Stardust Shimmer
Edited: 3 August 2012
Sixteen: Cry Havoc!
"B? B, are you there?" Nightwing's voice filtered into his ear in the middle of the plastic explosive and the detonator.
"I'm a defusing a bomb currently attached to a weight-sensitive device at the moment," Batman growled to his comm-piece, currently fiddling with a very small pair of tweezers. "Be quiet until I'm done."
"You alright there?" Yusei called, also carefully teasing apart a bomb that may or may not be a dud, and as unflappable as ever. If the situation wasn't so tense, Batman might even have envied how both father and son never seemed to panic. As it were, his distant niece had the honour of distracting any watchers about, by playing a card game with the red-haired girl the group took as hostage, for which Batman was not going to have guilt over kicking heads in and taking no prisoners.
"Duel!" both girls declared.
Hazuki: LP 4000
Setsuka: LP 4000
"I'll go first," Hazuki breathed deeply. "I set a monster, and two cards. Turn end."
"Draw!" Setsuka declared. "I summon Dance Princess of the Ice Barrier [1700/900] in attack mode!" A pig-tailed girl wielding two huge snowflake-shaped weapons appeared. "Then, I special summon from my hand Prior of the Ice Barrier [1000/400] in attack mode!"
Batman sweated as he carefully unpicked the wires and Yusei dismantled the other trap carefully. "Are you sure you're doing this carefully?"
"I don't pick on your work," Yusei simply replied as the bombs were slowly teased apart under Ryuusei's keen eyes. A man capable of standing up to the Bat; he had to get that man in his payroll.
"Dance Princess, attack!" Setsuka commanded as the girl peat forward and cut through the now-scarecrow-like monster.
"Rigorous Reaver [1600/100] forces us to discard a card as a flip effect," Hazuki noted as both of them discarded cards and her monster shattered. "Are you going to attack again?"
"Prior, direct attack!" Setsuka called.
"Trap card, open!" Hazuki retaliated. "Meteor Flare! I send two cards from my hand to the grave while my opponent has three thousand or more life points, and inflict two thousand damage to my opponent!"
"What?" Setsuka echoed as torrents of fire shot out of the card to circle around her. "Ow!"
Setsuka: LP 4000 → LP2000
"Also, due to Rigorous Reaver, your Dance Princess loses five hundred attack and defence points [1700/900 → 1200/400]." Hazuki pointed out as the dancing girl shivered.
"So, this is why they wanted you," Setsuka recovered, extinguishing a stray flame on a lock of black hair. "Such power... but, you lose one thousand points from my attack."
Hazuki: LP 4000 → LP 3000
"I set two cards and end my turn," Setsuka shook her head.
"Draw! I summon Flaming Star Master – Choten [500/200]!" Hazuki called as a warrior in white armour and covered in purple flames appeared. "When he is summoned, I can special summon a level three Fire Attribute monster from my graveyard in defence mode. I choose Rigorous Reaver. Tuning, level three Rigorous Reaver to level three Choten!"
Purple and red flames flickered about her feet as she chanted. "The flames of life that flicker like the falling leaves, colour the world as the fire rises! Synchro Summon! Burn, Flaming Star Marquis – Hoshin [2200/2200]!"
"Does it feel hot in here?" Ryuusei muttered as he helped to dismantle the less dangerous aspects of the trap device, as the flaming warrior burned on the field.
"We have to work faster," Yusei noted as they pulled apart the trap, bearing the brunt of the heat as he was working closest to Hazuki. "Setsuka..."
"Continue to disarm the traps," Setsuka shielded herself from the flames. "I'm fine."
"When Hoshin is Synchro summoned, I can special summon a level three Fire Attribute monster from my deck," Hazuki nodded as Hoshin took a battle stance. "I summon Raging Flame Sprite [100/200] from my deck."
"A direct attacker," Setsuka tensed as the flaming creature appeared, wielding a flaming sceptre and a sorrowful expression under a broad-brimmed hat.
"Due to Choten, only Beast-Warrior Type monsters can attack this turn." Hazuki continued. "Hoshin, attack Dance Princess of the Ice Barrier!"
"Trap card open, Dimension Wall!" Setsuka snapped as the princess was stabbed through, the flames going through a dimensional portal to appear behind Hazuki and hit the other Duellist.
Hazuki: LP 3000 → LP 2000
"With that, we're equal," Setsuka replied as Hoshin settled back.
"T- Turn end," Hazuki coughed.
"Tell me, Himemiya San... your story," Setsuka murmured as she drew. "Do you want me to rescue Himemiya Uzuki with you?"
"She's my sister!" Hazuki retorted. "Of course!"
Setsuka gave a small smirk. "I activate the effect of Prior, tributing him to summon the card I discarded earlier. Arise, General Grunard of the Ice Barrier [2800/1800]!"
"Trap card open! Pixie Ring!" Hazuki immediately called as the general wearing ice armour appeared. "You can't choose Raging Flame Sprite as an attack target!"
"Who's doing that?" Setsuka answered. "I play Strategist of the Ice Barrier [1600/1600] and discard an Ice Barrier monster to draw a card. I play Salvage, allowing me to retrieve Prior and the discarded Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier [1300/0]. I use Grunard's ability for another normal summon to summon Cryomancer to the field."
A beam of light heralded the entrance of the monster. "As long as Cryomancer remains on the field, no level four or higher monster can attack," Setsuka explained.
"What?" Hazuki frowned. "Why would you...?"
"However..." Setsuka held up a single finger, her voice filled with some unspoken command that had the other girl spellbound. "Cryomancer is a tuner monster. I tune level four Strategist to level two Cryomancer! Amidst the howling winds of winter, the roar of the king echoes. Synchro Summon! Ruler of the icy plains, Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier [2000/1400]!"
With a roar, cold overcame the hot as the armoured white tiger made its appearance here, snow crystallising over the electronics and shorting out the systems.
"The traps are deactivated!" Yusei called as the Dark Knight stepped back from the dinging elevator door.
"Mistress," the tiger growled. "So, you summoned me to freeze the traps..."
"F-Freeze...?" Hazuki murmured in awe as the flame warrior beside her dimmed somewhat.
"We have another soul to save, my tiger," Setsuka nodded to the girl shivering from the cold. "Dewloren's effect activates. I bounce back one card on my field to give Dewloren an attack boost of five hundred [2000/1400 → 2500/1400]."
"A- And then?" Hazuki murmured fearfully. "You have no other card in hand..."
"I activate the Spell, Synchro Gift!" Setsuka revealed. "I choose two monsters I control, a Synchro and a non-Synchro monster. Until this turn ends, Dewloren gifts its power to Grunard, as the loyal general will make his stand."
"Grunard..." Hazuki murmured as the armoured general glowed [2800/1800 → 5300/1800].
"General Grunard, destroy Hoshin!" Setsuka ordered as, in a single heart-stopping moment, the armoured ice warrior cut through the flame warrior.
Hazuki: LP 2000 → LP 0
The icy winds were dying off as the holograms disappeared and glass overhead shattered from contraction. The Batman tersely tried not to stare, and barely succeeded. "Let's go."
"I already told you, I'm good enough to handle brats like these alone..."
"Like hell you are, Kiryu!" Jack scolded. "I'm Jack Atlas!"
"Jack, that makes no sense," Kiryu rolled his eyes at the blond. "Fine, we'll hit them together, make a match of it, okay?"
Kiryu: LP 4000
Jack: LP 4000
Reginald: LP 4000
Glen: LP 4000
"I'll go first," Reginald nodded, nonplussed by their casual treatment of him. "Draw! I play Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen, and with it summon Valkyrie Brunhilde [1800/2000]. I then play Celestial Transformation to special summon Fortune Chariot. I equip her with Fortune Chariot [0/0]. I set one card, turn end. At the end phase, Fortune Chariot is destroyed, but it makes no difference."
"My turn!" Glen called. "I play Card Destruction, so we all discard our hand and draw new cards until we have the same number as what we discarded."
"Why, thank you," Kiryu made a face as he drew his hand again. "One present from West, and another from Nico. Both will bring victory today."
"Don't joke around!" Glen shot back. "I play the Spell, One for One, discarding a monster card to special summon Watthopper [0/0] from my deck. I normal summon another Watthopper. Now my field is locked out. Turn end."
"Then, Jack, it's my turn," An evil aura seemed to surround Kyosuke Kiryu as he drew. "I play the Spell, Double Summon, allowing me to normal summon twice. I summon Shadowpriestess of Ohm [1700/1600] and Infernity Mirage [0/0] from my hand. I then play the Spell, Wave-Motion Inferno. By sending this card from the field to the grave, I can discard my entire hand.
"Now, my grave contains four notable monsters," Kiryu held up four fingers. "Infernity Demon, Infernity Necromancer, Infernity Beetle and Hellway Patrol. Using them, I will burn the fear of death into you brats."
"You're using a Security card?" Jack looked at him. "Since when?"
"It's a gift," Kiryu shrugged. "And I'm going to win with it. Using Infernity Mirage's effect, I tribute it while I hand no cards in hand, to special summon Infernity Demon and Infernity Necromancer."
Beside Kiryu, two monsters resembling demonic fiends appeared.
Kiryu pointed to an armoured fiend. "Demon's effect activates, searching my deck for any Infernity card when it is special summoned and I have no cards in hand, so I choose the Continuous Spell, Infernity Launcher, and add it to my hand. I activate Infernity Launcher. Then, I activate Infernity Necromancer's effect. When I have no cards in hand, I can special summon an Infernity monster from my grave once per turn. I special summon Infernity Beetle from my grave."
Kiryu now pointed to the newly arrived large-horned beetle. "I activate Infernity Beetle's effect, by tributing itself to special summon two more Infernity Beetles from my deck. Using Shadowpriestess of Ohm, I can tribute a Dark Attribute monster to inflict eight hundred points of damage to any opponent I choose, and I can do it more than once. I tribute the first Beetle, the second Beetle, Necromancer and Demon for a total of thirty-two hundred damage to Glen."
"What?" Glen screeched as he was pelted with shimmering shadows from the smirking evil twin of Elemental Mistress Doriando.
Glen: LP 4000 → LP 800
"Not done yet," Kiryu frowned. "I activate Infernity Launcher's effect, to special summon Necromancer and Demon from my grave again. Using Demon's effect, I add another Infernity Mirage to your hand. I activate the effect of Hellway Patrol in my grave, banishing it to special summon Infernity Mirage from my hand."
The rise of the blue-robed translucent monster seemed to herald doom as its controller raised a hand. "Now, I activate Necromancer's effect, special summoning Beetle from my grave. Using Shadowpriestess again, I tribute Beetle to finish off Glen, then Necromancer and Demon for sixteen hundred in burn damage to Reginald."
Glen: LP 800 → LP 0
Reginald: LP 4000 → LP 2400
"O- One Turn Kill..." Jack stared as his team-mate finished off Glen and proceeded to Reginald.
"I tribute Mirage to activate its effect, special summoning Necromancer and Demon from my grave." Kiryu continued, in his trademark monotone that had earned him the epithet of 'Shinigami'. "I do not use Demon's searcher effect. I activate Necromancer's effect, special summoning Beetle from my grave. Using Shadowpriestess again, I tribute Beetle, Necromancer and Demon for a total of twenty-four hundred damage to Reginald."
He now raised an elegant hand. "Right now, a total of eight thousand in burn damage has been inflicted in this turn, making this duel... over."
Reginald: LP 2400 → LP 0
Kiryu: LP 4000
Jack: LP 4000
Flash choked at the ease at which the white-haired cowboy-wannabe had performed his stunt. "That... was... awesome!"
"I told you," Kiryu drawled, noting the already empty stadium as he turned his back on them. "I won't allow the likes of you to taint the Duel. It's not worth wasting too much time on you brats at all. One Turn, Two Kill... I'm... not satisfied at all."
"Damn Kiryu... of course you wouldn't! It went too fast!" Jack cursed.
Glen had already fallen to his knees. "O- One Turn, Two Kill... is this the strength we're up against...?"
"Brats should polish their skills well before they even consider challenging adults," Kiryu sighed as he turned his back on them to leave. "Chase."
Clapping sounded. "Bravo, Sensei!"
"This guy is weird," Superman commented. No one faulted him.
"D- Don't joke with me..." Reginald whispered, his voice laden with hate. "I... I can't give up yet! Restart!"
"What are you doing?" Jack barked as wisps of dark mists surrounded Reginald.
The blond boy lifted his head, and spoke utterly terrible words that had not been heard since the days of the king and his Puzzle of a Thousand Years...
"Yami no Game wa hajimari da..."
"Jack! Kiryu!" Crow ran in as the mists closed in around the dome, sealing off all interference from the outside world... including most of the heroes currently in Gotham.
Kiryu, safely outside the dome, poked at it to see his finger come back at him. "Interesting."
"B?" Nightwing muttered as he, Robin and Batgirl alighted outside the ruined building of Wayne Enterprises. "Whoa, what happened...?"
"If you're with Batman, he's inside," an older man, possibly Asian, pointed towards the foyer littered with glass shards with an emphasis towards his own charges of watching two tied-up guards and a few strangers. "Professor Fudo, his son and my Missy is inside with him."
"Will do," Nightwing decided to skip the questions as a mini conflagration of flames erupted from a nearby manhole. "Robin."
"Why does Bruce and the little missy Bat get to take point?" Tim muttered behind the domino mask as he ran in with Nightwing. "Is it something about-"
"Shut up," Barbara whacked him on the head. "We're..."
"What happened?" Dick whistled as they walked into the destroyed hallway. Scorch marks scored the walls and floor on one end, and in one case the ceiling. Where they were standing, water and ice and lingering cold froze their end, fire and ice meeting at one single point in the middle, as evidenced by the scorch marks and ice crystals meeting in one big puddle and scorches. "It looks like Firefly and Freeze duked it out here or something."
"Nightwing," Batman's gravelly tone broke in from the comm-piece. "We're in the sub-basements, accessible only by the elevator at the end of the destroyed hallway."
"Yeah, we're in the destroyed hallway," Dick answered as he strode over to said metal-burnished doors. "What happened? Are we fighting Freeze?"
"No, the ice was Setsuka," Batman curtly responded.
"That was your niece?" Dick blurted, taking a discreet second look at the ice that covered the walls, floor and if he squinted, there were wet spots on the ceiling. Batgirl pressed the elevator keys, the doors sliding open with a ding. "What did you do?"
"Be- argh!" the sounds of exploding Batarangs sounded far off. "Tell you when we're not being ambushed."
"Ambushed? Who are we-" Dick ducked as the lift doors flew open and a bee the size of his head and possibly larger flew at him, the stinger stuck in the steel wall behind. "Duck!"
"Bit slow!" Robin dived out of the lift as more giant bees appeared to stab through steel elevator and possibly the Bat-clan with it, as Dick put together his signature staff and the other two pulled out more of the clan's signature projectiles.
The clan's own patriarch was waltzing about, or at least he looked like that, fighting a whole group of winged beings and numerous things this side of cute and troublesome. Thorny vines snaked about him as they lashed out at the Duel Monsters attacking them, and some bees crystallised mid-flight to crash before Robin's feet.
"Just in time," a little girl with a snake-like snowy dragon curled around her remarked as the dragon scratched at a group of angelic beings before turning them into ice statuary.
"Either take out these monsters, or help the professor with the door," the Batman pointed towards a man crouching by the steel door's keypad desperately fiddling with a mini-computer, taking out a swarm of huge wasps with a few well-timed Batarangs from the other arm at the same time. "Now!"
"I'll take the bees!" Dick called as he flipped gracefully to land beside the boy with red and black hair, beside the huge black serpentine dragon with red wings the vines were trailing from. "Is he an enemy!"
"Ally!" From somewhere near the Bat- utility belt, a huge earth-coloured axe was used to behead an insect even bigger than the bees. "Dr Fudo. Hurry up."
"Almost there!" Came the muffled reply as the boy held out a hand, and Dick noted that his other arm was attached to a glowing plate, a.k.a the now-infamous DuelDisk.
"Black Rose Flare!" the boy yelled.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Robin growled as he narrowly dodged a swarm of butterflies that were incinerated by the black petals from the black dragon.
"Sorry, I missed!" the boy answered.
"Crap!" the man on the door hissed as one of the killer bees stung through it with its stinger. "Ryuusei!"
"Rose Restriction!" the boy called, the black dragon's thorny vines piercing through the doors, which gave an electric shock of a few thousand volts that the Black Rose Dragon shrugged through and pulled the door open to reveal the Venus Fly-trap's carnivorous cousin roaring at it.
"Are you sure Ivy's in Gotham?" Tim muttered to Dick as the snow dragon was set upon the plant with big teeth at the girl's command.
Dick himself was more occupied by the fact that Batman had an axe. The double-bladed halberd kind, that went out of fashion when swords came in, and the freaking Batman was swinging it like a professional. "How did that get into the utility belt?" he exclaimed, pointing.
"Don't ask," the Bat grimly decapitated another swarm of bugs with a swing. "Prepare emergency measure, Isley, Pamela, close-quarters."
"Liquid nitrogen and herbicide, check," all three held up capsules as the plant became fried by black dragon.
"Good job, Black Rose," the boy whispered to it, hanging beside a worn red-haired girl. "Can you guys get Hazuki out? She needs attention!"
"I- I'm fine!" the girl Hazuki tried to stand.
"You're clearly not!" the little brunette girl that Dick was sure as te little missy Bat retorted. "Malnutrition and dehydration aside, your lack of focus is a detriment at close quarters. Get to the surface and work out an exit for us while you're waiting for the ambulance."
"Go," the Bat growled, looming over the girl named Hazuki like the terror of the night he was. "The less casualties, the better."
"I'll take her," Batgirl offered, picking up the girl easily. "Whoa, she wasn't kidding. What were you going through, kid?"
"The next is..." Ryuusei sighed. "I hate Dinosaurs,"
The snowy dragon dived before the huge black dinosaur in question, icy winds blowing down the corridor as Setsuka uttered a word of command and the dinosaur was buried under a ton of snowdrift from the dragon's maw, directly before it met its end via Batman's shiny new dagger that came from who knows where.
"Little missy Bat," Tim nodded, half-serious. "Yep, she's a Bat alright."
"That, is why they take point," Dick muttered as he dashed forward to throw exploding Batarangs at the next wave of monsters. "Because no one else is crazy enough."
"Black Rose is getting more solid!" Ryuusei reported to the man, holding up a slightly pricked finger to prove his point.
"The barriers between worlds are weakening," Setsuka examined her own touch of the snowy dragon. "Snowdust Dragon is also growing more solid. That would also explain the various new weapons about Batman's person."
"J'onn," the axe was leaning against the nearest wall as the Dark Knight growled to his comm-piece. "What's the word?"
"A black dome has appeared over the Gotham Stadium, trapping approximately twenty staff inside, including Superman, Lantern and Flash," the alien's reply came quickly, in staccato bursts. "Batman, I feel... there is someone there, panic... Is everything alright?"
The walls began to shake as a scream rocked the building again.
"It's-!" J'onn feed descended into words and murmurs of the Martian tongue. "What is this...?"
"Right," Batman took a breath. "A black dome... J'onn, how many can you spare?"
"Avenger, Arrow, Shining Knight," J'onn listed. "Black Canary, Vixen."
"Right, I need..." the next scream caused a static burst that had the Bat Family extracting sparking comm-pieces and gravity surged for a moment where it felt like one's weight had doubled, but then it faded.
Batman groaned as he held the glowing blue sceptre, one of the few standing as the Bat Family went down and the Fudo father and son were driven to crouching.
"Level Limit – Area A?" Setsuka panted, leaning against the wall from the newcomer who was holding the card in question. "Of course... the Rod of Silence would had made its holder invulnerable to spells."
As the Batman raised the sceptre, the worst day of the poor sap's life ended to see the Terror of the Night clobber him upside the head with the Rod of Silence.
As the groaning people got up again, Batman kept staring at the barely dented sceptre, discreetly glittering in faint light. "I think I like it."
"So far, they've been throwing monsters at us," Yusei noted as they passed through the next three doors. "They must be trying to tire us."
"Sound plan," Batman agreed, making a note to head-hunt the man the moment the got back to Wayne Enterprises. Luthor could get his slimy hands over the next few geniuses, he wanted one with an actual brain outside of science on his side. Maybe not in Gotham, it was time to look into investment in Neo Domino again... "There's only one way in, so if they block this way..."
"We will be trapped," Setsuka grimly nodded as they approached the most reinforced door at the end, bearing the symbol of the Wayne Enterprises R&D Division. "Snowdust Dragon, Blizzard Storm."
The dragon roared as cold winds gathered and the door cracked under spontaneous freezing to crumple in with a good body slam from the black dragon.
They went in, in time for the building to shake.
"We're shaking!" Batgirl muttered, keeping an eye out on the pavement, discreetly hidden from sight. Hazuki, standing in the open, was more focused on that the building was shaking and looking awfully fragile at the moment.
"Uzuki..." she murmured, standing again on shaky legs as she activated the device that made her as Different. Marked. Isolated.
Powerful.
The cursed power held... could now be used as it should.
Staring at the building, Hazuki took a deep breath and recalled memories of a statue, a cherub wrapped in dark chains of brambles and thorny vines and worn stone... worn from vines and roots, strong enough to withstand the years, the plants grew... and grew... and dug to hold it together.
"Black Garden!"
Please review! Stay tuned for the next turn: United Resistance! Duel, Acceleration!