New Testament 056: One Ring to find Them
"Jackson?" Cable opened his eyes, and saw his best friend sitting in the same room. "Where.. am I?" He realized he had been sleeping on a bed, at a place that definitely was not the studio. "You're safe here." Doe replied. "You were beaten, but the Pharaoh managed to hold them back while the troops pulled you out." He had only been out for a few hours. "How do you feel?" But he did not appear like a person who had fully recovered yet. "Been better.. I think I will live." His body hurt, his muscles were tense and he felt pretty tired. "Good.." Jackson looked at him, as if he was considering saying something else. "Let's just do it." He said in a different tone. "Is something wrong Jack?" His friend took a deep breath and pulled out a card from his dueldisk. "Cable.. do you remember making this card?" It was Yomotsu Shikome, the replacement Hermit. "Ehr.. yes?" Jacksons eyes widened. "What.. when did you.. why would you give this to us?" He suffered a sudden fit of anger, or rather one of his Personalities did. "You don't know?"
"Jack.. you asked me to make this card." He told him. "What?" Doe gasped. "We.. I.. do not remember that.." But he could tell that his friend was telling the truth. "When did this happen?" His memory could not just be hazy, not all twenty-one of them. "It was back when we were looking for information on the Magus. One night you approached me and asked me to make a replacement card for the part of your mind that was destroyed. You said you did not want to use Arahabaki anymore." At least not since Cadron killed that Persona. "You honestly do not remember?" Jackson shook his head. "No, we have no recollection of such an event. And yet, we must have.." He could only think of one reason that this happened. "Guys!" But just then Christine stormed into the tent. "What is it?" They asked worriedly. "It's Raness!" However she sounded more optimistic then concerned. "He did something weird with that Lamp of Archon, but he found it.. He found where the Millenium Ring and Scales are!" She ran outside again. "I must check this out then.."
Once he and the remaining troops had gathered around, Raness began to explain what he saw. He basically shared the visions of Fatimah, he witnessed which two areas on the world were unreadable by another Millenium Item. "Tsk, to amplify the Tauk to such an extent. Why did we not think of that?" Ceasar was impressed, these enemies thought outside the box. "And if we were to show you a map, could you point these spots out?" Nero asked him. "Yes, the pictures remain quite clear in my mind." He did not know much yet about modern geology, but he could already say that one of the two was still in his home country of Egypt. "That figures. There are probably a few tombs left that have not been opened up yet." Though that also meant; getting to that item would not be easy. "Why do we need to find these items again?" One soldier asked. "If the enemy gets his hands on all seven of them, he will be able to fulfill a scheme in the making for a thousand years. Your world will never be the same afterwards.." That was the reason.
Eventually he looked at the map and looked for the two coordinates. A big city in Germany was the closest he could pinpoint. "This still leaves a lot of ground to cover. But we might be able to use the Items we have to get a better look up close." Jackson realized he was also talking about The Key. "But.. this one is not ours anymore." He pulled it out. "We may physically own it, but one of Ka's servants claimed it in a shadowgame." And they could never get it to work for them before that anyway, at best they could replicate the strange energy source within. "I see. Then we should also gather intelligence. But we need to head for those areas fast. It is already night-time, so the enemy can travell the skies freely." The commander nodded. "Then it is a good thing our fastest jetplanes exceed their kind of speed. Though we might need to contact the local government before we can search through that city." And they did not have time to wait for that. "Just send us." Cleo snapped. "We dont need permission, we are just tourists." She had a point there.
So they went with that plan. They used one of their jets to send Raness and his friends, save for Doe, overseas. Meanwhile a section of the army would head for Egypt. Both groups maintained contact throughout the journey. At the same time the wounded had to remain at the camp and while not that injured, Marcus was held under close supervision. "It can not end like this." The latter however did manage to find a way to smuggle a cellphone into his quarters. "It's about time my friend responds to my favors." He had sent several messages out already, but this time he received an answer. "Like this one.."
A few hours later the jet approached the airport closest to the city. "Huh. I see no mass devastation or soulless bodies, so I think we are in the clear." Colin said as he looked out the windows. "But if we do run into trouble, do we let him duel the enemy again?" He referred to Raness, he would not mind letting him take on all the Pillars. "Ehr.. Colin. That's Elias. He came back while you took a nap." Christine explained. Sairve looked back at him and saw a most upset expression on the students face. "What? Nobody told me!" He could not help it that there was no clear sign when who was using that one body. "So wait, he knows what we are doing?" He could believe it if Gaines had reservations. "They told me, yes. And though these periodic blackouts are not something I want to get used to, I understand that it is a necessary evil." As odd as the whole setup was. "But I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake. I am doing this for the children at the orphanage, and other innocents. They do not deserve to be a part of this chaos."
Some time later, they had managed to get from the airport into the alleged city. "So now what?" Under an escort of trained soldiers, in streeth clothes, they walked through the streets. "Since the Millenium Ring or Scales should be considered a valuable treasure, we can assume they are either at the nearest museum or at the mansion of a rich noble." Though they did not think they would find something like that in a modern place like this. "Did the Pharaoh not say more before he left?" His host himself wondered. "He could not see the exact place. If Raness senses something though.." Nero did not need to finish his sentence. Elias could guess. "He will just move back in." He did not really like that. Generally whenever that happened, something bad would go down. "We can check with local authorities if they know something."
...
"Man" But after an hour of searching they had come no closer, no museum or warehouse reported what could have been an item. "At this pace any one of those Pillars could show up, coming from the sky or lord knows where. At least they will have a hard time looking for it too." Though they would like to avoid contact with the enemy for the time being. "Wait a second." Nero stopped, as he saw a flyer on a building wall. "This says there is an auction held today, with a 'gold' theme." That looked promising. "Actually we checked that, it did not pan out. They did not mention anything about a scale or ring on the auction list." The soldier shook his head. Nero cringed. "Aargh, we should have described it better. The Millenium Ring could be one of the prices, because it does not actually look like a ring!" He yelled. "Oh crap,. that's true."
With that small hope, they all headed for the building where the auction would take place. Or rather it was already underway. "Great, if we have to end up paying for the damn thing. Which one of us is richest here?" Cleo asked as they walked into the scene. "Ceasar perhaps?" She looked at him. "I wish." However they soon found out it did not matter anyway. "Oh blast it. It's for invites only.." It was a sealed-bid acution, all they could do was watch from the sidelines. "How do we even know if it has not been sold yet already?" Christine was worried they had come too later. But then.. "There it is!" She said excitedly. Everyone but Elias and Ceasar recognized it instantly, and even they realized how much it looked like his own Puzzle. The pyramid pendant, the eye of Wadjet, the golden circle, it all fit the Egyptian theme. "Okay, so we have to keep an eye on whoever buys it. And ehrm.. hope we can pay him off afterwards.. we get government funding for this, dont we?" Colin asked one of their escorts. "Tsk. I will have to contact my superiors."
In the end a gentleman named Anton Hartmann had made the highest offer, so he got to take the Ring home. Unfortunately it was not that easy to approach him as he was surrounded by bodyguards. "What? Is he like a minister or something?" How would they ask an important person like that. "We will just have to arrange a meeting. We can ask the people who work here for information on mr. Hartmann. It is unlikely that the enemy will locate him before we can talk to him." Yet that soldier must have been tempting fate once too often, as a loud noise sounded outside the building just after Anton and his men had passed the exit. "What the?" They ran outside, and saw that the two bodyguards had been knocked unconscious. "He is gone!" The man himself was nowhere to be seen. "Was it one of Ka's servants?"
"Did anyone see what happened?" Nero asked some of the pedestrians, forgetting that he naturally did not speak a word of German. They were loud and upset though. "They are saying stuff like 'attacker', 'mask' and 'thief'" Elias had not practised since high school, but he could understand some of it. Luckily one of the panicked individuals understood enough to point to a small alley next to the auction house. "Thanks!" He took this as a direction, one which the mysterious attacker must have taken. "Not in the air then?" That meant they still had a chance. "Let's go!" Colin and one soldier decided to stay with the knocked out guards. The others headed into the alley. However they came across a threeway split, their path went up while another path crossed the first from right to left. "We have to split up." Nero said. "I will take the right with Cleo. Ceasar you stay with the soldier and go straight forward, Elias and Christine you take the left road." They all nodded and went on their way. "I have no idea what will happen now.."
The mysterious attacker was close by, at the end of one path near the city park. "Say it." 'She' held the german against a tree. The face was masked, but the voice was clearly female. "Say that you give that thing to me, that it is mine. And you will live.." The woman snarled with a heavy tone. Anton replied in his own language, frantically. "Psh... Sagen Sie ' der Ring ist für ihr'. Und Sie leben." The attacker shifted to a more broken german, but Hartmann got the gist of it. "Aber.. aber.." He did not want to give it up, not until his fear won over his other feelings. "Der Ring is für ihr." He told the woman what she wanted to hear. "Danke.." She said coldly and tossed him to the ground, knocking him out in one blow as well. She then picked up the Golden ring that lied next to her feet. She could have taken it before, but only now was it truly hers. "Hey!" But the time it took to get the man to forfeit the item, was the same time it took Cleo and Nero to find the thief. "What are you doing?" Cleo asked her. "Why is more like it.." Then the woman took off the mask. Yet she did not look like any of the pillars or anyone else they knew, just a regular girl in a regular coat with an irregular ring. "Cleo Caine.." And she surprised them both. "Nero Jacobus Sullivan."
This one knew both their names, their full names even. "I did not expect to see you here." They backed away, sensing an eerie vibe. "How do you know us?" Was their new question. "How do I know you? That can easily be answered.. you are a part of Glyph's memories." Their eyes widened with realization. "You.." This girl was not in a normal state of mind. "The Rod." She was being controlled from a distance. "You must be the new Glyph Raness told us about." They only knew one person who would use the Millenium Rod this way. "Ah. You are quick on the uptake. But you are only half-right." She paused to put the string attached to the Millenium Ring around her neck. "I am not the Glyph, I am merely a back-up reactivated in this girls body.. and I am waiting." She looked at the sky. "Soon one of Ka's servants will find me in this area. Until then I shall be this Items official owner. It took a while to find this.. but he always knew an auction would pay off one day. And now it is finally free from all those money-loving nobodies.."
They did not know what to make of this, they only wanted to get him away from the Ring. "Official owner? I suppose that means we can't just take it back.." The possessed woman nodded. "Then we will have to duel you for it." They said, but Cleo had activated her dueldisk first. "I will handle this Nero, you stay back." She was not about to let anything related to Glyph go unchallenged. "We went through hell just to get Glyph out of our heads, and now he is back again. Fine. But I sure as hell will not let a mere backup get away with that thing. I will duel you for the right of The Ring!" But before she could ask if he even had cards with him in this form, she/he pulled out a disk of her own. "This girl, little miss Renate, was already a duelist when the original Glyph used the Rod on her two years ago. All I had to do was visit her house and pick up her old stuff." Cleo grinned. "Good. I was hoping you'd accept." They both inserted their decks. "Cleo are you sure?" Nero still had reservations. "It's the only way Nero. I will finish Glyph, one piece at a time!"
Cleo's LP: 8000 Renate's LP: 8000
(To be Continued in New Testament 057: Ashes with Ashes)
