Once she was out of Chazz's line of sight, James took the time to stop and open her backpack. She needed to pick a deck to use in her exam.
'Let's see… since this is a public duel, I should probably stick to the summons that actually exist in this timeline. So Xyz, Synchros, and Pendulum summons are automatically out. Which means I can't use my PePe deck or most of my most powerful decks, not that I need them for an exam match. That leaves most of my modified character decks. They all have rare cards almost exclusive to the character that inspired them, though, so using them will also garner unwanted attention.', James thought with a scowl as she sat down and started looking through her many decks intently, trying to pick one that was just right, even though she really didn't need to be picky for such a trivial duel.
'I suppose it all comes down to what I want to have attention for; owning rare but existing cards or owning cards that shouldn't even exist by these people's standards.', James mused as she held two decks up in front of her; her Kaiba deck and her Aster Elemental Heroes deck. James eyed the two uncertainly, then shrugged and sat her Aster deck down as she started to skim through her Kaiba deck for a certain card.
'Oh well. If I've replaced Jaden like I'm starting to think I have, then that means I can use Elemental Heroes without looking like a stalker. I'll use those cards in this duel to pay tribute to him, since I've taken his place in the story. I'll use my Aster deck though, mostly so I can use Phoenix Enforcer instead of Flame Wingman. I just think his art is cooler. And I think I'll throw in a Blue Eyes just to fuck with Kaiba a bit, since I know he founded Duel Academy and will probably being watching the exam duels in some capacity. I'll only use one Blue Eyes though, since Kaiba supposedly has the 'only other three' in existence. It'll still be fun to have even if I probably won't get the chance to use it in this duel. I wonder how shocked he would be if he found out I bought six Blue Eyes on Ebay for like five bucks.', James thought with a snicker as she started to rearrange her Aster deck and placed her Blue Eyes inside it.
'Besides, using a deck similar to Jaden's will keep things semi in line with the plot before I nuke that shit into oblivion later on. If I duel Crowler, I know what cards he's gonna use and how to counter act them, and if all else fails or if I get really bored during the match... ', James trailed off with a smirk as she pulled out Slifer again, who's eyes still seemed to be glowing weirdly.
'I've got this little fucker to one-shot Crowler into hating me worse than Jaden.', James thought with a chuckle. Then the intercom beeped to life again.
"Last call. James McKenna, please report to dueling arena B-4.", a dull man's voice said. James sighed and stood up.
"Better get going. The last thing I want is a proctor bitching about how late I am.", James mumbled, and then she started to walk over to her designated arena again, her deck of choice in hand. Then she paused again as she realized something.
'Oh shit… I don't have a duel disk.', James thought with wide, dilated eyes. She immediately started rifling through her backpack again, trying to find anything that so much as resembled a duel disk, when (thank the Egyptian gods) she found something.
"Haha, yes! Once again, luck has- !", the girl started to say with a triumphant grin. James lifted the object out of her bag… only to realize it was a fucking toy. Her smile immediately fell and her expression turned to one of disbelief and anger.
"You've gotta be kidding me! A fucking toy?! God fucking damn it!", James cursed as she got a good look at her duel disk. It was the toy duel disk her grandma had gotten her last christmas. It was Shark's duel disk from Yugioh Zexal, so it didn't look at all like the GX duel disks and came with a blue duel gazer. James looked like she wanted to smash the toy to bits. She opened her mouth to start cursing more, but then she realized she had a place to be and decided to save the yelling for later. She put the duel disk and duel gazer on with a heavy sigh.
"Whatever. Let's just hope and pray that anime logic has turned this toy into an actual duel disk, otherwise it's my ass on line.", James mumbled as she started walking again, hoping no one heard her.
James walked into the duel arena with a smile on her face, which didn't falter when she saw Crowler standing opposite to her. His deck and his so-called 'legendary monster' were easy to beat, especially with her deck. Though James had taken the time to acknowledge that she had probably replaced Jaden as the main character and had possibly caused him to not exist at all, she didn't dwell on it too much. What was done was done, and she had a duel to win. Crowler gave her a mocking grin.
"My my, what do we have here? I thought my opponent was going to be a young man given the name called on the intercom. Tell me girl, are you really James McKenna?", Crowler said in his annoying voice. James smirked at him.
"I am. And I thought you were gonna be a lady, but your annoying-ass voice proved me wrong.", James shot back, and Crowler began to look livid as everyone around her went silent with shock that she was speaking to such a high ranking professor that way. The only sound was some rather out of place cackling, and James recognized the voice as Chazz's. Everyone was staring at the boy for laughing, but Chazz didn't seem to care. James turned to the back haired boy and gave a grin and a wink, respecting his attitude. Chazz saw this and stopped laughing as he turned a deep red, but James didn't notice because she had returned her attention to Crowler.
"Well I never!", Crowler said in a shrill, indignant voice. James rolled her eyes at the man's hissy behavior.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. Let's get this over with.", James mumbled as she put her duel gazer on. Crowler and everyone around her looked baffled by the contraption.
"What is that?", Crowler asked rudely as he eyed the duel gazer. James glared at him.
"It's part of my gear. My duel disk is specially augmented outside of the usual Kaiba Corp regulations because I wanted to have better holograms.", James said, bluntly lying and just using fancy words in the hopes Crowler wouldn't ask too many questions. That hope was in vain, however, because Crowler began to look intrigued.
"Is that so?", the man said, suddenly looking slightly more impressed by James than he had before, but only slightly. James nodded and kept talking out of her ass in the hopes the man wouldn't notice she was just making shit up as she went along.
"Yep. The duel gazer makes the holograms less grainy, and it even has access to a database that lets me research cards and their effects. That way, if someone uses a card I don't know about, I can do a quick search on it to make sure it actually does what my opponent says it does or see if it has an effect that they don't know about.", James continued.
She had no idea if duel gazers actually did all of that, she hadn't watched Zexal in nearly three years. It was one of her least favorite Yugioh spin-offs. James then sweatdropped as she recalled one of the worst blights she had to face as a Yugioh player in her world.
'I hope duel gazers actually do all of that shit, though. The one thing Yugioh players in this world and my world have in common is that they don't read their fucking cards and usually have no idea what the drawbacks and effects are beyond one or two details.', James thought annoyedly.
She couldn't recall how many times she had won online duels because her opponents just used whatever random cool cards they knew from the anime serieses, without strategizing or actually knowing what the fucking cards do. It was one of her greatest pet peeves as a duelist. Crowler and everyone in the stands looked at James in awe because of what she claimed her gear could do.
"She has a duel disk that has access to a card search database? Amazing! My card search database takes up so much storage I can barely store it on my monitor, let alone in a device as small as that duel gazer.", Bastion Misawa said in awe as he stared at the strange girl from the written exam. She had given him an odd feeling, and now he could see that feeling was warranted just by the look of her duel gear. A boy who was sitting near him that Bastion had been talking to, Cyrus Truesdale, nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, she sure is something. Her duel hasn't even started yet and she's already the center of attention! Though, I guess it's to be expected. She did beat you for the best written exam score.", Cyrus reminded, and Bastion nodded in acknowledgement with a frown.
The written exam scores had been posted mere minutes ago, and Bastion had been shocked and disappointed to find that he had placed second overall, with the only person who scored higher than him being someone named James McKenna. Bastion had immediately started looking for the boy who had done better than him in spite of all his hard studying, only to discover that he had been beaten by a girl, not a boy when the person he had been looking for was called up to duel. Bastion had then watched in awe as the girl insulted Crowler and revealed her state-of-the-art duel gear. It was then that Bastion conceded that he had been fairly and soundly bested anyone who could augment their duel gear in such an astounding way was definitely smart enough to best him on a test. He would just have to try harder next time. With a small smile, Bastion stared down at James.
'James McKenna, it seems you're my greatest competition so far… ', the brunette boy trailed off. Meanwhile, on the other side of the stands, Chazz was having some thoughts of his own.
'Specially augmented duel gear, huh? I should ask her about it later. Maybe she can tell me how she did it so I can have my brothers pay someone to do it to my duel gear. The Chazz should only have the best, after all.', Chazz thought arrogantly, though his thought didn't dwell on that for long, because they soon returned to obsessing over the girl who owned the duel gear.
James McKenna was an enigma that just kept fascinating Chazz with everything she did, and Chazz didn't know whether he wanted to hate her for it or whether he wanted to do something else. She was funny at the very least, so he didn't think he hated her so much as he was annoyed by her and her perfect pretty face. And that annoyance got even worse when she called him pet names and winked at him with those stupid pretty eyes of hers. Chazz stared at James intently as he kept thinking about the girl, and after a few moments, she noticed him staring and shot him a blinding smile. Chazz froze at being caught, then huffed and looked away from James stubbornly, his face red as a tomato.
'Stupid James and her stupid smile… ', Chazz grumbled mentally, as James chuckled fondly at his antics.
'Well, nice to see he's more like his post-redemption self than I had dared to hope. Maybe it's because I'm not Jaden and all of his asshole behavior was saved for him… ', James mused curiously, before she returned her attention to Crowler, who was scowling at her for losing focus on their conversation. James sighed tiredly and pinched the bridge of her nose. She really wished she could just skip this…
"Look, we already know how this is supposed to go, so why don't we get this over with and get this duel started?", James requested. Crowler glared at her and huffed at her valid logic.
"Fine. Examiner goes first, so I'll start by-WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!", Crowler screamed loudly as James started trying to violently shove her cards into the deck slot of her duel disk, which wasn't going too well given the red card sleeves covering her cards made them too big to fit in the hole.
"Trying to fit my cards into the damn duel disk, what else would I be doing?!", James responded irately. She made a low groaning sound in the back of her throat. Great, this was just what she needed right now. Crowler pointed at her dramatically with a tick mark on his face.
"IF YOU WANT THEM TO FIT, TAKE THOSE USELESS PIECES OF PLASTIC OFF THEM!", the blonde man demanded. James snarled at him.
"AND LET MY CARDS GET DAMAGED?! FUCK NO! I'M A PROFESSIONAL! I HAVE STANDARDS, UNLIKE YOU!", James screamed back in response. Crowler choked at the insult. Chazz was openly laughing again, with the few people sitting near him looking at him strangely, but everyone else in the stands was very much confused. Except for two people at the very top of the arena.
"That one's definitely got spunk, huh Zane?", Alexis said as she watched James and Crowler bicker about card sleeves, leaning over the guardrailing to get a better look. The black haired girl was acting more surly than she had ever seen an applicant act with a professor, and that intrigued her. That, and the girl's apparently very advanced duel gear. Zane, who was standing beside her with crossed arms and his signature scowl, merely gave James a dry look.
"'Spunk' is one word for it. 'Crazy' is another.", Zane snarked. Alexis turned and gave her friend an annoyed look.
"Oh come on Zane, don't be too harsh on her. Crowler isn't exactly the easiest person to get along with.", the brunette girl said defensively. She didn't know James, but she couldn't possibly be all bad. Zane gave Alexis a pointed look.
"That doesn't mean she should go make an enemy out of him. That guy can be petty, especially with students he dislikes. If that girl gets in here, she's going to have a rough time, that's for sure.", Zane refuted, before he returned to staring down at James (who was still bickering with Crowler while trying to fit her cards in her duel disk) intently.
'She got the highest score on the written exam and has this amazing duel gear, but she acts like a total idiot. Just who the hell is this girl?', Zane questioned internally. At that moment, James finally managed to shove her cards into her duel disk without breaking it. The girl grinned triumphantly.
"AHA! Victory! Take that, you stupid machine! Alright Crowler, let's duel!", James cried out, feeling at little giddy when she used Yugi's catch phrase. She had always wanted to say that without sounding like a weirdo. Crowler, to James's confusion, looked at her strangely.
"How do you know my name? I don't recall ever telling you that.", Crowler asked cautiously. James's grin fell and she began to sweat. It was time for her to either pull some more bullshit out of her ass, or make a bad joke that would distract the man.
"Your mom, that's how."
… And it seemed the route she had taken was the 'bad joke' one. James had to resist the urge to cringe at her own words, but honestly, it could have been worse. She could have responded with 'because I'm Seto fucking Kaiba' like her intrusive thoughts centered around LittleKuriboh's abridged series were telling her to. Crowler turned red in the face once more and drew several cards out of his duel vest.
"You insolent girl! Fine, let's duel! And don't think I'll go easy on you after you gave me all that lip!", the man screamed, but James just ignored him and drew her own hand, before finally turning on her duel gazer. James was relieved to see that her equipment actually worked and weren't just toys anymore when she saw her life points appear in the corner of her gazer.
'Oh thank the Egyptian gods, I won't look like an idiot for hyping up advanced equipment that doesn't even work.', James thought as she sighed in relief. Leave it to her to fall ass first into looking like a badass. James then took a look at her cards. They were basically what Jaden had at the start of his duel with Crowler, with Avian and Bustinatrix already in her hand. Polymerization was there too, as was Hero Signal and Call of the Haunted. James grinned.
'Alright, not bad. I can work with this.', she thought. Even if she didn't end up drawing Slifer to win the game, she could still beat Ancient Gear Golem with Phoenix Enforcer. James shot Crowler a mocking smirk, which made the man glare at her even harder than he already was.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Didn't you say the examiner goes first?", James questioned teasingly. Crowler made an angry noise in the back of his throat.
"Don't rush me! First, I draw!", he ordered, and James's smirk widened. Crowler surveyed his cards and drew one card from his deck, before scowling. He had a terrible hand.
"Now, I place one card face down and one monster face down in defense mode and end my turn.", Crowler said as he placed Ancient Gear face down on the field, along with his card. He was disappointed by his lack of useful spells that turn, but he could live with it. After all, it was only the first turn. He was sure to draw a useful card next turn. Besides, what could some mere rookie applicant do to him in a single turn, anyways? Her hand was probably even worse than his!
Famous last words.
James grinned as a strategy for how to beat Crowler in less than three turns formed in her head. She placed her hand over her deck and closed her eyes, sending a quick prayer to the Yugioh gods.
'Come on, card gods! Let that heart of the cards bullshit actually work, for the love God!', James pleaded mentally, before yanking a card off the top of the deck.
"I draw!", she cried out, knowing it was normal to narrate everything she did in a duel in the Yugioh world. It still felt rather strange to her, though. James peeked at the card, and she grinned. It was exactly the card she had been hoping for, Slifer.
'Well hello there my little game winning friend~.', James purred in her mind, before she placed Slifer into her hand and got to work. Crowler began to sweat a little at how happy she looked.
"What are you smiling for?", Crowler asked rudely. James didn't answer him. She just kept smiling, and that made him even more worried.
"Alright, let's get this show on the road, shall we? To start things off, I summon Elemental Hero Avian in attack mode!", James cried as she placed Avian on her duel disk. She watched in barely concealed awe as her monster appeared before her in a whirlwind of feathers, just like he did in the anime. Holograms had to be one of the coolest things in the Yugioh world by far. Crowler laughed at her move.
"I don't see why that measly monster had you smiling!", Crowler mocked. Sure, Avian was stronger than his Ancient Gear, but he still only had 1000 attack points. Any monster Crowler would summon next turn would beat him easily. James gave him a cocky smirk.
"Oh, that's not what had me smiling, this is! I play the spell card Hero Signal, which allows me to summon one Elemental Hero from my hand or deck when there's another Elemental Hero on the field! So come on out, Elemental Hero Burstinatrix!", James yelled as she revealed her spell card to Crowler and placed it on her dual disk, along with Burstinatrix, who appeared on the field in a ball of fire in attack mode. Crowler gave her a dry look.
"Okay, whoop-de-doo, you have two weak monsters on the field. I still don't see why that had you smiling.", Crowler jabbed. James raised a taunting eyebrow at him.
"Come on teach, aren't you a professor of dueling? Shouldn't you know what cards do what, or rather… What cards make what?", James questioned. Crowler suddenly stiffened, his eyes widened in realization.
"Wait, you don't mean- !", he started to say. If James did what he thought she was about to do, then he would be done for! James grinned and nodded, before revealing her Polymerization card and placing it in one of her spell slots.
"Oh, I mean! I play Polymerization and fuse together Elemental Heroes Avian and Burstinatrix! Come forth, the hero that rises from the ashes of his fallen brethren, Elemental Hero Phoenix Enforcer!", James cried dramatically with her hand raised in the air as the ace monster of Aster Phoenix's Elemental Heroes deck appeared on the field. The golden eyed girl's already present grin widened. Now that she had gotten used to the narrating, she had to admit it was pretty fun to put on a show. Crowler suddenly looked very afraid.
"No, no this can't be!", Crowler yelled as he started to yank at his blonde hair. Then he froze as he realized something else and raised a bewildered eyebrow at James.
"Wait, did you just summon a bunch of monsters in one turn?", Crowler asked, and James could already see where the conversation was going.
'God has a sense of humor.', she thought at the reference she was about to make. She mirrored Crowler's raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, so?", James asked. Crowler scowled at her.
"That's against the rules, isn't it?!", the PHD holder demanded. James grinned at him as she got ready to make the Yugioh abridged reference of all Yugioh abridged references.
"Screw the rules, I'm hot! Also I didn't even break the rules. Avian was my one normal summon for the turn and Burstinatrix and Phoenix Enforcer were special summons, and since the rules state a player can make an unlimited number of special summons per turn, I didn't break any rules in the first place. You'd think you'd know that, being a professor at a top duel school and all… ", James trailed off after making her sick burn and explaining the rules of Yugioh to Crowler. Everyone in the stands laughed, and Crowler turned a bright shade of red, though he didn't say anything due to his embarrassment at not knowing such and obvious piece of dueling knowledge overwhelming his anger. Even Zane gave a small snicker in response to James's words.
'Well, that kid at least has one thing going for her as a dualist; she can definitely keep a crowd entertained.', Zane thought with a small smile. She almost reminded him of Atticus. Whether or not James was actually good at duel monsters, however, Zane would decide based off of if the girl won her current duel, which it was looking like she might. Down in the arena, James grinned and pointed at Crowler's face down monster.
"Now Phoenix Enforcer, attack his face down! Phoenix Wave!", James yelled, remembering the monster's exact anime attack name like the absolute weeb she was. Phoenix Enforcer attacked, and Crowler's Ancient Gear was revealed before it was shattered to pieces. Crowler flinched at the sight, and once the attack was done, James gave him another one of her cocky smirks.
"I end my turn. Your move, teach.", James said, and everyone in the stands was gasping in awe of her. She was making beating Crowler look easy! Cyrus stared at her with envy.
"She's so confident. I wish I had half the guts she did… ", the blue haired boy mumbled to himself Bastion didn't hear him, too absorbed in the duel to pay his new acquaintance any mind.
'She's got plenty of skill and good cards, I'll give her that, but her Phoenix Enforcer's attack points are still no match for Crowler's Ancient Gear Golem. If that's her best card, I'm afraid she won't be pulling out a win today.', Bastion observed calculatingly. In the arena, Crowler took a deep breath before beginning his turn.
'Get it together, Vellian! She's a rookie, a slacker! So what she took out my Ancient Gear?! There's plenty more where he came from! And plenty better cards, too!', Crowler thought with frustration as he forced himself to smirk and drew a card. He smirked when he saw what it was. It was his signature monster; Ancient Gear Golem
"I'll start off my turn by playing a spell card; Heavy Storm! It allows me to destroy every spell and trap card on the field!", Crowler declared as he revealed the spell card he was using and placed it on the field. The card expelled a large turret of wind, destroying his face down and revealing it to be Statue of the Wicked James didn't flinch in the face of this, but she did frown. She knew what was coming next. Crowler's face became very smug.
"You're probably wondering why I just willingly destroyed my own cards, so I'll tell you; that trap I just destroyed was called Statue of the Wicked, and when it's destroyed, I get to summon one Wicked Token to take its place!", Crowler declared, and a golden worm thing appeared on the field. James remained stoic. Crowler's smile widened as he pulled two other cards from his hand.
"Oh, but that's not all! I now play Monster Reborn and Call of the Ancient Gears! This allows me to bring back my Ancient Gear from the graveyard in attack mode! And since I have one Ancient Gear monster on the field, I can make a tribute summon this turn so long as the monster I summon is also an Ancient Gear type! So come on out, Ancient Gear Golem!", Crowler cried as his Ancient Gear and Wicked Token disappeared to make way for his ace monster.
Ancient Gear Golem appeared on the field in a haze of black smoke, its eyes glowing menacingly as it loomed over James. The audience looked at it in awe, but James remained unimpressed. Zane sighed disappointedly. He had just gotten invested in the duel, and now the person he had silently been rooting for was backed into a corner.
"Well, she's done for.", Zane said bluntly, and in his mind she was. There was no way a rookie, no matter how talented, could have a monster in their deck strong enough to beat a 3000 attack point goliath like Ancient Gear Golem. Alexis frowned, but said nothing in protest. Chazz, meanwhile, was starting to feel genuinely worried for James. He gripped the armrests of his seat anxiously.
'Come on McKenna, do something!', Chazz screamed internally. Crowler pointed at James like he was striking a JoJo back pose.
"Ancient Gear Golem, attack her Phoenix Enforcer! Mechanized Melee!", Crowler commanded, and the golem punched Phoenix Enforcer hard enough to send him flying back in a cloud of dust. James's life points went from 4000 to 3100. But once more, the girl didn't react. Crowler started cackling madly.
"HAH! I just took out your ace monster! Not so cocky now, are you girl?", the professor asked. James remained silent, but she smiled as the dust started to clear. Crowler began to get angry.
"Why are you smiling? Stop doing that!", he asked. He was really starting to get annoyed with his opponent's infuriating reactions. James's smile widened.
"Look again, Crowler.", she told the man. The man blinked at her.
"Huh?", he questioned. The crowd and Crowler looked on in confusion when they saw that there was a figure standing in the dust. The confusion turned to shock when everyone realized the figure standing in the dust was Elemental Hero Phoenix Enforcer. Crowler began to sweat.
"Wha-what?! But I destroyed it! Check your gear, it must be faulty!", Crowler demand as he pointed at James dramatically for the umpteenth time. James rolled her eyes at the man.
"Right. Because my highly advanced duel gear is clearly the problem here.", the golden eyed girl said sarcastically. Crowler glared intensely at her.
"Well then what else could it be?!", he questioned. James glared at him.
"Hm, well it could be that you did what every other duelist in the world seems to do and didn't read your fucking cards! If you had bothered to read Phoenix Enforcer's effect, which I know you are capable of doing with your equipment, you would know that he can't be destroyed in battle! So sorry, but he's here to stay!", James refuted, and Crowler began to look even more angry.
'This girl-whatever! It doesn't even matter! If that's her best monster, all I have to do is keep attacking it until her life points hit zero! She can keep him around all she wants, but she's only stalling the inevitable!', Crowler thought as he placed a card face down.
"Hmpth! I place one card face down and end my turn!", the man declared, and James grinned.
"My turn then! I draw!", James said as she drew a card. When she saw what it was, her grin got even wider. This was the turn she was going to win. James turned the card around and revealed it to Crowler.
"Get ready to lose teach, because I've got you cornered! I play the spell card Depolymerization, to defuse my Phoenix Enforcer back into Elemental Heroes Burstinatrix and Avian!", James announced, and everyone gaped at her in bewilderment as she played the card, and her fusion monster disappeared and was replaced with the two monsters used to make it.
"What?! Why the hell would she get rid of her best monster?!", Cyrus exclaimed in confusion. Bastion just stared. Even he had no idea what James could be planning. Higher up, Zane looked very intrigued and very confused.
'What is she planning… ?', the third year thought. Crowler gaped wildly at his opponent.
"Are you stupid? Why would you get rid of- ?!", Crowler exclaimed, basically trying to repeat what Cyrus had said. James smirked at him.
"Hold on Crowler, 'cause I'm not done! Next, I play the spell card Change of Heart! I'm sure you already know what this one does!", James yelled as she placed the spell onto her duel disk. Crowler suddenly looked very pale.
"Oh no… ", he said in a low, panicked voice. James's smirk widened.
"Oh yes. Change of Heart lets me take control of any one of your monsters until the end of this turn, and since there's only one option, your Ancient Gear Golem is coming with me!", James yelled as the golem walked over to her side of the field. Crowler gulped. This was it. He was going to lose. All James had to do was attack with each of her monsters, and his life points were finished. Everyone else knew this as well, but Zane looked perturbed by all this.
'Hold on, if she was just going to take control of Crowler's monster using Change of Heart, then she could have just attacked him directly with both Ancient Gear Golem and Phoenix Enforcer and won the game. There was no need for her to Depolymerize her monster.', Zane realized, and then his eyes widened as he realized something else.
'Unless… she's planning something else… !'
James was looking at Crowler smugly down in the arena. She knew she could just attack with both of her Heroes and Ancient Gear Golem and win the game, but that would be no fun. She had really been looking forward to summoning Slifer, after all. James tilted her head and raised an arrogant eyebrow at her stressed looking opponent. She wanted to play with Crowler a little before she finished him off.
"Ya know, before I win Crowler, I have to ask… what's your least favorite dorm at Duel Academy? I know I'll probably end up there because of you. Is it Ra? Obelisk? I know there's another one, but I just can't put my finger on the name. Slicker? Slika?", James inquired casually, faking a lack of knowledge to get a strong reaction. Everyone looked taken off guard by the random question, including Crowler. Crowler blinked at her in bewilderment, before a comically angry expression appeared on his face and he began screaming.
"Slifer! Its name is Slifer! And those no-good Slifer red's have been bringing down Duel Academy's reputation for years! I would love nothing more than to smash the entire dorm to pieces!", Crowler declared passionately, just as James had expected him to. James grinned crazily. This was gonna be good. Crowler suddenly stopped ranting and began to look very, very worried.
"Why are you smiling like that?", he asked for the millionth time, only this time, he didn't sound annoyed when he asked that. He sounded frightened. James threw her head back and cackled like a witch, making several onlookers very nervous. She was leaning into the dramatics of dueling as much as possible, and she loved it.
"I hope you like poetic irony Crowler, because I'm about to destroy you with the thing you hate most!", James declared, and Crowler gave her a look of fearful confusion.
"What-what do you mean by that?", the man stammered, mentally cursing himself for stuttering at a mere applicant (no matter how skilled and admittedly frightening she was). Everyone in the stands was also confused, except for one; Zane. Zane gasped as he realized what James was insinuating, and his eyes widened in shock as he leaned over the railing to get as close of a look as possible at the girl that was about to do something very brave or very stupid.
"There's no way… there's no way she has that card! It's impossible! There's only one! There's no way!", Zane exclaimed, losing his cool for the first time in a long time. Alexis looked at him in confusion.
"Zane, what are you talking about?", the girl asked, looking concerned for her usually stoic friend. After she asked that, James spoke up once more, preparing herself to be as dramatic as possible.
"Brace yourself, Crowler! Prepare to experience a power like no other, one that will pierce the heavens and shatter the earth! I sacrifice your Ancient Gear Golem and my Elemental Heroes Avian and Burstinatrix to summon a legend, one the world of dueling hasn't seen in nearly a decade! Come forth… Slifer the Sky Dragon!", James cried like she was Atem in Battle City, raising her card high into the air before slapping it onto her duel disk in attack mode. Despite the dangers of summoning an Egyptian God, she was grinning the whole time.
'Man, I am really feeling myself today.', James noted calmly as a fucking lightning storm appeared overhead and covered the entire ceiling. Thunder rolled and lightning cracked as a hole opened up in the clouds. James kept grinning, and everyone stared in awe as a pillar of white light appeared from the hole and turned into the infamous god card, which was so large it's long body covered most of the storm from view. Crowler fell to his knees, looking like he was about to shit his pants, and James cackled.
'Woo! Suck it Kaiba, I'm summoning your least favorite God Card on your turf!'
"Now Slifer, attack! Lighting Blast!", James commanded, and Slifer did just that. He only had 4000 attack points because of the lack of cards in her hand, but it was more than enough to one shot Crowler. Slifer opened his top mouth and directly blasted Crowler with a beam of white light like the one he had appeared out of. While this was happening, different thoughts were running through everyone's heads.
'Is this really happening?!', Cyrus thought in a panic as he stared at the goliath of a monster before him, quite literally shaking in his boots.
'How on earth did that girl acquire one of the God Cards?! There's no way it's a counterfeit! The system would have rejected it by now!', Bastion thought, utterly flabbergasted with eyes wide as saucers.
'Just what kind of duelist is this girl?!', Alexis thought with fear and shock at seeing such a powerful card in person. Beside her, Zane was shaking and wide-eyed.
'This can't be happening… This can't be happening... !', the usually calm and collected duelist thought as he began to feel irrational fear at the sight of one of the most powerful cards in duel monsters. It tool a lot to make him afraid, and a rookie duelist had somehow accomplished that. It made Zane want to scream and ask questions all at the same time.
In his seat, Chazz was frozen, unable to move or change his shocked expression. His mind was frozen, too. How could the eccentric girl he had been joking with just an hour before be summoning a God Card? It was crazy! Chazz was able to process one thought, though, and it was a thought that everyone present in the Kaiba Dome seemed to be having in unison.
'Just who is this girl?'
And here's chapter two. Duels take way longer to write than I anticipated, which is part of the reason why I will probably be skipping over quite a few of them. Duels are fun to write, don't get me wrong, but this is a plot-focused story and what makes duels fun for me to write are when people pull cool cards out of their asses and shock the audience while wiping the floor with their opponent, like this one. I also doubt you guys want to read a rehash of the GX anime with barely any changes, and I refuse to write every single filler duel, especially the Alexis love interest duels. Sixty percent of those can die in a ditch, except for the Chazz ones because the Chazz is awesome. I'll do the (important) Shadow Rider duels (probably) and all those other important-to-the-plot duels, but nothing else is guaranteed. Most duels will happen off-screen.
I'm sure most of you noticed that I probably broke at least two rules of duel monsters when writing Crowler vs. James. You might wanna get used to that, because like I said last chapter, I barely remember how to play this game and I am not watching deck structure Youtube vidoes when this fic is supposed to be about romance with card games as a B plot. I know you hardcore fans won't like that, but I value my time too much to rememorize how to play a game no one I know plays. I'll do some base research, throw in a few well-known deck type names to prove I'm not some filthy casual, but that's about it. Also, James doesn't have a set deck. She isn't trying to be Jaden, she just wanted to keep things close to canon for a little while and pay the guy a little tribute. She won't always use Elemental Heroes; hell, her base deck type for this duel was her Aster Elemental Heroes deck, not her Jaden deck. She's like every other Yugioh megafan on earth; she's blown countless dollars on buying cards on Amazon and shit to build various deck types. She has dozens of decks and extra decks, all either based around Yugioh anime characters or various powerful deck types people use on earth, like PePe (not the frog, btw. If you know you know). I know that in the Yugioh world having the same deck type as someone is seen as 'copying' and is a dishonorable thing to do, but that's bullshit and James is probably going to address that in a future chapter. Next time, Kaiba shows up and James's actions have consequences!
So long and Goodnight, Thackery Binx.