Duel with the Devil's Agent
Chapter One
On a mountain stood two figures. One of them was a redheaded man with sideburns, the other a platinum blond young woman wearing an icy blue dress. Her hair was in a plait, and she looked frightened, for the man was pointing a wand at her.
"Yes, that's right, Elsa," the man said. "Ice doesn't work against the Deathstick. And now it will finish you off!"
"You can't utter the words for the Killing C-curse," Elsa said. "Gosh, I'm freeizng! How is this possible? The cold never bothered me before."
"Did I forget to mention that my wand is the most feared wizard instrument in history, and that it can fix things that are otherwise unbreakable? It can also make a snow queen feel the cold, as it has already done."
Elsa folded her hands across her chest, shivering. "Do you really think you've won, Hans?"
"I will have, soon as I kill you. And I think the time is ripe." He pointed the wand straight at her, then said, "Avada Kedavra!"
"No, Elsa!"
A body slammed into hers, a male body with tannish skin and a scar going down his left cheek. Then rolled off the side of the mountain, the flash of green light narrowly missing hitting him.
"Close call, eh?" the guy said.
"Yusei! You saved me!"
"Yeah, I suppose I did," he said, hugging her as they hurled down toward the rocks below. "And now, if we want to keep Hans from ending your life, I must break the pendant."
He tore a brace he had around his neck and tossed it at the rocks. Some billows of fiery smoke rose up, and then Elsa and Yusei were falling through tunnels. She looked "Upward" though as her head was facing the downward motion, it wasn't quite up from her point of view, though she did have to turn to gaze back at where the mountain should have been.
"Where'd it go?" she asked Yusei.
"I broke the Pendant," he said. "So we're in a Tunnelverse. And at some point we're going to separate."
"Separate? What do you mean?"
"These tunnels are going to pull us apart. No matter how many people go in here, they all travel through different passageways from some point, and wind up in places far distant in time and space. I wish I could stay with you, but the path will force our course after a bit."
"Couldn't you try…to remain near me?" Elsa asked. "I haven't been this terrified in a good while."
"I—"
Suddenly there was a rumbling and the rest of what Yusei had intended to say was cut off. He slipped a card in her hands, just as she fell down a tunnel while he was stopped by a flat surface. She saw him attempt to go after her but something caught his leg. She was desirous of having him near her again when she saw him falling right beside her, a partition between them. The soil had given way to glass, and through the glass she was seeing Yusei.
"Oh Yuse! We'll land together at the bottom, no sweat."
He smiled at her and gave her a thumbs up.
Then she was back in a tunnel with soil all around, and she kept on plummeting….somewhere in the falling she had flipped over…
Then she felt a cold unlike anything she had thought possible for anyone to endure, though she never, ever suspected she herself could feel cold. Was Hans' counterjinx affecting her even now? Could it be called a counterjinx when she had used her ice powers to stop him from harming her, and her powers rebounded against her? Well, whatever one called it, she didn't like it. Not one bit.
Suddenly there was a swerve in the tunnel. There was a diagonally crazy ride, like someone had dug the tunnels in a crazy manner. Then Elsa tumbled out at the end of a tunnel and plummeted onto…a tropical beach.
There were some teenager girls nearby, a few younger, a couple older than Anna. They were pumping a ball back and forth across a net. Elsa didn't know what the purpose was, but there they were at it.
She felt sand in her fingernails and looked at the sea, thinking she might wash up, though the ocean wasn't her usual bathing preference. Then her hand found something buried an inch within the sand. She excavated the object and found it to be a Duel Monsters card.
"Good thing Yusei's a good teacher," she said, looking the card over. "Otherwise I wouldn't know the value of this card."
Suddenly there was a crackling and a loud voice said, "Will Elsa Summers please report to Headmistress McKinnon's office immediately."
"Who's Elsa Summers?" one of the girls at the net said, hitting the ball over.
"Scott Summers' cousin perhaps," said another girl, slapping the ball over the net as it had come her way.
"The mutant?" asked a redhead. "Maybe we should ask her if she had any powers."
"That'd be great, if we knew where she was," said a maiden with honey-colored hair.
"We'll probably see her at her induction tonight. She is a new student after all."
Elsa started to head toward them to ask where she needed to go, when she felt a tap on her shoulder. A girl with pale skin and mousy-brown hair stood there. "You Elsa Summers?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I'm supposed to take you to see Headmistress McKinnon."
"I suppose I was heading there, anyway," Elsa said.
"Yes, you were," said the girl, now bright-eyed. "Rumor has it that you're the girl who's gonna put East Academy back on the map."
