Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over the Yu-Gi-Oh! or Final Fantasy VII franchises. All copyrights belong to their respective copyright owners.
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Chapter Seven- Valentine's Torn Apart (Part Two)
Vincent stood there almost listlessly as the deadly burning blue phoenix rushed for his face-down monster, and completely obliterated it. Mere seconds later, upon hearing Mai's shocked gasp that he was still standing there with narry a scratch to his Life Points, he smiled.
"Well done, ma cousine, you've successfully shown the most epic failure of a use of that card in the history of the game." Vincent taunted. "My face-down monster, Battle Fader, has no attack points, so you wasted your best card and your Battle Phase for absolutely nothing. C'est tragique!"
Mai gritted her teeth in a growl. "Fine. I end my turn. But it's about time you stopped stalling and started really dueling over there! You're boring me half to death over here!"
Vincent's smile remained as he drew his next card. "Fortunately for you, my Battle Fader automatically removes itself from play, so it cannot be used as fuel for any of my Chaos monsters. However, I can play my Change of Heart magic card, which lets me take control of your Harpie Lady Sisters. Then, I'll place one card face down. Next, I activate the magic card Raigeki, which destroys all monsters on your side of the field!"
Mai jerked back with a small cry as all her Harpies were obliterated by lightning from the sky.
Vincent's smile grew a few molars, and became even more twisted. Yugi shuddered at the sight of the Frenchman's eyes, and the predatory gleam which now seemed to lurk within them. The man's voice was just above a wicked whisper as he stated, "And now, it's time you are acquainted with one of my favorite monsters in my deck. I sacrifice your Harpie Lady Sisters in order to bring to the field my faithful Vampire Lord!"
Mai drew her arms in around herself and shivered at the sight of the demon emerging from its coffin- and then, came to her senses, and shouted, "Big deal! So you dragged some monster out of a B horror movie! I'm really shaking over here!"
"You should be." Vincent hissed. "You're completely defenseless against my monster's attacks. Now, go, my creature of the night, and suck dry half of my opponent's Life Points!"
The Vampire Lord smirked, and vanished into thin air. Mai looked around wildly for the creature for a moment before she felt a pair of arms restrain her. She cried out as the demon's fangs pierced her neck, and remained there for several moments before finally withdrawing and returning back to his master's side of the field.
Mai LP: 2000
"And remember, Vampire Lord's attacks force you to give up one card in your deck of the type of my choosing. And I wish for you to surrender one of the traps that lie in wait for me." Vincent stated. "Once you've selected and discarded your card, it's your move once more."
"All right." Mai conceded, reluctantly drawing out her Harpie Lady Sparrow Formation before discarding it to the graveyard. "My move now!"
As she saw her next card, she couldn't help but smile. Vincent had put up a good fight, but nothing he had could stand against her next monster swarm.
"First off, I activate my own Monster Reborn card, which allows me to resurrect my first Harpie Lady that you destroyed!" Mai called out, watching as her red-haired birdwoman appeared before her once more. "Next, I'll use the magic card Double Summon! This lets me normal summon two monsters in one turn! So say hello to my Harpie Girl and my Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon!"
A small, cute, pink-winged, blonde-haired Harpie (ATK 500) appeared next to a miniature, far less threatening version of Harpie's Pet Dragon (ATK 1200).
"Now here comes the fun part. Well, fun for me, anyways. My Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon has many possible effects depending on how many Harpies are on my side of the field. Right now, there are two. That means my little creature's attack points double, giving me more than enough firepower to take out your Vampire Lord, and most of the rest of your Life Points!" Mai stated, pointing right at Vincent. "It's been nice seeing you, hon, but it's time you got the hell out of my life! Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon, let's give his Vampire Lord a nice toasty fire bath!"
The tiny dragon inhaled deeply, and blew out a somewhat unsteady stream of fire that nonetheless wiped Vincent's Vampire Lord out, completely incinerating it to ashes.
Vincent LP: 100
"And now, Harpie Girl, why don't you do the honors and scratch out the rest of his Life Points?" Mai called, bringing the chibi-Harpie forward to attack Vincent and completely finish off the duel.
"I activate my trap, A Hero Emerges!" Vincent declared. "You choose one random card from my hand, and if it's a monster, it gets summoned to the field! If not, it's discarded to the graveyard."
"Leaving an awful lot to chance, aren't ya?" Mai asked.
"Not exactly." Vincent replied, smirking.
Mai rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'll just pick the card on the far left and get this over with!"
"You shouldn't have done that." Vincent stated, shaking his head. "That card you picked was a monster card. Not that it mattered. All the cards in my hand were monsters. Now, say hello to my Dimensional Alchemist!"
A heavily-armored in white and gold figure appeared on Vincent's side of the field. (ATK 1300)
"And it's too late to call off your Harpie Girl's attack, so say goodbye to 800 of your Life Points!" Vincent taunted.
A wave of dimension-warping energy crashed into the Harpie Girl, causing her to shatter into a million pieces.
Mai LP: 1200
"Big deal! My Harpie Lady and your Dimensional Alchemist still have the same number of attack points! Now, let's go, Harpie Lady, and leave him with no defense once more!" Mai retorted.
"Not quite." Vincent interrupted. "Once per turn, I can activate my alchemist's special effect, which lets me remove from play the top card of my deck in order for him to gain 500 attack points."
The top card on Vincent's deck shattered, surrounding his Dimensional Alchemist with a sinister glow. (ATK 1800)
Harpie Lady was surrounded by a dimensional portal before being crushed into a veritable black hole and removed from sight.
"No!" Mai cried out as her Life Points began ticking downwards again.
Mai LP: 700
Mai wordlessly gestured towards Vincent, showing that there was nothing else she could do that turn.
"Remember, my Vampire Lord returns to the field each turn thanks to his special ability." Vincent reminded as his dark lord woke from his coffin once more. "I now have two monsters on the field, both of which more than powerful enough that, should they attack your monster, your Life Points would fall to zero. I remove the next card from the top of my deck to keep my Dimensional Alchemist's power boost in effect, and now have two options as to how to end this battle. So, which way would you rather me end this? By having my Vampire Lord fest upon dragon's blood, or by sending said dragon to the void? Well?"
Mai's arms drew closer into her stomach, almost as if she were trying to hold herself together. Everyone watching the duel could see that she was shaking violently. Joey, Yugi, and Tristan gasped in unison while Serenity and Bakura looked at Mai with concern.
Joey's eyes widened. Oh man… I remember her breaking down like dat first time we fought her when she was using da Seal of Orichalcos… I thought dat maybe she was past all dat, but seeing her now… I dunno…
Vincent's triumphant smirk began shifting towards a concerned expression. The tension and anger in his face almost seemed to evaporate as he saw his cousin looking so vulnerable. This… this trembling thing wasn't the confident, arrogant, borderline bitchy cousin he once knew. This was a woman who had been in serious pain- and was incredibly scared… "Mai?"
"No… no…" Mai moaned, her voice barely above a whisper in strength. "I can't lose… I won't lose… I swore I'd never lose again… Can't lose… Won't go back there… Have to win… Can't lose… Don't want to go back to that place… I can't… Lose…"
"Mai, what's wrong?" Vincent asked, a note of worry slipping into his voice in spite of himself. He wanted to feed his anger, his hatred, but in the face of something like this he just couldn't hold on to it. "Are you all right? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?"
"Mai!" Joey cried out, running to her side and grabbing her by the shoulders. The blonde duelist slowly inclined her head towards him. "Mai, listen to me. You're gonna be okay. Dis isn't one of dem losses where somethin bad's gonna happen to ya if ya don't win. You're not goin back to da Shadow Realm. You're stayin right here, wit me. And Yugi. And all your friends who love ya. Right, guys?"
"Yeah! We're right behind you all the way!" Tristan cheered.
"You bet! We'll always be here when you need us!" Yugi added.
"You're a strong woman, Mai." Serenity stated. "You can make it through this."
Mai looked around in wonder at the group of friends standing close by before finally looking Joey in the eye. "You're right. You all are. I need to stop being such a big baby about this, put on my big girl shorts, and deal with it. I can't win all the time, and to freak out like this when the stakes aren't even that high is just plain stupid… I just… I just don't know if I can face losing alone right now…"
"Ya don't have to." Joey soothed. "I'll be right here. Right by your side. Hey! Vincent! If you're gonna attack, go ahead and do it now! I'm takin dis hit right by her side. Ya got me?"
Vincent nodded. "All right. Vampire Lord, wipe out her Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon and finish this duel!"
Vampire Lord flew over to the tiny dragon and slashed his claws through it's tough hide, shattering it, and bringing Mai's Life Points down to zero.
Joey held Mai close as the latter dropped to her knees, trying her hardest not to cry. "It'll be okay, Mai. It'll be okay."
Vincent ran over to his collapsed cousin, and dropped to his own knees to look her in the eye. "Mai. Is everything all right? Why did you just-?"
Joey hesitated for a moment, then answered for her. "Back in da Battle City Finals, she lost a really important duel and was put through a big traumatic ordeal for several years as a result. She kinda lost hope in everythin', and looked for meanin' in dis creepy cult-thing named Doma, but she eventually got away from dem, and has been trying to get back to normal life for a while now."
"A cult?" Vincent asked, now thoroughly confused. Mai must have gone through something terrible to become weak-minded enough to follow something like that. "Listen, Mai, are you sure you're going to be okay? I mean… maybe you should see a therapist… I'm not saying that to be ironic or cruel, it's just a suggestion."
Mai laughed bitterly. "Trust me, hon, a visit to a therapist after what I've been through would get me locked up in the loony bin longer than you were. And about that- I'm sorry. You're right… that wasn't you that attacked me. It was something else using you. I didn't have any experience with the supernatural at that age, and now I've seen more than enough of it to last me a lifetime. So.. for everything you went through as a result of my actions, I'm sorry, Vince. I'm really sorry. Can you forgive me?"
Vincent nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry for going after you so cruelly. Had I known what you'd been through, I wouldn't have targeted you at all. I was just so angry after-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Mai interrupted. "You don't have to give me the soap opera version. Let's just shake hands and call it even, okay?"
Joey released Mai from his arms as she extended her hand towards Vincent. Vincent took the proffered hand, but then, seconds later, forewent it in favor of a familial embrace.
Mai rolled her eyes. "Here comes the blubberfest."
Vincent jerked away from her at that moment. "Years later, and you still can't take a single sign of affection as anything other than weakness? You're still the same ice queen like when we were kids."
"And you're still the same old wimp." Mai replied with an impish smirk on her face.
As the cousins stood to their feet, beginning to argue in rapid-fire French, Yugi sighed. It's good to know they've at least reconciled with one another. That's two old grudges laid to rest in a single day. Who knows what else this tournament might hold?
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Pegasus looked over the information going past him on the computer screen, and his remaining eye widened as he found a very interesting set of files on Rufus ShinRa's personal laptop. He'd only meant to borrow the laptop to look up one of his favorite episodes of Funny Bunny, since he had to leave his boxed set of the cartoons back at his castle, but had accidentally clicked on one of the desktop folders instead.
"Kaiba-boy! I think you might want to have a look at this. It's very interesting." Pegasus called.
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "I'm not watching your asinine cartoons."
He turned to look at the computer screen anyway, and found himself confronted with a picture of the silver-haired duelist from the United States, Sephiroth Crescent.
"Why would he have information on Sephiroth on his laptop?" Kaiba wondered aloud, walking over to Pegasus's shoulder, and bending down to see the data more clearly.
"It's obvious, isn't it, Kaiba-boy?" Pegasus stated. "Sephy-boy works for him. See?"
The brown-haired CEO looked where Pegasus was pointing, and found next to Sephiroth's photo 'Occupation: ShinRa SOLDIER 1st class'.
"SOLDIER…" Kaiba muttered. "I'd heard rumors that ShinRa had been requisitioned by the United States government to create a division of super-soldiers, but the whole thing was just pure nonsense. Though this is worth investigating a bit."
"And that's not all." Pegasus added. "I've also found files on Aerith Gainsborough, Cloud Strife, and Vincent Valentine."
He pulled up each portfolio in a window next to one another as he listed them off. Kaiba scanned the information on the screen before him.
'Aerith Gainsborough. Ancient Blood Status: Confirmed. To be watched closely.' 'Cloud Strife. Occupation: Unemployed. Failed tests to become SOLDIER- deferred to Dr. Hojo for further study upon capture.' 'Vincent Valentine. Occupation: ShinRa Administrative and Tecnology Department AKA Turk. Employment Status: Terminated.' Kaiba thought, reading bits and pieces of information off the page. Aloud, he asked, "Why the hell would Rufus have this kind of information on these people?"
"That, I'm afraid, is none of your concern." a voice coolly cut in from the doorway. Kaiba and Pegasus turned around as one to find themselves staring at a highly irate Rufus ShinRa. "Whatever happened to respecting my privacy? Keep snooping around, and I'm pulling my company's funding from this tournament."
Kaiba narrowed his eyes. "I don't take threats of extortion very well. We agreed to open disclosure of all investments related to this tournament- that includes whatever money you've spent in gathering this information on the contestants, so I think we have a right to an explanation, Rufus."
Rufus laughed as though he were dealing with a precocious child. "You just don't get it, do you? You're not the ones in charge of this tournament anymore. I am. It's my money being spent here- and it's my money being wasted, should I fail in gathering those my company wants returned. So I suggest you two keep your noses out of my files, unless you want to find yourselves bankrupted and with your legs broken."
The blond-haired CEO snapped shut his laptop, and exited the room with it in his arms, slamming the door shut loudly behind him.
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Next time: Join us as we meet our old friend Rebecca Hawkins- who meets up with- for her- an old foe by the name of Sephiroth! Will she be able to repeat her win against the silver-haired duelist? Find out next time!
