[hider=Cream & Joshua]Cream had her back turned to Joshua when he had started to ramble on. She was already a few steps further away from the boy before freezing in place as he kept talking. Slowly, the small girl turned her head. Her eyes stood wide and her grin was noticeably faked. She looked about ready to snap at him, pacing back towards Joshua again.

[color=f6989d]"You're serious?"[/color] she replied, still keeping up that grin. There was only about a step or two between them now as she looked up at Joshua. When she did, Cream's forced grin turned into a scowl, with her knuckles going white from tightening up too much.

[color=f6989d]"I... can't believe you. How did you ever get into Wind Dorm? No, why were you even [i]allowed[/i] into this academy?"[/color] she asked him, putting forth her left foot.

[color=f6989d]"You clearly have no faith in your deck. You don't even [i]try[/i] to win. You actually do things you don't feel comfortable with in duels. For what? Isn't there even an [i]inkling[/i] of a duelist in you? Aren't you anything like our heroes past? With a heart which never gives up, who believes in their deck, who faces challenges without fear? A heart that enjoys dueling, a heart that wants to win? A heart that believes no deck is useless?"[/color]

Cream's voice shook with anger as she stepped back again, taking a deep breath to calm herself. Then, she continued her own little tirade.

[color=f6989d]"I've done [i]nothing[/i] but work hard, trying to surpass myself. [u][i][b]I[/b][/i][/u] have [i]struggled[/i] from Earth, all the way up to Divine. I couldn't ever give up, not in a duel, not in my studies. And here you are... giving this school, me and all other students a bad name because you don't want to put even the tiniest amount of effort into anything! You just want the strongest cards in the world and be on top of everything, without having to put any actual work into it. You know how Dark Dorm students are looked down upon? Well, at least they're not you. At least that dorm's filled with [i]real[/i] duelists. You may be a duelist, but not a true one. You're just a [i][b][u]coward[/u]![/b][/i]"[/color]

And with that, Cream bolted away from Joshua. Her face was completely red from the fury she'd just unleashed onto the boy. She sprinted faster than before, leaving no time for the black-haired boy to catch up to her at all. All he was left with was a small breeze that whisked away some sand from the spot she stood.[/hider]
[hider=Nathan, Maisy & Lite]As Nathan crouched down to the fearful boy, Lite violently shook his head.

[color=AFCBA4]"I-I can't, honest! E-Exec's just Exec, he didn't give any of us a name!"[/color]

Lite cowered and clearly expected something to happen to him as he shrunk into himself, but then felt a wave of confusion and relief wash over him as Maisy's fist slammed down next to his head. He was still in shock when Maisy fixed him up nice and proper, releasing him from his cardboard tomb. His already wet eyes broke down into even more tears as she lectured him on how the dark dorm was just using him, the guy burying his head in his hands.

[color=AFCBA4]"I...! I...! I just wanted it all to stooop... E-Even if they used me, I just wanted it to stooop...!!"[/color]

Blubbering incoherently, Lite was completely broken. Even after Maisy and Nathan left the room, he was still crying and holding himself. There might have been some trouble if the boy hadn't recovered by the time Meio was back, but that wasn't their problem anymore.[/hider]
[hider=Ethel & Angelo][color=7ea7d8]"S-Self centered? Why you...!"[/color]

Ethel snapped back at Angelo as he tried to talk things over again, but her anger didn't last long. She listened to the rest of his story, albeit begrudgingly and softened up the longer he talked. When he finally got around to saying he 'wanted to be with her,' she flinched and took a step back instinctively.

[color=7ea7d8]"Don't get full of yourself! I'm perfectly fine on my own!"[/color]

Her face was a mixture of confusion, anger and embarrassment as she blurted that out, loud enough to gather a few stares from the crowd. For once, Ethel's serious persona was broken as her face became redder by the second. She didn't even register the part where he said to find what lies beyond synchro as she was too focused on her current predicament.

[color=7ea7d8]"G-Get out of here! Now!! Or I'll [i]move[/i] you out!"[/color] she barked back at Angelo, before forcefully shoving him out and turning back to her own Duel Runner. He left her alone, as asked, but she didn't get any progress in with her own investigation. She was dying inside a little bit too much for that.[/hider]
[hider=Hayato]Hayato easily found his way to the Ritual classroom as many of the students brushed up on Ritual 101 here. It was one of the few classrooms with a sliding door that [i]didn't[/i] automatically open, so when Hayato knocked he only got a single eye staring back at him through a small opening.

[color=FFADEE]"W-Welcome... are you here to join o-our occult club?"[/color] a voice asked from the other side. Hayato replied saying he did, which was of course a bold lie to get into the classroom. The shy kid slid open the door to reveal a pretty sloppy appearance, despite wearing a light dorm jacket. Said jacket was a size too large as the boy's hands were hidden inside of the sleeves. His eyes had bags under them and part of his face was covered by his black, medium length, unkempt hair. Hayato was also a good 10 cm taller, giving off a pretty imposing impression. The boy lead Hayato inside of the classroom, which was illuminated only by candle light. The classroom's cool blue paint job was more of a shadowy purple in the dim light, with the ritual props that were normally scattered about being neatly assembled around a chalk circle in the middle.

Hayato talked to the boy, who had introduced himself as Ivan Nosferatu and his equally unhealthy looking club members for a little while. Eventually, the conversation got around to rumors of monsters coming alive courtesy of Hayato. Ivan explained that they believed it was possible to summon a Duel Monster into the human world by using very specific rituals, but in order for it to be permanent they'd need a magical artifact of some kind to bind them to this realm. Unfortunately, they're still doing research into the exact workings of such a ritual. The occult club was slightly curious about summoning monsters into the world, but wouldn't dare make it permanent. Hayato continued to spend some time digging into the activities the club was researching, but didn't find much more for the day.[/hider]
[hider=Steel & Meio][color=6BC4FE]"H-Hey! Wait just a-!"[/color]

Meio shouted after Camryn, but she had already gone off and decided things on her own. The boy sighed and resigned himself to his fate, jumping straight back into the pool to get things off of his mind. The day quickly came to an end after that, with the three who set out to find those cards coming together to discuss what they found out. Saturday rolled around soon enough and Camryn dueled against Meio, but was unable to secure a victory against him. Meio explained to her afterwards that he wasn't going to give it up in a duel either, but he played along because she wasn't going to let it go that easily. They eventually settled on having Camryn tutor him a little for his algebra classes, because the guy wasn't exactly a genius on that front.

Having successfully gathered both cards, the group met up again to discuss the next plan of action. Haas decided against going to Steel himself, as he didn't really know who he was. Nathan wound up getting the short end of the stick again, because he was the one who struck the deal to begin with. Maisy tagged along so Nathan wasn't alone and because she just felt like it. The two of them managed to secure a meeting with Steel after some digging around the Dark Dorm, with the meeting being right inside the academy's Gym.

Steel had happily accepted the cards, keeping his word on explaining the Ante dueling thing and the real damage, but nothing more. The first thing he talked about was the real damage, a cocky smirk plastered on his face as he explained what happened in the duel. Steel proudly slammed his fist against his chest as he explained that the strongest duelists can 'see' the real potential of the monsters they use to duel. After honing your skills for a while, you get a stronger connection to your cards compared to any other, although, Steel cheats a bit. All the older boy gave as explanation was a brief glimpse at his Infestation Symbiosis field spell, but refused to comment further.

The more amusing answer, to Steel at least, was explaining why the Ante duels were happening. The exact words he spoke were; [color=8493ca]"'Cause of what you suckers gave me! Rare cards!"[/color] and he howled in laughter afterwards. Steel and his cronies were only interested in hauling all the rare cards to themselves, but he wasn't silly enough to explain why he needed them so much. After all, he answered the question. As soon as he did, dark dorm students grabbed Maisy and Nathan by the arms to drag them out.

[color=8493ca]"Oh, n'd a fair word of warning? I like ya, but yer not safe either."[/color] Steel had told them with a smirk, right before they were thrown out. When Maisy and Nathan rushed back to the gym, Steel and most of his crew had already vanished.[/hider]
[hider=Setting the scene and time]After the second run-in with Steel, time passed by quickly in the academy. Despite the best efforts of the investigation group, the trail had gotten cold again on both Steel and Exec. In all the time that passed, the Dark Dorm's growth had slowed down... but unfortunately, there were also some drop outs from the academy which lowered the student count over all. The staff seemed to be worried, but even trhough various detentions and punishments, the gigantic mass of dark dorm students didn't seem to shrink even the tiniest bit.

It was about a month or two later after the last time the group saw some big brass from the Dark Dorm, a solid four months into the year over all. Winter had come for most of the world, but the desert was still as blazing hot as ever. Studies have been going good for most students, but some people struggled to keep up. The investigation group hung out with each other regularly and while most of them weren't really major friends, everyone had come to accept everyone else as 'part of the gang' more or less. They even set up a little group chat on their D-Ceivers.

A while ago the academy announced that people would already be placed into different dorms based on performance. It turned out to not be at the time it was announced, but Melchior wrote up the script and some clarity was clearly lost in translation. The real first big shift in dorms was going to happen in this month, where other schools would be having their first major exam period. Each year of students had one week dedicated to them, in which those students were encouraged to duel once every day in one of the arenas. Each floor was being governed by a teacher who watched over the duels. Judging from people's performance in those, they would either advance or demote. It was now the last day, with every first year having to play out their final duel. A majority of them had already gone off to duel as they had no classes for the entire day.

Some rumors hung about in the academy, rumors of a party. Some students say they saw Transformer carry a whole truck's load of something up the stairs, past the point where students would be allowed. Nobody questioned this as Transformer has been shown to carry larger amounts than what the students tended to describe. Some of the second years decided to join in on the rumor spreading for fun, trying to sabotage the excitement at such a possible event by saying that they pick out the worst performing students and put them in a personalized training camp. The boxes people saw Transformer carry up were nothing more than torturous training tools, made to drag everyone through hell. The academy didn't confirm or deny any of these rumors, they only said that something special would be happening at the end of the day.[/hider]
[hider=Haas]Haas was lying on his bed with a sense of dread, realizing that today was his last shot at impressing the teachers. It was still morning and he didn't want to get breakfast just yet. He pulled out his D-Ceiver and scrolled through to the group chat. There was some discourse among the members as to what it should have been called, so Haas settled on something alliterative and witty. 'Dark Dorm Dealings' was that name, which caused some discourse in its own right. He quickly shot a message to all members of the group.

[b][color=aba000]"final day. i'm dying of nerves over here! u guys worried??"[/color][/b]

After typing out the message he put the device on the small bedside table next to him and jumped out of bed, quickly changing so he didn't go to the showers in his underwear. After freshening up the guy made his way to the cafeteria, bummed out and nearly face planting into his bowl of cereal. No matter how much sleep he got,
he just couldn't be his usual, energetic self.[/hider]
[hider=Andre]Andre's morning had started earlier than most people in the academy, because he had a score to settle. After beating up that dark dorm student two months ago he kept repeatedly running into them, with the duels escalating in intensity. Of course, someone of Andre's caliber could easily deal with the lowest of the Acedemy's ranks. Genta had a bit less luck with the duels, but Andre continuously pushed the timid boy to take on more and more of the dark dorm students by himself. The boy was clearly improving by being put up against tougher opponents than him but he was still too timid to brutally duel the way Andre did.

Now, of course, it comes as no surprise that the dark dorm who challenged Andre the day before this day was positively smoking on the floor, deep fried by their own duel chain.

[color=F38014]"Wow, teach... you're really amazing! I still got a long way to go..."[/color]

Genta spoke with awe, completely unconcerned by the wounded student on the floor. Just as the duo was about to head out of the vacant art gallery as the sliding doors behind them opened up. Suddenly, just around ten dark dorm students of various sizes, gender and builds stormed into the room. They surrounded Genta and Andre, but left the space in front of them open so they could get a good look at the older boy stepping through the door. Spiky brown hair, jacket worn like a cape, messy clothes and a silver eye; It was none other than Steel, but the both of them couldn't have known that.

[color=8493ca]"Ah, so yer the ones puttin' me boys in danger, eh?"[/color]

The guy spoke in a very confident tone, chuckling straight after. Genta nervously glanced at Andre and muttered [color=F38014]"This is bad..."[/color] to himself. Steel cracked his knuckles and neck, giving off a feint of wanting to get into a fistfight. He then pointed to his unconscious, smoking goon.

[color=8493ca]"Didn't know ya'd finish up this quick, woulda come here sooner and saved 'im the barbecue! Now, I don't like you beatin' up my boys like you have... Got somethin' to say for yourself?"[/color][/hider]
[hider=Angelo]
The past two months Angelo's been hard at work fine-tuning his Duel Runner. He was currently in the garage again, casing completely thrown open as he's fiddling with the engine. Despite his best efforts it was pretty hard to get a hold of really high-end parts, with the guy not exactly being rich enough to order everything he wanted online. He's done his best with what the school offered and the little he could buy out of his own pockets, but most of his time was spent optimizing what he already had.

[color=fff79a]"You're really going to bust that thing at the rate you're going,"[/color] a voice called out to Angelo from behind. Turning around it revealed to be Jacklyn, staring over his work like a hawk. Jacklyn sometimes helped Angelo out, but she's a nocturnal creature. The girl would often be in bed by the time Angelo reached the garage. She was still dressed in her riding suit and had one hand behind her back.

[color=fff79a]"You're going to bend something at this rate, and that'll cost ya. Your parts won't get much better, I keep tellin' you to crack the coding of your piloting chip and remove the limiter if you want to go faster."[/color]

Jacklyn pulled out a small laptop from behind her back, placing it on the floor and hooking up a USB port to Angelo's terminal. The Duel Runner was already plugged in to a socket to recharge, luckily, so it didn't take long for Jacklyn to pull up the source code on her screen.

[color=fff79a]"Normally you can't edit it, but I've got an override I use for my own Runner. Check this out,"[/color] she bragged and pressed a button. Suddenly, numbers started flashing up on the screen in rapid succession before a big 'CLEAR' appeared on screen. From there, the code popped back up again as Jacklyn pressed in a letter to show Angelo it functioned. She quickly deleted it again, though.[/hider]
[hider=Maisy]Maisy had hurriedly downed her breakfast after arriving in the cafeteria, penning something down on a paper next to her. She hogged an entire table to herself as papers were haphazardly strewn out, names of students turned dark dorm written on all of them. Some were even in-depth resumes, handled through hours of careful undergarment research. Most of the students that joined that dorm were either placed in their automatically or came of the lower dorms: Earth, Wind and Fire. There was the odd Water student in there, but they didn't pick fights with the Light or Divine dorm strangely enough.

Some of the students placed in were clearly on their worst behavior and there were a good few who's grades have dropped significantly since the start of the year, or who were friends with some dark dorms to begin with. The others, however, didn't make much sense. Good grades, not particularly offensive and generally quiet and meek people. Most of them also adjusted their fashion once they got inside Dark, choosing to wear more piercings or mascara for the females. Speaking of which, the dorm was populated predominantly by men. It's noticeable in how the affected dorms, except for Water, the gender ratio has started skewing to female students.[/hider]
[hider=Ben]Ben found himself trying to encourage the Wind dorm students to not pay any mind to the dark dorm, and it might have been a blessing that the majority of his dorm was now female. In fact, he often found the conversations steering away from said dorm and more towards him, as he's become the most popular boy in the wind dorm, earning him the ire of some of his dorm-mates. Strangely enough, he hadn't heard of his older crew in a while. The only one that still kept up with him somewhat was Marie Ann, and even she's pretty scared now that her friends have all but disappeared.

Ben's posse was, predictably, part of the Dark dorm now. Despite Ben's best efforts, he saw them getting recruited into their ranks one by one. While aggravating, he couldn't do a lot about it. The most he could do was to guide the shy and timid Marie Ann, not letting her be pressured into joining as well... however, that became increasingly hard as more and more girls of the academy struck up conversation with him on a regular basis wherever he went, not strictly from the wind dorm either. Some weren't even first years.

Right now he was in the arenas Q-S, coaching some Earth dorm students who had come to him for help. He wasn't dueling himself, merely giving tips to the girls and guys that were a year or two younger than him on how to get the most out of their deck. He was smiling as it seemed to pay off, the younger kids putting up more of a fight against their opponents compared to a few practice matches he had with them earlier in the week.

[color=f6989d]"And then they say hard work hardly works, the liars."[/color]

Before he had realized it himself, a small girl wearing a Wind dorm jacket was sitting next to him. She looked a bit young compared to everyone else and had long, soft hairs. Cream showed up in the most random of places, but Ben couldn't know who she was. She was staring at him with a goofy grin.

[color=f6989d]"Hope ya don't mind me taking this seat. Don't take ya as one of the shy ones, tho."[/color][/hider]
[hider=Camryn]Camryn was watching the first year duels unfold. There had been a rainbow's worth of colors passing by in the arenas despite only a few duels actually happening, but none of the duels made an impact on the girl. A splash, however, it did make. Solid Vision made for some pretty convincing water as Camryn found out, being splashed by a wave of Meio's Neo Daedalus. The boy already left the arena again, making her watch a boring duel between two Earth dorm students that didn't really go anywhere, as one of them was playing Barrier statues.

[color=009BFF]"Aaah, my brother's homeroom teach!"[/color]

A voice spoke up from behind Camryn. Turning around revealed an individual with medium length, purple hair who was wearing a Light dorm uniform, his emerald eyes hidden behind his closed eyelids. He was leaning over the back seat of Camryn's chair with his hand folded into the peace sign and a grin plastered across his face. It was none other than Meio's carefree older brother, Ryo.

[color=009BFF]"'sup, Camryn?"[/color][/hider]
[hider=Vincent]
[color=92278f]"That all you're capable of, punk?!"[/color]

A dark dorm student with a face full of piercings, hazel eyes and a purple tomahawk snapped at his opponent, another dark dorm duelist. The sneering one had a jury rigged solid vision disk who's blade was unstably wobbling, but managed to keep straight. The one he called a 'punk' was a short kid with a black fringe in front of his right eye, looking fearfully at the opponent. The duel chain attached to his standard academy-licensed disk made it so there wasn't any escape and the shaking of their legs showed that a couple of shocks had already been sent their way.

[color=92278f]"You're not even worth bein' in this dorm! You couldn't duel your way out of a wet paper bag! Now remember the name 'a Vairen Sköll! Elemental HERO Escuridao, show this punk why he's worse than earthies!"[/color]

The black-armored 'hero' did just as it asked, slicing clean through the other kid's shirt with their blade. It actually created a rip in the uniform, where shortly after the Duel Chain finished off the job. Vairen howled with laughter as the field dissipated, walking over and grabbing the short kid by the collar. The boy had no trouble at all raising them up with just one hand, the struggling of the victim being too weak to squirm themselves free.

[color=92278f]"Get out of this academy, you low-life-!"[/color]

As Vairen was about to punch the kid in the face, he felt his arm being grabbed by someone. Instinctively they dropped the kid and yanked himself free, taking a step back. Vairen's confident face faltered for a moment when he saw just who interrupted his punch, with the victim crawling back against the wall. It was none other than Vincent Gulfus, having one eye lazily closed and not being surprised in the slightest.

[color=92278f]"Oh hey, look, it's Mr. untouchable! The heck do you want, huh?! A piece of me?!"[/color] Vairen yelled out, readying his fists again.[/hider]
[hider=Ignia & Ethel]Ethel's day had started as it usually would; Sit in her room for about an hour to get away from the commotion outside and freshen herself up for the day. While she wasn't really into make-up as much as some other girls, she still applied a bit of it. Once she had gotten ready, Ethel stepped out into the hallways of the Light dorm. When she passed the Wind dorm hallways and waited on Ignia for a bit, she didn't show up. It was strange, since Ethel usually ate breakfast along with Ignia but she shrugged it off and didn't feel like letting herself starve because the other girl is late.

In reality, Ignia was already awake and hiding from Ethel's sight. Not because she wanted to avoid the girl, of course. Ignia would never want to hide from Ethel. No, she was carefully watching her leave and looking out for a specific yellow jacket that seemed to tail her as of late. They were quick and slippery, no doubt. Ignia could never catch more than a brief glimpse or two, but the other person probably knew Ignia was watching her. It was a game of predator and prey, with both of them being the predator and Ethel being the unfortunate prey. Even as Ignia kept out of sight while eating breakfast she scouted around the cafeteria, but the crowds made it hard to identify the other follower. They were good. Really good.

Ethel continued on with her day, looking increasingly annoyed as she did. The girl made her way into the library, grabbing some textbooks from the shelves and sprawling them out over one of the many tables. It looked like some books on Xyz summoning, Ethel taking notes and starting to study up. Ignia casually, yet carefully paced around the library, looking out for the other person as they did the same. She could briefly see a yellow sleeve vanish behind one of the shelves, a bit further away from Ethel. She was now faced with a choice; Follow this mysterious person or go and rejoin the studying Ethel.[/hider]