Predictions and Observations:
Unleashing the Dragon II

Summary: Adrian comes to on the rooftop of Duel Academy, wondering what on Earth just happened to him. Then he notices the duel. With Jesse joining in, it’s a whole new game. In a few short rounds, he summons all seven Crystal Beasts, in one form or another, which means that the time has finally come: he summons Rainbow Dragon! Meanwhile, Jaden busts out a three-way Neo-Spacian fusion known as Chaos Neos, along with Neo-Space. “Marcel” summons not only all three Sacred Beasts in their actual form (to Jesse’s excitement), but their fusion! Meanwhile, Jim, Alexis, Bastion, and Hassleberry finish dragging the duel ghouls inside and stay inside themselves in preparation for the transfer. Blair and Axel remain as spectators. Blair can no longer bear to see her friend this way, and tries to intervene and get through to Marcel. The Eyeball no longer cares about or needs its human shell, and so is quite willing to hand it over in favor of its actual form: a tall female creature, sort of a demon angel, with skin to match her arm and mismatched eyes. Jaden still doesn’t remember her, until he stares deep into her eyes. When he was a kid, she was a powerful monster in his deck, and very loyal to him. “When you hurt,” she tells him, “*I* hurt.” And she avenged it, too; when Jaden lost a duel, the sting of defeat hurt his opponent far more. And how did Jaden repay her? By letting her be launched into space! But Fate had different plans, and brought them back together. Jaden can’t believe it; Yubel?! The end is near; Yubel’s Sacred Beast fusion is running neck-and-neck for points with Rainbow Dragon. Jesse turns to Jaden, and says to leave this to him, to go on and get back safe. If Jesse backs down now, he says, it’ll only diminish the power spike. Before Jaden can protest, Jesse activates a trap called Prism Wall, which directs all of the battle damage to him alone. Rainbow Dragon pulls out one last trick, and matches the power of Yubel’s attack; it’s a blazing stalemate. Jaden’s Neo-Space field is falling upon the field in massive shards, and the House of Sand atop which they duel is crumbling as well. Jaden’s corner crumbles away, and he falls. Adrian runs inside; everything is shaking, and the transfer is imminent. Axel and Blair carry an unconscious Jaden over and prop him next to Marcel against the Main Building, still staring up at the blast. Jesse and Yubel face off alone, and Yubel cries that he will pay for taking Jaden from her, before vanishing into sparkles. Jesse looks to the sky, the glory of Rainbow Dragon reflected in his eyes. “We did it, Rainbow Dragon!” he cheers, “Take ‘em home!” the dragon vanishes into a portal in the clouds, and a moment later, Duel Academy does the same. As Jesse vanishes into the distance, he, too, dissolves into sparkles.

Mariner?! We haven’t seen Mariner in ages! We saw him for the first time in Amnael’s Endgame, and I think the second time was…It wasn’t played at all in Year 2—I would have noted it as I’m doing right now, and with the find tool I only found SubMARINERoid, lol… Nope, it was played to Win Mr. Stein’s Duel last.

The power of pain, did Yubel say? I’m sure that Yubel and Zane would get along famously.

When Jesse laughed, so excited to be taking on the Sacred Beasts, it reminded me of the first time Jaden tangled with them. As I wrote then (my only record of this being said, unfortunately): “Most people, facing down three incredibly powerful monsters and fighting for their soul and the lives of their friends wouldn’t be thinking, “what more could any kid want?”!!!”

Axel and Blair are another of those pairs working together that I’m noticing, like Jim and Alexis last week. Blair ended up staying with Jaden up ‘til the duel and stayed to spectate, and Axel did the same for Jesse. Then the two of them were the only two conscious people left outside, the only people (besides Jaden, who’s in no shape to do much) who will be able to tell anyone what happened to Jesse and why he isn’t back on Academy Island with them, which is why I don’t envy them right now. I’ve just realized that Adrian might also know. He was still watching when Jesse played Prism Wall.

Chaos Neos—light and darkness—seems to represent the essence of Neo-Space. Only fitting that it be Jaden’s ultimate monster.

“You’re gonna pay for what you did!” Et tu, Jaden? Tell me this is a bad joke. I actually noticed highlighted here some specific contrasts between Jaden of a couple years ago (reflected in Jesse’s outright laughter in response to the Sacred Beasts) and Jaden now, and I’m not so sure I like the change.

“You want Jay, you’re gonna have to go through *me!*” Snap! You rock, Jesse! But why? To me it seemed, in this episode, Jesse was particularly *intent* on standing between Jaden’s enemy and him, even after he found out that Yubel’s grievance actually happened. Not even helping Jaden beat Yubel, but taking her on himself and keeping her away from Jaden.

There’s an SB fusion? Can’t say I was expecting that, though somehow I’m not surprised, either.

Mismatched eyes, just like Dartz. Huh.

As another one-liner, I just realized that amethysts are February’s birthstone. Rock n’ roll, Amethyst Cat!
For future reference (or perhaps in hindsight), May is Emeralds, July is Rubies, September is Sapphires, and November is Topazes. Those are the only ones who are ascribed to a particular month.

No way….*No* *way*. Did they just kill off Jesse?! Well! They don’t do that very often. I can count the characters that have actually gotten killed off on my fingers! Will he somehow make it back? I don’t think it would be smart to try and go back for him, but Jaden might be just crazy enough to try it. This’ll hit him hard, for sure. What about the Crystal Beasts? Rainbow Dragon is taking Duel Academy home; once it has, will it travel right back across dimensions to be with its chosen duelist? Can it bring Jesse home separately? It needed energy to move the whole school, but maybe not as much to move one person. Jesse *did* say Rainbow Dragon had his back. *Can* it go back there? Will it stay with Jaden, maybe? Or all of Duel Academy, even?

Does this mean Yubel partially succeeded? She was gunning for Jesse, because his destruction would affect Jaden, after all.

Youbelle, Yubelle, Ubelle, Nubelle, Newbelle, the captions spell it “Yubel”. I guess I’ll go with “Yubel” for now, then. I have to go back and Find/Replace all my “Eyeball”s and “Marcel”s now, especially the latter. Even in this post, I’ve still been calling Yubel Marcel, and I had to go back and edit it. The only thing I have to say about Marcel-Marcel is right here, and it’s that he’s got a darn good friend in Blair, maybe now we’ll actually get to meet this character, it’s funny that everyone now automatically associates this shy little kid with a villain who makes Camula and Sartorius look like Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor, let’s see, Bonaparte’s going to be stoked, I sure hope that Marcel doesn’t get blamed for landing them in a situation that turned very ugly very fast and ended up sacrificing one of their own number because he probably won’t be able to take that much animosity, but bet anything that Blair will stick up for him. That’s all I’ve got to say about Marcel-Marcel, but I think saying Marcel instead of Yubel is becoming a bad habit. In other news, I’ve got a wacky new idea for a Halloween/Duel Monsters Spirit Day costume! But seriously, folks. I think I get it: as a kid, Jaden was dueling and when he got beat, as every learning duelist must, when he got upset, Yubel (see, I almost wrote Marcel, lol) took revenge for him, even though he didn’t want to hurt anyone. This reminds me of someone… I just can’t figure out who… it was one theory I had with regard to Kisara and how she could unleash Blue-Eyes on people without meaning to, and I don’t think it’s quite been debunked yet. OH! I got it! Entirely unrelated, but if anyone else has read the manga “Mai the Psychic Girl,” her psychic powers mean that she can’t hate or be angry at anyone, even for a moment, or they’ll explode into bits or something. Anyway, looks like Jaden or someone else figured out that it was Yubel making Jaden’s duels dangerous, and took steps to separate them. I’d imagine Jaden *would* have been agreeable; he loves his cards, but he also cares about his opponents. It would be repugnant to him to hurt someone by dueling them. But it would have been a seriously hard decision to make. Now, the bonus question: is Yubel a “she” or an “it”?

“My true for is no longer hostage to the rules of this universe! It can finally manifest itself and unite with my spirit!” Okay, once more with the mystical properties. Yubel was *ever* hostage to the properties of this world? But…but…okay, fine. That means, by the laws of this world, that her card effects would include brainwashing or manipulating other monsters. That would be entirely plausible, since she has ten stars but not even a box for attack or defense points. Sort of a Relinquished-type monster. I don’t know why I didn’t wonder about this earlier, since we already kind of knew, or at least guessed, the Eyeball was a monster spirit. (“Talking to monsters is so rad…usually.”) Hindsight 20/20, I guess.

Jesse said ‘catch ya later’—is that just a goodbye, or will they actually meet again? Soon? Like, within the season? Someday? Like when Noah and Mokuba reunite, or so? Or when Mai and Yugi have their rematch? Or Jaden and Zane, for that matter, get a rematch? Or, speaking of: “Rematch?” “Anytime!”……………………………………………………
…*sob*.

This occurred to me in the middle of a really hard Chemistry test this morning, and after it did, I had a lot more trouble concentrating. I can’t believe this occurred to me and I can’t believe it took this long. Yubel is to Jaden as Echo is to Adrian! Each cared about the other so much that they wanted things for them that maybe the other didn’t necessarily want; Jaden didn’t want to hurt his opponents, even if they beat him, and Adrian loves his brother, even if he stands between him and success.

It’s so funny. Last week I started working on a little fic directly following this duel in which everyone got back safe, everyone woke up, everything was completely hunky-dory and happy, and as soon as Syrus did, he went after Zane (take ‘im DOWN, Sy!!!), which, some were a bit worried whether that was so hunky-dory, and the transfers each got their little OMG moment in realizing that Syrus and Zane were brothers. Jaden took a nap, Jesse and Chazz hung out with their respective duel spirits, and Bastion and Eisenstein went into scientist-mode in figuring out how to get the bio-bands off. It’s so funny how drastically different that same little time frame is now. The fic I’m writing this week, aside from the obvious differences, everyone’s staying down longer, everyone’s a bit more worried. The mood is all different. Some things that wouldn’t have needed to change, did, just out of the tone.

I wrote a sonnet for Jesse. I’ve also written a bunch of other canon-related poetry, if anyone’s interested, but this is the latest:
We did it, Rainbow Dragon! Take them home,
Back to trees and ocean, far from here;
Guide them, lead them, mighty beast of Rome,
Fly them through the gate, for home is near,
Near as burns my heart to fire them through,
Near as I am far, near as I stand,
Stand alone against all fear with you,
As near as victory’s gem is to my hand.
I fall with no regrets; I perish grinning:
The last you see of me, proud blue-green eyes,
Friends, will follow you, for I am winning,
Even as you vanish to the skies.
I win to see you safely home to stay,
And with you live to duel another day.

The next episode is “All For One” (and I’m trying not to get High School Musical 2 stuck in my head, but I’m just too much of a musical theater actress, lol). This episode would have been “one for all”, because Jesse devoted himself to getting them home. Does this mean they’ll bring him back? All for one? Or does it mean all are saved at the expense of one, which is also possibly what just happened right now? Or does it mean that everyone’s united in supporting Jaden, because this is definitely going to hurt. My only definite prediction is that someone—Jaden, Axel, Blair, or maybe Adrian—is going to have to break it to the others that Jesse stayed behind. Or maybe it’s called that because everyone will be united in supporting Jaden, because you can bet that this will hurt.

Okay, that’s about it. Like I said, this coming Saturday is All For One. We are NOT done with this season yet, nowhere close—if we hold to the pattern of 52 eps/season, we’ve still got half the season still to go. ‘Til Saturday! -Clio