Chapter 13: Begin the Duel Academy 3T
Matt was lucky to be conscious enough to tell himself to get up when his alarm when off. He sat on the bed for a moment rubbing his face to get the blood flowing. When his vision finally returned, he glanced at those red numbers and figured out what time it was… thirty minutes later than the time his alarm went off the first time. Obviously he wasn't conscious every time the alarm went off.
"I'm going to be late again…" he mumbled to himself as he got up to get dressed. He had to skip his sit-ups this morning, but at least he got in a decent run. The night before, Laura put together a list of the duels for the day and sent it to the other members of Team OTK. Being the sponsors of the tournament, the team was responsible for judging each individual match in case of any discrepancy in the rulings and to make sure winners were recorded appropriately. Of course, schedules had to be taken into account because classes were not suspended for this tournament and jobs did not grant time off, either. Most duels were scheduled for either early mornings or late afternoons and evenings.
Matt had to book it for the Wal-Mart. That's where he was schedule to meet up with four duelists to kick off the tournament. Alister Kazama and Jessica Parks, two Duel Academy students from the Yellow Dorm were scheduled to take on two young adults from Kazuki. Matt figured this one to be a real quick duel—one he probably didn't even show up for. Alister and Jessica were known for their prowess in tag duels. Having been friends since they were kids, and boyfriend-girlfriend since early high school, they knew one another very well, from the cards in their decks in the strategies each comes up with during a duel. Seeing them with identical Duel Disks, bought simultaneously at the same store back home, and wearing yellow jackets only one size apart, Matt thought they even started to look alike.
Speaking of looking alike, the townies selected as opponents for this first match were a pair of twins who worked at the Wal-Mart in Kazuki. Unlike the Lockharts, Ryan and Aaron Jones were identical twins. They were both of average height, very skinny, had stringy, brown hair and brown eyes, and both wore glasses with identical frames, not to mention the Wal-Mart vests each wore. If they hadn't been wearing name tags, Matt would have had no clue which was which.
And one other person was present—someone Matt hadn't expected to see.
"Hey, Matt," Cary said. She looked confused. "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I was judging this duel," he said. Then he briefly turned to greet Alister and Jessica and introduce himself to the Bobsey twins.
"What made you guys come out for this tournament?" Matt asked, genuinely curious. "Going up against students who study dueling is going to be tough."
Aaron agreed, "That's true. We just have so much fun dueling, we figured we'd try it out and see how far we can go."
Ryan added, "And since we sell Duel Monsters cards here, we got access to a lot of good cards. We built a couple of decks specifically for tag team dueling."
"We probably won't last real long," Aaron said, "but we'll definitely put up a good fight with these cards. We read a whole bunch of articles on tag team dueling and watched a bunch of videos on Youtube." Matt simply told them that sounded like an awesome way for someone without a lot of experience to learn.
Alister asked him, "Do you really think we'll need two judges for this duel? Tag Team duels aren't that complicated."
"We should still go over the rules," Cary pointed out, "just because Tag Team duels are not as common, and there seem to be so many different sets of 'house rules' these days. As far as there being two judges… At this point Matt is just here to watch. According to the schedule, he got out of bed for nothing."
"Nice to feel wanted," Matt commented, thinking about his bed again.
Ryan told him, "I know what you mean. When I first started working the morning shift, it took me forever to adjust to waking up so early."
Matt argued, "It's not that I'm not used to getting up early. I've just been so busy I've been exhausted."
"Motion on the table of 'nobody cares,'" Cary said. "Anyone second it?" Jessica raised her hand, then Alister said, "Third." Cary eagerly said, "Great. Let's get this duel under way. We'll start with the rules."
"Marquess of Queensbury rules," Matt interrupted. "No wrestling, only three minutes per round, and no shoes or boots with spikes or sprigs allowed."
Cary looked at him for a moment. "It's amazing you can brush your own teeth." She leaned in just a bit closer to his face and added, "Which you should do more often, by the way."
Matt cupped his hand over his mouth and said, "I put garlic on my bagel this morning."
The tag duelers were perfectly amused to watch Cary insult Matt every time he tried to make a joke, but the twins had a limited time before their shifts started, and so it was necessary to get through the actual rules and begin the duel.
Each player gets five monster zones and five spell/trap zones to himself or herself. Each also has a space for a Field Spell, but like always, playing a new Field Spell destroys a previous one. Each player uses his or her own deck and Graveyard and does not have access to his or her partner's cards unless specifically stated by the effect of a card. Limited cards, as designated by the lists Kaiba Corp regularly puts out, are limited for each player, but not each team; for example, every player could have one copy of Pot of Greed in the deck.
In terms of the duel itself, each team gets 8000 Life Points. Players only get to control the monsters on their respective quadrants of the field; Jessica can't summon a monster for Alister to use for example. On the other hand, the partner's monsters could be used for Tributes, fusions, or tuning. Perhaps the most significant rule involved massive effects:
"Any card that designates a massive effect against the opponent only affects only one opponent," Cary explained. "That's your Lighting Vortexs, your Mirror Forces, and so on. Anything that affects both sides of the field will hit all four of you. That would be something like Heavy Storm or Torrential Tribute. Everyone got that?"
"We're good," Jessica agreed. Aaron and Ryan said they were pretty sure they understood, as well.
"Good. Then duel."
As the four duelists prepared to get things going, Matt stepped beside Cary and requested, "Tell me again why I'm not judging this duel."
"How can I tell you again? I didn't tell you the first time."
Matt laughed. "I didn't realize you were so picky about adverb use. In that case, Ms. Smart Girl, please tell me why I misread the schedule."
"You didn't," she replied. "Originally, Laura planned for you to judge the duels on that list. But then she found out that someone was making book on this tournament. She assumed it was you, and she didn't think it was right for the bookie to be someone in a position to influence the outcomes of the duels. She was tempted not to let me judge your duels until I convinced her that I don't actually like you."
He chuckled. "That must have been some lie you told her."
"Who says I lied?" She had a hell of a Poker face, too, Matt hoped.
Ryan chimed in to say, "If you want to make your case, I know who the guys is taking bets on the tournament. He hangs out at the bike shop over on Main Street."
"A bike shop?" Matt repeated. "That doesn't sound like the kind of hangout for a bookie."
"Motorcycles," Alister clarified.
"Oh. Wait, we have a motorcycle shop in town?"
Jessica laughed. "You've been here for three semesters and you've never gone into town to check it out?" Matt sheepishly admitted he had not. "Well, you should. There's actually a lot of stuff out there." Ryan and Aaron began offering suggestions of places to go.
"I came from a small town," Matt reminded them. "There was never anything to do there without going into the city. This town is even smaller, so I just assumed it would be the same."
"Avesta isn't a college town," Cary pointed out. Matt acknowledged that one as a fair point.
Matt figured he'd go check out the bookie for two reasons: He wanted to know what kind of person was running odds on a tournament for which he was largely responsible, and he wanted to make sure this was not the kind of person who would try to interfere in order to make big bucks. Ryan and Aaron told him the address and how to get there.
"I have a pretty tight schedule today, and this kind of thing is better done sooner," Matt said. "It was nice seeing all of you, though. I can't wait to find out who wins."
"It was nice meeting you," Aaron said as Matt left.
Cary had a different thought: "Good riddance. Now let's duel."
By random selection, Aaron got the first turn. He was aware that in a regular duel, the first player to draw cannot attack during his turn; in tag dueling, no one can attack until every player has had a chance to draw. That meant Aaron didn't have to worry about too much on this turn.
"I'll summon Morphtronic Celfon (1/100/100)," he announced excitedly. His attempt was to sound as confident as all the people he'd seen duel on TV, but he really just sounded like he was half his age. His monster was a yellow robot that looked a lot like a Transformer capable of becoming a really big cellular phone.
"When he's in attack mode, I can activate his effect and roll a die." The Duel Disk projectors provided the die for him. It bounced into the air and landed on the field revealing two dots. "That means I can look at my top two cards." He picked up the top two cards from his deck and looked at them. "Sweet! One of my cards is a Morphtronic monster, so I get to summon it and shuffle the other card back into the deck." He played Morphtronic Boarden (3/500/1800), a blue monster that looked like a Tranformer capable of becoming a rocket-powered skateboard, but he summoned it in defense mode. "I'll also put three cards facedown, and that's all for now."
Alister didn't say anything as he drew, but he could tell how little experience Aaron had from that move. Instead, he calmly drew his card and took a more patient approach to the duel. "I'll set a monster in defense mode."
Ryan also looked excited. "I'll play Morphtronic Scopen (3/800/1400)." This one was a black, microscope Transformer. "When he's in attack mode, I get to summon another Morphtronic monster that's level four. I pick Morphtronic Boomboxen (4/1200/400)." This one was a red, stereo-like Transformer. "I'm also going to tune Boomboxen (4) and Scopen (3) together to summon Power Tool Dragon (7/2300/2500)." Both of his monsters morphed into their appliance forms, with the radio set on the stage of the microscope. After a lot of vibrating and shining lights, the monsters combined into a large, mechanical dragon with cables for a body, golden armor around its chest, wings, and legs, and with hands made of a clamp and a screwdriver.
"Now," Ryan said, "Power Tool Dragon lets me pick three equip cards from my deck and have you pick one at random." He took a little longer to find the cards he wanted than he would if he recognized his cards as easily as regular duelists do. "Here we go." He held out his cards so Alister, Jessica, and Cary could all see them. They were all copies of Double Tool C&D. "You pick one of them for me to put in my hand, and the others get shuffled back into my deck."
"We all know where this is going," Cary objected. "Go ahead and keep a copy."
"Okay," Ryan said with a chuckle as he shuffled his deck and loaded it back into his Duel Disk. "I'll equip Power Tool Dragon with Double Tool C&D, and then I'll set one card." The card changed the equipment on Power Tool Dragon's arms; the clamp was replaced with a circular saw and the screwdriver was replaced with a drill.
"That makes it my turn," Jess noted. She winked at Alister. "May I?"
"By all means," he replied, motioning toward his field. He knew the second he saw Aaron's first card that Jessica was going to take the lead in this tag duel, and he didn't mind.
Jessica said, "I'll send Alister's monster to the Graveyard to summon Machine King (6/+2600/2000)." The machine Jessica summoned was taller than she was; with its lanky appearance, it looked a lot like a giant action figure, if it were made with real machinery. As a bonus, Machine King gained 100 points for every machine face-up on the field, including all the Morphtronic monsters Ryan and Aaron were playing.
"Uh, oh," Aaron said to his brother with a laugh. "Her monster is stronger than yours."
"Don't worry," Jessica replied. "I'll just set two cards and end my turn."
Aaron looked surprised. "I thought you'd attack. I would have." Jessica just patiently smiled. She knew the effect of Double Tool C&D would require that she attack Power Tool Dragon, and it would destroy her Machine King; on top of that, Power Tool Dragon's effect would prevent its destruction during that attack. Aaron decided to summon Morphtronic Radion (4/+1800/900), a yellow radio-based Transformer whose effect increased the attack of all Morphtronic monsters on the field by 800 points.
"I'll also use Celfon's effect again." The holographic die rolled once more, this time revealing five dots. He picked up five cards from his deck and selected a monster from among them. "I get to Special Summon my Morphtronic Magnen (3/+1600/800)." If a U-shaped magnet opened up on one side into arms and legs, that would be Magnen. "Now I'm going to switch Boarden (+1300) to attack mode." Each Morphtronic monster comes with two effects, depending whether it is in attack or defense mode. In defense mode, Boarden prevents the destruction of Morphtronic monsters, but in attack mode, it grants direct attack ability.
Jessica pressed her Duel Disk. "I'll activate Staunch Defender." Her Trap rose, and her Machine King grew until it covered her field, blocking her body entirely. "During this turn, all your monsters have to attack Machine King (+2800)."
Aaron double-checked his Traps and signaled that he had a question for Cary. "Can I use Morphtronic Forcefield?" She told him he could not; the effect negated any Spell or Trap that would destroy a Morphtronic monster. "But her Trap will destroy my monsters."
"It's not the Trap that destroys them," Cary clarified. "It's attacking a bigger monster."
And so Aaron had to watch his own monsters attack the Machine King instead of declaring direct attacks. Zane and Jessica 8000: Ryan and Aaron 8000 – 1200 – 1400 – 1700 – 700 = 3000.
"That sucked," Ryan commented. "I thought you had some Traps set up."
"I did," Aaron said, "but that's only when they attack. I forgot to prepare for my own attacks."
A common mistake among the less experienced, Alister thought to himself. And Matt.
Upon beginning his turn, Alister looked to Jessica. "You know how you owe me one now?"
She just smiled. "Go right ahead."
"Thanks." He looked back to the field. "I'll start by playing Twin Swords of Flashing Light – Tryce." Two swords, each with golden, M-shaped guards and a soft, green glow encompassing the metal appeared in Power Tool Dragon's (-1800) reach. "I need that card to be on the field before I can summon Guardian Tryce (5/1900/1700), but first I need to Tribute Machine King." The Machine King disappeared, and in its place appeared a man wearing light clothes colored blue and gold.
"You got rid of the big Machine for that?" Ryan asked.
"It looks that way," Alister replied. "I'm also going to give something else to your monster: the Shooting Star Bow – Ceal." A shining, ornate bow appeared in the reach of Power Tool Dragon (-800). "Equipping this card lets your monster attack directly, but it also decreases attack power by 1000 points. Now Tryce (1900) is stronger than your machine dragon." Alister's warrior dashed forward and planted his fists into the chest of the Power Tool Dragon; the saw and drill equipped to the Power Tool Dragon cut Tryce before he could retreat, however, and destroyed him.
"That was dumb," Ryan said with a smile, trying not to sound as condescending as he did. "Double Tool C&D destroys any monster that attacks Power Tool Dragon, and Power Tool Dragon's effect lets me send your Shooting Star Bow to the Graveyard to keep my dragon alive."
Alister nodded. "I did plan that out. But the destruction of Tryce also lets me summon the monster that was used to summon him in the first place: Machine King (+2400)." Jessica's Graveyard opened and the Machine King climbed out, but it moved to Alister's side of the field. "And it's still my Battle Phase, so I'll declare another attack on Power Tool Dragon (+1800)."
"He's still got Double Tool C&D," Aaron commented.
Ryan agreed. "Yeah. You'll just destroy your monster again."
"No, he won't," Jessica argued. "My facedown card is Collected Power. It takes all the Equip Spells on the field and gives them to Machine King (-1900)." The Twin Swords appeared in Machine King's hands, decreasing his power by 500 points.
As Aaron started to do the math for him, Alister said, "Don't worry about our Machine King. I've got Rush Recklessly ready to play. It will give him the extra 700 points he needs." Machine King (+2600) lunged at Power Tool Dragon (+2300) and sliced directly through with one of the swords of flashing light. "And don't forget, the Twin Swords let us attack twice." Machine King lunged again and struck Ryan directly. Alister and Jessica 8000: Ryan and Aaron 3000 – 1100 – 300 – 2500 = 0.
"Aw, man," Aaron moaned, but with excitement in his voice. "That was a lot faster than I expected it to be."
"Yeah, I thought we'd put up a little bit of a fight," Ryan agreed.
"You did," Jessica assured them. She made sure they knew that she and Alister worked together for a long time and just happened to work really well together. Aaron and Ryan would probably have put up a great fight against another pair of students.
"I guess we get to work early today," Ryan suggested. He and his brother shook hands with their opponents and with Cary, then headed through the parking lot into the Wal-Mart.
Cary said, "That was pretty quick."
Jessica grinned and looked at Alister. "Well, we did get invited to Duel Academy after winning an international tag team tournament. That one hosted by the Princeton Group?"
"The Princeton Tag Team Paradox," Alister remembered. "We were called 'The Best Tag Team Duo since the Paradox Brothers.' The recruiter from Kaiba Corp. didn't look at all happy that the Princeton group was giving out a title like that."
"I remember," Jessica laughed. "He basically assured us admission here, and then Dr. Lankford got all pissy and acted like we were given preferential treatment." In reality, they were given preferential treatment, but totally deserved and in the image-protection kind of way; after the Princeton Group made it known they crowned the youth tag champions, Kaiba Corp. snatched them up in order to make sure they were always associated with the top name in dueling.
Cary confessed, "I don't know what the bookie's odds are, but I'd put my money on you two hands-down."
Matt didn't have a lot of trouble finding the motorcycle shop. It was connected to an auto-mechanic's place by a shared garage. He peeked inside the bike shop, but when he saw no one inside, he decided to take a look inside the garage. The door was wide open, and that usually meant "Come on in," right?
The first thing he saw was the place was mostly empty. It wasn't a huge garage, which explained the maze of cars parked outside, but only one car was up on the lift, and no one was working on it. Matt figured seven-thirty in the morning was earlier than the place really opened. In the other half of the garage, Matt saw a young woman working on a motorcycle like none he'd ever seen. Its basic frame resembled a motorcycle, but it had a lot of extra equipment attached to it. The first thing he noticed was that there was a Duel Disk attached to the handlebars right near the throttle. As he stepped closer, Matt noticed there were actually cables and wires connecting the Duel Disk to the motorcycle's engine battery.
The young woman noticed Matt's approach. She was fairly attractive, though a bit too abrasive-looking for Matt's taste. She had four piercings in her left ears and three more in her right, a stud in her nose, and a visible tattoo of a skull with wings starting on her neck and going beneath the black leather jacket she wore. Her red hair was obviously colored, not even to her shoulder in length and pulled back just in the middle of her head in order to keep her bangs out of her eyes. She was about five-foot-ten and looked like she might weigh 140 pounds—perhaps less without all the piercings, the heavy leather, and the big boots.
"Hey. Sorry, but we're not open until nine." She had a rather soothing voice for someone who looked so brash.
Matt decided not to reveal his true intent until he got a feel for this woman. He quickly put on a somewhat dopey, vapid expression. "I'm Moose Eaglesham," he said in a sturdier, slightly deeper and much slower, voice than his regular voice. "I was just checking things out and wondered what you were doing with that bike." He tried to look like he was interested, but also like he was just "there" and couldn't really care less what anyone else was doing.
"We're working on the next generation of dueling," she said.
Matt repeated, "We?"
Now he saw that someone else was underneath the bike, approaching from the side opposite where Matt stood. This person wore a T-shirt—plain white except for the Rorschach oil stains—with the sleeves torn off and a pair of blue jeans. He had an odd grin on his face, too; it was that combination of mischief and disappointment.
"Bryan?"
He wiped the grease from his hands as he sat up. Indeed, this was apparently the location to which Bryan disappeared when he wandered off of campus.
Matt asked him, "Where did you get the money to tinker with a motorcycle? Don't tell me you've been pulling from your savings account."
"This is what savings are for: investing in a revolutionary product. Imagine the returns when I sell this bad boy to Kaiba Corp. I mean, Moose, was it?" Matt just made a face. "Wouldn't you love to duel on one of these monsters?"
"You are aware that using even a hands-free cell phone while driving makes an accident four times as likely?" Matt asked, reciting some of the research he read in his critical thinking class. "And the Mythbusters said texting while driving is just as bad as driving drunk." Now, his voice got softer as the intensity of his words grew. "What do you think dueling while driving will do to the rate of accidents?"
Bryan shrugged. "I don't know. It's not like people are going to do this in the streets; it will be in an actual arena. Like NASCAR, except people won't just be driving in a circle… They'll be driving in a circle while dueling."
"Which will make accidents happen a lot more often," Matt stressed.
"Which is great because that's all people really want when they watch NASCAR, anyway."
Matt stopped talking for a minute so he could take a deep breath and gather his thoughts into a more coherent statement that didn't involve motorcycle accidents. "What happened to that big bag of spare cards we kept in your room?"
"I gave 'em away," he replied simply. Before Matt could react, he added, "We weren't using them. They were doing no one any good just sitting under my bed."
"I was in the middle of rebuilding my deck."
"Again? Geez. Pick a theme and stick with it. I thought you stuck with that massive one-turn-kill deck you used against Dave—the one with, like, eight different strategies."
Matt reminded him, "I took it apart because it doesn't work against aggressive decks, remember? It only worked against Dave a few times because his deck is passive. You beat it in one try."
"I don't remember that. Oh, well." He walked to a nearby bench and grabbed a clipboard. "Any chance you want to put some money down on the 3T? You can bet on individual duels or you can bet on how far someone will make it through the tournament. Obviously, the higher the risk, the greater the returns. Overall, Alister Kazama and Jessica Parks are favored to win the whole thing. Did you know they got invited to Duel Academy on a tag duel?"
Matt didn't know, nor did he care at this point. "When are you coming back?"
Bryan just shrugged. "Who knows? I don't really see a point right now."
Then Matt delivered the real arrow. "Did you really break up with Lucy just because a freshman likes her?"
Bryan hesitated before answering. At first he looked distinctly upset, but his expression turned to a smug, forced grin. "You're welcome to try again with her. Maybe you'll be able to keep her attention this time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do. I hear dueling while driving is dangerous, and I need to make some adjustments." He lay back on the board and slid underneath the motorcycle again.
Matt hadn't seen Bryan quote like this before. He was a stubborn guy, but never like this. All Matt could do for the moment was hope Bryan didn't kill himself on that motorcycle.
You'll either enjoy the introduction of the thought process that leads to the development of Duel Runners, or you will hate it and think I should just stay away from all things 5D's. It won't play a big role in this story, though. I imagine it took years for Kaiba Corp to develop anything that wouldn't crash as soon as you try to play a card. And those statistics I used regarding using a phone while driving? They are real; don't doubt science (see McEvoy et al., 2005).
So it turns out writing a tournament within a few chapters is harder than I thought it would be. I want to have a lot of people participate, and so I may have a chapter or two in which nothing happens except a duel. I wanted to avoid that, but I also want to avoid making chapters annoyingly long. The last chapter is a good example of my not realizing how long it would take to get through a conversation among students. Apparently I do that a lot as the characters develop full personalities.
The next chapter will include minor developments in Lucy and Kasumi, and I'm going to introduce one reader-submitted character I haven't used yet. That means two duels, so please bear with me and expect a long chapter next time. I will try to update in two weeks; I only have two chapters remaining in my other current story, and I want to finish it off.
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