Aki and I were gliding along the dueling track when Crow's voice erupted into our ears, "Another meteor just showed up outside of town."
We exchanged looks before we raced to the stands, where Crow was waiting with the twins. Leo was already sitting on the back of his runner, so I looked at the other twin, "Luna, get on my runner."
She rushed over to me, and I secured my spare helmet onto her tiny head. Leo's face was barely visible inside of Crow's spare, which made laughter bubble up inside of me. Once both of them were safely on the runners with helmets, we raced to the edge of town.
As we drove, I noticed that Aki was starting to be able to keep up with Crow and I, "Hey, Aki?"
"Yeah?"
I smiled at her, "You're getting better. Normally you are shaking right now."
Her face glowed as she smiled back, but she turned her focus back on the road rather than respond.
Finally, we pulled up to the crash site outside of town, only to see a large crowd gathering around barricades.
We walked to the crowd, and saw the friendly hippies that were always around when something cool occurred, "Hey, Angel, Carter, did you get a chance to see the meteor?"
Angel shook her head, "No, Security barricaded it up before anyone else could get it."
Crow muttered something under his breath, and I gave a brief bow to the two of them before we went back to the garage.
The next day, as I was working on the prototype when the twins came in.
But something was wrong, because Leo was completely silent, while Luna was the one bouncing in, "We have a new student! His name is Lester, and he's such a great duelist."
Leo huffed as he sat quietly on the ramp leading outside.
Luna ignored him, and spun around in front of me, "Lester wasn't defeated by anyone, and he was the winner of a junior dueling competition."
Meanwhile, Leo's face grew darker, and he stood up abruptly, "He wasn't that good."
Scooping up his bag, he marched out of the garage, leaving Luna behind, "He's probably just upset because Lester beat him."
After pausing for a second, Luna rushed out after him, and I was about to start working again when a voice piped up, "You never stop working, do you?"
I glanced up to see Kiryu smiling at me from the ramp. His eyes scanned me, and he shook his head, "Is your hair braided?"
Nodding, I stood up to stretch, "It stays out of my face that way."
He walked down, looking around at the garage, "Your dad asked me to make sure you made it to someplace called Dignified Glamour."
Cringing, I sighed, "It's a stupid clothing store. He wants me to look more like a girl."
Bowing dramatically, he held out an arm, "Well, then we should get it over and done with before you go insane, shall we?"
Kaiya measured me yet again, "Fudo-sama, you are growing a lot. I might have to adapt your riding uniform. Speaking of which, have you worn it yet?"
"No. But it looks amazing."
She blushed, "Thank you so much. I'm doing my best."
Kiryu smiled from his position against the wall, "I didn't think that Yusei could ever look like a girl."
"Shut up, Albino."
That only made him laugh, and I tried not to flip him off.
Kaiya walked over to a notepad and wrote down the measurements, "Now that I have the measurements, I need you to choose a design."
A pile of designs were handed over to me, and I leaned against the wall as I flipped through them. Some designs were too focused on curves than I was comfortable with, while others were much more like the clothes that I had been wearing for years.
Gathering up the ones that I was more comfortable with, I handed them to her, "These are the ones I like more. I don't care which one you make."
Kiryu chuckled, "You've never cared about your appearance."
"The only thing I care about is my family, my friends, and my machines. Taking care of them doesn't require a good sense of fashion."
He smirked, "I'm just surprised that your dad actually talked you into this."
Rolling my eyes, "Come on, I still need to work on the prototype."
Around 7 PM, the doors to the garage burst open, and Leo raced down the stairs, "Hey, Yusei! I just saw the coolest thing!"
Glancing up, I raised an eyebrow, "What was it?"
Leo kept talking at a rapid fire pace, "So that Lester guy took Luna to his house, without me, and when I got there, I saw him riding on something called a Duel Board. Do you have something I can draw with?"
I pointed at the white board, and the guys moved it over for Leo to draw on.
Leo drew a triangular object on the board, then a duel disk, and finally the two were connected with a line, "So this is what the Duel Board looked like, and it was controlled with the feet, not sure how. Then this cord connected it to the duel disk. As far as I know, you don't need speed spells since it isn't as fast as a Turbo Duel."
Jack nodded, and studied it, "So you could be in a high speed duel without driving a runner. Not a terrible idea."
I looked through my scrap parts, "I think I have all of the parts here."
He jumped into the air, "Then I can finally defeat Lester!"
Popping my neck, I gathered up all of the parts that I would need, "Let's get started, shall we?"
Leo ran to my side, and helped me put the pieces in place, "No Leo, I need that piece to go over here. Thanks."
The hours blurred together as I worked non-stop on the duel board. Figuring out the propulsion system was the trickiest part, as a traditional engine was too large to attach to the board. Everything else slowly clicked into place as I tried to make it as aerodynamic as possible.
Around midnight, Leo passed out with his head on my desk. I paused my work long enough to scoop him up and place him on the couch upstairs before returning to my work.
At some point, I fell asleep on my desk as well, getting woken up by Leo as he ran down the stairs, "Is it finished?"
I held it up, "Try it out in here. I need to see what I need to fix."
He could barely ride it, but at least my newest creation worked without any bugs, "Here's some padding and a helmet. If I catch you without all of it on, I will take the board back. Do I make myself clear?"
Leo's smile disappeared, "Yes ma'am."
"Also, get into a clean set of clothing. You've been in your uniform since yesterday morning."
I watched him raced upstairs to where we kept an extra set of clothing for everyone, and Crow came down, "Did you actually build it?"
"Yeah. And it seems to work perfectly."
Leo ran downstairs, already in his spare clothing, "Will you guys clean the uniform?"
I waved my hand, "Yes, but you'll have to pick it up."
He nodded, squeezing me as tight as he could, "Thanks, Yusei!"
We watched as he ran out with his board, and I sighed, "I hope he drops by the apartment before finding a place to practice."
"Yusei?"
I glanced up and saw Luna holding a duel board with all of her safety gear on, "What's up, Luna?"
"Have you seen Leo? He never came back after school."
Blowing out air, I sighed, "I should have figured he wouldn't go back. Last night he showed up saying that Lester gave you a duel board, and that he wanted one to duel Lester with."
Luna stood up straighter, "Then I'll help him train!"
She ran out, not even asking if I knew where Leo was.
Those twins will be the end of me.
A burning pain erupted up my arm, and an image of Luna showed up in my mind. Without hesitating, I jumped off the ground and got my jacket, gloves, and helmet on while getting on my runner. I had barely started it up when Jack ran down the stairs with Crow tailing him, "What's happening?"
"Something is putting Luna in danger, which means that Leo is in danger too. She went to go find him three hours ago."
The three of us shot off, and Aki pulled alongside us, "Any idea what's happening?"
Jack called over to her, "Best guess is that another Ghost is going after the twins."
All color drained out of her face, "But they're just kids!"
"But other people might think that they are the weakest duelists."
I led the way through a tunnel, and my blood froze as we emerged to see a giant machine flying above a duel track.
Crow freaked out, "Is that the same one as the one Yusei dueled?"
Shaking my head, I looked at it, "No, this one is blue and has wings. But they are similar enough to each other that they could have a connection to each other."
Aki sounded concerned, "You mean like they are part of the same family?"
Something caught my eyes, "The twins are dueling it!"
Gasps came from all three of them, and Aki started to freak out, "I don't believe it! No wonder our marks are burning!"
To our mutual horror, Ancient Fairy Dragon appeared on the battlefield.
Another monster that I wasn't familiar with was also on her field, but I knew that as soon as she ended her turn that her beloved monster would be sucked up.
Before we even had a chance to call out to her, her opponent's turn started, and the very first thing that happened was familiar blue lights shot out of the mark on his monster's chest. The lights wrapped around Ancient Fairy Dragon, and pulled her into the machine.
Through the marks, we could feel her panic, as well as her shock.
Her mysterious enemy sent his now overwhelming attack right towards Leo, and Luna shot in front of him and took part of the damage to protect him, barely staying upright on her board.
I glanced at the others, "Why is he attacking Leo? Luna's the Signer."
Jack was the one with the answer, "Because Leo most likely riled him up in some way."
An idea showed up as the twins suddenly recognised him, "Leo was complaining about a new student that showed up right after the meteor. This student kept trying to make friends with Luna, but Leo said that something about this new student freaked him out."
The words had just left my mouth as Leo summoned Power Tool Dragon, and Jack yelled, "Doesn't he remember that his monster can be absorbed?"
Crow turned on field vision so we could listen to the battle, just in time to hear Leo yell, "I use Summon Speeder to bring out Morphtronic Vacumen. Once per turn, if he's in defense mode, he can equip a monster on your field!"
All of us started to tentatively hope that he might win, when his opponent used a trap to put a monster from his graveyard in the place of his machine.
"Leo was so close!" Crow moaned.
I felt every nerve in my body was on edge as the stranger started his turn, when Leo suddenly flipped up the trap he had laid down.
The monster he had accidentally gotten instead of the robot shot back to its owner's deck, while Ancient Fairy Dragon erupted out of the infinity symbol before returning to Luna's deck.
"He must have used Power Break, it's the only card I can think of that would do such a thing."
Jack nodded, "Which means that his life points are about to dip by 1000."
Aki smiled, "It seems like Leo is best at dueling when Luna is on the line."
I nodded, "Hate to break your joy, but they are still in danger."
Yet again, the words had barely gotten out of my mouth when the stranger changed the attacking part of his monster with a trap card. Then seconds later, he changed it again, and his monster turned around to face Leo.
Crow whispered, "It's not pointing at one of his monsters."
All of us stopped to watch in horror as the blast hit Leo right in the chest, sending him flying off the track.
Through our marks, we felt a kind of terror that we couldn't understand, and before any of us could move, the Crimson Dragon appeared.
He lit up the sky, and a strange sphere of light came from the hand that Luna represented and shot down to catch Leo. It surrounded him, and placed him gently on the ground. As his head flopped down, the Crimson Dragon faded away.
I glanced up and noticed that Luna was prevented from seeing where Leo landed, "Luna, don't worry! He's safe! Now you need to finish the duel!"
Her eyes filled with comfort as she realized that we were all here for her, and she shot off after the other duelist.
She started her turn by summoning the lion that was friends with Ancient Fairy Dragon, and she loudly declared, "If I remove my dragon from play, then you take her attack points as damage."
Our hopes started to go up and then we heard his voice maniacally laughing, "I use Infinity Force, which destroys all monsters on your side of the field if I should have taken damage this turn due to an effect. All damage becomes 0, so you did nothing!"
Both monsters on her field were destroyed, leaving her open to a direct attack from the monster.
As the blast shot toward her, it stopped short, not coming close to actually knocking her over. My mind raced, trying to figure out what was going on, when Aki looked over, and gasped, "I think I see her monsters trying to make a shield."
"It wouldn't surprise any of us. Do you think they can hold out?"
Once again, it seemed like I jinxed her, because the blast finally hit her, creating a large cloud of smoke.
We pulled to a stop, and waited with baited breath to see if she was alright.
She came out, still on her board. But she was swerving a lot, and started heading to the wall.
Before she could hit it, she suddenly was jerked away from it, and she smiled at something between her and the wall.
To our relief, when she jerked away, she also became more steady.
Aki sighed, "She's probably the safest of us all. Her duel spirits won't let anything harm her."
I nodded, "I'll go get Leo, you guys go check on her."
Finding a way to get to the spot where Leo fell was a challenge worthy of a detective, but after ten minutes of searching, I found him.
I climbed off my runner, and picked him up, glad to hear him grunt as I moved him onto my runner.
Knowing that no doctor would believe my story, I called Crow, "I'm taking him to Martha's, just to make sure he's okay. Meet me there."
"Will do!"
A/N: Thanks to Nozomi Higurashi and Bravemaridin for reviewing on the original version of this chapter.
