The new school year has begun. Whether by boat or by helicopter, all of the new students of Central Duel Academy arrive in batches at the docks before being led on foot to the main building. It’s the only Dueling Academy prestigious enough that it didn’t deign to prescribe itself a proper name, at best using its location relative to its subsidiaries as a prefix. A diploma from the Duel Academy was basically a free ticket into the pro dueling scene; the most popular spectator’s sport the world over.

As the students arrive, they are each given a set of school uniforms and instructed to change into them within the locker rooms. Afterwards, they are led to a classroom where an large overhead screen projects Chancellor Sheppard as he gives this year’s students the same orientation speech he gives every year.

“Good morning and welcome, my students! I am Chancellor Sheppard, the headmaster here, and you are the best and brightest young duelists in the world. Now please, get yourselves settled in at your assigned dorms. I think you’ll find them quite comfortable, depending upon how you ranked, of course! Hahahaha!”

As the speech eventually comes to a close, every student is given an academy duel disk and PDA. Each PDA contains the student’s name, assigned dorm, dorm room, school rules, and standard calling / messaging / internet browsing features. It also offers deck planning software, a “duelist radar” for finding nearby duelists who also have this feature enabled, and a list of your previous dueling opponents, obtained by automatically synchronizing with your duel disk, with an option to request their contact information. Finally, it shows your DP balance; short for dueling points, which functions as a meritocratic currency for Duel Academy students.

Every student is sent two messages from the school; the first, a simple welcome message reminding them to read the rules thoroughly. Obelisk blue students get an additional blurb encouraging them to try to make friends with their roommate. The second message is simply an explanation of DP. The rules are generally standard, with a caveat for school curfew and a strict ban on ante duels and entering buildings on the island not intended for students, such as the power plant or the crumbling remains of the abandoned dorm. Dueling Points are awarded to students who win duels automatically, and can be spent on various amenities, such as food, additional furniture, additional uniforms, additional cards from the card shop, or even a trip to the spa on the eastern end of the island. The explanation comes with a warning that duel progress is closely monitored by a sophisticated AI, and attempts to abuse the system to farm points will automatically be penalized. The explanation goes on to say that students are given a modest DP allowance based on their rank that is roughly enough to cover the cost of three meals a day. Unless the difference in cost is made up via dueling, Slifer Red meals are typically rather simple, if not outright bland. Ra Yellow students have a more appreciable food budget, and Obelisk Blue students can afford to enjoy high class meals prepared by professional chefs on a daily basis.

@Crimson Flame@Darkmoon Angel

Pine and Helena receive an additional message from the school asking them to avoid duels without teacher supervision. The message contains no word on how long this arrangement will last, nor whether consent from a teacher is necessary. Since it's labeled a school announcement, it also offers them no option to reply with questions, and the teacher on duty, a familiar face from the entrance exams, is completely clueless.

Eventually the teacher tells the students to report back to the classroom they’re standing in tomorrow before dismissing them all for the day. Although a majority of the class files out, some stick around to socialize, be it in the classroom, out in front of the school, or somewhere else. Whether walking back alone or with others wearing the same jacket, the students eventually take their luggage and make their way to their respective dorm rooms.



The Slifer dorms are co-ed. This year, male students are placed on the top floor and female students placed on the bottom floor. Room numbers are beside each doors, counting up from left to right, with the exception of the fifth ground floor room, which is larger, entered from the side of the building, and serves as the Slifer Red cafeteria. Ms. Hibiki resides in Room 101, with a simple “Headmaster” label added next to her room number.

Slifer Room 102
As Helena arrives at her room, she finds she's not the first person to arrive. In fact, her room seems to be stuffed. A bespectacled girl with her academy jacket loosely draped over what appears to be some kind of kimono is loudly humming some kind of tune. She seems to be hanging paper dolls from the ceiling, taping them on both ends with string. Perhaps more alarming than that is the multitude of tiny ghostly sheep floating around her, passing into and out of the paper dolls she's already hung, causing them to gently sway or do a subtle dance. It's quite mesmerizing, if not simply overwhelming. Each tiny sheep seems to be a duel spirit, and there are twelve of them in total, though getting a proper count with them floating about and disappearing into the paper dolls is pretty difficult.

Eventually, the girl notices she's not alone, panics, sputters, falls off the bunk bed ladder she was using to reach the ceiling, and lands on the floor with all the grace of a seal trying to move around on concrete. The sheep seem to take that as their cue to disappear, and the paper charms stop moving entirely. She scrambles to her feet, then points at Helena like she's somehow done something wrong.

"Wh- Wha-, Who! No, why! Why are you here!?"

Despite the demanding tone to her voice, she is very clearly sweating bullets, shaking in the knees, and acting like she's about to get mugged despite falling off the ladder of a bunk bed not even two seconds ago.

@Darkmoon Angel

Slifer Room 103
Renho seems to be the first to her dorm room. She's just beginning to settle in when the door to her room bursts open and a blue haired girl in a red jacket comes barging in. "GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS, ROOMMATE~! I AM SINA ELAQUERI! IT IS MY UTMOST PLEASURE TO MEET YOUR ACQUAINTANCE~!" She makes dramatic gestures with her hands the whole time, ending with a pose that she will hold for up to three consecutive awkward silences in a row and a wide smile she seems to be ready to keep on her face for even longer. Until the end of time, maybe.

@Mintz

Slifer Room 201
As Pine is walking back to his dorm, a stranger wearing a Slifer Red jacket walks up next to him. "Hey! You're Slifer Red too? Let's go together. My name is Kaison. What's yours?"

Whether Pine likes it or not, Kaison proceeds to go off on a tangent about different cards and strategies he likes. Very clearly, he's partial to underdog strategies, including normal monster decks and strategies involving weak, low level monsters. He eventually asks Pine what kind of decks he likes, and when he hears that it's plants, he goes on another tangent about the unrealized potential of Samsara Lotus, bringing up Yubel strategies, Arcana Force XXI - The World strategies, or even just baiting people into taking damage from Dimension Wall, which is "somehow funnier than just using Magic Cylinder."

Eventually they arrive at the dorm, only to find that they share a room. They settle in without much fanfare until Kaison considers things just about finished and raises his duel disk in challenge.

"So, you up for a duel?"

@Crimson Flame

Slifer Room 202
When Leo opens the door to room 202, he finds that someone is already there, splayed out over the top bunk, faintly snoring away without a care. A Slifer Red jacket, a pair of dirty socks, a pair of orange creamsicle-colored shoes, and a long gold chain were all carelessly tossed onto the ground and landed in such a manner as to seemingly take up as much surface area as physically possible.

@King Cosmos



The Ra Yellow dorm entrance immediately opens up to a large and comfortable communal lounge. On the right side of the lounge is a wide but short hallway leading to a pair of rooms that connect to each other; Sartyr’s personal room behind one door, and Sartyr’s office behind the other. On the left end of the lounge is a similarly wide hallway that leads further into the building, to rows and rows of student dorms. Like the Slifer Red dorms, the Ra Yellow dorms are co-ed, with female students assigned to one side of the hallway and male students assigned to the other. Room numbers are labeled on the doors, counting the left then right door on each side of the hallway, with the highest numbers at the end. Unlike Slifer Red dorms, Ra Yellow dorms feature two separate beds on opposite ends of the room, rather than bunk beds. Moving past the dorm rooms, the hallway eventually opens up into a cafeteria, with a surprisingly large kitchen to go with it.

Ra Room 101
Valerie arrives to the sight of a red-headed girl unpacking her luggage, haphazardly tossing things into drawers and putting up weird robotics posters. Some are tame, or just mecha-themed, but others are slightly more... uncanny.

She eventually notices Valerie over the sound of her own commotion and immediately drops what she was doing. "Oh! Hi!" She runs up and tries to grab Valerie's hand to shake it, smiling all the while.

"My name's Roché. Here, I have a gift for you!"

She hands Valerie a small object that she belatedly realizes is a firecracker.

"Here, I'll light it up for you." Roché approaches with a lit utility lighter like some kind of psychopath, fully intending to light the firecracker while it's still in Valerie's hand, right in the middle of their room.

@Psyker Landshark

Ra Room 103
When Mina enters her room, she finds that her roommate seems to have already arrived. The girl's luggage stands next to her, still unopened, as she sits on the bed, staring blankly at the ground. She makes no move to acknowledge Mina as she comes in, not even sparing her a glance. It's only when (if) Mina confronts her that she introduces herself, all while keeping her blank gaze locked to the floor.

"My name is Rin."

And that's it. Wow.

@Eviledd1984

Ra Room 104
Flynn arrives to an empty room, though he's not alone for long. Soon enough, a small giant walks in, mid-conversation with someone else not visible through the doorframe. "Hehehe. That's a good one. I'll see you around, man."

He closes the door and turns to face Flynn with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Yo. I'm Chris, you?"

@WXer



Obelisk Blue Dorms are not co-ed, instead having two separate buildings both designed like luxurious castles inside and out. The Obelisk Blue boy's dorm is situated close to a lake, and is the closest to the school of all the dorms, while the Obelisk Blue girl's dorm is a bit farther away, mostly built on top of the lake, farther from the school than even the Ra Yellow dorms, but the closest to the spa and the closest to the nicest beach on the island. Both Obelisk dorms feature a grandiose entrance hall, complete with a large indoor fountain in front of an imperial staircase leading to the second floor, with further stairs leading higher criss-crossing upward. The rooms on the ground floor of either building are largely reserved for teachers, administration, and various guests of the school, though the Obelisk dorms are equipped with an elevator for student use right in the entrance hall. The Obelisk dorms are somewhat labyrinthine, and if the main hall is left, it can be easy for new students to get lost amidst the dueling arenas, the rec rooms, the computer rooms, the theater, the gym, the restaurant-like cafeteria, the indoor bowling alley, and so on. Uniquely, the girl's dorm comes equipped with a large circular public bath, though every Obelisk room has its own bathroom complete with a shower.

Each Obelisk dorm room is connected with the next or previous by a pair of doors that can be locked from either side, which are all left wide open by default. Having these ‘roommates’ is intended to encourage members of Obelisk Blue to socialize with their fellow students (and thus develop better social skills) the same way the other dorms do, without necessarily depriving them of their privacy, and giving the option to keep their door locked, in case they do not get along. The boy's dorm is arranged in a circular fashion as the building continues upward, with room numbers counting up clockwise from the elevator and every two rooms connecting. The girl's dorm has similar areas, but is otherwise arranged in hallways, similarly to the Ra Yellow dorms. Because of this, odd numbered dorms connect to odd numbered dorms and even numbered dorms connect to other evens. Obelisk blue room numbers have an added B or G on them to indicate either the boy's or girl's dorm based on room number alone.

Obelisk Room 201G
When Kaycee returns to her dorm, she hears shuffling from room 203G before a girl in a poofy dress skirt comes through the paired doors to introduce herself. She begins with a smile, which soon fades into confusion. "Hi. My name is Melony, wh- ...wait, what are you?"

She walks up to Kaycee and begins, rather rudely, poking at her exposed mechanized joints like a kid who found a dead body wild bird that doesn't fly away. Her face is filled with curiosity, though she doesn't seem to notice Kaycee's reaction, if any.

@SSW

Obelisk Room 202G
Cassandra barely has time to settle in before another girl with a rather interesting sense of fashion comes in from room 204G, leaning against the doorway that connects the two rooms and cutting straight to the point without even introducing herself. "Wanna duel?"

@King Cosmos

As Valerie stepped off the boat and onto the grounds of Central Duel Academy, she couldn't help but give a low whistle. The brochures and web pages hadn't really gotten across just how impressive the entire setup was, especially the volcano looming over the entire island. Of course, her spiritual hanger-on decided to chime in with a different opinion.

"Is that an active volcano? On a secluded island with naught but hapless teenagers? I'm inclined to believe this Seto Kaiba may be a tad mad." Ceruli, Guru of Dark World murmured from his position hovering over Valerie's shoulder, unseen and unheard by the vast majority of the students around the two. Valerie simply responded to his snark with a roll of her eyes for stating the obvious. They'd watched some of the Battle City reruns just two weeks ago, of course he should know by now that the most famous billionaire in the world was just a bit batshit insane.

"Look, just remember what we came here for, alright?" Valerie murmured as quietly as possible, trying not to alert anyone around her to the fact that she seemed to be talking to herself, for all intents and purposes.

"For you to finally be able to settle down and have some stability for an extended period of time without those irresponsible louts you call parents pulling you from place to place?" Ceruli responded pointedly, to which Val narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance. "Yes, yes," He sighed, throwing his hands up in surrender. "I will keep an eye out for other Duel Spirits. Should I see one, especially one partnered to another human, I shall inform you."

To this, Valerie finally relented, favoring her spirit partner with a slight upturn of her lips. One blink, and it was gone. It was time to move on, anyway. Seemed the horde of students entering the Academy were starting to head off towards the main building.

___

Following the speech and explanations, Valerie made her way to the Ra Yellow dorm, silently noting that for all it was touted as the "middle" grade, the amenities here were a damn sight better than most of what she'd seen from any other school she'd been to. Of course, average by Kaiba standards were probably inflated from what average meant to most people. According to her PDA email, she'd been assigned to room 101, and her luggage had already been shipped over, so time to bite the bullet and meet her roommate.

Valerie opened the door to her room with some trepidation. By this point, she'd grown throughly used to and sick of having to introduce herself to new, unfamiliar faces year after year. Hopefully, this was the last time she'd have to do something like this. She'd be seeing the same faces around for the next three years, plus, everyone else was in arguably the same boat as her for once, instead of Valerie just being the constant outsider trying to break into friend groups she'd be leaving in a year anyways.

"Go on, girl." Ceruli quietly encouraged her before ducking down so as to make himself scarce in case his partner's new roommate did have any spiritual sensitivity. Best to evaluate the other first before revealing himself. Valerie suppressed a gulp and nodded, walking in...

...Only to be immediately accosted. Valerie let her hand be grabbed, looking slightly nonplussed as her new roommate immediately burst out with a motor mouth.

"My name's Roché."

"Hey, I'm Valerie-"

"Here, I have a gift for you!"

"Wait, what?" Valerie blinked as something was shoved in her hand. A second blink brought clarity. A firecracker? What the fuck? She turned her gaze back up towards Roche to ask her what this was about, but balked as she saw the other girl clutching a lit utility lighter. What the fuck?

"Woah, woah, woah, wait!" She hurriedly yanked the firework out of the utility lighter's way, backing up.

"My, oh my." Ceruli remarked with a raised eyebrow as he popped into vision from the commotion, staring straight at Roche. "What unfortunate luck that you've been saddled with a pyromaniac, girl."

"Hold on!" Valerie said frantically, trying to bullshit her way out of having to deal with a lit firecracker in the dorms while also trying to not offend the person she'd be spending the next year in the same quarters with. "You light that up here, staff's going to be on our asses so fast. Let's uh, wait and pop it in the forest at night?" She tried, desperately hoping that the crazy redhead would take the offer. This shit had to be contraband, right? "...Want to duel instead?"

Helena looked around cautiously as she got off the boat, so many duelists… As to be expected, but just the sight of the crowd made her want to just blend in and escape the moment she had a chance. “Hey, come on now… You won’t have to be in this crowd for long.” The voice of her partner, Chosen of the Celtic Guard, spoke up. He was standing beside her, giving her a reassuring smile. Whether others could see him wasn’t much concern to the elven spirit, as his only concern was making sure Helena didn’t have a panic attack. “Let’s just keep up with everyone, you can disappear once you have a room.” To that, Helena just gave a quiet. “Ok…”

-

The speech and explanation of the academy and rules took longer than Helena would’ve like. And after she got her equipment, and an “encouraging” message about needing supervision should she decide to duel, Helena made a break for her dorm room. The Slifer dorms were definitely… Rustic. The results of the being at the bottom of the ladder, not that she was complaining. “102… 102… 102.” She eventually found the door and was about to open it before remembering the radar on her PDA. She fiddled around with it for a minute before figuring out how to turn it off for herself, Chosen looking over her shoulder curiously as she did. “You know you’ll have to duel at some point…” he said before vanishing as Helena opened the door.

She was immediately stopped in her tracks at the sight. Her roommate, presumably, was humming to herself as she hung up little paper dolls around the room. Spooky goat spirits floated about, moving past and through the dolls, creating a rather mesmerizing sight to behold. Helena would’ve been freaked out if she wasn’t familiar with spirits. The girl eventually noticed her and panicked in spectacular fashion, causing her to fall from the bunk bed she was using to hang her ornaments.

“Wh-Wha-, Who! No, why! Why are you here!?” The girl demanded in a panicky tone.

“Wow… You really spooked her, ironic given the Scapeghosts…” Chosen said, appearing beside Helena.

Taken aback a little by the girl’s panic. Helena thought of an appropriate response. “I… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to scare you… I’m uh… I’m your roommate.” She said, bowing her head a little.

Haruko

"Roommate!?"

Haruko eyes dart around, first to the bunk beds, then to the paper dolls she's been hanging on the ceiling, realization dawning on her like a sun creeping over the horizon. She stutters out a response, looking embarrassed.

"I- I'm sorry! I should've known, I should've asked, I- I'm- I'm Haruko! I- um, I'll take these down! Right away!"

She begins climbing up the bunk bed ladder and taking down the paper dolls one by one. In the corner of the room, a single scapeghost bleats sadly.

@Darkmoon Angel

"...Want to duel instead?"

Roché's eyes light up at the mention of a duel. "Sure! That sounds like fun!"

Valerie gestured towards the door, and the two of them stepped outside the building. All the while, Ceruli kept deliberately hovering within Roché's field of vision, trying to see if he could elict any reaction from her, to no avail.

"Girl, I believe this one is spiritually blunt. No reaction." Ceruli said after several moments of trying, to which Valerie responded with the barest of nods, not wanting to alarm her new roommate. Though given how she seemed to be, Valerie doubted Roché would have cared much.

As they reached an outdoor field, Valerie brandished her newly-assigned Duel Disk, with Roché following suit. A quick coin flip later, and Valerie found herself on the wrong side of it.

"Damn," She murmured under her breath, before calling out across the field. "Your pick." As they drew, Valerie kept a stoic poker face, though cursed internally at her opening hand. A bit of a brick. Double damn. Behind her, Ceruli winced.



"I guess I'll go first, then! I activate Machina Fortress in my hand to discard a card and special summon it in attack!"

Machina Fortress - 2500/1600

"I set one more monster and end my turn!"

"Alright, draw." Valerie stared at her new card for a moment, her outward expression not betraying much. Internally, she kept cursing. Really not what she needed to break this board. As it stood, she could either go full defense, or at least deny Roché an extra monster on the field. If Roché was playing a Machine deck...yeah, no. There were too damn many cards in that type for her to remember if there were any good Flip Monsters. Screw it.

"I summon Snoww, Unlight of Dark World in attack mode." She said calmly, her blood not quite up yet despite the crap hand she'd drawn.

Snoww, Unlight of Dark World - 1700/0

"Battle phase, Snoww attacks your Set monster."

It flipped face-up to reveal a red contraption with four claws that immediately latched onto Snoww.

"That's Blast Sphere! It latches onto your monster and explodes during your next turn! Isn't it cool?"

Valerie took a brief moment to read the card's effects, before nodding. "Yeah, that's a decent chunk of damage. So, you gonna just let it blow or..."

She stops to think, seemingly genuinely uncertain. "Hmmmmmmmmmm..."

"Alright, guess we'll see anyway. Main 2, I set two backrow and end my turn. Over to you, Roché."

"Draw! Hrmmm. I think this will be better. I summon Cyber Phoenix in attack position."

Cyber Phoenix - 1200/1600

"Sorry Blast Sphere, but you're too slow! Machina Fortress, attack!"

Valerie bit back a curse as Machina Fortress's holographic fist crashed into her, kicking up simulated dust and wind. Yeah, that was fair. She saw where this was going, this was more damage to her anyways.

[8000 LP > 7200 LP]

"Ahahaha! I love that part. Now, Cyber Phoenix, attack directly!"

[7200 LP > 6000 LP]

"Alright, your turn!"

"Right! I draw." Valerie seemed a bit more animated now that she'd started to take damage. Beiige. Still not what she needed right now. She could definitely survive this next turn as long as Roché didn't run some crazy Synchro or XYZ spam, but it was still dicey. That was just fine with her. More interesting than if she'd just ran the girl over with Grapha.

"I Normal Summon Beiige, Vanguard of Dark World."

Beiige, Vanguard of Dark World - 1600/1300


"Sorry, not letting you keep material on the board. Beiige, go for Cyber Phoenix." Not the greatest option, but really the only one Valerie had.

Beiige charged forth, impaling the cybernetic bird on its spear before the bird explodes into tiny hologram shards. Roché lets out a giggle.

[8000 LP > 7700 LP]

"Cyber Phoenix's effect activates, letting me draw one card."

"I end my turn. Go off."

"Alright, my turn! I activate Dangerous Machine Type-6! It'll shake things up every turn from now on. Then, I summon UFO Turtle in attack."

UFO Turtle - 1400/1200

"Now, Machina Fortress, attack Beiige!"

Machina Fortress's fist crashed into her spearman, and Valerie awaited the next, direct blow, adrenaline starting to pump through her veins. Her next draw had to be a good one, or she'd just get chipped out and swarmed as Roché continued to ramp.

[6000 LP > 5100 LP]

"UFO Turtle! Your turn! Attack directly!"

[5100 LP > 3700 LP]

"With that, I end my turn."

Valerie drew, and a small yet vicious grin formed onto her face, her facial expression changing for the first time since the duel began.

"Alright, now we can start playing. Main phase, I activate my face-down Mystical Space Typhoon!"

Valerie pointed towards Dangerous Machine Type-6 even as she readied her next card. "Only popping that one. Now I activate Dark World Dealings. Each of us draws one and discards one. I'll discard Broww, Huntsman of Dark World, which lets me activate his effect. When he's discarded to the grave, I get a free draw." Valerie did so and drew two, her grin not fading.

"I place the Field Spell The Gates of Dark World, and now I activate Dragged Down Into the Grave! We both reveal our hands, and choose one card from our opponent's hand to discard to the Graveyard." Valerie flipped her own hand over to be visible. "I've got two Goldds, so it doesn't really matter which you pick."

"Hmmm... I choose the one on the left."

"..."

"Alright, now show me what you got."

"Here it is~" Roché reveals the two cards in her hand: Machina Metalcruncher and Desperado Barrel Dragon.

Valerie let out a low whistle as she inspected both cards for a moment, thinking her decision over. The only things in her deck that were going to out Desperado Barrel Dragon were Grapha, Dark Hole, a Synchro, or Ceruli into Goldd. And right now, none of those were an option. Still, Desperado wasn't a sure thing for her opponent. Machina Metalcruncher was. Best to minimize the risk and hope she didn't draw a Dark Machine next turn.

"I'll send Machina Metalcruncher to the grave. We both draw one. Now that Goldd's been discarded, I get to Special Summon him to the field. Get out here!"

Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World - 2600/1700


"Since he's a Fiend, The Gates of Dark World pump his attack and defense by 300 each. Now I activate my Field Spell. I banish one Fiend in my Graveyard and discard one Fiend in my hand to draw one card. I choose Broww as my banish and my second Goldd as my discard. You know what he does by now."

As a second Goldd arose onto the field, Valerie checked the two cards she'd drawn. Much better. Plus, this solved one of her problems this turn.

"Main 1's nearly done, sorry. I Normal Summon Doomcaliber Knight!"

Doomcaliber Knight - 2200/2100


"Right, now we can battle. My first Goldd attacks your Machina Ruinforce!" The Goldd on the left roared, and tore into the opposing machine with its claws. The sound of crunching metal resounded before the fortress exploded all at once.

[7700 LP > 7600 LP]

"Machina Fortress has been destroyed by battle. That means it gets to blow up one of your cards! I choose Gates of Dark World. It's pretty scary~"

"Too slow! Doomcaliber Knight's effect activates! When a monster effect is activated, I Tribute this monster, negate the effect activation, and destroy that monster. Since Machina Fortress's already in the grave, that part doesn't take. The negate still does, though."

"Aww. Lame."

"Now I flip up my face-down Trap. Call of the Haunted lets me target one monster in my grave and Special Summon it in attack mode. When either card leaves the field, the other's destroyed. I pick Snoww, and I use her to attack UFO Turtle!"

Snoww, Unlight of Dark World - 2000/300

The partially skeletal medusa lookalike pointed her staff at the turtle. It withdrew into its shell, but alas, it still perished in a explosion of dark magic.

[7600 LP > 7000 LP]

"Because of UFO Turtle's effect, I can special summon another monster from my deck. I'll summon another Cyber Phoenix."

"Lot of draw power, huh? Fine, my second Goldd knocks Cyber Phoenix off the board!"

Goldd Two bellowed a war cry, and surged forward to grasp Cyber Phoenix by the neck and slam it into the dirt repeatedly, shattering the hologram into pieces part by part.

[7000 LP > 5600 LP]

Roché draws, as per Cyber Phoenix's effect.

"Turn end. Anything good off two draws?"

"Well, you'll see! Draw!" Roché stared at her cards. She had absolutely nothing of value in her hand. "Hmmm... Alright. By discarding Desperado Barrel Dragon, I can special summon Machina Fortress again from my grave. I set one monster face down, then attack Snoww, Unlight of Dark World."

[3700 LP > 3200 LP]

"With that, I end my turn."

"Fine, let's see what we've got here, then. I draw!" And there it was. Valerie stared at the card in her hand for a moment before over to Machina Fortress, formulating her play.

"Unless your facedown's Cyber Jar, this's over. If it's Cyber Jar, I'm requesting a new roommate, I swear to god."

"Hehe. Over already?"

"First, I normal summon another Beiige, Vanguard of Dark World. Then I activate Gates of Dark World again, banishing Doomcaliber Knight and discarding Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World! When Grapha is discarded, I target one card my opponent controls and destroy it. Machina Fortress goes back to the grave, while I draw one!"

"Oh no." Machina Fortress' effect activates as it crumbles into dust, firing a shot at Valerie's hand.

"Yeah, pretty much."

Valerie flipped her hand over again to reveal the one card left: Sillva, Warlord of Dark World. She discarded it, activating its effect and special summoning it to the field.

Sillva, Warlord of Dark World - 2600/1700

"Since Sillva was discarded by your card effect, his secondary effect activates: you return two cards from your hand to the bottom of your deck. Say goodnight to whatever you drew."

"Oof."

"Now, let's finish this off! I activate Grapha's effect. By returning one Dark World monster I control to my hand, I Special Summon him to the field. Beiige comes back, and now say hello to my ace!"

A hole in the ground opened, and from it rose a fiendish black dragon, screeching and roaring to the heavens.

Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World - 3000/2100

"Battle phase. Sillva, go for the facedown monster!"

The face-down flips face up to reveal the third Cyber Phoenix in Roché's deck, screeching in cybernetic agony as it explodes into dust.

"Grapha, Goldds, go for the kill!" Valerie threw her hand out to command her monsters to deliver the finishing blow, and all three surged forward with claws outstretched towards Roché.

...And she simply explodes.

[5600 LP > 0 LP]

As the dust of the fake explosion clears, Valerie hears Roché's hollering from within the smoke before she sees her walk out of it. "Wooo! That was pretty fun!"

As the duel ended, Valerie's battle high seemed to fade away with it, and she simply nodded coolly at Roché, walking up to offer her a handshake.

"Good duel. Seriously. Don't think I've actually been knocked that low in a while."

"Yes, well, when your average victims in your last school, sorry, training partners, can't muster up much better than a Summoned Skull on a good day, that tends to happen." Ceruli snarked at Valerie, giving her a slow clap. "Well done, though. For a moment, I was afraid you'd just brick out the entire duel."

Ceruli turns to look back at Roché. "Now that I get a closer look at her and her cards, I do believe there is something within her deck. A pity she isn't even aware of it." Valerie's eyes flicked towards Ceruli for a moment and down to Roché's Duel Disk as acknowledgement.

"We should do this again sometime! Oh, right! I should send you a contact request." Roché whips out her PDA, doing just as she says. "This way we can keep in touch whenever."

Valerie fished her PDA out in response, accepting the friend request. "Sure, sure. Was gonna ask you about that in a bit anyway. Anyways, we should probably get back. I gotta unpack my stuff, too."

"Gotcha. I'll help you out too, if you don't mind me handling your stuff."

Valerie paused for a moment at that. "Uh...yeah, fine. Just not the posters, alright? You have no idea how much of a pain in the ass it was to get my hands on those."

"Ah yes, your Chazz Princeton poster collection." Ceruli sighed, rolling his eyes. "What you see in that moronic catchphrase, I'll never know."

As the two girls walked back to the dorm, Valerie took a moment to flip Ceruli off out of eyeshot of her roommate. Nobody insulted The Chazz.

After Helena explained herself, the girl seemed to ponder a minute before looking around the room in embarrassment. "I- I'm sorry! I should've known, I should've asked, I- I'm- I'm Haruko! I- um, I'll take these down! Right away!"

Haruko climbed the bunk bed and started to take the paper dolls down. Helena heard a small bleating noise and noticed one of the Scapeghosts in the corner with a sad look on its face. “Um… W-wait! You don’t have to uh… Take them all down.” She stated, trying to cheer Haruko up. Chosen appeared by the Scapeghost and knelt down to it. “Sorry if we spooked you.” He gave an apologetic smile.

“Um… What are they for?” Helena asked, referring to the dolls. She was looking at one that was still slightly swaying.

---

---

The sea breeze did little to calm Flynn's nerves. Multiple colossal chartered ships carried many of the freshly inducted students of Duel Academy to their island destination. Most would use their trip to socialize with their new peers and classmates. For the capricious Ra Yellow student, Flynn had decided to spend the last leg of the trip alone while overlooking the ocean from the vessel's portside — gazing into the blue with uncertainty and envy. It still didn't make sense to him.

Tried as he did, Flynn would have to carry this doubt with him as the ship reached the shore. It felt like a blur, walking from the pier to suddenly receiving his uniform. He was now wrapped in the glimmer of false gold. Reality had began to set in but he supposed that this was better than delinquent red. Curiously, the chancellor also wore red. What was up with that?

The rest of the orientation was standard fare and Flynn would uneventfully make his way to his dorm room. Seemingly arriving first, he would be ready to crash face first on to the bed closest to the door but he would be interrupted with the arrival of...

"Yo. I'm Chris, you?"

"Flynn... So, we're roommates. Any boundaries you want to establish? I'm cool with anything."

He wasn't. Flynn was already formulating a list of rules that would ensure that this titan of a man he was saddled wouldn't interfere with his studies. However, he figured it was the smart thing to make Chris think that they would arrive to a mutual agreement.

Just like a duel, Flynn had passed the turn back to his roommate.

Leo Wilde – Slifer Red

The door to Slifer dorm room 202 burst open as Leo made his entrance, barging into the room with a huge grin on his face and wearing his new red uniform jacket with pride. He was here, finally here at Duel Academy and ready to take this place by storm; the fact that he had been placed into the lowest ranked dorm in the school, the place for people who had passed but failed to really impress during the exam didn’t bother him, it didn’t do anything to change the fact that he was here, he had made it and nothing was going to stand in his way to stop him from going pro now!

“Hell yeah!”

A loud snore from the top bunk finally alerted him to the presence of another person in the room.

“Oh sh... sorry dude.”

Looks like his roommate had made it here first and already begun to unpack; if by ‘unpack’ you meant scatter his stuff all over the room. Leo walked over to his bunk, carefully stepping over everything in his path so that he could drop his own belongings onto the bed. “Man, this place is a pigsty.” He almost began to pick up the clothing strewn across the floor, before he reminded himself that he wasn’t at the orphanage anymore and wasn’t picking up after a bunch of kids anymore; this was a grown-ass teenager who could pick up after himself!

Leo would need to have a talk to him about keeping this place clean later or at least about keeping his mess to his portion of the room. No way was he putting up with this for the next few years. Until then he had stuff to do, like taking his deck for a spin around the island and racking up as many Duel Points as he could, ha! The fact that this school would just give you money for winning duels was more than he could ever ask for. No more placing bets on back alley duels to earn his keep, he could just walk up to any other student whenever he wanted and earn some cash.

This must have been what it felt like to be a pro-duellist.

“Alright, time to get started.”

Grabbing his deck and his fancy as hell PDA, he took off out of the room and used his Duel Radar to find himself an opponent.

----

Cassandra Moore – Obelisk Blue

Upon arriving at Duel Academy for the first time, Cassandra had been struck by how grand and lavish the whole place seemed to be. From the main building with its giant spires and domed roof, to the lush greenery that covered most of the island to that fact that the whole facility was on its own private island in the first place, it truly was a marvellous and amazing place to see and be at. Even so, it seemed that even the main academy building itself was no match for the splendour of the Obelisk dormitories; the place looked like a palace or a chateau from the outside while it resembled a fancy hotel, complete with its own restaurants and entertainment facilities.

On her way here, she had heard people say that this place had been founded and funded by a famous duellist; she hadn’t recognised his name, not being one to really pay attention to things like the pro-circuit, but if that was the case then it made sense that they’d put this much time and effort into making this school so nice. Whoever he was, that duellist must have been a kind and generous person to provide them with so much, just so that they could learn to duel.

Cassandra hummed to herself as she walked through the dormitory halls, her new home for the foreseeable future, with a small smile on her face to match the happy tune. Other students rushed past her while she moved at a more sedate pace, in a hurry to either find their rooms or to check out the other amenities; instead of sharing their urgency she would stop occasionally to admire parts of the dorms that stood out to her, like a nice painting hanging in one of the lounges or a vase used to fill an alcove in one of the hallways. The result was that by the time she finally reached her dorm room most of the other students had already settled in; in fact, she barely had time to set down her bag or even look around the room before her neighbour opened the adjoining door between their rooms and challenged her to a duel.

She was a taken aback for a second, as much by the fact that someone actually wanted to duel her for a change as the suddenness of it, but she recovered quickly and responded with a widening of her smile. “Of course. I think I passed a duel arena on the way here, should we use that?”

They walked in silence the whole way; silence aside from Cassandra’s continued humming of course. It seemed Lexa, despite being the one who suggested this duel, wasn’t the talkative type. Soon enough, without having spoken a word, Cassandra found herself in a duel against her new roommate. Once they were stood across from each other, Lexa finally broke the silence between them to ask, “Heads or Tails?”

“Hmm, heads.”

Lexa flips a coin, catching it in the palm of the same hand. “Tails. Unlucky.”

She stands back a bit, creating proper space for dueling as her duel disk came to life.

“I guess I’ll go first. I’ll set two face-downs, one monster and one not, then end my turn.”
Cassandra drew her sixth card and added it to her starting hand; it was a good one too, turning a lacklustre hand into something she could do a lot more with. “I activate Reptilianne Ramifications, discarding Reptilianne Poison for cost and use its effect to add one Reptilianne monster and one Reptilianne spell to my hand. Hmm, I’ll add Scylla and Rage.”

Adding the two stated cards from her deck to her hand, Cassandra then separated one of those cards from the rest and placed it face-up on the field. “Next, I’ll normal summon Reptilianne Scylla. Then…” she pulled a second card from her hand and placed it in a spell and trap zone, “I activate Reptilianne Poison and target your face-down monster.”

Reptilianne Scylla - 1800/1200

“Your monster is changed to attack position and… oh, its attack is already 0.”

Lexa gives Cassandra a cheeky wink.

Psychic Rover - 0/700

“I move to the battle phase and attack Psychic Rover with Reptilianne Scylla.”

“I activate my face-down, That Six.”

Still, Reptilianne Scylla’s attack went through anyway. It chomped down on Psychic Rover, brutally shattering it into pieces.

[8000 LP > 6200 LP]

“Psychic Rover’s effect activates. It allows me to roll a die. If the result is 2 through 5, he comes back.” With that, an oversized die hologram appeared in Lexa’s hand, which she tossed up as if it were weightless. It came crashing down, bouncing around like a real die. It landed on a 3, and thus Psychic Rover appeared once more, in face-up defense position.

“Now, when Psychic Rover is special summoned, he lets me roll another die, and if the result is a 1 or a 6, he’ll destroy up to 2 cards on the field.” Another die appears in her hand, and she tosses it over her shoulder like a piece of trash. “With That Six active, I can guarantee the result will always be either a 1 or a 6. Psychic Rover, destroy Reptilianne Scylla.”

The man in a jumpsuit aimed his crackling electrified gauntlet at Reptilianne Scylla, and with a quick zap, it shattered into pieces just like he did.

If Cassandra was bothered by her monster being destroyed it didn’t show, the small, self-assured smile that had been present on her lips all day was still there. “I end my turn.”

“Very well. My draw.” She pauses for a moment before placing a card onto her duel disk. “I summon Dicelops in attack, and activate its effect to roll a die.”

Dicelops - 1800/200

As she did previously, Lexa rolled an oversized hologram die, and after bouncing a bit, it landed on a 5, causing her to discard a card.

“Seems luck’s not on my side this time. Now, I attack directly with Dicelops!”

[8000 LP > 6200 LP]

“With that, I end my turn.”

“Looks like we’re tied again. I’ll draw.” The card added to Cassandra’s hand wouldn’t change anything right now, so she quietly placed it with the rest and picked another card out instead. “I place one monster and two backrow face down and end my turn.”

“Draw. I activate Dicelops’ effect once again.” The die appears, and this time it lands directly on a natural 1. Dicelops eye glows, and Cassandra’s hand is revealed: Back to the Front and Reptilianne Rage.

“I choose Back to the Front.”

Dicelops’ eye glows brighter before a laser erupts from it, sending Back to the Front to the grave.

“Now I summon Hinezumi Hanabi in attack.”
Hinezumi Hanabi - 2000/200 (6 counters)


“Time to battle. Dicelops, attack her face-down.”

The face-down flips up to reveal a blond snake girl with a cobra head on top of her head like a crown. As the monster appeared, Cassandra’s smile widened noticeably as from her perspective the snake girl turned to look and wave at her over her shoulder; Cassandra waved back.

Reptilianne Naga - 0/0

“Reptilianne Naga can’t be destroyed by battle and at the end of the battle phase your Dicelops’ attack will be reduced to 0.”

“Hmm. Not ideal. I guess I’ll end my turn.” She could have attacked with Hinezumi Hanabi to reduce its threat to her, but for a deck with effects revolving around monsters with zero attack, was there any guarantee that would be any better?

Hmm… Another gamble…

“Hinezumi Hanabi’s effect activates. It becomes your monster, and you get to roll a die this time.”

Another large die appears in Cassandra’s hands this time. It feels weightless. She tosses it up, following Lexa’s example, and it comes to a stop on 4.

“I use the effect of That Six. That result is instead treated as a 1.”

Hinezumi Hanabi loses one counter and its fuse shortens, just slightly. Better to keep it from blowing up when it rejoins her side of the field.

“Quite an unfortunate turn. Your go.”

Cassandra drew again, adding another card to her hand which, although useful, once again wouldn’t affect her turn too much. Looking at the current field, her cards in hand and her cards in the grave, Cassandra hummed to herself in thought for a few moments before coming to a decision. “Hmm… I think I should be able to end things here.”

She began by flipping one of the face-down cards in her backrow face-up. “I activate Back to the Front, targetting the Scylla in my grave and special summoning it in defense position.” The monster, a hideous beast with multiple mouths with the upper body of a woman sprouting from where it’s head should be, was summoned back to the field. “Then, I use Naga and Scylla as material for a Link summon; I summon Reptilianne Echidna.”

Reptilianne Echidna - 200/LINK-2

A blue-skinned woman with the lower body of a snake and bat-like wings appeared in place of the tributed snake women, unfurling her wings and coiling her snake tail under herself on the field.

“Next, I’ll activate Echidna’s effect to add reptile monsters from my deck to my hand up to the number of monsters with 0 attack you control; that’s two, so I’ll add another Scylla and Reptilianne Vaskii to my hand.”

Reptilianne Vaskii - 2600/0

“I normal summon Scylla and special summon Vaskii by tributing two monsters with 0 attack from anywhere on the field; I’ll use your Diceclops and Psychic Rover as my tributes.”

Cassandra continued to smile as her side of the board quickly filled with various serpentine monsters, humming to herself as she removed the obstacles standing between herself and her opponent’s lifepoints. “I enter the battle phase.”

“Attack with Hinezumi Hanabi.”

[6200 LP > 4200 LP]

“Attack with Reptilianne Scylla.”

[4200 LP > 2400 LP]

“Attack with Reptilianne Vaskii.”

[2400 LP > 0 LP]

As the metaphorical smoking wreckage of her lifepoints are made literal by the holograms, Lexa emerges from it with the same unchanging smile on her face that she’s been wearing since they met. “And that’s game. Well played.”

Cassandra’s duel disk deactivated now that the duel was over, her monsters fading from view. “Hmm, thank you. You played well too; it was a fun duel.”

“Good to know. I’ll send a contact request. We’ll probably bump into each other a lot, so might as well.”

Tilting her head slightly to the side, Cassandra looked at the other girl like she didn’t quite know what she meant. “A contact request? Oh, you mean like exchanging numbers?”

Lexa nods. “The school PDAs call it contact requests, since once the request is sent, the rest is automatic after being accepted or denied.” She shrugs. “Though it really is just a feature for exchanging numbers.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

Lexa nods again before turning to leave, giving a lazy wave before walking away. “Well then, I’ll see you around.”

Cassandra waved too, waiting until Lexa was gone before pulling her deck out of her duel disk and holding it close to her mouth and whispering to it. “Thank you for your hard work everyone; you did great, as always.” Putting her deck away, she began to walk back to her dorm room. Along the way she pulled out her PDA to check her messages, finding the promised contact request from Lexa as well as another message from the school congratulating her on her win.

“Hmm? What are duel points?”

This wasn't anything new to Daigo. Boarding schools definitely loved to introduce everyone to the wonders of the island, and have a proper getting to know people meeting. However, it was quite odd that they just sent everyone away after getting the initial duel disks and PDAs. Surely they would have thought it best to have everyone stick around and talk amongst themselves. Granted, they may also try to do that tomorrow, so in reality Daigo probably was just overthinking everything again.

Not like he could complain though. The island is exactly what it sounded like in the brochures, and even looked like it from what he could tell. Castle for the blues, modest arrangements for the yellows, and a bit of a more rustic vibe to the reds. Luckily that on and off again construction work roughly a few years ago wasn't permanent, and. from a distance, it looked fine. The school itself was quite large, with many dueling arenas to try out, and probably the biggest library he had seen yet.

Though that adventure was for another day, as, after stopping by his quite nice room, Daigo opened up the window and took in a big breath of air. There were many places to explore in this island, and not just the basic buildings. Large stretches of land, cliff sides, beaches. While Daigo wanted to go venture out into the forest of that abandoned dorm mentioned, that would have to come at some later point. No sense getting in trouble and immediately being sent back, especially if this was going to be his best chance at getting a proper education for everything he wanted. Though Daigo still winced a bit as he laid his hand on the Chronomaly deck box. "At some point I'll prove you wrong." Daigo thought to himself.

Sadly, since it was his only fully tested deck, there wasn't much he could do. Knowing the people this school attracts, many of them would want to duel almost as soon as they got within smelling distance of Daigo. Best keep a solid deck around just in case.

Still, with the sky bright blue, and no telling what possibilities there were, Daigo smiled. He quickly gathered up the necessities, being his Duel Disk, PDA, two decks, an empty deck box, some climbing supplies as you never know when it would be needed, and headed out the door. Though not without making sure the connecting door to his "roommate" was shut and locked. It would be nicer to talk and get to know them, but this wasn't a day Daigo was going to just stand around. Let's explore. See what adventure awaits.

@Ryik

Mina arrived at the academy via helicopter, not making any conversation with her future classmates. She did not think of them as skilled duelists from what she observed during the trip. Looking not very interested in Chancellor Sheppard’s speech, mostly scanning the area for any strong looking opponents. There were a few people that she would be interested in duelling with. Some people included an Obelisk Blue student that looked straight out of a horror movie(Cassandra), and another Ra Yellow girl that looked had a cold distant look to her (Valerie). Both of them she could tell would be interesting opponents to fight. Skipping the first message on her PDA, and skimming the second she had no interest in the inner workings of the academy. Bringing her luggage with her toward the Ra Yellow dorms. Finding the dorms to be acceptable, although she knew she would be in the Obelisk Blue dorms soon enough. Walking into the room of her dorm, noticing a girl that was obviously going to be her roommate.

Smiling at the meek looking girl. “Nice to meet you Rin-Chan, my name is Mina.” Walking over towards Rin. “She looks weak and easy to manipulate.” Her spirit partner chimed in, A tall handsome man was standing behind Mina, wearing a gothic attire. Nodding her head in agreement. “So what brings you to the academy?” She asked now sitting down on her bed. Wanting to know a little more about her roommate.

Haruko
Haruko starts by stuttering out some bullshit excuse. "W- Well, they're really more for d- decoration than-"

"th- than-"

And finally, she notices Chosen of the Celtic Guard comforting one of the scapeghosts.

“Sorry if we spooked you.”

"'WE!?'"

She couldn't believe it. It was her first day and already some dead pervy teenager from the middle ages was stalking not only her, but her roommate as well. THIS! IS! A! GIRL'S! DORM! ROOM!

Haruko quickly rushes to her bag, grabbing a handful of salt from it, and she was just about to toss it at Chosen of the Celtic Guard to teach it a painful lesson about privacy, her hand already reared back for the throw, before she realizes Helena is still staring at her. She really had no explanation for what was happening here.

"I- I- uh- th- this- SALT! Want some salt?"

Haruko laughed nervously like that would somehow avert this absolute disaster as she awkwardly offered a handful of raw salt to her new roommate.

One of the scapeghosts behind her pops its head out of one of the paper dolls curiously, looking like it also doesn't understand what Haruko is doing right now.

@Darkmoon Angel

Chris

"So, we're roommates. Any boundaries you want to establish? I'm cool with anything."

Oh, really?

He says it out loud, without a sarcastic tone. "Oh, really? That's great. I have trouble sleeping unless I've got someone to wrap my arms around. Body pillows just aren't the same."

He walks up to put a friendly hand on Flynn's shoulder, making the foot of height he has on Flynn all the more apparent. He gives Flynn a sincere smile. "Thanks for sharing your bed with me, man. I thought I'd be sleepless for weeks."

@WXer

Rin

“So what brings you to the academy?”

"Dueling."

For a brief moment, Mina has the illusion that she is talking to a plant.

@Eviledd1984

Mina thought she would not be able to manipulate Rin to her liking. "Well of course, that is why we are all here. But what got you into duelling?" She asked, now leaning forwards a little more. "You are not going to get anything from this girl, she's a brick wall." Her spirit partner spoke up, rolling his eyes.

"It's... fun."

Mina took a deep sigh as the girl gave her another one-worded answer. "Okay, well, you must be really good if you got into Ra Yellow. Wanna have a little duel? nothing too high-stakes of course." She said, getting off her bed and brandishing her duel disk.

"Okay."

The two left for the Ra Yellow lounge, which was big and open enough that they’d have room to duel, albeit with a lot of spectators. Mina shuffled her deck, placed it within her duel disk, and pulled out 5 cards from the top as her starting hand. She stared at her hand, thinking of what her next move would be.

Mina vs. Rin

"After you."

Rin wordlessly drew her hand, before silently placing a card from her hand onto the field: Gift Exchange. Without explaining it, she started going through her deck before banishing a card in it face-down. She then pushed the card hologram across the field with a simple gesture so that Mina could read the text on it herself, instead of explaining what it did out loud in a dramatic fashion, like a normal person. Mina clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth, picking a card from her deck to be banished.

Then, for the first time, Rin spoke a complete sentence. "I hope you gave me something good, roommate-chan."

It was slightly jarring to hear her be so talkative, even if it was just one sentence, but Mina couldn’t help but focus on another detail. Roommate-chan? "Call me Mina, Rin-chan."

Rin simply nods as she sets a monster and two face-downs in the back row, then gestures to Mina, indicating the end of her turn. The gifts from Gift Exchange arrive: Rin receives Vampire Kingdom, while Mina receives another Gift Exchange.

"It's the gift that keeps on giving. You'll play it for me, won't you?"

Mina scoffs. She’ll probably just get another Gift Exchange. "I set one card in the back row and play Vampire lady in attack mode. Now, Vampire Lady attacks your face down monster."
Vampire Lady - 1550/1550

The monster flips face-up to reveal Mimicking Man-Eater Bug. Although Vampire Lady brings her heel down on it with great force, the bug doesn’t falter, but instead grabs Vampire Lady and begins eating her alive, with very little apparent chewing. As it finishes gulping Vampire Lady down, its color changes, it sprouts a pair of bat wings, and its attack rises to 2000.

Mimicking Man-Eater Bug - 2000/600


"Tch. I end my turn."

"Don’t want to exchange more gifts with me? I'm hurt." Rin activates the Vampire Kingdom she received from Gift Exchange and changes Mimicking Man-Eater Bug to attack.

“I must say, I really like what you’ve done with your deck. It’s very stylish.” She continues playing non-verbally, pointing to Mina to direct Mimicking Man-Eater Bug as it attacks directly. Its attack rises to 2500 for damage calculation due to the effect of Vampire Kingdom before returning to 2000.

[8000 LP > 5500 LP]

Rin gestures again, passing the turn over to Mina. Despite a full hand, her options remain rather limited. She sets one monster face-down. “Your turn.”

Rin draws, and a smile lights up her face. She places the card directly on her duel disk. It’s another Gift Exchange. They each banish another card before Rin points again, attacking the face-down with Mimicking Man-Eater Bug.

It flips to reveal Vampire Sorcerer, who blows up under the giant bug’s claws. Its effect activates in turn.

“I add Vampire Red Baron to my hand.”


Rin ends her turn. Gift exchange activates. Rin receives Vampire Familiar, while Mina receives Griggle.

Mina had to do a double-take when she received it. What trash is this? Rin catches her eye from across the Ra Yellow lounge and gives her a smile. The audacity.

“I banish Vampire Sorcerer from my graveyard to normal summon my Vampire Red Baron without tribute, in attack mode. His attack is also increased during battle, thanks to your gifted card. Now, go! squish that bug!”

Vampire Red Baron - 2400/1000

Vampire Red Baron attacks Mimicking Man-Eater Bug. Vampire Kingdom increases the attack of both of them, to 2900 and 2500 respectively. Rin takes 400 damage, but Mimicking Man-Eater Bug cannot be destroyed by battle.

[8000 LP > 7600 LP]

“Consider me squished.”

Mina grit her teeth. “...I end my turn.” Her hand had 7 cards in it at this point. She could have avoided discarding a card by setting Gift Exchange or something, but she’d rather toss Griggle with extreme prejudice.

Rin notices as she draws. "Spurning my gifts? How cruel."

She places the card she just drew, activating Brain Control. Rin pays 800 LP and points at Vampire Red Baron as large ghoulish hands emerge from the card, reaching over to grab Vampire Red Baron.

[7600 LP > 6800 LP]

“I activate my trap card, Vampire Domination, to negate Brain Control.”

“Very well. Unfortunately for you, I don’t give up so easily.”

Rin puts down the second card she got from Gift Exchange: Vampire Familiar, in face-up attack position.

Vampire Familiar - 500/0

She then activates Creature Swap from her hand, giving Mina her Vampire Familiar back and taking Vampire Red Baron in exchange.

Mina can’t help but feel a bit speechless. Wasn’t stealing monsters supposed to be her thing?

“Battle. Go, Vampire Red Baron.” Rin points to Vampire Familiar, and Vampire Red Baron charges at it, impaling it on its spear. As before, Vampire Kingdom boosts both sides, cancelling out the difference.

[5500 LP > 3600 LP]

She points at Mina again, and Mimicking Man-Eater Bug attacks accordingly.

[3600 LP > 1100 LP]

“Now, since he was destroyed by Vampire Red Baron, he comes back, doesn’t he, Mina-chan?”

”...”

The effect of Vampire Red Baron activates, and Vampire Familiar is summoned to Rin’s side of the field in face-up defence position. She sets a third face-down in the spell/trap zone, then ends her turn with the usual gesture.

Mina draws. It’s something useful this time, but too little, too late. She begins to sweat as she activates Gift Exchange, banishing a copy of her spirit partner, Vampire Retainer, in a desperate attempt to receive something, anything, to pull her out of her current situation.

She has nothing to summon, and so simply ends her turn right after. The gifts come down, and she sees that Rin has deigned to gift her…

…



…Is …Is that what Rin thinks of her? Mina looks to Rin, who already seems to be smiling at her.

“Thank you. I’ll… cherish him”

For just a moment, she seems to go back to being the quiet girl who can’t speak in complete sentences. At least, until she summons it, changes Vampire Familiar to attack position, then attacks directly with it. “Go, Vampire Familiar.”

Mina pulls out her last resort: a bluff. “I special summon Vampire Fraulein in defence. Her effect also lets me boost her attack and defence when attacked.”
Vampire Fraulein - 600/2000

“Oh? How cool. Why don’t you show me?”

“...”

“Mimicking Man-Eater Bug, go.”

It surges forward, and as her last hope is about to be eaten alive by a giant Vampire Bug, she decides it’s pointless to activate its effect. If she does, she’ll just steal it with Vampire Red Baron anyway, since she doesn’t have the life points to use her effect twice. It’s disrespectful enough that she’s being beaten by her own monsters, no need to add insult to injury.

“Oh? Not going to prolong the inevitable? That's good. I do so hate to drrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaag thiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnngssssssssss oooooooooouuuuuuuuuut”

The peanut gallery laughs at her joke. Laughs at her. They all must think she’s a joke, losing like this. What an awful duelist.

Despite her words, instead of finishing her off right away with Vampire Red Baron, Rin attacks first with Vampire Familiar.

[1100 LP > 100 LP]

She then makes her spirit partner, Vampire Retainer, deal the finishing blow.

[100 LP > 0 LP]

The duel comes to a close. The hologram system carries Ameba and Mina’s cards back to their original owners automatically. Mina takes them, looking at them, her hand, and her deck. She unites them before silently walking out of the dorm.

As she makes it outside, away from most of the students, she’s unable to keep herself from crying as her pathetic loss sinks in. She begins punching herself as hard as she can. Stupid! Damned idiot! Fucking loser! She walks into the tree line, looking for a quiet place she can be alone.

Back at Ra Yellow, Rin smiles warmly, keeping her eyes on the ground as the spectators cheer for her win. It was… really embarrassing, actually. She couldn’t handle attention like this. She looked up, looking for Mina, a point of familiarity. She wanted to compliment her. It was really fun being Mina, and her Vampire deck was really cool. However, Mina seems to have already left when Rin wasn’t paying attention. She looked around the room, but Mina was nowhere to be seen. She was about to walk back to her room to see if Mina was there, when someone walked in through the front, asking why there was a girl crying and hurting herself outside.

Rin didn’t think it was Mina. Mina was the type of girl that oozed confidence. There’s no way it could be Mina. Still, empathy and curiosity got the better of her, and she walked outside just in time to see Mina walk into the tree line, out of sight. Huh. Okay. Where’s the crying girl, though? Rin scanned the area, but there was no one overtly sad around. Maybe they already left?

Rin looked back to the forest. For a while, she just stared at it, thinking.

She eventually walks towards it and into the treeline.

Mina was wandering off inside the forest, ignoring the pleas of her partner to come to her senses and return to the dorm. “Leave me alone.” Mina yelled out while walking deeper into the forest. “It was just a friendly duel Mina, there was nothing of stake to it?” This made Mina turn around to retort, “Everyone in the dorm saw our duel, and how I was humiliated. So it was quite a huge deal.” Her dog like spiritual partner thought at first that Mina was overrating, but remembered her past and how that shaped Mina’s behaviour. Her partner could only try to calm her down. “Well, I thought you need very well in that duel. I think you are still the best.” He watched as Mina was now sitting down underneath a tree.

Feeling like if he said anything more to try and calm her down, it would only make her more agitated. All he could do now was lay down beside Mina. This was a common occurrence, where her partner would comfort her when she would lose a duel. Mostly he would do this every time her parents would abuse her for losing.

---

---

Oooh, this was so exciting! As of late, Renho had been quietly dreading each visit to her old school, ending up lonely and dejected as usual, but not this time! While it had been kinda last minute, she'd been signed on for Duel Academy's new year, and she couldn't be more stoked! Sure, she never considered herself too much of a Duelist, but....At least it'd be a fun change of pace. With any luck, maybe learning here would help her figure out her own situation! Or at the very least, maybe become a better Duelist.

The boat ride went by without a hitch, and before she knew it, they were getting peddled away to change into their school uniforms. And truth be told? Renho really digged the jackets! Probably because she usually wore one anyways...Regardless, after that, it was time for them to find their classroom, where they got a speech from Mr. Shepherd himself!...Well, Renho wished she could've been more excited about it, but it was pretty dull stuff all around. Thankfully, she at least woke up before they started passing out some equipment, that being their Academy-sanctioned Duel Disks and PDA! After that, they were let go, and told to come back here for tomorrow's first classes of the semester.

Renho decided that, as much as she wanted to wander the island a bit (and maybe get some jogging in for good measure), it was probably best for her to hit the dorms and handle her luggage sitch. It didn't take her too long to make it (though she got a bit distracted trying to make it through the wall of text about Duel Points); Room 103.

"Excuse me!" She exclaimed to no one in particular, just in case her roomie was already inside; didn't want to give them a jump for no reason! With that, she confidently barged her way into the room, a cursory glance showing her to be the first arrival. A glint entered her eye. Yes, this was her chance! Surely there was a good corner to put this in....

Sliding near the bunk bed, Renho opened her pack and pulled out a treasured piece of memorabilia, an action figure of Great Magnus! It was nearly the size of the lamps that adorned the desks present in the room. Hmm....The desks? "Nah, too obvious. Hrm..." She kept her search up, too absorbed into her desire to find the perfect spot to hear the door opening once more. Needless to say, her roommate didn't have the same courtesies Ren did...

The sudden exclamation from behind her caused the poor girl to flail in a panic, then desperately maneuvered herself to catch the priceless figurine she had unceremoniously hurled into the air, eventually claiming it once more, pressed painfully hard to her chest. Whew, she dodged a bullet! Quickly, she slid the Mecha King back into her pack for a moment, actually confronting her new companion. Surprisingly, it wasn't her bright blue hair that caught her eyes first, but...

An absolutely AWESOME pose! She couldn't help but beam back at her new roommate, an equally sparkling smile gracing her face in response to Sina's own as her eyes seemed to gleam in wonder. "Awesome! You've really got poses down pat!" Her smile briefly shifted to a friendly grin before she gave a polite bow; she was raised right, after all! After that, she points her thumb to herself, as vibrant as before. "My name's Renho Bushida, but friends call me Ren! It's great to meetcha too, Sina! Hope we can be good friends!"

Sina
Sina finally breaks her jojo pose to pump both her fists animatedly. "Yes! That would be most excellent! With our powers combined, nothing can stop us from making our dreams come true!" Sina strikes yet another pose, raising one fist slightly and looking upwards, as if to the future and beyond. She eventually breaks it without prompting this time, and suddenly realizes she left her luggage behind in favor of her grand entrance. "Oh, right!" She awkwardly walks back through the door to retrieve it from outside, dragging it in and unceremoniously dropping it next to the foot of the bunk beds.

"By the way, if I may inquire, what is that strange and spectacular contraption within your embrace?"

@Mintz

Leo Wilde – Slifer Red

As it turned out, the island the academy was built on was deceptively small. I mean, that wasn’t to say Leo wasn’t still incredibly blown away by the whole things; guy who built this place still bought a whole damn island complete with its own volcano just to make a school, but once you looked past that the place was really just the main building, three and a half dorms and a lot of forest.

All of this was to say that when Leo went looking for an opponent, there weren’t too many places for him to search. He pretty much just walked down the winding path leading from the Slifer dorm to the main academy and found someone along the way, someone with a blue jacket, blonde hair and glasses. More importantly he also had a duel disk on his arm and two, two, deck boxes at his waist, which meant he was perfect for what Leo had in mind.

“Hey, yo! Wanna duel?”

If Leo had any reservations in challenging an Obelisk, someone who was supposed to be way better at duelling than a Slifer like him, he didn’t show it with the way he just walked up to the guy and challenged him.

@Exodia Relent

Daigo was walking along the school yard, taking in the beautiful scenery and possible places to explore. Maybe the volcano first? Or the beach? HIs train of thought was interrupted by this more wild looking individual with a red jacket, unkempt brown hair, and fierce, yet striking, brown eyes. A slifer? Daigo smirked. Not what he expected for his first challenge here, but not one he was going to turn down. “Sure thing bud!” Was that how you said that? But he quickly reached down, grabbed the more familiar of the decks, and slotted it in. “Let’s test your metal!”

“Alright! I’ll start us off by summoning Elemental HERO Stratos!” Leo opened the duel by slapping a card down in his monster zone, the hero appearing in a gust of wind that whipped up the dust around their feet. “Then I activate his effect to add a HERO monster from my deck to my hand.”

”I’ll add Elemental HERO Blazeman and end my turn.”



“Nice start there.” Daigo draws, “Why don’t I repeat it? I summon Chronomaly Nebra Disk in attack mode!”

“Eh, never seen a card like that before. Looks kind of old and ragged.”

“Yea. But ancient historians have believed it to be used to detail future events. With this being the case, I add Chronomaly Moai from my deck to my hand, which, as the disk foretold, I summon right to the field!” “And what’s better yet is that I have two of them!” he slaps down the secondary copy from his hand onto the disc.

“Following this, I use both Moai to build the overlay network.” The two large heads go jumping right into a large black vortex. “Ancient scriptures of the past, give rise to the flying chariot that comes from the dieties above. I xyz summon Chronomaly Vinmana!”

“Vimana, blast away the flying Hero with your Heavenly Blasts!” Vimana opens up its sides and fires a large blast of golden energy at Stratos.

Stratos took the attack from the giant floating building, temple… thing head on, withstanding it for a second before bursting apart. Leo threw his arm up to block the wind from blowing more dust into his face, conveniently hiding his grit teeth at the same time. The damage from that battle wasn’t too bad, but the next part was going to hurt.

[Leo: 8000 LP > 7500 LP]

“Next I follow it up with Nebra Disk’s assault. Go, Time Dilation!” The disc vibrates with intense frequency, sending a shock wave over at Leo. “With that, I’ll set one card and end my turn. Your move there.”

[Leo: 7500 LP > 5700 LP]

“Tch, not bad.” Drawing a card for turn, Leo grimaced and added it to his hand. Losing his monster wasn’t too big of a deal, he had assumed his Stratos would be destroyed after he had done its job of helping him set up for this turn, but he hadn’t expected the follow-up from his opponent to be so intense. Still, a fancy heap of rubble and a collection of old relics weren’t going to be enough to stop his deck or him from winning this duel.

“No matter the challenge, a hero will always rise up to face it. I normal summon Elemental HERO Blazeman and activate its effect.” Pulling a card from his deck, Leo held it out towards his opponent to see. “I add Polymerization to my hand.”

“Ah. I see you are about combining things together to get to a possible solution. Go on and show me what you got.” Daigo smiles. Let’s see how far this person can get without many interruptions. Further test out the capabilities of the island with, arguably, the weaker of the dorms.

”I activate Polymerization, fusing the Blazeman on my field with the Shadow Mist in my hand. I don’t have a clever introduction for him like you did, but let’s see how to deal with my Elemental HERO Nova Master!”



“That is completely fine. I just love a bit of theatrics is all.”

”Well, let’s see how you like this. Because it was sent to the graveyard, I get to activate the effect of my Shadow Mist.”



“Oh contraire my good man, I activate Vimana’s effect. By detaching two materials from it, I can negate the activation of a monster effect. And, while I am curious to see how far this goes, I don’t want to let you get too ahead of yourself.” By sending the two moais to the GY, Vimana starts shining brightly. “Deva’s Judgement!” The light then subsides as Shadowmist’s effect doesn’t activate.

“Tch, fine. Next I’ll activate Miracle Fusion.”

”I banish the Shadow Mist I just sent to grave and the Stratos you destroyed last turn to bring out my Elemental HERO Great Tornado.”

”I activate his effect to halve the attack and defense of all your monsters; Great Tornado, cut those guys down to size!”

The cloaked Hero whipped an arm out to his side, summoning forth a howling wind as he did that swept across Daigo’s side of the field and buffeted his monsters, lowering their attack and defense.

Chronomaly Vimana - ATK 2300 > 1150
Chronomaly Nebra Disk - ATK 1800 > 900

This is getting a bit more tricky now. “I’ll activate Vimana’s secondary effect. By attaching a Chronomaly or an XYZ monster to it as material, I can increase one monster’s attack by half the attack of the attached monster. I choose to attach a Moai to it to give Vimana an extra 900 ATK”

Chronomaly Vimana - ATK 1150 > 2050

“It’s still not strong enough to survive this. I go to the battle phase and attack Vimana with my Nova Master.”The flame-cloaked hero rushed towards the golden building, summoning fire to its hand as it threw a punch that saw them both being consumed by an explosion.

[Daigo: 8000 LP > 7450 LP]

Daigo is blasted back a little by the fiery punch that hit his giant golden temple. “Yes. But like all ancient artifacts, they don’t simply disappear with time. I use the effect of Chronomaly Acambaro Figures from my hand”

“By discarding the figures, I can prevent the destruction of a Chronomaly monster!” The figures appear in front of the giant floating citadel, having taken the firefly punch for it instead, before disappearing..

“Not enough. Like all relics, that thing is history; I attack Vimana again with Great Tornado” Next, the green-cloaked hero struck, raising a hand towards Daigo’s monster and conjuring a writhing, roiling twister which shot forward and slammed into the temple, building, pyramid-thing.

[Daigo: 7450 LP > 6700 LP]

Vimana starts crumbling with the large force of winds, and disappears into the digital dust.”Yes. Sadly even the biggest temples tend to fall to the harsh reality of nature.”

“Are you trying to turn this into a history lesson or something? I end my turn.”

“No. Just wanting to have some fun dialogue to go with the monsters.” Daigo smirks, though he does feel incredibly awkward now as he draws. “But history always has a way of coming back to us. I use Acambaro’s effect to Special Summon itself from the graveyard by paying 1000 life points.” He holds up his disc as a light comes from the gy, and the weird looking figure comes out onto the field in defense.

[Daigo: 6700 LP > 5700 LP]

“How about we get a change of scenery?” The field spell zone on the disc pops open and Daigo plops a card in there. “I activate the field spell Chronomaly City Babylon!"


“Now that we are in an ancient arena, fit for this fight, I use its effect, I banish one Moai from the GY to summon another.” A giant head comes breaking out of the ground. “Now let me know if you’ve seen this before, as I build the overlay network with Moai and Figures.” Both disappear into a swirling vortex that explodes into another Vimana. “No catchy chant this time. Don’t want to constantly repeat my plays.”

“Let’s learn from our past mistakes though. I use Vimana’s effect to attach the Vimana in the GY to it to gain more attack.” Almost as if seeing double, a more faded vimana floats its way into the vimana on the field as another yellow orb starts to surround the temple.

Chronomaly Vimana ATK: 2300 > 3450

“Now battle! Vimana attacks Nova Master! Heavenly Blasts!” The large lasers lock onto the blazing hero and fire their golden beams.The fiery hero tried to fight back the attack using his own flames to contest the beams, but was swiftly overpowered and destroyed.

[Leo: 5700 LP > 4850 LP]

“With that though, I switch Nebra Disk to defense, and end my turn. Now, show me what you can do…” It was at this point that Daigo realized he forgot to ask for this Slifer’s name. “Uh… A bit of an odd question, but what is your name? I am Daigo Roberts.”

Chronomaly Vimana ATK: 3450 > 2300

“Huh?” Oh right, Leo hadn’t asked this guy for his name when he challenged him, or even introduced himself at the time either. He’d been kind of fired up wanting to duel at the time and hadn’t thought to mind his manners. “It’s Leo. Nice to meet ya.”

With that out the way, Leo drew a card for turn. Once he saw what it was he slapped it down in his duel disk without even bothering to add it to his hand. “Let’s try this again. I summon Elemental HERO Blazeman and activate its effect.”

Daigo chuckled. “Nice try there Leo, but I failed this experiment before. I won’t do so again. I use Vimana’s effect to detach Vimana and Figures from it to negate the effect of Blazeman.” Two of the orbs disappear and Vimana starts shining. “Deva’s Judgement!” The light overpowers Blazeman, before disappearing back into itself.

Dammit, he’d forgotten all about that. “Tch, alright, no problem. I move to battle and attack your Vimana with Great Tornado.” Holding out his hand once more, the wind-manipulating hero shot forth another twisting burst of wind to try and destroy the ancient structure.

“As I said, I won’t let that happen twice. In the Damage Step, I use Vimana’s secondary ability, I attach the Vimana I just detached from it, back to it, increasing its attack by half the attack of the monster attached to it.” A new orb appears as canons appear along the edges of Vimana, and start blasting away the gale force winds.

Chronomaly Vimana ATK: 2300 > 3450

“It can do that during battle too?” The golden beams lanced through the blustering winds, tearing through the storm and also through the hero who had conjured it, Great Tornado bursting apart as it was destroyed in battle.

[Leo: 4850 LP > 4200 LP]

“Grrr, fine. I attack your Nebra Disk with Blazeman.” The flames brought forth by Blazeman as he charged forward was nothing compared to those of Nova Master, but it was still enough for the fiery hero to blast apart the ancient disk with a single punch. That was all he could do however, and with Vimana negating all of his search effects and strengthening itself in battle, Leo wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with it. “I end my turn.”

“Not bad there Leo. You are definitely giving me a fight,” Daigo was trying to be positive here, giving Leo some form of support through this. Even he could admit that Vimana was a bit of a silly card when it came to stuff like this. He drew, and, wanting to give Leo a bit more of a test, he proceeds straight to the battle phase. “Attack Vimana. Destroy Blazeman.” The canons line up and blast the Hero away. “With that, I end my turn. Now Leo, how will you get out of this situation?”

[Leo: 4200 LP > 3100 LP]

Good question. Leo drew for turn, adding the card to his and weighing up his options. He had Shadow Mist and a Stratos in hand; he could summon the latter and search another monster, but Vimana would just negate it again, while the latter could be set and also search a monster should it be destroyed in battle, but that would just be negated too. He also had a Miracle Fusion he could use, but he’d already gone through both Nova Master and Great Tornado so the only HERO he could summon now was Elemental HERO Escuridao, which was strong enough to attack over Daigo’s monsters but wouldn’t be able to deal with Vimana if it used its damn attack boosting effect again.

He had no choice.

“I set one monster and end my turn.”

“That is a shame.” Daigo sighs. Maybe his hand had bricked. Lord knows Daigo had that early on, if it weren’t for Nebra Disk. He drew, looked over his cards, and figured this little test was more than enough. Don’t want to showcase bad manners to his fellow classmate. “I use the effect of Nebra Disk in the graveyard.” He holds up his disk as light comes out of the graveyard. “If all monsters I control are Chronomaly, I can special summon it from the graveyard.” The disk flies out and spins into place in Defence Position. “And I release the Nebra Disk to get a new monster. Come out, Chronomaly Moai Carrier.” Nebra disk envelope itself in a rainbow energy and morphs itself into Moai Carrier.



“Then history always loves to repeat itself. By paying 1000 life points, I bring back another Acambaro Figures.” Another light comes from the gy to bring on out the same reptile looking figure.

[Daigo 5700 LP > 4700}

“I then build the overlay network with my Figures and Moai Carrier!” Both monsters erupt into energy and go flying into a large vortex. “Great city of the heavens that history nearly forgot, form thyself and fly into battle. I XYZ Summon. Appear, Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mech!”



Summon after summon after summon. The amount of monsters that Daigo brought to his side of the field, only to immediately send them away or use them as tribute for something else was almost too much to follow. Even if Leo had been able to resolve his effects, even if he could have summoned more fusions, would they have been able to stand up to this? For the first time since he had gotten serious about duelling, the answer was probably no.

It wasn’t like Leo have never lost before, never been beat by somebody better than him, but this was different. And as Daigo summoned another city-sized monster to his side of the field, it was obvious Leo had bitten off more than he could handle with this challenge.

“Tsk. So this is what it takes to be an Obelisk huh?”

“More than likely.” Daigo smirked. “Keep up the hard work though, and you’ll get here eventually. Battle! Machu Mech, blast his facedown away!” A large line of canons come out from the ring around Machu Mech, then fires a variety of blasts at the face-down monster.

Shadow Mist appeared briefly when the city opened fire and was immediately engulfed by the cannon fire and destroyed; Leo didn’t even bother to activate its effect in grave. He’d make it there eventually huh? Yeah, he would and then he’d wipe that condescending smirk right off of this guy’s face as he kicked him to the curb.

“And blast him away, Vimana, by first using your effect to attach the Nebra Disk from my graveyard to it as material, and increasing Vimana’s attack by 900.” Vimana’s cannons aim at Leo before firing everything it has at him. “Heavenly Blast!”

Chronomaly Vimana ATK: 2300 > 3200

This time, it was Leo being struck directly by the golden beams and not one of his monsters. He was blown back by the simulated force, knocked off of his feet as the ancient building reduced his life points to zero.

[Leo: 3100 LP > 0 LP]

The duel was over.

He planted a fist in the dirt and pushed himself up, not even trying to hide his dissatisfaction with his loss as he faced his opponent… no, Daigo. As he faced Daigo. He’d remember that name. “Congrats… I’ll beat you next time. Count on it.”

“I look forward to it.” Daigo smiles as he walked over and held out his hand to help Leo up.

---

---

Flynn could only stand there, his face slowly blushing as he tried to find the words to express his bewilderment at Chris' audacity. Moments would pass before he would simply turn about and head for the door.

"You won this round, giant boy." he'd state before heading out. Normally, Flynn would be quick to find a witty remark to deflect such a dumb bit but perhaps he was still tired from the boat trip. Since he wasn't gonna find peace in his own room at this time, he decided to just find the nearest piece of furniture and simply crash there. While it wasn't exactly luxury decor, the Ra Yellow dorm did have serviceable common areas.

Surely the rest of the yellows weren't as weird as his roommate.

It took some time, but with Roche's help, Valerie unpacked all her luggage. She hadn't brought all too much of it, but unpacking was still a pain no matter how used she was to the process.

"Thanks for all the help." Valerie thanked her roommate after they finished, her staring in admiration at her Chazz Princeton posters for a moment. "I owe you, lemme get you something once I get some more DP to spend." She told Roche as she moved to leave the room, waving goodbye behind her. "Gonna head out for a while, look around. See you later, yeah?"

As she started walking through the halls of the dorm, Val pulled out her PDA, idly checking her DP balance after her first win. Did they really need to use that acronym? Whoever came up with it really hadn't thought the whole matter through, considering it was for an island of hormonal teenagers. That, or they thought it was funny.

Apparently their first day's food budget had already been allotted to their balance.

"Divide by three per meal..." Valerie muttered to herself, doing some quick mental math. "Subtract the win...wow. One win doesn't count for squat." Her winnings were just a fraction of a third she'd allotted from the food budget per meal. It'd get her a light snack, at most. She'd check the card shop on the island later, but considering how much cards cost on the outside, it'd probably take her several more wins to afford anything beyond a single booster. Or if she skipped meals...

"Girl, your expression reveals what you're thinking." Ceruli cut in, an eyebrow raised at Valerie's expression. "Do not think to skip meals to afford additional cards. Need I remind you that you're still growing?"

Valerie just sighed and rubbed the back of her head, reluctantly shrugging. As much as she appreciated having Ceruli around in place of her parents, there were times when she was reminded of the downsides of having a constant companion looking over her shoulder.

"Yes, mom." She groaned quietly, after confirming that there was no one else in the hallway to overhear her even whispering. Whatever. Time to keep moving. She'd work all this out later.

The dorm lounge was already somewhat filled, with some people already out socializing. Valerie idly glanced over as she made her way to the vending machine, purchasing a bottle of iced tea as she tried to decide where to sit. As much as she knew everyone was in the same situation as her where no solid friendships had been established yet and they all had a clean slate in social terms, breaking old habits was still hard. She wanted a quiet corner. But the closest she could find to that was a block of seats where some gray-haired guy was sprawled over, looking half-dead. Screw it. Hopefully this guy wasn't a creep or anything.

Valerie sat down a few seats away from who she didn't know was Flynn, opening her bottle of iced tea and taking a few swigs. After seeing that he wasn't going to initiate conversation, she figured she may as well. It was still the first day. Couldn't hurt to be sociable yet.

"Dead already, huh? Was the trip over that bad, or something else? Roommate a bit too much?" Not that she was speaking from experience or anything.

She was totally speaking from experience.

Pine wished this school had a green dorm. Red was not his color… He also hoped that the school wasn’t going to get on his case for adding a flower hairpin to his hair. After changing into his new uniform, he sat with the other students, and as he listened to the welcoming speech. It was the same old usual things. Pine did have to roll his eyes at the chancellors stupid joke about finding the rooms comfortable depending on your rank. Why was giving the shoddy accommodations to new and lesser skilled students funny? They were there to learn, why were they being punished for that?

After everything was done, Pine walked to his assigned dorm. He was taking his time getting there, as he was busy admiring the flora that grew on the island. Along the way, another Slifer student proceeded to walk alongside him and talk his ear off about various strategies. As annoying as it was, Pine did appreciate that somebody actually wanted to talk to him… And it was a cute boy no less! We’ll see how long that lasts… Pine wasn’t about to get his hopes up on making friends here.

When they finally arrived at their dorm, it turned out they were roommates. Kaison immediately challenged him to a duel. Pine blinked in surprise. “Y-y-you actually want to challenge a flower loving freak like me? I mean… um… I’m up for it…