p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"Yu-Gi-Oh! GX! The Fan Fic!/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"Episode 2: Welcome to Duel Academy br /span br / A glistening new helicopter cruised out over the eastern seas. It was agonizing to look at, covered in decals of the ever-popular Blue-Eyes White Dragon done up like a pin-up girl, some of which were licking a shirtless Seto Kaiba with muscles bigger than a man could bear. Euggh. The new Duel Academy students sat nervously in their seats, squirming around, for fear of their new lives rushing at them as fast as they could fly. And also the fact that Duel Academy Island featured a live volcano larger than the actual school facilities. The ash was just BLANKETING the atmosphere with gloom, and ash. "And now, if you look out to your left," buzzed the pilot, "You will…ehhhhhm, on second thought, do NOT look at the volcano, please. I'm not turning this thing around so just close your eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, got it muchachos?" br / "THIS IS EDUCATION FOR DEATH!" Syrus realized. "WE'RE ALL JUST SACRIFICES! I GOTTA GET OUT!" He sprinted out of his seat and ducked beneath the arms of two security guards. Then he hurled open the helicopter door and tumbled down two hundred feet into the / "That's my Syrus, alright!" Jaden chuckled good-naturedly. br /br / An hour later, the new students, mainly ugly-looking boys who have never dated like myself, stood in rows inside a pristine lecture hall before a screen emblazoned 'DA' in projection, which likely stood for 'Deh, 'Ay' in greetings. All were in their snazzy new R/B/Y kid coats, even Syrus, dripping wet and wearing a beach towel like a Halloween ghost, proudly displaying his redness underneath because someone told him to. The screen buzzed and some bald guy in red bristled into focus. "Hey there guys and gals, it's me, the ol' P-Dawgy Dawg if you know what I mean, down with OPC? Heh heh?" Nobody reacted. Nobody COULD react. "It stands for 'Other People's Cards?' I thought kids liked rap music."br / "Of course we don't give a crap! We're JAPANESE," exclaimed Chazz / "Hee yeah, yew tell 'im I reckon!" Billy Hills / "I am so confused," Syrus Truesdale /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "Ignoring your /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"lack of taste,/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"" the man sneered, "I am Chancellor Shepherd, the head of this fine establishment! And you are all set to become the next generation of masters of Duel Monsters, or Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever we're calling it these days. Did you know I used to be a banker? And then all these card games supplanted the economy, and I was all, 'I better get in on this shizz fo nizzle!' And here I am now."br /span "If you're the headmaster then why do you wear red?" asked somebody in a blue / "Hey can somebody…" Shepherd asked, facing / "Yes sir," complied a guard, stepping into the scene. He tore off the boy's coat, leaving him in an identical yellow / "NOOO!"br / "Wahaha!" belly-laughed Chancellor Shepherd as he wiped away a tear. "Absolute power is an absolute hoot, now all of you get outta my sight, I forgot my speech. You know where you live now, go on, git!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" Jaden and Syrus sat outside on the school lawn, leaning against the ancient Egyptian carved tablets of such greats as Baby Dragon and Ryu-Kishin Powered, and I feel like I'm making up that second name. The structure behind them was not only one building, but it seemed to be a series of successive sky-high domed schoolhouses, boxed in with a quartet of obelisks reaching for the clouds. I don't even understand how the school works, it just does I tells you. So yes, the boys sat there on their PDAs, checking out the features and tutorials (that stands for Personal Dueling Assistant because of course it does you knew it did already). Jaden suddenly flapped his own thingy closed and said, "I don't know where we live here."br / "Whaaaat?" moaned Syrus. "Jay, we're wearing the red jackets. We're with the red people! Over at Red House. At…" He put his finger to his lip in innocent thought. Then once his ignorance fully took hold of him he pretended Jaden wasn't there anymore and curled into a geek-ball. Then Bastion walked by!br / "Hey B-Boy!" Jaden called out. Bastion turned to the boy and pointed at himself. "Yeah man! How's it hangin'?"br / "This is a kind surprise, no one has ever spoken to me on purpose before!" he gasped with a soft kind of joyfulness. "And I ask to you, Jaden, how do you fare? Are you well?"br / "Can we follow you until we figure out where we stay from here? Like, we didn't even get to bring any luggage, I'm not ready to hobo-out just yet."br / "Ah, you seem to be mistaken," the 'smart' one refuted. "I live in the Ra Yellow dormitory. You two will be staying in Slifer Red's quarters. Hmmhmm, do you happen to be colorblind or something?"br / "Wh-colorblind?" spat Jaden. "Colorblind? Seriously-colorblind?" Jaden stood up and dashed his PDA across the grass. "Color-freakin' blind?!" Some of the other students were starting to watch. "Yeah I'm COLORBLIND Bastion, did you wake up at five in the morning to decide that? How did you figure it out-I JUST WANT TO KNOW MY NEW HOME! I'M LOST, MAN, WHY DO YOU HAFTA HANG THAT OVER MY HEAD?! JUST-COLORBLIND? HOLY-HOLY CRAP MAN, GENIUS, YOU'RE A GENIUS, MAN. A genius at hurting my feelings. Why don't you just call me stupid to my face? Man why don't you just tell it to me to my face?" Their eyes locked with equal levels of pain concealed within. Neither one wanted to say anything else and disturb the uneasy silence, lest it come crashing and tumbling down on their back like a spit-covered jenga tower. Two hearts were on the verge of / "Hey Jaden," said Syrus, "that guy over there's got a Slifer coat. Let's go follow him to the dorm!"br / "Oh good idea Sy! See ya Bastion!" The two Redboys stood up and tromped off after their / "See you in class, good chap!" Bastion smiled and stared up into the limitless blue above. "This is going to be a great year." /p
p class="MsoNormal" I am now 2:30 into this 22:00 episode./p
p class="MsoNormal" Jaden and Syrus hiked three miles down the island to the beachfront where they finally spotted a red-roofed bungalow, with TWO floors' worth of small rooms, roughly sixteen total if one was generous! "But this school has thousands of students," reasoned Syrus. "Hurry Jay, we have to do 'dibsies' on a room or else we'll be sleeping outside!" As Syrus toddled up the stairs to the salty second floor, Jaden was already way ahead of / "I'm way ahead of ya," Jaden echoed, creaking a door open. Within the 12x8 ft. abode were seventy-eight boys in red all standing straight up and struggling not to breathe what another one exhaled, packed like human / "Um, excuse me, we're trying to sleep here?" one / "Why don't you try (eheheheh) THE GHOST ROOM (GHEHEHEHEH, KRFFLFLF)?" another rando sneakily / The boys cartoonishly tip-toed next door, gently pushed the door in, and peeked inside. Here there were no children, only the chills of mystery and stale potato chip odors."Wow, this feels like sacred ground. Like we're tomb-raiding," the smaller guy imagined. "Like, like we had to go to Egypt, and go to the Pharaoh's tomb and put the magic golden things in the sarcophagus, and play one last game to send a dead man into the great beyond or something. Isn't that cool, Jaden? Isn't it cool how I know things?"br / "Shh Sy, I got a good feelin' we're gonna be seein' why they call this one the ghost room," Jaden warned. "Why else would everyone else pass by a perfectly good room…"br / "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!" yelled a hidden mass covered in blankets upon blankets from the toppest bunk bed! He shook his arms like a real wraith for a good moment before he lost his balance and fell down to the floor. "AW OW WHYYY."br / "Hey ghost! I'm Jaden!" The blanketghast whipped off five layers of sheets to reveal a fat bear-lookin' dude. You, just, really REALLY wanted to hug that guy and that koala / "Yeah well I'm not too happy to see someone else tryin' to take my room," he growled. "Don't you know to leave my place alone already? I'm trying to get my nap on! I'll go to class later, okay?"br / "Classes haven't started yet," said Syrus. The big guy, puzzled, pulled out his PDA and tapped a few / "Oh, man," said he, "I've been napping…for three years."br / ".…."br / ".….."br / "Nice to meet ya!" Jaden laughed./p
p class="MsoNormal" The two boys soon hit the road again, taking the slow way up the dusty trail to the main building under the warm pre-autumn sun. "Wow, that guy sure could cry," laughed Jaden. "I mean yeah, he lost years of his life and all but, seriously? Like, 'ey, I'm lol'in ova hea!"br / "I agree that we should give the guy some space, but what the heck are we gonna do from here? I'm getting kind of tired, my back hurts, and I don't generally like living, you know?" Jaden swiftly stopped in his tracks and whipped his arm out in / "Hey, hey hey." Sniff, sniff sniff. "I smell DUELS!" He bolted up the road, fast as lightning, hungry for summa that action, baby!br / "Aw gosh, please feets, don't fail me now. I don't want to be lonely." He reeled his leg back and bent his arms up all Tex Avery-like, and proceeded to slowly gallop after the main character. /p
p class="MsoNormal" The Jaden Trail lead all the way into the bowels of the academy, where Jaden's labyrinth-decoding skills lead him to a fantastic open arena! There were all sorts of…seats! And, spaces, where people could stand and Duel in a big ring! And there were even lights in the ceiling! "Woooow, state of the art," he / "I'll take your word for it," Syrus gasped breathlessly, sliding into the room on his face. A moment later his head jerked upright and he screamed, "Oh no! Bullies!"br / "Hm?" noted Billy Hills and Deep-Voice Dobbson as they stood in the middle of the ring. They quickly stashed away their pixie sticks and bit-o-honeys in their deck boxes for camouflage and stepped down to the Slifer / "Whut, you callin' us bullies huh Slifer Red, huh?" Deep-Voice Dobbson demanded, picking Syrus up off the / "Uh uh uh uh."br / "Yeah, I reckon this little kid's callin' us bullies, Dobbson!" assumed Billy Hils, dusting off Syrus' coat with his / "Huh, Billy, huh, you know what we do ta kids who come in to our turf callin' us bullies?" He took out a hair brush and set Syrus' hair back into place and then gave it a quick spritz with a spray / "Yeah, we tell 'em ta beat it, I reckon!" Billy Hills took out a dum-dum pop and slipped it into Syrus' pocket. Syrus / "Hey step off man," said / "What, we're just tryin' 'a keep everyone followin' the rules I reckon, see?" The bespectacled Billy Hills motioned to a big ol' Obelisk the Tormentor head hung up over the entryway from whence they'd come like some old deer mount. "This arena's our turf, Slifers n' Ras ain't allowed on our campus all unsupervised-like, I reckon, so you better skedaddle unless someone's gettin' in trouble…"br / "I'm sorry, please don't beat us up, I'll give you my Pokemon cards!"br / "Huh! He thinks we're gonna beat im' up!" Deep-Voice Dobbson erupted in a distinctly Yogi Bear-like /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "I reckon he thinks he's cruisin' fer a bruisin'!" The two began to shake with fear; why does this kind of thing ALWAYS HAPPEN to them?! "Ain't we been kindly 'nuff? Go on, git, afore I reckon somethin' /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"real/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" bad happens!"br /span "Shut it already, ya thugs! I ain't afraid of you, and I ain't gonna let you keep terrorizing my friend!" defended Jaden. He pulled out a folded paper Dueling mat from his last theme deck purchase, sat down on the Dueling stage criss-cross applesauce style and shuffled his cards. "You mess with him you mess with me, so let's cut the crap and cut the deck. Let's Duel!"br / "WAIT A MINUTE!" One Chazz Princeton jumped to his feet from the stands, in the blind spot of the entryway. "I thought that was your stupid voice, I didn't know it was your stupid…you!"br / "Heyo!" greeted Jaden / "You must think you're hot stuff, don'cha Slifer slacker? Beating Prof. Crowler like that must make you feel real good about yourself."br / "Yugi Muto gave me a trading card and thought I was real cool."br / "Dumbest lie I ever heard," chortled Chazz. "I'm the only one here who passed Duelist prep school with top marks, in the top classes, with the top looks." He ran his fingers through his hair. It may have looked strange, but it kept the sun out of his eyes every day. "You're just trash in the presence of the future King of Games..."br / "Oh wow which one, Monopoly? 'Cuz I got Duel Monsters."br / "HA HA HA HA! THAT WILL BE THE DAY," Billy Hills and Deep-Voice Dobbson giggled / "SHADDAP!" crowed Chazz. "Red Boy!"br / "Syrus?"br / "No!"br / "Jaden Yuki, nice to meet you."br / "Oh, Chazz Princeton, thank you hey stop doing that! We're Dueling right here, right now!"br / From behind Syrus, Alexis Rhodes entered the room. She sternly put a hand on her hip and announced, "Hey, I just got sent all the way down here to let you know you're late for the welcome dinner, and because you're the fancy Princeton boy we're all being made to sit and wait for you, so…"br / "Wow, she sure isn't in MY league," Syrus noted with tiny broken hearts in his / "Aw fine! Whatever! Let's go eat some stinkin' caviar and stuff with gold dust sprinkled on it!" groaned the richboy, taking his leave. "Gawd, you poor people don't know how good you have it. You shoulda been thanking me!" His two hangers-on trailed behind / "Rich people food, yecch, I reckon," Billy Hills / "Sorry that kid tried to push you around or whatever I just walked into, nobody likes him," said Alexis, taking all the responsibility like a cool / "Aw, what? He's a real character yo!" assuaged Jaden. "Though, I kinda wish we did get to Duel or something."br / "Oh…well, whatever," Alexis shrugged. "Your welcome dinner's probably about to start too, so…"br / "Woah! We get to eat people food here?!" he gasped, packing up his cards and leaping to his feet! "C'mon Sy, let's book it!"br / /p
p class="MsoNormal" As night fell across the island, the Slifer Red dormitory students peered over a couple of small, burnt fish and a croissant. "What is this, the bible?"br / The first floor of the Slifer bungalow was the mess hall and kitchen with nothing but the least fine furniture available. Heck, one kid's chair leg snapped off and he wasn't even heavy. At the head of the assembly was some dumb brown cat, just sitting on a table. "Should…should we touch it?"br / "Dude no. It might be the Headmaster."br / From the kitchen area emerged a tall, lanky, anemic kind of man in plain dress and glasses, so you could tell he was quiet and quirky. Yeah. "Hello students," he rasped nicely. "My name is—" He slipped and hit his face on the table. And then he didn't / "...Woah. Like, who was that?" someone / "That was friggin' scary."br / "Professor Cat, should we call security?"br / Upstairs, Syrus brewed tea in his and Jaden's room and poured it into cheap clay cups. "This is the best I could do in a single night, and I'm not fully convinced the leaves I found aren't poison. But if you ignore the clay bits in the drink it might be okay. Would you like a cup, Chumley?" The big boy in the top bunk let loose a moan. "Okay then, Jaden?" Jaden sat with his back to the wall fiddling around with his / "Hey, I think I got a message from that Chazz guy." He poked open a little mail icon and up popped a recorded video message, starring Chazz /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "/spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"Hey, loser. Tonight. Midnight. Be back at the Obelisk Duel Arena and take your lumps,/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"" he dared. "/spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"And hey, just to make it interesting, what do you say to an ante? Whoever wins gets the loser's best card…I'll show you why I'm the King of Games. I know how to play against your Hero cards and I'll take them away from you, whether you like it or not…/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;""br /span "Wow! That's exciting! A little Midnight Run action, I'm psyched!"br / "Jaden, no, please don't do this. You could lose your Flame Wingman, I'm presuming!" warned Syrus, Team Wimp. "Chumley, Chumley please! Talk some sense into him! He's gonna Duel Chazz Princeton of all people!"br / Chumley peered over the edge of the bed and stared down with his beady black eyes. "I don't know the kid. Sounds like a tool. Anyways if you go into the facilities after dark, you get expelled. So, yeah, don't."br / "Wow, I didn't think about it in terms of losing my education so I couldn't live a better life for myself and my family," Jaden reconsidered. "You know what, thank you Chumley, I think I will stay put right here and have a good time…with my friends."br / "I'm not your friend, man."br / "You say that now, playa! We'll see, we'll see."br / "So, wait, you mean you are really staying in tonight?" checked / "Yeah! For reals!"br / "Oh! Okay, this is good! I mean I'm a little upset you listen to him and not me, but this is doable!"br /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "I'm tellin' ya man, nothing's more important than an education in this fast-paced career card game world! Gotta learn how to read the cards and all…" Jaden rested his hands on the back of his head and sighed away his hunger pains. "This is going to be one /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"interesting/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" year…"/span /p
p class="MsoNormal" Hours later, Chazz was found sitting alone in the middle of the Obelisk Dueling Arena by multiple security guards, shaking with frustration and struggling to hold in his salty tears. "I feel stupid," said Chazz./p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"Episode 2: Welcome to Duel Academy br /span br / A glistening new helicopter cruised out over the eastern seas. It was agonizing to look at, covered in decals of the ever-popular Blue-Eyes White Dragon done up like a pin-up girl, some of which were licking a shirtless Seto Kaiba with muscles bigger than a man could bear. Euggh. The new Duel Academy students sat nervously in their seats, squirming around, for fear of their new lives rushing at them as fast as they could fly. And also the fact that Duel Academy Island featured a live volcano larger than the actual school facilities. The ash was just BLANKETING the atmosphere with gloom, and ash. "And now, if you look out to your left," buzzed the pilot, "You will…ehhhhhm, on second thought, do NOT look at the volcano, please. I'm not turning this thing around so just close your eyes and pretend it doesn't exist, got it muchachos?" br / "THIS IS EDUCATION FOR DEATH!" Syrus realized. "WE'RE ALL JUST SACRIFICES! I GOTTA GET OUT!" He sprinted out of his seat and ducked beneath the arms of two security guards. Then he hurled open the helicopter door and tumbled down two hundred feet into the / "That's my Syrus, alright!" Jaden chuckled good-naturedly. br /br / An hour later, the new students, mainly ugly-looking boys who have never dated like myself, stood in rows inside a pristine lecture hall before a screen emblazoned 'DA' in projection, which likely stood for 'Deh, 'Ay' in greetings. All were in their snazzy new R/B/Y kid coats, even Syrus, dripping wet and wearing a beach towel like a Halloween ghost, proudly displaying his redness underneath because someone told him to. The screen buzzed and some bald guy in red bristled into focus. "Hey there guys and gals, it's me, the ol' P-Dawgy Dawg if you know what I mean, down with OPC? Heh heh?" Nobody reacted. Nobody COULD react. "It stands for 'Other People's Cards?' I thought kids liked rap music."br / "Of course we don't give a crap! We're JAPANESE," exclaimed Chazz / "Hee yeah, yew tell 'im I reckon!" Billy Hills / "I am so confused," Syrus Truesdale /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "Ignoring your /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"lack of taste,/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"" the man sneered, "I am Chancellor Shepherd, the head of this fine establishment! And you are all set to become the next generation of masters of Duel Monsters, or Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever we're calling it these days. Did you know I used to be a banker? And then all these card games supplanted the economy, and I was all, 'I better get in on this shizz fo nizzle!' And here I am now."br /span "If you're the headmaster then why do you wear red?" asked somebody in a blue / "Hey can somebody…" Shepherd asked, facing / "Yes sir," complied a guard, stepping into the scene. He tore off the boy's coat, leaving him in an identical yellow / "NOOO!"br / "Wahaha!" belly-laughed Chancellor Shepherd as he wiped away a tear. "Absolute power is an absolute hoot, now all of you get outta my sight, I forgot my speech. You know where you live now, go on, git!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" Jaden and Syrus sat outside on the school lawn, leaning against the ancient Egyptian carved tablets of such greats as Baby Dragon and Ryu-Kishin Powered, and I feel like I'm making up that second name. The structure behind them was not only one building, but it seemed to be a series of successive sky-high domed schoolhouses, boxed in with a quartet of obelisks reaching for the clouds. I don't even understand how the school works, it just does I tells you. So yes, the boys sat there on their PDAs, checking out the features and tutorials (that stands for Personal Dueling Assistant because of course it does you knew it did already). Jaden suddenly flapped his own thingy closed and said, "I don't know where we live here."br / "Whaaaat?" moaned Syrus. "Jay, we're wearing the red jackets. We're with the red people! Over at Red House. At…" He put his finger to his lip in innocent thought. Then once his ignorance fully took hold of him he pretended Jaden wasn't there anymore and curled into a geek-ball. Then Bastion walked by!br / "Hey B-Boy!" Jaden called out. Bastion turned to the boy and pointed at himself. "Yeah man! How's it hangin'?"br / "This is a kind surprise, no one has ever spoken to me on purpose before!" he gasped with a soft kind of joyfulness. "And I ask to you, Jaden, how do you fare? Are you well?"br / "Can we follow you until we figure out where we stay from here? Like, we didn't even get to bring any luggage, I'm not ready to hobo-out just yet."br / "Ah, you seem to be mistaken," the 'smart' one refuted. "I live in the Ra Yellow dormitory. You two will be staying in Slifer Red's quarters. Hmmhmm, do you happen to be colorblind or something?"br / "Wh-colorblind?" spat Jaden. "Colorblind? Seriously-colorblind?" Jaden stood up and dashed his PDA across the grass. "Color-freakin' blind?!" Some of the other students were starting to watch. "Yeah I'm COLORBLIND Bastion, did you wake up at five in the morning to decide that? How did you figure it out-I JUST WANT TO KNOW MY NEW HOME! I'M LOST, MAN, WHY DO YOU HAFTA HANG THAT OVER MY HEAD?! JUST-COLORBLIND? HOLY-HOLY CRAP MAN, GENIUS, YOU'RE A GENIUS, MAN. A genius at hurting my feelings. Why don't you just call me stupid to my face? Man why don't you just tell it to me to my face?" Their eyes locked with equal levels of pain concealed within. Neither one wanted to say anything else and disturb the uneasy silence, lest it come crashing and tumbling down on their back like a spit-covered jenga tower. Two hearts were on the verge of / "Hey Jaden," said Syrus, "that guy over there's got a Slifer coat. Let's go follow him to the dorm!"br / "Oh good idea Sy! See ya Bastion!" The two Redboys stood up and tromped off after their / "See you in class, good chap!" Bastion smiled and stared up into the limitless blue above. "This is going to be a great year." /p
p class="MsoNormal" I am now 2:30 into this 22:00 episode./p
p class="MsoNormal" Jaden and Syrus hiked three miles down the island to the beachfront where they finally spotted a red-roofed bungalow, with TWO floors' worth of small rooms, roughly sixteen total if one was generous! "But this school has thousands of students," reasoned Syrus. "Hurry Jay, we have to do 'dibsies' on a room or else we'll be sleeping outside!" As Syrus toddled up the stairs to the salty second floor, Jaden was already way ahead of / "I'm way ahead of ya," Jaden echoed, creaking a door open. Within the 12x8 ft. abode were seventy-eight boys in red all standing straight up and struggling not to breathe what another one exhaled, packed like human / "Um, excuse me, we're trying to sleep here?" one / "Why don't you try (eheheheh) THE GHOST ROOM (GHEHEHEHEH, KRFFLFLF)?" another rando sneakily / The boys cartoonishly tip-toed next door, gently pushed the door in, and peeked inside. Here there were no children, only the chills of mystery and stale potato chip odors."Wow, this feels like sacred ground. Like we're tomb-raiding," the smaller guy imagined. "Like, like we had to go to Egypt, and go to the Pharaoh's tomb and put the magic golden things in the sarcophagus, and play one last game to send a dead man into the great beyond or something. Isn't that cool, Jaden? Isn't it cool how I know things?"br / "Shh Sy, I got a good feelin' we're gonna be seein' why they call this one the ghost room," Jaden warned. "Why else would everyone else pass by a perfectly good room…"br / "OOGA BOOGA BOOGA!" yelled a hidden mass covered in blankets upon blankets from the toppest bunk bed! He shook his arms like a real wraith for a good moment before he lost his balance and fell down to the floor. "AW OW WHYYY."br / "Hey ghost! I'm Jaden!" The blanketghast whipped off five layers of sheets to reveal a fat bear-lookin' dude. You, just, really REALLY wanted to hug that guy and that koala / "Yeah well I'm not too happy to see someone else tryin' to take my room," he growled. "Don't you know to leave my place alone already? I'm trying to get my nap on! I'll go to class later, okay?"br / "Classes haven't started yet," said Syrus. The big guy, puzzled, pulled out his PDA and tapped a few / "Oh, man," said he, "I've been napping…for three years."br / ".…."br / ".….."br / "Nice to meet ya!" Jaden laughed./p
p class="MsoNormal" The two boys soon hit the road again, taking the slow way up the dusty trail to the main building under the warm pre-autumn sun. "Wow, that guy sure could cry," laughed Jaden. "I mean yeah, he lost years of his life and all but, seriously? Like, 'ey, I'm lol'in ova hea!"br / "I agree that we should give the guy some space, but what the heck are we gonna do from here? I'm getting kind of tired, my back hurts, and I don't generally like living, you know?" Jaden swiftly stopped in his tracks and whipped his arm out in / "Hey, hey hey." Sniff, sniff sniff. "I smell DUELS!" He bolted up the road, fast as lightning, hungry for summa that action, baby!br / "Aw gosh, please feets, don't fail me now. I don't want to be lonely." He reeled his leg back and bent his arms up all Tex Avery-like, and proceeded to slowly gallop after the main character. /p
p class="MsoNormal" The Jaden Trail lead all the way into the bowels of the academy, where Jaden's labyrinth-decoding skills lead him to a fantastic open arena! There were all sorts of…seats! And, spaces, where people could stand and Duel in a big ring! And there were even lights in the ceiling! "Woooow, state of the art," he / "I'll take your word for it," Syrus gasped breathlessly, sliding into the room on his face. A moment later his head jerked upright and he screamed, "Oh no! Bullies!"br / "Hm?" noted Billy Hills and Deep-Voice Dobbson as they stood in the middle of the ring. They quickly stashed away their pixie sticks and bit-o-honeys in their deck boxes for camouflage and stepped down to the Slifer / "Whut, you callin' us bullies huh Slifer Red, huh?" Deep-Voice Dobbson demanded, picking Syrus up off the / "Uh uh uh uh."br / "Yeah, I reckon this little kid's callin' us bullies, Dobbson!" assumed Billy Hils, dusting off Syrus' coat with his / "Huh, Billy, huh, you know what we do ta kids who come in to our turf callin' us bullies?" He took out a hair brush and set Syrus' hair back into place and then gave it a quick spritz with a spray / "Yeah, we tell 'em ta beat it, I reckon!" Billy Hills took out a dum-dum pop and slipped it into Syrus' pocket. Syrus / "Hey step off man," said / "What, we're just tryin' 'a keep everyone followin' the rules I reckon, see?" The bespectacled Billy Hills motioned to a big ol' Obelisk the Tormentor head hung up over the entryway from whence they'd come like some old deer mount. "This arena's our turf, Slifers n' Ras ain't allowed on our campus all unsupervised-like, I reckon, so you better skedaddle unless someone's gettin' in trouble…"br / "I'm sorry, please don't beat us up, I'll give you my Pokemon cards!"br / "Huh! He thinks we're gonna beat im' up!" Deep-Voice Dobbson erupted in a distinctly Yogi Bear-like /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "I reckon he thinks he's cruisin' fer a bruisin'!" The two began to shake with fear; why does this kind of thing ALWAYS HAPPEN to them?! "Ain't we been kindly 'nuff? Go on, git, afore I reckon somethin' /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"real/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" bad happens!"br /span "Shut it already, ya thugs! I ain't afraid of you, and I ain't gonna let you keep terrorizing my friend!" defended Jaden. He pulled out a folded paper Dueling mat from his last theme deck purchase, sat down on the Dueling stage criss-cross applesauce style and shuffled his cards. "You mess with him you mess with me, so let's cut the crap and cut the deck. Let's Duel!"br / "WAIT A MINUTE!" One Chazz Princeton jumped to his feet from the stands, in the blind spot of the entryway. "I thought that was your stupid voice, I didn't know it was your stupid…you!"br / "Heyo!" greeted Jaden / "You must think you're hot stuff, don'cha Slifer slacker? Beating Prof. Crowler like that must make you feel real good about yourself."br / "Yugi Muto gave me a trading card and thought I was real cool."br / "Dumbest lie I ever heard," chortled Chazz. "I'm the only one here who passed Duelist prep school with top marks, in the top classes, with the top looks." He ran his fingers through his hair. It may have looked strange, but it kept the sun out of his eyes every day. "You're just trash in the presence of the future King of Games..."br / "Oh wow which one, Monopoly? 'Cuz I got Duel Monsters."br / "HA HA HA HA! THAT WILL BE THE DAY," Billy Hills and Deep-Voice Dobbson giggled / "SHADDAP!" crowed Chazz. "Red Boy!"br / "Syrus?"br / "No!"br / "Jaden Yuki, nice to meet you."br / "Oh, Chazz Princeton, thank you hey stop doing that! We're Dueling right here, right now!"br / From behind Syrus, Alexis Rhodes entered the room. She sternly put a hand on her hip and announced, "Hey, I just got sent all the way down here to let you know you're late for the welcome dinner, and because you're the fancy Princeton boy we're all being made to sit and wait for you, so…"br / "Wow, she sure isn't in MY league," Syrus noted with tiny broken hearts in his / "Aw fine! Whatever! Let's go eat some stinkin' caviar and stuff with gold dust sprinkled on it!" groaned the richboy, taking his leave. "Gawd, you poor people don't know how good you have it. You shoulda been thanking me!" His two hangers-on trailed behind / "Rich people food, yecch, I reckon," Billy Hills / "Sorry that kid tried to push you around or whatever I just walked into, nobody likes him," said Alexis, taking all the responsibility like a cool / "Aw, what? He's a real character yo!" assuaged Jaden. "Though, I kinda wish we did get to Duel or something."br / "Oh…well, whatever," Alexis shrugged. "Your welcome dinner's probably about to start too, so…"br / "Woah! We get to eat people food here?!" he gasped, packing up his cards and leaping to his feet! "C'mon Sy, let's book it!"br / /p
p class="MsoNormal" As night fell across the island, the Slifer Red dormitory students peered over a couple of small, burnt fish and a croissant. "What is this, the bible?"br / The first floor of the Slifer bungalow was the mess hall and kitchen with nothing but the least fine furniture available. Heck, one kid's chair leg snapped off and he wasn't even heavy. At the head of the assembly was some dumb brown cat, just sitting on a table. "Should…should we touch it?"br / "Dude no. It might be the Headmaster."br / From the kitchen area emerged a tall, lanky, anemic kind of man in plain dress and glasses, so you could tell he was quiet and quirky. Yeah. "Hello students," he rasped nicely. "My name is—" He slipped and hit his face on the table. And then he didn't / "...Woah. Like, who was that?" someone / "That was friggin' scary."br / "Professor Cat, should we call security?"br / Upstairs, Syrus brewed tea in his and Jaden's room and poured it into cheap clay cups. "This is the best I could do in a single night, and I'm not fully convinced the leaves I found aren't poison. But if you ignore the clay bits in the drink it might be okay. Would you like a cup, Chumley?" The big boy in the top bunk let loose a moan. "Okay then, Jaden?" Jaden sat with his back to the wall fiddling around with his / "Hey, I think I got a message from that Chazz guy." He poked open a little mail icon and up popped a recorded video message, starring Chazz /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "/spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"Hey, loser. Tonight. Midnight. Be back at the Obelisk Duel Arena and take your lumps,/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;"" he dared. "/spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"And hey, just to make it interesting, what do you say to an ante? Whoever wins gets the loser's best card…I'll show you why I'm the King of Games. I know how to play against your Hero cards and I'll take them away from you, whether you like it or not…/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;""br /span "Wow! That's exciting! A little Midnight Run action, I'm psyched!"br / "Jaden, no, please don't do this. You could lose your Flame Wingman, I'm presuming!" warned Syrus, Team Wimp. "Chumley, Chumley please! Talk some sense into him! He's gonna Duel Chazz Princeton of all people!"br / Chumley peered over the edge of the bed and stared down with his beady black eyes. "I don't know the kid. Sounds like a tool. Anyways if you go into the facilities after dark, you get expelled. So, yeah, don't."br / "Wow, I didn't think about it in terms of losing my education so I couldn't live a better life for myself and my family," Jaden reconsidered. "You know what, thank you Chumley, I think I will stay put right here and have a good time…with my friends."br / "I'm not your friend, man."br / "You say that now, playa! We'll see, we'll see."br / "So, wait, you mean you are really staying in tonight?" checked / "Yeah! For reals!"br / "Oh! Okay, this is good! I mean I'm a little upset you listen to him and not me, but this is doable!"br /span style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" "I'm tellin' ya man, nothing's more important than an education in this fast-paced career card game world! Gotta learn how to read the cards and all…" Jaden rested his hands on the back of his head and sighed away his hunger pains. "This is going to be one /spanemspan style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;"interesting/span/emspan style="mso-spacerun: 'yes'; font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; font-size: 10.0000pt;" year…"/span /p
p class="MsoNormal" Hours later, Chazz was found sitting alone in the middle of the Obelisk Dueling Arena by multiple security guards, shaking with frustration and struggling to hold in his salty tears. "I feel stupid," said Chazz./p