Chilling In The Schoolyard 12

sigh of relief left him and his shoulders slumped slightly as a tension that he didn't even realize was there fled his body, 'That was a close one.' Yarden grimaced internally.

If it weren't for Revived Serpent Night Dragon and Nightmare Sonic Roar, he would most likely have lost. And in an epic turn around. That Chimeratech Over Dragon was beyond anything he could bust out to fight head on, beyond Copycat. And on top of that, it could make attacks for as many monsters that made it up. So he would have had a 3700 attack beat stick coming for his ass with the ability to attack four times.

Cyber Dragons are literal bullshit. And only spirit shenanigans that basically let him manipulate casualty itself to draw the cards he needed, let him win.

Which was bullshit in of itself. Cybernetic Fusion Support was not supposed to work as a fusion card. It was only supposed to work as an enhancement for the users next fusion summon. On top of that, Chimeratech Over Dragon was supposed to destroy all other cards the user had on the field when it was summoned. Yet, that wasn't what happened.

Those two simple changes, made Zane's deck even more dangerous. Grave Fusion wasn't something that should have been around right now, beyond a few specific cards. And definitely not as a Quick Play spell card, that could be activated on the opponents turn from the hand and not from being set.

'Then again, this is the place where Spirit of the Breeze can use its effect in defense position and Carboneddon lets me special summon a dragon in any position, attack or defense position.' he told himself. It wasn't only him that would be benefiting from card changes.

This definitely showed the main weakness he had right now though. For all that his bond with his deck and spirits could let him combo all his random cards together, there was very little synergy between his cards.

All the combo's in the world, wouldn't get Yarden as far as he needed, if he blew his load on the first couple turns as he had been doing and they managed to counter him and survive it.

'Damn, I was hoping not to do have to do this for a while.' he thought inwardly. He would have to craft a specific deck from his cards, upgrade the synergy to help it feed the bond he had with his cards and enhance his decks ability.

He didn't want to do that though. Because, while they'd only been together a week or so, he didn't like the idea at all of forcing a bunch of his cards onto the bench. It felt too much like those scrubs who tossed them away. But, if he wanted to get anywhere, he was going to have to do it until he could craft specific decks to fit them all.

He was broken from his thoughts as he heard a chuckle coming from Zane. Yarden looked over to the older blue haired boy to see a, while not big one, an evidence smile on his face, "You played well," Zane complimented him, disengaging his duel disk and making his way over to the younger boy, "I apologize for trying to so blatantly rile you up earlier, the insults were uncalled for?"

Yarden blinked, "..Uh...what?" he uttered, confused.

Zane's smile grew a tiny bit, "I had a rough idea of how you were as a person thanks to what Alexis told me and from observing your promotion duel earlier, and thought that would be the best bet to have you come at me with your level best," the blue haired young man. "I apologize for calling you a thug due to the way you duel and questioning your connection to your cards. I in fact, do not think of you that way at all. After all, the way you play, has many similarities to my own style of dueling."

..It was an act all along? Yarden's thoughts trailed, and he thought back over their interactions earlier. 'That actually wasn't like season 1 Zane at all.' he realized. But, he actually hadn't thought much of it, because that attitude had just seemed so in tune with 'Hell Kaiser' Zane, the edgy masochist.

Still a total dick move. But, honestly, it didn't make him any more of a dick than Yarden was himself.

"..Alright, you're forgiven." Yarden shrugged, accepting it easily enough. After all, in the end, he hadn't been all that bothered until Alexis made it out that it was impossible for him to beat Zane. He'd always been prideful, both and himself, and now in his monsters. That was insult to his badass monsters that he couldn't let stand.

They were his precious friends and the ones who would provide the basis to make sure he survived the crazy shit storm that was approaching the Duel Academy.

"Thank you," Zane nodded lightly, "Still, it was uncouth of me to act like that to you. I wonder, will you accept a token of gratitude for your forgiveness?"

Yarden's head perked up. Free stuff? He was all about that, as long as it was useful free stuff.

"Sure, I'm fine with it." Yarden replied with a nod of his own.

"Alright then," Zane said, and then reached into his back pocket and pulled out, a small set of cards, holding them up for the younger red clad boy to accept, "Think of these as my thanks both for accepting my apology, and what you did for my little brother."

Huh, he knew about the thing with Syrus huh? Alexis must have told him, Yarden assumed.

Yarden accepted them gratefully, and his eyebrows rose when he leafed through though. The first two, were a really big surprise. Luster Dragon and Luster Dragon 2. Otherwise known as Sapphire Dragon and Emerald Dragon.

Two of the six Gem Dragons. Hyozanryu - The Diamond Dragon, Ruby Dragon, Sapphire Dragon, Emerald Dragon, Alexandrite Dragon and Labradorite Dragon. He quite liked them. And he even specifically used Labradorite Dragon in his Cave Ogre Dragon deck before he ended up here. Playing it with Cost Down was a really good way to get into Cave Ogre Dragon, since the cost for it was discarding a card. And if he had Monster Reborn in hand at the same time and the card he sent to the graveyard was a level four monster. Well, it made not only summoning Cave Ogre Dragon easy as pie, but also made it easier to lower the cards in the hand for the synchro dragons effect.

From what he knew. At this point in the timeline, they were pretty rare and expensive. He'd seen a few copies in the card shop, but he had been holding back from buying them because of the prices on them.

It was the third card though that was the most shocking.

Gauardragon Promineses. Level 1. Dragon and Effect monster. It had 500 attack points and 200 defense points. On top of that, the effect for it was really good!

'You can send this card from your hand or field to the GY, then target 1 Dragon monster you control; it gains 500 ATK/DEF until the end of your opponent's turn. If a Normal Monster(s) is sent to your GY, while this card is in the GY. You can Special Summon this card, but banish it when it leaves the field. You can only use this effect of "Guardragon Promineses" once per turn.'

It would play really well off of Serpent Night Dragon and his other strongest dragon monsters.

The thing was though. He'd never heard of a card like this before. Guardragon? It sounded like an archetype.

Zane leaned forward until his lips were beside Yarden's ear, "You played magnificently, but I noticed the true lack of synergy your deck has. For outright overpowering an opponent and taking them off guard early, your deck does amazingly, but it isn't a rewarding play style against decks that will attempt to stall you," the third year Obelisk Blue revealed quietly, so as to not alert the girls to what he was saying. As expected of Zane, he noticed the problem with his deck even when he'd only had a single turn, "The Luster Dragon cards served me well when I played a mainly dragon type deck, I hope they serve you as well as they did me. They're reliable cards, make sure to take good care of them Yarden."

"Hmph," Yarden snorted a bit of a laughter through his nostrils, "Thanks, and don't worry, I'll take real good care of them. But what's with this other card? I've never heard of it before?"

Zane pulled back and shrugged lightly at the younger boy, "To be perfectly honest, I don't know much about them myself," he admitted, "It was a prize I got for a small tournament I took place in over the summer, apparently for an all new dragon archetype. It's a good card, but it's wasted on me who has nothing that it can synergise with at all in my deck."

That was true Yarden noted. 'A whole new archetype though huh? And one that seems to favor normal type dragons.' he hummed internally. That, was really convenient considering what his main monsters were.

And it brought another thing to his notice. Things were a bit different here compared to the GX anime he'd seen, right? He'd need to look into what other archetypes had come into existence without him knowing.

Zane pat him on the shoulder, "Congratulations, you beat the best guy in this academy, you should be proud," he chuckled lightly again, "Don't think I won't be coming for a rematch though. Once I edit up my deck a bit, I'll be looking you out for round two.

Yarden chuckled and despite himself, it was easy to let the competitive spirit surge within him, "My deck will be much better by then, so don't expect to win." he replied challengingly.

"I'd be disappointed if you made it easy on me after turning my own tactic against me and overpowering the might of my Cyber Dragon's," Zane shot back without pause. He gave Yarden one last nod, before walking passed him, raising hand to wave to the blonde girl standing off to the side, alongside her two friends, "Alexis, I'm heading on back, I've got some things to think about."

And then Zane was gone, walking across the dock path and leaving. He was surprisingly very chill for a guy who just had his three year winning streak broken from some random no name first year with a hodge podge deck.