V
To be mentioned in the same breath as the name of a military commander—and favorably so, more to the point—is something many Duelists do not expect to hear in their lives. The younger ones are not so versed in history, and while the older crowds may enjoy a brief vision of grandeur, the sheer diversity in Duel Monsters largely makes them scoff. Their monsters are dragons and machines, fairies and beasts—not soldiers! And yet, many overlook the notion that simply possessing a Deck of such monsters implies they command them as thoroughly as any soldier—that every Spell cast is as good as a gun in their hands, and every Trap Set is an example of their cunning in battle.
Eventually—inevitably—this sets up two crucial questions when playing the game: is it more sensible to Set a Trap against an enemy monster, or to set a trap against an enemy Duelist?
And if this question is answered, at what point does the game cease to be a game—and evolve into a full-scale war?
Attempts have been made in the past—with varying degrees of success and ignominy—to use underhanded tactics in an attempt to ensure victory by entrapping a Duelist, rather than merely beating one. From those attempts, a sort of guidebook has emerged to offer instructions on how best to use foreign elements—that is to say, outside the game itself—to claim victory in ways no Duel Monsters card ever could. Of all the most effective and successful examples listed in this guidebook, a number of common denominators can quickly be seen.
First: a worm on a hook that no Duelist can turn down the chance to gobble up. For best results, it is recommended to advertise a supposedly invincible Duel Monster, with near-insurmountable power, almost total immunity to card effects, and a reputation for being used to decimate entire cities with impunity. Add more such monsters as needed.
Secondly: a location that, once galvanized by the threat of previous war, has sat and gathered rust in the stillness of peace. This location should be of large enough size that it is, for all intents and purposes, self-sufficient, and enough so that if any outlying locations—say, those that can only be accessed by special corridors that stretch through the Dimensions—suddenly choose that moment to go dark, and almost all travel to and from those locations to suddenly cease, those in charge will be too late to react to the hand reaching for its throat … until the fingers start to crush.
The location should also, for this reason, belong to someone not affiliated with you or anyone you hold dear in your heart. Suffice to say that the location of any decent Duelist trap is not chosen for its hardiness—or its longevity.
Thirdly: because all decent Duelist traps are automatically assumed to include massive collateral damage and severe risk to life and limb, it is therefore best to remain out of reach of any potential retaliation—ideally, within one of the Dimensions that has so conveniently been cut off from conventional outside contact—and that it is also best to place stand-ins where necessary. For instance: an army that can appear out of the blue, with neither advance warning nor provocation. That such an army commands of the very same Duel Monsters that are being used as aforementioned bait might be considered a masterstroke by the guidebook's anonymous author, as it solidifies the certainty that any Duelist who takes up arms and cards to fight ensures they enter the kill zone of their own free will.
Even those few who might see through the trap will be ensnared all of the same—indeed, in some cases, they might even trigger it deliberately. Many Duelists, after all, have a sense of honor about them—one perhaps not unjustified by the age-old, but no less childish, confident declaration of my-Deck-is-better-than-yours.
But as every trap has a mechanism that must be properly tested, maintained, and oiled to properly function, so too must its more human elements be rigorously drilled, and conditioned to see that the trap is sprung—even if it should mean to fight until the bitter end. Enter, then, the fourth critical element of an effective Duelist trap: a nationalistic, "us versus them" mentality that has been deliberately introduced into the hearts and minds of those human elements. This carefully constructed offshoot of zeal and patriotic pride, when ingrained into the hearts and minds of every willing participant, creates a fervor so fiery that any one of them would be willing to use that fire to burn an entire city to the ground—and themselves along with it if need be—if it meant the success of their mission.
What was happening right now in Maiami City was not the result of a textbook Duelist trap. It was an excellent one, to be sure—but not textbook per se. The events unfolding on its streets went far beyond the scope of the literature that had inspired them. For this metaphorical guidebook had been conceived in the days of more honorable combat: one army, one Duelist, one Deck, one Duel Monster against another of equal strength.
Nobody in living memory had ever attempted to ensnare more than one Duelist—let alone an entire city of them.
Until an entire company of Dueling soldiers had appeared out of thin air, and turned a quiet summer upside down.
Leo Duel School
Japanese building codes are among the most stringent in the world—comparable in many ways to those of the west coast of the United States, particularly in California. They have to be, since both locations are subjected to the dangers of earthquakes and tsunamis, and so must be ready for them at a moment's notice. If one were to compare the two, however, the edge would go to Japan—they had poured incredible amounts of yen into updating older buildings to be more resistant to seismic events, and almost as much into constructing new buildings that were just as sturdy, if not more so. Solid construction was phased out in favor of controlling the level of vibrations that shook the building, among other such technologies—and it was perhaps this that saved LDS from toppling then and there.
But the floors still shook from the vibrations dispersed throughout the building. Many people had fallen to the floor, shouting incoherently. Things were no different in the headmistress' office: technicians were babbling in a sea of noise, half of them sprawled on the floor in various states of surprise and pain. Nakajima had only just now picked himself up; there was a cut on his brow and a crack on his glasses, but otherwise he was unharmed.
"Himika-san—are you okay?" he yelled out.
She was, but only physically. The principal of LDS was so shocked at the salvo that had shaken her office, she'd forgotten to be angry. She could hardly believe it: someone had opened fire on her school.
"D-damage report," she coughed out, still winded.
One of the few technicians who'd recovered by then had fixed his eyes on the tablet in his hand. "Direct hit to the seventeenth floor!" he called back in reply. "We have exposure on floors sixteen through nineteen, sections thirty-six through thirty-eight! Mostly office space, already fully evacuated," he added, as if that might appease Himika.
It didn't.
BOOM. The building shook again. Himika heard the noise of smashing glass and twisting metal from below her.
"Direct hit to level twenty-two," she heard from someone to her left, "sections five through eight." There was a silent moment of mingled confusion and relief. " … Still no casualties."
By now, the shock was starting to wear off; Himika was becoming just as confused as everyone else in the room. She, they, and everyone else who worked in LDS was well aware that the building's most valuable secrets were underground—safe from any land-based attack. So why—?
It hit her almost at the same time as a third BOOM rumbled the school. This one was louder, much more violent—it sounded like it had happened outside the room.
"Twenty-third floor, sections thirty-two through thirty-five!" The technician swore. "That one just grazed us—"
But Himika was already on her feet. "Enact guard protocol seventeen at once!" she ordered. "I want all our remaining security to converge on those access points immediately!" Teeth gnashed in her mouth. "Those were just openings—breaches in the wall," she growled. "They mean to flush us out—like hunting quail."
There was a long silence. "It's confirmed," another technician said. "Runners are reporting new contacts—dozens of them. They're flying in from three different directions—they're heading straight for LDS!"
Himika spun round, looking out her window. Instantly her keen eyes saw them—small dots in the sky, but rapidly growing larger. She tapped at the edge of the window, feeling for the interactive circuits that lined the glass—and a moment later, a section of the viewport had expanded, enhancing and magnifying those dots into a number of winged machines—each as decrepit and rusty-looking as she'd been fearing.
Antique Gear Duel Monsters—every one of them. And astride each of them was a silver-helmed soldier with a Duel Disk on one arm—and a familiar-looking device on the other.
"The artillery fire appears to be coming from their direction as well," the technician went on, bringing Himika back into reality. "They've begun shelling other targets in the city—three buildings have suffered damage in the financial sector, and six residences have been destroyed to the north. Casualties … unknown."
Himika pursed her lips. "Triangulate their exact point of origin—and transmit them to the LID at once."
Silence. Nobody moved a muscle. "You heard me," hissed the headmistress. "The Lancers are too far away—that was the purpose of the Chaos Giants, to spread us out too far and open us up to another assault! And the other rank-and-files they sent to back them up were meant to divide the authorities' response as well! But this army doesn't know we still have another group of Lancers—one that can take the offensive to them!"
"But … what about us?" a man at the far corner of the room ventured to ask. "Aren't we a higher-priority target?"
Himika fixed him with a glare. "One building—or a whole city full of them?" she returned. "We can wait—and the guard protocol will buy us some time. But those artillery positions need to be taken out yesterday!"
The man nodded. "At once." And his fingers began to fly over the keyboard.
Nakajima leaned in close to Himika. "It occurs to me," he said sotto voce, "that we don't fully understand why they're attacking. How do we know that both the Lancers and the LID won't divert all their attention from us?"
Himika didn't. But … "I'm counting on them to know which target to engage," she said.
Nakajima decided not to ask just who "them" was supposed to be. "And what about guard protocol seventeen?" he inquired. "You and I both know that it—that she won't be ready immediately. What do we do until then?"
The headmistress' stare focused on his left arm. "Your Duel Disk's been repaired?"
It sounded like more of a question than Nakajima knew it was. He nodded. "Good. You may need to use it."
Himika stood then, and inflated her lungs just a little. "Arm yourselves!" she shouted. "Be ready for close-quarters combat as soon as possible! And if you have no other choice," she added, narrowing her eyes, "if your life is in danger … aim to kill."
She flared her nostrils. "That's an order. Carry it out."
Sawatari Shingo nearly jumped out of his skin. The sound of a Duel Disk activating hadn't come from him or any of his friends. And the girl was still within his vision enough that he knew she hadn't ignited hers either—she hadn't even put one on her arm. It had come—
He whirled around—from behind—
"Took me … long enough."
The soldier was in a bad way: his right arm clutched at a wound in his side that was red with blood. His steps were uneven, and he was slightly hunched over to staunch his injury further still. But he was alive, and he was walking.
Straight for Shingo.
"Tracked you down," he murmured. "Not easy. Stim-packs"—he waggled the device on his right arm—"injected into the bloodstream. Got me on my feet soon enough."
He grinned lopsidedly. "I'll even the score … for the sake of my teammate," he growled. It sounded as though he was in great pain. "It's the least I could repay you … for flinging me into that car … "
Shingo bit back a curse. He wasn't ready to fight one of these soldiers a second time—he wouldn't fare so lucky as he had before. But to his surprise, he felt a tiny hand nudge him aside.
The girl in the green leotard was stepping forward, unzipping her duffel bag and reaching inside. "Why don't you sit this one out?" she asked. "You've done enough for one day. I'm pretty sure one of you said I could have the next crack at these guys anyway."
Her words were surprisingly forceful one for a girl who'd just hit puberty, Shingo thought. "You're crazy," he said, feeling numb with shock—and then quite foolish for thinking that was all he could have said. "Do you have any idea what sort of Decks these guys have? You know how strong they are?"
The girl shrugged at this. "Oh yeah," she replied nonchalantly, fishing out a light brown Duel Disk and clipping it to her left arm. "You know what else? I don't really care. As far as my Deck is concerned, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And those Chaos Giants are pretty darned big. Besides—"
She rolled her bare arms, did a small pirouette—and her Duel Disk sprouted a fiery orange blade right as she spun round to face the soldier. "Besides," she said again, "I've been standing still for way too long. I need to move, or I get all twitchy inside. And when I get all twitchy inside"—she brought the Disk to her chest—"I need to cut loose."
The girl pulled at her bun, adjusting the band that kept it together until it had unfurled into a ponytail that was even more brilliantly orange than the blade of her Duel Disk. "So how about it?" she cried at the soldier. "Let's dance!"
Shingo had seen serrated knives that looked less nasty than the injured soldier's smile. This girl had more pep in her spirit than most boys above his age group—but that wasn't the same thing as winning. A wounded animal, he knew, was always the most dangerous one to face. His maxim was proven right almost instantly.
"DUEL!" With a speed that belied his condition, the soldier had drawn his five cards first. "Double Continuous Spell, activate: Antique Gear Fortress and Antique Gear Castle!" he bellowed, slapping a pair of cards on his blade.
Without warning, the landscape changed; the ice was breaking apart from underground, its shards melting in the fires and black smoke that had suddenly leaped up. Dozens of gears, as big around as a house and as thick as a car was wide, erupted from the earth as suddenly as the wintry weather had vanished. Amidst the upheaval rose an enormous mass of earth and iron in the distance, the size of a small mountain—all carved up into the shape of many immense gears. Steel turrets trained on random targets, firing indiscriminately at whatever they saw, and the sound of metal against stone soon deafened the air.
"Antique Gear Fortress' effect," sneered the soldier. He was recovering faster now; the thrill of the Duel seemed to have reinvigorated his body. "While I control it, you can't respond to my Antique Gear cards or effects—and any Antique Gear monsters I control cannot be targeted or destroyed by your card effects during the turn they were Summoned!
"I'll follow that up with another Spell: Antique Gear Catapult!" he hissed, sliding another card onto his Duel Disk. "By destroying a card I control, I can Special Summon an Antique Gear monster from my Deck—regardless of its Summoning conditions! I target my Fortress"—something went KABOOM inside the landmass in question, bursting it asunder and sending metal and stone flying everywhere—"and Special Summon Antique Gear Wyvern!"
High above them, Shingo saw something arcing from the collapsing Fortress and into the sky, but growing brighter and brighter like an incoming meteor. Then that meteor suddenly sprouted two metallic wings, pitted and corroded with age, and unfolded into a dragon-like creature big enough for a fully-grown human to sit astride its back (Level 4: ATK 1700/DEF 1200).
"Antique Gear Castle's effect," grunted the soldier, clutching his hand to his chest. "Every Antique Gear monster I control gains 300 ATK! And then"—he gestured to his monster, now roaring as if reveling in its new 2000 ATK—"if my Wyvern is Special Summoned, I can activate its effect: in exchange for not Setting any cards for the rest of the turn, I can add 1 Antique Gear card from my Deck to my hand!"
He did so. "Furthermore, because my Fortress was destroyed in my Spell and Trap Zone, I can use its second effect to Special Summon another Antique Gear from my hand or Graveyard! So from my hand, I'll Special Summon Antique Gear Hydra!"
Shingo felt a shadow fall across his face. Instinctively he looked up, and blanched—dozens of monsters, each of them looking rather like the Wyvern that was staring across the girl even now, were streaking across the sky. If their course was correct, they were heading straight for LDS. The intent behind the artillery was immediately explained.
The source of that shadow, however, dispelled his thoughts quickly: four creaking heads—one red, one yellow, one blue, a fourth attached to the tail instead of the torso, and each as impossibly corroded as the other—roared in four-part discord, forcing Shingo to clap his hands to his ears as the sound waves, buoyed by the clawed wings on either side of the multi-headed mechanical dragon (Level 7: ATK 2700 » 3000/DEF 1700), assaulted his senses.
Through it all, the girl hadn't moved. She looked bored with the Duel already, Shingo thought, tapping her feet as if waiting for the soldier to just end his turn. At one point, she'd even moved her left hand hither and thither—like she was manipulating a sock puppet—every time the man opened his mouth to talk. That scared him more than he liked to admit—an overconfident Duelist was, more often than not, one who had already lost.
He did think she was right about one thing, though—with how much she fidgeted, she really didn't like to stay still.
The soldier, for his part, didn't even look insulted at how this girl was treating his presence—in fact, it seemed he was thinking the same thing as Shingo, and was ready to catch this girl off guard.
"Field Spell: Gear Town's effect!"
Wait. Shingo's mind screeched to a halt. What did he just say?!
The girl had stopped fidgeting. "A Field Spell?!" she repeated, speaking the same exact words Shingo was thinking. "When did you play one of those?!"
"I never did," sneered the soldier. "It's a terrain program—a subroutine inside my Duel Disk. It activated by itself the moment we started our Duel. Call it a little home-field advantage, for when we take the fight to you."
For a full second, Shingo did not breathe. He'd heard some stories about Duelists like this; some élite few that could use Field Spells without actually having to play them. Of all those Duelists, he'd seen a grand total of one for himself—Edo Phoenix, who had been the commander-in-chief of the forces that had destroyed the Xyz Dimension.
And yet this man … this lowly rank-and-file soldier … had the same kind of capabilities that he did? Shingo thought. Who the heck are these people?!
"That sounds a lot like cheating!" the girl retorted. "I know how cards like that work—my friend told me all about them! She's taken on better Duelists than you who cheated with those Field Spells—and she's beaten them, too!"
She might as well have lost her temper at a statue for all that the soldier cared. "Gear Town's effect," he plowed on, "allows Antique Gear monsters to be Advance Summoned by Releasing one monster less than they would otherwise require. So I'll Release my Wyvern to Advance Summon this! Come out: Antique Gear Reactor Dragon!"
Wyvern's body began to glow from within, and it zoomed into the sky as if racing to join its many brethren in their race to LDS. But Shingo had to shield his eyes a moment later: with a quick snap-roll, Wyvern had disintegrated, and the cloud of photonic dust swirled and grew into something that far exceeded its size—
Enormous gray wings, as wide as a jetliner, bloomed either side. A neck and tail, long and segmented, uncurled from the mass. Sparks flew from the many gears bolted into its iron body. No clawed arms or legs emerged with it, only a pair of long struts that crackled with electricity, pumped like lifeblood from the man-sized bulb that adorned its chest (Level 9: ATK 3000 » 3300/DEF 3000).
"Let's see how a prissy little girl like you gets through this." The soldier grinned, crossing his arms. "Turn end!"
But the girl was grinning herself. "About time," she said. She didn't even look at the card she'd drawn—there was no fanfare, no recognition. She brought herself to her full height—which, given that she wasn't even a teenager, wasn't saying much to Shingo. Yet there was a fire in her green eyes that seemed to negate the chill of the ice field. And the way she was acting made him wonder if she knew how to beat the soldier before he'd even played a card.
She plucked a card from her hand. "All I need is this, and you're history!" She smacked it hard on her blade. "I activate the Spell Card: One for One! With this card, I can send a monster from my hand to the Graveyard, and then Special Summon a Level 1 monster from my hand or Deck! So I'll send my Gusta Grif, and Special Summon the Tuner monster Gusta Egul in Attack Position!"
Tuner? Shingo tilted his head, watching a green-feathered half-bird, half-lion monster leap out from behind the girl, disintegrate, and reform into a slightly smaller verdant-colored bird (Level 1: ATK 200/DEF 400). So this girl was a Synchro Duelist, he mused. He'd not heard of one so young, though. Not that that was a bad thing, but students of that age and caliber of Dueling prowess were only found in—
He blinked. Could this little girl be an LDS student? He hadn't seen a school pin on her person, and he didn't hang around the Junior classes too much, either. Shingo knew he'd have to start thinking about that in a year's time, as Youth students were expected to tutor the younger pupils and foster a new generation of Dueling. And there was also the possibility that she was a first-year student—but that made the notion of her being a Synchro user seem doubly unreal. Because how would a first-year, he thought, know how to Synchro Summon?
"Gusta Grif's effect!" shouted the girl. "If it's sent from the hand to the Graveyard for any reason, I can Special Summon a Gusta monster from my Deck! So I'll Special Summon Reeze, Gale of Gusta in Attack Position!"
She pirouetted like a dancer, slipping a card from her Deck and onto her Duel Disk before she'd stopped spinning. By the time she had, a monster that could have been her mother had leapt onto the field: she had the same green-and-orange hair, though long and thick enough to divide into thick twin-tails. Her green gaze pierced the chill of the air, and her heavy wooden staff sliced through the remnants with practiced ease (Level 5: ATK 1900/DEF 1400).
She's primed herself to Synchro Summon, thought Shingo, and all with just one card. But a Level 6 couldn't be all that, surely—a Level 7 and a Level 9 were still too much for her to deal with, even as Main Deck monsters.
It appeared the girl thought so, too. "Now I'll Summon Kamui, Hope of Gusta in Attack Position!" she cried, placing another card on her Duel Disk. Instantly a young green-haired boy had swooped next to Reeze, a tan cloak billowing behind him and a staff of his own clutched in his hand (Level 2: ATK 200/DEF 1000).
Better. But Shingo wasn't convinced of this girl's talent just yet. He'd checked his Duel Disk just now, and was stunned to notice that Kamui was a Reverse monster—its effect activated only if it was flipped face-up. And yet she'd … He shook his head. Maybe she just needed a Level 8 that badly.
"And now," smirked the girl, "I'll Tune my Level 1 Egul with my Level 5 Reeze!" She reeled off a quick backflip, letting her monsters take the center stage. Egul was already soaring into the air, its wings already beginning to glow, while Reeze had taken a knee to the frozen earth, bowing her head against her staff:
"Soar above the misty valley! Become the prodigy of your people with your newfound power!"
With one final flap of its wings, Egul disintegrated, its only remnant being the scintillating ring that crashed into the earth where Reeze was kneeling. Her ponytails fluttered to either side—the bands shattered, letting it all flow free—
"Synchro Summon!" cried the girl. "Take flight! Level 6! Daigusta Sphered!"
She got to her feet, her gaze now resolute. Little had changed, but there were differences: black and golden bands of armor covered her arms, brow and shoulders, with blue jewels here and there. Her eyes, their depths once bearing the fullness of springtime, had now turned bright red, glittering like polished rubies (Level 6: ATK 2000/DEF 1300).
"Daigusta Sphered's effect!" her Summoner announced, narrowing her eyes. "When it's Synchro Summoned, I can target a Gusta card in my Graveyard and add it to my hand!"
She did so. "And now—Battle Phase!" she cried. "Kamui, attack Antique Gear Hydra!"
Shingo's mind, captivated by the Synchro Monster, sputtered to a halt. "Huh?!" Is she actually insane?! 200 ATK isn't nearly enough to—
Too late: Kamui had rushed forward, staff in hand—but Hydra would have been a lot more decrepit than it looked to not see it coming. With one lazy movement, it had thrown back a neck—and swallowed the boy in a single gulp.
The moment of silence that followed immediately told Shingo that something wasn't right. The girl should have lost Life Points by then; while Duel Monsters could draw out their battles if they could, the effects of that battle ought to be felt on the Duelists straightaway. So why—
BOOM. Something had detonated inside Hydra, and all four of its mouths roared in obvious pain. But it was still standing—minus a wing that had been torn off by the explosion within its body. Racing out from that gaping wound, spat out by pure momentum, was Kamui—broken, bleeding, and mortally injured—but alive enough to make a beeline right for the soldier—
CRUNCH.
Shingo cringed—that sounded like a number of bones that the soldier had broken just now. Kamui had been solid enough to send the man sprawling, propelled several meters from the force of the collision, and only just now had it finally disintegrated into its component photons. But Shingo only had eyes for the LP gauge that had appeared over the soldier—and more maddeningly still, at 1200 LP.
How in the hell—?!
"Daigusta Sphered's second effect," smirked the girl. "Any time a Gusta monster battles, whatever battle damage I might take is reflected—right back at you!"
Huh?! Shingo's mouth fell open. But even as his mind caught up with his ears, the girl's strategy was beginning to make sense; by Summoning a weaker monster like Kamui, it maximized the damage Sphered's effect could redirect to her opponent. And it worked for any Gusta monster, too—including Sphered herself, he realized with a jolt—
The girl signaled to Sphered, and she twirled her staff, advancing with her toward Reactor Dragon, and the soldier controlling it. "If you haven't noticed by now," she said, "I still have one more monster to attack, and not much you can do to save yourself from its effect. Because I may be ten years old—but that's still old enough to know math."
She moved loosely, but fluidly, twirling and twisting like a blade of grass in the wind—fully enthralled to the beat of her own drum. "So can I make a suggestion?" She didn't bother waiting for an answer. "When the sick freak that sent you here wonders why you failed to destroy this city"—she spat the next words with a child's acid fury—"my home"—Sphered tensed up behind her, ready to make a move—"you'd better tell him the truth."
Green eyes blazed with fire. "I'm the Leo Duel School's ace Duelist of the Junior Synchro circuit! I'm Emina Rika—the newest member of the LID! And I am the prissy little girl, " she smirked, "who just ended you."
She crossed her arms. "Daigusta Sphered!" The monster crouched, ready to spring for Reactor Dragon. "Put him out of his misery—attack Antique Gear Reactor Dragon!"
Sphered launched herself into the air as though she'd just been fired from a circus cannon, her body twirling and twisting almost as much as the staff in her hand. The jewel set into the wood was glowing with bluish-green light, thrumming with energy—
Reactor Dragon, however, had seen. Its jaws yawned open, surging forward to meet its prey. Sphered was going too fast to stop—she fell into the maw, and iron teeth snapped shut with a CLANG. But bare moments later, a blue burst of light exploded from Reactor Dragon's head, and the Synchro Monster it had attempted to devour only seconds ago catapulted from the wound, her staff still brimming with energy.
The soldier saw this, and knew straightaway that his monster would be too slow to save him. He turned to run—
WHACK.
—a second too slow.
The Solid Vision composing the staff that Sphered had slammed against the luckless man's head sounded as sturdy and unyielding as any oak. A blue energy-flower from its jewel blasted him backwards, and his body left a furrow in the icy ground as his Life Points plummeted to zero. By the time the dust had cleared, not one trace of him was left behind—except for the single card being teleported away, to parts unknown.
All of this had happened too quickly for Shingo to process; he was still reeling from the fresh knowledge of who this girl—Emina Rika—actually was. She wasn't just an ordinary Synchro Duelist or a mere LDS student—she was one of the LID: the section of Lancers formed to root out and defend against any threat to Maiami City from within the Pendulum Dimension—rather than outside of it like the original Lancers. And even though their contribution to the war with Academia had been miniscule at best, Shingo knew they had still amassed a considerable amount of achievements under their belt. The fact that much of their membership was comprised of several top Duelists from the school's various circuits had little to do with those achievements, from what he'd heard; experience as a Duelist could only get you so far when being blasted off buildings and evading gunshots from rogue government agents.
For people like that to even remotely consider taking this little girl as one of their own … Shingo suddenly felt the need to sit down. He quickly regretted that when he felt the frozen earth against the seat of his pants.
His vigorous dance to restore precious body heat to his backside went unnoticed by Rika. Neither Kakimoto nor Yamabe could do more than cry out in consternation; only Ootomo was in any condition or state of mind to assist Shingo. And Rika continued to just stand there, gazing so intently at the jagged gash that served as the only earthly remnant of the soldier she'd vanquished that she wasn't even fidgeting.
Then, suddenly, her Duel Disk chimed. Instantly, she'd deactivated the blade, and brought the device to her ear.
"Tene-ta-a-a-an!" The shrill, singsong tone of Rika voice threw Shingo for a loop; it was completely at odds with the reckless preteen he'd known up until now. Immediately, she was a ball of movement once more, rolling her arms, crossing her legs en pointe, and twisting lazily all the while. "Guess who saved Sawatari's butt just now?"
"Wha—you did no such thing!" Shingo felt the vein on his forehead begin to throb again. Within seconds he'd forgotten about his freezing-cold bottom. "If anything, I saved you first, you ungrateful little—"
"Nah—it wasn't me," said Rika, plainly not listening to a word of Shingo's tirade. "It was one of his friends—that Ootomo kid who's always with him. You know they've both taken out more of these weirdo soldiers than I have?"
"Kid?!" Now it was Ootomo's turn to gnash his teeth at the impudent girl. "Where does she get off calling me a kid? I've got five years on that pipsqueak, easy—and I'll show it, too, if I have to—"
Sawatari, in an unusual moment of sensibility coming from him, gave his friend a look that he hoped said "button it" as politely as he was able. There was nothing to be gained from whaling the tar out of a little girl—especially if that little girl had the chops to do the same to them in a fair Duel.
" … so yeah, I'm on my way to you now if you want to help me even the score," Rika plowed on to whoever she was speaking to, grinning widely with every word. "Ooh—the bunch that's coming this way? Even better."
She scoffed. " … Yeah, I know that, Tene-tan. But I've got a lot to prove to you and Yaiba and Masumi, now that Headmistress Himika's letting me Duel with the big boys and girls. Can't you just give me this?" she wheedled.
From the way she pumped her fist a moment later, Shingo guessed Rika's caller had said yes. "Awesome!" she giggled. "I'll be over shortly! First to touch the ground gets to pick the song for my next floor routine! Bye-e-e!"
And with a grin that Shingo heard crinkle the edges of her mouth, Rika ended the call, pirouetted again, and clamped the Duel Disk back on her arm in almost the same movement. Nor did she stop there; a quick series of cards played hither and thither caused Shingo to shield his eyes from the gust of icy wind that had billowed out of nowhere.
When he lowered his eyes, he felt his jaw drop at the sight of the armored, green-feathered falcon that had alighted behind her. The horse-sized Duel Monster dipped its beak, allowing Rika to climb atop its plumage with a simple back handspring. Shingo found the image of the little girl in her leotard—standing en pointe astride the biggest bird he'd ever seen that wasn't a Raid Raptor—as intimidating as it was ridiculous.
Rika flipped a two-fingered salute in their direction. "Just sit back and watch, boys—if you think you can keep up," she giggled, holding both fingers out in a V and winking at them. "It's time for the girls to have their say now."
And with a deafening cry, the falcon under her feet tore into the distance, shrinking to a mere speck of green within seconds. Shingo, numb from a combination of cold and awe, decided the time could wait to question the notion of taking orders from a preteen girl, and hoisted Kakimoto under his shoulder as Ootomo did the same with Yamabe.
The last thing they saw in the skies where Rika had disappeared—before they left the extent of the Dueling field and sought shelter—was a single golden streak of lightning against the mass of black dots that swarmed the city.
For Emina Rika, her path to the LID had literally started on her doorstep. Her best friend, Menoko Hotene, then only nine years old—yet still the Junior Fusion ace of the Leo Duel School—had been named as one of the founding members of this secretive organization of Duelists. Hotene had been unusually tight-lipped on the subject, even around Rika, with whom she shared every scrap of information worth sharing at all.
But on the very afternoon that she'd broken the news, Rika had been playing with Hotene in her bedroom when she'd heard the doorbell, and answered it under the belief that her parents had come home from the store. Very little of what happened next remained in her memory; one moment, she'd stared down a dark, cloaked figure twice as tall as she was. The next, she'd awoken in the hospital, with both her and Hotene injured and in great pain. Rika had later learned that Hotene had tried to get her to safety, but, unable to do so, had elected to hold off her assailant by Dueling him instead while her house collapsed all around them. She had lost—but had bought enough time for the police to summon an ambulance for the both of them, and as flippantly as she liked to behave about it, Rika was under no illusion that the act of selflessness had saved both their lives that day.
By the end of the week, after the evil Duelist responsible had been defeated on top of LDS, the two girls had become inseparable. Soon after, Hotene had vowed that Rika would become part of the LID so that she could have a chance to achieve payback for the injuries that the agent of Academia had inflicted upon her body, and the destruction he had wrought upon her house. As she soon found out, that had included more than just refining her Dueling style, but also the quickness of her body and the sharpness of her mind.
The moment Rika was out of the hospital, her punctured lung healed and her ribs reset, Hotene had started a training regimen for her: on top of their Dueling and education, and jogging to and from them both, there were two hours of gymnastics classes every other day, two hours of practice on their off days at Hotene's favorite trampoline park—both for Dueling and for something that the Junior Fusion ace had called "looking for her Zen"—and two more hours comprising a particularly devious series of drills from Hotene that were meant to increase Rika's sense of awareness while in that moment of Zen. Most often these took the form of her stretching out very thin threads along the floor, and then making Rika count them all in progressively less time. Rika's personal best had happened while, at a full sprint barefoot through the hallway of Hotene's house, she'd counted no less than a dozen such threads spaced throughout the walkway, counting and avoiding them all in less than six seconds.
Right now, astride her Duel Monster as she headed towards the signal being broadcast from the Duel Disk she was pursuing, Rika was in that moment of Zen. The search for it had been deceptively easy; finding one's inner Zen often meant having to disengage from the outside world, find a quiet place, and use that calm to reach that higher plateau of awareness. With Rika, it was the exact opposite: she threw herself headlong into the world around her, becoming a constant blur that seemed to never stop moving. For it was in movement itself, in feeling the wind on her face as she maneuvered through the sky, that Rika truly felt at peace—that her Dueling style truly manifested.
Rika pressed down on the feathery back of her steed, and it wheeled left in reply—she'd just seen her objective up ahead. Or at least her objective, surrounded by about a dozen different soldiers riding flying beasts of their own.
She grit her teeth, seeing the golden flash of lightning that streaked through them. So fast was Menoko Hotene moving that the lightning was the only part of her Duel Monster Rika could see, even with that moment of Zen enhancing her awareness. Left and right it flickered, dodging orange blasts of fire from the enemy steeds' jaws, and every time it swung back, one of those soldiers and those nasty monsters of iron they rode would be knocked aside, falling to earth. Occasionally, it would zigzag until it was neck and neck with one of the mechanical dragons—just long enough for both Rika and the unlucky rider to see the blue eyes and messy blonde hair of the tiny Duelist who commanded the black-and-yellow bird that outstripped and outmaneuvered them at every turn. Then, with a blinding snap-roll, they moved on, swatting aside the rusted wyvern, soldier and all, with a lightning-wreathed wing.
Three of these soldiers had tumbled to the ground in the time it had taken Rika to rendezvous with Hotene and make sense of the havoc she was singlehandedly causing. Of their bodies there was no sign; Rika only saw flashes of purple and blue on the street below the dogfight she was wading into. But she knew it was a long way down.
Abruptly, Hotene drew level with Rika. The Junior Fusion Duelist hadn't bothered to change out of her gym outfit, either, but she'd pulled her straw-colored hair out of its bun on the way over. Chaotic curls, bouncing every which way above her purple-and-green leotard, were standing on end, and the tiny Duelist's blue eyes and blinding grin seemed to spark with as much voltage as the thunderbird beneath her feet.
"You're late, Rika-tan!" She stuck her tongue out at the Junior Synchro ace. Rika rolled her eyes.
"You know me, Tene-tan!" she retorted. The noise of the wind and the battle around them meant that they had to shout at each other, even bare meters apart. "I've always gotta take the long way to get here! I need the extra rush!"
"Well, it's rush hour right now!" Hotene cried back, maneuvering her mount through several columns of flame, then sending the beasts responsible crashing into a nearby apartment with a flap of its wings. "Wanna take the express?"
She pointed ahead with a stubby finger. Rika followed it, and saw a number of enormous gun barrels less than a kilometer away. Each one was trained on the Leo Duel School, firing on the building.
"The boss lady says these guys made three landing points in town!" Hotene explained. "That one down there's the closest one to us—so we're gonna go an' crash their party! Yaiba-chan took off for a second one after he picked us up. Then I went to find you, an' Masu-chan went to find him. There's a third one near where Fuyu-chan lives—so he an' Hoku-chan are gonna deal with that one!"
She leveled the golden chevron of her neon-green Duel Disk at their target. "Ready, Rika-tan?"
Rika grinned. She could address her best friend's liberal use of honorifics later. They were still young, after all.
"Just like gym practice!" she whooped. "You go high, I go long!"
They peeled off in opposite directions, Rika flying so low to the street that her steed's wing feathers brushed the asphalt. Hotene, by sharp contrast, soared high into the sky, lost to sight almost within a second. A number of the soldiers they were fighting tried to pursue them, but the Solid Vision comprising their monsters was only meant to mimic heavy metal—and not the nimbleness of bone and sinew. Half a dozen of them collided with each other by the time they'd been able to track the girls' movements through the air.
Hotene's decision to use gymnastics in developing their Dueling was a stroke of genius from the otherwise flighty little girl. Most Duelists could use the sport to provide a moment of spectacle—but she and Rika used it to fine-tune their own individual styles. While the Junior Fusion Duelist reveled in the high-flying, gravity-defying rush of the trampoline, Rika was an artistic gymnast—an all-around athlete who could switch between various disciplines near-instantly. The uneven bars, the vault, and the floor most of all had become her forte: in a Duel, she had learned to see each discipline in an Action Field and use its terrain with ease. A grassy field could become a springy floor that she could use to fuel her momentum while dodging attacks or obtaining Action Cards. Low-hanging tree branches could turn into grasping bars for much the same—and even if the trees that sprouted them were cut down amidst the destruction of an Action Duel, their stumps could serve as vaulting horses if Rika believed them to be high enough.
Even ten-year-old girls got tired, however, and Rika was no exception. It was the rush of moving through space that gave her joy in life—that made her happy to be alive, happy to be the Duelist she was. Whenever her legs felt like rubber, she would simply take to the air on one of her many birdlike Gusta monsters, and let their hard-light bodies carry her against the wind. She would throw back her head, let the wind whip her hair to and fro—and minutes later, she would be ready to dazzle the audience with her displays of athleticism once more.
Rika spent a dangerous second peering upwards, her green eyes zeroing in on the streaking spark up above that was Hotene. She was beginning to spin in the air, bolts of lightning corkscrewing in her wake—
Now.
Being a Synchro Duelist meant having a sense of timing, Yaiba had told her once, during the Duel that had decided Rika's initiation into the LID. This went double when fighting as a team, as it meant working so closely alongside your partner that before long, it almost felt like you could read their thoughts. For this reason, Synchro Duelists made for amazing partners in a Tag Duel, he had claimed, as this innate ability to "synchronize" with their partner allowed them to combine their Decks into devastating strategies.
And so, at the exact moment Rika had seen Hotene make her move; she'd made hers. The Junior Synchro ace dropped down onto her monster's back—right before spurring it into a series of snap-rolls that turned her world into a blur, racing around a central point as though she was flying through the funnel of a tornado. A quick tug at the wing joints caused the falcon-mount to veer upwards, still drilling through the air in a controlled spin—
WHAM.
Bare seconds later, Rika's vision was filled with gold-tinged electricity. Hotene and her monster had dropped like a stone, leveling off right as Rika had passed her. The two monsters and riders, still entwined in their dance, did together what one pair alone could not: nameless soldiers and monsters were scattered by the dozens, swatted aside in the wake of their devastating combination of wind and lightning.
Rika laughed, giggling breathlessly at the adrenaline rush. Even in this, the heat of battle, she could still be a kid.
As quickly as the spectacle had started, it was over, and the world righted itself around Rika. She gasped, surprised despite herself: their target was only a few blocks away now. She could practically see the soldiers guarding the mobile artillery platforms that had been hastily erected in the plaza. More Solid Vision—just like those huge monsters she'd seen while tagging along with Sawatari, she guessed. Giant metal fortresses with gears the size of cars inside them didn't just pop up during the day.
Her Duel Disk chimed. "Anomalous code pattern detected," announced a surgically crisp female voice. "Scanned sequence does not conform to Action Field parameters." Then, hardly a moment later: "Terrain program pattern confirmed—extreme caution is advised."
Oh, now you tell me, Rika thought with a huff, thinking back to the soldier she'd defeated earlier, and the Field Spell he'd used. "You hear that?" she yelled up at Hotene, who had emerged from her controlled spin with a whoop. The tiny Duelist flashed a thumbs-up in reply.
"We've faced them before," Hotene crowed back, "an' we've seen nastier! C'mon, Rika-tan!" And before Rika could think of anything to psych them up even further, she'd dropped so low that her monster's claws skimmed the road with inches to spare. Rika followed in her wake, feeling her heartbeat keeping pace with her monster's speed.
The soldiers at the entrenchment never knew what hit them.
One moment, a scout—near deaf by the repeated shelling they were inflicting on the Leo Duel School and the surrounding town—had breathlessly reported that some strange phenomenon of green wind and gold lightning had torn through their attack force and scattered it like so many dust motes. The next, he himself was diving for cover as a mighty wind blew through the camp, blowing him and a dozen more off their feet—and then came the lightning.
A number of the soldiers cried out in consternation—the keypads on their right wrists had malfunctioned because of the electrical storm. Half a dozen of them were encased in the blue light of a prematurely triggered recall before any of them knew it was happening. The rest had been smashed against the Solid Vision that formed their fortress. While the hard-light eliminated most of the blunt force, human bodies were not built to take tornado-level wind speeds for very long. Many were groggy. Several were cradling broken limbs. One wasn't even moving.
Hotene and Rika would have high-fived each other if they were close enough; their counterattack had been quicker and more thorough than they'd hoped. Only two soldiers remained that looked like they were in any fighting shape; they had been working the massive cannons on the shimmering Duel Monsters to which they were attached, and so were far removed from the worst of the damage.
They tapped at their keypads, and those Duel Monsters now shimmered out of existence as both soldiers ignited their Duel Disks. Hotene and Rika dismounted from their own steeds, flickering into nothingness themselves.
"What have we here?" one of the soldiers said, smirking slightly. "Two little birdies that flew into the wrong nest?"
"Careful." The other was eyeing Hotene through his silver helm. "One of them is a TOI. I read the brief—this girl helped take down Agent 139. Be on your guard."
The first soldier did the smallest of double takes. "That right?" But his surprise didn't last long, replaced by a truly nasty sneer. "Well, then. I don't think she'd mind if we helped her get even."
They leveled their Duel Disks in tandem at the girls. Instantly, Rika heard that crisp woman's voice coming from her Duel Disk again. "Tag Duel mode online," it vocalized—and a spider's web of information spread out along the screen, linking her device to Hotene's. From here on out, their fields and Graveyard would be shared as one. The only drawback to this was that the soldiers they were facing would be fighting as one force, too—and Rika was well aware that while she and Hotene were the best of friends, that was a far cry from being trained to fight as an army.
She breathed slowly, letting the gym take shape around her surroundings. While she wouldn't get to actually use it, the sight was often enough to get her into the zone she needed to win.
Now. "Let's go!" the four of them bellowed as one. "DUEL!"
Sure enough, that military training allowed the soldiers to draw their cards first. The one on the left wasted no time in slapping one of them on his Duel Disk. "I Summon Antique Gear Hound Dog in Attack Position!" he cried.
Rika grimaced as corroded and pitted iron was spat from nowhere onto the field, taking shape into a familiar beast (Level 3: ATK 1000/DEF 1000)—she'd seen enough of those monsters today to not know what would happen next.
"When Hound Dog is Normal Summoned," said the soldier, "I can inflict 600 damage to my opponent! Hound Flame!" And before either Hotene or Rika could tell the other to duck for cover, the monster had opened its jaws to spray a burst of machine-gun fire at them. Rika felt the Solid Vision of the bullets sting at her skin, like she'd been stung by so many hornets, and a quick check of her Duel Disk showed their combined LP at 3400.
"Hound Dog's second effect!" The metallic beast tensed, growling at the girls. "I can use it to Fusion Summon an Antique Gear monster from my Extra Deck! I use the Antique Gear Engineer in my hand as the other Fusion Material, and use them both to Summon this! Go!" On the last word, Hound Dog had leapt into the air—already beginning to distort above them all—and Rika barely noticed a humanoid robot, as equally rusted as its canine companion, raise a drill-tipped hand as he followed Hound Dog inside—
"Mechanical man and beast inheriting ancient souls! Now, form an allegiance and join, and be reborn together as a new power!
"Fusion Summon!" chanted the soldier. "Appear! Level 8! Mechanical demon god! Antique Gear Devil!"
The dragon-like monster that dropped onto the field from midair—shaking the earth with a gargantuan THUD—was instantly familiar to Rika. Bladed, skeletal wings dug furrows in the earth, scarlet armor clanged and shrieked over poorly lubricated joints—and the triple gun barrels of the mobile artillery platform she and Hotene had seen just moments ago now turned to bear on new targets (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 1800).
"Antique Gear Devil's effect makes it completely immune to all other card effects!" bragged the soldier, and Rika saw Hotene grit her teeth. "And its second effect lets me inflict 1000 damage to my opponent! Devil Flame!"
Rika's angry retort was lost in the deafening fusillade that followed. One cannon blast after another rocked and rolled the earth under her feet, unseating her and Hotene and sending their LP crashing to 2400.
The Synchro user was angry because she'd noticed that the soldier had Summoned his Devil in Defense Position—meaning that not only was a monster with superior ATK the only way to get it off the field, but the soldier wouldn't even take damage from that battle. On top of that, its damage-dealing effect was as good as attacking them anyway. And there was no telling what else it could do …
At least it wasn't physically strong to begin with, Rika thought. Better yet, the soldier had ended his turn—and Hotene was drawing a card to start hers right now. No doubt she'll have a way to get rid of this rusted-out pest!
A curious gleam in the tiny Duelist's eye told her that she might have a way to do just that. "I Summon Spirit Beast Tamer Elder in Attack Position! An' then," crowed Hotene, before the bearded, severe-looking old man had even finished shimmering onto her field (Level 2: ATK 200/DEF 1000), "because my Elder was Normal Summoned, I can use its effect to Normal Summon another Spirit Beast monster this turn! So I'll Summon Spiritual Beast Kannahawk in Attack Position!" Again she swiped a card on her blade, and Rika saw an imposing-looking bird swoop onto the field—imposing in more ways besides the arcs of electricity that danced on its black-and-golden plumage (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 600).
"Kannahawk's effect!" Hotene grinned. "Once per turn, I can banish a Spirit Beast card from my Deck, and then add it to my hand during my second Standby Phase!" She ejected a card from her Duel Disk, slipped it away—and then grinned wider still.
Rika couldn't help but shiver. Though she knew the little girl better than anyone, she knew that every time Hotene showed her teeth this way—like a shark who'd just spotted the beachside buffet of its dreams—Bad Things tended to happen to the Duelist who just happened to be facing her.
And sure enough: "Now watch!" Hotene belted out. "No one in LDS can Duel like me—no matter how much they wanna be me! I'm gonna banish my Elder and my Kannahawk—an' combine them right before your eyes!"
She clapped her hands. Rika, her heart pounding and her mouth already grinning just like Hotene, watched as her two monsters extended a hand and a wing—and then, just barely, they brushed—
"When the bond between man and beast is at its strongest, the howling wind will be united with the unshakable pillar of wisdom!"
"Contact Fusion!" Hotene screamed. "Appear! Spiritual Beast Rider Kannahawk!"
Her two monsters had touched for only a moment—but it was enough. At once, a blinding white light had flared between them, forcing everyone to cover their eyes. Several seconds passed before Rika judged it safe to lower the crook of her elbow—but when she did, she couldn't help but feel short of breath, even at a monster she'd seen countless times before, and even on the way here. Staring at a Fusion Monster that didn't need any Fusion cards whatsoever to bring it out tended to make people do that.
Kannahawk was no exception; while its ancient rider had not changed in the slightest, the golden bird looked older by far, more majestic than before—and every feather thrummed with more lightning than a thunderstorm (Level 6: ATK 1400/DEF 1600). But just seeing the gauge made Rika's heart sink; Hotene wouldn't be using this monster to attack anything any time soon—and the soldiers knew it, too, judging from the smirks lining their mouths.
"It's a cute trick," one of them admitted. "But 1400 ATK won't get you anywhere against our monster!"
Hotene blinked. "Good point." And then she grinned again. "Rider Kannahawk's effect!" she smirked. "Once per turn, I can return it to the Extra Deck! Then," she added, pausing briefly to watch Elder leap off Kannahawk's back as the thunderbird began to shrink, "I can target a banished Spiritual Beast an' a Spirit Beast Tamer, an' Special Summon them both in Defense Position! So c'mon back, Elder an' Kannahawk! Contact Out!"
By the time Rika saw both monsters take up positions before Hotene (Level 2: ATK 200/DEF 1000, Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 600), she was beginning to make sense of her partner's strategy. Kannahawk was neither an attacker nor a defender—just a way to gather resources. Soon enough, Hotene would have enough of them to build up her field even more—and those soldiers would be eating their words soon enough.
True to form: "Actually, ya know what?" Hotene snickered. "That was a bad move—I should've put him in Defense Position. No worries! I'll just have Kannahawk's effect banish one more Spirit Beast card from my Deck"—she did so—"an' then, I can just banish my monsters an' start the process all over again!" She punched the air.
"Let's go—Contact Fusion!" she shouted. "Appear once more! Spiritual Beast Rider Kannahawk!"
One blinding FLASH later, and her monster was back as though it had never left, folding its wings protectively and putting as much mass as it could between Elder and Devil (Level 6: ATK 1400/DEF 1600).
"Now for Rider Kannahawk's second effect!" Hotene was already sliding cards in and out of her Duel Disk. "By targeting two of my banished Spirit Beast cards, I can return them to the Graveyard, an' then add a third one from my Deck to my hand!" She stole a passing glimpse at the card she'd chosen to add, humming merrily to herself—and slid it into her Duel Disk with a pair of others. "Three cards face-down, an' I end my turn," she finished.
The Junior Fusion ace made a face at the soldiers. "Beat that!" she taunted them.
But Rika saw the evil looks the two men traded, and she knew in her mind that Hotene had said the wrong thing.
Leo Duel School
"LID is moving to intercept," said a technician as the school rumbled from another shellacking. "Team three is already on site and engaging."
"Good. That should take the pressure off us for a while." Himika's fingers were starting to get numb—between talking to the chief of police to constantly reorganize his forces in response to this new army's ever-changing strategies, and telling the mayor to kindly lock himself inside his office, she'd be needing a few new phones by the end of the day.
"Priority communication coming in, Headmistress—audio only," someone else cried out. "It's Akaba Reiji!"
Himika blinked. Suddenly the whole room was silent. If Himika's elder child had something to say, it was common practice to make sure he had the first and last word.
She'd pressed a button, and instantly Reiji's voice filled the office. "Mother," his resonant tenor said heavily, "there have been some developments." The thin whine of a private jet's engines laced his speech.
With anyone else, Himika would have responded with a biting, You don't say?! But her son had made a habit of being better informed than anyone else in the room. "Who else has been hit?" she asked, fearing the worst.
Reiji told her, and the list of locations he rattled off only multiplied the curses in her head. "What concerns me the most," he said, "is the first of them to be hit. According to my sources, for the past several hours there have been some disturbing reports regarding our branch school in Broadway."
Himika frowned. "'Compromised?' They weren't simply attacked?" Then it hit her. "Hours?!"
"Yes." Reiji sounded grim. "I need to speak with Sakaki Yūshō. I believe he and his family are in great danger."
The headmistress was already working. "I'll get you patched in. Communications are still hit-and-miss, but they're better than what they were when all this start—"
CRASH. Himika swore out of instinct—the floor had shaken so violently just then that her head had thumped against her desk. Stars danced in her eyes, and she needed Nakajima's help to clamber to her feet.
"What was that?!" she demanded. It sounded as though the level right under her had been blown apart entirely.
And from the panicked voices she was hearing—mixed in with the sound of multiple Duel Disks igniting—she had a good idea of what had done it.
Rika was furious.
The other soldier hadn't even bothered to do anything differently from his companion—he'd simply drawn his card, Summoned another Hound Dog—ruined her favorite leotard even more thanks to its effect damage—and proceeded to use that Hound Dog to Fusion Summon another Devil. Now, a full dozen deafening BOOMs later, here they were at 800 LP, and the Junior Synchro ace's temper had finally reached the end of its fuse.
"Are you actually kidding me?!" she shrieked at them, not even noticing the cannons of the second Devil (Level 8: ATK 1000/DEF 1800) turning upon other targets. "You're just going to use your monsters and burn your way to a win?!" She rounded on Hotene. "This is just cheap! I have never been so disrespected in a Duel in my life!"
"At least that's all they're doing, Rika." Hotene was keeping her voice unusually level. It sounded like hard work. "Just relax. I went first for a reason. You can win this," she said reassuringly. "For us."
Rika remembered the cards Hotene had Set to her field. A quick check of each one on her Duel Disk was enough to finally calm her down—if very slightly. "All right," she growled, still simmering. "My turn! DRAW!"
An instant later—with a deep breath for good measure—she felt even better. "One card face-down," Rika began, and a hard-light replica appeared in front of her for a brief moment. "Then, I switch Hotene's Rider Kannahawk to Attack Position! That's your cue!" she called out to her.
Hotene giggled as she watched Kannahawk rear to its full height, spreading its wings in an attack stance. Then: "Trap Card, open: Spirit Beast Ambush!" she cried. "When I activate this card, I can target a Spiritual Beast an' a Spirit Beast Tamer that's either banished or in my Graveyard, an' Special Summon them both in Defense Position! So I'll Summon the two monsters I banished with my younger Kannahawk's effect, an' moved into my Graveyard with this one!" She indicated Rider Kannahawk, whose wings were beginning to brim with lightning. "Make way for my Spirit Beast Tamer Rera, an' my Spiritual Beast Apelio!"
The lightning flared, and two flaming figures bloomed either side of Kannahawk: one, a redheaded teenager in a leaf-green robe, wooden staff in hand (Level 1: ATK 100/DEF 2000); the other, a dark-furred lion cub whose mane and tail burned with fire (Level 4: ATK 1800/DEF 200).
"I'm not done yet!" Hotene tapped at her Duel Disk, revealing another of her Set cards. "Quick-Play Spell: Spirit Beast's Mutual Bond! By activating this, I can banish two Spirit Beasts on our field—an' Special Summon a third one from my Extra Deck, bypassing its Summoning conditions! An' you know what that means!"
She brought her hands together again, grinning like a shark. "I'm gonna banish my Rera an' my Apelio!" Both monsters stepped forward, drawing closer and closer to each other:
"And now—when the bond between man and beast is at its strongest—the blazing inferno will be united with the burning hearts of our prime!"
"CONTACT FUSION!" Hotene chanted. "Appear! Spiritual Beast Rider Apelio!"
As if it shared Rika's fury, Rider Apelio's first act upon being Summoned was to plant a monumental paw on the ground, shaking the earth. Astride it was Rera, her green eyes practically burning a hole into both of the Devils it faced. The air around both lion and rider was blazing, searing the skin; even Rika had to take an apprehensive step backward from the burning Duel Monster (Level 6: ATK 2600/DEF 400).
The soldiers traded glances, but if they were scared, they didn't show it—and that just incensed Rika even more. "I activate the Field Spell: Altar of Mist Valley!" she cried, slamming a card onto her Duel Disk's screen. The effect was immediate: parts of the gear-lined fortress that created the terrain program they were battling in were starting to topple, replaced by a great stone table rising from the earth.
"Now, I'll Summon the Tuner monster Gusta Squirrel in Attack Position!" A moment later, a green-furred mammal had scampered onto the field, plated in red armor and sparking with voltage (Level 2: ATK 0/ATK 1800).
Rika needed to double-check the field—just to be sure—before she played her next card. "Now for the Spell Card: Twin Twister!" she shouted, brandishing it high for all to see. "By discarding a card, I can target up to two Spells or Traps on the field, and destroy them!"
"That won't work," one of the soldiers called back. "Our terrain programs don't count as physical cards—your Twin Twisters won't even make a dent in Gear Town!"
But Rika had already slid a card into the Graveyard. "Like I was going to try, cheaters!" she shot back. "I target and destroy my Set card—Big Tornado of the Wastelands!"
With a WHOOSH, a veritable hurricane—almost as strong as the one she'd seen Ootomo's Yōsenjūs use to wipe out his aggressors—erupted out of nowhere, making her green hair billow in every direction. "My Big Tornado just so happens to have a very rare effect," Rika went on. "If it's destroyed and sent to the Graveyard while still Set on my field, I can target any one card on the field—and destroy it!"
"That still won't help you!" The soldier had to shout at the top of his lungs just to be heard over the din. "Our Devils are completely immune to your card—"
"Don't even care!" Rika privately thought that shutting these idiots up for good might just be more fulfilling than only beating them. "I target and destroy my Gusta Squirrel—and that activates its effect! If a card effect destroys it and sends it to my Graveyard," she said, watching the tiny Squirrel leap into one of the tornadoes she'd conjured, vanishing instantly, "I can Special Summon a Level 5 or higher Gusta monster from my Deck! I Summon Windaar, Sage of Gusta!"
The same funnel that had sucked in Squirrel now spat out a much bigger blur of green and brown. It bounced once on the field—then catapulted in a graceful backflip to land in a three-point stance right beside Rika, revealing a tall, green-haired man with a mirror-polished staff of silver (Level 6: ATK 2000/DEF 1000).
"I'm just getting started! Altar of Mist Valley's effect!" Rika twirled to one side, slowly but surely feeling that moment of Zen fill her soul once more. "Once per turn, whenever a WIND-Attribute monster is destroyed by a card effect and sent to my Graveyard, I can Special Summon a Level 3 or lower WIND monster from my hand or Deck with its effects negated! I choose to Summon another Tuner monster—so come forth, Gusta Falco!"
A small little bird—barely knee-high to even Rika—clad in spiky armor flapped onto the field, spreading its green wings to their fullest (Level 2: ATK 600/DEF 1400) as she plucked another card from her hand.
"Now here's a classic—the Spell Card: Resurrection of the Dead!" Rika yelled, slamming it on her Duel Disk so hard it stung her palm. "Normally, I wouldn't bother telling you what it does—what Duelist doesn't know, right? But you two creeps have been getting on my nerves this whole entire Duel, so you know what? Have a taste of your own medicine! I can use this card to target a monster in the Graveyard—any Graveyard—and Special Summon it to my field! So I'll bring back the same monster I discarded for Twin Twister—my Kamui, Hope of Gusta!"
For the second time today, she watched the young boy step up to the field, a look of determination in his green eyes that belied the gauge above his head (Level 2: ATK 200/DEF 1000). That made five monsters on their field, Rika thought; if Hotene hadn't brought out her Rider Apelio before now, her strategy would've been dead in the water.
"Now to finish it!" she hollered. "I'm gonna Tune my Kamui with my Falco—and make you sorry you ever set foot in this city! GO!" She stabbed forward, and both of her monsters sprinted towards the soldiers. Green energy raced over their forms, condensing on the bluish crystal set into Kamui's staff:
"Prodigal son of the misty valley. Touch the sky with your newfound power!"
"Synchro Summon!" Rika shrieked. "Take flight! Level 4! Daigusta Falcos!"
FLASH. Two rings of light had bloomed from the duo, and all of a sudden, Falcos had grown large enough for Kamui to actually ride the monster (Level 4: ATK 1400/DEF 1200). Its armor, far spikier than before, gleamed in the sun like so many blades, and from the piercing cry it loosed from its mouth, Falcos was raring to use it.
Rika smirked. Why deny her monsters the chance? First, though: "Daigusta Falcos' effect!" she cried. "If it's Synchro Summoned, every Gusta monster I control gains 600 ATK—and I think you know what that means!"
They did, and so did their monsters. As Falcos grew to 2000 ATK—and Windaar to an imposing 2600—both Devils seemed to realize the mortal threat they were facing, and retreated several steps towards their Summoners.
That won't save them, Rika thought. "Now—Battle Phase! Falcos and Windaar! Pick a Devil—any Devil—and turn it into scrap! ATTACK!" Crystal-tipped staves shone in the sunlight as her monsters did her bidding; Windaar leapt into the air, swinging his weapon aloft, while Falcos launched itself forward as if it fired from a cannon—
WHAM. The two attacks hit simultaneously; both Antique Gear Devils never stood a chance. And while their wreckage fell too far to hit either of the soldiers and reduce their LP, Rika still felt a certain satisfaction at seeing those monsters—having done so much damage to her and Hotene this Duel—finally get their just desserts—
Wait. Some of the wreckage was moving—hovering in midair. Even as Rika's eyes bugged in confusion, she had a sneaking suspicion that both of the Devils she'd destroyed had yet another effect.
Her fears were confirmed almost instantly. "Antique Gear Devil's final effect," one of the soldiers sneered at them. "If it's destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon an Antique Gear monster from my Deck, bypassing its Summoning conditions! Which is a lot better for us than it is for you—the monster I'm going to Summon can't normally be Special Summoned at all! We're both going to Special Summon Antique Gear Golem!"
Rika took a step backwards. The shattered remnants of the Fusion Monsters had grown into a humanoid mass so tall that it blocked out the sun (Level 8: ATK 3000/DEF 3000). Falcos, most wisely, took up position behind Rika—each Golem's hands looked massive enough to have caught it and tossed it like a children's toy.
The Synchro user wanted to howl. 3000 DEF was practically untouchable for both her and Hotene—neither of their Decks had that sort of physical power to them under normal circumstances!
She blinked. Or did they? Rika looked at Hotene. The tiny Duelist was being unusually quiet again.
And smiling.
"Just one question," Hotene ventured. She pointed to one Golem, then the other. "Are these guys immune to card effects, too?"
That stopped the soldiers in their tracks. " … What does that matter to you?" the one in the lead said defiantly.
Hotene did her best shark impression again. "Bye-bye!" she snickered, waving at the pair. Then—just as Rika realized what was about to happen—"Trap, activate: Spirit Beast Coordination! With this card, I can destroy monsters on the field up to the number of Spirit Beasts I control! And since I control two of them … "
She gestured to her Kannahawk and her Apelio. In an instant, both monsters were nothing but blurs, each of them bulling straight through a Golem and shattering it into a thousand pieces of twisted metal. They leapt through the shower of wreckage, dozens of meters into the air—
"Ooh—Rika!" Hotene danced where she stood in gleeful anticipation. "Now comes the part where they run away screaming! Ready?"
Rika was already rubbing her hands, an identically sinister grin unrolling over her mouth. "Ready."
They pointed at the soldiers in perfect synchronicity. "Rider Kannahawk! Rider Apelio!" they declared. "Attack their Life Points directly!"
It happened too fast for the soldiers to run at all—let alone to do so screaming. The thought might well have crossed their minds, but by then Kannahawk and Apelio were already right in front of them. Lightning and fire erupted with kaleidoscopic results, disintegrating the digital landscape of Gear Town and charring several whole blocks of streets around them. The soldiers were nowhere to be seen, but the gauge showing their LP at zero lingered still—as did a few errant sparks of purple and blue.
Rika saw this, and felt her face pale. She'd seen this happen already, in the ice sector of Wonder Quartet. She had hoped Hotene's attack would take too little time for the same thing to happen to these two soldiers—too quickly for whatever technology they carried to seal them, to put them forever out of their reach. But now the joy of her victory was gone, replaced all too quickly by a sudden fear that made her knees knock together.
" … Hotene?"
" … Yeah, Rika?"
The Junior Synchro ace registered the absence of their nicknames. "I … probably should've told you they do that if they lose … shouldn't I?"
" … Yeah." There was a pause. "Do you … think they knew they'd turn into cards if they lose?"
Rika swallowed. "I remember what you told me," she answered, "about the first Duelist from Academia you'd ever faced. Everything she could do … everything she did to you. But you told me she wanted them to turn her into that … that monster. She wanted that kind of power for herself—no matter what it did to her."
She nodded. "So yeah. I think they knew. In fact"—Rika stared at the spot where the soldiers had been standing—"I'm beginning to think it's what they wanted, too."
And that, she added in her head as she made to leave the Duel site with Hotene, means they're way more dangerous.
They managed about ten paces before Hotene's Duel Disk crackled with static. Instantly she'd raised it to her ear. "Hello?"
No response. Then—"enemy for—entered Leo Duel … repeat—my forces—red LDS—Lancers fall—perimeter—"
There was a burst of static, and finally nothing. Hotene and Rika looked at each other, horror-stricken. Both of them had heard enough of Himika's message to put the awful truth together: the Leo Duel School had been breached—and as far as they knew, they were too far away to do a thing about it.
A/N: One more chapter to go, and then it'll be back to the real action. Not much else to say besides that.
Thanks for reading! – K