Heejun’s POV:

“Who the hell are you?” The girl glared at Emory with such disdain that I almost glared back. But I had to control myself. This was our plan after all. Make Emory look like a prissy Deck Master, challenge the evil girl to a duel, win, and then save Hwanhee. Honestly, I thought Jihun did a good job coming up with this. Not that I’d ever tell him that though.

Because we were in a rush, I had to quickly think of how to make Emory look unrecognizable. So instead of her brown hair and blue eyes, she had bright, red hair with deep green eyes, and slightly tanner skin. Her nose was longer, her height taller, and her clothes were more revealing and stood out more compared to the modest fashion she usually wore. Was actually quite impressed with myself for coming up with such detail is so little time.

“Er… I’m….” Emory paused to think. “N-new in town! And I was bored while looking around and saw you! W-what’d he do? Break something?”

I knew that it killed her to be talking like this, but we both knew it had to be done if we wanted to trick the girl.

“None of your business!” The girl snapped back, tugging harder on poor Hwanhee’s hair.

“Okay~ no need to get prissy at me. I was just curious.” Emory held up her hands in mock surrender. “Just looked like he kinda ruined your day, is all.”

The girl snorted. “Hell yeah he did. I send him out to make money and he comes back almost empty handed.”

“Oh! How terrible!” Emory tried not to talk through her teeth. “I know! Wanna have a friendly duel? They usually cheer me up when my Warriors don’t do what I tell them to.”

“ ‘A duel’ you say?” The girl finally looks at her with some interest. “Hmm… with what conditions?”

Oh, we so got her.

“Oh… you know. We can just duel for fun~. OR…” Emory paused for dramatic effect. “We can bet on our Warriors. You win, you get to pick one from my deck. If I win, I get to pick from yours. What do you say?”

The girl didn’t even really look like she thought things through before she grinned evilly and nodded. “Sounds like a duel.”

Typical Deck Masters and their greed.

“I’ve already picked who I want too!” She yelled out, raising her hand to point. “That one!”

Emory’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw who it landed on.

Me.

“Don’t tell her I’m your Destined Card.” I quickly whispered. We all knew that Destined Cards could never be wagered. But in order to trick the girl, I would have to pretend I was just another part of Emory’s Deck. “Agree to her terms!”

“H-him?” Emory slightly stuttered. “Alright! But I want HIM if I win!” She pointed at Hwanhee.

For a moment, the girl didn’t speak, like she was lost in thought about something.

“You know what?” She finally asked after a few seconds. “I like the look of that blond guy on the other side of you. How ‘bout we make the bet even more exciting and wager TWO Warriors?”

“T-two?” Emory was shocked, but still tried to keep her composure.

“Yeah!” The girl smiled. “If I win, I get Short-stack AND Blondie over there. And if you win…”

‘Short-stack’?! ‘SHORT-STACK’?! I am NOT short!!!

It took everything in me not to react. Especially after what happened next.

She paused to take out another Card, and kissed it. “Then you can have my ice-maker and my psychic!”

There he was, standing tall and confident.

Xiao.

It was really him.

He suddenly met my eyes and sent me a small smile. Hi hyung! Been a while.

I tried not to jump at the sound of his voice in my mind. Xiao?! Just what-?

Long story. He interrupted my thought. For now, just help your Master win against mine. I’ll tell you everything later, I promise.

I didn’t hear anything after that. Man this was more messed up than I’d thought.

“Sounds good!” Emory’s voice brought me out of my head. I watched as they walk towards each other. Emory’s legs were stiff and trembling a bit.

“Then let’s duel.” The girl grinned evilly, holding out her hand. “Name’s Jennifer, by the way.”

“E-Emma.” Emory held up her own. Then they then shook hands, indicating the start of the duel.

This was going to be interesting.

Ravi POV:

If there was anything that Ravi hated the most, it was the strong preying on the weak. That’s why he hated being a Warrior. It killed him inside whenever he witnessed a Master assaulting a Warrior and yet he could do nothing about it. He always thought that glaring and trying to be defiant would make up for his lack of action. But it just made him hate Deck Masters even more.

That is, until he met the three sisters that changed his perspective. Their kindness, innocence, and naivety made it impossible for him to keep up with his evil rebel act. Now he had something that he hated even more. Something that infuriated him to the point he’d explode, literally.

Ravi watched as Emory and the girl, Jennifer, turned from each other and walked back to their warriors. He couldn’t help but softly smile at the sight of his Master’s sister striding with such an awkward posture. Even with Heejun’s mirage trick he could still easily see the young, clumsy girl.

“Ok, now what do I do?” Emory asked with a small voice. Her eyes were large and Ravi knew she was afraid. They ALL knew she was afraid.

“Call me in.” Ravi stepped up. “I’ll win us the first round. Heej, how confident are you in your battle tactics?”

The younger Warrior blinked. “uhh… pretty confident?”

“Good.” Ravi shrugged off his jacket and handed it to Jihun. “Then you’ll take the second round. If you’re as good as you look, then we won’t need the third round. So Jihun, stay by Em’s side.”

Jihun gave the older warrior an understanding nod.

“H-how do I call you out?” Emory stuttered.

“Just yell out something like ‘Go! Blah blah blah!’ and say any random nickname you can think up. I don’t need her knowing my real name.” Ravi explained patiently while stretching out his arms. He knew she was nervous and worried. One look at her confirmed it- her brows were furrowed, her shoulders, stiff, and she was biting her lip. He knew that this was officially her first duel and he knew that she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Softly, he placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “Hey. Look at me.” The soft yet firm tone in his voice made her eyes shoot to his. “Everything is going to be fine. I’ll make this a quick win, we’ll save the boys and then go home.”

She bit her lip again. “You promise you’ll be careful though. Right?”

Ravi pretended to scoff. “What, you don’t trust my abilities?”

Her eyes got wide. “No! it’s just-“

“I know. You’re worried something might happen.” He interrupted her with a grin. “It’s fine to be worried. But in order for us to win, you have to trust us, alright? I’m your big brother aren’t I? It’s my job to make sure nothing bad happens. So nothing bad will happen. If it does, N-hyung will kill me.”

Emory finally smiled at that. “Ok. I’ll try my best.”

“Promise me.” He held out his pinky which she wrapped hers around without a second thought. Then they stamped their thumbs together.

“Are you ready yet?” Jennifer yelled over to them with a bored expression. “I want to test out my new Warriors later after I win!”

Ravi swore he heard a small growl rumble in Emory’s throat. “Yes! Let’s start now!”

“Alright! Let’s do this!” Ravi pumped himself up. Ready to fight. “Remember, you have to call me out with a different name.”

Jennifer smirked sinisterly before screaming out. “Vine wielder! Out! Now!” Then she kissed a Card. Within seconds a short, somewhat skinny boy appeared in front of her. Ravi heard Emory gasp in shock. “Heejun! Th-that’s-“

“Yeah. It is.” Heejun growled a bit, glaring at the guy. Ravi, a bit lost, asked who he was.

“He flirted with Emory.” The younger Warrior clenched his fists. If looks could kill, the ‘Vine Wielder’ guy would be incinerated by now. It took a lot in Ravi not to bust out laughing, especially after Emory looked at Heejun with a confused expression and said- “Wait, he what?”

But he quickly composed himself and urged the girl to hurry up and send him out.

“Oh, right. Ummm….. H-human torch! Go!”

Ravi started walking out to the battle field, but not before sending Emory a judging look for the lame nickname. ‘Human Torch’? really?

Jennifer smiled with so much mirth that Ravi almost shivered, creeped out. Then she raised her hand and yelled. “Battle~ START!”

Within a second, both Warriors jumped and started the fight. At first, they didn’t use their powers, just their fists. Ravi preferred fighting that way because it was the best chance to show off his true physical strength. But then his opponent suddenly had large vines growing from the ground that wrapped around Ravi’s arms and legs, immobilizing him 20 feet off the ground.

“Oh please…” Ravi rolled his eyes before summoning flames to form in his palms and around his ankles, burning the vines like they were made of paper. That’s how the fight turned from physical to powerful. Whenever a plant would shoot out from the ground, a flame would be there right away to incinerate it. It was happening so many times that Ravi was actually starting to get bored, and was thinking about how to give his opponent a good ending blow that would just knock him out when he suddenly heard Jennifer scream out. “NOW!” That’s when a flash of green caught his attention and he turned his head to see a lone vine aiming straight for Emory’s head. Panicked, he tried to turn and run towards her but more vines managed to wrap themselves around his torso while he was distracted.

Then, as fast as it came, the vine was destroyed by a very powerful beam of light which temporarily blinded everyone. Once it cleared up, Ravi was relieved to see Heejun standing in front of the girl, with a clearly enraged look on his face.

“W-what was that for?!” Emory yelled, trying to keep her composer but slightly failing.

“Did you forget?” Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Only the academies have rules about attacking fellow masters during duels. But there’s none that say we have to follow those rules outside school grounds!”

Ravi hated to admit it, but she was right. His old masters would always sneak off campus just so that they could use their Warriors to attack each other. Somehow it was supposed to make the duel more ‘fun and exciting’. He cursed himself for forgetting something so trivial. But that didn’t matter at the moment. What did matter was that Emory was scared and in shock. His mind kept going back to the image of the vine almost reaching her. How it almost impaled itself into her skull.

Slowly, he could feel heat emanated from his entire body. Rage and vengeance were the only things he could feel at the moment, and he merged those feelings together, willing his flame to get stronger and stronger. Sure enough, the vines quickly turned to dust as blue flames haloed around his entire body.

The only thing he hated more than Deck Masters, was when someone or something endangers his family.

“Oh yeah. You’re gonna pay for that.”

A/N: Hey Ya'll!!! So sorry that this is SUPER late!!! I have so much planned for this story but it's just so difficult to get it all type out. So thank you for always being patient with me and I'll always try my best to update! I promise I will NEVER abandon this story! 

So I hope you enjoy this new, yet short chapter! Also, please check out KNK's 'Sunset' music video on their official Youtube channel! The boys are currently in Europe on their Europian tour and they promised us that they'd have another comeback soon after. So please look forward to that also! 

Love ya'll! <3