Carly Nagisa, ace reporter! Getting the hottest scoops of Neo Domino right to your morning newspaper! ...That's at least what Carly hoped her section on the company's website said about her, in actuality, all her appearances in her newspaper company's website were regulated to blurred or blocked-off shots of her in the office or bad Christmas card photos. Carly sighed as she made her way up the steps of the laboratory's plaza.
"Man," she mused, "I hope this job goes well, it hasn't been a good year for Carly..." Truthfully, it hasn't - the rent payment emptied out her bank accounts, she's been living off Red Demon's Noodle for the past few months, and worst of all, the lonliness of missing Jack begun to set into her head, she could only watch and listen as he went on a mad tear across the world to hone his strength. Carly stopped on the middle step and mused her misery...
Before long though, good memories, shining silver, began to creep to the front of her mind, cutting through the misery of her present. She remembered her duels with Jack, the time she spent with Team 5Ds, the WRGP, the immense number of friends she made, all of it. The faintest thought of all crept to the peak of her mind, the faint memory of when she admitted her love to Jack, only for him to hold her tight in turn; the memory faded to darkness every time she remembered it, but the thought alone always fired her up. "Okay, get it together, Carly!" Carly smacked her cheeks with a big smile, firing herself up. "Every day's an important mission, and you want to succeed to be a woman worthy of Jack when he gets back! It's time for the daily fortune!" Carly drew her signature deck, the Fortune Fairies; a group of monster cards that doubled as fortune-telling tools via their descriptions. Carly dug her index and middle fingers into the top of the deck with her thumb fixed on the side - quickly, she swiped. "Draw!"
Fortune Fairy Chee. Oh crap. The worst one. Carly's faced quickly morphed from excited, to shocked, back to defeated all in the span of about 0.200 seconds as she scanned over the flavor text. "Your fortune the day you drew this card is super pinch! Lucky number, 6. Lucky color, black. Lucky item, leather shoes. You may gain an edge over your competition. Cheer up!!" Carly whined at her poor luck, this was the same card she drew that time she got sent flying out of a 40th floor window before hitting the pavement. Hard. She buried her forehead into the card while groaning, "Ugh! Why this oneeee...?"
Carly took a moment to grieve before coming back to reality; today was an important interview with the scientists behind Fortune, the revolutionary Momentum-regulating program that improved the stability of Momentum, whilst giving a big boost to Neo Domino City's appliances. She specifically was picked for the interview because of her friendly relationship with Yusei Fudo, head scientist and former WRGP and Fortune Cup champions; admittedly though, nobody else wanted to sit through the boring science talk when they had important duels they could be covering. Carly made her way up the steps to the front door before ringing the intercom. There was a brief pause, before a female's voice came out the other end.
"Hello, do you have an appointment?"
"Uh, yes, hello?" Carly flashed her press badge to the camera. "I'm Carly Nagisa from Neo Domino Weekly, I'm here for the interview today with the Fortune developers?" Another pause.
"One moment please." The call was cut off, and in a few minutes, Carly was greeted at the door by a rugged-looking man in a labcoat.
"Hello there, Miss Nagisa, I'm Dr. Fuuga, one of the researchers on the Fortune project. If you'd like to come inside, we can begin discussing the questions you'll be asking." Carly looked over the scientist's shoulder, puzzling him. "Is there something wrong?" Carly stammered backwards, thrown out of her own little world by the question.
"Oh no! Nothing's wrong! It's just, uh, I was wondering if Dr. Fudo was here today is all. We kinda go way back."
"Ah, I see, I think I remember one of the articles on Team 5Ds had your name on it as the author. Unfortunately, Dr. Fudo isn't in today, we made him take a vacation so he didn't overwork himself, that man works like a freight train! He said he would be over in Satellite visiting the orphanage today."
"Aaaaand my unlucky day begins..." Carly fixed her glasses in slight irritation before walking inside the building. She whipped out her notepad and begun asking Dr. Fuuga the questions that she prepared. "Um, I guess we should start now, if that's okay. So, uh...What exactly bought you on to this team in the first place? And uh, if you could ask Dr. Fudo to e-mail his answers to me too, that'd be appreciated."
"Certainly. Please, come with me and I'll show you the project's applications." The two began walking down the long, waxed hallway. "For me personally, I always had a fascination with physics since I was a child. I always pondered the nature of energy flow, and how it could be used to..."
What went on for about 6 hours Carly felt like it went forever, she absolutely could not keep up with the scientific terms presented to her, and at about the second hour, she gave up trying to write everything down and opted to use a tape recorder instead. Which quickly jammed, forcing her to write again. She cursed the fact Yusei wasn't here today, as she could've taken a breather to talk about dueling, life after Team 5Ds, Jack Atlas - the real stuff people, and her, wanted to read about. Dr. Fuuga hit some buttons on a terminal and ended a presentation on a screen; what was it about? Carly was too busy daydreaming to notice.
"So, Miss Nagisa?" Carly snapped out of La-La Land and fumbled to keep face. "That should end the presentation on Fortune's benefits and how Momenum will continue to be used in the future, have I answered your questions fully?" Carly begun to realize that she never paid attention during the video seminar, and inwardly began to panic.
"Omigod omigod omigod, I'm going to get fired! Think Carly, think! Ask something new and interesting to at least pay this month's rent!" Carly looked around the lab, looking for something to point out so she could ass-pull her way through this interview. Her eyes affixed to a silver laser-looking contraption, and she pointed at it with such force that one would think she was looking for a murderer. "Hey, what's that thing?"
"Oh, that?" Dr. Fuuga replied, "That's just an old scrapped experiment, we built it for the use of Momentum to stimulate plant growth."
"Ah ha! Gardening section, eat your heart out!" Carly moved closer towards it, with the doctor following close by. "Interesting. Why scrap it? Were there problems within the design, or something?"
"You could say that." The good doctor replied. "We just couldn't get any of the subjects to stimulate after continued weekly exposure to the Momentum beam, and by the time we pondered it, we all reached headway on Fortune, so we abandoned the project in favor of that, as the benefits of Fortune were far greater."
"In theory, if you begin working at it again, could you like, stop world hunger or something?"
"Perhaps. Provided you think it's a good idea to get back to work on it that is. We always love to hear from the citizens of Neo Domino the work that we should be doing to improve everyone's lives." Jackpot, meal-ticket.
"Yeah, totally! It would be really cool to have super huge potatoes and stuff, and I'm sure it could benefit the rest of the world too!"
"Well, if that's how you feel, then we'll keep that in mind."
"Understood, thank you for the interview today, Dr. Fuuga!" Carly shook his hand, and the doctor began to make his way to the door. Carly spun around in place, imagining having her name tied to a important world peace tool. "And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to...Mrs. Carly Nagisa-Atlas! Famous reporter and duelist wife! I like the sound of that already"!
As Carly danced in place, she slipped on a glob of wax on the floor, sending her flying backwards into the table holding the laser in place. Carly was first to hit the floor with a booming "THUD!", and the laser was soon to follow; to contraption shook violently as it hit the floor, before shooting a rainbow-colored beam that struck Carly in the chest. Carly felt tingly all over and begun to see stars; as her vision got less blurry, she saw the laser smoking and sputtering. Dr. Fuuga ran over to help Carly off the ground.
"Miss Nagisa, are you hurt?"
"Omigod, omigod! I'm so sorry! I broke your laser beam! Please don't hate me, please don't sue me!" The doctor put his hands on Carly's shoulders.
"Steady, steady, breathe slowly, nobody's mad at you. That laser was in it's juvenile days of development, and we have the files all backed up to the supercomputer, in fact, I'm glad you broke it, it means we can start fresh and correct any errors we had!" Carly still shuffled, looking concerned.
"I...wasn't imagining that, right? That that laser hit me?"
"I did see a flash, I can't tell if it hit you or not, but you shouldn't worry, we've calibrated that laser for plant cells, the particles of Momentum should've just jolted you is all. I'm more concerned about your legs, you look like you took a nasty spill. Can you walk?"
"Yes, no, I think I'm feeling fine..." Carly tied to shake off the dizziness in her head as se begun to stretch her legs.
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