Today, it was windy.
The weather station had forecasted sun for the next month, but today the clouds had rolled in and the wind was picking up. There was no rain yet, but all in all, the view from out the window was pretty gloomy.
But that hadn't stopped the Deltas from going to work. Earlier that same day they had all set out, responding to their new alarm system, to find one of the Number holders. Katie had been the first to find him, and had beaten him with relative ease, only taking 700 damage herself. Now it was late afternoon, and the five of them were sitting at the dining table, examining Katie's new card. It was the Number card that she had extracted from her opponent – who had been named Pablo - after defeating him.
"Number 22: Opal Dragon..." Katie muttered to herself, examining the Number's effects. It worked against LIGHT monsters, and had been very impressive during the duel – both in appearance and in strength – but sitting on the table in front of her now it seemed rather lacklustre. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not sure I can find a use for this card."
"I have to agree," James said. "Your Deck's more a fan of Rank four monsters rather than Rank one, and it's not so hot on DARK monsters either." Everyone around the table groaned. James looked up at them. "What?"
"Not so hot?" Dan quoted. "When your girlfriend uses a FIRE Deck? James, man, come on. That one was bad even for you."
"Hey, my jokes are quality!" James argued, as everyone laughed at his expense. "Besides, since my girlfriend is hot, I reckon I can get away with this one."
Katie laughed and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Just for that, I'll let you off this time."
Matt, who looked rather uncomfortable by this point, then said, "Well I've been pretty lucky up to now. The Number I got from Mizutsu fits with my Deck perfectly." Matt reached into his pocket and placed his two Number monsters on the table. The others all followed his lead and did the same, until there were ten Xyz Monsters spread out on the table – three were Katie's, three were Dan's, two were Matt's, one was Leah's and one was James'. Matt glanced at Dan. "So, how do you intend to make your new Numbers work?"
"I'm not sure yet..." Dan replied. "Comet fits with my Deck pretty well already, but I think I may have to do a bit of modification to get Blue Firefly in there-"
"This sucks!" Leah said suddenly, causing everyone to stop and turn to look at her. "All of you have already got a bunch of Numbers, but all I've got is the one I started with. I need to find a holder to duel."
"Hahaha, calm down Leah," James laughed. "I only have my first Number as well, but you don't see me whining about it."
Leah rounded on him. "First of all, I don't whine, I lament. Secondly, the reason you only have one Number is because you never really bothered with dueling."
"It's true, James," Katie pointed out. "Out of all of us, you're probably the most laid back duelist here."
"Whose side are you on, anyway?" James gasped.
Katie grinned mischievously. "I didn't realise we were taking sides. But if I have to choose, I'm going to stick with members of my own species." Leah poked her tongue out at James.
"James, you should know by now, girls always stick together." Dan laughed.
James, desperate to save face, turned on Dan. "So is that why you hang around with her so much?" Dan threw a cushion at his head as everyone else started laughing. The atmosphere around the table was pretty jovial.
Katie, still giggling, gathered her cards together and stood up from the table. "Alright, who fancies a roast for dinner?" Four hands shot up. "Excellent. Dan, care to join me?"
"You know it." Dan grinned as he stood up. "One of these days I'll master cookingology, so I'll just keep practising until I get it right." Katie and Dan walked behind the kitchen counter and began to gather ingredients for the dinner. Leah went with them and took up her usual position – sitting on a stool at the counter, where she could watch the hilarity unfold. That left James and Matt sitting at the table.
"So, Matt," James whispered so that the others couldn't overhear. Matt looked up from the cards he was examining. "What you said when we discussed the Skyler thing last night… did you really mean it?"
Matt nodded. "I meant every word. There's definitely something going on, but at the moment we have no power to change it, or even find out what it is. So we have to keep putting our faith in the Professor – for now at least."
James grunted, deep in thought. "Frankly, I don't trust either of them, but I don't trust Skyler more…"
The Matt had an idea. "Hey, you know how you're a computer freak, right?"
James gave a sideways glance at Katie. "A certain someone has brought it to my attention, yes. Why?"
"Are you any good at hacking?"
James froze and stared at Matt, who looked back at him calmly. "Wait, wait, I know where this is going. You're serious aren't you? You want me to try hacking the Professor's computer?"
"It's worth a shot." Matt replied. "What's the worst that can happen?"
"Shall I write you a list?" James said incredulously. "He might not even have a computer, or he might not keep details of his plans on it. He could reverse hack me. He could notice what I'm doing and realise that we're onto him. He could throw us out on the streets with nowhere to go. He could just kidnap us and make is disappear to make sure we never speak of-"
"Ok, ok, I get the picture," Matt said, holding up his hands defensively, "I didn't realise that hacking posed such a threat to the hacker. Forget I mentioned it."
James nodded as shouting broke out from the kitchen.
"Dan, no!" Katie said, snatching the spoon away from him. "We do not use spoons to peel vegetables, do we?"
"Yes dear," Dan muttered, and instead reached out towards his favourite spatula. Katie slapped his hand.
Leah was cracking up laughing, clinging to the countertop for support. "Oh Dan, you're hopeless," she giggled as Katie handed him a vegetable knife.
"Rubbish, I'm doing fine." Dan insisted, emptying a bag of vegetables onto the chopping board. "Watch and learn, missy!"
"Oh I will be," Leah laughed as Dan set to work making a mess of the chopping board.
Matt and James turned back to continue their conversation. "So tell me, why aren't you that into the whole Number hunting thing?" Matt asked, genuinely curious.
James shrugged. "I don't know. Don't get me wrong, I want to save the innocent people, and I also want to be with Katie, and she was adamant about doing this. Those were my two main reasons for doing this…" Matt nodded; that was believable, "but… well… I don't know. The thought of dueling so often day after day doesn't appeal as much to me as it does to you guys. Especially with such risks involved."
"I understand," Matt replied. "It doesn't matter if you only duel occasionally, or not at all. All that matters is that you're here, giving us support when we need it." James grunted in response.
They then both became aware of a small commotion in the kitchen. Swivelling around in their chairs, they saw both girls clustered around Dan, who was crying his eyes out.
"Come on, Dan, talk to us. What's wrong?" Leah asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Did you cut yourself on the knife?" Katie said, checking his fingers.
"I... I... I don't understand," he sniffed, trying without success to dry his eyes. "They're just onions. I... *sniff* I eat them every day. I haven't formed any emotional attachments to them. So why does it make me so sad to peel them?"
The two girls stared at him for just a second, then fell about laughing. "You just... oh my god..." That was all Katie could manage before she collapsed, gasping for air between her hysterical laughter. Matt joined in the laughter. James snorted and put a palm to his face, shaking his head in incredulousness.
"It's not funny!" Dan tried to shout, but he was interrupted by his own sobs, which just made everyone laugh even harder.
Matt noticed an opportunity for a joke. "It's ok Dan; maybe you can send some flowers to their families." Leah had been about to get a grip on herself, but upon hearing this she slipped off her stool and lay on the floor, clutching her sides and shrieking with laughter.
James slapped Matt on the back. "You're a natural, dude." Matt smiled.
Katie was the next one to regain some self-control. Still struggling to stifle her giggles, she stood up and went to move one of the saucepans onto the cooker.
Then the alarm went off.
It wasn't the smoke alarm, which the Deltas had gotten quite used to what with Dan's cooking abilities. It was a different buzzer, not that dissimilar from a siren. It seemed to come from about six directions at once, and was the loudest, most obnoxious noise they had ever had to live with.
It certainly got their attention. The smiles were wiped from the teenager's faces as they all stood up at once. They looked at each other, a look of dread reflected across all of their faces. Well, all except one.
With a joyous cry, Leah bolted into her bedroom, and ran out again a moment later holding her dueling equipment and Deck. "Come on guys, there's a Number! Let's go! Let's go!"
Dan grinned, drying his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "Alright, wait there, we need to get our Decks first." He had to shout over the sound of the alarm.
"Don't bother." Leah called back. "I put dibs on this Number holder. This one's all mine!"
Matt laughed. "Don't get overconfident now. We're still going to bring our Decks anyway, just in case something happens."
"Fine," Leah said impatiently, "but hurry up, I don't want to miss this chance."
*AN HOUR LATER*
Professor Usur had made some major improvements to his Number-locating technology, and the results really showed. After the taxi dropped them off, it took them merely a few minutes to pinpoint the Number holder's location. They hadn't even needed to split up an search.
Unfortunately, when they came across the Number holder, they found him in a duel, so they were unable to interfere. Fortunately, it looked like the Number itself hadn't been Summoned. That was something to be thankful for, at least.
Makoto LP: 2300
Drillago: Machine-Type/DARK/Level 4/ATK 1600/DEF 1100
Bowganian: Machine-Type/DARK/Level 4/ATK 1300/DEF 1000
Jimmy LP: 700
"Go, Drillago, direct attack!" A creature that seemed to be made entirely from drills launched itself forwards and struck the player called Jimmy. He cried out and was knocked back by the attack, but thankfully seemed to be otherwise unhurt.
Makoto LP: 2300 [WINNER]
Jimmy LP: 700 → 0
The buzzer went off, labelling Makoto as the winner. The remaining monsters faded away, and Makoto removed his D-Gazer, laughing cruelly at his downed opponent. "You see? You see that? That's what you get for standing against the greatest Deck in history!" Jimmy meekly stumbled to his feet and jogged away. At that point, Makoto became aware of the Deltas watching him. He turned to face them with a malicious grin. It was then that they really got a good look at him. He was wearing white trousers, a brown jacket with a red scarf, and had long grey hair that obscured one of his eyes. "Ah, more duelists." he said cheerily. "Any of you want to test yourself against the strongest Deck in the world?"
Without a second's hesitation, Leah took a step forward. "That'll be me."
Makoto looked her up and down, as if not quite believing that this young girl would dare to challenge him. "Look, kid, I'm really in the market for strong duelists and you're just a little... feminine for that." He grinned wickedly. "No offense, sweetheart."
Author-made cards:
Number 22: Opal Dragon
Dragon-Type/Xyz/DARK/Rank 1/ATK 1000/DEF 550
2 Level 1 DARK monsters
This card cannot be destroyed by battle, except by a LIGHT "Number" monster. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Overlay Unit from this card; destroy all face-up LIGHT monsters on the field.
Fun Fact #1: Makoto... my friend... that was a very big mistake.
Fun Fact #2: The character Makoto is heavily based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX character Makoto Inotsume, with the same name and appearance, plus a similar Deck. To keep it fresh, we've added a few sexist and elitist traits to his personality, and thrown in a Number for good measure.
Fun Fact #3: Never make emotional attachments to onions. It won't end well.
Fun Fact #4: The reason we're showing Number 22: Opal Dragon's stats in this chapter, even though it wasn't played, is because it most likely won't be played in any future story, and you deserve to know what you're missing. Don't worry, we've put it on the YCM Wiki, as always.