Stacking The Deck (Yugioh GX Insert)

With a yawn, he blinked open his eyes blearily and made to sit up.

Only to yelp in pain as his forehead struck something hard, an audible thud resounding out loud and a ringing pain tearing through his skull. "Fuck!" he cursed, rolling to the side, yelping gain when he fell off balance and struck the floor.

He groaned in pain, "God damn man," he hissed quietly, massaging his head, "That's gonna leave a bruise." he bemoaned, eyes clenched shut.

It took a few moments of rubbing at the new sore spot on his head before the pain lessened enough for him to open his eyes without complaint. He blinked groggily, taking in the room around him, his eyes swiveling around the room idly.

A moment later they shot wide open and he bounced up on his feet, "What the hell!?" he panicked, head rapidly turning from side to side as he looked around him. The small room with warm brown painted walls and a soft pink carpet. The triple bunk bed completely immaculate except for the bottom bunk, the one he'd just rolled out of. The desk with an older model computer screen and processor on it to his left. The closet in the front corner of the room and right next to it, between it and the front door a sink and cooker combo thing, he didn't even know something like that existed, it looked almost alien.

Then there was the completely foreign posters up on the walls, all except one that looked like the duel monsters card Vampire Genesis, he remembered it well, having bought the vampire and Red Eyes Darkness Dragon starter decks when they came out from Toys' R' US years ago.

He snorted as his eyes landed on the final item of the room, laying completely inconspicuous in the middle of the room. A duel disk, one of the rounded versions he'd never really gotten into, preferring the dark blue evil version from the original series.

He looked around him suspiciously, "Where the hell am I?" he wondered. Especially since this room felt really familiar to him, as if he'd spent a lot of time here before.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he walked over and picked up the duel disk, sliding open the slot to check out the deck within, it'd been ages since he'd played with Yugioh cards. To his disappointment it was empty, although he was rather surprised at how high tech the thing was, it felt actually real in comparison to the crappy plastic versions he'd used before. He slid it up his arm and his eyes widened again as it beeped and automatically clipped onto his wrist and fastened itself, "Woah!" he exclaimed.

It let loose a few beeps before the blue screen in the middle lit up with a name. Yarden Odhar. Huh, he blinked. The first name was just another variation of his actual first name, and the family name was Gaelic, he was rusty as hell with the language, but he recognized the word 'Odhar' anywhere. His family name literally meant 'Son of Odhar'. When fully translated, and taken a step further, his name altogether, meant something along the lines of, 'The descending, conquering, son of the dark one.'

Freaky.

He swallowed heavily. A suspicion began to form. But no, it couldn't be! That was just too insane to think about, it couldn't actually happen could it? He ran a hand through his hair, noting through his messy fringe that it was still the same, the dark brown with blonde highlights running through it. He looked himself over for the first time and panicked a bit again when he realized that one, he was wearing different clothes than he fell asleep in, a par of black sweatpants and a white hooded tank top, he'd gone to bed last night in just a pair of boxers.

And two, his body felt different. Bigger, but smaller at the same time. Storming over to the closet he wrenched it open and muffled a shout of hysteria. He looked completely different! His eyes were brown now, not the bright blue they were before. His jaw was more pointed. His nose smaller. And most of all, he was a few inches taller than he remembered, yet at the same time slimmer in the shoulders, he remembered being a lot stockier than he was now. He wasn't thin, actually maybe decently fit, but he'd started working out and hitting up the gym when he was 12, the boy looking back at him lacked the broadness of his own shoulders and thrust of his chest.

The most incriminating thing of all though, was the bright red jacket hanging beside his mirror alongside a bunch of other clothing. He staggered back, idly noting his hands were shaking as he balanced himself against the bed behind him.

"Oh god no." he despaired. Everything was becoming more clear, things were coming back to him. He knew this room, or at the very least had seen very similar rooms. Both in the Yugioh GX anime and the Tag Force games.

He swiftly rounded on his feet and launched a right fist at the wall as hard as he could. Muffling a cry of pain as his knuckles embedded into the plaster of the wall leaving a small dent. The pain helped him clear his head. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes. He had to think!

This was either the most real dream he'd ever had, which shouldn't be possible since for the most part when you knew a dream was a dream you woke up. Or this was real. And all the things it entailed were real as well.

The Shadow Riders, the Sacred Beasts, the Society of Light, fucking Yubel! And here he was without a fucking deck. And he had nowhere to go.

"Think dumbass!" he snarled to himself. He pushed back any worry for why he ended up here, or his family back home, they didn't matter right now, only making sure he survived did. There was another currency for duelists in Yugioh wasn't there? Especially in Duel Academy. He patted himself down and almost cried in relief when he felt a familiar weight in his pocket, almost like a mobile phone.

The PDA he remembered it was called vaguely. He swiped it on, quickly finding the profile tab and almost roared in frustration when he saw what looked back at him.

Name – Yarden Odhar

Year – First Year

Dorm – Slifer Red

Day – 02

DP – 0

He could have cried like a little girl then and there. He had no deck and no duelist points to buy card booster packs with to make a deck. He had no deck to win points in reverse.

But no he could work with this still. It said it was day two, hopefully he was in Zane's year or something, give him time to prepare. And if Tag Force was anything to go by, there were cards left all over the place at Duel Academy. Especially by rich assholes like Chazz who threw away any card they deemed weak without even attempting to understand how they could be used.

Yarden – like it or not that was who he was now – had no such problems. For one, he really needed the cards. For two, he'd had to make do with really weak cards in the beginning of each Yugioh game he played, he knew quite a lot about them and how to use them. He was never so thankful for those in game chain tutorials than he was now.

Wait!

"Weak cards!" he hissed in realization, an idea springing to mind. The Reject Well. That place with all the duel spirits and abandoned cards Chazz went to when he needed to make a deck to face his older brother.

"How do I find it?" Yarden racked his brain trying to remember the episode he watched years ago in detail. It took him a few moments, but he pieced it together and remember, it was Banner that told Chazz all about the cards. He nearly pumped his fist in victory.

He hurriedly kicked off his clothes, taking a moment to compare his size down below and sighing in relief for a moment when he estimated them about the same length and girth. Then he pulled on a pair of dark grey jeans, a short sleeve black top and threw on the red blazer over the top of it, leaving the jacket open simply because it looked so much better and then pulling on those funky red boots that went with the jacket.

He admired himself in the mirror for a moment and smirked, "Not bad mate," he whistled with a laugh. He had to keep upbeat after all. He checked the time on his PDA noting it was 7:24am before slipping it into his pocket and heading out the door.

As he closed the door behind him, Yarden let the salty ocean air breeze over him and shivered in delight when the warm sun basked down upon him, "Good shit," he commented to himself, looking around the landing he was standing in and noticing that just like the tag force protagonist, he got the end room.

Awesome.

He made his way down the stairs and made his way over to the second door on the bottom, thankfully he remembered the room Banner stayed in thanks to remembering that Gravekeeper's duo of episodes. He rapped on the wooden door twice and then waited.

A few moments later he heard the sound of movement inside before the door swung open. He had to fight the urge to shout happily when the long haired man in the white shirt, clutching his tubby cut to his chest with one arm came into view. He thought Banner was awesome in the show, he wished he had a teacher like him in school, so damn chill.

"Ah Mr. Odhar how can I help you?" Banner peered at him over his small spectacles, a warm smile on his face.

Sweet, no problems on that front. It looked like he indeed was a student at Duel Academy, how bitcin' was that?….Oh, right. How best to go about this? He should have thought this through more. Oh well, best to wing it then.

"Yo sir," Yarden greeted with a wave, "I need your help." he came out bluntly.

Banner blinked? Maybe, it was hard to tell when his eyes were kept so narrowed, "How so my young student?" he asked, "What appears to be the problem?" the alchemy teacher questioned.

He decided to just continue being blunt, he wasn't one for beating around the bush. "My deck is missing." he replied promptly.

Banner staggered slightly and Pharaoh even let out a slight hiss, "It has been stolen?" he asked, now peering at him intently.

Yarden shrugged his shoulders, "Don't know," he replied, "I left my cards in my duel disk last night, and when I woke up they were gone." He'd given another quick look over the room just to make sure and hadn't found anything. Not even in the deck container strapped to the back of his jeans.

"This is most troubling," Banner sighed deeply, "And you just arrived yesterday and have no points, so buying new cards is out of the option yes?"

Yarden simply nodded.

Banner sighed again, "I shall contact Principal Sheppard and see if he won't give you an advancement on points for the moment to pay back later." he said.

Tempting, oh so tempting. Even a mish mash deck of booster pack cards would be better than the deck he'd make from the reject well, but a plan had come to mind almost as soon as he thought of the reject well cards.

Duel Spirits.

Jaden had proven it was possible to bond with them in regards to Yubel and Honest. Their powers stacked on top of his abilities as the Supreme King had made him individually far more powerful than even Yugi and Atem. What if he could bond with duel spirits as well? He'd get awesome powers, it made him salivate a bit just to think of it.

Besides, he was always up for a challenge. Sure he'd love a red-eyes deck, but there'd be no challenge stomping everyone down with one of those.

"It's fine professor, that's not why I bothered you." Yarden cut in, "It's that, last night a few older students told me about a place called the Reject Well, a place where people ditch their unwanted cards, I figured I'd just go there and grab them all."

Banner raised an eyebrow above his glasses at him, "You do realize of course that those cards are all very weak and considered in general to be useless, yes?" he asked pointedly.

Yarden had the funny feeling that he was being tested. But he already had an answer pre-prepared, and a true one to him at that, born from his experience in the yugioh games. "There's no such thing as a useless card," he retorted cleanly, "I know from experience even the oddest and weakest of seeming cards can have their uses."

A large smile then spread across the black haired alchemist's lean face, "An excellent answer young student," he replied, reaching over with his free hand to pat him gently on the shoulder, "Come in, come in my young friend, I shall draw you up a map...but I must warn you.."