Gao watched all of the interactions and laughed watching the small white duel spirit from earlier being tickled by Maiden With Eyes of Blue. He noticed that the person the spirit was with was the duelist he would be dueling later on.
Looks like my duel is going to be harder than I planned he said smiling down at Ruby who meowed and Licked his cheek.
"Yeah I know all we have to do is have fun right?" he said smiling at her before standing and walking around With Ruby sitting on his shoulder. He looked around and looked at all of the duelists seeing all of the duel spirits around.
There sure are a lot of duel spirits here a lot more than i had thought. I wonder what that CEO guy is planning with all this. he thought as he moved through the crowd.

*Hm... that girl over there looks familiar,* Scout told Lars as he once again sat himself upon his shoulder. Lars looked to the new contestant that had walked in and raised an eyebrow in questioning as her spirit partner began tickling that of another contestant's. He quickly figured out who it was. Cybell. Like Lars, the girl had taken to making a name for herself within the Obsidian District, though maybe for reasons other than just gaining the respect of others.

"It's Cybell. You told me about her yourself after one of your scouting trips."

*I did? When was this...? Wait... oh yeah....*

"She owns a gang of some sort, the Silver Dragons I think. According to you-"

*She uses the overgrown lizards like you used to. Blue-Eyes...*

Lars smiled. The fiend could be of great help as usual, and not just inside of duels. Back in the Obsidian District, Lars usually sent him on scouting missions just to see what was new or going on in the area. Sometimes, like now, he'd forget, but it didn't take much to jog Scout's memory.

"She's a tough one obviously, if we make it far enough to face her we'll definitely have our work cut out for us..."

Lars had never dueled Cybell before, but from what he'd hear, she had a really powerful deck that made use of different and even rarer Blue-Eyes cards.

Nyne had already trekked his way to the Dueling stage at the center of the stadium, his depressing, emotionless face as obvious as ever, as he silently waited for his opponent.
Geargiano floated around Nyne, making the obvious whirring noises a machine would be expected to make, instead of talking, like a few other duel spirits would. The machine seemed to show more emotion than Nyne did, Ironically, though, Nyne was not too bothered by this.
"Am I going to get a pass then? where is this guy." He said softly, with no emotion, as usual. Geargiano made a few whirring noises, as if to comment on his opponents tardiness.

"Alexander Nyne, I presume?" Ian walked onto the stage, unapologetic in his tardiness, hands in his pockets, lazy smirk on his face. Walking to where he was supposed to stand, Ian brought up his duel disk and grabbed the top card off of his deck, the smirk on his face becoming more pronounced as he looked at the card. "Azu, you can't keep rearranging my deck so that you're on top," he scolded the image on the card before placing it at the bottom of his deck and hitting the shuffle button on the duel disk. The duel spirit of the crying boy appeared next to him, pouting at his partner's coldness. Turning back to his opponent, bowed slightly and introduced himself, "My name, though you should already know, is Ian Rouse." Bringing up his duel disk, he added, "Let's give these people a good show now."

---

Cybell stared at the closed doors that led to the dueling stage for a while, until May, still with her arms wrapped around Bell's neck, whispered something into her ear. The white-haired girl spun around, and for a moment her red eyes locked onto those of a young man with a black insect-looking duel spirit. The look she gave in that instant of connection could have chilled the surface of the sun. The blue-eyed duel spirit waved an arm, and for a moment the air shimmered in the shape of a fearsome dragon, as if there was another spirit there. And then she just continued moving, walking away to find a monitor to watch the upcoming duel on. May was giggling into Bell's ear, always getting a kick out of the girl's horrendous people skills.

Nyne quickly placed the dueldisk onto his arm, placing the deck within its slot, consequently, the deck shuffled. Nyne stared emotionless at his opponent "Shall we begin then?"
Nyne quickly noticed the duel spirit at his side, well, Geargiano noticed it first, making whirring noises. "Nice duel spirit." Nyne said, his voice monotone and cold this time, with even less emotion than before. Nyne looked at his opponent, assessing the situation, and the duel spirits, as his depressing seriousness set in. "Might as well give them a good show, though." He said, as he brought up his own duel disk.

"Hmph."

Lars merely stared back at Cybell's chilling expression with a calm and almost uninterested expression. Nothing new there after all, just the typical actions a strong duelist would carry out when locking eyes with someone who was watching them. Scout himself even made a more blatant statement of unsurprise, simply checking the lengths of its claws even after the blue eyed dueling spirit created her dragonic illusion.

Along with Scout, Lars went to find a spot to watch the duel as well, asking Scout to watch along with him to study each person's skills.

Gao watched intently as the two Duelists stared each other down and readied their Duel Disks getting more and more excited for the first move. Ruby watched from his lap where she had perched as soon as they had found a place to watch the Duel.

"Man Ruby this looks like its going to be intense even for an opening." he said feeling the intensity between the two duelists. Ruby just meowed as he scratched her head clearly watching the other duel spirits.
"Yeah I don't recognize either monster either but that's half the fun. Figuring out how to beat new monsters you haven't seen before." he said smiling.
"But we really should be paying super close attention so we can learn the decks especially with that red eyed girl as our competition for the first round." He added nervously remembering the look of the girl from her picture and remembering how she interacted with the other duelist. Man she was cold. Maybe she just needs a friend. he thought trying to calm himself down to focus on the duel.

"Looks like the first match is about to start." Joshua said, looking up at a television in one of the stadiums hallways. He and Amelia had opted not to head to the bleachers, partially so Amelia could stay a bit calmer before her first tournament match ever and partially cause he hated being stuck in the middle of a lot of people.

"It's important to watch so we might know who possible future opponents are, right?" Amelia asked

"That and to observe their deck and play style and try to think of a way around their strengths to hit their weaknesses." Joshua said.

"I seems there are some duel spirits here as well. Look they both have one." Amelia said

"Aye and that gives away the one's deck being a Geargia deck but I don't recognize that other one."

"It looks a bit sad to me. Maybe it's partner isn't nice to it."

"Either that or it just looks that way."

"Huh, first duel is starting then Dullahan, is it me or do they both have spirit partners?"

"Yes, about time too! No kidding so they do, Im going to go see who else has a spirit partner, Have fun watching the duel if I am not back in time."

With that Dullahan took off on the back of his trusty steed Rose, looking out for other spirit partners and trying to work out who they were partnered with but with out much success but Dullahan was enjoying the time just looking around the halls seeing all the people there...

Meanwhile Jax was looking at his deck, making sure these were the ones he wanted to use, from time to time, he would glance at a second box at his waist, but decided to ignore that deck for now and focused on the cards in his hand, coming to the conclusion that this was the deck he would use he put the cards away and found a good seat and waited for the first round to start, he noticed that both players had taken to the stage, it would be interesting to see who he would be facing.

Shana had taken her seat in the stands, and couldn't seem to sit still at all. The first duel hadn't even started and already she was hopping up and down, trying to figure out what kind of cards she would see, and wishing her turn would hurry up and appear so she could duel and have fun and oh god damn it play a damn card it was too suspenseful!

With Shana's whole body trembling with anticipation, the flickering flame known as Flikkar simply suspended itself above her head, body pulsing occasionally. As it was nothing more than a solitary flame with transparent eyes that most certainly didn't look like they belonged, Flikkar couldn't exactly hold a conversation. However, Shana had learned to read its... for lack of a better term, body language. Whenever Flikkar's flame pulsed rapidly, it was showing just how excited it was, and it was quite clear that Duelist and Spirit were of one mind.

Aeron, alike a few other people he could see, had opted to find a place in the stadium where he could see while just leaning on a wall, as opposed to the bleachers. He didn't like seating so close, partly because he was fully aware how easy it was to steal things in them. His bag was pretty much impervious to any thief who wasn't invisible and able to teleport but it still bothered him, so he stayed away.

"More spirits, I see."

"Yeah, looks like it."

With nobody else that close to him, he had no concerns with speaking to his spirit partner.

"We should be at a good advantage seeing them, if we have to duel either one later."

"Thanks, he's not too bad," Ian conceded. At this Azure Child beemed. "Yeah yeah, don't let it get to your head."

"Well, lets begin" Nyne took the top 5 cards from his deck. "I will go first"
Nyne draws, studying his hand quickly, before making a move "I set 1 monster, and 1 card, and end my turn."

Ian drew the top card of his deck as Azure Child looked at his hand over his shoulder. "I set one card and summon Mother Grizzly to attack your monster."

"Shame, you have attacked my Geargiarmor, so you take 500 damage, and I get to add 1 geargia monster from my deck to my hand, Geargiano would be that monster."
The duel spirit whirred with glee as the card joined the rest of the hand.

Ian yawned as his life points were deducted from. "Oh, okay then. I guess I'll end."

"My turn." Nyne drew a card, his hand back up to 6 cards.
"I will set Geargiamor again, with its own effect, along with setting another monster"
Nyne glanced over the field, the control was currently his. "I end my turn"

Ian drew, "I'll have Mother Grizzly attack your other face-down."

"Another Geargiarmor." Nyne watched as Ian lost another 500 life points.
"I will add Geargiano MK-II to my hand this time"

"I set a monster and another card and end," Ian said without reacting to again losing life points. The knowledge of what his opponent had set on the field was worth the insignificant loss.

Gao sat up in his chair. Jeez those Gear things have some serious effects to worry about he thought. Looking down at Ruby who looked up at him with a slightly worried look.
"Well hey as long as we're here we might as well enjoy the time we have" he said turning back to the duel at hand.

"I draw" Nyne flipped the other geargiarmor face up "I add Geargiano MK-II to my hand, and activate swords of revealing light." Nyne looked at the card he had in his hand since turn 1.
"I activate Double summon, and normal summon Geargiano MK-III, which allows me to special summon Geargiano MK-II, which allows me to special summon Geargiano. I Xyz summon using these three monsters to build the Overlay Network, and XYZ summon GeargiaGear XG.
I Also Use my 2 Geargiarmors to Xyz summon Geargigant X." Nyne readied the other 3 cards in his hand.
"I summon Geargiano MK-III, and end up with Geargiano MK-II and Geargiano on the field as well. I use these 3 monsters to Xyz summon Geargiagear XG."
Nyne looked at his plan as it surfaced.
"I activate Geargigant X's Effect to add Geargiarmor to my hand, and so, its time for the Battle Phase."
"To warn you, I will use Geargiagear XG each time I attack this turn, so it will negate the effects of all Face up cards you control, and you wont be able to activate card effects."
"Geargigant, Attack his Facedown, Geargiagear XG attack his Mother Grizzly, and my other Geargiagear XG, Attack him Directly. I end my turn."

[XG1: 0XYZ material/XG2 3XYZ material/Gigant 1XYZ material]
[Nyne:8000 life points/Ian 3400 life points]

Azure Child held onto Ian's jacket nervously, being scared in its partner's place. Ian reached down and patted its white hair calmly. "Don't stress out about it Azu, it's just numbers." Turning back to his opponent, Ian said, "Not bad there. Not bad at all. I hope I can pull off something that cool." Ian pulled the top card of his deck, looking at it only after showing it to his duel spirit.

"First I'll play my field spell: Azure Waterfall." The stadium floor around them rippled as it turned a deep sapphire, a white staue of the goddess rising into the air above, heavy falls of blue-gem tears falling from here eyes in the center of the field. "Then I'll acitvate Soul Absorption from my hand." Ian scanned the reamining four cards he held in his hand, pulling two from the others. "I'll set one monster and one other card and end my turn."

"Alright, I draw."

"And I'll acitvate my face-down: Tornado Wall," Ian added.

"Useless. I use Geargigant X's effect to add Geargiaccelerator to my hand, and special summon it, along with normal summoning my Geargiamor. I Xyz summon using these 2 monsters to build the overlay network, summoning Geargigant X." Nyne Readied for the final move.
"I Will activate Geargiagear XG's effect each time I attack this turn, so your tornado wall is useless. Geargigant X, attack his face down."
Geargiano made a searies of whirring noises, as if to laugh at Ian's imminent failure.

Ian watched cooly as his face-down revealed itself to be Necroface, which was instantly destroyed and sent to the grave. "Tch, this isn't entertainment," he mumbled to his blue-eyed spirit.

"Geargiagear XG, attack him Directly."
Nyne looked on intently as another Xyz material detached.
"Now, End him Geargiagear XG, AUTOMATED ASSAULT!"
Nyne shouted the final attack, as Ian's lifepoints dropped to 0.

"You never had a chance, my friend" Nyne said gloomily.
"Good game."

Ian met his opponent's eyes as the field faded, only for a moment, and then he turned to walk away, stopping to cover Azure Child's reddening eyes with his hand. "Come Azu, we should be lucky enough to sneak out before Bell finds us." The door away from the staduim opened with a swoosh, and Ian turned just enough to show his opponent that he was smiling ever so slightly before the doors closed behind him.

Nyne waited a few seconds before leaving the stadium himself, as to not cross paths with Ian. As he left, he noticed there wasn't a single cheer, the entire audience had fallen silent, at least most of it.

"Well that was brutal." Joshua said" I've never seen someone have such control over a deck before."

"He summoned a lot of monsters... I doubt either of us would've gotten through that match either." Amelia said gloomily

"I wouldn't have. You on the other hand would have a better chance with your deck. Remember you're strategy."

"Defense and filling up the grave?"

"Exactly. Still I wanted to see the other guys deck. It might've been interesting if he had pulled out something impressive."

Dullahan had returned just as the final attack was called , his helmet clanged as he shook his head;

"What was the duel like?"

"Short, brutal - only saw four or five cards from Ian's deck but as I always say, this game is more about luck then anything and this Nyne's luck was better then Ian's, thats all I have to say about that."

Dullahan sighs knowing how Jax can be at times but doesnt do any more then that, thinking quickly Jax stood and headed to the stage to congratulate Nyne on winning his first game and to offer him a handshake and that his luck continues into the next round.

Cybell watched as Ian was completely decimated by the other duelist. Damn him! Ian wasn't allowed to lose until she said so! May said something into her partner's ear, and Cybell unclenched her hands, red marks on the inside of her palm from pushing her nails into her skin. She took a deep breath to calm down. "I'm going to kill that lazy bastard!" she yelled, the calming not working so well.

May just shook her head and chased after Bell. May hoped that Azure Child wasn't too upset but knew he was. She'd seen his sapphire eyes take on that ruby glow on the monitor. That meant he was pissed, and the only reason Azure Child would be angry was if Ian was angry. "Bell, maybe you should leave Ian alone for a while to sulk," May suggested.

"No! That ass-hat went and lost after promising he wouldn't. He broke a promise, so I'm going to break his face." May rolled her eyes and continued following without comment. At least until she saw where Bell was marching. Against May's urging, Cybell marched right into the mens' bathroom, the door slamming into the wall as she threw it open. For a moment, those outside could see what appeared to be a white-haired boy attempting to sneak out through the bathroom window. The door fell shut to block their view, but the sounds that escaped from under the heavy door made most turn right around and leave.

"Whoa now, watch it Bell! You're going to hurt someone, namely me!" Ian fell to one side, and Bell's fist dented a paper towel dispenser behind where his had been. "I swear, he won fair and square!" Bell threw a vicious uppercut at his middle, and Ian snapped out his weapon to block her blow. Next he spun, the electrified end of the cattle prod set just strong enough to numb the demon's arm. Sighing at the unnecessary violence, Ian collapsed the short pole and slipped it back into his pocket. "You done now?" he asked. She wasn't.

Outside, May and Azu had a talk. Well, May talked and Azu got along just fine on gestures and faces. So Ian hadn't thrown the duel to avoid the possibility of dueling Bell in the next round. Too bad, she would have liked that. Still would have kicked his ass for it, but she would have liked it. The sound of something hard slamming into something metal came out of the bathroom, and May and Azu both hung their heads at their dysfunctional partners.

When the door finally reopened, Bell walked purposefully out, alone. May waved to Azu and floated off in pursuit of the girl, leaving Azu to wait for Ian. He emerged a few minutes later, mercifully unharmed by the she-devil's wrath. Azu gave him a look that said, "That's what you get for making a promise you couldn't keep."

"Quiet you," Ian said, rubbing his shoulder where he'd slammed into the wall a few times avoiding Bell's punches. "No point escaping now seeing how Bell already found me. Let's go in and watch to see how the old Silver Dragon herself fares. I think she might find that the people here aren't anything like the obsidian thugs we're used to. She might even lose." He said that last bit with a wide smile. Azu hit him over the head, knowing full well that Ian would only present to feel it.

"..."

Face frozen with shock, Shana stared at the duel's aftermath. That... was kind of quick, wasn't it? Hardly anything had happened. That duelist's deck had to be way overpowered or something, right? Well... Shana highly doubted they would get to duel, so she probably had nothing to worry about there.
"Say, Flikkar, how long do you think we could last?" Shana asked her spirit. She got no reply, and assumed the little fireball with no way of speaking back hadn't heard her over the rising cheers of the crowd, "hey, Flikk-"

She turned her head, noting he wasn't hovering by her shoulder. Confused, she stood and scanned the crowd uneasily, eventually spotting him several rows away - heckling a cute, blonde girl in a dress.
"Flikkar!" Shana cried out, squeezing herself past the mob of watchers. After several minutes, she reached her spirit, which was currently pulsating and flickering wildly, as if trying to look intimidating to the poor girl. But why? It wasn't like the other Spirit could see h- wait, what.

Shana took a closer look at the girl. She had about the same transparency as Flikkar did, and... looked vaguely familiar. ...Could she be another of those Duel Spirits?!

"Er..." Shana looked at the person closest to the other Spirit, assuming them to be its partner or whatever. A red-headed girl in a green jacket, "Um, sorry if I sound crazy to you, but... do you see a girl being attacked by living fire?"

Charlotte... clearly hadn't been paying attention to the duel, being too busy playing a non duel monsters card game with one of the people nearby. If Shana took a good look... well, it would be clear that a sizeable chunk of seating was taken up by a rough lot. And she'd just walked straight into the middle of the crowd.

Fortunately, Puddingcess' frustration at the fire had lead to her grumpily shouting at it to go away. End result: the gang leader was able to answer properly, confirming that, indeed, the princess was being harassed by animate fire with no sense of priority: "Yup."

"The winner is Alexander Nyne," Gero's voice declared over the speakers. "As a result, you shall proceed to the second round, Mr. Nyne. The time for the second duel has arrived. Gao Hikari and Cybell Yvenstar, it is time to step up to the stage."

---

That looked more like a massacre than a duel, Alex commented in her head. It was pretty much over once it got started, and between Bountr Kenshin's constant commentary and her telilng him to stop thinking aloud, she missed pretty much the entire duel. Crying shame; she would have liked to know just what she could have been dealing with in the finals. To compensate, she resolved to pay extra-close attention to the next duel; Gao Hikari vs. Cybell Yvenstar. The latter sounded vaguely familiar, but she was unsure of how. Gao, on the other hand, rang no bells whatsoever. Opening up her deck's box, Alex took another look at her most important cards. Why couldn't Bountr Swordswoman be her spirit partner?

---

SKREEEEEEEEEEEE! Summer's Duel Runner braked hard in the stadium's parking lot, and the duelist herself - followed by an Alien Gray who had trouble keeping up with his flimsy legs - rushed into the building. She wanted to get here in time for the first duel. She arrived just in time to hear a man's voice declare a winner. For all of two seconds, she was afraid she'd already lost by default. Summer felt much better when she saw the screens overhead, crossing out some other name she was unfamiliar with instead of her own. By the looks of things, she would have still had some time yet to arrive. So she had no clue what kind of deck this Alexander Nyne used. That kind of sucked. Not that it mattered; winning this tournament would just be a means to an end for Summer.

---

"His technique is powerful," Alice quietly said to herself. "How does one counter a fast-moving deck with such raw power. My deck often requires at least one spare turn to set up, so..." Alice didn't like the way things looked. But she only needed to reach the semifinals, so it was quite alright. She didn't mind losing as long as she reached her goal. Taking a look at the screens, the next duel was Gao Hikari versus Cybell Yvenstar. She had no clue who either of those people were.