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.

59. Trail of Selfdestruction

Redux 32: Trail of Selfdestruction

Eric's LP: 600 Stonewell's LP: 4000

"I don't know what you're implying and I don't like it.." Eric was up against five of Stonewells monsters including two fusions; not a pretty sight. "But you got another thing coming if you think you can talk me into quitting! Its my turn!" He drew his card and reactivated Void Purification to return the banished Infernoid Attondel to his graveyard. It was time to fight back. "I summon Decatron and activate his effect to copy Infernoid Beelzebub from my deck!" The demons head Decatron(1/500/200) absorbed the level, name and powers of the many-clawed Infernoid Antra by sending that level 2 demon to the graveyard. "Now Antra Decatron can return one face-up monster on the field back to the deck! I choose Igknight Cavalier!" Decatron(3/500/200) ignited the floor underneath Stonewells strongest Igknight(6/2400/1200) and forced it away. "Cavalier? What the hell?! What about all those Metalfoe things?" Tory complained about his seemingly poor choice of targets. "Eric has a plan.. I think." Alice hoped so at the very least.

"Of course I do! Just destroying those pendulums isn't going to keep them down. But what I can permanently destroy.. are fusion monsters!" Eric banished Infernoid Attondel and Antra from the graveyard. "I special summon Sjette!" The sixth sinner demon(6/2400/0) was the one he revived with those graveyard sacrifices. And Eric put Sjette's card together with Decatron the tuner. "I synchro summon a monster; the Vermillion Dragon Mech!" Nine stars converged for this synchro monster. "Oh?" It was a red and white painted tank with the upper body of a dragon(9/2700/1800) and over a dozen turrets and barrels. "Dragon Mech banishes one tuner from my graveyard to destroy one of your cards, Stonewell! I banish decatron!" The mech's shouldercannons locked on to Metalfoes Crimsonite(9/3000/3000). "Fire!" Two shots went off, and two massive shells drilled through Crimsonite. The fused Metalfoes exploded in a sea of vermillion flames. "Spectacular. I bet his regular attack will look just as devastating! Dragon Mech, attack Metalfoes Adamante!" With its handcannons, the Vermillion machine blasted through the adamantium cyborg(6/2500/2500). "I set two trap cards and end my turn!"

Stonewell's LP: 3800

During Stonewells standby phase, Void Purification returned Infernoid Pirmais to Eric's hand. "So you managed a comeback." Stonewell was a little impressed. All he controlled now was Igknight Crusader(4/1600/400) and Igknight Templar(4/1700/1300). "But you're still acting like a kid, and you do not think ahead. With your lifepoints, you cannot afford small steps!" Stonewell used Dragoons of Draconia (scale 2) and Metalfoes Volflame (scale 8), to resummon Igknight Squire(3/0/2000) and Metalfoes Steelen(2/0/2100) from the extra deck. "Because the fusions will not stop! Metalfoes Volflame destroys Igknight Squire with its effect! And I will take Metalfoes Fusion!" The Volflame pilot blasted the magnum-dagger wielding knight to give his master a certain Metalfoes spell in the deck. "Metalfoes fusion!" Metalfoes Steelen and Igknight Crusader were fused together by that spell. "I went easy on you so far, Eric! Now come the big guns! Fusing a Metalfoes monster with a pendulum monster turns it into Metalfoes Mithrilium!" Another masked metalfoes pilot revealed herself. In this form though she was Metalfoes Mithrilium, the pink-haired psychic(6/2600/1000) in winged mythril armor. "By returning two Metalfoes monsters from my graveyard, Mithrilium can return one of your monsters to your deck! I.."

"Two, you say?" Stonewell was in the middle of activating Mithrilium's effect when Eric flipped his trap. "I activate Fiend Griefing! I can kill one demon monster in my deck, to put one of your dead monsters back in yours!" Fiend Griefing discarded Infernoid Onuncu, and at the same time it shuffled Metalfoes Adamante into Stonewell's extra deck. "I only count one Metalfoes now!" Crimsonite was the only card that Mithrilium could find. And Mithrilium needed to return two. "Gghk. You.." The fusion monsters effect fizzled out. "Saw it coming? Sorta! This predicting strategies-thing is a two-way street, Stonewell!" They were the same person, Eric could think like Stonewell too if he wanted too. "Even so, there are limits you cannot break with strategies alone." Stonewell activated Metalfoes Fusion from his graveyard, returning it to his deck to draw one card. "And my deck is superior to yours, Eric." He placed two of his trap cards down and switched Igknight Templar to defense mode.

"It's not merely about cards, Stonewell." Adamant spoke up unexpectedly. "A duelist is more than his tactics and his tools. Even your King knows that." Martel left Stonewell with enough awareness for a reason. "You judge others so easily, Adamant. Are those the perks of leadership? Not for me, it is much easier to follow than to lead." He sneered. "Okay, now I know you're crazy. The Eric I know would never say that!" Tory protested. "That Eric is gone. he was an idiot who thought he could change the world. We were wrong, Tory!" Stonewell passed the turn to Eric at this point. "Wrong? If you ask me, the fusion guild is what's wrong!" In his standby phase, Void Purification returned the banished Infernoid Decatron to the graveyard so that the Vermillion Synchro had a tuner to banish again. "I'm tired of your talk, and your fusions and your pendulums! Dragon Mech, destroy Metalfoes Volflame!" The mech's cannons fired at and blew up the monster in the right pendulum zone. "And kill Mithrilium too while you're at it!" During the battle phase, Vermillion Dragon Mech attacked Metalfoes Mithrilium and shot her out of the sky.

Stonewell's LP: 3700

"When Metalfoes Mithrilium is destroyed, one other Metalfoes monster can be summoned from the extra deck or graveyard." The destroyed machine released one of its original fusion materials, Metalfoes Steelen, and made it land safely on the field while it crashed in the background. "Meh, I can deal with that." Eric placed a trap and a monster face-down and let Stonewell have his turn. "Can you? You're still not seeing the bigger picture, Eric! Look at your friend, your XYZ-leader!" Stonewell pointed at Adamant. "He was willing to go to war to save his world, and turned hundreds if not thousands of duelists into soldiers just for that! Is that any different from what Martel does?!" His question was for Eric and for everyone else too. "It.. It is! Martel doesn't ask people, he makes them do it!" Alice was the first to answer. "That's just how you see it from the outside. But Martel never lied to us, he told us everything! Meanwhile Adamant kept the truth from his men, and the truth was not even 'true' to begin with. Or was it Adamant? All that preparation, wasted! You though the Union and the Circle were your enemy. You did not see that the danger was time itself!"

"Eric.." Tory was besides herself. Stonewell did not sound like himself at all anymore. "And your guild has the answer to this true enemy? To fuse the worlds?" Phoebe spoke off this before, but Adamant didn't understand her goals then. "Martel knows it can be done. He has seen the world outside of time.. he has seen more than most of us. Not the Zodiacs, not Vesper, not Uno; he will save us." Stonewell drew his card. "You're lucky, Eric. But I wont let that stop me!" He placed a Metalfoes Silverd pendulum monster; Mithriliums original pilot (scale 1), in the empty pendulum zone. "Silverd destroys Draconia!" Silverd's effect was the same as Volflame's. By destroying one of his cards, Stonewell could grab a Metalfoes Fusion spell from the deck. So he got rid of the now useless Draconians. "And I activate Induced Explosion!" The destruction of this card also triggered one of his traps. "When a spell destroys one of my cards, Induced Explosion destroys one of yours!" A lit fuse ran across the floor, from Stonewell to Vermillion Dragon Mech. "Ah hell.." The explosion was induced once the spark reached the end of the fuse, and the machine dragon was torn to shrapnel.

"But I get one banished tuner back, when Vermillion Dragon Mech is destroyed!" Eric yelled as he took Decatron from the banished zone. "So what? I summon Metalfoes Goldriver." The final member(4/1900/500) of the Metalfoes gang drove up to the field on his golden buggy. "And Metalfoes Fusion fuses him with Metalfoes Steelen! Two Metalfoes together fusion summon Metalfoes Orichalc!" The two drivers combined their vehicle parts and power. Steelen disappeared while Goldriver adorned golden armor(8/2800/2200) with four big wheels on its back. "Also, I activate the continuous trap, Metalfoes Combination! With a Metalfoes fusion monster summoned, a Metalfoes monster with a lower level is summoned from the graveyard. That means Metalfoes Mithrilium." The silver metalfoe in her flying armor paired up with Metalfoes Orichalc, and loomed over Erics last monster. "Let's battle, Eric! My metalfoes against your defender! Orichalc makes it so that all my Metalfoes inflict double piercing damage!" The Orichalcum warrior grabbed two flaming axes and dove down. "Just listen to yourself, Eric, and give up. You were already his once before."

"Did you forget that the guild threatened my mom? Your mom? You can't talk me into joining their side again! Besides, listening to myself got me in trouble in the first place!" Eric activated the trap: Power Wall. "When a monster attacks me, I can send a number of cards from my deck to the graveyard! The number has to be greater than the damage I would take, if I multiply that number by 500!" When the Orichalc's axes came down and turned Erics defending Fiendish Rhino Warrior(3/1400/900) to ash, 3800 points of doubled piercing damage were counted. Ten times 500 was more than that, so the damage was cancelled out after Eric discarded ten cards from his deck. "Then I activate Spiritual Swords of Revealing Light from my graveyard, and negate all direct attacks for the rest of the turn!" One of those ten cards was the golden sword trap, which Eric to keep Mithrilium locked down. "Hmph." Stonewell figured something like that could happen. That was why he tried to use piercing attacks in the first place.

"Phoebe was the one who threatened your mother, Eric. She's gone now. It's just Martel who remains, who created the guild." Stonewell reactivated Metalfoes Fusion' graveyard effect to draw one card and placed the drawn card in the spell/trap zone, along with another trap. "Martel did.. How?" Adamant asked. "I am not telling you, XYZ-champion. Not until you have joined us, like the rest of your guild." Stonewell turned his seething eyes towards the others. "Tory, you should get me. We were working for them to begin with, we just didn't know." He was telling the truth, she knew that. "We didn't know.." But it was not the same, nothing was the same. "Yeah! She didn't! How is that okay? Actually, why am I still talking to you? I know you wont listen!" Eric started his turn. Void Purification unbanished Infernoid Attondel this turn. "Satan!" In the next phase he special summoned the Infernoid Pirmais(1/0/0) from his hand by banishing Infernoid Sjette from the graveyard. "And you will return my traps? Not on your life!" Stonewell reacted with another continuous trap that cost 1000 lifepoints: Skill Drain. Now all monster effects on the field were negated. "I have seen all your tricks! You need to adapt or you die, Eric!"

Stonewell's LP: 2700

"That's funny.. because I'll show you a trick!" Eric took one card from his hand and.. placed it in his pendulum zone. "Wha?" Alice gasped. She had no idea Eric was using those now. "A Pendulum!?" None of them did. "Meet Archfiend Eccentrick! This girl can tribute herself from the field and destroy a card depending on where she was tributed from!" A childish demon with a feathered cape, tattered dress and horned skull covering her upper face started a dance inside the pendulum zone. "As a spell, she can destroy a spell or trap! And you get one guess which trap I'm picking!" Archfiend Eccentrick burst into starry sparkles as her excitement peaked, and the stars coarsed through Skill Drain to shatter the continuous trap. "You know, Stonewell, this is your fault. You used all those pendulums, so I felt like getting a few of my own. Not because I wanted to be like you, but because I wanted to learn from you. The old you.. not this 'sheep' that's blabbing now! We help people, but not blindly!

"Anyway, Satan can return one of your traps to your hand, which you clearly were afraid of. So.." Infernoid Pirmais targeted the last face-down trap. The unknown card was successfully removed from the field. "Decatron!" Now Eric normal summoned the tuner again. "Now I don't have over eight levels of monsters on my field, so I can summon Infernoid Nehemoth!" Eric banished three Infernoids that were discarded by Power Wall to call the Infernoid Onuncu(10/3000/3000) from the graveyard. "All monsters on the field besides Nehemoth are destroyed!" The great and terrible hell drake unleashed an inferno of death that came Metalfoes Orichalc, Metalfoes Mithrilium, Igknight Crusader, Infernoid Pirmais and Decatron.

"Useless! Because you destroyed Orichalc, your monster will be destroyed too!" Orichalc possessed a final power just like Mithrilium. While the Mythril psychic special summoned Metalfoes Volflame(7/2400/2000) from the extra deck to the field in defense mode. Orichalc turned his deadly crash into a suicidal attack, as he spun out of control towards Infernoid Onuncu and blew them both to kingdom come with the fuel in his jetpack. "This is far from over!" Stonewell shouted. "No. This IS over!" Eric took a card from his graveyard, Infernoid Attondel. "The only way it could end, between two Eric Stonewells, with my favorite card!" Infernoid Attondel(8/2800/0) was special summoned thanks to the banishment of Infernoid Onuncu and Pirmais. "Adramelech! Attack Metalfoes Volflame!" The duke of the eight layer grabbed the Volflame driver with one claw and smashed it into oblivion. "If you attack me now. He will never forgive, Eric." Stonewell cursed. "He's the one who should ask for that, Stonewell." Eric shrugged. Attondel gained a second attack after it destroyed the one monster. "Do a direct attack, on Stonewell!" The other claw spread wide open and slashed across Stonewells body. "NgGraaah!"

Stonewell's LP: 0

The minute he fell, the barriers broke down. "Eric!" Tory rushed over to his side to catch him, but the light had left his eyes. "Hey! Wake up! Come on!" No matter how hard she shook him, there was no response. "Tory. He's going to recover from this. Trust me, I felt just as bad as he looks now." It took a lot out of him, and he figured Stonewell would be very tired regardless. "Are you sure? Is he sure?" Tory looked at the others. "Perhaps it is not so simple. Bishop could still be controlled to some extent, and Eric.. you needed the help from another psychic to break free permanently." Adamant was unable to give her strictly good news. "But Zach got better. So Stonewell.. Eric.. should too, shouldn't he? Maybe.. the longer you are away from him, the less he can boss you around." Alice didn't have much to back that up with, but she wanted to give Tory something. "Well then the first thing we should do is get the hell out of here." Tory reasoned. "We can.. Eric." Adamant gave Eric a nod. "Huh? Oh, yeah! I.. oof!" Eric tried to get up, but stumbled down. "Eric!"

"Ow.. Guess.. those attacks hurt a bit more than I thought." Eric managed to ignore the pain through adrenalin so far, but it had caught up with him now. "You nearly lost, it is no wonder. Just take it slowly." Adamant figured this was the cost of losing so many lifepoints in one of these duels. "I guess. Still, Alice. You should take this." He pulled through and took out the crystal to hand it to her. "Okay... But where we are we going? And what about.." She paused. "Wait, does anyone hear that?" The sound of marching duelists reached the music room.

"Now what.." Erics groans were interrupted when a dozen enforcers, templars and other duelists walked into the room. "No!" Alice held her hands in front of her mouth. "Mom!" Eric's mother and Alice's father were standing with with the rest of the mob, who all shared the same vacant expression. "Martel got them. But where did all these other duelists come from?" Adamant saw all kinds of puppets; like they arrived from separate parts of the world. "You should not go so soon. Who knows what might happen." And their master was there too, of course. "I know." Martel placed his hand on the shoulder of one duelist. "Do not blame me. I did not make these cards. This Union did. They were all prisoners for the right or the wrong reasons. All I did, was give them purpose." Martel laughed. "Purpose? You did this to Eric to help him?" Tory roared as she got up. "Do not do anything a fool would do." Martel snapped his finger, placing all his duelist slaves into an offensive stance. "The new Knight had to make sure you would not leave with that crystal. It would be unpleasant if the Lords found out about us. Your friends from dreamworld wont be able to warn him either, my pawns upstairs are keeping them busy. Soon they will be mine too."

"But... why?!" Alice could not even think about running away while her fathers life was on the line. Even so, that Martel was going this far astonished her. "Yes. Why are you doing all of this? Your guild already has what it wanted." Adamant thought the fusion guild's plans were done once they collected the four dragon cards. "Bringing the worlds together was only a part of the dream. Bringing everyone together is the next step, and that includes those who do not belong to either world. Uno Nisell, Anastasia Nisell, Marco Nisell, August, June, January, December. They are the unique pieces.. and I see now, so are you." Martel walked up to Alice. "Ah!" She flinched away while Adamant stepped up to defend her. "You will not touch her." He activated his dueldisk, which was merely futile posturing against this many opponents and with his lifepoints. "Alice, use the crystal." His true goal was to make sure someone could get away. "I can't.." She resisted. "Martel wants to get to Uno through us! We cannot let that happen, you must go! I can stay.." Compared to her, he was expendable. That was how he saw it. "No! I don't want to leave anyone behind!" She just had seen too much of that. "You wont. You'll never be alone again, Alice.." Martel advanced again and..

"She is not alone!" .. was stopped by the lords of the house. "Uno!" Uno entered the hall with his crystals power, right in front of a momentarily dazed Martel. "I am sorry. I wanted to come sooner. I did not know it was this bad." Uno quickly apologized to the duelists before he turned back to the new self-proclaimed king. "Martel. If you want me, here I am. I only hope you don't mind that I brought some friends." Anastasia was with him, and so was August. But there was a fourth visitor. "You.." Though the two never met in person, they were familiar with each other's reputation. "So you are the one, messing with everyone's minds." June the goldenhaired psychic grinned. "I am glad we could finally have a little chat."

(To be Continued in Redux 031: Ultimate Hatred Creates Ultimate Love)

New Cards used by 'Eric' Stonewell
Archfiend Eccentrick

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Vermillion Dragon Mech

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Power Wall

New Cards used by Eric 'Stonewell'
Metalfoes Silverd
Metalfoes Goldriver

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Metalfoes Mithrilium
Metalfoes Orichalcum

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Induced Explosion
Metalfoes Combination