"Hey! Adam! Quit staring off into space and get down here, ya lug!"
Tearing his two baby blue eyes away from the cerulean Solitas sky, the young bull faunus merrily grinned as he snatched the walkie-talkie from his belt. The tall teenager's red hair and horns glistened as the sunlight glittered off the snow topping the mine, seeming to echo the boy's youthful laughter as he clicked on the communicator. "Still got a minute left on my lunch break, Gus."
"And the elevator takes a minute and a half to get down here! Armstrong's being even more of an asshole than usual. Word is the SDC's looking to promote a new regional manager and he wants our numbers to net him the job."
"Then he's got nothing to worry about," Adam joked, glancing up at some passing clouds that were white and fluffy in just the right shapes to make the teenager smirk in juvenile amusement. "We pull out twice as much dust and three times as much dime as any other mine in the region."
"That doesn't mean you should push your luck with the human Fortress Whale," Gus sighed. "Honestly, I wish you'd let me set you up with my niece. Fiona would ground your head out of the clouds."
Adam winced. "You and my mother both. But Fiona's not really my type. She's great! But I like a girl with a bit more fire to her."
"Ha! Like I said, you got your head in the clouds. Keeps you from seeing what's actually down here with the rest of us," Gus chortled. "Seriously though, get down here ASAP. Better than looking up at a sky that's mostly just Atlas."
The walkie clicked off.
Yet, Adam delayed walking towards the shaft elevator that'd take him below into the mines. Back into the dust, darkness, and squalor that it felt like he was always subsumed by whether he was at work or back home in his family's cramped hovel back in Mantle. Like many in the Crater, the Tauruses had too many under the same roof with too many mouths to feed. He wasn't the oldest or youngest of his many siblings, but he was old enough to work the same depressing miner job as his parents and their parents before them, and so on and so on.
Was it any wonder his gaze was so often drawn up, up, and away?
"There's enough sky for everyone," he murmured with a smile, retorting to Gus' grumpy words even if no one could hear him.
That vast blue expanse, the same color as his eyes. Remnant was so much bigger than the squalor of his family's overcrowded home. True, from Mantle, one could only see Atlas in the firmament but there were clouds higher than The Shining City. The world was so vast. There had to be a piece of it out there for him. A place where he could be more than just the third Taurus sibling.
His pay usually went to the family food budget that everyone contributed to, but he'd been putting in extra hours and saving up the excess. He'd have to be patient. It'd take years. He probably wouldn't have even close to what he'd need until he was an adult. But once he had enough, he'd be out of there.
To find his piece of that beautiful blue sky. He could almost see it now, in his mind's eye.
Of course, when he finally tore himself away from his daydreaming and got in the elevator, its frame lined with ever-present engravings of Blue-Eyes White Dragons, all he saw were the three red letters painted on the door when it closed.
SDC.
When they opened, he was greeted by a giant hammer.
"GAH!" Adam gagged, pain shooting through his face as he was bashed out of the elevator by a fat, mustachioed Iron Chain Repairman, only his aura keeping him from serious injury. The young bull faunus bounced across the rough floor of the mine, unable to rise up before a pair of Iron Chain Snakes had wrapped around his arms and legs and pinned him to the ground.
"Adam!" Gus shouted, his eyes widening in person. The old mole faunus dashed out from the throngs of scared and startled miners, but a Six Samurai - Yaichi fired an arrow into his path before he could reach Adam. "Overseer Armstrong, please–"
"Shut it, Thyme!" a cantankerous voice bellowed,
The human Fortress Whale that was Overseer Armstrong stomped past his entourage of personal and company monsters to leer over Adam. He shoved a finger into his nose, dug around inside, and flicked it down onto the young boy, the bull faunus recoiling at the disgusting snot.
"What did I tell you animals?!" Armstrong barked to the surrounding, scared miners. "I expect you back down here working by the time your lunch break ends! I'm not losing numbers 'cause you can't tell time!"
"Oh, come off it!" Adam snapped, struggling to throw the Iron Chain Snakes off him. "I was a minute late, so what? Get your metal mutts off me and stop wasting more time."
Armstrong's scowl deepened, the fat, big bearded man planting a boot onto Adam's chest. "Oh, I'm the one wasting time, boy? Last I checked, I made this mine the more profitable old Jacques Schnee's got for three regions. And I did it without some fancy fatcat Atlas education! Unlike you animals, I'm actually willing to pull myself up by my bootstraps and make something of myself, not wallow in your pigsty of a crater."
Adam spat on the overseer's boot.
In hindsight, he wasn't sure why he did it. Armstrong had always been a loudmouth asshole. His ranting wasn't new. Heck, as the regional manager promotion had drawn nearer and nearer, it'd become a daily occurrence. So the bull faunus wasn't sure why this moment had broken the camel's back.
Maybe it was because the human had insinuated that he wasn't doing everything he possibly could to get out of The Crater's poverty? Or maybe it was because all the other faunus miners just stood there and took his abuse, even Gus looking away as if this was just something they had to weather? As if they deserved it.
As if Adam deserved it.
At the very least, he would learn to regret his impulsive action, Armstrong seizing a branding iron from a startled Iron Chain Repairman and summoning a Six Samurai - Kamon. The dutiful warrior pulled out one of his flares and lit up the iron until it was blazing hot.
Then Armstrong brought it down on Adam's face. And all the bull faunus saw was red.
A red SDC.
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"To start, I activate Gateway of the Six and Six Samurai United!" Adam announced, slamming the two continuous spell cards into Wilt.
The cards manifested onto his field with practiced ease. Six Samurai United simply took the form of its spell card, but Gateway of the Six Samurai was more elaborate, taking on the shape of a wooden arch bedecked with intricately carved stone plates. In the open doorway was a enormous version of such a plate, mounted on a sacred altar the legendary warriors.
Soon, the spell manifestations were joined by a dark-haired woman in red samurai armor (ATK 1600/DEF 1000) and a red-haired man in full armored plate with a blue tinge wielding two large clubs (ATK 1500/1500). The moment they hit the field, four ancient coins, Bushido Counters, fell atop Gateway of the Six's altar, lighting up one of the arch's smaller plates. Two coins of the same make fell onto Six Samurai United.
"I normal summon Legendary Six Samurai - Mizuho," Adam said. "And since she's on the field, I can special summon Legendary Six Samurai - Shinai from my hand."
"Ah, the lovers of the original six samurai," Oobleck observed. "Tai mentioned that you consider yourself a student of history. How do you view the battles they fought to unite Anima against the Grimm?"
"Don't bother talking, human," Adam warned, sending Six Samurai United to the graveyard to draw a card for each Bushido Counter on it. "The Sun Dragon of Hell already tried getting me to drop my guard by prattling on during our duel. It didn't work then, and it won't work now."
He certainly wasn't stupid enough to think he could win if it did. He'd researched Beacon's faculty when Blake had made them her protectors, but he'd already known most of the names on reputation alone. Headmaster Ozpin was commonly considered the strongest hunting duelist on Remnant, with his deputy Glynda Goodwitch the easy runner-up even compared to the other Academies' headmasters. The rest of the professors weren't quite that ridiculous, but none of them were any less than experienced ace huntsmen, the type Sienna had ordered him to leave to her in the past on the rare occasion when they encountered their echelon on a mission. Bartholomew Oobleck was not an opponent The Blood-Soaked Bull could take lightly.
He examined his hand to see what he had to deal with that threat. Great Shogun Shien was already at his disposal… but also a card he'd forgotten he still had in his deck. A common trap, a gift from Blake given many years ago. A weight of the past he no longer needed holding him down.
Not when he had the future before him, taking shape as a square of glowing blue light in his Extra Monster Zone.
"Appear! My circuit that takes the prize!" Adam howled, Mizuho and Shinai transforming into streams of energy and slamming into the bottom two corners of his grid. "Arrowheads confirm! Bottom left! Bottom right! Link Summon! Link-2! Battle Shogun of the Six Samurai!"
The opposite side of the square grid erupted and a massive warrior in elaborate black and gold armor leapt out of the circuit (ATK 1000). As two more Bushido Counters clinked down onto Gateway of the Six with the summon of the Six Samurai, the authoritative samurai took a seat in his command chair (ATK 1600).
"Impressive. That's not one of the generic first-wave cards the SDC's vendors have been selling. Did you really break some of them down, study their structure, and then reforge them into your own creation? All while learning the summoning style?" Oobleck analyzed, his voice openly impressed. "You haven't had a day of formal duel training in your life. 'Prodigious' seems too insufficient a word for your talent for forgework and combat."
Adam ignored his opponent's continued attempt to get inside his head, holding in the biting retort that he was taught by Sienna Khan and experience. Instead, he frowned at the card Blake gifted him long again and slipped it into his graveyard where it would do him no harm.
"When Battle Shogun of the Six Samurai is link summoned, I can discard a card and add a card that mentions Bushido Counters from my deck to my hand." he declared, yanking his new spell from his deck. "I choose Shien's Dojo and then activate it. Then, I remove four Bushido Counters from Gateway of the Six to add Legendary Six Samurai - Kizan from my deck to my hand. I'll then special summon him by his own effect to a zone Battle Shogun's arrowheads point to."
With a long nodachi and sleek black armor, Kizan took the field (ATK 1800/DEF 500). As soon as he flexed his blade on the floor of the dark cavern, two Bushido Counters clinked onto Gateway of the Six, one onto Shien's Dojo… and one into the waiting palm of the Battle Shogun (ATK 1600).
"When a Six Samurai is summoned to a zone that Battle Shogun points to, it gains a Bushido Counter. It also gains a hundred attack points for every Bushido Counter on the field. So I send Shien's Dojo to the graveyard to summon a Six Samurai from my deck with a level equal or less than its number of Bushido Counters. It has one, so I summon Secret Six Samurai - Fuma!" Adam announced, a ninja with twin giant shuriken (ATK 200/DEF 1800) flashing into Battle Shogun's open monster zone. Two more Bushido Counters flashed onto Gateway of the Six for a total of six while Battle Shogun gained another for a total of two. "I tune Level One Fuma with Level Four Kizan!"
The ninja morphed into a blazing emerald tuner ring, Kizan breaking apart into a quartet of twinkling blue stars. The lights lined up in the spinning circle, a brilliant white pillar flaring through them and lighting up the dark cave of Mt. Glenn.
"Warrior savior lionized by history! Depose the feeble cowards too weak to take the prize! Mobilize from legend! Synchro Summon!" Adam roared, the mighty youthful warrior erupting down from the column of light, crimson and gold armor shining (ATK 2500/DEF 1400). Gateway of the Six and Battle Shogun both gained another round of Bushido Counters from their leader's arrival, the Link Monster's power rising (ATK 2100). "Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En!"
"Fascinating!" Oobleck exclaimed. "So, this is the Synchro Monster you created based on Shien's time as a conqueror of Anima. According to Tai's report to the police, it can negate the activation of a spell or trap card once a turn and destroy it?"
Adam scowled. He'd been aware of the inevitable consequence of The Sun Dragon of Hell surviving their encounter, but it was still vexing to him that the combo he'd worked so hard to create was now exposed to police across Remnant. While he was eager to show humanity that he was not to be trifled with, he was not blind to how useful the element of surprise was.
No matter. The combo's effectiveness was not decreased in and of itself. This duel would make a good warmup before he brought Blake to justice and ensured that her cowardice and treachery did not stop the White Fang's first major strike against humanity.
"Heed this battle cry of vengeance! Depose the feeble cowards!" Adam chanted, slamming his ace monster down on his duel disk. "Great Shogun Shien!"
From fire, he emerged. A mighty conflagration erupted in the monster zone next to Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En and a burning red katana sliced through it as the conqueror's older self stepped onto the field. As he did not have 'Six Samurai' in his name, neither Gateway of the Six or Battle Shogun gained any Bushido Counters, but that did not make the armored crimson warlord any less imposing, the shadows of the cavern fleeing from his domineering presence (ATK 2500/DEF 2400).
"Hope you weren't planning on using any spell or trap cards," Adam smirked. "With these two monsters on the field, you can't use any of them."
"A conqueror to vigorously strike the opponent's move and a reigning emperor to browbeat them into keeping in line. Certainly an accurate representation of Shien at those points in his life," Oobleck acknowledged, though there was a knowing glint flashing off his glasses. "Though, are you sure their combined presence makes me incapable of using 'any' spells or traps?"
Adam scoffed and rolled his eyes. He didn't know what the huntsman was babbling about, but he'd need to do better than that if he wanted to lower the bull faunus' guard against psychological warfare.
"Gateway of the Six has three effects that cost different amounts of Bushido Counters from my field. I can use them as long as I have Bushido Counters to spend. So I spend the eight Bushido Counters on it to activate its search effect twice. I add Secret Six Samurai - Kizaru and Secret Six Samurai - Hatsume to my hand," Adam announced, Battle Shogun of the Six Samurai sagging due to the lost Bushido Counters (ATK 1300). Still, the bull faunus took two monsters from his deck and then set the other card he'd had in his hand. With his Shien lock active, he had crippled his opponent before he'd even had a chance to make a move. "I set one card facedown."
Oobleck turned to the corgi that'd been left behind with him. "The grunt that Mr. Perry had with him got knocked outside to the rooftop in the earlier attack. Please go cover him."
"Aaf!" the dog barked, nodding in the affirmative and dashing out the cave door.
"Hoping your pet will drag at least one prisoner back to your masters?" Adam taunted. "Perhaps that will redeem you to Ozpin in death."
"More concerned that he'll get caught in the crossfire of this duel," Oobleck replied, separating one card in his hand from the other four. He glanced back at Perry's corpse, something pretending to be regret behind his glasses. "You do not seem to feel such for your men."
"Don't bore us both with false moral condescension," Adam scoffed. "My men understand the reality of war. I had the chance to take out you, Blake, and the rest in one fell stroke, preserving our operation's security and removing the threat bearing down on our base even as we speak. Perry would have gladly died for that. Hindsight does not change the fact that it was the optimal tactic at the time."
"Tactics are only a tool of battle. You'll find strategy shapes war," Oobleck said, placing the card he isolated in his hand onto his duel disk. "Shapes history."
Adam was about to shoot off another retort when the cavern suddenly shook with a low rumble, dust and pebbles rattling loose from the walls.
The cave wall behind the huntsman exploded, a meteorite of gargantuan size ramming through the solid stone as if it were paper mache. Adam crossed his arms in front of his face and hunkered down as the asteroid smashed into the ground, a dust cloud emanating from the impact and destorying everything in its path. Battle Shogun of the Six Samurai, Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En, and even Great Shogun Shien himself, all of them were obliterated in a single, cataclysmic strike.
When he lowered his arms again, The Blood-Soaked Bull gaped at how the battlefield had changed. His monsters, mighty and glorious, were gone, their remains floating about as clouds of shimmering particles.
In front of Oobleck, the enormous meteorite that crashed into the field stood, the giant rock as craggy yet resolute as one might expect of something that could survive such an impact (ATK 3000/DEF 600).
Behind the huntsman, the cavern wall was gone, revealing the underground ruins of Mt. Glenn to the duelists. Adam saw the corgi yank the unconscious White Fang grunt down into a lifeless skyscraper. Above, there was a small hole in the firmament of dirt, the stormy clouds beyond flashing with lightning that barely illuminated The Blood-Soaked Bull.
The only tiny patch of sky available, with him only having a single eye to see it. He could either take it or give it up to the humans. He'd learned long ago there was no middle ground, no matter what childish fantasy Blake desperately sought.
"What did you do?!" he demanded of his opponent, finally breaking his attempts at stoicism. "What happened to my monsters?"
"Nibiru, The Primal Being. A good friend of mine loves summoning giant dinosaur after giant dinosaur, so I forged a big rock to swat them," Oobleck explained, nodding at his meteorite. "During the Main Phase, if you've normal or special summoned five or more times that turn, I can tribute as many monsters on the field as possible and special summon Nibiru from my hand."
"You can tribute all of my monsters?!" Adam gaped. "That's impossible! No card is that powerful! There must be a… catch?"
The bull faunus' eye widened behind his Grimm mask as the shimmering particles that had once been his monsters coalesced together, steadily forming into a new, misshapen creature (ATK ?/DEF ?).
"You're not wrong. It was necessary to forge a restriction into the card in order to stabilize it with such a powerful effect," Oobleck confirmed. "A Primal Being Token is summoned to your field. Its attack and defense points become equal to the total original attack and defense points of all the monsters that were tributed. Even in destruction, even in failure, there is hope for new beginnings."
The Primal Being Token finished coming together from Adam's monsters, letting out a shrieking roaring at the tiny patch of true sky visible above (ATK 6000/DEF 3800).
Adam's eye narrowed at the disgusting creature that'd been foisted upon him. "So you're just giving me a monster with six thousand attack points. What kind of a tactic is that?"
"Not a tactic. Strategy," Oobleck warned, placing another card from his hand onto his duel disk. "Your Shien combo, flawed though it was, is gone and my key to victory sits ready and waiting on the field. I normal summon Chronomaly Gordion Knot."
Adam gnashed his teeth together as a cluttered cluster of ancient, yet strangely advanced cubes flashed in front of the professor (ATK 300/DEF 900). How on Remnant was his Shien combo flawed? It completely locked the opponent out of using spells and traps. More importantly, how was Nibiru the key to the huntsman's victory? Three thousand attack points wasn't something to underestimate, but it summoned a far more powerful monster to The Blood-Soaked Bull's field. Did the meteorite have some additional effect once it was on the field?
"The Gordion Knot was famously the most complicated knot in history, with the era's greatest minds unable to untie its complex web. And so, when Chronomaly Gordion Knot is normal summoned, another Chronomaly monster in my hand gets tangled up and special summoned along with it," Oobleck said, choosing another card from his hand. "Not only that, but Chronomaly Gordion Knot takes on that monster's level."
"They become the same level?!" Adam exclaimed, realizing exactly what his enemy was setting up for. And just how powerless he was to stop it.
"I special summon Chronomaly Acambaro Figures!" Oobleck announced, a misshapen, hunched-over clay statue rising up from the dirt of Mt. Glenn (ATK 1000/DEF 1800). Chronomaly Gordion Knot whirred, the cubes that made it up rotating to assume their new comrade's level. "And now that they're both Level Five, I use Chronomaly Acambaro Figures and Chronomaly Gordion Knot to build the Overlay Network!"
"Xyz Summoning," Adam growled, an orange nebula blooming in front of the Beacon professor as his ancient monsters morphed into energy nodes and swirled through the stars.
If there was one summoning style Adam truly loathed, it was Xyz Summoning, the style preferred by the elite of Atlas, Mistral, and (as much as they would deny such proclivities) Vale. They and their minions disdained the faunus, and clamored for the White Fang to be eradicated long before they'd taken up arms. They were the ones he'd make pay most of all, who he'd rip from their ivory towers with Fusion and The Breach.
"Amidst white clouds not always silver-lined, rise against the storm. Arise from history to save the bleak future, to bring days that shine like gold, every step ascending to a brilliant sky!" Oobleck chanted, solemn yet passionate as the glow of his spiral galaxy gleamed off his glasses. "Xyz Summon! Rank Five! Number 33: Chronomaly Machu Mech!"
"Number?!" Adam shouted in shock, only to have to shield his masked eye as the nebula erupted with a blinding supernova.
When he could see again, the sky above the barren underground city was filled by another metropolis. Ancient, but far from the ruins of Mt. Glenn. Shining, brilliant, and golden, an advanced utopia that could not possibly have been made with the archaic technology of the long ago past (ATK 2400/DEF 1500). Let alone the bright floatation ring holding the city in the air, blocking off the brief hole in the stone roof that light had flowed in from before. Hoarding that precious light of the sky, just like…
"Atlas," Adam snarled, a lifetime of wrath and pain heating his hoarse voice.
"The architects behind the city's gravity dust systems did claim it as an inspiration. They dreamed that such an achievement could be replicated in the modern age, to create a standard of hope to reinvigorate the world after the horrors of the Great War. The success of this dream's implementation in reality is obviously quite mixed. But the dream itself was pure," Oobleck said. "What is your dream, Mr. Taurus? What do you hope to achieve by making The White Fang party to something so abominable as unleashing a horde of Grimm on a kingdom? Whatever sympathizers you have among the public will evaporate and the thousands of faunus who call Vale home will die too if it falls. What is the point?"
Adam ignored the hunting duelist, glaring up at Machu Mech with venomous loathing. "Strength. And through it, victory. Like the conquerors of old."
"Your people will die."
"My people are dying every day, crushed and squeezed by humans for every sliver of use they can get out of them. Breaking their backs in mines for scraps until they die in cave-ins or squirreling themselves away in frontier cesspits to wait for Grimm, crying for huntsmen that never come when they're needed. The reality of war," Adam sneered. "The humans want to keep my people asleep, docile. But this will awaken them. When the Grimm burn Vale to the ground as the White Fang's flag flies, those who feign tolerance will be unmasked for what they really are."
Oobleck's eyes widened in horror. "You… you're counting on humanity to attack innocent faunus in the aftermath?"
"They already do. The Natural Order. The Hunters for Humanity. The politicians, businessmen, and police who aid them and then smile and say it was the faunus' fault. Did Perry tell you what they did to his siblings? They have no fear and so strike with impunity," Adam declared, a victorious smirk splitting his lips. "I will make them afraid. And in their fear, they will stop their hiding. And when they come for my people, my people will rally to me. And like Shien reborn, I will lead them to take our rightful place in this world, to take what we deserve."
"And those faunus who don't join you? Like Blake?"
Adam frowned at the mention of his treacherous lover. "If I have learned anything from High Leader Khan's example, it is strength and unwavering conviction. Flaccid fools, too weak to take the prize, are not needed. We will win without them."
"You'll win?" Oobleck repeated, tutting in disapproval. "Maybe you will. But nobody wins forever. Not even the great shogun Shien. When he discovered that loyal Shinai had hidden that he was a faunus, he sent him to die in battle without promised reinforcements. He thought he could keep his monstrous decision secret, but when Mizuho discovered what he'd done to her lover, she and the rest of his retainers destroyed him. Pragmatism, even brutal pragmatism may have its necessary uses, but monstrousness is never without consequence. You seek to be a conqueror, but you alienate and ostracize those who might otherwise be your friends, your Six Samurai."
Adam glowered at the huntsman from behind his Grimm mask. "You finally got me to talk, human. Now take your turn."
Oobleck sighed. "Very well. I can no longer risk the time it would take trying to make you realize the reality of what you're doing, not with so many lives on the line. But I might still show you the power of the bonds you reject. After all, I would not have been able to forge Nibiru without my friendly rivalry with a certain dinosaur-using dog trainer I know. I activate Machu Mech's special ability!"
Adam watched carefully as one of the floating proto Atlas' giant Overlay Units smashed into the metropolis, ten city blocks of golden cannons popping out from the surface of the floatation ring. Numbers were some of the rarest and most difficult to summon Xyz Monsters in existence. Not all of them were powerful, but those that were could be some of the most devastating creatures in all of dueling. The ace huntsman wouldn't have gone to the trouble of bringing this one out for no reason.
"Once per turn, Number 33: Machu Mech can use one Overlay Unit to activate its effect," Oobleck announced. "It targets one face-up monster on your field and then inflicts the difference between its current attack points and its original attack points to you as damage."
"What's the point of that?" Adam questioned. "Thanks to you, my only monster is the Primal Being Token, and it still has all the attack points it started with."
Oobleck smirked. "You are incredibly talented, Mr. Taurus. And through fire, blood, and hard-earned experience, you have forged that talent into terrifying skill. But Duel Monsters is a complex form of combat, laced with hundreds of minute intricacies, some still being researched and discovered to this very day. The academies and the combat schools that funnel into them exist to educate students in as many of those details as possible. Details that you seem to have an incomplete knowledge of."
"Your point?"
"Your Primal Being Token does indeed have all the attack points it started with. However, that is not its 'original' attack point value. That quantity is uncertain, and thus represented in the details of Nibiru's card as a question mark," Oobleck explained. "And for the purposes of calculating an original attack points value on such a monster, unless its effect explicitly states otherwise, it is considered to have zero original attack points."
Adam's heart stilled, an icy dread sinking through his form as Machu Mech's artillery began to burn with crackling energy. "That means…"
"The difference between the Primal Being Token's current attack points and its original attack points is six thousand. Which means you take six thousand points of damage!"
The huntsman had said his key to victory had gotten on the field when Nibiru was summoned. It wasn't the rock itself. It was the Primal Being Token!
"Go, Machu Mech!" Oobleck roared, the archaeologist thrusting his arm forward. "Infinity Cannon!"
Like the thunderous artillery of Atlas, the Number's cannons erupted with a deafening bombardment. Streams of golden lightning stampeded towards Adam, even the guns facing away from him somehow twisting their payloads through the air as they streaked for The Blood-Soaked Bull.
He was going to lose. It didn't matter how much he deserved victory, he was going to lose! His facedown couldn't stop an effect damage strike, neither could either of the two cards in his hand! He didn't have anything that could completely negate the damage!
In his mind's eye, Atlas flashed over Machu Mech, the city in the sky that had kept him in its shadow all his life, that blocked the sky from him.
Then the scorpion faunus laughed, his nightmarish toy chimeras picking apart each of Adam's samurai, sapping his strength with a realm of shadows.
"Come now, Mr. Taurus! I'd hoped the Blood-Soaked Bull would show more promise! You love the fight so much, so why do you hold yourself back? Give yourself to your great passion! Burn everything down for your victory!"
Then Fall, her monstrous demonic dragon blasting right through his defenses, its black skull lit by a hellish conflagration. The human's right eye blazed with an unnatural golden glow as she smirked down at him with undisguised superiority.
"My plan will be beneficial for both of us, Adam. Or one of us. You've gained such power already. Why throw it away when there's so much more to be had?
The Sun Dragon of Hell, Red Nova Dragon blazing above him like a second sun, stealing the sky from Adam and the shattered moon. And yet, even as his body betrayed him and the blond huntsman looked like death itself, he still dared to look at him with such demeaning pity.
"Let go. Give in. Accept what you're given."
Blake, atop Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon, upon a train, running away from him, the red of Forever Fall obscuring the sky.
"Goodbye, Adam."
Armstrong standing atop his chest, the fat bastard jamming down his branding iron as Adam's screams from all those years ago shrieked through his mind.
"This is what you deserve, you animal."
He reached for Wilt's graveyard slot just as Machu Mech's cannonfire crashed down upon him.
SDC.
BOOM!
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"What was that?" Blake asked, glancing back down the tunnel from which they'd come as the sound of an explosion echoed through the darkness.
"With any luck, the prof kicking your ex's butt and coming to back us up," Yang remarked, careful to keep Bumblebee steady even as Weiss' glyphs aided with balance and allowed the rest of Team RWBY to slide alongside the duel runner as they gripped its sides. "If it isn't… try not to think about if it isn't."
"It… it'll be alright. Dr. Oobleck is an ace hunting duelist. He… he can handle this," Weiss stammered, sounding like she was trying to convince herself as well as them. "A–and even if worst should come to worst, The Blood-Soaked Bull has no runner. He'll never make it back to the base in time for the battle. Which just leaves… which just leaves…"
"Torchwick, Ilia, and a small army armed with enough dust to blow a hole in a mountain," Blake gulped, Perry's corpse flashing through her mind as she shivered. "Who either know that they're trying to flood Vale with Grimm or won't believe us when we tell them. And if we fail…"
Every man, woman, and child in Vale, human or faunus, could die. All that righteous talk back at Beacon about needing to stop whatever the White Fang was planning, all her turmoil about scapegoating her Fusion Monsters and working up the will to fight her former friends, it all seemed so hilariously tiny now. In the face of the cataclysmic stakes they were up against, even the most experienced hunting duelists would surely feel fear.
Team RWBY were not experienced hunting duelists. For all Blake's past sins, for all Weiss' education, for all Yang's strength, they were still students. No amount of prodigious talent could prepare them for suddenly having the fate of an entire kingdom on their shoulders. All those people. All those lives. How could they possibly–
"We won't fail."
Blake's eyes whipped to Ruby, the silver-eyed girl stalwartly fiddling with her duel disk, ordering her deck for a hunting mode battle.
"The greatest team of 'underage huntresses dedicated to uncovering the nefarious plot against the Kingdom of Vale' ever. That's what we decided we were going to be," their leader reminded them. "We've uncovered it. Now we stop it."
Weiss and Yang's faces steadily stilled, the certainty in their youngest teammate's voice shoring up their shivering forms. Their fear was pushed down just a bit. Just enough.
Blake could not help but bite her lip though. "Ruby, can we stop them?"
"Doesn't matter. We will. That's what we signed up for," the Silver-Eyed Signer declared, locking in her deck's order. "We do what we can to make sure Perry's the last person to die today. But no matter what, we're not letting a single Grimm into Vale alive."
"Hell yeah!" Yang grinned. "Like the prof said when we got off the bullhead, we're huntresses now. We can do this!"
Blake tried her best to smile. Weiss reached over and squeezed her arm in comfort. "We'll take them together."
The Odd-Eyed Bandit took a deep breath and nodded, steeling her resolve as she looked over all three of them. The hyperactive cookie-addicted duel maniac. The uptight heiress determined to hold herself to the mark as she discovered her path. The bombastic ace that warmed them all with her strength and love.
Her team. Her friends. She'd never dreamed that any people could become so dear to her in so little time, a mere semester and three-quarters. She'd tried to run from them on Patch, terrified that they would leap into fire by her side. Now they had and the blaze was more massive than she ever could have fathomed, her nightmare made real.
And yet in their eyes, violet eyes, blue eyes, and especially silver eyes… she saw hope.
It would have to be enough.
"What's the plan, Ruby?" Blake asked.
"We smash in hard and fast, Hot Red Dragon Archfiend as the battering ram. If we can't destroy the train from the outside, you and Weiss get on board and stop it from the inside. You have the train robbing experience and she knows enough about dust to help defuse any bombs on it. Yang and I will cover you," the red-hooded girl plotted out. "We'll be outnumbered. If we get caught in a duel anchor, we're finished, so keep moving and keep blasting. Don't let them coordinate. We lose the momentum, and we're dead."
"Us and all of Vale," Weiss morosely remarked, the Ice Queen steeling her face for war. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Or close the wall up with our Mistral dead."
"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility," Blake continued, recognizing the theatre passage her teammate was quoting, one of the most celebrated playwrights in Mistral's history.
"Well, we're not at peace. And we ain't men," Yang declared with a smirk, slapping Vice Dragon and Soul Resonator's cards onto Bumblebee's duel disk, preparing to bring out Hot Red Dragon Archfiend for the assault.
"That's not the end of the passage," Weiss informed her.
"Really? How's it go next?" Ruby inquired. "I've only heard that famous part before."
"But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger," Blake continued, recalling how Sienna had helped her understand its meaning long ago.
In short, if the day came when you had to fight, fight like hell.
To stop what they were heading into? They'd need to.
And just like that, the Mt. Glenn Arc's pacing is thrown off again. This duel was only one chapter in my outline, but Adam's flashbacks ended up being more extensive than I'd originally expected. Then I realized that the first four thousand or so words I wrote for the following chapter actually fit much better in the previous chapter, bringing the total up to 20K words. So I figured that, since I'm hungry to post and still waiting on some trusted friends to give me some thoughts on the rest of the Adam flashback stuff (that subject matter is sensitive material and I need to be as sure as I can that I am portraying it effectively), I could just slice off the first half of the chapter with the non-sensitive flashback material and publish it as a Part 1. I'm not sure if it is healthy for the pacing of the arc overall for the Adam duel to take two chapters, but I can't deny that the cutoff point is effective as a chapter endpoint.
But yeah, Adam's an interesting character to play with here. In my previous stories, I've never actually gotten the chance to really dive into a full-blown backstory for Adam. In RWBY/Zero, I was working off pre-Volume 5 information and so designed him with more redeeming qualities that his relationship with Diarmuid in that story was able to draw out. And in Fairies of the Shattered Moon, he was very much a minor antagonist overall and didn't get much focus. Here, he has increased focus compared to what was known about him at this time in canon and I as a writer am aware of the full details of his character since the Adam Short and Volume 6 came out (thank goodness for the Adam Short, it saved him as a character for me), so I am excited to fully unveil his backstory in this version of Remnant. I wanted to build on the Adam Short's strengths and showcase that Adam did not start out as the monster he became, nor did he suddenly turn into one after the 'One Bad Day' that was his unjust branding. I deliberately designed him so that he starts out as most fantasy heroes do (burdened with family and mundane job, but wide-eyed and hopeful of going out and making his way in the world through hard work) and I look forward to showcasing more of the factors that led him down the path to where he is now in the present of the story, where his cynicism and wounded pride have consumed him.
And also, we get good old Dr. Oobleck in a duel! It was a bit of a struggle to differentiate his overtures to Adam here from Taiyang's back on Patch, but I think I was able to work it. Where Taiyang was very personal and tried to connect with Adam emotionally, Oobleck tries to get him to think about what he's doing from a wider perspective, like how he did with Yang, Weiss, and Blake back at the campsite. Unfortunately, history is a wide tapestry and it can honestly be used to justify a multitude of perspectives, so long as one only looks at the parts they want to see. Did have a lot of fun coming up with that Machu Mech and Nibiru combo, especially after I checked that it really works in EDOPro.
Speaking of the real-life card game, I know new Six Samurai support just dropped (it is awesome!) but I'd already written this duel and planned out another that involves the Six Samurai cards in the near future, so don't expect them to make any appearances soon. I do relish the opportunity to use them in some matches I have planned for Volume 3 though.
And then the ending scene with Blake and Team RWBY really stewing in the stakes they've found themselves in. Plus, Henry V shout-out! You have not experienced Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Mistralian, hahaha!
Next Time on Cards of Remnant!
"No more. The line must be drawn. Here! This far! No further! And I will make you pay for what you've done!"
"The wheel just keeps turning. Or do you expect a world built on wrath, genocide, and uncompromising racial purging to be free of troublemakers?"
"A girl with that much fire in her? How could anyone not admire the blaze? Especially when her parents give her such weak, passive kindling."
"It's your life or the tens of thousands of innocents that you're going to murder."
"Shame this ain't the schoolyard. In the real world, guys like me don't waste our talents on cookie jars. And it takes more to stop us than kiddies playing huntress."
"No more running, Blake."
Next Time on Cards of Remnant: Seeing Red - Part 2
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Go Forth and Conquer!