[Fanfiction] Arena 3 - The Children of Silvershine

[Catterjune]

One Sentence Summary:

Picking up directly after the events of Arena 2, Arthur and his friends return from the Aether Realm and must confront the Tabernacle of the Matriarch, her military forces, and the Gods of the Aether Realm themselves in order to stop the destruction of Silvershine.

 

What was the idea behind this fanfic?

Arena 1 was heavily inspired by [a certain RP website]. We generally tried to lampoon and parody GX, while also trying to keep it grounded in reality.

 

Arena 2 was meant as a parody of typical self-insert fanfics. We literally have a character named Mary Sue, offspring of the main character, who everybody loves for some reason.

 

To make a long story short, Arena 1 was a parody of GX. Arena 2 was a parody of GX fanfics. It seemed fitting for Arena 3 to be a parody of Arena 1.

 

Is it necessary to read parts 1 and 2?

 

Not particularly, though I have to admit it would be weird to read this, enjoy it, and not want to read the first two.

 

Where can I find the first two parts?

 

https://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/350681-arena-a-duel-academy-fanfic

 

https://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/362714-arena-2-the-cursed-chain

 

Is this really a parody, or are you just a bad writer who's hiding behind the word parody to excuse your bad writing?

... Yes

 

What's the release schedule?

Once in a while. I aim for once a week but it doesn't always happen.

 

[spoiler=Table of Contents]Chapter 1: This is Crimson Wind Asylum

Word Count: 3085

Chapter Summary:

A year has gone by

Face a cold reality

Their goal? Survival

 

Chapter 2: The Monorail Station

Word Count: 3263

Chapter Summary:

Meet the Crimson Wolves

Travel to the Monorail

Accomplish nothing

 

Chapter 3: The Matriarch Never Makes Mistakes!

Word Count: 3687

Chapter Summary:

It's time for a change

A duel at the monorail

Link summon lesson!

 

Chapter 4: We're Doing the Best We Can

Word Count: 3794

Chapter Summary:

A fight for supplies

Everyone versus Team Surname

Nobody wants death

 

Chapter 5: Play

Word Count: 3785

Chapter Summary:

Return to normal?

Surprise guest and surprise plan

Crimson Wind School Play!

 

Chapter 6: Dear Sister

Word Count: 4175

Chapter Summary:

Dangerous attack

Matriarch passes judgment

And so does Ami

 

Chapter 7: The Last of the Covenant

Word Count: 3677

Chapter Summary

Eighth Link in the Chain

A Deus Ex Machina

And one final plan

 

Chapter 8: Sneaking Out

Word Count: 3157

Chapter Summary

Heading to the train

What could possibly go wrong?

Aphraestus descends

 

Chapter 9: There Is No Future Here

Word Count: 4709

Chapter Summary

End of the first arc

One final duel for freedom

It's Arena's turn

 

---

 

Chapter 10: Rough Commute

Word Count: 3003

Chapter Summary

A surprise attack

The Silvershine arc begins

At Transit Towers

 

Chapter 11: Exclamation Point

Word Count: 4339

Chapter Summary

At Point Blank Night Club

A surprise from an old friend

Cut short by the Board

 

Chapter 12: A Red Letter Day

Word Count: 4921

Chapter Summary:

Team Surname Arrives

At Hawthorne Academy

Purple coats do too.

 

Chapter 13: The Good Guys

Word Count: 3128

Chapter Summary:

Tension and suspense!

A bullet in a flintlock

Aimed at family

 

Chapter 14: Public Enemy Number One

Word Count: 3801

Chapter Summary:

At the Black Wall Camps

Only one thing can save them

A bolt from the blue

 

Chapter 15: Market Crash

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 16: Ellipsis

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 17: The Long March

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 18: Somebody Dies At The End of This

[more information coming soon]

 

---

 

Chapter 19: The Elysian Field

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 20: Arthur's Soulmate

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 21:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 22:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 23:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 24:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 25:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 26:

[more information coming soon]

 

Chapter 27:

[more information coming soon]

 

 

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 1: This is Crimson Wind Asylum]If you're reading this then it's probably too late. By now I'm sure you already know that I am dead, along with my friends Oliver Khlozoff, Ami Pastiche and the Surname twins, Guy and Gal. I have no doubt my girlfriend Arena can deliver this message to you though.

Mom, Dad, I just want to say I'm sorry that you have to find out this way.

I've never been completely up front with you regarding my adventures in Silvershine. You were always both so busy with your messy divorce and I didn't want to add any more unnecessary pressure. But I think it's time you learned about what your son has been up to these past two years while away at school.

It all started when Lincoln Academy burned to the ground. I'm sure you saw it on the news or one of you signed some paperwork to get me transferred over to Hawthorne, the premier all-girl school in Silvershine. Oliver, Guy and I were the only surviving members of Lincoln and the first three boys to ever enroll in that school. It was here that I met my girlfriend Arena. (By the way, her name is pronounced "Air" like the first part of 'Ares', and '-Eena', like the last part of 'Athena'. You'll know why in a minute.)

At first I thought Arena was a little quirky, very smart, but just a little too affectionate. In actuality, she was an Eternal Goddess from another dimension, the Aether Realm. In this case she was the Goddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy.

I know it sounds crazy but I've seen her powers, I've seen what she can do, and I've seen the power of her gifts to humanity, the Cursed Chain.

The twins, Guy and Gal were born with a part of Arena's gift, the Seventh Link in the Cursed Chain and it seemed a powerful group of people calling themselves the Covenant of the Eternals had been seeking their powers. They believed when all of the links in the Cursed Chain were combined, they could perform a ritual and enter the Aether Realm.

They were right.

All of my friends and I managed to make it to the Aether Realm to stop the Covenant's plans. After saving the Gods, we all thought we would come home to a hero's welcome.

We were wrong.

We've been wandering around on this frigid mountaintop for hours now. It's snowing, it's cold, and the only clothes we have are the clothes we wore to the Sweetheart's Day Dance.

Oliver and Ami have already given up. They've made a quick igloo and fallen asleep in each other's arms, hoping to keep themselves warm with their body heat for as long as possible. Gal and Guy hurried up ahead, desperate to find anyone who could help us.

As the sun begins to set, Arena handed me a piece of paper and a pen, telling me to write down anything that was on my mind to preoccupy myself.

My mind shifts only to you, my family and all the words that remain unwritten. And not just you, but I also think about my daughter, Aynn Mischa who was left all alone after we entered the Aether Realm.

Surprise! You have a granddaughter.

I think about everything else I'll never get the chance to say. There is so much more I want to tell you but my pen is growing heavier and I can feel death closing in.

I love you mom and dad.

Your only son,

Arthur Surrogate

---

I woke up from a terrible nightmare in an unfamiliar bed in a room with very poor lighting. I wore a fancy suit and I clutched onto a crumpled piece of paper with smeared, illegible ink scrawled on it. I began to rub my head, feeling uncertain of where I was.

As I laid face up on my back I realized I couldn't see very much from this position, but just turning my head felt like it would take too much out of me. Judging from the shadows on the wall nearby it looked like the windows were about 20 feet off the ground. I saw a banner up high that read 'Happy Sweethearts Day' and my head began to hurt as I remembered the last time I saw that sign. I grabbed at my temples to try to will the headache away.

"So, Arthur's finally awake huh?" I heard a familiar boy's voice calling from nearby. I tried to look up to see him. Our eyes met and he gave me an awkward and hesitant wave with his left, revealing only nine fingers. The stump where his ring finger should be was covered in bandages.

My head began to throb even worse before I crashed back down onto my pillow.

"Heh." I heard the boy chuckle. "I guess I spoke too soon."

I cringed as I desperately tried to get my bearings.

"Oliver? What's going on? Where are we?"

"This is Crimson Wind Asylum." spoke an unfamiliar voice.

I rolled over to my side to get a better look at this person. They were a small, thin, waif-like youth with long violet colored hair wearing an ill-fitting all white doctor's coat. They wore a name tag identifying them as Doctor Hikari. I however tried to focus more on what this person said rather than their appearance.

"Asylum?" I repeated.

"That's right." the doctor said before calmly walking away. "It looks like you're all right now. I have to go check on the girls." And without another word, the doctor left the two of us alone.

I glanced over at my friend and breathed a sigh of relief, glad to see the blond haired boy was alive. "You're okay."

"Of course I am! Did you really think a little bit of cold could kill good ol' Oliver Khlozoff?" he said with his hands on his hips like he was some kind of super hero.

I gave a chuckle. I guess it's true what they said about laughter being the best medicine as I now felt I had a bit more strength to sit up straight.

"My uhh… ring finger has seen better days though."

"Sorry about that." I said, unsure of what to say exactly.

"Lucky to be alive honestly."

"Where's Arena? Guy? Gal? Ami?" I asked, worried on the condition of my other friends.

"No idea. I've just been sitting in the dark before the doctor showed up, and you got all the attention." Oliver gave a shrug. "I mean, the doctor did say girlS. You know, with an S. Plural." Oliver stressed the letter S on the word 'girls'. "So I guess that means... at least two of them survived?"

I tried to be optimistic about Oliver's assessment, but it was hard to be upbeat when I wasn't sure what was going on. One minute we were at the Sweetheart's Day Dance at Crimson Wind Academy. The next we were in the Aether Realm. The last, we came upon a world of snow and ice up in the mountains, and now finally I was laying in some kind of hospital bed.

As I sat up and stared blankly ahead, a girl's voice brought me back out of my trance.

---

"Arthur!"

Before I could even look up, a short, white haired girl wearing what looked like a toga and battle armor tackled me and pinned me back down onto the bed. But this wasn't a warrior ready for battle. This was my girflriend, Arena the Goddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy and she was still dressed in the outfit she wore for the Sweetheart's Day Dance.

She hugged me and kissed me softly on the lips. At first I gently tried to push the girl off, though feeling her this close was pretty nice. I changed my mind about pushing her off and instead gave her a gentle pat on the back to let her know she could stay cuddling next to me. She didn't need any more invitation than that as she held her body closer to mine.

"Alright Arena, you're the Goddess of Wisdom, right?" Oliver began. "Make with the exposition already! What's going on? Where are our friends? Are we even all still alive or is this all some sort of allegory?"

While still laying on top of me, Arena stared at Oliver for a moment. She studied him carefully before she tried her best to explain it to him.

"Time flows differently in the Aether Realm." Arena answered after a bit of a pause. "Though it feels to you as though you have spent less than a day in the Aether Realm, in the mortal realm you have returned at the one year anniversary of your departure."

What Arena said didn't make sense based on what I had experienced between sophomore and junior year.

Arena and I had spent our first summer together in the Aether Realm. Over the summer I fell in love with Arena, got married to her, and had a teenage daughter named Marie-Aynn Sumischa Surrogate. Spending years in the Aether Realm equated to a summer, so spending hours equated to a year? I wasn't the best at counting out life points, but the math wasn't quite adding up for me. I leaned back as I felt as though my headache was returning. Perhaps for right now it was best not to think about the flow of time and instead focus on the present.

"Wait, we're only one year in the future!?" Oliver exclaimed. "There's no electricity," he raised his left index finger. "No heat," Left middle. "And-" he scowled at his ringer finger then gave a sigh. "And there's a huge raging snow storm outside. It looks more like the end of the world to me!"

Arena stared at Oliver again before speaking calmly. "A lot has happened in the time you six were gone."

Before we could ask Arena for more information, a new person's voice called out to greet the three of us.

"Thank the Matriarch!" a man's voice exclaimed. "You guys are alive!"

While the doctor was thin, small, and emaciated, this new man was exactly the opposite. He was extremely tall and extremely muscular, a giant of a man wearing a Ra Yellow jacket with torn off sleeves. He had a military style crewcut, a pair of sunglasses, and a huge grin on his face as he stared over the three of us.

"Uh, hey man." Oliver called out with his now trademark 4 finger wave. "Who are you exactly?"

"Name's Shinchiro Kai." The giant of a man gave a big grin as he pointed to himself. "Since Headmistress Kallone left, I'm in charge of the Asylum. And the best part is, it looks like all six of you are alive and well."

You know that feeling you get where you finally take off your tie after a long day? That's how I felt when I heard the words 'all six'. It meant all of my friends had survived. However I couldn't help but wince at the words 'and well'. I had a splitting headache and Oliver was missing his left index finger.

Nevertheless when I found out my friends were alive it felt like a weight had been lifted of my chest. I gently pushed Arena off of me. She gave me one last quick peck on the cheek before she allowedme to sit up.

"All six? That's great news." Oliver said as he yawned and began to stretch.

"It is! I'd like to avoid having any more deaths on my watch!" said the Ra Yellow Giant with a chuckle.

Oliver looked around nervously, and gave an awkward chuckle back. Since Arena no longer pinned me down, I could get a better look of our surroundings and I understood now why Oliver was so nervous.

We were in the Dueling Arena on what I knew as Crimson Wind Academy, and the site of the last year's Sweetheart's Day Dance. There were about a dozen or so empty beds all around us. I had a feeling we weren't the first people to wake up here, and I was certain many people had been laid here and never woke up afterwards.

"We are at the Grand Central Field Hospital at Crimson Wind Asylum." Arena answered, before I could give my question.

Hearing her answer worried me though, and I felt I never got an appropriate answer. "What do you all mean by asylum?"

"It's not really an asylum. More like a jail, really." The Giant responded, rather callously. "The Matriarch throws all prisoners, political opponents, and general people unfit for the Halidom of Silvershine to our little island."

Oliver and I exchanged nervous glances when the Giant mentioned the word jail. We both silently wondered if we could take on this guy in a fight if we had to.

But perhaps sensing our worry, the Giant pre-empted our thoughts. "But you guys aren't prisoners. At least not yet."

The Giant gave a laugh as he slapped Oliver on the shoulder which almost made Oliver's bed collapse. Oliver shook his head, realizing we'd probably need about 8 other guys to take down this behemoth.

The Giant walked over to me and smiled. "Don't worry about the Crimson Wolves. You're hanging out with Shinchiro Kai. I'll keep you guys safe."

Neither of us really felt safe though. We were confused, frightened and not feeling too well from nearly dying in the freezing cold.

"Safe..." Oliver lazily repeated, before realizing there was something else he wanted to know about. "What are the Crimson Wolves?"

Arena began speaking before the giant could.

"There are two factions currently residing on Crimson Wind Island. The Tabernacle of the Matriarch is a group that pledge obedience and servitude to the Matriarch. In return they get supplies from the Halidom of Silvershine via the Crimson Silver monorail. The second group is collectively known as the Crimson Wolves, however they are actually several smaller groups of whatever children refused to join The Tabernacle. There is no central organization within the Wolves. They merely roam across the island, fighting each other for whatever few meager scraps of food, water and other supplies they can scavenge."

"It's a shame really." The Giant began with a shrug. "We get daily food rations, fresh water, medicine, and gasoline for the generators depending on how many people we have on record as being on the island. If we had them officially pledge themselves to the Matriarch our daily supplies would go up significantly and they wouldn't need to fight each other for whatever's left on the island."

A sound beeped on the Giant's wrist as his watch's alarm went off.

"Ah, speaking of which, the morning's supply run will be here in about an hour." we couldn't see the Giant's eyes behind his sunglasses but we could tell he was looking at us.

"The asylum isn't a charity by the way. If you want to stay in my good graces you'll have to earn your keep. We'll start you with something small though. Just head down to the monorail station and pick up our daily supplies. You may also want to register with Silvershine Security. Let them know we have six new people so they can send us more supplies."

"I refuse to be separated from Arthur." Arena declared as she clung on tighter to me.

"Suit yourself." the Giant said as he squinted out the window and looked towards the clouds. "I think the unending blizzard might be slowing down so now would probably be the best time."

Oliver and I exchanged nervous looks before he spoke up. "Wait! Back up a minute. Arthur and I just barely survived a night in the Crimson Wind Mountains and now you wanna send us back out there in the cold again? We were barely clinging to life less than 24 hours ago!"

"We all have problems kid." the Giant said with a scowl. "You two look like the strongest members of the Tabernacle of the Matriarch anyway."

I was shocked. I hardly felt strong after waking up in a hospital bed. "What about you!?" I shot back.

"I have to oversee the rest of the asylum. Double check inventory, tend to the wounded and sick, and coordinate with everyone else in the Tabernacle."

"B-but-" I began.

The look on the Giant's face unnerved me enough to stop.

"What kind of men are you!?" The Giant exclaimed. "When we saw the beacon, we risked our lives gathering a search party for you on the mountaintop! All we ask is that you get us provisions! Provisions that, may I remind you, you and the other four women of your party will also be enjoying later."

I sat stunned, but Oliver managed to stifle a laugh. "Ha! He thinks Guy's a woman?!"

I gave Oliver and weary smile before I glanced over at my legs. "If we're going outside again, can we at least get a change of clothes?" I asked reluctantly

"Food, water, gasoline, medical supplies. No new clothes though. Sorry." The giant gave a shrug as he left the field hospital, leaving Oliver and I alone to figure out our next move.

---

Oliver and I got dressed again in our fancy suits, ties, and dress shoes. At least if we died, we'd have something to wear for the funeral. We grabbed about five extra blankets each to wrap around ourselves and keep us warm, but as we approached the exit we cringed at the incoming draft, still not feeling warm enough.

Arena cheerfully clung to my side, not wearing any additional cloth over her battle armor but since she was an immortal goddess from the Aether Realm the cold had no effect on her.

Even though it was cloudly, the pure white snow seemed to magnify and reflect what little early morning light there was available. The snow had stopped falling not too long ago, but the wind and the uneven ground still made it dangerous to travel to the monorail station, even if we weren't sick and tired.

None of us were much in the mood for talking. Oliver and I just wanted to grab the supplies and head back into warmth as soon as possible. Little did we know however, we weren't the only people braving the cold at the Crimson Wind Asylum today.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 2: The Monorail Station]Oliver and I were mostly silent as we continued our walk on the snow covered path to the Crimson Wind Academy Monorail. Underneath several layers of blankets we both still wore the clothes we had worn for the Sweetheart's Day Dance. We were cold and shivering, but we were doing our best to keep marching forward.

Oliver however was staring back and forth between my wrist and his own wrist. Maybe because of the fatigue it took him a minute to finally ask what was on his mind.

"Do you really think it was a good idea for both of us to bring our Duel Disks?"

I looked down at the large, laptop sized panel attached to my wrist as well as an identical one attached to his own before I absentmindedly gave him a shrug.

"Well I mean..." I wasn't sure how to answer, as I barely even remembered putting it on. "Maybe if we get lost in the snow again, they can use the Duel Disk's GPS to find our bodies?"

"That's not how they found you." Arena corrected. "There was a pillar of light when the portal to the Aether Realm reopened, so the Tabernacle sent out a search party. Gal and Guy were able to get their attention and bring them back to all of us. I was mostly in charge of making sure none of you impulsively ran away."

I stared at Arena and Oliver then shrugged and shivered before I gave a dismissive hand wave.

"It's too cold to talk."

In truth, it was too cold to do much of anything. It was too cold to talk. It was too cold to walk outside wearing only a suit and a couple of blankets for protection. It was too cold to carry supplies from the monorail station to the main academy building for the leader of the Tabernacle. Most of all it was too cold to be ambushed by a group of feral school children.

I blinked, suddenly realizing that the three of us were not alone. A pair of girls rudely stood in our way, and about three other kids began circling in on Oliver, Arena and I.

I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or dying or something, but something called out to me and told me this wasn't all just a dream.

"Just what do you think you're doing here!?" a loud, high pitched voice yelled.

I immediately recognized that voice as one belonging to one of the more vocal students from Crimson Wind Academy.

"Princess?"

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust from all the fatigue, but standing before me was the short and flat chested Princess of Ra Yellow. She wore a heavy purple winter coat, mittens, and a big poofy hat on top of her snow white hair. On her left was the Firefly, one of the other girls from Heaven's Sake, the club they had founded. The Firefly wore white pants and a puffy orange jacket that seemed to match her orange hair. Her third friend was missing, though considering what I knew I decided not to ask.

"Arthur, Arena and Oliver." the redhead Firefly smiled at the three of us. "Where are you guys headed to dressed up so fancy?"

"The Monorail Station." a boy interrupted with a smug smirk. He had a shaggy black hair and black coat with a fur-lined hood, though he didn't hide his infectious smile by keeping the hood up.

Normally I wouldn't remember people I had seen over a year ago. Fortunately for me, because of our trip to the Aether Realm I felt I had seen this boy just yesterday.

"Kristi Korrina?"

Kristi Jennifer Korrina was a Demigod, and a boy despite his very feminine sound name. His mother was a mortal woman and his father was Apollemis, the God of Music, the Hunt, Wild Animals and too many other things to count. About 17 years ago his mother met Apollemis and the two hit it off almost immediately. They dated for a little bit, one thing lead to another, and Miss Korrina found herself with child.

As a God of the Aether Realm though, Apollemis had a higher duty to uphold than love. Miss Korrina wanted Apollemis to stay by her side forever, but instead Apollemis rode his golden chariot off into the sunset, or rather he pulled the sunset behind him on his golden chariot.

The Eternal from the Aether Realm faked his own death to get out of his relationship with the woman, leaving her before even admitting his divine status.

Before he left her for good, the couple agreed to the name their child Kristi Jennifer if they had a daughter, but they could never agree to an appropriate name for a son. After Apollemis's disappearance, Miss Korrina didn't have the heart to come up with a better name.

Kristi spent most of his youth as an above average musician. He rarely got sick, he had a bit of an intuition when it came to future events, and animals seemed to genuinely like him. It wasn't until the events of last year, and a trip to the Aether Realm that he realized his true gifts...

"Ugh, let me guess there you Obelisk Philistine." a disgusted Ra Yellow girl in a pink (and expensive looking) falbala parka said as she rolled her eyes. "You used your 'prophecy powers' again?"

"Hey Blunty, don't hate just cause you didn't go to the Aether Realm and get magical powers like I did!" Kristi smiled as he stuck his tongue out at the high class girl. "Gentleman's intuition! Something tells me these kids are really important."

Kristi barely glanced at Oliver and me. His main focus seemed to be Arena, who he studied quite diligently. They made brief eye contact and gave each other a knowing look and a silent nod.

Arena looked over the group of people, before raising an eyebrow and speaking briefly. "We are indeed on our way to the Monorail Station, to pick up supplies at the request of the Tabernacle for the Matriarch."

Despite being able to see fragments of the future, this seemed to surprise Kristi. "Oh..." he frowned.

Arena's words seemed to set off a small series of whispering from the group that surrounded us.

"They're with Kai."
"The Tabernacle?"
"No good."
"Supply run?"

The crowd seemed to speaking and discussing things amongst themselves, so I figured now was as good a time as any to discuss things with Arena.

"Hey Arena, now that we have a minute, can you explain everything to us?"

Arena looked over at me and Oliver reluctantly.

"I believe you will need more than a minute for me to explain EVERYTHING, however if that is truly what you desire I cannot refuse you my love." she cleared her throat. "In the beginning-"

"Can we cut to what happened after we left the mortal realm?" Oliver interrupted. "What happened between last year's Sweetheart's Day and today?"

Arena frowned. "Very well."

She cleared her throat.

"The Covenant of the Eternals took the Demigod children hostage and threatened all of the Eternals with Ophelia's Blade. Gal stepped in and defeated Robin Weaver, getting rid of the leverage that the Covenant held over the Eternals. We punished Lord Ikari and Robin, though Candice Sublime had managed to escape our grasp for the time being. After the duel concluded, we opened the portal and returned the six of you back to the mortal realm."

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we were all there when that happened. But what was happening in the mortal realm while we were out? Who exactly is the Matriarch and how did she come into power?"

For Arena, every time she spoke there was a long pause. She was like a chess player, where every action needed careful consideration. Whenever she held a delayed pause like this, she often responded with 'I cannot meddle with human affairs' however to our surprise she agreed to our request.

"Very well." she began.

"Wait, really?" Oliver asked.

"You and Arthur are mortals so you would not have felt any change after entering the Aether Realm. Anyone who had a Little Piece of Heaven inside them however would have received a significant boost to their strength. Specifically I am referring to the wielders of the Cursed Chain, and the DemiGods themselves. They all held small fragments of our Divine Powers, so their powers have surged and amplified by stepping into the Aether Realm."

I could feel a creeping sense of dread as I listened to Arena's words. She was very terse in the way she spoke, so anytime she gave more than a sentence it was never any good.

"The Matriarch is one of the people who received augmented powers after her trip to the Aether Realm. When she returned she had enough cunning and strategy to come up with a plan, and armed with her two links in the Cursed Chain, she was able to execute her plan and take over the entire city the day after she returned to the mortal realm. Without any of her friends or family to stop her, the city easily fell to her whims and has been under her control ever since."

I felt a pit in the bottom of my stomach, but it seemed Oliver hadn't realized what Arena was saying yet.

"Well Arena, which one was she? A Cursed Chain wielder or a-" Oliver stopped suddenly. "Oh..." before he finally realized there was only one possible candidate that matched Arena's description. A girl with two links in the chain and one who was known for cunning and strategy.

She didn't have to say a name, but Oliver and I both knew Arena was talking about Marie Aynn Sumischa Surrogate, DemiGodess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy. She was our daughter, the only person to ever be part Demigod and also own a piece of the Cursed Chain.

We barely noticed it when a boy nicknamed Lin in red cleared his throat to get all our attention.

"After lengthy deliberation we've decided we will not kill you." Lin announced.

Oliver and I exchanged confused looks. We weren't sure if he was joking or not.

"I wasn't aware that was on the table." Oliver responded.

"Rather than kill you three, we've come up with an even grander idea!" Blunty declared with a snap of her fingers. "If you three are all are so eager to work, we'll have you work for us instead!"

"Work for you? What do you mean?" asked Oliver.

The Princess of Ra Yellow grinned at us. "After Heaven's Sake and the Gutter Rats defeat the Black Dorm, we need you guys to bring the Silvershine supplies back to us!"

I was rather surprised to hear their plan. "I thought all of you Crimson Wolves worked together."

"Crimson what?" Lin replied quickly.

The group stared at us in confusion before I repeated myself. "You know... the Crimson Wolves. You guys? The group of feral school children that refused to join the Tabernacle of the Matriarch?"

"Crimson Wolves?" the Firefly looked intrigued, and rather please with the new nickname. "Is that what the Tabernacle calls us?"

"Us... ahem... Crimson Wolves don't get along." Lin said, cringing to the nickname. "There are loads of different groups on this island and we're all just struggling to stay alive.

"The Knights of the Sun God. The Duel-Tainment Club." Blunty began listing.

"The Nap Club. The Crimson Chronicle Newspaper." The Firefly continued.

"The Student Council. The Cheerleaders. There's dozens of smaller groups here, all competing for the same resources." The Princess concluded.

"For right now, the five of us are going to raid the Black Dorm." Kristi declared.

"They may not have food-" The Firefly began "-but they're a real working dorm with 180 rooms, electricity, running water and heat. Everyone that's not part of the Tabernacle has their eyes set on them."

"If you joined with the Tabernacle, you would not want for food." Arena replied blankly.

"There is no way we're joining with those brainwashed losers!" The Princess exclaimed.

"Yeah!" the other four yelled in agreement.

"Besides, you boys already have your orders." Blunty reminded. "We take down their dorm, you guys bring us the food, and then we can all live peacefully. Remember, do NOT bring it to the Tabernacle. You got it?"

"Come on everyone!" The Firefly declared as she tugged on the Princess's sleeves. "We gotta go before the snow starts back up again!"

And just like that, the two tribes of Crimson Wolves, the remaining girls of Heaven's Sake and a very small collection of Gutter Rats rushed into the woods to challenge the Black Dorm, leaving Oliver, Arena and I alone again to find the Monorail Station.

---

The Necrophades Black Dorm was started about 4 years ago by three people. There was the self-proclaimed Overlord, Draco Black. There was Gouki Shinkou who had earned the nickname the Demon of Turbo. Lastly there was the strangely quiet and slightly peculiar Necrophades Witch, Kira Ikari.

At first the Black Dorm was meant as a sort of cool edgy kids club. Under the leadership of the Overlord, they terrorized the school and mercilessly picked on the weaker, inferior kids. After the Overlord was expelled, the Demon of Turbo took over the dorm in the fall and began making steps towards establishing a legacy at the school. Rather than just a couple of edgy kids hanging out in the woods they had fixed up the old Abandoned Dorm and made it back to someplace that the school could take pride in. When the Demon graduated, the Necrophades Witch took over the dorm and further helped establish it as a legitimate dorm.

In February of last year, Silvershine was plunged into anarchy and none of the graduating class was allowed to leave Crimson Wind. The school kids had been locked in this island as a prison, and their only contact with the outside world was a monorail station, and the very limited amount of supplies it brought in.

At long last Oliver, Arena and I made it to the monorail station, and just before the storm started back up again. We were able to find shelter in the ticket taker booth, and while it wasn't that much warmer, it was away from the blasting wind and we had a light to work with. Oliver and I immediately threw off all our blankets except for one and breathed a sigh of relief.

"So what do you think we should do with the supplies Arthur?" Oliver wore his blanket like a cape, giving him enough room to straighten out his tie. "Tabernacle or Crimson Wolves?"

I checked my PDA and compared it to the LED display outside. It was almost mid-morning, so we had about 3 minutes until the train arrived. "I'm... not sure."

"My vote goes for the Crimson Wolves." Oliver said as he now began adjusting his Duel Disk. "That Ra Yellow Giant just wants to boss us all around. I'm sure we can both agree to that."

I looked over my own Duel Disk and thought it over. While I did agree that the Giant was not someone we should trust, it wasn't so clear cut as Oliver said.

"As much as I hated the Giant and his weirdly androgynous doctor, the Tabernacle has one thing that the Crimson Wolves doesn't."

My mind shifted back to my friends.

"Hostages."

"... Hostages?" Oliver blinked before realizing what I meant. "Oh, you mean Ami, Guy and Gal?"

We stared out at the tracks in front of us, and off in the distance we could hear a train horn. The Crimson Silver Express would soon be arriving.

The two of us stood in a bit of a silence as Oliver considered my words before speaking again.

"Well Guy has the second link in the chain. That lets him control other people. And he's got the third link that lets him pass through solid objects. I'm pretty sure he can handle himself if the Giant tries anything funny."

I nodded, remembering the gifts of the Cursed Chain. "Well I guess that's true. I had sort of forgotten about them."

"And even though the seventh link that Guy and Gal share is kinda useless, Gal has the sixth link in the chain too which gives her those weird fabric tentacles like that Robin Weaver dude had."

I paused to think it over. "... Wait, Gal has the sixth link?"

"Pretty sure she does." Oliver turned to Arena.

The two of us looked over to Arena, the Goddess of Wisdom.

"Now Arena," Oliver began to clarify. "Correct me if I'm wrong but you get a Link in the chain when you're first born, and the only way to lose it is to gamble it away in a challenge from another link in the chain. Gal challenged Robin, so she won his link in the chain. Right?"

"Correct." Arena nodded.

Oliver jokingly elbowed me. "Also she hit you in the face while practicing her powers in the Aether Realm, remember?"

It was a sort of blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment near the end of our last adventure, and compared to the pain I'd experienced so far it barely even registered. Nevertheless I blushed lightly and my hand went to rub my cheek. "Yeah, I think I remember that now."

"It took Robin his entire life to gain control over fabrics the way Gal did in the Aether Realm." Arena began. "The only reason she was able to master the sixth link in the time that she did was because the links had been augmented."

At long last, the bullet train was beginning to pull into the station.

"So yeah, about that Augmentation stuff..." Oliver began. "So like, someone with the First Link in the Chain could drain other people's youth to make themselves younger. What happens now?"

The entirety of the train was before me.

"A wider ranger, multiple targets, and a stronger effect." Arena responded.

There was a sound like the train had powered off.

"And the rest?"

The doors slowly began to creek open and I could practically feel the warmth coming from with.

"It works similarly."

We stared in eager anticipation as the doors finally opened, eager for this madness to end. Little did we know the nightmare was just beginning.

I expect to see dozens of rescue and relief workers. I expected to see a bunch of medical workers and strong looking men carrying hundreds of boxes.

Instead, when the door opened I saw a single man, maybe about two or three years old than Oliver and I, wearing a crisp clean policeman's uniform. He had spiky slicked back dark colored hair. His right eye was bright red, but we couldn't see his left eye because it was covered with a D-Gazer.

I had previously seen a D-Gazer for sale at the Kelen Duel Academy for the Disabled. It was designed to set up a sort of Augmented Reality overlay, to feed additional information to deaf duelists, however I doubted this man had any such handicap. Above his eyes he had two rather bushy and well pronounced eyebrows.

"Hey, I remember you!" Oliver declared. "You're that jerk leader from the Necrophades Black Dorm. The Demon of Turbo or something like that?"

"Gouki Shinkou." Arena corrected.

The Demon smiled at the three of us.

"If you're looking for your daily supply of rations, I'm afraid they're not here."

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 3: The Matriarch Never Makes Mistakes!]Before The Matriarch took over the city, the Demon of Turbo had made a name for himself in the Professional Dueling circuit. As DemiGodess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy, Aynn Mischa valued cleverness and foresight so she took all of the former pro duelists, rewrote all their memories, and set them as her city's security squad. The current police force was upgraded, but that's a story for another day.

 

For right now, the three of us had traveled across dimensions, leapt a year forward through time and made it all the way across campus to fetch supplies for the Tabernacle of the Matriarch only to have them denied to us by the officer in charge of the Crimson Silver Bullet train.

 

"What do you mean the supplies aren't here!?" I demanded.

 

"Well I've got an unopened booster pack and a cold Forrester Snack Cake you're more than welcome to." the Demon dropped the two on the floor and kicked them over to Oliver, letting them skid on the ground like he was feeding a dog.

 

"We're not here to pick up your trash." I insisted. Out of my peripheral vision I glanced over and saw Oliver bend down to pick up the cards and the snack.

 

"H-hey!" he stammered defensively. "Food's pretty hard to come by these days..."

 

The Demon gave a laugh as he pulled out his PDA and calmly snapped a picture of Oliver.

 

"Look, we're here for the supplies for the Tabernacle of the Matriarch. Food, water, medicine, gasoline. When is it going to get here?"

 

The Demon of Turbo scoffed at my question.

 

"I'll use little words so your underdeveloped pea-brains can understand." The Demon said as he waved his PDA around. "The Matriarch will no longer be supporting Crimson Wind Asylum in any way, shape or form. No more food, no more electricity, no more gasoline. Not even any communication between the island and the city! NOTHING."

 

"What!?" Oliver exclaimed as he stopped looking over the pack of cards he got. "How come!?"

 

Another flash from the Demon's PDA as he smirked before answering.

 

"We saw the beacon all the way from Silvershine, and the Matriarch knew exactly what it meant. The Door up on the mountain had been activated and a portal to the Aether Realm had been opened. Either the entire Cursed Chain had returned or all of the DemiGods had gathered again. But since the Matriarch fell into both groups she knew it couldn't be either of those. The only possible answer left was an Eternal from the Aether Realm had descended into the mortal realm, and there was just one Eternal it could possibly be."

 

The Demon smiled smugly at my girlfriend. "Our beloved matriarch knew the easiest way to hurt Arena would be-"

 

"To harm my dear Arthur and everyone he cares for." Arena said with a scowl as the Demon took another picture.

 

"Why did she send you all the way here just to tell us this?" Oliver asked. "Why not just let us slowly starve to death instead? I mean... I'm sure we would have gotten the message."

 

The Demon grinned as he waved his phone towards us. "The Matriarch wanted to see the look on your face when I delivered the news that everyone on this island was going to die."

 

The Demon gave a sinister laugh as he clicked a few buttons on a phone, then clicked a button on the side of his D-Gazer.

 

"It is the honor of a lifetime to serve my beloved Matriarch." the Demon spoke into his PDA. "My Grace, I have delivered the message you have asked for, and I've captured their reactions as best as I could."

 

A few more clicks as he sent her the pictures he took.

 

Oliver was shocked at what he was hearing.

 

"I... that... it can't be true! We've met Aynn and she was a bit dumb but she was never this cruel!"

 

"Without her father and her father's friends to guide her, Marie Aynn's cruelty knew no bounds."

 

"So we're all gonna die here just because Aynn hates Arena that much!?" He took a step forward towards the Demon. "There must be some kind of mistake-"

 

The response was so loud we could hear her little voice squeaking through the man's telephone.

 

"The Matriarch never makes mistakes!" a small static filled voice declared. The Demon of Turbo winced and gently tapped a button on the side of his D-Gazer to lower the volume.

 

"Aynn Mischa! I was wrong about you!" Oliver exclaimed as he yelled towards the PDA in the Demon's hands. "You're nothing more than an irredeemable monster and nobody would be upset if you were to choke to death on your ham and cheese sandwich!"

 

The Demon looked as though he had been punched in the face.

 

The little voice coming from his PDA exploded in anger. "What!?"

 

The Demon of Turbo clicked off his PDA and pocketed it before taking a deep breath.

 

He began walking towards Oliver, with a serious scowl on his face. "Don't you EVER talk about the Matriarch like that ever again!"

 

Oliver rolled his eyes dismissively. "Big man, big talk."

 

"It's more than just talk! It's time somebody taught you some respect!"

 

Oliver smirked. "And you're gonna be the one to do it huh?"

 

The Demon of Turbo raised his Duel Disk, and Oliver loosened his cape-like blanket to reveal his own duel disk as well.

 

"What! You gotta be kidding me!" I exclaimed. "This is the worst excuse-plot for a duel I've ever seen!"

 

"I'm here to teach this arrogant fool a lesson!" The Demon declared.

 

"Whatever you say man. But if I win..." Oliver glanced around, and an idea began to form. "You gotta give us the keys to the monorail. Or like, however it works I guess. Give us whatever makes it go forward so we can take everyone off this hellhole and get back to the mainland."

 

"You won't win!" the Demon declared as he drew an opening hand of five, and a sixth on his draw phase. "I could promise the moon and back, that's perfectly acceptable. The Matriarch wouldn't let me lose."

 

Oliver slipped a card into his extra deck. "So it's a deal then?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Duel!" both said in unison.

 

---

 

Oliver was in the Pro Dueling classes at Hawthorne Academy. Unfortunately we only ever made it to junior year before the world ended. In the meantime, The Demon of Turbo had graduated and already had a year in the pro dueling circuit under his belt. He had learned new mechanics and new ways of dueling. Oliver would have to think on his feet if he had any hopes of winning.

 

The Demon of Turbo was one of the few mortals to ever defeat Arena in a duel, so I knew this wouldn't be an easy victory for Oliver.

 

Their life point counters read eight thousand life points and the duel began.

 

"I'll start us off with Elemental HERO Stratos!" the Demon declared as a blue man in a peculiar wing suit emerged on his side of the field. "When Stratos is summoned-"

 

"Yeah, everyone knows what Stratos does man. Just pick your card and let's go."

 

"Cold?" The Demon asked with a smirk as Oliver bundled up the blanket around him.

 

Oliver scowled as he watched the Demon pick up Vision HERO Vylon, but he was glad he could get his turn started now.

 

---

 

"I'll start us off with Noble Knight Medraut!" Oliver declared as a blonde, hazel eyed warrior emerged on his field. For Duel Monster Spirit Day, Oliver once dressed up as Medraut, so it was a bit of a personal favorite for the boy.

 

"And I equip him with the spell card Noble Arms - Gallatin!"

 

While the Demon's deck focused on Destiny Heroes and getting them quickly on the field, Oliver's deck was focused on Noble Knights and equipping them with Noble Arms equip spells.

 

"And I'll activate my Medraut's effect!" Oliver declared with a dramatic flourish. "When he's the only monster on my field, as long as he's equipped with a Noble Arms card, I can special summon any Noble Knight monster from my deck. So say hello to Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn!"

 

An ebony clad knight emerged on Oliver's side of the field, however Medraut's looked over at his sword which began to splinter and crack. "Unfortunately when I use Medraut's effect, he destroys his equip spell. But on the plus side, when Gallatin is destroyed, I get to equip it again on any card I want, so Medraut will get to keep it after all!"

 

The sword exploded, then reformed once again in Medraut's hand.

 

"So you're going for the Xyz summon now?"

 

"Of course I am! When Medraut is equipped with a Noble Arms spell, its level increases by one. So I create an Overlay Network using Medraut and Black Laundsallyn to special summon Sacred Noble Knight of King Artorigus!"

 

The Rank 5 boss monster of the Noble Knights emerged on the field, and when it was summoned Oliver could once again re-equip his Gallatin spell card.

 

"By detaching one Xyz Material, King Artorigus can destroy one of your monsters, so say goodbye to Stratos!"

 

The king raised his sword high and Stratos exploded into a million rainbow colored pixels.

 

"Sacred Noble Knight of King Artorigus! Attack the Demon of Turbo's life points directly!"

 

The demon braced himself for impact before taking 3200 points of direct damage, leaving him with 4800. He grimaced, but a look at his hand seemed to alleviate his worries.

 

Oliver however was on top of the world as his turn came to an end. "Your move." He had managed to gain the lead, and he currently had the strongest monster on the field. This would soon change as the Demon of Turbo prepared his counter attack.

 

---

 

"I normal summon Vision Hero Vyon!" A dark, space-man looking monster emerged on the Demon's side of the field. It had only 1000 attack, so it was sure to have a powerful effect, or at least beginning to set up a combo. With 6 cards in hand, it was unlikely this was the best the Demon could do.

 

"With my Vyon's effect I'll send Shadow Mist to the graveyard." The monster flashed a search light, leading a darkly mist into the grave. The Demon smirked.

 

"I sent my Elemental HERO Shadow Mist to the grave, and when it's sent its effect activates!"

 

"That's the one that lets you search, right?" Oliver asked.

 

"With my Shadow Mist's effect, I'll add Destiny HERO Plasma to my hand!" The Demon now had 7 cards in hand, and we were sure he had a strategy forming at this point.

 

"My Vyon has another effect too! By banishing a HERO monster, I get to add Polymerization to my hand." Elemental HERO Stratos was removed from the game, and the Demon got his eighth card, Polymerization into his hand.

 

"He's going for it." I whispered to Arena. She nodded in agreement.

 

"I activate the spell card Polymerization! I fuse Destiny Hero Plasma and Destiny Hero Dogma to special summon my Destiny End Dragoon!"

 

A frightening beast roared in triumph as it descended onto the Demon's side of the field.

 

"My monster's still stronger!" Oliver said, but he of course knew about the Dragoon's effect, and how it could destroy his monster and inflict damage to his life points.

 

"I took 3200 points of damage directly so I think it's only fair you do the same." The Demon snapped his fingers and his Destiny End Dragoon obliterated Oliver's Sacred Noble Knight. In one quick move, Oliver lost his best monster and his life points were tied with The Demon's.

 

---

 

Arena watched as Oliver picked up the card for his draw phase.

 

"He forgot to summon for his Sacred Noble Knight's effect." she stated pointedly

 

"He did?" I blinked. "Yeah, maybe he's nervous. Maybe it's the cold. Maybe it's a lack of blood. He did lose a finger not that long ago."

 

Arena scowled and closed her eyes as though she were praying.

 

In the meantime, Oliver looked over the five cards he had in hand and began his turn. "I summon Noble Knight Drystan!"

 

A bardic knight appeared on Oliver's side of the field, harp in hand as it casually twang the instrument and played a little tune.

 

"I've got an equip spell for him too!" He slid a card into his duel disk. "I activate the effect of Gwenhwyfar, Queen of Noble Arms!"

 

An otherworldly aura enveloped the Noble Knight and a blade materialized on Drystan's hand.

 

"When Drystan is equipped with a Noble Arms card, I get to destroy one face up card on the field, so say goodbye to your Destiny End Dragoon!"

 

Drystan raised its blade sword and gave a small twang of his harp and the Dragoon began to vibrate in tune with the instrument, before exploding into a million pixels.

 

The Demon cringed like he was remebering something from a spinoff fanfic. "I hate string instruments."

 

"Now Drystan, attack the Demon of Turbo's Vision HERO Vylon!" The Queen of Noble Arms had given Oliver's monsters a slight power boost which let him inflict just a bit more damage. The Demon was left with 3700 life points remaining after the last attack. "Your move."

 

Oliver was once again in the lead, but it wouldn't last for long.

 

---

 

"I banish Destiny HERO - Dogma to special summon my Destiny End Dragoon!" the Demon declared before his main phase even began. Sure enough, Oliver was right back again where he started from.

 

"That sucks…"

 

"I normal summon Destiny Hero Drilldark!" The Demon declared as he slapped the card on his disk. A peculiar dark figure with drills coming out of his knees, hips and a full drill-shaped sword emerged on the Demon's side of the field.

 

"When Drilldark is summoned, I get to special summon another Destiny Hero from hand, so I'll summon Destiny Hero Celestial!" An all dark figure shouldering a large metal wheel emerged.

 

The move looked obvious to me and Oliver.

 

"You're going for an Xyz summon now, right?" Oliver asked.

 

Arena shook her head before the Demon responded.

 

"No. I'll perform a Link summon instead."

 

I looked over at Arena. "Huh? What's a Link summon?"

 

"Hahaha!" The Demon cackled. "You kids don't know about link summoning!?"

 

"I do." Arena said with a blank expression on her face. "After Aynn took over the city she felt Pendulums sped up the game too much so she needed a way to slow it down. She introduced Link monster and Link summoning, as well as changed the way the field was set up in order to accommodate these changes."

 

"What!?" Oliver exclaimed. "Aynn changed the rules of the game!?"

 

"Rather, she altered everyone's memories so they believed this had always been part of the game." Arena corrected.

 

"Alright then." The Demon smirked. "Here's a crash course in Link monsters, with the emphasis on crash."

 

The Demon pointed to his field, specifically at a portion between his and Oliver's monster card zones. "Those are the Extra Monster Zones. Monster summoned from the Extra Deck go there. Pendulums, Synchros, Fusion. It's shared between the two players."

 

"So we only get one zone each? We can only ever have one synchro or fusion or-"

 

"I wasn't done talking! Here's the beauty of Link monsters. They also sit in the Extra Deck, and go into the Extra Monster Zone, but they have Link Arrows which makes your current monster card zones able to house Extra Deck monsters as well."

 

Oliver and I stared at the Demon dumbfounded. He grinned.

 

"It's easier in practice. Watch! I perform a Link Summon by using Drilldark and Celestial. By sending them to the grave I can special summon Akashic Magician!"

 

A feminine looking spellcaster emerged on a monster card zone between the Demon's field and Oliver's field. She had one arrow pointed behind her, and one arrow pointed ahead of her onto Noble Knight Drystan.

 

"When Akashic Magician is summoned, any monsters her Link Arrows are pointing to go back to the hand."

 

"Umm, Link Arrows? What? Slow down a little." Oliver muttered as his Noble Knight returned to his hand, leaving him with an empty field.

 

Destiny End Dragoon roared in triumphant and with a clear shot at Oliver's 4800 life points, it was a bad time to be the Demon's opponent. First Akashic Magician attacked, then the Demon's Dragoon. His turn came to an end, and Oliver was left with only 100 life points.

 

---

 

"So… those blue monsters from that booster pack you gave me are called Link Monsters huh?" Oliver muttered as he looked over the five cards in his hand.

 

Arena scowled, closing her eyes once again and glowing ever so slightly. "I feel my presence may be needed."

 

Oliver smirked as he looked over his hand and could see a strategy forming. "I normal summon Noble Knight Brothers!" It was a single monster card, but three knights emerged on Oliver's side of the field.

 

"When this card is summoned I get to special summon two more Noble Knights from my hand! So I pick Drystan, who I'm sure you're familiar with and Medraut, another fan favorite." The two knights joined their brothers on Oliver's side of the field.

 

"I use the effect of my Queen of Noble Arms! Even though she's in the grave I can still equip her to my Drystan again!" A mystical aura enveloped Drystan once again and a sword appeared in his hand. Once again, Destiny End Dragoon hit the graveyard.

 

Oliver grinned as he glanced over at his extra deck. "Now with my monsters on the field I'll-"

 

"STOP!" Arena exclaimed, which almost made Oliver drop his cards.

 

"W-what the hell!?" he stammered.

 

"You cannot win this duel with your usual strategy." she said with a scowl.

 

"What's going on Arena?" I asked.

 

"I am the Goddess of Military Strategy and I know what your plan is Oliver. Do the math. It will not work."

 

Oliver stared blankly and nervously at Arena.

 

"You are planning on special summoning Artorigus, King of the Noble Knights using your two weakest monsters as Material. Artorigus will reach 3000 attack points when you equip it with the Gallatin in your grave. You will attack Akashic Magician with Drystan, reducing the Demon to 3300 life points. Your Artorigus will attack directly, and your opponent will be left with 300 life points left. He can easily revive Destiny End Dragoon next turn by banishing Drilldark."

 

Oliver blushed, embarrassed that his strategy was so bad that God herself descended to tell him so. Still though, that was by far the best move he could see given the cards he had on the field, in the grave and in his hand.

 

"I… I don't see a better play on my side of the field though."

 

Arena scowled. "Then look for a better play somewhere else."

 

Arena always spoke in riddles, so now it would be up to Oliver to channel whatever otherworldly wisdom he could by being in Arena's presence.

 

"Not my field…" he said as though coming up with a strategy. "His field?"

 

Oliver took a deep breath as he was ready to continue his turn.

 

"Oh, are you finally making your move?" The Demon said sarcastically.

 

"I use the effect of my Noble Knight Brothers to add Medraut, Noble Arms Gallatin and Sacred Noble Knight Xyz back into my deck!"

 

"Wh-what!?" I stammered. "You want your spells in the grave so they can be reused by the Xyzs, don't you!?"

 

Oliver ignored me and continued on with his turn. His Noble Knight Brothers got him a card from his deck.

 

"Now I perform a Link summon of my own!" he declared dramatically. "I send Drystan and Noble Knight Brothers to the graveyard to special summon Isolde, Two Tales of the Noble Knights!"

 

Two woman stood back to back, one blonde and healthy, one black like a corpse.

 

"What!?" The Demon exclaimed. "You… it was in that booster pack I gave you wasn't it?!"

 

Oliver grinned from ear to ear as he activated Isolde's effect.

 

"I can send any number of equip spells to the graveyard, then special summon a Noble Knight with the same level as the number of cards. So let's go! Noble Arms of Destiny, Caliburn, Excaliburn, Arfeudutyr and Gallatin makes five!"

 

Swords flew all around the duel field with Isolde's effect. "And with that, I special summon Noble Knight Eachtar!"

 

A level five dark Noble Knight emerged on Oliver's side of the field.

 

"I can special summon my Ignoble Knight by sending 1 face-up light normal monster to the graveyard, so I can send Medraut to fulfill that effect."

 

With two level 5 monsters, the move was clear. "I perform an Overlay Network using Black Laundsallyn and Eachtar! I Xyz Summon Sacred Noble Knight of King Artorigus!"

 

The first Xyz monster Oliver summoned emerged once again, but this time he was fully armed, and Oliver had his pick of the litter. Artorigus picked up Caliburn for a 500 attack boost, Gallatin for a 1000 attack boost, and Noble Arms of Destiny.

 

"I detatch one Xyz material monster to destroy Akashic Magician!"

 

The Demon was frozen, absolutely shell shocked that he was about to lose the duel.

 

"You… me… the Matriarch…"

 

"Artorigus, end this!"

 

With one final declaration, Oliver's 3700 attack monster sped towards the Demon's remaining 3700 life points. With one swipe of his monster's blade, Oliver Khlozoff won the duel.

 

The Demon collapsed in a heap, still shocked by the mere fact that he could lose. It was easy to rifle through his pockets and find the keys to the Crimson Silver Express. Soon we would find our friends, bring them to the train and escape this hellhole of an island, little did we know however we were all still a long way from home.

 

[Dova]

Good world-building, good duel. Nice way to add Link Monsters into the world, and as always, nice to see proper strategy rather than just luck manipulated by deck-building. That's two nices and two goods; probably why I'm not a writer myself XD But yeah, as with Thor Ragnarok, this strikes a good balance between an engaging world and actual humour, making something that's actually enjoyable to read, which is the most important bit, imo. Didn't get very far with Arena 1, but I might give it another try after this.

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 4: We're Doing The Best We Can]So the bad news was that Silvershine would no longer be providing any food, water, medicine or any kind of supplies to Crimson Wind Island.

 

But the good news was Oliver had managed to defeat the Demon of Turbo and won us the keys to the Crimson Silver Express. We could start getting people off the island right now and possibly by morning we could have everyone back on the mainland.

 

If only it were so simple.

 

As we reached the Grand Central Field Hospital, Oliver paused as he reached for the door handle and gave his actions a bit of thought.

 

"You know..." He began. "I don't think we should tell the Giant about our run-in with the Demon and the keys to the train."

 

I offered him a weak smile. "You couldn't tell me that indoors?" I wrapped the blankets around me a little tighter.

 

"That guy seems to really like his position of power. I'm pretty sure he'd rather be the king of an asylum than a regular citizen in Silvershine. He'll probably try to stop us from escaping."

 

I stared at him blankly.

 

"Just promise me you won't say about it, okay Artie?"

 

"I'll promise literally anything if it gets us inside quicker."

 

"If that is true," Arena spoke up with a polite smile on her face. "Then I have a few things I would like to request."

 

Oliver gave a laugh and opened the door for the three of us.

 

---

 

A year ago today, the theme for the annual Sweetheart's Day Dance was Cops versus Robbers. I didn't know that, so I just wore a plain black suit. Someone told me I looked like that guy who defrauded all his investors, so I decided to just stick with that if anyone asked.

 

Oliver claimed to be dressed like a prosecuting attorney just like his father but all he wore was a regular looking white suit.

 

With her battle armor, flowing toga and helmet, Arena was dressed like some sort of ancient Greek military person.

 

As we opened the door to the Grand Central Field Hospital, we saw the other three kids of 'Team Surname' still wearing their Sweetheart's Day outfits as well.

 

Gal Surname wore a sleeveless black dress, a pearl necklace, a long white shawl on her shoulders, black gloves and opaque black tights. She also had a bit of make up on, thick red lipstick that was smudged and eyeshadow that was smeared. She was dressed as a 1920's style gangster. All around her arms, across her back, covering her shoulders, and every part of exposed skin below her neck she was wrapped up with long white bandages, like a mummy.

 

Guy Surname wore a trillby hat, a white dress shirt, and a pair of high-waisted trousers held in place by suspenders, however one of the ends of his suspenders had come undone. He wouldn't look out-of-place in one of those mob movies as a guy with a machine gun and a cigarette.

 

Ami was sitting cross-legged in one of the teacher's rolling chairs while wearing a vest, leather pants and a tricorne hat. She was dressed like a pirate, but she looked absolutely beyond devastated. Her makeup was a mess and she looked like she had been crying all night before finally run out of tears. She now looked completely devoid of any more emotion.

 

At the sound of the door opening and the blast of cold air, the twins turned to look at us.

 

"Arthur!? Ollie!? Arena!?" It sounded like Gal Surname was catching a cold. Her voice was so deep I almost thought it was her brother talking. Even if she was catching a cold though, she wasn't worried about infecting Oliver as cried tears of joy and jumped into Oliver's arms before she planted a kiss on his cheek.

 

I smiled at the pair then made my way towards the male Surname twin.

 

"Y-you three survived?" he asked with a hopeful tone to his voice. While Gal was jovial and upbeat, Guy Surname was normally the serious one of the twins. Even while he tried to act like he was too cool to care, when the boy caught sight of the three of us his upper lip began to quiver and he had trouble fighting back tears.

 

"Survived?" Oliver said as he gently placed Gal down on the ground. She awkwardly wobbled on her high heels. "Well we're maybe about 95% there." Oliver raised his left hand almost as if to show off his missing ring finger. Gal gasped and quickly took two steps back, almost falling over.

 

Guy motioned to his Sweetheart's Day date in the teacher's chair. "You're doing a lot better than Ami is at least."

 

I had noticed Ami sitting in a rolling office chair, but it seemed she still hadn't notice us. She was lost in her own little world as the five of us began to crowd around her.

 

"She's like a dear sister to Gal, and she hasn't move or said anything since waking up."

 

"Look Ami! Ollie, Artie and Arena are here to see you!" Gal said with faux enthusiasm, trying to get her best friend excited to see us. Ami continued staring blankly ahead, lost in the void of her own thoughts.

 

"What's wrong with-" I began before I noticed the way she sat. "Oh."

 

Because she was sitting cross-legged I thought that she just had one leg tucked underneath the other before I noticed the bandages.

 

"Her foot!" Oliver exclaimed. "It's gone!"

 

"Amputated." A nearby voice corrected from the doorway.

 

The twins, Oliver and I turned to see the Ra Yellow Giant at the door, a serious scowl on his face as the androgynous nurse from before pushed past him and made his way towards Ami Pastiche holding something that was all wrapped up in a towel.

 

"What happened to Ami!?" Oliver exclaimed as he pointed his left hand dramatically at the Giant.

 

"The same thing that happened to your ring finger there Oliver." The Giant replied.

 

Arena explained it a little better.

 

"Frostbite, leading to gangrene, which would have led to bacterial infection, septic shock, and eventually death if she did not receive a transtibial amputation. Isn't that right Xenneth?"

 

The doctor gave an absentminded nod as he focused his work on Ami's leg. She did not resist.

 

"That girl's got a good head on her shoulders." The Giant smirked. "We did a lot to keep you kids alive. Gave you round the clock care. Morphine, antibiotics, aspirin and as many blankets as we could scrounge up."

 

"We appreciate it! Really!" Guy said with a smile. Oliver and I gave Guy a confused look but he didn't seem to notice.

 

Gal smiled cheerfully as she bounced on her heels and hovered around the doctor and her 'dear sister', her childhood friend Ami. "What are you doing with Ami today anyway?"

 

"We're doing the best we can." The doctor replied in a defeated tone "But it's hard when there's so few supplies left on this island."

 

As Doctor Xenneth stood up we could finally see what he had been working on.

 

What we saw on Ami's leg was hardly what anyone would call a prosthetic. It looked more like a toilet bowl plunger with some duct tape and a towel wrapped around her stump leg. Oliver and I were naturally horrified.

 

"What the hell is that!?" I exclaimed

 

"Is this some kind of a joke? Give the pirate girl a peg leg!?" Oliver responded.

 

"It's fine…" Gal whispered in a reassuring tone.

 

"This isn't a real hospital you know." the Doctor began, defending himself. "We've been running on fumes since I got here about 3 months ago.

 

"And even before that!" The Giant added in. "Thanks for everything Xen!"

 

The doctor gave a quick nod. "The only new supplies we get come from the Crimson Silver Express."

 

"Speaking of which." The Giant smirked as he looked the three of us over. "Arena, Arthur and Oliver went all the way to the monorail to bring us those supplies, didn't they?"

 

The two from the Tabernacle looked at the three of us expectantly, as did the twins.

 

"You guys have supplies?! Awesome!" Gal said as she pulled her brother and Ami in for a group hug. "We're saved!"

 

The doctor with the violet colored hair raised one of his violet colored eyebrow. "I don't know about that Kai. They look like they're traveling pretty light."

 

"They're probably hiding it underneath all those heavy blankets they have on top of them." Guy began.

 

The Giant looked at the three of us expectantly. "Well?"

 

"Well-" I began. I exchanged a look with Oliver who looked deeply frustrated. With only bad news to share, he knew he had to start off with the good news instead.

 

"We brought you something much better than supplies-" he began as he reached into his pocket, however he didn't get a chance to show off the monorail key.

 

It all happened so fast, it was hard to take in. The door suddenly swung open, followed by crashing as the windows suddenly seemed to explode. We were far enough away to avoid any broken glass, but none the less startled by the grand entrance.

 

All around us dozens and dozens of Crimson Wind Academy students quickly began to pour into the former dueling arena. They wore their winter get ups, but all around I saw a sea of Red, Yellow, Blue and Black as they wore their Crimson Wind Academy school uniforms either as scarves or as capes over their shoulders. The kids were armed too. It wasn't much, but they had brooms, baseball bats, garbage can lids and shovels at the ready.

 

These were the kids from all the other cliques of the island. The Knights of the Sun God, the Duel-Tainment Club, the Nap Club, the Crimson Chronicle, the Student Council, the Cheerleaders, the Gutter Rats, Heaven's Sake, the Necrophades Black Dorm and dozens of other kids I didn't recognize. At the head of them all though was the leader of the hunt, Kristi Korrina with an impeccable smile on his face and a single message for the leader of the Tabernacle of the Matriarch.

 

"We are the Crimson Wolves, and we're here to take back our school!"

 

---

 

Like most high schools, Crimson Wind Academy had its fair share of cliques, clubs and other loose associations of students. Some of them were friendly amongst each other, like the Student Council and the Crimson Chronicle. Others were downright nasty and despised each other, like the Necrophades and Heaven's Sake. There were disagreements, inter-group drama, backstabbing and politics as usual but it seemed for right now they had all managed to put aside their petty differences and unite for one common cause - Shinchiro Kai had to be stopped.

 

I knew the Giant wouldn't go down without a fight and I knew the Tabernacle likely had highly skilled people ready to fight.

 

I just didn't expect any of those highly skilled people to be Gal and Guy Surname.

 

"Take back the school!?" Gal exclaimed as she took a step forward. "No way! Crimson Wind Academy belongs to the Tabernacle! They're keeping us safe!"

 

"They're a reliable group!" Guy pleaded. "They'd keep you guys safe too if you joined them!"

 

Oliver and I stood dumbfounded at our friends' words.

 

"G-Gal."

"G-Guy."

 

Guy stepped forward to meet his sister. "We've been told all about the Crimson Wolves and we know that you pretty much plunged the school into anarchy before the Tabernacle came together. You need someone there to support you!"

 

"Support!?" The Princess of Ra Yellow exclaimed. "The only thing the Tabernacle supports is themselves! They steal all the supplies the Matriarch sends this island!"

 

"The only reason the Matriarch is even sending us supplies is because of the Tabernacle!" a voice from our side of the Dueling Arena called out.

 

I looked around and could finally see just who made up the Tabernacle of the Matriarch. It was all teachers. The one who just spoke was a woman in her early 30s with an eyepatch over her right eye. She had a stern look on her face, and something about her demeanor told me she was a former pro-duelist.

 

An older man with a bit of stubble and a messenger bag on his hips spoke up next. "Honestly, you kids can keep any supplies you want. Just leave me alone with this bag." He smirked as he reached in and pulled out a bottle of something alcoholic and took a long drink out of it.

 

"H-hey! That's my bag!" Oliver exclaimed.

 

"There's no reason for the majority of the food and medicine to be concentrated in so few hands!" Lin exclaimed.

 

"You'd all just waste it!" responded the Giant.

 

"We need to be responsible!" said a security guard with a wooden sword.

 

"Let's vote!" Blunty said with a raise of her hands.

 

"NO!" exclaimed an Obelisk boy with pointy hair. He straightened the edges of his hair back and tossed a cool smirk. "LET'S FIGHT!"

 

"Show them the true meaning of plunging the school into anarchy!" Lin declared.

 

The students roared in triumph and picked up their brooms and sticks and about a hundred or so school kids rushed the center of the dueling arena to meet the dozen or so of us on the other side.

 

---

 

Say what you want about the Tabernacle, but they were teachers and they didn't want to hurt their students. Fortunately for them, Gal and Guy were under no such obligations.

 

It happened so quick I could hardly follow it. One of Gal's fabric-like bandages quickly unfurled, wrapped itself around a pale-faced vampire looking kid which tripped him. This had a domino effect as the person immediately behind him and to the left and right crashed down on top of him.

 

"Sorry!" Gal called out, but it seemed her apology was not accepted as a shivering, Freezy-looking girl grabbed Gal by the hair.

 

"You will be!"

 

"Rawr!" A girl with bright red hair and cosplay cat ears and a tail jumped at Gal's arms and tried to bite her.

 

"H-hey! I'm already bleeding there!" Gal protested, to which the Kitten and Freezy immediately let go.

 

"Gross!"

 

"Eww eww eww eww!" the Kitten hissed.

 

Kristi Korrina was the only one actually armed with anything resembling a weapon. The Demigod of the hunt held a makeshift bow and arrow, so it was thankful that his challenger was Guy Surname. Using the third link in the chain, Guy was able to pass through solid objects, or rather in this case he could make solid objects pass right through him. Kristi wasted arrow after arrow, unable to land a single shot.

 

Oliver meanwhile tried to get in a fighting stance but I wasn't so sure he had ever been in a real fight. He got hit by a broom, but he quickly wrestled it out of the hands of someone who looked like a waiter. He pointed it threateningly at the two or three unarmed kids that were beginning to circle him. It seemed the kids from Crimson Wind had never been in a fight either.

 

Arena easily handed the task of being my bodyguard. She pushed and pulled me, moved me this way and that, blocked any stray projectiles and inspired fear at anyone who so much as looked my way.

 

Three kids jumped towards Guy, but he melted the floor underneath them and they were sent crashing down into the basement.

 

Gal was trying to keep people at bay by using her long bandages to either disarm people at a distance or trip them up.

 

"Just call me the Amazing Spider Gal!" she smiled despite being out of breath.

 

Doctor Hikari was knocked out and the Crimson Wind staff cowered in the corner, put even though it was the entire academy versus two people, somehow with the Cursed Chain the twins were able to hold their own against them.

 

Near the exit however, I suddenly noticed a few kids look away, bowing, and seeming to part as though letting someone make their way to the center of the arena.

 

I heard faint whispers as the girl approached.

 

"The Witch."

"Kira Ikari."

"The Demigoddess of Life, Death and Rebirth."

 

This was Kira Ikari, the leader of the Necrophades Black dorm. She was short and petite young blonde with hair styled into two twin tails. She had dark red eyes and she wore a short skirt, with little regard for the cold. As Demigoddess of death, it was unlikely the cold could kill her.

 

At the sight of her, the Crimson Wind Academy students immediately began to cower and pull away from the center of the action.

 

I could feel the dark specter of death emanating from the girl, and I felt if I incurred her wrath she'd kill me with just a look.

 

As she approached the center of the duel arena where Guy and Gal were holding the line, the twins caught sight of her and froze in place.

 

"Uhh… h-hello." Guy and Gal said at exactly the same time.

 

She was less like a girl and more like a force of nature. When she spoke, she demanded respect. Everyone was silent as she was about to speak.

"Brothers, sisters, friends, and everyone in between. We've all seen unmitigated horrors and incalculable death in our short lives here at Crimson Wind Academy."

 

She scowled as she motioned to her fellow students. "We do not need to spread any more of it."

 

Guy often thought of himself as our leader, though nobody else really did. Nevertheless he stood up and tried to agree with the demigoddess. "Sh-she's right! Please just listen to us for about 5 minutes and-"

 

Guy realized what he had just said about a few seconds too late.

 

For those that may not be aware, Guy Surname had something called the Second Link in the Chain. It was one of Arena's gifts to humanity, and what that meant was when he gave someone a command with the word 'please' in it, those that were listening would have to obey it. It worked on all mortals, and even the demigods though they could resist. The only one with full immunity was his sister Gal, who owned the seventh link in the chain and Arena, who was a goddess of course.

 

Every last person in the dueling arena stopped what they were doing and froze in place - other than Arena, Gal, Kristi, Kira and for some strange reason Doctor Xenneth too. I could feel my body tense up as well and even Ami in her heartbroken state seemed a little more alert as she sat in her office chair.

 

The pupils in everyone's eyes dilated, then suddenly contracted to a singular point. I felt hyper aware of what was going on, then suddenly the feeling passed, but yet I still yearned to hear what Guy had to say.

 

With all eyes on him, Guy was a little flustered. Nevertheless he tried to speak.

 

"The Ra Yellow giant told us all about the history of the island and-" Guy paused, half expecting to be interrupted. While some of the students looked eager to say something, they continued to listen to him, at least for the next 4 minutes and 32 seconds.

 

"We know you guys have a long proud history. You're one of the oldest island based duel academies still in existence. You've survived events that would make any other school shut its doors. But the biggest takeaway from all the stories I've heard was you all survived because you worked together! The staff worked with the students to make sure the White Light incident never happened again. The Necrophades Vampire led a multi-dorm coalition against the Blue Court. The Reds and Yellows joined forces to navigate the labyrinth, leading the Blues to take down Ariadne. And even in your darkest time, when your headmistress was murdered, you all put aside your differences to attend her funeral. There were no Slifers, no Ras, no Obelisks, no Necrophades. All of Crimson Wind united to pay their last respects together. In your darkest hours, you're supposed to unite, not splinter apart!"

 

The Crimson Wind students muttered, possibly moved by Guy's words.

 

"Alright! We're willing to listen. What SPECIFICALLY can we do to solve all our problems?" Kristi asked.

 

"We've got no food." yelled out Linton.

 

"We've actually got a bit of snacks in Slifer." said a girl I recognized as 'Cauchy' from two years ago.

 

"Forrester Snack Cakes are loaded with preservatives." said Glasses Girl with a bit of a sagely nod.

 

"I've got plenty of vodka!" the teacher with the messenger bag exclaimed.

 

"No thanks Teach." The Firefly said, with a weak smile.

 

"We could use it for fuel, for a fire." The Obelisk Edgelord who started the fight mused.

 

"We actually do have running water in Yellow, if you're willing to fight an infestation of rats to get to them." The Princess said quickly.

 

"We could hunt the rats down for food." Freezy said with a smirk.

 

There was a pause as people began to honestly consider it.

 

"Oh god." The Vampire said, gagging. "Not even Kira herself could make that into an appetizing meal!"

 

"What about other supplies?" Blunty asked. "Rubbing alcohol and bandages?"

 

"Will regular alcohol be good enough?" Teach handed Blunty a bottle.

 

"Don't worry about medical supplies." Guy said with a smile. "My friends Arthur, Oliver and Arena were right about to tell us something about that. Isn't that right?"

 

At first we were about to let down just the Tabernacle. Now suddenly the eyes of enemies, friends, and everyone in between were staring at the three of us. I could feel things were about to go bad.

 

"Well…" Oliver began.

 

"Uhh…" I started.

 

"There are no supplies." Arena said without a hint of tact or candor. "The Matriarch decided to stop sending them-"

 

I put my hand over her mouth. The reason she had stopped sending supplies was because Crimson Wind was harboring fugitives, namely the kids of Team Surname. While we wanted the kids of Crimson Wind Academy to unite, we didn't want them to be united against us.

 

"Well Oliver," began Kai with an exasperated sigh. "Even if you three didn't bring us the supplies, you did bring us something better after all. You've brought the school together and now we're ready to show a united front towards the Matriarch."

 

The Giant smiled, and for now the entire school would all be on the same page, for better or for worse.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 5: Play]Our first day at Crimson Wind Academy was pretty rough. I had a terrible migraine, Gal's arms had deep lacerations, Oliver lost his left ring finger and Ami was in catatonic shock from the loss of her leg. Even so, this hardly compared to the horrors the Crimson Wind Academy kids had seen, and yet they still soldiered on.

 

A few of the students banded together and were able to clear out the Ra Yellow dorm of rats to get the rest of the school access to water. Some of the kids were tasked with filling up buckets and bottles to pass along to the Main Academy Building like they were in the fire brigade. Some students were tasked with preparing a large meal for dinner time. Still others were tasked with just keeping us all entertained and making sure spirits were high.

 

Gal Surname paced around the cafeteria holding a book in one hand and a pen in the other, while she used her fabric-like tendrils to turn the pages.

 

"Alright, the last thing I need is an adverb." Gal declared cheerfully.

 

"Really?" a Slifer boy in a red hoodie stood up. "Cause the last thing I need is another god damn mad lib!"

 

"He's right." Lin replied. "Food when?"

 

Kristi looked thoughtfully at Gal before he came up with a word.

 

"Play! Like playing a guitar!" he pantomimed the motion of his arms like he was strumming a tune.

 

"That's not an adverb." The Firefly corrected. "That's just a regular old fashioned verb. But he's got a point."

 

"Food when!" Lin exclaimed once again.

 

"Shut up kids!" The Ra Yellow Giant declared as he walked in. "We'll make sure every last one of you gets fed, but before that's done I want you all to know that the Tabernacle is still hard at work to get us back into our Matriarch's good graces."

 

There were a few groans, but the giant ignored them and continued on.

 

"As soon as we're finished eating, we'll reveal our brilliant plan. But first, it's dinner time."

 

---

 

There were many different tables in the cafeteria and it once again seemed that people were going back to their regular routines and returning to their usual cliques. Necrophades sat with Necrophades. Gutter Rats sat with Gutter Rats. Of course the six kids of Team Surname all came together and found themselves a table all to themselves.

 

As we all sat down in front of meatloaf made of mystery meat and deceptive looking salad, we were all quiet as we poked awkwardly at our food, not sure if it was safe to eat.

 

Gal was the first one of us to speak.

 

"You know that feeling you get when you take your bra off after a long day?"

 

I looked down at my chest. "Uhh…"

 

"I know the feeling of taking off someone else's." Oliver quipped with a chuckle.

 

"Though I am familiar with the concept I cannot say I have ever personally experienced it."

 

Ami said nothing as she sat motionless.

 

"Count me as a 'no' too sis."

 

"Well I mean, with my brother sitting across from me, our dear sister Ami sitting next to him and everyone else all in their normal spots, it kinda feels like we're back in Silvershine you know. It's kinda nice. "

 

"Nice?" Oliver protested. "We're eating rat loaf and tree bark Gal. I'm missing a finger, Ami's missing a leg! Half of this school is dead, and the other half is barely surviving."

 

Gal usually carried her emotions on her sleeve, and she was typically caught between either happy or sad. Here now, it seemed Oliver's words had finally got to her. She furrowed her brow as she stood up and pointed at him accusingly, and a long bandage extended from her hand to point to him as well, like a threatening blade.

 

"It just feels nice to eat food with my friends and be able to pretend like everything's normal!"

 

A few Crimson Wind kids looked up, but no one seemed to have enough energy to care. The only one who did seem to care was Gal Surname herself who blushed and looked down, slightly ashamed of her sudden outburst.

 

"I'm sorry," she recoiled her bandage and sat back down. "I just really… I want to go back to the way things were before."

 

"Ya' don't say!" Oliver said before Guy elbowed him in the ribs.

 

"Yeah, we know." I chimed in. "You're not the only one."

 

"Twin brother here." Guy said as he awkwardly tried to paw away Oliver who was muttering something about Cursed Chains and losing a finger. "I know exactly how you feel. You just wanna go back to being a normal teenager, right?"

 

"Exactly!" Gal exclaimed. "I want our worst trouble to be detention or something. I wanna steal the family car keys and get into a big fight with all my friends. I wanna audition for the school play and sneak out of school. I wanna worry about what I'll look like in school pictures and I wanna take part in the big game at the end of the year where everyone in town comes out to see me. That sorta stuff."

 

As she spoke it seemed Gal was struggling to fight back tears.

 

"Don't worry Gal. The Giant said he had a plan to make things better." Guy offered his sister a smile then looked over at his girlfriend who still hadn't moved a muscle or said anything in quite some time.

 

"Hey Ami, do you… maybe wanna eat something?"

 

Ami did not want to eat anything.

 

"I'll let you hold onto Ophelia's Blade if you smile for us dear sister!"

 

Arena flinched and nearly dropped her grapes in surprise. I found it peculiar as I had never seen Arena react quite like that. She was always Little Miss Cool, Calm and Collected, plus she could somewhat predict the future. Seeing her surprised was a bit of a shock as well.

 

Gal held out a very ornate and highly polished knife, one we knew as Ophelia's Blade. It was originally meant as a betrothal gift to some girl 700 years ago, before it was stolen away. All you need to know though is that the blade had the power to kill a god or any other celestial being.

 

"You still have that!?" Oliver exclaimed.

 

When it appeared Ami would not pick up Ophelia's Blade, Gal awkwardly fastened it to a belt Ami wore across her ample chest.

 

"Come on Ami. Eat something… please?" Guy said absentmindedly, but as he did Ami's eyes suddenly grew large and it seemed Guy had accidentally activated the second link in the chain on her. She had suddenly grown quite an appetite and eagerly finished her meal in a few quick bites, then went back to looking miserable.

 

"She can have my rat meal too." Oliver said as he poked at the meatloaf with his fork.

 

Despite it looking like the dead of winter, Arena wasn't the only one with fresh produce.

 

From across the room I could see the Necrophades Witch, Kira Ikari with a bowl of fresh fruits and vegetables to go with her rat loaf, but also looking equally as miserable as Ami. The Princess of Ra Yellow seemed to try to get her attention, however the Witch did not seem to respond, even as the Princess stole one of her apples.

 

"Kira looks almost as heartbroken as Ami." I muttered.

 

But I didn't have much time to think it over as it seemed the Giant had finished his meal and was ready to give his announcement.

 

"Alright everyone!" the Giant declared excitedly as he wiped his mouth. "It seems we've fallen out of the Matriarch's good graces, but that's okay! We're gonna win back her love with a well-timed propaganda film explaining how much we love her!"

 

There was an awkward silence before everyone in the cafeteria went back to eating.

 

"We're gonna put on the Crimson Wind Academy School Play, and it'll be the best play ever because all your lives will be depending on it!" The Giant grinned as he stood up and held out a small pile of paper.

 

"A play?" Guy asked nervously. "That… could be interesting I guess."

 

"It's a script designed by The Matriarch herself!" The Giant continued. "It tells the story of the girl's rise to power, how she outwitted the other DemiGods, and how she took over the entire city singlehandedly!"

 

"Can I play Kristi Korrina!?" asked Kristi Korrina.

 

"No!" The Giant exclaimed as he threw his chair towards Kristi.

 

"Is the Necrophades Witch gonna be Kira Ikari?" asked a pale Vampire dressed all in black.

 

"Why would anyone wish to partake in such an embarrassment?" Blunty exclaimed as she drank water from a washed out empty can of tomato sauce. "I'll pass."

 

"Good, because you're too dirty, ugly and emaciated to be in our play." The Giant said as he pulled out six other scripts from his box.

 

"Rude!" Freezy exclaimed.

 

"When we put out a play we want it to be our best, most healthy looking kids possible. All of you Crimson Wolves look like you're about one meal away from dying!"

 

"We are!" exclaimed a girl with glasses.

 

"So the role of the DemiGods will go to the six healthiest, best looking kids we have on the island." The Giant grinned as he approached our table. I could feel a sense of dread creeping into me as I could already tell where this was going.

 

"Arthur Surrogate! You'll be playing the role of Spencer Friedman!"

 

I blinked. "You mean that detective guy? I almost forgot he was a DemiGod."

 

"I would have thought Teach would have been the DemiGod of Wine to be honest." Guy said with a shrug.

 

"Oliver Khlozoff! You can be Alistair Solaris."

 

"Uhh… who?" Oliver asked.

 

"Handsome." Arena reminded.

 

"Oh. Neat, I guess?"

 

"Arena. You'll be Kira Ikari."

 

Arena frowned deeply as she looked over at the sad girl.

 

"I do not want to be anything like Kira Ikari."

 

"Ami Pastiche! You'll be Allison Swebb."

 

Ami stared blankly ahead and said nothing.

 

"Looks like she already knows all her lines!" Oliver said with a chuckle. Ami did not chuckle back.

 

"Gal Surname..."

 

She had her fingers crossed, as well as her bandages knotted. "Please let it be Hilda. Please, please, oh please let it be Hilda..."

 

"Hilda Mishegoss!"

 

"YEAH!"

 

"Guy Surname,"

 

"Well there's only one other boy left in the group. Not much suspense."

 

"You'll be Kristi Korrina."

 

"Awesome!" Kristi exclaimed. "I'll show you all my secret attacks!"

 

It seemed the even though six demigods and demigoddesses had been assigned, but there was one important role still missing.

 

"What about the Matriarch herself?" asked the guidance counselor with the eyepatch.

 

"That's the best part!" The Giant grinned. "According to her, there was only one person brilliant, pretty, and talented enough to capture the pure essences and majesty that was Marie Aynn Sumischa, and that was of course Marie Aynn, the Matriarch herself!"

 

His words drew audible gasps from everyone as he gestured towards the door.

 

A teenage girl with long hair, white on the roots and black on the ends wearing a Crimson Wind Academy Obelisk Blue girl's uniform stepped forward, framed by the doorway.

 

"No way…" Oliver whispered.

 

"Hello." she greeted simply.

 

The girl at the door looked absolutely identical to my daughter, the DemiGoddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy.

 

---

 

If you thought we were going to have a cute little scene where we would all be acting like someone else, I'm sorry to disappoint you but unfortunately the show does not go on. It barely gets past the pledge of allegiance.

 

Nevertheless we didn't know that at the time. As far as we knew our lives were hanging in the balance with regards to this play, so naturally the Giant wanted us to read, rehearse, and have the play broadcast all throughout Silvershine as soon as possible. The sooner the Matriarch was convinced of our love and devotion, the sooner she would send supplies over. At least, that was the plan.

 

Those of us in Team Surname quickly read through the play and fortunately it wasn't too much to memorize. Naturally Aynn Mischa had the most lines.

 

It told the story of Aynn's rise to power. After being freed from the shapeshifting Candice Sublime's grasp, Aynn found herself in an unfamiliar world with none of her friends around to guide her. She tried to rewrite everyone at Crimson Wind's memory but it didn't work for some reason. Instead she traveled to Silvershine, enslaved the people in the city, then one year later came back to the academy to bring the Crimson Wind kids back to Silvershine.

 

We were setting up in the green room and unfortunately it didn't seem there were any costumes so we were once again stuck wearing our Sweetheart's Day ensemble. All we could do was keep our duel disks on while we worked on hair and makeup.

 

"Good luck guys!" said a boy who had a waiter-like vibe to him.

 

"Thanks!" said Gal as she teased her hair with a curling iron to get it to look like Mishegoss's.

 

"Break a leg!" called out the Firefly with a smile.

 

"Yeah you too." Guy replied absentmindedly as he tried to comb Ami's hair to get it to look straight like Allison's.

 

There was a bit of an awkward silence as our third greeter arrived backstage. He seemed like he wasn't sure how to tell us what was on his mind. Whatever it was, he had more to say than just 'good luck'.

 

"Hey, you demigod kids." The Vampire from the Necrophades Black Dorm began. "We know we can't ask you guys to do it yourselves, so we only have one request for you guys tonight."

 

We weren't sure what to expect here. Did he want us to shill for some soda company? Say hello to his friends and family back in Silvershine? Some other third thing? His request however was the last thing any of us expected.

 

"Don't get in anyone's way when we try to kill the Matriarch tonight."

 

We were frozen after his words, shocked and almost unable to process it. We watched wordlessly as the Vampire nodded and walked away. When I had finally realized what he had said I bolted to the door.

 

"What!?" but it was too late. He was already gone.

 

"They're gonna kill Aynn!?" I exclaimed.

 

There was a pause, and I could tell from the silence what everyone else was thinking.

 

"Nobody else is outraged by this!?"

 

"Well…" Guy began as he awkwardly shuffled the script back and forth. "I mean, have you read this thing? If what she wrote is true it sounds like she deserves whatever she gets."

 

"Aynn can barely remember her own name! She can rewrite people's memories but her own memory is extremely lacking. How do we know what we have written down is true?"

 

"It's true." Arena, the Goddess of Wisdom corrected quickly. "And you already know my thoughts on Marie Aynn. She is an irredeemable monster whose passing shall not be mourned."

 

"Arena, would you be willing to tell that to your daughter on stage later tonight?"

 

"That girl is no daughter of mine." Arena said with a scowl.

 

"It's her fault my gloves won't fit me anymore." Oliver said, raising his left hand. "Oh yeah, and also she plunged Silvershine into anarchy and indirectly killed half this school."

 

I looked over at the last person in our group. The kindest, most cheerful girl in our group, but she was having trouble looking me in the eye.

 

"Arthur… d-don't look at me like that." she whimpered.

 

My heart felt like it was stabbed with Ophelia's Blade.

 

"Really Gal? You too?"

 

"I can't forgive her for what she's done to my dear sister Ami!" she exclaimed. "Guy and I tried to go along with everything for Ami's sake but… if we have a real and solid chance of ending everything tonight, we'd have to let it happen, right?"

 

"So that's it then huh?" I asked. "We're killing my daughter, my own flesh and blood?"

 

The twins looked away. Oliver spoke up first. "Technically no? We'd just be letting someone else do it."

 

What could I say? What could I do? I didn't want to see my daughter murdered but a small part of me knew that would be the best thing for everyone.

 

Arena once told me I had no effect on the mortal realm or on any mortal affairs. According to her, no matter what I said or did, I could not change the trajectory of history. If that was well and truly the case, then it meant I at least had to try warning my daughter of her imminent death.

 

Arena was right all along though. My warning wouldn't change anything.

 

---

 

Over the ages the Eternals of the Aether Realm had bestowed humanity with a few divine gifts.

 

There was Ophelia's Blade, a knife created as a betrothal present for a beautiful young woman, before it was stolen.

 

There was the Bag of Infinite Alcohol, a messenger bag that, like its name suggested, contained an infinite supply of alcoholic beverages.

 

There were many other gifts and mythical objects the eternals had blessed humanity with, such as the the ring of Gyges, the thread of Ariadne, the powers of the Demigods, and the Lotus Tree but they were mostly net positive effects.

 

Then there was Arena's gift to humanity, the Cursed Chain. She had created eight powerful artifacts, and bound them to a person's soul at the time of their conception. All of them gave it's user a tremendous power, while also giving them a horrifying curse. One of them let you steal people's youth, however it caused you to age up much faster. One of them let you travel through solid objects, however light caused you terrible agony. One of them caused you to be able to shapeshift, however it was only because you were made of water.

 

As I looked over at Aynn Mischa on stage, I remembered her link, the fourth link in the chain which meant she wouldn't be able to remember anything past a few seconds. She may have committed the crimes she described in the play, but considering how little she remembered would that really be fair to punish her?

 

We were standing in the Grand Central Duel Arena. All the beds had finally been cleared and pushed to the side. Team Surname was huddled in one area, and Aynn Mischa was standing on a big letter X drawn out in duct tape.

 

"Places everyone!" a bald black man motioned for me to take a spot on a different duct tape letter X.

 

The Ra Yellow Giant was wearing a familiar looking Duel Gazer, the one that had previously belonged to the Demon of Turbo's. He tapped a button on it, possibly bringing up the record function. The Giant gave the Bald Man a thumbs up.

 

We took our spots and the lights began to dim, however before the play began a boy in a red hoodie suddenly called out.

 

"Wait!" all eyes turned to see Red Hoodie standing up with his arm raised.

 

"If this an official school play, don't we need to do the pledge of allegiance?" he said in a bit of a monotone, like he recited a line he had memorized.

 

Some people in the audience groaned. Some other people in the audience though smiled, and gave each other knowing looks and sagely nods.

 

The Ra Yellow Giant looked over at the Matriarch on stage. She rolled her eyes. "Well, if you must."

 

"The Matriarch has decreed it so!" The Giant declared.

 

I had never seen a group of students so excited to recite the pledge of allegiance. The color guard was prepared rather quickly. Lin, Blunty, and the Edgelord quickly got up on stage wearing their school uniforms, red, yellow and blue respectively. Blunty held the Crimson Wind Academy flag. The boys saluted towards her.

 

The spotlight was now on the color guard. All the other kids slowly got on their feet, some looked towards the flag, while others looked towards someone else in the audience.

 

They began, with all the lack of enthusiasm a group of kids can when reciting the pledge.

 

"I pledge allegiance" I tried to follow the eyes of the students to get a glimpse of who they were looking at.

 

"To the flag" I finally saw Kristi Korrina, with an arrow already notched in his bow.

 

"Of Crimson Wind Academy." He took aim towards the girl on stage.

 

"And to our education." He pulled the string back.

 

"Stop!" I exclaimed. "Aynn, they're going to kill you!"

 

She didn't seem to recognize her name, but it took her a moment to realize I was talking to her. "W-what!?"

 

SWOOSH!

 

---

 

My warning was a second too late. The arrow was let loose and went sailing through the air. As Demigod of the Hunt, I was sure Kristi had no problem hitting Aynn with an arrow.

 

There was mayhem and panic before the lights finally came back on. I could see Aynn clutching at her arm, the arrow still embedded into it. The Nurse had already made his way on stage and was brushing her hand away.

 

"Don't pull it out. It'll only do more damage." He warned.

 

I could also see the Giant with his large arm around Kristi's throat. Kristi was flailing his legs around comically and it seemed one quick flex of his muscles was all the Giant needed to end the boy's life.

 

"Don't kill him yet." Aynn whispered through clenched teeth as she pushed Doctor Hikari away. "Bring him up on stage."

 

We were frozen in fear as we watched the Giant drop Kristi unceremoniously on the stage. He struggled to catch his breath.

 

"You there, Hilda Mishegoss. Tie him up with…" she paused and winched and I could see a tear roll down her eye, probably from the pain. "Tie him with those magic fabrics of yours."

 

Gal, Guy and Oliver were shaking in fear. They were fine with letting someone die, but being an active part in someone's death obviously didn't sit right with them.

 

"N-no." Gal stammered.

 

Aynn scowled then looked over at the Giant and the rest of the Tabernacle. "Fine! If the Tabernacle wants to earn my favor and continue receiving supplies, make an example out of everyone who disobeys my orders!"

 

The girl snapped her fingers.

 

"Kill them all!"

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 6: Dear Sister]As cruel as people said the Tabernacle was, even they drew the line with killing children in cold blood. Teach, the Bald Man, the Woman with the Eyepatch, the Security Guard and even the Giant looked hesitant at the Matriarch's last command.

 

"Uhh, our dear Matriarch-" The Giant began nervously, but it seemed the girl had made up her mind.

 

"Round them up, gas them, shoot them, whatever you have to do! I want them dead for conspiring against me!"

 

"You're not thinking straight." Eyepatch said. "You're still in shock from the arrow and-"

 

Without a second of hesitation, the Matriarch suddenly yanked the arrow out of her arm. We all flinched. I noticed that it seemed like a rather clean wound. No blood or anything found itself on the ground.

 

After everything we'd all seen, it seemed not even the Demigoddess of Death wanted to see another death on the island.

 

"Dear sister," began Kira Ikari, the Demigoddess of Death, the Underworld and Rebirth. "Has our academy not been plagued enough by death? There is no need for further bloodshed."

 

"Do you want to die tonight too!?"

 

The Witch stared at Aynn, as though daring her to try anything.

 

"Why do you have to kill us!?" Gal protested as she choked back tears.

 

"Are you joking?" Aynn protested as she motioned towards her arm. "How could I possibly forgive this?"

 

A bit of a smirk etched itself on Guy's face.

 

"You could try to forget it every happened." Guy said in a reassuring tone of voice. "I'm sure that forgetting things has always been more your forte."

 

Oliver blinked, realizing what the male twin was hinting towards. "He's got a point. What's up with Aynn's memory? Is it better now after she's been to the Aether Realm?"

 

"Certainly not." Arena corrected. "Aynn needs constant supervision or she throws a tantrum and starts altering people's memories, like she did in your academy for a month and like she's been doing to Silvershine for about a year."

 

It didn't make sense compared to what I was seeing. Aynn seemed quite lucid and in control, though she was unacceptably enraged.

 

At long last the girl took a deep breath then turned to the teachers of the Tabernacle.

 

"I have made my decision!" she said with a bit of a twirl and flourish. It was hard to believe she had just been shot in the arm.

 

"I will spare the life of the student that attacked me. I may even consider hiring him as one of my many bodyguards."

 

"Ugh…" Kristi gurgled as he shook his head from left to right.

 

"Your mercy knows no bounds our excellency!" Eyepatch exclaimed. She and Teach hurried over to Kristi's side and helped him back up to his feet.

 

"I will also once again continue sending supplies starting tomorrow."

 

"Truly the personification of compassion." The Bald Man said bowing.

 

"In return, all I ask for the lives of the six kids of Team Surname."

 

"Yeah… you got it dude." Teach said as he took another sip from a bottle he pulled from the Bag of Infinite Alcohol. The rest of the Tabernacle looked uneasy.

 

"They're not your students. You don't even know them! They're from Silvershine!"

 

"Ami's from Crimson Wind!" Teach pointed out.

 

I heard whispers and mutters from the other kids at Crimson Wind that had surrounded us. Six kids lives in order to get all their supplies back sounded more than reasonable, judging by the whispers I overheard.

 

"You won't even have to be the one to do it. Restrain them if they try to resist." She gave the arrow in her hand a twirl and smiled. "I've got just the thing for them right here."

 

I felt the security guard grab me by the arm and twist it. She led me over to my friends and made me kneel down on my knees. The Giant easily put his large hands on Gal and Guy's shoulders, forcing them to kneel as well. The Bald Man whispered something in Oliver's ear, and he got down on his knees, scowling. Teach looked over at Arena awkwardly.

 

"Uhh…" Teach stammered.

 

"I will not resist." Arena said calmly as she got on her knees in a line next to all my friends.

 

Ami also did not resist but for a different reason. She sat in her chair completely motionless and was wheeled in by Eyepatch.

 

We were all gathered together and looked at the sharp arrow the Matriarch had dug out of her own arm. She approached Ami and lifted her up by her long brown hair. Ami did not resist, and barely seemed to feel any pain even as The Matriarch held the arrow to her throat.

 

"Any last words?"

 

Ami said nothing.

 

Guy however, had something on his mind.

 

"Ami, I'm sorry for everything we've ever put you through. You were a normal girl and you had no say in anything that happened in the war for the Cursed Chain. You're a fighter Ami, so before we all die I just…" Guy looked down. "I wanna see you be that super cool, butt-kicking self I know you are. I want you to stop being depressed and I want you to smile and show how amazing and great you are."

 

A single tear rolled down his eye, but a smile spread on his lips.

 

"Please?"

 

That was just about all Ami needed before a fire was lit inside her. Her pupil's grew larger, then turned to pinpoints, before she blinked and it seemed the spell was over. She smiled at Guy and in one swift motion she removed Ophelia's Blade from the sash across her chest and stuck it right through The Matriarch's stomach.

 

"Woah!"

"What!?"

"Holy sh-"

 

And many other yells came from the students of Crimson Wind Academy.

 

"Ami!" Gal exclaimed, but the Giant held her down.

 

The Tabernacle exchanged confused looks, unsure what to do.

 

"Ahh!" the girl gasped in pain and blood began to pour onto the floor from her stomach wound. She pulled back quickly, and Ami struggled to remain upright, balancing awkwardly on her brand new peg leg for the first time.

 

"Blood. Interesting." Arena mused outloud.

 

"You… Ami Pastiche…" The girl gasped in labored breaths and reached for the blade. Ami leaned in and dug the blade in deeper. "Augh!"

 

Ami shook her finger in front of the girl. "I knew Acey very well. Her and I were friends." Ami began as she looked over the girl with a serious scowl on her face. "She was kind, and fun, and she never looked for revenge. I'm positive there is no way you're the girl you say you are."

 

Ami took a step back and with that, she pulled the blade back out. The Matriarch let out a gurgled call and collapsed onto her knees.

 

"All that's left is to prove it to everyone else!" Ami continued.

 

Ami's duel disk came to life as her eyes drifted over to the girl who was staggering to get back to her feet.

 

"Marie Aynn Sumischa Surrogate, or whoever you are. I challenge you to a duel!"

 

We were all in shock, but the Giant spoke up first.

 

"A duel!? Are you crazy!?" He took a step forward, and with that Guy and Gal began to stand. "The Matriarch doesn't need a duel! She needs a doctor. Xenneth-"

 

"No." Ami declared. "I knew Acey as a member of Crimson Wind Academy. She wasn't as cruel or as monstrous as this girl is. She was also the Demigoddess of War so if she really is Acey she should be fine with any battle scars. And as Demigoddess of Military Strategy, she should be able to beat me in one turn and get to her precious doctor."

 

Ami smirked towards Aynn. "So what do you say 'Matriarch'? Care to lose against a mortal?"

 

"I… I refuse to be called into question like this." Aynn declared. "If you want a duel fine, but just know if I win then I'm gonna drive that blade straight through you and all your little friends here!"

 

"It's a deal! And when I win, you gotta go back down to whatever little hole it is you crawled out of!"

 

The girls stood a duelist's distance away from each other. Ami drew an opening hand of five cards, and a sixth on her draw phase.

 

"Duel!"

 

---

 

Gal and Ami had been best friends since childhood, but pretty much everyone was shocked with what they had just seen. Even Arena raised an eyebrow at Aynn's stomach wound. In all the confusion, it seemed the Tabernacle had stopped caring about restraining us, and we were now free to watch the duel from the sidelines.

 

"I uhh... wasn't excepting any of this." Guy stammered.

 

"Go Ami!" Gal cheered on in excitement.

 

"Refresh my memory again but Ami's just a card designer, right?" Oliver asked.

 

"Hey, that's not fair." Guy began. "I'm a card designer too."

 

"She wasn't even the best duelist in card design when she was enrolled in Hawthorne." Oliver said as he waived his left hand dismissively.

 

"Ami's learned a lot while at Crimson Wind!" Gal exclaimed, defending her dear sister.

 

While everyone else argued, I turned to my girlfriend who was the truest wellspring of information. "Arena, what are the chances Ami can beat Aynn?"

 

"Ami Pastiche could never beat our daughter in a duel." she responded calmly. "She would be lucky to survive the first turn."

 

Considering the stakes of the duel, the mortals of Team Surname exchanged nervous looks.

 

Ami however seemed pleased with her cards as she slapped one onto her duel disk.

 

"I'll start the duel by special summoning Time Maiden in attack mode!"

 

A temporal machine-like priestess emerged on Ami's side of the field, but she didn't stick around on the field as Ami tribute the monster to search, and then summon Michion the Timelord.

 

"Timelords!?" Oliver exclaimed. "I thought that was Headmistress Ipsum's deck!"

 

"Yes." Arena responded. "And after Ipsum's death, she no longer needed it."

 

Guy gave a chuckle. "So, Ami stole Ipsum's deck?"

 

Arena nodded.

 

"None of my Timelords can be destroyed by battle or by card effects. And that's not all. I'll set one support card as well." An enchanted suit of armor with multiple wings emerged on Ami's side of the field while a rectangular splotch of light hid behind it.

 

"Your move."

 

The Matriarch drew her top card and scowled, but just as her standby phase began, Ami flipped her face down.

 

"Zero Machine Ain – Nonexistence!" Ami declared. "With this card, I can send one Timelord in my hand to the grave to draw one card." Ami discarded Raphion the Timelord and, for those that are keeping track at home, she now had two monsters in the grave.

 

---

 

With that, the Matriarch could begin her turn proper, and it seemed she was eager to prove she was the Demigoddess of Military Strategy.

 

"I activate my Gishki Shadow's effect! By sending it to the graveyard, I can search out a Gishki Ritual Spell card, and I pick Gishki Aquamirror!"

 

A smile emerged on the Matriarch's face as it seemed her plan was all coming together.

 

"Now I activate my Aquamirror! By sending my Gishki Vision to the graveyard I can ritual summon my Gishki Zielgigas!"

 

A horrifying four armed monster that looked like the mixture of a squid and a Hercules beetle emerged on the Matriarch's side of the field.

 

"By paying one thousand life points, I can pick up the top card of my deck and if it's a Gishki monster, I can shuffle 1 card from the field into the deck!"

 

Gishki Beast was revealed from the top of her deck. The girl grinned from ear to ear as it seemed her strategy had just doubled. "With my Zeilgigas, I send your monster back to the deck!"

 

Michion was forced back into the deck, a little bit quicker than his usual 'standby phase'.

 

"Perfect! Now I'll normal summon Gishki Beast to bring back Gishki Shadow!" she declared, now with two level 4 monsters on the field.

 

"Now I'll create an Overlay network and perform an Xyz summon! Go! Abyss Dweller!"

 

A mysterious monster hidden in a dark abyss emerged on The Matriarch's side of the field.

 

"With this card, all my Water monsters gain 500 attack! So Abyss Dweller! Zeilgigas! Attack Ami Pastiche directly!"

 

The mighty Hercules beetle and the sinister sea monster attacked Ami's life points directly. In one quick turn, Ami had lost the upper hand and took 5900 points of damage. The girl was left with just 2100 life points remaining.

 

---

 

Despite the heavy beating Ami still seemed cheerfully optimistic.

 

"What's the matter 'Aynn'? Forgot how to do an OTK?" Ami smirked as she drew her fifth card, then activated her Zero Machine Ain – Nonexistance's effect. She discarded her third monster to the graveyard, some random Timelord, then drew a new card to continue her turn.

 

"That girl's got a point." Eyepatch said. "The Matriarch is supposed to be the greatest duelist that ever lived."

 

"Infinite mercy from the Matriarch, clearly!" the Giant protested.

 

"Besides, I had Ami in one of my classes." Teach smirked. "Taught her everything she knows!"

 

"I activate Mound of the Bound Creator!" Ami declared as she activated her field spell. "Now my Level 10 Monsters won't be targeted by your treacherous Zielgidgas! Also, when my monsters destroy yours, you lose 1000 life points!"

 

Ami then played the monster she had been waiting all turn to play. "I summon Sandion the Timelord!"

 

It was the card that had nearly defeated Gal Surname two years earlier. This was one of the few Timelords that actually had a high attack, in this case 4000.

 

"Sandion! Attack her Abyss Dweller!" It was a bit of instinct to attack the weakest monster, but since this one also increased the Matriarch's monsters' attack points, it wasn't necessarily the worst move.

 

Even though the monster was obliterated in a wave of light, neither player took battle damage. Fortunately for Ami, it would now be time for effect damage. Mound of the Bound Creator inflicted 1000 points of damage and and Sandion's effect at the end of the battle phase dropped The Matriarch to 4000.

 

"I'll set two more support cards, then call it a turn here." Ami gave a weak smile, only having one card left in her hand.

 

As soon as the Matriarch began her turn however, Ami chained her Nonexistence. "I send Zaphion to the grave, then draw one more card!" For those keeping track, this was her fourth monster in the grave.

 

Ami seemed pleased with her card. Unfortunately for her, so did the Matriarch

 

---

 

The Matriarch looked at her cards and smirked. "I activate my Zielgigas's effect!" After paying 1000 life points, leaving her with 3000 life points, she drew her topmost card, Gishki Abyss.

 

"Let's send your monster back to the deck!"

 

Ami gave a chuckle. "For Demigoddess of Military Strategy, you sure are bad with children's card games." She pointed to her field spell. "Mound of the Bound Creator keeps you from targeting my level 10 monsters, remember?"

 

The Matriarch gritted her teeth. "Then let's get rid of your Mound of the Bound Creator instead!"

 

All at once, Ami's field spell was sucked back in to the sky, and bounced back to the top of her deck. Ami gave it a quick shuffle but gave a sigh as she waved for one of her face downs.

 

"By tributing my Zero Machine Ain I activate my face down, Infinite Machine Ain Soph – Endless Emptiness. With this card, I can send a one of my Timelord to the grave and draw two cards instead of one!" She sent Gabrion the Timelord, her fifth monster, to the graveyard then drew two more cards.

 

The matriarch scowled at her opponent, but then activate her own spell card. "I activate Salvage to bring back Gishki Shadow and Vision back to my hand! And now I'll use them both too! One searches for Zielgigas, and the other searches for Aqua Mirror!"

 

She played the monster she had picked up earlier. "I summon Gishki Abyss to search out Gishki Vision. Now get ready for another ritual summon!"

 

She slapped down Gishki Aquamirror and sent Gishki Vision to the grave. In one quick move, a second copy of Gishki Zielgigas emerged on the field.

 

"Zielgigas! Use your effect now!"

 

She was down to 2000 lifepoints as she drew her top card, but unfortunately for her it was a copy of Forbidden Lance instead of a Gishki monster. The girl snarled then looked over her cards and field.

 

"With my two level 10 monsters I perform an Xyz summon!" her monsters were absorbed and an enormous rank 10 cannon monster appeared on the girl's side of the field.

 

"Now with my Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max's effect, I can detach one Xyz monster and inflict 2000 points of direct damage!"

 

Ami was hit, and she was hit hard. The girl was reduced to just 100 life points left.

 

As the girl's end phase began however, Ami played her final face down. "I activate Infinite Light Ain Soph Ohr! By tributing my Endless Emptiness trap I get an even more powerful version."

 

She smirked as her graveyard began to light up as well.

 

"But that's not all. When Endless Emptiness hits the grave, I get back my Zero Machine Ain – Nonexistence."

 

"I use my Infinite Light trap now, to discard a Timelord," her sixth monster. "Then I draw two more cards."

 

---

 

As the duel raged on, Arena looked over at Ami and over at the field.

 

"Your friend may need more help than she believes." She closed her eyes and joined her hands in a praying motion.

 

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Since when do you start meddling with human affairs?" Arena did not respond.

 

Ami's turn began, and she needed something big if she planned to win this

 

"I special summon Time Maiden! By sending her to the grave, I get to pick up another Timelord, and I pick Metaion the Timelord!" Now with seven monsters in the grave, Ami summoned a purple and red mechanical looking angel.

 

"I'll also use the effect of Infinite Light to special summon Zaphion the Timelord!" A blue, water attribute fairy appeared on Ami's side of the field just before her battle phase began.

 

"Metaion, attack her Gishki Abyss!"

 

Gishki Abyss was attacked, but nothing else seemed to happen. Neither player took damage. It seemed we would now see the Timelord's effect as her Main Phase 2 began.

 

"When Metaion attacks, when I finish my Battle Phase every single monster on the field gets sent back to the hand, and for each card sent you lose 300 life points. So that's Gishki Abyss, Gustav Max, and my own Zaphion to inflict 900 points of damage!"

 

"Go Ami!" Gal cheered as the Matriarch lost her field and was reduced to 1100 life points.

 

Ami looked over her hand before setting one final card.

 

"I'll set two support card and end my turn."

 

As Ami's opponent's turn began though, her first facedown revealed itself as Nonexistence. Furthermore, Ami discard one card for Infinite Light, bringing her to two cards in hand, then she discard one more for Nonexistence. At this point she had sent 9 monsters to the graveyard.

 

---

 

A quick recap for those who fell asleep, especially since the duel is about to end.

 

Ami Pastiche had been pushed down to 100 life points, and her opponent had been forced down to 1100. While the Matriarch had no field, she had proven herself to be quite resourceful and her Zielgigas to be quite resilient. Ami had one monster on the field, and white it couldn't be destroyed it seemed the Matriarch's Zielgigas was the perfect counter to it.

 

One way or the other, the duel was about to end.

 

"I activate the effect of my Gishki Aquamirror in the grave." The Matriarch said between labored breaths. "I can shuffle my ritual spell back to my hand to bring Zielgigas back to my hand."

 

A grin escaped her lips as it seemed her strategy was about to come up for one final time. "I play Salvage! You already know what it does, so let's just skip ahead to the part where I win! I bring back my Gishki Vision and Gishki Shadow, then I search out for my ritual spell."

 

She smirked, and it seemed almost as if she hadn't just been stabbed in the gut a few minutes earlier. "I activate Gishki Aqua Mirror to summon Gishki Zielgagias!" the girl declared in triumph as her mighty Hercules beetle looking squid appeared again.

 

"It's come down to this!" and with so few life points, it seemed it would really come all down to what was practically a coin flip. "I reveal my top card, and if it's a Gishki monster, this duel is over!"

 

The card was revealed as Gishki Abyss. She grinned as Ami's Metaion was sent back to the deck and pointed dramatically as her battle phase began.

 

"Relax Ami." Arena whispered while standing next to me. Ami looked around nervously, and she seemed to be glowing with white light.

 

"Arena?" she asked, confused.

 

"You have the keys needed to win."

 

"But I can't destroy her monster with my face down!"

 

"Then destroy something else."

 

Ami looked around nervously but at long last, it finally seemed to click. And just in time too, as the Matriarch declared her attack.

 

"Zielgigas-"

 

"I activate my face down!" Ami responded back quickly.

 

"I chain my quick play! Forbidden Lance! Whatever spell or trap card it is, it won't effect my Zielgigas!"

 

"Twin Twister!" Ami finished. "With this, I can discard one card, then destroy any two spell or trap cards on the field."

 

"No Ami." Oliver slapped his forehead and cringed. "Forbidden Lance is a quick play, not an equip spell stupid! Its effect still works even if it's destroyed!"

 

"Even if she did want to destroy it, it doesn't solve her problem of no monster." Guy said somberly.

 

"I can't watch." Gal covered her face and looked away.

 

I looked over at Arena, who still seemed to be glowing with light, and Ami who was also glowing, receiving the blessing of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy.

 

A darkness began to envelop itself around Ami, and it seemed she would need a miracle to win this duel. Fortunately with Arena on her side, a miracle is exactly what she got.

 

"I'll use my Twin Twister to destroy my Infinite Light trap card!"

 

She smiled as the tenth monster hit her graveyard.

 

"What a waste of a move." The Matriarch declared.

 

"It's not." Ami said, as the wind began to pick up around her. There was a crack in the ground with light peeking out from under it. Then suddenly, a crash like the sound of glass breaking as a pillar of light began to overwhelm the field.

 

"What the hell is this!?"

 

"When Infinite Light hits the graveyard, I get to Special Summon my best monster onto the field."

 

"What!?"

 

"Say hello to, Sephylon, the Ultimate Timelord!"

 

An enormous 4000 attack power behemoth emerged on Ami's side of the field. Unlike her lesser timelord, this one would remain beyond the standby phase.

 

"I can't possibly beat a monster like that!" The Matriarch muttered. "You… Ami… how?!"

 

"Do you end your turn?"

 

"Ami… Pastiche…" the girl was shaking in an uncontrollable rage.

 

"Sounds like an end phase to me." Ami picked up her top card as her turn started, and she dove right into the battle phase.

 

"Sephylon, end this!"

 

Sephylon the Ultimate Timelord raised a mighty hand of judgment and Zielgigas was reduced to a pile of pixels as it fragmented and exploded. The Matrirach's life points hit zero, and Ami Pastiche won the duel.

 

---

 

"Ami! You did it!" Gal rushed to her friend and gave her a great big hug. Guy hurried along behind her to help support Ami, as it seemed she still wasn't used to using her new peg leg.

 

"Ami… Pastiche…" the Matriarch whispered, still seething.

 

"Ha! It's over Aynn Mischa." Oliver jeered at the girl.

 

Arena blinked. "That's not Aynn."

 

"I… what!?" Oliver declared.

 

The girl was literally boiling in rage, and I do mean the word literally. Steam was shooting from her ears, her hands, her face and everywhere in between. Her skin was bubbling and her face was contorting, undulating and turning this way and that.

 

"It… it can't be!" Gal exclaimed.

 

We were face to face with the familiar sight of a girl in blue. Not an Obelisk, but rather blue skin and an unwieldly shape to her.

 

I gasped in shock as I realized at last who this girl really was. The girl was not my daughter, not the Matriarch, and certainly no demigoddess.

 

"Candice Sublime." The Shapeshifter - snd holder of the eighth link in the Cursed Chain.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 7: The Last of the Covenant]Ami Pastiche had just defeated a girl we had all thought was the Matriarch in front of our very eyes, and the eyes of the entire academy.

 

Unfortunately for us, instead of beating the final boss of the whole fanfic all she did was defeat the shapeshifting Candice Sublime - holder of the eighth link in the Cursed Chain. For those that had fallen asleep during Arena 2, the eighth link allowed you to change your shape and physical appearance, but at the cost of having the wielder made entirely out of water.

 

We stared at the girl who had just been defeated, as she writhed in pain with her and clutched against her stomach. The tension was high and we had no idea what would happen next.

 

"So now what?" I asked.

 

"Shut up!" Candice exclaimed as she melted into a puddle and reformed herself out of her Obelisk Blue uniform. Even though she looked like a Molly Dolly with no genitalia, I still felt embarrassed to be in front of what I considered a naked girl.

 

"Nice!" yelled out Red Hoodie with a smirk from high above the stands. Lin gave him a high five. The Edgelord pulled out his PDA and began snapping a few pictures.

 

Candice took a few wobbly steps backward, like a newborn gazelle. It was strange seeing her walk, as she usually 'flowed', more like a wave then a human being.

 

"Gal Surname, Guy Surname, and the rest of your little team…"

 

She took a few steps back, then seemed to turn towards Arena. "You stole the power of the gods away from me…"

 

More steps back as she turned to Guy and Gal. "You murdered my family…"

 

She took two more steps backwards then turned her head towards the stands. I assumed she was looking towards the Necrophades Witch. "You turned my sisters, Allison and Kira against me…"

 

"Candice…" Ami began as she placed her hand on Ophelia's Blade. "What are you about to do?"

 

But Guy had something better than idle threats on his mind.

 

"Candice Sublime! Please do not try to kill us here!"

 

At long last Candice's back was up against a wall. She stifled a laugh at Guy's words.

 

"Kill you!? No no no! Of course not. Not after a wound like this." She raised her arm to reveal her stomach, which looked like a raging river contrasting against the calmer water that made up the rest of her.

 

"Normal weapons can't harm me, but that Ophelia's Blade… it's on a whole different level." Candice said before coughing, and strangely spitting out bright red blood. She grimaced.

 

"Instead of trying to kill you, I'm going to fulfill my end of the bargain." A sinister smirk spread on her face as she extended her hand and pressed her finger into the spout of a nearby water fountain.

 

"I'm going back down the hole I crawled out of!"

 

She took a breath and began to bubble and churn. Her finger, arm, torso, and the rest of her body grew thinner and longer before she shrank away, pulled into the water fountain of the Grand Central Dueling Arena.

 

Her voice rang out hollow as it echoed in the pipes above us. "I have full control over water, so it's easy for me to travel anywhere in the academy and get through any frozen pipes. I just need some time to recuperate. Once that happens I assure you I will have my revenge. So, until we meet again and believe me, we WILL meet again. Goodbye!"

 

To say it was a bit of a shock was an understatement. We stayed in a subdued silence for what felt like an eternity before someone from Crimson Wind blurted out what was on her mind.

 

"What in the name of the Shadow Realm was that!?" exclaimed Blunty.

 

The mortals of Team Surname looked at each other, unsure of where to even begin with the story. Fortunately for us, we weren't the only 6 people who were present in the Aether Realm.

 

"The last of the covenant." Kira Ikari declared. "Candice Sublime was a friend and a sister to me when we were younger. Alas, she became warped and deranged by our father. She is nothing but a shell of the woman I knew before."

 

"That chick was crazy!" Kristi exclaimed. "We were all in some kinda parallel dimension, trapped by her and her brother. Meanwhile her dad's making threats to like, the gods of the existence or something. We barely made out alive!"

 

"There's only one God." The Princess of Ra Yellow huffed as she turned the other cheek at Kristi's words.

 

"But we defeated her brother and father and saved the day!" Gal declared triumphantly, before her smile melted away and she gave an absentminded shrug. "Guess Candice still blames us for their deaths."

 

The Giant looked us all over before adjusting his sunglasses. "So let me get this straight! That girl was a shapeshifting water monster-"

 

"No. She is a mortal with the eighth link in the Cursed Chain." Arena corrected, but the Giant ignored her.

 

"And now she's loose in the pipes of Crimson Wind Academy, ready to pop up at any time and sworn to exact revenge on us? Y-no. That's not gonna fly while I'm in charge."

 

The Giant looked at the water fountain and, as though tracing the line, followed up and caught sight of the sprinkler system overhead. He scowled.

 

"We're gonna have to be constantly vigilant for that Candice Sublime girl. Extra security. We're gonna need to sleep in shifts. Develop a buddy system. Make sure we all know everyone's location at all times. It's the only way to-"

 

"And then what?" asked Eyepatch.

 

The Giant took off his sunglasses and looked at her. "Whachoo say?"

 

"I get what the little lady means." The Bald Man began. "If Cara and I bump into that Candice Sublime girl… what exactly are we supposed to do? She know she can't be hurt by anything other than that knife the pirate girl has.

 

Ami wasn't a fan of being referred to as 'the priate girl', though with a pirate costume on and a peg leg it was hard not to notice.

 

"What's to stop Candice from murdering any one of us, shapeshifting into her murder victim then calmly walking back into the Duel Arena to finish the job?"

 

It was a grim thought, but not exactly incorrect. The Giant seemed deep in thought with his hand on his chin before someone else spoke up.

 

"Oh yeah, that's me!" Red Hoodie said as he raised his arms like a zombie. "Roar. I am the shapeshifter Candy Lime, I'm gonna steal all your water and-"

 

"Shut up homo." Lin said as he elbowed the boy. "Just cause you want to be a girl doesn't mean any girl would ever want to shapeshift into you."

 

"She'd probably need a couple oceans worth of water look like you Fatty." Freezy said with a smirk.

 

The kids of Crimson Wind Academy all gave a laugh, but all at once the words of the Giant snapped them back to reality.

 

"We can't stay here."

 

There was a series of yells and a few murmurs, whispers and annoyed sounds coming from the kids of Crimson Wind.

 

"We could go to one of the dorms." the security guard offered.

 

"See, that's not a good plan neither." The Bald Man stated. "I've studied the blueprints of this academy right around the time the storm first hit last year. All the pipes in all of the dorms connect back here to the main building. Even though some have frozen over, that water girl said she could get around them."

 

"Then what the heck are we supposed to do?" The Firefly asked. "It almost midnight and the snow is still coming down!"

 

We were all at a loss for solutions, except for a single boy from the Necrophades Black dorm. A smirk spread itself on the Vampire's face as he walked towards Lin, Red Hoodie, the Waiter, Blunty, Freezy, Glasses Girl, and the rest of the Gutter Rats.

 

"Well, we can't stay indoors. We can't stay outdoors." He said in a bit of a sing-songy voice, like they should all expect him to reveal an inside joke they all shared. None of the Gutter Rats seemed eager to laugh.

 

"God damn it Akuto." Freezy muttered with a roll of her eyes.

 

"I've got just the idea that's gonna save this academy!" The Vampire said eagerly.

 

"You can't mean what I think you mean." Glasses Girl said cautiously.

 

The Vampire smiled towards the Gutter Rat. "Remember that favor you guys owe the Necrophades Black dorm?"

 

The kids exchanged nervous looks but sighed.

 

"You win." Lin said with an exasperated sigh. He walked towards the entrance of the Grand Central Dueling Arena and beckoned us to follow.

 

"Come with us."

 

---

 

Crimson Wind Academy was a lot like an iceberg. It was in the middle of the ocean, completely covered in ice and you'd probably ruin your boat if you tried to crash into it.

 

But on a more serious note, what you saw on the surface was just a fraction of what was going on underneath. Built near an active volcano, the designers of the academy had built an enormous underground shelter, just in case the volcano ever erupted.

 

We huddled close to each other for warmth, making the trek from the snow covered pathways of the school to the snow covered forest just beyond the Academy grounds.

 

At long last we stopped in front of a boulder and Lin raised his arms dramatically. "Tada!"

 

When Lin mentioned a secret Underground club, I assumed he would lead us to an underground cavern. We would be safe from the weather, but his 'club' would probably be extremely dirty. When Linton moved over a shrub to reveal a panel at the base of the rock, I assumed we'd be in an evacuation shelter around the size of the Dueling Arena.

 

He opened the door to reveal nothing but darkness ahead of us. Many students pulled out their PDAs to shine a flashlight. There was a long series of stairs leading further into more darkness. It was hard to tell where it ended, but no one really had any other answers and we were all eager to get out of the cold.

 

We continued downward for quite some time before we finally all discovered level ground.

 

As we stood in their secret club shining our flashlight apps, no one could tell how large this underground structure really was.

 

"Welcome to The Underground." Lin declared as he pointed his flashlight app to a small folding table. On top of the table was a pack of playing cards, what I assumed was food, and some empty bottles of wine. There were a few chairs gathered around the table as well. Other than that, everything else was pitch black.

 

We were all pretty surprised by what we saw.

 

"I didn't know the rumors were true…" The Bald Man said before something more important came to mind.

 

"Where are the beds?" But he spoke in a bit of a demanding tone, as though he was certain there were beds here.

 

Lin and Red Hoodie looked nervous, surprised by a large black man asking them something.

 

"In all the time we've spent in the Underground we've never had any beds." Blunty declared. "We've got sleeping bags and sheets and blankets though."

 

It seemed the Bald Man knew this place was meant to be larger.

 

"Did you check the other tunnels?"

 

Blunty, Lin and Red Hoodie exchanged confused looks. "Other tunnels?" the three Gutter Rats said in unison.

 

Arena yawned and took a step forward, readjusting her long white hair before she spoke. "When the school was first founded, there were a lot of concerns about building near an active volcano. In order to alleviate those fears the architects designed a series of underground shelters where the students and staff would be able to evacuate, should the unthinkable occur. The architects of the academy also assumed that since the students would be entombed underground, they would need an ample supply of water, food, beds, books, desks, and everything else needed for the function of the academy to continue working."

 

"What?" The Giant said. "That's a lot of work to put in just for a children's card game."

 

Arena raised an eyebrow at the Giant's words. "This school's main purpose was never about Duel Monsters."

 

But everyone had already stopped caring a long time ago, and the mass of students piling in did their best to find a wall or anything. At long last, the Firefly's voice rang out.

 

"Hey! I think I found a light switch!" She sounded very far away. Everyone held their breath in anticipation for the light. There was a clicking sound, then nothing else. Another click. Nothing.

 

"Drat! I think it's broken!"

 

"No no my dear daughter." A voice seemed to echo all around us. I could feel Arena clinging behind me, almost as if she was cowering in fear.

 

"All we need is a little bit of…" the voice paused for dramatic effect before I heard I heard the audible noise of someone snapping their fingers, then the hum of florescent lights coming to life. "Electricity!"

 

With the lights now back online we could all see just how large this underground shelter truly was. It was as though someone had fenced off the entirety of Crimson Wind Academy campus, added the Hawthorne campus, and then threw in Kelen Academy just for good measure, then buried it all underground. I wasn't exactly going to be on the school track team anytime soon, but if I had to guess I would say it would take me about 15 minutes to run from one side of the room to the other.

 

We could now see the stair case we just came out of spiraled down into the middle of the room. Off in the distance we could see a few tunnels, clearly labeled as "Dining Hall" "Dormitory" "Infirmity" and "Classrooms".

 

But the most striking thing of all in this room however was an androgynous looking adult halfway between Classrooms and Dormitory. They wore an all-white flowy tunic, sandals, and they had shoulder length gray-hair. This person had a bit of a regal look to them, and looked like a marble statue you may find in the ancient Greek or ancient Rome section of a museum. Team Surname recognized this figure instantly, especially since we just saw them in the Aether Realm not too long ago.

 

"Zera." I whispered. Lord of the Sky, and Ruler of the Eternals of the Aether Realm.

 

---

 

"Who the hell are you!?" The Giant exclaimed.

 

I thought Zera would smite the Giant on the spot, but instead Zera just looked us all over carefully.

 

"How long have you been down here?" asked Eyepatch.

 

Zera cleared their throat to speak. When Zera spoke, it was like they were giving a proclamation rather than answering someone's questions.

 

"I am thy Lord Zera, and I am only here to deliver a message to my daughter."

 

Arena clung to my arm harder. She almost seemed afraid.

 

"Those last two duels with your friends were rather… cute. You really helped pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. However we must insist you stop meddling with human affairs."

 

"You first!" Arena shot back. She was slightly more courageous but she was still half hidden behind me.

 

Zera could tolerate insolence from a mortal. They didn't know better. But insolence from a fellow Eternal was pushing the line.

 

"What did you say!?"

 

"After creating the Cursed Chain, we all agreed to no longer meddle with human affairs. Despite our agreement, I see you and the other five have caused quite a commotion. The unending storm above Silvershine and Crimson Wind is definitely something only an Eternal could cause." Arena seemed to gain her strength, as she no longer cowered behind me.

 

"I could foresee the mortal world and I knew exactly how everything should have gone, but every moment of divine intervention you and everyone else pulls leads me to having to correct your mistakes!"

 

Zera took a deep breath and clapped his hands together in a prayer motion. He paused before suddenly pointing dramatically at Arena. She was hit with a thunderous blast of lightning and electricity. I gasped, as did the rest of our little audience. She stood smoldering, singed, and scowling, but she was otherwise fine enough to stand.

 

"You forget yourself Arena." Zera began. "I am your superior, and the other Eterrnals had already made up their minds on what needs to be done. This is your first and only warning. Do not meddle you’re your divine intervention again."

 

Zera raised their hand high and with another snap of their fingers and another bolt of lightning, the androgynous and white haired Eternal of Lightning disappeared, leaving the entirety of Crimson Wind Academy in a hushed silence.

 

The Necrophades Witch was the first one to speak. "Now Princess," she began with a smile towards the snow haired religious girl. "Do you still believe there is only one God?"

 

---

 

Arena stayed quiet as I led her down to the "Dormitory" section. The Giant told all of us to get some rest, meanwhile the rest of the Tabernacle would check the other three tunnels and report back. Very few of us wanted to challenge him. We were all very tired and cold and ready for a long night's sleep.

 

In the dormitory area, there were hundreds of rows of three-tiered bunk beds arranged neatly arranged and most of the students were eager to get some shut eye. For many of them, this would be their first night's sleep in a bed in many months.

 

Team Surname got a pair of bunk beds away from everyone else. There were more beds than there were people, so it was easy to find a place where no one would be sleeping next to us. Guy, Gal and Ami took one set of bunk beds. Oliver, myself and Arena took the other one

 

Guy, Gal and Ami were sitting on the same middle tier bed opposite of the one Arena and I were sitting on.

 

"So… are you ready to tell us what's going on Arena?" Gal asked.

 

Arena said nothing.

 

"Something terrible is going on, and you think the Gods of the Aether Realm are responsible, right?" Guy asked.

 

Arena said nothing.

 

"I can get her to talk." Ami said with a smirk. Arena scowled. Humans were easy to predict, so she already knew what Ami was about to say.

 

"Pi is exactly three."

 

Arena winced. She cringed in horror and seemed to choke, as though she were holding her head at how absurdly wrong Ami was and at long last she couldn't take it.

 

"Three point one four one five nine two six five three five-"

 

"Okay Arena!" I gave her a kiss on a small burn mark on her cheek. She blushed and looked away, annoyed that she had been goaded into speaking so easily.

 

"I was wondering why you helped out me and Ami during our duels even though you normally say you can't meddle with human affairs." Oliver said as he laid on the top bunk.

 

"Please tell us what's going on?" I asked.

 

At long last Arena gave a sigh. "Alright. I suppose nothing could be meddled worse than what has already happened." She began as she looked us all over. She glanced over to the door, and looked around to make sure no one could hear us.

 

"This storm is clearly not natural. It is an unending storm that has raged on for the past year. Sweethearts Day, Memory Day, Freedom Day, Workman's Day, Duel Monster Spirit Day, Hero Day, Family Day, Winter Holiday, New Years, and then all the way back to today. The snow has been raging for 365 days so far."

 

"That can't be right!" Ami exclaimed, before realizing who we were talking to.

 

"Lord Zera controls the clouds and lightning. Demeidon controls the water that makes the snow. Apollemis controls the sun, keeping it away from Crimson Wind and Silvershine. Persades reaps those are caught in the frozen wasteland."

 

"But why are the gods trying to kill humanity?" Gal asked.

 

"Not humanity." Arena shook her head from left to right. "Just Silvershine and Crimson Wind."

 

"Okay, so why are they doing it?" Oliver asked.

 

Arena scowled. She hated not knowing things. For this she could not answer. She looked ashamed. As Goddess of Wisdom it was her job to know things, so not knowing what was happening made her feel useless, like she was derelict of her duty.

 

At long last she gave her answer. "I… am not certain." she gave a defeated sigh. The rest of us didn't know how to respond.

 

"Humans and the mortal realm are easy to predict. The Eternals and Aether Realm however are vastly more complex and difficult. Everything they do causes a huge ripple, a large change to what happens in the mortal realm which causes more changes and more effects to happen. I do not understand their motives, however I suspect there is a reason they are targeting Silvershine and Crimson Wind Academy."

 

"If that's the case, then it seems we know where we have to go next." Oliver said with a smirk. He jumped down from the top bunk, reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a keycard.

 

"We're taking the Crimson Silver Express and making it back to Silvershine."

 

Ami and the twins exchanged looks, but little more needed to be said. We all knew Oliver was right and we'd need to make it to Silvershine to see what was happening. Little did we know we would be going from out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 8: Sneaking Out]The Tabernacle of the Matriarch was made up of the seven currently alive teachers and staff at Crimson Wind Academy.

 

There was Shinchiro Kai, the former gym teacher and current leader of the group.

Shiroi Hagiwara was their head security guard.

Ajelan Rikuto, the bald man, was the academy's Duel Puzzle professor.

Cara Paredolia was the local student guidance counselor.

Xenneth Hikari was the school nurse.

Kyungyoon Kim was the holography teacher.

Lastly was Christopher SInclaire, a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, with emphasis on the last part. He was the academy's designated substitute teacher.

 

Even though the Tabernacle slept in shifts and even though they were monitoring the Main Hall of the Underground, it was easy for Guy Surname to put them all to sleep using the Second Link in the Chain.

 

Once Guy and Oliver were certain the entire Tabernacle was asleep, Ami and Gal at long last came with a small change of wardrobe for us.

 

"Jackets? Scarves? Hats?" I asked, then realized I didn't care as I sorted through them to find something that fit.

 

"Since everyone's asleep, I figured no one would mind if we pillaged them." Said the pirate girl as she buttoned up Cauchy's jacket. Gal gave her friend a thumbs up.

 

"Speaking of pillaging-" Oliver said as he pulled a bottle of vodka from the bag at Sinclaire's side.

 

"H-hey!" Gal exclaimed.

 

"Relax sweetheart." Oliver smirked. "It's a bag of INFINITE alcohol. He's got more."

 

"That's not why-" Gal protested.

 

Guy also looked bothered, but he said nothing as he put on The Waiter's black peacoat.

 

I put on a red hoodie that was a bit too big for me. Arena didn't need anything else to wear. Oliver put on the Princess's purple mittens and the Vampire's all black jacket. Gal put on the Firefly's puffy orange jacket.

 

We made our way up the circular staircase, eager to get out of the Underground and temporarily off this island but to our surprise we weren't the only people planning an escape. Near the door of the Underground we met with the Necrophades Witch and the Lead Singer of the Band up near the entrance.

 

"Uhh… hey?" I asked.

 

Kira and Kristi nearly fell over in surprise.

 

"What are you two doing?" Ami asked.

 

"Sneaking out." Kristi said, after regaining his composure.

 

Kira seemed annoyed that he had spilled their secret, but alas the cat was out of the bag and there was nothing left for it.

 

"We are the only two demigods on the island, and as such we feel we must rid our island of the horror that is Candice Sublime."

 

"Those are pretty harsh words for a girl you grew up with." Gal pointed out.

 

"We were the Covenant of the Eternals. We were supposed to love and cherish the Gods of the Aether Realm and honor them." Kira smiled towards Arena. Arena did not smile back. "Attempting to murder them for your own selfish gain is not what we were lead to believe."

 

"Well we're out of luck anyway." Kristi knocked on the metal door at the entrance of the Underground. It gave a loud, satisfying clang. "The metal door is stuck."

 

"When the door was first opened, some small bit of snow was able to melt." Arena explained. "The snow turned into slush, the slush got into the handle and hinges of the door, and then it re-solidified into ice."

 

Guy scratched his chin for a second, before snatching the bottle of vodka from Oliver.

 

"Hey!"

 

"Relax Ollie." Guy grinned as he leaned his hand into the door. "I got this."

 

Guy took a deep breath and used the third link in the cursed chain, a power that allowed him to move through solid objects. He took the bottle along with him and easily walked through the door as though it weren't even there.

 

We waited about a minute or two before the door opened ahead of us. Guy stood there with an empty bottle of vodka in one hand and a lighter in the other.

 

I looked at the lighter in his hand. "Where did you-"

 

"The Waiter is a smoker." Arena stated simply.

 

Guy nodded before pocketing the lighter once again.

 

Even though we couldn't exactly see what was ahead of us, with Kira and Kristie to guide us, we were sure to make it to the Monorail station before sunrise.

 

By this time tomorrow, we'd be in Silvershine.

By this time tomorrow, we'd be wishing we were back in Crimson Wind.

 

---

 

Even though it was colder and windier and darker than it was this morning, with the winter gear we borrowed I felt much better and with the full team on my side I felt more hopeful then I had in a long time. I was hanging out with all my friends, we were being led to the Monorail station and I felt things were finally looking up. This optimism only lasted until we made it to the monorail station of course.

 

"Ha! Look who it is." A taller man clad all in black with big eyebrows and smirked as the doors to the monorail opened up. "I can't believe you punks actually have the nerve to show up again-"

 

"Yeah, and I'm here with my whole crew." Oliver said as he motioned towards all of us. "So step aside-"

 

"Unless you wanna come to Silvershine with us too!" Gal grinned eagerly. Guy lightly smacked her in the forearm and shook his head from left to right, mouthing the word 'no'.

 

The Demon roared with laughter at us. "This monorail isn't going anywhere kids."

 

"What do you mean!?" I exclaimed. "Do we have to duel you again!?"

 

"Go sic him Arena!" Kristi said as he pointed at the demon, like Kristi were one of those Battle Monster trainers and he was aiming to capture the Demon as well.

 

"Ha! Didn't that brat lose to my deck 2 years ago?"

 

Arena stared at the boy, like she was studying him. She looked as though she was about to say something then stopped and shook her head. "I cannot meddle with human affairs." I heard her whisper.

 

"Shinkou-sama." Kira begged as she bowed deeply and curtsied. "Please allow us safe passage onboard your-"

 

"Errr!" he bleated, like a gameshow buzzer when someone gave the wrong answer. "Not my call to make I'm afraid."

 

"Let me guess." Oliver interrupted. "The Matriarch, right?"

 

"Even more than that. The basic laws of physics!" The Demon stepped aside to let us examine the train more closely. Gal sprinted inside for warmth.

 

"You may have won the keycard and you're free to enter the monorail, but good luck getting it to run without electricity."

 

"What do you mean?" Gal asked as she poked her head out of a window.

 

The Demon gave an exasperate sigh and shook his head from left to right.

 

"We're in the middle of a blizzard genius!" the Demon exclaimed.

 

"Normally the train consumes five thousand kilowatt worth of electricity every hour in order to function properly." Arena explained. "It is a three hour trip from Crimson Wind Academy to Silvershine."

 

"What the flat chested girl said." The Demon continued. "Electricity is a commodity, and there's barely enough electricity on this island to power a duel disk, much less a twenty ton mass of steel going at two hundred-"

 

"That's not true!" Kristi exclaimed. "What about the Underground? They had lights and a TV and refrigerators and everything!"

 

"Hehe. Sounds like you kids may need my help."

 

There was a gruff and manly sounding voice coming from the ticket taker's booth. I turned around to see a man with jet black hair, hard chiseled face, a small bit of scruff, and muscles revealed underneath his all-white toga. He didn't look overly muscular like a body builder, but rather he had muscles like a man that mined for coal all day or fixed cars for a living

 

I'm a heterosexual adolescent male, but I had to admit the guy looked pretty handsome. It seemed the other girls agreed as I saw Ami's face turn extremely red as she tried to hide this from him. Gal meanwhile peaked out from her window in the train as she giggled and laughed, while also in a state of euphoria. The Necrophades Witch looked extremely pained to see him, blushing profusely and yet also on the verge of tears, like she was deeply ashamed to find him so attractive.

 

Strangely though, the Demon of Turbo's eyes lit up and he quickly did an about face, entering the monorail. Maybe there was some sort of false bravado behind his tough guy persona?

 

In any case, our group was now face to face with an incredibly handsome young man who stated he could help us. We gave him our undivided attention, though the girls for a different reason than the boys.

 

"Aphraestus." The man introduced with a salute. The Hawthorne girls gave a sigh and swooned at the sound of his name. Kira's body shook and she shut her eyes. "God of Love, Blacksmithing, Machinery and Creation."

 

He lazily sauntered over to us. I could tell the girls were all holding their breaths as they saw his approach.

 

"So you're gonna help us out dude? Righteous!" Kristi smiled and gave the man a thumbs up.

 

"Well I can tell you what I know, and it'll be up to you kids to figure it out. Lemme explain it quickly. My time is short." Aphraestus yawned, and the Hawthorne girls seemed to be eyeing him very carefully, almost not blinking so they wouldn't miss a single detail about the man and the way that he moved.

 

"Like Arena says, this here train needs five thousand kilowatt hours of electricity in order to run. It's state of the art technology. Normally the electricity is supplied by each side, but after the school shut down, Silvershine was providing all of the electricity to ferry over supplies. It's a big city, they could afford it. But as I'm sure the boys already know, the Matriarch's not gonna be providing nothing for no one now. Even in the best of times the academy never provided all the electricity for this here train. In short, you're gonna need a miracle to get it moving again."

 

"Bummer." Kristi muttered.

 

The God smiled, then slowly motioned to the ticket taker booth.

 

"Over there though you may be able to find the miracle you're looking for. The electricity was provided by the roar of the waterfall, which froze over. Crimson Wind also had the wind turbines, but they're frozen too. I'm sure you can already tell why they can't use the solar cells, and the geothermal plant is useless without anyone with a PhD to man it."

 

We all looked at the man anxiously. As the most mechanically inclined God, surely he would know how to make a machine move.

 

"All that's left over there is a master control switch. You can try to squeeze out every droplet of electricity this ol' Academy has to offer. Be warned though, you'll be pretty much dooming this academy to an even worse off life then they already have. No electricity, no lights, no phones, duel disks, possibly food rations and anything else that runs on power here." He smiled at us. "But at least you'll all be free."

 

Guy, Oliver, Kristi and I looked each other over uneasily. None of us said it outloud, but it seemed to be an unthinkable scenario. We may not have known the kids at the academy, but none of us were willing to sacrifice innocent lives to make it work.

 

"Or maybe your miracle lies on the train itself."

 

We looked, daring to hope there was another way.

 

"In the conductor's seat lies a pretty advanced engine if I do say so myself. Science hasn't quite gotten an engine that runs on salt water, but that one there can run on quite a lot of emergency biofuels. Petrol, ethanol, corn oil, and many other natural hydrocarbons can be mixed into the fuel tank to get the train going. Good luck finding any in this frozen wasteland though." The God smiled, then turned his back to us.

 

"So go ahead and figure out this puzzle. I'm out of here."

 

The God snapped his fingers and all at once he disappeared, leaving nothing behind but a light warmth like a mother's embrace and the faint smell of engine grease.

 

"Oh my God, oh my god, oh my god!" Ami and Gal squealed and jumped up and down. Kira at long last breathed a sigh of relief.

 

"Did you see me Brett-sama?" Kira whispered as she looked up and held her hands in a prayer motion. Tears began to flow from her eyes. "I remained chaste for you."

 

"That guy was so cute!" Ami exclaimed, before she spotted her boyfriend out of her peripheral vision. Her smile instantly faded. "Uhh… Guy Surname is so cute I mean! That Aphraestus though, distant second!"

 

Guy didn't take offense. In fact, he, Oliver and Kristi went over to the ticket taker booth to get a better look at what Aphraestus had described. I decided to follow along with the other two Hawthorne girls, Ami and Gal.

 

---

 

For years, the students of Crimson Wind Academy had to rely on the ferry in order to get them to the main land. It was a long trip, usually taking about half a day, and many students couldn't make the trip due to seasickness.

 

The monorail station changed all of that. It was state of the art technology, built over the course of five years, finally opening in the fall, two years ago. It brought the world of Silvershine just a little closer to the kids of Crimson Wind. They could go hang out on weekends, visit friends and family, and some students were brave enough to actually try commuting.

 

The monorail now represented more to us than any other Crimson Wind student before. It wasn't just an escape from the mundane, but rather our final lifeline back into the city and the only way the majority of us would survive.

 

As we stared at the control panel in the ticket taker booth, we all came to the slow realization none of us knew how trains worked or what buttons to press, levers to pull, and gears to turn.

 

"Check it Surname." Oliver motioned towards the nearby control panel on the left side of the ticket taker booth.

 

"Which of us do you want to 'check it'?" Guy asked.

 

"The Girlier Twin, unless you happen to suddenly have a knack for gears and gizmos, Leonardo Guy-Vinci."

 

Gal flicked a nearby light switch, but Kristi quickly turned it off.

 

"Hey man! Ma'am… Didn't you hear what the glowy dude said!?" He exclaimed. "We need five thousand whatevers to keep this train flowing. If we wanna divert electricity from the school to the train, we gotta conserve every little bit that we got!"

 

There was a bit of an awkward silence among the kids of Team Surname. We looked around awkwardly, unsure of how to phrase what was on our mind.

 

"We're not… really gonna do that are we?" Ami asked. "We'd be dooming the academy to eternal winter with no heat and no electricity."

 

"Nah." Oliver said dismissively. "Aynn doomed the academy when she plunged Silvershine into anarchy."

 

"Incorrect." Arena corrected. "The Gods of the Aether Realm doomed Silvershine and Crimson Wind. They are the cause of the eternal winter."

 

Kira shook her head. "The Gods of the Aether Realm would not wish harm on humanity. You carved us in your image! Why would the Gods do such a thing?"

 

Arena looked down and her normally serious face seemed to deflate a little more. She shook her head left to right and raised her shoulders. "I still have not deduced their strategy."

 

We were all quiet, letting her words sink in. It was tough knowing that we may die at any moment soon. It was worse knowing that the very Gods themselves had not only forsaken us, but they were actively plotting against us. Worse yet, the girl who was supposed to know everything didn't have a plan and didn't know why any of it was happening.

 

As usual, Gal was the first to speak. She was, after all, the glue that held our group together. "There's… a lot of buttons on the control panel." She whispered, trying to change the subject.

 

"Yeah, more than I could even count." Oliver gave a bit of a solemn nod.

 

"So, nine then?" Ami smiled.

 

Oliver rolled his eyes dismissively. "Haha, very…" he paused, glancing at his left hand.

 

"Oh I get it now. Yeah. Good one Pastiche." He gave a chuckle.

 

We all kinda gave a laugh, the tension of the air relieved if only slightly.

 

"Alright, so we all agree then? We're going to steal all the electricity the island has just to run the train? That's… pretty harsh." I said glumly, but it looked like everyone had arrived to the same conclusion.

 

"We'll all die if we don't do something." Oliver said sternly. "It sucks, but… that's kinda how it's gotta be."

 

Kira closed her eyes. "As Demigoddess of Death I can… maybe withhold death's embrace for a few days…"

 

"Alright!" Kristi clapped his hands. "Let's get to work then! Which button do we have to press to turn on the train?"

 

"I bet it's this one!" Gal pointed to a big red button labeled 'Emergency'.

 

"Yeah, it's like an Emergency shut off valve or Emergency transfer button or something!" Kristi eagerly hit the button with a balled up fist. A very very loud alarm sound blared out from nearby speakers.

 

"It's not." Arena corrected, at least that's what I thought she said. I clasped my hands to my ears, the loud alarm ringing for what felt like an eternity. If there was any wildlife left in the academy, I was sure they'd all be startled by the sudden blaring of the world's loudest alarm.

 

At long last, the alarm stopped and we were all left with a ringing in our ears.

 

"What the hell was that!?" The Demon exclaimed as he stormed into the ticket taker booth.

 

"That was the emergency alarm that alerts all academy staff by PDA message that an emergency situation is taking place at the monorail station."

 

We all stood with our mouths wide open in shock.

 

"Also, their PDAs are rang just as loudly as that alarm we just set off."

 

It was dark and we couldn't see anything. With our ears ringing from the alarm, our sense of hearing had dulled as well.

 

All we knew for certain was that we had hit the wrong button and within minutes the Tabernacle of the Matriarch would descend upon the monorail station.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 9: There Is No Future Here]At long last, after standing around in the cold, dark, pre-morning twilight at the monorail station the Tabernacle of the Matriarch had finally arrived.

 

"What the hell is going on!?" The Giant exclaimed, red in the face and absolutely fuming in rage.

 

The DemiGoddess of Death, Kira Ikari calmly took a step forward. "There is no future here. You must see reason-"

 

"Get back to the bunker." The Security Guard said sternly. "We can all go back to sleep and forget this ever happened."

 

"Like hell we can!" The Giant exclaimed. "You kids are lucky I haven't snapped your necks!"

 

"If that's the way you're gonna act, why should we stay here at Crimson Wind?" Kristi asked as he motioned towards the monorail.

 

"We're trying to survive and keep everyone safe!" The Bald Man said.

 

"We don't wanna just 'survive'!" Ami pleaded.  "We want to live and enjoy life, and not be trapped in an eternal winter."

 

"But the eternal winter IS ending." The Korean teacher pointed out. "As soon as we left the bunker the snow stopped and the ice around the door was melted!"

 

Everyone except Arena rolled their eyes. The Goddess's ears perked up at the teacher's words as she stood up straighter and began scanning the distance with what few rays of light her gray little eyes could see.

 

"You'll never survive in Silvershine." Eyepatch said. "It's safe here."

 

"We're tougher then we look!" Gal said with hands on her hips.

 

Guy looked over at his Duel Disk, then over at the Tabernacle. "So… looks like there's just one way we get out of here then."

 

The teachers all looked at each other reluctantly before they pulled out their own Duel Disks.

 

"If that's the way you want it then let's go!" The Giant declared as his Duel Disk buzzed to life.

 

"Alright." I began to count it out. "Arena's out so that makes it… Five kids from Hawthorne. Two demigods. Seven teachers. This looks like an even fight."

 

"I disagree." Arena said as she hastily stepped past me. She was radiating white light and her outfit that was burned and electrified by Lord Zera seemed to have repaired itself as she stepped forward. 

 

"I think they are going to need a few more people on their side to stand a chance against a Goddess."

 

We were all stunned to see Arena take center stage on the battle field as she took per place a duelist's distance away from the Giant. She raised her right arm and a fancy, ornate, metal and marble looking duel disk, perfectly fit for a Goddess emerged and quickly buzzed to life.

 

"Shinchiro Kai!" Arena pointed to the Giant. "I challenge you, and anyone else in the Tabernacle to a duel!"

 

---

 

There was definitely something different about Arena as we began to recover from the shock. She never took an interest in anything mortal except for me. Yet here she was, taking up arms against the Tabernacle of the Matriarch and ready to fight for our freedom. I glanced over to the train and happened to spot The Demon of Turbo watching the duel from a nearby window. I wondered if Arena was truly going to give it her best or if she was going to throw the fight like she did two years ago.

 

I'd find out soon enough.

 

"Alright, a duel it is then." The Giant said. "If we win you forget all of this and come live with us in the bunker."

 

"And when I win, you will hand over the Little Piece of Heaven you have." Arena said.

 

"Little… what?" Teach said as he reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a bottle.

 

"I am referring to the gift from the gods, namely the Bag of Infinite Alcohol."

 

"I… what!?" Teach slurred, before turning to the Giant. "Kai, you better win this!"

 

"You bet your ass I will" The Giant declared as he drew an opening hand of five, and a sixth card on his draw phase.

 

"I'll set one monster facedown, then set a support card. Your move!"

 

Arena did not look worried as she drew her sixth card.

 

"I'll send Heactrice to the graveyard to search out Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen." The Goddess declared.

 

She slapped her Hall of the Fallen spell card onto the field, the special summoned a monster. "I'll summon The Agent of Creation - Venus."

 

Arena's eyes narrowed over to his face down card, and the Giant seemed eager to flip it face up.

 

"I pay five hundred life points to special summon one Mystic Shineball."

 

Arena was down to 7500 life points, and the Giant's hand was right over his trap card. Arena scowled, but sometimes the one way to disarm a trap was to walk right through it.

 

"I pay another five hundred-"

 

"Activate trap!"

 

Three annoying little gremlins clad in a very tight looking speedo emerged on Arena's side of the field.

 

"O-"

"Jama!"

"Trio!"

 

The Giant grinned, as he flooded Arena's field with three useless monster tokens, blocking her from summoning more Shine Balls, but not stopping the price she already paid.

 

Arena raised an eyebrow then gave a coy smile.

 

"It is clear you have not studied on Link Summons."

 

Arena would make the Gym Teacher pay for his grievous mistake.

 

"I'll tribute one Ojama Token to special summon Link Spider!"

 

The Green token was dissolved and in its place a mechanical spider emerged on Arena's side of the field. 

 

"And since that one worked so well, I'll summon a second Spider as well!" Now the Black one disappeared, replaced with a second identical spider.

 

Right now Arena had four monsters and one token on the field, and she still hadn't used up a normal summon. I could already tell this wasn't going to end well for the Giant.

 

"I tribute my two Link Spiders and my one Mystic Shineball to summon Obelisk the Tormentor!"

 

An obelisk is a tall tower, and sure enough the monster towered high above the field like his name suggested.

 

"B-big deal!" stammered the Giant, but Arena's turn wasn't over yet.

 

"Let's get rid of this final Ojama token for my third Link Spider." And all at once it seemed the Giant's plan was completely negated. Not only did Arena have a powerful monster because of him, but she got it virtually for free.

 

"I still have not summoned all of my Mystic Shineballs yet." Arena declared. "With my Agent Venus I shall summon the final two Mystic Shineballs from my deck." Arena was down to 6000 life points, but she had amassed a large collection of monsters. It was clear if the Giant didn't do something, she'd likely use her small little monsters to summon the next God Card on the list for her next turn. But in the spirit of military strategy, it seemed Arena intended for her opening move to also be her final move.

 

"I banish my Agent of Creation to special summon Master Hyperion!" An enormous, sun-like monster emerged enough on the field. Master Hypeiron banished Heactrice from the grave and the Giant's facedown Ojama Blue was destroyed.

 

"Now I attack directly!"

 

Arena attacked directly with Obelisk the Tormentor, and she had more than enough to finish off the rest of his life points. Master Hyperion attacked for 2700. Next up was her Link Spider for 1000. After all of this, the Giant had 300 life points and was left up against two 500 attack power Mystic Shineballs.

 

"This… sucks…" the Giant whispered.

 

"I will defeat Kai by attacking directly with my Mystic Shineball."

 

The sphere of light sped forward and chimed loudly as the man's life points hit zero.

 

"Alright! We did it!" Ami declared.

 

Gal's smile faded when she noticed Arena's field, and the fact that it still existed. "Hey, how come Arena's holograms are still up? Why does she have monsters on the field?"

 

When the snow and the dust cleared we saw the woman with the eyepatch, clutching at Teach's arm as though she was pulling him onto the dancefloor at the Sweetheart's Day Dance.

 

"Wait!" Eyepatch put her hand over her deck and her duel disk buzzed to life. "I'll take the intrusion penalty, and so will Sinclaire!"

 

Her life points hit 4000, as did the scruffy drunken teacher.

 

"Huh, what?" Teach muttered.

 

"Intrusion Penalty? What the heck is going on!?" the lead singer of the Kristi Korrina Experience exclaimed.

 

"The girl said she would challenge anyone else in the Tabernacle to a duel, so how about a Battle Royale finish then!?" Eyepatch said with a bit of a nervous smirk.

 

We were all pretty surprised but no one seemed more in shock then Teach himself. "H… what?"

 

"Just get your disk ready!" Eyepatch exclaimed. "It's not over unless she defeats all of us!"

 

Teach rubbed his eyes as though contemplating what she said.

 

"If you lose the duel, you lose your booze."

 

"What!? No! " Teach awkwardly fumbled into his pocket and put in a random collection of cards into his duel disks. He drew an opening hand of five cards and looked white in the face.

 

Eyepatch also drew five, and nodded towards Arena.

 

Arena shrugged her shoulders absentmindedly and looked over her cards and her field.

 

"Very well. Your Battle Royale challenge is accepted, however it was still my battle phase and I still have one monster left. Mystic Shineball, attack Cara Paredolia's life points directly!"

 

Eyepatch took 500 points of damage, leaving her with 3500 life points in all. She was up against a God herself as she nervously took a breath to begin her duel.

 

---

 

Cara Paredolia was once a celebrated professional duelist. She rose to great heights right around the beginning of the synchro era before disappearing from the limelight. I didn't know why a regionally-famous pro duelist would bother becoming a teacher, but I'm sure she had her reasons. For right now though, her only goal was beating Arena in a duel.

 

The woman with the eyepatch drew her topmost card.

 

"I normal summon Krebons!" A jester-like monster appeared on her field, looking rather underwhelming. "Then I activate Psychokinesis!"

 

Eyepatch took 1000 points of damage, dropping her down to 2500. She looked over her field, and a hideous realization spread upon her face.

 

"Your Obelisk can't be targeted?"

 

"That is correct." Arena said with a nod. "Do you now see the folly in attempting to challenge me?"

 

Eyepatch seemed shaken, but she had to remain strong to continue the duel.

 

"Krebons, attack her Mystic Shineball!"

 

We half expected to see Honest show up but instead, Arena took 700 points of damage leaving her with 5300.

 

Cara drew a breath and set a card. I'll spoil the suspense and tell you that it was Mirror Force. It seemed the woman had drawn upon all of her luck. She had played every card she reasonably could and now it was time for her partner to do something worthwhile.

 

"I've set up the field for you Sinclaire! Take your turn!" she declared with a smile.

 

Sinclaire drew his top card and looked at it confused.

 

"Pass."

 

---

 

Christopher Sinclaire was a cooking major who somehow stumbled into the career of Duel Monster professor at a prestigious institute. He didn't have much in the way of looks, charm, intelligence, and he was actually a pretty terrible duelist but he had quite a load of confidence to make up for it. Even as he stared a Goddess in the face he was willing to dive right in just to keep his booze supply flowing.

 

Eyepatch however was enraged that all he could muster was drawing a sixth card and hitting his end phase.

 

"What do you mean 'Pass'!?"

 

"You know, my end phase. I don't have any cards to play."

 

"He means that quite literally." Arena clarified. "When he reached into his pocket he picked up the wrong deck of cards. He currently hold the six of spades, jack of clubs, queen of diamonds, eight of diamonds, king of spades and he just drew the ace of hearts."

 

The school psychiatrist's single eye grew wide as she looked over at Teach. "She… she better be joking!"

 

"Just one more card and I'd have had a royal straight."

 

Cara looked enraged, and Arena's next few words did nothing to quell her temper.

 

"Fear not. Even if he ran the deck of the King of Games it would not change anything." Arena stated as she drew her top most cared. "I will not draw out your demise for very long. It will be quick."

 

Arena looked over her field, especially her spiders and scowled.

 

"I will tribute my two Link Spiders to summon LANpholinkus." She declared. Her mechanical spiders were dissolved and in their place was a mechanical looking dragon.

 

"Uhh, what? You barely got an attack boost from those!" Teach exclaimed.

 

"It was not for the attack power, it was for the space. I will need the monster card zone n order to set up my Synchro summon." she declared before playing her next spell card.

 

"With my Mind Control spell, I can take control of any one of your monsters." It looked like something out of the Cursed Chain as threads emerged from Krebons, like a puppet on a string and he landed on Arena's side of the field.

 

"I tribute my Mystic Shineball to summon Tethys, Goddess of Light."

 

We did the math. A level two tuner and a level 5 monster meant a level 7 Synchro was about to appear.

 

"Now I send Krebons and Tethys to the grave in order to synchro summon Michael, the Arch-Lightsworn!"

 

Michael only needed a tuner and a light monster. It did not need to be a light tuner so Krebons was still a worthwhile sacrifice.

 

A golden knight riding an enormous white dragon emerged on Arena's side of the field.

 

"By paying one thousand life points I can banish your face down Mirror Force." And sure enough, her facedown was dissolved and banished. If Eyepatch had gotten Mirror Force to go off, the duel would have likely had a much different outcome. Instead, Arena once again had the upper hand, and enough firepower to end the duel for the both of them.

 

"Michael, eliminate Cara Paredolia!" Eyepatch's life points hit zero.

 

"Obelisk, take down Christopher Sinclaire!" Teach's life points hit zero.

 

But alas, there were still four other people in the Tabernacle, and another Intrusion Penalty meant two more duelists would be stepping in.

 

---

 

As far as anyone else knew, Ajelan Rikuto was the local mild mannered Duel Puzzle professor. He started two years ago, spoke very little and mostly kept to himself. The only people who knew his secret were Arena and Oliver. Arena, because she's the Goddess of Wisdom, and Oliver because he whispered it to him as Candice Sublime ordered our executions.

 

"Kids, I know things look rough. I know you don’t respond well to authority. But for right now please just trust us when we say we know better." The Bald Man pleaded.

 

Arena stared at him like she wanted to murder him. Unfortunately she'd have to let her cards do it for her.

 

"LANpholinkus, attack Office Rikuto directly."

 

Arena's Cyberse Link monster sped towards the Bald Man. One quick attack and he was left with 2800 life points.

 

"I will set one card face down and end my turn."

 

Arena sent the top 3 cards from her deck to the graveyard: the Agent of Miracles – Jupiter, Hand Destruction and Double Summon

 

The Bald Man sighed at Arena's attitude and drew his top card. A smile appeared as he could see a strategy forming.

 

"I activate U.A. Signing Deal! With this card I can summon any U.A. monster from my deck. So I'll summon U.A. Dreadnought Dunker!"

 

"It comes with a heavy price." Arena warned.

 

And she was right. With Signing Bonus, he would take damage equal to the level of the monster times 300, and with a level 7 monster he would now take 2100 points of damage. After the Intrusion Penalty, LANpholinkus's attack and now his spell card, the Bald Man was down to 700 life points left.

 

Nevertheless the man looked confident staring at Arena's 5300 life points.

 

"As a professor there is no puzzle I cannot solve-"

 

"And no crime you cannot deduce."

 

He flinched, but kept going forward. "I'll show you just how a professor duels!" The Bald man exclaimed as he slapped a monster onto his duel disk. "I normal summon my U.A. Midfielder, then I can send my Dreadnought Dunker back to my hand to special summon U.A. Playmaker!" A large man who looked like he should be playing for the Silvershine Gorilla's emerged on the field.

 

"Now I can send my Midfielder back to my hand to special summon my Dunker once again!"

 

"What was the point of that!?" Gal exclaimed.

 

"He wants his monster's effect." Cara explained. "When Dreadnought Dunker destroys a monster, Ajelan gets to destroy a card on the field."

 

Ami cocked her head to her side. "Well Obelisk can't be targeted so Arena's safe no matter what."

 

"I wouldn't be so sure." Kristi said, as though having a flashback to his entrance exam.

 

The Bald Man looked eager to continue his turn as he slapped a spell card on the field. "Now I activate U.A. Powered Jersey!"

 

Dreadnought Dunker roared in triumph, sounding more like a monster than a man.

 

"Now Dreadnought Dunker, attack her Obelisk the Tormentor!"

 

"B-but his Dunker still has less attack!" Gal protested

 

"His Playmaker." Oliver pointed out. "When a U.A. monster attacks, Playmaker can raise that monster's attack points by 800."

 

His Dreadnought Dunker attacked, and Playmaker's effect activated. Dunker reached a staggering 4300 attack power up against Obelisk's 400. Arena took 600 points of damage, leaving her with just 4700.

 

"With Dreadnought Dunker's effect I can destroy one card on the field. I think I'll go with your Arch-Lightsworn Synchro!" Arena didn't normally run Lightsworn, so the secondary effect of Michael did not go off. Instead he was just sent to the grave with no additional fanfare.

 

"And with Power Jersey I get to attack again, so say goodbye to your LANPholinkus!"

 

"So let's see..." Oliver raised his hand trying to figure out the math but having trouble counting fingers with the Princess's mittens on. "It started with 2500, 1000 from the Jersey, 800 from Playmaker."

 

"And 800 again from Playmaker." I reminded. "That's 5100 total!"

 

"Ouch." Kristi winced. "So Arena's gonna take 3900 points of damage? She'll still survive though but just barely-"

 

"Double that with Power Jersey." Oliver declared.

 

Gal gasped. "So then, the duel's over?"

 

"I wouldn't count out the Goddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy just yet." The Necrophades Witch said with a bit of a judgmental tone in her voice.

 

In truth, the duel would be over for one of them. As the 5100 attack power monster sped towards Arena's light, Cyberse monster its wings grew larger and more feather, like an angel. Arena smiled as she activated a card's effect from her hand.

 

"Honest."

 

And just like that, the Duel Puzzle professor was taken out of the duel on his very first turn.

 

---

 

Xenneth Hikari was a young man with a lot to prove. He had survived the attack on Solar Dusk Academy and become an accomplished doctor but upon returning to Crimson Wind he felt as though he had been reduced to the level of a teenager and all those insecurities were bubbling up to the surface once again.

 

"She has an out to everything." The violet haired nurse whispered, worried that he had already bitten off more than he could chew.

 

"We can still win this! We're a team!" Cara pleaded.

 

"Don't give up boy!" The Giant exclaimed. "Keep your cool and win it for us!"

 

The Nurse took a breath and looked over his card. A strategy began forming as he normal summoned his first monster.

 

"I normal summon Darklord Nurse Reficule!"

 

He seemed to muster enough courage at last as he played his spell card.

 

"Now I activate Upstart Goblin! I draw a card and, while you would normally gain 1000 life points, when Reficule is on the field all life point increases turn into life point losses for you."

 

Arena took 1000 points of damage, leaving her with 3700. The Nurse picked up his top card and seemed rather shocked. He quickly and eagerly put two cards face down on his duel disk.

 

"I've seen you tear up Professor Rikuto, so I don't think I'll make the same mistake as him." The Nurse took a breath and pointed towards Arena, gesturing her to take her turn.

 

"Your move."

 

After her draw phase, Arena had two cards in hand on the standby, but it seemed the Nurse wasn't quite done with his strategy.

 

"I activate two copies of my trap card! The Paths of Destiny!"

 

"You're letting the entire duel go to a coin flip?" The Security Guard asked.

 

"There's no coin flip here when you force the decision." Xenneth smirked before explaining his master plan. "If the girl gets tails she take 2000 damage, and if she gets heads she'll gain 2000… but Reficule turns every gain into a loss. Heads, tails, regardless of what happens this duel is over!"

 

It was an incredible strategy but alas, Arena was not alarmed.

 

"We better get rid of that Nurse Reficule then."

 

"Wh-what do you mean!?"

 

"I activate my face down trap! Phoenix Wing Wind Blast!"

 

Arena discarded a card, Slifer the Sky Dragon, and the Nurse's field was empty.

 

"I… I can still win this if you flip two tails in a row!" the Nurse protested.

 

"You can also lose right now if you flip two tails in a row."

 

Arena seemed calm and collected, but the Nurse was a nervous wreck. "I… uhh…"

 

"Hey, can we get on with the duel!?" The Giant exclaimed.

 

"It's not much of a duel anymore." Oliver interjected. "More like a coin flipping contest."

 

"Let us begin." Arena declared

 

Arena produced a fancy and ornate looking gold coin. One side had a picture of an owl and the other side was of a gold and ivory palace high above the clouds. It flipped in the air and Arena caught it. Tails.

 

Arena was reduced to 1700 life points.

 

The Nurse flipped his own coin, a half dollar. Tails. He lost 2000 life points, bringing him to 2000.

 

The next card in the chain was now resolving. It was now literally a coin flip for both of them. They both flipped and caught their coins at the same time. One heads, one tails.

 

"No!" the Tabernacle exclaimed as the Nurse took 2000 points of damage and his duel disk shut off. As for Arena herself, she was brought back up to 3700 life points having survived the second coin flip.

 

---

 

Shiori Hagiwara and Kyungyoon Kim hurried up to the battle area with duel disks at the ready. They were best of friends and already had a strategy brewing as they drew their top five cards.

 

"Alright, she has no monsters and only two cards in hand." The Security Guard said as she looked over her cards and snuck a peek of Miss Kim's cards. "I think we can take her out."

 

"You have literally just seen 5 people in a row try to defeat me and fail." Arena said with a scowl. "If you will continue to throw bodies to fall on my blade, allow me to end your suffering."

 

Arena slapped a spell card onto her duel disk. "I activate Soul Charge!"

 

Miss Kim breathed a sigh of relief. "She can't attack this turn."

 

But the relief soon turned to fear as they saw the three monsters she targeted.

 

"Obelisk the Tormentor!?"

 

"Slifer the Sky Dragon!?"

 

Arena smiled. "And also Tethys, the Goddess of Light."

 

Arena had a single card left in her hand and she played it, sending Slifer's attack down to zero.

 

"I activate One Day of Peace."

 

"No effect or battle damage." Miss Kim noted.

 

"And only one card left in hand." The Security Guard confirmed.

 

"But thanks to Tethys every time she draws a fairy, she'll keep on drawing." The Bald Man reminded.

 

"Correct." Arena said as she drew a card, and with that she didn't stop drawing until she had six cards in hand. Hecatrice, Agent of Mystery - Earth, Master Hyperion, Herald of Orange Light, another copy of Master Hyperion, and the spell that broke her endless combo, Hand Destruction. Despite that, she seemed ready to initiate the final part of her plan.

 

"The duel was already decided before it even began. I activate Hand Destruction!" she sent the Agent of Mystery and Hecatrice to the grave and picked up two cards.

 

Meanwhile, Miss Kim discarded Treeborn Frog and Hand of Nephtys while the Security Guard discarded Kinka-Byo and Creature Swap.

 

It seemed neither of the cards Arena picked up were fairies since Tethys did not activate. However they were just the cards she needed to win.

 

"I special summon two copies of Master Hyperion!" she declared as she banished two of her agents.

 

"She can't attack and we don't have any field presence for her to destroy." Miss Kim said encouragingly.

 

"Now I tribute my two Hyperions and Tethys for The Winged Dragon of Ra!"

 

There was a mighty roar from Arena's third monster as it hit the field, and even though I had seen it quite a few times before, it still amazed me how she had the three strongest monsters I'd ever seen, and then she tribute all three for something even mean more powerful.

 

"Now I tribute all three Egyptian Gods to summon Horakthy, the Creator God of Light!"

 

It wasn't enough for Arena to drop their life points, but rather she declared victory with Horakthy's effect. There was nothing more after her summon of Horakthy. Arena had won, definitively and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

 

But that wouldn't stop the Giant from trying.

 

---

 

"I forbid it!" The Giant rushed towards the door of the Crimson Silver Express, and the other six hastily sped forward to surround us.

 

They blocked us on all sides, but fortunately Guy came armed with a link in the Cursed Chain.

 

"Please step aside." Guy declared.

 

Their eyes opened wide and they seemed stunned, but they were compelled to obey. The seven of the Tabernacle stood, men on the left and women and the right and could do nothing as we boarded the monorail train.

 

Arena yanked the Bag of Infinite Alcohol from Teach, before reaching in and handing each teacher a bottle. "Drink a bottle to celebrate once we reclaim Silvershine."

 

And in truth, we were all ready to celebrate until the Demon of Turbo pointed out the obvious.

 

"Great work in the duel kid, now how do you propose we get this train moving? No electricity from the school. No fuel source from the engine."

 

"But we do have a fuel source." Arena corrected as she motioned towards the bag she took from Teach. "In fact, we have an infinite fuel source right here."

 

We looked at her a little confused until Oliver pulled a bottle and began reading the label.

 

"Ethanol… that was one of the things we needed for the engines?"

 

Arena nodded.

 

We all cheered in triumph as it seemed we'd be out of Crimson Wind Academy and back in Silvershine in about three hours time.

 

"Cool!" Kristi declared as he grabbed the bag. "Gal and I can work on the engine."

 

"Me and Arthur'll prepare a celebratory toast for everyone then." Oliver said with a coy smirk as he uncorked the bottle and began making his way to find cups in the dining car.

 

I was exhausted, and I had a long journey ahead of me. I smiled as Oliver handed me a drink and I chugged it down without a second thought. I closed my eyes, content with the knowledge that when I opened them again we'd be in Silvershine.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 10: Rough Commute]Yesterday morning I woke up in an unfamiliar hospital bed, shivering with a cold, a stuffed up nose, a sore throat, a terrible headache, and aches and pains all over my body. I thought that would be the worst way of waking up, but it turns out life has a funny little way of reminding you that things could always be worse.

 

I woke up, like I often did, with Arena on top of me. But there was nothing cute or loving about the way she had me pinned down. It was dark and I felt dirty and covered in dust. I was in terrible pain, but not just soreness and stiffness. I felt as though I had been stabbed in the abdomen with Ophelia's Blade. Even though Arena was pinning me down, she looked nervous, as though she was about to cry.

 

"Do not move. Do not speak." I heard my girlfriend whisper. "Do not even breathe."

 

She shifted her weight which caused an incredible jolt of pain to go through my body. I felt like someone had just shoved an iron rod going from my right knee to my abdomen. She kissed me on the lips, but again this was not in loving manner. She was trying to keep me from yelling out.

 

After what felt like an eternity - but again not in a cute way, she pulled away and left me as a whimpering mess. I tried to fight crying, partly because she asked me not to, and partly because I still felt awkward crying in front of Arena.

 

"I will be back soon. There is something I need to find out. Please do not draw attention to yourself." She whispered before dissolving away into the darkness.

 

As Goddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy, I normally trusted the girl's intuition but here I had no idea what was going on. I felt like I was buried, I was told not to move, and I was in incredible pain.

 

I'd get my answer soon enough though.

 

Off in the distance I heard some footsteps and voices I did not recognize. At first, I couldn't hear the words that they said. I only understood that these were children and teenage voices. As they grew closer, I could hear more of their conversation.

 

"Graves! Shēng! Look over there! A survivor!" I heard a young boy's voice call out.

 

"Hey Colonel Sender, which do you think they are? Cursed Chain or DemiGod?" a deeper voiced youth asked.

 

Suddenly a loud bang went off.

 

"Whatever they were, they're dead now." I heard the little boy speak.

 

Sure, I had played video games before but even still I had never heard a gun being fired. Despite this, I was pretty sure I just heard one a split second ago.

 

I gasped in horror at the sound, imagining that one of my friends or one of the Demigods had just been shot right before me. It seemed even the other two people with 'Colonel Sender' were also surprised.

 

"Dude!"

 

"What'd you do that for!?" I heard a little girl with an Asian accent yell.

 

"Did you see her body Shēng?" The little boy asked. "Even with all those bandages she looked as though she broke every bone in her body and her internal organs had liquefied. Think of it is a mercy killing."

 

I recoiled at the words 'bandages'. There was just one girl on the train who was wrapped head to toe in fabric, and the thought of Gal Surname being dead made me sick to my stomach.

 

"I mean, we could have at least interrogated her." Shēng muttered under her breath like a spoiled child who didn't like to be told 'no'. I however was still in shock from the possible death of my dear friend.

 

"I'm sure there's plenty more survivors left here." I heard the older male say, almost as if it was directed to me. His voice sounded unusually close.

 

I flinched as I was suddenly hit by a blinding light, followed by the boy's laughter. I felt someone grab me by the collar of my shirt before they lifted me from the crater I was in and then throw me onto the floor.

 

---

 

Transit Tower was the centralized hub of Silvershine for anything related to transportation. It was the central point of the Silverline, it was the local tri-state bus depot, it held the harbor down in the south and up north was the Silvershine Regional Airport. It also housed the Monorail Station that lead to Crimson Wind Academy, until it was bombed out by the Board of Ethics and Standards at least.

 

It took me a minute to adjust my eyesight to the sudden light, but there were three people surrounding me out of the wreckage of the Crimson Silver Express.

 

There was a tall boy wearing some kind of purple military style uniform with the name 'Graves' on the right hand pocket. The kids from the Card Design classes would probably know the color as 'Fandango', but to me it just looked purple. I'm terrible at guessing ages but he had a bit of a baby face despite his height and muscles. I'd assume him to be about 14 or 15. Yeah, that's right. I got beat up by a boy younger than me.

 

The next one was a short little Asian girl with the last name 'Shēng' written on her name tag. She had a few more military ribbons on her left breast than Graves, but she was also a lot shorter, younger, and she wore thick glasses that were far too big for her so she had to adjust them every few seconds.

 

The last one had a much more decorated military uniform and he had the name tag 'Sender' on it. He was a blonde haired, blue eyed little boy who looked no older than eight years old. He had a bit of a sinister smile on his face that made him look like the kind of boy who enjoyed burning ants with a magnifying glass for fun. Judging by the fact that he had the most military decorations, I could tell he was meant to be the leader.

 

All three of them had these weird old fashioned flintlock era pistols strapped onto their right hip. On their left they had a knife about the size of Ophelia's blade strapped to their hip.

 

"Oh, you found another one?" Shēng asked eagerly as she adjusted her glasses.

 

"He's even dressed for a funeral too." Graves yanked at my tie and I could feel the thing crushing my windpipe. I strained to reach for it

 

"Wait! Don't kill him yet! I have so many questions!" Shēng exclaimed. Graves glared at her.

 

"That's an order!" she barked back.

 

Graves groaned then dropped me on the floor. Both Shēng and I gave a sigh of relief as I quickly and eagerly unfastened my tie. I was furious that I hadn't taken a clip-on instead.

 

"Save your breath." The shorter boy, Colonel Sender declared. "It's abundantly clear this boy is useless."

 

"Let ME be the judge of that." Shēng pushed past Graves and Sender and made her way over to me with a smile on her face. She pulled out a notebook and began thumbing through some pages. Graves sighed but he turned his back on the scene and began looking at his PDA.

 

Shēng meanwhile looked giddy as a school girl before she adjusted her glasses again and pulled out a pen from behind her ear.

 

"Alright! We're looking for the Little Pieces of Heaven. Did any of them ride with you on the train?"

 

I had heard those words arranged in that way before, but with the trauma of a dead friend, the terrible pain from the train crash, and the sore throat from getting my tie caught in someone else's hand, I'm sure I could be forgiven for not being in the best state of mind.

 

"What?" I sputtered out.

 

"He doesn't know anything." Sender repeated impatiently.

 

"The Cursed Chain? The Demigods? Ophelia's Blade? The Tide Pod? Did any of them come from Crimson Wind with you?"

 

My head was still in a bit of a fog, but the Cursed Chain, the DemiGods and Ophelia's Blade definitely sounded familiar. I wasn't ready to talk to them after what they did, until I heard what the penalty for not talking was.

 

"Just kill him already. He's useless!" Graves barked at Shēng

 

"Hey! Who's the Lieutenant and who's the Major?" Shēng responded back in a bit of a know-it-all tone of voice. I didn't know anything about the military, but I assumed that meant she outranked him.

 

She smiled towards Graves, then looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust.

 

Shēng reached for the pistol at the side of her hip.

 

"Major Graves is right though." She began as she aimed her pistol towards me. "If you don't give us anything good you're gonna end up like your auburn haired girlfriend."

 

"W-wait! I… I know all about the DemiGods!" I said or at least I thought I said. I was delirious and didn't quite know what I was saying.

 

"Kristi, Kira! They were with us! Gal and Guy with the Cursed Chain! There were on the train with me too!"

 

The military people in their purple colored coats however didn't look pleased to hear what I had to say.

 

"Yeah, Sender was right. You were useless after all." she muttered.

 

At last she pulled the trigger of her flintlock pistol. I raised my right hand instinctively to shield my face. There was no Deus Ex Machina to save me from the shot. I felt a searing pain in my left arm. I cried out in agony and nearly collapsed on the ground.

 

"That's hardly what I'd call a kill shot." Graves said with a smirk as Shēng adjusted her glasses.

 

"You try shooting without glasses!"

 

"I do it all the time." Graves smirked. "Maybe if you didn't stick your nose into a book so often you'd have a perfect body like me."

 

I saw Colonel Sender pull something out of his jacket pocket that looked like the horn of a bull. He seemed to uncap the tip of it, then began pouring a black powder into his pistol.

 

"Honestly, am I the only one here with any proper sense of aim?" He asked.

 

He got his answer pretty quickly though as he suddenly fell down and a spool of what looked like fabric wrapped itself around his leg.

 

"My aim is pretty good, wouldn't you say?" I heard the familiar voice of Gal Surname snarl.

 

Marcus instantly aimed his pistol and fired. I couldn't see much from my seated position, but it sounded like something wet hit the ground. Possibly a splattering of blood?

 

My mind was blur as I laid there, slipping in and out of consciousness. My arm was burning but my feet were cold. My mouth was dry but all I wanted to do was throw up. What I saw made no sense to me as I laid on the floor of the ruins of Transit Tower.

 

I saw Gal leap about a duelist's distance straight up into the air, propelled by her own fabric tendrils.

 

I saw Major Graves suddenly turn invisible, then saw Gal violently cut in half.

 

I saw Colonel Sender pull out what looked like a black ceramic jar, and saw Gal, Graves and Shēng fall over backwards and begin convulsing like they were all in terrible pain.

 

Despite it all however Gal looked as though she was having no issue taking down three highly skilled military people, even if they did look like a teen, a pre-teen, and a kid. When all their uniforms were stained red, I saw Lieutenant Shēng pull out a bright red rope. She held it high and triumphantly, like a normal person would raise their game winning card before slapping it on their duel disk. With her cord held skyward she grabbed hands with the other two on her team, and instantly the three of them blinked out of existence.

 

The most peculiar thing I saw though was after the fighting was over. As I laid on the ground losing blood and dipping out of consciousness, I saw Gal Surname walk over to me, with a look of disgust and annoyance on her face before she sighed, as though resigning herself to a task she would soon regret.

 

---

 

I closed my eyes for what felt like only a few minutes, but when I woke up I was feeling much better. I was still extremely fatigued, but it felt like my wounds had been patched up and the blood loss had been stymied. I didn't couldn't tell where I was, but I could tell I was moving and what's more I could see two of the DemiGods were sitting on both sides of me.

 

"Rough commute?" asked Kristi Korrina with a smile. He was the DemiGod of Healing, so he had spent the better part of the morning using his magic or whatever to patch up my wounds.

 

"Don't ask him to speak." muttered Kira Ikari as she had her eyes closed and held my hand tightly. At long last they both let go. "It took a lot out of me to keep away the specter of death."

 

I felt a wave of relief wash over me and at long last I realized where I was. With plush leather interior, old music from the 80s, and a heater that seemed to be coughing like an old man, there was just one place I could possibly be.

 

"This is the Khlozoff Family Car."

 

"That's right!" Oliver said as he turned to face me from the driver's side with a grin.

 

"H-hey! Eyes on the road!" Ami said from the passenger's side as she put her hand on the wheel. Oliver lightly elbowed her to let go of the wheel as he turned back around.

 

"Relax Pastiche. There's hardly anyone even on the road. "

 

"It's not other cars I'm worried about! It's all the snow and ice!"

 

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Backseat drivers."

 

I was sitting in the third row of the Khlozoff Family SUV. Kira Ikari had managed to keep death away from me, while Kristi Korrina was healing my wounds and trying to stabilize me. Oliver and Ami meanwhile were navigating while the twins were in the middle row, peeking over and watching me with worry. They seemed relieved to see me awake.

 

I glanced out the window now to get a better look at the city.

 

Have you ever seen one of those 'Humanity dies and only animals and plants are left' documentaries? Or played any video games or watched any movies where society crumbles? Forests begin to take over where cities were built. Vines and moss wrap around all the buildings and coyotes and wolves roam the cityscape.

 

That's what Silvershine looked like to me when I looked out the window, just with a lot more snow and ice.

 

"W-what the hell!?" I exclaimed as I saw the trees jutting from the ground haphazardly, covered in snow. "It's only been one year. How did all that happen?"

 

"That's what we tried asking Arena when she dropped you off." Ami responded. "She looked disgusted by us and just walked away, disappearing into the snow."

 

My memory was still fuzzy, and I had suffered a lot of blood loss but that didn't sound right to me.

 

"Arena?" I blinked, my memory still a blur. "Are you sure it wasn't Gal who saved me?"

 

Everyone got suddenly quiet, and all I could here was the terrible 80s bands and the coughing heater coming from the front of the car.

"You don't have to be so sarcastic." Gal muttered, like she was struggling to keep from crying.

 

The rest of my friends soon went back to focusing on the road or talking to each other about whatever, before Kira tapped me on the shoulder.

 

"It was Gal's idea to leave you behind." She whispered.

 

"Not for forever though." Kristi explained nervously. Fortunately no one else noticed his nervousness

 

"We were all able to make it to the first wagon of the train when the bombs went off. You and Arena were on the second car though, pinned down by rubble and concrete. Gal suggested we try to find a tow truck or something to help move some of the debris. When we came back, Arena was holding you and you were really, really badly injured."

 

I didn't quite agree with their assessment. I was sure I had seen Gal there helping fight off those military guys in the purple cloaks. Maybe it was just a hallucination though? After all, I had never seen Gal fight so well with her sixth link in the chain. It made more sense that maybe it was Arena who had saved me.

 

I didn't feel like pondering or worrying about such things. The city was destroyed and I had no idea what the future held.

 

"So… what now?"

 

Oliver made a right turn and it seemed he got his answer. We were looking at a street that was only halfway plowed. The rest of the street was packed with snow about the same height as the Ra Yellow giant.

 

We looked around and everything seemed like residential buildings except for one commercial space.

 

"Point Blank Night Club?" Kira asked.

 

"We're not allowed to go in there!" Gal protested. "We're not old enough!"

 

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Guy explained. "It's a snow storm and it's the end of the world. I'm sure they'll overlook 7 kids in their establishment."

 

We all took off our seatbelts and opened the door, not sure of what we would find in the new Silvershine City, but eager to move ahead and put all this madness behind us.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 11: Exclamation Point]Chapter 11: Exclamation Point

 

There were many women in Oliver Khlozoff's life, both friends and family alike.

 

There was his stepmom, Chastity Khlozoff as well as his stepsister, Alma Khlozoff. Even though they weren’t biologically related, Oliver still loved them like they were his flesh and blood.

 

Gal was a close friend but between you and me, it was a little obvious she wanted something more. Ami Pastiche however could always be counted on to put Oliver in his place, and he'd respond in kind.

 

Beyond those though, Oliver was well known for being a bit of a lady's man around Hawthorne Academy, the premier all-girl Duel Academy in Silvershine.

 

He made it to second base with the now deceased Ella Minnow. He went on a date with the currently still-alive Anita Newman. He had a brief makeout session with Small Boobs his junior year. He dated the late Ilene Dover for a good portion of sophomore year. But above all else, the one that got away was Lillian D'Vallé, better known to us by her nickname Laplace. She always held a special place in his heart (and in everyone else's too) as the only girl who could actually get Oliver to shut up for a minute.

 

Oliver hoped he might be able to bring Laplace to a place like Point Blank someday when they were older. Unfortunately for Oliver, Laplace got much older much quicker than he did.

 

During the events of our sophomore year, Laplace had encountered former headmistress Lorem Ipsum, who had the magical ability to drain the youth out of other people with the First Link in the Cursed Chain. Before Laplace knew it, she was trapped in the body of a forty-nine year old woman. She went off to explore the world and we thought we might eventually 'see that middle aged woman again someday' but alas, Arena disagreed with our assessment.

 

After what happened at Point Blank Night Club, I'd soon see what Arena meant by that.

 

The first thing that hit me was the music of the Night Club. It seemed they had bought music from Oliver's dad and put it in their jukebox.

 

The second thing that hit me was an adorable little girl dressed as a waitress.

 

"!"

 

A little girl who looked way too young to be working here (or anywhere for that matter) seemed startled as she bumped into me. She was holding a pitcher of water but somehow managed to contort and adjust in such a way as to avoid spilling a single drop. She stuck out her tongue at me then hurried off, disappearing into the crowd.

 

I shrugged, looked around and tried to just take it all in. Even though the outside of Point Blank seemed a little worn down and beaten up, the inside was much more lively and exciting then I expected. It was a party atmosphere with loud music playing, drinks being poured, and food being served. It felt warm and the mood was jovial. The one thing that didn't feel warm and inviting however was about half the patrons in this club. About half of them wore regular wintery clothes, but the other half wore those same clothes I had seen those people from Transit Towers wear.

 

"P-purple…" I stammered.

 

"Looks more like fandango to me." Ami and Guy replied simultaneous.

 

Gal clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh! That's a great song!"

 

Oliver pointed towards a jukebox nearby and pulled out a quarter. "I bet they have it here." He grinned mischievously. "I'll see if we can play it."

 

I wasn't in the mood to watch my two friends awkwardly play their little game of Will-They-Wont-They. There was danger all around us. I saw dozens of boys and girls wearing the same purple coats, flintlock pistols, and knives on their hips as I had seen worn by Colonel Sender, Lieutenant Shēng and Major Graves.

 

The music suddenly changed and I was certain there was no escape from reality as Oliver found his and Gal's song on the jukebox. Gal giggled as Oliver reached out his hand.

 

"Open your eyes." He said at the same time as the song. Gal grinned even wider. "You know, we didn't have a proper Sweetheart's Day Dance this year. Gal Surname, will you-"

 

He didn't get to finish his line. A teenage girl who was sitting at the bar suddenly stood up in surprise. She wore a purple military coat, had a flintlock and knife, and her long blonde hair was styled in a braided crown. Her emerald green eyes were wide open in shock as she looked over our friend.

 

"Ollie!?"

 

Ami, Gal, Guy, Oliver and I were frozen, first in shock, then in confusion, then a wave of relief hit the five of us all at once. The Demigods Kristi and Kira didn't know her so they just exchanged a confused look. The five of us however knew her as the girl who had stolen Oliver's heart.

 

"Laplace!" We exclaimed before we piled ontop of her for a big group hug.

 

---

 

The last time we saw Laplace she was a middle aged woman in her late forties. But right now the girl we were crowded over was definitely a teenager just like the rest of us.

 

Her long blonde hair had regained its illustrious glow. Her wrinkles had faded away and her skin was once again flawless and perfect. Her hands and legs no longer had imposing and pronounced veins, and sorry to be a guy about this, but her chest looked perkier and was no longer sagging like before.

 

She was a bit thinner than I remembered, but it was likely just a side effect of malnutrition from having to live in Silvershine for any stretch of time.

 

We were all so glad to see her, it wasn't until the bartender called our attention that we realized we were in a public location.

 

"Ahoy there lads and lasses!" a cheerfully teenage girl with extremely bright red hair and piercing green eyes greeted from behind the bar. "Failtee ter de Point Blank Noight Club."

 

The bartender had a well pronounced Irish or Scottish or some kind of foreign accent. "What'llya have?"

 

Kira tugged at Kristi's jacket sleeve and whispered something into his ear.

 

"It means boys and girls." Kristi replied. He looked around a little bit, cautiously and confused. "And… I think she really DOES mean boys and girls. There's no adults anywhere here."

 

"Ay." The bartender nodded. "Der is narry a birthday 'ere in SIlvershine. We all never grow old thanks t' th' Matriarch!" "

 

Sure enough, it was like Kristi and the bartender had said. Everyone at Point Blank, whether they were a bartender behind the counter, a waitress serving drinks, a normal patron of the club or someone in a purple jacket, there wasn't a single person who looked over the age of 18.

 

"You don't grow old?" Guy asked, surprised.

 

"Yeah, it's kind of a long story." Laplace said as she finished her drink. She raised her hand then looked over at the bartender.

 

"Hustle Rose, I think we'd like to be seated in a booth please. Keep my tab open."

 

"Aye, Laplace." Hustle Rose nodded, then whistled for someone else to take over for her.

 

"?"

 

It was the same adorable little blonde girl who had bumped into me before. She couldn't have been any older than 10 or 11, and yet she was wearing one of those bar maid outfits like you might find in a German beer festival. She had on a tightly laced up corset, stockings, and a strappy dress. It might have looked good on someone much older though.

 

The waitress scowled at me, but said very little else as she led us to our table. Something about her seemed extremely familiar to me though.

 

Kira and Kristi did not follow along.

 

"Looks like a personal matter. Go talk with your friend." Kristi waved us off.

 

"We'll be here." Kira said with a serious face.

 

The five of us however didn't want to spend another second apart from Laplace. How was she here? How did she become a kid again? Why was she dressed in purple? Fortunately for us, Laplace was more than willing to tell us everything she knew.

 

---

 

"Where to begin, where to begin." Laplace scratched at her chin, trying to figure out where would be the best place to start.

 

"Well we just got into town not too long ago." Gal announced. "Tell us what happened after the last time we saw you."

 

Laplace nodded and waited until we all sat and she had our undivided attention. Our waitress quickly and efficiently poured us all six drinks of water and handed us each a menu, but no one dared to look at it for fear of missing a single detail of Laplace's story.

 

"When I was growing up, I always felt a little out of place. My mom and dad would hold elegant banquets pretty much every other month with all their friends and all their friends' kids and we would all talk about how great we were and how much fun we were all having, even though none of us were actually having any fun at all. Trust me, I asked. I was never much for the high society life-"

 

"Explains why you dated Oliver." Ami laughed at her own joke.

 

"You're dating a guy who looks identical to a girl you grew up with. What does that say about you?"

 

Ami's face got extremely red.

 

"I… you… those weren't-!" Before she hastily picked up her menu and buried her face in it.

 

"Anyway," Laplace continued. "Being changed into a middle aged woman only made me feel like even more of an outcast. I could avoid talking about money and I could hide my bank account around most people I met, but it was impossible to hide my face, my voice, and everything else about me. The young people didn't want to hang out with me. And the old people just wanted to talk about kids and bridge games and 'the old times' and retirement. All I wanted to do was hang out and play Duel Monsters while talking about pigeon races like a normal kid."

 

We nodded, as these all seemed like very normal things to us.

 

"The last time I truly felt like I belonged was…" she paused, her voice quivered and tears were forming in her eyes."- Was when I was with you."

 

"Aww… Lillian…" Gal smiled.

 

"Mostly… when I was with one of you in particular." Laplace's whispered as she looked across the table to Oliver. The pair exchanged eye contact and both blushed at the same time. Gal was no longer smiling.

 

"But how did you become young again?" Ami asked, breaking Oliver and Laplace's trance.

 

"I'm getting to it Pastiche, but it IS kind of a long story." Laplace took a drink of water. "The last time I felt truly happy was with Oliver, so I decided to come back to Silvershine for Sweetheart's Day last year. I don't really know what I was thinking at the time. I guess if he saw I was willing to wait for him he might sorta kinda be willing to…" Her face turned red again and she shook her head from left to right.

 

"I guess the long and short of it is that I still had the mind of a sixteen year old girl and I just wanted to see Oliver one more time. But when I went down to the monorail station, none of you guys came back on that train. That little girl did though. The one they call The Matriarch."

 

I had a feeling Aynn Mischa would eventually show up in Laplace's story.

 

"Once the girls of Hawthorne were on dry land, The Matriarch easily took over the city, but she didn't take over the city by force. People willingly chose to obey her. They said she could rearrange people's memories and trick people into joining her cause. It never worked on me or the other girls of Hawthorne though."

 

Guy raised his hand.

 

"I think that's probably because of me." He admitted.

 

"A long time ago I used the Second Link in the Chain to make sure Aynn would never altered the memories of anyone from Hawthorne ever again."

 

Laplace gave Guy a blank stare.

 

"Magic! Got it." She said with a dismissive wave of her hands before continuing her story.

 

"The first thing that happened during the Matriarch's reign was that somehow she was able to stop people from aging, and in fact she was able to get older people to age backwards. Not entirely sure how it's done, but it was sort of like the old Hawthorne headmistress, except opposite.

 

"She has the first link in the chain." Gal admitted sheepishly. "Ipsum's link in the chain didn't get scattered to the wind when she died. I actually won it off of her when I beat her in the duel at the end of sophomore year. During junior year, Aynn won it off of me."

 

Laplace gave a shrug. "After being turned into a 40 year old woman, I'm ready to believe anything. From what I can tell though, she steals the youth off plants and trees and stuffs which makes them grow wild and out of control. Then she takes their youth and gives it to the citizens of Silvershine. That's why you've probably noticed tons of plants and trees all around."

 

When she reached into her coat I flinched, having a sudden flashback to Lieutenant Shēng pull out her flintlock. Instead she pulled out a small unlabeled bottle of pills. The bottles were orange and unremarkable, like something you'd get filled out at a pharmacy.

 

"These pills can restore your youth and keep you young forever." She pocketed the unlabeled pills once again. "They make them in higher concentrations too. I took about three of the 'decade' pills to get me down to about 19, and then about three 'year' pills to get to my normal age."

 

We were shocked, confused, and unsure of what to say at this revelation. We knew Laplace wanted to return to her youth and indeed we couldn't blame her, but to know she had used something belonging to the Matriarch? Laplace seemed to sense our judgmental eyes and quickly began talking.

 

"E-everyone in Silvershine does it!" Laplace awkwardly touched her fingers together. "The Matriarch forces it on anyone who looks too old at least. She rearranges their memory, then makes them 'remember' to take their pill. And if we reveal we're immune to her memory rearrangement, she knows we're part of the resistance and we get the old flintlock firing squad from the Board of Ethics and Standards."

 

"But I thought Aynn would have to be nearby in order to like, pull youth off anything." Guy began. "We can't restore people's ages by making them eat Ophelia's Blade. Why would any medicine Aynn makes be any different?"

 

"Remember what Arena said?" I reminded.

 

"Oh yeah." Oliver began. "Everyone with the Cursed Chain and all of the Demigods got a surge of power when they stepped into the Aether Realm."

 

Guy and Gal gave me and Oliver blank looks.

 

"Are you sure we were around when Arena told you that?" Guy asked.

 

"I do kinda feel stronger, but I thought that was because I got the sixth link in the chain." Gal said.

 

"Ipsum stored her stolen youth in a knife." I began. "Maybe Aynn can store her stolen youth in other things, and her age-reducing powers can be used even when she herself is not around?

 

Oliver gave an absentminded nod. "Must be one of the perks of visiting the Aether Realm."

 

Laplace shrugged, but continuing on with her story anyway. "I don't know about all that Cursed Chain Aether Realm stuff, but I do know what I saw. Once word got out that they had discovered the secret to eternal youth here in Silvershine, millions of people flocked to the city. I know you all think of Silvershine as some kind of invincible city, but doubling and tripling the population overnight really put a hamper on the city's resources. Erasing the memories of electricians and plumbers and everyone else that runs the city made things even worse. Lastly, nobody wanted to leave the city either. They had all been brainwashed by the Matriarch, convinced she was their best friend."

 

As she spoke, we didn't notice the waitress return until she cleared her throat. We looked up and she smiled at us, pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen behind her ear.

 

"Still deciding." Ami said.

 

"Can we get more water though?" I asked.

 

The waitress frowned before relenting. She quickly did a 180 turn, then turned again holding a pitcher of ice cold water. She served each of us a cup and Laplace watched the waitress, waiting for her to leave before continuing her story.

 

"The next part's not nearly as strange or mysterious, but it is worth talking about. See, the world's not so keen on having people declare themselves Matriarch of a city and holding everyone inside of it hostage, even if the people swear they want to be there. I'm not sure who these guys report to, or if they're even from our country, but one day late last year an elite group of people calling themselves the Board of Ethics and Standards showed up with the explicit goal of taking down the Matriarch and saving Silvershine. These were the most elite of the elite - brilliant scientists, worldclass marksmen, peerless leaders and tacticians.

 

As she spoke, I thought about the three kids in purple I had met at Transit Towers.

 

"Nevertheless not only were they unable stop Aynn's reign of terror, they joined her side immediately. Just like everyone else they also weren't immune to Aynn's brainwashing techniques and they soon lost their memories, only remembering that the Matriarch was their best friend and they had to obey her every order."

 

I looked over at Laplace and the purple jacket she wore.

 

"So then… you too Laplace? Did you join the Matriarch's side?"

 

Laplace looked surprised, but she leaned in slightly. We all did the same so we could hear what she had to say.

 

"Don't tell anyone," she looked around nervously before continuing. "But I'm kind of supposed to be undercover. Working for the resistance, find out what the Board knows, leak sensitive information. That sorta thing."

 

She leaned back and began speaking in her normal tone of voice.

 

"The Girls of Hawthorne are kinda the resistance group, but they're very small in number and they can't do much. They're just regular girls, not world-class marksmen or brilliant scientists. They're being led by that old Duel Disk Engineering teacher.

 

"Mishegoss!?" Gal exclaimed excitedly.

 

"They're scattered all over the city, but unless it's changed recently I think their main headquarters is in whatever's left of Hawthorne Academy."

 

"Can you take us to them?" Guy asked. "It'd be nice to see more friendly and familiar faces."

 

Unfortunately we didn't have that much time to plan it out. There was knock on the door which soon turned into a loud bang. The door swung open to reveal the familiar 8 year old face of Colonel Wacom T Sender and his two lackeys, Lieutenant Yi Shēng and Major Marcus Graves.

 

---

 

The few purple coats that had been drinking had quickly sobered up at the sight of their boss at the door. There were gasps and the general party atmosphere was over. We all remained frozen, unsure of what to say or do at a time like this. We ducked down low, trying to hide under the table to avoid being seen.

 

At last the tension was cut by the bartender behind the counter.

 

"A-ahoy!" Hustle Rose stammered with a smile. "Failtee ter de Point-"

 

"Shut up." Sender began as he pulled out his flintlock and pointed it at the woman. The glass she was cleaning dropped to the ground with a satisfying crash as she raised both hands up.

 

"Please dahn't shoot me." she cried out.

 

"We won't." Sender said, before smirking. "As long as everyone here obeys our orders, we'll all get out of this safely."

 

Shēng stepped up and began pacing while also adjusting her glasses. "We have reason to believe the last of the Cursed Chain and the last of the Demigods were on the 7AM train from Crimson Wind. We also found tire tracks, and the car used to escape from Transit Tower right outside your bar."

 

"Great parking job Ollie." Ami muttered before Gal tapped her on the arm.

 

"Shh!"

 

The people in the purple coats lowered their drinks and began muttering under their breaths. The other, non-board patrons of the club were muttering as well.

 

Colonel Sender raised his gun and shot it once to get everyone's attention. Everyone else got quiet very quick as Sender began loading in a new black orb into his flintlock.

 

"All Board members, please round up any and all civilians. If we cannot find any Little Pieces of Heaven here, feel free to execute them all."

 

The patrons roared in anger, but got suddenly quiet as the purple coats withdrew their own flintlocks.

 

Our booth in the back had fewer eyes on it, but we still weren't completely safe.

 

"We've gotta give ourselves up." Gal said.

 

"I'm with Gal on this one." I said instantly. Oliver and Ami gave me a dirty look.

 

"But what do you think they'll do when they find us here!?" Guy protested.

 

But before either Guy or Gal could make any kind of sacrifice, the Witch of Necrophades stood up.

 

"Don't hurt anyone here!"

 

"Oooh, the Demigoddess of Death!?" I heard Kristi feigning surprise. "Guess we can all stop looking and go home now!"

 

Kristi's joke was far from the truth and it seemed like Sender had his eyes set on the pair.

 

"The Matriarch for some reason believes that the other Little Pieces of Heaven may be able to stop her eternal reign." Sender pointed his pistol at Kira. She did not seem alarmed.

 

"She thinks the rest of the Demigods or the rest of the Cursed Chain may one day rise up and try to stop her thousand year reign. But you're not dumb enough to try anything, are you young lady?"

 

Kira pointed an open palm to a purple coat nearby. His suddenly grasped at his throat, his eyes opened wide in horror and he collapsed on the ground, dead.

 

"Oh crap!" one of the purple coats said before the other members of the Board of Ethics and Standards began to scramble and gather their things to leave, along with the regular Silvershine citizens.

 

"Insubordinate-" Major Graves tried yelling as people rushed past the trio. "You're all getting a pay decrease!"

 

"Demotions!" Shēng exclaimed as she struggled to keep her glasses on.

 

Sender however kept his cool as he looked over at the girl.

 

"Amusing parlor trick miss." Sender said, not sounding at all impressed especially since he had finished loading his gun and now had his sight trained on her. "You may be able to scare away mere mortals with your little powers, however you won't be able to scare the Mind, Body and Soul that easily. Not when we each hold a Little Piece of Heaven just like you."

 

The pair stared each other down, but before either Kira or Sender could make their move, Kristi jumped forward.

 

"Hey Asian girl! Think fast!"

 

What would a night club be without bar games? While everyone was distracted, Kristi found himself a few darts and, as Demigod of the Hunt, throwing a dart was no less complex then throwing a spear at a wild animal. He aimed straight for the girl and she seemed surprised before she was struck in the chest. Her heavy jacket and her ribbons may have slowed it down, but it seemed she was definitely injured and her uniform was beginning to stain with blood.

 

"Next one's going between strongman's eyes!" Kristi aimed a dart towards Graves, but just before he could, the man simply vanished.

 

Kristi looked around cautiously, trying to find any signs of life. At long last, the cute little waitress suddenly dropped some water on the ground, and a loud thud could be heard.

 

Major Graves suddenly materialized again. He picked himself up on the floor, and it seemed he somehow tripped over some ice. The waitress scowled, picking up a few ice cubes from her pitcher of water. She twirled them around on her fingertips and scowled as they turned into short throwing knives.

 

"Allie nii-chan!?" Kira exclaimed in surprise.

 

"Oh, the Demigodess of Water is here too?" Sender smirked. "Three-on-three then? Looks like a fair fight to me."

 

We peeked out of our hiding spot in the booths in the back. In the ensuing scuffle and subsequent evacuation, it seemed we were totally forgotten about, if they even knew we were here at all.

 

"We have to help." Gal pleaded as she began to take a step towards the group. Laplace caught her by the arm, which caused Gal to wince. The bandages wrapped around her arms were not just for show.

 

"Against the Mind, Body and Soul of the Board of Ethics and Standards? Are you crazy?" Laplace hissed. "Our best bet is to sneak out of here through the back. They have an emergency exit for just such a thing. I'm sure the Demigods should be able to buy us some time while we escape."

 

"To Hawthorne?" I asked.

 

"To Hawthorne." Laplace replied.

 

No one but Laplace really knew what to expect, but we knew we had to get out of there. We scrambled to the emergency exit then hurried over to Oliver's car. Our next stop would be our old alma matter, Hawthorne Academy.

 

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 12: A Red Letter Day]After abandoning Oliver's car, the six of us decided to make it on foot towards Hawthorne Academy. After as rough walk in the snow, we had finally arrived at the gates of the school.

 

The six of us had all been students at Hawthorne Academy at some point, and the majority of us felt like we had only seen the school just two days ago. Despite that though, the school looked completely different from what I could tell. There were normally girls hanging around, gossiping, giggling and chatting. There would be teachers and security guards telling the girls to 'move along' and 'get to class'. But that wasn't the case today. Instead there were hundreds of trees littered around campus, vines growing everywhere, and there was snow caked into mounds about twice as tall as any of us.

 

Guy looked around filled with trepidation before turning to Laplace. "Are you sure this is where The Resistance is?"

 

"Of course." Laplace made a turn and began walking towards a side entrance of the school.

 

"We operate on a 'hidden in plain sight' philosophy. If the school looks abandoned, no one would ever stop to think we've got hundreds of kids inside, right?"

 

We began to follow Laplace, but Guy quickly rushed up behind her.

 

"Hey Laplace!" he called out.

 

Laplace stopped and turned to look at him. Guy quickly and quite deliberately put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced over at his hand and gave a bit of a nervous smile.

 

"Uhh, hey Guy? What's up?"

 

At last Guy's face softened and he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

 

"Nothing. It's just nice to see you after all this time."

 

"Careful Guy, or Ollie might start to get a little jealous."

 

"And Ami too!" Ami chimed in through gritted teeth.

 

"Well whatever. The entrance to the resistance headquarters is in the faculty parking lot!"

 

---

 

It looked like Oliver wasn't the only one with car trouble. There were cars thrown all around the parking lot, along with the mountains of snow, trees and vines that seemed to plague all of Silvershine. Nevertheless, Laplace moved through the abandoned car lot with ease, before finding just the car she needed.

 

"Ta-da!" she declared, before hitting the trunk of the car.

 

I had thankfully never been in the trunk of the car, but apparently the back panel and back seats are completely removable. It seems that's what the designers of this maze had done, and we watched as Laplace entered, then made it to the front seat and opened the driver's side door. It seemed the snow was dug out, and the vines and trees had grown in just such a way as to provide us a clear path into the next adjacent car.

 

"Last one through closes the doors behind us!" Laplace declared, now onto the third car.

 

It was a very peculiar path we had found ourselves on. We traveled through open car doors, windows and trunks. We went through cars half buried in snow and through half hollowed out tree trunks, but at long last the final car door opened and we were inside the school itself.

 

"That little maze isn't the only one of Mishegoss's tricks." Laplace grinned. "She also set up a whole network of sensors at every single door. They scan everyone that passes by and if they don't have a Hawthorne Academy duel disk," She motioned to the disk on her wrist, as well as the five others on each of our own. "Everyone gets an alert on their PDAs about it. Height, weight, number of people, last known location, that sorta thing. We want to make sure it looks like this school is completely abandoned. If the Board of Ethics and Standards knew we were here, they'd probably round us all up and force us into their labor camps."

 

Thought most of us felt like we were just in Hawthorne earlier that week, for Ami Pastiche she felt as though she hadn't been to the school for a full year. She looked around cautiously as though she wanted to preserve the spirit of abandonment. Nevertheless, Ami spoke the question that all of us had on our mind.

 

"Where is everyone?"

 

It was something Laplace hadn't thought about until that moment, but all she could do was give us a truthful answer. "I'm… not sure."

 

We walked in silence over to the cafeteria and it looked like there had been a great rush to get out of there. There was no one around, but there was still food on the table. We helped ourselves to a few Forrester Snack Cakes.

 

"May they're practicing drills?" Laplace tried to reason.

 

"Or maybe they read Ami's disk as a Crimson Wind Academy disk and went off to hide?" Gal continued.

 

"Yeah. Maybe." Ami muttered as she awkwardly fussed with her duel disk that looked identical to all of ours.

 

That didn't seem right to me. If they were trying to look abandoned, they wouldn't have left their food behind.

 

We walked through the halls, past empty class room after empty class room. It looked like they had been set up as mass living quarters, bags and clothes and beds still in disarray.

 

"They do drills once in a while. I'm sure everyone's just hiding." Though it was unclear who exactly Laplace was trying to convince when she spoke.

 

We continued in our search for any signs of life before making our way to the library.

 

"There's usually people reading and-" her mouth dropped as she opened the door.

 

---

 

The first thing we noticed were a dozen or so girls tied up. The second thing we noticed were two people wearing purple coats, flintlocks at their belt, and sinister smiles on their faces.

 

"Oh. You're here earlier than we thought." Lieutenant Shēng said with a smile. "It really is a red letter day!"

 

"A red letter day!?" Headmistress Mishegoss exclaimed. "For the Girls of Hawthorne maybe!"

 

When I saw the woman on the ground, every instinct in my body cried out for her. Her glistening, sweaty skin demanded my caress over each pus filled pimple. My lips longed to kiss their way from her third chin to her chapped lips and feel her light mustache hair brush against my upper lip. It seemed Oliver and Guy were in agreement, blushing and turning red, and even Marcus seemed captivated by her charms as he blushed and looked away, trying to look tough but failing miserably.

 

"That's Gal Surname AND her friends!" Mishegoss continued "Do YOU know who they're traveling with? The Matriarch's mother herself! Arena, the Goddess of War, Wisdom AND Military Strategy! With her on OUR side, there's no way WE can lose!"

 

Mishegoss's words brought me crashing back down to Earth. I hadn't seen Arena since earlier this morning, and she was most assuredly not around. Even in the best of times, it was unlikely she'd help us. Nevertheless, it seemed the girls looked at us with hope in their eyes, and I felt we had to do something.

 

As I attempted to take a step forward however, a gun shot went off right near my feet. I quickly backed away.

 

"The first one's a warning shot." Major Graves snarled as he began to reload his flintlock. "Try it again and the next one goes right between one of your friends' eyes!"

 

I instantly recognized the girl Marcus pointed at.

 

"Uhh… I'm not their friend! Never seen 'em in my life!" Small Boobs winced in terror.

 

"Let our friends go!" Ami protested.

 

"Uhh… no?" Marcus replied. "You have nothing we want and absolutely no leverage here."

 

"We have the Cursed Chain!" Gal protested.

 

"We don't." Lieutenant Shēng responded. "We have no way of taking it off you."

 

"We've got Ophelia's Blade!" Ami declared.

 

"I've got some liquor here." Oliver muttered as he patted his bag.

 

The last two seemed to get their attention. The pair exchanged looks, and the Mind and Body of the Board of Ethics and Standards gave each other knowing glances.

 

"Alright," Shēng began as she adjusted her glasses. "We'll trade you the girls for Ophelia's Blade and the Bag of Infinite Alcohol."

 

"Wrong answer!" Graves declared as his duel disk buzzed to life. "We duel for it! A tag duel! If you win, you all get to walk out of here alive. We'll even throw in the Ring of Gygas and Ariadne's Thread. But if you lose, we get Ophelia's Blade, the Bag of Infinite Alcohol, and we take all of you down to The Black Wall Camps!"

 

"A Tag Duel? Good idea." Shēng's adjusted her glasses as her duel disk unfolded itself.

 

Ami and Oliver exchanged nervous glances but they both nodded towards each other. They knew there was no other way around it.

 

"Alright! We accept!" Oliver declared as he drew an opening hand of five cards.

 

---

 

Each of the Gods of the Aether Realm gave humanity two distinct gifts. The first was a Demigod. The second one was something that we now know as A Little Piece of Heaven.

 

Aphraestus created Ophelia's Blade for the woman that he loved. Diomes created the Bag of Infinite Alcohol just to have a little fun. Arena created the Cursed Chain, and all the other Gods also created other extraordinary items that held magical properties.

 

Yi Shēng, Marcus Graves, and Wacom T Sender owned 3 of these items.

 

Marcus Graves drew an opening hand of five, and a sixth on his draw phase.

 

"I'll start by normal summoning Magical Musketeer Starfire!" She looked like a dancer from some kind of video game. A woman with a veil and a very long, flowy skirt appeared on the Major's side of the field.

 

"Next I activate Ties of the Brethren!" His life points dropped down to 6000, and two new monster appeared on his field. One was a vicious looking shirtless man with enormous machine guns, a couple of rocket launchers on his shoulder with bullets strapped onto his tattooed chest. The second one was a woman with red and white hair holding an enormous laser gun.

 

"With that, I'll end my turn here." Marcus Graves, the sharpshooter of the Board of Ethics and Standards smiled as Oliver Khlozoff drew his sixth card and began his turn.

 

"Man, all those monsters and not a single line of defense?" Oliver smirked as he looked over his hand. "You're gonna be wishing you set a face down, because I activate Raigeki!"

 

With three monsters on the field and no face downs it looked like Graves would be in major trouble. He smiled then slipped a card into his duel disk.

 

"Activate trap! Magical Musket - Last Stand!" Despite being a counter trap played from his hand, his duel disk read that as a legal move. Magical Musketeer Starfire revealed a hidden gun strapped to her hip. She pointed it up in the air and fired. All at once, the storm cloud faded and all of Graves's monsters remained on the field.

 

"W-what the hell!?" Oliver exclaimed.

 

"It's the power of my Magical Musketeers." Graves began as he explained his deck. "I've got seven amazing sharpshooters in my deck and each of my spells and traps is a bullet for them. Like all quick draws, their bullets can fire at a moment's notice. I don't need to set any of them. I can play them straight from my hand with no issue, even on your turn." He grinned as he showed off a nice full hand of three cards.

 

"That's crazy!" Small Boobs protested.

 

"And that's not all. Each of my lone gunmen gets an effect when a spell or trap is activated in their column. With Starfire's effect, I can special summon a Magical Musketeer from my deck, so say hello to Magical Musketeer Caspar!" The fourth monster on Marcus's field had long, wild blonde hair, a cape and a demonic looking pistol. It seemed the evil pistol he carried was corrupting him slowly, because his hand was grayed and rotten.

 

"Enough talking." Oliver shook his head. "I've brought swords to this gun fight, so I'll begin by normal summoning Noble Knight Medraut!"

 

Oliver grinned as he slapped a spell card on his duel disk. "And I'll equip him with Noble Arms Caliburn! With Caliburn's effect, I gain 500 life points!"

 

Oliver's life points jumped to 8500 as he pointed to his warrior. "But that's not all! I get effects when I play spell cards too! I can send Caliburn to the grave and special summon a Noble Knight monster, so I'll go ahead and give up Caliburn to special summon Noble Knight Borz!"

 

An armor clad monster with a golden chalice appeared.

 

"But Caliburn is no ordinary sword. When it's destroyed, once per turn I can equip it to a warrior on my side of the field, so I'll equip my Caliburn onto Noble Knight Borz!"

 

Marcus Graves looked at his hands, as though he was strongly considering his move, before he shook his head.

 

"Continue."

 

"With Caliburn's effect, I can gain 500 life points again, and with Borz's effect, I can reveal three Noble Arms, then you can pick one to randomly add to my hand!"

 

Oliver picked up three cards: Gwnifwyfar - Queen of Noble Arms, Noble Arms of Destiny and Noble Arms Gallatin. Marcus made his pick, and Oliver added Gallatin to his hand.

 

"Time for a Link Summon!" Oliver declared. "I'll sent Borz and Medraut to the grave to special summon Isolde, Reminiscence of the Noble Knights!" Two woman, one that looked like a queen and one that looked like a ghost emerged on Oliver's side of the field. "With my Isolde's effect, I can-"

 

"That's enough! With Magical Musket - Cross Domination you won't be getting Isolde's effect this turn!" Marcus grinned as he slapped a quick play on his duel disk, right below Caspar. Caspar fired a pistol, and Isolde's effect was negated and her attack dropped down to zero.

 

"And Caspar's effect activates too! It lets me search out any Magical Musket card from my deck, so I'll pick a second copy of Last Stand." Marcus grinned. "Just look at my field kids! Four monsters, and I can negate monster effects, spells and traps at a whim. You're nothing! You're broken! My precision strikes will render you worthless! End your turn."

 

With a useless monster on the field, all Olive could do was slip one card face down on his disk. "My turn is over."

 

---

 

Shēng adjusted her glasses and grinned as she picked up her sixth card.

 

"Precision is important, don't get me wrong, but so is winning the game. And I think I should be able to take down both of you idiots on my first turn."

 

She slipped a card into her graveyard, then slapped a level 5 monster on her duel disk. "By discard my Electromagnetic Turtle, I can special summon my Galaxy Soldier. Don't let his name confuse though. He's all machine."

 

A mechanical gold and white monster emerge on Shēng's field.

 

"When Galaxy Soldier is summoned, I can add Galaxy Wizard to my hand." Shēng adjusted her glasses as she picked up her card from her deck.

 

"Now I activate Instant Fusion!" the lieutenant lost 1000 life points. "I can special summon any level 5 Fusion Monster from my extra deck, so I'll special summon Panzer Dragon!"

 

It looked like a mechanical dragon had latched itself onto a tank as it aimed its cannon head towards Oliver.

 

"Now with two machines I can perform an Xyz summon! I'll create an overlay network and summon Cyber Dragon Nova!"

 

Oliver looked down at his Bottomless Trap Hole nervously. Graves shook his head from left to right, discouraging Oliver from any heroics.

 

"Since my first Xyz summon went so well, let's have another!"

 

"You can only have one Xyz monster out at a time!" Headmistress Mishegoss interjected. I blushed and my heart soared at the sound of her nasal, cracking voice.

 

"That's normally true, but not when I use Nova as material! I create an overlay network and Xyz summon Cyber Dragon Infinity!"

 

This got a response from Oliver. "I activate Bottomless Trap Hole!"

 

Marcus shook his head. "Magical M-"

 

"My Cyber Dragon Infinity's effect activates!"

 

"What!?" Marcus protested.

 

Shēng grinned as Cyber Dragon Infinity roared in triumph. "Once per turn, I can negate your effects."

 

"Then I guess the second one's on me!" Ami exclaimed. "I activate Herald of Orange Light!"

 

A bright piercing orange light emerged from Ami's side of the field, nearly blinding their two opponents.

 

"By discarding my Herald and one monster, I can negate your effect and destroy your monster!" Zaphion the Time Lord and Herald of Orange Light hit the graveyard, followed soon by Cyber Dragon Infinity.

 

"Ami! You saved my life!" Oliver gave his partner a thumbs up.

 

Yi Shēng however was enraged. "Marcus!? Why couldn't you stop her Herald!?"

 

"Me!?" Marcus exclaimed. "If you didn't jump in with that Cyber Dragon crap, I would have used Last Stand. I would have gotten an effect from Caspar and you'd still have a monster!"

 

Shēng took in a deep breath, adjust her glasses and sighed. "Since my partner is stupid and useless-"

 

Marcus scowled at her words.

 

"I suppose all I can do is normal summon Cyber Dragon Core. With this, I can search out any 'Cyber' spell or trap. So I'll pick Emergency Cyber."

 

Yi Shēng looked over her hand and sighed. "With that, I'll end my turn here." She said with four cards in hand.

 

---

 

It was the fourth turn and nobody had really had a proper Battle Phase. Ami however would be blessed with two of them.

 

"I normal summon Metaion the Time Lord!" Ami declared. An enormous red armed fairy emerged on her field.

 

"Attack Cyber Dragon Core!"

 

Shēng grinned as she motioned to her graveyard. "I can banish my Electromagnetic Turtle from the grave and instantly end your battle phase."

 

Ami smiled confidently as her Main Phase 2 began. "I activate the Quick Play spell card Mischief of the Time Goddess!"

 

This drew audible gasps from the audience.

"What card did she just play?"

"Mischief of what?"

"Did she The Time Goddess!?"

 

The kids from the Pro Duelist program were especially stunned.

 

"W-what!?" Oliver exclaimed. "That's like, a ridiculously rare and expensive card Ami! How the hell did you-" Oliver paused, realizing the original owner of the deck.

 

"I guess when you're a 700 year old witch," I began. "You have time to make connections and acquire rare cards" What she had just played was one of the rare, unreleased cards I had read about once in class. It skipped 1 entire turn, then brought us back to the user's Battle Phase.

 

"Well!?" Shēng exclaimed as she looked over at Graves.

 

"Well what? I'm so stupid and useless, maybe I forgot how my deck works and how to play counter traps."

 

The effect went through, and Ami's battle phase began again.

 

"You really are stupid and useless you know! Her monster is gonna ruin your field too!"

 

"That's right! Metaion, attack Cyber Dragon Core!"

 

Metaion attacked, and nothing happened. But once her battle phase was over, that was when its effect activated.

 

"Every other monster on the field goes back to the hand, and for every monster sent back you both take 300 points of damage!"

 

"Isolde too?" Oliver winced as his Link monster was forced back to the Extra Deck. Cyber Dragon Core, Isolde, Casper, Wild, Calamity and Starfire all returned back to their respective owner's hands. With six monsters to return, Ami was able to deliver 1800 points of direct damage to her opponents, namely both Marcus Graves and Yi Shēng.

 

Marcus stood at 4200 life points

Sheng was at 5200.

 

Oliver stood at a strong 9000, and Ami herself was at a full 8000 points.

 

"I'll set two cards face down and end my turn." Ami said, with no cards left in hand.

 

---

 

Marcus drew his eighth card, and while it was usually great to have a handful of cards, when they were a majority monsters this was not the best amount of resources.

 

Nevertheless, Marcus Graves could see a strategy forming, and thus his turn began.

 

"I'll normal summon Magical Musketeer Kidbrave." A wild-west looking outlaw emerged onto his field, but Ami responded.

 

"Solemn Warning!" she declared, dropping down to 6000 life points.

 

Graves shook his head as he revealed his counter trap. "Last Stand!" The cowboy shot his pistol straight at Solemn Warning, and stayed standing on the field.

 

"When I activate a card in Kidbrave's Column, I get to send a Magical Musket card to the grave and draw two more." Starfire hit the grave, and Graves drew two more cards. He smiled.

 

"You're gonna regret letting me draw two cards with Kidbrave, because now I activate Double Summon!" Marcus declared. "I can summon one more monster, so I'll pick Magical Musketeer Calamity!"

 

The red and white haired laser girl emerged on the field once again. "Now then, Ami was it? How do you like it when YOUR effects get negated!? I activate Magical Musket - Cross-Domination! Your monster loses its effect! And speaking of effect, Calamity lets me special summon a monster back from the grave, so give a rousing welcome to Starfire!"

 

The flamenco dancer returned to the field in defense mode, and at last Marcus's strategy had almost fully formed. "I activate Magical Musket - Steady Hands! With this, my Kidbrave gets double the attack points as long as he doesn't attack directly. But he might as well be attacking directly with your 0 attack point, effect-less monstrosity on the field."

 

Ami looked at her Nonexistence trap card, a useless card against his field. Even still his turn wasn't done.

 

"With Steady Hands in Starfire's column, I get to special summon Shooter Wild. Now I create an overlay network for an Xyz summon!"

 

Wild and Starfire, who were both in defense mode, were overlayed into Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer. He didn't need the effect, but rather he needed one more monster on the field to finish off Ami's life points.

 

"Kidbrave! Destroy Metaion the Time Lord!" Ami's life points dropped to 2800.

 

"Castel! Shooter Calamity! Attack Ami directly!" And with that declaration, Ami Pastiche was taken out of the game.

 

Marcus grinned and it was down to two versus one. "Your move kid!" He had three cards left in hand.

 

---

 

"It's… it's okay Ami." Oliver tried to reassure her. "I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. But I'll be sure to avenge your loss!"

 

"Ha!" Graves laughed. "I'd like to see that."

 

"No you wouldn't." Ami offered a weak smile. "You've used up all of your Magical Muskets just to take me down. Your hand is nothing but unusable monsters now."

 

Oliver smiled towards his partner. "Thanks for pushing him so hard Ami." He drew his top card, then quickly slapped it on his duel disk.

 

"I activate Last Chapter of the Noble Knights!"

 

It was a typical move by Oliver as Medraut re-entered the field, along with Caliburn. Oliver used Caliburn's effect, boosting himself to 9500 life points.

 

"Now I use Medraut's effect! By destroying Caliburn I can special summon Noble Knight Drystan!"

 

Medraut tightened his grip on the sword, causing it to shatter. A brown haired monster holding a harp emerged on Oliver's side of the field.

 

"Don't forget, when Caliburn is destroyed, I get to re-equip it onto one of my monsters, so I'll give it to Drystan!"

 

Drystan estended his arm, and a sword emerged in his hand.

 

"And when Drystan gets a new equip spell, I can destroy one of your monsters! So say goodbye to your Kidbrave!"

 

Drystan plucked a string on his harp, and Kidbrave began to shake, vibrating in tune with the harp before he exploded in a shower of pixels.

 

"I still haven't even normal summoned a monster yet, so I'll normal summon Noble Knight Brothers." A single card, but three warriors huddled in close on Oliver's side of the field.

 

"With my Noble Knights Brothers, I can send three Noble Knights or Noble Arms cards back to my deck, so I pick Last Chapter of the Noble Nights, Borz, and Noble Arms of Destiny!"

 

Oliver shuffled in his three cards and grinned at the new card he drew.

 

"Now it's time for a Link Summon! I'll send Drystan and Brothers to the grave to special summon Isolde, Reminischence of the Noble Knights!" Oliver declared. He picked up a copy of Borz using her effect, but it was doubtful he'd need it to finish off Graves.

 

"Now I send four Noble Arms to the grave to summon a level four monster! Arfeudtyr, Excaliburn, Noble Arms of Destiyn and Noble Arms Clarent can go to the grave so I can special summon Noble Knight Pellinore!"

 

A knight on a horse dashed onto Oliver's side of the field. "I'll play my Noble Arms Gallatin on Pellinore, then I use Pellinore's effect! I can destroy one Noble Arms equipped to Pellinore and one monster on your side of the field!"

 

Pellinore tightened his grip as his sword shattered. The fragments flew towards Calamity, and she cried out in pain before exploding and being sent to the graveyard.

 

"When Gallatin is destroyed I can equip it one more time, so I'll give it to Medraut!"

 

Medraut once again raised his hand to catch the sword. "When Medraut is equipped with a Noble Arms card, his level increases by one. He's now a level 5 monsters."

 

Oliver glanced at his graveyard. "So I'll banish Noble Knight Brothers and Noble Knight Drystan to special summon Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn!"

 

The girls cheered at his summon. Oliver's heart swelled as he saw Headmistress Mishegoss. He'd win for her sake.

 

"With my two level 5 monsters, I can perform an Xyz summon! I special summon Sacred Noble Knight of King Artorigus!"

 

Shēng smirked at his move. "Ha, he's got you good."

 

"Are you really cheering on your opponent!?"

 

"When King Artorigus is summoned, I can equip him with any three noble arms in my grave, so I'll give him Arfeudutyr, Gallatin and Caliburn."

 

Oliver smirked as he gained another five hundred life points from Caliburn's effect. He was now at a cool ten thousand points.

 

"By detaching 1 Xyz material on my monster, I can destroy your last line of defense Graves!" Oliver declared. His King raised his swords high and Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer hit the grave.

 

"King Artorigus! Isolde! Take Major Graves out of the game!"

 

The girls of Hawthorne cheered as Oliver defeated the Major.

 

"Pellinore, attack Liuetenant Shēng directly!"

 

The girl gasped as she was left with 3300 life points to Oliver's 10000.

 

"Your move."

 

---

 

Liuetenant Shēng adjusted her glasses as she looked over her hand. She had five cards ready, but no major strategy brewing, until she drew her topmost card that is.

 

"I normal summon Cyber Dragon Core, and I'll search out Emergency Cyber." Shēng picked up the card from her deck, then looked over at the card she drew on her draw phase before slapping it down.

 

"I activate Machine Duplication!"

 

"So you're getting 2 more Cyber Dragon Cores?"

 

"Wrong. I'm getting two more Cyber Dragons!"

 

Since Cyber Dragon Core's name was considered Cyber Dragon when on the field, Shēng got to summon two more of her ace monster onto the field.

 

"Now I activate Emergency Cyber! I'll use the effect to search out a light machine that cannot be Normal Summoned. In this case, I pick Cyber Eltanin."

 

She grinned at the card she picked up, and barely hesitated to play it. "I banish all of my light machine monsters to special summon Cyber Eltanin!"

 

Oliver glanced over to her grave and began to count out loud with his fingers. "Cyber Dragon number one, Cyber Dragon number two, Cyber Dragon Core," he glanced over at his left ring stump and grimaced. "Cyber Dragon Nova, Cyber Dragon Infinity, Panzer Dragon, Galaxy Soldier… damn, 3500 almost beats my King's 3700."

 

"Oh, the effect beats your king alright! When Cyber Eltanin is summoned, all other monsters are sent to the grave!"

 

Oliver gasped as his once proud field had been reduced to nothing. He was wide open for an attack from the girl.

 

"I'll come back next turn!" he exclaimed.

 

"There won't be a next turn because I activate Cyberload Fusion! With this, I can special summon a monster with Cyber Dragon as material, and in this case I'll pick Cyber Twin Dragon!"

 

Her two banished Cyber Dragons went back to her deck, and she was rewarded with a 2800 attack monster.

 

"Oliver can still survive!" Ami exclaimed.

 

"It can attack twice, I think." Gal began.

 

"Still not enough to game it, even if Cyberload Fusion did let her Eltanin attack." Laplace smiled. "Ollie got his life points too high!"

 

"Activate spell! Limiter Removal!"

 

With that, the game was sealed. We all gave a dejected sigh of defeat as her monsters attack power doubled. Shēng attacked twice and Oliver's life points hit zero.

 

Marcus gave a laugh as he pointed his pistol towards Paige Turner. Sheng also withdrew hers and pointed it at Laplace.

 

"Everyone line up, single file and keep it nice and straight."

 

"Hope you enjoyed your freedom kids." Marcus grinned. "Next stop, Black Wall."

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 13: The Good Guys]Fourteen years ago there was a school called Solar Dusk Academy. A young girl named Allison Katherine Swebb attended this school as a member of the Covenant of the Eternals. She held the Covenant's most prized possession - the Tide Pod, and attempted to summon the gods of the Aether Realm with it. Unfortunately for her and everyone else involved she accidentally sank the academy to the bottom of the sea instead.

 

There were only a small handful of survivors and no one believed the incredibly story about a little girl with magical powers. The many that did not survive the academy had their names permanently etched onto an ebony wall in Silvershine and the Solar Dusk Park was named in loving memory to the fallen academy.

 

After Aynn Mischa took over Silvershine, and after the Board of Ethics and Standards invaded, the Silver Bear Mall across the street was converted into their base of operations, while the park itself was turned into their training grounds, as well as our prison.

 

I sat in a tent with my arms duct taped together at the wrist. Three other girls from Hawthorne Academy were also there, similarly restrained

 

One of the girls in our tent was crying very heavily into a dark skinned girl's shoulder. I didn't recognize the crying girl but I did recognize the dark skinned girl as Karen Maintenance, a girl from one of Gal's duel disk repair classes. With both of their hands tied, Karen couldn't do much to comfort the crying girl.

 

I recognized the girl that was laying down on the other end of our tent with her back to us as Paige Turner. She was extremely light skinned even before the eternal snow storm came and blocked out the sun. Her long hair was dyed jet black, along with her fingernails, her lipstick and her heavy eyeshadow.

 

"Alright girls, so how should we pass the time before we get rescued?" I asked eagerly.

 

Karen looked at me like I had just insulted her before she turned back to the crying girl. "Shh, shh."

 

"Paige? Do you think we should just wait or should we-"

 

"Dude, shut up." Paige leaned up enough to roll her eyes at me before she turned away again.

 

"I'm just trying to help."

 

"Okay then McAnderson. We're all tied up, we've got an armed guard right outside our tent and if we don't freeze to death by tomorrow we're getting the firing squad first thing in the morning. How do you plan to get out of this one Houdini?"

 

The little girl cried out in panic and began sobbing harder into Karen's shoulder.

 

Karen shot Paige a dirty look then whispered gently into the crying girl's ear. "Shh, it'll be okay Helena."

 

"Helena…" I blinked as it dawned on me who I was looking at. "Professor Handbasket!?"

 

Professor Handbasket was shorter than me even as an adult. As a teenager she was small, scrawny, and looked about ten years old.

 

"B-but… you said…" Helena sniffled and tried choking back tears "You all said Arena and her friends would save us…"

 

I wanted to respond back "And we thought the resistance would save US" but considering how hard the girl was crying it didn't seem like that would be in good taste.

 

"Arena might not be able to save us, but I'm sure the Cursed Chain can." I said with a smile.

 

Helena, Karen and Paige looked a little surprised by what I said. I heard some whispering coming from the entrance to our tent, a few footsteps, then I saw 4 purple coats enter our tent.

 

Three of them were the same villains we kept running into, Marcus Graves, Yi Shēng, and Colonel Sender, but the fourth one was unfamiliar. He had dark hair in a military style buzzcut, and he wore sunglasses. I almost thought he was the Giant of Crimson Wind Asylum, before I realized he was the size of a normal teenage boy.

 

"Did I hear someone talking about the Cursed Chain?" Colonel Sender grinned maliciously as he looked over the four of us.

 

"Probably the boy." Shēng whispered. "He's been traveling with… them."

 

"Alright Spencer, keep out guest entertained while we prepare the tent for a private conversation." Sender reached for his flintlock and turned to the other three girls.

 

"Let's go ladies."

 

Graves easily lifted Helena up and over his shoulder. Karen stood up quickly, and Shēng pointed her flintlock pistol behind Karen to force her to march forward. Sender also pointed his gun at Paige. Paige groaned, then slowly got up.

 

"We'll be back in just a tick!" Sender exclaimed with a smile.

 

I looked over at the last remaining purple coat and scowled.

 

"So… what did you guys want to-"

 

I was suddenly interrupted by the sound of two gun shots. I heard Helena screaming and sobbing in terror. One more gunshot, then silence.

 

---

 

I stared in horror at what I had just heard. Even the purple coat seemed surprised as he flinched, before quickly trying to snap back to attention. Before long, Sender, Graves and Shēng returned once again.

 

Sender looked over at his guard and frowned. "Don't look at me like that Spencer!"

 

The teenager named Spencer didn't say anything.

 

"Friedman, we are the Board of Ethics and Standards. What we do is for the good of everyone. It's not always easy, and it's not always fun, but at the end of the day remember: We're the good guys."

 

Spencer Friedman remained frozen in shock.

 

"Remember?" Sender said, a little more insistently as he reached for the blade strapped across his chest.

 

At long last it seemed the purple coat had stepped out his trance. "The good guys." He echoed back.

 

"Doing the hard thing, that's what heroes do." Shēng smiled.

 

Graves hastily set up a table in front of me, along with a chair for Colonel Sender. Being a small child, Sender stood on the chair to get to my eye level.

 

"You…. You killed them."

 

Shēng clapped sarcastically. "Way to go Zweinstein."

 

"We've killed a lot of people." Graves corrected.

 

"They were resistance members." Shēng began. "Leaving them alive would just mean someone else would have less food."

 

"Yeah, Shēng needs all the food she can get." Graves pet Shēng on the head like she was a wild animal. "She's a growing girl!"

 

Shēng tried to shoo his hands away, and when that didn't work she tried to thrash and bite. Sender scowled as he looked over his two subordinates.

 

"That's enough you two! We're here for one reason and one reason only, and that is the Little Pieces of Heaven - Seven gifts from the seven eternals of the Aether Realm."

 

Sender opened his coat and pulled a small jar from a hidden pocket. It was about the size of his forearm.

 

"Pandora's Box."

 

"The Ring of Gyges." Graves raised his hand to show off his ring finger. He then produced a familiar knife I had seen many times before. "And Ophelia's Blade."

 

"Ariadne's Thread." Shēng pointed to her wrist, which had a long red thread wrapped around it several times. "And the Bag of Infinite Alcohol."

 

"We're just missing two Pieces of Heaven to complete the set. The Tide Pod and the Cursed Chain." Colonel Sender began to reload his pistol. "So tell us what you know."

 

These people were monsters. They were no doubt up to no good, and helping them in anyway, especially after they brutally murdered my classmates was out of the question. I thought about it for a moment longer and realized one final thing.

 

"Just kill me then."

 

It was a gutsty move, but I had to remember Arena was an eternal, and the Goddess of War, Wisdom and Military Strategy. If these guys tried to hurt me, she was sure to send some sort of divine intervention my way and save me. Once she was back, I'd convince her to save us all.

 

I tried not to look afraid as I stared at the young boy. Graves quickly reloaded his pistol while Shēng seemed to be having a hard time. Graves gave a bit of a chuckle before snatching it out of her hands and finishing loading in the pellet. He handed her the gun back.

 

At long last Sender took a deep breath and smiled his signature sinister grin. He looked a little bit too pleased with himself.

 

"I think I get it." Sender said as he examined his gun. He hopped off his chair and began walking to the back of the tent. "I'm just a little kid, right? You don't know me. You don't trust me. Well don't worry. We have someone who we're sure can get you talking."

 

Graves and Shēng quickly escorted a confused young lady and sat her in front of me. There was something extremely familiar about this woman but I couldn't figure out what it was. She was a teenage girl, and she looked shaken and disheveled. Her facial structure reminded me a little bit of my daughter, Aynn Mischa, but I wasn't sure why.

 

"Wh-what's going on?"

 

At the sound of her voice, I finally realized who she was.

 

"M-mom?"

 

Bang!

 

---

 

Growing up, I never had the classic storybook mom and dad who loved each other. Mom never made us pancakes. Dad never asked for his pipe and slippers. I've never seen either of them kiss. I did however have tons of memories of them fighting.

 

When I was young I wished there would be some way to make mom and dad stop arguing forever.

 

I looked down at the corpse before me. I got my wish.

 

I began crying miserably, exactly like Helena did before she was shot. A horrible, gut wrenching sound of agony. My mom didn't even remember me. She died for no reason at the hands of these monsters, and I couldn't even mourn her properly with my hands still shackled at the wrists.

 

I sobbed heavily as I collapsed onto the table in front of me. I didn't know what was happening before I felt Marcus picking me up my hair. Sender smiled at me.

 

At the sight of his smug face I snarled. All the feelings of sorrow were washed away, replaced with unbridled rage as I looked at the blonde haired boy. I wanted to kill him right away. Unfortunately, I wouldn't get a chance to do it until later today. For right now I felt utterly humiliated and disgusted, trying to save face in front of this demented mad man.

 

"Miss your mommy?" Sender mocked. "Don't worry. We've got two other guests to help you talk. Your dad and your half-sister."

 

Graves and Shēng escorted two more people, and both had a flintlock aimed at each of them.

 

I tried to process what they were saying but my head and my whole body ached. One of them looked like a teenaged version of my dad. No beard or facial hair, but just as confused and angry as ever. The girl however didn't look familiar at all.

 

"Half-sister?" I muttered. "I don't have a half-sister."

 

"So I should just shoot her then if she's not important?" Shēng asked with a helpful tone of voice..

 

Her words hook me out of my state. "N-no! Not my dear half-sister!" I exclaimed, having no idea who this woman was. She had dark hair like mine, but she had piercing red eyes and well maintained eyebrows. She looked a little like my dad, but she looked nothing like my mom. All at once, I realized what my mom and dad had been arguing about for all these years.

 

"Ready to talk now?" Sender asked with a wicked smile.

 

I nodded weakly.

 

"Great!"

 

Sender eagerly took a seat at the table and crossed his legs.

 

"See, we do our best here, but we don't fully understand the Cursed Chain." Sender began.

 

"We know there's nine pieces…" Shēng began, before I interrupted.

 

"There's eight." I corrected. "The seventh piece is broken in half."

 

"Broken?" Graves asked. "That's ridiculous. How did that happen?"

 

"It's kind of a long story but…"

 

The three looked at me rather incredulously, and Shēng pulled out a notebook and pen. With both of her hands occupied, her glasses slipped to the tip of her nose. More importantly, with both of her hands occupied it meant she didn't have a pistol aimed at my dad and whoever this 'half-sister' girl was.

 

And so I did what I'm sure anyone in my situation would do. I told them everything I knew about the Cursed Chain.

 

---

 

Spencer Friedman was the self-proclaimed world's greatest detective. He started as a rookie cop, then after about a year or two on the force he quit to become a private detective. He worked only interesting cases, difficult cases, and ones that everyone had given up on. When the SSPD had exhausted all other options they turned to him.

 

However he was not the one actually solving any of these cases. His sister, Hortense Friedman had the fifth link in the chain, which allowed you to see someone's entire life from birth to the moment they touched your hand. Unfortunately, the girl experienced it all in real time, taking an enormous psychological toll on her. What may have seemed like a split second to any outside observer would actually be a lifetime played out in the young girl's mind.

 

For right now Spencer Friedman was just our security guard, leading the three of us through the overgrown trees and vines out of the camps. In their 'infinite mercy', the Board of Ethics and Standards decided to let the three of us go.

 

My dad and this mysterious half-sister girl were still mourning the loss of my mom so they kept their distance from me, a person they considered a stranger. This was just fine with me since I was more eager to talk to Spencer Friedman.

 

I hurried up a bit and finally caught up to his stride. "Why are you going along with them anyway?" I asked.

 

Spencer stopped, hesitated for a second, and then continued walking forward, a little bit faster. We were about the same height so it wasn't too difficult to catch up to him.

 

"You're a Demigod. Aynn's Cursed Chain doesn't work on you like it does for everyone else. Also you have the power of Diomes. You could…" I paused to think it over. He was the Demigod of Wine and Travels and I didn't know exactly what he could. "Travels, right? You could 'travel' everyone out of the city in a heartbeat couldn't you? It should be easy-"

 

He finally protested. It seemed I had struck a nerve. "It's not that easy okay!"

 

My teenaged father hurried up behind me and whispered behind my ear. "I think you should leave the man alone before he changes his mind and uses that flintlock on us."

 

We walked in silence for a little while longer before arriving at the edge of the park. My dad and my half-sister hastily hurried off as soon as they got the chance. I however continued to linger around. Spencer frowned at me.

 

"Just go home to your family already."

 

I looked at the teenage boy and the girl I had never met, even before my memory got erased. I shook my head. There was no family out there for me.

 

"My family is inside the Black Wall Camps." The girls of Hawthorne and Team Surname were still unaccounted for. There was also one final link in the Cursed Chain that had been unaccounted for.

 

"And your family? Where's Hortense?"

 

Spencer looked away, but he answered my question. "Why do you think I joined the Board of Ethics and Standards?"

 

I followed his line of sight and saw Spencer was looking towards the Silver Bear Mall. "A week after Aynn took over and the day after the Board of Ethics and Standards came in, they raided all the hospitals. They would have killed Hortense but I begged them not to. As a Demigod, I was useful and I promised I'd do anything they said if they spared Hortense."

 

It was understandable. I was in the same position just a few hours ago and I made the same decision as he did. I would do anything to save my family, so I told the Board everything I knew about the Cursed Chain. That's when my epiphany dawned on me.

 

"You don't have to worry so much about Hortense. They have another reason they won't kill her." It wasn't the best way of phrasing it, but it seemed Spencer recognized I wasn't being cruel.

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Sender, Shēng and Graves asked me all about the Cursed Chain, and she has the fifth. The last person who's hand she touched was Arena's. She'll have all the knowledge of the Goddess of Knowledge when she wakes up. The Board would be crazy to want to give that up."

 

Spencer shook his head. "That's IF she wakes up. It normally takes a split second but she's been out of it for about a year now."

 

He reached for his coat pocket and I flinched, expecting a pistol. Instead he pulled out a packet of cigarette to calm his nerves. He lit one end and put it in his mouth before he took a drag off his cigarette.

 

Spencer breathed out and a cloud of smoke came from his nostrils. "The city's gone to hell. Everyone's dying left and right. We have a monster as our leader, a terrifying police force, and every day they get stronger and stronger. It's hard to stay calm at a time like this."

 

"Doing the hard thing. That's what heroes do." It sounded cheesy, but I think he appreciated it. Spencer smiled back at me, then tossed his half smoked cigarette into the snow.

 

"I don't think I can save my sister, but there is something I think I can do." Spencer made a turn, walking away from the mall. "I'm heading into town. There's someone I need to see. Do you want to tag along?"

 

I shook my head. "There's something I need to see here at the Black Wall Camps as well." I needed to make sure my friends were still alright.

 

Spencer gave me a quick salute before he rounded a corner and disappeared from my sight, possibly a trick from being the DemiGod of travels.

 

As for me, I turned around and walked back into the Black Wall Camps, unsure of what my next move would be but certain that I needed to be with my friends to do it.

 

[Catterjune]

[spoiler=Chapter 14: Public Enemy Number One]I like to remember Solar Dusk Memorial Park like it was in the movies. It was a large urban park in the middle of downtown Silvershine. After school, little kids would play at Brambleton Playground. Cute girls would wear bikinis and sunbathe in The Acre. Couples would ride together on horse drawn buggies or take paddle boats down the Cambrian River. Old men would feed the ducks at the Cyprian Pond. Families would enjoy the Solar Dusk Zoo and their kids would ride the carousel and greasy little men with thick accents would sell hotdogs and shish kabobs. Even in the winter, kids would have snowball fights or skate or play hockey on the frozen water.

 

This wasn't the Solar Dusk I remembered. The river was frozen, but there was no sign of any children playing. The Acre was overrun with trees, with only a small path leading to a clearing near the Black Wall Camps. The trees themselves had skeletons and corpses left out to rot tied to them. I thought back to my classmates and realized that perhaps they were the lucky ones after all.

 

This town was corrupted to the core by the influence of Aynn Mischa and the Board of Ethics and Standards and I was completely powerless to do anything, or so I thought.

 

As I continued walking, out of the corner of my eyes I spotted the unmistakable golden blonde hair of the leader of the Board of Ethics and Standards, Colonel Wacom T. Sender himself.

 

Now, don't get the wrong idea about me. I'm not normally a violent person. I've been bullied in first and second grade so I know what it's like. Also I've never really been in a fight before. However when my eyes landed on the blonde haired boy I was filled with an uncontrollable rage I had never felt in my entire life.

 

He murdered my mother. He murdered my classmates. He murdered hundreds more around the city with his 'Board of Ethics and Standards' goons. But this time the boy was all alone. Neither Shēng nor Graves were anywhere around to defend him. Now was the perfect time to strike!

 

The boy smirked as he saw me approach, as though he were trying to provoke a response. He'd surely get one.

 

"We really must stop meet -" he began before I smashed my fist into his jaw.

 

Again, I wasn't prone to violence and I have never been in a fight, but Colonel Sender had the body of a ten year old and I was a fully grown teenager about twice his size. While I was never going to be on the Hawthorne Academy Wrestling Team, I didn't need to be physically fit to beat up a minor.

 

As he recoiled from my surprise attack I lunged at the boy and smashed his head onto the ground as hard as I could.

 

The rest of my assault was all just blur to me. I let my anger guide my fist onto the boy's face, head and body and attack him with no remorse. I don't know how long I beat the crap out of him. Seconds? Minutes?

 

At long last I grew tired. I yelled in rage as the cathartic release was over. My hands felt wet, no doubt blood from the vicious assault I had just inflicted onto the boy. I sniffled and began to cry as I realized that even though I got whatever twisted version of revenge I had planned I would never see my mom or any of my dead classmates ever again.

 

"Are you done yet?" I heard Sender's voice, close but somehow slightly unclear. It was garbled, as though the person speaking was underwater. I glanced down to see his reflection in what looked like a pool of water. It took me a minute to think, then it all came together.

 

"Candice?" This wasn't the boy at all, but rather the shapeshifting rat we had thought we had left behind at Crimson Wind Academy - Candice Sublime.

 

---

 

When we last left Candice Sublime, Ami Pastiche had just violently stabbed her in the stomach and left her for dead at Crimson Wind Academy. As we now know, she survived and managed to make it to Silvershine.

 

After tunneling through the pipes she made her exit somewhere near the ocean and headed back to the monorail station. She disguised herself as the Matriarch and convinced the Demon of Turbo to visit the Necrophades Black Dorm one last time. With the Demon of Turbo gone, she tried her best to get the train running until we showed up. Thinking quickly, she shapeshifted into the form of the Demon of Turbo himself. When we got the train back in order, she tagged along with us into Silvershine, before the station was bombed by the Board of Ethics and Standards.

 

After the bomb went off, the girl shapeshifted into the form of Gal Surname and was shot in the head for her trouble. Of course, this did nothing to injure her as she was made of water. Instead she picked herself back up and fought back against the Board, forcing them to retreat for the time being. Once she got her bearings again, the girl made her escape into Silvershine, where I found her shapeshifted into the form of Colonel Sender.

 

The reflection of Colonel Sender's face in the pool underneath me smirked, then Candice shapeshifted from out of my grasp. The puddle of water I was laying over had developed a mind of its own, pulling out from under me before she began to reform.

 

Candice Sublime didn't wear any clothes, and though she looked like a Molly Dolly without any parts of the female anatomy, I was still rather embarrassed to see her like this.

 

"How did you even get here? I thought you were trapped in the pipes of Crimson Wind Academy."

 

"Oh, you mean because of this?" She moved her hand and I could see the torrent of a raging scar on her stomach. It was the point where Ami had plunged Ophelia's Blade into.

 

"No, it takes more than that to take Candice out of the game."

 

Her arm suddenly twisted and jerked violently, turning longer and longer as she extended a hand to help me back up on my feet. I swatted her hand away from me.

 

I shook my head, wondering why Candice was being so friendly and helpful. Then it struck me that this wasn't the first time she tried to help me. "That was you disguised as Gal at the train station, wasn't it?"

 

Candice stared at me with a cold expression before turning away. "You're welcome." She said before exhaling loudly. "I was just repaying a debt."

 

I staggered to get back on my feet. "I don't understand."

 

"When your Demigods tried to kill me just before the Crimson Wind Academy School Play, you tried to warn me. Sure, the warning was too late and you only wanted to save me because you thought I was your daughter, but the Covenant of the Eternals is loyal and always repays a debt."

 

I readjusted the red hoodie I was wearing over my suit. "So… now what?"

 

She suddenly stretched her limbs and found a spot behind me, before she shapeshifted into the form of Colonel Sender. I felt her twist my arm and I felt something poke me in the back. She had shapeshifted her hand into that of a hand holding a flintlock. I knew it was a fake gun, but she tried her best to look menacing, or as menacing as a small ten year old could possibly look.

 

"Now it's time for phase two of my plan." She pointed her shapeshifted hand to my back. "Start marching. Next stop, Black Wall."

 

---

 

Colonel Wacom T Sender saw the horrors of war firsthand during the early-to-mid 1940s. After witnessing the bombs that ended the war, Sender recognized that the landscape of the battlefield had changed forever, and he wanted no part in its future. After retiring, Sender would create an organization dedicated to bringing about peace and an end to all wars forever.

 

Unfortunately the way he went about it was boldly misguided.

 

Instead of reaching out to weaker smaller factions and offering aid to make their lives better, he attacked richer and more powerful groups to put them back on the level of the weak and poor. When that didn't work, his next goal was to stop and slow the advancement of humankind. The group set a standard, and they abolished anything they deemed 'above' it.

 

When the filter to turn salt water into fresh water was discovered in South Africa, Sender and the Board swooped in to make sure it was never mass produced.

 

When the engine that ran on water was invented in California, the Board made sure to steal the blueprints, the engine, and of course murder its inventor.

 

When cold fusion was discovered in a power plant near Pripyat, the Board made sure the secret never got out by triggering a steam explosion that resulted in a Level 7 catastrophe on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

 

Fortunately for Candice and me, when we arrived at the Black Wall Camps we didn't see any sign of Colonel Sender. Unfortunately for both of us however, we would discovered a much grizzlier scene.

 

Shēng and Graves stood in front of the Ebony Wall, the one that held the names of all the students and staff that died at Solar Dusk Academy. The pair seemed to be focusing their attention on a tree slightly off center, stage left. As we got closer, I could see the true subject of their attention.

 

The four demigods we had encountered so far; Kira Ikari, Kristi Korrina, Allison Swebb and Hilda Mishegoss were tied to the tree. They were bloodied and bruised, and Mishegoss had a burlap sack over her head, no doubt to keep her from using her overwhelming beauty.

 

Candice's eyes lit up as she saw the group.

 

"Make way, make way!" Candice yelled as she pushed me through the crowd towards the center stage. Shēng and Graves stopped what they were doing and awkwardly looked at the girl.

 

"Found this prisoner walking free around the camp. God, what do I pay you people to do anyway?"

 

"Pay us? We didn't join the board for money." Graves said with a roll of his eye. "We do it for the love of the cause and to make the world a better place!"

 

I groaned. If murdering people was how they showed their love, I didn't want to be around when they decided they hated you.

 

"Besides, we let this one go." Shēng said as she awkwardly fidgeted with her pistol. She stopped to adjust her glasses.

 

"Yeah, Ethics and Standards and all that. We only want to stop those that are high above standards, ya know? Like these fine folks."

 

Graves motioned to the Demigods, who seemed exhausted and bordering on death, but they showed a few faint signs of life.

 

"That boy's pretty average. No reason to kill him. He already gave us all the information we need on the Cursed Chain." Shēng said before adjusting her glasses.

 

"Speaking of which!" Graves hurried behind the ebony wall, with a bit of a spring in his step.

 

While Graves went off in excitement, Shēng eyed Candice and me suspiciously.

 

"So what were you doing with this boy again?"

 

"Well since he told you-" she paused. "Told us all about the Cursed Chain, I figured it might be best to reward him as a guest of honor for the night!"

 

Candice backed away from me. My eyes however stood transfixed on the broken and beaten down demigods before me.

 

Shēng looked me over, before she turned over to Candice and adjusted her glasses. "By the way Sender, how was the base?"

 

"What?" Candice blinked in confusion, before snapping back to reality. "That's Colonel Sender to you!"

 

"Sorry Colonel." Shēng saluted quickly, as though she had performed this step a million times. "You went to the Silver Bear Mall to check up on Project Parthenos right? How is she doing?"

 

Candice looked over at me, then it seemed a lightbulb went off in her head. "I didn't get a chance to go. I was too busy escorting our guest here." She motioned towards me.

 

"But didn't you say Project Parthenos was the most-"

 

She didn't get to finish as Marcus Graves returned with what looked like five large large potato sacks, three on his left and two on his right over each shoulder. He dumped them unceremoniously onto the floor with a loud thud. I heard voices coming from them.

 

I saw as Graves positioned the bags upright into a 'seated' position before he carefully undid the tops of one of the bags.

 

"Ah- Arthur?"

 

Despite the blood and bruises, I could tell from the smeared lipstick I was looking at the female twin, Gal Surname.

 

---

 

I stared at the girl in shock, and I noticed blood pooling on the ground near one of the potato sacks.

 

Gal looked at me, then at Major Graves. "So now what? You're going to murder Arthur just like you did to my grandparents?"

 

She looked like she was about to cry. "S-sorry Arthur." And then, a look of defiance spread on her face as she looked over at the two Board members. "But I won't tell you guys anything, even if you pour a hundred spiders down my dress!"

 

Shēng and Marcus gave each other a knowing smile before the spectacled Asian girl spoke up. "You won't have to. Arthur already told us everything about the Cursed Chain."

 

"WHAT!?" I heard from Gal and three of the potato sacks on the ground.

 

"That's right!" Marcus said with a grin. "At the first sign of trouble your 'friend' here betrayed all of you. Told us all about the Cursed Chain. Spared no details!"

 

"That's why we knew to cover up Guy's mouth, to keep him from talking."

 

"And to beat him unconsciousness to keep him from melting through solids." Marcus tossed his flintlock in the air, caught it with a dramatic flourish and revealed blood on the handle.

 

"We know the hidden secret of Project Parthenon."

 

"And we know Gal and the Matriarch's powers too."

 

Shēng adjusted her glasses as she looked at Candice Sublime. "And we also know to keep our eyes peeled for a shapeshifter."

 

"Oh… Oh Arthur…" I had seen Gal sad and hurt before, but it was worse because it was done by a friend. She and the rest of Team Surname were beaten, and just like me they had their whole families killed in front of them. The only difference was I was the one who cracked, when no one else did. Their families and loved ones died for no reason.

 

I didn't know what to say, but the least I could do was try to save them. "So, you Board of Ethnics and Standers have all the information you need now." I began to make my way towards Gal. She seemed to pull away from me. "You're gonna let us all go now, right?"

 

Graves, Shēng and all the other purple coats suddenly burst out laughing.

 

"Kid, are you crazy?" Graves began as he pushed me down to the ground. I hastily staggered to get back onto my feet. "The Board of Ethics and Standards didn't get to where it is by giving away trade secrets. No no no."

 

"We do two things when we find something unethical and beyond standards." Shēng said as she pushed up her glasses. "We either bring it into our organization for later use, or we destroy it to keep out of the hands of evildoers."

 

"So what's it gonna be little girl? Do as we say or join your grandparents?"

 

"You've already killed my entire family…" Gal looked around before her eyes long onto mine. She spoke with the vilest of venom on her lips. "And it looks like my friends are disappearing too."

 

Gal took a deep breath. "Do whatever you have to do."

 

Graves pulled out his flintlock and began to take aim, but Shēng pushed his hand out of the way.

 

"Not just yet." Shēng began. "You've still got a few friends and loved ones right here." She motioned towards the potato sack.

 

"We've got a friend of yours, and a traitor to us. Lillian D'Valle." Marcus adjust the opening of one of the potato sacks and I could see Laplace's face, covered in bruises and blood, worse than Gal's. It seemed they did not take kindly to betrayal at the Board of Ethics and Standards.

 

Laplace looked tired and was likely out of it.

 

"We've got your best friend, Amy Parsley." Ami Pastiche looked less beaten then Gal or Laplace, but she had definitely seen better days.

 

"We have your brother here, Gayle Something." Guy was revealed, taken the worst beating of all. His eye was swollen shut and his mouth was bound in duct tape. He was still alive, though just barely.

 

"And we've got the only man in the world you love, Oliver Khlozoff."

 

"W-what!?!?" Laplace, Oliver and Gal exclaimed.

 

"Ha. Knew it!" Ami gave a light chuckle as blood trickled from her mouth.

 

"… L-love!?" Oliver blushed. "I mean, Gal… you're great and-"

 

"Yeah, I know. I know! You don't have to say anything!" Gal whimpered as tears started flowing from her face.

 

"Sender, let's finish this." Graves motioned towards Candice. It took her a minute before she remembered she had shapeshifted. She got in line with the two of them and followed as the other two removed their pistol.

 

Graves had a pistol, Sheng had a pistol, and though she didn't have an actual working pistol, they thought Candice would be on their side.

 

"Four loved ones left, three pistols." Shēng said before adjusting her glasses. "Pick the person you want to live."

 

"I… I can't." Gal whispered.

 

Graves smiled. "Then we'll choose for you."

 

I heard gunshots. I looked away.

 

---

 

Shēng was the mechanical genius of the Board of Ethics and Standards. She could take apart any machine in front of her and come back to you with a full detailed instructions on how it worked in a day. She had disarmed all of Hawthorne Academy's traps, and she was working on a secret project that she believed would bring about an end to anyone who questioned them. Because of this, she believed minor tasks like gun maintenance were far beneath her.

 

Ami fell to the ground. The other three seemed to still be alive.

 

"Ha!" Graves exclaimed laughing. "Your gun jammed didn't it Shēng?"

 

"Why do we even use these stupid things?" Shēng complained as she shook her flintlock, trying to get the metal ball out of it. "I guess the Gods have decided to spare Oliver today. What about Amy?"

 

Graves scowled as he looked her over, then looked back to the tree.

 

"Ha! You're never gonna believe this. Clear perfect kill shot on the girl… but a certain Demigoddess of Death is keeping her alive!"

 

He looked over at Kira who, despite all the bruises and blood loss seemed to be concentrating pretty hard.

 

"What's gonna happen if I break your concentration little girl?" Graves whispered into Kira's ear. Kira shut her eyes tighter and turned her head to look away from him.

 

"What's your excuse Colonel?" Shēng asked Candice. "Why is D'Valle still alive?"

 

I knew the answer. Even though she could shapeshift her hand to make it look like she held a pistol, for all intents and purposes Candice Sublime did not have one of their flintlocks and she couldn't fire a gun.

 

"It's a shame to let all our training go to waste and just kill her." Candice said with a smirk. "We could fix her up and bring her back to the good guys!"

 

Shēng shook her head. "She knows too much and she's been sharing it with the rebels. It's an open and shut case. She's working against us so the only remedy is death."

 

Candice was a religious person. She had killed people in rituals before, but she had no reason for harming Laplace. She didn't even know the girl.

 

"Why are you being so strange lately?" Shēng questioned, though in a way that seemed to indicate she already knew answer. I heard guns beginning to be loaded and I heard shots fired off in the distance.

 

"Sender…" Graves began with a bit of concern to his voice. "What's my middle name?"

 

It was question that Candice certainly didn't know. It seemed her shapeshifting game was up.

 

"Well-"

 

She didn't have a chance to answer. I saw a flash, and I saw Sender's head, body, and the rest of the things Candice copied suddenly ballon themselves in size before she exploded suddenly and quite violently. I then heard a boom, the sound of thunder off in the distance. Before I knew it, Candice Sublime had evaporated away from the intense heat of a sudden lightning bolt.

 

"Wh-what the hell was that!?" Graves turned to look at the direction of the sudden strike. But this wasn't a full blown Deus Ex Machina. It was more like a Demi-Deus Ex Machina

 

"Public Enemy Number One." a boy at the back of the crowd said with a grin. There were 8 fallen purple coats all around. "Most ladies call me Handsome, but you kids can just call me Alistair Solaris. Son of Zera - Lord of the Sky and Ruler of the Celestial Family."

 

"And I brought him here." Detective Friedman said with a grin.

 

"Now listen here you little purple brats." Alistair began as he started walking towards the ebony wall. One man pulled a knife, but without missing a beat Alistair pointed at him, a bolt of lightning extended from his fingertips, and the man collapsed to the ground.

 

"I may not know half those people on stage but damn it, they're family and it's my job to lead them. Let the Demigods go, and I guess my old pal Arthur and his friends go and I won't hurt you."

 

"You? Hurt us!?" Shēng laughed. "You're outnumbered."

 

"And you're outmatched."

 

His lightning strikes were extremely precise. In 4 quick moves, four bolts of lightning hit the tree in such precise points that the demigods were freed. Kira and Allison collapsed on the ground, but Kristi, Demigod of Healing, seemed to be in fine shape.

 

Alistair smiled as he looked at the hundreds of purple coats all around him. "You're gonna need a much bigger army then this to take down the Demigods."