Chapter 13:

King David's Drăculeșting pitfall mate

En Passant Grandmaster Volume 7

In the spectator area, Mimoko sat flush with embarrassment with Daria and Iori grinning on each side of her.

"My little girl's a real lesbian lady killer, ain't she," Daria snickered as she poked Mimoko's cheek with her fan.

"Yeah, yuri's the based shit, not my thing since I'm down bad for Oki-kun, but I'll go full yuri for views n' shit," Iori grinned.

"Ugh, the bus can't get here any quicker can it?" Mimoko grumbled as she pulled up her WWCF card and decided to watch some games. It didn't take her long to find a game that piqued her interest as it was being played between none other than Mălina Drăculești and a girl with short red hair named, Chaya Shamir. The game had reached it's 15th move, with Chaya having just played knight f3. At a glance, it was hard to tell who was winning, but Mimoko, and possibly Chaya herself could tell that Mălina was screwed.

"Check! Wipe that sick grin off your face, this instant, you bitch!" Mălina fumed as she slammed her queen down on d3.

To understand why she was so angry, it was necessary to turn back time to the start of round 4...

...

The game had opened with a standard Sicilian Defense of e4 and e5, but move two was where Chaya decided to play the King David's Attack and moved her king to e2, completely infuriating Mălina. Knight c6, knight c3, and knight f6 were all played before Chaya finally retreated her king to e1.

D5, e captures d5, knight captures d5, bishop b5, a6, and all seemed well, until Chaya made use of her ability to speak when delivering a check via capturing the knight at c6 with her bishop. "Checky, check. Wook at the wittle bitty bat, all shriveled up over wittle king David?"

The taunt irked Mălina so much she sent the bishop at c6 flying a good 3 meters as she captured it with her b-pawn. Things continued on normally though with b3, bishop f5, bishop b2, knight b4, and d3, before Mălina's rage got the better of her and she captured the pawn at d3 with her bishop. Chaya let loose a smug and very punchable smirk as she captured the bishop at d3 with her c-pawn, nearly causing Mălina to actually punch her as she captured the pawn at d3 with her knight.

And to make things more infuriating, Chaya got out of the check by moving her king back to e2, though Mălina launched a counter attack by capturing the bishop at b2 with her knight, forcing Chaya to move her queen to c2. Mălina decided to fight fire with fire and brought her queen out to d6, allowing Chaya to capture the trapped knight at b2 with her queen. And after rook d8, the game reached the point it did when Mimoko and Iori came to watch.

Chaya continued to infuriate Mălina by escaping the check from the queen via moving her king back to e1. Her psychological warfare was working though as Mălina's face only furthered to contort in rage with rook g6 not exactly doing her any favors.

Rook g1 and queen d6 later, Mălina's rook was gone, yet Chaya instead opted to move her king to f1, which as it turned out, was actually the best possible move.

"I'm sick of you twiddling with your king! CHECK FUCK!" Mălina shouted as she violently captured the rook at d1 with her rook, sending it flying towards Chaya's forehead.

However, Chaya simply ducked her head, dodging the airborne piece and capturing the rook at d1 with her knight before tilting her head back up, all while retaining her smug smirk. And to add the finishing touch, she gave a slight flick to her hair, knowing full well this image of her would be on the title card for many articles and videos covering the game.

At this point, Mălina completely lost control and let out a frustrated shout before rapidly moving her pawn to c4 and smacking the clock so hard, it nearly toppled off the table. Chaya remained smug though and began matching Mălina's pace, moving her pawn to g3. Mălina's brain appeared to have fried at this point as she simply moved her queen to f6 before immediately smacking the clock.

"Don't tell me she's thinking she can flag her, there's still tons of time on both clocks, not to mention the time control at the 40th move if the game reaches that point," Mimoko thought as Chaya moved her queen to e2.

Mălina viciously captured the pawn at b3 with her c-pawn, inching closer to promotion, yet Chaya countered perfectly by capturing the pawn at a6 with her queen, stopping the pawn in it's tracks. Mălina immediately flung her pawn to e5, but her psych was about to be tormented once more as with queen a8, she was in check, meaning Chaya could get a line in.

"Ah-"

Slam!

Chaya paused and shot Mălina a "Really?" look as she had cut her off by moving her king to e7. So to solve that, Chaya put her in check again by moving her queen to a7. King e8 before she could get a syllable out of her mouth. Queen b8, once again, king d7 before a syllable could be spoken. Knight captures e5, and after king e6, Kaylee began to pout as she couldn't deliver any more checks, instead moving her pawn to f4.

But now Mălina was free to capture the pawn at a2, inching ever so closer to having two queens. "I'm so close! She goes queen a8, I go queen d8, she captures, then bishop a3 and I win!"

Unfortunately for Mălina, not only was her winning plan completely flawed, but her last move had now allowed Chaya to give her the oh so cruelest of torments.

"Check! Now-"

Mălina's eyes went bloodshot as Chaya moved her queen to c8, moving her king to d5 as fast as she could.

"SMUG-"

SLAM!

Once again, Mălina didn't give Chaya the chance to speak, getting out of the check from the queen at d7 by moving her bishop to d6. This time, Chaya stared at the board for a bit before a slightly more malicious grin occupied her face. She didn't even try to talk, simply grinning as she captured the pawn at c6 with her queen.

Mălina froze, yet didn't seem frightened in the slightest. On the contrary, she seemed more disgusted by Chaya as she moved her king to e6. Though she soon found herself getting uneasy. Queen d7, check, forced her king to d5, but then the other knight became more active, delivering a check by moving to e3.

"No way. She played that abomination of an opening... I'm not going to lose to THAT!" Mălina scoffed in her mind as she moved her king to c5.

But little did she know, she had just walked right into Chaya's palm, and continued to do so after queen c6, check, prompted her to move her king to b4. And finally after knight c2, check, she had walked into the trap by moving her king to b3.

"No escaping now! Everything's forced!" Chaya gleefully thought as she moved her queen to c4.

Mălina scowled and moved her king to b2, but after Chaya moved her knight to d3, she began to sweat a bit.

"No, no, no. I've still got this. My queen and bishop have the dark squares around my king covered," she thought as she moved her king to b1. But as soon as she took her hand off the piece, she realized too little too late what Chaya had planned for her.

"NO! I CAN'T LOSE LIKE THAT!" she thought as she frantically extended her hand towards the clock, intending to resign before Chaya could make her move. Yet she was too late.

Chaya had been waiting for this moment and as soon as Mălina had taken her hand off her king, she rapidly moved her king up to e2, winning the game.

"Checkmate! Wow, thanks for allowing me to body you with a King David's pitfall mate! Guess we'll call this Drăculeșting, cuz to the loser goes eternal humiliation," Chaya snickered as she reached out and mockingly shook Mălina's hand.

Mălina stared in shock as tears began to pour out of her eyes. Chaya on the other hand, proudly handed her move sheet to the arbiters and began strutting out with pride at the fact she had clinched her team the win with such a satisfying win.

"YO! Is that Tea-baggin' Chaya!? Girl's just as crazy in the flesh as she is on stream! I hope we play her," Iori grinned as she glanced over Mimoko's shoulder at the game.

Daria began to frown as she recognized the name. "It's actually Chaya as in "Hi-yah" not Chaya as in "ochaya". She hails from the Hebrew Federation and possesses the title of grandmaster as well as "world's biggest asshole" all in addition to her status as New Tel Aviv's DSPCM."

"'New Tel Aviv'?"

"Ah, it's what they renamed Tel Aviv when the Federation was formed and was moved from the Levant to the Pacific Ocean. Though that's the only city they decided to stick "New" in front of. And speaking of which, they're playing well, which means we might have to face them. It wouldn't be a bad idea to observe them to see how they play in the event that we ever get paired against them."

"She did win the game with a dubious opening, yet the ending sequence was so beautifully executed, I'd be a disgrace to chess if I criticized it. If we were to face each other, it'd be like fighting Tanabe-kun... No, she seems far more sophisticated, or rather sadistic. She was making use of everything at her disposal to get in Mălina-chan's head. Hmm, the score's only 2.5-0.5. Seems like there's still a game left, but the match is decided," Mimoko mumbled as she shifted the view over to the remaining board with a still undecided result.

There, a woman with pale skin and short red hair tied up in a ponytail sat anxiously while her opponent seemed to be nowhere in sight. One glance at the board was all it took for Mimoko to tell who was winning, but before she could watch anything else...

"Achoo!"

All eyes turned towards Iori.

"Oh no, don't tell me she's caught a cold," Mimoko groaned.

"I'm- ACHOO! Fine..."

Daria scowled and shook her head as she quickly began dragging Iori away with Mimoko and the others close behind, meaning none would be able to continue watching the broadcast and see a woman with long green hair that obscured her right eye approach the table and sit down across from the red-haired woman.

"Lea has returned. Now let us resume," the green-haired woman smiled.

The red-haired woman, who just so happened to be Mălina's mother, Sabina, gritted her teeth together in fury. "I was hoping you wouldn't come back, cheater," she snarled under her breath.

The full game:

White: DSPCM Chaya Shamir (2548) Black: Mălina Drăculești (2348)

1. e4 c5

2. Ke2 Nc6

3. Nc3 Nf6

4. Ke1 d5

5. exd5 Nxd5

6. Bb5 a6

7. Bxc6+ bxc6

8. b3 Bf5

9. Bb2 Nb4

10. d3 Bxd3