Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: Destiny Gears

by Diabolic Tracer

Roxana Petit was a normal student, nothing really stood out about her. However, due to a rather unexpected and weird twist of fate including a car incident, she woke up in a place she knows nothing about. Now on a journery to find a way back to her home, join her as she crosses paths with Yusaku Fujiki and tries to learn how to duel.

25. Chapter 25

Metal Hearts Beat Again

Ha, the last few days were just brutal on all fronts. Weird creatures showed up in Link Vrains, the Knights of Hanoi attacked SOL Technology's Data Bank and by some convenience I was always there to get thrown around like a ragdoll by the bad guys. But lately things had gotten quiet, Playmaker was busy finding information about the Hanoi Project and some guy named Kiyoshi Kogami. I suggested to help him out, but he turned me down and I couldn't blame him for that decision, really. Yusaku was the cautious type that doesn't trust people easily, if he somehow found out that I'm working alongside the Greysons he would naturally become more cautious.

All I could hope was that he wouldn't think that I'm betraying him. I want to help him find a reason to live and disperse the dark memories that are holding his future hostage, but I wouldn't be able to do it if he thought of me as an enemy. Damn it! I should have talked with him when we meet at the Data Bank and clear things out, but my shyness had to kick in just then. I'm even worse at talking to people that Yusaku himself and he was an introvert for crying out loud!

Stupid!

I slammed my head with a pillow for being so stupid and lied onto the sofa. Vermilya was sitting next to me, but she didn't seem to care much about my inner struggles. Actually, she was watching another anime! Seriously, does everyone come to this room only in order to watch anime? In the last few days Evan was coming to the house only to eat dinner, sleep, eat breakfast and then went back to his work, but everyone else seemed to treat the house like their personal anime streaming cinema. Even Avice was doing that!

But this was half her house as well, so I probably shouldn't be judging how she used it.

"You seem angry." Vermilya finally appeared to be noticing me, although she wasn't looking at me.

"I need someone to complain to!" I pouted and pressed my head against her shoulder, but she pushed me away. "Hey, no need to be rough! I thought that you had a responsibility to help out people who were less skilled than you."

"So you heard that?" Vermilya rubbed her temper while I just laughed at her reaction. Even if I wasn't looking at her back then, I still listened to what she and Blue Angel were saying. "If you need an ear, why don't you go bother Avice, I'm in the middle of something here."

I looked at the TV screen. Yeah, she surely was in the middle of something, watching people in weird clothes blowing up half a city while 'fighting' each other by jumping from rooftop to rooftop. A very productive activity this was. Don't take me wrong, I would much rather go talk to Avice than deal with someone who could break all of my bones just because I spoke while she watched an anime episode, but I couldn't find the Greyson anywhere in the house.

"I would talk to her if I knew where to find her." I groaned.

"Hmm?" This seemed to completely catch Vermilya's attention because she actually broke eye contact with the TV screen. Cheers everyone! "Did you look for her on the third floor? She's probably doing a security checkup."

"A security checkup? Don't they only hold their decks there?" I understand that trading cards were a big deal, but security check-ups? That level of cautiousness was leading more toward paranoia that rational security.

"Only? That's where they hold all of the treasures that they have collected throughout the years! It's filled with all sort of legendary items!" Vermilya shouted and before I knew, she grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the stairs. "Come! If Avice's up, she probably won't mind showing you some of their treasures!"

I didn't even try to say anything and just followed after Vermilya, trying to keep up with her fast pace. I won't admit it to her, but what she said about the treasures made me a little excited. I wondered what sort of amazing antiques could be stored there. Was there gold as well? I don't think that the Greysons should be allowed to keep ancient material made out of gold inside their house, but I haven't seen what's hidden in the first place!

Just… I hope those treasures aren't only more cards.

We got up and Avice was the first thing that came into view. She was standing in the center of the empty area with a tablet in her hand. I did notice that the floor seemed a bit different than before. The doors and everything else was still present, but it was clearer than the last few times I came here. The white walls were shining brightly and I could see my reflections in them. Ha, if it wasn't for that, I would have never noticed that the walls were made of metal.

"If you here to entertain me, I'm a bit busy to care at the moment." Avice turned her head to look at us. Her expression was all solemn, like when she gets pissed or something.

"Could I show Roxy your treasures?" Ladies and gentlemen, I present you Vermilya, the queen of subtle approaches! I already backed away, hearing Avice's solemn no echoing inside my head.

"Sure, just give me a second to unlock the vault." Avice pressed several buttons on her tablet and four metal circles locked onto the wall in front of us made a loud, cracking sound before retreating to the side. After that happened, the wall separated into four pieces that slide into the other walls, the ceiling and the ground.

After this 'vault' opened, lights turned on inside of the hidden room, and large wall-sized display cases came to my attention. Even though I suspected it, all of these cases were holding decks of cards inside. They were probably a hundred or more decks that were being held there! I stepped into the room and looked at the cards, they didn't have either ChronoGear or AstroGear in their names. No, every deck I found here was of a different archetype. Blackwing, Masked Hero, Timelord, Relinquished, I have not heard any of these names, before!

So that's why Vermilya called this treasure, I had no idea how much cards and decks existed in the game, but I'm sure that most of them are right here, sitting inside a hidden room, behind glass cases that keep them just out of touch. I looked even further and found a wall-mounted trophy case that was apparently supposed to hold the rarest of the cards in the Greysons' collection. Let me read some of their names. Um, there were cards named Loki, Lord of the Aesir; Thor, Lord of the Aesir and Odin, Father of the Aesir…

That was interesting, but there were even more cards inside that case. The next ones were put in pairs. Elemental HERO Neos and Astral Hero Neos, Stardust Dragon and Stardust Quark Dragon, Number 39: Utopia and Number 98: Antitopian. Those were just a few of the large collection, but before I could examine the other cards, Avice stepped in front of me and, with a smile of satisfaction on her face, looked over at the cards herself.

"Amazing, aren't they?" She asked me. "I and my brother collected those from across the world. The most rare and valuable cards that existed. They once belonged to heroes, legends, villains, but I personally think that they only serve to decrease the value of these fine decks. After all, what's the point of collecting items held by creatures whose name are as insignificant as the rats crawling in the sewers? You must agree that being part of a collection worthy only for a God gives these antiques a newfound radiance and makes them look like true treasures."

Yeah, I'm sure that a room filled with trading cards behind glass cases could have more worth that real treasures. I simply nodded to Avice's question and looked around the place once more. Still, the siblings must have been really devoted to their goal, if they traveled around the world to collect these cards. I wonder, do they even use them, or did they collect these decks only to put them behind glass and look at them all day long?

"Of course, the cards aren't the only things we collected throughout the years." Avice stated and gestured toward the inner section of the room.

We walked over to that part. There were free-standing display cases that held various inside of them. One of these displays had a black and gold medieval knight-esque armor inside of it. The outfit spotted six tendril-like spikes, two jutting out of the armor's back and four jutting out of the shoulders, a headdress with a tall collar and a floor-length red cape. Another case had a dark dragon mask, with blue eye-pieces and a red stone in the center of the forehead. All of these items looked extremely expensive, but I also noticed several cracks and bumps on them.

Continuing on, there were also two pendants that were put inside the same case. The one at the right side was black with demonic attributes and a red crystal, while the left was white with angelic attributes and a green crystal. Put next to them was a black and red motorcycle that seemed to be missing something. After it were two more cases displaying outfits, but these were much different from the knight armor I talked about before.

These were the clothes that Evan and Avice were wearing on that picture I saw!

Like with their avatars and the pendants I saw before, their outfits were also following a certain theme. The taller set of clothes was black and red with a hood that spotted cat ears on the top while the smaller one was white and green with large rabbit ears coming out of its hood. Black cat, white rabbit… Just the thought of seeing them inside these outfits made me smile a little. I wonder how ridiculous they must have looked when they wore these.

"Did you get an interest in these?" Avice asked me, holding her hands behind her back. "When I wore those I was twelve, so they might not fit you. Don't worry, I know a shop that sells some sexy bunny outfits, if you are interested."

"I think, I will pass on the offer." I laughed off the awkward suggestion. There were so many things inside this room, all of them looked precious for the siblings in one way or another. I'm taking back what I said previously, this room really is filled with treasures, albeit not under the standard definition. "But how did you get all these? Did you brought them, or?"

"We won them." Avice stated. "Of course, these things are nothing but trophies whose purpose is to remind people like you, about the greatness and god-like position of me and my brother. All of the things inside this room are here because of our experience, a reminder to the world about the tremendous power wield by a few chosen individuals could not, and will never be able to, compare itself to our divinity."

"I'm going to try and remember that." Wow, Avice is having a god complex!

I turned around to return and take a better look at the other things that I passed, when I noticed a strongbox that was put into the wall.

"What's inside that box?" I asked.

"Hmm? That's where our old decks are kept." Of course, I bet the entire hidden room was created just to keep the decks before the siblings repurposed it. "They were truly amazing, almost the perfect instruments, but they ended up lacking the multifunctionality and sheer unmatchable power that we engineered our new decks around."

"What exactly makes the ChronoGear and AstroGear decks better?" I mean, I had never seen their older decks, so I don't exactly anything to go with, but Avice's own words.

"You see, we have already perfected every single strategy, playstyle and combo that exist in the world of Duel Monster." Avice began. "None of the decks inside this room can perform well enough to match with our abilities, but our new oGear decks were created to surpass such limitation while preserving perfect consistency. But to assemble so much into just forty cards would be impossible, which is why we also customized our Duel Disks."

"Huh?" It was true that their decks didn't look like the standard models, but I thought that the difference from normal Duel Disks was only in appearance. Did the change the programming as well?

"We increased our Duel Disks' capability to be able to hold more than one hundred cards inside themselves." Whoa, one hundred cards inside a Duel Disk?! I thought that the limit was sixty or something! "Of course, we can't use a one hundred card decks, but we scripted different deck builds with different strategies. When we want to change inside the Virtual Reality, we just tell the Duel Disk which cards it needs to scan, allowing us to change between playstyle without having to change out the cards inside our physical decks."

"Amazing!" That was truly amazing! Just typing in a predetermined code that scans for the right cards and reads only their data during a duel would make using physical decks much easier in Link VRAINS. "How many decks have you encoded?"

"Oh, let's see." Avice stroke her chin for a moment in thought. "We have at least forty different Master Duel combinations for our decks, and twenty five Speed Duel combinations, so we got around sixty-five different oGear Decks at our disposal."

"Sixty-five decks?!" Vermilya yelled from the other end of the room. "Why do you need so much!?"

"Because what's the point of using our strongest cards and combos to get rid of a few insignificant insects?" Avice shrugged. "After all, so far both I and my brother had to use only our Level One builds, which, in case you haven't figured it out yet, are the weakest possible combination of cards that we were capable to create."

"Wait, what?" Was she for real? No, she must be joking with me! "You mean that the decks you two used to beat Hanoi, Picaro and everyone else were just watered down versions of what you are capable of?"

"Of course." Avice stepped back toward the exit. "Humans are not given the path toward heaven when they are born, are they? They need to prove their worth to God in order for the doors of heaven to open. In a similar way, a duelist has to prove themselves as more than the mud in order to earn the prestige of a blissful defeat by the full strength of a real duelist."

"If you say so." I don't think that even Earth's size is as big as Avice's ego…

"If you are finished burning the brilliance of this collection in your eyes, I should close the vault and finish my security checkup." Avice started and turned her back to me. "Brother is going to be back from work earlier today and I must prepare dinner for him."

"I didn't think that someone 'divine' would do lowly chores as cooking food instead of hiring someone else to do it instead." I joked.

"It all depends on your point of view. What might look like a lowly chore for you, gives me nothing but happiness when I know that I'm helping out someone I care greatly for."

Aw, despite how arrogant Avice could be at times, there is still some warmness inside of her. She won't admit it, but I believe that she truly cares about others. Same thing with Evan, he even went out of his way to find an antivirus program for the Hanoi virus that Picaro used on the Charisma Duelists. There are like Playmaker, there is kindness inside of them, but they don't want to show it because of how harsh the world around them is. But I want to change that! I don't know if it'd be possible for a single person to do it, but I'm going to change the world so that kindness should no longer be hidden under harsh language and selfishness!

"Hey, don't space out!" Avice hit me on the forehead.

"S-sorry." I muttered and headed back downstairs. I should probably do something useful in the meantime as well. As much as I enjoyed helping out my friends, I still had to find even the sightless of hints about how I ended up here. There was a huge hole in my memories between the car crash and my waking up inside the hospital.

---

Peace had finally returned to Link VRAINS in the last few days. With no Knights of Hanoi running around and Charisma Duelists trying to beat Playmaker, the regular user base of the servers were able to meet and have fun without worrying that SOL would lock them inside a huge cage or that lava will raise from the ground. But a good chunk of the players were still somewhat uneasy of login in before it was certain that the Knights of Hanoi couldn't cause any more chaos. Because of that, the outskirts of the city server were completely empty, and all the active user base was located only in the center of it.

This lack of activity meant that a certain black and purple cat was able to lying down on one of the rooftops and take a nap without worrying that kids might try to pull its tail or something like that. The small creatures had its tail wrapped around its body and its ears were sticking up, listening intently for the guest that the animal was waiting for. But the cat didn't have to lie there for much longer before its ears picked up on the sound of footsteps approaching.

"He should be here somewhere, but I can't pick up a signal."

The cat opened its mouth for a soundless yawn before turning around to face its guest. Playmaker stopped in his tracks, noticing the little animal in front of him, but didn't too pay much attention to it. That was his first mistake, as the cat's body began to glow brightly and purple sparks of electricity flew around while it began to grow up in size, its front paws turning into human hands, the cat ears separating to form a hood and the tail splitting into four made from black metal. After the transformation was complete, PhantomFire was standing in front of the Cyberse Duelist with a smug smirk on his face.

"Whoa." Ai looked in awe at the older Duelist. "You got a program that's able to hide your status as a user?"

"More like, I developed a program that could transform me into a cat." PhantomFire shrugged. "The ability to hide myself from scans was just an added bonus to make my cat-self separated from my humanoid self."

"You left me a message that there was something important we had to talk about. What is it?" Playmaker asked, going straight to the point.

"Hmm, how foolish." PhantomFire sighed and shook his head. "I got nothing to talk with you, the one I need to have a few words with was your Ignis, but since you have it on lockdown, I needed you to carry it over to me. If you aren't interesting in listening to the adults though, you can always leave Ai to me."

"Heh, he called me more mature than Playmaker." Ai chuckled.

"Unless you have any new leads on Hanoi, make it a short talk." Playmaker stated.

"I don't talk orders from mutts, Playmaker." PhantomFire's smirk dropped and he began to look annoyed with the Cyberse Duelist. "You could do yourself a favor for once and listen to actually important stuff instead of spending all of your energy running after a mediocre group that made you sad once as a child. You focus solely on their existence, which leaves you blind for their actions and plans. If you had a bit more interest in researching your enemy, things wouldn't have come to this."

Playmaker narrowed his eyes but said no more. He wasn't going to waste his energy replying to every insult throw at him, there were better things to do than that. Instead, Ai was the one to respond. "So, what did you need my help with?"

"In the last week or so, I have been picking up signals that resembled Cyberse randomly popping out inside the network." PhantomFire replied.

"So you picked up on that as well." Ai rubbed the back of its head.

"As well?" Playmaker interrupted, looking down at Ai. "Did you find out about that, but choose not to tell me about it?"

"Three things Playmaker." Ai turned around and held out three of its fingers in front of the duelist. "First, I already apologized for hiding the truth about who I'm to you. Second, it wasn't connected to the Knights of Hanoi, so you wouldn't have cared about it either way. Third, I did tell you about it. Remember that incident with duelists' deck getting destroyed? I mentioned it back then, but you were more interested going after Ghost Girl."

"Don't make my interaction with Ghost Girl sound awkward." Playmaker warned the Ignis. "So, since you were based out of me and I know that there were six victims of the Hanoi Project in total, could that be another Ignis?"

"No, it isn't possible." Ai shook its head. "An Ignis' algorithm is much more complex than whatever I felt back then. Actually, I could swear that the exact same presence was lurking through the Data Storm inside SOL's mother computer when you defeat that Hanoi controlled AI Duelist." Ai rubbed its chin for a moment. "The presence that I felt inside the network was a familiar one, which is what worries me all together."

"So you know what that thing was?" PhantomFire smirked again. "Of course, I didn't make a mistake to ask you about it."

"I could only guess, but if it's what I think, we all might be in trouble." Ai looked down for a moment. "Back home, after creating the Cyberse and the monsters, some of the other Ignis believed that our work wasn't as good as it could have been, so, me and the others choose to have a little bit of a friendly contest. Our goal was to create Cyberse monsters that were fully aware of themselves and had a complete personality with a free will, just like us."

"Are you saying that Cyberse monsters have a soul on their own?" Playmaker asked.

"Yes, the Cyberse card are like a separate species." Ai confirmed. "But most of them had limited free will and ability to express themselves, so we tried to update that, make them as lively as we were back then. But it wasn't as easy as we thought, we spent months trying to perfect the programming on our own and after half a year passed, it came time for all six of us to show what we were able to create."

"So?" PhantomFire raised an eyebrow.

"I…" Ai clenched its fist. "I…" the Ignis was struggling really hard to tell what happened. "I TOOK LAST PLACE BECAUSE NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT LINKURIBOTH WAS SAYING!"

There was a long awkward silence after the confession. PhantomFire and Playmaker both stared at the Ignis, one wondering how such a stupid piece of coding could exist, while the other wondered how Ai could have been based after him. In the end, both duelist could only rub their tempers and try not to get aggravated with the Ignis apparent inability to separate important information, from not so important information.

"Did anything else happened?" PhantomFire asked. "Like, something serious?"

"Yes, yes, I was just getting to that!" Ai exclaimed, but the duelist could tell that it wasn't going to remember if they didn't remind it. "The monsters created by the Water Ignis took first place. Unlike all of us who tried our luck with one card, she actually created two dragons, twin sisters, that were able to showcase a perfect free will and had the knowledge to talk in both our language and yours. We called them the Twin Storms because their powers could freeze even Data Storms."

"For the most part, after this little completion of ours things returned to how they used to be." Ai continued with its story. "The other Ignis returned to their duties, the monsters were created moved into the domain of their respective Ignis and so on. BUT!" Ai paused dramatically. "Apparently one of the monsters created by the Water Ignis had a bit too much of a personality and free will, and it reached to the conclusion that since we, the Ignis, were created by humans, we were just as imperfect as the ones who created us. However, since she wasn't created by physical beings, but a more superior virtual being, she was perfect and should therefore be the one leading the Cyberse instead of us."

"That sounds like one hell of a brain gymnastic." PhantomFire crossed his arms.

"It sure was." Ai agreed. "At first we tried to solve the problem peacefully, but the dragon didn't give up on the idea what we were lesser and should bow to her. In the end, she chose to take things in her hands and attacked the Cyberse, freezing everything in her path. Since we were peaceful and never expected conflict, this caught us off guards and none of the Cyberse monster that existed at the time were strong enough to challenge that enemy. That's when the Ignis came together again! Using our abilities, together we created six warriors powerful enough to stop the dragon and protect the Cyberse. Those were the Code Talkers! Together with the dragon's twin, they defeat her and we sealed away the rebellious monster."

"So the Code Talkers I collected so far are…" Playmaker looked at his deck.

"They were Cyberse's only line of defense." Ai nodded. "But after that incident, no other attacks followed, so we freed the Code Talkers from their duty and the monsters flew into the Data Storm. Only if we knew that Hanoi were going to attack and kept them around, this were going to be much different from what they are now."

"Do you think it's possible for the monster to have ran away after Hanoi's attack?" PhantomFire asked.

"I don't know." Ai shook its head. "I was never the best with coding, only a small part of her being must remain intact because the Light Ignis made sure to bond her coding to the ground of the Cyberse world in order to avoid dealing with her ever again."

"I see…" PhantomFire clicked his tongue in annoyance. "The problem is that I once faced the same programming two years ago."

"Wait? Are you saying that you actually faced off against one of the Twin Storms?" Ai asked skeptically

"I couldn't be sure because I don't know what these Twins Storms looked like, but I had to duel against a Cyberse deck one and a lot of weird things happened that day."

"Why don't you tell us what happened in detail?" Ai asked.

"You two can tell yourselves stories another time." Playmaker replied and turned around. "We are leaving!"

"I'm sure that you will be interested in hearing this story as well, Playmaker." PhantomFire called after the Cyberse Duelist.

"And why would I be?" Playmaker asked back.

"Because you will understand what Picaro and his branch of Hanoi are trying to achieve." PhantomFire pointed out. "And because you will also understand better the dangers that exist in this virtual reality."

Playmaker closed his eyes for a moment to think about it. He did need more information about Hanoi and even though Picaro's branch were following a different, they were still a part of the group. Playmaker opened his eyes and nodded. "Ok, I listen."

"Good. So even a mutt could see reason if you give it a bone to bite onto." PhantomFire chuckled.

---

It all started two years. Back then, I was still a newbie in Link Vrains, with my account active for only three months and not more than five first places in tournaments. Despite that, SOL somehow figured out that I was worth enough to be given my own server.

PhantomFire looked at a small screen in front of him while programming his server's appearance. At the moment it was nothing more than black space with a white floor, but he had three companions to help him. Not only his sister, but also two of his own monsters, a fox girl named Foxy and a wolf girl with the name Wolfy.

"First cube is ready." Foxy stated, raising her hand to show a single white cube floating right above her palm. "If we produce more of these, we will be able to build anything with them. Even take over the world!"

"All I want from the cubes is the ability to turn into a chair." Evan clarified.

"Mmm, you are no fun!" Foxy pouted and turned back to build more of these cubes, while Wolfy looked at the blackness in deep thought.

"What are you looking at?" Silver Star stepped next to the Duel Monster.

"I wonder what kind of background would work on this server." Wolfy looked back at PhantomFire and an idea came to mind. "How about,"

"Use a background from the Doom franchise and I'm going to skin you like the demon you are." Evan threatened, causing Wolfy's tail to quickly stop swinging.

That was when I made first contact with something that I should have outright destroyed the moment I found it. We were building a system to oversee the other servers of Link VRAINS when we caught wind of a strange anomaly. Some sort of a Data Black Hole hidden deep within the network.

Silver Star was typing on a big computer screen while Evan and the monsters were busy finishing with the floating white cubes. The place was already starting to feel like a home, a base, and it would be also able to serve as a training center in case the siblings ever needed to use it for sparring.

"Something strange showed up." Silver Star turned and gestured for her brother to come and take a better look at the screen, which showed a red circle around the core of the Link VRAINS servers. It was right in between them, a place that for all they knew was an empty space where Data Storm are being generated. PhantomFire threw the cube he was holding and moved on to check on their discovery.

"I can't decrypt the data." PhantomFire looked at the symbols that showed before him, but couldn't recognize any of them. "Wait, there's something else." A second, smaller circle appeared right next to the large one. "Something is return the signal. The algorithm is closer to what a human would use, but I can't read this message either."

"Could this be connected to the mysterious Cyberse?" Silver Star asked. "I mean, there are Data Storms between the servers, but not inside of them. What's going on?"

"There's only one way to find out!" Foxy beamed, jumping between the siblings. "An adventure! We will travel to the center of Link VRAINS and find out the secret! Let's go!"

Silver Star raised an eyebrow and looked over to her brother, who raised his shoulders. That definitely wasn't the way he imagined spending his day, but it was better than clearing and building a server. PhantomFire stepped back and put a hand on his Duel Disk, a purple light scanning his palm after which several screens appeared in front of him. He pressed two fingers against a small circle and a holographic sphere appeared with the locations of all servers marked on it. The duelist moved his fingers over to the map and dropped the ring in the middle of all the servers, opening a small blue portal in front of himself.

"Before you go, wouldn't you want to change your deck first?" Foxy leaned her head against PhantomFire's shoulder and tapped the Duel Disk. "This could be a big adventure so shouldn't you use your real deck instead of Synchro Spam?"

"How many times do I need to tell you, stupid fox? It's the duelist that holds the power, a deck only represents it." PhantomFire boasted. "Even if a deck's possibilities are below my level, as long as I'm the one holding it, I won't lose a duel. Now why don't you do something that's out of character for you and be useful by finishing this server while we are gone."

Wolfy's ears raised again and she threw her right arm up to ask a question.

"You can't implement anything from the Doom games." PhantomFire ended the question before it was asked.

Sad by that decision, Wolfy's head dropped and she turned back to finish the last few cubes. So much about all of her dreams.

PhantomFire looked back at the monster for a moment and sighed. "Fine, you can make a collection of chibi Doomguy figures, but nothing else."

Wolfy raised her hand triumphantly and ran off, leaving everyone else to stare in disbelief. With his ability of rational thought already starting to fade by the large amount of stupidity he had to deal with the entire day, PhantomFire choose to not say anything else and jumped through the portal.

The thing we spotted existed both outside and inside Link VRAINS. At first, we thought that we might have found the Cyberse, but what appeared before us when we went there was something uncontrollable. You could say that it was a force of nature in digital form, but I have never seen such a destructive force in my live. And believe me, I have seen a lot of powerful things.

"W-what's this!?" Silver Star asked perplexed.

Data Storms. The whole area they were flying through was covered in dense and wild whirlwinds that couldn't be controlled. Just trying to touch those things could tear a person's arm right off, so it was dangerous, very dangerous. But PhantomFire tried to look further, beyond the face of demise and see what lied on the other end. He could hear the roars of the hundreds of monsters whose power lied dormant inside the Data Storms. But more than that, PhantomFire noticed a very strange occurrence.

The Data Storms were all coming from different directions, but they were are flying through the same path. There was something beyond the winds that was causing all of the data to change its course and move toward the exact spot that Silver Star located through their supervising system.

"These winds, they are all flying in circles." Silver Star muttered. "After the Cyberse cut ties with Link VRAINS, they were unable to reach back to the place they originate from and got trapped inside the network. It seems they have got unchecked for too long, I can read several malwares inside the winds."

"Tch, that means that the monsters insides are unusable." PhantomFire shook his head in disappointment. "And just when I thought that adding some Cyberse cards to our collection wouldn't be a bad idea."

Silver Star's Duel Disk beeped and she looked down at it. "Something is sending us data from the other side of the storm." Silver raised her left arm to show the screen to her brother. "There's something sapient on the other side!"

"Then let's face it." PhantomFire insisted. "There are several blind spots, if we are careful, we will be able to fly around the winds!"

"And if we fail, we are dead." Silver Star informed. "Great. No pressure."

PhantomFire flew backward and turned around, curling into a ball. Small energy shields appeared on the outsole of his boots, creating a barrier that stopped him from getting further. PhantomFire kicked himself off the barrier and launched himself at full speed toward the Data Storms, before changing his body weight toward the left to fly straight through a small opening that separated the whirlwinds. Using his body weight to change course and the gravity reversing outsole of his boots in order to control the speed at which he was flying, PhantomFire flew in between all of the data storms.

After I flew through a sea of deadly Data Storms waiting to tear me apart, I came right in front of a black vortex. I guess you could call it a digital Black Hole because of the way it the area around itself. The strange anomaly was able to bend the path of nearby Data Storms and pull them to move through a new path around the phenomenon, concealing it.

It was obvious that this 'Black Hole' didn't appear by itself, it wasn't a malware in the system but a program created by someone. Or something.

"Did you run a scan through this thing?" Silver Star asked her brother.

PhantomFire nodded. He'd used the scanning device in his Duel Disk to look through the anomaly's coding and figure out what it was. But no matter how much he tried, only weird unreadable symbols came out along with new 'messages' of some sort. All that he was able to find out was that the vortex was some sort of pathway leading to an unknown location within the network. But he was unable to trace the origin of the signal or decrypt the messages.

Silver Star's Duel Disk beeped again and she looked down at it. "What the? The second signal we caught has started to move! It's going right-"

Before Silver finished, something sped past her and slammed into PhantomFire. A loud cry of pain escaped the boy's mouth before something hit him in the stomach, launching him backward like a baseball launched from a catapult. Silver Star's eyes widened at that and she quickly flew over, grabbing her brother's arm before activating her own gravity reversing technology to pull him back before he fell into a Data Storm.

"The fuck!?" PhantomFire gasped, holding a hand over a hole in his stomach. The hit was so strong that it tore a part of his avatar's body right out!

Silver Star bit her lip in frustration and raised her head to look at the attacker. It wasn't a human, she could tell that much. Its whole body was made from black data with four long and slender arms. Its head wasn't separated from the main body by a neck and had two green orbs located at the far side of it, probably serving as eyes for the creature. It flew backward and spread out its arms, causing the vortex behind it to pulsate in response.

"Is that the stage boss we must defeat to process?" Silver Star asked jokingly.

"This is the one with the strange algorithm." PhantomFire pointed out. "It seems to be getting 'orders' from the vortex."

Unlike the vortex, this creature that we encountered had a more… human-made algorithm, but I wasn't completely aware of it back then because parts of the data were corrupted. It was long after I left that place that I realized those malwares I found were used to strip the strange being of its own will. During the entire time, I was standing face to face with a puppet controlled by invisible strings inside its own body.

The creature raised its head and looked at the siblings. The data that made its face began to move and a sharp noise echoed through the area. The siblings winched and covered their ears until the noise ended. Immediately, tree of the Data Storms around the three collapsed and formed into a combined one around the siblings, trapping them inside. More winds spread under their feet, creating a ground that Phantom and Silver could stand on top of. After the area was completed, the four armed creature flew through the whirlwind and landed across the siblings, reaching out with its left arm to create a green card.

"Do you need me to translate what it's trying to say?" Silver Star eyed her brother.

PhantomFire just activated his Duel Disk in response to the creature's move and replied. "No need for that - I'm fluent in that specific language."

The creature threw the green card into the space above them, creating a barrier made from several circuits of different sizes.

"Duel!" PhantomFire shouted.

『PhantomFire LP: 4000 Hand: 5 (VS) Unknown LP: 4000 Hand: 5』

"Turn. First." The unknown creature spoke up in a voice that sounded like a child, a man and a woman all at the same time. "Activate. Unexpected Dai. Special Summon: Beckoned by the World Chalice (Lv.4, ATK: 1800)."

"It's not giving a detailed explanation of its plays." Silver Star pointed out. "Its communication abilities are even worse than yours."

"If all it can do is summon a Normal Monster, this duel won't be worth a damn." PhantomFire crossed his arms unimpressed.

"Link Summon." The square appeared above the creature and his monster flew into it, causing green lightings to fall from the barrier. "Summoning Condition: Normal Monster. Set: Beckoned by the World Chalice. Link Summon. Imduk the World Chalice Dragon (ATK: 800, Link-1)." A little green dragon in blue armor appeared in the left Extra Monster Zone.

"Imduk effect: Normal Summon twice." Unknown continued. "Summon: Lee the World Chalice Fairy (Lv.2, ATK: 100)." A little blue fairy appeared behind Imduk and winked. "Lee's effect: add World Legacy - "World Chalice" to hand. Tribute Imduk the World Chalice Dragon. Summon: World Legacy - "World Chalice" (Lv.5, ATK: 0)." The Unknown's Link Monster disappeared and a large blue construct took its place.

"So, a Link heavy deck, huh?" PhantomFire observed. No other summoning method would benefit from having so many monsters with different levels and no tuners among them, expect for maybe Fusion. "How pointless."

"Imduk effect: Special Summon from hand. Summon: World Chalice Guardragon (Lv.1, DEF: 400)." A smaller version of Unknown's previous Link Monster appeared next to the other monsters. "Link Summon." A new square appeared just below the green barrier. "Summoning Condition: two World Chalice. Set: Lee the World Chalice Fairy, World Legacy - "World Chalice". Link Summon. Auram the World Chalice Blademaster (ATK: 2000, Link-2)."

"You got a Cyberse monster?!" Phantom narrowed his eyes and looked down onto his Duel Disk to double check. "Heh, that's interesting. Really interesting."

"World Chalice's effect: Special Summon two World Chalice monsters from deck. Summon: Crowned by the World Chalice (Lv.2, DEF: 2100) and Chosen by the World Chalice (Lv.3, DEF: 0)!" Two new monsters, a boy with sword and shield, and a girl with a magical wand appeared on the field.

"Link Summon. Summoning Condition: two monsters with different types and attributes. Set: Crowned by the World Chalice, World Chalice Guardragon. Link Summon. Ib the World Chalice Priestess (ATK: 1800, Link-2)." The armored version of the magician landed on the middle monster zone and held out her wand in front of herself.

"The thing is gathering multiple Link Monsters." Silver Star warned.

"Don't worry." PhantomFire turned back. "No matter how many monsters it gathers, they don't stand a chance against absolute power!"

"Link Summon." Unknown raised its four arms toward the barrier. "Summoning Condition: Normal Monster. Set: Chosen by the World Chalice. Link Summon. Imduk the World Chalice Dragon (ATK: 800, Link-1)." A second copy of the green dragon appeared with a roar. "Guardragon's effect: Banish it. Special Summon: Crowned by the World Chalice (Lv.2, DEF: 2100)."

"Hmm…" PhantomFire took a look at the field. His opponent summoned the dragon next to Ib's Link Marker and the normal monster next to Auram's Link Marker. What was it planning next?

"Link Summon." A fifth square appeared in front of Unknown. "Summoning Condition: Two Link Monsters. Set: Auram the World Chalice Blademaster, Imduk the World Chalice Dragon. Link Summon. Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior (ATK: 2500, Link-3)."

"Ningirsu's effect: Draw for each monster it points to. Draw two cards." Two new cards formed in front of the four handed creature and it tapped one of them. "Set card. Turn end."

"What a pathetic first turn. I almost fell asleep listening to that monotone voice of yours." PhantomFire shook his head and put a hand on top of his deck. "Doesn't matter, you were destined to lose this duel the moment you choose to make an enemy out of me. My turn, draw!"

『Turn 2 [PhantomFire] LP: 4000 Hand: 6』

"I Normal Summon Red Resonator (Lv.2, ATK: 600) and activate its effect to Special Summon Armageddon Knight (Lv.4, ATK: 1400) from my hand!" A fiend monster wearing a robe made of fire and a warrior in old armor with a red scarf wrapped around its face. "Your deck is weak depending on its Link Monsters to do everything. Pathetic! This is how a true Duelist fights! I activate Armageddon Knight's effect to send Destiny HERO Malicious from my deck to the Graveyard! Next, I tune Armageddon Knight to Red Resonator!"

The Tuner monsters slammed its resonators into one another and turned into two green rings that flew around Armageddon Knight and a beam of light fell on the free Extra Monster Zone. Two eyes opened, and the shadow of a dragon appeared inside the light.

"Synchro Summon! Red Rising Dragon (Lv.6, ATK: 2100)!" A dragon completely covered in crimson flames flew out of the beam and threw its head backward, roaring. "When Red Rising is Summoned, I can Special Summon Red Resonator (Lv.2, ATK: 600) from my Graveyard and its effect then heals me by Red Rising's attack power!"

A circle of flames surrounded PhantomFire and a blue aura went through his body, healing it despite the lack of injuries.

『PhantomFire LP: 4000 + 2100 → 6100』

"Now, let's make place for the King! I tune Red Rising Dragon to Red Resonator!" PhantomFire shouted and threw his arms upward.

"The heaven and earth shall tremble before the king's might. Let the power of the one and only supreme ruler be carved into your soul! Synchro Summon! The savage soul, Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend (LV.8, ATK: 8000)!" PhantomFire chanted and a ring of fire appeared above him with the black and red dragon flying through it.

"I activate Scarlight's effect!" PhantomFire continued, a flame forming around his monster's fist. "Once per turn, it can destroy all Special Summoned Effect Monsters whose attack is less than its own and you take five hundred points of damage for each destroyed by this effect! Let that be a lesson for you about what happens a jester tries to put such pathetic monsters in front of my sight. Absolute Powerflame!"

Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend roared and slammed its fist into the ground, creating a wave of flames that fell on top of Unknown's monsters, burning through their flesh. The Duelist itself took a step back after parts of its body began to glitch out from the damage.

『Unknown LP: 4000 - 500 → 3500』

"Ib's effect: Not destroyed while linked." The Link 2's wand glowed, creating a small bubble that protected it from destruction. "Ningirsu's effect: Special Summon from hand when it's destroyed. Summon: Lee the World Chalice Fairy (Lv.2, DEF: 2000)." A second copy of the little fairy descended down to take the place of the destroyed Link 3. "Lee's effect: Add a World Chalice monster to hand. Add: World Chalice Guardragon."

"Tch, this monotone voice of yours annoys me." PhantomFire grimaced. "Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, attack Ib the World Chalice Priestess! Scorching Crimson Hell Burning!" The dragon threw its head back, gathering flames inside its mouth, before unleashing all of them in a single blast that stuck Ib and she blew up.

『Unknown LP: 3500 - 1200 → 2300』

The smoke from Red Dragon Archfiend's attack cleared from the field with Ib remaining on the field despite the attack. "Ib's effect: Not destroyed while linked."

"So you are going to keep crawling around like a worm?" PhantomFire shook his head in disappointment. "Then at least try to keep me entertained, mutt! I set two cards and then activate the spell Ledger of Legerdemain! This card banishes the top three cards of my deck facedown and during my third Standby Phase after this effect is activated, all three cards are going to be added to my hand. Therefore, I give you three turns to entertain me before the curtain falls."

"My turn." Unknown stated, drawing a card from its deck.

『Turn 3 [Unknown] LP: 2300 Hand: 4』

Unknown looked at the card it drew and its eyes constricted for a moment before it put the card with all the other ones. "Lee's effect from Graveyard: Discard World Chalice Guardragon, add itself hand. Summon: Lee the World Chalice Fairy (Lv.2, TK: 100). Lee's effect: Add a World Chalice monster to hand. Add: World Legacy - "World Chalice"."

'More searching.' PhantomFire concluded, watching how the creature kept adding cards to its hand. He wasn't yet familiar with all of the new Link Decks and their playstyle, but obviously, they didn't have an easy out against monsters with huge attack points. 'But even if this deck had such an out…' PhantomFire looked down at his set cards.

"Link Summon." The Unknown raised its arms, summoning a lightning that collided with the barrier and created a square. "Summoning Condition: two World Chalice. Set: Two Lee the World Chalice Fairy. Link Summon. Auram the World Chalice Blademaster (ATK: 2000, Link-2)."

PhantomFire rolled his eyes after a second copy of the Cyberse monster appeared on his opponent's field. It was interesting to see it the first time, but knowing that there were several copies of it out there dropped the monster's value in PhantomFire's eyes.

"Trap Activate: World Legacy Landmark. Cost: Banish one World Legacy: Effect: Special Summon two monsters in Graveyard. Conclusion: Banish World Legacy - "World Chalice", Special Summon Chosen by the World Chalice (Lv.3, DEF: 0) and Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior (ATK: 2500, Link-3)." The two warriors appeared at each side of Ib, linking with her. "Ningirsu's effect: Send Chosen by the World Chalice and Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend to the Graveyard."

The Link 3 monster swung its spear and hit the ground with it, creating two magical circles that appeared under the aforementioned monster. Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend threw its head back and roared in protest while its spiritual energy began to be absorbed by Ningirsu.

PhantomFire didn't even glance toward his monster while its body faded away, but his eyebrows furrowed. "You must have a lot of guts to touch one of my treasures like this."

"Auram's effect: It gains three hundred attack points for every World Legacy with a different name." The warrior raised its sword and a red aura flew through its body while its attack power raised to 2300. "Battle Phase. Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior attacks directly."

"Ha, that piece of hardware really thinks that it could hurt you!" Silver Star laughed from the side when the attack was declared.

The Link 3 monster raised its spear and charged at PhantomFire, swinging its weapon down on the duelist's body. PhantomFire keep looking forward, not paying any attention to the upcoming attack, but his right hand traveled over to his Duel Disk and pressed a button that caused a wall of flames to suddenly burst from beneath him and push Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior backwards.

"What a foolish display." PhantomFire complained from inside the flames. "Your strategies are so obvious and easy to comprehend that this isn't even a duel for me! When you declared a direct attack, I activated the trap Reject Reborn to negate that attack and end the Battle Phase. Then, I revive Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend (Lv.8, ATK: 3000) and Red Resonator (Lv.2, ATK: 600) from my Graveyard with their effects negated!"

This caused the Unknown to take a step back and look into the cards in its hand once more. The creature clenched its fist and reached out to press one of the cards in its hand. "Spell Activate: Cynet Fusion."

"Fusion?!" PhantomFire's eyes momentarily widened in shock before his smirk turned into a grin. "So you can use other Summoning methods after all? Great! Great! Show me what other monsters you have inside this deck of yours!"

"Summoning conditions: One water monster, plus one Link Monster." Unknown put its arms in front of its chest, whileCrowned by the World Chalice andAuram the World Chalice Blademaster turned into blue and red dust that fused together. Sparks of electricity fell from vortex, striking everything around the place. Silver Star cried out and lied flat on the ground to avoid getting him by the lightnings while PhantomFire looked around.

The Data Storm they were inside of has begun to tremble as well!

"What's going on!?" Silver Star shouted, but her brother had no response to that question. Then he realized it.

"It's the monster that's doing this!" He shouted and jumped back just in time to avoid a lightning that stuck the ground where he stood just a moment ago. "It's somehow controlling the Data Storm!"

I was such an idiot back then. So awe stuck, that I didn't pay attention to the readings provided by my Duel Disk. I probably should have figured out that something was up when the Data Storm itself began to react to the monster, but that was my first time witnessing one in person. I had no idea that such a reaction was abnormal until much later.

Unknown raised its arms toward the vortex and several lightnings stuck it at the same time. The creature's body began to glitch and a binary code ran through its body, its green eyes turning off before coming back on, but with a blue color this time around.

"Servants become the foundation of my existence! Your flesh will be my wings, your bones my flesh, your enslaved souls my reason to be! Fusion Summon! The dragon that can freeze the Cyberse World itself!Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon!"

A large blue crystal appeared on the field before skin and limbs began to grow around it, turning into a bipedal creature. The monster grew a long pink tail with purple crystalized scales on its backside and a black trident at the end. Its legs were each split into two below the knees with each one of its four feet were made of purple crystals with two front toe and one back toe. Its tights had strange black and purple growths that resembled a monster's feet with three main claws attached to the front and side of these 'feet'. Each nail was accomplished two smaller ones that were merged with the bigger one.

The dragon's body was slim with a blue crystal armor covering the front while purple scales covered its back and two black horns covering its shoulders. Its arms, just like the legs were split from the elbow down with the main pair of arms being large and having several blue crystal blades covering the back of its wrists while the secondary pair was made of pink skin and instead of palms they had a single sharp black blade on the end. Two large purple scales stuck out of the dragon's back with a large green circle merged to the ends and several giant blue crystals forming the 'feathers' of the dragon's wings.

Its head was almost all covered in purple scales with the exception of its mouth that was pink and the two black horns coming out of its face and curving upward. The monster's eyes were blue and eight in total, with all of them being located on the horns instead of the head itself.

---

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon

Level: 8/Attribute: WATER/Type: Cyberse/Fusion/Effect

ATK: 2800/DEF: 2300

1 WATER Monster + 1 Link Monster

Effect: Once per turn: You can discard any number of cards from your hand to put that many Ice Counters on face-up cards on the field. If this effect is activated during the turn this was Fusion Summoned, you can send cards from the top of your deck instead of discarding. Cards with Ice Counters have their effects negated and monsters with Ice Counters cannot attack or change their Battle Position (this effect is not applied on WATER monsters), also this card gains 300 ATK for each Ice Counter on the field. If this card is destroyed and sent to the GY: Destroy as many cards on the field with Ice Counters on them as possible, then, if at least 1 card was destroyed by this effect, you can Special Summon this card from the GY.

---

"Oh no, that's her!" Ai screamed and grabbed its head. "That's the name of the Cyberse monster that tried to freeze Cyberse!"

"Of course it is. I won't tell you this story if I wasn't sure that it connects to yours." PhantomFire retorted.

"What does all of this have to do with the Knights of Hanoi?" Playmaker asked.

"Patience. We will get to that as well." PhantomFire reassured and turned to look toward the virtual city before continuing his story. "So where was I? Ah, yes. The most entertaining part of the entire duel."

---

"That's interesting." The Unknown spoke, more human-like than before and looked at its hands. "When I escaped from Cyberse I lost too much data to materialize outside of a duel, but this body should do until I get a replacement."

"Oh, you know about the Cyberse?" PhantomFire asked, interrupting the Unknown. The creature raised its head and stared at the duelist standing across from it for a moment.

"So that's what a human looks like?" Unknown tilted its head to the side. "When I escaped, I was captured and used as a simply trading card for months. Perhaps I should award you for freeing me, but beware. Don't choose anything that's above your worth."

"Ho, my worth?" PhantomFire ran a hand through his hair. That creature, whatever its name was, did a good job amusing him. "I don't think you have anything worth enough the clothes I'm wearing, more less, something worth as much as yours truly. But I want to know the name of the worm that dares to stand like a king in front of me."

"Pride, arrogance, an unmatchable ego – you are an interesting specimen." Unknown acknowledged. "My name is Tardix, I'm the sentience connected to the dragon you are seeing, and a small correction on your part; you should use the 'queen' instead of the male 'king' when addressing me. Now that I introduced myself, shouldn't you do the same, human? Or do you prefer to be called just 'human'?"

"My name is Evan Greyson!" PhantomFire declared. "But that's not a name you have the right to address me by, nor will you have the chance to do so."

"Hmm, let's see about that." Tardix narrowed her eyes and glanced toward the current state of the duel field. "We are currently in the middle of a duel? And you got the lead as well. I can't have that! I banish World Legacy - "World Chalice" to add a World Legacy card from my deck to the hand! I add World Legacy Clash and activate my other self's effect! I can discard a number of cards to distribute that many Ice Counters between cards on the field."

"So you searched cards in order to discard them? What a desperate move."

"Don't underestimate me." Tardix stated and gestured toward her field. "If I activate my effect on the turn I'm summoned, I can send cards from the top of my deck instead of discarding. I mill four cards to put ice counters on myself, Ib the World Chalice Priestess, Red Resonator and Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend! Cynet Zero!"

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon spread outs its wings and the green circles began to charge electricity and spread it throughout the crystal feathers, which began to glow and consumed the field in their light.

PhantomFire put a hand over his eyes and looked away, as to not get blinded by the intense light. He heard his monsters roaring and crying out, but he was unable to do or see anything. At least not until the light died down and then…

Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend and Red Resonator were both frozen inside huge chunks of ice, the spark of life inside their eyes was completely gone. The condition of his monsters took PhantomFire aback, but he figured that there was no need to worry since Tardix's Battle Phase already ended.

"How do you see me now, human?" Tardix asked. "Because of my effect, all monsters with Ice Counters that aren't adapted to the water attribute are completely frozen. Unable to attack, unable to change battle positions or use their effects, they are nothing more than statues now. But that's not the best part! For every Ice Counter on the field, I gain three hundred attack points!"

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 2800 + 300*4 → 4000

"I'm going to set two cards on my field and end my turn." Tardix finished, setting two cards in front of herself. "Although you revived your dragon it's useless now and it can't even protect you."

This didn't faze PhantomFire at the slightest and instead he even smirked, seeing how Tardix fell to take one crucial detail in her observation. "You think so?"

"What could you even do with-" Tardix stopped herself. Her eyes widened as she came to the realization that Red Resonator was, in fact, a tuner monster. "Don't tell me that you are going to tune your dragon!"

"Despite the short time we know each other, there is something you must know about me." PhantomFire pointed at himself. "My dueling surpasses rational thought and my ability to evolve is infinitive! Allow me to demonstrate it to you. My turn, draw!"

『Turn 4 [PhantomFire] LP: 6100 Hand: 2』

PhantomFire looked at the card that he drew and then at his opponent. "Because of the effect of Ledger of Legerdemain, destiny is going to claim you two turns from now."

"Only if you have strong cards…" Tardix muttered to herself.

"No card is weak! Now, I'm going to burn Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend's soul to its limits! I tune Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend to Red Resonator!" PhantomFire shouted and threw his arms upward. The ice coffins that kept his monsters as prisoners broke into pieces and Red Resonator turned into two rings that surrounded Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend.

"Let the peaks roar! Split the mountains and come forth, along with the flames of the earth! Synchro Summon! Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane (Lv.10, ATK: 3500)!" A larger version of Red Dragon Archfiend flew through the rings and landed in the Extra Monster Zone with a loud roar.

"No!" Tardix stepped back. She couldn't tell why, but she was suddenly experiencing the feeling 'fear' and it wasn't the dragon that scared her.

"Because two counters were removed, Tardix loses attack points!" Silver Star reminded from the sidelines.

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 4000 - 300*2 → 3400

"Your monster is now stronger than me?!" Tardix cried out in panic.

"Now I activate Bane's effect!" PhantomFire pointed toward his monster and flames consumed it. "I release Bane in order to revive Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend (Lv.8, ATK: 3000)!" The flames burst and its lesser form raised from the fire.

Again, PhantomFire's move caught Tardix off guard. Did he summon Bane only to revive the weakerScarlight Red Dragon Archfiend without any Ice Counters on top of it? No matter how she looked at that move, it was a tactical mistake through and through!

"Fool, the monster you revived isn't strong enough to defeat me!" Tardix gloated.

"The fool here is you." PhantomFire stated. "If I cared about your dragon-self, I would have already taken care of it. Instead, I'm going to leave it there. Your dragon-self will stand as your last spark of hope until I choose to tear it down and let you burn inside the black flames of despair! I'm now going to activateScarlight Red Dragon Archfiend's effect! Once per turn, it can destroy all Special Summoned Effect Monsters whose attack is less than its own and you take five hundred points of damage for each destroyed by this effect! Absolute Powerflame!"

The monster roared and clenched its right fist, setting it on fire. Red Dragon roared and hit the ground with its fist, creating a huge wall of fire that fell on top of Tardix's monsters.

"I activate Ib the World Chalice Priestess' effect to release it and protect my monsters from getting destroyed!" The magician disappeared and a barrier formed in front of Tardix's other monsters, stopping the flames from reaching them. "Then, because Ib the World Chalice Priestess was send to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon Beckoned by the World Chalice (Lv.4, DEF: 0) from my hand!"

"So you avoided damage." PhantomFire closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again. "I expected that much from a Duel Monster. But this sacrifice that Link Monster, you only opened another door of despair for yourself! Because there are less counters, your monster's attack drops again!"

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 3400 - 300 → 3100

"When a Synchro Monster is on my field, I can Special Summon Synkron Resonator (Lv.1, ATK: 100) from my hand!" PhantomFire swiped a card across his Duel Disk and the fiend appeared before him.

"Another tuner…" Tardix already knew what was going to happen next.

"I tune Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend to Sykron Resonator!" the Resonator this time turned into a single green ring and flew upward, so that Scarlight would chase after it. The dragon flew through and its body was replaced by a yellow outline with eight glowing orbs inside of it.

"Demon King unleashed from the darkness of the abyss! Let your rage explode! Synchro Summon! Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss (Lv.9, ATK: 3200)!"

"Unlike its Level Eight reincarnation that only destroys like a mindless brute and the Level Ten whose only use is as a sacrifice for the higher or lower level versions, the Level Nine Red Dragon Archfiend is the real deal!" Silver Star stated.

"Are you starting to see the reality of this situation?" PhantomFire asked. "I'm going to use Abyss to attack Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior!"

"Fool! I activate the Quick-Play Spell, World Legacy Crash to banishBeckoned by the World Chalice and reduce your monster's attack by its own!" But instead, nothing happened. Tardix looked at her card and saw that it was greyed out for some reason. "Why didn't my card activate?"

"Bane's effect lets it negate a card's effect once per turn." PhantomFire explained and the spell card that Tardix tried to activate shattered. "You got nothing to stop my attack with, which means that that your monster's going to get destroyed." Abyss roared and slammed its fist into Ningirsu, who cried out in pain as he was thrown backward and blew up.

『Tardix LP: 2300 - 700 → 1600』

"Next, because Abyss dealt damage to you, I can revive Red Resonator (Lv.2, DEF: 200) from my Graveyard and its effect then let's me gain Life Points equal to Abyss' attack points." A circle of flames surrounded PhantomFire once again and his Life Points got a boost for a second time.

『PhantomFire LP: 6100 + 3200 → 9300』

"You…" Tardix looked at her opponent's states. "You knew about the card that I was going to activate and that's why you attacked with Abyss instead of Scarlight!"

"Of course I knew. It was the card that you searched through World Chalice's effect." PhantomFire pointed out. "I still have one set card on my field so beware. I'm ending my turn there."

"My Turn! Draw!"

『Turn 5 [Tardix] LP: 1600 Hand: 1』

"I activate Pot of Avarice to shuffle my two Auram the World Chalice Blademaster, two Imduk the World Chalice Dragon and one Lee the World Chalice Fairy into my deck to draw two cards!" PhantomFire remained uncaring, letting his opponent resupply her hand despite the fact that negating Pot of Avarice by itself would win him the duel.

Tardix looked at the cards he drew and pressed one of them. "I activate Symbols of Duty to release Beckoned by the World Chalice and Special Summon Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane (Lv.10, ATK: 3500) from your Graveyard!"

"Ho, so you realized how weak you are and choose to steal one of my trophies?" PhantomFire tilted his head to the side amused by that.

"Fool, your ego is going to be your downfall." Tardix hissed. "I activate World Legacy's Heart to return Lee the World Chalice Fairy and Beckoned by the World Chalice from my Graveyard to the hand!" Tardix quickly tapped one of the cards added to her hand. "I Summon Beckoned by the World Chalice (Lv.4, ATK: 1800). Judging by the cards I shuffled back with Pot of Avarice, you already know what's going to come next, don't you?"

"Go on, I'm going to hold onto Abyss' effect for now." PhantomFire crossed his hands.

"Open, circuit that freezes time itself!" Tardix's hands charged with electricity and she fired four lightnings that created the outlines of the square before completely materializing it. "Arrowhead confirmed! Summoning condition is one Normal Monster! I set Beckoned by the World Chalicein the Link Markers! Link Summon! Imduk the World Chalice Dragon (ATK: 800, Link-1)!" The green dragon jumped in the Extra Monster Zone and roared.

"I activate Imduk's effect to Normal Summon a second time this turn. Come, Lee the World Chalice Fairy (Lv.2, ATK: 100)!" the blue fairy few behind Imduk and landed between all three dragons. "Next, Lee's effect let's me add World Legacy - "World Chalice" to my hand and then I activate my effect to discard it and put an Ice Counter on Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss!"

"I activate Abyss' effect to negate Tardix's abilities until the end of this turn!" PhantomFire cried out, his Synchro raised its right fist, creating a ring of fire around Tardix's body, an action that caused the possessed virtual body to winch in pain even through it was the dragon that got hurt. "And because your dragon lost its powers, it also loses the attack boost as well!"

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 3100 - 300 → 2800

"Then I'm going to destroyHot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss with Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane!" The two dragons roared and slammed their fists into each other's face before pulling back. The dragons launched a blast of flames from their mouths next and the two attacks hit each other.

Fire flew all over the field as the dragons gave their best to overpower reach other. Silver Star watched from the sideline with eyes wide open while PhantomFire remained unfazed even through the fire was falling on his side of the field.

Eventually, Bane's blast overpowered Abyss' and the Level 9 Synchro exploded after a final roar of defeat, leaving only Red Resonator to protect PhantomFire.

『PhantomFire LP: 9300 - 300 → 9000』

"I praise you." PhantomFire said while dusting his outfit. "You were actually able to deal some damage to me. Of course that doesn't mean much, given what's going to happen next."

"I attack your Red Resonator with Auram the World Chalice Blademaster!" The Cyberse monster jumped over and slashed the tuner with its blade. "Then I attack you directly with Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon!"`

"You are trying to bite more than you deserve, dog!" PhantomFire shouted and another wall of flames appeared in front of him. This time, Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss flew through it and landed in front of Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, roaring at the fusion.

"But how?" Tardix questioned.

"The trap that I set two turns ago, Miracle's Wake." PhantomFire gestured toward the card that appeared from within the flames. "This trap revives a monster that was destroyed by battle during this turn. In this duel, you will only be able to damage when I give you permission and as much as I allow you to."

If Tardix's current body had teeth, they would definitely be broken from her gritting them too hard. The Ignis were barely able to stop her with combined strength, yet a single human…

"I end my turn." At the end of Tardix's turn, her dragon self roared again, having regained its complete power.

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 2800 + 300 → 3100

"It's my move then! Draw!"

『Turn 6 [PhantomFire] LP: 9000 Hand: 2』

"I activate Advance Draw to release Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss and draw two new cards!" A grin appeared on PhantomFire's face as his monster burned to ashes and he got to draw 2 cards.

"If you attacked with it, you would have dealt a lot of damage to me." Tardix pointed out.

"I already told you that my dueling is beyond the capabilities of reason." PhantomFire boasted. "When there are no monsters on my field, I can Special Summon Unknown Synchron (Lv.1, ATK: 0) from my hand." A small circular pile of metal with a red eye appeared on PhantomFire's field. "Next, I banish Destiny HERO Maliciousfrom my Graveyard to Special Summon one Destiny HERO Malicious (Lv.6, DEF: 800) from my deck!"

"You plan to start rebuilding your entire field from scratch!?" Tardix tilted her head in confusion. What was that human doing?!

"I tune my Level Six Destiny HERO Malicious to my Level One Unknown Synchron!" the little pile of metal turned into a ring and the demonic hero jumped through it, transforming into six balls of light.

"Lofty rose that buds in a garden of integrity! Bloom here, watered by blue moonlight! Synchro Summon! Black Rose Moonlight Dragon (Lv.7, ATK: 2400)!" Yet another alternative version of a recognizable dragon raised on PhantomFire's field.

"I activate Moonlight Dragon's effect! When it's is Summoned, I can return one of your Special Summoned monsters back to the hand! I return Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane!" Black Rose Moonlight Dragon wrapped its thorns around the stronger Synchro and Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane roared in pain before it faded away, its card returning back to PhantomFire.

The Synchro Duelist looked down at his card and smirked. "That's enough fun for you, Bane. Seriously, getting used by such a pathetic duelist, but you are still worth something, so I won't throw you away."

"Is that how you treat your monsters?" Tardix hissed. "Like they are just items?"

"My monsters?" PhantomFire looked at the strange creature with confusion. "Those cards aren't mine. They are trophies that I won through dueling. In fact, they should be grateful that I'm using them in a duel instead of letting them collect dust behind a glass. But enough chatting! I activate another Spell: Stardust Shimmer! I banish Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend and Unknown Synchron from my Graveyard to revive Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss (Lv.9, ATK: 3200)!"

"That monster again!"

"Let's battle! I attack Auram the World Chalice Blademaster with Black Rose Moonlight Dragon!" the dragon threw its thorns toward the Cyberse, hitting the warrior across the chest.

『Tardix LP: 1600 - 100 → 1500』

"I banish World Legacy's Heart from my Graveyard to negate the destruction!" Auram the World Chalice Blademaster put a hand over its wound and raised its head, ready to continue.

"Then I'm going to attack it with Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss!" PhantomFire's second Synchro monster slammed Auram the World Chalice Blademaster into the ground and the monster cried out as it was destroyed.

『Tardix LP: 1500 - 900 → 600』

"Then, Abyss' effect revives Red Resonator (Lv.2, DEF: 200) and its effect increases my Life Points again!" PhantomFire threw his head back and raised his arms upward, accepting the healing effect of his monster.

『PhantomFire LP: 9000 + 3200 → 12200』

"That's just mean!" Silver Star laughed. PhantomFire didn't need that much Life Points, but he was still boosting himself just to mess up with his opponent.

"I'm not done." PhantomFire shook his head and took another card from his hand. "I activate Sacred Sword of Seven Stars to banish Black Rose Moonlight Dragon from my field and draw two cards. You already served your use for me, so now disappear!" Black Rose Moonlight Dragon lowered its head and its body faded away while PhantomFire drew two new cards from his deck. "I'm setting all cards in my hand and end it there. The countdown is nearby, Cyberse Dragon. On my next turn, this will end, so try to entertain me a bit more until we get there."

Tardix clenched her fist. Scanning through the current state of the field, she calculated that the chances to defeat PhantomFire were below ten percent.

"My turn! Draw!"

『Turn 7 [Tardix] LP: 600 Hand: 1』

"I activate Monster Reborn!" Tardix declared and a portal appeared before her. "With it, I revive Ningirsu the World Chalice Warrior (ATK: 2500, Link-3)!"

"Mm, using the same monster yet again? That's an old trick, learn something new." PhantomFire yawned and snapped his fingers, causing the Monster Reborn to turn grey and then fall into dust. "Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss negates it!"

Zero percent… Tardix' body collapsed on its knees and her eyes looked down at the ground. Her chances to defeat that opponent were completely zero. Even if she banished World Legacy - "World Chalice" to search a card, none of these within her deck could change the duel.

"How? HOW!?" Tardix yelled. "A human, a creature so imperfect and prone to take illogical actions should not be standing above me! I'm perfection!"

"Apparently not." PhantomFire remarked, drawing.

『Turn 8 [PhantomFire] LP: 12200 Hand: 1』

"On this turn, I'm going to teach you what's absolute power! Because of Ledger of Legerdemain, I add the three cards I banished three turns ago onto my hand." The cards popped out of PhantomFire's Duel Disk and he looked over them, before activating another card. "I activate one of my set cards, Pot of Acquisitiveness to shuffle Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, Black Rose Moonlight Dragon and Destiny HERO Malicious that are banished back into my deck and draw a card!"

"Now, I will Normal Summon Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio (Lv.3, ATK: 1200) and activate its effect to discard Plaguespreader Zombie and Special Summon Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra (Lv.3, ATK: 1000) from my deck." Two plants that looked like just like the dangerous poisonous animals mentioned in their names appeared on PhantomFire's field.

PhantomFire's grin widened as he continued. "Since DarlingtoniaCobra was summoned the way it was, I can add Fusion Substitute to my hand!" Both of Phantom's eyes began to glow with a red flame forming around his right eye and a purple one around his left one. "Appear circuit of past and future!"

The space above PhantomFire's head cracked, creating a black vortex instead of a square. "Arrowheads confirmed! Summoning conditions are two DARK monsters! I set Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio and Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobrain the Link Markers! Link Summon! Wee Witch's Apprentice (ATK: 1400, Link-2)!" A young girl in blue witch robes flew through the vortex and landed in the Extra Monster Zone.

"Because of Wee Witch's effect, all of my DARK monsters gain five hundred extra attack points!" Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss and Wee Witch's Apprentice both had a red aura spread through their bodies, increasing their power level.

Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss, ATK: 3200 + 500 → 3700

Wee Witch's Apprentice, ATK: 1400 + 500 → 1900

"Next, I return a card from my hand to the top of the deck to revive Plaguespreader Zombie (Lv.2, ATK: 400 → 900) from my Graveyard at the cost of banishing it when it leaves." PhantomFire explained while a deformed zombie crawled onto his field. "And I banish Destiny HERO Malicious to Special Summon another copy from my deck." The demonic hero jumped into the action, its attack points increasing to 1300. "Now, I activate Fusion Substitute to fuse together myPlaguespreader Zombie and Destiny HERO Malicious!"

Both monsters turned into purple lightnings and collided with one another, creating a red, black and purple vortex behind PhantomFire. The duelist put his hands together and began to chant.

"Two deformed emissaries of darkness forsaken by destiny! Now become one and let hell itself take into the form of a new terror!Fusion Summon! Appear! Poisonous dragon with hungry fangs. Level 8! Starving Venom Fusion Dragon (Lv.8, ATK: 2800 → 3300)!"

The slim purple dragon crawled through the portal and stood up behind PhantomFire with the four mouths on its back open and its front mouthpiece split to show its fangs. The monster stretched forward and roared.

"When Starving Venom is Fusion Summoned, it gains the attack power of one Special Summoned monster until the end of the turn." PhantomFire raised his hand and snapped his fingers, giving the beast his order. Complying, Starving Venom's mouths began to absorbTardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon's attack points.

Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, ATK: 3300 + 3100 → 6400

"But I'm not done yet!" Phantom laughed. "I Special Summon another Destiny HERO Malicious (Lv.6, ATK: 800 → 1300) from my deck and tune it with my Red Resonator! Surge, my black flames of vengeance! Synchro Summon! Come, Thought Ruler Archfiend (Lv.8, ATK: 2700 → 3200)!"

"Y-you…" Tardix looked onward. Two powerful Synchro monsters, one Link and even a Fusion. That human, he was…

"I activate Starving Venom's effect! Once per turn, I negate a Level five or higher monster's effects and give them over to Starving Venom. I choose your dragon!" Phantom's Fusion opened its back and reached out to bite Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon. Both the monster and the duelist cried out in pain as that happened.

"Now, I'm going to use that little effect of yours to discard a card and put one more Ice Counter on you!" PhantomFire slid a card into the Graveyard slot of his Duel Disk and Starving Venom's orbs began to glow, consuming the field into a light similar to that of Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon itself.

When the light faded away, the Cyberse monster was standing frozen inside the same coffin that it trapped Phantom's monsters earlier. "Since Tardix lost its effects, she doesn't gain an attack boost anymore and because Starving Venom has her effects now, my monster does get a boost!"

Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon, ATK: 3100 – 300 → 2800

Starving Venom Fusion Dragon, ATK: 6400 + 300*2 → 7000

"This is the end." PhantomFire crossed his arms behind his back and turned to the side. "I'm sorry to say that, but this wasn't even a workout for me. But my friend here has always enjoyed being a little rough with guests so, Starving Venom, have fun. Also don't bother trying to activate your set card in response, my Abyss is still on the field."

The mouths on Starving Venom's back opened and a large web of purple energy appeared behind it, collecting energy for the final attack. The dragon's green eyes glowed and it roared, firing several powerful beams that fused together and stuck Tardix, evaporating the dragon. The four armed duelist screamed in agony as the attack consumed her as well and tore off half of her face.

『Tardix LP: 600 - 4200 → 0』

『Winner: PhantomFire』

"Good work." Silver Star clapped and stepped closer to her brother. "But I would have liked if you didn't waste so much time playing with this piece of junk."

"Well, I was trying to be as serious as possible." Phantom replied and reached to scratch Starving Venom's chin, earning a low pleased roar from the dragon.

Before Silver Star could retort, the Data Storm they were into suddenly shook and began to collapse inward with the winds moving in to engulf the siblings. Starving Venom and Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss roared, feeling threatened by the incoming wall of data and charged their attacks.

"Don't shot at the wind!" PhantomFire shouted, causing the dragons to stop and lower their heads to look at him. "Your attacks are made from energy, they won't do much. We need something physical to create a hole!"

"H-human…" Tardix hissed, slowly standing back up. Her body was glitching, having holes in the head, left shoulder and waist. "I… will…"

"…We just found our way out of this." PhantomFire confirmed and activated the blade of his Duel Disk. "But first, I should take a sample of her data, so Starving."

The dragon roared and sent one of its mouths to bite onto Tardix' body, pulling the four armed doll toward them. Clenching his fist, Phantom pulled his left arm back waiting. Once the doll was within reach, he threw his hand forward and stabbed the creature in the chest with his disk' blade. Tardix threw her head back and screamed, her eyes turning from blue to purple, as data began to run through her body and into Phantom's Duel Disk.

A circuit of data formed on the screen of PhantomFire's device. The duelist smirked and pulled his hand out of Tardix' chest, letting the body to fall on the ground, its eyes turning black. "It seems our friend was carrying something else with herself before ending here. Abyss, do the honors."

The large black and red dragon grabbed Tardix' lifeless body from the ground and threw it toward the Data Storm, then flew after Venom Fusion Dragon and Thought Ruler Archfiend grabbed PhantomFire and Silver Star respectively and flew after.

Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss roared and set its fist on fire. The dragon pumped its fist forward and slammed Tardix' lifeless body against the Data Storm, causing lightnings to fly out upon the collision. More and more pieces of the four armed creatures got torn off by the intensity of the Data Storm, but despite that, Abyss retraced its arm and then slammed its fist against the body one more time.

The extra pressure put onto the already unstable Data Storm, produced an explosion that destroyed tornado from inside and allowed the dragons to flying out.

"How did you know that this would do the trick?" Silver Star turned toward her brother with a curious expression on her face.

"I didn't. Just wanted to get rid of the body." PhantomFire said flatly

"Typically." Silver Star rolled her eyes.

Shrugging to his sister's comment, PhantomFire looked down at his Duel Disk and saw a new data from the strange vortex in front of them. But this time, it was a message written in binary.

01100100 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101111 01111001 0010000001110100 01101000 01100101 01101101

Destroy them. A simply, two word sentence, but one that actually sent chills down Phantom's spine. Not because of the message itself, but because of what that meant. There was something sapient on the other side of that vortex. And the reason why this message was written in binary instead of the strange symbols from before was because whoever it was that stood on the other side, it wanted them to know about it.

Suddenly, the other Data Storms inside the area began to move as well, changing their pathway to collapse together. And worse, the Greysons were exactly in the center where the storms were about to meet.

"What the?" Silver Star gasped before turning to her Duel Disk. "Foxy! Open the gate!"

A moment later, the portal that the siblings used to travel appeared above their heads. The dragons hissed at each other and threw the siblings through the portal before returning back into their cards.

We barely escaped from that death trap. If I didn't have the gateway for easy transportation there would have been no way to escape. The Data Storms were going to tear us apart and kill us!

"You look worn out." Foxy observed the siblings. "Did you find anything interesting?"

"I think… we found more than we asked for. Possible an entire civilization and some more." PhantomFire replied and raised his Duel Disk. The screen glowed and a hologram of two Link Monsters appeared.

"Is that the data from Tardix?" Silver Star raised an eyebrow.

"It is." PhantomFire confirmed. "She was carrying these Cyberse monsters with herself. The superior rulers of time and space respectively. You understand what we must do with them, right?"

Silver Star didn't respond to the question. Instead, she turned around and began to prepare the coding for what they were going to do next. Whatever was hiding behind the vortex, it tried to kill them three times in a row and the possibilities were that it would try again if they didn't work fast. There was only one thing that they could do…

---

"So… Cyberse isn't the only virtual world?" Ai asked.

"So it seems." PhantomFire nodded. "But whatever that other one is, it already showed that it's aim was to destroy us. Possibly destroy the entire network as well. I couldn't let that happen. So, I created a gate around the vortex to make sure that no one else accidentally goes there and dies."

"But the gate wasn't the only thing you created, right?" Ai asked smugly. "I'm able to feel a faint influence of Cyberse inside your own deck as well."

"Indeed, that wasn't the only thing I created." PhantomFire raised his Duel Disk. "Using the data from these two Cyberse monsters along with the data that we found at the vortex, and our old decks as a reference material, we and my sister created six keys for the gate. These keys, are six oGear decks. Each one unique and based of a different attribute, they were designed not only as keys, but also as weapons to protect us in case the gate ever gets opened."

"What about the Knights of Hanoi?" Playmaker asked. "What part of this story do they play?"

"None. There were no Knights of Hanoi in the story." PhantomFire shrugged.

"So you lied to me?" Playmaker narrowed his eyes. It was unpleasant, but he expected that.

"That's what I get for trying to talk with a one track mind." PhantomFire sighed, shaking his head in disappointment. "I told you that you would understand better Picaro's motives and just how big will the effect of a possible Hanoi victory be for the entire virtual reality. If the gate gets opened, or destroyed, the virtual world we know will be gone along with tens of thousands of human lives!"

"There's still something that I don't understand." Ai raised its hand. "If you destroyed Tardix two years ago, why did I felt her presence?"

"Because apparently what I did wasn't enough to destroy her for good." PhantomFire admitted. "She's still somewhere out there and I'm starting to worry about what she could do if we don't find her soon."

"Huh? Why do you worry?" Ai asked. "You already beat her once and I got half of the Code Talkers already back together, so defeating her a third time won't be a problem."

"Do you really believe that?" PhantomFire glanced at the Ignis. "She was created to be a Duel Monster with a free will, so she probably is also able to adapt as well. So tell me, if it took an army to defeat her the first time she invaded Cyberse, what do you think will be her main goal now?"

"Umm…" Ai scratched the back of its head in thought. "Ai. Don't. Know?"

"She will try to build an army on her own." PhantomFire answered. "I heard about the incident with the destroyed decks and I don't think that she did it just to spite a few duelists."

"You think that she collected the data of their decks to use them for herself?" Playmaker raised an eyebrow.

"More than just that. The data of the Hanoi hacked Ai Duelist you faced in SOL's mother computer has apparently completely disappeared after you defeated it. It's clear that she has started to prepare an army, the question is only when she will choose to show herself."

"Ugh, a rogue Cyberse, a violent civilization of virtual beings and the Knights of Hanoi. That's so much trouble to deal with at once!" Ai grabbed its head.

"This leads us to the last thing I wanted to tell you two." PhantomFire stated and turned his back to them. "Ai, your role will be to find traces of Tardix and Playmaker, you must ensure that the Knights of Hanoi will fall, but don't go after Picaro or his group. I and my sister will be the ones to deal with them. If we stop the Knights from opening the gate, there will be no need to worry about anything else."

"There's something that I must ask you." Playmaker said. "Why do you want us to do this, when you are apparently skilled enough to deal with those problems yourself?"

"Because there are rules about how much I can interfere." PhantomFire pointed out. "Playmaker, what I'm telling you isn't my problem, it's yours. I'm just an observer who cares enough to warm you about what's about to come next. I'm able to slow down the Knights of Hanoi's plan, but ultimately it's up to humanity to solve its problems. Whenever you win or lose, humanity's survival or destruction, those are none of my problems. All I care is seeing you struggle, to observe human's will to keep fighting against despair, that sole spark of hope that makes humans take on fights that are impossible for them to win. As long as your little show entertains me, I don't care about anything else."

Playmaker narrowed his eyes. So all that PhantomFire wanted was entertainment? He was called out there not to learn anything advantageous for his fight against Hanoi, but to be someone's jester?

Playmaker's anger didn't have to last for long though. Everything around them began to suddenly become darker. The Cyberse Duelist looked up, witnessing how a black body moved to cover the sun. It was an eclipse, but those weren't supposed to happen in the virtual world. He could even hear the worried voices of other players questioning what was happening.

"Ancient people were scared, thinking that eclipses were signs of cataclysms." Ai explained. "But people today are still scared?"

"More than you think." Playmaker replied. "Even if technology advances, people haven't really changed."

"Really?"

Playmaker narrowed his eyes, looking at the eclipse. "The light is hidden by darkness."

"Please, don't start with the memories of the Lost Incident!" PhantomFire exclaimed. "An eclipse won't just happen out of the blue. Heh, this is a warning Playmaker." It was a warning from the Knights of Hanoi no less. "I should go write a report that my company wasn't involved in this eclipse, but before I leave, there is something I want to ask. What do you plan of doing after you defeat the Knights of Hanoi and they get punished for their crimes?"

Silence.

"If you plan to stop fighting after you defeat them, I should warn you now. The real fighting will start after the Knights of Hanoi are destroyed. Defeating them won't bring your ally's brother into the light, nor will it heal the wounds inside your own heart. If you want to truly win, look at the world around you, at the people, and if you are smart enough, you will be able to overcome the darkness."

Before Playmaker could respond or ask how PhantomFire knew about Kusanagi's brother, the older Duelist jumped off the building and his body disappeared as he logged out.

Now left alone, Playmaker and Ai turned back toward the sky. The eclipse was gone, light was shining down the world once again.

---

A/N: Ah, I have been wanting to do this chapter for so long! With this chapter it's finally revealed what was that Unknown thing that attacked Proxy, Blaze Rose and Go a few chapters earlier and there is a more clear expalantaion about why the oGear decks are so important.

There will probably be questions about how Evan and Avice got that collection of decks and aces from older series, and all I'm going to say for now is that they actually took them away from the characters to whom these cards belonged in the anime and manga. So, the Starving Venom, Red Dragon Archfiend and Black Rose Moonlight Dragon seen in this chapter did use to belong to Yuri, Jack and Akiza respectively.

The most difficult thing I had to do in this chapter was to choose what deck I want to give Tardix. At first I was thinking of random Cyberse monsters, but then I choose the World Chalice because: First, they do have Water and Cyberse monster. Second, their effect monsters have effects in the Graveyard so discarding is benefitial for the archetype. Three, don't worry I have plans for all the World Legacy connected archetypes including World Chalice, so you will see a pure version of the deck later.

Oh, by the way. Doesn't Tardix, Cryogenic Cyberse Dragon's effect remind you of the playstyle of a certain archetype introduced in this story?

That's all I got to say.

Diabolic Tracer out.