Chapter 3

"Whoa, dude, you totally just kicked my ass!" Mike exclaimed

"Y'know, that's probably something that you're gonna want to keep to yourself." Leah stated

"Yea, probably." Matt replied with a slight blush

"Well that was an excellent duel. Now we know for sure that you're ready." Sam said

"Ready? For what? You mean that this was all a test?" I said

"Yes it was. And as for what for? There's a tournament coming up in a month. And each of the major card shops in the city were allowed to chose their four best duelists and send them to the City Finals. From there the top four duelists will be sent to the State Finals, and the top three duelists in the State Finals will be sent to New York City to compete in the National Tournament, they're calling it 'Battle Nation'." Sam explained

"And this duel was to test me to see if I was ready for a tournament like this, right?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I don't see why you needed to test me. I've always been one of you're best."

"Well, we all know that. But you've been out of the circuit for so long that some of my newer duelists were complaining that I couldn't fairly add you to my team without having seen you duel."

"Well now you've seen me duel, so go ahead and add me to the roster."

"I kinda already did. It didn't matter what those kids said. I personally taught you two how to duel, and Leah indirectly since you taught her what I taught you. And since I've raised you three in your dueling careers I knew that you would pass the test. So I registered you on the team right away anyways. Oh and that also means that I can give you this." Sam said

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a laminated card. He handed it to me and I looked it over. It looked just like a Duel Monsters card. Where the card name usually goes it had my name, and where the picture of the monster is normally found it had, instead, a picture of me. Also it had my local dueling status, and other important info such as my tournament sponsor and the name of the local dueling team that I was on.

"Well this is cool. I'm a Duel Monsters card."

"This card is your ID for the City and State Tournaments. Without it you're ineligible to continue competing in this Tournament series. Okay, so now that I have all of that out of the way I have a surprise for the three of you."

He walked into one of the control rooms for the dueling arena, and stepped back out carrying three medium sized boxes stacked on top of each other. He walked back over to us and then he set the boxes down. Then he took the top box and handed it to Mike. He handed the second box to Leah. And he handed the third box to me.

"What are these?" Leah asked

"Well open them and find out." Sam replied

We each reached down and opened the tops of our boxes and gasped in surprise. We were each looking down upon a small trove of Duel Monsters booster packs. There was every set that I had ever heard of and even a couple that I hadn't.

"Whoa! These are for us?!" Mike exclaimed

"Of course. You don't think that I'd send off my best duelists without giving a gift for luck, do you?" Sam answered

"Thank you, Sam." Leah said

"Well don't thank me too much. If you guys make the finals at Nationals then my store's gonna get a lot of publicity. And if I'm gonna just give you this many cards then you'd better go all the way."

We all stood up straight, as we had been hunching over our new cards. We glanced at each other, and then back at Sam. What I saw in their faces had been enough to tell me that we would go all the way. It was the same determination burning in their eyes that I felt burning in my heart.

"Count on it." I said as coolly as I could

"By the way, who's our fourth?" Mike asked

"Oh that would actually be one of those newcomers to the game that I was telling you about. But he shows amazing talent for the game. In the last few weeks he's systematically destroyed one duelist after another. And it's kind of weird that he started at the bottom of the ranks and has been working his way up when he could have just challenged a higher ranked duelist and raised his rank right up in one shot."

"Ok so we know that he's good. But does he have a name?" Leah asked

"Oh, yes. His name is Conner Okami."

"Conner. We should see if we could set up a few meetings before the tournament starts so that we can get to know this Conner guy." Mike said

"Yea we probably should. But let's start tomorrow. Its getting late and I should be heading back home." I said

"Hey, Will, how about I crash at your place tonight. We can help each other work out new strategies, and we can trade cards, and just hang out. Y'know, like we used to do in the old days." Mike said, sounding very hopeful

"Yea, that sounds like fun. Leah, you know that you're invited too." I said as I started to feel a little bit more like my old self

"Are you sure that your parents wont mind having us both overnight? Especially since you're both guys and, well, I'm not." She asked with one eyebrow raised

"I'm sure. They'll just be glad that I'm getting some human interaction. Besides there's no way in hell that they'd even consider letting us all sleep in the same room."

"Alright then, let's go. Later Sam." She said as she walked past us and back towards the elevator.

I caught myself as I automatically took notice of the way her hips moved as she walked away from us.

Dammit, Will, she's one of your best friends. One of two. Don't go and screw up a good thing

I then noticed that somehow she had managed to forget all about her new cards, so I reached down and grabbed her box in one arm. Then I realized that I too was forgetting something important. I walked back over to the duel arena and grabbed my deck which I slid back into its case. I then went back over and grabbed my own box of cards. Then I went after the other two, who were both already waiting for me in the elevator. Mike had his box of cards closed up and held loosely at his side.

"You forgot this." I said as I handed Leah's box to her

"Thanks. That's sweet of you." She said causing my cheeks to instantly turn bright red

Fortunately nobody noticed as we distracted when Mike suddenly sneezed very loudly, sufficiently scaring me right out of my embarrassment.

This is going to be a long night. Man, what have I gotten myself into?

Well I did say that this story was far from dead, and I'm finally getting back into the swing of writing it again. I hope that everyone's ready because there's going to be a ton of dueling coming up very soon. I hope that people will come to like this fic, and I also hope that I can get some reviews really soon, because I'd love to hear what you have to say. No flames though please. Also if anybody wants their character to be in this fic then just send it to me in your review, I need name, age, appearance, deck type, and personality. Thanks for reading and review soon.

Whitewolf7187