Hello! Hope everyone who had thanksgiving this weekend enjoyed it with their friends and family. :) I spent most of my weekend not writing :P anyway, I would like to say that this chapter couldn't have been done without the help of TyranicFish who was Lilith in the game provided below. It was really fun to write this so I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we did.
Now, let the chapter commence.
Chapter 4
Why Me?
11:45 AM
Regan was furious. There was nothing else she could find in her emotions and it was all over the fact that Yugi was almost killed. Regan walked in front of the group. She didn't want to talk to any of them and she certainly didn't want to have the doubts start to build in her mind. But she guessed that neither was much of a problem as no one was talking. The woman led them to the competitors' hall for the casino.
"Regan do you want-?" Nile started from within her mind, but Regan quickly cut her off.
'No, I can fight this bitch and win. I have no doubt that I will win with him at stake. For all I know, she may call an unfair fight if you appeared and she recognized the change.'
"I understand," Nile sighed with a bit of pride from what Regan could sense. "Just be careful, you don't need to use up too much of your aura during this battle if you need it."
'Thanks for the reminder.' Regan smiled slightly as she tightened her grip on her blade hilts as they lightened a bit in color. Suddenly a question appeared in her mind. 'Where the hell did the rest of our group go, like Serenity, Tristan and Grandpa? I haven't seen them since early this morning.'
"Tristan and Grandpa took Serenity on a city tour. They'll be back by lunch they said." Nile answered with amusement. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm here to give you updates on where everyone is instead of being your teacher."
Regan shrugged. 'You are my wise, wise teacher of all knowing so I ask you questions that I don't know.'
"Boosting my ego is not helping with the fact that you are unobservant on where everyone is heading."
Regan didn't answer as the woman pressed in the wall that wasn't any different to the wall around it. A door opened and then the woman led them inside. The lights turned on automatically and Regan saw a few chairs in a line and then a stage that looked set up for Dance, Dance Revolution. Regan somewhat hissed to herself at the thought of so many DDR games were happening on one day. She hoped she didn't have to participate in any more dance games for the rest of the tournament. They stopped before the stage.
The woman smiled towards her. "So are you ready for the game?"
"What is this game?" Regan asked though she already knew what it was.
The woman laughed in delight, "Well it's my favorite game. It's an Insult Match."
"An insult match?" Regan was more than surprised. "So why is the DDR game set up?"
"What do you think I was doing while I was waiting to make my strike, human?"
"Watching and stalking like a cat?"
"Pfft, pitiful human."
"At least I have a soul." Regan retorted back in patiently.
The woman rolled her eyes and turned to Atem. "Pharaoh, I require some assistance to start this game."
"And how can be any assistance to you, I'm not helping you to kill my friend." Atem growled, crossed his arms and glared.
"You don't have to do anything that is required to kill Yugi, that's my favorite part of the job." The woman licked her lips. "I just need you to take us to the Shadow Realm so we can play out our game, since Yugi can't because of earlier."
"Pharaoh? Shadow Realm? What is she talking about, Yugi?" Kayama asked in confusion.
"I don't know what you are talking about, demon." Atem replied.
"Don't play dumb with me!" The woman raged. "I've done my homework on which my potential victims were going to be. Pharaoh Atem, you're lucky that Stephan was after you instead of me first, you wouldn't have survived in that change room."
"If anything you would have just ended up the same way as Stephan and Jacob had, I wish I your first victim, we wouldn't be standing here with the emergency workers on the other side of these walls."
"If you don't start up a Shadow Game then not only will I be killing Yugi; Joey, Mai, and Mokuba will be sharing his fate, only within the next few minutes." The woman threatened.
Regan clenched her jaw and it wasn't one hundred percent on the fact that her friends and brother were in danger, it was partially on how much the demon knew about their group. She turned to Atem. "Just do it, no need to add more lives to the count."
"But-"
"Just do it!" Regan interrupted as the memories of all the people hurt or dead that she had seen went past. "This is the best option to make sure this game is fair and she disappears when she loses."
Atem didn't look happy, but he nodded. "Fine, but I don't know what I'm creating."
"Just create a system that was used with between Yami Marik and Bakura, only don't make parts disappear, make each inflict of damage a wound and depending on how good the insult is the more painful the wound is, but no severing of limbs, no need to bleed to death."
"And what does the winner come out of this with?"
"Nothing, these injuries only exist within the realm, illusions if you will to the real world."
"Who would be judging this?" Seto asked suddenly. "Obviously it can't be us."
The woman smiled. "Well I'm glad you asked, I was thinking of using someone to judge how much each insult hurts, a burn meter."
"And how will the winner be determined?" Atem asked glaring at the woman.
Regan wasn't sure why he was glaring; she was having no problems with any of the rules, all she had to do is come up with some witty, creative insults that aren't very long and hope not to receive any bad insults, not like she cared about insults, she never did care for them deep down.
"The winner will be determined on a landing that will sink into the Shadow Realm out of existence the first person to sink the other wins. Oh and one more thing."
"What?"
"When Regan loses, you can't pull her out of the Shadow Realm, she stays for eternity."
A shiver went through Regan's spine. 'When the Shadow Realm wasn't used for a game, it was warm and comforting, but when Dark Matter used it as a game, it was cold and terrifying. I don't like this idea very much anymore. This must have been what Atem saw.' She glanced over at their small group and saw a determined look in their eyes as hers she knew weren't so full of. Her horrible thoughts turned to ones that would happen if she didn't win and the waves from Yugi and her brother entered her radar and she turned her unsure look to one of confidence and a dangerous glare towards the demon woman. "What's your name so I know who I'm sending away?"
"Lilith," The woman answered with a smile. "Lilith the bounty hunter."
"Lilith, prepare to meet an unfriendly fate." Atem said and then the room became noticeably darker as an eye appeared on his forehead. Kayama took a few steps away from him. "Let Shadow Game begin."
The room's corners darkened as the familiar realm quickly started to form within the room and surround them in the purple and black sphere. Regan suddenly felt panic within the room and she turned to it. Kayama looked like he was going to take out a grenade launcher and start blowing up the realm.
"What it this place?!" Kayama yelled and turned his attention to Atem. "Where the fuck did you just take us?!"
"Calm down Kayama." Seto stated with force. "Welcome to the reason why shit happens."
Suddenly, a small white square appeared under Regan's feet and then the square rose to what she guessed was a hundred feet. Memories of Zorc placing her on a towering platform came to her and she scrunched up her nose in dismay. Then a little gauge appeared in the middle as she noticed Lilith was also on a tower.
"How in hell can I be calm? We just went from on room to this place and now Regan is a hundred feet in the fucking air. How are you so calm?!" Regan looked down at the commotion and watched Kayama look at the three other people present. "How are any of you calm?"
"Because," Yugi started. "This place is what started our roads to who we are and it is also our realm."
"Our realm?"
"Save the history lesson for later," Seto told them and turned to Kayama. "All you need to know is that the power that you feel going through your body is part of why the shit pile that happened so long ago happened."
Kayama calmed down quite a bit and turned to Regan. "You better hurry up and win or I'm not going to be able to get to know what this place is."
Regan grinned slightly. "Hey Téa, if he starts freaking out, hit him with something, I don't need him as a distraction."
"I'm not-"
"Sure thing." Téa interrupted and turned to Kayama. "You need to keep you emotions checked and calm. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but be like Kaiba if this starts to go bad."
Regan turned to Lilith. "Are there any other rules in this?"
"Yes one more, each insult is measured out of 25, if you get four 25 point insults, then you will win as the score is based out of a hundred." Lilith answered.
"So first person to deal a hundred points or more on the burn meter wins?"
"That's right."
"Demon first then." Regan insisted.
Lilith grinned and Regan shivered. "Oh, look what we have here; a Kaiba orphan, how original. How's your constantly constipated older brother?"
Regan took a step back in shock. 'How could she know that? Nobody knows about that except for a few people! My brother looks constipated?' Suddenly, movement caught her eye and she watched the burn meter score a fifteen. She turned back to Lilith who was smiling with glee. Then, Regan felt like blades where cutting into her leg. She screamed out in pain as she grabbed it and her platform dropped fifteen feet.
"How did she know?" She heard Téa ask.
"Remember, she told us she did her research." Atem answered.
"My question is how?" Seto stated and Regan could feel he was glaring at Lilith.
Regan stood back up again trying her best to ignore the nerves in her leg. She had to think of a comeback to what she had started with. "I guess you know what being constipated is like if you can tell from a hundred feet in the air, got a digestive problem?" She called up hiding anything she was feeling besides a little bit of fun revenge.
The meter moved to a fifteen as well and Regan watched the platform join her at eighty-five feet with Lilith filled with no visible pain and she was not pleased to see that.
"Only when I choke on little worms like you." Lilith smiled full of confidence. "I think it's time to lay off the junk food, kid."
The burn meter red ten and Regan felt the platform drop another ten feet as her arm started to feel like someone shot it with a paintball gun. "Oh so you are a human since you are what you eat and from what I notice you aren't very demonic. I wonder if you just have a little contraption that my brother created."
"Is that the best you can do? Oh, poor little Regan. Not only are you failing at protecting your beloved Yugi...you're also painting shit yellow and calling it gold. Go on, try again, hit me with your best shot, you little shit."
Regan grinned as she started to ignore the pain. "So you like eating shit?"
"Oh, clever. That's all your kind is these days. Shit. Regan, you are just downright adorable, do you know that? You're like a little kid playing with matches. You get a millennium item and suddenly think you're important somehow. Truth is; you're just an ant to be squished beneath my boot, with a voice inside your head. Insignificant. Small. Weak." Lilith placed emphasis on each word.
"Obviously more significant than your purpose, at least I'm wanted from many people as a weapon for taking over the world; this was even before I had this item." Regan hissed. "You on the hand are only wanted when someone wants to pay you enough to kill someone, but even then, I doubt you are very good if you were chosen to take out a teenager."
"Hah, oh, you wound me, little girl. Please, be kind and merciful! Your little boyfriend happens to be far more dangerous than the other swill that came out of Adam's loins. Most of you are fat and lazy, and don't carry powerful ancient artifacts that hold more power than you could ever know. Would you not take the matches away from the child before they burned the whole house down? And as for you, Regan. A weapon is useless without the wisdom of the wielder. You're a weapon, true, and until someone holds you in their cold embrace, you will be mindless and without purpose. So don't preach to me about usefulness."
"You're just jealous because the voice speaks to me and not to you, who also happens to be my teacher"
"If I were jealous I'd have ripped that thing from your cold, dead hands long ago."
"So that's why you challenged me to this game instead of facing me, my power was too great for you to handle, awe even Stephan got closer and all he did was walk down the hall way."
"A smart demon doesn't approach her prey directly if she can kill them off in a more...elegant way. Though this would have been more thrilling if you had any measureable intelligence or wit, but I suppose this will have to do. I hope you know, Regan, after I'm done here, I'm going to kill off each and every one of your friends, one by one. Slowly. And then it is little Yugi's turn. Do you want to know what I'm going to do to him? Oh of course you do. I'll put meat hooks through his feet and hang him. I'll kill him, of course, but not until I've had my fun. I'll make him relive the memory of you falling into that pit below your feet over and over until your name is all he can sputter out. He'll scream for you, cry for you, beg for you, but all you will be able to do is watch impotently from the Shadow Realm. Oh, yes, I'll make sure you have a good view. Then I'll make you watch as I dig my nails deep into his chest and rip out his heart. Then that's all you'll see, I get uncomfortable when people watch me eat." Lilith growled in rage.
Regan felt a shiver go down her spine as her mind tried to picture her words. She shook her head and shrugged at Lilith's comeback. "Sounds like you are running out of ways to make your turn count, oh well, I guess it's to be expected to come from something that only knows how to elegantly kill things, kind of like a goldfish"
"You're about as fun as a mousetrap. I've seen people like you throughout mankind's history. All your bravado means nothing, your actions mean nothing, you mean nothing. You're used to dealing with fools like that idiot Dark Matter. You've come to a more refined party now, kid, and I have to say, you underdressed. Your ego is overinflated, like your constipated brother. Oh...don't tell me you make everything look like a silly dragon, too."
Regan looked at how close they were to the ground and realized she was having a hard time breathing, but she wasn't ready to give up, maybe for her own life, but not with everyone else's life on the line. Both of them were only twenty feet from the ground. How they had got there, Regan wasn't paying attention to the lowering of the platforms and the pain that started to return to her conscious to remind her that it was still there ready to make her drop at any moment. Lilith wasn't so fantastic either, but she looked better than Regan felt. One thing that Regan noticed different from the beginning of the game, Lilith was not a happy camper anymore.
Regan felt a smirk return to her face as she stated her insult. "I at least don't dress up in latex like some sort of comic and my hair isn't blue, but as for Dark Matter, I found him more of a challenge when he was getting his ass handed to him by Seto's silly dragon then what you dished out when you were at your strongest blowing up balconies and doors."
Lilith frowned at her "Don't you know? Blowing shit up is fun. If you found Dark Matter a challenge then you're weaker than I thought. Next chance I get I'll be sure to show you exactly just what I'm capable of. The hardest part about it will be scraping you off my boot."
"Then why didn't you do that before?" Regan questioned. "Obviously, I was in the way in your mission and I still am, so attack me if you want to get your get your pay, unless of course you really are nothing, just like a worthless human beggar that is too lazy to do anything."
Regan felt a shift in Lilith's aura as she went down to five feet from the ground. Regan looked down and saw several orange balls appeared around Lilith.
Lilith grinned. "If you wanted to die so quickly, why didn't you say so before?"
Regan went to grab her swords, but she found it too difficult to place her hand around a handle. The energy balls were released and Regan didn't even get a chance to brace herself as they hit her off the platform. She heard her brother shout and Yugi yell as she fell without a sound into the black and purple abyss.
She didn't feel any pain as she looked around in the nothingness. She thought she was sitting down on something, but as she looked on what she was sitting on, but nothing was there. She looked down at her puzzle. "Nile, what's going on?"
Nile didn't answer and Regan started to feel a bit panicky, "Nile?!"
There was nothing. Regan felt her throat close as the thought of Nile being gone sunk in. She couldn't bear the thought as she grabbed her puzzle begging the soul that was supposed to be inside to answer her. She needed her, she was her guide, her friend, her other half. She didn't know how she had lived as long as she had without her. Being without her felt lonely and empty, like there was no purpose to her life anymore and she couldn't handle feeling so lonely.
Regan sighed as she tried to not to panic any farther. She needed to think it through on what was happening even if Nile wasn't there she needed to for their sakes. If she had lost, she would be in an eternal hell. But what if this was her eternal hell? To be all alone forever? She shook her head, that wouldn't be hell, she didn't find it unbearable, she knew she had been alone before for fifteen years and if she needed to she could do it again. What would be hell was if she was wandering about a hospital trying to find her way out, but never finding the exit. That would be unbearable. So what was she in now? Was it limbo? She closed her eyes and concentrated on her surroundings; it was warm and comforting, not silent or cold and threating. The same as when the Shadow Realm was when it was just that, a realm, like her realm.
"Regan, Regan where are you?!" Atem's voice rang throughout the nothingness.
"I'm here!" She called out automatically opening her eyes.
Suddenly a hand appeared in front of her that looked like it belonged to Yugi.
"Grab my hand so we can get you out of there." Yugi said confirming her observation.
Without hesitation she grabbed his hand and he pulled her out of the dark. She blinked as the light around her was too bright. When she was able to see again, she saw that they were in the hidden game room and Lilith was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did Lilith go?" She asked, but turned to her puzzle for another. 'Nile?'
'Take me with you next time you decide to make a visit to the Shadow Realm.' Nile said to her urgently, causing Regan some panic. 'I felt lonely.'
Regan calmed down a bit. 'How about we talk to each other privately?'
She could practically feel Nile nod and then her presence became visible as she wrapped her arms around her shoulders and placing her chin on Regan's head.
"She blew up an exit door before the Penalty Game could be placed for her breaking the rules." Atem stated in annoyance ignoring Nile's appearance. "She's got talent, I'll give that to her."
"What about her mission?" Regan asked keeping the conversation going.
"She told us that she wasn't bothering with it, she had other things to do, whatever that means for a demon." Kayama said with confusion. "Now can I get an explanation about what the hell is going on and what just happened?"
"Yeah, I can-"
"No you can't." Téa interrupted Regan. "You are taking a long nap, before your performance."
"But I'm fine." Regan stated truthfully, she didn't feel tired.
"Tell me that after ten minutes of hitting the pillow." Téa said.
"For once, I'm agreeing with Téa." Seto stated with his usual monotone. "But can someone tell me, how that demon found out all of her information. Not just about her knowing that Regan is a Kaiba, but how she knew about Dark Matter, personally?"
"I don't know." Yugi started. "Maybe she has connections to Zorc and that's how she got her info. That would explain why she called him stupid, because he isn't, but he doesn't know about that situation either."
"Who is Zorc?" Kayama asked.
"An evil being that is very much dead, or at least mostly dead because of Brittney's stunt." Atem answered. "He probably has a conscious for demons like Lilith that have high amounts of power to talk to so they can gather information."
Regan found herself within Nile's room after she hit the pillow. She cursed at Téa for being right all the time. Nile appeared in front of her and gave her a hug that Regan had not expected. She returned it and they didn't let go for quite some time. Finally, Regan pulled up the courage to ask, "What happened?"
Nile let her go and led her to her bed in the corner of her room. They sat down and Nile took a breath. "When Lilith released her attack and they hit you, you fell into the floor. At first, I knew that you didn't lose as that's not how Shadow Games work, but as time went by and I was in this room unable to contact you. I grew scared. That you did lose and that you would be gone forever while I was stuck in this prison as well. It was horrible, I felt like I was ripped away from you and then suddenly there was your warm glow again. I couldn't believe it at first and then you called my name." Nile grabbed both of Regan's hands making Regan even more surprised. "Don't ever leave me alone like that, please!"
Regan's eyes started to tear up as her own emptions of their separation hit her. "I promise, just as long as you don't ever leave me like that either."
Nile nodded and the two of them sat side by side in silence. Regan felt their bond was a bit strong now having such a separation attack she guessed that did that to people, it made them feel closer.
"That must have been what Yugi and Atem felt after the Orichalcos incident." Regan stated.
"Perhaps, but I wouldn't know, everyone that is like us feels things differently." Nile said and then she perked up her head. "You should go; Serenity just came in the room to wake you."
Regan nodded and then she started for her door. She turned back to her friend. "Nile?"
"What is it Regan?"
"Can we continue our chat tonight?"
Nile smiled as she nodded. Regan smiled back and left. She woke up to Serenity nudging her shoulder.
"Wake up Regan; it's going to be supper soon." Serenity said softly.
"You wake people up much more nicely than everyone in this suite." Regan told her as she got up out of bed. "How long have I been out for?"
"Almost five hours, which almost the amount of time it took for Yugi, Grandpa, Seto, Téa and Atem to explain everything up to now."
Regan couldn't help but giggle. "When did you start calling my brother Seto, is it because of my other brother?"
A blush went across Serenity's face. "Well ah…"
Regan smirked as she got out of bed. "Don't worry about I'm just teasing. So did everyone make it back okay from the casino mess?"
"They closed the Casino for the rest of the tournament and there was a moment of silence for the ones who had died."
"You mean they aren't stopping the tournament?!" Regan asked in shook.
"No," Serenity shook her head. "This is slowly turning into Battle City's massacre."
Regan thought at why they hadn't canceled the tournament. "I wonder what Devin is planning if he didn't cancel the tournament like any sensible person would have done."
"You just called Seto crazy."
"I know." Regan said plainly as she turned to her little dresser. "Now what in the world am I going to wear for this performance?"
What could Devin want just as much as Seto Kaiba wanted when he kept the Battle City Tournament a float?
Next chapter coming soon, review, favorite or follow or a combination of the three. :D