Megan gave a cheery grin, not at all dissuaded by the Colonel's fierce yelling. "Sir yes sir!" She barked out, throwing up a salute. After that she would head into the changing booth to change into a swimsuit. Unfortunatly she hadn't brought her own on account of it being a freaking desert so she had to use a generic earth dorm one piece. Its drab colors were totally boring and Megan made a mental note to get her parents to send her swimsuit to the academy. Coming out Megan looked from familair faces and saw Haas praticing along with a bunch of other people already in the pool.

Figured, it was best to train right away if you were serious about winning something. Megan eagerly entered the water and gazed down the lane. One deep breath and she was off, racing thorugh the water using a generic crawl stroke, the movements easy from years of pratice. As she reached the other end of the pool she smoothly did a flip turn and continued back to the other side. Having finished Megan grinned and shook her hair a little, she hadn't even bothered timing herself, seeing no need for it right now. Having gotten a bit of a practice race in, Megan drifted to a corner of the pool, out of the way of any other swimmers, and relaxed.

Maisy recoiled as Melchior's voice just about busted her eardrums with his...err..."commentary". Reeling back and shaking her head, Maisy barely regained her senses in time to stop the ball from hitting her in the nose with her hands. Holding the ball in the palms of her hands, Maisy looked to the student who asked for the ball and nodded, about to toss it back before Melchior's mic went off the hook with the volume, causing Maisy to completely misfire, he ball sailing well and above the other student's heads and sinking perfectly into the net on the other side of the court. Rubbing her ears and shutting her eyes, Maisy didn't even see the literal one in a million shot she made, the ball simply bouncing against the floor and rolling to the right.

"My ears..." she grumbled, pulling the hem of her hat over her ears and looking up at Melchior. "Hey, Mr. Melchior...I was looking to sign up for Acrobatics, and was told I could come here to do that." Maisy said, letting go of her hat and looked to the students asking for her and the other two guys who came in to join in on their game. Shrugging, Maisy said: "Well, I'm not a super great baller, but I'll do my best if you want me. Heck, it'll be good exercise too!" as she took her hat off, looking around for where she must have dropped the ball.

As Nathaniel walked into the music room and realized that he was interrupting what appeared to be some sort of rehearsal, he froze like a deer in headlights. He stood with his palms out beside him, attempting to make himself seem as inconspicuous as possible yet achieving only the opposite. Despite his intrusion, they seemed to be carrying on just fine, and Nathaniel stood in that awkward position for several more minutes as he took in the melody.

When they finally ran through the piece, Nathaniel tentatively shifted into a more comfortable standing position. "Hello, Miss-uh... Mei. I'm here for the talent show. I heard I was supposed to sign up here?"

Joshua winced and covered his ears at the sheer volume of announcer's mic. Seriously, no one here seemed to know what the terms 'volume control' and 'peace and quiet' meant around here. As he recovered, he heard another girl explain pretty much the entire reason they were here. Massaging his ear a bit, he turned towards Melchior.
"I'm here for pretty much the same reason. However, I want to know what the competition is comprised off. What will we be doing exactly? Is it like a parkour course or is more like a gymnastics competition, with routines, beams, and whatever else they might think of?" Joshua said before looking over at the basketball game. He had never really played, and he figured he would be more of a burden then a help. "I think I'll pass on joining the game. But thanks for the offer."



Having found a small meal for herself, Amelia found somewhere to sit and eat before pulling out her deck. She knew she would need to begin improving it soon. Looking towards the card shop, she debated on whether to go now or get more points. After several minutes of debate, she decided to play one more match and get points, regardless of how many, before she bought some cards.

Hayato was about to seek out some teachers for getting the stuff he needs for his backup plan, but quickly realized he should probably sign up for the talent show first. He headed off to the music venue to sign up for the talent show, because he didn't know what else to do. As much as he would love to join Hayate in whatever event she would inevitably join, he'd finish last in the contests without a shred of doubt. He had more experience practicing Iaijutsu and Kenjustu, at least when compared to moving around various obstacles. Also, Hayato sadly didn't know how to swim.

After a long trip to the music venue, Hayato arrived to see some other people inside. He could only recognize one of them, however. "Hate,Gate,Mate? what was it?" Hayato thought, he never was good at remembering names of people he never really spoke to. The venue looked exactly like he would have expected it to, once he had taken a good look at it. "I'm here to sign up..." Hayato said to the teacher he spotted, letting her handle his sign-up. He followed that up by turning, trying to speak to Nathan. "I didn't expect seeing you here. It'd be boring for me to work alone," Hayato started to direct most of his attention to Nathan and was ignoring the rest of the people inside of the room. "What you say you and I work together?" Hayato offered to Nathan. "There is something I want to do, but it would be less impressive if i did it alone." Hayato explained to Nathan. "If you are here as well what were you planning to do for the talent show?" Hayato asked Nathan before waiting for a response

Mei nodded at Nathan, affirming his belief of this being the place to sign up for the competition. "Yeah, around here is the right way to put it. Just give me a moment." The teacher un-crossed her legs and started opening an array of drawers, ruffling around in them to try and find something. "Forgive the slowness, I forget where I put these half the time..." the teacher groaned. It took a few minutes, which Hayato gladly used to chat up Nathan a bit, before the redhead found what she was looking for. With the care of an angry bull she slammed down a creaked piece of paper on the table and took out a pen from her breast pocket. She also took out her D-Ceiver and scrolled through it. "Nathaniel Waverly and Haya...to Ray, right?" Mei asked the two to confirm their names, being a little confused on the samurai's. She only really noticed it was him because of the Earth uniform on his person. Whilst any responsible adult would have waited for a reply, Mei simply scribbled down their names on the forms. "I'm glad to see some people signing up. We do this just about every year, and the talent show is always the least popular. Well, I guess I won't have to worry about that now, huh?" The teacher gave a wry smile to the both of them, then relaxed in her chair again.

---

Dunk master Maisy sure left an impact on the room. Her one-in-a-million shot left the third year students in awe as they watched the ball soar in the sky, and fall right into the hoop without so much as a hit of stuttering on it. A perfect shot with the perfect angle. "WHOOOA!" Melchior screamed into his microphone. "It seems we may have a new basketball star on our hand here in the form of Maisy McKellen! Not only that, but she offered to be in the game! Could this be the game-changer either team needs...?!" Melchior commentated as if it were a duel, proving that old habits die hard. Melchior composed himself within a few moments, but the students didn't. "Aaaand she's on my team. We're down someone, after all." The female named Celice grinned at the other team captain in the room, who's face went pale with dread. The older girl quickly scooted over and dragged Maisy into the field, giving her no time to take it back, and immediately resumed the game. Meanwhile, Melchior was looking back at the two male first years who were looking to sign up. "Ah, yes, the course. It's actually done in three stages. The first will be a short solo parkour on the outskirts of the academy, then we have a high-jump competition and we round it off with a race in the Action Duel arena. While the first parkour was in how well you'd do it in how short of a time, the second will be all about outsmarting your competition and taking risks. You won't have time to prepare for the parkour race, since the field will be randomly generated."

The explanation was maybe a little over-simplified, but Melchior didn't have much time. He had a game to commentate, damnit! The commentator took out his D-Ceiver in his pocket and fiddled around a bit with the screen. "Alright, you're set! All three of you are registered for the competition! Now join me in this SPECTACULAR game!" Melchior couldn't hold in his excitement as he said that, looking back to the field. Apparently, Maisy had scored a three pointer since last time he checked, and was going on the offensive again by dribbling past all those taller students. "What's this?! It seems our sudden guest star really was a game changer!" Melchior continued to shout, giving live feedback on the game in progress.

---

Ethel stared at Ignia whilst waiting for a reply, though it didn't seem like she was going to get one. "Ignia?" Ethel asked, her tone of voice a bit impatient. The girl from the Wind dorm still wasn't replying to Ethel. The blue-haired one of the two felt frustration welling up inside of her chest. They didn't have a lot of time throughout the week to spend with her, quite frankly only, friend and now that she did, said friend is clamping up harder than an actual clamp. Ethel tried to poke Ignia a few times in vain, before getting up and dusting off her skirt. A bit of a frown was on Ethel's face, hating the fact she was just ignored. "Fine." The girl was about to leave, but she then heard something buzz from her hand bag. Blinking twice, Ethel ruffled through it to find a message from Angelo on her D-Ceiver. Apparently he was finished with the modifications, and Ethel needed to rate his work. "...I'm going now," the older girl informed her friend, then briskly walked off to the changing rooms. She emerged a few moments later, completely dressed up in her riding suit and helmet.

The girl ignored Ignia as she walked past her again, heading straight for the garage. She'd have to ask Angelo to hand back her spare key later, but the guy wasn't in the area from the looks of it. Ethel frowned as she opened up her garage and found that her Duel Runner was under a sheet. She never liked unwrapping things, and getting something like that off was a pain. It took her a few seconds of messing around before she managed to get it off and toss it into the corner. Her new frame looked... pretty much exactly like she expected it to. Instead of the weird, flat W-shape the ALPHA frame had, this one looked more futuristic and daring. It was a bit shorter and taller, but made up for it with odd breaks in the frame that looked like it exposed the technology underneath, though was just part of how it was modeled. It had her favorite two-toned dark and light blue colors, though with a long black streak on the front. The wheels looked almost detached from the machine as they were connected by two simple beams on both ends whilst the runner seemed to float above them. There wasn't a support for the back of the rider, but with this particular model it would have looked out of place. The handlebars were two flat, raised ones that were located at the front, rotated vertically. Both ends looked sharp, and the frame didn't really use any round shapes except for when it tried to replicate the machinery inside. The slot for the duel disk was empty, as she'd hoped, so her own could fit in. The screen to keep track of the duels was built into a windshield, raised at a bit of an angle since the duelist is supposed to bend forward. The buttons to scroll through the runner's menu were located underneath the slot for the Duel Disk.

Ethel was satisfied with the appearance of her runner, at least. But the question was; Did it run as well as it did before? Ethel took her machine out of the garage and rolled it over to the inside track, seeing as it was unoccupied. She didn't bother to drag it all the way to the starting point, instead opting to drive as soon as she got the chance to. She jumped on her Duel Runner and had it start the engine, taking off in the blink of an eye. Due to not revving it up earlier she had a bit of trouble getting speed, but that wasn't really the issue. Her acceleration seemed to be on par with what it was before, as it should since the same engine is being used, though her steering was a little off. Ethel didn't blame her Duel Runner for that, though, it's because her handlebars were different from what she was used to. She'd probably have to ride for a while to get used to them, so it was probably for the best to practice now before the race. Ethel managed to finish one lap and briefly parked her Duel Runner on the side of the track, walking back into the building to report to Angelo on its performance.

It took the girl a little while, but she eventually managed to find her D-Ceiver and tapped on her contacts list. She only really had two, Ignia and Angelo. She clicked Angelo's name and started to type a message; "Yep, yep! Job well done, 5/5 (・ω・)b! You replaced the frame like I asked, so I don't have much reason to complain (✿´꒳`). Thanks for doing this for me (≧∇≦)/! Let's duel casually next time, without something like a stupid bet hanging over our heads, m'kay? I think we'd both do better with a clear head!ヽ(ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉ" After having finished typing out the message, Ethel went back onto the track and kicked off her Duel runner again, trying to get some practice in with riding the thing. Even though she was friendly to him in the message, Ethel really didn't want to lose a competition like that. She had to be at the top of her game. People back home were expecting results from her, and she can't come off as weak to everyone after building such a reputation.

---

Haas found himself on a bench on the sideline, gazing in awe at Megan as she smoothly raced from one end of the pool to another and then back. This was his competition? He had to go up against that? Haas was screwed completely! The red-headed girl finished only a single lap before floating off to the corner, presumably to relax a little after warming up. Wait, that was a warmup? "Just... lovely..." Haas complained with a sigh, pushing himself off the bench. He looked back at the pool and its length. Seems like the boy was going to need to practice a lot if he wanted to stand even a semblance of a chance in the swimming competition. He took to one end of the pool and dived in again, racing the fastest he could muster to the other side, but felt like he wasn't anywhere close to the speed Megan was at. This was going to be a long week, Haas imagined. Well... Megan was here now, anyway, and she wasn't doing much. Haas figured he may as well just go over and talk to her. The boy got to the edge of the pool and climbed out, brushing his wet hair to the side a little. As Haas was walking to the corner of the pool, he suddenly had a flash of clarity. A mischievous grin crept up on Haas' face, and he tried to stay out of the girl's line of sight.

One Haas had gotten behind Megan and he knew she wasn't looking at him, he suddenly yelled "Surprise!" The next moment, Haas lept over Megan's head and splashed into the water in front of her, knees inside of his arms and back first. It made a huge splash, surely hitting Megan and whatever poor sod happened to be on the side of the pool. Unfortunately for Haas, the water was only about a meter deep in this part of the pool and his momentum caused him to hit the floor with a bit of force. Nothing that'd cause any sort of major injury, but it still stung. He rose out of the water swiftly, standing up and having the water come to just above his stomach. "Ow, ow, ow...." he complained with closed eyes, then sheepishly grinned at Megan. It didn't seem like the colonel noticed, because otherwise the both of them would've heard the wrath of his mighty whistle.

Megan had just closed her eyes when she heard a loud yell behind her. Her eyes flew open just in time to see something crash into the water in front of her like a cannonball and receive a health helping of water straight to the face. Spluttering Megan shook her head to clear her eyes and saw the culprit standing in front of her, looking remorseful. Megan stalked towards him in mock anger until she was practically nose to nose with him. "You think you can just splash me and get away with it?" She asked calmly. Then she smiled and slipped her foot behind his leg and shoved him into the water. "Well you can't!" She yelled playfully and quickly swam to the opposite side of the pool, looking back with a confident grin once she reached the end. She'd seen Haas swimming and knew she was faster than him. Given that he chased she would continue evading him, though not staying too far out of his reach to make him think he might be able to catch her.

As Angelo had gotten into his room he started to put his tools away and get his cloths changed into regular cloths when he heard the notification tone on his D-ciever that he had a message. He opened it and seeing that it was from Ethel he rubbed his eyes confused he was glad for the 5/5 rating honestly but this bit about dueling casually he just honestly wouldn't believe. This girl just about hated Angelo's guts like she would want to duel casually. Why is it she can never be direct about what she wants whenever she talks to him it is like walking through a minefield with one wrong word or phrase and she is ready to deck him without a second thought but when she is texting like this he then thinks she's a nice girl on the inside. Then again that was his kind of girl after all prideful on the outside but inside happy and wanting acceptance.

He put his D-ciever away before he started to walk back to the track, he still needed to practice and get ready for the competition. He was at the top of the class in terms of riding ability but that wouldn't stop him from practicing. He wasn't going to loose this race. After a few moments he got back to the area and went to change into a runner outfit and he grabbed his duel runner waiting for his turn to practice on the track...

The day went by like you'd expect it to. Some people practiced, some goofed off and others didn't even bother to sign up. Everyone had their own little thing they liked doing, but one thing's for certain: That was a lively day for the Duel Tower. One student in particular managed to smooth talk his way into something. Vincent had moved a few steps away from Transformer back towards the hub area of the dormitories, before spinning on his heel and challenging the walking hulk to a duel. Said walking hulk had accepted, too. Whether that was lucky or unlucky for the students, nobody would know for at least another week. Some shady characters witnessed them both go into an elevator and they went missing for a while, though nobody ever saw those two leave the academy. Time flew, for lack of a better term. A huge portion of the students were using the school's various recreational facilities more often in preparation for the big day.

---

The students were being woken up in quite the unique manner that morning, though still with Melchior's excited voice being the first thing to grace their ears. "All students who have signed up for a contest, today is the day! Make your way over to the respective areas you signed up at, as for the rest, gather at the ground floor!" The announcement ended as suddenly as it began, leaving the students to their devices. Everyone got ready for the day and made their way over to where they should be. Those who weren't in a contest had the pleasure of watching four wide monitors installed in the entrance hall, each broadcasting a separate contest. There were different headphones you could wear to listen to the audio of whatever you liked without being disturbed by the rest. Still, there wasn't any sign of Vincent in the crowd. He was missing still. Every show would happen at the same time, though some would be shorter than others.

---

On floor seven was the Swimming contest, which a fair amount of people had signed up for. The goal was to speed through three laps as fast as possible, simple as that. To make things go faster they'd use all seven lanes for seven different students at the same time. The first few swimmers were alright, they didn't break any records but they tried their best. The second wave contained Megan and Hayate, who seemed to have some sort of psychic connection going on. They were on the complete opposite lanes, both sides of the pool, yet still looked at each other briefly. All five students who stood between those two could feel an electric shock surge through their bodies for the duration of it, and one guy even resigned on the spot after that. When they actually started to swim, Megan and Hayate made everyone else look like a sinking brick. Hayate's energy made her able to sprint longer without getting tired, but Megan had techniques down from years of practise. Whilst the others weren't even halfway yet, both of them finished the first lap and headed back. Megan had an easier time turning than Hayate did and quickly pulled in the lead, swimming ahead of the other girl by just an inch. By the time the third lap came around, Hayate suddenly managed to crank out an exact 20% increase in efficiency and managed to overtake Megan barely, though collapsed as soon as she climbed out the pool. It didn't take too long for the other swimmers to climb out after them, but everyone's face in the audience was dumbstruck.

Of course, it wasn't over yet. The next few rounds had some similarly impressive performances, but nobody had managed to beat Hayate's time. One guy called Moka came very close, though. After a few more less-than-stellar performances came the turn of Ben and Haas... though without Haas. The third lane had a noticeable lack of a certain boy. Right before the whistle went off for the swimmers to start... well, swimming, a certain boy burst through the door in his swimming trunks shouting he was late. Haas ran over to take his spot, got a bit of a scolding and braced himself. He hadn't seen the performance of Megan and Hayate, which might be for the best. He'd have probably gotten demotivated if he did. Ben and Haas had a friendly bit of banter before the race started and both dove in. Everyone in the room couldn't believe their eyes what they saw next. As if he were a dolphin, Haas kept jumping in and out of the water and somehow managed to speed past everyone by a country mile. Nobody knew how or why it worked, and not even Haas seemed to realize what in the world he was doing. Somehow, though, he managed to finish all three laps before each of the swimmers even got done with their first, except for Ben whom was well into his second by that point. When Haas was asked to explain that technique after he'd climbed out of the water, the boy simply responded with having no clue as to how he did that or why it worked.

---

Someone thought it was a bright idea to host the athletics competition in the bright, scorching hot sun. That person also thought it was a great way to describe a practical death course around the academy as 'a short parkour'. The first stage consisted of ramps, long jumps both horizontal and vertically, lots of wooden constructs that made for some incredibly tricky running and a rope swing for whatever reason. Most people failed at the rope swing. Not all of them did, just most of them. Joshua and Leander seemed to have cleared it with relative ease, but when it was Maisy's turn some stuff happened that nobody could predict. She started off alright, nothing too special. She was going through the course like most others before her did. When Maisy reached the rope swing, however, everything went wrong. She jumped, grasped onto it and landed... only for the entire course to crash underneath her. Not just the part she was at, but the entire complex built along the outer wall of the Duel Tower. Luckily for the little reporter she managed to get out with only a scrape on the cheek, but the results for that one would have to be factored out of the final results for... obvious reasons.

The second part of the competition was a high jump with the aide of a trampoline and the bar was set quite high, though nothing impossible. About half the students managed to screw it up and one of them even managed to knock out the bar and come crashing down with it on the landing mat, leading to a disqualification. Leander did alright, clearing the jump as basic as possible. Joshua tried to show off and somehow managed to succeed in doing a front flip over it, but got scolded for it afterwards as he could've gotten stuck and came down on his neck. Then Maisy's turn came, again. This time she managed to not utterly wreck the entire construction, though there was a noticeable tear in the landing mat when she came down. As it would turn out, the last guy to jump sank through that tear and got stuck in it for a good five or so minutes before managing to be pulled out.

The last part of the competition was the race in the Action arena, with an action field being selected to suit the students' needs. The aptly named 'Planter Maze' was an overgrown garden full of vines, trees, tall hedges and weirdly shaped plants to give anyone trying to cross it a hard time. There was even a gigantic bouncy mushroom marking the midway point, which the participants needed to jump on to land on the head of whatever unlucky carnivorous plant they were faced with. Minute details aside, the students were given the signal to go and took off. Maisy had one of the trickier sets of obstacles, with lots of jumps and short sprints but nothing outlandish that'd put you at a clear disadvantage when it came to speed. Unluckily for the girl she managed to overshoot the jump from the mushroom and had to do a roll to recover on the floor, basically being screwed into a longer course because of it. Meanwhile Leander had a differently laid out course that was almost entirely consisting of sprinting, which made the boy very tired very quickly. Joshua, however, managed to surprise everyone by standing at the finish line way before any other student. He had apparently found a way to cheese the system by swinging up to a platform that was above his course, using the leverage from one of the vines hanging from it, and managed to run the entire way to the end without any sort of further obstacle to slow him down. Leander's course at least still had some tricky jumps that broke up the sprinting, but Joshua's was one long dash through a combination of clever thinking, excellent abdomen muscles and being a bit of an ass for exploiting the field like that.

---

The talent show was hosted in the same place as where you signed up for it; The music venue. All the desks had been cleared and the stage in front was extended to make room for more... intricate performances. In the back of the room was a jury consisting of the most boring teacher in the world, the nurse's assistant, Mr. Wilhelms and an empty seat. They say that seat belongs to Transformer, but he was still missing alongside Vincent. The performances were shown in a set order, one by one. The jury gave a opinion on them and jotted things down in their notes after the piece was over, just to not delay the next person. The opening act belonged to Nathan, who played a pretty simple piano piece to kick things off. He managed to keep the stage fright in check and didn't screw up in the middle of it, leaving the jury impressed. The next act was the four man band from a week ago, who delivered the same room-shaking symphony with a little more refinement.

Unfortunately for both those acts, nearly everyone had decided to settle on something musical. It was one piece after another, either sung or played and the act got stale very quickly. It didn't even matter how good you actually are, the jury was visibly bored at witnessing a concert instead of a talent show. Before anyone had known it they were on the last act, Hayato's act. The boy hadn't managed to convince Nathan to perform with him, so they decided to fall back on another plan. The first thing that was a fresh change of pace was Hayato placing two bowls of fruit on the jury's desk. Then the boy walked over on stage, put on an orange blindfold and had his back turned to the audience. Hayato instructed the teachers to just 'Throw something at him', and so they did. With lightning quick reflexes Hayato managed to cut an apple the boring teacher threw in half, revealing a hidden katana underneath his coat. For surprise factor the jury wasn't made aware of it, but Hayato was allowed a weapon for the show itself. The teachers tossed more and more fruit at him, sometimes larger and sometimes smaller, with the boy cutting through them almost effortlessly... Except for a grape he'd caught in his mouth instead. When the throwing stopped, Hayato raised up his blindfold to see the bowls of fruit being empty... and the entire stage being covered in juice. The janitors sure had their work cut out for them.

---

The racing competition was a little different from all the others. For one, the students were all lined up on the road leading away from the Duel Tower. This wasn't part of the race, however. Instead, everyone was driving out of the school's reach into the open desert for a while, reaching a point where there was seemingly no more civilization in sight. It's a good thing the road was one straight line, otherwise the students might've had troubles coming back. The only signs of life in the area were the cameras lined up a fair distance away, and a helicopter coming down from the sky on the open sand. Out of it stepped a stylishly dressed woman with green hair in a braid, who explained some things about the race. First, it would take place in an alternative speed world that was developed with both the Duel Tower school and the Fudo Research and Advancement Company, which implements the same technology found in Action Duels to create a customisable course on any kind of terrain without issue. The second is that this race will be broadcasted world wide to show off both this new technology and the teachings of the Duel Tower, something that benefits both companies. Third is that it consisted of a total of fifty laps on a course of three kilometers, making the total race length only one-hundred fifty kilometers.

With the basics out of the way, the students noticed that their Duel Runners suddenly activated something called 'Speed World - Virtua' and found the area around them to change. The sky turned into a mix of neon green and blue lines forming rectangles on a black background, with a blindingly white road materializing. Various obstacles such as ramp jumps and higher platforms also appeared, with a grid-like cage appearing around the racers to protect the outsiders from any potential damage as well as keeping them confined for the duration. Everyone started to take their place, having been handed a number before the start to show where they were. Ignia had gotten lucky with a number seven, making her on the first row of racers. Camryn was on the third row, Angelo on the fifth but near the edge and Ethel was dead center. The holographic projection that signaled the start was a bit different from what people were used to, with an entirely new one having been designed to go along with Speed World Virtua. The same combination of black and green made up a background, on which ten arrows were placed on the upper half. One by one they flickered to life in a bright red color. When the final arrow was lit they all turned green with a white message underneath, reading 'ACCELERATE' as the horn signaled everyone's departure.

Mostly everyone got off to a good start, aside from some of the students in the back who ran into engine troubles and got left in the dust. The count went from a hundred people in the running down to maybe about ninety-two before it even really began, something that came as a boon to those who were careful enough... though one had to wonder how that reflected on the Duel Tower. Angelo showed off how much more practice he had compared to everyone else pretty fast, pulling from somewhere in the middle up to the first fourth pretty quickly. Camryn managed to nail a few boosters on the floor which accelerated her past a point of safe speeds, causing her to miss a few crucial ramps she probably should have hit. Ignia seemed to be surprisingly into it, landing on one of the heightened platforms pretty quickly and being the first to do so. The raised course was a shortcut compared to the lower one, but it had a lot more tricky obstacles and a few pitfalls. Ethel looked to be frustrated as she was being locked in by all the racers around her, constantly looking for her opening to break through.

The race went smoothly for the first few laps, but then some idiot in one of the more front rows crashed into someone else which sent quite a few Duel Runners flying off the track. Some more people also couldn't keep up with the general cluster or just never broke through and had fallen behind. In almost the blink of an eye, the amount of racers that had a shot at victory was cut in half. Ethel managed to get into the front rows eventually, but she was forced to watch those with an edge race around on the top platforms. Ignia managed to fall down into a pitfall, but was the lead racer on the ground floor due to the early shortcut. Up top Angelo had pulled ahead with little effort, looking to be the lead in the entire race. Camryn was close behind but had trouble getting into his slipstream, plus Angelo's tricky maneuvers were hard to replicate.

This continued on for a little while, with Angelo managing to secure his spot as the first racer for the majority of the contest. At one point, Ethel had managed to catch up to the top platforms and forced both Angelo and herself down to the course below, wanting nothing to do with him. Unfortunately, she got the worse of the two falls and landed on an oil spill that nearly made her runner crash, giving Angelo the edge to pull ahead. Surprisingly enough, Ignia passed him by whilst he was distracted, claiming her spot as the first racer. Camryn got caught up in a small group of racers, who seemed hell-bent on keeping her out of the running by surrounding her and not letting her drive clearly. On the last few laps it was pretty clear who the ones were that stood a chance to get first place, with Angelo and Ignia racing head-to-head in the lead. Ethel was on a raised platform, but lagging behind. Camryn got so caught up with those racers that trapped her that she'd fallen far behind, with no realistic way to get first place. On the last lap it was almost guaranteed to be a toss-up between Ignia and Angelo, with Ignia driving in the lead. The boy didn't seem too worried though, his relaxed body posture could tell you as much whilst he was practically on her tail. Ethel got forced down from above and was in fifth place, only a few hundred meters away from the finish. Camryn had managed to pull up seventh, but it didn't look like she was going to make it. On the final few meters, Angelo's Duel Runner made a sudden jerk to the side, flew forwards with incredibly speeds and then neatly positioned itself in front of Ignia's runner, taking first place as the winner of the race.

---

The excitement eventually settled down and the day was coming to a close, with one last ceremony being held for the victors of the competitions. Everyone found themselves outside, with the portable stage having been set there. Without Transformer around, it took considerably more effort to move and place it. At first it was the principal who gave another very excited speech. They went on about how dueling was a fine thing to be invested in, but we never should lose sight of the other things that built the foundations of our society and the entertainment that came along with it. How each new era of man had a different skill they excelled at. After being rolled away with the nurse, the same green haired woman from the race took up the stage and thanked the Duel Tower for its co-operation with the company, as well as returning the favor with custom duel disks they made for them. They'd be one of a kind and a keepsake of the time the students spent here, long after they'd left. With the end of that, four particular students were called up on stage: Haas Mesman, Joshua Tamashii, Hayato Ray and Angelo Ortega.

Haas was complimented on his rather... unique way of swimming, and was given the Diver's Disk. It was light blue in color at the base, which was shaped like a triangle. It had a rectangular lifepoint counter which was raised from the middle, a dark green around the edges to simulate a diving board. The slot for the deck was built in on the edge of the triangle, which had it's tip cut in half to make room for it. There was an opening at the back of the disk for the graveyard, too. The bladed part was hidden inside of the base, and when pressing a button the disk would shoot open and launch it into the sky, after which the duelist needed to catch it with the base. The actual blade itself was a crescent shape, away from the duelist. He was also awarded with the 'Bubble Fiend' Pendulum monster.

Joshua got complimented on his incredible display of adapting quickly and thinking outside the box, subsequently being given the Technician's Disk. It was more circular compared to it's diver brother, and appeared very basic with its creamy color initially. There was a rectangle sticking out of the side for the deck and a small opening for the graveyard at the front, but the real trick lay in how it activated. Pressing down on the lifepoint counter had five card slots eject from the disk, who begin spinning around and ending with a mighty slam to make for a straight blade. He was also given the 'Adrenaline Rusher' Fusion Monster.

Hayato gained praise for his unique performance that stood out from the crowd, as well as his frightening proficiency with a blade. He was given the Performer's Disk, which seemed simple enough at first. It looked like a regular D-Pad with a simple screen and a few buttons in the front, nothing more. But the disk wasn't as simple as that. Each button unlocked a new exciting compartment. Pressing the first made the deck zone simply come out of the side at an angle, similar to a solid vision disk. The second button had the pad split in two with smoke bellowing out, making the graveyard accessible. The third would make the card slots shoot out one by one, forming a straight blade that sat at a bit of an upwards angle. The final few buttons were just for show, creating various sound effects and special effects to make a duel more exciting in the middle of one. He was also given the 'Spectacular Illusioner' Xyz Monster.

Angelo was given praise in the sense that you'd expect, a nice display of riding techniques. But he was also complimented, alongside all other racers, for a spectacular show and a heartpounding ending. He was given the Mechanic's Disk. True to its name, it was rather simple and had a homebrew feel to its design. Unlike the others it had no neat tricks upon activation, but it did hold one advantage over them; It was compatible with a Duel Runner. As such the blade is visible from the start, having a blade that starts at the base but extends across the user's entire forearm. It was a light gray in color, with the graveyard being placed at the back of the base to make it easier for Turbo Dueling. It also didn't have its own holder, instead relying on either a Duel Runner or a Wrist Dealer to be kept in place. Luckily for Angelo he was told to wear his, as to not be unable to hold the disk. There was no deck slot either, naturally. If Angelo were to connect it with his runner its base would be in front of the blade, which extends to the right so it wouldn't get in the way of his Wrist Dealer. He was also given the 'Slipstream Dragon' Synchro Monster.

After all the victors were given their prizes and the applause died down, the sun was rapidly setting and it seemed to be time to call it a day. All students returned to their dormitories, and soon, fell asleep.

---

Ethel sat on her bed with her legs crossed around one of her plushies, hugging it tightly. She'd stormed off after having lost the race to not only Angelo, but also Ignia and hadn't come out of her room. She'd ordered some new cards via her D-Ceiver and had them delivered to her, but that was Ethel's only interaction with the outside world for the rest of that day. The girl considered the Ignia be a friend, but Ethel was also convinced her own driving skills were vastly superior... and then she got showed up, which only made it so much worse. Night had long fallen and it was pitch black, but that couldn't help Ethel get any sleep. She was absolutely furious, every last bit of it directed at herself for having screwed it up. She should have won that, she had a reputation to keep and she lost. Ethel was about to toss something across the room, but then heard something buzz. It seemed to be her D-Ceiver, laying atop her vanity dresser and lighting up. She was a tad confused on who would message her at this hour and got up without really thinking about it, walking over to pick it up. The light from the device stung in Ethel's eyes as she opened up a mesage of unknown origin.

"Well, aren't you angry?" was all that it read. The teenage girl flinched, looking around her pitch-black room in a slight panic. There wasn't any sign of someone being in there, though. She then felt the device in her hands buzz again. "Oh, come on. I'm not actually in there." it read this time. Ethel was starting to feel creeped out, staggering and falling onto her bed. "Really now, don't be so scared. That'd be a shame." The messages continued, still from tat same unknown sender. The girl's eyes were glued to the screen, though. Something this freaky you'd normally only see in horror movies, or horribly out of place episodes of an action show. As Ethel's mind was starting to trail off, she felt the device buzz again. "How about I help you prove your strength?"

With that last message, the girl's attention was firmly grasped. She raised one eyebrow, trying to think of what they meant. This lead to another message, naturally, because this mysterious contact seemed to be able to read her mind. "That's the question, right? What do I mean? Well, I certainly recognized your talent. How about you go outside of the tower and see for yourself? Oh, and don't think about bringing the academy staff along. I'll be gone, and so will these messages." Something was definitely fishy with all of this, but Ethel wasn't really thinking rationally. She's still shaken over having lost and did feel like she had something to prove. So, she got up and dressed herself in her hoodie again. She'd see what the person wanted, even if the entire thing was shady. Once she was dressed up the girl took her deck and disk along with her, just in case and slipped out of her room without making a sound. Ethel snuck through the hallways, avoiding security and decided to take the stairs for once as to not gather attention. Quiet as a mouse, the girl got up to the ground floor. Normally the stairwell would be locked, but for some reason it wasn't. Through the glass doors in the front of the academy she could see a glimmer of a headlight, implying the mysterious contact was there. Without hesitation Ethel stepped towards the entrance, letting the doors slide open and allowing her outside.

The light dorm student noticed instantly that her Duel Runner was parked alongside the wall of the Duel Tower, which shouldn't have been the case. She also noticed another Duel Runner a bit further away with someone clearly riding it at the moment. The moonlight made it hard to tell, but they were driving something very long and drawn out with dark colors. Details were hard to make out, though. Their headlight was on, so that made it a bit more difficult to actually see the person driving it. "Yo! Glad you could make it," they greeted with a wave. Ethel didn't look too happy, figuring she snuck out for nothing. "What do you want?" She demanded answers pretty quickly, to which the mysterious person just turned their Duel Runner away from Ethel. "You trust me that little? I said I'd give you a chance to prove yourself," they said with a hint of mockery in their voice. This was the last straw. Ethel saw her helmet resting atop the back of her runner and put it on. "Fine!" The girl growled at the mysterious person as she slotted in her disk and deck, not even bothering to go and fetch her riding suit.

Ethel briefly pondered on what she was doing, but those thoughts seemed to vanish almost as soon as they came. The only thing that mattered to her now was taking out her anger on someone and it seemed like this person was going to deliver. The long Duel Runner suddenly took off on the road, before Ethel got a chance to start up her engine. "Where do you think you're going?!" she shouted behind them, quickly revving up her own engine and driving after them. The other Duel Runner was surprisingly fast, and Ethel wasn't able to catch up. Not only that, both of them were driving on the road away from the Duel Tower. If they kept going in this direction, Ethel might not be able to find her way back. She looked over her dashboard and spotted a particular button - one to set Speed World Virtua. She brushed it aside, knowing that their opponent had no way to activate that program... or did they? Doubt began to creep up in Ethel's mind and was slowly being replaced by certainty, that they did have some way to activate it. "Speed World Virtua - Set On!" Ethel shouted, and to her surprise the dome started to form. Artificial light started to shine around the two duelists as they were locked in a chamber of solid holograms, making the other duelist unable to stray too far. It was a long and flat course without any fancy obstacles like before, with an oval shape to not make things too complex.

This was it now, no escaping. She could see the opponent a lot more clearly now; They were driving a long and futuristic looking Duel Runner coloured in a very darkened shade of purple, with heavy chunks of metal covering the largest part of the wheels. The Ener-D generator was smack dab in the middle, right behind the legs and was the regular rainbow color. Ethel's opponent was a little too far away to make out any details, but they were definitely wearing a black motorcycle jacket with a half helm that had the same colour as their runner. The girl's disk started to light up, showing the duel mode was active. Wait, why was she going to duel again? Ethel couldn't quite remember. It wasn't of much importance though, she felt incredibly angry for some reason. She pulled up next to her opponent, who'd decided to wait for her at the finish line. They looked at her with a smirk, eyes hidden behind the darkened glass of their vizor. "Ready?" they asked, and Ethel could make out the voice as distinctly female. The girl nodded in response, after which the timer started to count down. Once it reached zero, both duelists took off and shouted in unison:

"Turbo Duel Accelerate!"

---

The next morning, passing students found Ethel lying unconsciously next to her Duel Runner, which was busted. She had major bruises all over her body and even had a slight trickle of blood running down her forehead, which made it a miracle she didn't bleed out through the night. Ignia was about as worried as a parent would get over their child, constantly trying to get into the infirmary every chance she got to check up on Ethel. The girl was unconscious for a few days, which led to rumors on how that could have happened. Some people suspected gangsters leading her out and beating her up, others claimed it was her fault because she sought out illegal duels... without any proof, naturally. Whatever the origin or nature of a rumor, they were quickly spreading to even the lesser reputable of students. Some of them couldn't help but sneer at the entire light dorm, seeing as one of the most standout students got herself into that situation. Still, nobody could figure out what happened. There wasn't any evidence of a duel, or at least none that was recoverable after they found the girl unconscious. Vincent was still missing too, coupled with Transformer, though the occasional localized earthquake or two in the building suggested that the latter was definitely still around. A lot of the students started raising concerns with the school, but the staff could only affirm that 'Nothing was out of the ordinary and everything was alright', even though most students called them out on the seemingly terrorist attack only a few weeks back. Strange thigns were starting to happen to the school, but strangely, it seemed only first years were being targeted.

A small crew of people found themselves in the cafeteria, called there by Haas. He'd gathered just about anyone he knew, including possible family or close friends. He'd tried to get Ignia to come too, since she was always by Ethel's side, but she always refused in order to be closer to the wounded girl. Haas looked over the posse of people he'd gathered. The ray twins were there, some of the first people he met. Nathaniel, Megan and Camryn too, who Haas had gotten friendly with after the tag duels. Andre was there, who was Haas' first opponent. Haas managed to convince his brother, Ben to come who in turn managed to drag along Andre. Joshua was there, who hung out with Michelle quite a bit. Haas didn't really know Leander, but the guy was so friendly that he got along with everyone so there wasn't any harm. He brought along Amelia too, so that's a bonus. Angelo knew Ethel slightly, so Haas managed to lure him out too. Maisy overheard him by chance and wanted to know what was up, so she was in there too. Lastly there was a new face among them, Brooklyn. Haas had met the girl a day or two ago and got along pretty well, so he invited her over because it couldn't hurt.

Haas surprised himself when he thought about how many people he'd gathered... it was quite impressive. He cleared his throat. "Alright! You're all probably confused why you're here. Kinda. I am too, don't worry." "Smooth going, Haas, next you're going to tell them this was a waste of time." The boy thought to himself, trying to push aside the jokes. "It's no secret that some weird stuff is happening at the academy. So, I came up with an idea!" The boy proudly puffed out his chest. If you looked closely, you could see his nose even grew a little. "With the advent of the Dark Dorm forming some weird gang system, I thought I'd do the same. Only, we're not fighting for some hierarchy to find the strongest duelists. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gathered people from different courses and dorms. No, we're going to get to the bottom of what is up with the recent events, and solve them! Who's with me?" Haas asked the room, raising up his fist in the air.

Dead silence. Nobody said a word. Maybe that could've gone over a little better. "Er-Erm... We'd start by investigating why so many people are landing in the Dark Dorm recently. It's gotta have some connection, right?" Haas asked again, hoping to get a response this time. It'd be pretty embarrassing if everyone just suddenly walked out of the room and left him there.

Ignia's mind was in a state of war with itself. She was happy in a bittersweet way to be next to her best friend. Yet the current condition of her best friend meant that she was close to tears. While Ethel had been injured Ignia had been trying to be committedly by her side, even while her best friend was unconscious in a bed. Not only was seeing her best friend unconscious making Ignia close to tears. Ignia had come partially to believing that it might have been her fault. She shouldn't have been so into that race. She didn't even say anything to Ethel afterwords. In short, Ignia felt terrible.

Obligated to visit her best friend, every single time she could get into it, she was in the infirmary by Ethel's side. If that was not dedication Ignia would have to disagree. Today she even declined Haas to continue to visit Ethel. so what did Ignia do while visiting Ethel? Besides wallowing in self-pity and sadness. She engaged in one-sided conversations with the sleeping girl which mainly consisted of her apologising and reminding Ethel if not herself that things were going to be okay today was like anyone of those days.

"Hello, again Ethel," Ignia said as she dragged a chair over smiling. Her eyes betraying her false facade of happiness. "Sorry for being selfish. I just wanted to prove myself to you." If this wasn't the god knows time Ignia had said it she would be sobbing her eyes out profusely. "Anywho, The rumours about you are getting more creative as time goes on. I heard some kid in the cafeteria blames it on aliens. You should have seen the looks I was giving him." Ignia paused awkwardly as she pulled out her deck not knowing what to else to say, her hands trembling slightly. "Remember that Duel we had together. How our decks exploded off each other like a storm. That was a great time remember. I am glad you understand." A few more moments passed awkwardly and Ignia leant back in her chair. Ethel didn't deserve anything like this and Ignia could do nothing to help but wait by her side. Praying to whatever existed up above that Ethel would be alright.

Ben had taken the loss to Haas with grace and he had no hard feelings over the matter. He tried his best and Haas had clearly been the superior swimmer at the time of that race. Ben had always put his pride in his ability to perform sports but he knew he wasn't exactly a 5-star swimmer. He loved running and jogging more than anything really and that's what he had put his efforts into. The fact that Haas had the swimming power that he had no doubt meant that he was more than capable of doing that on a regular basis. After the competition Ben shook his hand and went back to socializing with a few of the students whom had come up to him. Ben earned a few more admirers, much to his glee, that enjoyed his performance both from the placement duel, and the race just now. He didn't recruit them into his little party of his but he was glad that he was spreading some joy and companionship around the school. After all he could only imagine what it meant that a big guy like him was capable of being nice and friendly to them. A lot of people like him were labelled as bullies and it was unfair too the jock community as a whole at times. Still if he could get a friend or two then he was glad.

When the next day came around Ben had been told to drag Andre along with him, for what reason he didn't know, which meant convincing his younger brother that Haas had a point to bringing him forward. Ben was also confused about why exactly they were being called forward. And when they got there they saw that a group of people were already forming. He had to grab Andre to keep him from bolting from the room in annoyance. Andre himself figured that this whole mess was some sort of social bs group that was meant for people like him. It wouldn't be the first time Ben tried to drag him into a social circle. Still when it was clear Andre wasn't going to go anywhere he agreed that he would stay. As Haas began to explain himself it was Ben who smiled and raised his hand. "I'd be glad to help! Anyone who forms gangs to bully other students shouldn't be allowed to get away with it! If I can help then I will!" Ben said with a smile as Andre slowly drew attention to himself by laughing at the whole scenario that he had gotten himself into. "Are you kidding me? Do you not see this tacky uniform I'm wearing? I'm light dorm those dark dorm rejects couldn't beat Light Dorm if they tried! Do I look like some kind of sheep?! How do I know that's what you really want with us and that you're not just trying to move in on their territory and take over in their stead? Forming a group like this only means that you couldn't convince the big guys too take up arms with you. I mean what kind of miss match of rejects are you trying to get to form this team? No one here is a big name on campus! Have you even TRIED to bring this incident up to the big shots upstairs or the teachers? Doesn't this constitute as gang behavior? Isn't that against the rules of something? Whatever count me out of this bound to be train wreck. I came to this school too get my degree and get a job not to play 'good cop' with you people." Andre said mocking Haas as he turned his back to the kid not wiling to go further into any argument. However Ben reached over and grabbed his brother's shoulder.

"Why are you acting like this!? I know you're a good person why aren't you willing to put away the cynicism aside to help people? This ain't you Andre. I know you more than anyone here. Maybe more than anyone. You'd be the first one to put down a gang banger just to prove how weak he is. I know how much you like a challenge. And I know how much you hate people who talk big and bully weaker people. Why are you acting like this bro?" Ben asked his brother who looked back at his older brother with disdain, "Because I'm not a follower. I do things HOW I WANT TO do things. Besides these dark dorm douche bags aren't exactly top tier prey. All I see are a group of losers who think their tough shit. It's pointless kicking in trash when they already know they are trash. I go and I smack down the big guys who think their the best. I kick them down from their pedestal because no one else can. They're the bottom of the list, the garbage can losers, the paitses for the real guys. They think they're good because they can kick around some students? Please they're no better than school yard bullies. Let's see them move on Light Dorm and wrecking the big guys on campus then I'll consider helping you rejects. I'm including you in that list Ben. You're as fake as a Chinese bootleg. You have fun playing investigator. Hope it doesn't come back to haunt you." Andre said shoving Ben's hand off him and making his way out the door of the cafeteria.

Joshua had spent the last few days in relative piece, keeping to himself and modifying his new duel disk a bit. While he had gotten a lot of flak about how he had won the race, he generally ignored it and let people say what they wanted. He had won by using a flaw in the course to his advantage. Anyone else could've done it, he simply did it first. Since the judges saw nothing wrong with what he did, he had won, probably not so fair but definitely square.

Following the victory, he had celebrated by buying some new cards. While he didn't add the monsters to his deck, since they wouldn't add much in terms of consistency yet, he did add the Polymerization to the deck, replacing the Fusion Weapon that had come in it. He also added his new Adrenaline Rusher fusion monster to his deck as well as a Frightfur Wolf he had found in his collection. So while it hadn't changed much, the small changes might help a lot in the end. He had also managed to get his hands on some spray paint and, after careful research, he had repainted the cream duel disk to black with silver highlights.

Right now, he was leaning by the door that led out of Haas' little gathering. While the kid's reason for gathering them was kinda vague and up in the air, he got the gist of it. One of the people in the group, a boy a few years older then him by the looks of it, spoke up and supported it, and Joshua couldn't help but smile at the boy's enthusiasm. Another boy, this one closer to his own age, openly mocked the group before leaving. As he passed, Joshua couldn't help but throw out a shot at the kid.
"For someone who isn't a follower, you're a good little doggy when it comes to doing as the teachers tell you." He said before moving over to the other members of the group. Looking at Haas, he smiled. "Ignoring the guy who has distastefully, and thankfully, removed himself from this room, I wouldn't mind supporting your idea. While I think investigating the Dark Dorm might not a good idea, simply because that's something that should be left to the faculty.

However, I do think it's a good idea for fellow duelist to form groups. Outside of what you're pursuing, we can help each other improve our skills and decks, as well as helping each other with our other, individual goals outside of class and dueling. Dueling in a group activity after all, and having people who are there to help you makes things all the easier. Plus, having more friends makes life more fun in general, doesn't it?

And if we happen to solve a little mystery in the process, all the better."

Amelia, during this entire speech, had remained silent. She had spent the past couple of days peacefully as well. During the events, he had attended the Running event to support Leander, since he was pretty much her only friend in the Academy right now. He felt bad for his loss and viewed Joshua as a cheater for how he won, gaining a dislike for the older boy. After the event, she decided to finally spend her points and spent all she had on improving her Gusto's, buying all the key monsters for her loop and a few traps. She had immediately edited her deck, removing most of the non-Gusto Monsters and most of the Traps she hadn't used yet in a Duel.

She had been rather surprised when, earlier today, Leander had come up and invited her to a meeting he was going to with fellow students. She had still accepted but had spent most of the time practically shadowing Leander, too shy to begin or try to interact with the other students there. The exception to this was Joshua, who she made a point not to talk to even if he tried to talk to her. When the reason the leader of this meeting, a boy named Haas apparently, brought up why, she wasn't sure what to think. She wasn't one for groups and she doubted she would be able to contribute much. This was only reinforced by Andre's berating of the group.

To her surprise, it was Joshua who brought up other positives that the group could give, in terms of their dueling and individual goals. That made her mull over her options and consider what she should really do.

"Before we go on I'd just like to inform everyone that 'little doggy' is my little brother and he means a lot too me. He's been through a lot in his life and he's not a very trusting person. So please don't speak that way about him alright? I'm asking nicely from one gentleman to another sir. I would go further than that but for the sake of everyone in this school's safety and because Andre started it, for which I'll apologize for him since he won't ever do it himself, I'll drop the subject from continuing. I'd also want to say that while I'm more than willing to help the group like I just said I don't want to necessarily be counted in as a definite member. I do have my own squad back in Wind Dorm. So yeah anyone else in?" Ben spoke up quickly once more intending to be quickly silent afterward. He held back his brotherly love and care for his younger brother Andre. Andre was someone Ben wanted to protect above everyone else not just because of blood but because of Andre's own troubled past. If he didn't speak up for him right there and then he wouldn't have forgiven himself. Still he hoped the fact that he was backing up Andre wouldn't get him in trouble. He'd still very much like too help these people as much as he could. The safer the school was the better. No one should be picked on, or be afraid at a place like this.

Megan was disappointed with her loss and actually more than a little surprised. She'd thought for sure she had the race in the bag, but she hadn't even been able to win in her own race! Well it wasn't the worst thing to happen and it had still been kinda fun, especially seeing Haas somehow crank out an insane amount of speed with no clue how he'd done it. It was hard to feel bad losing to that. Megan was curious about the meeting they'd been called to, especially since Haas was the one that called it. It didn't seem like the type to do that sort of thing, but maybe that was just stereotyping. She listened to his proposal with some amount of interest, she was curious about the Dark Dorm as well as the series of weird things happening around campus. Megan had been following along and was about to say something when some jerkwad spoke up about how much better he was than them and how stupid they all were. Which was really dumb considering none of them had even said anything yet and he'd basically tried to make enemies of all of them. The next that spoke was mixed between being a jerkwad to the jerkwad and actually being helpful. Then jerkwad #1's bro decided to stick up for his bro, which seemed kind of stupid to Megan. Apologizing for someone else kind of removed the whole point of an apology, except for to tell other people you felt bad about it. Megan shrugged and spoke up, "I'm also up for investigating in groups. Everyone partcipating should exchange information so we can contact each other if something comes up and for anyone that doesn't know me, my name is Megan." Megan said cheerily and looked around expectantly waiting for other responses.

After Angelo had won the competition he was more then just overjoyed and knowing that his performance was shown to the world made his victory all the sweeter. He hoped his parents could see it and finally understand that this was something he was truly intent on doing for a career. When the principle called for all the winners to come up and get their rewards for winning Angelo examined his new duel disk thoroughly. It was something very interesting to him and he had no doubt that it was made especially for the turbo duelist in mind he put it on and didn't want to take it off. It was his first real victory here and now he felt he could go on for the next few years he would be staying here. When he was given the new synchro monster slipstream dragon he happily put it in his extra deck right next to his Dragunity knight. Now with two synchro monsters he felt more confident he could win his next duel. He fell asleep that day with a smile on his face.

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It wasn't long though before he started hearing rumors about what was going on in the school. It seemed that they were being targeted specifically by this "dark dorm" as they seemed to be called. Hass was able to get Angelo out to the cafeteria to hear what he wanted to say on the subject. Angelo didn't know what he could really do but someone deliberately attacked Ethel it was like they declared war on them. Angelo was by no means going to let that slide and when Hass started to explain what he wanted to do he did his best to get the entire group fired up. Commendable but utterly pointless and when Andre started to bad mouth the idea and mocking them Angelo didn't want to respond. He didn't care what he thought because it was his choice whether or not to help. Ben was a good friend to Angelo so when he asked if anyone else was in Angelo raised his hand before saying "You have my support. I am in wind dorm with Ben so ill work along side him. Lets not forget the fact that Ethel was attacked while supposedly turbo dueling I'm going to try and see about anyone that might have seen something happen and if not ill give Ethel's duel runner a proper checking their may be something that the others missed" Angelo said to everyone. After all he was the resident mechanic with the group so it made sense for him to put that talent to good use and examine the duel runner. He was sure that he helped everyone with their duel runners or duel disks at one point in time so he could easily see if something was amiss their.

Nathaniel didn't remember much about the talent competition. He was actually so nervous that he blanked out for pretty much the entire duration of the performances. With that said, he wasn't too disappointed when he found out he didn't win, since he didn't have very high hopes for the competition to begin with. He had spent the rest of the day tinkering with his deck and studying before heading to bed.

He heard the news the next morning about a girl who was found unconscious in the desert with a Duel Runner. It seemed to be one thing after another in this school. First, there was the attack on the school by those hooded figures. Then there's that whole thing with the Dark dorm. And now a student was found outside unconscious. Without class, Nathaniel spent his morning pondering these series events, wondering if they were connected, and if they were an omen of things to come. He didn't have to ponder long however, as Haas soon called him to have a meeting of some sort in the cafeteria.

Nathaniel had wondered why Haas had called them all out, although he did have a faint idea. As he sat there in the cafeteria listening to Haas asking them to form some sort of investigation team, Nathaniel was skeptical. He was worried about these events just as much as anyone else, but perhaps this was a bit much. While most people seemed to be all for Haas's idea, Nathaniel strangely found himself agreeing with the first student who had stormed out. He may not have put his ideas in the most tactful way possible, but he did have a few good points.

"Whoa whoa whoa. Are you guys all just okay with this?" Nathaniel asked, standing up from his seat with his hands in the air, palms out as if asking everyone to stop and think. "That first fellow who left may not have stated his ideas in the most tasteful manner possible, but don't you think he has a point? Shouldn't we be leaving this to the campus security who have way more training and resources to take care of this? I mean, it's their job to protect us. What if we end up meddling in their investigation and end up making everything worse? What if we get in real trouble and end up getting hurt?"

In the end, Joshua won the Acrobatics contest. Normally, even losing didn't bother him very much. However, it was one thing to lose in a fair match, but it was another thing to lose because someone cheated. As a result, Leander had gotten a bit salty after it had ended. The judges did not deem it to be illegal, though, so there wasn't really much Leander could do against it. Leander sulked for much of the day afterwards, but at the end of the day, Leander had completely gotten over it. It wasn't like it was something of vital importance, so there was no need to agonize about it for very long.

Now, Leander was currently in the cafeteria, listening to Haas talk about the unfortunate events that had occurred recently. The mood dampened slightly when Joshua began speaking ill of Andre, though it wasn't unwarranted, but almost everyone agreed about forming groups. Nathaniel seemed to disagree, however, which made Leander frown in confusion.

Michelle had found herself in the pool area, and spent her time watching the swimming contest. Michelle couldn't see the appeal of it and was tuning much of it out, but Haas' sudden interruption brought her attention back. To top it off, Haas made an incredible comeback, which left Michelle speechless. It seemed next to impossible that such an event could have occurred, yet it did.

The next day, though, with yesterday's excitement already dissipated, there were now troubling rumors about the unfortunate events that caused a badly wounded girl to end up in the infirmary. Michelle was at the cafeteria now with the others, feeling concerned not just about Ethel, but also about what Haas was saying about the Dark Dorm. If it was true, that the recent events were not merely coincidence, then things could be much worse than initially suspected.

"Well, w-we can still do something, can't we?" Michelle asked in response to Nathaniel. "I don't think we should be, you know, irresponsible about it, but we can still learn something and use it to our advantage... right?"

Hayato was proud to have won his part of the contest though it wouldn't have been hard to beat a bunch of wannabe singers. He took his victory and left to tinker with her mother's old prototypes and the Duel Disk he started the school year with, taking some parts of the old Duel Disk he created a way for the projector to attach to his arm. It was similar to a duel disk and replaced the old mechanism with a simple handle to hold onto, it was less convinient but he planned to return to the old disk one day in case he needed a one without revealing his status as winner of the talent show for whatever reason. Hayato looked at the card he won, despite not being a warrior he smiled. "There is no pain in having you around, right?" He said to himself, adding the spellcaster to his Extra Deck.

A few days had passed after he heard rumors about the incident and he was called forth by Haas. At first, he wasn't too interested until Haas mentioned Dark Dorm which made him slam his fist on the table exclaiming "YOU MEAN THOSE FILTHY SCUM!?" Hayato, remembering what happened a few weeks earlier, proudly declared "I will, and shall, track those folks down even if you didn't start this group! For all I care, you work as a group! I, Hayato Ray, work ALONE!" quickly leaving the room leaving Hayate confused about what happened she never was told why he didn't show up for class adding more questions to why he didn't show up for class all she knew is that she was told he was 'sick'

Hayate watched her brother leave the room and started to speak up as well. "Well, if he isn't going to join the group I can help. I have heard strange rumors about them one of them trying to kidnap little sisters... but I think someone said that just to scare me." She also added a few other things, "Hayato has been behaving strangely as well after he came back to classes... You think it might have something to do with the strange Dark Dorm happenings? Maybe he's the leader!" Hayate added questioning Hayato's Behavior

How long had it been? Hours? Days? weeks? Vincent didn't know all he knew was that this fight had been going on for eons. They had been dueling underneath the tower for ages now. Every time Vincent had come close to winning, Transformer reset the decks. This was still the first match. The decks just kept getting refilled. The only allegory vincent could make to fighting transformer was that it was like trying to run headfirst through 30 meters of solid Tungsten. Vincent had come into this Duel expecting to land at least a severe hit on his opponent. Transformer stood unscathed. Vincent's face was coiled into one of distaste and annoyance, barely hiding its unquenched thirst for blood.

"Turn pass," Vincent said, swigging another mouthful of water before throwing the empty bottle away to the side. That bottle joining the every-growing pile of other empty bottles. Transformer looked up from his hand. His strategy had a 1 in a thousand chance of occurring. Luckily, Transformer could reset the decks and stall until he snagged that chance. Vincent looked at his opponent who was raising a card up toward the ceiling. Squinting at the card Vincent's eyes opened wide in fear. Transformer opened his grinning mouth and let out a single word. "GAME!"

The explosion could be felt across the Duel Tower. The seismic vibrations stopped as soon as they came, however. Shaking his head to remove the dizziness, Vincent discovered he was on the floor of the elevator. With it came Vincent's realisation he had lost, albeit it would have if he hadn't come to that realisation earlier but had just been too stubborn to concede and lose. Tired and exhausted from what seemed like the longest duel he had ever had. Vincent blacked out.

It was a few minutes until he came to consciousness again. He felt surprisingly... light. Had he died and gone to heaven to save himself the embarrassment? The muscular neck his arm was wrapped around begged to differ. Transformer was effortlessly carrying Vincent as if he was a wounded soldier of war. They were back at the dormitories. When he had arrived at the Wind dorms, Transformer left Vincent to hobble back to his own room. Vincent was less injured physically as he was mentally deprived of the sense of Victory.

Lying back on his bed Vincent looked up at the ceiling. What had he hoped to accomplish by fighting the teacher anyway? Oh... yeah. He wanted to visit and fight the Dark Dorm students. A smile spread across Vincent's lips. He wasn't going to change that plan. He originally was just going to visit, have a few duels and be happy... but now? Now he might just revel in it as well. Vincent was back and he really just needed a good fight to sate his bloodlust.