Cards of Remnant

by TheMaster4444

Ruby Rose has wanted to be a Hunting Duelist all her life, to train her aura to manifest the monsters in her deck to fight the Grimm. So when she gets an invitation to join her sister at Beacon Duel Academy, she jumps at the chance. But old powers are stirring, and ancient summoning methods not seen in eons are about to clash, with the fate of Remnant in the balance.

27. Invincible

Final Top Three Tally for the Fan-Favorite Duel of Volume 1 Poll

3rd Place: Ruby & Penny vs. Torchwick & Perry - 12 Votes

2nd Place: Weiss vs. Blake - 13 Votes

1st Place: Ruby vs. Weiss - 16 Votes - Congrats to the official FAN-FAVORITE DUEL OF VOLUME 1!

New Poll for Fan-Favorite Duel of the Patch & Promotion Exam Arcs now on my profile!

Beta-ed by xenosaiyan

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"Why do you think Pyrrha suddenly left?" Astral inquired, the bright lights, loud mechanical sounds, and shrill, screaming children of the Heartland Funzone Pizzaria's arcade blaring through his senses. "She seemed quite excited to compete against Nora in Mine Mole Whacker before she received that call."

"No idea," Jaune shrugged, idly munching on one of the few pizza slices that had survived Nora's rampage as he watched the bubbly hunting duelist compete against her partner in an electronic Grimm shooting game. "But she said not to worry."

"And you are not?"

"It's Pyrrha," Jaune replied. "If she says not to worry, then there's no reason to worry. She was unstoppable even before you whipped up those new cards for her."

Astral hummed, conceding the point. The selection of cards he'd forged back on Patch that Pyrrha had incorporated into her deck had only made The Invincible Girl even stronger. As if she needed it.

And yet, the spirit couldn't snuff out the kernel of concern burning in the back of his mind. Jaune, like most others, looked up to Pyrrha as if she was completely infallible. Perhaps she was, Astral had seen no evidence to the contrary in their months of friendship. Number 101 certainly didn't choose just anyone as its Emperor–

… Emperor?

Astral tilted his head in confusion. Why did that term suddenly pop into his head? He'd never heard it before, at least in the context his thoughts seemed to be using it in. Was it something from his memories? But the only time even part of them had started to become clear enough for him to gleam any information from was when he'd touched Number 101–

"Uh, Astral," Jaune spoke up, dropping his pizza slice and grabbing at his Pumpkin Pete hoodie, right where the key hung hidden beneath it. "Why's the key suddenly getting hot?"

Astral whipped towards his partner, his eyes widening as he spotted a faint glow pulsing even through the thick fabric of Jaune's black sweater. The rampant noise and flashing lights of the arcade hid the anomaly from any nearby civilians, but Ren's keen senses must have spotted Jaune's distress because he turned away from the video game he'd just won and looked at his team leader with concern. Nora soon shook off her disappointed miasma of defeat and followed her partner's gaze to their team leader.

"Everything okay, Jaune?" she asked.

Jaune glanced up at Astral, knowing he couldn't verbally communicate without blowing his friend's existence. The spirit was grateful for his friend's care.

"I'll check it out. Don't worry," Astral reassured him, aware that he was paraphrasing what Pyrrha had said before she'd left the team party she'd been looking forward to for weeks to hop on Argus Chariot for parts unknown. "Just please save me a slice of pizza to eat with your body. I am looking forward to the taste."

The spirit zipped his spectral form into the pendant hidden under Jaune's clothes, the ancient key welcoming him back like a king returning to his litter.

Though, he had not expected the litter's pillows to have rearranged themselves while he was gone.

---

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"I'm here! I'm here!" Pyrrha called, the fifteen-year-old redhead leaping over the railing of Sanctum Academy's action duel gym. As the most prestigious dueling prep school in Argus, some would even say all of Mistral, the academy had classes on all kinds of dueling, both for practical combat and recreation and entertainment. "Patty, I'm sorry I'm late, but I was able to cut the interview… short."

Pyrrha skittered to a stop as she saw Patricia and the other older kids finish… locking up the action duel gym?

The redhead's energetic smile floundered as she watched Patricia's face pale at the sight of her. One of the older kids leaned into the senior girl's ear. "What's she doing here? I thought we agreed to give her the wrong t–"

"I… I finished the interview with Mistral Magazine early," Pyrrha stammered to explain why she was there. "I tried to get here at four like you said we'd be starting. I know I'm a few minutes late and I'm sorry but it's only a few…"

Her voice tapered off as she spied the gym's booking sheet on the door, where one of the older kids was in the midst of erasing their session's end time… at four.

"... more than a few minutes late," Pyrrha muttered.

Patricia winced, but as the other kids quickly scampered away, she was soon left as the only one there.

"You gave me the wrong time," Pyrrha surmised. "Why?"

"I… didn't want to hurt your feelings," Patricia sighed. "The others, they're panicking about the Haven entrance exams. Action duels are to help them blow off steam and they don't want The Invincible Girl, a girl two years younger than them, kicking their butts without breaking a sweat while they're doing it. Kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?"

"That–that makes sense," Pyrrha admitted. "What if I lost on purpose? Threw the duels to boost their confidence? Could I duel with you guys then–"

"Do you really think they wouldn't be able to tell…" Patricia sighed again, rubbing her hand through her emerald hair as she managed to fix a genuine and friendly expression on her face. "Pyrrha, you've done nothing wrong. We're the ones who're hot messes. You're not like us. You're incredible. Heck, you're invincible!"

"Ri… right," Pyrrha said, managing to brighten her smile.

Patty patted her on the shoulder. "I've got to start hitting the book for the entrance exams. Those written tests are killers."

"Oh. Of course," Pyrrha replied. "Good luck."

"Thanks! And hey, with all of us old geezers cramming for exams, you can finally hang with your friends your own age. See ya!"

Pyrrha happily waved farewell as Patricia ran off… only for her pleasure to die once the green-haired girl was out of sight.

"What friends?" Pyrrha despairingly mused.

She'd started trying to hang out with the older kids because the kids her own age wouldn't give her the time of day. It wasn't their fault. Who liked dueling someone who always crushed them? The older kids had seemed more open to the girl two years younger than them who could go blow for blow with their more experienced tactics. At least, before she'd started competing in the tournaments that they were trying to use to make a name for themselves… and beating them.

She beat everyone. Her teachers always praised her skill, put her on a pedestal, and used her as an example of what her peers should strive towards. Even those she beat concurred that her new title of 'The Invincible Girl' was earned. Had she been arrogant? Too proud of her skill? She must have done something wrong if no one wanted to be her friend. She must have done something wrong.

She wished someone would just tell her what it was. Then she would gladly say she was sorry.

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Ilia bowed her head, the ten-year-old girl's body shaking as she worked to keep her skin from changing colors in the midst of her fear. "I'm sorry."

The lanky man quirked his head to the side, his blond eyebrow quizically raised into his pale forehead, next to his gray face jewels. "Do not apologize, Ms. Amitola. It is illogical to do so when you have done nothing wrong."

"But Headmaster Heitmann looked so furious," Ilia worriedly mumbled. "Should I have let him win?"

"That would defeat the point of the entrance examination."

Ilia frowned. "And him dueling me himself with his personal deck didn't?"

The professor mirrored her expression, despite having not stepped in to stop the duel when Ilia was facing down an aura-manifested Ancient Gear Golem. "That was his mistake. He allowed his base emotions to affect his judgment."

"My base emotions?" the irate headmaster growled, marching up to Ilia and her guardian professor. "If you have something to say, I would thank you to say it to my face, Professor Zeki."

"You allowed your prejudice to cloud your judgment into thinking it was appropriate to duel a ten-year-old with your personal deck instead of having a duel bot perform the examination with a standard test deck," Professor Zeki bluntly replied.

Ilia giggled, only to flee when the headmaster turned his sneer on her. Her skin flashed three shades of warm red, yellow, and orange as she dashed behind Professor Zeki's long, lanky legs to hide.

"You informed me that the scholarship students of my low-income program would be up to my discretion," the professor reminded the headmaster.

"Low-income! Not… an animal!" Heitmann argued. "We are a private institution, Zeki! Do you know how many donors we'd lose, how many parents would pull their kids out, if they found out we admitted a faunus?"

Professor Zeki cast a gentle look back at Ilia. The chameleon quickly flickered her skin back to a human shade. The normally stoic teacher gave her a soft pat on the head and turned back to the other human.

Headmaster Heitmann gnashed his teeth, but he was not dealing with any normal unruly staff member. Vine Zeki was one of the best hunting duelists in Atlas, with a distinguished military career including dozens of combat missions as an Ace-Op. After he'd resigned his commission to become a teacher (and allegedly in protest over the Council's 'illogical' choice to shut down a proposed bill to desegregate the military's human and faunus regiments), every dueling prep school in the kingdom and several from outside it had wanted to snatch him up. The headmaster had only won the bidding war by agreeing to the new professor's low-income scholarship program. According to him, it was illogical to allow talent that could bloom into exceptional dueling skill to be let waste away by the happenstance of what economic state a person was born into. The headmaster had merrily agreed… until he heard that Ilia had been picked as the inaugural student.

"She is not to take her friends home. She is not to discuss her parents. And she is not, under any circumstances, to change colors," Heitmann spat, snarling at the trembling child. "For gods' sake, just make sure she looks… normal!"

Professor Zeki's brow furrowed. "That does not seem sustainable–"

"I can do that," Ilia squeaked up. "I can do those things."

Her parents had worked themselves to the bone to get her this opportunity. They'd wheeled and dealed to find any opportunity for their naturally talented daughter to rise up from the slums of Mantle's crater, to have a better life than their meager existence as SDC miners. They'd found out about Professor Zeki's program and helped her apply to it, lifted her up to the shining floating city. When she'd first set foot amidst the dazzling skyscrapers in the sky, Ilia had felt like a princess. Sure, her skin got itchy and burned a bit when she didn't change colors when she felt like it for long enough, but it was like the headmaster said. She just had to be normal.

She could do that, right?

"Hey! New girl!"

Having been sent to rejoin the other students and prospective students while Professor Zeki and the headmaster tended to administrative responsibilities, Ilia was startled by a sudden high-pitched voice calling out to her. At least, she thought it was calling out to her? There were a lot of new girls among the prospective students.

But when she turned towards the source of the voice, the peppy blonde girl who'd spoken was dashing toward her, dragging along a nervous blue-haired boy. Both students were wearing decorated Obelisk Blue jackets and, to Ilia's great nervousness, they were both at least five years older than her. To the chameleon faunus' even greater nervousness, the blonde girl was very… fit. It was a struggle to keep her skin from turning pink.

"Hello! We're your new upperclassmen!" the blonde girl beamed. "I'm Giselle Gisbourne of Gisbourne Designs and this is Martin Mari–"

The blue-haired boy growled at her. "Ellie."

"Right, sorry May. Still getting used to that. This is May Marigold. Yes, of the Marigold Family," Giselle said, winking at Ilia. "You may have heard of her, and yes, she is as awesome a duelist as they say."

"Uh, cool," Ilia stammered, fairly certain she'd heard of the Marigolds before but unable to remember what they did. Or who the Gisbournes were at all. "I'm Ilia."

"Oh, we know, first-year," Giselle said. "Pretty sure the entire school's gonna know your name after you took down Heitmann's rustbucket. You've got talent, girl!"

Ilia really hoped she was just blushing and her face wasn't turning pink as she nervously shuffled her feet and curled her hair. "Thanks. But I'm sure you guys could have done it."

"Of course nowadays, but not as first-years," Giselle praised. "Professor Zeki picked you to come here for good reason. You belong up here with us, not slumming it with those dirty crater faunus."

May rolled her eyes. "Ellie."

"Oh, right, right, sorry. You must still be traumatized from being down there with those animals," Giselle said, her voice genuinely concerned. "They didn't make you see any of their weird not quite monster, not quite spell cards did they?"

"You mean Pendulum–"

"Martin! I mean May!" a new voice called, a blue-haired boy around Ilia's age dashing up to the three girls. "Bro–I mean, sis–I mean… did you see my duel?"

May sighed. "Yes, Henry, I saw your duel. Congrats on getting in."

"Thanks! After that one girl had to take on an Ancient Gear Golem, I was really shaking in my boots about what my duel bot was gonna have–" Henry's eyes widened when he saw Ilia. "Holy crud! It's you!"

Ilia waved. "It's me. I'm Ilia."

"This is May's little brother, Henry," Giselle introduced. "You'll probably be in a lot of the same classes as first-years, but you can probably show him a thing or two."

"That'd be awesome!" Henry exclaimed, rushing up to Ilia. "How'd you pull off that combo with your Amazonesses? I never would have thought of that."

Ilia felt a smile warming her lips as she replied, more kids coming over as Giselle helped her manage the introductions with everyone who wanted to talk to her. Wanted to talk with her. She was one of them.

She just had to be normal. She could do that right.

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Pyrrha panted as Argus Chariot swerved from the aftermath of Rhongomyniad's destruction of Amazoness Swordswoman. It'd been a long time since she'd lost so many life points in a single blow, on her own turn and while Rhongomyniad was on her field no less. Still, even without Polarity to fall back on due to the Duel Anchor, her handling skills were sufficient to right her duel runner and fall in behind Ilia's slipstream.

"That was an excellent move," the redheaded girl complimented, ripping a monster card from her graveyard and slamming it onto her field, her Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades (ATK 1300/DEF 1100) flourishing at Rhongomyniad's flank. "Allow me to respond in kind. When I take damage, I can special summon Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades from my graveyard in attack mode. And since it's still my Battle Phase, it'll attack you directly!"

Thousand Blade leapt forward and delivered a blistering barrage of thrusts to the open air. A dozen daggers of razor-wind streaked through the tunnel and smacked against Ilia's side, all of them missing Blake's prized runner beneath her.

Ilia Amitola: 2700 Life Points

"Good counter," Ilia complimented, her eyes flinting down to Blake's unmarked runner. "Especially specifically avoiding hitting Nightshade."

"It's Blake's runner, right?" Pyrrha asked, having surmised as much from how her friend had talked about it. She glanced back at the cat faunus, who was struggling to manage the near-uncontrollable speed of her hi-tech Atlas runner well enough to properly match the turbo duel. A lesser driver would have already crashed. "I know what that means to someone. I'm sorry, but I'll be taking it back from you."

At least, she hoped she would. Pyrrha was painfully aware she wasn't as unstoppable as her reputation led others to believe. She might have had her Invincible Rhongomyniad on the field, but Ilia had already proved herself capable of circumventing even that seemingly indomitable obstacle. Even with her trusty Battleguard Howling facedown, The Invincible Girl wasn't sure the cards she had would be sufficient to defeat her White Fang special operative opponent.

But all she could do was everything in her power.

"During my Main Phase Two, I equip my Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades with Megamorph," Pyrrha proclaimed, an ancient brown sigil forming behind her spearman (ATK 2600). "If my life points are lower than yours, this Equip Spell doubles my monster's attack points."

"Lower than your opponent's?" Ilia noted, cocking an eyebrow. "You're famous for your life points never going below half. Hardly embracing your reputation."

"Fortune favors the prepared," Pyrrha smirked.

"You don't say?" Ilia mirrored, a flash of spirited enjoyment cracking through her lips as one of her facedowns flipped up. "I activate Amazoness Call. I grab another Amazoness card from my deck to my hand. I'll pick another Amazoness Swords Woman."

Pyrrha knew exactly how problematic that was. Still, she couldn't help her grin growing at the sight of her opponent's shifting mood. "So you can genuinely smile."

Ilia blinked in surprise, as if finally realizing what expression had infiltrated her lips. The chameleon faunus quickly squashed it with a scowl. "I assume you end your turn."

Pyrrha nodded. "I do. Please try to enjoy yours."

"I'm not here to enjoy this. I'm here to win!" Ilia snarled, racing ahead of her opponent's runner as she ripped her draw from atop her deck. "I normal summon Amazoness Swords Woman. Then, since I have only Amazoness monsters on my field, I can special summon Amazoness War Chief from my hand. And when she hits the field, I can set a Polymerization or an Amazoness spell or trap from my deck to my field. I choose Polymerization."

Two more muscular warrior women manifested onto the chameleon faunus' field. One was an exact copy of the swordswoman who'd fallen in battle the turn before, flourishing her blade with just as much finesse (ATK 1500/DEF 1600). But the other one was even more buff (ATK 1900/DEF 0), the powerful chieftainess thrusting her tribalist spear towards Ilia's back-row.

And in that exact spot, a new facedown manifested.

"It's here," Pyrrha murmured.

The card that Blake had spoken of with such dread, the one that Ruby sought with such passionate hunger. The Argus girl could admit a cold feeling of trepidation filling her stomach… but also a fire flaring in her chest, similar to when she'd first beheld Yang's Hot Red Dragon Archfiend. She was going to face something she didn't know if she could beat, and the thought excited her.

Of course, that excitement only pulsed through her for a few moments before she fearfully squashed it. Her soul had been burning a bit too much. This wasn't a friendly training duel with one of her classmates. If she was defeated, if her aura broke, Blake would be put back in the same dire situation she'd been in before the Invincible Girl had charged to her rescue. For the sake of her friend, this wasn't a match she could afford to lose.

"I activate Polymerization!" Ilia yelled, her facedown normal spell flipping up to reveal a spiral of orange creatures over a dark blue background. "I fuse my Amazoness War Chief with the Amazoness Queen in my hand! Queen of the jungle and spearhead that defends the tribe! Take the strength you need from the gods above and leave the oppressors of your people to bleed!"

A swirling vortex warped the air in front of Nightshade, Amazoness War Chief joined by an imperious warrior sitting atop an austere throne. The pair were together on the field for barely a moment before they were sucked into the spacial whirlpool and surged into one.

"Show them how you smile! Fusion Summon!" Ilia roared, smashing her palms together. "Amazoness Empress!"

A tall, dark-skinned dictator burst forth from the swirling vortex, a jungle cat's skull draped atop her head. A blood-red cape flowed over the muscular ruler's battle dress, her jagged saber brandished with confidence (ATK 2800/DEF 2400).

"Incredible," Pyrrha whispered in awe.

The Fusion Monster was as impressive as advertised, even considering those she'd seen Blake use during her duel with Yatsuhashi. Being able to use materials from the hand to summon an Extra Deck monster? Incredibly convenient.

And in this case, useful for her too. Amazoness Empress was impressively powerful, to the point that it had more attack points than Ilia had life points remaining.

"Amazoness Swords Woman! Attack Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomyniad!" Ilia commanded.

"I activate my trap card, Battleguard Howling!" Pyrrha responded, her facedown flipping up as a booming, visceral roar shook the tunnel's walls. "Since you attacked my Warrior-Type monster, I can target one monster on your field, and deal damage to you equal to its original attack before returning it to your hand. I target Amazoness Empress! But given it has a hundred more attack points than you have life points–"

"I would be in deep trouble. If I didn't have this," Ilia interrupted, her own final facedown shooting up to reveal a spell card with the image of two plasma-like creatures tearing away from each other. "De-Fusion! My Fusion Monster returns to the Extra Deck and if all its materials are in my graveyard, I can summon them."

"But if Amazoness Empress is no longer on the field…" Pyrrha gasped.

"Your Battleguard Howling has no target," Ilia finished, her Fusion Monster splitting into a kneeling defense mode Amazoness War Chief and an attack position Amazoness Queen (ATK 2400/DEF 1800). "It might surprise you to hear this, but I have seen you duel on TV before. I've watched how you duel. You're strong, but more importantly, you're clever. You keep your monsters close for a solid defense and whittle your opponent down, waiting for them to overextend themselves with some big summon. And when they do, you pull that monster out from under them with Battleguard Howling or set up your Excalibur to overwhelm them."

"So you baited me out," Pyrrha realized, her eyes widening as she realized how her opponent had used her own tricks against her. "You never intended to use your Fusion Monster to win."

"Fusion's a powerful tool, but it's just one tool in my arsenal. And the best tool against you is the same solid fundamentals you usually prioritize. Immediately going for something that required as many resources as your Number was a surprise," Ilia declared. She furiously pointed toward Number 86. "Amazoness Swordswoman! Battle and end this! Amazon Slash Attack!"

Amazoness Swords Woman leapt into the air, shrieking for Rhongomyniad's glowing antler helm. The towering armored warrior raised its burning golden lance, but the nonexistent danger to it was not the problem. One strike to Ilia's monster and the reflected battle damage would wipe out what scant life points Pyrrha had left. She was going to lose! She was going to lose and then Ilia would go after Blake and… and…

No, no, she couldn't panic. She only had seconds before the attack hit, she needed them all to think. She didn't need the spirit clashing with an opponent head-on with all she had, she needed to think of a way… out.

Amazoness Swords Woman reflected battle damage. She didn't turn it into effect damage, she just made the opponent take all battle damage Ilia would have taken from battles involving it.

The muscular woman's blade clashed with Rhongomyniad's shining spear, her saber easily blown from her grip. Amazoness Queen raised her palm, an extra aura forming around Amazoness Swords Woman and preventing its destruction.

All the while, the warrior woman's disarmed sword flew towards Pyrrha.

The Invincible Girl moved quickly, discarding the only card left in her hand. "I activate the effect of Heroic Challenger - Swordshield in my hand! By discarding it, I take no battle damage this turn and my Heroic Monsters can't be destroyed in battle!"

The spectral image of Swordshield flashed in front of Pyrrha. Amazoness Swordswoman's blade sparked off the ethereal defender, swooping back to its mistress' grip. No battle damage meant no battle damage, even reflected battle damage.

Ilia's eyes narrowed in frustration. "As you might have guessed, Amazoness Queen makes all my Amazoness monsters unable to be destroyed in battle, itself included. Now, attack Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades!"

"What?!" Pyrrha stammered. "Why? It can't be destroyed and I take no damage."

Amazon Queen rushed off her throne and slugged Thousand Blades' spear head-on. Just as Pyrrha had predicted, her warrior's counterthrust drew blood from the imperious monarch's fist, only her additional glowing aura allowing her to retreat back to her throne.

Ilia Amitola: 2500 Life Points

"See?" Pyrrha said. "What was the point of that–"

"Gaagghhh!" Heroic Challenger - Thousand Blades howled in pain, cracks of vibrant white lightning splintering over its armor. Bit by bit, the tears in its metal coverings crumbed the warrior into sparkling dust, Megamorph shattering as its equipped monster vanished.

Ilia pointed to her two face-up continuous trap cards, one of them sprinkling a fine, restorative mist over her racing form. "Due to Amazoness Onslaught, any of your monsters that battles an Amazoness is banished after damage calculation. And by the effect of Amazoness Hot Spring, once per turn, when I take battle damage while I have an Amazoness monster, I regain life points equal to the damage I took."

Ilia Amitola: 2700 Life Points

Pyrrha grit her teeth. Even Swordshield's protection hadn't been able to keep her field safe. If anything, it was Ilia's field that was invincible.

"I end my turn," the chameleon faunus said.

Pyrrha gulped, her hand shaking as she pulled the top card of her deck.

All she had left was Rhongomyniad. But even if her mightiest monster was unaffected by Amazoness Onslaught's banishment effect so long as it had three Overlay Units, Amazoness Hot Spring would keep it from dealing any damage to Ilia's life points if she didn't take her out in a single blow, which it couldn't do. It had five thousand attack points, but Pyrrha couldn't raise that score any higher. It was unaffected by all other cards' effects. The same effect that protected it from Amazoness Onslaught prevented The Invincible Girl from strengthening it with her other cards. Not like Amazoness Queen protected the chameleon faunus' other monsters. Her champion was helpless against her opponent's united strike force.

"I lay one card facedown and end my turn," the redheaded girl glumly announced, a single card manifesting between Argus Chariot and Rhongomyniad.

"My turn! I activate Pot of Greed!" Ilia shouted, quickly revealing her Draw Phase's bounty and pulling two more cards from her deck. "I activate Monster Reborn! I special summon the Amazoness Swords Woman in my graveyard!"

Pyrrha cocked an eyebrow as the second wild swordswoman (ATK 1500/DEF 1600) flashed onto Ilia's field next to her sisters. The chameleon faunus already had one of them. Why use the Monster Reborn now instead of saving it for when it might be more useful to her?

"Amazoness Swords Woman! Attack–"

"I activate The Regulation of Tribe! And declare the Warrior-Type!" Pyrrha yelled, her own continuous trap card flipping up. Thick black chains emerged from the air and wrapped around the Amazoness monsters, each of the mighty warriors furiously thrashing against them as they tried and failed to move forward. Similar restraints attempted to bind Rhongomyniad, but its golden shine evaporated them before they could touch its armor. "As long as this trap card is on the field, no monster of the declared type can declare an attack!"

"But you have to tribute one monster each turn to keep it on the field, which means it'll be gone next round," Ilia surmised. The chameleon faunus glanced at the final card in her hand, a confident smirk crossing her lips as she set it facedown between her continuous traps. "You've bought yourself a turn. But will it be enough, Invincible Girl?"

Invincible Girl? She hadn't been dueling as the Invincible Girl. She'd been fighting with her very soul right out of the gate, trying to help Ilia with its burning shine. The Invincible Girl would never have overextended herself like that. Now, even if she switched her style back to her more cautious strategy, she couldn't regain the ground she'd lost.

She couldn't protect Blake. But she was the only one there! She had to protect her friend! Even beyond that, it was her duty as a hunting duelist!

The only way she could move was forward! It was the only chance she had to help!

"Draw!" Pyrrha cried, yanking the top card of her deck into her hand.

Her emerald eyes widened. Astral's gift!

Her mind flared to life, rapidly calculating the resources at her disposal. Bright lines connected half a dozen cards in her head, her new strategy taking shape. She swiftly analyzed the tactic for weaknesses, noting the primary risk of her opponent's final set card before dismissing the risk as irrelevant.

This was the only chance she had. A tactic of the Invincible Girl's precision aided by the strength Pyrrha had gained from the friends she'd once feared she'd never have. If she didn't try it, Ilia would win for sure.

"Ilia! Stop!" Blake screamed, finally getting the hang of her Atlas duel runner well enough to ride side-by-side with the turbo duelist, able to get close enough for her voice to be heard even over the roar of the motorcycle engines. "Please! Don't hurt her! Don't hurt her and I'll do what you want! I'll go back with you–"

"You think I want you to come back into his clutches?!" Ilia yelled. "I told you to stay away! Maybe breaking a few of your new friend's bones will finally get through to you!"

"If you're looking for someone to threaten, I'd advise a different target," Pyrrha said, her face masked with focus. She pointed to her continuous trap card. "During my Standby Phase, The Regulation of Tribe's maintenance cost must be paid. I either tribute one monster or destroy it."

"Like I said, you bought yourself a turn," Ilia rolled her eyes. "Now let the trap blow up so we can get on with this–"

"I tribute Number 86: Heroic Champion - Rhongomyniad!"

"What?!" Ilia gasped.

"What!?" Blake shrieked. "You're giving up an invincible monster with five thousand attack points?"

"I need my Extra Monster Zone clear," Pyrrha declared, mournfully watching her champion glitter away into golden sparkles. The proud armored warrior looked at her with a worried tilt of its helmed head, but still saluted her with valor as it finally faded to dust.

She didn't need an invincible monster. When she was dueling with so much on the line, she needed to be invincible.

"I pay half my life points to activate Numbers Last Hope!"

Pyrrha Nikos: 500 Life Points

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Blake gaped in shock and confusion as Pyrrha's spell card flashed before her, the green-bordered card displaying the image of a glowing blue dragon with a blinding star shining out of its chest. Twin tendrils of light blossomed from the card's aura body and streamed into the redheaded girl's graveyard, withdrawing two more cards from Argus Chariot's depths. That pair was slammed down on Pyrrha's duel disk, manifesting before her as two Heroic Challenger - Extra Swords (ATK 1000/DEF 1000).

"Numbers Last Hope summons two monsters from my graveyard!" Pyrrha revealed, the swirling orange galaxy of an Overlay Network blossoming before her racing duel runner. "And immediately after they are summoned, I must use them to Xyz Summon a 'Number' Xyz Monster using only those two monsters. So I build the Overlay Network with my Heroic Challenger - Extra Swords!"

"When did you get a card like that?" Blake muttered, her eyes narrowing as she tried to discern if the dragon on the spell card was Jacques Schnee's famous Galaxy-Eyes Photon Dragon.

The two sword-wielding knights morphed into purple notes of light, Pushed on by Number Last Hope's fading light, they danced together into the vortex of the galaxy before them.

"I release the unappeased soul placed aboard the ark! Infinite in distance and unbound by death, a paragon of virtue to rise above the abyss where no light can reach and fulfill the duty to shepherd a new age!" Pyrrha chanted, a desperate, determined sheen to her emerald eyes. "Xyz Summon! Rank Four! Number 101: Silent Honor ARK!"

The galaxy erupted with a brilliant orange nova… and a gargantuan thing arose from its fiery depths.

Blake's eyes widened as Silent Honor ARK floated into the air above Pyrrha and Ilia, the monster so enormous that it covered the entire turbo duel even from its position in the Extra Monster Zone. The Over One Hundred Number was almost too big for the tunnel the duelists were driving through, the flying gray, purple, and red ship unnervingly alien in its presence and the power it subtly radiated, single pink eye burning in its center (ATK 2100/DEF 1000).

But why had Pyrrha summoned it? Mysterious it may have been, Rhongomyniad dwarfed the over One Hundred Number in power.

"One hundred and one? Over one hundred?" Ilia helplessly stammered, the chameleon faunus' skin turning a terrified stark white as she gazed up at the titanic ship bearing down on her. "You have an over one hundred Number?"

"Like before, the effect of my two Extra Swords activate, each of them giving the Xyz Monster they were used to summon an addition one thousand attack points," Pyrrha proclaimed, her new monster's two Overlay Units bathing it in resolute crimson power (ATK 4100). The redheaded girl then reached for her graveyard, removing a spell that slotted out from her duel disk's depths. "I also banish Heroic Call from my graveyard. When I have five hundred life points or less, I can target one monster on my field, and increase its attack points for every 'Heroic' card on my field and attached to my monsters as Overlay Units."

"Which means it gains another thousand attack points!" Blake cheered, a golden aura polishing Silent Honor ARK's hull to a mirror-like shine (ATK 5100).

It all made sense now! With Amazoness Hot Spring on the field and Amazoness War Chief in defense mode, Pyrrha had needed a monster powerful enough to wipe out Ilia's life points with a single attack on Amazoness Queen. Rhongomyniad was enormously powerful, but its protection effect prevented the Invincible Girl from boosting its strength that little extra bit, and its presence clogged her Extra Monster Zone. But by replacing it with Number 101, she could boost her new monster with her added effects to just enough attack points to clench the win.

She just had to be careful of Ilia's facedown and the two Amazoness Sword Women on her field. But with no other cards on her field or in her hand, she only had Silent Honor ARK's effect to minimize the risk. And if she was dueling with an all-out Burning Soul (and admittedly if Blake was remembering her monster's effects right from the single time she'd seen it back on Patch), then that would mean removing one of the Sword Women as a threat by making it an Overlay Unit.

"I use two Overlay Units to activate Number 101's effect–" Pyrrha began, only to cut off her own voice. Her brow furrowed in thought, as if reconsidering her potential move. She shook her head and glared ahead at Ilia's strongest monster, focused and primed. "I mean, I attack Amazoness Queen with Silent Honor Ark!"

Blake raised an eyebrow. Given how Pyrrha had dueled Yang ever since she'd known her, the cat faunus wouldn't have expected such a measured play. Granted, it didn't feel out-of-character for her more methodical duels from when she'd dueled on TV back in Mistral, so perhaps the redhead had just changed up her strategy in the face of the corner Ilia had pushed her into.

"You just activated my trap card!" Ilia shouted back, her eyebrows slanted at the approaching alien ark in terrified panic as her final facedown flipped up. "Wonder Xyz!"

"Xyz?" Pyrrha blinked in surprise.

"Oh no," Blake gasped. Wonder Xyz allowed the duelist who activated it to Xyz Summon immediately after its activation, no matter the turn phase, no matter whose turn.

What she'd so feared had come to pass.

Ilia's trap card blasted her two Amazoness Swords Women with golden rays of energy, transforming them into brilliant nodes of yellow light just in time for a violet spiral galaxy to bloom in front of Nightshade.

"Angel of chaos with your heart frozen by tragedy! Let your frigid blade slice through the hatred that never wanes and make the monsters of order bleed for their sins! Show them how you smile!" Ilia howled, a vibrant crimson nova erupting from the heart of her Overlay Network. "Xyz Summon! Rank Four! Number 103: Ragnazero!"

She sliced through the blossoming explosion of her summon, an angel bearing a paradox of a resplendent white and scarlet robe and skeletal icy wings. Her burning pink eyes glared up at Silent Honor ARK, her twin elegant frozen sabers brandished for combat as its two Overlay Units orbited around the warrior (ATK 2400/DEF 1200).

Blake had been so preoccupied with her fears of Adam back on Patch, she hadn't thought to tell the others about Ilia's Over-One Hundred Number when Pyrrha had revealed her own. In her defense, she was pretty sure her former friend didn't break it out often, something about bad memories. Blake had only seen the chameleon girl summon it during some of their private practice duels.

The cat faunus had lost all those duels. She may not have been sure if she fully remembered the effects of Pyrrha's mysterious Number, but she knew Ilia's by heart because of how deadly it was against her Performapals' attack point modifying effects. And Silent Honor ARK had much more than its original score.

Pyrrha was going to lose. Her friend was going to lose. Her friend was going to get hurt and she couldn't do anything! What was the point of having apologized to her Fusion Monsters if she was still so powerless?!

"Ilia, please!" Blake desperately called, struggling to keep her Paladin runner stable as its engine screamed to rocket past the turbo duel, the duel anchor linking Pyrrha and Ilia starting to pulse for some reason. "Don't hurt her, please–"

"Grrrr!"

Blake's gaze whipped down to her deck, a white light glowing from within as a familiar presence called out to her. "Odd-Eyes? What is it? What's wrong–"

Number 101's central pink eye thrummed with power, its lavender glow burning like a glaring sun. Number 103 answered its call in kind, its magenta eyes blazing as its power seeped through the ice that formed its wings and swords.

"Huh?" Pyrrha reeled. "Silent Honor ARK, what are you doing?"

"Ragnazero?" Ilia gasped. "The heck is this?"

Two beams of blinding pink light shot out of the two Numbers' eyes, meeting together in a searing collision. The energy built out, crackling and humming with chaos as it expanded as an enormous sphere nearly as big as the tunnel was wide, the municipal lights flickering. The orb swallowed Pyrrha and Ilia, both girls consumed by the indomitable shine.

Blake could only helplessly throw out her palm trying to reach her old and new friends as the energy blew her into the wall.

---

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When Ilia was able to crack open her eyes again after Ragnazero and Nikos' Over One Hundred's light show faded a bit, she wondered if she was dreaming.

Because she didn't think she was in Vale anymore. Or even on Remnant.

The tunnel was gone, replaced by a vast expanse of open ocean. The navy hue of the water tinted the world around her, Ilia's lungs somehow breathing it like air. A road of golden energy spawned before her and Nikos as they drove through the ocean's depths, yellow bricks forming beneath their runners as Nightshade and Argus Chariot's tires were coated with a vibrant pink glow. Above each of them, Ragnazero and Silent Honor ARK flew.

"What in the world?!" Ilia exclaimed, her eyes wide as her skin rapidly shifted through a rainbow of terrified colors. "Where are we!? What is this place?!"

"I–I don't know," Nikos stammered. "I think the magic in our Numbers reacted with each other."

"Magic?!" Ilia squealed. "What the heck are you talking about!?"

"Pyrrha?"

Ilia and Nikos' gazes whipped down below their duel runners and the self-generating road that carried them through the strange not quite watery depths. At the bottom of the chasm, resting on a floor of white sand, was a gargantuan golden airship bigger than any Atlas battleship. The massive vessel was a pillar of archaic clock gears stacked on top of each other, unable to move as the ship lay helpless on the ocean floor.

On top of the ancient vessel was a central oval veranda, a circle of seven thrones, each marked ancient Mistralian numerals. The pink glow of Nightshade sprinkled down on the chair marked 'III' like magenta rain, Argus Chariot's showering the one closest to a resplendent pillar marked with an 'I'. The thrones marked 'II" and 'V' were filled by the shadows of people, too indistinct for Ilia to identify them as anything beyond humanoid. The chairs with 'IV' and 'VI' were completely empty. The 'VII' throne, the one on the other end from Nikos' 'I', was scarred by a jagged crack splitting its back in two, the shadowy figure filling the seat misshapen and flickering.

At the top of the pillar behind the 'I' throne, a freaking blue ghost, dressed in dark navy armor inlaid with three scarlet gems, leapt into the air and flew up side-by-side with Nikos. With one eye cerulean and one eye scarlet, he quirked his head at the sight of the two drivers' turbo dueling through his ocean (sky?). "What are you doing here?"

"Astral!" Nikos exclaimed, apparently knowing the ghost somehow. "Where are we?"

The ghost gestured his arm towards the clockwork airship and the enormous depths surrounding it. "This is the interior of the key."

"Key?" Ilia squeaked. "What key?"

Pyrrha's emerald eyes widened. "This is the inside of the key?"

Astral nodded. "It is."

"What key?!" Ilia shouted. "If you brought us here, send us back! Now!"

"I did not bring you… here," Astral trailed off, his gaze falling on Ragnazero. "Number 103."

Ragnazero flourished and bowed to the armored ghost. Ilia's eyes widened at the never before seen sight from her proud monster.

Astral looked up to Nikos's Number, the giant ship seeming to incline itself in deference to the spirit, though Ilia had no clue how that worked. "You helped her come back to me. Thank you."

Ragnazero's card began to glow a furious red. Astral reached out for it on Nightshade's attached duel disk.

Ilia slapped his hand away. "Don't touch her! You're not taking her!"

"Observation number twenty, my form is tangible within the interior of the key," Astral said, more intrigued that he'd been touched rather than angry that he'd been struck. He calmly turned back to Ilia. "You need not worry. I would never dream of separating an Over One Hundred Number from their chosen emperor."

"Emperor?" Nikos queried. "What does that mean?"

Astral's gaze returned to Ragnazero's glowing card, his dual-colored eyes narrowing with curiosity. "That is one thing I hope to discover. Touching Silent Honor ARK's card, reestablishing whatever connection we share, helped bring a modicum of clarity to my jumbled memories. Hopefully, doing so with another Over One Hundred Number will help me do the same. Perhaps it may even return you to wherever you were before–"

"A likely story," Ilia scoffed. "You expect me to believe a ghost I've never met, who's apparently friends with my enemy?"

"I'm not your enemy!" Nikos pleaded.

"That's not necessarily a statement we can make with confidence. We don't actually know what the purpose of the Over One Hundred Numbers and the Emperors is," Astral said. "They could have to duel to the death until only one duelist remains."

"Not helping Astral!"

Ilia blinked at the spirit in confusion, still struggling to believe if he was real or not. Even putting aside the whole 'ghost in weird space-ocean world' thing (and that was a big thing to put aside), he was just… odd. As if he didn't completely get the world around him. He'd said something about missing memories, so that might have been the cause, but Ilia didn't trust many people who did know who they were these days.

And yet, one of the few was Ragnazero, the first card she'd ever forged, who'd been with it through it all. Through her parents' deaths, fleeing Atlas, joining the White Fang, meeting Blake and Adam, falling for Blake, Blake leaving… Number 103 always had her back.

So, she picked up her card and held it out toward Astral. "You try to take her, I will obliterate you."

The spirit nodded and reached out toward Number 103's glowing aura. When his fingers touched the card, the crimson shine flared up and surged into the three jewels on his armor. The ghostly man's body spasmed out, his eyes wide as crackling energy flashed over him.

"The heck?!" Ilia shouted, her hand accidentally touching the spirit's limb as she yanked Ragnazero to safety.

"Astral!" Nikos yelled, blazing her duel runner forward and reaching for her friend's spectral flesh.

When she touched it however, her eyes rolled back in her head, taking on their own bright pink glow. A glow that Ilia soon witnessed blind her own vision as well.

---

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"Your manager just got finished giving me an earful over the scroll," Rouge Nikos informed her daughter, the glasses-wearing redhead wincing as she closed her scroll and stowed it away in her pocket. "Apparently you turned down a guest spot on 'The Onomatopoeia Gang'? Why's that?"

Pyrrha's fingers froze from where they were just above her Heroic Champion - Excalibur, her entire deck laid out before her as she triple-checked its construction in preparation for her most important duel in years. But if her manager, who'd shepherded her safely through the rollercoaster of her fame since she won her first tournament and helped her shield her personal life from the predatory tabloids was so passionate about this guest spot… perhaps she would have to miss that duel.

Damn it!

Pyrrha sighed in her seat at the kitchen table. "If this guest spot is really so important… I suppose I can do it."

"I'm sure she'll be happy to hear that," her mother replied, coming around to the side of the table. "But, I'm still confused why you turned down the spot in the first place. You seemed perfectly agreeable to the idea when Mr. Heartland raised the prospect at that party last month."

"It's nothing."

"Pyrrha."

"It's really nothing. I have nothing against being on 'The Onomatopoeia Gang'," Pyrrha assured her mother. "It's just that the filming date was the same date as… something else I wanted to do."

"Something else?" Rouge repeated, cocking an eyebrow. "This is the first I'm hearing of it."

Pyrrha bit her lip, dreading the repercussions of her next words. "Professor Lionheart got back to me. He said that Professor Ozpin will be in the kingdom that day and he can conduct my entrance exam–"

"For Beacon," Rouge finished, a frown marring her usually understanding lips. "Pyrrha, we've talked about this."

"Multiple reputable studies have claimed that Vale is actually the safest of the four kingdoms."

"That didn't save your father when he went to Mountain Glenn," Rouge argued. "At least at Haven, you're only a train ride away from me. And we have friends in Mistral, people who can help you if there's any trouble there. No one knows you in Vale–"

"That's the point!" Pyrrha shouted, smashing her fists on the table and sending her cards flying about the kitchen.

Rouge blinked, recoiling in shock at her daughter's sudden outburst. Even before she'd become 'The Invincible Girl', Pyrrha was never one for fierce outbursts. Indeed, the moment she realized what she'd done, the emerald-eyed girl shrank back in shame, getting down on her knees and collecting her scattered cards.

Once she got over her surprise, Rouge got down on the floor and helped her daughter compile the many Heroic Challengers. "You don't need to apologize for wanting something. You've done nothing wrong."

"Then why does it feel like I have?" Pyrrha muttered.

Rouge shot her child a wistful smile. Once the Heroic Challengers had been gathered back into a single deck, she helped her back to her feet and gently caressed her daughter's cheek. "My sweet girl. You are kind, and gentle, and more caring than many deserve. And you will give them that care nonetheless because that is who you are. I could not be more proud. Or terrified, that they will not love you, like I do."

"No need to worry about that, mom," Pyrrha scoffed. "Everyone loves The Invincible Girl."

"Were you not listening?" Rouge teased. "You are so much more than invincible."

"I want to be a hunting duelist. I want to help people," Pyrrha insisted. "If The Invincible Girl does that, who am I to complain?"

Rouge frowned. She disappeared upstairs and returned with a black-bordered Xyz card. "I recall your manager asked you to take this out of your deck for 'aesthetic reasons' as I recall. Perhaps such things will be of less importance at Beacon."

Pyrrha's eyes widened at her mother with hope, beholding the first card she'd ever forged in her proud parent's hand. Reverently, the young woman took Number 101 into her own and slid it into her Extra Deck with a grateful smile.

"Your mom seems nice."

Pyrrha whipped around, her spirit exiting the body of her younger self and remembering that it was her younger self as she spotted Ilia leaning back against her kitchen cabinets.

"You–you saw that?" Pyrrha breathlessly queried. "My memory?"

"You don't seem surprised," Ilia snarked.

"Blake and Weiss, they mentioned the link between their dragons putting them through something similar. I guess our Numbers and Astral's memory clarification must be putting us through something similar since we were both in contact with him at the same time," Pyrrha hypothesized, staring back at her younger self and her mother, the kitchen of her house back in Argus looking as vivid as they day she'd left. As had the emotions she'd felt. "I didn't expect it to feel so real."

"Lovely. Blake and the Schnee heiress having some sort of dragon connection aside," Ilia groaned. "How do we get out of this? I have no desire to be stuck inside some alternate dimension key relieving your memories of throwing away power."

"I don't know–throwing away power?" Pyrrha said, her brow furrowing. "That's what you took from that?"

Ilia rolled her eyes. "You want to be just like everybody else. As if everybody else was worth being… like…

The world around the duelists and Astral shifted, young Pyrrha and Rouge melting away. The Nikos' kitchen morphed into a sleek and shining duel school courtyard, the architecture and the snow drifting down from the sky far above a hard light dust dome suggesting Atlas was the memory's new location.

"This place?" Ilia stammered, recognition filling her gaze.

"Your old school?" Pyrrha guessed, several students in Obelisk Blue uniforms gathering around two older girls, one blonde and another with short-cropped blue hair.

"Yeah. But the last time I saw this plaza like this was… no," Ilia whispered, the chameleon faunus' face warped with fear as her skin turned bleach white. "No, no, no, no, no, not today. Not today. Any day but today."

Pyrrha stumbled back, the prickly and efficient White Fang commander vanishing in an instant, replaced with a terrified teenage girl. She inched her towards, a calming hand held out to aid her. "Ilia, it's just a memory. It can't hurt you–"

"Don't look. You don't get to see this!" Ilia wailed. She dashed to Astral's rigid body and grabbed his shoulders, frantically shaking the spectral being. "Wake up! Wake up, you glowing blue jerk! You can't show this! You don't make me go through this again! You can't make me lose them all over again–"

"Hey! Ilia! Come check this out!" the older blonde girl called.

Ilia's body froze at the voice, her posture shifting into a light, peppier stance. The hardened terrorist morphed into a younger schoolgirl version of herself, no more than ten or eleven years old, and like a puppet on strings, she skipped towards the older blonde girl. "Coming, Giselle! You should have heard Professor Zeki's lecture today. I've never even considered some of the continuous spell and trap applications he's talked about before!"

"And I'm sure he told you all about them in the dullest tone possible," the blonde upperclassman, Giselle, joked, holding up her shining scroll and the news report playing on it. "But you gotta see this! Some stupid faunus caused a SDC mine to collapse."

Pyrrha recoiled at the shocking news and the horrendous way it was stated. Even more so when she saw that the reaction of most of the girls surrounding Giselle was to snicker. The most extreme response was the blue-haired girl next to the blonde rolling her eyes in boredom more than anything.

That and the slowing of Ilia's carefree skipping. And the horror that morphed her visage as she got close enough to actually read the news report… and the name of the casualties it listed.

---

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'SDC Mine Collapse! Dropped Dust Crystals Cause Chain Reaction!'

"You think they were using their Mine Moles right?"

'Twenty-Four Confirmed Dead! More Injured!'

"Maybe they had some moles among them? Thought they could do the job themselves. Stupid animals! Haha!"

'Casualties include shift leader Tuck Thyme, deputy shift leader Petunia Amitola and her husband Ambrouse Amitola…'

"Those poor creatures," Giselle sighed, cutting off the rest of the girls' gossiping. "The mine manager should never have promoted one of them as high as shift leader. It was a hazard to the entire crew's safety. Don't you think, Ilia?... Ilia?"

Ilia didn't hear her. She barely heard the reporter on the scroll continue to divulge the known detail of the explosion. When all she saw were her parents' names on the casualty list, all she could hear were the snickers of her friends.

Snickers… they were snickering. People were dead, her parents were dead, and they were snickering. How could they snicker?!

No… why wouldn't they snicker? How many times had they all laughed and called the faunus 'dirty', called Pendulum Summoning a 'rancid abomination'? How many times had she laughed with them?

She'd wanted to be normal. She'd done it right. It'd been easy, even. She'd just shifted her skin color a bit after lights out when no one could see her and she'd been as good as human. She'd showed them how she'd smiled and they'd loved it.

She'd loved it, being thought of as a normal girl for the first time in her life.

"Are you sure this was a dust reaction?" May pondered, her eyes narrowing at the news footage, pointing out a crevice of a mercurial black substance spread just outside the mine's entrance. "That doesn't look like any aftermath I've ever seen–woah! Ilia, are you o…kay?"

"She's turning… has she unlocked her semblance?" Giselle wondered.

"No, that's…" May started.

The usually withdrawn bluenette took a step towards Ilia upon noticing her tears, only to freeze midmovement, her eyes widening with shock. Giselle, her face suddenly blanketed with terror, grabbed her best friend and yanked her away, her duel disk expanding. The rest of the girls soon followed suit, their snickering, mocking faces transformed into expressions of vivid horror as they scrambled for their decks.

Ilia didn't understand why until she'd felt the waterfall of tears gushing down her cheeks and raised her hand to wipe them away. Only to realize that her grief had turned her arm a deep royal blue.

The commotion was already spreading throughout the rest of the plaza. Ilia desperately looked among the circle of girls for understanding, for help from her friends. The closest she got was May's stupefied gaze, the heir to the Marigold family paralyzed by confusion. Meanwhile, Giselle led the rest of the students in summoning a horde of monsters to surround Ilia, the blond Gisbourne's Empress of Prophecy acting as the vanguard.

No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. Her parents… her parents were gone. And she… she'd failed them, ruined everything they'd worked for. The headmaster would see her gone in a second. Professor Zeki would stand by and do the 'logical' thing since she'd broken the rules she'd agreed to.

Why did they hate her so much? She just wanted to be normal, like them–

"Drop your duel disk, faunus," Giselle snarled, her bubbly voice charged with skittish terror. "Drop it!"

… why?

She knew what they were like, what it was to be 'normal'. To be hateful and cruel. She'd been that, when she'd acted like she was one of them. Now, she'd never felt so ashamed. There were only two types of normal people. The ones who hated like Giselle and the headmaster, and those who sat back and let the hate happen like May, like Professor Zeki… like her.

No more.

A card in her Extra Deck blazed pink as her heart burned.

"Did you hear me, you animal?!" Giselle shouted. "Drop your duel disk–"

"AAAAaaaaahhhhh!" Ilia shrieked, charging forward.

Her former friends' monsters fell down upon her, only for Ragnazero to blossom behind her, manifesting by some power Ilia didn't understand. She certainly hadn't been focused on sculpting an aura body for it in her fury. But the first card that the chameleon faunus had ever forged tore through the Atlas girls' opposition with ease, an Overlay Unit flowing into its blades as its effect sliced Giselle's Empress of Prophecy in two. Just in time for Ilia's fist to slam into Giselle's teeth.

She wasn't normal. She'd never be normal. She'd never want to be normal again.

And she'd never apologize for it.

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Pyrrha's hand was covering her mouth in horror when she and the others returned to the key's dimension. Astral floated beside her, panting for breath she didn't know he'd needed, the thrum of Argus Chariot and Nightshade's engines filling the ethereal realm as the runners continued to race across the self-generating golden road.

Number 101 and Number 103's shadows ominously hung over them all.

"Astral," Pyrrha worriedly began. "Are you alright?"

"I am," her ghostly friend confirmed, his visage returned to normal. "It seems an earlier theory of mine was correct. Creating and connecting with more Chaos Number evolutions for Utopia will return the volume of my memories while reconnecting with the seven Over One Hundred Numbers will help me comprehend them."

"And you know for sure that there are only seven?" Pyrrha inquired.

"To the best of my knowledge. Which admittedly is still limited," Astral confessed. His brow furrowed with concern and compassion, turning back to the duelist behind them. "For the moment, I believe we have a more important matter to attend to at the moment."

Pyrrha turned back to Ilia, the chameleon faunus's head bowed low as her runner hummed on. Her helmet and positioning hid most of her face, save the stream of tears leaking down her shuddering body.

"Ilia," Pyrrha spoke up. "I am so sorry for what you had to–"

"Will ending the duel get us out of this hellscape?" Ilia asked, her voice a broken, hoarse, and angry whisper.

"Yes," Astral confirmed. "I apologize for accidentally exposing your past trauma–"

"I activate Number 103's effect," Ilia growled. "During either player's turn, Ragnazero can use one Overlay Unit to destroy one of your Attack Position monsters whose current attack is different from its original attack."

Ragnazero flourished around to face Silent Honor ARK in midflight. The frozen angel flapped its skeletal icy wings and unleashed a hail of frost and death straight for Number 101.

A hail that was intercepted by the glowing node of one of Silent Honor ARK's Overlay Units. The shining star froze over and splintered into glacial shards, but the other Number's effect went no further.

"When Silent Honor ARK would be destroyed, it can detach an Overlay Unit to prevent its destruction," Pyrrha revealed, her frazzled mind taking a depth breath as she realized just how close she'd come to losing.

After all, back in the tunnel, she'd been a moment from giving into the thrill of the duel and ordering Silent Honor ARK to use its first effect to try to absorb one of Ilia's Amazoness Swords Woman. With Wonder Xyz as a counter, her opponent would have prevented that move and brought out her own Number, while the price of its attempted effect relieving Pyrrha's monster of its only defense. Only her caution had saved her and allowed her to protect her friend.

The caution of The Invincible Girl.

"Pyrrha, please wait," Astral asked her. "I believe the connection between you two is more important than any of us realize–"

"Battle!" Pyrrha shouted, flinging her arm back at Ilia, resigned to her duty. "Number 101: Silent Honor ARK attacks Number 103: Ragnazero! Million Phantom Flood!"

The million portholes forged into Silent Honor ARK's hull, a sea of windows into the black depths of the dreadnaught's firepower. Each and every one of them lit up a vibrant lavender, expelling their payload into the key dimension's ethereal water space. An ocean of death rained down on Ragnazero, the icy angel brandishing its blades, only to fall valiantly in a fiery cataclysm.

Ilia Amitola: 0 Life Points

Winner: Pyrrha Nikos

The burning light of Number 103's demise flared into a star, consuming Pyrrha, Astral, and Ilia in its scathing shine.

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Ozpin did his best to collect his breath as the blinding glow faded from Timaeus' card.

"Two of them," he muttered, grateful he was safe in the seclusion of his office where no one could see his rattled terror. "Two Emperors in the city?"

He checked his scroll's message history, noting that Qrow's last text was of him being on the trail of one of James' stolen convoys that the White Fang had shipped back to Mistral. The headmaster rapidly typed out an insistent call to abandon all current intelligence missions about that and Amber's assailant and return to Vale to hunt down these greater threats.

He barely stopped himself from hitting 'Send' before his sense was able to scrape back control from his fear.

He had Glynda. He had James, thanks to the general's own 'caution'. Qrow's job chasing down leads on Amber's attacker, the one who'd taken Hermos, was crucial. Ozpin could hunt down the Over One Hundred Numbers and those they'd chosen to infect with what he currently had at his disposal.

Besides, he had to ask others to attend to his dirty business far too often. He could not shirk away from doing it when the responsibility fell on him.

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Cinder sighed with relief when Hermos's light faded. "All clear."

Emerald pulled back from the edge of the nook the pair had huddled down when the dragon's glow had started up. The green-haired girl had been using her semblance on anyone who passed to ensure the unnatural light went unnoticed. "Everything okay?"

"Nothing you need concern yourself with," Cinder said. "We'll need to be careful that we stay away from cameras as much as possible. Your semblance doesn't work on machines."

They'd need to have Neo join them after The Breach operation to cover for that weakness. More importantly, she'd have to hope that the magic signal from those two Over One Hundred Numbers wasn't strong enough to reach Salem back in the Grimmlands. Her operation was enough of a balancing act without having to devote time and energy to an extermination mission.

Besides, she knew the type who were chosen as Emperors. They were nothing for her to fear.

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Jaune was relieved when the key suddenly cooled down. He was more relieved when Astral flashed back to his side, so much so that he scrambled for the extra pizza he'd ordered and then barely saved a quarter of from Nora.

He stalled his celebration when he saw the disgruntled appearance of his spectral partner.

"What happened?" he inquired. "Is everything alright?"

Astral sighed. "Yes, everything is alright. As you said, it was Pyrrha. No reason to worry. Though I must confess, I still worry for her."

"Pyrrha?" Jaune brow creased with concern. Pyrrha had been involved in the key's weird glowing thing?

Then there really was no cause for alarm. His partner was incredible. There wasn't anything she couldn't handle.

And yet…

Jaune rose and darted over to where Ren and Nora were cashing out their prize tickets. "Hey, Ren. Do you think we could squeeze three on that runner you checked out from school?"

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Pyrrha panicked as Argus Chariot's brakes screeched upon her return to the real-world tunnel, sparks flying as her prized runner clipped to a desperate halt. The stress of returning from an interdimensional excursion was more than her beautiful mount was built to bear. She would have to give it a full diagnostic when she got back to Beacon, ensure her baby was well, and maybe ask Yang what mechanic shops around carried the best oil.

But for the moment, the redhead removed her helmet and leapt off her duel runner, spying Nightshade not far from her, the bested mount's chafe smoke rapidly filling the tunnel. Meanwhile, its rider, her skin bone-white, staggered off the jet-black vehicle and stumbled towards the smog.

"Ilia! Wait!" Pyrrha called, dashing for the other girl.

The chameleon fauns whipped around to face the Argus girl, her eyes bloodshot and her cheeks drenched in tears. "Stay away from me!"

Pyrrha stopped short, desperate not to scare her off. "Come back to Beacon with us!"

Whatever Ilia had been expecting her to say, that definitely hadn't been it, her face twisted with befuddlement as her skin flash half a dozen frazzled colors. "What?"

"Come back to Beacon with us," Pyrrha repeated. "Ozpin gave Blake a fresh start, he can do the same for you. You can become a hunting duelist."

Ilia stared at her for several long moments, her eyes washing over The Invincible Girl as if truly seeing her for the first time. Pyrrha took that as a sign of hope since she obviously wasn't running away while she was doing so.

"You remind me of Blake, back when I first met her," the chameleon duelist finally declared. "Kind, and gentle, and more caring than many deserve."

"Please don't parrot my mother's words," Pyrrha pleaded.

"They were accurate. In both cases," Ilia admitted. "But like Blake back then, you are so very naive. Why would I want to be a hunting duelist?"

Pyrrha reeled back as if she'd been slapped. "You want to help people. Hunting duelists do that."

"They're supposed to help people. Big difference," Ilia accused. "Hunting duelists go where hunting duelists are paid to go. If the councils post higher bounties for Grimm from certain areas, that's where they'll gladly plant their flags and keep watch. And wouldn't you know it, those flags surround the capitals, and the big cities, and the trade centers. Not the villages on the frontier who leave those big cities to get away from the councils."

"That doesn't mean the councils just… leave them to die," Pyrrha stammered.

"Ha! Ever hear of Oniyuri? Kuroyuri? New Menagerie? They did just that," Ilia growled. "Half the Mistral Cell of the White Fang's job is the terrorist stuff you see in the news. The other half is doing for the outlying faunus villages what the council won't pay for any hunting duelists to do. Why do you think huntsmen have so much trouble finding us when they go looking? No one out there's willing to sell us out leaving themselves wide open to the Grimm."

Pyrrha staggered back. She had heard of the tragedy of Oniyuri. A decade or so ago, a group of Mistral's citizens had disagreed with how the council had been running the kingdom, with recent aggressions against faunus rights being a leading issue. Those citizens had left the capital to form their own city of Oniyuri, with an outpost called Kuroyuri being formed closer to the Mistral capital to facilitate communication. They had hoped that one day the settlements, the largest expansion movement since Vale's Mountain Glenn, could have grown to be their own kingdom.

That did not happen. Grimm overran the settlements like they did so many. But rumors had circulated for years that the settlers had requested assistance from Mistral in acquiring hunting duelist protection, their own funds having been too strained by the construction efforts to afford to hire any directly. If those rumors were true, and if the same thing was just a matter of course…

In hindsight, it seemed obvious. Hunting duelists needed to eat, get new dust for forging, and keep their duel disks and runners in shape. Of course they would go to the areas where the kingdoms posted the highest bounties. No one was going to pay for a random pack of Beowolves killed in the middle of nowhere, but you could feed your family if you killed a Beowolf menacing a SDC train line.

As romanticized as they were, as necessary as their role was in some capacity or another, hunting duelists were ultimately the tools of those in power.

"You want so badly to be normal. To be just another smile in the crowd. You're not," Ilia spat. "And you shouldn't want to be. Giving up who you are, your power, to serve their comfort? It'll be the worst mistake of your life. Just like it was mine."

"Then why are you repeating it?"

Pyrrha and Ilia both whirled towards the familiar voice as it cut through the chafe smoke. Slowly but surely, a shadow grew on the smog, and then Blake emerged with Gambol Shroud deployed and ready.

"What are you talking about?" Ilia growled, even more on edge with the cat faunus' appearance.

"You don't believe in whatever it is Adam is doing with Torchwick. You know that it's not going to do anything to help our people," Blake declared. "You're just following orders, mixing in with the crowd."

"Torchwick is a means to an end."

"Whose end? Our people's? Or that crazy scorpion guy and his mysterious master?"

"Whatever Adam is doing is better than nothing," Ilia hissed, sounding like she was trying to convince herself even as she glared at Blake's bow atop her hidden ears. "Better than hiding who I am and expecting our people to just get over how they're abused every single day."

"There's more than one way to hide who you are," Blake's frown deepened. "Does Sienna even know what you're doing?"

Ilia's bloodshot eyes bulged with fury, her skin flaring crimson and yellow. She looked like she was about to bite out another venomous retort, only for the thrum of police sirens to approach from where the turbo duel had originated. The three girls turned to see red and blue lights beginning to flash through the smoke.

"This time, listen to me and stay away from White Fang business, Blake," Ilia warned, her voice dripping with resigned despair, knowing her words would be ignored but caring too much not to try. "You won't always have a rescuer to save you."

The chameleon faunus skin faded to the same gray as the chafe smoke and she swiftly melted into the smog. By the time Pyrrha and Blake turned around, she'd disappeared. Pyrrha ran after her and Blake secured Nightshade, but there was still no sign of the White Fang commander.

"She got away. She got away!" Blake snarled, howling into her hands in abject frustration. "She got away and I was completely useless! We have nothing! I didn't even get the information I was at the stinking rally for in the first place!"

"It's okay. Blake, it's okay," Pyrrha insisted, instantly moving to comfort her friend. "You're okay. You got that Atlas runner back from them. And, bonus, you got your runner back."

Blake's face brightened up a bit at that last comment, her hands lovingly caressing the runner's polished black sheen. But it only last a short while before her dour expression returned. "What happened? In that light when your Numbers appeared?"

Pyrrha winced, knowing she had to be careful not to betray Astral's existence. "I imagine something similar to what you went through with Weiss. I saw some of her memories. When she first entered her school… and the day her parents died."

Blake flinched, clearly having heard the story before. She leaned back on Nightshade, looking as exhausted as Pyrrha felt after her toughest duel since her match with Yang. Heck, maybe since her duel with Professor Ozpin where she'd asked him to use his own deck and go all out.

Professor Ozpin… who according to Taiyang could never learn that she possessed Silent Honor ARK.

"The kids' parents wanted Ilia's head on a platter after that day. Most of them wanted criminal charges pressed. Some even sued the school. The teacher who'd sponsored her resigned to resolve it. I hear he rejoined the military when General Ironwood was made Commander-in-Chief and outlawed segregation in the military by internal mandate," Blake recalled. "Ilia fled Atlas as a fugitive and joined up with the White Fang when we were in Mantle for a rally. Sienna and I helped smuggle her out of the kingdom when we went back to Mistral."

"And thus she stayed with you when the White Fang turned to violence," Pyrrha surmised. "What she said, about the White Fang defending outlying villages? Was that true?"

Blake sighed but nodded. "Grimm, Malachite syndicate thugs, Branwen Tribe bandits. You've heard Nora's disturbing anecdotes. They're all true. And the council only cares to post bounties of a livable wage for the protection of the settlements that matter to them. Hunting duelists don't go where they can't make a living."

"I see," Pyrrha murmured. "Then I'll go there."

"What?" Blake said.

"Not now, obviously. But when I graduate and have my license, I'll go there," Pyrrha decided then and there. "I'm the Invincible Girl. Might as well use that to do some good."

Blake flinched. "Pyrrha, I admire the intention, but it's not going to be that simple–"

"I don't need simple. I'm aware that my presence likely won't bring more than a week of camera attention to the issue before something else draws the media's attention, but at least I will be there," Pyrrha angrily proclaimed. "I've got more money than I know what to do with, more coming in every day thanks to royalties. I don't need to worry about wages to make a living, so I will live as I am needed. If those villages need help, then I will go there and help them however I can."

Even if Ilia was right and the ideal of a hunting duelist was not a reality, she still had that ideal and she would live it out to the best of her ability. She would help people. Conveniently, the plan also kept her on the frontier far away from Ozpin or any of the other headmasters that Taiyang warned her of, but that was a secondary concern. The primary was the fact that people were in trouble, were dying, and those that were supposed to be helping them were not doing so.

Pyrrha viewed destiny as a goal, something to be worked towards. And her destiny was to help people. She'd decided that long ago. If the choice was between selfishly clinging to her friends and trying to be one of the crowd, or being on that pedestal she hated so much and actually saving lives? Then it wasn't a choice at all.

Even if it meant she had to leave her friends behind once it was made.

The police sirens closed on the two Beacon students, two cruisers parking right next to them as the chafe smoke began to clear. A pair of uniformed police officers hopped out of their vehicle, hands on their holstered sidearms.

"You two! What the heck is going on here?"

Blake tensed at the sight of the law enforcement officers, but Pyrrha placed a reassuring hand on her forearm.

"I'll handle this," she promised. The celebrity redhead plastered on her perfect camera-ready smile and turned towards the policemen. "Good evening, officers!"

"Holy crud," one of them gasped, the tension immediately leaving his body at the sight of her. "You're Pyrrha Nikos!"

"That I am. My friend and I have actually been trying to contact you for a while now," Pyrrha emphatically told them. "We were out for a drive when we were jumped by a horde of White Fang."

"Yeah, we just picked up five of them crashed back down the road," one of the officers said, neither of them with their hands on their guns. "Were you or your friend hurt, Ms. Nikos?"

"I got into a turbo duel with one of them, but I was able to fight them off. We're both alright, I believe," Pyrrha replied. "We're not in any trouble, are we, officers?"

"Oh, no, ma'am. Sounds like self-defense if I've ever heard it," the patrolman assured her, flashing his scroll's data reader over Argus Chariot, Nightshade, and the Atlas runner Blake had ridden on. "We'll need to take your statements and your contact information just in case we need to follow up, but after that, you girls can hop onto Argus Chariot and go about your night. We'll get to work impounding these two runners."

Blake stiffened, clenching Nightshade very tightly. "These two runners."

"Of course, ma'am," the other officers chipperly declared. "Both of them are showing up as unregistered. Gotta take them in as evidence."

Blake's eyebrow twitched. "... right… naturally, you would have to impound it… as evidence."

Pyrrha deflated at her friend's despair. She knew how much a duel runner meant to their duelist. Why hadn't she come up with a part of the cover story so that Blake could keep Nightshade?

What other chaos would she fail to stop that night?

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"Ladies and gentlemen! Please remain in your seats!" Miltia Malachite implored through her microphone, the gaudy red twin pacing through the center of Junior's cage arena. "We have just confirmed that the reigning champion of the cage has one last duel to play tonight! The brute of a beast! The masked monster that makes Grimm plead for their mamas! Banesaw!"

The expected sections of the crowd cheered and booed as the towering faunus man stomped back into the arena, the underground duel shock collars locked tight around his neck, elbows, wrists, and knees. The bulky masked brute held his arms up and shook his hands in solidarity with his supporters. "Looks like one more human wants to feel the might of the White Fang! Of the faunus!"

Extra loud applause broke among the faunus spectators. Weiss wished she could be concurring with them, but even discounting that the man was a terrorist, she found her stomach tied up in knots with worry because of who would have to face him.

"And his opponent!" Miltia began, only for her enthusiasm to begin dripping with disgust as she pulled out a set of notecards that Yang had prepared beforehand. The red-clothed girl immediately tossed the cards away. "Yeah, I'm not reading those, far too many puns. Introducing the blonde bimbo fashion disaster that burned this entire place down a few months ago! The Little Sun Dragon!"

"I'll take it!" Yang proclaimed, striding onto her side of the cage with her signature confidence, receiving cheers and boos from opposite ends of the audience. Well, at least until the audience got a good look at her hair… and legs… and chest… and arms…

The point was, as soon as the audience got a good look at her, quite a few more cheers rang throughout the crowd. Cheers that Yang only encouraged with a few confident winks that anyone could interpret as being aimed in their general direction.

Weiss would admit she groaned at that part of her teammate's antics.

"You here to fight or flirt, human?" Banesaw growled, readying his chainsaw-like duel disk. "Don't think I'll underestimate you because of your looks. I trained under Sienna Khan herself and let me tell you, you've got nothing on her in looks or strength."

"Oh, I've seen the wanted posters, no need to tell me what a hottie she is," Yang grinned back, deploying Ember Celica as her deck shuffled. "But such a shame. I was trying to make this whole thing easy on you. Guess we'll just have to do it the hard way. For you, at least."

Milita exited the cage and slammed the door shut, the bars of the arena energizing so that they would not open until a winner was declared. "Save the trash-talking for the action! Everyone, place your bets!"

"Let's duel!" Yang and Banesaw shouted in unison.

Yang Xiao-Long: 4000 Life Points

Banesaw: 4000 Life Points

Weiss let the roar of the crowd wash over her as she tore her attention away from the duel. Hemming and hawing from the sidelines wasn't going to do any good when she couldn't jump in to help without breaking their deal with Junior.

No, she'd be more help to Yang making sure that Junior was keeping up their deal with them.

When Ruby had called her, Weiss and been observing Banesaw's preparation box, where she'd spotted his 'escort' that Junior had mentioned: the very same pink and white-dressed woman who'd nearly stolen her Blue-Eyes and killed her at the docks. Miltia had talked to the little gremlin mobster, whispering something in her ear that had made the dual-colored-eyed woman giggle and nod, obviously agreeing to whatever was proposed.

Now that the cage match had begun, Miltia returned to the shorter woman… and handed her a galleon of ice cream.

Weiss couldn't say she'd understood the exchange, but the woman who'd almost killed her merrily clapped when she took the offered treat. She plopped back on the box's bench, took out a spoon, and dug into her frozen treat as Banesaw took the first turn of the match. So… probably not plotting something nefarious.

But maybe sitting back to enjoy someone else's nefarious plot.

Weiss's eyes narrowed as she followed Miltia out of the box, very pointedly not heading for Junior's own private box. Instead, she strode through the back lanes of the stands and made her way to a room marked 'Staff Only'.

Bingo.

---

Times like this I am glad I don't have a consistent update schedule anymore. Real-life gave me no time to write this past month and I had to write this chapter scrap by scrap whenever I could scrape any bit of time. Would have been panicking my butt off if I had a concrete deadline.

But anyway, this might be one of my favorite chapters I've done. Pyrrha and Ilia's foil dynamic was as much fun to dive into as I'd hoped it would be, with the recurring motifs of apologies, normal, and invincibility (what that really means) causing each of the girls to affect each other far more than most other opponents would, them both being Emperors not helping cool the tension since neither they nor Astral know what that really means at the moment. Pyrrha wins in part by falling back on her old more measured Invincible Girl tactics, but she misses that it was a card that Astral gave her, a gift from her friend, that opened the door to her victory, with Number 101 needing to be boosted further by other cards to win. Meanwhile, Ilia has... trauma. LOTS of trauma. And no reason to trust in any system our heroes fight for to help her or her people. Though as Blake notes, that is just making her struggle to figure a way of being Adam and Cinder's tool.

Had hoped to include the first half of the Yang vs. Banesaw duel in this chapter, but this thing got very long, so that'll be saved for next time, along with Weiss's discovery.

Remember to check out and add to this story's TVTROPES PAGE! I check my stories' pages often and I always enjoy it when they grow. :)

Thank you for Reading! I hope you enjoy what comes next!

Go Forth and Conquer!