Chapter 35: Break the Cage
Warning: Copious amounts of Aaron Awesomeness are prevalent in this chapter. Aaron fangirls (if there are any out there) should keep their squeeing to a minimum unless you want to wake the neighbors. In the case of the latter, I am not liable for any damage of police calls.
You may continue your readings.
"My move," Marik began, laboring to force his yami's voice out of his head. "I play my magic card Monster Reborn and I bring back my Summoned Skull, which was sent to the graveyard thanks to Morphing Jar. You can end this, you know. You can destroy the Orichalcos, free Sivya and hand over the goods you stole. You can redeem yourself, Tshilaba."
"Redemption is nothing more than a folly for those who are cowardly." Tabitha argued bitterly. "They cannot accept the full gravity of their deed and thus, backpedal from their deeds as quickly. Besides," a small part of her added. "I am far too late for redemption."
"Redemption is not for the weak!" Odion added. "You can still save yourself from this!"
"Please Tshilaba, surrender the goods and end this!"
"I have no intention of saving myself, for I need no saving. Nor will I surrender those scrolls and stones so easily. They're my bargaining chip, in addition to your precious "girlfriend". It would be like giving away one's poker chips."
Marik let out a hefty sigh. Tshilaba could not be saved, clearly, but maybe, maybe once the duel was over, she was chivalrous enough to reveal the location of the stones, scrolls and Sivya. She must be terrified, Marik thought, heart threatening to break at the thought of it. Hopefully, Aaron could reach her quickly; he trusted the man to. "Very well then, I guess you are too far gone then." Summoned Skull emerged from the earth, lightning racing and arcing off its body, Marik commanded, "Now Summoned Skull, wipe out Tshilaba's Lord Poison from the field!" Summoned Skull, with the attack points of 2500, brought down a lightning bolt from the sky, shattering Lord Poison into many pieces, the first blow of the game and dropping Tshilaba's points to 1500. Then Magical Thorn was activated as well, taking away another five hundred, bringing her to a measly one thousand
"You do realize that you activated its ability, right? Once it is destroyed from battle, I can summon another plant monster in its place, and I summon my Necro Fleur!" A sad, withered partially bloomed rose sprouted from where Lord Poison rested. "And I can place a Flower Counter on my World Tree!" A small counter, shaped like a rose, sprang from the roots of The World Tree. "You may have managed to make a dent in my Life Points, but you won't win the duel, I can assure you. My move. I summon Lonefire Blossom on the field and I activate its special ability: I can tribute a monster to summon another one in its place, so long as it is a plant-type. So, I sacrifice my Necro Fleur to summon Sorciere de Fleur!" Sorciere de Fleur was a tall and graceful women, dressed in red and white robes and carried a staff topped with a violet rose, in full bloom. Her attack points were high, very high, a base number of 2900. With the Orichalcos at work, it was now 3400, more than enough to take out his only monster on the field, Summoned Skull. Then, Lonefire Blossom, the tan flower with its bud in partial bloom, would attack directly. This was Tshilaba's strategy: to swarm the field with plant types, each one supporting another as they overwhelmed the opponent with sheer numbers alone. Marik had the card he needed to easily put a stop to it, but it was not in his hand, nor on the field. He would have to fish for it. "Of course, since I destroyed one of my plant monsters, I can place another flower counter on my World Tree.
"And now my Sorciere de Fleur will attack your Summoned Skull!" Tabitha cackled madly, her hair standing on end, the power of the Orichalcos pumping through her like electricity, blood, maybe. She and Gurimo were vastly different in regards of the Orichalcos. Gurimo treated the magic like a tool, cold and calculating in the use of it; Tshilaba embraced the dark power as if it were a lover, allowing it to consume her entire being until there was nothing left. A dance with cold, green fire.
Marik decided in not playing his face down cards, knowing that this was not the right time nor place for their activation. Summoned Skull was dispatched with a disturbing ease as Tshilaba's monster blasted at it with magic. He winced, staggering a bit as he lost nearly a thousand life points, nine hundred to be exact. The Orichalcos must feed of the life energies, that was why each blow felt so realistic, so painful.
"Then Lonefire Blososm will attack you directly!" The fire bunched upon itself, before spewing out what looked like gaily colored fireworks. The fireworks arced in the sky, before crash landing on and about Marik. The fireworks crackled against his skin, searing pain erupting where the fireworks made contact. He yelped in pain, as his life points were slashed by another thousand. Marik was still well ahead of Tshilaba, but he knew she had plenty of other tricks up her sleeve that would prolong the fight. He looked down, half expecting to see horrible burns where the flower's attacks hit. His skin was unblemished, but the burning sensation was still there. "Then I'll play my Mystical Space Typhoon, which wipes out your Magical Thorn. Don't think that you can take me out with that card. I play one more card face down and end my turn."
"Marik!" Odion raced to the very edge of the Seal's boundaries, one hand reaching out. He made sure to not make contact with the Seal magical energies, recalling full well what happened last time.
"I'm alright Odion, I promise!"
Odion hesitated, unsure of his brother's reassurances, but relented, inching back from the dueling field. He could feel the insidious energies of the Seal trying to break into his conscious, like roots of ancient trees, boring their way into the earth, no matter what obstacle. Odion steeled himself, forcing the energies away as he stepped back.
"Let me intercede and together, we can prevent this from happening again." His yami's voice was becoming more vocal, like an incessant pounding in his ears, and Marik was growing weaker and weaker in his protests, which boded poorly for him. The sooner the duel was finished, the better.
"I play my first card, Blessings of Sobek, which increases my life points by five hundred for each card I draw and then Graceful Charity, which allows us to draw up to six fresh cards, to fill out our hands. You're welcome, by the way, Tshilaba." She said nothing, angrily drawing her card until she filled her queue and watched with disgust as Marik coolly drew his own, a half smile ghosting on his lips as his life points went back up to 3600. "Now I summon my Gil Garth in defense mode. I sacrifice him to play my End of Anubis. Next I activate Magical Stone Evacuation, which allows me to bring a magic card back onto the field and I choose Monster Reborn and I bring back Summoned Skull. It's time to end this duel once and for all! Summoned Skull, destroy her Lonefire Blossom!"
"Activate my trap card: Wall of Thorns! This destroys any and all monsters on your side of the field!"
"Not so fast: I play my Magical Cylinder, which redirects your Wall of Thorns and as I said earlier, ending the duel!"
"Yes my little puppet, finish this and embrace the darkness!"
"Get out of my head!" Marik screeched harshly.
"Then I activate my magic card, Ring of Defense, which makes all damage to zero!"
The field became nothing more than a smoldering wreck as the cards countered each other, a chain, in duelist terminology. Tabitha smirked as her monsters remained untouched on the field. "Shame you made such a waste of your cards," she told him, much to his own distaste.
"I could say the same for you," he retorted bitterly.
"Perhaps, but they are just cards to me. Some will be useful, some will not. It depends on how the game goes."
The comment seemed surprising to the young man. Her callousness for the cards was probably a result of the Orichalcos. It had already corrupted her mind, what else could it do.
"Very well then. I place one card face down and end my turn."
"Another time, then."
Marik forcibly shut the yami out, but he knew his defenses were thinning; his voice was louder and louder in his head, like harsh bells, the caterwauling of a demon. Soon, he would be possessed, Marik feared, with only Odion to save him from himself. It was a fate that Marik did not wish to experience, since he already had once.
"Then I summon Revival Rose onto the field." Tabitha called out. Next to her Sorciere de Fleur was a pair of roses, each embedded with a single eye in the center of their blood red petals. The plant monster reminded Marik of the flowers from Alice in Wonderland.
"Hey, Walt Disney called: he wants his flower people back," Marik taunted, a false show of bravado.
"You say that now," Tabitha sneered. "But now I activate Lonefire Blossom's ability, which allows me to tribute a Plant type monster on the field, in order to bring on back from the Graveyard, and I choose to sacrifice my Revival Rose to summon my most powerful monster: Tytannical, Princess of Camellias!" Tytannical was a women, covered in a dress made of rose petals of pink, red and white, was green leaves and thorns enveloped her person. A crown of green leaves and a red rose rested upon her brow. Like Tshilaba's other monsters, she too, gained the five hundred point bonus thanks to the Orichalcos. She was easily the most powerful monster on the field and now Tshilaba had more monsters than Marik, two of which could eliminate his field in a single blow. He had the card to shield himself, plus the life points to pull it off. Whether Tshilaba will spring for the bait was a different matter.
"Now Tytannical, Princess of Camellias, destroy Gil Garth!"
"Activate Mirror Force!"
"What!" Tshilaba screeched.
"What, did you think you were the only one with that kind of card?" Marik calmly activated the card, his steely fortitude and seemingly calm veneer the only thing keeping him sane. "This destroys your monsters and since I'm positive that you don't have anything up your sleeves at the moment, this leaves you wide open for an attack!" Tshilaba braced herself as all three monsters were wiped away from the field, but she did not lose life points. She did though, gain three more Flower Counters for her World Tree, something that would be very fortuitous later.
It was though still her turn and she would intend on using the gift Marik bestowed on her. "And now I activate one of the powers of my World Tree. If I remove three counters, I can special summon a monster back from the graveyard and I choose Tytannical, Princess of Camellias and I place her in defense mode. It would seem that your grand scheme was nothing more than a misfire."
"Until next time." Marik drew a card. "It is the beginning of the end for you Tshilaba!"
"Yes, yes! Finish her off now!"
"No, get out of my head, you freak!"
"I can never leave, little Marik. It is pointless, futile to fight me!"
"No!"
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Sivya had no sense of how long she had been held captive. Maybe it was only a handful of minutes, or maybe it was hours. The concept of time was lost in the room that acted as her prison. The only relief she had was when one of her captors came in the room, enshrouding the place with light for a few blissful moments. At one point, one of them, the one who had first visited her, brought her a water bottle for her to guzzle from, presumably to keep their hostage as "alive" as possible. They had tipped the bottle into her mouth, rather than allowing her to handle it herself. Despite the humane gesture, they were no less monsters. They taunted her mercilessly, with crude insults and innuendos. From what she could gather, they were not allowed to touch her, but it didn't mean that they could not threaten her.
She shuddered, trying to block some of the crude insults out of memory. She could not fathom how people could be so cruel, so vile. Did they not feel guilty about their actions? Did their conscious not plague them at their loneliest hours? How could people live with themselves?
Sivya was not naïve on the ways of the world, despite her relative isolation. She interacted with outsiders and she knew that people held darkness in their hearts—all people did, including herself—and she knew that there would be those completely lost to evil, like Tshilaba, but what escaped her was how they could live with themselves, be willing servants to it. That was what drove her curiosity.
She worked with the binds on her hands, hoping to wriggle them free of their bonds. All she earned, though, were rope burns from the material constantly scratching at her wrists. Sivya ignored the pain and continued working, knowing that eventually, they had to come loose.
Right?
In between bouts, she would pray to herself, her beliefs a stalwart light in the darkness. Her beliefs would not waver, would not quake at the sight of temptation, of giving in to those who wish her ill. She would not be led on like an innocent lamb to the slaughter. She would be like the ram, kicking and fighting until its last breath, if need be.
"Please, please come find me, Marik. I know you can."
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The rhaita, or the "miracle flute" as Aaron had decided to dub it, eventually led him to the northern side of town, conveniently out of reach of the local authorities of the city, not that they would have cared anyway. Aaron knew people who had at one point or another, gone through her. The city was corrupt to the core, they had told him. Even more so with the burgeoning chaos brewing in the area, the rise of the "Arab Spring". He was in a part of town where many warehouses were built, probably in hopes of the growing Turkish economy, but as the years passed, the buildings grew derelict and abandoned, to eventually become the homes for many members of the poverty stricken population and those with shadier purposes in mind. Rumors about human trafficking in this part of the world was abound.
Aaron drove the jeep to a small cranny at the juncture of three warehouses and a chain link fence, dilapidated from years of misuse, tucked away from the main traffic. If someone had wanted to find it, they would have have to look very hard for it. The Mossad agent patted himself down, to make sure he had everything he needed. He had his heavy knife, with two others of a slimmer variety stashed away in his boots. His sidearm, as well as a handful of spare clips were strapped to his side. To conceal the side holster, Aaron had plucked out a long button down shirt from his baggage, to go over his tee. To an outsider, the outfit would have appeared normal, which was exactly how he wanted. The best way to disguise oneself is to stay in plain sight, or so an instructor once taught him. For an additional safety measure, he tucked his Star of David necklace under his shirt. For his vehicle, he decided to conceal it as well, lest he came back to find his vehicle stripped of parts. He unfurled the tarp from the back of the vehicle, draping it over the bulk of it, even throwing some dirt on the wheel hubs—not that it needed much—in order to hide the shine of the chrome and thus, attract unwanted visitors. The jeep was next to a pile of old cardboard boxes and with the tarp on, it looked to be a part of the landscape, unobtrusive and camouflaged. Urban camouflage, it was called.
Aaron held the flute in the palm of his hand, waiting anxiously for the instrument to point the way. It convulsed violently, before pointing sharply to the left. He crouched low and against the building, one hand just next to the clasp that kept the knife in its scabbard. Aaron moved slowly, each step deliberate and cautiously. A single kicked can could alert any hostiles in the area and Aaron, while armed, would not stand a chance, especially with the element of surprise gone. He continually scanned the region, making note of any tiny thing that even remotely appeared out of place. The sound of the city were chaotic strains of disjointed noise in his ears, sometimes threatening to overwhelm his other senses, but he managed to block it out, straining for any noise that would reveal any sign of Sivya.
He held the flute once again, but this time it remained straight. He was heading in the right direction. He crept along for another fifty yards, until the rhaita swung erratically to the right, to a door just fifteen feet. It was heavy set, fabricated of steel, with a padlock on the handle. There was no sentry at the entrance of the door and not a single sign around the premises.
"Hmm, not very secure," Aaron remarked, inching up to the door. He pulled out the lockpicking set from his wallet and knelt next to the padlock, attempting—quietly—to pick the lock. The lock proved more difficult than Aaron first imagined, refusing to budge even after Aaron had sworn up and down that the padlock had clicked open. He examined the joint where the lock met the main body, only to discover years of rust gunking up the padlock. So, no matter how meticulous Aaron could have picked the lock, it still would not have budged.
On to plan B, Aaron decided, pulling out the sidearm. "Screw it, I don't have time for this." He undid the safety of the gun and fired once. The shot rang out through the complex of buildings, reverberating down the walls. A flock of pigeons, startled by the sound, flew from their perch. The bullet lodged in the main part of the padlock, where the "lock" met the body. Metal shrapnel flew in all directions, one even slicing across Aaron's cheek. With a "thud", the padlock, now irreparable, fell onto the cement threshold. Aaron threw himself against the brick wall, heart hammering in his chest, quickly shouldering his weapon back in the holster. The move he made would have been considered "stupid" by some, but he considered it brilliant, if a little on the insane side.
The door swung open and a heavy set man, one of Sivya's captors, stepped out onto the threshold. He carried a Uzi on a shoulder strap. He examined the surroundings, clearly looking for the source of the gunfire, when Aaron struck. One hand reached across the man's neck and lower jaw, catching him off guard, as the other hand snaked across, gripping the back of his skull. While the man was larger than Aaron by about a half foot and a good forty to fifty pounds, Aaron had the tactical advantage. Aaron then jerked his hands in opposite directions, the man's head going with it. There was the audible "snap" as his neck broke. He sagged in Aaron's hands, now a literal dead weight. Aaron stumbled across the threshold, trying to maintain his grip. He shifted his grip to under the man's shoulders and dragged him away from the entryway and out of view. The Mossad agent found a pile of trashcans and garbage bags across the way, so he unceremoniously dumped the body there. It was distasteful, even to Aaron, but he didn't exactly have time to a full blown wake and funeral.
The alleyway grew quiet once more, the door slowly swinging in the dead air. Aaron reached down and undid the safety switch of the sidearm, and crashed into the room.
The room was mostly square in shape, possibly an office for the warehouse in question at one time. It was twenty feet by thirty feet, a little longer than a square, with thick windows lining the back wall directly across from Aaron. Fluorescent lights dimly lit the room, revealing a door next to the windows and a desk taking up the bulk of the room. There was a man at the desk, dozing off, a rifle on the desk top.
"Hello boys," Aaron said, reaching for the sidearm.
The man blinked in surprise at Aaron's sudden arrival; clearly, he had been asleep when Aaron had fired his gun. It did not take long for the situation to sink in and he reached for the rifle, one hand on the trigger. Knowing full well of the man's intentions, Aaron's left hand jerked the handgun out of the shoulder holster and fired off a single shot, without need for aiming the weapon. The bullet lodged in the man's chest and he fell back, out of the seat. The shot echoed loudly in the room and Aaron adjusted his grip, running for the door, keeping his profile as low as possible.
He managed to cover his head in time as bullets from the other side of the room ripped through, piercing the thick glass before lodging into the opposite wall. Glass rained down on the Mossad agent as he made his way, very slowly, to the door. He had no idea who was out there, nor how many, but he didn't feel like losing his head or other vital organs over it. In a lull of the gunfire, Aaron took a cautious peek into the window. It opened up to another large room on a slightly lower plane than his. A handful of dingy lights hung from the ceiling, some broken, others burnt out. Another door was across the way. There were a half dozen men in the room, all firing precariously at his position from an area of about twenty yards. Aaron ducked back down when a round whizzed dangerously close to his head, knowing that he would have to fight his way through.
He checked the ammo clip in the handgun, when he got a better idea. He half-crawled, half ran back to the desk where the rifle was resting. He reached up to tug the strap down when a bullet sliced across the back of his hand. He hissed to himself as blood trickled from the wound, a long cut. He was thankful that it didn't go a centimeter deeper or else his hand would have been rendered useless. Rifle in hand, he went back to the doorway, where he propped it through a small hole in the window. He peered down the iron sights of the rifle—it was a bolt action, but he did not care which brand—and fired once, catching the first man in the chest. That got their attention and Aaron was forced to retreat back down, thankfully allowing him a breather to unload the empty cartridge from the breech by pulling the bolt and popping it out.
He checked to make sure there was another round in the breech and he steeled himself for a drawn out fight with these men.
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Sivya perked up as a ringing noise echoed in the confined space. More ensued and she wanted to retreat inwards. She realized that it sounded exactly like the gunfight in the valley. There was a gunfight going on in. . .wherever she was. Her heart picked up a pace. Maybe it was Aaron, or Marik, coming to rescue her!
They found her!
The door slammed open and one of her captors stormed in, reaching around the chair and undoing her bounds. Then he roughly pulled her to her feet, clamping a hand over her mouth and something cold went to her temple. She looked with her peripheral vision to find the barrel of a gun pressed to her head. He was taking her hostage, she realized belatedly.
"Say a word, even think about screaming, and I'll blow your brains out, despite Mistress Tabitha's commands."
The Wall of Thorns/Magic Cylinder/Ring of Defense is actually illegal, since Magic Cylinder does not redirect the effects of a magic/trap card, only monster attacks, but since this is the anime we're talking about, we can tweak the rules juuust a tiny bit, right?