"I can't tell if they are a boy or a girl, can you?"
"No, but I doubt that the Security would throw a girl in the Facility."
"What gives you the idea that they've been to the Facility?"
"The yellow mark on their face. I learned that from my current events class."
"But I thought that the marks were about the size of a coin or a toothpick!"
My brain was trying to reboot, but I was so sore, that I was just lying there as two almost identical voices talked about me, not knowing that I had woken up.
"They typically are, my class never explained why they are all different sizes."
"Maybe they know why theirs is bigger than everyone else."
"I just hope that they wake up soon so we can ask."
"Yeah, they've been asleep for two days."
Wait, what?
I started moving, and one of them squeaked. The other voice weakly giggled at the first one, and then stopped.
As I sat up and looked at my hosts, my brain was only more confused. One was clearly a girl, while the other one was a boy. My confusion was the fact that they were likely twins, and would be identical if they were the same gender.
Pushing aside my confusion I reached right for my deck, "How did I get here?"
The boy was putting on an act of being braver than the sister, "We brought you up here."
"You're heavy."
He looked at his sister, disappointed that she interrupted, "I'm Leo. This is my sister Luna."
Luna looked at me, "What's your name?"
I managed to stand up, despite all of the screaming muscles, "I'm not the kind of person that you want to befriend. This mark on my face? I didn't exactly get it by going to the store. The less you know about me, the better."
Leo ran over to me, "Come on! If I want to be a famous duelist like Jack Atlas, I need to duel more people than my sister!"
It was difficult to resist smiling at his enthusiasm, but instead, I crouched to his level, "What makes you want to duel me?"
A single finger pointed behind me, "You are a speed duelist like Jack."
Before my crash, I thought that the happiest I would be upon seeing Justice would be in the Security lockup. But seeing that I got her successfully away from Security made the sight of her even better.
My muscles heavily protested me talking over to Justice's side, checking her over for any damage that could have happened when I crashed. As I crouched to check the side, Leo ran over to my side, "Are you in town to beat Jack?"
His mind going straight to that assumption was so surprising that I almost laughed, "No, just in town to do some business. Then I'm going back home."
"Then why do you have a runner?"
A chuckle managed to slip out of me, "Some people can't afford cars. Plus, I do like dueling at high speeds every once in a while."
Without any warning, he ran over to a shelf on a nearby wall. My eyes were drawn to what could only be described as a shrine for Jack, from which he grabbed an envelope. Racing back over to me, he handed the envelope to me, "Have you heard about this?"
Gently taking the envelope from him, I examined it. On the front was the words Fortune Cup Invitation over a trophy. Leo was bouncing as he watched me with excitement, "They asked me to duel in it!"
Luna once again interrupted, "They actually asked me."
He grimaced, stopped bouncing, shook his head, then started bouncing again, "I'm dueling because she said she didn't want to."
The more I watched their interactions, the more they both reminded me of both Rally and the Enforcers when we were a lot younger. I sighed, "I'll duel you, and if you win, I'll tell you my name."
Suddenly Luna turned to me, "Are you a boy or a girl?"
I smiled, "I'll tell you guys if he wins."
Pinching the envelope between my fingers, I flicked it back to the shrine, much to the awe of Leo.
Turning around, I got my duel disk out, and pulled out my foot deck. A noise behind me caused me to spin, revealing Leo wearing a full sized disk.
As my eyes registered the size of the runner, it slid down his arm as he jumped up and down.
Resigning myself to my fate, I looked towards Luna, "Where do you think that we should duel?"
She pointed at the window, "You would have more space if you did it outside. We get the whole floor to ourselves."
The three of us went outside where there was a pool big enough to drown Martha's whole house. Switching gears, I smiled to Luna, "Could you get me a really small towel?"
Before I could get another word out, she raced off, returning quickly with one nearly the exact size I needed.
"Perfect, thank you. Leo, could you come over here?"
When he got close to me I put the towel under his duel disk for two reasons: to stop it from scraping him, and to keep it from moving as much, "That should work a little better than how it is now."
He shook it up and down, "Yeah, it doesn't move as much! Thanks!"
My smile was having a hard time disappearing with how cute these kids were, "You can even have the first turn."
"Yes!"
Leo ran a good distance away and then activated his duel disk, "My turn, and I summon Morphtronic Cellphon in attack mode!"
Morphtronic Cellphon-100
Bouncing on the tips of his feet, he continued, "Next I activate his special ability, which chooses a random number, and I get to draw that many cards. If one is a monster level 3 or under, I can summon it."
The number three on the phone lit up and he hooted, "Yes, and one of the cards is a monster that I can summon in attack mode, Morphtronic Magnen!"
Morphtronic Magnen-800
"Finally I put a card face down and end my turn."
I drew my next card, and then started the first round of likely the cutest duel I have been in since childhood, "I summon Speed Warrior in attack mode."
Speed Warrior-900
Tilting my head, I smirked, "On his first turn, his attack points double. And I am going to attack your Magnen."
Speed Warrior-1800
Just as my Warrior was about to destroy the Magnen, Leo smiled, "I activate my trap, Morph Transition. It stops your attack and changes my monster into defense mode."
Morphtronic Magnen-800
Letting a smile out, I conceded, "Alright, then I end my turn, which means that Speed Warrior's attack points drop back down."
Speed Warrior-900
"My turn! I summon another Magnen in defense mode!"
Morphtronic Magnen-800
Lines appeared between the two as Leo explained, "Since there are two in defense mode, you can't attack either. It's so cool!"
"Next I use my Cellphon's special ability! And it stopped on two!"
He drew his cards and cheered in excitement, "This card is so awesome! I summon Morphtronic Datatron!"
Morphtronic Datatron-1200
"Then I activate my spell Gadget Box, which gives me one Gadget Token per turn!"
Gadget Token-0
His voice grew in volume, "Now I use Datatron's special ability. If I send one monster to the graveyard, I can give you 500 points of damage. So I am going to send my Token to the graveyard. Go Datatron!"
Life Points Yusei-3500
Leo started jumping up and down, yelling over to Luna, "You said that I would never be able to set this up in an actual duel! Look! I did it!"
She sat there like a queen, looking right at him, "Are you going to keep yelling, or are you going to end your turn soon?"
His face turned into a tomato as he muttered, "Sorry, I end my turn."
Yet another smile was fighting its way onto my face, "I send one card to the graveyard to use my Card Rotator spell card. It changes the mode of all of your monsters."
The smile disappeared from his face, "What?"
Morphtronic Magnen-800 (attack)
Morphtronic Magnen-800 (attack)
Morphtronic Cellphon-600 (defense)
Morphtronic Datatron-600 (defense)
"Next, I summon Junk Synchron in attack mode."
Junk Synchron-1300
Checking my hand, I continued, "Junk Synchron's special ability brings back a low level monster from the graveyard, so here comes Nitro Synchron again."
Leo interrupted in a panic, "This means you can summon a level 7 monster!"
Luna was about to protest when I spoke, "You are halfway right. But it is going to take a little extra step or two. You can't use two tuners at once. So first I tune my Speed Warrior with my Junk Synchron to create Junk Warrior."
Junk Warrior-2300
"After that, I tune Junk Warrior with Nitro Synchron to create Nitro Warrior."
Nitro Warrior-2800
Leo seemed to wilt in front of Nitro Warrior, I almost wanted to stop. Almost, "Now I am going to have my Warrior attack your Magnen on the left."
Life Points Leo-2000
"I am sorry Leo, but if my Warrior successfully destroys one monster, he can force another into attack mode and attack that one too. He's going to attack your Cellphon."
Life Points Leo-0 Defeat!
Tears started flowing down Leo's face, breaking my heart. I walked forward, kneeling in front of him, "Hey, it's okay Leo, everyone loses. I even heard that Jack lost pretty recently off record. If it makes you feel better, I can stay the night, I just can't tell you my name."
Luna helped Leo wipe the tears of his face. Once that happened, Leo smiled up at me, "Thanks!"
Hours later they were both in bed, leaving me to pull out my tool box in order to work on a small project.
It's the least I can do to pay them back for their hospitality, especially since they took in a marked person who crashed in an alleyway under their house.
Taking apart their cute little duel disks was something that any child in Satellite could have done, but the next part was more difficult.
Neatly lining out all of the extra pieces, I carefully put a smaller version together from the pieces I took apart. Once again, memories flooded back of Rally, and when I had done this exact same thing for her.
Silently, I cleaned up, packed my tools away and rolled my runner out.
I need to go, my staying will only endanger them.
The elevator doors slid open, and I pushed Justice out just enough for me to get back on. Revving my engine to check the sound, I then picked my foot up and launched out of the shelter of the garages.
Only about five or six blocks passed before my side got rammed violently.
"Hello again Officer."
No words could accurately describe how much I hated his laugh, "I knew you would have to come out sooner or later. Are you ready to duel me again?"
"I'm definitely ready to beat you again."
We both stopped in an intersection, ready to duel again. Bright lights came on in front of us with absolutely no warning, ripping away my vision for a good couple seconds. A man who looked more like a clown walked toward us, "Officer Trudge, you don't have the clearance to be here. Please leave or risk losing your job."
He grimaced, "Who are you?"
No living being should be able to pull off the smile he sent to Trudge, "Director Goodwin's personal assistant."
Without any further argument, Trudge grunted and drove away, making me immediately go on guard, "What do you want?"
The purple haired freak bowed, "I am Lazar. Director Goodwin would like for me to give you this."
I took it from him, and looked at the familiar looking envelope. My eyes connected with his as I lowered my voice, "And what if I don't want to?"
He pointed at the envelope that I was holding in my hand, "Then everyone in the picture that you are holding will be punished for all of your crimes."
Flipping over the envelope revealed a photograph, which showed me the friends that I was trying so hard to get back to talking to each other, oblivious that someone was watching them. I glared at him, "Fine. But the second I'm out of this tournament they better be back at our place."
A/N: Once again, thanks to PipeDream and Let's-Go-To-Vermont for reviewing on the original version of this chapter!
