Deep below the floor of the Dueling arena, the Solid Vision generator—a much bigger, more potent version of the one that resided in Q's body—responded to the voice commands of the CDS principal.
"Knowledge is Light! Knowledge is Love!" he was bellowing. "Use knowledge as a weapon to clear your way to success in life!"
Beams of light, not quite solid, crisscrossed and arced high from below, and the floor erupted in a blaze of light that drowned out the glare of the spotlights completely.
"Active Solid Vision system detected," Q suddenly recited. "Active Action Field Spell detected. Compensating. System interface in five seconds."
Eita balked; it was strange to hear his own voice talking so … unlike him. Again, he had to remind himself that he was facing a computer.
"Interface complete," Q said, without so much as blinking. "All systems nominal."
Eita noticed a glowing shape materializing on Q's right arm. That was interesting, he thought; apparently Q preferred to Duel left-handed. There weren't very many left-handed Duelists in this city, he knew.
What was more interesting was that the design of Q's Duel Disk looked like nothing he'd ever seen. He saw the same golden eye as the motif on its mainframe, albeit with a few more spikes around the elbow—two to hold Q's Deck, presumably, and another two glowing with the golden light of an axe-like Duel Disk blade—and exposed circuitry inside the frame. The entire apparatus looked rather like the D-Pads and Duel Gazers that had once been the talk of the Dueling world—before the advent of Solid Vision had made them essentially worthless.
At that point, the walls and ceiling of the arena disappeared, replaced by a vibrant shade of yellow that seemed to stretch to infinity. Cubes with numbers on each side, question marks of every size, and ladders and platforms of every color dotted the surreal landscape.
"The Success Frontier!" shouted the principal. "True to its name, it is the Cram Duel School's pride and joy: the Quiz Frontier!"
Q surveyed the newly created environment with hardly any expression on its digitized face. That irked Eita somewhat—he'd have thought that the Leo Corporation was well and truly capable of programming something as simple as human emotion.
"Duelists locked in battle!" bellowed the CDS principal, as he recited the traditional chant to begin this match. "Kicking against the earth, and dancing in the air alongside their monsters, they storm through this Field! Behold! This is the newest and greatest evolution of Dueling! Action … DUEL!"
A cheer arose from the stands that all of Maiami City had to have heard, as displays blipped into existence over both Eita's head and Q's: Life Point counters, set to 4000 each. At the same time, a flash of light came from the center of the Duel field, and a thousand points of light—Action Cards—were scattered to its furthest reaches for each Duelist to find.
Eita looked out towards the crowd. "A question for you all!" he shouted. "Who will be going first in this Duel?"
His own name, shouted back at him with fervor, hit him like a wall of sound.
"That's correct! I'll be going first!" declared Eita, feeling his heart pumping with excitement. In one swift flash, he drew five cards from his Deck. His heart rose almost immediately—there were two Quiz Monkeys, among the most crucial cards of his Deck! It looked weak at first glance—but this little monster had won Eita more Quiz Duels than even he could count.
He peered at the rest of his hand, and inwardly smiled. However!, Magnification Don!, and Start the Clock! were in his hand as well. Aside from that last card, this opening hand reminded him quite a bit of his duel against Yuya.
Immediately, Eita Kyuando's genius-level intellect knew what strategy to use. "I Normal Summon Quiz Monkey in Attack Position!" he cried out, placing one of his mischievous monkeys on his blade of his Duel Disk. That same monkey—sunglasses, colorful clothes and all—now burst into being, replicated by the Solid Vision. A counter displaying "Level 1: ATK 0/DEF 0" briefly appeared over Quiz Monkey's head before vanishing.
"Then!" Eita cried. "I Set one card! Turn end!" A bigger version of the card he'd just now placed face-down faded in and out of sight, briefly.
"All right!" Eita laughed—he was in his element now; he was untouchable. "Show me what you've got, Q!"
Q narrowed his eyes. "I Summon Qliphort Genome without Releasing a monster," he stated. His emotionless voice carried absolute surety.
Eita's eyes widened as a huge mechanical shape descended from the sky of the Quiz Frontier. Gilded with silver and gold, its spiral design glinted with the light of the Action Field. The same golden eye he'd seen on Q's body—and the Duel Disk he currently wore—was positioned on its prow. His eyes only got bigger when he saw the counter above it: "Level 6: ATK 2400/DEF 1000".
At first, Eita was perplexed: a certain number of monsters had to be Released in order to Summon a Level 5 of higher monster. But some of these monsters had effects that, under certain conditions, could be Summoned with less monsters Released—or even none whatsoever.
The only question was: what was this monster's effect?
"Unless I Release Summon this monster," Q explained, "its Level will become 4, and its ATK will become 1800." True to his word, the counter above Qliphort Genome now read, "Level 4: ATK 1800/DEF 1000".
Now Eita understood: Release Summoning this monster made it stronger. But Q was not done. "I now activate the Equip Spell: Saqliphort," he said, placing a second card from his hand onto the screen of his Disk. "When equipped to a Qliphort monster, that monster will gain 300 ATK."
2100, Eita thought, seeing the counter reappearing once more to update Genome's ATK. Not bad for a first-turn play, he admitted … but only 300 ATK, for such a specific equipping restriction? Something wasn't right here.
"Battle Phase." Q declared flatly. "I attack Quiz Monkey with Qliphort Genome." The spiral shape of the monster suddenly began to pulse with energy, and the monkey opposite it seemed to realize all 2,100 points of that energy was being directed right at him.
But Eita had been waiting for this moment. "Quiz Monkey's effect activates!" he shouted. "When this monster battles, my opponent must answer the following question: How many Quiz monsters will remain on the field at the end of the Battle Phase?"
Q didn't hesitate to answer. "Zero."
A lance of light arced out from Genome. It had barely touched Quiz Monkey before the defenseless beast was vaporized.
Eita smiled as the dust cleared. "Well! Q has answered 'zero!' And that would be a correct answer—and so, according to my Quiz Monkey's effect, you would have gained 1000 LP." His smile widened. "However!"
The eponymous Continuous Trap he had previously Set now activated. "I can use this card to negate the destruction of one 'Quiz' monster I control, as well as any damage I take from that battle!" Eita crowed.
The Quiz Monkey that had been obliterated not ten seconds ago suddenly popped out from a nearby cube, cackling with glee as it leaped to Eita's side.
"Now I believe you said your answer was zero," Eita smirked. "But, I'm so sorry … you are incorrect! Now, I can activate Quiz Monkey's other effect! I can destroy a monster you control—and Quiz Monkey will gain its ATK and DEF!"
The X shape on top of the monster's top hat glowed with red light, and blasted a ray of light at the hulking machine opposite it. There was a burst of light and smoke, and Eita smiled again—his way was clear now; with Genome's ATK added to his monkey's own—he could take out more than half of Q's life in one turn!
Then the smoke cleared—and Eita gasped when he saw that Genome was still looming over him on the field. "What?!" he shrieked. "How?"
"My monsters cannot be so easily destroyed," said Q. "Qliphort monsters are not affected by the effects of any monster whose original Level is equal to or lower than their Level. Your Level 1 Quiz Monkey will never be able to use its effect. Therefore, since Genome cannot be destroyed thus, Quiz Monkey will not gain its ATK and DEF."
Eita growled—Q was right; a quick check proved that Quiz Monkey's ATK and DEF were still stubbornly at 0.
Q folded his arms. "I end my turn."
Now Eita was mad. His combo had been perfect—and yet that one monster's effect had ruined it all! He hated being outsmarted this way. He drew his next card with rather more force than was necessary. "My turn! Draw!"
Then he saw the card he had drawn, and instantly he knew his fortunes were about to change for the better.
"First, I Summon a second Quiz Monkey in Attack Position!" Eita declared, and three seconds later, another cartoonish monkey, dressed as equally bizarre as the first one, appeared on the Field. Both monkeys eyed one another, before trading a thumbs-up and a cackling smile.
"Then!" Eita went on, playing the card he'd drawn just now. "Since I control a 'Quiz' monster, I can Special Summon this to your side of the field in Attack Position! Let's all give a round of applause for this week's Quiz Contestant!"
As the crowd cheered, a bemused, lost-looking man suddenly popped out of thin air next to Q's Genome. Apparently, he seemed to notice the display hanging above his head ("Level 4: ATK 2000/DEF 2000"), because he wasted no time in flexing what little muscles he had.
"Yes, yes, he's certainly very strong for his Level, isn't he?" said Eita to the audience. "But let's see, ladies and gentlemen—whose show are we watching right now?"
"Eita's!" screamed the crowd.
"So who, then, is the one calling the shots on this show?"
"EITA!"
"Correct!" declared Eita, sniggering to himself. He'd gotten his audience hooked; now, it was time for the second round of this Quiz Duel—and even Q would find himself hard-pressed to find a way out of this one.
Because … "If Quiz Contestant is Summoned to my opponent's field with its own effect, it can't attack at all!" crowed Eita. "AND! If it's ever destroyed by battle, you'll take its total ATK in damage!"
Quiz Contestant, still flexing its muscles, suddenly found itself behind a podium that had appeared out of thin air, and the confident look on his face had vanished as suddenly as a spotlight shorting out.
Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Q was starting to look tense now. That was enough for Eita: he had Q now. But first, he thought, it was time he showed this supercomputer why he was called the 'Universe of Knowledge'—and maybe while he was at it, he could pad his advantage further still.
Eita's eyes scanned the field for the telltale gleam of an Action Card. Within seconds he found one—resting among some floating platforms—and launched himself toward it.
But something wasn't right. Eita stared back at Q—and was stunned to discover that his altered clone hadn't moved at all. What was going on here? Was Q that confident in his Deck? But machines couldn't feel confidence—that was absurd! Eita chalked it up to performance issues; this was the first true Action Duel that the computer had participated in—so of course it wouldn't chase after an Action Card right away!
Eita smiled, in spite of himself. Something was still off about this whole thing, he thought—but for now, he'd take a free pass when he saw one.
The second his fingers closed upon the Action Card, it began to glow. A screen flashed into being in front of him, where rested a crudely animated quiz show host. "Action Trap: Activate!" he declared. "Welcome: Quiz Action!"
"That's right!" said Eita, looking right at Q. "These aren't your ordinary Action Cards—these cards test more than your Dueling skill, but your knowledge as well!"
"Our genre is 500 of Science," explained the announcer on the screen. "If you get it right, you'll gain 500 LP—but if you get it wrong, you'll take 500 damage!"
"But we all know that's not going to happen, is it?" cackled Eita. The audience laughed.
The announcer cleared his throat, and began. "Question: How many moles of dihydrogen and dioxygen do you need to make two moles of water?"
Easy as pie, Eita thought. "Two moles of dihydrogen, and one mole of dioxygen!"
"Correct!" said the announcer. A burst of digital confetti appeared from the screen, followed swiftly by the life counter above Eita's head showing his LP increasing from 4000 to 4500.
But Eita was not satisfied. From where he was, he could see three Action Cards all in a row, and in an easily accessible spot. Surely Q would get wise to his plan now.
Yet incredibly, by the time he'd reached the first card, Q still had yet to budge.
"You know," Eita called down, "it's one thing to know everything there is to know in this world. But if you don't do anything with that knowledge, then you're just as much a fool as all the rest of them!"
Q scowled at the taunt, and watched idly with his arms crossed as Eita activated one, two, three Action Cards all in a row: 1000 of Math, 1000 of History, and 1000 of Riddle.
"In calculus, what is the difference between a derivative and an integral? Please provide a geometric interpretation."
"The derivative is the slope of a curve of the mathematical function f(x)—and its integral is the area under that curve!"
"Correct!"
"What famous bridge was used to connect a rich city with a poor city, and what were the names of these cities?"
"The Daedalus Bridge, New Domino City, and Satellite!"
"Correct!"
"Which is sunnier: the road or a sidewalk?"
"The sidewalk!"
"Correct!"
Three announcers vanished, three screens disappeared, and three blasts of confetti rained down on the Field—and when it was all over, Eita's LP were now seen to sit at 7500.
The audience was going berserk. No one at the Cram Duel School, not even the principal himself, had ever been able to claim that high an LP score—never mind one where only Action Cards had been used to make it happen.
And Eita still was not done.
"Battle Phase!" he declared. "Quiz Monkey, attack Quiz Contestant! And we all know what happens now, folks!" he added, barely repressing a snicker. "Quiz Monkey's effect activates! Which means you," he pointed to Q, "get to try your luck again! So—how many 'Quiz' monsters will be on the field at the end of the Battle Phase?"
"Because both monsters are in Attack Position," Q responded, "and Quiz Monkey's ATK is less than that of Quiz Contestant, Monkey will be destroyed, and you will be the one taking 2000 damage. My answer, therefore, is 1."
Eita shook his head mockingly. That was the trouble with computers—they never learned from experience, only upgrades. "However!" he shouted, and his Continuous Trap activated again. "Thanks to the effect of However!, Quiz Monkey will not be destroyed, and I will not be taking any of that damage!
"Which means, my obsolete friend, that you are once again … incorrect! Now, Quiz Monkey's other effect activates—and Quiz Contestant will be leaving the field with absolutely nothing to his name—not even his life!"
The ray from Quiz Monkey's top hat zapped the unfortunate Contestant, reducing him to a charred, sizzling husk that finally exploded violently into a cloud of fine ash. Somehow, Q managed to stay on his own two digital feet, even as his LP counter showed a steady drop from 4000 to 2000, and the display above the Quiz Monkey—clearly giddy with glee at the Contestant's demise—now showed it at 2000/2000.
That was enough for Eita—he wasn't so dumb as to try the same thing with his other Monkey and that bothersome Genome. "One card face-down," he finished, and a card appeared and disappeared before his feet in the space of a second. "Turn end!"
Now it was Q's turn to draw. "How unfortunate," he said, studying his new card. "I appear to have neglected to mention another effect of my Saqliphort Equip Spell. Any Qliphort monster equipped with it can be treated as not one, but two monsters to be used in a Release Summon."
Eita's mouth fell open. He's going to Summon a Level 7-plus monster with only one Released monster?!
Q's eyes flashed. "Specify parameters for Release," he recited. "Level 4, Qliphort Genome; exception T-2."
The enormous machine began to glow with light, and disappeared in a blaze of lightning and wind.
"Parameters accepted," Q continued. "Initiate resident program: Release Summon. Specify."
The light disappeared—and in its place was a flat, circular machine, even larger than Genome, that reminded a suddenly uneasy Eita of the popular notion of a UFO. "Level 7, Qliphort Disk."
Another one of those Qliphort monsters, Eita thought. And this time, he knew things were going to be different—especially since this one had been Release Summoned. And sure enough, the display for this new arrival read "Level 7: ATK 2800/DEF 1000".
"Now, I activate Genome's effect," said Q. "If it is Released for any reason, I can destroy 1 Spell or Trap on the field."
Eita froze. There were only two such cards on the field—and one of them was the field. That just left—
"I target and destroy your However!" declared Q—and Eita Kyuando could only watch his valuable Trap disintegrate into digital fragments.
"Next," Q went on, "I activate the final effect of my Saqliphort. If it is sent from the field to the Graveyard, I can search for a Qliphort monster in my Deck, and add it to my hand." A single card jutted outward from his Deck, and was promptly swiped up by Q. "And then, I will activate the effect of Qliphort Disk. If it is Summoned by Releasing a Qliphort monster, I can Special Summon 2 more Qliphort monsters from my Deck—"
Eita tensed. He's swarming the field, he realized. Maybe Q didn't know it, but the supercomputer had inadvertently discovered the one flaw in Eita's strategy: Quiz Monkey's effect only worked once per turn. If the opponent could simply get out more monsters than there were Quiz Monkeys on the field, their effects would be burned out completely—leaving him totally defenseless.
Except for one thing—and Eita smiled nastily at the prospect of activating that card.
"—although they will be destroyed during the End Phase of this turn."
Eita stopped. Oh. Well then. That's some better news.
"I Special Summon Qliphort Archive and Qliphort Shell from my Deck," Q continued, taking two cards from his deck and placing them on the blade of his Dueling apparatus. Two mechanical behemoths—one, a long, flat, barge-like craft; the other, a silver-green conch-like monster covered in spikes—floated down to take a place either side of Disk. Both had the same eye-shaped symbols on their bodies as before.
"Because they were not Release Summoned," Q said, "their Levels will become 4, and their ATK will both become 1800." No sooner had he finished speaking than two displays had appeared above the two newest monsters, showing Archive's transition from "Level 6: ATK 2400/DEF 1000" to "Level 4: ATK 1800/DEF 1000", and Shell's transformation from "Level 8: ATK 2800/DEF 1000" to the same.
"Battle Phase," said Q. "I send Qliphort Disk to attack your 0/0 Quiz Monkey." Several bladelike extensions unfolded from the monster's circular body, crackling with electricity.
"Now wait just a minute!" Eita declared, revealing his Set card right as that electricity surged for his Monkey. "Trap Activate: Start the Clock!"
At the last possible second before the Quiz Monkey would have been reduced to cinders and ash, a glowing circular shield—shaped like the face of a stopwatch clock—expanded around it, dissipating the electricity.
"If my opponent declares an attack with a monster whose ATK is higher than that of a monster I control, I can negate that attack, and end the Battle Phase!" Eita explained. "But wait—there's more! I can also change all of my opponent's monsters to Defense Position, and their DEF becomes 0!"
The effect of the Trap was immediate: the lights on all three Qliphort monsters went dark, and the displays above each one confirmed that their DEF was nowhere to be found.
This time, Eita didn't bother holding back his sniggers. "I knew you'd attack my weakest monster with your most powerful monster first!" he smirked at Q. "You got greedy—and now you're going to pay the price! Because the best part about Start the Clock! … is that if any Quiz monsters battle during my next turn, and they destroy your Defense Position monsters, they can inflict piercing damage to your Life Points!" He laughed, long and loud, as if this was the long-awaited punch line to some grand joke.
"If I were you," Eita snickered, leaning over at Q with the gleaming grin of a fox, "I'd start looking for an Action Card right about now! Otherwise, this Duel's as good as done! Your time starts … now!" He snapped his fingers, and the giant watch face began ticking backwards from sixty seconds.
Q blinked once. Then Eita blinked—and suddenly Q was gone, vanished as though he'd never existed.
What?! The boy genius whirled around in a full circle—and suddenly he heard, "Action Trap: Activate!" from somewhere above and to his right.
How Q had made it that high up in such a short time, Eita could not fathom. But make it Q had, and what was more, the construct had an already-activated Action Card between two fingers, judging from the picture of the announcer who'd spoken just now.
"The genre is 5000 of History," explained the quiz host, and Eita felt his stomach fall to the ground with the speed of a lead weight. 5000?!
"Question: What are the nine grounds described in The Art of War?"
Q only paused for exactly one second before delivering his answer. "Dispersive, facile, contentious, open, intersecting highways, serious, difficult, hemmed-in, and"—he looked directly at Eita—"desperate."
Eita knew he was correct even before the announcer confirmed it for the whole arena to hear, and he felt his heart sink along with his stomach as Q's LP counter rose from 2000 to 7000. The sick realization that all his padding had been for nothing was becoming increasingly clear.
"I Set one card," Q said, as a face-down card briefly materialized before fading away, "and end my turn. Archive and Shell will be destroyed at this point in time," he added, and the two monsters in question disintegrated, leaving Disk alone, and very, very defenseless.
Despite all this, Eita was furious now. The supercomputer had been toying with him—Q had known all along about the special mechanics of Action Dueling. He'd tricked Eita—duped him like the village idiot, and was now only 500 LP lower than he was! There was no way Eita could let that stand.
"Draw!" he screamed, and glanced at the card—and his heart rose; there it was! "All right," he addressed Q. "So you can Release monsters to Summon more powerful monsters. Well, two can play at that game!
"I Release my 0/0 Quiz Monkey to Summon my Level 6, 1000 ATK Sphin-Quiz in Attack Position!" he shouted, playing his ace monster onto the blade of his Disk. A huge carved replica of the legendary Sphinx—though sporting a bowtie on its neck, a pyramid on its back with a white question mark, and a microphone in its left rock-hewn paw—took its place alongside Eita.
"As long as I have another Quiz monster on my field," Eita told Q, "Sphin-Quiz can't be attacked at all! And since it's a Quiz monster, I'm sure you'll just be dying to hear its effect!" he cackled.
"Technically, I have never been alive," responded Q. "Therefore, I cannot die."
"I don't care!" screeched Eita. "Battle Phase! I attack your Disk with Sphin-Quiz!" The edges of the pyramid lit up with lightning, which raked the metal shell of Disk. Explosions rocked the metal monster, and it was blown apart in a flash of flame. The fires washed over Q without any physical harm—although his LP counter had now dropped to 6000, owing to the piercing effect of Start the Clock!
"And I'm just getting started!" Eita went on, playing another card from his hand. "I activate the Quick-Play Spell Magnification Don! If a Level 4 or higher Quiz monster inflicts damage this turn, I can double its ATK until the turn's end … and have it attack once again! And I don't see any monsters for you to fall back on this time!" he smirked. "Sphin-Quiz! Quiz Monkey! Attack him directly!"
White lightning and crimson lasers rocked the Action Field, and when the digital dust had settled, Q was still standing as resolutely as before—but his LP were right back where they had started, at 2000.
"I end my turn," Eita declared, and laughed again. "I told you to start looking for Action Cards," he sneered at the Solid Vision construct. "But you just didn't pay attention to me, did you? Geniuses like you and me are always worth listening to. But if even a genius like you doesn't listen to a genius like me—then you've got no more of a brain than the rest of those feeble minds outside our walls!"
"That remains to be seen," Q stated as he drew his next card. "Trap Activate: Apoqliphort. With this card, I can return up to 3 Qliphort monsters from my Extra Deck to my hand."
Eita blinked, certain he'd misheard. "I'm sorry," he said sarcastically, "but I'm pretty sure that there's no Extra Deck monsters—Fusion, Synchro, or Xyz—that can be returned to the hand, never mind from the Extra Deck!"
Q's eyes suddenly sparked with such light that Eita actually took a step backward. "Where do you think all those monsters I was Summoning have been going?" he asked.
Eita was floored. What did he just say?! "Y-you can't be serious!" he stammered in disbelief.
"I am very serious," said Q. "Every single Qliphort monster you have seen thus far … is a special kind of monster. And when these monsters are destroyed, they do not go to my Graveyard, but instead to my Extra Deck. I will now return the Qliphorts Genome, Disk, and Shell from the Extra Deck to my hand."
He did so. "And with that, the assembly is complete," he said, and leveled a glare at Eita that was so cold and emotionless, even the boy genius couldn't tell whether it was more man or machine—but he hoped with all his heart that it never appeared on his face again. "I will now show you the true potential of my Deck."
Eita gulped. Assembly? The true potential?
"Begin projection sequence," Q recited. "Energy output nominal. Specify projection parameters."
Two beams of blue light shot up from either side of Q, beams that looked vaguely familiar to Eita. Inside one, Eita recognized the monster within as Qliphort Disk, but the other was a completely new monster; smaller than all the others he'd yet seen, to the point where the golden eye shape was essentially its entire body. Eita noted an uncanny resemblance to Q's Dueling apparatus in its appearance.
And then he saw those twin beams of light again, and realized what he was witnessing. Oh no.
"Scale One, Qliphort Disk; Scale Nine, Qliphort Tool," Q continued to recite, raising his synthetic voice for the first time in this Duel. "Parameters accepted! Energy output now at seventy-five percent design limit.
"Initiate resident program: PENDULUM SUMMON!"
