World 068: Tickets to the Ultimate Culture Clash

Abigail Starling was alone, locked up inside her own room and lying flat on her bed with no desire to ever leave it. This is the way she wanted it to be. Her and her thoughts were company enough. She did not want to be reminded of it anymore and she did not want to be around anyone right now. Because she had done something unthinkable. She could not handle it, she just wanted to let it all go away.

"Abigail?" But they would not leave her alone.

"You!? Why are you here!?" Abigail recognized that sweet sympathy-saturated voice. "I just.. wanted to know how you were doing." She called herself Echo. "What.. why would you care?" She cursed and wrapped herself up in her own blanket to hide her face. "Because I am your friend. Aren't I? And I am a friend of your friends.. and they all miss you too." The girl in blue pleaded. "That is a lie. They do not want to be my friend. Not after what I have.. done.." Abigail said with a shudder in her voice. She did not want to talk. Moving her hands, using her voice; anything she did would just make her relive that moment again. "But that wasn't you. They know that too." Echo still did not let up. "What would you know? I still did it. I remember doing it, I remember wanting to do it. How could you know what that feels like?" Abigail knew enough about this girl to understand that she would never hate her. But that was about it, they barely interacted before everything went to hell for her. "How.. did you find me to begin with?"

"I.. I looked into your memories. I am sorry, you were so isolated. I felt bad for you." Echo confessed. "My memories? Then you know.. you know what my life has been like. Abigail moaned deeply. All of the mental abuse, all of the strict upbringing; all of that helped create the monster that she named Zettai. No matter how she framed it, she alone felt responsible. "I.. what if I could make it feel better? Just for a little bit." In response, Echo gave a proposal she did not expect. "Feel better? What are you saying?"

"There so many bad memories. I could try to.. take them away. That way you wont feel so sad!" The girl clarified, much to Abigail's dismay. "You can do that? Have you.. done that?" She felt tempted at first, but soon ashamed of even considering it and also mortified by the implications. "No. I would never do it against someone's will. But it is possible." Echo quickly answered, sounding slightly nervous. "No. It should not be.. I do not want it. Just leave me alone!" Abigail in turn started to shout. "But you need help." Echo begged. "I need time! I wont! ..I wont do anything to hurt myself. Just go. Please!" She could not do it after all, she could not be in her presence.. or anyone's presence. "Okay. But we will be back soon, Abigail. That's what friends do." Echo figured others might have more luck with her. "Just remember. You are not alone." She relented for now and phased back into the subconscious world.

"I deserve to be." Abigail said to herself.

...

"Hey. You're still here?" Tycho grunted as he came across Nakana/Yoro-Himiko, Crescent and the others inside Shintaro's offices. "You came back?" Hydra returned his question with one of his own. "Well of course. This place has all the answers I want." The tense duelist would not let the threat of Continuum hold him back. And from the look of things, he worried for nothing. "Well I am affraid you came for nothing. We already checked this place high and low, and found not a trace of information that could help us."

"What? Nothing. You must have missed something!" Tycho refused to believe that. "You are welcome to look for yourself. But I have shown them everything I know." Nakana for her part felt ready to move on from this haunted location. "Did you? This is your home, right? Where's your staff, where are their bodyguards? Why can't we ask any of them? Are you telling me they vanished too?" Tycho could accept the likelihood that the Shintaros wiping all of their data and erasing any paper trail. But people were a lot harder to remove from the face of the earth. Unless... they never existed as people in the first place. "And what about him? What is he not telling us!?" He pointed his finger at Zanbatou as well. "I have told you all that I can." The bodyguard claimed. "Like I would believe that!" Tycho snapped back. "I do believe him! Whatever my parents did to him, he is still the same loyal man deep down!"

"Yelling is not going to change anything either." Crescent interjected at this point. "I have a question of my own. How did you get here?" The way Tycho appeared seemed unusual to her. He did not walk in, he teleported in and bypassed all other defenses. "Huh? I just quickjumped. Right now players like me can visit any place they have visited before." Tycho shrugged. "Is it really that easy? Does that mean I could go to my home right now, if I wanted too?" Crescent perked up.

"Are you thinking about leaving?" Nakana caught on to her sudden excitement. "Oh. I believe I am.. in fact. Now that I know you are alright, I can do this. I have to do this. My family, they should be told about this. And Wagner's family too." Crescent would not let anyone lie to them. And she would bring them to safety if she could. "Then do what you must. I will understand.." The daughter of Shintaro still felt some affection for her own monstrous family, so how could she refuse one whose bond seemed that much more valuable? "I will be back when I can be. I promise. And I wish you good luck, Yoro-Himiko." Crescent gave her an awkward handwave as a goodbye and closed her eyes. "So I should just.." And before she knew it, she was gone. "We will need it." Nakana sighed.

...

"So all of this is Midsummer's fault?" Charles bitterly concluded. He'd been happy when he finally found his friends again at Exeter HQ, surprised as well to find out that the duelist formerly known as Scura was waiting for her there as well, and aggravated when he heard what Blanche had to tell him. "Yeah I guess. I am not sure Static got to him, or if he simply made him an offer he could not refuse, but that was definitely the real guy. Kicked my ass and everything. Sorry bout that." Blanche still felt a little sore about that encounter herself. "Don't apologize for that. The dude's off his rocker. He joined Millennium at the drop of a hat, so this is just right up his alley." Cherry Anise put it tactfully. "What I don't get is.. You saw Echo, and she did not tell you about this? What's going on there? Is she still too soft on the guy?"

"I do not know. Maybe she did not think it was worth mentioning. We cannot focus on him currently either way." Charles sighed. What was done was done. "Why don't you ask her?" Still, Jenna chimed in with a straightforward suggestion. "We could, if she were here right now. But she is still trying to locate the rest of our group. I do not believe she is intentionally trying to mislead us, she still has good intentions." She'd given them few reasons to think otherwise at any rate. "I guess. She does apparently love to make things awkward around our parents. But I I do owe her one for getting me out of that weird nightmare in the first place." Jenna spoke with a shiver in her tone. "What were you dreaming about anyway?" Blanche nonchalantly inquired. "Like Hell I am gonna tell you that out loud! Just because you.. Bah.. Great now you made me remember. Don't make me regret showing up to help you guys. I had to leave everything behind and all.. If I could, I would have taken my parents with me. But you told me not to.."

"Because we don't know what happens if we try to quickjump with people like them. Excuse me.. people who do not have avatars. I didn't want to put my family through it either. Though based on what I heard, they likely would not have come either way." Charles did not take those two for the most adaptable of people. "No. But it would have been easier for me to be here." Jenna confessed. "Can't we send like a couple of those CIDs to protect them? No wait.. Static still has the crown, doesn't he? Never mind." A certain feeling of helplessness overcame her. "Jenna, that may not be necessary. For now it seems like the attacks are limited to other duelists. Even if I do not know yet why that is." Charles shook his head. "Even so. I promise you will not regret it. If we all work together, we can find a way to fix all of this..."

"Perhaps we should focus more on what Static could be plotting." Dyzanthium joined the conversation with her usual dramatic tone. "Plotting? You mean like springing troublemakers from jail, right? I highly doubt Ulysses was the only one." Cherry stated. "You would sadly be right. Exeter had been keeping tabs on certain individuals..." The champion revealed bitterly. "And it appears that a few of them have been released into the wild.. so to speak. They are difficult to apprehend, and seem poised to spread their brand of insanity to more parts of the world. There's even one duelist out there now who is manually picking off other famous duelists. I warned Giganoto already, but there has to be more that we can do." Just talking about it only made Dyzanthium madder, and she already felt unstable at the best of times. "There has to be a way to cure them though, right? What Static does, can't Echo reverse it?" Charles wondered.

"That is a logical assumption to make. But I fear that this 'curse' is not by his design alone. This was the final plan that Scarlet Fever had been building towards. And she never planned to make a countermeasure.. there exists no cure in her data." Scarlet Rose added her own two cents. Even she would never have gone as far as to create something that she could not undo. "Yet that does not mean a cure cannot exist. If I had a sample, I could begin my study. But either way I would need the resources of Exeter to realize it. I think I should also visit the facility where Anise and Adami are housed. Unless you find that unwise, mister Adami." The doctor still sensed some distrust coming from him. "I am pretty sure every major country is already involved in trying to analyze this bizarre new world. Some of them are even insane enough to send field teams to the island. What makes you think you can find something before they can?" He did still carry some resentment.

"Because I started this. In a way. Who better to cure her poison, than herself?"

...

Everything was quiet at Donna's house, even in her workout room where she would have spent most of her time staying fit and maintaining her physique. Giganoto rarely visited this place, and if he did it was only to compete with her in either a duel of a sparring match. Now he had a new motive, to protect her. The duel between Donna and Hydra had put her in a state of unconsciousness, and every doctor claimed she needed time to recover. While all of their friends were fighting the good fight in STHEREA, he would stay here and guard her. Because the world had changed.. and danger could be right around the corner. He'd heard stories about how many well known duelists were being targeted by an unknown assailant, possibly multiple. He saw it as a matter of time before he too would be targeted. Or worse... Donna could be targeted. So when he heard the doors to the workout room slam open, he feared the worst and rushed downstairs to intercept this new visitor. "Hey! You're not allowed in here! You.." There he saw Him: a man in a racing suit with a classic dueldisk model on his arm.

"Wait a second. That outfit.. You're... You're Veyron!" Even with the racing helmet on, there would be no mistaking him. The speed duelist of old always wore his flashy green and white stripes for every duel. Every tournament duelist had to look flashy after all. "Heheh. I am glad to be recognized, despite our lack of interaction in the past, Meteor." The helmeted man laughed. "Well that's a little hard to do when we're both from way different fields of dueling!" Giganoto shouted as he kept his guard up. Veyron being here right now could not be good news in any way. "Yes, you the dueltainer and me the tournament player. Even so all of us share the same traits, we crave fame." Veyron stepped into the training room with a confident stride. "All of us?" Giganoto flinched. "Wait. Are you the one.." The realization hit him: he was the one behind the attacks on his friends. "You are not the first dueltainer who crossed paths with me today, Giganoto. And you and Donna will not be the last."

"You? You did all of that? Why?" Giganoto immediately activated his own dueldisk. If Veyron wanted to get to Donna, he would have to do it over his dead body. "Because I am Veyron, and I need no other reason. My reputation has been tainted for far too long. The only way to prove my glory in this new world is to take down any duelist more favored than me!" Veyron yelled at the top of his lungs and rapidly plucked five cards from the top of his deck. "But we didn't have anything to do with that!" Giganoto protested. "To them it will. Now draw your cards and transform yourself into your true Dinowrestling form, Giganoto X! Let me crush you at your full power!"

Veyron's LP: 8000 Giganoto's LP: 8000

-TURN 01-

"Uh, do what now? Transform? I dont know what you're trying here." Giganoto could only duel with his dueldisk right now; just like he would have done in the old days. "So be it, the first turn is mine either way! It always is! I set a card and normal summon Speedroid Marble Machine!" That did not stop the dueldisks from creating high quality lifelike images. Speedroid Marble Machine(2/200/100) [Zone 2] got its name because its robotic body was made out of glass marbles and almost nothing else besides a red cape and wiry arms. "When it is normal summoned, I may add one Speedroid from the deck to my hand! I choose another Marmble Machine!" This card belonged to a special class as well. As a pendulum monster, Marble Machine (Scale 1) [Pendulum Zone 1] could be activated as a spell as well. "Now I special summon Speedroid Taketomborg! This one I can special summon since I already control a Speedroid!" The next speed android appeared as a metallic bamboocopter(3/600/1200) [Zone 3] with golden bolts on its head.

"Speedroids?" Giganoto was surprised. Instead of Orcust or Formula Athletes, these current monsters all drew their designs from toys and games like yoyos or darts. "Oh wait. I remember now. You used Speedroids before everything went digital. " Giganoto realized. Formula Athletes were one of the many archetypes invented for the STHEREA age after all, they would not exist in any physical form. Neither would the Orcust. Though Giganoto would have guessed that such broken cards could bypass that little law of reality. "I am using them because I am Veyron! These cards are the very same!" These cards did, they were the original set that the speed duelist had held on to all this time.

"Taketomborg can be tributed to special summon another Speedroid tuner from my deck! I choose the Red-Eyed Dice!" Even something as simple as a golden six-sided dice(1/0/0) [Zone 3] belonged to this mechanical archetype. "Red-Eyed Dice will alter the level of my other speedroid!" His special summoned tuner spun around until it landed with the five-eyed side face-up. Marble Machine(5/200/100) prepared itself for an immanent tuning. "Synchro summon! Hi-Speedroid Kendama, in defense mode!" Six stars joined together in a quick burst of light, and created the even faster robotic Kendama speedroid(6/2200/1600) [Extra Zone 1]. Four spiked cups radiated out sideways, while Kendama's sharp steel handle pointed forward like a cannon. "Kendama can inflict 500 points of damage by banishing one machine from the graveyard! That's right, I am so fast that I always get the first hit in!" Veyron banished the Taketomborg, which charged up Kendama's cannon. One burst of lightning left the machine and struck Giganoto in the leg. "Guh. Are you trying to cripple me here?" It felt like world's largest tazer had stung him, and that was just 500 points of damage. This was not a regular duel after all.

Giganoto's LP: 7500

-TURN 02-

"Well if being fast is all you care about, then you wont mind if I start my turn right now!" Giganoto drew his next card and grunted inwardly. His hand reminded him that he did not have his Dinowrestlers with him either in this world, they were another virtual archetype. Unlike Veyron, he was not accustomed to dueling in real life. "Get over it, Giga. You dont need them." He said to himself. He was still a duelist despite everything, and the cards he did own were not to be under-estimated either.

"I activate the Lost World! From now on, all monsters that are not dinosaurs lose 500 attack and defense points!" Still, the first card he did play reminded him that he'd not had many duels with extraordinary stakes or settings either. Just activating his Lost World field spell placed both duelists inside a whole new environment. The training room and the HiSpeedroid(1700/1100) were surrounded behind a row of immensely tall trees and extinct fauna. Giga could almost smell the plants, or maybe that was just his mind playing tricks on him. "I really should have paid more attention to what the champions were saying.. But anyway! I summon Animadorned Archosaur! When this card is summoned I can destroy one dinosaur in my hand to add an Evolution Pill spell to my hand! And also, my field spell makes one Juraegg token each turn when a dinosaur is summoned! And you get that egg, Juan!" A large egg(1/0/0) [Zone 1] with brown spots emerged from the grassy floor, summoned to defend the dueltainer's opponent. Archosaur also crawled up to the field, revealed as a crocodile(1/0/0) [Zone 1] made entirely out of pearls. "Archosaur destroys Petiteranodon and..."

"Don't think you can get ahead of me, Meteor! Nothing can tip the scales of my fortune! I activate the permanent trap: Head Judging!" Veyron cut in with blazing speed, as he threw a real coin right up into the air. "Whenever a monster uses its power, I can negate it with just one correct call! And I always get the right call! Heads!" The coin came down in the soft ground 'face-up'. That would have forced Giganoto to stop the effect of his Animadorned dinosaur. However.. "Coins? Odd, I thought you were more of a dice-man. Well its no skin of my nose! I can activate Miscellaneousaur from my hand so that none of your activated effects hurt my dinosaurs!" Giganoto dug his way out by putting the skeletal dinosaur into the grave instead. "Ha. But that protection only lasts a single main phase!" Veyron countered. "That's good enough for me!" Giganoto claimed as he resolved Archosaur's effect by destroying the Petiteranodon in his hand and adding a Double Evolution pill spell card to his hand. "In any case, since I destroyed Petiteranodon, It can special summon one dinosaur from my deck. Here is where the fun begins!"

Giganoto placed the Souleating Oviraptor(4/1800/500) [Zone 2] down in front of him and activated its on-summon effect to add an Ultimate Conductor Tyranno to his hand. "See Oviraptor grabs a dinosaur from the deck: that's just for starters. But he can also destroy any dinosaur on the field to special summon one from the graveyard." The blue-flame necked Oviraptor 'ate' the soul of the Jureagg, or at least it attempted to. But the Lost World field spell could redirect the destruction of a normal dinosaur monster to a card in the deck. Oviraptor wound up eating the Baby Cerasaurus instead to revive the Petiteranodon in defense mode: a baby pterasaur(1/500/500) [Zone 3] with its egg shells still on its head. "Try to keep up! A destroyed Baby Cerasaur will also special summon one dinosaur from my deck! I choose the Giant Rex!" Now a true predator came to stalk the depths of the lost jungle: the sailbacked and long-snouted Giant Rex(4/2000/0) [Zone 3]. "Heh. Its more of a spinosaur thn a tyrannosaur really. But I didn't get to come up with the names for these cards."

"Is this a duel or a documentary? Do not bore me, Meteor." Veyron let out a grunt of impatience. "Yeah yeah. I saved the best for last: a dragon among dinosaurs! I summon Evolzar Dolkka!" Giganoto did not have any link monsters anymore, but there was a more ancient power that could rival synchro monsters: XYZ-monsters. Giganoto overlayed Giant Rex with the Souleater Oviraptor as XYZ-materials for a Rank 4 XYZ-summon. This evolution led to the birth of a devilish white dragon(R4/1800/1200) [Extra Zone 2] with bloodred eyes and four wings.

"And I can also banish two dinosaurs from my graveyard to special summon Ultimate Conductor Tyranno! Now that's a proper T-Rex!" He banished both Miscellaneousaur and Baby Cerasaur, to summon a dinosaur that one would normally never find in any documentary. The Ultimate Tyrannosaur(10/3500/3200) [Zone 4] had bright red flesh covered in darkblue scales and electrically charged spikes and horns. "Ultimate Tyranno can destroy one of my dinosaurs to change your monsters to a face down position!" The tip of the Tyranno's tail slammed into the Animadorned Archosaur and absorbed it into an electric orb. That same orb released a current on the field that forced Hispeedroid to hide itself completely. "Here we go, Tyranno can attack all your defending monsters in one battle phase! That monster will automatically die, and you take 1000 points of damage! Let the carnage begin!" First he made his Conductor dinosaur feast on the Juraegg token, crushing the egg between the crazed Tyrannosaur's teeth. The first lifepoint impact hit hard enough to crack Veyron's helmet. "Now its HiSpeedroid's turn!"

Veyron's LP: 7000

"You will have to catch it first! I activate Marble Machine's pendulum effect! When my defending monster is attacked, I can switch it to attack position and make it indestructible!" Just before the Ultimate Conductor could munch on its second prey, HiSpeedroid Kendama(6/1700/1100) flipped upwards again and raced away from the dinosaur. The synchro monster evaded its destruction. It still took some battle damage during the attack however, and even more of Veyron's suit got damaged as the monsters clashed.

Veyron's LP: 5200

"You're a wiseguy, arent you? But I know you didn't beat my friends with cheap tricks like that. So why don't you go ahead and show me what your real power is... There's no audience here to build hype for. It just you and me!" Giganoto sent Evolzar Dolkka in to make its own strike. Even if the dragons flames would not destroy the machine, he could reduce its master's lifepoints. That last bit of damage finally shattered Veyron's helmet into pieces.. revealing his face to the dueltainer. "No..no way!" A face that did not belong to Veyron. "You're..." He looked like him, he looked like Juan... except he was older, thinner and paler. He was not Veyron, he was his brother. "Victor!"

Victor's LP: 5100

"No! I am not Victor! I am Veyron! I was always Veyron!" Victor shouted, his expression twisted with rage. "You sure look like Victor to me." A face like his would not be forgotten or mistaken so easily. Victor had always favored coin tosses over dice throw effects too, hence his continuous trap. "Victor is dead. So is Juan. He dared to pity me, he visited me in my own cell and set me free. One last act of a brother for a brother he called it. H! As if I needed his help! I never did, I could have been Veyron all this time! I was the one who made Veyron the champion of speed dueling, I was the one who created the name EL VEYRON GT! And now the whole world is my audience, Meteor. The whole world will know that I am the fastest duelist alive! I will defeat anyone who dares to make a name for himself! And you will be next.. and after that. Donna will fall as well!"

"Oh you just pushed the wrong button, friend." Giganoto's face turned dark as he placed a trap card down. "You should be happy she's not here to beat the crap out of you. She would have done it in one turn.. I only need two! So bring it, fastest duelist alive! Show me if you can defeat me in less time than that!"

(To Be Continued in World 069: OffRoad and OffScript)

New Cards used by Giganoto X The Meteor
Animadorned Archosaur
Giant Rex

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Evolzar Dolkka

New Cards used by Victor 'Veyron'
Speedroid Marble Machine
Speedroid Taketomborg
Speedroid Red-Eyed Dice

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Hi-Speedroid Kendama

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Head Judging