The Rise and Fall of History II: Opposing the Present

by Medigo

The world of dueling has reached its climax. Many stories have been told through these cards, and the final story brought everyone together. People are united and yet, an unknown world suffers in their shadow. The fallen one returns in the midst of their peace, pursued and still a stranger to those around. There is not much time to save both his home and his friends.

58. The Worst in Each Other

Redux 33: The Worst in Each Other

"Eric! Thank goodness we found you!" It took a while but Alice and Adamant inevitably ran into Eric. "Why weren't you in your room? I thought you we were too late" They found him back at the dining hall. "What's with all the yelling?" And Eric had Tory for company as well. "Alice? Adamant? What's going on? You thought you were too late for what?" Neither of them seemed to be aware of any dangers. "It's Martel! He's here!" Alice cried out. "What?! How? Who the hell let him in?" Eric shouted back. "Martel? You mean the freaky puppet guy?" Tory got that story from Stonewell before and it did not sound pleasant then. "Yeah! That one! He's sneaking about and turning people into his puppets. We gotta tell everybody while we can! Eric, do you still have the pendulum?!" Alice was the only one who could actually use it and she hoped he had it here. "Oh yeah, of course. I wouldn't leave that lying around in my room." Eric rummaged through his pockets to look for it. "Ergh, stuck it in there deep. Got it!" He janked it out, and immediately it flashed a light in his face. "Gah! Why?" It was reacting.. "Eric, behind you!"

Stonewell's LP: 8000

"Too late, Adamant." The pendulum reacted because two Erics were standing in the same room. "Eric?" The one who was Tory's friend appeared exhausted and bewildered. "Not you." Stonewell brushed 'his friend' off and activated his dueldisk. "!?" That disk formed several forcefields which trapped the duelists inside the room. "Oye!? What's the big idea, Stonewell?" Eric and Stonewell themselves were separated from the rest, their dueldisks connected through a challenge. "Because, Martel demands it." Stonewell declared coldly. "He's under his control?" Alice gasped. "You were the one that got him inside." Adamant grunted. Stonewell knew what the inside of the palace looked like and Martel could see what his puppets saw. "So that was why you were gone for so long?" The only reason Tory was here was so Eric wanting to tell about Amelia's phonecall. The truth was worse than what she could have imagined. "He came to me, just after I dropped off Amelia, to collect his new Knight. I was already his long before that."

"Tch. The king and queen defeated you back in the tunnels." Adamant realized. He should have kept a closer eye on him. "But you're still you aren't you? Can't you fight back?" Alice thought that if Stonewell could talk then he could also be reasoned with. "There's no fighting when I don't want to fight. I am in control, while Martel is my king. No-one else will make me feel right again." Stonewell drew five cards. "This sounds too familiar." Eric winced. Stonewell was as much in denial as he'd been when Martel and Phoebe used him as a pawn. "So Martel just replaced me with you huh?" The only cure was a dueling defeat. Eric started drawing cards as well. "For now. But I told him I would bring you all into the fold as well. I need to show you, how much better it is to follow him!"

Eric's LP: 8000

"Bring it!" Eric took the first turn. "Okay. Hang on guys, I don't know how long this will take!" He placed a trap card down and summoned the eyepatch-wearing kuriboh Kuribandit(3/1000/700). "Kuribandit can sacrifice himself!" The bandit shattered into shards. "During the end of the turn, Kuribandit will show five cards from the deck and send them to the grave!" The top five of his deck was excavated, revealing the Infernoids Sjette, Patrulea, Pirmais and Harmadik, along with a Void Purification trap card. "But I can keep one if its a spell or trap!" Eric took that trap while he sent the Infernoids to the graveyard. "Hey! You left yourself wide open!" Tory roared. "Yeah I know that! I also know what I'm doing! Not every duel I start ends with me losing!"

"They haven't, thanks to the help of others." Stonewell glared at Alice. "Me? But you helped him too!" She protested, reminding him of the templar tagteam duel. "And I will do that again, once he has returned. After all, we need to be of one mind." The 'Knight' began his turn and activated the spell: Summoners Art. "I add one level 5 or higher normal monster to my hand." The spell claimed an Igknight Cavalier. "...But I know you too well, Eric. Because I am you. You didn't really leave yourself defenseless." Instead of going for an igknight pendulum summon swarm, Stonewell merely normal summoned Igknight Crusader(3/1600/300) and attacked Eric directly with it. "Oh, fine!" Eric flipped his trap anyway. "Blazing Mirror Force!" All attacking monsters would be destroyed and both duelists would lose lifepoints equal to the victims attackpoints. "Oof!" Igknight Crusader blew up and Eric took the reflected blaze first. Then the flames reached Stonewell and knocked him to the ground as well. "Guh, you idiot! That just hurt you both! What were you gonna do if he summoned enough monsters to take out all of your lifepoints!" Tory couldn't help but yell at them both. They looked the same right now anyway, with their faces to the ground.

Eric's LP: 6400 Stonewell's LP: 6400

"Same damn thing." Eric crawled back up. His opponent got up at the same time. "Of course. It would not be suicide when this is just one game in Martels entire battle royal. The duels wouldn't cease with your defeat." Stonewell would lose his lifepoints the very next second. "Oh.. but Eric. You gotta be more careful than that!" Even if ties counted, Alice did not like those kinds of plans. "Yeah alright." Eric grumbled. Taking this damage was painful enough in itself. "At least I took away his defenses now!" Eric happily took his second turn. All Stonewell did after the Blazing explosion was setting one trap, and Eric was not going to be intimidated by that. "Infernoid Belphegor!" He banished the Infernoids Harmadik and Patrulea from his graveyard to revive the winged hellprince Sjette(6/2400/0). "Don't be confused just because he looks like me, hit Stonewell with all you got!" He ordered a direct attack. "Ragh!" Infernoid Sjette slashed Stonewell's side with his iron claws. "Ergh." Eric swore he could feel the hit himself. It was odd to duel your own reflection. "When Sjette inflicts damage, you have to banish one card from your extra deck. The..."

Stonewell's LP: 4000

"The only..wait a second." Eric was sure Stonewell only kept pendulums in his deck. The only card in the extra deck should have been Igknight Crusader. "What are those?" Yet there was a whole stack of cards in there, all face-down. "Stonewell? Since when did you have extra deck monsters?" It did not matter whether they were Fusions, synchros or XYZs; Tory never saw Stonewell use any of those. "To become the new Knight, I had to improve myself. I am not part of any collection, I am a member of his guild." Stonewell spoke with pride as he gave up one of the hidden monsters to the banishing effect of Sjette. "Stonewell.." Tory couldn't believe her ears. "Bah." Eric set another card in the spell/trap zone and let his turn end. "I activate Void Purification!" During Stonewells standby phase, he could activate that continuous trap. "When your turn begins, I get an Infernoid from my graveyard!" He used that effect to move Infernoid Pirmais from the graveyard to his hand.

"Are you done? Then it's my turn! I set the scales!" Stonewell activated the pendulum monsters Igknight Cavalier and Igknight Squire. "Destroy!" The Cavalier shot the Squire and vice-versa. The two pendulums died to the crossfire and used their remaining power to draw another Igknight from Stonewells deck. "And now, Igknight Squire and Dragoons of Draconia!" Igknight Veteran (scale 7), the added longswordsman, was placed on the left side. Dragoons of Draconia, a raptor riding swordsman (scale 2), hit the left pendulum zone. "I Pendulum Summon Igknight Cavalier, Igknight Squire and Igknight Crusader!" All the knights destroyed so far returned to the field, the Squire(3/0/2000) in defense mode, Crusader and Cavalier(6/2400/1200) in attack mode. "Attack!" Cavalier led a different kind of kamikaze charge, from the monster zone. It threw its grenades at Infernoid Sjette. The equally strong demon could counterattack and crushed Cavalier with its tail. "And again!" Igknight Crusader then finally scored a direct hit against Eric with his sword. "Yeowh!" Even though it was a shallow cut on the cheek, Eric lost first blood.

Eric's LP: 4800

"And now we're even." Stonewell chuckled dryly. "You're the least even with me ever!" Eric cursed. "What is that supposed to mean?" Tory griped. "You didn't notice? He's not using his nicknames for his cards anymore. That just proves that his mind is messed up!" Eric did not have that many shared traits with Stonewell, but giving cooler names to his cards was at least one of them. "Because I have grown, Eric. I discarded childish habits.. Do you need proof, Eric? I will give it to you!" Eric activated the effect of the Draconian pendulum. "When a normal monster inflicts damage, Dragoons of Draconia adds a normal monster to my hand!" After the Crusader's direct attack, Stonewell took a new normal pendulum monster from the deck. "Metalfoes Steelen?" And while this card carried the fire element, it was not an Igknight. It was another card Adamant could not claim familiarity with. "I summon this card!" Stonewell used his normal summon of the turn to bring the Metalfoes to the field. Steelen(2/0/2100) was a blue-haired biker in black and red gear, wielding a flaming sword. "And I activate the spell, Metalfoes Fusion!"

"Fusion!? Oh no!" As Alice and the others already feared, fusions were the cards infesting Stonewells extra deck. "By fusing one Metalfoes monster with two monsters that have 3000 attackpoints or less, I can create Metalfoes Crimsonite!" Steelen and the two igknights vanished as they dove into a fusing vortex of flames. The spell combined the trio to create another Metalfoes pilot(9/3000/3000), riding a red fire-powered mechasuit. "Also, I can return Metalfoes Fusion from my graveyard to my deck, to draw one card." Stonewell shuffled the normal spell into the deck to gain something new from the deck. "So, what are you going to do to overcome this, Eric?" He placed a trap card down and passed the turn back to his counterpart.

"You have to ask? I thought you knew me!" Eric drew his next monster; Infernoid Attondel. "I knew you'd never let me down." During his standby phase, Void Purification contained a different power. It purified the next dimension by returning one banished Infernoid to the graveyeard. Eric unbanished Infernoid Harmadik. "I summon Infernoid Adramelech!" Infernoid Sjette and Infernoid Harmadik were banished from his graveyard as meals for the great duke(8/2800/0) of hell. "And I activate my spell, Burial from another Dimension to unbanish three monsters!" Infernoid Sjette, Harmadik and Patrulea were 'buried' back in their normal graves. "Heh, I banish two of them to summon Infernoid Belphegor again!" The dragon of the eight sin was aided by the demon of the sixth sin. "And I will use the spell! Pot of Acquisitiveness! I can return three banished monsters to the deck, to draw one card!" Eric returned Harmadik and Patrulea, along with the banished Metalfoes Crimsonite, to get a card from his deck. "Fusion schmusion! I am gonna.."

"I activate a trap, Bad Aim." Stonewell calmly revealed his set card. "Heh?" Bad Aim was triggered by the activation of another card; Back-Up Rider. Now it could destroy one different card on the field. "Hey no!" The shot that was fired killed the mighty Infernoid Attondel. "You said I didn't know you. Do you still believe that? I knew you enough to see all your upcoming moves. Just seeing you in action twice is enough to understand how you use that Infernoid deck." Attondel was the only monster Stonewell needed to fear. "And I can see the next move coming too.." Now that Eric controlled less than eight levels of monsters, he could summon an Infernoid. Unfortunately Attondel asked for two banishings, while Eric only had one. "You're not getting to me, Stonewell. I summon Infernoid Satan!" Eric banished Attondel to special summon Infernoid Pirmais, the tiny satanic dragon(1/0/0), in defense mode. "Yeah, you tell em Eric!" Alice cheered him on. "What can he tell me? He couldn't even beat Tory. There is no way he will last against me." Stonewell shook his head and drew his card.

And during that phase, after the draw, Eric flipped his trap. "Then predict this! I activate Needlebug Nest!" He used the trap to discard the next five cards from his deck; which included several Infernoids and a trap card. "And now I can reuse Void Purification!" One of the Infernoids, Decatron, was purified from the grave and added to Erics hand. "Do what you want. You still can't win." Stonewell activated his field spell, Ignition Phoenix. "I can destroy an Igknight, to add an Igknight to my hand!" The blazing phoenix burned the Igknight Veteran, and replaced it with a second Templar Igknight from the deck. "And I set the pendulum monster Metalfoes Volflame!" The base form of Crimsonite took over the pendulum zone, it (scale 8) was a suitable replacement for the Veteran. "Pendulum summon!" Four burning lights left the extra deck and crashed the field; Igknight Cavalier, Crusader, Veteran(6/1300/2700) and Metalfoes Steelen.

"Eric, how is this?! Each pendulum Metalfoes can destroy one of my cards to trade it for a Metalfoes spell or trap!" Stonewell activated Volflame's spell-effect and shattered his own Ignition Phoenix card. "The card I add is, of course, Metalfoes Fusion!" Now with the fusing spell back in his hands, it was played without a moments hesitation. "By fusing one Metalfoes monster with one monster with a monster that has 2500 attackpoints or less, I will create Metalfoes Adamante!" Steelen jumped into the air and disassembled his motorcycle. The vehicle's parts fused to his body like armor, with the wheels forming winged turbines that kept the Metalfoe flying in the air. Igknight Veteran meanwhile was converted to flames and added raw power to Adamante's burning sabers. This was Adamante(5/2500/2500) the fused psychic swordsman. "And I summon Igknight Templar!" The candidate for the normal summon of the turn was the musketeer Igknight Templar(4/1700/1300). "Lets see.. There's attacks for your monsters and for you!" The battle phase began and Metalfoes Crimsonite blasted towards Infernoid Sjette.

"I'll block you with Necro Gardna!" Fortunately one of Needlebug Nest's discards was the necrotic warrior. Necro Gardna banished itself from the grave to negate the crimson mech's assault. "You'd be an idiot to do otherwise." Stonewell laughed and sent in his remaining forces. Metalfoes Adamante plunged both burning swords into the demon Sjette and sent it down to the inferno. Igknight Crusader similarly sliced up Infernoid Pirmais. "But you cannot brush off everything!" The Igknights Cavalier and Templar attacked directly, barraging Eric with knives and musket fire blasts. "I'm alive enough, Stonewell!" Eric kept up his own cocky grin despite the painful grazing shots. "Still saying that you can win? Ha! Metalfoes Fusion goes back to my deck once more, so that I may draw." The fusion spell shuffled itself out of the grave. And the card Stonewell drew was placed face-down in the spell/trap zone. "I haven't even shown you the best of what this deck can do! None of you can stop me now that Martel has blessed me!"

Eric's LP: 600

"Hm!?" A series of explosions rocked the barrier, loud enough that they could be heard from the other side. "Ah, what the heck?" Tory yelled over the deafening blasts. "Ah, Adamant. Greedy with the warnings as always." Stonewell saw Raidraptor Blaze Falcon through the smoke, the red falcon was the cause of all this destruction. "It didn't work, did it?" But none of its missiles could penetrate his forcefield. "This barrier, it is not guild-tech." If it had been one of his own XYZ-guilds dueldisks, he could have broken it. These fields were even stronger. "It is now. The guilds perfected the technology with the help of Dreamworld. All of their assets became our assets once the guilds and the companies all merged. At least, that is what Martel told me. I do not understand how your world works. You do." Stonewell patted the side of his disk. "A nice attempt though, Adamant. You really go all out when you want to avoid the futures you don't like. Too bad you spent too much time trying to find one and other." Stonewell ended his turn. "Wh-what? What does that mean?" Alice asked him. "That if my King can't eliminate the best duelists, he can at least distract them. Aheh.. I showed him more than the insides of the palace."

...

It was almost suspicious, how easy it was for the master and his two disciples to get to where they wanted to be. The duelists reached the top of the palace in time to pass on their warnings. "Why should we listen to what you're saying? You assaulted a member of the union guard!" That was where the next obstacle presented itself. "Didn't you get the report of what happened on the island, how all those people were taken from their homes and brainwashed to fight your lord there?! The man responsible for all of that is here now!" As expected it was making the ministers believe the information that was the difficult part. "She is right, sir. The people we interrogated after we took them back from the island corroborate that information." At least the palace enforcers seemed to understand what was going on. "This man can control the minds of others? And he is here now? What does he want?" The ministry got a lot more nervous after that confirmation. "We don't know. He might be trying to take over the city. Martel moves fast when it comes to nonduelists." Back in their world the puppetmaster could infest hundreds in less than an hour. "Then we are in luck, I suppose. All my men can duel, and most citizens know how to duel as well. And thanks to their information, he no longer has the element of surprise. We should be able to contain his threat." The lead enforcer stated confidently.

"Contain? Me?" Martel disagreed.

"You.. are not the Lord... Who are you!?" One minister screamed. The way the puppetking unsubtly teleported into the room was just like how the Nisells always showed up. "It's him! He's here!" Zach yelled. "Sir, stand behind me." Iria also protected Dom. "What are you hoping to achieve?" And she activated her dueldisk. "I only want the same things you have. I want you.." Martel gave Zach a quick smirking glance. "Hmph. I don't know how you got inside here, but you wont get anything on your own!" The enforcers surrounded him. "No... not alone. Never alone." Martel chuckled and grabbed several dozen cards from his belt. "What!?" The enforcers flinched. "Are all of those.." Martel activated each and every one, summoning countless of puppets. "Those are.. the prisoners?! You took them from the Monument!" Iria spotted a few faces she saw before in the mainframe's profiles. "Getting new pieces would take too long. But because of you, using the same technology as me.. you already had so many spare pieces laying around. I am borrowing them... Now, let's play."

(To be Continued in Redux 032: Trail of Selfdestruction)

New Cards used by 'Eric' Stonewell
Kuribandit
Infernoid Pirmais

-
Pot of Acquisitiveness

-
Void Purification

New Cards used by Eric 'Stonewell'
Igknight Veteran
Dragoons of Draconia
Metalfoes Steelen
Metalfoes Volflame

-
Metalfoes Adamante
Metalfoes Crimsonite

-
Summoner's Art
Metalfoes Fusion