Worm—this was the deck Doma had so enthusiastically 'gifted' to Kira back then. But since Kira personally wasn't very fond of Reptiles, he'd basically never used the deck, aside from occasionally adding a few specific Worm cards into his acrobat combo decks.
Now, however, combined with Professor Viper's Venom, this deck suddenly seemed to have some development value.
First of all, putting everything else aside, the Worm have one critically important boss monster in the deck: the Twenty-Sixth Worm, the ultimate lifeform that is both the origin and the endpoint of the Worm—Worm Zero.
Its Fusion condition is "2 or more Reptile monsters with 'Worm' in their names," with no upper limit. So if you use "Future Fusion," you can Fusion Summon by sending Worm from the Deck to the GY. With just that single card, you can very casually dump over twenty Worm from your Deck into the GY in one go.
And on Professor Viper's side, whether it's Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes or Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes, their ATK is determined by the number of Reptile monsters in the GY. The more Reptiles in there, the higher their ATK.
So just imagine: activate Future Fusion, declare Worm Zero as the Fusion target, and dump twenty or thirty Reptiles straight into the GY. In that situation, if you then summon Vennominaga, you can effortlessly create an ultimate monster with ten or twenty thousand ATK, unaffected by other card effects, that cannot be banished, and which, if it lands a single hit on the opponent, starts a three-turn countdown to an automatic win.
And that's not even counting the grave-dumping with Worm Zero. As a Reptile-themed deck, the Worm archetype's internal engine is, no matter how you look at it, vastly stronger than Professor Viper's rather feeble Venom deck lineup.
Worm themselves also have some big beaters, and a number of small Flip-effect monsters with some pretty nasty, from-hell style abilities. Even if you ignore the boss, their combat strength is still on a completely different level compared to the salted-fish Venom decks.
So if he built around the Worm engine, with Vennominaga as the deck's core finisher, Kira felt this idea had real potential.
Of course, since he'd decided to put this deck together, Kira naturally also went out to dig up some other cards that could support Reptiles in general. But Reptiles as a Type were indeed pretty "salted-fish" across all of Yu-Gi-Oh!, and there weren't many that were truly useful.
So that day he tinkered in the lab until very late before finally heading back to the dorm.
On the way back, he walked as he flipped through the list of cards he still hadn't fully decided on. While he was moving along, he suddenly heard a strange "Awoo!" from the darkness.
Kira looked up in surprise and stopped walking. He glanced around to see a green-armored creature crawling out from between the trees—a crocodile, baring its sharp teeth at him with a vicious expression.
"Ah, sorry, sorry—"
Before Kira could do anything, a panting voice called out from behind.
An off-campus friend dressed like a Western cowboy—Jim—ran up and hurriedly grabbed the crocodile, giving Kira an embarrassed smile.
"Sorry about that, Shirley's usually very docile. She just gets excited when she meets someone strong."
Kira knew "Shirley" was the crocodile's name.
He wasn't actually afraid of the crocodile; in fact, there really weren't many things left that could scare him now. He smiled casually and asked, "If I remember right, you're Jim Crocodile Cook?"
"Yes."
Jim held his hand out.
"Nice to finally meet the legendary Duel King. Actually, haha, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I've been waiting here especially for you."
"Oh?"
Jim hoisted the crocodile back onto his shoulders, glanced at her, and smiled.
"When I came to this Academy, the thing I looked forward to most was seeing you in person. And if I could have a Duel to learn from you, that'd be even better. Shirley thinks so too."
As if responding to his words, the crocodile on his back let out another "Awoo," full of fighting spirit.
"A Duel, with me, huh?"
Kira suddenly thought of the GX manga: when Jim first arrived at the Academy there too, he'd been in such a rush that he ambushed the Academy's King in a grove, wanting to Duel him. But in the manga, the Academy's King referred to Alexis's brother, Atticus Rhodes.
Of course, the characters in the manga differ quite a bit from their anime counterparts.
"Yeah. Being able to face strong duelists from around the world—that's my and Shirley's dream," Jim said with a grin. "Oh, of course, I know as the King you must be very busy. So if it's inconvenient, we can just forget it…"
Kira said nothing at first, instead glancing at the bandages on Jim's face.
Jim's left eye was exposed, while his right was covered by bandages, for some reason making Kira think of an "Evil King's True Eye" chuunibyou type of thing.
"Your right eye," Kira said.
"Oh, this?" Jim touched the bandaged eye. "It's called the 'Eye of Orichalcum.' I got it when I was a kid. The person who gave it to me said it has incredible powers. But I've hardly ever had the chance to use it."
Kira nodded.
The name "Orichalcum" was a bit sensitive, but its spelling wasn't the same as the Orichalcos from DM; the translations just sometimes matched because the pronunciations were similar. The story also never actually stated any connection between the two.
But the eye was clearly an artifact. In the anime, Jim used this eye to explode with power, pushing his duelist's "momentum" to the point where he could stand against the Supreme King. The fact that Axel Brodie was able to trade blows evenly with the Supreme King in the end was, to a large extent, thanks to the eye Jim left behind.
Kira's interest was piqued.
"Alright," he smiled.
He was also very interested in Jim's deck. Jim's deck would get printed in real life years in the future, and in its printed form, its potential would be completely beyond anything this current era knew.
In fact, Kira had previously considered trying to poach Jim during this semester's exchange program and bring him in for research.
Getting to test the waters early was great too.
Jim brightened. "Then please forgive my rudeness. Let's do this, Shirley!"
The crocodile on his back roared again, as if fired up.
"Duel!" ×2
[Kira, LP 4000]
[Jim, LP 4000]
"I'll go first. Draw!"
Jim glanced at the card he drew and immediately played it.
"I Normal Summon 'Shell Knight' in Defense Position!"
As its name implied, this was a knight whose entire body was formed from shells. White shells fitted together into a sturdy suit of armor; both hands were like giant lobster claws made from hinged shells.
[Shell Knight, DEF 2000]
"Shell Knight's monster effect!" Jim said. "When this card is Summoned, it inflicts 500 damage to the opponent!"
Shell Knight raised its great claws, and a string of bubble-like spheres shot out, exploding with a boom where Kira stood.
[Kira, LP 4000 → 3500]
This was a card Jim had used in the original work, though it only got printed as a real card over a decade later.
In the original, it only had this "burn 500 on Summon" effect, but the printed Shell Knight gained an additional one: when it's sent to the GY, you can add a Level 8 Rock monster from your Deck to your hand. And if there's a "Fossil Fusion" Spell in your GY, you can even Special Summon that monster directly instead of adding it.
Because of when it was printed, Jim's whole deck received an absolutely massive, epoch-making power-up in the real card game.
But right now, after taking the damage, Kira instead couldn't help but smile.
He was already looking forward to seeing the fully printed Fossil series.
"Set 1 card face-down. Turn end!" Jim declared.
…
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