It's Time to Duel! Chapter 2 (Original chapter Chapter 51)
So a month of practice has taught me a lot of things about my powers. [Obnoxious Celtic Guardian] has been so helpful in that regard that I am honestly sceptical as to his name being correct. He's only obnoxious to his enemies, taunting them when they cannot destroy him, apparently.
I can switch my monsters out from my field to my hand and back in a matter of seconds, although I do have to deal with the seven card hand limit. If I have seven cards for, say, half an hour, I get a migraine like you wouldn't believe. To counter that, I would have to find a card I didn't have yet, the Continuous Magic Card [Infinite Cards].
When Duel Monsters was brought over from Earth Aleph, a lot of the cards were shuffled around rarity-wise. [Infinite Cards] was made a pretty rare one for reasons beyond my understanding.
Anyway, I also found out that certain rules that the cards ordinarily went by in a game of Duel Monsters were not applied when I used my power. I was still bound by the three copies per card limit, but most Forbidden cards were merely Limited or Semi-Limited. Just about the only cards that I couldn't put in my deck were the three Egyptian God Cards, the three Sacred Beasts and a handful of other monster, magic and trap cards, such as [Exchange of Spirit] and [Raigeki].
The rules were also a bit off in regards to my field. I could summon monsters, but I could use the magic and trap zone for them as well, as if I had the [Seal of Orichalcos] in my Field card zone. I could summon ten of them, but that many were something of a strain to maintain because I got a huge migraine from just ten minutes of trying.
Something that was rather useful was that all of my monsters seemed to be in their own little worlds created by what deck I had. So [Obnoxious Celtic Guardian] could tell the monsters in my warrior deck my rules for coming out, but not my spellcaster deck's monsters.
Currently, I was standing on top of a warehouse with [Lunar Envoy] and [Queen's Knight] flanking me on either side. I was wearing a uniform similar to [Kaibaman] as it was the last power I had discovered. By pressing a monster card, one that didn't have to be in my deck, to my chest, I absorbed it and became dressed in the clothes that the monster card was wearing, if any.
That made trying any monster that wasn't humanoid really awkward, as I ended up totally naked. Embarrassing doesn't even begin to cover it.
My monsters and I were looking down at a building that I had used [Swordsman of Landstar] to scout out. He was really small, a foot high, so made an excellent scout. The building was a drug lab for the Merchants, one that pumped out kilos of all sorts of drugs every year. Not anymore.
"Peddlers of alchemical misery…" [Queen's Knight] sneered in disgust, "It shall be an honour to put this demesne of despair to the sword."
She tended to speak as if she was the lead character in an epic. It was actually kind of fun to listen to.
"Indeed." [Lunar Envoy] nodded, his hand tightening on his crescent pike, "'Tis a shame that the laws of the land disallow us from dispensing summery justice on such scum."
"They're what we have to work with." I stated tartly, "I think that I'll summon another monster just to be safe. Lessee…ah. Come out, [Gearfried, the Iron Knight]!"
In a flash, the dark figure of the metal-clad knight appeared in front of me. Clad in all-encompassing back armour with silver trim, [Gearfried] had a large sword-like blade built into the right arm and a shield built into the other. He was also a trump card of mine if any of the Capes from the Merchants showed up, as I had [Release Restraint] in my hand.
"Mistress, I am at your command." He inclined his head at me respectfully.
"Thank you, Gearfried." I answered with a similar nod, "Now, here's the plan for assaulting this place. Gearfried, you have the toughest armour, so you'll be making the initial assault through the doors. [Queen's Knight], you'll slip in behind him to watch his back. [Lunar Envoy], you're going to start on their roof and head down, with me watching your back."
"Mistress, do you have a way of protecting yourself?" Gearfried asked. His face was a mask of metal aside from the mouth, but I could tell he was worried for me.
"I'll be fine." I informed him and equipped the [Legendary Sword] to myself. It appeared in a sheath over my back, which was a slight modification to how it first appeared. Just possessing it made me strong, so I usually didn't draw it unless things got seriously bad, as in Cape bad.
"Very well." [Lunar Envoy] said with a frown. I could tell he wasn't happy about me putting myself in harm's way, but he seemed willing to follow orders, "I shall ensure that no criminal or miscreant make it past my crescent pike to harm you, mistress."
Or he could be being melodramatic again. Sheesh, what was it with my monsters making declarations and sounding like they were from TV dramas? Meh.
"Let's get to it." I ordered and the three warriors nodded. [Lunar Envoy] wrapped one arm around my waist and leapt over to the roof of the warehouse being used as a drug lab. I covered my mouth with a bandana, because I didn't want to risk breathing in any drugs or their fumes.
The Merchants' POV
The first sign of trouble was when something cut through the solid steel doors (OK, rusted like hell, but still reasonably sturdy) of the warehouse, then kick them down. Those members of the criminal gang that were alert (IE not drugged up with whatever infernal concoction they were taking that week) gaped as a six-feet tall man clad entirely in armour stepped into the building.
"Bullshit." One said as he recognised Gearfried from a card he owned, "Shoot the bastard!"
Uzis, pistols and machineguns barked and roared as they let loose on the intruder. They all pinged off his armour without so much as scuffing the paintwork.
"Humph. Not even a thousand attack points each, even with those puny weapons, and you think you can defeat me?" Gearfried scoffed, "My turn!"
Launching himself forward, he lashed out with his built-in sword, slicing guns in half with the edge and knocking Merchants unconscious with the flat of the blade. Behind him, [Queen's Knight] leapt to the attack also, bashing with her shield and blade.
"Get the boss!" one man shrieked as the two Duel Monsters methodically beat down the first thirty or so Merchants with a frightening ease.
The sound of smashing glass interrupted anything that any other Merchant would have said, as a warrior dressed in blue armour with golden trimming and wielding a pike with a crescent-shaped blade on one end and a figure dressed in a white trench coat and a dragon-shaped helmet dropped to the ground before laying into the rest of them.
Needless to say, no one got a call out.
With Taylor
"That went perfectly." I smirked as [Queen's Knight] and [Lunar Envoy] finished tying up the Merchants under the watchful and steely eye of Gearfried, "Well done you three."
"It was nothing, mistress." Gearfried said dismissively, "None of them have more Attack Points than [Cyber Commander]. Most of them are so weak that a [Kuriboh] could defeat them. I certainly hope that our other opponents are not as weak as they are."
I thought of Kaiser, Lung, and the other Parahuman villains in the Bay. "I can safely say that these guys are the bottom rung even in the Merchants. I…wait, what's that noise?"
A loud rumbling sound was rapidly coming closer to the warehouse and I had a sinking feeling that I knew the answer to my own question.
"[Lunar Envoy], head up top and see what's coming!" I ordered.
Nodding, the monster leapt up and gracefully climbed to the roof. A bare minute later he was landing back on the ground next to me.
"A great vehicle approaches, mistress." He informed me.
"Great, Squealer's on her way here!" I groaned. The Vehicle Tinker was not someone I wanted to run into on my first night out as a Cape. According to PHO, she was almost always high on some sort of chemical cocktail and she was very fond of using sledgehammers to crack nuts when it came to her creations. APC's with tank cannons, tanks with enough rockets for a fireworks display and other, stranger creations. By the sounds of this one, it was a tank.
"How strong is it?" Gearfried asked.
"Wavered between 2200 and 2300." [Lunar Envoy] answered. How they could estimate people and weapons as monster cards and equip/trap cards is beyond me. I couldn't do that.
"Mistress, I think it is time the Merchants faced my true form." Gearfried stated.
I blinked. [Gearfried the Swordmaster] was a very powerful monster. Just attaching a basic Equip Magic Card to him allowed him to destroy any monster on my opponent's side of the field.
This was a good plan.
"Let's do it." I agreed.
With Squealer
"Fucking bastardised son-of-a-bitch!" the Tinker swore as another pressure valve came close to bursting. She adjusted several dials and let out a relieved sigh as the pressure retreated to safe levels.
'I told Skids this thing wasn't ready!' Squealer thought irritably. The tank, which she had dubbed the Shit-Kicker, was fuelled by an alchemical cocktail of drugs, petrol and cheap booze, all of which was extremely volatile. She had wanted to fine tune the 'boiler' that fed the mixture to the engine itself for another week, but her oh-so-smart leader had ordered her to get to a warehouse to pick up the latest shipment.
She loved the man (despite his lack of dental hygiene) but he could be fucking retarded when it came to her tech. Just because she let other people near it didn't mean that it was 100% ready! If this thing blew up on her, she was so gonna banish him to the fucking couch for a month.
Peering out of the telescopic viewing periscope she had installed, Squealer frowned as she saw that the warehouse had several smashed skylight windows where there should have been none. 'Fuck, they got raided.'
Absently, she flipped several switches to bring the weapons systems online. The hum of several power circuits coming to life made a smirk appear on her face. While the power for the engine of the tank was in need of adjustment, the power systems for the weapons were a different kettle of fish. She was looking forward to this.
As the Shit-Kicker trundled forward, Squealer frowned as a single armoured figure emerged from the warehouse. Power armour? It was almost seamless if it was powered armour.
Squealer flinched away when the armoured figure was engulfed in a pillar of light, the brightness making her eyes water. Removing her goggles, she wiped them dry before replacing them and making a mental note to add an auto-adjuster for brightness when she got a spare minute. When she looked again, her jaw dropped.
Where there had once been an armoured figure, there now stood one hell of a stunning beefcake of a man. A rippling muscular physique, clad only in a loincloth, with bandages wrapped tightly around his forearms, palms, calves and feet. A mane of black hair fell to his ankles and piercing black eyes stabbed right into her, even through the filter of the periscope.
Then a slighter figure dressed in white, black and silver strode out of the warehouse and tossed a sheathed sword to the man, who caught it without even looking. Squealer's danger senses started to scream at her that this man might be attractive, but he was also dangerous as hell and that she should shoot the bastard ASAP.
So she did. The main gun was a coilgun that was a bit of an energy hog, so she used the smaller Gatling Guns mounted on either side of the main turret to open up on the almost naked bastard in front of her.
Then his arm, the one holding the sheathed sword, just blurred and the ground around him was covered in pulverised bullets.
"No. Fuckin'. Way!" Squealer screamed and began to charge the main cannon. That was beyond anything she had ever seen a parahuman do. He had to be at least Mover 9 to pull that kind of speed off!
Then the man drew his sword and slashed it down in a single motion, releasing a white wave that engulfed her tank inn less time than it took to blink. The next thing Squealer knew she was sprawled on the ground, with the broken pieces of the Shit-Kicker scattered around her.
"What the fuck?" was all she had time to say before something hit her from behind, sending her into darkness.
With Taylor
I shook my head as [Queen's Knight] took down one of the three Merchant Capes with an ease bordering on contemptuously so. This was someone that had been plaguing my city for just under a decade? This was someone that the PRT had trouble keeping in lockup? I was speechless.
"Bind her and gag her." I said with a sigh, "Leave her goggles though. From what I've read, the Unwritten Rules really frown on unmasking Capes."
It made sense not to unmask capes (according to PHO) as the very tentative Endbringer Truce relied on the lack of escalation between heroes and villains. Only the S-Class villains, the likes of the Three Blasphemies of Europe that couldn't be killed or Nilbog the monster-making devourer of Ellisburg or the cult-like semi-immortal Slaughterhouse Nine disregarded the Unwritten Rules without caring. Everyone else did their best to follow them. Those that didn't follow them and didn't have the power to back up their actions were hunted down mercilessly and either Birdcaged or killed by both villains and heroes.
Case in point, Kaiser. A Cape had tried to get into Kaiser's Empire 88 by killing a member of New Wave, Fleur, in her civilian identity, easily done as New Wave took off their masks when they changed from the Brockton Bay Brigade to try to spearhead the New Wave Movement.
Kaiser had promptly tortured and crucified the man responsible before dumping his barely living body in front of the PRT Building. He had known that to attempt to do otherwise would break the Endbringer Truce into pieces once word got around if he'd accepted the man. No compassion, just a good head for politics.
As [Lunar Envoy] dragged the comatose Tinker into the warehouse to tie her up with the other Merchants, I frowned. Now I had to call it in to the authorities and I had no Cape name. Fuck, I should have thought of this before now!
Shrugging, I pulled out the burner phone I had sneakily bought and tapped in the number for the PRT helpline.
"PRT Helpline, what is your emergency?" a female voice said professionally after a couple of rings.
"This is Duellist, a new hero." I said with almost no waver in my voice. It would do as a temporary name for now, anyway. "I have Squealer and about forty or so Merchants incapacitated and ready for pickup, along with a drug lab."
I then rattled off the address of the lab.
"Understood, Duellist." The woman said after a moment, "Miss Militia and Velocity and on their way to meet with you, eta five minutes for Miss Militia and less than two for Velocity. Please stay in the area for on-site debriefing. I am legally required to inform you that if this is a prank call, you can and will be fined up to and including $1000."
"I hear you." I didn't like being threatened, even obliquely, but compared to the Bitch Trio, this was nothing.
Hanging up, I disassembled the burner phone and had [Queen's Knight] smash the pieces with her swords. Rumours on PHO (again) had conspiracy theories that the PRT had Tinkertech equipment that allowed them to trace any phone that called them even once. I wasn't willing to subscribe to the theory, but I was willing to allow for a bit of healthy paranoia.
(Was that a contradiction in terms or was I just imagining it?)
"Whoa…!" a male voice said. I turned to see a man wearing a red costume with a 'V' in black stripes on his front and racing stripes on the rest of him.
He looked at me and my merry monsters and asked, "Um…who's Duellist?"
"Me." I stepped forwards, Gearfried and [Queen's Knight] looming protectively over me.
"Okaaaayyy…." He said, taking a breath, "Why do I have the feeling this is going to be a long story?"
So here we are, a new chapter of It's Time to Duel! One thing I always wanted to ask Stewart92 to do is to please give Tartarus a costume in Screw the Rules, I have Escalation. His latest chapter that I have on my screen as I type this is hopefully going to do something about that, but I just thought of an application similar to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monsters Duel Armour, except without the assimilation of the monster's attack, defence and abilities. If I do give her that, it will be after a Second Trigger. A scary thought considering how powerful Duellist already is, eh? ^-^