Disclaimer: I do not own any part of YuGiOh! GX

The OTHER Generation X

Chapter 1- A New Generation

It was still pretty early, but Drake was already up.

"This is the day!" he said, sitting on his bed. "This is the day that I leave the normal path of education and go into something more suited to me." Drake had never been very good in school. Sure, he had always scraped passes in all the normal subjects, but he had never really felt comfortable in it. He had problems remembering all of the various things, and mixed up definitions and formulas. Much to the dismay of his parents, he had instead immersed himself in the game of Duel Monsters. He had played in a few statewide tournaments and had won them all. Shocking even himself with his great strategic abilities, he had assembled quite a collection of awards. But his most prized award was what was had woken him up this morning.

In his last state victory, a man had spoken with him about coming to a secret school created for exceptional duelists. After winning the entire tournament, the man had given him a letter and told him that he would be accepted for testing. Inside the letter was a short note telling him the date of his exams. He had already taken the written exam, and would soon take the practical dueling exam. He knew that he had just barely passed the written exam, so he figured that he needed to duel really well today in order to get in.

His alarm clock beeped. It was 7:40. Just about the time he usually got up. He grabbed his deck and his duel disk and prepared to leave.

"Where are you going?" his mom said.

"Didn't I tell you that I was going to that dueling practical exam to get into Duel Academy?"

"Yes, and I told you that you weren't going. Ever since you started playing that game your grades have dropped through the floor. I told you weren't allowed to play that game until your grades picked up, but you didn't listen. You played behind my back. Now, go put all that junk away!" Angry, Drake stomped back up the stairs. As soon as he got back up to his room, he began to fiddle with the glass on one of his windows. Unbeknownst to his mother, he had loosened one of the windows in his room to aid him in sneaking out at night to duel. After a few minutes, the glass pane came loose and a light breeze came in through the now-empty sill. He pulled a length of rope out of his closet, tied it to the leg of his nearby bed, and started climbing down the side of his house. He dropped the last few feet and began to run. He heard a shout but kept running.

He really had no idea where he was going, but he kept running just to get as far way from his house as possible. He looked down at the letter and noticed it told him that the practical would take place in the rec. center downtown. He was nowhere near there, so he would have to hitch a ride or really start running. He slid to a halt. There was no one in sight, so he stopped to catch his breath. Suddenly, a car pulled up beside him. The passenger door opened and Drake could see the driver.

He couldn't have been much older than Drake, only by about a year or two. He had long skinny legs that he attempted to conceal under very baggy pants. His thin arms also suggested that he was skinny, but his baggy T-shirt attempted to conceal this. His hair was a complete mess, it stuck out in several directions a bit. It came down to his eyes, which were almost electric with excitement.

"You were at the written exam yesterday, right?" he said

"Yes, how'd you know?" Drake asked.

"I saw you there. So you'd be going to the practical now, huh? How are you going to get there on time on foot?"

"I'm not sure."

"Hop in. I'm going there right now." Totally ignoring anything his mom might have taught him about accepting aid from a stranger (what did she know anyway?), Drake climbed in and shut the door behind him. There was a roar as the car's engine started revolving faster and pulled them around the corner.

"What's your name?" the driver asked.

"Drake."

"A rather strange name."

"Sort of. I've always liked it- at least there was never anyone else who had it in school. What's your name?"

"Keith."

"You're going to the practical, too? What kind of deck do you run?"

"Straight-up fiend beat down. You?"

"Chaos medieval."

"Huh?" Keith pulled around a corner.

"Light and dark warrior and spellcaster type monsters."

"Hm. An interesting concept." Keith pulled the car into a large lot. Several others were already parked there. "This is it."

"Great! Thanks a lot, Keith." Drake jumped out of the car.

"Don't thank me yet. I may have to beat you back to get into the Academy!" Keith shut the car down and locked it. Drake ran to the table in front of the rec. center. A blonde woman was seated behind it.

"Who are you? You're almost late." She said, grabbing a clipboard off the table.

"Drake Stizen."

"Oh, the regional champ?" she flipped through a few pages. "Yeah, you're here. You can go in. You'll be called when it's time for you to duel." Keith walked up. "And who are you?"

"Keith Natran."

The woman flipped back a few pages. "Yeah, you're here. Go on in." They walked in together.

"Who do you think they'll make us duel?" Keith asked. "Each other?"

"I don't know and don't really care. Maybe they'll make us duel the teachers! That would be fun." Drake said. "I could probably beat most of the people here, and I might be able to beat all the teachers."

"Yeah, I agree." They stepped inside the center. They were up on the balcony, looking down at the floor that usually had two basketball courts. The Academy had put metal plates over the wood floors and divided the courts into four areas. There was a duel raging in each one.

"Looks like we'll be dueling teachers… unless those guys in the white coats are students." Keith said.

"Yeah." They walked over to the bleachers and sat down next to another kid. He was about Drake's age, but about Keith's height. He appeared unfocused, as if he really wasn't aware of what was going on around him. He was leaning back against the bleacher behind him, one leg folded over with his ankle resting on the other. His hair was even messier than Keith's; it probably took a real big event to get him to comb it. As they approached he broke out of his trance and looked at them.

"Hello." He said. "I am going to assume that you are applying, too?"

"Yeah." Said Keith. "Who are you?"

"Flynn Tager." The lazy-looking kid said.

"An odd name."

"And yours is more normal?"

"I'm Keith."

"I'm Drake."

"Hmm. Did you just get here?"

"Yeah. Have you dueled yet?"

"No. But I should be coming up pretty soon."

At that moment one of the duels ended. "Would Mr. Flynn Tager please report to Duel Field No. 2." Came over the P.A. Flynn stood up.

"It has been nice chatting with you." He said, giving no indication that it really had been a nice chat. "But I must be off."

"Good luck out there." Keith said.

"Yeah, good luck." Drake said. Flynn nodded and walked towards the stairs, hands in his pockets. Drake watched him walk down the stairs. "That guy creeps me out."

"Yeah, I agree. Still, he's probably a pretty nice guy. We should get to know him better. Let's watch his duel."

"Sure."