I'd done it.
Finally pulled something decent from the gacha, and by decent I meant fucking phenomenal.
I'd summoned the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
The most iconic card in all of Yu-Gi-Oh, the legendary dragon that every duelist dreamed of pulling, and it was mine for the next hour.
The Flaxan commanders started screaming orders in their guttural language.
Even through the Temperance card's emotional dampening, I felt a spike of satisfaction watching them panic.
"Reinforcements! Bring the heavy armor! Surround the lizard! Concentrate fire!"
Within thirty seconds, the entire invasion force pivoted toward me and my dragon.
Flaxan tanks rolled into formation, energy weapons charging up, and soldiers scrambling to surround us from all sides.
The Blue-Eyes White Dragon circled overhead once, its massive wings creating downdrafts that sent loose debris scattering across the street, then roared again for dramatic effect.
"RRROOAAARRRRRGHHH!"
Then it descended to land beside me, its claws scraping grooves into the asphalt as it settled into a protective stance.
It lowered its massive head toward me, crystalline blue eyes meeting mine with intelligence.
I reached up without thinking and patted its scaled snout.
"Good dragon," I said, my voice soft despite everything happening around us. "You're such a good boy. Yes, you are. Who's a good apocalypse beast? You are."
The dragon rumbled deep in its chest, mixed with a cat-like purr, as I felt the vibration through my hand.
Somewhere, I heard Rex Splode's voice carrying over the distance, cracking with disbelief.
"What in the actual fuck just happened here?!"
I looked up at the hovering GDA agents with their jetpacks, at the Teen Team still staring at me like I'd grown a second head, at Invincible floating there with that dead civilian still cradled in his arms.
"I'm saving the day!" I offered with a shrug. "You're welcome?"
The Blue-Eyes White Dragon nudged my shoulder gently with its snout, and I absently scratched under its jaw where the scales were slightly softer.
It made that rumbling purr sound again.
"All right," I muttered, patting its neck. "Let's fuck them up."
I jumped onto the dragon's back between its shoulder blades, gripping the ridge of scales to maintain my balance while my other hand clutched Robot's battery, still absorbing the last dregs of radiation.
Blue Eyes White Dragon took flight with a powerful downstroke of its wings, and suddenly we were airborne, climbing fast.
Looking down at the Flaxan army felt like watching insects scatter.
They were so small from up here, just green dots scrambling around their tanks.
The dragon opened its maw and unleashed Burst Stream of Destruction again.
White lightning carved through the alien formation like a scalpel, vaporizing soldiers and melting tanks into slag. The energy beam swept across their lines in a devastating arc, and everywhere it touched turned to molten metal.
I tried to contribute by creating silver throwing knives with Blademaster, enhanced by my Summoner trait, launching volleys of them at the aliens who were hiding among civilians or ducking behind cover.
But my throwing skills left a lot to be desired.
The knives clattered uselessly against pavement or embedded themselves in walls instead of alien flesh.
"Fuck!" I growled, creating another batch. "Why didn't I get a throwing skill?!"
I looked around mid-flight and saw Mark still floating there in a trance, holding the old woman's body in his arms like he couldn't process what to do next.
"Hey, Invincible!" I shouted over the sound of dragon wings. "Get your head in the game! Leave her and help the living!"
But the kid was clearly too traumatized, flying closer to my level while muttering, "I... I failed her. I let her... die in my arms and I couldn't..."
"Hey!" I fired back, sharper this time. "Now's not the time to be an emo bitch! Leave the dead and go save the dozens of living humans that actually need rescue!"
Pink light flashed near Mark as Atom Eve appeared in a burst of energy.
She looked at the dragon with this weird expression, but then turned to Mark with urgent focus.
"Leave her to me," she said gently, her hands glowing pink. "I'll make sure she's properly buried and laid to rest with dignity. But I need you, Invincible. You're the strongest flier we have right now. I need you doing fly-bys to hospitals, helping Dupli-Kate with evacuation. Can you do that for me?"
Mark looked around at the chaos unfolding below.
My dragon was keeping the Flaxan army at bay, his lightning breath obliterating their formations, though they were firing back now with concentrated volleys of energy weapons. Blue Eyes White Dragon was too fast to get hit by most of them, dodging with surprising agility for something so massive.
But the dragon still couldn't pick off individual aliens mixed in with human crowds on the ground.
Mark gave the old woman's corpse to Eve carefully.
"I…yeah. Okay," he said roughly. Then dove down with renewed focus and went on his evacuation mission, carrying multiple people at once with his superior strength.
Eve looked at the old woman's body for a moment, then conjured a simple coffin around her using her matter manipulation, placing it gently on top of a nearby building away from the fighting.
She looked up at me and my dragon, her eyes narrowing when she saw Robot's battery still clutched in my hand, and scoffed before diving down to join the evacuation efforts.
'Rude,' I thought.
After ten more minutes of fighting these aliens, I was getting impatient.
The GDA agents kept flying around trying to establish contact with me, their voices crackling through speakers, which I mostly ignored, not to mention I couldn't quite hear over the wind and dragon roars, but they stayed well clear of Blue Eyes White Dragon like they were worried he might eat them.
Even another Robot drone appeared to help coordinate rescue efforts, but it stayed very far away from me.
Smart.
And then I saw it.
The scarred Flaxan commander that Invincible had injured earlier started turning grey, his skin taking on an ashen quality as he aged visibly, years passing in seconds.
He looked surprised as his body began to wither.
Like a cascading effect, the shade of grey spread across the rest of the aliens. Their movements slowed. Their formations broke down as soldiers stumbled, suddenly decades older.
They were decaying, experiencing Earth's slower timestream on their accelerated biology.
Either way, they were decaying.
Now's the time.
I mentally slotted Polymerization into my second ability slot, replacing Steam Emission.
The fusion energy surged through me immediately, and I felt the connection to my dragon solidify into something more, our energies intertwining, preparing to merge.
"Feast your eyes on my most powerful form!" I announced, committing fully to the anime protagonist bit. "In its fully evolved glory! Fusion!"
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