Hey everyone, here's the next chapter

Constructive criticism welcomed, just don't go to hard on me please

Enjoy!

Chapter 2: Opportunities

Several months had passed since Querl had first arrived in Domino City, and he had been staying at Darrell's house until he was able to get a home of his own. He had looked for several jobs throughout the city and managed to get a job at the local hospital as a doctor. Thankfully, in his previous years of visiting the city, he had managed to get a degree in medicine and was a qualified doctor.

The job that he had at the moment was giving him a great paycheck, he would have to wait at least another month until he would be able to get a house that he wanted. Darrell didn't mind that Querl was staying with him, it was then that he discovered that Querl was a dab hand when it came to cooking as well.

"Man, I tell ya. You should get a job as a chef man, this stuff rocks," Darrell commented as he dug into his lunch, which consisted of homemade burgers and buns, sweet potato chips and spiced mushrooms and onions that have been cooked in butter.

"Come on Darrell, I'm not that good," Querl said, taking another bite from his burger. Darrell shook his head as he swallowed what he had in his mouth.

"You're wrong there man, you make all this stuff yourself, your recipes. People would be lining up down the street to taste this." Querl gave a small smile at what his friend was saying, yes he may have had some talents in cooking, but his talents originated from his childhood, where he had to fend for himself when he had no family around him.

"By the way, did hear about the duel monsters tournament starting in a couple days?" Darrell asked, gaining Querl's attention.

"No, I didn't. How big is it going to be?" he asked, followed by Darrell.

"Well, about twenty duellists, you can sign up to participate online and Kaiba Corporation selects people that they deem to be good duellists, and the winner gets a prize of $50,000 and the possibility of working for Kaiba Corp." Darrell explained, getting Querl to nod in understanding.

"Sounds like a good thing, I'm not gonna sign up though," he said as he finished his meal, getting a look of surprise and what looked like nervousness from Darrell.

"Are you sure about that man?" He asked, scratching the back of his head in a nervous manner. That caught Querl's attention, a thought struck his mind and sighed in realisation.

"You've signed me up for it haven't you?" He asked while looking directly at his friend.

"Yeah, I have, and you've been accepted as a contestant," he admitted. Querl sighed as he put his head in his hands, gathering his thoughts before facing his friend once again.

"Darrell, you know I'm not into these kinds of things," he said.

"I know man, I know. But some of the people that have signed up and accepted are some of those snobby people, saying stuff that rookies shouldn't be allowed to have a deck. I know that you don't like people like that, so I thought it would be a good idea to sign you up so you can kick their ass and show them who the rookie is," Darrell explained, trying to reason his decision to sign him up for the tournament.

Querl sighed once again and pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking through the whole idea of him competing in a tournament of this standard. It was true that he hated it when duellists belittled rookies and talked bad about them, but it still annoyed him a little that Darrell had signed him up for the tournament without his knowledge, even if it was for a great opportunity.

After several more minutes of thinking, he finally made his decision.

"Alright, I'll compete," he said, getting a shout of victory from Darrell. But now Querl had one more thing to think about other than sorting out his life at the moment.

Competing and maybe winning the tournament.

-(Line Break)-

Several days after the talk that he had with Darrell, Querl and his friend were down in the Kaiba Dome, where the tournament was going to be held. All the other duellists that were competing were there as well, some of them bringing friends along, and some of them not.

Querl looked at them and recognised some of them, there was Weevil Underwood, Rex Raptor, Alister, Valon, Raphael, Bandit Keith, Vivian Wong and a good amount more that he had never seen before.

"Wow, looks like some tough competition today," Darrell commented as he took a look around himself, starting to regret signing Querl up for the tournament.

"Don't worry about that Darrell, sure there are some past champions here, but they don't exactly have the best of methods when it comes to dueling," Querl commented. The two of them walked around a little more until it was time to get everything underway.

"Good luck man, and kick some ass," Darrell said before leaving to get his seat, leaving Querl behind in the centre with the other duellists. He noticed that he was getting a few odd looks from some of them, others just looked at him like he was out of a science fiction movie, not completely wrong there. After a few more moments, the spectators in the stands burst into cheers as Seto Kaiba himself stepped up to a podium, ready to start the tournament off.

"Welcome Duellists, today you have all be chosen to participate in this tournament. The winner of this tournament would win $50,000 and a position to teach their own specialist subject at Duel Academy," he explained, getting the attention of all of the duellists. Some looked forward to the prize money, but many of them found that teaching their own subject would be something that they liked.

"Now you may be asking yourself, why the tournament? The reason is this, I am looking for the best duellist in Domino. With the King of Games unable to compete, it is now your time to shine and show the world what you are made of," Seto finished, then leaving the podium as the arena erupted into cheers once more.

Querl himself felt that the prize of the tournament was a great opportunity, not only winning a large sum of money, but also getting the chance to get a better job. And like himself, every other duellist were thinking the same things.

After ten more minutes, everyone's names were put into a computer system and two random names would be drawn to determine who would battle each other in a duel. The first duel would be Querl Dox vs Bandit Keith.

"Man, where did they drag you up, the city dump?" Keith sneered as the two of them stood on opposite sides of the field. Querl didn't seem fazed by what Keith said, but he did offer a rebuttal.

"At least I don't have to cheat to get victories Keith," he said, getting people in the audience to laugh and snigger at Keith. It was fortunate that Keith was checked over before they took their positions on the field, because he did have some cards up his sleeve and security took them all away before he was allowed to continue.

"Alright you bastard, now you've just pissed me off," Keith said with a snarl.

"Takes one to know one," Querl said before he activated his duel disk, with Keith doing the same after him.

"DUEL!"

"Professionals first, I draw and I summon Ground Attacker Bugroth (ATK 1500/ DEF 1000) defence mode," he said as he summoned the monster, laying one card face down before ending his turn. Querl looked at the monster that he summoned, it wasn't a powerful monster, but his face down card would be something to be concerned about.

"My turn then, I draw," he said as he drew his card. Looking at his hand, he had some really good cards, and it looked like he would have an OTK.

"Alright then, you sorry excuse of an American," he said, causing everyone, including the duellists, laughed at the insult and the reaction that Keith gave to it, which was much like a child that was throwing a temper tantrum.

"I summon my Atlantean Attack Squad (ATK 1400/ DEF 0) in attack mode," the monster turned out to be a group of fish looking monsters, carrying large looking swords and shields.

"But I'm not done yet, I now play the spell card Double Summon, which now lets me summon Gagagigo (ATK 1850/ DEF 1000)," a lizard looking monster appeared next to the Atlantean Attack Squad.

"And since I control a Water monster on my side of the field, I can also summon my Cyber Shark (ATK 2100/ DEF 2000)," with this third monster on the field, there was only one thing left to do, take out his face down card.

"Ha, not bad, but when are you going to attack?" Keith taunted, truthfully he wanted him to attack so he could activate his face down card, which was Time Machine.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid, Keith?" Querl asked, being insulted at the fact that he was being looked at someone who had a very low intelligence, when in fact he had a 12th level intelligence.

"Well then, why don't you say hello to my little friend, Heavy Storm," all the people in the stadium gasped as the card was activated and Bandit Keith's card was destroyed, leaving Keith with only one monster card in defence mode on his field.

"And there are more of my friends coming your way, my Atlantean Attack Squad now take care of your monster," he commanded as his squad launched themselves at Keith's Bugroth, now leaving him defenceless.

"No wait, come on man, show some mercy," Keith begged as he now realised that he was about to be hit really badly.

"Too little, too late Keith, Gagagigo and Cyber Shark take out his life points." Gagagigo ran right at Keith and slashed him against his chest, taking his life points down to 2150, Cyber Shark then swam up to him and knocked him over with its tail, reducing his life points to a meer 50.

"Not bad kid, but I'm not done yet," Keith said as he slowly got back to his feet. But when he looked up, he saw that Querl had a small smirk on his face as he held up the last card in his hand, showing him what it was, causing Keith to gasp. The card was called Final Flame.

"I believe you are done Keith, I now activate the last card in my hand, Final Flame." He held up the card as fireballs started to materialise in the air.

"This card inflicts 600 points of damage to your life points, and since you only have 50 life points left, this duel is over," he said as he snapped his fingers, causing the fireballs to rain down onto Keith, taking out the rest of his life points and ending the duel.

"Here is your winner, Querl Dox!" The crowd burst out into applause as the results were said over the intercom, screaming their excitement down at the arena.

Up in the V.I.P section of the Kaiba dome, there were three people that had come along to the tournament to see whether some of the contestants had a natural talent for dueling and to see if they would be good enough for the prize of the whole tournament. They were the three legends of modern day Duel Monsters, Yugi Moto, Seto Kaiba and Marik Ishtar.

"Looks like that might be my winner," Seto said as he watched Querl walk off the field as the next two duellists took to the field to begin their duel.

"I agree, he certainly is an odd character," Marik commented.

"He certainly has talent, but I'm wondering if he is from anywhere near our timeline," Yugi said as he looked at Querl, feeling very interested in the colour of his skin.

"Oh come on Yugi, I've had enough of magic and time travel in my life," Seto complained as he pinched the bridge of his nose briefly.

"I apologise if that annoys you Kaiba, but you can't help but wonder where this man came from. Where would you see someone with green skin?" Yugi asked as he looked up to the tallest of all three of them.

"Now that you mention it, he does have a point Kaiba," Marik said, now beginning to feel very interested in the origins of this man.

"I quite frankly don't care where he comes from, as long as he is a good duellist and can handle the pressure of teaching in a very large school, it doesn't matter what colour his skin is," Seto said as he went and sat down next to the viewing window, intent on seeing the tournament progress without any trouble. But there was one thing bothering him.

"And besides, I'm more concerned about the outbreak of the mutant X-gene. If any of my students have them, then they would need help to control their powers."

Yugi and Marik looked over to Kaiba, they two had been well aware of the outbreak of the mutant X-gene. In fact, their Yamis had contracted the gene and were now two of the many people that have been receiving help to control their powers.

But it was a worry that some of the students of Duel Academy would end up contracting the gene, since they would have no control of their powers they would need expert help.

"Hang on a minute," Marik said out of the blue before walking over to where Kaiba's laptop was, quickly opening a search bar and looking something up.

"And what are you doing with my laptop Ishtar?" Kaiba asked as he walked over to him, not having complete trust in the man.

"Calm down Kaiba, I'm only checking something," Marik said as he continued his search.

"Come on Kaiba, you know Marik won't do anything stupid. At least have a little trust in him," Yugi said as he joined the two men.

"Forgive me for not completely trusting someone who had once started out as my enemy,"Kaiba said before being interrupted.

"Aha, found it," Marik exclaimed, getting the other two to look at him with curious glances.

"Found what Marik?" Yugi asked, but instead of getting an answer, Marik just turned the laptop to show them what he had found. It was a profile of Querl Dox, holding all his personal information. But there were two things that caught their attention, he was a highly skilled doctor, and he was one of the first people in Domino to contract the mutant X-gene.

"See Kaiba, he is not only a qualified doctor, but he has the gene himself. Wouldn't it be helpful to have a member of staff that has this gene at the Academy to help the students who have it?" Marik asked the billionaire.

Kaiba just stared at the computer screen as he read through the profile, which had much detail about the contestant in his tournament. It took him several more minutes before he pulled away from the computer screen and went back to watch the duels, keeping a close eye on Querl.

"I certainly do hope that he is my winner."

Chapter 2 done, what do you think

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Let me know if any of you want me to post the first chapters of my other pieces of work

Peace out fellow readers