Lee here and Welcome to part two of our double update, shocking I know! As always, thanks to Eneko95 for being our beta editor and catching mistakes we miss. Enjoy the duel! Will Laura win this one?
Let's find out!
Chapter 37
War of The Planets
Nature's Strings
Part II
Elysium
Laura - 8000
Tauni - 8000
The ladies drew their hands and a small light floated down to Tauni's side of the field, popping in front of her.
"Good, nice to see that even other dimensions recognize true talent," Tauni mocked as she looked at her hand for a bit. "I'll start off by activating my Continuous Spell, Perform Puppet!"
The field began rumbling as a large-scale puppet stage built itself around Tauni's side of the field. Instead of the bright, colorful paint job you might expect, the paint on this one was peeling off, and the curtains looked like an entire kitten nursery had climbed up them for two years straight. What was somehow worse was that the "comedy" mask on one side of the stage looked like a grinning demon head.
"But you don't get to know what it does until later," she continued as two more cards manifested onto the field before her. "So I'll end my turn after setting two cards face down."
"Alright, my draw," Laura remarked as she drew the first card. "I'll go ahead and summon my Naturia Pumpkin (4/1400/800) in Attack Mode."
Her side of the field turned into a small garden, and one of the vines planted there began growing a roughly spherical green gourd. Large brown eyes blinked open, stubby feet emerged, and the pumpkin pushed itself off the vine with similarly stubby arms.
"What self-respecting duelist would use such ridiculous looking cards like that?" Tauni laughed mockingly.
This remark made her opponent, and their monster, glare at her before speaking.
"Normally, I'd be wary of your facedown cards, but better to be safe than sorry. Go, Pumpkin, cut her down a peg with Seed Shower!"
The monster chirped and began spitting seeds in a tall arc over the field, aimed in Tauni's general direction.
"Good news, you were right to be wary!" Tauni mocked. "I activate one of my facedown Traps, Puppet Parade! As you control more monsters than I do, I can now Special Summon Gimmick Puppets to the Field until we have an equal amount of monsters."
The stage rumbled slightly, and Pumpkin's seeds either disappeared before they landed or scattered harmlessly at their target's feet.
Soon enough, a single card ejected itself from Tauni's Deck as she grabbed it and placed it onto one of her open spots. Her cards then shuffled automatically.
"Welcome to the show, Gimmick Puppet Twilight Joker (8/800/1600), in Defense Mode!"
The curtains behind her closed, and there was a faint hum somewhere "backstage." Seconds later, they pulled back to reveal a black wooden puppet with a ruffled red collar and orbs for joints, rolling around on the floor like a cat scratching its back on a sidewalk. Then it jumped up, spun to face Laura, and made a very jerky bow with the arm not currently holding a rather large scythe.
As it moved the scythe in front of it protectively, she realized it wasn't actually using its white gloves to hold it. Rather, the scythe appeared to be fused with its wrist joints, leaving the gloves as just decoration.
"Since my Trap reset your monster's attack, I assume you're going to continue your pitiful assault on me?"
Despite being irritated by her opponent's taunting, Laura kept a cool head and ended her Battle Phase. She knew if the attack went through, it'd only deal damage to herself. All that could be done was to set up for the next turn.
"I'll end my turn by setting my own card facedown."
Tauni gave a smug chuckle as she drew her first card.
"Let's make things a little more exciting. I activate my second facedown card, the Continuous Trap Marshalling Field!"
As the card rose from its spot, a bright glow shined out as a sigil soon spread across her Field, spreading copies of itself that attached to her stage as well. It showed to only stay on her side, not spreading any further.
"The first thing this card does is limit me to only Special Summon Machine-Type Monsters," Tauni explained. "Fortunately, its second effect more than makes up for that restriction: Once per turn, I can change the level of any Machine-Type monster to anywhere between Level 5 and Level 9. It also has one last surprise, but I'll save that for later and end my turn by setting another facedown card."
Laura looked a bit confused, wondering why her opponent was only playing defensively. For now, her best option was to try and get her to spring any traps she might have set for her.
"I draw," Laura declared while grabbing a second card from her hand. "I'll have another one of my friends join the fun, my Naturia Cliff (4/1500/1000) in Attack Mode."
The garden shook violently, and a large slab of white rock with cartoonish hands and feet burst out of the ground next to Pumpkin. The rock had bright red eyes and a thick patch of red moss on top of its head, from which grew four different mushrooms and some skinny branches. Cliff reached up and snapped one off, holding it like either a wand or a very small club.
"Ooo scary, a big rock." Tauni yawned boredly in response.
"Oh, the fun's just starting. Both my monsters are level four, which means I can use them to build the Overlay Network!"
As she said that, Cliff held out a hand to Pumpkin, who somewhat hesitantly hopped up into it. Cliff then tossed the smaller monster into the air like a beanbag. When the spiral galaxy appeared overhead, Pumpkin and Cliff turned themselves into orbs of green light and flew up into the center, triggering an eruption of starlight.
"Say hello to my Xyz Summon, Fairy King Albverdich (R4/2300/1400)!"
Every flower in the garden began shedding its petals, covering the ground in no time, at which point the larger petals flew up and formed a staircase for her new monster. Even though one side of the field was completely empty, there was still a kind of awed quiet as the white-haired elf descended. He gave a small, beatific smile and a wave of his hand, and the petals went back to their flowers in a whirl.
If the floating petal staircase hadn't given away this monster's royal status, his elaborate silver ring and gold-trimmed white robes certainly did. A maroon stole added to the overall effect, and his circlet resembled a jagged branch in wintertime. The clearest sign that he was neither a human nor a standard elf was his ears, which stuck out to the side of his head and looked like small wings.
"Now destroy her Joker with Nature's Wrath!"
The elf began glowing, causing large vines covered in thorns to erupt from the ground. With a wave of his hand, the vines encircled Joker, and tightened around it before beginning to squeeze.
After a few moments of watching the puppet struggle, Albverdich abruptly closed his hand into a fist. Joker broke apart with a sound closer to breaking glass than the crunching wood noise Laura had expected, leaving its pieces scattered at Tauni's feet before disappearing.
"Your move," Laura replied with an amused smile.
"Don't let that decent move go to your head," Tauni exclaimed in annoyance, giving the card she drew a glance before immediately playing it on the Field. "Time for me to get this train rolling! I summon Gimmick Puppet Humpty Dumpty (4/0/100) in Attack Mode."
The curtains closed and the same faint hum sounded backstage. Laura caught a glimpse of what looked like a portal closing behind the new monster as the curtains rose again.
As with Joker, Humpty's limbs were held together by ball joints, and his movements seemed a little too jerky even for a living puppet. He appeared to be wearing blue slacks and a white double-breasted jacket over a frankly ridiculous blue and yellow polka-dotted bow tie. His oversized maroon head and comically small orange hat only added to the strangeness.
"Okay, you don't get to call my monsters funny-looking anymore. What's he gonna do, fall on my head?" said Laura.
"Unlike your cartoony weed and slab of rubble, Humpty Dumpty here is more than just overlay material," Tauni retorted irritably. "Whenever he's Normal or Special Summoned, I'm allowed to Special Summon another Gimmick Puppet directly from my hand, and I choose Gimmick Puppet Dreary Doll (8/0/0) in Defense Mode!"
This time, instead of the curtains closing, a plain black coffin descended from somewhere above the stage with the sounds of moving gears. When it landed at center stage, Humpty quickly moved over to it and began attempting to lift the lid. Then he realized his mistake, pushed the lid to one side, and laid a hand on the new monster's shoulder to steady it as it sat up.
Said monster more closely resembled a porcelain doll than a living puppet, complete with blonde wavy hair, old-fashioned pink dress, and little reddish-pink overcoat. The only off-putting elements in her outfit were the bandages around her forearms and covering her right eye, along with the fact that said right eye appeared to be dripping…
Well, Laura certainly hoped the dark red substance staining the doll's bandages and skirt wasn't blood.
"Now that she's here, I can show you what Perform Puppet actually does besides look cool," Tauni continued. "By banishing one Gimmick Puppet from my Graveyard, I can level up all my monsters in play to the same level as whoever I banished."
Something "backstage" rolled large spools of (probably) puppet string onto stage left, at which point a small platform rose up from the stage itself. As Tauni put Twilight Joker's card back into her Deck case, the monster itself appeared and climbed onto the platform.
Two gray claws then dropped down from the ceiling and began pulling Joker's body apart. Even though Laura knew it wasn't really "alive," and her own monster had similarly dismembered Joker the previous turn, she still found herself looking away at the critical moment. When she looked back at the platform, the puppet was a pile of faded black debris and its strings were neatly tying themselves to the ends of the larger spools.
That done, each spool detached a single thread that shot towards one of Humpty Dumpty's limbs and wound itself around a joint.
Humpty Dumpty (4 - 8)
"Next up, I'll activate my second Continuous Trap, Escape From Dark Dimension! Since my Joker is a recently-banished Dark monster, I can bring him back to the Field in Defense Mode!"
With that, a dark portal appeared next to her other two monsters, and a giggling Joker stepped out and took its defensive stance again.
"Now then," Tauni began. "I'm gonna show you just how pitiful and pointless you really are, by taking a page from Your playbook!"
Like her opponent, Tauni's monsters all transformed into purple orbs of light, flying upward towards a familiar galaxy vortex that appeared above the stage.
"It's time for the headline actor to make his grand entrance! So, with these three level eight monsters, I build the Overlay Network and Xyz Summon one of my devastating puppets, Number 88: Gimmick Puppet of Leo (R8/3200/2300)!"
Like with Laura, the galaxy exploded as the starlight shined brightly, hiding the large being that slowly descended onto the middle of the stage.
When it died down, Laura finally managed to get a better view of what it was.
A humanoid in gleaming white and gold armor sat on a plain white throne. Its long white cape and matching toga added to the overall "royalty" impression, as did the sword resting by its left hand. The number 88 was stenciled in blue on its right shoulder, and its helmet was a somewhat stylized lion's head (complete with flowing golden mane).
The pale student was a bit overtaken by the pressure the new monster was putting out, but wouldn't go down that easily without a fight.
"Even with your new monster, you won't be taking down my King that easily! I activate my own Continuous Trap, Safe Zone!"
When the trap card revealed itself, a glow of light surrounded her king, making his crown glow brightly as a result.
"HA! You think that puny force field will protect you? Go Leo, prune that worthless worm of hers!"
The tall warrior stood and grabbed his sword in one fluid motion, then leapt offstage swinging straight down at his opponent. Fairy King summoned a tree trunk to protect himself, but the sword cut through it and his robes like paper.
Laura winced sympathetically, then rapidly dropped to her knees as a similar pain shot through her chest.
Laura - (8000 - 7100)
Tauni - 8000
The strings from the stage attached to Leo after his attack, pulling him back to his throne. Her master looked at her monster proudly before turning back to her opponent. Even through the mask, her surprise that Fairy King was still standing (if breathing a little heavier from the attack) was obvious.
"I told you it wouldn't be that easy," said Laura, getting back on her feet and panting somewhat. "Safe Zone prevents my monster from being destroyed or targeted by your attacks and effects. Course, since it only works if I use it on Attack Mode monsters, I still have to take the pain… worth it, though."
Under her mask, Tauni's sadistic smile grew slightly as she clapped mockingly.
"Well look at you, willing to suffer a little pain to keep your pitiful monster safe. I wonder though, how much more can you take before this Duel is over?"
Laura didn't bother to reply as she composed herself, feeling the healing light of her mark making the pain go away. With that out of the way, she drew and focused on her next move.
"First, I activate my Fairy King's effect; By using an Overlay Unit, I can decrease the Attack and Defense points of all non-Earth monsters currently on the field by 500."
Soon, the king placed his hands together as one of his orbs entered his body, causing him to glow green and release his aura in a sudden burst.
When it hit Leo, the warrior yelled out as its body began rusting away in various places, making it lose the royal shine it once had.
Gimmick Puppet of Leo (3200/2300 - 2700/1800)
'Damn it, I was hoping that'd be enough, but guess I'll have to wait one more turn…'
"I'll finish up by switching him to Defense Mode and setting a monster facedown as well."
The king took a knee as the hidden monster appeared next to him.
"Aw, is that all you can do? What a pity." Disappointment creeped into Tauni's voice. "I'll start by discarding a Gimmick Puppet monster from my hand in order to Special Summon Gimmick Puppet Bisque Doll (8/1000/1000) in Defense Mode!"
After sending her other copy of Dreary Doll to the Graveyard, she placed the card onto her construct.
Something backstage wheeled on a fancy glass cabinet holding a red-haired doll in a mourning gown and short black veil. Rather than another puppet coming to its aid, the doll stood up and pushed the doors open, carefully stepping down onto the stage.
Where her counterpart created a sense of unease, Bisque Doll simply looked sad. Not just in how she held herself or her wistful expression, either; even the little cracks on one side of her jaw gave that impression.
"Next, Leo will cut down whatever useless weed you have hidden away there!" Tauni continued, pointing to the face down monster.
Leo rose from his throne once more, the grinding of gears once again echoing as he jumped from stage and bisected not just the card but the monster as well, revealing it to be a second Naturia Cliff that groaned in pain.
"Funny how many cards have special effects when they're destroyed, isn't it?" Laura remarked conversationally. "Almost like they expect people to just go for it regardless of potential consequences. Now that Cliff's destroyed I can Special Summon another Naturia monster from my deck."
Before completely disappearing, the monster released spores from the mushroom atop its head, which spread and landed on Laura's Deck.
Another card ejected as she grabbed it, placing it on her construct in Attack Mode.
"Say hello to my newest friend, Naturia Butterfly (3/500/1200)!"
Wind began blowing through the garden on Laura's field as a small, dark pink butterfly, with petal-pink wings, heart-tipped antennae, and big yellow eyes fluttered in and landed on the Fairy King's left shoulder. Since it was just a little bigger than the other monster's hand, this meant his entire shoulder was now covered by Naturia Butterfly.
"Again with these useless, cartoony weaklings?!" Tauni growled in irritation once more. "Fine, I'll crush that stupid bug with Bisque Doll!"
The doll lifted her arms and released multiple threads from its fingertips, controlling them just like a puppet as they all aimed right towards the insect.
"You won't get to me that easily! I activate my Butterfly's effect; By sending the top card of my Deck to the Graveyard, I negate the attack directed at her!"
Laura drew, revealing her Naturia Cosmobeet (2/1000/700) before inserting it into the Graveyard.
As it entered, her butterfly released an energy shield by closing her wings in front of her. The threads made contact, though easily bounced off and retracted into Dreary as she lowered her hands.
Laura gave her opponent a smug grin at her move, though soon felt the dark aura surrounding Tauni. Even though the pale student couldn't see her face, the energy wasn't pleasant for the dimension, which dimmed slightly from the darkness.
"I'm starting to get annoyed by your worthless tactics," Tauni commented in frustration. "If all you have is stalling and defense plays, then you'd be better off forfeiting. You don't stand a chance against someone like me."
"You spent the first few turns on the defense yourself, I wouldn't talk," Laura retorted. "Anyway, I activate His Majesty's effect again, meaning your monsters each lose another 500 Attack and Defense points."
Like before, his last orb entered his body and released another green pulse, only this time it not only affected Leo but also her Bisque Doll.
Gimmick Puppet of Leo (2700/1800 - 2200/1300)
Bisque Doll (1000/1000 - 500/500)
"Next up, I send my Naturia Marron (3/1200/700) to the Graveyard in order to Special Summon my Power Giant (6/2200/0) in Attack Mode!"
Soon enough, crystals began sprouting from the ground as they formed together, creating her newest monster.
A large humanoid robot stomped onto Laura's side of the field. However, rather than being made of metal, the robot was constructed of various gems. Emerald shoulders; sapphire on the chest, hands, face and feet; a ruby on the belt and large citrine spikes at the knees.
"Well, this is a pleasant surprise. A monster that's actually intimidating." Tauni didn't even attempt to hide her condescension.
"If you like that, then you'll love this next bit. Since I Special Summoned my Giant this way, his Level decreases depending on the Level of the monster I sent to the Grave."
When she said that, three individual crystals on his body lit up.
Power Giant (6 - 3)
"Finally, I'm summoning a real doozy to the field, my Naturia Dragonfly (4/1200/400) in Attack Mode!"
A familiar buzzing echoed through the area as her last monster came in from the garden, landing next to Fairy King, showing to be much bigger than Butterfly at that moment.
Its appearance was that of a red dragonfly-like body with massive blue eyes and thin, nearly invisible wings. The tail is a branch and a cherry stem sprouted from the head.
"It's cute how you think an attack-boosting effect from the Graveyard makes your little fruit bug a force to be worried about. Do you know how many people with that mindset get stomped?" said Tauni.
In response, the spirits of her Naturia monsters appeared with an ethereal squeak. Soon after, each one entered into Dragonfly, causing its entire body to glow with a rainbow light and grow a bit more.
Dragonfly (1200 - 2200)
"Alright, fair enough, that actually is a bit dangerous," Tauni added in a slightly less condescending tone. "I'm starting to think I should've chosen you as my pawn, instead of those other two wastes of space."
Laura grew irritated when she heard that, hating the woman in front of her for using Jessie and Rin the way she did. She wasn't a fan of either of them, but no one deserved to be treated like a puppet.
"Just wait, I got more in store just for you!" Laura replied passionately. "I could destroy your creepy dolls with just Dragonfly, but I don't just want to win. I want to make absolutely sure you pay for everything you did! And I have all the monsters I need to do it!"
Butterfly took off from the Fairy King's shoulder, and Dragonfly followed her in curiosity.
"See, my Butterfly is a Tuner monster, meaning I'm about to summon my own beast to take yours down!"
Her Giant and Dragonfly nodded at each other before they also went upward, causing their ally to explode and create three green rings that surrounded the two, triggering a pillar of light to envelope the two remaining monsters.
"Meet the real king of the jungle! I Synchro Summon Leo, Keeper Of The Sacred Tree (10/3100/1900)!"
Laura's garden grew in hyper speed until the grass was taller than either of them. Soon after, a powerful roar echoed through the area, and a massive and probably strong figure began walking out of the grass. The ground shook with each of the monster's steps.
It passed through the tall grass, stopping and towering over Laura, revealing its full body to her master's enemy.
The monster was a massive lion clad in white armor, black spike wings attached to the back. An orange petal-like mane flared from under the helm it wore. Most of the greenery that is the rest of its body was contained under the armor. Lastly, there were two black-like spikes coming out of its front legs, having what looked like crystal-like wings on the sides.
"My, what big claws he has," Tauni remarked with a nervous laugh.
"And he's not the only one who's gonna fight," Laura added. "I also switch my King back into Attack Mode, which means I'm gonna rid the field of both your monsters! Leo, take down her doll with Wild Release!"
Leo roared as his mane glowed, charging energy into his mouth before releasing a powerful blast that aimed right for Bisque Doll.
The impact of the attack shook the stage as powerful shock waves spread through Tauni's side of the field, hitting her and pushing the Duelist back with that force alone.
Laura - 7100
Tauni - (8000 - 5400)
"Now, Albverdich, turn that mechanical Leo into plant food!"
Her monster nodded before summoning the power of the garden, causing the plants to grow larger and quickly move towards the monster to destroy it.
In a flash, the plants landed and hit their mark, sending another shockwave and knocking Tauni onto the ground this time.
Laura - 7100
Tauni - (5400 - 5300)
Laura grinned in excitement (and relief that she'd cleared her opponent's field), but the grin faded when she heard Tauni laughing. It rapidly progressed from normal to a full-on supervillain laugh as she got back on her feet.
Then energy exploded out of Tauni's body, wilting the plants in her immediate area and bending the rest back from sheer wind pressure. The Fairy King turned the plants that had just taken down Gimmick Puppet into a wall in front of Laura, who held up her arms against the wind that made it past.
When the wind died down, they looked back at Tauni's side of the field, not too surprised to see a dust cloud covering it. As it settled, Laura realized that there was a figure other than Tauni standing in the middle.
Then the last of the dust cloud vanished, and Gimmick Puppet Leo stood there with no damage other than what it already had from previous turns. Even the Fairy King looked taken aback.
"Ah… it's so much fun to be Dueling someone so predictable." Tauni sighed while dusting off her cloak. "To think you've won just because you got a stronger monster on the field. Even better when you forget about what cards have already been played."
Laura opened her mouth to protest, but then realized that her Continuous Trap, Marshalling Field, wasn't there anymore.
"I guess this is that one last surprise you mentioned?" she remarked, trying to ignore the sudden sense of impending trouble.
"Bingo! By sending Marshalling Field to the Graveyard, I can prevent you from destroying a single Machine XYZ monster. Or I guess my single Machine XYZ monster in this case."
The Ra student brought up the card on her visor and read over its effect. Then she read the last part of it again and gasped.
"Oh, looks like you found its other last surprise. After it's gone, I can add a very specific card to my Hand. One to seal your worthless if mildly entertaining fate!"
Darkness surrounded her as it enveloped the Deck in her slot, causing the Duel Disk to beep as a single card ejected itself for her to grab.
Tauni drew and turned it over for Laura to see, revealing it to be a Rank-Up-Magic Argent Chaos Force Spell card. Laura's shocked face didn't falter as her eyes focused on that single card. She knew that Xyz Monsters could Rank-Up to become much stronger, she'd even seen a few on Draw at times. Though this was the first time she ever got to see the actual card for herself.
Even without being close to it, Laura's power felt the incredible force emanating, almost as if something was trying to claw its way out.
"Are you gonna just stand there looking worthless?! Hurry up and make your move!"
Laura snapped out of her shock, looked at the two cards in her hand to see what else she could possibly do.
"I'll end my turn by playing one card face down."
After saying those words, the entire dimension started rumbling as Tauni drew her card. It knew something big was coming, and it wasn't friendly either.
"Finally… Now I can truly begin to give you the treatment you so rightfully deserve!"
Dark energy erupted from her body as she focused it all into the card she held.
"Now I can make you suffer! I activate Rank-Up Magic Argent Chaos Force!" Tauni roared.
A pillar of pure darkness shot up from the spot where it appeared. Soon enough the aurora faded away, and the previously white sky became clouded over in the deepest, nearest to black shade of blue Laura had ever seen.
Laura braced herself, feeling that sense of impending doom again.
Yup, we left it on a cliffhanger. (Laughs Evilly) Ray here and thanks so much for reading yet another of our chapters, so I'll be doing the Outro this time around, so bare with me. It's a crazy situation for Laura, I wonder how she'll get out of this one, any guesses? Feel free to leave them in the review section, I wanna see who gets it right cuz the real ending of this Duel will probably blow your minds. Thanks again to all our supports for your continued dedication in keeping up with our story.
Until next time.