Right, here we are boys and girls. Got the chapter finished, and didn't even break my streak of doing a daily upload. I woke up this morning and took a whole two hours to write this, but the streak lives on!


The two days leading up to the much anticipated tag match came and went in a flash. Zane found himself standing overlooking the bleachers, leaning over the railing and staring down at the duelist arena.

"Here we go," his little brother standing beside him quietly murmured, before turning, "Hey Zane, do you really think they can win?"

Zane's chest throbbed with heat and he had to force himself not to frown. Not at Syrus' actions, but rather, at himself. There was such a marked difference in his little brothers attitude towards him and his small shoulders had straightened up massively.

Had his poorly chosen words back then when he found Syrus playing Power Bond wrong really done such damage? Truly, he'd overlooked just how much Syrus had looked up to him. What a failure of a brother he was.

Yet, it proved his little brothers latent potential and hidden resilience that he so easily shed the weight put upon him by Zane's foolishness just from a mere talk and apology.

For all his talk of respecting his monsters and his opponents. He'd failed utterly at giving his brother the respect he deserved.

"While their opponents are incredibly experienced duellists and champions in their own right, I wouldn't worry about them to much," Zane shot his little brother a small smile, "Yarden and Alexis are incredible duellists in their own right and have incredible synergy."

"Incredible synergy with Alexis huh?" Syrus cocked his head at his words and sighed a little sadly, "How lucky."

Zane chuckled lightly. He was never so glad that he was older and more experienced than when he'd saw Alexis again when she turned up this year. Even he found it hard to not be attracted to the girl. For once, he was quite happy with all the parties and double dates and such Atticus had dragged him along for, and the fact the she was his best friends little sister that he had known for years. Otherwise, even he may have started mooning for the girl.

And that was a threshold he would not want to cross. Not only because she was his best friends little sister, but also because the sway she unknowingly had on others was a mite concerning. Even Yarden, someone completely dismissive of even the strongest duellist on the island, who got actively annoyed when anyone bothered him and cut into his plans, positively lit up when she was around.

The boy went from dragon to puppy. Admittedly, a gruff, flirtatious puppy that would give Atticus a run for his money and still be liable to punch someone out for annoying him, but he was a lot 'softer' about it with Alexis around.

He wasn't sure if she was a good influence or bad. He just knew it was totally cliché. The bad boy who got calmed down because of the nice girl. Atticus would have a field day with it.

His chest throbbed again, this time with pain. Atticus, he'd been thinking about his missing best friend a lot since he met Yarden. How he missed the vibrant young man now. They were no closer to finding out what happened to him and what went down at the Abandoned Dorm. Actually, he felt further away from finding out than ever.

After all, this tag duel was going on simply because Alexis had went to the Abandoned Dorm, never entering it and placing a flower to respect the boys memory.

And even his ties to his old master in the Cyber Style, Chancellor Sheppard was no help, the man was completely tight lipped about the subject.

"Ah, don't worry too much Syrus," Jaden Yuki leaned against the railing at his little brother's side and smirked confidently, "Alexis is crazy strong, and you know Yarden. He'll probably bust out Five Headed Dragon on his first turn or something and send these guys packing."

Jaden Yuki was definitely someone he had to keep his eye on. Not only had he defeated Crowler and Chazz Princeton, but he had also apparently defeated Alexis as well. And while they were working out together, Yarden had let slip that he would be hesitant to duel Jaden himself if it was an important duel, because he wasn't one hundred percent sure he could defeat the Slifer boy.

That said a lot. Considering Yarden had been completely confident he could crush Zane himself, and that was before he started building a proper deck and not one made up of mish mash cards.

"He has taken a real liking to that card lately," Zane nodded, "I wouldn't put it past him. But I think he'll go a different route for the first few turns."

"Think so?" Jaden asked, cocking his head.

"Yarden has a special connection to his cards, and likes to show them off, even the weakest ones that most would consider useless," Zane replied, his eyes shooting to the boy down on the duel arena, arms casually crossed behind his head as he talked to Alexis, "This is a televised event, a chance to get his name out there. At the very least, I expect he'll be trying to show off Serpent Night Dragon, his ace monster and make a statement."

"But isn't Five Headed dragon way stronger?" Chumley, the heavyset boy asked confusedly, "Wouldn't it be his ace?"

"Nah," Jaden waved him off, "Five Headed Dragon is amazing and incredibly powerful, and Yarden plays it better than anyone I've ever heard of. But the ace of his deck and the head liner of it, his go to monster is definitely Serpent Night Dragon."

"Exactly." Zane nodded in agreement. Besides, while Five Headed Dragon was indeed an incredible monster, even more powerful than Cyber End Dragon without Power Bond or Limiter Removal, Serpent Night Dragon with the spell card support was a much more formidable enemy as far as Zane was concerned. Revived Serpent Night Dragon and Nightmare Sonic Blast were incredibly threatening cards, enough to completely end a duel right then and there. In his modifications of his deck, Zane had made sure that there was ways he could counter Yarden's go to monster, at least, to a degree.

"But what do you mean by a statement big bro?" Syrus asked.

"Exactly that," Zane shrugged lightly, "Serpent Night Dragon has a terrible reputation as a bad monster. There are one tribute monsters much easier to get out with higher attack points and actual useful effects, and it has little to no support. On top of that, Rex Raptor has outright denounced it as a terrible, useless card."

"Yeah, you should hear Yarden talk about that guy," Jaden winced, "He totally wants to punch the guy out. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts trash talking the guy in this duel so the entire world can hear his thoughts on the dude."

Zane couldn't help but chuckle, "You know, I can actually see that." he mused. Yarden did not take insults to his monsters lightly. Honestly, the boy had almost physically assaulted one of the second years from their dorm yesterday when the guy had called his Petit Dragon 'useless trash'.

Would have, if Zane hadn't managed to hold him back for all of a second and give the second year a chance to run away. Really, the fool should have count his blessings, Yarden was absurdly strong. Zane definitely didn't want to be the target of his ire when it came to physical alterations. And he was no slouch when it came to strength and fighting himself.


"No nerves?" Alexis asked.

"None actually." Yarden shrugged, arms crossed behind his head. He glanced passed the beautiful blonde in front of him, eyes landing on the television cameras set up all around the duelling arena, each one manned by at least two people.

You'd think that he would have some nerves. Not only was he going to be duelling in front of practically every student at the academy, it was going to be broadcasted to practically the whole world. Duelling was just that popular, and it was legit champions going up against up and coming duellists of Duel Academy, the premier duel school, where the best of the best of all up and coming duellists gathered.

Yet, Yarden found he was not at all nervous. He'd always been pretty damn confident in himself, but, before he would have had at least a little stage fright with this kind of thing. But no, there wasn't even a tingle of nerves in his stomach.

'Did you really think you would?' Serpent Night Dragon scoffed, 'The most abundant of spirits you have, are dragons. You have the instincts of a dragon there and waiting to be called upon. Do you think a dragon would have something as pathetic as stage fright?'

Well, he wasn't wrong. But; 'What about Decoy Dragon?' he asked. Yarden loved the little cute dragon to death, but confidence wasn't exactly his forte.

'A young whelp, the youngest of all of we spirits serving you,' Hyozanryu snorted, 'But when combat starts, even the shy skittishness of Decoy Dragon disappears. We dragons are the pinnacle species of monster spirit, the strongest on average of all monsters, we are born fighters.'

Well, fair enough. That did all line up. Lore wise, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was supposed to be capable of putting up a fight against the gods one on one. And when Kaiba had summoned his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, it had been strong enough to hold off and even briefly overpower Zorc Necrophades, whom had just gotten through slapping around the three Egyptian Gods. To say nothing of the Signer Dragons and the Crimson Dragon.

'Well, I can't disagree, when it comes to raw power and fighting ability, dragons are usually the best on average,' Dark Magician Girl hummed, 'They're never much any good though when it comes to using all that raw power beyond blasting everything in sight though~' she added with a giggle.

To the outrage of Serpent Night Dragon and Hyozanryu.

"Lucky you," Alexis snorted, crossing her arms, "I can feel the sweat forming on my neck."

"Don't be so worried," Yarden replied, "We've got this. There's nothing these guys can throw at us that me and you together can easily deal with." this had to be like the sixth time he'd said something of this variation to her, but if it helped her calm down, he didn't mind repeating himself.

Honestly, now that he thought about it. He was actually excited to get this duel under way. He was about to get his name out there by crushing multiple time tag team champions. And the amount of money he was going to make off of this duel was insane.

He'd managed to reach up to just under forty thousand DP by duelling Obelisk Idiots over and over. And there were many jealous punks outraged over how he had Alexis, Jasmine and Mindy literally hanging off of him the other night.

And according to Professor Wade not ten minutes ago when he was placing his bets on him and Alexis winning, the odd were at seventy-nine to one.

It was so amazing he had to outright stop himself from bursting out into great big peels of evil laughter. Everything was going according to plan.

"These are test conditions!" Professor Wade's voice suddenly rang out over the intercom before Alexis could respond, "This is a sudden expulsion match. Should the tag team of Alexis Rhodes and Yarden Odhar lose this duel, they will both be expelled!"

The crowd of students went wild. Full of people cheering for Alexis, and idiots booing Yarden. Alexis steeled her expression despite her nerves and waved to the crowd, while Yarden just snorted and crossed his arms and let the biggest smug smirk he could muster spread across his face as he jutted his chin out defiantly.

If 'Hell Kaiser' was anything to go by, the people watching duels truly loved a bad boy. And it was an image he could easily keep up just by acting like himself. In other words, a massive tool.

"Now, without further adieu!" Doctor Crowler made his way up onto the stage, microphone in one hand, his other raised into the air, "Allow me to introduce our guest tag team duo!"

Just then, a pair of blurs launched the air to land on the duelling, from both sides opposite Yarden and Alexis. Two tall, well built men in orange and green acrobatically flipped backwards multiple times to go slightly passed each other and then land in a pair of crouched positions right next to each other.

"The great Paradox Brothers!" Crowler announced.

"Salutations you fools." The one in orange smirked over at them as they both rose up back to back, arms crossed over their chests.

"Hope you're ready to duel." the bald in green finished for his brother.

"Did you practice that in front of the mirror?" Yarden shot back with a snort, not even bothering to uncross his arms from behind his head.

"No, it comes naturally." the one in green returned without missing a beat.

"The same way you'll be duelled to fatality." the brother in orange added.

"Now now," Doctor Crowler cut in, "Let's hold the trash talking until the duel actually starts, okay?"

Yarden shrugged while the brothers merely stayed silent.

At their silence, Crowler nodded and pointed one finger into the air, "Duellists, prepare to battle!" he announced, and directed them to take their positions, "The rules for this tag team duel are really simple. There is no sharing your strategy or which is in your hand. No sharing of advice and no sharing of any card that is not yet in play. What you may share is your field and graveyard, and each pair will share life points."

'So pretty much standard tag rules then.' Yarden thought. Basically, the same kind of thing as the Tag Force games.

"I understand Doctor Crowler." Alexis nodded, activating her duel disk.

"Got it." Yarden nodded as well. He unfastened his hands from behind his head and activated his own duel disk, the gauntlet folding out into the dragon wing duel disk.

The Paradox brothers merely nodded and did the same.

"Then you may begin, duel!" Doctor Crowler said into the microphone. He lowered it then and shot both Obelisk Blue students a worried look, "Good luck." he whispered quietly.

Yarden And Alexis: 8000 LP
Paradox Brothers: 8000 LP

"Age before beauty they say," the one in orange grinned, "And I, Para will be taking the first turn." he said as the four of them began drawing cards.

"Have at it," Yarden snorted, "Might be the only turn you get baldy."

"Tough talk for one destined for an urn." the one in green, who must be Dox then smirked at him.

"First, I'll be activating the spell card Cost Down, and by discarding one card from my hand, I can lower the levels of all monsters in my hand by two!" Para started off, he played the spell then discarded one card to the graveyard, "I will be sending my Kazejin to the graveyard. And from there, I will be summoning my now level three Labyrinth Wall to the field in Defense Mode!"

As soon as he played the card, a massive stone labyrinth burst into existence atop the duel arena, cutting them off entirely from the outside. Though, there was a path open through the middle that allowed the duellists to see each other.

Labyrinth Wall – Rock/Earth/Level 5(3)/Normal: 0/3000

"But it won't be staying for long, because now I activate the spell card, Magical Labyrinth!" Para played another spell card, "This card allows me to send Labyrinth Wall alongside Shadow Ghoul from anywhere in my deck to the graveyard, to special summon Wall Shadow to the field in attack mode!"

The Labyrinth Wall didn't disappear. But it did change slightly. A large shadow formed on the wall behind the two brothers, and from it, a massive deformed preying mantis like creature hung out.

Wall Shadow – Warrior/Dark/Level 7/Effect: 1600/3000

"And that is not all, my monster may not look all that powerful, but looks can be deceiving!" Para chuckled, "For you see fools, Wall Shadow inherits the ability of Shadow Ghoul and improves upon it. This monster gains three hundred attack points for each monster in my graveyard, and I count three!"

Wall Shadow – Warrior/Dark/Level 7/Effect: 2500/3000

Yarden's eyes narrowed. 'Another card change.' that didn't have that effect where he came from. Actually, he didn't remember it having that effect in Duellist Kingdom either.

"Well, don't fret too much, his attack points great as they are, are no threat to you, for this one moment at least," Para chuckled, "After all, none of us can attack on our first turns in a tag match, and I shall be ending my turn here."

"Sure took you long enough," Alexis sniped. She looked over at Yarden and nodded at her deck, asking if she could go first. He shrugged and gestured her to go on. She smiled at him gratefully, before turning her attention to the two on the opposite side of the labyrinth, "I'll be going next then, draw!"

She looked at her card, before placing it with the others, and then getting right down to business, "First, I'll be summoning my Marauding Captain in attack mode!" Alexis declared, playing her monster. There was a shimmer of golden light, before a blonde knight in heavy armor appeared in front of her, "And his effect activates, when he's normal summoned, I can special summon one level four or below warrior monster from my hand, and I choose another Marauding Captain!" a shimmer of golden light appearing for the second time announced the arrival of a second blonde clad in armor.

Marauding Captain – Warrior/Earth/Level 4/Effect: 1200/400

Marauding Captain – Warrior/Earth/Level 4/Effect: 1200/400

"Oh how terrifying, a pair of monsters with twelve hundred attack points!" Para fake swooned.

"I think I feel the trembling of my joints!" Dox joined his brother in mockingly swooning in fear.

"Their attack points aren't what you should be afraid of!" Alexis growled, "Either way, I'm not done! I activate the spell card Double Summon, this spell card allows me to make a normal summon twice during my turn, and I'll be using that second summon to bring out my Majestic Mech – Ohka!"

A third monster burst into existence in front of Alexis. A huge robotic like canine of shining white and trimmed with pink.

Majestic Mech – Ohka – Fairy/Light/Level 6/Effect: 2400/1400

"See, Ohka might be a level six, but it has a really nice effect. I can summon it without tributing, but it will be destroyed at the end of the turn," Alexis explained, before smirking, "A pretty bad play right now considering I can't even attack during this turn, or it would be, if not for my spell card Metamorphosis, this lets me tribute a monster on my field to special summon any fusion monster with the same level in my extra deck, so come on out, Cyber Blader in attack mode!"

Majestic Mech – Ohka was consumed by light and its body shrunk down, molding into a humanoid shape. The light burst apart a moment later to reveal a tall, graceful and beautiful humanoid with exotically blue skin and long dark blue hair.

Cyber Blader – Warrior/Earth/Level 6/Fusion/Effect: 2100/800

"And I'll be ending my turn by playing one face down card!" Alexis finished.

"You talk about turn speed, when you took that long yourself? Really, you are quite shameful!" Dox scoffed as he drew a card.

"Yes brother, it really was quite painful!" Para nodded in agreement.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're both fucking disdainful." Yarden rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Well you're about to have quite the handful!" Dox laughed, "For you see young fool, I will be activating the spell card Polymerization from my hand to usemy Giga-Tech Wolf and Versago The Destroyer, a monster that can substitute for any one monster in a fusion, for a fusion to special summon my Labyrinth Tank to the field!"

The two monsters appeared above him as he played the cards, sucked into a swirling vortex of orange and blue. And a second later, a massive blue tank with a giant blue drill sticking from the front slammed down hard in front of them.

Labyrinth Tank – Machine/Dark/Level 7/Fusion/Normal: 2400/2400

"But I'm nowhere close to finished, because I still have my normal summon this turn, and I will use it to summon my Kaiser Seahorse in attack mode!" Dox continued.

A moment later, a large humanoid fish creature appeared in front of him, clad in deep blue and purple scales, carrying a large lance and shield.

Kaiser Seahorse – Sea Serpent/Light/Level 4/Effect: 1700/1650

"And now form my hand I activate the spell card Monster Reborn, allowing me to special summon a monster from any of our graveyards, and I pick the Kazejin my brother discarded on his turn. Even if does have the effect of lowering Wall Shadow's attack by three hundred, though given I sent two monsters to the graveyard Labyrinth Tank's summoning, I'm sure he doesn't mind!" the green clad baldy added.

In a flash of light, a large floating green spherical creature with gold markings appeared floating on the field in front of him.

Kazejin – Spellcaster/Wind/Level 7/Effect: 2400/2200

Wall Shadow – Warrior/Dark/Level 7/Effect: 3100/3000

"And now I'll be passing on to you boy," he grinned nastily at Yarden, "Let's hope you don't get frightened by this powerful line up."

"I don't doubt he will, let us see this frightened pup!" his brother chuckled.

Yarden rolled his eyes, "Mate, your monsters don't have long to live," he replied, and then lifted his non covered hand to flash them the middle finger, "Have a look at my own, and see how much fucks I give."

He drew a card himself.

He looked over his cards and then smirked at them, "First, I'll be playing one of my favorite cards, Revived Serpent Night Dragon," he played the card, "What this spell card does, as it lets me tribute any monster on the field and special summon a Serpent Night Dragon from my hand, deck or graveyard, and I'm choosing your Wall Shadow."

As soon as he played the card and selected his target, the giant labyrinth surrounding them burst apart into fragments of light that shot into air and converged. It sparked as it finished and darkened into burning black flame that shot down and formed into Serpent Night Dragon in front of him.

Serpent Night Dragon – Dragon/Dark/Level 7/Normal: 2350/2400

"My Wall Shadow!" Para cried out in dismay, before glaring at Yard, "Boy, you will rue this day!"

"We will surely make you pay!" Dox shook a clenched fist at him.

"Sure, then you woke up with your face in your cereal," Yarden snorted, "But here, I'm not done yet you morons. Let's see how you like this. I'm playing Polymerization just like you baldy, to use the Luster Dragon 2 in my hand and Dark Magician Girl, to fusion summon Dark Magician Girl The Dragon Knight!"

As he played the card, the forms of Dark Magician Girl and Luster Dragon 2 appeared in the air above him and then got sucked into a familiar swirling blue and orange vortex. And a moment later, they both re-appeared. Dark Magician Girl clad in her armour and sword in hand, riding on the back of Luster Dragon 2.

Dark Magician Girl The Dragon Knight – Dragon/Dark/Level 7/Fusion/Effect: 2600/1700

A huh fell over the stadium at the appearance of the monster.

"Dark Magician Girl!?" Para went wide eyed.

"B-but only the King of Games is supposed to have that card!" Dox added.

"How did you get that?!" they demanded as one.

"Fuck you, that's how." Yarden replied, crossing his arms smugly.

And then the stadium erupted into a thunderous applause. Mostly of the male variety. Yarden could here a mass of males shouting, hollering and whistling their appreciation for his monster.

Alexis winced at the sheer volume, "How absurd," she shook her head, before looking over at Yarden, "So how did you get your hands on Dark Magician Girl."

"I know a guy who searched her out for me," Yarden replied smiling at her, "I was as surprised as these idiots when he actually found her."

"Well, I'd say so," Alexis nodded, "Dark Magician Girl is a legendary monster."

"Only fitting for someone as legendary as me then," Yarden smirked, and then clicked his fingers and pointed at their two bald opponents, "Here, lemme give you a taste of her power. By discarding one card from my hand, Dark Magician Girl The Dragon Knight can destroy one face up card on the field, and by discarding my Carboneddon, I think I'll destroy your Kazejin!"

Dark Magician Girl hoisted her sword into the air and with a shout, fired a large bolt of crackling pink magic that slammed into the part of Gate Guardian and obliterated it.

He gave a look down at his duel disk. And yep, as he expected, he still had field spaces to play on, despite the fact that was five monsters on the field. Two of them his own. It seemed, that both of them having the field to use, meant they had ten spaces for the front and backrows.

While the two brothers gave cries of dismay at the easy destruction of one of their ace monsters, Yarden's smirk just got bigger, "Now I'm not done, since by banishing Carbonnedon from my graveyard using its effect, I can special summon one level seven or lower normal dragon monster from my hand or deck, and I'm choosing my Seiyaryu in attack mode!"

Light swirled and from it, the large and beautiful metallic pink dragon appeared with a roar.

Seiyaryu – Dragon/Light/Level 7/Normal: 2500/2300

From the looks of it, Alexis had Call Of The Haunted down. He could use it and bring back his Luster Dragon 2, but it would be better to leave it as right now. No matter how tempting it was to dab extra hard on these two.

"Now, I'll throw down a face down and end my turn," Yarden continued, "Now let's see what you two has beens have got to answer this. So far, I'm not impressed. If you two are champions and supposed to have given Yugi trouble, they may as well just give me the crown as King of Games right now." he taunted.


Duelist Profile: Yarden Odhar

Name: Yarden Odhar
Age:15
Country of Birth: Scotland
Occupation: Student of Duel Academy
Student Dormitory: Obelisk Blue
Current Funds: 0 DP (39,970 bet)
Bank Account: £10,350
Bonded Spirits: Petit Dragon, Decoy Dragon, Lesser Dragon, Spirit Of The Breeze, Fairy Dragon, Chaos Necromancer, Soul Tiger, Larvae Moth, Griggle, Outstanding Dog Marron, Catnipped Kitty, Unhappy Maiden, Skull Servant, Archfiend Marmot of Nefariousness, Goblin Calligrapher, Serpent Marauder, Blade Rabbit, Steel Scorpion, Dreamsprite
Abilities: Massively Enhanced Physical Parameters. Enhanced Senses. Increased Growth Rate, Draconic Aura. Enhanced Endurance. Enhanced Recovery Rate. Enhanced Dexterity. Enhanced Bone Durability. Enhanced Healing Factor. Enhanced Reflexes. Enhanced Agility. Enhanced Flexibility. Magic Resistance.
Deck(s): Dragon Spirit, Magician Girl


And there we go, done.

Not much really went down in this chapter. We saw the results of Zane and Syrus' talk a bit, got some inner thoughts from Zane, and then we got the beginnings of the tag duel out of the way and saw how much the odds were against Yarden and Alexis. 79-1 in case you missed it. Big mad money should he win.

I would have continued and possibly got the rest of the duel out of the way in this chapter. But I've got stuff to do for now sadly. So we'll wrap it up in the next chapter. Until then, minions.