【93 - Making an Escape and a Dimension Hop Too Far!】
With renewed vigour, Sinan drew. "Alright, I cast Dragon's Sign! I bring out Rosia, Final Dragon Ruler!" The golden soldier emerged heroically. Electric chains snapped overhead, bending and crisscrossing into an almost-circle. It then convexed into a spatial gap. "I equip him with Gaiheart so he's a speed attacker, I attack and revolution change! He swaps with this creature in my hand!" A flash of light, then Rosia and his new weapon were gone, replaced with "Rafululu Love, Acoustic Dragon Elemental!" It was a harmonious musical dragon. Bailey was appalled. "You can no longer cast spells until the end of your next turn!"
"Damned brat!"
'With that Heaven's Gate is stalled,' Sinan thought to Venus.
'Good work!'
"Double break!" Sinan commanded and it sailed forth, singing as it swept its wings, the resonance warping the panels until they burst.
Bailey drew. 'Luckily it wasn't in those shields. Now I have even more cards in hand…' He deliberated before choosing, "I summon Stegoro Kaiser! With mach fighter he attacks Rafululu!" The dinosaur reared before using its teeth to tear apart Sinan's dragon. "Your turn."
Sinan drew and carefully looked over his cards with dread. He already knew what they did and yet '...Nothing else I have can stop him playing spells!'
'Then we have to take a chance!' Venus replied. 'Never give up, not until the duel's over!'
"I summon Rosia, Final Dragon Ruler! I equip him with Gaiheart again. I attack and parallel invasion!" White light surged upward and the gold soldier became the slender steel mecha that was Sinan's latest finisher. "Redzone Buster, Roaring Awakened!" It raised its sword and a gold ring squeezed Stegoro Kaiser. "Your creature won't untap next turn. Now Redzone, triple break his last shields!" A wave of light arced out.
Bailey's eyes were wide with expectation in the brightness.
Sinan's were wide with fear.
Shards flung about, cutting up the sleeves of Bailey's suit. He grunted then smiled at the two shining shapes before him. "Shield triggers! Two Heaven's Gates!"
"Shit…"
"For the first I summon Welkius, Assault Gate Elemental! With his effect I bring out a second, then a third, and then Genmu Emperor, Infinite Dragon!" The robot-angel Welkius was skeleton-slim, limbs bent up and wielding twin laser swords. Between the three emerged Amira's secondary finisher, the void dragon with literally infinite power. "Spells and creatures that cost five or less have their effects negated, that includes your Dragon's Sign!"
Sinan's knuckles cracked at his sides. Bailey continued, "Mzalmi=Bugo First, Connected Summit!" The new dispector came next. A fleshy pale dragon surrounded by gold armour and magic circles. "Ex-life! I shieldify, then equip it with Boaroaxe, Evil Tomohawk! Afterwards I can put the top five cards of my deck beneath my new shield."
Even without low-cost creatures to spam, Boaroaxe could already fully dragsolution into Kanoa's old finisher because of all the high-cost creatures out.
"His one shield is six cards…" Sinan realised his misfortune was only starting. Bailey had used one Heaven's Gate so far, and brought out five creatures with it.
"Achernar, Star Gate Spirit and Emotional Hardcore, Sacred Dragon!" Two new gold giants appeared. All his creatures had power in the five digits or close enough. "With the latter I can choose a card, I choose Rafululu so you can't use its effects to negate my spells again. Now, end your turn so I can absolutely destroy you!"
Sinan was speechless, so was Venus.
Bailey smiled. "The only way to beat this deck is quickly. Even then, you have to be lucky enough to not hit any triggers. My Heaven's Gate is perfection!"
"I… end…"
"It's time I annihilated you with the power of your own civilisation, Chosen! I cast a third Heaven's Gate! I play a second Mzalmi=Bugo! Ex-life again! I bring out Heaven's Heaven, Heavenly Church!" The fortress fell on a distant onyx pillar, crystals raining down the cliffside. Bailey paused and spread out his remaining deck quickly, counting. "I only have five cards left so I won't put them under my new shield. I also bring out another Achernar, that puts my total army of creatures at nine! Nine high-powered creatures! And Genmu is an infinity breaker, destroy all his shields at once!" A pulse of negative energy swept out, clearing Sinan's shields.
The pieces fell before fading out.
"No triggers…"
"Then this is the end! Welkius, todomeda!"
"Rev Zero!" Sinan waved a shining light-fire card, the same one that'd saved Heidi. "Master of Revolution!" He reached for his deck, hand trembling. At that moment it felt like Venus had a hand alongside his own, guiding him. He turned over the card. "Holyend! All your creatures are tapped!"
"What!?"
One by one the army sagged or knelt down.
Bailey sneered, "It doesn't matter! My two shields are seven cards, think you can avoid hitting a trigger?"
"I do." Sinan smiled. "Are you bad at counting? You counted your deck before using Mzalmi=Bugo's effect, so you wouldn't deck out." Bailey narrowed his eyes, not getting it. "But you've used Heaven's Gate three times already, and the fourth one was put on the bottom of your deck early on in the game!" Bailey was stunned. "So no more Heaven's Gate! Holyend, double break!" A gold sword sliced the shields, all seven were added to his hand without trigger. "Redzone Buster, todomeda!"
Despite his shock, Bailey managed to teleport. The next moment however, he was struck by a sunbeam.
The pocket dimension faded out. Instead of onyx cliffs they were on top of buildings once more. Sinan fell back on his butt, panting.
"Lucky he didn't notice that shield shard," Venus said. "We infused that attack with extra power and it transferred into his shield as it broke. I could pinpoint his location because of the kaijudo energy in the piece lodged in his arm."
"He was right, you sure do have a lot of battle wisdom…"
"We're lucky we haven't died yet. If there really is a hundred generals here we don't stand a chance. We must get back to the ship, without drawing their attention."
Sinan nodded then climbed back onto his feet.
They were expecting more weaponised brain wave disrupters to null Venus's power. Sinan still had plenty of strength and speed in his human form though. From atop the building he could see where the dome had been damaged from Venus's entry. The ship was that way. He rushed to the edge overlooking a backstreet, then sprang between the metal walls in a downward zigzag. The street buckled under his knee and Sinan launched into a sprint. He'd gained new insights into Urobach and the lieutenant's old home, somewhat. He was inside the colony, but there was nothing more he could do.
...Right?
Elsewhere Amira-D was alone, flying a saucer to a planet just like Aurellia. She lamented having drawn a short straw. Not for the first time, she wondered if the whole cloning idea had been as terrible as she'd feared. Granted, she'd thought something would go wrong. It'd gone fine though, really. Unlike Heidi, Amira could grasp that she'd not actually changed even if her body was back-to-front. It was a weird, extra-dimensional orientation thing. In theory, she could be beamed away and back again, then be back to her old self. But, priorities. Some of them being reversed made it easier to tell each other apart, too. So nobody was in a rush to fix Teams C and D.
Amira couldn't bear to think about Neptune leaving her like this. Her mirrored face looked so wrong somehow, she wanted her old face back.
Aside from that, there was the disturbing fact that none of their lives mattered much anymore. Facing that was more shocking than Sinan-B's death. The others would've hesitated a lot more before sending Amira off on a potential death mission if there weren't four other versions of her. The fact she looked different didn't help either. Nobody wanted to think it out loud but it was true.
Amira's brooding was interrupted when space began blurring sideways. She knew something was wrong, then her ship was thrown at the curvature of a planet. Gravity squeezed her and the ship rapidly collided nose-first.
Amira's vision returned after a moment, she was leaning under the panel. She straightened up in the seat, realising she'd had a mini-blackout. Must have been quite the fall, and yet the ship seemed to be in one piece.
Cursing her luck, Amira got up and walked to the door. She pulled the door frame switch. It hissed, opening without extending the ramp.
'Is this Earth?'
Something was very wrong but she couldn't put her finger on it. The surroundings were just grass. No hills or mountains, but there were slanted trees in the distance. After jumping down and turning, she followed the uniform horizon all around, seeing a few more trees that all looked to be leaning away from her.
She considered transforming into Pluto but didn't want to. Something about this world was uncomfortable. She started walking instead.
Amira stopped when she reached the tree and stared. It was upright. She could've sworn it wasn't, she'd been looking up into its branches before. Yet now she was close, it was unmistakably vertical.
Turning around again she followed the unbroken horizon which remained close, as if she were standing on a hill. Amira started running for another tree.
Running here felt uncomfortable, which didn't make sense. Was this dimension strong enough to put her body under pressure, even as indestructible as she was now? Had she become a weakling normie again? Amira kept her eyes on the next tree and sure enough it went from slanted to upright before her very eyes. Once she was close it was perfectly straight. She stopped, not feeling out of breath but in some other way drained.
Giving up on the childish silent treatment, she sighed and asked irritably, "What the hell is this place?"
She faced the sky, waiting for his answer.
"Keep walking forward," Pluto instructed.
It sounded like he had a theory. Amira indulged him and kept walking. It was much less strenuous than running.
She walked for a couple minutes, unnerved by how the adjacent trees seemed to turn as she did, like they were bending with her steps. Soon enough Amira paused in shock, then walked faster.
"Ah…" Pluto said.
"We're back at the ship." Amira couldn't believe it. "Is this a microplanet?"
"Seems like it. Unfortunately, it's more complicated than that. This dimension is a prison."
"How so?"
"Space itself is spherical here. We can't transform and fly away, we can't fly the ship out either…"
"Why not?"
"Because it's impossible to travel in a straight line in spherical space. Whichever way you move, you're getting squeezed or pulled apart. The parts of your body can't all move parallel because the space is curved."
They weren't able to easily fish things from each other's minds now that Pluto was staying in his mental corner. Amira had to try imagining it herself.
"So if we move too far too quick, I could get crushed or ripped apart?"
"Yes. Movement is putting pressure on your internal organs. When you're not moving it's fine, but if we try to reach escape velocity your molecules might literally get ripped apart."
Amira pulled her hair. "How can we be stuck here!?"
"This is obviously some kind of manufactured pocket dimension, but more advanced than what we've seen from Urobach. Something put us here."
"Some-thing… You mean a Gatekeeper?"
"Maybe a general that far surpasses the powers you had, but..." he sounded negative. "To have created this, there's a good chance it's a Gatekeeper, yes."
"Well that's just great." Amira timed that last word with a melodramatic falling into the grass. She stared up at a perfectly empty blue sky.
They were stuck on some ridiculous tiny prison planet until whoever nabbed her eventually came down to face her. If they ever did.
"...We can't do anything."
"No," Pluto agreed.
"Could anyone out there help us?" She already knew but was scraping for hope.
"They'd be trapped too if they found us. The mind-link doesn't work across dimensions anyway," Pluto said patiently.
"...If I starve to death here. No, it'll be thirst I die from, right? If… if someone doesn't show up in at least a few hours… I'm definitely gonna go crazy…" She started to choke up. This curved world felt like it was bending, squeezing her chest even though she was lying still.
"If it comes to that I'll save you from that fear." They both knew what he meant by those solemn words. "I'll make sure you die unaware and unable to feel pain."
A single tear rolled down her face. "Thank you…"
"It's no problem at all."
So Amira remained where she was. Her fear temporarily staved off as she simply waited. The diameter of the planetoid seemed to be about one hundred metres. What if she dug to the centre? Could that undo all of it? Was it wishful thinking that the planet was tied to the space itself? Destroying it might lead to the dangerous amount of velocity she was trying to avoid. It was a bleak option. For the ship to teleport it needed to be flying at a minimum speed and be away from other matter too.
"Hey Pluto... things moving away will get pulled apart. What if we moved in bursts and keep adjusting, and sort of crawl away...?"
"The ship can't do that. Although..."
"Although?" Amira sat up.
"If we flew a spiral path around the planet, only ascending gradually we'd reduce the pulling effect! Then we could teleport!"
"Brilliant!" Amira jumped up, overjoyed that they'd come up with a solid idea.
She was about to run for the ship when she felt an awful, familiar presence. They were out of time.
Amira knew who it was before looking.
Suddenly there was a group of six people nearby. They all seemed bewildered, crouching or standing while looking around. Floating above was Gatekeeper Pluto, his kimono shimmering.
"Hello, my generals…"
"Wait, huh?!" Amira yelled.
"Currently, the planet I'm observing is without an appropriate leader. The general was stripped of his rank. This is a contest to determine who should rule it instead."
One by one, the others realised they were facing a Gatekeeper. They dropped to their knees in reverence and terror.
A man with an eye patch spoke, "Your Grace, I've already been assigned my world-"
"All of you are generals who happened to be outside timelines, so I scooped you together for this contest."
Amira looked around. One guy was wearing a glass helmet with breathing tubes. Another had a flashing mouthpiece. The youngest was a woman a few years older than Amira, with a scar below her eye.
Amira couldn't help herself, she shouted at Pluto, "You said you'd let me go! Was that a lie!?"
Pluto pointed a dainty finger. "Just so you're all aware, that one didn't originate from the colony." Everyone turned to eye Amira and her lack of a grey uniform. "If you're having difficulty deciding who to attack first, might I suggest the outsider? May the best general win." The next instant he vanished.
"Shit!"
Someone teleported and Amira lunged as they swung at the back of her head. Cringing, she forced herself to ignore the pressure as she ran. There were flashes of black fire as generals teleported all over the place, disappearing and reappearing.
A bald man took a wide stance, spreading his arms. Above them, a fiery black disc stretched some twenty metres. From within, a meteor of black crystal fell. Amira melted into a shadow, shooting out from beneath it before the planetoid took the impact.
There was a brief pause, the generals all eyed each other, calculating their chances.
Amira reshaped herself. That shadow-form of hers could handle the stretching and squeezing of motion, she was happy to learn.
"Stay calm," Pluto murmured, trying to reassure them both.
Suddenly black fire burned and half the bald man's torso was teleported away. Blood propelled from his arteries and he crumpled into the grass.
"The nail that sticks up gets hammered down…"
They didn't have to worry about that guy anymore. Seeing these different skills made her weirdly jealous that she hadn't learned them while she still had Gatekeeper power.
The fighting resumed, everyone teleporting around each other and trying to score a lucky hit.
Fish-bowl Guy focused on her and Amira dodged his attacks, becoming darkness when he punched through her. He was confused before an onyx spear fired through his torso. His eyes bulged as he fell sideways.
The young woman paused for a moment to scream, her body shaking. She got a hold of herself and teleported away when someone tried slugging her from behind. Then while crying, she continued firing off more onyx spears. 'So that's her power…' Amira looked around, trying to figure out what the remaining combatants could do.
She dodged aside as Mouth-piece Guy swung down an onyx mallet.
'Can we grow big while staying in that shadow form?' Amira thought.
'Give it a shot!'
Amira blackened then swelled, becoming the silhoutted shape of Supernova Pluto. She towered into the microplanet's stratosphere, its small curvature shrank away, the scattered fighters all stared up at her. Amira waved an arm, the fabric darkness swept a slower teleporter off his feet. Then Mallet Guy got him.
"What are you doing!?" Spear Girl shrieked. "We have to take her out first!"
"Fine," Mallet Guy said. The moment Spear Girl turned away he hurled his mallet at her, it spun then whalloped her skull.
Amira swept a wing that washed over the landscape but he teleported away.
A gleam caught her eye, she could see the underside of her spaceship. An idea!
"STOP!"
Supernova Pluto's voice unnerved everyone, not least of all Amira. She cleared her throat, "You are supposed to be generals, dignified elites of the strongest civilization in the multiverse." She wasn't sure bullshitting would work, but saw the last two straighten up. "We should settle this with a duel."
"There's three of us left."
"Then I'll duel the winner." Amira shrank down. "A gatekeeper chose us specifically, so let's take that honour more seriously."
That was taking it too far. She could tell from the looks of both men that neither gave a shit about having a Gatekeeper's attention. Either way, they agreed to stop trying to kill each other and duel.
Tables and shields formed. Amira stood back between them, as if she were reffing.
Eyepatch charged nature-water-dark. Grey Beard charged with a water magic tool.
"I summon Dreaming Moon Knife and charge!" Eyepatch announced, adding more tri-coloured mana.
"I cast Baredu Daspell! I draw two and discard Gompadu Daspell!"
'Grey Beard will use Gate of Moonless Night,' Pluto thought to Amira.
'His deck feels different to that goofy robot's,' Amira recalled M-006's strategies from shared memories. 'Different finishers maybe.'
'He'll bring out something real tough when he gets enough magic tools in his graveyard.'
Grey Beard couldn't help smirking at two of his cards, Vogenmu and Zeni Szark.
"Looks like you're real happy with your starting hand," Eyepatch murmured.
"Yeah?" Grey Beard only smiled wider.
"I'm happy too. My deck type is the perfect match up against yours!" Eyepatch turned bloodthirsty as he threw down his next card. A ripple reached Amira who tensed, recognising darkness energy.
"CRYMAX Jaouga!?" Pluto gasped.
"I summon Caddy Beetle and Aple, Young Great Elder!" Another two nature critters joined his zone. A mantis armed with a gold golf-club and a tree-being. Lockdown cards. "While I have Aple my opponent can't move cards from their mana or graveyard! To use Gate of Moonless Night you have to take cards out of your graveyard to put your finisher on top, right!?"
"Ouch…" Amira muttered.
Eyepatch pointed, "Moon Knife, ike!" The ferret swung its scythe through a shield then leapt back.
Grey Beard stood there, a bead of sweat running down the side of his face.
'So this was a bad match-up?' Amira asked.
'Feels like it…'
Grey Beard charged darkness, "...I summon Dupoiz, Dharma and sacrifice it. You must destroy one of your creatures…"
"Is that all?" At Eyepatch's taunt Grey Beard grit his teeth. "Then I choose Dreaming Moon Knife." A sinister glass bottle shattered, acid ate through the ferret.
Amira wasn't in the mood to stand back and watch a slaughter. She stepped up. "I choose five!" Her table and shields appeared. Seeing that shock on the faces of her opponents would never get old. "I summon Noron Up, Question 2! I draw 2 and discard 2. I summon Atsuto, Duel Hero Strategist and do the same. Same with Dugenda, Gig as well." Six cards fell into her graveyard, leaving her with three cards in her deck.
'I could've revived Turbo Cho but that damn Aple also stops me from taking cards out of my graveyard…'
"I end my turn and thanks to Eyepatch over there, Ceremony of Hands activates and I gacharange summon." A flaming man with a scythe, crouching on a fireball took shape. "Helegrigory-Zeroshiki!"
"Fine." Eyepatch adjusted to the new threeway duel. "I'm allowed to summon Diszircon from my graveyard. Caddy Beetle attacks his shield!" He pointed and it swatted a panel. He wasn't going to leave Aple vulnerable by attacking, from the looks of it that one card might grant his victory against both opponents.
"I summon Vogenmu, Darmugenma!" A smaller, craggly version of Genmu Emperor slithered out. 13,000 power and only cost four. "At the end of my turns I must discard thirteen cards from my deck."
Amira was alarmed.
Eyepatch regained composure. "Pointless…"
Grey Beard was determined as most of his deck flipped over into his graveyard like flickering pages. If only Aple wasn't out, he could've immediately fulfilled his deck's requirement.
"I cast Ryugokusatsu!" Amira declared, now leaving herself with a single card in her deck. "I gacharange summon Hei-Sanshiki Tomurai! I fulfil the Ceremony of Graveyard and give -3000 power to Aple!" The troublesome tree rotted away, finally. "Now I can put my eight graveyard cards under my deck to summon Jaouga Zero, Oniga Evil King! He attacks Grey Beard and I mill three and revive Jyadokumaru which at the cost of a shield destroys Diszircon." Still no triggers. "I fulfil the ceremony of resurrection and mill two more." Amira turned on her other opponent, "Helegrigory double breaks!" Fire fluttered with its swipe, glass chimed. "With that, I end my turn."
She still had an army of smaller creatures she'd not attacked with.
"What're you playing at?"
"Just enjoying our game. It's meant to be a game, you know. You guys turned it into a way of killing people and subjugating worlds."
Eyepatch and Grey Beard looked at each other then back to her.
"You're playing a game?"
"Sick fuck."
"I cast Kiyuri's ASMRadio!" Eyepatch announced. "I look at my top five cards and summon two low cost creatures. I choose another Diszircon and Aple!"
"That's not good…"
"Ha! Caddy Beetle break his last shield!"
"Why me!? Why not the outsider?"
"You're almost out, it makes sense to get you out of the way!"
It seemed Grey Beard wasn't using a trigger-heavy deck, or possibly they all revolved around reviving creatures and so were made useless. He was now without any shields. He stared at the spell he'd held onto to save himself but thought better of it.
"I'd rather die by the effect of my own card than be somebody's entertainment. But first, I still have one attack left." He looked at Eyepatch who was sweating bullets.
"What? Me!?"
"Payback. I'll whittle down your shields so the girl can kill you. You'll die right after me!"
"Hold up now! I didn't know my deck was a perfect counter to yours! She made us duel, and she's not even from the colony! Attack her!"
Amira watched Grey Beard think it through. He rounded on her, "Vogenmu, triple break!"
Amira swore as three shields burst under black lightning. Eyepatch sighed in relief.
Grey Beard looked up. "I end my turn and Vogenmu mills the last of my deck…"
"Wait, crazy old guy-!" Amira's shout was interrupted as his table exploded.
"Suicide…" Pluto murmured.
When the smoke cleared they could see a burnt corpse facedown in a crater.
"The colony will be victorious!" Eyepatch's visible eye bugged. He'd lost it. "After I win the Gatekeeper will spare me!"
Amira focused and drew. "Atsuto, attack!"
"Shield trigger! Dokidoki Spiral! I choose to bounce… your Noron." He removed a weak creature instead of her heavy hitters. "You're attacking with your weak creatures because you want me to block, right? That way you could make all your weaker creatures suicide to complete the final ceremony then finish me with Zeron, RIGHT?!"
"Atsuto, ike! Noron, ike!"
"Guard Strike! On…" He fell to his knees. His shields were all gone and there were many attackers left. "...Jyadokumaru."
"I still have Jaouga Zero and Helegrigory-Zeroshiki, both are strong enough to cause instant death, even if you stopped me from unleashing Zeron out of sheer stubbornness... It would've been a really cool moment too."
"Amira, what exactly was your plan with this?" Pluto was exasperated.
"That's right, I have an idea!"
Amira melted into a tidal wave of darkness. The other man cried out as he was plucked away and pulled over to her ship. Amira lifted him up against it.
"Hey, listen! Do what I say and you can survive this." He nodded fearfully. "Teleport to your pocket dimension, then take this ship and me with you." He stared for a second then nodded, igniting in black and disappearing after a couple seconds.
Amira sprang on top of her ship. It all burned black and she was dragged into a purple world of black glass. It looked bigger than Urobach's throne room, maybe a hundred square metres. Amira jumped off the ship onto the smooth floor.
"What are you planning?" Eyepatch stepped over.
"This ship can travel through dimensions once it's flying."
Pluto added, "But in that other world the spherical space would've ripped it apart."
"Do you want to escape with me?" Amira asked. "It's your choice."
"I, uh…" He looked down then back up. "Thank you for letting me go. I better not anger the Gatekeeper."
'He might become our next enemy if the Gatekeeper sends him to Aurellia,' Pluto warned in Amira's mind.
'Eh,' she mentally shrugged. 'He's not very strong. Let's just see if we can get out of here.'
Amira turned away, springing into the ship. The general caught fire and left. Amira reached the controls, got the door to close and the ship to light up. It lifted off and flew in rising arcs. The blue leaking into the wiring meant it was safe to jump so Amira punched it and they blasted away.
"Where did General Amira go?" Back on the grassy planetoid, Gatekeeper Pluto turned to Eyepatch the moment he returned.
Dead bodies and wreckage from the fighting and duel littered their surroundings. The onyx meteorite loomed in the sky.
Slowly, the realisation of his mistake settled in. "Master, I…" Eyepatch went to kneel but froze in place.
Pluto's arm whipped up.
The man screamed as his skin and muscles began turning themselves inside out and back again, individually rolling in place. His eyes crawled like slugs across his head. His hair, scalp and skull was constantly regrowing at a psychedelic pace. After a few seconds of that Pluto swished his arm and he splunged, flying apart.
Pluto stood there alone, "...I'd hoped it would be her."
He teleported away and his pocket dimension imploded.
『AN: Yeyyy first chapter of 2024. The next chapter is mostly all written too so should be up soon enough. So currently I'm looking for work placement to finally finish up my course. Christmas was nice, New Years was fun. So far this year is off to a good start. The chapters of this quarter might need some sprucing up to match the effort of the rest of Water Arc. At least in terms of content we've got a lot happening. Acuma's still helping out and congrats to him for reaching over 500k with his story. I used to have fun pretending we were having a word race but AUrellia will defs end at 500k. Ah well, maybe next fic.』
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