Chapter 131 – The Stage

One week, that was how long remained before the Final Phase of the Inter-School Duel Monsters Championship officially began, and the Worcester Centrum looked like a small army had invaded it.

Technicians were everywhere.

Some were installing cameras high above the arena while others checked cables and equipment. Workers were assembling the dueling stages on the main floor. Event coordinators hurried between tables while carrying schedules, clipboards, and enough paperwork to bury a small country.

Representatives from participating schools had already begun arriving, some accompanied by teachers and staff members while others were there to inspect the venue before the competition officially began. ESPN personnel were discussing camera positions. Sponsors were setting up displays. Security teams were reviewing procedures. Transportation and accommodation staff were confirming schedules. Industrial Illusions judges were once again reviewing the rules for the new Tag Duel format.

It was controlled chaos, and moving through the middle of it all was Emma Frost.

Unlike almost everyone else, Emma wasn't in a hurry; she walked across the arena floor with the calm confidence of someone who already knew exactly what needed to be done.

She stopped near one of the dueling stages and looked upward where a camera was being installed several meters above the floor.

Emma watched it for a few seconds before she commanded, "Move it three degrees to the left."

The technician looked down and asked, "Ma'am?"

"Three degrees. You're going to have a partial obstruction of the audience from that angle."

The technician checked the camera, then looked toward the seating area and said, "...Will do, ma'am."

Emma nodded and continued walking, but a few minutes later, she stopped again.

This time, it was the lighting. One of the overhead lights was positioned in such a way that it created a faint glare across the dueling table.

"Lower that light slightly."

One of the technicians hesitated and said, "We're already within the recommended—"

"The recommendation doesn't account for the reflective surface."

The technician looked at the table, then at the light, then back at Emma before he sighed and said, "Sure."

Emma moved on before she almost immediately noticed that the schedule presented another problem, as one of the participating schools had been given significantly more rest time between two matches than the others.

So, she called over the coordinator responsible and asked, "Why does this team have an additional hour?"

The coordinator looked through the schedule and stuttered, "I-I..."

She quickly flipped through several pages before she finally said, "...That's an error."

"Then correct it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Emma continued with her round.

A sponsor display was placed beside one of the entrances.

She looked at it, then looked at the main arena before she commanded, "Move that."

The event coordinator blinked and asked, "Where?"

"Somewhere it won't obstruct the primary entrance."

"But the sponsor requested—"

"The sponsor requested visibility. They didn't request to interfere with the event."

The coordinator nodded, "Understood."

And just like that, another problem disappeared.

Emma didn't need to raise her voice or to threaten anyone, she simply identified problems and expected them to be fixed.

That was the difference between supervising something and actually running it, and Emma Frost had no intention of merely supervising the Inter-School Duel Monsters Championship; she was running it.

Eventually, Emma found herself standing alone in the arena as everyone else was taking a small break before returning to work and for the first time since arriving, there was silence.

The seats were empty. The massive screens hanging above the arena were dark. The dueling stages stood unused in the centre of the floor.

Without the workers, technicians, judges, and staff moving around, the arena seemed strangely large.

Emma looked around while thinking, 'A week from now, thousands of people will occupy those seats. Millions more will potentially watch through television. The screens will be filled with graphics. The arena will be filled with noise. And students from schools across the country will step onto those stages to prove who will be the ones deserving the prize the most...'

Emma smiled faintly at that thought.

It was impressive and not merely because of the size but because of how much work had gone into making it possible and just how many new possibilities it would open for her.

And, inevitably, her thoughts turned toward Alexander, the young man whose creation and vision made all this possible.

Emma had always understood influence as she had grown up surrounded by it.

Money. Education. Social status. Business. Connections. Power.

She understood how people moved through those worlds because she had spent her life doing exactly that, but Alexander had shown her something she hadn't fully appreciated before.

Influence didn't always have to begin with politics; it didn't have to begin with money, it didn't even have to begin with social status; sometimes, it could begin with something incredibly simple, something like a game.

Emma remembered attending the Duel Monsters Grand Prix Alexander had organised.

At first, she had expected a tournament. A well-funded tournament, perhaps, a successful tournament, but still a tournament.

She had been wrong, as Alexander hadn't merely organised a card game competition, but he had created an event, a spectacle, a community, a commercial opportunity, a media product, and a cultural phenomenon all fused into one, and he had done it while being absurdly young.

Emma couldn't help but find that amusing. 'Only 16 years old... Most sixteen-year-olds were worrying about homework, exams, budding love, and what their friends thought of them. But Alexander had been building a business empire and organising events that adults with decades of experience would have struggled to manage... It's impressive.'

But the thing Emma remembered most wasn't the scale; it was the presentation.

Alexander understood something surprisingly important.

The audience wasn't merely watching the matches, but they were watching the event, the presentation, the personalities, the anticipation, the stories, the rivalries, and the atmosphere; basically, the match itself was only one part of the experience.

Despite that, Emma didn't have any intention of copying the Grand Prix as she hadn't needed to, but she had borrowed the philosophy behind it, and now she was standing in the middle of the result.

Emma looked toward the many dueling stages that followed a similar concept to the feature table but larger in scale and thought, 'Alexander had created Duel Monsters, then he figured out that the game itself was only the beginning of something much bigger and made sure to share his vision with everyone else and make it a reality.'

That was what interested her most about him, not simply his intelligence, as she already knew he was brilliant, but what impressed her was that he understood people in ways that even she, a powerful telepath, struggled at times.

He understood what made them interested, what made them excited, what made them care, and that was something far more difficult to teach than mathematics or business.

After that brief introspective moment, Emma glanced toward a folder resting on a nearby table.

Inside was the list of students participating in the Final Phase.

Emma had made certain that the information available to her was comprehensive whenever possible.

Academic performance. Family background. Dueling records. Strategic ability. Scholarship potential. Exceptional achievements. Possible candidates for future recruitment. Possible candidates for Massachusetts Academy.

Some names had several notes beside them, others had only one, some had none, either for lack of interest or information.

Then there was another list, a much smaller one, and Emma's eyes lingered on it.

Students who had demonstrated something unusual, something that couldn't easily be explained by ordinary talent, potential mutants.

Nothing confirmed, not yet, but Emma was patient.

She had learned long ago that people revealed themselves eventually, especially when they were placed under pressure or when emotions ran high.

At this point, she looked back toward the arena while thinking, 'A tournament like this doesn't merely reveal who is good at Duel Monsters. It will reveal who people become when they are given something worth winning. And this gives me the chance to discover their untapped potential. This process has already proved to be quite successful when I discovered Katherine Pryde during the second edition of the Duel Monsters Grand Prix, who had just started to awaken her power, and was able to convince her and her parents to come and join Massachusetts Academy next year.'

Emma intended to pay very close attention to all the participants as they clashed against their opponents and worked with their teammates toward a common goal in order to uncover more hidden gems.

~~~▽~~~

At Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, the atmosphere was considerably quieter.

Charles Xavier, one of the most powerful mutant telepaths in the world, known as Professor X, sat in his office, looking over the Inter-School Duel Monsters Championship information for what was probably the hundredth time.

The Final Phase was approaching; his students were preparing, and, despite everything, Charles still found himself thinking about the moment the invitation had first arrived.

At first glance, there had been nothing particularly concerning about it, as it was a national high-school competition revolving around a card game that had become increasingly popular in the last two years.

Scholarships. Television coverage. Thousands of students. A supervised event. On paper, it was almost painfully ordinary, and that was precisely the problem.

His students were not ordinary; they were mutants, and the tournament would place them in front of cameras, which meant that thousands of people would see them.

And on top of that, the person organising the event was Emma Frost, another mutant like them, one who many times found herself on their opposite side, resulting in clashes between her and her allies against his X-Men.

Charles had to admit that he had never been particularly comfortable with that combination.

He clearly remembered the conversation that followed the invitation.

Scott Summers, whose codename is Cyclops, had been the first to focus on the practical concerns, "How many people will be there?"

Charles remembered looking at him. "Thousands, maybe more."

"And cameras?"

"Several."

Scott frowned before he once again asked, "Who has access to the students?"

"Event staff. Security. Representatives from participating schools."

"And the media?"

"ESPN will be covering the final phase along with reporters from various newspapers."

Scott leaned back and concluded, "Then we need to know exactly what we're walking into."

It wasn't an argument against attending, as Scott wasn't saying the students shouldn't go.

He was asking how they could make sure they were safe if they did.

Hank McCoy, codename Beast, naturally, had approached the problem from an entirely different direction, "Duel Monsters is actually quite an interesting game."

Scott had stared at him in disbelief as he asked, "That's your argument?"

"No, but it is certainly one of them."

Hank had gone on to explain the educational benefits.

Strategic thinking. Probability. Memory. Logical reasoning. Pattern recognition. Social interaction.

Charles remembered that Hank had somehow managed to turn a discussion about mutant security into a surprisingly detailed analysis of card-game strategy and something he called the meta, which Charles admitted still had no clear idea what the early Greek word that could loosely be translated as "beyond" or "transcending" actually meant in that context.

Warren Worthington III, codename Angel, had listened to the discussion for several minutes before finally speaking, "I think we're overcomplicating this."

Scott looked toward him while Warren shrugged and added, "They're students. They qualified for the tournament. They want to compete. That's what this is."

Charles studied him for a moment as Warren continued, "We can't spend the rest of their lives deciding which parts of being normal they're allowed to have."

There was something unusually serious in his voice. "At some point, they have to be able to walk into a room full of people without us assuming that being seen automatically means being exposed."

Charles remained silent.

Warren glanced toward the others. "If we're worried about security, then increase security. If we're worried about someone discovering they're mutants, then we make sure they don't give anyone a reason to suspect anything."

He paused before he said, "But keeping them home because someone might look at them?"

Warren shook his head and stated, "That's not protecting them. That's teaching them to be afraid of being seen."

The room had gone quiet.

Bobby Drake, codename Iceman, had been sitting nearby with a small stack of Duel Monsters cards in his hands. He looked down at them before speaking, "Also, we're talking about a card tournament."

Scott gave him a look which made Bobby raise both hands and defend himself. "I'm not saying security doesn't matter."

He looked toward Charles. "But if we start treating every school event like we're sending the kids into a war zone, they're never going to get to do anything."

Hank nodded thoughtfully. "An entirely reasonable observation."

Bobby pointed at him. "Thank you."

"Though statistically speaking, the potential security risks remain—"

"I said thank you, Hank."

A faint smile had appeared on Charles's face as Bobby turned the cards over in his hands. "They want to go, Professor."

His tone was quieter now. "Let them go."

Charles looked toward him.

Bobby shrugged, "I mean, yeah, we're mutants. Yeah, people can be idiots. We all know that."

He glanced toward Warren. "But they're also teenagers who happen to like playing Duel Monsters."

Warren smiled faintly. "Exactly."

Bobby looked back at Charles. "So maybe for once, we should let them be the second thing."

Charles didn't answer immediately.

Then Warren spoke again, more quietly this time, "Besides, if they spend their whole lives hiding from everyone who might have a problem with them, eventually they're going to start believing that everyone has a problem with them."

Jean Grey, codename Marvel Girl, had been the one to cut directly to the heart of the issue as she said, "You aren't worried about them playing, Charles."

She had looked at him quietly as she continued, "You're worried about what happens if people see them for what they are and not who they are."

Charles hadn't answered immediately because she was right.

He understood then that the disagreement had never really been about whether the students should be safe. Everyone agreed on that.

The question was what safety actually meant.

Was safety keeping the students away from unnecessary attention? Or was safety preparing them to eventually live in a world where they couldn't remain hidden forever?

Charles had spent years protecting these children, and he wasn't going to stop doing that, but he also couldn't allow his fear to become the reason they were denied every ordinary experience, and, ultimately, the students wanted to go.

That mattered more than anything.

They wanted to compete. They wanted to play Duel Monsters. They wanted to stand on that stage and compete against other students their age.

Charles didn't want to become another authority figure telling them that because they were mutants, they weren't allowed to experience something as simple as a school competition.

The risks could be controlled. Their powers were under control, and they knew better than to use them in front of everyone's eyes. Their identities didn't need to be revealed. Security could be arranged. The school could monitor the situation. And if things became dangerous, they could leave.

But there was another reason, a more important one.

Isolation wasn't the solution.

Charles could protect his students from the world for a while, but he couldn't protect them from humanity forever; Eventually, they would have to interact with ordinary people. Eventually, they would have to find their place in the world. And perhaps that was what made this tournament so valuable.

They weren't being invited because they were mutants. They weren't being invited because they were special. They were being invited because they were students. They could stand on a stage and be judged by what they did and not what they were.

In the end, Charles had eventually agreed to let the kids of his school participate in the Qualifying Phase, where they ended up winning, thus earning a spot for the Final Phase that would take place in Massachusetts.

Now, one week before the tournament, Charles watched his students prepare.

The atmosphere outside his office was considerably less philosophical as several students were arguing about decks. Someone was complaining about a card.

Hank was carrying enough cards to suggest he had somehow become far more invested in Duel Monsters than any of the other students. Scott was checking the tournament schedule for the umpteenth time. Jean was teasing another student. Warren was checking that everyone had the practical necessities for the trip, while Bobby was already obsessing over his deck, trading cards, or arguing about a particular strategy with the younger students.

Charles smiled as he didn't see mutants, didn't see potential threats, didn't see weapons, didn't see children who needed to be hidden from the world, but he simply saw regular teenagers getting ready for a competition.

He thought back to his decision on how he had been afraid of putting them on display.

Perhaps that was precisely why they needed to go.

In one week, thousands of people would watch them, and Charles could only hope they would see what he saw.

Not mutants. Not weapons. Not threats. But children playing a game with other children and having fun together.