Card Games

“You’re bluffing.” Phoenix commented flatly, glancing over the cards he held in his hand. His blue eyes narrowed at his twin sister, who sat across from him on the bullet train. They were playing a simple game of poker, but somehow Kina kept winning. It wasn’t until he’d noticed Oya tugging at Kina’s sleeve again that he’d started catching on to the fact his sister may be cheating, and so he called her bluff, fairly certain he knew what was going on. Kina lifted an eyebrow at him, and he could see the gears turning in her head.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Phoenix.” Kina commented bluntly, with very little inflection, as if bored. He knew better though. This was her idea after all. Something to do on the train ride to Thunderdale to pass the time. Mercifully, neither of them had associations with Ethos or Cynic, which made the train ride a little less eventful, or so they both hoped. Still, Gabriel sat next to him, scanning the area curiously. No one seemed to want to mess with the two fusions sitting next to their respective trainers, but Phoenix hoped that the bluff of them being strong fighters wasn’t called either. The young man set his cards down. A mix of red and black numbers going up in rank.

“Straight.” He finally called, his dark eyes narrowing at his sister. She lifted an eyebrow again at him, and for a brief moment, he saw a flicker of something crossing her expression before it once more returned to the bored expression. She glanced at Oya and narrowed her eyes, which Phoenix couldn’t help but smirk at. Yeah, he’d called it. Finally, she sighed and spread her hand on the table. A myriad of black colored cards greeted them. It looked like she’d been trying for a straight flush, but was off by a couple cards.

“A dud.” Only now did Kina show more than that bored expression, her lower lip sticking out in a brief pout as Phoenix pushed the nanab chips they were using as betting chips to his side of the table. He grinned.

“Hey, it was a good try though. Oya was just being a bit obvious.” The canine Pokemon narrowed her eyes at him, but he shrugged. Kina looked fully to her Absol/Delphox starter and flicked her nose.

“I told you he’d figure it out.”

“Hey!” Kina laughed at his exclamation and turned her attention back to him.

“Relax. Believe it or not, I only followed her advice twice. Rest of it was dumb luck and lucky guesses.” The woman smirked. Gabriel rested his chin on Phoenix’s head, and the young man absently reached up and scratched at the underside of his Pokemon’s next. The fusion cooed and purred all rolled into one, and it was a strange sound to say the least. Phoenix smiled as his sister gathered up the cards.

“I believe you. You’re not one to cheat usually.”

“What gave me away though?”

“It’s… hard to describe, but you kept fussing with your cards, especially the ones that didn’t belong to the straight flush. That and something about your body language.” Even suppressed, some traits of his own fused self tried to call out, and it was sometimes hard to separate what was instinct or what was because of the Espeon’s influence on his mind.

“Hm.” The woman hummed some in acknowledgement, clearly lost in her thoughts as she shuffled the deck absently. Oya leaned against her shoulder, which made Phoenix smile again. “Wanna play a different game? Five rounds of poker has me kind of done with it.”

“What game?”

“War? Ace is high?”

“Remind me how to play that one again?” Phoenix’s arm was getting tired from scratching his Pokemon, but Gabriel didn’t seem to care nor notice his Trainer’s distress.

“We each get half the deck, and - Oya you’re heavy -” Kina adjusted herself and lifted her arm as her partner Pokemon began to make herself comfortable, turning in circles repeatedly before settling in finally, “and then we take the top card from our respective decks and put them down. Whoever has the hightest value card wins and gets to keep them. Whoever has the most cards at the end wins the ‘war.’”

“Oh right! Didn’t I usually win that?”

“Somehow. Wanna play?”

“Sure.” Kina’s smile was nice to see, given how tense she’d been on the trip so far. As she dealt out the cards, Phoenix finally had to stop petting his Pokemon. His arm felt like a lead weight. “You excited to be seeing Carrie and Dylan again?”

Kina’s smile widened into a grin as she continued splitting the deck, alternating who got a card next, her mouth moving a little as she counted to make sure they got an equal amount of cards. “Yeah! It was good of them to reach out when Thunderdale finally was able to get word out to the rest of the country. Glad they’re OK.”

“I’m excited to see that little toddler they told us about. Yumko?”

“Yumiko, and yeah, she sounds super sweet.” Finally, Kina ran out of cards and carefully put her stack in order before setting it aside. Phoenix did the same, and the pair did a quick game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who went first. Her rock to his paper meant Phoenix threw down the top card of his pile first. Hilariously, an ace of spades.

“Oh come on!” Kina gaped at the starting card in disbelief.

“Pfft. I… don’t think you can really beat that.” He grinned at her. With a discontented noise, Kina threw down her card on top… The ace of hearts gleamed back at them in the light from the bullet train and the twins looked at each other before both broke down into quiet laughter. As were the rules they followed since they were kids, Phoenix flipped another card. A one of hearts, the exact opposite end of the value scale, ironically. Kina’s eight of spades trumped the one, and she pulled all four cards to her side of the table.

Phoenix smirked. This was going to be fun.