"I'll start! I activate Seed Cannon!" Ruby shouted, smirking at Torchwick as her bulging cactus appeared behind her.

"Oh joy. The cactus," Roman drolled.

"Is it dangerous?" Perry asked, huddling behind his duel disk in preparation for a hit.

"It's prickly," Roman shrugged. "She summons a plant, it gets a counter. She sends it to the graveyard, we take five hundred damage for each counter on it."

"Seriously?!" Perry exclaimed, looking at Ruby with a sizable amount of fear in his stance. "How does a thirteen-year-old have a card like that?"

"I'm fifteen!" Ruby protested, slipping another spell into Crescent Rose. "I activate One for One, sending my Rose Lover from my hand to the graveyard to summon Evil Thorn from my deck. Then I'll tribute Evil Thorn to activate its effect, dealing you guys three hundred points of damage each!"

Her spiky purple bulb flashed onto the field before her, only to immediately explode and send its spikes hurdling toward her adversaries. Perry ducked low to avoid the shower. Torchwick just groaned, twisting and dodging most of the spikes flashing towards him, using his duel disk to knock any who came too close out of the air.

Perry: 3700 Life Points

Roman Torchwick: 3700 Life Points

Torchwick brushed some dirt from his white coat as two more Evil Thorns (ATK 100/DEF 300) manifested on Ruby's field, her Seed Cannon growing plump with its two counters. "All that for three hundred damage. Or are you gonna pop the cactus for a whole thirteen hundred?"

Ruby growled at the snarky thief, whose dodging she refused to admit was cool, noting that neither of the cards left in her hand were monsters. And popping off her Seed Cannon for only a thousand damage would be a waste. Fortunately, she had a way to boost that up by her next turn while also keeping any of the White Fang grunts by the bullheads from coming over to help their allies instead of hooking those shipping crates up to their aircraft.

"I activate the field spell Black Garden!" Ruby announced, the end of Crescent Rose popping open as she slammed her spell card into the special slot.

As soon as her duel disk resealed itself, several warning lights blinked over the device, Ruby hit a button to engage the necessary systems to reflect her aura over the massive area needed for a field spell. Once her crimson machine whirred, emitters within channeled her soul's energy into a sprawling cage of thorny vines spreading over the dock and the surrounding shipping containers.

"You actually planted a garden," Torchwick groaned, shaking his head. "You know I was kidding when I said that last time, right?"

"Impressive field spell manifestation," Penny cheerily complimented. "I was unaware Beacon covered battlefield implementation of field spells within the Slifer Red track's first semester."

"They don't!" Ruby cheerily declared. Then she remembered what happened when Cardin's Xyz Summon failed and took a moment to consider what could happen if Jaune made such a mistake trying to manifest a giant environment in the middle of battle. "Then again, there's probably a reason for that."

"I sure can't do it," Perry glumly muttered. "Been trying for years."

"Don't give up!" Penny smiled with a thumbs-up. "Perhaps once you've served your time, you can apply to a dueling school to improve your skills."

Perry looked up at her and quirked his head to the side. "I can't tell if you're being serious or not."

"I am one hundred percent serious!"

"If you are, that's the nicest thing anyone from Atlas has ever said to me," Perry said. He turned to Ruby. "You done, kid?"

Ruby nodded. "I am."

"Then it's my turn. I draw!" the masked terrorist announced. After a quick look at his new card and the rest of his hand, he turned to his partner. "Mr. Torchwick, can you take care of the monsters?"

Roman shrugged. "Sure. Blowing enemy monsters away is my thing."

"Without attacking?" Penny queried.

"His monsters have effects that take them out," Ruby revealed, narrowing her eyes at the crook as she recalled his Barrel Dragon.

"Just like mine will take out the rest of your cards," Perry threatened, the bespectacled faunus hunkering down and slamming a monster on his duel disk, a small cat in a hardhat flaring in front of him (ATK 300/DEF 100). "I summon Rescue Cat–huh?"

Ruby grinned, the cute little cat in the hardhat mewling as vines shot in and wrapped it up in thorns (ATK 150). Then, more vines slinked along the silver-eyed duelist's own field and blossomed into a beautiful blossoming rose (ATK 800/DEF 800). "Whenever any player summons a monster, Black Garden's effect activates and halves that monster's attack points. Then, a Rose Token is summoned to the field of the opponent of the summoned monster's controller."

"So, you get a token with eight hundred attack points?" Perry remarked. "Honestly, that's not that bad–ow!"

"Don't be a moron, you animal!" Torchwick snapped, glaring at his partner as the masked terrorist rubbed the back of his slapped head. "Those Rose Tokens are Plant-Types! Which means every time one of them is summoned, her Seed Cannon gets bigger!"

Ruby giggled in victory as Seed Cannon inflated behind her, the cactus now with three counters and likely to gain more.

"Ingenious! The enemy cannot summon monsters without bolstering your field and boosting your cannon," Penny cheered, giving Ruby a thumbs-up. "I raise my thumb to you, friend Ruby!"

"Aw, thanks, Penny," Ruby bashfully grinned. "Just a little trick I came up with when my uncle was training me. It's nothing."

"You're right. It is nothing."

Ruby and even Torchwick's eyes widened as they both whirled towards Perry, the glasses-wearing faunus standing tall and confident. Heck, if they could see under his mask, Ruby thought he'd be smiling.

"I activate Rescue Cat's special ability! By sending it to my graveyard, I can summon two Level Three or lower Beast-Types from my deck as long as I negate their effects and destroy them during the End Phase," Perry announced, sweeping his arm toward his vine-covered monster. "Des Wombat! Des Koala! I summon you!"

Rescue Cat adorably tossed its hardhat into the air. A jackhammer somehow fell out of the polyester down fell down on the cheerful feline like a bolt from the heavens.

"Kitty, no! Ooo, wait," Ruby wailed, only for her attention to immediately shift to two more adorable furry creatures forming out of the cat's remains. "Cool! What're those?! I've never seen those monsters before."

"Des Wombat and Des Koala, both common Beast-Type monsters based on Menagerie wildlife," Penny observed. "They are popular among many faunus duelists, especially those from the island."

"That is a sweeping generalization!" Perry protested, Black Garden's tendrils wrapping around his new monsters as two more Rose Tokens appeared on Ruby's field, her Seed Cannon growing even larger. "Though in this case, admittedly true."

"Okay, so what're you gonna do with them?" Ruby eagerly mused, excitedly rubbing her hands together. "Their attack points were low even before Black Garden got to them. Their effects are negated. Ooo, is there some sort of Des Super Mega Hamster of Doom that you can summon now that they're both on the field?"

"What? No, Super-Nimble Mega Hamster's in another archetype–why are you excited for that?!"

"She's a weird one," Roman grossed, shivering with disgust at Ruby's excitement. "Whatever you're gonna do, wipe that smile off her face."

"Right, boss!" Perry shouted. The flipped around a spell from his hand with an orange spiral over a dark blue background. "I activate P–"

"Where did you get that?!"

Ruby whipped towards Penny, the Atlas Obelisk Blue's cheerful expression severely diminished as her eyes narrowed at the spell in the White Fang member's fingers.

"Penny?" Ruby queried. "What's wrong? Do you know that card?"

"Impossible!" Perry exclaimed. "They said these cards would be ours alone, that even Atlas didn't have them–"

"Don't give them intel!" Roman screeched. "Play the thing!"

"Oh, right," Perry said, sliding the spell card into his duel disk. "I activate Polymerization!"

"Polymeri–the fusion card!" Ruby's eyes bugged out of her head, her pearly white teeth utterly beaming. "You're gonna fusion summon?!"

"What?" Penny blinked at her duel partner.

"What?!" Perry exclaimed. "How do you know about fusion–"

"Questions later!" Torchwick lectured. "Summon now!"

"Yeah! Bring out your fusion monster!" Ruby gleefully jumped, only to suddenly grow green. "Ugh. Agreeing with Torchwick feels wrong."

Perry befuddledly skittered between his boss's demands and his opponent's enthusiasm, nervously discarding a monster from his hand along with the two beasts on his field. A larger version of his card manifested on the field, a churning vortex pulling in the wombat and koala, as well as an emerald kangaroo with boxing gloves. "I fuse Des Wombat, Des Koala, and Des Kangaroo!"

"Ooo! Here it comes– wait," Ruby murmured, her eyes drawn to the larger image of the spell card, the orange creatures spiraling over a dark blue background resonating in her memory, recalling the glimpse she'd gotten of the woman who'd helped Torchwick escape the night she'd first dueled the thief. "I've seen that card before–"

"Fusion Summon! Guardian Chimera!"

A calamitous roar shook Ruby from her thoughts, a mass of black fur marred with golden light stomping out of the vortex. The heads of a lion, an eagle, and a dragon howled at her and Penny, its serpentine tail hissing from behind (ATK 3300/DEF 3300).

"Be careful, Ruby. This card is not in my database. There's no telling what it can do yet," Penny warned. Her eyes narrowed at the enormous creature, an electronic green light seeming to flash through her pupils. "Analyzing new monster. Determining effect capabilities and threat level."

"Yes, do that! Tremble in fear, humans!" Perry grandly declared, his hands wide like a cartoon bad guy. "Behold the new champion of the faunus race! Flee in terror at how powerful it is, how–"

"Beautiful," Ruby murmured, her silver eyes twinkling as she looked over every inch of the majesty hybrid beast, awed by its obvious energy and ferocity.

Perry instantly deflated with a sigh. "You are just determined to ruin this for me."

"Heh. Sorry. But you can't summon an awesome monster and expect me not to say that it is," Ruby shrugged. A mischievous smirk split her lips as her field spell's giant thorny vines charged for the chimera. "Or, you know, not have my Black Garden halve its points."

Perry chuckled. "About that–"

"Guardian Chimera destroys a card on the field for every fusion material that came from the field upon its summon!" Penny warned.

"I don't know what I was expecting at this point," Perry groaned, resignedly waving his hand forward as his attempt to be cool was once more cut off at the knees. "Chimera, take out Black Garden and Seed Cannon."

Guardian Chimera's four heads shrieked in a fury, twin pillars of fire surging out of its maws and obliterating Black Garden's advancing vines. The blaze spread throughout Ruby's field, incinerating her field spell and Seed Cannon to burnt ash.

"Oh, not good," Ruby muttered, her primary defenses suddenly gone. While destroying a card didn't normally negate its effect later down the chain link, field and continuous spells needed to be on the field for their effects to go through unless they said otherwise. Which Black Garden did not, so Guardian Chimera didn't lose any attack points.

"And that's not all," Penny announced. "He gets to draw a card for each fusion material that came from his hand. And as long as Polymerization is in his graveyard, we can't target it with card effects."

"Didn't she just say she'd never seen this thing before?" Perry queried. "Seriously, what is up with these two?"

"These kids just keep getting weirder," Torchwick groused. "Personally, I'm in favor of killing them first, putting up with their personalities never."

"Uh… sure. Kill the… school children," Perry shakily replied, clearly uncomfortable with the idea as he set a card from his hand. "I lay one card facedown and end my turn."

"Affirmative. Commencing turn. Draw Phase initiated," Penny yelled, her elaborate duel vest ejecting the top card of her deck into her hand. "Don't worry, my friend Ruby. I am more than equipped to deal with a fusion monster, even one this powerful."

"Are you sure, Penny?" Ruby asked, though her eyes were only for Guardian Chimera itself. "It is really… really powerful. And cool. So, so cool. How do you think they mixed the different dust types of the card to allow for the different animal features to properly manifest?"

Penny quirked her head at the multi-headed beast. "If I had to guess, I suspect heavy use of the Lionheart Method. Though, you seem to be taking facing down such a powerful monster summoned by terrorists extraordinarily well."

"Cool monsters are cool monsters. Just because their duelists are jerks doesn't mean dueling them ain't a blast," Ruby exclaimed, eagerly rubbing her palms together. "It's just gonna be all the more fun when I take it… down…?"

The silver-eyed girl's voice trailed off as she suddenly sensed… something in the back of her mind, a touch similar to what she sometimes felt when she and Black Rose Dragon were particularly in sync. Her gaze flickered down to her Extra Deck, opening the compartment up to see a soft purple glow emanating from her still-blank fusion monster.

"You wanna take them on too, huh?" Ruby grinned. "Don't worry. A duel like this is perfect for getting pushed into just the aura spark you need to stabilize."

"I summon Dotscraper in attack mode," Penny said, slipping her first card onto her duel disk before quickly placing a second monster to join it. "Then, since all monsters I control are Cyberse-Type monsters, I can special summon Cyberse Converter from my hand."

Two monsters flashed in front of the Atlas Obelisk Blue, a stubby little gnome made out of the a million tiny cubes (ATK 0/DEF 2100) and a jet pack covered in bright green computer code (ATK 1000/DEF 1000).

"Cyberse-Type?" Ruby squeaked, whipping her wide eyes over to her ally's strange new creatures. "Woah! What are those?"

"A new type of monster!" Penny proudly declared. "Invented and forged in Polendina Labs!"

"A new type?" Torchwick muttered, his gaze narrowing at the strange, not-quite-mechanical, monster dispassionately staring at him from across the dock. "Neo did mention that there were some weird ones in that shipment… but also…"

"New type or not, those Atlas scrap-heads only have a thousand attack points put together," Perry scoffed, his Guardian Chimera snarling as the gigantic beast towered over Dotscraper and Cyberse Converter. "Unless they've got some stupidly powerful effects, they're as empty a threat as SDC promises."

Ruby really didn't want to agree with the White Fang duelist, but as excited as she was to find out that her new friend had a brand new monster type, Perry had a point. Guardian Chimera was stronger than Weiss's Blue-Eyes White Dragon or Yang's Hot Red Dragon Archfiend and couldn't be targeted by their card effects. The Cyberse monsters weren't the same level, so they couldn't overlay for an Xyz Monster, and even if one of them was a tuner, a level three Synchro Monster probably couldn't take down the titanic Fusion Monster bearing down on them. By all appearances, they just weren't a viable solution to the issue at hand.

So then why was Torchwick's face going pale?

"No," the orange-haired thief gasped, his emerald eyes streaking over the two tiny monsters with new horror. "I thought she was joking!"

Penny threw out her hands, her aura shimmering around her fingertips. "Appear! The circuit that innovates the future!"

Ruby cocked an eyebrow. "Circuit? What's a–"

Light flashed in front of Penny's monsters, crystalizing into a glowing holographic square grid. Dotscraper and Cyberse Converter transformed into shining nodes and soared into the newly crafted circuit, each creature morphing into a red arrowhead: one on the middle of the top pointing up and one on the bottom pointing straight down.

"Oooo," Ruby cooed. "I have no idea what this is, but I love it."

"Confirming arrowheads. Top center. Bottom center. Initializing summoning sequence," Penny chanted, her eyes glimmering green again, only to suddenly take on a dark purple glow.

Ruby guessed it was probably like when Yang's eyes turned red whenever she really got fired up. Because as soon as the color of the Atlas girl's gaze shifted, a card ejected from her Extra Deck and slid into the Extra Monster Zone of her duel disk, her circuit blazing with a transcendent glow.

"Link Summon!" Penny shouted. "Link-2! Code Talker!"

The square grid shattered into tiny shimmering fragments, a new monster bursting out from its other side. Ruby gaped in awe at her friend's new warrior, a powerful white cybernetic knight brandishing a clear, wiry sword (ATK 1300).

"What the heck?!" Perry shrilly shrieked, the masked terrorist leaping back as far Ruby's duel anchor would let him. The bespectacled faunus feverishly pointed at the new creature. "What is that!?"

"Once during a duel, when Dotscraper is sent to the graveyard, it can bring itself back," Penny pressed on, her cute, cubic troll flashing back onto her field. "Appear again! The circuit that innovates the future!"

"Again!?" Torchwick snarled, the formerly cocky thief clutching his hand tight.

"Confirming arrowheads. Top center. Bottom left. Bottom right. Initializing summoning sequence," Penny proclaimed, a new square grid forming as her Code Talker and Dotcraper flashed into its three scarlet arrows. Once again, her green eyes flared purple and her aura surged. "Link Summon! Link-3! Decode Talker!"

Another new monster burst out of the shattering circuit, though this one was more familiar to Ruby than the last few creatures. It was the same navy and purple knight Penny had conjured when she'd intervened to defend her from Torchwick's Twin-Barrel Dragon, gallant and muscular with a wiry broadsword even bigger than the weapon that the previous 'Link Monster' had wielded (ATK 2300).

Though honestly, Penny could have summoned a Kuriboh, and Ruby still would have been starstruck.

Link Summon! Link Summon! Ruby made it her business to stay up-to-date on the most modern dueling techniques and she'd never even heard of any Link Summoning! What was it? Some special Cyberse-only Extra Deck method? Why wasn't her duel disk reading any defense points from it? What did those arrowheads on the card mean?! Did it have any connection with Fusion Summoning? Because Penny had clearly known about that before the duel as well with how she'd recognized Perry's Polymerization.

Oh, who cared?! Two brand new Extra Deck summoning methods in one duel!? While she was dueling side-by-side with her new friend, the top first-year in all of Atlas to stop a fiendish criminal mastermind teamed up with terrorists from her teammate's past!? This was like one of her comicbooks come to life, a hunting duelist experience beyond her wildest dreams!

Ruby wasn't sure if she'd ever had a duel so good!

RWBYRWBYRWBYRWBYYUGIOHYUGIOH

"Master of Oz! Attack her Performapal Drummerilla! Outback Attack!"

As a titanic green koala half the size of Beacon Tower (ATK 4200/DEF 3700) bore down on her, Blake wasn't sure if she'd ever had a duel so terrifying.

"I activate Drummerilla's effect! Once per turn, when one of my monsters battles, it gains six hundred attack points," she declared, her Drummerilla banging defiantly on its drum set chest (ATK 2200/DEF 900) as Master of Oz's enormous red boxing glove bore down on it. "Then I activate Performapal Greatest Duelist's effect in my Pendulum Zone!"

From up high in the pillar of light, a person cloaked in the shadows of a hundred carnival lights threw up their arms and let out a hearty laugh. Fireworks exploded from their palms, the colorful sparks raining down and stopping Master of Oz in its tracks, the giant green koala raising its guard. Performapal Greatest Duelest then exploded as Blake pulled its card from Gambol Shroud to join her Trump Witch and Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon in her hand.

"By banishing a spell card from my deck and returning it to my hand, Drummerilla can't be destroyed in this battle and all damage I take is halved," the black-haired girl announced, only to wince a second later as the battle's aftershocks struck her aura.

Blake Belladonna: 3000 Life Points

The masked White Fang Grunt in front of her smirked, slipping two cards into his duel disk before he turned to his comrade to his left. "I lay two cards facedown and end my turn. You're up, buddy. Took out her main defense."

"Thanks. I'll take the rest. Draw!" the left grunt announced, grinning as he noted his six cards, placing two in his duel disk. "First, I'll use Fusion Sage to add Polymerization from my deck to my hand. Then, I'll activate Fusion Deployment and reveal Koalo-Koala in my Extra Deck. This lets me special summon its material Sea Koala from my deck. And I think I'll summon Tree Otter from my hand to join it!"

Blake's eyes widened as the cute koala (ATK 100/DEF 1600) and otter (ATK 1200/DEF 100) took the field. There was a fusion monster for those two now? And what about those spell cards? Did Ilia bring back all the experimental fusion cards she and the Albains had been working on when she was called back from Menagerie?

"I activate Sea Koala's effect. When I have another Beast-Type on my field, I can drop one of your monsters' attack points to zero."

Performapal Drummerilla squeaked and deflated, the vibrant one-ape band suddenly without strength (ATK 0).

"I activate Polymerization!" The grunt grinned like a shark and pressed the card Blake feared most into his duel disk. "Taunted, tortured, insulted, and reviled. Demeaned by human overlords, who never paid the price. No more! Unify our people! Lead them to salvation and take back our lives they stole! Fusion Summon! Koalo-Koala!"

Sea Koala and Tree Otter were sucked up into the swirling vortex of fusion. A crackle of vibrant energy later, a new beast emerged from the warping spiral: another koala. Shorter than the titanic Master of Oz, but still taller than either of Blake's monsters and rippling with muscle across its stout, black body (ATK 2800/DEF 200).

"You're lucky I don't have another monster in my hand, traitor. Otherwise, I could have summoned Guardian Chimera and blown you away completely," the grunt gloated, vigorously pointing at Drummerilla. "But this is still gonna hurt like a nest of rapier wasps. Attack!"

"I activate Drummerilla's effect!" Blake frantically yelled back, even as she knew the percussion boost wouldn't be enough (ATK 600).

And it wasn't. Koalo-Koala leapt across the field and jabbed its bowling ball arm through Drummerilla snare drum chest, the musical ape crying out as it exploded to bits. Blake stumbled back, her aura crackling as she fell to one knee.

Blake Belladonna: 800 Life Points

"Three cards facedown, and that'll be it," the grunt chuckled. "Alright, she's completely spent. Finish her!"

Blake panted hard from where she knelt on the ground. Hopefully, those surrounding her would interpret them as efforts to regain her breath… and not the sheer panic it truly was.

Because the second grunt was right. She was spent, completely overwhelmed. She simply hadn't prepped her defenses to face three consecutive opponents, especially three consecutive power decks. If that last grunt had had another monster in his hand, he could have left Blake with no monsters and even fewer life points. Even as things were, Performapal Skullcrobat Joker was hardly invincible, especially against a duelist who could bring forth fusion monsters, so utterly bursting with power, so so utterly lacking in restraint.

And if she lost, not only would Sun die, but she'd be captured. She'd be taken back to Adam, who'd embraced those monsters in full, who'd been corrupted by him into a ruthless maniac. She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't!

But if the last grunt had the cards to do it, there was nothing she could do.

"My move! Draw!" the final masked faunus exclaimed, glancing over his hand. "I summon Ape Fighter! And I'll equip it with Dragon Nails to increase its attack points by six hundred!"

A ferocious crimson ape with a lean sneer flashed onto the field (ATK 1900/DEF 1200), its hands almost immediately covered in black, razor-sharp gauntlets (ATK 2500).

"Attack!" the freedom fighter howled.

In the blink of an eye, Ape Fighter flashed across the field and ripped Skullcrobat Joker in half.

"Aaaahhh!" Blake screamed, the blast of the attack smashing her into the ground, the concrete of the docks cracking under the strain.

Blake Belladonna: 100 Life Points

"You got lucky, traitor. No Polymerization. But Ape Fighter does gain three hundred attack points since it destroyed your monster," the grunt taunted with a mocking laugh, his bestial warrior howling as it smashed its fists against the ground (ATK 2800). "Three facedowns. Now draw your last pathetic card."

Blake ground her teeth together, the Odd-Eyed Bandit staggering back up to her knees. She looked up at Ilia, her old friend imperiously staring down from atop the wall of shipping containers, Amazoness Augusta continuing to hold Sun's unconscious body on her massive sword.

"You didn't finish her," the chameleon faunus noted.

"No worries, commander," the grunt with Master of Oz grinned, glancing at the combined nine facedown cards filling the White Fang members' back rows. "No matter what she summons, she ain't getting an attack in."

He was right. Blake knew the standard power decks given to the grunts. Barring any other upgrades made to make them fusion capable, that many trap cards, likely Horn of the Phantom Beast or something similar, would give their monsters more attack points than Blake could possibly deal with, even with her Performapals specializing in modifying her opponents' power.

Unless she used… no…

"Ilia…" Blake whimpered. "Please."

Ilia's eyes, eyes that Blake had so often seen sparkling with playful bashfulness, narrowed at the cat faunus with scathing disgust.

"Who are you? Because you're sure not Blake Belladonna. The Blake I knew threw her everything, all her strength, all her determination, into whatever cause she fought for." the chameleon girl growled, fiercely pointing at Sun's limp form. "Now this fool, who came here to save you, is relying on you and you can't even stand up and duel with everything you've got! Where did your spine go!?"

"Blake!"

Blake turned around at the shout, her amber eyes widening as the roar of a motorcycle engine howled around the corner. Bumblebee roared into the shipping crate aisle, Weiss clutching Yang's back as they screeched over the docks.

"Get away from my partner, you jerks!" Yang yelled, two cards already in her hand to smack down on her duel runner's disk. "I summon–"

"No, wait!" Blake shouted. "They have Sun!"

"What?!" Weiss squawked. The heiress' blue eyes flickered up towards Ilia, squeezing around Yang's stomach when she spotted Sun on Amazoness Augusta's sword. "Yang!"

The blonde duelist had already screeched her runner to a halt a few yards from Blake, her violet gaze on the verge of turning red as she glared up at Ilia. "Let him go right now or I will–"

"Do absolutely nothing? Given that nothing you summon will be faster than my Augusta's sword," Ilia cut in. "How do you all keep finding this place? These docks aren't exactly small."

"Neither is the two-story green koala," Weiss snarked. The heiress stepped off Bumblebee, only to hiss in pain and stumble to one knee.

"Weiss!" Blake called, Yang hopping off her bike to help their teammate up. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Just… a tougher duel than I anticipated," Weiss hissed, leaning on Yang. "Don't worry, I can handle the intrusion penalty just fine–"

"I'm afraid you won't be barging into this, Schnee," Ilia sneered. "If you want your simian friend back in one piece, then Blake has to win this alone."

"What?!" Yang howled. "It's three-on-one! How's that fair?"

Ilia rolled her eyes. "We're terrorists. You expect us to fight fair?"

"Oh, come on, commander," the grunt backed by Master of Oz chortled. "If they're so eager to be crushed by the new fusion power of the faunus, why not let them? Imagine the reward the Cell Leader will provide when we bring back the traitor and the head of a Schnee–"

"Beat the opponent in front of you before you start getting dreams of grandeur!" Ilia snapped, instantly shutting down the masked faunus' suggestion.

Meanwhile, Blake's mind had already frozen in absolute, spine-chilling terror the moment that the grunt had said "Cell Leader".

"Adam," she whispered, so quiet that no one, not even her monsters, could hear her. Hear the dread filling her voice.

She shouldn't have come here. She knew he'd be looking for her, what he'd do if he found her, that was why she'd gone to Beacon! Yes, she'd wanted to become a hunting duelist, but she'd also wanted to hide in one of the four greatest fortresses on Remnant, where even he couldn't get to her. She should have fled the moment she'd been assigned to the same team as Weiss, the moment she was put into a position she couldn't hide from his eye.

But she hadn't. Worse, she'd run towards him and the White Fang. Now, Weiss was injured and Sun's life was in the balance all because they'd come to help her. She had to fix this. She had to win!

"My turn!" Blake proclaimed, forcing herself to her feet. "I dra–ah!"

"Trap card open!" the grunt backed by Master of Oz shouted, one of his three facedowns flipping up. "Time Seal! You lose your Draw Phase, traitor!"

"Nice! I'll do you one better, buddy. Trap card open! Rivalry of Warlords!" the terrorist who had Koalo-Koala on his field yelled. "Now, every duelist can only have one type of monster on their field as long as this card remains in play."

Blake paled, wincing her smoking hand off of her deck. Many archetypes usually stuck to one or two monster types, but her Performapals were not one of them. She had a Plant-Type in her Pendulum Zone, a Beast-Type face-up in her Extra Deck, and two spellcasters and a dragon in her hand. She specialized in swarming the field with her diverse creatures by Pendulum Summoning, but now she was cut off.

"Brilliant!" the masked grunt who held Ape Fighter's reins cackled. He hit a button on his fancy stolen duel disk and one of his own traps rose up. "I'll add There Can Be Only One. Now, each duelist can only control one monster of each type. Which means your deck is officially out of steam."

"Cowards!" Yang protested once more. Her eyes turned red and she snarled up at Ilia. "Stop hiding behind hostages and fight like a real duelist! There's no way she can win three-on-one and you know it."

"What I know is that Blake Belladonna could," Ilia declared, dismissively sneering at Yang and especially Weiss before her reproachful eyes fell on Blake once more. "But I suppose you've never met her. Just this broken, cowardly shell."

"Blake?" Weiss whimpered. "What is she talking about?"

Blake said nothing. She only allowed her gaze to fall down to the cards in her hand, to one in particular. In her mind, she saw that card lead to the card she feared most, and from that to another. And she knew Ilia was right.

If she lost, Sun would die for sure and she might be taken to Adam. Yang was strong, but with Weiss as winded as she was, the odds would be stacked against her.

But if she won, she didn't know if she'd be able to keep the monster she summoned from killing her friends. After all, the card needed to bring it out had turned Adam into a monster when he'd used it.

"I'm familiar with what it's like to have people you care about gaslight you…" Weiss's voice from back at the door tingled through her mind, like wind chimes ringing in the breeze. "The power of those cards may have given Adam the opportunity to become what he has, but I don't think they made him do anything–"

No! No! It was those cards! Those cards! That cursed spell!

The spell she didn't have a choice but to use.

"Yang! Get some defenses up!" Blake shouted back to her partner. She glared up at Ilia, demandingly eyeing Sun. "Ilia… I trust you to protect him from the crossfire."

Ilia nodded. "He dies if you lose. Not a moment before."

Blake took a deep breath and turned back to the three grunts. Her amber gaze steeled itself as she looked over Ape Fighter, Koala-Koala, and finally, the towering Master of Oz. Two monsters with nearly three thousand attack points and one with over four thousand, backed up by probably six battle traps. And she could only have one monster on the field at a time and only had three cards in her hand. If she didn't defeat all three of her opponents this turn, whichever ones survived would steamroll her on their turn.

Which meant none of them could survive to their next turn.

"I summon Performapal Trump Witch," Blake said, a dainty witch in a pointy blue hat twirling in front of her. "Then, I activate its special ability. I can tribute it in order to add a certain spell card from my deck or graveyard to my hand."

"A certain spell?" one of the grunts squeaked.

"You don't mean…" one of the other masked men flinched.

Performapal Trump Witch merrily spun around, twinkling sparkles flying from her wand as she exploded into sparks. The flurry of bright dust sprinkled Blake's deck, a single card popping out as she drew it into her hand and shoved it into Gambol Shroud.

The card manifested before her, an orange demon and dragon swirling over a dark blue spiral.

"I play Polymerization!" Blake screamed, raising the last two monsters in her hand to the sky. "Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon! Performapal Greatest Duelist! Fuse!"

"Fuse?" Yang blinked, summoning a big demonic-looking red shield in front of her and a trembling Weiss. "So she really does know how to do that?"

"Yes," Ilia smiled from above. "Yes, she does."

"Above the ridicule and hate. Above the binding of fate. Dragon with dual-colored eyes, duelist who's risen above all, combine into the demon that spreads fireworks of furious destruction!" Blake shrieked, her monster warping into the swirling vortex before her as she forced aura into the spell card and clapped her hands together. "Fusion Summon! Performapal Gatling Ghoul!"

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"I discard Full-Active Duprex to special summon Defcon Bird to one of Decode Talker's linked monster zones!"

Torchwick couldn't hide the twitch of his eyebrow at the annoyingly peppy Atlas girl who'd popped up out of nowhere to back up Red. "I'm sorry, but I didn't understand a word you just said. You do what?"

"A link monster possesses arrowheads that point to monster zones surrounding it. Decode Talker is a Link-3 monster, so it has three arrowheads. In its case, two point to my monster zones, while one points to yours," Penny explained, a blue cybernetic bird arising behind her violet warrior (ATK 100/DEF 1700). "Decode Talker also has an effect that allows it to gain five hundred attack points for every monster that occupies one of its linked zones."

Decode Talker's synthetic muscles bulged as a purple aura surrounded it (ATK 2800). Then, the shadow of some sort of two-headed dinosaur appeared behind the violet paladin and roared (ATK 3800).

"The heck?!" Perry squealed, even Guardian Chimera shrinking before the new warrior. "I thought you said it gained five hundred points for every monster in the zones it pointed to?"

"That is accurate," Penny confirmed, sliding a spell into her ridiculously hi-tech duel disk. "But when Full-Active Duprex is sent to the graveyard, one Cyberse monster on my field gains a thousand attack points. And as I am now equipping it with Grid Rod, it gains another three hundred. It is also now unaffected by all your card effects."

Perry squeaked in terror as Decode Talker drew its new shining silver armament (ATK 4100), its attack points soaring higher than even Guardian Chimera's strength.

Torchwick liked to think that he hid it better, but he was feeling the same fear. Neo had mentioned how the heist she and the boss lady's not-so-delightful duo had done on that Atlesian Military shipment uncovered more than just the latest model duel runners, and he knew the animals had been set to work figuring out how to summon them, but seeing these Link Monsters actually brought out in real-life…

Well, the last time he'd had a summoning method he'd never heard of before sprung on him was when the boss lady had 'introduced' him to Fusion Summoning. He had no desire to repeat the experience.

"I end my turn," Penny announced, little Red practically salivating at her Decode Talker.

"Draw!" Torchwick roared, pulling the top card of his deck.

The expert thief quickly skimmed over his hand. Shadow Spell, 7 Completed, Fusion Deployment… he could work with this. Fancy new summoning method or not, a monster was still just a monster. If he could take out that equip spell, it'd be as vulnerable to being destroyed by his monster effects as any other.

"I activate Fusion Deployment and reveal Gatling Dragon in my Extra Deck," Roman declared. "This lets me special summon its fusion component Blowback Dragon from my deck."

A tall mechanical dragon with a red semi-automatic pistol for a head (ATK 2300/DEF 1200) manifested before Torchwick, cocking its barrel at Decode Talker and Red's numerous Rose Tokens. Three giant coins flashed above the draconic creature's head.

"Once per turn, I can target a card you control and flip three coins. If at least two are heads, your card is destroyed," Torchwick revealed. "I target Grid Rod–"

Suddenly, Defcon Bird burst into splinters. The glowing shards of its remains flooded into Decode Talker's wiry sword (ATK 3600), the violet knight lashing out and cutting Blowback Dragon in half.

"-huh?" Torchwick blinked.

"When you activate a card or effect that targets one of my cards, I can tribute a monster that Decode Talker points to in order to negate that effect, and destroy the card," Penny explained. "Your Blowback Dragon has been defeated."

"Yeah!" Red cheered. "Go Penny!"

Torchwick ground his teeth together, his strategy cut off at the head. "I set one monster in defense mode and lay two cards facedown."

"My move then! I draw!" Red cheered, bringing her hand up to two. She smirked at her draw. "Aw yeah! I tribute my two Evil Thorns to summon Talaya, Princess of Cherry Blossoms!"

Two of the five flowers on the silver-eyed girl's field burst apart, the petals of their aura bodies morphing together into a new monster. A tall, beautiful woman in a Mistralian-style kimono bloomed onto the field (ATK 2800/DEF 1200), pink cherry blossoms falling around it and boosting its power for each of the three remaining Rose Tokens (ATK 3100).

"Talaya, attack Torchwick's monster! Petal Blizzard - Summer!"

The elegant princess outstretched her arm and a storm of pink cherry blossoms tore toward Roman's facedown monster.

"I activate my trap, Attack Guidance Armor!" Torchwick shouted, flipping up one of his facedowns as spiky armor spawned over one of Red's Rose Tokens. As soon as it appeared, the petals of Talaya's attack swerved around and screeched for the newly armored flower. "I'm gonna assume you can figure out what it does."

"Aw, crud," Red gulped, her own monster's attack shredding her token as her aura crackled with strain.

Ruby Rose: 1700 Life Points

Torchwick sighed, his eyes skittishly drifting to Decode Talker despite his recent success. If only he just had the one pipsqueak to handle. Red was tough, but not anything he couldn't handle. This Atlas girl who for some reason had access to a top-secret summoning method though? Who knew what else she was capable of?

He'd already sent a message to Neo to have her meet up with him. But he really wished his partner would get there already. The other White Fang grunts needed to continue loading the dust if they were going to get out here with enough to make sure the boss lady didn't take their heads, but he'd feel a lot safer knowing some Toon monsters were waiting to shoot Red and her Atlas friend in the back.

"I switch my Rose Tokens to defense mode and end my turn," Ruby grumbled, her two remaining flowers bending down as horizontal cards appeared under them.

"My move!" Perry declared, smiling at his draw. "I flip up my facedown, De-Fusion! This sends my Guardian Chimera back to the Extra Deck and summons its materials back from the graveyard."

"Wait, what?" Red blinked, crocking her head to the side as Des Koala, Des Wombat, and Des Kangaroo flashed onto the field as Guardian Chimera vanished. "Why would you get rid of that awesome monster for these, also awesome, but weaker monsters?"

"So I tribute them for this!" Perry yelled, slamming the card he'd drawn onto his duel disk. "Beast King Barbaros! Oh, and since I tributed three monsters to summon it, all your cards are destroyed."

"What?!" Red shrieked.

A crash of thunder erupted from Perry's field and a creature with a horse's body and a lion's head appeared (ATK 3000/DEF 1200), orange lightning blasting out of it and screeching for Red and Penny's cards. Talaya, Princess of Cherry Blossoms, and Grid Rod exploded into fragments, a green energy field surrounding Decode Talker (ATK 3300) while fluttering pink petals shielded the Rose Tokens.

"While Talaya is on the field, other Plant-Type monsters can't be destroyed by card effects," Red revealed.

"And Grid Rod shielded Decode Talker until it was destroyed," Penny reminded them. "And on the turn it is destroyed, my Cyberse monsters can't be destroyed by battle or card effects this turn."

"But it won't be doing anything on your next turn. Shadow Spell, activate!" Torchwick yelled, his second trap card flipping open as chains suddenly ensnared Decode Talker (ATK 2600). "Your monster loses seven hundred attack points, and can't attack or change its battle position."

"Change its battle position?" Penny blinked. "Link Monsters only have one battle posit–"

"Beast King Barbaros!" Perry interceded. "Attack a Rose Token!"

Beast King Barbaros roared, summoning a lance to its hand and stabbing through one of the Rose Tokens.

"I end my turn," Perry smiled. "Link Monsters or not, you're no match for me and Mr. Torchwick's teamwork!"

Teamwork? Torchwick wasn't trying to work with the animal. He was just trying to survive. Which for him usually meant throwing anyone who wasn't him or Neo under the bus.

Granted, at the very least he'd delayed that bus for both of them a bit. He didn't know much about how Link Monsters worked, but he was pretty sure that with Decode Talker paralyzed by Shadow Spell, the peppy Obelisk Blue girl couldn't just replace it with a different one… right? Anyway, that meant her Extra Monster Zone was filled and she couldn't summon something else from her Extra Deck for the moment.

"My move! Draw! Since I have a Cyberse monster on my field, I can special summon Backup Secretary from my hand. Then I normal summon Clock Wyvern and activate its effect, halving its attack points to summon a Clock Token to my field," Penny said, a pair of cybentic monsters appearing on her field: a woman in a fancy getup and purple cape (ATK 1200/DEF 800) and a small hunched over dragon (ATK 1800/DEF 1000). The Clock Wyvern soon hunched over (ATK 900) and as promised, a small clock appeared beside it (ATK 0/DEF 0). "Appear! The circuit that innovates the future!"

"What?!" Torchwick barked, another terrifying square energy grid manifesting in front of the Atlas girl.

"You can't do that!" Perry protested.

"Of course she can!" Red shot back and smirked. "If she uses Decode Talker to summon her new monster, her Extra Monster Zone will be free–"

"I have no intention of using Decode Talker for this Link Summon," Penny announced, holding her hands forward as her eyes flared purple and Backup Secretary and the Clock Token morphed into nodes of light.

"Huh?" Red blinked, tilting her head at her ally in confusion. "Uh, but then they're right, Penny. You can't do that. You've only got one Extra Monster Zone."

Penny grinned. "Any monster zone that a Link Monster's arrowheads point to can be treated as an Extra Monster Zone."

The entire dock went silent, not even Beast King Barbaros daring to growl. Torchwick would have reveled in Red finally going quiet, if he wasn't sure that her gaping, spasming look of shock wasn't mirrored on his own face.

Since as long as anyone on Remnant could remember, since before hunting duelists, before the Great War, since the kingdoms themselves, the laws of duels between duelists were an immutable reality. No one knew why you could only normal summon or set once per turn or why you needed to tribute one monster for a level five or six monster but two monsters for level seven and above, but that was the way it was. No one could change that, no matter their semblance or what they did with their aura. And one of those laws was that there was only one Extra Monster Zone for each combatant, no more, no less. Until now. Until Link Monsters.

Until Penny Polendina.

"What the hell are you?" Torchwick murmured, the hardened criminal outright shivering in the face of this impossible schoolgirl.

"Confirming arrowheads. Bottom center. Bottom right. Initializing summoning sequence," Penny said, the nodes of her monsters flying into her circuit square and forming two scarlet arrows. "Link Summon! Link-2! Clock Spartoi!"

A red, yellow, and white warrior burst through the glowing gateway, standing stalwart behind Decode Talker's right (ATK 800).

A card popped out of Penny's deck, the orange-haired girl snatching it up and showing it to the other duelists. "When Clock Spartoi is Link Summoned, I can add the spell card Cynet Fusion to my hand."

Perry stumbled back, his jaw dropping in horror. "Cynet… what?!"

"You can Fusion Summon, Penny?!" Red squealed, her silver eyes twinkling at her ally in sparkling awe.

Penny fixed the faunus terrorist with a significantly displeased glower. "I am sympathetic to your goals of helping your people. But if you accept the power of fusion from the enemy of humans and faunus to reach your goals, then you should not believe that those who would save this world will not use it to stop you. No summoning method belongs to light or darkness alone! I activate Cynet Fusion! Clock Wyvern! Clock Spartoi! Decode Talker! Fuse!"

Torchwick didn't get most of the Solitas girl's monologue (the boss lady was a pain in the ass, but he'd hardly call her 'the enemy of humans and faunus'), but as her three monsters surged into a glowing vortex filled with vibrant electricity, he found he was too terrified to care.

"The strong ones gather before its grand wings! Become a new legend! Fusion Summon!" Penny shouted. "Cyberse Clock Dragon!"

A cacophony of calamitous explosions sounded off from deeper in the docks, but Roman didn't pay it much mind. The purple dragon with eight wings glowing gold like the sun that descended onto the Atlas Obelisk Blue's field (ATK 2500) on the other hand?

That had his full, horrified attention.

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After her experience barely surviving a Guardian Chimera, Weiss could admit that she'd been shivering quite a bit at how hesitant Blake had been to bring out her Fusion Monster.

So when all that great hubbub about her teammate finally using Polymerization resulted only in a showman's black tophat plopping down on the ground, she was… surprised.

"That's it?" Yang more bluntly remarked, poking her head out from behind her Red Gardna and nervously glancing up at Master of Oz's imposing form. "Blake, are you sure that you don't have your own two-story koala to throw at them?"

On paper, Weiss concurred with her blonde teammate. But then, she looked up at the White Fang commander (what had Blake called her? Ilia?) holding Sun hostage with her massive woman warrior.

The chameleon faunus was smiling.

Weiss shrank behind Red Gardna.

"Is… is that it? A top hat?" the grunt in the middle chuckled, pointing derisively at a trembling Blake. "Did you mess up the aura body of a Fusion Summon? Who would have thought that the Odd-Eyed Bandit would be so pathetic–"

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

The top hat suddenly shot into the air as a chilling demonic giggle echoed through the docks. The resplendent headgear turned forward and a gatling gun jutted out of it.

The masked grunt staggered back. "What the–"

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

The gatling gun erupted with hellfire, its fiery salvo tearing up the dock's ground before slamming into Master of Oz, demonic cackling flooding out with every bullet.

The towering green koala threw back its head and howled in agony, the bombardment of rounds tearing through its flesh. The mighty beast moaned its death knell and teetered forward, plummeting down in a mass of flames and punctured muscle. The two White Fang grunts on the flanks immediately bolted to the edge of the shipping container aisle to avoid the falling giant.

Master of Oz's master tried to do the same… but then the duel anchor connecting him and Blake yanked taut.

"No!" the masked terrorist cried, his body language filled with fright as he could only look up at his collapsing titan. "Noooo!"

The defeated beast struck the ground with a booming crash, its duelist only surviving because the impact that left him laid out unconscious also shattered his aura. The body manifested from it disappeared before its weight could squash him flat.

WF Grunt C: 0 Life Points

"Wha… wha…" the grunt to the right, the one with Ape Fighter in front of him, muttered. "What was that?"

Blake gulped, her shaky amber gaze turning to the top hat.

The gatling gun fully shoved its way out of the headgear, the being who wielded it unfolding its body from within the hat like some unholy mixture of a magician and a contortionist. Fully revealed, the monster stood as a short gremlin with green skin, full yellow eyes, and a big, fang-filled smile. The fiend proudly dusted off its pristine showman's suit and twirled its top hat back atop its head, hefting up its chosen minigun that was twice its size (ATK 2900/DEF 900).

Ruby probably would have swooned at the sight of the quirky creature. However, Weiss could not draw her eyes away from the massive wreckage left in the wake of its attack. Duels were meant to limit the collateral damage that would be brought about by clashing monsters with hunting mode. If this Fusion Monster was rebelling against Blake's control enough to cause such rampant destruction…

… they needed to get away from the shipping containers full of dust.

"When Performapal Gatling Ghoul is Fusion Summoned, it activates a special ability. But if it's summoned with a Pendulum Monster as material, it gains an additional ability," Blake explained. "That being to destroy one of my opponents' monsters and deal damage to that monster's controller equal to the destroyed monster's attack points."

The White Fang grunts gasped in horror, each taking a shuffling step back. Performapal Gatling Ghoul cheerily took off its hat for a bow, turning to Blake with an earnest, gleeful smile.

Blake fearfully diverted her gaze from her loyal monster's, her entire body trembling with dread. Gatling Ghoul's smile disappeared, its demonic visage taking on a true fiend's vexation.

Weiss felt for her teammate, but she couldn't help but find the whole interaction… familiar. After all, she knew better than most how fearing and disrespecting your own monsters could weaken a duelist. But while Weiss had avoided using her Xyz Monsters at all cost, Blake had been forced to use her Fusion Monsters. And while they weren't willing to hang the cat faunus out to dry, that did not mean they'd take her disrespect in stride.

"Tell them the original effect," Ilia called down from above, the chameleon faunus no longer smiling at the sight of Blake's interaction with Gatling Ghoul.

Blake bit her shivering lip. "When Performapal Gatling Ghoul is Fusion Summoned, my opponents take two hundred points of damage for each card on the field."

"What?" the grunt with his own koala Fusion Monster stammered, looking at his two facedowns and Rivalry of Warlords. "But I have four cards."

"And I have five," the other grunt noted, glancing over his Ape Fighter, equip spell, There Can Be Only One, and two facedowns.

"And I have Gatling Ghoul and Radish Horse in my Pendulum Zone," Blake finished. "Eleven cards… for twenty-two hundred points of damage."

"Hahahahahahahaha!" Gatling Ghoul cackled, the fiendish showman spinning wildly as its minigun flared back to life.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Bullets of hellfire sprang from the heavy weapon's whirling barrels as they careened throughout the battlefield. Yang's Red Gardna did its work blocking half a salvo. Ilia's Amazoness Augusta casually backhanded a handful.

And of course, the two White Fang grunts were positively riddled by the bombardment. The two men let out tormented shrieks before their aura burst away, their fields vanishing as they smacked down into the concrete, unconscious.

WF Grunt A: 0 Life Points

WF Grunt B: 0 Life Points

Winner: Blake Belladonna

"Okay, that's enough!" Blake shouted, not sounding like the winner at all. "Stop! Stop! I order you to stop!"

Performapal Gatling Ghoul showed no signs that it heard her and no indication that it would care for such desperate commands if it did. The demonic gunner continued to cackle and blast away, its rounds flying throughout the docks, blasting craters across the ground and causing distant shipping crates full of dust to explode in a cacophony of flames, ice, lightning, and other elements.

Only once its shots neared the shipping crates closest to the defenseless bodies of the unconscious White Fang grunts did the bombardment cease. And that was only because Amazoness Augusta fell down from on high and decapitated the fiendish artilleryman when his back was turned.

A moment later, Sun's unconscious body was tossed at Blake's feet and Ilia set about having her monsters collect her beaten men. The White Fang commander glared at her former friend from amidst the flames and rubble left by her incompetent command of her monster.

"You wanna play hunting duelist at some fancy prep school? Fine. Hopefully, it works out better for you than it did for me. But stay out of White Fang business," Ilia warned, her gaze softening just a fraction at the end. "It might not be me you run into next time."

"Hold it!" Yang shouted, running out from behind Red Gardna with a duel anchor gathering in her palm. "You can just walk away–"

Ilia didn't pay the charging blonde any mind, merely striding towards her Amazoness Augusta and grabbing hold of its bicep. With a burst of ferocious strength, the towering warrior woman leapt into the sky with her mistress and one of the unconscious grunts, Amazoness Queen following afterward with the other two.

The moment she was gone, Blake collapsed to her knees. The black-haired cat faunus skittered for Sun's body, pressing her fingertips against the unconscious boy's neck, sighing in relief when she felt a heartbeat. But that did not help her breathing, the young woman's lungs devolving into rapid pants. She clawed at her duel disk, ripping Performapal Gatling Ghoul's card from its place there.

Weiss grimly limped over and knelt at her side, catching Blake's shivering hands just as the black-haired girl was about to tear her Fusion Monster in half.

Blake's amber eyes flickered over to Weiss, only to fall in shame when she glimpsed her teammate's injured form.

"You… you shouldn't have come after me," the cat faunus whispered.

Weiss looked on her friend, not her just teammate but her friend, with compassion and shook her head. "You shouldn't have come alone."

Blake's breath began to steady after that, Gatling Ghoul dropping from her hands as she slowly started to regain control of her pants. The sounds of approaching police sirens serenaded the girls amid the raging blaze as Yang walked back over to them.

"So," the blonde gently intruded. "Either of you guys know where Ruby is?"

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Looking upon Cyberse Clock Dragon with complete and utter awe in her silver eyes, Ruby was undoubtedly having the best day of her life.

"When Cyberse Clock Dragon is Fusion Summoned, I can send cards from the top of my deck to the graveyard equal to the total Link Rating of the monsters used to summon it. Decode Talker was Link-Three, while Clock Spartoi was Link-Two," Penny announced, excavating five cards into her hi-tech duel disk's graveyard slot. "My dragon then gains one thousand attack points for each card sent to the graveyard by this effect."

"But, you sent five cards," Perry stuttered. "Which means that your dragon gains…"

"... five thousand points," Torchwick murmured, the thief backing away in horror.

Cyberse Clock Dragon let out a fearsome roar, its eight golden wings shining ever brighter as it was surrounded in a resplendent violet aura (ATK 7500).

"Cyberse Clock Dragon! Attack Beast King Barbaros!" Penny yelled. "Pulse Pressure!"

Vibrant purple lightning crackled throughout Cyberse Clock Dragon's wings, the energy surging up into the mighty cyber serpent's wide, fang-filled maw, and coalescing into a growing orb of lilac lightning. And with a booming howl, that tempest poured down towards Perry's field. Beast King Barbaros, mighty though it was in its own right, was utterly obliterated the moment its flesh touched the tumultuous beam, its master blasted across the dock and laid flat on the ground. The masked faunus' aura broke as Ruby's duel anchor's snapped, but despite all the power rammed onto him, the attack was so well-controlled that his glasses never even cracked.

Perry: 0 Life Points

"Excellent work, Cyberse Clock Dragon," Penny complimented her monster, beaming as her titanic, tempestuous dragon grinned at her with a respectful bow.

Ruby excitedly hopped from foot to foot, a high-pitched squeal flying from her lips. Guardian Chimera was superb and incredible as the first Fusion Monster she'd ever seen, but Cyberse Clock Dragon was the first one that'd ever been on her side and it was… exquisite. She had no more worry that the duel could be lost, Torchwick wouldn't be making a comeback. It was a privilege to witness Penny's great creature in all its glory.

And the silver-eyed girl deeply, intensely wanted to duel that beautiful monster herself.

And as that desire flowed through her, she felt her aura crackle, a spark broken off from the damage she'd taken flickering over her body all the way down to Crescent Rose's Extra Deck slot. A card within glowed bright purple, an eager, hungry cry shooting through Ruby's mind. With a rush of excitement flooding through her, the young girl's hand dove into the slot and withdrew the shining object.

The card she had forged crystalized and completed in the palm of her hand. The purple glow faded to reveal not only the dragon's attack and defense points and basic parameters, but its full effects and the picture of its excited, fearsome self. Less elegant than Black Rose Dragon, but no less beautiful in Ruby's eyes.

"Welcome to Remnant, Starving Venom Fusion Dragon," she brightly greeted. "I think you and I are gonna be the best of friends."

Fusion Monsters were powerful, there was no question about that. The ease with which they could be used due to Polymerization's simplicity meant that even those who wouldn't respect that power for one reason or another would be able to use them. But that wasn't the monsters' fault. And Ruby couldn't wait to learn more about her own creatures as she welcomed them into the family of her deck.

"Surrender, Roman Torchwick!" Penny commanded, forcefully pointing at the gangster. "You cannot win."

By all appearances, Torchwick agreed with the Atlas Obelisk Blue, stumbling back from Cyberse Clock Dragon. The normally cocky thief had been outplayed at every turn by the orange-haired girl, completely thrown off-balance first by her Link Monsters and then her overpowering Fusion Summoning. His duel disk rattled on his arm, his legs trembling beneath him.

Only for his eyes to suddenly catch sight of something behind Ruby's shoulder. Then, his body stilled, and his old confident smirk spread back over his face.

"You're right," he conceded. "But I don't plan on losing either."

The whine of building energy sounded behind Ruby and Penny, both girls whirling around. Only to see… nothing?

"Huh?" Ruby muttered.

Penny's eyes narrowed, the green and purple glows from when she Link Summoned flashing over her irises in sequence. Only to immediately pale and leap for her friend. "Ruby, look out!"

"What?" Ruby gasped, knowing from her ally's tone that she was in danger, but having no idea where that danger was coming from.

At least until glass shards shimmered through the air barely a yard away and the silver-eyed girl found herself staring down the point-blank guns of a cartoonish version of Barrel Dragon that she was sure had not been there a second ago.

A young woman with pink and brown hair leaned out from behind the dragon and shot Ruby a cheeky, mischievous wave.

"Toon Proton Blast," Torchwick grinned.

Ruby had no time to move before the cartoonish Barrel Dragon's three guns reached their maximum glow. Penny barely made it in time to grab the red-hooded girl and yank herself between her and the enemy before the triple salvo of hot plasma shrieked out of the cannons.

Cyberse Clock Dragon shattered into aura fragments as the Beacon Slifer Red and Atlas Obelisk Blue were blasted into the sea.

Duel Discontinued.

Dear god, it feels like ages since I got the chance to write any fanfiction. I remember I had so much hype to write this chapter after the last one but life just proceeded me no time to write more than a few sentences at a time for months. I couldn't even get this out on the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game's 25th anniversary like I'd hoped to. Stupid real life. I'd hoped to have finished this story's Volume 1 last year.

Still, this chapter had a lot of fun stuff in it, notably Penny and her Link Monsters. I really wanted to nail in that this type of monster has JUST been invented in-universe by Atlas' research, to the point that the cards haven't even been officially released to the public yet. And given that this Remnant currently runs on Master Rule 4 and researching the ins and outs of Duel Monsters is an active field of scientific (and mystical) study, I wanted to also sell just how literally game-changing the Link Monsters' creation is. Plus, I wanted to show off just how dominating a duelist Penny is, easily picking apart opponents that gave Ruby serious trouble.

Of course, thematically, a big part of this chapter, the titular part even, is showcasing Ruby and Blake's experiences with Fusion Monsters. Fusion Monsters are powerful like any Extra Deck monsters, with people's opening experiences with them coloring how they view them. Blake, introduced to them in a tumultuous time in her life through Adam and Tyrian, fears her Fusion Monsters and they, sensing that fear, have no interest in conforming to her wishes, in turn making her fear of them worse in a vicious spiral. Meanwhile, Ruby, who already adores seeing any new monster she possibly can, sees Cyberse Clock Dragon wielded with perfect precision by Penny, reinforcing her view that this new summoning method is full of new wonders to explore, especially as her desire for awesome duels against awesome opponents syncs up with Starving Venom and crystallizes its card.

Anyway, next chapter will be the wrap-up of the Docks Arc and the end of Volume 1. Which means aftermath scenes, which if One Piece has taught me anything, are some of the most fun scenes to write and read.

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!