Cipher (1)01: Dawn of the CXyz
A young redhaired youth sat at his desk in the classroom, absentmindedly staring out the window, unable to focus on the words of his teacher. Shin Artega did not always have difficulty with the daily routines of life. For as much as trouble as he had with school, he always could turn to a friend. That had changed. Yes he had gained many new friends the last half year, in and out of school. But he had also lost one, and the empty seat in the classroom right before him, was a constant reminder of that fact. It had been four months since Azar Helder left, and life moved on at a snail's pace since then. He heard nothing about him, even though a warrant for his arrest had been made. Officers had come up to Shin to question him about Azar. He told them nothing but good things about his friend and they told Shin nothing in return. The enemies they had dueled against together, they did not even show themselves anymore. The decree against virtual dueling was still in effect and seemingly silenced all activity. No D-pad could be activated and none were seen on the streets. Official anti-duelist Enforcers were everywhere, the city started to resemble a police state like Neo Avalon. Most people just did not think the game was worth the effort..
But Shin knew it wasn't over. And every day he waited for something to happen, anything at all.
"You grades are going down." He still had others who knew his pain. Like Natasha, the principals daughter, who once again approached him after class. "Shin. You really need to get it together. I know the situation is ..weird. But this is important too!" Though Natasha had become Shins friend as well, she did not go easy on him. "Is it..really?" But Shin did not know if he even cared about grades. The normal world felt so insignificant now. "You are waiting for something, I know you are. But Azar can not come back. And we can not help him." Natasha had seen him like this many times before, and what she said was nothing new to Shin either. "I gotta do something, everyone else is!" Shin simply could not hold it in anymore. "Korose and the others are out there investigating the catalysts, my dad and big brother are working with the government, and who knows what Azar is doing! I can not be.. I.." He slammed his hand against his locker. He felt small, useless. "I am sure you can do something. Just ask your father, or.." Natasha was not sure what advise to give. "I already know what he will say." It was all the same to Shin.
"I am sorry Shin. They are still not convinced." Mr. Artega told his son as he saw him at his office. "You gave them Subito's Number card, told them about Kincaid and his organization, and they are still okay with things as they are now?" While his father had aided the official enquiry into the Number attacks, they were still considered less of a threat than the people that used them. "I consider myself lucky that Kincaid cleared my name, Shin." Artega's house arrest seemed like it would have lasted forever before then. And all he got out of that was the ankle monitor they had used to keep track of him. Now instead they just used monitors on suspicious duelists. "Can't you see that Kincaid is pulling the strings? He is head of the rival company that framed you in the first place, and he is a member of that evil council! I bet they have people inside the government as well!" Shin knew very well that the dueling ban was no threat to the Agency. "There is little I can do. Kincaid is untouchable, we have nothing to back our accusations up. And we do not even know who the other members of his 'council' are."
"If only I had taken a better look." Shin had been in their very conference room. Yet he failed to get a good look at the people inside at that time. "Only Azar knows what they look like.." For all of their adventures, they had nothing but dead ends. "What about Ruby, Xander and Korose? Have you heard from tham lately?" Even the former agents investigation seemed to be going nowhere. "Not as of yet.. The last thing they told me was that their trip to the space flight center did not pan out." Mr. Artega shook his head wearily. "They're all laying low." Shin let out a moan. He remembered the last time he saw Azar, after he lost to Agent N. "Ann. She has almost all of the Numbers now." Shin looked at his own Number card, one he took from Theo Jager himself. "I don't get it. What is she waiting for? What are they all waiting for? I thought the point was to get them all?"
Night came, and passed uneventfully. The next day proceeded the same old way. Or so it appeared. Shin did not even spot it at first, his mind was so dull that it took him a minute to register the note attached to his locker. "!?" His eyes snapped open. He looked around and quickly opened it where nobody could see him. What he read jolted his body back to life.
"Shin. It is me. Come meet me at the Sporting Park at the Olympic Square before the sun sets. Do not tell anyone else."
Shin did not even need to consider his options. The very next minute he was racing towards the Olympic square. "Shin, what is your hurry?" His speed did not allow him to escape undetected however. "There are no PE courses scheduled for today!" Natasha hollered after him. "This is important!" Shin briefly stopped to yell back at her. "It's Azar!" He also quickly reasoned that Azar wouldn't mind if he told Natasha about the letter. So he showed it to her. "What?" Natasha flinched and took the paper, examining it carefully. "How can you be so sure? His name isn't even on it!?" As far as she could tell; anyone could have sent this. "It has to be him! He did this before, when he was Dusk!And of course he can not use his name!" Shin had already made up his mind, and he continued towards his destination. "Wait. Shin!" Natasha pursued. The Antenon school building was only a few blocks away from the sports park, so the two made it there quickly. "There!" The fields were empty, save for one dark cloaked stranger lingering on the athletic course. "Azar!" Shin rushed towards him.
"This did..happen before." Natasha felt like she was experiencing Déjà Vu. She did not like this one bit. If that was Azar, why was he hiding his face at this stage? "!?" To make matters more suspect, the stranger spread his arms to reveal a D-pad. "Huh?" The device activated and sent walls of light around the area to close them off from the outside. "I knew it. It is a trap!" Natasha screamed. "No. That makes no sense! Azar, what is.." Shin was confused as well, but he noticed how the outside world became distorted through the barrier. "Oh? It is to hide us from others, is that it?" He justified it by assuming that Azar just did not want them to be spotted.
"Shin. Your bag!" Natasha then noticed a red glow coming from Shins backpack. "Huh? My D-pad?" Shin took it out, it had been forcibly activated and his lifepoints had been set. "You brought that with you, even now?" Natasha was only half surprised that Shin kept the device around, even during the dueling ban. "I always do! Azar would know that too! But..why do you want to duel me?" Even Shin was starting to get unnerved by his friends silence. 'Azar' had already moved to the first turn of the duel in fact. And after he drew his six cards, he summoned a Rescue Rabbit(4/300/200). Shins face was filled with joy. "Ah! The monster card I gave to Azar all those months ago! It has to be him!"
?'s LP: 8000 Shins LP: 8000
"Hmmm. No." But then a distinctly female voice came from underneath the hood. "Come out, Dunames!" The person used Rescue Rabbit's effect; banishing it to special summon a pair of same-named normal monsters from her deck. Two Dunames Dark Witches(4/1800/1050) showed up. "What? Who.. who are you! Where is Azar?" Horrified and outraged, Shin started hurling questions towards this mystery person. "Don't know. Don't care. I'm here for you!" The duelist took off her cloak to reveal a young curly redheaded girl in a bright green dress. "Crystal?" Natasha recognized her. "Her?" Shin vaguely did too. She was a member of the same school sports club that Sky belonged to, just from a younger year. "Good. You know me. Then we have less talking to do" Crystal smirked and placed her two monsters on each other, announcing an incoming xyz-summon.. "Let's get a move on! I xyz-summon Fairy Cheer Girl by overlaying 2 fairies!" The two valkyries transformed into a pompon wielding pixie(4/1900/1500) with blue wings. "I can detach one material from Fairy Cheer Girl, to draw one card!" Crystal activated the pixie's effect and added a spell to her hand.
"I do not believe this. You baited me here by pretending to be Azar? Why!?" Shin could feel his blood boiling. How did he let himself get fooled so easily? "You know why! Your Number!" Crystal placed a trap card down and then activated the continuous spell card: Heart of the Underdog. Then she ended her turn. "The Numbers.. It is always about the Numbers. Fine then! Are you an Agent? Or a member of Tomorrow?" Shin asked angrily as he drew his card. "Wrong, and wrong again. Try again." Crystal giggled. "Grrr. You think this is funny?! I will find out who you work for!" Shin normal summoned Hermit of Prophecy, an elderly mage(3/1200/700) in blue robes. "Gagaga Wind! I can special summon a Gagaga monster from my hand!" Next he brought out the dark armored Gagaga Magician(4/1500/1000). And Shin used the Magicians effect to raises his(5/1500/1000) level by 1 star. "Spell card: Spellbook Library of the Crescent! I have no spellbooks in my hand, so I can claim one one of three from my deck!" Azar selected the Spellbooks of Wisdom, Secrets and Power. "I get to choose? Okay, Power then." Crystal allowed him to keep the latter of three. "You're welcome." She gave him an affectionate smile afterwards.
"Gah!" Enraged further, he went on to overlay Hermit of Prophecy(5/1200/700), whose effect raised its level by 2 stars whenever a Spellbook was activated, and Gagaga Magician, to xyz-summon a Rank 5 monster. "Empress of Prophecy!" What he summoned was the royal magician(5/2000/1700) donning white and gold. "She can discard the top 5 cards of my deck, and destroy cards for every Spellbook among them!" Shin was about do do just that, as he detached a material from the Empress. "Normal Xyz-monsters are not gonna cut it!" However Crystal activated her set trap card. "Memory Loss! Your monsters effect is negated, and it switches to defense mode!" The Empress was forced to stand down and sit on her throne. "Rgh!" Now Shin could not attack either. "She is good. Too good." Natasha had never seen Crystal express interest in cardgames. Though even if she had, why would she be interested in the Numbers?
"It's all thanks to my new power, Natasha." Crystal said as the turn was passed back to her. "Heart of the Underdog! I can draw again during my draw phase, if I drew a normal monster!" Crystal explained as she drew one normal monster and revealed it. "Hee." And the next four cards were also normal monsters. Her deck was swamped with them, on purpose. "Finally" And she stopped when she gained a spell card. Then during her main phase, she normal summoned a Gemini Elf(4/1900/900). At the same time she detached another material from Fairy Cheer Girl, to draw yet again. "Is she going to summon a Number?" Shin wondered out loud, his rage turning to concern. "Numbers? Why would I want something like that, when I have something far better!?" Instead Crystal activated the spell card. "Rank Up Magic: Chaos Force!" Red light enveloped Fairy Cheer Girl. "Rank.. Up?" Shin gasped as he saw her put a new Xyz-card on top of her current one. "Hey!" And at the same time the last material attached to his Empress, Hermit of Prophecy, was detached and re-attached to her Xyz monster.
Rank Up Magic: Chaos Force, Normal Spell
Target 1 face-up Xyz monster you control; special summon from your extra Deck, 1 "Number C" or "CXyz" monster with the same type as that monster you control but 1 Rank higher, by using it as the Xyz material.
(This special summon is treated as an Xyz Summon. Xyz materials attached to it also become Xyz materials on the summoned monster.)
Then, if possible, detach 1 Xyz material from a monster your opponent controls and attach it to the summoned monster as an Xyz Material.
The Xyz Monster that was Xyz Summoned by this effect negates any "cannot be destroyed by battle" effect(s).
"It's all that I imagined, this power of Chaos! It upgrades my monsters rank, replaces it with its chaos form, while taking an enemy's xyz material away! She has become Chaos Xyz: Dark Fairy Cheer Girl!" The pixie's(5/2500/1900) wings turned dark and her hair silver. The overlayed original Fairy and Hermit were imprisoned in red crystals encased in golden stars. "Chaos Xyz monster? That's what Azar did! It can evolve non-Numbers as well?" This had to be chaos evolution, the same power Azar used to create and summon Number C39: Utopia Ray. "Chaos is no longer his, Shin. Chaos is for all of us who have been given the Rank-Up-Magic card!" Crystal entered the battle phase. "New form means new effect! As long as Fairy Cheer Girl is attached to Dark fairy Cheer Girl, she will cause 400 points of damage for each card in my hand, when she destroys a monster!" The Dark Cheerleader fired a burst of black energy from her hands and eradicated the Empress. "Each card!?" Thanks to all her drawing spells, Crystal now had seven cards in her hand. "Each card." So when she detached one material from her chaos xyz monster, 2800 points of damage were unleashed, along with 500 points of battle damage. "Ghaa!" It rushed over Shin like an stampede of air.
Shins LP: 4700
"And then, a direct attack!" Shin had barely recovered and he already took a direct hit from the twin elves. He was sent plummeting to the ground. "I set two cards and end my turn!"
Shins LP: 2800
"Shin!" Natasha rushed to his side. "I am okay!" But Shin got to his feet on his own. "I have been through this before. I am used to it." The force he experienced was just like a Numbers. Yet it was not a Number. It certainly was not just a hologram. He should have realized that sooner, because even Natasha could see it without a visor. "Now I know what I am dealing with.. and I know I can kill it. I got this!" But now it was his turn, and after he drew his card, he knew what combo to start. "I summon Temperance of Prophecy!" He summoned the mage(3/1000/1000) of the temperate arcana. With her effect he would be able to special summon all kinds of powerful spellcasters.
"And that's about it!" But Crystal flipped her two set cards. "Trap card: Soul Resurrection! It summons any normal monster in my cemetery!" Her first revived one of the Dunames Dark Witches. "Trap card: Tyrants Throes! I sacrifice two normal monsters, and prevent all special summons of effect monsters!" Gemini Elf and Dunames were then tributed to satisfy the trap's costs. "No special summons?" Meaning that Shin could not summon anything anymore this turn. "No!" And he did not have any cards to defend himself or Temperance with either. "No! It can not end like this!"
"It just did, Shin. I am sorry, but this is all you get to do." Crystal did not even wait for him to end his turn, she saw how things were going to end up. "Attack." Dark Fairy Cheer Girl desintegrated Temperance of Prophecy with a dose of dark energy. The combination of her effect damage and battle damage was enough to put an end to Shins lifepoints.
Shins LP: 0
"Ugh." This time the pain was different. "Shin!?" Natasha saw him reach for his chest and nearly fall over. "You are hurting him!" She shouted at Crystal, as she held him up. "Hurting him is just a side-effect. What I am doing... is this." Crystal reached out and drew in shimmering energy which appeared to float out of Shins own body. "Hrghhh!" The process was extremely agonizing, and Shin nearly lost consciousness. "His Number has been vanquished!" A card appeared in Crystals hands as a result, Number 42: Galaxy Tomahawk. "That is all I needed, Shin. You are redeemed now." The barrier around them faded away. And Crystal turned her back on them. If she said anything else Shin no longer heard her. He barely saw the world around him.. "Chaos.." He did not know why this happened, or how. He was tired.. Before he closed his eyes, he had but one thought.. "Azar.. where are you?"
...
Six days ago
There was a houseboat near the west end of canal, a house belonging to what was by all accounts a normal person. Yet there were always things that could not be helped, including the rumors that this place ended up with. They began when a family's only daughter got involved in a traffic accident, wherein she broke her arm. It took extensive surgery to mend. But it was not the accident or the injury that caused suspicion, it was the fact that her arm completely recovered, going against what anyone had predicted. And with the way the mind worked; once you saw one abnormality, you found many more. Yes she had always been weird, that was what they said. She collected dolls, she must have had a million inside that boat. Nobody normal would have a hobby like that, or dye her hair purple and what not. Who would live all by themselves like that anyway? And she was involved with that disaster at Neo Avalon, that city of the future that lost its mayor recently. She probably caused that too! One thing lead to another, and soon most people began to avoid the place altogether. It was a region of superstition, so it became a 'house' that drew few visitors; this home of the ominous 'Dark Claw'.
So a knock on her window early in the morning came as quite a surprise to Darcy Lawless. She opened the curtains, only to see someone she had not seen in a very long time. "It's you?" On the other side stood Azar Helder, a wanted man. What was he doing here? "Darcy. May I come inside?" Going by his worn out expression, wild hair and ruffled clothes, she could tell he had had a rough few weeks. "I can understand it if you refuse..."
"No. No it's no problem. I will open the door..."
(To be Continued in Cipher (1)02: Walking between Raindrops)
New Cards used by Shin Artega
Hermit of Prophecy
Empress of Prophecy
-
Gagaga Wind
Spellbook Library of the Crescent
New Cards used by Crystal Duvalle
Rescue Rabbit
Dunames the Dark Witch
Fairy Cheergal
CXyz: Dark Fairy Cheergal
Gemini Elf
-
Heart of the Underdog
Rank-Up-Magic: Chaos Force (+)
-
Memory Loss
Soul Resurrection
Tyrants Throes
(+ Rank-Up-Magic: Barians Force renamed/altered for Story purposes)
