Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's: Rainbow Stardust [SCRAPPED]

Chapter 6: Yusei Really Said F--- The Police

"Entering Speed World Field Spell. Turbo duel nearby."

Yusei only caught the tail end of Sylvia's second-ever turbo duel (at least, as far as any of them were aware). At her side she had The Weather Painter Aurora, Snow, and Sun, while Thunder had just recently been banished to activate Drizzling Canvas's effect.

Meanwhile, the other officers were struggling to keep up with the fast pace of her cards' effects. Judging by the spectator's stats on his screen, only a couple of turns had passed, yet she was all but sweeping them in a matter of moments. From the looks of it, she didn't even have any handicaps on her from dueling two-to-one, either. She was managing just fine on her own.

Is she really as defenseless as she seems...? Yusei wondered. It certainly didn't look like it. Then again, that situation with Nervin was very real. If he had come any later, he didn't want to think about the state he would've found her in. She may duel well, but she also needed to be able to properly defend herself.

The duel wrapped up before long. Yusei was fascinated by how her cards worked (it seemed the Weather Painters weren't the type of cards that destroyed their opponents' cards or monsters, opting instead to return them to the hand or weaken them with other methods), but it was getting late and those officers were definitely lackeys compared to Trudge. He could only hope Trudge would keep his word, and maybe even punish those two for going against his orders as a bonus.

When Sylvia climbed onto the highway and finally found him, she leaned her Runner on its kickstand, stood up, stretched as long as she could, even going so far as to stand on her tip-toes, and flopped unceremoniously to the ground with a huge groan. She didn't even bother removing her helmet, or even lifting her cyan visor.

Yusei stared down at her, pretending to be unamused. "Are you just going to lay there all night?"

"Let me freeze to death," she whimpered.

"Why?" Yusei shrugged. "You handled yourself well out there. You fended them off."

"Are all Security officers that weak...?" she mumbled. "That felt too easy. I thought for sure I was gonna lose."

Yusei couldn't care less how strong Security was. All that mattered was that she separated from him and didn't die or get caught in the process, which was good enough for him.

"We've got work to do," he told her, lightly kicking her armpit with his shoe. "C'mon. You actually will freeze if we stay up here too long. Nights are unforgiving here."

"I've had worse," she sighed, sitting up and crossing her legs. "More importantly... Do we know that everyone's okay?"

"They should be," he affirmed, then nodded in her direction. "How's your arm?"

"My arm...? Oh." Sylvia rolled up her sleeve. "It's... still there. Er-- the mark, I mean, not... my entire arm. You can... I mean," she bent it and waved it around. "Obviously it's still here too, but like--"

"If it doesn't hurt, then that's good," Yusei interrupted her. "Let's go home."

"R-right..."

But Sylvia didn't stand back up when Yusei urged her to. Instead, her eyes were fixed to the sky, wide and curious, as she searched for something that wasn't there. She was still staring even by the time Yusei sat on his Runner and lowered the visor on his helmet.

Sylvia did space out at times, lost in her own world somewhere. Sometimes she muttered to herself, as though she were talking to someone else. Yusei always thought it had something to do with the drawings and stories she wove before making the decision to join him, but even while working on her Runner, he heard her muttering sometimes. Other times she didn't mutter and just stared at nothing in particular, or idly kneaded her own clothes in her fingers or fidgeted with pointless gadgets, pressing buttons, making noises... And sometimes, when she wasn't talking, she was humming instead. (She had a pretty good voice, though since she was so skittish, no one dared point it out to her.)