A/N: Enjoy chapter three… REMEMBER! I like reviews!!
Chapter 3: Learning from a Shy Teacher! Can I Really Learn?!
Beep… Beep… Beep…
The built in alarm from the PDA went off with the sound of a generic alarm. Cameron woke up slowly, but with a smile. "Ah… Today's the first day…" He chuckled and turned on his side, still in his bed. He was in the middle bunk of the three bed bunk-bed with Matt below him and Napoleon above him.
Cameron peaked over the edge of his bed, looking into the bed of his new friend. "Hey Matt… Um… Are you… You know… Excited…?"
Despite the alarm having gone off earlier, Matt was still sound asleep, snoring softly, his covers all a mess.
"Oh man…" Cameron whispered under his breath. He slowly climbed out of his bed and found his bare feet on the thin carpeted floor. He grabbed his backpack, which laid in a far corner of the room and headed to the cherry-wood desk in the room. He pulled some papers from his bag and a pencil and started to jot some things down onto the paper. "Mhm… Alright… Yeah, okay… Hmm… Yes…"
Matt slowly woke up eventually to the sound of pencil scratches and small half words coming from the throat of Cameron. "Huh… Cameron…?" he asked slowly. He sat up groggily. "What… Are you doing?"
Cameron froze up. He didn't expect Matt to wake up at that time.
Matt got out of his bunk and walked up behind Cameron. "What do you got here, little buddy?"
Cameron quickly unfroze and covered his papers from Matt. "Oh! You know! It's just… Some… Stuff!" He turned to Matt and gave him a big smile and a forced laugh. "No need to worry about it!"
Matt blinked. "Oh… Well… Alright then…" He stretched his arms up. "Huh… It feels like there was something important going on today…"
Cameron smiled. "Today is the first day of classes!" He sighed a little. "We finally get to put the knowledge of experts in our head!"
"Oh yeah…" Matt started. "I guess that's important…" He checked his PDA. "It says classes here start at eight o'clock."
Cameron smiled, turning back to his papers. "Yeah, they do."
"So, why are we up at five-thirty?" Matt asked.
Cameron froze up once more. "Oops!"
---
"And so, it was using this combo that the current King of Games, Yugi Motou defeated Seto Kaiba in a semi-final match at the Battle City tournament." The older, male teacher droned on at the front of the lecture hall.
The current class was called "Contemporary Duel History", and, from what was heard so far, it seemed to be a lecture on different strategies used by famous duelists since the invention of actual Duel Monsters cards, rather than the widely believed theory of the game's Egyptian ancestry.
Cameron sat at his seat and took notes on almost everything the professor said, making small affirmative noises every time the professor said something new.
"Wow, this is really interesting… Yeah?..." Cameron whispered to Matt, who was sitting beside him. "What… You know… Do you think?..."
Cameron turned to Matt, who had his head resting on his hands on the desk in front of him. He was resting so much, in fact, that he was asleep.
"Oh… Matt…" Cameron sighed, turning back to his paper. "It's my fault…" he whispered to himself. "I shouldn't have… You know… Woken him up so early…" He shrugged. "I'm sure he'll wake up in the next class though…"
The professor continued. "… Now, we'll take a look at the duels of less well known professional duelist, Katsuya Jonouchi…"
---
"Alright, as this is the first day of class, we'll start with something easy. Just paint your favourite card on the paper provided." The female art teacher smiled into the crowd of students. "If you want, you can even hang it up in your room as a poster!"
Cameron took his brush to the paper and smiled as he painted. "Batteryman D has… A 'three' on his chest… Right? I think so… 'Cause Batteryman AA has a 'one'… And Batteryman C has a 'two'… So, it… You know… Makes sense…"
Muffled sounds came from Matt, who was, again, sitting beside Cameron. The smaller boy turned to Matt and sighed. He was face down on the paper, asleep. It was a shame, because he had actually started painting, and it was still wet.
"Oh no…" Cameron sighed. "Well… Next is Physical Education… I don't think he'll be able to sleep through that… Right…?"
---
On the sun-drenched field, every student wore an identical sweat suit and all stood in formation.
The male teacher blew his whistle. "Alright, class. Let's start off with twenty laps! Let's move it!"
Cameron, who wasn't wearing his regular red toque, ran around the field, his brown hair now blowing in his eyes. "This is tough!... But… You know… At least Matt isn't…"
Suddenly, Cameron felt some extra weight tugging around his waist as he kept running. He turned around to see what it was.
It seems that Matt had rigged a blanket around Cameron's waist and Matt himself was laying down on it, sleeping, as Cameron dragged him along the side of the field.
"Oh come on!" Cameron exclaimed. "Now, that's just ridiculous!"
---
The rest of the week seemed to proceed the same way. During all of the classes, Matt would either be asleep, or not paying attention.
All of his teachers noticed this and complained to Professor Lillian Ivy, the head of the Osiris Red dorm.
"You have to do something!" cried the art teacher, Miss Ashley Viridian. "All of his portraits come back, looking like big, blue faceprints! And when he leaves the class, he's always wondering why he has blue paint all over his face!"
"That's nothing!" replied the history professor, Professor Noel Convoy. "I spent a whole class talking about notable preliminary duels at the Duelist Kingdom tournament! The next day, I gave a pop quiz on the subject, and to the question 'Who defeated Insector Haga in the first duel of the preliminaries?' Matt answered 'Joey Wheeler'… Who the hell is Joey Wheeler?!"
The gym teacher, Brick Grissam, busted through both of them. "Oh yeah? Well, even though he's slept through all of my classes, he still seems to be able to run with the big dogs! And if there's one thing I hate, it's good results for minimal effort! You should get what you work for!"
Ivy sighed and lit a cigarette. "Ladies and gentlemen, please, simmer down…" She took a long drag on the cigarette. "I understand you're having problems with him, but there's nothing I can do. My only responsibility is to make sure that he isn't dead by the end of the day. And if he does turn up dead, I'm still okay, as long as it wasn't on the dorm grounds."
"That's awfully cold-hearted…" Convoy said, with a small look of disgust.
"I'm just saying, I'm not, technically, a teacher of his. If there's something that needs to be done, the order has to come down from you three."
"Actually…" Miss Viridian interjected. "There's a certain someone that we think would be a perfect candidate to tutor Matt Valant. And he's in your dorm, so, we thought…"
"Ah… I see…" Ivy nodded and put out her cigarette. "Just give me the name of this tutor and I'll set everything up."
---
Matt walked into Professor Ivy's office, knocking on the door. "You wanted to see me, Professor?"
"Ah, yes, Matt." She motioned for him to sit down in the chair in front of her desk. "I've been talking with your teachers, and they have some pretty great words of praise for you."
"Really?" Matt asked, surprised. "I'm doing that good?"
"Well…" Ivy started with a smirk. "They say that no one can slack off as well as you."
It took a while for the sarcasm to kick in. Matt's expression slowly soured. "Oh…"
"They suggested a tutor for you. Someone you're well acquainted with and actually pays attention in all of their classes. I also think that this person can help you over come any learning obstacles you may have."
"Sounds like this person is some sort of superhero." Matt joked. "Who is it?"
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Oh, that's them now." Ivy said. "Come on in!" she called.
The door opened and revealed a small figured male, wearing a bright red toque and an Osiris Red blazer. "H-Hi…"
Matt blinked and just sat for a second before turning to Ivy. "Seriously? Cameron Shoq is going to be my tutor?"
Ivy smiled. "I thought you might react this way. Cameron, unlike you, however, pays attention in class and has aced every assignment thrown his way. I think you two can rub off on each other."
Matt tilted his head. "How could I rub off on him?"
Ivy leaned in closer to Matt and started to whisper. "If you hadn't noticed, Cameron isn't the most confident person in the world. I think if he can tutor you in school, you'd be able to tutor him in confidence."
Matt stroked his chin. "Well… I'm still not sure…"
Cameron cleared his throat. "Well… How about… You know… We settle this with a duel?... If I win… You know… I have to tutor you…"
Ivy smiled. "Well, that's a great idea! Good thinking Cameron!"
"Hold on…" Matt interjected. "I'll agree to the tutoring thing even before we duel… So, how about this… The loser has to do the winner's homework for a month!"
Ivy smirked. "Well… I dunno if I can consent to something like this."
"I accept." Cameron smiled. "I think it's time to start my first lesson!"
---
Matt and Cameron stood at opposite ends of the duelling field outside of the Osiris Red dorm. Professor Ivy stood at the sidelines. "I will act as a referee for this duel. So, when you two are ready, draw your opening hands. Cameron will have the first move."
Both boys nodded and drew the first five cards from their duel disks and their Life Points flew up to four-thousand.
"Let's duel!" both boys said in unison. (M:4000 C:4000)
"Let's see how you… You know… Stack up against my new tutoring deck!" Cameron drew a card. "I constructed this deck as soon as I heard that I was going to be a tutor… So I… You know… Built a deck around that! And here's the first step!" He slid a card into the duel disk. "I activate Card Destruction! We discard our hands to the Graveyard… And… Well… Draw the same amount of cards that we discarded." Both players sent their hands to the Graveyard and drew five cards.
Two face down card holograms appeared on Cameron's side of the field. "I'll… You know… End with that."
Matt drew another card and looked at his hand. Alright… I got Mirror Force in my hand… And Concert Hall! Sweet!
"I'll set one card and activate the Field Spell, Concert Hall!" The surroundings changed. Cameron and Matt were now on a stage and surrounding them was arena seats. "This card powers up all my Musician monsters by three-hundred points… Musician monsters, such as my Musician Prince, in attack mode! (1500/1500 to 1800/1500)" The musician appeared on Matt's side of the field, holding a microphone. "Now, I attack you directly Cameron!" The musician started to scream into the microphone, sonic sound waves slowly approaching Cameron.
"Aw man… Matt… You don't need to be a genius to know that… You know… You shouldn't fall for traps…" Cameron flipped up both of his face down cards. "I activate both my face down cards… First, it's… Well… Sakuretsu Armor, which destroys your attacking monster… And second is… You know… Malevolent Catastrophe… Which destroys all your Spell and Trap cards when your monster is attacking…"
Matt gulped. "Oh no… Wait… If you destroy my monster, won't that cancel out my attack, therefore ruining your Malevolent Catastrophe?"
Cameron sighed. "Matt… Don't you know the… You know… Rule of chains?... The last card to be activated is the first one to resolve…"
Just then, Matt's Field Spell disappeared and even his face down card was destroyed. Ah! My Mirror Force! Then, Musician Prince was destroyed as well.
Matt gritted his teeth. "That's fine, because when Musician Prince is sent to the Graveyard, I get to add a Spell card from my deck to my hand." Matt did so and looked at his hand with a frown. "I end my turn…"
Cameron drew a card and looked at it. "Alright… I'm going to… You know… Show you why you should study… Not knowing proper answers will… Well… Lead to terrible things…" Cameron slid a card into his duel disk. "I activate Question! You see… Now, you have to guess the bottom monster in my Graveyard… And… Well… If you guess wrong… I get to Special Summon it… But, it's removed from play if you guess right…"
Matt smiled. "Alright then, this shouldn't be too hard…" Matt blinked. "Wait… You don't have any monsters in your Graveyard!"
"Matt!" Ivy shouted from the sidelines. "How come you can't even remember something that happened one turn ago!"
Matt turned to Professor Ivy. "What do you mean?"
Cameron smiled. "My… You know… Card Destruction!"
Matt gasped. "Oh no!" Matt thought. "Ugh… I dunno… I remember that you run a Batteryman deck… So… Batteryman AA?"
Cameron sighed again. "Matt… I told you already that… You know… This is a different deck…" Cameron pulled a card out of his Graveyard. "The correct answer is Injection Fairy Lily! (400/1500)" A pink haired nurse-fairy appeared on Cameron's field with a large needle in her hand. "Now, I think it's time… For a science lesson!..."
Matt blinked. "A science lesson?"
"The Law of Conservation of Matter…" Cameron smiled. "Matter cannot be created nor destroyed!"
"What a clever lesson…" Ivy smirked from the sidelines.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Matt asked.
"You see…" Cameron started. "I can increase my Fairy Lily's attack by three-thousand during the Battle Phase…" Injection Fairy Lily's needle grew twice its size (400 to 3400). "However… Like I said… This boost doesn't come from nowhere… I have to pay two-thousand Life Points…" Cameron's Life Points took a steep drop (M:4000 C:2000) "But now… You know… My Fairy Lily gets to attack directly!" The pink haired fairy then threw her needle at Matt, making his Life Points go down even further than Cameron's. (M:600 C:2000)
"Ugh… Wow…" Matt wiped some sweat from his brow. "That was some attack…"
A face down card hologram appeared on Cameron's field. "With this, I end my turn…"
Matt drew his card and smiled. "Alright, time to change the tempo!" Matt slid a card into his duel disk. "I activate the spell Audition Time!!" Matt pulled his deck out of his duel disk. "Using this card, I can add one Musician monster to my hand!" He then put his deck back into the duel disk. "Next, I activate the card my Prince added to my hand! Polymerization! So, I fuse the Musician Princess I just added to my hand with the Musician Queen, also in my hand, to summon Dancestar – The Ultimate Musician Lady! (2100/1450)" A long haired lady in hip-hop dance gear found her way onto Matt's side of the field.
"Oh my!" Cameron stepped back. "That's a powerful looking monster…"
"It gets even better!" Matt exclaimed. "Dancestar! Attack his Fairy!" The lady jumped into the air and slammed her foot into the fairy, destroying it, causing Cameron's Life Points to go down again. (M: 600 C:300). "And that's not all, because when my Dancestar destroys a monster in battle, I gain Life Points equal to the monster's level, times two-hundred!" (M:1200 C:300). Matt slid in another card from his hand. "Now, I activate De-Fusion! I now split my Dancestar into Musician Queen and Musician Princess (1600/1300 and 1300/1500)! And guess what! They're going to attack!" Both lady musicians ran at Cameron.
"I… Uh… Activate my Trap card! Magical Shield!..." Cameron sent a card from his hand to the Graveyard. "By sending a Spell card from my hand to my Graveyard… I can… Well… Negate all Battle Damage coming from direct attacks!" The two ladies managed to land a hit on Cameron, which knocked him back. His Life Points were protected, but he was still shaken up.
"Hmm… Fine, I end." Matt said with a confident smile.
Cameron drew a card and frowned. "Man… Now I'm… You know… Not going to win…" He looked at Matt. "I have no… Well… Monsters in my hand… Right?..." He sighed. "I should just give up.
"Cameron!" Matt shouted. "Listen to me!"
Both Cameron and Ivy perked up to Matt's sudden exertion.
"Don't give up! You'll never gain confidence if you don't even try!" He smirked. "Even though I was majorly down just a while ago, I didn't give up!" He pointed to Cameron. "Just rock on and don't give up! Not until one of our scores is zero! You just have to pay attention and learn from everything that's happened! And be confident!"
Ivy smiled. "Looks like they're starting to learn from each other…"
Cameron's expression slowly turned from sad to excited. "Precisely, Matt… You finally understand! You have to pay attention if you want to win!... Whether it's a duel… Or… You know… School!" Cameron slid in a card into his duel disk. "I activate my Pigeonholing Book of Spell!" Cameron drew the top three cards of his deck and looked at them. "This card let's look at the top three cards of my deck… And then… Well… Rearrange them in any order I want!" He switched two cards around and put them on top of his deck.
"Sweet move, but what's that gonna help?" Matt asked.
"By reading ahead in my 'book'… I studied for the upcoming pop quiz!" Cameron said with delight.
"Q-Quiz?!" Matt asked, surprised.
Cameron slid in one card into his duel disk. "Yup!... The Reversal Quiz!" The Spell card's hologram appeared, and on it was a picture of the same guy on the Question card. "As a cost for my Reversal Quiz… I have to send all cards from my hand to the graveyard." Cameron slid his hand into the graveyard. "Now, I call one type of card… Spell… Monster… Or Trap… Then, I pick up the top card of my deck… If I'm right, our Life Points switch!"
Matt gasped. "Interesting… But what if you're wrong?"
"I won't be wrong… Because I studied hard for this quiz!" Cameron laughed. "I can not only name the type of card, but I can also name the card itself!"
Matt gritted his teeth. "Right… His Pigeonholing Book of Spell…"
"Spell card!" Cameron shouted confidently. He drew his card and smiled. "Well… What do you know…" He showed the card to Matt. "It's a Spell card!" Cameron and Matt's Life Points switched. (M:300 C:1200)
"Well… You still can't attack, you don't have any monsters!" Matt said with a smirk. "I'll attack next turn, and win!"
Cameron nodded. "Exactly, I don't have a monster…" Suddenly, Cameron smirked. "However… I'm not going to need one!" He slid in the Spell card he just drew. "This card is called Hinotama!" A meteor appeared above Cameron. "This spell inflicts damage to your Life Points, to the pleasant tune of five-hundred points!"
Matt blinked. "Oh no…"
The meteor then charged towards Matt, crashing right in front of him, causing Matt to fly backwards. "Ahh!" His Life Points dropped down to zero.
Ivy raised one arm into the air. "Cameron Shoq is the winner of this duel." She smiled to the smaller boy. "Congratulations."
Cameron blushed. "Ah! Well…" he bowed. "Thank you… Right?... Yeah…"
---
"Wow, Cameron! That was awesome! Where did you learn to duel like that?" Matt said with a large smile on his face.
"Oh… You know… It's just… I'm… Well…" Cameron stammered.
"Cameron is a well seasoned duelist." Ivy interjected.
Matt tilted his head. "What do you mean?"
"He graduated from a prestigious duelling preparatory school four years ago…" She looked to Cameron. "He skipped so far ahead in his grades that he graduated at the same time as some of our current third years… He graduated in the top three of his class…" She turned to Matt. "I'm sorry to say, but you never stood a chance from the beginning."
Matt's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?!" He turned to Cameron. "How did you get so ahead?"
"Well… It's simple…" Cameron blushed. "I studied as hard as I could… Although, I never had the confidence to make it to number one…"
"Well… It's good to know I have someone with such great knowledge on my side!" Matt chuckled.
"Oh you'll have the knowledge soon!" Ivy smiled. "Remember, you said the loser has to do the winner's homework… And I'm sure Cameron won't accept anything less than an 'A'. So… you better pay attention in class, Matt!" And with that, she walked away, back to her office.
Matt stood there in silence for a bit, and then he broke down. "No! How could I forget?!"
---
Next Time…
Now we know that Cameron finished high in his prep school graduating class, but what happens when Cameron gets a duel challenge from his class' number one student? It's a duel between masters of thunder monsters, in the next chapter…
Chapter 4: Cameron's Confidence! Batteryman versus Creator!
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A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed that, review please, it makes me feel so good!
Meanwhile, I'll just post my original cards here (in order of appearance)
Concert Hall
Field Spell Card
All "Musician" monsters on the field gain 300 ATK. Once per turn, you may Special Summon one "Musician" monster used as Fusion Material from your Graveyard.
Musician Prince
Light/Spellcaster/Effect
ATK:1500/DEF:1500
When this card is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, you can add one Spell Card to your hand from your deck.
Audition Time!
Normal Spell Card
Add one monster with "Musician" in its card name from your deck to your hand.
Musician Queen
Light/Spellcaster/Effect
ATK:1600/DEF:1300
When this card is summoned, you may add one "Polymerization" from your Graveyard to your hand.
Musician Princess
Light/Spellcaster/Effect
ATK:1300/DEF:1500
If this card is Special Summoned from the deck, you gain Life Points equal to the number of cards in your opponent's hand x 300
Magical Shield
Normal Trap Card
You must discard one Spell Card to activate this card. Until the End Phase of the turn this card is activated, you can reduce all damage done to you by your opponent's direct attacks to 0.