I was late by a day, oh no! I wonder who noticed, heh. Anyway, an interesting thing about last chapter is that Sailor Mercury was originally supposed to lose. However, as I was scripting the duel with my esteemed associate RadicalR, I inadvertently got dueled into a corner not even card magic could save me from. So, rather than scrap the duel and start over, I just kept it as it was and worked around it. Oops. Guess Sailor Mercury's dueling ability really did save her soul, huh?

"Chapter 7: Smackdown"

By: Agent Baron

"You wish for me to get aggressive, Weakass? I suppose now is as good a time as any!" Von Stupor declared. "I will first set one M/T, and then I shall flip summon two of my three set monsters! One is the Trap Master! It has a flip effect that allows me to destroy one set trap card on the field, assuming the card I select is a trap card!"

"No, my 'Soul Resurrection'!" cried Weakass, and a man rose out of Von Stupor's set monster card.

The man has a hat with bear trap jaws and gadgets protruding from under a shawl in every direction and no legs. He hovered to Weakass's set M/T card and gnashed it with a chainsaw coming out from under his shawl. He then returned to his side of the field.

"Next, I'll flip summon the 4-Starred Ladybug of Doom!" Von Stupor Declared, and a giant ladybug emerged. It had four green stars on its carapace in place of black spots. "Its flip effect has no value here, therefore it does nothing. Now, I shall attack you with both monsters!"

The ladybug rammed Weakass shortly before the Trap Master tossed a lit bomb over to him. The bomb exploded, sending Weakass's Life Points to 3900.

"I know how to halt that little team of yours. I'll summon Bokoichi, the Freightening Car!" Weakass declared.

"What kind of a name is that for a card? I think Maximillion Pegasus had a little too much wine the day he thought of that card," Rebecca muttered.

"Don't tease my friend!" Von Stupor shouted back at her. "He says his card ideas are always the best when he's a little tipsy!"

"I'll use Bokoichi to attack your Trap Master!" Weakass announced, ignoring the outside conversation.

A freight train's head car burst from a card and ran over the Trap Master, goring him on the ground underneath and reducing Von Stupor's Life Points to 1000. The train bore a very ugly, grimacing face on the front of it.

"No!" Rebecca cried. "You're almost out of Life Points!"

Von Stupor, sweating, drew his next card.

This match is growing much too close, he thought. If only I had my original deck...

"Come on, Von Stupor, you can do it! We have faith in you! Teach this brat a lesson in manners!" Rebecca cheered.

"When I'm done with the stupid guy here, I'm coming for you next, you little brat!" Weakass threatened.

"You better hope Von Stupor finishes you before I get to! I'll make you wish you've never been born!"

"I set one M/T and shift the 4-Starred Ladybug of Doom into defense mode! That ends my turn!" Von Stupor announced.

Drawing, Weakass laughed. "Now you'll feel the true fury of my weak monsters! First I'll summon the Mighty Guard!"

A large, mechanical soldier appeared on the field.

"Next, I'll play 'Machine Duplication' on my Mighty Guard! This allows me to special summon two more cards of the same name from my hand or deck!"

As two more Mighty Guards Appeared on the field, Weakass began to laugh harder. "And now, I'll play a second Machine Duplication on my Bokoichi, allowing me to summon two more Bokoichis to the field!"

"Hey, that's cheating! You can't do that!" Rebecca protested.

"Oh, can't I?" Weakass patronized. "You see, when 'Seal of Orichalcos' is on the field, I can use my M/T zone as a monster card zone as well, which means I can summon as many as ten monsters at once!"

What?! Von Stupor thought in shock.

"And now, behold the horror of my weakling six-monster army! Go, demolish his monsters and the rest of his Life Points!"

"Not so fast! I'll activate Waboku, which reduces all battle damage to zero for this turn! I live still!" Von Stupor countered.

Three priestesses appeared before Von Stupor, and one by one, they fell under Weakass's mighty attack force, consisting of three mighty guards, three freightening cars, and a remaining agent of creation.

"You're delaying the inevitable! There is nothing you can do about my army of weaklings!" Weakass taunted.

"Oh?" Von Stupor patronized upon viewing his next card. "Have you ever heard the phrase, 'Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing?'"

"Uh...?" Weakass grunted in confusion.

"Well... perhaps you'll understand what I mean after I activate my trap, 'Just Desserts'! This card inflicts 500 points of direct damage for every monster you have on the field! That means you take 3500 points directly!"

"What? That's not possible!!"

A large hog-like creature appeared on the field, eating the fried leg of a bird. It glared at Weakass and suddenly, the leg grew to enormous proportions. The creature threw the leg and it bludgeoned Weakass, knocking him entirely off of his feet. His Life Points sank to a meager 900.

"And now, for the final blow!" Von Stupor announced. "I will tribute my set monster to summon the Dark Dust Spirit!"

"W-what? What does that card do?!" Weakass sputtered.

"This card, when summoned, automatically destroys all monsters on the field, except for itself!"

"No!! This can't be!!"

"And now I order it to attack you directly, ending this duel!"

A creature rose up from the ground and released a large cloud of sand. The sounds of Weakass's monsters dying were heard, and when the sand cleared, no other monster stood. The spirit itself looked like a bipedal creature clothed in mummy's wrap, and had a wide mouth with sharp fangs, and long, billowing white hair. It drifted to Weakass and stared at him right in the face.

"This duel is finished," Von Stupor uttered, as the spirit gave Weakass a hard slap across the face worth 2200 damage.

Weakass lied on the ground, holding his face.

Von Stupor walked over to Weakass as the seal began to close in on him.

"No... My soul..." he whimpered.

"You poor child. You should have known that when you toy with the souls of others, you in exchange risk your own," Von Stupor said to him. "But I will find a way to return yours to you, just as I will return my friend's. I must!"

A brilliant stream of light engulfed Weakass's body as his soul was extracted. When it all dissipated, he merely laid there without moving.

"In a way, I feel sorry for him..." Amy said quietly.

"He has helped us, at least a little bit," Von Stupor commented.

"How?" asked Rebecca.

"Because now there is a strong chance that Baron Von Engar is also involved with Dartz, if this soldier was impersonating him. That brings me one step closer to rescuing my deck."

Rebecca watched him as he observed Weakass's fallen body.

Just then, the strange, mechanical dog known as Marron approached the group.

"You will be my opponent," it spoke while looking in Amy's direction.

"Over my dead body!" Rebecca interjected, and ran inside the trailer.

"I will not risk her life to you! Duel me instead!" Von Stupor demanded.

"No, duel me!" shouted Rebecca, coming out of the trailer. "I owe you thugs for kidnapping my grandfather!"

Marron looked at both angry duelists, and backed away a step.

"The conditions do not look favorable," buzzed the robot.

Just then, two motorcycles pulled up and parked next to the trailer.

The riders hopped off of the bikes and pulled off their helmets. One of them looked to the group and said, "If you owe all of us thugs for what we did to your grandfather... why not duel all of us instead of just one?"

"What?" Rebecca asked, confused.

"Mecha-Dog Marron here is our reconnaissance robot. We have cameras so we can see through his eyes, and hear what he hears at all times. That's how we heard your comment," explained the second biker.

They both wore the same uniform, except one of them had very short bleach blonde hair, sticking straight out in all directions like a spined ball. The other had black, sloppy hair that hung down over deathly pale skin.

The blonde spoke, "And I said that if you all really want to duel so badly, why don't you all duel against Marron? We'll join in, too." He looked smug.

"Who are all of you?" Von Stupor asked them.

"Well, I won't say we're any of Doma's three horsemen per se, but we're certainly affiliated with the group. Us, along with Weakass here, were under orders to duel and defeat whoever is here and take their soul while the stronger duelists are out at Death Valley, distracted by Raphael's duel with the Pharaoh!"

"Such a dishonorable tactic... is there a true duelist in all of Doma?!" Von Stupor ranted.

"We only follow orders from Master Dartz," said Marron. "Nothing more, nothing less. We do as we're told, without choice. That is the cost of Doma's power."

"All of you work for Doma?" Amy asked them.

The black-haired biker answered, "Yes, we do. And we're here to defeat every last one of you."

"What if we refuse to duel?" Rebecca asked.

"Well, it'd be a shame if Marron here got mad and decided to attack you all."

I could probably take them, but... I can't afford to risk the lives of Rebecca, Amy, and the professor... Von Stupor thought to himself.

"I'll duel," Von Stupor spoke, readying his duel disk.

"I'll duel, too," Amy spoke and entered the trailer. A few moments later she emerged with a duel disk.

"Publicly available?" Von Stupor asked her.

"Tournament," Amy said, winking. "I'm no monkey when it comes to any kind of strategy game, you know."

"Are we doing the right thing?" Von Stupor asked. "Dueling in a three versus three duel means that one of us may very well lose our soul before the battle is over..."

"We're not letting you duel alone or you'll definitely lose, Von Stupor!" Rebecca protested.

Von Stupor nodded, and looked to their new opponents.

"Who are you all, anyway?" he asked.

"I'm Zombie McZombiefeister, soldier for Doma," said the black-haired biker.

"Lighty von Light-Light, Zombie's step-brother and also a soldier for Doma!" answered the blonde.

"I am Mecha-Dog Marron, reconnaissance droid of Master Dartz and expert-level dueling computer," responded Marron.

"I am Baron Von Stupor, vice-president and CEO of Industrial Illusions!" Von Stupor informed them.

"You mean you were vice-president and CEO," Zombie interjected with a snide grin.

"Zombie!" Lighty reprimanded him. "Stop it."

"Just correcting him."

"I am Rebecca Hawkins, U.S. champion duelist!" Rebecca proudly announced.

"I am Amy Anderson, and I… have no memory of my past!" Amy said uneasily.

The six duelists readied their duel disks and prepared to duel.