from side to side, the ground shook. The webbing stretched, but it didn’t break until Max and Catalina collected their knucklebones for the second attack.

Finally free, the dragon stamped its feet and slashed its tail, but the Blight Spiders didn’t budge. Catalina looked over at the clock. There was less than a minute. The dragon threw its head back and roared before leaping at Max with jaws spread wide.

Max was certain that the Whiptail was going to swallow him whole. He could see down the dragon’s throat as it rose over him. Its breath was hot, and its teeth were deadly. Then, at the last possible moment, one of the Blight Spiders shot webbing that latched around the dragon’s snout. The webbing looped under its jaw, cinching its mouth shut. The other Blights joined in the attack. Moments later the dragon was lying on the ground in a cocoon.

Catalina threw her remaining cards on the table. She ripped off her Kinematic goggles, knocked her chair down, and then stormed out the door.

“Congratulations, Mr. Sumner,” Dr. Thistlebrow said. “You’ve made the team.”

As Max took off his goggles, he could hear everyone in the room cheering.

“Welcome to the big leagues, Sumner,” Hale said as she threw her arm around his shoulder. Considering the tension between the Grey Griffins and the changelings, it was quite a gesture.

“Thanks,” Max said. He was scanning the room, trying to determine who else had made the team. It wasn’t difficult to spot them. Ms. Merical had given each a sash to wear for the rest of the day.

Predictably, Xander was wearing one. So was Hale, along with four other eighth graders. That’s when he saw Ernie with an enormous smile plastered across his face. More important, he was wearing one of the sashes.

“You made it?” Max asked.

Ernie nodded.

Despite the distance that had grown between them, Max wanted to high-five him, or shake his hand, or something, but Ms. Merical stepped between them.

“I can’t wait to call your grandmother,” she said as she slipped the sash over Max’s head.