James rolled his eyes and slipped the card into his bag. Despite the low price, no one he knew had one of these cards, but Puppeteer was more of a gimmick than a helpful card. Directly controlling a monster in battle involved a lot of needless flailing around like an idiot.

"Well, it's something at least," James said to himself before the woman turned to help the next customer. He picked up a shirt featuring the Death Knight and a magically animated poster featuring the Dire Forest Wolf before he left the store.

After leaving the card store, he sat on a bench outside, checking his phone and the route to the next attraction. The northern shrines were several kilometers away, and he wasn't looking forward to that kind of hike. He opened HereToThere, a shuttle ride app, and booked a trip to them. The app quickly informed him that he would be picked up in two hours.

He grimaced as he looked up at the road. Why was it so slow? He sighed and checked the map app. He noticed there were several roads closed around him. What was that about? He sighed and canceled the trip before standing and stretching. He tucked his phone into his pocket before starting off toward the shrines.

He walked down the sidewalk, trying to avoid the traffic and the crowd of pedestrians. He walked for a few minutes, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the number of people on the sidewalks. East Lake City wasn't really known for pedestrian traffic, and the sidewalks were narrow.

He ducked around the corner of an alleyway and rechecked the map again. He'd be fine if he cut through a few alleys. He glanced down the alley he was standing in. It was clean, calm, and empty. He didn't see any homeless or drug dealers, which was a relief. He supposed all the stories about that kind of thing were just that, stories.

He walked through the alley to the next road before crossing the main road between the cars stuck in gridlock after seeing others doing the same.

James squeezed past a few people on the sidewalk and into the alley beside a small mom-and-pop electronics store. This alleyway was used for delivery trucks and was much longer and broader than the previous one. It was also a good bit dirtier than the previous one, but it still lacked any obvious sign of danger.

James walked a few meters into the alley before he slowed down and checked his bag from the card shop to ensure everything was still in place. He had felt some resistance earlier when he brushed past one of the people on the sidewalk and was worried he might have lost some of his purchases.

Pulling out the cards he had bought, he discovered a small cut in the bag, which was relatively minor. It wouldn't be an issue.

"Damn, you're a fast bastard. What's the rush?" Came a voice from the way he had come.

James froze and slowly turned around to see three men approaching him from the entrance to the alleyway. The one in front, a tall, muscular man with a shaved head and a skull tattoo on his neck, looked straight from a bad movie. The other two were more subdued. The first had long dark hair and a baseball cap, while the second was a real bruiser. He was as wide as a vending machine and just as tall.

"Look, I don't want any trouble," James said as he stepped back from the approaching group. He reached into his pocket and produced his decoy wallet. He had kept it on him just in case something like this happened. "Here, you can have my wallet."

"We're not here for your wallet," said Bruiser in a deep voice.

"Not that we're gonna refuse it," said Skull. "Now, hand it over!"

"Here," James said as he tossed his decoy wallet at his feet.

"Not your wallet, idiot," Skull said with a sneer.

"I'm not sure what..." James started before Baseball Cap cut him off.

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"We don't have time for this," he said as he made some motion with his hand, slapping something against a small box on his forearm.

A swirl of green fog pushed up from the ground in front of James as a monster appeared before him. It was a tall ape with dark black fur and had metal armor strapped onto its arms and legs. It was a small mountain of rippling simian muscle and blunt armor plates.

James' mind went blank as he took in the monster. The only thing he could think was: Is that an Armored Gorilla? He had that card. It was a tier-five forest monster from the card game.

The monster towered over James but stood there with a dumb look on its ape face. It stank of sweat and fur. James momentarily wondered if it was an illusion. That was until Baseball Cap shouted at it. "Get him!"

The gorilla came to life as it looked down at James with a snarl. It let out a roar that shook James to the bone. It stepped forward and swatted at him. James tried to avoid it out of pure instinct, but it was too fast, and he crashed bodily into the stone wall beside him. His head swam as he tried to look at the approaching monster from the concrete of the alleyway. Maybe the stories were right after all? Alleyways were bad news.

The gorilla stood over him and raised its fists, getting ready to smash James into pavement pudding.

The sounds of the people beyond the alley went quiet as a new voice spoke. "Obscure."

"Defend," Baseball Cap said as he took in the new arrival. The gorilla turned away from James and moved back towards its summoner as they examined the interloper. He was a man of average height, and he leaned casually against the safety railing of the store's loading ramp. He wore a black hooded cloak, the hood down, concealing his face.

"Summoning in broad daylight without even bothering to use an Obscure card. You lot are certainly dumb. But I must thank you for it. Between that and the rest of the commotion you made today, it made my job easy."

"Get him!" Baseball Cap yelled, pointing at the hooded figure. The gorilla turned towards the man and then charged at him.

"Bushido Frog," the man said casually. A man-sized green frog covered in samurai armor appeared before him in a burst of light. "Defend."

The frog met the charging Armored Gorilla. In a flash of light and a sound like shearing metal, a long, curved blade sliced the gorilla in half, and the mighty beast melted and turned into a fog of green magic that lightly covered the ground. The frog hopped back next to the man, who hadn't even bothered to move and stood guard.

"You think a single tier seven is going to be enough to beat us?" Baseball Cap said as he threw away the remains of a destroyed card and drew forth three more before slapping them against the boxy device on his forearm. The other two thugs followed suit and did the same.

Soon, there was an arrangement of monsters flowing up from the ground. James saw a Vicious Raptor, a Beastly Ogre, and even a Dire Forest Wolf among the nine monsters now facing down the hooded figure.

"Standard of the Shogun," the hooded figure said. A golden staff erupted from the ground with a blood-red banner hanging from the top. The standard began to glow, and the Bushido Frog stood taller, its eyes burning crimson. It stepped forward and stood ready to fight.

Baseball Cap and the others laughed at the scene before directing their monsters. "Kill him!"

The monsters charged forward, attacking the lone Bushido Frog. James tried to push himself off the ground, but his arms refused to cooperate. He didn't know what was happening but couldn't stay there.

This was reaffirmed as Baseball Cap slammed into the wall next to him, sent flying by the frog's strong kick as it cut through the other monsters. The thugs weren't done, and he saw them pull out more of the box devices, and more monsters began to manifest. Even Baseball Cap scrambled to renew his attack on the stranger.

James crawled to his knees as the Bushido frog bisected monster after monster sent forth from the group, looking increasingly desperate as the battle raged on.

He grabbed his bag in a daze and crawled a few feet before scrambling to his feet and limping down the alleyway, away from the fantastical battle behind him. How were they summoning monsters? Why wasn't anyone coming to help? Was he losing his mind?

He exited the alleyway onto the sidewalk to find everything... completely normal. People walked calmly as if there wasn't a battle of monsters raging only 30 meters away.

James blinked and realized he couldn't hear the battle anymore and glanced back at the alleyway he had just exited. It was once again an empty alleyway, and there was no sign of the fight he had just escaped.

He knew what he saw, and his body told him he hadn't dreamed of that. He wasn't at all curious.

James ran, or rather, he limped away as quickly as he could from the scene. He wasn't sure what had happened, if he had lost his mind, or if people really were summoning monsters, but he had no plans to stay to see who won.