Signs of Renewal Update 7
Hello again everybody. As you might have surmised from the appearance of another update chapter with no official scene, I have been VERY busy this week. But do not panic! Nox Descious, Epsilon Tarantula, and Corinnetheanime will all attest to the fact that the next chapter IS being worked on, much of it with their help. The outline has been finished a long time ago and I have already written a number of pages for the chapter. Epsilon Tarantula has been helping me flesh out the new deck archetypes that will be introduced, Nox Descious has helped me immensely by creating a first draft of an important duel that will be taking place in the chapter, and Corinnetheanime has been helping to edit and provide some helpful tips on the chapter so far. I definitely don't want to rush this chapter and give you a half-baked, hot-off-the-press piece of garbage. Let your souls be at ease in the knowledge that I am not dead, sick, or giving up on this work.
However, in light of the fact that ANOTHER week has gone by since I haven't been able to post the chapter (making a total of two weeks) I thought I would make this update chapter a bit longer. To many of you who are still waiting for your OCs, REJOICE! This chapter will introduce LOTS of new characters. I'm looking at you Shimmering-Sky. Yes. You. For too long you have tormented the review section with your incessant NAGGING about Natsumi! You want Natsumi!? I'll give you Natsumi! I'll give you Natsumi until there's not enough RAM in your computer to store all the data on Natsumi! Then you'll be appeased. Right? RIGHT!? Love me… love me! LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Okay, jokes aside, I am truly excited to introduce these characters. There will be a couple time jumps, but hopefully with my EXPERT TRANSITION SKILLS, it shouldn't be too confusing to read. Without further ado, THANK YOU TIME!
AngeLight952: ADEEL'S HERE! Thank you for the Canine deck you submitted. It's time to see them in action!
CorinnetheAnime: LYDIA AND JOHO ARE HERE! Thank you for being willing to be a member of the "Signs of Renewal" team. It is a great honor to work alongside you. And really you amaze me with your efficiency! Thank you for all of your hard work and for the great information you gave about Lydia and Joho. I never knew you were such a great artist. Folks, I would highly recommend visiting CorinnetheAnime's Googledocs page on her profile page. She really knows her stuff, plus, you can see a picture of her original characters who will be featured in this chapter. Also, for those of you who haven't yet done so, please, please, PLEASE, check out CorinnetheAnime's "Voice of Freedom."
Now one more thing Corinne. I will write you any story, and I mean… ANY STORY… if you would create a piece of fan-art featuring the Dark Signer Bracelet Girls. Just PM if you have any questions. I would be SO TICKLED if you did that for me, and I am absolutely serious about writing ANYTHING you want in return!
(Certain restrictions apply. By "ANYTHING" Donjusticia would like to clarify that he does not nor ever will write anything M-rated such as a lemon, lime, grapefruit, orange, tangerine, banana, apple, grape, kumquat, or any of the pornographic fruit cocktails in between. But I know you would never ask for anything like that, so why am I even needing to write this addendum?)
Epsilon Tarantula: #TEAMSTEPHAN! Thank you very much for your continued work. You have submitted SO MUCH to this story in terms of characters AND cards. And your characters are all so unique, it is a true pleasure to write about them. I hope you enjoy this introduction to Stephan's Phoenix Guard team in Standard.
FanOfKings: KIRYU'S BACK! And thanks to your upgrade, he is better than before! Please enjoy his little duel and interaction with other members of the honorable Phoenix Guard.
Ghost83: Thank you very much for being such a nice friend. Elbert will be making further appearances as we continue. In the meantime, I am going to be showcasing your Omake's in future chapters, but not this one for reasons that might be clear once you read the end. Thank you for your work and patience. It is a delight to have a supporter like you.
Greninja: Lilly is coming soon and we will also soon be seeing a return of Gin. Lucy and Shin will be introduced at roughly the same time in Chapter 12 and Erika will continue fighting for her survival. Expect LOTS more action from all of these characters.
Kaploblast: SEMAL IS HERE! And he will be showcasing his deck! Please enjoy and tell me what you think of him at the end of this chapter.
Kurogane Fang: Chapter 12 is when we will be seeing Fang. I still have three scenes to do for chapter 11 so it will be a bit of a wait, but don't worry, the "Signs of Renewal" team will continue its work. In the meantime. ENJOY THE APPEARANCE OF JORQ!
Maes Lawliet: More Graydle goodness is coming. The gears in my head are already turning, thinking about all kinds of Graydle upgrades (personally I don't like the fact that the Graydles only have one Synchro monster.) If you have any cards you want to submit before Nevan's reappearance near the end of Chapter 11, let me know.
Nox Descious: Thank you so much for your work with the duel. It made my work a lot easier. Okay, is that out of the way now? Have I thanked you enough? Okay… now then… WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA CALLING MY WORK MEDIOCRE!? YOU THINK THAT JUST BECAUSE YOUR WORK STILL HAS WAY MORE VIEWS, REVIEWS, AND FOLLOWERS THAN MINE THAT YOU'RE SOMEHOW BETTER THAN ME!? WELL I'LL SHOW YOU! ALL I NEED TO DO IS WRITE A FEW MORE CHAPTERS AND SOON "SIGNS OF RENEWAL" WILL BE THE MOST READ, REVIEWED, FOLLOWED, AND LIKED STORY IN THE WORLD! EVEN BETTER THAN "HARRY POTTER!" THE EARTHBOUND WILL ROLL THROUGH THE WORLD, CRUSHING ALL WHO OPPOSE THEM! DARK SIGNER RURI WILL CRUSH NUMBER 43 MANIPULATOR OF SOULS (who by all accounts is a really great villain in Nox Descious's wonderful work, "The Ice Queen Cometh") AND THEN I WILL RULE EXISTENCE AS ULTIMATE DARK SIGNER DON JUSTICIA! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!
Shimmering-Sky: This chapter is for you. Tell me what you think at the end.
Scorchgid: I have created a character according to your description on the website. Say hello to Katashi Yoshida and CONGRATULATIONS… he's a father! AND BIGGER NEWS, you're going to be seeing him AND his daughter in this chapter! Tell me what you think in a review.
Solphage: I have completed the outline of a duel that will be featuring Jeremiah and am working on the chapter in which he will appear. Stay tuned.
TheTiger39: Kuma is shaping up well and WILL be appearing very soon. Thank you for that contribution. I have taken some liberty with his cards but have kept the War Bear archetype and made sure to make his deck style fairly opposite of what Neya's is. Stay tuned to see BOTH of these characters in action.
Ultimate Black Ace: (Is it wrong that whenever I read your name I think of a "Mortal Kombat" announcer screaming your name like a combo? ULTIMATE BLACK ACE COMBO!) Regardless, PLEASE ENJOY THE APPEARANCE OF SUBARU AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION!
And now, without further ado, BEHOLD THE APPEARANCE OF LITERALLY EIGHTEEN NEW CHARACTERS!
Signs of Renewal Extra: Gathering of the Phoenix Guard
Standard Dimension: 1 day before Shun's duel against Crow
Fires, gas explosions, and multiple people in the hospital due to random animal attacks. That's what the Miami City News Agency had reported, but Nagasaki knew the truth. Even if the vast majority of humanity couldn't see them for what they were, the Earthbound and their servants had been waging a relentless war against humanity since the beginning of their existence. Almost thirteen years ago, they had killed her mother, and they had tried to destroy her father. If it hadn't been for their work, the Phoenix Guard's work, the Earthbound would have devastated all four dimensions a long time ago.
For the past three years, the Earthbound had been fairly quiet, with only a few occasional disturbances from some of their disciples and spiritual familiars. Over the past few weeks, however, the Earthbound had been growing steadily more restless as the frequency of their disturbances nearly tripled. She and her father, Katashi, had had to work overtime putting down several evil spirits while the headmaster, Stephan, and Katashi's fellow teacher, Subaru, of the school she attended, Phoenix Boarding School, had been on high alert trying to keep the new Phoenix Guard recruits safe from harm.
Now it was her turn to keep them safe as she offered them guidance on one of their first real missions against some Earthbound familiars. Subaru and Katashi were accompanying them, so it wasn't too dangerous, but they would still need to exercise caution. In order to succeed, they would have to be stealthy, precise, efficient, and alert.
In other words, exactly the opposite of what Ming, Alex, and Einer were being right now.
"OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!" Ming, An Asian girl with a crimson claw mark on her arm, long black hair with two jet-black side tails, brown eyes, a slim figure, a pair of black fingerless gloves, blue jeans, and a red hoodie exclaimed. "Are you guys excited!? 'Cause I'm excited! Do you know what this means!? 'Cause I know what this means! We've been on like… two missions so far!? And on all of those ones we didn't get to do anything but watch! But now we're actually going to popping some Earthbound ghost butt! Isn't this exciting!? I think it's exciting! Do you know what I'm gonna do!? I'll tell you what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna take that Earthbound spirit in my hands, pop it in the face, and say, 'See you in the underworld, beeeeaa***!'"
Alex, a quiet blonde-haired boy with a crimson heart mark on his right arm, light blue eyes, a medium build, a red sweatshirt, and black cargo pants, didn't look quite as energetic as Ming. He was staring at her as she continued her ranting with a half-hearted smile on his face as if to say, "Ming, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but could you please bring it down a notch?"
Compared to Ming, Alex wasn't acting nearly as foolishly, but he was being so casual on the mission! He had his hands in his pockets, was strolling briskly through the alleyway as if he didn't have a care in the world, and even worse, was kicking around glass bottles and pieces of trash, making almost as much noise as Ming's incessant chattering.
Einer, a taller boy with a crimson tail mark on his right arm, messy red hair, green eyes, a scrawny body, a green shirt, black leather jacket, and blue jeans, was acting the most serious out of the three. He had his Duel Disk, which was projecting a green V-shaped field, at the ready, and was proceeding through the alleyway with caution. It would have been reassuring to Nagasaki had she not also known of Einer's propensity to completely throw sense out the window and panic upon the first sighting of even the weakest Earthbound spirit. It wasn't so much that his fear was unjustified, it would have been foolish NOT to fear the Earthbound and proceed with the utmost caution. Sadly, his fear was more prone to make him a babbling cowering mess than a serious warrior capable of keeping his ego in check with his knowledge of the present dangers.
"Would you stop making all that noise!?" Einer snapped at the other two, sweat beading on his forehead as he looked at his mark, which was steadily pulsating with red light. "We're getting closer, I can feel them."
"Einer's right." Nagasaki agreed, turning towards the other three. She had short brown hair and deep purple eyes that had the tendency to make her look fairly tired, no matter how energetic and lively she actually was. She wore a thick zip-up white-and-brown jacket with long sleeves, which nearly completely covered the crimson Yin-Yang mark on her right arm. Were it not for her feminine voice, it would have been hard to tell if she was a boy or a girl even without the jacket covering her relatively flat chest. Indicating for the others to stop, she held up her right arm, closing her eyes as if she were sensing something while her mark steadily pulsated with brighter and brighter light.
Behind the four teenagers, two adult men were also examining the marks on their arms.
"Are you sensing them, Subaru?" Katashi, a tall man with Nagasaki's same brown hair and androgynous face asked, looking down at his own crimson Yin-Yang mark, which was glowing with only a very faint light. The man was garbed in a white trench coat that reflected the sunlight like a solar panel, and wide-brimmed grey hat which concealed much of his appearance. However, through the shadows, one could see that the man's right eye was the same color and shape as Nagasaki's, while the left eye shared the same shape but possessed midnight-black sclera instead of the normal white of a human eye. His skin was pale and gaunt, with hollow cheeks suggesting that he had not eaten enough. Against his back, a primitive-looking crimson snake shaped mark glowed against his skin like magma, despite all of his coverings, with the serpent's long coiled tail curling above his tailbone, the zig-zagging body wriggling up his back like a question mark, and the oval serpent head resting over his left shoulder blade.
"Relax, Katashi." Subaru, a tall thin man with grey eyes and a head of messy red hair similar to Einer's replied. He wore a black shirt with a bright blue vest, fingerless black gloves with red knuckles, and a pair of smoky-grey cargo pants. Over his right arm, a crimson foot mark glowed against his arm with much brighter light than Katashi's. "Your daughter and my cousin are right on the money, and if the Earthbound were trying to deceive us, I'd be able to sniff 'em out. We'll be right here, ready to step in if things go sour."
"You think things will go sour?" Katashi asked, looking concerned.
"I wouldn't have let the kids come if I really thought they'd be in danger." Subaru calmly replied, shuffling his deck before slotting it into his Duel Disk and activating his Duel Field, which glowed against the darkness like a bright blue flame. Alex, Einer, Ming, and Nagasaki will get the real life training they need, we'll exorcise some minor Earthbound spirits, go home, badda bing, badda boom. So just relax, and let the kids do their thing."
"We'll take it from here." Nagasaki called to Subaru and Katashi. "I'm ready to draw the Earthbound spirits out of hiding, you two just stay back and keep them from escaping."
"Wait… stay back? Are you sure!?" Subaru asked, suddenly looking very concerned. "I mean… Stephan sent us here to help you. You don't have to do this alone. In fact, it would be better if we were there in the front to make sure you three didn't get hurt!"
"Just relax and let the kids do their thing." Katashi shrugged, eyeing Subaru with his mismatched eyes.
"Okay… no!" Subaru exclaimed, steadily growing more frustrated. "I agreed to HELP them on this mission! Not watch them get thrown around by some godforsaken evil spirits while I do nothing but watch and offer instruction! That's it! Mission's over! Nagasaki, tell Alex, Einer, and Ming to-…"
"We're starting!" Nagasaki called, eyes glowing with red light as she held out her right arm. "Fallen spirits of the underworld, the power of the grand creator dragon compels you to reveal yourselves! Come out from the shadows and reveal your forms to us now!"
The Yin-Yang mark on Nagasaki's arm began expanding until the surrounding alleyway was bathed in its glow. Over half of the alleyway, where Nagasaki and the others stood, bright red-and-white light illuminated all five individuals in its glow while the other half of the alleyway, opposite from them, was bathed in thick black-and-red shadows. With the sound of enraged animalistic howling, the shadows began taking shape, slowly solidifying into various forms, which began charging towards Nagasaki and her teammates.
"Oh geez!" Einer exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his socks. "I thought this was supposed to be easy! Why are there so many of them!?"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW YEAH BABY!" Ming roared with delight, activating her own Duel Disk, which projected four rectangular gold-colored fields from its center like a cross, "LET'S KICK SOME-…"
Her enthusiasm was cut short when a massive grotesque black spider with eight blood-red eyes, dripping fangs, and crimson markings over its black body suddenly plopped onto the ground before scurrying towards her on its massive legs. Eyes bugging out of her head, Ming's jaw dropped as she slowly backed away.
"Spider's!?" she gulped. "Why the heck did it have to be spiders!?"
"The familiars take upon themselves appearances similar to the masters they serve." Nagasaki calmly explained as she activated her own chocolate brown duel field as she faced off against a massive green lizard, which flicked its tongue and snapped its reptilian jaws at her.
"I'd sure like to know who the heck this one serves!" Alex exclaimed as a strange creature that looked like a black tree with a large round base and spike at the bottom like a single carrot root, long arm-like branches, and a set of demonic hands at the end of each branch slowly floated towards him, blue marks glowing against its body as it roared with a deep demonic voice.
"I'll take the condor, orca, and hummingbird on the right if you take the giant and wolf on the left." Katashi offered, fixing the approaching spirits with a determined expression on his face.
"Okay, but once we take care of them, we help out the others, alright!?" Subaru grunted, briskly strolling up to a pair of spirits.
"Sounds good to me." Katashi agreed, leaping towards another trio of spirits with superhuman power as the mark on his back and his black eye glowed with demonic red light. "How are you doing Nagasaki?" he asked, as he began engaging the spirits.
"We're engaging them now." Nagaski replied, holding her ground as the green lizard familiar seemed to vomit out its monster rather than summon it with a Duel Disk. Looking up at the massive demonic lizard it had summoned, which was labeled "Shadow Komodo" she could see that it had an ATK of 3000, a Level of -7, and an effect to inflict damage to the opponent equal to half its own attack once per turn. Fortunately, in order to Special Summon the monster, the spirit had to pay 3000 of its own Life Points so now it only had 1000 left. Holding her ground, she dodged out of the way as the spirit's monster vomited a black substance at her, causing her Life Points to take a hit as they were reduced to 2500. "We should… be fine."
"WE ARE NOT FINE! WE ARE ANYTHING BUT FINE!" Einer shrieked as a pair of spirits, one a large hummingbird and the other, a large monkey, began attacking him with their own monsters. "D. D. Assailant! Attack that weird one on the left!"
"WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?" Ming panicked, jumping up onto a nearby fire escape as a horde of five dog-sized spiders snapped at her from below. "Esoteric Diviner Onmyoji Seimei…!" she yelled, as the spiders began crawling towards her, "…attack that center spider, NOW!"
Next to her, a tall man in long flowing white robes, the tall black hat of a Japanese exorcist, and multiple charms and talismans hanging around his neck, wrists, and clothing, spread out his arms and conjured a barrier, blasting back the spiders before forming a golden ball of light between his hands and vaporizing one of the spiders with a single blast. With an insectile shriek, the spider spirit shot a cocoon from its abdomen, which exploded into another spider identical to the one that had just been destroyed.
"OH COME ON!" Ming whined, setting down a few cards in her Spell/Trap Card zone. "Stop freaking multiplying!"
"HOLORIDE MEGAPOD…" Alex called, from within the cockpit of a large vehicle with a compact spherical body in the center, four legs spreading out from the center body, and a single massive broad tire at the end of each leg. Within the cockpit, three other holograms of translucent individuals worked the controls of the vehicle while Alex steered. "…SUPPRESSION ROCKETS!"
Pressing a button, he a missile turret popped out from a hatch on the side of the vehicle's spherical body before launching a silo of rockets at the tree's monster, which looked like a massive humanoid mess of dry thorns. In a series of explosions, the tree spirit was completely concealed in a layer of smoke as its monster was obliterated into fiery splinters, which Alex's vehicle ran over under its massive tires. With a demonic roar, the tree spirit rose up from the smoke before grabbing the vehicle in its demonic tree-branch arms and throwing the massive hulk back several meters, flipping it on its back as Alex's Life Points dropped to 500. Fortunately, thanks to the vehicles design, Alex only had to spin the spherical body around before he was right-side-up again.
"That should have destroyed you!" Alex gawked, surprised that, despite his monster's massive attack power, the Spirit's Life Points had been completely untouched while he had taken the damage. What was more, a new thorn-like monster was sprouting from the ground, ready to attack him.
"We've got a long way to go." Nagasaki sighed, drawing a card from the top of her deck.
"I activate the continuous magic card, Aristotelian Element!" she declared, throwing down her magic card. "With this card, once per turn, I can target one monster on the field in order to treat it as if its attributes were simultaneously EARTH, FIRE, WATER, and WIND!"
The lizard spirit hissed at her, snapping its jaws as if ready to devour her on sight.
"Glad you understand." Nagasaki drily replied. "I next summon Element Valkyrie!"
Beneath Nagasaki's feet, a pool of water formed on the ground before her monster appeared in the air and began dancing on the water as if it were solid ground. Element Valkyrie was a female warrior with a flaming battle-staff in her hand, an iron helmet with wings on the side, metal body armor with a red swimsuit bottom over her waist, a blue cape surrounding her waist, and a pair of long boots and stockings over her legs. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator showed a Level of four and an ATK of 1500.
"Next…" Nagasaki continued, "…since I control an Element monster, I can Special Summon Element Module from my hand!"
Above her head, a metallic inverted pyramid with alchemic symbols for Fire, Water, Earth, and Air over each of its triangular faces appeared above her head before opening up and revealing a single white sphere of energy suspended in the air by a mechanical apparatus. Like the previous monster, a holographic indicator showed a Level of four and an ATK of 1500.
"With these monsters, I construct the Overlay Network!" Nagasaki continued, raising her arms into the air as Valkerie transformed into a stream of yellow light and Module transformed into a stream of purple light before each drained into the center of the large Overly Network singularity, which formed in front of her feet. As the network exploded in a blast of multi-colored light, she began her summoning chant:
"The power of Aristotle's elements! Rise forth in evolution and slash down the enemy in antiquity! XYZ SHOKAN! Arawayo! Element Chimera!"
From the ground, a massive chimeric beast with the body of a leopard and four heads, one of a flaming dragon, one of an ice-encased sea-serpent, one of a rock covered bear, and one of a shrieking eagle, rose up before bearing down on the Lizard Spirit's monster. Above the monster, a holographic indicator showed an ATK of 2000.
"Aristotelian Element's effect activates!" Nagasaki declared. "Targeting my own Element Chimera, I treat it simultaneously as EARTH, FIRE, WATER, and WIND!"
Roaring with power, all four of her monster's heads began glowing with the colors of their respective elements. The dragon glowed with a fiery red-and-yellow light, the Sea Serpent glowed with icy blue-and-white light, the bear glowed with earthy brown-and-orange light, and the eagle glowed with translucent green light.
"Next…" Nagasaki continued, "…I detach Element Module from my monster in order to activate its effect! This turn, depending on the monster Attributes on the field, it gains certain effects! While the FIRE attribute is on the field, it gains 500 ATK. While the WATER attribute is on the field, control of my monster cannot switch and it cannot be banished! While the WIND attribute is on the field, my monster can attack twice per turn! Finally, while the EARTH attribute is on the field, my monster negates the effects of any monster it battles, including in the graveyard, also, it inflicts piercing Battle Damage!"
The Lizard Spirits monster roared at Nagasaki's monster, proudly displaying its superior 3000 ATK as Element Chimera's ATK rose to 2500.
"We're not done yet." Nagasaki retorted, eyes narrowing as her determination grew. "Since Element Module was sent to the graveyard, its effect activates! I can add 1 "Element" monster from my deck to my hand, and I choose Element Charger!"
Plucking a card from her deck and adding it to her hand, she extended her hand towards her monster.
"Battle!" she commanded, "Element Chimera, destroy Shadow Komodo!"
With a mighty roar, Element Chimera let loose a stream of Fire, Water, Boulders, and wind from its different mouths as Shadow Komodo shot a stream of black acid from its own gargantuan gaping mouth.
"Element Charger's effect!" Nagasaki declared, "If an Element monster I control battles, I can discard this card to activate the following effects until the end of the Battle-Phase based on the monster Attributes on the field! With the FIRE attribute, all my Element monsters gain 1000 ATK and DEF! With the WATER attribute, all my Element monsters are unaffected by my opponent's card effects! With the EARTH attribute, my Element monsters cannot be destroyed by battle! Finally, with the WIND attribute, I take no damage!"
Hissing with fury, the Lizard Spirit watched as a stone cube with four hollow faces each containing a sphere of fire, earth, water, and wind respectively, descended from the sky before firing a bolt of electricity into Nagasaki's monster, boosting its ATK power to 3500 as it battled Shadow Komodo. With renewed vigor, Nagasaki's monster tore the lizard monster in half with its elemental attacks, knocking the Lizard Spirit back as its Life Points dropped to 500.
"Continue with the second attack!" Nagasaki commanded. "ELEMENTAL COMBINATION!"
With a second blast from all four of its mouths, Element Chimera blasted away the rest of the Lizard Spirits Life Points. Holding up her crimson mark, Nagasaki began chanting to herself as if in prayer before the shadowy Lizard Spirit slowly dissolved away, fading from existence. Once that was done, she quickly leaped over to Einer's field before the spirits he was battling could begin their next turn.
"MY TURN!" she declared, "DRAW!"
"INTRUSION PENALTY!" her Duel Disk declared, "1250 LIFE POINTS!"
Grimmacing as the penalty caused her Life Points to become halved, she quickly turned her attention to Einer, who was struggling back onto his feet, a mere 100 Life Points left.
"How are you holding up?" she asked, steadying the tall boy on his feet.
"Do I… have to… answer!?" Einer growled, brushing some dust off his clothing.
"Still okay. Good." Nagasaki replied, turning her attention to Einer's opponents. He had actually done a pretty good job. One of them, the hummingbird, had been reduced to just 1000 Life Points while the monkey spirit had 4000 Life Points and a completely cleared away field. The hummingbird controlled a single monster that looked like a demonic skeletal bird with six pairs of bony wings. Looking at her Duel Disk, she saw that the monster was labeled Necro Flyer, had 1300 ATK, a Level of -9, couldn't be targeted or destroyed by card effects, couldn't be destroyed by battle while the controller had monsters in his/her graveyard, and could attack directly by banishing one monster from the graveyard. Einer, meanwhile, controlled D.D. Paladin, a tall knight wielding a pair of multi-colored two-handed swords in each hand while wearing thick red-and-chrome armor and a ragged brown cape over its shoulders. The monster had 1900 ATK and several useful abilities that would allow him to summon other D.D. monsters. Unfortunately, as he was, he wouldn't be able to begin his next turn before the hummingbird took out his Life Points with another direct attack.
"I should be able to take them both out." Said Nagasaki, looking down at the two spirits. Once I'm done here, I'll need you to help out Alex while I help out Ming."
"The Monkey's got Necro Gardna in its graveyard." Einer groaned. "But if you can take out the hummingbird, I'd REALLY appreciate not getting hit with another direct attack."
"Sounds good." Nagasaki replied. "I summon Element Dragon and activate Aristotelian Elements in order to change my Element Chimera's attribute to EARTH, FIRE, WATER, and WIND once again! With that done, I'll detach one Overaly Unit from Chimera in order to grant it its effects!"
Letting out a mighty roar, element Chimera opened its mouths wide as its ATK rose to 2500 once again. Meanwhile, Nagasaki's Element Dragon let out a roar from its beak as its own ATK rose to 2000 with its effect.
"Battle!" Nagasaki commanded, "Element Chimera, attack Necro Flyer!"
Letting out a mighty howl, the monkey spirit activated the effect of its Necro Guardna, which appeared from the graveyard and took Element Chimera's blast in place of Necro Flyer, shielding the hummingbird spirit from the damage.
"I still have an attack!" Nagasaki roared, "Element Chimera, one more attack!"
With a second elemental barrage from its mouths, Element Chimera obliterated the undead bird monstrosity before reducing the hummingbird's Life Points to 0.
"Element Dragon, direct attack!" Nagasaki ordered, pointing to the Monkey Spirit. With a blast of yellow energy from its draconic mouth, Element dragon knocked the monkey spirit back before reducing its Life Points to 2000.
"I'll set a card face down and end my turn." Nagasaki finished as the monkey staggered back to its shadowy feet. With a grin, the monkey summoned a single Level 4 monster, Necro Tentacles, with 1000 ATK before activating its effect, sending five cards from the top of its deck to the graveyard at the cost of not being able to activate any effects from the graveyard that turn. Then it ended its turn.
"It keeps doing that." Einer growled. "And then it just keeps messing with my plays by activating effects from the graveyard later on!"
"You'll have to figure this one out on your own." Nagasaki replied, looking through the cards in the monkey's graveyard. "It looks like it has three copies of Necro strangler in its graveyard. If you attack, it can banish any of them to increase its monster's attack by 1000 while reducing your monster's attack by 1000. The others aren't a threat this turn, but could be a threat if it gets another turn. So all you have to do now is nullify the threat of those stranglers."
"Got it." Einer replied, sweating as he yanked another card from his deck. "If I live through this, you owe me a milkshake!"
"Only if you're buying." Nagasaki replied, popping a stick of gum into her mouth.
"Kind of defeats the purpose, but oh well." Einer grunted, as he stretched his hand towards his monster. "I activate the effect of my D.D. Paladin! Once per turn, I can Special Summon one Level four or lower D.D. monster from my hand, so come on out, my Level three tuner monster D.D. Explorer!"
What looked like a cubic space probe with multiple cameras and robotic arms sticking out of its faces appeared to Einer's field through a multi-colored dimensional fissure that opened up in the sky above their heads. Hovering over his monster as it scanned the field with its cameras, a holographic indicator appeared and showed a DEF of 1800.
"When D.D. Explorer is Special Summoned." Einer explained, I can add up to two of my banished D.D. monsters to my hand. I choose two of my banished D.D. Crows!"
Appearing through two dimensional tears, a pair of cyborg crows with red robotic eyes flew down to Einer before condensing into a pair of cards which he caught in his hand.
"Next, I normal Summon my Level four monster D.D. Warrior Lady!"
A female warrior with blonde hair and black armor appeared to Einer's field, next to the monster, a holographic indicator appeared and showed an ATK of 1500.
"Time for one of my aces!" Einer declared, I Tune my Level three D.D. Explorer with my Level four D.D. Warrior Lady in order to Synchro Summon! The war veteran that crossed the Dimensional Fissure, emerge from the space between dimensions and order the march to victory! Synchro Summon! Level 7, Ijigen Ku (Different Dimension Void) Fissure Scar General!"
In a pillar of light, Einer's new monster appeared to the field. Appearance wise, the monster looked just like D.D. Warrior Lady, save for the fact that she wore thicker armor and a black cape, rode a cyborg horse, and sported numerous scars over her body that pulsated with dark red light like the tear depicted in Dimensional Fissure. A holographic indicator appeared next to his monster, showing an ATK of 2500.
"I'll now activate the effects of both of my crows!" Einer declared. "By discarding both of these cards to the graveyard, I can banish two cards from your graveyard, so say goodbye to two Necro Stranglers!"
Howling in anger, the monkey could only watch as two writhing tentacles of undead flesh briefly appeared, only to be snatched away by Einer's crows before the crows disappeared through their own dimensional tears.
"But I'm not done banishing your cards yet!" Einer roared, "My D.D.V. Fissure Scar General can banish one card you control once per turn! So send that Necro Tentacle away! Dimensional Laceration!"
Slicing her sword through the air, Einer's monster caused a massive tear to open up in the air above the monkey's monster, which sucked the creature up into the dimensionless void on the other side, leaving the monkey wide open.
"Battle!" Einer declared, "D.D.V. Fissure Scar General, direct attack!"
Charging forward, Fissure Scar General prepared to cleave the monkey in two with its sword. Stretching out its hand, the monkey banished the last copy of Necro Strangler in its graveyard, which leaped out through a graveyard portal and slashed at Fissure Scar General, lowering the monster's ATK to 1500 before the warrior sliced the undead tentacle in two with a flick of her blade. Continuing with the attack, Fissure Scar General cut into the monkey's chest with her sword, reducing its Life Points to 500.
"D.D. Paladin, finish it off!" Einer ordered, watching as his knight charged forward before delivering the finishing blow. Raising his mark to the two fallen spirits, Einer began chanting under his breath until the spirits dissolved away.
"Wow…" Einer gasped, "…I'm… I'm happy. I am happy… to be alive. Can I get a hug?"
"Let's get to Ming and Alex first. We need to-…" Nagasaki began before Alex appeared behind her and patted her reassuringly on the back.
"We're you talking about me?" Alex asked with a gentle smile on his face.
Nagasaki pulled away from his hand. "Okay, but we still need to help-…"
"I DID IT! I FREAKING DID IT! FINALLY! WHOO!" Ming whooped at the top of her lungs, standing over the comatose body of the spider spirit. "SEE YOU IN THE UNDERWORD B-…"
"MING!" Nagasaki roared, exorcising the spirit with her own mark and sending Ming tumbling to the ground as the monster dissolved away. "THESE ARE CURSED SPIRITS! AT ONE TIME, THEY WERE HUMANS JUST LIKE US! THEY'RE NOT JUST BRAINLESS VIDEO GAME BOSSES! SHOW SOME RESPECT!"
"Okay… okay… fine." Ming grumbled, brushing some dirt from her hair. "But oh my gosh! Did you guys see me!? At first, I was having a lot of trouble, because that big spider thing just kept summoning a new monster every time I destroyed one, but then I thought, 'duh! I've like, got my monster's ability that I haven't been using the whole time!' So I just activated the ability and then I totally kicked its-…"
"How did you do, Einer?" Alex asked, ignoring Ming's recap.
Einer blushed. "I uhm… we should see if Subaru and Katashi need-…"
"OH MY GOSH!" Ming laughed, rolling around on the ground. "I like… saw the whole thing! You were totally getting your rear end handed to you by those spirits!"
"At least I wasn't running away from a bunch of little spiders!" Einer spat back.
"Well I beat mine!" Ming countered.
"I WAS FIGHTING TWO OF THEM!" Einer roared, "I SHOULD BE GETTING A MEDAL OF HONOR FOR-…"
"ENOUGH!" Nagasaki barked, bopping Einer and Ming over the head with her fists to shut them up. "Why don't you three watch how some real masters get things done?" she instructed, pointing at Subaru and Katashi, who were holding off their own separate swarms of spirits.
"FIRE KING HIGH AVATAR GARUNIX EFFECT!" Subaru roared as a massive phoenix rose from graveyard portal in a raging pillar of fire, "I DESTROY ALL OTHER MONSTERS ON THE FIELD!"
Roaring with fury, a massive blue giant and a blue wolf each backed away as each of their monsters were destroyed by Subaru's effect.
"NEXT!" Subaru declared, "My second Fire King High Avatar Garunix's effect activates along with the third one in my graveyard! Furthermore, thanks to my Continuous Trap Card, Rage of the Fire Kings, each time a Fire King monster is destroyed, you take damage equal to its Level X 100! With this you will each take sixteen-hundred damage. More than enough to take out each of your thirteen-hundred Life Points!"
Eyes gaping open in awe, Ming, Alex, and Einer, watched as Subaru's phoenixes exploded in a raging ball of fire, blowing back the earthbound spirits before rising again from the ashes and continuing in a seemingly endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. In seconds, Subaru had defeated both his opponents and exorcised them with a gentle command and wave of his mark.
Nagasaki smiled at her companion's stunned expressions. "Now check out my dad." She smirked, pointing to Katashi.
"Using the Magic Card, Fusion, I fuse the three Satellite Cannons in my hand!" Katashi declared as a Fusion Portal materialized behind him. As the portal appeared, the three spirits he was engaging, a condor, second hummingbird, and orca, backed away as the light from the portal touched them. Each of them had 4000 LP and a monster with 5000 ATK. Katashi, on the other hand, had no cards on his field and a measly 100 Life Points. Despite the overwhelming odds against him, however, Katashi seemed completely calm and resolved as he commenced his fusion chant:
"Majestic weapons forged in the blackness of space, combine as one to cast your celestial light upon the darkened planet below! YUUGO SHOKAN! Gather the power of the solar system itself! Level 8! Satellite Laser Balsam!"
As he completed his fusion chant, the portal behind him dissolved away, leaving nothing on his field.
"Huh?" Ming asked. "Where the heck is it?"
Glancing over at the group of teenagers, Katashi smiled before pushing a button on his Duel Disk.
Immediately, a holographic image of his monster appeared, showing an utterly massive space station suspended over the atmosphere of the planet. The station looked like it was at least 3000 feet high, with an array of massive rings and solar panels surrounding its cylindrical body. At its base, a trio of three massive futuristic laser cannons pointed towards the planet's surface while a central robotic eye lay between the three cannons. Next to the first hologram, a holographic indicator appeared and showed an ATK of 0.
While Nagasaki nodded her head in admiration, the other three gawked at Katashi's play, unable to believe he had gone to all that trouble just to summon a monster with 0 ATK.
"I activate the Quick-Play Magic Card…" Katashi continued with a grin, "…Satellite Overcharge! In order to understand this card, you'll need to understand my Fusion Monster's effect. During each of my End-Phases, my monster gains three-thousand attack. However, whenever a Battle-Phase concludes in which my monster attacks, its attack power reverts to zero. Satellite Overcharge takes my Satellite's effect which activates at the End Phase and activates it three times in succession! However, my monster will be destroyed at the end of the Battle-Phase."
Jaws dropping in shock, Ming, Alex, and Einer watched as Katashi's monster rapidly gained 9000 ATK.
"Oh give it a rest." Subaru smirked, leisurely strolling up to the other teenagers. "This isn't even half of Katashi's real power. Save that expression for something REALLY epic."
"Satellite Laser Balsam can attack three times per Battle-Phase!" Katashi declared, stretching his hands towards the spirits. "With this you are finished! ORBITAL TRINITY ANNIHILATION CANNONS!"
From way up in the sky, a sudden flash of light appeared before three massive columns of pure energy descended on the spirit's monsters, vaporizing each one on contact as the laser columns swept across the duel field. Roaring in agony, the three spirits were blasted back against the wall of the alleyway, where they lay comatose.
Frowning, Katashi looked over at his dim mark and sighed before glancing at Subaru and nodding his head.
"No problem, my friend." Subaru replied before walking up to the three spirits and exorcising them all with his own mark. Once he had finished, he turned around and rushed back over to the other teenagers before looking them over to see if they had any wounds.
"Are you all okay!?" he asked, patting down Einer, Alex, and Ming, much to the three teenagers' chagrin.
"Yes… we're fine!" Einer grunted. "You don't need to worry about us. I mean, weren't you like… ten when you fought in the first war?"
"I was eleven." Subaru replied. "And that's exactly why I DO NOT want anyone else to have to go through what I did, least of all my snotty cousin."
"Well… all things considered." Nagasaki mumbled, brushing some dust from her hands. "I'd say this mission went well. All the spirits have been contained, no casualties, and just in time to get back to our evening school lessons."
There were audible groans from Ming, Alex, and Einer, which were quickly suppressed when they saw Katashi walking towards them with a stern expression on his face.
"Whelp…" Subaru smiled, adjusting his gloves, "…I'm with Nagasaki. Nothing like unwinding from a stressful mission with a few hours of boring lectures from Stephan."
"Are they really that boring?" a mellow voice asked from the other side of the alleyway.
"HEADMASTER STEPHAN!" Subaru exclaimed, eyes bugging out of his head as a fairly elderly man with glasses, a wrinkly forehead, a full head of grey hair, and a cane in his hand strolled towards them, a crimson dragon head mark blazing against the skin of his right arm. "I… I didn't know you would be here. I thought you'd be working on those Paradigm cards."
"Pendulum cards." Stephan calmly corrected, leaning on his cane. "Though a few of those are being created for my own Paradigm Shift cards. But those can wait. I admit, I was eager to see my students in action, and I'm not disappointed."
"Oh thank you headmaster!" Ming beamed, "It was nothing really. Those guys were-…"
"I'm not satisfied though." Stephan smirked, turning around and indicating for the others to follow him. "And so… as Subaru so eloquently put it, it looks like it's time for you all to get back to my very boring, though I hope exceedingly brilliant, lectures. My classroom at the Phoenix Boarding School. Thirty minutes. Don't be late."
Nagasaki sighed as she followed the others back to the school. True, the other students still had a lot to learn, but hopefully, with enough training and her guidance, they'd be able to become just the Phoenix Guards the world needed at the moment.
Ming, meanwhile, shook her head and sighed.
"Man…" she exclaimed, "…I can't wait to see what it's like to actually fight a disciple."
...
Standard Dimension: Eight hours before Shun's duel against Crow
"LOOK OUT!" Semal called as the Earthbound Disciple they were fighting commanded one of her monsters to activate its ability. Letting loose a massive shockwave, the shadowy monster knocked Semal, and his older brother, Adeel, on their backs as their Life Points each dropped to 3500.
Getting up from the ground and brushing dust from his bald head, Adeel looked back at his brother with his milky white eyes with an expression on his face that seemed to say, "Really? The warning you're gonna call out to a blind guy is 'Look out?'"
"Oh… uhm… sorry…" Semal muttered, brushing some dirt out of his short and spikey blonde hair. "I… uhm… forgot you couldn't…"
"It's okay." Adeel replied reassuringly, presenting Semal with a dazzling smile from his pearly white teeth. "It doesn't bother me." Reaching out his hand, Adeel helped his younger brother off the ground.
Adeel was a tall and muscular individual with deep chocolate colored skin, a black jacket, grey pants, and a crimson mask-like dragon tail mark on his right arm. In his hand he held a leash that held a whimpering German Shepherd dog on the other end, his seeing eye dog, Fluffals.
Gently patting the dog's head, Adeel turned back around, facing the general direction of the disciple, a female woman with long messy jet-black hair, wide blue eyes with black sclera, and a multi-colored spiral mark blazing against her small chest. They had tried to reason with the frightened teenage girl earlier, but she had gone berserk immediately upon seeing them and forced them into a duel against her.
Truth be told, there was little chance of the girl even hearing what the two Phoenix Guardsmen had to say. Her mind was in utter turmoil, completely consumed with overwhelming rage and fear.
"YOU CAN'T KEEP ME AWAY FROM MY SISTER!" she roared, clawing in agony at her face with her long chipped nails as her torment and rage increased by the second. "I WILL FIND HER AND WE'LL BE TOGETHER AGAIN!"
"YOU'RE CRAZY WOMAN!" Semal shouted back, wiping some dust out of his brown eyes. Like his brother, he had deep chocolate brown skin and a tall muscular build. His scalp, however, was covered in short spikey blonde hair, he wore a black hoodie, pair of dusty goggles around his neck, a torn pair of white jeans, and had a crimson dragon-claw mark blazing against the skin of his right arm. Semal immediately regretted calling the girl crazy as she quickly raised her hands above her head and activated her monster effect again, blasting both himself and his brother back again and reducing their Life Points to 3000.
"Okay! Semal…" Adeel grunted, picking himself off the sandy ground and feeling his chest, which was throbbing with pain. They had only just started, but already he could feel multiple deep bleeding lacerations against his chest and neck, and several searing burn wounds on his chin, neck, breast, and stomach. They needed to regain control of the situation and they needed to do so FAST! "…from now on, let ME do the talking! She's a war victim, just like us! She's probably got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She's not in her right mind. But pointing that out to her like that is NOT going to help anything!"
Semal groaned in response, slowly shaking the sand out of his hair as he cupped his own bleeding chest in his arms. Despite his wounds, however, Semal managed to get back up onto his feet. Perhaps it was the fact that the blows had been softened by the sandy landscape, or perhaps it was due to him and his brother's sheer grit and optimism, but either way, Semal could not say that he and Adeel were not unused to struggling through this kind of abuse. He and his brother had both been victims of a terrible ethnic cleansing war that had swept through their country, decimating the population and ravaging the countryside. They had both survived, but their parents had tragically been killed. Despite their afflictions, however, the two brothers had continued living, eventually being called as members of the Phoenix Guard through a miraculous encounter with one of its members, who was defending what remained of their country from the ravages of a dangerous disciple. Not too long after their induction into the Phoenix Guard, the two brothers would learn just how dangerous their world really was as they learned of the many Earthbound Disciples that had risen up as a horrific consequence of spirits wanting to obtain revenge after being horrifically murdered in the terrible war.
"HE'S PROMISED ME!" the disciple continued, tearing at her own hair in agony as she continued her ravings. Despite the power she was demonstrating in the duel, she didn't look focused. She was whipping her head around with a paranoid expression on her face while seemingly talking to herself more than the two brothers. "HE'S PROMISED ME WE'LL BE TOGETHER AGAIN! I KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO DO! I NEED TO GO TO SYNCHRO! SHE'S IN SYNCHRO! I HAVE TO GET TO SYNCHRO! JUST A LITTLE MORE! JUST A LITTLE MORE ENERGY! THEN I CAN DO IT! I CAN DO IT! I CAN CROSS THE BOUNDARY! I JUST NEED MORE TIME! PLEASE! WAIT FOR ME! PLEASE SISTER! WAIT FOR ME!"
"Please… you don't have to panic…" Adeel reasoned, holding out his hand in a gesture of peace while keeping a hand cupped over his bleeding chest. "…we're here to help you. We can help you right now, but we need you to calm down. Eh? Understand? We want to help you, and we can help you, but we can't help you unless you're calm."
"SHUT UP!" the girl hollered, suddenly whipping her head around to face Adeel, eyes glowing with intense blue light as she activated her monster's effect yet again.
Once again, Semal widened his eyes in shock as Adeel seemed to just stand there as if he was willing to take the blast head-on. If this kept up, he was going to get killed before his life points even reached zero! Charging forward like a football player, Semal slammed into his brother, tackling him out of the way of the blast while taking the full force of the disciple's fury on his back.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Semal roared, as the attack left a searing cauterized laceration wound with a blistering burn wound over his back. As his shirt caught on fire, Semal instinctively pushed off his brother and began rolling around in the sand, popping blisters on his back as he put out the flames.
"SEMAL!" Adeel called, hearing his brother's cries and smelling the smoky mixture of blood, sweat, roasted flesh, and blister fluid. Deciding that diplomacy would be fruitless at this point, he quickly leapt to his feet and faced the disciple, listening to the girl's ragged breathing, feeling the pulsations of her growing anger and dark energy, tasting the scent of tears, sweat, blood, old perfume, and dust on her skin, and sensing the presence of malignant dark spirits within her soul and extra deck with his dragon mark. She needed help, that was for certain, but perhaps it had to be tough love. Still, she was just a little girl, exorcising a disciple was never a light matter. True, there would be healing once the process was complete, but burning the darkness from a person's soul always involved pain, immeasurable pain. A pain that Adeel could only speculate about based on the shrill cries of the disciples, the fearsome pulsing of their skin and hearts, and the ragged breathing of their throats and lungs. It was always better, he knew, if the disciple willingly desired to be cleansed. He would give her one last chance to come to them willingly.
"This is your last warning."Adeel called, struggling to suppress his anger over the girl hurting his brother. "We can bring your soul rest and peace, but if you keep showing hostility, I will not hesitate to do EVERYTHING in my power to purge that dark spirit from your soul like the poison it is!"
"Stop talking to her." Semal groaned, struggling to pick himself up from the ground. "She's not gonna listen! We have to find cover!"
"If the earthbound are promising you your sister, they are only deceiving you." Adeel continued, ignoring his brother's voice. "They don't care about your family. They only want you as their slave. Even if your sister is alive, do you think she'll be at peace knowing that her sister is willing to murder others just so she can harvest their energy for her own use? Come, please. You can bring peace to yourself and your family if you just-…"
"YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN!" the girl roared, only hearing about half of what Adeel was saying as her growing rage and pain pushed against her chest and pounded against her head and eyes like a wild animal wanting to escape and tear up everything in sight. "I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! THE SHINING MASTER TOLD ME ABOUT YOU! HE TOLD ME YOU'D TRY TO TAKE MY SISTER FROM ME! JUST LIKE THE LDS DID!"
Fluffals started whining. Against his leg, Adeel could feel his dog's skin and fur quivering and the great absence of exuberant, hot, and moist panting, all signs that his dog was very on edge. Fortunately, he could not smell blood, but he definitely didn't want to have to. He had to handle this delicately and be ready to immediately do as his brother instructed and run for cover if all else failed. If they could make it past the girl's first turn, they might stand a chance.
Sadly, at that moment, upon hearing what the girl had last said, Semal said something very tactless and stupid.
"The Mormons took your sister from you?" Semal gawked, looking at the girl with a look of absolute confusion.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the girl roared raising her hands into the air.
"COVER! NOW!" Adeel roared, scooping Fluffals into his arms before rolling with the whimpering dog behind a small slab of stone as the girl activated her monster's effect again. Reaching the stone just in time, Adeel heard the whistling of the air and felt the power of the shockwave against his neck and face as the audio function on his Duel Disk stated that his Life Points were at 2500.
"LEO DUEL SCHOOL!" the girl roared. "THEY TOOK HER FROM ME! THEY TOOK MY SISTER FROM ME! BUT I KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! I'M GONNA FIND THEM! I'M GONNA KILL THEM! I'LL KILL THEM ALL FOR TAKING MY SISTER AWAY FROM ME! THEN WE'LL BE TOGETHER! WE'LL BE TOGETHER FOREVER! I'LL NEVER LET ANYTHING HURT HIM AGAIN! SHE'LL BE HAPPY! I'LL BE LIKE A MOTHER TO HER! LIKE OUR MOTHER WAS! JUST LIKE OUR MOTHER WAS! I JUST NEED TO GET TO SYNCHRO! I NEED ENERGY! JUST A LITTLE MORE ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGY! ENERGYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"
"We're not gonna get through to her!" Semal called from a distant pile of rubble. "We have to take her down!"
"Agreed." Adeel admitted, stroking Fluffals head, as the dog nervously whined and panted against his chest, clouding the air under Adeel's nose with her hot moist doggy breath. "Just hold out for this turn. She can activate that monster effect once for each Magic Card she possesses, so between the five Continuous Magic Cards she has, the Field Magic, and her monster effect that lets it be treated as a Magic Card, that's a total of seven times, not enough to destroy us.
"Yeah… real comforting, Adeel!" Semal snarled.
"Just hold out!" Adeel called, "We have to stop her before she hurts anyone else!"
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN!" The girl roared, feeling like she was about to burst with her rage and pain. She needed to release it! She NEEDED to release it! It would kill her if she didn't let it out! So she'd let it out! She'd let them take it! She'd let them take all of it! "I'LL SHOW IT TO YOU!" she screamed, clutching at the sides of her head in pain, "I'LL SHOW YOU ALL MY PAIN! ABSTRACTION MUSE GUERNICA, EFFECT ACTIVATE!"
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Adeel roared, clutching Fluffals to his chest as the girl continued her relentless attacks.
BOOM!
…
"Two-Thousand Life Points!"
…
"AGAIN!"
…
BOOM!
…
"One-thousand five hundred Life Points! Injuries detected! Recommend immediate cessation of current duel!"
…
"AGAIN!"
…
BOOM!
…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
…
"ADEEL!"
…
"One thousand Life Points! Minor fractures detected! Warning! User condition critical!
…
"AGAIN! AGAIN! SHOW THEM OUR PAIN! SHOW THEM THE TRUTH OF OUR PAIN!"
…
BOOM!
…
"STAY BACK, SEMAL! STAY UNDER COVER!"
…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
"Five hundred Life Points! Warning! User death imminent! Seek medical attention immediately!"
…
…
…
COUGH! COUGH!
Coughing up some blood, Adeel slammed his hand on the ground before wrenching his broken body up with all his rushing adrenaline and the energy from his mark. Feeling a set of rough hands clamp against his shoulders, Adeel felt the ragged breathing of his brother's hot breath against his neck and the tingling of his brother's electromagnetic field against his skin and hairs. Holding onto his brother as he gripped Fluffal's leash, he steadied himself before facing the disciple.
"She looks pretty angry." Semal groaned, rubbing his hand against a bleeding gash on his face.
"We finish this… now!" Adeel grunted. "You know which card we need!"
"I do." Semal agreed, shakily holding out his own Duel Disk.
"Ore no… TURRRRRRRRRN!" Adeel howled, ripping a card from the top of his deck as Fluffals let loose a mighty howl of her own.
"From my hand, I activate the magic card, 'The Dogs Are Out!' With this card, I can Special Summon two Level four or lower 'Canine' monsters from my deck with their effects negated and their attack and defense changed to zero. Furthermore, I cannot Normal Summon monsters during the turn I activate this card or use these monsters as a material for a Special Summon, except the Special Summon of a 'Canine' monster! Come! My level four monster, Laika the Canine Astronaut, and my Level two Tuner monter, Jack the Canine Lifeguard!"
Barking as they charged through a set of two portals, Adeel's monsters pounced onto the field. The first was a mutt-dog in a Russian spacesuit while the second was a black retriever wearing a swimsuit bottom, a life-jacket, a whistle, and sunglasses like a lifeguard.
"With these two monsters, I Synchro Summon! Adeel declared. In his hands, a holographic dog whistle materialized, which he immediately blew. Obediently, the two dogs rushed forward, barking at the top of their lungs before Jack the Canine Lifeguard morphed into a set of green rings that encompassed Laika in their light as Adeel commenced his summoning chant:
"Loyal and fierce canine companions, fight as one in the pack and give birth to the legendary canine who rules over the fiery darkness! SYNCHRO SHOKAN! Come to me! Orthrus the Legendary Canine Gaurdian!"
From a fiery pit that opened in the sandy ground, Adeel's Synchro Monster rose to the field as a massive flaming two headed dog with a fiery snake tail, flaming bone armor, and crimson fur that burned against magma-like skin. The creature was about as tall as a bus and nearly twice as wide, possessing a very muscly figure. As it looked down at the Earthbound Disciple with a set of glowing flaming eyes, it let out a fiery roar from its twin mouths as a holographic indicator appeared and showed an ATK of 2600.
"When Jack is used as a Synchro Material for a Synchro Summon, I can target cards on the field, up to the number of Synchro Materials used in the Synchro Summon, and shuffle them into the owner's deck. I target your Field Magic Card, Trompe L'oeil, and your monster, Abstraction Muse Guernica.
"Guernica effect activate!" the girl countered. "During my opponent's turn, I can tribute one Magic Card I control in order to negate the effects of a monster! I tribute 2 Magic Cards in order to negate the effects of Jack the Canine Lifeguard and Orthrus the Legendary Canine Guardian!"
Adeel shielded his face, as winds ripped through the sandy landscape, blowing sand into his and his monster's eyes.
"Guernica gains five-hundred attack for each Magic Card in my graveyard, and since I now have six, that's a total of three-thousand attack!" the girl roared, mark blazing against her chest as her fury grew. Matching her own fury, the shadowy monster let out a series of tormented screams and howls as a holographic indicator showed its ATK rise from 2000 to 3000.
"I was expecting that." Adeel grunted, gasping before falling to his knees with exhaustion. "Semal… finish this!"
"With pleasure." Semal replied. "Boku no turn! Draw! From my hand, I Normal Summon the Level three monster, Celestial Hero Serpens!"
In a flash of light, a shining warrior in black armor bearing a shield with a serpent shaped star constellation on its face appeared to Semal's field. While humanoid, the warrior possessed serpentine features with a pair of glowing snake eyes, scaly skin, and a pair of long snake fangs protruding from its upper lips. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator showed an ATK of 1200 and a Level of 3.
"When this card is Normal Summoned successfully, I can add 1 Celestial Hero monster from my deck to my hand. And I think I'm going to summon it right away! With Celestial Hero Volan's effect, I can Special Summon it from my hand while I control a Celestial Hero monster! So say hello to my Level one tuner, Celestial Hero Volans!"
Through another portal, a second smaller shining warrior flew through the air before landing on Semal's field. The warrior possessed a pair of triangular constellations on its back, giving it the appearance of two fin-like wings. Its body was piscine with webbed hands, fins, a set of gills on its neck, wide eyes, and a fish-tail like a mermaid instead of legs. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator appeared and showed an ATK of 300 and a Level of 1.
"Now to bring forth the light!" Semal declared. "I tune my Level one Celestial Hero Volans with my Level three Celestial Hero Serpens in order to Synchro Summon!"
Flapping its wings and tail, Volans flew through the air like a flying fish before morphing into a ring of glowing white light that encompassed Serpens in a pillar of radiant light as Semal began his own summoning chant.
"Ancient radiant constellations of pure and noble heroic beasts, shine your light together in harmony and gravitate together as a new hero! SYNCHRO SHOKAN! Appear in the sky now! Level four Synchro Tuner! Celestial Hero Graviton!"
Bursting free from the column of light, Semal's Synchro monster appeared to the field as a massive muscly warrior in dark black armor with multiple shining orbs over its face like twinkling stars. Cupping its hands together, it sucked bits of sand and dust into the center of a gravity well, slowly condensing them until they began to form a miniature star. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator showed an ATK of 1000.
"Once per turn, Graviton can negate the effects of one of your monsters!" Semal declared, extending his hand towards the disciple's monster.
"Guernica effect!" the disciple roared, sending another of her Continuous Spell Cards to the graveyard in order to negate the effects of Semal's monster and increase her own monster's ATK to 3500.
"I thought you'd do that." Semal replied, "Which is why I planned this! Adeel, you ready?"
"Use my monster." Adeel instructed.
"I will." Semal agreed. "Using my Level four Synchro Tuner, Celestial Hero Graviton, and my brother's Level six Synchro Monster, Orthrus the Legendary Canine Guardian, I Synchro Summon!"
Leaving a trail of flames behind as it sprinted forward, Orthrus let out a mighty howl from its twin heads as Graviton morphed into a set of four rings and encompassed Orthrus in their light.
"Light and darkness shall always coexist but evil need not prevail! Gather the powers of light and darkness together into your being now and become an instrument of righteousness in the deepest voids of space! SYNCHRO SHOKAN! Appear now! Level 10! Celestial Hero Galactic Void!"
Above the duelist's heads, the sky itself darkened to reveal an array of thousands of stars decorating the night sky. From the thousands of stars, pillars of light descended to the earth, bathing the field in light until, from a single column of light, a lone warrior fell from the sky and stood up at his full height. Celestial Hero Galactic Void was clad in similar black armor to the other Celestial Hero monsters, but while the others possessed patterns of light on their armor, this monster's armor was pure black with a swirling shadowy galaxy decorating the center of his chest. Over each of his armored hands, another black galaxy swirled in the darkness, seemingly condensing into the center of a singularity. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator showed an ATK of 3200.
"Galactic Void's effect applies. While he is face-up on the field, Spell and Trap Cards and their effects on the field cannot be activated, in addition, the effects of all Spell and Trap Cards on the field are rendered null and void, and since your Guernica is always treated as a Spell Card, that includes the effects of your monster!"
"NO!" the disciple cried, watching helplessly as her monster's ATK dropped to 0.
"It's over." Adeel called. "Your deck is nothing but Magic Cards. Even if we don't have enough attack to reduce your life points to zero right now, with Galactic Void's effect, your deck is crippled."
The disciple stared at the two brothers, clenching her fists together as tears trickled down her cheeks.
"Andel… Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel!" the girl wept, falling to her knees as her body shook with sobbing. Just as suddenly as the rage had come and overwhelmed her body, it had suddenly vanished, leaving behind nothing but a vacuum of empty despair and sorrow as she collapsed in on herself. She was still not hearing much of what the others were saying, but she could see that she had failed. Her monster wasn't strong any more. Why wasn't it strong!? Why wasn't it strong!? Why couldn't she beat them!? Why was she so weak!? So helpless!?
Hearing her weeping, Adeel started walking forward, Fluffals guiding the way, when he suddenly felt Semal's arm blocking his way.
"Wait." Semal warned. "This duel isn't over yet."
"Andel, Andel, Andel, Andel, ANDEL!" the girl kept weeping, body shaking as her grief grew. It was just like back then, just like when the war began. They had attacked, and she could do nothing to protect her, Andel, her sister. Feeling her aguish grow, she gave voice to her thoughts. "I failed you! I failed you! I failed you! I failed you! Forgive me! Forgi-…"
Suddenly, the girl seemed to choke. Gagging and coughing, the girl starting writhing on the ground before throwing up her arms and hands and screaming at the top of her lungs as her eyes and mark each glowed with intense light. Suddenly, instead of pain, the girl suddenly felt overwhelming strength and power coursing through her being as something inside her seemed to take charge, aggressively sweeping aside her weakness and replacing it with its strength.
"I WILL NOT FAIL YOU ANDEL!" she roared in a voice half feminine and sorrowful and half deep, feral, and demonic, "I'M COMING FOR YOU! NOTHING WILL STOP ME! NOTHING!"
Leaping from the ground, she yanked a card from her hand and tossed it into her Duel Disk's graveyard.
"I DISCARD A MAGIC CARD FROM MY HAND TO ACTIVATE ITS EFFECT!" she roared, "SINCE GALACTIC VOID NEGATES THE EFFECTS OF MAGIC CARDS ON THE FIELD, IT'S EFFECT DOES NOT APPLY TO CARDS THAT ACTIVATE IN THE GRAVEYARD! WHEN ABSTRACT ART DESTRUCTION IS ACTIVATED, I INFLICT 500 DAMAGE TO ALL PLAYERS FOR EVERY ABSTRACT ART CARD IN MY GRAVEYARD! WITH EIGHT CARDS IN MY GRAVEYARD, WE ALL TAKE FOUR-THOUSAND DAMAGE! GO AWAY! YOU CAN'T STOP ME FROM FINDING ANDEL! WE WILL BE TOGETHER AGAI-…"
The rest of her speech was cut off as a raging explosion bathed the Duel Field in fiery light. Running as fast as they could, the two brothers managed to duck behind some cover before the force of the shockwave blasted them back, sending them rolling across the sandy plains until they both passed out.
…
…
…
…
"A…eel."
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…
"A…eel."
…
…
…
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"Adeel."
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"ADEEL!"
Adeel woke with a start after hearing Semal's voice and began feeling his surroundings. Feeling some blankets against his throbbing chest and smelling the scent of an old and dusty mattress, he realized he must have been taken to their bedroom. Letting out a loud moan, he tried to get up out of his bed, but a firm hand pressed down on his shoulder.
"You need to rest now." His brother's voice instructed. I've managed to heal your serious wounds, but you'll still need some time."
"Were did she go?" Adeel coughed, feeling his throat burning as he became conscious of his thirst. He heard a clinking sound and felt the wet metal taste of a canteen being pressed against his lips. Drinking heavily, he wet his throat and then coughed again once he became conscious of the pain from his other wounds.
"After I brought you here, I tried tracking her." Semal explained. "But I wasn't able to find her, even with my mark."
"You went alone!?" Adeel angrily rasped before grimacing in pain.
"Take it easy! Just… take it easy!" Semal replied. "I wasn't going to face her on my own."
"Rotten liar." Adeel croaked.
"Well… maybe so." Semal admitted. "Still, I didn't manage to find her like I said, and I couldn't even sense her with my mark. I did… however… find some bodies… drained… of energy… and dead."
"She left to the Synchro Dimension." Adeel groaned, tears trickling down his eyes as he forced himself upright before his brother could stop him. "We have to stop her! Before the Earthbound make her hurt anyone else!"
"You're in no condition to…"
"DARN IT SEMAL, INNOCENT PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE ON THE LINE HERE!" Adeel roared. "We have a duty to protect them! We need to leave to the Synchro Dimension now!"
"Yeah right!" Semal retorted. "There's no way either of us even have enough energy in our marks to make the jump there! And besides, you need to heal, Adeel!"
"Let's compromise then." Adeel replied. "I'll stay in bed for the time being, meditating and gathering energy from the Crimson Dragon. You attend to my injuries while I do this, but once I gather enough energy, we're going to Synchro."
"But…"
"No 'buts' Semal." Adeel growled. "Right now we're the ones who have the best chance of stopping her. We can't communicate across dimensions with these marks, and Stephan, Subaru, and Katashi have their own problems to deal with! No matter what you do, I'm going. With or without you, I'm going!"
Semal hung his head. He knew it was useless to argue with his brother. They were both equally stubborn, but if Adeel gathered the energy he needed, which he could probably easily do with his skill, there would be nothing he could do to stop him.
"Alright." Semal conceded. "You stay in that bed and rest while you meditate. But once you gather the energy to open a path to Synchro, you take me with you."
"Wouldn't have it any other way." Adeel grunted, closing his eyes and pressing his fists together as his mark pulsated with gentle red light.
…
Fusion Dimension: 4 hours before Shun's Duel against Crow
"We're going to Synchro!?" Joho nervously asked his companion, Lydia, as he wiped some sweat from his green eyes and sandy brownish-blonde hair. Joho, a former resident of the Xyz Dimension before being briefly captured by Fusion Soldiers and later released thanks to the help of a former Academia student, Lydia, had a propensity to get nervous in even the least stressful situations. The prospect of travelling to another foreign dimension in order to hunt down a homicidal pyromaniac who prided himself in killing Phoenix Guards and Earthbound Disciples alike was not helping him maintain his calm.
Together, he and Lydia had been working together in the Fusion Dimension to try and gather any Fusion Dimension citizen unsympathetic to Academia's tyranny together in order to topple the professor's authority once and for all. Hiding in the abandoned and ruined Portal City, which had been destroyed several years ago because of its treasonous actions against Academia, they had established their base of operations as they scavenged for resources.
Over the course of their struggles, they had encountered a group of strange individuals with glowing marks who called themselves, The Phoenix Guard. After learning that they too sought to fight against Academia, Lydia and Joho had each passed a set of trials before being accepted as Phoenix Guards. Lydia, had inherited a crimson mark of power from a woman named Seijun Hashimoto, while he had inherited his mark from a green-haired girl about his age who called herself, Ruka.
Two weeks had not passed since they became Phoenix Guardsmen when their resistance group had come under a series of attacks from not only squadrons of the usual Academia soldiers, but angry Earthbound Familiar spirits, and Earthbound Disciples who recognized them for who they were and wanted to test out their power against their own. Although Lydia and Joho had managed to survive the seemingly endless onslaughts with a combination of grit, skill, and sheer dumb luck, a recent threat, Akato, had caused them considerable grief, capturing five of their fellow resistance members and locking them up in an abandoned orphanage before threatening to burn one of them alive for every hour that passed before he and Lydia came out to face him. After receiving the ultimatum, Lydia and Joho had rushed from their hiding place, determined to stop the maniac, but once they had reached the orphanage, Akato had just laughed in their faces before using his own dark powers to destroy the building along with everybody trapped inside. Now, aside from the raging flames and piles of burnt rubble, the demolished orphanage was completely empty, devoid of even the charred remains of their companions.
Lydia adjusted the bandages over the left side of her face before kicking away a still burning piece of wood. In every respect, Lydia was someone who would probably have been considered beautiful with long purple hair tied into a ponytail and intelligent purple eyes. However, years of service as a soldier of Academia and a certain near-fatal accident had left the girl horrifically disfigured, disfigurements which she kept carefully concealed with her bandages and long black cloak. These coverings, however, could not conceal her robotic left arm, or the glowing robotic eye that pierced through her facial bandages with its ominous light.
"We've got no choice." Lydia growled, clenching her human fist with fury. "If that maniac plans to do to the Synchro Dimension what he did to this orphanage, then we'll be looking at a lot of burn victims in the near future, not to mention the possibility of Academia rolling over the Synchro Dimension once Akato weakens their defenses. There's nothing he likes more than war. He'll be happy to let Academia burn the place to the ground. I'm not letting him kill anyone else!"
"But what about our allies?" Joho asked. "We don't have to do this alone, Lydia. In fact, this is Akato we're talking about! That guy kills people like us for sport! If we could just call over Asuka, or Johan, or O-Brien, or…"
"Oh for once in your life will you man up!?" Lydia snapped. "Asuka is busy helping Yusho out and we still don't even know if Johan or O-Brien are even alive, much less on our side anymore! The only people we know are Jorq, Isaac, and Moriah, and you know that they are all out of the question!"
"I know… I'm sorry." Joho replied, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. "It's just… we don't have Academia's teleportation function on our Duel Disks and we don't even have the energy to travel there right now. We'll need help if we're going to do this, or at least… some time to prepare."
"We do have energy." Said Lydia, feeling the left side of her chest.
Joho's eyes widened. "Oh no! You're not thinking! Your power supply is strained enough as it is! If you power your mark with the energy in your chest battery and then use more of that energy to fight Akato in a duel..." Joho paused, rubbing his hands together with worry. "Lydia, I don't want to almost lose you again!"
"I'm not letting Akato continue his rampage." Lydia growled. "And you can't stop me."
Joho hung his head down before glancing at the dragon-heart shaped mark on his arm, which was pulsating with intense red light.
"Okay…" Joho conceded. "…but let me help with this one. I've got a lot of energy stored in my mark. If I combine the energy in my mark with the bit of energy in yours, then we should have enough."
"Joho, I can…"
"This is not negotiable." Joho firmly replied, clasping the mask-like tail mark on Lydia's right arm before closing his eyes. Slowly the intense light from his mark faded away before Lydia's began glowing like a supernova.
Lydia's eyes widened once he had finished. "How much did you give me!?"
"Enough." Joho replied, panting for breath as sweat poured down his face and chest.
Lydia carefully reached into her trench coat before opening something up in her chest and fiddling with something. Closing her eyes, black electrical sparks emanated from her chest area before flowing into the crimson mark. After just a second, she stopped.
"I guess I didn't need too much." Lydia grunted, holding up her hand. "Come on Joho, let's see how the Phoenix Guard are doing in Synchro."
…
Synchro Dimension: 30 minutes before Shun's duel against Crow
"No!" Emma barked, "For the last time Junior, I'm telling you, I've lived here before, Lizette and Kazama said they'd be waiting for us at Hungry Burger and the exit isn't until another two miles!"
"Bu-…" Kiryu tried to interrupt, as her swerved his bike out of the way to avoid an oncoming car.
"No Junior! Not 'But!' Our exit's not that one that's coming up, that'll just lead us to the financial district!"
Deciding to ignore his adopted mother, Kiryu swung his bike into the exit and traveled down the ramp.
"KIRYU YOU GET YOUR BUTT BACK HERE RIGHT NOW OR… oh…" Emma stopped once she spied Kazama and Lizette waiting at the restaurant with their bikes pulled up in the front. "Well bless my old age." She muttered, making an illegal U-turn to get onto the ramp as a bunch of cars angrily honked at her.
"HAVE A NICE DAY TOO YOU PEDESTRIANS!" She shouted back, shaking her fist at them. Speeding down the ramp, she pulled up alongside Kiryu, who had already removed his helmet and begun chatting with a tall girl with long blonde hair, green eyes, and freckles on her face, Lizette LeBlanc.
Standing behind Lizette, a tall man in his mid-to-late twenties, with spikey bluish-green hair, and brown eyes, who was dressed in an officer's uniform, waved to Emma as she approached them.
"Glad to see you could make it." Kazama smiled. "How's retirement been treating you?"
Emma popped some sore muscles in her back. "Been a real pain in the a-…"
"Language." Kazama warned. "We're still doing that game. You owe me one bill for every swear word."
"Oh, well here's a down payment." Emma smiled, handing Kazama a piece of paper with "100" written on its face. Getting up from her bike, she stalked over to a trash can, kicked the can across the lawn while shouting a torrent of obscenities and ranting about her recent troubles against the Earthbound at the top of her lungs while Kiryu covered his ears.
"How have you been doing… uhm… ex officer Kazama?" Kiryu asked while Emma continued her cursing.
"96… 97… 98… 99… HEY EMMA! THAT'S YOUR LIMIT! Whelp… now she owes me five." He muttered, before turning to Kiryu. "It's been just fine." Kazama sighed, looking down at Kiryu. "Discounting the fact that I have to potentially deal with new Dark Signers, perfectly alright. What about you though? I can see Emma's trying to cope with your recent tussle against an Earthbound disciple, but how are you holding up?"
Kiryu looked down at the ground.
"I'm… shaken." He admitted.
"That's normal." Kazama replied, patting Kiryu on the head. "I still have nightmares sometimes from when I think of my and Emma's duel against Sergey. Now he was a brute. Just be glad you're both alive. We'll find this person and we'll overpower her."
"That's not what's bothering me." Kiryu sighed. "Kazama, I KNOW her! I used to hang out with Yugo all the time. That girl, Rin, she was his friend! It was one thing fighting these guys when they were just random crazy strangers I didn't even know, but this…" he flailed his hands around helplessly, "…did Kiryu… I mean the actual Kiryu, the one before me, did he ever have to deal with a friend joining the Earthbound like that?"
Kazama looked off into the distance, a forlorn look in his eye. Noticing the silence of the group, Emma finished her ranting and strolled over.
"What's with the livelihood here?" she asked, walking up behind Kiryu.
"There were many victims of the Earthbound." Kazama whispered, many of whom did end up being people we knew. "I think the Earthbound targeted some people specifically just so they could get to some of the Signers, like they did to Jack Atlas when they possessed Car-…"
"Kazama, enough." Emma snapped, looking down at Kiryu with a concerned expression on her face.
Kiryu stared up at Kazama, hungry for more information.
"What did you guys do when that happened?" Kiryu asked. "Did you have to… to…"
Kazama remained silent as he stared down at Kiryu with a grim expression on his face. He didn't seem to know what to say.
"What does it matter?" Lizette sighed, sipping at a drink through a plastic straw. She had a lovely voice with a faint French accent that seemed to compliment her looks. However, her tone was tinted with anger and bitterness. "If your friend has joined the Earthbound, then she's not your friend anymore."
"Lizette." Kazama warned, but Lizette just continued
"It's true though!" Lizette snapped. "There's no point making excuses! Nobody's forced to join the Earthbound! Anyone who does is a monster who needs to be hunted down, just like the one who killed my family, Nozomi Aikawa!"
Kiryu flinched at the mention of Nozomi, a particularly nasty disciple who had plagued the Phoenix Guard for years, killing off members as she pleased. Thinking back on how Rin acted, Kiryu clenched his fists with fury.
"SHE'S NOT LIKE HER!" he spat, marching forward and giving Lizette a shove, causing the girl to nearly spill her drink. Lizette looked back at Kiryu in shock before clenching her own teeth together, throwing her drink on the ground, and shoving Kiryu back so hard that he was sent flying through the air before landing roughly on his back.
"STOP IT!" Emma and Kazama both barked in unison, getting between the two teenagers.
"AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK SHE'S NOT LIKE THAT, HUH?" Lizette snapped. "Are you just assuming that because she's your friend that she's not going to be like literally every single other disciple we've fought!? The Earthbound are evil! And the only person who'd ever join them is an equally evil person!"
Kiryu charged forward, ready for another round against Lizette, when Emma grabbed Kiryu by the back and held him back.
"Let me go!" he shouted.
"You conduct yourself like a Phoenix Guard!" Emma snapped, "And you, Lizette! Who made you the expert on the Earthbound anyway!? I may not be able to condone the actions of the Earthbound Disciples on the grounds that a lot of them are victims any more than I can do the same with your everyday criminal, but that doesn't change the fact that many disciples and criminals are not pure devils! For every Nozomi Aikawa and Sergey Volkov, there's a frightened kid and confused adult who have been genuinely deceived and exploited by REALLY evil spirits who don't give a crap about how much their human slaves suffer! We're here to help those people any way we can, and we WILL help Rin! I don't know if she's truly just a victim, but I'm inclined to believe that since she DID spare us, that she's not the fountain of pure evil you're making her out to be. If she resists and we have to destroy her to free her spirit and bring rest to her soul, we'll do it! But we will NOT be condemning her as a lost cause until we've tried our utmost to reclaim her!"
Lizette stared back at Emma, rage hardening her features as tears seemed to involuntary pool underneath her eyes. It looked like there were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she was not saying them.
"I'm done with this conversation." Emma huffed. "Kazama, you said you two had met Natsumi, Adeel, Semal, Lydia, and Joho, where are they?"
"Lizette?" Kazama asked, looking back at the blonde haired girl.
Angrily, Lizette wiped the salt water from her eyes before angrily blowing some hair from her face and folding her arms against her chest.
"Adeel and Semal left a little while ago. They said that they thought they had found a lead on the disciple they were hunting and decided to investigate it, but they also said that they would meet at the Friendship Cup Stadium if they didn't find anything by the time Shun's match began against Crow. Lydia was having… issues…" Lizette pointed at her chest, "…with her thing, and so Joho took her over to the stadium to… fix her up."
Kiryu shook his head. "She is one weird girl."
"She can't help it!" Lizette snapped.
"She worked for Academia." Kiryu breathed. "You know… the place where all those bad guys are? Only a person as equally evil as them could agree to work for them, or at least, that's what I got from what you said. I mean… it's not like she could have been conscripted against her will!"
"Don't you start that again!" Emma snapped, tugging angrily at Kiryu's hair. "What about Natsumi?" Emma asked.
Lizette straightened her hair. "She's…"
"NO YOU IDIOTS! I DID NOT STEAL THESE!" A shrill female voice called from the track-way above their heads.
"There she is." Lizette shrugged.
Looking up, Kiryu, Kazama, and Emma spied a girl wearing a jacket a few sizes too big for her figure while riding a small red D-wheel while a swarm of Security officers chased her. The girl wasn't wearing a helmet, so everyone could clearly see her golden eyes, tanned skin, and shoulder length black hair with a bang of yellow hair over her left eye which was flapping away in the wind. In one hand, she held a cluster of Hungry Burger bags while the other hand flailed helplessly around, alternating between holding up her cards, turning the wheel of her bike, and occasionally grabbing a French Fry. As crazy as it seemed, somehow she managed to keep herself upright while simultaneously eating and dueling the other officers. Spying the others watching her, she desperately waved her arms around, nearly dropping one of the bags before calling, "A LITTLE HELP PLEASE!?"
"YOU'RE DOING GOOD!" Lizette called back with a smirk on her face. "JUST A FEW MORE PLAYS AND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO BEAT THEM!"
"YOU SUCK, LIZETTE!" Natsumi called back, "YOU KNOW THAT!? YOU ROYALLY SUCK!
"Oh come on." Lizette replied. "They're just Security. It's not like they're an actual threat."
"OH YEAH RIGHT!" Natsumi sarcastically laughed. "I FORGOT THAT I JUST EAT TWENTY OF THESE GUYS FOR BREAKFAST EVERY DAY 'CAUSE THEY'RE SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO EASY!"
"You pretty waste one every other day whenever you fight Nevan." Lizette snickered.
"Well… he's a special case." Natsumi admitted, before desperately dodging a blast of flame from an attacking Goyo Emperor. "BUT I COULD REALLY USE YOU GUYS' HELP RIGHT NOW!"
"I'll help her." Kiryu sighed, mounting his bike and speeding up the ramp.
"Awww…" Natsumi sighed flirtatiously, "…thanks Kiryu, I knew I could count on you. BUT YOU STILL SUCK LIZETTE!"
"Don't be like that, Natsumi." Lizette called. "Look, I'll help you take down the last one, I actually kind of need something to punch right about now, and once we're done, we'll go see Shun's duel and I'll buy you cheesecake on a stick from a concession stand.
Natsumi stared down at Lizette as she continued acrobatically whipping around her arms to continue her plays, eat, and balance the bike. "With raspberries on top?"
"With raspberries on top." Lizette agreed.
"Well… okay." Natsumi sighed, "I guess you don't… royally… suck, I just have to… CELESTIAL DRAGON - SOL!" she commanded, extending her hand towards a large muscular orange dragon with yellow patterns over its body, a long narrow snout, broad horns on the back of its head with a sun-disk in the center, muscular arms with sturdy claws with opposable thumbs, burly golden legs with curved talons like prehistoric Utah Raptors, and a long elegant golden tail with a golden sphere at the end, "EFFECT ACTIVATE! DUST THAT GOYO EMPEROR!"
A ghostly image of a female knight briefly appeared before the dragon devoured it and unleashed a burst of red light from its mouth into the officer's Goyo Emperor, destroying the massive monster.
"And now… ulp…" she continued, stuffing a fry into her mouth, "bltakck hffs limfpnts drtclky!"
The golden dragon stared back at her, a confused expression on its face.
"I said…" Natsumi repeated, gulping down her fries, "…ATTACK HIS LIFE POINTS DIRECTLY!"
Nodding its head, the dragon flew up into the sky, spreading out a massive pair of golden bat-like dragon wings with shining golden orbs in the membrane. Once he had flown several hundred meters into the air, the orbs on his wings ignited into flames of fire, before the entire dragon burst into flames and rapidly dive-bombed the pursuing Security officer, reducing his Life Points to 0.
"INFERNITY TOMAHAWK STRIKER!" Kiryu suddenly called from behind the other officers. "DIRECT ATTACK!"
In front of Kiryu's bike, what looked like an Indian Shaman with a painted red face, feathery headdress, Native American robes, and multiple skulls and bone charms decorating his figure, charged forward before throwing a pair of tomahawks with skull-decorated handles at one of the officers.
"TRAP ACTIVATE!" the officer roared, "MIRROR FOR-…"
"INFERNITY TOMAHAWK STRIKER EFFECT!" Kiryu countered. "IF I HAVE NO CARDS IN MY HAND, MY OPPONENT CANNOT ACTIVATE ANY CARDS OR EFFECTS WHEN AN INFERNITY MONSTER ATTACKS!"
Screaming, the officer could only watch helplessly as the two tomahawks slammed into his bike before his Life Points dropped to 0 and his bike spun out of control.
"Whelp, that's the second to last one." Kazama observed, looking down at Lizette.
Lizette shrugged. "Okay, a promise is a promise."
Watching as Natsumi lead the last officer down a ramp heading straight towards Lizette, Kazama, and Emma's location, Lizette calmly activated her Duel Disk while standing right in the bike's path.
"INTRUSION PENALTY! TWO-THOUSAND LIFE POINTS!" the Duel Disk declared.
"I summon Angelic Armor Sword." Lizette calmly began with an almost bored expression on her face as a golden sword with a white blade and a hilt shaped like gilded angel wings appeared in her right hand. Next to the monster, a holographic indicator showed an ATK of 0.
"Next…" she continued, not backing down as the bikes sped towards her, "…since I control an Angelic Armor monster, I can Special Summon these two cards from my hand. Angelic Armor Left Gauntlet and Angelic Armor Right Gauntlet!"
Over each of her hands, a pair of golden knight gauntlets appeared, decorated with a pair of gilded angel wings over the elbows and shoulders. Continuing her game of chicken against the bikes, she stared up at the last officer's charging Goyo Emperor before continuing her play.
"Angelic Armor Right Gauntlet effect!" She declared, stabbing her sword into the ground before stretching out her right hand and revealing a red orb in the center of the palm. "Once per turn, I can target and destroy one card on the field!"
Firing a beam of red light from the central orb of her gauntlet, Lizette pierced through the chest of the officer's Goyo Emperor, dusting the monster while the officer looked on in stunned surprise.
"Angelic Armor Left Gauntlet effect!" Lizette continued, stretching out her left arm to reveal a glowing white orb in the center of her palm. "Once per turn, if exactly one monster is destroyed by battle or card effect, I can inflict damage to the controller's Life Points equal to the attack of the destroyed monster!"
Natsumi whizzed by her on her bike, still clutching the two bags with immense care as she chewed on a fry that was hanging from her mouth. Meanwhile, the officer continued charging forward, looking like he was ready to run Lizette over.
Just as the officer was about to hit Lizette, Lizette punched her left arm forward, and stopped the officer's bike dead in its tracks as her fist slammed into the hull, leaving a massive fist-shaped dent in the front. With the sudden stop of forward motion, the officer flew forward off his seat before Lizette caught his leg with her right arm and slammed him down onto the ground as his Life Points dropped to 0.
Natsumi pulled up around Lizette and began searching through her bags.
"Oh please don't tell me, please don't tell me… AHA!" she cried in joy, pulling out a toy that looked like a pink cat from one of the bags before reaching into the second bag and pulling out a different toy that looked like a blue cat.
"You still buy the kid's meals?" Lizette asked, suppressing a snicker as she deactivated her Duel Disk and the armor disappeared.
"I've been collecting these." Natsumi smiled, reaching into her pockets and pulling out an assortment of green, orange, red, purple, black, and white toy cats. "All I needed were the pink and blue ones and I just got those! I knew it would be worth buying two of them!" she exulted hugging the toy kitties to her chest before noticing Lizette tapping her foot while looking at her with an expectant expression on her face. "Oh and uh… thanks for helping me back there."
"Don't mention it." Lizette sighed, shaking her head before looking back at the track-way. "Where's Kiryu? I still feel like punching something."
"There's more coming!" Kiryu called from behind, just barely managing to exit the ramp and approach Lizette and Natsumi before a swarm of six more officers quickly appeared at the top of the track and started zooming towards them.
"You kids go to the stadium!" Kazama instructed, mounting his bike and putting on his helmet while Emma did the same. "I've been tracking Security's movements and it looks like they're still leaving everyone in the stadium alone. You should be safe there. Emma and I will hold these guys off!"
"Be nice to Kiryu." Emma growled, cracking her knuckles at Lizette.
"Don't worry Miss Grayson!" Natsumi giggled, jumping up from her bike and walking towards Kiryu before her foot caught on her leg as she clumsily stepped forward, causing her to fall flat on her face.
"Are you… okay?" Kiryu asked, wondering if he ought to help her up.
"Noooooooooooo!" Natsumi screamed, hastily scooping up her toy kitties, which had scattered on the ground, "Come back to me!" From her bike, Emma shook her head with disapproval, muttering something about Quetzalcoatl lowering his standards.
Once she had scooped up all the kitties and deposited them into her pocket, she enthusiastically hopped forward before slamming into Kiryu and giving him a massive bone-cracking squeeze while his face blushed like a radish. "Like I said…" Natsumi called back to Emma once again, "…don't worry, I'll protect Kiryu for you!"
"I'm almost more worried about you protecting him than Lizette attacking him." Emma mumbled before activating her Duel Disk. "Ready to show them what the Phoenix Guard's made of!?" Emma called to Kazama.
"My Chaos Kings are ready!" Kazama grinned. "Just like old times Emma?"
"Only if I was a young fifty-year-old." Emma sighed before the two of them sped towards the officers.
"We should go." Kiryu said, trying to pull away from Natsumi. "Uhm… time to go?" he repeated, giving her a light shove. She continued to grip him while Lizette shook her head before mounting her own bike. "How do you turn her off!?" Kiryu asked, desperately turning to Lizette as she zoomed away towards the stadium, ignoring his question. "THIS IS GETTING AWKWARD!"
"Only if you make it awkward." Natsumi tenderly whispered, affectionately patting Kiryu on the back.
Sighing in exasperation, Kiryu slammed forward on the accelerator, ripping himself out of Natsumi's grip before heading off to the stadium.
"Hey!" Natsumi called, "It wasn't like it was weird! Ugh…" she sighed, "Alright, we'll continue this later." And hopping onto her bike, she quickly pocketed her collection of kitties before speedily catching up to Kiryu and Lizette.
…
Fusion Dimension: Current Time
Resting on a simple pillow in a dimly lit tent, a lone figure sat on the ground with his eyes closed, his fists pressed together, and his legs crossed in a meditative position. He was a teenage boy of medium height with a strong build. His short well-groomed hair was a deep crimson and his smooth skin was a deep olive. Over his body, he wore sleek purple armor, styled to mimic the appearance of Raviel Lord of Phantasms. On his right arm, a crimson dragon foot shaped mark burned against his skin with brilliant light, which steadily grew as he gained energy from his now almost day long fast and meditation. To everyone under his command, he was known as Commander Jorq, head of the Raviel Spec-Ops. To a handful of his closest friends, he was known as brother, a fellow member of the venerable Phoenix Guard.
There had never been a time when Jorq was more aware of the great responsibilities his two positions held than now. As a member of the Phoenix Guard, chosen by one of the Crimson Dragon's own Signers, he shouldered the burden of protecting the world of the living from the growing threat of the Earthbound Gods and the unholy servants who obeyed them. As a member of Academia's elite, he held the even greater task of bringing about an end to both the Earthbound War and Inter-dimensional War in order for Academia's noble goals of uniting the worlds into one single paradisiacal glory to be realized.
Unlike the regular military grunts, the Raviel Spec-Ops were tasked with handling Academia's most covert and sensitive missions with the help of the Hamon Strike Teams and Uria Scouts. At the moment, Jorq had been given a special task from the professor himself, to assist the Commander-In-Chief, Edo Phoenix, in securing the Xyz Dimension for the Arc Area Project's completion by using his skills and special gifts to eliminate any and all Earthbound Disciples and Earthbound Familiars in the region. Jorq had accepted his mission with zeal, promising to do his utmost to assist Academia in bringing about their glorious mission to merge the dimensions into a utopia.
Unfortunately, some low-class Slifer soldiers seemed to have forgotten their true purpose.
Jolting from his meditations as his mind was rent with the sound of a man screaming, Jorq quickly opened his eyes, revealing them to be a deep brown color, before frowning and slowly and deliberately rising from his position. Walking forward with purpose, he picked up a Raviel-themed helmet and mask from a table in the corner of the tent and adjusted them over his red hair and eyes. Snagging an elegant black cape from a nearby coat rack, Jorq adjusted the cloak over his shoulders before parting the flap at the front of his tent and stepping outside.
Outside his tent, the ruined landscape of Heartland stretched out in all directions. It was almost continually dark and foggy now, the smog from the previous battles still needing time to settle. Wherever there wasn't an Academia war tent, there was rubble, littering the ground, stretching out into the distance, and hanging precariously over their heads as if the entire ruined city was ready to fall upon them and swallow them up. Scattered around the encampment, squadrons of Obelisk Force Soldiers, Ra Yellow Team Leaders, and Slifer Red Grunts were performing various tasks for the furtherance of the Arc Area Project such as clearing away rubble, training with various practice duels, working out, cooking, setting up more tents, or performing various guard duties as they braced themselves for any possible guerrilla attacks from rag-tag groups of restless Xyz resistors.
Behind the red goggles of his mask, Jorq closed his eyes before slowly inhaling the smoggy air and stepping forward. At the sound of his approach, two other figures meditating on pillows identical to Jorq's suddenly stirred before quickly standing at attention with total discipline. Both of them were fellow Raviel Operatives and Phoenix Guardsmen. On his right was Isaac, a tall and well-built boy with skin the same olivine tint as Jorq's, Green eyes, long black hair, Egyptian kohl around his eyes, a charm necklace around his neck, and a glowing claw-shaped dragon mark shining against his skin. On Jorq's left was Moriah, a petit girl with short brown hair, maroon eyes, a dark blue cloak over her armor, a set of long jeweled earrings, and a glowing mask-like tail mark burning against the skin of her right arm. Glancing at their commander as he began walking forward, the two followed Jorq, while the other soldiers stopped and stared as the trio made their way across the camp.
"Is something troubling you, brother?" Moriah asked, gracefully stepping over a pile of twisted rebar without snagging her cloak on any of the sharp bits of metal.
"Some soldiers have stepped out of line." Jorq replied simply, treading over a pile fragmented cinder blocks. "On the other side of the camp. They thought they could conceal their activities from me by doing them as far away from my tent as possible. They are mistaken."
"Has nothing else troubled you?" Isaac asked, a tone of concern creeping into his voice despite his efforts to keep his face respectful and disciplined.
"Nothing else." Jorq replied, feeling that there was more his fellow Phoenix Guards wished to speak to him about.
"Permission to speak freely, brother?" Moriah asked, following established Academia protocols despite them being on nearly equal footing as Academia's special Phoenix Guardsmen.
"Permission granted, sister." Jorq replied, ignoring the stares of a group of Obelisk Soldiers as they pointed at him and his companions while whispering amongst themselves. "And once you are finished, Brother Isaac has my permission to speak freely as well. I am interested in knowing what you learned over the course of your meditations."
Moriah bowed her head in gratitude before continuing, maintaining an even tone and straight face as she spoke, betraying no emotion or lack of self-control.
"The Earthbound are growing more restless." Moriah warned. "I have been sensing their strength over the course of my meditations, and I have felt their strength growing. There are tremors in the Underworld, and great disturbances throughout the four dimensions. Something significant has happened. Yuu Hashimoto is making his move."
Jorq momentarily paused upon hearing the news, eyes blinking behind his mask. Composing himself, he continued walking forward, trying to digest the grave news. True, he had not felt anything like that himself, despite knowing that their current location, the very place where the late General Tarleton had slaughtered many innocent people, including his own fellow Phoenix Guardsmen from the Xyz Dimension before getting himself killed in his own egotistical campaign, was a hotspot for many vengeful Earthbound spirits to rise up. Still, he had learned never to doubt Moriah's insight. Her clairvoyance had saved them from a number of very dangerous situations, and if heeded with care, could help them now.
"Do you have anything else you wish to speak about?" Jorq asked, maintaining his composure, despite feeling slightly shaken by the dire news.
"Only that." Moriah replied. Stealing a quick glance, Jorq was able to glimpse an ever-so-slight glimmer of worry in Moriah's face before she quickly suppressed it under a mask of calm discipline and control. Jorq didn't like to see weakness in the people he worked with, but he couldn't blame her. They had all anticipated the day with dread. They had tried to discover Yuu's plans for years, but nobody had been able to uncover anything. His actions had always seemed random, as if his plan consisted of nothing but throwing wave after wave of random Earthbound disciples at the surface world, sometimes causing his own disciples to fight and kill one another as they each pursued their own random and unrelated goals. Jorq was certain there was a bigger plan behind these seemingly random acts, but after years of trying to find the answer, neither the Phoenix Guard nor Academia were any closer to finding an answer or preparing for his big plans, whatever they may have been.
Isaac was the next to speak.
"I have had a vision." He said, turning his head towards Jorq, who kept his head firmly facing the direction of his next goal. "It was… troubling. There was a great mark burning in the sky, and six other great marks just below it. The marks consumed Academia and the four dimensions before all seven of the original marks were swallowed up in an infinite black void."
He looked around to make sure nobody was listening before continuing, whispering into Jorq's ear. "I fear the Dark Signers will be returning."
This was even more foreboding than the last premonition. It was made all the worse by Jorq's knowledge that Isaac, while not as generally omniscient as Moriah, was dead accurate when it came to interpreting the narrow scope of his visions. It WAS troubling. More troubling than anything else Jorq could think of. But he didn't have time to worry about it now. There was another matter that needed addressing.
"Well speak about this later." Said Jorq, stepping around the wall of a ruined building. Around the other side of the wall, Jorq spied a Ra Yellow team leader and a pair of rowdy Slifer Red students kicking around an old man who was letting loose the same screams he had heard during the course of his meditations. Evidently, the three had beaten the pathetic wreck in a duel, and instead of carding him as was appropriate, had decided it would be more fun to abuse the Xyz civilian even more.
"Please… no more!" the man gurgled, shielding his bald liver-spotted head with his wrinkly arthritis-ridden hands.
The other soldiers started to laugh, getting ready to assault the man with another round of kicks from their own boots and the metallic feet of their Antique Gear Soldiers. However, when the Ra Yellow Team Leader and the Slifer Soldiers suddenly spotted Jorq appearing behind them with his two top operatives, they suddenly stopped.
"C-commander Jorq." Said the Ra Team Leader, nervously addressing Jorq with a respectful bow. "I-I didn't think we would be honored with your presence."
Jorq was disgusted by the officer's cowardice. It was clear that he knew his actions were despicable and wrong and was desperately trying to see if there was a way he could duck out after being caught red-handed. Jorq was not going to give him that option.
"Why hasn't this man been carded?" Jorq asked with a stern expression on his face.
"Uhm… well…" the Ra Team Leader mumbled, "…he… he lost and… we… we thought we'd teach this bit of Xyz scum a… a lesson."
"I don't recall you receiving the assignment to torture Xyz civilians without my express authorization." Jorq growled, stepping towards the quivering Ra Yellow student. "In fact, if I recall correctly, I remember specifically giving the orders for the so-called 'Hunting Games,' to be done away with in favor of a quick and efficient, capture-and-card strategy in order for the Arc Area Project to be completed as quickly as possible."
"We were gonna card him." The Ra Yellow student protested. "We were just having fun, that's all! He's just Xyz scum."
Jorq couldn't take this kind of stupidity. The utter foolishness and condescension of students whose Academia teachings should have taught them better. It was one thing to fight with zeal and have a strong desire to defeat the enemies of Academia in order to complete the Professor's goals, it was an entirely different thing to lose sight of the end goals engaging in pointless exercises of cruelty.
"We are to be the builders of a paradise!" Jorq roared, staring daggers into the students' eyes. "When this war is over, we will restore everyone who has been carded and dwell with them in the renewed world! Our relationship with the people of this dimension is strained enough as it is! The last thing we need is for idiots like you three to mar the name of Academia with these vile acts of sadism!"
Jorq turned his head away from the cowering students as the old man's whimpering intensified. Whipping out his shield-shaped Duel Disk, Jorq quickly activated the carding function on his Disk, causing the man to vanish in a flash of light before his Disk produced a card of the man in the same cowering position. Carefully taking the card in his hands, Jorq produced a large binder from the folds of his robes before placing the card in one of the binder's many plastic slots and handing it to one of the Slifer Red Students.
"You will deliver this to Headquarters immediately before reporting back to camp to receive disciplinary measures. If you are not back here by tonight, I will personally see to it that you are court marshalled for conduct unbecoming of an Academia Soldier."
The Slifer Red student bowed his head before hastily running off with the binder in his hands, leaving the other two soldiers to stare back at Jorq and his companions with growing fear.
"As for you two…" Jorq continued, "…your disciplining starts now. Since you seem so eager to punish the civilians of the Xyz Dimension, I am sending you out into the front lines to root out and discover the location of the wanted resistor, Kaito Tenjo."
The eyes of the two students bugged out in horror. Nobody who had gone to try and collect the bounty on Kaito's head had come back alive.
"You will start now." Jorq growled, ordering the cowering students away. "Or you will face disciplining from Isaac and Moriah.
The Slifer Red and Ra Yellow student looked into Isaac and Moriah's hard cold eyes, sweat beading on their foreheads. Deciding they'd have better chances against Kaito, the two students scampered away like rats, fading into the smoggy fog as they ran back in the direction of the camp.
Once they had gone, Jorq returned his attention to his companions.
"Send word to the commanders of the Hamon Strike Teams and the Uria Scouts." Jorq instructed. We move out against the Earthbound in this sector immediately."
…
Xyz Dimension: Current Time
In an open field of the ruined Heartland City, two lone figures clad in ragged cloaks stood in front of dozens of rows of freshly dug graves with a few pieces of wood, broken stone, and scrap metal serving as headstones. Next to the field of graves, a large empty trench that had once held the victims of the Dreadroot's rampage stood silent and empty. Hardly moving and remaining deathly silent, the two figures continued their vigil, just as silent and just as empty as the cemetery they had created.
The figure on the right was a teenage boy with light blue hair, beautiful lime green eyes partially covered by a red-and-gold mask, blue, diamond-shaped earrings piercing each earlobe, a skin-tight white suit, boots, and gloves covering his body, a long a red Resistance ribbon tied around his waist like a sash, and a ragged blue cape fluttering in the wind. Against his right arm, a dragon-heart shaped mark glowed against his skin.
Standing to his left was a tall and athletic girl. Her hair was two toned with the top half a light red and the bottom half and side tails a creamy orange. Two blue-and-white hair clips held up her hair on either side of her head, while a crimson Resistance headband adorned her forehead. Her eyes were a deep hazel and her skin was fair, save for a layer of dust and grime that covered her arms and skin-tight pink-and-white riding outfit. Over her back, a ragged black cloak partially concealed her tear-stained face as she wiped at her eyes with her right arm, which bore a crimson dragon-claw shaped mark.
Trying to offer comfort, the boy took the girl in his arms, and let her weep into his chest with renewed vigor as he stared into the unending smog that now forever permeated the once peaceful and prosperous city. The natural and almost knee-jerk human response was to say something along the lines of, "It's all right, it's okay, we're here for each other, we'll get through this together." But that was something the boy absolutely could not bring himself to say.
"What do we do, Fuya?" the girl wept, pounding her fist's against the boy's back as her body shook with her sobbing. "First Gauche and Droite, then Rio and Ryouga, and then the entire Arclight family gets killed by Academia, and then, just when we think we've finally found a way to survive, Kathy and Kotori are both suddenly hunted down by a pack of insane Earthbound Disciples! Everyone! Every last Phoenix Guard we thought could turn this war around! Gone! We're dying! Everyone's dying! We're all that's left!"
Fuya continued gently rubbing his hand up and down her back, failing to suppress his own tears, which began trickling down his mask.
"We're not alone, Anna." Fuya whispered. "We still don't know if there are others who have survived."
"I've tried to find them!" Anna wept, "I've TRIED! I've used every trick I know to sense them, but they're gone Fuya! Don't you get it! We've lost! Academia took away your mom, they took away my mom and dad, and my little brother, Allen, and everyone else we love! The Phoenix Guard in Xyz is going extinct and neither the Crimson Dragon nor the other Phoenix Guards in the other dimensions even care about it!"
"That's not true." Fuya hoarsely whispered, struggling to believe his own words. "We don't know if they carded Allen. He could still be alive, hiding somewhere. And besides, I don't know if many of the Phoenix Guard know about what is happening here. We don't have Academia's dimension-crossing technology and so we have to use our marks to travel, which is quite difficult even with a surplus of energy. We can't use the marks to communicate across dimensions, and we can't send visions to other guardsmen at will. We don't know what they are having to deal with. For all we know, Academia could be attacking the other dimensions, or they could be facing growing threats of their own from the Earthbound."
Anna slammed her fists against Fuya's back, angrily shaking her head against his chest as a fresh torrent of tears streamed down her cheeks before she nearly collapsed to the ground with sobbing.
Kneeling down to the ground, Fuya gently scooped the weeping girl into his arms before gently pressing his lips against hers and then hugging her, resting his chin in her shoulder while she rested her chin against his own shoulder in a tight embrace.
"We're not alone." Fuya repeated. "We have each other. You are the bravest and strongest girl I know. Even if we really are the last Phoenix Guardsmen defending the Xyz Dimension, we will fight. We will drive them back together, and, if it really comes down to it, we will die together."
Anna pulled away from the embrace will still holding onto Fuya's arms. For a long time, she just stared back into his eyes, allowing the tears to continue flowing down her cheeks. He was right. They were still here. Despite everything that had happened, despite the countless deaths, all the destruction, and all the indescribable suffering they had witnessed, they had survived. That, in and of itself, was a miracle. Anna still wasn't sure if the Crimson Dragon cared about them or any of the other Guardsmen, but she knew that Fuya did. He would always be there for her, and she would always be there for him.
Nodding her head in agreement, a look of strong-willed determination slowly replaced her sorrowful expression. Wrapping her arms around Fuya as he wrapped his arms around her and pulling each other close, they gently pressed their foreheads together, closing their eyes before sharing a tender kiss.
Gently withdrawing, Anna opened her eyes before looking back at the graves with sorrow.
"We should do something for them." She whispered, "Something to make sure they aren't disturbed."
Fuya nodded his head in agreement before the two of them stretched forth their right hands, marks glowing brightly against the smog. Closing their eyes and chanting under their breaths, a crimson wall of light rose up around the perimeter of the cemetery before slowly fading away.
"Rest in peace." Fuya whispered. "May neither Academia nor the Earthbound disturb you."
Adjusting her cloak over her head, Anna waited for Fuya to finish before joining him as they exited the cemetery, preparing to continue their struggle against two invasions from two equally evil powers.
Suddenly, Fuya stopped dead in his tracks, eyes opening wide with fear as his mark began pulsating like a heartbeat and humming with a faint high-pitched ring.
"What is it?" Anna asked, noticing her own mark beginning to pulse.
"Nozomi Aikawa." Fuya whispered, whipping out his Duel Disk. "She's here!"
Anna gasped in shock, desperately activating her own Duel Disk while looking around and trying to find a sign of her. Suddenly, Fuya began shoving Anna away.
"RUN!" Fuya shouted at the top of his lungs. "I'LL HOLD HER OFF!"
Anna kept her feet planted where she was.
"I'M NOT LEAVING YOU!" Anna snarled, "WE'RE FIGHTING TOGETHER AND WE'RE DYING TOGETHER, REMEMBER!?"
"Excellent choice." A raspy female voice sarcastically croaked. From behind a ruined building, a small middle-aged woman with long greasy green hair cascading in tangled mats down her back and pale sallow face, began hobbling towards them. Long nails curled down her fingers like bird claws while her dirty scab-covered bare feet sported their own talon-like nails. Her clothing was exceedingly ragged and dirty, giving her the appearance of a wandering hobo. But the most startling feature about her appearance were her eyes, swamp-green irises glowing with a faint light against coal-black sclera. Dark red-and-black rings under her eyes gave her the appearance of one who hadn't slept for weeks. Against her chest, a multi-colored spiral shaped mark blazed to life.
"WE'RE TAKING YOU ON!" Anna shouted as the woman approached them, "WE'RE NOT LETTING YOU MURDER ANYONE EVER AGAIN!"
Nozomi looked up at Anna, brushed a strand of hair out of her eye with a single dirty nail…
…
…
…
…and smiled.
FEATURED ORIGINAL CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
Name: Nagasaki Yoshida / Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula / Deck: Element / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active / Theme Song: The opening theme song, "You Can't Stop the Girl," from "The Life and Times of Juniper Lee."
Name: Ming / Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula / Deck: Esoteric Diviner / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Alex / Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula / Deck: Holoride / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Einer / Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula / Deck: D.D. / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Katashi Yoshida / Original concept by: Scorchgid / Deck: Satellite / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Subaru Yamakuro / Original concept by: Ultimate Black Ace (I still can't read your name without the "Mortal Kombat" announcer voice in my head. Sorry.) / Deck: Fire King / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Stephan / Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula / Deck: Paradigm Shift / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Semal Haddad / Original concept by: kaploblast / Deck: Celestial Hero / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Adeel Haddad / Original concept by: AngeLight952 / Deck: Canine / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Unknown Earthbound Disciple / Orignal concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Abstract Art / Allegiance: Dark Signers / Status: Active
Name: Joho Okubyona / Original concept by: CorinnetheAnime / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard and Fusion Dimension Resistance / Status: Active
Name: Lydia Shiunin / Original concept by: CorinnetheAnime / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard and Fusion Dimension Resistance / Status: Active
Name: Emma Grayson / Original concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Stygian / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Kyosuke Kiryu II / Original concept by: FanOfKings / Deck: Infernity / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Lizette LeBlanc / Original concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Angelic Armor / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Natsumi Kazuki / Original concept by: Shimmering-Sky (The one who Donjusticia fears) / Deck: Celestial / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard / Status: Active
Name: Jorq / Original concept by: KuroganeFang / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard and Academia / Status: Active
Name: Isaac / Original concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard and Academia / Status: Active
Name: Moriah / Original concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Phoenix Guard and Academia / Status: Active
Name: Nozomi Aikawa / Original concept by: Donjusticia / Deck: Unrevealed / Allegiance: Dark Signers / Status: Active / Theme Song: The Living Tombstone's "FNAF 2 Song"
FEATURED FANFIC CARDS
Nagasaki's Monsters
Element Module/ DARK/ Level 4/ Machine/ Effect/ ATK 1500/ DEF 1500/ If you control a face-up "Element" monster, you can Special Summon this card from your hand. Once per turn, you can declare 1 Attribute (FIRE, WATER, WIND, EARTH): This card's Attribute becomes that Attribute. If this card is sent to the graveyard, add 1 "Element" monster from your deck to your hand.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
Element Charger/ LIGHT/ Level 4/ Thunder/ Effect/ ATK 1500/ DEF 1500/ If an "Element" monster you control battles, you can discard this card from the hand: Until the end of this turn, apply the following effects depending on the monster Attributes on the field. FIRE: "Element" monsters you control gain 1000 ATK and DEF. WATER: "Element" monsters you control are unaffected by your opponent's card effects. EARTH: "Element" monsters you control cannot be destroyed by battle. WIND: You take no damage.
Nagasaki's Extra Deck
Element Chimera/ DARK/ Rank 4/ Beast/ Xyz/ Effect/ ATK 2000/ DEF 1700/ 2 Level 4 "Element" monsters
If this card destroys an opponent's monster by battle, attach that monster to this card as Xyz Material. Once per turn, you can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card: Activate the following effects, based on the monster Attributes on the field.
* FIRE: This card gains 500 ATK and DEF
* WATER: Control of this card cannot switch, also, this card cannot be banished.
* WIND: This card can make up to two attacks per Battle-Phase this turn.
* EARTH: Negate the effect of an Effect Monster that this card destroyed by battle, also, this card inflicts piercing battle damage.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
Nagasaki's Spells
Aristotelian Element/ Spell/ Continuous/ You can tribute this card: Special Summon 1 "Element" monster from your hand, deck, or graveyard. Once per turn, you can target 1 monster on the field: That monster is treated as EARTH, FIRE, WIND, and WATER. If an "Element" monster you control would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can banish this card from your graveyard instead.
Ming's Monsters
Esoteric Diviner Onmyoji Seimei/ DARK/ Level 9/ Spellcaster/ Ritual/ Effect/ ATK 3000/ DEF 2700/ Effects unrevealed.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
Alex's Extra Deck
Holoride Megapod/ EARTH/ Level 5/ Machine/ Fusion/ ATK 2000/DEF 1000
Must first be Special Summoned with "Holoride Upgrade". This card gains 500 ATK for each Union Monster equipped to the monster sent to the graveyard to Special Summon this card. Each turn, this card cannot be destroyed by battle or by card effect a number of times equal to the number of Union Monsters equipped to the monster sent to the graveyard to Special Summon this card.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
Einer's Monsters
D.D. Paladin/ LIGHT/ Level 4/ Warrior/ Effect/ ATK 1900/ DEF 1800/ Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "D.D." monster from your hand. If this card battles an opponent's monster, you can banish both this card and the monster this card was battling. If this card is banished, add 1 Level 4 or lower "D.D." monster from your deck to your hand. You can only activate the effect of "D.D. Paladin" once per turn.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
D.D. Explorer/ LIGHT/ Level 3/ Machine/ Tuner/ Effect/ ATK 500/ DEF 1800/ During the End-Phase of the turn this card was banished, you can activate this effect: Special Summon this card. If this card is Special Summoned, you can add up to 2 of your banished cards to your hand.
Einer's Extra Deck
D.D.V. Fissure Scar General/ DARK/ Level 7/ Warrior/ Synchro/ Effect/ ATK 2300/ DEF 1600
1 "D.D." Tuner monster + 1 non-Tuner "D.D." monster(s)
Once per turn, you can target 1 card your opponent controls, banish it. If this card leaves the field, target 1 of your banished "D.D." monsters, except for "D.D.V. Fissure Scar General", and Special Summon it, then increase that monster's ATK and DEF by 400.
(Original concept by: Epsilon Tarantula.)
Subaru's Traps
Rage of the Fire Kings/ Trap/ Continuous/ "Fire King" monsters you control gain 500 ATK. If a "Fire King" monster(s) you control is destroyed as a result of battle, you can treat it as if it were destroyed by a card effect instead. Each time a "Fire King" monster is destroyed by a card effect, inflict damage to your opponent's LP equal to the Level of that monster X 100.
Katashi's Extra Deck
Satellite Laser Balsam/ LIGHT/ Level 8/ Machine/ Fusion/ Effect/ ATK 0/ DEF 2000/ Satellite Cannon + Satellite Cannon + Satellite Cannon
Must be Fusion Summoned and cannot be Special Summoned other ways. Cannot be targeted for attacks by a Level 10 or lower monster. During each of your End-Phases, increase the ATK of this card by 3000. This card can make up to 3 attacks per Battle-Phase. If this card attacks a defense position monster, inflict Piercing Damage to your opponent's LP. At the end of the Battle-Phase in which this card attacked, change this card's ATK to 0.
(Original Concept by: Scorchgid.)
Katashi's Spells
Satellite Overcharge/ Spell/ Quick-Play/ Target 1 "Satellite" monster you control: Activate its effect which activates during the End-Phase three times in succession. During the End-Phase of the turn this effect was activated, destroy the targeted monster.
Unknown Disciple's Extra Deck
Abstraction Muse Guernica/ Stats Unrevealed / Effects not fully revealed.
Trivia: This monster is based off "Guernica" by Picasso.
Unknown Disciple's Spells
Trompe L'oeil/ Spell/ Field/ Effects unrevealed
Trivia: "Trompe L'oeil" is French for "Deceive the Eye."
Abstract Art Destruction/ Spell/ Normal/ During either player's turn, you can discard this card from your hand: Inflict 500 damage to each player's LP for each "Abstract Art" card in your graveyard. You can banish this card from your graveyard: Destroy all "Abstract Art" cards you control, and if you do, draw 1 card from your deck for each card destroyed with this effect, and if you do, send a number of cards from the top of your deck to the graveyard equal to the number of cards you drew with this effect.
Adeel's Monster's
Jack the Canine Lifeguard/ WATER/ Level 2/ Beast/ Tuner/ Effect/ ATK 1100/ DEF 900
When this card is used for the Synchro Summon of a "Canine" monster, you can target cards from the Field, Extra Deck, or Graveyard up to the number of monsters used for the Synchro Summon and shuffle those cards into their owner's deck. You can only use the effect of "Jack the Canine Lifeguard" once per turn.
(Original concept by: AngeLight952.)
Laika the Canine Astronaut/ LIGHT/ Level 4/ Beast/ Effect/ ATK 1800/ DEF 1350/
If this card is Special Summon from the deck you can target 1 face-up "Canine" monster you control: This monster's level becomes equal to that monster's level. A "Canine" monster that was summoned using this card as material gains this effect.
If it is summoned your opponent selects 1 card in his/her hand and 1 card on the field. Return those cards to their owner's deck.
(Original concept by: AngeLight952.)
Adeel's Extra Deck
Orthrus the Legendary Canine Guardian/ EARTH/ Level 6/ Beast/ Synchro/ Effect/ ATK 2600/ DEF 600/ 1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuners
Once per turn, you can shuffle one card from your hand into the deck: Draw 1 card, and if the card you drew was a monster, draw 1 additional card, otherwise, send the card you drew to the graveyard. If a card or effect is activated that would return a card(s) to the hand or deck, you can shuffle any number of cards you control into the deck: Negate that effect, and if you do, add cards from your graveyard to your hand up to the number of cards shuffled into the deck with this effect.
(Original concept by: AngeLight952.)
Adeel's Spells
The Dogs Are Out!/ Spell/ Normal/ Special Summon 2 Level 4 or lower "Canine" monsters with different names from your deck. They can't be tributed or used as a material for a Special Summon, except for the summon of a "Canine" monster. You can only activate "The Dogs Are Out!" once per turn.
(Original concept by: AngeLight952.)
Semal's Monsters
Celestial Hero Serpens/ LIGHT/ Level 3/ Reptile/ Effect/ ATK 1200/ DEF 1000/ When this Monster is Summoned, add 1 "Celestial" Monster from your Deck to your Hand.
Trivia: This card's design is based off the "Serpens" constellation.
(Original concept by: Kaploblast.)
Celestial Hero Volans/ WATER/ Level 1/ Fish/ Tuner/ Effect/ ATK 300/ DEF 100/ If there is a face-up "Celestial" monster on the field, you can Special Summon this card from your hand.
Trivia: This card's design is based off the "Volans" constellation.
(Original concept by: Kaploblast.)
Semal's Extra Deck
Celestial Hero Graviton/ DARK/ Level 4/ Warrior/ Synchro/ Tuner/ ATK 1000/ DEF 1000/ 1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuners
Once per turn, you can target 1 monster on the field: Negate the effects of that monster.
(Original concept by: Kaploblast.)
Celestial Hero Galactic Void/ DARK/ Level 10/ Warrior/ Synchro/ Effect/ ATK 3200/ DEF 3000/ 1 "Celestial" Synchro Tuner + 1 or more Synchro Monsters.
Spell/Trap Cards and their effects on the field cannot be activated. Negate all Spell/Trap Card effects on the field. When this card leaves the field, draw 1 card.
(Original concept by: Kaploblast.)
Natsumi's Extra Deck
Celestial Dragon - Sol/ LIGHT/ Level 7/ Dragon/ Synchro/ Effect/ 2700 ATK/ 1500 DEF/ 1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuners
Once per turn: You can banish one "Celestial" card from your Graveyard: Target 1 card on the field; destroy it.
Kiryu's Extra Deck
Infernity Tomahawk Striker/ Dark/ Level 6/ Fiend/ Synchro/ Effect
ATK 2700/ DEF 500/ 1 DARK Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuners
If an "Internity" monster attacks while you have no cards in your hand, your opponent cannot activate cards or effects until the end of the damage step.
(Original concept by: FanOfKings.)
Lizette's Monsters
Angelic Armor Sword/ LIGHT/ Level 1/ Warrior/ ATK 0/ DEF 0/ When this card attacks or is attacked, increase its ATK by 500 for each "Angelic Armor" monster you control. Other monsters you control cannot attack the turn you declare an attack with this card. This car can attack each monster your opponent controls, once each. If this card destroys a monster by battle, you can target 1 card on the field: Return that target to the hand. You can tribute this card: Add 1 "Angelic Armor" monster from your deck to your hand, and if you do, it becomes the End-Phase of your turn.
Angelic Armor Right Gauntlet/ FIRE/ Level 1/ Rock/ ATK 500/ DEF 0/ You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) if you control an "Angelic Armor" card. You can target 1 card on the field: Destroy that target. You can tribute this card: Add 1 "Angelic Armor" monster from your deck or graveyard to your hand. (You can only use each effect of "Angelic Armor Right Gauntlet" once per turn).
Angelic Armor Left Gauntlet/ FIRE/ Level 1/ Rock/ ATK 500/ DEF 0/ You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) if you control an "Angelic Armor" card. When exactly 1 monster is destroyed by battle with an "Angelic Armor" card or an "Angelic Armor" card effect, you can activate this effect, you can activate this effect: Inflict damage to the controller equal to the original ATK of the destroyed monster. You can tribute this card: Add 1 "Angelic Armor" monster from your deck to graveyard to your hand. (You can only use each effect of "Angelic Armor Left Gauntlet" once per turn).
