365 Days of Starshipping (Part 1)

Call From the Twins

6/21/19

Judai's phone started ringing early the next morning during breakfast, making everyone pause in confusion because the only one who usually got calls at that time was Crow.

"It's the twins," Judai noted, looking down at his phone and sharing a slightly worried glance with the others before picking it up, "Hello?"

"Hey!" Lua greeted, sounding cheery despite the underlying tense tone in his voice, "First of all, nice victory yesterday at the tournament! We had some last minute classwork to get done so we couldn't go, but we left it on the TV in the background."

"Thanks," Judai replied, smiling at his excitement and going to say something more before he was cut off.

"Second of all! Could you uh... come over? Like, right now?" Lua asked, sounding more sheepish than anything else. Judai could clearly imagine the boy rubbing the back of his head while he was talking with the way he said it.

Still, the question made him pause, putting down the forkful of food he was about to eat as he frowned, "I can, yeah - just eating breakfast right now. Did something happen?"

Normally Luka was the one who called when they did and Lua would take over half-way though, which made this an even odder call than before. Judai's question was very clearly answered a second later, though, when he heard Luka yelling something in the background.

He had never heard Luka raise her voice so loud, but Lua was laughing and getting yelled at soon after, so Judai figured it couldn't be something too serious. Those twins had a really strong bond, after all.

"Apparently there's a duel spirit playing pranks or something and Luka can't get them to go away or calm down," Lua explained after calming down from his laughing fit, "Told me that they told her they were from the spirit realm and just wanted to play, but they've been physically affecting stuff and we've already had some chairs and a table get knocked over by them."

"Ah, it's one of those," Judai stated knowingly, feeling a lot better now that he knew what was going on, "Yeah, that happens sometimes. I'll come over soon, but in the meantime see if Luka can get some more info out of it - things like which specific area they're from and their name."

"Will do! Thanks Judai!" Lua exclaimed. Right before the phone hung up, Judai briefly heard him repeating the information to Luka, though a slightly less loud yell was his response as it was cut off.

"What happened?" Crow asked once he turned his phone off, "You looked worried for a second there."

"Just an errant visiting duel spirit, they like to pop up sometimes and wreck havoc," Judai replied, starting on finishing the rest of his food quickly, "This one's pretty much harmless though, it's just high energy. Said it wanted to play as the reason it crossed over, so they probably felt the twins' spirit connection, saw that they were kids, and decided they were the best playmates."

"Huh, I thought they couldn't interact with things unless they had someone materialize them," Crow blinked, the other two looking satisfied with the answer before going back to their coffee - Yusei and Jack had already finished their food and were both on their second cup of coffee.

That was good, because once Judai was done he and Yusei needed to leave, pronto - Judai wanted to help them out and prevent anymore accidental mayhem as soon as possible, but he also partly wanted to witness Luka yelling at a duel spirit to go away. It sounded hilarious over the phone and he really wanted to see it in person.

"They can't under normal circumstances, but every once in a while a spirit either figures out how to get here or finds a portal or tear or something between dimensions. When they do that, they drag along a lot of excess duel energy, but its effects are weird because of how it got here," Judai explained with a shrug, knowing that it went a little over Crow and Jack's heads, "Don't worry too much if you don't get it, there's a lot of nuanced shit when it comes to duel energy and magic."

"That's an apt way of putting it," Yusei snorted, "I don't want to think about how many times I've had to redo stuff because of said 'nuanced shit', and then sometimes it changes on you and acts completely different."

"Hearing this stuff makes me incredibly glad that I don't have to deal with it," Jack huffed, Crow nodding alongside him in silent agreement.

Both Judai and Yusei ended up laughing at that, sharing a pained, sympathetic look that only ended up making them laugh more - after all, it may be a pain to deal with, but they both lived and breathed duel energy and magic. It may be in different ways, but they loved it all the same and wouldn't give it up for the world.