Author's note: A reminder that any bold cards are not actual Yugioh cards.
Chapter 10: Reunion
I was in quite a bind here. All I had on my field were three 1300 ATK Bowganian monsters, a 1200 ATK Newdoria and an 800 ATK Reaper on the Nightmare, along with two face-down cards. Meanwhile, I was up against monsters that had their ATK further pumped up by the effect of Torturous Jurassic Hunger, a card which decreases the DEF of all Dinosaurs you control to 0, and increased their ATK by the amount of DEF lost. These were a 3000 ATK Horned Saurus, a 2000 ATK Tyranno Infinity, a 5200 ATK Ultimate Tyranno, a 4700 ATK Super Conductor Tyranno and a 4100 ATK Super Ancient Dinobeast. There was also a Succubus Temptress with 2000 ATK on the field of my other childhood bully.
Billy decided to start attacking with Ultimate Tyranno, saying that in this case he didn't have a choice. First, it headed for a Bowganian, but I triggered Negate Attack, stopping the attack and ending his Battle Phase.
"That's actually a good thing," Lucas stated. "We don't want him to go down too easily, do we? Besides, I think my girl wants to have some fun with him!"
"Shut up and make your move!" Billy shouted, just as he arrived at his End Phase and took 900 damage from my three Bowganian to come to 6900 while I rose to 9100 Life Points. Lucas drew, and immediately tried to use Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy Aura of Life Transfer, but it predictably failed.
"Why wasn't your Trap destroyed?" he, again predictably, demanded.
"I guess I might as well explain to you, although it's not like someone who spends most of their time kicking your juniors while they're down on the ground would understand," I sighed. "My Trap Card, once it is in my Field Spell Card Zone, cannot be destroyed by card effects, whether it be a Trap, Spell or Monster Effect, nothing will work."
"In that case, my Succubus Temptress will attack your Reaper on the Nightmare. Now the Special ability of my monster activates: since it engaged in battle, I must flip a coin. If it lands on heads, your monster is mine, and if tails, it battles as normal!"
He proceeded to flip the coin, and it proceeded to land… on heads, whereupon he continued. "Since the coin landed on heads, a Maiden Counter is placed on your monster, moving it to my side of the field."
Reaper on the Nightmare was, however, destroyed instead, as it automatically destroys itself when targeted by a Spell, Trap or Monster effect. Still, the monster attacked, which allowed me to trigger my other face-down Turn Jump, dealing 300 damage per Bowganian per enemy End Phase and moving three turns into the future. Three turns passed for Billy, and three times my monsters shot at him, dealing 2700 damage. Three turns also passed for Lucas, and he was also shot three times, dealing a further 2700 damage to their combined Life Points. They were now on 1500 Life Points, and as vapors emanated from them, turned blue and streamed into my mouth, my Life Points rose to 14500. With Lucas' tactic failed, he had no choice but to end his turn, whereupon he took 900 more damage from my Bowganian squad, bringing both of them down to 600 points and me to 15400.
Their power, as I noticed when I drew my card, tasted somewhat strange. It wasn't going into me just yet; that would happen once I won, but I could taste it on my tongue, and it felt weirdly familiar. I just had one turn left now until Card of Demise's other effect kicked in. For now, the Dinosaurs were the major threat, so I activated my Nightmare's Steelcage and used it on Billy: for two of his turns, his monsters couldn't attack. Now, victory was mine!
When he took his turn, he started acting strangely. He played Pot of Greed for two cards and discarded a Destroyersaurus from his Hand to retrieve a Jurassic World from his Deck. From there, he activated the Jurassic World, and then something weird happened. The purple/pink mist around us started dissipating, and the view of the Duel Academy returned. Even stranger was the fact that there were cracks appearing very rapidly: on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling, even on the bullies. It started cracking so much that soon nothing was distinguishable. The only thing to remain was me, my monsters and all their monsters.
The cracks eventually fell away revealing a completely different area: the black corridors of the Void, the same Void in my dream. In place of Brass-Balled Billy stood the Carnivore from my dream, with her Duel Disk activated, and in place of Lady Killer Lucas stood Rebecca Scarlet aka Succubus from the same dream, again with her Duel Disk activated.
"Looks like whatever was controlling him has lifted," Rebecca sighed, with relief from what I could tell.
"It was that Trap Card in the Field Spell Zone," Carnivore told her. "I could sense that somehow, it was manipulating him. When you failed to destroy it with your card, I was actually at a loss on how to get rid of it. After he told us it was invulnerable to destruction by card effects, I knew what I had to do."
"What the hell is going on? Why did the scenery change?" I found myself shouting.
"It was always like this. You were always dueling in this corridor."
"Nonsense, I remember going to my classes at Duel Academy! Then two of my most prominent childhood bullies demanded a Duel with me, and now they appear to be taking the form of two women from a dream I had last night!"
"So that's what you saw."
Carnivore then walked up to me, took my hand and placed some of her hair inside. "Tell me, does this feel like an illusion to you?"
"No, but what's your point?"
"I thought so. Dreams and reality can get quite blurry sometimes. I think you were in a state of sleepwalking. What we saw was you emanating a purple-pinkish aura and Dueling everyone that got in your way. You even have one of the guards drained of his Psychic Powers. Before us, who did you see yourself Dueling?"
I didn't trust Carnivore at this point, because for all I knew, she was actually an illusion brought on by my childhood bully, yet still, I felt compelled to tell her. "I remember a Sector Security officer, a male bully, a female bully and then two prominent childhood bullies, whose places you took when one of them played a Jurassic World."
"Here's what Suc- Rebecca told me. She was actually worried about you, having found out somehow of me telling you how she operated, so she tried to keep an eye on you. From what she told me, you went crazy as soon as they started torturing you beyond a certain point, with your eyes being shrouded by a mist the same color as the aura you were giving off. You Dueled one of the Guards, although she couldn't see from where she was hiding what happened, but you apparently drained so much of his Psychic Powers that he was gasping for air on all fours."
"They seem to have said…" Rebecca continued, "…that every last bit of his Psychic Powers had vanished. You proceeded to come to Cellblock 7 and Dueled the first person you happened across. By the time I got here, he was also on all fours with his Psychic Power gone. I managed to get inside the field as you Dueled another Duelist by the name of the Dancer, and as soon as you activated your Trap Card, I knew what was happening: you were draining her Psychic Powers."
"That was when she came to find me. You arrived shortly after her, and you actually demanded a Duel with us, with combined Life Points for us and double for you. But now, your Trap Card is destroyed, and from the looks of it, our Life Points have been restored to their original value."
That was indeed the case; we were both at 8000. "Now," she continued "…do you want us to finish this Duel, or can we just call it a draw?"
"By the way, how exactly was the Trap Card destroyed?" Rebecca asked.
"Whenever another Field Spell Card comes into play, my Trap Card is automatically destroyed, but not before it destroys the Field Spell Card that caused its destruction. Since my Trap is now gone, our Life Points have been restored to what they originally were. Anyway, Carnivore?"
"Yes, Toby?" she replied.
"While it would be emotionally better for me to forfeit the Duel, I just cannot for some reason. So you can see this Duel through to the end, just please avoid use of your Psychic Powers."
"Sure, Toby. I use Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy Nightmare's Steelcage and allow me to attack, and with that, it's feeding time!" With that, she started her assault with Ultimate Tyranno, a 5200 ATK monster, which had to attack first, and had to attack all monsters. First, she attacked a Bowganian, destroying it and decreasing my Life Points by 3900. Another Bowganian was destroyed, and I took another 3900 damage to only have 200 Life Points left. As my last Bowganian was destroyed, I sighed as my Life Points hit 0.
"I'm so glad you're back, Toby!" Rebecca shouted, running towards me and pulling me into her with a hug.
"So, you weren't trying to seduce him after all?" Carnivore asked.
"There's something about my methods you don't know. There are people in this place who genuinely need company, and I've always enjoyed friendly faces, but how to separate those who desperately need a shoulder to cry on from those to just want me as a one-night stand? When I first came here, people just wanted to take advantage of me. You were the one who drove them off, and you helped me acclimatize here."
"But you were gallivanting with the Bombardier!"
"That was part of a method I devised. I still considered you a friend, and it hurt me that I had seemingly hurt you."
"When I saw you with that man, it was like everything I taught you meant nothing! What was more, I heard you leaking secrets!"
"You need to hear the full story. Earlier that day, I had devised a small trial to determine who needed me and who just wanted me, and when the Bombardier approached me, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to field test my… test. I can tell you now, because of his behavior, he failed miserably. That test proved to be very effective in separating those who wanted to use me from those that genuinely needed me. Those in the latter category were almost always girls younger than me, as even the boys just imagined me in fantasies. In fact, little Toby here was the only member of the opposite sex to ever pass the test. As for the secrecy, I had a memory lapse."
"Speaking of Toby, could you let him come up for air?"
"Whoops, sorry. Again, I just tend to get over excited," Rebecca stated, slightly embarrassed, after which she let me withdraw a bit from her chest and breathe in some air that I desperately needed.
"Was that why you were named Succubus?" I had to ask.
"Yeah, sort of. Part of it had to do with my ace monster, the Succubus Temptress, but after the guys I 'seduced' saw me with other people I was with, they just gave me that label and it sort of stuck."
"What about Carnivore? Why is she called Carnivore?"
"Because of, firstly, my liking for meat," Carnivore interjected, "…and secondly, you saw my monsters. They are essentially meat-eaters, carnivores, and I've got a Deck full of these carnivorous Dinosaurs. One thing I have to ask, however. I already knew you were a fragile soul, but when I got struck by the arrows from your monsters, I could just sense that the pain I was suffering was a recreation of pain you suffered. What the hell happened to you?"
"I was just bullied a lot at Duel Academy. Why do you care?"
"Although she'd never admit it," Rebecca interrupted, "…despite all of the people who have tried to approach her being pushed away by her, deep down she really wants someone to be with. The only reason she is so aggressive when people approach her is probably because she doesn't want people to just use her. But are you sure that bullying was all that pain was? Surely you would have had friends to turn to?"
"What friends?"
"What do you mean, by 'What friends'?"
"From what I could see, nobody really wanted to be friends with me. I was ignored, beaten around by bullies or forced into messenger boy by the girls since my sister was a fashion model."
"I see, but still, surely you would have had your sister to turn to?"
"No. She was away on photo shoots most of the time, and whenever I told her of my troubles, the advice was always the same: 'Ignore them'." I had actually started crying at this point, with my blurred sight on the floor. "It's rather hard to ignore someone when that person is repeatedly kicking you in the stomach! So I just had to contain my feelings, and although the bullying stopped somewhat when I finally got my Psychic Powers, I was still ignored or made messenger boy. After a bit of research, I happened upon the Arcadia Movement, and it sounded so appealing: maybe there I would meet people who wouldn't write me off as a dusty punching bag or message relay!"
"So I was the first person to approach you?"
"Yes, Rebecca. You were the first to ever open your arms to me, and Carnivore was the first to actually go out of her way to help me. All this torture by the Void, it is taking me back to those days. The loneliness! The abuse! The pain! I can't take it anymore! I WANT OUT OF THIS PLACE!"
Rebecca pulled me back in, this time kneeling down so that my face was in her shoulder. I felt another set of arms wrap around me, felt another body press against mine, and I felt some long hair on one side of my face.
"Toby, there's something about the Void I haven't told you yet." I heard Carnivore's voice speak from right beside me. As she continued to talk, I felt as though I would have some hope at last… This period was one of the blackest periods of my life, and would be so for a year to come, but beyond that, a shred of hope emerged.