So, I just want to put it here once more for those who didn't saw it. There was a huge error in the duel from last chapter where I forgot to write the summoning of Knightmare Cerberus for the Extra Link. The mistake is fixed but I deeply apologize for it. Also, I want to thank to ScalchopWarrior for telling me about it before it was too late.
Child of Hanoi
"So, what exactly am I looking at?"
I was looking at some sort of tube with the data card that I got form the weird creature floating inside the strange machine that Evan and Avice brought out – the data was dispersing, turning into something completely new. I spent a long time last night thinking on whenever I should tell them about my little adventure in LINK VRAINS or wait for Yusaku to come back and give the data to him instead. I still thought that it would be righter if Playmaker was to have it, but who knew, maybe it was something that I should just keep around in my pocket.
The Greysons looked at me and chuckled like I just said something funny. I wasn't confused which of my words could have caused them to react like that, but I was too busy wondering what the point of the tube was to ask them about it. I didn't even notice that Evan walked over to me until his hand ruffled my hair and I instinctively pulled away. I dislike when people touched my hair like that; it made me feel like they were treating me like some kid!
"The data you collected didn't belong to your opponent, or whatever the thing you mentioned in your story was – it was cards data." I looked up at Evan and pouted. Seriously, after all the dangers that not only we but also the Number 1 put himself through, our rewards were a few cards?
I still looked at the data as it dispersed into small bits and they all began to connect together, building themselves up into three new forms and the familiar orange layer of an Effect Monster was the first thing that I noticed about them. After a few more minutes the artworks began visible as well and I recognized the cards.
"Those are the Cyberse Monsters that the thing used!" I pointed out, remembering them clearly. Sea Achiever, Formud Skipper and Knightmare Corruptor Iblee – all three of them were not real and in our hands. "What should we do with these?"
I looked at Evan for an answer. I didn't need any new cards for my deck and these were Cyberse nonetheless, shouldn't I give them to Playmaker or something? As the one using Cyberse monsters, he should be able to use them much better than me.
"You should do what you find to be the most right thing to do." Evan sat down on the chair next to me and looked at the cards. "If you choose to keep them for yourself or give them to your partner in crime, it's ultimate up to you to make that decision. Just, make sure they are in the right hands, ok?"
His words caught me by complete surprise. Was he actually concerned about the cards, like, seriously corner if they are all going to be fine and not messed up? It was a sort of a weird reaction to get out of a man who so far showed to be rather apathetic toward humans to start carrying so much about trading cards. But his reaction made me think about something, since the cards weren't stolen from Playmaker, he didn't have any right over their possession, right? Like how me having a specific deck wouldn't mean that others aren't allowed to use it, the same logic could be applied about the Cyberse cards.
"Since you care so much, why don't you take this?" I pulled Knightmare Corruptor Iblee out of the tube and handed it over to him. "Seeing how much you care, I'm sure that it would be best to leave it in your possession."
His eyes widened at the offer and Evan slowly reached out to take the card from my hand. Holding it up, his eyes ran over it for quite some time, probably reading the effect and all. I bit my lip remembering that this specific monster's ability was to summon itself on the opponent's field, so probably not that useful in most situation. Evan didn't seem disappointed thought, quite the opposite, he actually smiled at me, a real genuine small instead of his usual weird smirks.
"I will be sure to cherish it." He told me and put the card into his pocket.
"Aww, such a heartwarming moment." I turned toward Avice after the comment. She was holding a hand over her chest with a playful look in her eyes, but the fakeness of her voice gave away that she was making a sarcastic remark and didn't really mean her own words. "Since we already started with the free cards bullshit, why don't you give her the ones that you had prepared for her?"
I eyed Evan and he turned away from me, muttering something that I couldn't quite get. Afterward, he looked up and took a deep breath before finally giving a confirming nod. He stood up and walked toward the stairs that lead toward the third floor.
"Come with me." He turned back and told me. Avice stood up as well and gestured for me to follow them.
To be honest, I always viewed the third and first floors of their house as places that I wasn't allowed to visit unless they gave me permission to do so. I couldn't explain why, but that was how I felt about these areas, even if I legally was allowed to go there without permission from others. We stopped next to the growing circle once again and the slim metal table raised, but this time in addition to the two decks, there were also three cards that lied face-down. Evan reached out to take his own cards and put the Knightmare Corruptor Iblee that I gave him on the bottom, then gestured toward the other three cards.
"They are yours, take them." I did so and took the cards, turning them around to look at them. What I saw surprised me, I had seen this type of cards before, Gloomy Ruby and PhantomFire have both used them, but I never had any of these in my deck!
"Are they seriously for me?" I mean, looking at their requirements, they were meant for my deck, but why now? "Why are you giving me these cards, after I got my deck?"
"They weren't ready back then." Avice walked over to me and took one of the cards from my hand, eyeing it. "You didn't thought that we stopped creating new ones, did you? Duelist always evolve and the same should be true for your deck. It's only natural for it to grow along with you."
"W-what did I do to deserve this?" I haven't done anything special in the last few days to earn these cards, or did I just not notice it? My question caused the Greysons to look at each other before Avice answered.
"Nothing actually…" My shoulders dropped and I felt disappointed in myself to hear that. "Sorry, we aren't giving you the cards because you deserve them, but because you will need them for that's going to come. After all, your adventure inside SOL's data bank won't be peaceful with that Kitamura guy in charge of their security."
"Actually, Playmaker will be doing to infiltration alone." I told them. It did make sense and I wasn't against that decision either because I didn't have any skills when it came to infiltrating enemy territory.
"I never said that you are going to be doing the infiltration for Playmaker." Avice put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me closer, leaning her head against mine. "We have our reasons to want this infiltration to happen and it just so happened that we don't have anyone on our team to get involved into it."
"So you need someone to do your dirty work." I sighed after learning where all of that was going. "But why don't you guys do it instead? I mean, yours skills are far greater than mine, right? Infiltrating the bank should be extremely easy for someone like you two to pull out."
"That's true, but SOL has increased their security." Evan said. "The chances of them to detect us is around ninety percent, so which do you think would be worse? For SOL to detect their business partner or his sister trying to infiltrate their mother computer, or for the one known as Playmaker's ally to be detected at around the same time as the latter is surfing through their data?"
"So you are going to use me as a cover-up for your own actions." I wasn't surprised in the slightest that they would do something like that. "But how will I know when to log in? You can bet that Playmaker won't just tell me his schedule."
"Don't worry, we will get you covered." Avice patted me on the back and stepped away, turning toward the stairs that leaded back down. "We will talk again when I get back from school."
I ran after them and jumped down the stairs to catch up with them and hopefully get the chance to retort, but they were already both at the front door waving at me. Did… Did these two really just ran down, prepared their stuff and unlocked the front doing in under thirty seconds to avoid explaining themselves to me.
"See you later, kiddo." Avice waved at me and went on to close the door behind herself.
"Don't 'see you later' me, you can't do that to me, I got a saying in your plans as well!" I cried out at her.
"Love you too~" …And she closed the door.
Great.
I looked back at the house, what exactly was I supposed to do they come home? Yusaku would be at school and Kusanagi must be busy, logging into LINK VRAINS was a big no as well. I stretched my head trying to come up with something.
Oh well, might as well watch some anime, see why the others seem to like it so much.
3rd POV
Vermilya leaned her head against her palm – being back at school was so boring. Although she had always tried to be an excellent student and get the best marks, the lessons themselves were never anything interesting and she most often wondered how she managed to remain wake until the end of each class.
The girl turned back and then she saw him sitting on the last desk, staring at the huge window. Yusaku Fujiki – she heard his name many times before during class roll, but she never paid attention to who he was or how he looked until yesterday when she learned that he was the person behind the Playmaker account in LINK VRAINS. She stared at him, he didn't seem to notice the girl's gaze, or was simply trying to act ignorant, she couldn't tell which one it was. She could never tell with these cold green eyes of his. It made her wonder if it was physically possible for a person to have a complete lack of emotion in their eyes.
She turned back to looking at the board, Yusaku's emotional state was none of her concern. She was trying to act somewhat willingly to be his ally because that was what the Greysons told her to do, not because she cared about him or his problems. She had no desire to get involved any more than necessary.
But she still had to give him back his notebook, damn it!
"That's everything for today. For Friday I want you all to review [] on pages from one hundred twenty seven to one hundred and thirty five." The teacher said and everyone began to collect their belongings.
Vermilya did the same, although she didn't have much things to carry around. The girl never had much money so she made sure to always buy only the most necessary things and because of that her bag was much lighter than that of other students, both girls and boys, But as she opened it to put away her electronic textbook, she saw it lying inside once again – Yusaku's notebook. She sighed, it was almost like the damn piece of paper was haunting her for some reason, best to return it to the owner as soon as possible. She turned to look up for Yusaku, but he was already gone.
Well, shit.
Vermilya took the notebook and walked out of the classroom with it. She looked around and noticed the familiar blue hair walking toward somewhere in the distance. He was alone as ever, therefore approaching the target wouldn't be hard. Best course of action would be to-
"What on earth are you standing like a statue for?" Vermilya's thoughts were interrupted by Avice walking up to her. "You are making it harder for everyone around to pass, you know that?"
"I'm sorry." The red haired girl bowed. "I was just planning how to return Fujiki the textbook that he lent me yesterday."
"What do you mean by 'planning'?" Avice asked, emphasizing on the last word. She crossed her arms and stared at Vermilya with an almost angry look. "Don't you know how to talk with people? Just walk over to him, give him the damn textbook and thank him. Are your social skills so low that you must rely on some over the top plans for a piece of paper?"
"Uhu." Vermilya nodded viciously. "I never had friends and nor did he, so if people saw us talking, I'm worried that they might take it the wrong way and…"
"You are unable to give a boy their notebook without getting flushed, I don't think that this is society's fault." Avice facepalmed. She didn't have another choice. "Ok, give me the damn notebook, I'm going to take care."
"Are you sure?" Vermilya was actually surprised to hear that Avice would actually try and help someone, even if it was about something as unimportant as that. In fact, she was surprised exactly because of how unimportant the problem was, yet the young Greyson would still lead a hand.
"Listen, I'm a lesbian with a brother complex, literally nothing about talking with a boy who isn't in his early twenties with white and red hair and has a bombastic personality could make me give a shit. So hand it over girl, let me take care of this!"
Vermilya sighed and complied with the request. It was still better than if she did it herself, but she was still wary about Avice and her intentions. "I still don't get why you are willing to help me out."
"Oh come on, that's part of my duty as your dueling teacher." Avice shook a finger in front of Vermilya's face. "Well, it technically isn't my duty anymore, but as the older one, I have a duty to help those who are younger than me."
"You are literally one year younger than me." Vermilya pointed out, she was 16 while Avice was 15.
"Then start acting like the older one!" Avice hissed at her. "Now come on, we got a wild Fujiki to catch up to. After I finish this tiresome task for you, I won't mind a kiss as a thank you."
"I will buy you chocolate at the way home instead." Vermilya narrowed her eyes.
"Yay, chocolate!"
It was Vermilya's turn to facepalm. To think that someone who acted like her would be her senior was both embarrassing and pathetic. Almost as bad as having to follow Avice around the school and listen to her sharing, loud for everyone else to hear, some of the most embarrassing moments that the redhead had to endure during her time in the Greyson house. Truly, these siblings were the reincarnations of the devil itself.
"Now, that's a surprise." Avice said and stopped right in front of the room that Fujiki had just entered. The words 'Duel Club' were written with large letters on the open door. "I never thought that he would actually show up to the club room again."
"So you really did join the Duel Club." Vermilya was surprised yet again with Avice's actions. "I thought you didn't like these places, said that they were below your level."
"It's about dueling and Aoi Zaizen is in the club." That was the only sort of explanation that Avice gave for joining, but the redhead was able to understand. The translation to what the Greyson said would be as follow:
It was about dueling and I saw a sexy girl, so I totally had to join.
Vermilya didn't comment to that clearly message and just pressed her hand against the back of Avice's left shoulder to make her walk in. The Greyson narrowed her eyes a little annoyed by the redhead's actions, seriously, Vermilya was acting like a little girl holding onto the ends of her mother's skirt, expect that in this situation it was a 16 years old hiding behind a 15 years old because she was too embarrassed to talk with boys. Go figure how she was able to duel against male avatars in LINK VRAINS, or maybe it was the school atmosphere. Yeah, Avice had to admit that the school could be a scary place at times and sometimes a small talk between a few students could turn into life destroying rumors.
That didn't mean that Avice wouldn't laugh at Vermilya after they went back home. She stepped inside and found that the only people who were at the club room at the moment were Yusaku himself and Naoki.
"Zaizen? She hasn't come to school, much less the club." Avice heard Naoki's voice and immediately realized why Yusaku was walking around the school.
"What are you talk about, boys~" Avice asked playfully and knocked three times against the open door to catch the two students' attention.
"Ah, Greyson!" Naoki waved at the newcomer while Yusaku seemed to narrow his eyes a little after hearing that surname. "We were just talking about Zaizen. She hadn't shown up at school today, do you think something happened?"
"She got into an incident." Avice said faking a sad face. "I talked with her brother though, he said that she was alright, but she wouldn't come to school for a few days, you know, just to be sure that she didn't suffer any serious injuries."
"Then I don't have other business here." Yusaku stated and put his hands into the pockets. "If Zaizen isn't here, I don't have anything else to stay here for."
"Aw, come on! You just came here!" Naoki whined behind the taller boy's back. "You won't get eaten if you stayed for a bit, there is time until next class as well!"
"Yes, he is right, stay with us for a bit Fujiki-sama!" Avice called out at him with a huge childish smile that would be able to melt any man's heart in an instant, probably get them behind jail as well, since fifteen wasn't legal. Even Yusaku with his cool act had a trouble withstanding the holy aura that glowed from Avice, she almost seemed like an angel but without the halo and wings. It had begun to expand so far that the students who walked in the corridor had to cover their eyes from the brightness.
"I came to give you back the notebook that you lent to my friend yesterday~" Avice gently handed Yusaku the papers. Then the most unexpected thing happened and sweat formed on the LINK VRAINS hero's forehead while he unsteadily reached out to take the notebook.
"Fine, I will stay for a bit." Yusaku sighed. He couldn't believe that Avice was able to make him change his mind with just a smile and a cute voice, he was starting to fear that woman!
"That's great! Thank Fujiki-sama!" Avice clapped her hands and tilted her head to the side childishly.
"Um, who is the person behind you?" Naoki asked and pointed at the girl lurking behind Avice's back.
"Huh?" The Greyson's shining smile dropped and she turned her head to glance at Vermilya. The redhead was standing behind the shorter girl and holding her back as if trying to use Avice as a human shield. "You mean this useless sack, here? Just another person soaked in the shame of their own incompetence and failure."
Vermilya felt the insult like an imaginary anvil that fell on top of her self-esteem, crushing it underneath its imaginary weight. She thought that she was already gotten used to the verbal abuse from the Greysons' but it certainly wasn't the case. One could never learn to not get hurt by their words, even if they were meant to be taken as praises.
"So, anything about your deck?" Avice asked Naoki and sat down at the other side of the table, across from him. "Did you follow any of my advices?"
"Um, I'm not sure about removing the high level monsters…" Naoki muttered and rubbed the back of his head.
"Jeez, so you didn't listen to my advice." Avice pouted and leaned against the table imitating a sad face. "I told you that you shouldn't be running that much high level monsters unless you have the means to successfully use them at any time in the duel. What did I told you was the most important thing about a deck?"
"Oh, oh, that's an easy one!" Naoki raised a hand to answer. "Believing in your cards!"
Avice stared at the boy for a few moments and then just shook her head. "Ok, that's pretty important as well, I admit that, but the most important thing is consistency. That's what will win you duels, a consistent playstyle that lets you use all of your best combos at any given time, not high attack points. Got it?"
"So, something like Playmaker's deck, huh? Not strong, but effective!" Naoki asked.
Avice glanced at Yusaku at the corner of her eyes and grinned as a thought came to her mind. "Actually, not like Playmaker's. He win's because his opponents are less skilled than him, not because his deck is good. Remember that Naoki, if your deck's best way to swarm the field is through Normal Monsters then you are probably playing a horrible deck in the first place."
"Talking about Playmaker, did you saw his last duel against Ghost Girl?" Naoki asked and turned his school tabled around to show a video. "I downloaded the footage while it happened, isn't he cool?!"
"Heh, you are your obsession with Playmaker." Avice chuckled; how would he react if he learned that Yusaku was the one behind that avatar she wondered. "If you fix your deck and train, you might one day stand beside him as a hero of LINK VRAINS, you know that?"
"S-seriously?" Naoki was taken aback by those words. "Do you really think that it's possible?"
"As long as you don't give up and keep your mind on what you want to achieve, everything can happen." Avice said. "Also, it won't be bad to add Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit to your deck, maybe even a good Synchro if you happen to get your hands on one."
"Ohoho, being friend with Playmaker wouldn't be so cool!" unfortunately, after hearing Avice said it, Naoki began to daydream and didn't hear the rest of what she told him.
"I guess that this is a no." Avice sweat-dropped and turned toward Yusaku. "There is a bit of time before the next class, mind if we talk for a bit?"
Yusaku was a little surprised by that request but he accepted it nevertheless it wasn't like Avice would jump and attack him in school, right? The younger Greyson stood up from her seat and walked out of the club room, gesturing for the boy and Vermilya to both follow after her.
Avice leaded the other two to the rooftop and leaned her body against the wall. Yusaku stepped out next and glanced around, before his eyes moved to the one that invited him there.
"What is this about?" He asked, determined to figure out what the Greyson was up to.
"Hehe~ someone is impatient." Avice giggled at Yusaku's expression and then took on a more serious look herself. "SOL Technology has started a program to create AI duelists. They are still experimental and it's said that they use the mother computer as place to test them out, I figured out that this might be important for you to know if you are going to try and raid their data bank."
"How do you know either of that?" Yusaku narrowed his eyes. "Did Roxanna told you about the raid? And what connections do you have to SOL, to know about their secret experiments?"
"Evan Greyson." Vermilya spoke up and stepped in front of Yusaku. "He has a company that sometimes works alongside SOL Technology. It was him that gave SOL the software needed for the AI duelists, but what he gave them was a simpler one, so it shouldn't be too hard to deal with them if the need occurs."
"As for your first question." Avice continued from where Vermilya left. "Who do you think gave Ghost Girl the idea about hacking SOL's data in the first place?"
"Sometimes there are things that are better to remain secrets." PhantomFire sighed. "If you really want a lot of data that people would give crazy money for, then why don't you try to infiltrate SOL Technologies' data bank? Given how self-confident these bastards are I wouldn't expect any strong security."
"Are you suggesting me to go steal from SOL Technologies?" Ghost Girl raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not suggesting anything." PhantomFire retorted. "But at any point, you got yourself a semi-influential guy working for them to cover up for you, so I'm surprised that you haven't tried to do that yet."
Yusaku narrowed his eyes at the thought that Ghost Girl might have fallen for the siblings' manipulations as well. It was hard to believe, she seemed to be too skilled of an individual to let herself get tricked like that, but one could never be sure that they are the smartest in the room. She was after all, working alongside Akira when they tried to capture him after Blue Angel fell victim to Hanoi's virus, so it wouldn't make sense for her to turn against the company that she worked for out of the blue.
"What is your game?" The boy finally asked after thinking about it for a while. What were Avice and Evan trying to achieve by doing all of that?
"We already know most about what happened, that you are a victim of an incident and its name." Avice admitted. "While you were wasting your time fighting against the Knights of Hanoi, we collected the pieces of the puzzle, who did all these horrible things to you, how the Cyberse came to be, what I want is for you to start figuring things out as well."
"So SOL's data bank does contain information about my past?" Yusaku glared at the girl. "If you want me to learn the truth so badly, why don't you just tell me what happened instead of sending me there?"
"Because of three reasons." Avice replied and raised three of her fingers, surprising the Cyberse Duelist. "First, because by going there you will also get a better idea of who your true enemies are and how insignificant the ones you are currently fighting again truly are. Second, because we aren't allies. You don't want to involve others in this fight, then there is no point of either of us to get involved by telling you the truth. Third, because we simply need you to be in SOL Technologies' servers."
"So you kept what happened a secret even though you knew who I was, simply as a revenge because I didn't ask for your help?" Yusaku was beyond furious. That there was his past, these horrible experiments happened to him, not them, so what right did they have to keep it all a secret from him until now?!
"Even if we gave you everything, you still wouldn't have seen it." Avice sighed and pushed herself away from the wall. She stepped past Yusaku and turned around to look at his back. "Your revenge is pointless for us, what we want is to keep peace in LINK VRAINS and get rid of all harmful elements. Did you even ask yourself how SOL Technology has information about Hanoi's activities in the past? Why a company that had such knowledge didn't use it to destroy the Knights before things could escalate? You are getting angry now, but if I told you all of that earlier, would you have suspected SOL Technology?"
Yusaku clenched his fists. He knew that, in a way, SOL would be involved, but for him they weren't important. All that mattered was getting revenge on the Knights of Hanoi and learn the truth about what happened to him ten years ago, but Avice's words made his resolve to waver. He was still furious at the Greysons for keeping such information hidden, in fact, they were still doing that, but if in order to learn all sides of the story he would have to infiltrate the data bank then so be it!
"You should also know that Roxanna has no idea about any of this either, she knows even littler than you about what's going on." Avice added on. "She is innocent, so if possible, don't treat her badly just because she is involved with us."
"Why are you telling me that?" Yusaku asked. So far, everything Avice said had a double purpose, he couldn't believe that she would tell him that just because she cared about Roxy.
"She is going to infiltrate the data bank for our side." Vermilya answered instead of Avice.
"And why would she do that?" Yusaku pressed on with his questions. Why would she accept that in the first place, and more importantly, why would they need to infiltrate the bank if they got all of the data already?
"We have our reasons to believe that the Knights of Hanoi won't stand at the side and let us go with our businesses." Avice explained. "My brother found out that someone with a rather suspicious bio was able to get a work at SOL Technology, so we fear the possibility that they might try to destroy SOL's servers and have LINK VRAINS fall apart from the loss of data. Roxy's mission is going to be to make sure that Hanoi won't get into your way too much. But of course, I'm going to ask something in return."
"What would that be?" Yusaku asked. He didn't mention that he wouldn't need protection because Avice definitely didn't mean to actually help him out in that raid.
"While Roxy is going to try and protect your back, I would like if you could do the same for her. She is still inexperienced and her dueling skills aren't anything worth to brag about. I'm going to have Vermilya with me in case Roxy gets into trouble, but it won't mind if there is someone already logged inside SOL's servers to look after her."
That wouldn't be too hard of a task to manage. Yusaku could just ask Ai to keep a track of Roxy's position once she logged inside. And if Hanoi really showed up, he definitely wouldn't waste a chance to defeat them as well before getting to the core of SOL's mother computer.
"I will see what I can do." Yusaku said and turned around to walk back into the building.
"There is something more that I wanted to tell you personally." Vermilya muttered and the boy stopped in his tracks. He turned his head slightly to glance at her.
"What?" Yusaku asked.
"Why aren't you keeping proper notes in your notebook, it was almost empty!" Vermilya shouted.
"…" Instead of retorting, Yusaku figured out that the best course of action would be to just disappear from the girls' sight and he quickly left the rooftop, closing the door behind himself.
"He is definitely going to look after Roxy." Vermilya pointed out once the boy was no longer able to hear them.
"Of course he will." Avice smirked. "Too bad that we are going to have to use Roxy as a sacrificial lamb, but it can't be helped. Come on, next class is going to start soon."
"We are back!"
Avice opened the front door of the house and took off her shoes with Vermilya following shortly after. After their talk with Yusaku, the rest of the school day went mostly uneventful. The young Greyson stretched out and yawned before walking into the living room.
"Come on, Roxy. It's time to get to work!" bubbled Avice as she moved to take a cute pose.
"C-can we do it later. This is the most interesting part." Roxy muttered.
The youngest of the three girls was seated on the sofa in front of the TV and was watching some Slice of Life anime. Ever since the Greysons left her alone at the house in the morning, Roxy hadn't taken her eyes away from the anime channel. The only time she wasn't watching it was during the commercials when she resupplied herself with food and drinks for the next one. She definitely didn't expect to get that addicted to some cartoons, and she found out that the Slice of Life genre was her favorite one so far.
"Ok, that's just pathetic." Vermilya chuckled at the sight of Roxy's current condition. "Should I pull out the TV's cable?"
"Don't, she might start to cry." Avice replied and head over to the kitchen. "I'm going to make myself a hot chocolate and then we could get the equipment ready."
"What if she doesn't get over her obsession by the time we are ready?" Vermilya crossed her arms.
Avice looked at the redhead and gave her a simply answer. "I got a baseball bat in my room. Although I don't play baseball it might come into use."
"Shouldn't pulling the plug be better than destroying the TV?" Vermilya sweat dropped at the thought of Avice destroying her own property because of Roxy's sudden anime obsession.
Avice walked back into the living room holding a large white cup of hot chocolate. She had a solemn expression on her face, her green eyes glanced at Vermilya, then moved over to Roxy's figure and she finally responded to the question that the redhead gave her.
"It's not the TV that I'm going to use the bat onto."
In the matters of a few moments the TV was turned off and Roxy was standing next to Avice, saluting her as cold sweat ran down the young girl's face.
"P-p-p-private Roxy reports for duty, sir."
Roxy's POV
I sat on the ground in the huge open area between the room while Vermilya and Avice were busy getting all sorts of weird machines connected to one another. There were computers, screens and what not, I wasn't helping them wire the devices together but it looked very confusing. It took then almost half an hour to get everything together and Avice sat down on the chair in front of the computer screens.
"Everything is working how it should, perfect." Avice clapped her hands together and turned toward me. "You are ready, right?"
"I'm still worried about all of this, but I will try my best." I smiled.
"Good, then lie down on the mattress." She told me and gestured toward the one that she and Vermilya dragged and put next to all the other machines. "After that take a red plug and connect it to the back of your Duel Disk."
I nodded and lied down, following her instructions. After I finished, Avice began to furiously press the buttons of the keyboard before her and huge walls of code appeared on the screen before her, several small windows popped out and one of the screens that was put sideways from her – which made it the easiest one for me to look at – showed information about my avatar and D-Board.
"Ok, with this we are going to have a visual on everything that you see in there." Avice said and leaned back into her chair, taking another sip from her cup. "I also installed a new antivirus that my brother made, it should be able to protect you from Hanoi's virus if, whatever you find in there choose to use it on you. Vermilya, it's your turn."
"What must I do?" Vermilya tilted her head.
"Refill my cup." Avice replied and I turned my head away so they don't seem me laughing at that.
"I really hate you." I heard Vermilya mutter under her breath and she walked off, probably to do as Avice asked her to. Once I couldn't hear her footsteps anymore, I turned back to look at the other girl and smiled.
"Ok, let's get this started while she is gone." Avice told me. "We are going to be able to talk to one another while you are inside, so I'm going to be able to help you if things get hard."
"Got it!" I nodded and took my deck, putting it into the Duel Disk. "Into the Vrains!"
I reopened my eyes after the logging was complete, but everything I could see were two seemingly endless yellow walls at each side of me with nothing but darkness underneath. I expected to fall or something, but that didn't happen, in fact, it felt like I was underneath water, swimming around like a fish – it was really funny to do. Problem was, how would I move around like this?
"Can you hear me?" Avice's voice suddenly spoke into my ear. It wasn't loud, but it startled me for a moment.
"Um, yeah. Loud and clear." I nodded and looked around myself once more. "How am I supposed to be moving around in this place?"
"I'm deploying your D-Board." Avice said. "It's going to appear right under you, so make sure to be upright when it appears."
"Ok." I nodded and moved a bit to take a better position. A moment later blue data merged together under my feet and the D-Board appeared. "I'm on it."
"That's good. Make sure to go slow, we don't want you to accidentally slam face first into a security trap or one of their AIs, right?" I nodded to Avice's words and used my Duel Disk to change the D-Board's speed to slow. "I also gave you the Master Code."
"Master Code?" I repeated what Avice told me. I have heard these two words together before.
"Riiight, we never explained that to you, did we? Do you remember when in the first duel with Picaro one of your monsters appeared before you and blocked the attack despite you not being inside a duel?"
I thought back when that happened. It was during Picaro's surprise attack on Playmaker, I could never forget how vicious Rocketeer was during that fight. Then Grand Ranger Serene stood in front of us and negated the flames of First of the Dragons single handedly.
"Master Code is what we call the special ability to summon monsters outside of duels. During that incident, my brother forcefully activated the Master Code on your character to save your life, but now I'm going to give you the ability to use it without anyone else's help. There isn't a limit of how many monsters you could summon this way, but since you don't have control over it, I should suggest to use just one for now."
"Right." I nodded and held my Duel Disk out. A blue clock gear appeared in front of me and then Grand Ranger Serene flew out of it and floated beside me. "Ok, I summoned a monster, but why exactly is that important?"
"Remember that I warned you about security traps? If you get near any of them, your monster can just destroy them. This way you won't have to worry about getting deleted or something." I looked at my ace; that was surely one useful ability to have. "That's all I can give you, the rest is up to you."
"Got it." I nodded and surfed forward with my monster following right behind the D-Board.
This place, it was the same no matter where I went, with just two walls standing at each side of me and nothing else in view. Avice was giving me instructions where I should be going and so on. Then something came into view, a series of green quadrangles that floated around without a specific trajectory, some were going down, then turned left, others suddenly changed from vertical to horizontal moving, etc. I slowed down and gestured for my monster to take them down, but Serene just shook her head.
"Um, Avice?" I called out, hoping that she could hear me. "There are some green… things. What should I do?"
"They don't seem to be dangerous, just try to avoid touching them and you should be alright." I sighed, wasn't the 'don't touch' exactly what I was doing until now?
"This place is creepy." I commented, so silent and empty, like an endless void with only two walls to keep me in place.
"Don't expect much, I don't think that anyone would decorate their data banks with bright colors to make invaders and hackers feel like at home." Avice had a point there. At a moment there I forgot that what we were doing wasn't legal… Yeah, I felt better without that fact looming above my head.
"Are these type of things something that you usually do?" I asked her. This place was so creepy with its silence that Avice's voice talking to me was the only thing I had to keep my fears at bait. "You know what I mean."
"Raiding high profile organizations isn't something we do often, if that's what you are asking me." I sighed in relief, at least they weren't full time cyberterrorists if nothing else. "But I wouldn't say that everything we did in the past was legal either. A not widely known truth is that if what you are doing will help people, even save them, you won't feel regrets even if your actions are against the system."
"I guess that this does make sense… somehow." I sighed, it was hard to understand what Avice was saying, I was just agreeing with her as to not insult her or anything.
"I'm picking on something, it's coming toward you!" I panicked and looked forward, but all that I could see was just darkness. "It's not moving fast, your monster should be able to destroy it before it could get into contact!"
I narrowed my eyes and gestured for Serene to prepare. My Link Monster activated her bow and aimed into the darkness, ready to shot at anything that could come out. Three more of the same green quadrangles came and I floated around then, when a new one showed up. It was generally the same in shape and size, but red in color, hard to miss! My monster fired one of her arrows and shattered it with the first shot.
"Good job, I don't pink anything else." …Of course, the green one would be harmless while the red were dangerous, that started to feel like an arcade game all of a sudden.
"I still haven't seen any Knight of Hanoi around." I said, taking another look at the empty space around me.
"Jeez, I wonder why they aren't lurking in plain sight inside the main computer of their biggest enemy." I rolled my eyes, ok; no need for sarcasm. "Hmm, I'm picking a signal toward SOL's AI Duelists, it seems like they found Playmaker. You know who else could try to attack him, right?"
"The Knights of Hanoi."
"Exactly! He is in front of you, my computer picks a lot of strange data coming from there, so you might even encounter a Data Storm!"
"Leave it to me!" I told Avice and surfed forward, changing my D-Board's speed to 'fast'. I trusted that Serene could destroy anything which might try to attack me.
I speeded forward and the feeling of a wind trying to pull me in became… sensible I guess? No matter, the purplish blue data around me was more than enough for me to realize that this was the Data Storm that Avice warned me about. Still, it was pretty weak one, nothing like the one I was sucked into during my duel with Playmaker, maybe that was because we weren't in LINK VRAINS anymore. Everything was even more repetitive than in the other parts of the computer, there I could at least tell where I was going, but the insides of a Data Storm were hard to navigate through.
"P-Playmaker!" I saw him in the distance, he seemed to be in a duel with some green humanoid that didn't look to be human. One of these AI Duelists most likely!
I speeded forward to catch up with him, when suddenly a red AI flew from the side and hit his D-Board, knocking him away.
"Playmaker!" I shouted and flew over to him. "Are you ok?"
"Proxy?" He turned back to look at me. Judging by his expression, he didn't seem too surprised to see me there. "I'm fine."
"No 'we' are not fine!" Ai shouted from the Duel Disk. "These two don't know how to play fair!"
"But now it's a two on two, so…" Before I could finish, the red AI pushed me just like how he did to Playmaker. I yelped and fell on my knees, grabbing onto the D-Board with both of my hands. "H-hey!"
"We must capture Playmaker." The AI told me. "Whoever choose to interfere with our mission must be eliminated."
I gritted my teeth and stood back up, holding my Duel Disk in front of my chest. "Then come at me!"
Surprisingly however, the AI didn't activate its own Duel Disk and instead it jumped toward me and threw a fist to hit me! I closed my eyes and Playmaker shouted something, but I felt no pain. Not even the AI touching me…
"Hey, AIs? Stop doing whatever you want." My eyes shot open at the sound of a familiar voice and I turned around to see Blue Angel on her D-Board next to me. She looked at me and winked. "We meet again!"
"B-Blue Angel?" What was she doing here?
She flew back and her expression returned to being serious as the blue whip that she held in her right hand disappeared and she put a hand over her chest.
"I'm the one who'll defeat Playmaker!" She declared. "So leave!"
"Proxy, look out!" I heard Playmaker shouted at me again and I noticed something coming toward me from the corner of my right eye.
"Serene!" I called out and my monster jumped forward, only for it to be impaled by the front of a D-Board and scream as my ace faded away. "Another one…"
I bit my lip, standing on a D-Board next to mine was a black humanoid, similar to the other two that Playmaker was fighting against, but something didn't felt right about that one. It looked ominous, despite having the same body build, only a different color.
3rd POV
"W-what is that?!" Kitamura, who was watching all of the events unfold, yelled at his subordinates.
"Sir, it looks to be made from the same program as our other AIs, but it's not responding to our commands!" one of the assistants explained.
"But didn't you create just two prototypes?! Where did the third one come from!?" Kitamura yelled.
"We don't know that sir."
"Do you know anything about it?" Kitamura gritted his teeth, he couldn't understand where that AI might have come from. "Let it duel."
"S-sir?" the subordinates and looked confused at their boss.
"We are just going to have to erase it from the system." Kitamura conclude. "If it manages to win before that, we would have at least gotten some use out of it."
"Yes sir!" the subordinates all nodded and returned to their work.
Proxy's POV
"Let's separate and take them down one at a time!" I told Blue Angel and Playmaker.
"Hmm, sounds good enough for me." Blue Angel nodded and flew back to confront the reddish AI.
"Then I'm going to leave this one to you." Playmaker looked back at me and I nodded to confirm.
"Don't you mean 'we'?" Ai persisted, but the poor thing got ignored again as Playmaker flew in a different direction with the green AI following after him.
"I won't be able to help you out in this duel, you are going to be all on your own." Avice told me.
"Don't worry, I can handle myself." I reassured her and looked at the back AI once more. "Come on, let's duel!"
The AI just flew back so that it was positioned behind me and its left arm glowed with two rings appearing around it.
"Speed Duel!"
『Proxy LP: 4000 Hand: 4 (VS) Prototype Ai-HANOI LP: 4000 Hand: 4』
"H-Hanoi?!" I was taken aback to see that name again, much less as the official name of a SOL Technologies' AI!
"My turn." HANOI stated and four cards appeared before it. "I set a card, turn end."
"That's all?" Wow, maybe that would be a very quick duel after all. "Ok then, I draw!"
『Turn 2 [Proxy] LP: 4000 Hand: 5』
"First off, I discard a card from my hand to Special Summon BrioGear Cryomage!" A female monster wearing a long blue and white winter coat with ice crystals hanging from the ends of the hood and sleeves appeared on my field. A simple blue scarf covered most of her face, expect for her crystal white eyes and the few green bangs of fire that fell down her forehead. Despite how warmly the upper part of her body was dressed, her legs were completely exposed and had large white tattoos of strange symbols covering most of them.
BrioGear Cryomage
Level: 5/Attribute: WATER/Type: Spellcaster/Effect
ATK: 1600/DEF: 1800
Effect: You can Special Summon this card (from your hand) by discarding 1 card. If this card is destroyed by battle or card effect and send to the GY, you can target 1 WATER monster in your GY: Add it to your hand.
"Now, I activate the effect of BrioGear All Stars from my Graveyard! When it's send from my hand or deck to the Graveyard, I can target a monster in my Graveyard and add another one with the same level from my deck to the hand! Of course, I'm going to target All Stars itself and since that one is a Level One, I can add another Level One monster to my hand."
A specific card popped out of my Duel Disk and I took it, adding it to the other cards that were in my hand. "I now activate the effect of BrioGear Cryo Raptor (Lv.1, DEF: 100) in my hand! I Special Summon both it and BrioGear All Stars from my Graveyard, so raise up!" A simple purple starfish with a blue gem on the center of its body flew out of my Graveyard like a Frisbee and landed next to my other monsters.
BrioGear All Stars
Level: 1/Attribute: WATER/Type: Aqua/Effect
ATK: 100/DEF: 100
Effect: If this card is sent from your hand or deck to the GY, you can target 1 WATER monster in your GY: Add 1 "BrioGear" monster with the same level from your deck to the hand. If this card is Special Summoned, you can target 1 other face-up monster you control: This card and that target's Levels become equal to their combined Levels until the end of this turn.
"Everything is set! Come forth, circuit of life!" I pointed forward and my monsters turned into waves that flew into the quadrangle.
"Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning requirements are two Level Three or lower Effect Monsters! I set BrioGear Cryo Raptor and BrioGear All Stars in the Link Markers! Link Summon! The dancing spirit of storms! Grand Ranger Serene (ATK: 2100, Link-2)!" My ace appeared right over my Cryomage and aimed her bow.
Perfect, he didn't respond to my combination! This was my perfect battle formation, if Grand Ranger Serene inflicts damage to the AI, her effect will let me tribute Cryomage to inflict one thousand and six hundred additional damage. However, nobody said in which orders my attack had to be, so if I went with Cryomage first and then used Grand Ranger Serene to finish, it would be five thousand and three hundred damage!
"Let's go! I attack you directly with BrioGear Cryomage!" My monster threw her arms forward and fired several ice blades at the AI, stabbing it in the chest several times.
『Prototype Ai-HANOI LP: 4000 - 1600 → 2400』
"Yes!" It worked out.
"Trap Open!" Wait, what? HANOI reached out and its set card turned face-up. "Tentacluster Reemerge! When I suffer damage from a direct attack, this card allows me to take control of the monster with the highest attack on your field until the end of my next turn!"
Tentacluster Reemerge (Trap) Normal
When you take battle damage from your opponent's direct attack: Take control of the 1 face-up monster your opponent controls with the highest ATK, until your next End Phase. (If it's a tie, you get to choose.) Its effects are negated, also it cannot declare an attack.
"W-what? No!" I turned to look at my ace; only for Grand Ranger Serene to disappear from my side and reappeared before the AI, aiming her bow at me. "Damn it! I end my turn!"
"Then it's my turn!" HANOI raised its hand and a new card appeared inside of it.
『Turn 3 [Prototype Ai-HANOI] LP: 2400 Hand: 4』
"First, I activate the Spell Card, One for One! With this I discard Tentacluster Sawmarine from my hand to Special Summon another Tentacluster Sawmarine from my Deck!" A purple and black circular monster with saw blades attached to the girdle around its body appeared onto the field.
Tentacluster Sawmarine
Level: 1/Attribute: DARK/Type: Machine/Effect
ATK: 0/DEF: 100
Effect: If this card is Special Summoned, you can send 1 "Tentacluster" card from your Deck to the GY. If this face-up card you control is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls: Take control of that monster until your next End Phase.
I don't get it, why would he use One for One to summon the same monster as the one that he just discarded? I couldn't understand this AI's strategy.
"When it's Special Summoned, the effect of Tentacluster Sawmarine lets me send another Tentacluster Sawmarine from my deck to the Graveyard." HANOI continued. "Circuit open!"
"A Link Summon…" Damn it, and the AI still had my ace monster under its command!
"Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning requirements are two monsters, including oneTentacluster monster! I set Tentacluster Sawmarine and the Link Two Grand Ranger Serene in the Link Markers! Link Summon complete. Link Three, Tentacluster Opabinia!"
A giant fish-like monster with a segmented body that had lobes along the sides and a fan-shaped tail came out of the glowing circuit. Its head was made from silver metal with five red eyes, and a mouth under the head that was facing backwards.
Tentacluster Opabinia
Attribute: DARK/Type: Machine/Link/Effect
L-Markers: Bottom Left, Bottom, Bottom Right
ATK: 0/Link-3
2 + monsters, including 1 "Tentacluster" monster
Effect: This card cannot be destroyed by battle and is unaffected by monster effects. You take no damage from battles involving this card. At the end of the Damage Step, if this card was attacked by an opponent's monster: You can place that opponent's monster in a zone this card points to and take control of it.
"Zero attack? It must have a powerful effect then, right?" There was no chance that the AI would summon a monster that required the use of three monsters without any benefits.
"Next, I activate the Equip Spell, Tentacluster Reflect!" HANOI gestured forward as his monster's body got covered in armor. "This card can be equipped only to a Tentacluster monster and when it battles, that monster's attack becomes the same as the monster it battles!"
Tentacluster Reflect (Spell) Equip
Equip only to a "Tentacluster" monster. If the equipped monster attacks an opponent's monster, the equipped monster's ATK becomes equal to the ATK of the monster it is battling during damage calculation only. If the equipped monster destroys a monster by battle: Inflict damage to the controller equal to the ATK the destroyed monster had on the field.
"I set a card, now battle!" HANOI played its last card and then gestured toward me. "Tentacluster Opabinia attack BrioGear Cryomage! At this moment, the effect of Tentacluster Reflect activates and my monster's attack becomes the same as the monster it attacks!"
Tentacluster Opabinia, ATK: 0 → 1600
"W-what?!" My monster fired sharp ice, but the Link just reflected all of them away and then pierced my Spellcaster with its mouth, destroying her.
"Tentacluster Opabinia can't be destroyed by battle. Also, Reflect's effect deals damage to the opponent equal to their monster's attack!" HANOI's monster swung its mouth at me and hit my shoulder.
『Proxy LP: 4000 - 1600 → 2400』
"Damn it!" I cursed and held my shoulder. "As BrioGear Cryomage was sent to the Graveyard as a result of a destruction, I can add BrioGear Cryo Raptor from my Graveyard to the hand."
For that AI to get my Life Points down to the same amount as its own while also clearing my field… I should be extremely cautious dealing with that thing. Problem was how to defeat a monster that was practically unbeatable, unaffected my monsters' effects, indestructible through battle and an effect to reduce damage.
"It's my turn, I draw!" I told the AI and drew my next card.
『Turn 4 [Proxy] LP: 2400 Hand: 5』
Nothing good, my main monster was resting in the grave and most of my other Extra Deck monsters were support oriented. Actually, the new cards that Evan and Avice gave me were Extra Deck monsters as well and they were powerful ones on top of that! I know that you couldn't help me in the duel, but please, watch me as I win this duel using the cards that you gave me.
"This one is for you, Avice!" I called out and took a card from my hand, slapping it onto my Duel Disk's blade. "I Normal Summon BrioGear Geratorned (Lv.4, ATK: 1400)! Now open, circuit of life!"
My monster transformed into a single wave of water that flew into the huge circuit that formed in front of me.
"Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning requirements is a WATER monster with a Level! I set BrioGear Geratorned in the Link Marker! Link Summon! Link One, BrioGear Lotaxol (ATK: 600, Link-1)!" My Link 1 monster appeared next to my on the field and its link arrow glowed. "I activate Lotaxol's effect to Special Summon BrioGear All Stars (Lv.1, DEF: 100) from my Graveyard!"
"Now for the second time! Open circuit of life!" My two monsters turned into waves of water and flew into the appropriate arrows. This will be for you, Avice! "Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning requirements are two WATER monsters! I set BrioGear All Stars and BrioGear Lotaxol in the Link Markers! Link Summon, Link Two, BrioGear Shark Wise!"
A strange combination between a humanoid and a sea serpent appeared out of my circuit. Its lower body was like that of a shark with a greyish-blue color and several sharp fins all around it. Its upper body was covered in blue armor with a white line going down the middle of its chest. A huge white cylinder with metal fins was attached to its back with a breathing hose forcefully implanted into the side of the monster's neck. Its head was that of a shark with hundreds sharp teeth inside of its mouth and black waterproof goggles protecting its eyes. Lastly, the monster held a trident made from golden clock gears put together with three clock arms of different sizes functioning as the blades.
BrioGear Shark Wise
Attribute: WATER/Type: Sea Serpent/Link/Effect
L-Markers: Bottom Left, Bottom
ATK: 800/Link-2
2 WATER monsters
Effect: When this card is Link Summoned: You can Special Summon one Level 3 or 4 WATER monster from your GY to a zone this card points to, but it has its effects negated. If a monster(s) Special Summoned to a zone this card points to: You can target 1 face-up monster this card points to; the Level of all monsters this card points becomes the same as that target's.
"Now, I activate Shark Wise's effect!" I pointed at my monster and it aimed its trident forward. "When Shark Wise is Link Summoned, I can revive a Level Three or Four monster from my Graveyard but with their effect negated. Come out, BrioGear Geratorned (Lv.4, ATK: 1400)!"
"Calculating." HANOI said. "Chances to turn this duel around with a Link Three monster is thirteen percent."
"That's not what I'm going to do." I muttered; my strategy was much more different than that. "I now activate the effect of BrioGear Cryo Raptor (Lv.1, DEF: 100) in my hand once more! I Special Summon both it and BrioGear All Stars (Lv.1, DEF: 100) from my Graveyard!" My Raptor appeared on the very left zone while All Stars was summoned right under Shark Wise. "Next, Shark Wise's effect activates! When a monster is summoned a zone it points toward, I can choose one of the monsters that Shark Wise points toward and all of my monsters will become that level! I choose the Level Four, BrioGear Geratorned."
My monster raised its trident and fired a beam of electricity at the monster that it pointed at, pumping them with energy.
BrioGear All Stars, Lv. 1 → 4
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, remembering all of the details. "Let's do this." I opened my eyes and pointed up, a galactic portal opening right above my head. "Summoning conditions are two Level Four WATER monsters. Howl, unknown roar! Rise from the darkness of the abyss! Xyz Summon, Bahamut Shark (Rank.4, ATK: 2600)!" A huge humanoid blue and white shark fell from the portal and landed right behind Shark Wise on the field.
"…Xyz Summon?" HANOI tilted its head to the side.
"That's right." This was the new power that Evan and Avice gave me for this duel! "I activate Bahamut Shark's effect, at the cost of its battle for the turn, I can detach one of its Xyz Materials and Special Summon a Rank Three or lower Xyz Monster directly from my Extra Deck!" My monster bit onto its Xyz Material and shattered it, opening another cosmic portal before me.
"Savage lured of the deeps, slashing through storms become a force that even Poseidon bows before! Come out, BrioGear Razor Shark!"
Out of the cosmic portal came a cyborg shark with rusty mechanical fins covering its lower body and most of the back. Its chest was covered in metal parts with several hoses connecting these pieces to the back of the monster's neck, injecting a green liquid into its head. The shark had two huge sharp fins attached to the side of its body like arm blades. The lower chin of the creature was completely made out of metal and its left eye was replaced by a red binocular.
BrioGear Razor Shark
Rank: 3/Attribute: WATER/Type: Sea Serpent/Xyz/Effect
ATK: 2000/DEF: 1000
2 Level 3 monsters
Effect: When this card is Special Summoned: You can attach 1 WATER monster from your hand or your side of the field to this card as an Xyz Material. Once per turn: You can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card, then for the of this turn, this card can attack your opponent directly. If this card is targeted by a card or effect, you can detach 1 Xyz Material from this card: Negate the effect, and if you do, destroy that target.
"Now, I activate Razor Shark's effect to attach, from my hand, BrioGear Madoor to it as a Xyz Material!" I'm going to end this match in one turn! "I set a card for good measure and then I activate Razor Shark's other effect! I detach one Xyz Material to let it attack you directly this turn, go! Shark's Storm Slash!"
My monster flew over HANOI's monster and swung its claws to hit the AI directly. Of course, that would be just two thousand damage, but I wasn't done yet.
"I activate BrioGear Pale Crawfish's effect from my hand!" I put my card into the Graveyard and gestured at the Xyz Monster. "By discarding Pale Crawfish all of my BrioGear monsters are going to gain six hundred points of attack during this turn."
BrioGear Cryo Raptor, ATK: 400 + 600 → 1000
BrioGear Shark Wise, ATK: 800 + 600 → 1400
BrioGear Razor Shark, ATK: 2000 + 600 → 2600
"I activate my Continuous Trap, Tentacluster Fall Wave!" a card that showed different Tentacluster monsters fleeing from an opening in the deeps of the ocean, through which lava was invading their world. A barrier formed around HANOI's body and blocked my monster's attack.
Tentacluster Fall Wave (Trap) Continuous
If a non-Link Monster or a Link Monster whose Link Rating is lower than the highest Link Rating among the "Tentacluster" Link Monster(s) on your field declares an attack, destroy all monsters your opponent in the same column as that monster. If a monster(s) is destroyed by this effect, inflict damage to your opponent equal to highest original ATK among the monster that were destroyed by this effect. If you don't control a "Tentacluster" Link Monster, destroy this card.
"The effect of Fall Wave activates, since the monster that you attack with isn't a Link Three or higher, it's destroyed and its original attack will be inflicting to you as damage!" The invisible barrier suddenly set my shark on fire. The Xyz Monster roared and threw its body around before it exploded and the flames flew over to me.
『Proxy LP: 2400 - 2000 → 400』
"T-turn end." I managed to say before I dropped on my knees. That AI had skills, not that others I dueled didn't, but this specific one's strategy was able to lock me down completely. The card that I set was Drowning Mirror Force, it was a strong trap, but I wouldn't be able to activate it unless the AI declared a direct attack. "At the end of this turn, the attack of all my monsters returns to normal."
BrioGear Cryo Raptor, ATK: 1000 - 600 → 400
BrioGear Shark Wise, ATK: 1400 - 600 → 800
With the Tentacluster Reflect equip, no matter which of my monsters it attacks, his Link Monster would be able to reduce my Life Points to zero. That was if I didn't have one last move up my sleeves!
"My turn, draw."
『Turn 5 [Prototype Ai-HANOI] LP: 2400 Hand: 1』
"Battle! I attack Bahamut Shark with Tentacluster Opabinia! Also, the effect of Tentacluster Reflect changes my monster's attack to become the same as the monster it attacks!"
Tentacluster Opabinia, ATK: 0 → 2600
HANOI's monster flew at mine and its strange mouth wrapped around my sharp pulling it closer. If I let this attack go, it would cost me 2600 Life Points and the game.
"I activate the effect of BrioGear Madoor in my Graveyard!" A huge wall of ice formed between of two monsters and freed my shark from Opabinia's grab. "When you declare a direct attack while I have no cards in my hand, BrioGear Madoor (Lv.6, DEF: 3000) can Special Summon itself from the Graveyard and end the Battle Phase! Also, because this is a Speed Duel, after your Battle Phase your turn will end."
"My turn shall be completed then." HANOI pressed a card in his hand to look at it. "Take your turn."
I looked down at my deck and clenched my fist. With zero cards in my hand, I would have to bet everything on this draw once again. Time seemed to slow down around me and my mind cleared from worries. That strange feeling, it was almost like I could hear the beating of my BrioGear cards. Yeah, that was right, with all of their strength…
"This is the last turn, I draw!"
『Turn 6 [Proxy] LP: 400 Hand: 1』
"It came!" I shouted, the card I needed came to me! "Here we go, I play the Spell Card, Ark of BrioGear!" The card I played showed an image of Serene and most of my Level 5 and higher BrioGear monsters creating a great storm in the middle of a fleet, debris and soldiers being taken away by the windows, while the more unlucky soldiers were left to drown in the giant waves.
Ark of BrioGear (Spell) Normal
You can activate this card only while you control 3 or more face-up "BrioGear" monsters. Pay half of your Life Points and target 1 face-up WATER monster you control: You can't Summon or Set monsters for the rest of this turn, also shuffle all other cards on the field into the deck. After you activate "Ark of BrioGear" the turn player cannot cards or effects for the rest of the turn.
"This spell lets me, at the cost of half my Life Points, the ability to summon other monsters and the ability to activate other effects, to shuffle all but one card on the field back into our decks!" The choice I would go with was pretty obvious, there was only one monster on my field that could defeat the AI within this turn. "I target Bahamut Shark so all of our other cards get back into the deck!"
『Proxy LP: 400 / 2 → 200』
The Data Storm began to become unstable and huge waves raised around us, shaking my D-Board while Bahamut Shark let out a loud roar and all of the winds flew toward it. All of our other cards, monsters, spells, traps, they were taken by the storm and faded away into pixels, leaving just me, my Xyz monster and the open field on my opponent.
"That's it!" I called out and gestured toward HANOI. "Bahamut Shark attack directly!"
"I activate my skill!" HANOI raised its left arm upward and it began to glow with light. A Skill during a time like this?!
"W-what are you doing?!" I shouted at the AI. It was so blinding that I couldn't see anything in front of me.
"When aTentacluster Link Monster leaves the field because of an opponent's card effect, I can Link Summon a Tentacluster Link Monster from my Extra Deck by banishing cards in my Graveyard as Link Materials!" A Skill like this…
"Circuit open!" the spirits of his three Tentacluster Sawmarine raised from the Graveyard and flew into the markers.
Since my spell's effect shuffled cards back into the deck and his monster was a Link Monster, it meant that it went back into his Extra Deck instead of the Main Deck.
"Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning requirements are two monsters, including oneTentacluster monster! I set three Tentacluster Sawmarine in the Link Markers! Necro Link Summon complete. Link Three, Tentacluster Opabinia (ATK: 0, Link-3)!"
I looked down, if my monster attacked, the effect of Tentacluster Opabinia would just activate and it would steal my shark. I had no choice but to end this turn without declaring an attack. "I end my turn."
"You don't." I was taken aback when the AI told me that, its voice suddenly became a lot deeper than that of the other two and various red lines appeared all over its body. "When a monster is summoned by the effect of Necro Link, you take three hundred points of damage per Link Rating. Tentacluster Opabinia is Link Three, therefore you take nine hundred points of damage!"
"W-what?" The DARK Link Monster looked down at me and fired three purple orbs at me. All of them exploded into Bahamut Shark erasing it from the field while also throwing me off the D-Board.
I couldn't believe it. I felt tears forming in my eyes and everything that I could see started to slowly fade to white, I probably wasn't going to be conscious when my body finally crashed somewhere, but I remembered what my final thoughts were. Sorry Avice, I failed to make you proud of me once again.
『Proxy LP: 200 - 900 → 0』
『Winner: Prototype Ai-HANOI』
3rd POV
"Vector Square Archfiend attacks Tentacluster Nautilus! Diabolic Spin!" Playmaker's monster wrapped itself around its cloak and flew through the enemy AI's monster, destroying it while also ending the duel.
『Prototype Ai-A LP: 1100 - 2400 → 0』
『Winner: Playmaker』
"That was easy enough." Ai crossed its hands smugly. "I don't see how anyone could have a problem with these stupid AIs. There aren't nearly as smart as I'm, right Playmaker?"
The Cyberse Duelist however was concerned with other thoughts. True, these AIs were much trouble for him, but he was a veteran, while others like Proxy were still newbies. She would actually be extremely lucky if she got to duel against a hand destruction deck, but for some reason he still felt an urge to check on how she was doing.
"Can you figure out how Proxy is doing?" Playmaker asked his computer partner.
"Hmm, you are worried about the cutie?" Ai teased the LINK VRAINS here.
"Just do it." Playmaker order him firmly.
"Ok, ok. Give me a moment, but she is definitely good, I don't see how she could…" Ai suddenly stopped talking and its shoulders fell a little as it looked up at the Cyberse Duelist. "Um, I can't locate her within this space anymore."
Playmaker keep looking forward as to not show Ai that these words worried him. Proxy wasn't the type of person that would run away, so if she wasn't inside the computer that would mean that she must have lost the duel.
"So, she was forcefully logged out?" Playmaker sighed. It was still better than anything else.
"Um, negative." Ai shook its head and looked down. "Her data is still here, but it's not here at the same time…"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Playmaker asked.
"I don't know, but it seems we got more pressings matters on our hands." Ai replied and turned to look behind Playmaker.
The Cyberse Duelist stopped his D-Board and turned around. Standing behind him was Prototype Ai-HANOI, but its body had grown larger and with three large spikes formed on the top of its head. A human and a machine stared at each other while Ai hid back into the Duel Disk. This mission had just gotten much more complicated that it would have liked it to be.
Skills:
Necro Link: If a "Tentacluster" Link Monster leaves the field as a result of your opponent's card effect, the user can Link Summon 1 "Tentacluster" Link Monster from they Extra Deck by banishing "Tentacluster" monsters in their GY as Link Materials. When a"Tentacluster" Link Monster is Special Summoned by this effect, inflict damage to your opponent equal to that monstr's Link Rating x300.
A/N: Just saying, but Avice's dialogue with Naoki was actually written before the last episode aired and it was based on his opening hand from his duel with the Knight of Hanoi. Seems like he hasn't learned anything since Season 1 *sigh*
Also, something sort of important I want to announce. If any of you guys and gals has any ideas for cards to suggest it will be great. I use my own fan-made cards all of the time, so it made me wonder, what would it be like to use cards that you guys made for my story. If you have any suggestions or anything like that, just tell me in a PM or write it in a review. Thank you in advance.
Thanks to Snakey1998 for favoriting this story! Thanks to SakushiRyu for following and favoriting my story. For those curious enough to check, he writes a LINK VRAINS story with an OC as well, so take a look, you might love their work.
Now to the reviews... Honestly, I was thinking that this section would be left empty until like, two days ago, so thanks to MusicianWish and the Guest for saving it.
Guest: Thanks a lot, actually, Roxy is the bigger otaku from this episode on, so funny how that turned out. I just, don't mean to be rude, but the "Also forgot to tell you last time" confuses me a little, because I can't remember when you are refering to, pealse remind me if you could. Thank you. Also, that last thing about which song would fit which character, oh boy. I had actually waited for someone to ask me that, but since this is my VRAINS fic I will reply only about my main VRAIN OCs, if you guys are interested after this, I might do it for the side characters like Nulline and the others. Before that however I would like to apologize because all of the songs I listen to are Nightcore so I mostly don't know how the "normal" version of them actually sounds.
Evan/PhantomFire - Don't Stop by Innerpartysystem
Avice/Silver Star - Castle by Halsey
Vermilya/Blaze Rose - Just like Fire by Pink
?/Rockteer/Picaro - I Don't Really Care by Blacklite District
Roxanna/Proxy - Still Here by Digital Daggers
That ofcourse are just my picks, but I wonder what songs you guys think would fit with these characters!
MusicianWish: "My long, passionate and meaningless comments have returned. I'm sorry." Don't be, you save my desire to write every time! Honestly, how important Elizabeth's role depends on what you mean by "important". She won't have much of an inpact over the plot itself, but the existence of a friend somewhere out there that is waiting for Roxy is "important" for my character because the memory Eli is really the only thing keeping Roxanna standing when she had lost everything. Also yes, Elizabeth and Evan are the same age (they are twins, duh) which is 19. Not to far from 20, am I right?
Sorry for ruining the PlaymakerxProxy ship for everyone, I have to admit that the YusakuxAoi ship isn't my favorite one either, the anime ruined it for me, but this whole "shipping" thing won't pay a huge role into the story (yes, it isn't a love story) and I definitely won't be mentioning official ships either, so, we can all pretend that our ship is canon to the story despite it not being true... I guess?
"A virtual arm, a purple eye? ... WTF." I want to apologize to everyone for this bizzare and undetailed description, but that there was the monster from the sewers. The one that attacked Yusaku in episodes 30-31. I don't blame anyone for forgetting about it, was pretty useless in the anime.
I'm grateful that my mini rants about VRAINS and Arc-V aren't annoying, I try not to talk too much about them because, well, as you said everyone has their own opinions on the subjects and since mines are most often negative, people probably don't like when people bash their favorite shows or characters like how I do.
That's all I had to say for this chapter. Thanks to everyone for reading it and see you next time!
Diabolic Tracer out!