C.2 - Climbing Up
"Hey Jaden."
He started at the sound of somewhat addressing him. His eyes shooting open and his posture straightening in his seat from before when he'd been hunched over his desk asleep.
"Ah! Man, you move silently."
"I apologise, I didn't mean to startle you." His studious Ra Yellow friend bowed his head slightly. "I just have a question for you."
"What class even is this, I don't know if I can help you man." He admitted sheepishly to Bastion whilst scratching at the back of his head.
Bastion simply shook his head. "It isn't about that, class has ended if you hadn't noticed."
"Huh." Looking around, yep. Class was most definitely over, students in all colours of jackets were beginning to leave the room or packing up their things. The only people not moving immediately were talking to each other about various things.
"Anyways, my question is if you know about Carey?"
"Oh her!" Jaden grinned.
"You do? Mhm, she'd asked me if I'd been interested in duelling you."
Jaden perked up in his seat.
"But I declined."
Jaden slumped back down.
"I'm just curious as to why she had asked me, I didn't get a chance to ask before she just left." Bastion admitted before sighing.
"Oh, well apparently she's my Agent, she's trying to help me find people to duel since I was having trouble finding people. I've duelled like three or four people now thanks to her, it's been a great week."
"Mhm." Bastion nodded his head at that as he crossed his arms, bringing one hand up to his chin. "I see, I imagine the rumours haven't been helping much."
"Definitely not. You don't believe them do you?" He asked.
The studious Ra Yellow shook his head slowly. "No, of course I wouldn't. They're baseless, I saw your Duel against Crowler. I think you have plenty of skill. At the very least, your deck isn't lacking in strong cards."
"People I've duelled for the first couple of days at this academy would disagree." He pointed out as he leaned back in his chair's back legs.
"Those people could hardly be called duelists, they put far too much value in the raw numbers printed on the cards, despite them being the easiest thing in the game to change." Bastion clicked his tongue. "Well, thank you for answering my question, I'd been curious. That's all, as much as I'd like to duel you, I want to go in prepared."
"Really? I don't really get that." Jaden admitted. "I'd much rather just duel someone and see what happens instead of just standing on the sidelines."
"I think my approach yields more results. Usually it wouldn't take me so long to prepare, but you're an odd one Jaden. There is something about the way you duel that goes beyond just the cards you play."
"Well, if you say so." he shrugged back at Bastion.
"Mhm, at first when I heard you were looking for people to duel and had someone out there looking for people for you to duel, I didn't believe it. It almost sounded like you were taking your studies seriously."
"Um… I haven't really done anything different than before."
"Yes you did," Bastion insisted. "I looked at your file on the PDA, you've accumulated a lot of wins recently."
"Still don't see what's different, man." he pointed out.
"The PDA doesn't keep track of casual duels Jaden, that's the difference, it's strange your Agent didn't tell you. She's apparently been placing you in official duels without your knowledge, has she?"
"I… I don't know what an official duel is…" He mumbled to himself.
Bastion shook his head and sighed. "What do you mean you don't know, I'm sure all of this was explained to us. Do you also not know about the Circuits?"
He shook his head.
"Then let me explain. Official Duels are different from casual duels, because the results of these duels are marked permanently on your record. Allowing other people to see your record. This is important because of the circuits, our school has three circuits, one for each dorm colour. When you were sorted into these dorms you were placed into a rank in one of these Circuits. For Example, when i first arrived at this school, i was in Ra Yellow Rank 7. Which is fairly high to start in. A Ra Yellow Student being placed in the Ra Yellow circuit is guaranteed of course, but 7 is a high rank to start out as."
He whistled at that. "Seven out of all the Ra Yellow Students, that's pretty sweet. You're sure you don't want to duel me right now?"
Bastion shook his head again. "You're misunderstanding. Ranks are shared amongst students. Every student is given a rank from 1 to 10. The only Ranks with limits to how many people can be in them is Rank 1, which only one student can be in and the rank beyond that, the Champion of the Circuit. You might have heard of some of the champions, your friend's brother is the champion of Obelisk Blue."
"Oh! I think I've heard of him. Say, wait." He pleaded before reaching into his bag beside his seat and pulling out his small electronic pad, the PDA. "If everyone has a rank then…" He opened his profile and eventually found what he was looking for. "Aha! I'm in the Slifer Circuit, Rank… 9? That's higher than I thought, I've only got like five wins."
"Actually, you were probably higher but fell due to not having many official duels this month." Bastion admitted. "But you beat Chrowler in the entrance exams, that probably made you begin higher than the rest of the Slifers."
"So what, if i win more official duels, then i'll rise the rankings."
Bastion offered a so-and-so gesture. "Kind of, technically that plan could work. If a teacher sees your efforts they may raise you up a rank, the reverse is also true if you slack off too much, but the only real sure-fire way to move you across the rankings would be to challenge someone of that ranking and defeat them. You want rank one, you duel the rank one duelist. You also couldn't duel the champion in an official duel unless you were Rank One of that circuit. Got all that."
"Sorta…" Jaden hummed. "Honestly, as cool as that all sounds, I probably won't be climbing it much. Seems like a lot of effort."
"That's unfortunate. I thought you'd really like it." Bastion hummed in thought. "Going up the ranks would see you facing stronger opponents."
"Yeah, that'd be nice. But I'm cool where I am right now. I just want to duel people and have fun. I'm not looking for a challenge exactly. The people I'm duelling nowadays are pretty cool and so are their decks. Maybe one day though…"
"That's fair I guess. Though personally I would like to climb and become number one at the academy." Bastion admitted. "Well, you've answered my questions, so I guess I'll be leaving you. Best of luck Jaden."
"You too man, let me know when you're finally ready. I really want to duel you man, you keep hyping yourself up." Said Jaden before chuckling.
A few hours later and school had finally ended for the day, an orange sky gave the massive Duel Academy main building a different warm look compared to other times. He'd decided to spend his time on an outside bench to lay down on and just let the evening pass him by.
"Jaden, my favourite client."
That was of course, until someone spoke to him. "Hey Carey." He said before sitting up and yawning. "I love all these duels you've been finding me, but everyday is a bit much isn't it?"
"Oh, I can spread them out better if you wish." Carey hummed before adjusting her glasses. "But i do have someone you can duel now. Though I'd understand if you didn't want to duel this guy."
"Hm? What's up?" He asked curiously.
"This guy went out of his way to hunt me down. Which is already kinda creepy. Apparently, he's tired of all the rumours about you beating Chazz Princeton or whatever and now wants to defeat you to shut all the rumours up or whatever." Carey then shook her head. "I'm mentioning this to you just because you should know. If you don't want to duel someone like that, I can make a call and get someone else super easy."
"Nah." Jaden shrugged. "If the guy wants to duel me, then I'll duel him."
"You sure…" Carey asked again, just to be sure. "He doesn't seem all that pleasant."
"If I duel him, he'll stop though, so I'll do it." He nodded before pushing himself up off the bench. "When did he want to duel, today? Tomorrow?"
Carey pouted for a moment before letting go of whatever they seemed to want to say. Instead saying. "Later today, Here's the details of what you need to know."
Soon enough, he'd walked through the doors into one of the Duel Arenas, with only Carey by his side. Looking up he could already see the duelist who had demanded to challenge him standing upon the duel stage. He was an Obelisk Blue Student.
That dorm really did seem to have the most confrontational duelists didn't they?
He waved as he entered. "Hey there! I heard you wanted to duel me!" He shouted out before jumping up on top of the stage.
The Obelisk Blue student immediately turned their nose up at him. "You're exactly how I thought you'd look."
"Handsome?" He tried before chuckling.
"A gangly mess of limbs with a jacket too big for you." The Obelisk Blue student answered. "You can call me Vitree, remember that name."
"Sure man." He shrugged. "So you wanted to duel me, I'd be happy to oblige."
"At least the rumours of you being a coward don't seem to be true." Vitree huffed. "That just means I don't need to chase you down. You know how annoying this week has been."
He tried to reply to that, but was immediately cut off by the blue student.
"Everyday, you're the hottest topic. 'Do you think he really beat the Princeton kid?' 'How is it possible, i thought he was good.' 'He probably cheated.' Not to mention on top of all that the Princeton kid hasn't been answering anyone's questions, so people are thinking he's keeping quiet cause he lost." Vitree then scoffed.
"If a Slifer really beat Princeton, then I'm a monkey's uncle, I'm going to clear things up once and for all, you aren't going to be able to worm your way out of this. Prepare to duel Slacker!" Vitree then struck a pose, activating their Duel Disk.
"Kay." Jaden shrugged before raising his own disk and then smiling. "Let's do this!"
"Don't know why you're so happy, you're about to lose!" Vitree scoffed.
"Enough talk, c'mon!" Jaden insisted.
"Let's Duel!" They both shouted out at once from opposite ends of the Duel Stage.
"I'll take the first move!" Vitree called out before drawing from his deck. "And I'll begin by playing this card. Weed Root Sentinel!" A construct made entirely out of tree roots and vines appeared on the Obelisk Blue's Field. Its body was humanoid in shape, though lacking a head, A singular glowing red orb of light near the top of its headless frame. (A:1500/D:1000)
"Now I'll use his effect." Vitree called out. "With it, I get to reveal a Field Spell in my hand," He then flipped over a card in his hand, showing off a copy of Forest. "and if I do, I can special summon any Plant Monster from my hand with 500 or less attack and defence. I'll use it to play Dreamsprite." A new monster appeared, a small pixie about the size of a small cat. (A:300/D:200)
"Finally, I'll set a card face-down and end my turn." Vitree placed a card in their back row and snapped his fingers towards Jaden.
"Great! My move!" Hecalled out before drawing from his deck.
"Better make it a good one. This duel will be quick." Vitree replied haughtily. Jaden started to just tune him out as he kept playing.
"Alright, let's begin with this, Elemental Hero Burstinatrix, and since you've got field spells, I'll use one of my own, say hello to Skyscraper!" An explosion of fire signalled the arrival of the Elemental Heroes first woman hero amongst their ranks. A black haired woman with pale skin, with red make-up under their eyes and in a red spandex. Balls of flame appearing in their hands. (A:1200/D:800)
The hero stared stoically as cityline buildings erupted from the ground around both duelists.
"Now when Burstinatrix battles a monster with more attack points than her, she'll gain 1000 attack points." Jaden grinned before gesturing forwards. "Now attack that Sentinel, Burstinatrix!"
The fire hero leapt forwards before throwing a fireball from each of her hands, setting the root guardian ablaze. Vitree hissed lightly as they saw their monster turn to ashes.
"Damn…"
Vitree (3300LP)
"That doesn't matter." He bounced right back, I'll activate my trap card, Call Of The Haunted to bring back my guardian!" Once again the Rootweed Sentinel arrived on the field. (A:1500/D:1000)
"Huh, well I'm looking forward to seeing why you brought him back." Jaden hummed before ending his turn there.
"Oh you'll see, draw!" He did so, before smiling at the card he drew before playing it. "Terraforming, this little number lets me add a Field Spell from my deck to my hand, I'll use it to add Chorus Of Sanctuary to my hand." Vitree declared before continuing. "Afterwards, I'll Normal Summon Grass Phantom."
A massive grass creature with a human face on its front and many tentacle-like roots appeared behind Vitree. (A:1000/D:1000)
"I feel like I've seen that guy in a JRPG." Jaden hummed.
"After that, I'll use Sentinel's effect to reveal my Chorus Of Sanctuary to Special Summon, Guardian Pixie!" THis time a fairy woman wearing a dress made of water and foam appeared on the field, their butterfly wings open behind. (A:300/D:300)
"Now we battle!" As he said it, Vitree lumberred forwards.
"Since you attacked Burstinatrix with a monster with more attack points than them, they'll gain 1000 attack points!" Jaden called out, power surged through his monster bringing their total up to 2200.
Victree shook his head with disappointment. "When a plant monster battles, my Guardian Pixie activates her effect, letting me reveal any number of field spells in my hand, giving Sentinel 400 attack and defence points for each one until the end phase."
The Obelisk Blue then flipped around two cards in his hand, them being Forest and Chorus of Sanctuary. "Now my monster rises up to 2300!" The root construct then whipped its arms around, ensnaring the hero and tightening their hold until the monster burst into a spray of pixels.
"That could've gone better." Jaden winced a single eye shut. (3900LP)
"Too bad, cause it's about to get a whole lot worse, you're lucky my guardian Pixie can only use her effect once per turn, cause otherwise you'd be dead, still though, my other three monsters are going to hit you hard."
Two orbs of light then struck Jaden right before the massive Grass Phantom lashed him with a vine. (2300LP)
"I'll then activate Forest and end my turn." The skyscrapers around the field quickly became overgrown with plant life and trees. Jaden let out a huff out of excitement. "There goes my Skyscraper." He said as the trees continued to grow until his buildings were reduced to nothing. He was then forced to toss his field spell to the graveyard.
"Your turn cheater." Victree gestured towards him.
"Have you seen me cheat so far?" He asked before drawing from his deck. "I didn't even get to finish my duel with Chazz, so you realise that people thinking I've won don't actually know what they're talking about. Though if the duel continued… who knows." He shrugged. "Wanna see what i could've done? I play Elemental Hero Avian and activate Miracle Fusion!"
His green feathered hero appeared by his side, then a second later a vortex opened above him. "Miracle Fusion allows me to fuse monsters on my field and in my graveyard, so I'll combine Avian with Burstinatrix in my grave to form a new hero!"
A spirit form of Burstinatrix appeared besides Avian before they both flew upwards into the vortex, causing an explosion of light to flash forth. The vortex disappeared and in its place a new hero appeared with a dragon's head for an arm and a set of angelic feathered wings at his back.
"Say hello to my Favourite Hero! Elemental Hero Flame Wingman!" (A:2100/D:1200)
"You used this card against Chazz?" Victree gasped. He then quickly shook his head to compose himself. "Well, if you're telling the truth then no matter what you do, it won't be enough. If Chazz you didn't beat Chazz, then you for sure couldn't be me!"
Jaden rolled his eyes for just a moment. "I didn't that i didn't beat him. The duel didn't finish, no-one won."
"That doesn't matter, your monster can't beat my sentinel!"
"Then I'll just go for your Guardian Pixie." Jaden pointed his monster forwards. "Flame Wingman, do your stuff!" His monster then unfolded their wings and took flight, going upwards before pulsing suddenly. Strange magical light then surrounded his monster's head, causing them to stagger in the air.
"Huh?" Jaden gasped as he looked up at his monster.
Victree on the other hand was chuckling. "You fool! Dreamsprite's effect activates. I mean, you said attack right? That means what happens next is up to me."
"Wh-what?"
"As long as I control Dreamsprite, whenever you declare an attack, I'm the one that gets to choose which of my monsters you'll battle! So do me a favour and fight my Sentinel and when you do, I'll use Guardian Pixie's effect to reveal one field spell in my hand and grant my Sentinel 400 attack points! In addition to the boost from the Forest, your monster isn't looking so hot."
The sentinel roared whilst the pixie beside it chanted silently. (A:2100)
Jaden's eyes went wide as his monster dived towards the Rootweed Sentinel and was slapped out of the air by a massive root, his monster recovered from the fall quickly and stood on it's legs again before levelling it's dragon arm at the root construct and unleashing a massive cone of flames, whilst at the same time another lashing of light infused roots came crashing down on the fusion monster.
Both entities then disintegrated into pixels with a shattering glass sound.
"That's not good…" Jaden winced. "Um, I'll set a single card face-down and end my turn."
Jaden had to admit to himself, he put a lot of cards into making Flame Wingman, to lose him so easily. That certainly wasn't how he had wanted it to end.
"My move!" Victree shouted, his voice oozing some dark excitement. "You're going down Slacker! I'll summon the strongest plant-type normal monster, say hello to Bean Soldier!" Appearing on his opponent;s field, a giant green bean with limbs and a set of cartoony angry eyes which were glaring at him. Staring him down. (A:1500/D:1300)
"Battle!" Victree shouted out. "Attack them directly, Grass Phantom!"
He winced as a vine hologram lashed at the ground before him, kicking up a cloud of dust that blinded him. (1300LP)
"You activated my Trap Card, Damage Condenser, now I get to discard a card, then special summon a monster from my deck with attack points equal to or less than the damage I've just taken! But I'll have to summon it in attack mode." Jaden then dug through his deck.
As he did he hesitated.
Does he even have anything that can help in this situation? If he summons Winged Kuriboh to protect him, then Bean Soldier with the boost from Guardian Pixie would deal too much damage before Winged Kuriboh's effect could nullify the other damage.
That seems to be a problem across all of his monsters. His opponent could deal more than 1100 points of damage. He had to summon this card in attack mode.
Was there actually no way he could win from this position?
"Don't have anything left to stop me?" Victree asked cockily.
He frowned before selecting a card. "I'll summon Clayman in attack mode."
"Then Bean Soldier will just destroy them!" Victree ordered, their green soldier moved forwards, as it moved the Guardian Pixie began to chant and the soldier grew in power. and cut down the clay golem.
Jaden (0LP)
"HAH!" Victree shouted, throwing both his arms up in the air. "Wait until the dorm hears about this."
Jaden just watched him cheer and hype himself up before simply shrugging his shoulders. This duel may not have been as complex or interesting as some of his others. That one misplay on his part on not knowing what Dreamsprite did put him really far back, but either way, a duel is a duel and he just lost this one.
Oh well.
The Obelisk Blue cheered for himself before leaving without saying anything to either him or Carey.
He walked to the edge of the stage where Carey stood. "Hey boss, doing alright."
"Yeah." He nodded. "I got to summon Flame Wingman which was cool, though it was a little short in my opinion."
"Not mad?" His agent asked tentatively.
"No? Should i? It's just a duel."
"Huh, I'm surprised, I thought you'd show more of a reaction than that."
"Don't get me wrong, I wished I could've won just like anyone would've. But just because I lost doesn't mean I had a bad time." He explained his thoughts.
Carey then placed her hands on her hips. "Well, I think you should've won, if only your Fusion Monster wasn't destroyed."
"Flame Wingman, yeah, not knowing the card effects can really screw you over sometimes, but hey, it's what those cards do. Get ya when you're not paying attention."
"Next time you duel him you'll definitely win. That's for sure." Carey insisted. She seemed really annoyed at his lost. More than he was anyways. "Without that Dreamsprite to surprise you, he's got basically nothing. His strategy wasn't even that good, you didn't get to see many of them, but most of his cards revolve around hoarding field spells for various effects."
"Really, that's neat. Guess the duel ended too early for me to really see that." He chuckled embarrassedly. "Well, hopefully now that he's had a duel with me he won't bother us."
"Yeah… hopefully." Carey agreed with him.
Exactly three hours had passed since his duel with Victree when an angry assault was performed against his door.
"Agh! Stop knocking so much, you'll break the door!" Chumly called out, whilst Syrus got up and ran up to the door to their dorm room.
"Wonder who's coming to see us?" He asked curiously, lowering his comic book.
When it opened, everyone's eyes widened.
"Ch-ch-ch-"
"I've got no time for your stuttering Slacker, where is he!" One Chazz Princeton yelled out as he forcibly pushed Syrus back and entered the room. Once inside the black haired prince of Obelisk glared down at him. "Oh there you are, lounging around pretending like nothing's happened."
"Um… I'm pretty sure nothing happened. What's got you all worked up?" He asked before slowly raising his comic back up to his face.
Didn't get far before Chazz went over and confiscated his book.
"H-hey!" He tried to protest before Chazz pointed a finger in his face.
"You lost a duel, that's illegal, impossible, stupid. Whatever word I could use to describe it, it doesn't matter. You shouldn't have lost!"
"Wh-what?" Jaden returned. "What are you on about man, talk to me? Please?"
Chazz lowered his hand and tossed the comic book in his other hand at Syrus who only just managed to catch it. The prince of Obelisk then took a deep breath before glaring down at him again. "Victree, does that name sound familiar, Jaden? This shitty student, who is ranked lower than me by the way, is bragging about how he beat the student who beat me."
"Ah."
"The rumours spread like wildfire!" Chazz growled out through gritted teeth. "Now everyone's talking about me, questioning my credibility, because this no-name Obelisk beat you when I couldn't."
"But we didn't finish our duel?"
"I know that, i was there!" shouted Chazz. "But no-one cares, all they care about is that this Nobody won when I couldn't and now I have to deal with this mess!"
Chazz then closed his eyes and took another calming breath. "I was going to climb the ranks at my own pace. Maybe duel the Obelisk champion by the halfway point in the year. But now… now my brothers have called and they're on my ass because of you. So you know what you're going to help me do."
Chazz opened his eyes and looked at him with an almost deranged expression.
"Wh-what am i going to do?"
"You're going to help me get out of this problem." Chazz grinned. "Let's Duel Yuki, right here, right now. After that, it's the Victree kid, then it's a straight climb up to the king of this academy."
"Oh a duel? Alright, now I'm interested. You're on Chazz." Jaden said with an excited grin on his face. "Hope you're ready."
"Oh trust me. I am." Chazz insisted.
Ending Notes
The duel in this chapter was weak, but don't worry, that's why i'm uploading two chapters at once. So sorry, but i felt like this was a more interesting development than Jayden beats up another smug guy and promptly forgets their existence.
Don't you just hate it when you make a misplay because i card you've never seen before had some random effect.
I did try to make this loss somewhat believable, i tried to characterise Jayden here as not stupid, but rather he's quick to charge in without thinking. Which is how early series Jayden acted a lot of the time. Because of this flaw someone definitely weaker than Jayden managed to get a win against him. luckily it was a low stakes duel and due to Jayden's personality he doesn't really care whether he wins or loses.
Something that's stated in the actual show but never really seen due to various writing factors. (Overly high stakes that can be broken down into Win or the series ends. Have the MC win so our product looks good, The GX writers making decisions that make me question their general writing ability, etc.)
The same cannot be said for Chazz. So prepare yourselves for a Chazz versus Jayden chapter next chapter.