Gilag LP: 4000

Number 106: Giant Hand: Rock-Type/Xyz/EARTH/Rank 4/ATK 2000/DEF 2000 – 1 OLU

Fire Hand: Pyro-Type/FIRE/Level 4/ATK 1600/DEF 1000

Spell & Trap Card Zone: 3 set cards

Katie LP: 3200

Number 91: Flarestormer: Pyro-Type/Xyz/FIRE/Rank 4/ATK 2000/DEF 200 – 2 OLU

James LP: 4000

Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon: Thunder-Type/Fusion/LIGHT/Level 7/ATK 2800/DEF 2100

"Summoning your Number this early just to match mine," Gilag smirked. "That strikes me as a move of desperation."

"Keep telling yourself that," Katie retorted. "Go, Flarestormer! Attack Giant Hand!" The molten Number wreathed itself in a veil of flames and charged at the enemy Number. 'Their ATKs are equal,' Katie thought as her monster charged. 'And if I try to use Flarestormer's effect, he'll just negate it with Giant Hand. Still, if I can destroy both our monsters this way, then James can move in and attack freely on his turn.'

Once again, however, Gilag was wise to their strategy. "I activate the Trap Card, Vice Hand!" he declared, triggering one of his face-downs. "When your monster declares an attack while I control a Hand monster, this card negates the attack, then deals damage to you equal to your monster's ATK!" A huge robotic hand suddenly extended from the card and slammed down on top of Flarestormer, stopping it in its tracks.

"2000 damage?!" James gasped. "That's too much! Katie, you have to stop it!"

"I know," she replied. "I activate the other effect of Damage Diet in my Graveyard! By banishing it, all effect damage I take for the remainder of this turn is halved!" Just as the card ejected itself from her Graveyard, the robotic hand suddenly released a bright red laser that lashed across her body, causing her to stumble back.

Katie LP: 3200 → 2200

Gilag laughed. "Ha! This isn't a duel, this is target practice! If this is really the best you two can muster up, I weep for your teammates who are out there dueling alone."

"My friends will be fine, and so will we," Katie snapped, regaining her footing as Flarestormer cantered back to her side. "I place one card face-down and end my turn." She watched her face-down materialise at her feet, then turned to James. "Go for it James! Make this turn a good one!"

"You got it," he grinned. "My turn, draw-"

"Hold it there!" Gilag cut in the moment James had drawn his card. "During your Standby Phase, I activate the Trap Card, Hand Over!"

"Hand Over?" James questioned as the card flipped up.

"With this card," Gilag was saying, "if I have only a single card in my hand, I can set that card from my hand directly to my opponent's side of the field in order to draw two cards. However, I won't be able to conduct a Battle Phase or use any other Spell or Trap Cards this turn." He held the last remaining card in his hand aloft and allowed it to dissipate from between his fingers, before reforming in James' Spell & Trap Card Zone. With that done, Gilag drew his two cards, then settled back to watch his plan unfold.

James looked down at his duel disk with a bemused expression. "So... this card is mine? I can use it?"

"If you dare," Gilag chuckled. "That card is extremely powerful. Do you even have the nerves to try it?"

"Check it thoroughly first James," Katie warned him. "And tell me what the card is. Gilag still has a face-down card – even if he can't activate it this turn, that card he gave you could well be bait to lure you into a trap."

With a nod, James reached down to take the card from his duel disk to read it... and froze. The exact moment his fingertips touched the card, he seemed to stop, his body rigid, his eyes wide.

"James...?" Katie said. "What's the matter?"

James said nothing. All the life and spirit seemed to have drained from his eyes, leaving them soulless and empty. Out of nowhere, a strange symbol appeared on his forehead. To Katie, it looked like a variation of the fleur-de-lis, a French heraldic symbol, with a red gem set into its centre.

Gilag was positively jubilant. 'Perfect! Just perfect!' he thought. 'It would have been foolish to try that trick on the girl: she has many Numbers and a very strong will. No way I could've brainwashed her. But the boy… he has a few Numbers, but his willpower is pathetic. The power of Barian's Force overcame him with ease.' He turned his fierce glance on Katie, who was starting to get worried about the strange symbol, and was asking James what the matter was. 'You could barely handle one Barian foe, little girl. Now let's see you handle two!'

James shook his head slightly, then took his hand away from the card and took one from his hand instead. "I activate the Spell Card, De-Fusion," he declared, his voice now dull and monotonous as his will was slowly overwritten. "With it, I split Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon back into its Fusion Materials." Sure enough, the orange dragon dissipated, only to be replaced by the monsters that had made it up.

Thunder Dragon: Thunder-Type/LIGHT/Level 5/ATK 1600/DEF 1400

Thunder Dragon: Thunder-Type/LIGHT/Level 5/ATK 1600/DEF 1400

"Then I activate the Spell Card, Monster Reborn, to revive my third Thunder Dragon." At his command, a purple resurrection circle appeared on his field, and the third serpentine dragon reappeared from it and settled alongside its brethren.

Thunder Dragon: Thunder-Type/LIGHT/Level 5/ATK 1600/DEF 1400

"James, what's going on?" Katie said, now seriously concerned. "What're you doing? What card did Gilag give you?"

James ignored her completely. "All three Level five Thunder Dragons, Overlay!" As one, all three monsters turned into amorphous masses of yellow energy, then shot upwards, clearing the way for a galaxy-shaped portal to open beneath them. "I use these three monsters to construct the Overlay Network! Xyz Summon!" The three Material Monsters spiralled down into the portal, which erupted upwards, shaking the concrete beneath the duelists' feet. "Appear before us! Number 64: Bedrock Dragon Tu Long!"

A bright yellow number sixty-four flared into life on James right hand, just as a colossal clump of rock and stone rose out of the portal, with a smaller ring of rocks orbiting it. With an explosive retort, a huge crack rent the rocky shell in two. More cracks ran across its surface as whatever was inside pushed against its prison with all its strength... until finally, the stone sphere shattered completely, and the creature inside landed behind James with an earth-shaking crash, the ring of rocks falling to the ground around it. Its body was clearly made of rock – possibly even the same rock it had been encased in – but it was hardly identifiable as a dragon. It resembled a collection of five huge boulders: one in the middle which contained its eyes, then pairs of rocks spreading out from either side, which all tapered upwards into vicious-looking spikes. The dragon was held up by two thick legs the size of tree trunks, each one imbedded a least a few feet into the ground as though it was made of soft soil, not solid concrete. The only real signs of life from the great hulking beast were the creaking of its limbs, and the occasional puff of steamy breath that rose up from under its rocky snout. Three orange Overlay Units circled the behemoth.

Number 64: Bedrock Dragon Tu Long: Dragon-Type/Xyz/EARTH/Rank 5/ATK2000/DEF 2300 – 3 OLU

"Tu Long..." Katie breathed. "He actually Summoned one of the Dragon Cards Numbers." She was actually very impressed. Tu Long was an incredibly powerful Number, one which would be able to wipe out Giant Hand while using its own effect to survive. Concern quickly overcame her awe though. James was still acting strange, and she still had no idea why.

James, meanwhile, was slowly losing the battle for control. His three Numbers were doing everything they could to fight back against the all-permeating powers of Barian's Force, but at the end of the day, two of them were just Numbers. They relied at least in part on their host's inner strength, and James had close to none.

Tu Long was different though. It was one of the Dragon Cards, and as such, its dark powers gave it some leverage against the Barian energy flooding through its host's body. Its earthly essence also kept it strong, allowing it to endure longer than most of the dragons would have. In the end, however, even it couldn't halt the card's power. One more push, and James would be completely subjugated...

"Now I activate the Spell Card, Rank-Up-Magic Barian's Force!" James declared, triggering the card Gilag had given to him. As the card flipped up, a blaze of rainbow light illuminated the field, temporarily blinding Katie.

"Rank-Up-what?!" she gasped, shielding her eyes.

"Here it comes!" Gilag laughed joyously.

"This card lets me Chaosify and Rank-Up a monster I control, Summoning a Chaos Xyz Monster from my Extra Deck that's one Rank higher!" As he spoke, Tu Long morphed into an entirely crimson-red mass of energy, which then shot upwards into a new, darker portal that opened in the sky above him. "I use Tu Long to reconstruct the Overlay Network! Chaos Xyz Change!" The portal exploded in a shadowy green blaze, and the ground beneath their feet shook more violently than ever. "Appear before us! Chaos Number 64: Bedrock Dragon Tu Shen Long!"

The symbol on James' right hand went out like a candle, only to flare into life again moments later as a shadowy, pulsating version of itself. The earth shook more and more, causing panes of glass in nearby buildings to shatter and the concrete road beneath them to crack. While Katie was struggling to stay upright, James seemed unaffected by all of this, and instead stared up at his monster's sealed form descending from the portal – a gigantic sphere of rocks with three rings of smaller rocks orbiting it. The sphere didn't stop to hover and unfold in the air like most Numbers, but instead kept going and smashed into the street with the force of a meteor, shattering the stone prison and instantly releasing the creature inside. At first, Katie thought it looked the same as Tu Long... but as the dust cleared, and the monster stretched its legs out, she saw just how wrong she was.

The creature standing before her now resembled a horrific variation of a centaur. It still had its short rocky body, but now four thick legs supported it, each the size of sheds and the height of a house when stretched, so the bulk of the monster would normally tower above them. The legs were bent though, placing the monster's belly low to the ground in a prone-like state. The body itself now bent at the neck and stretched up much further than it had before, ending in a colossal stone head a good few metres further up. Whereas Tu Long's face had been made from three segments of stone, this one was constructed from five – four smaller, sharp-edged ones encircling the larger main one, from which a pair of dull yellow eyes stared out over the field. As more of the dust drifted aside, the gaps in the monster's rocky skin came into view, revealing a strange coat of pulsating crimson energy that seemed to shift and flow just beneath Tu Shen Long's rocky hide. Four crystalline diamond-shaped objects hovered in front of the dragon, pulsing with the same red energy that flowed beneath the monster's body

Chaos Number 64: Bedrock Dragon Tu Shen Long: Dragon-Type/Xyz/EARTH/Rank 6/ATK 2600/DEF 2900 – 4 OLU


Author-made cards:

Number 91: Flarestormer
Pyro-Type/Xyz/FIRE/Rank 4/ATK 2000/DEF 200
2 Level 4 monsters
This card cannot be destroyed by battle, except by a "Number" monster. Once per turn, during either player's Damage Step, when a face-up monster(s) on the field battles: You can detach 1 Overlay Unit from this card, then target 1 of the battling monsters; that target gains 100 ATK for each monster in your Graveyard until the end of the Damage Step.

Number 64: Bedrock Dragon Tu Long
Dragon-Type/Xyz/EARTH/Rank 5/ATK 2000/DEF 2300
3 Level 5 monsters
Must be Xyz Summoned, and cannot be Special Summoned by other ways. This card cannot be destroyed by battle, except by a WIND "Number" monster. At the end of the Damage Step, if this card battles an opponent's monster: That monster loses ATK and DEF equal to this card's ATK. If this face-up card would be destroyed, you can detach 1 Overlay Unit from this card instead. Your opponent cannot target other monsters you control for attacks.

Hand Over
Trap Card
During the Standby Phase, if you have exactly 1 card in your hand: Set 1 card from your hand to your opponent's side of the field, then draw 2 cards. You cannot activate other Spell/Trap Cards, nor conduct your Battle Phase, during the turn you activate this card.


Fun Fact #23: Yay, James is being useful! Sort of!

Fun Fact #24: To those of you who were asking if the Dragon Numbers would ever be appearing again... here you go.

Fun Fact #25: It was always a part of our plans that James would fight his fellow teammate(s) for one reason or another (whether by choice or by being forced). This serves as a good way to balance out the power gap between James and the other Deltas, earn the dueling anti-prodigy a bit of respect, and finally give him a Chaos Number. We made a few casual little jokes about James being a Barian Lord and James being the final boss, but as it turns out, it was kind of the truth. This just goes to show you that you cannot disregard everything we say, but nor should you believe anything we say.


Hand Pun #4: Check out Gilag, handing over Barian's Force like a boss.

Hand Pun #5: When it comes down to it, Gilag's quite the handyman.

Hand Pun #6: I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying "CHAOS XYZ CHANGE!"