Nexus 045: Lost in Syndication

"What do you mean you can't get us out? Isn't that what the gem is for?" Stonewell and company were still stuck inside the throne room, even with the known teleporter being part of their group. "Hey, I am sure she is trying! Alright!" Emily pushed him back. Yelling was not going to fix the situation. "I am. But the pendulum.. it's still confused." Ever since Uno lost his duel, there were all sorts of things wrong with the crystal and Nephilim was not there to help her. Now the crystal did not want to do anything at all. "What about you? Can't you make yourself useful?" Tory turned to Marie Celeste. "As If I didn't have that brilliant idea myself." She was already trying to analyze the barrier, with little successes so far. "Every tile, wall and outlet is trapped behind this wall of energy and it's not drawing power from anything inside this building. I can't access whatever is making it!" It could just as well be magic that was holding them here. "Well we can't just sit here. Uno needs us!" Eric pushed his hands against the field. There was no way he would let it end like this...

...

Fortuno's LP: 7700 Christopher's LP: 3600

"My turn!" Uno had seen better days, and his opponent was living out one those days right now. Christtopher Brickett, his past self, came at him with all the Toon monsters at his disposal. "I activate Mimicat, to take one of your spells!" An elastic black cat stretched his body out and dug its greedy mittens into the graveyard. "I set and activate Smile World!" And things were about to get worse. "Smile World?" Uno's own spell added 100 attackpoints to every monster on the field, for each monster on the field. Toon Cyber Dragon(5/700/0), Toon Dark Magician(7/2600/1500), Toon Red-Eyes(7/2500/1400) and Toon Barrel Dragon(7/2700/1600) were still at large. Uno controlled the Performapals Swordfish(2/1300/600) and Radish Horse(4/1200/2000) in defense mode. For what little difference that made; all toons could attack Uno directly as long as Toon Kingdom was active. "Toon Barrel Dragon uses his effect!" And one toon could destroy cards outright, if its use managed to land two out of three coins heads-up. In this case though, all three coins landed face-down. "Win some, lose some." Chris shrugged and and entered the battle phase. "But I do know these attacks wont lose!" Toon Cyber Dragon fired a wild blast of blue light and landed a hit. "One down!"

Uno's LP: 7000

By now the Barrel dragon had refilled its chambers with rubber bullets and sent a hail of them towards Uno. "I think I want a second opinion!" But no matter how odd this encounter got, Uno was not prepared to lose it. "I activate Performapal Pinch Helper! I negate a direct attack and special summon one Performapal from my deck!" His continuous trap actually provided a three-fold defense. One attack was negated, one Performapal Odd-Eyes Dissolver(8/2000/2600) was special summoned in defense mode, and one effect of Performapal Swordfish was activated. "Oh not again." The swords rained down upon the Toon Dark Magician(2000/1000), Toon Barrel Dragon(2100/1000) and Toon Black Dragon(1900/800), taking 600 of their attack and defense points away. "Oh. Well if I can't take your lifepoints away, Uno, I'll filét that fish while I have the chance!" Both Magician and dragon redirected their blasts towards the hapless swordfish.

"Then I will activate Super Hippo Carnival! I can special summon two Hippo tokens and one Performapal Hip Hippo from my deck! If you try to attack a monster, you must attack the tokens first!" A new show started, frontlined by the pink discocery hippo(2/800/800) and one dancing hippo tokens(1/0/0). "Oh man." Performapal Swordfish did another number on the Toons with its effect, lowering their attack the point of near uselessness. "At this rate I might as well not attack directly.." Chris continued his monster on monster warfare and had Toon Dark Magician(1400/400) destroy one token, while Toon Red-Eyes(1300/400) attacked directly. But Uno negated the damage with the effect of Performapal Gongato. "These cards are really good. Normally I'd have won already." While he sounded annoyed, Uno knew himself better than that. Chris was enjoying himself. "All part of the show." He wished he could say the same. This duel was taking up too much of his time. Chris was only going to miss a movie. He was going to miss saving the worlds.

"Your turn, by the way." Chris was done for now at least, though he did prepare another face-down trap. "Yes." At the very least, because of Performapal Odd-Eyes Dissolver he could perform a fusion summon. The question was, whether or not Uno still possessed his fusions. "...Tch.." In his extra deck, there was nothing. Tempus took was starting to feel like one of those trials the Prophecy Sisters liked to throw his way. "But I can make more." A fusion between a highlevel dark monster and a Performapal, that's what it would be. "I set a card and activate Odd-Eyes Dissolver's effect to fuse it with Performapal Radish Horse!" The vegetable horse(500/2000) and the chemist mage burned together in the swirling fusion maelstrom. "Whoa hey now. You can do fusions too?" Out of all the extra deck techniques, this one would likely stun Chris the least. Uno would hopefully not have to resort to synchros and XYZ-monsters. "I fusion summon Performapal...Gatlinghoul?!" Yet the result was a shock even to the fuser.

"That's.. something." Performapal Gatlinghoul was a green goblin(8/2900/900) in a black tuxedo and hat. The most striking aspect of the fusion monster though, was his massive gatling did not know what was worse, its appearance or the fact that it did not feel disturbing enough. He wanted to end this duel, and his impatience manifested itself as this Ghoul. "When I summon Gatlinghoul.. it inflicts 200 points of damage for each card on the field!" He counted seven on his field, six on his enemy's field. "That's 2600 points of damage?" Thirteen rounds were loaded into the ogre's massive weapon, not a single one would be spilled. "Fire!" An endless barrage of bullets reached the unfortunate duelist. And now Uno realized what unsettled him the most; knowing that he felt nothing as he attacked his own past. "Gatlinghoul can also destroy one monster on the field if it was fusion summoned with a pendulum monster. And it will inflict damage equal to half of its original attackpoints!" This was a distraction, an unimportant figment.

Chris' LP: 1000

"Simmer down, friend!" But a strong distraction nonetheless. "Toon Kingdom is still here!" As the gatlinghoul fired a more focused large shot at Toon Barrel Dragon(200/0), the book of toons came to its rescue. Chris banished one more card from the top of his deck and stopped Barrel Dragon's destruction. "Then I will attack it instead!" Gatlinghoul's arrival was also something that activated the effect of Performapal Swordfish. Which meant that Toon Dark Magician(100/0) and Toon Red-Eyes Black Dragon(0/0) were the easiest targets in the world. "I don't think so! I activate Defense Draw! And I activate Toon Kingdom!" If only Chris was the easiest opponent in the world. His Defense Draw trap negated the battle damage, while drawing a new card from his deck. And Toon Kingdom kept the Toon monster itself alive, as another card was banished from the duelist's deck. "Things were finally getting good, and now you want to rush it? Where's your passion, Uno?" Chris shook his head. "You.. you don't understand." Uno grunted and ended his turn.

"You do seem a lot gloomier all of the sudden. Cheer up, friend! Losing isn't all that bad!" Chris chuckled as he activated a spell card. "Not that I am planning on doing it myself any time soon! Toon Barrel Dragon!" It seemed luck was balancing itself out. This turn, when Chris tossed his coins, all three landed on heads. "I destroy Performapal Gongato!" Though he could have picked the fusion ghoul, Chris did not have to fear it. He did not really fear anything. "Now I use my spell, Shadow Toon! When I control Toon World, I can cause damage equal to your monsters attackpoints!" The toon book turned as bright as the sun, casting shadows far and wide. "Ugh." One shadow came to life, the shadow of Gatlinghoul. It cackled and fired a spread of shadow-bullets at Uno. "Oh and Toon Red-Eyes will use his effect again to special summon Toon Ancient Gear Golem from my hand! But all my others guys will go to defense mode of course." And now a new monster, Marie's favorite monster(8/3000/3000) in toon-size, came out to play. "Well, I am happy with that turn. So, lets stop there!"

Uno's LP: 4100

"...Enough." Uno switched Hip Hippo to attack mode. "I summon Performapal Corn! I can switch her and another Performapal to defense mode to add an Odd-eyes monster to my hand!" The blue haired unicorn girl(3/600/1000) bounced happily across the field and made the Hip Hippo swoon his way back into defense. "Ooh. Your show has everything!" Chris seemed smitten too. "...I add Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon and set it on the field. Then Gatlinghoul attacks Toon Barrel Dragon!" Still, Uno was just losing more turns. "Haha!" Each attack was wasted. Toon Kingdom could keep banishing cards to negate the Toon monster's destruction, and Chris's deck was not even close to running out of cards. "I end my turn and activate Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragons effect again!" The dragon (scale 4) selfdestructed, allowing Uno to add a Performapal Swing Cobra to his hand. "And Arc Pendulum Dragon special summons one Odd-Eyes monster from my deck!" The destruction of the Pendulum Odd-Eyes resulted in the summon of the original Odd-Eyes Dragon(7/2500/2000).

"Gees Louise. How many of those are there?" Just his like Chris, this deck did not seem to run out of energy. "Never enough." This past version of him just did not seem to be bothered by anything. Uno almost wished he could feel that innocent again, to just enjoy the duel. It was simple envy. "Well. I think see that I gotta wrap this up. Your face has doom written all over it. So I activate the Sacred Sword of Seven Stars!" His spell, the dimension-cutting blade, sliced into the body of Red-Eyes Toon Dragon. "I can banish one of my level seven monsters, to draw two cards!" Chris pulled two spells from his deck and failed to contain his grin. "Heheh. You're gonna love this one. I don't even know what this is gonna look like.." He activated an equip spell, which created a pair of floating gloves. "Comic Hand! As long as I control Toon World, I can control one of your monsters and turn it into a Toon!" The gloves grabbed the Gatlinghoul by the gun and dragged him all the way across the field. "Ggh.." Uno's fusion monster turned into a cuddly looking nerfgun ghoul.

"And just to make sure this goes through, I activate Toon Rollback! Now my Toon monster can attack twice in one turn!" The second spell targeted Toon Ancient Gear Golem, the piercing attacker. "Gatlinghoul will attack you directly. But Ancient Gear Golem will destroy your defending performers, first! Just in case you summon more tokens or something!" The Toon Golem was still an Ancient Gear monster, meaning no traps or spells could interfere with its attacks. "Battle!" The only chance to stop it in its tracks, was before an actual attack was declared. "I control a Performapal, so I can activate Command Performance!" And, as luck favored Uno at least a little still at his current age, Uno had already drawn just the trap for that. "All your monsters are switched to defense position!" The Unicorn girl, Hip hippo and Swordfish performed a little song and dance to lull the Toons into a state of submission. "Oh..augh.. oof.. So much for that plan." Chris groaned at his wasted battle phase. He tried to activate Toon Barrel Dragon's effect again, but he only rolled one heads this time. "Welp. Your move, Uno."

"My move.." He drew his next car: Performapal Fusegolem. "Tch." This wouldn't help him. The extra deck was still devoid of life, and fusion summoning Gatlinghoul already exhausted him. Worse, his own creation was turned against him. "Father, are you trying to mock me?" Uno whispered to himself. Chris would not know what he was doing. But Tempus would. Tempus knew his son would never give up, that he was still following his own plans. And if this memory was supposed to show Uno how much Tempus had improved his life, he was only going to get the opposite effect. Or perhaps that was what the point? Tempus took this world away, perhaps this was his way of showing Uno what Tempus could give him back. "No." This was just a sweet to tempt him with. He would not fall for it. "I am sorry, Chris." He needed to move on from this, like Chris had moved on from him. Whatever he was seeing right now, was no longer tied to his own timeline. "I activate Performapal Swincobra and pendulum summon my monsters!" Thanks to the swingset snake (scale 3), Uno could special summon Performapal U Go Golem(4/1600/1000).

"A pendulum summoned U Go Golem can fuse with a dragon monster on the field!" The answer was so obvious anyway. If he was trapped in a past where his fusions did not yet exist, he would create them all over again. "I fusion summon Starving Venom Fusion Dragon!" Starting with the violet dragon of the apocalypse. U Go Golem and Odd-Eyes Dragon, two DARK monsters, joined together through a messy twisted process. "Starving what?" The dragon of hunger(8/2800/2000) could not be compared to anything that came before. It was a terrifying sight. "I cannot get stuck here, so this is the end of the show and of the duel!" Starving Venom(8/5800/2000) gained the attackpoints of the strongest monster on the field, Toon Ancient Gear Golem. And it chose to target it for the effect drain as well. "Starving Venom will take your effect and make it its own! Therefor, it can pierce through your defense points!" Toon Kingdom's made no difference to this outcome. "What? That's incredible!" Still, fear was not the strongest emotion weighing on his opponents heart. "Yes, it is." Uno declared the attack. Starving Venom fired at Toon Performapal Gatlinghoul and tore it to pieces with crimson poison and flames.

Christopher's LP: 0

"Huh. So that was.. it?" Chris' reaction was not what Uno expected. "I thought there would be more. Was it supposed.. to go this way?" It seemed like the defeat hit him harder than anything else, the kid's eyes were wider and he started to sweat. "What is wrong?" Was he affraid? "I don't.. do I know you? Do I.." No, he was.. "Chris!" He was going away! But they were not disappearing, they were reversing. And it was not only him, but also the road he stood on, the cars around him and the people that could see them; all of them were re-positioned. "Chris!?" He was gone, and the city did not look the same anymore. "!" The sun was the biggest clue, it was rising against the eastern horizon. It was morning again. "I went back in time? Was that as far as this world can go?" Uno did not understand this at all, but he knew one thing. He had to get out of here before he was trapped in another duel. Starving Venom was still with him. "Go!" He jumped on the beast's back and took off into the air. If this was anything like the previous memory world, there would have to be an edge he could not see.

"gah.." And there was, just a few miles up in the sky. Beyond was an entirely different realm, one of cosmic colors and featureless expanses. This was the world of the Qliphort. "The tree!" And beneath him was a great and mighty branch. One of a countless many branches that stretched out in every direction. This was the tree from his dreams, the avatar of the multiverse. Each branch ended in a bubble that seemed to carry flashes of memories on the surface. "All the lost worlds." There was just too much to take in. Where was he? Where was Tempus? Where was his own timeline? Starving Venom could not fly very far, not without breaking into another one of these worlds. Uno knew what would happen as soon as he walked into one, another figure from his past would confront him. "Is this your idea, Tempus? You are just going to keep me running through my own history while you finish your plans?" Not just December and Tempus becoming one, but the deal with the three sisters, all of it would lead to the final moment. He was so close and yet so far away.

"Fine then. These are the shadows that I erased. I will give them the chance to live again." Uno reshuffled his deck. "But I am not going to get trapped in here. And you will not get your way, Tempus! If anyone is going to untie these tangled threads, it will be me... and my friends." He headed off into the next world, ready to face whatever was in there...

...

"I know why I can't do it." Nothing changed, the crystal did not light up, the barrier did not go down. "Because I don't believe I can do it." Alice could only come to one disheartening conclusion. "Alice, this is not your fault." Emily wanted to disagree. Yet Alice knew better. "It's not the same now.. Neter gave me hope. He gave me the power of Utopia. And as long as I felt I could do something, that thing would actually happen. But what changed? Uno lost.. and I lost hope. Tempus is just too strong." She breathed in. "So I just have to stop thinking like that! Anything is possible still, we can do it! We just need a plan!" She was sure they could come up with something. "Well. And this is just a theory. But I think this barrier can be overloaded if you hit it with enough force of the same quality. And the readings I get from it are similar to the readings I got from pendulum outputs." Marie provided one, tapping her visor. "So we need to use the pendulum crystal and load it up? Do we have enough time for that?" Tory asked. They could not keep exactly keep track of lost minutes anymore.

"I have an idea on how to do that." Stonewell stood up. "Eric. Come here.." He approached his counterpart. "Hey now be careful! You know we can't touch each other!" Eric did not want to implode into a temporal puddle. "Maybe we should." Stonewell replied with a winking smile. "You would risk a paradox event? Are you insane?" Marie yelled. She'd seen what happened when the same objects from two different timelines interacted. "No, I get it.." Unless they could be protected. "The crystal always kept Eric safe from Eric.." Alice could use her crystal and absorb the energy between them. "Have you ever tested how far you can go with that?" Emily did not like this idea one bit. "Stonewell, you could die here!" Tory was not a fan either. "We'll be erased from time if we don't do anything. It's time to take action, Tory." He looked at Eric. "My thoughts exactly." Eric nodded back and raised his hand. "To our good health the, Eric." Stonewell mirrored his move and waited for Alice. "Okay." She just had to remember.. if she thought it could work. It would work. "Now!" She placed the pendulum crystal between the two as they clapped their hands together. The resulting outbreak of energy lit up the sky for miles and miles.

(To be Continued in Nexus 046: Time Enough At Last)

New Cards used by Fortuno Nisell
Performapal Gatlinghoul

New Cards used by Chris Brickett
Toon Ancient Gear Golem

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Mimicat
Shadowtoon
The Sacred Sword of Seven Stars
Comic Hand
Toon Rollback