Please do not report this note. It is standard practice - and not to mention obligatory - for stories taking place in the Infinite Loops project to always start with an introduction note, due to the Loops' nature as a community project.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
Welcome to the Infinite Loops, the absolutely massive Spacebattles fanfiction community project that encompasses any fandom you could wish for, and in which anyone and everyone can participate!
The Infinite Loops were first conceived by Innortal, an author on this very site, with his stories about the characters from Ranma 1/2, Bleach, Harry Potter, Sailor Moon, Naruto, Slayers and Neon Genesis Evangelion repeating their lives over and over again.
Later, Saphroneth in Spacebattles found this concept, and recreated the loops, using characters from My Little Pony. Thanks to him, the Infinite Loops project has been revived and going strong for many years, with countless writers and snip complications of hundreds of thousands words.
Which brings us to this fic.
DENN is part of the Yu-Gi-Oh Infinite Loops project, which has two complications on this site - on by Leonite on the original anime's page, and one by CeleneTheAngel on the ARC-V page. Please check them out.
In the Spacebattles website, I am known as Lermis. A few of my snips have been posted here by these authors.
So why is this separate? Well, length for one. While usually snips are a few hundred words long each, with some making larger arcs, DENN will be a full-length novel. We agreed with Celene to post it separately. Also, I wanted to take credit for my work, even though the idea of the Loops is not mine. There's a good chance that other writers will contribute to my efforts. Those writers will be credited too.
In this story, Yusaku Fujiki and Ai will have one of the toughest loops in their lives. They have met the loopers from ARC-V before, true. Have talked to them. Dueled with them. But they have never seen it first hand.
And because of the way the loops work, there's no Link Dimension.
Instead there is Link DENN. And Yusaku, along with Ai, must find a way back to reality.
How will their fellow loopers help them when they have an invasion to worry about?
And now for the standard formalities of every loop-based story: The Loop Mechanics, as explained by Saphroneth.
One person in a loop, often the main character, is an Anchor. They are the person who first starts time looping. (There may be more anchors per loop for a variety of reasons.)
There is always at least one Anchor present in any given Time Loop snippet, though it may not be the local one.
The standard pattern for a loop is that the Anchor (and whoever else is Looping there) come to awareness in a loop at a particular point in the story. From there, events will play out as influenced by the loopers present, acting with the benefit of their foreknowledge, until either a predetermined end point is reached or all the Loopers have copped it.
To be Awake is to be aware of the time loops (that is, to have gone back in time this time.)
The Anchor is the only character guaranteed to be Awake. Even if others have started looping, it is mostly random as to whether they will be Awake this particular loop.
Crossovers, fusions, and alternate pasts can also take place. It is perfectly possible, for example, to have characters Awaken into a loop which conforms to a fanfic universe rather than reality.
There are more rules, but they are community guidelines (please keep point A before point B, for one).
The anchors of ARC-V are Yuya, Yuto, Yuri and Yugo. The anchors for VRAINS are Yusaku and Ai.
Now, please dive in. Welcome to the Infinite Loops.
Welcome to DENN.