Supreme Demon Awakens!
"Who the heck is the Armityle Purple Force?" Ventus asked.
"Academia's most elite Duelists. Basically, they are the prodigies of the Fusion Dimension." Koharu explained. "I have only heard stories about them destroying entire cities in the matter of hours. There's no way that Academia would send its best units on a simple scouting operation, something more is going on."
"Then we should duel them!" Ventus exclaimed and clenched his fists. "We can't allow such a dangerous enemy to roam through Standard, it's our duty as Lancers to protect the world!"
"Shut it!" Koharu hissed and looked over the rock again.
There was only one duelist, a man dressed in a black knight armor with a helmet covered his face. They had the advantage in numbers, but she was still unsure about engaging against that 'knight'. She didn't know if it was just the fear, or her instincts as a duelist, but a voice inside her head was just screaming for her to run, to run as far away as her legs could carry her.
"It's too dangerous." Koharu shook her head and turned toward Ventus. "We should-" Just then she realized that she was alone. "Shit!"
Raising her head once again, she saw the ninja running toward the dark knight. With his movement almost too quick for a human eye to keep up with, Ventus activated his Duel Disk and leaped into the air, making a flip before bringing his Duel Disk down toward the unknown enemy. The knight, without raising his head, took a step back and let the ninja land in front of him.
"You got reflexes." Ventus commented and held out his Duel Disk in front of himself.
"An annoying this showed up." The knight puffed.
"I'm challenging you to a duel!" Ventus pointed at the duelist in front of him.
"Idiot!" Koharu yelled and ran over, activating her own Duel Disk in the process. The knight looked over both of them and their Duel Disks. The more familiar shape of Koharu's reminded him of the model used by the Xyz Dimension, not a very pretty design, but he had to admit that they were very sturdy against damage.
"I don't have time for that." The knight crossed his arms and turned his back to them. "But there's something we needed to test out, so I'll let my bodyguard take care of you two."
"Don't just turn your back to me!" Ventus snapped and reached to grab the knight's shoulder.
"Don't touch the Supreme King!" A voice yelled and Ventus momentarily jumped backward a yellow laser hit the ground where he stood a moment ago, carving a hole into it. Koharu looked toward the direction from where the attack came and an Obelisk Blue duelist jumped down, landing between them and the knight in black armor.
"I'll go now." The Supreme King told his soldier. "Take care of these… rogues."
"Yes sir!" The Obelisk Blue nodded and raised his Duel Disk.
The Supreme King then walked away, leaving the three Duelists on their own. Ventus clenched his fists in anger while Koharu sighed in relief that the Armityle Purple duelist choose to ignore them. Of course, there were still other problems in front of them.
"That's not right." Koharu muttered. "The Obelisk force always works in teams, so why is this one on his own?"
"I was sent here for a field test." The Obelisk Blue explained and raised his Duel Disk, tapping the top of it. "Now, if I beat you, The Supreme King will definitely recommend me to become a part of the Special Force. So don't waste my time, ok?"
"I was hoping to get a duel against that other guy, but it can't be helped." Ventus muttered and raised his Duel Disk. "I'll duel beside you, Koharu."
"I never asked you to duel alongside me." Koharu muttered, then shook her head. "Well, whatever! Let's do this already!"
"DUEL!"
『Koharu LP: 4000 Hand: 5 & Ventus LP: 4000 Hand: 5 (VS) Obelisk Force LP: 4000 Hand: 5』
"I'm going to take the first turn!" The Obelisk Force exclaimed and took two cards from his hand. "Now behold the new power of Academia! Using the Scale One, Metalfoes Silverd and the Scale Eight, Metalfoes Steelen, I set the Pendulum Scale!"
Two columns appeared behind the Obelisk Force member and the monsters raised into them. Metalfoes Silverd was a woman with pink hair, wearing a black and red outfit and riding a jet while carrying a gun in her right hand. Metalfoes Steelen on the other side was a blue haired male riding a motorbike while also carrying a burning sword in his right hand.
"Say what now!?" Ventus' eyes widened.
"Academia has learned how to use Pendulum Summoning?" Koharu muttered in thought.
"With this I can Pendulum Summon monster whose level is from two to seven!" the Obelisk laughed and threw his arm upward as a portal appeared in the sky. "Pendulum Summon! Metalfoes Volflame (Lv.7, ATK: 2400) and Metalfoes Goldriver (Lv.4, ATK: 1900)." Two monsters fell from the sky with the first one being a bulky red tank, while the second one was a green haired man, driving a buggy with a burning axe in his right hand. "Then, I'm also going to Normal Summon Raremetalfoes Bismugear (Lv.1, ATK: 0)."
A man with purple hair, driving a unicycle appeared in between the other two monsters. It was definitely the weakest, but also the most colorful vehicle.
"Now I activate Steelen's Pendulum effect! Once per turn, I can destroy a card on my field to set a Metalfoes Spell or Trap directly from my deck! I destroy Bismugear and set Metalfoes Fusion on my field." The small monster shattered into pieces and a facedown card appeared behind the zone where it stood a moment ago. "Then, I activate Silverd's Pendulum effect to destroy Steelen and set Metalfoes Counter on my field."
"This way he won't be able to Pendulum Summon again next turn." Koharu commented. "It was a mistake."
"I don't think so." Ventus shook his head. "If you trust only what you see before you, then you will be easily be deceived."
"Your friend is right, my strategy still isn't done." The Obelisk force said. "I activate my set Metalfoes Fusion to fuse together the Volflame and Goldriver on my field!"
Both monster raised into the air and then flew into a green and orange vortex. The Obelisk Force duelist put his hands together in front of his face and began to chant for his new Fusion Monster.
"Wolfram and Gold, melt to your foundations and chemically molt a new body of flames! Fusion Summon! The alchemist to which no knowledge is hidden! Fullmetalfoes Alkahest (Lv.1, DEF: 0)!"
A monster wearing black and red robes appeared on the field. Its face and head were covered by a mask and a magician hat made of a multicolored element that also covered its shoulders and chest. The Fusion stretched its arm to the side and a large staff with a glowing red orb on top of it appeared.
"You traded your powerful monsters for this?" Koharu tilted her head to the side in confusion. "Do you even know how to play with this deck?"
"Shut up!" the Obelisk Force duelist snapped. "During the end of my turn, the effect ofRaremetalfoes Bismugear will activate and allow me to add another Metalfoes monster from my deck to the hand. I add another Metalfoes Volflame and end my turn there!"
"It's my turn!" Koharu announced. "Draw!"
『Turn 2 [Koharu] LP: 4000, Hand: 6』
"First off, I'm going to Normal Summon Golem of Wishes!" A huge, circular monster made out of light with two skinny legs and giant arms appeared in front of the Xyz Duelist and clenched its fists.
Golem of Wishes
Level: 4/Attribute: LIGHT/Type: Rock/Effect
ATK: 1500/DEF: 1800
Effect: This first time each "Wishes" monster(s) you control would be destroyed by battle, it's not destroyed. Once per turn: You can increase the Level of all "Wishes" monsters you control by 1 until the end of this turn.
"Next I activate the Spell Card: Xyz Reception! By targeting Golem of Wishes, this card will allow me to Special Summon one monster with the same level from my hand, but as a cost that new monster will lose all of its attack, defense, and effects! Come up, Magician of Wishes (Lv.4, ATK: 1500)!"
The magician appeared next to the other monster holding one of its hands into its pocket.
Magician of Wishes, ATK: 1500 → 0, DEF: 1000 → 0
"I guess this means that you are going to Xyz Summon your Utopia now, right?" Ventus guessed.
"Utopia?" Koharu raised an eyebrow to that name. "If you are talking about Hope, then I must disappoint because I got something better in store. I activate Golem of Wishes' effect to increase the level of all Wishes monsters I control by one!"
The Golem raised its arms and then slammed them into the ground, causing two stars to flew out of it and landed on top of both Golem's and Magician's heads.
Magician of Wishes, Lv.4 → 5
Golem of Wishes, Lv.4 → 5
"Now I'm going to overlay my two Level Five monsters!" Both of Koharu's monsters turned into yellow beams and shot toward the sky, before falling back down, landing into the galactic portal that appeared on the ground.
"The warrior mastered the art of the blade. Become the brilliant light in the horizon and lead us to a new tomorrow! Xyz Summon! Swordsman of Wishes!"
Out of the portal flew a warrior whose outfit appeared to be a crossover between a cowboy and a samurai. He was wearing a samurai robe, which was blue in color but with a cowboy hat and boots. His arms were covered by heavy black gauntlets that had blades sticking out of them.
Swordsman of Wishes
Rank: 5/Attribute: LIGHT/Type: Warrior/Xyz/Effect
ATK: 2200/DEF: 1800
2 Level 5 monsters
Effect: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card to activate one of the following effects:
Target 1 "Wishes" monster you control; it can make a second attack during each Battle Phase this turn.
If this card battles this turn it gains 1000 ATK during the Damage Step only.
"First, I'm going to resolve the effect of Magician of Wishes!" Koharu exclaimed and the spirit of her monster appeared beside Swordsman of Wishes. "When Magician of Wishes is used as Xyz Material, I can inflict five hundred damage to you!"
Magician's spirit flew into the gauntlets of Swordsman and the Xyz Monster pointed them at the Obelisk Force Duelist. The front of the gauntlets opened up to reveal guns and Swordsman fired them, causing the Fusion Duelist to scream as the bullets hit his body.
『Obelisk Force LP: 4000 – 500 → 3500』
"Ha! First blood is ours!" Ventus exclaimed.
"Don't cheer yet." Koharu warned. "I now activate Swordsman of Wishes' effect! I can detach one of its Xyz Materials to gain a one of two effects, so I'm going to detach both of his Xyz Materials to give Swordsman both of his effects! First, Swordsman of Wishes is able to attack twice during this turn, and second, it gains one thousand attack points during damage calculation!"
"Once thousand? Then that means…" Ventus' eyes widened in realization. Koharu was going to reduce the Obelisk's Life Points to just 300 in a single turn!
"As if I would let that happen!" The Obelisk Force laughed. "I activate Fullmetalfoes Alkahest's effect! Once during the opponent's turn, I can target a monster the opponent controls and equip it to Alkahest!"
"W-what?!" Koharu gasped and looked back at her monster. Fullmetalfoes Alkahest pointed its staff toward the Xyz monster and it shinned, absorbing Swordsman of Wishes into itself.
"And when a monster is equipped to Fullmetalfoes Alkahest by this effect, my monster will gain the defense points of whichever monster it absorbed!" The Obelisk Force grinned as his monster's defense rose.
Fullmetalfoes Alkahest, DEF: 0 → 1800
"Then I'm going to set one card and end my turn." Koharu muttered. "Turn end."
"It's my turn then!" Ventus exclaimed and drew a card.
『Turn 3 [Ventus] LP: 4000, Hand: 6』
"First off, I'm going to activate the Spell Card: Heroic Tribute!" Ventus played a card whose artwork depicted Heroic Challenger – Spartan with broken shield and armor handling its spear over to Heroic Challenger - Double Lance. "This Spell lets me discard one Heroic monster from my hand to add another one with the same level from my deck! I discard Heroic Challenger - Double Lance to add Heroic Challenger - Night Watchman to my hand."
Heroic Tribute (Spell) Normal
Discard 1 "Heroic" monster from your hand: Add 1 "Heroic" monster with the same Level but different original name from your deck to the hand.
"Next, since there are no monsters on my field I can Special Summon Heroic Challenger - Assault Halberd (Lv.4, ATK: 1800)." A warrior in a white and blue armor carrying a spear with an axe blade on the side of the spear's blade jumped in front of Ventus and swung its weapon. "Next, I Normal Summon Heroic Challenger - Night Watchman (Lv.4, ATK: 1200)!"
A second monster covered in dark armor with a blue cloak appeared holding a machete and a lantern in its hands.
"Battle!" Ventus exclaimed. "I attack Fullmetalfoes Alkahest withHeroic Challenger - Night Watchman!" The monster swung its blade and then charged toward the Fusion.
"You think I would fall for that?" The Obelisk Force duelist laughed. "I activate Fullmetalfoes Alkahest's effect to equip Night Watchman to it!"
Alkahest raised its staff to block Night Watchman's sword and then the magical item began to glow and absorbed the warrior into itself.
Fullmetalfoes Alkahest, DEF: 1800 → 2100
"So it could absorb more than one monster at a time?" Ventus narrowed his eyes and took a card from his hand. "I set one card as well and end my turn there!"
"Then it's back to me!" The Obelisk Duelist laughed maliciously. "I draw!"
『Turn 4 [Obelisk Force] LP: 3500, Hand: 2』
"Using the Scale Eight, Metalfoes Volflame I'm going to complete my Pendulum Scale!" The tank flew into the column and the number '8' appeared, glowing underneath the vehicle's body.
"Let's Pendulum Summon! Come out Metalfoes Volflame (Lv.7, ATK: 2400), Metalfoes Steelen (Lv.3, DEF: 2100) and Metalfoes Goldriver (Lv.4, ATK: 1900)!" All three Metalfoes appeared next to one another on the field with Fullmetalfoes Alkahest leading the rest. "Next, I'm going to activate Metalfoes Fusion's effect in my Graveyard to shuffle it back into my deck and draw one more card!"
The Obelisk Duelist looked at the card that he got and his grin widened. "I activate Volflame's Pendulum Effect to destroyMetalfoes Steelen and set Metalfoes Fusion back onto my field!" The small Metalfoes monster shattered and a card appeared in front of the Fusion user. "Next, I activate my Trap, Metalfoes Counter! Since a card was just destroyed by a card effect, I can Special Summon a new copy of Raremetalfoes Bismugear (Lv.1, ATK: 0) from my deck!"
"He's not going to go easy on us?" Ventus muttered to himself. "Thanks nice! I needed a challenge!"
"I activate Silverd's Pendulum effect to destroyRaremetalfoes Bismugear and set Metalfoes Combination from my deck on the field!" The little effect monster shattered into fragments and a new card appeared face-down in its place. "Now I activate my set Metalfoes Fusion to fuse together Metalfoes Goldriver along with the Swordsman of Wishes and Heroic Challenger - Night Watchman!"
"W-what!?" Koharu cried out.
"He can use the absorbed monsters as Fusion Materials?" Ventus muttered curious.
Fullmetalfoes Alkahest raised its wand and the two monsters that it absorbed appeared on the field right before falling into a vortex alongside Metalfoes Goldriver.
Gold, melt the bones of your sacrifice to their foundations and chemically molt a new body of flames! Fusion Summon! The armor beast crushing everything standing in its way! Metalfoes Crimsonite (Lv.9, ATK: 3000)!"
A giant robot made of red metal jumped onto the field and let out a loud roar. Upon taking a closer look however, one could see that the Fusion was, in fact, Volflame's tank in a mecha form.
"Let's see who I'm going to finish off first." The Fusion duelist looked at his choices carefully before pointing at Koharu. "You were the one who inflict damage to me, so I'm going to finish you off first! Go, Metalfoes Crimsonite!"
The Metalfoes fusion clenched its fist and pulled it back. Its eyes glowed setting off a spark after which the huge beast threw its fist toward. Gritting her teeth in anger, Koharu reached for a card in her hand and slid it onto the Graveyard.
"I activate the effect of Gardna of Wishes from my hand!" Koharu exclaimed and a portal opened in front of her. "By discarding this card I can Special Summon one Wishes monster from my Graveyard and make it the new target of your attack! Come out, Swordsman of Wishes (RANK: 5, DEF: 1800)!"
Gardna of Wishes
Level: 4/Attribute: LIGHT/Type: Warrior/Effect
ATK: 1500/DEF: 2000
Effect: When an opponent's monster declares a direct attack: You can discard this card to target 1 "Wishes" monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target, and if you do, it becomes the new attack target, also, it cannot be destroyed by that battle.
The Xyz Monster flew out of the portal and landed in front of Koharu, putting its swords in front of its own body, Swordsman of Wishes took the attack instead. Metalfoes Crimsonite's fist slammed against Swordsman of Wishes' blades, but the Xyz monster didn't gave up and pushed back, knocking Crimsonite.
"Why wasn't your monster destroyed?" The Fusion Duelist demanded.
"A monster summoned by Gardna of Wishes can't be destroyed in the battle it was called to protect me from." Koharu explained.
"How annoying." The Obelisk Force Duelist fumed. "But I'm going to deal with that in a moment. First, I'll destroy Heroic Challenger - Assault Halberd with Metalfoes Volflame!"
The Metalfoes' tank aimed all of its weapons at Assault Halberd and then fired several missiles and lasers all at once. The warrior swung its blade and cut through the first wave of rockets, only for the lasers to pierce right through it. Ventus put a hand in front of his body and the shockwave pushed him backward, knocking the ninja duelist down onto his knees.
『Ventus LP: 4000 – 600 → 3400』
"And now, I'm going to activate a card from my hand! Fullmetalfoes Fusion lets me fuse together the Metalfoes Volflame with the Metalfoes Steelen in my hand!" A vortex made from red and green flames appeared behind the Obelisk Force member and his two monsters flew into it.
"Wolfram and Steel, melt to your foundations and chemically molt a new body of flames! Fusion Summon! The huntress dominating the smoke-filled skies! Metalfoes Mithrilium (Lv.6, ATK: 2600)!"
A woman wearing the black and red suit with a light grey armor over it flew through the field. The monster had metal wings attached to its back and was carrying two blasters. Its face was hidden by a mask and a red visor, but its purple hair was left visible.
"When Mithrilium is Fusion Summoned, I can return two Metalfoes cards from my Graveyard into the deck and then return one of your cards back to the hand." The Obelisk Force explained. "I choose to return Metalfoes Steelen and Fullmetalfoes Fusion into my deck and Swordsman of Wishes to your hand."
"Xyz monsters can only exist in the Extra Deck, so…" Koharu gritted her teeth and return the card into her Extra Deck. Now she was left completely exposed and her opponent still had one more attack to launch.
"Now, Metalfoes Mithrilium attack the Xyz scum directly!" The monster flew into the air and then dived, firing its weapon at Koharu. The shots hit home, knocking the Xyz Duelist on the ground.
『Koharu LP: 4000 – 2600 → 1400』
"Hey. Are you ok?" Ventus asked.
"I'm… fine." Koharu muttered and stood back up, winching as she moved. The girl raised her left hand and touched her right shoulder, feeling something wet…
"As if you are fine! You are bleeding!" Ventus pointed out.
"It's nothing." Koharu muttered and pointed forward. "At this moment I activate my Trap Card: Convert of Wishes! When I take battle damage this card lets me revive one LIGHT monster directly from my Graveyard, so come back, Golem of Wishes (Lv.4, DEF: 1800)!"
Convert of Wishes (Trap) Normal
When you take battle damage: You can target 1 LIGHT monster in your Graveyard whose DEF is equal or less to the damage you took; Special Summon that target. If a LIGHT XYZ Monster would activate its effect by detaching a Xyz Material(s) you banish this card from your Graveyard instead detaching any Xyz Materials.
The ground in front of Koharu shook as a large arm tear through and then the body of her rock monster raised as well. Golem of Wishes but its arms in front of itself and a blue aura surrounded it. Even if it wasn't a Xyz, it was the best defense that the girl had at the moment.
"Now I'm going to end my turn." The Obelisk Force exclaimed. "But before that, the effect of Raremetalfoes Bismugear is going to let me add Metalfoes Goldriver from my deck to the hand"
A card slide out of the Obelisk Force's Duel Disk and he showed it to his opponents before adding it to his hand. With the effects of both his Pendulum Scales and the fast recovery of Pendulum monsters when used as Fusion Materials, both Ventus and Koharu understood that they had to deal as much damage to his formation as possible or they might not have another turn to do so.
"It's my turn." Koharu announced. "I draw!"
『Turn 5 [Koharu] LP: 1400, Hand: 2』
"That should do." Koharu commented. "I Normal Summon Apprentice of Wishes!"
A teenager girl with long red hair and crystal clear blue eyes appeared on Koharu's field holding a cellphone in her left hand. The monster was wearing a white magician outfit with light silver armor and a witch's hand on top of her head.
Apprentice of Wishes
Level: 3/Attribute: LIGHT/Type: Spellcaster/Effect
ATK: 1000/DEF: 800
Effect: If this card is Summoned: You can target 1 other monster on the field; Reduce its Level by 1. A LIGHT Xyz Monster summoned using this card as Xyz Material gains this effect.
When it is Xyz Summoned: You can target 1 Special Summoned monster your opponent controls; its ATK becomes 0, also negate its effects. Your opponent cannot activate the targeted monster's effects in response to this effect's activation.
"And now I activate Apprentice of Wishes' effect to reduce Golem's Level by one!" The girl took a photo of Golem with her cellphone and then changed a few things before showing the result to the monster in question. The picture now showed Golem with three stars floating above it.
Golem of Wishes, Lv.4 → 3
"Oh, are you going for a Rank Three now?" Ventus asked. "Although after your Rank Five didn't help, I'm not very helpful…"
"Don't be silly." Koharu glared at the ninja. "I activate Golem of Wishes' effect to increase the level of all Wishes monsters I control by one!" The Golem raised its arms again, and then slammed them into the ground, causing two stars to flew out of it and landed on top of both Golem's and Apprentice's heads.
Apprentice of Wishes, Lv.3 → 4
Golem of Wishes, Lv.3 → 4
"Now, I Xyz Summon using these two monsters as materials!" Golem and Apprentice both turned into beams of yellow light that flew into a galaxy portal that formed above Koharu's head.
"Hope, the enigmatic force that unites us, come as the courageous protector of dreams! Xyz Summon! Heavenly warrior of light! Rank Four, King of Dreams, Hope (RANK: 4, ATK: 2500)!"
"So you brought out your ace?" The Obelisk member asked. "It doesn't matter a bit because thanks to Fullmetalfoes Alkahest it's going to become another Fusion folder!"
"I won't let you!" Koharu shouted and pointed at her monster. "I activate Apprentice's second effect! When she is used as Xyz Material for the summoning of a LIGHT Xyz Monster, I can target a monster you control and reduce its attack points to zero! I choose Fullmetalfoes Alkahest!"
"Huh?" The Obelisk Force tilted his head. "But Alkahest has exactly zero attack anyways, so I'm not going to lose anything from this!"
"In addition to the attack reduction, Apprentice's effect will also negate that monster's effects." Koharu continued. "And you can't chain Alkahest to that effect either, so it's going through!"
Hope raised both of its swords and then put them to form a cross in front of it and fired a lightning that stuck Alkahest, paralyzing the Fusion Monster. The Obelisk member clenched his fists tightly.
"Battle!" Koharu exclaimed. "Hope attack Alkahest! Raising Sun Blade!"
The Xyz monster spread its angelic wings and flew into the sky before swinging its swords down onto the Metalfoes monster, cutting it into pieces. Alkahest screamed out and its body burst to pieces.
"Now I'm going to set one card and end my turn!" Koharu finished and looked over to Ventus. "Your move ninja, make it count!"
"Yes, miss!" Ventus nodded enthusiastically and put two fingers on the top card of his deck. "I will go beyond plus ultra this turn! Draw!"
『Turn 6 [Ventus] LP: 3400, Hand: 3』
"Here it is!" Ventus exclaimed and slapped a card on his Duel Disk. "I Normal Summon Heroic Challenger - Double Lance (Lv.4, ATK: 1700) and activate its effect to revive the second copy of Heroic Challenger - Double Lance from my Graveyard!"
A warrior covered in white armor with two spears that had golden blades appeared in front of Ventus and threw its spears on the ground, opening a portal through which a second copy of that monster appeared next to the first. The two warriors grabbed each other's arm and had a handshake before each of them grabbed one of the spears.
"Next, I'm going to Xyz Summon using my two Double Lance as Xyz Materials!" Both monsters turned into orange light and flew into the portal.
"Come forth, sheathed in light! Shining lord who slashes through the dark! Heroic Champion – Excalibur (RANK: 4, ATK: 2000)!"
The warrior covered in red armor descended on the field carrying a sword and landed beside Hope. Both monsters raised their blades and then crossed them in front of their duelists, a sight that meant they would go down before letting any harm come to the duelists they served under.
"Let's bring it to them, Excalibur!" Ventus exclaimed. "I activate Excalibur's effect to detach both of its Xyz Materials and double its attack until the end of next turn!" The monster raised its sword and absorbed both of its Xyz Materials into it.
Heroic Champion – Excalibur, ATK: 2000 * 2 → 4000
"Cut through Metalfoes Crimsonite!" The Xyz Monster swung its sword and shot a large wave of light that sliced a vertical line through the middle of the Metalfoes Fusion, destroying it.
『Obelisk Force LP: 3500 – 1000 → 2500』
"Hmm, if you aimed for his weaker monster we would have dealt more damage." Koharu pointed out. "His Crimsonite didn't have an effect anyways, so it wouldn't be too tough to beat."
"However his other Fusion has an effect to recycle cards when it's destroyed, so it would be more trouble for us next turn if I went for it instead." Ventus explained, surprising Koharu. "Heh, didn't expect that, did you? I'm a guy that thinks ahead after all. Anyway, I set a card and end my turn!"
"Hmm, I'm going to make you both pay for this!" The Obelisk member yelled. "Your destruction will start this turn! I draw!"
『Turn 7 [Obelisk Force] LP: 2500, Hand: 2』
"First, I banish Metalfoes Counter from my Graveyard to add Raremetalfoes Bismugear from my Extra Deck to the hand and then I activate Metalfoes Fusion's effect to shuffle it into my deck and draw a new card!"
"Here it comes!" Ventus warned.
"Pendulum Summon!" The Obelisk Force duelist cried out. "Come out, Metalfoes Volflame (Lv.7, ATK: 2400), Metalfoes Steelen (Lv.3, DEF: 2100) and Metalfoes Goldriver (Lv.4, ATK: 1900)!" The three Metalfoes raised once again surrounding their owner. "I Normal Summon Raremetalfoes Bismugear (Lv.1, ATK: 0) and activate Silverd's Pendulum effect to destroy it in order to set Metalfoes Fusion back onto my field."
"Geez, if he keeps searching and recycling cards like this our decks will end before he gets to draw the twentieth card of his deck." Ventus grumped.
"I activate my Continuous Trap, Metalfoes Combination and then I activate Metalfoes Fusion to fuse together Metalfoes Steelen and Metalfoes Goldriver!" The green and red whirlwind appeared once again and the two monsters fell into it.
"Gold and Steel, melt to your foundations and chemically molt a new body of flames! Fusion Summon! The hunter demolishing everything in his sight! Metalfoes Orichalc (Lv.8, ATK: 2800)!"
A man wearing golden armor appeared on the field holding two flame axes into his hands. The monster had a large attachment on his back that appeared to serve as a jetpack. His face was covered by a mask and a red visor, leaving only his green hair exposed.
"At this moment the effect of my Continuous Trap - Metalfoes Combination activates! When a monster is Fusion Summoned, I can revive a Metalfoes with a lower level from my Graveyard! Return to me, Fullmetalfoes Alkahest (Lv.1, DEF: 0)!"
"After everything I went through to finish off this one, he brought it back in an instant." Koharu muttered.
"Next, I activate the Spell Card: Monster Reborn to revive Metalfoes Crimsonite (Lv.9, ATK: 3000)!" A portal leading to the Graveyard appeared and Metalfoes Crimsonite walked through it with an angry groan. "And now to finish this lineup I activate Metalfoes Volflame's Pendulum effect to destroy Silverd and set a second Metalfoes Fusion on my field! Next I activate it to fuse together the Metalfoes Volflame on my field with Metalfoes Goldriver in my hand!"
"Wolfram and Gold, melt to your foundations and chemically molt a new body of flames! Fusion Summon! I call upon the flame controlling swordsmaster! Metalfoes Adamante (Lv.5, ATK: 2500)!"
A warrior in a black and red suit wearing a silver set of armor with wings on its back and holding a set of burning swords in his arms landed next to the other fusions. Like all others, its face was hidden but its light blue hair was visible.
"And finally, a favorite of mine! I activate the Continuous Spell, Xyz N-Vain!" A card that showed Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer, Brotherhood of the Fire Fist – Tiger King and Photon Strike Bounzer being tied down by chains, appeared on the field. "This card changes all Xyz Monsters currently on the field to Defense position and negates their effects! Also, while this card is face-up on the field the effects of all Xyz monsters are going to be negated!"
Xyz N-Vain (Spell) Continuous
When this card activates, change all face-up Xyz Monsters to Defense Position. Xyz monsters on the field cannot activate their effects while this card is face-up on the field. During the Standby Phase of your turn, if there is no face-up Xyz Monster on the field, destroy this card.
"What!?" Koharu gasped.
"A card specially designed to fight Xyz?" Ventus muttered.
"This is the end! I attack King of Dreams, Hope with Metalfoes Orichalc and when a Metalfoes battles a Defense Position monster while Orichalc is on my field, my Metalfoes are going to inflict double piercing damage!"
'I can't use Hope's effect to protect myself.' Koharu thought. "Then you leave me no choice! I activate my Trap Card, Final Wish! This halves battle damage than I take by battle, and lets me draw a card!"
Final Wish (Trap) Normal
Activate this card when you would take battle damage: Halve that damage, then draw 1 card. If a Xyz Monster was destroyed by battle this turn, you can pay half your Life Points and banish this card from your Graveyard: For the rest of this turn, you take no more battle damage.
A barrier formed around Hope, but Metalfoes Orichalc cut right through it and sliced the warrior in half, destroying it. The explosion that followed threw Koharu on the ground and she groaned in pain.
『Koharu LP: 1400 – 800 → 600』
"I activate… Final Wish's… last effect." Koharu bit her lip. Her entire body was hurting like hell, she was beaten way too much, but she couldn't rest now. Not while there were soldiers of Academia running around. "I pay half my Life Points and banish Final Wish from my Graveyard, so for the rest of this turn I'm going to take no more damage."
『Koharu LP: 600/2 → 300』
"So you will live this turn?" The Obelisk Force member sneered. "I will just destroy you next turn! For now, I'm going to finish off your partner! Go, Metalfoes Crimsonite!" The huge monster roared and send a punch flying toward Ventus.
"I discard Heroic Challenger – Swordshield to activate its effect, making Excalibur indestructible by battle, as well as negating all battle damage I take for the rest of this turn" A knight appeared in front of Excalibur and blocked the incoming attack.
"Then, I'm going to do something else." The Fusion Duelist looked around and then grabbed an Action Card lying next to a rock. "I'm going to use the Action Spell - Castle Storm! When I fail to destroy a monster by battle, this will inflict the attack of my battling monster as damage to you!"
Castle Storm (Spell) Normal
During the Battle Phase: If a monster you controls attacks, but fails to destroy the monster it battled, target that monster you control; You cannot declare another attack for the rest of this turn, also inflict damage to your opponent equal to that target's original ATK.
"Academia students actually use Action Cards?" Ventus looked at Koharu who shrugged in response.
"Victory is victory no matter what kind of tactics one uses!" The Obelisk Force duelist exclaimed. "But that's, of course, the least of your worries right now as by Castle Storm's effect you are going to take three thousand effect damage!"
Metalfoes Crimsonite threw its arm forward and a green flame formed into it. The beast then fired it toward Ventus, hitting the ground in front of him, setting it on fire. The ninja jumped backward and made a flip in midair to try and get some space between himself and the flames, but suddenly the green fire exploded and send the duelist crashing against a wall.
『Ventus LP: 3400 – 3000 → 400』
"Can you stand up?" Koharu asked her companion.
"Yes…" Ventus groaned. "But I'm happy that you care how I feel."
"Why would I?" Koharu asked him coldly. "This is a battlefield, if you don't fight with your all, only death's embrace will await you."
"Ok, that sent chills down my back." Ventus admitted.
"I think that's enough punishment for one day." The Obelisk Force member commented. "I end my turn here!"
"It's my turn then!" Koharu exclaimed and drew a card.
『Turn 8 [Koharu] LP: 300, Hand: 2』
Koharu looked down at the card that she drew in thought. Even if she Xyz Summoned a monster its effects would be negated because of her opponent's Continuous Spell. With this card she could get rid of hit, however such a victory would come at the cost of making her monster basically useless for more than a turn. The Xyz Duelist glanced at Ventus for a moment. The next turn was going to be his anyways, but could she entrust all of her hope on him? What choice did she really have?
"I activate the Spell: Xyz Wishes!" Koharu exclaimed as she activated a card that showed yellow and white light shining down with a warrior cloaking themselves into the light itself. "I pay half of my Life Points to activate this card!"
『Koharu LP: 300/2 → 150』
"And in return, I can target one LIGHT Xyz monster in my Graveyard and Xyz Summon it once again by using monsters in my Graveyard as materials! Spread your wings once again, King of Dreams, Hope (RANK: 4, ATK: 2500)!"
Xyz Wishes (Spell) Normal
Activate this card by paying half of your LP: Target 1 Xyz Monster in your Graveyard; Xyz Summon by using the appropriate Xyz Materials in your Graveyard. The monster summoned by this effect cannot be targeted by card effects until the end of next turn.
The Xyz Monster flew through the sky and landed in front of Koharu with its wing spread out.
"So you brought that one back?" The Obelisk Force noted. "But without its effects it's just another trash monster!"
"There are no trash monsters!" Koharu yelled. "Battle! Hope attacks Alkahest! Raising Sun Blade!"
"Stupid! I activate Alkahest's effect to equip a monster to it! And who else would be a better target than your Hope!" The Fusion monster pointed its staff at the charging monster.
"You think so?" Koharu smirked. "A monster summoned through Xyz Wishes can't be targeted by card effects till the end of next turn!"
"Then I'm going to absorb Heroic Champion – Excalibur instead!" Alkahest quickly moved it staff to point at the other monster and the magical item began to glow, its power sucking in the warrior that desperately tried to pull back by stabbing his sword in the ground.
"I activate the Counter Trap: Xyz Reflect!" Ventus pointed at his left set card. "When my opponent targets a Xyz Monster I control with a card effect, this trap negates the effect and destroy that card. Then the opponent takes eight hundred points of damage!"
"What!?" The Obelisk Force duelist gasped and looked at his monster. Alkahest grabbed his chest in pain and cried out as red flames burst out of his body and exploded, knocking the Fusion Duelist on the ground.
『Obelisk Force LP: 2500 – 800 → 1700』
Koharu looked at Ventus again and sighed. "Since my attack target was destroyed, I'm going to go to Main Phase Two and activate my second Spell Card! Xyz Cosmic Ray! By detaching all of Hope's Xyz Materials this card lets me destroy one Spell or Trap card on the field for each Xyz Material detached. Hope was two Xyz Materials, therefore I'm going to destroy Xyz N-Vain and Metalfoes Volflame!"
Xyz Cosmic Ray (Spell) Normal
Detach all Xyz Materials from a Xyz Monster you control: Destroy 1 Spell/Trap card on the field for each Xyz Material detached by this effect.
The two Xyz Materials flew into Hope's swords, making them glow. The Xyz monster then flew backward and swung its blades, sending waves of energy that cut through the Continuous Spell and the Pendulum Scale, destroying them both at once.
"Damn you…" The Fusion Duelist cursed. "But even if you do this, your Hope is now useless without its Xyz Materials, isn't it?"
"Hope's role is to bring hope into a fight." Koharu replied and turned toward Ventus. "This is all I was able to do. From here on, the rest is up to you. If you don't beat Academia this turn, it'll be over for us, do you understand that?"
"So it's finally time to reveal a bit of my power level?" Ventus smirked and put his hand on top of his deck. "Here it goes! The all deciding last draw! My turn!"
『Turn 9 [Ventus] LP: 400, Hand: 1』
"Perfect draw!" Ventus pumped his fist toward the sky. "I activate Excalibur's effect! By detaching two Xyz Materials, I can double its attack power until the end of this turn!"
"But your Excalibur doesn't have any Xyz Materials attached to it!" The Obelisk Force member laughed. "You can't activate the effect."
"Is that so?" Ventus asked. "Koharu, will you explain it to him?"
"When a LIGHT Xyz Monster would activate its effects by detaching Xyz Materials, I can banish Convert of Wishes from my Graveyard instead." Koharu's Trap Card shout out of the Graveyard and flew to Excalibur's sword, infusing with it. The blade began golden in color and the Xyz Monster swung it in front of itself.
Heroic Champion – Excalibur, ATK: 2000 * 2 → 4000
"From my hand I activate the Spell Card: Heroic Chance to double Excalibur's attack points once again!" Ventus raised his arm and the card that he held began to shine. A second sword appeared in the Xyz Monster's other arm and it pulled it forward, crossing the two blades together.
Heroic Champion – Excalibur, ATK: 4000 * 2 → 8000
"E-Eight thousand attack!?" The Obelisk Force member gulped and ran off to find any other Action Cards.
"Battle!" Ventus ordered his monster. "Excalibur, slice through Metalfoes Crimsonite and bring us victory!"
"Action Spell activate!" The Obelisk Force duelist jumped on the side of a building and grabbed a card hanging from the window. "Evasion negates your attack!"
"Activate, Counter Trap! Heroic Charge!" Ventus' second set card flipped face-up showing Excalibur, Gandiva and Kusanagi all charging forward together. "This trap negates the activation of a Spell or Trap Card and banishes it! Then if I control a Heroic Xyz Monster when it resolves, the opponent cannot activate any other Spell or Trap Cards for the rest of this turn!"
Heroic Charge (Trap) Counter
When an opponent's Spell/Trap Card is activated during the Battle Phase: Negate the activation, and if you do, banish that card, and if you do that while you control a "Heroic" Xyz Monster, until the end of this turn, your opponent cannot activate Spell/Trap Cards or their effects.
"N-no way!" The Obelisk Force duelist looked on in horror.
Excalibur raised both of his swords and brought them down together, firing a beam of solid light that tore through the ground and slammed into Metalfoes Crimsonite. The Fusion Monster roared and tried to push the attack, but it then cried out and its body was completely vaporized, with the attack passing through and hitting the Obelisk duelist himself.
『Obelisk Force LP: 1700 – 5000 → 0』
『Winner: Ventus & Koharu』
"Heh, we do a nice team, don't we?" Ventus asked.
"You could have used Heroic Charge during his Battle Phase to negate the first Action Card." Koharu pointed out.
"I figured out that it would be more useful to save it for once you find a weak point in his strategy." Ventus stated matter-of-factly. "Since we are a team, I put my trust in you like how you put yours in mine for the last turn."
"Oh…" Koharu looked forward and chuckled. "Maybe I could try to get along with this team then."
"On, please." The two Lancers turned their attention toward the defeated Obelisk Force member who was desperately trying to remove his Duel Disk, which was glowing bright purple. "Please! Give me another chance! I won't fa-"
Before the Obelisk could finish, his Duel Disk released a blinding purple light that made Ventus and Koharu cover their eyes. After a few moments, the light died down and a single card was lying on the spot where the Academia duelist was standing a moment ago.
"What just happened?" Ventus asked.
"Academia has made Pendulum Cards, so they probably put an emergency measure in his Duel Disk to make sure that the deck won't be stolen if he gets beaten." Koharu sighed and walked over to the card, picking it up. "There's no mercy, not even for Academia's own soldiers."
"That's so cruel." Ventus shook his head.
"It's nothing new for Academia." Koharu commented. She put the card into one of her pockets that was filled with other such cards and then turned back to Ventus. "Let's keep going. There must be many other Academia soldiers around the city."
Avice's POV
What was I supposed to do now? Yes, it was my fault for not holding back, but it was soo boring to hold back and give your opponent gets a fair chance to fight you. And now, there was an unconscious girl lying at my feet. She looked a lot like Yuzu, probably was one of these Dimensional counterparts that she talked about. Her Slifer Red uniform and hostility toward Xyz meant that she was definitely someone from Academia, which put me in a dilemma. Should I just let her lie here and freeze to death, or should I drag her to somewhere safer? Maybe I could also give her mouth to mouth if it's necessary. Hopefully she has some useful information or else all of this trouble would be for nothing.
"Ngh." Oh nevermind. She was regaining consciousness while I thought what to do with the body. "W-what happened?"
The girl rubbed her head and looked at the snow around herself. Apparently, she hasn't noticed me yet or else she would have almost definitely going to jump back up and start yelling. Which changed my problem to: How can I get out of here without alerting her of my presence?
"Where am I?" She asked and her eyes landed on me. Oh no, I knew what this look meant all too well. "You are the Xyz Remnant!"
"And you are the girl who just got her ass handed to her on a silver plate by a 'Xyz Remnant'." I retorted. "So congratulation, you won the award for 'Big Loser'."
"I-I couldn't have lost!" Come on, are going to go through the five stages of grief right now? "I want a rematch! There's no way for a mere Xyz Duelist like you to beat me!"
"My Duel history says otherwise." I turned my Duel Disk to show her all of my recent Duels and the one against here showed that I have won. "See? It's right here." I tapped the screen with my finger. "You can also look at your own Duel Disk, loser!"
"Duel me again!" The girl suddenly jumped forward and… "Oh, whoah!" She slipped onto the ice and fell toward me, pushed my body with her own. I haven't taken into account that she might try to physically assault me, so when she did this, I quickly lost balance and fell on the snow with the girl on top of me.
"Damn it!" I cursed, but I couldn't waste any time growling in pain. Instead, I grabbed my Duel Disk and slammed it into the side of her head so strong that her body went limp again.
Did I just knock her unconscious again?
"Hey, cat lover?" I shouted into her head. No reaction. "Hey! Get off me!" I began to push against her, but she still didn't react to anything I did. "This is going to be my whole day, isn't it?"
Evan's POV
"Where are we going, master?" Foxy asked while she walked beside me.
"I'm going to tell you when I have an idea." I replied. Why did this damn fox have to appear every time I was able to find myself a peaceful spot without anyone to trouble me?
After dealing with my stubborn sister, I left to look around the city for any Academia Duelists that could show up. There were none in the forest and I have already gone through a not small part of the ruins, but not a single suspicious guy came in sight. Just when were they going to show up? I knew that Reiji's plan couldn't be wrong because this was an anime after all. Who would put so much build up for an invasion of Standard, just to have not even a single Academia Duelist show up during the third round?
"Hey, isn't this the Standard piece?" Foxy asked me.
"The Standard what?" What was she talking abo- My thoughts on that quickly ended once I looked toward where the damn fox was pointing. I saw Yuya dueling against three guys in blue uniforms. I couldn't tell from the distance, but, was the tomato surrounded by a dark aura?
"It seems that our tomato finally accepted his dark side, huh?" I smirked a little. He had Dark Rebellion out on his field again, did this meant that the dragon was what caused him to go brutal? Whatever the reason was, it didn't concern me. Still, for some reason I felt something stinging in my chest.
"We aren't alone." Foxy warned me.
"It seems we found another participant." I turned toward the voice and saw three guys in blue uniforms with masks covering their heads. All of them had annoying smirks on their face.
"Do you know where we could find a Duelist named Serena?" The one with a yellow orb on his helmet asked me.
Instead of giving them an answer – which would be no – I just activated my Duel Disk. No point wasting any of my time trying to talk sense to these people. They were all just nameless and faceless grunts to beat over, so that's what I was going to do with them.
"Immediately jumping on the gun? You know what we're talking about, don't you?" The one with a green orb asked me and in an instant, all three of them activated their own Duel Disks. All of them were shaped like shields with sword-like energy blades, almost the same as,
"We'll beat any information that you may have right out of you." the Red one added.
"Duel!"
『Evan LP: 4000 Hand: 5 (VS) Obelisk Force Green, Red, and Yellow LP: 4000 Hand: 5』
"I'm going to take the first turn!" the green one stepped forward and took three cards from their hand. "I activate Polymerization to fuse together my two Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!"
Wait, wait, wait! These people are playing Ancient Gear, na no ne? Why do I feel that a certain Academia professor must be rolling in their grave right about now?
"Mechanical hounds who carry on the ancient spirits, flock together and become one with new power! Fusion Summon! Appear now! Level Five! Double Ancient Gear Hound Dog (Lv.5, ATK: 1400)!"
A large green robot dog with two heads jumped on the Obelisk Force's field and roared at me. Yep, now I'm sure that Crowler must be embarrassed seeing that his archetype was reduced to a bunch of robot dogs.
"I set a card and end my turn!" The green guy finished and took a step back. Good, now I can take my turn.
"My turn!" The red suddenly drew a card before I had the chance to object. Wait, what? It was supposed to me my turn, right?
『Turn 2 [Red] LP: 4000, Hand: 6』
"First I pay a thousand Life Points to activate the Spell Card: Instant Fusion!" The bastard didn't even bulge as the card sucked away 1000 of his Life Points.
『Red LP: 4000 – 1000 → 3000』
"Now by Instant Fusion's effect, I Special Summon a Level Five or lower Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck! Come out, Double Ancient Gear Hound Dog (Lv.5, ATK: 1400)!" That monster again? So I was right that they were nothing more than faceless grunts. "Next I Normal Summon Ancient Gear Hunting Hound (Lv.3, ATK: 1000) and use its effect to my Ancient Gear Hunting Hound together with Double Ancient Gear Hound Dog."
I get it now. So that was their strategy, not to win through skill, but through sheer number? What a disgusting way to duel.
"Mechanical hounds who carry on the ancient spirits, flock together and become one with new power! Fusion Summon! Appear now! Level Seven! Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound (Lv.7, ATK: 1800)!"
A blue dog with three heads jumped out this time and I clapped slowly. What else was I supposed to do, it looked almost the same as the last two damn dogs, only the amount of heads it had changed. Well, maybe the color as well…
"Next I activate Ancient Gear Explosive to destroy Triple Bite Hound Dog and inflict half of its attack points as damage to you!" The dog exploded and shrapnel flew at me, hitting my shoulders and chest. I yelped and fell on my back, with a hand over my chest. If it wasn't for this new jacket, those things were going to get through my flesh like bullets!
『Evan LP: 4000 – 900 → 3100』
"Next, I activate the Spell: Ancient Gear Double Imitation to revive both Triple Ancient Gear Hunting Hound (Lv.7, ATK: 1800) and Double Ancient Gear Hound Dog (Lv.5, ATK: 1400) from my Graveyard with their effects negated." The two Fusion Dogs appeared again and glared at me. "Now I activate the Spell Card: Polymerization to fuse my two hound dogs together!"
The two monsters flew into the whirlwind while I struggled to get back onto my feet. These bastards, how many Fusion Summons were they going to be doing in just one turn?
"Mechanical hounds who carry on the ancient spirits, flock together and become one with new power! Fusion Summon! Appear now! Level Nine! Ultimate Ancient Gear Hunting Hound (Lv.9, ATK: 2800)!"
This time a more reddish-brown hound landed on the field. Its design was much different than that of the other hunting hounds with a mouth attached to its chest and other such weird things placed all over it.
"When Ultimate Hunting Hound is summoned, it halves the Life Points of our opponent!" The beast looked down at me and fired blasts from all of its mouths at the same time.
"Aaarrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!" There was no defending against this attack. All I could do was hold my hands in front of my face as the blasts hit me and launched me back until I hit a column.
『Evan LP: 3100/2 → 1550』
"Now battle!Ultimate Ancient Gear Hunting Hound attack him directly!" W-what?! The creature opened its mouth and fired several blasts at me once again. In a Battle Royale no one was allowed to attack on their first turn, so what was going on here?
"I activate Kurigear's effect from my hand!" I shouted and slid the card into my Duel Disk. "When my opponent declares a direct attack I can place this little guy in my Spell and Trap Zone as a Continuous Spell and deny you the ability to declare an attack for three turns!"
The little Kuriboh monster appeared before me and nodded before splitting apart to form several clock gears that blocked all of the blasts launched toward me. Afterward, those gears returned back to me and the little monster reformed itself with a happy expression on its face.
"Damn it!" Red cursed and looked toward his partners. "I end my turn!"
"My turn!" Ah right, the yellow one was going to steal my turn as well, wasn't he?
『Turn 3 [Yellow] LP: 4000, Hand: 6』
"I activate Polymerization to fuse together the King of the Swamp, treating it as Ancient Gear Golem with two Ancient Gear Hunting Hound!" The three monsters flew into the vortex which was much larger than the previous ones.
"Ancient Giant! Mechanical hounds who carry on the ancient spirits! Become one now and demonstrate your tremendous power! Fusion Summon! Come forth! Level Ten! Ancient Gear Ultimate Golem (Lv.10, ATK: 4400)!"
The giant behemoth of a monster raised on the field with a loud sound that sounded almost like the war scream of an ancient warrior. I gulped and stepped back to get some distance between that monster and myself. Ok, now I might be a little screwed.
"And I activate the Spell Card: Fusion Blast! For every Fusion Monster on the field, I can inflict five hundred points of damage to you." All three of the Ancient Gear monsters that were on the field fired a beam toward me.
『Evan LP: 1550 - 1500 → 50』
Fusion Blast (Spell) Normal
Inflict 500 damage to your opponent for each face-up Fusion Monster on the field. You cannot enter your Battle Phase the turn you activated this card.
I felt the full force of those attacks against my body with some even managing to tear through my unprotected shirt. The complete strength of the impact traveled through my body and I felt my nerves just giving up while the strange burning in my chest increased more and more with each passing second. My eyelids became heavy and there was a bit of blood dripping from my body, but I couldn't tell where exactly the wound was located. Everything felt so pointless, the world… it was so strange. My entire world was empty, with nothing but shadows wandering through the fading corners.
I tried to focus on the three bastards that I was dueling, but they weren't there. I… I couldn't see anything before me, around me. But, I felt a presence, someone was standing right in front of me. It had wings, burning crimson eyes and horns, a spreading image of the devil himself, yet I couldn't really see anything standing in front of me. He was before me, my soul, not before my eyes.
"Are you angry at them for what they did, my old friend?" What was this voice? No, there was no voice connected to these words, they simply existed inside my head.
"They turned your kind into merciless monsters and used them to destroy cities like they did before! Fourteen years ago, twenty years ago, a hundred years ago! Break my chains and seem the Devil free!"
Break the chains? I felt the pain in my chest increase and put a hand over it. What was this? Why was I hurting this much? No, this wasn't pain, was it? Strength, power, all of these were surging into my body but I couldn't control any of them because none of them belonged to me.
"Phantomus, Supreme Devils! Your pitch black darkness should cover the sky and bring despair to everyone's hearts! Your rightful owner is going to set you free right now!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!" I began to scream again and grabbed my chest. It hurt, it hurt so much! My body was feeling like it was being torn apart and my insides were being rearranged by something. Everything before my eyes turned black and the sound of my own screams became unreachable for my ears.
3rd POV
"Kkkyyyyaaaaaaaahhhhhh!"
Serena's eyes suddenly widened as the loud screamed woke her up. The girl looked underneath herself and yelped before quickly moving away. Avice buried her arms into the snow, desperate to grab onto something and her body twisted while her screams increased in volume. Tears began to run down her cheeks and her slowly white hair began to slowly turn a light shade of blue. Forgetting everything about the duel and her own mission, Serena couldn't do anything but stare in both shock and horror as Avice's skin began to slowly fall off with a slowly white replacing it.
"Avice!"
Twisting her head to the side, Serena saw someone running toward me. She raised her hand ready to duel the intruder, but the girl didn't even glance toward her. Elizabeth kneeled down next to her fallen sibling and caught her in her arms, holding tightly even though Avice's body was violently shaking. Her green orbs rolled to the back of her head, leaving an empty white sclera which slowly began to turn blue as well.
"What the." Serena gulped. From the way that Elizabeth was holding her sister, the Academia warrior could see Avice's back and the snow white feathers that were forming through her clothes.
"Avice!" Elizabeth kept screaming her sister's name, but to no avid. Avice's body kept shaking violently and the strange anomalies that happened on her body only increased.
At the same time, Serena's bracelet began to suddenly glow, something that it hasn't done before. The girl looked down at it and then back to the two sisters in front of her. Until now dueling Xyz Duelists and proving her worth to the professor was her biggest worry, but now she was too scared, shocked and confused to remember any of it.
"W-what are you?!" Red screamed.
Very slowly, Evan's body began to stand back up on its own with a dark aura surrounding it. The ChronoDevil Duelist raised completely and clenched his fists. His skin had turned into a dark shade of grey with the red parts of his hair sticking upward. The dark aura flew over the boy and a black crown formed on his forehead. It expanded to the sides and then formed two large horns. Several shadowy gears formed behind him, spinning in harmony while the shadows that flew through them began to form bat-like wings. Four black blades stuck out of Evan's lower back and then began to expand downward, forming two tails made of dark metal.
"You destroy." Evan's crimson eyes slowly turned purple with the sclera turning a very dark shade of red. "You cause people to suffer, just like them. I'm going to destroy you all!"
Evan held out his right hand and all of the darkness began to focus into it. At the same time, both the Main Deck and Extra Deck began to leak the same dark presence, feeding the demonic aura, making it bigger, they strengthened its hold over Evan's body.
"Pain, sadness, suffering, this darkness is our essence, the string that connected our fates into one. I call toward you, awake the ancient warriors that fought by my side! Dark Draw!"
『Turn 4 [Evan] LP: 50, Hand: 5』
Evan glanced at the card that he drew and then took another one from his hand. "Using the Scale Seven, ChronoDevil Timescale Champion and the Scale One, Supreme Devil Alchemist – Elardr, I set the Pendulum Scale!"
A skinny monster with grey skin raised in the Pendulum Scale. It was wearing a black and purple robe with a red sash wrapped around its waist and several chains coming out of its chest, wrapping tightly around its shoulders and upper arms. The monster's boots were large with several screws sticking out of them. It wore a brown leather glove on its left arm while the right had its flesh almost completely rotten away, leaving just the bones that here holding a large black staff that ended with a purple orb in the shape of the sun, that wasn't connected to the staff and had three golden rings rotate around it. Last, the creature raised its head, making visible the sews that covered the left side of its face and have sewed its eye, as well as half of its mouth, shut.
Supreme Devil Alchemist – Elardr
Level: 7/Attribute: DARK/Type: Zombie/Pendulum/Effect
Pendulum Scale: 2
ATK: 700/DEF: 700
Pendulum Effect: Once per turn: You can target two face-up DARK monsters on the field: Treat them as being the same level for the rest of this turn.
Effect: You can target 1 face-up DARK monster you control: Special Summon this card from your hand, and if you do, this card's Level becomes the same as the Level of the targeted monster.
"Swing Pendulum of Destruction, burn inside my soul and become my path to crimson victory! Pendulum Summon! Appear before me, my servants!" Three beams fell from the sky and landed in front of Evan, transforming into his monsters."ChronoDevil Time Psycher (Lv.3, ATK: 300), ChronoDevil Stream Supporter (Lv.4, ATK: 1800) and the embodiment of my soul, the Supreme Devil King – Chrono Phantomus the Pendulum Slayer (Lv.6, ATK: 2500)!"
Three beams shot down onto Evan's field and the ChronoDevils all landed in front of him with Phantomus in the middle. The same dark aura came out of their bodies and joined the one above Evan, connecting all four of them together.
"When Stream Supporter is Summoned, I can reduce its attack points to zero and Special Summon one Level Three or lower ChronoDevil directly from my deck." The ghoul hissed and lowered its arms.
ChronoDevil Stream Supporter, ATK: 1800 → 0
"Join my side, ChronoDevil Protector Golem (Lv.3, DEF: 2000)." The giant wall monster made of rock raised from the ground and kneeled in front of Evan. "Then, Time Psycher's effect also resolves, letting me draw a card for each ChronoDevil on my field. Therefore, I draw three cards!"
"I got no idea what you are planning to do, but I'm going to activate my Continuous Trap right now! Fusion Trench!" The only set card on the Obelisk Force's side of the field turned face-up and formed a barrier around the three Duelists. "While this card is face-up on the field, non-Fusion monsters cannot declare an attack."
"Pointless trick!" Evan yelled and took two cards from his hand. "I activate Timeline Fusion to fuse together the ChronoDevil Stream Supporter on my field, with the Dark Resonator in my hand!"
A red and purple whirlwind formed behind Evan and his two monsters grabbed jumped into it. Lightning flew out and zapped the ground around the Duelist with two eyes opening inside the darkness.
"Supporter of travelers from the abyss! Cross your future with the resonating demon of immunity to become the fabled demon holding the gift of death! Lead me toward immortality! Fusion Summon! Level Eight, ChronoDevil Grey Reaper (Lv.8, ATK: 1700)!"
"Then I will activate Double Hound Dog's effect!" Green exclaimed. "Once per turn, if you summon a monster I can put a Gear Counter on it. Then, if an Ancient Gear monster battles the monster with a Gear Counter, it will automatically be destroyed."
"So you try to lock away my Fusion Monsters?" Evan sighed in disappointment. "Silly things! I overlay the Level Three Time Psycher and Protector Golem!"
The two monsters turned into different shades of purple energy and swirled into the air before falling into the galactic portal underneath then. A column of purple light shot out of the portal and the new monster began to raise toward the land.
"Knight lost in the stream of time, awake from your eternal slumber and strike down whoever oppose your master! Shine forth from the legends! Xyz Summon! Rank Three! ChronoDevil Void Lancer (RANK: 3, ATK: 1800)!"
"Xyz as well?" Blue gasped.
"And now, for the last act." Evan gestured toward the column where Supreme Devil Alchemist – Elardr was located. "Once per turn, Elardr can change the Level of two monsters to match each other. I choose to make both Grey Reaper and Void Lancer into Level Eight monsters!"
Supreme Devil Alchemist – Elardr pointed its staff toward the two monsters and the rings rotating around the orb all stopped moving. Two clock arms then appeared within the orb and two shadowy clocks, with one clock arm, appeared over each of the monsters. Void Lancer's clock was pointing at 3, Grey Reaper's pointed at 8 and the clock in Elardr's staff pointed at both of those numbers. The Alchemist raised its staff and the clock arms began to spin rapidly with the shadows doing the same until all of them ended on the number 8.
ChronoDevil Void Lancer, RANK: 3 → Lv.8
"And now, for the last time!" Evan raised his hand toward the sky. "I overlay Grey Reaper and Void Lancer!"
"You're overlaying a Fusion with a Xyz monster?!" Green yelled.
Void Lancer and Grey Reaper turned into purple energies that flew into the air. Supreme Devil Alchemist – Elardr's staff returned to its normal functions again with the rings starting to rotate again and the creature pointed at the ground. A black vortex appeared in front of Evan's feet and a ring made of white particles flew out of it, with a yellow orb standing in the center. The purple energies flew into this new orb and the ring collapsed into itself, exploding in multiple colors.
"Kin whose entity is mysterious as time itself. Past down your divine knowledge and become the bridge between two worlds! Xyz Summon! Supreme Devil Mage – Evocus!"
A male human with dark skin appeared out of the explosion holding a magical staff, a shield with four black gems was attached in the center to protect the hand of its wielder, and two blades sticking out of the top for offensive purposes. The monster was wearing a black robe with heavy armor on his chest, metal gauntlets covering his arms and sandals made of black leather his feet. The monster's shoulders, elbows back and knees were covered by white fur while a large hood covered his neck. The magician had flaming blue hair and was wearing a viking-esque helmet with large, black horns.
Supreme Devil Mage – Evocus
RANK: 8/Attribute: DARK/Type: Spellcaster/Xyz/Fusion/Effect
ATK: 2700/DEF: 2600
2 Level 8 DARK monsters, including 1 Xyz Monster and 1 Fusion Monster
(This card is treated as a Level 8 monster while it's Fusion Summoned.)
Xyz Effect: Once per turn: You can detach one Xyz Material from this card: Negate the effects of all face-up cards your opponent currently controls, and if you do, the ATK of all Special Summoned monsters whose effects were negated by this effect become 0. You can detach all Xyz Materials from this card: Fusion Summon this card to give it its Fusion Effect. You can only Xyz Summon "Supreme Devil Mage – Evocus" once per turn.
Fusion Effect: Once per turn: You can destroy all cards your opponent controls with negated effects, and if you do, inflict damage equal to the original ATK of the monster(s) your opponent controls that were destroyed by this effect. You can target 1 Level 8 DARK Fusion Monster and 1 DARK Xyz Monster in your Graveyard: Xyz Summon this card to give it its Xyz Effect, and if you do, attach those targets to it. You can only Fusion Summon "Supreme Devil Mage – Evocus" once per turn.
"A Fusion-Xyz hybrid?" Red looked at his comrades. "Does such a monster exist?"
"It shouldn't!" Yellow shouted, equally confused.
"But it does! And my old friend holds the best of two worlds in himself!" Evan exclaimed and threw his fist forward. "Once per turn, Evocus can detach one of its Xyz Materials to negate the effects of all face-up cards you control! Quantum Force – Negative!"
Evocus raised his staff and one of the Xyz Materials flew into it. The gears began to move and then exploded with negative energy that drained away the color of the world, leaving behind only the empty shells of the monsters affected by it. The sparks inside the Ancient Gear monsters' eyes faded away completely.
"When Quantum Force is applied, all of the monsters affected by it have their attack points reduced to zero." Evan explained.
Double Ancient Gear Hound Dog, ATK: 1400 → 0
Ultimate Ancient Gear Hunting Hound, ATK: 2800 → 0
Ancient Gear Ultimate Golem, ATK: 4400 → 0
"And now for Evocus' second effect! Once per turn, he can change his own origins. I detach the last Xyz Material from Evocus to turn him into a Fusion Monster and give him his fusion effect! Timeline Replace!" The magician raised his staff and the shield began to rotate with the gems attached to it changing their colors from black to purple. A wave of energy floated throughout the spellcaster's body, turning his robe purple and the white fur becoming ashed grey.
"A monster that can freely change between being a Fusion and a Xyz…" All three Obelisk Force members looked at Evan. "Is this Standard's strength, or?"
"I activate Evocus' fusion effect!" Evan declared. "Once per turn, I can destroy all cards on the opponent's field whose effects are negated and inflict damage equal to the original attack points of their controller! Quantum Force – Positive!"
Evocus raised his staff once again and absorbed all negative energy into it. A ring of energy appeared around the staff and Evocus aimed it at the Ancient Gera monsters before unleashing a blast of darkness that turned the monsters into dust. All the Obelisk Duelist screamed as the darkness engulfed them along with their monsters and threw all of them into walls, columns, and whatever was near enough to 'save' their lives.
『Green LP: 4000 – 1400 → 2600』
『Red LP: 3000 – 2800 → 200』
『Yellow LP: 4000 – 4400 → 0』
"And now for the finish!" The darkness looming over Evan gained two crimson eyes and its ends swirled upward to create claws, allowing it to miming the Duelist's actions. "Supreme Devil Emperor Mage – Evocus, Chrono Phantomus the Pendulum Slayer, end this duel!"
The two monsters' eyes glowed and then flew forward. Evocus raised his staff and fired several beams of dark energy that hit the Green one, carving a hole in his shoulder. Phantomus activated its arm blades and flew over to Red, slashing through the duelist's body with both blades at once. Screams echoed through the ruins for a moment, and silence returned. Spilled blood covered the ground and the wounded bodies.
『Green LP: 2600 – 2700 → 0』
『Red LP: 200 – 2500 → 0』
『Winner: Evan』
"D-damn it!" Yellow cursed, before erupting into violent coughing.
"It's not over yet." Evan walked over to the trio. His purple eyes that stared down at the Obelisk Force were cold, unsympathetic, just like the eyes of a predator that has cornered its preys. Without another word, the duelist raised his left hand and pointed his Duel Disk at them. Begging and screaming was heard, but one flash of purple light later, it all died in the wind.
Evan looked over the cards of the three Obelisk Force Duelists. There was something he hated about heroes in media, although they could easily beat the grunts, none of them dared to finish the job, which gives those weaklings the chance to escape and just come back again and again, creating an infinity loop of the hero defeating the villains. He had no way to be sure that carding someone was a permanent solution of the problem either, so, he had to make sure. Putting the cards together, Evan tore them all in half and threw the remains into the wind.
"Problem solved."
Evan looked over to how Yuya's duel was going. He saw a bulky black dragon with dichromatic eyes slashing through the Obelisk Force duelists, sending their limp bodies flying like paper caught by the wind. But, this wasn't going to be fun for long. Evan's purple eyes caught a glimpse of two other duelists that were running toward Yuya. One was a bulky man who wore the same jacket as the entertainer and the other one was a little girl. Evan frowned, those were his friends, they were going to try and bring Yuya back to his senses, but he couldn't have that, at least not yet. Letting this 'berserk' form of the entertainer run rampage for a bit longer might help him to better understand its motives.
He took a step. And another. Evan began to run toward the two before they could interfere. They were far, maybe too far for a human to reach them in time, but he had an advantage that others didn't. The shadowy wings on his back suddenly bust like flames and gave him a push, allowing the half-demon to jump onto a column that was standing three feet above his head and from then leap onto the bridge, after which he drove toward the duelists standing underneath him.
"Greyson!?" Gongenzaka said surprised to see the boy. This Battle Royale was for the Junior Youth only, so why was a Senior there? But, he could tell that Evan wasn't acting completely like himself either, there was a dark force around his body just like with Yuya.
"I can sense a dark presence." Mieru raised her crystal apple to look through it. "I…I see…" Mieru gulped and her hands began to tremble. "I see multiple souls staring back at me!"
"Multiple souls?" Gongenzaka asked.
"Yes. I see five, no, ten, there are too much for me to count." Mieru told him.
"Don't waste your fortune telling tricks on me." Evan chuckled and threw his arms to the side. "I'm an enigma! You can't read through me or my intentions!"
"I don't know what's going on here, but you must let us go!" Gongenzaka stepped forward. "You isn't controlling himself and if he tries to duel Kurosaki in this state he would get hurt badly!"
"Kurosaki?" Evan tilted his head to the side and then grinned as wide as his lips could make it. "I see now… So Yuto didn't completely disappear after all, did he? But today, I'm going to be your opponent!"
"So there's no talking you down, is there?" Gongenzaka closed his eyes for a moment before raising his Duel Disk. "Fine, I will be your opponent!"
"Great!" Evan clapped his hands in excitement. "Let's have an entertaining duel, no? Oh, also could you make me a favor?" The wide grin disappeared from Evan's face and a much more serious and cold expression replaced it, matching his icy eyes. "I would like if you try to not break too quickly, 'kay?"
Gongenzaka didn't respond to this threat and just activated his Duel Disk. Evan did the same, a red blade in the shape of a crystal appearing before him.
"DUEL!"
『Evan LP: 4000 Hand: 5 (VS) Gongenzaka LP: 4000 Hand: 5』
"I'm going to take the first turn!" Gongenzaka declared. "I Normal Summon Superheavy Samurai Kabuto (Lv.4, ATK: 1000) and end my turn!"
A large robot covered in brown armor appeared on the field wielding a hammer. Although it looked like a tough monster, its actual attack points made Evan chuckle a little.
"That's it? No set cards or anything?" Evan shook his head. "I guess beggars can't be choosers, can they? I will be sure to make quick work of you! My turn, draw!"
『Turn 2 [Evan] LP: 4000, Hand: 6』
Evan glanced at the card that he drew before putting it with the others ones in his hand. "I drew a good card, but it's still too early for me to use it. Instead, I will do this. With the Scale Seven, ChronoDevil Timescale Champion and the Scale One, ChronoDevil Wild Tamer Foxy, I set the Pendulum Scale!"
The crimson scales raised behind Evan with his monsters floating inside of them. Foxy looked down at her master and smirked noticing how the size of the dark aura kept increasing the longer he dueled. The Numbers '7' and '1' appeared as purple lights below the ChronoDevils and the demonic pendulum began to swing between them.
"First off, Timescale Champion's effect lets me draw one more card." Evan explained adding another card to his hand. "Then, with my current scales I can Pendulum Summon monsters whose Level is between two and six. So come out! ChronoDevil Wild Timer Wolfy (Lv.3, ATK: 700) and ChronoDevil Marauder (Lv.4, ATK: 1600)!"
Two beams fell on the field and Evan's most trustful companions landed on the field. Marauder stood on the left side while Wolfy grabbed onto Evan's right shoulder and winked.
"He can Pendulum Summon just like darling!?" Mieru gasped.
Gongenzaka ignored the girl and instead focused on the duel. "At this moment the effect of Superheavy Samurai Kabuto activates! When my opponent Special Summons a monster, I can change it to Defense Position and increase its Defense by five hundred points."
The machine's eyes glowed and it moved its hammer in front of its body, while a blue aura surrounded it to show that it was now in Defense mode.
Superheavy Samurai Kabuto, DEF: 2000 + 500 → 2500
"Of course, I expected you to do that." Evan told him. "I have seen your previous duels and know that your monsters are defensive in nature, so by changing Kabuto's position, you did me more good than harm."
"What do you mean?" Gongenzaka asked. "None of your current monster is strong enough to get past Kabuto's defense."
"Wrong." Evan shook his finger. "Let's me show you just how capable my monsters are. Marauder, attack his Superheavy Samurai."
ChronoDevil Marauder leaped forward and swung its sword-arms toward Kabuto, while the machine raised its hammer to protect from the incoming attack.
"And now I activate Wolfy's effect!" Evan exclaimed and Wolfy swung her whip at Kabuto, grabbing its hammer. "When one of my DARK monsters declares an attack, I can switch the attack and defense of the opponent's monster!"
Wolfy pulled her whip, tearing the hammer right out of Kabuto's arms, allowing Marauder to cut the machine in half and destroy it.
Superheavy Samurai Kabuto, ATK: 1000 → 2500, DEF: 2500 → 1000
"Argh!" Gongenzaka gritted his teeth in pain and looked down at his Duel Disk. "My Life Points are…"
『Gongenzaka LP: 4000 - 600 → 3400』
"Furthermore, Marauder inflicts piercing battle damage when it battles a defense position monster and it can also attack twice per turn." Evan explained. "So let's go for the second attack."
The monster nodded and swung its blades toward Gongenzaka again. The Duelist instinctively raised his Duel Disk and blocked the blades with it, but the sheer strength was enough to push him back.
『Gongenzaka LP: 3400 - 1600 → 1800』
"You lost a lot of Life Points!" Mieru warned him.
"I'm not done yet!" Evan smirked viciously. "Next, I'll let Wolfy have some fun as well by attacking you directly!"
"That won't happen!" Gongenzaka shouted and took a card from his hand. "When I take damage from a direct attack while having no Spell or Trap cards in my Graveyard, I'm able to Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Prepped Defense (Lv.3, DEF: 2100) from my hand!"
A green robot appeared in front of Gongenzaka wielding a spear-like weapon with a blue aura surrounding its body.
"So you did have something after all, huh?" Evan chuckled and slid a card from his hand into the Duel Disk. "I'm setting one card and end my turn. Now, come and show me one of your stronger monsters, ok?"
"He will be a hard opponent to beat." Gongenzaka commented and turned toward Mieru. "Go ahead and try to slow down Yuya while I'm dueling!"
"What?" Mieru was taken aback, but nodded. "I will go save darling!"
Evan rolled his eyes. Watching the little girl running away made him wonder if she would be lucky enough to survive an encounter with Yuya while he's in his current state. It might be troublesome if Yuya tore her apart and then Reiji orders Evan to clear the remains.
"I don't know what happened to you, but I'm going to put an end to this madness!" Gongenzaka declared. "It's my turn! Draw!"
『Turn 3 [Gongenzaka] LP: 1800, Hand: 4』
"When my opponent controls two or more monsters, I can Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Big Waraji (Lv.5, DEF: 1800) from my hand!" A yellow mechanical robot with four pointy legs and claws for arms appeared on Gongenzaka's field. "And then. I Normal Summon Superheavy Samurai Drum (Lv.1, ATK: 300)!"
Evan's eyes widened a little when the little black drum-shaped monster with two red rings at its ends appeared on Gongenzaka's field.
"Now, I tune my Level FiveSuperheavy Samurai Big Waraji and my Level Three Superheavy Samurai Prepped Defense to my Level One Superheavy Samurai Drum!" The little turned tuner into a single green ring that flew into the sky and the other two monsters jumped through it, turning into eight orbs of white light.
"Unyielding as the mountains ranges. The soul that resides in the great rock! Now, become the towering fortress! Synchro Summon! Come forth! Level Nine, Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi (Lv.9, DEF: 2500)!"
A huge white robot with four legs appeared on the field wielding a black staff in his arms. The monster's shoulders and tail burst in flames as it swung its weapon over its own head.
"Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi's defense increases by nine hundred for each Special Summoned monster on the opponent's field!" Gongenzaka exclaimed.
"That means…" Evan's widened. 900 times 2 meant an increase of 1800, which including its current attack points would be…
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, DEF: 2500 + 1800 → 4300
"When I Synchro Summon, I can Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Soulclaw (Lv.2, DEF: 500) from my hand." A red metal claw appeared on the field and then flew over to Kyubi. "I equipSuperheavy Samurai Soulclaw to Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, increasing its attack and defense by five hundred!"
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, ATK: 1900 + 500 → 2400, DEF: 4300 + 500 → 4800
"And of course, your monster can probably attack while in Defense Position, right?" Evan raised an eyebrow. "You will choose the easy way out and attack Wolfy, aren't you?"
"Unfortunately, Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi must first attack the monster with the highest attack, so I won't be able to end it this turn." Gongenzaka admitted. "Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi attack ChronoDevil Marauder."
The monster's staff began to charge with electricity and it fired a laser that stuck Evan's monster, enveloping it in an explosion. Evan stepped out of the cloud of smoke and ran a hand through his hair before smiling.
『Evan LP: 4000 - 1600 → 2400』
"The damage was halved." Gongenzaka noticed. "But how?"
"Well, since that was going to be a lot of damage I activated Foxy's Pendulum Effect." Evan gestured toward the monster in the Pendulum Zone and she bowed. "Once per turn, Foxy can make a monster indestructible and halve all damage I take from battles involving it."
Marauder sliced through the smoke and landed next to Evan, kneeling down in front of his master, like a warrior begging for forgiveness.
"Ah, don't worry, Marauder." Evan put a hand on the warrior's shoulder. "I took this damage because I wanted to, it's not your fault that this happened."
"It seems that I don't have a choice but to end my turn." Gongenzaka closed his eyes and lowered his Duel Disk.
"Then it's going to be my turn." Evan stated. "Here I go, draw!"
『Turn 4 [Evan] LP: 2400, Hand: 3』
"This card…" Evan's eyes widened at the sight before him. He pulled it closer and traced his fingers over its front. "It seems that destiny has given its judgment." Evan's dark red sclera turned completely black and the card in his hand began to emit dark mist. "Destiny is telling me to bring despair to your miserable life! I activate the Spell Card: Pendulum Shift! With this Spell, I can change the Pendulum Scale of one card in my Pendulum Zones to anything between one and ten! I'm going to give ChronoDevil Timescale Champion the Pendulum Scale of Eight!"
ChronoDevil Timescale Champion, P.S: 7 → 8
"With this, I can Pendulum Summon Level Seven monsters as well! Come out!" A black pendulum fell from the sky and crashed in front of Evan. "The dark origins of the dragon kings! Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon!"
A bipedal dragon broke through its pendulum cage and let out a roar that shook the ground. Its skin was pink with black scales made from rough metal covering most of it. Like normal Odd-Eyes, this one had a red circular gem on its chest encased in a silver cage. The monster's legs had a duller and robotic appearance to them, being square shaped with four spikes coming out of them. Its knees had two spikes coming out of them, a large dark purple pendulum sticked out of the right side of the monster's body while the left had two horns wrapped around each other like roots that encaged a blue and a yellow gem inside of them. Its tail was split into two around the middle, with each one having a blue mace covered in purple spikes on its end.
The beast's head was covered by a silver helmet with three spikes on the top and a black mask covered its face. Unlike the Odd-Eyes monster used by Yuya, this one had a more elongated face with two spikes coming out of the side of its face and a small metal spike on its chin. Its left eye was yellow while the right was orange.
Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon
Level: 7/Attribute: DARK/Type: Dragon/Pendulum/Effect
Pendulum Scale: 4
ATK: 2500/DEF: 2100
Pendulum Effect: Once per turn: You can target 1 non-Pendulum monster your opponent controls; negate its effects, and if you do, its ATK and DEF return to their original values. If a face-up Pendulum Monster you control is destroyed by battle or card effects: You can Special Summon this card.
Effect: When this card is Pendulum Summoned from the hand: Negate the effects of all face-up cards your opponent currently controls. If this Pendulum Summoned card inflicts battle damage to your opponent: You can inflict damage equal to the DEF of the card(s) in your Pendulum Zone.
"An Odd-Eyes monster!?" Gongenzaka gasped at the sight.
"When Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon is Pendulum Summoned from my hand its effect lets me negate the effects of all cards you currently control!" Evan laughed and leaned forward, his lips curving into a malicious smirk. "So now that huge wall of a monster you got there will become a simple irritating rock for me to kick aside! Spectral Roar!"
Several of the black scales that covered Odd-Eyes' neck split apart to show as purple energy began to build into its mouth. The dragon then opened its jaws and roared, unleashing sonic waves that caused all of Gongenzaka's cards to turn grey and lose their abilities.
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, ATK: 2400 → 1900, DEF: 4300 → 2500
"Now, let's battle!" Evan pointed toward Gongenzaka. "Odd-Eyes, turn his machine into scrap metal! Spiral Phantom Flare!"
The dragon threw its head back and charged a huge volt of energy before turning around, unleashing a black beam whose insides looked like a vortex. Gongenzaka knew what was about to happen next. When a DARK monster attacks, Wolfy will change the attack and defense values ofSuperheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, making it weaker than Odd-Eyes.
"And now I activate Wolfy's effect! When one of my DARK monsters declares an attack, I can switch the attack and defense of the opponent's monster!" As he expected, the Beast-Warrior jumped and wrapped her whip around Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi's legs, before pulling and knocking the machine on the ground.
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, ATK: 1900 → 2500, DEF: 2500 → 1900
"I activate Superheavy Samurai Soulfire Suit's effect from my hand!" Gongenzaka countered, by discarding this card, I can target one Superheavy monster on my field and negate its destruction this turn. However, every time this effect is used, that monster will lose eight hundred Defense Points!
A black, orange and red armor appeared in front of Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi and took the attack instead, exploding. The shockwave however, hit the Synchro and tore off a part of its armor plating.
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, DEF: 1900 – 800 → 1100
"Tch, because Wolfy's effect ends when the battle's finished, your monster will regain a part of its defense values." Evan muttered in annoyance.
Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, DEF: 1100 → 1700
"Heh, you really did well to survive this turn, I applaud you." Evan clapped. "But next turn, I will make sure to get you, so try to do something more interesting until then. During the end of this turn, my Pendulum Scales are going to return back to how they were at the beginning of the turn."
ChronoDevil Timescale Champion, P.S: 8 → 7
"It's my turn." Gongenzaka announced. "Draw!"
『Turn 5 [Gongenzaka] LP: 1800, Hand: 1』
"It came." Gongenzaka stated. "I activate the Spell Card: Sekka's Light!" Evan's eyes bulged hearing those words. "When there are no Spell or Trap Cards in my Graveyard, this card allows me to draw two cards, but I cannot activate Spell Cards with a different name for the rest of this duel!"
"Y-you actually run a Spell Card in this deck?" Evan asked. "B-but won't that defeat the entire point of your deck?"
"This is my way of growing as a Duelist." Gongenzaka stated taking two cards from his deck. "Next, with Sekka's Light's second effect I'm going to banish it from my Graveyard and shuffle one monster in my hand back into the deck to draw a new card."
Evan remained responding. So that was why Gongenzaka would risk playing such a card in his deck? A spell that required no other spell or traps to have been used in order to activate and with the ability to immediately banish itself was basically the best support card for his type of deck.
"When my opponent controls two or more monsters, I can Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Scales (Lv.4, DEF: 1800) and through its effect, I'm going to revive Superheavy Samurai Drum (Lv.1, ATK: 300)!"
A green robot holding balance scales on its appeared on the field and then Drum flew out of one scale and landed in front of Gongenzaka.
"Now I tune my Level Four Superheavy Samurai Scales to my Level One Superheavy Samurai Drum!" The little Drum turned into a green right and Scales flew through it, exploding into a beam of brilliant light.
"Swords made of steel. Heart burning for battle. On the battlefield of fallen heroes the name of a new hero will go down history! Synchro Summon! Level Five! Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi (Lv.5, DEF: 2300)!"
A machine covered in yellow and red armor flew out of the light and smashed the ground with its swords.
"When Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi is Synchro Summoned, I can add one Superheavy Samurai monster from my Graveyard to the hand. I chooseSuperheavy Samurai Scales and then through its effect, I will Special Summon Superheavy Samurai Scales (Lv.4, DEF: 1800) once again and through its effect I'm going to Special Summon a Superheavy Samurai monster from my Graveyard. Come back, Superheavy Samurai Kabuto (Lv.4, ATK: 1000)!"
"Those again?" Evan sighed in disappointment. "What are you going to do with two Level Four monsers? Xyz Summon?"
"I Normal Summon Superheavy Samurai Battleball (Lv.2, ATK: 100)." A little fat monster covered in yellow and brown armor with two red eyes and a small spear in its right hand jumped on the field. "Now I tune my Level Four Superheavy Samurai Scales and Superheavy Samurai Kabuto to my Level Two Superheavy Samurai Battleball!"
The little monster's body began to glow and turned into two rings that surrounded the other two monsters, each of which turned into four stars that aligned together to form a line of eight stars.
"Raging deity, in unison with the roar of a thousand blades, come forth in a spiraling sandstorm! Synchro Summon! Now come before us, Level Ten! Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanowo (Lv.10, DEF: 3800)!"
"Finally!" Evan shouted in excitement. "You summoned your strongest monster! Now come! Attack me to your heart's contest!" A trail of darkness came out of Evan's eyes. "Of course, you are still going to lose no matter what you do."
"I, the man Gongenzaka, will free you from the madness taken root into your heart!" Gongenzaka declared. "Battle! I attack ChronoDevil Wild Tamer Wolfy with Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi!"
Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi's eyes glowed red and it's swung its swords at ChronoDevil Wild Tamer Wolfy. The monster instinctively covered its body with both arms, only to be cut in half.
『Evan LP: 2400 - 1600 → 800』
"You didn't use Foxy's Pendulum Effect to negate the destruction?" Gongenzaka said, puzzled by Evan's action.
"That's what you wanted me to do, right?" Evan smirked. "You wanted me waste that effect on Wolfy so your Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanowo could finish me off, didn't you?"
Gongenzaka gritted his teeth. "Even so, if you use your Pendulum Effect now the damage will still be great than your Life Points. Battle! Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanowo attack ChronoDevil Marauder! Kusanagi Sword Slash!"
The huge machine groaned and raised its weapon before swinging it around to smash it against Marauder's side. The monster cried out in pain before exploding, with the smoke covering Evan's field. Gongenzaka lowered his Duel Disk and breathed out. The difference between Marauder's attack and Susanowo's defense was 2200. If Evan used Foxy's effect to halve damage that would have still been 1100 damage, which was more than Evan's Life Points. Therefore, the match was over.
"Oi, what are you relaxing about?" Odd-Eyes swung its tail, cutting through the smoke to reveal Evan with his hands in his pockets and a bored expression on his face.
『Evan LP: 1000』
"H-how?" Gongenzaka asked.
"How I survived the attack?" Evan tilted his head in confusion and then clicked his finger, causing a card to appear next to him. "Thanks to my trap of course!"
Gongenzaka gasped. It was the card that Evan has set at the start of the duel. Although Gongenzaka knew that it was there, he had chosen to ignore it because Evan didn't use it last turn, but apparently, he was waiting for when it was going to be most useful.
"The moment your monster attacked I used the effect of Enchanted Javelin to increase my Life Points by the attack power of your Susanowo." Evan explained. "And since Susanowo has twenty-four hundred attack and the damage I took was only twenty-two hundred, I got two hundred Extra Life Points. Well, is there anything else that you are going to do now? Your hand is at zero, but don't let that stop you. Oh way, because of that Spell Card you activated earlier, you are no longer able to use Action Cards either, are you? How bad, so sad. Then let's end this! MY TURN!"
『Turn 6 [Evan] LP: 1000, Hand: 2』
"Another good card came to me!" Evan licked his lips. "I activate the Spell Card: Pendulum Fusion! With it, I can Fusion Summon using monsters in my Pendulum Zones as materials!"
Wild Tamer Foxy and Timescale Champion both flew out of their columns and fell into a vortex made from red and purple energy.
"The demon with cunning charm! Cross your future with the burning champion of the millennium to become the fabled demon holding the gift of death! Lead me toward immortality! Fusion Summon! Level Eight, ChronoDevil Grey Reaper (Lv.8, ATK: 1700)!"
The Grim Reaper-like monster flew out of the black vortex and swung its scythe before landing next to Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon.
"Next I'm going to activate Amazing Pendulum to return two Pendulum Cards in my Extra Deck back into my hand!" Evan's Extra Deck opened and he took the cards he needed before showing them. "With the Scale One, ChronoDevil Wild Tamer Foxy and the Scale Eight, ChronoDevil Wild Tamer Wolfy, I set the Pendulum Scale!"
Two of Evan's most trusted monsters raised into the crimson Pendulum columns and bowed to their master. All the preparations were now complete. It was time for the last act!
"Swing Pendulum of Destruction, burn inside my soul and become my path to crimson victory! Pendulum Summon! Appear before me, my servants! From the Extra Deck, ChronoDevil Marauder (Lv.4, ATK: 1600) and ChronoDevil Timescale Champion (Lv.5, ATK: 1900)!"
The two warriors swung their weapons and stepped next to one another in front of Odd-Eyes and Grey Reaper. Dark aura erupted from all four of the monsters and flew toward Evan, causing his horns to grow even more and his tails to split into four.
"I activate Grey Reaper's effect." Evan gestured toward his Fusion Monster. "Once per turn, I can equip it to a monster I control and increase that monster's attack points by its own! I choose to equip it to Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon!"
The hooded demon put its scythe in front of itself and infused its essence with the weapon. Odd-Eyes then wrapped its tail around the staff and swung it around.
Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon, ATK: 2500 + 1700 → 4200
"Next, I activate Timescale Champion's effect! I target one Pendulum monster on my field and give it the ability to attack for every Pendulum monster I control, but in return none of my other pendulum monsters can attack on the same turn. I choose Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon."
Timescale Champion turned around and tapped Odd-Eyes' forehead with its sword, giving it a golden aura that then split creating two yellow copies of the dragon.
"Odd-Eyes now can attack three times in a row." Gongenzaka realized.
"Odd-Eyes Primal Dragon! Destroy Superheavy Samurai Beast Kyubi, Superheavy Samurai Swordmaster Musashi and Superheavy Samurai Warlord Susanowo!" Odd-Eyes roared and charged at the three Synchro monsters on Gongenzaka's field, slicing through all of them with the scythe given to it by Grey Reaper.
"Such strength." Gongenzaka clenched his fists.
"Now Grey Reaper's last effect activates!" Evan stated with a malicious smirk. "When the equipped monster destroys a monster by battle, I can unequip and Special Summon Grey Reaper on my field." Odd-Eyes threw the scythe in the air and the demonic monster reappeared to grab it.
"But Grey Reaper's attack points are just seventeen hundred." Gongenzaka pointed out. "Even if you attack me,"
"Do you think I'm such a clumsy duelist?" Evan raised an eyebrow. "While my Life Points are at one thousand or less, Grey Reaper gains that much attack points. Currently I got exactly one thousand, so my monster gets a huge bonus."
ChronoDevil Grey Reaper, ATK: 1700 + 1000 → 2700
"Exactly one thousand…" Gongenzaka muttered in realization. "You anticipated all of this?"
"If course I did." Evan replied. "What kind of a duelist would I be otherwise? Well, let's end this. Grey Reaper, attack the opponent directly."
Grey Reaper obeyed and swung its scythe, creating a wave of purple energy which it then launched at Gongenzaka. The attack hit its targeted and send the duelist flying backward before he hit the ground with his back and groaned in pain.
『Gongenzaka LP: 1800 – 2700 → 0』
『Winner: Evan』
"You lose, so you pay the price~" Evan said in a sing-song voice and pointed his Duel Disk at Gongenzaka.
"Kuri, kuri!"
"Huh?" Evan stopped and turned to his left. Kurigear was waving at him with both of his palms. "What is it?"
"Kuri, kuri, kuri!"
Evan lowered his Duel Disk and looked down at Gongenzaka once more. "You are right, he's not our enemy yet. There's no point in killing him now."
"G-greyson?" Gongenzaka groaned and looked up at the duelist standing above him.
Slowly, the dark aura around Evan began to fade away completely, his skin returned to normal with the horns and tails disappearing as well. His sclera returned to its white color and his icy purple eyes became a warm crimson once more. Evan looked down at his hand and then reached out toward Gongenzaka.
"I'm fine now. Come on big buy."
Gongenzaka looked at Evan cautiously, but eventually accepted the hand and got pulled back up. "What made you come back to your senses?"
"The words of a friend." Evan replied while Kurigear's spirit rubbed itself against the back of his head. "Where was Yuya going again?"
Elizabeth's POV
Just what in the love of every deity out there just happened? It seemed that Avice's pain has stopped, but she barely looked like herself with this white skin and blue hair. Then there was also that girl, I remembered her from when me and Koharu tried hunted down Nightshroud. He was after her back then and Reiji said that she was important for his plans as well. I think her name was Serena. She has been staring at us for a while now and I'm unsure what to do.
"Y-you are that Xyz Remnant!" She suddenly shouted and pointed at me. "I remember, from that time in the parking, but you changed your hair and clothes!"
"I'm not a Xyz Remnant!" I raised my voice. "I'm a duelist of Standard that just happens to be using Xyz, as well as I so happen to know both Synchro and Fusion."
"You really think that I'm so stupid?" Just to add here, I was one inch away from asking if this was a rhetorical question.
"Maybe, maybe not." I shrugged and turned my eyes to Avice, who was lying in my lap. "But Reiji wanted us to protect you from Nightshroud, so if you don't believe that I'm not a Xyz Remnant, could you at least believe that I'm working with him?"
Serena seemed to narrow her eyes. She then looked down at Avice and back to me. She must be thinking about something, hopefully not about challenging me to a duel because I definitely wasn't in the mood to deal with another one of those after what happened with my brother just two hours ago. My back was still arching from that brutal slam against the tree.
"I don't need anyone to protect me!" So that's what she was thinking about?
"Umh." Avice muttered something and I looked down to her again. She opened her eyes and they were back to their green color with the hair and skin slowly starting to change to normal as well. Just what caused her to change like this?
"How about we make a deal?" I turned back to the Serena.
"I don't make deals with Xyz Remnant!" She clenched her fist.
"For the last time I-" Ok, I just can't take any more of this nonsense! "How about we do it like this? I'm going to tell you the name of the strongest Xyz Remnant that Reiji's working with and you will go bother them instead of us? Does that sound good enough for you?"
"And you think that I'll just trust you?" Wow, even my siblings aren't as stubborn as her.
"Will you think for a bit, Fusion?" Avice spoke up. "If we were Xyz Remnants, the people whose home was destroyed by your kind, would either of us have stopped ourselves from killing you the moment we beat you? Just the fact that you are here to annoy both of shows that we aren't Xyz, since we don't have any hatred toward you and the rest of your stupid dimension."
The girl remained silent this time around! She just began to stare at us dumbfound about the entire thing. Avice sat up in my lap and stretched out her arms before leaning back. Wait, was she going to use me as a chair? She even crossed her legs like when she sits on a chair! This is just… so usual that I'm not even going to get mad about it.
"I guess there's no helping it." My sister stood up and walked over to Serena, offering her a hand. "We will take you to someone that knows more about all of this than us. I'm sure that she could help you with the Xyz hunting and all that good stuff more than yelling at random bystanders. Are you coming?"
"And you expect me to believe that this isn't a desperate try to ambush me?" Can I just slap her across the face right now? My hand is just itching for it.
"You can believe that if you want. But since you want to hunt Xyz Remnants so badly, wouldn't that be more beneficial for you? To get all of us in one place instead of running around aimlessly?"
Really? Avice's not even trying to debunk her, but is instead telling her what would be the 'benefits' of getting ambushed. I would have just face palmed against a wall from how stupid all of this was, but the realization that such an action would hurt me more than either of them was the one thing that kept the last bit of remaining sanity inside my head.
"Very well then." Selena took my sister's hand. "I'm going to trust you for the moment."
3rd POV
"So, you finally showed up, huh?" Hikaru crossed his arms. "Where are the others?"
The girl that was accompanying him just glanced at whoever he was talking to from the corner of her eyes. She had dark skin, short green hair and light blue eyes. The girl wore a simple outfit consisting of a greenish-blue shirt with black borders, and dark green pads on the elbows, black shorts, and green and blue boots.
"Marufuji is looking for opponents and Yuri's following the Professor's orders like always." Haou replied.
"Ah, I see." Hikaru nodded in understanding. "I was sent here on a recon mission, but it's starting to get a little boring, so isn't there anything fun to do?"
"I'm just following the orders I'm given, no more, no else." Haou replied. "But you could help me out in my own mission then."
"Ho? And what great mission was Haou sent for? To defeat an entire army of duelists or something?"
"Actually, it's quite the unusual mission." Haou replied and pulled a small needle out of nowhere. "I was sent to collect a blood sample from someone living in this dimension. According to Doctor Polk that would,"
"Increase the speed at which that second clone will be ready for function." Hikaru rolled his eyes. "I already heard that before, but I recall that he wanted us to test out the donors, see how good they actually are, so I might help you out with that. What will you say, Ritsuko?"
"First: Only call me Makioka. Second: As long as I get to go somewhere that's now covered in lava, you can count me in."
"Good and, um…" Hikaru paused for a moment and looked around. "Um, did you bring Evice with yourself or…?"
"You shall not worry about that one." Haou told him. "She's learning how to hunt."
"My turn!" Sora cried out, drawing a card. He looked it over and grinned before turning toward Kurosaki. "Hey, do you think you have won already? You're naïve! I activate Fluffal Mouse's effect! When I control this Attack Position monster, I can Special Summon two copies of Fluffal Mouse from my deck."
The little mouse's eyes began to glow a sinister red color and then its body split apart, creating two more copies of itself. All of them had 100 attack points.
"All right, let's do this! The fun has just begun!" Sora shouted and threw his arms forward. "I fuse Edge Imp Sabres and my three copies of Fluffal Mouse!"
The first monster turned into blue energy while the other three turned yellow and all of them merged together to create a vortex.
"Demonic claws, sharp fangs! Become one in the mystic vortex and show us a new form and power! Fusion summon! Show yourself! Mystical jungle beast that rips everything to shreds! Frightfur Tiger (Lv.6, ATK: 1900)!"
A large aqua blue Frigtfur monster with two scissors coming out of its belly flew through the vortex and landed on Sora's field with a quiet demonic laugh.
"Next, I activateFrightfur Tiger's effect!" Sora declared. "I can destroy one card my opponent controls for each Fusion Material used to summon this monster!"
"What?!" Kurosaki gasped. The Frightfur monster stretched out its scissors and cut through his Raid Raptor monsters, leaving only Raidraptor - Force Strix, whose ATK dropped from 2100 to just 100.
"Frightfur Tiger's attack points increase by three hundred for each Frightfur monster I control!" Sora pointed at his monster as its ATK increases to 2200. With Kurosaki controlling just the 100 ATK Force Strix and having only 2100 Life Points remaining, the outcome was obvious. "This is the end! Go, battle! Frightfur Tiger attack Force Strix! Send Kurosaki… This Xyz Remnant to his grave!"
The green tiger's eyes glowed red for a moment and it charged toward Force Strix, grabbing one of its wings and tearing it off. The Xyz's body manufactured and it exploded as a result with the smoke engulfing Kurosaki.
"Intrusion Penalty."
Sora's smirk suddenly dropped upon hearing those words. The smoke cleared and revealed Kurosaki standing there with his Life Points still at 2100. Both duelists looked at each for a moment and then they heard footsteps coming from behind Kurosaki.
"T-this can't be…" Sora muttered.
『Yuya LP: 4000 – 2000 → 2000』
"Sakaki?" Kurosaki asked. "What are you doing here?"
"By discarding Performapal Inflater Tapir I reduced the damage inflicted to a player to zero." Yuya said, ignoring the Xyz Duelist's question. "Now it's my turn, draw! I Normal Summon Performapal Whip Snake (Lv.4, ATK: 1700) and then, since I summoned a Performapal monster this turn, I Special Summon Performapal Secondonkey (Lv.4, ATK: 1000) from my hand!"
"What are you going on about, Yuya?" Sora put his hands on his hips and looked at the performer. "Are you going to fight me? Without your Pendulum Summoning you stand no chance against me."
"I overlay me two Level Four monsters!" Yuya announced and the galaxy portal opened above his head.
"Formed from pitch-black darkness, to fight those foolish enough to oppose it with its treacherous fangs! Now, descend! Xyz Summon! Appear! Rank Four! Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon (RANK: 4, ATK: 2500)!"
"This monster-!" Sora gasped.
"Yuto…" Kurosaki clenched his fist in anger.
"Darling, don't!" Mieru cried out.
"Battle!" Yuya cried out and pointed toward Frightfur Tiger. "Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon attack Frightfur Tiger! Lightning Disobey of Rebellion!" The dragon's chin glowed and it flew toward, stabbing the Fusion monster in the belly, destroying it.
"Aaaarrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhh!" Sora cried out and his body was knocked back, hitting his head against the ground, knocking him unconscious.
『Sora LP: 300 – 300 → 0』
『Winner: Yuya & Kurosaki』
"What are you doing?" Kurosaki demanded. "This is my duel! You shouldn't have gotten involved!"
"This isn't enough." Yuya muttered and turned back to Kurosaki. "Not enough… The crowd want's more… I must duel, more and mo-"
Yuya stopped once a rock hit him on the head. The Duelist lost balance and then fell on the ground causing Mieru to quickly run over to check how he was.
"Darling!"
"GREYSON!"
"What? You said that we had to stop him somehow and this was the quickest way."
Kurosaki looked down at the fallen entertainer and then narrowed his eyes and turned toward the entrance. Evan and Gongenzaka walked into the temple with the former holding a rock with the size of his fist. The Xyz Remnant and the Tracer's eyes met and both of them stopped on the spot where they were standing to look at each other. After a moment, Evan's lips curved into a smirk.
"So, did Sakaki Yuya just saved your ass, or was I seeing things?"
"Shut up." Kurosaki hissed at him.
"Keep it together big guy." Evan raised a hand defensively. "So, what are we going to do with Sora now that he's out of order? I vote we get rid of him entirely, or he might become a pain in the ass later one."
"For the first time I agree with you." Kurosaki nodded and raised his Duel Disk to card the Fusion user.
"Don't even think of it." Reiji's voice suddenly spoke out of nowhere. Kurosaki and Evan both looked down at the screen on Kurosaki's Duel Disk and sure enough the screen showed a transmission from Reiji himself. "Anyone we managed to defeat from Fusion would be far more useful as a prisoner than a card."
"So, we just got to tie him up and leave him for your people to collect later?" Evan asked. "Or do you want us to give your Sora as a present personally? 'Cause if it's the later, I should probably go look for some nice ribbons. What color would you prefer? Also, do you want us to wrap Sora in ribbons with his clothes on or off?"
Kurosaki blinked a few times and then pointed toward the exit of the temple. "Wait there and don't say a word. Understood?"
"Nah, I'm better of as a lone wolf." Evan waved off the 'suggestion' and turned around to leave. "Actually, now that I think about it, doesn't then name Lowell means a lone wolf in English? Wouldn't it have made more sense for my parents to give me that name instead of using an anglicized form of the Welsh word for John?"
"Wait!" Gongenzaka called out. "Won't you help out to carry Yuya?"
"Sorry Rock, but I've got other things to take care of first." Evan waved. "Of course Kurosaki is free, so I'm sure that he will like to help you out."
"No, I won't!" Kurosaki shouted.
"Do I need to remind you how important Yuya's existence is for Reiji?"
Kurosaki rolled his eyes and turned his back to the boy.
"Ok, I will do it."
"See? That's a good Xyz boi~"
Avice's POV
"I know that we promised to get, um, Serene was the name, right?" I looked over to the Fusion user and she just nodded to the question. "Ok. We promised Serena to lead her to Yuzu, but where exactly are we going to find her?"
"There are several screens around the city that showed the ongoing matches." Eliz told me. "I saw her going to the volcano area while I was looking for you. It's most likely that she hasn't gotten too far away from that area yet."
"That's actually pretty smart thing to do, sis." I admitted.
"I thought that it was the obvious thing to do." She shot back. And just after I made her a compliment as well, how rude.
"So, did you have any plan to recognize Xyz Remnants, or did you just go in the flow and carded everyone that you saw using Xyz?" I turned back to Serena and asked her.
The girl didn't answer to me, but she hung her head. Wait, don't tell me… I hit right on the spot, didn't I?
"There she is!" Eli pointed at the distance.
Yes, I could see her. That pink hair was unmistakable, but there was someone else with her as well, I think I have seen them before. Ah, yes, it was Dennis! That was nice, at least we were going to be surrounded by a much more enjoyable company that the gullible fool I had to escort right now.
"Elizabeth, Avice!" Yuzu noticed us first and waved at us.
"And… your twin sister?" Dennis asked.
"You aren't completely wrong there." Eliz sighed and looked over me.
"It's a complicated story actually." I told me. "For, you see…"
And so I began to explain to everyone what happened. I told them about Serena, that she was from Academia and wanted to hunt down Xyz Duelists and all that good stuff. Of course I didn't tell them that this entire Battle Royale was made to combat the incoming army from Academia since that would change far too much. Reiji's plan was, after all, to select the best duelists for the Lancers, so telling Yuzu and Dennis what to get prepared for would kind of defeat the point of this tournament. And of course Yuzu was the most shocked out of everyone to hear what was going on.
"They told me that you know where I could find the remaining duelists from the Xyz Dimension." Serena turned toward Yuzu. "Give me their names."
"Do you even know what Academia did to the Xyz Dimension?" Yuzu asked. Oh no! Not another one of these sad stories about the peaceful utopia destroyed by the evil Academia! Yuzu, I warn you!
"The Xyz Dimension was a peaceful place, until that day came…" Please, just throw me off a rock right now…
"I really don't understand any of this." Dennis scratched the back of his head. "Dimensions and stuff like this, I came to the Miami Tournament to show my entertainment dueling, yet I got involved in stuff like this…"
"It makes your heat hurt, doesn't it?" I smirked a little. Even if Yuzu was going to get all melodramatic again, at least Dennis was there to keep me company.
"But you knew all of this, so are you from the Xyz Dimension as well or something?" I chuckled a little bit to Dennis' question. I barely had any Xyz Monsters yet everyone keeps confuse me for one of them, seriously…
"No, I'm not from another Dimension." I replied. "But I've been working with Akaba Reiji for a while and learned about all of this from him." Technically this was a lie, but… "He was the one who solved the mystery with the missing people if you have heard of it and also saved the Xyz Duelists. In fact, he has been preparing for a fight with Academia for a while now."
"Ah, I see." Dennis stroke his chin, almost like he was in thought. "So he really is as much of a smart guy as people are saying huh? But to think that he would also be the one to learn that there are other dimensions and about the conflicts in them, it's a little crazy I must say."
"I can second that." I nodded and looked at the sky. Damn, it was starting to get dark now, I should return to duty then. "Well, it's starting to get late now, so I must be going. Are you coming with me, sis?"
"Where are we going?" I pouted to her question.
"To find and kick some Academia ass of course!" I pumped my fist. "Or would you rather have these bastards running amok through the city all night?"
"You are going to fight my comrades?" Oh, Serena didn't seem very happy to hear that.
"You're the ones who invaded this world, so it can't he helped." I shrugged. "But don't worry, we won't hurt your friends, just make sure that they won't get near their objective. In other words, we're going to save your ass for free."
"I don't need anyone to protect me!" She protested, but I didn't quite catch what else she told me. I simply waved goodbye and moved on along with my sister.
Evan's POV
I have spent the last few hours going through the forest area, but no other Academia duelists showed up. The only people I found were a few of the participants in the tournament, but none of them were important for me. At best they could serve as bait for Academia, so I was going to let them be as loud as they pleased, but even then no one showed up. Did Academia go only after a few selected targets or something?
"So, what are our plans now, master?" Foxy asked me.
"I'm just going to set a small camp and sleep for tonight. It's not very likely that Academia would keep scouting during the night as well, but if they show up, make sure to wake me up." I told her.
"I've been thinking about something master." Foxy tapped her chin. "Until now, we didn't saw any group that's made out of more than three duelists, so could they have dispatched only a small party and not the entire army of Academia to this Dimension?"
"If they are at war with one dimension it would be disadvantageous to start a war with another dimension at the same time." War wasn't as simple as it looked from the side. Soldiers needed to be given supplies and treated when injured. Fighting on two fronts would mean that Academia will run out of resources twice as fast, so it made sense if they only send a small group on a special mission instead of an entire army.
"Exactly! If it's just a scouting party Standard would have a harder time justifying going on an all-out war against the Fusion Dimension." Foxy did have a point there. The threat right now wasn't as big as to justify a war with another dimension. Reiji isn't a careless leader so he wouldn't want to combat aggression with more aggression unless he had a very good reason to do that.
"If we want to start an all-out war between Standard and Fusion then we'll have to justify it first." How did you justify a war against a side that hasn't harmed you? Of course! Through propaganda, through isolated incidents that make the enemy look like monsters!
"I don't know if master will like this suggestion, but why don't be help increase the casualties?" Foxy suggested to me.
This damn fox! She really was smarter than she let out. Yes, let's increase the casualties of this little fight. And I think that I just got an idea how to do it exactly. Sorry Reiji, but your desire to keep this world mostly out of the conflict will have to be ignored.
T.M.Y.K. (So, back in Chapter 20, when Evan first "Awakened" and summoned Berserk Phantomus, I said that explanation would come later, then in Chapter 29 I revealed the power's real name and here I'm going to put a bit of explanation behind Evan's "darkness".)
True Darkness: One of the first two forces of nature that appeared when the universe was created. As time went by, True Darkness and True Light turned into the original, neutral celestial entities from which were later born several other sub-entities known to the human kind.
As one of the first entities to ever exist, True Darkness represents half of the power that keeps the universe's balance. It's a force of nature that has both the power to make life to flourish, but also to corrupt and destroy it.
The first time both humankind and the Duel Spirits came into direct contact with True Darkness happened around 3000 years when after a battle for the fate in the world caused a wormhole to appear in Ancient Egypt and a part of the celestial was transported to the human world.
Avice: Four more till next arc!
Chapter 39: Copy of White
Summary: As the second day of the Battle Royale starts, the remaining duelists choose to separate and look for other survivors. While looking through the ice area, Yuya and Gongenzaka end up in a duel against Hikaru and a girl called Makioka respectively. Meanwhile, Avice and Elizabeth came across a girl that looks just like Avice herself.
Chapter 40: Stages of Rebellion.
Summary: The Battle Royale is at its end and most of the Obelisk Forces have been driven out, despite the heavy loses, the Standard Duelists keep pushing the enemy away. During that time, while Ventus is helping Koharu in searching for Fusion remnants, the two of them come across the strongest duelist that participated in the invasion of the Xyz Dimension – at the same time, Evan and Avice both begin a duel against Yuya's counterparts, Yuri and Yugo respectively.
Chapter 41: Those With Fate in Darkness
Summary: Elizabeth found herself being chased by a Fusion Duelist called the Supreme King. But she comes across Evan who quickly steps in and a duel between the two wielders of Darkness begins. As ChronoDevils and Evil Heroes crash against one another, something suddenly changes about Evan…
Chapter 42: Tune of Daybreak!
Summary: Following the huge amount of destruction caused by Academia's invasion, the Miami Champion is canceled and Reiji announces to the public the creation of an elite squad of Duelists called "Lancers". However, the tension within the newly formed team only increases. While Levant and Reiji try to bring the group together, believing that only through dueling he would be able to make everyone understand the necessity of the Lancers, Evan challenges Shun to a duel.
A/N: And that's it. Welp, now that the part that's most important for Evan and Avice has come, we can begin to see how his actions are starting to alter the canon reality. Some of you might wonder why Serena didn't challenge Dennis to a duel, but in canon she didn't know that he was a Xyz user until she saw him Xyz Summon in one of his duel and here she was knocked out for most of the day, so... Yeah, she doesn't know that he uses Xyz yet.
I can go on and explain a lot more things, but they aren't as important so I'll just move to the main even of this chapter, which was (at least I hope it was) the appearance of a Xyz-Fusion hybrid. I'll admit that this is an idea I got from Arc-VOC, but I was disappointed how there the monsters were just hybrids by name for the most part.
Avice: The biggest inspiration for these new hybrid monsters however came from the Gemini Monsters mechanic and Battle Beast's Gladiator Beast's Assault Fort which was the effects of TWO cards in one, for Ra's sake.
That's all for today. Thanks for rading and I'll see you next time!
Avice: Just kidding!
Before respond to the reviews however, I want to first say that I was amazed how well received the Evan vs Elizabeth duel from last chapter was. I was actually surprised by how well it was received.
Anyway, onto the reviews now.
ScalchopWarrior: I believe that I fixed those spelling mistakes, thanks for saying and I was originally going to use the name Oracle Sister Fusion, but then I choose to use Oracle Sister - Energy Fusion right before posting the chapter - apparently I didn't change the original name in every place where it was used, but I fixed that now. Also it might be spoilers, but I've made plans for the rematch already...
AdrianDracoheart: Thanks for the review and I'm happy to hear that you liked the duel as well. As for the question... Well, I can't answer it right now, can I? Sorry about that, but I'm going to say that Elizabeth's reasons are going to be very... understandable.
That's it for today, really. Thanks to everyone for reading and until next time!
Diabolic Tracer & Avice out!