Alright, I am on a roll. I have already gotten up to chapter...8? So triple update! Anyways, some people, other than previous reviewers, have been getting on me about Jacob receiving Black Rose Dragon, as well as a variety of other rare and powerful cards. to compensate, I will have a back story relating Jacob's father and his job, which is the sole reason for Jacob having these cards. I haven't been able to write anything for a while, but don't worry; this story won't go into hiatus unless we lose connection up at college, which is unlikely. R&R, PM, and Enjoy!

Chapter 6

August 21st, the day of the tournament. It had finally come. For the past three days, the airports were crowded with people coming from all over the world to view or participate in this tournament. Jacob had eagerly been awaiting this day, and now it was here. He was sitting on his bed, staring at the deck box in his hand. He had carefully planned out his deck, tweaked it, made new strategies, and got more booster packs. His father even got him six tins two days ago to boost his deck. Jacob recounted the cards in his extra deck; if he could make a deck out of Fusion, Synchro, and Xyz monsters, he'd have enough for a basic deck. He added Black Rose Dragon to his extra deck, and promised himself he would use it at least once.

There was a knock at his bedroom door, and he saw his father come in. "Ready to go, champ-to-be?" Jacob nodded once and joined his father. They made their way to the driveway and got into the car. "You excited?" his father asked, putting on his seat belt.

Jacob put his on, and said, "Nervous."

"Don't worry, I believe in you. You may not come out on top, but I know you'll do great."

"Thanks, Dad." They drove out of the driveway and went down the street. Grand Veil City wasn't really big like Chicago or San Francisco, but it wasn't small either. The town plaza was set in the south side of the city, where the suburbs were. The bigger houses and businesses, as well as the tournament, were in the north side of the city, where towering skyscrapers and bright lights would make a ten year old mistake it for New York City. The streets were packed with cars and people, most likely for the tournament, and Jacob was looking out the window to keep himself occupied.

"Hey son," Jacob looked back at his father, noticing they had stopped in traffic. "I was going to save this card for later, but something tells me you'll be needing it now." He gave Jacob a card and Jacob looked at it. His eyes widened, as he looked at all of its stats: Dragon/Xyz/Effect, LIGHT attribute, Rank 8, 3000 ATK, and 2400 DEF. "Remember, use it only when you think there's no other way."

Jacob nodded, and the traffic began to move again. In ten minutes, they were in sight of the Grand Veil Kaiba Corp Duel Dome, the place where the tournament would take place. Jacob looked at the clock and saw it was 8:45, fifteen minutes till the tournament started. He tried to look over the other cars to see how far it was, but only saw more cars. "We're not going to make it," Jacob said, the butterflies in his stomach turning into bees. He considered his options, and said, "Screw it." He opened the door slowly, and got out of the car.

"Jacob, what are you doing?" his father called out to him, but Jacob was already running through the crowds of people on the sidewalk. He had to push through several people, saying "Excuse me" repeatedly. He finally reached an open pocket in the crowd and slowed his pace. "Almost there," he said to himself, "just a little ways to go, and only," he pulled out his cell phone and checked the time, "nine minutes." He began to push through the crowd again, this time more resistant than before. After four minutes he had made it to the gate and got in line.

"Excuse me kid," one of the guards said, stopping him, "do you have a ticket?"

"Uh, no. I'm one of the participating duelists." The guard pulled out a clipboard, and asked for his name. "Jacob Yudara."

The guard searched through the list, until he stopped near the bottom and said, "Ah, here you are. Sorry for the confusion, duelists enter through the East gate." The guard pointed him in the direction of the gate and Jacob thanked him, running towards the gate. He saw a few of his competitors, and stepped behind a smaller, probably younger, duelist. He tapped his foot impatiently as the line diminished, until he was next.

"Name?" Jacob told the guard, who he recognized as the man from the press conference, his name, and he was admitted. "Head to Prep Room E. You'll have your deck evaluated and the rules will be explained to you before the tournament begins. Good luck; you'll need it."

Jacob thanked him and went inside. He was amazed at the size of the dome's interior; it was like they had moved the Roman Coliseum and redecorated it. There were security guards that directed him to the room he was supposed to go to, and went in once he found it. He noticed there were other duelists here as well, seven in all, and they were all either reconstructing and shuffling their decks, or just standing or sitting. He also saw there were chairs, benches, and desks, along with a flat screen TV at the far end of the room. He sat on one of the chairs in the corner and took out his deck box. He pulled his cards out and began to shuffle them, looking around the room. Sounds of people entering the dome echoed through the walls, and Jacob felt the butterflies return. He put his cards back into the deck box, and sat back in his chair, trying to relax himself. It felt like hours, waiting for the tournament to start, and the door opened at last.

The man from the gate came in, and said, "Welcome duelists, we are pleased to welcome you to the Kaiba Corp Duel Dome, and wish you all good luck. First, each of your decks will be evaluated one at a time to make sure it's up to par with tournament standards, then the rules will be explained to you." He pulled out a list and called for one of the girls. She left the room, and the man said, "One last thing, you may converse with the other duelists, but no showing or peeking at each other's cards. If you do, you will be automatically disqualified from the tournament. Do I make myself clear?" Everyone nodded, and the man left. Everyone in the room went back to what they were doing, and Jacob slouched forward. He tapped his foot on the floor, and noticed a shadow was approaching him. He looked up and saw it was the smaller duelist from the line*.

He had messy blond hair that went half-way down his neck, and had very pale skin and blue-green eyes. He was wearing what appeared to be an underclassmen Duel Academy uniform. He stood at about 4'6", so it was hard to tell if he was younger or vertically challenged. "Hello, my name's Luke. Luke Bell**," he said with what seemed to be a British accent. He held his hand out, and Jacob shook it.

"Jacob Yudara. Not to be rude, but what's with the accent?"

"Oh, I'm from England, London to be exact."

"Yeah, I'm from here in Grand Veil City. I live at the southern part of the city, though."

"Hm, I wish you the best of luck then." The two talked while the others were called, and Jacob learned that Luke was the youngest regional champion at his current age of thirteen, which answered the height question, and he was entering the tournament for the chance to win the console, not the money or the duel with Kaiba. Luke was next to be called, and he said, "Wish me luck." Luke left and Jacob noticed he was all alone in the room.

'Maybe the others are just outside?' he guessed to himself.

It wasn't long before the man came back in and said, "Hey, you're next. Jacob Yudara, right?" Jacob nodded and stood, following the man down the corridor. It was empty, and the only sounds that could be heard were the spectators moving into the stands. They finally stopped in front of a door, and the man said, "Go inside, have your deck evaluated. If you pass, you're in. If not, you're out." Jacob nodded and opened the door. It was dark inside, the only source of light inside being a single candle. He went in and the door closed behind him, causing the flame to go out. Then, several candles lit up all at once, lighting up the room with a soft orange glow. Jacob saw a man, probably in his 40's sitting at a desk in front of him, the first candle sitting in front of him in a candle holder. The man removed the candle and Jacob sat down in the chair in front of him.

"Place your deck, side deck, and extra deck, if you have one, on the table please." Jacob pulled the cards from his pocket and placed them in separate piles. The man took the extra deck first, and looked through them. "Hmm, very interesting...very interesting." He set the extra deck back on the table with the cards face-down and picked up his side deck, then his main deck. He looked through the cards briskly, muttering to himself. "Yes, everything seems to be in order. No forbidden cards, all good." Jacob took his side and extra decks and held out a hand for his deck. The man gave it to him and the moment he placed the deck in his hands, he heard the familiar coo again. Jacob looked around, and saw a shadow move across the wall before disappearing. "You heard it, didn't you?" the man asked. Jacob nodded in response, still trying to find the shadow. "Yes..." the man said, his words trailing off.

Jacob stopped searching, and asked, "Do you hear them?" The man stayed silent for a moment, then asked for his main deck again. Jacob gave the cards to him, and he began to shuffle them. He pulled out half of his deck from the center, and repeated the process until he had only three left. "I like to look at the cards of others, they can tell me what the duelist is like." He placed the cards in a row, and flipped over the left-most card.

"The trap card, Rising Energy; I sense in the past you acquired a variety of powerful cards." Jacob slightly gasped, it was in fact true. Because of his father's job, he received a high allowance, which he mostly spent on Duel Monster Cards.

"Next," he flipped over the middle card, "Ego Boost; because of those cards, you became confident in yourself. Perhaps a little too confident." Jacob slightly groaned, mostly because it was kind of true. He did get overconfident sometimes, but not all the time.

"And finally," he picked up the third card and looked at it. He gasped slightly, a fearful expression on his face.

"What? What card is it?" Jacob asked expectantly. He noticed that on the card there were two bend marks, and the man laid the card face down. Before Jacob could pick it up himself, the man took all three cards and shuffled them back into Jacob's deck.

"You had better leave," he said, giving the deck back to Jacob. "The tournament is about to begin." Jacob nodded and stood up to leave. Before he could reach the door, the man spoke up, "I should advise something to you." Jacob turned his head and the man continued, "That one card you have, the Black Rose Dragon, it has a wild spirit. I doubt you would be able to control it while still retaining your sanity."

Jacob turned to face him, and said, "Any advice?"

"Use it as little as possible, a last resort." Jacob turned to leave, and opened the door. The man was standing outside, and the man inside called out, "He passes." The door closed, and the man led Jacob down another corridor.

"So what's the deal with that guy?" Jacob asked, looking back to the closed door.

"That's Michael, he works for Kaiba Corp. He claims to be a psychic, and it seems he's telling the truth."

"Psychic?" Jacob asked, a bit skeptical. "Like the people that can bend spoons with their minds?"

The man shook his head, "More like the kind that turns holographic duel monsters into real monsters." Jacob looked back at the man in surprise. "There are others like him, though we have yet to identify any others." He stopped in front of a door, and said, "Okay, you'll wait in here with the other duelists until Seto begins the tournament." He opened the door and Jacob walked inside. The room was like the room he was in before, but a lot bigger. There were several other duelists in the room, and Jacob began to search for Luke. He found him, after squeezing through two duelists, sitting on one of the benches, just staring at his deck.

"Hey Luke, how'd it go?" Luke continued staring at his deck, and said, "When he read my cards, it was like he was reading my very soul." Jacob was about to ask him for more details, but was interrupted when the large door at the opposite end of the room began to slowly open.

The duelists began to stand and a voice over the intercom said, "Welcome to the first Grand Veil City World Tournament." The man from before directed the duelists out of the large room and into the stadium. All the duelists looked around in amazement; the stadium was enormous, almost bigger than any football field they had seen before. There was a large field, big enough to hold all the duels in this tournament alone. They were directed to a set of squares that were arranged in a four by eight rectangle, "Today, we have a grand total of 32 duelists from around the world competing for the chance to obtain the first ever copies of Duel Monsters Network!" the voice of Seto Kaiba reverberated throughout the stadium, and the crowd cheered. Jacob looked all around the stadium, and thought he might have seen his family among them.

"In honor of the 50th anniversary of Duel Monsters, the five portions of this tournament shall be divided into the five categories of dueling. The rules will remain the same as they are now, but Life Points will be the same value as they were back then. Please activate your duel gazers now for the tournament grid!" The entire stadium erupted into the sound of shuffling and activating Duel Gazers. Jacob activated and put on his Duel Gazer, and saw the familiar flurry of augmented reality coding. A large screen appeared, each with a photo of the duelist entered in the tournament. The photos flew off the screen and flew around the duelists, eventually hovering over each of the duelists. The photos rose up and grouped together, then began to shuffle themselves like a deck of cards. They eventually paired themselves together and flipped over, showing who was facing who. Jacob found his picture right away, and saw he was dueling against a duelist who looked somewhat older than him.

She had blonde hair with light blue highlights along the side, had fair skin, and had ice blue eyes. The photo appeared in front of him, with information about his opponent. Her name was Mikayla Stacy, and she was from South Carolina. She used a deck that centered around mostly WATER attributes, more specifically Aqua, Fish, and Sea Serpent-types. What's more, she had won three consecutive championships: state, regional, and national, which meant she was going to be a tough opponent to beat. He looked around and found her, looking at his own info. She was wearing what looked like a school uniform for a prep school, a knee length red jacket with a white blouse underneath, a black skirt, black tights, and dress shoes***. He could have sworn he saw a smirk across her lips.

"For the first round, duelists will be battling each other the old fashioned way, with regular cards, using no technology other than a duel mat and paper and pencil." The field began to open up around the duelists, revealing sixteen tables, each with an official that would keep record of Life Points and make sure fair play was used, 32 chairs, and 32 duel mats.

"Get ready, because the duels have begun!"

*- Duellinglord's OC

**- I can't help but imagining him as Syrus Truesdale from GX with Bakura's voice

***- This is basically the same uniform as Akiza when she was in Duel Academy.

Okay, so we have introduced two new OC's: Duellinglord's OC Luke Bell and my other OC Mikayla. Yeah, I didn't get enough, so I made some of my own. Ha ha ha, okay R&R, PM, and get ready for the duels!