Joey didn't pause to think about what he could do. He was spurred on only by the thought that he had to do something. Sure, he wasn't the best at magic, much to Solomon's chagrin, but even the little bit he did know had to count for something. Besides, he could hold his own in a fight if it came to it, and judging by the commotion outside, it would come to it.
He dashed out of the first palace exit he found and looked around for someone who needed help. The foot soldiers were marching toward the front, where Joey and his friends had just come in through and presumably where the chaos was happening. He followed, grabbing onto the nearest mounted object whenever the ground shook. When he finally rounded the corner of the palace, he froze in terror.
The crash they heard earlier had come from the gigantic creature currently trying to demolish the wall. It was tall enough to peer over the wall as it was, and the spears and arrows the soldiers were chucking at it merely bounced off the creature's dark, bulbous body. It reached over the wall occasionally to swipe at whoever was brave or stupid enough to climb to the top, and Joey kept expecting its oozing hand to leave a monstrous handprint. It took him a long moment to realize that it was made of the same substance that those Shadow Ghouls were.
It took him much less time to realize that the soldiers needed help. He gulped and ran toward the fray, still trying to come up with a plan. He stopped again when a huge shadow swept over him, and he looked up to see the outline of a winged creature he'd only heard legends of soaring through the sky. When it pivoted, Joey could just make out the Dragon Tamer mounted on its back. An idea struck Joey, and his skin prickled with a chill: didn't the Dragon Tamer own three dragons?
Joey was resolute. He ran away from the giant creature, willing Seto and the soldiers to hold out for a little longer, and toward the egg-shaped glass building behind the palace. He caught Mokuba disappearing inside and knew his hunch was right – this was where they kept the dragons. Just as Joey reached the entrance, another dragon flew out of the top of the building, this time with Mokuba riding.
"Come on," Joey muttered to himself, and he threw himself inside.
The building was spacious, with rocky outcroppings lining the walls and a few busts of dragons scattered on the ground in various stages of disrepair. But drawing Joey's attention was the behemoth circling the top of the dome. Joey watched her, entranced at first, then confused about how to get to her.
"H-hey!" he called as loud as he could. He flapped his arms trying to get the dragon's attention.
Somehow, it worked. The white dragon landed a few feet from him, sending a ripple through the air that almost toppled him. She folded her wings and drew herself up to her full height so she could look down at him and opened her maw slightly, menacingly. Joey gulped and could feel his legs shaking, but he had to do this.
"Hey," he repeated, softer and much more tremulously. "I-I don't know if you can understand me, but I need your help. The palace is in danger and I have to help. Please!"
The dragon just stared at him. He waited for a reply, then sighed deeply when nothing happened.
"Please," he tried again, "if we don't help..." He shook his head, breaking off that line of thought. With or without this dragon, he would win the day. "I know you want to help, too. Your sisters are out there." When the dragon still didn't move, Joey sank to his knees. "Please," he begged to the ground, his fists clutching at the dirt beneath him.
The sound of leathery movement caught his attention, and when he looked up, the dragon was bowing its head to him. Joey was almost too stunned to move. Then, he hopped to his feet and placed a hand to the dragon's head, and he was seized with a cold sensation.
"Candida," he said, thus establishing his place as the dragon's Rider. He didn't know how he knew her name, but it came out as naturally as his own. When he said it, she ruffled her wings, expressing her own contentment. "I knew you wanted this," he said with a grin, and Candida snorted in return. "Let's go!"
Joey hopped up on the dragon's back, since he didn't have a mount to ride her head like Seto and Mokuba. Candida seemed to recognize this, too, and flew slower and closer to the ground than her sisters had. That wasn't to say they were slow; Joey grit his teeth as they zoomed toward the shadow creature, naturally joining formation with the other two. The three dragons hovered and circled the shadow creature, awaiting the command to attack.
"Joey!?" Mokuba shouted, and it was a marvel Joey could hear him over the maelstrom below. Whatever magic that bonded him to Candida apparently allowed him to communicate with the other Riders. "What – I mean, how did you...?"
"She chose me!" Joey shouted back, saving the kid some trouble. He beamed over at Seto to gloat, and the Sorcerer rolled his eyes.
"Convenient," Seto called, "but you haven't impressed me yet. Show me what you can do by helping us take out this beast."
"My pleasure," Joey replied. He guided Candida to follow the other two as they swooped in to shoot white beams of pure energy at the monstrosity.
Seto and Mokuba got away clean and arced around to line up another shot, but Joey and Candida weren't so lucky. The creature reached up to swat at the dragon, and the duo barely managed to dodge. Candida tilted just slightly too far, and Joey lost his grip. He slid from the dragon's back and was soon tumbling down to the ground. Out of his periphery he could see Candida rounding to come and catch him, but he could tell she wouldn't get there in time. (He could also see a mesh patch under the giant's arm, what was that?) He closed his eyes to wait for the inevitable impact, then shot them open again when he felt himself being yanked back up by his wrist.
Joey was staring right into the eye of a white dragon, but it wasn't his. She seemed to sense that he was okay and returned her focus to whatever was ahead of them, so Joey instead looked up and saw Seto leaning over the edge of his mount. When they locked eyes, the rest of the battle faded away and time slowed. Joey felt as though a current was running through his entire body, originating at the point of contact with the Sorcerer. Specks of light floated down from some unknown source, enveloping them in their own pillar of white. A wave of some emotion crashed over him and his chest tightened so much he could barely breathe. He didn't realize he was clutching Seto's hand so tightly until he couldn't feel his own anymore.
Joey blinked and the moment ended. Slowly, Seto lifted him enough for him to climb onto the mount. Neither spoke for a long time, and Joey tried to pretend it was so they could get far enough away to regroup with Candida and Mokuba. But there was no way around it: he and the Dragon Tamer were deemed Equivalent. Even if Joey hadn't seen the Quickening twice already, he couldn't deny his heightened awareness of Seto's presence, the warmth emanating from his skin, the weight of his breaths, the angle of his gaze. It was distracting, to say the least. Joey shook his head in an attempt to clear it and focus on the immediate problem.
"Are you okay?" the Sorcerer asked over his shoulder. Joey nodded, so he continued. "The Goliath is almost through the wall, and we are barely slowing it down. We'll need to combine our attacks to create a focused beam. You follow?"
"Yeah," Joey said. Candida sidled up alongside Delwyn, and Joey dismounted so he could hop onto his own. As he maneuvered back in place, he realized something. "Under its arm!" he shouted. "The Goliath has a weak spot under its arm. I'll distract it, get it to lift its arm again, and you and Mokuba fire at it."
Seto thought it was a bad idea, Joey could feel it. But it was as good a plan as any, so the Sorcerer nodded, and Joey took off toward the Goliath. He held onto Candida as tightly as he could, and he could feel her correcting herself so he wouldn't slide off again as they dove down toward the Goliath. When she was close enough, Candida shot out a short burst of white light at the thing's shoulder, just enough to provoke it.
"All right, girl, let's go!" Joey directed, and they angled upward so they could fly just out of arm's length. As predicted, the Goliath paused its destruction of the border wall to swat at Candida, though this time to no avail. Candida swerved and flew toward her sisters, who were perfectly lined up to attack the giant. Joey grinned and urged Candida to duck. Just over their heads, the other two dragons shot their beams directly at the mesh patch he'd spotted earlier. The Goliath bellowed in pain and rage (and it was all Joey could do to remember to hold onto Candida instead of blocking his ears). Seto and Mokuba paused their assault; the energy beams tore through the patch, revealing a hollow space and a single, pulsating organ – the beast's heart.
Joey turned Candida around so he could join the formation, and together the three dragons launched another final attack, destroying the exposed heart. The creature swayed, then stumbled backward, and Joey held his breath. When the Goliath finally fell backwards, he felt his entire body go slack, and only Candida's carefulness kept him from tumbling off of her. The creature made a dull thud and immediately lost its form, dissolving into a gigantic inky puddle and evaporating slowly as it did. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mokuba and Alabastra pull up beside him.
"We did it!" the kid cried, pumping a fist into the air.
Joey grinned and lazily rose a fist, too. Seto and Delwyn joined them, though the Sorcerer looked less pleased about their victory. "We still have to find out where the Goliath came from. Come on."
Joey sighed but got back up. He patted Candida on the back and urged her to follow the Dragon Tamer and the Rider. Joey didn't know if he should count it lucky or troubling that the others had left a trail of Shadow Ghoul stains behind them that led into a forest between the Palace and the Betwixt.
The three Riders swooped down so they were just above the treetops. Joey scanned the brush for any sign of where the others were. Finally, in a clearing in the middle, he saw the glint of something metallic catching the moonlight and a quick motion. Candida slowed down and circled the small break in the trees so he could get a better look at the scene: the White Mage was leading the rest of the Sorcerers and Joey's friends deeper into the forest, and the shining object Joey had seen was his Ring. The Mage was holding it up for some reason.
"There!" he shouted to Mokuba and Seto, pointing at the clearing. "The others are headed that way." And he guided Candida along the trajectory he figured Ryou was taking, peeking now and again at the ground to make sure he hadn't lost the group.
The forest thinned soon after, revealing a clearing surrounded by torches. In the center stood a wide stone table, and there were three huge jars in a triangle around the table. When the companions and Sorcerers entered the clearing, they started to shake. Joey gulped but continued onward, joining Seto's and Mokuba's dragons in formation circling the clearing. Suddenly, the jars popped open, and something like a claw shot out of each of them. They were light made of darkness, and Joey's mind couldn't make sense of it. What he could understand was the terrible, pained moan that Candida was making and the sudden falling sensation in his gut (again). He looked down and was shocked to see one of the claws grasping his dragon, who started to fade as she was being dragged toward one of the jars. Panicked, Joey looked around to the other Riders and saw the same thing happening to them. Thinking quickly, Joey called down to his King, "They're taking our dragons! We're falling!"
The Magician King's head whipped up to meet Joey's gaze with wide eyes. Then he nodded and raised his hands. With a circular motion, he conjured up a thin purple sheet to catch them and float them down to the ground. When the trio landed, the jars closed again. Joey looked up and saw that the dragons were truly gone.
"What the hell was that?" Joey asked with shudder, remembering his mount's cries of pain. "What are those things?" He turned to Seto, but it was someone else who answered.
"They're Dragon Capture Jars," he said, stepping out from the other side of the table. "He" was gratuitous, though, Joey thought. The thing hardly looked human, with its sallow skin stretched too thin over his skeleton. His long grey hair was tangled and matted against his face before falling gracelessly over his shoulders. His voice was hard and cold, like stone, and it made Joey shiver. But most striking of all was the man's eyes. His normal (well, more normal) one was sunken and dull, but the other had been replaced by a shimmering gold prosthetic. It resembled the symbols embellished on the Sorcerers artifacts, and Joey wondered if this, too, was a mage.
A stab of realization pierced his chest, and before he knew what he was doing, he turned to Seto for an explanation. "The Shadow Lich," the Dragon Tamer said, narrowing his eyes.
Joey did a double take just as the man began to cackle. "In the flesh."
