Trading card game come to life

Date: 3/5/2020

I had a dream where it was kind of like the Pokémon universe, except with actual trading cards instead of Pokemon. When I turned 16 it was time for me to begin my journey, and I jumped onto the bus which drove people from town to town for their card game exclusively. There were a bunch of older people on so I was nervous, but the first thing the conductor did was give the ‘daily card prize’ which I ended up winning out of pure luck, and which gave me some decent cards to start out with. Then we arrived at the city and I decided I needed somewhere to put my money (like twenty dollars and some change) and my new cards (I had two). I went into this back alleyway which was selling various stuff for your cards, some of the stuff was kinda shifty but then I spotted a bunch of purses through the window. As I was walking in I saw a girl my age ‘accidentally’ bumping into one of the ladies shopping, then sneakily taking a card from out of the lady’s purse while apologizing. I didnt bother telling the lady cause she looked shifty too, so I just went inside and started trying out purses. Some were too big, some too small, but eventually I found one that would work. I went to take it up to the counter and the lady working there slipped behind me and I had the feeling she pickpocketed me so I said, “give it back.” She arched a slit eyebrow and popped a bubble of gum and said, “wow, you’re no fun,” and slid one of my five dollar bills across the table. I still had a feeling that she wasn’t giving it all back so I kept my hand extended and raised my eyebrows, and said “all of it, please?” She smirked and slid the rest of my stuff across the counter, which I hastily stuffed into my back pocket, keeping a hand over it to make sure it wasn’t stolen by somebody else. The lady rung up my purse and that’s when I realized I didn’t have my change, so I said “do you really want those coins THAT badly?” She snickered and said, “yeah, I think so,” and I replied, “you know, it would be a shame if I were to report you for the harassment and bodily harm of one of your customers.” She narrowed her eyes at me as if saying “huh?” and in response I took the paperweight off of her desk and hit myself in the face with it, hard. My nose started bleeding and a cut appeared above my right eye. I could feel a bruise starting as well. The lady laughed and said, “alright, kid,” in what seemed like an approving tone and handed me the rest of my stuff (for real this time). I stuffed it into the purse, along with my other things, and went outside. But when I got there the girl from earlier (who had pickpocketed the woman) was trying to pick a fight with everyone who passed by. She pointed at me and said “you! Let’s battle!” I shrugged and said, “alright,” and people passing by stopped to watch as we got out our cards. I chose a card with a water elemental on it, which looked like a giant golem made of water, with glowing voids for eyes. It had decent health and could avoid almost any attack, to make up for it’s only average damage. The girl shouted “let’s go!” and threw out her card, thrusting it from her chest like she was going to frisbee it but holding on so that it was held extended from her face like some sort of sign. I did the same. Both cards glowed and hologram-like versions of the monsters leapt from the cards, life-size and colored, nearly realistic. From mine the water elemental twisted and dripped, every droplet being sucked back up into the loose form of a body, like shifting, constantly moving gravitational force. From the other girls card erupted what looked like a wolf with spiked black fur standing straight up, growling and bearing giant, gleaming teeth. Spit dripped from its jaws and it’s eyes were deep, shining yellow. Its lips were pulled back to show bloodred gums and a dark throat, and its tail was thick and long and lowered dangerously along with its ears, which were pressed flat against its head. It was huge, bigger than a direwolf, and jet black with shiny fur. Smoke drifted from between its lips as the girl shouted, “DaarkTail, spit a fireball and evaporate that bitch!” DaarkTail growled deep in its throat and spread its legs low, paws stretching out with claws into the pavement. I quickly checked my card and saw my water elemental was called ‘Orbei’ (pronounced ‘or-beh-ih’) and I scanned the moves. Then I shouted, “hey Orbei, dodge that fireball last minute and use the time to strangle DaarkTail!” Orbei emitted a low pitched call that sounded kind of like a whale, so I assumed that was a yes. DaarkTail’s mouth was red hot by now and smoking, and he fired off the fireball just as I finished yelling the orders. It was massive, like a meteor, flaming and smoking. It flew from DaarkTail’s mouth and sped towards Orbei, but Orbei simply moved his body apart- literally, the water split open to form a hole which the fireball just went though. There was no damage to my own card/monster/fighter. Then Orbei darted forward in a line of water, looking more like he was stretching his arm really long, the water flowing like a snake to quickly wrap around DaarkTail. The water spun faster and faster, swirling around DaarkTail and then tightening. Orbei no longer took on a form even similar to a human; it was just water, but ambient somehow. The wolf growled and yelped and squirmed, trying to wrestle the Orbei off of its back, but it couldn’t even touch the water; kind of like how a normal person can’t touch/fight a ghost. Then the other girl yelled, “quick, DaarkTail, use body flame to get that little shit off of you!” In response the wolf struggled to its feet and growled low in its throat again. Then, in a powerful looking stance, DaarkTail bared it’s teeth and made the spikes of hair on its back stand straight up. The spikes started to glow with heat and I saw my Orbei evaporating a little bit; then they started to burn and my Orbei started to really evaporate. On my card it’s health was shown rapidly decreasing. “Quick, get out of there!” I screamed to my Orbei, desperate. The Orbei obeyed and leapt off of DaarkTail, resuming its somewhat human form. I grit my teeth and yelled, just loud enough for Orbei to hear, “stay on defense for now until the time is right to strike; then I’ll let you know. But for now just dodge and evade, okay buddy?” I got the same whale-noise hums in response. Then I hear the girl shout, “DaarkTail, charge and headbutt that stupid drink, and finish him off with flaming tooth!” I watch tensely as the wolf charges at Orbei; Orbei dodges out of the way, quick as a cheetah, moving its mass to float out of the wolf’s reach. The wolf turns and charges again and I shout, “wait until it’s up to you, then dodge and use bubble attack from behind!” Orbei listens to me and waits until the wolf has almost reached it- then it forms an opening where the wolf would’ve charged, just like with the fireball, and spins around. Several blobs of water emerge from my Orbei, glowing and pulsing with dangerous blue light. My Orbei shoots them at DaarkTail before he has a chance to turn around and counter it. The bubbles go faster than bullets, and send the wolf flying. With no time to waste I shout over top of the other girl’s screams (“get up, DaarkTail, you can take this new bitch, you can’t lose to a bunch of water!”) and say, “quick, while he’s still down, use ice slash!” My Orbei slides quickly over to the wolf’s tired form, which is struggling to get back into a fighting position. Another, bigger piece of water emerges from Orbei and shimmers; then it solidifies into a wicked icicle sharp enough to cut yourself with. The icicle shoots straight through DaarkTail’s chest, and with one last yelp its out. It starts to fade away Infinity-War style, little specks disappearing back into the girls card. The girl spits in my direction and mutters softly to her DaarkWolf, which I know is now resting in her card. I go up to my Orbei and smile at it, and try to give it a hug but end up getting wet. I giggle and thank it for fighting; it just rumbles, but I can tell it’s pleased. One thing I know about these card-creature-things is that they love to fight, so I’m glad I could give one of mine a chance to. I put it back into my card and let it rest up, then get back onto the trainer-bus and travel to the lab, the beginning/starter place where everyone’s supposed to get their first (and main) card. I go up to the desk and the man there is super nice and explains it to me. Every person is different, and the machine they use analyzes everything from your personality to your appearance and chooses a custom card for you from there. Some people get super rare ones and some get common ones, but the card creature is unique to the person who owns it in terms of what abilities it could gain, its strength, it’s own appearance etc. I get really excited and nervous when he takes me up to the machine, and I go inside. It gives me a long survey that takes longer to do because I wanna make sure I’m being 100% honest so I’m really thinking closely about every question. Then it does some scans on me. Then it loads, and out of the bottom pops out a little card... I pick it up and my stomach drops. It’s a decently rare card, a fire elemental, which looks like a black cat with two fiery eyes and a deep shadow. It has the regular fire abilities as well as some rare fire abilities, but it’s intelligence is high enough for me to teach it almost any ability except for those specific to plant and water elementals. But I could even teach it electric abilities and air abilities. The card also had a bunch of dark seeming abilities; it had massive powers over shadows/light, over darkness, and it could even summon other monsters to fight for it. It was called, ‘Nightmare,” and I was instantly in love, like I knew this was the perfect pick for me. I grabbed the card and ran out and started looking for somewhere easy to take it out and meet it and train it and stuff. The first thing I did was buy a bunch of cool fire elemental trainer clothes, since the type of elemental your first card was usually determined which elemental type was ‘your type’. Almost like hogwarts houses, people took pride in their ‘types’. I bought a special anti-theft super awesome card case for my Nightmare and got back on the bus, ready for an adventure and some fun. Then the dream ended.