2

When Logan arrived at class he made a beeline for Professor Sartyr, who was standing at the front of the room looking through the day's lesson plan. Professor Sartyr, a Spanish man who moved to Japan many years before to get a degree in Duel Monsters, was Ra Yellow's headmaster and one of the best cooks on the island, although he infrequently dabbled in food preparation after the apparently traumatic realization that there was more cereal than people on Earth. Logan approached him apprehensively; he always got anxious during one-to-one interactions with professors, worried that singling himself out was something an ordinary student would not aspire to do.

"Sartyr-sensei?" He asked, adjusting the strap of his book bag on his shoulder.

"Ah yes," the professor smiled down at him, speaking in his thick accent that doesn't translate well into writing. "What can I do for one of my students?"

Logan looked down at the floor. "I um, I need another rules and etiquette book. Something happened to mine and I don't have it any more."

There was a long pause. Logan reluctantly raised his gaze to meet Sartyr's, who looked down disapprovingly at him. "That is not how a Ra student asks for what he needs," he lectured, waving a finger at Logan as though he were a much younger, misbehaving child.

"How am I supposed to—"

"Section four, Article nine point nine six two," Sartyr almost sneered, his strange little mustache dancing on his face. "Look it up in your rules and etiquette book and then come back and ask me when you can speak to me like a proper middle of the road, completely average and uninspiring but adequate student."

"But sir, I can't—"

"Take your seats, students!" The professor raised his voice enough to be heard over the idle chatter of the rest of the class, which had filled up since the conversation began. Logan sighed inwardly and started on his way up the aisle of stairs to his assigned seat near the center of the room. He brushed past several Slifers and other Ras, apologizing to each and every one of them until he found himself interrupting his own apologies for other apologies.

Kylie Tanaka and Zachary Akiyama, Obelisk Blue students and the closest people Logan had to friends, were already getting out their pens and notebooks when Logan finally plopped down dejectedly into his chair beside Kylie. Zachary, sitting on the other side of her, leaned forward to get a better look at Logan, who still hadn't even removed his book bag. "What's wrong with wizkid?" He asked alliteratively.

Logan glanced over. "Just a bad morning," he mumbled, not really in the mood to get into a conversation about Evan. He had a feeling Kylie would take the 'new best friend' bit personally anyway and placating her was just not something he needed right now.

"How could you possibly have a bad day when it's so so so lovely out?" Kylie chimed in, her side-ponytail bobbing in the air. Anyway, that's what Logan thought it was supposed to be; instead it looked like she got distracted doing her hair halfway through and just… stopped. "I had the best walk this morning, I saw the coolest squirrel—"

"Did you see the pro duel last night on DMTV?" Zachary interrupted. He had already heard about the squirrel.

Logan shook his head, finally seeing fit to start preparing for class before the other half of the students beat him to it. "I had too much homework to bother with TV," he said, when in reality he had been busy learning how to make a card fort with his Duel Monsters cards. It didn't go as well as when he tried using regular playing cards, leading him to conclude that Duel Monsters cards were for dueling with and throwing at bad guys only. He had to keep up appearances as a Ra, though, so lying to his friends about frivolous details they wouldn't care about was sometimes necessary.

Kylie's eyes widened. "How could you possibly miss a duel? I mean, of course you have to miss some duels, there's probably thousands going on around the world at any given moment, but if I had one superpower it would be to see all the duels. All the time."

As per usual, Zachary pretended she hadn't been talking. Logan was grateful his friend's manners were so bad, since he himself usually let Kylie assault his senses without interfering and she could really go on for a while. It got repetitive, yes, as there was a good chance she simply ran out of things to say but refused to stop talking without external pressure to do so. "Chazz Princeton versus Jaden Yuki for the first time since they graduated last year and you didn't see it? Bull."

"That was last night?" Logan may have learned an important lesson about card usage the night before, but it wasn't worth what he'd lost. "Who won? Not Yuki again?"

"Princeton," Zachary said emphatically, leaning forward heavily on his desk. He raised his eyebrows proudly, shrinking his large forehead slightly. "One of Obelisk's very own."

"Not really," Logan corrected. "I mean, he spent most of his time as a Slifer—"

"One of Obelisk's," Zachary raised his voice slightly. It was usually best to let him have his way when he acted like this. "Very own."

Professor Sartyr began the day's lecture then on card and duel disk safety, which, Logan heard, was a new class this year. He turned away from Zachary to pay attention and take notes, marveling at how obsessed his friend was with dorm rank. Although Logan supposed he couldn't blame him that much, considering Zachary scored second lowest in duel prep before transferring to Duel Academy, ahead of only Kylie who was just happy to be there. If students who managed to graduate duel prep didn't automatically get placed in Obelisk he probably would have ended up in Ra or maybe Slifer. Logan hadn't seen Zachary duel much, but what he saw wasn't anything to be impressed with. Usually, he just chipped slowly away at his opponent's life points a few hundred at a time, but he was competent enough to win around half the time — although Obelisks were typically expected to get a better rate than that, which Logan always found counterintuitive since inter-dorm duels were the norm so someone had to be losing. He glanced over at his two friends and realized that someone was probably them.

The class dragged as it usually did — unsurprisingly a course on basic safety for first years involved a lot of repetition, although the student's interest always piqued whenever Sartyr got to an example of improperly used equipment, which sometimes involved graphic details and PowerPoint slides of injuries that they'd needed parental permission slips to view.

When the day's lecture finally ended, Sartyr cleared his throat. "Alright, my students. I'm sure you're all aware that we lost two professors last year, Kouji Stein and Thelonious Viper. Duel Academy has mourned for them, but now it is time to move on. Many of you have holes in your course load where their classes would have been in your schedules, and I'm pleased to inform you that our Chancellor and teaching staff finally managed to put together a new curriculum for you. We do apologize that it's coming so late in your semester but I can assure you that it won't affect the trajectory of your learning. These will be relatively quick programs of study. So if everyone who normally has a free period next, please stay behind for your new class." With that, the professor bowed his head and collected his binders before heading out the door.

Logan narrowed his eyes as most of the other students picked up their bags and followed Sartyr out into the hallway. He, Zach, and Kylie were apparently among those taking the new class, which tore Logan between being upset that there'd be no more mid-day hanging out with his crew in the schoolyard and wanting to be a good Ra Yellow student eager to learn something Duel Academy evidently never taught before.

Doctor Crowler, the one professor at the school who insisted on being referred to with the title despite most of them having PhDs in dueling (a newer program at most Japanese universities) stormed into the room, his arms full of poorly stacked paperwork. He was muttering under his breath about having enough students to teach as it is without adding something brand new and generally cursing Shepherd, careless that his students could hear.

A few Slifers and Ras filtered in through the door after him, finding seats near the front of the room. Logan was dismayed to see Evan Suzuki among them. The two made brief eye contact and Evan gave Logan a small wave, but fortunately chose to sit in the seat nearest the entrance rather than making his way to the now empty desk next to Logan. Logan let out a sigh of relief, glad that he wouldn't need to try explaining whatever the deal was with his 'new best friend' to Kylie and Zach.

"Alright you ungrateful brats," Crowler seemed too exhausted to put a lot of venom in his words for once. He placed himself at the lectern in front of the chalkboard and stood up straight, showcasing his excellent posture that Logan always admired. "And Obelisks." His inexplicably purple lips twisted into a small grin, then went right back into a disapproving scowl. "Welcome to Monster Attack Names, the most recent event in a series of crap I've had to put up with this year. Your field test instructors informed us higher-ups at Duel Academy that the student body is apparently lacking in basic knowledge of what you should be shouting at the top of your lungs above the growling noises your holograms make before pretending to kill one another. So that's where I come in, apparently. So let's just get through this together and try not to give good ol' Doctor Crowler an aneurysm."

Zachary scoffed. "Attack Names? Is the school board really that desperate to find something about Duel Monsters to teach us?"

"Normally I'd yell at you for your insolence," Crowler replied pointedly. "But today I'm just going to give you a perfect grade on the next pop quiz."

Zachary looked positively ecstatic at this thought.

"Which will be right now," Crowler continued, pulling a stack of papers out of one of his binders. He plopped it down on Evan's desk so he could get his own and pass it onto the next student. "I want to see what kind of deficiency I'm working to correct here. You may leave once you're done; we'll start regular lessons tomorrow after I've graded your work. Once I finish with my other four classes," he added stormily.

Logan passed the thinning stack of quizzes to Kylie and looked down at the paper. The quiz looked simple enough, with a list of around twenty monsters with blank spaces behind each name. He picked up his pen and started diligently working on the questions. Ancient Gear Golem would be Mechanized Melee, Volcanic Doomfire had Volcanic Cannon… Beetron-1 Beetletop. Hmm. He was pretty certain that wasn't even a real card. He took an educated guess using a beetle related pun and moved on, finding the answers becoming progressively more difficult to supply. Feeling discouraged, he glanced over at Kylie and Zachary, noticing the latter was playing with his pencil with his feet up on the desk not even bothering to read his quiz. Logan shook his head slightly, then resumed his own efforts.

As soon as he filled out the final question, he sensed someone standing next to him. He looked up to see Evan, staring down at him with intense disinterest. It was bizarre. "Do you know the attack name of Kuribandit?"

Logan narrowed his eyes. That wasn't on the quiz. "Um, no. I don't think it even has one. Kuribohs aren't really offensive monsters."

Evan looked dejectedly down at the ground. He seemed so sad that Logan almost felt guilty for making him look that way, he could have just made up something after all, but he reminded himself that he didn't want anything to do with this strange person with an uncanny ability to break into people's rooms. Speaking of, should he report that? Damn, he never needed that rules and etiquette book until it was gone. He opened his mouth to ask—tell— Evan to give it back when the Slifer's eyes met his coldly.

"No."

With that, Evan turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Logan with yet another question he knew he would never get an answer to.

"Why are you in your pajamas anyway?" Zachary asked from behind him. He was evidently done imagining that everyone was envious of his ability to get out of a single pop quiz, although the possibility of lording it over someone, someday, would probably keep him in a good mood the rest of the afternoon.

Logan looked down at his clothes, realizing he was indeed wearing his yellow t-shirt and school-issued blue and white pajama pants. He was somewhat surprised Professor Sartyr hadn't reprimanded him for it, honestly. "I had a long morning. Do you know that kid who was just here?"

"Evan Suzuki!" Kylie supplied, smiling wide. "We have Dueling Psychology together! We were partners in a presentation about psyching out your opponent by setting Polymerization and equip cards that aren't applicable to any monsters you have on the field. Or in your deck! I don't even have fusion monsters in mine, but—"

"Kylie, we need to go," Zachary unceremoniously dumped his possessions into his bag and stood up, gesturing for her to lead the way out.

"Right! Bye, Logan!"

Logan watched the two of them leave as he settled more comfortably into his chair to await his next professor's arrival.