Duel 12 – The Devil Is In The Details

FutureHero was a well off boy of only fifteen years who lived in the Upper East Side. Both of his parents were doctors, which gave him enough money to waste on whatever hobby he wanted. Inexplicably, he chose Duel Monsters. Now he was getting in trouble because people took the game so seriously they ruined it. You could only win big time if you played Monarchs or Chaos or if you stood by players who did. If you were the right duelist, you were a good person and you mattered. You either joined the professional world with its riches or…

You weren't a true duelist. You were a dark duelist. How dark were you? He thought of the swarthy duelist in black with untamed black hair named Zarathustra. She was so dark she was a reversed Yugi. She didn't believe in the dueling world, in following Monarch and Chaos decks in order to reach the wealth and fame of the elite duelists. He had the icy suspicion she didn't even believe in the elite duelists themselves. Then why did she duel? He couldn't think. He was in a duel himself and he was about to lose.

"Giant Orc, attack him directly!" WarGears, a boy two years older shouted. His hulking, brutish grey monster smashed FutureHero in the head, plummeting his Life Points to 1400. "Second Giant Orc pummel him to win the game!" The second orc brought down his massive club over FutureHero's head – the monster suddenly shrunk to twice its size. It's blow hit FutureHero to the ground, but he was still alive.

"I active Shrink just before your attack connected." FutureHero explained. "I still have 300 points left."

WarGears huffed as his two orcs now crouched defensively due to their effects. Both boys faced off in a basketball court with a crowd of teenagers and young adults circling them. The arena was intense, the crowd divided on who to root for, throwing jeers and taunts to the duelist they loathed and cheering for the duelist they loved. So many people wanted FutureHero to win, but at the same time…

War Gears spouted, "Face it retard, you fail. Everyone knows I'm gonna' win and those who don't will learn their mistake. You think you can root for those piece of shit dark duelists and get away with it?" He revealed his hand to FutureHero. "I have Chaos Sorceror in my hand. Attack one of my Giant Orcs I'll summon him. You can't beat a Chaos Deck."

FutureHero fell to his knees. He sighed. He couldn't even understand why his opponent picked on him. Becoming a pro had nothing to do with how well you played the game, even if you played with Chaos. It was a lie. He had less than 500 Life Points. He could lose at any moment. Then he saw four people walk by the court. They seemed familiar to him, especially the swarthy duelist… "Zarathustra?"

The duelist known as Zarathustra stopped. She looked at him with piercing narrow brown eyes. The three people with her stopped since she pointed to him. Since Zarathustra beat VolcanoMan she was a light in the dark to him. There was a different way to duel than just to do what his opponent was doing. For the first time in his life he felt he could take charge of himself and do something truly unique.

FutureHero stood up. It was time to win. "I set a monster face down and play Book of Taiyou to flip it face up." A woman dressed in blue and red robes appeared. "Magician of Faith lets me fetch Dark Magic Curtain from my Graveyard. I activate it (and don't have to pay Life Points because I have Spell Economics in play). I summon Dark Magician!" The famous and iconic monster Yugi used from his first days as a duelist, a purple armored sorcerer appeared. The crowd heated to more intensity. "I activate Emblem of Dragon Destroyer to add Buster Blader from my Deck to my hand."

"I play Polmerization to fuse Dark Magician and Buster Blader to make Dark Paladin!" A bulky and purple armored mighty warrior appeared but not for long. The magician and warrior on FutureHero's field liquidated and fused together, blending into a melting pot together until they solidified into the shape of a gleaming, dark cloaked magician wielding a huge blade. "I finally activate Big Bang Attack. My monster gains 400 ATK points and damages your Life Points even if you monsters are defending!" WarGears gasped in disbelief. He couldn't believe it. "I attack with Dark Paladin to win!" FutureHero commanded. The warrior-sorcerer thrust its blade in the air, releasing a silver wave that slashed the orcs to pieces. The game was over.

The crowd roared in blended cacophony of joyous whoops coming from some and angry shrieks of denial from others. FutureHero basked in his glory for a while before running to the duelist Zarathustra, held back by the court's fence. "You being here helped me win. You are the best duelist I have met. You have to duel again with a real deck."

The duelist Zarathustra shook her head. "No. It was you all along. You never needed me. I'll get a new and better deck soon. I promise. You won't be disappointed."

JC tilted his head imperiously. "We're gonna' be late. Let's go."

The personal office of Jones Dupre Esq. was small but meticulously clean and beautiful space. A stuffed bookshelf and expensively framed digital copies of famous paintings rested against the walls all around. A single large window opened out to the huge city twenty stories below. In front rested a polished mahogany desk and behind it sat its owner.

"Good afternoon and welcome to my office. I'm Jones Dupre, Harvard graduate and senior legal advisor of KaibaCorp. NYC, specializing in corporate and intellectual copyright law. Have a seat." JC and Maya took the only two vacant chairs.

Dupre drew out a lengthy contract and set it before JC and Maya. He quickly leafed over the tens of pages, allowing his clients only a cursory glance. "Don't worry, I'm only going to go over the main material – you know young people, always wanting to get ahead – Since you'll be sponsored by KaibaCorp. NYC you regurlarly receive allowances from us. You gain unlimited access to a plethora of rare cards you couldn't get otherwise, include the legendary Chaos cards I might add. You also get unlimited access duel disks, card sleeves, card vaults, and you can own one unused KaibaCorp. building as you please. And, last but certainly not least, KaibaCorp. will put you back into the Dueling Network."

JC stroked his curly beard as always when he was brooding. "I always wanted us to have headquarters in a nice big warehouse. When we become a major league team were going to need a lot of new room for all our followers. I even want to set up our own little business in the warehouse. Thing is, what's the catch?"

Dupre chuckled pleasantly. "Why there is no catch! I just become your manager, and I take care of all the dull paperwork business so there's nothing to worry about."

Maya took the contract and started reading it to see if she could catch anything important. She tried to catch as many details as she could while still reading quickly.

"Don't worry dear there's nothing to fear. There isn't some dreadful clause hidden somewhere in there that will make signing this contract a fatal error. I promise."

"The devil is in the details." Maya curtly replied, skimming a few more pages. Finally, she asked, "What do you see in us? There are so many other teams out there and a good deal of them are probably better than we are? Why do you want us?"

"I saw your duels against the Shining Crusaders and I was most impressed. You managed to beat some pretty high tier decks with alternate strategies. You're team has potential and to call you inspiring would be quite an understatement."

Maya still looked skeptical.

"Look," JC growled impatiently. "It's the only way we can get ahead as a team and beat the Crusaders in any real way. We're out of the Dueling Network and as long as we're exiles we can't legitimately enter or win any tournaments. We need to get back in."

"Look, Dupre not only manages our team and he also owns it, as does Kaibacorp." Maya explained. "Think about it. We're legally bound to do what they tell us, who we duel, what cards we duel with, even who we can team up with. Whatever we own, they own too. Dupre is acting like this is a partnership between us but it's not. We're not equals. You always rave about how evil corporations are turning people into mindless sheep. Now you're going to join one of them?"

"Oh please!" JC shrugged. "KaibaCorp. is just a label we have to put on. No one can ever wield power over me or my team!"

"No, we don't have to do this." Jolene objected. "We're pretty much selling our soul here. We can't do that just because we're impatient. We can wait. We should wait."

Yukio stared JC down. "After all, 'sell-out' is just a label, right?"

Maya cast a look of sadness and frustration, and shook her head. "We may have no choice. We can't wait. Remember, we are guilty of vandalism and assault right now. It will take years to be readmitted again, if we are admitted at all. We just don't have time for that, and we will never have another change."

"But…" Jolene looked crushed. "What about that guy we saw duel? You inspired him Maya to walk his own way and take out his bully the way you took out VolcanoMan. You can't turn your back on him."

Jolene was right. There was no escaping it. Maya and JC and Yukio and Jolene would betray not only him but also all the other duelists they made friends with. But if they didn't break through in the dueling world there would be no more brave young guys. They needed to open the door for them.

"Let's sign it then!" JC barked. "We have no choice!"

"Wait!" Maya held his arm back. She glared at Dupre, scanning him mistrustfully to spot any signs of fraud. "We accept but under two conditions. One, you can't make use a Chaos or a Monarch deck and two, you immediately put us back on the Dueling Network and register us for the New York City Cup. Drinking Molotov will be there. We can catch him by surprise and break another Crusader."

Dupre was unreadable. "Of course."

"Woah…" Yukio looked in beleaguered amazement. It was like he was stoned. "How do you know this stuff?"

"Me and Jolene do this thing called 'research' and 'know your enemy'."

JC cracked his neck. He had enough of this craven, womanly diplomacy. That scheming little snake Maya needed to shut up before he mistrusted her. "Let's duel this." And they all signed.

Maya's new piece was now finished, not just the first movement but the whole animal, the whole ride. She deliberated on its instrumentation. She changed it from viola to only piano before finally finishing it off as a trio, a piece for cello, piano, and clarinet. The clarinet was a more lovely, soulful, and pure instrument, more "sacred", its roots traveling as far as ancient Egypt. And, it gave the whole piece a more pastoral quality. The green became the fields and woods, the red became fires and thunderstorms.

Maya's dragon uncoils zirself and its back intents into a groove, turning into a road, or a slide. Maya takes us with her with firmness. We cannot resist. We all slide down the snake and the world widens open into an expansive country where the sun never sets, the Fields of Reed, and we just sail in the calm breeze. A sort of mourning happens for the fields are the past. Rare glimmers in the dark waters. An unruly child runs in the streets in Belgrade, steals fruit from open cardboard boxes, tricks another child into losing a race.

… … A dark cloud. The child falls from a tree and breaks her arm. Mother, a woman of dark features and modest clothes, dies from lung cancer. Her hands are scarred from burning but soft and pure in touch. She is a pure light. More, a pure voice, a pure sound. Unspoiled, noble. The only Virgin.

Back to fantasy. Maya didn't like her work very much. There wasn't a single work she actually did like. But the trio was completed and was in her portfolio. At school she used a computer's Sibelius program and the piano there to work out her ideas. She then saved them to a memory stick and printed the sheet music. Why did she compose only Classical and Jazz?

Father came into her room, without asking as usual. He never sat on the floor with her or even sat on her bed. He always stood above her.

"How's school?" He asked.

"Great." Maya replied, trying to turn the conversation to a light mood. "My grades are As. They always were."

"And what about the SAT? Do you know when you're taking the test?"

"My SATs are OK, and I registered for the next test in December."

"Just OK?"

"Stellar." Maya exaggerated. "I study every day as a part of my homework." It was true but that didn't stop her from hating it.

"Maya, you really, really need to think of your future and devote more time to the SATs. You need to stop fantasizing with you music, stop hanging out with those friends of yours, and do the SATs."

Since she was a child Maya could sense the degree of anger in her father and when it would explode as if he was a volcano, and she always feared the explosion… She took a breath and answered calmly. "Dad, I'm doing very well. I can pass the test. In college, they evaluate more than your SATs. They look for someone who is talented and interesting to accept."

"And you are someone talented and interesting?"

She absorbed the shock from his words. "I don't think it is unreasonable to say I am to a degree. I was a child prodigy. How many kids can say that?"

"And look where that got you. You only won a few awards and you never got any recognition outside of Belgrade and you just stopped after mother died. Your talents were wasted. I want you to go to a real school and not some liberal arts school run over by thugs and druggies and owned by Jews."

Maya rolled her eyes. "Can I just concentrate on the SATs, my grades, and my portfolio? Those are pretty good by anyone's standards."

The fire meter rose by a few degrees and Maya's stomach lurched a bit. Father stated bluntly, "That's good and all but focus more on your SATs. No more music. Period. Will you promise me that?"

"Yes." Maya promised, but it was a lie. She couldn't be stopped and he would never learn it.

"If you break your promise I'll lock you in your room." He shut the door.

Maya really missed her mother, when she actually felt a real connection with someone, when a relationship was more than just a stand off between two struggling powers. She really hated father, and felt a deep hatred that knotted in her like black serpents. There wasn't a single time where she could just feel comfortable with him like she did with Jolene.

She put her books and music away and checked her phone. Jolene had just texted her.

hey u got your homework done. i did

yeah :))

Maya had one final thing to do. It was Yukio. There was something incredible about him. Maybe it was daredevil, rockstar attitude or his goatee or his music playing, or it was just all of these things at once… Maya flushed and her heart was pounding just to dial his number. She couldn't do this. Yukio was with Jolene.

It was OK. She wasn't going to hit on him or anything. She dialed Yukio's number. Each ring seemed to last a minute.

YUKIO: "Hey, who's this?"

MAYA: "It's me…"

YUKIO: "Who?"

MAYA: "Maya."

YUKIO: "Oh hey Maya, what's up?"

MAYA: It takes her every bit of strength to say these words. Her heartbeat pounds in her ears. Did he like that she called him? He seemed to. He seemed pleasant enough. But what if she was really bothering him and he was just pretending to be nice this whole time!? – Maya just says, "I just wanted to tell you good luck on the whole City Cup Tournament. I hope you win."