World 067: This World is Too Cold
He did not mean for it to turn out this way, but somehow Charles Adami wound up staying at his former home a lot longer than he needed to. Already he caught many little changes, like a new friendly puppy roaming the living room, plants in the corner and books for the bookcase. He yearned to see more, yet he knew he needed to keep his mind on the situation at hand. He needed to be serious with his parents. "And all of that is true?" Which they found difficult after hearing a very abbreviated summary of his recent experiences. "All of it yeah." Experiences like Static's games, the Continuum entity and the institute that sorta kidnapped him. He downplayed that last part to not worry them too much, though now he felt he'd overdone that since they did not see any cause for alarm.
"No offense, son. But are you sure you havent been spending too much time in that virtual world?" His mother would want to believe him, she'd never caught her son in a lie this great at least. But she'd also always been very skeptical about the wonders of STHEREA. Even his usually more easygoing father looked at him with questioning eyes. "I wish I had. But all of it is real. I do not know what I can to stop it, and I know I cannot tell you what to do. But trust me.. it wont be safe for much longer. If you need proof that the world has turned upside down, I can give it to you. You want to know how I got here so fast? Well.. I quickjumped. Something I should only be able to do inside STHEREA. And now I can.." It would have been simple to do a quick exit and return teleport right in front of their faces.
"Charles!' Or they could be amazed at the suddenly appearing girl in blue instead. "Gah!" Echo managed to give him the fright of the day, and his mother and father as well. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you saw me and were trying to invite me." She apologized as she now sat in a chair behind the diner table with her trademark smile. "Echo? I don't...How did you.. where did you come from? How did you know where to find me?" He had to know. "Uhm. I found you because I looked into your memories. Just a bit though." Echo admitted rather casually.
"Charles?! Is this.. one of your friends you spoke about?" Arthur had his own questions. "Uh.. yes. This is Echo." He left it at that. No sense in getting them even more confused along with being startled. "Ah. Miss Echo. Of course. We're using avatar names now, hmm." His father nodded as if he'd figured everything out in a matter of seconds. "And that thing you just did. The way you got inside, was that a quickjump? Can you show me that again?" He asked eagerly. "Arthur. Don't encourage them." Gwen meanwhile felt one such intrusion was more than enough.
"Well, it is nice to meet you Charles' mom and Charles' dad. You must be very proud of Charles, he has so many friends now. They wanted me to get him. Everyone's getting back together and.. is that..." And before she could say more, a certain canine in the room caught her attention. "Echo. Everyone is getting back together.. where?" Charles made an attempt to get her back on subject, which she did after she managed to get the dog to come to her and sit on her lap. "Heehee. Alright yeah. They're all going to Exeter HQ now. It's kinda scary there, I like this place way better. There's so many places I still need to visit, people I need to make sure are okay like William and Abigail. But you are, which makes me glad. I also saw Olympia and Fisher again, so I know they're doing fine again too!" She jovially explained in between giving the puppy pets on the head. "Maybe they can come too?" She pointed at Arthur and Gwen.
"Us?" They both reacted with mild astonishment. "I dont know, son, how would that work? Something is clearly up, but what is going to happen next? What could happen here?" Nothing ever happened in this town, they could not imagine it being otherwise. "Maybe nothing, I imagine you'll hear about other parts of the world on the news soon enough. But if anything does happen, you need to call me on that number. Okay? I will come and get you as soon as you do. Try to law low until then." He sighed as he realized it would be a lot for them to think about. He did not even know if he could bring them along for a quickjump anyway, and he did not want to try it out. "I will be going now either way. You two... take care if yourself." He waved them goodbye and walked up to Echo. "You too, Charles." He caught his father saying in the last few seconds. "Yeah." He breathed in and looked at the girl. "Let's go."
As soon as they left, his mother let out a deep sigh of her own. "He's grown up so much. Now he wants to protect us.." She grinned. "Heh. The world really has gone upside down."
...
In a different corner of the world, another family got to witness the madness of the new world first-hand. "Are they still fighting?" Jenna's mother shoved her husband to the window to check on said madness. "I think they are? But they're not attacking each other.. they're just.. playing cards and those turn into big machines and.. pixies?" Seeing it did not help either of them understand what went on outside either. "That's dueling, that's what I have been doing all this time." Jenna groaned. She'd explained this to them countless of times already. "And that is the cause of all this mayhem? I cannot even tell who is winning." Her father grunted in disbelief. "Well, to sum it up. It's a stalemate right now. Anything can happen." Dharma did not know if her little explanation would calm them down. "Really?" They did not look very convinced and went back to huddling around the window and dialing the authorities..
"Bah, sorry you had to meet the folks this way." Jenna apologized to the white haired duelist. "Are you kidding me? I wish I had parents like yours.. its so much more fun when you know more about something than they do. Ehrm.. No offense." Dharma laughed. "None taken." Jenna could not resist a little cackle either.
...
Ulysses' LP: 6200 Cherry Anise's LP: 8000
Outside, the stalemate would soon end. "Damnit Ulysses. I already went through this speech with that Dream Mirror nightmare bastard. Are you sure you're not a delusion?" Cherry Anise heard Ulysses' spiel, and wanted to hear no more. "Just because I do not like my name, does not mean I want to forget who I used to be!" He would not convince her through any method besides brute force. "I suppose you have heard too many of my recruitment speeches to be affected. Well I suppose we can sort out all the technical details later. I never really cared about those." Ulysses had plenty of force: he controlled four machines on his field: Machina Irradiator(8/1700/2400) [Zone 5], Metalcruncher(9/2900/0) [Zone 1] and three Machina Citadels(10/3000/2500) [Zones 2, 3 & 4].
"But duelist details, now those are a lot more fun. Take you for instance, I know you like to trip people up with troll and lock tactics, so why dont I draw my cards while I can?" Ulysses did not leave his drawphase just yet as he banished Machina Overdrive from his graveyard. "I activate this trap to draw one card, after I return three of my scrapped machines to the deck." He salvaged Machina Uncruspare, Air Raider and Megaform from the graveyard and snatched a new spell. "Heh, and now I will link summon Qliphort Genius! It takes two machines as materials!" He used the Machina Citadels on the right as materials for the cracked bronze Qliphort ship(1800/LINK 2) {Downleft/Downright}. "Yeah well if you were really a genius, you'd remember that Trickstar Divaridis inflicts 200 points of damage every time you summon a monster!" Cherry's white fairy(1800/LINK 2) retaliated with a blast of holy light from her staff, which stung Ulysses more like a shot of venom due to the added damage of Dark Room of Nightmare
Ulysses' LP: 4600
"Oh but I did. I just could not get to this point in a less painful manner, Anise. But now Qliphort Genius can negate the effects of two cards on either side of the field! And I know who gets my pick of the litter!" A shadowy wraith emerged from the crack of the Qliphort and divided itself to haunt two targets: Trickstar Holly Angel(2000/LINK 2) and the second Machina Metalcruncher. Qliphort Genius could not be affected by spells or traps, meaning it left Cherry no opening to counter its effects. "See I would rather not get stung any more times, so allow me to clean up the field again a little. The Machina Citadel targets Machina Metalcruncher, and will destroy all monsters with less attackpoints than it!" His Machinations on the other hand did not come with such defenses. "Well you're gonna feel it just one more time, Ulysses!" Meaning Cherry could power down the Citadel's with her counter trap: Recall. It would force Ulysses to draw a card and let his destructive effect go. "Then I activate Droll and Lock Bird! Since you added a card to your hand, you cant add any more for the rest of the turn!" Her sorcerer handtrap would slow her enemy down a little too.
"Oof, you might regret that." Ulysses would still keep the card he drew because of Recall. "Pretty sure you will..." He promptly activated that drawn card:, the normal spell of Transmodify. "I will transform my level 9 Machina into a level 10 machine with the same element! I choose Goldilocks the Battle Landscaper!" And with it, he drastically changed the landscape of their battle. "Goldilocks? You kiddin me?" The ground beneath Cherry and Ulysses' feet shifted sideways and the sand got replaced by a mechanical platform large enough to carry an entire city. It in fact did: Goldilocks(10/3000/3000) [Zone 3] was a mobile city surrounded by metallic fortifications and cannons that could level skyscrapers. Because of the summon, Divaridis and the Dark Room inflicted 500 points of damage again. But their tiny blast of holy energy simply vanished in between the Landscaper's buildings and paled in comparison to the damage It could put out. "Oh I am quite serious, Cherry Anise."
Ulysses' LP: 4100
"Goldilocks changes the layout of the field itself! I can move it from the middle zone to any zone on its left or right side. It will lose its 3000 attackpoints, but all your cards in any visited column will be destroyed!" Ulysses dragged his immense city tank to the left of his field, forcing it to grind across the third, second and first column. Trickstar Holly Angel, Trickstar Divaridis and Trickstar Foxglove Witch(2200/LINK 3) {Left/Up/Right} [Zone 3] and her face-down spell were all caught by the moving Landscaper and crushed underneath its metal. "Gah! But this will activate Foxglove Witch's effect!" Because Cherry had lost her link summoned Witch, she could special summon a Link 2 Trickstar from the deck again. She chose Black Catbat the redhaired sweet devilstar(2000/LINK 2) {Left/Right} [Extra Zone 1]. "And you take two hundreds points of damage for each card you control! You have five cards, so you take one thousand damage!" The foxy witch released her fiery encore from the grave, burning Ulysses five times with pink flames. The Dark Room added 300 points on top of that.
Ulysses' LP: 2800
"Heh. You're such a feisty girl, Cherry. But I don't mind.. I will never run out of steam either." Ulysses boasted as he reactivated the effect of Machina Irradiator. "Cant say the same for Goldilocks though, I guess." The nuclear hovertank targeted the Battle Landscaper so that it could special summon one Machina with a lower level, Metalcruncher(9/2800/0) [Zone 3], from the graveyard. Goldilocks got terminated afterwards. But because an EARTH-attribute machine had been destroyed, one Machina Citadel[Zone 1] could summon itself back from the graveyard. The effect of Machina Defense Perimeter got triggered as well, and made Ulysses add one Machina-monster from the graveyard (Machina Resavenger) to his hand. "But just like some machines just cannot keep going forever, some humans will not last either." His next move took the Irradiator and Qliphort Genius off the field and replaced them with the twin-clawed steamtrain Double Headed Anger Knuckle(1500/LINK 2) {Down/Left} [Extra Zone 2].
"Is there a point to this sudden philosophical gibberish, Uly?" Cherry groaned. "Yes. You are about to show me why." Ulysses used his freed up zone for a normal summoned Machina Possestorage: the jeapgreen soldier robot(4/1600/1500) [Zone 5]. "Possesstorage will summon one Machina from my graveyard. That's gonna be Metalcruncher again. And now I have two level 9 monsters...It's time to bring back an old companion." Once the second Machina Metalcruncher [Zone 4] reappeared from 'storage', Ulysses could attach them both to another mechanical behemoth. "XYZ-Summon Infinitrack Earth Slicer!" The mountain-sized excavator(R9/3100/2100) [Zone 4] could also very well rearrange the landscape by itself. For each attached material, one card Cherry controlled would be destroyed. "Just imagine what destruction this would have caused, if everything here was made of virtual matter too!" He laughed out loud as he stood on top of Earth Slicer and gave it a spell card as an XYZ-material as well. "I activate Heavy Forward! This spell attached to my Infinitrack monster! So now it can destroy all your remaining cards! Trickstar Catbat, Trickstar Live Stage and Dark Room of Nightmare!
"You think destruction impresses this girl?" Cherry shouted as entire sections of earth were dug up. "Guess again, bucko! I activate Trickstar Fes!" Trickstar Fes was a spell that banished itself to negate the destruction of a Trickstar summoned from the extra deck. Her two spells on the field were scooped up and grinded to pieces by the Earth Slicer, but the one in the grave allowed her to hold on to some defensive terrain. "Yes! That is what I mean, you will never tire! You are Cherry Anise, a human beyond the physical coil!" Ulysses cheered. He had hoped that she would save herself with the card that Goldilocks had indiscriminately destroyed before. "You've said that so many times already, Ulysses! What about Scura huh? Is she is a special human too?" Cherry snapped back. "Do not be envious, Cherry! I came for you and you alone. She is strong, but you are the only one who can keep up with me like this!" He responded excitedly. "I am not jealous you dip. I am worried for her safety. Mine too."
"You do not need to be. I have no intentions of destroying this city if it does not please you. But I will never give up on you." Ulysses activated one more effect. The Double Headed Anger Knuckle could special summon one level 10 Machine by sending another monster on the field to the graveyard. He selected the Anger train itself and replaced it with a defending Machina Citadel [Zone 3]. It soon paired up with the second Machina Citadel to open an overlay network. "XYZ-summon! Superdreadnought Railway Cannon Gustav Max!" Nothing showed his seriousness off more than the gigantic mobile cannon tank(R10/3000/3000) [Extra Zone 2] on rails. "You have hurt me plenty, now it is my turn! Gustav Max! Fire at will!" The Dreadnought detached one material into its barrel, and the light of heat erupted from inside. "Gah!" Cherry covered her ears as the shot soared across the sky and knocked her down to the ground with sheer pressure. Every window in the cityblock shattered, and every car alarm went off as the blast exploded on the horizon. "What was that about not destroying the city!?" Cherry could not even hear herself curse right now.
Cherry's LP: 6400
"I was holding back. Just look." Ulysses waited for her to get back up before he made his next move. But in that time, all the shattered glass re-assembled itself. And the shards that had fallen to the streets below disappeared like any standard virtual particles did. "What the.." It appeared that physical and virtual matter had merged. But Cherry could not wrap her head around how. "Like I said. I wont hurt anyone else. They cannot take it. You can!" Now he finally entered the battle phase, and sent the only remaining Machina Citadel charging in first. "Maybe you should learn when to quit, Ulysses! I activate Trickstar Corobane!" This was the moment where her last Trickstar would come in handy. Corobane could be discarded to basically double a Trickstar's original attackpower. "But I have so much more to show you! I will counter with Machina Resavenger!" Ulysses could discard his own handtrap: the defending missile droid Resavenger who added 1200 attackpoints to another Machina during the damage step. "And I am not interested! And to your counter I will say just one word... Honest!"
"! So it was in your hand after all!" Ulysses had to take a step back out of admiration as the fatality of this chain became clear to him. No matter what card he activated now, Honest would always resolve last and add the current attackpoints of Machina Citadel to the already attacked Trickstar Black Catbat. "But I will not go down just yet, sweetheart! I have a word for you too, Shrink!" On the other hand he could still weaken Black Catbat(1000 atk) herself to give her less attackpoints to start with. "Tch." Once Shrink cut her attackpoints and size in half, Honest and Corobane resolved to add their attackboosts to the sweet devil(6000 atk). In the mean time Resavenger empowered the Citadel(4200/2500), but it would not be enough. Black Catbat caught the Machina's chainsaw arm with her bare hand and slammed the giant Citadel of destruction down to the ground. "Amazing, Anise.."
Ulysses' LP: 2100
Suddenly the sound of sirens filled the air. "Hey!?" Cherry looked down and saw several cop cars racing into the streets. "That is not the audience you would have liked, is it?" Ulysses began to laugh. With the size of the tanks they were standing on, nobody would be getting anywhere near the two duelists. "Tch. I was just wondering what took them so long. Those noisy idiots are way out of their depth here." She figured that none of their conventional weapons would be able to put a dent in anything created by STHEREA. "No. They do not. I would hate to have to turn on them though." Ulysses placed a trap card face down. "But you can still come quietly now. I will take you far away from all these simple-minded fools."
-TURN 04-
"I'll pass, Ulysses. You should already now how this show ends anyway." Cherry held one card in front of her. "Because you left an opening." She turned it around so that Ulysses could see it: the spell of Monster Reborn. "Ah!?" She could revive virtually any monster that had died this duel. She could even bring back Goldilocks the Battle Landscape to rearrange his field for once. But he wanted to end this in her own way. "I special summon Trickstar Divaridis! Which means you take 200 points of damage again!" The reborn pale-blue fairy[Zone 3] would use this effect for each of her special summons. Alone Divaridis and her weak effect blasts would not have bothered Ulysses much. However when one added another Link 2 Trickstar to the mix, things would become quite different.
Ulysses' LP: 800
"As long as I've got ammo in my arsenal, I will keep advancing, Anise! I activate the Electro-Magnetic Railgun!" He needed to act before the next link summon could happen. "It tributes my machine to destroy cards you control for each thousand attackpoints on that machine! I pick Infinitrack Earth Slicer!" An enormous amount of electricity built up inside the the earth excavating mechanoid, converting it into a makeshift cannon that could fire three shots of pure annihilation. Two blasts tore Trickstar Black Catbat and Divaridis to pieces. "Eeesh. That was way too close." Blanche gasped. The third blast, lacking any in-game targets, veered off into the heavens instead. A clear round hole pierced through several clouds in a row. At the very least the Electromagnetic trap had caused the XYZ-Infinitrack to break apart, leaving Ulysses with only his Railway Cannon to stand on. On the other hand, Cherry now only had one card left.
"Hmph. Did you get it out of your system, Ulysses?" And that card was her Trickstar Candina(4/1800/400) [Zone 3]. "Because we're still gonna go down the same path, pal. Trickstar Candina's effect activates! And she adds Trickstar Magical Laurel to my hand!" The normal summoned Trickstar searched the deck for a Trickstar equip spell this turn, this final turn. "Magical Laurel special summons one Trickstar from my graveyard to the field! That's gonna be the Foxglove Witch!" The spell equipped itself to the pink fairy witch[Zone 2]. Just like that, Cherry Anise controlled four link materials again. "And the final star of the duel, the one whose name you never want to hear if you're up against me... her time has come! Watch this! I link summon Trickstar Bella Madonna! Her materials are two or more Trickstars!" The lucky two were Candina and Foxglove Witch of course. Together they could call upon the queen of the Trickstars, the Bella Madonna(2800/LINK 4) {Downleft/Up/Down/Right} [Extra Zone 1]. Long was her bright green hair, and her royal dress bore the colors of violet and pink.
"Bella Madonna.. of course it had to be this way." Ultimately, Ulysses could not prevent her summon. He'd known all along... "Yes. You should have kept more monsters on your field, so you could avoid her power. Because she only gets them when she is not pointing at any other monsters. Powers like a complete immunity to all other effects." Now that she was on the field, none of his remaining cards could keep her silent. That was why he tried to destroy the link materials in the first place. "And.. she can inflict 200 points of damage for each unique Trickstar in my graveyard." Now they came back to haunt him. The spirits of Trickstar Candina, Foxglove Witch, Divaridis, Black Catbat, Crimson Heart, Lilybell and Holly Angel backed their majestic queen up and unleashed their eight voices as one. "You were always the better one." Ulysses resigned himself to his fate. "Tch, don't make this awkward at the last second, Ulysses. Just.. let it go!" Cherry pushed through and unleashed the gathered 1400 points of effect damage upon the Millennium duelist.
Ulysses'LP: 0
"Too amazing." His defeat sent a wave of energy throughout of mechanical juggernauts. Bit by bit the Dreadnought got disassembled. "I guess this is it for me then." Ulysses would soon be standing on nothing but thin air. If gravity did not end him, the authorities below most certainly would. "Guh. Stop being so dramatic." Cherry Anise was not about to let him go down like that. She could still fly with her own power. "Oh. You are an angel for sore eyes." Ulysses grinned happily as the Trickstar duelist grabbed him by the arm and carried him to the nearest rooftop. "I can still drop you you know.." She grumbled back and let him down a little roughly. "Oof. I know. It is more than I deserve."
"Huh!? Hey.. where are you... I didn't hurt you that much!" To her horror, Ulysses' body started to fade away the same way his monsters had done. "No. This is just the consequence of my well earned loss. Don't beat yourself up over it, Cherry. This was just a bad dream from my end, I am about to wake up.. I think." He did not even feel it. The sight of his hand fading into nonexistence simply amused him. "What are you talking about? Start making sense!" Cherry shouted as she reached out to him. "Don't. I already told you I do not deserve it. I shouldn't have run away from my crimes, and I should not have tried to drag you along with me. You don't need me.. You can have better friends now anyway." His smiling face was the last part of him that she saw, before every last part of him had been erased. "You're so stupid.."
"Hey! You took care of him! But where did he go?" Blanche popped in at that time, flying in on her very inconspicuous Blue-Eyes White dragon. "Ah? How the hell would I know? He just decided to peace out himself.. talking about waking up and.." ... Friends. Where these people supposed to be her new friends? Anise could have done worse. "Never mind. The eggheads can explain that one. I think we're done here, right?" She did not want to think about it too much. "Yeah. Scura is trying to talk her folks into letting her come with us. Its a lot better for her where we are going, than this place." Blanche pointed down towards the police who were getting closer to the scene. "Yeah. I don't need to stick around for this either. And if she's coming along. That's cool." One thing remained certain. Cherry Anise did not regret the choices she made so far.
(To Be Continued in World 068: Tickets to the Ultimate Culture Clash)
New Cards used by Cherry Anise
Trickstar Corobane
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Trickstar Bella Madonna
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Trickstar Fes
New Cards used by Ulysses
Goldilocks the Battle Landscaper
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Machina Possestorage
Machina Resavenger
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Transmodify
Heavy Forward
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Electro-Magnetic Railgun