Joey handed over the froggy hat to his sister. "Nothing else. I mean it this time!"

She grinned as she put it on! "Nope! Nothing else, I promise!"

Thank goodness. "Now I just need to trade in my remaining points for one of the Tournament Participation Tickets, and we'll be good."

Serenity happily hummed as she squeezed her Kuriboh with a 'Pri!'. "I still don't see why you didn't just accept some of the extra points Yugi kept offering you…"

He snorted. "That would ruin the whole point of me trying to pay him back! He helped us both out a LOT and besides, I can do this on my own."

She blinked. "Well, yeah, I know… But he just has so MANY points now…"

Boy howdy did he! And not for no reason either. A bunch of odd things had started happening when Yugi tried participating in this festival thing.

It got to the point where Joey had started avoiding his friend entirely just to keep his sister out of the crazy shenanigans going on…

Like, the betting on small Duels? That he had expected.

The quiz contests with point rewards were reasonable options as well.

Even a few of the memory challenges that ensured you fully knew your own Deck made sense…

But then there was the STRANGE stuff, and it quickly SWAMPED his pal in madness!

People challenging Yugi to food eating contests, crazy costumed weirdos attempting to challenge him to win his Duel Monster companion's love and affection with wagered points on the line, almost every fairground game Yugi attempted somehow being both rigged AND yet barely overcome with his friend's impossible skills…

And don't get Joey started about that messed up kissing booth! What kind of kissing booth PAYED you to kiss the girls!? And those Duel Monster magical girls ONLY did that for Yugi!

Everyone else? Get back in line and pay up!

Seriously bro, why was the ENTIRE Magician Girl Archetype of sisters all over you!? Talented gamer or not, it doesn't make sense! A hefty CHUNK of that mountain of points Yugi gained were basically THROWN at the brat like beads from a Mardi Gras float!

Well whatever. He had enough points NOW to buy the right to participate in the actual tournament duels. Even had a few left over.

An amused chuckle that vibrated his spine shook his shadow.

NO, Joey was NOT jealous! And don't pretend he didn't see YOU egging his sister on to buy more stuff with HIS points either!

The Red-Eyes smirked as a massive dragon tail 'subtly' poked Serenity's ankle from his shadow.

Which caused her to pause. "Hmm? Did you see something, Red-Eyes?"

NO! "Hang on sis, you said nothing else, right? Right!?" Seriously, why did the two of you click so well!?

The tail tip of a massive creature pointed to one side, drawing Serenity's gaze over to… "Oooh! Cotton candy!"

DOUBLE NO! "We JUST had funnel cakes not five minutes ago, and…"

She turned towards him with innocence, as did her held companion. "Please? Pretty please?" "Priiiiii?"

…Damn it.

DAMN IT! "FINE! But NOTHING ELSE!"

And STOP LAUGHING you damned overgrown lizard! ARGH!

~~~Pocket System~~~

John happily watched the simulated opponent Duel 'himself'.

Only, now that the other 'him' was not forced to be 'perfectly average', the entire thing was MUCH more fun to watch! One side would gain advantage, then drop into the pits of despair, only to claw their way back up to the fight…

And now John could do the bits he REALLY wanted to do: The fun acting bits! "Alright, pause the scenario… For times like this, where 'I' was overly confident and somehow the other guy managed to beat me anyway? Let's record a few optional lines here."

Ahem. "HOW were you able to withstand my Toad-ally amazing Froggy Army!? That can not BE!"

Or maybe… "This may be a minor setback, but the heart of the frogs will bring my entire swamp to glorious victory!"

Mmm… No, not quite. Oh! "You may be trying to lilly-pad out this Duel, but we're going to hop straight to the finish line! Your attempts to recover are futile!"

…Did that fit this scenario exactly? "System, reserve that last line. I think I can use it later, but it doesn't quite fit here."

[[Confirmed, adjusting audio logs and visual cues for future use.]]

Great! "We'll come back to this one. Alright, continue the Duel!"

The 'John' in the Arena dramatically pulled forth a card! "I DRAW! And now I play: The [Pot of Greed]! This allows me to draw TWO more cards from my Deck... And I've managed to draw exactly what I needed!"

Wait, was [Pot of Greed] even in his deck? Where did THAT come from!?

Substitoad shrug his shoulders as he croaked out the reason…

Because apparently this holographic duplicate wasn't actually John.

Without John's active defenses getting in the way, Reality was able to easily warp itself to insert and alter the cards in their decks, even if his OTHER restrictions and careful limitations prevent the EFFECTS of the cards from changing!

John stared at the ongoing Duel. "But… I thought I assigned my hologram a copy of MY Deck? Right? And the card list for my deck was already posted online! We can't just CHANGE what is in the thing NOW, everyone would notice!"

The half demonic, half angelic frog passed him a tablet. "Ribbit."

What!? "Let me see that… Holy shit. It DID alter the past to 'fix' my list… Is it going to do that a LOT?" And how did John fail to NOTICE temporal alterations like this? Maybe it blended in with all the ambient 'noise' going on in the atmosphere of this Realm…

The toad waived away his concerns. "Ribbit."

Good grief. "Well, at least it will stop altering itself once the Deck gets used against another Duelist in the Tournament."

Because that would lock it in as a temporally significant event, one that could affect FUTURE Duels if the Deck arbitrarily modified its past components. Or something. "So why didn't this sort of thing happen to my simulated opponent's Deck when WE were both Dueling?"

Substitoad pointed at John. "Ribbit."

…Ah. "My defenses prevented it, as they were interacting with me. Got ya."

Sheesh. "Well, as long as it actually alters the past, I guess it will be fine…" After all, any memories or notes or screenshots or whatever would automatically change too if the event that causes them no longer matches what it once did.

John tapped the observation table as he thought… "Did our logs survive the temporal shift?"

[[Yes HOST. Both the original scanned data feeds and the newly adjusted past information from said feeds have been documented. As of the moment of the alteration, no further 'original' data can be collected as only the modified timeline has remained after the temporal merger.]]

So when his Deck changed itself in the past, the unaltered timeline was merged into a NEW timeline where it had always been changed… And John recorded them both? Neat! "Well, keep up the good work then."

[[Affirmative.]]

John walked over to his own hologram. "Hey, Holo-John!"

He turned to himself and tilted his head. "Yeah?"

He held up his deck to himself. "Just an FYI here, your deck is changing the past to put cards you need into the mix. It won't cause a huge issue, and your programing won't notice any alterations, but if something feels off just ask our [[Home]] and she'll help you straighten out any issues, alright?"

John nodded to John as he looked at his deck. "I did notice things played out much more smoothly than our recorded Duels earlier… Is it happening a lot?"

He shrugged at himself. "Not really? At least I don't think so… I didn't notice until you used that [Pot of Greed] earlier. System?"

[[HOST's holographic Deck has been altered 3,211 times since the start of the current Duel. The vast majority of alterations have occurred within the pile of undrawn cards without being observed, and involve the following four cards aggressively competing to include themselves in the final result…]]

Huh. "I take that back, it is almost a constant struggle so far… Turns out our Frogs stopped bothering US with all the politics and stuff, and are altering our Deck on their own like an odd version of 'king of the swamp' instead."

John snorted at him. "I knew the lack of ranting and shoving was too good to be true."

Yep, that should have been a red flag for him too. "Anyway, they should settle down now that we know they are causing temporal issues. Right Substitoad?"

Their friend gave a moist shrug. "Ribbit."

Both Johns sighed and gave each other commiserating looks… Good grief. "Anyway, the Deck should stabilize after your first Duel against someone in the Tournament. Let me or sis know if anything happens, alright? Or again, just tell our [[Home]] about it."

He gave a thumbs up to himself! "Will do! Anything else?"

Umm… "Nah, we're good."

John nodded and turned back to his simulated opponent! "Now PREPARE! For with my three [Des Frogs] now summoned to my side of the field, I can activate my Spell card: [Des Croaking]! Their deadly melody will now DESTROY all of your Cards on the field!"

The simulation fell back in horrified shock!

Holo-John laughed in dominance! "Now sing forth, my glorious froggy Choir! [DES CROAKING]!"

John happily hummed along with the cheerful tune of the swamp as he watched himself absolutely demolish that stupid simulation. Take THAT you jerk! Even if you are basically a copy of yourself fighting yourself with a different mode land a much harder difficulty setting and…

Whatever, it felt good to see anyway. "I liked the froggy choir bit. Let's make a note of that, alright? It should look awesome during a big moment like this one!"

[[Confirmed, adjusting audio logs and visual cues for future use.]]

Awesome! "Hey John, how many Duels has this been so far?"

He looked at himself and blinked. "Pretty sure around twelve or so." Turning back towards the dramatically fallen opponent, he stretched. "Ready to go again?"

The simulated Duelist flickered and was once again READY TO DUEL!

Sweet. "I'll let the girls know how great you're doing, but their Holo-variations won't be deployed until you've maximize your ability first."

John waved that off. "Yeah yeah, I know. Like we would have recreated them before we improved their potential as much as possible beforehand… What about sis though?"

Ah. John glanced at an unseen data feed… "Well, Holo-Jessica and our sister are sort of… Busy. And not interested in joining us at the moment… But they WILL be showing up for your first official Duel! Me too of course, but not anywhere visible for obvious reasons."

John grinned at the confirmation. "Really? Then I best be prepared to put on a grand show!" Turning to the simulation, his grin sharpened! "Prepare yourself, for the Emperor of Frogs has arrived! I DRAW!"

Ooh, that line was great too! System!

[[Confirmed, adjusting audio logs and visual cues for future use.]]

This was all going to be amazing!

~~~Pocket System~~~

Jessica passed herself the report. "This is one of the unofficial card stock suppliers. No official name or claim by any known organization, but our agents are pretty sure this place is associated with the SnakeHead Triad."

She read her comments on the issue. "Might be one of the primary suppliers, don't you think?"

They hummed as agents moved in the background before one of them sighed. "Maybe… But I still think a few official sources are dealing on the side."

The other snorted. "Of course they are! But for now we are going for low hanging fruit and biggest offenders here. We can't clean everything up in a few months, let alone a short week… All we can do is fix the most we can as efficiently as possible."

At least most of the mess directly targeting the Duelists attending THIS tournament had been handled so far. Oh, there were a few walking coma patients being puppeted by their Duel Monsters, but that was apparently a semi-common thing that could happen in this Realm.

Jessica sighed as Jessica leaned against her side. "I know, but every new detail our agents find just makes me want to squish a few assholes."

Hmm, she felt very soft... Nice. "Well, best we don't burn ourselves out. And when one of us leaves, at least the other will have plenty to keep her busy."

She sighed. "You know that I am the hologram."

She nuzzled herself. "A very NICE hologram indeed…"

Uh. Jessica glanced at the never ending work pile…

And burnout WAS a risk that should be avoided…

She leaned into the arm rubbing her spine. "Alright, maybe a short break is in order."

Jessica grinned at herself. "I already have our schedule cleared up for the next two hours."

Wait, really? "Damn we're good."

A melodious hum. "Mmm Hmm…"

Two hours huh?

She could work with that.