The True Slifer Red 3
Chapter 3
-Jaden-
Giving a final wave to Yugi and Solomon, Jaden shouldered his bag and strode into the helicopter. He felt better than he had in years thanks to finally being allowed to have a full meal and a good shower. Not to mention the new deck that was safely secured in his deck box. The old Hero Cards were nice and preserved in a glass case to keep them safe.
As soon as he entered the seating area of the large helicopter he was assigned to, all talking ceased. The multitude of other first years turning to stare at him; some were looking in awe, some in jealousy, and others sizing him up. He was sure every one of them was due to Slifer. Noting a single empty seat left, Jaden ignored the relentless stares as he took the seat next to the person who'd dueled before him in the exams and apparently gotten the highest written score.
"Why hello there." The British sounding duelist gave him a friendly grin, his expression more curious than aggressive or 'hungry' like the others thankfully, "Pleasure to meet you. I must say that was quite a duel yesterday, I rather expected to have had the most 'dramatic finish' but you took everyone quite by surprise. I'm Bastion, by the way, Bastion Misawa."
"Jaden," he nodded, shaking the offered hand "Jaden Yuki."
"So, Jaden, mind if I ask a couple questions?" Bastion asked, eyes brimming with curiosity.
"Depends on the questions." Jaden shrugged noncommittally, "But I'll listen to em at least."
"Fair enough I suppose," Bastian admitted, "I was wondering where you got Slifer?"
At that question everyone, even the pilots who were taking them into the air, seemed to hang onto his words with bated breath "From Yugi Motto, where else," Jaden gave a shrug as he answered, not really seeing any reason to hide it, "he's my sponsor at Duel Academy."
"Sponsor?" Bastion asked perplexed as several other students around them blinked in equal confusion.
"It's a new system being implemented this year," he explained "Kaiba is allowing pro duelists to select a student at the academy if they want to who they'll sponsor. The aide each sponsor gives their chosen student varies and will depend on the sponsor themselves, but I do know we're supposed to be getting a special dorm."
"Then why have none of us been sponsored by anyone?" Bastian asked with a frown, gesturing to the rest of the first years in the helicopter who all had clearly never heard of the system before.
"It was only fleshed out yesterday," Jaden answered with a small laugh as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly "I'm the first one to be selected and it was designed as Yugi wanted to sponsor me, so he and Kaiba designed the system to give others a shot."
"Well, I look forward to dueling with you." Bastian said with a grin that was, almost, savage "It will certainly be interesting to see."
"That it will." He agreed before they drifted into a calm silence as the people around them wondered who else would be picked to be sponsored, and by whom. Finally, after a way too long helicopter ride, they landed at the island as he jumped out of the helicopter and stretched out his stiff muscles.
"Man, it feels good to be out of there!" Jaden groaned as he heard several others agreeing with him. "Come on guys," he said, gesturing to Bastian and the Blue haired kid, Syrus, that he had met at the entrance exams "I think I see registration over there."
Walking over they signed the rest of their paperwork and received their Duel PDA's as well as Duel Blazers with Bastian getting a yellow one, Syrus getting a red one, and he got one that, to his surprise, was red but had a black tribal Slifer design on the back and sleeves. "What's with the different blazer?" he asked as he put on the jacket, hearing a faint roar of approval from the spirit of Slifer in his deck.
"Mr. Kaiba thought it would be amusing," the man handing out the blazers explained, the dead stare the man had showing he was well used to the eccentricities of the rich CEO "technically your status is equal, or arguably even above, the Obelisk Blue students as your official rank is 'True Slifer Red'. It's a system Kaiba is planning out for you or any other students who use deity class cards successfully."
"Sweet," Jaden grinned widely before it became a confused frown "hey, I remember Kaiba saying something about an old dorm being renovated for myself and the other sponsored students. Could you tell me where that is?"
"Your PDA has a GPS," the man answered "and it was pre-programed with your dorm location. Simply pull it up and tell it to take you to your dorm."
"Thanks." He said with a grin as he waved goodbye before heading back over to Bastian and Syrus. "Come on guys," he said "let's go check out the campus." As they moved around the campus, checking out the different facilities, he had quickly written out an application to work at the card shop, before they got to an Arena.
"Impressive," Bastion said with a grin as they looked around "it will be quite the event to duel in here."
"You guys want to find out?" he asked with a grin as he reached for his deck, eager to test it out now that he had an Academy issued Duel Disk that wasn't on the verge of death like his old one.
"Are you sure we're allowed?" Syrus asked nervously, the little bluenette as skittish as a rabbit.
"Sure we are," Jayden brushed off the concerns "we're all students here and this is our Campus."
"Wrong!" a rather nasally voice interrupted them "This is the Obelisk Blue Campus.".
"Yeah," a deeper but rather dim sounding voice added as they glanced over at two obelisks walking towards them "you Slifer Slackers and Ra Rejects aren't welcome here."
Hearing that he simply laughed at their sheer stupidity while Syrus and Bastion chuckled, "What's so funny?!" the nasally guy demanded angrily.
"Do you not see his jacket?" Bastian asked while gesturing to his tribalized jacket "He's been named the 'True Slifer Red', a student who's status is equal or greater than an obelisk blue. He was given that rank as he is the duelist who wields Slifer in his deck."
"It's you!" the two obelisks said, backing up in shock before a new voice spoke up.
"Well, isn't this interesting." The new voice said as he looked up to see another blue jacketed student but one with a far more calculating expression "The wannabee duelist who somehow got Slifer."
"I could out duel you any day of the week," Jaden gave the ravenette a cold look even as his gut said something was off about the guy "any guy who has two hangers on like you do clearly has doubts about his own strength."
"You're one to talk!" Nasally guy said angrily "Isn't that right Chaz?"
"Okay, two things." Jaden smirked, "One, you just proved my point about you two. Two, these guys are my friends, not my 'posse'."
The two idiots were about to, attempt, a retort when Chaz held up a hand for silence, "You say that you can out duel me any day of the week?" Chaz asked with a raised eyebrow "Then prove it. Tonight, we'll meet here and duel, each of us putting up our rarest card as an ante."
"So, you're after Slifer." he said with a small scowl. Before he could refuse the duel, however, he heard the spirit of the mighty Sky Dragon whisper to him, telling him to accept the match. "Fine," he said with a glare "just be prepared to fork over the ante when I thrash you."
"Whatever." Chaz snorted "Let's go guys."
Shaking his head at the trio of fools leaving he turned back to his friends "Come on guys, the welcome dinners are gonna start soon."
"Well, I guess I'll see you two at the duel tonight," Bastian said with a wave "this is something I don't plan on missing."
"Alright, later Bastian." He said with a wave before turning to his nervous friend "Come on Sy, let's go. Given I'm the only one at my Dorm right now I was told I could go to whatever welcome dinner I wanted. I think you'd be better company than the three stooges." The barb was said with a grin as he hoped to ease Syrus out of his nervous shell.
Later that night, after a rather delicious meal cooked by Doctor Banner, he found himself in the arena with Bastian and Syrus, "Alright Chaz," he said as he saw his opponent waiting for them with tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber "you ready to fork over your rarest card?"
"More like I'm ready to take Slifer," Chaz said with a snort as they got into their positions and activated their duel disks "I'll go first." Chaz drew as he spoke, the draw clearly being good given the smirk on Chazz's face as the black-haired duelist called out "I'll start off by summoning Reborn Zombie (Defense: 1600) in defense mode and then setting two face downs. Your move."
"I guess that's one way to start a duel," Jaden readied his disk "but I think I'll do something a little different." He had a feeling that the face down, or more accurately the entire deck that Chazz was running, would be designed to take down HERO cards. Nobody would seek out an Ante duel like that without a plan.
"I start off with a little special summoning." Jaden noticed Chazz's fingers twitch, as if readying to activate his face down "Since you have a monster and I don't, I can special summon Vice Dragon from my hand, but his stats are cut in half (Attack: 2000, Defense: 2400. New Attack: 1000, New Defense: 1200).
"What the?!" Chaz yelled, reeling back in shock "That's not a HERO card!"
"Really, I couldn't tell." Jaden gave a smirk as he readied his second card "Now, I activate the spell card Stamping Destruction. If I control a dragon Monster, it lets me target one spell or trap on the field and destroy it, dealing five hundred points of damage to its controller. And would you look at that, you have two, and I'm taking out the one on the right!" Playing the card, a massive clawed foot came from the sky, slamming down onto Chazz's face down as it got blown away and shattered, Jaden noting it was 'Chthonian Polymer' before the hologram faded.
"Lucky break." Chazz grit his teeth but Jaden got a bad feeling in his gut that there was more behind this than he knew.
"It's not luck if this is how the deck was designed to run." Jaden shook his head, "But I'm not done. I normal summon my Hunter Dragon (Attack: 1700, Defense: 100) in attack mode. Now, Hunter Dragon, take out that reborn Zombie!" With a fierce cry, his monster charged the zombie, smashing through it and leaving Chazz wide open for a direct attack from Vice Dragon.
Growling Chaz drew before smirking, "I'll play dark hole!" Chaz called out as he snarled when his two dragons were destroyed "Now I'll activate the trap card you failed to destroy, Call of the Haunted! It'll let me resurrect a monster from my grave. I'll bring back Reborn Zombie, but he won't stick around for long as I sacrifice him to summon Mefist the Infernal General!" (Attack: 1800, Defense 1700)
"Jaden no!" Syrus panicked as the opposing general charged at Chazz's order, swinging his axe at Jaden directly.
"Jaden yes!" Chazz grinned wildly, "And Mefist has his own special ability. If he attacks you directly, then you have to discard one random card from your hand." Frowning, Jaden saw a second Hunter Dragon get taken to the graveyard, "I'll wrap up with using Poison of the Old Man to give myself back twelve hundred life points." Meaning Chazz was back to thirty-seven hundred while Jaden was down to twenty-two hundred.
"Then it's my move." Jaden drew and grinned, "I should be thanking you and Mefist there Chazz. Thanks to your last turn I now have exactly three dark monsters in my graveyard. Meaning I can special summon my Dark Armed Dragon! (Attack: 2800, Defense: 1000) But that's not all, much like Mefist, he has a special ability. I remove a dark monster in my graveyard from play and I can destroy any one card on the field. And I choose your Mefist!"
"Yes, Jaden's back in the game." Bastion grinned as the tables turned and now Chazz was the one with an empty field facing down a big monster, leaving the Obelisk Blue's life points at nine hundred once Jaden's attack finished.
"I'm…not…done." Chazz snarled, "I play pot of greed!" Chazz drew his cards before grinning wildly "And now I have what I need to win. I start off with Monster Reborn to bring back Mefist. Although, like Reborn Zombie before him, he's a sacrifice. I summon the mighty Chthonian Emperor Dragon! (Attack: 2400, Defense: 1500) Now, I use double summon to 'summon it again' and engage its effect."
"Um…what?" Syrus blinked in confusion.
"A Gemini Monster." A new voice explained as Jaden saw a blonde girl enter, her uniform showing she was an Obelisk, "They require you to 'summon them again' while they're face up on the field to have their effects work. Otherwise, they're treated as normal monsters."
"That's right Alexis." Chazz grinned at the girl who seemed interested in how the duel would go "And my Emperor Dragon can attack twice during each battle phase." Chazz grinned.
"But Jaden's monster is still stronger." Syrus protested, "So it doesn't matter!"
"Now, I equip Megamorph to my Dragon." Chazz continued unphased, "Since my life points are lower, my dragon's attack points are doubled to forty-eight hundred!"
"Oh no!" Syrus panicked.
Before Chazz could declare an attack, footsteps were heard outside the arena "Crap, I got distracted. Guys, we need to go!" the girl Chazz had called Alexis hissed "That's Campus Security and if they catch you all here, you're going to get seriously busted."
"But why?!" Syrus panicked "We're all students here!"
"The rules say no off hours arena dueling." Alexis pulled out said rule book and gave Chazz a dark look "Chazz knows that, but let me guess. He neglected to tell you."
"Whatever." Chazz grumbled red face, "You get lucky this time slacker. Your luck won't last forever." Seeing Chazz and his flunkies head out one door, Jaden scowled but let Alexis and Bastion drag him and Syrus another way out. Campus security thankfully never seeing them.
"Man, that was too close!" Syrus wailed once they were safely outside and out of earshot, "You almost lost Slifer!"
"No, I didn't." Jaden shook his head calmly.
"Wait, that was an ante duel?!" Alexis' eyes widened "Those are illegal on island!"
"Wait, seriously?" Jaden blinked in confusion "But…I thought Kaiba opened this place? Didn't he host the biggest Ante tournament in history?"
"Um…Jaden, what do you mean that you didn't almost lose?" Bastion redirected the conversation, "It looked like you were indeed about to be taken out. Your monster was weaker, and you didn't have any face downs."
"Didn't need em." Jaden smirked as he showed the card that had still been in his hand, "Not thanks to this."
"Dark Honest." Alexis read its description, "During the Damage Step, when a dark monster battles an opponent's monster: You can send this card from your hand to the Graveyard; that opponent's monster loses Attack Equal to its own Attack until the end of this turn."
"Meaning Chazz would have lost that round." Syrus' eyes widened.
"And with my turn next he'd have been toast." Jaden finished, "I look forward to getting to finish my duel with him some other time. I have a lot of other powerful dragons itching for a good fight." The roars from his deck confirmed it.
