Tournament of Souls Chapter 24
Lunch Break
(And various other events of varied interest)
"IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE."
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Raoul came down from the duel station and went straight to the cooler. Aliya rolled her eyes.
"You do realize that we can go get lunch now, right?"
He blinked as his hands reached down and began to un-wrap a protein bar. "Yeah, so?"
"You're hopeless."
Lucien watched with amusement. Suddenly the room went dark. There was a brief moment of universal panic before everyone realized that there were no creatures waiting to eat them. At least they realized that if such creatures were there, they were just as scared of the dark as anyone else. Lucien chuckled at the reactions of those around him. Just because he had been scared out of his wits when he considered the potential cause of the blackout didn't mean he couldn't laugh at everyone else who did the same thing with less information.
His attention was then seized by the judge, who had just gotten off the company phone. The judge coughed a few times until some helpful audience member shouted,
"Yo, everybody! Shaddup! The suit wants to talk t' yall."
Said audience member was missed by a bewildered and stern but grateful glance. While it was intended for him, it ended up aimed at a young lady behind Raoul who promptly stopped trying to get him to sign various items of paraphernalia and clothing.
The judge spoke.
"Well, it seems that we are having some technical difficulties. Now this was going to be everyone's lunch break but now it is going to be the end of Day 1 of the tournament. Lodgings have been procured for all the contestants remaining at a local hotel. Transportation will be provided. The bus leaves in one hour. Food is being supplied due to the inconvenience. Lunch will be found in the food court, in order to get a meal you need just tell the person at the cash register your name and signature card. Or in the case of some," Here the judge cast a significant glance in the general direction of Lucien, "gem color. Dinner and breakfast will be provided at the hotel, by the hotel. Enjoy your evening."
The judge looked at the note card he had concealed in his hand, puzzled. Then Mr. Dongard's voice came over the speakers.
"Enjoy your afternoon."
That time it sounded like an order which should have had an 'or else tacked onto it. Aliya said it.
"Or else what?"
The Card Shop team, rounded up, cracked up. Half of it, rounded up, quietly looked puzzled and led the way to the food court.
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The food court had power and Raoul took full advantage of it. He had in front of him a cheese burger, two mini pizzas, a large chocolate milkshake, and buffalo chicken wings.
Aliya had a salad. Lucien wasn't hungry. But he had promised his friends the details of what had happened a week before. So he told them all about that terrible duel. Every card played, every relative lost, but not every hate accumulated in the depths of his heart.
It didn't take long. After awhile Lucien moved off to see if he could find something to eat. He didn't really care about food at this point, he could eat at the hotel. His real reason was that his friends wouldn't talk to each other or anyone else while he was sitting there.
And he was right. As soon as he was out of earshot, Raoul spoke.
"So what are we going to do?"
"What do you mean?" Replied Aliya, cocking her head to one side.
"About Lucien, about the bitch who killed Larron and his entire family, about everything."
She sighed. "I don't know Raoul. What can we do?"
Raoul acted his words out with vigorous hand motions. "I don't know but we bloody well better do something. Lucien's going to go ballistic as soon as anything at all happens, he won't even bother thinking about consequences. Did I ever tell you about the time right after Lucien's mother got divorced?"
Aliya was shocked. She thought she'd known everything about Lucien. "No, you haven't. What happened?"
Raoul grimaced. "Well to put it simply, someone called me fat. Now at the time I probably was a little on the heavy side. This was years ago." He added that last comment as she started to giggle. "In any case, Lucien had just come by to meet me after school let out and he heard. He was furious! I'd learned to take it as a joke but Lucien wanted a fight, right then and there. And this guy was as then as we are now, Lucien wouldn't have stood a chance. I had to drag him away. But he still tried to brain the guy with a rock from about ten yards."
"Did he hit?"
"Do you really think Lucien could throw a rock thirty feet? Heck, I still don't think he can throw a rock thirty feet! He missed by a foot. I'd never seen him do anything near that athletic."
Aliya's brow furrowed. "I'll remember to stay on his good side then."
"Wise decision, but what will we do if he decides to go after her alone?"
"What do you mean? We'll stop him of course."
He shook his head. "It's not that easy. I'm not ashamed to say that Lucien is smarter than me. I'm fairly sure he's smarter than you too. He'll think of a way to outwit us and get to her unless we have something set up to stop him."
"What will we do, set up trip wires?" Aliya's voice dripped sarcasm.
Raoul nodded. "Idea #1: Trip wires."
By the time the hour was up and it was time to board the bus, they had thought of six ideas and rejected seven.
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The tournament organizers had really splurged this time. While it was only a three or so star hotel, each duelist had their own room. Admittedly they were single rooms, but the fact remains that they paid for twelve rooms. After dinner they had all been reminded by a series of custom Industrial Illusions sticky notes that they were allowed to alter their decks before the next day.
In order to take full advantage of this, all three team members had gathered in Raoul's room and all three had all of their cards with them. They lay sprawled out on the floor flipping through each other's card binders.
As they flipped, a heated debate was in progress.
"They're bound to have cards we need!" Raoul pled.
"I see no reason to go outside the team for cards." Lucien insisted stubbornly. "Plus, who would we ask? The very person who we came here to defeat? I think not."
"We don't need to go to her. Or even her team. There are two other teams in competition you know."
"They could easily have been influenced by her."
Aliya sighed and looked up from a binder. "There are several duelists who've been eliminated that are staying the night at this hotel."
Lucien's eyes snapped towards her. "Which ones?"
Aliya's eyes rolled skyward as she thought. "Well there's all of the Galactic Games team…"
"Never."
"I wasn't going to make you." She tapped a finger on the side of the binder. "The rest are mostly teams made up of people old enough to drive who were planning on spending the night anyhow."
"And how would you go about contacting these people?"
"Well, we could call internally on the hotel phone."
Lucien considered, completely ignoring Raoul's exaggerated eye rolls.
"And you want to do this?"
"Yes." Replied Aliya patiently.
"Very well. I'll leave it up to you."
Lucien retreated into the bathroom. When he emerged, Raoul had returned from a trip to the front desk to discover which rooms housed duelists that were no longer in the tournament and he and Aliya were just beginning to call rooms. After the third call they had found a team captain who was awake and willing to trade. A few short minutes later a knock came on the door.
Aliya welcomed their guest and gestured to Lucien who began handing the captain card binders. The captain handed a knapsack to Lucien and before long each team captain had a pile of cards they wanted. After glancing through each other's stacks, the other captain was satisfied but Lucien insisted on altering a few cards. The trade complete, the captain left with his cards and Lucien divided the stack of new cards, keeping a large one for himself, a larger one for Aliya, and handing Raoul only a few cards.
Wide eyed, Aliya looked through her pile and Raoul watched enviously. "Why'd she get so many cards?"
"Our friend had many cards for her strategy. He had few for yours." Lucien used 'our friend' as another person might use any given personal pronoun. It was generic and unfelt.
Lucien took his stack of cards and began substituting them in for the ones his deck already contained. He wouldn't lose.
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Hours later, each of them had returned to their separate rooms. Raoul was half asleep- he had stuck a door jam under Lucien's door so that while it wouldn't stop him from getting out, it would probably make some noise. He'd put the new cards in his deck. He'd decided to trust Lucien on some of the changes that he wouldn't normally agree with.
At a ridiculous hour there was a knock at the door and a rasping sound. Raoul got up and tip-toed towards the door, hoping not to alert the nocturnal prowler. Having reached the door, he slammed it open and leapt out. No one was there.
Bemused, Raoul stepped back into the room and in doing so stepped on an envelope. The message inside was neatly typed.
We offer to you, Raoul Cooper, a singular opportunity.
We have rare cards which fit your deck perfectly. Come to us and you may receive them. We do not pretend that this is a free service. You will have to duel for the cards.
As a token of our sincerity and evidence towards our promises for more, a single card is enclosed.
Come alone or with company.
The message was unsigned. Raoul looked carefully at the envelope and found that the card was inside a clear plastic case pasted to the inside. He extricated it and examined the card.
"Jeeze," he whispered, "I don't think even Lucien's heard of this card." He looked over his shoulder as if to make sure that Lucien wasn't there before creeping out of his room.
He did his best to be quiet, but a few doors down he tripped on someone's room service tray, left outside to be cleared away in the morning. It didn't clatter much, but a door opened down the hall behind him and Aliya hurried up, fully dressed.
"Where are you going?" She hissed.
He handed her the letter. She hauled him back to her room and flicked on a light to read it. She narrowed her eyes.
"This sounds fishy."
Raoul shrugged. "What could happen? The only people who know what room I'm in are the tournament officials. This is probably some kind of bonus round."
Aliya was still suspicious. "But why you? Lucien's the team captain, he should have gotten it. As a matter of fact, why our team?"
Raoul was getting more excited as ideas presented themselves. "They've probably decided that our team has a better chance. Plus, some other teams probably got it too. And as for why Lucien didn't get it, well, they could have picked random team members. More likely they decided that mine has better form."
An eyebrow was raised. "Better form?"
"Who wants to see a bunch of random monsters kill off opponents quickly? It doesn't put up a nice spectacle. My deck however has a theme. It has class."
"You think they're going to make some kind of movie?"
The African American boy went wide eyed in mock wonder. "They could, you never know. We could be movie stars!" He laughed. "Why wonder about it? There's no risk other than losing a duel or two- and if the other cards are anything like the one they sent with the note, it will be more than worth it."
Curious, Aliya looked around the room. "What was the card they gave you anyhow?"
Raoul put a playful finger to his lips. "I'm not telling. Just wait until you see it in action!"
Aliya sighed. She wasn't going to get this out of Raoul anytime soon and she knew it. "Don't you think we should go to this 'side tournament' of yours? They're probably waiting for you."
"You're not going to make me bring Lucien?"
Aliya laughed, incredulous. "Of course not, he'd make us stay here. Lucien would think it was some kind of trap and say something along the lines of 'Just because it has benign potential does not mean that is in fact benign.'"
Raoul blinked. "I'm just going to take it for granted that you agree with me and not bother figuring out what that means. Let's go."
"Where to?"
Raoul paused on his way out the door. "You know, I have no idea."
"Let's see," said Aliya in mock thought. "What place around here is equipped for this type of mini-tournament?"
Raoul shrugged.
"The convention center, Raoul, the convention center." Explained Aliya as she led the way out the door.
"Oh," mumbled Raoul. "But how are we going to get there?"
Aliya was momentarily stumped but did her best not to show it. "We'll figure that out when we get down there."
Raoul shrugged and followed her out the door.
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Aliya didn't care where they were going. She just wanted out. She'd been having some weird dreams ever since what had happened to Larron. Tonights had been among the strangest.
Aliya looked across the dueling field at her opponent. Darkness blocked her face. Aliya had Venus – Agent of Creation, Soul Absorption, Banisher of the Light, and Sanctuary in the Sky in play. Her opponent had Fire Princess, Dancing Fairy, Soul Absorption, and a set card. Aliya looked at her field.
"I'll pay 500 life points to summon my last Mystical Shine Ball in defense mode and evening the life point count. I'll end my turn."
"You really think you can beat me?" Her opponent taunted her. "I'm your greatest opponent. I'm the one person you'll never beat. You may beat Lucien, you may beat Raoul. You can't beat me."
"I can try." Aliya's voice quaked.
"But what happens when trying isn't enough? Don't try, do. Succeed. You've held back for too long, and watch where it will get you. I gain a thousand life points from Dancing Fairy and Fire Princess costs you five hundred. I'm up by fifteen hundred. Now I tribute Dancing Fairy for Saturn – Agent of Judgment, I'm ahead by twenty five hundred. Now I'll activate the trap, D.D. Dynamite."
"No…" gasped Aliya.
"Did you think of that when you sent all your monsters to the different dimension? How many were there again? Five, you destroyed five of your own monsters. Now I'm ahead by six thousand. Ready to be judged?"
"I'll win next time."
"You'll say that next time. And there will always be a next time, and you'll win the next time, the one after that. No. I'm the only one who can win. Saturn, release your holy judgment."
The angel radiated light burning away the darkness and Aliya looked into the face of her adversary; her own.
"You see, honey, you'll never win. You can't beat the only part of you that can actually play this game. Except it will never be a game for you, not anymore. It will be a life. A life you've lost."
Aliya shook off the dream as they walked out of the hotel lobby. What she needed to find was a way to get to the convention center. Then she found it. There were two shuttle busses with the hotel logo idling in the parking lot, and one of them had a driver in it.
Five minutes later, they were on their way to the convention center.
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"So, should we call him?"
"I'm not sure. Lucien seems smart. He might not be fooled."
"Lucien won't care."
"It doesn't matter. It's not like we're giving him a choice."
"Its Dongard I'm worried about."
"He's with the company. Why worry about him?"
"You never know. How much have you told him?"
"Enough."
"Enough that he's dangerous?"
"Enough that he can operate."
Somewhere a phone clicked down. Elsewhere a computer monitor flicked off. You could never be too careful. Not with this company.