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.

85. World 077: From Choice Overflow

World 077: From Choice Overflow

"Look at her.." Miss Echo: she was all over the network now, and on every channel. "Look at that face, that smile.." She spoke about the power of friendship, about the dangers of hate and the threat of this new world. "Her voice..." The mere sound of her disgusted him to no end. And Static could not shut her out. He'd seen her entire miserable show, her duel against the Live Twins and her subsequent speeches to the world.

"I must admit, their solution is ingenious. She does not ask for soldiers, so she can freely recruit the minds of children." Scarlet Fever watched it right alongside him, fascinated by Echo's every move and by the way she applied her voice and her delayed skill. "Not just the children. I can feel it in the air, I can feel her insipid message infecting country after country. Her words... are like an echo." Static cursed. This would make it that much harder to turn humanity against each other. The more people accepted Echo's gift, the stronger she would become in turn. And he could not stop it.

"This is his doing. This is because of Him.. Charles Adami." Void grabbed the lance and erected a visual projection of his hated target. Just so he could cut off his head with a simple swipe of his other hand. "Is this not a bit of an overreaction?" Scarlet Fever inquired as the decapitated head of Charles rolled down past her before the illusion dissipated alltogether. "They are all working together. Charles is not exactly the brightest mind in their group either, he alone is not putting his thoughts against you." If anything she would blame this on her counterpart. She helped invent that delayed skill card. "No. It was him. It was him from the very beginning. We would have won already, if it had not been for him saving Echo. If it had not been for him taking the Chalice away and letting it fall into the hands of Continuum. Why did he end up at that facility? How does he stumble his way into my path over and over? If not for him, I would have been able to dominate this world!"

"...Why am I not in control yet?" Void suddenly turned on Scarlet. "You told me you could deliver, Scarlet Fever. Look out there, the whole world should be ours! And yet what have you accomplished so far? Only a handful of conversions." He wanted to spread like wildfire, when so far he'd only been able to gather followers in the hundreds. "You should know why that is. It takes time to create the Anti-card, it is not just something I can will into existence. Nor is it a virus that can self-replicate on its own. It only thrives if it is taken by or forced upon the target.." She was still making more samples as they spoke, her laboratory could finish the process automatically now. And those samples proved effective on people like Juan and Ulysses. "Starting the war would have helped to spread the hatred more naturally, but alas.." Their current method took far too long since it needed to be delivered from person to person. "You have let me down. Tell me, you would not be lying to me. Now would you?" It sounded to him like she severely over-estimated her own abilities. "You know that is not possible."

"Is it?" And Zettai had severely under-estimated Static's. "Zettai. So you have finally chosen to return to us." Static Void regarded the ace duelist with a dismissive tone. "And it seems you do not need to ask me why that is.." She hissed back at the wielder of the lance. "Heh, I do not deny it. Yes, I can see into your mind. Into all of your minds. I can see your hatred and fear." Void let out an amused chuckle as he stabbed the ground with the legacy item. "Is that so? Then what about your fear?" Zettai fired back again. "My Fear? I do not fear anything!" Static yelled, making the whole castle shake on its foundations. "Not even Charles Adami? Not even Echo or Continuum? For all the power you claim to have, you have rarely set foot outside this sector. With the the ark you should be able to take it with you wherever you go. I thought you were powerful. Was I wrong? Zettai inspected the whole throne room. "Donna, Khan Scura: already gone. Wagner, Abigail, Hydra: already awake. Veyron, Schwarzwald, Continuum: out of our control. We are losing our power. We have even come to depend on the lowest of duelists to help us.. we cannot let it end like this! You promised me more than this!"

"... Ha!" Static Void stared long and hard at her before he redirected his glare a Scarlet Fever. "There is still time.. How many of your samples can you spare right now?" He asked with a maniacal grin pasted on Void's face. "Two dozen or so." The doctor answered. "Good. I know just who to give them too.." They were right. If you had to do something, you had to do it yourself. "To whom? What can a few dozen more do for us?" Zettai snarled. "It can inspire hate... and fear, Zettai. Fear into Echo and Charles and everyone else that they call friends. I can see their fears as well, and their heinous love. If they truly want to pretend that is is a strength.. then I will make them see how wrong they are..."

...

"Tycho? Who is..." Charles. Cherry and Blanche were in for a bit for a surprise. While they'd spent time with the Live Stars and Echo upstairs, the Salamangreat duelist had been stalking the depths of the building to find any new information he could use. But when the duelists managed to break off from Echo's group they saw Tycho talking to someone in the lounge: someone they did not recognize at first. "You know me, Charles. I am.. I was... Zettai." She was a girl dressed in black and white clothes, with long black hair and an extremely dour expression. "Please, call me Abigail now." If her color coding did not give her away, her voice would. "Zet.. Abigail? Oh my god. How long have you been here? Echo told us you were not coming. If we'd known.."

"Hmph. She's here because she's hiding. Zettai is chasing her.." Tycho explained in his usual charming way. "I did not know where else to go. I.. I cannot fight her." Abigail moaned and buried her face in her arms. "Kgh.. what do you mean you do not know? You're a duelist! You can always fight! I've seen you duel!" Tycho shouted at her. "Yeah like when she kicked you into the dirt." Cherry snickered. "Yes, like that! But those were not her skills, those were yours." He shook his head in anger. "Let her be, Tycho. This has to be hard on her.." Charles knew a couple of other reasons why the former ace duelist would be feeling depressed. "Abigail, you can stay here for as long as you want. We will protect you. You can have this." He handed her a skill card, an empty one.

"Is this.. meant to help?" Zettai wistfully stated as she stared at it. "Echo made these. They are supposed to turn into a proper tool once we are in the heat of a duel. Though Even if you are not up to duel again, they will protect you from Static's nightmares as long as you hold it." Charles could not imagine himself using it in a duel either. "I... am not sure if it will be enough, Charles. Not even my old skill could defeat Static. His own skill negated it." The ace duelist sighed. She did not feel ready to face Void again, much less duel him. "That's what he created? A skill counter? I suppose that's what I would have chosen for myself if I ever made my own skill. Oh.. I think there's one other thing you should know, Abigail.. Himiko is here too. She's occupied upstairs right now, but.."

"I understand. I will stay out of sight." Abigail nodded dejectedly. "That's not what I meant." Charles did not want to leave it at that.

Unfortunately he had no choice. "Pardon me for interrupting." A random Exeter employee walked in at that very moment, still not used to the assortment of duelists roaming the halls of his workplace. "But Therese told me to warn you as soon as you came back. She received an message from someone you know: a certain ms Primrose?" But he managed to get Adami's ear rather quickly. "Primrose? Did something happen?" He knew Therese had been in charge of maintaining contact with everyone's relatives and friends, but he had not counted on his own landlady trying to make contact. "Uh well.. She claims that there was a fire, which started in your apartment."

"A fire?! I have to go there, now!" Charles flinched. "What? How? Did you leave the oven or something? Because if not, this seems very weird. Like its a trap." Blanche spoke up. "Ugh, I know that. But I cannot ignore it either." Charles had to get to the bottom of this, and soon. "Though nobody said anything about going alone." Fortunately there were at least a few duelists he could bring with him to what he had once considered forbidden territory.

...

"...Okay, it seems like the coast is clear." The very next moment a quartet of duelists appeared inside the building's ground floor. "Yeah.. bummer. I was secretly hoping to get some scared reactions." Of course he brought Madam Blanche with him. "I would rather not attract attention." And he took Tycho along as he already knew the place. Though it surprised him that he agreed. "God this place is depressing. You live here? It smells awful." And he only brought Cherry along since nobody else was available at the time. "It smells like fire.. Damnit, the damage must be worse than I thought." The place was not so bad once you got used to it, and it looked fine in here. But who knew what it looked like up top.

"Hey! Can you tell me what happened? Did anyone get hurt?" Before anyone could enter the stairwell, Charles saw a man coming in from the left side. "What? No the fire started in an empty room. You... YOU!" The man looked back and his face turned pale with fear. "You did this! You.. stay away!" He panicked and ran outside immediately, rushing down the stairs at the other end. "What? Why would he think I did...anything?" Nothing good could have caused a reaction like that. "We have to get there, follow me!"

"Soooo.. you were here before, Tyche?" Blanche asked the tense duelist as thr four ascended the stairs. "I can probably ask you the same thing. Why were you here?" Tycho raised his voice as well. "What? Me? Well I just decided to give my tagpartner a visit and all. Remember? The tournament where we beat you up?" She saw no need to explain 'why' beyond that. "I remember. I blame that loss on Schwarzwald." Tycho grumbled. "Well if you want to yell at him, you can pretend he's standing right behind you. That's what I always do. But anyway you did not answer my question." She poked again. "Mister smartguy over here came to get his revenge. Except he went after the wrong guy. There, now stop talking already" Cherry helpfully elaborated before she ran past them both. It'd been too long since she used stairs and did not want to waste her energy on arguing. "I was led astray. The only reason I found this area in the first place was because of a dream he and I shared once!"

"No." When he reached the right floor, he the walls blackened, the ceiling cracked and the floors buried in ash. The entire level had burnt down. "My room." He saw his own home at the end, all of his belongings charred down into nothingness. "Who did this?" He felt his blood boil. "According to that guy downstairs, you did." Cherry pointed out. "But that's not true! It must have been..an illusion. No."

"How could you, Charles."

"No.." He was here. "Static!" In voice and in person... in his person. "! Ms Primrose! Get away from him!" And so was she. Right next to 'Void' stood the landlady herself, though she did not seem to notice Static Void. "I think not. I think she knows what she wants, and she does not have to hear it from you." Void laughed out loud while Primrose settled on her own target. "What!?" She caught him completely off guard, by activating a dueldisk and forcing him to accept her unspoken challenge. "Can't you see? You are too late!" The entity of hate let out another longwinded cackle, though not long enough to get caught by Madam Blanche or Tycho. While the two tried to challenge Void right back, he simply vanished into thin air. "Oh don't you worry. You will have your own fun soon! But these two have a lot to talk about. So I will leave you all at it. I would not want to stay a minute longer in this hellhole you call home, Charles Adami." Only his laughing voice remained as a disturbing echo. "Try to survive this, because I have so much more planned." That too eventually trailed off..

LP: 8000 Charles' LP: 8000

"Are they your friends, Adami? Did you help you burn this place?" And she took over the conversation. "That was not me, miss Primrose! That man, he's gotten into your head and filled it with hate and illusions! You have to fight it!" Charles tried to talk to her, knowing fully well that his chances of success were next to nothing. "You've never argued against me before, and you choose now to start? Too bad for you, Charles. I do not want to fight it. I like this feeling.. and these abilities. I think you have the right idea after all, let this place burn and save us all from it.." She waved her left arm through the air, which felt as light as a feather now. "Let them all burn! I've always hated them." She used her newfound speed to quickly snag five cards from her dueldisk. "You hated them? You've hated me? I do not believe that." Charles protested. "Then you are even dumber than I thought. This anger was always here inside of me. This duel is happening, Adami! Let's hope you are as good at fighting as you are at whining!"

"Boss? Do you need our help?" Blanche cried out. "Tch. Why would he? This woman has never dueled before. How much of a threat can she be?" Tycho scoffed. "I thought she did duel before? Or was that a dream I had?" Blanche did not know why she would think that either. "It was one that I had. She was the one I had to confront in my nightmare world." Charles confessed quietly. Of course the real Primrose would likely use something other than Dreamworld cards. "I mean I get it. Like, one hundred percent. She's scary enough to be in my nightmares and I just met her."

-TURN 01-

"Heh, scary eh? That is what they always say. Everyone sees me as the person who comes to clean up their mess and terrifies them if they step out of line. Well, I chose something that fits both aspects! I activate Appliancer Electrilyrical world!" And a first impression she definitely made, with a field spell that changed the courtyard into an entire night-time city. The houses were all oddly shaped however, and the streets filled with random appliances and lamps. "If I use this, I can add one Appliancer from the deck to my hand! I choose this one!" Primrose used her spell to claim the first living appliance: Appliancer Socketroll. Once normal summoned, it turned into a small red robot(1/100/100) [Zone 2] with a socket-like face and plug-shaped legs. "Okay I get the 'clean' part. Not sure if I would call those cards terrifying, actually." Cherry Anise mumbled.

"Your friend is quite amusing, Adami. You must have a lot of them. Then again, when cards and puns like these exist, I cannot imagine you missing out on any fun." Bitterly, Primrose activated the spell, Wherefor Arf Thou!? "This card takes one more level 1 monster from my deck and add it to my hand! But if a monster with that name is not normal summoned this turn, I lose two thousand lifepoints." Clearly she did not have that problem anymore, since she added a second Appliancer Socketroll to her hand. "I can special summon Appliancer Socketroll from my hand, if I already control an Appliancer! And if another Appliancer Socketroll is special summoned, the first Socketroll can special summon a third from my deck!" All at once, two more socketfaced appliancers(1/100/100) [Zones 1 & 3] flanked the normal summoned one. "So now I get to have fun too! Now I have the freedom! Besides this game is not hard at all! You are a link summon specialist, aren't you? Well, now so am I!" Primrose took two of her Appliancers and linked them away.

"I link summon Appliancer Celtopus! The materials are two Appliancers!" The sockets transformed into a purple battery charger shaped like an octopus(0/LINK 2) {Downleft/Down} [Extra Zone 1]. Its tentacles were composed of various types of charger cables. "Appliancer Electrilyrical World also lets me add one Appliancer back to my hand, when I link summon an Appliancer!" Primrose said as she successfully snagged one Appliancer Socketroll from her graveyard. "Ms. Primrose? Is that why you hate me? Because I made friends?" Charles would never expected that pettiness from her. She'd always been more than fair to him. "Because I envied you, Charles. I envied all of you. The way you could just go out there in the virtual world and live your own life while I got stuck with my own obligations. You never asked me how my life was, you do not even know my first name! That is why I hate you."

"I activate Appliancer Reuse, which special summons one Appliancer from my graveyard, but its sent to the bottom of my graveyard if it leaves the field!" Her dueldisk projected a mechanical claw which dug into the pile of scrapmetal at her feet and pulled out the other Socketroll [Zone 4]. "Now does this have technical term too? A double link summon maybe? Well either way, you will get what I mean." The remaining Socketrolls disappeared as well, but they went their separate ways and created separate link circuits. "I summon Appliancer Laundry Dragon and Appliancer Dryer Drake! Their link materials are also one Appliancer!" Her next two monsters resembled machine dragons. The white Laundy Dragon(1500/LINK 1) {Up} [Zone 2] had clamp-claws, rubber tail and a laundromat for a body. The red/white Dryer Drake(1000/LINK 1) {Upright} [Zone 3] looked more like a wyvern with a glass core and dryer wings. Both co-linked with Celtopus{Downleft/Down} visually, as the tentacle-cables of the Link 2 appliancer plugged into their bodies to charge them up. "Heh. Well that was enough excitement for now. Your turn, Adami."

-TURN 02-

"You've picked this up fast. Does this mean that you've known about my career all along?" Charles wondered just how much of a novice she could actually be. "Perhaps. But surely that can't be much of a problem for you, right?" Primrose sneered. "I did not say that. But I never thought I'd been leading an enviable life either." In reality the cyberse duelist had been taking a lot of his life for granted. "Sure did not look like it." Tycho snidely agreed. "I did not ask for your input, Tycho. What I am trying to say is. You should have the life you want. But there are better methods. Unfortunately there are no better methods to show you that.. besides this fight."

Charles started with a two-card combo: the continuous spell Pinpoint Landing and the cyberse monster Threshold Borg. "When I control no monsters I can discard a card to summon this monster from my hand. And once a turn, when a monster is special summoned from my hand, Pinpoint Landing draws one card." While he made his draw, the summoned Borg(7/2400/2000) [Zone 1] unleashed its own power to drain 500 attackpoints from all opposing monsters (Laundry Dragon: 1000 atk, Dryer Drake: 500 atk). "I will also summon Rebuildeer, and Boot Staggered That second card can be special summoned when I normal summon another cyberse!" The normal summoned green-antlered cyber reindeer(4/1800/800) [Zone 2] paired well with the blue-antler cyber-stag warrior(5/2300/500) [Zone 3]. "Then I activate United We Stand! The monster equipped with this spell gains 800 attackpoints for each monster I control!" He placed the spell on top of Rebuildeer(4200/800) to more than double its energy levels.

"Hmph. You do not have to keep explaining their effects, Adami. I can read just as easily as you can." Primrose scoffed. "Yes, and so can I. I know I cannot attack your Appliancer Celtopus while its pointing towards other Appliancers. And if I attack them, they will gain a thousand attackpoints for each monster connected with Celtopus!" Going for a single link monster would be counter-productive at this point. "That is why I am going to start the battle like this! Rebuildeer attacks Appliancer Laundry Dragon!"

"Then what about Laundry Dragon's effect? When Laundry Dragon battles another monster, neither player takes battle damage! And if it is co-linked, the opponents monster will be banished after damage calculation!" Mere seconds after the reindeer impaled the Laundromat Appliancer, it opened the window on its chest and pulled out several pieces of cloth to wrap the cyberse in. "But that's only after damage calculation! Your monster is still destroyed, Primrose!" Charles shouted as his own monster got absorbed into the laundry stack right in front of him. Shortly afterwards Laundry Dragon blew up into several pieces as well due to the sparking hole in its body. "I do not mind that part. Celtopus lets me draw a new card whenever an unlinked Appliancer is destroyed."

"Yes, but Rebuildeer's effect also still activates when it destroys an opponents monster. So I special summon Cluster Congester!" Though it did die, Rebuildeer could still special summon one cyberse monster with 1500 ATK or less from the graveyard. Charles selected the card he discarded to summon the Threshold Borg: the four-winged mechanical trigger droid: Cluster Congester(4/1000/1500) [Zone 5]. The Cluster could even create one Congester token(1/0/0) as long as Charles controlled no other link monsters. "Now your other monster!" Threshold Borg wound up the next attack with its heavy iron fist. "True. But when When a monster attacks, Electrilyrical world can switch the place of one Appliancer in the main zone. And Dryer Drake can negate one attack each turn when its not co-linked!" After a quick jump the Dryer Drake [Zone 2] found itself on a different part of the field with different powers. With its drying setting at maximum, the Appliancer could blow the attacking Boot Staggered back with ease. "But only once per turn!" Boot Staggered prepared for the final battle, hurling electric light from its hands towards the exposed Dryer Drake.

"True also. But then I still have this card. I can discard Appliancer Breakerbuncle from my hand to negate the damage done to my monster!" All of that gathered energy went to waste. Instead of electrifying the Appliancer on the field, Boot Staggered short circuited a small red mecha-carbuncle in the hand. "Tch. A handtrap, you figured those out as well." Charles had hoped to avoid those. Now he lost his chance to activate Boot Staggered's token creating effect as well as his chance to get to Celtopus. "Attack!" He would have to settle for just getting rid of the Dryer Drake. Cluster Congester blasted the mechanical dragon out of the sky with a precise laserbeam fired from its orb eye. "Heh, if nothing else I am impressed that you were not affraid to hit me."

Primrose's LP: 7500

"I did not want to. But you left me no choice. You still don't." Charles moved over to the second main phase and placed the last card in his hand face-down. "This is precisely why Static targeted her in the first place, Charles! He is using her against you. You should have let me duel her!" Tycho cursed. He would have handled that turn far more aggressively. "Just let me do this, Tycho. I know it does not make sense, but I have to be the one dueling her." Perhaps he'd been soft on Primrose after all. It was too late to change that now. "I link summon IP Masquerena! The materials are two non-link monsters!" Cluster Congester and its own token headed off into the extra deck together: and brought out the cyber-biker girl(800/LINK 2) {Downleft/Downright} [Extra Zone 2] with the cat ears and silver hair.

"Feh. Is that what you prefer, Adami? A younger girl?" Primrose scoffed. "What? No. It's just a card." He cried out with an incredulous tone. "Don't pretend like I don't know what I am talking about, Adami. I've seen her, I've seen who you hang around with. You changed your outfit, but I recognize your face. What was your real name again? Dharma?! Maybe I should have attacked you instead." She redirected her rage towards the white-haired duelist, who felt a bit flummoxed. "No. You will leave her out of this. It's me you're facing." Charles draw the appliance duelist's attention back by placing one card face down. "This fire, the destruction. What happened here.. to you is my fault. I should have known Static would try to strike out at everyone I know... Everyone." He knew Primrose enough to want to save her from this fate, and she was only the first victim.

"! No! My family!" His mother and father would likely be next...

(To Be Continued in World 078: To No Choice At All)

Cards used by Primrose
Appliancer Socketroll
Appliancer Breakerbuncle

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Appliancer Celtopus
Appliancer Dryer Drake
Appliancer Laundry Dragon

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Appliancer Electrilyrical World
Wherefor Arf Thou
Appliancer Reuse