Annex 066: Instead of Tomorrow
Alice/Uno's LP: 500 Decembers LP: 2000
"You're from.. the future?" Surprisingly, the ones who showed the biggest reaction to Uno's claim were the supposed time travelers themselves. Alice said nothing, probably because she had no idea what to say about such a revelation. "You really didn't know?" And Uno come to an epiphany of his own. During his duel with Neter, he had just taken the kids words for taunts when he said that he did not recognize him. But those weren't lies, he was sure about that now. "When I first saw you, I thought that you were the ones who took my memories away. Now I think it might have been something else, not even a person." Uno pictured the image in his own head, of the great eye in limbo. "The point is... I'm not from around 'now'. When I dueled Neter and Dom and lost control, this pendant went berserk. It dragged me to another world. I was still in the same place, but everything was different. And It felt like home." He grabbed his pendulum crystal. "It must have been the same the first time. This brought me to the past, twice. Only the second time, I managed to keep my memories."
"So that is why.. you disappeared?" Alice finally spoke in a way Uno did not think she would. There was relief in her voice. "So after our game, when I teleported away.. you took a trip too? Hah, you really can tap into our powers!" The four travelers were definitely more at odds about this news. "You're suggesting that his pendulum copies the effects of ours? A person like him can do what we can?" August was offended. Uno could hear he did not have a lot of respect for him. "I think we're beyond suggestions. It has happened more than once. He heard us talk when you dueled him and Doms lackey. He experienced time speeding up before his duel with Neter." June saw no other explanation. And her words shed some light on other mysteries of yesterday. "That was you, wasn't it? You have some weird power to fast-forward the world.. to skip 'the boring parts'. One of you can be anywhere he wants to be, one of you can read minds and one of you can travel through time. I'm not sure yet how you can do it, but you are not like normal people. You're like me.. "
December/Augusts LP: 2000
"We are nothing like you! And we have gone through too much for too long to be stopped by a fraud! You neither understand nor deserve that power!" That must have been the final straw for August as he decided to cut into the duel after that remark. "December, let me crush them with you! We cannot let him get away, he has to be the one!" If Uno could jump into an ongoing duel, so could he. His lifepoints were now tied with Decembers. "I will allow it." December took a few steps to the left. "I will not fail Draw!" As Uno had taken his turn, Augusts would come after his and before Alice's. "Darkness of the Yang Zing!" He brought out the tuner wyrm of darkness, Jiaotu(2/0/2000). Two cards were discarded from his hand so Jiaotu could special summon two Yang Zing wyrms from the deck. "Fire of the Yangzing, Water of the Yangzing!" Suanni the lion wyrm(4/1900/0) and Bixi the turtle wyrm(2/0/1800) were summoned in defense mode. "Let the power of the one and only supreme power be carved into your soul! Synchro Summon!"
"There wont be any carving in my soul this turn, August! But thanks for announcing which monster you were going to summon!" The last time August gave that speech, it was for Scar-Light Red Dragon. A demon like that would destroy his Odd-Eyes Rebellion and his lifepoints in one fell swoop. "Performapal Showdown!" That was why he activated his trap. "For every spell card on my field, a monster on yours will be switched to face-down defense position!" Xiangke and Xiangsheng Magician counted as spell cards, so two of Augusts monsters were switched to face-down position. "What?" Suanni and Bixi disappeared, Jiaotu stayed behind. "You might say I gained new appreciation for flip effects after my previous duel." Uno chuckled. But he stopped when December decided to utter a new command.
"... January, June. Draw your cards."
"What? What! No, we don't have to do that! I am more than enough!" August, feeling humiliated, loudly spoke against him. "Do not speak of your pride with Me, August. This power must be destroyed at all costs." December did not have one word of it. August might have been a tall intimidating brute, but against His voice he was nothing. "Rgh. I understand." He placed a trap card down and ended his turn. During the endphase the two monsters that Jiaotu had summoned were banished.
"Hey!" But he was not the only one with objections to this plan. "If you're gonna make it four on two, you have no problem with four on four, do you?" A duelists rushed towards the scene. "Sis!" It was Emily, and she had brought Zach with her. "Alice. Thank god you're alright. I don't know who did this to you, but I am gonna make sure they regret it!" Emily wasted no more time on words and activated her dueldisk. It connected to the Alice and Uno's lifepoint pool. "They're back for more? I thought you made them sleep?" Neter tilted his head at this development. "I did... His power must have reversed mine.." When Uno first woke up, he had unleashed a strange wave from his pendulum. "Yeah we're awake." Emily snapped. She and Zach had recovered thanks to that wave. Cassius was the same, but he had been too exhausted from his previous duel to come down as well. "And Here I go!" In any case, she started her turn and summoned a flute-playing strawmask-wearing samurai(3/500/1000). "Superheavy Samurai Flutist uses its effect! It tributes itself to special summon a Superheavy Samurai from my hand in defense mode!" The samurai played his flute and sank into the graveyard. Its zone was relinquished to the heavyweight warrior, Superheavy Samurai Big Benkei(8/1000/3500). "Big Benkei attacks from defense mode, and he attacks your wyrm, August!"
"You will not get far!" August had to react quickly. "Oasis of Dragonsouls!" He activated his face-down trap, and with it he could revive a wyrm. One of the cards that Jiaotu had discarded would do well in this case. "Shadow of the YangZing!" It was Taotie the four-legged shadow-wyrm(5/2200/0). "Drown in the darkness of your own sins!" August activated Taotie's effect, starting a quick synchro summon during Emily's turn with his two Yangzing monsters. "Synchro summon! Yazi - Evil of the Yang Zing!" Taotie tuned with Jiaotu and evolved into its final form, the dragonic serpent(7/2600/2100) of the dark. It was of course summoned in defense mode. "If you slay my wyrm, I will just bring out another wyrm from my deck!" August boasted about its effects. "I know my synchro monsters. One way or another, you're gonna get what you want. So it'll be on my terms." Benkei continued its attack and destroyed the Evil of the Yangzing with a single cut.
Upon its death, Yazi special summoned the horned wyrmrabbit, Al-Lumi-Raj(3/1600/1000). "Emily, look!" Cassius was quick to warn her about that creature's crippling effect. "I know." Al-Lumi-Raj weakened the attack and defense points of all other monsters by their level or ranks, times 300. Benkei(0/1900) and Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon(900/400) were virtually helpless now. "Not going to take that lying down." With her graveyard untouched by spell and trap cards, Emily was free to special summon the tuner Superheavy Samurai Trumpeter(2/300/600) from her hand. "I dont have any fancy chants, but I do have my own synchro monsters!" The Trumpeter and Benkei synchronized. "I summon Superheavy Samurai Susanowo!" The great warlord(10/0/800) sat down on the floor, ready to battle despite the power draining effects of the Allumiraj beast. "Uno, I am going to borrow your trap." Susanowo could take a trap or spell from graveyards that werent hers, this included her partners graveyard. The samurai warlord retrieved Performapal Showdown and placed it face-down on Emily's side.
"Hi-hi! It is my turn? It is my turn!" Now with a third player added to the rumble, Neter had no qualms about taking his turn. "Hmm.. I dont have to do a lot. 500 Lifepoints? Hahah, I can sneeze that away!" Neter used Satellarknight Unukalhai(4/1800/1000). The Tellarknight was normal summoned, so its effect activated and tossed a Stellarknight Alsahm into the graveyard. "If Decem wants that monster gone, then it has to go!" Neter locked on to Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon and the starknight raised its scorpion-tail. "Yeah, no." This was when Emily activated Performapal Showdown. Their graveyards were not shared, but their fields were. So she technically controlled two spells. "Those two can take a breather as well." Two monsters, Al-Lumi-Raj and Unukalhai, were be flipped down. "That takes care of that." Both Susanowo(2500/3800) and Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon(3000/2500) reclaimed the points that Al-Lumi-Raj had stolen. "Emily. Thank you." Uno said. That move saved them all... this time. "Thank me later, when we are out of the fire." Unfortunately the look on Neters face told Emily everything she needed to know about how quickly the next attack would come.
"Haha, nice! But what if I do this?" Neter activated Photon Lead, to special summon a light-monster from his hand. It was Satellarknight Altair(4/1700/1300), the winged knight who always special summoned other Satellarknights from the graveyard. "Oh no!" And that monster would be Satellarknight Alsahm, the card Unukalhai had discarded when he was normal summoned. "Yup! 1000 points of damage! It was fun, but now I.." Neter had his hand on the card already... "No!" ..when Alice activated her trap card. "I'm here too you know! I.. I use Monster Rebone! Because you special summoned a monster, I can special summon one from your graveyard!" The trap had many graves to choose from, and December was the lucky customer. "I take your Oracle King lady, D'Arc!" The Fusion D/D/D monster(7/2800/2000) flew out of her tomb to step down in front of Alice. "Ha!?" Then when Alsahm(4/1400/1800) the archer was special summoned by Altair, its damaging arrow was absorbed by D'Arc. Damage became healing energy as long as the Oracle was alive. "Neter! You helped them!" August cursed. "Oops."
Alice/Emily/Uno's LP: 1500
"Alice.. you dont know how happy you made me." Uno let out a deep breath of relief. For a minute there he had thought that he would actually lose. "Same here.. But seriously, Monster Rebone?" Emily was not ungrateful, but she did not think her sister still used cards just because of how funny they sounded. "You know it's funny." Alice couldn't help it. And now a pun had defused the danger. "And if it's together with you guys, then we can still have fun!"Finally Alice could take her turn, with Neter ending his. "Because Uno is our friend! And we will all fight for him, with him!" The Oracle King attacked and destroyed the face-down Al-Lumi-Raj wyrm. Since Neter had summoned all of his monsters in defense mode, it did not really matter which monster was destroyed first.
"This is not how it is supposed to go.." December was losing more and more of his composure. The fact that these children stood in his way, that their lifepoints refused to go down. "June. Why did you not take your turn?" His own companions were not as effective as he expected either. "Because I can sense that my involvement would just draw out the fourth. Perhaps even more. We can't risk it, we should get out while we all can." These thoughts would of course be picked up by June and she responded likewise. Normally, when the situation called for it, they conversed mentally to avoid giving information to the others. "Wait.." Only this time was different. "He is listening again!" June heard her own words echoing in her head as she read Uno's mind. "Ow..that was confusing." He got the same psychic noise. "What is going on?" From the outside it lookedlike June and Uno developed a headache at the same time. "You are learning to control it.." All of their pendulum crystals were glowing; June's earrings, Augusts armbands, Neters belt, Decembers headcrest and Uno's pendant. "Just like Tempus did.."
"Tempus?" There was that name again, it was starting to sound familiar. "It's not possible, he's too young!" August argued. "Age does not say everything, August." Neter replied, grinning. "The Tempus we know would never let others decide his fate. He would not give up who he was, for this." December joined in on the discussion with his thoughts, and Uno was getting tired of being the odd one out. "Okay. Who is this Tempus guy you keep talking about? Why do you think he's me?!" He was starting to wonder if he really could be this person. Except these people claimed to have never seen him in the past. "...June, I agree." December moved his hand over his dueldisk, deactivating it and every other disk in the vicinity. "Uno, Uno's friends; this duel is over for now." August, Neter and June took a step back to flank him. "We have to absorb some new information." June explained. "You were partially right, thought. We came from one future. Not yours or theirs; the future we came from no longer exists. Tempus saw to that. Your future will be next, unless we find him." She left that omen, as Neter teleported the four out of the office.
"They... ran away?" Emily would never get used to a disappearing act like that, and it was hard to accept that the fight got cut off so suddenly. "Wouldn't be the first time." Uno remarked. June fled from the Castle, August retreated after he attacked Dreamworld, Neter let Dom finish his duel with Uno. "Whoever they are, they're doing everything they can to avoid losing." Between the mindreading and timetraveling, those four had bent every rule just to overpower other duelists. "I am just glad that it is over." Zach observed the damage to Doms office and sighed. "Well, I will go back to see how Cassius is doing and if I can not at least get the power back up. For you it would be best if you use the room on the other side to rest up." The disciple excused himself and walked out. "I could use some rest, some real rest." Emily had just woken up from some weird magical coma, and that did not make her restful at all. "Good idea." Uno started to move, but Alice stopped him. "Uno.. I still have to give you these back." She had Beast-Eyes and Rune-Eyes Pendulum Dragon in her hands. "My fusion dragons?" Uno flinched. He hadn't noticed that those two cards were missing from his extra deck. "I only used them, because I didn't think I could fight against that guy without them. And I took them because... I thought they might have been what got you hurt."
"Sis.. cards don't hurt people. Not by themselves.." Sure the cards could injure people if they were used by jerks like the XYZ-guild. But on their own they were harmless. "I know it's silly. Cards can't be alive..." Alice let out a nervous laugh. "I wouldn't joke about that." However Uno was dead serious as he answered her. "Huh?" Which took her and Emily by surprise. "I said I would tell you my whole story didn't I? Well I left in a lot of gaps so that they would not get the full story. You'll just have to believe everything I am going to tell you." He took the fusion cards back. Alice had been close with her guess, she just chose the wrong dragons. "I can believe anything now." Emily had seen some crazyness that would be hard to top. "I would like to hear your story too, Uno. How did you come back, and why?" Alice had her own unresolved questions. "Well.. I should start with these three ladies.."
...
"Sir, may I say that I am glad to hear your voice again." A while later dreamworlds crew managed to restore the crucial functions within the tower like light and communication. Now Zach could finally reach his master. "The feeling's mutual, Zachary. We feared the worst when we couldn't get in touch with you." On their end Dom had managed to find one of his spare masks, which was also important.. to him. "We, sir? Uhm, putting that aside. I can inform you that we experienced no severe losses. Those four duelists tried to take Uno, but they were held off by his friends and they withdrew. Uno has recovered as well." Zach could tell him the good news now.. and the bad. "Recovered? Nobody told me he was sick."
"Oh. That is right; our last communication was interrupted. Sir it is not all sunshine unfortunately. I do not know why, but Eric Stonewell stole one of the three cards. The Fusion Dragon is now in the hands of the Fusion Guild. I let you down, sir." Zach was just happy that Iria was apparently not around to criticize his failure. "Eric? I never would have thought the kid had that in him... That's gonna be bad for the business." Dom took it well enough. But his disciple could still detect some anguish coming through in his words. "Sir? How are affairs on your end?" He had no idea how things were at the amusement park, there was nothing on the local channels about it yet. "Not crazy, but not great either. Everything is under control and the people are all safe. But the XYZ-guild fled long before the swat and trauma teams rolled in. They could not find any members or make any arrests. Hell, despite all the eyewitness accounts, they find it hard to accept. Some even accused me of staging everything just to to get some publicity! Can you believe the nerve? I am telling you, I do not have a good feeling about where this is going. The government is going to look for a scapegoat for this mess and it is probably going to be Dreamworld."
"So, what? They arent going after the guild now?" Was the question Uno gave as he walked into the control room. "Uno? I thought you were downstairs?" Zach was taken by surprise. "I left the Brandts alone with their mother, didn't wanna disturb that gettogether. And I wanted to tell Cassius, you, Dom and Iria my story too." After all they had done, Uno felt he could trust them. "Oh Iria is not here with me right now, she's busy handling the inquiry. Not that she can give them the answers they want. We could have handed them Ichirou for interrogation, except there's a problem there too. He snuck out while we were busy with those timetravelers. So, if he was awake, then probaly all the guilds now know about the decryption code. We're gonna need help."
(To be Continued in Annex 067: World Breaking)
New Cards used by Uno
Performapal Showdown
New Cards used by Emily Brandt
Superheavy Samurai Flutist
New Cards used by Alice Brandt
Monster Rebone
New Cards used by August
Suanni, Fire of the Yang Zing
New Cards used by Neter
Photon Lead