“I’ll take the first turn,” Sheppard gently stated the words as if they were a fact instead of something his opponent could either allow or deny. Phil nodded. Sure, going second did put him at a disadvantage, but he legitimately saw no future in which Sheppard would win this duel. At least going second might let him see something interesting before the end.
“Draw card. I activate Pot of Greed to draw two more cards, and then I summon Cyber Valley (0/0) in attack position. That will be all.”
Phil clicked his tongue. “Hope you have more than that, dude. You asked for my best, and here it is. I special summon Swap Frog (1000/500) by discarding the water attribute Ronintoadin from my hand. Swap Frog, show your stuff! When he’s summoned, I get to send one level two or lower water aqua monster from my deck to my graveyard. That’ll be Dupe Frog.”
Sheppard’s eyebrows rose, but his face remained restrained as he simply observed the yellow and red frog drag itself onto Phil’s side of the field with a baleful croak.
“Of course, that’s not all!” Phil shouted gleefully. “Now that Dupe Frog was kind enough to hop right along into my grave, I activate Ronintoadin’s (100/2000) effect, banishing Dupe Frog to special summon itself in defense position.”
“Oh!” Sheppard exclaimed with interest. “Attack and defense provided through the same play. Midori and Vellian truly have taught you well.”
“Sure, sure.” Phil casually replied and dismissively waved his hand. “But I’m not done yet, old man. I told you that I’m bringing my best. The frog's out of the pond already, so check this out! Now that I have two level two monsters on the field, I overlay Swap Frog and Ronintoadin to XYZ summon the maestro of mayhem, the big fucking cheese himself, Toadally Awesome (2200/0)!”
Any further comments from Sheppard were silenced as the air itself rippled and tore to reveal a single pale webbed foot, one that was swiftly followed by three more. A croaking bellow of laughter rang out through the dojo, bouncing off the walls and echoing to get louder and louder by the second. A massive pale toad then stepped through the tear in the air, with another toad being carried on its back, and a peach sitting on top of them both.
“Well I’ll be…” Sheppard whispered. He rubbed his eyes, as if he wasn’t quite sure if he was truly seeing this or if his vision was failing. “X…Y… Z summon? I’ve never heard of that before in my life. Amazing. Simply amazing.”
Phil shrugged with a wide grin on his face, partially from Sheppard’s utter surprise, and partially because the summon was only making his bones creak a little bit, instead of making him vomit blood or something crazy like that. Consecutive summons were still a bit tricky, but he was making good progress. “Questions, questions. My only answer is this: I enter the battle phase! Toadally Awesome, it’s din-din time. Kill that Cyber Valley!”
“Fair enough.” Sheppard swiped his hand to the side as he sprang into action with a play of his own. “However, it seems your own knowledge is still somewhat lacking. Because you have determined Cyber Valley as your attack target, I can activate its effect, banishing my valley in return for ending the battle phase and drawing a card!”
Sheppard’s monster, a strange-looking metal dragon with an almost mummified face, shimmered and faded away into thin air as the bald professor drew a card. Phil bobbed his head and laughed. Something like that wasn’t even worth negating.
“Fine by me. In that case, during my second main phase, I place three cards face down and end my turn.”
Sheppard drew a card to start his turn, but Phil interrupted him before the main phase could start.
“Ah, just one more thing," Phil spoke up. “During your standby phase, I get to activate one of Toadally Awesome’s effects! By detaching one material from my froggy boy, I can special summon one Frog monster from my deck. I’ll be detaching Ronintoadin and special summoning Dupe Frog (100/2000) in defense position!”
“The plot thickens.” Sheppard raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Here I thought that your Swap Frog and your Ronintoaden would be tricky to deal with. Yet now you have a much more formidable attacker and defender to work with. Tricky, tricky. However! Don’t count this old man out quite yet! In my main phase, I activate Instant Fusion, paying 1000 of my own life points in order to special summon one level five or lower fusion monster from my extra deck!”
Phil narrowed his eyes, but ultimately nodded his assent to the move. Again, a card that wasn’t necessarily worth stopping yet. It would be better to wait and see what the chancellor pulled out, considering the monster summoned by Instant Fusion would lose its ability to attack as the trade-off for the easy summon.
An alluring scent filled the field as a cup of steaming ramen with the word ‘Fusion’ written on the side popped into existence. The shadows in the corners of the dojo thickened and began to rustle. Bit by bit a truly monstrous shape slipped out of the shadows, a practically Lovecraftian creature that had a body covered with lazily staring eyes and a chest with a gaping, salivating mouth that appeared to be drooling in response to the delicious smell of the noodles.
“Thousand-Eyes Restrict (0/0), come to me!”
Phil’s eyes shot wide open. Something he’d never expected to happen, just happened. Sheppard actually managed to surprise him. For a GX-era duelist like Sheppard to spit out an actually good play right in front of Phil’s eyes? Inconceivable. Instant Fusion into Thousand-Eyes was a play a modern duelist would use.
Sheppard’s face crinkled up in a smile once he noticed Phil’s surprise and he began to explain while Thousand-Eyes Restrict occupied itself with slurping up the steaming Instant Fusion noodles.
Phil: 4000 Sheppard: 3000
“It’s unorthodox, I admit, but after my earlier disgrace, I decided that perhaps my horizons are in desperate need of widening. I made some changes to my deck, as you can see. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. In fact, dare I say, I am a whole new man now. At least I certainly feel like one, now that I’ve caught my breath from that little mountain climb earlier.” Sheppard finished his explanation with a little embarrassed laugh. “Anyway, I activate the effect of Thousand-Eyes Restrict to gobble up your Toadally Awesome as an equip spell card.”
“Nope!” Phil shouted in response. “That was a good idea, but like hell I’d leave myself wide open like that! Trap card, activate! I never leave home without it, here’s Lost Wind! I get to target a special summoned monster on the field, which would be your Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and permanently negate its effects! I guess its attack is also halved, but heh, half of zero is still zero.”
“A display of simple precautions, or are your true colors that of a control player?” Sheppard casually accepted his plans being shattered in favor of stroking his goatee with a spark of interest in his eyes. “Before today, I wasn’t quite sure, since you have played a variety of decks to my knowledge. Some aggro, some control, a bit of midrange. But that Lost Wind seems like a powerful trap… and those 2000-point defenders. How interesting.”
“I plead the fifth.” Phil replied in a deadpan voice, though his eyes twinkled with laughter. Sheppard shrugged and continued his turn.
“Well, it’s a shame my Thousand-Eyes Restrict is… heh, restricted from being of use, but I still have my normal summon available! By using Pegasus’s ultimate monster for something as simple as tribute fodder, I tribute summon the level six Cybernetic Magician (2400/1000)! Of course, the 2400 attack points of my monster are more than enough, but allow me to do a little bit more damage. I activate the effect of Cybernetic Magician, discarding Cyber Ogre from my hand in return for changing the attack points of your Toadally Awesome from 2200 points to 2000 points until the end of my turn. After that, I’ll place two cards face down and move to my battle phase. Cybernetic Magician, destroy that strange new monster for me!”
“Not so fast!” Phil replied with narrowed eyes. “It seems you lack knowledge of your own! While Dupe Frog is on the field, you can only attack him!”
Sheppard scowled as he watched the light blue blast of energy emitted from the scepter of the white-cloaked magician redirect itself in mid-air to blast a clean hole through the pale blue flesh of Dupe Frog.
“Fair play.” Sheppard acknowledged with a dip of his head while Phil activated Dupe Frog’s effect to add Swap Frog from his deck to his hand after it was sent to the graveyard.
“My turn.” Phil announced once Sheppard finished his battle phase. “In my own standby phase, Toadally Awesome’s gonna detach Swap Frog to special summon my third Swap Frog (1000/500) from my deck in attack position. Swap’s effect activates, sending another Ronintoadin from my deck to my graveyard. Now! In my main phase, I activate Swap Frog’s other effect to return itself to my hand, and then I normal summon him this time, triggering his send effect once more to send a Dupe Frog from my deck to my graveyard. Then…”
Phil took a deep breath and centered himself. He could do one XYZ summon while avoiding any excessive aftereffects… now he would see if he could do more.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I activate the effect of Ronintoadin in my graveyard, banishing the Dupe you destroyed last turn to special summon him in defense position. Overlaying the level two Swap Frog and level two Ronintoadin to XYZ summon Cat Shark (500/500) in attack position!”
Sheppard quietly observed the admittedly extremely cute half-cat, half-shark monster before flipping over one of his face down cards in response.
“Your summon is acceptable, but I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way. Because it is currently your main phase, I can activate Cyber Shadow Gardna, who I will special summon in attack position as a level four earth machine trap monster!”
“Baited!” Phil gleefully responded by flipping over a face down card of his own. “In response to your trap card, I activate Paleozoic Dinomischus! I target your Cyber Shadow Gardna to banish, and then I discard one card from my hand on resolution.”
Before the black-metal monster could even finish forming on Sheppard’s field, a strange red orb with a countless number of glowing blue tentacles popped out of the floor to zap Sheppard’s trap into nonexistence, while Phil cheerily discarded the Swap Frog he’d added to his hand through Dupe Frog’s effect during the previous turn.
“Now that my grave is filled up a little bit more, say hello to my second Ronintoadin! I banish Swap Frog from my graveyard to summon him! Cat Shark, it’s your time to shine. By detaching one material, which will be Ronintoadin, I can double the attack and defense points of Toadally Awesome until the end of the turn.”
Toadally Awesome (2200/0 -> 4400/0).
“Of course, Toad’s big enough to almost wipe you out, but you told me to go all out, so here you go! I banish another Swap Frog from my graveyard to special summon Ronintoadin once more in defense position. The second Ronin in my graveyard will do the same, banishing my third and final Dupe Frog to special summon himself. XYZ summon!”
Phil stumbled one step backward. He could feel his heart slightly constricting, and a fleck of blood leaked out of his mouth… but he could withstand it. Even if it was just barely. That was good news. Excellent news, even.
“Two level two Ronintoadins will be overlayed to XYZ summon the rank two Daigusto Phoenix (1500/1100)! Phoenix, show your stuff! I detach one material from my new monster to target a wind monster I control, that being Daigusto Phoenix, and give it two attacks this turn! Now, battle phase! Cheerio for the lesson, professor, and thanks in advance for the food! Toadally Awesome, destroy Cybernetic Magician!”
“Heh, that’s what would happen if I didn’t still have another trap waiting at my fingertips!” Sheppard shouted back with a huge grin. The man’s hands shook as he flipped over the last card face down on his field, but he still looked like he was having the time of his life.
“Trap card activate! Sakuretsu Armor! Your attacking Toadally Awesome will be destroyed!”
Phil shook his head with a grin nearly wide enough to match Sheppard’s, though midway through he winced slightly from the sudden movement.
“Ah, that would normally be the case, but in response I activate another one of my traps, a handy card called Dark Sacrifice! Since you activated an effect that would destroy a card on the field, I can negate that effect and send a level three or lower dark monster from my deck to my graveyard. That monster in question will be Absolute King Back Jack (0/0)! Back Jack's effect activates as well, allowing me to look at the top three cards of my own deck when it hits the graveyard, reordering them how I please."
Toadally Awesome sprung forward to tear into the metal flesh of the Cybernetic Magician with the force of a rampaging freight train while Phil quickly checked out the top three cards of his deck, choosing to leave them as they were. Then, a wave of Phil’s hand sent Daigusto Phoenix forward in a deadly dive bomb of green flame and orange, rocky skin to attack Sheppard Directly, reducing his life points to zero and ending the duel.
Phil: 4000 Sheppard: 0
Sheppard stumbled backward from the impact of the two strikes from Phil’s XYZ monsters. There were no wounds on his body, but the pressure from the cards alone was enough to whip up a mighty wind around the dojo.
“I… have no words.” Sheppard laughed once the shock of his sudden loss wore off. “I admit that I am not exactly the strongest duelist around, but to lose that decisively… to tell you the truth, it makes this old man ponder why he sticks around. Or perhaps I should look at it in a better way, as a passing of the torch. If the world has duelists like you and Zane, then it may very well be in good hands when old fogeys like me eventually fade to dust. I also admit that it is quite nice to see youngsters burn so bright and steadily.”
Phil caught his hand on a nearby table to steady his swirling head. Three XYZ summons in a row… might have been a bit much for a casual duel. But hey, it was all over now. Once his head stopped spinning, Phil glanced over to Sheppard and spoke one single word:
“Food?”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It was the most delicious smell Phil could ever remember experiencing. Not only that, but even the very sounds of the food being cooked were enough to send his senses into overdrive. The chef, a calm man who introduced himself as Jimmy, was all but torturing Phil at this point. Steaks, chicken, rice, mushrooms, eggs, all of it was sizzling away on the grill situated on the back porch of the dojo, allowing for all three of them to enjoy the magnificent mountain view while the food was being cooked.
“What an utterly fascinating and novel method of summoning.” Sheppard continued to ruminate over the duel. The man hardly seemed even a teeny bit bothered with how quickly Phil dismantled his strategies, preferring to voice his thoughts aloud about what he’d seen Phil do.
“Of course, of course I’ll keep mum about this as you’ve requested. Every duelist needs an ace up their sleeve, so to speak. But I truly do wish you would tell me how you even learned about the summon method in the first place. Normally a new summoning method would be introduced by Pegasus or Mr. Kaiba in a tweak to the current ruleset. For a, no offense, random duelist to chance upon both creating his own and getting it recognized by an industry-standard duel disk is a feat I wouldn't have thought would be possible. And the monsters. Nothing you summoned has base attack points close to that of a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, but the strength they possessed was nothing to look down upon. The effects were impressive too, and I have half a mind to consider that even after what you showed me, Phillip, that you’re still keeping a few things hidden.”
Sheppard continued to shake his head in utter wonderment, falling silent to enjoy the sounds of the meat cooking with only occasional mutterings of ‘not even a scratch on his life points’ and ‘fascinating’.
It was enough so that Phil even idly considered whether it would have been better to tell Sheppard to fuck off back on the mountain. At least then he wouldn’t feel like a specimen under a microscope. Though, to look at it from another point of view, Sheppard could potentially prove a useful ally given his high position at the academy. At the very least, Phil might not have to worry about being left out of another situation like he was with the key keepers during the Shadow Rider raid. Given that there was a nearly 100 percent chance of something like that happening in the upcoming school year (because of course all the crazy stuff has to happen during the school year in an anime world), that was definitely a good thing.
Yes. A good thing.
“So, was that deck your preferred one?” Sheppard’s abrupt question drew Phil’s attention away from the grill.
“You got me, boss. It’s called Paleofrogs. I’ve had it for… oh, going on six or seven years by now? Give or take a few. These things kind of tend to blur together after a while. Me and the croaky boys’ve got each other’s backs.” Phil laughed. Six or seven was his best guess, but it had been ages since he’d actually thought about it. “The other decks I’ve pulled out are just to keep things fresh.”
Sheppard nodded in understanding and grabbed his plate at the signal of the chef.
“I imagine the variety provides more than simply ‘keeping things fresh’. Being well-rounded is important in all parts of life, after all.”
“Exactly!” Phil snapped his fingers in delight and pointed toward Sheppard. Finally, someone was picking up what he was putting down. “So many people encounter a deck they’ve never seen before and practically shut down mentally. Like they don’t know how to deal with the unknown. Sure, there’s a lot of unexpected stuff out there, but broadening your horizons can help a duelist be more flexible with their plays.”
The chef grabbed the plates from Sheppard’s and Phil’s hands, silently filling them with so much food that the pewter dishes seemed like they would crack from the weight alone. Meanwhile, Sheppard pulled out a bottle of sake and two glasses, keeping one glass for himself while the second was sent sliding across the battered wooden counter to the chef.
“Don’t even bother asking.” Sheppard pointedly said before Phil could even open his mouth, but Phil waved his hand in a ‘no thank you’ gesture without even missing a beat.
“I’ve sworn it off anyway.” He could see Lumina in the corner of his eye putting a single flip-flop back into her bag with a slightly relieved expression on her face.
Sheppard merely smiled, topping off his own glass while the two duelists and the chef began their all-important quest to eat double their own body weights.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Sheppard sat back with a sigh of contentment, striking a match to light up his pipe. Beside him, the chef silently finished cleaning up the remains of the meal. Phillip was already long gone, seeming to prefer staying at the camp he’d set up somewhere in the mountains. Well, it was all fine. Now that Sheppard knew the rough location of the student and could be sure that the kid was eating well, he could relax. The chancellor took a long, satisfied puff of his pipe. An interesting duel, a hearty meal, an ice-cold glass of sake, and a nice, long smoke afterward.
Bliss.
Pure, absolute bliss.
"By the way, good work, Jimmy." Sheppard abruptly complimented. The chef grunted and nodded. He always did good work. "I think with the showing you put on today, the kid should show up for food pretty regularly. It does this old man's heart good. I was getting a bit worried, about him wandering around the mountains like he was. And if I assume what Midori spoke to me about is only the tip of the iceberg – which with Seto Kaiba involved, it probably is, it does my heart even better being able to keep an eye on him."
“You think there’s more, sir?”
Sheppard took another long puff of his pipe while he considered Jimmy’s words. The full story. Truthfully, only Seto Kaiba, Phillip Jenson, and perhaps those three from the East Academy knew it. Even what little he, Midori, and Vellian knew was enough to send a pang of sorrow through his heart. A youngster like Dimitri being cut down before his time, the terrible deeds a group of students was forced to do to cleanse a deadly rot from the American branch… it was almost too much to bear.
“I would say there certainly is.” Sheppard eventually replied. “But what’s done is done. All we can do is be better and more vigilant in the future.”
Jimmy wiped the last bits of gunk off the grill and moved to wash his hands with a grunt of agreement.
“Oh, and Jimmy, I’ll be heading down the mountain tomorrow to find a phone. Hopefully I can set Midori’s worries at ease.”
Jimmy abruptly switched the water off and turned to stare at Sheppard with raised eyebrows.
“Sir, are you expecting her to keep blaming Mr. Kaiba?”
“That woman…” Sheppard sighed, his face slightly crinkled with worry, “she cares so much about her students, I can’t quite tell for sure what she’ll do. Vellian is an unknown, too. He’s a new man after the Shadow Rider incident.”
“The clown?” Jimmy questioned with a face that seemed like he wasn’t sure if Sheppard was joking or not.
“He has the will of a duelist now.” Sheppard confirmed. “An excellent boon for the Central Academy, no doubt.”