Yu-gi-oh- Queen Of Games

Chapter 59

*Note- apologies for the delay of posting, things have been busy on my side as of late- enjoy x *

Ana sat at her desk and flicked through her phone; checking on her work emails, one in particular caught her attention, from her mother.

"Oh God, she can't be serious" she groaned and rolled her eyes.

Suddenly her phone starting buzzing, popping on her headset she answered the call.

"What?" she asked.
"Oh, Miss Starline, the next matches are beginning shortly; I just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to monitor" Roland nervously explained.
"Great, I'll keep an eye out" she responded and cut the phone.

Ana sat in silence for a few moments, before eventually deciding to check out Rebecca's match.
On her way there, she kept thinking about the security breach from the other day; fearful, she tapped into the network and decided to upgrade the firewall and load balancers- this should provide enough protection until the end of the tournament.
Upon which she was going to implement a stronger network security system, one that had not yet been released to the public by her company.

"This should hold things together"

Ana then proceeded out her office and down the hall, but a few steps down, she stopped in her tracks with immediate realisation.

"Oh, Mokuba didn't do the Server checks!" she gasped and sighed.

Releasing that she needed to do it herself she made her towards the lifts and into the basement, swiping her access card she entered the room.

"I'll be here for a least a bloody hour" she whined.

Pulling out her tablet she brought up the reporting application and began the process of running intraday checks on all 20 servers.
Unbeknownst to her Kaiba had been trying to get hold of her during her time down there, but due to a lack of signal his attempts failed.
During this time; Rebecca successfully won her match and the next set of rounds were set to begin.
One of which included Zigfried, admittedly, Ana was curious to see how that match would go.
Sadly, due to the extensive checks she had missed the match.
But upon completing her task, she proceeded back up to the ground floor, on her way out the lift she had her head down with her headphones plugged in as she watched a replay of the last match.
As she walked through the lobby, she walked right past Kaiba; who half expected her to stop and acknowledge that he was there, but she didn't. Granted she didn't look up until she got out the door.

"Gone for an hour and the whole world's gone to pot" Ana expressed and rested a hand on her cheek.
"Ride of the Valkyries?" she further observed.

She had never seen those cards before and was intrigued.
Ana then pulled out her phone and gasped.

"Oh crap- darn it Kaiba"

Immediately she made her way to the Kaiba dome and was calling Kaiba back on her way, but he was less polite to say the least.

"What?" he answered.
"Jesus, what the hell is your problem?" she responded in the same tone.
"Where were you?" he asked her point blank.
"In the server room, doing checks and maintenance, why, did you want something?" she asked back.
"Not anymore, Roland is handling it" he responded then put the phone down.

Ana stuffed her phone into her pocket and made her way towards the prep room in the Kaiba Dome.
On her way here she met with Mokuba in the hallway.

"Ana, there you are" he called out to her.

She forced a friendly smile and waved.

"What's going on, catch me up, I've been busy" she asked him.

Mokuba swiftly explained how they were now moving onto Round 2, with 8 of the 16 duellists left, things were becoming intense.

"Ok, lovely, and things have been ok...no mishaps?" she further asked.
"Nope, things have been calm" he responded.
"Well, good; a little unusual that whoever hacked in initially hasn't made a move yet. Regardless, just keep your eyes open" she advised.

Ana took out her phone to check emails once more as she stood in the hall.
Mokuba entered the prep room and told everyone to head to their next duels.
As Ana stood in the hall some Duellists walked passed her, one of which was Zigfried; who had to stop as Joey- in a fit of rage- confronted him.

"I was tryin' ta be nice, where I come from you show your opponent some respect!" he blared at Zigfried.

Who simply chuckled and walked passed Joey.
In that same fit of rage Joey attempted to grab his arm, only to be shoved to the ground as a response.
Ana gasped and watched as Zigfried continued to walk on his way, but not before glancing at her with a wink and a smile.

"Ana, there you are" Yugi called out.
"I'm gonna beat the designer pants off that creep!" Joey screamed and ran out.
"Gracious me, he needs to calm down" Ana observed.
"Yeah, we better go support him" Tea added.
"I'll catch up, I just need to update a couple things, I'll meet you there" Ana responded and walked towards the Blue Eyes carts.

Joey and Zigfried would be battling at the Volcano Mountain.
Ana had been once again distracted and was running late to Joey's match, so she had to run.
Fortunately, they only got as far as shuffling each other's decks before heading to either side and standing ready.
Once there she joined Yugi, Tristan, Duke Tea and Mokuba on the side lines.

"Ana you keep disappearing" Tea joked.
"Sorry, so much to do all at once, been busy" Ana explained.
"You got this Joey!" Tristan cheered.
"Thanks guys!" Joey beamed.

And so, things began with Joey going first, sadly it appeared his first hand was crap, causing him to only be able to play a single card face down.
Followed by Zigfried doing the same, it appeared he didn't have a great hand either.
Ana watched Zigfried as he kept glancing at the security camera for some reason.

"Time to turn up the heat!" Joey enthused.

In that instant the volcanoes around them began erupting, and pillars of lava shot up from the river they were floating on.

"Not that hot!" Joey screamed in a panic, dodging fearfully.
"Hm?" Ana noticed and pulled out her tablet to see security had been breached again.
"This is a little too real" Tea whimpered.
"Yeah, why don't you turn it down?" Tristan asked.
"This isn't part of the attraction you guys" Mokuba responded.
"If Kaiba Corp isn't controlling those flames, then who is Mokuba?!" Tea demanded.
"That's what I'd like to know!"Ana responded as she saw masses of errors piling in.

"I did so many changes, how could this be happening?!" she pondered in frustration.

Turns out it wasn't just at the Volcanoes, it was all over the park that things were malfunctioning.

"Shit!" Ana screamed.
"What is it?!" Mokuba asked.
"We have a bloody virus" she responded.

Ana then pulled out her laptop and tapped into the network, hoping that she could try and so some patchwork hot fixes. And from what she could see someone else was trying to do the same.

"I wish I knew how to stop this and who is even doing all this" Ana tormented internally.

With everything malfunctioning Ana couldn't even leave the venue and go back to the main office to further her investigation.
Luckily the patch work held up long enough for Kaiba to release the backup system, so things eventually returned to normal.
With that Mokuba left and went to meet with Kaiba back at the office.

The remainder of the Duel was insane and very unfortunate.
Despite all his best efforts Joey did lose the Duel, knocking him out of the tournament.
Now was time for the 3rd round of Duels.
With only 4 competitors left things were coming to quite the conclusion.