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.

61. Blood from a Stone

Redux 30: Blood from a Stone

A Lord of the Union owned many places he could call home. Too many to keep track off. Marco Amadeus Nisell was not greedy when it came to expenses. There existed mansions and lofts his own family never even heard of. Certainly, he was the lord of the world and was called upon a lot. But when one could travel to any part of it instantaneously, time was barely an issue. "My lord. The men are getting restless. They want new orders, they want to know what we are going to do. And to tell the truth, so do I.." But now, here in this estate on a remote island near the atlantic, time was the only issue. "I know what We must do. But I cannot Risk another jump. They are Watching me." Marco could sense the pendulums on his trail, more now than ever. "Christopher you Fool. You Got those four hunters Involved. You've Damned yourself as well as Us." For now he could hide his crystal. But that meant not using it either. "If it were less, I could..." If only he could find a minute. "Do you need a distraction?" The Inquisitor was about to make a predictable offer. "No, that could Lead them back to Me. And we don't Have enough duelists. We need something That only Christopher would Care for." His brother's pendulum was the strongest, his powers were the primary threat to his plans.

"Oh. I might have an idea then." Silver's expression changed to a twisted smile. "According to the templar network, someone has emptied the Facility and sent its inmates to the control city." She said as she checked her dueldisk screen. "Someone? Who could.. or Would do that?" Marco wondered. "Perhaps one of their guild-friends, who can tell. But we can use this, my lord."

"Can we Now? I am Listening, my Clever Inquisitor."

...

Bishop's LP: 8000 Martel's LP: 8000

Bishop was here, not to duel Tory. But to duel his former King. "You.. what? You were bluffing?" Eric should have known nobody would willingly go back to Martel. "He was? Then why did you go through that act before?" Tory almost fell for it. "I just wanted to see, if he could still hear me... If he could see what I wanted. You couldn't, could you.. King? That any of us could go against you, is beyond your thinking." The fact that Martel let him get this close proved that. "And.. I wanted to se if I could truly not hear you. If you could stop me, you would have!" He started drawing his cards. "All of you, do not try to help me. He is mine!"

"You do not know what you are doing." Martel claimed the first turn. His smile slowly crept up on his face. "You are no longer fit to be my Bishop. You are just a pawn, and you shall be treated as such." The king activated his first spell, creating a pool of darkness that stretched out like running ink. "Curse of the Shadowprison. One spellstone counter for this spell, each time one or more of my dolls is sent to the grave by an effect. I will send two.." Another spell card activated; El Shaddoll Fusion. "Darkness. Shaddoll." It fused a Shaddoll Beast and a Shaddoll Squamata in his hand, to create an Shaddoll fusion that used darkness as the binding element. "FUSION SUMMON! EL Shaddoll WINDA!" The endresult was the black armored wind priestess Winda(5/2200/800) riding a corrupted Yangzing dragon.

"Aren't those.." Both of those were cards Alice and Eric had seen before in the hands of other duelists. "August and June's cards, yeah." Whatever this meant, it did not feel like a coincidence. Martel's deck carried fusions based on Infernoids and Gemknights as well, but those he could at least have taken from the fusion guild. "My shadddolls found the graveyard. Shaddoll Beast draws.." Martel activated the effects of the fused shaddolls; drawing one card thanks to the corrupted Naturia Beast. "And Shaddoll Squamata sends one extra Shaddoll." The serpent shadow discarded Shaddoll Hedgehog from the deck, whose Shaddoll-monster searching effect was triggered as well. "I add Shaddoll Dragon to my hand." At this point The Shadow Prison spell procured two spellstone counters, from the fusion and from Squamata's effect. And as long as the Winda Shaddoll was alive, each player could only special summon one monster per turn. The puppetmaster placed a trap card down and passed the turn to Bishop.

"That.. That is why you needed me, Tara, us.. You wanted duelists who specialized in their own attributes, so you could fuse with us. My attribute was... earth. I remember, that I liked them... even before you met me." Bishop took his turn and activated the flying pyramid field spell: Triamid Cruiser. "Whoa!" The pyramid seemingly lifted the two duelists up on a platform of sand and made the room look far bigger than it really was. "But now you don't have any of them anymore! You aren't one and six, you're just one! Making dark fusions is all you can do!" Fusions like El Shaddoll Construct or Grysta had to be impossible in deck that only ran dark-type Shaddolls. "You're weak, Martel!" Bishop continued his turn and summoned the Triamid Master(4/1800/700). The monster(1600/700)'s attackpower was rapidly drained by the shadow of the Curse Prison spell. "You know what my cards do, I wont waste those words on you!" With a Triamid normal summoned on the Triamid Cruiser, Bishop could draw one card and discard another. "I discard Triamid Fortress!" He would also gain 500 lifepoints from the current field spell.

Bishop's LP: 8500

"I switch the Cruiser for Triamid Kingolem!" He played a second field spell from his hand. The pyramid ship transformed into a robotic tank that added 500 attackpoints to all rockmonsters like Triamid Master(2100/1100). Also, when Triamid Cruiser left the field, a Triamid card could be claimed from the deck. "I take Triamid Sphinx! Now Triamid Master attacks!" The egyptian lord raced across the pyramid golem towards the El Shaddoll of darkness. Of course that attack did not even reach Winda; her dragon mount counter-attacked with black flames and killed the Master. "Now, Triamid Sphinx!" Yet the death of a Triamid led to the special summon of the legendary sphinx(10/2300/2500). It gained 500 attack- and defense points for each field spell in the graveyard and he(3800/3500) also took the 500-point bonus from Kingolem "Attack!" The second monster was more successful. Triamid Sphinx blew El Shaddoll Winda up with a divine thunderbolt. "Martel, If I win, you will tell me everything! About my life, about why you did this to me, even about that damn puppet!" He let his turn end. "If you win?" Tory raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound too confident, kid."

Bishop's LP: 8400 Martel's LP: 6400

"How can he be, when he is lost. My puppet, you already know you will fail." Martel was still smiling despite the setbacks, because he already had another fusion method in his hand.. "I play.. Fusion Subsitute!" As he played the classic fusion spell, three spellstone counters were removed from his Shadow Prison. "!?" The continuous spell got a third counter from the dying Winda and activated its final effect during a fusion summon. "But I thought.." Triamid Kingolem prevented the activation of other card effects during a Triamid's attacks. Except Curse of the Shadow-Prison's effect was continuous. "Your monster is now mine." The shadow extended across Triamid Sphinx, covered it with darkness. The cursed monster was forcibly fused with Shaddoll Dragon. "Your monsters were never yours, puppet! If I need earth, I will get it! FUSION SUMMON! El Shaddoll Shekhinaga!" The statue-esque doll construct reappeared at the base and covered herself in earthen armor, forged from the Sphinx and Dragons remains. And because the Shaddoll Dragon went to the graveyard, Bishops spell card, Kingolem, was shattered to pieces. The Cursed Prison already acquired one new spellstone counter.

"Ah...haah.. ah!" Shekhinaga(10/2600/3000) took on a mechanical form; a very haunting form. "Alice? What's wrong?" Eric was shocked to see her almost fall back into a panic attack. "Eric.. That's..that's.." She kept herself from screaming, but there was no possibility that she was just seeing things. "Them! The ones that.. Qliphort!" The armor that surrounded the El Shaddoll was of the same color and patterns as Iria's qliphort machines; as the guardians of time. "The what?" Bishop yelled. "She says it looks like the things that destroyed her home? That'd mean he's using cards based on monsters that don't even exist here? How the hell?" Tory was about to give up on making sense of all of this. "Where from did you think I got my power? My source is the same as the Lords used, a place older than all of us." Martel started his battle phase and pointed towards Bishop. "You have done well, to get me this far.. my puppet. Here is the reward." Shekhinaga attacked directly, with a laserblast that looked a lot like the energy attacks of the Qliphorts. "Yaaargh!"

Bishop's LP: 5800

"Kgh.. Kgah!" Bishop was thrown to the other side of the hall. "Dude, you okay?" Tory would have gone after him, except she had a barrier to maintain. "..." Martel waited for his opponent to get up. "You.. you knew I would summon the Sphinx. You wanted me too." Bishop realized now, when it was too late, that Martel was manipulating him. "I did. Even when I cannot hear your heart, I know how it beats." The king chuckled lazily. "You don't know everything. You can't." Bishop drew his next card and activated a new field spell, Catapult Zone. "You will use cards like Dokidoki now. When the Triamids fail, they are your fallback." And the card he drew was the one whose name Martel uttered. "!?" The king could even read that. "Damn you!" Bishop summoned Dokidoki the heartshaped jar(2/400/400) anyway. "I will not let you use me!" He activated Dokidoki's effect, discarding a level 2 Dummy Golem from his hand to summon a second Dokidoki(2/500/500) from his deck in defense mode. "Overlay!" The two Dokidoki jars combined into one monster; the rock-covered ogre Gachi Gachi Gantetsu(2/400/1800). Its effect added 200 attackpoints to all monsters on the field, for each XYZ-material attached to it(600/1800).

"Now, I can banish three rock monsters from my graveyard, to special summon Block Dragon from my hand!" Triamid Sphinx, Triamid Master and the discarded Dummy Golem disappeared simultaneously, as their bodies transformed to colored blocks. The blocks stacked together to form a large dragon beast(8/2400/3000). "Block Dragon attacks the Shaddoll!" With the power-up from Gachi Gachi, the dragon(2800/1800) mustered enough attackpoints to compete with El Shaddoll Shekhinaga. It charged and crushed the doll against the wall. "This is also, exactly what was expected." Martel activated the effect of the dying El Shaddoll, which returned one Shaddoll spell or trap to its masters hand. Naturally Martel reclaimed El Shaddoll Fusion. "Your cards are at zero. Your turn has ended." Martel started his turn and activated Fusion Substitute from the graveyard, banishing it to return the fusion El Shaddoll Shekhinaga to his extra deck and to draw one new card. When he saw what that card was, his eye pulsed with energy. "Inversely, I am not at zero. If you believed that I am weaker alone. See your error now." Martel activated his second trap, Shaddoll Core.

Martels LP: 6100

"The core?" It was a trapmonster that took the form of the one-horned black heart(9/1450/1950) that corrupted every monster into a Shaddoll. "That's what.. takes everyone's hearts?" Alice felt a shudder travel across her nerves, as she saw the thing. It felt the most 'alive' out of all of Martels cards. "The core takes one element, any element." Martel made Shaddoll Core assume the water-attribute. Its shadowy trails turned blue like the ocean. "And.. you have summoned an XYZ-monster, like I wanted..." Martel activated his newest spell. "Shaddoll Fusion!" The fusing maelstrom combined the Shaddoll core with a Shaddoll not on the field or in the hand. "It fuses monsters in the deck?" Eric gasped. "I did so, long before your Infernoids. Shaddoll Fusion takes materials from the deck, if those against me use extra deck monsters." Another Shaddoll Squamata fused with the Core to create the El Shaddoll of water, El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis(9/2700/2000). Now Bishop couldn't special summon cards from the hand or graveyard with spell or trap cards.

"Shaddoll Core, give me El Shaddoll Fusion. Shaddoll Squamata, send Shaddoll Hound." The fused core activated its own graveyard effect, which returned Shaddoll spells or traps to the masters hand. Squamata meanwhile sent a second Hedgehog to the graveyard to set off that creature's effect and add a Shaddoll Hound from the deck to Martels hand. "Oh no.." And by now, there were four spellcounters on the Cursed Shadowprison. "El Shaddoll Fusion! And FUSION SUMMON!" Block Dragon who was targeted by three spellstone counters from the Shadow spell. El Shaddoll Fusion took the Shaddoll Hound from his hand to fuse it with the corrupted Block Dragon. "Shekhinaga!" Once again earth and darkness created the Qliphort construct(10/2600/3000). To make matters as bad as they could possibly be, the discarded Hound forced Gachi Gachi Gantetsu(700/1800) to an attacking position. "Your field too, will be zero." Shekhinaga struck the XYZ-monster with its destructive thunderbolts.

Bishop's LP: 3900

"Gachi! I.. No!" Gachi Gachi Gantetsu could negate its own destruction by detaching one XYZ-material. "I can't risk it." However Shekhinaga could negate a special summoned monster's effect, by sending a Shaddoll (Shaddoll Hedgehog) out of Martels hand. "That is right. Fear me, as all lost pawns should." Martel commanded. "No! You... I still have Catapult Zone!" Bishop's field spell could also negate the destruction of his rock monster. "Send Magnet Warrior Alpha!" The spell loaded a rock monster from his deck into the slings and fired it away. The magnet warrior slammed into Shekhinaga before she could deliver the killing blow. Unfortunately this was a once-a-turn effect. "Anoyatyllis.." The water construct finished the Gachi Gachi monster off with a geyser of scalding water attack. "Hsss!" Bishop's skin was nearly burned by the damage. "It hurts, yes. Pain is for the lost. You did not feel pain with me." Martel set one monster face-down on his field and ended his turn. "You wanted this."

Bishop's LP: 1900

"W..we..we have to help him. But.." Things did not look good, Alice knew that. Bishop would stand a better chance with them by his side, she knew that too. Yet her body refused to move, just because of that monster Martel controlled. "He wont let us anyway." Eric grumbled. Even now Bishop continued with that fire in his eyes, it was a look full of hate. "You do not scare me, Martel. You can't hurt me.. " Though his body was in pain from those two attacks, his mind refused to accept the feeling. "I know you can see everything I would have done. That's why.. I changed something." Back when Block Dragon left the field, its last effect was employed. The user could add three rock monsters from the deck to.. if their levels together added up to eight. "I have these now!" Bishop revealed the cards in his hand: his last Dokidoki (level 2), Gamma the Electromagnet Warrior and Beta the Electromagnet Warrior (level 3). "Something new?" Martel tilted his head. These cards were indeed not what his 'Bishop' would have used. "This is the city of dueling. When I broke out again, I took some new cards.. the Magnet Warriors!"

"Here!" Bishop summoned Dokidoki(2/400/400). It discarded the Gamma warrior. "Dokidoki special summons Alpha the Electromagnet Warrior!" the heartjar released the first of the three magnetfaced knights, Alpha(3/1700/1100) the shield lancer. "Let me tell you what these new cards do, King! When Alpha is special summoned, I can add a Magna Warrior from my deck to my hand!" Bishop grabbed a level 8 monster from his deck. Luckily it appeared Martel had no Shaddolls in his hand right now to use as fuel for Shekhinaga's negations. "And I choose Berserkion the Electromagna Warrior! This is the combined form of all three Magnet knights! His materials come from the hand.." Bishop banished his Beta the Electromagnet Warrior. "Field!" Alpha vanished as well. "And graveyard!" The discarded Gamma formed the last piece. All three banished Electric warriors united into one giant magnetic robot. Even under the powerdrain of the Shadowcurse Prison, Berserkion(2800/2800) was a warrior to contend with. "Berserkion attacks Shekhinaga!" The berserker magnet warrior charged his lightning rod sword and slammed it into the earthen Shaddoll. Two powerful storms collided, but Martels fusion was the one to face defeat and split into thunder particles.

Martel's LP: 5900

"..." Martel appeared slightly annoyed at this loss. Nonetheless his monster's death at least activated the spell/trap retrieval effect that all El Shaddolls carried and returned Shaddoll Core to his hands. "No more words? That's not what I want either! Are you only good at lying!?" Shekhinaga was gone and so were her powers. Berserkion was free to use whatever effect it wanted. "Berserkion can destroy one card on my opponents field each turn, if I banish a Magnet Warrior from my graveyard!" Berserkion planted his rod into the floor and absorbed Alpha the Magnet Warrior from the graveyard. "I will destroy that accursed prison!" The absorbed lightning broke free and struck the continuous spell, destroying the shadow container and letting light back into the field. "Just make me who I was, tell me my past!" Bishop's eyes caught the unconscious Tara in the corner again. "I want to know, we deserve to know!" He placed a trap card in the backrow and let his turn end. "How could you desire.. your past? You do not know it."

"That sounds like a good reason to me!" Uno's voice came in, at the same time as a flash of light. "And I gotta thank you for giving me the perfect lead in line each time, Martel!" He emerged along with June and Anastasia. "Uno!" Alice let out a cry of relief. "Guys, you look okay. Are you? Those templars wouldn't let us follow you until we took them down." Uno asked. "Better than I expected. What about those other guys?" Tory replied. "Adamant and August? They're also okay. They went upstairs to help Dom, Iria and Zach.. Taking care of leftovers and.." It took him a while to notice that someone else was there too. "Hey, you're.." Bishop was a bit bewildered by the sudden intrusion, but not enough to take his eyes off his opponent. "You.. I dueled before. Then you have to understand. I must finish this myself." Bishop wanted to be clear about his feelings on interference. "It looks like you did a decent job already. You don't need anyone's help, Dorian."

"Wh..what did you say?" Bishop flinched. "Dorian. That's your name isn't it? Oh! Wait.. you didn't know, I am sorry." June slapped her cheek. "Wait.. if he doesn't know, how do you know? Did you pull it from his subconscious or something?" Uno inquired. The limits of her psychic powers were not quite clear. "No. I read his mind." She pointed at Martel. "You.. took from me? From my mind?" The puppetmaster cursed. "Yes I did, Timothy. You are weak enough now, that I can see where it all started, and it started with that puppet of yours.."

(To be Continued in Redux 029: Fatal Attraction)

New Cards used by Bishop
Dummy Golem
Block Dragon
Alpha the Magnet Warrior
Alpha the Electromagnetic Warrior
Beta the Electromagnetic Warrior
Gamma the Electromagnetic Warrior
Berserkion the Electromagna Warrior

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Gachi Gachi Gantetsu

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Catapult Zone

New Cards used by Martel
Shaddoll Squamata

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El Shaddoll Winda
El Shaddoll Shekinaga

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Curse of the Shadow Prison
Shaddoll Fusion

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Shaddoll Core