World 027: A Lack of Better Words
What happened to the person that sleep claimed? What happened to those last few moments of consciousness? He always took such lost time for granted. But his recent experiences gave him a whole new perspective, experiences that forced him to recall what made him fall unconscious this time. He remembered, he was Charles Adami. And they... they put him in this state. In a chair, in a suit, behind glass: they removed him from all physical sensations and once again hypnotized him to return to his own mind. He failed to recover any memories of the actual process, but he was certain on how he got here and what this place was: the stuff that dreams were made off. However, this did not look like any of his recent dreams. The world around him looked barren and dry like a desert of grey dust. Black obelisks were strewn across the desolation, reaching heights his eyes could not reach. The sky itself had no color and no clouds, only a pattern of tiles layed out like a matrix. They called this their own version of STHEREA.
"This place could use some work." A girl appeared in the corner of his eye, as if she suddenly decided to exist. "He.. Cherry?" Charles reminded himself that he did not come here on his own. "Did you expect the easter bunny?"
"Not normally. But here? Who knows." Charles could not rule out anything, not if the mind itself started creating images. So far however, this virtual desert reacted to none of their words or thoughts. Either way, now that he heard Cherry Anise's voice come from an avatar that resembled her duelist identity, he wanted to check himself out. Unfortunately his appearance matched that of the real Charles Adami, not the duelist known as Void. "Well we didn't come here to make any bunnies." Cherry spoke up again, snapping him out of his self-reflection. "Hmm. No, we didn't. They expect us to find the real STHEREA." Charles sighed. He did not really know where to start. "How long do you think they will give us?" Neither did she. Cherry sounded happy to just be somewhere else, somewhere not real. "I do not know. But they probably will yank us back if we stray too far." Cherry looked at her wrist and saw a tiny armband. If they ever wanted to wake up on their own, pushing a button on that armband would do it. Other than that, there did not seem to be a time limit. "Perhaps we are supposed to wait for Tycho to join us?"
"Screw that." The girl hissed and kicked off from the ground. "H..How are you doing that?" Charles called after her as she moved through the air with remarkable agility. "You've never flown before? I am not holding your hand if that's what you're asking! You just gotta tell yourself that you can do it! If you don't, you wont! It's that simple!" She yelled her advise from far above, leaving him to figure out the rest. "Simple?" Nothing he ever did seemed easy at first, and he rarely went out of his own comfort zones. Perhaps that was his problem and a problem right now in particular. Anything could be achieved in a dream, you only had your own mental locks to blame for failing. Void could not fly because he could not imagine what it would be like. However.. "Ah!" He could imagine other ways to move through the skies, like with a speedboard. That at least showed up instantly as soon as he turned his thoughts towards it. He planted both feet on top of the board and blasted after Cherry.
"Did you see anything yet?" He asked as he caught up to her. "Speedboards? Bah. At least come up with something bigger, like a dragon." She scoffed before setting her sights elsewhere. "And the answer is, not particularly." She said and he got why. From way up they could see no edges to this space, the grey sand seemed to go on forever. "Well there must be a way to break out, or else they would not place us here. They said we could work better together, so we need to focus on some aspect of STHEREA that we have in common." They could cover as much distance as they wanted and they still would get nowhere. This had to be about something else. "What would that be?" Cherry did not feel very interested in finding the answer to that. "I can think of one thing.. Static. His Arena. You were invited just like I was so we can both picture it in our heads."
"That old dump? You know I only went there once or twice. So I didn't really get a perfect look at it." The girl muttered. "We can still try. This could work, Cherry. Because the arena has always been the strangest part of STHEREA. It is surrounded by layers and layers of subconscious.. well matter. It may be the location closest to the real world."
And so they flew, higher and higher. The black columns helped keep track of their progress towards the supposed roof of this network. They had to make it beyond that, and they could. Because none of it was real. Charles just closed his eyes and kept going, envisioning a path not made by virtual designers. By the time he opened his eyes again, they were already beyond the ceiling.. and in a thick soup of fog and smoke. "Okay? Now what?" Cherry made it too, though the two could hardly see each other now. "Just keep focusing on the Arena Beyond. It will find us, not the other way around." Already Charles could tell that he'd been in this bizarre world before, even if that did not seem to make sense. They just had to follow their heart, so to speak. His instinct told him where to fly and each turn they made seemed to match Cherry's own inclination. It felt like it took hours to get anywhere, it all looked the same. It could also have just been minutes since they got here, but they never stopped regardless. It felt right.
And their gut feelings paid off. The fog drew back like a drained tub of water and a shadow came into frame. It started as a single ring, but soon it added layer after layer until it grew into an immense structure. "Is that?" A structure that surpassed Cherry and Charles' expectations. "It must be. The Arena Beyond." 'It' could hardly be called an 'arena' anymore. This was a tower with more levels than the three Charles had left behind. "That's new." Cherry remembered enough of the place to acknowledge the 'improvements'. "And bad.." Charles cursed. "But maybe.. also good." The tower might have been a sobering and startling sight, yet it was also the first glimpse of STHEREA Charles got in what could just as well have been an eternity. He could barely restraint himself. "I have to get closer." He flew over the walls, carefully. And on the other side he received another jolt of euphoria.
"It's her!" At last, he saw a face. And it belonged to someone he could not forget: Crescent Aurora. "Crescent! I am here!" Alas, his worst fears came true. This was just like before, when he escaped Ezra's nightmare. "Crescent!?" Charles could not be heard or seen, he and Crescent were worlds apart. "Maybe if I get closer." Perhaps he could not be touched either, but he had to find out. "Hold it. Who's all that with her?" At the very least Cherry Anise could still touch him, since she managed to get in his way. "Wat? Oh.. You mean Echo and.." Only then did Charles notice Crescent's company. He'd been so exhilarated to see her, that he overlooked the girl in blue and the four monsters that she surrounded herself with. "The Legendary Fisherman?" One immediately drew his attention, but he recognized the Fire Princess, Valkyrion Magna Warrior and Harpie Lady as well. "ADIs. Why are they hanging out with ADIs?" Cherry's question was valid, and he could not answer it. "
"I knew it was too good to be true." A disgruntled Vigionair stormed out of the concourse. "Everything in the real world should still run, but there is nothing left here that we can use to reach it or anyone else out there." When they arrived the encrypter found that none of his virtual tools were left intact. Void destroyed them all in his absence, and left mere scraps. "I tried my best." While the others examined the Arena Beyond to see how safe it was, Vigionair attempted to recreate his communication programs. But he simply did not have the proper sources and files at his disposal anymore, and any rudimentary creation failed to breach the communication firewalls. "So what is our plan now? Do we make our stand here?" The Legendary Fisherman inquired. They had at least determined that they were the only ones present at the moment. "That may be the our only option now. What we really need is to undo the effect of the World Armor on me and Crescent. If we could just acquire that item, we could log out. If they don't want to attack us here, then we will take the fight to them..."
"Hey, everyone!" Cierze interrupted with a loud shriek. "Is that the planet down there?!" She flew beyond the outer walls of the arena and pointed her talons downwards. "Planet? What are you talking about?" Valkyrion and the others moved across the rows of seats to peek over the edge of the arena. There they could see how tall the building had become and how, beneath the lowest floor, a thin layer of clouds separated this world from a large blue sphere.. "Whoa."
It was the planet earth, clear as day. The tower pointed right at it and seemed closer than ever. "Could you always see it from here?" The Fire Princess wondered. "No!" Vigionair cried out, exasperated. "I do not know what this means. The arena has changed again! I thought only Static could alter the layout of this place. But perhaps it is an automatic process? I would argue that the discovery of the Legacy items is in some way connected to all of this, in an exponential way. But I have no idea how this is actually happening."
"Ugh. Vigionair, you were close." Charles muttered in frustration. Not even getting right in front of Vigionaire's face accomplished anything. He was like a ghost to them now. "Why do none of them realize that Static is pretending to be me?" Sure he never made himself stand out much, but he thought they would have at least not seen him as the monster Static was. "Is this really what's left of the heroes of Pandemonium? Seems like things were even worse than you thought huh." Cherry shook her head. "I don't know. Static must have gotten to the others.. and taken all the items for himself."
"Okay. This is mysterious and all. But it's also.. so pretty." Valkyrion stared up at the globe, with all of its blue oceans, swirling clouds and vaguely defined landmasses. He could not pry his eyes away from it. "And it looks so small too." He sighed. "But it's not. We're still pretty far away... Oh sorry, you probably do understand that." Crescent mumbled. The sight of her own planet put her off a little as well. "Heh. Far away? You think we can fly to it and get you home that way?" Valkyrion laughed. "Huh? No.. No I don't think it works that way. Also I might choke out there.." The weather girl concluded rather casually. She did not believe that they were looking at the actual earth. "Oh. Yeah. You need to breathe. Do I need to breathe too? No wait, I don't have lungs! I think. But still, I wonder if I could see it up close. I want to go there. I feel like I am always living in the past, while out there is the future..." Memories were nice, but nothing could beat reality. It was a sentiment that his fellow 'monsters' could agree with.
Yet their merry conversation came to a crashing halt, when Echo started to talk. "There is someone." The girl in the wheelchair stared not at the world below, but at the emptiness above. "Someone? Who? Where?" Vigionair twitched and swiftly activated one of his special filter scans. "They are hiding.. Up there. There's more than one of them..."
"What? Wait what? Is she talking about us?" Cherry flinched. There did not seem to be anyone else around that Echo could have been talking about. "Maybe! I did get the sense that she could get a sense of me when I was trapped in the subconscious realm previously." Charles said, excited by this sudden windfall. "That's good thing then, right? Should we hold our hands up?" The girl did not want to be mistaken for an enemy. "I.. No. No I don't think it's us." Though the opposite might actually have been the case, as Charles quickly came to understand... when 'the hidden ones' were revealed.
"Void!" The veil of the illusionist lifted. One Legacy Item wore out its use. "Wagner!?" In time to join two others in exerting a new form of influence. And both their wielders were ready to strike. "Sorry, Aurora. You're too late." Wagnerok pointed the World Shield straight down. "It's time for you to join your dear friends!" A laughing Void followed Wagner's direction with the World Lance and World Ark. "No!" The power those three items could inflict together could only be matched by Crescent's horrified imagination. They were out of time. Their very surroundings turned against them, as the Arena Beyond itself split wide open and spiraled away like liquefied stone into a wormhole opened by the Ark. Every duelist dropped into the newly created emptiness below, separated by Wagner and Void. The Ark gave each their own portal, and they could not break away because the Shield shifted the very space in which they fell. Crescent had never thought to do this herself, and now she was utterly helpless before her own former Item. It all happened so fast. Soon she could only see fog and mist.. and dreams and nightmares.
"Gah! What is this?" The great divide affected those in the subconscious world too, Cherry felt herself get dragged down by gravity of the portals. "He's twisting dimensions! We gotta hold on!" Charles cursed. He wanted to catch Crescent, or Vigionair, as they sank into the world below. But his hand phased right through them. "Hang on!" He shotued to Cherry. Neither could tell where they would end up, but they would not be together anymore. "To what!? This is getting too dangerous!" Cherry did not want to pull out, but at this rate they did not have much of a choice. "I will not go back now! Not when I am this close! I have too." Yet if this power affected him, than it had to work in reverse as well. Maybe he could not affect human players, but he did know someone who was more than that. Someone who might have sensed his presence. "Ngh!" He used the last bit of control he had over his speedboard to rush towards the descending Echo. She and one of her friends were close together as the whole world collapsed around them, and he managed to slam into them both with a desperate aerial tackle... Falling through the maze of wormholes to depths unknown.
"That was close." 'Void' halfsmiled. If they had been detected a moment sooner, they would not have been able to gather the energy needed to pull off such a massive reality warp. "We could have taken them!" Wagner felt almost disappointed with how smooth things had gone. "Besides, don't we need that arena for something? Or was it just dead weight?" He followed Voids instructions to get this far, and he still did not get half of them. "We did not destroy it. We merely relocated it. Once our need for a cover dissipates, we can make the Arena a permanent fixture of STHEREA. You may still get your chance to show off your new power, Wagnerok. They should all be separated now, with no way to contact each other." The only one who could get around hyperspace was Vigionair, and Void did not see him as a threat. "So choose your target. Allthough the others might call you greedy. You already took care of Crescent for me, you could let the champions take care of them for instance."
"No way! Schwarzwald also got rid of Sundown, and I am not gonna lose my score to someone like him!" Wagnerok reacted to this appalling suggestion by immediately warping down to STHEREA to find his first mark. "Heh." And Void could just sit back and watch his 'friends' do the work for them. The Hunt could truly begin..
...
It took a long while, but eventually those let go through the other side of the portal and far away enough to escape the power of the items. They were far away from everything else as well. "Guys? Fisherman? Cierze? Princess? Echo!" Valkyrion landed on top of a wide open Canyon, catching himself in mid-fall with is magnetic wings. "It happened again!" He panicked once he realized how alone he was. "What do I do know? How do I find the others? What would they do? Maybe Miss Echo will find me again?" He was so used to being around others that he did not even think to keep his thoughts unspoken. Fortunately this area gave him a new conversation partner.
"And here I thought Wagner liked to talk to himself." But not in a good way. "Eh?" On the edge of the cliff stood a single duelist. "Hey! You're Bionis Khan!" A duelist who wore a crown of gold and had skin full of stitches. "I am Khan the Conqueror." Khan corrected the ADI. "And how does an ADI like you get to know my name? Is that Project Flute at work?" He made a sickening snapping sound with his neck as he tilted his head. "Flute?" Valkyrion understood the significance of that name as well. "Those are... Hey I did not look into your memories or anything! I just know about you because other people know about you. You're the best ritual duelist in the charts!" Valkyrion confessed. He had to absorb at least some data from known ritual duelists to become one himself. "Ha. If you want to flatter someone, you should have tried someone else. I only want to hear one thing from you.. your submission!" Khan activated his dueldisk and sent the challenge towards the Magna Warrior.
"What? But why? I didn't do anything to you!" Valkyrion protested. "You didn't have to!. You're just an obstacle that has to be removed so that Void can give me.. and those other guys, what we want. I did not think it would be me that ran into one of you first, but I cannot let this chance slip through my fingers." The Conqueror started drawing cards. Valkyrion would not be leaving his sight until one of them won this battle. "Obstacle? Oh yeah? Well I see this as a chance for me too!" If Valkyrion won, he would also be removing an obstacle.. for Miss Echo's sake. "Wherever you are, I am doing this for you." He promised, using his inner voice outwardly again. "Because maybe you were the best ritual duelist, but not anymore! I know all of your tricks and more! Let me show you a real cool ritual summon!"
...
So it went with the other victims of Voids new plan: some where quickly found while others roamed their new sector waiting for the enemy to strike. Acrates came across the Fire Princess on Fire King Island while Cierze got abandoned in the middle of the ocean. Crescent, who could still not duel by herself, was left to wander the endless forests.. and Vigionair nearly ran into trouble with Zettai as he crashed down in the wastelands around Pandemonium. They'd be picked off one at a time, until there were none that could help Echo.
But anyone trying to get to her would have to get contend with the Legendary Fisherman first. "Fisher..." Thanks to an unexpected intervention, the duo managed to avoid separation. "You saved me." The landing had been a bit rough, causing Echo to fall out of her wheelchair. But at the very least she still had him by her side. They did fall down into a remote and unknown part of the network however. They were alone on a small island in a lake surrounded by mountains at all sides. A single castle tower stood on the island with no way to get inside, it looked like a scene from an inexplicable dream. Whatever this place was, it at least offered them safety for now. "That was not me, miss Echo. Something tried to attack us." The fisherman helped her back up into her chair and carefully observed his surroundings. "Attack? It did not feel like that.. And I think the one who did it. Is still here." As she said that, the Fisherman walked over to the edge of the island. "If he is. Then I will find him. I will keep you safe." They were fortunate enough to find a place with a large quantity of his favored element.. "Fisher?"
"What?" The ride down had been turbulent for Charles as well, as he slammed down hard on the ground. He did not expect to find a place like this, but he could actually touch the sand and feel the water. Were they inside the subconscious world? Did someone dream up this place and leave it lingering? He would have liked to ponder, but the other 'inhabitants of the area were on the move. The Fisherman walked into the lake and drained all the water from it. "Whoa!" Most of the lake came back down as a deluge of rain, while a barrier of pressurized water formed around Echo to shield her from potential danger. He could control the water. "There he is!" And she could hear his amazement.
"What? You can hear me?" Charles kept his guard up. He still did not fully understand what to expect from these two. "No, but we can hear you. Who are you? Are you the one that struck us?" The Fisherman could only make out the outline of a humanoid inside the rain, and kept a cautious distance. "I did not do that to harm you, but yes that was me. My name is Charles Adami." The minute his real name entered the conversation however, the ADI threw all caution out the window. "Charles Adami? That is the true name of Void!" He jumped forward, standing in the middle of the dried lake with his cards at the ready. "Wait Hold on! How do you even know who I am?" Charles could not defend himself if things were moving way too fast. "Because that is what you were called in her presence! ! You tried to trick us with your appearance to get close to miss Echo! You will not succeed! I will guard her with my life!"
"Her presence? Ah! Ezra.." It made sense now. Echo'd been there when Ezra used Voids real name. "Do you deny it?" The ADI shouted. "No. I am Charles. Echo is right. But I am not Void. Not anymore at least. Static is. He's been using my avatar for days now. I am sure Echo will be able to tell you that I have none of his influence inside of me right now!"
"That is not an option. Void is a master of illusion, any agreement I make with you could lead to our downfall. Echo will stay where she is and so will you. And besides, I have been waiting to test out my strength for far too long! Void, you will duel me!" The Fisherman had clearly made up his mind either way, he could not let this presumed chance to defeat their primary antagonist go. And Charles could almost not blame a program for following the predictable route. Though this one seemed to have more inside of him than the usual artificial duelist, which was important to test by itself. "I see I cannot reason with you.." Charles figured he could also use this as a way to test his own abilities. Already he succeeded at reimagining his dueldisk and a deck of cards for himself, including cards that he did not even technically own at this point. "I did not expect want this, but I guess we can.. Duel."
Charles' LP: 8000 Fisherman's LP: 8000
-TURN 01-
"Hopefully Echo will watch this fight closely." He thought to himself as he placed one monster and one trap card face down. "She has seen me duel before, so I cannot think of a better way to show her who I really am." He repeated what could have been his mantra. Only it sounded a lot like Static's own creed the more he thought about it. 'Only when people fight each other, can be truly themselves'. But he would have to start somewhere if he wanted to prove how different he and Static were.
(To Be Continued in World 028: Shallow Waters)
