(3 years later)
"I attack Maiden with Eyes of Blue with Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon." A boy with jet black hair said. It was my brother, Ethan.
"Maiden's effect activates." I said as I placed down a Blue-Eyes from my deck onto the mat.
"Odd-Eyes Wing Dragon's effect activates. Blue Eyes is destroyed." Ethan said.
"Oh, forgot about that monster." I said.
Ethan just chuckled. "And that's why I'm better. Starving Venom attacks Maiden and Odd-Eyes Wing Dragon attacks you directly."
"Ah!" I said out before falling on my back.
Ethan and I shared a giggle. "You know we're not in an anime right?" He teased me.
"It makes things more dramatic and interesting!" I protested.
"It makes you seem like a dork." He commented, snickering.
"Takes one to know one, loser."
"Well, I think that that says it all."
Then, there was a knock on the door.
"I'll get it." Ethan said. "Loser cleans up! You know what that feels like, huh." He told me before laughing.
As Ethan opened the door, two policemen were there.
"Is Melissa Specter your mother?" The police asked him.
"Yeah, why?" He asked. I walked over to Ethan, only to see tears on his face.
"What happened?" I asked, concerned.
"Your parents were in a car accident. I'm afraid she didn't make it." The police officer said.
The whole world spun in my head, and a high-pitched ringing came into my ears. "N-no…" I said shakily. "Y-you're lying, r-right?"
The police officer looked broken as he bent down to talk to us more personally. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this." He said. "A person driving under the influence lost control of his car and hit them."
I turned my head over to look at my brother. Tears were streaming down his face, and his eyes were swollen.
"CPS and social workers will come to guide you in the upcoming days." The police officer got back up and started walking back to their car.
"T-this is a dream, right?" I asked my brother. His head tilted and kept staring at me with his teary and depressed face.
'Dream.' I thought. 'I don't remember walking here.'
I jolted up from the couch in a cold sweat. The face of my brother etched into my mind. I immediately looked around the room out of instinct. The small studio apartment contrasted the spacious house from my previous life.
"Just a nightmare." I said softly, trying to reassure myself. For the past two years, that face, along with Zarc, had been permanently engraved in my face. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't forget it.
I looked up at the clock. It read 8:43 A.M. I stopped attending, only going for tests, midterms, and finals. I already knew most of the material that they taught. Zarc, however, kept going to school.
'Shit!' I thought to myself. 'Why'd I have to wake up late?'
I got up and ran into the bathroom. I started the sink and splashed the water on my face, wiping it all around before drying it off. I fiddled with my hair to keep the sides going down instead of poking out.
When I finished, I rushed over to my computer, turned it on, and entered a video conference with one of my students.
"Hey Zack!" Devon said. "Woah, are you okay?"
"I just woke up." I said groggily.
"Oh," He said, pausing. "Moving on, guess what I got?"
"A girlfriend?"
"Ye-Wait, what?" He asked, flabbergasted. "No, I got Rescue Rabbit! I can try out Evilswarm!" He brought the cards up and gave a gleeful was a good addition for his Evilswarm deck, but it was extremely hard to find.
"Where did you get it from?" I asked, curiously. When I was looking online for him, the only ones I found were expensive.
"I asked my parents for it, and well, let's just say they have their ways."
"Interesting." I commented. "Anyways, you can take out Golden Sarcophagus and put in Rescue Rabbit."
He nodded his head and began doing what I suggested to him. "Alright, I did it."
"Good, now let's begin a practice rounds." I told him. I began tapping on the screen and pressed the virtual dueling program. My duel disk activated and I inserted my deck.
DUEL
Zack: 4000
Devon: 4000
"Alright, I'll start things off simple." I said. Devon nodded. "I summon Time Thief Regulator and activate its effect to summon Winder and Bezel Ship. Winder's effect activates and I add Time Thief Adjuster to my hand. Then, I overlay the two to summon Time Thief Redoer."
[Time Thief Redoer - Psychic/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 2400/DEF: 2000]
"I end my turn. Your move."
"I draw!" Devon said excitedly. "I summon Evilswarm Caster to the field. Then, Castor lets me do an additional normal summon, so I summon Evilswarm Kerykeion."
[Evilswarm Kerykeion - Spellcaster/Effect - Level: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 1600/DEF: 1550]
"Good, now what Xyz card do you summon."
"Uh, Evilswarm Ophion?" Devon guessed.
"Why?"
"Wait, your deck doesn't have level 5 monsters, so Evilswarm Bahamut." Devon corrected himself.
"So, do you wanna hear the good news or bad news?" I asked.
"Bad news," Devon said, his expression dropping. He closed his eyes and gave a loud exhale.
"You're wrong." I said bluntly.
"And the good news?"
"You're right." I said with a knowing grin on my face.
His eyes snapped open. "What? I thought you said I was wrong!"
"Well, you can choose both. Ophion has more attack than Redoer, so it'll take away some of my resources. However, although Bahamut has less attack, it allows you to take Redoer, forcing a response from me or I lose. So both options would've worked, but Bahamut is what I'd go with."
Devon nodded his head, signaling that he was listening, and began typing what I was saying onto his computer. "Alright, then I overlay to summon Bahamut."
[Evilswarm Bahamut - Dragon/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 2350/DEF: 1350]
"Ophion's effect activates. I use an overlay unit to take control of Redoer."
"I activate Redoer's effect. I use a monster overlay unit to banish it until the end phase." I said, fiddling with the card on my duel disk. I took out the cards under it, placed it in the graveyard, and placed Redoer into the banished zone.
"Battle. Ophion attacks you directly."
Zack LP: 4000 - 1650
"I set a card facedown, and pass to you."
"Redoer comes back, I draw, and Redoer steals the top card of your deck." I said quickly. "I activate Beze-"
"Facedown Solemn Strike!" Devon said quickly. I guess he was waiting for me. "I pay 1500 lifepoints to negate the activation."
Devon LP: 4000 - 2500
"Good, good move." I complemented.
"Thank you." He said, looking proud. "I learn from the best."
I smiled at his compliment. "Now that you have no negates, I summon Regulator. Adjuster's effect activates from my hand, and I can special summon it to the field. I overlay my two monsters to summon another Time Thief Redoer."
[Time Thief Redoer - Psychic/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 2400/DEF: 2000]
"Battle. Redoer attacks Ophion, then my second Redoer attacks you directly."
Devon LP: 50
"Your move."
"Draw." Devon said dejected before lighting up again. "I drew it! I summon Rescue Rabbit!"
[Rescue Rabbit - Beast/Effect - Level: 4 - Element: EARTH - ATK: 300/DEF: 100]
"Rescue Rabbit's effect activates. I banish it to summon two Evilswarm Heliotrope. I overlay the two to summon Evilswarm Ophion."
[Evilswarm Ophion - Dragon/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 2550/DEF: 1650]
"Good, that's the right decision."
He gave a proud smile. "Ophion attacks Redoer."
Zack LP: 1650 - 1500
"I end my turn."
"My turn. Draw. Redoer's effect activates and yoinks your top card." I said. I looked at the card I just drew and smirked. "This duel's over."
"What? Already?" Devon complained.
"I play Phantom Knights' Rank-Up-Magic Force. I banish one dark monsters to rank up Time Thief Redoer by one. I Xyz summon Arc Rebellion Xyz Dragon!"
[Arc Rebellion Xyz Dragon - Dragon/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 5 - Element: DARK - ATK: 3000/DEF: 2500]
"Now what happens next?" I asked Devon.
"Arc Rebellion's' effect activates, negating the effects of all monsters and gaining their attack points." He said dejectedly.
"Mm-hmm." I hummed out as I executed the steps he described.
Devon LP: 50 - 0
WINNER: ZACK ZARCOST
"You gotta stop winning so much!" Devon said in frustration, leaning back in his chair.
I chuckled as I sighed. "Well, I think that right now, your Heraldic Beast deck is better than your Evilswarm."
"Awh! But Evilswarm looks better!" Devon complained.
"But," I began. "You can keep practicing with Evilswarm to get better."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, I think I'll try both."
"Okay, we'll continue practice rounds switching decks after each one."
"Alrighty" Devon said as our session continued. We kept dueling, and I gave him feedback on how to play better. It was hard for him to learn due to the meta and strategies from our world being different, but he was able to pick up a few things.
Stress.
A feeling I'm all too familiar with. Nothing like the threat of starvation and homelessness to drive you to work hard. For me, it was driving me to work like crazy.
I sleep at around 1 A.M. and wake up at 8 A.M. I brush my teeth, eat sometimes, and tutor kids in dueling until around 1 P.M. I eat lunch, then study the material that my classes give. I study until around 3:30 before consulting for businesses on cybersecurity and their software. This job is mostly performance rather than time based, but I work until around 10 with a few breaks.
Lucky for me, a lot of the skills I learned in my previous life were able to transfer over. A few hundred hours of messing around, and I was all caught up. Actually, I was more than caught up. As computers got faster, the need to be as efficient as possible decreased and thus less taught. When I was learning, I worked on writing code as efficiently as I could to force myself to learn new things.
However, today was something special.
I was humming a song while studying. Papers, pens, and highlighters were scattered all over the table. The door to our apartment creeked opened. Zarc entered, holding the top handle of his backpack.
I waved before returning to studying. I heard the sound of the refrigerator open before closing after a few moments. Zarc walked over to the table and sat down.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Same old thing with school." Zarc said, taking a bite from a sandwich. "What about you?"
"Well, I have a really important meeting at 4 with Arc Labs." I said., just thinking about how much work would be added onto my plate.
"Arc Labs as in the lab that develops all the dueling tech?" He shockingly asked.
"Do you know of another Arc Labs?" I asked sarcastically.
"How the hell did you get a meeting with them?"
"They posted a challenge online, and your cool, amazing, and awesome brother was the first one to solve it." I said, faking a look of smugness.
"None of those adjectives apply to you." Zarc said. "Except brother."
"Hey! That hurts my feelings." I shed a fake tear. He shook his head with an amused smile.
There was a silence before I stacked up the papers. "Are you doing okay?" Zarc asked, suddenly.
"Yeah, why?" I asked.
"Your hands are shaking." Zarc pointed out. I looked down, and sure enough, they were. "Probably just lack of sleep."
"Oh," Zarc said, pausing before speaking again. "What time will the meeting be over?"
I continuously exhaled as I thought about it. "Probably around seven."
"Well, in that case, do you want to go to dinner with me and Ray? You can just sleep when we get home and I'll do the chores." Zarc offered before taking out his wallet. "On me."
"Can we even afford wherever we're going?"
"It's a diner. But hey, if you don't want to go, it's fine." Zarc said, putting his wallet down.
"I'll go eat with my bestie westies." I said, getting up and going into our shared closet.
"Alright." Zarc said. Even though he was in the kitchen, I could still hear him clearly. I took out the suit and began putting on the white shirt, blue vest, jacket, and pants. I tried to tie my tie, but failed miserably and resorted to a video. It took me around five minutes to figure it out.
I walked into the kitchen area, putting my laptop into a backpack.
"Wow!" Zarc said with a whistle. "You look like a literal 10."
"W-what?" I asked, exacerbated as I looked up. "Where did that come from?"
"I'm complimenting you and you're complaining?"
"I'll complain when the compliment sounds gay and I'm straight." I said as I began walking to the door and out. I took one last glimpse into the apartment and saw Zarc laying on the couch and turning on the TV to the dueling matches. I smiled at the scene.
I was staring at a large circular blue building. It looked futuristic, the color was a light-blue color. Its height was around twenty stories long, and the radius was tens of miles long. The windows were tinted and disallowed outside people to see on the inside.
It was an impressive sight to behold, a marvel in engineering and architecture even for this time period. Little was known about how the building worked, such as power generation and distribution, and that added more to the mystery. My inner nerd and rubik's complex was getting excited about thinking about ways to solve the many engineering issues.
But alas, I had a different job. After taking a few pictures in front of the building, I walked in to the lobby.
The lobby was grand, being extremely spacious and giving a feeling of luxury with the vibrant gold colors on the walls. The black seats looked like mini thrones. My eyes gleamed at the simplistic beauty of the inside.
It took a moment before I finally walked over to the receptionist. She looked up at me skeptically.
"I have an appointment with the CTO." I told her.
"Name?" She asked, sounding like she couldn't be bothered checking.
"Zack Zarcost." She typed on the computer before her face dropped and a smile appeared on her face. "Please wait one moment. You can take a seat in the lobby."
I obliged and walked to the seats as she picked up the phone and began calling him. While most important things could be done on a D-Pad, I still had a phone. I began playing a game on my phone while waiting for him to come.
A few minutes later, I heard footsteps approaching towards me. "I didn't expect you to be so young."
I looked up to see a well-dressed middle aged man. He had a friendly smile on his face, which looked like a grandparent smiling at their grandchild. I stood up and returned the smile.
"Zack right?" He asked, putting his hand out.
"Yes sir." I said, shaking his hand. "Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise." I said.
He chuckled. "Follow me." He began slowly walking towards the door. He put his ID up to the handle, and after a click was heard he opened the door.
"The project you'll be working on is a big secret, so please continue with caution." He said.
"Of course," I responded. "But what exactly am I working on? The details you gave me were vague."
We continued walking, and he opened another door. "You'll be working on what we call the Arc System."
"Eh?" I sounded automatically as a startled expression appeared on my face. Out of all things, the Arc system? With Leo?
He noticed the look on my face. "You've heard of the Arc system?"
"Just some rumors." I lied, regaining my composure.
"And what exactly do those rumors say?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
"Just that it's the next big thing in dueling." I responded. "But there are too many conflicting accounts of exactly what it is."
"Hm, is that so?" He asked rhetorically. He finally stopped in front of a door. He opened slowly, looking around to make sure no one was watching, before entering it.
There was a big empty area with a control room to the very right. A dueling stadium, but I presume it's the testing area. In the control room, there were about fifteen people all surrounding a single computer screen.
When we walked up to them, they turned around and faced us. All of them had a shocked expression on their face from me being so young.
"Gentlemen, this is the consultant I was talking about," the CTO said. "Meet-"
"Zack?" A voice asked. It was coming from behind the tall people in the front. I saw Leo make his way through the other scientists.
"Hey Mr. Akaba." I said nervously. "Fancy meeting you here."
"You two have met before?" The CTO asked. The scientists kept looking at me and turning to Leo, curious about seeing how we know each other.
"He's a friend of my daughter." Leo answered in his rough voice before turning to me. "So, you're the consultant?"
"Yes sir," I said in a respectful voice.
Leo kept staring at me. The silence was making my heart beat faster. "I know you're brilliant, but do you think you can help?"
"I know I can, otherwise my fee wouldn't be so high." I said with full confidence, stepping up to Leo's challenge.
His eyes were staying on me, feeling like it was piercing my soul. "Then welcome to the team." He put his hand out. I shook his hand.
He turned over to his team before explaining everyone's role and introducing us to each other. I greeted all of them, and this continued on for several minutes before we finally got down to business.
"It's nice meeting all of you." I said. "But can you show me all the issues you're facing?"
"Of course," Leo said before guiding me over to the computer and pulling up some diagnostic data. "We currently have a lot of performance issues with the Arc system. The duels take several minutes before actually starting, and there is too much performance loss when summoning monsters."
I examined the code for the Arc system and looked at how long each step took to execute. I scrolled down, looking at the code for just starting the duel. The more I looked, the worse it got.
"What the fuck am I looking at?" I asked bluntly, taking out my frustration. It might be my ego, but it hurt me to see someone write code this badly. It was disgusting to look at. "This thing is being held on by hopes and dreams."
All the team members looked at me with widened eyes. "What?"
"Did they not teach you multithreading or parallel processing in your computer science class?" I asked. Some of them looked enraged that they were getting insulted by a teenager, making me smile.
I pulled up a diagram of the steps in the program. "Currently, it executes everything in order, waiting for the last step to complete before moving on. But you can actually do multiple of these steps at once."
"Hm, is that so?" The CTO asked, watching me with intrigue.
I began changing some of the code and quickly writing the code for the above process. I also took the liberty of changing some of the poorly written code, removing redundancies, etc.
I was in the zone for around thirty minutes before finishing a lot of the basic optimizations I could've done.
"Alright, that should be way faster than what you currently have for startup." I said. Everyone kept staring at the screen. "Unless you want me to press random buttons, turn it on."
Leo shook his head out of the seeming daze that he was in before turning it on. The time to start the Arc system turned from 8 minutes to 1 minute, an insane improvement. Everyone turned their heads to me in shock, some of them with their jaws dropped.
"H-how?" One of the team members stammered out in surprise. "That's a 800% improvement!"
"Damn, that exponential curve is sexy." I smirked at seeing my work beating a team of professionals. I turned over to the CTO who had been watching me the entire time, assessing my skills.
"I'll pay you your original requested fee." The CTO said.
I let out a relieved breath. "If you think that I'm expensive, wait until you hire an amateur."
"If you keep up with that, you'll be more than worth it." He said. Immediately after, his phone rang and he brought it up to check.
"Well gentlemen, now that you've been properly introduced, I hope you get along well." The man said before leaving.
I was left with the scientists who were examining my work and taking notes. While they were doing that, I was looking at the data for all the other components of the Arc system. My eyebrows furrowed and my mouth twitched as I noticed the lack of usable data.
I walked away from the scientists and took out my laptop and plugged it into the big computer, starting to run several of my programs.
"What are you doing?" Leo asked, walking over and looking at my screen.
"There's not enough data for me to know what the issues are while dueling." I replied, focusing on my laptop. The other scientists started coming over.
"What are those programs?" One of them asked.
"Well, this one," I said, pointing to the top left, "monitors how long it takes to execute each step and each substep. This top program is an AI that detects problematic code, and the last one is another AI that detects why performance is bad."
"AI as in artificial intelligence?" The scientist asked. "Tools like that exist?"
"I had to make these myself." I replied before I finished launching and they all started up. I took my deckholder out of my backpack and took my deck out. "So, who wants to duel?"
The scientists looked at each other before one stepped up. "I'll duel you."
"Okay, good luck Doctor … uh. Johnson?" I guessed.
"Dr. Crowler." He said, sighing shaking his head.
"My bad man." I said. "Do you have the duel disks for the Arc system?"
"Yes yes, follow me." He said, leading me to a table on the opposite side of the room. We grabbed the Arc-V styled duel disks and began walking to the empty space outside the control room.
"Ready?" He asked after I inserted my deck into the duel disk.
"Yeah." I said.
DUEL
Zack: 4000
Dr. Crowler: 4000
"From my hand, I normal summon Time Thief Bezel Ship. Then, Time Thief Adjuster's effect activates. When I summon a 'Time Thief' monster, I can special summon her from my hand! I build the overlay network with my two monsters. Xyz summon! Appear! Rank 4! Raidraptor - Force Strix"
[Raidraptor - Force Strix - Winged Beast/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 100/DEF: 2000]
"An Xyz summon already?" Crowler said while nodding his head. "It seems you're talented in many areas."
I smiled at his complement. "I activate Force Strix's effect. By detaching an overlay unit, I can add one 'Raidraptor' to my hand. I add Raidraptor - Singing Lanius!"
[Raidraptor - Singing Lanius - Winged Beast/Effect - Level: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 100/DEF: 100]
"Now, Bezel Ship's effect activates from the graveyard. I can bring it back by detaching an overlay unit on an Xyz monster on the field. I overlay Singing Lanius and Bezel Ship. Xyz Summon! Appear! Rank 4! Time Thief Redoer!"
[Time Thief Redoer - Psychic/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 2400/DEF: 2000]
Redoer took almost twenty seconds to appear on the field, and I could hear the fans on the Arc system trying its best to cool it down. Instead of smoothly moving back in place, Redoer looked jittery.
I walked up and put my hand out to touch Redoer's cape. It felt soft and smooth, exactly like a real cloth would. As I ran my hand down, he stopped and suddenly teleported a few inches to the right.
"I end my turn with a facedown." I announced.
"My turn. I draw!" Crowler said.
"At this moment, Redoer's effect activates. It takes the top card from your Deck as an overlay unit!" His deck glowed yellow before an orb spawned and went over to Redoer.
"To start off, I activate the continuous spell Ancient Gear Fortress!"
'Crowler as in Dr. Crowler in GX?' I thought as I heard the card being placed. I suppose I should've seen it coming, but it still caught me by surprise.
The card appeared as a metallic fortress tower appeared on the stadium. "This card stops you from targeting 'Ancient Gear' monsters with your effects! Then, I summon Ancient Gear Hunting Hound."
[Ancient Gear Hunting Hound - Machine/Effect - Level: 3 - Element: EARTH - ATK: 1000/DEF: 1000]
"Hunting Hound's effect activates, dealing you with 600 points of damage."
The duel disk started making a sizzling sound before I felt an electric shock. Although it was a mild shock with little pain, I felt the electricity travel through every nerve in my body.
Zack LP: 4000 - 3400
"I activate Hunting Hound's effect. I can Fusion Summon using cards on my field or hand. I use two Ancient Gear Hunting Hound and one Ancient Gear Gadget! Fusion Summon! Appear! Level 9! Ancient Gear Megaton Golem!"
[Ancient Gear Megaton Golem - Machine/Fusion/Effect - Level: 9 - Element: EARTH - ATK: 3300/DEF: 3300]
"Battle! Megaton Golem attacks Redoer!" The giant robot began moving it's arm towards Redoer.
"I activate Redoer's effect! By using a monster overlay unit, it banishes itself until the end phase!" I announced before Redoer dissolved into little yellow particles.
"Then I attack Force Strix!" Force Strix made a cawing as the hand of the golem dropped on him and he disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
"I end my turn with a facedown." Crowler announced, looking pleased with himself.
"My turn, Draw! Redoer's effect activates once again, stealing the top card from your Deck." I said.
I looked at my cards to see what I could do. I only had one monster in my hand, so I couldn't go into Arc Rebellion, and the card that I stole was a monster. I looked at the other cards in my hand before an idea formed in my head.
"I activate Time Thief Startup to special summon Time Thief Chronocorder from my hand in defense!" I announced.
[Time Thief Chronocorder - Machine/Effect - Level: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 1000/DEF: 1000]
"That isn't enough to beat my monster, but I'm curious where you're going." Crowler said.
"Time Thief Startup's effect activate from the graveyard. By banishing it, I can attach 1 'Time Thief' Monster, Spell, and Trap to Redoer!" Three cards flew out of my deck and Redoer gained three orbs orbiting it.
"Now, I activate Redoer's effect and detach a spell and trap card overlay unit. The spell card allows me to draw one card, and the trap card Megaton to your Extra Deck."
"What?" Crowler asked as he watched his monster fade into nothingness. After it faded, he began to smile. "Bravo! But you've helped me. When Megaton leaves the field due to an opponent's effect, I can summon Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem straight from my Extra Deck!"
[Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem - Machine/Fusion/Effect - Level: 10 - Element: EARTH - ATK: 4400/DEF: 3400]
"What?!" I exclaimed. I didn't remember the effect clearly, but that just made my problem worse. I breathed out in frustration. The card I drew wouldn't help me, so I was basically screwed. I remembered this card doing piercing damage, so changing to defense won't help.
"I end my turn."
"My turn, draw!" He said triumphantly. I activated Redoer's effect only to take a spell card. "I summon Ancient Gear Frame from my hand. Then I activate its effect. By dis-"
"From my hand, I activate the effect of Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit! When a monster on the field activates its effect, I can discard this card from my hand to negate the effect and destroy the card!" I said, taking a sigh of relief. Thank you Obelisk, Slifer, and Ra.
His face fluctuated its expression, probably shocked that a card like that existed. Well, technically it didn't exist in this world. I think. I couldn't find anything online when I searched it up, but then again people have cards that just appear out of nowhere.
"No matter, I activate my facedown Limiter Removal to double the attack points of all Machine monsters on the field!"
[Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem ATK: 4400*2=8800]
He smirked. "Battle! My golem attacks Chronocorder."
"I activate Chronocorder's effect! By tributing it, the next battle damage I take is sent to you!"
Crowler looked frustrated that I was barely able to hang on. "I end my turn," He said softly. Limiter Removal's side effect kicked in and all his monsters were destroyed.
"My turn, draw!" I announced. "Redoer steals your top card once again!"
I looked at the card I drew, and it was Time Thief Winder. I saw the moves I needed to do to win the duel in my head. So, I began to pop off.
"I activate Time Thief Winder's effect from my hand! I can detach an overlay unit off Redoer to special summon him onto the field." I said. "Winder's second effect activates, allowing me to add a Time Thief card to my hand. I add Time Thief Adjuster and summon it!" I slammed the cards onto my duel disk fast.
[Time Thief Adjuster - Psychic/Effect - Level: 4 - Element: DARK - ATK: 1200/DEF: 1800]
"I now overlay Level 4 Time Thief Winder and Adjuster! Xyz summon! Appear! Rank 4! Raider's Knight! I activate Raider's Knight's effect! By using an overlay unit, I can summon a rank 5 "Xyz Dragon" from my Extra Deck. I summon Arc Rebellion Xyz Dragon!"
[Arc Rebellion Xyz Dragon - Dragon/Xyz/Effect - Rank: 5 - Element: DARK - ATK: 3000/DEF: 2500]
Crowler just stared blankly at my two monsters. "Battle! Time Thief Redoer attacks you directly!"
Time Thief Redoer went in for an attack.
As it was going towards Crowler, it suddenly disappeared.
"Huh?" We both said out in confusion before the rest of the cards on the field disappeared as well. We both stared at each other, then turned to the control room and began running there.
"What happened?" I asked as we opened the door and entered it.
"Well, um," One of the scientists started. He kept mumbling incoherently.
"Zack, the dueling energy you generated overloaded the Arc system." Leo said with a curious look in his eyes. "It's exponentially higher than any of the people we tested on."
I ran to my laptop and began looking at the data that it recorded. The energy was several times higher than Crowler.
I tilted my head while looking at all the data. "Well, that's interesting."
They kept rambling on about what they thought could cause it and complimenting me on the duel.
In the meantime, I was running calculations to see how much I would have to improve the system in order for it to handle all the energy. Some of the people watched me run the calculations, shocked that I knew how to do the math.
I spent a few hours analyzing the data, fixing bugs, and improving the Arc system. Before I knew it, it was seven.
I walked out of Arc Labs feeling extra exhausted. I'd been staring at the computer and numbers for hours. The sun was setting as I walked out and hailed a taxi.
"Where to?" He asked.
"Maiami City Diner."
"That'll be fifty dollars."
"Fifty? It's a ten minute drive!" I complained.
"A ten minute drive during peak hours." He responded snarkily. I sighed as I took out my wallet and handed him a fifty. He took the money out of my hands and examined it before flashing me an iPad screen asking for a tip.
"No." I strongly responded immediately. "It's during peak hours, I'm already paying a premium."
"Ungrateful." He grumbled before he began to drive. I took out my phone and began to message Zarc.
[On my way to the diner. Around 10 minutes out.]
Zarc responded a few minutes later.
[Okay. What do you want off the menu?]
[IMAGE ATTACHMENT]
Zarc sent over the menu. I looked over at the menu. There were some fancy options like ribeye and steak, but I stuck with the cheap classic.
[Get me 4 tenders, fries, and a soda]
[(^^)b See you soon.]
[IMAGE ATTACHMENT]
He sent a picture of him and Ray at the diner sitting at the table dueling. It looked like Zarc was winning as his field was clear. I chuckled at the picture and locked my phone as I sunk into the seat and closed my eyes to take a quick nap.
I walked into the diner and quickly scanned all the tables until I found Zarc and Ray. I walked over and took my seat next to a plate of chicken and fries.
"Hola." I greeted them as I sat down.
"Hey Zack." Ray responded back. "Wow. Zarc wasn't kidding when he said you looked handsome."
"You told her that?" I turned over to Zarc who put his head down in embarrassment. I turned over to Ray. "Do you think I'm handsome?"
"W-well," She stammered out. "Maybe?"
"It's not a no!" I said cheekily. I began sipping on your soda.
"Moving on," Zarc said quickly. "How was your meeting?"
"It was good." I said, nodding my head and putting a tender in my mouth. "Oh yeah, funny thing, I'm working with Ray's dad."
"Wait what?" Both of them asked simultaneously.
"Can't really get into specifics, but we're pretty much besties now." I said, chewing on my tender.
"What are you doing on the Arc system?" Ray asked.
"You know?" I asked. "Oh wait, of course he told you."
"What's the Arc system?" Zarc asked.
"You'll find out in two months." I answered.
"My dad said it was almost done," Ray said. "Why did they hire you?"
"You know I came here to unwind from work, not talk more about it."
"You were the one that mentioned my dad!" Ray retorted.
"Yeesh, relax. I'm just helping them make it run more smoothly." I said. "Are we done with this now?"
Ray opened her mouth, wanting to talk more, before respecting my wishes and closing it again.
"So, how is your pro dueling certification going?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Good, we just need the duel runner certification." Zarc responded. "I finished the online drivers ed."
"Mhm, nice." I responded, my mouth filled with chicken. My meal heavily contrasted my fancy look, which caused some stares from people around us. I took a big sip of my soda.
"We were going to ask you when you were free so we could all take the exam together." Ray said. "We're planning on Saturday in three weeks."
"Yeah, that works for me."
"Alright, I'll call tomorrow."
"Thanks Ray, you're the best person in the world." I said sarcastically, getting kicked under the table.
"What about me?" Zarc asked, faking a hurt expression.
"You're second best. That's above 9 billion other people." I responded. Zarc put his hands over his heart and a finger under his eyes to mimic a tear. All three of us snickered.
"So you two excited to be able to play pro soon?" Ray asked. "I know I am."
"Yeah," Zarc said. "I can't wait to be on TV and have fans."
"Yeah, I guess." I said. "To be honest, I only care about the Xyz division."
"Not the Grand division?" Ray asked.
"Well, maybe I'll try becoming world champion once, but it feels boring just defending the title."
"It's going to be the same thing for Xyz right?"
"Xyz is my favorite method, so I don't mind it."
"Don't complain when I have to duel you and win." Zarc said.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night." I replied. Ray laughed at our back and forth.
We talked about other things like school, dueling, and new card releases as we all continued eating. An hour later, we all finished and began walking out.
As soon as we went through the door, the cool night air hit me. It felt relaxing and serene to me, making my exhausted state even worse. It felt perfect to go under a blanket and just sleep.
"Do you two want to get boba?" Ray asked.
"After all that food?" Zarc responded. "Not really, but I'll go along if you two want to."
"What about you Zack?"
"N-not r-really" I mumbled softly as my eyes became heavier. "I feel weird."
The two stopped walking and turned back to face me. "Zack? Are you okay?"
I put my thumb on the wrist of my other hand, and felt that my pulse was dropping. I sat down on the floor quickly to avoid falling on my head. "C-call 911."
My head felt lighter and my eyes shut. My consciousness and awareness was fading away.
"Zack!" I heard both of them yell out before I stopped feeling everything.
Author's Note: Thank you all for reading! This chapter and probably the next few will be more plot than duel focused. The next chapter in particular might be way shorter than this one and the last. Updates are also going to be sporadic so sorry in advance.
Tell me how I did with the duels! I find duels hard to script, so let me know what I did well and didn't do well. I might end up having Zack use a variety of decks.
Also let me know if you find any mistakes! Thank you!
REVIEWS
mling4169 - Thank you for reading!
Guest - Sorry, but I don't plan on having Links involved.
Lillyan Dragneel - Thank you for catching my mistake! His name is Zack
Reader2 - Thank you for reading!
NEXT CHAPTER
On the ambulance ride, Zack's condition has the paramedics confused. While in the hospital, he and Zarc receive news that would change the rest of their lives and motives.
