Dio LP: 4000
Jack LP: 4000
"My turn—draw!"
Jack moved with explosive speed. His arm left behind a blur, and by the time Dio had fully registered that the turn had begun, Jack had already drawn his card and firmly seized the first move.
Dio was quietly surprised.
That draw speed had already crossed into the inhuman—far beyond the normal limits of reaction and motion in the real world.
So this was what duelists in the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! anime were like?
"I summon Dark Resonator in Defense Position!"
Jack slapped a card onto his Duel Disk.
A flash of light erupted, and a fiendish little monster appeared on his field. It wore a tattered dark robe, carried a tuning fork in one hand, and had a tiny drum strapped to its back. It took up a defensive stance.
Dark Resonator / Tuner / Fiend / DARK / Level 3 / ATK 1300 / DEF 300
"Oh! Boss Jack's Tuner monster!" Dole immediately took on the role of commentator from the sidelines. "That monster has an amazing effect—it can't be destroyed by battle once per turn!"
"Then I set two cards," Jack said, quickly sliding two cards into his back row. "End turn!"
It was a simple but cautious opening, preserving both resources and defense.
Perhaps for duelists from the city, with complete decks and abundant resources, it was not hard to Synchro Summon on the very first turn.
But for duelists like Jack, who lived in Satellite and had built their decks almost entirely through scavenging and trading, every single card was precious. Their decks were nowhere near smooth enough to operate that fluidly.
The more common choice was to play steadily and establish a defensive line first.
"Then—my turn, draw!"
Dio declared in still somewhat halting speech as he drew a card.
The moment he saw it, his heart settled.
It was Scrap Beast.
He had opened with it again on turn one. Lucky.
Just then, he thought he faintly heard something like a dog barking from somewhere nearby. It was quiet, and it vanished quickly.
Dio paid it no mind. Stray dogs in Satellite were perfectly normal. It was probably just some random mutt barking.
"I activate the Field Spell Scrap Factory!"
Dio placed a card into his Field Zone.
In an instant, the holographic projection spread out. The interior of the abandoned gymnasium was overlaid with the phantom image of a junk-processing plant made of rusted metal, massive pipes, roaring grinders, and busy mechanical arms.
The air itself seemed to fill with the smell of rust and machine oil.
"A Field Spell?" Crow stared, stunned. It was his first time seeing that kind of card in person. "What's that?"
"It's a kind of Spell Card that goes in a dedicated Field Zone," Kiryu explained with his arms folded. "And as long as it isn't destroyed, it remains active continuously. Usually, its effect is to provide boosts or special abilities to monsters of a certain archetype or Attribute. But because these cards take up the Field Zone, they're not suited to Turbo Duels. And since many of their effects aren't very versatile, most of them were phased out in the city and eventually drifted down to Satellite."
Turbo Duels... Yusei silently reflected.
Duels fought while racing at high speed on Duel Runners—that was the style favored by duelists in the city, even among the highest tiers. There were even rumors that someone had once ridden a Duel Runner across Daedalus Bridge.
"Scrap Factory's effect," Dio said, drawing everyone's attention back, "is that as long as this card remains in the Field Zone, all 'Scrap' monsters on my field gain 200 ATK and DEF."
The phantom factory rumbled, as though infusing monsters of its archetype with new power.
"Then I Normal Summon Scrap Kong in Attack Position!"
Dio performed another Normal Summon.
A rough-looking monster appeared on the field. It had a powerful metallic body, buzzing circular saws for hands, a huge battered wastewater barrel for a stomach, and even an old tire embedded where its navel should have been.
Scrap Kong / Beast / EARTH / Level 4 / ATK 2000 → 2200 / DEF 1000 → 1200
The moment it appeared, its 2200 ATK—boosted by the Field Spell—startled everyone present.
"2200 ATK?!" Crow blurted out. "You can find cards like that in the garbage heaps too?!"
Among the cards commonly seen in Satellite, that stat line was already top-tier. Even many higher-level monsters people relied on did not surpass that range.
"If I were the one dueling him right now..." Kiryu's eyes began to gleam with excitement, and he licked his lips. "To break through a monster with that much ATK—or to be attacked by one like that... how satisfying would that be?"
Jack, standing across the field, was already feeling the pressure.
Right from the start, his opponent had planted a huge monster whose attack exceeded nearly all of his own, backed up by a Field Spell on top of that.
"No." Only Yusei remained calmly analytical. He frowned slightly. "A card that can so easily reach that level of attack usually comes with a corresponding drawback or cost. That monster most likely has a negative effect."
"Exactly." Dio nodded, confirming Yusei's guess. "Scrap Kong's effect is: when this card is Normal Summoned, destroy it."
The moment the words left his mouth, the mighty-looking Scrap Kong, which had only just been standing there so imposing, let out a strained metallic groan. Then its crudely cobbled-together body collapsed with a crash.
Its saws, barrel, tire, and assorted metal components scattered across the ground.
"So in order to use that card properly, you'd have to Set it in face-down Defense Position first, wait a turn, and then Flip Summon it next turn?" Jack immediately grasped the point. "No wonder a card like that got thrown away!"
If you Set it first, then even with the Field Spell it only had 1200 DEF—hardly a stable line in Satellite, and easy enough to break through.
And if you Normal Summoned it in Attack Position, it would just blow itself up.
Compared to using such an unstable high-ATK monster, you were usually better off with a more reliable card whose attack was slightly lower.
"Correct." Dio nodded.
"Then why did you summon it in Attack Position and make it self-destruct?" Jack asked, puzzled. He did not believe the other man would make such a basic mistake.
"Because of Scrap Factory's other effect!"
Dio raised his voice.
"If a face-up 'Scrap' monster on the field is destroyed by a card effect and sent to my Graveyard, I can activate this effect: Special Summon 1 'Scrap' monster from my Deck!"
"What?!" Jack's expression changed.
Within the hologram, the enormous Scrap Factory extended flexible mechanical arms, swiftly gathering up the remains left behind by Scrap Kong's collapse and feeding them into a massive smelting furnace.
The furnace blazed. The assembly line roared to life. Moments later, at the end of the production line, the machine arms hoisted up a new figure—larger and even more imposing than before—and set it onto Dio's field.
"With that effect, I Special Summon Scrap Golem from my Deck!"
A hulking rock-like junk monster descended onto Dio's field with a heavy crash. Its main body resembled a giant rusted refrigerator. Its arms were thick steel pillars, and attached to its right hand was an enormous industrial fan.
Scrap Golem / Rock / EARTH / Level 5 / ATK 2300 → 2500 / DEF 1400 → 1600