4 Card Spirits 4

By time Yarden had made the trek to the Reject Well and then made his way all the back form the deeper parts of the forest and made it to his classroom, it was already 9:37. First period had began at 9 exactly. He was more than a half an hour late to his first class. Not exactly a great way to make a first impression - as soon as he opened the sliding automatic door and stepped within the classroom everything went entirely quiet and all eyes were on him.

He could have been there a good twenty minutes earlier if he didn't ask a few of his new friends to find any cards laying about the area and bring them to him. But, in his defense, as far as Tag Force went, there was a ton of useful cards just laying around, hell he remembered picking up an Amphibian Beast once, and that was a level 6, one tribute summon, 2400 attack point beat stick that would be amazing for where he found himself. Sadly he wasn't that lucky, but Mask of the Accursed and Burst Breath were two rather great cards when used properly and well worth being a bit extra late when he was already late to begin with.

"Ah Mr Odhar, so good of your lazy self to finally roll out of bed and shamble your way up to class and join us," Crowler drawled as he turned from the board where he had been previously pointing at a projected card.

There was a mattering of hushed snickers coming from the row of Obelisk's and even some of the Ra's, but he ignored them with a practiced ease and held back the urge to make a sarcastic response to Crowler's mocking. "Sorry Doctor Crowler," he apologized as sincerely as possible. It was hard to not just sneer it out, "My deck went missing during the night and I had to prepare a spare, Professor Banner said he'd tell you in advance just in case I was late."

Crowler pursed his lips. Yarden could practically see the gears turning in his head, whether to ridicule him again in spite of his apology and ignore the words of a fellow professor, or let it go. "Yes I'd heard from Banner you headed out to collect that useless scrap from the card dumping grounds," He drawled insultingly, as expected. Yarden ignored the multitude of angered growls and howls flooding my ears at the insult within his mind.

'How dare that hideous woman insult me!' Serpent Night Dragon hissed venomously. It took quite a bit of effort for him not to burst out laughing.

He was too much of a petty man at this point in time to give up any chance to try and insult a Slifer and lord the apparent superiority of the blue's over a red. "Hey now doctor, just because their previous owners were complete idiots that couldn't use them properly, doesn't mean the cards are bad." Yarden low key sniped right back. Judging by the way his face drew up in an affronted manner, the good doctor managed to grasp the insult.

It was mostly Obelisk students who tossed their cards away there.

"Hah, that's just so fitting for a piece of Slifer sludge like him," someone laughed from the Obelisk row, drawing all eyes in the class. The familiar form of Chazz's bespectacled minion Yarden recognized him as, "Rooting through the trash, right where he belongs."

"Quite, young Taiyou," Crowler smirked and nodded his head while the rest of the blue's exploded in laughter.

Yarden clenched his fist. If this was back home, he'd bounce over and kick the ever loving shit out of that pansy ass rich boy. But things worked differently where he was now, didn't they? "And just like an Obelisk pansy you sure do like to talk a big game, huh?" he shot back at Taiyou.

A hush fell over the class. The only sound coming form a muffled snicker down at the very front where Yarden could see a very familiar head of Kuriboh like hair. He casually glanced across the entire room, taking in his audience, his eyes meeting the lovely honey brown ones of the resident number one beauty Alexis Rhodes. She raised her eyebrow at him, but he merely smirked and turned away from her to focus on the Obelisk he'd just insulted. There would be time to ogle Alexis later, for now it was time to establish the pecking order.

And Yarden didn't quite like it when people thought they could step all over him. He tended to get violent.

"WW-what did you just say to me!?" Taiyou shot up from his seat and stood up glaring at Yarden.

Yarden just let his smirk stretch up tauntingly, "You heard me pansy." he replied. He lifted his arm up and showed the folded form of his duel disk attached to his arm, "Are you gonna do something about it or whine like a little girl?"

"That's it you loser, I'm gonna crush you and show everybody how pathetic you red's really are!" Taiyou shouted, pulling his own duel disk from under his desk and equipping it to his arm.

"Oooh I'm shaking in my red boots," Yarden taunted right back. This was working out oh so brilliantly for him. If it was anything like the games, then Slifer's earned much more DP if they beat an Obelisk because of their higher ranks. It was a reward and merit based system used to groom the up and comers of the world's most massive sport. A way to try and force the students to constantly improve towards the life of a pro duelist. According to the student handbook saved into the PDA at least. And heck, just one hundred DP was the equivalent of £10.

"Doctor Crowler shouldn't you put a stop to this?" Alexis stood up form her seat. Yarden noticed her casting an almost worried glance in his direction. Ever the nice girl, wasn't she? But there was no need, even with his haphazardly thrown together deck, if Taiyou was anything like his game counterparts he'd have little trouble.

"True my dear Alexis, but I think kicking off the year with an underdog dueling their superior would be quit exciting!" Crowler waved off her off. "Now boys, why don't you come down to the front so that everyone can get a good view of your duel."

"You hear that?" Yarden laughed at Taiyou, making his way down the stairs with the blue haired bespectacled boy hot on his heels "Even your own dorm head doesn't think you can win against me!"

"Damn Slifer sludge!" Taiyou cursed. It took even more effort for Yarden to not just bust out laughing at how pathetic the insult was.

Instead, he pulled his newly built deck from the card container strapped to his jeans and slipped them into his duel disk. He took a moment to just bask in the feeling as the duel disk beeped and came to life, un-compressing from his arm and lighting up to life. "Since I was first down the stairs, I think I'll take first move," the Slifer said to the boy opposite him.

"Fine, just get on with it." the Obelisk growled.

Yarden LP: 4000

Taiyou LP: 4000

'Not bad at all,' Yarden thought with a smirk as he looked over the first six cards he drew. For the first ever hand he drew in this world as a duelist, it wasn't too shabby at all. "Right then, to start my turn off I'll be using the spell card Foolish Burial to send one monster from my deck to the graveyard," he said. He slipped the card into the spell zone and a large image of the card appeared in front of him, showing off the grave stone image imprinted on it. He grabbed Serpent Night Dragon and slipped it into his graveyard.

"How stupid can you be?" Taiyou snorted, "I can't believe you actually sent one of your monsters to the graveyard. What a waste of two cards." He laughed.

Spoken like a true blue Obelisk mook. The only thing they understood was a beat stick strategy. Yarden honestly almost couldn't believe that the guy retained the Obelisk stupidity mentality from the anime. Not that he was going to complain mind you, it just made getting his first win all the easier.

"Whatever you say Taiyou," Yarden dismissed his words easily. "Next up, I'm going to summon Spirit of the Breeze in defense mode and throw three cards face down." As soon as he inserted the cards into his duel disk, two large face down cards appeared floating in front of him, and in front of them a lithe, green skinned, blue haired beauty clad in a silken yellow dress swirled into existence. 'Does it make me a cad that I'm totally checking her out?' she apparently heard his thoughts, since she turned slightly and gave him a cheeky little wink. If he was still a virgin, he'd probably have went all red faced.

Spirit of the Breeze (0Atk/1800Def/Level 3/Wind/Fairy/Effect)

That was a very interesting card for such a brazen guy to summon, especially as his first move Alexis mused. It had decent defense points and it had an interesting effect, but it just didn't seem like a card that would fit Yarden Odhar, especially with how confident he was in the face of an Obelisk. When they had met eyes, she had seen it, he had been amused by the situation he was in. There wasn't a shred of doubt in him that he couldn't beat Taiyou. It reminded her of a certain other student in the red house.

She'd learned her lesson in not underestimating Slifer's with Jaden, not only had he beaten Crowler and his legendary card, last night if his duel with Chazz had another few minutes, he would have taken him down as well. Could this guy be on a similar level?

"Ooh, she's cute, I wonder where I can get one?" Mindy gushed, breaking her from her thoughts.

"Not exactly a strong start with how he was acting huh?" Jasmine commented. propping her head up on one hand, "He's pretty good looking, but too bad a Slifer will always be a Slifer huh?"

Alexis wondered how so many people could so easily dismiss the fact that he had three face downs on the field and had sent a card to the graveyard for a reason. Even Jasmine, someone who watched her duel constantly and had quite a versatile Harpie Deck still focused so much on just flooding the field with Harpie's to power up her Harpie's Pet Dragon.

Alexis had the feeling that Yarden using Spirit of the Breeze was more of a feint than anything else. He didn't seem the type to shore up his life points and play stall tactics, not with how in your face he seemed to be when someone was calling him out. Right now, it was just a matter of seeing if Taiyou could see beneath that elitist attitude of his before he got taken out.

'Let's see how this plays out,' Yarden thought to himself as he ended his turn.

"After talking big you sure couldn't follow through huh? Draw!" Taiyou mocked then drew a card. He looked over the six cards in his hand before shooting a smirk Yarden's way, "Lemme show you how a real duelist does things Slifer sludge! I'm gonna start off by summoning by Lord of D and equipping him with The Flute of Summoning Dragon!"

Lord of D (1200Atk/1100Def/Level 4/Dark/Spellcaster/Effect)

A man in draconic bone armor appeared before Taiyou, before a golden dragon head shaped flute appeared in his hands. "Now that he has the flute equipped I can go ahead and special summon two dragon type monsters from my hand," Taiyou continued, "First I'll summon my Blackland Fire Dragon!"

He put the card down on the duel disk and in a swirl of color a large green skinned dragon, as tall as two cars stacked on top of each other burst into existence, standing tall on four legs, and golden horns jutting out from its head.

Blackland Fire Dragon (1500Atk/800Def/Level 4/Dark/Dragon/Normal)

'Wow,' Yarden held back a whistle. It looked so badass to see a freaking dragon like this up close and personal. He'd seen a bunch when he made his deck, but still, it was so amazing to see in real life.

"Now get ready, because the next one I'm bringing out is one of the ace's of my deck!" Taiyou shouted, lifting a fist into the air, "Dragon born from the deepest of cursed flame, come forth and burn away my enemies! Come, Curse of Dragon!"

Wait, what!? A chant? Did he have to chant when he brought out one of his ace monsters as well?

A literal massive fireball flared into existence before Taiyou before exploding in a shower of golden sparks to reveal a large, serpentine golden dragon, with a large bladed golden tail and two golden wings flaring out from its neck area.

Curse of Dragon (2000Atk/1500/Level 5/Dark/Dragon/Normal)