When
Yami nodded and moved to the spot indicated, Harper spoke up, his voice
carrying around the now silent dining hall. “Activate ‘Stageshow Protocol’ Include
players Edmund Harper and Yugi Mutou.”
The
crowd let out an appreciative noise as the VirtualNet hubs hummed into action
and the floor beneath them converted from the plain white tiles to a
cobblestone surface, the walls seeming turn into stone bricks, with torches
giving off light.
Yami
couldn’t help but be impressed and both sadness and anger flickered through him
as it occurred to him that Yugi would have loved to see the VirtualNet in
action. If, of course, Dimension Software’s sponsors hadn’t kidnapped him.
“I’m
just here to summon an opponent or two for you,” Harper explained to Yami, “And
give you a demonstration of what to do and what can happen.”
Yami
nodded warily, waiting for him to make his move.
“Your
deck goes in the holster, here.” He demonstrated, his stack of cards obviously
not Duel Monsters cards unlike the ones Yami slipped into his DimDisk. “Then to
fight the opponents within the game, we’ve set it up to allow you to summon
your Duel Monsters as your ‘protectors.’ You can have five on the field at any
given time and you can have five magic or trap cards set, ready to cast at any
point.”
With
that he drew five cards and set two cards before sliding two cards into the monster
slots. Two men appeared in full suits of armour, wielding swords. Yami took a
step back and glanced at Harper, who nodded to him, “Use it like a Duel Disk.”
Yami
nodded, drawing five cards and setting one face down before summoning out his
Queen’s Knight to attack one of the men.
One
of them shattered, but the other, without direction from Harper, tapped a face
down card, which glowed brightly for a moment, turned into a gemstone, which
equipped itself to his sword, causing it to gain a flaming aura. Then it tapped
the second card which caused a set of angelic wings to appear, just before the
first guard reappeared. The second guard attacked his Queen’s Knight, which
shattered just like the first guard, and Yami’s health decreased by four
hundred points.
The
first guard then attacked and there were more than a few horrified sounds as it
looked like the guard had run Yami through. Then Yami let out a pained howl as
the guard pulled his sword back out again and the Pharaoh fell to his knees,
clutching his chest.
“I
know that must have hurt.” Harper apologised, as Yami got up, glowering at the
Guard that had struck him, completely unharmed. “We’ve yet to implement safeties
on our VirtualNet so I’m afraid that any attack will feel very real, even if it
doesn’t leave any lasting physical damage.” He glanced at Yami, whose health
had decreased by another eight hundred points. “Care to call it a day?”
“No.”
Yami replied with a shake of his head, “Is it my move again?”
“Once
a battle starts, when the enemy creatures have all attacked, it’s the player’s
turn again.” Harper nodded, intrigued as to what Yami had planned.
Yami
drew, then his scowl turned to a smirk as he played Monster Reborn, which
created the same wing effect as the card the guard had activated. Once Queen’s
Knight was back on the field, Yami sacrificed it for Dark Magician Girl, activated
his face down Sage’s Stone to summon out his Dark Magician and the pair of
mages took down the Guards with no sweat.
“And
once the enemy creatures are defeated, the battle ends and you can go back to
the adventure part of the game.” Harper looked torn between amusement and disappointment
as the virtual surroundings disappeared. “You guide books have the plot and the
rest of what you need to know about the game in them. We’ll be disembarking in
about an hour.”
With
that he left, leaving Yami to rejoin his friends, a frown crossing his features
when he realised that his health points had yet to recover.
“You
okay?” Joey asked Yami.
“Yeah,
yeah. I’ve had worse from the Duel Disk system.” Yami shrugged, grabbing up his
game guide. “But I think I need to know more about this game system.”
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