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It appeared the commotion had indeed attracted attention, though thankfully most of it was in the form of people she’d already seen, with both Fen and the fish person bounding up from behind, the latter significantly more energetic than the former to the point that he very nearly knocked Melissa off her feet as he skittered up, his “heads up!” coming just moments too late for her to react in any way other than just accepting the inevitable. Fen, for her part, immediately ran up afterwards. “Are you guys okay?” she said. Physically she was as fine as she could be after having been run into by a fish person. The Spike Brothers, for all their bluster, hadn’t made things worse on that front. Actually, even mentally she was mostly okay, which surprised her. Her fearful adrenaline had been put towards something useful -- moving forwards towards wherever they had been called -- and some of what was left felt like it had dissipated along with the ophan, like one had caused the other. Or maybe it was that there was no longer a tangible threat; there was that too. But at the same time, that lingering “not knowing where she was” feeling was still a stressor, especially when there were three other people apparently following her. That the Spike Brothers could come back, that was a stressor also. And the existence of a demon somewhere in the city. And… So the answer was no, not really, not that she could say that out loud. Melissa opted for “I’m alright,” instead, and tried to push the focus of the conversation somewhere else. She turned to the fish person and knelt down to help him back to his feet. “Sorry, I should have been paying more attention.” “No, that was all me,” he said. “Fins weren’t really made for sidewalks. Just glad we were able to catch up after you two disappeared.” “Well, we got into a bit of a spikey situation,” Melissa said, “Um, but there’s safety in numbers, right? Do you know if anyone else is coming too?” It was Fen who answered that one, looking back in the direction they came from and saying, “Ah well, um, I don't think so? They seemed pretty wrapped up in… well, they didn't seem wrapped up anymore because of the other new guy who told us to move but. Ah, well, I think we're all that’s going. For now. Hopefully.” Melissa bit her lip. “Well, I’m sure they’ll catch up. I don’t really want to wait around here any longer.” The addition of a “new guy” was weird to Melissa. Obviously, if someone had put the pull feeling in everyone it stood to reason that they had the capacity to watch them too, but that didn’t mean knowing she was probably still being watched wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. Hopefully, there was an answer for that too.How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, -Psalm 13:2-3 (NIV)Oh. Oh. When Melissa had gone looking for answers, she had kind of been hoping that the answers would still match up with some version of the worldview she already had. Like, yeah, the fish and the shifter were anomalous to any of that, but that was what revisions were for, and the fact that they existed -- that they were physical things that she had touched -- meant that they weren’t about to be ignored. But on other matters, on things like, say, location, she had been hoping that she’d just been launched outside Ambrosia somehow. Sure, that would have meant a whole dome-wide coverup as to the state of the exterior world, but that was easier to swallow than this. Others were taking it a bit easier. One of the wizards, seemingly not bothered at all, introduced himself as Trevor and immediately started pressing on the exact nature of the monsters they were supposed to be fighting. Admittedly, Melissa didn’t quite follow everything that was said in that exchange, but the mention again of fighting back the darkness did lead her to focus back on one specific word that was mentioned. “Warriors,” Mauvache said she wanted. That only prompted the immediate follow-up question. “Okay, but if you were searching for warriors, why me? Why am I here?” But Mauvache just smiled and said, “I found exactly what I was searching for, do not worry about that, young Melissa.” Which didn’t even answer anything, but the tone had just enough authority to cause Melissa to reflexively shrink back. What did that even mean, anyway? There wasn’t some intrinsic quality to her that nobody else possessed. And if it was a collection of qualities, like Mauvache was looking (for some reason) for the intersection of shy, God-fearing, and high-school-aged, that was not just her, especially not in all possible universes. The only part of her that stood out had happened in the last week (or last week for her, maybe time worked differently here), which, one: that was still just Duel Monsters and solved by doing Duel Monsters things, two: despite everyone claiming otherwise, it was not just her, and three: even ignoring those, from what she understood after the fact, the problem could have been solved by anyone with a computer science degree. Perhaps she knew all that she was getting when she did the summoning, the voice(s) chimed in. And, okay, but the angels thing was an accident, right? It felt like it had so many factors that all had to work out just right. She had to have one of six special Duel Monsters cards on her person, she had to linger in that formless void for long enough for the voices to realize what was going on and formulate a plan, the plan had to actually work, something the voices hadn’t seemed so sure of at the time… Or maybe that was the point and it wasn’t an accident. After all, if she found a pocket watch lying on the ground, intricate and unique in design, with so many moving parts that she dared not describe what any individual gear did, wouldn’t she assume there was a watchmaker responsible? That the gears didn’t just fall into place by chance? But that would mean… “What the fuck did you do to me?”

Time Lizard | LIGHT | Reptile/Effect ATK 500 | DEF 400 You can tribute 1 Reptile monster you control: Toss a coin and call it. If you call it right, Special Summon 1 Reptile or Dinosaur monster from your hand or GY. If you call it wrong, take damage equal to the ATK of the tributed monster. A quickie I drew up because of a pun. Juggled a few different effect ideas so I hope the one I went with wouldn't be overpowered, but I'm always open to suggestions.

I'm impressed that, with how Mean Girls seems to have such staying power with millennials, "fetch" never caught on, even ironically. I guess that's because "stop trying to make 'fetch' happen, it's not going to happen" kind of overtook it, and by the time we got to gen-z we got things like "gucci", but yeah, I'd try to make fetch happen. "No homo" can go jump off a sea cliff. You're allowed to be aesthetically attracted to people without being romantically or sexually attracted to them. You don't see me saying "No allo" every time I compliment somebody.

If only the air were water, Aduain might have been able to avoid running into Melissa. But as the air was very much not water the fish had nearly knocked her over before stumbling and getting back to his feet. The others who had left the park with the fish showed up to make sure everything was fine and the two exchanged some words. Thankfully, no one was hurt so it wasn't that long before the now even bigger group of near strangers were on their way toward the mental pull together. The group made it to Mauvache's Arena, as the building called itself, without further incident but all the while the fish was making excited observations of the fairly obvious to the others. Even the slightest things seemed enough to impress him which caught more than a few curious glances from passerby. Inside the building was no different as the bunny-eared man came into view. It was just such a unique sight that the hunter couldn't help but get worked up thinking about how something like that had happened. They didn't look glued on anyway so that left weird nen applications to explain it. There wasn't much time to bug the man about it before the group was swept away to a room covered in screens. Aduain rolled from one thrill to the next with little issue or reservation. Everything about being in Prana was so stimulating there was no point to compartmentalizing things. Just taking what he could get and moving on was going to be the order of business. More than the strange figure that appeared on the screen, Aduain seemed riveted at the appearance of the large screen she spoke from high up in the room above them. The hunter had seen screens on tvs and computers but never anything quite this slim or seemingly disconnected from discernible power sources or inputs. He wanted to touch it to make sure but a quick hop confirmed it was farther away than he thought. This led to progressively higher hops to get a feel for how much he'd have to put into it to reach. The words Mauvache spoke were not particularly processing in the fish's mind but he got the request at least. She wanted help protecting her people. He already did a lot of that as a hunter so it seemed like an easy yes from him. Trevor and Melissa spoke in turn as Aduain's leaps got closer and closer to touching the screen above. "My, my, well, I brought you here." Mauvache said to Melissa with a clearly confused tone. "But I already said that so I'm sorry but I'm not sure what you mean." She continued but before Melissa could voice any response her attention was distracted by Aduain finally putting his all into a jump and tapping the bottom of the screen before falling less than gracefully back to the floor. "Can I help you?" she asked him, clearly amused from his antics. The hunter had managed to avoid falling down for the dozenth time so far in Prana so he was thankfully feeling ready to speak to his curious host. "I dunno about other worlds or universes but the job sounds like what I was doing as a Hunter so I'll just keep doing what I do here, no problem!" Aduain started enthusiastically. Though there were some loose ends to work out of course. "But you can send us back when it's all over right? I was on the verge of an ocean shaking discovery." the hunter commented, the thought of what he was finding in the sea floor ruins returning to his mind. It felt like so much had happened already but it really had not been long since he had arrived here. Mauvache gave a chuckle. "Yes I suppose this is old hat for you. Well...I should be able to, yes." She responded. Aduain seemed content knowing he could eventually get back to his dive in his world when a sudden realization flashed across his face. "Oh! You guys have more water than that fountain right? I'll be fish jerky in a week if there's not a pool or something." the hunter asked, clearly concerned. The concern was multi-layered. For one, if that was all the water they had, he'd feel bad about having swam in it. But also he'd go crazy if that was all he had to work with, never mind the drying out. "Well, yes, there are plenty of pools. Some large enough to be considered a beach, even!" the woman in the screen replied. Aduain placed his hands on his hips, just below his gills, and put on a confident posture and tone of voice. "Well, I'll have to be the judge of that!" the fish declared. He was content to end the conversation with her there to allow the others to speak but this time Mauvache spoke first to him. "Ah, there's something I'd like to bring up, as well. You see while I do not mind it, some people may be uncomfortable with how, ah, out in the open you are." she said as a doorway slid open off to the side. A ball-shaped robot with a pair of pincer arms holding a tray came out towards Aduain with what eventually became clear were a tie and pair of shorts. Aduain was putting together what she had been referring to, his utter lack of clothing given he'd been diving, though not entirely. The robot held his attention the longest, it was such a curious thing. But the boy eventually settled the tie loosely about his neck before putting the shorts onto his head, sliding a few of the tentacle protrusions on his head through one of the legs to keep it in place as his new hat. That had to be what she was on about right, after all she had a hat on. Maybe hats were just common courtesy here. That could be fun. "Cool stuff, thanks!" he spoke as he degraded into incessant giggling as he hopped to the edge of the room. The fish started doing his best to try and see something of his reflection in one of the various screens in the room. He'd get a solid look later in a mirror or pool or something but for now he needed to know just a little bit how cool he looked.

So... Most people won't know this about me, but generally when I play this sacred card game we all love so much, I have a tendency to place my cards in the center of my field first. My brother on the other hand, tended to place his cards on the right side of his field. This always bugged me as a kid, becuz I couldnt figure out which way was correct.. or if neither were. To remedy this, I had thought up the idea of an archetype that forces the player to think strategically about where exactly they play their cards, as it could seriously impact the duel - for better, or for worse. Problem was, I never knew how to word the effects, since cards like "Which Starling" and all of the "Mekk-Knight" cards hadnt even been a twinkle in anyone's eyes yet. But now, my friends.. Now, after many years of having this concept and a rather poorly thought out and rushed attempt about a year ago, I can proudly say that I'm not only giving this dream concept of mine another shot, but that I've decided to go ahead and revamp my old attempt, by making changes to the old designs and attempting to make them quite a bit more thought out. Here's the basic idea, at it's simplest: WATER Psychic Ritual Archetype, based on humanoid slime creatures, that focuses heavily on the strategic and careful placement of its own cards in order to properly utilize the versatility of its abilities. The lower Level "fodder" monsters have a certain effect they can earn depending on which of these three MMZs theyre in: Center, Leftmost, and Rightmost. They also have a bit of a floating effect on destruction involving an opponent's card, becuz I was having major issues with being forced to end my turn cuz I got negated merely once. Plus, theyre slimes. They aint particularly easy to kill. The Bigger, Bossier, Ritual monsters of the archetype focus on disruptive effects on summon with column play, they give buffs or get abilities when there is an archetypal monster in an adjacent MMZ to them, and some gain an additional effect if there is a Spell/Trap card in the adjacent space below them. Now that the basic summary is out of the way, without further ado, the "Protean" archetype: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Main Deck Monsters Cerulean Protean WATER - Level 3 - Psychic/Effect - 800/1300 This card gains 1 of the following effects, depending on which Main Monster Zone it's in: ● Rightmost: Increase this card's Level by 1. ● Leftmost: Once per turn; you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your GY. ● Center: Once per turn, you can shuffle 1 "Protean" card from your GY into your Deck, then draw 1 card. If this card is destroyed by battle or an opponent's card effect: you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your hand or GY, except "Cerulean Protean". You can only use this effect of "Cerulean Protean" once per turn. Lavender Protean WATER - Level 3 - Psychic/Effect - 1000/1000 This card gains 1 of the following effects, depending on which Main Monster Zone it's in: ● Rightmost: Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your hand. ● Leftmost: Once per turn, when a Ritual Spell is activated; you can draw 1 card. ● Center: Psychic monsters you control cannot be targeted by your opponent's card effects. If this card is destroyed by battle or an opponent's card effect: you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your hand or GY, except "Lavender Protean". You can only use this effect of "Lavender Protean" once per turn. Seafoam Protean WATER - Level 4 - Psychic/Effect - 1300/1200 This card gains 1 of the following effects, depending on which Main Monster Zone it's in: ● Rightmost: All Ritual Monsters you control gain 500 ATK. ● Leftmost: You can reveal 1 "Protean" Ritual Monster in your hand; Special Summon 1 "Protean" monster from your Deck whose Level is equal to the difference between this card's and the revealed card's Level. You can only use this effect of "Seafoam Protean" once per turn. ● Center: Once per turn, you can banish 1 "Protean" monster from your GY; this card's Level becomes the banished monster's Level. If this card is destroyed by battle or an opponent's card effect: you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your hand or GY, except "Seafoam Protean". You can only use this effect of "Seafoam Protean" once per turn. Vermillion Protean WATER - Level 4 - Psychic/Effect - 1400/1100 This card gains 1 of the following effects, depending on which Main Monster Zone it's in: ● Rightmost: If you activate a Ritual Spell, or if a Ritual monster's effect is activated; your opponent cannot activate cards or effects in response. ● Leftmost: Once per turn; you can send 1 "Protean" monster from your Deck to the GY. ● Center: During your Main Phase; you can add 1 "Protean" Spell/Trap card from your Deck to your hand. You can only use this effect of "Protean Lavender" once per turn. If this card is destroyed by battle or an opponent's card effect: you can Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower "Protean" monster from your hand or GY, except "Vermillion Protean". You can only use this effect of "Vermillion Protean" once per turn. Magenta Protean WATER - Level 6 - Psychic/Ritual/Effect - 1000/2000 You can Ritual Summon this card with any "Protean" Ritual Spell. If this card is Ritual Summoned: destroy all cards your opponent controls that share a column with this card. If a monster in a Main Monster Zone adjacent to this card would be Tributed for the Ritual Summon of a "Protean" monster: you can treat that monster as all the necessary Tributes for the Ritual Summon. Scarlet Protean WATER - Level 7 - Psychic/Ritual/Effect - 2500/2400 You can Ritual Summon this card with any "Protean" Ritual Spell. When this card is Ritual Summoned, return all cards your opponent controls that share a column with this card to their hand. Once per turn: you can target 1 monster your opponent controls; Psychic monsters in Monster Zones adjacent to this card gain half the targeted monster's ATK until the End Phase. If you control a Spell/Trap card in your Spell/Trap Zone adjacent to this card: this card can attack twice per Battle Phase. Silver Protean WATER - Level 8 - Psychic/Ritual/Effect - 3000/2300 This card can be Ritual Summoned with any "Protean" Ritual Spell. If this card is Ritual Summoned: You can banish all cards your opponent controls in this cards column. Monsters in Main Monster Zones adjacent to this card cannot be destroyed by battle or your opponent's card effects. If you control a Spell/Trap card in your Spell/Trap Zone adjacent to this card: once per turn, you can destroy all Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls with original ATK less than or equal to this card's current ATK. Spells and Traps Protean Arcane Torrent Continuous Spell If this card is activated: You can add 1 "Protean" monster from your Deck to your hand. Once per turn: You can activate 1 of the following effects: ● Move 1 "Protean" monster you control to another of your Main Monster Zones. ● Switch the locations of 2 "Protean" monsters in your Main Monster Zones. You can only activate 1 "Protean Arcane Torrent" per turn. Riverbed of the Proteans Field Spell When this card is activated: you can add 1 "Protean" card from your Deck or GY to your hand. You can only use this effect of "Riverbed of the Proteans" once per turn. Psychic Ritual Monsters you control gain 500 ATK and DEF, and cannot be targeted or destroyed by your opponent's card effects. Protean Metamorphosis Ritual Spell This card can be used to Ritual Summon any "Protean" Ritual monster from your hand or GY. You must also Tribute monsters from your hand and/or field whose total Levels equal or exceed the Level of the Ritual monster you Ritual Summon. If this card is in your GY: you can Tribute 1 "Protean" monster you control; add this card to your hand. Protean Emergency Morph Continuous Trap When your opponent declares an attack, or when your opponent targets a monster(s) with a card effect: you can reveal 1 Ritual monster in your hand; Tribute from your hand and/or field monsters whose total Levels equal or exceed the revealed monster's, then Special Summon the revealed monster (This Special Summon is always treated as a Ritual Summon). Once per turn, you can banish this card from your GY; "Protean" monsters you control cannot be destroyed by battle this turn. You can only use each effect of "Protean Emergency Morph" once per turn. Extra Deck Monsters Rainbow Protean WATER - Rating 2 - Psychic/Link/Effect - 1300/2 Link Markers: South, Southeast 2 "Protean" monsters If this card is Link Summoned: you can add 1 "Protean" Ritual Monster from your Deck to your hand, then immediately after this effect resolves, you can Ritual Summon it to a Zone this card points to, by Tributing monsters from your hand and/or field whose total Levels equal or exceed the Level of the Ritual Monster. Ritual Monsters this card points to gain 500 ATK and DEF. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whew! That was a lot.. Please feel free to critique these and give inputs on what needs nerfed, what needs boosted, etc. But as of the current moment, I feel pretty good about the way this turned out!~ P.S. I dont have a clue how to utilize spoilers in this format, so sorry for the wall of text..