"Fancy meeting you here," Jordyn's voice returned, almost snappily, "I'm here on my own because I've had a bad day and I need it."
"Um, sorry to hear that," Zak began to reply, "Oh, this is Angel…"
"Nice to meet you. Aww, you look lovely."
"Thank you," Angel replied, sensing the awkwardness, "You look nice too."
"So, are you two going to the Second World Duel Carnival? I know you're a duelist, Zak. Do you duel, um, Angel?"
"Mhm, I do. Zak and I have been thinking about it but we're not sure yet. Kind of just want to enjoy tonight first."
"So this is a date," Jordyn said, ignoring the subtleness, "There's going to be a lot of strong duelists there so it probably won't matter if you go or not. I'm going though. And I'm going to go order now. Bye Zak. Nice meeting you, Angel."
With that the proud yet short girl turned heel and left the duo's table in silence. Not even Zero seemed to have something to remark about who they'd just met. Eventually Angel broke the silence.
"You told me about her once, I think," She said almost sympathetically, "I can see why you broke up with her."
"Yeah, well, she always had to be right," Zak replied, "Anyway, let's not worry about her. Since when were we going to enter the second WDC?"
"Since you finally chose a deck. It'll be a great test, sweetie! It's in like two weeks so you've got time to practice more too."
"We're really entering just because I chose a deck?"
"Okay… I want to beat her too. I don't like her."
"You literally just met her."
"Yeah so? I don't like her. You can't complain anyway. Does she even know that we saved the world from Number Zero?"
"I don't understand girls even though I've been dating you for so long. Oh and please don't tell her. If that happens we'll both receive a speech on how she 'wasn't possessed by the Barian Numbers because she's so strong willed.' I've had quite enough of those speeches."
Angel started quietly laughing at Zak's last comment before he soon joined in. Their food soon arrived and they stuck right in. You'd get really hungry too if you duelled your significant other five times over at dusk. Before long Angel piped up once more.
"Oh!" She started in between mouthfuls, "Was Zero a problem at all today when we duelled?"
Zak hadn't even thought about his soul's "roommate" since finally beating Angel. He knew not to lie to Angel about Zero of course. Though that rather extended to knowing not to lie to Angel about anything. The duo could read each other like a book.
"Usual off the cuff remarks and insults to my skill as a duelist," Zak answered calmly, "Nothing new."
As if it'd been summoned by its name itself – Zero's voice once again sounded in Zak's mind.
"Who was that girl?" It sounded. Zak frowned. Zero wasn't one to take interest in others.
"He… literally just asked who Jordyn was," Zak's frown continued to Angel.
"Wait, what? Why?" Angel asked in some confusion.
"There is something wrong with her." Zero's voice warned.
Zak's mental voice replied to the dark Number, "Yeah I know, I dated her for like 2 months."
However Zero stayed silent. Zak was nothing short of curious at this action. Zero didn't care about others. It didn't care about Zak when it possessed him and nor did it care about Angel when it attacked her while possessing Zak. So why would it suddenly comment on a complete stranger? Zak informed Angel of what Zero had told him.
"That's weird, I think. Why should it care?" Angel asked, but Zak just shrugged, "Hey you remember the, what was it… Third time?"
Zak raised an eyebrow. To think they were going to reminisce about the times he'd been possessed on their anniversary. Oddly, though, he couldn't complain. Call it a dark desire for thrill; but Zak somewhat enjoyed the stories of him being possessed despite downright hating being possessed altogether.
"Well, no, I personally don't remember… But you said you had to call Kite or Yuma in, right?" Zak responded.
"Kite. I could tell he was rather anxious to face you again, Zakky, especially after everything," Angel admitted, "Though you, er, Zero, using Evilswarm Ophion to lock out his Galaxy-Eyes made things interesting."
"Oh, that was Evilswarm! I thought it was Machina Gadgets that time. Wait, how'd he win then?"
"Hmm, what'd he do…? Oh yeah! You know Photon Satellite? That Level 1 that merges levels? Used it on Photon Thrasher or Crusher, I forget. A level 4 though. Made a Rank 5, which I'm sure was Tiras, and just beat over Ophion from there."
"Sounds about right. Thinking outside the box always was his thing."
Then Zak grinned, "And you had to call him because Zero beat you, right?"
"Oh ha ha! How was I supposed to summon Ancient Sacred Wyvern or Master Hyperion when it's too busy shielding that damn Ophion with like 5 set cards? Pretty glad you dropped that deck to be quite honest, sweetie."
"Agreed. Can't say it suited me more than it suited our 'dear' friend."
The night soon carried on from conversations about the other decks Zak had trialled both before and after his adventures with Angel to decks she'd played and cards she wanted to play. Eventually the duo finally decided on entering the Second World Duel Carnival in two weeks. Of course practice was most certainly going to be taken into account - as well as a few deck ideas Zak had thought of since his victory. He liked the deck but he wanted more. He wanted speed and aggression and he'd figured out the perfect techs to add to the deck in order for it to work.
They slept in that morning, a deep peaceful sleep at that. But that peace was all but gone when they awoke. Know why it disappeared as fast as it did? Excitement! Excitement that screamed for deck building, fantastic practice and new ideas and strategies all to be crammed into the 2 weeks before the Second World Duel Carnival. Zak's new strategy was all about abusing the key cards in the Bujin Archetype to ensure a faster and more aggressive victory. Angel too had her fair share of things to test to build up her Agent deck. More ways to deal with what they expected to face and extra consistency to keep the deck running.
"Terraforming!" Zak exclaimed loudly over breakfast, "Do we have those? May need 3. Definitely 2."
"We have a few from that structure deck tournament you won a couple months ago I think," Angel replied, "I borrowed them for my deck a while back but will probably drop them in favour of that new Tuner Agent, um, Uranus."
"Not a problem. What about Summoner Monk? Speeds up Xyz and Yamato. We have Uranus too, don't we?"
"Pretty sure we do, sweetie. We have Monks somewhere too," Angel gestured to their large table in the living room, covered in binders and small boxes filled with the various cards they'd collected in their travels and adventures, "Anything else?"
"Yeah one last thing," Zak winked, "Doing anything after breakfast?"
"Oh I was going to lie about on the couch and watch TV for a few hours…" Angel responded sarcastically.
"Can't miss your soap operas, can you?" Zak joined in, "Well it's either that or you lose to me again."
"Oh where's this confidence coming from, Zakky?" Angel asked, clearly interested in the challenge, "Pretty sure your win loss ratio to me is basically negative."
"New idea for the deck. You're going to love it as much as I reckon I'm going to love it!"
"And what might that be?"
"It might definitely be a surprise. Give me a bit to rebuild the deck."
"Whoa whoa whoa, who said I agreed to this?"
Zak strolled up to Angel and pulled her close to him, gazing deeply into her eyes as he leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. The softness of her lips was something he would never ever forget. Angel, in turn, melted into the kiss and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. After a few long moments Zak pulled away and tried his best to pull the puppy-dog eyes look.
"Are you really going to deny such a challenge from your wonderful boyfriend?" He asked in what could only be described as a puppy-dog-eyes-kind-of-voice.
Angel rolled her eyes and grinned, "I'm only accepting because I need to restore my win streak against you."
It took Zak and Angel about an hour to properly reconstruct their decks fit for their next test against each other. Zak was pumped to abuse his new surprise weapon now ready within his deck. Though, of course, there was no input from Zero. Despite the dark Number's tendency to ridicule Zak's skill and decks – it never did anything to help fix them… aside from take over.
"Ready to get wrecked by my new Tuner and Synchros, sweetie?" Angel asked coyly as the duo walked to their positions at each end of the duel field.
"Let's see if you even get the chance to bring them out," Zak responded calmly.
[Angel: 4000]
[Zak: 4000]