World 107: Forgotten But Not Forgiven

There was bad news, and good news. "I cannot contact anyone inside Exeter HQ anymore, nor anyone on the investigation team.. It's all not very reassuring." Therese covered the bad. "Well even if Continuum got to them, we got to a lot of duelists and they are ready to start. The question is where do we strike first?" Dyzanthium reminded her of the good. "Yes. According to the media, the Obelisk has appeared on multiple spots now. As if is more than one of them. The world is panicking, they dont even know what is going on." Therese shook her head. She was not used to feeling this disconnected from the greater network of people. Having to resort to online witness accounts and random news broadcasts felt even strange. "We just need to catalogue all the areas its been spotted in. Those are sectors under Continuums control. When we have the forces we will strike!"

Just then a few more forces arrived to punctate the fusion champion's declaration: a dozen dueltainers with a familiar face at the front. "Donna!" Much to the joy of duelists like Dharma and the champions. "Hey I am here too." Giganoto meekly pointed at himself. "Oh yeah. You're welcome too. I was just surprised. I didn't know you were better!" The blue-eyed duelist cried out. "Define 'better'. I feel like I have a major hangover. But after what I did, I couldn't exactly lay low." The wrestler seemed to be in good spirits despite her headache. "What? We know that wasn't you doing that. Plus with how I last saw you, I thought we lost you for good." The blue-eyed duelist would have been happy to see her in any capacity. "Heh. No way Blanche. Besides, I couldn't miss this. Imperius is here, Skylander is here: its a big old heroes reunion!" Donna let out a triumphant roar.

"Yeah well dont look so pleased. Not everyone made it." Cherry Anise interrupted with her usual cheery disposition. "Huh? Well you did! And I guess you are technically a part of the crew. Or did you mean your Millennium friends? I think its a good thing if none of them showed up." She argued. "Hey I dont give a crap about Ezra anymore. Not after everything he did." The trickstar duelist insisted. "What he did? Oh! Neo!? Dont tell me he's still.." Donna finally realized who she really missed in this picture.

"Yeah, still comatose. So is Asterisk.. and we lost Mephistar too." Dharma moaned as she remembered everything that happened so far. Not having any of them here mad this final gathering still feel very hollow. "Mephistar? Yeah, I heard about what happened to him. But if Scarlet can fix me, she can fix him too." Donna noticed her despondency and tried to cheer her up. "Scarlet? What do you.. Scarlet Fever? But she was the one.." Dharma tried to protect, but Donna quickly corrected herself. "No not that one. The other one.. the one that looks like Rosemary. Giganoto told me that she gave me a treatment while I was still sleeping. I think that's what helped me get better. So a complete reunion is not off the table yet!" Donna revealed. "She did? She didn't tell us about that. Strange, that does not feel like her." The Scarlet Dharma knew would have bragged about that accomplishment. "Maybe she can help them too when she gets back. Heh, I never expected me to think of her that way: as a friendly lifesaver instead of a heartless mad scientist."

...

"Your name, your credentials, your list of accomplishments. You worked here.. Now it all makes sense." Charles read every part of the file Hydra found, which showed who the real Scarlet Rose was. "This is why you could bring your computer virus into the system so easily and shut their power down. This is how Static Void found me in the first place, Scarlet Fever told him about this place. Why did you never tell us, Scarlet?" He felt confused and a little betrayed. He, Hydra and Tycho were all confronting her with this sudden truth.

"Hmm.." Scarlet Rose sighed deeply. "I am surprised you of all people would want my identity to be out in the open, Hydra." She would address the invisible duelist first. "I felt we had a right to know, miss Scarlet. Though I take no satisfaction from having to finish Schwarzwald's work." He knew that his counterpart set Tycho on this path to begin with, and he knew his former tagpartner would not stop until he found his evidence. "I suppose Scarlet Fever likely told the baron about our identity so he could use it as a bargaining chip against us.."

"Answer the question, Lilah! What did you work on! Did you know the creator? Did you know anyone who helped him? Were you involved with the explosion or the cover-up afterwards!?" Tycho did not want excuses, he wanted honesty. "I might have known him once. I may have looked up to him once. I cannot be sure since he took the knowledge of his existence away from us all. What I do still remember is that I was one of many developers who tested and designed both hardware and software for the worldwide network, just like the creator would have been. And the hardware factory that exploded, I've visited it many times." The duelist revealed at last. "I KNEW IT!" Tycho's eyes went wide with mania. "But I had no involvement with the disaster that took place there." She explained with a slightly melancholy tone in her voice. "So you were conveniently not there when the explosion happened? Ha! And after that you also happened to end up working here, at a place that thrived on the corruption of Exeter and their ability to make people forget the explosion ever happened? Why would I trust a word of what you just said?"

"Tycho, that explosion as I have been told was the result of Hansen and the Creator's own clash. I had nothing to do with that. My team got disbanded when Exeter took direct control of the network projects. They blamed us for the damage and shuffled us off to various other sites.. like these. I worked here for a few years, until I learned enough to go solo. Had I known that these people were deeply involved with an entirely other corrupt system, I might have been interested enough to stick around." She seemed less apologetic about that little slice of her history. "Why did you leave then? Why did you become Scarlet Fever?" Charles for his part struggled to understand her motivations at all. "I felt my talents were wasted at that place. I only had an entry-level testing position but I was smarter than everyone else there. I simply had to leave and uncover the potential of STHEREA at my own pace."

"I see you're still quite humble." Hydra chuckled. "I am just being honest. Either way it does not matter right now, I kept it secret because the truth would cause more confusion than good. s you can see very well right now. I merely discarded my original identity and avatar.. the same one Scarlet Fever reclaimed. You have your truth now, Tycho. This duel will not prove anything, it will not bring your friend back for who I am sorry. And it will not prevent some great evil. Because I am not Scarlet Fever."

Scarlet's LP: 2300 Tycho's LP: 3000

"I thought you could do anything? Weren't you the smartest person in the world? This duel cannot end until I get what I want!" Tycho returned to look at the field. He controlled the Salamangreat Violet Chimera(8/4200/2100) [Extra Zone 2], Salamangreat Gazelle(1500/1000) [Zone 2] and the Salamangreat Sanctuary/Circle spells. On the other field two Sunavalon Melias monsters(0/LINK 3) {Left/Up/Right} [Zone 2 & 4] and Sunseed Genius Loci(1/0/0) remained. "If I could have done anything, I would have. I was just one of many.. You do not need to fight me over this." She did not see the point. She did not want to. "I do! You lied about your identity, you could be lying about everything else too! This is not just about what you did to me. This is about what you could still be doing to everyone else!"

-TURN 04-

"It feels like this is about you, Tycho." Charles stated. As much as he could imagine there being some truth to what Tycho said about her, there were better ways to get proof. And it seemed like Tycho himself just grew more unhinged with every turn. "There is no end to this, Charles. I would submit here and now if it helped us in any way. But at this stage it would do us all more harm than good." Scarlet Rose took her turn and reactivated the Rose Girl plant in her graveyard. As she controlled a plant monster, she could add the monster back to her hand. Then she activated Card Destruction, destroying the cards in both players hand to draw a new hand of equal size. Scarlet let go of three cards (Rose Girl, Rose Lover, Aroma Gardening), while Tycho discarded two (Salamangreat Raccoon, Salamangreat Claw).

"I link summon Sunavalon Dryatrentiay! The materials are two or more link monsters!" Both Melias and Dryas soared up into the link circuit, using their life energy to seemingly evolve the latter past the second and third stage and immediately link summon the fourth stage of the great sacred tree(0/LINK 4) {Downleft/Up/Down/Downright} [Extra Zone 1]. "When I summon this card, I add one Sunavalon spell or trap to my hand from my deck." Dryatrentiay's entire canopy blossomed into bright pink cherry petals, while its seedsacks and vines turned into a poisonous violet color. One of those seedsacks popped to spit out a trap card: Sunavalon Bloom. "Link 4 now? So you've already hit your limit huh?" Tycho sneered. "A scientist never reaches their limit, Tycho." Scarlet Rose used her Sunseed Genius Loci to link summon the Sunvine Healer(600/LINK 1) from her extra deck. The rose-dressed green-skinned pixie(600/LINK 1) {Up} [Zone 1] would heal her lifepoints by 300 for each marker on another Sunavalon monster like Dryatrentiay. "That is the excuse every one of you pukes out when they want to justify their crimes!" Her opponent cursed out loud while she restored 1200 of the lifepoints he'd taken away before.

Scarlet's LP: 3500

"Nevertheless, it remains the truth. I am not proud of a lot of things that I have done. But I believe it is all worth it, in the end..." Scarlet now reactivated the Sunvine Shrine, special summoning the Genius Sunseed one more time. And she could then use it to link summon a second Sunvine Thrasher(800/LINK 1) {Down} [Zone 2]. "Rgh. And when that fails, you try the same thing all over again!" Tycho'd seen the Plant knight before of course, but this time Thrasher(4000 atk) could gain an additional 800 attackpoints since it targeted the Link 4 Dryatrentiay upon its link summon. "One test is often not enough... I activate the effect of Sunseed Twin! If I banish it and another link monster, I can revive one of two link monsters with the same name from my graveyard!" There were three pairs of Sunavalon plants buried in her 'garden': Daphne, Melias and Dryas. The pixie twins banished the Sunvine Healer and themselves: to resurrect the Melias[Zone 3]. The tree nymph repeated herself as well, targeting Thrasher so that it could make two attacks this turn.

"Now then." Scarlet normal summoned Ibicella Lutea(4/1800/100) [Zone 3]: a yellow flower monster with sickle-ended vines that could not be destroyed in battle as long as she controlled other monsters. "...Dryatrentiay destroys cards on the field, equal to the link rating of one link monster I sacrifice!" The violet vines of the corrupted tree wrapped around Melias, squeezing it into a pulp to release three jets of poisonous energy. "Dont expect everything to go your way, Scarlet! ! I activate Salamangreat Burning Shell to special summon one Salamangreat from my hand and use it for a link summon!" A cybernetic egg cracked open, and revealed the Salamangreat Parro parrot(5/2000/1000) [Zone 3]. It immediately paired up with the Violet Chimera and Salamangreat Gazelle to link summon another Salamangreat Heat Leo(2300/LINK 3) [Extra Zone 2]. The acid struck it instead along with Salamangreat Sanctuary and the face-down Burning Draw spell, melting all three cards down completely. Heatleo did attempt to use its effect against Sunvine Shrine to return it to the deck, but Ibicella Lutea prevented effects from targeting spells or traps as well.

"Feh! You are not the only one whose's done some experimenting! Now that you've destroyed my link monster, I can activate Salamangreat Zebroid X from my graveyard! It will be banished to immediately XYZ-summon another Salamangreat!" The effect of the fire-charged cyber zebra involved a few more steps than that. It first special summoned two level 4 Salamangreats, Falco(4/1200/1600) [Zone 4] and Fowl(4/1800/200) back from the dead, so it could use both as XYZ-materials for a rank 4 XYZ-monster. "Salamangreat Blaze Dragon!" They transformed into a humanoid cyber dragon(R4/2300/1200) [Extra Zone 2] with wings of blazing fury and armor of blue steel. Zebroid X's also gave this XYZ-monster 300 attackpoints for each of its(2900/1200) XYZ-materials.

"That is quite the interesting creation. If only you could direct those powers at the right enemy." Scarlet sighed and activated a monster from her own graveyard. "I banish Rose Lovers from my graveyard, which allows me to special summon one plant monster from my hand." She in fact placed two plants on her field: a normal summoned Ibicella Lutea(4/1800/100) [Zone 3] and a special summoned Staysailor Romaryne(4/1600/300) [Zone 4]. The former was a yellow flower monster with sickle-ended vines, the latter looked like more a human blue-haired girl in a flower-ribbon covered dress. "As far as I am concerned, you are the enemy. No cutesy looking monsters can trick me!" Tycho shouted his taunts. Though he would still have reaons to fear the Staysailor... "It is time for us to battle." ..since he'd summoned his XYZ monster in defense mode.

"Bring it! Blaze Dragon can negate his destruction if I use up one of my XYZ-materials!" The Dragon pushed back both Romaryne's and Ibicella Lutea's attacks by detaching the Salamangreat monsters Falco and Fowl. Sending the latter to the graveyard also allowed him to reset one of his Salamangreat spells, and Burning Draw happened to count as such a spell. "Yes, my scanners said as much. But what happens afterwards?" Sunvine Thrasher now declared its own strike, raising its splitleaf sword above the material-less dragon. "Now? Now I activate Blaze Dragon's second power: Reincarnation XYZ-summon! I can use it as an XYZ-material for another Salamangreat, whenever it has no XYZ-materials during the battle phase!" In that split second, the Blazing Dragon exploded into pure flames and allowed its body to be attached to a new card: another even hotter Salamangreat Blaze Dragon(R4/2300/1200) [Extra Zone 2] in defense mode. "And when I XYZ-summon one Blaze Dragon with another, it will destroy one monster on the field!" The heat of the Blazing Salamangreat turned against its adversary.

"In that case I activate Staysailor Romaryne's own effect. She will tribute one plant monster, and give another monster a one-time defense against destruction." Scarlet calmly sacrificed Romaryne herself, letting the plant girl wave her flags about to create a barrier around the Sunvine knight. The barrier shattered as soon as the flames made contact, but now Thrasher could finish what it set out to do. "Damn it!" Tycho detached the first Blaze Dragon to negate Thrasher's first blade strike. The second however, finally landed and cut the XYZ-monster into two neat halves. "It gives me no pleasure to do this, Tycho." This of course turned it into another servant of the Sunvines. Thrasher special summoned the Blaze Dragon [Zone 2] to a zone marked by Dryatrentiay and sent it directly after his former master. "Graaahhhhh!" Blaze Dragon burned him alive.

Tycho's LP: 700

Scarlet Rose waited until her opponent emerged from the flames again, before she placed one trap card down on her field and ended her turn. "Tycho. Please give it up. There is no point to this duel anymore! Nobody will stand to gain anything from winning or losing!" Charles in turn made one final attempt to talk him down. Unfortunately, Tycho did not even notice him anymore. Every sense focused on Scarlet and Scarlet alone. "You.. how much more can you take from me? You took my friends. You took my loved ones! Why are you the ones who get to bring back whatever you want? Why are you the ones who get to cheat death? Just look at you, how many lives have you used up already? How many has Continuum? All for the sake of their goddamned immortality!"

-TURN 05-

"I cannot stand it!" Tycho drew his next card. At the same time he reactivated the Burning Draw spell previously set by Falco, drawing four cards to equal the link rating of Scarlet's Link 4 monster. "You do not get to keep it to yourself!" He activated the Rising Fire equip spell, special summoning Salamangreat Heatleo from the graveyard to a field without monsters. He brought even more monsters back to life with his second spell, Rekindling. It revived any FIRE monster with 200 defense points, like Salamangreat Coyote(3/1000/200) [Zone 2] and Salamangreat Fowl(4/1800/200) [Zone 3]. Finally he normal summoned Salamangreat Foxy(3/1000/1200) [Zone 4] the flame-failed fox to start an excavation of his deck. "Immortality.. that is what I searched for as well. But not in flesh. Only in mind. I wanted to be the first to find the answers to life, to thought, to creation. Something, anything. That is why I signed up for Exeter's research in the first place, mister Rivers. I had no diea what the cost would be. And now it is too late to repay those that lost everything.."

"But I have to make sure it does not get worse." Scarlet fever flipped her continuous trap before Foxy could do anything. "This is Sunavalon Bloom! While I control a link four plant monster, the effects of all your monsters are negated! And when that plant link monster battles, it gains the attackpoints of all monsters it points towards!" The flowers of Dryatrentiay bloomed with an ominous deadly glow. Foxy's effect shut down, as did the effects of the Fowl and Heatleo cybers. "What? Why.." Tycho could not do anything while she controlled that trap card. He could not destroy the trap while she controlled Ibicella Lutea. He could not destroy Ibicella Lutea while she controlled any other monster like the indestructible Drytrentiay. Even if he could attack it, the Sunavalon would simply gain 8100 attackpoints. The doctor presented him with too complicated a web. "Why should I let go of this? Why should I lose everything? Those bastards.. they tried to take my memories. They are still doing it, I already cant remember their faces... their names. If I let go of this anger, I will forget that he ever existed. I will never let that happen!"

"Miragestallio!" Tycho still saw a way forward. He overlayed Foxy and Coyote to XYZ-summon the mirage-flame cyberstallion(R3/2000/900) [Extra Zone 2]. Naturally its effects on the field were also negated, but Sunavalon Bloom would not block its powers in the graveyard. "And now.. I link summon Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix!" Miragestallio and Heatleo combined their powers of righteous flames, burning a path into the extra deck via a four-way link circuit. "He has a link four too?" Charles, having not seen his duel with Vitruvic before, looked on with awe. The king of lions became the embodiment of rebirth: the deep-crimson phoenix knight(2800/LINK 4) {Left/Up/Down/Right [Extra Zone 2]. And because Miragestallio went to the graveyard as an XYZ-material, it could return one card on the field: Sunavalon Dryatrentiay. "Your trap cannot negate effects without that monster! Which means Pyro Phoenix can use his own power! He special summons one link monster from the graveyard each turn! And when a link monster is special summoned, you take damage equal to its original attackpoints!" He would punish her with her own cards: reviving the first Sunvine Thrasher(800 atk) [Zone 4] in a bath of blue flames. "Tsk." Flames that singed Rose's hands as well.

"Now, you will see my final resurrection. It will begin with you, and end when everything I have lost has returned to me! I activate Salamangreat Transcendence!" He did not need the Salamangreat Sanctuary to get his reincarnation link summon, not when his quickplay spell could perform the same feat. "I take Pyro Phoenix as the link material for another Salamangreat Pyro Phoenix! And when it is summoned this way, all my enemies will be burned to nothing!" This effect would wipe out Ibicella, Sunvine Thrasher, Sunavalon Bloom and the stolen Blaze Dragon. It would leave Scarlet Rose entirely defenseless and weak enough for Pyro Phoenix to finish her off.

Scarlet Rose's LP: 2700

"...I have no choice." But before all of that could resolve, Scarlet Rose revealed her second trap card: A World Legacy Awakens. "The legacy? When did you start using legacy cards?" Crescent gasped. With that card she could perform her own quick link summon, using her current monsters as materials. "When you told me about your duel with Wagnerok, miss Aurora. I had to see for myself, if the power to create our own cards could reproduce that which the creator first came up with. I was right.. but what this proves, I do not yet know." For now she would use the trap to send Salamangreat Blaze Dragon and Ibicella Lutea to the graveyard. "I link summon Crossrose Dragon, using two monsters with different types." The link circuit created a combination of plants and dragons: a thorned purple dragon(800/LINK 2) {Downleft/Downright} [Extra Zone 1] with scales and feathers of rose petals, and a pink rose for a heart. "Crossrose Dragon sends itself and one plant on my field to the graveyard, to summon a plant or Rose Dragon synchro monster from my extra deck! I choose.. the Black Rose Dragon!"

The dragon of many roses mixed up with the Sunvine Thrasher in a bizarre starless yet legal form of synchro summoning. The endresult would be known to many duelists worldwide: the thorn-covered black dragon(7/2400/1800) [Extra Zone 1] with scales and wings of red rose petals. "Black Rose Dragon also destroys every card on the field, when it appears!" The reincarnated Pyro Phoenix and cross-summoned Black Rose clashed against each other, letting their destructive flames and stormwinds spread across both fields to tear down everything that remained "No. You.. why would you do that?" When the storm finally calmed down, nothing but charred petals and embers remained. "Because.. when one of my Rose Dragons is destroyed, Cross Rose Dragon will activate in the graveyard to bring that Rose Dragon back to life." One last pristine petal fluttered down and released a flash of light as soon as it touched the ground: a light that heralded the return of the Black Rose Dragon [Zone 1]. "Will you cease now, mister rivers?"

"Grrr.. The creator. It's always him! He's the one who started all this! He made all of this! He made those cards! Why! Just to taunt me?! To laugh at me!? If only I could.." Tycho lost his chance when that one card came into play. His last card, Salamangreat Roar, he could not even activate without a Salamangreat link monster in play. And setting it face-down as a bluff would be as useful as not setting it at all. "I have often wondered that myself, mister Rivers. Why did he start all of this? I do not have the answer. Just like you cannot picture the ones you lost anymore, I cannot picture the man I admire for his creation. And I wonder.. if my other self feels the same way. If what Teraxatron before said was true, than all of this may be her way of trying to get to the ultimate truth behind STHEREA; to find him. That has to be why she gathered the seven legacy items, the only remains of His will. To have a desire for the answer to why all of this happened: in that regard alone we may be equal."

-TURN 07-

"But if we are to stop her, you must stop as well." She drew her next card and entered the battle phase. He could either take the direct attack, or surrender painlessly. "I don't know how. I don't want to forget this feeling. I cannot! I would rather die than lose it! I will never stop attacking you otherwise!" He knew he could not win, he knew she had her own reasons to not lose. But his emotions refused to reconcile with this reality. There was only one way out.. "I cannot make you remember, nor will I let you end it all. I can only do the next best thing." Scarlet Rose attacked, sending Black Rose Dragon's vines out to strike Tycho Rivers down once and for all. The hit instantly knocked him out.. and reverted him to his human form.

Tycho's LP: 0

"What did you do?!" Charles recoiled in shock. "I've disabled his avatar. His body did the rest. His exhaustion merely caught up to him. And maybe, in his sleep, he will be able to hold on to that feeling he desperately needs." The rose woman sighed as she deactivated her dueldisk and holograms. "What will you do now, Charles?" Her own status remained undecided. "What can we do? We still need you. You will tell the others about yourself when the times is right. And you will tell them."

"Of course. No more secrets. Not from me.. or from the other me. I know what she wants now..."

(To Be Continued in World 108: One Move Deep)

New Cards used by Tycho Rivers
Salamangreat Zebroid X

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Salamangreat Blaze Dragon

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Salamangreat Burning Shell

New Cards used by Scarlet Rose
Rose Lover
Staysailor Romaryne
Ibicella Lutea

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Sunavalon Dryatrentiay
Cross Rose Dragon
Black Rose Dragon

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Sunavalon Bloom
World Legacy Awakens