A/N: And the story continues! We're getting closer to that time when things that went around in Shielded Destiny come around here. But sadly, since final exams are coming up and I'm working at a shipping company during the Christmas season, we're also getting closer to that time when I'll have practically no time to myself. So I may not be able to update as often. Don't hurt me if I don't, 'cause then you won't see any more ficcing. *wink*

Lumen: I was trying to bring out people's ability to see both sides of that issue, yes. I'm glad it worked on you.

Monica: No, her personality isn't based on yours, never fear. *grin* But yes, she's supposed to be a brat. She and Kyle both are, really.

Penny: Is this soon enough?

Wolf: Duck! "Where", you ask? *hands over a Sonic Duck* Right here, of course!

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December – Two Months Later

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Kyle was eighteen now. He rather liked being eighteen; it meant that he could go out and buy his own cigarettes, and at a much cheaper rate than the man at Cancer Corner offered. He kept a pack with him wherever he could, but didn't bring them onto school grounds… nor did he bring his lighter onto the grounds. He didn't much feel like getting busted and facing expulsion. Not when I'm this damned close to graduating and getting the hell out of this place.

He was taking a walk this afternoon. A cigarette flared between his lips as he ingested the intensely addictive nicotine / lead / ammonia / God-knows-what-else mixture. Interesting how cigarette boxes don't have the ingredients on the container. Go figure.

It was cold out. Frankly, he considered it a miracle that the end of his cigarette was lit at all. He didn't take it for granted, either; he was smoking it as fast as he possibly could. He didn't want a sudden gust blowing up and knocking all the smoldering ashes off. Getting out his lighter to re-light the end would have proven too much trouble for him, as he was wearing gloves to at least try to escape the intense cold of winter.

He winced as he recalled his birthday. It had been slightly happier than most of his days; at least he got gifts from his parents that day. They'd not catered to his wishes, though, and gotten him any of the new clothes he'd wanted… but on the other hand, he had to give them some credit in that he didn't get socks and underwear (though he could have used some more socks, truth be told – his father kept stealing his socks out of the clean laundry basket).

No, instead, they'd pretty much ignored what he'd said about Duel Monsters the whole time and bought him a starter deck at one of the local game shops.

He'd tried not to roll his eyes at it when he'd seen what it was. He knew about the starter decks: they came in boxes that were green, red, and black, each color a different collection of cards. In this instance, he'd been given the black deck. Guess my parents picked up on me liking black. Wonder when that happened. He could only quietly scoff at them.

Parents are really useless when it comes to trying to get them to listen, he thought. Here I've been, saying this entire time that Duel Monsters is a damned stupid game and that there's no point, and yet there they were giving me a collection of forty of those damned cards. What a hell of a waste of money. That's ten bucks they could have spent on a shirt. Or hair dye. Or SOMEthing. But Duel Monsters cards? Hell no.

Nevertheless, he'd looked through the cards, trying to feign interest and prolong the "festivities". It was a rare occasion when Kyle felt he should be happy about something; the occasion usually tended to be his birthday. He knew his parents meant well, in this instance – could it be possible that they had simply not heard him when he'd ranted against Duel Monsters? Sure it could, they never listen to me about anything else -- so he felt obligated to at least take a look at a few of them.

Curse of Dragon... doesn't look like a curse, it looks like a dragon... Garoozis? Where the hell did they come up with that name? Seven Tools of the Bandit... hmm, I guess all a bandit really needs is a pocketknife... Trap Hole – yep, that's where my house is right now... Dark Hole. Yeah, that's where I am. And Ring of Destruction? Doesn't look like a ring to go on the finger – oh, wait, more like a harness. Maybe for a cow or a horse. Hmm. That'd be damned cool to watch. BOOM! Heh.

When he'd taken the presents to his room, he'd dumped most of them unceremoniously on the floor and had thrown the deck's container – which was quite full – into the trash can, along with month-old school papers and junk that he'd never bothered to take out to the curb on trash day. Thinking back on it now, he wondered why he hadn't done that yet. Guess it must be slipping my mind every week. Not like I pay a whole hell of a lot of attention to what's in my trash can or what day it is, anyway… except that it's the day to skip gym or the day to participate.

He sighed. He'd been going to the counselor for three weeks now. He didn't feel like it was really going anywhere. All the man ever did was reiterate to Kyle exactly what Kyle said… sans the profanity. Kyle had found this amusing at first, to see how the man would put it, but after a while, it turned from amusing to boring, and finally to sad.

Kyle hadn't really anticipated that Dr. Dawson would be able to help him feel better about anything. But at first he had thought that if he simply said everything that was on his mind, he would eventually run out of steam and calm down. That was not the case, however. Instead, he got a massive second wind, and then a third wind, and then a fourth. Each time, Kyle only felt himself getting angrier.

That shit's not doing me any good. It really isn't. And it's wasting his time, too. And my parents' money. That last one it about the only reason I go at all. He won't make 'em pay if I don't come in.

He took a long final drag, then tossed the butt away. Ech. At least the bitch is out of town for a few days. Something about a tournament. Blah, I don't care what shit she gets herself into, just as long as she stays the hell away from me. Damned crazy woman.

As he walked, Kyle glanced at the front yards of various households. Several had evergreens, and whether they were fake or not, Kyle supposed it must have taken considerable effort to get them up. He scoffed at those trees which had ornaments. If they get blown away, those idiots will have wasted their money and their time. He rolled his eyes and returned his gaze to the sidewalk. Kinda like me… wasting my time, just walking my dumb ass all over the place… being a coward, wussing out instead of standing up for myself… not a friend, not a single person to my credit… damn, I'm depressing.

He glanced up at another yard. Several children who still had yet to reach their teenage years were running around in the snow, laughing and throwing snowballs and falling over each other. Kyle's first inclination was to roll his eyes, scoff, think about how they could better use their time, and mutter a random curse under his breath… but he didn't do any of these things. Instead, he was struck by a memory – a memory of being that age, being in among children like that.

The memory flashed before his eyes and played out in front of him. The ghosts of children appeared in one of the empty front yards. Among them, he was able to pick out himself and another boy who was approaching the younger Kyle.

"Kyle, c'mon! Come play with us! We're making up teams for a snowball fight and I want you to be on my team!"

"You sure, Jason?"

"Of course! We like you; why shouldn't you come play?"

"Mom an' Dad think that playing can be 'dangerous' an' it's 'a waste of time.'"

"Oh, yeah, right!" Jason rolled his eyes. "Look, Kyle, you're a kid! You're made to play, you're meant to play! You have all the rest of your life to worry about bein' safe an' not wasting your time. Right now I need a team for a snowball fight, and I want you to be on it! So does everyone else on my team; they all like you!"

Kyle chewed his lip for a few moments, considering his friend's plea. "Okay, okay, I'll come play. But my hands are gonna freeze… I don't have any gloves."

"Just go inside and ask Mom for a pair. She always keeps a bunch of gloves around because Dad's always losing them." Jason giggled. "Maybe he sticks 'em under the bed. Mom always said that's where everything that's lost ends up."

Kyle also giggled. "Okay. Don't start the game without me, though!"

"I promise." Jason turned to one of the other children. "Hey, Zack, make sure that nobody starts throwing snowballs until Kyle comes back out, okay?"

"All right, I will." Zack was about a year older than Kyle and Jason; he knew how to make sure that the other kids did as they were told. He had a commanding presence about him, something that was impossible for the younger ones to ignore. The ones his age liked him too much to not listen to him, so overall, he was more the leader of the team that Jason was. He was helping several kids build a massive wall of snow to guard against enemy bombardment. He looked at the others. "Hey, you guys, make sure to hold your fire until Kyle gets back out here. We want to make sure he has his fun, too, okay?"

"Okay!" they all chirped.

The ghosts vanished, leaving Kyle alone on the sidewalk again.

He emitted a slight sigh at the memory. Jason had been diagnosed with leukemia two months later, and had died over the next summer. At the time, Kyle hadn't been able to understand, to grasp the concept of death, even as much as his parents were guiding him to the medical profession. Perhaps he knew a general definition of it, but for it to hit so close to home, so early in his life… well, it had been, to say the least, disturbing.

After that, Kyle had started to clam up. Fewer were the days he spent with his friends. He hung out with Zack's group for a little while, but to add further injury to an already open wound, Zack moved out of state. Kyle never found a way to keep in touch with him.

His parents had advised him to be impersonal about it. "Life is made up of meetings and partings. Doctors can't allow themselves to get too personal, to get too involved. Otherwise they would go insane every time they lost someone. It would be unspeakably traumatic."

Heh, just look at me now. The poor, traumatized little bastard. I wish I'd been smart enough to ignore them then. It sure as hell would've helped me in my later years…

Kyle pulled out his pack of cigarettes and his lighter, but then glanced back up at the kids, who were still running around in the snow. He looked back at the cigarette, which by this point was sitting between his lips, waiting to burn. The lighter's flame was flickering in front of his face, waiting to be blown out by the slightest cold gust.

Nah.

He put his lighter away and returned the cigarette to his pocket.

--

He came home that evening to find his father sitting in his recliner, reading the paper, as usual. The television was set on a particular channel, though to Kyle's surprise, it wasn't a news channel. Instead, it was some sort of game show network.

Kyle sat down on the couch and spied the TV for a few moments. It was in the middle of commercials, and he was just about to pick up the remote when his father said, "Don't touch that. I'm watching something."

Kyle scoffed. "Over the top of your paper again? You really can't devote your time to just one thing, can you?"

"Knock it off, Kyle. Like everything else you complain about, this subject is getting very annoying. I am quite capable of devoting my attention to one topic if I so choose… I simply choose to devote it to more than one in order to be efficient."

"Efficiency lowers when you try to multitask. No one can truly split their active cognitive attention."

"Kyle…" His father had that warning tone in his voice.

Kyle sighed. "Fine, whatever. So what're you watching?"

"A classmate of yours. She's the daughter of an acquaintance of mine."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Oh, goody. Did he ask you to watch her as part of some favor?"

"No, the subject matter simply interests me. I like to know what my acquaintances are up to."

"Who is it?"

"Her name is Monica Zocallos. Are you acquainted with her?"

Kyle scowled and stood up. "I think I'll go to my room now."

His father chuckled. "You don't like her, eh? Well, I'm not surprised. I've heard she's not one of the nicest people at your school. I'm sure the two of you would get along beautifully, considering the chip you've always got on your shoulder."

That's it, I don't have to stick around here and be insulted further because of the bitch. Kyle turned and started for his room.

"Welcome back to Jump Network's 7th annual Duel Monsters Tournament, hosted by J.P. Bonna! J.P., what's happening down there?"

"Well, Carl, we've got a new duel happening down here, it just got underway. Duelist Monica Zocallos is just now making her first move, let's take a look."

"I play Hyozanryu in defense mode!"

Kyle stopped mid-step and blinked. Hyozanryu? Isn't that…?

He turned around and looked back at the screen. To his great surprise, the television was showing what appeared to be a real version of the card he'd seen last October. It shone under the strobe lights of the stadium it was housed within, and at the moment, it had its sparkling wings curled around it, almost like it was protecting its young. It had a slender white body and a long, golden beak.

A small blue box was superimposed over the upper left corner of the TV screen, with the number 2000 highlighted in yellow. There was another blue box in the bottom right, this one showing two yellow numbers, one stacked on top of the other. On top was 2100; on the bottom, 2800. The 2800 was highlighted in bold font.

Kyle blinked. What the hell–? That thing is real?

The screen then flashed to Monica, who was standing on a red-painted platform about ten feet above the ground. She was holding five cards in her hand and was wearing a triumphant smirk. She perused the cards in her hand, then selected two of them. "As a follow-up, I place two magic/trap cards face-down. Over to you, kiddo."

The view switched over to a boy that was at least two years younger than Monica. His name, Gerard Harrison, flashed across the top of the screen next to the counter – which also read 2000 – at the upper left. He was a short blond kid with a look of determination on his face. "Okay. I play Wingweaver in attack mode!"

The camera zoomed out, and amidst a rain of sparkles there appeared a giant, long-haired woman wearing yellow robes. She also had six long, tapered white wings sprouting from the center if her back. Her hands were pressed together, as if in prayer, and she was hovering in mid-air, rather than settling on the ground she should have been on by the rules of gravity.

It suddenly struck Kyle. Oh! Damn my stupidity, they're not real... they're holograms. Duh. His eyes flitted over the counters at the lower right. The top number – which was highlighted – read 2750; the bottom number read 2400.

"Nice try." The screen switched back to the view of Monica, who was smirking in triumph. "But I activate Trap Hole! It lets me destroy any monster you summon that has a thousand or more attack points."

Spontaneously, a crag seemed to open up in the panels of the platform over which the Wingweaver creature was floating. She screamed and dropped into the hole, which then seemed to seal over. Kyle was intrigued. Those cards that Mom and Dad gave me... they had a card called Trap Hole in them... is the holographic effect really as cool as all that?

He shook his head suddenly and violently, as if trying to snap himself out of a reverie. What the hell am I thinking? The game's damned stupid. Why would I care?

"And since you can only summon one monster in a turn," Monica said, "this duel is going to be over very quickly."

"Don't be so sure. I place three magic/trap cards face-down and finish my turn there," the boy responded. The camera shot of him showed Kyle pretty much all he needed to know. There was fear in his eyes, despite the brave front he was trying to put up.

"Oh, do you now?" Monica's tone dripped with contempt. "Well, all right, then. In that case, I bring out Luster Dragon in attack mode!"

Next to Hyozanryu, there appeared a sparkling green dragon that seemed no less illustrious than its predecessor. At the lower right, the numbers read 2400 and 1400.

"Just in case, I'm going to keep Hyozanryu in defense mode. Not like your Life Points will present much of a challenge to destroy, I'm sure. Luster Dragon, attack his Life Points directly!"

The aptly named Luster Dragon's mouth yawned open, and a green bolt of energy spewed forth, towards the platform where Gerald was standing. When the view switched to him, it was just in time to catch him make a quick movement with his hand towards his card field. "Activate the quick-play magic card Scapegoat! These guys will block four of your attacks and give me a chance to come back."

"Ah-ah... I activate the trap card Magic Drain." Monica smirked as she flipped over the remaining card on her magic/trap field. Behind her two dragons, an emaciated zombie rose up and reached out towards Gerald's field. "In order to use Scapegoat, you'll have to discard another magic card from your hand."

Gerald cringed. "But... but I don't have another magic card in my hand!"

"Probably put 'em all on the field, right? Try to fake me out. I'd say that didn't do too well for you, kiddo. If you can't discard a magic card from your hand, then your Scapegoat card is negated, and Luster Dragon's attack takes down your Life Points."

In the midst of this play, Luster Dragon's attack had been paused. The energy beam it had emitted was hanging in midair, as if the monster field had quite suddenly come to a standstill. It may as well have, too.

But with the play finished, Luster Dragon's attack continued. The beam washed over the platform, causing Gerald to cringe further. On his camera shot, the number in the upper left corner dropped from 2000 to 0.

J.P. Bonna's voice came over the speakers. "Well, Carl, there you have it. That was one of the shortest duels we've seen here at the Jump tourneys. But then again, the semi-finals are still a long way off. Back to you."

"Allrighty, J.P., and there you have it, folks, as he said. Now let's take a look at the next duel, which is just now getting underway–"

Kyle's father chuckled. "And here I thought you weren't interested in this game or that person."

Kyle blinked. "Huh?"

"Duel Monsters. Monica. Ring a bell?" The man laughed. "My, my, that certainly had you riveted, didn't it? Well, I suppose it's a good thing to be riveted to, as compared to some of your other habits. Anyway, smells like it's about time for dinner."

Kyle blinked again, shook his head violently once more, and scratched his scalp through his long, black-dyed hair. Whoa. Yeah... that did have me riveted... but why? I don't give a shit about those stupid cards...

At least, not the cards themselves... but those holograms...

He shook his head. Nah. Gotta take my mind off that shit. Not doing me any good. All I need to be worrying about is getting out of this hellhole. Make arrangements, all that shit. I'll get on that after our little vacation.

I wonder where Dad's planning on taking us. England, France, Spain, Germany, Russia... ech, those places are too damned cold in the winter. Couldn't he take us somewhere warm for once?

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Next up, the McCraines go on a little vacation, and Kyle gets into something a bit over his head! Meantime, review, please! Yes, me = review hog. But you review = me write!