A Hero Emerges

An LLS Production

Flames erupted from it, burning bright and hot, and rushed towards Jack. They engulfed him before he even had a chance to dodge. That fireball had been hot enough to melt steel. The average human being would have been cooked to a crisp.

"So ends the career of an illustrious Duelist," the caster of the fire murmured. "Ah, well, I suppose he would have wanted to go out in a blaze of glory."

The flames died down, leaving only a haze of thick smoke where the carpet had been singed. The other started to turn away, not particularly wanting to see what was left of the man, but then he stopped.

Something in the cloud was moving...

"Where are you going?" Jack was still standing. His riding suit was smouldering slightly, but otherwise he seemed to be perfectly unharmed. There was a strange red light playing over him, flickering on his skin and glowing in his eyes.

The other immediately stepped back. "What the hell are you?" he exclaimed.

Jack stalked slowly towards him. "It's a long story," he answered, his voice dangerously calm. "It involves a few gods of death and their tendency to make deals with mortals about to die. But there was one god, that no one was ever willing to bargain with. One that was so powerful that no one had the courage to try to contain it. No one but me."

"You... you're one of them?" the other exclaimed. "The Dark Signers...?"

"Don't be ridiculous," said Jack. "I'm not possessed by the god. Possession happens when a stronger soul overwhelms a weaker one. This is the power of my Burning Soul. I'm not possessed by the god. It's possessed by me."

The other slowly stepped back, unwilling to run, but also unwilling to fight before this intense aura. He had felt a lot of auras in his time. He had never felt one like this. He gave a strangled little squeak. "Is it too late to surrender?" he heard himself saying.

Jack smiled, and the fire around him burned brighter. "Too late."

The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division's Director Nicholas Joseph Fury, or Nick Fury as he was more commonly known as – by not a lot of people, given his extremely high security clearance – was... a rather considerable entity of unique temperament. That was the only way to summarise it. Considering the man's rather long and illustrious career, including but not limited to helping to stop an alien invasion of sorts led by a Norse god, there were probably a lot of things that did not make it to his shit list.

"What do you mean, it's not important?" was Fury's scowl. "World heritage sites do not disappear off the face of the earth and relocate themselves at whim!"

Commander Maria Hill did not respond immediately. "They did not relocate themselves anywhere around the United States, sir, and it was an ocean away. SHIELD intelligence placed it as low-priority information."

"Not that," Fury snorted. "It was what, about ten, eleven years ago, and I was never alerted of this why?"

"You were distracted by Iron Man," Maria simply replied. "It was low-priority, sir."

"And the only reason I found out that the friggin' Nazca Lines were relocating is because it may be happening again?"

"Yes, sir."

"And now it could envelop the whole of Manhattan," Fury sighed. "Whatever it is, get me a link to it. Any weird sightings could be linked to that."

"Sir, there was a sighting of a man on fire."

"Right. I want a file on the man on my table in six hours. Get the Avengers on standby too. If this is another stunt like Loki, we're going to have to be prepared."

"Roger."

As Maria left, Nick looked at the next report. Some great gaudy idiot of a shark god terrorising the Hawaiian islands, obviously let into the world by someone with more power than sense... "Because they're evil, and people will be stupid, but they don't deserve to die," he sardonically muttered at the report. "This job isn't worth this shit sometimes."

It was a placid summer morning, all was well in the newly established three-member Fudo family, and then Aki Izayoi held up the envelope. "Tenth letter this week. You might want to take him up on that offer."

Fudo Yusei did not look up from where his own son was giving the eyes to both parents over rice. "Mr Stark again?"

"He seems really desperate," Aki added.

"Yes, the number of letters he actually mailed, on top of email, did attest to that."

"Between Momentum and the arc reactors, he did really seem serious," Aki observed.

"Aki. It's not about patents again," Yusei murmured. "It's... well, I'm kind of held up with Ryuusei, in case you haven't noticed. And what with Diana-san dropping Setsuka off with Professor Kannazuki's daughter-"

"You're being invited, not only to discuss science with one of the world's celebrated prodigies in engineering, and you're using your son as an excuse," Aki noted.

"Three children shouldn't mill about the United States." Yusei pointed out with a calm matter-of-fact tone. "Remember when we went there four years ago? Ruka told me that Ancient Fairy Dragon still hasn't forgiven Professor Xavier. It's hard to lie to an acknowledged telepath."

"Is there something wrong, Papa?" Ryuusei broke up the ensuing debate.

"No, there isn't," Yusei simply answered. "It's just... well, Papa has a very persistent friend that keeps sending invites to me to some brainstorming sessions that, quite frankly, I don't want to go to."

"Why don't you want to go?" Ryuusei immediately got to the meat of the problem.

"Because the last time we went... we didn't really have a very nice farewell reception." Yusei paused, trying to figure out how to summarise that the exploding warehouse was completely not any fault of theirs, and that yes, Aki could control her powers, right, let's take a rain check on whether Psychic Duelists could be considered mutants, and decided not to even try. "Let's just say... that much as your Papa would like to, there are things that I'd rather avoid."

Ryuusei's expression was placid. "You mean doctors."

Yusei flinched. "No! Not doctors, or I wouldn't have Dr Erik around your mother. Just..."

Ryuusei's eyes narrowed. "Or is this friend like Matsu-sensei?"

"Definitely not like Matsu," Yusei replied fiercely. "He likes women too much. Erm... Ryuusei, you do know who is Anthony Stark, right?"

From the look his son gave him, Yusei could feel his heart sinking. The look said that he was going to be booking air tickets for one adult and one child, no questions asked.

There was nothing quite like greeting the light of a brand new day with a cup of coffee and the news that you weren't needed to fight two gods and magic dictator with a doctorate. It made for a very interesting start of the day, the end result being that the Avengers minus himself, Thor and Clint being caught in a battle between villains who did not care if the surrounding archipelago got destroyed in the evil equivalent of a pissing contest. Either way, Tony Stark was therefore left free to basically do what genius billionaire playboy philanthropists did in their free time, and leave the running of Stark Industries to his CEO.

Unfortunately, it also left Manhattan pretty much unguarded for the monster to come.

It was a large draconic creature. Sunlight poured off its scales in a riot of opalescent light, jewel-encrusted body generally attracting the attention of New Yorkers on the street. It was about forty feet long, also at least twice as large by wingspan, and definitely real and solid.

It was now blowing fire all around, and prowling and roaring at the screams of civilians about. No trauma, no pain, just real, unadulterated mythical lizard bent on a rampage through Times Square in the fine tradition begun by the Hulk.

"Boot to the head!" Tony yelled as the suit swooped down to kick it in the head. Undeterred, the – dragon! – monster turned to let loose a blast of fire towards Iron Man. The fire was countered by repulsor blasts, but then a single claw swiped down to smash at the armour before Iron Man took to the skies once more.

"Power at thirty percent."

"Aww, shit," Tony cursed. "Iron Man facing unknown hostile. It's... a dragon."

"We know, rich boy," Clint's voice drifted in. "I'm facing my own here, and so's the big green guy. You having any luck?"

"Nope. Repulsors don't work."

A salvo of missiles shot from the red and gold armour to impact the dragon's flank, earning the tinkle of jewels littering the ground and a roar of pain, followed by a swipe of claw. The talon scored the red midriff, and sent Iron Man reeling back into the nearest wall. Whether or not it actually hurt, the dragon kept advancing-

A fwhip ripped through the air, before something exploded at the weak bleeding part where the dragon had already been injured. It roared, letting loose a fireball towards the higher ground.

Clint Barton threw himself off the car as it hit, the flame scoring the green paint and cracking the windows with heat, before there was a rumble of an explosion. "Shit!"

"It's a really authentic dragon, I know," Tony groaned as he got back up, armour clanging as he dusted himself.

"Alright, move already!"

Both Avengers turned their heads, but only to see the particularly loud and relatively shorter man hustle the crowd away from the carnage of the DMZ that had been Times Square. A quick look around also saw the New York Police Department doing their jobs of clearing the crowds of jaded New Yorkers more interested in the show than saving their own lives.

The man with a shock of orange hair then turned to the two Avengers. "Hit its side! It's weak at defending!"

"Huh?" Clint stared at him.

"Hurry up, it's moving!"

Despite both being relatively proud men, both were also unwilling to eschew good advice, and so Clint nocked another arrow to aim and fire, this one exploding on impact at the open wound.

The roar translated to a scream of pain as it keeled forward, desperately scrabbling to maybe gobble the two nearest Avengers before a thunk and a crackle of electricity shattered it into shards.

"Fellow shield-brothers, I daresay that I had not expected the mythical beasts of legend to still exist in Midgard," Thor, God of Thunder intoned.

A booming bass voice echoed throughout, and it sent chills through everyone present to listen. "This is only the beginning, let the games begin!" Another roar and a whoosh,the presence disappeared.

"Shit," Clint shot back, scanning the crowd for the orange-haired man who had disappeared. "Who the hell warned us?"

"There!" Tony took off after a head of searingly orange hair, his repulsors streaming after the man. The man leapt onto a black and yellow bike, revving the engine as it took off.

"Jarvis!"

"Power at fifteen percent. Attempting to hack coordinate system of D-Wheel interface."

"D-Wheel?" Tony echoed, puzzled. "Whaddaya mean? Those motorcycle things used for some game, right?"

"Autopilot, Duel Mode." the systems took over. "Lane Selection, searching for optimum, usable lane. Authorisation!"

Tony's reaction was predictable as the details scrolled down his visor. "What!"

"My apologies, sir, this seemed to be the easiest way to keep a lock on him." Jarvis's voice streamed in. "You merely need play until you can hold him. Power at fourteen percent."

"I don't have software!"

"If I may, sir, I have taken the liberty of uploading a copy of the full deck to the list, and then written a program to set out the most suitable moves to stall our opponent until Agent Barton and Thor can get to him."

"We're approaching Hell's Kitchen, shit!" Tony swore as New York passed them. "Okay, Jarvis!"

"You're challenging me to a Duel?" the other voice streamed in. "Shit!"

"Summoning Gate Blocker in defence mode," the mechanical voice read out. "Setting a card face-down in the Spell and Trap card zone. Declare turn end."

"Heh! Come on!" the other's voice streamed in, derisive. "At least make an effort! Fine my turn, draw! Because you control a monster and I don't, I summon Black Feather – Sirocco the Dawn in attack mode!"

Numbers flashed at the image of the humanoid bird flashed across the screen. "Unknown strategy, unknown strategy."

"Now, because I control a Blackwing monster on the field, I special summon its partner, Black Feather – Blast the Black Spear! By the same effect, I special summon Black Feather – Gale the Whirlwind!" the mystery guy, as Tony had mentally dubbed him, hollered. "Now I play the trap from my hand, Delta Crow – Anti-Reverse! Your set card's destroyed!"

The screen fuzzed over slightly, before it passed, and Tony groaned. Though the rules were still something fuzzy in his head, if something of his was destroyed it could hardly be a good thing.

"Now, Sirocco allows the power of all Black Feathers on the field to gather into Blast!" the voice echoed. "Blast has the effect that allows it to deal piercing damage! Now eat my one-turn kill!"

Tony groaned as the spear shot from around a bird-like entity on the ground, sailing easily through the Hell's Kitchen area before it neatly cut into the Iron Man armour. In a single shot, Iron Man went spiralling to the ground, the echoes of derisive laughter in his ear before the connection was cut off.

"He's not going to make it, he's- holy shit, the bike flew!" Clint's voice shouted.

"Power at five percent. Suit armour requires cool-down of five minutes before function can be carried out."

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