Chapter 21. Punishment

I woke up with my alarm blaring at me. I groggily hit the snooze button and started to get up. Dreamsprite was still gripping my arm with her whole body. I frowned knowing what that meant, and sighed while holding my head to try and calm myself down while trying not to move my wrist. “You sure you aren’t some sort of Dryad or succubus?” I said to her fake sleeping face. I flicked her forehead lightly to get her to stop pretending she flinched a bit, and then smiled while wrapping herself around me. “You don’t seem to mind too much…” She said in her sultry voice. I frowned while blushing as she giggled at me. She had sat herself down on my lap, and it was taking all of my will to not me late for class at this point.

It was then that I was saved by the bell of the door being knocked on. “Jay said to wake you up for breakfast!” I heard Syrus yelling from behind the door. I heard Dreamsprite click her tongue with her impish smile. “Next time, you better have enough energy for me to enter dreams…” She whispered in my ear as she faded away while biting my earlobe lightly. I sighed as I shivered from that last attack of hers. “Yea! I’ll be right out!!” I yelled to Syrus as he went away. I took a few more deep breaths to steady myself before getting out of bed and changing.

I got ready for the day, and left to get some breakfast. I made my way to my usual spot. I sat down and began to eat my breakfast along with Jayden, and Syrus. “Are you feeling better?” Syrus asked worriedly. I looked at him with some confusion for a second before remembering what he was talking about. “Oh right…” I rolled my eyes from how dumb it was of me to forget. “Yea I’m fine. That Duel Spirit just took some of my energy to beat. It came back as I rested.” Jayden then started asking questions with food in his mouth. “So… Duel Spirits are real?”

I nodded with a small smirk as I heard his little buddy in his deck chirp. Jayden heard it too and looked at his Duel disk with some slight confusion. I chuckled at him, and looked over at Syrus who didn’t hear anything and seemed confused. I then felt another pull from my pocket. I took some of the Duel Spirits out of my jacket and felt the one that felt he was gonna take off from my hands. I gave a smirk as I read what card it was, but a little confused why only now he seemed to want to join Syrus. “Hey Syrus.” I got his attention, and he looked over at the card I was holding. “I think this card belongs to you.” I said with a smile of seeing another spirit find a home.

Syrus took the card and gained a strange feeling while holding it in his hands. Almost like the card would fly out of his hands if he wasn’t careful. He just stared at this card that gave him a strange sense of wonder, and wanting to fly in an almost trance. “Thanks…” He gave his thanks while still all of his attention on this card. He felt like that this card would bring him to new heights in his Dueling, and wanted to add it to his deck.

Kiteroid/Machine/Effect/Level 1/ Atk:200 Def:400 Kiteroid

I smiled as Syrus, and finished up my food before getting us all to get to class. “C’mon guys! We gotta make it to class!” I yelled as I was getting up from my spot. “Totally! What class did we have for today again?” Jayden stood up along with me and gave a thoughtful expression as he tried to remember what we were doing today. I shrugged as I didn’t know either, but Syrus who was woken up from his stupor spoke up while standing as well. “We have tennis today.” Both Jayden and I sighed. We both did not want to do physical education. However I knew what this meant. There would be a Duel between Jayden and the tennis guy for Alexis’s hand in marriage. ‘Ugh… I swear if that happens I’m going to throw up in a garbage can.’

We all made our way to the school, and made our way to the tennis courts. I tried to sit out, but the teacher here actually was around so I had to play. I sighed as I tried to find another person who didn’t have a team yet either. I looked around to see a small Slifer guy, I hadn’t seen before wearing a hat that looked like it was ripped from a paper boy in the 1920’s. I walked over to him and he noticed my approach. “You wanna partner up?” He looked around silently for a bit before nodding at me. “Cool. Name’s Rakki.” I held out my hand.

He thought for a bit before taking my hand and shaking it too. His hand was tiny and almost soft. We both looked for a court and I noticed he didn’t talk much. Not that I minded, if he didn’t like to talk, then he didn’t. He pulled my sleeve to get my attention, and I noticed he was pointing at an empty court. “Good eye.” I said as we both walked over to the end of courts the school had. ‘Ugh… The sun bearing down is killing me. How are we supposed to play if we get heat stroke?’ I sighed and this brought the young boys attention to me. I shook my head at him. “Nothing, it’s just too hot right now to be exercising.” He nodded in agreement and we both made it to the empty court.

There was nobody else to play against though. “How about you go to the other side, and we can just play each other.” He nodded as he took the ball and walked to the other end of the court. He served and I was able to keep up with my advanced senses. I returned the serve and he was able to pass it back. We kept on like this for a bit before he made a mistake and I was finally able to get a point. I sighed as he went to get the ball. “We were supposed to take this easy. You keep throwing the ball on the opposite side of the court I’m on.” I complained, only to see him give me a smirk.

I frowned at him. “Oh… So it’s war is it?” I asked as he served again. “Hah!!” I yelled as I swung the racket to hit the ball as hard as I could. When I did, the ball took off. I realized I made a big mistake as I saw the ball fly off and closed my eyes while gritting my teeth, praying that it would hit nothing and I would just get a warning. “AHH!!” My prayers were unanswered. ‘I hate my luck…’ I sighed as I looked to see who I hit. I saw Crowler marching his way over to our court with Jayden in hand, and a black eye. “I was hit by not one! But TWO Tennis balls at the same time! And I would like to know who caused the other one!”

I sighed and raised my hand. “It was me.” Crowler scowled at me. “And why am I not surprised! You are coming with me too!!” I walked off behind Crowler and Jayden. The rest of the Obelisks were laughing at us the whole time, and Alexis was being hit on by Mr. Tennis fanatic. I sighed from just seeing him doing that. I was half wanting to just have one of my Spirits pants this guy, but I held off from doing stupid things with my friends.

Jayden and I were both brought into the nurses office with Crowler and the teacher of our class. The teacher was icing Crowler's black eye, and the back of his head where I hit him by accident. “I’m really, really, really, really, really, sorry… Isn’t that enough?” Jayden asked in a bothered kind of tone. “Absolutely not! Look at what you’ve done to my face!” “Well if you wanna punish us why don’t we just promise to stop playing tennis we don’t even like it anyway!” I sighed at Jayden just giving Crowler ammunition to kill us both. “Don’t like tennis eh?” He then looked at both of us and I frowned and sighed from what was coming. Just reaffirming to Crowler that I hated it as well.

“In that case… I can think of no better punishment for your crimes! Perhaps the captain can whip you both into shape in no time!” He smiled as he saw both of our expressions of displeasure. “C’mon! I said sorry! Does Rakki need to apologize too!?” Jayden then looked over to me and I shook my head. “It won't matter.” I sighed. Crowler nodded with a bigger smile. “Oh yes! You both will need to show how sorry you really are!!” Crowler began to laugh as both Jayden and I frowned at each other.