Cipher 010: Power Failure

Azars LP: 5150 D-Creepers LP: 7750

"You think you are clever? You hope you can escape me that way?" Fearing the influence of the enemy, Azar had discarded his technology altogether. Despite that the duel could continue, as the Numbers seemingly powered the grid on their own. "What the heck is going on?" At the same time the crowd outside, those that did not attempt to find their way out of the mall, had trouble following the duel. They could not hear anything or see anything from where they stood. "So we moved past the hypothetical stage, didn't we?" Azar could shuffle his deck thanks to Armageddon Knight(4/1400/1200), while making sure he kept all his cards out of the camera's line of sight. "I still know the exact contents of your deck. And what cards you have set. You do not have any Number that can overpower 34's defense." Terrorbyte(3/0/2900) lacked offense, but made up for it in defense. "The same can not be said for your other machines." Azar sent Evilswarm Mandragora(4/1550/1450) out to kill CarrierRoid(4/1000/800).

D-Creepers: 7200

"Machina Armored Unit." Since a water-type machine had died, D-Creepers continuous spell could summon a weaker one from his deck, the torpedo-carrying Submarineroid(4/800/1800). "Attack it,, Steelswarm Sting!" But Azar still had his bee demon(4/1850/0), which skewered the submarine easily. "I also know Machina Armored Unit can only be used once a turn." He proceeded to main phase 2. "I XYZ-summon!" He placed his Armageddon Knight on top of Mandragora. "In defense position, Evilswarm Nightmare." And on top of them appeared a redcaped devilish knight(4/950/1950), a corrupted version of an XX-Saber card. "You did not think I would forget about Future Fusion, did you?" He ended his turn, meaning two total rounds had gone by since Future Fusion had been activated. Soon the fusion monster would be summoned. "You sent five roids to your grave, which are the fusion materials for Barbaroid!" What appeared was a mobile weapons platform, painted in red and armed on multiple stages. It was the Roids Ultimate Battle Machine(12/4000/4000). "Nightmare's effect activates now! When a monster is special summoned, It detaches a material to switch it to face-down defense position!" He tried to detach Armageddon Knight

But then the enemy played a quickplay spell from its 'hand'. "I hate to repeat myself, Hunter. Actually that is a lie. When people under-estimate me, I will gladly prove them wrong!" He activated Space Cyclone. "This spell detaches any xyz material." A twister showed up to suck the attached Knight before it could be used as a cost. "You know my extra deck as well them" Even though Nightmare was a brand new card, D-Creeper had prepared for it. "Yes. Now. Barbaroid can not attack directly. That is in your favor. However." The battle machine aimed all its cannons at Steelswarm Sting. "It negates all its victims effects." Steelswarm Sting had an effect that allowed it to destroy any Fusion monster it did battle with. Barbaroid would block that ability too. "Fire." The cannons unleashed their energy. "Necro Gardna!" Azar banished a dark warrior from his cemetery, allowing the Gardna to stop one attack. Deflecting it to the ceiling. "Necro Gardna. You discarded that to your grave with Armageddon Knight. Too bad for you." The Ultimate Machine restocked all its barrels. "Barbaroid can attack twice every turn." And its second assault completely annihilated the insect demon.

Azars LP: 3000

"And whenever it destroys a monster, the opponent takes 1000 damage!" Another cannon charged a shot, straight at Azar this time. "Ungh." He had to grip the console tightly to not get knocked off his platform. "Alright, I do not know what is going on, but I have had enough." One guard said as he drew his gun out. "This glass sure as hell aint bulletproof. Everyone stand back!" He was about to fire. "What did I say about interference?" Only for the man to receive an electric shock straight from Terrorbyte itself. "Oh my god!" Sending the crowd panicking and fleeing as the guard went into a seizure. "Leave them alone." Azar shouted. "Your duel is with me. Just let them go!" Terrorbyte turned back to face the masked duelist. "Do not give me this noble nonsense. You do not care about these people. You only care about getting as many Numbers as you can get your hands on." D-Creeper placed a monster down on his field, and a trap card. "To keep them away from people like you! Especially from you!"

Azars LP: 2000

"If that is true, why have you not destroyed the ones you collected so far? It is the power isn't it? Or perhaps you are doing it for the money?" It replied. "Neither of those. The simple truth is that the more I have, the better I can duel against others who own Numbers. You do not get me at all." Azar normal summoned the card; a pale pyromaniac which looked like a corrupted Laval Cannon card(4/1650/1250). "Though right now, the swarm alone will do." The enemy's sudden silence told Azar that he did not expect this. "Evilswarm O'lanten; by sacrificing itself it can destroy one monster on the field!" The fiery darkling exploded outwards and tried to take the great Barbaroid down with it. "Remote Revenge." It tried to respond with a trap. "I redirect the destructive effect towards your XYZ Monster." The blast cloud spread towards Evilswarm Nightmare. "Afraid not! I counter with Dark Illusion!" But Azar used his trap to negate the Remote, it protected his dark-type monster and forced the Battle Machine to be targeted by Lantern after all, toppling it in a sea of flames. "You had that trap set. I did not expect it would ever be useful to you." D-Creeper had lost his one ace. "I end my turn."

Terrorbyte was still present, but it could only take control of level 4 and lower monsters, Evilswarm Nightmare had no level, just a Rank. "I normal summon Steamroid." It could still be killed through normal means of course. "Attack." The kidfriendly locomotive(4/1800/1800) rushed towards the demonic warrior. "Steamroid gains 500 attackpoints only when it attacks." The machine(2300/1800) ran straight over it. "But your monster loses 500 attackpoints when it is attacked."Steamroid had a downside too. "That it does." D-Creeper ended its turn. "You can not fool me, D-Creeper. You want me to kill that monster." Azar drew again and summoned Steelswarm Gatekeeper(4/1500/1900). "You knew I had this monster in my hand since my first turn. If it attacks now, Steamroid will lose the battle. I will not fall for it!" He then placed three cards down as spells or traps. "Well why not, hunter? Because you know I would shuffle my deck again after using Machina Armored Units effect? Putting a card on top of my deck that would defeat you in one hit? I enjoy that you think so highly of me. But I am not you. But what makes you think I haven't done so already?"

Azar shook his head. "You would not go that far, what would your Number think? Shuffling your deck when it is not required is not valid, no matter how you do it. You can not break the rules of the game itself. There are limits." The way he saw it, Numbers would only allow loopholes in a direct duel. Like with Janus, who stated he was not allowed to just look through Subito's own eyes when he dueled him. "Who cares what my Number thinks? It is just an instrument. Another mind that is not my own. The only one I listen to, is myself!" Terrorbyte detached another material, and targeted Steelswarm Gatekeeper. "Before you do that!" Azar flipped one of his three set cards. It was the card he had drawn just last turn, the one trap his opponent could not have predicted. "Trap card: Last Step of Infestation! I return a level 4 swarm monster to my hand and destroy an opponents monster!" The Gatekeeper left the field, leaving behind a corrosive wave in its absence, that melted Steamroid down. "You should have used it on Terrorbyte , hunter."

Instead it summoned a new Roid, a Shuttleroid(4/1000/1200). "And take two direct attacks, instead of one?" Azar was not short-sighted enough to get rid of Number 34 first. "Attack." The space shuttle flew across the arena and surged past Azar. "Enough. This game shall end soon." The digital opponent signalled the end phase. "Shuttleroid banishes itself when it is attacked, and will return to the field one turn later. At which points it will inflict 1000 points of damage. I have got you." Azar could attack neither monster, even if he wanted too. "So let me hear it. Tell me I have won. " All Azar had were two cards D-Creeper already knew about, and the Gatekeeper which was back in his hand. And considerably less LP than his adversary. "Not yet. D-Creeper." But he still had the cards in his deck. "Not even the best of machines can predict how a duel will end!" Azar drew the card, and activated it.

Azars LP: 1000

"Spell Card: Allure of Darkness! I draw two cards, and banish one dark monster from my hand!" Azar took two cards out and then banished Steelswarm Gatekeeper. "You know what this means!" With this move, Azar could make use of his other set cards. "I activate Escape from the Dark Dimension!" First came a trap. "To special summon a dark-type monster from the banished zone!" He freed Steelswarm Gatekeeper and summoned it in defense mode.. "And then I chain with Inferno Reckless Summon!" Next came his quickplay spell. "As a monster with 1500 attackpoints was special summoned, I can summon two more with the same name from anywhere!" Two more Steelswarm Gatekeepers(4/1500/1900) appeared in defense mode. "Three of the same level." Even though the D-Creeper was also allowed to summon copies of one monster it controlled, it did not have any extra Shuttleroids or Terrorbytes in its deck. "It is time to put an end to your Terror. In every sense of the word!" Azar was about to place his three cards on top of each other.

"?" Only to find out he could not. "What?" His extra deck was missing what he needed. "What is going on? Where is it?" His Numbers, his Evilswarms, they were all wiped clean, blank slates. "No. It is happening again." It was like before, when he dueled Shin. His D-Pad, and even he... the two could not read the cards. Only the swarm cards he had played so far were still there. But even their images looked faint now. "Experiencing difficulties, hunter?" D-Creeper was waiting. Could the hacker have done something? Affected his deck somehow? It did not sound like he/she knew what was going on. "..I set a card, and end my turn." All he could do was hope that his Gatekeepers could defend him. along with his trap card.. "I do not get you, hunter. At all. This is how you turn the tide, how you fight me? You have not even summoned a Number once." Terrorbyte could only control one monster at a time, and Gatekeepers defense was greater than its own or Shuttleroids offense. Nevertheless, the final material was detached from Number 34, and one of the Gatekeepers was controlled.

"Tribute summon." And that Gatekeeper was sacrificed along with Shuttleroid. "Armoroid." This formed a new roid, a human shaped mech(8/2700/2000) wearing the shuttle's parts as armor. "I do not know what your face-down card is. But now I can just remove it. When I tribute a Roid to bring Armoroid out, it banishes all spells and traps on the field." The armored one unleashed various missiles that devastated Azars backrow. "Ah!" The trap he had set was nowhere to be seen. All he had left was the card in his hand, and his two defending monsters. "You were so wrong hunter. In the end I still got my hands on the finishing spell, though random chance. I activate the Spell card: Power Bond" Azar gasped as the enemy played a machine fusing spell. "I forgot to keep track of his hand." Every turn, D-Creeper had to have drawn new roids, to fuse along with the ones he gained from Expressroid. Four roids in his hands were combined with Armoroid on the field, to fusion summon a second Barbaroid(12/4000/4000). "You were too easy, why was I ever worried? This is how it will end." If Gatekeeper were to be destroyed, Azar would take 1000 points of damage. It would be all over.. "Your Numbers will be mine. Once.."

The lights flickered. "Once...Once, once." And so apparently did the terminal itself. "That was.. not supposed to happen. You are the hunter. You are right there. Nobody else should be able to find.. What did you do? Who did you send after me?" Now the D-Creeper was experiencing difficulties? "Alone? I do not work with anyone, or for anyone! What are you talking about?" Azar was almost too afraid to say anything at all, he was pushing his luck as it was. "Alone? Alone? No. No. No. I have the wrong one." And then just like that, the terminal was turned off, and his opponent disconnected.

All the lights in the mall turned off, but all doors and unlocked, while all shutters rolled up. "Did he win?" The people staring outside the arcade saw the duel come to a close and the unknown duelist descend his platform. "He must have, we have control again." To everyone's delight, they could leave the building. "Then he saved us?" One kid claimed excitedly. Others were less satisfied and had many questions. Azar had many himself, he was not in the best position to answer any of theirs. Time was not on his side though. A security guard had managed to open the doors to the arcade. "Hey you!?" With the way he was waving and shouting, Azar did not feel he would be receptive to his stories. And he wanted to avoid having to unmask or to engage the authorities. "Wait, stop!" Before the man could get out his stungun, Azar had knocked over one other game stand, smashing it into the window outside, shattering it. "Hold!" And the helmeted man had escaped through the broken window. "Damn." As Azar ended up outside, he heard sirens coming from multiple directions. "From bad to worse. Agh. Azar, you fool. Everything went wrong." He should have planned things more, gone over every detail. He was only saved today because of outside forces. Forces he did not even know..

At the same time, in a house not actually too far from here. "There, the backup generator!" A short curly-haired man frantically rummaged through his equipment and hardware, searching for a solution to the power outage his place was currently suffering from. "I was this close to winning, now this? This never happens to me! It could not have been the cops. They were supposed to be distracted for four more hours." This was the D-Creepers workstation, and could usually do his thing easily from this place. Yet his systems had overloaded, and he had to restart everything. He was forcefully ejected from the terminal network in the mean time. "Either way. This location is not secure anymore." Instead of continuing the duel, he chose to run for now with his data for now. But before he could open the doors to the garage he was in, they were opened from the outside. "Well you love the sound of your own voice, dont you D-Creeper?" As the outside light creeped in, a shadow was cast over the Creepers face. "Or should I say, Jet Cooper? I know you tried to lure me out, but I figured it would be better to meet you in the flesh." Before the hacker stood a tall rugged young man in a white coat. "You gave yourself away. The hunt is over, kiddo."

(To be Continued in Cipher 011: Shock and Awe)

New Cards used by Azar Helder
Evilswarm Nightmare
Evilswarm O'Lantern
Necro Gardna
Steelswarm Gatekeeper

-
Allure of Darkness

-
Dark Illusion
Escape from the Dark Dimension

New Cards used by D-Creeper
Submarineroid
Barbaroid, the Ultimate Battle Machine
Steamroid
Shuttleroid
Armoroid

-
Space Cyclone
Power Bond

-
Remote Revenge