The Rise and Fall of History: A Past Unseen

by Medigo

The world of dueling has reached a standstill. Many stories have been told through these cards, and the final story pits every side against each other. It is a game no more. Duelists are divided, and an unknown enemy watches from afar. In the midst of all this chaos is one man who brings a new power that can forever end the conflict; a stranger to this world and to himself.

56. Can't Buy You Friends

Annex 056: Can't Buy You Friends

"Sir. I managed to secure this room. I am afraid that is far as I can extend my influence." For the last few minutes Iria had been working on the shield system to get it back online. The office was now protected by its own barrier. Sadly the XYZ-guild still controlled everything outside. "It will have to do. So, not being rhetorically here.. what is happening outside?" Dom could now see the duels in the theater on the big screen and things had taken a sudden sharp for the bizarre, as the Fusion Guild came back with reinforcements. "I don't know sir." These new duelists had no fusion symbol on any of their clothes. In fact they looked like ordinary people. "Perhaps they bought their loyalty." At the very least this would keep the guilds occupied while Uno and the others snuck away.

"Sir, I do have a question. Why did you give the three cards to Uno? I am not questioning your faith in him. However if you were sending Zach along with him, it would have served the same purpose to simply give Zach the cards. You must have a reason for involving Uno." Even if they needed help, Uno did not need to be the duelist for the cards. "You know. It's times like these that I remember why I hired you; you never miss." Dom chuckled a little and cleared his throat. "UNO never told me why those four cards all look alike, or what their story was. I don't like not knowing things. I wanted to see what would happen if Uno used one of those dragons in a duel. Since Zach is with him, everything should go smoothly enough that it wont come to any violent outbursts. If anything goes wrong, I'll apologize later."

...

"Dom divided the key to his database? Clever. Anyone who holds all three cards, can strengthen or destroy the guilds." This was the first Cassius heard of this. He seemed very interested. "Normally I would love to debate the philosophical and moral aspects of this dilemma, Cassius. But these cards are not safe here." The disciple Zach could sense what Cassius wanted to say. He held his two cards close to himself. Their attacker Meridian seemed willing to duel for the remaining card in Uno's dueldisk.

Meridians LP: 8000 Uno's LP: 8000

"Hey. This really is the worst time, place and reason to duel right now!" So much so that he did not give any attention to Emily's frustrated rants. "Eric, say something to this guy. You're in his guild too." She laid off and gave Eric a turn to shout at him. "Meridian? Is this what the guild wants? Or are you just doing this for yourself?" Eric had definitely never heard anything about the Fusion Guild's desiring Doms database. "What an inane question, Stonewell. I am doing this for the guild. Are you as well? Or are you their friend instead?" Meridian had an odd sort of laugh as he spoke, like he'd just told a joke that nobody else got. "Let me make it clear that I did overhear your discussions. I know now that you have been working for Dreamworld all along." The conversations jad involved Eric's spying duties for a certain youknowwho. "N-no! We were talking about.. Eric's mom..back at home. He was going to get her a present!" Alice tried to spin it into a new story. Tried being the operative word.

"Unlikely." Meridian drew his cards. "Regardless, I have no time for you Eric. Your fate rests with someone else... No, Uno has my eyes now. As long as neither side possesses all three cards, nobody can make use of them." Meridian started the game as he always did, with a fusion summon. "I activate Gemknight Fusion!" With a spell he fused the Gemknights Garnet and Obsidian in his hand. "Gemknight Ruby!" Garnet formed the base for the caped knight(6/2500/1300) in ruby-red armor. It was summoned in defense position. "Additionally, I'll activate the effect of Gem-Knight Obsidian!" When Gemknight Obsidian was sent from the hand to the graveyard, another Gem-Knight could be special summoned from the graveyard. Gemknight Garnet(4/1900/0) was the one Meridian chose to put back on the field in defense position. "Two cards left. I know their place as well." The fusion duelist placed two cards face-down in the spell/trap zone. "This duel will not be the same as last time, Uno." He ended his turn.

"... Guys. Maybe you should move on without me." Uno advised as he started his turn. "What? No.. we can't leave without you! Why are we always splitting up?!" Alice protested. "I know you don't want to. But you may have to. Meridian has got one thing right.. as long as we keep the dragons separated, they can not help anyone." Zach would understand. He had to secure the synchro and fusion dragon in case Uno lost the XYZ dragon. "Mrs. Brandt. Promise me you will get your daughters out of here if things start to turn bad." If he could not convince his friends, maybe he could talk sense to their mother. "Of course." She was already planning on doing that anyway. Alice and Emily always followed her in the end. "Thank you. Now then Meridian, your revenge." Uno normal summoned Performapal Salutiger(4/1700/300). "All of that is because I beat you that one time? Or is that only the reason you took a job from your guild to intercept and challenge me?"

"A little from both worlds. I would not forget the man who took away my chance to enter the tournament." Meridian answered spitefully. "Except you put yourself in that position to begin with, Meridian. Losing is always a possibility!" Uno finally attacked. Performapal Salutiger struck Gemknight Ruby and destroyed the red knight. Salutiger's effect then placed a new Performapal, Performapal Secondonkey, from the deck in Uno's hand. "I would not have minded it, Uno, had it been a just loss. But you.. you conjured a fusion monster out of nothing. You did not earn that victory, and you did not even use it to join us! You have insulted me and the Fusion Guild with just that one move!" Meridian flipped his trap card. "Brilliant Spark! When a Gemknight is destroyed, my enemy will suffer damage equal to the victims original attackpoints!" A diamond stone appeared and cracked open. Brilliant light escaped the cracks and swallowed Uno. "Unf.." Now he got why Meridian had summoned all his Knights in defense; to lure him in.

Uno's LP: 5500

"Did you feel anything Uno?" Emily wondered, since she could not tell if the damage was real like it had been with the XYZ-guild. "Not physically..." Uno had to admit he was a bit surprised. Since this guild was after Doms data too, he figured they had the same solid-vision aspirations. "Meridian, do you even know what your guild wants with the cards?" He proposed his opponent this question as he placed a card in his spell/trap zone and ended his turn.

"What can we not do with Doms knowledge? Phoebe reminded me often enough on what glory I missed out on. Eric will attest to it; the tournament was ours. We will not let the XYZ-guild or you take what we are owed!" Meridian activated a continuous spell. "Brilliant Fusion! I may fuse Gem-Knights in my deck to special summon a Gemknight fusion monster! The Gemknights of Lazuli, Tourmaline and Crystal will form the perfect gem; Gemknight Lady Brilliant Diamond!" The spell cast three differently colored gems into the vortex of fusion and created the queen of all Gemknights, Lady Diamond(10/0/0). "Alas, the monster summoned in such a brilliant way will have its points taken away. Yet by discarding a spell from my hand, Brilliant Fusion can return those points to the summoned monster until your next turn ends! That is a minor price for someone like me." Meridian placed his hand on his graveyard. "By banishing one Gemknight from the graveyard, Gemknight Fusion can return to me!" He banished the Gemknight Obsidian and took back the fusion spell. He immediately discarded that spell so that Brilliant Fusion would unlock the full power of Lady Diamond(3400/2000).

"Now comes the next piece. When I sent Gemknight Lazuli to my graveyard, she forced a normal Gemknight out into my hand." Not only did Meridian return Gemknight Tourmaline from his graveyard, the yellow thunder knight(4/1600/1800) was also normal summoned. "And finally.. my Lady's own effect. She exchanges a Gemknight on the field with a Gemknight in my extra deck! I will special summon Gem-Knight Prismaura!" Gemknight Tourmaline was destroyed and its crystalline remnants formed the white swordsman(7/2450/1400) in prismatic armor. "They will break you, piece by piece. For the cost of one card in my hand, Prismaura can destroy any face-up card you control." Meridian reactivated Gemknight Fusions recycling effect. The spell banished Gemknight Tourmaline to return to his owners hand. Gemknight Fusion was discarded for Prismaura's effect. A triangular beam shot out of its shield and destroyed Performapal Salutiger. "The path to victory is cleared! My Gemknights, attack Uno directly!" Prismaura, Lady Diamond and Garnet launched themselves into the air.

"Cleared?" Uno took one step back and raised his hand up. "You must be repressing our last duel. Here's a refresher!" His gesture flipped a set quick-play spell. "I activate Hippo Carnival!" Three Hippo tokens(1/0/0) were special summoned in defense mode. "That card again?" Meridian was forced to attack the hippos. His three Knights slashed, stabbed and punched the tokens, reducing them into fragments of light. "You know how the saying goes! The more things change, the more they stay the same." Uno did enjoy the fact that he had stopped Meridians onslaught twice with the same spell. "Change? Things will only change once matters are set right!" The fusion duelist moved to his second main phase. For the third time he banished a Gemknight from the graveyard, Gemknight Crystal, to recover the Gemknight Fusion spell card. "By sending a spell card to my graveyard, Brilliant Spark can be reclaimed!" Gemknight Fusion was traded for the Brilliant trap. Naturally Meridian placed that trap card face-down, along with another trap. "What can you do to stop me? Where are your fusions now?!"

"Meridian, I wanted to have a fair duel the last time. I don't know what happened to me then. This time there's more at stake. I will do whatever it takes to win!" Uno normal summoned a new Performapal, a bowtie wearing donkey(4/1000/2000). "Performapal Secondonkey! When this card is normal summoned, I can send a Performapal from my deck to the graveyard!" Secondonkey's effect targeted Performapal Thunderhino and sent it to its grave. "Then I activate the scales, Stargazer and DragonPit Magician!" In the pendulum zones, the white time magician and the dark magician with the spiked crown and collar appeared. "The masters card." Zach was familiar with the latter; it was one of the cards Dom had added to Uno's deck to help defend the dragons. Uno was truly ready to use everything. "Scale 1 and scale 8! Let's see what I will pendulum summon now!" Stargazer and Dragonpit opened a portal between their light pillars, special summoning Performapal Whip Snake(4/1700/600) and Performapal Cheermole (2/600/1000) from Uno's hand in attack position. "Another level 4 monster?" Eric had a good feeling about this. "Here I go, Meridian! I'll use my monsters as XYZ-ma.."

That good feeling evaporated along with Uno's ability to XYZ-summon. "What?" Meridians second trap was activated; Grisaille Prison. "Crap, it's that card. He has a fusion summoned monster so neither player can XYZ-summon this turn! Or Synchro summon!" Eric had seen Grisaille Prison a lot. It was a helpful card against the other guilds. "Then.." Had Uno known, he wouldn't have summoned everything at once. Now his monsters were sitting ducks. "..Whip Snake and Cheermole, target Gemknight Prismaura!" He had to move forward as best he could, by using his Performapals abilities. The snake switched attack and defense points and the Mole stripped 1000 attackpoints away. He had to target Prismaura, it was the biggest threat to his pendulums. "Go, attack!" The snake slithered forward towards the weakened Prism Gemknight(400/2450) and bit it until it crumbled down into dust. "By all means, keep making things simpler for me!" Naturally Meridian countered with Brilliant Spark. The trap triggered upon Prismaura's demise and inflicted 2450 points of effect damage to Uno. "Ngh!" These strikes were starting to take their toll. "Everyone.. you should reconsider the gettingaway-plan."

Meridians LP: 6600 Uno's LP: 3050

"You're not saying you're going to lose, are you?!" Alice was still resistant to the suggestion. The others however were starting to see the point. "He can, but we might los our window of opportunity. With every passing second we risk getting cornered by more duelists from the fusion guild or the XYZ-guild." Cassius tried to make Alice see the danger they were likely still in. "I guess.. but what if we have to fly away without Uno?" If she had to go, she at least wanted to give Uno a chance to catch up. "It will take a while to get the chopper ready; 15 minutes. Uno, that is all I can give you." Zach felt sympathetic, but in the end it was more important to keep the remaining cards out of the Guilds hand. "Got it." Uno was fine with whatever they were going to do. "Uno.. you can win, okay! You will!" Alice said her last few words. That would have to do, she and the rest ran further down the tunnels.

"Such an ordinary parting." Once they were gone, Meridian broke out into a cackle. "What good are 'friends' when they can only help you by running away? I have almost everything I need right here already!.. Almost" Meridian drew his card and smirked. "I summon Crystal Rose!" A rose(2/500/500) made from green and red crystals was formed on the field. "Crystal Rose can send a Gemknight from the hand or deck to the graveyard, to imitate its name! It will copy Gemknight Sapphire!" The rose changed its color into that of sapphire blue. Now that it had this identity, it could be targeted by Lady Brilliant Diamond(10/0/2000), who was once again stripped of her attackpoints. "Lady Diamond will sacrifice Crystal Rose for another Gemknight Lady Diamond!" The Brilliant queen could only be summoned once a turn. Now that Meridian had waited a turn, the first Lady could special summon the second Lady(10/3400/2000) from the extra deck. Meridian also recycled Gemknight Fusion this turn by banishing Gemknight Lazuli. Like the last time, the fusion spell was discarded for Brilliant Fusion, which gave the first Lady Diamond(3400/2000) her original attackpoints.

"My beautiful seeds have been planted now, Uno! By banishing a fusion monster from the graveyard once a turn, Crystal Rose will revive itself!" The rose sprouted from the ground once again, after banishing Gemknight Ruby's remains. "Behold your end!" The Crystal Rose reactivated its effect to send a Gemknight Emerald to the graveyard and to copy its name. The second Brilliant Lady then sacrificed the Emerald Rose to special summon a Gemknight Topaz(6/1800/1800) fusion monster from the extra deck. "Remember him? Topaz can attack two of your monsters each battle phase! And when he ends their lives, you will take damage equal to their attackpoints! This is how you should have died when we last met. This is how you will die today!" Topaz the orange warrior jumped into the air and brought his swords down into Cheermole.

Then, quite intentionally, Uno activated a trap at the last instant. "Last Minute Cancel! All Performapals are switched to defense position! And when they are destroyed, they do not go to the graveyard!" The now defending Mole was destroyed first and it swirled back into Uno's hand. "What did you say?" Meridians eye twitched. Gemknight Topaz could not inflict effect damage if its victims never fell into the graveyard. "What do you think? I'm not going to play dead for you." He smiled back at Meridian. ".. You will not smile for long!" Topaz attacked the defending Snake as well. "Heard that already." Uno activated the effect of Performapal Thunderhino from his graveyard to negate Whip Snake's destruction in battle. "Ragh!" Meridian sent one Gemknight Lady Diamond after the Snake. "Oh, I almost forgot." Uno activated Whip Snake's quick effect to switch the attack and defense points of the attacking Gemknight Lady(2000/3400), just before the pal was run through by her sword. "You..." Meridian had lost too much power to finish Uno off this turn. The second Lady Diamond killed Performapal Secondonkey and Garnet Uno attacked directly. Last Minute Cancel put the Snake and Donkey into his hand. Technically Uno could have done this differently, but he wanted to make sure all his Performapals returned to his hand. "You cannot win either! You think you are superior to me, but you never were!" He banished Gemknight Emerald in the graveyard, reclaimed Gemknight Fusion, discarded it to reclaim Brilliant Spark, and set the trap card down

Uno's LP: 850

"I didn't ask to be superior to anyone, Meridian. I'm not dueling for money or power and I'm not sure if you understand that. You'll understand this though.." It had to be done now. Uno used his pendulum scales to pendulum summon Secondonkey and Whip Snake from his hand again. Cheermole he kept to himself. "XYZ-summon.." Meridian probably had no counters to this anymore, or an idea of what exactly Uno was going to summon. "Dark-Rebellion XYZ Dragon." Uno overlayed his two Performapals and summoned the dark brother of Odd-Eyes; the XYZ Dragon of the Rebellion(4/2500/2000). "My friends are waiting for me. I'm not going to play nice just to make you happy." Uno stated. Unbeknownst to him, the pendant on his chest released a dim glow that slowly grew stronger.

..

As the sun began to set on the horizon the others made it to the helipad. It had been a long day. "Can you fly that contraption?" Heather saw that the helicopter was there and ready to go. "I can. I shall spare you the story of how the master convinced me and Silver to get a license." It was almost bizarre how many of the Masters precautions turned out to be useful. "Anyway. I need to make sure everything is in working order.. Uno still has ten minutes." Zach walked towards the vehicle. Unexpectedly, he was approached by Eric before he could get inside. "Stonewell? What is on your mind?" Eric had this odd look on his face. He wanted to say something. "Sorry..Creffield." Once he did, he made his attack. Eric placed a card on his dueldisk and created a solid image of an Infernoid. "Huah!?" Zach was thrown to the ground by the hellish beast, and his cards fell out of his disk. "Eric! What the hell man!" Emily yelled as the situation unfolded. Their dismay grew even deeper more when Eric kneeled down to pick the two dragon cards. "I said I was sorry, Em. But I couldn't resist. The fusion guilds wants these.. and I am still a part of that."

(To be Continued in Annex 057: Cycle of Violence)

New Cards used by Uno
Performapal Secondonkey
Dragon Pit Magician

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Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon

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Last Minute Cancel

New Cards used by Meridian
Gemknight Garnet
Crystal Rose

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Gemknight Ruby
Gemknight Prismaura

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Brilliant Fusion

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Brilliant Spark
Grisaille Prison