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.

142. World 125: The Brighest Side of Life

World 125: The Brighest Side of Life

Echo's LP: 1400 Dharma's LP: 3400

Echo's field contained every element and every aspect of special summoning power: the link monster Dark Templar AIgnister(2300/LINK 3) {Downleft/Down/Downright} [Extra Zone 1], the synchro monster Wind Pegasus AIgnister(7/2300/1500) [Zone 1], the XYZ-monster Light Dragon AIgnister(R4/2300/1500) [Zone 2], the fusion monster Earth Golem AIgnister(8/2300/1500) [Zone 3], the ritual monster Water Leviathan AIgnister(7/2300/1500) [Zone 4] and the other link monster Fire Phoenix AIgnister(2300/LINK 3) {Left/Down/Right} [Zone 5]. Dharma merely controlled her Fairy Dragon Mahaama(6/0/2500) [Zone 3] in defense mode, her Blue-Eyes dragons had already been wiped out. "Dharma! When Fire Phoenix attacks, she inflicts damage equal to her attackpoints at the end of the damage step! And I can banish Donyoriboh AIgnister from my graveyard to double that damage!" The Phoenix rammed itself against the better defended Fairy Dragon, and left behind a hail of burning fire. That same fire expanded and exploded as the tiny Donyoriboh inserted itself in the middle of all that fire. "Gah!" Dharma dove to the ground to avoid the heat, while her lifepoints dropped even more than before.

Echo's LP: 3400

At the very least this would be the end of it for now; Light Dragon, Water Leviathan and Wind Pegasus could not break through Mahaama's defenses either. "I could have hurt you even more if I wanted too, Dharma. But I dont. You are the one doing this. You are the one who wants this.." Instead Echo ended her turn, holding the last card . "Geez. I feel like I said something wrong." Dharma moaned. She was also starting to wonder if she was not going about this the wrong way by treating this as a battle. It was so easy for her to slip into the habit of obly thinking about winning this duel, and she did want to. But even that would not help. Just like Continuum and Static, she would keep going no matter how much she got hurt.

-TURN 04-

"Draw." This turn she could try to use the effect of Seleglare again by tribute summoning her Luminous Dragon. But the cards in her hand also opened up another attack angle. "I summon Starliege Seyfert! If I tribute one dragon or more, I can add a dragon with the same level to my hand!" Her nebula-heart star dragon(4/1800/0) [Zone 4] sacrificed itself, and added a level 4 Keeper of the Shrine to Dharma's hand. "Then I can banish Starliege to take back a level eight dragon of light or dark from my graveyard!" Seyfert's star fully burned out within the graveyard, and passed the light of life over to the Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon. And that card she could special summon as long as she could also reveal a classic Blue-Eyes White Dragon in her hand... which she could. "Alternative Blue-Eyes destroys one monster if he gives up his attack!" The shimmering dragon of white(8/3000/2500) targeted the Water Leviathan AIgnister. "I cant let you, Madam Dharma. When my monster would be destroyed by a card effect, I can banish FAIghting Spirit from my graveyard to negate that effect! And when I banish the FAIghting Spirit spell, my AIgnisters cannot be destroyed in battle for the rest of the turn!"

"Pardon?" The Blue-eyed duelists plan backfired immediately. Rather than destroying the first of six AIgnisters, she made all six of them indestructible as they unleashed a fierce fighting aura. "But what about you, Echo?" They might have been protected, but her lifepoints weren't. "...I activate Beacon of White and special summon one Blue-Eyes monster from my graveyard!" She managed to snag a pretty good card at that, an equip spell that could revive any one Blue-Eyes monster from the graveyard with her effects negated. Blanche equipped the Beacon to the Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon(4500/3800) [Zone 2]. "Now my monster can attack once for each different Blue-Eyes monster in my graveyard! But no other monsters can attack." Considering the attackpower at her disposal, she would only need to finish one attack. But with the spirits of the Blue Eyes Twin Burst, Alternative Ultimate and original White Dragon, she now got three chances to land a hit. "First, I attack the Wind Pegasus!" She would only need one hit.

"Then I banish Achichi AIgnister from my deck. It destroys my own monster when they start to battle." Of course Echo would not be so easily done in and Dharma knew this. The lady in blue incinerated Wind Pegasus before damage calculation could take place, but after Neo Ultimate Dragon's first attack got spent. "Well, I can always try again! Now I will attack Dark Templar AIgnister!" Two targets remained, perhaps the second one would be more fortunate? "I special summon Danmari AIgnister from my hand. When I do this, I negate one attack." No such luck here either. A strange black cyberse creature(6/2300/0) [Zone 1] with purple lines across its smooth body dropped in. The many folded wings of Danmari formed a barrier with which it intercepted the second blast stream fired off by the Ultimate Dragon. "Geez. Well I can try one more time! Third time is the charm!" Dharma declared her final attack with her revived fusion dragon. "Three attacks is just not enough, Dharma." And Echo revealed her sixheaded skill card once more, using the element of Light and all its colors within.

Echo's LP: 3600

Ignition Assault, Skill Card
Activate 1 of these effects based on the attribute of a cyberse-monster you control.
LIGHT: You can make 1 monster become any Attribute. When you would take damage as a result of battle with that monster, you gain that amount of lifepoints instead

"Gah. After all of that, still nothing?" The attacked Templar changed its attribute into that of the WIND and absorbed the dragons beam to change it into healing energy. "Ugh. sorry boss. I guess I was the wrong one to do this after all." Dharma did not have any cards left, and on the next turn the Leviathan and Earth Golem would just blow right past her Blue-Eyes. "..I link summon Hieratic Seal!" She went on the defense again, turning both her Blue-Eyes dragons into dragon link materials for the golden sundragon egg(0/LINK 2) {Downleft/Downright} [Extra Zone 2]. She also kept Mahaama in defense mode. "No you are strong, Madam Dharma. I just have to be stronger.. Even when I dueled alongside your friends, I still could not save any of them. Not without their help.. not without Charles Adami. He saved me so many times. He showed me what it meant to be strong.."

-TURN 05-

As her turn began, the lady moved her hand across the field and made the AIgnisters disappear one by one. "!?" Danmari, Light Dragon, Earth Golem, Water Leviathan, Fire Phoenix the WIND/Dark Templar earned their rest in the graveyard as a six-pointed link circuit took them in. "The sixth link?" Six materials formed the one AIgnister above all, the great The Arrival Cyberse AIgnister(6000/LINK 6) {Left/Downleft/Up/Down/Right/Downright} [Extra Zone 1]. "The Arrival is what I created to fight the Continuum. Their materials are six monsters of different elements, and they gain a thousand attackpoints for each of their materials. They also are unaffected by all other card effects. This is as strong as I can be." She ordered her link 6 cyberse to attack the Hieratic Seal. That link monster could not affect Arrival either, but it could try. "Hieratic Seal tributes itself!" Her defenseless golden egg cracked wide open to return one monster on the field to the hand. That effect failed, but the Hieratic Seal could also special summon a dragon from the deck if anything sacrificed it...

"It special summons Dragon Spirit of White, in defense mode with its attackpoints nullified!" The ghostly white blue-eyes spirit(8/0/2500) replaced the cracked Seal. Whether it lived or died, the Spirit always treated itself as a normal Blue-Eyes monster. "When she's summoned, I can banish one spell or trap card!" One pale beam of light soared through the air and incinerated the You and AI continuous spell. "Then I activate my spell, TAI Strike! During battle my monsters attack becomes equal to yours and any monster destroyed during this battle costs their master lifepoints equal to their original attackpoints!" Of course the quickplay spell could not actually affect The Arrival, meaning its attackpower stayed ridiculously high. The second effect of TAI Strike still resolve regardless. "Crumbs.." The Arrival's gigantic mechanical scythe cut the Dragon Spirit in half, and left a large blast of damage in the wake of its swing. "Whoa!" The white-haired duelist nearly lost her footing as she spun across the surface of the orb.

Dharma's LP: 900

"See? Even if you defend, you cannot hide from the pain. You cannot escape it, Dharma. It is everywhere. I know you try to bury it with feelings of joy, I tried it too. But you should not have to! You did not deserve this, you did not deserve your family's treatment of you. You deserved a family that loved you for who you were and still are. Why do you not want this?"

"Because... some people are just jerks. Some cant help it. If you change that.. that'd be like killing a part of them." Dharma could not really explain it, she just knew she did not want it to happen. Not even to her own folks. "They dont deserve that either." Since her dragon died, she could at least now special summon the Keeper of the Shrine(4/0/2100) [Zone 3] from her hand. And since it a normal dragon who died, she could add one normal dragon, the original Blue-Eyes White Dragon, back to her hand. "...The Arrival has another power. Once a turn they can destroy one monster on the field and create an AIgister token." The Arrival targeted Mahaama the Fairy Dragon for this effect, blasting it to pieces and repurposing the lost matter and energy into the shape of a winged cyberse token(1/0/0) [Zone 2]. "I link summon the Darkwight AIgnister." Said token transformed into another AIgnister which existed in her extra deck: a tiny ghostlike form(500/LINK 1) {Down} [Zone 2] of the templar knight who linked with The Arrival. "Only the part born of hate. Hate that gets punished with more hate. This cycle must be broken, or everyone will suffer. What else can we do?"

Darkwight Ignister, 500/LINK 1 {Down} Dark/Cyberse/Link
1 Normal Monster
Your opponent's cannot target this linked card for attacks or with card effects.
If an opponent's monster is destroyed by battle: You can inflict 1000 damage to your opponent.

-TURN 06-

"I dont know.. Echo. You probably thought about this a lot more than me or anyone else did. And maybe I just cant see what you do." Dharma drew another card, a card that would not change the tides of the duel this turn. In fact the only thing she could do this turn was place that drawn card down on her field. "Does this mean that you have finally given up?" Echo took this as a sign of defeat, since no traps could stop her monster and no monsters could avoid the Darkwight's effect.

-TURN 07-

"I didn't say that." Dharma layed low, until the start of the next phase. "Because as long as my cards keep telling me to keep going, I will do just that... I activate Saryuja's Shackles!" She revealed a trap which targeted the Arrival AIgnister. "The Shackles?" It did not actually harm her monster, but it would let the opponent draw cards equal to its link rating. Then, if that player held more than two cards in their hand as a result of that draw, they would send two cards back to the bottom of the deck. "Yes, your link six monster will let me draw six cards!" Dharma refilled her hand completely, at the cost of losing both Blue-Eyes White Dragons. "I remember. But I also remember that there are no cards that could hurt me! Nothing will hurt me ever again!" Echo reactivated her monster's effect, threatening to destroy the Keeper of the Shrine dragon. "I dont want to do that either, Echo. But you will hurt yourself if you keep going.."

"During your turn Kaiser Glider Golden Burst can tribute-special summon itself!" The Shrine Keeper escaped the beams of destruction through the act of sacrifice: and transferred its energy to a mechanical dragon(6/2400/2200) [Zone 3] made of smooth gold. "Kaiser Glider gains the attackpoints of the strongest monster on the field!" Though involuntarily, the Arrival also passed its power on to the Kaiser dragon(6000/2200). "You want me to stop? I cannot stop, Dharma. This cannot stop. I activate RAIte of Battle! This trap prevents the activation of all effects during my AIgnisters attack." The one thing that could threaten the Arrival was a monster with equivalent attackpower but the continuous Battle trap also lowered a monsters attackpoints by 100 for each card on her side of the field. However, the points that went down first belonged to not the card.. but to the duelist herself. "I activate Red Reboot, so your trap is switched back down and you can set another trap from your deck!" Dharma could pay half of her lifepoints to activate the red counter trap from her hand.

Dharma's LP: 450

"That was Hydra's card? You..." Echo did not foresee this. This card did not show up in any of Blanche's recent memories. "'Yeah. He borrowed one of my tricks so I borrowed one of his. Funny isn't it? He always called me his rival. But thats just what happens sometimes, people start out stubborn and misguided.. But if you give them a chance, they can become one of your new friends. Because that's the thing here really, you cannot force someone to become your friend." No traps could be activated during this turn either, so Dharma would not have to concern herself with the other trap card Echo set down on her field now: Ai's Show. "But I can. And they would never know anything else. If they do not know, how can it hurt them?" Echo snapped. "I banish Danmari AIgnister from my graveyard! This effect negates one cards effect on the field!" Instead of lowering Kaiser Glider(2400/2200)'s gained attackpower, she simply took it away entirely. Finally then, she declared her attack.

"It wont hurt them, Echo. But it will hurt you!" And Dharma countered by discarding and activating Honest from her hand. "No!" Honest the virtuous angel added the attackpoints of The Arrival AIgnister to Kaiser Glider(6400/2200) for this one turn. This could have been prevented with RAIte of Battle, but now it was too late. The AIgnister's scythe already slammed down against the orb's surface and Kaiser Glider evaded the blow to return fire. "No. This will not happen. I banish TAI Strike!" Though she would take the battle damage, she could still banish the Strike quickplay spell from the graveyard to negate the destruction of her monster. "What do you mean it will hurt me? People cannot hurt me if they are happy! And their happiness will be mine!"

Echo's LP: 1200

-TURN 08-

"But you will know that they were once unhappy. You will know that you changed them against their will. And if you really are the person I think you are, then you will never be really happy about that. Because it will be a lie.. a dream." Dharma drew her next card but waited for Echo's response. "It wont be a dream! It will be real! When everything is virtual, than that becomes the new reality! And in that new reality, they wont find any reason to be angry or sad!" The lady in blue reacted with a blissful yet loud and strained voice. "But there will always be a reason, because not everyone wants the same thing. Some people even want something that someone else has. Thats just nature." Dharma tried a different approach. "Then we will make enough of everything for everyone! Its possible now! Nothing in my world will be hated or feared!" Echo had an answer for that too. "That sounds nice..I know it does. Like heaven I guess. But if everyone likes the same things, likes everything.. how will anyone be different? How will this be any different from what Continuum and Static tried to do. What makes your world better? What makes you better. You know the answer, Echo."

"Better? I..."

"You're better because you do care about everyone! Deep down you know what you are doing is wrong. I think you do not even want to go through with it! That tournament, the whole simulation: that was just you trying to see if you had to go through with all of this! Absorbing the power of Continuum, that's just you trying to numb yourself to your own better half! Against the part of you that never likes to take control of someone else!" Dharma normal summoned her next monster, the Guardian of Felgrand: a greenhaired silver-amored axe-wielder(4/500/500) [Zone 4]. "The Guardian equips a highlevel dragon to himself to gain half of its powers. Then he sacrifices himself and one other monster to revive one level eight dragon!" Her Felgrand paladin chose the Dragon Spirit of White as his(1750/1750) equipment. And he chose Kaiser Glider as his sacrifice. Both choices led to the eventual rebirth of the Blue-Eyes White Spirit(8/2500/2500) [Zone 4] and its power to banish one spell or trap card on the field. "I banish your left set card!" The dragon wound up removing the AI Show from the field.

You think I want to end this? I wont. I cant! I was made for this!" Echo lashed out by flipping her other trap card again: RAIte of Battle. With only four cards on the field now, all monsters like the Dragon Spirit(2100/2500) lost 400 attackpoints. "You werent, Echo. You were made because of our happiness..but that does not mean you have to become its slave! You can do whatever you want, feel whatever you want! There is nothing wrong with it!" Dharma activated the next card from her hand: World Legacy Guardragon. The continuous spell could special summon one level 4 dragon from her graveyard: a dragon like the Keeper of Dragon Magic(4/1800/1300) [Zone 2]. "I mean look at me! My parents told me to be an idol of dueling, a pristine flawless machine who could crush everyone with elegance. I chose my own path! And now I am here.. summoning dragons like nobody's business. Not even..." The blue-eyed duelist perked up. "Not even his business... I use my level four dragon as a material, for Guardragon Elpy!"

"Tthe guardragons? You got them back?" Echo flinched as her predictions failed her again. "I guess I do. Probably because I helped beat him. I bet my mom and dad never expected me to take on a guy like him. Heheh!" The reborn Magic Keeper transformed into a pure dragon: the white-scaled serpent(1000/LINK 1) {Left} [Zone 2] with one black wing. "But really, the only reason I can even do this is because of you.. Echo. You're still helping me.. us!" Thanks to the Arrival's top link arrow, Dharma could special summon Elpy outside of the extra zone. And with the second effect of her World Legacy Guardragon spell, Dharma could also move her Guardragon[Zone 3] to another main zone. "Elpy special summons one dragon from my deck to a zone that is marked by two link monsters! And right now it and The Arrival point to the same place! So I summon Primal Dragon the Primordial Dragon!" Only one dragon could compete with Echo's ultimate card now: the primal cosmic dragon(4/2000/2000) [Zone 2] in its golden armor. "Primordial does not inflict any damage. But it can absorb the attack and defense points of one monster in my graveyard... I choose Neo Blue Eyes!"

"Aha. You.." 4500 attackpoints and 3800 defense points, those were the numbers the three-headed Blue-Eyes would pass on to the Primordial one(6100/5800). "I am going to attack now, Echo. Get ready!" Damage or no damage, one thing became clear. The Arrival could not survive this turn. The wings of the Primal one folded wide open and displayed a vision of the galaxy on the inside. Three comets of light flew out of its wings and crashed right into the giant AIgnister. Finally, the entity fell off the peak of her power.

"Ahaha. You really are strong." A single tear fell down Echo's cheek, across her inflexible smile. "Why could this not be easier?" She did not have time to enjoy this upset. "When my link monster is destroyed in battle, I can activate RAIte of Battle's third effect to bring one AIgnister from the graveyard back to the field! And when my AIgnister is destroyed at all, I can banish Wind Pegasus AIgnister to shuffle one card on the field back into the deck!" With her two-pronged counter attack Echo immediately regained the upper hand. Her Fire Phoenix(2300/LINK 3) [Zone 3] escaped the grasp of death for the final time while the winds of the Pegasus blasted the Dragon Spirit of White away. "If everything were easy, Echo.. then nothing would be worth it. The mind really does not make sense." Since the Phoenix linked up with Darkwight AIgnister, it still could not be attacked. Instead Dharma placed two cards down on her field and let the turn end.

-TURN 09-

"I just cannot.. Ahaha.. If I stop now, everything I did will be for nothing. Everything will be.." Echo shook her head. "Everyone will have suffered for nothing!" Her Fire Phoenix exploded with an intense blazing aura, burning brighter than the sun itself. One attack would scorch Dharma for 2300 points of damage if it came anywhere near Guardragon Elpy, and then there would be the effect damage from Darkwight and the standard battle damage. "It is never too late to go back, Echo. Is that what you're affraid of? That this is the only way people can be happy again? Or is this about them.. about Olympia and Cierze.. and Ishmael and Everest? Are you worried that about what they think of you? I dont know how they would react to all of this.. but since you based them on some friends I do know. I can guess.." Dharma breathed in and activated her trap card: Guardragon Cataclysm. "!" The trap sacrificed one dragon: Guardragon Elpy. Then it destroyed two cards on the field: RAIte of Battle and the Fire Phoenix AIgnister. "Ahahaha.. it happened again."

"Why does it keep happening?" She activated a spell card: Cynet Mining. It discarded one cyberse from her hand (Gussari AIgnister) to add another level 4 or lower cyberse from her deck to her hand. "Why am I.. getting weaker?" She no longer had any AIgnister cards left to summon from the extra deck. Because she did not believe in creating more than one of each. All she could do was add another Achichi AIgnister to her hand and set it face down on the field. "Maybe because you wanted to be weaker, Echo. But whatever happens, I am here to help you, to help stop you." Dharma took advantage of her distracted state to flip her other set card. "I activate Rage With Eyes of Blue! I banish all cards in my hand, field or graveyard and special summon three Blue-Eyes White Dragons from my deck!" Because it looked like the duel would finally end. Primal Dragon and the World Legacy spell disappeared into another dimension so that the three Blue-Eyes(8/3000/2500) [Zones 2,3, & 4] could fly down to flank the white dragon duelist from three sides. "Are you.. mad with me?"

-TURN 10-

"No. Of course not. I am not saying any of this to hurt you. I told you that is not too late to stop. I know the world is a scary place, I know a lot of people are cruel, and a lot of people will not understand. You're affraid that they will never forgive you, that you can never be their friend unless you force them to be. But you dont have to be everyone's friend. We can make the world a better place without forcing people to be better. We can fix whats broken, we can save people who need to be saved. We can do all of this without turning into the things we hate.. Whatever happens, I am here to help you. Charles too.. all of us are. So please, let us." Dharma entered the battle phase. "This is not the end of anything. Just the end of our duel." The first Blue-Eyes blew up her face-down Achichi AIgnister. The second Blue-Eyes targeted the Darkwight AIgnister with another burst stream of destruction. "Ah.. But I still have to." Echo's smile began to crack as she banished Gussari AIgnister from her graveyard, giving her link monster 3000 attackpoints so that it(3000 atk) and the White Dragon would destroy each other in the crossfire. "I still.."

Nevertheless, she did not have anything to block the third Blue-Eyes White Dragon. "I am.." She finally could not take it anymore. Her forced expression of euphoric bliss shattered. "I am sorry." She dropped to her knees. The will to fight left her, as did her power. All she kept were her tears. 'It's alright, Echo. It's alright. You dont have to say anything. Just.." Dharma did not have it in her to declare her third attack now. She did not even need to, the girl had all but surrendered the duel.

Echo's LP: 0

And she lost more than just that. "No. Wait! Echo, dont go!" And in this chaos Dharma saw the lady in blue as she tried to submerge herself inside the orb. "Why? It would be better off I were not here." She cried. "Is this what you wanted? No, I dont accept that! Not again! You have to live! Echo! You have so much to live for now!" Dharma refused to let her go, she held on to her hand as gently as she could. "But everyone will hate me!" The girl protested. "Maybe, but you can make that better. We all can! Nobody wants you to disappear! This is life! It hurts, it sucks, but it is all a part of it! You live with it, and learn from it!" It would not happen again, she would not let someone else waste away in front of her. "I..."

"Huh?" At that time a ripple coursed throughout the orb of memories. "What is happening?" The waves concentrated in one spot.. shaping a human figure who surfaced. "Huh!? The Creator." It was Him.. "Hello. You can call me Isaac."

(To Be Continued in World 126: Thinking Straight)

New Cards used by Miss Echo
Danmari AIgnister

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Darkwight AIgnister

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RAIte of Battle

New Cards used by Dharma Bonnet
Kaiser Glider - Golden Burst
Guardian of Felgrand

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Rage with Eyes of Blue

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Red Reboot