The night passed and morning swept over the Duel Tower again. As soon as the students stepped outside of their dorm rooms, security went about warning them about some ruckus that happened last night and that anyone caught out would face severe punishment. Luckily for our cast of self-appointed mystery solvers, they barely managed to evade security scot free. The lessons dragged on and on, with Melchior making a mess in chemistry. Using solid vision with Crystrons and Chemicritters had turned out to be a rather solid idea, but the man had taken it a little too far. Eventually, the clock hit twelve and the students could go for lunch.

The group was gathered up again in the cafeteria during the lunch beak, having put together some tables as the noise droned on around them. Nathan could feel the piercing eyes of a certain Dark Dorm leader being on him, specifically. No matter how anyone looked though, they couldn't spot Steel in the crowd. The crowd itself was also rather gloomy compared to the colorful student body at the beginning of the year. At first, purple was only one of the many colours mixed in with the browns and reds of the uniforms, but now it seemed like at least half of the students wore it. They had the decency not to pick a fight here, but that might also be because they'd be quickly apprehended.

Haas was poking his food with his fork and let out a deep sigh. "Man, this sucks... Me and Hayate didn't find out anything!" the boy complained. He took one of his meat balls and impatiently chomped it down, looking a little bit out of it. His eyes darted over to Megan.

"Oh, right... how'd it go for you guys? Didya find out anything upstairs?" Haas asked the rest of the crew.

Meanwhile, from another table nearby, Ethel was quietly listening in. She didn't have much trouble being discharged from the medical ward after a quick call from her parents to the school, and was now looking for something to do. She'd seen Haas' duel through the small windows on the stairwell doors as she passed by on her way to her room. It was peculiar, and she did feel like ratting him out at first. Her curiosity eventually got the better of her, though, and it didn't seem like the boy had noticed her tailing him... even with the rather eye-catching Ignia by her side.

Meanwhile, a duel had broken out in the cafeteria. The school didn't mind duels as much as getting into a fight as it gave the lunching students some entertainment, as long as they were kept reasonable and didn't cast an action field. It seemed to be two Light dorm students squaring off, but was mostly uninteresting. One of them had navy blue hair, held up in the air by a headband while the other sported a brown beatle cut. Fittingly, the beatle cut set a Symphonic Warrior Miccs in his Pendulum Scale.

"Well, you can expect to find out answers on the first try. Expect to need several attempts before finding even the smallest clue." Joshua said, relaxing in a seat not far from Haas, watching the duel in the distance with mild interest. After reaching his room, he had crashed and slept like a log before getting up for classes. They were boring and his mind wasn't really focused on them, instead thinking about one or two others things. With lunch now here, he had decided to sit with the others and listen into their conversation or add to them, whichever struck his fancy. "We didn't find out much, as Amelia and I got stuck in a duel for everyone's freedom. Our opponent was definitely strong, maybe a little overdramatic, but he did display one unusual ability. We weren't in an action duel but for some reason, he was able to make his attacks has some impact. Seemed to really kick up after he played some sort of field spell, which did more then effect the duel. Some of the spectators from the black dorm seemed a bit... drained after the duel.."



Amelia's night had been peaceful but even after hours of rest, her chest still felt a bit of pain, though it was barely worth noting. She got up, got ready, and attended her classes, being the diligent student she was. When it came to the warning, it didn't really bother her but she knew it meant that if she joined the group again, they would all have to be that much more careful or they could possibly risk expulsion, even though it hadn't been flat out said that that would be the punishment. When lunch came about, she had gotten her food before finding a window that let her look out at the desert. Even though it was a still, barren landscape, she still found it fascinating and she couldn't help but watch it when she could or needed to just relax or calm down.

Night passed slowly for Maisy, trying her best to fall asleep beside her racked nerves and the sewn on textile eyes of Jack Atlas judging her. She was almost certain that due to their little attempt at mystery solving, Transformer was going to break in with security to bend her into a pretzel for violating rules. And they'd probably take her pillow...or something. AND THAT WAS EVEN WORSE! Literally unable to push out the thoughts of impossibly flexible anatomy, Maisy got maybe 2 hours of sleep that night and woke up feeling like death. Not in the Andre kind of way, the "physically dying of exhaustion" kind of way. Having little time or want of coffee because she was an idiot like that, the normally peppy nosy Maisy was subjected to a morning of lessons napping behind her notebook. Unless Transformer was there in which case she'd be sweating profusely and breaking into cold sweats all class. Subtle Maisy. Real subtle.

Surviving almost getting her hat getting lit on fire from Melchior's attempt at "Overlaying" chemical compounds to make Methanol, she finally reached out in desperation to the darkest of gods that plagued adults: Coffee. Hesitantly taking a sip, the nosy-girl's eyes shot wide open and the bags under her eyes seemed to recede just a bit, before she slammed her fist on the lunch table and chugged the whole thing. Potential burns aside, it felt good to stay awake, even if she was jittery from having assumed that there wasn't THAT much sugar in those packets.

Turns out there was. And she had three. Besides jittering like she was about to Accel Synchro beyond this reality, Maisy was back to being a fully functioning member of the Dueltectives (Trademarked). "I think its magic. Or something. I mean, how else do you explain Steel's entourage just up and collapsing. Dramatic effect? Because if so, I mean, if I had a rose I'd have thrown it, but it looked like it hurt for real. Also maaaaaaaaaan, Haas, why are you eating so slooooow?" she asked, having already speared her meatballs faster than an Anteatereatingant eating anteaterseatingants. Her plate was spotless, and her cup was empty. "Also also, what're we going to do about freaky fish-guy? We really gonna deal with Steel? And rhyme while doing crimes?" she asked silently whispering the second and third bit as she wiped her mouth so fast that you swear that napkin should have been lit on fire from the friction. Since Maisy was currently operating on a caffeine high, she paid full attention to the duel at hand as well as the conversation, having never really seen Symphonic Warriors in action. Or a bowl cut that dangerously close to a non-fictional character.

Ben had been rather tired since he woke up for not other reason than simply being well....tired. He hadn't even gone out to run, or done some weight lifting. However for one reason or another he had been told to meet up with the 'investigation team' as he was dubbing them during lunch. Having told his squad that he had chosen to go meet up with the others today he'd meet them sometime later. He had hoped Andre was doing good knowing him he was working his ass off for his chance to get into a better school. Ben had stacked his deck, and moved to meet everyone at the table with his uniform uncharacteristically unbuttoned, and messy. His hair was disheveled and he felt like he could pass out for the rest of the day. But he'd been worse before. "Alright...so what's up? Need somethin' from the Ben-Meister?" Ben asked clearly showing his exhaustion with his tone as he yawned apathetically.

Hayato's night was simple. After coming back, he set the gauntlet down on his desk to look at later on. Maybe he would let the others take a look at it later, but for now Hayato set down his pack openers on the desk to work on and fix on the next day.

The next morning, Hayato woke up rather early. He took some time to finally repair the card pack openers he had so they wouldn't shoot out the cards anymore, though he did keep a busted one for himself. His mother left behind all prototypes with him, of which there were around 8... excluding the broken one he liked so much. "Perhaps I can hand some out to the group, maybe they'll find it useful..." Hayato thought to himself as he pulled out one of his mother's test packs to ensure it functioned as he modified it to.

He inserted a mock pack into the pack opener and it made a small sound in response. The formerly closed pack slid out of the bottom with 5 mock cards coming out, marked with rarities. The rarest came out last, although granted they were all false cards depicting former famous duelists, alongside him and his sister as two commons.

Nodding in satisfaction, Hayato took the bunch of them and put them in a bag. It was just in case of anyone wanting them. He'd promised Hayate to attend the meeting Haas mentioned before they split, after all.

Hayate, still a bit shocked by what happened to her earlier, had decided to start working on papercraft mostly themed after the event that happened that night. She made papercraft versions of herself, Zorc and Hayato though she kind of made him look a lot more heroic than he really was. Unsurpringly, Hayate spend the entire night working on her papercraft.

"Hayate! Time to wake up," Hayate heard from her desk where she fell asleep. It was Hayato, waiting outside of her room, though she didn't remember asking him to wake her up this early. "Big bro... It's a bit too early..." Hayate sheepishly answered before the door opened by force. "Hayate, I spent the last hour working on these, so it's not early at all! We need to go to that meeting, don't we?" Hayato said, picking Hayate up from her desk and shook his head in disapproval at the sight of her deck full of papercraft. Of course, he was also showing off his card pack openers. "W-what...? You know I like doing this..." Hayate responded to Hayato shaking his head. "I don't mean that... but I mean this..." Hayato said, picking up the papercraft resembling him. "I'm not that heroic, you know... Anyways, get your stuff ready and come with me, alright? You don't want to be late for class, do you?" Hayato added before closing the door behind him, waiting outside next to it.

Hayate quickly tried to shake the sleepiness off and grabbed most of the stuff she made overnight. She quickly changed her uniform to a new one since she didn't get dressed at all last night when working on the papercraft and exited the room to go to class.

A few Papercraft Illustrated classes later...

Hayato listened to Maisy's coffee filled rampage and did a light karate chop on her head "You are already dead," Hayato quoted from another show he watched while he tinkered "Man, I should stop watching old timey anime..." Hayato mumbled to himself. "I know I wasn't part of the investigation itself, but I heard Haas get out of his room and joined him a bit later. I don't know all the details, but... Hayate can likely explain it better." As Hayato mentioned Hayate, you could hear her prepping the papercraft to explain everything which happened. She wanted to include papercraft of everyone who was around at the time, with the other ones that weren't herself or Hayato being more adorable Chibi style.

"Ahem!" Hayate cleared her throat before starting to 'explain.' "So, after you all left, leaving me and Haas," Hayate started, setting up everyone in the group in one place then as she started to explain she moved all her papercraft around to signify they left. "Hayato showed up out of nowhere," Hayate continued, taking the not so heroic Hayato out and setting it next to Haas and Hayate. It slowly turned less into a explanation and more into a puppet show. "Haas and I ran off to chase after a mysterious figure, but Hayato couldn't keep up and stayed to watch for other suspicious people," Hayate put away Hayato for a moment "But then Haas suddenly vanished and after some time I caught sight of some mysterious figure in the desert, whom I followed and found this omnious tower!" Hayate put Haas where Hayato was and continued as she put down a rather impressive looking papercraft tower. "Inside this tower I was lost and scared. I looked around and because it seemed so familiar to this one I tried to go to my dorm," Hayate explained as she pulled out some papercraft props to represent the room she was in, though she decided to skip the looping back part.

"But then, suddenly, a mysterious being showed up!" Hayate added revealing another new papercraft character which represented Zorc before he was revealed. "This evil being was trying to tempt me into stepping into a scary ritual circle. He wanted to sacrifice me in order to revive himself!" Hayate raised her voice to put emphasis on the drama as she pulled out a more tempted Hayate. "He almost succeeded but... I didn't give in! Then, I was challenged by the evil being!" Hayate said, replacing the tempted Hayate again with the regular one. It was clear Hayate spent her entire night to make all these papercraft. "The duel had started; and it started off quite like this!" Hayate explained the first few turns, taking out really tiny facedowns and put them in place where it would be in a proper duel, plus proper in-scale monsters that were proportioned in correspondence to the mini Hayate. This entire exchange ended with Dark Storm Dragon being summoned. "I'll pop in here..." Hayato came in to add his own piece of the story. "While Hayate was dueling the figure, I had trouble trying getting out of the tower. Some... 'ahem', kind people helped us get out, and I made my way towards that tower afterwards. Oh, and did I mention that Haas got catapulted out of the desert and nearly hit me? That... was weird." Hayato added "Haas can attest to that." Hayato added jokingly. "Anyway, continue Hayate." Hayato did the theather arms of 'and now back to Hayate' "Right... geez Big bro... " Hayate pouted for the interruption.

"The duel continued, but then suddenly!" Hayate continued the duel explanation up untill the Zorc reveal. "The mysterious figure was actually none other than the ritual monster Zorc!" Hayate pulled out Zorc with the gauntlet on his arm. "Thus, a crisis was upon me! A powerful monster appeared before me, but wait! The savior had arrived!" Hayate said, pulling out Kaibaman and Blue-eyes in advance. "With a lucky draw I could summon my Blue-eyes White Dragon! But! It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows from here..." Hayate said as she moved the set around, replicating the duel itself. "Because there was trouble, many troubles!" Hayate continued, depicting desperate battle to keep Blue-eyes alive untill the she was about to go down in despair. She pulled a rather hopeless papercraft of herself which looked very upsetting to all spectators, even in paper form. "But then... when I thought I was done for I had lost all hope a Savior had arrived." Hayate said, taking out that heroic Hayato papercraft, trying to copy his voice. "I THINK THOU ART MESSING WITH THE WRONG SISTER, YOU EVILDOER!"

"I never said that!" Hayato yelled out of nowhere, which was promptly ignored by Hayate. "He had summoned his samurai to battle Zorc himself," Hayate continued as she pulled out the 2 samurai Hayato had along with his traps. "But not before long, the hero was struck down trying to protect me!" Hayate added, pulling out an arrogant-looking, defeated Hayato. It was a papercraft that Hayato himself had missed, and at which he chuckled at saying that she has active imagination.

"But then I was filled with courage as that one turn gave me enough time to finish the duel and with that... Zorc was defeated!" Hayate started to finish up everything. "But after the duel there were a few things left behind... A gauntlet and his cards, specifically just his ritual and himself." Hayate ended her 'explanation' as she had mini-papercraft representing those place near where Zorc stood. "Other than that, I don't think much happened..."

"In case you don't believe it... I have the items in question right here," Hayato said, dropping the gauntlet and 2 cards on the table with a loud thud. The gauntlet itself on top of it all. "Any of you know anything about this stuff? I've tried looking into this, but I found nothing... Maisy, you look like the paparazzi type... You know something, right?" Hayato said, directing most of his words at Maisy, calling her a paparazzi out of habit.

---

Megan nodded, "They got the long and short of it. We found some weird dude with a bunch of goons and some of us ended up getting into a duel. Everybody around seemed to be getting drained from it. But we won and get out safely so alls well that ends well." Her narrative ended quickly, in part because she was more focused on Hayato's far more impressive telling. It was quite the narrative, and according to her they actually fought a ritual monster. But surely it must have just been someone just dressed up as Zorc, maybe some creative use of action fields. Oh well, it was an entertaining story for sure. "Well it looks like most of us had an eventful night, one way or the other. Any new grand plans or are we going to try to lay low for a while?"

"Just a real quick question here people....are you guys smoking something? Is this a joke or whatever? We're in the middle of a school how on earth would all this junk even happen in the first place? Sounds like you were drinking something funky and got weird dreams from it to me." Ben said as he rubbed his eyes very much skeptical of all of the nonsense he had been half listening to. Ritual circles, and mystery men? What the hell were they even going on about? Maybe Andre was right and he was wasting his time. "Look guys I'm all for helping you guys out and all but you gotta be serious here. There's nothing spooky going on. There's no big conspiracy happening. Too me you're all over blowing this stuff. We're not in some Jack Atlas action movie." grumbled Ben as he scratched his head.

@Joshua Tamashii

Leander enjoyed class as usual, especially with the Solid Vision displays making the class material much easier to understand, in addition to it being much more entertaining. However, when Lunch period began, Leander was one of the first few to rush out of class towards the cafeteria. Gathering his food, he made his way around the tables as he searched for the group to hang out. It wasn't hard to find Joshua, Hayate, and the others, but as he began to walk towards them, he noticed that Amelia wasn't with them. Looking around further, he found her sitting at another table, looking out at the desert. Leander reasoned that perhaps some company would not be unwelcome, and was quick to saunter over to her. Sitting down on the opposite side in front of Amelia, Leander asked with a smile, "Hey, Amelia, what'cha doin' over here?"

---

As Michelle half-listened to the group, half-watched the cafeteria, she wondered where all the Dark Dorm students came from. There were so many of them, too. It was really quite bizarre. She watched the Duel for a while, but quickly turned back to the group upon hearing a loud thud on the table, her eyes resting upon the gauntlet Hayato had dropped. Responding to Ben, Michelle said, "Strange things have been happening, though. Wasn't there that one time in the gym where a teacher got injured by a cloaked Duelist? The doors to the gym were blown off, and there wasn't even an Action Field when that happened." While she wasn't entirely sure whether or not there was an Action Field, it was certainly an unusual event. "It just doesn't seem like a coincidence."

Amelia was lost in her thoughts and jumped a bit when Leander spoke, her hand instinctively moving for her heart but she stopped before it got there.
"Good afternoon Leander." She said with a smile before looking out the window again. "I'm just enjoying the desert. I know a lot of people find a landscape as barren as this boring, but I find it calming and beautiful. It's also nice to watch the sand as it's carried along by the wind over the dunes.

What are you doing over here though? Don't you want to talk to everyone else? I'm sure they're all talking about what they learned last night and that has to be more interesting."



"Whatever it was, it seriously hurt Amelia last night, since she took a direct attack while it was going on." Joshua said, casting a quick glance in Amelia and Leander's direction. The girl seemed to be doing fine on the surface, but he wondered if it was really a façade or if she was really better."As for us investigating, I say it's best to stay low. Security will be on their toes for a while, so it'll be easier for us to get caught. Sides, not like we're exactly on a time limit far as I can tell.

As for us blowing it out of proportion Ben, that maybe so. If you feel that way, no one is stopping you from leaving the group and dropping this. Just don't rat us out. No one likes a snitch after all."

Nathaniel had sat there with his head on his hands and his eyes closed, listening to the others hoping for some new information. From the sound of it, all of them had encountered some sort of supernatural nonsense that left them with more questions than answers. As if he did not have enough of a headache dealing with Steel, there was no way Nathaniel was touching that gauntlet even if he had a bio-hazard suit and 10-foot pole.

"Okay, so listen." Nathaniel sighed. "Steel, the guy Josh and Amelia dueled last night, has agreed to shed some light over the situation. Considering we basically know nothing, I think that would be helpful, but he's not going to do it for free. If we get the cards Golden Flying Fish and Moulinglacia the Elemental Lord from this guy called Meio, he said he would help us out. Apparently, the guy collects lots of Fish and WATER themed cards, and I'm hoping if we bring enough to him, that he might be willing to trade them. So does anyone have any of those cards they would be willing to donate? I'll go first."

After his little speech, Nathaniel ruffled through his pockets and threw down four cards on the table. Three of them showed a blue fish with a sword-like pompadour, with the top of the card reading "Performapal Sword Fish." The last one was colored black, depicting a massive machine towering over the water. The name read "Aegaion the Sea Castrum."

Camryn had already grabbed some food and wolfed it down, and was now zoning out and watching the duel between Beatle Boy and Headband Man. The amount of Dark Dorm students had crossed her mind, but she waved it off as nothing to worry about. Even Dark Dorm kids had to eat, after all. Nathaniel's request for cards to donate brought her back into the conversation at her table. "Uhm... I might have some. Lemme check real fast." As Camryn rifled through her collection, she explained what she and Angelo had found the night before. "So, turns out that the student using the track at night is this one girl named Jacklyn. Some sort of Jack Atlas impersonator, I guess? Anywho, after me and Angelo beat her in a duel, she gave us a bit of info about what happened to Ethel. Apparently she saw Ethel and her opponent enter the arena, but she didn't see the other person leave. Jacklyn's also the one who found Ethel in the morning, apparently, so she's pledged her support if we need it. Still doesn't rule out her being the culprit, but it's something."

As she finished speaking, Camryn finished looking through her cards, and tossed one onto the table. "I've got an extra copy of Deepspace Berserker. That's pretty close to water-themed, right? 'Cause it's a spaceship?"

Ben looked over incredulous at Joshua with indignation as he frowned hard at him. "You serious dude? I'm spending time away from my other friends, and I'm ignoring my little brother to help you guys out and you're saying that to me? Alright I'll remember that." Ben grumbled at Joshua knowing full well if he went any further he'd not only hurt his own reputation but cause an unwarranted fight. He had no intention of being an antagonist but he saw none of this from last night. He highly doubted all of this was as bad as people were making it seem so far. "But yeah look if you want to find out about the tech disturbances around here wouldn't it be smart to go ask the action duelists, or maybe the science geeks? Chances are they may understand a little bit more about this. If they don't have a clue it means somebody is trying to screw with the school, or the students in it. In that case we gotta put faith in our teachers, and our guardians that sort of event won't happen again. We can keep investigating all day but if we're just shoving ourselves into the shadowy corners, and blaming crap on the dark dormies then we're no better than them. We gotta have some sort of basis to base ourselves on. Take all of our compiled facts together and try to make a reasonable deduction at least. My question is this: What would people gain from doing this. Back in my other school other schools would try to steal our school mascot's outfit. Why? To demoralize us before the big game. No one does stuff without a reason usually. You guys say you've been fighting people? Anything similar that they all share? Clothing, accent, or maybe some sort of gang patch?" Ben said putting his own thoughts on the table. Maybe they'd reject him. Maybe not. Ben was too tired to really deal with arguing with people.

Haas didn't pay any mind to Hayate's and Hayato's story, considering he'd already heard their account last night. He crammed some more food into his mouth as he listened to the others telling their stories, growing increasingly worried that they wouldn't find out much of anything. Luckily, all hope wasn't lost. Nathan has slammed down four cards on the table, suggesting that maybe they could trade with the Light dorm student. Haas then remembered he had a few fish-themed cards of his own. "Hey, that's not a bad idea! Wait, lemme just see real quick..."

Haas took his card collection with him for today, intent on trading in a few cards at the shop. He scrambled together his stack of cards and quickly sorted through them, taking a grand total of eight cards out and laying them out on top of Nathan's cards. Two Shocktopus and Skull Kraken, a single Needle Sunfish, one Poseidon Wave, a Surface and finally, a Fish Rain. The group now had a total of twelve cards to trade, though Haas worried it might be a little too little... though the Xyz monster helps, right? Those were really rare.

Suddenly, Ben spoke up again. "Common symbol or patch? Uh... no, I can't recall anything of the sort. Well, except for the jackets... did you guys see anything unusual?" Haas asked the rest. The question was mostly aimed at Joshua's group, though. They had the most people and from the sounds of it, had a run-in with more Dark Dorm students than they would reasonably be able to handle on their own.

Ethel had heard enough. Camryn's story clearly told of someone- a certain Jacklyn- who knew more. The other two stories didn't relate to her at all. She gave a cursory glance to the table, spotting Angelo sitting there. Perfect. Ethel quickly took out her D-Ceiver, tapping on a certain contact she had. Lucky for her that she asked him to tune up her runner. She shot him a message.

"Heeeey! *v* Can I talk to you after class? (◕ㅅ◕✿)"

Meanwhile, the duel in the room had made some steady progress. Beatle Cut was in a bit of a pickle, as he only had his pendulum scales and Symph Amplifire field spell to rely on while he was being backed into a corner by a mighty Ocean Dragon Lord - Neo Daedalus. If the player with Neo Daedalus drew Umi, it might very well over for the mighty beatle cut...

@Joshua Tamashii

Looking at the sand after Amelia had mentioned it, he couldn't quite see the same charm in it that she did, but he supposed that didn't really matter. Amelia liked it, and that was what did matter. "Ehh I'm sure they'll be fine without me," Leander said, looking over at the group. "Whatever interesting things they're talking about over there, I think a lot of it would just pass over my head." Laying his head down on top of his arms and looking up at Amelia, he continued, "Besides, I'm more worried about you, Amelia. I know you had some, um, heart troubles last night, and I wanted to make sure you were feeling better, y'know? You got hit by that Duelist's attack too, and I know how much those hurt."

---

Seeing the pile of fish-related cards grow, Michelle could only shake her head. "Sorry, I don't have any cards I can add to this," Michelle said apologetically. Seeing that she had nothing more to add to the conversation, she resumed watching the Duel, which had evidently become in favor of the WATER user. The Symphonics had very little left to defend with, compared to the Ocean Dragon Lord - Neo Daedalus. If he only had a Umi..... Umi.... Water..... wait a minute.....

An incredulous look spread along Michelle's face. Turning around to look back at the pile filled with Water-themed cards, then back again to the Duel, Michelle wondered if the blue-haired Duelist was who they were looking for, or if there was even any connection. Michelle wanted to dismiss as just a coincidence, but her instincts were telling her to hold off on that judgement. It was crazy, sure, but then again, so many recent events had been just as crazy, if not more so.

Turning back to the group again, Michelle wanted to tell the others what she thought, but Ben's objections against Joshua caught her attention. While she had to admit that much of what he was saying made sense, too much had happened for her to believe that common sense was enough to explain what was going on. The dark aura around Steel that day when he played that Field Spell, for instance... it didn't seem like it was just Solid Vision. Looking back at the events, Michelle wasn't even sure if they were dealing with one particular group. Ben was right in asking for a motive, but the events didn't feel connected enough for any clear motive. All the Dark Dorm students currently around now was still strange, but it didn't feel like it was the complete picture. It felt.... wrong. Michelle couldn't pin down the exact thought, though, despite trying.

Amelia listened as Leander explained his reasons for not sitting with the others and not partaking in the conversation. The first reason surprised her, as she personally thought Leander was rather smart and could likely add something of value to their conversation, which from the looks of things wasn't going well. The second reason didn't really surprise her but still managed to cause her cheeks to grow a bit pink, a fact that stood out thanks to her fair skin.
"W-well I'm fine... mostly." She said, looking away from him and towards the ground. "It still hurts a little bit, but it's not serious. Just a dull throb every now and then. But I should be completely fine by tomorrow, I can promise that.

But you're only a bit right. The attack was more like I was hit by a lot of pressure out of nowhere. It lacked substance. If it had been solid, I'm not sure I want to think about the condition I would be in right now."



Joshua frowned as Ben rebuked him, though he understood his reasons and realized he had probably come off a bit harsher then he had meant to.
"I understand family and your other friends is important. No one is stopping you from spending time with them though Ben. It's entirely your choice who you spend you time with." He said calmly. "As for the attack Amelia took possibly being Solid Vision, I'm pretty sure I can safely say there is no way in hell it was. Solid vision has rules, and the attack she took should've landed just short of her, causing a shockwave to knock her back or the like. What hit her phased right through her yet brought her to her knees." He decided not to bring up what else it had done on account that he knew Amelia wanted to keep her condition a secret and he would do his best to keep it that way. "On top of that, I felt nothing from it as well. Now, I admit Solid vision can become softer, a bit bouncy, but that only applies to the environment as far as I've heard, not attacks. Those still hit hard enough to send ya flying if it's strong enough.

In concerns to a motive, there is none that we can tell yet. We're trying to solve a puzzle while only having less then half the pieces, if that. The only people we've though thus far from last night are a Jack Atlas cosplayer, who is in all likelihood unrelated by the sounds of things, Steel from the Dark Dorm, who definitely warrants further investigation, and some sort of, from what it sounds like, Duel Monster Spirit, though last I checked, those are just urban legends. What do they have in common? Nothing on the surface, but if that's as far as you're willing to look, you'll never find the truth hidden underneath. And unless we look in more and learn more about the people we're up against, how can we discern a motive? I can't look at everyone in the room here and tell you what motivates them to duel, can you?"

Taking a second to turn to the pile of card on the table, he spread them out and frowned.
"Well, when it comes to trading, we all know it can be tricky. You guys said one of the cards we need to get in Moulinglacia right? That's gonna be the big catch. The card is rather rare, Secret last I checked, though I suppose he could've gotten it from his trial deck. While tricky to get out in most decks, it is definitely powerful. It's a nice fall back card, if not a trump card in some situations. On top of that, if it's vital to his deck, all the cards in the world might not be enough to get it off of him. Then there's how much he personally values the card. But, we won't know until we ask I suppose. Speaking of.. Does anyone even know what this guy looks like or how to find him?"

Maisy felt her neck press into her shoulders a bit at the karate chop from Hayato in an attempt to stop her caffeinated reign of terror over the world of speed...but if there's one thing Maisy knew, it sure as heck wasn't how to calm down off a caffeine high. Instead, she directed her energy to the most interesting thing at the table. Since Benners wasn't exactly in the mood for their totally legit explanations of occult magic involving card games, Maisy instead decided to talk to Hayate. Y'know, being BFF's and all. Of course, she'd listen to her explanation and watch the paper-puppet show, patient as she waited for it to finish and just about tapped a hole through the floor from her leg shaking in anticipation. "Hayate, next time there's crazy night-time adventures going on, I'm going with you. I've always wanted to help put on a puppet show. And we've even got props!" Maisy said, putting on the super dark demonic artifact of a gauntlet without hesitation, humming as she examined it. "Weird. Also, while I'm flattered that you think so highly of my panty-raiding and stalking, I can't say that I know anything about this. I could always go ask the Seance Club about it though. You have no idea how surprised I was to find out we had one of those." she said, taking the gauntlet off and putting it back on the table.

"Also, Ben, I know a couple of science geeks, but I also know that they're kinda...scared of the Dark Dormies. Like, by a lot. I doubt I'd be able to squeeze anything out of them if they're helping out with the solid-vision or whatever we're gonna call it to avoid the world "Magic" without somebody who's more intimidating than...well, this." Maisy said, before clearing her throat, silently gesturing to the room of Dark Dorm students. "...Is this what being serious feels like? Kinda fun. Oh yeah, if we're bunching up a ton of cards to trade...I have uh...Two Defenders of the Ice Barrier, One Warlock of the Ice Barrier, and...Genex Ally Solid. That's KINDA water...right?" Splaying the cards out on the table, Maisy looked at her meager offering and sighed. "Maybe we should just give up on getting Steel that thing for the information...who'd want to trade a rare card for this pile of...commons." she said, before remembering she was supposed to be comedic relief, whispering: "Psst, can you make one of those for me? I wanna put it on my dresser." to Hayate, pointing at her papercraft figures.

Hayato had carefully listened to the group's conversations, Ben and Joshua's in particular. He knew that a simple strange gauntlet wouldn't add much to the investigation and took it off the table. "I don't think this is at all more important than what you all are talking about, let me get this straight... some kid wants you to take 2 cards from another duelist?" Hayato asked, addressing the easier issue at hand. "There is a possibility we can challenge the guy for an Ante Duel," Hayato suggested, fully aware of Academy rules. "Though we should probably reserve that as our last shot to do it. When it comes to trading, I know I am not the best person for ideas for this, but if this card is his prized possession the only way we may be able to trade for it if we trade something of equal value or alternatively..." Hayato glanced and nodded at the few females in the group. "If someone were able to seduce the guy and get it from him that way," Hayato mentally braced himself for a punch or two. He watched enough anime to know what would happen after saying something like that.

"When it comes to the subject of family and friends, neglecting them may not be the perfect option, however, I am pretty sure they don't mind as long as you have a reasonable reason to leave them be. My apologies, I have to admit I am kinda bad at wording this kind of stuff... what I'm trying to say is, well... give it some time. They will speak up if something is up and you can leave when you think it is a good time to leave. We don't have much confirmation as is so far, I mean all Hayate and I got is some weird ritual dude trying to revive himself while wearing a Gauntlet that isn't in his card art and the other two have a single instance of something happening behind the scenes. So, what I'm trying to say, even if I witnessed what happened to Hayate we don't have a clue what is going on. Who knows, this all might be some sick joke." Hayato tried his best to convey his thoughts and opinions to Ben and Joshua and started to consider if he should check on the girl he had encountered that same sensation Joshua described as well, after all, especially Hayate who took most of the beating.

Hayato pondered for a few seconds "You said something about something about Amellia getting hurt...? Sounds awfully similar to what happened to Hayate and me" Hayato asked to make he was hearing everything right "say, Hayate... take off your jacket for a second..." Hayato called out to his sister, who always neatly buttoned up her dorm uniform. "I remember you being a bit damaged in your duel with Zorc... do you still have some marks on you?" Hayato checked on his sister, both concerned and interested if he didn't just imagine them. "E-Eh? W-well, sure... I shouldn't have... It's all solid vision, right?" Hayate responded, quickly taking off her uniform jacket revealing a few small scorch marks on her arms. "See nothing at a-" Hayate tried to say but reacted surprised to the sight. "I-I thought that was just my imagination... how very odd... it WAS solid vision, right?" Hayate asked Hayato after seeing it again herself. "I sure hope it was..." Hayato simply replied and looked at Joshua. "It should be solid vision right?" Looping Hayate's question back to the group.

---

Megan finishing rummaging through her extra cards, triumphantly putting down... "Uh, all I've got is Mobius the Frost Monarch, two Atlantean Attack Squads, and... a Flying Fish. Which is not actually water." Megan shrugged. Her eyes narrowed at Hayato's crude comment. "If you think seducing is a good plan why don't you do it? I'm sure your girlish figure will have him falling for you in no time." she said with a mocking grin. Jokes aside it seemed everybody had found out quite a few things, but there was no way of telling what was related to what. In fact it seemed like there just secret groups hiding everywhere, but she had no idea why. This was just a dueling school wasn't it? They definitely should keep investigating, there was too much weird stuff going on to stop now.

"Well then I don't know what to say. Best chance is to find someone who isn't afraid of the scumbags in dark, and possibly do some digging around the internet to find something about these people. If I can convince Andre to help me out we can probably drench up some of the pond scum from dark dorm to find out something. Andre though I doubt would risk his neck for us without some incentive, or reason. He's here to get a better education more than anything. Other than that well...I got little else to say. Point being we don't know jack about what's going on here." Ben grumbled tiredly as he rubbed his eyes. He wondered what exactly people were expecting him to say if anything. This place was a duel school not some sort of magical wonderland where gangsters, and weird cross dressing thugs came to pick on small children. Ben figured this would probably end up ending soon enough though.

@Ammokkx

Angelo went through the rest of the night sleeping till tomorrow. He then stayed silent as he heard that security was responding to their activities yesterday but honestly Angelo kept his cool. He knew that he would seem more suspicious if he freaked out and thankfully it seemed that it worked because nobody from their group was taken into custody. Angelo then handled the day as he normally would until he showed up at lunch noticing that their was more purple around them. He started to wonder how they got away with having so many people and not getting investigated properly by the academy.
Angelo stayed silent letting Camryn take the lead on explaining since he was more or less annoyed the entire time they dueled the jack atlas wannabe. He looked down at his D-ciever when he got a message and again he was surprised by how different Ethel was when she texted. He simply texted back sure thinking that's ask he needed to say since he didn't plan on doing anything else unless Scooby do and the rest of the gang had other ideas in mind...