World 098: The Fugue State
"Charles! Geez! I was wondering if you were ever gonna make it out of there!" The first face he saw upon his return to reality, to the hotel that he left his unconscious parents in, was that of her. "Dharma? Were you waiting here all along?" He saw Mephistar, the Fisherman and Cierze standing just outside the hotel room to, the latter playing with the puppy to keep it distracted. Of course Dharma knew where to find this place since she brought his parents here in the first place. "Of course! We didn't know what was going to happen.. But if you're here now, than it must mean that you beat him right?" She was understandably filled with questions, but so was he. "He lost everything. He's gone now. Dharma, are my parents awake? Echo said... !" And the answers were lying ahead of him. Both his mother and father, Gwen and Arthur Adami, still rested in the same place as before. "Oh yeah.. Echo got them out first, the mind I mean. They stayed asleep though..."
"Still?" Charles walked up towards them. Physically they seemed to be alright, not as deadly quiet or tense then as when he last saw them. "I hope they are. I stopped the nightmare they were in, but they were still so very tried." Echo suddenly showed up again, fading in from the solid ground. "They.. they love you like nobody else. Nobody who feels that way should be hurt." The girl let out an almost envious sigh. "Love? I guess you could say that. I never thought too much about it, until I almost lost it. I just took that for granted." Charles realized that a love like this, which felt all too common for him, would have been hard to find for her. "It's precious, Charles. Not every family can have it.. I do not understand why, but I know that is the truth now. Pareents should love their children.. Creators should love their creations. And yet.." Echo's voice trailed off. "." She changed the subject with a sudden intensity in her voice. "What.. what do you mean? What did they see in their nightmares, Echo?"
"Nothing they will remember." The girl admitted. "Huh? Remember? You... made them forget?" He was not sure if he liked the sound of her tempering with their memories. "Yes. They had to forget.. Or else they would.. suffer even more. Isn't that the right thing to do? Static lost, he should not get to take it away. Nobody should. And now he is gone, so everyone can forget all the horrible stuff he's done. Everyone will be better and they'll stop fighting each other." Echo nodded firmly.
"I wish it could be that simple, but I don't think it's going to be." Mephistar interrupted. "Why? I missed something, right? What was it? Does it have anything to do with Continuum? And where is everyone else?" Charles did not exactly demand a big party to greet him at the end of the duel. But it did seem strange for there to be almost no one to be here to make sure one of their greatest enemies would go down. Another crisis would explain why Scarlet Rose and Therese sounded so stressed before however. "Well for one thing, Nakana managed to get her own folks back to safety. You could drop your parents off at Exeter too. But the others... are still at the tower. It's better to show you." The chained duelist explained. "The tower? This is not over yet, is it?" Charles groaned. What else could possibly go wrong at this point?
...
Once the group made their way back to Exeter HQ, with Charles letting his sleeping family rest down below in one of the building's guestrooms, he reunited with everyone else. Nakana, Therese, Midsummer and Scarlet Rose stood around the virtual projection of the STHEREA island. "An obelisk?" Through that he saw what started all the commotion, he saw the tower in its new form. "It's weird right?" Dharma nodded. "I mean I just got back from dueling an god called Obelisk, and that made the tower turn into an actual obelisk. Maybe that program you made was supposed to do that, Rose?"
"First of all, I need to ask. Is it true? Did you eliminate Static?" Scarlet asked him back as she and Therese looked at him hopefully. "It is.. I saw him disappear with my own eyes. I do not see how he could have survived that. I do not know if he even wanted to survive that, not as he was then." Charles confirmed their hope. While this made Therese sigh a breath of relief, the doctor maintained her look of concern. "I believe you. but it seems like that has not alleviates our problems in the slightest. This current outcome defies all of my calculations. This new construct is also immune to every scanning program. I cannot tell what the layout on the inside is. If there even is an inside. I presume your tools are not faring any better, mister V?" She could at least call those on the frontline for live feedback, though she did not expect much in this instance.
"You are sadly presuming right. It's great to hear about Static, but it seems like he somehow still has some power over this area." Vigionaire threw his own observations back.
"That is not correct. This is not Static's doing." Midsummer Nightmare suddenly chimed in. "Nobody asked you, friendo." Mephistar sneered back at him. "And yet I am telling you this anyway: that tower is not one of Static's creations. It gives off a completely different aura. Believe me or don't, but this is how I feel about it." Once he said his piece, the masked man returned to his silence. But his words stuck with the others. "Hmr. Maybe this is something Scarlet Fever made up on her own then. She did have that whole lab full of fake items right? She could have planned to take over in case Static went down." Mephistar shrugged.
Charles nodded. "Before he died, Static said that someone betrayed him. That someone has to be Scarlet Fever. If I am honest, this obelisk feels more like it would be one of your designs anyway, Scarlet. The other you I mean. I imagine that only she can 'defy your calculations'.." Charles could trust this Scarlet for now, but he did not trust her ability to properly assess her counterpart's own plans.
"No. She should not be like that anymore." Echo suddenly claimed. "If Static isn't here anymore. Then everyone he corrupted should be saved too. Scarlet Fever should be able to do what she wants now. This is something else." She seemed to agree with Midsummer, though not for the same reasons. "I am not so sure about that, Echo. Take Static away from a person like Schwarzwald, I still think he is going to stay a rotten bastard." Mephistar colorfully disagreed. "Yes what would they be, without Static's influence? If I am Scarlet, she cannot be Scarlet too. Otherwise, what is the difference?" Rose backed his statement up. There was already enough proof outside of her own rather unique case to make clear that the personalities Static created were not exactly the same as their original 'source'. "I do not know. But they deserve a chance too. They all do, no matter what they've done. Static made them that cruel and now they can be more than that.. I have to be there. So they can all celebrate, and be happy!"
No warning came, as the lady in blue disappeared from sight and caught even the Fisherman off guard. "Lady Echo?" He and Cierze quickly quickjumped after her, knowing of only place she could have gone too.
"Is it me. Or does she seem to be acting a bit strange." Dharma pointed out. "Yes." Charles felt the same way. "I do not think you can blame her after what happened to Olympia." Nakana sighed and looked away. In the background Midsummer slowly raised his head yet stayed quiet. "Olympia? I thought she was with the others?" Charles hadn't questioned the Fire Princess' absence, until now. "No.. She went with me, Tycho and Bionis. And after a while something inside her snapped and everything spiraled out of control..."
...
Of the many displaced Static followers, Wagnerok was certainly the loudest. "Where is it? It has to be here somewhere!" He wandered the remains of the old tower for one specific purpose. When the beyond came down, so to did the legacy items. And he wanted his returned to him. "You are wasting our time. We have more important matters to tend to." The only duelist willing to hear his words was Zettai the ace, and she was more interested in locating others like her. "Who cares about Veyron? He failed, just like everyone else!" He would have demanded help from someone else, but he feared losing sole rights to the prize. Not that anyone else could assist him, as disoriented as they were. "You know it will not work this way. Even if you could find it, it does not belong to you. It belongs to Schwarzwald." And the black baron was nowhere to be seen: another fact that concerned Zettai. "Why does that specific item matter that much to you to begin with?"
"Because it is proof of my divine right, of my superiority! You would understand if you earned one! I only lost the item in the first place because that foul bastard stabbed me in the back! I would have won it back too. But that cowardly girl got in my way!" The voice of Echo still affected him, he could still not take any action that would harm those around him. Because of that, he could do nothing about the people that caused the collapse in the first place.
Vigionaire, Crescent Abigail and Cherry stood only a few yards away, once again hidden from sight and studying the scene of the wreckage from their safe distance. They could still be seen by their newest visitor however. "Echo?" V did a double-take when the girl in blue dropped in along with her winged wheelchair, The Fisherman and Cierze appeared behind her a few seconds later. "Vigionaire. Do you still have that machine that lets me use my voice across the sector?" She kindly inquired right away. "Uhm, yes. I do. But what are you going to use it for?" He tapped a few buttons to reactivate the program, projecting a filter ring in front of her. "I am going to tell them what happened." Echo stated determinedly, she climbed on top of her wheelchair and flew back into the skies. "Tell them?" V hoped he would not regret this.
"Everyone. I have an announcement to make! Please listen to me!" Echo's voice reached everyone she could see once more, sounding crystal clear and yet pleasantly soft at the same time. "Wait.. Is that. Oh no. Not again." Wagnerok did not need long to realize that the same situation from before, the one that caused his dueling paralysis in the first place, was happening all over again. She could easily extend this effect is she wanted too, but that's not what she came here to do. She came to deliver the truth. "Static is not with you anymore! He's been defeated!" Her words took time to sink in, but she knew she had everyone's attention. "Static is gone?!" Wagnerok could not believe it. Though he could not imagine her of all people telling a lie. "Yes. Charles Adami defeated him once and for all! You are free now! Free to do what you want!" He certainly could not imagine her releasing them from her previous command either. Yet that's what it sounded like to him. "But if Static is gone that means... that the items can be ours!" And Wagnerok immediately ran back to the rubble to start digging again.
"Ah. That's.. not what I meant." Echo did not expect this. "But is is the truth. Isn't it?" Zettai saw this as a chance too. "Unless you want to be our new master now." She floated up towards the girl in blue and looked her in the eye. "No. I do not want to.. You do not have a master, he really is gone! You do not have to be affraid of him now! You don't have to do what he wants!" Echo cried out. "Yes. But this is what I want to do!" Zettai laughed and blasted off...
...towards Abigail as she caught her on the horizon. "Rgh. What do you want!?" Abigail and the other duelists raised their dueldisks as a precaution. "You and I have unfinished business, Abigail." The ace duelist asserted. "You still want to continue on this path? If Echo says Static is gone, then he is gone! Even if this is your own desire, what do you think will come of it? Without him, there wont be any more like you! Without him the worlds should split apart again! And then I will never have to see you again!" Abigail could certainly hope so at least. "We do not need Static anymore. He was only ever a means to an end. As long as we have the items, we can create our own perfect world. And right now you and I are sharing possession of the World Wand!" Zettai activated her dueldisk, making use of the freedom given to her by the still stunned Echo. "Sharing?" Abigail gasped. "Yes. Before he left us, Veyron made me the second owner of the Wand. Because it does not work as well for just one person. Now you are the second. And you can either by my ally, or my enemy. There is no in between!"
"Hey!" Wagnerok would attempt to do the same. "If you duel her, you will just take the wand all for yourself! Who declared you to be the most suitable challenger anyway? I will be the one to wrest control from her!" In his eyes he saw the Wand as a replacement for his stolen Shield. He wanted to get his hands on power again, no matter what shape it came in.
"You should give it up, Echo." That's when Schwarzwald made his presence known, standing within the crowd of duelists around the tower. "The end of Static does not mean the end of us, or the end of hate. When you get down to it: we created him and not the other way around. He was a parasite and nothing more." he seemed most pleased of all with the destruction of Static. "I am who I am. As are these people." No more did he have to hide his true nature or serve someone with greater power than him. "No. Even if.. even if I believe you. It's wrong. Static forced you to be hateful. Forced Scarlet Fever to be cruel. Forced these people to be possessed by his evil. If Scarlet Fever did not infect them.. then."
"Infect them? You think you can cure the 'evil' out of them? Hahaaha! Half of them did not even have to take Scarlet's medicine to join us! They were willing to tear down the world with just a little nudge! And they're not ready to give up on this new world, are you?" Schwarzwald turned towards the dueling mob. Some were hesitant, but more were nodding along with him in agreement and shouting words of encouragement. "No. That is not true It can't be true." Echo pleaded. "It is.. Deep down some people just have nothing of that love you yearn for, Echo. They..."
Everything stopped. Not due to the spoken plea, but due to the thunderous boom that echoed at the top of the obelisk. Two flashes of light descended: the first disintegrated mid-fall. "What?"
The second light crashlanded on the ground in front of the obelisk. creating a large clean crater as if it had all been erased. It was a who rather than a what, even if its appearance could lend itself to both descriptives. The being towered over the other duelists, only vaguely resembling a man due to its arms and legs. But the elements of its body were composed of a white light that crackled like pure electricity and black cybernetic plates that seemed to hold the entity together. "Wait... what the hell? Prospero?" Cherry Anise cried out. This electrical body seemed all too familiar to a certain former member of Millennium. "That's not possible." Yet this being did not respond to the name, or say anything in particular. And the more she stared at it, the less she felt like this thing had anything to do with the thunderous duelist from her past. None of Vigionaire's or Scarlet Rose's devices could get back any info from it either.. worse even. "What the?" As soon as the encrypter dared to scan the being, his scanner shortcircuited and every previous bit of scan data got erased along with it. "How did it do that?"
"Wait.. No. What did you do? What did you do to Veyron?" Zettai had her own terrifying questions. "Veyron? What do you.. oh!" Abigail noticed it too; a dueldisk carried in the creature's hand which looked exactly like Veyron's own speed-type model. It tossed the device down to the ground, and let it turn to digital dust. "Answer me! ou get only one chance!" Zettai activated her dueldisk. "Zettai. Don't. You have no idea what you're getting into! We do not know what happened to Veyron!" Abigail shouted. "I do not need to know! I have no fear from anything! If it will not answer, I will break the truth out of It!" Zettai did not listen.. But neither did the entity listen, it just continued to gaze at the area with its eyeless face. "You should have heeded my demands!" Zettai saw no other option now than to carry out her challenge. "Now, you will be destroyed!"
Zettai's LP: 8000 ?'s LP: 8000
-TURN 01-
The ace duelist got the first turn. "I activate Sky Striker Mecha Module Hornet Drones and use it to link summon Kagari!" It started like most other turns would for her, with the appearance of the buzzing hornet machines(1/0/0) Zone 1] who could only be summoned as long as she controlled no cards in her extra monster zone. That would be the only normal thing to happen this turn. "Zettai! Look out!" For the entity activated its own card as soon as the Hornet Drones materialized into the Sky Striker Kagari(1500/LINK 1) {Upleft} [Extra Zone 1]. Immediately after Kagari activated her effect to add the Sky Striker spell back to her hand, a skill targeted Kagari and destroyed it. "What in the name of.." Except the fiery Sky Striker did not entirely die. Her body exploded while her particles were reassembled into a shapeless grey orb(1/1500/0) [Zone 3] of cybernetic matter. Name, color, type: Kagari lost everything that made her unique except for her numbers and turned into a mere token...
Vector Breakdown, Continuous Skill
When a non-Token monster(s) is summoned face-up to your opponent's side of the field, target that monster and destroy it,.
For each destroyed monster, its controller special summons 1 "Null Token" (Cyberse/LIGHT/Level 1/ATK ?/DEF ?) with the same ATK and DEF, and in the same battle position, as the destroyed monster.
"It.. has a continuous skill? Just like Teraxa?" Crescent shuddered. "No. Just like.. Continuum." Echo experienced the same fear ten times over. This is why the entity felt so familiar to her. "It's Continuum. This is Continuum!"
"What? It did not look anything like this before?!" Abigail cursed. "Why would it come now? Why would it fight Veyron?" None of this made sense to her. "Because we are the antithesis to its existence. What does it matter how the enemy chooses to show itself? I did not think that it would lower itself to our supposedly inferior standards to begin with. But I am glad it did! Now that Static has proven himself to be mortal, I know that I can bring down its brother as well!" Zettai attacked from a different angle, normal summoning the brighthaired battle maiden Raye(4/1500/1500) [Zone 2]. "Raye can tribute herself during either turn to special summon a link monster Sky Striker from my extra deck! Even if you can use that skill for ever summon? You cannot negate the summon, so it will not be fast enough to catch her!" Raye transformed herself into the maiden within dark armor: Sky Striker Zeke(1500/LINK 2) {Upright} [Extra Zone 1] before it could be destroyed by the Vector skill. "And when I special summon a Sky Striker, I can also special summon Sky Striker Roze from my hand in defense mode!"
The latter card, the dark-clad evil maiden Roze(4/1500/1500) [Zone 5] did not have the same speed as Raye and got immediately broke down into another shapeless grey token [Zone 2] by the continuous skill. Zeke however could banish one monster on the field until the next endphase of an opponent. "Zeke targets herself! Which means she comes back on the next turn, when your skill can no longer touch it!" Returning a banished monster to the field would not summon it technically, which gave her a turn to look forward to. "I set two cards face down and end my turn! I cannot attack on this turn anyway! So do not think that you have me on the defense, Continuum! I see what your tactics are going to be! You seek to lower everything and everyone to pure data and energy! But the only one to be reduced to nothing, is you!" One token unfortunately got left behind in attack mode, but Zettai felt confident in her ability to stave off lethal damage.
-TURN 02-
The entity activated its first spell card, Instant Fusion, which took 1000 of its lifepoints to special summon a level 5 or lower fusion monster without its materials. It chose a thunder monster, Kaminari Attack(5/1900/1400) [Extra Zone 1] the bearded god within the thunderclouds. "It has Prospero's cards too?" Cherry flinched. Continuum behaved exactly like the thunder duelist would have.
Continuum's LP: 7000
She would recognize the following combo too; where it could banish one Thunder monster (Thunder Dragondark) from its hand and sacrifice the fused Thunder monster on the field, to activate the special summon of Thunder Dragon Titan(3/3200/3200) [Extra Zone 2] the three-headed green fusion dragon. And since Thunder Dragondark got banished, Continuum could add a different Thunder Dragon card (Thunder Dragonmatrix) from the deck to its hand. It then activated a Thunder Dragonhawk, to special summon the banished Thunder Dragondark(5/1600/0) [Zone 3]. This also unfortunately triggered the effect of the Titan. "Damn it." Zettai cursed. Thunder Dragon Titan could destroy one card after its master activated a Thunder monster's effect from the hand. In this instance it destroyed Zettai's facedown quickplay spell: Sky Striker Mecha - Widow Anchor. "It's taking advantage of the fact that I cannot use my spells while I control monsters in the main zone." The entity dueled as if it knew all her tricks. Which it likely did.
It in fact continued on its current course, discarding Thunder Dragonmatrix from its hand to reactivate the effect of Thunder Dragon Titan and destroy her other face-down card: Sky Striker Mecha - Shark Cannon. The Dragonmatrix itself added 500 attackpoints to one thunder monster when discarded, choosing to empower the fused dragon(3800/3200). "Just get your turn over with! I can take whatever you throw at me!" Zettai boasted. A few extra attackpoints wouldn't make much difference to her. A few thousand however.. "What?" Continuum payed another 3000 lifepoints to activate the special summon of an old colorfully robed thunder god(7/2700/2400) [Zone 4] with a statically charged grey hair and beard. The Ascended of Thunder was its name. Finally it activated the spell, Leeching of Light, which took the attackpoints of the Null Token and added them to all monsters Continuum controlled. "No." Ascended of Thunder(4200/2400) and Thunder Dragondark(3000/0) slaughtered the tokens with the pure light of thunder.
Zettai's LP: 3800
"We have to help her! Wagner! Why aren't you doing anything?" Crescent yelled as she saw the duelist with the face of her friend cower in the background, as he frantically tried to find something of use in the rubble. "Why would you want to? She is the enemy! I don't even care about her!" Cherry argued back. "Because if we don't.. I don't know what Abigail will lose." Crescent explained. It already felt distressing enough to see Veyron disappeared before her eyes. "You mean.. what will happen if I..." Thoughts like those only heightened the Generaider duelist's fear and sense of self-preservation. He came close to just fleeing the scene, when...
"You want to know what happens to those the entity encounters and defeats? Well, I can tell you. Continuum will take every piece of information and every scrap of energy you have."
A cold voice came in to explain, a voice Zettai loathed. "Fever?" Before she knew it however, the entity declared its final attack and pierced her heart with a thunderbolt from the Dragon Titan. "Now Everything you are will become part of It. And when you will be reborn, it will be as an extension of the Continuum. At least that is how It sees things." That was when she showed up from the inside of the obelisk, walking through the solid outer layer like a ghost. And on top of Scarlet Fever's head was the Crown of Legacy. "You.. you will not get away with this." Zettai cursed her out, even as the parts of her body began to decompose and flow into the being of light instead. "As far as you are concerned, I already have. Goodbye Zettai. Just like Veyron's data, I will make sure your experiences are put to good use..."
Zettai's LP: 0
(To Be Continued in World 099: Master of Chaos Theory)
Cards used by Continuum
VECTOR BREAKDOWN
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Thunder Dragonhawk
Thunder Dragondark
Ascended of Thunder
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Kaminari Attack
Thunder Dragon Titan
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Instant Fusion
Leeching the Light