Chapter 14: Gate of Sloth
As the team with the most remaining Life Points last Duel, the Queen and Bombardier went first. The former started by summoning Parasite Caterpillar (800/800), playing Double Summon and summoning Pheromone Wasp before ending with two face-down cards. Carnivore took over, summoning a Mad Sword Beast (1400/1200), placing two cards face-down and ending her turn. When this 'Bombardier' took the reins, I could see that he seemed very confident. He summoned one KC-1 Crayton (1500/1200), played Graceful Charity to draw three and discard two, and used Double Summon, allowing him to Normal Summon again. He summoned a Cyber Soldier of Darkworld (1400/1200), placed 2 cards face-down and ended his turn. When it came to me, I had a bit of a bad feeling, so I placed two cards face-down and ended my turn.
The Queen went again, this time summoning Leghul (300/350) and using it to attack us directly, taking us down to 7700 Life Points. I didn't want to stop the attack, as I felt that the Bombardier had other, stronger things on his field.
When Carnivore took her turn, she Special Summoned two copies of Gilasaurus (1400/1400) from her Hand and Normal Summoned Miracle Jurassic Egg (0/2000). She played Card of Sanctity to give everyone a six-card hand, Tributed one Gilasaurus to summon Super-Ancient Dinobeast (2700/1400), and finally, played the Field Spell Jurassic World, increasing the ATK and DEF of all Dinosaurs by 300. First, she attacked Bombardier's KC-1 Crayton with her now 1700 ATK Mad Sword Beast, but Call of the Earthbound revealed itself on the Queen's side of the field and instead forced it to attack the Parasite Caterpillar. From there, the target equipped itself to the dinosaur, enveloping it in a cocoon and stopping it from attacking.
She pressed on with Gilasaurus this time, attacking Bombardier's monster again, but this time one of his traps revealed itself: Tank Corp. This Special Summoned three Tank Tokens, giving the KC-1 Crayton tank 1500 extra ATK, allowing it to counterattack and deal us 1300 damage to come to 6400. Finally, she attacked with her Dinobeast, settling for a draw and destroying both monsters. A third card activated, Queen's Turn Jump, skipping ahead three turns, fully infecting Carnivore's monster and replacing it with a Poison Butterfly (2700/1800). By this time, her Egg had ten counters on it, and she Tributed it to summon Super Conductor Tyranno (3300/1400) which became (3600/1700). Since she already attacked, however, she had to end her turn and take 500 damage for us to come to 5900.
On Bombardier's turn, he played Spell Reproduction, discarding two spells to retrieve one from his Graveyard, and from there, summoned Science Soldier (800/800). At that point, he played Junk Dealer to return his KC-1 Crayton to the field with half its ATK (750/1200) but which was boosted by 500 for each Tank Token, bringing it up to 2250 ATK. When I took over, my move might have sounded strange: I activated my Scapegoat Spell Card, Summoning four meatshields. That was when I used my Token Thanksgiving, destroying all tokens including the tanks and gaining 800 points for each one. That put my team from 5900 to 14500 Life Points, and I ended my turn there. Something told me not to play anything more until my next turn.
Queen went again, saying that she was tired of playing around with the cockroaches. Her first move was to play the Spell Card Insect Barrier, stopping all attacks against her by Insect monsters, then she Tributed her Pheromone Wasp and Leghul to summon Insect Queen (2200/2400), after which she banished those same monsters from her Graveyard to Special Summon Doom Dozer (2800/2600). Her Insect Queen, since there were three Insects on the field, gained 600 Attack points to come to 2800.
Carnivore took her turn and attacked the Queen's Doom Dozer with her Dinosaur, but was stopped when she revealed DNA Surgery, declaring that everything was now an Insect, and thus, stopped by Insect Barrier. What was more was that, now due to the Dinosaur and Soldier being Insects, not only was her Field Spell useless, but Insect Queen's ATK became 3200. Carnivore ended her turn, with our Life Points becoming 14000 due to the butterfly.
Bombardier took over at that point, summoning Science Soldier (800/800) and using Double Summon, summoning Kinetic Soldier (1350/1800). His other face-down activated then: Soldier Revolt. In exchange for not conducting his Battle Phase this turn, the Bombardier could send all of the cards in my and Carnivore's hands and on the field to the Graveyard. I knew it! I realized only just now, though, that my face-down only worked against Spell cards which made me discard my Hand and not Trap Cards. However, he wasn't done: he played his Sky Union, Tributing his three Soldiers to summon Air Fortress Ziggurat (2500/2000). I was amazed at the size of that thing, it looked like the room, filled with at least fifteen Duel Arenas, could barely contain the massive fortress. Thankfully, he had to end his turn, although he did get a Robot Token (0/0).
I drew, and this card saved both me and Carnivore: Card of Sanctity, allowing everyone to draw until holding six cards. Carnivore looked somewhat displeased with her new hand though, and to be quite honest, my hand wasn't good either. That was why I activated Card Destruction to make everyone discard their Hand and draw the same number of cards discarded. My new hand was much better. I played my Destiny Activator, sending the top card of my Deck to my Graveyard and waiting for the magic to happen. After that came Purity of the Cemetery. Now, with one card in my hand, I could essentially lock down their efforts to attack us: Messenger of Peace. I played it, stopping all monsters with 1500 or more ATK from declaring an Attack. With one card placed face-down, I ended my turn
The Queen drew, and due to my Destiny Activator, she had to show me what she drew: the Spell Card Cell Division. Since the card sent was a Spell Card as well, more specifically Rescuer from the Grave, her team's Life Points were halved to 4000 and Destiny Activator was destroyed. Purity of the Cemetery kicked in, targeting her Graveyard and, since she had five monsters in said Graveyard, dealt her 500 damage to come to 3500. She placed two cards face-down and played Emergency Provisions, intending to destroy them to regain 2000 Life Points, but that was when I revealed my face-down Bad Reaction to Simochi, instead removing those 2000 Life Points from her team's Life Total to leave them on 1500. Her rage only increased, and she used Heavy Storm to rid the field of Spells and Traps, allowing her monsters to attack. With his permission, she sacrificed Bombardier's Robot Token to allow her Insect Queen to attack. This thing was now a 2600 point monster heading straight for us.
"Don't do anything yet…" Carnivore spoke. The Insect lunged forward and struck us, followed by Doom Dozer, with the same amount of ATK. In total, we took 5400 points of damage to bring us down to 9100 Life Points.
When Carnivore drew, she grinned heavily. Her first card was Soul Release, allowing her to remove up to 5 card in anyone's Graveyard from play. She removed five Dinosaurs in her Graveyard from play, then used another Soul Release, removing three more. From there, she summoned Tyranno Infinity (?/0) and had it gain ATK equal to the number of her Dinosaurs removed from play x1000, bringing it up to 8000 points. Since there was no more Insect Barrier or DNA Surgery keeping her pinned, she attacked the 2600 point Insect Queen, shouting "Open wide!" With that, they lost their last 1500 Life Points and the Duel, forcing them to surrender their Keys and revealing the Lock to the right-hand side of the door forward.
"You two may be green, but you know how to pack a bloody good punch!" Bombardier noted as they surrendered all three of their Keys.
"Don't get too hopeful though," Queen continued. "Ten to one, you'll lose at the next gate."
"Keep talking…" Carnivore dismissed as she inserted their three Keys into the Locks. Once the door opened, I waved goodbye to my opponents and followed her into the passage, which at the end took a right turn instead of a left.
At the turning, the screen was there, as was a Key labeled '4', but looking at the third row of squares, in which there were two, the other square was already colored. The line bisecting the square into green upper-right half and red lower-left half led all the way back to Cellblock 15.
"Nightshade and Hunter-Killer, eh? This is going to get ugly," Carnivore mentioned as we got the Key.
End note: I had quite a bit of difficulty naming this chapter. I eventually settled on 'sloth' because some monsters summoned in this Duel just didn't do anything.