Part 1: Chapter 5 – Upgrades
"That idiot!" Jean-Michel Roger roared, slamming his fist against the computer console as he watched Yuzu slam into the side of a building. He was already having enough problems assembling a defense force against a possible invasion from Academia. The last thing he needed was for Sergey to splatter his bargaining chip into a bloody puddle.
Roger quickly pushed a button on his desk. "Send all nearby Security to the crash site immediately." he commanded, hoping that the girl would at least be salvageable. She did not have to be in good health, but if she was dead, she'd be completely useless to him.
He glanced back at the computer screen and watched Sergey as he returned from the duel, laughing his head off like a maniac.
"She's gone!" he screamed, "She's done for! Did you see her face twisted in fear!? HA HA HA HA HAAA! UTSUKUSHI!"
Still laughing uncontrollably, he offered absolutely no resistance as a squadron of Security officers shot webs of holographic energy nets onto Sergey and hauled him away.
Roger folded his arms over his chest.
"To think his mind would break from that level of a duel." he sighed, "…It looks like he needs to be fixed up again."
He lifted his finger to contact the man in charge of calibrating Sergey's behavior, but he was interrupted when two surveillance officers, a man with short, spikey black hair and a woman with longer brown hair, entered his office with a pair of display screens in their hands.
"What?" Roger huffed, not interested in dealing with another problem.
"Chief…" the man began, presenting Roger his screen, "… there's something we really think you need to see."
"Something strange happened in the duelist penthouse the other night, and just a few moments ago, something similar occurred near the track-way." The girl agreed.
"And why…?" Roger snarled, "…do you have to waste my time with this? Why haven't you shown it to your superiors!?"
"We did, chief." the man explained, "But he referred us to you. He told us to tell you that he thinks this might concern the safety of the entire city."
"Don't tell me Academia's already here!" Roger thought to himself. Taking a deep breath to calm his agitated nerves, he settled on his chair and held out his hand.
"Show me the footage!" he commanded. The two surveillance officers fiddled with some options on their screens and handed the footage over to Roger.
"This one's of the penthouse." The man explained, pressing the play button. For a brief moment, Roger suddenly saw a girl in black-and-green clothing streak across the screen in a flash of green light before stopping at a door, phasing through the door, and then zooming away in another flash of green light.
Roger froze, his eyes widening with shock.
"We think it must be a hologram." the man explained. "Our first suspicion was that some party in the Friendship Cup is trying to spy on the contestants, but our superior seemed to suggest that it was something more sinister… Chief?" he asked, noticing that Roger didn't seem to be hearing a word he was saying.
"Zoom in on the arm!" Roger commanded, sweat beading on his forehead.
The man looked at his partner as if not understanding what Roger was asking him to do.
"WELL!?" Roger roared, "IS THAT TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU!?"
"No, chief!" the man hastily responded, taking his screen in his hands and making a few swiping motions until he had expanded a shot of the girl's right arm.
"Enhance the image!" Roger barked, staring at the screen with great intensity. The man pushed a button on the screen.
After a second, the blurry image cleared up to reveal a glowing green whale mark shining brightly against the girl's skin. Roger gave an involuntary yelp and jumped out of his chair, backing away from the screen.
"Chief!?" the girl asked, wondering what was going on.
"Well!?" Roger suddenly shouted, sweat running down his face in rivers as his face slowly turned red, "What else is there!? What else did you two imbeciles come to show me!?"
Quivering from Roger's growing rage, the girl nervously fiddled with her own screen and showed Roger a shot of a building near the duel lane.
"I…it was fairly brief…" she stuttered, "…but we haven't managed to explain what happened here.
Roger tore the screen from the girl's quivering hands and slammed his finger against the play button. Leaping from building to building, Roger noticed a small boy in an Obelisk Blue uniform keeping pace with the other duelists as they continued their game.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a girl in black-and-white clothing seemed to materialize from thin air and stop the boy in her tracks. They seemed to converse for a brief moment before the girl raised her hands above her head… and then they both suddenly vanished.
But Roger was only interested in one detail.
He scrolled through the recording. After a little while, the two duelists reappeared. Then, the girl left the Academia duelist's side and ran towards Yuzu's crash-site, leaping into the air before a pair of wings sprouted from her back.
That's when he say it. Shining through the girl's white-and-black cape, a massive white heron mark blazed with intense light.
"They're here!" Roger gasped, dropping the screen to the ground.
"…Chief?" the man nervously asked.
Roger clutched at the sides of his head, shaking with intense fear before his eyes locked on the two surveillance officers.
"What are you doing here?" he snarled, advancing on them. "Why aren't you scrambling the Arrest Corps right now!?"
"The… the Arrest Corps?" the girl stuttered, wondering what was going on.
"Yes you idiots!" Roger roared, "I want every last available member of the Arrest Corps in the Duel Palace sector sent immediately to Yuzu's crash site and I want them there Now! No… better yet… I want them there yesterday!"
"We…" the man stuttered.
"DO YOU HEAR ME!?" Roger threw his fists into the air, "RELAY MY ORDERS TO EVERY LAST SECURITY OFFICER RIGHT NOW OR I AM THROWING THE BOTH OF YOU IN THE DEEPEST GARBAGE PIT IN THIS CITY AND FORCING YOU TO LABOR THERE UNTIL YOU DROP!"
He angrily ripped his chest board from the desk and threw it at the surveillance officers, barely missing the girls head as they made a mad dash out the door.
When they had both gone he began pacing back and forth.
"It can't be…" he murmured under his breath, "There was only one of them before. What are they doing here!? AND WHY NOW!? The professor will be sending the Obelisk Force and…that boy! Why do I have to deal with this now!? Why when I'm already threatened with an invasion from Fusion!? What do the Earthbound want with me!?"
He stopped mid-step and looked back at his computer screen, an idea forming in his head.
"That's right…" he thought, "… the Earthbound."
He pushed a button on his screen and brought up an image of a lanky man who had large side-burns on his face and was wearing a white lab-coat, Sergey's chief behavioral and bio-cybernetics therapist. While Security officers began encasing an unconscious Sergey in a white cement-like goo, the behavioral therapist checked Sergey's vitals on a screen.
When he noticed that Roger was watching him, he immediately stopped what he was doing and stood at attention. "Director!" he bowed, addressing Roger.
"I have orders for you, Doctor." Roger replied, not wanting to waste any time. "After you fix Sergey, I need you to begin making some bio-mechanical modifications on Sergey's body. I want the former Duelist Crusher to be as durable as a tank and twice as lethal. Replace whatever bits of flesh you need with mechanical upgrades and train him to use his new body. I need him ready to crush far more than teenage girls when you're done."
"Y…yes sir." The man stuttered. "It will take a little while, but I should be able to come up with something to fit your description."
"You have by this evening." Roger coldly replied.
The man's eyes bugged out of his head, but he just bowed and stuttered, "Y… yes chief! I will see what I can do!"
"You will get it done or you will be the next to be chopped up and modified." Roger threatened, turning off the screen and pushing another button on his desk.
This time, a shorter man with thick round glasses appeared on Roger's screen. A team of Security officers were hauling in Sergey's bike while he examined the contents of Sergey's deck and a few recordings of Sergey's last duel while scribbling some notes on a notepad.
"Engineer." Roger called.
The man jumped and quickly pivoted on his feet to face Roger, nearly dropping Sergey's deck as he did so.
"Oh… um… what a surprise… chief! What can I do for you?" The man stammered, straitening his glasses.
"Retire Sergey's Thorn Prisoner deck immediately," Roger ordered, "and replace it with his original deck along with the upgrades I previously requested. You have completed the design of the Underworld Resonance card… correct?"
"Yes… of course!" the man stammered, setting Sergey's Thorn Prisoner deck down and punching a code into a key-pad on his desk.
From a small hatch, a deck rose from the man's desk. He picked up the deck and skimmed through the contents till he stopped at a spell card depicting a column of green Synchro rings with the small orange dragon and demon from the Fusion spell card embedded between two of the rings, orbiting a column of light.
He held it up to the screen, presenting it to Roger. "I have also created the Fusion Monsters you requested chief," he continued, pulling out a few more cards, "and have even created an ace monster, Geo Glasya…"
"Incorporate Sergey's original ace monster into the build." Roger ordered, interrupting the man mid-sentence.
The man's face suddenly turned pale. "Sir…" he stuttered, "… I… I wouldn't advise using that card!"
"Is there a problem?" Roger scowled, "I was under the impression that you were not the ones giving orders here."
"W… well…" the man sweated and adjusted his clothing, "… I… I am just saying… that card… it… it resists every attempt we make to use it! We managed to develop some new cards based on its design, but… well… it took sixty security officers to take out Sergey and his ace monster last time. There could be incalculable damage if we were to unleash this card again! It's just too… too… it's just too savage!"
"I'm counting on it being as savage as possible." Roger replied, "And unless you want to be Sergey's first opponent when you add that monster into his Extra Deck, I suggest you use whatever means necessary to make that card usable by this evening."
"This evening?" the man whimpered.
"Bye." Roger finished, closing the screen with a push of a button.
He got up from his desk and started pacing the room again, shaking his head with frustration. He was tempted to march strait into the laboratories of those men and shove a mind control chip right into their brains.
Unfortunately, doing so would probably just ruin their intellect… assuming they had any intellect to begin with!
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead, which had started to drip cold sweat into his eyes. "How could this be happening!" he thought to himself. "I thought I already took care of this when I dealt with Sergey! Where did those two come from!? Are they the real thing!?"
He vigorously shook his head, wishing he could just wake up to find that the day's stress had just caused him to go momentarily delusional.
But wishing for that would do no good. He had to take charge. He had to shepherd the idiots of the Synchro Dimension or there wouldn't be any dimension left to lead!
He paused in his thoughts when he noticed the scattered chess pieces he had knocked to the floor.
"A new player has appeared." He murmured. Thinking back on the footage, he picked up a black queen and a bishop.
"There are two of you right now… but who is who?" He set them down together before picking up a white pawn and rook, smiling as the ancient strategy game helped him to order his thoughts.
"Let's scout out their strength with a few pawns…" He slapped down the pawn.
"Before I capture them with my ace." He slammed down the rook.
He gazed down at the chess pieces, stroking his chin thoughtfully while thinking of the girl heading towards Yuzu's crash site.
"Yes…" he thought to himself, "… once I assess your abilities, I will know if I am dealing with the King, or just a few of his pawns!"
