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YGO Duel Academy: The Jacques Years: Duel Academy: Sweet Sixteen Revealed, Jacques's Fear and His Strength

by EnviousWorm

EnviousWorm After his tremendous upset of popular front-runner and Obelisk Blue, Acton Massen, the Reasoning Gate duelist Jacques Dumois - a simple Slifer Red - has overcome all odds to end up in the top cut of Seto Kaiba's special tournament. The prize? The title, "Future King of Games".
"Ladies, gentlemen, everyone in between -- duelists, one-and-all, welcome here to our penultimate day of Seto Kaiba's Duel Academy Student Cup," The announcer belted out over the stadium P.A system, met with the excited bluster of tens-of-thousands of onlookers. Families, friends, other academy students, professional duelists -- Kaiba, as always, had spared no expense in an effort to make himself look good. And no matter who won the tournament, Kaiba would look damn good, "Today we'll see our final round of single duel elimination, and the pool of duelists will drop from sixteen...to four. So settle into your seats, folks; there's a long, long day of dueling ahead of us."

Jacques, stood on stage next to the other fifteen finalists, felt more out of place than he ever had before -- and he'd snuck into bars, adult clubs, gotten into scrums with degenerates, a whole lot of stuff for just a fifteen-year-old. He was in the spotlight, a red stain in a sea awash with a mighty blue. Of the so-called "sweet" sixteen, thirteen were Obelisk students; two were Ra Yellow, but young Ra's, prospective future Obelisks.

And then there was Jacques Dumois, the lonely Slifer Red, the freshman French (Canadian) duelist looking more and more out of place in this tournament. Of course, his status and his position going into the previous day even saw him seeded 16th, looking to face off against the 1st seeded duelist. Unlike Massen, however, Jacques was familiar with his opponent.

KCSC Sweet Sixteen:
1. Sadie Hayes, Obelisk
16. Jacques Dumois, Slifer

2. Kei Kubo, Obelisk
15. Kinshi Kubo, Ra

3. Quinton Klue, Obelisk
14. Peter Pollock, Obelisk

4. Warner Grezzan, Obelisk
13. Han Pol, Obelisk

5. Maxine Hollow, Obelisk
12. Cosmo Dax, Ra

6. Yen Atasi, Obelisk
11. Connor O'Shaw, Obelisk

7. Pak Zanika, Obelisk
10. Mirco Senre, Obelisk

Sadie Hayes specialized in hand destruction and disruption, utilizing a wide variety of traps and spells to make her opponent uncomfortable, interrupting any attempt to set up a strong board; the two had dueled on three separate occasions the past year, and Sadie - so far - had the upper hand. So the Slifer focused on that instead; he wanted to even the score -- he tried not to focus on the huge crowd of people watching, most likely cheering against him.

"Our first duel will be two Obelisk duelists, seed 8 and 9, Lana Herd and Scott Wen!" The announcer finished. He'd been hyping the crowd up further, but Jacques had zoned out, staring across the row at Sadie. Her poise told him her nerves held stronger than his. She didn't even look his way. Was she worried about their duel or confident?

"Uh, excuse us duelist," Stadium security told him, "you have to clear the stage for the duel."

"Oh, ah, sor-ry," Jacques mumbled, shuffling his feet down the steps and behind the stage, which was a concrete labyrinth of wires and rushing crew, struggling to keep the show running at the incredible capacity befitting Seto Kaiba's ego.

Instinctively, the freshman duelist strode into the nearest green room, where he found Sadie, rummaging through a crew fridge for a quick breakfast. When he entered, she poked her head out -- her hair fashioned into a teal bob that complimented a pair of royal, gold eyes on either side of a sleek, curved nosed; realizing it was him, she smiled.

"Hi, Jacques," She said, before ducking her head back into the fridge to get what she'd been looking for prior.

"'Allo, Sa-dee, you look quite well this mor-ning," Jacques replied, striding past her to a small espresso machine, and began the motions of making himself some.

"Thanks!" She said from behind the fridge as Jacques took the carafe, filling it with water at a sink, portioning it into the machine, finding the grinds in a random cabinet, portioning them into the machine's portafilter, affixing it to the machine, and setting the machine to brew. When he finished, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Sadie stood there, holding a small carton of half-and-half, "I used the rest of the milk they had, is this okay?"

"Oh - eh. eh - of course," Jacques said, taking it with a grateful smile, "Thank you. What are you 'av-ing?"

"Just some oats," The Obelisk girl shrugged, "Oats with milk and a little cinnamon on top. And a bagel."

"Oooh, they 'ave ba-gels?" Jacques asked, hopefuly.

"I took the last of those, too," Sadie said, giggling, though she looked a little sorry for it.

"'Eh, is no pro-blem," Jacques waved it off, "Our du-el won't be til la-ter this af-ter-noon, I 'ave plen-ty of time to eat!"

His next opponent didn't look like that pleased her at all; in fact, her face flared a little look of aggravation.

"Is a pro-blem?" He asked.

"You're not gonna bail, are you?" Sadie asked.

"'Eh?" Jacques followed the second question with a third.

"There were four tournaments this year, one for each quarter," Sadie pointed out, "You qualified for the top cut in two and just outside in the other two, but each time it was because you just...mysteriously disappeared the day of the duel? Personally, I don't have any reason to expect that you're going to show up!"

"Well," Jacques chuckled nervously, scratching just under his tall top-knot positioned on his head. A couple were extenuating circumstances, but Sadie was not wrong -- there were a couple tournaments he just walked away from, unable to force himself to compete,"I can-not lie, I-I 'ave consi-dered it, yeh. But I would nev-er dare dis-a-ppoint you so, Sa-dee -- oui?"

"Don't talk sweet to me, weirdo," Sadie growled, shaking off his light words with her hidden aggression, pointing a finger into his grinning, French (Canadian) face "If you don't show for this I'm gonna be pissed at you."

"An' for that I could non live wit' my-self," Jacques laughed. Sadie poked at his eye, which he avoided, though her index finger rammed into his cheekbone with a surprising force, "What ar' you do-ing to me?!"

"I'm making sure you're even real," Sadie replied, "You're a buffoon. You make no sense. Sometimes you show flashes of intelligence and then sometimes you're a brick wall and then sometimes you're a puff of smoke. It's been a year and I can't track you down."

"Eh, per-haps that is the way I pre-fer it, non?" Jacques shrugged, "Now we are 'ere, and no-one knows what I can tru-ly do."

"Or you're afraid you're just not cut out for the best of the best, and you're too afraid to find out if what've you done is all you can 'tru-ly do'...non?" Sadie, for as good a duelist as she was, seemed to be an even better psychoanalyst, "Your coffee's ready."

She turned and walked away from him there, more frustrated than ever. Jacques finished preparing his espresso, but Sadie was long gone by the time he had turned back around; the Slifer sighed and left the green room, drinking his coffee while he watched the stage crew go about their work, listening to the crowd's screams echo off the concrete the stadium was built on. The first duel seemed to be taking a decent amount of time.

As he watched, Jacques noticed several odd people - who looked maybe too young to be part of the older, more experienced stage crew - snooping, in a sense. They seemed to be following the trail of wires plugged into the stadium which powered not just Kaiba Corps' hologram technology, but stage sound and lights as well. During the tournament, Jacques spent dozens of hours back stage, getting to know many of the people who worked there, and what exactly they were doing to keep the whole show afloat.

The French (Canadian) duelist couldn't help but agree that Sadie was right; he was afraid of how far his skill as a duelist might extend. But, he had always fancied himself more of a detective. And that skill that Jacques honed over time told him something was off. So, Jacques attached himself to one of the suspicious faux-workers like a shadow, following the kid all the way from the ground-floor back stage to the executive suites.

Even with security tight, both Jacques and the thug he trailed snuck though the top floor's suites until they found an unlabeled door, locked with a keypad standing between them and its contents. But, to Jacques's surprised, the kid also pulled out an ID card, sliding it into the slot just under the keypad until a shrill, mechanized unlocking sound rang out. He pushed himself into the room without a second to waste, and Jacques felt the obligation to follow.

There, a tribo of kids - maybe a year or two older than him, likely Duel Academy students themselves - huddled around a machine they had plugged into the stadium's centralized computer system.

"Oy," Jacques said, earning their attention, "Step away from it, yeh?"

And then the hands of a fourth scoundrel, gripped tight around a baseball bat, swung hard, and Jacques felt the impact, the pain, and he saw darkness spread as he lost consciousness among a swirling of syphonous snickering.

When he woke up, Jacques found himself in an ominous cave, tied up tightly to a metal chair, surrounded by the quintet of students he'd attempted to thwart. None of them wore their school jackets, but Jacques recognized the bunch.

"Avery Dusk, Ra Ye-llow," Jacques said to the leader of the pack - the only person he hadn't seen in the room - before turning his attention to the others, "An-dos, Max and Thome - my fe-llow Sli-fers, what 'as got-ten in-to you?"

"We can play at that game, too, Jacques Dumois, Slifer," His dorm-mate Andos sneered.

"Of course we know his name," The Ra, Avery, scoffed, "He's still in the tournament."

Avery Dusk had lost in the first round of the Kaiba Corps Student Cup, but had been claiming since that he 'would have won if he hadn't bricked' on his opening hand. A classic refrain, but not often one that turns someone to villainy. But Jacques could sense a desperation in Avery's voice, in his eyes.

"What were you do-ing back there?" The French (Canadian) duelist asked, bluntly.

"Don't tell him boss, he's a rat!" Andos pleaded. Max and Thome backed up his claim, but Avery waved the three off.

"Kaiba's computer database has hundreds of top pro duelist decks downloaded and programmed into them," Avery said, "After I interned there last summer, I developed my own system that would allow me to manipulate our duel disk's holographic projectors. Whatever card I need to win a duel, I just adjust the program. That dead trap I just drew into? Now it's a Blue-Eyes White Dragon! And look at that, I have Brain Control and Soul Exchange in my hand! What luck."

"That is pa-the-tic," Jacques said, rolling his eyes, "And peo-ple will know!"

"I'll do it subtle at first, "The plotting Ra shrugged, "Use cards that I own to win duels. People have good luck all the time, why shouldn't I? But when I'm a pro! Then naturally I'll get better and better cards and build stronger decks. And my luck will be just as good!"

"You blas-pheme fate, my friend," Jacques warned, "And yet still, peo-ple will know."

"People see power, Jacques, power is King," Avery shook his head, "You don't think Seto Kaiba tests fate? Yugi Moto? Have you seen Joey Wheeler duel? I'll just be one of many in the line of fated heroes of the dueling world!"

"I think you need to re-consi-der how you view the world, friend," Jacques sighed.

"C'mon boss, we told him too much, let's shut him up, leave him and get out of here," Avery's trio of stealthy-but-scared goons warned.

"I'll shut him up alright," Avery said, standing up on a tall, malformed rock, "One of you, untie him and give him his deck."

"What!?" Andros yelled, shocked, even as Max and Thome scrambled to fulfill Avery's wishes, "H-he's good, boss! Pretty g-good!"

"And Pegasus himself couldn't defeat me if he wanted to," Avery said, smugly, activating his duel disk as he did so, "I'll have every card I could ever need to crush his pathetic, gimmicky deck."

Without looking him in the eye, Max and Thome untied him and gave him his deck and duel disk in return. Jacques groaned, stretching his limbs. He could still feel the back of his head and neck throbbing in incredulous pain.

"What time is it, by the way?" He asked, unable to see outside the cave they were in.

"Oh, two, maybe three p.m?" Avery replied, shrugging.

"Wait!" Jacques interrupted, "My du-el, the tourn-a-ment! Who is up right now?"

"Oh, you're almost up," Avery giggled, delighted by his ability to interfere with Jacques's life, for no reason other than Jacques was the one who'd stumbled upon their operation, "Last I checked, it was the Klue/Pollock duel, but the Kubo's might be up about now. Which means -- you're on deck."

"You 'ave to let me go!" Jacques objected.

"Why?" Avery asked.

"I...made a pro-mise?" Jacques said.

"Well," Avery stopped to think for a second, "Beat me in a duel and we'll see where it goes."

"I see I 'ave no o-ther choice," Jacques sighed, and activated his own duel disk, "I a-ssume you will take the first move?"

"You're clever, for sure," Avery said, contemptfully, as both drew their opening hands.

TURN 1:
Avery Dusk:
4000 LP

Jacques Dumois:
4000 LP

"I set four cards face down," Avery said simply, one monster and three spell/traps popping up from the holographic projectors, "And pass it over to you."

"I draw," Jacques said, looking at his hand when-

"I activate the trap card Trap Dustshoot!" Avery said, revealing his left-most face down, "Now you show me your hand, and if it has a monster, I can choose one to shuffle back into your deck."

Chaos Sorcerer, Magician of Faith, Monster Gate, Harpie's Feather Duster, Call of the Haunted, Book of Moon. A good opening hand, but the Magician of Faith was the crux to it, and, of course --

"I'll choose your Magician of Faith." Avery declared, forcing Jacques to shuffle his opening play back into his deck.

There was little else he could do, so Jacques did the one move available:

"I activate my Harpie's Feather Duster!" He said, hoping to clear what remained of his opponent's back row.

"And I'll respond with Imperial Order," Avery sneered, flipping up another of his back row, "For a simple 700 points of each of my standby phases, I can negate every spell card on the field! Good luck playing Reasoning or Monster Gate like this!"

Jacques took a step back, his opening turn devastated by two trap cards. He'd need Raigeki Break or the turns to get Jinzo onto the field if he might have a chance -- or stall long enough that Avery might run out of life points trying to negate every spell. With a useless hand at the moment, all he could do was pass.

TURN 3:
Avery Dusk:
4000 LP

Jacques Dumois:
4000 LP

"I draw," Avery said, "And I'll pay the 700 points to keep Imperial Order up on the field. Then, I'll flip my face-down monster -- the D.D. Warrior Lady!"

Kneeling, wielding her short sword, the short-haired, blonde warrior, looked Jacques dead in the eye, and the French (Canadian) Slifer could swear that she smirked when she saw him, open for a direct attack.

"I'll have my D.D. Warrior Lady hit into you for 1500 of your points!" Avery shouted, his holographic monster rushing forward to slice at him with her false weapon. But the pain felt real, as Jacques was rocked onto his rear, feeling the aching pain from where he'd been struck by Avery earlier, "Then I'll set another card face down, and that ends my turn."

TURN 4:
Avery Dusk:
3300 LP

Jacques Dumois:
2500 LP

"I draw," Jacques declared, and saw that he drew Spirit Reaper, when-

"And I activate my trap card, Drop Off!" Avery laughed a wicked laugh, like someone who'd steered near the cliff, looked over, and jumped, "The card you drew for turn goes to the graveyard!"

"Then wit' my two mon-sters in the grave, I ba-nish them to sum-mon my Chaos Sor-cer-er!" Jacques said, trying to add a little flourish to regain his confidence. Except-

"And I activate Bottomless Trap Hole, banishing your Sorcerer on summon!" Avery cackled like he'd won a billion dollars.

"Then I-I," Jacques felt helpless, and at a loss for words. There was nothing he could do. "I set one card face down and end my turn."

"This is sad," Avery said, still laughing from deep within his belly, "I'm not even using one of the good decks from this database. Maybe it's been luck all along, dragging you into the top cuts of all these tournaments at school."

"At least I did non cheat," Jacques said, spitting as he did so to show his disgust. One of Avery's goons belted him in the stomach, which seemed to amuse Avery even more.

"Cheat, luck, who cares?" The thieving Ra sneered, "So long as I beat you down so bad your nose is stuck in the dirt. I'll draw for turn, and take another 700 points from Imperial Order."

TURN 5:
Avery Dusk:
2600 LP LP

Jacques Dumois:
2500 LP

"I could finish this right here, right now," Avery warned, "but I'm saving up for something grand. Something that'll crush your spirit so much, you'll never want to duel again!"

"Oh?" Jacques said, pretending to be interested.

"I set two cards face down," Avery said - one monster, one back row - grinning smugly at his helpless opponent, "Then I move to battle with my D.D. Warrior Lady!"

"I'll acti-vate my Call of The Haun-ted, spe-cial summon-ing my Spi-rit Rea-per!" Jacques said, trying the best he could.

Immediately, the reborn Reaper was dashed through with the Warrior Lady's sword; Reaper - unable to be destroyed by battle - caught its form and got prepared for battle, but the damage went straight through to Jacques, who dropped to his knees in pain once again, and struggled to get up. Part of him wanted to stay down, in fact, and go back to sleep. But he was determined not to lose like that.

"It's your turn, duelist." Avery said, taunting.

TURN 6:
Avery Dusk:
2600 LP

Jacques Dumois:
300 LP

The French (Canadian) Slifer tried to steady himself with some slow, heavy breathes; he'd been in this situation hundreds of times as a duelist, and he'd come out ahead plenty of them. But those duels weren't so egregiously rigged against him. Jacques did the calculations. There were two cards in his deck that could save him; and if he was right and Avery set another dangerous trap, that number dropped from two cards to one. And, worst case scenario, Avery's back row was another Drop off. Then, well, Jacques was dead no matter what Avery did in his next turn.

Jacques sighed and drew his last pathetic card, certain he was about to break his promise to Sadie.
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