Chapter 4: False Friends

"So...let me get this straight. You, the person whose been telling us to keep a low profile and not use any Synchro or Xyz monsters told Jaden and his friends that you plan on getting Jaden expelled to their faces, and used both a Synchro and an Xyz monster in your duel?" Damian asked over the PDA.

"Like I said, if I had beaten Alexis it wouldn't have mattered. Jaden would've gotten kicked out, and we'd be home. Besides, Scott and I convinced them that trying to get Jaden expelled was just a bluff." Ghassan defended.

Damian shrugged. "Well, now that they know about Synchro and Xyz monsters, it's fine to use them whenever we want, right?"

Ghassan shook his head. "It's one thing for only 5 students to know about how we have summoning methods that they never saw. It's another thing for everybody in the school to be aware of it."

"Come on! Really?"

"If there's not too many people around the area, then it won't be too big of a deal. Use them if you want to. But if, say, it's an event where hundreds of students are watching, we're still limiting Synchro and Xyz monsters."

Damian sighed. "The information will spread anyway."

"Either way, it's too risky. We're not as restricted as before to use Synchro and Xyz monsters, but that doesn't mean we can flash them around the entire school."

Damian though for a little bit. "But if we come up with a source for how we got the monsters? As in, something that other people can find out about on their own time?"

Ghassan shrugged. "Then it'll probably be fine."

Damian grinned. "I might have an idea then. It's almost time for class though, so I'll let you know about afterwards."

"Alright. Later." Ghassan turned off communications, grabbed his bag, and headed out of his dorm. When he opened the door, he was surprised to see that Jaden and Syrus were waiting for him.

"Oh hey! I knew i saw you enter this room last night. We've been waiting for you." Jaden said.

"Huh? Um...why?"

"We were really curious about those summoning methods you pulled against Alexis." Syrus answered.

"So we were wondering if you could tell us how you got them." Jaden finished."By the way, are there any Elemental Hero's that are Xyz or Symchro monsters?"

'Well there's E HERO Pit Boss, but it really has nothing to do with the Elemental Heroes, and it's not like it can be used anyway.' Ghassan thought to himself. "Not that I know of. And I got those cards from home." Ghassan started to walk to class, Jaden and Syrus walking alongside him.

"Seriously? I never heard about those types of cards. I figured you got them as a special prize or something." Syrus said.

"Nope." Ghassan noticed that up ahead, Scott was waiting for them at the front of the main building.

"Hey man." Scott fist bumped Ghassan as he walked up to him. "I see that you brought Jaden and Syrus along." Ghassan nodded. Scott then faced Jaden and Syrus. "We didn't get to properly introduce ourselves last night. I'm Scott. Scott Sheaffer. He's Ghassan Abunura."

"I'm Jaden. Jaden Yuki." Jaden introduced himself.

"And I'm Syrus Truesdale." Syrus stated.

"So, since you guys said that you were interested in dueling me last night." Jaden got out his duel disk. "How about I have a duel with one of you guys?"

"Right now? Can't you wait until after classes?" Syrus asked.

Scott raised an eyebrow. "You know that we have class in like, five minutes, right?"

"Yeah, but what good is attending Duel Academy if you don't have some duels along the way? We can afford missing a class or two."

"I heard that!" The four turned and saw a man with blonde hair, purple lipstick, and a blue trenchcoat walk up to the four. "Trying to play hooky already slacker boy?"

Syrus sighed. "You really should try to avoid openly stating plans to cut class J."

Crowler glared at Jaden. "I'm hoping you have a good excuse for trying to skip class Jaden."

Jaden smiled sheepishly. "Well you see, since there's still a few minutes before classes began, I haven't done anything wrong yet."

"Yet you just stated that you're intending to play hooky."

Jaden let out a nervous chuckle. "I was kidding." He lied. "But now that you mention it, I have to get to class. You shouldn't be getting in the way of my learning teach."

"Wha-?"

Jaden ran towards the building. "Catch ya later Crowler! You should also get to class too! Wouldn't be a good thing for a teacher to be late!"

"Hey, wait up J!" Syrus ran after Jaden, and both went inside the building.

Crowler gritted his teeth. "I can't wait to rid myself of that drop out."

Scott coughed. "Well, we're gonna head to class now, sooo..." Scott and Ghassan walked towards the building, but Crolwer held out an arm as a signal for them to stop.

"Actually, I'd like to ask you two a few questions."

"What about?" Ghassan asked.

"I heard you two talk about how you intended to get Jaden Yuki expelled." Crowler smiled. "We have that in common."

"Wait, how did you overhear that?" Ghassan asked.

"It doesn't matter!" Crowler hastily answered. "The point is, the three of us have a common goal. So how about I get the assistance of you two to get rid of Jaden Yuki? I already have a plan."

Scott and Ghassan shrugged. "Sure, why not?" Scott answered.

"Perfect! And the fool thinks that you two are his friends. This should make expelling him much easier." Crowler reached into his pockets, and got out a tape recorder. "I found out that last night, Jaden trespassed onto the girl's dorm. Sadly there's no physical evidence of it, but if you can record Jaden admitting it, you can bring the recording to me and get him expelled."

"Huh. Wish I thought of that idea." Ghassan took the tape recorder from Crowler.

"Don't be so hard on yourself. Nobody would expect a Slifer to be anywhere close to as brilliant as I." Crowler said. Ghassan got annoyed. "Though I'm curious, what motives do you two have for getting rid of Jaden?"

"Because he mocks everything that Duel Academy stands for." Ghassn sternly answered. After his duel with Alexis, he came up with a fake reason for why he'd want Jaden expelled if the question ever came up again. "He's a good for nothing slacker who shown up late for his entrance exams, but lucked his way into the academy anyway. It makes me sick."

Tears of joy began to build up in Crowler's eyes. "I...I never thought I'd have so much respect for a lowly Slifer Red before." Crowler sniffed.

Ghassan fought back the urge to punch the professor. "So, you want us to help you sabotage Jaden and get him expelled, right?"

"Indeed. Anyway, you two should get to class. As should I." Crowler walked into the main building.

Ghassan turned to Scott. "So...looks like we made an alliance with Crowler."

Scott shruged. "Guess so. Let's hope that Crowler's a useful pawn."


"Record him saying how he went to the girl's dorm?" Damian asked. The three were walking out of the main building and heading to the Slifer Red dorm. They just finished their last class, where they barely paid attention to how an exam is coming up.

Scott nodded. "That's Crowler's plan. Figured it was worth a shot."

"The plan just feels so...mundane."

Ghassan rolled his eyes. "Sorry that perhaps our only available way to get back home isn't interesting enough for you Damian, but I'm not picky."

Damian sighed. "Anyway, remember what I told you over the PDA?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean about coming up with an excuse for the source of our monsters right?"

Damian nodded. "I created an e-mail address for a fake card seller. I called him Takahashi." He whispered. "I sent messages to all three of us about new cards, shipments, and stuff like that. If anybody asks how we got our cards, we'll tell them we got the cards from him."

"Huh. Not a bad cover for us to use." Ghassan said.

Scott shook his head. "You guys are being naïve. You really think people won't raise an eyebrow about how this mysterious card seller only deals with the three of us? It'll take a week tops for somebody to find out that it's just us."

"Huh. Guess you have a point." Damian replied. "Still, I think I can work around that."

Ghassan stood up. "Anyway, we're off to find Jaden. We just need to record him saying he was on the girl's campus at night, and he's out of here."

Damian frowned. "I didn't get to duel a single major character from the show, and we're getting Jaden kicked out already?"

"Damian." Ghassn sternly said.

"At least let me duel Jaden first. The only person I dueled was one of Chazz's flunkies."

"I don't see any harm in getting him to duel Jaden." Scott told Ghassan.

Ghassan sighed. "Fine. Whatever." Not long afterwards, the three reached the Slifer Red dorm. "I'm not certain which dorm room belongs to Jaden." Ghassan turned to Damian. "What about you?"

"I know that it's on the upper level, but that's it. Guess we can just knock on a bunch of doors and hope for-"

Right on schedule, Jaden and Syrus exited their door and headed down the stairs. "I gotta say, I'm really curious about that Drawbread thing that Chumley mentioned." Jaden said as he was heading down the stairs. "Let's hit the card shop to try it out."

"I dunno. I'd rather have a sandwich that I KNOW I'll like. Not risk getting something gross like Grilled Tongue." Syrus replied

"But not knowing what you'll get until the last second is what makes it exciting! It's like betting an entire duel on the last card you'll draw."

"Hey! Jaden!" Scott waved.

Jaden and Syrus turned to the three. "Oh hey!" Jaden ran up to the trio. "Scott, Ghassan, and...Damian right?"

Damian nodded. They only briefly talked with each other after Damian beat Tofer. "What are you guys up to?"

"We heard that the card shop is having these sandwiches called Drawbread. Apparently, it's a bunch of different sandwiches in a bin that all have the same wrapper. You draw one at random and eat what you get. It sounds fun, so I'm gonna try it out."

Ghassan reached into his pockets and clicked the record button on the tape recorder he hid in them. "So, remember yesterday about how me and Scott wanted to duel you?"

Damian turned to Ghassan. "I thought we agreed that I'm dueling Jaden first."

"You can wait your turn Damian. I'm dueling Jaden first." Scott said.

Jaden laughed. "Looks like I'm Mr. Popular. We'll decide who I duel first later. Right now, it's sandwich time." Jaden and Syrus headed towards the main building.

Ghassan turned off the tape recorder. "I was hoping he'd mention the girls dorm after I asked him that question. Let's follow him and try again."

The three followed Jaden and Syrus to the card shop. The five saw a large cart with a question mark label on it. Inside the cart were countless small blue bags with the Duel Academy symbol on it. Several students grabbed bags from the cart and unwrapped them revealing sandwiches in them. What was particularly interesting was the sheer variety of the sandwiches. While there were some typical burgers, in between several of the buns were things such as melted chocolate, fried noodles, curry, and tangerines.

"Huh. Looks like the bin won't be short on variety." Scott said.

Jaden walked up to the bin, and put his hand in there. He started to move his arm around inside the bin. "Let's see what I'll get." Jaden moved his hand over a wrapped sandwich, grabbed it, and pulled it out of the bin. "I have a good feeling about this one." Jaden unwrapped the sandwich, and took a bite out of it. "WHOA! This is amazing!"

A young lady who worked at the card shop walked up to Jaden. "You sure are lucky. You got the Golden Eggwich for the day!"

"Golden Eggwich?" Syrus asked.

The lady pointed to the golden yolk that was in the bread. "Whenever it's sandwich day, we put exactly one Golden Eggwich in the bin."

Scott turned to Ghassan and Damian. "Ring any bells for you guys?" Scott asked.

Damian made a 'so-so' gesture. Ghassan shook his head. "I guess they're the best sandwiches in the store."

"You got that right." The employee said, seeming to overhear the conversation. "Within Duel Academy is a golden hen. Once per day, it lays a golden egg which we use to make the Golden Eggwich."

"You...you have a hen that lays golden eggs?" Ghassan asked dumbfounded.

"GX was a weird show." Damian whispered so only Ghassan and Scott could hear him.

Jaden happily continued eating the Golden Eggwich. "Only one per day huh? Well I just gotta keep getting lucky enough to draw it then." Jaden said with his mouth full.

The employee smiled. "Well here's to hoping you can do that. By the way, the store got it's shipment of cards the other day. Are you interested in buying some?"

Jaden gulped down his Eggwich. "You bet!" The employee led Jaden to the counter, who bought multiple packs of cards. "There's not a lot of things that beat that feeling of opening new cards."

Scott walked up to the counter, and gave the employee money. "I'll take some booster packs as well. Five will do." The employee nodded, and have Scott five booster packs. Scott then turned to Jaden. "How about we open these up in your dorm?"

Jaden put his newly bought booster packs in his pockets and nodded. "Totally. Race you guys there!" Jaden ran out of the card shop.

"Oh, I'm not gonna lose in a race." Damian quickly followed Jaden.

"How many times do I have to tell you to wait for me J?" Syrus ran after Jaden as well.

Scott turned to Ghassan. "So, any plan for how we'll get him to talk about how he tresspassed on the girls dorm?"

"We'll just try to lead the discussion to how we met Jaden." Ghassan and Scott walked out of the card shop.


"You know, you two look pretty old for freshmen." Syrus said to Scott and Ghassan. The five were sitting on the floor in Jaden and Syrus's dorm room. "Not to be rude, but were you guys held back?"

"We...applied a few years late." Scott said. He opened up a booster pack and looked at some of thecards in it.

"Sweetness! This Wroughtweiler card works great for my Elemental Heroes!" Jaden showed a picture of a dog-like machine to Scott, Syrus, Damian, and Ghassan while the former two were opening up their booster packs.

"Let's see. 'When this card is destroyed, you can add 1 Elemental Hero card and 1 Polymerization from your Graveyard to your hand.'" Damian read. "Huh. Yeah, that looks like it'll fit really well in your deck."

"Would work even better if it's effect went off if it was simply sent to the grave though. That way you wouldn't have to send it to the field, and get it's effect off with something like Graceful Charity." Scott said.

"Are you kidding? This card looks way too cool to not use in battle!" Jaden replied.

"But...it only has 800 ATK points." Ghassan pointed out.

"And not much higher in defense points." Syrus added.

Jaden shrugged, and took a look at another card from one fo the booster packs. "Ah sweet! This card will really help out my Avian."

Scott took a look. " 'Feather-Shot. Select 1 Elemental Hero Avian on your side of the field to activate this card. This turn, the selected card can attack as many times as the number of monsters on your side of the field when this card resolves. In that case, your other monsters cannot attack.' This card seems pretty awful."

"What are you talking about? I can get Avian to attack multiple times with this card." Jaden said.

"Yeah. A monster that has 1000 attack points. And it prevents your other, and likely stronger monsters, from attacking. There'll be barely any circumstances where you'll need it. A card like Avian shouldn't even be used for battle anyway."

"Are you crazy? Avian's one of the most iconic Elemental Heroes. I can't only have him sit in the backrow."

"Name on scenario where you can imagine saying 'Gee, I'm sure glad Avian was there to save me.' "

Jaden thought. "What if I brought my opponent down to 1000 life points and a clear field, but I had no monsters left in my hand? Then boom, I draw Avian and he saves the day!"

"And plenty other monsters would be able to do that. Avian's worthless outside of fusion material."

On the highest bunk bed, a fat young man with a large round nose and hairstyle resembling a koala turned to the five students. "Can you can your talk about Duel Monsters already? Some of us are trying to sleep."

"But...it's only 4:30 in the afternoon Chumley." Syrus pointed out.

Ghassan turned on the tape recorder in his pockets. "So Damian, aren't you curious about how Scott and I met Jaden?"

"Didn't you already tell me about-" Ghassan gave Damian a light kick. "Oh, right! Ghassan, how did you and Scott meet Jaden?"

"Well it's a funny story. Why don't you tell him Jaden?"

"What gives you the right to call my monsters worthless?" Jaden stood up, glaring at Scott. "They might be weak, but all monsters can have a use!"

"I'm not denying that. My point is that you're trying to use them for stuff they're not suited for." Scott took out a card he got from one of the booster packs. It depicted a tiny pink lizard-like creature. "Take this monster. Kidmodo Dragon. 100 attack points, and when it's sent to the grave I can special summon a Dragon monster from my hand. You think I'm gonna be sending it off to battle? No. I'm gonna be finding a way to send it to the grave so I can get off it's effect. And likewise, you should be finding ways to fuse your weaker Elemental Heroes quickly. Not send them to battle."

"Hey, Jaden knows what he's doing. He beat Professor Crowler with his deck you know."

"Yeah, by luck. Not because he actually designed his deck well."

Jaden got out his duel disk. "I bet I can prove you wrong about that."

Scott smiled and got out his duel disk as well. "Alright, sure." Scott stood up. "I'll show you just how badly you set up your deck."

Jaden and Syrus stood up as well. "Take him down Jaden." Syrus said.

Damian was jealous. "Looks like you get to duel Jaden first, Scott." He grumbled.

The three headed out towards the door. "But hey, after I win, I can give you some pointers about how to make your deck better."

"I appreciate it. You're not gonna win though." Jaden replied.

"Wait! Aren't you gonna tell Damian how me and Scott met you guys?!" It was too late. The three were already outside.

"Forget that. We get to see Jaden duel in person! Come on Ghassan!" Damian ran out of the dorm.

Ghassan groaned. "Why do they have to be so excited about dueling?"

"Look on the bright side. Now the room's quiet." Chumley said. He turned over, and went back to sleep.

Ghassan stood up and started to head towards the door. 'I know how this stuff goes. Those two will start to befriend Jaden for real, and it'll jeopardize the mission. We got to get Jaden expelled fast.' Ghassan saw that Scott and Jaden were standing in fromt of the dorm, with their duel disks activated.

"You ready to be proven wrong about my deck?" Jaden asked.

Scott shook his head. "I'm not even gonna need to use my primary deck to beat you."

"So you're holding back? In that case..." Jaden took out several cards from his deck, put in several other cards, and put his deck back in his duel disk. "It's not fair if you're at a handicap."

Scott chuckled. "Suit yourself."

'One things's for certain.' Ghassan thought. 'Seeing Jaden duel Scott will make it easier to come up with a strategy to beat him if we duel him in the future. After all, if we can't get him expelled through the tape recorder, we can find a way to replace the Paradox brothers in the future.'

"DUEL!" Scott and Jaden simulataneously said.


Next chapter's up. Decided to make this chapter more about the main character's interactions with Jaden and Syrus. First one without any dueling, though next chapter will have one of our protagonists duel Jaden for the first time, and a little bit more of Damian's plan about a fake source for Xyz and Synchro monsters. Hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next one.