Every year by the time the shadows began to grow long on the ground, one could easily expect to see the cluster of buildings that contained the lecture halls, classrooms, and various other buildings relating to teaching to be completely dark. Classes never went much further past five in the evening, and no self-respecting student would ever stay very long past that. A few minutes, maybe, but not several hours past quitting time. Teachers would also usually be well on their way back to their offices, or to the teacher housing (or for the various headmasters, the dorms they were in charge of). All-in-all, it was standard for that area of the campus to be deserted by nightfall.
However, this specific year proved different.
“Move those legs kids! Right foot forward, swing those arms, then bring it back for the left foot forward!”
Several laughing students, their jackets showing a steady mixture of red, yellow, and blue colors, followed the talking cat’s strict commands. In a strange blend of modern tech with comparatively ancient tech, a small brass gramophone spat out a lively jazz melody out of its flared horn while a duel disk placed on the teacher’s desk showed a moving hologram of several well-dressed men dancing in a loop for the students to visually follow.
“And stop!”
The tan, brown-striped cat stood on his hind legs and leaped onto the desk, flicking his claw forward to ease the needle of the gramophone off the record.
“Much better.” Banner purred his praise now that the music had stopped. He looked each one of his students right in the eyes, one by one, noting their state of pleased exhaustion at hearing his words. “Each one of you still has a way to go, but I imagine by the end of this semester purrhaps we may be able to try our luck in a competition. Even if we are without luck in it, the experience shall be most valuable.”
The small group of students raised their tired, shaking hands to let loose a hoarse cheer.
Banner nodded in satisfaction and motioned with a paw to dismiss the students. A few of them lingered for a moment or two to trade jokes or chat, but the majority of the students dispersed down the hallway in several chattering groups, with the stragglers following soon after. As soon as the final student disappeared, Banner leaped around the room with a wet rag. The scuff marks on the floor created by careless students not paying attention to how wildly they danced were erased. A cloth was gently placed over his old gramophone. Many of his students were surprised to see the device whenever he brought it out, but sometimes Banner wondered if they fully understood that he hadn’t purchased it at an antique store. No, he’d actually bought it when the machine was first revealed to the public.
Banner suppressed a wry smile at the thought. Sometimes even he forgot how old he was.
“And a bing, and a boom, and that’s all she wrote.” Banner murmured to himself in satisfaction once the cleaning was done. This little after-class club of his was nice, but those kids really did know how to put a room into disarray. "And…" Banner turned toward the door and raised his voice, "It's usually polite for visitors to announce themselves. Particularly if they plan to kill or brainwash me."
“Ah. My apologies.” A voice responded from the other side of the door. Hearing the words felt like someone had dumped a bucket of sewer slime over his shoulders, but Banner simply sat back on his haunches and licked his paw while he waited for his visitor to enter. His tongue ran up and down his claws, cleaning out every speck of dirt on the surprisingly delicate part of his new body’s anatomy. Truly, before becoming a cat, Banner had never fully appreciated how much of that animal’s body was a finely tuned machine, requiring delicate care in order to properly function.
Eventually, the man on the other side of the door got the hint and opened it himself. The door slid open smoothly to reveal a gaunt man in a charcoal black suit, eyes peering out from behind a thin pair of spectacles to observe the professor.
Banner raised a single cat eyebrow, looking the man up and down while he waited for him to introduce himself. Frankly speaking, he wasn’t impressed. The man looked like a filthy lawy-
"Good evening. My name is Howard Miller. I have the fortune to act as a lawyer at Mr. Kumar's behest."
Great. For once Banner cursed his own instincts for being right on the mark. The man was a professional weasel.
“Mr. Kumar?” Banner questioned while he raised his other paw for cleaning.
“Sartorius Kumar. My client and the very same man who showed me the truth of the Light.”
Banner sighed and sat his paw down on his desk, leaving the cleaning unfinished.
“I see. Well, thank you for waiting patiently outside until my little jazz club finished.” He raised his paw once more, carefully manipulating his claws to mimic the human action of snapping his fingers. As soon as he did, the door slammed shut with an ear-shattering ‘bang’ while the temperature of the room dropped low enough that both his and Howard Miller’s breath was clearly visible in the air in front of them.
“Woah.” Howard waved his hands with a slimy, snake-like smile. “Easy there. No need to get to business just yet. I’m a lawyer, you see? We try to solve things through words whenever possible. Naturally, I have a proposition for you, Lyman Banner. I hope it will prove an amicable solution to all parties involved.”
Banner titled his head. Naturally that did make sense. He shrugged and knocked his paw against the top of his head.
“Whoopsie. I truly am forgetful. I suppose the polite thing to do would be to exchange meaningless offers before things get a bit deadly. You say your thing, I say my thing, we both disagree, then we try to kill each other. That is, of course, the way civilized men of this age do things?” He waved his paw in the air and chuckled.
“Forgive this old man. It’s the downside of living for thousands of years. You become… something different. Not… entirely human.” Those last words were delivered in a tone far different from Banner’s normal, more carefree one. No, this tone sounded old. Empty. Cold, even. Like Banner had at one point entirely forgotten what it meant to be human.
“No, I have no need for your proposition. See, I don’t like lawyers. I don’t like mages that think they can come onto this island, lurk outside my classroom for hours while I’m trying to teach some good, honest kids how to dance the Charleston, and then slip inside like a little grass snake trying to make demands because it thinks its a big nasty cobra. How about this. I have a proposition for you that is most likely radically different than yours. I will defeat you in a shadow duel. Then I will extract all the information I require from your brain, string your corpse up from its ankles, drain all the blood from your body, and use your bones to fuel my rituals.”
Howard Miller’s face constricted into a scowl, but before he could finish opening his mouth to reply, Banner interrupted him with a carefree tone.
“Oh. There’s no need to reply or to tell me your offer. I legitimately do not care what it is. Draw your cards, lawyer man. The shadow game has already begun.”
Frost started to build up on the walls around the room. Even though Howard’s opponent was a small animal, Banner somehow looked far bigger than he should have been. Banner still physically looked like a housecat, but his presence was like that of a starving tiger the size of a semi-truck looking at its next meal.
Banner: 4000 Howard: 4000
“Fine!” Howard venomously spat the word out and readied his duel disk. Five cards shot into his hand, with a sixth following it soon after as he drew to start his turn. “Here I thought you were a man that could be reasoned with, a man that could see the strength of the Light and understand that its dominion is inevitable. No matter. Once I defeat you, the truth shall shine. I summon Gokipon (800/800) in defense position and place one card face down. End turn!”
“An insect deck.” Banner purred in amusement. He waved his paws, causing the edges of his desk to glow and then contort. The wood rippled like someone had thrown a hefty rock into the middle of a pond. Eventually, two thick wooden arms burst out of the sides of the piece of furniture, one of the arms strapping on a duel disk from the side of the room while the other drew a hand from the deck enclosed within and showed it to Banner.
“Purrfect.” Banner chuckled. His paws moved once more to pluck a card out of the wooden arm to place it on the duel disk. “Like all meals, one must prepare the dish before serving. I summon Baobaboon (1200/1000) in attack position. Its effect activates, allowing me to draw a card before placing one card from my hand on either the top or bottom of my deck.”
After a moment of consideration, Banner manipulated the wooden arms to place one of the cards from his hand onto the top of his deck before moving into his battle phase.
“Baobaboon, strike down that bug.”
The state of the field would have looked utterly strange to any casual observer. Banner’s monster, a tree with four roots acting like legs that had the face of a baboon sticking out the middle of it stared down a plucky, white-gloved beetle on the other side of the field. Before long, the tree let out a monstrous roar as it charged. The beetle attempted to jump out of the way like a matador would for a bull, but the tree baboon was too fast, and it turned Gokipon into a smear on the floor.
“You fool!” Howard sneered, "Because you destroyed my monster by battle, I can activate its effect! I add one insect monster with 1500 or fewer attack points from my deck to my hand. My choice is Warm Worm!”
Banner tilted his head in mild curiosity, but eventually, he realized he didn't care at all what the card did and ended his turn.
“I draw!”
Howard flicked his eyes downward toward his hand and chuckled. “Another step closer to victory. I summon Warm Worm (600/1400) in defense position, and then I activate Card Destruction! We both discard our hands and draw cards equal to the amount we sent!”
While Banner manipulated the wooden arms to do just that, Howard casually tossed his hand in the graveyard and launched into his next play. “Next up is Hand Destruction! We both send two cards from our hand to the graveyard and then draw two cards! Then…” Howard licked his lips with a greyish, almost ill-looking tongue. “I activate my spell card The Shallow Grave. This card allows us both to select one monster from our respective graveyards to special summon in face down defense position. My choice will be Needle Worm (750/600).”
“And mine shall be Don Turtle (1100/1200).”
Both man and cat stared at each other with appraising eyes upon noting the other’s choice. Each play revealed tiny hints of each duelist’s strategy, but nothing was certain yet.
A wooden arm gently pulled another card off the top of Banner’s duel disk as Howard ended his turn with no further moves.
“A mill deck? Or are you digging through your cards for something interesting…” Banner mused aloud.
Howard carelessly shrugged. “So questions the little cat who hasn’t summoned anything serious yet. Are you working toward a strong tribute summon?”
"Ah, well, you know…" Banner shrugged and then looked up with a grin that wasn't quite happy. No, Banner's catlike grin had more of a sickening nature to it. It spoke of ill news, of humanity that was barely even an afterthought most days. “Say, there is one thing I am happy to test in this duel.” He gestured with one paw toward a strange black iron spire near his desk. Compared to how it had looked even a few days ago, the spire was less of a metal pole and more like an iron tree that had most of its branches trimmed to small nubs. From where it bit deeply into the wooden floor of the classroom, it extended all the way to the ceiling, which was a good seven or eight feet up into the air.
"I am a teacher. The teacher teaches the student. However, many times during their life a teacher may find themselves learning from the student. It’s something I personally find great joy in. Once you’ve lived as many years as I have, even the act of discovering a new slang word from one of the kids is enough to cause a shiver of thrill to run down my spine. So, imagine my surprise when, in the aftermath of that business with my Shadow Rider acquaintances, that I discovered something new.”
Banner paused for a moment to clean a bit of fuzz off his claws before continuing.
“You see, once upon a time I was allied with the enemies of this island for my own benefit. Yet, at the last second, we found ourselves wanting for a member after a prospective newbie, a man known as Titan, disappeared without a trace. Enter Marco Bernardello from stage left. A cocky Italian duelist with the skills to back up his own lust for blood. Except, I did not quite trust him. His willingness to resort to more… ordinary methods of defeating enemies is not something a true mage should lower themselves to resort to. After a night’s worth of thinking, I stuck an eye on the lapel of his jacket to observe the man. Just to make sure he did not do anything too distasteful, of course. Then the time came for our forces to attack. I was soundly defeated, and many other events took place. It wasn’t until a week later that I received the chance to steal away and review the footage of the night Marco Bernardello died.”
Banner fell silent and turned his head to look at the black iron tree. The silence of the room was only broken up by the mist-covered breaths both duelists exhaled into the air, along with the occasional noises from the monsters on the field as they hooted, chirped, and squirmed on the ground while they waited for their respective masters to command them.
“I flip summon Don Turtle. His effect will activate, allowing me to special summon any number of Don Turtles from my hand. Sadly, that will only be one, but it matters not. See, I now possess three level three monsters on my side of the field.”
“So?” Howard questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Banner simply smiled in response. A vicious smile, but a smile nevertheless.
“I overlay two level three Don Turtles to XYZ summon the guitarist of romance, the trench coat demon of smooth destruction, Muzurhythm the String Djinn (1500/1000)!”
The air itself shivered as if there was a great and terrifying force swimming through the room looking for something… or someone. Ripples filled the room and the air itself visibly contorted – before a massive ‘crack’ sent both duelists stumbling back. Behind Banner, the black iron tree glowed a soft cherry red color. Whatever invisible force was in the air had struck the black iron tree!
"Heh heh. Ahahaha! It worked!" Banner shouted with some amount of relief present in his tone. “Haha! It worked!” He repeated. Meanwhile, Howard stumbled back in shock as a new monster strolled onto the field, its coal-black fingers plucking away at a double-necked guitar with each step it took. The monster was mostly covered in an orange trench coat. A single red rose stuck out of its mouth, and a pair of horns pierced straight through a tan fedora. Even from where Howard stood on the other side of the room, the aura of power surrounding the djinn was unmistakable.
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"X…YZ? That doesn't exist!" Howard hoarsely croaked in denial. His hands waved through the air as if this was nothing but a dream or a mirage he could dispel if he tried hard enough.
Banner grimly smiled. “I was of the same opinion once upon a time. I reviewed the footage of the eye I stuck on my associate’s lapel over and over and over again. One fact remained constant. Marco Bernardello met his end at the hands of a duelist who successfully discovered a new form of summoning. Immediately after that undeniable fact sunk into my brain, I devoted every amount of spare time I could scrape together toward figuring it out. I researched between classes. I didn't sleep for months. Over time I came to understand that this method of summoning isn't natural. The shadows themselves recoil against it and try to punish the user. Yet, it is still possible, meaning that somewhere, at some point in time, it is a legitimate method of summoning."
Banner stood up on his hind legs and began to pace while he casually explained it all.
“Truth be told, your little cult has been quite helpful to me. See, I can do research just fine, but having living test subjects at my disposal speeds the process up enormously. Once your friends started to roll into town, I essentially gained access to a large pool of subjects that I could have unlimited access to without being forced to worry that Midori or Vellian would begin to ask me questions that they do not wish to know the answer to.”
A look of mild revulsion crossed Howard’s face while Banner continued to say those words in his usual calm tones.
“Those subjects allowed me to answer questions of my own. How many XYZ summons can a human body withstand before it implodes under the stress. How one might train to better shoulder the burden… and how to redirect all of the backlash. That last bit was the real trick. It required quite a few batteries to get right.” Banner finished. His tone was still calm, but there was a hint of madness that Howard could see lurking deep in the cat’s eyes.
“I enter my battle phase.” Banner casually transitioned back to the game at hand and nodded his head at Howard’s monsters. “Muzurhythm, destroy Warm Worm. Baobaboon, destroy my opponent’s face down monster.”
“As expected!” Howard roared and extended his hand outward. “When Warm Worm is destroyed, I can force you to send the top three cards from your deck to your graveyard. In addition, my face down monster’s flip effect will activate when Baobaboon strikes! Needle Worm sends the top five cards from your deck to your graveyard!”
Banner used his wooden arms to flip eight cards off the top of his deck to the graveyard with an unreadable expression as his two monsters struck home, and then ended his turn with no further moves.
“Draw!” Howard shouted and yanked a card off the top of his duel disk. “I place one monster in face down defense position and activate the continuous spell card Level Limit – Area B! Though none are present on the field currently, any level four or higher monster that is summoned will be forced into defense position as long I control this card. I end my turn.”
Banner cocked his head sideways, noting the spell card with mild interest.
“I see. Most certainly a mill deck. It is unfortunate that you have me as your opponent. I draw. By banishing the earth attribute D.D. Warrior that was sent to the graveyard due to your Card Destruction, I can special summon the level four The Rock Spirit (1700/1000) to my field.”
“Which changes to defense position immediately.” Howard reminded him. Banner acknowledged his words with a flick of his tail and continued.
“Then I normal summon the level four D.D. Assailant. Now that I have two level four monsters on the field, regardless if they are in defense position or not, I overlay both my monsters to XYZ summon the demonic conductor, Maestroke the Symphony Djinn (1800/2300) in attack position!”
Once more the air convulsed and roiled like an invisible storm was brewing, and once more the pressure shot off toward the black metal tree to leave it glowing a warm cherry red. A demonic conductor soon appeared, a sword in its hands and blasts of music echoing with each step it took. Yet that wasn’t what caught Howard’s attention. At least, not fully.
“Your monster appears to be level four.” Howard pointed out with some irritation. “You need to change it to defense position in accordance with my continuous spell card."
Banner shook his head. “Ah. Lawyers and their habit of quibbling over words. I regret to inform you that XYZ monsters don’t have levels. They have ranks, which is enough of a distinction that they do not have to follow the rules of most cards that specify levels. Muzurhythm, strike through the defense of his face down monster!”
Howard spat out a quick curse as Banner abruptly changed gears again and ordered a sudden attack.
“Feh! No matter! My face down card is Cyber Jar! Its flip effect activates as soon as your monster attacks, destroying all monsters on the field!”
"Or it would, if not for this," Banner smirked. "Maestroke allows me to ignore that for the most part. If a Djinn monster were to be destroyed, I can simply detach a material from that monster instead. That’ll mean one material is detached from Maestroke, and one from Muzurhythm. My Baobaboon is still destroyed, however.”
“It matters not. Cyber Jar’s effect still continues into the next part. Now that as many monsters as possible on the field have been destroyed, both players reveal the top five cards from the decks. Any level four or lower monsters are special summoned in attack position or face down defense position, and the rest of the cards go to the hand.”
Both duelists dutifully revealed five cards each. Banner didn’t have a single monster to summon, but Howard brought forth Pinch Hopper (1000/1200), Hiro’s Shadow Scout (650/500), Danipon (600/600), and another Warm Worm (600/1400) all in face down defense position.
“Ah, once Cyber Jar’s effect resolves, I do indeed have an effect to activate.” Banner gracefully interrupted the flurry of summons. “Because Baobaboon was destroyed, I can special summon two more Baobaboons from my deck in attack position. Then their effects will allow me to draw two cards and place two cards from my hand to either the top or bottom of my deck.”
Now that the grinning metal jar had finished resolving its effect, refilling Howard’s field in the process, Banner sprung back to the offensive with his new lineup of baboon-faced trees.
“The next target shall be Danipon!” Banner directed one of his Baobaboons toward the cheerful yellow bug on Howard’s side of the field. Once Baobaboon finished crushing it into a pulp, Danipon’s effect activated to add one copy of Aztekipede, The Worm Warrior (1900/400) to Howard’s hand. The other Baobaboon charged right into Hiro’s Shadow Scout, the blue cyclops taking the strike with a scream of pain as it shattered into pieces.
“Hiro’s flip effect still goes through.” Howard slyly smiled. “You get the wonderful opportunity to draw three cards. Any spell cards within those three get discarded, and the rest stay in your hand.”
Banner slowly blinked in mild surprise, but ultimately accepted the draw. One card, Monster Reborn, was discarded, and the rest were casually glanced over. None of them provoked any noticeable reaction from the professor.
“Fine by me. I enter my second main phase and place three cards face down. I have a feeling that soon you shall regret giving me so many cards to work with.”
“In exchange for over half your deck.” Howard snickered evilly and pointed toward Banner’s duel disk. As the lawyer observed, Banner’s deck was roughly half the size it had been when the duel started.
Banner really didn’t have much to say about that, so he quietly ended his turn.
“You know, it’s funny.” Howard spoke in his usual snake-like tone, as if he'd finally recovered from the shock of seeing Banner's new monsters. "At this point I don't think I even need to create a strategy to defeat your XYZs. I only have to deck you out! I place one monster in face down defense position and end my turn!”
Banner sent a side glance toward the duel disk held in one of the wooden arms he was manipulating through his own blend of dark magic. By his estimates, he had roughly twenty cards left from the original forty. Perhaps fifteen if he were to be cautious with his estimate. At this rate… with his opponent having three monsters on the field, three of them in face down defense position and all assumingly with the ability to either force him to draw cards or to mill cards, then he would be in trouble soon.
One of the face downs was Warm Worm, that he knew for certain. Warm Worm would be three cards. Pinch Hopper had an effect unknown to him, but the glimpse he'd gotten at its defense points when Howard had revealed the card as part of Cyber Jar's effect told him it wasn't anything his Baobaboons could overpower. Aztekipede still lurked in the man’s hand, but it was currently unusable due to the continuous spell card, Level Limit – Area B. If Howard tried to summon it, the card would be forced to defense position. Nothing he needed to worry about at this moment.
Then there was Howard’s mystery face down card, a potential wrench in the works that had lurked in his spell and trap card zone since the beginning of the duel. Was it a card that hadn’t had the conditions triggered for it yet? Or was his opponent biding his time for the opportune moment?
Banner’s ears flicked in annoyance, the only movement of his body that betrayed that emotion. Ever since he’d become a cat, he’d done his best to live life as a cat should. Elegantly, but without a care in the world. He would do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. Sure, he would heed the wishes of his allies to show gratitude for the sparing of his life when a more callous group of people would have killed him for his betrayal. Sure, he took care of his students, as they had somehow wiggled their way into his heart like a clump of tapeworms entering a digestive tract.
But this was a duel. A battle of life and death between fellow mages. He couldn’t necessarily remain carefree during this. That was the part that annoyed him most.
“Hmph. During your end phase, I activate my trap card, Dust Tornado! It will destroy your face down trap! Only then shall I begin my turn, unless you have anything in response to my move.”
Howard’s face paled as the trap card on his field spun into his graveyard to reveal the fading remains of a Threatening Roar. Still, there wasn’t much else he could do, so he nodded his head for Banner to start his turn.
“Purrrrrfect.” Banner let the word swirl around his mouth like a fine wine. It wasn’t that he had to keep making puns. No, it was actually a habit he’d formed after the unfortunate series of events that led to him being imprisoned in the body of his old cat. The thing was, all the students were truly worried when they learned the news that magic was real, their professor was a cat now, and that Banner had actually gotten off rather lightly in terms of the backlash of losing the duel. To soothe their worries, Banner went out of his way to make cat puns. They never made anyone laugh, of course, but they did wonders in lightening up the whole topic. By now, it was pure habit.
The wooden hands drew a new card, but while they settled with creaking sounds into place, Banner padded over to his gramophone and sat the needle back onto the record. Within seconds the scratchy sounds of jazz filled the room, providing an odd comparison to the otherworldly aspects of the duel. A duelist couldn’t remain carefree during a duel to the death.
Or could he?
‘Everybody wants to be a cat, because the cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at.’
Banner unconsciously nodded his head along to the energetic beat, to the blasting of horns, the braying of the saxophone, and the piano in the background. His paw flicked forward to raise the volume – the only modification he'd made to the device. Everything else was stock, just how he'd bought it all those years ago from that one music store in Chicago.
“I let you have your turn.” Banner spun around to face Howard while the wooden arms sprung into motion once more. “The thing is, in a proper jazz song, every member of the band gets their own solo. Not every song does that, but many of the good ones do. You had your solo. Now it’s time for mine.”
The temperature of the room dropped again. Now not only were the breaths of both duelists forming large clouds of mist in the air, but the windows were covered in curtains of bone-white frost while the wooden floorboards creaked in protest from the nearly subzero temperatures. Howard’s lips took on a deep blue color and the tips of his fingers began to turn an unsettling black color – the signs of frostbite setting in.
“I do hope you enjoy. Howard, the real Howard, if you even still draw breath, or if you are nothing but a puppet to a force beyond your understanding, please enjoy this tune of mine.”
Banner leaned forward in a stretch, pushing his spine close to the top of the desk before standing straight on all four legs and pacing back and forth while the wooden arms moved in the air.
“Hm yeah. Tell me, everybody’s pickin’ up on that feline beat. I overlay my two remaining Baobaboons to XYZ summon the rank three Humhumming the Key Djinn (1100/1800)!”
Each word Banner spoke was exactly in tune with the beat of the song being played from the gramophone, to the point that it sounded like the professor was singing, while not actually singing.
“Yeah and bring it back! I normal summon Crane Crane (300/900) and use its effect to special summon my fallen Baobaboon from the graveyard, though its effects are negated. That hardly matters. By using the level three Crane Crane with the level three Baobaboon, I can XYZ summon Melomelody the Brass Djinn (1400/1600). That makes four members of my five-djinn band, though the fifth member won’t be featured right now. Its effect is mainly only useful against other XYZ decks.”
‘I’ve heard some corny birds who tried to sing, but a cat’s the only cat who knows how to swing.’
Banner swayed his body in synch with the beat. In front of the cat, a green-haired child added to the song with his own brass horn, while a little purple-haired girl next to him hammered away at her piano, shredding away at the keys like one would with an electric guitar.
“Now I hope you can fully appreciate the fruit of my efforts. How many test subjects died to get to this point. How much time I spent to understand these cards. Time, heh. Some days it feels like that word has meaning, and some days it feels like I blinked, and a century passed by without me even noticing. I detach a material from Melomelody the Brass Djinn to allow Maestroke to make a second attack during the battle phase this turn. I detach a material from Humhumming the Key Djinn to allow Maestroke to attack directly this turn.”
“It won’t be enough!” Howard madly laughed over the loud music. “My life points are untouched so far and your monster still only has 1800 attack points! That means 3600 points of damage by my count!”
‘Because a cat’s the only cat who knows where it’s at.’
Banner's neck rippled as he dipped his head in acknowledgment of Howard's argument. Behind the cat, the black metal tree wavered. A single drop of molten metal dripped down to scorch the wooden floor, but the bulk of the structure still stood tall.
“Truer words have never been spoken. Allow me to change that factor. I activate the spell card Blustering Winds, which causes Maestroke the Symphony Djinn to gain 1000 attack and defense points until the end of the turn.”
Maestroke the Symphony Djinn (1800/2300 -> 2800/3300).
‘Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be a cat!’
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Do you really think we can make it-“
Two students clad in dark blue jackets sent a glance backward at Professor Banner's classroom as they picked their way across the quad to meander back to the dorms. It was the long way back, as opposed to the short way they could have taken by cutting across the tree line behind the buildings. But they weren’t in any hurry. The weather was nice, the stars were peeking out, and the day had been good to them. Taking the long way was nothing but an excuse to enjoy the weather.
“Wow. The professor is really getting into it.” The first student remarked. Even from where they were, halfway across the quad, they could hear the faint sound of jazz music from the only classroom that still had light in it. They couldn’t quite make out the song, but whatever it was had to have had a crazy drum solo. What else could have made such a colossal ‘thud’? The vocals were impressive, too. Whoever was singing had such passion in their heart that it almost sounded like a hoarse series of screams instead of the usual set of calm vocals one would expect in a jazz song.
The second student grinned and nudged the first student in the ribs.
“Yeah, of course he is. The jazz dance club is his baby, no matter how casual or cool or indifferent he acts about it. You know, I know, everyone knows. Every time it meets he does every dance with us. Plus, when we have that competition in December…”
“That’s right!” The first student’s eyes widened in realization. “He said he would be right alongside us! He must be practicing even now!”
“I think so. All that just so we don’t get stage fright. Cool, ya’ think?”
“Majorly.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bon Lectro gazed into the night sky and took another puff of his cigar. All around him, the forest was cleared to make a clearing that was roughly twenty to thirty feet around. He couldn’t see it with his own eyes, but the connection he had with Sartorius was enough to tell him that the lawyer was dead. Not like he had any expectations for the man. Pro duelist or no, Howard was being sent in to confront a powerful dark mage in his own territory. That alone was a death sentence unless one was extraordinarily lucky or skilled – neither of which were traits that could be used to describe Howard.
“Ah to hell with it. We have enough men to make it work. Any more waiting will just screw us over the long term. Ansen, radio the boss. Tell him we’re starting in five minutes.”
In a matter of seconds the clearing was filled with a flurry of movement as white-clothed yakuza thugs dashed around. One of them spoke hurriedly into a radio, while others fetched large buckets of water half their size to place near the edges of the area. Meanwhile, Bon Lectro stood, dropping his cigar to the ground and putting the end out with his heel. He flicked an arm to ready his duel disk, and with practiced movements he drew four specific cards from the top of the deck, cards that had been pre-placed there in anticipation of this very moment.
He took a deep breath in.
He took a deep breath out.
This was it.
Bon Lectro’s eyes snapped wide open and he set his face in a wrathful expression. All would fall, all would burn. If not at his hands, then it would be at the merciless hands of his employer.
“I activate the spell card Magikey Maftea, sacrificing Clavkiys, the Magikey Skyblaster, and the Maginificent Magikey Mafteal from my hand to ritual summon Magikey Mechmortar – Garesglasser (2000/2800)!”
Even though a large space had been laboriously cleared by his men for this very purpose, it still wasn't enough. The sheer size of the colossal black iron mortar broke through the trees as if it wished to tear at the sky itself. The gold inlaid over the mortar glimmered under the light of the stars, and from the sides, near the bottom of the barrel, two glowing red orbs glared at the nearby jungle with a baleful stare.
Bon Lectro stepped forward and gently placed his hand on the barrel. The machine was surrounded by an aura of brutal elegance. When was the last time it had sounded? New York, maybe? He nodded his head. It was New York, back in the summer. So much had changed since then.
He patted the barrel and nodded to his men. A flex of his intent was enough to trigger an imperceptible bit of magic that served a purpose similar to a fuse or a giant intimidating red button. One second of silence followed…
Then a flurry of screaming magic and red hot metal shot out of the barrel of the mortar, over the top of the jungle trees, and toward the school campus beyond.