DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-gi-oh Zexal, which belongs to its respective owners. All I own is my OC.
Chapter Ten: Foolish Fans
Due POV
Side by side, Quattro and Due entered the circular construction site. Two overly excited fans stood, ready to be spoiled. After forming the plan to defeat all of the fans he had in the the Carnival, Quattro and she had gained three Heartpieces just by dueling fans. There was only one left for each of them. And their egos had been severely boosted from their last few duels.
"Hi! I'm Due, Quattro's older twin sister! But I'm not the one you came here for. It's the one and only maroon and blonde haired, red-eyed, cream-clothed, eye-scarred, super famous duel celebrity: Quattro Arclight!" She knelt on one knee and shook her hands in his direction in a mock introduction.
"Thank you for that introduction, sister. But as you said, that's not what we're here for. We're here to duel you, my dear fans. So let's begin. Oh, that's right. It would take far too long to duel both of you, so why not have a tag team duel instead?" he suggested.
The nerdy-looking blue haired one smiled wider. "Yeah! I love that idea!" He covered his mouth with his hand. "And we can work together to defeat him!" He stopped whispering. "I'm Caswell, by the way."
"And I'm Bronk!" The black haired fan pointed to himself with his thumb.
Due pirouetted. "No stalling now! Let's duel!"
Her Crest began to glow. An image of it projected by her hand. The lines and border fizzled away until all that was left was the heart. It tripled and a black backing formed between the hearts. It latched onto her arm as any duel disk would. A luminous outline formed around her eye in the shape of a fiery heart. From the top of it, color trickled down as rain would on a window. Her signature ombré duel gazer was equipped.
Quattro smirked as a bit of power shot from his Crest and crashed down from high above. A red lightning fire duel disk that bore a resemblance to his Crest shaped around his arm. Purple shockwaves brought it together as though it was a kind of magnet. A violet duel gazer glittered over his eye and turned it blue.
"Augmented reality link established."
Bronk visibly blushed. He was the victim of a one-sided crush. "Okay…I…ah…I summon Aye-Iron in Attack mode. I end my turn."
"I draw! I place a card face down in defense mode." Quattro crossed his arms.
"My move! I summon Shadow Prince in Defense mode! And now I activate its special ability! If it's the only Shadow monster on the field, I can bring its princess, Shadow Duchess! It's your move!" She winked. From a silver carriage came two royals in black ball attire.
It was Caswell next. "I summon Debugger X!"
Quattro applauded them. "Good job! I set a monster and place two cards facedown. And with that, I'll activate the field spell Xyz Coliseum. It means only Xyz monsters can attack, and they gain 200 Attack points."
The first fan smiled giddily. "I summon Tin Goldfish! And thanks to its special ability, I can summon another Tin Goldfish from my hand! I overlay the three monsters in my hand to summon Tin Archduke! I use one overlay unit to put your facedown monster in attack mode!"
The card flipped up to reveal Gimmick Puppet Princess, a slightly creepy-looking redhead puppet in a lacy pink dress.
"My, my, Bronk. What an ability!" She pretended to swoon.
"Tin Archduke, attack Gimmick Puppet Princess!"
Quattro activated his trap, Puppet Repair. He summoned another Gimmick Puppet Princess, but the chubby fan quickly destroyed it yet again with another overlay unit.
Due patted Quattro on the shoulder. "Dear brother, you seem to be doing poorly. I'll help you. When Shadow Prince and Shadow Duchess are on both my field, I can raise their Attack points to 700! I place three cards facedown and end my turn."
The shrouded royals now each held identical silver daggers.
Caswell eyed them. "These guys have got to go! I'll pull that off by summoning Debugger Z, and, thanks to its special ability, Debugger Y! I overlay my three Debuggers to build the overlay network! Come before me, Antidote Nurse! Destroy Gimmick Puppet Princess! After this, you'll be done for!"
A cloud of dust swirled around Quattro. It looked as though he had lost.
Due knew better.
The dust cleared, and he was still standing. "So sorry, but I activated my facedown, Gimmick Box, which reduces battle damage to zero and special summons itself with attack points equal to the damage I would have taken. I'm still in this duel."
They gasped.
"I summon Gimmick Puppet Scarecrow. Then I'll activate Level Doubler. By sending Xyz Effect to the Graveyard, I can increase Shadow Duchess's Level to eight! Thanks to her second ability, Shadow Prince raises his level as well! I overlay Shadow Duchess, Gimmick Box, and Shadow Prince to build the overlay network! Come to me, Number 42: Shadow Gimmick Puppet Stringcutter!"
An explosion began its introduction. However, the fire that came from it was blue. Silvery strands pulled themselves from the fire with shoulder armor pieces in tow. A white human shape formed from the smoke. She drew her fingers over her arms, making silver gauntlets. Each finger had thousands of strings in different shades of violet which combined to create a dress. The strings broke off. The silver strands attached to her head. She opened her eyes to reveal inky black with blue dots for irises. A 42 glowed on her waist.
"I use one overlay unit to cut my opponent's life points down to the defense points of my weakest monster in my Graveyard! It also destroys your monsters, so say goodbye to Tin Archduke and Antidote Nurse!"
Caswell and Bronk's life points dropped to zero.
"I'm not done yet!" he screeched. "Attack with Thread of Death!"
Two threads materialized in front of her. She held a white sword and cut each of them.
The fans were sent flying into unconsciousness…or something much worse.
One of the teenagers Due had seen at the Carnival cried out. "The duel's over! Stop!"
Quattro snapped his head toward him. "I'm not done until I say I'm done! MY FANS MUST BE SPOILED!" he screamed with the face of a madman.
The girl had tears in her eyes. "If you continue this, they'll be hospitalized or worse!"
Due arched her eyebrows. "You think he cares? If you want him to stop, make him!"
The boy who had objected first dashed to his friends. He began to cry. They both looked very, very hurt at best.
The AR link glittered away.
"It got boring," was all Quattro said.
Before he could say more, a strangely shaped motorcycle crashed into the construction site. And the rider happened to be Reginal Kastle.
"Hey Shrimp! I would ask to duel you, but that'd be too hard. After all, I don't want you to lose all those hard-earned Heartpieces. So let's do this the easy way, shall we? So I'll give you this gift my own way," She said.
"Who the heck are you?" Reginal growled.
She twisted her hair around her finger innocently. "I'm Quattro's older twin sister."
He balled his veiny hands into fists. They shook with anger when she said her brother's name. He obviously hated him with a passion.
"How's your sister doing, by the way?"
She had struck a nerve. "Thanks to your stupid brother, Rio's been hospitalized for two years!"
She feigned empathy. "Poor, sweet Shrimp. His little sister's hurt, and he can't help. Too bad no one cares!"
"SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up!" It was working. He had finally snapped.
"Wow, you're so mad, any idiot would think you hate me! But before I go, I might as well give you a good luck card, since I don't see how you could ever get to the semifinals without it. My brother needs a good match. Maybe it'll even help you keep your temper. Hah!" She handed him Number 32: Shark Drake. "Now that wasn't to hard now, was it? We didn't have to waste a good fifteen minutes of our life dueling."
He eyed the card. A violet and pink aura began to flame around him. She could tell he was getting possessed by the number. He screamed in agony. But…It seemed he was fighting it off.
"What's this?" she wondered aloud.
He had indeed fought off the number, but a shard of pure hate had entered his heart. Why else would the unexplained speck of blood on his chest be glowing?
Reginal shuddered. He gave her a look of complete and utter hatred, then wordlessly drove away.
She had succeeded in her mission once more.
Kite POV
I glided across the hazy late noon sky. Everything was good but peaceful, except for one major detail. A huge airship was malfunctioning. If it crashed, hundreds of people would die. If hundreds of people died, the Carnival would be canceled. If the Carnival was canceled, I wouldn't get the numbers. And if I didn't get the numbers, my brother would never heal.
I wouldn't let that happen any sooner than the time I would give up Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon.
Orbital slowed down time so I could smash through the window. It was strangely nostalgic, with the broken glass floating around me. Just like the eleventh time I took a number. Time restored to its normal speed. I shook the thought from my head.
What could I do? The room became more and more smog-filled by the second. Where were the pilots?
I had to fly it myself.
A large control panel of buttons was before me. If that was how I flew it, maybe I could pull this off.
The airship was in my control. Pulling on a lever, I returned everyone safely to the ground.
I motioned for Orbital to become my glider once more. And we smashed through the destroyed window. Broken glass glittered through the smoke. One shard grazed my the left side of my face. I tried to ignore the blood dripping from the cut.
Reporters shoved their cameras into the air to try to record the mysterious savior. But all they could obtain was a shrinking black silhouette.
I returned to Heartland Tower without a thought. But one thing was missing. Where was Due? This was unusual. Due was never late. Where was she? But then again, I didn't really want to see her. After all, she had a number card. And that meant I'd have to take her soul to save Hart. Maybe she'd give me the cards. That way I wouldn't have to harm her. Why am I even worried about her? Hart is the only person I care about.
Due pranced in with blue glitter trailing behind. "Hi Kite! Where's Hart? And why are you bleeding?"
"He's helping Mr. Heartland and my father with some work. I just cut myself, that's all." I felt angry when she asked that.
I grabbed a napkin and blotted away any leftover blood. I didn't want anyone worrying about my safety. If they were worried, they should keep it to themselves.
"Okay," she shrugged.
Hart came in on the raising platform. "Hey Kite."
"Hey Hart. Are you ready to visit the fair?" I put my arms around his shoulders.
He shook his head and replied, "No thanks Kite."
Due tilted her head.
"Why not? It's got games and balloons. You love that stuff," I said.
"Did I? I don't think I ever loved anything…"
"That's not true! You liked hide and seek! That's something," she tried.
He stared straight at her. "I was just doing that because you wanted me to. Just following your orders…"
She plucked yet another strand of her hair and waved three fingers above it. But at that second, Hart went into another one of his electric seizures. Except…this was different. It seemed as though the shockwaves harmed Due. She held her head and doubled over in agony. She cried out.
What was going on? Why was she in pain? Did Hart's powers hurt her somehow? If so, why?
"MAKE IT STOP!" they screamed in unison.
What could I do? I hated being helpless like this.
"Why is this happening?" I shouted.
Due opened her pain-filled eyes to look at me. "My powers…are clashing…with his…for some reason!"
I stepped towards her. "What power?"
"My Crest…You know…the one…that lets…me change stuff," she panted, holding up her left hand. Upon it glowed a curly heart with three dashes through it.
The blue surges eventually blinked out like lights in a power outage. Hart was back to normal, and so was Due.
I placed my hand on my hip scowling. She had a lot of explaining to do.
"My power came from Barianworld," she said, reading my mind. "It lets me transform or destroy anything. However, I have to sacrifice a part of myself. So I use my hair. And I have to use a bit of my soul to destroy something…or someone. It has other abilities too. I get access to cards that are hard to control and can own numbers without getting possessed by them. There's one more side effect, though. I'll lose my soul if I lose a duel while wielding a powerful number." She laughed, even though this was anything but a joke.
"Okay." One teenage girl who seemed to be a year younger than I was to hold a soul-crushing power by herself.
"I'm…not the only one with a Crest. My father and brothers have them too. In fact, I share my most powerful card with my brother. Well, Trey doesn't have much power yet. Just soul protection and teleportation. But he'll get them when he needs it."
She pulled a photograph from her pocket. It seemed to be a family photo save for her mother. It was old, with yellowing edges and fading colors, but I could discern Due, her brothers, and her father. She was a cute ten-year-old, with pigtails and a bell-sleeved magenta dress with a whitish apron-like layer. She smiled while holding a chubby orange and white cat with a blue collar.
"This what I fight for. I want everything to go back to how it was. That's why I do what I do." She blinked at the photograph longingly.
That explained some most of the strange going-ons. But why did she need the numbers?
She snapped out of her memories. "Have you gotten any Heartpieces yet?"
"How do you know I'm in the World Duel Carnival?" I raised a blonde eyebrow.
"I didn't. But you're a good duelist, so I thought you entered or at least would want to," she shrugged.
"Well, I did. I've got three Heartpieces now. Good guess."
Due nodded and curtsied. "Sorry I can't stay longer, but I need to get home. Maybe we'll see each other at the Carnival?"
"Maybe we will."
As she left the door, she winked, saying, "Good luck!"
Thanks Due. I would need it.