Ba-dong ba-dong ba-dong ba-TING!

P'Twawawang!

John grinned! "Alright, it's done! You can now get off the… Oh, she fell asleep."

Apparently Grace's version of the 'Soul Configulizer' felt SUPER comfy… Well, it was fine. "Girls, are you sure you don't want to play this too?"

Grace shook her head while Temptation snorted. "I'm still getting used to existing, thank you very much! I am more than happy to wait until you get the bugs ironed out and get the entire process enhanced or whatever. Besides, it's more fun convincing my prudish sister to join me in wearing skimpy cheerleading outfits to support you in the stands anyway." "Sister!"

Oh.

John felt his blush growing but couldn't help but smile. "Alright then, I guess I'll just open the first one of these and see if our patchwork configuration alterations hold together…"

Now, which booster pack should he go with? According to the online lore, he should 'Trust his Heart of the Cards' or something, but at this point he wasn't sure he HAD one of those.

Was that entire concept metaphorical? Literal for locals? Some sort of magical organ or something?

In the end, he took one pack from several booster boxes, mixed them up, and went with the one seventh from the top. For no real reason. "'Light of Destruction', huh? Alright, let's see what I get then!"

He carefully tore open the wrapper and…

Something complicated interacted with the space that COULD have been his Soul, based on the energy patterns his defense settings were emulating.

Huh. "Keep recording all this for everyone to look over later."

[[Confirmed.]]

Then, with a very odd feeling of confidence, he casually discarded all the cards in the pack except for one 'rare' card.

It wasn't super powerful, not according to the stars showing its level… In fact, it wasn't even as 'good' as the most common four star cards most decks were made out of!

Instead this was a level one card, a single star Duel Monster with only 100 attack points.

Though he could certainly take a beating if he was in defense mode, considering his 2000 defense booty!

The Water Aqua type monster, Substitoad.

John could barely feel the connection growing before Temptation squealed in his ear! "OH my GOSH he's so cute! And look sis, it's half angel and demon like the two of us! It's toad-ally destiny!"

Grace pressed up against his back to better see as well. "Oh, an effect monster? What does it do?"

John blinked, having gone into something like a trance connecting with the Concepts behind the tiny amphibian. "Uh, let me see… Huh. He protects any and all Frog monsters from being destroyed if they fight other monsters in battle! Well, except for one guy. Someone called 'Frog the Jam' somehow had a massive falling out with the rest of the family and that issue is apparently a whole thing, so Substitoad won't support him… But other than that? Any and all Frogs are basically immortal in battle thanks to this bro."

Temptation blinked. "What the hell!?" Seeing Grace frown, she flinched. "I mean heck? What the heck did 'Frog the Jam' DO to piss off everybody?"

No clue. "Whatever it was, it was bad enough that he changed his name to 'Slime Toad' and nobody wants to talk about him."

Grace was humming as she hugged John from behind. "So our Lord's Soul linked Duel Monster is dedicated to protecting his family? Sounds like he takes after MY side of our relationship, doesn't it?"

Temptation snorted. "As if! After all, this kermit ripoff is not just limited to that sort of lameness! Look at this bit!" She pointed at the card. "This tiny dude can tribute other Monsters to summon out his Frog friends and family members out from the Deck directly without needing to draw them first! That's hardcore!"

John hummed as the odd connection was analyzed and proxied to allow a similar sort of connection to begin modifying the experimental copy of his Soul. "I can feel… There's an entire family TREE out there, mostly composed of Frogs. An entire Archetype of Water Aqua monsters that do all sorts of things… My deck's new Boss monster will certainly have a lot of options to choose from with all these little ones out there."

That caught the girls attention, so he began to explain. "There are several cards like T.A.D.P.O.L.E., which can call forth copies of itself from your deck when they die. There are other frogs that grow stronger with each T.A.D.P.O.L.E. in the graveyard, others that gain extra effects from that sort of thing, etc. There's even one guy, the Treeborn Frog, that keeps hopping OUT of the graveyard and back on the battlefield at the end of every turn if I don't have any spells or traps out!"

The connection was growing deeper, and in the distance John could hear the soft nature sounds of a quiet pond and the familiar warble of croaks and the buzzing of insects. "Other frogs can destroy magic cards or traps if they have family already around, or can pretend to be each other while summoning backup if they get sent away to summon something else or… It all connects to each other. A sort of…"

His hands started drifting to another booster pack without him realizing it. "There's a whole NETWORK of monster cards, specifically trained to help out my Toads and Frogs… Some which don't seem to fully exist yet? Like this guy…"

The pack was torn open and the chaff cards casually discarded as John held up a new friend. "This guy is 'Amphibian Angel - Mifrog'. He's more a legend that Substitoad read about in his early years in the pond, but this one card can be called forth by tributing frogs, destroy the defensive magic of my foe, and then call forth an amphibian army to DOMINATE ANY FOOL WHO DARES TO…"

Temptation yanked his head into her breasts while Grace carefully extracted the two Duel Monster cards from his shaking hands. "Shh, it's okay… Calm down, Master, deep breaths… In and out…"

Grace snorted as she carefully placed the two cards into plastic protective sleeves. "If you want our Lord to breathe, you should relax your grip significantly… There we go!"

The two cards fully double sleeved using the experimental custom Crafted materials seemed to have done SOMETHING as John felt his mind begin to recover from the impact.

Grace sighed with frustration. "I suppose that even THIS dilution level was almost too much for continuous openings… Thank GOODNESS we had a backup plan."

John assumed she was shifting the cards to the protective chest they'd set up earlier to reduce Soul interactions during any defensive calibration adjustments. That seemed likely, at least.

It was hard to tell while being smothered by a sexy woman's chest, after all. Not that he was complaining or resisting or anything, just… Mmm.

As he slowly drifted to sleep (Partially due to obstructed air flow), John could hear his sister's confusion in the background. "Why am I covered in frog cards?"

…Meh, she'd probably figure it out.

~~~Pocket System~~~

Wait, the store was closed today? That didn't seem right.

Yugi Muto pushed open the door to his grandpa's game shop. "Grampa! I'm home… Wait, what!?"

The store was in chaos!

But even as his heart started to race, his mind shifted from alarmed to… Confused.

This didn't seem like some sort of intruder or thug had come in to vandalize everything… No, the madness was more like an organized descent into madness than any sort of act of violence or aggression.

Shelves mostly empty, product stacked high into impromptu pillars of goods, the floor COVERED in mounds of sealed packages, and there was barely room to squeeze past the… "Grandpa?"

The old man blinked, looking up from his cheerful mess of discarded packaging and scrapped plastic wrappers. "Yugi my boy! Come help your grandpa sort this mess out. I've had to send the nice young delivery men off to get some food a half hour ago, and it has left everything a bit jumbled."

The boy carefully maneuvered through the mess, his Millennium Puzzle pulsing as he could feel the various levels of potential radiating from each box. "Grandpa, does mom know that you went on another spending spree again? You KNOW this place has a limited amount of room to sell stuff!"

His grandfather huffed! "That was ONE time! And I handled the emergency storage rental myself, all you younguns have no eye for business and proper product management!"

Where was a garbage bag? This mess needed to be cleaned up a bit. "I thought you were just chasing one of those really rare cards in the new set for a deck you were crafting?"

Solomon froze, then awkwardly laughed! "No, no, of course not! That time was solid business acumen, yes sir!" Uh huh. Right. "Anyway, help me unwrap the product from these three sets to go on the shelves over to that side, we need to get this handled before the afternoon rush comes in."

Wait, that didn't seem right. "I thought that section was for that new 'Dungeon Dice Monsters' game that had cropped up last month?"

His grandfather chuckled. "I moved that entire bundle over towards the board game area, it requires a lot of extra components to play anyway and we needed the space for all these new booster pack boxes that arrived. Just begin to fill the shelves up, we are sorting them by release date for now and I'll handle the main counter display case after everything else gets settled."

Huffing with a bit of effort, Yugi began shifting the new boxes of cards towards the corner and… Yeah, there was a LOT of missing goods. "What HAPPENED to all the stuff you had on here earlier anyway?" There had been a booster pack he had been keeping an eye on that he had planned to buy for his friend Joey when he came by to visit. Something about it felt right.

Solomon hummed as he carefully unwrapped another package. "A nice young lady decided to purchase some cards to introduce the game of Duel Monsters to a new generation: Her younger brother had never played before."

…So what, she bought everything!? "When you say 'new generation' did she decide to set up her brother's entire school to play too!?"

The old man paused. "Huh… You know, she might have? That WOULD explain the odd feelings I was getting from her as she continued to increase her order size. I suppose providing everyone your sibling meets with the materials needed to become brand new challengers WOULD be one way to use money to improve your dueling skills… Even if it is a bit of an expensive game plan."

More and more empty shelves became visible as Yugi worked his way between stacks of boxes… "Goodness, how much did she end up buying!?"

His grandfather chuckled. "Everything except my private collection and the duplicates of the 'starter decks' I developed. Now: We have a lot of new product to shelve and limited time! Let's see if we can surprise the moving crew when they get back from their lunch break, shall we?"

Eugh, why!? "Yes, grandpa."

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica glanced back at her brother. "And you are SURE you girls fixed this already? John still seems pretty out of it..."

Grace nodded while Temptation ignored them both to continue cuddling her brother. "The feedback loop and other issues were a side effect of us emulating things TOO well and with too good a communication channel… Normal people interact with the cards through the interference of reality and stuff, not directly connecting it through their Pocket interface modules and…"

Seeing Jessica's expression, Grace trailed off. "Um, yes. Yes we fixed it."

Sigh. "Very well… Here we go then, I guess."

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe… "I'll go with the 'Dark Illusion' booster pack then."

As she tore open the wrapper she felt something… No, someone. Someone analyzing something, someone documenting and keeping a professional eye on a complicated situation.

Without conscious thought, her fingers discarded cards until she was looking at a woman in a command center.

A Dark Spellcaster special agent, with a low 1,200 attack and a powerful 2,800 defense, she was simply called 'SPYRAL Master Plan'.

A nameless secret agent, one working for the SPYRAL agency. Once on every turn, she could assign a 'SPYRAL MISSION' from the deck to Jessica's hand of cards. These missions were spells and traps that could return cards from the grave to the hand, control the opponent and turn them against their Duelist, enhance the effects of monsters Jessica had already summoned during battle…

And if she fell in the line of duty, she was able to summon forth the Field Spell card, SPYRAL Resort, as well as provide Jessica one SPYRAL agent from the deck to her hand to employ there.

The field spell itself protects all of Jessica's agents on the field, called forth an agent from the Deck to her hand for deployment once per turn, and (Again, once a turn) returned a retired agent from her graveyard back to the deck to be summoned once more to serve the cause in the future!

She had already opened a copy of the resort while dazed from another pack, even as her mind felt a closer connection to that distant woman fighting in the dark to keep her people and those they protected guarded and watched over.

And it WAS a LARGE number of people.

Not just those connected directly with SPYRAL itself, but many more Duel Monsters that acted as support or enhanced the mission despite not being vital to the ongoing activities directly!

There was even a Soul shard bound to the 'Charming Resort Staff' that worked at the SPYRAL Resort itself!

And as her mind flickered through the cards, feeling them out and somewhat resonating with their determination and devotion to their cause, she couldn't help but grow curious about what exactly they were all so focused on, what had caused the organization to connect with Jessica specifically.

And as that thought grew, she found herself shifting over to the side of the hotel room. "No, not this one… Not that one… I think it's from this 'Crimson Crisis' release?" SOMETHING was pulling her in this direction, anyway.

Ignoring the girls and John entirely, she tore open the booster pack and found herself staring at a pulsing card.

A Dark Reptile behemoth, the Alien Overlord. One that could infect foes to weaken them, and could call itself forth with the support of its followers.

A Boss Monster from an entire archetype of Aliens, that used Alien counters to alter reality around themselves as they dominated an unexpecting planet.

She couldn't help but snort. "So my Duel Monster Boss Card is basically a leader of her OWN version of MIB. Because of course she is."

Although from what she could feel from her partner's echo, THESE aliens were no longer the threat they had once been, back when SPYRAL first was founded. NOW they were clumsy and slow, needing complicated counters and odd effects to even attempt to dominate the battlefield in modern Duels.

But that hadn't ALWAYS been true… And the cause behind the weakening of an entire Archetype? The secret actions that will never be spoken of nor immortalized, that protected so many people and creatures and societies?

Jessica carefully accepted the plastic sleeves and protected her copy of 'Spyral Master Plan'. "Yes… I can play with this."

Grace huffed. "Well I would hope so, considering the mess you made. Now help me clean up before our Lord wakes up, I can't cuddle with all these other cards and wrappers thrown all over the room!"

Huh? "Good grief, did I open ALL of those!?" How!? WHEN!?

The white beauty ignored her shock and pushed another trash bag into her arms. "Packaging and wrappers in there, I'll gather and sort the excess pack filler cards that neither of you ended up imprinting with."

She sighed, looking at the impossible mess… And back at the dozen or so cards in her hand. "I don't even remember sleeving any of these in the first place! And John and I discarded so many other ones… This might take a few minutes to clean up."

Meanwhile on the bed, Temptation was giggling quietly while hugging her little brother. "No no, you two take your time! I'll keep my Master accompanied, there's no rush."

Of course she would. "Grace, don't let her get to you…"

The other woman was starting to twitch. "I. Am. Going. To. Clean."

Ah. "Alright…"

Best not to poke her right now, apparently.