Children are a heritage from the Lord,     offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior     are children born in one’s youth. -Psalm 127:3-4 (NIV) Melissa couldn’t help but smile at Trevor introducing himself in the exact same way she had predicted and announced to the classroom before he had -- even in the brief time that they had known each other, she knew him well enough for that. The private amusement certainly took the sting off of the other half of the introduction, where Trevor managed to get Melissa’s surname wrong after she had just said it aloud. She knew she could be soft-spoken, but all the kids had managed to hear her clearly, right? Maybe she would find out when someone else tried to address her. “Miss Ashford,” someone might say instead of “Ashforth,” and Melissa would just have to mentally correct the discrepancy. Saying something, like, out loud, would just make her look overbearing. Thankfully for all involved, Hana wanted to get on the “showing off” train, drawing everyone’s attention, even Melissa’s. But Melissa wasn’t focused on what Hana was saying; Hana had produced a gadget that Melissa recognized as a duel disk, and that in itself was enough to give Melissa another bout of… what did she call it when she found out Prana had Duel Monsters? Homesickness? Nostalgia? The duel disk’s existence also opened up more questions about Hana. It was possible that she was from Ambrosia -- it wasn’t like Melissa knew everyone, even in her own school! -- but if that were the case, why was she here? Did she also have voices in her head ripped from Ambrosia’s central AI network, turned into entities that could manifest at or around her? They weren’t questions Melissa could answer right now, but she could at least guess at the answers. Duel Monsters was multidimensional. It was far, far more likely that Mauvache just found another world where high schoolers played cards at each other instead of physical violence, and Hana ended up with some other convenient set of special abilities. Or maybe Hana had those abilities back on her world, too, and really, Melissa was the only exception. Whatever the case, it was entirely possible that Hana would explain herself further, so Melissa remained off to the side to let her continue. Or Melissa would have, if Hana activating her duel disk didn’t immediately start flooding the room. And yet, despite the danger, Melissa found herself feeling oddly calm. This was a solvable problem, using tools that she was comfortable with. It only took one deft motion to activate her watch and turn it into her own semblance of Hana’s machine, and a few steps to align herself, and, more importantly, her duel field, with the audience. On Ambrosia, this might still have meant a more dramatic change in scenery, but even without Duel Space, Hana’s errant Field Spell could only affect her side. Maybe Constable, Trevor, and the instructor still had to deal, but Hana could at least play her monster now.

And that's 64! I'll work on randomizing and getting images tomorrow so aiming for putting first batch up Thursday.

Dragonite Kantonian Slowbro Kantonian Articuno Kantonian Golem Gigalith Porygon-Z Mega Camerupty Scream Tail