World 126: Thinking Straight

For a long time, Charles could do nothing but watch and hope for the best. The orb of memories looked so distant and the two duelists who battled each other were impossible to see. But he had faith. He had faith in Dharma. He could not really explain why he did, why he felt his way about her more than anyone else. But he knew his feelings were justified, and he soon got rewarded for it. "!?" The first sign came from the people around him: the ones who involuntarily blocked the remaining heroes from leaving the surface of the obsidian world by dragging them into duels where they did nothing but defend themselves. All of them, tens of thousands, snapped out of this trance at once. "What.. was I doing?" Hydra himself stared at Charles with a look of utter confusion. To people like him the last half hour had been a blur. "You were under her control. But it seems like it stopped.. which means." The second sign came from above, a shockwave which traveled across the surface of the memories.. "She won!" And the wave spread beyond the orb, and broke through the seven obelisks...

"Uh.. Who did what now?" Jenna yelled. It looked like a lot more had happened than just a simple duel. Every part of Continuums and Scarlet Fever's master design crumbled above their heads, the debris itself turning to atoms. Without the obelisks, the orb of memories could not maintain its form either.. The cracks grew even bigger and bigger, until it reached the point of detonation. "What!?" A billion voices seemed to cry out at once with a mixture of joy, sadness, anger and fear. The stars of the world's souls flew off in every direction.. "Is this bad?" A bewildered Wagner asked. "No. I believe this is good. Those are the memories that Continuum stole, they're going back to the source. Everyone will remember again. Project flute.. is gone." Crescent saw this as the first step towards the return of the normal world..

"Look!" Then came the third sign that the fight was finally over. Donna saw Dharma Bonnet fly back down towards the obsidian floor on her Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Echo came down with her and landed right next to the creator's throne. "Who is that guy?" The dragon carried a third passenger; a middle-aged man with glasses and blonde hair. "That is.. the Creator?" Charles recognized him. How could he not? "The Creator? That guy?" Donna expected someone a bit more impressive, he looked more like the type of person you would meet at a science exhibit. "He better not be here to start more trouble again."

"No. No I am not miss Monday. Those days are behind me. I am not the Creator anymore, I am.." The man wanted to introduced himself, after he stepped down from the white dragon. "Isaac Voronin." But Lilah introduced him first. "Your name is Isaac Voronin... How do I know this?" The scarlet duelist just blurted it out as if it was a name she'd used often. "Because you remember me now, miss Singleton. You and I did work together in the past, and those memories are now finally returning to you. To us. When I first made myself a permanent part of STHEREA, I had to remove all traces of my existence from the collective unconsciousness.. I had to remove that knowledge even from myself, before Exeter and its associates could take advantage of my invention." Isaac chuckled. "My invention. Ha.. There I go again. I was a fool, I let myself believe that I actually created this world. I stayed on this side for so long, I even let myself believe that I was the creator worthy of this legacy. The power of the mind is so much stronger than I could have imagined, and there were countless minds reshaping me into this false god." He stared at the throne with disdain. "I no longer believe any of that."

"So you do not want to reset the world or whatever it was that you planned?" Cherry Anise inquired and the former creator nodded slowly. "Okay, cool. What about her? Did she get her tamper tantrum out of the way too?" The trickstar duelist pointed a finger at Echo. "Cherry!" Dharma instinctively snapped back at her. "What? I am only saying what most of us are thinking! Or am I supposed to feel good about getting my body hijacked.. like twice?"

"I knew this was not a good idea." Echo immediately recoiled when she heard Cherry's outburst. She felt even worse when she saw the stares of everyone else, the stares directed her way. "No. Its going to be fine. Just tell them how you really feel now. They deserve that at least." Dharma tried to keep her spirits up, though she understood why Cherry and the others felt like this. "I know.. but what am I supposed to do? Tell them I am sorry? I can never apologize for what I did.." The girl in blue whispered back. "It can be a start. I know this wont be easy, but what matters more is that everyone is okay now." Dharma also saw some sympathetic looks in the crowd. Mostly from people who were just relieved that the worst seemed to be behind them. "Not everyone is... Midsummer. I hurt him. I cannot say I am sorry. If he is not here. It wouldn't be right."

"Actually, if anyone here should apologize. It is me." Isaac stepped back towards the two duelists on the white dragon. "Miss Echo. All of this is my fault. Because of me, you came into this world. And all I could do was give you a false home and a false life. I deceived you and made you think you were someone you were not. And then when you most needed it, I abandoned you. I like to think I only did it because Hansen and the company drove me into a corner. But the truth is that I took the easy way out. And a lot of people suffered for it, people who were once close to me." Isaac stopped to give Charles a quick glance. "You mean.. like the ones that got injured in the factory explosion? Like Tycho's friends?" Charles heard him clearly. "Yes, like them. Vera and Kurt I believe their names were. Thanks to project flute and continuum, their identities and many more were scrubbed from the world record as well. But that should all be flowing back now, everything that we made the people forget will come back in full. But if I had not ran away from my responsibilities, I might have been able to stop this in the first place.. I might have been able to contain Continuum and Static."

"Then what happens now? Where is Continuum? What is left of it? And what about those who abused it and STHEREA?" Nakana Shintaro stepped up. She could still think of many people who would have to answer for their crimes inside and outside the network. Not everything could be blamed on the third entity. "Continuum is here.." And Echo could at least answer one of her questions. "?" The zombie princess got some strange sets of gifts from Echo, a small beehive-like device and a tiny chessboard. "Those are the cores of Continuum and Static.. My siblings. It's all that is left of them now."

"Wait? You had those all along? Is that why you suddenly got that gothy makeover? Is that why you went... well... nuts?" Jenna asked delicately. "No. I cannot blame it on them. I chose to take their power for myself. Because... I wanted it to stop. All the fighting." Echo placed the two items on the ground. "They wont hurt anyone again like this. And I do not want to fight anymore either. But there are still so many who do."

"Well I for one am ready to call a truce on this whole affair, at least until we figure things out. The question then is.. What do we do with what we have? Where do we go from here?" Therese Hansen mused. There would be a lot of repercussions from all of this, even if all the parties responsible were ready to make up for it. "It would be difficult to return to a normal form of living after all of this." The practically-minded Asterisk also pondered the possibilities.

"That would depend on what happens to STHEREA itself. This world of thought will continue to exist with or without our help. Yet now that the obelisks have been destroyed, the world will naturally return to normal anyway. Though that will take time. But theoretically this should eventually reverse all the damage done to both worlds, and the damage to everyone's subconscious. The world at large will see this event as nothing more than a wild shared nightmare, brought upon them by the power of STHEREA. Only the parts of the network that already exist will remain united: the island and the various closed systems including the one below us." The Creator claimed. "But didn't you promise to completely separate the two realities?" Crescent reminded him, and he responded with a smile. "That was before. I do not have that power, not anymore. The power of the seven legacy items are now entirely concentrated in there." He pointed at the World Legacy Key which Dharma now held. "I cannot destroy my own legacy anymore. As long as that item exists, both the world of thought and world of flesh will stay as they are now with all the benefits and dangers that brings. But with that item you can also complete the divide or go even further. You could destroy the network alltogether to make sure nobody can access it ever again. I cannot make that choice anymore. It is up to you, and to them." He pointed at her, Dharma and Charles. "To us?" Aurora gasped.

"Aha. Because we were the ones who beat you up eh?" Dharma realized. "Heh. Is that why? I suppose I dont get any say in this just for helping out." Hydra scoffed lightheartedly. "Sorry, Freddie, I dont make these wacky rules." Dharma laughed. "Freddie?"

"So we are back to this question after all." Charles groaned. This time they were definitely not in a simulation. "I am not going to make this choice just because I happened to be in the right place at the right time." He could not even pretend like he wanted this. "Hey, you worked hard to make it to this point, boss." Dharma insisted. "So did you. All of you did. We did this as a team." He would never have made it anywhere without his friends. "That is why we should make this call as a team. Though I feel like half of us here have already decided. But what about the rest? What about all of these people?" Charles gestured at the crowd of duelists, most of whom could not even hear him. "I imagine a lot of folks dont wanna give up on this virtual experience. Is there any way that we can just keep the virtual part of STHEREA? Without all the subconscious creepy stuff? If we went ahead with splitting the two worlds up that is.."

"I am affraid not. And I am sure our lord and Creator over here would agree with me." Vigionair stepped forward. "This whole world only exists in our thoughts, and we can only interact with it because of his network. If you take that away, all you have left is the set dressing.. It will still be virtual, but it wont be the way it was." He explained it in terms everyone could understand. "Well, what's so bad about that? We can live with that, right?" Giganoto cheerfully exclaimed. To him it just sounded like a perfectly fine online community still. "But what is the harm in just leaving it as it is? Think of all the cool stuff we could do now!" Bionis still felt a little tempted by the potential. "Think of all the evil people could still do with it. As long as it exists, it can be abused.." Abigail on the other hand knew what she wanted; to destroy it all. "I wish there was a way to go back to how we used to do it. But even if we only do this reversal, it could still cause more problems. Right? We could just make another Static or Continuum or who knows what if we keep putting our heads together like this." Juan saw good reasons on both sides and felt torn.

But in the end their opinions would not make a difference. "Before you decide anything, you should also know this. The legacy items accept many masters, but it cannot be destroyed as long as it has more than one. You must decide who will wield it." Isaac stated, drawing a bit of suspicion from Charles. "More than one? Did you just make that up? Or is this another game for you?" He did not quite trust this man yet, nor did he like how much this sounded like the scenario they already went through. "It is not a game, Charles Adami. Its just the way it is. Dueling has coated the cognitive flow of STHEREA. Everything has been decided by the hearts of duelists so far and the key expects this to be the same. You will have to wait for the merger to be undone anyway, you cannot destroy the legacy item before that. After if you decide to remove the network too soon you would be transported back to where you were in the real world when this all started. It would be your last chance to confront each other."

"Confront? Tseh, can you believe this guy? So what do we do? Just hold a threeway battle right here and now?" Dharma wanted to get this out of the way as quickly as possible, since she did not really think any of them were going to have a big disagreement on what to do with the Key. "No. Not yet. Not here." Crescent did however have some other reservations. "I think everyone should get a chance to visit their friends and family. That is what I want to do at least. I have to know if they are alright. I think I will let you two duel for it. You did more than me to get it." She did not really want to be the one to make this choice either. "Hey dont say that, Crescent. You were the one who delivered the final blow. But if that is what you want. Then Dharma and me can settle it out first." Charles understood her hesitation. But he did not want to walk away from this responsibility. "Heheh. Sounds like you just wanna have another go at me, boss." Dharma was up for it as well.

"So. It has to be settled with another fight?" Echo expressed her disappointment. "Hey. It wont be like that, Echo. This will just be a duel between two good friends. It will be what a duel is really supposed to be.. Not a fight to see who is better, but a game to have fun!" She did not care who won, and neither did Charles. "And whatever we decide to do, we will make sure nothing bad happens to you because of it. And who knows, you might enjoy this too." Dharma knew Echo would be worried about what this could mean for her, but there were ways to make sure she still had a place in the world to come. And Echo, for now at least, seemed to be okay with this promise. "Alright. Now if we do this thing, we at least gotta pick a better background than this hunk of black rock..."

...

And so they chose their final battlefield: the terrace outside Dharma's very own villa. This was where Adami left his own family after all. They, like many other nonduelists, were still resting to regain their memories. They could not be disturbed, but knowing that they were recovering helped Charles' own mindset tremendously. Now he could fully throw himself into this duel. Many of his friends were here too to observe the duel. Some like the Live Stars even went so far as to stream it to any other duelist who would want to keep track of the score while they themselves returned to their one loved ones. "I suppose we can treat this as the inevitable conclusion of that simulated tournament." Asterisk remarked as he and the heroes made themselves comfortable. "As if. I totally could have made it to the finals too." Jenna muttered. "Then again I guess its better that this couple here gets their final round instead." She could not be too mad, she too wanted to see how this would all end between them.

Charles' LP: 8000 Dharma's LP: 8000

-TURN 01-

"Looks like we're off to a good start." Charles said as he got the first turn. "Heheh. You know it." Dharma would have the first battle phase, and she looked forward to it. "And I know you. Well enough to realize that playing defensively is not going to do me any favors! So I will go all out! It begins here! I summon Proxy Horse! This cyberse lets me perform a link summon of a cyberse with another cyberse monster in my hand!" The dueldisk projected the hologram of a cybernetic horse(4/1100/1100) [Zone 3] with proxy-type horns and white armor. "I will link summon Splash Mage! The materials are two cyberse!" Proxy Horse sent itself and the Flame Bufferlo in Charles' hand to the graveyard, and opened up a link circuit towards the extra deck. The aquatic cyber wizard(600/LINK 2) {Upright/Downright} [Extra Zone 1] finally solidified. "Oh yeah I remember that one. She can revive one of your cyberse each turn, right?"

"Spoilers, Dharma. But you're right." The Mage targeted the Flame Bufferlo in the graveyard, summoning the fire-horned cyberbeast(3/1400/200)[Zone 3] in defense mode with its effects on the field negated. "And now I summon the Decode Talker Heatsoul! Its materials are two or more cyberse with different elements! Plus when I remove Flame Bufferlo from the field, I can discard one cyberse to draw two cards!" Splash Mage brought the Water element, and Proxy Horse the Flame. Fire overpowered the circuit as Charles link summoned the burning Code Talker knight(2300/LINK 3) {Up/Downleft/Downright}. At the same time Flame Bufferlo discarded the Swap Cleric to refill Charles' hand. "Shoulda figured he would go with his favorite again." Cherry cheekily remarked from the sidelines. "I heard that! I do have to think long and hard about which link monsters I prepare each duel, Anise. But you have a point. Ever since I made this card, I've never left it out of my extra deck." Charles chuckled to himself and placed a trap card down on his field. "But for those who do not know, Heatsoul can draw one card each turn if I pay a thousand lifepoints. If I give it a piece of my soul!" He used this effect for the first time, right before he ended his turn.

Charles' LP: 7000

-TURN 02-

"Just one Code Talker huh? Well I get it, you want to be conservative until I bring out the big guns!" Dharma drew her sixth card. "The joke is.. I have to actually draw my big guns. I didnt get any yet, but I know how to fix that though!" She did draw her field spell, the Mausoleum of White. This gave her a fitting stage to battle in: as the tomb of the white dragon surrounded the terrace. "Mausoleum lets me normal summon one level one light tuner from my hand.. I mean besides the normal summon I already get each turn." She gave this effect to her Sage with Eyes of Blue: the silverhaired battle warlock(1/0/1500)[Zone 1] of the blue-eyes clan. "And Sage adds another one of those fancy level one tuners to my hand!" Blanche stated and used the effect to draw the Maiden With Eyes of Blue from her deck directly. "And now my regular normal summon, I sacrifice the Sage for Krystal Dragon!" Her blue-eyed spellcaster surrendered gave his own life so that a crystalline dragon(6/2500/1000) [Zone 2] could be tribute summoned. Its wings and body were all cast out of segmented blue diamonds.

"Oh, I havent seen that one before." Hydra stated. He thought he knew every dragon in her deck. "Well its one of my older cards. But Charles here isnt the only one who played around with his deck to prepare for this finale!" Dharma pointed her finger to the dragon statue altar of her field spell. "Mausoleum of White can send one normal dragon from my deck to the graveyard! Then for the rest of the turn, one monster on the field gains attack and defense points equal to its level times one hundred!" The first of her three classic Blue-Eyes White Dragons flew into the next world, passing through the Krystal Dragon(3300/1000) along the way. "And when Krystal Dragon attacks, I can add another level eight dragon to my hand during the battle step!" Dharma did pause to give Charles' trap a look, but she pressed on regardless. "So what you got for me, boss?" Krystal Dragon soared upwards and dove down towards the Heatsoul Code Talker.

"Just this! I activate Heatsoul's effect again!" Charles let it come near, and burned off another part of his lifeforce to draw another card. Immediately afterwards, the Decoder knight got horizontally sliced in half by the Dragon's wings and took off another 1000 lifepoints through battle damage.

Charles' LP: 5000

"Hey. Drawing cards is cool and all. But try to stay alive while you're doing it." Dharma sounded a little disappointed that the attack landed that easily. She also used Krystal Dragon's effect to add a Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand to her hand. "Heh. You dont have to worry about me burning out too soon. I did plan for this." Charles activated his own trap card: Cyberse Beacon. "I had to take damage, so I could let this trap add a cyberse to my hand! I choose Cyberse Gadget!" They both got something out of this exchange. "Alright, that is more like it. But I am not done yet either!" Dharma sounded off her second main phase with the spell card Dragon Shrine. "Shrine sends a dragon to my graveyard. And if it is a normal monster, I can send another dragon!" The first card she sent was actually an effect monster, but Dragon Spirit of White treated itself as a normal monster while in the graveyard. So Dragon Shrine could also send the Arkbrave Dragon to the graveyard. "I started off easy, the real fun begins next turn!" Dharma placed one trap card down and passed control back to Charles.

-TURN 03-

"I think I see what you mean." Charles drew his card, but could not move beyond the standby phase just yet. "Yeah-heheh. Arkbrave activates during the next turn after it got sent to the graveyard, and he special summons one level seven or eight dragon from the grave! So here he is, boss! My lovely Blue-Eyes White Dragon, in attack position!" The majestic dragon of destruction(6/3000/2500) [Zone 3] returned to life, breaking out of its tomb within the mausoleum. "Just one for now. I can deal with that." Charles already had a plan in mind.

"I summon Cyberse Gadget. Its effect will special summon one cyberse of level two or below, with its effects sealed." The Beacon lured the gadget-equipped robot(4/1400/1100) [Zone 2] for a multitude of reasons, the first of which being that it could special summon the Swap Cleric(2/500/1000) [Zone 3]. "I link summon Update Jammer! The link materials are two level two or higher cyberse! And when I use Swap Cleric as a material, I can draw one card and remove five hundred attackpoints from my link summoned monster." Cyberse Gadget and Swap Cleric paired up and were reformatted into the blue-haired science kid(1500/LINK 2) {Left/Up} [Extra Zone 1] with the jamming radar on its back. The swapping Cleric drained 500 of its attackpoints to give Charles a semi-free draw. The Gadget cyberse activated its own effect, creating a Gadget token(2/0/0) [Zone 2] once it turned into a link material. "Update Jammer has a lot of cool powers, but there is only one you in the audience will need to learn for this turn. Any link monster that uses it as a material, can attack twice this turn!"

"So I link summon Transcode Talker! The materials are two effect monsters or more!" Charles revealed the Code Transporter in his hand and paired it with the Update Jammer. Since he was about to summon a Code Talker, he could use the green Excode expy as a material without summoning it. And quite the powerful Code Talker they made: the bronze gunman Transcode(2300/LINK 3) {Up/Down/Left} [Extra Zone 1]. Code Transporter also added a cyberse from the graveyard (Cyberse Gadget) back to the hand, if it got used as a link material this way. "The code talker of earth. Did you put every element in there?" Crescent wondered out loud. They were the knights who helped defeat Continuum after all. "Not this time actually. I only added three.. Heatsoul, Transcode.." Charles quickly activated Transcode Talker's effect to special summon one link 3 or lower cyberse monster from his graveyard: the Update Jammer(2000/LINk 2) [Zone 2].

"And Encode! The materials are two cyberse monsters!" Jammer updated itself again, with the help of the Gadget Token. This time the link circuit accessed the element of light and link summoned the shieldbearer Encode Talker(2800/LINK 3) {Up/Down/Downright} [Zone 2]. As Transcode(2800/LINK 3) {Up/Down/Right} established a co-link with it, both Talkers would gain 500 attackpoints. Finally Charles activated two spells: the continuous Cynet Recovery and the equipment Grid Rod. The latter gave 300 more attackpoints to Encode Talker(3100 atk). "This is my first attackplan, Dharma! Quite a simple one!" Both Code Talkers could attack twice in one turn now due to their 'updates'. Transcode Talker declared the first attack and fired two blasts at Krystal Dragon(2500/1000) and Blue-Eyes White Dragon. "Monsters linked to Encode can survive one battle with a stronger monster! And afterwards Encode can give that monster or itself the attackpoints of the stronger target!" Transcode's first shot managed to wipe away the weaker dragon, scattering its crystals all over the mausoleum.

Dharma's LP: 7700

The second shot on the other hand got swallowed by a wider beam of the counter-attacking Blue-Eyes. Encode Talker rapidly intercepted the beam with its shield to save Transcode Talker's life, and to absorb the energy into its own body(6100 atk). "Uh oh." Only now did Dharma realize the full scope of Charles' attack plan. Encode could now make two attacks with its massive attackpoints. "I didn't want to hold back, Dharma. I hope you are ready! Encode Talker attacks Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" Charles sent his knight to slay the dragon. Encode revealed the blade inside its shield and slashed Blue Eyes' head clean off. "Geez yeah you are really going for the throat here! But its a good thing I counted on this! I activate Level Resist Wall!"

Dharma's LP: 4600

"Level Resist Wall?" Charles gasped. The trap responded to her dragon's destruction, degrading Blue-Eyes into eight stars of light. "Yep! When my monster dies, I can special summon monsters from my deck with the same combined level in defense! Their effects are all negated though!" Four stars converged into the Starliege dragon Seyfert(4/1800/0) [Zone 5]. The remaining stars all special summoned one level 1 monster: the white dragon eggs White Stone of Legend(1/0/0) [Zone 1] and White Stone of the Ancients(1/0/0) [Zone 2], the bead-covered praying Samsara Dragon(1/0/0) [Zone 3] and the gold-robed elder spellcaster Master With Eyes of Blue(1/300/1200) [Zone 4]. "Whoa. I was expecting your trap to defend you. But you did even more than that." She'd been planning the next turn all along and he walked right into it. No matter which monster he killed, it would just give her more resources. "Heh. How exciting, Dharma!" Encode Talker finished its battle phase by attacking and destroying the Starliege Seyfert.. "I am glad you liked that combo, Charles. I wasn't sure I could pull it off myself!"

"They are having fun.." Throughout this duel, Echo observed.. with her eyes and her mind. "But I should not be sensing this." She felt happy for them, but she would never be seen as one of them... Not while she still had her voice and her power. But she did not want to leave them either, she did not want to run forever. Even though so many were still glaring at her from time to time to remind her of what she did. "Penny for your thoughts." And one of them even approached her. "Huh?" A man she did not expect to see.. "Mephistar?"

"Heh. Not quite." The judge Hieronymus smiled.

(To Be Continued in World 127: An Incomplete Definition)

New Cards used by Dharma Bonnet
Krystal Dragon

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Level Resist Wall

New Cards used by Charles Adami
Proxy Horse