Annex 055: Long Term Division/Reunion

"These cards.. why do they look like this?" First Dark-Rebellion XYZ Dragon and now there were these two; Starve-Venom Fusion Dragon and Clear-Wing Synchro Dragon. Uno did not understand. When he tried to recall Doms previous explanation, all he could remember was the rage. "Like I said the last time, the dragons were made to lead in the new age. UNO says he based on a story that he never got around to releasing, the dragons and the magicians. Once this tournament was done, people would get pendulum support cards for their specific brand. And depending on which guild won, one of these dragons would start being printed. These are the prototypes." There were three cards for thrww guilds. "With your deck, you could easily summon all three of them. We were going to print the fourth card too, but then you came along. Which reminds me!" He motioned his fingers towards the equipment on the table. Iria got it for him and gave it to Uno. "Your dueldisk and your real deck. We couldn't find anything wrong with it, so you can have it back." Dom then inserted some more cards including the three dragons and a few pendulum monsters. "I took the liberty of spicing up your deck. You gotta be on your best when you're my courier."

"Wait, what about the data?" Eric was still lost on certain details, and he was sure he had not zoned out during Doms explanation. "Well, it wasn't deleted, technically! Ichirou was right about that, UNO would kill me if I undid all our hard work. I encrypted everything and split the decryption key into three parts, into these three cards. Only someone with all three Dragons can put it all back together. It gives it a nice symbolic touch; the guilds' deserve the info if only they could work together. Allthough I don't think this is just about solid vision technology or the blank slate program. I wish I knew what they wanted." At this point, Zach opened the trapdoor. "Zachary will guide you. If you take these tunnels all the way to the end, you will reach a helipad beyond the park zone. Use the helicopter to fly away from this mess and bring the cards safely to dreamworlds HQ." Uno stared at the tunnels and then back at Dom. "What about the others? The Brandts?" He was not going to abandon them here. "Sure, take them too. There is plenty of room! Iria and I will stay behind to do whatever we can to sort this out. We'll keep in contact and tell you where your friends are as soon as we find out. There's a dozen exits out and into the tunnels that the guilds wont know about."

"So I need to help you, Dom?" Uno accepted the dueldisk. "I don't really trust you,. But I do trust the faith Zach and Iria seem to have in you. I'll do it. But we're not done with each other." There were still many secrets that this man had an answer for. "Obviously! But the only one who can really fix everything is UNO. Stick around with us, and you will probably hear from him!" That was all Uno needed to hear. The crisis took priority right now, but later he definitely wanted to meet the man he took his name from. "Let's go Uno!" Eric had already gone down the stairs. "Yes." He and Zach followed. The disciple looked to his boss and counterpart one last time. "I will return for you as soon as possible, sir." He closed the door.

...

The security center was a busy place. Dozens of park visitors and regulars had gotten the same idea as Alice and her mother; to hide in here. Most came to complain to the staff to do something about the madness, but there were only so few of them and there were a hundred duelists with monstrous holograms out there. Their hands were tied. The best anyone could do was to make this place as safe as possible. The XYZ-guild did not seem interested in them. Alice herself had hoped that more people would show up at the center. She and Heather still had not heard from Emily or from Uno. Imagining what was happening to them was the worst part of waiting. "There she is! Em!" Thankfully, Emily and Cassius had noticed the influx of people and followed their example; coming in through the front door. "My darling! Are you alright? Did they hurt you? I had no idea where you were!" Mrs. Brandt had her daughter in her arms not a second later. "I'm sorry. I left my phone.. We would have come here sooner, but we had to make sure we werent followed.. Wait... are you alright?"

"Oh. It was awful. Those men in black wanted to keep fighting.." Her mother explained. "Fighting? Alice!?" Emily sawthat her sister had a few scrapes on her. "Oh.." Rather than answering her, she gave Emily a hug of her own. "It's over now. We'll be safe here, wont we?" She had a smile on her face in spite of everything. Or possibly just because she was with her sister again. "Yeah. We will be. Nobody is going to come after you two again." Emily would make sure of that. "But where is Uno?" His absence was noteworthy. "That man from the company called him. He was going to save Dom." Heather told Cassius what little she knew. "Dom? But he's at the theater? That's crazy!" That was the last place where anyone should be right now. "My companions are still out there...Is there any way we can get contact with them?" Cassius asked one of the guards around. "I am afraid not, mister Cassius. All lines are still down, we cannot call anyone inside or outside this park." They were practically blind. "There has got to be something we can do.." Cassius insisted.

".. I can help you!" The voice that responded to him first was not one he had counted on. It came from one of the cells in the hallway. "You?" It was Kyle, still detained for his assault on Adamant. "You're not saying we should let you out?" The guards had a great deal of second thoughts about that. "I know what is going on and you know it too now. This is what I warned everyone for and you did not listen until it was too late! The man I attacked is the man who is attacking hundreds of innocents right now!" Sitting inside his cell all day and listening to the terror going on outside these walls was enough to drive him mad. "I heard about what you did, Kyle. Even if it was against someone like Adamant, you did not do it for us. When you're free, you'd just go straight to him to get revenge." Cassius shook his head. He did not want that kind of help. "Wait. I forget who I am talking too.." Kyle started to laugh. "You're another guildleader. You already knew what kind of monster Adamant was.. Forget it. I'm not helping another guild!"

"A monster? Adamant is doing this too?" Alice suddenly asked. "Alice? Why are you asking that? Look what they did to you." Her mother did not get why she sounded so unbelieving. "But.. they aren't all the same. They can't be, why would they do this to each other?"

...

Adamant's LP: 8000 Team Synchro's LP: 8000

"That's more than we need from you, ex-champion!" Said Jet as he and several members of the synchro guild had the XYZ-duelist surrounded. "When it is the three of us against one of you, there is no way we lose!" Due to the rules of battle royal mode, multiple duelists could engage one target if they all used the same pool of lifepoints. The XYZ-guild had performed many hit-and-runs this way, and now they were fighting back. As a whole, the XYZ-guild had sustained the most losses so far, but nobody had yet been able to lay a finger on commander Roma. Jet was here to change that. He had his two Blackwing synchro monsters on the field, Obsidian Hawk Joe(7/2600/2000) and Blackwing Chidori the Light Rain(7/3800/2000). The latter gained 300 attackpoints from the four Blackwings in Jets graveyard. He was joined by the synchro veteran Gareth, who had Goyo Guardian(6/2800/2000) on the field and one face-down trap card, and another duelist who controlled Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons(8/3000/3000) and two trap cards. The odds were not in Adamants favor.

"Laughable." Nevertheless Adamant treated his opponents as nuisances rather than challenges. He had experienced superior power and this was not it. "Raidraptor Vanishing Lanius and Raidraptor Mimicry Lanius!" He normal summoned the green machine bird(4/1300/1600) and used its effect to special summon the blue mimic bird(4/1100/1900) from his hand. "Raidraptor Call!" Then he activated a spell card that targeted one Raidraptor and special summoned another with the same name in defense mode. Raidraptor Call 'called' out a Mimicry Lanius(4/1100/1900) from his deck. In return the spell demanded that nothing but Raidraptors could be summoned this turn. "You think you're going to stop us with just Rise Falcon?" Jet scoffed. Even if one were to disregard the traps they had placed, Beelze alone was more than a match for his XYZ-monsters. It could not be destroyed and it would gain attackpoints each time any of them took damage.

"Can you see the future? No, you cannot. Do not dare to presume my actions, synchro guild!" Angered, Adamant activated the effect of his other Lanius monsters. "Did you forget? Mimicry Lanius can raise the level of all raidraptors by 1!" Both Mimicry Lanius birds invoked this power, increasing their own(6/1100/1900) levels and the level of Vanishing Lanius(6/1300/1600). "Not good.." Gareth cried out. "You're going straight for rank 6?" Now that he controlled three level 6 monsters he could.. "Obviously.. XYZ-summon!" .. overlay them to summon the great Raidraptor Revolution Falcon(6/2000/3000) from his extra deck. "Out of my sight!" Adamant activated another spell card that could be used if the player controlled a monster with a rank of 6 and above; XYZ-Burst. "Gah!" This spell wiped out all set cards on the field. Everyone's traps (Descending Lost Star, Mystical Space Typhoon and Dimensional Prison) were shattered like fragile vases.

"I do not need to tell you this.. but I will. You are next!" Adamant detached a material from Revolution Falcon. Now his XYZ-monster could attack each monster on the field once. Then he entered the battle-phase. Revolution Falcon released fumes of napalm from its wings to blast away the attackpower of each of its targets. "Fire!" The falcon rose high into the sky and dropped its bombs down on Goyo Guardian(0/2000), and Blackwing Chidori(0/2000) and Blackwing Hawk Joe(0/2000). No matter how much attackpoints they had before, all of it was burned away. Even Beelze(9000/3000), who had acquired 2000 attackpoints each time one of the synchro duelists took a hit to their lifepoints, lost its(0/3000) gains once it fell under the Raidraptors shadow. The final bomb exploded in front of it. "Argh... screw you!" Jet uttered one last curse of contempt before the shockwaves of the destruction pushed all three of them off the stage. Their downfall had been their teamwork. Their combined lifepoints were depleted with four attacks.

Team Synchro's LP: 0

"Good to see you haven't lost your touch, Adamant. I did not need to step in." Roma let out a hearty chuckle as the ex-champion adequately defended his position. "..Would you have?" Adamant was not sure. He was not all smiles and laughs either way. "Of course. I may know everything you know, but you are of no use to me.. to us, if you're not in the fight. And you still are, aren't you?" He turned the questioning back around. Roma had noticed a few signs of apprehension in his former leader. Either he was against his plan or he simply disliked taking orders. "I am. This is my guild, Roma. These are the duelists that should prevail. The others are not worthy of the power." Whichever was the case, Adamant did not comment on it. Their attention moved towards the remaining guilds. "What do you think they are doing, Adamant?" While the Synchro Guild and Independents were throwing themselves at every last XYZ-duelist, parts of the Fusion guild seemed to be pulling back and regrouping. "I do not know, but I do not like it. Has Ichirou reported in yet?" Adamant inquired. "He has not. That is worrisome." Right now their guild still had the advantage. The only problem was that they were not going anywhere and they had little to show for it yet.

Looking down on the XYZ-duo from afar was Dame Phoebe, who had retreated to the inside of the theater. "Dame! Why are we falling back? We should be fighting!" One of the duelists who came with her, Bakker, felt guilty about letting the Synchro guild do all the work. "We will. It is just that some interesting information came to our attention." The girl said calmly as she rested her head and her left hand. "Some. Thing. Interesting?" Behind her was the person she had been waiting on. "Ah. You have arrived." In the hallway stood a short figure, hidden in black robes. He was holding his left arm up, as if it was held in a brace. "Is it interesting.. for me too?" He seemed to speak with a broken disembodied tone. "Out there, you will find plenty to add to your collection." Phoebe told him as she balled her hand into a fist. "Glad." The hooded figure proceeded onward into the battlefield. "Who..was that?" Bakker assumed that kid was part of their guild, his robed carried the symbol of fusion. However he had never seen someone like him before. "One of our secret weapons.."

...

"Ah! They're coming from the ground, like mole-men!" At the center, Alice and the others saw part of the floor turn outwards. "Wait. It's just Uno.. Uno!" Three people came out of the ground. "And Zach, and Eric!" Alice was glad to see each and every one of them. "Eric?" Emily's reaction was slightly more subdued, largely due to the presence of the third. "Emily.. uh.. Hi." This was the first time they had seen each other directly since their duel. "You two can settle things at a later time. Right now we are in a bit of a hurry. We have a helicopter waiting on us, and I can fly everyone to Dreamworld HQ." Zach said hurriedly. They had taken enough risks with this detour as it was. "Hurry? What is going on exactly?" Mrs. Brandt wanted some answers before she just jumped down a hole. "Is is a secret maze?" Alice guessed. "Sort of. This is an underground network of tunnels goes to every key location in the amusement park." Uno was surprised himself, he had under-estimated Doms precautionary paranoia.

"What about the others stuck here?" There were a lot of people who would also like to use this network to get out, as Cassius was quick to point out. "You're quite right. Frederick!.." Zach called for one of the guards. "Once we are gone, see to it that all the men and women here find their way out. The second path to the east should go straight to the parking lot." The guard nodded silently and began to organize the group swarming the place. "That has to do. We should move on now.." The disciple was the first to walk back down the stairs. "We do have to be quick. Emily, Alice, Mrs Brandt... We can talk on the way there." Uno waited until he got a response from them. "Emily.. can we please just get out of here?" Alice was eager to go. "I know, I know. This was just a bit.. unexpected.. Mom, Aaron. Let's leave." It was going along or waiting it out here. The choice was obvious.

The path to the helipad was complicated and long. The minutes they needed to close the distance gave Uno the opportunity to relay the latest with the others, and to give Alice her own dueldisk back. She was glad to have that model instead of the one she had to use against the XYZ-duelist. Moments later she tried to get a certain sister to talk with a certain neighbor. "Come on, sis. He is right there.." Alice pleaded with Emily. She could not stand the awkwardness between the two. "Were the two of you fighting again?" Heather had not picked up on it herself because Eric and Emily commonly butted heads in the past. "No! ..Yes, but that was a duel. I just.. we.. argh. Eric I am sorry I thought you were turning your back on us! I know why you joined the guild now!" She just blurted it out to get it over with. "What I did? Emily, what are you talking about?" Eric seemed utterly baffled by her outburst. "Huh? The thing you were doing for youknowwho?" Emily referred to Zach and Iria of course, yet Eric still stared at her with blsnk eyes. "Someone's here!" Uno broke the standoff up as the sound of footsteps crept in.

"Is that any word to use for a friend?" A certain individual walked right up to them from the shadows of the tunnel. "You?" It was Meridian. "Oh that is right, you did not want to be our friend." He swept his hair aside and activated his dueldisk. "Bah!" Uno's dueldisk was the target, it had been drawn into a duel. "Hey? What are you doing?" Uno snapped at him. "What a boring question, Uno. Think, what is the one thing I would ante you for? I'll give you three guesses." He emphasized the word 'three' rather deliberately. Meridian activated the Ante program. Uno could not take any of his cards out until he he wagered one of them. The card that Meridian had thrown in the pool was a mint-condition ghost-foil Gemknight. "The dragons." Uno only needed one guess. "Is the Fusion Guild is making its move too? How did you find out about them?" It shouldn't have been possible. Zach was the masters disciple and even he did not hear about the decryption key splitting until today. "We have our sources. We know that Dom has split his valuable files across three cards and that you carry them. Once you placed them in your dueldisk, they became ripe for the picking."

"I hate to break it to you, Meridian. But you can only ante for one card at a time..." There were rules for Ante duels. Unfortunately those rules also forbade interference. Uno would have to finish this duel on his own. "I will stake Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon." Once Uno made his investment, the disk released his cards. He took out both the Synchro Dragon and Fusion Dragon. "Zach. Keep these with you." He tossed the two towards the disciple. "Clever. But this is not just about that, Uno. This is also about a word that anyone can understand." Meridian inserted his own deck into his dueldisk. "Revenge. Revenge for what you did to me."

Meridians LP: 8000 Uno's LP: 8000

(To be Continued in Annex 056: Can't Buy you Friends)

New Cards used by Adamant
Raidraptor - Call
XYZ Burst

Cards used by Synchro-Duelists
Goyo Guardian
Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons

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Mystical Space Typhoon

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Descending Lost Star
Dimensional Prison