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.

133. New World 005: Generated Apathy

New World 125: Procedurally Generated Apathy

Apparently, rematches were the order of the day, as now it was Dharma's turn to face Hydra again. "Well I don't want to play favorites. But I do think you've got this in the bag, Blanche." Charles told her before the duel began. "Heh. Yeah well, I hope so. But at this rate it will take forever for me to get a duel with you." The blue-eyed girl gave an unintentional yawn. "Is that what you really want most out of this tournament?" He asked her. "Well yeah. We've done so much fighting for the sake of something or someone. We never got the chance to just have fun. And no before you mention it, that bit in my bad dreams does not count." She said, slightly fuming. "I was not going to mention it. Heh. I am sure you will be a better opponent as Madam Blanche than as Petit Bonnet." He snickered. "Ah, don't you start!"

So the duel started and Charles watched intently. It could be close, but it looked like Hydra did not have his heart in it. Of course they were not dueling for any significant reason. The remaining duelists were either not around or they were already set against each other.. Though while he knew Jenna's reasons for being absent, Charles did have to wonder.. Why was Neo gone as well?

...

"Is something wrong?" Neo said, as he joined Jenna outside and promptly startled her. "Ah! Geez! When did you get up?" She did not even hear him come. "Just now. I was a little worried about you yaknow. You were saying all these weird things before." He tried to apologize, but she was not in the mood to listen. "Because things Are weird! Look! It's not moving!" She pointed at the plane in the sky. "Huh? Oh that? Actually there's a scientific explanation for that." Neo responded with a lighthearted chuckle. Which had the opposite effect on her. "I dont care if its not moving for a few seconds. Its not moving at all that is the problem! Plus the sea.. and the clouds, I think they're all looping too!" She gestured at the world, hoping for some acknowledgement from Neo. "What are you saying?" He just seemed to be confused. "That this.. all of this.. is fake! We're still in an illusion. Wait no, not that. A virtual reality! This is not the real world! The people I talked to on the phone, they're not my real family! They wont even answer me right now!"

"Well maybe they are busy?" He shrugged. "What? No they would never be.. They.. Wait." Suddenly it hit her, the answer. "Of course." Jenna closed her eyes. "I know what will prove it." She placed her hand on her wrist, where her dueldisk would be... and opened her eyes to see an actual dueldisk on her arm. "How did you do that?" Neo flinched. "I just.. thought about it. Just like I did back when the worlds were fused. Which means, the worlds are still fused! We haven't gone back to normal at all!" This explained so much: why everyone woke up at the same time, why everything felt so planned out and moved at such a rapid pace, why.. "You." Why Neo recognized her, despite him never having met the real Jenna before. "You are not the real Neo either! He never woke up!"

"Who are you?" She switched on her dueldisk and challenged him immediately.

Jenna's LP: 8000 Neo's LP: 8000

-TURN 01-

"Jenna, what are you doing?" Neo accepted the duel, though no dueldisk appeared on his own body yet. "I am not falling for your mindtricks is what I am doing!" Jenna would keep dueling anyway. "I activate The Hidden City!" Her field spell could add any Subterror monster to her hand, but it always came down to the one guy. "It adds Subterror Guru! And I set him down on my field! And then Hidden City can flip my monster face-up once each turn!" The cave exploring gremlin Guru(4/1600/1800) used the same flip effect so many duelists came to depend on: adding another Subterror card from her deck to her hand. "I add Final Battle to my hand!" This time however, she felt like going against the common consensus just a little and did not add the more common staples to her hand. Instead she placed the added trap card down on the field along with another card. This was already an irregular duel, she wanted her moves to be irregular as well. "Your turn, Neo. If that is your name."

-TURN 02-

"I suppose this is something we can do after all then, Jenna." Neo's expression suddenly changed as he created a dueldisk after all and revealed a hand of five cards. "I don't know if this is part of the game or not, but if you want a duel here.. apparently we can. But why do you think I am not myself? I am Neo." He calmly said as he drew a sixth card. "Yeah but you are also someone else, what is your real name?" She asked, hoping to catch him in a lie. "You don't know? Its not like I kept it a secret. My regulars all know it.. It's David! David Gilliam!" The cyber duelist proudly revealed. "Oh, I guess you are." Jenna groaned when she remembered she did not actually know Neo's real name. Then again she'd been jealous of him that he could even get such a simple online name to begin with. "But how did you know my real name?" She yelled anyway. "Hydra told me." Neo claimed. "Hydra. Is he in on this too? You both woke up before us.. and Asterisk too!"

"Jenna, we can figured this out after the duel. Now that we started, I have to go all out. I activate Cyberdark Claw! I can add one Cyberdark monster from the deck to my hand!" He moved his hand to discard the Cyberdark monster from his hand.. "Yeah well so do I!" Only to have a sneering Jenna snap the card out of his hand with a painful trap. "I activate Gravedigger's Trap Hole! When a monster activates its effect in the hand or graveyard, I can negate it and inflict two thousand points of damage!"

Neo's LP: 6000

"Owch. That was unexpected." Neo rubbed his hand for dramatic effect. "But that trick wont work twice! I activate Cyberdark Cannon! With this effect I can add instead one Cyberdark spell from my deck to my hand!" Neo did not have any trap holes to worry about this time. "Then I will do this! I special summon Primineral Kongreat from my hand in face-down defense mode! That's an effect that works whenever one of your monsters leaves the hand or deck!" He did however set off a handtrap in the shape of a rock-covered primate [Zone 2]. "Oh? Ha! Very good!" Cyberdark Cannon still snagged a spell in the end: Cybernetic Horizon. "Huh? Cybernetic? That's not a Cyberdark spell! And since when did you have Cyberdarks anyway?" Neo seemed to be full of contradiction. "Cybernetic Horizon is treated as a Cyberdark spell actually." Neo offered an explanation. "Ha! Then why dont they just call it Cyberdark Horizon?" She did not like it. "Because it's a reference to an older card set. Besides, this spell supports both.. and I felt like getting more searchers. That's all."

His spell could search cards too in fact, though he had to discard a Cyber Dragon or Machine with two different attributes to activate it. "I discard the Light-type Cyber Dragon Herz from my hand! And the Dark-type Cyberdark Chimera from my deck! Then Cybernetic Horizon sends one Cyber fusion monster from my deck to the graveyard, and adds one Cyber monster to my hand! Plus, since I discarded Herz, I can add the classic Cyber Dragon to my hand as well!" The cyber duelist wound up gaining as much as he lost, letting the Horizon spell add Cyber Dragon Nachster to his hand while sending Cyberdark Dragon to the graveyard. "Do you know what my Cybers do? They're not new at least." Neo asked her as he special summoned Cyber Dragon(5/2100/1600) [Zone 3] to his field. "Well I know you can special summon that card if I dont control any monsters. But the other.. sorry, not really." Jenna did not even want to try pronouncing the name of that other card. "Heh. It tripped me up too. It's all in German, referencing their numbers and words and such." Neo elaborated once again.

"Figures. Everything is a reference these days. And hey! Stop acting like we are just having fun herel!" While Jenna preferred cards with straight forward names, nothing else about this duel was straight forward either. "I cannot help it Jenna. Nachster means Next..I think? As in, when I summon it, it can summon the Next Cyber monster too! I summon Cyberdark Chimera." Nachster was a tiny robotic dragon(1/200/200) [Zone 2] with a light-giving serpentine body. It would special summon one Machine monster from the graveyard with 2100 attack or defense points, and Neo chose the chimeric machine. Cyberdark Chimera(4/800/2100) [Zone 4] visually looked like it contained the tail, wings and head of the three main Cyberdarks: Horn, Keel and Edge.

"Now, this card is the new cornerstone of my deck! Cyberdark Chimera discards one spell or trap from my hand.." He said as he threw away an Eternal Cyber spell card. "And then it can add the Power Bond spell to my hand! And during the turn in which I use this effect, I can fuse materials in the graveyard too, by banishing them!" He eagerly claimed his powerful fusion card. "Almost time, buddy. First I have to link summon Cyber Dragon Sieger!" The link materials; two machines with one of them being a Cyber Dragon, were already on his field. He sent Cyber Dragon and Cyber Dragon Nachster to the graveyard in order to create his electrically charged white Cyber Dragon(2100/LINK 2) {Downleft/Downright} [Extra Zone 1]. "There's so many cards I could make like this. But I know which one I need... Power Bond will fuse three Cyber Dragons and create Cyber End Dragon!" Both Nachster and Herz treated themselves as Cyber Dragons while on the field or in the graveyard, and thanks to the Chimera they were ready to be fused into the three-headed dragon of cybernetic metal: Cyber End(10/8000/2800) [Zone 3].

"Oh god damn." Jenna gasped loudly. Power Bond doubled the attackpoints of any monster it fusion summoned, and Cyber End could inflict piercing damage. "That's nothing! Wait 'til you get a load of what it can do when it attacks! Sieger can add another powerboost to any monster that is at least as strong as it!" Neo clapped his hands and made his link monster target the fusion, which added 2100 attackpoints to Cyber End Dragon(10100/2800). "Check it out. The big ten grand! If I had a Limiter Removal, it would be even better! But I think this is enough! Because I know your Final Battle trap can add Guru's defense to his attackpoints and vice versa. Or it can flip the Guru face-down so that your Hidden City can flip it back face-up to negate my attack. But Kongreat cannot use any of those effects so... Sieger attacks Guru instead!" No matter what, he would have to make Jenna make the first move. "Gah!" She chose to use Subterror Final Battle's stat modifying effect, giving the Guru(3400/3400) a sufficient powerboost with which it could counter-attack the Sieger Dragon. The Guru's blade carved the Sieger's beam in half and reflected half of it towards the link monster: blowing it up into pieces.

Neo's LP: 4700

Of course, nothing stood in the way of Cyber End Dragon now. "Sorry, Jenna. I win! But at least this was over quickly!" The three headed machine concentrated its evolution burst energy in front of the face-down Kongreat, a monster with only 2000 defense points. A single hit and his opponent would be history. "'!?" Except his Dragon seemed to be going through some malfunction, as Cyber End Dragon's attack blasted off towards Subterror Guru instead. "But that's not what I told it to do!?" The burst destroyed Guru, leaving Jenna with more than zero lifepoints. "No. But I did. I activated Subterror Nemesis Defender from my hand! When you attacked my face down monster, he switched the target to another proper card on my field!"

Jenna's LP: 1300

"Ahaha. Okay.. I think that's the first time I've ever seen anyone use that card." Neo's plan to end the duel with one decisive blow got stolen right from under his nose. She managed to get the better of him and he would pay the price. Or would he? "In that case, I will activate One Day of Peace! We both draw one card, but we take no damage until my next turn!" Power Bond would blast 4000 of his lifepoints away during the endphase, but now he would not have to worry about that damage and he could keep his powered up Cyber End Dragon too. "Your turn, Jenna!"

-TURN 03-

"Great. So basically, I might as well do nothing now huh? Like I can." While she could not win the duel on this turn, she still had to get rid of his fusion monster before it fired off another piercing beam. The cards in her hand could at least help her with that. "Huh..A traptrix?" One of those cards not really fit in with her Subterrors however, but then she remembered why she added that card. "Oh yeah.. Scura." She triggered her oldest card first, the Shallow Grave spell. "Heh, lets try this then! We both set one monster from our graveyard to the field!" One her side she dug up the grave of Subterror Guru [Zone 5], while Neo summoned Cyberdark Cannon in a face-down position. Still she went on to flip Guru face-up with the effect of the Hidden City, and used its effect to add the Subterror Behemoth Ultramafus from the deck to her hand. "Guru can flip himself and another monster face-down! And if all my monsters are set when one of them flips itself, Ultramafus can special summon himself!" The Guru targeted itself.. and Cyber End Dragon. They both disappeared while the volcanic rock dragon Ultramafus(12/3000/1800) [Zone 4] appeared in their place.

"Kongreat!" Next, Jenna flipped her mineral primate(8/3000/2000). It could destroy two cards anywhere on the field by hurling rocks at them and targeted the face-down Cyber End Dragon and Cyberdark Chimera. "Hah.. Interesting." Neo had prepared for Kongreat's effect well in advance by discarding Eternal Cyber to the graveyard. That spell could be banished to negate a cyberfusion's destruction. But that effect wouldn't work if his fusion monster was face-down. "But when Cyberdark Chimera is sent to the graveyard, I can send one other Cyberdark monster from my deck to the grave!" Neo's scrapyard started to look a lot darker than light: as he sent Cyberdark Keel to dwell there along with all his other destroyed machines. "Yeah that takes care of that thing. But now what?" Jenna did activate Ultramafus' second effect, switching the Subterror Behemoth to face-down defense mode. But now she did not know if she wanted to proceed with her other cards or..

"Screw it. I summon Traptrix Mantis!" If she drew this monster, it had to be for a reason. "Traptrix?" Neo certainly seemed to be caught by surprise, by this scantily clad girl(4/1500/1300) [Zone 5] with pink hair. Though her appearance disguised her true nature as a carnivorous preying mantis. "Yeah.. They're the ones making the holes.. Mantis adds one Traptrix monster from my deck to the hand." It would all start with just one card, but soon enough Jenna found the second member: Traptrix Ginalloa. "Anyway, with just one of them I can link summon Traptrix Sera!" The pink mantis girl disappeared inside a link circuit which quickly got overrun by gland-like leaves covered in sticky mucus. A greenhaired girl(800/LINK 1) {Down} [Extra Zone 2] grew out of the plants as she was a plant herself: the carnivorous Traptrix Sera. "And Sera can special summon one Traptrix from my deck when I activate a trap card on my field!" Scura flipped her selfsetting Subterror Final Battle trap to activate its fourth effect, flipping Subterror Guru back into a face-up position. The drosera Traptrix followed that effect up with the seeding of a new trickster: the predatory girl Traptrix Genlisea(4/1200/1600) [Zone 5] with long corkscrew-like white braids.

"Now here come the trapholes! When I tribute Genlisea, I can set one hole-card from my deck and one from my graveyard. But they will be banished if they leave the field!" Genlisea dug one braid deep into the ground like roots and pulled out the Gravedigger Trap Hole. The rest of her hair searched the deck and found the Floodgate Trap Hole. Finally she disappeared, giving Sera another shot of power. "Aha! Sera has another effect! If a Traptrix uses their effect in front of her, she sets one hole-card from my deck! My backrow is getting crowded!" Only one open spell zone remained, after Sera placed the Treacherous Trap Hole trap card face down on the field. That zone quickly became available again, due to the hunger of another predator. "Traptrix Ginalloa summons herself when I can send one trap to the grave!" Parasitic plants covered the Treacherous Trap Hole, where the greenhaired mistletoe Traptrix(4/1400/1400) [Zone 5] emerged. "And now I XYZ-summon Traptrix Allomerus!" The tricksters reaped the field once more, swallowing Subterror Guru and Ginalloa as XYZ-materials. This turned them into one deceptive predator girl: the redhaired Allomerus(R4/2200/600) [Zone 4].

"You know, Jenna... you have changed. At first I did not expect you to make it this far, or that you'd even use cards like this.. But you really came into your own." The more he saw, the happier Neo seemed to be. " Huh? What are you doing now?" It bugged her. more than his previous talk. "What am I doing? Just complimenting you." He did not seem to be aware of any wrongdoing. And Jenna did not know if she should have expected otherwise. "Okay.. this feels too nice now. As if you're giving me the win so I can get some closure somehow. I didn't ask for that.. I would have been happy with a little peace. I only just recently got back from having my mind drained completely and all." She did not understand why everything seemed to be going so well for her, why Neo did not care about anything she said. On the other hand, she did not want to lose either. The consequences of that outcome of that felt even worse.

"Allomerus can special summon a level four insect or plant type monster from my deck! I pick Traptrix Nepenthes." Jenna explained before she planted the seed of a pitcher-plant, which blossomed into a blonde girl(4/800/2000) [Zone 5] in a white dress. "Then I link summon Utricularia!... Utricularia.. Geez, I dont even have any problems pronouncing that name." Her final trickstar plant would be made from two Traptrix link materials: Sera and Nepenthes. They spawned a green bladderwort plant which used the disguise of a purple-dressed girl(1800/LINK 2) {Down/Left} [Extra Zone 2] with voluminous purple hair. "Utricularia can special summon one Traptrix from my graveyard during the endphase! Also whenever I activate a trap hole, I can set it back to my field!" Before the actual end of her turn, Jenna placed a trap card down on the left of her field. She could also banished Ginalloa from her graveyard to set a Hole-trap card (Treacherous Trap Hole) back down on the field. Finally, Utricularia regenerated the plant of Nepenthes and special summoned her [Zone 5] to the field in defense mode. "I end my turn!"

-TURN 04-

"What, she did not even attack? You seem a bit rattled, Jenna. But you have nothing to worry about.. Well I mean, you do." Neo drew his next card, signaling the end of the Day of Peace. "Because now I activate Overload Fusion! I banish the fusion materials for my Dark Machine monster from the graveyard!" The overloader fused the two fusion dragons already in his graveyard: Cyberdark Dragon and Cyber End Dragon. The endresult incorporated both their visual elements and created a terrifying chaotic machine with three cyber dragon(12/5000/3800) [Extra Zone 1] heads and one cyberdark dragon head. Its wings were covered with the spiked green and gold metal of the dark machines. "Then I'll activate Floodgate Trap Hole! It switches your monster to defense mode!" Jenna'd been waiting for any monster to start setting off her boobytrapped battlefield.

"You should pay more attention, Jenna! Cyberdark End Dragon is unaffected by any card effect that activates!" Unfortunately the Floodgates were no match for the dragon of the darkest end. "But Nepenthes can add a Traptrix to my hand when I activate a Trap hole card!" Jenna did get a Traptrix Dionaea-monster out of this whole ordeal, but Neo had no intention of letting her ever use it. "Heh. Then now comes Cyber Dark End's second power! Each turn I can equip one card from either graveyard to it!" He targeted the Subterror Guru in her graveyard and changed it into a mere tool for his monstrous machine. "And for each card equipped to it, it can attack! So I give it the Attachment Cybern as another! This machine can be equipped from my hand!" A wyvern completely made of gold darted through the air and attached itself to the back of Cyberdark End Dragon. This added another 600 attackpoints to the fusion dragon(5600 atk) and gave it the ability to revive itself once after destruction. Though Neo could not quite see what could possibly destroy Cyberdark End now. "I attack Primineral Kongreat!

"Feh! Subterror Final Battle activates again!" Jenna saw two paths for survival. First she activated her Subterror trap to flip the Behemoth Ultramafus face-up. "All monsters will be switched to face-down defense mode when I flip this guy!" Of course Ultramafus's volcanic earthquake barely made the Cyber Dark dragon tremble. But at the very least the defenseless Traptrix Allomerus, Nepenthes and Primineral Kongreat would all be put into a state of total defense. On the other hand.. "But link monsters cannot be switched to defense mode, Jenna!" Once Cyber Dark End Dragon destroyed Primineral Kongreat, whose destruction effect could not affect it either, the four-headed machine recharged its weaponry to fire straight at Traptrix Utricularia.

"That's nice... But I have a response to that too! I activate Subterror Succession!" Jenna's answer came through her selfsetting trap card. "If I sacrifice Utricularia..I can add a flip monster with the same attribute as her to my hand!" She sent her exposed Traptrix to the graveyard to let the Subterror Behemoth Speleogeist succeed her. "So you dodged another bullet huh? Well it doesn't really matter which Behemoth you add, not to my big machine!" Cyberdark End focused its fire on a different target: blasting Subterror Behemoth Ultramafus off of the field. "You keep going against the grain, Jenna.. You just have to rebel, don't you? Why can you not accept that maybe this is all for a reason!?" Neo placed one trap card face down and ended his turn. "Heh. I am getting to you, aren't I?" Jenna smirked.

-TURN 05-

"Too bad then, Neo.. that I 've already won." Jenna flipped her Traptrix monsters face-up first and promptly sacrificed one of them (Allomerus) for the Subterror Succession trap card and added another EARTH flip monster (Subterror Behemoth Phospheroglacier) to her hand. "...I activate Book of Lunar Eclipse! I discard one card and flip two monsters on the field to face-down defense position!" The discarded Traptrix Dionaea caused darkness to fall over the dueling field, as her magical book eclipsed the moon and turned it red. "This wont work either, Jenna." The darkness targeted both Traptrix Nepenthes and Cyberdark End Dragon. But the latter could not be flipped face-down, so only the Traptrix hid. "I dont need him set, just her! Since there arent any face-up monsters on my field anymore, I can special summon Subterror Behemoth Speleogeist! And he can flip himself face-down!" The largest of the Subterrors: the undead demon dragon(11/3000/1400) [Zone 3], made a brief appearance, only to join Nepenthes in a face-down position. "Then I activate Hidden City and.."

"I see, now I know why you did not attack me in the last turn. But do you think I will let you get away with this?" Neo sprung his trap early. "I activate Cyberdark Invasion! It destroys one equipment attached to my monster to destroy one card you control! I destroy Cyberend.."

"Think again, 'Neo'! I activate Treacherous Trap Hole. When there are no traps in my graveyard, I can destroy two cards on the field!" She targeted the continuous trap and other card set on his field. "No traps in the graveyard? What about your other trap holes?" Neo protested. "Oh didn't I mention this? Utricularia reset all my trap cards after I use them once!" Floodgate Trap Hole was still on her field at this point. "Ugh." Neo watched as the Treacherous trap took out his continuous trap before it could resolve its effect properly. His second face-down Eternal Cyber spell got shattered too soon, before it could bring back his fusion machines which right now were still equipped to Cyberdark End. "And as I was saying! I activate Hidden City! It flips Speleogeist back face-up and lets him use his effect!" The flipped Speleo dragon would flip another monster face-up, and reduce its attackpoints to zero. She targeted the card that Shallow Grave revived two turns ago, the card she left alive for this one purpose: Cyberdark Cannon(3/0/800). "And now I tribute summon Subterror Behemoth Phospheroglacier!"

"Damn it." Neo cringed when both Nepenthes and Speleogeist left the field to become the underground aqua-behemoth(8/2600/2500) [Zone 3] made of luminous crystals. He knew his time was up. "You dont even sound like Neo anymore." Jenna activated Subterror Final Battle and its fourth effect; the defense points of Phospheroglacier(5100/5100) were combined with its attackpoints and vice versa. "What is this, what is really going on here? If you beat me, what was going to happen to me? Would I become as happy-go-lucky as Cherry and Nakana? Who is behind all of this? Where is Neo?!" Now that she held the upper hand, she would make the questions. "You wont escape this, this has only just begun. I wont tell you anything, Jenna. Except that Neo is nowhere near us!" The duelist with Neo's face started to laugh. "Rgh. Then he is still.. Fine! This one is for him! For using him to trick us! Speleogeist, attack Cyberdark Cannon!" She wiped the smirk of his face with one large crystal thrown straight through the body of the fake duelist and his powerless cyberdarkling. The attack destroyed him completely, whatever he was..

Neo's LP: 0

"Hff... Now what." Jenna did not know where to go next, or what to do. She wanted to warn the others, but she did not know which ones were still themselves. She at least knew that she could not trust people like Hydra and.. "Jenna? Are you alright?" ..and Agent Asterisk. "!" This time he appeared suddenly, from the same place where Neo once stood. And he also had a dueldisk on his arm. "No.."

(To Be Continued in New World 126: An Infection in Paradise)

New Cards used by Jenna
Subterror Nemesis Defender
Traptrix Mantis
Traptrix Ginalloa
Traptrix Genlisea
Traptrix Nepenthes

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Traptrix Sera
Traptrix Utricularia

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Book of Lunar Eclipse

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Chain Hole
Gravedigger's Hole

New Cards used by Neo
Cyberdark Cannon
Cyberdark Claw
Cyberdark Chimera
Attachment Cybern

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Cyberdark Dragon
Cyberdark End Dragon

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Cybernetic Horizon
One Day of Peace
Eternal Cyber

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Cyberdark Invasion