Chapter 3: Teamwork on the Duel Field
Camping was a reasonably popular activity among students and Kazuki townsfolk who felt the need to get outside and exert a little bit of physical effort before settling down and spending the night out in the open air of nature. Trees waved with each breeze; the sap could be smelled six inches away, which was generally how far from the tree one's nose was before he or she realized there was sap sticking to his or her arms. With a heavy canopy keeping heat beneath the trees and bugs big enough to abduct children, it was little wonder people didn't camp more often.
To build camaraderie between duelists whose common deck themes brought them together, Numbers Harper led Team Lockdown into the mountains of the island for a weekend camping trip. Numbers didn't look like the hiking type—she was short and fair-skinned—but she was always liked doing something active with her teammates, and she was as tough as any slow-talking woman could be.
"Thank god," she couldn't help uttering when they reached the campsite.
"Come on, now," Clinton Ealey commented. "It wasn't that bad. Hiking is invigorating." Clint was just a little taller than Numbers, but being a guy, he was naturally better off in terms of leg strength. He wouldn't last as long in direct sunlight, though; his skin was about as dark as a Kleenex.
"That's easy for you to say," Bryan argued. "You're only carrying supplies for one." Whereas much of the group carried nothing more than one bag of supplies and a sleeping bag, Bryan had enough supplies for three people to go camping—specifically himself, Lucy, and Ivy.
Ivy Roaks reminded him, "I'm happy carrying my own stuff." She was a short, thin redhead whose hair was longest at the bangs; her red hair worked well fashionably with her Academy jacket—a white one with blue trim. She wore thin, rectangle-framed glasses, but everyone always noticed the small, green tattoo of a star next to her blue-gray eyes. Small as she was, she wasn't above work; because Bryan was carrying her stuff, she carried sleeping bags for two of her other teammates.
"He won't do that," Lucy pointed out. "He's showing off his brute strength." Hiking was tough enough without trying to match your weight in gear. But with the body of a former football player and the mettle of a Japanese sword smith, Bryan had seemingly no difficulty moving around with all that extra weight.
"Is it working?" he asked Lucy.
She winked at him. "Maybe a little." She may have given his ass a squeeze, too, prompting a slight stumble in his next step; luckily he recovered quickly.
As Matt felt the sea breeze blowing through his longer hair, he almost couldn't believe what transpired. Not only was he returning to the somewhat secluded Academy Island, but he was doing so on the deck of a US Navy ship. A destroyer-class, no less. And he was pretty sure it was a top-secret mission he stumbled onto. Fortunately, the mission happened to take the ship by Duel Academy, and the captain agreed to take him along.
"If you're captain of your own ship," Matt commented to his former resident advisor, "then what in the hell are you doing back at Duel Academy?"
Mitsuro Itachu didn't fit the image of a ship's captain. For one thing, she was much too young. Her rank was given to her as a result of training camp scores, duel experience, and familial ties—namely, her father was a Captain. But right now, having temporarily relinquished her status and enrolled in Duel Academy for another semester, she was dressed more the part of a student. She wore a men's Academy uniform—blue—because she had a thing against skirts and clothes that fit too tightly; she even cut her black hair pretty short and held it in place with a bandana, forest green like the color of her eyes.
She smiled at Matt and pointed out, "Actually, I'm a Lieutenant Commander."
Doing a mental comparison to Matt's only military experience—M*A*S*H—he asked her, "That's like being a major, right? So does that make you Frank Burns or Hot Lips Houlihan?"
With a sour expression, she pleaded, "Isn't there someone else to compare me to? Can't I be Sidney Freeman or someone less whiny?" Realizing that comment in itself could be construed as whining, she immediately told Matt without direct provocation, "Shut up or I'll have you thrown overboard."
"In a barrel? With a snorkel sticking out the top? Like Bugs Bunny?"
Mitsuro laughed and playfully smacked his shoulder. "How can you be so goofy all the time?"
"It took years of practice," he confessed. But deep inside, he just hoped she wouldn't realize the truth: It was the only thing keeping his messed up life from sending him into a depressive spiral.
"I bet you weren't expecting to return to school on a top secret ship," Mitsuro commented.
"And I'm sure the Navy appreciates your divulging that information to me freely," Matt replied. "But this sure is better than trying to get there in a rowboat."
"You want a smooth ride? Nothing beats a Harrier," spoke another man, slightly shorter than Mitsuro and only a few years older. He also wore men's Academy outfit, but his jacket was red, the color worn by all first-year students. His dark hair really made Matt think his hazel eyes were fake—maybe colored contacts or something. Maybe they were special lenses that helped him when flying the jet he mentioned.
"A Jump Jet?" Matt confirmed. "Sounds comfy."
"I'm impressed a civilian like you is familiar with the term. Were you a jet junkie as a kid?"
"No. I spent most of my childhood trying to avoid being any kind of junkie. I just spend a lot of time on Wikipedia. So why is an established jet fighter like you going to a school like Duel Academy? Talk about a drastic career change."
Tai Ishihara laughed a hearty laugh, almost like he hadn't heard that one before. "I'm pretty much in the same boat as Mitsuro. I'd like to advance my career, and the easiest way to do that is by earning a college degree. Plus, I enjoy dueling, Duel Academy had a top-rated general education curriculum, and there's plenty of weird stuff happening in the background to keep things interesting."
Matt almost flinched at that comment, wondering if maybe it was no coincidence that this "top-secret" ship was carrying two people to the most focused location of next-level activity in the world. Never ignore a coincidence, he told himself.
"Mitsuro tells me you're hot stuff on the duel field," Tai told Matt. "How'd you end up in a yellow jacket?"
Matt couldn't help laughing at that. "I reenrolled after the semester started, and so they threw me to the bottom of the rankings. I'm only one step above the freshmen prefects."
"Tough break," Tai suggested.
An especially large man chose that moment to step up behind the trio and block out the sun entirely. He looked like a wall, except that very few walls seek out people to tower over. Mitsuro's father was a commanding presence, even without the full Naval garb. He had a solid, T-shaped face with the kind of beard that holds strongly enough to deter bullets and teeth big enough to chew through wood.
"Arr! We be close ta the island. Prepare to walk the plank, scurvy dog!"
Matt replied with nothing but a flabbergasted stare and the hope that if he didn't move and didn't breathe, just maybe the walking cliché wouldn't notice him. Worst case scenario, maybe that peg leg the captain had would give Matt the edge in a footrace.
"Stop right there," Cary demanded. She gave Matt such an incredulous look he thought it might freeze that way. "Is any part of that story even remotely true?"
Matt grinned. "Someone would have to read it back to me."
That was actually an impressive story for Matt to come up with on the spot considering he wasn't exactly looking at Cary's eyes while he spoke. As a sort of teambuilding activity, Cary decided to take the other members and rushes for Team OTK (aside: one-turn-kill, denoting a strategy to defeat an opponent in one turn) to the island hot springs. Cary's body may be modest by most standards, but her legs were clearly the most toned and athletic of the group, save Matt's own legs. And she wasn't immodest, but Cary was not particularly shy; she wore a gold bikini that showed her legs almost begging for attention.
Matt was technically crashing the party. With the late reenrollment, he was not immediately offered a spot on Team OTK. For one thing, the fact that Matt's deck was in a near-permanent state of flux last year was well know; he would have to prove an OTK strategy before being granted membership again.
"I suppose you're here for my position," Cary suggested bluntly.
With a shake of the head, Matt said, "No. You'll be a better team leader than I was. Just look at how well you replenished the ranks."
At the end of the previous semester, only three members of Team OTK did not graduate, including Matt and Cary. Here at the hot springs, she had two more full members and three rushes for a total of eight members. (Keep in mind the difficulty with establishing a one-turn strategy, the ability and grade requirements attached to joining teams, and that Duel Academy's enrollment figures tend not to pass two hundred students.)
He nodded toward one notably tall guy wearing black swim trunks. "I see you got yourself some eye candy. You always did have a thing for tall guys."
"That's Allen Tebaro," she told him. "He's one of our freshman rushes. He uses an Empty Jar deck." She could tell by the blank look on his face that Matt was clueless with deck themes unless they were named for specific cards. "It's a milling strategy intended to make the opponent run out of cards."
"Really? Does it work?"
"Well enough to get him invited to rush." She motioned into the hot springs where the steam almost prevented Matt from recognizing anyone else. This particular face, however, had a tendency to shine through even the heaviest fog. "I decided your cyberdark friend was worth recruiting, too. Maybe you'd like to go say 'hi' instead of staring at my ass all day."
"What a unique device, the human tush," Matt quoted in a broad, full voice. "An architectural wonder, one of a kind… Actually, two of a kind. Designed to support our weight for a lifetime of sitting, it also has the subtlety to do the samba. And when attached to certain members of the female species at a time when light summer dresses are worn can cause some of us to drive our cars straight up a lamppost."
When he put a stupid grin on his face, Cary groaned, "That's two M*A*S*H references in ten minutes. Did you meet Alan Alda this summer or something?"
"No. I just watch a lot of Hallmark channel in the evening," he answered with a laugh. "So does that mean you'll let me stay and rush Team OTK?"
Cary pretended to have to think about it for a moment. "Fine. But I'm on the fence about you, and the only thing leaning me in your favor is that you look modestly good without a shirt on. Emphasis on modestly. Now put on a swimsuit and come meet the rest of the team."
Just to push her buttons a little, he suggested, "We're in the hot springs. Do I really need a swimsuit?"
And pushing right back, she said, "Yes. Nobody will ever want to see that."
Gathered around the fire, people still tend to branch off into smaller groups. Lucy and Ivy sat off under the trunk of a large tree; Clint, Dahlak, and Evie sat on one side of the fire comparing duel cards; and Bryan, Leroy, and Numbers discussed the exhilaration/boredom of being out in nature.
"Do you think there's owls in these woods?" Leroy asked.
Bryan dryly replied, "Who cares?"
"They're predators," Leroy pointed out.
"If you're a mouse."
Leroy leaned forward creepily. With the position of a storyteller but all the sincerity of a stroke, he said, "Once they taste human flesh, they can't be stopped."
"They don't eat human flesh," Bryan replied sternly. With a sudden look of concern in his eyes, he turned to Numbers and asked, "Do they?" She assured him she'd never seen a vampire-owl hybrid of any kind.
Clint began waving his cap in front of his face. "Why does the smoke from the campfire always blow into my eyes?"
Dahlak noticed that everyone split into separate groups and disapproved. In an effort to bring them all together again, he suggested, "Why don't we sing a round?" Taking a deep breath, he started, "Where has Oregon gone, boys? Where has Oregon?"
Bryan looked to Numbers. "Can I kill him?"
She responded simply with, "His racket keeps the owls away."
Matt enjoyed the feel of the hot water on his skin. It helped relax his muscles and relieve some of the tension he built up sleeping on that ship. The bed was not particularly comfortable, even if it got the job done.
"Was Mitsuro's father really a pirate?" asked Sean Bivins, Matt's candidate for the Least Likely OTK Duelist. It's not that Matt didn't like Sean; he just didn't think the guy had in him the skill to pull off an OTK.
"Depends on your definition of 'pirate,'" he replied.
He stretched his arms and brought one down around the shoulders of Aurora Ruiter, who preferred to be called Rory. She was wearing a black, one-piece swimsuit that matched her natural hair color; she dyed in blue streaks, however, in honor of her rise to the Blue Mansion. She was slender but somewhat toned, especially since she started exercising more frequently. When Matt decided to spend the summer with her, Rory decided to adopt some of his exercise habits in an effort to spend as much time with him as she could before he changed his mind.
"So Cary let you join the organization, huh?"
Playing along with his jocular nature, Rory replied, "The test was easy. I just had to remove a bunch of bells from a mannequin without making a sound." She pointed over to Sean and said, "Sean, though, is the real superstar here. Cary figured out that Sean has almost been using an OTK strategy this whole time without anyone realizing it."
"Is that so?" Matt asked. Rory's endorsement was strong reason to think there was more to Sean's dueling deck than he let on, but the real clincher for Matt was Cary's endorsement. Knowing her, she wouldn't let just anybody onto the team. She'd only take people with proven OTK ability.
"It's nothing all that special," Sean argued modestly. "It's not like marrying a figure skater."
"Hard to argue with that," Matt agreed without missing a beat. He chuckled to himself, and then he said, "I'd really like to see what you've got, Sean. If you don't mind, of course."
"I don't mind," he said and started to reach into the pockets of his swim shorts.
Rory groaned. "Tell me you didn't bring your cards into the hot springs with you."
Sean laughed back at her. "I was looking for the key to my locker so I can go get my deck. Give me some credit, will ya?" And when he stepped out of the hot springs, Matt saw that Sean was still wearing his shoes.
"Very little," he mumbled. He looked at Rory, said, "I have a duel against a guy with wet feet," kissed her briefly on the nose, and then pulled himself out of the water to retrieve his deck.
Bryan's sleeping bag was big enough for two people, provided those people really liked each other. Being summer, though, he was almost forced to take his shirt off to avoid overheating. Lucy made no such concession.
"Are you okay?" she asked. "You look really uncomfortable."
"I've got a rock in my lats." He rolled forward just enough for Lucy to reach under his back and push aside a rather jagged rock. "The padding in this sleeping bag is only 'that' thick." He held his fingers approximately an inch apart. He decreased the distance so his fingers almost touched. "'That' thick if you lie on it."
As she laid her head back on his chest and heard his quick, somewhat erratic heartbeat, she asked, "Are you sure that was all? There's not something else bothering you. Someone else?"
"I don't mind that Matt came back after all. It just feels weird having not spoken yet."
"He just got back this morning," she pointed out, "and you're not roommates anymore. You'll see him around, though."
"Yeah. It's just… weird." He kissed her forehead, sighed, and said, "It could be worse, though."
"Really?"
He looked up where Clint, Dahlak, and Evie still sat around the fire. Evie was roasting marshmallows, Clint was trying to fan the smoke from the fire away from his eyes, and Dahlak had his hands in front of his face while whistling. "That was the Western Warbler. Did you hear the difference from the Central Warbler?"
Lucy smiled. "Can't we just kill him?"
"He keeps vampire owls away. The Warbler is their natural predator."
Despite the allure of the beautifully designed Duel Academy campus and the pleasantness of taking in the sun while hanging out on the quad, no place on the island was better than the woods for meeting away from prying eyes and open ears.
"Is this everyone?" Five people were already way more than the two Victor Rocks wanted to see. Specifically, he wished the other guys would scram and leave him alone with Hayley to figure out some more synonyms for 'snogging.'
"Why are we here?" asked Abel Shinzo. He was tall, muscular, and black, more like a basketball player than a duelist, but looks were often quite deceiving. While still just short of the dueling level seen by Blue duelists, Shinzo's insects were a force to be reckoned with.
Knowing that Hayley was slightly more traditional than he'd like, especially now that she got a better grip on her less inhibited persona, Vic acknowledged that the relationship had to be slower or else he'd end up scaring Hayley away set aside. With that happy thought, he moved on to his other big ambition.
"We're going to make a dueling team to rival Lockdown and OTK."
At times, it was difficult to know when to take Vic seriously. Hayley Wilson, the aforementioned reluctant associate of Vic's, experienced a few extended phone calls with him over the summer, and there were many times during the previous school year they spent time together, but she still saw every word he said and behavior he made as a guessing game. For one, she couldn't figure out if he was attracted to her as an interesting person or just because her gorgeous curls and smooth skin put her in close running with Lucy for prettiest face on campus.
"Are you serious, or is this one of your fleeting visions of fame?" she asked him.
Vic grinned widely. "I'm totally serious. We're going to build a team of duelists and do fundraising and all that crap."
"But why?" Abel wondered. "Giving to charity doesn't sound like your thing."
Vic's eyes widened. "They give their money to charity? You're kidding!" He ignored that sudden disbelief. "Doesn't matter."
Abel laughed loudly now. "'Doesn't matter?' That money you earn wouldn't go into your pocket? Now I'm sure there's an ulterior motive. Damned if I know what, though."
"This will look good on our curriculum vitas," Vic insisted with an expression of feigned insult. "And if working together on common themes makes those other losers such better duelists, maybe it will do the same thing for us."
"We don't have common deck themes," Ty pointed out. A rather scrawny guy, Ty was more one of Vic's followers than his friends. He admired Vic for reasons beyond the scope of the prefrontal cortex. He was often in agreement with Clyde, Vic's heavier, heftier follower, whose voice was thicker when he suggested Elementals and Insects and The Fabled don't match a common theme.
Vic knew they were right, but there had to be something… "So we'll make our team about power decks. Or maybe beatdown or swarms. There's got to be something."
"Why so eager for a team?" Hayley asked him.
"Never mind. Let's just come up with something."
Suddenly a sixth person, wearing a blue jacket with the sleeves torn off, dropped himself upside-down into the middle of the group, his knees still clinging tightly to the low-lying tree limb overhead. "I've got something."
Hayley jumped back and clutched her chest with the futile hope of slowing her heart rate. "Damn it, Logan. You scared the hell out of me!"
"How long have you been there?" Abel further asked. He didn't hear a single noise in the trees until just that moment.
"About two hours. I've been taking a nap since I finished training." What training was not hard to figure now that everyone knew to look for something. Logan Wilson—no relation to Hayley—had two swords strapped to his back and several slash marks were visible on the trees nearby, once a flashlight was shone in their direction. Among all the quirks students carried with them, Logan's insistence upon practicing swordplay was one of them. He was forbidden to have swords on campus, but he had his hiding spots nearby.
He hopped down from the tree and swooned. "Whoa. I can't feel my torso."
Vic gritted his teeth. "Get out of here, Logan. We're busy."
"And clueless," Logan quipped. "I have an idea for a dueling team. But before I tell you, my condition is that I get to be the leader."
"No way!" Vic instantly argued. "I want the tuition money!"
Abel and Hayley both glanced crossways at Vic. "Then money really is why you want to make a team? You know we have to have a constitution and everything drawn up, and there are other rigorous requirements for maintaining an Academy-endorsed team."
Quickly deflated, Vic asked, "Really?"
"Yes," Hayley insisted. "It's a lot of hard work. I don't spend a lot of time with Matt or Numbers, but I know they ran pretty rampant last year to keep their teams together and running according to their established rules. I can't imagine how much harder it would have been for them to start those teams."
Fortunately, Vic didn't have to think on it tonight. A light shone directly in his eyes for just a moment—long enough to blind him temporarily—before darting to the other faces. It came from a mag light carried by someone wearing the blue uniform of the campus police. Not very tall but with a slender build and a clean cut look, the officer stepped into the small clearing with authority. In appearance alone, and with his rather smooth voice, he was not intimidating, but he did have a certain presence that commanded respect.
"Is that you, Officer Potter?"
"It's always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Wilson," Patrolman Michael Potter spoke sarcastically to Logan. "You are all aware that you are out past curfew?"
Abel pointed out, "Isn't this the night Team Lockdown is going camping? Doesn't that keep them out past curfew?"
"Their trip was approved by the administration."
Vic grumbled, "The fascist administration. You're a sucker for following their rules."
"Yep" was Potter's witty reply. "And you pay them tuition, which they use to pay me to enforce their rules. Now get going to your dorms. I'm generous enough to give you a ten-minute head start before I start citing you." With that, he turned and walked back the way he came, toward the main path where his cruiser was parked.
"Bummer," Logan mumbled. "I guess Big Brother is already among us. I'm just lucky he didn't see my weapons or he woulda tore me a new one." With a smirk, he corrected himself: "Or he woulda tried."
"Drop it," Abel told him. "We'll postpone this for a while. Tomorrow we'll convince Vic his idea is over his own head."
And so each student went their separate ways. Logan needed to hide his swords again, Vic and Hayley wanted to walk back to the dorm alone, and Abel was stuck with Beavis and Butthead. It didn't take long for Ty and Clyde to start arguing about which one would get to be Vic's right-hand guy when they created their team. Abel told them it was unlikely to happen, but they interpreted that as his trying to horn in on the right-hand spot. He wished they would take a different route back to the Yellow Dorm.
Before stepping out of the woods, he heard the hissing noise that comes when someone discreetly calling for attention. An auburn-haired woman wearing a blue jacket was just visible in the shadows. Ty and Clyde, generally oblivious to their surroundings, continued walking.
"Abel Shinzo," she spoke softly.
"Kasumi Okuyama," he replied in the same tone. "What are you doing out here?"
"Inviting you to save the world."
Abel got a good laugh out of that. "Oh, really? How's that? You want me to kill Logan or something?"
"Amusing, but no. A duel will suffice. That's all it will take to put you on the right path." She bore on her arm an active Duel Disk awaiting a deck. "What do you say?"
"I usually don't turn down duels against pretty ladies," Abel told her, "but the cops are out tonight and enforcing the curfew. We'd better get back to our respective dorms pretty quickly."
Kasumi smirked and shook her head. "The cops won't find us here. I guarantee it. So how about that duel?" There was something edgy in her voice… something that gave Abel the willies.
Being a guy, however, he misattributed the tingling in his spine to how hot Kasumi's body was. "Alright. Let's duel then." He shuffled her deck while she shuffled his. Still a little worried about Officer Potter, he added, "But just a quick one."
"My thoughts exactly."
A quick game of Rock-Paper-Scissors determined Abel as the winner and gave him the first turn. He laid a card on his Academy Duel Disk and watched the holographic projectors create a large, blue cricket. Its chirping rang loudly through the speakers on the projectors.
"I'll start this off with Howling Insect (3/1200/1300). That's good enough for now."
The air around Kasumi became much heavier when she touched her deck. "I'll summon Dark Grepher (4/1700/1600)." Born to be a powerful warrior, Grepher was a tall and muscular man wielding a heavy broadsword. While Kasumi discarded a card in real time, the image of Dark Grepher turned and slashed in the direction of her deck; she looked through her deck and discarded another card. "Now he'll attack." Grepher gripped his sword tightly with one hand and cut straight through the blue cricket.
"Nice move," Abel suggested, "but when Howling Insect is destroyed in battle, I get to summon another insect with 1500 or fewer attack points. I'll take Warm Worm (3/600/1400)." The hologram turned into a small, purple caterpillar with flaming hair.
Kasumi didn't bother to set any other cards.
Abel 8000 – 500 = 7500: Kasumi 8000.
"Alright then," Abel said, not pressing the fact that Kasumi left her field largely unprotected. "I'll summon Cross-Sword Beetle (4/1800/1200)," a large beetle with enormous mandibles, "and remove Howling Insect from play to summon Aztekipede, the Worm Warrior (4/1900/400)," an armored, green centipede with mandibles like tow hooks. "And I'll start by having Warm Worm (600) attack Dark Grepher (1700)." He smirked and asked, "Are you curious about that move?"
"You want me to discard three cards from my deck." Sure enough, when Warm Worm was cut, it expelled three silk strands toward Kasumi's deck and sent the top three cards to the Graveyard.
"Now I'll destroy Dark Grepher with Cross-Sword Beetle (1800)." The giant mandibles closed around Grepher and shredded him. "Finally, Aztekipede (1900) can attack directly." The powerful centipede plowed into Kasumi's field, dragging one more card from her deck away on its mandibles. "When he deals damage, you have to send another card from your deck to the Graveyard. Now I'll set two cards and end my turn."
Kasumi just smirked.
Abel 7500 – 1100 = 6400: Kasumi 8000 – 100 – 1900 = 6000.
Immediately, a pile of snow dropped from the sky and slammed on both fields. "I play Cold Wave." With the snow covering the Spell and Trap Zones of both sides of the field, Abel couldn't use the Traps he just set.
"I'll summon The Dark Creator (8/2300/3000)." The descending creature looked like a fallen angel of sorts—blackened armor for skin and a wide wingspan that emitted magical energy. A ball of dark energy appeared in The Dark Creator's hand and burst, removing a monster from Kasumi's Graveyard and summoning Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon (10/2800/2400), a tall dragon covered with a metal exoskeleton. Its red eyes emanated sheer power. When it roared, the power spilled from its exoskeleton into the Graveyard and brought forth a bulkier, eagle-like dragon—Dark Horus (8/3000/1800).
"Finally, I'll summon Infernal Dragon (4/2000/0)." Although smaller than the other monsters, this black dragon's spiky scales, tri-pointed tail, and powerful jaws were still intimidating, especially when Abel did the math.
"Geez. So many Special Summons. I thought my deck was good for swarming."
As Dark Horus (3000) blasted a beam of black fire at Aztekipede (1900) and Red-Eyes (2800) spat a ball of fire at Cross-Sword Beast (1800), another man stepped out of the woods behind Kasumi. He was average in height and weight, and his hair—black as night—contrasted with his skin, white enough to see through. His voice was light and soothing.
"Feel the changes, Abel Shinzo," he spoke. "Accept the shadows as they flow into you. Indulge in the power as it fills your heart and feeds your body."
Abel could feel a certain warmth filling his body—the tingling of adrenaline like one feels after running a marathon. But it was a little overwhelming. He felt an incredible urge to sleep.
"That's right," the ghost-like man said as The Dark Creator (2300) and Infernal Dragon (2000) launched their direct attacks against Abel's side of the field.
Abel 6400 - 1100 - 1000 - 2300 - 2000 = 0: Kasumi 6000.
"Sleep now. Let the power incubate until you are ready. Soon enough, all of my Horsemen will rise and bring about the End of Days."
This chapter is a bit sit-com-like, but still pertinent to the story. I just had to get a bunch of jokes I wanted to make out of the way early before the stuff starts hitting the fan at Duel Academy.
The next chapter will probably take a while to write because it will be more duel-based, culminating in a duel between Bryan and Matt.
For any Mitsuro fans out there, I recommend checking out Titanic X's profile and reading her story Beginnings of a Challenge. It tells the story of Mitsuro's summer vacation in the Navy.
(I just realized that I never listed Mental Panda in my credits for providing us with Ivy Roaks. I extend my apologies to her and wonder how I never noticed before.)
Credits:
Darius Mantzios...tiramisu19
Jason Maxim...Maxim and Knight
Nathan Zislaw...Mavrik Zero
Hillary Delaney...Nodqfan144
Lili Von...Happy2BMe
Carter Jade...Jaden2010
Mitsuro Itachu...Titanic X
Sean Bivins...DarkVestroia2
Ivy Roaks...Mental Panda
Naoto Kurotsuki...Kurotsuki Haru
Hayley Wilson...TeamRocketDiva
Maikeru Stone...onyxshade7
Victor Rocks & Abel Shinzou...Iron-Arm-V
Alister Kazama & Jessica Parks...ZaneKazama001
Synthia Spencer...Madly Chessur
Leila & Linear Lockhart...Windraider
Logan Wilson...MercWithTheMouth13
Allen Tebaro...Nouva17
Everyone else so far...YamiRuss
