Kayda watched silently from above. The night was cold, the wind was real, and she was ready for some action. Her extra deck case pulsed at her side, but she pulled her shirt down over it and chose to ignore it. If she wanted to be lectured by a duel monster she would have made more fusion friends, since their monsters never seemed to shut up either.

She sighed and adjusted her perch on the branch she was squatting on so that her legs were dangling over the side. She was never able to explain it, but she always seemed to be perfectly at home in trees. It was almost like part of her bloodline was obsessed with birds, so much so that they even started to look like them a little. It was an illogical conclusion, but it was the only one that she could come up with.

Sometimes she even felt the impulse to squack and buy more bird themed Duel Monsters cards than she could afford. It was very weird, and there came a point where she couldn't even blame herself anymore. It had to be genetics, or something messed up like that.

Down on the ground below, a Hot Topic gift card sat wedged in a tree stump next to the walking path. It was a crude and obvious trap, sure, but in this dimension, how edgy you looked sometimes could mean the difference between life and death. The Cast Away dimension was the official name, but most people called it the Hot Topic dimension to spike the higher ups. Some people would kill to look like an emo badass, and not just depressed school kids, or nerds who think they are better than other nerds. Anyone would fall for that trap. Free shopping trip at Hot Topic was too tantalizing to pass up.

But Kayda wasn't just looking for anyone. No, she was keening to find a specific breed of broke, emo, and desperate. She was looking for duelists -- they were always the first to bite, even when it was the trap was obvious, and the card was Duel Monsters designed. They spent so much of their money on trading cards, duel disks, duel disk maintenance and other stuff like that, that they almost never had the money for an edgy go to look that even the most mediocre badass wannabes could accomplish.

And in a society where elegance is only outweighed only by the power behind your punches, most under classed duelists had to choose between their decks and the face they put up. Few got both, unless they were rich, or fortune enough to make turtle necks look edgy.

That being said, it was still a stupid plan and Kayda was 100% aware of that, but since this was a stupid fanfiction, she could ignore how ridiculous it was because it worked at least 65% of the time, and according to many copious amounts of professional statisticians, anything above 15% was considered good odds.

The pulsing in her extra deck case intensified, so much so that the lip flipped open and one of her cards popped out from the deck, flashing purple impatiently as it did. Kayda sighed and pulled the card out from the case. "What do you want, Dark Rebellion?"

Are you going to summon me today? I'm really tired of getting cooped up inside that box. Your extra deck monsters are a bunch of pricks. The dragon's voice echoed through her head like a boom older than time. Any other person would have been intimidated. Kayda was used to it by now.

"I seem to recall all of them saying the same thing about you, DR." She leaned one shoulder against the trunk of the tree. "I don't have the deck to support you. You know this."

Bull crap. All you need is two level four monsters and a will to summon my gorgeous bad self to the field. But, noooo...If you want a deck that supports me so bad, then get one! You hunt numbers, not polymerization cards. And it's not like you're saving for college, because heaven forbid the main character of a yugioh show show any interest in higher education – so you should be able to fund a deck. Where does all your money go if not towards Duel Monsters?

"Well if I told you that, then I wouldn't be a poorly thought out fanfiction protagonist, now would I?"

Jeez, you have your mother's talent for breaking the fourth wall – that, and your father's character design.

Kayda propped Dark Rebellion card up on a branch and leaned over it. "Say that again?" She stated monotonously.

I mean look at you, you even wear the same clothes as him. I mean you have the flowy back locks like Ruri did, but with the author's mediocre editing skills, you can barely see it. You even wear a tie like Yuto. I don't get it.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she decided at last.

Whatever. You should buy Raid Raptors.

"What?"

Raid Raptors. They're really cool, and you have a badass uncle who used to use them. Wonder what happened to him.

"Now I know you're insane."

Hey, you're the one who is talking to a trading card, you –

A flash of motion caught the corner of Kayda's vision.

"Not now, DR. It's time to rock and roll." She  quickly stuffed the card back into her case and leaped up lightly so that the balls of her feet were balanced gingerly on the branch. The leaves of the tree swayed against her weight, but it wasn't enough to throw any suspicion to the wind. Down below, a man in what looked like a long, hooded jacket approached the Hot Topic gift card, shaking his head. He glanced up and for a moment, Kayda was sure that he had seen her, but then a pair of golden eyes caught the light of the street lamps and he looked away again.

Kayda quickly hooked a mask over her face and braced herself.

What did you say about not stealing character designs? You have the mask, and you are about to jump down onto a person and challenge them to a duel. Yeah, like that's never been done by Yuto before. Jeezus, woman, are you going to die in the 30th chapter and string everyone along for the entire show too?

Kayda tuned him out after the word 'say.' Instead she concentrated her attention down on what was probably going to be the target of the first duel of the book. He was ambiguously dark, about average height and had a long greyish vest coat that would make any yugioh, except for Reiji, rival proud. A hood came up from under the raised collar of his coat, causing shadow to cling to every part of his face – except his eyes, which, due to anime logic, were reflecting light out like a cat's.

Kayda squinted, because no matter what the anime implied, she was still human and had trouble seeing in the dark. There appeared to be some sort of stick strapped to the guy's back, like a staff or a walking stick. She reasoned that he was probably some Gandalf wannabe, because if he really needed a walking stick, he would have used it as a walking stick.

Kayda smiled through the mask and leaped down from her branch, landing on the ground between the man and the stump with a flash of her eyes and a throw of her cape. A fog of shadows spun around her like with a certain card game loving child of Hades she could mention. Just the mere thought of them caused Dark Rebellion to start complaining about Mythomagic and how broken it was as a game.

Again, Kayda chose to ignore him. "It's not nice to take things that don't belong to you," she chanted sweetly. The young man took a startled step back, but still stood his ground. She was impressed, they usually ran at this point. She activated her duel disk and the eerie blue light from the monster card blade lit up her face like – well, like a lit up face. There was no perfect simile to describe it actually.

"You have a Number," she continued. "I need food for the week, so we're gonna duel for it."

"How do you know I have a number?" The man asked logically instead of screaming in fear, or wetting his pants, or offering up his wallet, or something appropriate like that.

"What?"

"How do you know I have a –oh, wait never mind. Protagonist powers?"

"I was actually going to saying Fanfiction original character powers," Kayda admitted with a shrug. "But hey, either or works."

A physical monster card zone sprang up from the tablet on the guy's arm, and since it wasn't an Arc-V Duel Disk, it didn't have the added plus of glowing in the dark, like any normal smart disk. A little voice in the back of her mind was yelling at her that this wasn't normal, but like with Dark Rebellion and the topic of copyright infringement, she chose to ignore it.

"Duel disk, set!" The stranger announced and braced his arm to show he meant business.

Kayda's disk beeped and an icon flashed across the screen, claiming that an Augmented Reality Vision Link had been established. She glanced between her screen and the hooded duelist several times. There was several moments of silence before she braced a hand on one hip and glared at the guy over her mask. "How the Hell am I supposed to see you monsters if you're using Augmented Reality?"

"Well you have three options the way I see it." The duelist waved his hands as he spoke. "First one is that you can check every single one of my cards. I mean you have an Arc-V duel disk, so unlike all the other shows, you have that option of actually reading the cards without asking me to hand them over. Your second choice is to use your own duel disk and cast the holograms for my cards and monsters out onto the field – but that's probably going to kill your battery after a half hour, but by all means, do that one. I have to be somewhere anyway. Or three, you could just scramble wildly in the dark and hope that you remember everything I say." There was a sinister smile in his voice. "Don't worry, I'll speak slowly."

"And this is why everyone hates, Zexal." Kayda sneered and drew five cards. "I'm going to enjoy smashing you into the ground, and I hope your Number is worth it because I want sushi for dinner."

Her opponent drew his first hand as well. "You know it's not nice to ambush people in the night and steal their cards."

"Strong words for someone who isn't the protagonist."

Kayda. Summon me. I want to be the one who takes him down. I will crush him.

"I'll think about."

Don't think. I must obliterate this foe. I will burn off his hood and make sure he will never have ch –

"This is the part where the animators edit a side by side comparison of the two of us screaming, 'Duel!' but I'm pretty sure the writer is lazy so...on the count of three. One, two, three..."

"Duel."

" - Duel."

The two of them sighed. "Sorry, my bad," the stranger admitted with a shrug. "Try it again."

"-Duel."

"Duel."

"Ugh..."

"Duel."

"-Duel."

"Duel!" The two of them announced at last.

Kayda's grin widened beneath her mask. "I go first. You'll regret sticking around."

"Oh, I already regret it. Let's get this over with fast."

Kayda, I swear if you set your entire first hand face down, I'm going to Lightning Disobey your ass into next week. Do you hear me?

She ignored him.