[center]The Streets
in the Rat's Nest[/center]

Ian took a mouthful of cold soda and waited a second before letting the taste vanish. He sat atop a trash bin outside of an old convenience store, Bell had gone back inside after grabbing them each a soda to see if she could find anything worth eating. Ian was watching a strangely shaped cloud move across the sky when she came back out. "Anything good" he asked. She just popped a bubble and tossed him a pack of gum. That was a negative on the chocolate bar then. Dang, he'd really wanted a chocolate bar. Ian jumped down and handed Bell back the pack, sans one stick. 

After disappearing the pack to some pocket Ian had no idea where, Bell slipped on her silver helmet and was ready to take off. With a sigh at her impatience, Ian climbed on behind her and held on for his life as she rocketed down the street. He let his head fall back so he was watching the sky, and he found the strange cloud that he had begun following. "Hello Nimbusman, how are you doing today?" Thankfully, Bell couldn't hear him talking to an imaginary monster through her helmet, and even if she could have, she probably had music playing inside it.

A bright light of a duel kicking off caught Ian's eye, his new friend dissolving into mist and vapor. Ian absentmindedly wondered who was dueling, and if it was someone he knew. He pulled out his phone and pointed it in the direction of the duel. The first duel disk he tried to hack was a nice one, too nice to be hacked into by a simple wireless program running from a modified cellphone, but the other was a cheapy. It was easy for Ian to hack into the duel disk and scan the files to display the duel on his phone, and this was all with one hand while moving far over the speed limit down narrow streets. When he saw who the Rat's Nest local was dueling, Ian forgot to hold on and almost fell right off the back of the Strider. "No fuckin' way! There is no way!" Valin Rotor! Here!? 

It was like someone had dropped blood into the water and Ian had turned into a shark, nothing else mattered in the moment. Bell hadn't noticed anything. Ian reached around and wrote something with his finger on her arm, a signal to swap control. Bell let go without hesitation, Ian grabbing the Strider's controls from her in a second. Ian ran through the street layout of the area, and figured that the road on the left, six alley's ahead, would connect to where he figured the duel was. But the angle was too sharp, he wouldn't be able to make the corner. The Strider streaked past the turn at full speed. Ian saw a hole in the road ahead, and aimed the runner for it. It bounced into the air for a moment, long enough for Ian to reorient the runner's ball 180 degrees. When it crashed back down, the runner skidded to a sudden stop and took off in the opposite direction, the riders still facing the original. The rider found the turn and emerged onto a larger road, finally having enough room to rotate the two passengers so they were facing the direction of motion. Ian gunned it.

"So what is it?" Bell finally asked as Ian brought the Strider to a slow crawl. He was peering down every street they passed, looking for the duel. 

Ian gave her back control of the runner and hopped off, practically hopping with excitement. "You won't believe it!"

Bell's eyes almost fell out of her head from the strength of the channeled annoyance in the roll of her eyes. "Try me." She swore that his eyes were sparkling. She wondered if he was on something.

"Valin Mother Fuckin' Rotor! Here, in the Nest! We need to be checking this out!"

Yeah, he was definitely on something if he thought someone like Valin would ever set foot in the Rat's Nest. "You're right: I don't believe you." It was as if she'd taken a pin to his overinflated excitement. "We should probably check it out anyways." Wow he rebounded fast.

A flash of light made the pair spin to see what was happening. The one, the only, the Volspire Dragon rose into the air,a blast of power crushing its enemy for sure lit up the area again. "Holy shi-," it was Bell who spoke, but they were both sprinting in the direction of the summoned beast before she'd even finished the thought. Ian and Bell stopped short as they emerged from a back alley onto a wider street. There he was, Valin Rotor, dueling some Rat's Nest nobody. Then the nobody did something unimaginable; he summoned his own dragon in response to Volspire. A huge, dark dragon shimmered int being.

Bell looked away from the clash of titanic dragons to look at Ian. He had his phone out and was recording the duel with it. He had the hacking system running in the background. Looking away from the screen, his wide eyes met Bell's. He looked like he was in shock, and his voice shook when he spoke. "Valin, he's... losing."