Nexus 027: Do We not Laugh?
Two forces stood on opposing sides of the lake. For now the truce was holding. For now it was quiet.. "Marie. Have you heard from Eric and Emily yet? It's been ten minutes already." It was too quiet. Ever since Martha went inside the casino, not a single peep of their infiltration team was heard. "The dimension breaker was not secure, that is all I know. They were close though. Either they could not get through...""Or someone found them first." Alice felt a sudden wave of despair rush over her. "Uno. We have to help them." She pulled on his sleeve. "No. It's too dangerous Uno. She is down there." Nephilim pulled in the other direction. "Phoebe? I figured as much." Uno hadn't seen her on the battlefield this entire time. "But you're here now! You can stop her!" Alice pleaded. "No. We can stop her." Uno grabbed his pendulum. "Nephilim, Marie, Zach. I am going in with Alice." The glow boiled inside the crystal, he was about to jump when..
"Wait!" Marie shouted. "I am.. yes, I am getting word from Stonewell." She listened to her earpiece intently. "Eric? Why not Emily?"
...
"Alice." Her sister was here, Martha had seen her. That meant that Uno was here too. But Martha was not here anymore, her companions were disappearing one by one as well. Because of her, because of Phoebe. At this rate she was going to turn her wrath on the people above, on Alice and Uno. "No." Knowing that, it became impossible to focus on anything else. Emily forgot the mission, forgot the machine. "You want someone who hasn't lost a duel yet?!" She needed to take Phoebe down, here and now. "Then you can take me on for size!" So she made the choice to lock eyes with her enemy. "Emily no!" And Eric unwittingly revealed his presence too. "I know what you're going to say, Eric. And maybe you are right. If anyone should do this, it should be you." With his new powers and his old grudge, Emily saw all the reasons in the world to let that happen. Yet she could not. "But I've lost too many friends already by letting them fight for me. We can't both risk our lives. So.. let me do this." They could not walk away from this, not the both of them.
"Ha? Little Eric? Little Emily? Who invited you?" Their 'surprise' at least got Phoebe to stop carding the people around her. "Was it you? Was it Ichirou? Or was it Marie? You can tell me. I promise I wont get very mad." She did not seem too concerned. While the XYZ-duelists in the room were mostly confused. "Don't stand there. Call for help. Tell them what happened here!" Emily yelled at the men in uniforms. "Y-yes ma'am." To their credit, they realized this intruder basically saved their skins and allowed her to come closer. "And Eric. You know what you have to do." While Emily would duel Phoebe, Eric could secure the dimensional gateway. "Heheheh. Are you saying you want to play with me, on your lonesome? But there's so many people around who need my attention." Neither her nor her dragon let anyone out of their vision. "I did not come here to play, Phoebe. I came here to stop you! Maybe that line bores you and you can pretend you don't care. But I think your pet will feel otherwise!" Emily turned her dueldisk on. "Oh. That he does."
Phoebe's LP: 8000 Emily's LP: 8000
The Fusion Dragon disappeared as soon as the two duelists engaged. "Now! Fall back!" The XYZ-duelists rushed out of the area and Eric made a break for the next room. "Don't die on me, Em!" It was just the two girls now. "Heehee. I have the first turn. Does that make you sad?" Phoebe counted the cards in her hand. "Well, eheheh, I'll let you have the first punch. Isn't that kind of me?" She passed her turn without touching so much as a single card. "Kind and Phoebe are not two words to put in the same sentence." Emily already did not like this. There was no way Phoebe did not have a defense planned. Not that Emily could do anything but play along for now. "I summon Marmiting Captain!" Her first monster was the apron-wearing chef/knight(3/1200/400). Marmiting Captain shuffled one card from Emily's hand into the deck to draw another. "I draw.. Giant Rat!" Her draw did not exactly match her expectations, but it was a monster nonetheless. The Captain could special summon the rat(4/1400/1500) to the field in attack mode. "My monsters attack!"
"Heehehehe!" Phoebe activated an effect from her hand. "That one again?" It was Predaplant Sarraceniant, the same insect/plant(1/100/600) that Phoebe used against Akai. It special summoned itself in defense mode as a response to the Captain's attack. "It will destroy the monster that fights it." Back then Akai opted to leave it alive. "But no matter how it dies, you get one new Predaplant. So I might as well make sure it's dead! My attack continues!" The Captain smacked the sarracenia plant hard with a soup ladle. Sarraceniant lashed out in return with its leaf tails. Both monsters perished. "And Giant Rat attacks directly!" The Rat scurried over to Phoebe and sank its teeth into her leg. "What a filthy thing. Ladies like us shouldn't be using such creatures, ahahaha." Phoebe treated the attack as nothing more than a light breeze. "I aint no lady. And neither are you. You can wear all the fancy clothes you want, you don't fool anyone anymore."
Phoebe's LP: 6600
"Hee. You sound like someone I used to know. He always wanted me to be a lady too... Is it my turn? I think it is!" Phoebe normal summoned the two-headed pitcher-predator Moray Nepenthes(4/1600/1000). This was the card she chose to add to her hand with the effect of Sarraceniant. "I will help you, Emily. I will get rid of that ugly ugly thing! Ahahaha! Battle!" The Moray attacked the Giant Rat with its leaves and tossed it into one of its mouths. "What?" To Emily's horror, her rat did not just suffer a normal demise. It did not enter the graveyard, it was equipped to the Predaplant. "Oh my hungry little Moray likes to keep what it eats." If Giant Rat could not go the graveyard, it could not special summon a monster from Emily's deck either. "And my precious Moray can give me lifepoints based on the attackpoints of your monster." The devoured Rat had its lifeforce sucked out, which Phoebe used to restore her life back to full. "Now it's as if you never dirtied me! Hheheheh. Not that you can, you're just little Emily after all!" She ended her turn. "Tch. I don't get you. Do you just like being a crazy witch?" Emily cursed. "Aha! Now you sound like your sister! You have so many voices, Emily!"
Emily's LP: 7800 Phoebe's LP: 8000
"Alice? You leave her out of this!" Emily started her turn and took Superheavy Samurai Transporter from her hand. With no spells or traps in her hand, the mechanical hitch-hiker(5/1200/1800) could be special summoned without costs. "I heard the stories, Phoebe. I know what you want and why.. And I know what you did to my family and friends! You took my father and Eric's mother, you used them as leverage to threaten my sister! How do you even come up with a plan like that? Is that how you would treat your own family? You know what, I don't care! You just need to be put down!" She sacrificed the Transporter and normal summoned the a superheavy general in jade armor(8/1800/2800). "Superheavy Samurai General Jade only needs one Superheavy Samurai tribute to be normal summoned. And it can attack with its defense points!" The pendulum samurai switched itself to defense mode with its effect. "He attacks Moray Nepenthes!" The predaplant met its end underneath the clubbed pole of the green general and the equipped Giant Rat returned to Emily's graveyard. "I end my turn!"
Phoebe's LP: 6800
"Family is a touchy subject for you, isn't it? Heheheh. Family... Mothers and Fathers... were they the one who told me to behave? Oh it feels like such a long time ago." Phoebe moaned. "And time matters. I do enjoy playing with the cute small things, but maybe I should just crush you." Still in her standby phase, Phoebe activated a quick-play spell card from her hand. "Huh?" It was Hand Destruction. "You switch out two cards and I do too, hahahah!" Phoebe discarded two Predaplants (Cordyceps, Squid Drosera) while Emily was forced to let go of two Superheavy Samurai (Gigagloves, Soulfire Suit). Both of them would draw new cards, though the ones Emily added were not as good as the ones she lost. "And now I can do this! I banish Predaplant Cordyceps! Two level 4 or lower Predaplants are pulled back to the surface during my standby phase!" The parasitic fungus Cordyceps' effect special summoned Sarraceniant and Moray Nepenthes back to the field. "Two dark monsters. Now what could a unlady-like duelist like me do with those?"
"Something like this? I activate Double Fusion!" The Moray and the Sarracenia plants mixed together. "So you're doing it at last huh!? Then bring it!" The two dark plants formed the dragon from everyone's nightmares: Starving Venom Fusion Dragon(8/2800/2000). "My superheavies are ready!" In a way, Emily's deck was the perfect response to Starving Venom. The fusion dragon could not absorb attackpoints from normal summoned summoned monsters and its own attackpower would not break through general Jade's defense. "Everyone always says they aren't worried. They are always so satisfied with the way things are. You're the same, little Emily. Your whole deck is saying it.. you do not want to move." Phoebe said as she used the effect of Sarraceniant to add Predaplant Pteraphentes from her deck to her hand. "That is wrong. That is just selfish. Everyone is so selfish. Hahahaha!" Phoebe banished another card from her graveyard. "I activate Double Fusion again!" For a small sum of lifepoints, Starving Venom was fused with a Predaplant Flytrap in Phoebe's hand.
Phoebe's LP: 6300
Double Fusion, Normal Spell
Fusion summon 1 Fusion monster from your extra deck, using monsters from your hand or your side of the field as Fusion materials.
During your turn: you can banish this card from your Graveyard and pay 500 lifepoints, then Fusion summon 1 Fusion monster from your extra deck, using monsters from your hand or side of the field as Fusion materials.
"You're fusing them? What is.." This was not Greedy Venom Fusion Dragon. This fusion created a dragon that looked more like a predaplant than an evolution of Starving Venom. "His name is Predaplant Dragostapelia: a mix of a dark monster and a fusion monster! Each turn he can place a predacounter on an opponent's monster!" The predaplant dragon fired a hail of predacounters from the stapelia stemflowers on its wings. One grabbed General Jade by the throat and lowered his(1/1800/2800) level. "Hahahahhaha!" After that, Phoebe normal summoned her Predaplant Pteroaphentes(3/300/2100). "If you won't move, I will make you move! Little Emily! Pteraphentes will take control of your monster now that its level is lower than hers!" The flying plant with the gaping maw pulled Superheavy Samurai General Jade away from Emily. "Argh." The brainwashed machine joined Dragostapelia's side. "Aha..hahaha! Direct attack! Direct attack! Direct! Attack!" And Emily suffered damage at the hand of her own monster's club. "Raaaah!"
Emily's LP: 5000
...
"That was Emily!" Eric cried out as the sound of her screams reached his room. "Yes. But there is nothing you can do for her that wont make things worse." At this point Marie was back to communicating with him through her hologram. "Focus on the task at hand." With his dueldisk and her guidance, the two were working in gaining acess to the dimensio breaker's platform. It was right where Marie said it was, but it wouldn't do anything unless her program could override the barriers guarding it. "I dont get it. Why did Phoebe do this, why even move it? Didn't she want your guild to take over both worlds?" The way it was protected, behind personal forcefields and security blocks, it wasn't of any use to anyone besides Phoebe. "I do not know. She never told us what the final phase of her plan would be. But she seemed confident she could make world fusion a reality in less than four days." And that final day was upon them. "Wait. I am picking up some data." Marie's hologram let out a gasp. "This explains it.."
...
"Superheavy Samurai Prepared Defense's effect activates! If I take damage I can summon this monster from my hand! And make it indestructible for one turn!" A steampowered green/gold robot(3/100/2100) emerged in defense mode, and it slapped the blast of the attacking Dragostapelia away with one hand. "And your monster can only take control of mine for one turn!" Once Phoebe's turn ended, General Jade would come back to her. "It's my turn! I summon Superheavy Samurai General Coral!" Her second pendulum samurai did not need any sacrifices, as it was the lesser axe-wielder(1/300/500) in red armor. "I can draw cards by tributing a Samurai I control." Emily added two cards to her hand, while General Coral and Prepped Defense were sent to the graveyard. "...General Jade attacks your plant!" As long as the predator counter was attached to Jade, Pteraphantes was going to be a pest. The best action was to crush it with Jade's weapon. "I end my turn!"
Phoebe's LP: 4300
"So you let yourself get dirtied on purpose? As long as you can protect someone, you are happy aren't you? Heeheeeheeeee!" Phoebe drew another card from her deck and widened her smile. "I am different! Fate has seen what I am going to do, and it loves me! It wants what I want, to destroy this boring world and replace it with something new!" Her drawn card was normal summoned, and it materialized as a sundew-spotted frillneck lizard(2/600/200). "Little Emily, this predaplant can turn any monster with a predator counter into a dark monster. And it can fuse with any carrier of the counter!" Phoebe flipped her continuous trap card; Predaplanet. "Let's make something pretty out of her clunky machines, Chlamydosundew!" The plant lizard targeted General Jade and infected it with dark spores. "My monster?" Emily watched helplessly as her samurai, a level 8 dark monster, fused with a predaplant. And at the same time the Predaplanet trap added a Predaplant monster (Banksia Ogre) to Phoebe's hand. "Come back my glory! Greedy Venom Fusion Dragon!" Once more, the evolved poison dragon(10/3300/2500) terrorized the room.
"Emily!"
"No.." This could not be happening. Not now. "Alice?" But that voice she heard, could not have come from anyone else. Only she could call out her name with such attachment. "You're here! You're really here!" It was her, Alice had come for her. "Emily. Is everything alright. Is.." Uno brought her here, his teleport took them inside and afterwards they headed down with the elevator. As soon as Marie and Martha's soldiers told them about what happened down below, they knew they had to move quickly. But.. "No, Alice wait!" Uno understood Emily's own situation faster than Alice did. She only wanted to run towards her sister and embrace her. "Ah?!" Purple fire separated her from Emily. "Isn't this nice? A little family reunion! Even Uno himself has added himself to the party! How have you been? How many people have you saved since we last saw each other? A hundred? A thousand? Hahahaha! Millions! That is many I've collected while you were gone!" She pointed towards Emily. "And now you can watch again, as you lose another friend. Because she chose to believe in you! Greedy Venom, direct attack!"
"Did you forget that I have Superheavy Samurai Gigagloves in my graveyard!" Emily activated the effect of the big-gloved samurai. "I can draw one card when I receive an attack! If I draw a superheavy, your monsters attack is reduced to zero!" Fortune was on her side, she drew the monster Superheavy Samurai Soul Peacemaker. Thus the force behind Greedy Venom(0/2500)'s blast of poisonous energy dissipated and the attack harmlessly passed through Emily. "You're doing it, Emily!" Having her sister cheer her on gave Emily the kind of fighting spirit she'd thought to have lost a long time ago. Though Alice was this close to danger, Emily was glad to hear her voice again. "But I still have my other fusion, little Emily!" Red light traveled up the throat of Predaplant Dragostapelia, and tore a way through its jaws to get to Emily. "Argh!" She did not move out of the way. She took the force of the blast with her entire body and did not budge. "I'm still standing Phoebe! Like you said, you will not get me down while I have someone to protect!"
Emily's LP: 2300
"Heh... heh. To protect the ones you love. That didn't do a great deal for Cassius." Phoebe placed another card face-down and ended her turn. "What did you say?" Emily twitched. "Was I not clear enough? When our friend Uno severed his tie with his other half, his mind had nowhere to go but back to his body. Back to his 'card. And now.." Phoebe placed her hand on her chest. "He is in here, with me and my dragon. Feeding me. heeheehee. Keeping me strong. He's just like all the others you tried to save, Lord Fortuno Nisell! Ahahaha!" As if to demonstrate their bond, the fusion dragon screamed while she laughed. "Oh don't look at me like that!?" She snapped at Alice, seeing her horrified expression. "It was his friends idea to begin with! Or didn't he tell you! This is what you wanted, wasn't it spirit?" Her taunts reached Nephilim, and all she could do was gaze at the mad woman with her empty eyes. "Phoebe. That's enough! This is out of control! Look at you, look at your guild. You are about to lose your last foothold in this country! There is no way you can complete your world fusion plan now!" Uno roared.
"Can't I?" Phoebe raised her arm and pushed a button on her dueldisk. "What now?" The room trembled with the sound of moving gears. "Look!" The ceiling and walls folded sideways to reveal the dimension breaker in the next room and the casino many floors above. "Whuh-oh.." Eric could see the gang, and they could see him. "Marie. I am disappointed in you." Phoebe clicked her tongue as she caught the holographic woman looming over her machine. "Eep." Marie Celeste dismissed her projection, for all the good that would do. "What is this for, Phoebe?" The duelists could see the sky above them. "I pulled this idea from your friend's head as well, Lord Fortuno. She showed me a way to give this gift to more than one person at a time." Phoebe pulled out Super Polymerization. "This spell, this great magic that once fused multiple dimensions, will be what saves my world and yours. The lifeforce of everyone will feed the process, the 'souls' that I have gathered inside me. The more I fuse, the more I can fuse! And that is why I will use the toy your friend Cassius left behind. With that, I can be everywhere at once. And I can fuse everything at once. This is my world fusion plan. Do you like it?"
"You.. you're insane" Emily shook her head. "I don't know why or how.. or if this can work. I only need to know that you're insane and that you hurt people. I don't need anything else to want to beat you! And I will! For Aaron, for Akai, for my family! It's my turn!"
(To be Continued in Nexus 028: Brightest Yin)
New Cards used by Emily Brandt
Superheavy Samurai Prepped Defense
New Cards used by Phoebe
Predaplant Cordyceps
Predaplant Chlamydo Sundew
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Predaplant Dragostapelia
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Hand Destruction
