Duel Lyceum

Toying with Life

'Oi, Emily, slow down,' Jones yelled. Emily ignored him. She ran and climbed as though she ruled the world and everyone else was forced to follow her. When given a choice of whether to take the dangerous and longer path or the safer and shorter path, she would not hold her breath in forcing everyone to follow her dangerous escapades.

'No,' Emily said, 'you should just go faster.'

'Please Emily,' Miriam sounded as though she was on the verge of dying, and, as Lyder realised, she probably was, considering her heart condition is exacerbated through physical stress.

'Don't worry Emily, I'll follow you no matter what,' Edward said. He was right behind Emily in terms of speed, but while Emily had raw skill to thank, Edward her determination and perseverance. He had rocks digging into his skin from his feverish struggle to match Emily's speed.

Jones missed his footing and slid down to the nearest landing. 'Screw this!' he said. 'You know what, I want to play card games. I'm going back to the academy. I've wanted to test out my new deck for ages.' He turned to walk away. Lyder jumped down next to him.

'Me too,' Lyder said, 'although I just want to keep Jones company, he gets lonely.'

'I don't need company from dorm C trash. I should be with my true brethren at dorm A.'

'Sure.' But Lyder knew that Jones would get lonely without him.

'Wait,' Miriam said, 'they are really going. A they just going to leave us here? Come back!' But Lyder and Jones were already too far away to hear.

'How kind,' Edward said, 'leaving me with a personal, romantic, harem.'

Emily kicked him to the floor.

It was afternoon when Lyder and Jones made it back to the academy. It looked like a scene of a warzone with bodies littering the floor. Lyder ran up to one of them. Jones was less eagre to see a dead body and covered his eyes as Lyder touched it.

'She's alive,' Lyder said, placing two fingers on her neck and feeling a pulse. Her eyebrows were tense as though she was in the middle of a horrific dream. 'All these people can't just be sleeping as a nap. Perhaps it is a consequence for losing a duel.'

'Oh, some dorm C people are still here. I thought we got all of them.' Their eyes shot up, finding someone sitting up on a tree branch.

'This tournament has been a blast. You see, when people lose, they slip into unconsciousness, and when they are unconscious, they have no clue that I just took their entire deck from them. The locks in dorm C don't even work properly, their property is as good as mine, too.'

The man jumped down and held out his hand. 'Name's Striler. I'll take you on, one at a time.' A golden A-4 had been embroidered onto his chest pocket, denoting that he was a fourth year in dorm A.

Jones stood in front of him, refusing to shake his hand. 'I'll take you on. Thievery is for peasants.'

'No handshake?'

'Don't want to dirty my hand.'

'Ahh, you want the moral high ground? It won't help you in duel, you know.' Striler walked several paces back. 'Survival doesn't give a damn about morals. I'm going first.' Cards appeared in front of them. Striler took less than a second to formulate a plan for his turn. 'I summon Gladiator Ringleader in defence mode. Its effect allows me to summon an additional Gladiator monster per turn, which will be my Gladiator Ironfist. I set a card and end my turn.'