Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal
Series: Order of the Outcasts #1
Title: Origins: Chapter 10: Trust In Me
Characters: Nasch, Merag, Durbe, Mizael, Gilag, Alit, Vector, Don Thousand
Word Count: chapter: 2,630||story: 26,023
Genre: Fantasy, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Notes: This series takes place in a quasi-medieval fantasy world originally inspired by the concepts set forth in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying, but is not restricted by those concepts. They simply give it some of the foundation.
Summary: [10/20; Seven Barian Emperors; au: fantasy] A bard. A priestess. A mage. A druid. A gladiator. A ranger. A man of mystery. A quest to find a stolen item brings them all together. And thus a legend begins.
The first sign of trouble was when Mizael flickered out of sight. Vector, perhaps unsurprisingly, was the first to notice, his eyes narrowed and one hand resting quickly on the hilt of his sword.
"Where did he go?" Dangerous eyes shifted around the area, as if the elf would reappear if Vector only looked in the right direction. Durbe had seen that same kind of look in other people, and he liked it no more now than he had then.
"Mizael!" He hoped that whatever had caused the ranger to vanish would only be something visual, and he could still hear them. "Are you here? Can you hear me?"
No answer came at all. Carefully the group moved forward, sticking closer together, as if that would prevent whatever happened to Mizael from happening to them.
It didn't work. Alit vanished between one breath and the next, and Vector was only a heartbeat or so behind him.
Ryouga snarled under his breath when Rio disappeared, even as he reached for her sleeve to get her attention.
"Maybe if I-" Whatever Gilag might've wanted to try never was said, as air alone filled the space where he'd been only a moment earlier.
Durbe knew well enough this had to be magic. It crackled in the air around them; it had been present ever since they entered this underground maze in the first place, but now it grew thicker and stronger. This was the next obstacle they needed to pass, but what was it?
"Something isn't right." He drew his staff closer to himself, trying to find the key in all of this. He had to do it; Ryouga knew a little of magic, as most bards did, but he hadn't studied it the way that Durbe had. If anyone stood a chance at breaking this spell, it would be him.
But he would have to find out what the spell was first. Nothing could be broken without understand it first. That was something his very first teacher had drilled into him all those years ago.
"Ryouga, I-" Durbe turned as he spoke, and the words choked off when he realized that he stood in this strange featureless room alone. Either he'd been taken somewhere or Ryouga had, and he didn't know which was which anymore.
Focus, Durbe! Durbe snapped to himself. Panicking would do nothing useful. He needed to think or they were all lost forever.
Yes. It was all up to him. It wasn't as if any of the others could do this. Magic would be the answer here, wizard's magic, not the spells of a cleric or a druid, linked to the natural world. Those had their place, of course, but not here and not now. Here was the place where the wizardry that came from research, information, and knowledge would thrive.
A small smile played about his lips as he began to review the spells that would most likely work best here. Something for true sight, to see through whatever illusions might be hiding his companions from him? That sounded like a good way to begin.
He focused his mind and spoke the spell, sensing its power wrapping all around him and then stretched out to fill the room. It wasn't that large of a place, he felt, perhaps the size of a throne room for a medium sized country. He could've walked around it in a matter of minutes. And yet he was still the only one there.
Then, the others weren't here at all? Surely his magic would've revealed them if they were. Was teleportation involved? Surely something as simple as trapdoors couldn't be used!
He glanced down to check, though. The people who'd crafted this area were more than a little clever. He shouldn't rule anything past them until he'd proven it completely to himself.
If there were any trap doors, he couldn't see them. He decided not to consider those an option as of yet. He moved forward, keeping his mage-tuned senses sharp, ready for anything that could attack. He was the only one there, he would fight it, whatever it was.
"Durbe!" The mage-knight looked up quickly at the calling of his name and saw Alit there, fear written all over the gladiator's features. "What's going on? Where's everyone else? Where did you all go?"
Durbe's eyes narrowed, hand falling to his sword-hilt. "What are you talking about?" Alit was one of those who'd vanished, Durbe hadn't vanished. "You should know that better than I do."
Alit eyed him, fists clenching and unclenching, distrust glimmering in his eyes. "What makes you think I'd know what was going on here?"
"You vanished. Where did you go?" Durbe didn't draw his blade yet, but he kept himself alert and ready to do so. He would have to strike quickly when he did. Alit was too fast; if he missed the first blow, he might not get another one.
"I didn't go anywhere. Mizael disappeared and then all the rest of you did, all at the same time. I've been trying to find you."
A lie. Durbe hissed softly under his breath. Even on their short acquaintance, he hadn't thought that Alit would lie like this. He'd thought they'd been growing closer, all of them. And yet here was Alit, trying to tell him something he knew with all of his heart wasn't true.
"Durbe, what is going on here?" Alit started to step toward him and froze when Durbe's sword whistled out of its sheath and pointed toward his heart. "Durbe?"
"We didn't vanish, you did. And then the others." Durbe ignored the sudden fluttering in the back of his mind, a strange sort of mental beating. He would deal with that later; the first order of business was to settle Alit.
Alit's gaze fell on the tip of the sword, and tension slowly bunched his shoulders as his fists clenched. "If this is what you want to do, then I'm all for it." He swung and Durbe dodged back, quick to defend himself from those powerful fists. He hadn't seen Alit fight another person before, but he could tell strength when he saw it, and he wasn't inclined to get hit if he could avoid it.
He slashed forward, and wasn't surprised to see Alit roll out of the way, coming up lightly on his feet and sending a piledriver punch right toward him. He scrambled out of the way, slicing back toward his opponent, grazing just the tip of Alit's shoulder.
"Whoa, you're good!" The gladiator grinned at him, barely seeming to notice the thin streak of red visible through his clothes. "I don't get hit too much."
Durbe didn't waste his time answering. Especially not since Gilag appeared beside Alit in the next breath. Calling his allies… The thought whispered through his mind, slightly darker and more sinister than he was used to, but he paid that no mind.
"Hey, Gilag, something's wrong with Durbe! He thinks we're the ones who vanished, when it was everyone else!"
Fire raged through Durbe's veins at those words. Something was wrong with him? When they were the ones not only deluded but possibly traitors as well?
Bile surged up in the back of his throat at the thought. Traitor. He didn't wait another moment, but surged forward, sword slashing at the two of them. Both dodged aside, one to the left, one to the right, and he slid for Gilag first, wanting the other magic-user out of the way so that he didn't have to worry about spells being slung at his back.
And Gilag would do that, no doubt at all. One could never entirely trust druids, something whispered in his mind. They never seemed fully able to commit to one side or the other. He'd even heard of evil druids, ones who twisted the power of their forests to serve their own ends, instead of serving the forest itself.
Was that what Gilag really was? Was that the kind of power they'd welcomed among themselves, thinking him a worthy peer to Rio and her blessed gifts?
No. No, Durbe would never let something like that happen again! He'd never let someone hurt the two he cared about more than anyone in all the world!
The snarl that left his lips as he plunged toward Gilag was inhuman in all the worst ways. He might well have pierced the druid through the heart on the spot, had someone seized his arm. A swirl of blond hair told him who it was and he glared at Mizael in fury.
"Let me go!" How could Mizael support actions like theirs? How could he stand alongside someone who would twist the natural world that he knew Mizael loved so much? Mizael, who …who hated humans. Who walked with them only out of a debt, and who would likely take any chance that he could to turn on them.
"Durbe, have you gone mad?" The elf glowered down at him, unimpressed by Durbe's fury.
"I should ask you that! You and all the rest!" Durbe, normally calm and unruffled by everything, raged. He could see Vector standing just behind Mizael now, and he recognized the look of lust in those lavender eyes so easily. Vector wanted Mizael and there was so much that he hadn't told them all, and he'd even been willing to let them all die in that trap before the door…
He needed to kill them all. That was the only way to get out of here safely. Only their blood would satisfy the spell. He could see that so clearly now, and he wondered that he'd missed it before.
He'd been blinded, he decided, in a cold clear part of his mind that he marveled he'd never used before. He'd thought the best of them, and that had been his downfall, or nearly so. But now he knew the truth, and he would not rest until they all fell and he could return to soar the skies safely with Mach.
Mach… The thought of his beloved Pegasus rippled through him and he jerked himself away from Mizael almost as an afterthought, shaking his head, which suddenly felt as if it were filled with cobwebs and dust. What was going on…what was he thinking…
"Durbe!" Again his name was cried out and this time he looked up to see Rio standing there, eyes wide and full of a fear he could not name. For for him? Of him?
Why would she be afraid of him? He'd never harmed her. He never would. Unless…
They'd never known the true name of the traitor, or what he looked like. They even called him 'he' only out of convenience. The name they knew could've been a lie, and likely enough was. He did not want to think that she, of all people, could've turned on her brother, and it didn't feel likely, not with how she'd left with him, but…
But a deeper game could be played here than he knew, and he pointed his sword at her. "Come no closer." He needed to think, to get all of this sorted out in his head, and he couldn't do it with the way the other five of them crowded so close, all staring at him in varying degrees of confusion and anger.
"Durbe?" The last voice, the one he'd somewhat expected, but now wasn't certain if he wanted to hear, and it came from behind him. He turned with all caution, keeping the others in sight as he did.
"Ryouga." Another name almost rose to his lips but he refused it. He wouldn't betray their secret, no matter what. He would die first. "They all…we can't trust them. They…even…" In all of his life he'd never made less sense and it twisted something deep within him.
Ryouga stepped toward him, understanding and compassion in his eyes. "Durbe, calm down. Put up your sword."
What? Would he…would Ryouga ask him to do that, when there was so much danger? When they could trust no one here?
Was this really Ryouga? Was it an illusion? Or worse? Was Ryouga…had he…
Durbe's hand shook. He fought to keep the blade up, ready to attack at a moment's notice. Ryouga continued to look at him, then slowly, ever so slowly, in a way that no one could mistake for a strike of battle, he slid the glove off of his right hand and held the palm up for Durbe to see. He could feel the whispers of curiosity and concern from the others, but for now, it made no difference.
There, on Ryouga's palm, a scar. Simply that and nothing more. But at the sight of it, Durbe slammed his sword down tip-first in the cracks between the stones beneath him. He drew the glove off his own right hand, staring down at the matching scar there, and memories stronger than magic flooded his mind.
"I can't be your blood-brother! You're a…and I'm a…" Durbe wanted to protest, but Ryouga wasn't one to take no for an answer, not when it was something he wanted as much as he wanted this.
"I say that you can and you can't tell me no, can you?" Ryouga grinned at him, and Durbe could only laugh and shake his head. Ryouga would get his way, no matter what.
"All right, all right." He drew out his knife, kept honed to a razor's edge as all good warriors did, and set his jaw, cutting a line across his palm. Ryouga took the knife and did the same to himself, and the two of them shook hands, their blood mingling together in the age-old tradition.
"Blood of yours, blood of mine, together as one, for all time." The two recited the ancient oath of blood-binding in unison. It made them closer than brothers, all the legends said, and for Ryouga to do this with him when he had a sister he loved more than life itself…
Durbe swore in his heart that he would trust Ryouga no matter what, from that day forward. Nothing could break that bond, no magic, no torture, nothing at all. It would last forever.
Durbe's breath whooshed out of him and he all but fell over. Footsteps pattered closer, and he shook his head. "No. Not yet." It wasn't over. He could feel it in the rage that still boiled under his skin for all the others, a rage that would soon stretch to them, if it hadn't already, turning them against one another.
It would not win.
He picked up his staff from where he'd dropped it when he'd drawn his sword and pulled himself to his feet, using it for support.
This would not happen. He would not allow it. He might not have the same bond with these new friends as he did with Ryouga and Rio, but he would not let the chance be perverted before it could grow into anything more.
With all of his strength, he smashed the butt of the staff downward, and spat out a single word, charged with all of his magic. It would take time to recover and he would be at a disadvantage in whatever battles were to come, but he took the chance. Only this spell could break the enchantment that held sway at the moment.
"Counterspell!" The spell of negation, the spell that broke all other spells, but only if enough power to do so burned within the mage casting it. At this moment, Durbe knew he could counter virtually anything. A snare meant to blind one's reason and set friend against friend would be nothing.
Was nothing, as his counter rippled outward, and the chains of magic shattered.
To Be Continued