The pungent smell of smoke was not coming from Guriko’s office. Nor was it wafting up the stairs, or originating from the room Phil was in at this very moment. It was coming from the windows. Phil dashed over. They were already cracked open a finger’s width to help the room stay slightly cool.

  “What the fuck?” Phil reflexively swore. There were flames under the windowsill, clinging to the outside wall of the building. Black flames. They devoured brick and stone like it was nothing but rotting, dry wood fed into an ever-hungry blaze. Moreover, under the smoke was a much worse smell – the smell of freshly spilled blood and foul rotting flesh. The stench pushed away his previous wandering thoughts to the back of his head.

  “Magic?” Phil and Lumina said simultaneously. That much was obvious. Black flames weren’t natural in any part of the world. Phil bolted down the stairs. Fire alarms tore through the veil of techno music to add their irritating screeches to the din.

  It was all so loud he could barely think. No sooner than a thought would form in Phil’s head then it would be drowned out. The lights cut. Blue lights no longer washed over the walls in waves, replaced now by suffocating darkness that elicited a chorus of screams from the partygoers downstairs. What little Phil could see by virtue of the small flashing lights hooked up to the fire alarms was chaotic.

  Worse of all, the smell of smoke was getting stronger. The flashes of light were slowly becoming thick with haze.

  “Phil!” A hand firmly gripped his shoulder. Jean’s head emerged out of the gloom. His face was tight with concern. His eyes were filled with wariness. Beside him was Tilla, her hair soot-stained and slightly frazzled at its ends. Neither of them looked particularly worse for wear. It was doubtless they’d run into their own opponents, but they had returned victorious.

  “I iced the boss!” Phil shouted back. “The outside of the building’s covered in black flames! Magic bullshit! Let’s blow this popsicle stand!”

  Jean and Tilla firmly nodded. Neither of them seemed bothered one bit by Phil’s casual mention of Guriko’s death. In the few seconds that their meeting lasted, the dance floor had nearly completely emptied out. The DJ booth was abandoned. Even the yakuza thugs scattered across the room had vanished into thin air.

  The strobe lights flashed incessantly.

  And then they stopped. The blue lights were still nowhere to be seen, but now the club was awash in the glow of several ordinary fluorescent light bulbs that lit up the multicolored dance floor with an uncomfortable starkness. Beyond the veil of smoke, near the entrance of the club, was a man. At first it appeared as if he was wearing a shirt of pure red. A closer glance revealed that shirt to be a thick coating of gore. Two pairs of bloodstained basketball shorts were wrapped around his waist. His feet were bare. Strangest of all was the tattoos, numerous Egyptian-style glowing sigils that appeared to almost be carved directly into his skin. The brightest of them all was a snake curled into an infinity sign that glowed with a dark red light.

  “My… name is…”

  The words of the man’s unfinished, confused sentence easily rose over the din filling the dance room.

  “Mac N’ Cheese?” Phil said the name in utter confusion. What was he doing here? The questions in Phil’s head were quickly brushed aside. No matter the man’s reason, he was giving off some serious bad vibes. Phil shared a brief glance with the others.

  “…Cathy?” Mac N’ Cheese’s voice croaked out like he hadn’t spoken a word in years. “Kaori? Where are you? Don’t hide from dad… you’re making me worry. I just want to see you two again. Please… where are you?”

  Mac looked like he hardly had the strength to stay standing. The longer Phil stared, the more he was sure of that. A sushi knife stuck out from Mac’s left bicep. His right leg was bent at an angle no bone could make without breaking. His forehead was dented. His hair, still in that late 90s frosted tips style, was mussed up and slicked with blood. One of his kneecaps was just gone. His chest was caved in several inches past what would normally be survivable by a human.

  "I can see flames past the DJ's booth," Jean whispered into Phil's ear. “Doesn’t look like anyone took the emergency exit. Looks like there’s smoke coming through the cracks in the door. Could be fire on the other side.”

  Tilla was already over at the emergency exit before Phil could consider the option in any more detail than he already had. One of her palms was pressed flat to the door, while her hand rested on the doorknob.

  “It’s hot to the touch!” Tilla whisper-shouted in an attempt to keep her words from drawing Mac’s attention to them. Phil’s brows furrowed. The door being hot to the touch meant there was fire on the other side. It was a confirmation of what he already suspected, but man would it have been nice to be wrong right now.

  The only other way out of the club was past Mac N’ Cheese. Phil slowly yet steadily moved toward the wall and began inching his way toward the front door. Jean and Tilla were right behind him. All the while his gaze was fixed firmly on Mac, as if the man was a wild animal that could attack at any given moment.

  Mac turned his gaze toward Phil before they even made it halfway across the room. Phil froze but it was too late. Mac’s hand dipped into his pocket to pull out a snub-nosed revolver. Lumina shouted something. Jean moved in his peripheral vision.

  But Phil was calm. The gun was aimed right at him, but Phil, as strange as it was, felt no sense of alarm. It was like the gun was pointed at someone else on the other side of a television screen, and Phil was chilling on a couch watching the show go down.

  Mac squeezed the trigger. It felt like the action was happening in slow motion. The hammer of the gun descended.

  There was no noise. No gunshot split through the screams of the fire alarm. The smoke was not pierced by the flash of a muzzle. The gun was empty.

  Mac N’ Cheese looked at it with a puzzled expression.

  “Sacre bleu!” Jean said in shock. His face was white.

  Mac held the muzzle of the gun up to the side of his own head, pulling the trigger again. Once more nothing happened. The gun was still empty.

  “They tell me I have to kill you three as well. You can’t leave.” Mac said. His voice was calm, yet it still managed to cut right through the fire alarms.

  They? Phil’s head tilted in curiosity, even as Jean raised his fists and Tilla’s hand slipped stealthily into a concealed pocket in her dress. But Mac did not charge. He tossed away his pistol and pulled out a deck of cards. Visible on top of the cards were bloodstains.

  Phil made a noise of understanding. Of course a murderous psychopath would randomly decide to play a game of Duel Monsters. Did that mean the tattoos were magic? The fact that they were pulsing with light pretty well supported that theory.

  "Let's play this out," Phil muttered toward the other two. “If he has the backing of a duel spirit, I don’t want to eat the consequences of trying to settle this any other way. Who knows? If we run it could count as a forfeit.”

  Jean coughed. The smoke continued to thicken. “Oui, but you’d better play fast.”

  Phil nodded. It wasn’t just the flames that were a danger. The smoke would choke them to death, and if they survived that, there would still be the authorities outside. He doubted they would get blamed for the fire, but it would be natural for the police to question them. Then the follow-up question of ‘do you have identification’ would probably be asked, and then it would get really awkward really fast.

  Phil moved to the center of the dance floor. Mac mimicked his steps. Both Phil’s shoes and Mac’s feet left bloody prints behind. In his peripheral vision he could see Jean and Tilla edge toward the other exits in the room to investigate them further. He didn’t have much hope that their efforts would turn up anything useful, but one could never know for sure. If there was even the slightest chance of getting them out of the burning nightclub, Phil would take it. Heck, it would be even better if he could take the duel out into the back alley instead of on the dance floor.

  Again, anywhere was preferable to a fucking burning building.

  “Okay! How do ya want to do this, Mac? How about we head outside? It’s a bit hot in here!” Phil shouted. While he did so, he slung the knapsack off his shoulder and opened it to stealthily pull a stack of cards out. If his memory was correct, Mac N' Cheese liked to play a union deck focusing on the Aitsu archetype. It involved a bunch of low-attack monsters that could combine to create stronger creatures with an irritating amount of survivability. It wasn't too bad of an issue before, but back then he had time. That wasn’t the case here.

  The other reason was simple as well. They’d dueled before. There was a strong chance Mac would remember what Phil’s deck did. A switch-up here, when Mac expected Phil’s old strategy, could provide the advantage Phil needed to close out the game fast.

  Mac N’ Cheese spread his cards out in front of his body, making his intentions clear on where precisely he wanted to play. There were no nearby tables or bar counters. The cards floated on smoke itself. Phil looked down. Like Mac, there was smoke collecting in front of his body. He tested the thickest part of the cloud with a finger. Solid enough. Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Phil placed his deck on the collection of smoke in front of his body. They stayed still, supported by smoke in a manner that completely defined any sort of logic or science.

  There was no verbal reply to Phil’s shouted question.

  “Fine.” Phil spat. “Be a dumb cunt. I’ll go first!”

  Mac nodded. Even that simple gesture looked like it took Mac an enormous effort to make. The dance floor underneath their feet shimmered slightly. The tiles, once lit up randomly with all sorts of different colors, faded away to darkness until no more than half of the tiles on the floor still emanated any sort of light. The light then changed to be pure red. Phil took a step back to get a better look. The tiles were situated so that the red light formed two life-point counters on the floor itself. Some real magic bullshit was going on.

  Phil: 4000 Mac: 4000

  “Draw!” Phil glanced over his hand. A few of the cards were familiar, but the majority were new to his eyes. This was the risk of playing a new deck – one would be forced to figure out strategies on the fly. No matter. His starting hand held some amount of promise at least, and he was decently familiar with old-school banish strategies. Phil continued, speaking as fast as he could. “Allure of Darkness activates! I draw two and then banish a dark from my hand!”

  The card to banish was a no-brainer. Even if Guriko hadn’t done it during their duel, Phil still would have chosen it.

  “My choice to banish is the dark-attribute D.D. Scout Plane (800/1200).

  Phil then placed a monster in face-down defense position, set a card, and ended his turn, which also meant the strange eye-ball spaceship, D.D. Scout Plane, was special summoned to his side of the field in attack position due to its own effect.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Jean peered through the smoke filling the hallway behind the DJ’s booth. He knew at the end of the hallway was a meth lab, and beyond that was a door leading to a side alley. So, so close, yet so, so far away. He could see strange black flames licking at the walls in the distance, further past the choking plumes of smoke. To get to the back door, they would have to brave the flames.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  At this moment that wasn’t an option.

  He slipped a cigarette into his mouth. The carton of smokes in his hand was in a rather sad state to behold. Its sides were crumpled, and Jean had gone through so many since his last refill that the carton only had one or two cigs left in it. Sometime after Phil’s duel began, the music had died out and the fire alarms had fallen silent. Jean had been so focused on finding a way out that he hadn’t even noticed until now. Was the whole building surrounded by fire? Even the fire itself was strange. Black flames. He’d never seen the likes of it before.

  “Merde!” Jean viciously swore. He had no doubt his brother would win, but the real question was time. How long would the game take? How fast would the flames spread? The madman stood between them and the only viable exit, and it seemed the only thing Jean and Tilla could do was sit pretty and hope Phil was really good at speed Duel Monsters.

  A soft hand gripped his palm and tugged out one of Jean’s last cigarettes. Tilla was now next to him. One of Jean’s cigarettes was hanging loosely between her lips. To Jean, that was the greatest shock of all. Tilla didn’t smoke. She barely put up with him smoking. Hell, that was the biggest reason behind how few cigarettes were left in his carton. Jean hadn’t bothered buying a new carton because he fully intended this one to be his last.

  Tilla touched the end of her cigarette to Jean’s to light it up. She took a deep drag, one that left her with a slight (and rather cute) coughing fit.

  “How do you even stand these things?” Tilla grumbled.

  “Mademoiselle, I am French!” Jean replied with more cheer in his voice than he would usually have, hoping some of that emotion could ease whatever concerns Tilla had. “It is in our blood! Every French child exits the womb with a cigarette in one hand, a cup of black coffee in the other, and a beret tipped at a jaunty angle on their brow!”

  Though she remained silent, Tilla’s shoulders began to shake slightly with laughter. Jean cracked a smile of his own. ‘Mission Make Beautiful Lady Laugh’ was a resounding success.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  The smoke continued to thicken to the point that it became slightly hard to breathe. The sound of a striking match filled the air. Phil could see Jean leaning against the abandoned DJ’s booth, a cigarette in his mouth and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. Phil could tell that was at least partially a fa?ade to mask the Frenchman’s nervousness. Tilla was next to him. Though he knew Tilla didn’t smoke, one of Jean’s cigarettes was tucked between her lips. It was the only indication of any sort of nervousness in her bearing. Their search for exits must have truly been swift and fruitless.

  “Terraforming activates.” Mac’s voice rumbled out. “To add the Fusion Gate field spell to my hand!”

  Phil let out a small chuckle. The situation was dire, but it was still interesting to see a new deck spring out of nowhere. Fusion Gate. If he could remember correctly, it would let both players fusion summon from the hand or field by banishing the materials. Did this mean Mac was on a fusion turbo deck? It wasn’t his original one, that was for sure. Hm. The top of his deck had been covered in blood when the man first pulled it out. Did he kill someone for his new deck? It could also explain all the gore on his body. Then there was that comment about ‘killing you three as well’. That meant there were others before them.

  Mac activated the field spell and Phil swept aside his thoughts for later.

  "Using its effect, I banish Cave Dragon and Lesser Fiend to fusion summon Fiend Skull Dragon (2000/1200)!"

  Phil remained silent, but in his head he yelled out ‘FUCK!’

  The attack of the fusion monster was decent. A solid 2k. The effect was the big problem. It was a card he’d seen more than a few times in GOAT format tournaments back on Earth. It could negate any trap effects that targeted it specifically, and it also negated the effects of flip monsters. The last part was the most important one.

  The four-armed winged dragon charged into battle, but not against Phil's spaceship, but toward his face-down monster.

  “It’s Magician of Faith (300/400).” Phil sighed, revealing the card. It wasn’t a problem that his monster would be destroyed by the battle. The problem was that Fiend Skull Dragon had an effect to negate flip-effect monsters. And Magician of Faith was a flip-effect monster. A particularly good one. One that could let him add any spell from his graveyard back to his hand.

  Mac’s turn ended right after that. Phil wasted no time before drawing a card while Mac stared unblinkingly at him. His interest in seeing an unexpected deck aside, he still had to wrap this up fast.

  “Summoning D.D. Survivor (1800/200) in attack position!” Phil speedily shouted. “Following that, I’ll throw down a continuous spell card! Different Dimension Gate activates! By targeting my D.D. Survivor and your Fiend Skull Dragon, I banish both of them until the gate is destroyed. Now, D.D. Scout Plane, attack directly!”

  Phil: 4000 Mac: 3200

  The lights on the dance floor writhed frantically to change what the life point counters showed. Meanwhile, Mac stumbled back, laughing and giggling as the eye-like D.D. Scout Plane rammed right into his caved-in chest at full speed. The giggling soon stopped. Mac fell utterly silent, doubling over and then filling the smokey air with a series of vile retching noises. At their peak, the noises were suddenly accompanied by the ‘splat’ of several small pieces of flesh falling out of his mouth onto the dance floor. Phil wrinkled his nose in disgust but ultimately moved on without a comment.

  “End phase! Since D.D. Survivor was banished while face-up on my field, he gets special summoned in attack mode!”

  At once a man in a ragged light brown cape walked onto the dance floor next to the eye-like spaceship. His limbs were covered in futuristic metallic armor, and the smoke swirled around his body like it was alive.

  “Draw!” Mac shouted. His voice was still full of a sort of mad cackling laughter. Bits of blood flecked his lips. At his chest, Phil could see the jagged edge of a broken bone sticking through the man’s flesh.

  “Here’s a continuous spell of my own! Branch! activates! Whenever a fusion monster on the field is destroyed, if I have one of the materials used in my graveyard, I can special summon that material! Then I trigger the effect of Fusion Gate once more! By banishing The Earth – Hex-Sealed Fusion and Blowback Dragon from my hand, here comes the fusion monster Gatling Dragon (2600/1200)!”

  Phil took a step back as a metallic monster with three heads, each one ending in a Gatling gun, rolled onto the field on two spiked red wheels. This too was a monster known to him. It also confirmed his suspicion. Mac had somehow gotten ahold of a fairly solid GOAT format Fusion Gate turbo deck. It wasn’t the best deck of the format, but he’d seen it at tournaments before. It held a surprising amount of power within it.

  "Its effect activates!" Mac N' Cheese cried out. "I flip three coins and destroy precisely the same number of monsters on the field as the number of heads I get!"

  Phil braced himself. In Mac’s palm was a coin that was painted pure red. Some sort of liquid completely coated it. Judging from the rest of Mac’s demeanor, it was probably blood. It flew into the air, momentarily being obscured by the gradually thickening smoke before falling back into view.

  Heads.

  The second coin toss was made.

  Heads.

  The third was made.

  Tails.

  Phil let out an explosive series of swears as two of the three Gatling gun heads swiveled around to blow both of his monsters into pieces. He didn’t even have the luck to see all three be heads, which would have forced Mac to destroy his own monster alongside Phil’s. Those swears were quickly overridden with a derisive sneer as Mac ordered a direct attack. Though the damage was solid, it was nothing compared to what he’d felt in past duels.

  Phil: 1400 Mac: 3200

  Phil’s feet dug into the tiles, even as his life point counter rapidly dropped. Mac ended his turn. There were no face-down cards on Mac’s field. Only a fusion monster, a continuous spell card, and a field spell.

  “It’s just the same as back at home!” Phil laughed fearlessly while he drew a card. “Fusion Gate decks are all offense and no fucking defense! Jean, here’s your game of speed Duel Monsters, because I’m gonna end this shitshow here and now! First off, I summon Chaosrider Gustaph (1400/1500) in attack position. This obscure-ass card’s got a funny effect, one that lets me banish up to two spells from my graveyard to boost its attack by 300 for each one until the end of your turn. I only have one, but one’s more than enough. By banishing Allure of Darkness, Gustaph gains 300 attack points.”

  Chaosrider Gustaph (1400/1500 -> 1700/1500).

  “Then, by banishing my light Magician of Faith and my dark D.D. Scout Plane, I can special summon Chaos Sorcerer (2300/2000) from my hand.”

  A crooked smile spread across Phil’s face as the familiar cackling sorcerer soared onto the field. He coughed heavily from the smoke and then continued. "Premature Burial will special summon my deceased D.D. Survivor from the graveyard in attack position by subtracting 800 points from my life total and equipping itself to my monster.”

  Phil: 600 Mac: 3200

  Jean let out a wild whoop, followed by several hoarse coughs. Phil paused just long enough to shoot some finger guns back at his brother, who had guessed precisely where this was heading.

  “Chaos Sorcerer’s effect activates to banish your Gatling Dragon, meaning it also sidesteps the effect of your Branch! spell because it wasn’t destroyed by battle or card effect. Then, even though my other two monsters have enough to finish you off, here’s a nice little Kuriboh deterrent because I’m one paranoid fucker! My spell card activates, Dimension Distortion! Since there are no cards left in my graveyard, I can special summon a banished monster to my side of the field! Gatling Dragon, come to daddy!”

  Not only was the fierce, three-headed Gatling Dragon now on Phil’s side of the field, it was joined by a green-skinned man on a motorcycle with a long glaive clutched in his hand, while next to him was the familiar, brown-cloaked form of D.D. Survivor.

  “Here’s your game of speed Duel Monsters done and dusted!” Phil shouted. “Drop the crazy fucker, boys!”

  Mac N’ Cheese braced himself, but there was nothing he could do. D.D. Survivor rushed in, pummeling the man’s already dented chest with a pair of gauntleted hands that saw a fountain of blood spurt out of Mac’s mouth. Then, moving in unison, Chaosrider Gustaph swooped in on his bike to slash at Mac’s legs, while Gatling Dragon opened fire with all three of its machine-gun heads to blast Mac’s body apart. His tattoos no longer glowed with pulsing light. At first they sputtered, and then they failed altogether. They were magic no longer.

  But for some reason, there was a peaceful smile on the man's face, even as his lifeless body fell to the ground to land in a motionless pile of blood and gore.

  Phil immediately beckoned to Jean and Tilla, but they were already dashing away from the DJ’s booth the moment Mac N’ Cheese fell. The smoke was thicker than ever, so thick that Phil had a hard time even seeing D.3.S. Frog appear and stoop down to start greedily shoveling Mac’s remains into its slobbering maw.

  It was not a moment too soon – gouts of black flames rushed out of the hallway behind the booth before they made it halfway across the floor. Similarly, the emergency exit door fell, bent and melted from the heat of the strange flames. The door to the waiting room was still clear. Phil led the charge, quickly followed by Jean and Tilla, the latter of which performed a neat little hop to deftly clear the remains of Mac’s shattered skull. Once her shoes touched the ground, D.3.S.’s warty pink tongue darted forward to lap up the pile of brain matter and bone shards.

  The velvet room was just as it had been left not even half an hour before. The pitiful dead woman was still lying limply on the couch, though the table had been overturned at some point in the crowd's rush to get out of Blue Friday. Once the outside door was in sight, Phil’s eyes widened in alarm. There were flashing red lights everywhere.

  The police had arrived. Behind them were firefighters, shouting orders and calling out names while they rolled out their hoses. Two cops near the entrance reacted in surprise to their sudden appearance. The rest of the police appeared far more focused on whoever was left in the nightclub. Most likely they'd been chasing Mac from wherever he had started his rampage.

  This time it was Tilla who let out an angry exclamation. Right as the cops began to turn in surprise, she banked left while still running at full speed, coincidentally also colliding with the closest police officer and causing both of them to land on the ground in a chaotic tangle of limbs.

  “Sorry! Sorry mister! I didn’t see you there! Please let me help you up, sir!" Tilla shouted in her best ditzy air-headed girl voice. From the sounds of it, the poor saps bought the act.

  Neither Phil nor Jean stopped to help. Right before she collided with the man, Tilla had shot them both a look, one that was filled with the unspoken intent for the two men without passports, ID, or any form of documentation to get the hell out while she provided a distraction. Though their various cuts and bruises hurt, and their lungs burned with smoke, they vaulted over the police tape to the sounds of one cop struggling to stand and a second cop yelling at them to halt.

  Only when Phil and Jean made it several blocks away and passed through the throng of spectators and various frazzled partygoers did they begin to slow. The snow was trampled into slush that oozed into their shoes, soaking their socks fully through and numbing their feet to the bone.

  The police were lost in the crowd, nowhere to be seen. And from an alley, a bald, suited, smoke-stained yakuza stared right at them, speaking into a cell phone with malice in his eyes.

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  Pink Winter turned away from the burning nightclub. From his vantage point on the roof of a building opposite his target, he could see the deed was done. The upper echelons of the Mori Family were destroyed through fire and the actions of his pawn. The few who survived would naturally be arrested by the police. It no longer mattered if the authorities could bring the flames to heel.

  The duel parlor was similarly brought down to its knees. Not a soul survived the massacre caused by Mac N’ Cheese. The parlor itself was now nothing but smoking rubble. Igniting a gas line behind the bar counter was a rare spark of genius from his pawn, Pink Winter had to admit. As a man of more mystical means, he would not have immediately thought of that. The chain reaction was enough to level the building almost to its foundation. There was some damage to his pawn’s physical state, of course, but that hardly mattered. The man was perfectly disposable once the yakuza leaders were dealt with.

  The souls would come in handy too. Thirty-five in total according to Pink Winter's count. A nice number that still wasn't too great to contain in his storage vessels. Once he returned to the sanctum, they could be put to good use.

  “One step closer to divinity.” Pink Winter murmured to himself in a hoarse voice. His body, still ill-fitting, swayed in place before he began making his way off the rooftop. The matter in Domino City had fully come to a close. Now the seasons would gather and all would be made ready for when the wise Red Summer gave the order to seize the eye.

  https://discord.gg/jfRn8j5GaE!