Chapter 48: Queen of his Heart
The ride back to their hotel in Cardiff was uneventful, all of them pumped with adrenaline and excitement at their discovery of the blade. They had managed to outwit Midas, gaining an edge in this race against time. Joey proudly showed off the blade to his friends, but they discovered that only Joey could touch and hold the Sword of Renewal, as Aaron had discovered when he touched the hilt with a fingertip on accident. The Sword burned his hand and Aaron yelped in surprise, nearly falling out of seat.
"Sorry about that man," Joey apologized to the Mossad agent.
"Not your fault, it was the blooming sword," Aaron replied, trying to extract himself out from the space between the seat and the one in front of him. It was quite crowded. "Well, this sucks. I hope we don't hit a bump or worse."
"Here, let me give you a hand," Sivya offered.
When Aaron settled himself in the seat once more, he examined the burn on his finger. It was a nasty one, with a blister forming on the tip of the finger. "That's my trigger finger too," he lamented.
"It's not too bad," Serenity consoled him after taking a quick peek at the injury. "It should pop within a day or two. Hopefully you don't have to shoot any monsters before then."
"I'll just club them," Aaron replied with a wink.
"Hey, something just popped in my head," Ryou said, getting everybody's attention. "Since Excalibur. . .well, it's scabbard, depending on which story you read, was known for its healing powers, I wonder if it can heal that burn of yours."
"I'm not having that thing pointed anywhere towards me," Aaron said, holding his hand close to his chest. "Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice and I'll beat you over the head and shoulders with Sivya's whopping stick."
"Wait, what do I have to do with this?" Sivya asked, confused.
"That's not how the rhyme went," Tristan argued.
"I guess it's worth a shot, but since big, bad Mossad agent is being a wimp, does anybody have any injuries that we can heal?" Marik asked.
"I have one," Yugi interjected, removing his jacket and rolling the sleeve of his shirt up, revealing the cut from the shadow monster from the ruins of Troy. "You can try it on me."
Joey looked down at the sword. "Are you sure Yuge'? I don't want to hurt you."
"I'll be fine. I trust you."
Joey inhaled deeply and slid across the seats, the sword, now back in its scabbard, in his hands. He pulled it out, the blade shimmering in the afternoon light as if on fire. He aimed the tip at Yugi's injury and slowly inched the point forward, until it barely made contact. There was nothing.
"So much for that," Duke snorted.
"Joeys barely touching Yugi," Tea countered. "Joey, I think it actually has to touch him."
"You sure?"
"I said I'll be fine," Yugi reassured him.
"Alright. . ." He placed the tip of the blade firmly on the half healed cut. The sword and cut began to glow with a pale golden light. They watched in fascination as the cut started to knit itself together, the scab being replaced by newly formed skin. The light faded, the cut no longer there. There wasn't even a scar.
"Okay, that was freaky," Joey said.
"And kind of cool," Tristan added.
"Um. . .I would hate to be a bother, but can we fix my trigger finger now?" Aaron asked, raising his wounded hand.
A short time later, and the healing of Aaron's hand, Joey slid back into his seat, when something sprang to mind. "Hey Rebecca, Giselle."
Giselle popped her head over the seat. "Yo, what's up?"
"I think something's wrong with the little breathing device."
Rebecca was surprised by this. Giselle had sworn that the devices were fail safe, perfected prototypes. "How so?"
"Well, when I was swimming, it was working fine, but then, there were a whole bunch of bubbles and it stopped working. I swallowed a mouthful of water before I even realized it. I think it broke somehow." He fished it out of his pants pocket. "Here, have a look."
Giselle snatched it up before Rebecca could get a good look. She turned it over, scouring over every inch of it. "That's strange, it shouldn't have failed like you said. We tested it only a short while ago and it worked just fine." Giselle gave it a tap on the top of the seat and looked at it once more. "I don't get it. Huh. Oh well, you're safe and sound so I wouldn't worry about it." Giselle began to place it in her pocket before Rebecca's hand reached out, plucking the device from Giselle's grip. The woman glared at Rebecca as she looked it over.
Joey watched Rebecca at work; the girl was an expert with pretty much any technological device that she came across. She had even broke through the security programs of KaibaCorp once upon a time. Rebecca frowned as she scrutinized it, a poor sign for all. She even held it up to the light, fiddling with the apparatus's protrusions. In the end, she handed it back to Giselle. "It is kind of weird," Rebecca said, her voice devoid of any emotion. She was clearly hiding something from public view. Rebecca then went to her cell phone, the smart phone with the stylus.
A couple minutes later, Joey's phone, stashed away in his day pack, buzzed and vibrated. It was a text message from an unknown number. He decided to read it anyway:
It's Rebecca. Yugi just gave me your number.
So Rebecca was hiding something after all, Joey told himself. He continued reading and his heart sank when he read it:
The device was sabotaged.
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She kept to herself the rest of the afternoon, deciding to rent her own hotel room, rather than sharing like she had the previous couple of nights. It wasn't that Mai didn't like her company, she just needed to be alone for tonight.
Plus, all she wanted was a good, long, hot soak in the tub to wash off all the dirt and to dispel the cold from the lake. She still had Joey's jacket, but he didn't say anything about wanting it back, so she continued to wear it for the rest of the evening. She swore though, that he was gloating on the inside because of it, as if to say, "I got you".
She leaned against the headboard of the hotel bed, thumbing through her book, trying to find her bookmark, which had apparently slipped out during the constant moving of luggage and carry-on. It wasn't apparent at first glance, but she enjoyed reading, a past time stemming from her lonely and near-nomadic childhood. Her father worked as a financial adviser to many companies and businesses, forcing them to move every few years as her father worked for different clients. As she had very little friends, save for whatever tutors and nannies her mother hired, she turned to reading as a pastime to fulfill that need to human companionship.
"Stupid bookmark," she grumbled, surrendering to whatever gods had decided to hide her bookmark. Thankfully in cases like this, she also folded the corner of whatever page she had stopped on, an added measure. "I'll show you," she told it, going to said page. "See, told you." She began to read, adjusting the shade of her bedside lamp for more light. She read books from nearly all genres, whatever piqued her interest. At the moment she was reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Of course, she had her guilty pleasures as well, the occasional romance novel, a book she had tucked away next to her, should she change her mind.
She shivered a little bit with the cold and she pulled Joey's jean jacket closer about her. Eventually he'll want it back, but in the mean time, she'd enjoy the pleasure of wearing it. She turned the page, engrossed in the story, when her elbow nudged against something in the inside pocket, catching her attention. Curious what what Joey could have in the pocket, she removed the jacket and peeked into the pocket—she didn't want to put her hands in there for obvious reasons. It looked like a handkerchief of sorts, which was surprising to Mai because Joey did not seem the kind to carry one. Upon closer inspection it looked rather feminine-
-And familiar.
She pulled the handkerchief out of the pocket, holding it up in the light and gaping in surprise at what she saw. It was the very same handkerchief she had given to him at Duelist Kingdom, the one that hid the Glory of the King's Right Hand card he was missing. "He kept it all these years," she said to herself. She held it for a moment longer, before folding it back up neatly and returning it back in the pocket. She thought of placing the jacket back on, but in the end she decided against it, albeit reluctantly. She wandered over, draping it over the chair. At the very least, she could tease him endlessly until she gave in and returned it. It wasn't like his wallet was in there. She suspected though, that he didn't want her to discover that he kept the handkerchief after all this time. She smiled to herself at this before heading back to the bed, making sure she had some time to spare.
The plan was to fly out in the morning to Luxor International Airport, where they would then journey to The Valley of the Kings and Thebes, hoping to find some evidence of Atem's reign and the location of his tomb. From what Tea had explained to her, when Atem went back to the Field of Reeds—the Egyptian afterlife—he did not return from his own tomb, but rather a chamber that once housed the Millennium Items. His tomb, where his body and numerous treasures was in a different place entirely. Solomon Muto, Yugi's grandfather, had found the Millennium Puzzle in another part of the Valley, possibly in an attempt to keep thieves from pillaging the tomb to find the Puzzle and the powers within, which would make sense, she guessed. She'd seen one too many goons go after poor Yugi. The kid was a mystical punching bag, so to speak.
The problem was that they had no idea where to begin, when it came to locating the final sword, the Sword of Justice. Nobody knew where his tomb was at, for all those records were lost during the fires that consumed parts of the ancient Library of Alexandria, so Ishizu had told them despite the scrolls Marik recovered having evidence of Atem's reign. It just keeps getting more and more complicated, she told herself. Why couldn't they just duel Midas and get it over with, like they had done in the old days, instead of globe trotting using legends and shreds of rumor and conjecture? She hated the subtle games; it reminded her of her childhood and the politics her parents were involved in. A dirty sneaky game where only the richest win in the end.
She grew uninterested in the book and she set it aside, picking up the other one, hoping for some mindless entertainment as her mind wandered to places she had no control over.
Why didn't he tell her, she wondered. Why did he say nothing about that duel with Marik? Was he nervous, too traumatized to discuss it at the time? She mentally kicked herself, for being too selfish to see that others had suffered from the rampage of Marik's darker side. How painful it must have been, to feel your strength drained from you little by little, until you couldn't even stand, a shell of what you once were. To feel the searing heat, the full brunt of the infinite power of the Egyptian god cards, Winged Dragon of Ra. Mai had only felt the residual effects, the heat on her face as the Pharaoh had blocked the brunt of the blow from her and Joey. What would have happened, if the Pharaoh hadn't done that? Would Joey have felt the power of Ra twice, or would he have even lasted the first time around. It was a question that she would have ponder another time.
But why was she going down this route. It seemed like every free moment she had these past few days, her mind turned to him. It was unlike her to focus on someone for such a long time. "Five years, I would think," she told herself, sinking down the headboard. She was clearly losing her grips on sanity, Mai decided, to think to such uncharacteristic thoughts.
There was a knock at the door and she started, nearly banging her head on the headboard. She hastily stowed the romance novel under a blanket, out of plain sight. She went to the door and peeked through it.
It was Joey, the Sword of Renewal in hand.
"Hey Mai," he waved.
"What on earth are you doing at my hotel room with the sword, at such an ungodly hour?"
"Well, I had this idea and I was thinking that maybe, I could hide the Sword in your room?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Let the teasing begin," she thought. "Joseph you do realize how much of an innuendo that sounded like, right?"
His face went blank, then flushed red. "You know I didn't mean it like that!" he protested.
"Of course you didn't," she winked. "But you can come in anyway." She shut the door behind him. "Now, why do you need to hide the Sword here of all places?"
"Yugi and Rebecca think that Giselle is somehow in league with Midas."
She was intrigued. "How so?"
Joey sat down on the couch on the far side of the room. "Yugi thinks the stones in her earrings are actually Orichalcos stones among other things," he said with a shrug.
"That's a pretty serious accusation but I guess after all we've been through, I don't blame their paranoia." Mai finished. She could tell he was hiding something, but what it was she couldn't tell. She could be patient. "So you want to hide the sword in here, to throw off any followers."
"Yep."
"Huh. I guess I don't have a problem with it. Good luck finding a place to stash it. There's not a whole lot of places in her to squirrel away a mystical, thousands of year old sword that can heal people."
"I'll find a place," he reassured her with a smile. Mai felt an unusual flutter in her chest as he did so.
Joey crouched down, examining the bed frame. "Let's see. . .let's see here. . .aha!" He wriggled a panel of wood loose and popped it out. It was a miracle that the sword could fit in there with ease. He wedged the wood slat back into place, making sure he could remove it with ease. "See? Ta-da!" He flopped down on the bed. "Told you I could do it."
Mai snorted and sat against the headboard. "You aren't going to flop about here like a dying fish all night, are you?"
"Did you know that Tristan sounds like a diesel engine on overdrive when he sleeps? Duke snores too."
"Should have gotten your own room then kiddo, like I did. And besides, Serenity told me you snore too."
"She did not!" Joey proclaimed. "And I don't snore!"
"Suuurrre you don't."
"I resent that remark. Hey, what's this?" Joey felt something poke at his back. He turned over, rummaging through Mai's sheets, looking for the source. He removed a book, the very same book that Mai had hid away when Joey first knocked. "Never would have pegged you to read romance novels," he ribbed. "Nice Scotsmen on the cover, with that long hair and what not."
"Joseph Wheeler, if you do not give me back that book in five seconds, so help me. . ."
Joey only laughed and went to the couch on the other side of the room. "Neat castle too. Looks kind of familiar. I bet I've seen it before, one some Duel Monster circuit or not."
"Joey. . ." she growled.
"Relax, I only wanted a peek." He went to the final page, careful to keep Mai's place in the book. "Huh."
"What is it?" Mai had firmly seated herself next to him, determined to wrest the book away from him when she got the chance.
"I was expecting the final line to read "And they lived happily ever after"."
"Why would you think such a thing like that?"
"I dunno, guess I don't really get romance novels. Why do girls read these kind of things anyways?"
"Because. . ."
"Because what?"
"Because everybody deserves a happy ending," she said quietly, thinking of all those years of pain, of near unspeakable ordeals. A happy ending indeed.
"Yeah, but how boring is that?" he said. "I mean seriously, you've heard of those crappy Disney sequels, right? That's what happy endings get you."
"And your point is?"
"I mean. . .you would get so bored with that. I can't see you settle down like those. You're too adventurous, too full of life to just settle down and have like a half dozen kids."
"I'm flattered," Mai drawled. She was flattered actually, by his remarks.
"I'm being serious you know. Here, have your book. The half naked Scotsmen is weirding me out anyway," he handed it back to her and she tossed it on the bed.
"Jealous?"
"Pssh, I look better than he does. I don't do that whole kilt thing. Bit breezy for my tastes."
"Too much information Joey, too much information."
He grinned at this, like a kid who told an inappropriate joke and all she could do was smile back; his smile was contagious. They fell into an easy silence, Joey clearly not wanting to leave just yet, or at all, if his earlier comments were to be believed.
"I talked with Tea the other night," Mai began, leaning into the couch.
"I would assume so, considering you two have been glued to the hip since the tourney," Joey remarked idly.
"Well. . .," Mai paused, wondering how exactly she should handle the situation with as much tact as possible. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. "I wish I had asked you about your duel."
"My duel?. . ." He was genuinely confused for a moment, but then he connected the proverbial pieces. Mai wouldn't mention Tea and duels in the same breath unless. . . "You mean my duel with Marik," he said at last and she nodded. "I had asked Tea. . ." he started when Mai cut him off.
"I made her tell me, so don't get mad at her."
"I not mad, actually. I figured it would happen sooner or later. Why do you want to know?"
". . .Let's say it partly because of a guilty conscious. I shouldn't have been so selfish, thinking that I was the only one. . ."
He silenced her protests. "Hey, don't think like that. You couldn't have known what. . ." he swallowed, all those unpleasant memories emerging again. "What had happened."
Mai didn't speak for a heartbeat, thinking. Then, she spoke once more. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm, I'm not sure, actually. It's really. . ."
Mai reached out, curling her fingers about his hand. "It's okay."
He took a deep breath. "It was the most painful thing ever, to face down. . .that. To feel your strength drain away little by little, until it hurt even to breathe, to think, to speak. Then, Ra. To see it in its Phoenix mode, or whatever the heck it was called, it's like knowing you were going to suffer the worst agony, but you couldn't stop it. But the actual pain was a thousand times worst than what you could have imagined. The worst part, though, wasn't the physical pain, that always goes away with time. The worst part was knowing you failed miserably. That you broke your promise and that you'd have to live with that for the rest of your life."
"Promise?" she asked him, knowing deep down what he was referring to.
"To. . .to save you."
She released her grip to cup his face. She blindly realized that she no longer had control over her own actions, but at the point she no longer cared. "Oh Joseph, you're the most insufferable, impulsive, kindest idiot I've ever met." She leaned in, lips brushing against his. His eyes became wide the moment his mind processed what was occurring. When she pulled away, he pinched himself on the arm. "What are you doing?"
"Making sure I'm not dreaming."
She rolled her eyes at this. "As I said, an idiot." She tugged on his shirt collar, pulling him forward.
"I'm not an—Mmphff!"
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There was a knock at the door, startling Tea from her sleep. She took a sleepy glance at the clock, noting the time. "Why would somebody be knocking at this time of night?" There was a second one, more frantic this time and Tea extracted herself from the mass of covers, unwilling to leave them in the first place. She went to the door and took a look through the peephole. Upon recognizing them, she opened the door.
"Hey, what do you need—heymmph!
And it only took forty-eight chapters to get there! WHOOO.
Also the only non-crappy animated Disney sequel is "The Lion King II: Simba's Pride", but only because Zira is creepy awesome as all get out. " My Lullaby"=Nightmare Fuel for kids like, six and under. :/
