OHSHI- SNEAKY AUTHOR'S NOTE EDIT:

Again, thanks for reading! No duels in this one, but this chapter basically sets the stage for the rest of the fic.

Reviews would be appreciated! :D

Chapter 2: Welcome to Duel Academia

It wasn't much later that the boat arrived at the Duel Academia harbor. The newly formed trio was seperated as the dormitories split up. Alec followed his Ra Yellow classmates to the large, seemingly comfortable Ra Yellow dorm. He saw that the Reds went their own way to the Osiris Red dorm, which looked rather shoddy, even after the academy recieved suitable funds to renovate that specific dorm.
Well, at least it didn't resemble a high-level toolshed anymore.

The Ra Yellow dorm was basically a mansion. Alec and the rest could expect to live in luxury for the three years they'd be here. After a short speech by Kabayama, who was still the head teacher at Ra Yellow, all students sat down in the dining room for dinner. Actual lessons would start tomorrow.

The boy sitting next to Alec stomped him a little to get his attention.

"Think of the luxury Obelisk Blue people live in. They're probably ten times as better off as we are."

"That's saying something," Alec replied. "But I'd rather not think about what I don't have. I'm happy with this, to be honest."

"True, true. Hey, you were the Armed Hero duelist on the boat, right?"
"Yeah."
"It's nice meeting you! I'm Tyler. Tyler Leon."

Tyler had black hair and he seemed kind enough.
"Nice meeting you too. I'm Alec Haven."

"Cool name. Anyhow, why were you duelling an Osiris Red? She insult you or something?"

"No, we were just having fun..."

Tyler burst out in laughter and affectionately hit Alec on the back.

"Having fun duelling an Osiris Red. Good one, man."

"It's kind of true. Very much true, actually."

"... I guess you actually mean it. How weird. I always had the idea Osiris Red duelists were the scum of the academy. They were probably placed in their dorm for a reason, you know?"

Another boy clapped his hands. "Well spoken, Mr. Leon! I wholeheartly agree!" The boy had a certain arrogance in his voice. He had blonde hair and everything about him, up to his expression, just screamed high-class. Obviously, this was the Obelisk Blue stereotype.

Alec didn't like him one bit. "And who might you be?"

"My name? It's Egbert-Jan van Warendorp-Bisschop."

Alec decided to try and provoke him. That way, he might be able to shut that guy's arrogant mouth.

"Ooh, fancy name. So, what are you, German?"

"It's Dutch, you philistine! The Dutch are a proud and high-class people! If it's Dutch, it's high-quality! Look it up on the student lists! Obelisk Blue houses 32 students from the Netherlands! If that's not quality, I don't know what is!"

"There's a Dutchy in Osiris Red."

Owch.

Alec hit him good with that argument. Suddenly, he completely froze up, unable to say another word, all the while being pressured by the people around him.

But he retaliated. He regained his composure and acted like nothing happened.

"Sure, we may have some bad apples in our people. Who doesn't?
Anyhow, this brings me to the subject we discussed earlier:
Osiris Red."

Tyler got intrigued. "Continue?"

"The Osiris Red duelists are more of a charity act than anything else. I don't know if anybody saw the entrance exams, but some were horribly done. Hell, it would have pained any true duelist to even see those duels."

"Really? Can you give me the lowdown on one?" Alec started to like this little verbal war.

"Well, there was one duel. The guy actually won, I'll give him credit for that, but he used an Armed Hero Deck. That's right. Armed Hero. Guess we have a next Yuki Judai. Yaa-"

His sarcastic little cheer was cut short when someone threw a Duel Monsters card in his face.

Egbert-Jan immediately looked at the card to see it was Armed Hero Crimson Flame.

"I don't like people making fun of my deck too much."

Egbert-Jan threw the card back and was shut up yet again. He didn't open his mouth the rest of the meal.

Alec stated his mind about Osiris Red.
"The entrance exams are lightly flawed.

For all we know, some students didn't get the cards they needed at that specific moment. A written exam might've been better for dorm selections.

You might face some shame if you were degraded TO the Reds, but from Osiris Red, things can only get better for you."

Tyler, easily convinced, concurred. "I... guess you're right."

After dinner, Tyler and Alec decided to hang around the nearby lake.

Tyler couldn't resist to ask. "Uh, Alec?"

"Yeah?"

"I remembered your duel with that Osiris Red girl, with the bet and everything which made you win. And now, with that Dutch guy you told off... It appears you have some sort of knack for psychology and everything. You keep manipulating people into some sort of clever trap you devised, it seems. It's kind of creepy."

Alec never thought of it as manipulation, but now Tyler told him, it was about right of a description. "I'll admit that I know my way with words. My parents are both in the psychology business, so they taught me quite a lot about human nature. I guess tagging along with them sometimes made me pick up some tools of the trade or something?"
"You mean psychologists do the same manipulating thing?"
"To be honest, I have no idea."

When Masaki and Lea split up from Alec, they were soon lead to the Osiris Red dorm, which wasn't much to look at. Sure, it was better than it looked like in the pictures from a few years ago, but it was still miles away from Ra Yellow luxury.

All the Reds grouped up in the dorm's cafetaria. After Judai's graduation, he left the academy, and took with him Osiris Red's beloved headmaster: the proud cat Pharaoh.

For a dorm run by a cat, Osiris Red went through a few nice years, and the new headmaster did a perfectly nice job of holding everything together.

"Well, I bet Alec's got it nicer," Masaki noted.

"No use moping on what Mister Armed Hero's got."

Suddenly, someone from the table behind them leaned towards them. It was another girl.

"You got defeated by that Ra Yellow guy, didn't you? I guess what I've heard from the upperclassmen was true, Yellow and Blue got it in for us. They'll never miss a chance to humiliate us."

Masaki didn't quite catch on. "What are you talking about? On that note, who are you?"

The girl introduced herself. "I'm Rina. But, what do you mean? Didn't that Ra Yellow guy go around and pick a fight?"
Lea admitted. "Actually, I challenged him. We were just having fun!"

Rina decided she needed to repeat this out loud for the whole cafetaria to hear.

"YOU WERE DUELLING FOR FUN WITH A YELLOW?!"

All of Osiris Red was in shock. Whispers were heard, and glares were made. Eventually, the duo decided it'd be best if they just left.

Masaki was surprised by what happened. "Is is so strange for a Red to duel a Yellow for fun?"

"Apperently, it is. Weird stuff," Lea said.

It was getting late, so they decided to go to bed. The opening ceremony was tomorrow, after all.

A voice was booming through the hallways.

"Meanwhile, at the Obelisk Blue Dorm!"

This voice belonged to Kyle Mason, Obelisk Blue second-years. He usually said something like that to fill awkward silences. He was in the room together with this year's only Obelisk Blue first-year, Randall Gainsworth.

"You could try acting more like you should, considering your rank, Kyle."

"Listen, Randall. I'm not going to be told off by a first-year like you."
"The fact that a first-year is telling you to behave only emphasizes my point."

Kyle didn't know what to say back now. He decided to change the subject.

"By the way, how'd you make it into Obelisk Blue? It's been decided two years ago that there would be no first-year Obelisk Blues at all, not because of previous education, not because of outstanding examination results, not because of anything. So yeah, how did you get in here?"

"Easy. I'm not in Obelisk Blue."

Kyle didn't believe he was hearing.

"WHAT?! I shared my room with a bloody Red?! How the hell did you get our coat?"
"Don't make it sound that harsh, I'm Yellow."

"That changes nothing! If the teachers find out, I'm screwed! And we won't be seeing you here anymore!"

"Calm down! It won't be long before I'm in here legally, anyway. Tomorrow's the opening ceremony. The best of the exams get to go to Blue."

"Nice privilege. But that leaves the question, how the hell did you get the coat?"

"That was an easy color job."

Randall scrubbed on his coat for a while, and voila, a faint yellow color could be seen on the inside of his coat.

Kyle started talking more softly.

"Listen, Randall. You're a nice guy and all, even a little stuck-up so you fit right in here..."
"Hey!"
"... But discrimination between the three dorms has been a huge problem for the last few years. Many of the Reds can't stand the Blues and Yellows, a lot of the Yellows look down on the Reds and think the Blues are way too arrogant, and almost all of the Blues look down on both the other dorms. Bullying is quite a problem. Hell, it's a miracle this hasn't turned into some sort of dorm-war yet."

Randall thought about that for a while. After this, he decided: "I think it's better for me to go to the Yellow dorm. We'll talk later, when I'm actually supposed to be here."

Kyle agreed with that.

"You'd better go through the window. If you walk around the dorm too much, people might recognize you tomorrow, and that'd be bad for your rep."
"Got it."

Randall opened the door to the balcony, ready to climb down.

"Oh, Randall!"

"Yeah?"
"You'd better just leave the coat here and just stick to the badge. This blue color won't be getting off anytime soon."

"Good point. It's freezing out here, but I don't have much choice."

And with that, the boy ran into the dark night towards the Yellow dorm. Kyle's story on the dorm-discrimination echoed through his mind, but it wasn't time for that. Tomorrow was the decisive duel, and he still needed to re-check his strategies.