Yu-Gi-Oh!

Darkest Before the Dawn

By Lucky_Ladybug

Notes: The characters from the show are not mine. The antagonist and the story are! This takes place in my post-series Pendulum Swings verse, which started as a Yami Bakura redemption arc and now has also redeemed the Big Five. This is a very unusual story for me, although I have occasionally ventured into horror-type stories in the past. There is some disturbing imagery and a lot of thematic elements. However, my usual themes of friendship and familial love are also present, of course. And as is usual whenever I do attempt something darker like this, things aren't what they initially appear to be.

Chapter One

Life had been relatively peaceful in Domino City for the last several weeks. Everyone had settled into their usual routines: school, work—both, in some cases—family and friends, and dueling. No new or old enemies had reared their heads, so for all of the city's rescuers, all was well.

The Big Five, always inseparable, were still working on their plans to make Crump's dream of a combination penguin preserve and theme park a reality. It was a good project, Gansley felt, and one that would positively put them in the public eye. And with the world's current attitude on caring for the environment, he was sure it would also be a success and return a great deal of profit for their investment.

Seto Kaiba had finally started to settle in more with the knowledge that the Big Five had truly turned over a new leaf and were trying to live righteously. They had definitely helped in more than one recent crisis, and of course, with Shadi's delivery of the elemental rings worn by their and Seto's ancestors, they were meant to fight together, not against each other. Seto was still frustrated to no end by having to use any type of magic, but at least his ring could summon a Blue Eyes White Dragon from the Duel Monsters' dimension, so that was something enjoyable.

The Big Five were still struggling with their charge to help save the world, and as far as they were concerned, since the rings only worked for magical crises, they weren't very useful in general. But they held onto them for the next time they would be needed.

Tonight, the rings were the last things on any of their minds.

xxxx

Lector was running late as he finally left to head to Gansley's. It was just one of those things, but he was frustrated with himself anyway. He had always prided himself on being punctual; it was one of the things Gozaburo had liked about him the most.

It really wasn't that far to Gansley's home; they all lived in the same wealthy part of Domino City where the Kaibas lived. He was almost there when someone suddenly ran out into the street and stood there, holding his hands out in front of him.

Lector had no choice but to brake. "What is the meaning of this?!" he demanded as he opened the car door and leaned halfway out. "Do you need help?"

The other man's face twisted in a cruel sneer. "In a way. I need help bringing misery to someone I hate . . . and you're going to help me."

Lector wasn't sure whether to grab the guy and scream for an explanation or to dive back into the car and speed away. But he had no chance to make up his mind. Something hard struck him from behind and he fell out of the car and to the ground with a groan. The man who had stopped him walked over and stood over his unconscious body, sneering down at him.

"Yes," he purred, lifting Lector's right arm and studying the purple ring on his finger. "You will do just fine."

xxxx

It was unusual for Lector not to show up for one of the Big Five's meetings to discuss their project. The others had gathered at Gansley's house and had been waiting for their associate with growing impatience and confusion for some time.

"He's not answering the phone," Nesbitt frowned after another attempt.

"The maid said he left to come here," Crump said. "Maybe there was trouble. We should go out and look for him or something!"

The doorbell rang, bringing all of their attention up. "That's probably him now," Gansley said calmly. "You were worrying over nothing, Crump."

Crump scowled. "After everything we've been through, it makes sense to worry."

Gansley went over to the door and opened it, not bothering to wait for the maid. But instead of Lector, there was only a box with a white envelope on top. "What on Earth. . . ."

"What is it?" Crump asked, peering over Gansley's shoulder.

"It's addressed to me," Gansley said, lifting the envelope. But as he took out the sheet of paper and read the newspaper-letter words, his blood ran cold.

Are you missing someone, Mr. Gansley? He's mine now.

Wondering if this is a ransom note? Well, it isn't. I couldn't

care less about money, yours or anyone else's. What I do care

about is causing you untold grief and anguish for what you did

to me. You fired me for being too 'unstable.' Do you remember?

It happened shortly before your little accident with the virtual reality

machine at KaibaCorp, so it's taken me this long to be able to have

my revenge. Now that all of you are back in your bodies in the real

world, I can finally torture you good and proper. You'll never see

your friend again. At least . . . you'll never see all of him.

"Worrying for nothing, huh?!" Crump cried out. "What the heck does that mean?! Who is this creep?!"

Gansley shoved the paper back in the envelope. "I remember him," he said, his voice dark and dangerous. "Martin Cove. He had a hair-trigger temper and a heavy imagination. He was very delusional. Once I caught him trying to kill a fellow employee with a knife for some imagined insult. I fired him on the spot and recommended to his doctor that he receive psychiatric treatment."

"It doesn't sound like he took your advice," Nesbitt snarled. "Or it didn't do any good. What happened?! What did he do with Lector?!"

Gansley looked down at the box. "You know what he just insinuated."

"I know, but that can't be real!" Nesbitt boomed.

More newspaper letters had been glued to the top flap of the box. There's more where this came from.

"They couldn't . . . !" Johnson cried, losing his usual composure.

Gansley picked it up and gripped it tightly with both hands, not wanting to open it yet knowing they had to see.

Nesbitt, always impatient, pried the flaps up to look inside. He went stiff.

Crump stared, his eyes wide. "They sent us an arm!" he screamed. "They sent us his arm!"

A severed forearm, in the remains of a purple sleeve. . . . Blood was everywhere. And on one of the limp fingers was a purple ring, the ring Shadi had given Lector. . . .

"It's just a phony, right?" Crump exclaimed. "Some Halloween prank from a store?!"

"No," Gansley rasped, his eyes horrified and haunted. "It's real."

"But . . . that still doesn't mean it's really Lector's . . ." Crump trailed off.

Johnson turned and fled down the hall, a hand over his mouth. A moment later the bathroom door slammed.

Gansley suddenly felt weak. The box slipped from his grasp as he fell back, unable to support it or himself any longer. Crump caught him, holding him tightly by the shoulders as they both trembled.

"He might be dead," Gansley rasped, passing a hand over his eyes. "All because this madman is trying to get back at me for firing him. . . ."

"Or he might even still be alive while this nut is . . . cutting parts off . . ." Crump realized.

Nesbitt snarled. "You really believe anyone could do this to him if he was alive?!" He turned, running for the door. "Someone must have seen who delivered this. I'm going to find out who it was right now!"

No one stopped him.

Gansley slumped into a chair, heavily, completely sheet-white. Crump hurried to his side. "Come on," he exclaimed. "It couldn't really be . . ."

"We're both afraid it is, so why pretend?" Gansley shot back.

"Because maybe it isn't!" Crump insisted. "Maybe he's perfectly fine!"

"Fine?!" Gansley's voice rose. "He's been abducted by a madman willing to pull outrageous stunts like sending body parts to the victims' loved ones! Even if that isn't his arm, could he be fine in the grasp of a madman like that?!"

". . . No," Crump knew.

Gansley reached for the phone. "I'm calling the police. Then I'm going to the security room to see if the cameras picked up anything when the package was delivered."

Crump looked down the hall. "And I'd better check on Johnson. . . ."

Slowly he approached the closed bathroom door. There were no sounds other than the running water in the sink, at least at first. But then it shut off and Crump heard a much different sound.

Sobbing.

Johnson had locked himself in the bathroom, crying like a baby.

Crump's stomach twisted. He reached up, knocking on the door. "Johnson? . . ."

The lawyer choked off mid-sob. He was silent for a moment, probably desperately trying to pull himself together, and then finally replied, "What?" His voice was still badly quavering, which he tried to disguise with a rasp.

"Hey. . . ." Crump leaned on the door with one arm. "I think we all feel like crying, Pal. If you want some company, nobody's gonna put you down for bawling your heart out."

Finally Johnson unlocked and opened the door. He looked terrible, completely ashen. His eyes were red and unspeakably haunted. His hand on the knob was violently shaking. "If that . . . that was really . . ." He shook his head. "When Gansley read the note, I . . . I still thought we could find Lector alive. Now . . . I don't even know if I want him to be alive. . . . What else will they do to . . ." He trailed off, choking on another cry.

Crump pulled him close in a hug and Johnson didn't try to pull away. "I don't know," he said helplessly. "I don't know. . . ."

xxxx

A harsh slap across his face drew him back to consciousness. "Wake up, Démas Lector."

Lector started, his eyes slowly opening. He still felt so weak . . . so out of it. . . . He couldn't even feel his right arm. . . . "What . . . who are you?" he mumbled.

"Martin Cove." A sneering face got right up in front of him, the eyes wild, the grin inhuman. "You're going to be with me for a long time, probably forever."

"What?!" Lector came awake more at that. "I remember you now; Gansley fired you from KaibaCorp. What do you want with me?!"

"You're just the catalyst to hurt him," Cove answered. "I'm going to take him apart piece by piece . . . by doing the same thing to you." He dug his hand into Lector's hair, pulling tight enough to cause pain. Then he let go with a wild cackle.

"You're going to . . . what?!" Lector struggled, desperate to move, but he could not. "You'll be found out," he spat. "Gansley won't stand for it and neither will the others! And I'll fight you with everything I've got!"

Cove caught him by the ankle as he tried to kick out. "Which won't be much," he replied. "Even less after this." He squeezed tightly.

Lector stared at him. He was growing sleepy again. . . . There must have been a miniature needle hidden in his captor's hand. He slumped back.

"And when you wake up again, you'll have a friend here with you," Cove whispered in his ear as he passed out.

xxxx

The police were deeply concerned about the abduction, and alarmed by the threats and the box. They immediately took the contents to be analyzed at the lab, also taking some hair from Lector's brush in the guest-room for a DNA match.

The Big Four all remained at Gansley's house. No one wanted to leave. Food and sleep were a joke. But they couldn't stand hours of nothing but pacing in agony, so they desperately tried all that they could to track Martin Cove's whereabouts or favorite hang-outs.

It was almost impossible; the man had virtually dropped out of sight after being fired. No one seemed to know where he was or what he was doing. Gansley finally slammed both hands on the desk in outrage. "He must have changed his name!" he snarled. "It could take months to find him!"

No one voiced that they might never find him. Gansley knew that all too well, after his ex-wife and children had dropped off the face of the planet.

"And if Lector is still alive, he has to be found right away," Johnson said. "He might be left to bleed to death!"

"We don't know that was his arm!" Crump screamed.

Dead silence reigned. No one really had anything to say to Crump; none of them wanted it to be true, but they all feared it was. The purple sleeve certainly looked like Lector's coat, and the ring . . . it was unlikely that the ring was a fake. And if those things were his . . .

It had been hours by now; it was late at night and nothing had been accomplished. But sleep was definitely not about to happen and there was nothing more they could do from inside at the computer.

Suddenly Nesbitt's eyes flashed. "We can't wait for the lab results! Lab work can take several days or more! We're just going to have to operate on the assumption that the arm is Lector's. We have to find him!"

"But how?!" Crump wailed.

"We'll just go out looking everywhere, like we did when those kids were missing in New Orleans," Nesbitt said. He ran for the door. "Let's go."

The others chased after him.

xxxx

It was so strange, being held captive like this. . . . Every little while he would wake up, but never completely. He felt so dizzy, so out of it. . . . Now he couldn't feel his left foot either.

A kick to his side startled him and he looked over with bleary eyes, only barely making out Cove's outline in the darkened space. It seemed like every time he woke up, Cove was there, kicking him, slapping him . . . and always whispering unwelcome words.

"They're all suffering," Cove hissed now. "They were sent a horrible package tonight, with blood and purple cloth and let's not forget the severed arm. They're going to get more too. By now, they don't know whether it would be better for you to be dead or alive, although they're not giving up on finding you alive. Those poor fools. They don't know you'll be dead long before they ever find you."

Lector tried to pull himself to awareness, but it always seemed to be just out of his reach. He felt so strange . . . so loopy, for lack of a more eloquent word.

Was he really being mutilated? Was that why he couldn't feel . . . ? Maybe he was being kept drugged in order to remove parts. . . .

He couldn't stand to think of the others having to deal with something so horrible. Gansley would be so enraged, but so helpless. . . . Cove was his archenemy now. Nesbitt would be on fire too. Well, all of them would be. . . . And then they'd break down, especially as time went on. . . .

He was upset to think of himself being left like that too, of course, although in his drugged state it didn't fully process. Mostly he heard over and over what was happening to the others and how they were suffering . . . suffering . . . suffering.

How long had it been? Hours? Days? . . . How long could he survive like this?

He had been fading in and out of consciousness for an indeterminable amount of time when the cell door opened and a small form was thrust in. "Here," Cove sneered as he slammed the door. "Here's a friend for you."

The sight of a raven-haired boy collapsing to the cold cement floor shocked Lector more fully back to awareness. "Mokuba?!" He climbed down from the rickety bed, not stopping to process that he could finally move again, and lifted the child. When Mokuba didn't stir, he looked back to Cove with flashing eyes. "What did you do? What do you have against this boy now?!"

"Nothing against him," Cove shrugged. "But when I appealed to his brother after being fired, he upheld your friend's decision. So naturally, I couldn't let that go unpunished either. I waited until now to torture Seto Kaiba so that I could make it part of my plot against Charles Gansley." He locked the door and walked away without acknowledging Lector's other question.

Lector rested the child's body against him while feeling for a pulse. "Come on, Mokuba," he encouraged when he found it. "Wake up. . . ."

Mokuba groaned and snuggled against him. "Lector . . ."

A split-second memory flashed through Lector's mind, of a much younger Mokuba waiting for Seto to get done with his studies and climbing onto Lector's lap to sleep. That had been the first time Lector had realized Mokuba really liked him . . . and when he had realized that for the first time, he was fond of a child.

Suddenly Mokuba snapped awake. "Lector?!" He looked up at the man with wide eyes. "What's going on?! Where is this?!"

"I don't know," Lector said in despair. "We've been taken prisoner by Martin Cove."

"The guy who used to work at KaibaCorp?!" Mokuba yelped. "He was a real loose cannon!"

"That's why Gansley fired him and your brother supported it," Lector said. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. . . . I think so. . . ." Mokuba looked around the strange, enclosed area. "This looks like some kind of old jail cell. . . ."

"I know." Lector looked Mokuba over in concern. The boy seemed dizzy. "Are you really alright?"

". . . I guess so. That big jerk hit me." Mokuba scowled, then winced as he found the bump under his hair.

"There's no telling what he's capable of doing," Lector said angrily. He stood, still holding Mokuba, and went back to the bed. Gently he laid Mokuba down and then sat next to him.

Mokuba was grateful for the softness of the bed. "If we could figure out where we are, maybe we could escape. Is this guy working alone?"

"I haven't seen anyone else," Lector said. "But I don't see how he could have abducted me by himself."

"Don't you remember what happened or anything?" Mokuba frowned.

"I was going to Gansley's," Lector said. "I remember someone running into the road so I had to brake. . . . I got out to demand what was the matter and something came down on my head. Then I woke up here . . . but I wasn't fully conscious until he threw you in with me."

"Your coat sleeve's torn," Mokuba observed.

Lector looked down in surprise. He had been so shocked to wake up with Mokuba being thrown in that he hadn't even noticed. But indeed, the sleeve was missing at the elbow. So was the sleeve of the dark shirt he had been wearing underneath.

"That's funny," he frowned. "I don't remember being conscious long enough to put up a fight. Why would he tear off part of my sleeves?"

"This guy's nuts," Mokuba said bitterly. "He must have had some crummy reason. Maybe he wanted a trophy or something."

"My ring's gone too," Lector suddenly realized.

"You were wearing that?" Mokuba blinked.

"Yes." Lector studied his bare finger. "I was trying to make myself get used to it."

"Well, Shadi did say that bad guys wouldn't be able to tell the true value of the gems, so hopefully Cove's not trying to pawn it," Mokuba said.

Lector paused. "I feel like I kept waking up in a daze and he was talking to me. . . . He was saying outrageous things, but now I don't remember them. I only know I have a very bad feeling about the others."

Mokuba sighed. "Seto's gonna go through the ceiling. And your friends will be really upset too. . . ."

"They'll all take the town apart until they find us," Lector said. "Only I doubt we're in town at all."

"I wonder if we're really far away." Mokuba got up and walked to the window, standing on tiptoe to look out. ". . . That's weird."

"What is?" Lector stood, half-limping over to the window.

Outside, the street resembled an old Western town. The abandoned buildings and wooden sidewalks seemed straight out of Bonanza or Gunsmoke. Lampposts up and down the street were lit with flickering candles inside their protective glass covers.

A chill ran up Lector's spine. "Get away from the window," he ordered Mokuba.

The child started, looking up at him. "Why?!"

"Because I said so." Lector grabbed Mokuba's arm, pulling him back.

In a moment, another light came on across the street and the smell of stew cooking began to filter through the jail cell bars and into the room.

Mokuba's stomach growled, loudly. "Oh wow. That smells so good. . . ."

"It's not real food," Lector insisted.

"Well, what is it then?!" Mokuba retorted. ". . . Oh no." He turned several shades of pale. "We're up at that ghost town, aren't we?"

"The one where it always seems that people have been around five minutes before," Lector agreed. "Cooperstown." He went back to the bed. "Once, while we were staying at Johnson's cabin for the weekend, we ended up driving as far as Cooperstown because Nesbitt couldn't believe the rumors about the town were real."

Mokuba retreated to the bed as well. "But you all found out they are," he whispered.

Lector nodded. "We all had enough of the place before long."

"And now we're stuck here for who knows how long," Mokuba moaned.

Lector sighed. "It'll be alright, Mokuba." He prayed he was right. "Anyway, I think right now, we have more to worry about from the living than the dead."

Mokuba couldn't disagree with that.