Chapter 12: In Anticipation of the 3T
Kenny stood in Matt's doorway tapping his feet on the floor just enough to make his spurs jingle. It was his unconscious way of letting Matt know he overslept and was running late because of it. Matt, of course, could do without the reminder. He was under enough stress wondering if he could find an alarm clock that wouldn't break under the force of his fist. He'd been coming closer and closer to oversleeping ever since he realized he might be pushing himself too much with his schedule. Lately, he could only muster four duels per day if he was really on the ball, and there were a few hectic days he couldn't get any. Maybe he'd have to cut his gym time back.
"Are you familiar with cross fit training?" Kenny suggested.
Matt said he was not. He'd heard of it, of course, but he was accustomed to heavy lifting and sprinting exercises, the same kinds of things his football coach in high school prioritized. "What's the point to cross fit?"
"It's just a broader, general series of exercise programs," Kenny said. "They tend to be over quicker, but they really get your heart rate going by forcing a high number of repetitions and not letting you rest between exercises."
"That doesn't sound so hard," Matt replied.
Kenny chuckled at Matt's naïveté. "Believe me when I say you'll want to make sure your first attempt comes on a weekend. Depending on the intensity of that particular workout, even you might have trouble doing anything the rest of the day."
"I'll check it out," Matt promised. Kenny assured him that it was more like spending twenty to thirty minutes a day at the gym, which is significantly less time than the hour and a half average Matt was currently spending in the weight room.
He finished tying his shoes and said, "Alright. Let's go. If we're not there soon, Cary's going to let me know later exactly how much she appreciates my being late to her duel." He took a look at Bryan's door, knocked, and tried the knob. The door was unlocked, which was an obvious invitation for Matt to open it, but Bryan wasn't inside.
"Where's Bryan?" Kenny wondered.
"I don't know. He didn't come back at all last night. Even for a weird guy like he is, that's odd. And for him to miss a School Duel is almost unprecedented. I'm starting to get a little worried about him."
"He has been acting a tad strange," Kenny admitted. "But I'm sure he's fine. He's always been a little out there on the intellectual level. I remember one time he told me about this idea he had. He wanted to put together a construction site, but it's not intended for building stuff. It's just a place for grown men who aren't trained to play around with construction equipment. He said he'd always wanted to run a steamroller over a tube of toothpaste. I couldn't tell if he was bonkers or sitting on a gold mine."
"Many of the best ideas start out sounding crazy," Matt admitted. "Anyway, let's get going before we miss the flick off." That was Matt's cheesy term for the first draw of the duel—a parody on the first kick-off of a football game.
But the guys hadn't gotten far when they ran into Roger Baker, faculty advisor to the Red Dorm and former police detective. The term "former" was often used loosely with him. Despite having been a Duel Academy professor for twelve years, he was still prone to getting involved with the campus police as a sort of liaison with the students. The police didn't really need someone for such a role—they were pretty well liked and appreciated by the students because they were generally friendly—but Captain Frank Rader was good friends with Baker and often allowed him to take the student side of certain cases.
"Howdy, Prof.," Kenny said.
Baker nodded, which was about the level of greeting he could muster whenever he actually had a police purpose in going to see one of the students. "Kenny. I'd like to talk to Matt if you don't mind."
"Is about his covering your class on Monday?" Kenny asked. Baker just gave him a blank look. Even Kenny knew that meant that it had nothing to do with Matt covering a class.
"Okay," Matt said hesitantly. To Kenny, he said, "You go on ahead. Maybe you can tell Cary some kind of story about how I got caught in traffic because a glue truck overturned and there was a fire and I had to tun in to save an old woman and four kittens."
"You bet." Kenny didn't bother to dissect the story at the moment. He could always laugh about Matt's weird sense of humor later… when Baker wasn't giving the professorial "evil eye." He even waited almost motionlessly, watching Kenny out of the corner of his eye until he was sure he and Matt were alone.
"What's up, Sarge? This isn't about that hole I left in the wall in my old room in the Red Dorm, is it?"
"What hole?"
Matt stopped abruptly. "It was a trick question. There is no hole." Inside, he was very excited about how effective toothpaste apparently was in lieu of actual spackle.
"Where were you last night at approximately 10:15?"
Suddenly the color drained from Matt's face. He was silent for a much longer time than most innocent people would be, and Baker noticed it. He was pretty sure now that what Maikeru and Sean told him was true.
After an uncomfortable silence of eight seconds, Matt's wit finally forced him to give a version of the truth: "I can tell you what I wasn't doing. And that's breaking one of the curfew rules. Besides, I'm pretty sure there were no cameras."
"You're right about that," Baker admitted. It was a friendly approach generally used to build a rapport with the suspect and lower his guard. "There are very few cameras out in the woods."
Matt laughed. "Yeah. Webcams are stup…" He stopped in the middle of a word, and his expression quickly changed from panicked guilt to uncertain confusion. "What?" It took him a moment to get over the flabbergasted feeling. "What are you talking about—cameras in the woods?"
"What do you think I'm talking about?" Baker asked. Now he was confused, as well. As far as he could tell, Matt's reaction was genuine. Mention of the woods really did throw him off guard. Maybe Matt didn't know what Maikeru and Sean had claimed. But if that's the case, why did he look so guilty? "Tell me more about what you weren't doing last night at 10:15."
Matt chuckled softly and said, "Well, I certainly wasn't in the woods. I know it's too cool for mosquitoes, but there're still a lot of bugs out there." Then his face looked slightly devious. "And I wasn't in Kas's room, because that would be a violation of Duel Academy's boy-girl curfew and I play by the rules."
Baker picked up Matt's meaning right away. He was unsure of the extent of the curfew violation, but it was pretty clear Matt was claiming Kasumi as an alibi. "Can anyone verify that you and Kas were 'not' together at 10:15 last night?"
"Um… Her roommate was definitely not in the room; maybe she was in the study lounge. And Kas keeps the door shut. Nobody actually saw us not together."
"Then were you also not dueling with two fellow students in the woods and stealing their cards?"
Matt could only make a face. "Why would I want to steal someone's cards? Unless he has another Cyber Dragon." He chuckled to himself, but Baker's expression told a different story; he saw that not as a joke, but as proof that Matt was not above stealing cards from other students. "I didn't say that," Matt said. As he breathed in for another try, he put on a strictly serious face. "Why would I steal someone else's cards? And then I stop talking."
Baker was certainly amused by Matt's willingness to talk, even if it didn't help his situation a whole lot. Two students got a perfect view of him right before he stole their rarest cards. "Would you mind if I looked through your cards?"
"That would take a while," Matt confessed. "Am I a suspect or something? Who says I stole his cards?"
"We're just talking," Baker informed him. "You aren't being accused of anything yet." Matt repeated the "yet" under his breath. Baker admitted he wanted to start any potential investigation by talking to Matt. "You're free to go to the Hibiki Center. I will be able to reach you if I have more questions, won't I?"
"I'll be here wearing a name tag that says, 'Hello. My name is Red Herring,'" he commented as Baker walked away. On the off chance that one of the freshman was robbed and mistook Matt for someone else he spends a lot of time with (it's easy to mix up names when two people are together all the time and you don't know them well), he went back into Bryan's room and started looking through the bag where he kept all their extra cards.
###
Matt was not the only one running late. Nathan Zislaw had a tendency to saunter across campus when he should have a hurried pace, especially on a day when he, too, overslept. In Nathan's case, it had nothing to do with his alarm, though; knowing the morning classes were cancelled because of the School Duel, he decided to lie down in the grass outside the dorm and just stare at the clouds for a while. That's why no one was around to wake him when he dozed off. It was no great matter to him, however; he liked being at the school and appreciated a good duel, but it was hardly the end of the world for him to miss an academy function.
He didn't miss the whole duel. When he wandered into the convocation center, he saw the duel was still going and there were some big monsters on the field. His first impression was to hang by the back of the room and just lean against the wall rather than search for someplace to sit; School Duels tended to draw a crowd. But then he inadvertently spotted his roommate Carter Jade sitting close to one of the aisles. He was easy enough to spot with his broad backside, the red jacket, and he wasn't far from Hilary's wheelchair. It seemed easy enough to join him, and so Nathan decided he might as well, mostly because sitting was preferable to standing.
"Hey," Carter said. "Where were you? You're late."
"I know." Nathan's voice was very lackadaisical, so cool it seemed like talking was too much work for him. "What's the score?"
"It's a tally used to indicate how many points each player has left, but that's not important," Carter parodied. "What's important is that Cary already has this guy backed into a corner with her Dragunity monsters."
"Thanks. I know what a score is."
Carter made a face. "Then why'd you ask? Sheesh."
Hillary Delaney, sitting in the aforementioned wheelchair, looked back at Nathan with her knowing smile. "You know, Nathan; being late is not a good habit for a prefect to have."
Nathan groaned as he adjusted his seat. "I'm only a prefect on the grounds of not having a say in the matter." That and he kept winning his duels, rare as they are. Nathan had the lowest total number of duels of all the students at Duel Academy. Dueling tended to get in the way of his "doing nothing" time.
"Do you have a partner yet for the 3T?" asked Ivy Roaks. 3T is what the students started calling the big Tag Team Tournament because it was three syllables shorter and fifteen characters fewer.
Carter put on a half-excited expression and signaled between himself and Nathan with his thumb. "We're going to partner up and bring home the bacon." Then he stopped to look at Nathan and asked, "Wouldn't it be weird if the prize were bacon? A pile of bacon that big would be worth the ten-dollar buy-in. It would last a year." He got that far-off look in his eyes that showed he was imagining eating a pile of bacon the size of Delaware.
"The bacon would last, but you wouldn't," Nathan clarified.
Ivy put one hand on Hillary's forearm and said, "I've got a better idea. Why don't you and Nathan team up? Think about how good your chances will be if the two best freshman duelists work together."
"What about Rory and Jason?" Hillary asked. "They are better than I am."
"That's the humility talking," Ivy countered eagerly. "You two would make a great team."
"What about me?" Carter asked.
Ivy looked right at him and said, "You'd be great to have on Naoto's team." She intended that as a joke, suggesting that he would make even someone as good as Naoto lose. "I'm just kidding," she quickly said. "You and I can team up to help these two knock everyone else out of the tournament."
"Yeah," Carter agreed. "Then the four of us can split the prize money."
Nathan had a better idea. "What if Hillary and I split the money, and then we'll give you guys a commission for each good team you actually manage to beat?" After all, if Carter and Ivy were to lose in the first round, they would hardly have pulled their weight for a quarter of the prize.
"Don't underestimate me," Ivy told him. "I'm obviously pretty good. Matt approached me about maybe joining Team OTK, and a guy from Team Lockdown said I might be able to join them. You'd be lucky to have me on your team."
"That's true," Nathan replied.
Hillary smiled again. "So what do you say?"
Nathan shrugged. "I have no problem being partners with you. I can't promise I'm going to try real hard, but I guess I'll duel a few times. How many people are in the 3T?"
"We can ask Matt when this duel is over," Hillary replied. She already spotted Matt in the back of the convocation center talking with one of the duel arena technicians. She and the others planned to go talk to him afterward, anyway, in order to sign up for the tournament. Now they just had to see if Duel Academy would retain the status of premier dueling university, or if Godwin Academy was going to claim that status.
On the floor of the arena, Cary just finished a turn in which she summoned her Dragunity Knight – Vajuranda (6/1900/1200) and used its double-attack-points effect to destroy her opponent's Ambulance Rescueroid (6/2300/1800). Wallace responded with Supercharge in order to draw two more cards into his hand for a potential counterattack. Cary 7200: Wallace 2200.
The score was misleading, though; Wallace Hodges was not losing by the same degree as suggested by his Life Points. Despite being overpowered in the beginning, he successfully fended off Cary's early one-turn-kill strategy and managed to even out the field again. Cary actually struggled a bit to keep her field presence after her Dragunity assault failed, and Wallace hoped to take control of the duel and even everything out.
Wallace had a fair build, dark skin, and wild hair. He was actually the first black student representative from Godwin Academy, even though Duel Academy provided many over the years. Wallace wasn't undefeated, as so many representatives of Godwin Academy claim during the School Duel. In fact, Wallace didn't exaggerate his record at all; he didn't try to psych Cary out by bragging that he's never lost or never even been behind in Life Points. He simply told her that he was a strong duelist who managed his way to the top of Godwin Academy through strategy and patience. Inspired by his honesty, Cary informed him that she could beat anyone at Duel Academy with little or no preparation at the drop of a hat.
"Here we go!" Wallace said excitedly. "I summon Expressroid (4/400/1600), and that lets me take Drillroid and Steamroid from my Graveyard." Wallace's Expressroid looked like a pair of blue and white monorail cars with big eyes for headlights, just below the windshield. When it stopped, the door opened and showed two "roid" cards, representative of the two Wallace put in his hand. "Now I'll use Vehicroid Connection Zone to fuse Drillroid and Steamroid with Submarineroid." His three machines positioned themselves on the three directions of a large railway junction. When the Spell activated, all three machines moved into the junction and fused, reshaping into an enormous, pink vehicle with purple coloring on top and a massive drill bit at the nose. It had large treads on the underside and claws on the wings, which now looked a bit like oddly-shaped hands. "This is Super Vehicroid Jumbo Drill (8/3000/2000)," Wallace announced proudly.
"I've seen it," Cary commented. "It's no big deal." And why shouldn't she believe that? Sure, it was bigger than Vajuranda (1900), but she had 5000 more Life Points than Wallace did and a Mirror Force Trap ready to go.
"Have you seen this?" Wallace asked. "Limiter Removal doubles the attack power of all the machines on my side of the field." Jumbo Drill (+6000) and Expressroid (+800) both seemed to snap something in their engines, and then they looked pumped up. "Now, let's drill straight through that Dragunity Knight (1900)." The giant drill bit on Jumbo Drill's anterior end began spinning rapidly, and then the treads carried the massive tank forward toward Cary's monster."
"I'll activate Mirror Force," Cary countered. A reflective wall appeared around her field and threatened to return fire against Wallace's monsters.
"There was a key point to my playing Vehicroid Connection Zone," Wallace told her. "Any Fusion monster summoned by that Spell is immune to destruction from effects. That means Jumbo Drill is completely unaffected by Mirror Force." The drill bit broke right through the reflective wall and shattered it.
"I know that," Cary explained, "but the effect still destroys your Expressroid, meaning you'll only have once monster with which to attack." Shards of glass from her Trap struck the Expressroid's engine and caused it to explode, as one always sees on TV. But even so, Jumbo Drill tore her red dragon rider in half, and the drill further shredded Cary's monster into tiny chunks before it disappeared.
"I'll set one card and end my turn." Cary 7300 – 4100 = 3200: Wallace 2200.
Wallace looked at the field with one of those smiles that said he was dying for Cary to ask him why Limiter Removal didn't destroy his Jumbo Drill. But she wasn't going to ask; not only did she already know why, he explained the effect of his Vehicroid Connection Zone just a few minutes ago.
'I honestly underestimated Wallace a great deal,' Cary thought to herself. 'I assumed he was an arrogant duelist convinced he was God's gift to the game because that is the reputation of Godwin Academy representatives—competition between our schools tends to bring out the worst in the players. But Wallace was not that kind of man. He was courteous and sincere throughout the duel. He first impressed me when he halted my one-turn-kill strategy with a single, well-played monster effect. Even so, I hadn't expected to face a 3000-point Vehicroid monster with only three cards in my hand.'
"That sounds cheesy," she muttered to herself. But she had plenty of time to change a few words here and there. She took a moment to write down that she drew Debris Dragon, one of her non-Dragunity monsters that still fit her deck theme. She quickly jotted down a few notes about the strategy she planned to implement.
"I'll play One for One and discard Transforming Sphere to Special Summon Dragunity Tribus (1/500/300) from my deck." A large, teal sphere sat on the ground and cracked open, revealing a man adorned in blue and white robes. He wore a cowl over his head and face that looked like that of a bird, and he had enormous wings on his back. "When Tribus is summoned, I get to send a Dragunity monster from my deck to the Graveyard, and I choose Pilum.
"And now I'll summon Debris Dragon (4/1000/2000)." Her field turned bright with the appearance of a white dragon with red muscle that resembled a small version of the popular Stardust Dragon. "When he's summoned, I can summon a monster from my Graveyard with 500 points or fewer, like the Transforming Sphere (3/100/100) I just discarded." The teal sphere reappeared on Cary's field, hovering above the ground; it was carried by a winged beast wearing white armor over its golden feathers. "Finally, I'll have Debris Dragon (4) tune with both my other monsters."
The white dragon began to shine as it wrapped its wings around Tribus (1) and Transforming Sphere (3). The light grew so bright no one could see the monsters fusing together. When the light finally faded, what remained was a large, blue dragon with purple muscle and Dragunity Angusticlavii riding its back. This was Dragunity Knight – Barcha (8/2000/1200).
"I know Barcha isn't a lot by himself," Cary admitted. "After all, he's a higher level with lower attack power than a few other Dragunity cards. But when he's summoned, I get to equip him with any dragon-type Dragunity monster in my Graveyard. I have Brandistock, Pilum, Phalanx, and Vajuranda." The mighty dragon assimilated the bodies of four other Dragunity monsters and drew energy from them. "Barcha (+3200) also gains 300 points for each equipped monster."
"That's a cool move," Wallace admitted. "But I got one, too. It's Shrink." When his card activated, Barcha shrunk significantly in size. "This card cuts your monster's power in half."
"His original attack power," Cary clarified. "Barcha (-2200) still gets the full benefit of the four equipped Dragunity monsters. And when he's equipped with Pilum, Barcha gets the ability to attack directly." Barcha took flight, passed directly over Jumbo Drill, and Angusticlavii launched his javelin directly at Wallace for 1100 points.
"What's the deal?" Wallace asked. "I thought you were going to finish the duel right here. But your monster's points got cut in half."
"Pilum's effect allows direct attacks, but the damage is cut in half," Cary explained. "Fortunately, equipping Brandistock allows Barcha to attack twice in one turn." Barcha took flight once again and let fly another direct javelin attack. Cary 3200: Wallace 2200 – 1100 – 1100 = 0.
Cary didn't receive a standing ovation for her win or anything, but she did get a lot of procrastinators asking if she had a partner for the 3T yet.
"What's 3T?" Wallace asked her.
"One of our academy's dueling teams is hosting a big tag team tournament as a fundraiser. It's open to all students and even to the townies, as long as they pay ten bucks a head for registration. The winner gets half of the overall registration money, and the other half goes to the fundraising account."
"That sounds like a great idea," Wallace said. "People love tag team duels. Probably because they're so rare."
"And they tend to be a pretty great equalizer," she added. "People who dominate in one-on-one duels can be a lot less productive when they have to wait twice as long to take a turn. Plus, if your partner has a rough day or a lot of bad luck, it sometimes spills over to you, too."
"Good point. So when is it?"
"It starts tomorrow."
Wallace put a big grin on his face. "Maybe I should stick around for another day. You and I could clean up, don't you think?"
"We probably could," Cary admitted, "but it's not a one day thing; because there are so many participants, the tournament will take place over the next few weeks. Basically, the last round should be right before final exam week."
"Bummer. I coulda used another prize to put on my record."
Dr. Corbin West from Duel Academy and Dr. Hamlin Spengler from Godwin Academy, headmasters both, approached the duelists with very different expressions. Dr. West had a trademark smile that, even though genuine, always looked somewhat fake underneath that gray Tom Selleck mustache. Dr. Spengler had his trademark scowl, which he donned every morning he visited Duel Academy. He was never a fan of visiting because his students almost always lost the School Duel, but he also never passed up an opportunity to challenge Dr. West.
"That was a wonderful duel," Dr. West said cheerfully. With his rather stout, aged body, he would be a dead ringer for Santa Claus with the right getup. He even had the rosy cheeks now that the temperature was starting to fall outside.
"Not wonderful enough," Dr. Spengler said with his solid British accent. Wallace was a little bothered by that comment, but he didn't take it personally. The fact was Dr. Spengler really hated losing every year to Duel Academy, in no small part because he and Dr. West always gambled on the outcome, although they had to change the stakes since the god cards disappeared. It was a secret, unofficial wager that every student of both schools knew about.
"Don't discourage the boy," Dr. West reprimanded. He extended his hand to Wallace and said, "That was very impressive. I've seen Cary end many duels in the first few turns with that one-turn-kill strategy, but you didn't let her get the best of you so easily."
"Thank you, sir," Wallace replied. "I kind of saw it coming, so I just made sure I was ready."
"Yes, congratulations," Dr. Spengler commented sarcastically under his breath.
"Don't give Cary too much credit," Dr. West joked. He put on that goofy grin men of his age tend to when they want to make it obvious a joke is coming. He straightened his jacket collar and said, "After all, she learned everything she knows from me."
Wallace laughed and said, "Right." Cary just grinned to amuse her old headmaster.
Dr. Spengler had little interest in continuing the small talk. "Good effort, Mr. Hodges. Ms. Strickland… well played." Oddly enough, this was his way of being civil when he lost. He'd be better in a day or two after he had time to absorb the loss. "Corbin… You'll be hearing from me."
"I know I will," Dr. West said and shook Dr. Spengler's hand. "Allow me to escort you to the car."
Wallace took one last look at Cary and said, "That was fun. Thanks for the duel." As he gave Cary a hug, he added, "It's pretty clear why you're the best at this school."
"I'm not the best," she quickly clarified. "I'm one of the best, but not the best."
Wallace went wide-eyed. "There are people here better than you?" His expression settled into that handsome smile as he realized, "So that's why Dr. Spengler hates this school so much."
###
Matt had a difficult time getting close enough to Cary to congratulate her on her victory and pretend that he wasn't late. All the last-minute tag teamers swarmed him to make sure they got their registration in before the tournament brackets were put together. Rory was one of the first to approach Matt and strike up a conversation on the topic with Lili in tow.
"How's the tournament looking?" she asked.
Before Matt could formulate any kind of answer, Laura Guertin interrupted with, "We have a wonderful turnout. This should be a fascinating tournament."
"That's exciting," Rory said. "Do you think there's still room for Lili to sign up?"
Matt looked surprised. "You two didn't sign up together?"
Rory shook her head coyly while Lili explained, "She teamed up with the cute guy from the Duel Grille in town."
"Oh?" Rory couldn't tell, but Lili noticed a discernible look of disappointment on Matt's face at the thought of Rory spending time with another cute guy. "Is he any good?"
Rory just shrugged. "Lili didn't want to participate at first, then Tommy asked and Lili said I should go for it. It's just for fun, anyway. I don't expect to win. I think the only thing that changed Lili's mind was hearing how excited everyone else was getting about it." Lili nodded uncertainly, which suggested she might be interested now, but she didn't want anyone to think that she cared.
"What about Synthia?" Matt asked.
Rory pointed toward the exit of the building. "I don't know if you can see her, but she's over there talking with Clinton, her new partner." Matt was actually a little pleased to hear that Rory wasn't teaming up with Clint, even if she was with "cute grille guy."
"I'm sorry," Laura said solemnly. "Registration ended yesterday. Everything is already set up."
"Come on," Matt pleaded. "Don't you have a few other people listed who didn't have specific partners in mind?" He looked to Lili and explained, "We have a sort of 'free agent' list for people who want to duel but either can't find a partner or just don't want to pick one."
The latter suggestion showed how well he'd gotten to know Lili over the semester; she could have asked plenty of people who might have been interested in having a strong duelist as a partner, but she didn't like anyone else enough to ask. She was waiting to be asked, and, ironically, most people assumed she'd say 'no' and didn't bother. She didn't mind the idea, though, of being randomly given a partner; it prevented the misconception that she actually cared about any of these losers.
"But the tournament is already set up," Laura objected.
"I'll fix it," Matt offered.
"No!" was Laura's immediate and very loud response. She cleared her throat, straightened herself out, and said, "I will do it." She looked to Desmond Vele, her "secret" boyfriend. "My assistant Desmond will take your registration fee."
"What does he assist with?" Lili asked. "Your choice in men's shampoos?"
Laura reacted with a wide-eyed expression identical to the one now worn by Desmond. They assumed no one would notice that they used the same shampoo that morning. Desmond sputtered a bit as he said, "How dare you!"
Matt broke the tension and shifted Laura's anger into embarrassment by laughing his head off. He also noticed that Laura and Desmond used the same shampoo this morning, but he didn't say anything because he didn't care. Besides, it was much funnier to see this reaction when they were called out by someone they didn't know well.
"She's kidding," Matt managed to force as he gasped for air. He finally got himself breathing correctly again. "Consider yourself a participant. Just make sure to give me your email address and I'll let you know—ow!" He rubbed his side in the spot where Laura jammed her elbow into his ribs. "Like I was saying, give Laura your email address and she'll let you know who your partner will be."
"Fine," Lili replied curtly.
Nathan's entourage approached at that time, also wanting late entry into the tournament. Laura was not happy about it, but Matt had little trouble manipulating her into accepting them by threatening to take the lead on the project.
"I thought you were her boss," Ivy suggested.
Matt replied, "I like to think we're all equal partners in Team OTK. But yeah, I'm in charge." He gave a joking grin to Laura and Desmond as they wrote down the freshmen's information, then Matt leaned in to whisper, "She scares me more than Dr. Lankford does."
Carter noticed Lili's presence and asked, "Didn't you used to have some kind of vine tattoo on your arm?"
"At the beginning of the semester," she retorted. She pulled up her sleeve to show that now her arm was adorned with open boxes that looked like a chain fence wrapped up and down her arm. "Then it was concentric circles, and now it's this."
"How do you keep changing your tattoo?" Carter wondered.
"It's henna," Hillary answered. She looked to Lili for confirmation. "Isn't it?" She acknowledged that it was, and she looked surprised that Hillary knew that. "It's a temporary skin decoration using paste from the henna plant. It goes away after a while, which is one reason you mostly see it on arms and legs; more keratin in the skin there to bind with the coloring agent of the plant."
"That's impressive," Rory said. "I had to sit through Lili's history lesson to understand it. You just happened to know all that?"
"I had a few friends in high school who were Goths and very into henna."
Matt had a suggestion: "You should do the Ebbinghaus circles, one on each arm." Then he had to stop and remind everyone what that meant. The Ebbinghaus circles are two different sets of circles. In one set, eight small blue circles surround a larger red circle, and in the second set, six large blue circles surround a smaller red circle. The red circles are actually the same size, but because of the varying sizes of the blue circles, people rarely assess that the red circles are, in fact, the same size.
"You had your lunch money stolen a lot in high school, didn't you?" Carter replied. Lili grinned, partly because she was planning to make fun of Matt in the same way.
"Yes, but mostly because I had a hole in my pants pocket and didn't notice for six months," Matt joked back. "Well, you are all on the list. We'll send out emails tonight to let you know when and where your first duels will be tomorrow. Are you guys excited?"
"Very," Hillary said. Her partner, on the other hand, looked like he might be asleep on his feet, staring off into the distance as if watching something fascinating.
"Who's your partner?" Ivy asked Matt. "Probably Bryan. Are you guys the favorite?"
Matt laughed. He and Bryan probably would be a reckoning force in this tournament; they teamed up for a couple of duels last year when they participated in the Gathas Limitations Tournament and cleaned house. That was different, though; in one duel, they were restricted to monsters with fewer than 1000 AP, and in the other, Matt could only use Spells and Traps while Bryan could only use monsters. An actual tag duel would be a very different beast.
"I'm not participating," Matt told her. This was surprising news to all the freshmen. "I'm running the tournament." He quickly pulled his arm back to block Laura's second elbow jab before it hit his ribs. "Team OTK is running the tournament, and so it doesn't look so good for us to participate. We're just going to keep an eye on things and act as judges during the duels."
"Awesome!" Ivy replied. "Our odds just went way up. That means we don't have to worry about Cary's Dragunity monsters, after all. She's on the team, too."
"Maybe we do have a good shot," Hillary suggested to Nathan.
He just shrugged. "Whatever."
###
Ellie was still trying to figure out what the deal was with Hayley. She heard through Darius who heard from Maikeru that Hayley might have multiple personalities, clinically termed Dissociative Identity Disorder. Hayley seemed to fit some of the symptoms—she seemed to have two completely different personalities depending on the day, she had obvious memory issues with regards to big events, she suffered headaches pretty commonly, and she even had asthma. That last symptom didn't seem to make any sense when Darius pointed it out, but a quick search of WebMD and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, version IV with text revisions, showed that Hayley's symptoms fit pretty well, although only a psychiatrist could make the diagnosis official.
Still hoping to find some kind of leverage to use in order to force Hayley to answer her questions, Ellie spent a second day following Hayley around just to see where she went and who she met. For the second time, Hayley actually had to knock on her own bedroom door and give a password before entering. When she knocked, she also said the word "Hayley," which was odd because it seemed too easy, and Ellie could swear Hayley said "Serpentina" last time. She really wanted to know the significance of those passwords. For now, she'd just have to keep following Hayley secretly… unless she decided to follow Darius's advice and actually talk to Hayley sometime.
Hayley's room was where she spent a lot of her time with her two closest friends, Leila Lockhart and her brother Linear, both Yellow Dorm sophomores. As twins, they looked very similar; both had platinum blond hair, blue eyes, and oval-shaped heads with soft features. But as fraternal twins, they still had significant differences. Linear's hair was stringier, his forehead was larger, and his hairline had a Widow's peak; Leila also had smaller feet and bonier joints. He also tended to dress in T-shirts and shorts—something specifically intended to distinguish him from his sister in her long skirts and blouses.
Although physical descriptions between the twins were more similar than different, the same wasn't always true of their personalities. Neither was especially outgoing or friendly, but at least Leila made the effort to acknowledge other people who spoke to her; Linear tended to ignore them altogether. Linear was also noticeably less patient; at least Leila let people finish talking before she decided they were stupid and manipulative. They both had a tendency to distrust others and distance themselves from those whom they viewed as manipulative, and Linear could even be caustic when people threatened his sister or in any way suggested he had a feminine face.
That's how the twins tended to be in class or at school functions. But when they were together with their friends, primarily Hayley, the two could actually be rather cheerful. Linear was easygoing and caring toward those he liked, and Leila was actually a bit hyperactive. These behaviors are why Hayley took a liking to the twins and began spending time with them. Even though she didn't like to section herself off, she sometimes felt it was necessary.
"What did she do?" Linear asked. He was almost always sitting on Leila's bed playing with a laptop, but he usually put it aside when Hayley wandered in. Most of the time, he needed to spend all his focus figuring out which Hayley it was.
Hayley showed a bit of disgust when she said, "She's been making out with Victor," but she couldn't completely hide that look of fear.
"Oh, that's not good," Leila agreed. She watched Hayley go into her purse for an aspirin, and she happened to notice the inhaler. "You've been using your inhaler again? I thought you said you haven't needed it since you were a kid."
"Well, finding out that my dark side has been making out with people causes me significant stress, which exacerbates my asthma," Hayley explained.
Linear wondered, "How far did the make-out session go?"
"I'd rather not know," she quickly replied. She popped a couple of aspirin and pulled a card from her duel deck. It was the White Magician Pikeru, her personal favorite card and one that always acted as a way to keep her calm and collected. The twins knew that Hayley received that card from her brother, who meant the world to her.
"There's a rumor going around that you're the Ghost Duelist," Linear said. He told her that he heard a few students talking about it on their way to the convocation center this morning. Apparently someone saw her in the woods last night. This was not good news for Hayley.
Leila suggested, "It might be time to talk to someone. You said you'd consider it if things got to the point where Serpentina was doing things that could ruin your life."
"I'd say making out with Victor fits that bill," Linear said with a laugh.
Hayley still looked concerned. She hoped to keep her problem a secret until she could figure out a way to take complete control over her alters. But Leila was right; things were starting to get really tough. She knew Serpentina was taking control at night because every single morning, Hayley woke up exhausted and with no memory of a significant portion of the day.
She finally accepted, "Maybe I should go see Dr. Kerr."
This came out so much longer than I thought it would, and that was only half a duel. I'm going to have to move some of the ideas I had for this chapter (including introducing some Yu-Gi-Oh! concepts and a few more characters) to a later chapter. I'll warn now that I may have to make the tag duels a bit unlikely (i.e., the players get awfully lucky when they draw) just to make sure they don't run on too much.
For anyone curious, asthma really is a physical ailment common with DID. So is irritable bowel syndrome, but I didn't want to give that to Hayley.
I apologize for inadvertantly lying to you last time. Next time will show the start of the tag tournament, and this time, I'm sure.
Credits:
Darius Mantzios...tiramisu19
Jason Maxim...Maxim and Knight
Nathan Zislaw...Mavrik Zero
Hillary Delaney...Nodqfan144
Lili Von...Happy2BMe
Carter Jade...Jaden2010
Mitsuro Itachu...Titanic X
Sean Bivins...DarkVestroia2
Naoto Kurotsuki...Kurotsuki Haru
Hayley Wilson...TeamRocketDiva
Maikeru Stone...onyxshade7
Victor Rocks & Abel Shinzou...Iron-Arm-V
Alister Kazama & Jessica Parks...ZaneKazama001
Synthia Spencer...Madly Chessur
Leila & Linear Lockhart...Windraider
Everyone else so far...YamiRuss