Chapter 3 – Regionals
It didn't take long for Lucien to find his friends; they were already at the board waiting for him. It was clear even without looking at the board for results that they had both won. The three of them were now in the top 64. It may not sound like much but 64 out of 256 isn't too shabby.
"I take it that both of you were successful in your endeavors?" Raoul and Aliya turned from the board to face him. Raoul managed to get the first word in.
"Could you please just shut it with the geek speak?" Aliya chimed in soon afterward.
"Yes, people are staring. If they aren't they should be." Lucien took all of this lightly; it was a joke between him and anyone who had ever considered themselves anything other than an enemy that he was somewhat loquacious.
"Really, you should allow me to use at least a little of my expansive vocabulary." Rolling his eyes Raoul sarcastically responded,
"A little is exactly what we want you to use. In any case, how was your duel?"
"Not bad. It was a tad harder than the last one, but that isn't saying much. Some guy with a Chaos deck, it wasn't very well built. I stopped his Black Luster Soldier with The End of Anubis for awhile but then he got Dark Magician of Chaos on it and removed it from play so I couldn't use Rope of Life on it." Meanwhile Aliya was looking at the board, and when she got to Lucien's previous match up her eyes widened as she turned to him.
"You beat Richard Len!" Raoul double checked the board before his eyes widened similarly.
"But that guy was like, king of the store!" Lucien was getting kind of embarrassed, and was blushing a bit.
"Well, he wasn't really all that tough. All there was to it was getting rid of his envoy and then it was a piece of cake." However despite his reassurances, his friends continued to stare at him.
"I don't think this is Lucien." Started Aliya.
"Your right, Lucien couldn't have done that. Even if he had, he would be jumping for joy." Raoul continued.
"Not to mention the singing and dancing."
"Exactly."
Lucien was starting to be a bit perturbed by the conspiratorial glances that his two friends were exchanging.
"Uh guys? It's me. I am Lucien. Are you two ok?" But Aliya and Raoul continued to talk to each other, feigning seriousness, but the worried Lucien was taken in by it.
"You do know that there is only one reliable test that we can conduct to make sure that it is him."
"Of course, shall we do it then?"
"Yes, on three." They counted down together.
"Three, two, one… TICKLE ATTACK!" Then they simultaneously charged at Lucien while he tried to escape in vain and soon had him on the floor laughing hysterically. This is truly hysterical laughter; it varies from something that sounds like a cross between an elf and a chipmunk, and one that sounds like the evilest of evil laughs.
"So do you think it's him?" asked Raoul.
"Yeah, no one else would laugh like that in public." Aliya said and gave Lucien a hand up.
"Just don't do that again, I have a reputation to keep up." After Lucien said this, Aliya and Raoul started cracking up again. "Why don't we all go to our duels early? I see that someone is already sitting across from my spot, I assume that it is my opponent." Aliya and Raoul were laughing to hard to respond so Lucien just walked to his spot at table 8.
"Hello, I am afraid that I didn't get the chance to look carefully at the chart. May I ask what your name is?"
"Afer. Afer Comdat." Lucien looked over his opponent. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with some band's logo that Lucien didn't recognize on it. His hood was up, but you could tell that his hair hadn't been combed for a long time. In other words, he looked like one of those teenagers that Lucien always suspected were up to no good, and usually he was right.
"Nice to meet you, I am Lucien. Lets start now shall we?"
"Sure"
"I will flip a coin, you call it. Heads or Tails." Lucien flipped the coin and in midair Afer called it heads.
"Tails I'm afraid. I will go first." As Lucien drew his first hand, he got many of his best cards. I can do a lot with this.
Lucien: 8000
Afer: 8000
"First I set a monster. Now I play Book of Tayou on it, revealing it to be Cyber Jar." While he picked up 5 cards, Lucien started counting the cards left in his opponent's deck. 30 to go.
"I get Needle Worm, Morphing Jar, Card Destruction, Book of Tayou, and Book of Moon. Both my monsters go face down."
"That was a pointless move. I got Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Mirror Force, Tribe Infecting Virus, and Sinister Serpent. My monsters both go in defense mode."
"I first play Book of Tayou on Needle Worm." 25 "I set 3 spells or traps. Now I play Card Destruction, then I chain with Serial Spell. That means that you discard eight cards, then you draw eight more. Then you discard them again and draw them again." 9 "I however discarded my hand to Serial Spell, so I would have none left. But I discarded both of my Night Assailants and I will use their abilities to retrieve each other. Now I activate my face down Book of Moon. I flip Needle Worm back face down. I end."
"Well I don't see what you achieved. I now will play Swords of Revealing Light. You must have some tribute monster that you want to summon. Now I play-"
"Would you please comply with my monster's effects first? You flipped them with Swords of Revealing Light. You discard the top 5 cards. Then you discard your hand and draw 5. Oh, dear. You don't have 5 left. I win."
"What! You cheated!" Afer stood up in a rage. But as he stood up, cards started falling out of his sleeves. There were some rare ones, and more copies of the best ones like Pot of Greed, Mirror Force, and other cards that could change the course of a duel. There were also some normal ones, but not many.
"Now who was cheating? I didn't, I just got incredible luck, and you flipped my monsters for me. I am reporting this." Afer however had started to move away. He just picked up his cards and ran. First he cheats, and then he runs. This is UNACCEPTABLE! Lucien slipped his cards into his deck box and that into his pocket. Then he vaulted over the table and ran down the aisle ducking around other chairs. Luckily, most of the other duels hadn't started yet. People were staring. They had seen the entire scene with the cards falling out of the sleeves. Afer had reached the door and was outside. He stopped to talk to a group of older kids, probably not even kids any more, they could have been over 21, who were smoking (so with luck, they are at least over 18; otherwise I am dealing with criminals as well) . One of them looked very similar to Afer. Ah, relatives. Bring it on.
The one that looked like Afer, and was probably the most intimidating (the two things are completely coincidental) spoke up while Afer stood mostly behind the group smiling smugly. That little prig thinks that he's gotten off scot-free ehh? We shall see.
"So you been uhh…" One of the less intimidating ones who you could even call scrawny whispered something in his ear, but Lucien heard it 'tormenting, you block head, tormenting' "You been tormentin' our little buddy here?"
"No, just chasing him so I could report that he was cheating. You see, the cards dropped out of his sleeves after I won, then he ran." The other smokers were preparing for a fight; they dropped their cigarettes and ground them into the ground with the toes of their shoes.
"Our little buddy don't cheat! You musta cheated to beat him. Get him boys!" The smokers all charged with the exception of the wiry one who had whispered to the presumed relative of Afer, who stood with Afer. A smile came up on Lucien's face as he leapt to the side and away from the first charge. He ran towards the piles of extra materials from the recent renovation and enlargement of the card store. There were some metal poles, but he didn't want to have the law after him for killing one of them, so he picked out a PVC pipe. He hefted it around a bit to get the feel for it but swiftly had to dodge to the side to avoid the first of them. Wonderful, a weapon. In that weapons class at camp, I always preferred a quarter stave over swords. This shall be my quarter stave.
Now that he was on the side of his opponents; he gripped the middle of the pipe and spun it around as he charged at them aiming at their chests so as not to cause permanent damage while still weakening them. After landing a solid hit on one guys ribs, and getting a thrust in on another; he had to defend himself. He managed to get to a wall so he wouldn't have them coming from the rear, but otherwise he was surrounded from all sides. Some of them had even gotten the metal rods that he had passed up.
"Kid, now you are feel some pain!" one of the smokers raised his rod, and prepared to swing. Lucien prepared himself and crouched down a bit, ready to dodge or block. As the rod came down Lucien rocketed into the men at his right and managed to avoid the attack. But now they were all getting ready to strike. Before they reformed around him, he saw Mr. Kiwasaki standing behind the glass door, wide eyed. His mouth was open, presumably to get some of the burlier judges to break it up. The judges would probably have just gotten hurt though.
As the rods descended towards him, Lucien realized that his plastic pipe would break under the force of all the metal ones; and so as a last ditch attempt threw his rod at one of the men in front of him. It hit with a sickening crunch and if he had the time, Lucien would have thought that the guy's nose was broken. But with no time to think, he just raised his arms in front of his body and-
CRASH! Evidently a few of the men had turned aside to see to the one with that had been hit in the face, and only three rods had finished the decent. Only one had hit as the other two got ensnared in each other. That one rod now was broken; a small piece was in the man's hand, but most of hit had been deflected and flew high into the air behind the men to hit earth 30 yards back. Actually it hit a car with skulls and cross bone stickers all over it. What happened there? What broke it? Lucien then looked at where the rod had hit- it had hit his bracelet. The one that he had kept as a memorandum to- Thank you Ally. This thing saved me. Your memory has kept me safe. The other men had seen what happened.
"That's impossible! There is something wrong with that kid; no one can break on o' those! It was steel!" They all started to go away, but then sirens started to be heard up the street and 3 police cars swerved into the parking lot. Mr. Kiwasaki rushed out of the card shop and pointed to the men.
"This is them officers!" The police quickly got all of them bundled into cars and interviewed Lucien. It was swiftly determined that he would not need to be present in court or do anything else after he had told the police men everything.
After going back inside; Lucien reported his win, and went to the board to see his next opponent. But it turned out that because of the disturbance that none of the other duels had even started yet. He contemplated watching the duel that would decide his next opponent, but decided to go watch Aliya duel instead. He found her alone at her table; evidently her opponent had yet to arrive.
"Hello Aliya. Believe it or not, I won in his first turn so I decided to come and watch your duel."
"Wow… I thought that they had banned all of the first turn kills. But what happened outside? And with that kid who you beat?"
"Well you see he had been cheating so I tried to get him to confess and then he-" Lucien stopped as Aliya's opponent arrived. He was wearing a button down shirt, with pens in the pocket and looked like a geek. And people think that I am geeky! Get an eyeful of this kid! He's got everything from the too short shorts to the horn rim glasses! All he needs is a pocket protector! Then again, I shouldn't be talking as I almost was given a pocket protector last Christmas.
"Hello, my name is Tom Nagril. I take it that you are my opponent, Aliya?" he said in a nasal voice.
"Yup, I'll flip the coin, and you call it." She flipped the coin into the air and Tom call out-
"Tails!" It was tails. "I will take the liberty of going first." They both drew their starting hands. Tom drew his sixth card as well.
"I will set a monster and 3 face down spells or traps. That is all." Aliya drew her card, and a faint smile played across her lips. Tom is going to see soon that Aliya is going to be hard to beat.
"I will summon Fire Princess. I play Messenger of Peace, and set 2 face down spells or traps. I will end."
"Hmm… I will have to set another monster and end my turn."
"Not doing so well when you can't attack, ehh? I will activate Solemn Wishes in my Draw Phase. I gain 500, you lose 500."
Aliya: 8500
Tom: 7500
"Next I pay for my Messenger."
Aliya: 8400
Tom: 7500
"Then I summon Cure Mermaid. Now I will activate Life Absorbing Machine. I end my turn. I gain half of the points that I paid with Messenger because of Life Absorbing Machine. You lose another 500 because of Fire Princess."
Aliya: 8450
Tom: 7000
"I can see that you will be a difficult opponent, but I am not going to let that stop me. I will first flip my newest set monster, Cyber Jar! I believe that you know the effect?"
"Yes, of course I know the effect!" It was clear that Aliya was irritated by her strategy being countered so soon. Tom smiled at her irritation.
"I got Nimble Momonga, Giant Germ, Guardian Angel Joan, A Hero Emerges, and Staunch Defender. Both my monsters will go face down."
"Peten the Dark Clown in defense, Soul Absorption, Lesser Fiend, Call of the Haunted, and Bowganian in attack."
"I will set a new monster. Now I end."
"I draw and in my standby phase you lose 600 points. I also pay for my Messenger."
Aliya: 8300
Tom: 6400
"I will play Soul Absorption. Then I will tribute Peten the Dark Clown for Lesser Fiend. I will send the Peten out of play to get another one and because a card was removed from play I gain life points through Soul Absorption."
Aliya: 8500
Tom: 6400
"Next I will set a spell or trap. I will have my Lesser Fiend attack one of the face downs from the Cyber Jar. Its effect is negated since it is sent out of play instead of the graveyard. I also gain more points." Tom flipped over his Giant Germ and slipped it into the graveyard.
Aliya: 9000
Tom: 6400
"Finally I will end my turn and gain from Life Absorbing Machine."
Aliya: 9050
Tom: 6400
"Good, now I will play set 2 spells or traps face down. Secondly I will flip Bubonic Vermin and get another face down. Then I set another monster. Now I end."
"You know the drill, in my standby phase you lose 600 and I pay for my Messenger of Peace."
Aliya: 8950
Tom: 5800
"Then I activate Call of the Haunted and get back my Fire Princess. Then I summon Banisher of the Light. Now any card that would go to the graveyard goes out of play instead! From my hand I play Poison of the Old Man, to gain life points. I gain 1200 and with Fire Princess you lose 500."
Aliya: 10150
Tom: 5300
"Now I will play Soul Release. I will send all the cards in the graveyard out of play since there are only 5 and Soul release itself will go out of play because of Banisher of the Light! I gain life, and you lose it."
Aliya: 13150
Tom: 2300
"Next I play Chaos Greed. If I have no cards in the graveyard and at least 4 out of play I can draw 2 cards." She picked up two more cards.
"Oh, and don't forget, Chaos Greed goes out of play because of Banisher of the Light and our life points continue to separate."
Aliya: 13650
Tom: 1800
"Now I attack your Bubonic Vermin which was thoughtlessly left in attack mode with Lesser Fiend!"
"Not so fast, I chain with A Hero Emerges. Pick a card from my hand, if it is a monster, it is special summoned."
"I pick the one on the left."
"You just picked Guardian Angel Joan. It is special summoned."
"You forget, I don't have to attack it, so I will continue the attack on your Vermin. Oh, and Banisher of the Light works on your cards too, including those traps."
Aliya: 14150
Tom: 1300
"Yes, but even so it is my turn to gain life points. This combo will send my life points soaring and decimate yours, and your strategy! I activate Staunch Defender. Now all of your monsters must attack my Guardian Angel! I all your monsters except your Peten are in attack mode, so you will lose almost everything. And I will gain the attack points of each monster!" Tom was grinning manically, but Aliya remained calm.
"Oh well, if I am so doomed, than how will I win? My Lesser Fiend will attack your Angel." Then Aliya marked down the following:
Aliya: 13750
Tom: 0
"WHAT! HOW!"
"Simple, I activated Bad Reaction to Simochi. You lost the life points that you would have gained, and you lost everything."
"How… I will have to revise my strategy, swarming my opponent simply won't work anymore. Good game."
"You too. I hope to duel you again some day."
"That some day must be pretty far away, you are going to be all around the world for tournaments."
"What?"
"Well, follow this train of logic. You are good enough to get in the top ten of this tournament easily. If you aren't first, odds are that with your skill, you will be picked for the team. Then you will go to the state championship. If you do well there, you will get sponsorships and tournament opportunities throughout the country. If you win, you will go to the national tournament. If you do well there then you will get some recognition around the world. And if you win! Then there are endless possibilities. Well, I lost, I got to go. Bye!" Tom ran off, but Aliya was still absorbing what he had said. She turned to Lucien, and Raoul who had just arrived.
"He has a point you know. You could go that far." Lucien said with a grin.
"Me? You are the one who has a one turn win under their belt."
"Not you, not me. Us. We will go through this together. You forget; it is a team who will exit this, not a single champion." At this point, Raoul was clearly feeling ignored, so he interrupts.
"'Us' includes me, right? After all, it is a three person team."
"Yes, of course it will include you. After all, someone needs to be there to goof off." Lucien said jokingly. Raoul then proceeded in putting him in a head lock with Aliya laughing. Lucien squirmed out of it holding Raoul's deck box.
"Now if you promise not to do that again, you will get this back." This was an old joke between them. He's the brawn, and I'm the brains. He tries brute force and I win through wit.
"Awh, ok give it here now." Lucien tossed the box over. "Now let's see who the competition is. We are in the last 32 now. Since neither of you bothered to ask, yes, I won my duel."
"No, of course we didn't ask, we just took it for granted." Aliya said sarcastically. Raoul went after her, and Lucien intercepted and the friends walked off laughing together.
Some ways off to the side Amy was standing. She had heard the entire exchange. I won't let that little snob, Aliya make it to the team. I will get first place and chose Lucien and Raoul, or some other… more easily persuaded duelist. Then they will have to be grateful to me, and they will forget all about her! I will humiliate her so that she will never show her face in front of Lucien again! She walked off planning what she could do to Aliya and what she would do with Lucien in her thrall.
Rex: I don't think that spelling should be a problem. I always use spell check but I will double check in future. As for me only showing Lucien's life points it was because Richard's didn't change. If they had I would have included them. I will make a note of the life points.
John: hahaha, yes, names are hard. Who said that Gravekeeper's Servant wasn't already in this deck? Don't think that Lucien only has 40 cards, with his deck that would be disastrous. I meant King of the Swamp. But I see you point and it was a mistake on my part. Lets just say it was Polymerization. As for the dark deck, we shall see.
Lucien: Thanks for the tip! I had forgotten it.
Me: No you fool! It was in it.
Lucien: Just confess, you had forgotten it too.
Me: ……
Peace Writer: Thank you for your advice. Plus, I can bend the rules of Upperdeck can't I? After all, who said that upper deck made the rules in my world? evil laughter
Nanashi Minimino: Thank you. Yes, it is rather like Sei's anti Yugi deck and yes, it is the discard deck. Well, it is what I wish my discard deck was as I don't own all of the cards.
Sdrive: Thank you for the complements.