‘Pend summon for 5, response?’ Phil had said as he looked at his opponent with eyes filled with laughter over the situation. His opponent grudgingly nodded his head for Phil to continue with a jerky, irritated movement.
‘All righty! I’ll overlay three of my dudes into Shock Master numero uno, normal summon Skullcrobat Joker, search Hat Tricker with Joker’s effect, then use three more level fours to XYZ summon me another Shock Master! Now, since I have three monster zones freed up, I activate Soul Charge to bring back Damage Juggler, and Trick Clown to the field, and then summon Hat Tricker through his own effect. I overlay all three monsters to unlock the shock one! Last! Time!
The face of Phil’s opponent was almost exactly the same as it had been in game one around this time when Phil had gone second and sliced through his board like it was made of wet tissue. Eyes that had a barely restrained fury. A wooden, expressionless face. Hands that clenched the table hard enough that there were faint cracking sounds coming from his direction. All these signs and more could have been easily noticed if Phil hadn’t been so caught up in the hilarity of the situation that allowed him to set up the Shock Lock years after it had been banned into oblivion.
Only, this wasn’t the first time these two men had dueled. The previous week Phil had tested out his ‘spicy’ new Mystic Mine burn build. The week before, Phil got his hands on an Adamancipator deck core and was dared by a buddy to see how long he could stretch a single turn. The answer? Phil’s longest turn ended up running to the 40-minute mark, without even having to stall for a single second of time.
‘Shock Master numero uno’s effect activates, detaching one XYZ material to prevent spell card effects from being activated until the end of your next turn! Numero dos’s effect activates, doing the same but for traps! Numero tres’s effect activates, locking off all monster effects from activating until the end of your next turn!
Had Phil been placed against literally anyone else at the card shop, this effect lockdown would have been met with boisterous laughter from everyone involved as his opponent would have started playfully insulting Phil while several of the spectators, all people already finished with their own matches, would have begun rubbing down his opponent’s shoulders like a boxer in the middle of the toughest title fight of his life, and other spectators would have started reminiscing over the crazy old days of PePe format with Phil.
With any other opponent, Phil’s deck choice, words, and actions would have been laughed off as ‘Phil being Phil’. They were all grownups, and they could tell when someone was just joking around. Almost everyone in the building knew that Phil just liked making the game as crazy and amusing as possible, and almost everyone in the building was cool with that. It gave another layer to the game that was almost more of a social activity than an actual competitive game for them at that point. Besides, during the times that Phil was playing some stupid lockdown deck instead of his normal competitive frog deck, there were always ways around the locks that could be found if you were smart enough.
Unfortunately, Phil’s opponent that round was an outlier to the usual.
‘Alright, I think that just about wraps up my turn dude. I’ll set two cards and pass turn.’ Phil finally said once the spectators around the table were finished shouting ‘unlock the shock’ and making monkey noises.
For a moment, Phil’s opponent did not react to his words except to keep clenching and unclenching his hands. He looked at his cards, looked at Phil’s three Shock Masters and two face down cards, and then looked back to his own hand.
Even someone who had never faced a PePe deck in a no-banlist tournament before would have had two reactions to this board: either put up a bit of defense and hope to survive, or surrender. Phil’s opponent, however, took door number three.
The next few seconds were a blur of action. The head of Phil’s opponent snapped upwards and he pulled something out from under his jacket.
‘FUCK YOU!’ The man screamed with an absolutely unhinged look on his face. Those words, and the deafening gunshot that followed, were the last things Phil heard.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil’s eyes snapped open to the fading ringing of the gunshot in his head and he began to calm his mind through deep, steady breaths. It was almost automatic at this point.
That dream again, huh? Seems like that night and the Titan incident are competing for nightmare space now.
He glanced at the window, mentally gauging by the amount of light filtering in that it was still somewhat early in the morning. A look at the cheap dorm alarm clock next to his bed confirmed his guess. Six o’ clock in the morning. It was amusing, in a way, that even though he was in a different body his own internal alarm clock still worked the same. He shook himself with a grunt, cleaning the sleep gunk out of his eyes and swinging his feet out from under the blankets to touch the floor. Then, while moving as quietly as possible to avoid waking the still-slumbering Lumina, Phil tip-toed his way to his closet to throw on some clothes before beginning the all-important quest for a hot cup of joe.
“Mornin’ Bastion.” Phil muttered with a voice thick with sleep as he met his friend in the hallway. His fellow Ra Yellow simply nodded in greeting and fell into step alongside Phil as they made their way to the cafeteria.
One by one Alexis, Jaden, Chazz, Syrus, and the rest filtered into the room while Phil and Bastion carried out their solemn, sworn duty to remove large plates of bacon and eggs from existence.
“So, how’s your brother doing?” Phil asked around a gulp of steaming coffee once Alexis had sat down with her food. The girl in question was doing a magnificent job looking both worried and slightly happy at the same time as she picked apart her omelet with a fork.
“Well, Atticus is stable, but…” Alexis’s brow narrowed in concern as she continued. “He just won’t wake up. Nurse Fontaine says it should be a matter of time, though. I hope she’s right.”
Phil caught Bastion’s eyes while Alexis went back to staring at her food and Phil mouthed the words ‘Magical bullshit’. Bastion agreed wholeheartedly with a subtle nod. Then, after Phil flicked his head between Bastion and Alexis, Bastion scooted towards her and patted Alexis’s shoulder comfortingly.
“Remember, Alexis, Atticus is under the watchful care of the wonderful Nurse Fontaine.” Bastion said. “All we need to do is resolve the situation at hand with the Shadow Riders and then we can all work together to find a solution. In addition, on average a coma usually only lasts between two and four weeks as the body focuses on recovery. Now of course this could be different due to the magical nature of the situation, but even with that variable, I bet Chancellor Sheppard is on the phone with Seto Kaiba right now to get the best doctors in the world to assist the good nurse!”
Alexis nodded at Bastion’s words with a thin smile that fooled absolutely no one at the table. “Yeah. Time heals all, right?”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Once breakfast had finished and the students began filing into their respective classrooms, Phil took a seat next to Bastion in Professor Bernardello’s lecture hall to catch him up on the situation.
“So I had a word with Jaden. Turns out his phone never rang last night either. You know what that means, buddy.”
Bastion nodded grimly. “Sabotage. We should narrow it down. Physical traces should be easy to find if they are there, but if more magical means were used then there might be little we can do. If lady luck is on our side, any physical traces may contain clues pointing towards who, or what, did it.”
“Yeah.” Phil agreed with a glance at their surroundings to make sure no one else but their friends were close enough to overhear. “Plus, just to make extra sure, I checked up with Chazz and Alexis to see if their phones are fucked too. Alexis didn’t have time to check, but Chazz swung by his room after breakfast, and nothing happened when I tried to call him from my room phone for a test. It seems to be a key keeper issue, and whoever did the phone thing knows exactly who the keepers are.
Bastion sat in silence for a moment, absentmindedly watching Bernardello begin the daily lecture after accepting a few pages of late homework from a sheepish Jaden.
“It seems this has created a serious communication issue, one that is interfering with our previous strategy. Once class ends, we should look around the dorms for any cut lines and see if any of the non key keepers were included in the sabotage. If the lines cannot be repaired, then we should try and advocate for the key keepers to be moved to different rooms.”
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Phil nodded in agreement. “Sounds good to me. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened last night if Alexis would have lost and if Syrus hadn’t been able to get into contact with any of us. All three of them could have died last night and none of us would have known a single thing.”
“Indeed.” Bastion softly replied as he watched Alexis slip out of the classroom and walk in the direction of the infirmary alongside Jasmine and Mindy. “We must give our plans even more thought than before, now that last night allowed us a rough measure of the character of our enemies.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Chancellor Sheppard swept a hand over his smooth, bald scalp as his computer connected him to the video conferencing call with Seto Kaiba. He still hardly understood how it worked, even after his secretary Sharlene and a few of the bright lads in Ra Yellow had explained it to him multiple times. In the end, Sheppard had reasoned it by remembering the saying ‘old dogs can’t learn new tricks’ and simply called one of the kids over to set it up for him each time for a little bit of extra credit.
Sheppard knew all too well how much of an old dog he was, after all. His bones made that fact quite clear every morning.
“Ah, good morning, Mr. Kaiba.” Sheppard greeted his boss with a nod as Kaiba’s face flickered to life on the computer monitor. Kaiba simply looked back with a cold glare. Sheppard mentally shrugged. That was Kaiba for you.
“As you requested, I have news to share with you.” Sheppard began. “The first of the Shadow Riders made their appearance last night, a man by the name of Nightshroud. He was defeated by Alexis Rhodes of the Obelisk Blue dormitory and revealed to be a possessed Atticus Rhodes. Mr. Rhodes is currently under the care of Nurse Fontaine in our infirmary and is being treated for wounds sustained during the shadow duel, though he has remained unconscious since the duel ended late last night. We believe the coma to be related to his earlier possession.”
Kaiba raised a glass of whiskey and took a long, slow sip of the contents. “Did the Rhodes girl carry her brother back herself, or were there other parties present?”
“Well…” Sheppard nervously adjusted the collar of his yellow dress shirt as a bead of sweat slid down his forehead. “It seems that Syrus Truesdale and Chumley Huffington were captured as hostages by Nightshroud, and the Truesdale boy called Phillip Jenson and Bastion Misawa for help in moving Mr. Rhodes after the duel ended. Mr. Jenson somehow managed to hotwire one of the golf carts from the maintenance building, which they used to carry Mr. Rhodes to the infirmary all the way from the volcano.”
A moment of silence followed as Kaiba’s eyes bored into Sheppard’s skull like a drill, unblinking and empty as he considered the chancellor’s words.
“I see. Issue my congratulations to the Rhodes girl for drawing first blood in this conflict. I will have Roland send a team of specialists over to look at her brother. As for the others…” Kaiba took another sip of whiskey and set down the glass. “The two hostages did well to survive. The bravery and resourcefulness of Jenson and Misawa is to be commended as well. I believe the former was a part of the team that won my tournament, and the latter is the top student after the Truesdale boy?”
Sheppard nodded shakily and Kaiba continued without missing a beat.
“As expected, then. They prove once more that they are not completely worthless trash. Perhaps once they graduate from my school, they can also graduate to being equal to the ground I tread under my boots.”
Then, with those words said, the video call ended and Sheppard leaned back into his chair with a haggard expression.
“Well, at least poor Fontaine will get some help in the infirmary now.” Sheppard muttered to console himself. “And Kaiba has his eyes on Phillip and Bastion. I think that’s the most I’ve heard him praise anyone aside from Zane Truesdale. Only time can tell whether that interest is fortuitous or not, though.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
As quickly as daylight had filled the island, night soon fell like a thick blanket over the school. Phil’s eyes snapped open as he woke from his nap to the sight of the moon standing tall in the night sky.
“Evening, Lumina.” He said in greeting to the duel spirit that sat on the spare bed nursing her thermos of green tea.
“Evening.” Lumina muttered after a sip of her tea. “Are you going fishing for Shadow Riders?”
Phil nodded. “Yup. Come and find me if the phone rings, please. Bastion and I ended up finding some cut phone lines, so we were able to convince Sheppard to temporarily move the key keepers into different rooms. With Jaden, Bastion, and Chazz rooming together while Alexis stays with Ms. Hibiki, they’ve at least got backup if there’s a raid. And now that the first Shadow Rider’s shown up, I bet that they’ll start popping out of nowhere each night until they run out of people. So if I’m lucky, I can bag one and see if they have any ID I can give to Kaiba. Even if they don’t, taking one or more down means less of a strain on the key keepers.”
Lumina acknowledged his plan with a lazy salute, and she leaned into her pile of warm blankets as Phil softly closed the door with his duel disk at ready.
“Right-o, if I was a Shadow Rider, where would I lurk?” Phil whispered to himself. A sense of unease was tugging at his gut, a feeling that had only grown since he and Bastion had discovered the cut phone lines. Phil patted one of the many decks hidden on the inside of his mustard-yellow jacket to soothe his worries.
Just gotta find one, beat them over the head with chaos warriors, and find a therapist with client confidentiality after D.3.S Frog inevitably eats the poor person.
A sudden flutter of wings burst out from beside Phil as a bird was startled by his footsteps and took flight frantically. Similarly startled, Phil jumped to the side with a vicious swear, one that turned into a string of words that would make a sailor blush in shame as he collided with someone who had just turned the corner. For a moment, Phil tensed his body to fight, until in the soft glow of the moonlight he noticed that it was just another student.
“Ah, sorry dude. I wasn’t looking where I was going, my bad.” Phil apologized and held out his hand to help the poor guy up.
The brown-haired student, who Phil recognized as a fellow Ra Yellow from the jacket, wordlessly accepted his help, brushing off his jacket and checking his own duel disk to make sure that nothing was damaged from the fall. Phil cocked his head. The boy seemed… familiar, though Phil couldn’t quite place a name to his face. Spiky brown hair, massive dark circles around his eyes…
Nope, Phil had no idea who this boy was.
Once the boy had finished brushing his jacket off, he spun around and stalked off down the hall without another word. Phil shrugged, checking his own duel disk to make sure that nothing was broken or missing before turning around and continuing his own patrol. At least, until a voice from behind Phil rang out in the clear night air.
“You’re Phillip Jenson, right?” The boy asked in a voice thick with exhaustion.
Phil glanced back, noticing that the boy had stopped and turned around like his question was an afterthought.
“In the flesh. Wassup?” Phil replied.
The boy narrowed his eyes. “I was going for Jaden first… but you’re on my list anyways, and a little voice in the back of my mind is telling me that this chance meeting is fate. My name is Dimitri Thompson, and I challenge you to a duel!”
Phil stared at Dimitri with a blank look for a few seconds while his brain processed the sudden challenge. Then he shrugged.
“Nope. I’ve got stuff to do. Maybe later, eh?”
Dimitri let out a bitter laugh. “You seem busy. Almost like you’re looking for someone. I think I might be able to help you with that. If, at least, you win.”
Does he know about the Shadow Riders? Or is he feeding me a pile of horse shit? Phil wondered to himself while he digested Dimitri’s unexpected answer. He’s gotta know something. There’s no way anyone would see another dude walking around at night and instantly assume he’s looking for someone. It’s far more likely that I would be getting water or sneaking around for some food.
Phil stared right into Dimitri’s eyes, and Dimitri stared back with a steely look. Neither of them blinked until Phil nodded.
“I’d be down, though it would be nice if you give me a bit more info than just mysteriously saying that ‘I’m looking for someone’.”
Dimitri turned and began to walk with shuddering steps, motioning for Phil to follow him. However, it was not until the two boys walked onto the roof of the Ra Yellow dorms that Dimitri answered Phil’s question.
“I’ve… had trouble sleeping lately. Walking helps, and you’d be surprised what one can see on a midnight walk.”
Phil raised his eyebrows, but the answer made decent sense. Dueling over some chance information certainly wasn’t the most ridiculous situation that Phil remembered from the anime. The monkey duel would take the cake for that. In one smooth motion Phil rustled around inside his jacket and withdrew a deck with green card sleeves to slot in his duel disk.
Ah, now I remember this dude. Dimitri. It’s that copy guy who has a bone to pick with Jaden. And Chazz I think? I heard they had a duel a little bit ago and Big D got absolutely bodied both times. Guess I’m on that list too. I’ll use something decent yet fun for this then and trash him in style.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Dimitri gazed at his fellow Ra Yellow student from where he stood on the rooftop. Just like Professor Bernardello had predicted, saying a carefully prepared vague statement was an excellent way to get someone to agree to a challenge. Of course, the professor had only told him to use that specific statement if Jaden said no to the challenge, but Phillip was on his list anyways, and this would give Dimitri a chance to test out his new deck.
“I can see you, child.”
Dimitri shivered, even though the night air wasn’t terribly cold after he had slipped on a few extra layers of clothes. No, instead the chill he felt was from the very cards in his duel disk. Even though he had finally fled his own room, the feeling that something or someone was watching him persisted.
Dimitri shuddered as he fought against the weights that felt like they were taped to his eyelids. It was horrible, so, so horrible. The wind whispered and the ground moaned words that bit at the edges of his mind. Each nibble made his headache intensify, like someone was reaching into his skull and squeezing his brain like a stress ball at a school exam.
“Do not worry, child. I shall hold you close.”
Dimitri’s lungs heaved as he forced his hands to move to draw his starting hand with shaking fingers. All he had to do was defeat Phillip, defeat Jaden, and wait outside Professor Bernardello’s door in the morning. He had tried to catch the man after class, but the professor managed to slip away while Dimitri was vomiting his breakfast out in the bathrooms. If he camped outside the good professor’s door, though, then Dimitri couldn’t mess up and miss him again. It was a good strategy, one that his mom had taught him to do if he ever had trouble in classes.
“She is not here, child. Not anymore. But I am.”