"WAKE UP SLIFER SLACKER!"
7 PM in the morning, as always, Corona found herself awoken by her phone, which also acted as her alarm clock. Unceremoniously, the girl shut her phone off with a press of her finger, before it could go off again. She had completely forgotten to change the settings of her aforementioned alarm clock again so that it wouldn't go off on a Sunday. Groaning in annoyance, the girl turned over inside her bed and threw the blanket over her head with the full intention of going back to the land of the scapegoat tokens. Unfortunately for her, two people in the house had other plans. Just as Corona could feel herself losing her sense of awareness, the door to her room was slammed open, causing the girl to jolt and throw the blanket off her bed.
"Gooooood moooorning!"
Corona glared in the direction the offending voice was coming from. Beneath the doorframe leading to her room stood a small figure wearing blue pajamas and green hair halfway reaching his shoulders. He also sprouted a shit-eating grin, not caring at the fact that the girl in bed was currently cracking her knuckles.
"Leo…" Corona growled. "You better have a damn good reason to wake me up on Sunday."
"Oh, I just wanted to make sure you don't oversleep ag- GAH!" With way too much practice, Leo dodged in the incoming projectile that took the form of a perforator and slammed the door shut. The boy laughed out loud, making his way to the kitchen area, where he found his twin sister already sitting on the family table. Like him, she was still in her pajamas. Only they were colored pink. Her hair was
"You know she is going to hurt you one of these days," Luna berated her older brother, although she didn't even try to hide the smile on her face.
"Hah, nah! I'm way too awesome to get hit by her." Leo pointed with his thumb at the closed door, before taking a seat on the table. As usual, breakfast had already been delivered by the hotel staff. In fact, it had been Luna who had allowed the staff woman to bring the cart inside and prepare the table. By the time Leo got up, the staff woman had already left, leaving the three to their lonesome until 9 PM, when someone would come and take the dishes back with them.
"Corona is going to miss out breakfast again," Luna pointed out, as she and her brother started having breakfast.
"Like that has ever bothered her," Leo waved off. "She's just gonna go out and have breakfast somewhere else, like always."
Luna thought about what her brother said for a moment, before silently agreeing with him. It didn't matter whether it was a school day or a free day like right now. Corona almost always overslept, despite using an alarm clock. Luckily for her, she could allow herself to sleep in for so long each and every day because all three of them didn't get schooling in the traditional sense. They didn't even receive private tutoring for that matter. Instead all of them "went" to school via the internet. Their lessons came in the form of teachers standing in front of blackboards and answering questions they typed into a chat box. Naturally, the teachers asked questions, too and they still got homework. But Corona had quickly taught the twins that there was no system in place (none that was working) that could check if the students had a second browser window open, from where the students could search the internet for answers. It had been an accident in all honesty. Corona had made an off-handed comment one time when Leo complained about his chemistry teacher asking difficult questions.
Since they received their lessons via the internet, it was easy saying one was five or maybe even ten minutes late because of connection issues. How Corona got away with that excuse so often, Luna could only guess that it had something to do with her overall grades.
As for physical education, they straight up didn't have that subject. However, the trio did have access to a pool and all three members of the penthouse used it quite frequently.
"So, what are we going to do today?" Luna asked.
"I don't know," her brother answered with a shrug. "Dexter is away with his family today, so he can't come over. Maybe watch some TV?"
"You know, it is Corona's turn to decide what we watch," the female twin pointed out.
"Yeah, but she probably won't wake up until lunchtime."
Leo had almost been correct. Corona came out of her room around half past eleven, fully dressed. Despite being another female member of the family, she kept her hair just long enough, so that she could tie it to a pretty short ponytail. She wore a red and white vest, which she wore openly. Underneath she had a black t-shirt with the words "Slifer Slacker" printed on it in white letters. She also wore blue jeans that had holes in them and were intentionally ripped at the bottom and her footwear consisted of a pair of brown boots. One could easily mistake her for a boy if it weren't for her feminine features around her chest area.
"Why are you two still alive?" Corona groaned, walking towards the fridge with her head hung low. The twins didn't dignify the question coming from their grumpy older sister with a response. They kept their focus on the TV, specifically a cartoon about the Elemental Hero Duel Monsters fighting criminal Duel Monsters in their city. It wasn't lost to anyone that their city was modeled after the field spell Skyscraper.
The oldest sibling of the trio arrived at her destination and took a whole pack of milk out. After removing the cap, the older girl straight up emptied the entire package and afterward threw the thing into the trash.
"Uhh… it looks like that was the last of our milk," the older girl in the room stated, causing the twins to turn around.
"You drank up our milk again?" Luna and Leo chorused in a twin-like fashion.
*BURP*
"Gross," Luna stated as a matter of fact.
"Ahh. Looks like I will have to buy milk again."
"You bought twelve-liter last week," Leo pointed out. "Don't tell me you drank all of that already."
"What do you care?" Corona asked back and stretched her arms out. "Look at this apartment. We're loaded, our parents are loaded and once I have come around to kill you two, I will be the most loaded."
The twins looked at their older sibling unimpressed. "Yeah, right," the two drawled at the same time and turned around to watch their cartoon. Corona just rolled her eyes and walked to the exit of the apartment.
"I'm out," Corona leisurely announced. "If you get mugged, make sure to take photos so that I can laugh at your misery later." The door closed before the siblings could even think about whether they should reply at their sister's comment or not. Leo looked up at the clock and whistled impressed.
"Three minutes, thirteen seconds. That's a new record," the older brother noted. Luna briefly glanced up at the clock and nodded.
"Does she even remember she could have the TV all to herself today?" the female twin asked. Her male counterpart snorted.
"You remember she's the one who keeps forgetting the date of her own birthday," Leo pointed out.
XXX
Corona ignored her stomach's complains at having received too much milk at once, while she waited for the elevator to arrive on the first floor. She was twirling her signature red cap with one of her fingers, watching the number on display decreasing in value every other second. The cap had a blue "D" and a red "A" printed on the front. Both letters had a white outlining to make them more readable.
A small jingle announced the elevator's arrival on the bottom floor. Corona proceeded to put her cap on, making sure her ponytail stuck out from the small gap in the back of her cap. Her eyes were barely visible that way, and admittedly the headwear screwed a little bit with her own vision. But it was nothing she wasn't used to at this point.
Speaking of getting used to, one would think that the stares she always received while going through the hotel lobby would have stopped by now. On the other hand, it was probably because this was a hotel that people kept looking at her, whenever she came through. The reason people stared was mostly because her outfit led most people to the assumption that she was someone who came from the middle class. A few people even thought she was from Satellite of all places.
To give a bit of context, Corona and her younger siblings lived in New Domino City. Despite being as modern as it could get, the city had a bit of a Middle Ages touch to it. It was divided into three sectors, more or less. First, there was Satellite. After a catastrophic earthquake, a good part of old Domino City got split apart from the rest of the city and became an island almost overnight. Many people died on that day and a lot of buildings in Domino City were either damaged beyond repair or straight up collapsed, with the Satellite sector receiving the worst damage. So much had to be rebuilt that in the end Domino City was practically unrecognizable and was given a new name: New Domino City.
For reasons unknown to most, the Satellite sector almost received no help whatsoever into rebuilding the newly formed island. The people there had been practically left alone and for an even weirder reason, they weren't allowed to enter New Domino City or even own Duel Monster Cards. Nowadays, Satellite served as New Domino City's recycling bin.
Most people living in Domino actual belonged to the middle wage class. Sure Domino City had its fair share of backstreets with shady people doing shady business, but overall it was a modern metropolis with good infrastructure and a pretty low unemployment rate. Dueling had become such a staple in today's society that New Domino alone had five Duel Community Colleges and of course the ever prestige Duel Academy, which no longer resided on an island in the middle of nowhere. The volcano on that particular island made sure of that.
Finally, there is the tops area, where the trio of siblings lived in the most expensive apartment of the most expensive hotel in all of New Domino. This was the place where local business owners had their residences, business owners from around the world came to take up temporary residence or generally stinking rich people lived. The entire area was so prestige, it had its very own police force and was closed off from the rest of the public. If you wanted to go there, you had to either live in the tops area, work there or have a friend who could take you with him or her through one of the many security gates. Even journalists had to get special permissions to get in.
Corona's parents belonged to the category of important business owners, but were mostly out of the country, doing whatever they did to keep the money flowing. Technically Corona being the oldest of the three children was supposed to look after Luna and Leo and maybe even raise them a bit. But the sixteen-year-old never bothered. She'd rather enjoy the reactions of the other rich people as seemingly a "commoner" was walking through their ever so "sacred" city. It made for a good laugh.
Corona's business wasn't in the tops area anyway. When she went out, she usually walked to the "common" districts of New Domino City. Specifically today, she was heading to the downtown area of New Domino, using one of the many cabs waiting outside of the hotel. The drive alone seemingly took forever, which was to be expected. Even on a Sunday, New Domino was quite the busy place. It took the cab driver forty-five minutes to bring her to her designated destination. After paying the said cab driver, the first thing Corona did was getting breakfast at a local bakery. After having finished that, she hit the streets of her home for real this time.
As always, it was almost impossible for her to get through the street without getting into body contact with some person or other. It was especially crowded now since many people were having their lunch break and stood in long queues at the various food stalls and fast food restaurants. Since it was a Sunday, there was no school, which meant there were children and teenagers all over the place. When you took a look into various side streets, you could almost always see a duel going on. Duels were so frequent that hearing an explosion or the roar of a monster coming from seemingly nowhere didn't even faze the people anymore. They were annoyed at best because they got interrupted in their conversations. Heck, a recent study showed how street animals were slowly but surely getting used to holograms.
Speaking of Duel Monsters, after walking for a bit, Corona arrived at her destination. It was a small, unsuspecting game shop, owned by a guy named Rathie. Rathie was a rather heavy weighed individual, who had slightly brown skin, could be usually seen wearing a hat, in this case, a red and yellow striped one with a white pommel on top, small, round sunglasses, a red vest, white t-shirt, and some black pants. Aside from Duel Monster cards, the guy also sold figurines, board and other card games, as well as some second handed handheld games. There wasn't usually a huge crowd at this particular shop, which was why Corona came here on a regular basis.
"Well, look who decided to come down from the tops and grace us peasants with her presence," Rathie greeted Corona when he noticed her entering through the front door. The girl rolled her eyes underneath her cap.
"What's up, you little pervert?" Corona greeted back. It was pretty much an open secret to everyone who knew Rathie, the card shop owner that he had a thing for barely or cutely dressed female Duel Monsters. He wasn't even hiding it. He had a couple of Duel Monster figures on display. To give the guy some credit, he also collected generally rare Duel Monster figures, like a recolored version of the Dark Magician.
"Same old, same old," Rathie replied, turning his attention towards his computer screen. "Am currently waiting for a new package full of boosters to arrive. Not to mention the Jack Atlas and Red Dragon Archfiend figures have still to arrive."
"Huh, go figure. Traffic?" Corona asked as she eyed some of the boosters hanging on the wall.
"Hell if I know," Rathie threw his hands up in the air, before letting them fall on his lap. "It's not like they tell me. Atlas' duel is in two weeks and I have run out of figures last week. If I don't get them soon, I'm missing out."
"I'm pretty sure Leo would buy all of your surpluses," the cap-wearing girl replied, having in hand one specific booster pack called: "Me under the Bridge."
"He is such a huge fan. I always put on my headphones whenever Jackie is on TV. I'm surprised the neighbors downstairs aren't complaining about all of his shouting and stomping."
"Eh, bet their kids are doing the same," the shop owner suggested. "I know my neighbor's kids are always loud when there's a big duel on TV."
"I don't get how dueling is such a big thing nowadays, anyway," Corona was now holding a bunch of boosters in her hands. "I mean, just look at how much we invested in holographic technology. Imagine we invested just as much money into medicine or space travel. Instead, here we are, dueling on motorcycles. It almost sounds like a joke."
"I don't get why you always have to complain about this. Most people coming to my shop complain about Pot of Greed still being on the ban list," Rathie chuckled.
"Maybe it's 'cause I'm not thinking about a stupid card game 24/7?" the girl asked, approaching the counter. "Like how Sector Security can hack into Runners of suspicious people, but to shut it down completely and arrest the suspect they have to win the game?"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it," the shop owner waved off. "Why are you talking about this kinda stuff with me of all people?"
"You're the only one I have to talk to," the customer shrugged and placed the packs she had collected on the counter. Rathie snorted and started scanning the packs-
"What about your family?"
"With them I'm too busy complaining about how they're not dead yet."
Rathie shook his head, chuckling at Corona's words. "The little ones are what? Ten years old?"
"Eleven," Corona corrected the man.
"Eleven. And you complain that they're not dead? Isn't that kind of detremental to their mental health or something?"
"They're used to it by now. And even if they weren't I'd still do it. Once they are out of the way, I get to inherit all the money from my parents."
"I'm pretty sure at this rate they'll disown you."
"Pff, neither of the twins ever tell them what I say or do. In return, I never tell our parents when they fuck something up. Kinda mutually beneficial relationship," Corona explained.
Rathie was just done scanning the last booster, as Corona finished her sentence. The girl was about ready to go, when something else came to mind.
"By the way, about that card I wanted you to find?"
"Still nothing," Rathie shook his head. "Which is kinda strange. The card isn't even that special. There should be someone out there who is willing to sell it. I'll text you, when I find something."
"Thanks."
XXX
After her little trip to the card shop, all Corona had planned for the rest of the day was to get some milk and go home. But she knew that back at home she would either sit in front of her PC the entire day or duel Leo and Luna and utterly thrash both of their decks. It wasn't like Corona was that good of a duelist. Rather Corona knew how to build a deck that worked. Plus with her considerable finances, there was almost no card out there Corona couldn't get a hold of either through Boosters, pre-build Decks or the good old-fashioned internet. She was pretty confident she could take on the professional league at this point in time, though she had no desire to be famous at this point or at all for that matter. With that being said, Corona had no idea what she wanted in life.
She let out a sigh, as she wandered around the coastline of New Domino City. In the distance, one could easily make out Satellite, sticking out like an oil slick in the ocean. It was pretty ironic, all things considered. Here she was, having all the roads open to her, capable of pursuing any career she wanted, while over there the most the people could hope for was getting a job with a minimum wage payment. Those people had no hope in their life. Some of them may dream of one day leaving the island, but those dreams usually ended with a corpse washing up on the shores of New Domino.
As the black smog from the factories on the island gathered above the Satellite, making it look like there was a sinister force at work, Corona wondered what her life would look like if she had been born in the Satellite. She had yet to be conceived when the catastrophe happened, but by the time she was capable of using her brain functions correctly, the people living in Satellite had already been demonized by the local government.
"What a sorry sight."
The voice brought Corona out of her musings. Looking to the side, she found a man in uniform approaching her. The man had tanned skin, a nasty scar running down his right cheek, was pretty muscular and had black hair with some spikes hanging down from the front of his face. In one hand he was holding a hot dog, indicating he was probably on break.
"Whatcha doing looking at the Satellite? Don't tell me you're actually thinking about going over there, kid. Hahaha!" The man laughed over his own statement. Corona wasn't so sure what exactly was so funny about it, but she was smarter than to argue with a law enforcer.
"Just wondering why people over there aren't allowed to duel," Corona replied.
"Huh?" the man stopped in his laughter and looked at the girl. "No offense kid, but you sound like a girl."
"I am a girl," the cap wearing girl deadpanned.
"Oh…er..uh… sorry…" the man muttered, getting slightly red from embarrassment. A teasing smile appeared on Corona's face.
"It's alright. It's always funny when people think I am a boy. My voice usually gives it away, though. Like right now."
"Uh huh… I see." The officer took a bite out of his hotdog and looked over to Satellite.
"Still, why are people over there not allowed to duel? What's wrong with playing a harmless card game?" she asked.
"Don't ask me, kid," the officer shrugged. "I don't make the law. I just make sure that people who don't follow it get their just deserts."
"Hmm…" Corona shook her head. "It's still stupid. Allowing the people over there to duel would give them an emotional outlet that isn't straight up violence. This would mean they weren't prone to beat each other up and in return make your job easier."
"Not sure I follow your logic, kid." The officer took another bite out of his hotdog. "But whatever. My shifts starts in half an hour, so I better get going. Make sure to look left and right before crossing the street." With a leisure wave of his hand, the man left the scene. Corona looked after him, frowning.
"I swear I have seen this dude somewhere before," she mused to herself. "Ah, probably saw him on the street some day or other. That scar must have burned itself into my memory." With those musings, Corona returned her attention to the island in the distance, wondering how people could be so blind to see that they were only increasing the problem by isolating the island.
XXX
When Corona arrived back at the apartment, carrying twelve liters of milk in a carton under her arm, she saw that Leo and Luna were still watching cartoons. Taking off her cap and putting it aside, she stored the milk in a small storeroom, before she decided to talk to her siblings.
"Have you killed enough of your brain cells by now that you can be considered brain-dead?" she asked.
"Are you even trying at this point?" Leo asked in return. "And keep it down, will ya? Luna is sleeping."
"Again?" Corona asked, though her tone was softer. She walked around the couch and indeed saw her little sister leaning against Leo's shoulder.
"Could now make an incest joke, but I think I used all of them up at this point," Corona commented.
"You're just sick," Leo sneered.
"Thank you, I try my best to keep the audience entertained." The oldest sibling made a mock bow.
"And now you're not making any sense."
"Like that's anything new."
Corona slumped down on the free sofa and put her feet on the small table in front of her. She then proceeded to take one of the booster packs out of her pocket and opened it.
"New cards?" Leo asked with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't mom and dad send us new ones last week?" he asked.
"I gave mine to you two, remember?" Corona asked, reading through the card text. "I didn't need them. Plus, the duel spirits were way happier with you as their owners."
Leo snorted. "Well, duh. They want to be used by someone with actual skill and not some bimbo, like you."
Corona made a mental note that she may have taught her little siblings a few words that they shouldn't know. Then again, they were smart enough not to use those words in front of any authority figure. Plus with the internet it was only a matter of time until they learned those words.
"At least I don't worship some wannabe Kaiba, who has to ride a bicycle in order to feel manly."
"Hey, Jack Atlas is the greatest duelist out there!" Leo shouted, causing Luna to groan in her sleep. Flinching a little, the boy toned down his voice. "You're just jealous that he'll never take someone like you as his girlfriend." The boy grinned.
"I definitely taught you two too many things," Corona muttered and examined the next booster. "And why would I want a selfish asshole like Atlas as my boyfriend? His so called dueling skills? Please." Corona scoffed.
"Oh yeah? If you're so much better than him, why don't you take him on yourself?" Leo asked in a challenging tone.
"He doesn't take on random challengers from the street," Corona answered. "You need a sponsor, a reputation, preferably a Duel Runner and last I checked it takes months until you get a shot at him. And that is if his manager even allows you to challenge him." The girl shook her head. "You have better luck waiting for an official tournament to come around, where everyone can compete."
"Well how about this, the next time a tournament comes around, we're both going to register and then we'll see who the better duelist is. And after I have stomped you to the ground, I'll be the one challenging Jack Atlas."
Corona didn't bother pointing out that her brother had yet to win a single match against her.
"The next tournament is going to be the Fortune Cup. The people there are chosen at random by Kaiba Corp," the older sibling reminded the younger one. "Though, they might just cancel the whole thing off."
"And why would they do that?"
"Because Jack might lose his next official duel?"
"Oh please," Leo waved off. "Jack is going to flatten what's-his-face in ten turns tops."
"Wanna bet?" Corona asked in a challenging tone. However, before Leo could answer, they heard the doorbell ringing. Luna moved a little uncomfortable in her sleep, but else didn't wake up. Corona signed Leo to wait on the couch, while she went to the front door. After opening it, she could see one of the hotel staff members standing in front of the door. He held a black tray in his gloved hand, where three envelopes were sitting on.
"Excuse me for disturbing your afternoon miss, but a very important person wished to have these letters delivered to the three of you."
"Ah, thanks."
The man held the tray in front of him, allowing Corona to take the envelopes away. Each of them had a name on it, the names being: Luna, Leonard and Corona.
"Probably from mom and dad. They told us they'd send us some pictures of Paris." Taking out a few bills from her pocket, Corona handed them over to the bellboy as a tip.
"Thank you, miss. Have a nice afternoon."
"Good luck with the tips."
After Corona returned to the living room, she threw the envelopes on the small tables and returned her attention to her boosters.
"What's that?" Leo asked, nodding towards the table.
"Dunno, but we all got one. Figured we could open them up, when sleeping beauty is back up. Probably mom and dad sending us some new photos."
Leo rolled his eyes at that. For some reason, their parents insisted on sending each of their kids one copy of each photo they took. The three never got an explanation as to why, but it had become kind of a family tradition to open them up at the same time and throw random comments in. It was probably the only thing the three did together outside of dueling each other.
Seeing as his older sister was busy with her new cards and Luna was still fast asleep, the boy returned his attention to the TV in front of him. He absentmindedly went with one of his hands through his younger sister's hair, a small smile appearing on her face as a result.
Corona watched her siblings from the corner of her eyes and suppressed a chuckle. "So many incest jokes to be made. And yet I have done them all already," she silently lamented. "Oh hey, Chimera the flying mythical beast. Now that's a classic."