Tournament of Souls- Regional Semi-Finals
"I wondered why the Frisbee was getting larger. Then it hit me." - Anonymous
"History repeats itself, historians repeat each other." Philip Guedalla
Lucien had had Raoul looking over the crowd to tell him when Aliya's duel was over. He knew that she would win, it was just a matter of time before she deciphered his cryptic message. What if he had been wrong though? He was guessing, walking on ice so thin he could see the ice cold water rushing below him, just waiting to welcome him in its icy grasp. He couldn't afford to be wrong. He hadn't been lying on the bus when he had told Aliya how much he needed her on the team. It wouldn't be a team without her. But then Raoul had seen her activate D.D. Dynamite for the win and immediately headed to the snack machine to celebrate.
As Raoul fed money into the machine Lucien almost said 'Wait, stop! Can I use that for the bus ride home?' but didn't have the heart to say it. How far was it from here to his house anyway? It couldn't be that far. It took about 20 minutes on the bus, the average speed was about 25 miles per hour including stops, so that made it what, 12 miles? Not that bad. Not really. He needed the exercise anyhow. Hell, he'd need all the exercise he could get if he was going to have to go through what Laronn did. Aside from the part where he got killed and disappeared into thin air; nothing could prepare him for that. Whatever it was that was acting as a duel monster was solid. If I get strong enough, or fast enough, I might be able to avoid being skewered. Maybe.
Aliya came and he gave her a high five. He saw Mr. Dongard walking to the center of the room with the mike again. Is it time for the next round already? That was fast. Shouldn't the battles be getting more heated at this stage? Wouldn't that mean that they take longer? Sure I went through Lily fast, but her strategy was win or lose and whatever way you choose, do it soon. One of us was going to lose and it was going to happen fast. Somehow the other semi-finalists must be hugely better than the rest of the competitors- not good news for me.
On his way to Mr. Dongard, Lucien passed the checkout counter where Mr. Kiwasaki was talking to Ray. For a moment he wondered why Ray was talking to Mr. Kiwasaki but passed it off; after all, there was no reason why he would be the only one who was friends with the store owner. Then Raoul and Aliya caught up with him as they got to the center of the room. This was a highly strategic position as it was close enough to Mr. Dongard so as to be able to hear him, but far enough away from the speakers that adorned the walls to keep their hearing intact. Mr. Dongard began to speak to the remaining contestants. Of course they weren't the only ones who heard. The room was chock full of spectators as well. Everyone wanted to see who would be the representative for their region. Lucien gulped. If he won he would have to make a fast exit to avoid the festivities. Otherwise he would never get home on time.
"We have now reached the semi-finals. I could go on congratulating the semi-finalists, but that can wait until you actually get somewhere. At table one, we have Todd vs. Lucien, and at table two Alicia vs. Max. Now moving onto the 'semi-finals' for getting 9th place. The winners of these two duels will get a place in the top eight. First at table three, we have Ethan vs. Gary. At table four we have Aliya vs. Ray. Lucien cursed himself for not having seen this coming. How could I have been so stupid? Of course Ray was going to try for a higher position. Was I hoping that he wouldn't face Aliya until she was in the top ten? I barely beat him and his strategy goes in direct conflict with her strategy. Worse still, if Aliya looses I would probably choose Ray to replace her…She won't loose though, she can't. I just need to focus on my battle and leave her to win her duel.
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"Raoul?"
"What is it man?"
"Keep an eye on Aliya for me. She'll need your encouragement more than I will during this next duel. If she loses it won't matter if I win or not." Raoul looked puzzled. But if Lucien loses, than it won't matter if Aliya wins or that I made top ten. I'll just have to trust that Lucien knows what he's doing. I owe him that much. He seems to have felt Larron's death almost as much as I have. He'll never admit it, but he's fairly empathetic.
"Can do, just make sure to win this one, okay?"
"Naturally." He's so calm it's almost creepy. Raoul turned to follow Aliya as she headed to her table.
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Aliya's opponent was waiting for her. Even as she reminded herself that this match would be 'no holds barred' and that she or her opponent could use any psychological trick in the book, Ray smiled and held out a hand to shake. Aliya accepted, but was determined not to fall for any false kindness. Her confidence was bolstered as she heard Raoul come up behind her.
"So how've you done so far this tournament?" Aliya's eyebrows rose. She had prepared for just about anything. Unfortunately, friendly conversation wasn't included.
"Not well enough as I'm here dueling you instead of being in the top eight." Ray grimaced.
"Ohhhh, low blow. I don't think I've done to badly myself. I got beaten by a guy who went by the name of Lucien. I wouldn't be surprised if he won this tournament. After this, he has the ability to go far. He seems to have some kind of reason to win this tournament but as to what it is, I couldn't possibly guess."
"You were beaten by Lucien?" Ray chuckled.
"Yup, I thought I'd seen you talking to him. So you're the reason he wants to win this tournament, I should have guessed. Congratulations on getting him, I'd say he's quite a catch." Aliya blushed.
"No, its nothing like that." Ray arched his eyebrows.
"Really? Pity. Well I suppose it doesn't matter. He wants you on his team right?" Aliya nodded and Ray stood up.
"Well then, if it's all the same to you, I concede the duel." Aliya rocketed out of her seat.
"What!" Ray nodded slowly.
"You heard me, I concede. You get the match win, you're in the top ten." Raoul spoke up.
"Why are you doing this? If you win the duel, the winner may very well pick you to be on their team." Ray grinned.
"I hope I'm not being over confident, but if I won this duel, I can almost guarantee that I would get a spot on the team. The three people in the top four are friends of mine, and Lucien may very well have picked me if Aliya here wasn't an option." Raoul shook his head.
"That only furthers the question. Why?"
"Because as I said before, Lucien's one driven dude. Now that I know he's not just dueling to impress Aliya here," Aliya's face flushed. "I know he must have something even more important on his mind. Now I don't know what that could be." He looked significantly at Aliya and Raoul. "But it must be something very important to him. I don't want to interfere with Lucien's plans. If I learned anything from my duel with him, it was this: If you mess with Lucien, he'll mess with you harder. And that Lucien always has a plan bigger than you, him and anyone else you care to add to the pot." Raoul nodded.
"Thank you, whatever your reasons. Ray, Aliya, why don't you two go make it official that Ray surrendered while I go form Lucien's cheerleading squad?" Both Ray and Aliya nodded and Aliya headed toward the register while Ray hung back a bit.
"To tell you the truth Raoul, I don't think that I could have beaten her anyhow. One of my friends told me about her duel against the pseudo-Amazoness chick." Raoul cracked a grin. "Even with her deck stacked against her, Aliya would have won if it wasn't for the mind games. She can be fiercer than any of that chick's Amazons."
Without waiting for a response, Ray caught up with Aliya and started talking to her. As Raoul watched, he gave his signature on one of the little used "articles of surrender" at the register, and handed something to Aliya before jogging out the door. Without waiting for Aliya, Raoul headed toward Lucien. Judging by the crowd, this duel was heating up fast.
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Lucien started dueling as soon as he got to the table. His opponent had been there waiting for him. Todd had hair like pitch, just as black and just as messy; sticky too by the look of it. His pale skin was shiny with oil. He wore a simple black shirt with long sleeves. And he looked like he was about 8 years old.
Lucien decided to start the duel off with friendly conversation.
"Hello, you're Todd?"
"Heads or Tails?" Todd pulled a coin out of his pocket.
"Umm… Tails I suppose." Todd flipped the coin. It was tails. Well so much for friendly conversation.
"You may go first." Said Todd in a disturbingly condescending tone.
Todd: 8000
Lucien: 8000
"Or, I might go second. However, I do believe that I will go first." Lucien drew six cards. Todd drew five. Lucien looked over his hand. Not half bad. Nothing to guaranty victory, but not bad none the less.
"I set a monster and two additional cards. Your turn." Todd looked over his hand carefully and selected three cards from it.
"Pitiful as it is, I'll mimic your move." Pitiful, eh? Well this guys about to get an unpleasant surprise. Lucien picked up the top card of his deck and smiled.
"I'll flip my face down card, Cyber Jar(900/900). All monsters on the field are destroyed and-"
"I know the effect." Interrupted Todd as he placed his face down card, Old Vindictive Magician, in his graveyard. Lucien picked up Vampire Lord (2000/1500), Needle Worm(750/600), Messenger of Peace, Bistro Butcher(1800/1000), and Soul Reversal. He set Needle Worm and summoned Bistro Butcher in attack mode. Todd had drawn Apprentice Magician(400/800), Nobleman of Crossout, Lightning Vortex, Magician of Faith(200/300), and Chaos Command Magician(2400/1900). Both monsters were set face down. Lucien thought for a good long time before making his move and Todd got impatient.
"Why don't you just attack already?"
"That my dear Watson, is because I could hit your Apprentice Magician, and I don't know what you'll decide to fetch with that. But I do suppose I need to attack some time. I'll attack your face down on the left with Bistro Butcher." Todd flipped the card to reveal Magician of Faith.
"I can return nothing as there are no spells in my Graveyard. Continue."
"Well, I think I'll play Soul Reversal to return my Cyber Jar to the top of my deck. Then I'll set a monster. Your turn." Todd grinned broadly.
"I don't know how you got this far with your deck and ability, but you're not going any farther. First I'll summon Blast Magician. Then I play Nobleman of Crossout on your first face down - Needle Worm. You returned Cyber Jar to your deck in hopes of me going after it with Nobleman of Crossout, but I know that you have additional copies of Needle Worm in your deck, and that it would be more profitable for me to eliminate those rather than stopping Cyber Jar next turn." This kid isn't half bad. But he's still just a kid and he's looking way too deep into things. Occasionally the best thing you can do is just take something at its surface worth. If we're going into psychoanalyze the subject, then I could just as easily have set an important monster in hopes that he would use Nobleman on Needle Worm. Luckily I didn't try to out guess him, I just set it up so that either way I would take losses, but at the same time, neither on hurts me overly much. Lucien removed his Needle Worm from play and did the same with both of the other ones in his deck. When Todd saw that he was finished, he continued his turn.
"Just a reminder, Nobleman of Crossout gave Blast Magician a spell counter. Now I flip summon my face down Apprentice Magician. Its effect gives Blast Magician another counter. And now I think I'll attack your face down monster with Blast Magician.
"Ok, my face down is-" Once again, Todd stopped him.
"Don't tell me yet. I chain Magician's Circle to my attack." Lucien thought hard, tracing the name of the card back to articles about new releases that he had read on the Industrial Illusions web site. Then it hit him.
"You must have some good connections. That card hasn't hit the streets yet." Todd grinned.
"I guess you could say that. But you might remember, its already legal to play. I assume that you know that it allows me to special summon a spellcaster with 2000 or less attack. Now I use its effect to special summon Silent Magician Lv 4(1000/1000) from my deck." Another pre-release. Where does this kid get his cards?
"You may or may not know this cards effect but I'm going to tell you anyways. During each of your draw phases, it gets a spell counter. For each spell counter it gets, it gains 500 attack. When it has five spell counters, I can tribute it to special summon Silent Magician Lv 8. But I'm not worried about that. I play Level Up! On Silent Magician."
"Taking the easy way out I see."
"It's the only efficient method. I sacrifice Silent Magician Lv 4 for Silent Magician Lv 8(3500/1000). This card has a very powerful ability. It isn't affected by spell cards. Oh, and Level Up! gives Blast Magician a third spell counter. Now I sacrifice all three spell counters for Blast Magician's ability. You do know what that is, don't you?"
"Yes, of course. You can sacrifice any number of spell counters on it to destroy a monster with 700 attack times the number of spell counters sacrificed."
"Precisely. Now since Bistro Butcher has 1800 attack, and I have three spell counters, I sacrifice all three of them to destroy Bistro Butcher. Now, I think that you still have Cyber Jar in your hand and set this card face down as a bluff, it's probably nothing more than another Bistro Butcher or something similar. You still have Cyber Jar in your hand as you wouldn't want to risk it being lost forever to Nobleman of Crossout. Since I ended my battle phase to play Level Up! I'll end my turn." Lucien looked at his next card and frowned.
"I set a card and a monster face down. I can do nothing else." I could do more, but it would be counter productive at this juncture. I need to keep my resources intact. Todd grinned. He thinks he's going to win this. Admittedly, it looks good for him but I can't afford to lose.
"You don't have much of a plan, do you? You're old face down obviously isn't a threat, so I think I'll have Blast Magician attack your first face down monster." Lucien grinned revealing his face down Cyber Jar. He would have done better if he hadn't over analyzed the situation. Oh well, not my problem
"Now all monsters on the field are destroyed, including the magician that you worked so hard to bring out." Now it was Todd's turn to crack a smile.
"Or it would be if I didn't activate Interdimensional Matter Transporter. I remove my Silent Magician from play for the turn so you can't destroy it."
"Bah, humbug." A voice came from behind Lucien.
"Christmas isn't for half a year yet Scrooge." Lucien turned to face the newcomer.
"Good to see you Raoul. I take it Aliya won?" Raoul chuckled.
"She didn't need to." Lucien raised an eyebrow.
"I'll tell you about it later." Todd broke in.
"That's all well and good, but shouldn't we be getting on with the duel?"
"Gladly. I chain Assault on GHQ to your Interdimensional Matter Transporter. I tribute my face down Morphing Jar #2 and send the top two cards of your deck to the graveyard."
After putting two cards from the top of his deck into the graveyard, Todd revealed the top five cards of his deck. Level Up, Silent Magician Lv 8(3500/1000), Injection Fairy Lily(400/1500), Pitch Black Power Stone, and Gemini Elf(1900/900). Injection Fairy Lily and Gemini Elf were both summoned in attack mode.
Lucien picked up his five and winced. He showed Todd: Morphing Jar(700/600), Servant of Catabolism(700/500), Card Destruction, Call of the Haunted, and another Servant of Catabolism(700/500). He summoned all of them in defense mode.
"Seeing as it's still my turn, I'll attack the center monster with Gemini Elf." Lucien put a Servant of Catabolism in the graveyard.
"After that I think I'll set a card and end. It's not worth the life points to kill anything else." Lucien drew and sighed.
"I'm beginning to get sick and tired of you and you're 'witty' commentary."
"Don't worry, you won't have to cope with my brilliance for much longer."
"That's the first intelligent thing you've said this entire duel."
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Aliya walked up to the table and saw Lucien and his opponent glaring at each other. After hearing some of the insults that were tossed across the table she was forcibly reminded of the time a few years ago when some older boy had been given the unofficial "Tormentor's award for best dissmanship" as it was referred to in some circles for insulting Lucien. The insults that had been so applauded had of course been said while Lucien's class was out on a field trip, but the whole school heard about it the next day.
Then again, even if they hadn't been told what had happened, they would have realized something was up when someone or another who had heard from someone, who had heard from his neighbor who had seen Lucien on the street once that Lucien had issued a challenge to the recipient of the award. Lucien never acknowledged that he sent out the challenge, but none the less, he showed up in the appointed place during break. His opponent jeered at him, but Lucien kept a level monotone responding to insults against various family members (e.i. Your mother's so fat her belly button his the height is a thousand feet above sea level.) with some of the most blatantly insulting logic anyone present had ever heard( as a reply to the previous example, Lucien would have said "If it was so, you would not know as you couldn't climb the said stomach even if you could muster the courage to walk into its shadow). In the end, Lucien's opponent was decreed the winner by his friends though Lucien himself smiled. Rather like the battle of Bunker Hill, the applauded victor had paid a higher price than the victory was worth to win.
No one had more trouble with Lucien's opponent for the rest of the year. He remained somewhat quiet and withdrawn and it was noticed that his grades dropped and as they dropped his parents arranged for him to meet with the school psychiatrist. He graduated un-noticed and no one has heard from him since. The school psychiatrist took Lucien aside the day before she quit for unknown reasons though it was speculated that she was in fact fired for incompetence. The principal refused to answer any questions on camera.
However he issued several statements to the school newspaper that were so ubiquitous in nature that they were never printed. It wouldn't hurt if Lucien learned to deal with other people better. He may be the smartest kid in the class, but he has the least friends.
As Aliya looked at the kid (he looked so young that she could think and indeed say he was a kid without any guilt or fear of reprimand) she thought This kid has no idea what he's gotten himself into, and turned to Raoul.
"Do you think Lucien can win this?"
"Can he? Yes. Will he? That's another matter entirely. Todd's got him in a corner with his spellcasters, he's got some cards that I'd love to have in there. I don't think that he uses Dark Magician like I do though. But that doesn't mean that Lucien's out of the woods yet though. No where close." Aliya cracked a grin.
"Even if you really like Todd's cards, you'd better hope Lucien wins. In fact, because of the cards. You see…" Aliya's voice descended into a whisper as she showed something to Raoul.
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Editor's Note: This version has no been through the cycle once, it has been corrected thanks to crissinmon's review. An extremely stupid mistake on my part.