Chapter 16. Unexpected Meeting

The duel began, and I watched it with the rest of the main cast. But something was bothering me. Zane kept looking at me throughout the duel. I eventually got fed up with it and turned back to look at him.

He looked away, but I kept staring. He seemed to squint a bit, showcasing his slight unease. “See? It’s a little awkward to just stare at someone. Just say what you wanna say.” I sighed and looked away from him. Jayden and Syrus were too busy watching the fight to notice Zane and I talking, but Alexis was listening in. “What makes you think that I was the cause of Syrus to be like that?” I scoffed at him and looked at him incredulously. “You serious?” I sighed knowing that the way that he talks is sometimes harsher than he means.

‘I have to tell him, rather than berate him.’ I sighed again to calm myself more before talking. “The kid has the best duelist in the world as his brother… Now his brother tells him he is not good enough to duel. I think it would do a  number on the kid’s mind… Now I know you think that ‘If that was enough to stop him then he was never good enough to duel in the first place’, but sometimes people need support from just the people closest to them to be strong in facing opponents. You just ripped the kid’s support beams and called him weak because you did. So that’s my thoughts, you can always just talk to him to know for sure rather than tip-toeing around it by asking me… Here let’s test out my hypothesis… Hey Syrus!!”

I called over Syrus to the surprise of Alexis and Zane. Jayden was still too excited about Bastion's duel with making his water dragon. I waved over Syrus, and he came over closer to me than Zane. I then looked at Zane to get him to notice how his brother was more comfortable with me than Zane. “See?... Hey Syrus… Who is the top duelist in the school?” I looked over to Syrus who jumped a bit at that question and kept looking at Zane and away from him in fear. “Zane is the top in the school…” I nodded at him. “Right… Thanks bud. I don’t know why I blanked on that right now.” I patted him on the back as he just shivered a bit under Zane’s gaze.

I looked back at Zane and sighed. “Maybe I could have phrased that better, I’m a little like you with sounding a bit too mean for things, but I think you get my gist.” Just after I said that, the duel was over in a spectacular form. We all watched as Chazz was getting washed up from the water dragon’s last attack to win the duel. I yawned from how early I had to wake up. “Talk to him for once… Instead of feeling the need to bury the shame of being related.” I said to Zane quietly before I left out of the door.

I sighed as I left the duel room. ‘Maybe Zane won’t have to die from a heart attack in the future if he is closer to his brother.’ I began to walk around the forests again, trying to clear my head of how heated I got when talking to Zane. I knew he meant well, at least for now, but he irked me sometimes. I got far into the woods, and had a thought. As I was thinking it, the girls were already appearing, showing that they were on board. “You girls wanna just walk around with me?” I said with a smile as I made sure to keep my eyes at head level.

It was failing though… All of these girls were the personification of different types of beauty. It was like walking with supermodels, a guy can only have so much willpower when Dreamsprite is actually naked! I took sneaks and peeks, much to the girls’ amusement, and I have to say that they were all goddesses in terms of beauty. We kept walking around, with no real goal in mind. The girls had already known the most notable stuff about me when we bonded. So they were all intrigued by my old world.

They were confused about how my world worked. I laughed a bit at how different it truly was. “ Are there no duel spirits?” “Yup.” “Does that mean there's Dueling?” “Well… The cards exist, but we didn’t have technology for holograms and the like.” “What do you guys do then?” I shrugged at that question. “Video Games?” “So you all solve things with Video Games?” I laughed at Unhappy Maiden for saying that. Causing her to frown and look away. “Oh I’m sorry.” I chuckled while looking at her with a calming smile. “I wasn’t laughing at you, ok? It was just a bit amusing to think it could be that way.” She nodded while still frowning.

“Depends on the scale of the fight. Most times it’s settled with words, or devolves into screaming matches.” I sighed from thinking of the latter. I used to get horrible tinnitus from people reaming me for my charming personality. “Other times it’s settled with fists.” I almost had a run in with that type one time. I had to run as fast as I could to not get my teeth shattered from this drunk I spoke openly to. “And then the worst fights are settled with guns.” I really didn’t want to talk about anything worse than that, and give anybody funny ideas. Luckily I didn't have to deal with anything like that before.

I shook those thoughts away and refocused on the girls hovering around me. They only felt comfortable to fully materialize in my room, so only I could see them right now. Which would look really strange to anyone watching me talk to myself. ‘Just hope they don’t try and send me to the loony bin.’ I scoffed a bit from that trope, while continuing my journey through the trees. The girls kept talking to me and asking me questions about my world I was happy to explain.

We kept doing that, until I heard rustling in the bushes from around me. My head snapped over to see what was sneaking up on me, and I was surprised to see a cyborg monkey running through the trees at me. “Aw C’mon!!” I yelled in exasperation and anger. I was fine with letting that play out just like in the show, and never going near that monkey. “I hate monkeys…” I sighed under my breath, as the monkey ran over to me.

After it ran over it stopped at a good distance. I nodded slowly while not maintaining eye contact. “Nope…” I said while walking away. “You’re just gonna leave him!? He’s in pain and needs help!” Dreamsprite yelled at me. I sighed and looked back at the angry ape. I frowned and shook my head. “Fine… But only if you help calm him down so I can get his mechanics off… And I swear if he throws his shit at me, I’m blaming you.” Dreamsprite smiled at me while materializing. The monkey was frightened at first from seeing a person suddenly appear before his eyes, but as he looked at her he gained a sense of calm.

I slowly walked up to the monkey while he almost seemed sedated from Dreamsprite. I went over and grabbed his helmet, and before he realized what I was doing, I ripped it off of him. And with the helmet gone, all the rest of the electronics attached to this monkey fell off. The monkey was confused and looked around. He then began staring at me. “Go on…” I waved him off as I took all of his electronics off with me. He gave me a few calls of happiness as I walked off. After he hopped off I began to run as well. “Thank you for helping that poor soul.” Dreamsprite said to me as she caught up.

I nodded at her while still running to the edge of the island. “It’s just something you asked. Don’t worry about it.” She smiled wider while tracing her fingers on my neck teasilly. “So all I have to do is ask hmm?” I blushed a bit while frowning. “That’s good to know.” Suddenly, Spirit of the Breeze came out of nowhere and began to play with my hair as I was running. “Ok I get it, but I need to make sure that the tracking they might have on this will get dumped in the ocean. Hopefully the scientists will think the monkey killed himself from stress.” The girls giggled at my deflection and disappeared.

I finally made it to a steep cliff facing the bone chilling water below. I took a deep breath and tossed all of the circuitry in the water. After I was done with that I immediately ran in another direction from where I came from. After a bit more running I decided that I had gone far enough. I went back to walking while returning to my dorm.