Disclaimer: I own nothing of the properties within this story. All rights go to the creators and companies of said properties
Beta by Old man of the mountain/Darklord331 and Slothful
Chapter 2: Justice and Chaos
If someone were to tell me that I would be spending around two weeks deciding what deck to play with… Never mind, that does sound like something that I would do but not in the body of a child and having a ghost floating behind me looking at the screen.
The system has given me three structure decks to choose from with each deck being pretty solid in terms of archetypes and staples they have. Though they still need some improvements if I want to use them to the best of their abilities.
Heroes Rise Up!
This deck holds powerful elemental and masked heroes such as Elemental HERO Sunrise and Masked HERO Dark Law! Use the unity of heroes to defeat your opponent!
By making Masked HERO Dark Law the ace monster of your deck you start the duel with one copy of Mask Change.
Dark Magic of the Spellcasters!
Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl are teaming up with a certain Invoker to combine their might. Use spell cards such as Secret Village of the Spellcasters and the powerful Amulet Dragon to cast your foe's downfall!
By making Dark Magician your ace monster than you start the duel with one spell or trap card that lists Dark Magician or Dark Magician Girl in its text.
Strings of Fate!
The powers of Shaddolls are in your hands. Make use of powerful fusion monsters such as El Shaddoll Winda and El Shaddoll Construct to control the duel!
I'm honestly torn on what deck I want to play. I love playing with HEROs and my first competitive deck makes use of both Invoked and Shaddolls. But I simply can't ignore the downsides.
The HERO is only running Elemental and Masked HERO cards, as in I have none of the Evil, Vision, or Destiny HERO cards. While it isn't necessary to have them to make a perfectly fine HERO deck, having the Vision Engine and cards like Destiny HERO Malicious certainly helps me turbo out Dark Law as the Element HERO that I could play with the DARK Attribute is Elemental HERO Shadow Mist as the only other DARK Elemental HERO is Nercoshade.
… Yeah, I need Vision and Destiny HEROs fast.
There are other issues, such as how the deck has a bit too many vanillas for my liking. Did the system take notes from the last HEROs structure deck? Because I can't see why else would it put three copies of Elemental HERO Avian over Stratos. It is nice that Elemental HERO Bubbleman has its anime effect instead of its real-life one but it isn't enough to make up for the amount of useless cards in this deck. I won't play a card like O - Oversoul when I can play a card like Monster Reborn!
But I have to say that it is the best out of the bunch as the Shaddoll deck only has a single copy of Shaddoll Fusion and El Shaddoll Fusion while the Spellcaster deck doesn't have a well-formed game strategy. It has options for control with cards like Village but also Invoked Mechaba and Raidjin, but they are unreliable as I only have one WIND Monster and three LIGHT Monsters with the Fruit Magician Girls and the Oracle monsters. Shaddolls, while decent on their own, need to be mixed with other archetypes such as Invoked and Dogmatika to be considered meta. It also has the least amount of staples out of the three decks with the only card outside the archetype considered desirable, Lava Golem.
Also, I'm in the world closest to GX without actually being in GX. Might as well have some fun.
I tap the screen to select the HERO deck, clicking the confirmation button. A small ball of light appears in my hand, quickly changing into a deck box with Masked HERO Dark Law printed on it.
Booster Pack - HERO's Alliance is unlocked
"So that's how your power works?" Ray asks, trying to touch the deck box but her hand phase through it and my hand, sending chills up my spine. It seems that Ray still hasn't registered the fact she is a ghost yet, and she is affected whenever the fact represents itself.
"Yeah. Though this deck is far from being at its full potential, it is a good starting point as any." I said. "And I can't simply start dueling people with this deck. People will start asking questions as to how I had such powerful cards when my parents didn't buy them for me. There are also things to consider, such as, if I start beating children in duels one-sidely then they will stop wanting to duel me, thus cutting me off from DP and rewards." I explain.
The system is something you would expect from Master Duel and Duel Links, by doing a certain thing in the game you will earn DP or cards as rewards. I even earned one such card, Heart of the Underdog, by summoning a normal monster fifty times. I'm most likely never going to use it, but hey, free cards are free.
I wanted to voice how Leo would try to recruit me should he learn that I'm some kind of dueling genius. And that isn't adding to the fact that I can see his dead daughter. But if I do voice my thoughts out, Ray will just deny that her father would do such a thing. But I suppose that I can't blame her, nobody wants to believe that their parent is capable of doing things I told Ray.
Attacking the XYZ dimension without announcing it, turning people into cards so they can be used as fuel, funding a mad scientist's project to make mind-controlling bugs that will be put into her counterparts' brains, and how he is the reason Zarc was able to gather all his counterparts to come back. And hearing that he had done all that so he can bring her back to life must be tearing Ray up from the inside.
"Meaning you can only use that deck in that 'Free Duel Mode' you told me about," Ray said.
"There is also the Practice Room feature but yeah, I might have to stick with my Warrior beatdown for a while." I open the shop menu to buy some packs. "Or maybe not."
I haven't considered the option of making a new deck from the ground up. Cards that can consider staples and archetypes that are meta cost an arm and a leg but older meta cards are far cheaper. Meaning I can play powerful cards like Dark Armed Dragon (Better known as DAD) and Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning pretty cheaply. A can also buy rer-errata cards but they cost more as they are far stronger. For example, I can buy the current version of Sinister Serpent for next to nothing but the version that caused it caused it to be banned cost more than what I have (20,000 DP per copy).
I can even buy the OCG version of Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan, where their effects trigger when they hit the grave no matter where the card was at. So I can use them for discard fodder to search. As long I don't mess up the timing that is.
I don't know why I'm worrying about it since I can't even afford those cards as they cost roughly 50,000 DP. But I can get the version of Witch and Sangan from the Chaos Format era. A playset at that. I don't know why there is such a price difference but I'm betting it is because they have to be sent from field to grave for their effects to trigger. Add the fact their stats are rather low for monsters of their level might be enough reason for the price drop.
I put all the cards I wanted (and afford) into the cart and confirm the purchase. A large ball of light appears in front of me, transforming into a cardboard box before said box falls to the floor. I open the box and pull out the loose cards and form my deck. It isn't anything to write how about but it is stronger than my Warrior beatdown deck, but it shouldn't catch too much attention. Right?
But I should try this deck out before dueling someone at school. Guess I have an excuse to use Free Duel Mode now.
I push a couple of buttons on the floating LDS screen, reading how losing in Free Duel Mode will result in me losing all the DP I have, which also happens if I lose in the real world. Good thing I'm broke!
Once the screen fades, a sudden flash of light blind me. When my vision clears up, Ray and I are standing in a completely white space, in the distance a thick fog surrounds us. The fog is so thick that I can't see more than a couple of meters from my face. I don't know why Ray is here with me but that is the least important thing right now.
Another floating screen appears in front of me, displaying the faces of iconic Yu-Gi-Oh characters but all but one of them is blackened out. There is also a difficulty level I can set them as. Not sure how that works but it said that I can make my opponent stronger to increase the amount and rarity of my rewards. Well, no time like the present. I select my opponent and sure enough, I start to hear footsteps encroaching towards me. I turn to face a young male, looking no older than fourteen, wearing a blue military uniform with a half-mask helmet to cover the upper half of his face. The helmet is blue, the mask is silver, and the eye holes are covered with red jewel-like lenses. I doubt those lenses serve a purpose outside of some scare tactic. Probably the same reason why they designed the mask after Obelisk, a war god in the Yu-gi-oh world. The mask also has a gem on the forehead, but I didn't pay any attention as they don't serve any purpose outside of them possibly being a symbol of rank, and even that is debatable.
The young man's face twisted into a malicious, even borderline insane, smile. He raises the shield device, turning on the dark blue energy blade, something I quickly follow suit.
"DUEL!"
Obelisk Force Member LP: 4000
Yukito LP: 4000
{Ray's P.O.V.}
Is that what those Obelisk Force people Yuki has been talking about? I will admit that I have seen things that forced me to throw away my sense of reason (If I didn't I probably would have gone crazy when I saw Zarc fused with a hologram dragon to destroy the world.) so it didn't take much to believe the existence of the system. I still have doubts about Yuki saying that he is the same age as me but trapped in a child's body but I refuse to believe what he had said about my father! My father was willing to sacrifice himself to stop Zarc! He wouldn't do anything that could risk in resulting Zarc coming back! And I don't believe that he would cause the suffering of countless people!
… Even if the reason is to revive me.
"For the glory of Academia! I will take the first turn!" the masked youth yells. "I start by playing Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!" A mechanical beast the size of a large dog stands in front of its master protectively.
Ancient Gear Hunting Hound: EARTH/ Level 3/ Machine/ Effect - 1000/1000
"When this card is normal summoned, it inflicts 600 points of damage! Hound Flame!" The mechanical dog opens its jowl, shooting a torrent of flames at the little boy. H-Hey! Why are his clothes lightly scorched?! There is no way my father would allow Solid Vision to hurt people!
"I set a card facedown and I end my turn!" The masked youth said, ending on Hound, a set card, and three cards in hand.
"My turn. Draw." Yuki glanced at the newly drawn card before adding it to his hand, taking out a different card from his hand. "I play Foolish Burial. I will send a copy of Alexandrite Dragon from my deck to the grave."
Alexandrite? I mean, it is a rather good monster, being a level four with two-thousand attack points and it doesn't have a negative effect (or any effect as it is a normal monster) to compensate for its high attack value. But just doesn't seem like a card Yuki would add to his deck. Maybe he added it for a strong normal summon? Monsters with strong effects tend to have low attack and defense points so it would make sense for him to add a monster with no effect just so he can have a strong normal summon.
"I summon Don Zaloog in attack mode." Yuki said as a tanned man with silver hair, wearing a mercenary outfit and having an eyepatch over his right eye, appears on Yuki's side of the field, duel-wielding guns.
Don Zaloog: DARK/ Level 4/ Warrior/ Effect - 1400/1500
"Battle. Don Zaloog attacks Ancient Gear Hunting Hound." The silver-haired mercenary fires his two handguns, hitting the mechanized hound in the head and chest causing it to break into light particles.
Obelisk Force Member LP: 3600
"Because Don Zaloog infected battle damage I can activate one of its effects, I choose the first to force you to discard a random card in your hand." As Yuki explains his monster's battle effect, Don Zaloog quick-draw his pistol, firing and hitting the far left card in the masked duelist's hand, forcing him to send it to the grave.
A monster with a discard effect is pretty good to have against someone who, according to Yuki, uses fusions since most fusions are done from the field or hand. This isn't always the case but at the same time isn't common enough to be an issue.
"I set two cards face-down and end my turn." Yuki said, ending with Zaloog, two set cards, and two cards in hand.
"Why you little… My turn! Draw!" The masked youth looks at the card he just draw. He didn't even try to hide that good card as his mouth curls into a twisted grin. "I active the trap card Ancient Gear Reborn! If I control no monsters, I can target one 'Ancient Gear' monster in my graveyard and special summon it. I target my Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!" The machine dog that Yuki destroyed jumped out of the ground as if it was never gone.
Ancient Gear Hunting Hound: EARTH/ Level 3/ Machine/ Effect - 1000/1000
"Sadly, I can't damage you with Hunting Hound since it was special summoned but thanks to Ancient Gear Reborn, it gains two-hundred attack points."
Ancient Gear Hunting Hound: EARTH/ Level 3/ Machine/ Effect - 1200/1000
"I will also equip it with Ancient Gear Tank! Boosting my Hunting Hound by another 600 points!"
Ancient Gear Hunting Hound: EARTH/ Level 3/ Machine/ Effect - 1800/1000
"Next I summon Ancient Gear Wyvern!" the masked duelist slapped the card onto the duel blade, causing a mechanical wyvern to appear, letting out a small, synthesize roar. "And I activate its effect to-"
"I chain the effect of your wyvern with my set trap, Torrential Tribute." Yuki interrupted, flipping open one of his set cards. A large wave of water pours out, consuming both the masked duelist and Yuki's monsters, leaving the field nearly empty. "Because you are going to search with Wyvern's effect, you will miss the timing for Tank's burn effect. You can continue your turn now."
Missing the timing? What's that?
The masked duelist grind his teeth, gripping his cards so hard that I'm surprised that he hasn't damaged them. He looked at the sole card in his hand. "I will add Ancient Gear Box to my hand, triggering its effect to add an EARTH Machine monster with 500 attack or defense from my deck to hand beside another copy of Box. I will add Ancient Gear Gadget. Turn end."
"He isn't going to set any cards?" I ask out loud without thinking.
"He can't. Wyvern's search effect also prevents him from setting cards from the rest of the turn." Yuki explains. "And the fact he hasn't used the last unknown card in his hand tells me that it is a brick (A brick?) because if it was a monster or fusion then he would have fusion summon with Hound's second effect or with the Box and Gear in his hand. Considering the card I caused him to discard is Ancient Gear Explosive, it might be something like Factory or Drill." It is honestly impressive to see how much knowledge he has of the game. I'm certain the system is helping him but the point still stands.
"But this isn't the time to be guessing what his last card is, since I have lethal." My eyes widen at the statement. Sure, it is possible to deal almost four-thousand points of damage in one battle phase if you use extra deck cards but Yukito doesn't have those, nor does he have any monsters on the field. I don't see how Yuki can pull it off… Wait, Alexandrite is a LIGHT monster and Zaloog is a DARK monster! That means Yuki's deck is-
"My turn. Draw. I'll banish both Don Zaloog and Alexandrite Dragon from my grave to special summon Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning." The two monsters appear in astral form, with Alexandrite being blindingly bright while Zaloog is a sinister shadow. The two monsters turn into a ball of light and darkness respectively, spinning around each other until a blinding light appears. Once my eyes got over the sudden flash of light, I can see the legendary warrior kneeling on the ground but quickly raise, ready to strike.
Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning: LIGHT/ Level 8/ Warrior/ Effect - 3000/2500
A chaos deck. If you are not using a deck that uses the extra deck it is one of the better options. Summoning a monster with three-thousand attack points that can either attack twice or banish a monster for the cost of its attack for the low cost of banishing a LIGHT and DARK monster from the graveyard is good, really good even.
"Okay, that was pretty awesome." Yuki said after a minute. "I normal summon Witch of the Black Forest." A woman in a black robe with a third eye in the middle of her forehead stands beside the warrior of chaos.
Witch of the Black Forest: DARK/ Level 4/ Spellcaster/ Effect - 1100/1200
"I will attack you directly with both of my monsters."
"WWWAAAHHHH!" the masked duelist screams as he flies backward due to the impact caused by the two monsters.
Obelisk Force Member LP: 0
Winner: Yukito
Before the duelist hits the ground, he fades away, rejoining the thick fog.
"Oh, come on!" Yuki yells in frustration.
"What's wrong? You just won." I said.
"Yeah, but the system just informed me about a few things. One, if I win a duel here then I earn up to five random cards that were in my opponent's deck along with the DP." Yuki explains.
"Oh, then I guess you got nothing good." What else can this system do? You earn DP from it, earn and buy cards, buy things other cards, and now you can get cards simply by dueling people here.
"Yeah. Unsurprisingly, all my cards are tied to the Ancient Gear Archetype, but they are just underwhelming. Engineer, Beast, and Fist. I also get Ancient Gear, which might as well be a vanilla since I only have one so its effect is dead, not that I would ever use it. I will never understand why they design this card's effect to only work with only another copy of itself instead of any Ancient Gear monster. I did get an anime-only card, which is weird, but it isn't any good. Magic Shield just gives 1200 defense points and battle protection." Yuki gives me a dry look. "This is why I hate games with gacha elements."
"Can you exchange them with the system from some DP?" I ask. If you can buy cards then it only makes sense to be able to sell them.
"Unfortunately, that doesn't be a feature which is bullshit if ask me." Yuki swears, forcing me to give him a dirty look. I know he said that he is mentally the same age as me but it doesn't mean I approve of him swearing. "Though I get another thing from the drop. Another duelist."
"Oh? And who was it?" I peek at the screen, seeing a young teen with a red jacket and red hat that is covering his eyes. "Red Hat? What kind of name is that?"
"He is the protagonist of the Duel Monster Tag Force games back in my world. Some people refer to him as Konomi, after the company in charge of the card game, but most simply call him Red Hat." Yuki explains. "According to this, Red Hat uses random decks making him a tougher opponent to face but the trade-off is better rewards. Might as well duel him, I want some better rewards than fucking Ancient Gear."
"Yukito!"
Before I have a chance to scold him, a young teen with a red hat steps out of the fog, raising a golden duel disk, and producing a silver duel blade. I'm taken aback by the duel disk's design for it has the same design as the duel disks from my dimension.
"Guess he isn't much of a talker. I can get behind that." Yuki stands in front of the hat-wearing duelist, ready for his second duel.
A part of me wants to ask Yukito to take a break, as dueling with a duel disk puts the body under quite a bit of stress, but I bite my tongue. He barely took any damage during his last duel so he should be fine. Right?
"Duel!"
Red Hat LP: 4000
Yukito LP: 4000
Both duelists stand still for a moment, neither of them making a move. The tension grows thicker and thicker until Red Hat waves his hand toward Yuki. "I guess I'm going first. I wish people here used the coin-flip method to decide who picks the turn order. I set a monster and card face-down, turn end." Yuki said, ending with a less-than-impressive board.
"..." Red Hat says nothing as he draws from his deck, his expression never changing as he reveals the card he has drawn—a card I had never seen before.
I raise my duel disk tablet (I still don't know why or how I have my duel disk or how it still works) to read the card Red Hat just sent to his graveyard.
"Cornfield Koator? Wait a minute… Illusionist type?! I have never heard of a monster type like that?!" As I read the bizarre card's effect, Red Hat added a monster called Mirror Swordsman, which is another Illusionist card.
Next, he played another card I never heard of, Fusion Reinforcement, revealing a fusion monster, Chimera the Illusion Magical Beast, to summon Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast from his extra deck.
Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast: WIND/ Level 6/ Beast/ Fusion/ Effect - 2100/1800
According to Fusion Reinforcement, the summoned by it can't attack and has its effect negated so at least there is a downside to the card. But summoning a monster straight from the extra deck with just a simple spell?! That's crazy!
Red Hat then place the monster he searched onto the duel blade, using his normal summon.
Mirror Swordsman: LIGHT/ Level 4/ Illusionist/ Effect - 1900/300
The ghostly knight didn't stay for long as the Red Hat actives its effect, tributing it to special summon Berfomet the Great Wings from his deck. This causes Berfomet's effect to trigger as it was special, Red Hat can add a level 4 or lower beast and Chimera Fusion from his deck to his hand, basically playing Pot of Greed. Red Hat then plays the fusion card, Chimera Fusion, causing a more extreme version of Gazelle and the original Berfomet to appear before being pulled into the spinning vortex, the two combining into one, forming another Chimera but this one looks slightly different.
Chimera the Phantom Beast King: WIND/ Level 6/ Beast/ Fusion/ Effect - 2100/1800
The newly summoned Chimera lets out a massive roar which is followed by a ghostly roar from the Gazelle used for the fusion summon and a glowing light shining from Red Hat's graveyard. A chain link? Nothing seems to happen when Chimera's effect resolves but Gazelle let Red Hat add another copy of Mirror Swordsman while the fusion spell adds itself back to his hand?! What is with these cards?! One of the biggest weaknesses of fusions is how cost-heavy it is! Normally it would be a minus two for a fusion summon but he made it a net neutral! And he is playing it again?! This time fusing the Swordsman in his hand and the Chimera he summoned with Fusion Reinforcement, summoning a bigger, stronger Chimera armed with two blade gauntlets, one on each arm, with massive wings.
Chimera the Illusion Magical Beast: DARK/ Level 8/ Illusion/ Fusion/ Effect - 3100/2800
Red Hat throws out his hand, signaling for the weaker of the two Chimeras to attack. The winged beast lunges itself at Yukito's set monster, flipping over to reveal itself to be Mystic Tomato, destroying it in the process.
Good. Mystic Tomato effect lets Yukito summon a DARK monster from his deck with 1500 attack points or less in attack mode and since Mystic Tomato has 1400 attack Yukito just summon another copy. It is a shame that he will suffer a huge amount of damage but it could be wor-
"I won't active Mystic Tomato's effect!"
WHAT?!
Red Hat wasted no time ordering his second monster to attack Yukito directly, causing the small boy to fly backward, roughly landing on the ground.
Yukito's LP: 900
"Yukito! Why did you do that?! If you use Tomato's effect, then you have-"
"Lost." Yukito interrupted me. "Chimera the Illusion Magical Beast can attack monsters up to the number of monsters it used for its fusion summon. It also doesn't destroy the monster it battles, but it does negate their effect and drop that monster's attack to zero. If I use Tomato's effect, I would have lost." Yukito looks at his hand and lets out a small sigh. "No. I already lost. At the end phase, Chimera the Phantom Beast King will force me to discard a random card, making my hand two. He also has Cornfield Koator and Mirror Swordsman. Since he controls a Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast, he can use their graveyard effects, meaning he can negate a monster effect and any card that targets one of his."
"But he doesn't have a Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast!" I said.
"Both Illusion and Phantom Beast are treated as Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast on the field and in the grave." Yukito explains, pushing the surrounder button on his duel disk. Both Red Hat's monsters and himself fade into the fog as Yukito lets out a disappointed sigh.
Winner: Red Hat
"Y-You must have gotten unlucky!" I said in a panic. I never liked to see children upset. "That deck is incredibly strong! I bet even pro duelists would have trouble against it!"
"Thanks for trying to cheer me up but I'm not angry or anything. It would be a lie if I said losing doesn't suck, especially since I just lost all the DP I earn in my duel against the Obelisk Force member but losing is part of the game. You can draw a brick opening hand or draw a dead card, you can make a misplay, or your opponent can stop you mid-combo. If I just scream and cry whenever I lose then I will never improve. My deck is good against most people here but it's just too slow against causal decks from my world." Yukito shrugs. "Guess if I want to duel Red Hat again, I better turn down the difficulty to where my deck can stand a chance."
Wait. That was a causal deck?! I can only shudder at thinking what a good deck in Yukito's former world could do, but I'm also curious.
"Hey Yukito, mind trying about decks where you were from?" I ask.
"Oh, you want to know what the meta was like? Before I came here, it went from being a tier zero format (What does that mean?) of Tear Ishizu. To explain simply, Tearlaments mills cards to fuel for fusion summons as there is a card that lets you fusion a monster using cards from your field and grave while the Ishizu part refers to a certain group of cards that are used by someone named Ishizu and those cards have effects that triggered when sent to the grave. Some of the crazy examples are making both players mill ten cards to chaining up to twelve cards." Yukito said.
Chain 12?! Milling ten cards?!
"People were debating if Tear Ishizu or Kashtira is more toxic. I say Kash since I dueled someone who, quote-on-quote, bricked and manage to lock seven of zones rather than the normally nine."
Locking seven on a bad hand?! What is with these decks?!
"What about Pendulum cards?! What can they do in your world?!" I ask.
"Pendulum cards are trash." Yukito uncaringly said. Pendulums are bad where he is from?! "They were killed when the Link era started and are the only card type still under Link jail. The players and even the company behind the game hate Pendulums."
Now I'm imagining Zarc trying to duel against people from Yukito's world only to run away crying. It did make me feel a little better. The guy almost caused the end of the world, he deserves to face unfair decks.
"Now back to dueling, I need to make up for my lost and then some." Yukito said, selecting Red Hat again but changing his difficulty to easy. At times like these Yukito seems like any other kid, eyes glimmering at the opportunity to challenge himself. It's rather cute.
{The next day - Yukito's P.O.V.}
I yawn as my dueling teacher explains to the class how to perform a normal summon. Who needs to learn how a normal summon works? And here I thought a class all about a card game would be interesting. Schools are masters at turning anything remotely interesting into something dull.
"I see someone thinks my class is a bit of a snore. If you think you know more than me Mr. Masumi, then can you explain the difference between a fusion monster and a ritual monster?" The male teacher stares me down, looking unclearly unamused by my behavior.
"In what way? How ritual monsters go into the main deck and not the extra deck like fusion monsters? Or do you want me to explain how ritual monsters use their materials' levels to summon them? How a ritual monster and a ritual spell isn't enough to summon it, making a dead card in the hand unless you have enough monsters to equal or exceed the ritual monster's level? How ritual monsters don't care what monsters you used for their summoning, unlike certain fusion monsters? Or are you referring to how one of them is purple and the other is blue?" I rattle off. I tried, and failed, to hide a chuckle when the teacher stare at me flabbergasted, turning back to the board and moving on to the next part of the lecture.
"How do you know so much about Duel Monsters?" a voice behind me. I turn around to see Kenji seeing there, arms cross and with a dry look on his face. "I know you only started playing the game a few days ago but you know a lot about the game. It doesn't make sense."
"I did some reading." I lie. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because I want to get better! If you have some secret training then I want in on it!" Kenji giving me a stink eye.
"I didn't do any special training, but if you want I can teach you some of the things I know." I offer. It isn't anything special but I would like some people to be around my skill level. You can only play against AI duelists for so long.
"Why not just tell then?"
"Because you wouldn't understand if I simply tell you." I said.
"Are you calling me stupid?!" Kenji barely kept himself from yelling as he glares at me.
"No." I quickly deny it. "It would be like explaining how to throw a curveball in baseball, I can tell you how to do it until it becomes night and you still be where you started. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do it yourself, makes sense right?"
Kenji's glare died down, leaning back in his chair in thought. "Yeah. I guess that makes sense."
"Glad that you understand. Bring your deck and meet me at my house after school." I said.
"Wait! Why your house?!"
"Because you're asking me for lessons, therefore you should be okay with my demands as I'm doing this for free." I smile at the boy.
"It's because your mother wanted you to bring Kenji to your room to play after how she learned that you two already dueled isn't it?" Ray said to me. Yeah, after hearing how Kenji was my first duel she wanted me to invite him over for a playdate, though I think that is only an excuse so she and Kenji's mom can catch up on lost time.
I should buy him some cards to improve his deck and apologize for tricking him. I don't know what kind of deck he wants to build but I can just give him some generic strong staples.
{Hours later - Kenji's P.O.V.}
Yukito… You are an asshole. You could have told me that I was going to be forced into this 'playdate' by my mom. To make things worse my mom forced me to wear these stiff and uncomfortable clothes that I had to wear whenever my relatives visit. What is so wrong with wearing the clothes that I like?! Even Dad doesn't like to dress up!
The front door of Yukito's place opens, and Yukito's parents and himself welcome us in. I did creak a smile at the sight of Yukito also forced into a button-up shirt and khaki pants like me.
"Go on ahead Kenji and go play with your friend." Mom said. At least I have something to do, unlike when I visit my aunt for our family's Christmas Eve reunion dinner where I spend the night in the basement bored out of my mind with the other kids forced to the reunion.
I follow Yukito into his room where he quickly shut the door behind us. "You are an asshole." I said, taking off the clip-on bowtie and unbuttoning the top three buttons, something Yukito copied.
"Yeah, but I needed you to agree to come over somehow. Besides, I do have a gift for you to say sorry." Yukito toss me a deck box. I fumble with the box and almost drop it, I open the box to see it is filled with Duel Monster cards. A lot of cards at that.
"Apology accepted." I said, pulling out the first card. I'm not going to turn down free cards. "M-Monster Reborn!" I shout. "You are seriously giving me a Monster Reborn!"
Yukito give me a confused look. "Yeah? I have plenty and I figured that you would like a copy or two."
TWO?! I pull out the remainder of the cards and he was telling the truth, he did put another Monster Reborn but it was caked among other great cards. Raigeki, Mirror Force, there are even three copies of Mystical Space Typhoon.
"H-How did you get these?!" I ask. These are super rare cards and is just giving them to me?
"I bought them. It took some DP to get them but it wasn't that hard." Yukito said with a shrug. "Now let's talk about what type of deck you want to play." Yukito walks over to his desk, opens a drawer, and pulls out three different deck boxes. "I bet you would prefer an aggressive deck that doesn't rely on having too many combos but it wouldn't hurt to learn how to play control and combo decks to understand how to counter them."
"What you talking about? No! Can we get back to how you give me TWO Monster Reborns?! Do you know much just one of them costs?!" I'm barely keeping myself from screaming.
Yukito give me a confused look. "No, I don't? I doubt they cost that much, they are pretty old cards. They are not that great in the grand scheme of things. There are plenty of archetypes with a Monster Reborn-like card in them."
"Stop using words that I don't understand!" I'm starting to get annoyed. I pull out my duel disk from my coat pocket and connect to Yukito's internet, pulling up a card shopping website. I probably shouldn't be telling Yukito the price of these cards since he will be wanting them back and they would be great for my deck but I hate cheating people. He may have beaten me a few days ago but I will beat him and it will be done fair and squared!
I flip the duel disk to Yukito, seeing the card price for a single and almost unplayable condition of Monster Reborn. "10-10,000DP?!" Yukito's eyes widen from seeing the price tag. "How can one card cost 10,000 Yen?! Do you know much I can get for 10,000 Yen?!"
"Have you been spending time with my Dad because he said the same thing (but with more bad words that caused him to be scowled by Mom)? But now you understand my freakout."
{Yukito's P.O.V.}
10,000 DP for one card that hasn't competitive play for years. And according to the site that Kenji just showed me, the card is in bad condition, making the value of that card lower than what it could be. There are also the other cards I give to him. I believe in the Zexal anime MST is considered to be a legendary card when it only destroys a spell or trap card.
I would have never believed that the Duelist Kingdom Structure decks would be holding such highly desired cards when the requirement to unlock it is summoning monsters from the DM era. The structure deck isn't even that expensive, only 2500 DP for each deck. Sure, most of the cards are useless vanilla monsters or bad spells and traps but there are some decent staples in the forms of Trap Hole, Swords of Revealing Light, and Spellbinding Circle along with Monster Reborn, Dark Hole, and Raigeki. I filled the rest of the box with cheap staples but now I'm starting to think those staples are not as cheap as I thought.
Wait. I could use this to my advantage. I need DP to buy packs and singles but the system never said I can only gain DP from dueling. I could sell the bulk I have for cheap and buy more copies of the DM structure decks and sell more cards for a profit.
I'm not going to charge prices as ridiculous as the ones I have seen from that site but maybe one copy of Monster Reborn for 1000 to 2000 DP. It is still pretty pricy, but if I want to stop Leo before he invades the XYZ dimension, I need DP and I need them fast.
But I can focus on that after my lesson and dinner. For now, I have to teach a 10-year-old about the damage steps.
Author Note
Sorry for taking a while with this, I have been dealing with an ear infection that has been causing me to lose sleep and making it hard to think when writing. Thankfully, I have legal drugs to help cure that so I should be good soon. Later.
I'm also part of the SGO server so if you want to join and chat, here is a link
/wd3tUYWVCd
I also started my server for anyone who wants to ask me about my fics or just to hang out.
/DYqC3uNfbt