Predictions and Observations:
Sub-Desert Duel

“All I require is that you follow my every command.” What a deal! But no, seriously. Adrian, we thought you were smart! Come on, dude! I’m trying to think why Adrian would be so easy to manipulate. Well, anyone’s easy to manipulate if you can read their mind, but now *we* also know. To me it seems that Adrian is keeping on with this, so he thinks, because he wants the eyeball to keep its promise to him. I’m reminded of the quote, “Where were your *parents* now? All the promises made to you, were *his*.” (A Snake in the Grass I) Is Adrian so intent on holding the eyeball to its promise that he’s blind to its trickery because of that history? Because he felt that his family broke their promise to him when his baby brother came along? Then again, Adrian’s never been a *huge* fan of our side: remember Duel For Jewels, and the quarantine lockdown? It wouldn’t be overly outrageous for him to be doing this entirely of his own free will, because he thinks it benefits him, except that he would normally have responded to Echo’s trying to contact him, and he was all for shutting down the reactor. The fact that he didn’t do either suggests that this isn’t entirely his own free will, though it’s subtle enough for him to think it is. The interesting thing is that in the original evil magic got stronger and more apocalyptically powerful, and in GX it gets more and more subtle and insidious until you almost have to wonder if its victim didn’t just change on his or her own.

Bonaparte’s son, huh? Why doesn’t he want anyone to know, other than because Marcel might get teased for it?

Well, we learned more about the dueling system, and about duel spirits’ corporeal existence. We learned that, when spirits themselves duel, they start out with 2000 lifepoints, compared to a duelist’s 4000. I’m wondering whether Jesse’s lifepoints have reset since Rock Spirit round 1 or if he’s stuck with the reduced count, and how long, and we may soon find out. It’s probably derived from energy, so sleep and food would replenish lifepoints. That could get wacky. But hold on—then, just dueling would reduce their lifepoints for the next round. That sounds fair *rolls eyes*. We discovered, through flat-out exposition (the monsters could be real and just knock someone out if they lose instead of kill them, Jim and Adrian, but I’ll take your word for it), that losing all of one’s lifepoints is fatal. My next question is: are lifepoints for duels only, and would someone with no monsters to defend him/herself still have 4000 points to lose? And if not, how would it be determined if someone like that had suffered too much damage? I offer a theory: when Adrian defended Bastion from the Harpie and got raked with its talons, those were actual cuts. However, Jesse’s been dueling this whole time and there’s barely a scratch on him. Therefore, I submit that outside a duel, the same physical properties apply as would in the real world, but in a duel, lifepoints are subtracted instead of the duelist being physically wounded. This would fit with the ancient tradition of duels leveling the playing field; whether the duelist is big and hulking and could take Harpies scratching at him or her all day, or is small like Blair or Marcel (or Yugi…), they all get 4000 lifepoints, and make their stand as a duelist, where brute strength doesn’t matter.

The Ojamas were hungry. Winged Kuriboh doesn’t seem to be, nor do the monsters that stay in people’s decks. The Ojamas may have to live in Chazz’s deck if they really can’t make it without food. How would that double standard work, where some duel monsters need food and others don’t? Either way, the Ojamas *would* probably only need crumbs, and it would be very nice of Chazz to give them some food. Will he? Not a chance. However, it should be noted that he has a lot of faith in them, more, indeed, than they have in themselves; he agreed to defend the school with them alone if anything came to call.

Pharaoh doesn’t get food, either? I doubt Duel Academy has many mice for him to scavenge, especially since in several of the theories I’ve cooked up so far they would have had to be individually specified to be transported from one dimension to another. In thinking what Pharaoh could eat, my first thought was that the Ojamas should probably watch out; they’re rather bite-size.

So this sub was Gecko 1. Why did it get transported to the dusty dimension? Are Echo and her troops fortunate to have gotten out to search the island when they did? Why did it get transported to the dusty dimension when nothing else did? Or *did* it? The only reason I can think of for this is that it has a strong connection to Adrian. Did it get pulled along by that connection? If so, that opens up bold new possibilities with regard to *how* they were transported here. If *it* came along, then it would be a wonder if other places with strong connections to the people brought through weren’t as well: all four Dorms, to start with, and the Abandoned Dorm makes five (Alexis or Jaden would have a strong enough connection to it). They’d probably store the rest of Duel Academy’s inventory of food, along with plenty of blankets. But they would be in plain sight, would they not? And they aren’t here. And that would also suggest that the dimensional travel was very specific about *whom* it brought along, because otherwise the *people* who were strongly connected to Duel Academy would be pulled along for the ride, too, by the same token: Chumley, Atticus, Zane, Aster, Echo, every single parent of every single one of the hundred students… And if it *was* specific about whom it dragged along, it would have had to be specific about duel spirits, too, unless they were already there, which they could have been. For now, I go with, “it’s a lot easier to find someone who has a spirit’s card”. But if it wasn’t just dragged along by accident due to being connected to Adrian (which seems increasingly unlikely), then we can only assume that “Marcel” was trying to rat her “loyal servant” out, and specifically dragged the sub along on purpose. Why would he/it? What was on those computers that Adrian wanted to hide? That he was looking for the card and the power? Info about the whatchamacallit that could jeopardize his toady position? Whatever it is, it probably would have been handy for our heroes to have. But here’s a ray of hope: Bastion was at that sub, and I’m sure he went inside to escape the heat and find some food and water. Wouldn’t he have gone straight for the computers? I mean, this *is* Bastion we’re talking about. It’s not like he’s the king of keeping his mouth shut, but maybe he’s waiting for the right time to reveal the information that Adrian wanted so much to destroy because it’s crucially important. Then again, it’s not like he would have been looking for it, and that sub probably has plenty of stuff on its hard drives besides personal information about someone Bastion had never met.

Jesse seems to be almost the only one dueling since they got there. Is there some reason? Is he just the first guy to step up? Is it because he was the first one to figure out the bio-bands still drain, therefore they don’t want to spread out the energy loss if they don’t have to and he’s already lost some? I find that hard to believe. Not summon more than they need to, yes, but if the loss of energy is spread between people rather than concentrated on one, they’ll all last much longer.

The candles make a nice “ancient tomb” effect. Creepy, and oddly familiar. (Gee, I wonder why?)

Did Jesse get some extra medicine? I sure hope so. They’re probably going to need it. Now they just need to get back to Duel Academy with it, and since Jesse’s carrying the medicine, I get this strange feeling that he’s a target.

Night of the Living Duelist is next week’s episode. Creepy. So, the obvious questions: who comes back from the dead? How and why? Is it really night already? That means one day down, six to go until they run out of food (by the way, how much did Jaden and Kuriboh manage to scrounge from the sub?)!

That’s about it—‘til next week, everybody! -Clio