It's time…
Chapter 24- The Final Game Part III
Brron cackled a third time. "I end my turn," he proclaimed, his laughter settling slowly and his curved lips slipping down to a leer. "Make sure you go out on a high with this move, Jaden."
Jaden stared away from him to his duel disc where his eyes laid on his deck. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes towards Alexis. She was trembling in fear, a fear he quietly shared. Their future together was now depending on this one draw. Usually in duels, when it came to moments similar to this, he would remind his adversary that it was not over until the last card is played, but he was not going to do that. He was not going to build up her hopes in case it went wrong. His fingers pressed on the surface of the top card and lifted it up away from his deck. He brought it to his eyes. They brightened.
Yes, he and Yubel cheered.
"I play Polymerisation! I fuse the Elemental Hero Neos and the Elemental Hero Bladedge in my hand to summon Elemental Hero Neos Brutus!"
The first two Elemental Heroes he called upon appeared on the field side by side and transformed into white pulses of light. Above them, a set of dark clouds gathered with a crash of thunder and lightning. The two pulses floated up high into the air and disappeared into the gloom. Yellow lightning crackled as the Fusion commenced unseen. Then the clouds parted and everyone looked up. In place of the two monsters, there was a tall strongly built one. All the girls and women in the audience gasped out in amazement. All the boys and men's mouths fell open. None of them had ever seen a more impressive Elemental Hero. Neos Brutus' form was encased within a heavy set of golden templar-styled armour and had Neos' characteristic crystal blue eyes glaring out of the thin slot-shaped gap in the visor. He came down to land softly in Attack position and summoned a scimitar to materialise in his gauntlet-covered right hand. Calmly facing his owner's opponents, he clasped his left hand over his right and held his blade ready.
The identity and Attack and Defence strength of the Hero appeared on each duellist's disc display. Brron goggled in fury at the reader. It said that Neos Brutus had 3400 Attack points and 2800 Defence. He glared up at the monster and at Jaden.
"That monster doesn't exist!" he spat. "He's just a legend!"
"Legend or not, Industrial Illusions made him a card three years ago, and there's only ten of them in existence."
Brron growled furiously and looked again at the Elemental Hero. Neos Brutus, the strongest and rarest of the Elemental Heroes, the legend of hope coming to fight in a losing battle and bringing his side to total victory, until his last where he sacrificed himself trying to bring down the Egyptian god Obelisk on one of his rampages eons ago. Although angered that such a monster did really exist and that Jaden had it in his deck, he accepted that it was there and resolved to destroy it.
"Well, go ahead then!" he shouted, knowing what Jaden was going to do next.
Jaden wasted no time. "Neos Brutus, attack Zure! Engage Battle!"
Neos Brutus advanced. To Brron's surprise, so did Zure. The two monsters met blade for blade beside the metal stand, and traded and struck blows for a number of eighteen times. With each equal stroke, both were drained of one hundred Attack points. Now, Zure was at zero while Neos Brutus was at sixteen hundred. Neos Brutus swung his scimitar, disarming Zure of his sword, and lunged. Zure roared as the steel cut into him and shattered into fragments.
Brron's Life Points decreased to 2400. But the Dark World monster noticed something as Neos Brutus marched back to his master. His Attack strength was still at 1600.
"Something wrong with your hero?" he snarled at Jaden.
Jaden shook his head. "Neos Brutus has an adverse effect when battling monsters. It costs him their entire Attack strength to deal damage to them."
"What's the use of that?"
"It's useful when he attacks stronger monsters."
Brron swiftly recalled the legend again. After Neos Brutus had fallen to Obelisk, the Egyptian god had then been destroyed by a weakling monster of eight hundred Attack points.
So that's what happened, he thought darkly. That just gives me a better opportunity to destroy all three of them.
"Is that all?" he spoke over to Jaden.
"Since I can't use either of his two special abilities, yeah, that's the end of my turn."
"And why can't you use them?" Brron asked, an expression of distrust etching onto his face.
"Because I need more than a thousand Life Points to use even one of them."
The grin returned to Brron's lips. "Good." He drew to begin his turn. "This had better end up being useful," he whispered to himself.
"I play Pot of Greed. I get two new cards."
He took the cards from his deck. The grin curled up to the edges of his mouth. "Oh, yes."
"Now, I'll play The Forces of Darkness, which restores two Dark World monsters from the graveyard to my hand."
The two cards shot out from the graveyard slot and he took them, adding one to his hand and placing the other in the monster zone.
"And then I'll resummon Zure, Knight of Dark World in Attack mode."
The brutal and bloodthirsty warrior reappeared. He recognised Neos Brutus with a silent snarl and drew his sword. Brron then placed the other card Pot of Greed had given him on the Spell and Traps zone and set it into motion.
"I activate Advanced Ritual Art. I sacrifice two Level Four monsters in my deck in order to summon Ruin, Queen of Oblivion in Attack mode!"
An elegant fair-skinned woman appeared next to Zure. Jaden blinked as his observant eyes took her into them. Ruin had long silvery white hair that draped down her back, except for two locks at the front which ended halfway down her chest, and wore a creamy yellow skin-tight bodysuit covered with an ornately designed red vest and long black skirt which, if not for the bodysuit, had oval-shaped openings that would have revealed the bare skin of her stomach and her thighs.
Jaden, Yubel snapped.
Sorry.
He kept his view more objective, taking note of the black gloves on her hands, the red and black feudal battle helmet that adorned her head, the long sasumata axe she wielded in her hands, and her Attack and Defence. ATK/2300 DEF/2000
Ruin, spotting how she had effected him a moment ago, styled herself into a seductive posture and winked at him. Jaden blushed. Yubel groaned in disgust.
"My dear queen," Brron spoke lovingly to Ruin. "Destroy Neos Brutus for me. Turn him into the myth he should have remained as!"
Ruin obeyed his command, dropping her act and serenely lifted her sasumata up to her shoulders in the manner of a spear. She sped gracefully across the field. Brron licked his lips evilly as he imagined the triumph that would be his. Ruin would engage in battle with the Elemental Hero, giving up sixteen hundred of her Life Points to destroy him, then he would allow her to attack Jaden as part of her special effect, depleting him of his Life Points, and with a stroke of sadistic pleasure, have Zure move in, giving his friend his own revenge of dealing an extra crippling blow to Jaden. Except, he quickly noticed that there was something wrong.
Neos Brutus was not moving to meet Ruin at the centre of the field.
Jaden had his hand down in the gesture to trigger one of his facedowns.
No!, Brron shrieked inside his head.
"I play a facedown. De-Fusion!"
As Ruin brought her sasumata forward in a powerful lunge, Neos Brutus turned into a pulse of light and split apart into two smaller ones. Her attack met nothing but open air. She drew her weapon back and stood up. The two pulses took solid form. On her left, a shining white figure with crystal-blue eyes, grey hands, a strange symbol on his chest, a fin at the back of his head and red and blue markings down his front, under his shoulders and on his neck appeared. The pulse on her right turned into a being covered entirely in golden armour with two sharp refined horns at the top of his head and two blades that looked like smaller versions of Neos Brutus' scimitar attached to his waist.
Both Neos and Bladedge glared solemnly at her as their Attack and Defence were officially registered.
ATK/2500 DEF/2000 ATK/2600 DEF/1800
Ruin drew back to her master, lowering her sasumata as she went. Brron was growling furiously. Jaden and Yubel had avoided death again, and not only that, had managed to bring out two powerful Elemental Heroes that had no adverse effects. And the both of them were stronger than either of his two monsters. He couldn't use Ruin's effect now, since her attack failed, and he couldn't use Zure for his lack of strength.
"I conclude my turn," he uttered grudgingly.
Taking a breath, Jaden analysed what he had for his next move. While Neos and Bladedge were strong monsters and both could take down Ruin and Zure in separate attacks, it would not create enough Battle Damage to take Brron out. Exhaustively he breathed out, then in and out again. When Brron had summoned Ruin and brought back Zure, he had believed himself finished until Yubel had reminded about the De-Fusion card he placed facedown earlier. Courage rose up within him as he played it and as he saw the two strongest of his individual Elemental Heroes appear on the field. That was a save, he did admit, but unless he got De-Fusion back from the graveyard, it would only happen once. There was nothing for it. He needed a monster strong enough to take away Brron's remaining Life Points if, of course, Neos and Bladedge's attacks on Ruin and Zure were successful.
Because if they aren't, Brron could grab another advantage that could get him to win.
Hoping for the best, he started his turn.
"My move."
His hand went down to his deck. His fingers pulled the top card away from it and lifted it up into the view of his eyes. He paused, looking at the card. The audience in the stands and Alexis nearby waited in baited breath for him to use whatever the card was and announce its play. On the other side of the field, Brron suspected that he had drawn a useless card and was unable to finish the duel on this turn, but the longer Jaden took to decide, the more a different kind of suspicion trickled into his mind.
Maybe it is good enough if he can play it right, he thought. If that is the case, I have to distract him from making it.
His face quickly took a feigned expression of impatience. "If you can't do anything with it, hurry up and end your turn!"
Jaden looked up at him. Brron dropped all suspicions as he saw the apology in his opponent's eyes. It was almost like he was a man full of remorse.
Remorse? Why would he-
Before he could ask himself the question, Jaden moved his hand down to place his new card in the monster zone.
"I summon Elemental Hero Sparkman in Attack mode!"
A creature in the shape of a man but coloured in dark blue with jagged patterns of bronze lightning and wearing a vest and shoulder and wrist guards of golden armour and an eyeless mask materialised on the field next to Neos and Bladedge in a flash of purple energy. ATK/1600 DEF/1400
Brron, his eyes bulging wide at the sight of the three Elemental Heroes standing in an impressive line-up, speedily did the math.
"No," he quietly denied his own answer.
"Neos!" Jaden's voice rose. "Attack Ruin!"
Neos darted forward, turning his hand into a fist. Ruin gazed at him in incomprehension, as if she was thinking he wouldn't dare harm the Queen of Oblivion. But he did, throwing his punch right into her stomach. She looked into his eyes for a moment, showing him the horror in hers, and then she shattered. Brron failed to interpret both her destruction and the fact his Life Points were reducing to 2200. Jaden however did not.
"Bladedge, attack Zure!"
The being in golden armour, sighting his enemy upon his calling, charged. Zure turned wildly to Brron.
"Do something!" he roared. "Do something, or we'll fail."
Brron did not hear him as his shocked brain was trying to process the conclusion he had already come to. There was nothing he could use, nothing he could do, to stop any of the attacks. He had- he had-
He heard Zure screaming in rage. He turned in time to see his comrade shattering for the second time. His Life Points decreased to 1400. Brron closed his eyes and sighed defeatedly. He reopened them again and turned to Jaden and Sparkman. He resigned himself.
"Sparkman!" Jaden cried. "Attack Brron directly! Shining Surge Flash!"
Electricity crackled around Sparkman's body as he powered up and generated it into gathering in his right hand. His fingers closed tightly around the energy. His fist turned into a glowing ball. He took off, the electricity in his grip flashing dangerously as he approached Brron. Brron in turn gazed blankly at the Elemental Hero and his incoming attack. He blinked, finally choosing to admit the truth.
"I…failed."
Sparkman's fist met his chest. The energy arced its way into his body. As it took effect, all three of the Elemental Heroes travelled back to their owner. Brron's Life Points started to drain downward. In seconds the counter read zero. The phaser, sensing it was the end of the duel, activated and revolved in the stand to point at him. It fired its beam, striking its master in the chest. Brron hardly reacted as it was inflicted upon him and as it burned out through his back. It was only when the beam faded out that he moved again. He cast his face morosely down at the charred black hole in his front. Then he raised his head, glancing his eyes emotionally around the entire arena, at everybody he had called enemy, until he came down to facing Jaden.
"Hmmm," he sighed, slowly nodding to himself. "Congratulations. Congratulations to the both of you, and to all of you. You fought, and you survived. You win. Enjoy the lives you've earned."
Faint yellow energy started ripping itself away from his body, which began to fade. He stared at Jaden again as Alexis came to his side. Brron shook his head.
"Humans," he spoke as he finally dissolved into non-existence.
:*:
The duelling arena was silent. Noone was sure if they should cheer in victory now that the threat was over or whether to take Brron's last words as somehow being a veiled warning. Everyone but Jaden and Alexis. The two had turned to one another. Alexis looked into his eyes, showing him that she was glad he and Yubel had pulled through. He returned the feeling, tucking his arms in around her waist. Her arms slid up to encompass his own. Their heads leaned in for the kiss.
An urgent beeping throbbed from within Jaden's pocket.
Silently groaning, realising what was causing it, he put his hand deep in his pocket and removed his communicator. Pulling away from Alexis, he opened it up. On the tiny square-shaped screen a live video image of Bastion appeared.
"Bastion, hey. Good work on stopping Viper and getting the power back."
Bastion gazed back at him sadly. "It wasn't me."
Jaden shared a concerned glance with Alexis, before he faced Bastion again. "What do you mean?"
"Jaden," Zane's voice came from off the screen. "I think you'd better get over here."
"Zane?"
"You'd…better hurry."
Hurry? What did he mean? What was going on? He thought back to what Viper had said back to when he and Brron commenced the duel. He said he had sealed off the primary power chamber. He had said the island was rigged to explode. He had raised the temperature in the secondary chamber to be extremely hot.
And that he destroyed all the protective suits, Yubel added for him.
He took that into account and realised that all of that together would have made defeating Viper impossible, unless-
A cold feeling dropped into his stomach as his line of thought drove the possibility home. But how, he asked himself, both Bastion and Zane were fine, or at least they appeared to be.
Jaden drew in a sharp breath as it hit him. There was a third voice he was supposed to hear in that conversation. And he hadn't heard it at all. Snapping his communicator shut and quickly turning on his foot, he ran towards the main entrance.
:*:
His legs tired from the run across the valley, up the hill and along the final stretch to reach it, Jaden leaped through the doors to the power station and kept heading down the corridor. He stopped when he reached the primary chamber and, ignoring all of the station staff inside it examining the wreckage, went right. Zane and Bastion turned to face him as he entered the room outside the secondary chamber. He glanced between them, looking through the glass, and saw a figure with a crop of yellow hair crumpled against the far wall. Instinctively he ran for the door.
"Jaden, no!" Zane shouted, jumping in front of him. "If you do break through the doors, you'll flood the entire station!"
Jaden refused to be cowed. "He'll die."
"Jaden," Bastion spoke up, drawing Jaden's attention to him. "He's dead already."
No he's not, Jaden wanted to spit back at him, but Yubel confirmed it to him.
Yes he is. I sense it. His life force is fading.
The fight went out of Jaden. A stare of helplessness carved onto his face. This couldn't happen. It couldn't. Viper, Brron, Zure and every one of their soldiers, was dead. It was over. There wasn't meant to be anyone sacrificing their lives but him. Why did Crowler have to do it?
Because Viper had us trapped in the duel, Yubel answered, and Crowler wasn't going to let anyone else do it.
Then it's my fault.
No. He would have done it anyway. You have Alexis. Zane has me. Syrus, Mana. Jesse, Blair. Chazz, Jasmine. Sartorius has Fonda, and Sheppard, Dorothy. And everyone else, they have a great deal of life before them. Crowler, he lost his best friend, and the Academy he loves so much and the friends and students he has come to care for were under threat.
Jaden turned to gaze at the figure on the chamber floor and motioned to Bastion. "Patch me in."
Bastion nodded and moved over to the comms panel. He pushed the button for two-way communication. "You're on," he reported.
Jaden stepped in closer to the glass barrier, putting his palms against it.
"Crowler."
:*:
His hardened eyelids painfully creaked open. As they had been before his collapse, Crowler's eyes were blurry. But his ears were working; if they weren't he would not have heard that voice, which meant to him one thing. They had won. Smiling, he planted his hands up high on the wall and dragged himself onto his feet. He turned around, facing the glass barrier. Again the blurriness in his eyes obscured his vision. All he could see were faint colours. To his left there was a dull yellow and just out of view to the right there was white. The second, his foggy brain interpreted to be Zane, so the yellow had to be Bastion.
Which indicated the red in the middle had to be Jaden.
Crowler pressured his body to move forward. His feet shuffled across the floor. He held his hands out in a circle to be sure where he was going. He knew he had reached the barrier when the tips of shoes collided with solid glass. He brought his hands carefully to the opaque wall. His vision cleared up a little. Now he could see the colour of Jaden's skin, eyes and hair.
"You alright?" he rasped as his damaged lungs heaved with agony. "Both of you?"
The skin, eyes and hair bobbed up and down. "Yes," Jaden answered.
"And everyone else?"
"They're okay. Viper didn't seem to have another backup plan."
Crowler shrugged his aching shoulders. "I didn't think he would. This seemed to be his last gambit."
"Yeah," he heard Jaden begin to sob. "And it failed, thanks to you."
"And you," Crowler smiled. "We did this together, captain."
"Like always."
"That's not entirely true."
An emptiness started to form in both Crowler's legs. He felt it coming and let himself fall beside the glass.
"Crowler!" Jaden exclaimed, following him by kneeling down on the floor.
"I'm fine," Crowler said, looking upward to calm him. "As I was saying, not entirely true, or do you not remember the times I tried to have you thrown out of the Academy?"
"Yeah, but I also remember all the times when we have worked together. The Sacred Beast cards. Dark World."
Crowler blinked away the hot tears emerging from his bloodshot eyes. "Good to know. Look, Jaden, I just want you to know how much I've come to value you, not only as a once-student, but as a friend. Before I met you, I was so strict, vain and condescending. I still was that when you came. You were so unbearable in class that I failed to understand you as both a top-notched duellist and as a person."
"It took a while, but you changed me, just like you changed everyone you've ever met. And because of that, I'm a better person. You made me that."
"Crowler-
"You made me your friend, even when I didn't want to be. I want you to know now that I have been that and that I always shall be."
The emptiness that took the strength of his legs grew up into his body, entering and robbing his arms of theirs. His hand still upon the glass slumped down into his lap.
In a single moment, his blurred eyes cleared and looked into Jaden's shaking watery eyes. That was most certainly not the last thing he ever wanted to see.
"Sorry, but I have to give you an 'F'."
"What?" Jaden blinked in confusion.
"You heard me."
"Oh yeah, well, nine out of ten for you."
Crowler formed another weak smile. "Sorry, Jaden. Students don't give teachers marks. But, thanks all the same."
Jaden blinked in confusion again. The sight of him being so clueless was so amusing to Crowler that he started to laugh. His laughter rose from his chest to become louder. Inside himself, as he worked things out, Jaden felt the urge levelling up. The water absorbed back into his tear ducts. The frown melted away as the corners of his mouth curved upward. Together, a former teacher and his student, a first officer and his captain, two halves of a close friendship, joined in in a bout of shared laughter.
Crowler let it go on until he felt the emptiness taking the last of his strength from him. His laughing slowed, coming to an end when his lungs couldn't move. But his head remained raised and he saw Jaden still caught up in laughing. With his last bit of resolve, Crowler smiled. That was better, he thought as he recognised the cheery grin, the old Jaden is back.
That comfortable piece of knowledge and seeing it with his own eyes as well as how it was making him feel made Vellian Crowler's last moment one of his most memorable.
:*:
Jaden stopped laughing the instant he realised that Crowler wasn't laughing with him. He opened his eyes. The smile dropped from his lips as he looked down at Crowler. His old teacher's eyes had fallen shut. There was a lifeless smile on his face. His head was leaning on its side against the glass.
"Crowler? Teach?"
Disbelief flooded into him at first, but it was violently swept away with a torrent of realisation. He shook his head, trying to deny and forget it, and turned away. His hands covered his eyes, but he still had the picture in his mind.
"No," he said mournfully. "No."
"Jaden."
His head snapped up to the source of the voice. Alexis was standing at the opening to the room. A look from Zane and Bastion, who had moved away from the barrier, told him that she had been there for a long while. Yubel explained to him that she had followed him a minute after he had left the arena. Although that it answered his unasked question, he found that it did not matter to him. All that did was that she was there.
"Alexis," he spoke in a strangled sob, reaching his hand out to her.
Answering him, she took his hand, sat down beside him and drew him into a consoling hug. Everything, every horrible feeling he had come to bear in recent days whether it was making a blunder or witnessing the deaths of friends, came tumbling out of his eyes as tears.
… And so ends The Final Game, which I have to say also means that another ending is just around the corner. There is only one more chapter left, everyone.