A Legacy of Souls: Terminate the Dream

by Medigo

The virtual world of dueling has survived many threats, but the worst has yet to come. New entities born from the minds of millions seek power to shape the destiny of living. Heroes will be turned against each other as it becomes impossible to trust anyone. And in the middle of it all, one duelist struggles to return to his friends to save them from the one who has stolen his life.

80. World 072: Nothing Beneath Us

World 072: Nothing Beneath Us

The duels at the military missile base raged on at two levels: below and above. Charles and his friends were pursuing Khan's cohorts while the champions and several of Echo's companions dealt with the crown controlled ADIs on the surface. There were many, but they were easy to deal with. So much so some like Mephistar and Cierze could just spend their time staring around this strange area. "So, does every place in the real world look like this?" Cierze remarked as she noted the fakeness of it all: the planted trees and the empty homes. As if they'd just replaced one simulated reality with another. "It feels wrong, doesn't it? This is just.. make-believe." Mephistar replied. It felt even stranger for him to be here, as he should have been more comfortable in this physical realm. But he was not. He was still a virtual avatar after all of this, and nothing more. "Maybe it will be better somewhere else? Maybe up high?" So was she, but now she could fly beyond the clouds if she wanted too... I a moment of peace would ever show up that is.

"If you have time to ponder your existence, you could maybe help us out too." Hydra's voice suddenly reached their ears. "Tch. So you were here all along?" Mephistar growled. He should have expected nothing less from him. "Here and there. I was tracking the soldiers who fled this scene. They claim a certain girl in a wheelchair was among the people that attacked this base." The unseen duelist revealed. "What!? Miss Echo?! She would never!" Cierze immediately protested. "I know that. But we've known about the existence of an imposter Echo for some time now. The problem is, Charles' team never spotted her. We do not know where she is right now. We have to find her. Khan and the others are likely just a diversion while this imposter is wreaking the real havoc."

"So you are asking us for help eh?" Mephistar smirked, only he and the Harpie Lady were not dueling anything else at the moment. "Yes, six eyes can see better than two." Hydra admitted. His own vision was not as good as it used to be. "All I needed to hear." Mephistar nodded. And Cierze could not agree more. "Me too! Nobody gets to make Echo look bad!" They did not want to have to deal with more actual soldiers storming back in and mistaking them for the enemy anyway. The real foes were all waiting down in the depths.

...

"We are the only ones who can lead everyone to the promised lands!" Khan shouted as the underground tag duel continued. "I activate the Cursed Eldlands! I can pay 800 lifepoints to add one Golden Land card to my hand!" A citadel of gold rose up behind the conquering duelist, and its doors opened only after a small payment of life.

Team Conquest's LP: 15200 Team Bionis' LP: 160000

"Hey. Those are my lifepoints too that you're wasting there." Chiaroscura cursed. "It is not a waste, it is a price." Khan retorted. He added the Conquistador of the Golden Land to his hand. "The ones who can afford it will ascend!" He activated a normal spell card next, World Legacy Survivor. It excavated the top five cards (World Legacy - World Chalice, Goblin Zombie, Necroworld Banshee, Guardian of the Golden Land, Golden Land Forever) of his deck and added one World Legacy card (World Legacy - World Chalice) from those five cards to his hand. It also reminded Chiaroscura of the powers she had lost. "Now you're just rubbing it in." She'd used that spell herself after all. "Stop whining. I am not gonna go easy on anyone just because they cannot handle it. At least you are not like those braindead fools. They.. will rot in the dirt! I banish Necroworld Banshee from the graveyard, to activate the Zombie World field spell from my deck! All monsters are treated as zombies! And cannot be tributed!" Khan let his banshee ghost scream, as he turned the land around the golden citadel into a lifeless colorless desert.

"You call this evolution, Khan?! You're just cribbing tactics from Himiko!" Jenna shouted as the field spell zombified her Spirit of the Fallwind(4/1800/900), changing the fairy's hair and skin from vibrant green to dead grey. "So have many others, and I am better than all of them! Yoro Himiko herself is already dead anyway, Nakana Shintaro is all that's left of her!" He crowed. "Yeah yeah yeah, good for you. You cannot anyone be better than you. But ehr.. since you sent a card from your deck to your graveyard, I can special summon Primineral Kongreat from my hand in face-down defense position!" She placed the rock-covered primate [Zone 4] next to her Spirit. "Kongreat? When did you.. with a trap?" Khan checked his dueldisk to replay the last few effects and discovered that she had used her self-setting trap card Subterror Succession. The trap sacrificed the Subterror Behemoth Voltelluric in her hand to add Kongreat to her hand, since it had the same attribute and a lower level than Voltelluric. He'd gotten too caught up in his own speeches to notice this right away.

"Bah! Like this changes anything. I summon Tatsunecro! It can banish zombie monster in my hand as a synchro materials for a zombie synchro monster!" Khan's next undead creature took the form of a former seahorse tuner(3/500/1700) [Zone 6], now pale and sickly green. It connected with the level 4 Guard Ghost in Khan's hand, to start the initially distant synchronization. "Synchro summon! Red-Eyes Zombie Necro Dragon!" Seven stars burned inside of a darkened tuning portal. The Guard Ghost and Tatsunecro created a charcoal-scaled black dragon(7/2400/2000) [Extra Zone 3] with a demonic face on its chest and blue flames spewing from its body. Even the classic Red-Eyes could not escape the curse of undeath. "Red-Eyes Necro Dragon gains 100 attackpoints for each zombie, alive or dead! And it can revive any zombie that is killed in battle!" The Necro Dragon(3000 atk) directed its infernal flames towards the Spirit of the Fallwind, roasting her with a sudden and decisive blast attack. Jenna took the damage, while the Spirit [Zone 6] got resurrected on his side of the field.

Team Bionis's LP: 14800

"Nice going, Khan. Maybe we can recover after all." Chiaroscura snarked. "You could have said something!" He snapped back as he placed one trap card down on his field. "That wouldn't have made any difference." The darkly dressed duelist shrugged. "Whatever. My turn is over.. But during the endphase, I can put a banished Guard Ghost back to my hand. Also, I can banish Guardian of the Golden Land from my graveyard to set an Eldlixir card on my field!" The undead duelist readied himself for the next turn; placing the White Eldlixir of Destiny down on his field and reclaiming his recently tuned ghost. Only then would he let his human half do as he pleased.

-TURN 04-

"Do I really sound like that? Like I am a grade A lunatic?" Bionis found himself asking this out loud at the start of hs turn. He now heard himself like how he imagined other people heard him: as a raving egomaniac. "More lika a Grade B minus." Jenna confirmed this for him. "Thanks for not sugarcoating it." He grumbled. "Yeah well its not like my reflection is doing me any favors right now either." She snarked back. "Ha! Is the truth to heard to bear, William? Jenna?" Khan overheard their chatter and laughed at them both. "You believe us to be monsters, dont you? But we still came from your mind! No matter what anyone else says, you cannot separate yourself from us! The only difference is, we are you at your best! We outclass you to such a degree, that you do not even need to exist!"

"Bah. The more distance between us the better! I activate Pot of Extravagance and draw twice!" Bionis might have ditched his own Vendread, but at the very least he still considered himself a ritual duelist. Because of that, he had no problem banishing six random filler cards from his extra deck to activate his Extravagant drawing spell. "I also normal summon Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands!" No duelist here did not need an explanation for his next card either, the ogre-fairy(4/1400/1000) [Zone 6] with hands growing out of every part of its body. With its effect, Bionis could add a ritual spell (Cycle of the World) to his hand. "And I activate the Cycle of the World! It can ritual summon any monster whose name is Demise or Ruin! I choose Demise, the Agent of Armageddon!" The Cycle of the World left a golden hexagon symbol on the floor of the silo, and wrapped Manju up in the light of sacrifice. Its four stars were given to the ritual summoned Demise: a demon knight with a crescent-blade helm, wielding a large axe.

Bionis however, did not activate the only summoning spell this turn. "So you changed your dueling style as well eh, William!? But you're too late, you always are!" Khan flipped the quickplay White Eldlixir of Destiny spell. As he already controlled Eldlich, he could special summon any single zombie monster from his deck. "The Eldlixir summons Doomking Balerdroch!" The Skull-covered Serpent Deathlord(8/2800/2000) [Zone 9] rose from the pile of corpses that Khan called his deck: and immediately established its hold over all other dead monsters. Only then did the ritual summon of the Armageddon Agent(4/1800/1000) [Zone 6] complete, and could its powers be unleashed. :"I know what every card does, William. Especially the ones that you would favor! Demise has to destroy one monster on the field when it is ritual summoned. But Balerdroch can negate the effect of one zombie each turn!" Though it did not look like it due to its black and silver armor, The Agent fiend had also been turned into a zombie. Thus when it tried to swing its killing axe down, Balerdroch blocked the blow with a single stare of its glowing red eyes.

"Heh. You seem to be forgetting that I know what you know! Or else I wouldn't even be here! And unlike you, I have a partner I can trust!" Here came his chance: Bionis tapped the zones outside his own field and flip summoned Jenna's Primineral Kongreat(8/3000/2000). "Oh? You trust me? Since when? I mean I am not complaining.." Jenna did realize what Bionis had done, force his opponent to react to the less destructive effect. Kongreat would destroy two cards at once, and there was not a thing the Doomking could do about it.. Not much at least.

"Meh. Balerdroch can also banish one monster each turn a zombie activates its effect! And Conquistador of the Golden Land can destroy one face-up monster!" Khan flipped his trap monster earlier than he would have liked; the conquering zombie knight(5/500/1800) [Zone 10] atop his golden horse. Its effect would only be deadly while Eldlich still lived. "Die!" So while the Kongreat primate buried Eldlich and Balerdroch under an avalanche of black stones, the Conquistador impaled the Armageddon Agent on his blade. "Oh no you don't!" The Doomking would also have sent Primineral Kongreat to another dimension, but Jenna managed to sacrifice it in time with Subterror Succession. The trap sent Kongreat to the grave to add a flip monster with the same EARTH attribute, Subterror Guru, to her hand. "Keep your crummy cards. Your field will still remain a wasteland!"

"Oh this is not over yet! You of all people should know that!" Bionis did not see this as a setback. The opposite in fact: the opponents field was not clear of traps and ambushes. "Spell card, Preparation of Rites!" He could also easily reclaim his ritual tools with his rite spell. It added both a level 7 or lower ritual monster from the deck(Ruin, Angel of Oblivion) and a ritual spell in the graveyard(Cycle of the World) to his eager hand. "I can reveal one ritual spell to summon Impcantation Bookstone from my hand! He will also special summon another Impcantation from my deck! I'll take Impcantation Talismandra!" His rather odd assortment of monsters followed: a walking book(5/0/0) [Zone 6] with eyes and a blue gem-pendant on the pages inside.. and a mandrake root(6/0/0) [Zone 7] with a large black talisman around its body. "And Talismandra will add another ritual monster to my hand! I choose the Supreme King of Armageddon! You know what this means, Khan!" Bionis went straight into the next ritual, using both Impcantation monsters and their 10+ level stars as tributes for the Cycle of the World.

"The Supreme King of Armageddon can destroy each card on the field besides itself! And I only have to pay two thousand lifepoints to do it!" One could see the Supreme King(10/3000/3000) [Zone 8] as the ultimate form of the Armageddon demon knights. The agent could hardly compare to his immense size or majesty. Horns covered his helmet, shoulders and arms. White spiked hair flowed down behind its caped back. And Demise's axe had been forged from gold now, and could cleave through the entire field at once. "Then you take 200 points of damage for each destroyed card you controlled!" Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon, Spirit of Fall Wind, Conquistador of the Golden Land, Cursed Eldlands and Zombie World: all five cards were cut in twain. Bionis received the honor of redecorating Khan's entire field.

Team Bionis's LP: 12800 Team Conquest's LP: 14200

"Oh and sorry about your trap, Jenna." The Lord of Armageddon also destroyed his partner's cards of course. "Forget about that. Just get them before they slip away." At least she did not take damage for losing her Subterror trap card. "Right. Khan, the Demise of Armageddon will attack you directly! Maybe you have my face, but somehow.. it doesn't pain me to have to do this!" Now Armageddon would come for the Conqueror himself. He wound up his left fist and sank it into Khan's chest. "Guah!" The hit knocked him against the walls of the silo, making every bit of metal rattle and all of his cries echo. "Actually that felt rather good." Bionis laughed. He placed one card face-down and one more continuous spell, Breaking of the World, face-up. "Maybe masochism is your kink. Ever thought about that?" Jenna snickered along with him.

"Well this is even sadder than I thought it would be." Chiaroscura looked down at the writhing duelist that she had to partner up with. "I would like to see you.. walk that off." A contemptuous and groaning Khan uttered. "Hee. I might enjoy it more. God knows this duel has been nothing but dull violence so far. There is no satisfaction at all. I guess.. I still have to do everything myself." She snapped her finger and activated a trap from her graveyard. "Hey, Billy boy. Since you destroyed my Subterror Burrowing trap, I can add a Subterror to my hand too! So thanks!" The trap burrowed in her deck and dug up her own Subterror Guru. "Rgh. Do not count me out either. Since they destroyed my Cursed Eldlands, I can send one Golden Land card to my graveyard." Khan picked himself back up again while his shattered golden citadel buried the Huaqero of the Golden Land trap-card. "And during the endphase, I can banish Huaqero to set another Eldlixir from my deck." He'd already gone through the black and white. At the end of this turn, he would set the Eldlixir of Scarlet Sanguine.

-TURN 05-

"So is it finally my turn now? It's about damn time. But you can still do one thing for me, Khan." Chiaroscura snapped her fingers again and pointed them at his new trap. "Hmph, you didn't need to ask." He complied, in a way, and activated the third of the Eldlixirs. "Scarlet Sanguine summons another Eldlich from my deck!" Because he did not control an Eldlich monster yet, he could only special summon the Golden Lord(10/2500/2800) [Zone 2] with his bloodred elixir. "Good." Scura herself activated the field spell of the Hidden City. The duelists who left the undead desert would instead be transported into the caves of the Subterror city, where all that glowed would be made of fluorescent green rock instead of pristine gold. "The Hidden City puts a Subterror card to my hand, but you know about that part already." Her deck glowed green as well as it released the Subterror Behemoth Umastryx. "And this part." The little draconian Subterror Guru(4/1600/1800) [Zone 3] took her normal summon for the turn. "It's all so predictable, isn't it?" The Guru's effect could flip two monsters on the field in face-down defense position. "What are you.." Khan found out the hard way what she needed him for, as the Guru targeted his Eldlich. "Why not their monster?"

"Because I want to see them get hurt instead, to see them die!" Since one of her monsters switched to face-down defense position, she could special summon the drill-nosed Subterror Behemoth Umastryx(7/2000/2700) [Zone 4] from her hand in defense mode. "I'm tired of hiding!" The Hidden City could also flip Subterror Guru back in face-up attack position, which activated its searching flip effect and retrieved Subterror Fiendess from the deck. "Now I have two monsters, two perfect link materials to link summon Reprodocus!" Her next surprising move involved a link monster Jenna had definitely never had to think about before. Any Subterror influence vanished as Subterror Guru and the Behemoth transformed into a cybernetic longnecked dinosaur(800/LINK 2) {Up/Down} [Extra Zone 1]. "Oh we're screwed. So screwed." Jenna said as she realized what her opponent had really been after. "Now there are three different types of monsters in my grave! Which means.. I can special summon Archnemeses Eschatos!"

By banishing a spellcaster (Crystal Seer), Dragon (Subterror Guru) and Reptile (Subterror Behemoth Umastryx), Chiaroscura had secured a place for her great poisonous dragon Archnemeses Eschatos(11/3000/2500) [Zone 3]. "Watch this, William! If I say the name, Eschatos will destroy all monsters of that type and prevent their summons for the next two turns! Heehee.. I choose fiend!" Eschatos promptly stabbed the Demise King right through its chestplate, and filled his body with green venom. "That is your new power?" Bionis watched in horror as his ritual monster melted down to nothing. And the poisonous aura lingered for the remainder of his turn.

"That is not even half of it! When there are banished monsters, Nemeses Keystone and Nemeses Flag can return them to the deck to special summon themselves from my hand!" Her deck had been taken over by the Nemeses in fact. Chiaroscura recycled her banished Subterror monsters to create a spark of fire and a shard of earth: special summoning the crimson armored centaur Nemeses Flag(2/1100/200) [Zone 1] and the flatrock-armed robot Nemeses Keystone(1/700/0) [Zone 2]. Neither monster possessed a head, just an orb that either burned or crackled with energy. "Nemeses Flag can also take one Nemeses monster from the deck. I choose the other annihilator: Archnemeses Protos! This one I can special summon by banishing three monsters with different elements!" She got far enough to add the second Archnemeses to her hand, yet she still lacked a third attribute on her field or in her graveyard. That's where her link monster came in. "Reprodocus changes the attribute of one monster he points towards!" The dinosaur reproduced the element of air, and converted Nemeses Keystone into a monster with that color.

"Crap. You're really gonna go that far.." Jenna groaned. She just wanted this to be over with already. "You let it happen, Jenna! Maybe you changed a little, but deep down you are still the same girl that I left behind. And you are still stuck to that one theme, the most boring one!" This time Chiaroscura banished the three elements from her field: EARTH (Reprodocus), WIND (Keystone) and FIRE (Flag). "The Earth!" This created a mutant dragon who looked more majestic and less toxic than Eschatos. Archnemeses Protos(11/2500/3000) [Zone 3] had a smooth and serpentine golden body, silver flowing scales and multi-colored wings without membranes. Golden lightning arched across these wings, signifying the element that would be banished for the next two turns: EARTH. "Damn it." Though she did not control any monsters right now, Jenna would still not be able to use any of her Earth-based monsters on her next turn. "Now, as for you. Allow me to teach you the joys of all the elements! Protos, attack her directly!" Protos opened its draconian jaws, and released the flames of every color. "Gyaaah!" Jenna got consumed by the inferno.

Team Bionis's LP: 10300

"Jenna! Rrgh!" Bionis could not use any of his traps to save her either, not that he expected to get out of this turn unscathed. "Oh you want to taste some power too, eh? Well have at it! Eschatos, attack him!" The other Nemeses struck with a blast of pure radioactive light. "Gaaahaa!" The attack sapped the strength right out of him, making him feel as if he'd been cooked by the rays of the sun. "Yes. That's the stuff. Slaughter the monsters, but save the attacks for the ones in control. What Khan said before is right, Jenna. You just do not stand a chance against us.. You should quit while you're still in one piece." She entered the end of her turn, happily awaiting Jenna's impending helplesness.

Team Bionis's LP: 7800

First though, Bionis took action. "And I keep telling you, you are wrong! You are not better than us! They are not better than us, Jenna!" He crawled back and turned to his partner. "And I am not saying that because I think we're that great either. Not anymore. I am not saying we're the best of friends either.." He continued while a smoldering Jenna stared at him. "How is that supposed to make me feel better right now?" She coughed. "Okay, maybe I am not good at speeches after all. But that's the point! I know me at my worst, and you know yourself at your worst. And we cannot let that, we cannot let them talk us into losing this fight. They know what we do not want to hear, just don't listen! Just focus on the cards, and you will see.. that we can win." Finally he flipped his trap card: The Deep Grave. "!?" As soon as the next turn began, that trap would revive one monster from either players graveyard to their side of the field. It could not be EARTH, it could not be a fiend. Everything else... was available. "I special summon Balerdroch the Doomking!"

-TURN 06-

"What?" Khan's left eye twitched as his other half stole the Doomking(8/2800/2000) [Zone 3] right from under his nose. "Oh. I get it." Now Jenna had a monster she could attack with. "In that case.. let's have some fun!" EARTH Monsters could still be normal summoned, so she could at least place her Subterror Guru(4/1600/1800) [Zone 2] on the field. "Guru will take care of Archnemeses Eschatos! And Balerdroch can have Archnemeses Protos!" Thanks to the combination of effects and attacks, both Archmonsters would disappear entirely. Balerdroch slaughtered the elemental wyrm, and the Guru flipped itself face-down along with the multitype dragon. "That barely tickled, Jenna! If that is the best you can do.. you have no hope at all!" Chiaroscura hissed.

Team Conquest's LP: 10700

"Just stop already." Jenna snapped. "Don't act like I don't know what you really are. You're the part of me that I always wanted to be if I was not so scared of everything. But you know what? Being scared of that is good too. Not as much as I was, but everyone needs a little bit! Otherwise they go and do something crazy like try to blow up the whole world! You want to see what happens, but I am not that selfish." She placed three trap cards down on the field at once and ended her turn. "You want to see it too! You would!" Chiaroscura rasped. "No. I really don't. That's it isn't it? You can't see the difference anymore between what people want and what they dont. That's my fault too I guess, I did help make you. I don't know what happens to you when this is all over but.. I will try to help with that too."

...

"Hold it! Who are you!?" One enforcer shouted as a man approached the front gates of Exeter HQ: a masked duelist. "Just a curious visitor. I imagine you normally do not get many. My friends know me as Midsummer Nightmare." He introduced himself to the new admins who guarded the fortified Exeter building. "Nobody gets inside here, turn back around!" Most of their new enemies could only get in the same way a normal human would, and they were all capable of dueling those enemies. "But I have friends here in dire need of of my help. They want a cure for the madness... I can know how to get it." He talked politely, but the guards were too alert to see him as anything but suspicious.

"You can let him in. I will take care of him from here." Scarlet Rose felt otherwise. "Scarlet Rosemary, I presume?" Once she walked out of the front door, Midsummer immediately bowed. "Hello Midsummer. It has been a while." She smiled briefly. "So tell me.. about this miracle cure of yours."

(To Be Continued in World 073: A Reality Made of Straw)

New Cards used by Bionis 'Will'
Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
Demise, Agent of Armageddon
Impcantation Bookstone
Supreme Demise, King of Armageddon

-
Pot of Extravagance
Cycle of the World
Breaking of the World

New Cards used by Khan the Conqueror
Necroworld Banshee
Tatsunecro
Guard Ghost

-
Red-Eyes Necro Zombie Dragon

-
World Legacy Survivor
Zombie World

-
Huaqero of the Golden Land

New Cards used by Chiaroscura
Nemeses Flag
Nemeses Keystone
Archnemeses Protos

-
Reprodocus

-
Subterror Behemoth Burrowing