victory_road | ANOMALY DETECTED

[To nobody's surprise, Doppio is lost.

In his defense, it's not his fault the world periodically decides to fold in on itself, and it's definitely not his fault entirely new locations decided to pop up out of nowhere this time. As far as he can tell, the place he's abruptly found himself in isn't on the map, so it must be one of those new locations.

That means... In theory, he could wait, maybe explore a little, and chances are sooner or later he'll find himself elsewhere, just as inexplicably as he found himself here.

In practice, after ten minutes of walking through the woods, he blinked and ended up in some kind of weird glass box, so when he checks the map again and sees that he still appears to be in roughly the same unmapped location, barely having moved at all, he's a little frustrated.]

Oh, come on, I can't even fly out of here...!

[Can he at least walk out of-- Oh thank god there's a door. Also, somebody's outside??? That guy again...]

[Poor Doppio. While Marik's not entirely familiar with Duelist Kingdom Island, it's easy enough for fun to figure out which direction to go to find the next location or glass box. He wants to get to the castle though. If this is indeed Pegasus's Island, he wants to see it for himself where the creator of Duel Monsters resides.

The blonde blinks, noticing someone inside this particular box. It must be safe to go in then...? Maybe? He opens the door and peers in to see-]

... Doppio? What are you doing in this thing?

[He sighs. Yeah, that's the question, isn't it.]

I don't know. I was in the woods just a minute ago!

[He steps inside but keeps the door open, walking over and kneeling down to get a better look at the table.]

Weird.

... I don't suppose you randomly have a Duel Monsters deck on you now, do you?

A... what? I don't think so...

[He's checking his pockets anyway, though. You never know, at a time like this.]

[Marik shrugs.]

With how today's been I thought I'd ask. That's what these tables are for. The card game, I mean. You Duel on them and it provides holographic visuals.

[Still strange how these are here and not the Dueling Arenas. Oh well... He stands back up.]

You interested in learning or would you rather look around more?

[There is, in fact, no deck in his pockets, but Doppio looks back and forth between Marik and the tables a few times as if trying to figure out how this is all supposed to fit together.]

What kind of card game do you need holograms for?

You don't need holograms but it makes for a neat addition to the game.

[He pulls out his Deckbox then a couple of cards to show Doppio.]

They've got microchips installed so they work with the technology, I believe.

[He's feigning innocence but he knows exactly how the cards are built and how they work since, you know, leader of a counterfeit ring.]

Playing cards with microchips... It's pretty amazing what people can do with technology!

[Are they cleverly disguised in the card's designs? Are they somehow inside the card? Either way, it's impressive!]

So what kind of game is this? You called it a "duel"?

It is.

[Something something holographic design in the corner possibly.]

Yes. The game is a mix of strategy and luck. It's actually really similar to how pokémon battles work.

[Marik turns towards the table and studies it a bit more before setting a monster card down on the field. It brings up a small holographic image of it above the table surface.]

There's spells and traps you can use, essentially battle and held items. Each player has 4000 life points and whoever reaches zero first loses.

[The holograms make Doppio’s eyes go wide. Sure, Marik just mentioned them, but seeing them in action is something else entirely!]

Oh, okay! But… You said the players have those life points, not the monsters?

[A pity it isn't the Duel Disks. Those are even cooler.]

Right. Monsters have Attack Points and Defense Points. Let's say I summon one monster and it's attack is 1500. You summon one and it's 1300. My monster would knock yours out and due to being stronger, those raining 200 point difference would hit your Life Points directly.

But if you had your weaker monster in Defense Position, you wouldn't take any damage. Your monster would only be destroyed.

Making sense so far?

[Doppio's brow furrows.]

Uh... Yyyeah.

[He's following the best he can, but it all seems a bit complex...]

[Marik smiles sheepishly.]

It sounds more complex than it actually is, I swear. Ah... Do you want me to Duel you directly or just have you watch Chen and I?

[A pause. He realizes Doppio never answered if he actually wanted to learn.]

... That's if you're interested. I don't want to bore you with even more details than I already have if this isn't your thing.

Oh, uh, i-it's okay! [He doesn't seem particularly bored, but the thing is...] I was kind of in the middle of something... but I guess that doesn't matter if I can't get out of here anyway, huh?

[Marik puts away his cards and his deckbox, then looks over his shoulder at Doppio and to the door with a raised eyebrow.

He walks over to it, pauses, and then pushes it open.]

... Did you just not see the door or something?

Buh-- I just got here!!

[The answer is no. He is blushing furiously.]

[There's the slightest hint of a smirk before Marik turns away so Doppio can't see. Best not to tease him too much...]

Well, it might have been locked from the outside so it's good I happened upon you. Come on.

[He steps outside and holds the door open. "Just in case."]

Ha ha… Yeah…

[Maybe he’ll tell himself that too. Just so he can feel marginally better. At any rate, Doppio is happy to be out of the room, even though he is still, as far as he can tell, trapped in this location as a whole.]

Uh, so, since you knew about all that… Do you know how to get back to civilization?

[The smirk disappears as Marik looks around.]

Mn... I only know about the Dueling Cubes. I've never been to Pegasus's Island before myself, I only had minor intell on it. It doesn't take too long to cross from one side to the other from what I read so if we head in one direction, we're sure to hit the shoreline eventually.

That's if we don't get zapped away somewhere else before we get there...

[Which is how he ended up in a freaking cube. He really wishes he could have at least gotten off the island.]

... Has that happened to you? My location hopping has just been from walking through doors.

[That certainly explains a lot and why Doppio would think he was locked in the cube if he just popped in there.]

It's how I ended up here, yeah.

[... Unless he had one of his episodes without realising it, but he doesn't think he's lost time...]

Huh.

[Alright, so maybe Doppio isn't as big of a space case as he initially thought.]

Well, you can follow me for the time being. If we get separated, just had in the direction of the sun and you're bound to reach the shore sooner or later. Then you can follow that to the docks.

Thanks. [He sighs.] This always happens when these weekends come around...

duelist kingdom

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