Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh in any sense.
A/N: So, I was talking to a friend a while back, and he sort of challenged me to write something like this. I wrote it in one sitting for the most part, and didn't really take it too seriously.
I think he was drunk when he suggested it to me. But, the idea sort of grew on me. Might turn this into a full story, might not. Not really sure.
The point is, don't take this particular story too seriously. I sure don't. But it's just sitting on my computer, and I figured that I should throw it out there for you fine people to either flame, review, or maybe even get a laugh out of.
As with all my stories, there is no update schedule at all.
It probably isn't necessary, but I feel that I should also say, that despite this coming off as a shameless self-insert story, I don't actually hold most of the opinions that the main character does. He's designed to be an asshole/lazy bastard, not as a carbon copy of me.
- LeviTamm
I glanced up from my computer screen when I noticed some movement in the hallway outside my bedroom door. I'm not entirely sure what it was that I was expecting to see, but it certainly wasn't what I saw.
I thought it would have been my dog or something. It was just the two of us in the house at the moment, and he sometimes wandered down the stairs from my parent's bedroom upstairs to my room to whine at me.
The thing slept for like half the day, every day, but I'm not exactly in a position to call others lazy. I've been doing the same all week, myself.
After my eyes locked onto the thing in the hallway, I just stared at it for a while.
...
I'm not sure if there was something wrong with me when I was born, or if it was some habit I had developed somewhere throughout my life, but it took a lot to get a reaction out of me.
A lot.
At my old house one day, a car had crashed through my living room wall while I was sitting on the couch next to it, drinking some chocolate milk, and I was still sitting there, drinking, after the rubble had settled and the car had stopped its motion two feet away from me.
I had seen it coming in the corner of my eye through the window and somehow, my subconscious mind had calculated that it would miss me and decided that it would be a waste of energy to jump out of the way.
Calculated laziness.
It was a trait that I just had for some reason.
So when I saw someone- at least I think it was a someone, in my hallway, despite knowing that there was supposed to be nobody else in my house at the time, I just stared at them for a while with no expression on my face, instead of freaking out.
"..."
The two of us locked eyes for a while. Me, sitting in my computer chair with a glass of chocolate milk in my hand, staring into the red eyes of what I assumed to be a cosplayer home invader.
It was a woman, I think. It had a huge rack, whatever it was. As in boobs.
...Like balloon-sized, unrealistically massive, without a doubt plastic surgery modified, huge.
It had purple skin, whatever this thing-slash-person was. It had light blue hair, weird tattoos everywhere, what looked to be horns, and a giant sword and a red cape.
I had to take a moment to stand in awe of the intricacy of the costume. It was the most impressive one I had ever seen.
...I did all of this without so much as a twitch of my facial expression.
"Nice outfit," I said after a short delay, to the home invader.
It was true. This person was truly dedicated.
My comment seemed to startle her.
"Wha-" She began with widened eyes. It seemed she was expecting a different reaction.
She shook her head rapidly, a gesture that made it look like she was clearing her head of whatever thoughts had shown up in there.
She jumped down onto the ground immediately, threw her sword to the side, and began pleading.
"I need your help, please!"
I stared for a moment at her, in silence. There were these weird golden loopy things that seemed to be floating in the air around various parts of her. Around her wrists, and around her… tail. She had a tail. That was interesting.
"With what."
"I need you to come with me!"
I took another sip of my milk.
"Why?"
She immediately looked upset.
"Wh-what do you mean why? Don't you recognize me?"
"No."
Should I? This situation was so bizarre.
She looked hurt by my immediate response.
She looked like she was about to say something again, but then gained a determined glint in her eye.
When she reached for my hand, I enacted the escape plan that my mind had thrown together a few moments ago.
On my desk, I had a hammer. I wasn't exactly sure why it was still there, but I'm pretty sure I was trying to take it from my kitchen to my garage a few days ago, got distracted, and brought it to my room instead. I had yet to complete the journey to return it. Too lazy, I guess.
I grabbed my hammer, and threw it at my bedroom window at the same moment I emptied the rest of my milk into her hair, and all over her face.
I heard the shattering glass, as my hammer went through the window and kept going.
She squawked in surprise.
A moment later, I turned, kicked both of my feet off my bedroom wall, and with a straight, emotionless face, began speeding towards the broken window, facing away from it, on my computer chair.
My chair had wheels on it, and my floor was hardwood, so I got a good amount speed going.
I felt the back of my chair hit the wall by my window, my chair tipped backwards, and I backflipped over it, and clean out the window into my backyard.
She had a sword after all. And the self defense laws in my country were pretty shitty. I'd end up in jail if I had just cracked her over the head with my hammer, instead.
Retreat was better.
I almost smiled when I thought about what a bitch it would be to get the chocolate milk stains out of her costume and hair.
So yeah.
Take that.
I was planning to land into a backwards somersault on my lawn. I had once been the Grounders champion when I was in highschool, and had learned some interesting tricks to get away from people in that time. This was one of them.
But I was a bit surprised when there was a flash of light, and I ended up landing on what felt like hardwood.
The sudden change in the expected hardness of the ground actually hurt my back a bit when I executed the roll. I had never practiced rolling on hard surfaces before. Let alone backwards rolls. I had always practiced just on grass. So I definitely felt a good bit of pain there.
I had had to learn how to properly roll to distribute the impact of a landing after jumping off of high places due to the sheer intensity of those Grounders games back then.
Those games had been crazy.
...I slowly stood up, stumbled a bit, and took in my new surroundings.
The air felt different, and I definitely wasn't in my yard, anymore.
I was in a building of some sort. And were those… people?
There was a crowd of people just staring at me. Many of whom looked surprised at my sudden entrance.
...
Before anyone could react, there was another purple flash of light, and the weird cosplayer suddenly appeared in the room.
...And she was fuming.
Her hair was soaked with chocolate milk, and so was the fur in her costume. Her hair was covering her eyes, and her hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.
Despite the situation, I almost broke my emotionless face with a smile. I found her situation quite amusing.
Bet she didn't think she'd get a face-full of milk after executing that scheme of hers...
There was an awkward silence for a few moments, as everyone took stock of the situation.
The cosplayer was holding a case now. And I actually recognized it, too. It was mine, after all.
But it had been years since I had seen it. It had been in my closet for the longest time. Way at the back. I hadn't looked at the contents in a long time. I had, in fact, intended to sell them at some point, but just never got around to it in the end.
They were my old Yugioh cards. Some of them, anyways.
Was this cosplayer trying to steal them?
Why?
I took a brief glance at the rest of the people in the room.
It was a big room. And there were a lot of people. And holy hell did some of them have some impressive haircuts.
"Wh- what was that for!" The cosplayer finally screamed at me.
I turned my head back towards her and stared.
...I tried to think of something witty to say for a moment, but there weren't any chocolate milk themed jokes off the top of my head. So I just continued to stare at her for a while, still holding my empty glass of chocolate milk that I had managed to hold on to all this time.
It was an awkward few moments. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I wasn't in my yard, and I seemed to have been teleported somehow.
Which made this all, likely a dream or hallucination. I didn't do drugs or drink, so the explanation for the last few moments was probably along those lines.
My hesitation to answer her seemed to piss her off even more.
"Do you have any idea how long it will take to clean this out of my fur?! It'll take forever!"
I responded immediately.
"Good."
Emotionless responses seemed to always irritate people who were already angry, and that's why I always gave them to people that were. It was a great source of entertainment, and today had been a pretty boring day until a few minutes ago.
There was this sort of mask that I would put on in occasions like this, whenever I wanted to be as annoying, stubborn, and as difficult as possible.
It was in place now.
And I was immovable.
Her response didn't disappoint. She fumed again, and looked moments away from another tirade, but she regained control of herself at the last moment, and tried to collect herself.
...That wouldn't do.
"That was the intention. You're a thief who broke into my house, and tried to rob me. Clearly, you suck at it though."
I looked her obviously soaked form up and down for a moment before a witty one liner suddenly came to me.
"You're washed up."
...
Sometimes, I amaze even myself.
There were witnesses now, so she wouldn't be able to come at me with that sword anymore. Which meant I could mess with her as much as I wanted without repercussions.
Some part of me was a bit disappointed about that though. I had this whole escape plan ready to go.
In my neighbourhood, there was this inside joke amongst everyone on my street, that my next door neighbour was a hitman.
He'd always return home with the weirdest injuries from 'car accidents,' and he'd always mysteriously come into large amounts of money, suddenly.
I had once caught him teaching his kids some arabic language too, and when I had asked what language it had been, he had responded with 'French.'
It had not been french.
He was the nicest guy though. But he had a real James Bond feel to him.
I figure that someone like that wouldn't like his property destroyed, so I had intended to jump the fence in my backyard, into his yard, and dodge the sword wielding cosplayer whenever she decided to attack me. She'd swing, miss, smash some of Mr. Hitman's property, and then Mr. Hitman would make her go away.
Problem solved.
…
"I'm not a thief!" She shrieked. "Do you seriously not recognize me?!" She closed the distance and started looking desperate.
I was a bit disappointed. Evidently my previous one liner had fallen flat.
Also, no. I definitely didn't recognize her. Pretty sure I'd remember someone with purple skin.
"Should I?" I questioned, lazily.
"I'm your duel spirit!"
"My what?"
She looked me right in the eye, and looked near tears.
"It's me... Leo."
…
"Who?"
But, you know, now that I thought about it, she did kind of look familiar. Well, she didn't, but her cape did. That shade of red. It was really the fact that she was carrying around a case containing some of my Yugioh cards that gave me the idea, though.
I used to play Lunalights in Yugioh tournaments a while back. I won a few of them here and there with them, but I had largely stopped playing the game competitively after that. The community was just too cancerous. I never really played for that long, either.
And I had never really looked at the card pictures too closely. Just kind of recognized a few key features that would allow me to identify a card from a cursory glance at a distance. A red cape here, a giant sword there…
The pictures really didn't show a lot of detail either unless you really looked for it, too.
She was cosplaying as one of my old Yugioh cards, apparently. Lunalight Leo Dancer.
She looked devastated by my question.
"Lunalight Leo Dancer," she stated her name again, in a way that would leave no room for confusion.
…
"You don't look it," was my reply.
"Wha-"
"Listen, I don't care who you think you are. Your name is 'thief' for all I care."
"For the last time, I'm not a thief!"
"That briefcase in your hand belongs to me. I didn't give you permission to take it. Therefore, you stole it. Thief is a fitting descriptor."
I continued before she could interrupt.
"You broke into my house, stole my shit, came at me with a sword, and now you've kidnapped me."
I whistled in amazement.
"That's like twenty five years minimum in a maximum security jail."
"Kidnapped?! I didn't kidnap you either!"
"Really? Open up that purple portal thing you brought me through again right now please. I choose to leave right this second."
She glanced away and flinched, looking guilty.
"And the other shoe drops." I needed no more confirmation to know that I wasn't allowed to leave.
"I'm not allowed to leave for some reason, am I? That is the definition of kidnapping."
I locked eyes with her and poked her in the collar bone with my index finger to emphasize my next point. Or rather, I poked the crescent moon shaped bone thing, that was covering her collar bone. It was like this weird sort of necklace, without a string. It was as if it had been glued on to her skin there.
This lady had the weirdest fashion sense.
"You're a criminal, and don't you ever forget it."
"I'm not! How was I supposed to get you here then, huh? We need your help!"
"Ever thought of asking politely? That probably would have done the trick."
"I did ask politely!"
"No, you asked politely, then came at me with a sword before explaining the situation, or hearing my answer."
I continued.
"You know, the thing that throws me off the most about all of this, is that this whole scheme of yours was planned out. At some point, after coming up with this plan of yours to come get me, you sat back, in review, and thought… 'Yeah. Yeah, this will work.' I'll break into his house first. Then I'll draw my sword. Then lunge at him real quick-like so he doesn't escape. That will show him how friendly I am, and will truly portray my need for his assistance."
She rubbed the bridge of her nose and replied, exasperated. "I didn't think you were going to be this difficult."
"This is clearly a valuable learning experience, then. So take notes." I changed my tone to one reminiscent of a lecturer's. "When you kidnap your next victim, it's imperative to understand that they likely won't cooperate with you at first when you try."
A new voice entered the conversation.
"Are we seriously relying on someone like this, to help us?"
I looked over and saw some guy with crazy orange hair. Hair that I was, incidentally, about to make fun of for the implied insult.
But I was beaten to the punch.
"Shut up!" The cosplayer shouted at Mr. Orange. "He is way better at dueling than any of you could ever hope to be!"
...
Was I just defended by a kidnapper?
...And I'm better at dueling? Perhaps defended wasn't the right word.
What a nerd fest.
Orange put up his hands in a placating gesture. "Woah, take it easy! I didn't mean anything by it. I just thought that the best duelist would, you know…"
"...Know, what?" Leo the cosplayer pressed.
"He's this so called best duelist?" A fourth voice entered. "Not bloody likely. No way someone like this can beat these guys. Not a chance."
It was a blonde guy with a white robe this time. Weird haircut too. Straight out of the eighties. Definitely british too, by the accent.
I was about to respond when the cosplayer beat me to it again.
"He can!" Leo continued. Then she started to ramble on and on, and got into an increasingly heated debate with the guy about how awesome I was at dueling, apparently.
I tuned her out during it, and instead of getting involved, I started reflecting on the past few moments of my life.
About two minutes ago, I was surfing the internet, and watching a couple of livestreams. Just really enjoying my week off from school.
And now? ...I had no idea where I was, some nerdy cosplayer with a sword had kidnapped me, stole my Yugioh cards, and now I was in a room with a bunch of freak shows.
Even for me, that was a little bit much. I was not prepared for today.
...And damn, that had actually been a pretty ninja move on my part, with that hammer and backflip out my bedroom window. That probably would have looked so cool on film.
My old highschool friends would have probably shit their pants in amazement, if they had seen it.
...And shit. Now that I thought about it, it was pretty lucky that my window had actually smashed completely like that. I could have sliced myself up pretty badly if the hole hadn't been big enough to get through.
...I had no idea if this was all a dream or not, but it had to be. I had never had such a vivid one before, but teleportation and wormholes was a bit harder to accept at face value, than that.
I should probably proceed as if it wasn't a dream just in case though. It would suck if I died here, and didn't wake up after all.
I glanced at the crowd of people in the room.
…
What a bunch of weirdos.
One, two, three, four… there were eighteen of them, I think. Might have double counted a few. Or missed some. Was there some kind of party going on here?
...It'd have to be a pretty depressing one though. A lot of the people here looked pretty upset. And there was a lot of tension in the room. Many of them hadn't even looked my way yet, and were ignoring the insult battle going on between Leo and the british guy.
The really depressed ones were just staring at the floor with a defeated expression.
These people needed my help? That's what the cosplayer had said, anyways.
Why?
I should probably find that out.
I tuned back in to the shouting match.
"...Go fuck yourself in your garbage face, you piece of shit!"
...
Everyone's newly widened eyes were on Leo the cosplayer, now. Mine included.
That particular remark had ended the argument, and the room had been silenced. Even the british guy the comment had been directed at, looked surprised by it.
There were a few moments of silence before Leo finally caught up with what she had just shouted, and she flushed red in embarrassment.
Clearly she had just blurted it out without thinking at all.
That was funny.
Before she could stammer out an apology or something like that to ruin the moment though, I decided I had to intervene.
My voice filled the room.
"Woah. Brutal." I let my genuine amazement lace my tone. "I don't think I've ever flipped my opinion on someone so quickly before. That was awesome."
She looked my way in surprise, and I waved my hands in an encouraging motion.
"Do more."
What a fantastic source of entertainment, she was.
"Wha-" She began. "I-"
Out of the corner of my eye I was able to pinpoint the exact moment the brown haired guy had had enough. He was a bit like a thermometer. I could measure his slowly increasing annoyance level by looking at his face.
There was a slamming noise as he hit the armrest of the couch he was sitting on and stood up.
Everyone turned his way at the sound.
"Are you morons done yet!?" Not-Brock from Pokemon shouted. I swear that's exactly who he sounded like.
But man, had it been years since I had seen that show. Not since I was a kid. I'd never forget that voice though.
Not Brock's. His was iconic.
He continued after a moment of silence.
"In case you people haven't noticed, this isn't the time for your stupid games."
Too bad. I was liking the games.
"He's right." A new, softer voice perked up. A guy with black, red, and blonde hair, spiked in a crazy way that had to have taken hours of extreme care to get right.
"This world is in danger, and we don't have a lot of time left before we have to face those guys again. If we aren't ready by then, then we could all be in a lot of trouble."
He continued after looking in my direction.
"I don't know who you are but we need your help. Please."
There was that 'needing my help' thing again.
I looked down at the floor where I had originally landed in this room, and found my hat still laying there.
I had started wearing it because of my stupid bedroom window being in the most inconvenient location. Whenever I was sitting at my computer, at about two pm, the sun would shine in at the exact angle to burn my retinas unless I was wearing my hat.
It had dropped on the floor during my dramatic rolling entrance into the room, and I kind of wanted it back now. After wearing it for a while, it felt weird not having it on.
Mr. Orange from earlier, spoke up next.
"Come to think of it, I don't know who this guy is either. He isn't from our time."
I walked over to pick up my hat.
"Our's either." This time it was a tall guy with blue hair, and an elaborate black coat. "It must mean he's from theirs after all. We'd have recognized him if he were a top duelist in one of our timelines."
"Eh, does that mean he can do those crazy combos too?" Was that a Brooklyn accent I just heard?
"Maybe. We did summon a top duelist here after all." A guy with brown and black hair this time, sharpened into a point.
Wow, there were a lot of people here.
I was definitely not a people person at all.
And I was summoned here? What the hell did that even mean?
"So, what you're saying is, now we have to rely on some guy that none of us have seen before, in order to get our decks back and save the world." Not-Brock said. "Well isn't that perfect."
Wow. This guy really seemed like a dick.
I picked up my hat, and put it on.
...I felt the need to respond to that. I didn't like dicks.
I put my empty chocolate milk glass on the ground and stood up.
"Look, I don't know who you people are, and to be honest, I don't really care either."
Everyone's eyes locked onto me.
"I didn't choose to come here. I was minding my own business in my house just minutes ago, before this one right here," I gestured towards the cosplayer, "kidnapped me."
I continued.
"You're being forced to rely on me? I was threatened into coming here by a thief, and now I have to put up with this bullshit? Fuck you. Fuck your decks," because what was this about stolen decks and who the hell cares? "And fuck your world. You don't have to rely on me for shit. Point out the exit, buddy, and I'll be on my way."
Some kid spoke up next.
"You can't speak to my brother that way!"
Wow. What a little shit.
Fucking enabler.
"Oh? And why is that?" I replied lazily.
"Do you have any idea who he is!?"
"I thought we just established that I don't. I also don't care. I treat people as they treat me. Act like a dick, I'll treat you like one."
"Why don't we all just calm down," a new voice chimed in.
I looked up at the new guy. He had a weird mark on his face, with black and yellow spiky hair.
...I was also digging the orange knee and elbow pads he had on.
"Look, I have no idea who you are, but we could really use your help. We're in a bit of a sticky situation here."
Okay, I had had about enough of this talking in circles crap. That was like the fifth time I had been told that my assistance was required and yet still, nobody had told me why I was here.
"Okay, how about this," I began. "I have a request. I have no idea where I am, why I am here, or how I even got here, for that matter. Tell me all of these things, and the specific reason that I am here, and then we'll talk about the whole 'me helping you out,' thing."
I added in one last thing as an afterthought.
"Also, do it in as few words as possible. Don't talk in circles and be direct please. Be blunt, and give it to me straight."
There was a moment of silence.
"It's a… bit of a long story."
...Not at all what I wanted to hear.
I was just about to tell him that too, when I felt someone grab my hand and pull it.
I turned to look who it was.
...
It was Leo the cosplayer.
And she sighed and looked me right in the eye.
"You're in the spirit world, which is a realm inhabited entirely by duel spirits like myself. There has been a war going on here for the last few years, and the people responsible for starting it are from your world. We don't know how they got here originally."
She continued.
"They have been imprisoning duel spirits en masse, and the only way to release them is by defeating these people in a duel. The problem is, these duelists are far stronger than anything any of us have ever seen before. And every time one of us loses a duel, our deck's are taken from us, and the spirits living inside them are imprisoned."
"Despite everyone else in this room being top tier duelists, everyone here has lost their deck's after being defeated. There is nobody left here to stop these people, as they use strategies that none of us have ever seen before."
"We managed to, however, summon one final duelist to stand up to them, and that's you. We figured that since you were also from that world, you would stand a better chance. We want you to defeat these duelists to free the spirits that they have imprisoned. If you fail, or refuse, it's likely that everyone in this realm will share the same fate, myself included. The how's and why's to all of these things can only be explained through a long winded story that would probably take at least an hour to tell."
I took a moment to take all of that in.
...
Easily the stupidest thing I'd ever heard someone say to my face... but I had spent a lot of time on the internet. I was essentially desensitized to stupid ideas, and weird story plots, and with my weird ability to not react to most things, I was able to come to terms with it all almost immediately.
I just stared at her for a while, though.
Idly, I was able to tell that everyone else in the room was just staring at me with baited breath, awaiting my reaction.
My silence seemed to make Leo nervous, so she started talking again, nervously rubbing her arm as she continued.
"Since you live in that world, and I'm your duel spirit, I too, live in your world, and I have seen what you are capable of. You are without question, the best duelist that I have ever seen. If anyone can do this, it's you."
Okay. Let me get this straight.
"So, in short, you want me to beat a couple of people at Yu-"
I got interrupted immediately.
"Duel Monsters." Leo corrected, with a pointed look.
...
And it took me a moment to understand why.
When I figured it out, I almost laughed.
...
But I didn't.
These people... they were from the Yugioh anime. That kid with the spiky hair, that was Yugi Mutou, wasn't he? From the show. I had never actually watched it, but everything just sort of fell into place in that moment. These people obviously didn't call their card game 'Yugioh,' because that would be weird when one of the characters was named Yugi.
Instead they called it 'Duel Monsters,' apparently.
So, I was somehow in a room with a bunch of anime characters, and they wanted me to beat up a couple of anime villains for them in a card game.
Neat.
How did Leo fit in then? She was an anime character too, but she seemed to know it. Or was the Yugioh world actually real, and the creator of the anime had just travelled there at some point in the past, only returning to tell the story of what he'd seen?
In any case, Leo seemed to think it a good idea to not mention to these people that there was a cartoon about them in my world.
"You want me to beat a couple of people at Duel Monsters?" I corrected.
She hesitated for a moment.
"Yes."
"And why couldn't you have just started with that, instead of breaking into my house with a sword?"
There were a whole bunch of questions that I still had left, but I intended to wait for a bit longer to ask them. I wasn't in a rush at the moment. I had time.
My parents were on vacation, my dog had food and water, and I had nowhere to be for the next week or so. I could literally be stuck here for days and not inconvenience anyone.
Oh... I'd have to deal with dog shit in the house probably though, when I got back. But that actually gave me an idea…
I'd just get Leo to clean it up as payment for my services.
"I didn't break into your house, dammit!"
"You did."
"I live there too!"
"Really?"
Come to think of it, that actually made me pause. That insult she had thrown at the british guy earlier, telling him to fuck himself in his piece of shit face, or whatever it had been, I had actually heard that exact insult a few days ago in a random YouTube video.
She had repeated it almost word for word.
Had she… overheard it?
"Yes! How many times do I have to tell you that I'm your duel spirit?! What part of that are you not understanding?!"
"The core concept, obviously. I don't know what that means. Are you like, freeloading in my house, watching everything I do like some sort of stalker?"
"For the last time, I'm not a criminal!"
I bit back my instinctive urge to continue the argument. To point out that yes, in fact, she was a criminal. I could have kept it going for a while, especially since this person was so easy to rile up, but there were still a few things that I needed to know.
"So, when do I have to fight these people, how many do I have to fight, and what happens when I win? Do I get to go home?"
She looked relieved that I had dropped the argument for the moment, and responded.
"The portal won't open again for a while. Like I said earlier, this war has been going on for a few years already. Basically, the more duel spirits that get imprisoned, the weaker the potency of the magic in the world. It takes a lot of magic power to open one of those portals, so if you win these duels and release the spirits, the time that it takes to gather the magic to open it up again will be shortened, but it will still take a bit of time. You will still be stuck here for a bit, either way."
Her quick, to the point descriptions were definitely helpful. Maybe she knew me a little better than I gave her credit for.
I hated verbal bullshit.
She continued.
"We know that there are at least eight duelists in total. But if you win against one or two, some of the others here will get their decks back, and they can help you finish off the rest. They are actually waiting outside this building right now, and you will meet them as soon as you go out that door. To make another long winded story incredibly short, time is basically temporarily accelerated in here, so hours for us last seconds for them, which gives us a bit of time to prepare."
That was awfully convenient.
I stared at her for another few moments.
And then I made my decision.
"Okay."
I stuffed my hands in my pockets, and walked towards the steel case of Yugioh cards that Leo had put down earlier.
She sat stunned for a moment.
"...You mean you will do it?"
"Sure."
I could almost feel how her spirits lifted at that. I wanted to make things as clear as possible though. So that there was no ambiguity here.
Because I was still livid, despite my totally emotionless expression.
"I'm going to be honest though. For a moment. No bullshit, or teasing. Just the truth."
I turned to look back at her, my eyes hidden beneath the brim of my hat.
"You dragged me into this mess against my will, and are offering me nothing for it. You have literally imprisoned me here. You have taken away my right to freedom, and are saying that you will give it back, only if I work you."
I continued.
"That is the single most reprehensible thing someone can do to another person. These people that you are bothered by so much for imprisoning these duel spirits… that is exactly what you have done to me. When this is over, I expect you to leave my house, and never speak to me again."
"I fucking hate you," I finished in my usual, laid-back, emotionless tone.
Then I continued walking without another word.
...That should clear everything up nicely.
I didn't hear her reply, and there was another moment of silence. I kept walking towards the case, and when I got there, I crouched down, and opened it up to begin deck building.
...
"Dude… and you called her brutal. Was that really necessary to say?"
I don't know who said it, but I responded to whoever it was anyways. My back was turned to them as I continued going through my cards.
"Like I said a few moments ago. I treat people the way they treat me. Act like a dick, I'll treat you like one."
I continued.
"I don't know about you guys, but kidnapping qualifies you as a dick in my books. Especially if they detain you afterwards, or if they threaten you with a sword."
I wasn't sure exactly how many cards were inside this case, or exactly which ones, but I could probably deal with whatever was here.
…Or, maybe this would be a little harder than I thought.
She grabbed the wrong case. Wonderful. My actual good decks were in the box in my basement, then. Not this one. I'd have to get a bit creative with the deck I wanted to put together then.
My Lunalights weren't in this one. Well not all of them anyways. Leo herself- the card, was here. But she was useless without the other Lunalights.
"Still, you don't have to be so harsh on her. She was only trying to help us."
A woman this time. I wasn't facing their direction so I couldn't tell who it was.
I replied anyways.
"How about this." I began, after getting an idea.
I spoke slowly.
"Consider this hypothetical situation."
Continuing to deck build in the meantime, I laid out an analogy.
"You go to sleep one night, and everything is fine. Then you wake up the next day in a house you've never been to, surrounded by people you've never met before, some of whom who are clearly unbearable assholes, and now the person whom you've come to learn is directly responsible for your sudden relocation, is telling you that you're not allowed to leave."
I continued after a short pause.
"This person then says, 'you will be able to leave eventually, but only after you win a twenty kilometer bicycle race to the next town.'"
That summed it up pretty well, I think.
This should work.
"Think of how stupid and absurd that situation is," I continued. "That is how I view the situation I'm currently in right now."
I paused for a moment to let that all sink in before emphasizing my last few points.
"So what the hell do you think I'm going to say to the person responsible? Thank you? What would you say to the person in that hypothetical scenario I just described, if it were you? If after chewing them out for kidnapping you -which I'd bet you'd absolutely do, somebody else claimed that, 'oh, it wasn't her fault that you have to compete in this bike race,' or 'she was just trying to help out.'"
"I don't care. You took me from my life, and are forcing me to do something I not only didn't sign up for, but something I'm not getting payed for either."
My rant was interrupted by the voice of righteous indignation.
...Of fucking course it was.
"What are you even talking about! This is way different than that! People's lives are at stake here, this isn't for some stupid competition or race!"
Again, no idea who said that. A woman somewhere though.
Christ.
"Commiting a crime to fix your problems won't earn you any respect from me."
I continued.
"Also, if this were serious enough to bet people's lives on, why the hell would you pick me for it? Leo here, has clearly been watching me for a while like the stalker that she is. She should have known that I wouldn't have bought or agreed to any of this voluntarily."
Had she been forced into it somehow? I refused to believe that I'm the best Yugioh player in the world. Not a fucking chance.
"There are people in my world that would give an arm to be able to travel to another world like this one to play a card game. Fucking weirdos, the lot of them, but you had plenty of options."
"I haven't even picked up a deck in years, because honestly, who the hell even plays duel monsters anymore?"
I let that last sentence linger in the air, and I awaited a response.
I was not disappointed.
"Oh great," Not-Brock started. "So you're not even a duelist either, then. What a waste." He then glared at a depressed looking Leo. "He does have a point though, why would you pick some pathetic loser like this, to duel these people."
Pathetic loser, huh. That was rich coming from him.
"This is a matter of critical importance. Not at all something that we can afford to waste time on." Not-Brock was going to continue his rant, but was stopped.
...By Leo, surprisingly.
She started shouting.
"I didn't choose him! We summoned the best duelist in the world, and my master is who we got! Why? Because he is the best! You haven't seen him play the game before! None of you have!"
What the hell lit a fire under her ass?
...And what the hell did she just call me? Master?
The fuck kinda kinky fetishes was she into?
And whatever they were, leave me the hell out of them.
Also, just shut up Leo. Preaching about how awesome someone is at a children's card game is about the most humiliating thing you can do to them.
And I wasn't even that great anyways. If I was truly chosen by some cosmic algorithm to come here, it was probably because of my thesis.
It could only be that, realistically.
I was the first person in the world to use the Yugioh game for machine learning purposes in academia, after all.
There's no way that I was actually the best. Some nerd somewhere could probably outplay me while blindfolded.
What a fucking joke, picking me for this.
I had long ago, migrated to online play. And I barely played even that, these days.
Most of my time was spent at my university's computer lab, watching my two AI systems go at it.
It was because of that, wasn't it? " ," or whatever the fuck brought me here got confused because of my masters thesis.
I had used the game Yugioh as a platform for two seperate AI systems.
I had created a deck builder AI, that would basically try to create the best possible deck, and I had created another AI, that would use those chosen decks, to duel another copy of itself with it, repeatedly.
The two systems would feed each other the data, and eventually, the plan was to challenge elite players with it. But it was still largely a work in progress. It wouldn't be ready for a while yet.
It had pulled off some strange combos, though. And I had actually copied a few of them in online play, but maybe that was why I had been chosen to do this.
I tuned them all out again, and continued looking through the cards in front of me.
...
There were a few possibilities in here, at least.
It took me a few more minutes, but when I was done, I had one decent deck, and one that was mostly decent. Just missing a few key cards. If I had to do a few back to back duels, I would need to be able to swap out cards in between them so that my strategies wouldn't just be countered by the next guy in line that I had to fight.
When I finished a few minutes later, I stood back up, and glanced at the people on the couches behind me. They were still arguing amongst themselves for the most part. That, or looking depressed.
Leo was looking pathetic, now. The fire under her had died out apparently. She was sat against the wall, with two other women at her side, trying to cheer her up by the looks of it.
It almost made me regret what I had said to her, but I crushed that thought, after remembering that everything I had accused her of was true.
I guess she noticed me stand up, because she looked my way, wiped her eyes, and stood up with a sigh and started heading in my direction.
The rest of the room quieted down at the sight, and I felt their eyes lock on me, again.
Leo looked like she was about to say something, but she hesitated, and changed the subject.
"Are you ready?" I could hear the depression in her voice, but she did a pretty good job of hiding it.
"Not sure, really."
I needed some more information.
I had to start getting serious.
My expression changed, and Leo picked up on it.
...
"What do they play?" I asked.
"They won all of their duels so fast that I couldn't tell, really. It involved a lot of extra deck spamming though."
Wow. That didn't narrow it down much at all.
"Format?"
"Traditional."
Really? No banlist? That could actually be a problem. I'd have to make some more edits.
"Did they use any broken FTK's?"
"They haven't used Exodia yet."
Thank Christ. That was a relief. I'd have probably gotten my ass kicked by a no-banlist Exodia FTK.
"Rules?"
"Master rules three."
Oh? We're using OCG terms now?
So pendulums and lower, but no links? Perfect. I had never bought any link monsters, and the bullshit extra monster zones had turned me off from the idea pretty quick.
Even pendulums were a little whacky in my opinion. But I did use them. Mostly because everyone else did.
I had the cards to make an Exodia FTK deck myself, using Makyura the Destructor, but they were all, once again, in my other case.
Dammit woman. You had one job. You could have at least brought that case instead.
"What did they focus on? Pendulum spamming?"
"I didn't actually see most of the duels that were played. Most of them happened simultaneously and in different locations. The few that I managed to see first hand focused more on XYZ summoning."
That wasn't really an answer, but whatever. Pendulum spamming usually led to XYZ spamming...
"Meta?"
"Probably."
Okay. So I was probably up against a couple of broken meta decks that were completely unrestricted by the banlist.
There'd be Pot of Greeds everywhere, and Graceful Charities, probably three of each, and stupidly powerful draw engines.
I'd be up against the best decks of all time, probably. Like the Dragon Rulers, or some Future Fusion spam deck.
Or maybe PePe. God damn, that would be a pain in the ass to deal with if it was powered up by triple Pot of Greeds...
Or maybe I'd have to deal with some cancerous FTK deck.
I was really going in to this blind, but it'd probably come down to who could out-cancer the other player.
So... not really much different than a normal Yugioh game, then. It'd just be faster, in all likelihood, due to the lifted banlist.
"We can do it though." She tried to sound confident.
We?
That's cute.
"We?" I began. "I think you've got the wrong impression there Princess."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm not using you in the duel."
…
"What!? Why not!?" She shrieked. "Look," she continued. "I'm sorry I brought you here okay, I know you're mad but I can do this! We can do this!"
"No."
My immediate reply took the wind right out of her sails.
"You got the wrong idea. I'd use the Lunalights if I had them on me, but you grabbed the wrong case."
...
"Wha-... what do you mean?"
"I mean that I have multiple cases of cards in them, and you grabbed the one containing the shittiest of them all, basically."
"Wha-" She looked surprised for a moment... then she caught on to what I had said and looked incensed. "I'm in there!"
So she caught the implied insult? Neat. It was still true...
"But the other Lunalights aren't. And no offence, but you're a pretty shitty card without them to support you."
I opened up the case again, to make some more edits. Not having a banlist changed everything.
...
"You have other cases of cards? Since when?" Leo grumbled out.
"Oh? I thought you've been stalking me, and would have noticed."
"I'm not a stalker! There is no magic in your world at all, so I barely spend any time there!"
"Could have fooled me," I replied.
I continued rifling through my cards.
"Did you seriously not see what they were playing in the duels that you saw? You clearly understand the metagame to some degree. You're only hurting my odds of victory withholding information like this."
She sighed.
"I'm serious. I've seen your duels in that tournament a few years ago, and a few of your online ones, but I didn't recognize any similar strategies."
"I see. So you don't know the meta game prior to just a few years ago, then. You recognize terms like Shaddoll, and Burning abyss then right?"
"Yeah."
"But not Dragon Rulers, TeleDAD, or Magical Scientist FTK?"
The confusion on her face answered my question for me.
I glanced at the people on the couches.
...I couldn't rely on what Leo had to say, then.
"How did your guys's duels go? Any sort of information will help."
I clarified.
"What did they play? PePe? Dragon Rulers? Chain Burn? Any kind of Anti-meta bullshit I need to be aware of?"
...
"Uh, what?"
Was the only answer I received.
...
God dammit Mr. Orange.
These people were totally clueless. As I looked at them, really looked at them, they looked liked deer stuck in the headlights of a car.
My conversation with Leo had taken place right in front of them, and they had clearly overheard it, yet they looked totally confused… the people that weren't staring at the floor in depression anyways.
It was as if they hadn't heard any of those terms before.
...Which kind of made sense now. I had always heard other Yugioh players making fun of how broken the anime was. The anime was meant to sell cards to children. Not to showcase the metagame.
Things were obviously very different between our worlds. And Leo… she had understood me only because she was a creepy stalker, who watched me duel every time I did.
She lived in my world, and had learned Yugioh terminology from there.
There was probably nothing like it in the Yugioh world, though.
These people couldn't help me out at all either.
...
"Forget it," I finally said, and I looked away from them.
I finished swapping out the last few of my cards, and closed the case again.
This would have to do.
I stood up.
So, these evil duelists were outside then? And all I had to do was open the front door and leave?
Fine.
There was only one door in the room, and I started walking towards it without another word.
"W-Wait!?" Leo shouted.
I turned around and watched as she ran in the other direction and picked up some weird blue thing on the table, and ran back to try and give it to me.
…
"What the fuck is this?"
I heard some snorts of disbelief from the crowd next to me at my question.
I ignored them.
"It's a duel disk."
"A what?"
She grabbed my arm, and put it through the loop on the 'duel disk.'
"Your deck goes in here," She explained, pointing to said location..
"These five spaces are where you place your monsters. The five slots here, are for spells and traps. They are also where you place pendulum monsters since there are no separate zones for those. Like the link format, but you know, without the restricted extra deck summoning."
"That's probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen."
…
"It's how things work here."
"Fine."
I can deal with whatever bullshit they come up with easily enough.
"Anything else you need to tell me?"
"No, that's about it."
"Good, I'm leaving then."
This time, I was able to open the door and exit without being interrupted again.
AN: I have no beta reader either, so there may be a few errors here and there. Hopefully not too many.
