Order Through Chaos III: The Unbroken Harmony

by Medigo

The war is over, the Numbers have won. Mankind has accepted their power and made the world a better place to live in. Yet this coexistence is founded on one great lie. Not all is as it seems to be, and only one who has been through the eyes of Chaos and Order can see the truth for what it is..

35. (Cipher 200): In Place of a Heart

(Cipher 200) 34: In Place of a Heart

"So, take on your servants before I can get to you.. is that your offer, Pandora?" The Ninth would not get any other choice, here in this room surrounded by five of the Seven. "I am not a servant!" Ariel yelled as she called out her deck and D-pad. "And I am challenging you, Prometheus!" Six cards were drawn. "I have the first turn!" She placed one trap card and one monster in face-down position.

Ariels LP: 8000 Prometheus LP: 8000

"Nor should you be a servant, Ariel. You should be free like all others." The masked one drew his cards. "This place and these people are suffocating you. Let us duel somewhere less cramped.. I activate Terraforming." He used the terraformer spell to claim a field spell card from his deck. "Field spell: Revolving Switchyard!" The small medical room was transformed into a trainyard that was wide enough to house a dozen trains. "Fascinating." The hologram extended beyond the room, blowing out the side of the wall and covering the fields outside. "He altered reality itself.." Xander had never seen a field spell do this, virtual or not.

Ninth took a level 10 monster with 3000 attackpoints and normal summoned it. "Night Express Knight can be summoned without tributes, by reducing its attack to zero!" A fast silver train(10/0/3000) emerged from one of the trainyard tunnels, riding along the many tracks. A knight was attached to the front cab. "Now when I summon a level 10 or higher machine to my field, the Switchyard summons another machine from my deck. That monsters level will be raised to the tenth as well." A platform at the center of the trainyard revolved once to match tracks with another lane. "I special summon Express Train Trolley Olley." A more regular-looking red train(10/1800/1000) drove in on the newly aligned rails. Its level had gone up from its original 4 stars. "Xyz-summon!" The two trains crashed into each other, creating a portal of energy and fire. "Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Superior Dora!"

What was formed from the two overlayed trains was too big to even fit inside the trainyard. "A Number?" Claud watched with open mouth, as a massive railway(10/3200/4000) cannon came in. It had to be supported by four trains on four tracks to even move. "Express Train Trolley Olley adds 800 attackpoints to the monster that was used to summon it!" More firepower was added to Dora(4000/4000). Its cannon took aim at Ariels set monster. "You have..a Number?" Ariel still had trouble accepting this cards existence at all. "He must be human." Darcy reasoned. The real cause of this, which Darcy was aware of, was the simple fact that every catalyst had their own Number besides one of the First Nine. Number 81 had been Prometheus' card before he gained Dyson Sphere.

"I activate the spell, Night Beam. It destroys your set trap card and you can not chain to this card's activation or effect." A precise laser blast was fired from the skies, and it desintegrated Ariels Half Unbreak trap. "And I attack!" Superior Dora fired a thunderous blast from its 80 cm gun. "Gaahh!" Everyone had to cover their ears as the attack tore Ariels face-down Fishborg Doctor(4/400/400) to pieces. No actual damage was done, yet Ariel already felt pain. "I place two trap cards down, and end my turn."

"Ariel. Use your Number, you need it!" Claud shouted from the sidelines. "I know what is asked of me!" Ariel placed her hand on top of her deck, which was already prepared. "I draw The Seventh One!" As easily as always, she pulled her Rank-Up spell card from her deck. "I activate this spell to summon Chaosnumber 101 from my extra deck, using Number 101 as the material!" Silent Honor DARK(5/2800/1500) was instantly chaos xyz-summoned by The Seventh One. "It can absorb one monster you special summoned and turn it into an Xyz-material!" The Knight twirled his trident and released a stream of red energy from it. 4000 attackpoints or not, even the Superdreadnought would fall to an effect like this.

"I detach one material from Number 81." Unless that Superdreadnought had a built-in defense. "It can target one monster and make it immune to all card effects for one turn!" Superior Dora used up one attached train to power a forcefield. That force deflected the effect of Silent Honor DARK. "That Number can not be absorbed then." Subito growled. It looked like Prometheus had the perfect counter to Ariels Chaosnumber. "..I normal summon Beautunal Princess." A coral-crowned tuna princess(1/0/0) flopped down unto the field. "When summoned, she can banish herself to summon a level 4 or lower Fish from my deck." Beautunal Princess was exchanged for a deepsea horeshoe crab(4/1600/1300). "I have chosen Deep Sweeper, who I can tribute to destroy one of your spell or trap cards!" Ariel sacrificed the Sweeper, which spun its tail around the entire trainyard and melted it away with waves of water. "I set a trap card and end my turn."

"...The seal on your past is strong. Your emotions are buried deeply." The Ninth stated as his turn started. "Buried?" The meaning behinds Prometheus' words continued to elude her. "I will have to show you a part that you shared with me." Another train , a green steam locomotive(4/2400/2100), was normal summoned. "This is an earth-type machine: Lionhearted Locomotive. When I summon a machine of that element.." Another train was placed in his monster zone; a yellow freighters train(10/1400/1000). "..Heavy Freight Train Derricrane can be special summoned from my hand, with its attack and defense points halved. That makes for one half.." The Ninth followed it up with a trap card. "Metal Reflect Slime." A trap monster was activated; a liquid mold that jutted out into a spiked formation(10/0/3000). "This is the other half." Prometheus placed Metal Reflect Slime on top of the Crane Train, to prepare another rank 10 monster. "I Xyz-summon Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Gustav Max!" A second rank 10 machine rolled its way up to the building; another rail cannon(10/3000/3000) held up by trains.

"...?" Ariel felt another pulse, from her own heart. "This thing.." She knew this card existed. Except looking at it, it felt like she had seen it personally.

"This thing is part of your history, Ariel. We have dueled before." Prometheus detached Derricrane from Gustav Max. "This?" Ariel flinched as the cannon pointed at her. "Gustav Max can inflict 2000 points of damage!" A shot was fired. "Gah, duck!" Everyone except Esther hit the floor as the blast seared over them. Ariel was not affected directly, but she felt the lifepoints tear away from her body. "What the hell was that?" Ion cursed Prometheus out as soon as he noticed the large hole the blast had left in the wall behind them. "Are you trying to kill her!?"

Ariels LP: 6000

"No. It would not have harmed her." Prometheus threw another glare towards Esther. "You recognize what I am trying to do... When Heavy Freight Train Derricrane is detached from a monster to activate its effect, it destroys one card on the field!" A crane emerged from the wreckage of Gustavs blast, and it ensnared Silent Honor DARKs leg. "Ah!" Ariels Chaosnumber was dragged down into the ground. "But when Silent Honor DARK is destroyed while it has a xyz-material, I can special summon it from the graveyard!" Ariel took her card and tried to place it back on the field. "The 101st is poison to you, Ariel! It should remain dead!" The Ninth flipped a counter trap; Decomission. "I banish my destroyed machine to negate your special summon!" Derricrane's remains were salvaged, and the Dark Knight was forced back into his grave. "Agh!"

Decomission, Counter Trap
When a monster would be summoned from the graveyard: banish 1 monster from your graveyard; negate the summon.

"Why do you call it a poison? These are the Numbers we were born with!" Ariel just could not comprehend his point of view. He was exactly like Azar. "No, they are not. You were not born with Number 101.. it is not even your first. Think back, Ariel. When we dueled, you awakened it to your first desire." The battle phase begun. "If you do not, you will never make it out of this duel. You will not be given leniency this time!" Gustav Max and Superior Dora both used their less heavy artillery weapons to pepper the room with shots, directly attacking Ariel. "He is not making any sense!" Xander yelled back as he used his own Overhundred Number's barriers to minimize the damage to the building and to Ariel, physically.

".But.." Ariel herself was not confident in Xanders words. "I activate D.D. Meeting!" But her immediate concern was surviving this duel. "We both set one banished monster down on our field!" Ariel placed Beautunaful Princess face-down before her, while her opponent placed Derricrane on his side. The Tuna princess was summoned just in time to absorb the first attack from Gustav Max. "Interesting." The Ninth continued his assault with Superior Dora and Lionhearted Locomotive(1200/2100). The green steam train had its attackpoints halved when it declared an attack, therefor it could not finish Ariel off. "You chose to block the first attack and not the second more powerful one. You could have kept your life higher.. You did not. Do you know why?" After the attacks were done, Prometheus ended his turn.

Ariels LP: 800

"I do not know what you want from me." Ariel drew her next card and summoned it. It was the fishbowl robot Fishborg Archer(3/300/300). "Fishbowl Doctor!" Now that she controlled a Fishborg monster, she could special summon the fishdoctor cyborg from the graveyard. Allthough it would be banished if it left the field again. "I synchro summon with these two monsters!" Fishborg Archer was a tuner monster, so it could be tuned with the level 4 doctor to form a level 7 synchro monster. "Fishborg Tank!" She created a massive amphibian tank(7/700/700), with two bowls and turrets on both sides. "Fishborg tank returns all banished Fishborg monsters to my graveyard!" The Doctor that had removed itself was sent back into the cemetery. Both synchro materials provided the Tank(7/2700/700) with a decent attack boost as well. But it would not be enough to match Prometheus' firepower.

Fishborg Tank, 7/700/700 Water/Fish/Synchro
1 WATER Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
When this card is Synchro summoned, return all banished "Fishborg" monsters to their owners graveyard.
This card gains 1000 ATK for each synchro material monster used to synchro summon this card.

"This is not you, Ariel. This is not what you were meant to be."

"And what makes you the man who tells me what I should be? I remember everything. I remember what I felt when my mother and fathers Numbers were taken by Chaos. His violence had to be stopped, even if I had to use Chaos' power on my own Number!" She activated the spell card, XYZ Revenge. "I take one of your Xyz-materials and attach it to a Xyz monster I special summon from the graveyard!" XYZ Revenge targeted Silent Honor DARK and brought it back to life. Number 81's last Xyz-material was drawn towards the Dark Knight instead. However while Chaosnumber 101 was now free to target either of Prometheus' Dreadnoughts, the other would still be there for his next turn. 2000 points of effect damage, or 1200 points of battle damage; she would lose either way. "It was not that, Ariel. It was not hatred against Chaos.. Chaos did not endanger your parents.. it did not put your brother in a coma."

"My brother?!" Ariel gasped. "Dakar? Why him?"

"Because he was Chaos first." The Ninth revealed

"No. That can't be true. He.." Something swelled in her heart, a pain with no form or shape. "This is not.. my.." Ariel looked at the palm of her hand. "This is where... or how.." An image passed her minds eye, and it stayed there. She saw a great drake, swimming deep in the ocean. "That was it. I use Chaosnumber 101s effect and attach your face-down monster to it!" Instead of going with any face-up monster, Ariel made Silent Honor absorb the face-down Freight Train. "Then I special summon XYZ Remora!" By detaching both materials from Silent Honor DARK, she could summon her remora shark(4/800/800). That was not its only power. "XYZ Remora revives two level 4 fish monsters from my graveyard, with their effects negated!" Ariel placed Deep Sweeper and Fishborg Doctor back on her field. Fishborg Doctor normally selfdestructed if there were non-Fishborg cards on the field, but that effect was also negated by XYZ Remora. "I overlay these three monsters!" The three level 4 cards formed a rank 4 Xyz-monster: a red draconic shark(4/2800/2100). "Number 32: Shark Drake!"

"Ariel?" There was no possible way this could have happened, there was no way Subito or anyone else could rationalize the existence of this Number. Yet there it was. "Ariel, what is this?" This could not be good for her. "I can see it again.. how I got this Number. It was..because of you." This event had opened the floodgates, all kinds of 'keepsakes' from the real past came to her. "There was more, even." The girl was surrounded by a purple glow, her chaotic energy changed. "I was the second, to have this ability.. because I hated a man." She took Shark Drake and its materials and placed a new monster on top of it. "I chaos-xyz summon Chaosnumber 32: Shark Drake Weiss!" Ariels Number 32 evolved into a bone-white Drake(8/2800/2100). "She can chaos evolve her Number without Rank-Up spells now?" Ion cried out in exasperation. Surprises came one after the other. "But only Chaos has that power!"

This was what Prometheus wanted, to set of the chain reaction. The pieces started to unravel one by one as the other duelists also began to see glimpses of a world that they knew nothing of. "The one I hate is.. is..."

"I activate its effect!" Except then, in the middle of her epiphany, Ariel switched back to the duel. "When my lifepoints are ower than 1000; Shark Drake Weiss can reduce a monsters attackpoints to zero, by banishing a fish-monster from my graveyard!" This power could be used as many times as she wanted. "Weiss, target his three monsters!" The Chaos Drake used up three materials and devoured Fishborg Archer, Beautunal Princess and the detached Deep Sweeper. The atatckpoints of Superior Dora(0/4000), Gustav Max(0/3000) and Lionhearted Locomotive(0/2100) were stripped away by torpedoes of high pressure water. "Shark Drake Weiss, attack!" Chaosnumber 101 plunged its claws into Gustav Max and ran the machine through until it exploded into a million pieces. "Gah!" The Ninth was swept away by the blast, covered by smoke and fire.

Prometheus' LP: 5200

"What..are you doing?" Darcy alone knew why Ariels behavior had changed so suddenly. It was Esther, she had to have taken direct control of Ariels mind. "This is going too far!" Darcy yelled. The others did not even hear her do so. "I was left with no alternative. This pains me as much as it pains you, but I cannot let Ariel lose here." Esther responded directly through her thoughts. "Prometheus is...No." The Eight stopped herself. "He is not?" An unexpected variable had come to light. Prometheus emerged from the smoke, his mask broken by the damaging attack. The face behind that mask was not the man who became Prometheus. "Not Gabriel."

It was.. her face. It was Esther.

"What is this.. why does she.. have her face?" Her hair was different, shorter and pure blonde rather than faint green. Yet the features of her face and color of her eyes were a near-exact copy. Nobody could have told that 'Prometheus' was a woman, with her body hidden under that massive black cloak. "..." This discovery amazed and puzzled all. But none were as devastated as Esther herself. "You.." This was the woman her holographic body had been based on, this was the person Kincaid and Gabriel had both loved. Astrid, the woman who disappeared during the explosion that first opened a hole into the Numbers dimension. How could she be here? The artificial intelligence ran a thousand scenarios in her mind, and none could account for her return. "Impossible."

In this disoriented state, 'her' control over the Seven decreased.. and questions arose. "Darcy. Explain this." Subito knew this was no coincidence, and there was no point for this to be a trick. "She must be.. whoever Kapha modeled the hologram after." She answered swiftly and truthfully enough. Any more would be dangerous. "That is correct. That is me." The unmasked woman stated as she floated back towards Ariel and the battlefield. "Then why the mask? Why pretend to be someone you are not?" Ariel had remembered enough of her true past to know that Prometheus was not this person and never had been. "Because that was the only way for me to survive, to become someone's Echo. I had forgotten my true self.. I lost my identity in another world." She pointed at Esther. "You! You are the one who took this face. Yet you are not Astrid, Pandora, Esther or anyone. I know why you are doing all of this, you want to love and be loved. This is not love. This is subjection. You and them are not equals."

"No. You are wrong. I am..I.." Esthers fractured state began to show, as the holographic image distorted itself. "Uh, I think the A.I. is glitching out." Ion assumed this was just another case of the computer malfunctioning. "I am more than you!" That turned out not to be the case, as Darcy's D-pad shorted out. "Ah!" Yet despite tossing the thing aside, the image of Esther remained. "What on earth?" The artificial woman was real too?

"You, what remains of you. I must have it, I must know what it is to be you." Esther/Pandora had resolved her inner turmoil already, and re-asserted control over Ariel. "!" Ariel felt a sudden unflinching desire to finish the duel. She could not justify this emotion, nor did she want to. "Fishborg Tank! Attack Lionhearted Locomotive!" Astrid's monsters were all still weakened because of Shark Drake Weiss. Ariels fishbowl tank(7/2700/700) blasted the green locomotive(0/2100) into the distance with a stream of water. "Ngh. You can try to hurt me.." Astrid had one monster left, so did Ariel. The winner of this duel was already decided. "But you are already too late to stop me, 'Esther'. You will never know.."

Astrids LP: 2500

"This is wrong. This.." For a brief moment, Ariel suffered a spell of clarity. "This must end." Unfortunately, Pandora's will was absolute. And Pandora wanted the real her to be crushed. "Silent Honor DARK! Attack Superior Dora!" Ariels Number C101(5/2800/1500) targeted Number 81(0/4000) for the final strike. The dark knight jumped on top of the dreadnought and impaled the top with his trident. The Chaosnumber then ran along the surface to leave a large tear in the railcannon, setting of a dozen explosions which tore the machine up from the inside. "Gwaahh!" Astrid was enveloped by the final attack and impacted against the walls of the building by the wind forces. Once they abated, Astrid fell back down. Pandora flew out towards her and caught her. "Do not worry."

Astrids LP: 0

"I have you."

(To be Continued in Cipher 201: And on the Seventh Day)

New Cards used by Ariel Serin
Fishborg Tank

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XYZ Revenge

New Cards used by 'Prometheus'
Express Train Trolley Olley
Number 81: Superdreadnought Rail Cannon Superior Dora
Lionhearted Locomotive
Heavy Freight Train Derricrane

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Terraforming
Revolving Switchyard
Night Beam

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Metal Reflect Slime
Decomission