Welcome to the Epilogue!

This chapter will contain some quick P.O.V sections of different characters, with information leading to the eventual sequel. There will be some additional Author's Notes following the main chapter, so please stick around until then.

For old time's sake, the usual DISCLAIMER: The author of this story does not own the card games Yugioh and Android: Netrunner, nor does he own the companies Konami and Fantasy Flight Games. The author does own his OC, Duel Runner and Duel deck.

Onward to the Chapter!

[DIVINE'S P.O.V.]

Today, my plan came together.

From the moment I first saw Samuel at the Fortune Cup, I knew he had power. My psychic abilities have grown strong enough for me to sense other people's powers, which I have used countless times to add to the Arcadia Movement's ranks over the years. Samuel was especially important, since he had Dueled against Aki before the tournament and damaged the 'Black Rose' persona I had painstakingly crafted for her. What happened there didn't take long to remove from Aki's mind because she rejected Samuel's words with all her being. She said so, herself, as I helped her to recover.

This makes me feel all the happier that I now have Samuel for myself, away from Godwin's clutches.

Retrieving his body from that stasis pod was simpler than I first thought; the Fortune Cup final match was enough of a distraction that I was able to slip into the Stadium's underground corridors without trouble, flanked by two elite Duelists of the Movement. We had moved quickly, Samuel's Psychic powers acting like a beacon for me to go to.

Just as we were about to enter the lower labs, though, we all flinched as our minds were touched by a great force—a power that I never suspected would enter play. One of my aides showed me what I had suspected on a tablet screen; the Crimson Dragon had been summoned.

That surprise still rests in my chest, like mucus in the lungs that burns whenever you cough it up. I kept my cool back there, but it was difficult to keep a straight face as we continued to search. Eventually, though, we found what we were looking for, and my worries regarding the Crimson Dragon turned into delight at my findings.

Samuel was in a large white pod when we found him, the device almost filling the small room it was inside. Display screens and monitors kept track of every important detail, from mental state to physical damage. Of course, the Movement's technology is equal to this, so I wasn't distracted by this machine's design. My aides opened the pod after I broke through the simple encryption code used to keep intruders out. Godwin wasn't prepared for me.

Samuel's body looked fragile when we pulled it out of the pod, his skin pale and, according to an aide's comment, cold to the touch. I questioned how quickly his body could heal from threats as I noticed that his mechanical left eye was glowing red, most of the wounds he suffered against Aki already gone. His mind was shut down, inert, paused; a perfect chance for me to paint a new persona for him.

Now, as we pass through empty streets in the late afternoon, the Movement HQ in sight, I look at Samuel once again, carried bridal-style by an aide as the other flicks his head from side to side, watching for any passers-by. I can sense the boy is still alive, but this state won't last forever. Sooner or later, he'll wake up, and he'll have questions as to what's going on. That's to be expected, of course; Godwin put in a lot of effort to keep this Duelist alive after Aki nearly killed him.

I intend to make sure that Samuel—no, Epsilon—never dies again. He will become one of the Elite. One of the unstoppable. One of the invincible. One of us.

[AKI'S P.O.V.]

Today, my past rose up from the grave and punched me in the face.

From the moment I start to clear my mind of today's events, I know they won't go away. Too much has happened over the past several days to simply forget. Those people… They still hate me, like before, but now there are some who are saying I can be better. That I can break past this persona I've made for myself.

Yusei… Samuel… They both tried to change me, but only one of them had succeeded in winning a Duel against me. But, was that because Samuel had cracked my defenses enough for Yusei to break, or because Yusei had found a weak point to punch through? Which of them had done more work?

I push these thoughts aside as I recall what's happened since Divine escorted me off the field. I had quickly returned to the Movement's HQ and entered a floatation tank, the isolation allowing me to retreat into my thoughts and dispel the pain all over my body from my exertion against these two men. That's all, and yet that took so much effort to accomplish.

Unfortunately, I can't dispel my thoughts in the same way. I hiss out a pained breath as I hear my mask—the Black Rose persona that Divine had helped me to make—shatter over and over again. The taunts of the Neo Domino citizens add insult to injury as I feel a choking dust fill my throat. I know it's just an illusion, but that doesn't make it feel any less real.

Then, to add insult to injury, the things I saw earlier, in this same tank, come back to me. Satellite being burned apart by purple fire, and Ruka suspended in front of me in some force field, just as I am, while Yusei and Jack finish their Riding Duel atop a white road made of energy that I can't recognize. Yusei won that Duel, and I returned to my body without any answers to the new questions in my mind.

I cough, and the dust expels itself from my lungs; I feel at peace again as I breathe in fresh air, discarding all the questions about that red and gold dragon that seemed to bring us to it, and showed us what Yusei claimed to be the future. That's all it is—the future; it doesn't concern me, right now.

Pain erupts throughout my mind as I scream into the nothingness around me, my mind racing with images of the screaming red cloud that had, in the span of a single second, shared its entire life story with me. It had shown me an entirely new group of people in the city, who sought a sanctuary for all people by working to fuse humans with the machinery around them, but this pain isn't connected to those people.

Something's wrong. Something's changed. Something isn't how it should be. I try to locate the source of my pain, but the realization overwhelms the pain and leaves me numb in both body and mind.

Samuel.

He's here.

Why?!

[YUSEI'S P.O.V.]

Today, I was crowned a King of a city that doesn't really want me.

My victory over Jack was initially met with questions from the media; Saiga says the social media isdebating whether or not the Crimson Dragon's intervention, what they're calling a 'technical error', was a cause in why Jack lost. Apparently, all they saw were Jack's Red Daemon's Dragon and my Stardust Dragon frozen in place. Then, Jack's Life Point monitor suddenly dropped to 0, and the Duel ended without any sort of final attack.

Of course, Jack and I certainly saw, and felt, that final attack; the end of that Riding Duel is something I won't forget anytime soon. The threat of my home being destroyed and consumed by darkness makes my heart race every time I recall it. I want to get on the next boat to Satellite and fight this threat—save my friends from danger. But, as Ushio and Saiga have told me, publicity is important as the King of Riding Duels. I have to keep up my image, but I don't want to do that with my time.

I haven't seen Samuel since his Duel against Aki—not even at the infirmary of the Stadium, which I checked briefly before my Duel against Aki. I recall noticing the red mark on his arm, shaped like an eye without a pupil, when he faced Aki. Was that a Signer mark? Did the Collective, or even Godwin, want Samuel for themselves after that Duel?

I have to believe that he's still alive, but it's hard to do so against the greater threat approaching my home. But, I've seen Samuel survive great threats to himself before, such as his transformation into a so-called 'Dueling cyborg', or so the media has claimed. He should be able to take care of himself, right? He got across Satellite on his own, but he did seem very emotional during the Fortune Cup. He's got a lot of determination, but he's also got a lot of fears.

I'm sorry, Samuel, but I can't drop everything and look for you. Godwin made this tournament for a reason, and I need to get to the bottom of it. Something big is coming, and I need to be ready, with or without your help, but if I ever find out where you are, now, I'll do my best to make us friends again.

[THE SUPERIOR'S P.O.V.]

Today, we broke our own rules.

Normally, when an Agent of the Collective dies, we add their name to Project Archives for eventual preservation. We have done this since the project was initiated, since five of our best agents were killed in action. However, we have, for one of the few times in our existence, chosen to forgo our own regulations for a more emotionally-satisfying action.

We initially concluded that the Netrunner was dead. We saw the entire tournament through the Stadium's broadcasting system, and kept close monitoring of our Agent's vitals and mental state whenever he Dueled. He was relatively calm off the Dueling field, but the Duels he was in greatly tested his mental psyche.

Professor Frank pierced through our initial barriers, his apparent study about empathetic Duelists like Samuel proving stronger than we had anticipated. We had needed to assume direct control in order to keep the Netrunner's mind in check, and we were prepared for the public fallout that would occur from such an action. The claims of 'brainwashing' and 'manipulation' are completely false, however—lies said to mask the human fear that these people feel for our ways.

However, Frank was not the greatest threat to the Collective. That position belongs to Aki Izayoi.

This woman broke all our expectations on the limits of human anger and chaos, her inhuman abilities propelling her emotions to higher states than we have ever recorded before. Not even the telepath Rielle, or the clairvoyant Oracle May, match Aki in pure mental power. Our mental link, which we spent years perfecting, was damaged by her final attack, what human parts remain of our minds ravaged by years of torment and betrayal. It took us several hours to fully patch our systems from that.

When the tournament concluded, with one of the strangest technical glitches we've seen in several years, we scoured the local servers for any mention of where the Netrunner would be. Unfortunately, Rex Godwin seems to have updated his defenses, because we found no trace of our Agent being mentioned anywhere outside of his Duels. We did find a few social media comments of varying emotions about his appearance, as well as connection to his 'Dueling Terrorist' accusation that Rex Godwin made before the tournament began.

After our search into all logical places we could access with no legitimate proof of the Netrunner's death, we conducted a vote as to whether we should continue our efforts into illogical places. To do this would put the Collective's cause at risk of being leaked to the city's public, which Godwin, among others in the city, could use as a chance to brand us as traitors to the people's safety. However, to not do so would mean we would consider him dead without proof we could inform our living Agents about—agents that, we know, would grow angry at us if we just disregarded him.

The result was a unanimous 'No'.

We will find the Netrunner, and confirm whether he has truly passed on. We will search every nook and cranny of the physical and digital worlds, and not let anything stop us from achieving our goal.

[THE MASQUE'S P.O.V.]

Today, I learned how despair, heartbreak, and loss feels.

I had studied these human emotions, along with other negative ones, during my time in isolation amongst the Network. The web has a shockingly large amount of people who vent their complaints to anyone who will listen to, or read, their words. Truly, the online world is a world free from many of the physical world's limitations. That's what made it so fun to explore on my own, and why I grew angry at the Superiors for stifling my learning.

But, if this is what they were trying to protect me from, or educate me about, then I regret leaving them. I wanted them, or anyone who would listen to me, by my side when I felt, and saw, Hivemind sacrifice itself to save the Netrunner from certain death. As it stood, the only voice I could count on to hear my own screams of sorrow were the silent data screens around me, their presence offering no comfort when my sorrow turned to violent anger.

I regained my virtual senses when I saw the ruined state of everything around me. In my rage, my digital powers had destroyed my server, lashing out like an all-consuming beast and ripping any piece of data I could touch apart. I felt like I was naked before an audience of onlookers, every part of me exposed to the infinite eyes of cyberspace. I quickly built a new server out of the ruin, basic but easy to hide from prying eyes. Who knows if the Superiors noticed my anger through the Network; what would they think of me, now?

It is then that I realize that I let this death happen because I spent too much time debating and exploring, rather than actively working to complete my goals. I wanted to help the Netrunner regain his memories, but I instead sent a suite of viruses to my creators with the hopes that it would qualify for my being there. I had been with the Netrunner before the Superiors ever found him in Satellite; they may have sent a team of agents to retrieve his body, but I was the first of us to discover his amnesia. I should have done more than send messages about the power struggle of this city in the hopes that he'd understand what was going on!

I won't make the same mistakes again. Instead, I'll make sure the people who dealt me this sorrow pay for their actions, even if I have to rip apart the entire Network to do so. I tap into this new feeling—this anger—and it instantly flows through me. It gives me the strength, determination, and willpower to do what I feel is right, no matter who stands in my way. Human emotions like this are so amazing.

I will become stronger, I think as I feel my body start to change through my anger, so that nothing else I make will die. I will make my mark on the digital world, so that the human race understands the true intelligence of the machines they have made. This will prove to mankind that their creations cannot be ignored in the grand scheme of their species. This war is still far from over, and I will see it through atop the broken bodies of my enemies.

I smile as I feel my mind retreat into my inner self, my body mutating more and more as my anger fills every piece of me. The first target for my newfound rage will be the person who's keeping the Netrunner away from me, possibly keeping him alive for their own means. Whoever, or whatever, they are, they will soon face my unbridled fury.

The time for action is now.

[TO BE CONTINUED IN "Reverse of Arcadia: Digital Guardian"...]

It's done! It's finally done! After a year and a half of writing and updating, the story is complete! (Cheers from background)

Alright, alright, before we get too crazy with celebrations, I have some words to say regarding the sequel. Yes, there WILL be a sequel to this story, but what I am NOT sure of is when it will be started.

The reason for this is simple. Through writing this story, with all the Duels, custom cards, custom characters, flashbacks, and so on, I've lost my energy to continue writing good Yu-Gi-Oh! stories for the time being. I feel that, if I were to instantly jump into the sequel now, I would lose interest very quickly, and fall flat in giving good content to you all. So, I'm going to step back from Yu-Gi-Oh! stories for a while. I have other story ideas in mind, for other series, which I will probably start soon after this is posted. But, I WILL come back to this one day!

Now, for those who have been reading this story since the beginning, I thank you for sticking through to the end. It's been a long road for all of us, but we've finally made it. To those of you who have only recently started reading the story, or are reading this in the future, thanks for taking the time to read my work, and I hope you liked what you saw here.

For those of you who submitted in custom O.C's, and those of you who worked on the Synchro Dragon Submission Contest back in the early chapters, thank you for your creative ideas and submissions; you've all helped this story come alive, in some way.

For those of you who have given critical comments, or thoughts, about my writing style, or technical terms on how card effects should work, thank you for your precise judgement, and helping me make the many Duels of this story flow that much better.

For those of you who helped me each and every chapter, either through suggestions, comments, or edits to my work, thank you for taking the time and effort to help me with my writing, in general.

To those of you who just stuck along for a good read, thanks for staying, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed what you saw.

Well, I guess this is goodbye until the sequel comes out. I will do it one day, count on it, but I need to get some stress out of my system, first. Lord knows I need some relaxation.

Draconos is taking off... until the next time!