It was
not often that Doctor Mutou got time to herself. The Doctor of Archaeology was
also the Head of the Magic within Ancient Cultures course at the University she
had once studied at and unlike some of her colleagues she actually liked
interacting with her students and often could be found giving students extra
support or tutoring on magic.
Between
the extra support she gave her students and her duties to the Clan and the
Duellist Kingdom as the Heir to her father’s throne she did not tend to have a
moment to spare for herself. Sleep was a luxury, yet alone actually getting a
chance to go for a drive with no one hovering over her shoulder.
When
the lecture hall she was supposed to be teaching in had been flooded out by a
combination of bad weather and some idiot breaking a water pipe, she took
advantage of the situation. Within five minutes of slapping a notice on the
outer door to the building stating that the lecture was cancelled, she had put
on her helmet, backed her bike out of the drive and shot off.
She
sped down the main road, her motorbike’s engine roaring as she and her vehicle
headed for the motorway, enjoying the feel of freedom. Peace and quiet was a
rare commodity, it always had been amongst her family. So she valued every
moment like this she could get.
She
paused at the red lights, shifting her HoloDuel off of her arm and into its
safe holster that her cousin, Ayumi Kaiba, who had developed the Solid Vision
Hologram Duel Disk, had designed specifically for her motorcycle to allow
Tenshi to take it with her without having to wear the damn thing over her bike
leathers. Another motorcycle pulled up to the line alongside her. Tenshi
glanced at the rider of the red and black motorcycle and found that brown eyes
were watching her carefully. That was not what held her attention though. What
did that was the little green glowing gem that hung on a pendant around his
neck.
Tenshi
grimaced as turned her attention back to the road. One of her students had
brought her a gem just like that one and when she had turned it over to her
family, they had warned her off of it and asked her to keep an eye out for
anyone who was carrying it. She was sure they had doubled her guard too, but
they were getting better at being sneaky about it and she had yet to catch them
at it.
As the
lights changed to green, Tenshi attempted to speed off and lose the guy beside
her, only to hear his motor just behind her the entire time. Reaching the speed
limit easily the moment she hit the motorway, she let out a hiss as the guy
kept up with her, dogging her trail.
“This
is ridiculous...” She growled, going to activate the inbuilt microphone in her
helmet when the sight of her HoloDuel activating of its own accord shocked her
into complete silence. Wondering what the hell was happening, she watched as
the HoloDuel’s Virtual Deck system booted up, shuffling the virtual cards and
emitting her first five ‘drawn’ cards just above her handlebars. “Shit. Shit.
Shit.”
Glancing
over at the guy on the other bike she saw a strange looking HoloDuel attached
to his bike in a much rougher manner than hers, it’s arm piece circular with a
strange bright green star surrounded by two circle with runes in between in the
same sickly colour. It too was active and he had flipped up his visor to smirk
at her.
“How
the hell?” Tenshi hissed, realising that her HoloDuel had been hacked and its
Virtual Deck system, which was only in the very first HoloDuels and was
supposed to only be a backup in case the solid vision holograms couldn’t
support the real cards, had been forced into activation. “No bloody way.” She
growled, risking taking one hand off of the handlebars in order to hit the
power switch on her disk.
When
it did not respond to her fiddling she let out a furious noise, noting that the
other biker had already started his move, placing one card in defence mode and
one card face down and activated the mic in her helmet before putting her hand
back on the handlebars, determined not to crash while dealing with the minor
issue of some idiot who thought that trying to play card games while travelling
seventy miles an hour was a good idea.
“Tenshi
to Home?” She spoke aloud, watching him gesture that it was her move.
“Home
here. Pulling up your location now.” Aunt Hermione’s voice came through the
speaker by her ear as she tried again to shut off her disk, “What the...?”
“Not
my fault.” Tenshi shot back, torn between her natural competiveness and desire
to win and the awareness that this was a ridiculous situation and she should
have as little part in it as possible. “He hacked my HoloDisk. Virtual Deck
started by itself.”
“Turn
it back off then.” Tenshi’s aunt sounded less than amused.
“Tried
that already.” Tenshi replied, before scowling and flipping up her visor,
“Draw.” She ordered her HoloDuel, which made the system pull up another card.
She could not quite hear what her aunt was saying over the noise as she slowed
down, irritating her opponent and everyone behind her until she pulled into the
‘slow’ lane furthest over on the left hand side, but it sounded like ‘Mutou
Tenshi, don’t even think about it.’
“Card one,
card three face down, card six, face down, defence mode.” Tenshi ordered,
looking for the nearest exit ramp so she could pull over and finish this Duel
before smacking the moron in the face only to grimace when the next city was
not for thirty-eight miles and the next services weren’t for another twenty-one.
Once her HoloDuel was done following her orders, she glowered over to her
opponent, “Oi, moron!” She bellowed, uncertain if he could hear her or not,
“Your turn.”
Still
just about able to hear Hermione scolding through the earphone, Tenshi watched
both the road and her opponent at the same time. It was not easy, the road was
not clear. She was just glad that the solid vision holograms that were floating
in front of her bike were not interfering with the other vehicles on the road.
She could do this. She did not need to win while they were still moving and the
moment they left the motorway she could pull over legally and beat him. As long
as it stayed just a duel, admittedly a high speed one, she could easily handle
it.
Then
he played a field card and the rules changed. Tenshi let out a started yelp as
green washed past her, the same symbol on the man’s HoloDuel appearing below
them and glowing with the same sickly green colour.
Tenshi
paled. She had been warned about this. The Seal of Orichelcos was now in play.
“Hey
Aunt ‘Mione?” Tenshi informed the woman listening to what was going on, “I
might be in trouble.”
Both
thankful and horrified that the Seal was keeping up with the two motorcyclists,
Tenshi pushed her bike to keep up with her opponent, now playing catch up with
him. The Seal was emitted by his HoloDuel and if she did not manage to keep up,
the barrier, which she had been informed let inanimate objects in but did not
allow living material to pass through, would have her off of her bike and at
this speed a crash would probably kill her.
Amethyst
eyes went wide as she realised something else. There were other motorists on the
road and they were in danger too. The Seal would keep anyone but the two
Duellists out but just as it would most likely allow her bike out, it would
allow the cars in but not the people in them.
“Pull
over!” Tenshi demanded, her voice barely carrying over the wind passing them.
“Not
allowed.” The man, who had a broad Australian accent shook his head. “We’re on
the motorway, remember?” He played another card in defence mode. “It’s your
move.”
“Great,
how come I get the speed freak?” Tenshi groaned to herself. “Draw.” The order
was full of frustration but the HoloDuel responded. In her earpiece she could
hear that Hermione had stopped scolding and instead was passing on information
to other Clan members, while in the background someone was getting the motorway
blocked off to other users. The fact that she was not going to be alone in this
was reassuring for the Heir to the Throne, who had never been alone while going
into battle in her entire life.
Tenshi
let out a relieved sigh at the card she had drawn even as she sped up, forcing
her opponent who wanted her soul, not her life, to speed up to and allowing
them to pull away from the cars that had been slowly creeping closer and
closer. She sacrificed her face down plant monster for her Queen Angel of Roses,
who looked rather startled to be moving at high speed.
“Queen
Angel!” Tenshi bellowed, catching her Duel Monster’s attention, “Attack the
monster on his left!” Her opponent tried to activate Magic Cylinder to counter
the attack, but Tenshi was ready, activating her Dust Tornado to destroy it and
allow her seven star monster’s attack to go through.
The
other biker let out a curse as his monster blew up in his face. Tenshi let out
a worried hiss as his bike wobbled for moment, the Seal wobbling with him,
relief setting in when he settled himself and no longer looked like he was
going to crash. By the time he had stopped swerving dangerously they had passed
a sign for the services stating that they were just less than ten miles out.
No comments:
Post a Comment