Dueling life in a futuristic world

Date: 09/Sept/35MT

“You think they’ll agree?” Asks a very hesitant Aya. “Especially Yasuna…” She trails off.

I shrug. “I can’t say. Mia and Aiko are one thing, but Yasuna is a tough nut to crack… especially considering what you did…”

Aya looks away.

It’s early in the morning, and I am in my room with Aya. I called her over to get things sorted out with my previous roommates. What happened yesterday made me realize they still haven’t gotten over what Aya did to them and, looking back, I don’t blame them. That’s enough trauma to last them a lifetime. But if there’s one thing I learned in my years of life is that talking things over is way better than any alternative. I doubt they will ever completely forgive Aya for what she’s done, but it will be a start. If this only makes things worse… Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.

With this in mind, I send a message over to Yasuna.

[“Hey, can you come over to the yellow dorm? We need to talk.” - Yuumi]

A few seconds go by and I get this reply.

[“I’m pretty sure I know what this is. Why should I go?” - Yasuna]

An eye roll escapes me.

[“Come on Yasuna… At least give her a shot.” - Yuumi]

They would all be going to the tournament to represent the NWDA, if they weren’t on speaking terms… Well, let’s just say any interview would be awfully awkward.

[“… Fine. I assume you want me to bring Mia and Aiko as well?” - Yasuna]

“Finally.” I say, accompanied by a sigh of relief.

[“If you don’t mind.” - Yuumi]

[“Just don’t forget to tell the front desk.” - Yasuna]

This is one of the security measures the Director has put into place since the incident. Just last week, I went over to the red dorm to give something to Mia and was rapidly stopped by two security guards that asked me what I was doing in there. Also, Lady Umeda wasn’t behind the counter. I’d honestly feel a little guilty if she was fired, but based on the fact I noticed her give me a long side glance from the laundry room… Yea, demotion is more likely.

Anyway, I told the front desk I was expecting three red ranked female students the moment Aya walked in, so that’s already dealt with.

[“I won’t.” - Yuumi]

“Did they accept?” Anxiously asks Aya.

“Yes. Now be on your best behavior.” I remind her.

She nods with a woried look on her face.

‘I hate seeing people like this…’

“Hey Aya, how about we go over your deck in the meantime?” I suggest. Trying to distract Aya from the pending encounter.

She thankfully takes the bait, and after about a minute or so she passes me… an 80 card brick…

“This is the deck I’ve been using since my second year at the academy.” - she tells - “It has serviced me well… But going by your reaction, I’m guessing you don’t think so…?”

I ignore this and focus my attention on the deck in front of me. First things first, 60 card main deck… with a Lswarm engine and no grass…

“Hey, just curious, how do you get to your starters?” I ask.

She tilts her head. “What do you mean, ‘starters’?”

‘Oh boy.’ “They don’t teach that in deck building class? Starters are the cards that you can use to start your combo or board set up. You know, like rescue rabbit, for example.”

She furrows her brow. “They don’t… But by your definition, I try to stall my opponent with traps until I can get one of those cards.”

‘… We are playing 2003 YGO everyone. No 3 offs, 60 card bricks, with tons of stun.’

A sigh is all I can manage. If this isn’t taught to a 3rd year student, then I don’t know what to say. I seriously hope Aya just missed that particular class. But if she hasn’t, that means everyone is running around with terribly bricky decks. Of course, this is a good thing right now. If I can up her decks consistencie, then I can see her winning a couple of matches just because she has a lower chance of drawing a brick.

“Can you bring me your binder? I think the best thing to do here is rebuild this from scratch.” I comment.

She squints. “That bad, huh?”

“Not…. really…? I mean, they did not teach you any better, so I don’t blame you. But right now we need to rethink this entire… thing.” I carefully reveal, trying my best to not straight up, say: “LOL, this shit garbage.”

Anyway, she already had her binder with her, so she passed me her disk and I started editing.

Binders here are big, nondescript, reinforced metal boxes that connect up to a duel disk. You virtually edit your deck in the duel disk’s deck editor with all the cards you have in your binder and then, after you are done, the binder spits out the cards you need to add to your duel disk.

Duel disk card capacity varies, for example my Dragonfruit one only holds 150 cards but the average is 300, there are bigger duel disks that can hold way more but those are typically equipped on vehicles and at that point it just becomes a duel disk with a binder attached. 300 cards is still like 4 decks with a 40 card main deck, 15 extra and 15 side deck, but if your extra or side deck won’t fit, you can get an external box that clips to your clothes and put your extra and side deck in there. There are also deck boxes for main decks, but you have to swap before a duel. The only hold fast rule is that you need to have your active main deck in the disk.

Right now, I have enough storage. My Pendulum magician extra deck is still under 30 cards with the main deck at 52 and side at 15. My live twin deck is 40 cards with a 15 card extra, but as that shares a lot of staples with my pendulum magician extra deck, it’s only 8 cards in practice. That’s another thing, you don’t need unique copies for each deck, but if you have 3 of one card on a deck, you still need 3 physical copies.

If you are wondering about Yuumi’s original deck, I kept it on the old disk. There were no cards in there that I cared about, so it would be a waste of space.

With her duel disk in front of me, I go to the deck manager and select “New Deck.”

Aya is attentively looking over my shoulder at what I’m doing.

“So, the first thing I’ll do is add the Lswarm engine.” I comment.

She nods.

I breathe a sigh of relief. ‘At least they teach them that. Good.’

Back to deck building. For the Lswarm engine, I add 3x Castor, 3x Kerykion, 3x Heliotrope and finally one Mandragora. Next, for spells and traps I put in 2 pandemic and one infection.

“Right, I forgot something. Aya, what summoning methods can you use?”

“I’m primarily an XYZ summoner, but I have learned Link summoning as well.”

I let out a sigh of relief and then move in the extra deck cards that make up the Lswarm engine. Specifically 1x Ouroboros, 1x Bahamut, 1x Exciton Kight and, most importantly, 3x Ophion. Noticing she also owns a Steelswarm Origin, I add it to her deck as well.

“Right, that’s it for the Lswarm stuff.” I reveal, shocking Aya.

She opens her eyes wide. “That’s it?” - She expresses, surprised, before asking - “Where are the other XYZ Monsters? Spell Cards? Trap Cards?”

“Fuuaaaa,” - I sigh, then follow - “Unnecessary. Now we fill the rest with staples and disruption.”

“Ok??? And what are those?”

I once again facepalm and ask. “Aya, what are they teaching you in deck building class? Because these are simple concepts, as far as I know.”

She shrugs. “Never heard of ‘Staples’ or ‘Starters’ before. We mostly learn about different decks and how to build a deck based on an archetype. They also teach about the critical play pieces of those decks so we know how to interrupt and ultimately defeat them.”

‘Ok, it’s my turn to ask this now.’ “THATS IT!?!?!?” I yell.

She recoils and then stutters. “I-I’m sorry, but yes, that’s it.”

…

I look at her, stupefied.

‘Isn’t this supposed to be one of the better dueling academies? Or am I just giving too much credit to the same people that pendulum summon their entire hand then pass turn, thinking it was a good idea? How can you for 5 years just learn about archetypes? Actually, how does that even work? There are about 350+ archetypes in YGO. If you divide that by 5 years, that means… 70 archetypes per year, so…. a little under 6 per month… I mean, I guess that’s reasonable, but again, from those 350, some are too small to dedicate time for or are barely archetypes at all. So in practice you have maybe 100 worth learning and then, knowing most duelist here only play 1 deck, they choose 1 and then, going by Aya’s deck, they still don’t know how to build it! They should just rename “Deck Building Class” to “Major waste of time” at this point!’

Massaging my temples to calm down, I say to Aya. “Ok, we will continue this when the others arrive. It seems I have some misconceptions about deck building to correct.”

This declaration of mine suddenly reminds Aya of the reason she’s in my room, a fact easily proven by her sudden change of expression. Looks like she’s just been told somebody died. “Right…” she trails, then looks down at the floor and continues. “That’s good I guess.”

Another deep sigh escapes me, before I sprawl myself down on the bed.

————

We wait for them for about 10 minutes. Right when I was about to send another message, somebody knocks on the door.

“We’re here.” I hear from the other side.

I quickly jump up from bed and open the door. Standing in the doorway are Yasuna, Aiko, and Mia. Yasuna looks pissed, just like when we visited the director. Mia has a complicated expression on her face, and Aiko just looks hesitant.

“Right, hello, let’s get this over with, shall we?” I offer, walking back to my office desk and sitting down on the chair.

My old roommates enter my room, and the first thing they do is look around the place. Guess they’ve never been to the Yellow rank dorm. It doesn’t take long for them to spot Aya. It’s not like they are surprised by her presence. After all, I told them this was the purpose of calling them over. Well, I told Yasuna, and I doubt she would hide that from them.

Aiko and Mia both sit down on my bed, a little away from where Aya herself is sitting, but Yasuna just leans back against a wall and looks at them.

The first to break the silence is Yasuna. “So, we’re here. What do you want?” She asks.

I take a deep breath and tell. “Right… As you all know, we will go to the Dragoon City tournament this weekend. The Director has requested Aya to represent the NWDA at the highest Elo bracket. As much as I understand your stance, Yasuna, you have to work with Aya. Or at least not show a visible scowl every time you see her. There will be cameras, Yasuna, and you aren’t that discreet.”

Yasuna’s face contracts in disgust for a moment before also drawing in a heavy breath and starting. “First of all, Yuumi, can just explain why, for the love of god, are you so insistent on helping Aya? Let me remind you of who made you duel who on the first day you got here. So what is it? Is she offering you something? Is she blackmailing you? Because I’m sorry, I just don’t see why you want to help her!” She shouts the last part.

‘Ok, we are off to a start… It might not be the best start, but it’s a start.’

Aya keeps looking down at the floor but then says. “Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that myself.”

Yasuna doesn’t take long to respond. “This is between me and Yuumi right now. Don’t butt in.”

‘Oof, oh Solus, this is just getting worse.’

Mia and Aiko stay silent, probably noticing the thick tension in the room right now.

I let go of a deep sigh. “First, let me make it clear. I decide to help who I want and that’s just that. Second, I’m helping Aya on my own initiative. She has not offered me anything. Third, ‘Why am I helping her?’ because I can see she regrets what she’s done and I want to help her fix her mistakes. Call me ignorant, call me a bleeding heart. I don’t care. I believe people can change, and I hate seeing her be unfairly ostracized for her prior mistakes. This doesn’t mean I believe she has made up for what she’s done yet, but I trust she will with time.”

Yasuna tilts her head to the side. “And why do you trust her if you don’t mind me asking? Because from what I can see, little has changed since she tried to get you to march naked in front of the male dorm. Well… Besides you being neighbors right now… But, considering you have individual rooms, I doubt that even makes a difference.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t.”

“Then I don’t get it.” She declares, throwing her hands up in the air.