A man was walking through the bushes. That is what she could see from where she stood, supporting Vellian’s muscular bulk on her poor, straining shoulder. A man was walking through the bushes, far enough away that both parties could simply ignore each other and continue walking if they wished, but close enough that his features were gradually coming into view, close enough that if Ms. Hibiki called out, she knew the man would hear her.
Except, upon closer inspection, he wasn’t quite a man yet. He was a boy. A boy who carried himself with all the air and gravitas of a man. A boy in a Ra Yellow jacket left battered from a summer living like a wild creature in the mountains. A boy with a terrible dent in his chest, the sight so nightmarish that it made her heart leap up her throat from the sight of it. It was Phil, moving through the undergrowth with the single-minded purpose of a man possessed.
Vellian shifted his weight against her shoulder to get a better look, and at that moment she knew her colleague had seen the same sight as she had. That boy was most definitely Phil, and the way he was moving… how he was ignoring them… there was no question as to what had happened to their young student. She shared a sideways glance with Vellian, and an unspoken conversation took place between them. It was a short conversation. They were of the exact same mind on the subject.
That subject being there was no way in hell they would let the enemy keep its claws sunk deeply into one of their students, nor allow the said student to hurt themselves further in any more shadow duels. They opened their mouths and called as one to the boy walking through the bushes.
“Phil!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Lumina didn’t even pause to dry-heave once she cleared the outskirts of the jungle. That’s how utterly desperate she was to experience absolutely no delays. She kept running, blasting her own brand of light magic through her legs to keep her traitorous limbs going long past the point where they would have normally failed her.
For any other time, she would have simply floated along on her cloud. It was an easy and comfortable method of transportation. It also wasn’t a very fast method. Magic surged through her legs and her white skirt billowed in the wind kicked up not by the weather around her, but from her own speed. It wasn’t just her light magic, though. She wasn’t the best magician out there, a side effect that tended to commonly occur when the ability to cast magic was a natural one instead of a skill learned through many painful years of practice. Even so, she could still tell when outside magic was affecting her body.
That was both good and bad. The bad was that the moon was shining bright once more, but the shine was no longer a natural occurrence, but instead a supernatural light that gazed down with malice from the cosmos. The good part was much better. Judging from the watery feel around her legs, D.3.S. Frog himself was aiding her, making her faster and doing something to give her more protection, though she couldn’t quite tell what exactly. His magic was far beyond what she was capable of understanding.
The earth splintered at her feet as Lumina's speed increased yet again. She raced past duelists fighting for control over their very minds, still unnoticed and invisible to everyone around her. She ran past two of Phil’s friends, teenagers she vaguely remembered being named Atticus and Zane.
The ground splintered once again, and Lumina flipped into the air to avoid a sizzling beam of crackling blue energy that rushed out of the open mouth of Zane’s Cyber Dragon. The beam rushed past her to tear a gaping hole into the side of a gigantic satellite fusion monster. It was a close call, but Lumina didn’t blame the boy. She was invisible, after all. Friendly fire was inevitable if one could not see the friend.
Lumina’s sandals hit the dirt and the ground didn’t splinter, it disintegrated. She resisted the urge to dry-heave yet again and twisted her body in a serpentine motion around the cutting edge of a red war fan that sliced through the air toward a swarm of brown locusts. Her serpentine dodge continued, taking her around the stalwart figure of Alexis to finally reach her target. Now… it was time to continue shattering company policy into teeny-tiny little shards. Lumina screwed her eyes shut and then defiantly wrenched them open.
To hell with company policy, to hell with that asshole Judgment Dragon. She had more important things to worry about now. Like hoping Phil’s friends could figure out a way to get that crazy, gremlin of a dude back to normal as soon as possible.
"Bastion Misawa," Lumina announced and removed her invisibility. “Phil sent me.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil stared at them silently. Yet, to Ms. Hibiki, that silence alone spoke greatly to the boy’s state of mind. He was staring at the two professors as if they didn’t even register as threats in his eyes. Yet, there was a tiny, almost indecipherable sliver of cruelty hidden in that gaze, akin to a kid looking at a trapped housefly and trying to decide how best to pull its wings off.
“Phil. Your chest…" Ms. Hibiki finally broke the silence that had formed after the professors had called out to the boy. "I know…" She sighed, "I know you're under the control of that cult now, but anyone can tell you're hurt. Come with us and Fonda can look you over. This doesn't need to get any worse."
Her words rang true around the trees. Phil’s chest, in the area slightly below his heart and a bit above his stomach was quite literally dented. It looked like a roid-raging bodybuilder had sunk their fist deep into a soft sheet of metal. Except for the metal was Phil’s chest, and the bodybuilder was likely that ferocious dragon head that had briefly appeared above the trees.
Yet Phil continued to look at the pair as if they were nothing. Then, he turned away from them and continued to walk in the direction of the main campus.
Ms. Hibiki’s eyes widened in panic. If a duelist with Phil’s level of strength attacked the kids… few would stand a proper chance. She didn’t even need to communicate that with Vellian, nor tell him her next move. Instead, the headmaster of Slifer Red and the headmaster of Obelisk Blue moved as one, activating their duel disks and letting steely-eyed expressions slide over their faces.
Phil halted and turned back to face them.
"You two really don't know when to quit, do you?" The possessed Ra Yellow snorted as if this was nothing but a minor inconvenience instead of a duel against the two strongest professors in the academy.
Phil: 4000 Hibiki and Crowler: 4000
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bastion’s right hand was clutching his chest right above his heart, and his left hand snapped his duel disk to the ready with a flick of his forearm. Banner’s tail flicked menacingly, letting out a trickle of dark energy that caused two wooden arms to surge out of the desk he was perched on.
Lumina frantically waved her hands in a disarming gesture before pulling Phil’s D.3.S. Frog card out from where she had carefully stored it under one of her golden armbands.
“Woah! I’m a friend. A friend! Phil sent me here, there’s no way he would give up this card otherwise. D.3.S has been with him since day one. He sent me to warn you. Phil encountered the enemy leader on his way to stopping the bombardment. He took the chance to end it all… and…” Lumina’s eyes were downcast as Phil’s final roar of defiance flashed through her mind again. “He lost.”
“A duel spirit. Lightsworn? Definitely. The smell of that whiskered dragon is strong around you.” Banner leaped off the desk and sniffed at Lumina’s desk with a tone of mild interest in his voice. “That… I see. Young Phillip knowing that method of summoning makes more sense now. I’m surprised you’re getting this involved, oh Lightsworn spirit. Normally your company has a policy against direct involvement.”
Lumina flinched, but neither cat nor spirit elaborated in the face of Bastion’s questioning gaze. “Stuff happened. Anyways, Phil’s hurt bad, but I don’t think that Sartorius guy is going to let him rest. He seemed pretty interested in making Phil his champion.”
“We are aware of his loss.” Bastion eventually responded once it became clear that no one wanted to say anything more about the strange company or what made sense about Phil knowing a new summoning method. “I suppose if Phil gave you that card, then he trusts you quite a bit. Come around and look in the mirror.”
Lumina obliged and peered into the reflective surface. It was a large mirror that covered most of the desk Banner had just hopped off of, but instead of it showing the reflection of those who looked into it, instead the mirror was split into different parts that showed multiple different scenes taking place on the island, like a cluster of camera views in a security room. The largest view, the one that Bastion had motioned toward, instantly sent Lumina’s stomach hurtling toward the ground.
It was a scene of Phil facing Ms. Hibiki and Professor Crowler in a duel.
“Magical backlash made us unable to spectate the duel between Phillip and the seer to its conclusion, so instead we focused the cameras on the duel between Vellian and the man behind the mortar. Once Vellian won, we kept a camera view stuck on him and the surrounding area. That was how we saw Phillip approaching my colleagues. Considering that Phillip would have never changed targets from the mortar unless someone extremely important showed up, and the cult forces that began to assault this position once the bombardment ended did not cease, we could only conclude one result.”
“We had to assume Phil lost” Bastion finished Banner’s explanation. “Now, thanks to you, we know for sure.”
Lumina nodded with some amount of relief blossoming in her heart. She’d seen the depths of Bastion’s ability throughout her almost two years in this world. Considering he’d already known this much before she had even arrived, there was an even better chance than she’d hoped to save Phil.
“So, what now? Phil said something about activating a ‘plan B’. Did you two prepare for even something like this to happen?”
“Somewhat.” Bastion turned away from the mirror and sat down on a nearby chair, pulling out several decks from under his Ra Yellow jacket. Meanwhile, Banner jumped back on top of the desk and continued to gaze into the mirror. His tail swished from side to side to brush a few handfuls of broken glass off the desk, doubtlessly from the part of the mirror that was somehow broken.
“Plan B was intended to be set into motion if Phil was somehow defeated or incapacitated by the enemy. Phil has always been confident in his skills. Frankly, I agree with him. He’s absurdly strong when he actually bothers to try. However, Phil was insistent that there were things even the two of us couldn’t deal with. Magic and extreme luck being foremost among those problems. He hypothesized that there was a high likelihood of the leader of this cult having some sort of… well, his words aren’t acceptable in polite company, but I bet you can imagine what he would say about magical and/or luck factors influencing a duel.”
“Bullshit.” Lumina half-smiled, letting the curse fall from her lips without a second thought. “That’s what he would call it. Magic bullshit.”
Bastion nodded. “Indeed. But ever since we met, Phil has insisted that Jaden has abilities beyond being a talented duelist in his own right. He believes that Jaden has supernatural luck that activates when he needs it the most. I was skeptical at first, but after seeing Jaden duel for this long… I can no longer deny it. The rational scientist in me disapproves, but the evidence is undeniable. Besides. If shadow duels exist, if duel spirits are around, why couldn’t luck be an ability instead of a random quirk of the universe?”
“Jaden…” Lumina’s eyes brightened like a lightbulb illuminating a pitch-black room. She spun around, looking for the familiar brown-haired boy in his usual scarlet jacket, but he was nowhere to be found. Bastion nodded approvingly, clearly pleased with how fast she was catching on.
"As soon as Phil's status was put into question, I requested for Jaden to head for the last known location of the man who is highly likely to be the cult leader. We sent him out the back door a few minutes ago. He’s an athletic guy. The jungle shouldn’t slow him by any noticeable amounts.”
“That man probably is the leader!” Lumina exclaimed. “The man Phil dueled, Sartorius Kumar, also called himself the seer and all but flat-out said he was the boss. That’s why Phil went for him instead of stopping the mortar. Now, I don’t know if Sartorius stayed where he was when they dueled, but…”
“But Jaden’s luck should pull through and lead him to the man.”
“Plus, that seer guy seemed pretty interested in Jaden too. He called him ‘the Fool’. He said Phil and Jaden were his two opponents on the island.”
Bastion continued to flip through the decks he’d pulled out from under his jacket. Several cards were set aside in different piles as he worked.
“Now for the other part of plan B. While Jaden does his duty, I have a sworn duty of my own. Alexis!” Bastion called out, causing the girl in question to pause midway through declaring an attack.
“Yeah?”
“If Phil comes by, let him in without a fight! Also, if you see Chazz, ask him to join me! I’ll need his help in a bit.”
Alexis nodded and turned back to her opponent.
“We have to defeat Phil once he shows up.” Bastion explained. “I have faith that Jaden will succeed. Considering that, it is my duty as Phil’s friend to stop him from hurting anyone while he’s possessed. Because if he does…”
“Phil’s heart might not be able to withstand it once Jaden wins.” Lumina concluded.
“Correct.”
Thus, they all fell silent as Bastion labored with his cards, painstakingly putting them together one by one to create a brand-new deck. No one spoke. No one moved. No one did anything that even had the slightest chance at disrupting Bastion’s focus.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil’s duel disk spat out a stack of five cards into his left hand as he gazed at his opponents. It was pointless, but the professors gave him little choice.
Phil had staggered to his feet once the attack faded. His mind felt… strange. A voice reverberated through his head and his limbs were pulsing with energy. It was a strange contrast to the dent he could see in his chest. In the back of his mind, the part where the thundering voice was quietest, another, smaller voice noted that half his ribs were broken, and he should be in excruciating pain right now.
The louder voice thundered for the smaller voice to be silent. He had work to do. Aid Sartorius Kumar. Find the key half. Spread the glory of the Light.
Phil ignored his opponents asking if he was absolutely sure that he wanted to start at 4000 life points. Eventually they stopped asking. The woman in red declared she would take the first turn, which Phil allowed. It wouldn’t matter. He voiced his own intent to take the second turn, and the bulky man leaning on the woman with a pained grimace agreed to take the third turn, meaning he would also be allowed the first attack.
Sartorius Kumar walked toward Phil with a gentle smile affixed to his face.
‘How wonderful. Welcome to the true side, the Light side, my champion. Now go. Destroy my enemies. Claim all who live on the island for the glory of the Light. Meanwhile, I must prepare for my final duel, my final confrontation with the Fool.’
Phil turned to Sartorius and spoke the first words he’d said since the end of their duel.
‘And you will lose.’
The woman in red, whom Phil dimly remembered as Ms. Hibiki, placed two cards face down, summoned Peten the Dark Clown (500/1200) in defense position, and ended her turn. Phil drew a card.
Sartorius wordlessly stared at Phil.
‘You will lose.’ Those words had been spoken with such unyielding conviction that Sartorius himself had taken a step backward, an unconscious look of extreme seriousness sliding over his face as he processed Phil’s statement. Yes, statement. Not Phil’s opinion, but the words Phil had stated as if they were pure fact.
‘Very well.’ Sartorius took the words in stride, ‘What strategy would you suggest, champion of mine?’
Phil looked away from the seer, toward the jungle that separated them from the main campus.
‘Your man with the mortar. What was his priority list?’
‘The administration buildings, infirmary, Lyman Banner’s classroom, and the dorms. In that order.’ Sartorius listed out.
‘The bombardment has ceased.’
Sartorius nodded without any measure of surprise on his face. ‘Indeed. Bon Lectro was defeated by Vellian Crowler mere moments ago. It was not predicted by the cards, but it matters not. We have the advantage we need already.’
Phil continued to face away from the seer, almost as if he was drinking in the sight of the jungle that was illuminated by only the soft glow of the moon.
‘So, it was stopped prematurely. Very well. If you wish to win your duel against Jaden, pray that the Ra Yellow dorms are still intact. Until I return, do not engage Jaden in a duel. He will win.’
‘I see… and what in the Ra Yellow dorms is worthy of attaching such great importance?” Sartorius muttered.
Phil paused and half-turned. The moonlight settled on his face, making it seem to almost glow.
‘Cards so powerful that even Jaden’s protagonist luck and blatant plot armor cannot do anything to stop them.’
Phil blinked heavily and the thundering voice in his head subsided slightly. A small mercy. It was quite hard to think with such a cosmic power gibbering and raving in his mind. He couldn’t waste time with this duel. Yet, he also was given no choice but to accept.
Not because of the size difference between him and the teachers, but because of the whispering shadows that surrounded them, along with the dark wings that hovered slightly behind Ms. Hibiki’s back, and the single red eye staring at him from above the tops of the trees. If he had refused, then it might have been a battle of duel spirits. It was something that while he would have won, would have also carried the chance of hindering him even longer. A shadow duel would be much faster.
“Standby phase. Main phase.” Phil dully announced the phase changes out of habit. “I activate the effect of Swap Frog (1000/500) in my hand, discarding Dupe Frog to special summon him in attack position.”
Ms. Hibiki’s eyebrows rose.
“Your frog deck, Phil? I’m afraid to say that will not be enough. Though last time we dueled Lyman was at our side, the result was the same. We won, you lost.”
Phil ignored the ignorant headmaster. They would soon learn the truth.
“Swap Frog’s effect activates to send Ronintoadin from my deck to my graveyard. Then, Ronin’s effect activates, banishing Dupe Frog from my graveyard to special summon Ronintoadin (100/2000) to my field in defense position. Then I overlay the level two Swap Frog with the level two Ronintoadin to XYZ summon the fell guardian of the light, the amphibian creature of madness, Toadally Awesome (2200/0)!”
The trees split around the three duelists as a colossal pale frog came into view, a pale toad with a smaller, yet still quite large toad resting on top of its head. On the head of the second frog, there was a peach that was being balanced quite precariously.
The bottom toad grinned a dopey grin, but the top toad screamed. It screamed as pure white liquid gushed out of its mouth and eye sockets like a river with its dam removed. It screamed, ranted, and raved unintelligible words toward the heavens, all while the bottom toad grinned its dopey grin and said a cheerful greeting toward the duelists.
“Hi! My name is Bottom Toad! On top of me is Top Toad, who is currently in unimaginable pain! Above him is Very Top Toad, who got skinned alive a few centuries back by Top Toad for various reasons. Hi random duelists! Hi possessed Phil!”
Top Toad reinforced Bottom Toad's cheerful words by ripping out his own eyes and stuffing them in his slavering mouth like a starving man being handed a perfectly toasted marshmallow, one that wasn’t quite charred, but an excellent golden brown.
Phil ignored their antics, placed two cards face down, and ended his turn.
The bulky man in blue, whom Phil dimly remembered being called Professor Crowler, blinked away his obvious disbelief and confusion in favor of starting his own turn.
“I don’t know what kind of strange monster you’ve found, but it matters not!” Crowler shouted. His bluster didn’t fool anyone. Phil could see as plain as day that the man was about one solid poke away from falling over unconscious.
“Standby phase.” Phil interrupted Crowler before his turn could continue. “I activate the effect of Toadally Awesome, detaching Ronintoadin to special summon Dupe Frog (100/2000) from my deck in defense position.”
Crowler scowled as a blue frog wearing a graduation cap at a jaunty angle on its head hopped onto the field. The monster cast a wary eye toward Top Toad but ultimately remained silent.
“Phil! You have to listen to us! I know your actions aren’t your own right now, but there has to be at least part of the kid I know buried somewhere in there! You have to resist! The Light wants nothing but destruction! It will kill us all, even you!”
Phil didn’t reply.
Crowler shook his head sorrowfully. “Then we will do our best to make this as clean as possible. Midori is right. You cannot defeat the two of us at once. I activate Ancient Gear Fusion, sending Ancient Gear Knight and Ancient Gear Box from my hand to the graveyard to fusion summon Ancient Gear Howitzer (1000/1800) in defense mode!”
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Crowler’s stalwart Ancient Gear fusion monster stepped out onto the field with a hearty battle cry, already calibrating the cannons at the ends of its hands before Crowler even gave the word to fire.
“Howitzer, set your sights on Phil and use your effect! Fire to deal 1000 points of effect damage!”
Phil: 3000 Hibiki and Crowler: 4000
Phil stumbled back as the cannon blast hit him square in the shoulder, sending a spray of blood splashing out from the limb. As the dust from the shot faded, Phil flexed his shoulder experimentally. The limb felt a bit wooden and slightly unresponsive, but still usable. The quiet voice in the back of his mind was once more amazed that he didn’t feel a lick of pain from the limb.
"Next…" Crowler's face tightened, and he hesitated upon seeing the damage inflicted on Phil, but ultimately he powered through. "Next, I activate the spell card Ancient Gear Workshop! It allows me to add Ancient Gear Box from my graveyard back to my hand, which will kick off Box's effect! Box will let me take one earth machine monster with 500 attack or defense points from my deck to add to my hand. Come to me, Ancient Gear Frame (1600/500)!”
Crowler staggered slightly from where he stood, causing Ms. Hibiki to move closer to him so he could lean on her shoulder once more.
“I summon Ancient Gear Frame! Frame’s effect activates, discarding Ancient Gear Box from my hand to add one spell or trap card from my deck to my hand that specifically lists the card ‘Ancient Gear Golem’ in its text! I’ll add another Ancient Gear Fusion!”
Crowler moved to the end phase, but before the turn could be concluded, Phil leaped into action.
“Trap card, activate! Trap Trick! I can banish one normal trap card from my deck and set another copy of that card with the same name. My choice will be Heavy Storm Duster. Then, as Trap Trick allows me to activate that card this turn, I will do exactly that! Heavy Storm Duster, target and destroy both of Hibiki’s face down cards!”
“That’s Ms. Hibiki to you, Phil!” Ms. Hibiki shouted back and snapped her fingers. “In response, I activate Darklord Rebellion! By sending one Darklord monster from my hand to the graveyard, that monster being Darklord Asmodeus, I can attempt to destroy your Toadally Awesome!”
“USELESS!” Phil roared back with enough force that tiny strings of blood were flung from his mouth. “Toadally Awesome’s effect activates in response, sending the aqua-type Dupe Frog from my field to my graveyard to negate and destroy that trap card!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Ms. Hibiki gritted her teeth as Darklord Rebellion was negated and her face down Ring of Destruction, a card she could only activate during her opponent’s turn, was destroyed.
“My turn ends.” Crowler sighed. “My apologies for not being able to protect your face downs.”
“No matter.” Ms. Hibiki briskly replied. “It is my own fault for waiting to activate Ring of Destruction. I should have activated it the moment that strange monster of Phil’s was summoned. I draw.”
“In your standby phase,” Phil interrupted, “the effect of Toadally Awesome activates once more. I detach its second material to summon Swap Frog (1000/500) from my deck in defense position. Swap’s effect activates on the resolution of his summon to send a second copy of Ronintoadin from my deck to my graveyard.”
Ms. Hibiki’s eyes narrowed, staring at the yellow-horned frog hopping onto the field, its red markings flashing against its skin as it cautiously stared at the still-screaming Top Toad. “You should have summoned a Dupe Frog instead. I thought I taught you better than that. Or perhaps you feel arrogant now that you've summoned a new card? This… XYZ monster?”
Phil tilted his head slightly to the side but did not respond, causing Ms. Hibiki to snort in irritation.
“This kid. You’re a good duelist, but far too arrogant! The first time we dueled, you used a spirit deck. I defeated you then. The second time we dueled, you used a frog deck. At that time too, did you fall. Now for the third time we are opponents. You’ve clearly made upgrades to your frogs, but this is far from enough! You will lose this duel! I can only hope that you snap out of it soon before that cult of madmen tries to kill us all.”
Phil’s eyes sharpened and the expression on his face, one that had been rapidly flickering between cold, cruel, and arrogant since the start of the game, shone with a viciousness that felt like it was cutting through Ms. Hibiki’s skin from all the way across the duel field.
"Kill us all? Of course he wishes to do that. That's what they all want to do. Every villain in this world tries to do something like that. It doesn’t matter. Not my death, not yours. Not Bernardello’s when I fed him alive to my frogs in the abandoned dorm. Nor Dimitri’s when he fell for the final time in New York. Not Tragoedia’s when I splattered him across the street. This is all nothing but ink on a page. So what if I die again?”
Ms. Hibiki’s eyes went wide as her brain processed the biting words that Phil had suddenly let loose. The smart part of her brain noted the cold, calculating look that was still in Phil’s eyes and told her he’d picked those words to try and throw her off. The rest of her brain still processed those last words.
“Die again?” She eventually whispered.
Phil tilted his head again like she was a particularly interesting specimen being held under a microscope for study.
“Before I was shown the Light, before I came to this island, I lived in another world. On another Earth. Tell me, Hibiki. Have you ever been shot in the head?”
Not just Ms. Hibiki, but even Crowler took a step back in unconscious horror.
“I didn’t feel a thing. I only remember the sound. The ‘crack’ of the bullet shooting through the air. I died that day, almost two years ago. Then my spirit was stuffed into this meat puppet by an uncaring corporation of spirits. Then,” Phil smiled for the first time since the duel began. Somehow, even though the gesture would have normally been quite benign, it was by far the most unsettling thing the boy had done since they had called him to a halt in the jungle undergrowth. "Then I was shown the Light. Now please," Phil's face was filled once more with a cold and unfeeling expression, and he gestured toward Ms. Hibiki. "Continue your turn. I haven't much time to waste here."
Ms. Hibiki took a deep breath to master her expression. The sudden revelation was extremely unsettling, but she would figure out the full truth later after her student was free of his terrible possession.
“You may have destroyed my traps, but the march of the Darklords continues on!” Ms. Hibiki shouted. “I activate the effect of Darklord Ixchel in my hand! By discarding her and one more Darklord card, which will be Darklord Superbia, I can draw two cards.”
Her eyes flashed with fighting spirit.
“And that gives me precisely what I need! First of all, introducing a card you should know well by now, Darklord Contact! I use this spell to special summon Darklord Superbia (2900/2400) from my graveyard in defense position. Then, Superbia allows me to special summon Darklord Ixchel (2500/2900) from my graveyard in attack position.”
All while this happened, Phil calmly watched without saying a single word. Interestingly enough, that inaction… well, it scared her. She knew Phil had a card with a negation effect. Why hadn’t he used it?
Could it be, he didn’t feel like he needed to?
Ms. Hibiki’s face contorted. Unconsciously, her teeth sunk deep into her lip. She snapped her fingers. The confident action that masked her inner thoughts was automatic at this point.
“I activate Polymerization!”
Phil nodded his assent toward the card activation. This time as well, he chose to withhold the negation effect of his monster.
“Sending Darklord Ixchel and Darklord Superbia from my field, along with Darklord Desire from my hand to fusion summon the lord of darkness, the sword that shall cut down your arrogance once and for all, The First Darklord (4000/4000)!”
A strange angel with burnt red wings that sprouted from a porcelain, inhuman body and a beautiful woman with six purple wings melded together with an angel adorned in black and gold armor to create a swirling ball of dark, pulsing energy. The energy picked up speed and whipped up winds to the point that even Phil’s massive XYZ monster struggled to avoid being blown away.
Then the wind fell silent in an instant. The ball of energy faded away to reveal a man of light purple skin, covered almost entirely in pitch-black armor. Twelve wings sprouted from his back, coated in feathers as dark as his armor, and a sword that pulsed with purple energy rested in his hands.
Finally Phil made a move.
“My trap card activates! Rise to Full Height, reveal yourself! I use its first effect to target my defending Swap Frog, doubling its defense points until the end of this turn. Then, as a separate chain, I activate the effect of Rise, which is now in my graveyard. By banishing this card from the grave, I can target one monster on my side of the field. For the duration of this turn, the only monster you can attack is that card, which will be Swap Frog!”
A golden shield formed around the yellow frog, who ribbited in surprise and poked it with a waterlogged finger.
Swap Frog (1000/500 -> 1000/1000).
Ms. Hibiki stared at it with narrowed eyes before continuing with her moves. There was nothing she could do about that.
“Though my monster was not summoned by using Darklord Morningstar as a material, and thus does not receive the ability to destroy all cards my opponent controls, I can still activate its secondary effect. Vellian, I’m sorry, but I need to use some of our shared life points!”
Crowler nodded his assent. His trust in her strategy was absolute.
“By sacrificing 1000 life points,” Ms. Hibiki explained, “I can special summon Darklord Superbia from my graveyard in defense position. Superbia then will summon Ixchel back to the field, though this time she will be in defense position instead of attack position. Now, the battle phase! The First Darklord destroys your Swap Frog!”
Once the frog was skewered on the end of the fairy fusion's sword, Ms. Hibiki ended her turn since she couldn't attack any other monsters.
Phil: 3000 Hibiki and Crowler: 3000
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Draw.” Phil emotionlessly muttered. The First Darklord had high attack points, but it was worthless in all other ways. Sure, he could have stopped the Polymerization. But the thunderous voice in his head wished for more.
It wished for him to crush them beneath his shoes, and Phil took a good amount of dark joy in considering how best he could do that.
Stopping them from playing in the first place was too easy. He could do that any day. But if he let them summon their ace monsters? And then he tore those monsters to shreds right in front of his opponents?
The feeling would be divine. That was what the voice told him.
“First off, I activate the effects of both Ronintoadins in my graveyard! By banishing Dupe Frog and Swap Frog, I special summon them to the field in defense position! Two level twos make a rank two, come to me in defense position, my Cat Shark (500/500)!”
The cute little half-cat, half-shark abomination swooped onto the field with a demented giggle, flicking one of its fins across Top Toad's head and causing the monster to start screaming a series of extremely vague yet disturbingly gruesome threats.
“Cat Shark’s effect is simple.” Phil coldly explained. “I detach a material and target my rank two Toadally Awesome. For this turn, its attack is doubled.”
Toadally Awesome (2200/0 -> 4400/0).
Ms. Hibiki’s face turned white once she realized what that meant. By 400 points alone it now outclassed her strongest monster in terms of attack points.
“Entering battle phase. Toadally Awesome will destroy The First Darklord, making it now The Last Darklord as well.”
Bottom Toad still kept that goofy grin across his face, but Top Toad flung himself bodily across the field in a flash like a rabid Pitbull named ‘Princess’ who was given steroids, a metric ton of cocaine, and let loose in an orphanage for an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“DEATH IS HERE! The Light devours all which stands in its path as the universe is cleansed to be nothing but pure!” The unhinged Top Toad screamed as more thick streams of liquid light gushed out of its empty eye sockets, even squirting out of the pores in its skin. “All shall fall all shall fall ALL SHALL FALL BEFORE THE LIGHT!”
Top Toad’s cartoonish fingers tore deep gouges into the fallen angel’s armor. Its flat teeth ripped out chunks of pale purple skin for the toad to gorge itself on. The sword, still shining sharply in the moonlight, was devoured whole like it was part of some sort of depraved circus act.
When it ended, the angel no longer existed. The card itself smoked visibly when Ms. Hibiki removed it from the monster zone it was in and placed it in her graveyard.
“Isn’t he such a comedian!” Bottom Toad cheerfully remarked once Ms. Hibiki’s monster was reduced to a pile of gore on the ground. “Such a card, what a funny fella! Heck, this brings me back to the good ol’ days, of what we did back in ’77!”
Phil: 3000 Hibiki and Crowler: 2600
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The worst part of it all wasn’t losing her strongest monster, though that did sting. No, it was the biting pain caused by only taking a measly 400 points of battle damage. It was coming from her right arm. She’d caught a glance of it right after the attack, when the little bit of damage went through. Ms. Hibiki didn’t particularly want to see much more than that.
A small part of her arm, about as wide as half a hand, no longer had skin on it.
She didn’t want to know anything more about it. The pain was already bad. If her brain fully understood the extent of it…
She shook her head to gather her thoughts as Phil placed two cards face down and ended his turn.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Crowler drew a card, launching right into his main phase and activating the effect of Ancient Gear Howitzer once more to deal another 1000 points of damage to Phil's life points. The boy stumbled upon taking the hit, but ultimately remained standing.
Phil: 2000 Hibiki and Crowler: 2600
His eyes slid around the field. That Toadally Awesome monster's attack was back down to its usual 2200 points. The other XYZ, Cat Shark, had only 500 defense points. Then there were two face downs, and other than that their opponent's field was empty.
“I’ve always been proud of you as one of my students, Phillip.” Crowler stalwartly announced. “Even now I still have that feeling burning in my heart. I don’t care about what past life you lived. I don’t care about who you hurt in your duels before this. I don’t care that you’re trying to brainwash us for a death cult. You're still my student, and it's my job to protect you! Even if I have to knock you around a bit to get you back to your senses! You aren't this ice-cold, unfeeling machine! You're a goofy, yet somehow thoughtful student who's always up to something ridiculous! You're a kid who manages to turn every gym class into a free-for-all ball of chaos! A duelist who plays a different deck each time to keep everyone on their toes!”
Phil stared back at him with that same damned emotionless stare. Crowler didn’t know what was worse, that stare or the cruel one Phil adopted when he was about to cause pain. He gritted his teeth so hard he could hear one of his molars make an audible cracking sound.
“Here’s my first spell card, Book of Moon! I target your Toadally Awesome to flip it into face down defense position!”
“USELESS!” Phil roared back once more. “Toadally Awesome's effect activates, sending itself to the graveyard to negate your spell! Furthermore, since that's an actually good card, I invoke the second part of the negation effect, which allows me to take your Book of Moon to set on my side of the field! Then!"
Phil’s hand whipped out to grab his graveyard before his monster's death scream, a mixture of pure insanity and goofy joy, even finished ringing out around the trees. “Toadally Awesome’s other effect activates to take the Ronintoadin I detached from Cat Shark last turn and add it to my hand!”
“Now that your negation effect is out of the way,” Crowler countered, “I sacrifice Ancient Gear Howitzer and Ancient Gear Frame to tribute summon Ancient Gear Golem (3000/3000)!”
Phil sneered. "Nothing but predictable. I reveal my face down trap card Paleozoic Canadia, which will force your monster into face down defense position!”
“Good move… if I didn’t predict your prediction!” Crowler instantly launched into his next play as soon as his golem’s position changed. “Here’s a little-known fact! Face down monsters can still be used as fusion material! I activate the Ancient Gear Fusion spell I searched via Frame in my last turn. Because I am using my face-down Ancient Gear Golem, I can also use monsters from my own deck as fusion material.”
“Your win condition is denied.” This time Phil’s voice was rather calm as he flipped over his other face down card. “Threatening Roar.”
Crowler scowled. He still sent Ancient Gear Golem from his field and four more Ancient Gear monsters from his deck to the graveyard to complete the summon, but he scowled all the same.
“A card that affects the opponent to prevent them from declaring attacks. Well-played.” Crowler begrudgingly acknowledged. While Chaos Ancient Gear Giant was unaffected by spell and trap effects, it wouldn’t matter. Threatening Roar affected a player instead of a monster.
“Curious declaration: antivirus activated. Scanning… Malware detected in host phillip_jenson, lightofdestruction.exe.”
“Firm announcement: suggested action, purge host before more systems are infected.”
“Not a chance!” Crowler sharply retorted. “No one else dies, not on my watch!”
The massive metal giant stared at Phil, its searchlight-like red eye looking at him up and down as it completed the scan.
“Murderous proclamation: host phillip_jenson shall be purified through violence.”
Crowler grimly nodded.
“I can accept that. Very well. As I cannot declare attacks this turn, I end my turn.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Ms. Hibiki hardly waited for Crowler’s announcement to start her own turn. She could feel it in the air. The balance was precarious, which was something she never thought she would consider in a two versus one duel between two teachers and a student. Not only was her strongest monster destroyed, but Vellian’s ace was stalled – something she’d never seen happen before in the games she’d watched him play in the pro tour.
However…
“I see you no longer have trap cards left to defend yourself with!” Ms. Hibiki sharply announced. “Darklord Superbia, Darklord Ixchel, change to attack position! Entering my battle phase, Ixchel will attack your remaining monster, Cat Shark!”
“USELESS!” Phil sneered arrogantly. “While Cat Shark has a material attached to it that is water attribute, it cannot be destroyed by battle! Ronin’s a water, so you’re just plain out of luck.”
That meant Phil would get another turn. It was such a small fact, but a fact that sent shivers down her spine.
Midori Hibiki, sister to the world champion Koyo Hibiki and the headmaster of Slifer Red, once more felt a sliver of fear. For herself, for Vellian, for the students on the campus behind her… and for Phil, who looked like he'd crawled through hell and back.
There was nothing she could do. Cat Shark was in defense position, she had no monsters with piercing effects at the moment, and Phil had no other monsters after Toadally Awesome had tributed itself for its own effect. Not only that, but she hadn’t managed to draw any trap cards to use.
“I place one card face down, and then I end my turn.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil blitzed into the start of his turn. One ace down, one more to go. He could feel it in his stomach. A molten core of vicious satisfaction upon seeing his opponents barely hanging on to a fraying rope of hope that dangled them over a gaping abyss.
And he was the man at the other end of the rope holding a sharp pair of scissors.
“Swap Frog, come to me! I discard Ronintoadin from my hand to special summon Swap from my hand in defense position. Swap Frog’s effect triggers to send my final copy of Dupe Frog from my deck to my graveyard. Then… heheh.”
A sickening moon-like aura gathered around Phil’s shoulders as he gleefully activated Ronintoadin’s effect in the graveyard, banishing Dupe Frog to special summon it right alongside Swap Frog. Both level two monsters were placed on top of each other.
Yet, Toadally Awesome was not summoned this time around.
“Two level two monsters make a rank two monster! I summon the spearman of the ancients, the knight cursed to roam this land in service to the sweet Light! I XYZ summon The Phantom Knights of Cursed Javelin (1600/0)!”
A dark-armored knight with a broad shield and a thick javelin decorated with skulls floated onto the field from an unknown location in the sky. Blue flames burst into the air from its shoulder plates, and the skull helmet covering its head showed no indication if the warrior was alive… or dead.
“Cursed Javelin’s effect activates! Detaching Swap Frog to target Chaos Ancient Gear Giant, negating its effects and changing its attack points to zero until the end of this turn! Cat Shark’s effect activates! Detaching its final material to double my rank two Cursed Javelin’s attack points for this turn only!”
The Phantom Knights of Cursed Javelin (1600/0 -> 3200/0).
Chaos Ancient Gear Giant (4500/3000 -> 0/3000).
“Cursed Javelin.” Phil’s empty and soulless eyes stared steadily at Crowler. His arm moved, heedless of the damage his shoulder had taken from the cannon attack. It moved to point right at Crowler.
“Midori.”
“Vellian.”
The two professors nodded toward each other.
“Those kids are strong.” Crowler said as Phil declared the attack.
Ms. Hibiki glanced at her face down. Scapegoat was a good card, but it was useless right now. There was nothing she could do to stop that attack from successfully concluding.
“Yes. They are. Bastion has a good head on his shoulders. He’ll find a strategy to win.”
Crowler nodded in agreement. The javelin was hurtling toward them, but the weapon felt like it was moving in slow motion as they reassured each other in the face of the end.
“Lyman will keep them focused.”
Ms. Hibiki smiled at Crowler's words about their colleague. They all had their reservations about trusting the alchemist, but now they no longer felt any concerns about him.
“Jaden’s a lucky kid. I bet that’ll help.” She said.
The javelin came closer.
Crowler’s right leg gave out. Not from fear, but from how damaged his body was. Still, he continued to smile and talk about their students like they were having a nice after-lunch walk.
“Chazz will contribute his formidable willpower.”
“The Truesdale brothers, their strength.”
“The Rhodes siblings, their empathy.”
And then the javelin stuck true.
Phil: 2000 Hibiki and Crowler: 0
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Above the world, above all concerns. Those were the qualities of a king. Perfect, indomitable, frightening, yet also a stalwart protector of his subjects.
That was what Seto Kaiba was. He was a king, and from his space station, he could see the world quite literally unfold below him. The whole world was under his feet.
The last few technicians fled the loop. Their job had technically been finished hours ago, but artificial gravity was a bit finicky. If there was a chance it could turn their boss into a pancake, they would want to avoid that. Just another safety procedure, really. That was how man first learned to conquer space. Safety procedures, safety procedures, and more safety procedures. That and pure guts.
Kaiba clicked his helmet into place around his head. It was strange being in space, yet not floating around. Instead, thanks to the artificial gravity his men had set up around the loop, he stood on his own two feet. Right on the asphalt, right next to his motorcycle.
The motorcycle was a thing of pure beauty. The guts of it were the best mechanical parts in the world. So good, even money couldn’t buy them. Seto Kaiba himself had to make the order using his influence. He had to personally visit the manufacturer. The tailpipe gleamed under the warm lighting. The curves of the bike, so beautiful, formed a proud Blue-Eyes White Dragon in flight. The head was a duel disk. The wings, his handlebars. The tail curled around to form his seat. There was a speedometer fixed above the duel disk. It was capable of showing readings between standing still, and two hundred and fifty miles per hour. His mechanics assured him it could go to two-eighty. Seto Kaiba knew the perfect machine could get to at least three hundred.
All of this was due to one boy. Well, not the space station. He already possessed that. The motorcycle and the cards were to that boy's credit.
Kaiba stared pensively at Phil once the boy finished explaining. It was a lot to take in. Too much for any ordinary man. He was no ordinary man. Nor was this boy. No ordinary boy was capable of raising that much hell in New York City.
‘How do you know all this? The Light of Destruction? And that new summoning method. It is not one recognized by the standard rules. I should know. I wrote them.’
Phil shot a fearless grin back. The boy was tired, but that exhaustion hadn’t made a single dent in his cheekiness. ‘I know things. It’s what I do.’
Kaiba felt a lance of irritation split through his mind. This was going nowhere.
‘But. How.’ He slammed his hands on the desk. The wood cracked, but he didn’t care. The desk was only worth a couple million dollars. He’d commission another one. Perhaps this time he would get it engraved with his Blue Eyes White Dragon? The prospect did sound quite pleasant.
Phil stepped back. Both duelists could tell this was it. This was the verge of something big. Something that could change the world, both the present and the future. Only, Kaiba didn’t know exactly what it was yet.
Phil spread his arms out wide. Clearly he’d made a decision, one that made him perfectly confident that Kaiba would believe him.
‘Because I’m from another world. A world where this world is nothing but a TV show. Where Duel Monsters is called Yu-Gi-Oh, and isn’t a part of everyday life. It’s just a children’s card game. I died and was brought here on the whim of a corporation of duel spirits. They told me the only way I could go back home was to remove the Light of Destruction and Yubel as threats. Everything else, all this Tragoedia nonsense, that was for my convenience. By anime standards the dude would have been a threat in about a year. I decided to do something about that.’
Kaiba stood motionless. The words had hit him like a freight train. Was this a prank? The kid was serious. The kid knew far too much. But before Kaiba could make up his mind, Phil made it up for him.
‘Say’, Phil grinned, ‘I’ve always wondered… what did it feel like to personally spectate the final duel between Yugi Muto and Atem?’
Kaiba lunged forward and grabbed Phil by the collar, hoisting the skinny teen in the air with a single hand. It wasn’t hard. The kid weighed practically nothing.
‘How. Do. You. Know. About. That.’ He snarled.
Phil laughed uproariously in the face of Kaiba's rage, a feat that was by no means small. The more common reaction people had to Kaiba being genuinely angry was to wet themselves and move away from any windows in case Roland was ordered to teach them how to fly the hard way.
'I told you! I'm from another world and you're just too much of a stubborn son of a bitch to see it! Where I come from, Duel Monsters is a fun little game a bunch of nerds enjoy! Your lives play out on a fucking 4k ultra-widescreen TV! And right now you're busy fucking about in your space station trying to tear your way into the afterlife so you can get the closure the pharaoh denied you that day in Egypt.'
Kaiba dropped the cackling teen and turned away to face the window. Only a handful of people on the planet knew of the space station. Of those who knew its true purpose, it was only Roland, Mokuba, and himself. The three people in the world that would never betray Seto Kaiba.
‘So go on up to space.’ The teen continued while picking himself up off the floor. ‘Learn to synchro summon. The key is speed. Lots of fucking speed. I’ll give you the cards you need to do it. I have them on hand right now. Just make sure to help a brother out and find out what the hell the Light of Destruction is, because I’ve not the faintest idea. I only have the name.’
'I've got Yubel covered.' Phil added with a half-shrug. 'Don't know for sure when it will show up, but I've at least heard of it before.'
Kaiba coldly snorted in contempt, but ultimately he had no response to those tumultuous revelations.
The day after that, Kaiba moved his operations to his space station. He devoted every aspect of his time to learning the new summoning method and researching the Light of Destruction.
And now, in less than an hour, it would all come to an end.
Kaiba stared out of the viewport. His engineers told him the satellite controlled by the kingdom of Misgarth would come around the planet and into view soon. The other target, he could already see much more clearly.
A cloud of light. It looked similar to a nebula, a giant cloud of gas and dust that was the birthplace of stars. Except, where an ordinary nebula was quite harmless and exceptionally beautiful to behold, this nebula was extremely menacing. More than that, it had what looked like a face.
It wasn’t a full-on human face in the true sense of things, but three gashes in the nebula that formed two eyes and a grinning slit of a mouth. It stared back at him, almost like it was mocking the man with the bike.
Almost like it was mocking Seto Kaiba.
His blood boiled at the thought, but he forced patience to flow through his limbs. In a few minutes before the hour was complete, the optimal conditions for completing both of his goals would be revealed. After that no idiotic cosmic villain would dare mock Seto Kaiba.
The radio near the handlebars of his bike buzzed and Kaiba half-turned to look at it.
“Seto!” Mokuba’s voice spilled out of the device, so great was his little brother’s excitement. Well, Kaiba wouldn’t begrudge his brother for that. This was a momentous occasion, after all.
“The cards have been loaded and primed. This should be quite a spectacle.”
Kaiba grinned and answered back with one word. “Acknowledged.”
Some might have seen it as a waste, but the Sacred Beasts were always far too eager to bite the hand of the duelist who commanded them. This way they would be of far better use.
Time tick, ticked away. Time ticked away as the optimal conditions came closer and closer to arriving.