In Which There Is Trickery and Evil Stirs

YYHfan-KB's chapter

Keiko breathed in and out, trying to steady her shaking hands and her rattled nerves. "I'm better than you-he'll never want you since you're so plain." Aiyoku threw taunts at her one after another as Keiko examined her opponent; Aiyoku was dressed in a sunshine yellow dress and obviously unarmed with no creature of any sort in the room for support.

"I mean look at you, you have no sense of taste obviously." Aiyoku sneered at Keiko who replied.

"Well look at you miss I'm a prick, what are you, showgirl of the month?" Keiko hoped her voice hadn't seemed to weak, "You'll never have Yusuke, ever! Now Dragon!"

The creature surged forward to clamp down onto Aiyoku's ribcage, jaws snapping only to find empty air.

"What the hell?" Keiko wondered aloud.

"What a fool, did you honestly think I'd just come out and fight you without any precautions?" Aiyoku's image disappeared and a hidden door slid open, "Now face the wrath of the Beasts!"

Oniguri bounded out of the open portal ready to destroy Keiko. Bracing herself for the fight Keiko felt a thrill of excitement, is this how the guys feel when they fight?

"Bring it on!" Keiko yelled as the oniguri charged.

Genkai felt the disturbance just before the weapon came slicing out of the shadow beside her, jumping back she narrowly avoided the black-clad assassin's weapon.

"Shit!" Her shout warned the others around her.

"Genkai!" Botan swung her oar at the assassin as Genkai hit the ground and rolled to avoid the wide swing.

The loud crack as the oar connected with something hard was surprising but not as surprising as how the oar snapped clean in half.

"Uh oh." Botan yelped and ducked as a sword flashed out at her, nicking her in the side then vanished.

"It's Seadra!" Chasity screamed just as Koenma dodged a knife that came arcing out of nowhere, slamming into the tree right where he had been.

Adelaide let out a groan when another knife sunk hilt-deep into her stomach, Yukina ran to her as she collapsed onto the ground.

"Adelaide-san," Yukina took one look at the knife and knew it was hopeless, the knife had sliced open several organs and Adelaide was bleeding out internally, "I'm sorry." Tears welled up in the ice maiden's eyes as she held the dying girl in her arms.

"Yu-yukina-san...crush the...pendant around my neck." Adelaide managed to choke out her dying words, "If you..do...it will weaken..." Her eyes fluttered closed as a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Meanwhile, the group had loosely cornered Seadra and Chasity was pleading with her, "Seadra please stop and listen to me for a minute. Sue-san has lost it, we're trying to stop her." The assassin just glared, "Seadra please."

"I would if I could, but I can't and-" Seadra doubled over, "-run-" was all she managed to choke out before she straightend up, eyes glowing the same red as the now pulsating pendant around her neck.

Botan and Chasity simultaneously went, "Uh-oh."

Keiko held on for dear life as the dragon stomped and chomped on the oniguri monsters, sweeping them away with its tail, and crushing them against the walls.

Eventually all the oniguri were obliterated, and Keiko could hear a faint yell coming from the other side of the wall. "Hello?" she called out as she dismounted the dragon and walked over to the wall where she could hear a muffled thumping now along with a familar voice yelling.

"Yusuke?" She pounded on the wall, "Yusuke is that you?"

"-yes-"

"Hold on, I'm going to try to break down the wall, so stand back." Turning and climbing back onto the dragon Keiko made it slam its tail into the wall repeatedly, each strike seemed to weaken it until finally a crack appeared.

After what seemed to be an eternity the crack became a hole and the hole grew wide enough that a person could slip through if they tried.

"KEIKO!" Yusuke all but flew to his girlfriend as she jumped down from the dragon. Kurama, then Hiei and Kuwabara followed him through the hole.

"Yusuke, are you ok?" Keiko checked Yusuke for injuries taking note of the cowboy costume.

"Hey, that's my line." He grinned at her sticking out his tongue to tease her.

"I hate to interupt but I think now would be the opportune time for us to make our escape." Kurama pointed to the dragon, "I'm sure we could all ride that and make it out quick enough."

"Good point Kurama, let's go." Yusuke agreed with his red-headed friend.

As the group started to mount the dragon a voice halted them, "Do you really think you can make it out of here alive? Hmm?"

Deep in the Beasts lair...

"Sue-san," Alice skipped lightly to her 'friends' side, "Have you seen Chasity or Adelaide?"

Sue turned her head slightly from the row of TV screens in front of her, "No, I assumed that they were in their rooms."

"I did too, but when I went to talk to Chasity I found her gone." Alice pouted, twirling the ribbon around her neck.

"Alice why are you here?" Sue turned fully to face Alice completely, a twisted look on her usually impassive face.

"Sue-san?" Alice backed away not knowing why Sue was acting so strange, "Sue-san, what's wrong?"

"You don't know?" Sue's sneer could have cut through solid stone, "Of course you don't know, no one knows. No one ever knows! The things I do for you ungrateful wretches and you don't even care!" The stone around her neck was dark red, and its swirling colors were pulsating violently.

Alice felt herself go cold, now she could tell what was wrong; the ritual stone was taking over Sue. "Sue-san please, don't hurt me!" Alice shrieked as Sue grabbed her by the bow around her neck and pulled it tighter.

"Die, you ingrate." Sue hissed as the bow tightened around fragile Alice's neck. when an alarm went off alerting Sue to the fact that the boys were escaping.

Dropping Alice to the side Sue strode out of the room, "I'll deal with you later." she snarled as she left.