Duel Preparations

With the duel now finished, Clay fell to the ground in exhaustion from all the panicking he was doing during the duel. There was little time where he actually had a plan on how to win, the rest of the time he was just making it up as he went.

It was actually thanks to the spirits in his deck that he managed to scrape by with a victory in the duel, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone, not even to the spirits themselves. He had a reputation to keep after all.

"You duel well Clay; I can see why Crowler and Sheppard decided to make you an Obelisk student. Though there is one thing that irked me during our duel, you seemed to not be dueling like the others had described you." Zane walked up to Clay who was still sitting on the ground, puffing and panting.

"What gave you that impression?" Clay was now trying to think of a way to get out of his situation, he just internally exclaimed that he would never admit that he won purely on luck, and now someone was basically trying to force it out of him.

"I was told that you always know what to do, that there is no hesitation whatsoever in your moves, but during our duel you hesitated multiple times. It was almost as if you had never played with these cards before." Zane with his brilliant and observant mind easily deduced exactly what happened.

"Damn it, yeah you're right. See I just got most of the cards that you saw in my deck, since I was in a rush somewhere I didn't have the time to separate them, and they all ended up in my deck." Clay began rubbing the back of his head as he explained the situation he found himself in.

Zane widened his eyes a bit as he heard what Clay had just said, but no one would notice this difference except him. "Are you saying that you won using cards you had never used before?"

"Yup, brand new cards and a whole lotta luck!" There wasn't any point hiding the fact anymore, Zane would have found out anyway, and while he likely wouldn't have spread the news around much that Clay had made a mistake like that, Clay wanted to be on good terms with him for the talks he was going to arrange with Syrus.

"If that's true then you are even more exceptional than I gave you credit for. You played your cards like an expert, as if you knew every move even before they were made." Zane smiled and lent a hand down to Clay who graciously accepted it.

After the two finished their discussions, they proceeded to make their way to the Obelisk dormitory where some of the other students were waiting expectantly for the news of Clays defeat. A couple of students had seen Zane walk out with his duel disk and he never took a duel request unless someone interested him, and Clay seemed to be the only one it could be since he wasn't in the dorm either.

"Hey Zane, did you teach this Obelisk wannabe his place?" One of the braver students came forward and asked the question that everyone wanted the answer to.

"Actually, we tied." Without saying anymore Zane walked past the other students and climbed the stairs to his room. He ignored all the gazes on him that were wide mouthed and disbelieving at the words they had just heard come from his mouth.

During the walk back to the dorm Clay had the idea that they should declare that it was actually a draw instead of a lose Zane as to not ruin his chances of making it big when he leaves the academy. Zane was completely fine with declaring his lose but after several minutes where Clay didn't relent he finally gave in and accepted.

This not only made others see Clay as an equal to Zane but proved that he definitely deserved to be here. With the strongest duelist in the academy not being able to beat him, there was nothing anyone could do but accept that this Slifer was actually one of them.

Clay who hadn't attracted the attention of the students yet took his chance to walk past and also climb the stairs to his room where he climbed onto the bed and finally relaxed. Within moments Clay had fallen asleep, snoring loudly for the adjacent rooms to hear.

-----

"So, if I add you to my deck then I can do this with this card, but if I add this card instead then I can do this." Clay sat at his desk looking over his cards to make the best deck he possibly could before he had to do the tag tournament with Alexis.

Since he didn't have class, he had all the time in the world to look over his cards and make improvements where he saw fit. During this time, he had expected a call from Alexis, accepting the idea of receiving assistance with her deck.

Not a moment later, he saw that his PDA was vibrating, receiving a call from one Alexis Rhodes. He picked it up and with a smile on his face answered the call.

"Oh hello, who might be calling me at this ungodly hour?" He had a mischievous grin on his face as he saw the look of disappointment on Alexis'.

"You offered to help me improve my deck. I don't want to be the reason for us both to get expelled so I thought I should agree to get some help." There was frustration all over her face as she spoke those words.

Ever since she was a young girl she wanted to be more than just that, a girl. She wanted others to see her as she saw herself, a duelist. Now that she got that chance at Duel Academy there was no way she was going to give that away because of something as petty as pride.

"So, the damsel in distress wishes to seek advice from the wisest man in the castle. Very well, where do you want to meet?" Clay teased her one more time, but after seeing the veins popping from her forehead, he decided that maybe it wasn't worth it.

"How about meeting at the card shop? If there are any cards you think I should add then we can buy it immediately while we're there." With a sound idea both decided to meet up within half an hour.

"Hey Itsu's, how do you want to be the stars of the next big show?" Clay called for his original spirits who he had been ignoring for a bit. Not intentionally, it's just that they hadn't appeared much.

"Really, we thought that you had forgotten about us." Aitsu, the red brother answered with a whiney voice. It had been so long since they had experienced the thrill of battle that they were dying to get back in the ring.

"Yeah, with the cards here I should be able to whip up something to demolish anything that decides to stand in our way." There was absolute confidence in his tone once more. After the fiasco with Zane, he had been looking at all the ways he could use his newly acquired spirits in his decks.

"Are you sure that is wise, while these creatures are certainly... unique, they are undeniably weak in terms of power." The deep voice of Anotherverse Dragon spoke out his opinion, causing the Itsu's to go mad in a frenzy.

"Who you calling weak you invisible noodle! Come on, show yourself and I'll show you how we deal with spaghettis where we're from!" Soitsu raised his fists into the air as he challenged the still invisible dragon.

The Itsu's had recently bonded with Clay's soul, creating something of a link between his 'Champion of Time' title and his bonded spirits. Now, although they couldn't see Anotherverse, they could at least hear him.

"Calm down. I understand your concern Anotherverse, but your concern is misplaced in these spirits. You see, on my first day here these guys almost single handedly gave me the first win of the year. I would trust these guys with my life if I could, but they trusted theirs to me." Clay quickly mediated the quarrel and explained his reason for trusting the brother.

"As you wish, I will not interfere if it is not necessary, however I would like to ask that you include me in this new deck, as a sort of safety measure." With this one request Anotherverse relented and decided to allow the deck to be made.

"Sure, I intended for you to be in there anyway. I need a signature monster after all, and while the brothers are good, they are a group, not a signature monster so to say." With nothing in his way anymore, Clay packed up his cards and made his trek to the card shop on the island.

Within ten minutes Clay had arrived, and not seeing Alexis yet he walked up to the counter and talked with Ms. Dorothy for a bit. He even got some of his ordered cards, now he only needed to wait a bit longer and he would have all he needed to convince Riley to join his little group.

After another ten minutes, Alexis had arrived at the shop and said hello to Clay and to Ms. Dorothy.

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Hey people, I know it's been a while, but I still need to know if you want the opponents of the tag duel to be the Paradox brothers or some completely different people.

Do you even want me to write about it? Should I skip it and just say that he won, coz lets be honest, we all know that Clay is about to wipe the floor with whoever he faces as his opponent, unless its maybe Yugi and Kaiba, but they probs won't be in the selection for possible opponents.

Anyway, let me know who you want, otherwise I WILL USE THE PARADOX BROTHERS and that has already been done before.

AUTHOR OUT!