Formula for Success

The Ra Yellows and the Slifer Reds were playing a baseball game in the arena, and Jaden was up to bat.

"Come on Jaden! We need a homer!" One of the Reds shouted.

"Jay! Keep your eye on the ball!" Syrus shouted.

"That could be tough. After all, the ball's gonna be going over the rafters. He'll score, then he will, and then I will. We'll have a six-run lead." Jaden responded.

"Hold on!" Bastion shouted as he ran up to his teammates.

"Sorry, I was rebuilding my deck and lost track of time." He said.

"Can you throw?" One of the Ras asked.

"Sure." Bastion replied.

"Good, 'cause we need a fresh arm. Pitcher change!" The boy said.

"This is no written exam Bastion. I hope you know what you're doing." Jaden said.

"Trust me, I've done all the calculations. Now get ready for some heat Jaden, because this one's coming in red-hot." Bastion replied. He pitched the ball and it whizzed right past Jaden.

"Strike one!" The umpire shouted. Bastion proceeded to score two more strikes against Jaden, costing the Slifers their third out.

"Nuts!" Jaden exclaimed.

The teams switched sides and Jaden went to pitch for the Slifers, scoring two outs, but then wound up walking 3 batters.

"Time!" Syrus shouted before walking to his best friend.

"Jaden, what's going on? You got two outs and then walked the last 3 players." Syrus asked.

"Yeah, pretty slick huh?" Jaden asked.

"What do you mean?" Syrus asked.

"How else would I get a chance to pitch Bastion?" Jaden asked.

"What? You mean you walked all those guys just so you could get even with Bastion?" Syrus asked.

"No. I don't wanna just get even, I wanna get ahead. You hear that Bastion? You're going down!" Jaden shouted.

"Down the base paths perhaps. Now give me your best shot Jaden. I don't want any excuses when I wallop it out of the ballpark. That is if you manage to get the ball over the plate that is." Bastion responded.

"Game on!" Jaden shouted.

"Game over soon." Bastion replied. Meanwhile, Maxwell was walking through the arena.

"Chazz couldn't beat Michael, Titan couldn't beat him, the Paradox Brothers couldn't beat him. I need to find someone who can beat him." He began to say before a baseball came out of nowhere and knocked him into a pile of equipment.

"Uh, heads up." Jaden said as he and Syrus ran to check on who had gotten struck. Maxwell removed himself from the pile and Jaden and Syrus froze on the spot when they saw him.

"You! Of course, who else could cause such intense pain?!" Maxwell asked angrily, seemingly unaware that the baseball was stuck in his left eye.

"Now that's keeping your eye on the ball." Syrus said.

"Sorry, it was." Jaden began to say before Bastion called out. "My fault! I was the one who hit the ball." as he ran up to them.

"Bastion? Of course, here I was struggling to find a new protégé and here it strikes me right in the face. I just wish it hadn't been literally." Maxwell said as he got to his feet.

"Dr. Maxwell, please accept my apologies." Bastion said, although inwardly he was somewhat enjoying this after his conversation with Michael.

"No, no, no, no. I've been meaning to have my contacts refitted for ages, and now I have the perfect excuse." Maxwell said before noticing Jaden and Syrus were still there.

"Alright you two, you've caused enough trouble, now make like a drum and beat it!" he shouted.

"Fine, but that was foul ball Bastion." Jaden said as the baseball fell out, revealing a large black eye.

"Never mind those two. It's time you start consorting with those more your class don't you think? It's time you start consorting with me." Maxwell said as he turned to Bastion. Later on, Dr. Maxwell's class was in session. Chazz sat down.

"Yo, iced tea." He said.

"Get it yourself." Another student replied.

"What was that?" Chazz asked.

"Doesn't he know?" One of the students asked.

"Guess not." Another replied.

"Know what?" The spiky haired teen asked. An Obelisk Blue student walked up to Chazz.

"Chazz, where do you think you're sitting?" he asked.

"My seat." Chazz answered.

"Sorry, but that's not your seat anymore, now move." The other teen said.

"What are you talking about? Of course this is my seat, it says so right here." Chazz responded as he pointed to his name tag before realizing it was gone.

"Sorry Chazz, but you were moved over there." The other Obelisk said as he pointed to a seat in the Ra Yellow section.

"This is all wrong. I don't belong over there with those losers. Dr. Maxwell, tell them this is all a mistake. Tell them I belong up here!" Chazz shouted.

"But you don't, and you haven't since you lost to Jaden Yuki in the promotional exams. Tomorrow you will duel Bastion Misawa, and if you lose, the two of you will switch dorms." Maxwell explained.

"You mean I'd become a Ra Yellow duelist?!" Chazz asked in shock.

"Very good, now if you could only duel as well as you listen." Maxwell responded. Everyone in class started to laugh at Chazz, prompting him to run from the classroom.

"I won't be a Ra!" He shouted.

Meanwhile, Jaden and Syrus were walking with Bastion back to the Ra Dorm.

"Okay, maybe it wasn't a foul Bastion." Jaden said.

"Jaden, over the centerfield fence usually isn't." Syrus responded.

"Look, I play like I duel, with formulas," Bastion said as he showed them his bat, which had numerous equations written on it.

"I find that science, statistics, geometry, they play a role in everything we do in life." He said.

"Wow, I never looked at it that way." Jaden responded.

"So do you have a formula for everything Bastion?" Syrus asked.

Bastion laughed and led them inside to his dorm room.

"Here we are." He said as he opened his door.

"And where is that?" Jaden and Syrus asked.

"My lab, workshop, and dorm room. That area is for equations relating to traps, that area for spells, and that's, well you get the idea. Most of these I've memorized, and as you can see, I'm running out of room, so." Bastion said.

"So what?" Jaden and Syrus asked in unison.

"So, mind helping?" Bastion said as he pulled out a can of paint and a brush.

A few minutes later, the three of them were painting over the writing on the walls and ceiling, and Jaden was on a ladder painting over the ceiling.

"Check it out, I'm Michelangelo. Get it, because I'm painting on the ceiling." Jaden said before he lost his balance and dropped his paint brush on Syrus, covering his face in white paint.

"You do realize this means war Jay." Syrus said.

"Sy, it was an accident, I swear." Jaden said as he tried to diffuse the situation before noticing Syrus grab a bucket of paint.

"That's enough, now give me that paint." Bastion said as Syrus attempted to throw the bucket on Jaden, who managed to avoid the paint, which resulted in Bastion getting covered instead.

Jaden looked at Bastion and busted out laughing.

"Funny is it?" Bastion asked before smacking Jaden in the face with a paint-soaked rag, covering him in paint as well. Jaden, Bastion, and Syrus then started jabbing paint brushes at each other. After having their fun, they finished painting the room and cleaned the paint off themselves. Bastion took them to the Ra meal hall to thank them for their help.

"I don't think I've ever had such a good time painting. You're a great guy Bastion." Jaden said.

"Yeah, and so is Ra Yellow's food." Syrus added.

"You flatter us. But I'm sure it's not that much better than Slifer's," Bastion said as he walked up with a plate of lobster.

"Trust me, the closest we get to lobster is our dorm cat's breath," Jaden said. "Speaking of bottom-dwellers, what were you talking to Maxwell about back at the game?" Syrus asked.

"Actually, he wants me to test to be an Obelisk." Bastion answered.

"Are you serious?" Jaden asked.

"Is that why you were cleaning up your room? Because you're switching dorms?" Syrus asked.

"Well you deserve it, congrats Bastion." Jaden said.

"You flatter me." Bastion responded.

"You're great Bastion. I saw you duel at the entrance exams, you kicked that duel proctor's butt." Jaden replied before he and Syrus went back to eating. The sun went down and Chazz was having a conversation with his brothers over video chat in his room.

"Got it Chazz?" His brother Jagger asked.

"Yeah." Chazz answered.

"I can't hear you." Jagger responded.

"I said yes, I understand." Chazz replied.

"Well, you had better. The Princeton Brothers have a plan. Your brother and I are following through with our ends of it," Chazz's other brother Slade said.

"And you had better be following through with yours Chazz. Come on, just think of it little bro, the world of politics, finance, and duel monsters. If we control them all, then we will control the entire world. So be the best, the future of the Princeton family depends on it, it depends on you." Jagger said before the call ended.

'Be the best? How can I be the best with lucky punks like Jaden and Michael running around?' Chazz thought to himself as he stared out his window. He saw Bastion walking away from the Ra dorm with Jaden and Syrus.

'What's this? Bastion's heading to the Slifer dorm for tonight?' He thought to himself before he began to hatch a plan to make sure he wouldn't lose the duel tomorrow.

In Jaden's dorm, he and Bastion were fast asleep and snoring away.

"Hey Syrus, what's the Ra doing here?" Chumley asked.

"He painted his room today, so we let him crash here." The blue haired boy explained.

"But Syrus, he's a Ra Yellow. What if he wakes up and wants to duel one of us, or make fun of one of us? How do you know we can trust him?" Chumley asked.

"Relax Chumley, he's cool. He even let me and Jaden eat at the Ra meal hall." Syrus said.

"Oh, well good night then." Chumley said.

The morning arrived and found Dorothy from the campus card shop banging on Jaden's door.

"Jaden!" She shouted.

"What's wrong Ms. Dorothy?" The Slifer student asked as he opened the door.

"I was at the docks unloading some goods near the shore, and that's when I saw them, cards thrown into the water!" Dorothy exclaimed. Bastion, Jaden, and Syrus ran to the docks and saw the cards Dorothy told them about.

"That's Ring of Destruction and Vorse Raider." Syrus said, recognizing the cards Bastion used in his entrance exam.

"Bastion, these are all your cards." Jaden said.

"This is my fault. This deck was in the desk we moved into the hallway when we were painting yesterday." Bastion said.

"Who would do something like this?" Syrus asked.

"Someone who doesn't want Bastion to advance to Obelisk Blue. I mean this was your deck and it's totally ruined. What are you gonna do Bastion? Your promotion exam is in less than an hour." Jaden pointed out.

Timeskip

Bastion, Jaden, and Syrus were running into the duel arena.

"Bastion, you've made it. Oh, and I see you've brought some friends." Maxwell said distastefully.

Hope you duel better than the company you keep." Chazz said smugly.

"Wait, Chazz is your opponent? Then I bet he's the one who tossed your cards." Jaden said.

"Pardon?" Maxwell asked. "I don't know what he's talking about Dr. Maxwell, I didn't do a thing." Chazz lied.

"Oh, is that so?" Alexis asked as she, Zane, Michael, and Lily walked into the arena.

"Alexis and I saw you by the water this morning Chazz. You dumped them in and ran off." Michael said.

"I normally wouldn't snitch, but you don't mess with someone's deck." Alexis said.

"Yeah, no joke. That's low Chazz, even for you." Jaden said.

"Who's to say I wasn't throwing away my own cards? I guess Bastion and I just have similar decks, that's all." Chazz said.

"Liar." Jaden responded.

"No one calls me a liar. And no one calls me a thief." Chazz said.

"Fine, let's just have our duel." Bastion said. "But how? You don't have your deck anymore." Jaden said.

"Bastion, you're welcome to borrow my deck if you need," Michael offered.

"While I appreciate the offer Michael, that won't be necessary. A good duelist always has a spare deck, or a few in my case," Bastion said as he opened his jacket to reveal six deck boxes strapped to his chest.

"Fine. It doesn't matter how many decks you have, you'll be burned by my flames of malice!" Chazz said as he brandished his deck.

"You're just a problem to be solved Chazz. A theorem to be cracked. You're finished!" Bastion shouted as he put one of his decks in his duel disk.

"So bring it on." Chazz said.

Both: "Duel!"

Bastion: 4000 LP

Chazz: 4000 LP

"Hope you're ready. Cause here comes the hurt." Chazz said as he drew a card.

"I summon Chthonian Soldier in attack mode." He said.

Level 4/Dark/Warrior

ATK 1200/DEF 1400

"That's the same monster he used against Michael at the welcome dinner." Lily commented.

"I place one card face-down and that'll do it for now." Chazz said.

"Oh, will it now?" Bastion asked.

"Sounds like Bastion has a plan." Jaden said.

"I summon Hydrogeddon in attack mode." Bastion declared.

Level 4/Water/Dinosaur

ATK 1600/DEF 1000

"Now attack Chthonian Soldier with Hydro Gust!" he ordered.

Chazz: 3600 LP

Bastion: 3600 LP

"Wait, why did Bastion's life points go down?" Syrus asked.

"Chthonian Soldier's special ability inflicts damage to your opponent equal to the damage its controller receives when it's destroyed in battle, which would deter most duelists from attacking it, but considering the special ability of Bastion's monster." Michael began to say before letting Bastion show them.

"I activate Hydrogeddon's special ability. You see Chazz, when Hydrogeddon destroys a monster in battle, I'm allowed to summon another one directly from my deck, and since it's still my battle phase, I'll have it wage a direct attack on your life points." Bastion explained as another one appeared and blasted Chazz.

Chazz: 2000 LP

"You'll pay for that. It's my move, and I play the trap card Call of the Haunted. With it, I can summon Chthonian Soldier back from my graveyard. Next, I play the Inferno Reckless Summon spell card." Chazz said.

"He's using the same moves he did on Michael at the welcome dinner." Zane pointed out.

"But this time I'm throwing something new in the mix: the Chthonian Alliance spell card, and with it, one of my soldiers gains 800 attack points for every monster on the field with the same name as him." Chazz explained.

Soldier: 1200-3600 ATK

"Now attack!" He ordered. His monster slashed his blade right through one of Bastion's monsters, destroying it in an instant.

Bastion: 1600 LP

"Chazz has taken the lead." Michael said.

"Good show. But it will be short lived. Rise Oxygeddon!" Bastion shouted.

Level 4/Wind/Dinosaur

ATK 1800/DEF 800

"Now Oxygeddon, attack his weaker Soldier with Vapor Stream!" Bastion shouted.

Chazz: 1400 LP

Bastion: 1000 LP

"I'm not through yet, Hydrogeddon, attack his remaining 1200 attack point Chthonian Soldier!" Bastion ordered.

Chazz: 1000 LP

Bastion: 600 LP

"Why does Bastion keep attacking? He's only hurting himself," Syrus said.

"Na, he's fine." Jaden said.

"Bastion's playing smart." Zane added.

"If Bastion had left the weaker soldiers on the field, then the one with the Chthonian Alliance spell card would still have 3600 attack points, but by removing the two other soldiers, he's reduced its attack by 1600 points, which will give him a much easier time beating it." Michael said.

Soldier: 3600-2000 ATK

"Lastly, I place a face-down card and end my turn," Bastion said.

"It's my move. And I sacrifice my Chthonian Soldier and all the cards in my hand in order to summon the Infernal Incinerator!" Chazz declared.

"That's not good." Jaden said.

Level 6/Fire/Fiend

ATK 2800/DEF 1800

"Better break out your calculator, because if you can't find a formula to beat this guy this turn, you're toast!" Chazz shouted.

Incinerator: 2800-3400 ATK

"Why did its attack points go up?" Syrus asked.

"Infernal Incinerator is a bit of an all or nothing card. Its special ability gives it 200 more attack points for every monster your opponent controls, but reduces its own attack power by 500 for every monster you control other than itself." Lily explained.

"Now Infernal Incinerator, attack with Firestorm Blast!" Chazz shouted.

"I play the trap Amorphous Barrier! When I have three or more monsters, I can play this card and end your battle phase." Bastion explained.

"So what? One turn, that's all it buys you, and then this duel is mine." Chazz taunted.

"Wrong Chazz, because you won't be taking another turn. I play the spell card Bonding – H2O and sacrifice my monsters in order to summon Water Dragon!" Bastion shouted.

Level 8/WATER/Sea Serpent

ATK 2800/DEF 2600

Bastion's monster sent a tidal wave towards Infernal Incinerator, completely soaking it and pushing Chazz off the stage.

Incinerator: 3400-0 ATK

"What?! Its attack points became 0?" Jaden exclaimed.

"Due to Water Dragon's special ability, while it's on the field, the attack of all pyro type and fire attribute monsters become 0," Michael explained.

"Now Water Dragon, attack with Tidal Blast!" Bastion shouted. His monster shot a powerful stream of water at Infernal Incinerator, destroying it and knocking Chazz off the stage.

Chazz: 0 LP

"A well-played duel Chazz. But not well enough." Bastion said.

"Pure luck. You drew a lucky card and stumbled into the win," Chazz said.

"Wrong Chazz. What you said at the start of the duel caught my attention. You said I would be 'burned in the flames of malice'. This lead me to believe that your deck would consist of fire attribute monsters, which this deck is specifically designed to counter. Even if I hadn't played Water Dragon, you would've lost the duel one way or another. Deny it if you want, just like you denied throwing my deck into the ocean." Bastion responded.

"Prove it." Chazz said.

"Well, if you insist. I fished this card out of the water, and there's a complex equation written on it. I suppose you could've written it, but then the math would've probably been wrong, and it isn't. Chazz, you stole, lied, cheated, and lost. You deserve to be demoted." Bastion said.

"This can't be." Chazz said as he fell to his hands and knees.

"Bastion Misawa. Congratulations, and welcome to Obelisk Blue," Maxwell said.

"Well done Bastion. It'll be a pleasure to have you around the dorm." Michael said.

"Agreed." Zane added.

"Thank you all, but I'm afraid I must decline your offer Dr. Maxwell." Bastion responded.

"What? But what for?" Maxwell asked.

"When I first arrived at the academy, I decided I would only enter Obelisk Blue when I became the number one duelist in the freshman class. Jaden and Michael, out of all the new freshman, I think the two of you are the best." Bastion said as he turned to his friends.

"Hey thanks. Does that mean you wanna settle things right here?" Jaden asked.

"Sorry Jaden, but not now." Bastion replied.

"Why not?" The Slifer student asked.

"Because I'm not prepared. You and Michael are amazing duelists, and I plan to be ready for you." Bastion answered.

"Well, I'll be waiting for you Bastion, and I look forward to that day." Michael said.

"Same here." Jaden added.

"Until then." Bastion said.