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.

139. World 122: We Are More than Atoms

World 131: We Are More than Atoms

Team Echo's LP: 2500 Team Continuum's LP: 2000

"Link six?" Miss Echo already lost the cards that were made to honor her fallen friends. In their place she took the LIGHT type Pikari Aignister, the DARK type Linguriboh, the WIND type Excode Talker, the FIRE type Powercode Talker, the EARTH type Transcode Talker and the WATER type Shootingcode Talker. Even Charles who'd created a link five monster for himself had never seen a monster break this barrier before. "This is The Arrival AIgnister! His link materials are three or more monsters with different attributes! And he gains a thousand attackpoints for each material!" The Arrival(6000/LINK 6) {Left/Downleft/Up/Down/Right/Downright} [Extra Zone 1] of a gigantic yet sleek mechanical knight made of purple cybernetics. Violet energy glowed through its outer markings, and inside of its three core hearts. A large ring looped behind its shoulders and rings also formed the joints of its arms and the middle of its hollow torso. Finally a circular energy network extended from its back which contained six elemental energy orbs to mark the six powerboosts the Arrival gained.

"It was not enough to reach the ultimate level. You had to go beyond." Continuum made a noise that almost sounded like a scoff. "Ha! There is no ultimate level, not for you or for me. Who said that there could only be monsters from link one to link five? I can make anyone's dreams come true, even my own!" Echo clenched her hand and let her lips curl into a wide smile. "The Arrival cannot be affected by any card effect. And each turn it destroys one card on the field by turning them into a Ignister Token! Heh, your great Underworld Goddess is not protected against effects that target, Scarlet Fever!" The Arrival took one glance at the Closed World Goddess(3000/LINK 5) [Extra Zone 2] with its one eye and made her disappear inside a massive explosion. Meanwhile on Echo's side of the field the winged blue protocyberse Ignister token(1/0/0) [Zone 2] appeared in defense mode. "Now I will make another wish come true! The end of your hell! The Arrival, attack Scarlet Fever directly!" Within its hand the Arrival summoned a large cybernetic scythe and lifted it upwards. The six orbs of its link materials fired their energy straight into the scythe to prepare the final attack.

"The only hell here is the one you seek, Echo. Your hands are not clean either!" Scarlet Fever turned to her trap card for salvation. She activated Escape From the Dark Dimension to special summon one of her banished Vampire monsters, Vampire Sorcerer(4/1500/1500) [Zone 3] back to the field in defense mode. "A world where hate does not exist is a world where conflict does not exist. No conflict means that there will never be a reason to grow or a reason to learn new things. Conflict is the seed of creation." Scarlet Fever hid behind the Vampire Sorcerer, as the Arrival AIgnister swung its weapon and released a destructive wave of light. "There does not need to be conflict for any of them. I will take it all myself if I have too, to create my paradise. What conflict would you even allow?" Echo reluctantly ended her turn, placing one trap card face down. That card would be the AI's Show trap card which she added to her hand back when she normal summoned her Pikari AIgnister. "Conflict does not just come from emotion, miss Echo. Together with Continuum we can eradicate any form of adversity."

-TURN 11-

"Your solution is flawed, Echo." Continuum stated. "You seek to cover up the problems of the world with deception. But you can not force them to see and experience perfection. Perfection must be earned." It reactivated both of its continuous skill/spell cards. The Dimensionary Generator destroyed Scarlet Fever's Vampire Domain field spell to revive the Triad Dimensionary Delta Revolver(2400/LINK 3) {Left/Down/Right} [Zone 3] again. The Dimensionary Factory banished the card in the colorless duelist's hand to special summon two null-tokens(1/0/0) {Zones 2 & 4] to each zone marked by the molten metal Dimensionary. "Triad returns the Dimensionaries Diamond Window and Star Telescope!" Both tokens were sacrificed just like in every previous turn, and replaced with the higher levels of the dimensionary entities: the golden Pentium(3000/LINK 5) {Upleft/Downleft/Up/Upright/Downright} [Zone 2] and the crystalline Olympiad(3200/LINK 4) {Left/Up/Down/Right} [Zone 2]. "And through you, we will achieve it. You have shown us the way."

"We link summon the Infinite Dimensionary Hexoid Network, using two monsters as the materials with the effect of Barrier Z!" It shouted. "Infinite?" Charles let out a horrified gasp as the cyberse entities expanded beyond the borders of the battlefield. Hexoid Network created a web of eight pulsating energy orbs connected by many strands of light. The monster itself(6400/LINK 8) {UpLeft/Left/Downleft/Up/Down/Upright/Right/Downright} [Extra Zone 2] existed inside this network as a being of thought and data. Its presence empowered the Olympiad(15200 atk) (Left/Up/Down/Right} with a dozen additional power surges.

Infinite Dimensionary Hexoid Network, 6400/LINK 8 {UpLeft/Left/Downleft/Up/Down/Upright/Right/Downright} Light/Cyberse/Effect
5+ monsters, Including 2 Link monsters
Neither player can summon/set monsters to a main zone any link monster points to. This link summoned card is unaffected by your opponent's card effects.
Once per turn, when your opponent activates a card or effect while this card is co-linked: You can negate the activation, and if you do, return that card to the hand.

"You created a link eight monster, right after she created a link six?" Charles would find this petty if he did not also find it terrifying that the third entity could do this at all. "The thoughts of the world are ours as well, Charles Adami. Neither of us is limited by imagination anymore, now that we have this human mind to make us understand..." The entity claimed. "So whenever she outpaces you, you catch up with something bigger? What's next? This duel will never end at this rate! It will just keep going until one of you decided you had enough! You really are this vindictive." And that could take them an eternity, Charles realized. All the while it would hold the minds hostage just to feed its own powers. "This is not vindication. This is the unity. All minds are connected and reach towards the greater whole." The masked duelist turned its head towards Echo. "Miss Echo, your model is already obsolete! Hexoid Network attacks the Arrival AIgnister!"

"Just because it is less powerful, does not mean it does not have a place in this world! In our world!" Echo immediately activated her trap card, AI's Show. "You have no place in this world. You were the first, you and Static only existed as a comparison to our superiority! Once a turn, the Hexoid Network negates one card effect!" Continuum declared the activation of the trap to be invalid within his network, shutting her show down completely. "You have no place in our world!" The Olympiad continued its attack. "Everyone deserves a place!" And Echo instead activated a spell from her graveyard. "When two monsters battle, I can banish AIdle Reborn and a card in my hand! Then I add one A.I. spell or trap card back to my hand!" She took the When You and AI Met spell back, an act which seemed pointless at first. Yet it showed one indirect favorable result when the Infinite Dimensionary's attack resolved. The eight orbs released a current of electricity into the body of the giant AIgnister... and only managed to inflict battle damage.

Team Echo's: 2100

"What is this?" Scarlet Fever did not understand what happened. "The card I banished was FAIghting Spirit, Scarlet. When it is banished, AIgnisters with twenty-three hundred or more attackpoints cannot be destroyed as a result of battle this turn!" She'd added the Spirit spell to her hand back when she turned Doyon AIgnister into a link material for Linguriboh. That was the card she banished from her hand to activate AIdle Reborn. "Then.. Olympiad Dimensionary attacks the Arrival AIgnister instead!" The Diamond Window unleashed a hail of crystal beams to tear the Arrival apart. "You already know it will not work!" Echo countered with another effect from her graveyard. "I banish Gussari AIgnister! When two monsters battle, I can make their attackpoints become equal to three thousand!" Of course, Gussari AIgnister's effect would not affect the effect-immune Arrival. Only the Olympiad(3000 atk)'s attackpoints got the adjustment. "Hmm." The giant AIgnister pushed the attacking Diamond Window back with its scythe, but the XY and Z Barriers got in its way before it could actually destroy the Dimensionary and inflict counter-attack battle damage. "

"Your persistence is an admirable quality, miss Echo. But Charles Adami's words are closer to the truth. This should end. Sheer attrition dictates that the advantage is ours, you should concede while you can. If our conflict continues, it could break the foundations of our united world." The colorless duelist let the rest of its turn play out, all the way to the endphase. "I do not want to break the world. But if there is no other to stop you, I will. I cannot give up on them no matter what." Echo stated with a determined glare in her eyes. "Neither can we." Continuum replied with its unseen face. "But is that what you want?" The first entity asked the third. "We do not understand the question." The third answered again, with a more confused tone. "What do you want besides perfection? What are your dreams? What are your wishes? Nothing at all? I do not see a superior being. We are not the same at all. There is nothing to you, not even to pity." This time her words left Continuum with no easy answer. It kept its silence while the turn ended, during which its Dimensionary Generator restored more lifepoints for each of its link monsters.

Team Continuum's LP: 3200

-TURN 12-

"They both don't know how to stop this." Charles thought to himself. A duel like this would have to end some time, but what would actually stop them from just challenging each other again if they lost? What could actually destroy Continuum or Echo? Static did not disappear until he got disconnected from everyone in the world. "Charles. It is your turn." There were too many thoughts in his head. It took Echo's voice to snap him out of it. "Yes. You're right." He still could not afford to lose this duel. Though he did not understand Continuum, he understood Scarlet. And she had to be stopped before anyone else. This duel would buy his friends more time, but he could not stall indefinitely. "I draw!" So he moved on... and drew a spell card from his deck.

"This card?" Charles flinched at first, but quickly turned his feeling of surprise into a a feeling of hope. He drew this card for a reason he figured.. "I activate Monster Reborn Reborn, and special summon one of three monsters from my graveyard!" Charles took a gamble. He selected three of the link monsters in his graveyard: Decode Talker Extended, Transcode Talker and Powercode Talker. "Ha. We could negate that, but what would be the point?" Scarlet found it rather amusing that he would use such a harmless looking spell. Of course even if Infinite Dimensionary did reverse the activation of that card, Charles could simply activate it again. "I will let you summon the Decode Talker." In the end the opponent would choose the target of the revival spell: that target being the dark knight of code(2300/LINK 3) {Downleft/Up/Downright} [Zone 2]. "Your choice would not have mattered either way, Scarlet. Because I only need it as a link material. There is still one monster in my extra deck which you would not have any data on.."

"No data? Are you trying to tell me that you already created a link monster that surpasses our own? It is impossible, Charles Adami! You cannot even envision the impossible!" Scarlet Fever counted a combined link rating of nine, but no such link monster could technically exist as a card. Other link summons were possible with these materials too, but none of them would be able to harm the co-linked Dimensionaries. "No you are right, I dont have that ability. I've never had much of a reason to think outside the box before, I've only just begun to do so. Darkfluid and Exceed, Clock Dragon and Clock Spartoi, Quantum Dragon and Wicckid: the best things I could make were just upgraded versions of monsters that already existed or something close to it. There is no way I would be able to go where you have gone with your monsters. I cannot even picture what it would look like. But I know that there is nothing wrong with working with what you've got. And I think I know what I want to make. What I can make.." Charles tossed both Decode Talker Extended and the Arrival AIgnister into the link circuit. "I link summon! Accesscode Talker!"

"Another Code Talker? Another element?" Echo's eyes widened. Decode seemed to undergo one final transformation with the help of The Arrival as a fourth link material. It reverted to its basic dark and purple model, and attached gold/white armor adorned with purple crystal orbs, a golden crest on the helmet and golden wings for the shoulderplates. This was the holy knight of the Code Talkers: Accesscode Talker(2300/LINK 4) {Left/Up/Down/Right} [Extra Zone 1]. "Not a new element, but a combination of all elements! Accesscode is my tribute to all the Code Talkers in my graveyard! And also to all the fallen AIgnisters! Even the Arrival! When Accesscode is link summoned, I can target one of his link monster materials and give him a thousand attackpoints for each link arrow on that card!"

"We are not impressed. You have only regressed with this form. Pure power is meaningless against us." Continuum of course attempted to negate this effect with the Infinite Dimension's ability. "This is not just pure power, Continuum! This is flawless power! Because no card can chain to the activation of Accesscode's effects!" Nothing happened, the Hexoid Network lacked the speed to catch Accesscode. The holy knight(8300 atk) targeted The Arrival and added 1000 attackpoints to itself six times. "And now I activate its other effect, the one that will use the Code Talkers in my graveyard! Accesscode can banish one link monster to destroy one card on the field! Any card, even a skill card!" Charles demonstrated this effect by banishing the Decode Talker Extended from his graveyard. Accesscode took the dark powers of that link monster and poured them into its enormous lance. "I destroy the Dimensionary Barrier XY!" The entity could not block this effect of Accesscode either, nor could Eternity Order keep the Link 4 from skewering the continuous trap with one hurl of its darkly-energized weapon.

"We are not impressed. You have only regressed with this form. Pure power is meaningless against us." Continuum of course attempted to negate this effect with the Infinite Dimension's ability. "This is not just pure power, Continuum! This is flawless power! Because no card can chain to the activation of Accesscode's effects!" Nothing happened, the Hexoid Network lacked the speed to catch Accesscode. The holy knight(8300 atk) targeted The Arrival and added 1000 attackpoints to itself six times. "And now I activate its other effect, the one that will use the Code Talkers in my graveyard! Accesscode can banish one link monster to destroy one card on the field! Any card, even a skill card!" Charles demonstrated this effect by banishing the Encode Talker from his graveyard. Accesscode took the holy powers of that link monster and poured them into its enormous lance. "I destroy the Dimensionary Barrier XY!" The entity could not block this effect of Accesscode either, nor could Eternity Order keep the Link 4 from skewering the continuous trap with one hurl of its brightly-energized weapon.

"You went through all of that, just to get rid of the barrier?" An increasingly apprehensive Scarlet asked. She did not like having to take another unknown card into her calculations. "No. I went through all of that to get rid of All your defenses! Accesscode can use its effect as long as there are link monsters with different attributes in my graveyard! It can only banish each attribute once a turn! So now I will destroy Dimensionary Barrier Z!" This time the divine code talker absorbed the spirit of Excode Talker, a WIND link monster. The lance of air pierced the second trap card and broke the barrier that prevented the deaths of opposing link monsters. "And Dimensionary Factory and Dimensionary Generator!" Flames and water covered the Accesscode Talker's weapon, when it banished the FIRE Powercode Talker and WATER Shootingcode Talker from the graveyard. Two more strikes reached across the board and swept Continuum's continuous spell away in a blaze of elements. "And now that you are out of 'skill' cards, I can also destroy your Eternal Order!" Transcode Talker also left the graveyard, its banished earthen energy empowered the link monster with enough force to shatter the continuous skill itself. "This is.."

"This is my answer, Scarlet! Nothing is unbreakable, not even your perfect world." The last Code Talker to be banished was the DARK Attribute Decode Talker Extended. The last card to be removed from the field was the Olympiad Dimensionary. The lance of darkness stabbed the diamond through the front and cracked it wide open from the inside. "That just leaves their ultimate dimension." Echo nodded with a grateful look on her face. She knew that no effect could harm the Infinite Dimensionary, so she understood why Charles had to use her own Arrival as a material. "Yes.. and nothing more. Because when my link monster battles yours, I can banish Cross Debug from my graveyard! It will add the attackpoints of a link monster in my graveyard to Accesscode!" This way he could put enough attackpower together to not only destroy the Link 8 Network, but also destroy its wielders lifepoints at the same time. He would not take any risks any more. This duel would end now.

"You cannot do this." Scarlet Fever stated. "Oh I believe I can." Charles smiled and entered the battle phase. "No. You cannot. Because you will not risk losing the minds of a billion souls." So Scarlet restated her declaration... her threat. "What did you say?"

"What I am saying is that I prepared for this eventuality as well. Call it a dead man's switch. If you destroy the Continuum, my failsafe program will ensure that any mind linked with it is irreversibly damaged. Their memories will be lost to the ether, their mental capacities regressed to that of an infant.." Scarlet Fever laid the terms out with a big smile on her face. "You are lying." Echo remained unphased. She did not believe it. "Ohehehehe.. How you wish I were. But it is the truth. I would cripple the collective subconsciousness of the world before I lost everything I worked for. This is my throne of creation now! This is our world, and I am its god. You do not destroy that. If you do, then there is no reason for it to exist at all. Continuum is prepared to go this far, and so am I. Are you, miss Echo? Are you prepared to sacrifice them? I am sure your friends inside the orb of memories might have been able to free a few souls, perhaps a hundred. But there is no chance that they could have saved every last one. There will be loss, there will be death. Your paradise will never be perfect. You can either choose for my perfection, or your hell!"

"How about we just pick the same old world, same old time." Dharma asked the mad doctor. "Same.. you? When did you.." The arrival of the Blue-Eyes duelist had Scarlet perplexed. "Oh, just now. I didn't plan this to be a dramatic entrance for once, but I guess I am a natural. Heheh." She did not quickjump into the area alone either: Aurora, Abigail, Juan and Jenna were all here as well. "We did it boss! We got them all!" Dharma announced. "You got them? All of them? What are you.."

"They did what I asked them to do, what you expected them to do. They headed into the sea of memories and connected with everyone they knew." Echo started to explain. "But the number of people they knew in total does not accumulate beyond a thousand." The third entity asserted. "Yes. But that thousand in turn will know another ten thousand. The ten thousand will know another hundred thousand, who can link with a million, who have been in contact with tens and hundreds and thousands of millions. Even if they do not remember it, their subconscious does." Inevitably her message would spread like wildfire across the gulf of humanity. "But you did not disconnect them. You cannot. I can still sense countless of minds in my network." Continuum protested. "I can disconnect them, Continuum. With this.." Echo held up her own delayed skill card. She already used it this duel, but its power existed outside of their battle as well. "This is what I gave to everyone, a piece of my own soul. The same piece I used to protect everyone from Static.. And I have only been waiting for the right time to use it."

"That time is now." Echo crushed the skill card in her hand, so that its essence could float freely across the obsidian expanse. Stars of golden light floated upwards into the orb of memories and lit it up like the star-filled earth. "It's beautiful." Crescent Aurora marveled. "Is that one for every human?" There were too many to count, all the dots came together to form a sphere brighter than the sun. Only Echo could still look at it. "Yes. I can sense them.. I can sense them all. They are all with me!" She basked in the glow, while Continuum seemed to writhe in pain and unleashed an unearthly moan. "Charles. This is your chance!"

"I know!" Free of fear, Charles finally declared his attack. "How? How did we miss this?!" Scarlet Fever desperately tried to keep track of what took place above. But all her sensors told her that Continuum had lost everything. "Maybe you made Continuum too human, Scarlet. And the two of you were too wrapped up in this duel to notice. You were too frustrated and you also enjoyed yourself too much. But.. there is nothing wrong with those feelings." For its attack the Accesscode Talker jumped into close range with the lance still in its hand. At the same time the Cross Debug cyberse gave Accesscode(10800 atk) the attackpower of the Firewall Dragon in the graveyard. "You will regret this! There has to be a soul remaining in our network! You will condemn them to oblivion!" She lied, and he knew it. "The only one who I am condemning is you, Scarlet! You are no god. You are evil. And you get what you deserve!" At long last the battle between entities and heroes saw its end. Accesscode severed the Hexoid network of the Infinite Dimensionary with one slash, and set off a chain reaction of explosions that burned lifepoint after lifepoint.

Team Continuum's LP: 0

"You did it! Thank god!" Jenna and Juan cheered at the same time. "The nightmare.. is it over now?" Abigail kept her eyes on the opponents as their whole world seemed to collapse around them. Scarlet Fever slumped back into her throne, while the colorless duelist got knocked down to the ground. Her mask fell off in the process, while her avatar regained some of its original scarlet coloring. "Wait? That was Lilah?" Juan gasped. "Well yeah, couldn't you tell from the outfit?" Jenna grunted. "But is she alright?" Juan wondered again. He would have checked for himself, but the world around them still seemed to be quite turbulent.

"Hey boss. What's happening?" Dharma cried out. One by one the black trees and white tombstones exploded into digital particles, while the obsidian sphere itself rumbled as if an earthquake struck it. "I dont know! Maybe this is the power of the Creator leaving Scarlet or something." Charles wanted this to be good news, but it did not sound or feel like it. "Scarlet! What is this?" Not when the Fever duelist could still smile at them.

"This?.. This is just another failsafe. We set some power of the legacy item copies aside in case of our potential defeat." She barely explained herself before It came near her. "Continuum?" Charles took a step back. The white mask of Singleton was now floating by itself and its many eyes were all glowing bright red. "Yes. If you take our world away from me, we will take everything away from you. If we cannot discover how thought came to be, than we will erase all thought and watch it spring into existence in a new world! So take me, Continuum! Take me now and let me see the new universe!" Scarlet Fever stretched her arms out towards the mask with fanatic glee. "No! Don't!" They could not stop it. The mask transformed and folded out all around her face. Now her body became as pale as snow, and that was not the only change. She grew into an immense size, much like Melyria had once done. Copies of all the Legacy items appeared in her hands, while a thousand identical chaos drones appeared at her side. This would be their last stand.

"Cripes! Not this again! Doesn't she know when to quit?" Jenna cursed. "We will fight her as long as it takes!" Abigail activated her dueldisk without fear. "Even if we cannot win?" Juan did not like their odds. "We are outnumbered. But we are not alone." Crescent held her ground while she looked up at the sky. The obsidian world was starting to crack, and the orb of memories as well. "They are with us.." Thousands of light beams came in flying through the cracks.

"No we are not alone." Echo nodded to the heroes. "Because.. we have all the duelists in the world to help us now!" She closed her hand again and gave form to the lights who broke free: to the thousand warriors who'd been waiting for their chance to fight all this time.

(To Be Continued in World 123: For the Pale Blue Dot)

New Cards used by Echo
The Arrival AIgnister

New Cards used by Charles Adami
Accesscode Talker

New Cards used by Continuum Singleton
Infinite Dimensionary Hexoid Mind