A/N: Ugh, I keep having to cut my chapters in half. Dammit, this is why we're 5 chapters in and haven't gotten to any of the good parts up until now. NICE GOING, SELF. Bonus points to whoever can guess what the Injured Order's symbol is based of!

Moments earlier, Masters Ezra, Brightmore, Rojas, August, and Takahashi were in the War Room, going over their plan of action on what to do about the current problem. Brightmore, of course, was doing most of the talking, as per the norm. The rest of them mostly stood around and tried not to fall asleep… err, listen carefully to what he was saying.

"As you know, there have been an increasing amount of attacks on the Creature Realm. More and more half-dead creatures have been popping up just on the borderlines of their civilizations, or they are being summoned with nigh fatal injuries already sustained," he began.

"You do realize that these creatures aren't automatically all on good terms with each other, correct?" Ezra interjected. "This is more likely than not just an inter-civilization war, fueled by passive aggression."

"That," Brightmore continued, with an extremely annoyed tone in his voice. "Is what I originally thought. But, there have been many instances to the contrary." He motioned towards Argus, and a collection of gruesome images of mangled creatures popped up on the screen. Several of them had been branded and scarred with an insignia of an open gauntlet inside of the Order's normal symbol.

Ezra stared, wide eyed and open mouthed. Brightmore nodded, and then said. "The Injured Order, as they are apparently calling themselves, has made it their mission to punish creatures. Earlier this morning, this side received an attack as well. A Skyforce Champion was found by one of our own, half dead and mindlessly smashing into a building. These are not just petty vandals, they know exactly what they're doing."

Rojas, visibly shaken by the images, cleared her throat to gain everyone's attention. "I believe there may be a way to track these before they come. Obviously, they aren't just going straight into the civilizations and harming them, or we would most certainly know."

She walked over closer to Argus, and proceeded to mess around with the screens, programming something into it. "I reckon that we could possibly track the mana signatures, and possibly see where they will release the next one! And maybe, we could find where they are being sent from!"

August walked over to her, cocking an eyebrow quizzically. "I see. And how do you intend to do that without overloading his circuits?" Rojas, too busy with her meddling, ignored him, and proceeded to lock onto the mana signature of a mauled Cyber Scamp. She smiled, and stood back, pleased at her discovery.

He rolled his eyes. "Impressive. You've managed to muddle it up even worse. According to your little 'experiment' or what have you, apparently, the next veil breach is going to happen right he-"

A distant rumbling and crackling of electric energy suddenly grabbed everyone's attention. And then, distant roaring as well as screaming proceeded to confirm Master Rojas' suspicions as well as her horror.

"Oh, now I wish I had muddled it up," she whispered.

Back in the present, Kimora, Nadia and Hawkins had all taken cover behind an overturned table, as Masters Tiera and Jaha attempted to calm down the beast, with some help from the older adepts and Toji. They were not, however, doing very well. The Rumbling Terrasaur's horn had been sliced down the middle, and had a massive chuck missing from the center, causing excess mana to flow from its horn and basically create its own shields.

Despite all this, the duelists were trying their best to try and corral the beast, as it was already severely injured and scarred, no doubt from the Injured Order's attacks. But, with every attempt to coax, the monster just kept coming and charging, trampling and slicing the creatures back to their realms. It was all very annoying, considering the creature that they were fighting was no more than an over-glorified cow with a Ginsu knife on its nose.

"I didn't do this!" Kimora screamed, covering his head from behind the table. "I was gonna try summoning that Jazuri… thing, and then HE showed up!"

"I don't blame you, dude. That Terrasaur came in straight outta nowhere," Aaron said, looking up over the table to see if it was safe for the Nadia and the two of them to come out. It wasn't, obviously, but he needed a better vantage point just to see what was happening. "Gotta admit, though. That rich kid's braver than I am."

And, indeed, Hector was facing down the creature eighty-five times his size, with Kenina blasting away rapidly. She wasn't trying to harm it, but the fiery blasts would keep it scared from crashing into anything else important. The three kids all peeked over the table just to get a good look at him.

"Brave, maybe. Foolish, yes, definitely!" Nadia said bluntly, ducking back down behind the table.

"He's gonna get himself killed!" Kimora gasped. He turned to Aaron. "Shouldn't we something?"

"You guys shouldn't do anything!" Aaron said, activating his gauntlet. "I'm going to protect you two!" And with that, he jumped out from behind the table, and charged straight into the heat of battle. "Skull Cutter!"

As Kimora watched his friend go off, he sighed and sat back down behind the table. He couldn't just sit here and do nothing! He felt like this was his responsibility, and he should at least attempt to fix it. He nudged Nadia on the shoulder, and she looked up at him with an almost exasperated terror.

"Okay, uh. Did you see the Terrasaur?" he started. "I mean, of course you did, but, uh. Its horn has been cracked. So, what we've got to do is plug up the hole, and then we can send him back. You think you can do that?"

Nadia thought about it for a second. "No," she said. "But I think I can do something else. I can create a distraction, and then you can do that."

"It doesn't really matter which one of us does it," Kimora said, rolling his eyes. "Just take care of the monster!" She nodded, and then slowly raised her gauntlet up to her face, taking a deep breath and activating it. Kimora grinned, and the two burst forth from the table to join their friends.

Blackfeather was finally on her last legs from the seemingly invincible Rumbling Terrasaur. Meteor Dragon wasn't faring too well either, and getting more and more tired as his blasts only bounced off the instant shield. It was embarrassing as all hell, considering it had also taken out five other creatures.

But that didn't stop Hector and Aaron from trying their best with their much smaller creatures. Skullcutter darted around the creature's legs, distracting it from the larger ones, and bringing it closer to the two of them. Kenina proceeded to fly around and flash her golden-red feathers at it, blinding and confusing it temporarily.

Unfortunately, this ended up working too well, and the Terasuar literally was incapable of seeing where it was going, and it charged straight for Kenina with its massive horn. Hector panicked, and without thinking, he grabbed Kenina out of harm's way. The Fire Bird panicked, and she exploded in his face and hands, blasting him back and her out of his hands.

"Hector!" Aaron yelled, and he rushed over to see if he was alright. Hector kept his eyes shut tight, for there were tiny little embers forming around his eyes that still burned bright red. Kimora and Nadia, who'd both made their way over to the main event, could only stare in abject horror at what they'd just seen. The Rumbling Terrasaur then turned to them, scuffing its foot down.

"Well, looks like it's good a time if any to be a hero," he said, taking a defensive stance. Now then, what to summon? Not Skull Cutter, he's already here, Mighty shouter was too powerful and might crush him. Then, the thought hit him, what better way to plug up a hole than with a giant spider's silk?

"Humonculon, the Blaster!" He called triumphantly as he performed his summon kata. And out of the portal came a spider. A very tiny spider, around the size of a tangerine, with one green eye and four tiny legs. It looked up at him, a bit confused as to who it was summoning it. "Figures," he mumbled, gently face palming.

Nadia herself wasn't sure of what she was even supposed to do at this point, other than just summon her creature, and hope everything worked fine. "Aqua Chaser Rusalka!" She said, as she performed her summon kata. And out came a very large sea monster levitating in midair, staring straight at her with unblinking yellow eyes. Nadia yelped in shock and fell down in fright.

The Terrasaur charged, and Kimora quickly put up his shield. The two then bounced off each other, and Kimora was knocked backwards, and the Terrasaur was a bit frightened at the sudden power balance. Blackfeather and Meteor Dragon attempted to help, but with one slash, they were both banished away.

Speaking of frightened, Nadia was still in awe from the creature she'd just summoned. It coiled around her, examining her every detail. And the, Nadia heard a voice in her head, calmly talking to her in her native language.

{Be not afraid.}

{What. What's happening, what are…?}

{I am conversing with you mentally. This is a language you are more comfortable with hearing, yes?}

{Yes, but. Well, I know I shouldn't question these sorts of things. I am in the middle of something, though.}

The Rumbling Terrasaur, although currently distracted, was still angry and scared as ever, and Rusalka could feel it. She gave a quick glance at it, and straightened herself out. Nadia stood up shakily, noticing Aaron was still over Hector, and Kimora was rushing to his side as well with a tiny golden spider in tow.

{Just leave it to me. I am at your disposal.}

"Is he dead?!" Kimora asked, looking over Hector worriedly. Hector, possibly fueled out of annoyance by this question, stood up and blindly smacked a hand on Kimora's shoulder. "Not yet," he said, struggling up to his feet.

"Okay, good!" Kimora said, quickly changing the conversation to avoid any more awkwardness. "I'm gonna need you two to help me distract that thing so that Nadia and I can put it down, alright?"

Aaron, who was helping Hector up nodded, but stage-whispered over to his friend "I don't think he'll be able to do much of anything, but I think I've got ya covered." Once Hector was firmly on his own two feet, Aaron stepped forward with Kimora and brought Skull Cutter closer to him. Skull Cutter bowed in his presence, and was then launched back into the fray with a gentle gesture.

And the bait was snatched up with ease, if maybe at little too well. The creature charged straight at them, flattening Skull Cutter and turning towards the three, until a sudden blast of fire-works spooked it into tripping and skidding to a halt only three feet away from them.

Aaron and Kimora looked behind themselves to see that Hector's eyes were bright red, wide open, and his palm was outstretched before him. "Care to repeat that?" he asked smugly.

Before the creature could stir, Nadia's voice called out "Rusalka! Lull him asleep!" Rusalka released an energy beam from her forehead, and the Rumbling Terrasaur's eyes finally slammed shut. Kimora then commanded Humonculon to very gently cover up the hole with his webs, and the little creature was more than delighted to.

Tiera, Toji, and Jaha watched the four of them revel in their victory. "And you're sure there's absolutely nothing we could have done to help?" Toji asked.

"Oh, we could have helped any time," Master Jaha said. "I just wanted to see how far it would go."

After the creature had been healed, as well as Hector's eyes and hands, Nadia and Kimora waited in the Library for what the Masters would say. Sure, they'd done pretty well, even if it was in a rather unorthodox way, but that didn't help their heart rates much.

"We were awesome out there!" Aaron said, seating himself right next to Kimora. "And to think, we did all of that without the Masters' help!"

"Well, they helped a little bit, but yeah. It was the coolest thing I've ever done!" He turned to Nadia. "And what'd you think of it?"

"It was alright," she said, not really looking up from the table's surface.

"Just alright?" Kimora asked. "I mean, come on! You used a giant psychic fish monster to stop another one from tearing us to bits, and all you can say is that it was alright?"

"I don't know," she said, raising her voice a little bit. "I didn't even want to fight. All I'm interested in is these tablets. Is there a sort of duel master that doesn't duel much?"

"You mean like Toji?" Aaron asked. Nadia eyes lit up, and she nodded furiously. "Yeah, I… don't think you're old enough for that yet."

She placed her head on the table and sighed. "You two have been very nice to me, and I don't even think we know each other's names! I just don't know if I'm cut out for this like you are."

Kimora smiled gently. "You never know until you try. Oh, and, uh. I'm Kimora. That's Aaron." She lifted her head up off the table, and looked at him, half-smiling back. "I'm Nadia." She said. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and looked up to see Ezra. She motioned towards the exit. "You two are needed by the masters."

Kimora and Nadia made their way to where the duel masters all sat around a massive table, at chairs with each of their respective civilizations emblazoned above them. Masters Rojas and Ezra stood at opposite ends of the table, their expressions stoic and straightforward serious. Master Takahashi was the first to speak.

"Acolytes. The both of you have shown incredible bravery, quick thinking, and teamwork in the few days that you have been here. I commend you for that, even if it was bit… odd in how you accomplished it. IT was been the unanimous decision of the Council to induct you both into the Order. Now, present your gauntlets."

All five of the duel masters rose, and Nadia and Kimora held out their gauntlets. With a quick blast of mana, and a bright flash of light later, the two had their gauntlets upgraded. Nadia's was dark blue like the ocean, with light blue accents. Kimora's was light green, like a healthy meadow, with dark green accents.

Of course, they weren't they only ones that had their gauntlets change. In the medical bay, Hector's eyes had just readjusted, and he saw that his once orange gauntlet was now a bright red, with only orange accents of its former self. Oh, things were changing alright, but none could be sure if they were for the better or worse.