"Oi kids, don't act so relaxed. This is war!" an old man shouted at the two.

"First off we weren't talking to you, second off all you got the great Manjoume Thunder and the guy who duelled and nearly defeated Yugi Muto here! Nothing's going to be hard…" Manjoume smirked.

"You were the one who got smoked yesterday at the training centre… am I correct?" The old man retaliated.

"Oh… so you're the man who told off that woman." Manjoume replied, trying to be passive to and suppressing his anger to kind of repay the old man for standing up for him.

"Yes. My name is Rodrick Von Dantes."

"What a weir… uh I mean unique name, a mixture of cultures I see"

"Yes yes, But enough of this small talk. Time to tell you turn what an espionage mission is! First off you cannot go in and just duel anyone. We have to sneak in. One group of Kaibacorp's elite hackers will hack the entrances once we go to the control centre of this underwater base. The sealing of the doors will disallow any reinforcements to enter the area. In the control centre we will honourably duel the officials there, after we defeat them, I will mess up the pipe systems in the panels so that the base will self-destruct."

"So… why did Ryota and I not know this before-hand?"

"Because you did they probably forgot to send you a memo."

"The memo?"

"Inside your letterbox silly!"

"The letterbox?" Both Manjoume and Ryota collapse in utter disappointment as they both cringed at themselves for forgetting a simple task as opening the letterbox. It was slightly understandable as Manjoume himself often received messages via email or his PDA in duel academy. And did not receive many formal letters from his family for obvious reasons. Ryota on the other hand just simply forgot out of irresponsibility.

"It is kind of weird that we are doing stealth missions with cards" Ryota said as he recovered quickly from his earlier disappointment.

"If it wasn't weird already to kill people or send them to a hellish dimension with a card game, then I don't know what is." Manjoume replied, him too finally recovered.

"Gentlemen, are you ok with me watch you two duel. I am curious of the capabilities of your duelling skills." The old man asked politely.

"… We should make this a table duel to not cause too much attention. I don't like it when there are a lot of screams and noise from the crowd when I am trying to concentrate on analysis." Rodrick added.

The men walked to a quiet table in a corner of the submarine passenger room. After a brief moment of setting up their decks, shuffling and coin flipping to decide who goes first. The two men faced each other.

"Duel."

|Manjoume:4000LP|Ryota:4000LP|

"Since I won the coin toss, I will go first." Manjoume said quietly, however his enthusiasm was not hidden by the lack in volume.

"I draw! I set a monster in defence mode (?/?), and end my turn!"

"Only 1 monster? I draw. Then I summon Atlantean Dragoons!" Ryota confidently materialised a plan to overcome Manjoume's defence.

"Even now you still stick to the sea eh?" Manjoume commented.

"Yes, even now after my deck was stolen by them my heart is still with the sea!"

"You do have to be… a little bit flexible sometimes you know?"

"We shall see about that. I attack your face down!" Ryota continued without hesitation.

Rodrick observed the duel with amusement. He noticed that not only are these duellist a representation of their own respective duelling styles. But they are a representation of their own respective eras as well.

Ryota was a representation of Yugi's era, an era where Duel monsters was at its infancy and not many variations or combos were discovered, Yugi's era was primarily represented by the emphasis of field advantage, keeping your monsters alive with card effects and occasionally making them stronger and removing cards from your opponent's field. Overall the era composed of raw "beat stick" monsters with high attack points protected by set cards at the backrow with the occasional exception of duellists like Yugi himself and Katsuya Jonouchi.

Manjoume on the other hand was the representation of… his own era which can be called the "Black Thunder era". Monsters focused more on adaptability in this era as supposed to situational advantages in Yugi's era. Iconic cards in the pro league such as Cyber Blader used by the "Ice Queen" Asuka Tenjoin were arguably better than "Alligator's Sword Dragon" From Yugi's era as Cyber Blader not only had a much more adaptable effect as it depended on the amount of monsters your opponent controls. And not the element of your opponent's monsters. But it also has a more varied ability list as well. Manjoume's era also emphasised more on graveyard, deck and hand manipulation as shown by cards like card destruction, inferno tempest and the more prominent use of Call of the Haunted and Foolish Burial than the era before as the Pro league realised more of the potential of the graveyard. As a common Pro League saying is "Monsters don't truly die. They only return to your hand as the graveyard is the extension of your hand". The graveyard was so prominent that strategies that banish cards also became more prominent along with it. In conclusion the more recent era traded stronger monsters for more manipulative opportunities.

"Since you attacked my face-down with the Dragoons. I activate its flip effect!" Manjoume smirked as Rodrick's train of thought was interrupted by Manjoume's card flipping face up to activate its flip effect. This was what he thought would have happened if Ryota attacked Manjoume's monster.

"My face-down monster was Penguin Soldier! I get to return up to two monsters on the field to the hand… and i choose your Dragoons!" Manjoume added, in his mind hoping that Ryota would question the rulings of Penguin Soldier targeting only 1 card so that he could crush him in terms of card rulings.

"Hey! Doesn't Penguin Soldier have to target two monsters?" Ryota questioned, causing Manjoume inside to shake in excitement, eager to roast the older man.

"Actually, the rulings state that this is legal. And that the new card errata implies that it is up to two monsters." Rodrick answered, noticing Manjoume's disappointment of not saying it himself.

Manjoume smirked at Ryota, sure it was just an obscure ruling that not many people knew. But Manjoume still looked down at Ryota with inferiority and a smirk. Of course he didn't really want to hurt Ryota emotionally, just to tick him off slightly.

Ryota noticing this, having had already gotten used to Manjoume's persona and knew that it he did not meant it. Continued his turn with no hint of anger which in turn ticked the younger duellist of. Which obviously sent a feeling of amusement to the sea man.

"I set three cards facedown, and end my turn!"

"I draw…" Manjoume exclaimed, this time not bothering to even consider the fact that he would cause attention as he was now very excited about the current duel. However the men were interrupted by a bell ring, which Rodrick informed them both that in meant that they arrived at their destination. The three men got out of the submarine onto a submarine base. Just like the crowd they did this silently and Ryota was even tip toeing.

"Ok listen kids, both of you should know this. Kaiba-sama hands out promotions to those with good initiative and who go above and beyond the call of duty. So I suggest after we get this over and done with we should steal some submarines before this place explodes."

"First off… This is the second time I have been called a child today. Second of all, how are we going to steal a submarine? And finally how did we manage to sneak into their base? Ryota both complained to and questioned the old man.

"I am twice your age, I know how to drive a submarine. And we stole the submarine we were in. And managed to also steal an ID of an official, this allowed us to gain access. That answers all your questions." Rodrick answered.

Everyone was commanded by a captain who was leading this operation to enter their designated groups. Each group was tasked with an objective, and a precise time to achieve that objective. Ryota and Manjoume however did not know what group number they were in… nor did they even know their objective let along the time to achieve it. They only knew the ultimate objective of the operation as the whole but not the minor objectives they were tasked that lead up to the final job.

"What group are we in?" Manjoume inquired to Rodrick.

"It was in the mem…"

"Forget I asked."

"It doesn't matter really. We can just do our own thing…" Rodrick suggested.

"What?! But you were the one to tell us to listen and not kick ass and go in guns blazing in the first place!" Ryota whispered with an angry tone at the much older man.

"Well… no. I was just explaining how an espionage mission works. I wasn't saying you can't go in guns blazing." Rodrick stuttered

Both of the younger men sighed heavily. Rodrick did have a valid excuse but they both knew that he meant to tell them that they couldn't go in recklessly and that he only said that to avoid being a hypocrite.

"You know… you should not bend your words posh guy!" Manjoume said with a serious tone to Rodrick.

"Fine… you got me" Rodrick replied, trying to act calm and collected.

"Gentlemen, I highly recommend that you follow me." Rodrick commanded as he adjusted his monocle.

"And how do you know where you are going? Do you have a map or something?" Manjoume inquired.

"It just so happens that I have a copy of the map of a previous submarine base I went to in my monocle. And it so happens that their submarine bases are all the same."

Rodrick ran in the opposite direction to the rest of the people on the operation. And along followed Ryota and Manjoume. Rodrick ran with surprising speed for an old man. Both duellists were astounded.

"What? So they have no variation at all?" Manjoume asked curiously as they were running

"Well… they kind of do. You see boy. They can change an entire layout of the base with just a button on the control panel. You are a duel legend Manjoume, surely you are studious enough to know the duel between the Paradox Brothers and Yugi Mutou?"

"In fact I do."

"You know what occurred when the Paradox brothers activated Magical Labyrinth?"

"I see what you mean."

"So wouldn't cost less resources to just build submarine bases with singular but different layouts?" Ryota asked Rodrick with his usual curiosity. He was never this curious until he quit professional duelling at a young age of 30 to observe the other aspects of life.

"Because it is there philosophy. Everything has to be optimal for them." Rodrick answered as he stopped at a steel security door. Both Manjoume and Ryota puffed heavily to catch their breath.

"Why do old people know nearly everything?" Manjoume thought as he pictured Chrono-sensei and many other wise and old people in his head, including Daitokuji. Who was now a yellow spirit ball according to Judai during a brief encounter they had during one of his world tours.

"I will explain later Ryota. We have to get on to the real business now. From what I recall this door is always locked. So once I kick it open you two will bust in. Duel everyone and win quickly. You boys ready?" Rodrick whispered.

"You… kicking open a metal security do…?" Ryota was about to question Rodrick but was interrupted by a loud bang as Rodrick's metal leg made a huge dent in the door with a kick.

"A mechanical leg? What the heck?" Manjoume and Ryota shouted. Both stunned by the surprise.

"Yes, titanium alloy with carbon nanotube wiring, or coordinated by an advanced computer using Kaibacorp technology." Rodrick described his prized limb as he broke open the door."

As Ryota and Manjoume rushed in the officers in the door immediately pulled out their duel disks. The officers wore jet black clothing with a red insignia of "The Darkness" on their hats. as well as decoration badges just like the conventional army.

"So the "mutual agreement" Chrono-sensei talked about wasn't complete trash, eh?" Manjoume thought and was relieved inside. Chrono-sensei was not a man he would always trust and he was glad that the former professor can be trusted at times like this.

Ryota and Manjoume took on all the officers in the room at once, and defeated them easily. Luckily for the tag-team life points were shared across teams. So they shared 4000 life points and the officers shared 4000 life points. All it took was for them to focus on 1 officer to defeat the entire bunch.

As soon as the officers were defeated, Rodrick quickly started doing some fast typing which both men knew was hacking. A secret door opened as soon as Rodrick stopped typing, revealing a submarine that was idle. Rodrick signalled the boys to run inside the submarine. As soon as they were inside Rodrick took the "drivers" seat and started steering the submarine.

"Don't you need multiple people to run a submarine?" Manjoume asked.

"Usually, yes! But these submarines have special computers which make it so only one person is required to run this." Rodrick answered with a smile, showing that driving a submarine was definitely his expertise.

"He can hack, he can drive a submarine and he can duel judging from his analytical look during the duel of Ryota and I, is there anything this guy cannot do?" Manjoume asked himself inside his mind.

"So what are we going to do after we hijack this submarine?" Ryota exclaimed, so that his voice wouldn't be drowned out by the roaring of the submarine reactor.

"Drive to the control panel." Rodrick smiled.

"You are so crazy!" Manjoume shouted.

"I know." Rodrick laughed hysterically.

Their submarine reached a large metal pillar which was apparently the control panel according to Rodrick. The steel pillar was just a plain dark turquoise metal pillar with the numbers "01" on it. None of them including Rodrick knew what the number meant. But they prepared themselves for what was to be one of the most reckless things each of them have done in their lives.

"Are you boys ready?"

"Uh… y-y-yes we are!" Manjoume reluctantly answered, although hesitantly as he knew there was no turning back now and that Rodrick would still force them to do it even if he said no.

The Rodrick dived the submarine deeper and deeper into the water, going pass a security gate which scanned the submarine and verified that the submarine was a valid one owned by "The Darkness".

"Are you ready for this again boys?" Rodrick inquired again.

"Yes!" Ryota and Manjoume whispered, now prepared.

Rodrick kicked open the security door, revealing the interiors of the control panel. It was like what you would think of the interiors of a spaceship. The walls were filled with lights, which was later identified to be individual buttons that lighted up when examined more closely by the three men. But what was most distinct was a man in an Ojama Yellow suit being laughed at by his fellow officers.

"Hey, is that my suit!?" Manjoume shouted, alerting all the officers.

To be continued