"Is that my suit?" Manjoume inquired to the officers.

"Aniki?"

"Black?" Ryota could have sworn that he saw Manjoume legitimately smile as the former pro duellist called out, he couldn't be surprised. After all Ojama Black was one of the three infamous "Ojama Trio", Manjoume's ace monster cards.

"Have I told you to stop dancing?" one of the officers exclaimed to the Ojama in a robotic voice.

"N-No sir, uh yes! I will dance again!"

"The only one who bosses that little brat is me!" Manjoume said to the officer in a furious tone as though he was going to tear him apart limb by limb.

"And what is your identification code? As you know my one is E567$!" A slim officer questioned Manjoume in a human voice as supposed to the robotic one of the other.

"uhhh….w-we" Ryota stuttered.

"It appears that…" The third and final officer, who was the one dressed in the Ojama yellow suit alluded to the slim officer in a robotic voice, but stopped his own sentence to not alert the three intruders.

"Ohh! That's why they had to break open the door! Stupid me! I should have known, battle stations!" The officer exclaimed with an expression and pose so exaggerated that it was melodramatic even compared to everything and everyone both Manjoume and Ryota experienced and met during their duel monsters careers, and that included Pegasus and Judai.

In literally 5 seconds the two officers with robotic voices transformed into separate metal frames which then combined to form a giant exoskeleton fit with a duel disk which attached around the human officer, all while foam and white stuffing rained down as the Ojama yellow suit was ripped to shreds during the show.

"Nooooo the suit!" Ojama black exclaimed whilst Manjoume himself couldn't care less as his bad memories of his time as a "duelling clown" were shredded.

The officer who was now equipped with a mech-suit descended to face the three intruders. Expressions were mixed around the room, both Manjoume and Ryota literally fell on the bottoms in surprise and Black fainted in shock, whilst Rodrick remained unfazed and gave a shrug signifying that "he had seen better".

"My name Fayden, it's time to kill you!"

"For something as cruel as killing you sure say it so casually!" Ryota smirked.

"Let's get this over with!" Manjoume exclaimed in anticipation to crush their new enemy.

|Fayden:12000|Ryota & Manjoume: 4000|

"WHAT! 12000 life points!?" Ryota complained at the unfairness.

"Yes, the powers of my two androids combined with my own strength has resulted in my enhanced durability as you see here."

"Ryota, remember that we still have one advantage over him and it's that for every turn he takes we have two. Keep in mind that life is overall just a resource, and that life is pretty irrelevant if you have board control and good card advantage, someone with 10000 life points with nothing on the board and no cards in his hand can and will usually lose to someone with 1 life point with good back row and a monster to keep attacking as well as a good hand to replenish losses." Manjoume assessed their advantages for Ryota, trying to calm his friend down.

"Let's do this! I dra…" Fayden attempted to start the duel but was cut off by Manjoume.

"Wait, you can't draw on your first turn if you are the first to play!"

"Hey! You drew on your first time during our duel on the submarine…" Ryota still remembered their duel and couldn't help but point this out.

"T-That was a casual game!" Manjoume answered back irritated, the hesitance in his voice basically said "I forgot about that" to Ryota.

"Hah! Manjoume, although you are kind of a hypocrite I must confess that I too forgot about that rule."

"Hey old man! Why aren't you duelling as… oh, that won't work. Uh… you see, that mainframe is connected to my head." The man in the mech-suit added.

"That's unfortunate. I guess I will have to duel th… "

"Too late sucker! We are already locked in!" Fayden exclaimed, cutting off Rodrick.

"Are we going to duel or what?" Manjoume had to shout to project his voice, as he was sure Fayden couldn't hear him up there due to the sheer height of the mech suit.

"Ok Ok, Manjoume-chan, you have to learn to cherish life! You can't just be so eager to lose… and die here!"

"Manjoume…. chan!?" Now Manjoume was really pissed, not only Fayden mock him by calling him with a cute honorific but he also teased him by saying that he was definitely going to lose!

"Let's get this on the road! I activate Accelerated Thought from my deck!" The cyborg exclaimed as a spell card appeared on the battlefield, out from the holographic card appeared a headset which hovered up to attach to its owner's head, Fayden's deck was then automatically shuffled by a mechanical apparatus.

"So you can activate that card from your deck?" Ryota inquired, curious to why he has never seen anything like a card that can be played directly from the deck.

"Mechanically enhanced duellists, also known as cyber duellists have the unique ability to contain and control cards in their deck that could activate from the deck itself, such cards are called memory cards. Although they have great consistency due to the ability to play a card from their deck they lack explosiveness as they can only play one memory-card every turn during either player's turn."

Rodrick explained to the duo, hoping that this piece of information could help them in this duel.

"Also, continuing from what Rodrick just said. Cyber duelling was put under research by the Chinese many years ago, but was then research on it was banned due to its connection to the underground market, as well as the obvious underground duelling. However luckily as a former CEO of Manjoume Corp, I managed to have one of my employee's playtest a prototype suit".

"And?" Fayden asked Manjoume with hint of malice as given by his smirk, whilst also signifying with the end of his turn with a gentle hand gesture to Ryota.

"The test subject suffered an internal problem with his body as it took months of therapy and surgeries to allow him to play regular non-memory cards again. Every time he played a non-memory card it just did nothing and was useless… and he got shocked for 500 life points every turn."

"I draw! Then I set 2 cards and 1 monster face-down" Ryota ended his turn.

"I draw! I set a monster face-down, then…"

"I activate battery lightning from my deck! This memory trap card can be activated when an opponent sets or summons a monster, and when activated it destroys one monster on the field!"

Fayden activated his trap as a current of lighting struck down and zapped Manjoume's set man-eater bug.

"Shit, now my only monster is gone. I will set a face-down anyways" Manjoume thought as he passed the turn to his enemy.

"Accelerated Thought allows me to not draw during my draw phases, it also allows me to pay 500 life points in order to have my traps be immune to negation. I shall not draw during my draw phase."

"So it is easier for him to play cards from his deck rather than in his hand" Manjoume analysed.

"I shall play Memory Reflect Slime in defence mode (0/3000) and end my turn!" A large grey reflective goo appeared before the cyborg, which then turned into a blue reflective goo after Fayden gestured to Ryota, signifying the end of his turn.

"Alright! I will begin my turn by summoning the Atlantean Dragoons in attack mode (1800/0), then I will flip my face-down Atlantean Heavy Infantry face-up (0/1600). This allows the summoning of an additional monster during my main phase, and I choose to summon Atlantean Marksman 1400/0."

"To help you out Ryota I will activate my face-down, Compulsory Evacuation Device! This bounces your monster back to your hand!" A mechanical platform appeared below the slime, turning it into pure energy which then shot back to Fayden's hand, finally materializing into a physical card.

"I will summon another copy of Memory Reflect Slime from my deck in defence mode then!" Fayden's response was however eerily off according to the observation of Rodrick, it seemed as though there was a secondary reason other than a tactical reason that he would summon another copy of the slime, rather than activating another memory card from his deck.

"Doesn't matter much. Atlantean Dragoons allows my Level 3 or lower Sea Serpents to attack you directly!" Ryota declared as Fayden got shot by a crossbow by the Atlantean marksman (12000-10600).

"Next, I activate marksman's effect! I get to special summon a level 4 or lower Atlantean monster from my deck as long as it is not another copy of marksman." A heavily armoured brigade of atlanteans materialized onto the battlefield (1400/0).

"The Atlantean Attack Squad gets an additional 800 attack points as long as I control another sea creature! (1400-2200/0). And since it is a level 3 monster it can attack you directly!" Ryota declared his attack, shortly after the attack squad surrounded Fayden and then closed in delivering slashes and shield bashes simultaneously, causing parts of his mech-suit to clearly malfunction which was made obvious by the sparks and "faulty wiring or cord" noise heard occasionally when you plug in a device into an electrical power outlet (10600-8400).

"Are you done? Cause I can't wait to see this once it is Manjoume's turn…" Fayden grinned, clearly showing no sign of pain from the previous assaults.

"See what?" Manjoume shouted.

"I end my turn!" Ryota, who felt uneasy about what Fayden meant whilst reluctantly giving priority to the former pro.

The slime started transforming once that priority was given, it first turned pink, and then yellow, and then segments of pink, yellow and many other colours, whilst chaos was happening amongst those colours, a slim, elegant and familiar figure formed.

"Asuka?" Manjoume gasped in surprise.

"Wait, who?" Ryota inquired in response.

"No, it's not you…" Manjoume sighed.

"How would you know if it's not her?" Fayden questioned, planning to plague Manjoume's mind with doubt.

"Asuka… would never want to fight me."

"Are you freaking serious? She tried to kill you!" Ryota shouted, being very surprised at how Manjoume would forget such a traumatic occasion.

"I…I just know ok? You both don't know her like I do!"

"Wow, you are annoyingly delusional. You believe that she is still your friend so strongly that you actually ended up avoiding being persuaded that it was actually her! It pisses me off that your weakness coincidently benefited you." Fayden spited in absolute irritancy.

Manjoume drew his card and smiled. "With this card, I will win!"

"During your standby phase I activate my third and final Memory Reflect Slime from my deck in defence mode (0/3000)!" A second slime appeared on the field, but was a regular slime unlike the Asuka clone.

"I will set 1 card, and then I will summon the Gene-Warped Warwolf in attack mode! (2000/0). End."

Manjoume stood satisfied at his level 4 monster. He considered himself very lucky that he even got one of these from the "common card" pool that he was limited to, level 4 monsters with 2000 attack and no drawback were heralded as the best cards for starting duellist. They were both easy enough to use and strong for new players and consistent enough for professional duellists. The demand for these monsters were so high that their prices skyrocketed to around seven thousand yen each, hence why only rich children could afford these.

"I guess it is my turn. I will activate the trap card "Multi-Compatible System" from my deck. This allows me to be able to play non-memory cards normally, even though I will still take 500 damage per turn for each face up non-memory card on the field."

"Oh no, Ryota! We have to end this duel soon." Manjoume warned.

"Can't we just take our time? If he plays a normal cards he takes 500 damage per turn for each of them on the field… in addition to the damage output I am sending with my sea monsters."

"Ryota that is assuming that his normal cards actually stay on the field, but if it is a trap or spell card then it is like a free advantage. The point is with that card he has more options and he can play more cards each turn as playing normal cards does not counts towards the limit of how many memory cards he can play per turn."

Hearing this Ryota nodded towards his partner in agreement.

"Accurate analysis, as expected of you… Black Thunder. But you got one thing wrong, it is not a "free advantage" rather it is an advantage that outweighs its detriments to me. While "System" is on the field I have to either pay 1000 life or discard a card during my Main phase 1 or I lose the game." Fayden returned to a serious tone and reminding himself who he is actually facing, after all he should always be on guard when facing someone as renowned as the "Black Thunder".

"I will now discard one card in payment for System, the card I sent to the grave was Makyura the Destructor. Of course… you are already familiar with what this card does when it is sent to the grave. I will now continue my turn by activating Metal Reflect Slime in my hand (0/3000), and since I only have to take 500 damage during my end phase. I take no damage if I just play a normal spell card…"

"Fusion…" Manjoume guessed.

"I am thinking so too." Ryota added.

"I will activate polymerization! Fusing my three slimes to summon 'Elastic Network'!"

The 3 slimes stretched and distorted around a singularity, only for a beam of light to pierce the roof, forming a geyser in which grey metallic liquid seeped out. Soon the entire room was shrouded in a grey matter with red outlines denoting circuitry you would typically see from within a computer. Fayden's mech suit sank below the circuit-shrouded floor like quicksand, clearly merging with this 'network'.

"You guys are like computer viruses, except that I unfortunately have to completely delete you… Even though you guys would have served as nice souvenirs if I took the risk of quarantining you. Would you agree?" Fayden laughed.

To be continued