VI
Leo Duel School
It had always been a question of when, not if. There were just too many soldiers for Himika to assume otherwise.
So when she'd routed the security camera feeds through to her office, and seen the dozen or so of them sprinting off their winged Antique Gear monsters—Wyverns, she would later learn they were called—and slashing their Solid Vision sword blades through air, computers, and any LDS personnel standing in their way, she reacted only by biting her lip, trying and failing to fight the green tinge in her cheeks.
She was thankful that the camera feeds were video only. Hearing the sounds of the one-sided battle—the screams of men and women as those blades phased through flesh and bone with impunity, sealing them away with a single slice of hard light—would have pushed her into a perpetual state of anger, and clouded her judgment permanently.
Because she could still think clearly, however, Himika had deduced that the attacking forces had made their way into LDS via the openings they had created in the external windows. From there, they had divided into two groups; one was headed upstairs. It had to be assumed that group was meant to take her out—to cut the head off the snake.
The other, larger group, however, had brute-forced their way into the lifts that she'd shut down earlier—including the ones that led to the sublevels of the Leo Corporation, where all their research and their highest-end technology was kept. A series of satchel charges blew out the floors on the elevators. High-tensile monofilaments and climbing equipment allowed them to rappel down the shafts to their destination.
From how they were massing into a particular series of elevators, Himika could only guess they'd obtained building schematics somehow. There was only one way that could have happened—but that could wait. The fact that they were taking this route told her what they were after—and that she had a sudden opportunity to respond to their scheme and foil it for good.
She whirled on Nakajima right as the soldiers she was watching crested another staircase. "What's the status of guard protocol seventeen?"
Nakajima checked his tablet. "RSV projectors won't be ready for a few more minutes," he replied. "I know—I know—I can try to coax them out in two. But every hard-light generator in the building has to be synchronized perfectly to pull this off. If we're off by even a nanosecond, it could ruin our entire defense."
"Exclude the generators in nonessential areas," said Himika, pulling up the school blueprints with a few keystrokes. "We won't need the ones for our training facilities, and those are the most powerful ones in the building. Reroute them to this generators in this hallway"—she drew her finger along a lengthy path in the LeoCorp sublevels—"and this one here," she added, pointing out a second route that Nakajima recognized immediately.
He felt his face go pale. "That's … cutting it pretty close," he said, hesitating for the first and last time he would in this entire crisis. "Those soldiers will be right on top of us by the time the protocol's ready to execute."
"I know." Himika bit her lip. "But I cannot risk them finding out what's happening until the last possible moment."
She rolled her shoulders, stretching her arms. "Order our remaining security forces to withdraw and regroup at these coordinates." She pointed out several places on the floor plan. "We need to close this net, and fast."
Elsewhere
After Academia's first attack during the Maiami Championship, a number of shelters had been erected or otherwise excavated to account for the chance that such an assault could happen again.
One of these had been dug three blocks away from the You Show Duel School, and it was here that Hīragi Shūzō huddled, one eye on his Duel Disk to check for updates on the current crisis, and his other eye watching his pupils to make sure they were holding up all right. Ayu, Tatsuya, and Futoshi were clamping each other so tightly that they were almost a singular being—but they, like just about everyone else, were alive and aware of their surroundings.
Just about everyone else.
Shūzō's Duel Disk chimed just then, and he flinched—the sound had shattered the silence of the shelter as though a bomb had gone off inside it. "H-hello?" he managed to stammer.
"It's me." Sakaki Yūshō's voice had rarely sounded so angelic. "Are the kids all right, Shūzō?"
"Yes." He did a quick headcount just to be sure. "Every student's here in the shelter with me. The only two exceptions are your son and my daughter—and Dennis and his friend are with them, so I know they're safe."
There was a pause. " … What friend?"
"Dennis visited You Show earlier today with Yūya, Yuzu, and that LDS student, Kōtsu Masumi," Shūzō told him. "He brought an old man with him who said he was a teacher at Dennis' old school in New York. Elderly chap, looked like a strongman—told me his name was Herman von Stadion. And he said he was here to interview—"
He got no further; his mouth had dropped to the floor at the noise that had just erupted from his Duel Disk. Every boy and girl in the shelter was looking right at him. Neither they nor Shūzō had ever heard Sakaki Yūya's father swear like that before—and certainly not so creatively or explosively.
"Shūzō, you IDIOT!" bellowed Yūshō. "You mean to tell me you left our children with a complete stranger?!"
The You Show principal, thoroughly cowed, attempted to protest. "The city was under attack! Herman had said our children might have been the reason we were under attack in the first place! Dennis volunteered to make sure none of them came to harm! I-I don't understand why you're so upset!"
There was a sharp intake of breath. Yūshō was sucking air through his teeth in great displeasure. "I can't explain right now," he said heavily. "I have to find those two kids before it's too late. And when I do," he added with an unmistakable hint of warning, "the four of us will be sitting down for a rehash of the 'stranger talk', Shūzō."
Then, more quietly still, "We've lost our children once before," he muttered. "For my son's sake, I cannot permit myself to lose him again. And for your daughter's sake, neither should you."
The line went dead, leaving Shūzō to ponder just why Yūshō was so mad at him. With every second he pondered—holed up inside the suddenly uncomfortable silence of this dark, cramped shelter—he felt a growing pit in his chest … a sensation that things might be worse than he'd thought.
Shijima Hokuto was beginning to hate these life-or-limb situations.
Only months ago, his main concern had been getting to his next match at the Maiami Championship on time. He'd won his first match with ease, and had been awaiting his upcoming Duel with Mokota Michio. Then, out of the blue, he had been cornered in an alleyway by two people—one, a big man he'd disliked on sight; the other, a girl who showed just enough of her face to look a heck of a lot like Hīragi Yuzu.
The girl had Dueled him, and he'd lost—not just badly, but hilariously. Hokuto himself would've laughed if he'd had the chance. But he never did—one flash of purple light later, followed swiftly by a constricting sensation that felt like being trapped inside a rapidly shrinking box, and he'd known nothing more.
Then, almost as quickly, he'd regained consciousness inside—unless his eyes were deceiving him—Akaba Himika's desk drawer, of all places. The LDS headmistress had wasted no time in giving him a rundown of the situation—he'd been sealed into a card, which meant he missed his next Duel in the Maiami Championship and lost by default because of it; a number of weeks had passed in the time since, during which the Championship had been canceled after an army of Duelists from another dimension had invaded the city; Masumi was helping to evacuate the city from what appeared to be another attack from a gigantic extra-dimensional dragon that used to be Sakaki Yūya; Masumi and Yaiba were dating and leading a special group of Duelists that protected LDS from outside threats—
He'd remembered stopping Himika right there to ward off his impending headache. Then: "Wait—I lost?" Then, shortly after that: "Wait—dating?!"
Hokuto was a brilliant Duelist. But he'd never claimed to be brilliant at anything else—and that included keeping his priorities straight. So he'd tabled all the news he thought could wait for the time being, and made his way over to Masumi and Yaiba as quickly as he could to help them out, Duel Disk ignited.
Not that he'd needed it: a group of Duelists from all over the Four Dimensions—that had been a whole other headache he'd received from Masumi during what was otherwise a happy and tearful reunion—had defeated the dragon instead. Hokuto was almost disappointed that he wasn't able to prove his strength to it mere minutes after being freed from a prison he didn't even know he'd been inside to begin with.
Almost.
Feeling his two fellow circuit representatives crush him in a hug more than made up for the lost chance to prove his worth. He'd spent the whole rest of the day with them, laughing and catching up with them—and feeling floored at the nonsensical tale Masumi had woven about the first kiss she had shared with Yaiba atop LDS itself, smack in the middle of an equally absurd Duel. The whole next day had been devoted to breaking the ice with the three Duelists that Masumi had corralled into becoming Maiami City's second group of Lancers. Well—two of them, anyway; the third had been his friend for longer than he'd known even his counterparts in the Fusion and Synchro circuits.
Meeting the thin, sickly, bedridden Rokkaku Fuyu—and helping to instill a love of Dueling in him despite his frail condition—had been an unexpectedly sappy moment in Hokuto's life, and he hoped with all his heart that it would never get so sappy again, if only to preserve that moment in his memory forever. The many Duels they'd played on his bedside table had gone a long way in making him not only a student in the Leo Duel School's Xyz circuit—but also Hokuto's Tag Duel partner. Neither boy would have anyone else by his side when the going got tough.
Which, as luck would have it, was happening right this moment.
Hokuto glanced at the skinny form of Fuyu panting next to him, and the faint scars that still etched at his face, just barely visible under the helmet he wore in tandem with his one-piece, form-fitting body glove to protect his sensitive skin from the sun's rays. Both boys spent all of the third day following Hokuto's return catching up and figuring out just how and why Masumi had created such a team of Duelists—to say nothing of one that included Fuyu himself. The Xyz rep had been impressed at his Fusion counterpart's cunning, to say the least; inspiring a depressed Fuyu to Duel so well that it impressed him was nothing short of a miracle. Day number four had been all about the events leading up to the scars themselves, and the man responsible for inflicting them all on Fuyu. Fuyu's ears were pink for the rest of the day after the loud curse Hokuto had uttered when he'd heard that bit of news.
"Turn end!" he heard a voice bark just then. The words carried much more mercy than their speaker had intended.
Hokuto scowled. He and Fuyu had been relaxing at the planetarium on the north side of town, where Fuyu's parents worked—and more specifically, the residence underneath where the family of three lived together after hours. Then, all of a sudden, the alarms had gone off, and Hokuto had seen the initial scenes of the attack from the front window.
It was a sight he wouldn't be forgetting for some time: more than a dozen monsters, each one the size of an office building, moving through the city and razing entire blocks with laser fire. But even as he'd moved to take action, and asked Fuyu if he wanted to join them, more reports were coming in—this time of the Lancers, including Kurosaki Shun, who he'd since learned was from a different dimension rather than being a top student of LDS, fighting the enemies that used these monsters. Not only that, they were winning.
But before Hokuto could breathe a sigh of relief, a veritable cloud of Dueling soldiers riding decrepit mechanical dragons had swarmed the air, landing just below the hillside on which Fuyu's planetarium stood. Before he could blink, a host of guns had risen from the treeline—and proceeded to shell the city from afar. Most of the shells had come perilously close to hitting the Leo Duel School. The rest of them actually did.
But even before then, an angry Hokuto had been on his way to give the men responsible a piece of his mind, Fuyu trailing behind him. They'd marched practically up to the throats of the strangely dressed soldiers who were controlling the weapons responsible, challenged them to a Tag Duel without even batting an eye—and now here he was, wondering if it had been truly worth it to do so.
Ending the first turn of the Duel at 2400 LP tended to make Hokuto feel that way, and more so when that deficit had been caused through sheer effect damage—over half of which had been caused by the mobile cannon platform he and Fuyu were staring down (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 1800). The fact that the pair of soldiers they were Dueling used Field Spells that didn't need a physical card to activate them was even more frustrating—no matter how much Fuyu had warned him about such things in the past. But it was Hokuto's turn now, and he was glad for it; the card he'd just drawn was the cherry on top of a damned good hand.
"Double Continuous Spell, activate: Sacred Belt and Star Sign of the Sacred!" he cried, slapping it and another card from his hand onto the screen of his purple Duel Disk. "While I control Sacred Belt, the activation of all LIGHT-Attribute monsters' effects cannot be negated!
"Next! I Summon Sacred Pollux in Attack Position!" Hokuto slapped another card on his blue blade, and a broad, white-armored knight rose up from the ground—or at least the right half of an armored knight, with a formless mass of marble-like white for his other half, and a strange, tuning fork-like sword held in both hands (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 600). "Its effect lets me conduct a second Normal Summon during the turn it was Normal Summoned! So for that second Summon, I'll Release Pollux to Advance Summon Sacred Virgo in Attack Position!"
With a flash of light, both halves of Pollux disappeared, only to reform into a slender female knight in white-gold armor (Level 5: ATK 2300/DEF 1600). "And when Virgo is Normal Summoned," Hokuto went on, "I can use its effect to Special Summon another Level 5 Sacred monster from my hand in Defense Position! I Special Summon Sacred Escha!"
The monster that appeared beside Virgo was even thinner, and much less graceful in its build and stature. More machine than knight, Escha brandished six scything claws at the two soldiers, whirling them through the air in an intricate dance of whining metal (Level 5: ATK 2100/DEF 1400) before finally dropping to a knee.
"Escha's effect activates if it's Special Summoned," Hokuto explained, "and lets me add a Sacred monster from my Deck to my hand!" After he'd done so—smirking slightly as he formed the next phase of his plan—Hokuto decided it was time to show his stuff. "And now—I'll use my Level 5 Escha and Virgo to construct the Overlay Network!"
He stamped his foot, and a galaxy of miniaturized stars erupted before him, encasing both his monsters in golden energy and sucking them inside without a moment's notice:
"Light of the stars, descend and shake this very earth!"
"Xyz Summon!" bellowed Hokuto. "Rank 5! Sacred Pleiades!"
The ten-foot-tall blur that shot out of the celestial whirlpool an instant later was of pure, deep gold and clear blue sky. Its multi-tailed cape, fluttering and flapping about in the wind, gleamed so brilliantly that it must have been sewn with the light of the stars themselves (Rank 5: ATK 2500/DEF 1500; ORU 2).
"Star Sign's effect!" Hokuto indicated his other Continuous Spell. "Once per turn, if a Sacred Xyz Monster is Special Summoned to my field, I can draw a card!" He did so, and smirked again. Maybe he could use this later on. For now, though: "Battle Phase!" he snarled. "Sacred Pleiades—attack Antique Gear Devil!"
Pleiades hefted a huge golden blade in its hand, then launched itself forward, ready to cleave Devil down the middle. A full second later, it did just that—but Hokuto's satisfaction was tempered by the fact that it had been destroyed while in Defense Position. He'd have to wait a little longer before inflicting any real damage this Duel—
"Antique Gear Devil's final effect!" cried the soldier who'd Summoned it. "When it's destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon an Antique Gear monster from my Deck, and bypass its Summoning conditions to do so! That means I can Special Summon—"
But Hokuto was already moving to counter. "Don't even care!" he said. "Sacred Pleiades' effect! Once per turn, I can detach an Overlay Unit, then target a card on the field and return it to the hand! So whatever you're Summoning can wait till later, pal!"
With a single snap of his fingers, one of the golden orbs revolving around Pleiades winked out. As though it had been a signal flare, the monster's cape billowed in the air, radiating a massive surge of light. Hokuto caught the brief silhouette of something enormous and shambling (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000) before it vanished just as quickly as it had been Summoned.
He crossed his arms, and smirked. "Turn end."
As the soldier's partner drew to start his turn, Fuyu drew in closer to Hokuto. "Nice job," he said in his usual raspy voice—the only part of him that hadn't grown in any way between the day Masumi had first met him and today. "I got a good look at that monster before Pleiades sent it off. It would have caused a lot of problems if you'd let it be."
Hokuto nodded, but he kept himself tense. "Stay sharp all the same," he muttered in an undertone. "I get the feeling these guys don't play by the rules."
Fuyu looked around the Duel site—decorated with all the inner workings of any big factory, grinding and churning in a cacophonous droning shriek. "What was your first clue?" he huffed, looking at Gear Town as though he wished his electric-blue gaze could shoot lasers and burn it all to the ground.
The voice of the second soldier snapped them out of their reverie. "I activate the Spell Card: Magnet Circle LV2!" he shouted, slipping a card onto his Duel Disk. "With this card, I can Special Summon a Level 2 or lower Machine-Type monster from my hand! I Special Summon Antique Gear in Defense Position!"
The monster that zoomed onto the field an instant later was surprisingly small—especially for a Deck known for producing some absolute behemoths of monsters. Antique Gear's unipedal body was barely chest-high with Hokuto, and considering that it had to use both of its arms to steady the single wheel that served as its legs, he thought it looked even more harmless than its point gauge hinted at (Level 2: ATK 100/DEF 800).
"Terrain program: Gear Town's effect!" the soldier went on. "Antique Gear monsters can be Advance Summoned with one less Released monster! I therefore Release my Antique Gear to Advance Summon Antique Gear Golem!" In a trice, something had sparked within the tiny monster, and it fell to the ground—little more than scrap. But just as quickly, something enormous had plodded onto the field to take its place—a massive, poorly lubricated iron giant that both Hokuto and Fuyu were quick to recognize from the Summon they'd managed to abort just one turn ago (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000).
"And now," smirked the soldier, "I activate the Spell Card: Antique Gear Fusion! With this card, I can Fusion Summon 1 Antique Gear Fusion monster from my Extra Deck, using monsters from my hand or my field as Fusion Materials! Then, if one of those materials is an Antique Gear Golem on my field"—he swept a hand upward at his massive monster—"I can also use monsters in my Deck as additional Fusion Material! So I'll fuse the Golem on the field with the second Golem your Pleiades sent to my partner's hand—and a third Golem in my Deck! GO!"
As the soldiers began to swipe cards here and there, and the familiar whirlpool of a Fusion Summon began to form in the skies above, Hokuto saw Fuyu take a step backward. The Xyz Duelist's bright blue eyes carried an all-too-familiar look of fear in them. That wasn't good—Fuyu's bout with the sickness that had consumed his childhood had left him with a severe lack of confidence in his abilities as a Duelist. His friendship with Hokuto had been the one thing that dispelled it all until Masumi and the LID had come along to pick up the slack while he'd been sealed into a card. He'd been improving day by day since then, slowly becoming bolder and more confident in his moves.
To see the old uncertainties return now … Hokuto bit his lip. He'd need to do something to snap Fuyu out of it.
"Ancient giants of the long-gone war! Become one now and demonstrate your tremendous power!"
The soldier's chanting—and the tortured shrieking of metal that tried in vain to drown him out—distracted Hokuto momentarily. For the Antique Gear Golem, even as it rose into the swirling energies above them all, was being mutilated by some inner force; its limbs ripped from its crude and rusted torso, floating alongside it in the ethereal mass. More pitted iron limbs, presumably torn from its brethren, rose to meet it—
"Fusion Summon!" snarled the soldier. "Come forth! Antique Gear Megaton Golem!"
It was not the most elegant Fusion Monster Hokuto had seen—Masumi's personal spin on the method made sure of that. But there was an element of simplicity in how brutally the three monsters had combined together: six arms and six legs had been crudely grafted onto the single surviving torso, forming a veritable forest of slashing spikes, crushing claws, grinding gears—and enough iron over them all to plate a battleship (Level 9: ATK 3300/DEF 3300).
Even in the cacophony of noise this new monster produced, Hokuto could still hear Fuyu gulping. And the soldier's next words made him feel no better: "Megaton Golem's effect! If it was Fusion Summoned using at least two Antique Gear Golems, it can attack up to that many times during each Battle Phase! And I think you know what that means!" he sneered at them.
Hokuto did. "BATTLE PHASE! Megaton Golem—attack Sacred Pleiades! Grind these inferior Duelists into the dust in which they belong!"
The Xyz rep grit his teeth. He had no choice—he needed to act now—
"Sacred Pleiades' effect can be activated during any turn," he shot back, "and at any time I wish—even during the Battle Phase! I detach its final Overlay Unit to return your Megaton Golem from whence it came!"
Fuyu sprang forward. "No—wait—!"
But without further ado, Pleiades had already rushed out to meet the Megaton Golem charging it down like an entire herd of rhinos. Hokuto wasn't able to see what happened, owing to the enormous flash of light that happened an instant later and nearly blinded him. But once the stars had faded from his eyes, he was able to see his Pleiades still standing—and Megaton Golem reduced to a mere husk of what it once was. Two of its legs had fallen off from the force of whatever Pleiades had done to it—and twice that many arms were naught but twisted scrap around its body.
And yet, he thought in confusion, the monster seemed to still be standing—still twitching—still alive—
"Megaton Golem's final effect," the soldier snickered, hardly even abashed that Hokuto had gotten rid of his killing blow with such ease. "If it leaves the field by an opponent's card effect, I can Special Summon something else from my Extra Deck, bypassing its Summoning conditions—a monster that surpasses it in sheer physical power!"
He raised a fist to the sky. "Come forth! Antique Gear Ultimate Golem!"
Hokuto's mouth fell open as the Golem began to transform before his eyes, its torso stiffening and elongating into a centaur-like body. Black armor shimmered over the behemoth's left forearm, leaving ripping edges in the claws, and multiple tails whipped in every direction, slicing through trees and gouging furrows in the ground (Level 10: ATK 4400/DEF 3400).
He failed to suppress a curse. Things had just gone from bad to worse for them both.
"Now, Ultimate Golem!" bellowed the soldier. "Destroy Sacred Pleiades! Eternal Ultimate Pound!"
This time, Hokuto knew there was nothing he could do to stop what was coming. "Brace yourself, Fuyu!" he yelled, even as the earth shook under their feet from the monster rampaging towards them. "This is gonna suck—!"
It did: Ultimate Golem smashed through Pleiades as though the armored knight wasn't even there, and sped right through its shattered remains without losing an ounce of momentum. Hokuto and Fuyu offered only token resistance as the Fusion Monster plowed through them both, scattering both Duelists in opposite directions and forcing their LP to plummet to a measly 500.
Hokuto's whole body ached, but he forced himself to get up from where he lay, limbs splayed. Shellshock raced through his body, causing him to stumble half a dozen times on the way to his partner's body.
Mercifully, Fuyu was breathing and conscious. But his high-tech jumpsuit was ripped and torn, and he was bleeding from at least a dozen cuts and scrapes from the force of the impact he'd just sustained. Even this put Hokuto on edge; he knew his companion's body was not well adapted to fighting in such rough Dueling environments.
"I tried to warn you, Hokuto-san," the Xyz Duelist whispered hoarsely. "Remember how that Devil Summoned the Golem you returned with your Pleiades? I was worried that the Megaton Golem could do something like that as well! And I was right," he said solemnly. "I should've told you sooner … "
"Don't blame yourself over this," soothed Hokuto. And in truth, this had been an uncharacteristically rash decision on his part—he should have second-guessed himself as to whether there was more to that Megaton Golem that met the eye. But this was the difference they shared in their Dueling styles—Hokuto fought with the intent of a drag racer; once he got into his rhythm, he wouldn't stop until he'd won, whether it took one turn or ten.
Fuyu, on the other hand, was a Duelist who didn't like to use his strength all in one go—he conserved it until the home stretch, waited until he knew the final blow was his to deliver, before he acted. That made him the more patient half of the duo they formed—but it also made him the more vulnerable one as well. Hokuto knew that if he hadn't used Pleiades to deal with that Megaton Golem, it would have left them wide open for them—for Fuyu—to feel that final blow instead; that monster wouldn't have needed its third and final attack to reduce their Life Points to zero, and for the soldiers to make cards out of them both.
He clapped the Xyz Duelist gently on the shoulder. "C'mon," he said encouragingly. "It's your turn now. Make me proud, Fuyu—you've faced bigger pushovers than this guy before."
It took several long moments, and a boost from Hokuto's outstretched hand, before Fuyu was able to climb to his feet. Hokuto took a second to brush the dust off Fuyu's jet black Duel Disk, and the lavender-edged blade it projected, before he gave one more thumbs-up.
"My turn!" Fuyu rasped, drawing a card—and immediately scanned it over his Duel Disk. "I activate the Field Spell: Hexatellaknight—and then, I Summon Satellaknight Unuk in Attack Position!" He plucked another card from his hand, and a dark-skinned figure in lizard-like armor—complete with plated tail—shimmered inside a golden hoop that hovered around its body (Level 4: ATK 1800/DEF 1000).
"Unuk's effect activates when it's Summoned," said Fuyu, "and lets me send a tellaknight monster from my Deck to the Graveyard!" He slid a card out from his Deck, and into his Duel Disk. "Next, I activate the Quick-Play Spell: Starcrossed Satellaknights! By targeting a tellaknight monster I control, I can Special Summon a different tellaknight monster from my Deck by shuffling that target back in its place! So I'll shuffle Unuk—and replace it with Satellaknight Altair! Come out!"
Unuk vanished from existence in the time it took Fuyu to click his fingers, though the hoop that had encircled it still remained—and an instant later, a second warrior had materialized inside it: stocky and muscular beneath its white-gold armor and gleaming blue wings (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 1300).
"Altair's effect also activates if it's Summoned in any way," Fuyu went on, "and allows me to target a tellaknight monster in my Graveyard and Special Summon it in Defense Position—so I'll revive the monster I sent to my Graveyard with Unuk's effect, Satellaknight Vega! And if she's Summoned, no matter how or when"—Fuyu paused here, partly to catch his breath, partly to take in the sight of the second ring of gold that had appeared to Altair's left, and the gleaming armor materializing around the lavender-clad warrior who turned and twisted inside it (Level 4: ATK 1200/DEF 1600)—"I can Special Summon a tellaknight monster from my hand! I choose to Summon Satellaknight Deneb!"
A third hoop appeared to Altair's right before Fuyu had even finished speaking. One flash of light later, and a white-skinned female spun round in a graceful pirouette—made even more so by the sinuously twisting blades intertwined around her sword blade like a pair of snakes (Level 4: ATK 1500/DEF 1000).
Perfect, Hokuto thought. "If Deneb is Summoned, I can use her effect to add another tellaknight monster from my Deck to my hand," Fuyu said, slipping a card into his waiting fingers—"and now, I'm going to use my Level 4 Altair, Vega, and Deneb to construct the Overlay Network!" He pointed to the sky, and his three monsters launched upwards as one, making a beeline for the enormous galaxy that had bloomed above them, quite out of nowhere—
"Shining knight of the summer sky, whose blade was forged in the blazing wrath of the stars, cut down your foes with blinding light!"
The three hoops surrounding his monsters were the last bits of them to go; they did not disappear with their owners, but slowly drew together, interlocking and expanding into a delicate flower of energy—
"Xyz Summon!" cried Fuyu. "Come forth before us! Rank 4! Stellaknight Deltatheros!"
The Xyz Monster rocketed from the void beyond with the speed of a meteor—and yet alighted upon the ground without seeming to touch it at all. The ten-foot-tall knight weaved Deneb's sword through the air in an intricate dance, before leveling the tip right at Ultimate Golem as if daring the monster to try and destroy it (Rank 4: ATK 2500/DEF 2100; ORU 3).
But even as Hokuto watched, one of the Overlay Units orbiting Deltatheros vanished, and its energy rippled down his armor and along the arm that held his sword. The rippling blade of the sword brimmed with energy, and its point gauge was rising higher and higher to 2900/2500.
"Hexatellaknight's effect," Fuyu explained, "grants 200 ATK and DEF to my tellaknight Xyz Monsters for every Overlay Unit attached to them! Then, by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can activate Deltatheros' effect! Once per turn, I can target and destroy any card on the field I want—which means your Ultimate Golem is scrap!"
He threw out his hand, and Deltatheros flicked out with its sword, releasing the energy that flowed through it in one gigantic wave. It washed over Ultimate Golem, and for a moment there was nothing. Then, something in its lower torso exploded, causing its rear hind legs to topple to the ground, and for the rest of the monster to stumble.
But: "Ultimate Golem's effect!" cried the soldier. "If it's destroyed for any reason, I can target an Antique Gear Golem in my Graveyard, and Special Summon it—bypassing its Summoning conditions again!" And the monster seemed to step out from the wreckage of Ultimate Golem as it collapsed into so much shrapnel, flexing its metallic fingers and kneeling to the ground in a defensive posture (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000).
Damn! Hokuto swiped the air with his fist. If Deltatheros' effect hadn't required an Overlay Unit …
Fuyu, however, seemed as though he was reading his mind—something that wasn't altogether impossible, given how many times they'd Dueled as a team in the past. "Now—the Equip Spell: Stellaknight Factor!" he shouted, placing one more card onto his Duel Disk. "Any tellaknight monster equipped with this gains 500 ATK and DEF, and can't be touched by any enemy card effects whatsoever!"
Suddenly Hokuto was grinning—and Deltatheros was blazing as if a miniature sun had just been born in its heart. Its point gauge had soared even further to 3400/3000—more than enough, the Xyz Duelist realized, to—
"Battle Phase!" shrieked Fuyu. "Stellaknight Deltatheros—destroy that Antique Gear Golem, and make sure it won't ever come back! Sacred Blade Slash!"
The Golem moved too slowly to react in time—at a full sprint, Deltatheros leaped into the air, sword held aloft. The blade sheared through the behemoth cleanly down the middle, and the tellaknight landed in a three-point stance right as the two half-Golems toppled to the ground in opposite directions, landing with the same monumental THUD.
"I'm not done yet!" Fuyu grinned. "Every Duelist has a second Main Phase that takes place after their Battle Phase! And during mine, I can Xyz Summon a certain monster from my Extra Deck—by using a tellaknight Xyz Monster as its Overlay Unit! So I'll use my Deltatheros and its Overlay Units to reconstruct the Overlay Network!"
The fire that had, up until now, been simmering inside his monster now began to blaze like a furnace going into overdrive. Tendrils of stellar gas and flame belched from every crack in Deltatheros' armor, and the warrior began to warp; limbs became clawed and scaled, turning from merely muscular to bestially savage, and his head and neck bulged and elongated from clavicle to jaw—
"Invincible might of the skies, whose holy light was gifted by the stars who witnessed its birth, dispel the gathering darkness once and for all!"
"Xyz Change!" chanted Fuyu. "The brightest servant of the heavens! Rank 5! Stellaknight Sacred Dia!"
The wings of Deltatheros flapped once, and expanded into a truly majestic span, twinkling with a million tiny points of starlight in much the same vein as the cape of Hokuto's own Pleiades. Sacred Dia, now fully manifest in their reality, threw back its head and unleashed a deafening roar (Rank 5: 2700 » 3300/DEF 2000 » 2600; ORU 3).
"Turn end!" Hokuto had never heard such satisfaction in Fuyu's voice—and he thought he knew why. Now that his partner's most powerful weapon was on his field, those Golems wouldn't even dream of being Summoned again.
He wondered if the soldiers would be stupid enough to try it anyway.
"Draw!" Barely a second after the first soldier—he who had Summoned the Antique Gear Devil—had added a new card to his hand, he'd slapped it on his Duel Disk. "I activate another Spell Card: Magnet Circle LV2—and use its effect to Special Summon another Antique Gear from my hand in Defense Position!" He did so, and waited for the diminutive machine to scurry onto the field (Level 2: ATK 100/DEF 800) before continuing on. "Next, I'll activate the Spell Card: Antique Gear Garage! With this card, I can target an Antique Gear monster in my Graveyard, and add it to my hand! Three guesses which one I'm going to bring back!"
Hokuto smirked. That soldier had just made a big mistake.
"We don't need to guess." Fuyu crossed his arms. "Stellaknight Sacred Dia's effect! While even one Overlay Unit is attached to it, no Duelist can send any cards from their Deck to the Graveyard—and," he added, as his monster's wings began to glow with all the radiance of a supernova, "any card in the Graveyard that even tries to return to the hand is immediately banished!"
With one single flap of its wings, Sacred Dia radiated a searing wind that kissed Hokuto's skin as though he'd stepped out into a desert at high sun for a split second before immediately thinking better of it. The soldiers weren't so lucky; Antique Gear Garage fluttered to the ground, completely forgotten, while the man who'd been able to play it stared at Sacred Dia silently, his growing horror visible even through the visor that obscured half his face.
He traded glances with his partner. Hokuto saw the instant, invisible conversation they shared, and knew there was nothing they could do. "Just end your turn," he couldn't resist gloating. "Maybe we'll go easy on you if you do!"
The soldier grit his teeth, and said nothing. But he pressed something on his Duel Disk, and instantly Hokuto's began to light up—it was his turn now.
"DRAW!" The wind he'd kicked up from the speed and momentum at which he'd drawn his card was nowhere near as strong as the one Fuyu's monster had produced just now—but it was remarkable all the same; it was exactly what Hokuto had been wanting, and more besides.
First, however: "I Summon Sacred Leonis in Attack Position!" he cried, and watched as a knight in silver-blue armor leapt onto the field (Level 3: ATK 1000/DEF 1800). "And thanks to its effect, I can Normal Summon a second Sacred monster each turn! So I'll Release it to Advance Summon my Sacred Rescha in Attack Position!"
As quickly as it had appeared, Leonis shattered into photonic dust—but a much bigger knight had already stepped forth in its place: seven feet tall, and nearly half as wide at the shoulder with its broad silver armor, Rescha sliced at the air with a pair swords whose twin blades were so thin as to look like skewers (Level 6: ATK 2200/DEF 1200).
"Rescha's effect activates if it's Normal Summoned," said Hokuto, "and lets me Special Summon a Sacred monster from my hand in Defense Position! I'll Special Summon Sacred Antares!"
The sinister, black-clad monster that emerged next to Rescha could not have differed more from its companion. Red light gleamed from within its silver armor, four overlarge ribs clicked and clacked in their sockets with finger-like dexterity, and two mechanical claws hovered in front of its body like twin shields, hissing with crimson energy (Level 6: ATK 2400/DEF 900). The arachnid display only intensified with the kusarigana that Antares twisted in its hands; it hooked and sliced through the air like the tail of a deadly scorpion.
Hokuto was just about to activate Antares' effect when he remembered Fuyu still had his Sacred Dia on the field. Not that it would have mattered—he already had what he needed. Because: "Now—I'll use my Level 6 Antares and Rescha to construct the Overlay Network once more!"
He smirked—the soldiers were taking another step backwards again. Hokuto could have clobbered them already with his Rescha, but it wasn't often that he got to show off—usually his Duels ended far too quickly for that. And so, as he watched his two monsters brim with more golden light, and zoom off into the cosmos that had erupted overhead, he began to chant:
"Rain down your dazzling light!" he growled. "Xyz Summon! Rank 6! Sacred Ptolemy Messiers 7!"
It was a rare occasion that he and Fuyu got to experience what happened next: neither of them often got the chance to play their ace monsters together. So he couldn't help but smile as he watched the gold-white armor shimmering over the silhouette of a gigantic reptile high above, plating it from tail to neck from the ground up.
Then—THUD—the armored beast dropped like a stone, almost inch for inch the double of Sacred Dia. But where Fuyu's strongest weapon shone far brighter, Hokuto's own ace monster looked far sharper; the edges of every armor plate that lined Messiers 7 looked like they could cut through solid steel (Rank 6: ATK 2700/DEF 2000; ORU 2).
"Sacred Ptolemy's effect!" Hokuto paused for exactly dramatic second. "Once per turn, by detaching an Overlay Unit, I can target any card on any player's field—or any player's Graveyard—and return it to their hand! But since I don't really feel like doing that last one"—here, Fuyu's Sacred Dia snarled at the soldiers, as if daring them to challenge the lie—"I'll just settle for that little toy you call a Duel Monster—and target your Antique Gear!"
Holographic wings flashed once as they flapped through the air—and just like that, the soldiers' last line of defense was simply gone. Hokuto stole a glance at Fuyu, and was pleased to see him staring back. They were on the same wavelength now—each of them knew what two words the other was thinking right now.
"BATTLE PHASE!" they roared in tandem. "Sacred Ptolemy! Sacred Dia! Attack their Life Points directly!"
In an instant, the two monsters were naught but shining blurs, rushing side by side for the soldiers before they could even turn to run. With a pair of quick barrel rolls, they careened right into them—WHAM and WHAM again—sending their bodies high into the air, and their LP gauges spiraling to zero at terminal velocity.
But they didn't come down. Hokuto blinked, wondering if he'd overdone it a bit with his last attack. But only a few seconds later, his consternation had turned into a cold sweat when he saw the pair of cards fluttering down from the sky. They glimmered with sapphire streaks of energy—and then, quite suddenly, they had disappeared too, but not before the Xyz user had seen a horrified face splashed across each of them.
Fuyu was shaking. The thrill of victory had turned to ash on his tongue. "Did … did we do that?" he whispered.
Hokuto shook his head. "Not unless Kurosaki helped upgrade your Duel Disks while I was gone," he muttered. "No … they did this to themselves."
He looked at Sacred Ptolemy; it and Sacred Dia had yet to disappear with the end of the Duel. "Climb on," he said, motioning to the latter and heading towards the former. "We'd better tell the principal what happened down here."
Assuming, he thought as they mounted their monsters, that there was still enough of LDS left that Himika was still in charge of it.
Leo Corporation Sublevel Two
Approximately one hundred meters below LDS
Until two months ago, the Maiami City Interdimensional Transport Hub—sometimes called MITH among the many employees of LeoCorp—had been a gleam in Akaba Reiji's eye. Ever since he'd produced the cards that allowed anyone with a Duel Disk to traverse the four Dimensions, he'd envisioned a more permanent, more powerful method of travel that would allow not merely Duelists, but tourists and traders to visit the locations of their counterpart cities in the hopes of sharing knowledge and information between them all, helping foster relations and unite them all in ways that would render the recreation of a single, original Dimension quite unnecessary.
Now, the MITH was no longer … well, myth. A great deal of empty space, hastily excavated and expanded beneath the city, now housed the Pendulum Dimension's first—and to date, the only—shard of the original ARC-V reactor known to have survived its trip through interdimensional space, finally crashing in the South China Sea. Obtaining the salvage rights alone had cost Reiji a personal fortune, but he had done so knowing that his efforts, as they usually did, would pay their dividends and then some in time.
A few trial runs later, and the MITH would shortly be revealed to the general public. But it seemed as though the soldiers who were currently moving up the hall already had advance knowledge of the place. None of them had gotten lost, even in the near-total darkness—snuffed out only by the red blades of their Duel Disks and the laser-thin streams of blue above them that looked like so many thin pilot lights—emergency illumination, their captain had assumed, before continuing on.
They'd stopped at a door, and carefully attached several satchel charges full of C4 to the reinforced hinges. Ten seconds and a muffled BOOM later, a pair of soldiers had heaved against the door, toppling it to the ground with a colossal THUD that reverberated in the empty space that lay beyond.
It wasn't completely empty, though. The green light that bathed the immense room wall to wall—and more so the curved but cracked form of its source in its center, suspended in midair—was immediately recognizable to them all. Several of the twenty-odd soldiers who were storming the chamber paused to trade murmurs of awe.
The squad leader was not one of them. "Command, Striker Leader," he muttered into his Duel Disk's comm. unit. "We're in. Status is code Zephyr." Then, to his teammates, "Prep for target extraction, window five mikes."
Two of the soldiers hastened to a control console. One of them pressed a panel, and instantly the room was awash in bright light. The visors over their eyes ensured the change in illumination didn't blind them, but instantly they were alert, leveling their Duel Disks at arm's length.
"That's funny," one of them remarked. "That couldn't have been the light switch."
"Must have been a master control," grunted his companion.
"Let's cut the chatter, men," barked the squad leader. "The meter's running—let's get that artifact secure and—"
"What was that?!"
One of the men—the nearest to the door—had spun round, agitation in his voice. "Sir! Possible hostile!"
"Where?"
"Exit point—thought I saw something there!" But even as he said it, the soldier sounded uncertain. "Nothing on visual—UV negative. Only the light strips up above on IR. They must be on 24/7—that's a lot of heat I'm picking up from them—"
The squad leader bit his lip. He'd read something in the intel brief before the attack had commenced. And emergency lights weren't supposed to consume that much power.
Something wasn't right. "Striker group, sequence check," he said. "Sound off with twenty."
"Striker One, console."
"Striker Two, exit point."
"Striker Three, artifact containment."
"Striker Five … "
The man broke off. There was total silence in the chamber. "Striker Four?"
No response. Everyone turned to look at the soldier with the call sign in question.
And froze when they saw the thin, slender hand protruding right through his throat.
In 1958, Gordon Gould—one of the two men widely credited with inventing the process of light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, and the man who had coined its iconic acronym a year before—proposed an alternative method to firing lasers in a continuous output mode. Instead of a single, constant pulse at which light energy could be emitted, a series of pulses—with nominally higher pulse intensity and duration, and lower repetition rates to compensate—could be produced more efficiently in contrast to only the one. Early in the sixties, using an electric field to change the speed at which light moved through a synthetically produced ruby, Robert Hellwarth and F.J. McClung successfully proved Gould's hypothesis, and paved the way for the modern laser.
A primer of this decades-old phenomenon is necessary to properly explain what happened to the soldiers who had infiltrated LeoCorp sublevel two, as it takes place on a level of time imperceptible to humans: these high-frequency laser pulses have intervals of nanoseconds or even picoseconds—one-trillionth the length of a single second. These lasers, controlled by a distributed network of emitters placed throughout all of LeoCorp, could project the same Solid Vision that composes the bodies of Duel Monsters, and the Action Fields on which they can battle, with a single, simple modification that needed only a few minutes to boot up.
One millisecond ago, the computer registered to one Akaba Himika had sent out this newly booted-up modification to a special mainframe—standing nine feet tall, four feet wide, one foot deep, and not a hair more or less in any dimension—that was linked to this network. One millisecond after that, the mainframe had activated every single one of these emitters inside the building, with special emphasis given to a particular section of office space on the upper floors of the Leo Duel School—and the main antechamber of LeoCorp sublevel two.
One millisecond after that, each of the emitters in those two spaces was programmed to emit a particular sequence of lasers at a particular sequence of times, modulated at a particular series of frequencies that no human could detect with the naked eye.
This process, Akaba Himika had noted with particular relish as she'd issued the command, was often referred to—and perhaps not with a small amount of prescience—as Q-switching.
"What the—?" But the squad leader somehow kept his cool. "Vis-con on target—Striker group, weapons free!"
The hand that extended from Striker Four's throat pulled back, shoving the soldier aside to the floor with a gurgle. He was alive—but the speed at which he grasped for his now-scarlet neck suggested he was in great pain.
His attacker hovered there—literally. The teenaged girl's feet dangled several inches off the ground, and her long blonde hair rippled as though she was underwater. Blue eyes stared evenly at them all, flickering between each soldier so quickly they appeared blurry.
One second later, the chamber was a flurry of movement. Duel Disks were ignited, and the soldiers charged—
—but the girl was already gone.
Before the squad leader could turn around, Striker Two—a full thirty feet away—had clutched at his chest, falling to the floor with a howl of pain. The blonde girl, who had somehow traversed those thirty feet and appeared behind him without even making a sound, had barely even touched him before vanishing once more—and then Striker Five was next to be sent sprawling, with a karate-chop that phased right through his clavicle and into his heart.
It took a few seconds for Striker Leader to realize that he was watching an imitation quantum effect: this girl was moving so fast that the human eye registered her as occupying either multiple places at once, or none at all. Half his team had already been incapacitated in the time it took to process this. Those that had kept their distance were next to fall; the girl's hands seemed to flash—and baseball-sized bolts of light raced from her palms, striking the soldiers with enough force to bend them double where they stood. The remaining few that had managed to ignite their Duel Disks raced for the girl, hoping to seal her with just a single touch of their blades, but to no avail—once, Striker Leader was certain that their blades had passed right through her.
That meant she must be Solid Vision herself, he realized with a jolt, a hologram—it would explain how she was able to move like the laws of physics meant nothing to her—but the revelation came far too late for him to do anything about it. The last four of his soldiers had fallen by then, and the feminine hologram was eyeing him with the same sort of gaze she'd been giving his men: utter indifference.
"Command, Striker Leader!" Panic had already set in as the girl floated towards him. "Status code Hurricane! Requesting emergency evac! I say again, emerge—!"
FLASH.
The girl had raised both her hands, and the burst of light that radiated from them was the last thing he remembered. Striker Leader crumpled to the floor in a heap before he was even aware that his mission had failed.
High above, Himika watched the camera feeds with grim satisfaction. Her strategy had worked almost too well; the sheer speed and efficiency with which the soldiers had fallen one by one—both underground and in the hallway outside her office door—overwhelmed comprehension, even for her.
Attuning the Solid Vision emitters in the hallways had been crucial, as Nakajima had said; synchronizing them had ensured the girl who'd taken all those soldiers out could flit not simply between one soldier and the next one, but between the hallway below ground and the hallway above it. Such a reversal of fortunes had only been possible because the girl herself was an engineering marvel—a paragon of technology that could operate on the same level of nanoseconds and picoseconds as the lasers and circuits that composed who she was and what she was.
It was ironic, therefore, that this paragon had nearly become the shame of the Leo Duel School less than a year ago.
Himika managed to remain in her seat as the hologram of the girl shimmered in front of her, alighted on the marble tile without a sound, and inclined her head in a slight but polite gesture. "Angel-IQ reporting in, Himika-sama," this hologram said, in a clear but neutral mezzo-soprano. "All hostiles neutralized."
"Well done, Q." Himika's eyes flicked to the slab of black glass that dominated a portion of the room. "Your processors are still as precise as ever. Although it's a shame you couldn't have Dueled that last one," she smirked.
"Q" was the nickname Akaba Reiji had given to the supercomputer housed inside that black slab. It had been a byproduct in his efforts to research Pendulum Summoning, and as a result had received one of the first prototype Decks to use the Summoning method near-exclusively. Artificial intelligence and behavioral algorithms allowed it to think like any human Duelist—and even to act like them in the heat of the moment—and for that reason, Reiji had hoped to make Q a standard fixture of every prospective Duel School, as the ultimate opponent in training.
But the mass-production effort had been stifled when one of the programmers behind Q's system had gone missing; the ensuing investigation had almost led to catastrophe when the supercomputer, infected by a series of viruses, had been used as an instrument of mass murder, and very nearly of attempted genocide. Q, having styled herself shortly afterwards as female and christening herself "Angel-IQ", had remained inside Himika's office since then to be more closely watched, controlled—and deployed for when no other last resort, no other secret weapon, was available.
"You did not order me to Duel," said the Solid Vision avatar of the supercomputer housed inside that black slab. "I deduced from the severity of the attack that time was of the essence. I must therefore ask why you did not allow me to engage the forces outside of the Leo Duel School? This would have ended the fighting more quickly—and much more decisively," she added, in what sounded like the supercomputer's version of smugness.
"It's not always about efficiency, Q," Himika said evenly. "It's about making a statement. Whoever these bastards are, they know now not to take us for granted. They know we can fight them on just about any front—and we will fight them on every front if they dare to challenge us again," she growled, "with Duel Monsters or without them."
She rose from her seat for the first time in what felt like ages. "Security status."
"As I have said, all intruders have been neutralized," Angel-IQ replied. "They will remain unconscious for some time. The relevant authorities have already been notified. They will be making arrests and conducting interrogations once they have finished dealing with the remaining attack forces in the city and treating the casualties stemming from the attack. Shall I prepare a casualty list?"
"Later." Himika wasn't sure she was ready to see those sorts of numbers just yet. "How are they coming along?"
Angel-IQ's blue eyes flashed briefly. "Interfacing with Maiami City RSV network." Then: "Preliminary estimates report invasion force is approximately eighty-seven percent contained. The majority has retreated or has otherwise sealed themselves into cards via the technology they carry. The Lancers have neutralized all heavy assault units in the city, and the LID has successfully neutralized two out of three artillery emplacements in the city. Kōtsu Masumi and Tōdō Yaiba are currently engaging the third. Permission to intervene?"
Angel-IQ turned her gaze towards the mainframe of Q. A video image was playing on its obsidian façade; Himika saw Masumi and Yaiba being shellacked by cannon fire, attempting to dive for cover but failing, judging from how their Life Points had just slipped to a measly 200.
"They can handle themselves," she said after a while, "but keep yourself on standby just in case they need a lifeline. I'm sure you've analyzed enough of their Duels to know that they thrive under this sort of pressure."
Angel-IQ bowed again. "As you wish."
Himika's mobile rang just then. "Yes?"
There was silence for five seconds; Angel-IQ saw the headmistress' lip begin to curl. Internal processors recognized the facial tell of a very nasty curse building in Himika's mouth.
That curse rattled the windows like a bomb blast barely a second after she'd deactivated her hologram.
A short distance west of the mall that the Chaos Giants had attacked earlier, Masumi was in trouble.
Yaiba was less keen to admit it than she was; after the first soldier they faced had Fusion Summoned something called an Antique Gear Devil, and used an Antique Gear Hound Dog equipped with an Antique Gear Tank to bring it out, the resulting combination had resulted in them losing more than half of their LP before he'd even taken his turn.
Fortunately, even as Masumi had seethed over the 1800 LP they'd been left with, her boyfriend had responded by not only Synchro Summoning XX-Saber Gatmuz—his strongest monster at 3100/2600—but also using its effect to Release every single monster he'd Summoned to bring it out, and ravage the soldiers' hands in the process. Gatmuz' Emergency Convocation had been instrumental in ensuring X-Saber Palomuro, XX-Saber Faultroll, XX-Saber Wayne, and XX-Saber Fulhelmknight were on the field to maximize the amount of damage Gatmuz could do—but as with all strategies, there had been a tradeoff; Yaiba had been unable to attack and clear the way for Masumi to provide a counterattack. He did, however, have a surprise for if they tried to pull off this cheap burn strategy again.
Or so she'd hoped—but then the second soldier had played another Spell, Antique Gear Garage, and returned the same Hound Dog from before to his hand, then Normal Summoned it again. Predictably, another "Hound Flame" and a loss of 600 LP later, Masumi was grating her teeth again at the prospect of having to face another Devil.
But: "Counter Trap: Saber Hole!" Yaiba bellowed, revealing the card he'd Set to end his turn. "If a monster is Summoned while I control an X-Saber monster, I can negate that Summon, and destroy that monster!"
Masumi's elation at Yaiba foiling the soldiers' killing blow didn't last long. Even as Gatmuz had hurled his gigantic sword at the earth and carved out a veritable canyon in the Duel field that swallowed the incipient Devil whole, the soldier's companion was already moving to counterattack. "I activate our other Devil's effect, and inflict another 1000 damage to my opponent!" he cried—and yet again, before either boyfriend or girlfriend could react, cannon fire from the hulking behemoth opposite them (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 1800) had erupted in their midst, throwing them to the ground and plunging their LP to 200.
It was ages before either of them wanted to move. "Tell me you're feeling better than I am, babe," moaned Yaiba.
Masumi had to grit her teeth to bring herself to a standing position. "I'm not feeling better," she managed to spit. "I'm feeling angry. MY TURN!" she screeched, drawing so violently that she felt a twinge in pain in her shoulder.
She saw the card freshly nestled in her fingers, and instantly the pain was a distant memory. "I activate the Spell Card: Gem-Knight Fusion!" she screeched, slamming it across her Duel Disk. "By activating this card, I can Fusion Summon a Gem-Knight Fusion Monster from my Extra Deck, using monsters from my hand or my field as material! I fuse the Gem-Knight Obsidia and the Gem-Knight Roumaline I hold in my hand!"
Her keen peripheral vision took in the sights of battle; Yaiba, taking a step backward as though her change in mood had thoroughly intimidated him; the two soldiers who ought to be feeling just as intimidated as her boyfriend was right now; the two monsters that shimmered either side of her—one in gleaming golden armor, the other in sleek jet black—and most of all, the rippling vortex that churned over her head, drawing those monsters inside it:
"Sharp jet-black darkness! Gem tinged with lightning! In a whirlpool of light, combine to bring forth a new dazzling radiance!"
"Fusion Summon!" Masumi chanted. "The one who pursues victory! Gem-Knight Paz!"
It was hard to say why the air had suddenly turned so electric; perhaps Masumi's body was simply overflowing with adrenaline at that point, or perhaps it was the nature of the monster she'd just Summoned. Perhaps it was both; the sight of the nine-foot-tall armored figure of Paz hitting the field like any one of the lightning bolts that wreathed its fists—and the jagged blades they held—could raise goosebumps on anyone's skin (Level 6: ATK 1800/DEF 1800).
"Gem-Knight Obsidia's effect!" cried Masumi. "If it's sent from the hand to the Graveyard, I can target a Level 4 or lower Normal monster in my Graveyard and Special Summon it! I revive my Gem-Knight Roumaline!" She threw out her hand, and as if it had never left, her chosen monster stepped out from Paz' shadow, dwarfed almost by half but still looking quite imposing thanks to the electricity crackling over its body (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 1800).
"Next, I Normal Summon Gem-Knight Amber in Attack Position," she went on, watching a third golden knight take up positions on the other side of Paz (Level 4: ATK 1600/DEF 1400), "and now, I'll activate another Spell Card—Particle Fusion! With this card, I can Fusion Summon another Gem-Knight monster from my Extra Deck, using monsters I control as material! So I'll fuse my Gem-Knights Amber, Roumaline, and Paz to Summon this!"
The lightning that connected the trio of monsters now surged to a crescendo, warping the space around them into a second portal. They leapt inside as one, their gleaming armor shining brighter and brighter with every second—
"Gem tinged with lightning! Stone of golden ages!" she yelled. "Become one with the paragon of victory and create a new light!"
"Fusion Summon! Supreme radiance that illuminates everything! Level 9! Gem-Knight Master Dia!"
She had to cover her eyes; past experience told her that the more powerful the monsters that went into her Fusion Summons, the brighter their product ultimately glowed. No monster better exemplified this than the knight that stomped onto the field; at its full height, Master Dia stood level with Yaiba's Gatmuz—and its spotless armor made him just as broad at the shoulder—but the gleaming sword it swung in its hands was far larger than the one carried by the friendly Synchro Monster, and infinitely more radiant (Level 9: ATK 2900 » 3300/DEF 2500).
"No doubt you've noticed my Master Dia's first effect," Masumi smirked at the soldiers. "For every Gem- monster in my Graveyard, it gains 100 ATK—and it's about to gain a whole lot more thanks to my Particle Fusion! When it resolves, its second effect banishes it from my Graveyard, and lets me target one of the monsters in my Graveyard that was used as Fusion Material for its first effect. Then"—Masumi had to raise her voice over the sudden explosion of lightning that had erupted from Master Dia—"that Fusion Summoned monster gains that target's original ATK until the End Phase of this turn! I therefore target my Gem-Knight Paz!
"And speaking of Paz," the Fusion user went on, feeling her gloating smile widen further still as Master Dia's ATK rose to a nice and tidy 5000, "I'll use my Master Dia's second effect to banish it from my Graveyard—so that I can transfer Paz' name and effect over to Master Dia himself!"
Watching the gigantic blade of her ace monster made her feel lighthearted—and she only felt more so when she turned to her teammate. "You want to do the honors, sweetie?" she winked at Yaiba.
Yaiba raised an eyebrow. "You know I don't like it when you call me that." But even as he said this, he grinned ear to ear. "I'll make an exception for today, though. BATTLE PHASE!" he roared. "XX-Saber Gatmuz—destroy that Antique Gear Devil! Silver Cleaving Charge!"
With a mighty roar, Gatmuz hefted its blade and swung it sideways, releasing a wave of energy that sheared through Devil as though its iron armor had been little more than aluminum foil. But Masumi's relief was tempered; the soldiers were able to dodge the shockwave—and with it, the damage that they would have otherwise suffered.
Worse still: "Antique Gear Devil's effect! If it's destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon an Antique Gear monster from my Deck, bypassing its Summoning conditions! I Special Summon Antique Gear Golem in Defense Position!"
Even as the last remnants of Devil exploded in the street in which they were fighting, sending shrapnel flying everywhere, something more towering had arrived to replace it: a gigantic metal robot, as tall as any one of the buildings that lined the street on either side of it (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000).
"It doesn't matter what you throw at us!" the soldier said defiantly. "Whatever you destroy, we Summon something far stronger! That is who we are as Ædonai—the more you fight us, the stronger we will become!"
Ædonai?! Masumi locked up the word for later—something about that was making her think of another rock to whittle down to the gem within. But it could wait—it was time to prove just how wrong the soldier was to his face.
"It doesn't matter how strong your defenses are," she shouted back at him. "My Gem-Knight Master Dia can punch through them all—and that's because of Gem-Knight Paz' effect that it carries in its blade, and within its very soul! Not only can it make a second attack during each Battle Phase, but it can also inflict damage to my opponent equal to the ATK of any monster it destroys! Which means," she shrieked, "that you're screwed no matter what!
"Gem-Knight Master Dia!" She threw out her hand, and the monster hastened to obey. "Make your shining sword be the last thing these bastards ever see! Destroy Antique Gear Golem—DESTROY THEM ALL!"
As if determined to outperform Gatmuz, Master Dia made the same sideways slash with its blade, releasing a wave of lightning that blinded Masumi temporarily. Then, whirling on the spot, Master Dia lashed out a second time, chopping downward with all its might and creating a crater where it struck the road—followed swiftly by a thunderclap that sundered the asphalt and sent the cracks rushing straight for their foes.
It was impossible to say which of the attacks struck first—let alone which hit the Golem and which hit the soldiers that cowered behind it—but it didn't matter. In less than five seconds, both of them had been scattered in opposite directions, as had both halves of their final defense—and Masumi and Yaiba high-fived each other as they watched the luckless men's LP gauge hit zero.
Yaiba swayed where he stood as he tried to process the destruction that Masumi had wrought. He swallowed.
"Every day," he managed to say, "you make me more terrified to even think of being a single man, Masumi."
She rolled her eyes, barely stifling a giggle. "You're one to talk," Masumi replied back, mussing Yaiba's hair. "Or do we need to reroll the film about how you had a full field for a few seconds—after Summoning your Gatmuz?"
"Let's just face it," sighed Yaiba, deactivating his Duel Disk and watching his monster and Masumi's vanish into nothingness. "We're two alphas fighting for dominance in this relationship. One of these days, we're going to be fighting a big Duel and it's just going to end with the both of us making out again in the heat of battle."
"Ooh … I'm blushing already," Masumi cooed playfully, conveniently neglecting to mention that the "alpha" she was dating was a good few inches shorter than she was. "Maybe later, though."
She holstered her Duel Disk, and set off towards where the soldiers had fallen. "I've got a few questions I want to ask these creeps," she said, her voice as steely as their monsters' blades. "Who they are, where they're from … and what the hell they were thinking, attacking us the way they did."
But less than a minute later, it was clear those questions would not be answered just yet.
The soldiers were gone. Where, Masumi could not be sure—there were no signs of boot prints in the rubble, so as far as she could tell, they hadn't fled elsewhere in the city. All she saw was a pair of rectangular spaces in the dust that covered a portion of the street, and a strange swirling pattern around each of them—
She frowned, ejecting a card from her Duel Disk, and then holding it to the ground for inspection. The edges of her Gem-Knight Crysta fit the indentations in the dust perfectly.
"That doesn't make sense," she muttered, tracing her finger in the dust, following the swirls till they reached the edge. "If they lost one of their cards, it shouldn't have been transported back to another dimension."
Masumi stood up. Suddenly the street was far too quiet. Should it?
"Maybe it went back with the soldiers," Yaiba commented. "They did an emergency beam-out or some Star Trek crap, and it pulled their stray cards back with them?"
"I dunno." Masumi's eyes kept focusing on the swirls. "If that's from them going back to their own dimension, then those swirls should be a lot bigger—the size of their own body. But I don't see anything like that around—"
She broke off—a piece of rubble had shifted from somewhere ahead, off to her right. "What was that?!"
Yaiba's hands flew to his Duel Disk. "I just heard footsteps," he grunted. "There's someone here!"
Masumi's heart was instantly pounding in her throat. The two of them sprinted in the direction of the noise.
"Hey!" Yaiba howled. "HEY! Show yourself and fight, you cow—"
It was his turn to stop in his tracks. Masumi knew why even before she followed Yaiba's transfixed gaze.
There were two of them—a pair of girls with the same windswept hair, fleeing with their hands held tightly. Both were clad in threadbare tunics of earthen brown, and shoes of such identical flimsiness that they looked more like very worn socks. The only distinction between the two was the color of their hair—the girl to the left had sky-blue hair; her companion, flaming red.
But Masumi only had eyes for the Duel Disks they wore: a sleek-looking device on their left arms, each white and trimmed with light blue, but constructed in a shape like a comma—unlike any Disk she had seen before.
The girls turned round as one, still holding hands—and suddenly Masumi was swaying where she stood. She knew that face—she had seen it on far too many girls in her life not to know whom it belonged to.
" … Y-Yuzu?"
It couldn't be—there was no possible way. But even before Masumi had second-guessed herself, both Yuzu-faced girls had stiffened—and vanished into an alley at breakneck speed.
Yaiba surged forward—but the Fusion user threw out a hand. "Let them go," she murmured. "If they wanted to fight us, they would have by now."
"But who were they?" Yaiba wanted to know. "Why did they look like—?"
"I don't know." Masumi's face was grim—and her brain was beginning to overclock itself from how rapidly it was carving the crystal inside her mind. "But I think it's time we talked to someone who might. Let's go."
They'd made it to the next block before a sphere of Solid Vision bloomed before them. Before either of them could ignite their Duel Disks, it faded away, revealing a blonde-haired girl that Masumi had seen only once before in her life. Her true face, however, was one she had known for slightly longer than that girl had existed.
"Angel-IQ?"
The holographic representation of LDS' Dueling supercomputer—and by mutual agreement the most physically powerful member of the Leo Duel School's Section of Investigation and Defense—looked little different from any teenaged student of Maiami Second Middle School. Only her green skirt, the elegant, silver cursive Q pinned on her shirt collar—and the strange fuzzy glow of her flawless, tanned skin—set her apart from the student body or provided any clue as to her true nature.
"I bring word from Himika-sama," Angel-IQ said with little preamble. "You must go to see her at once."
"We were just about to head to LDS," Yaiba piped up. "We figured she knew what the hell just happened here."
"I regret to say that she knows far more than that." Angel-IQ's voice carried an unusual amount of weight for a supposedly emotionless computer. "The headmistress has been in contact with Reiji-sama. Both of them know who is responsible for this attack. And she has instructed me to communicate her exact words to every Lancer and member of the LID currently in the city."
She stiffened, and said—in the perfectly mimicked contralto of their principal—"'I have made an enormous mistake.'"
With another bloom of Solid Vision, Angel-IQ disappeared from view, leaving Masumi and Yaiba to trade glances of growing horror. Their opinions of Akaba Himika differed—often from day to day. But they both agreed that she did not make mistakes. If she ever did, she seldom admitted to them.
And to do so now told Masumi that something far more sinister had taken place here than a mere attack.
As previously stated, this attack on Maiami City was not a textbook example of a Duelist trap—merely one that took the textbook to its logical conclusion.
And it worked perfectly.
There is a fifth—and in many cases, the final and most essential—element of a Duelist trap: one often overlooked because applying it requires a state of mind that many do not possess. Instead of focusing on a singular objective of victory, one should ideally create a situation that allows for multiple scenarios to play out, and then stand aside and arrange them all such that their outcome only adds to the chance of success. The most effective win-win situations, after all, are where all parties involved mutually benefit at the table: I scratch your back; you scratch mine.
The third element of a Duelist trap—the stand-in for the person or party that controls the snare—should therefore be considered expendable to that person or party, for the trap to work as intended. A certain detachment from things like emotions and morals is therefore recommended—and this element is precisely why many Duelist traps often fail as soon as they are sprung: the person setting the trap, quite simply, does not have it in them to see things through.
However, if the third element fails to achieve the task they were so rigorously trained to perform, a sufficiently detached mind will not see this as a loss. In fact, their brain will already be working to turn this so-called loss into a victory. A deft and careful application of propaganda, claiming that every participant who was sacrificed to ensure the trap's success "fell valiantly in battle" and other such grandiose statements, will ensure that the 'us versus them' mentality that serves as the fourth element is rekindled in the men, women, and children who willingly, gladly step forth to take their place, never once aware—or, perhaps, quite aware and quite unwilling to care—that even consenting to fight for the cause means a far broader, far more unspoken plan has its own chance to succeed.
This, then, is the coup de maître of a textbook Duelist trap: to organize it such that it does not matter whether the Duelist walks into it willingly, or is coaxed into doing so. Nor should it matter if the Duelist is able to escape it.
By springing the trap at all, the Duelist has already lost.
It is critical that the person or party that lays the trap must remain as physically and morally detached as possible from the trap itself, so that both may be allowed to work with minimal hindrance to their efforts. Deploying the third, expendable element in strategic areas of the second element—the location chosen for the trap to take place—thus ensures that the Duelist or Duelists affected will be too busy, and spread too far apart, to sense the thought of a greater hand at work.
And that—by the time they finally do sense it—it will be far too late to do anything about it.
A/N: I personally consider Matthew Stover's take on Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith to be one of the finest movie novelizations ever. The first passage of the last chapter, and the final passage of this one, were largely inspired by events in the narrative (or blatantly rip it off, depending on how you look at it), and I couldn't write any of it in good faith without at least giving the man some credit for writing a damn good book.
Now that all that's out of the way—how I wish I didn't have to compress these Duels as much as I did—let's get back to the actual story. There're a couple people that we haven't checked on in a while …
Thanks for reading! – K