Yugi and spirits were closer to the top than they had ever been before. They were miles higher than Yugi could have imagined from the base of the mountain. The air was still comfortably breathable, and the weather was, well, perfect. Not too hot or windy, made stranger by the unmoving sun. The walk wasn't even as hard on Yugi as the wild Gandora flight had been earlier, even though they were almost at the peak. Yugi would have given up anything to go back to that nauseating flight because now things were just so awkward.
While Gandora and Silent at least weren't fighting, they refused to talk to one another. Gandora wouldn't even look at the little mage. Yugi would try to start up conversations like the fun talks they had on the way up, but Gandora only grumbled, and Silent didn't have the magic to write. It just ended up with Yugi talking to himself with Kuriboh squeaking unintelligibly. Even then, Kuriboh didn't respond much because of still being drained from using their greatest move to keep the girls from destroying each other.
'We just have to make it to the well.' Yugi thought to himself. He then looked up at what was ahead of them. He could see the peak where the wishing well was. Before that point, the path Gandora was leading them on wound around the mountain, blocking their actual journey from view.
"Hey Silent, didn't you say that riddles and puzzles were blocking the wishing well? Are they around that bend?" Yugi asked. Silent nodded and pointed to a gate hanging open about half a mile ahead. Yugi thought that the gate might be the beginning of the riddles, making him smile a little. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he had been secretly excited for this part.
"You don't have to worry about them slowing us down, little one. I destroyed those on my first go-around. Those cursed puzzles won't bother us this time." Gandora said, her eyes fixed on the peak.
"You what…?" Yugi gasped as Silent too looked up in horror. The mage's face then went red, and she began pointing threatening at Gandora, or as threatening as a tiny, non-magic girl could be. The way Silent waved made Yugi glad that she couldn't communicate at the moment. Instead of a verbal or maybe another physical fight starting, Gandora only rolled her eyes and continued along. Gandora then looked to Yugi to see his reaction to her destroying the riddles.
"I shouldn't be surprised." Yugi sighed. He quickly recollected himself and kept walking with a smile on his face. "I suppose that just means we can fix everything faster." He said in a bubbly tone. Gandora watched him for a few moments, then her scaled brows furrowed.
"Did you want to solve the riddles?" The dragon asked. Yugi looked forward and held Kuriboh closer to him. He didn't want to sound selfish, but he also didn't want to lie.
"Kind of? I mean, I want us to get to the wishing well as quickly as we can, but riddles are one of my favorite things to do next to games. Doing magical riddles in a mystic land seemed pretty fun." Yugi admitted.
Once Yugi was done, Gandora looked ahead without another word, no response to him or Silent Magician. Yugi sighed again and kept trucking along. This quiet and unsaid tension was making what should have been the easiest part of the journey more tiring than scaling the mountain's side.
Silent Magician then came up beside Yugi and put a hand on his arm. Yugi could tell by her expression that this was her way of showing she understood what he was trying to say. This made Yugi smile again and put a happier pep in his step. Kuriboh, for a moment, whined but quickly fell back asleep.
As they continued quietly along, in the side of Yugi's eye, he noticed that Gandora once again was watching him. Yet, when he faced her, she looked away. Yugi thought about trying to say something when the group came around the next bend and found themselves in front of the gate Silent pointed at a while back. Just as Gandora had said, it was completely blown off its hinges, and any decorative statue beside it was rubble. No one reacted; they simply went about climbing over the ruins. Yugi didn't even fight Gandora as she lifted him over the mangled metal.
In front of them, the path twisted erratically, rubble and ruins along the road the entire way to the peak. Yugi immediately recognized where the riddles would have been in the past. Besides the fact that there was nothing but rubble in those areas, he immediately felt better as he passed by a destroyed riddle. The unnerving perfectness of the land disappeared in the wake of Gandora's first trek up here. As they moved through the devastated area, going straight and ignoring the path at this point since they could see the end, Yugi couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness. The morale of the group was already pretty low. Seeing what should have been a magical gantlet of riddles reduced to ashes did not help. Yugi couldn't help but imagine that this was what the Gandora were doing to the land below. He was helping these dragons, these monsters of pure destruction.
Yugi looked back to Gandora. She had her determined eyes fixed squarely on the peak. She almost had the same expression the Pharaoh had when he was getting ready to duel. The weight in Yugi's stomach tightened a bit. He reminded himself that he was helping her and this land too. That was definitely worth it.
…
After traveling a few minutes, the most open area came up ahead of them in the form of a vast meadow with many giant piles of green stones.
"This was some big castle before," Gandora explained as they walked through the large space. While Silent and Gandora wanted to move quickly in this area, Yugi found himself fascinated with the rubble. He had never seen stones like this, it was smooth and green like scales, but it was clearly carved rocks. He bent down to get a closer look at the debris. It sparkled in the sunlight like emeralds even though it was half-covered in ash.
Suddenly, the rocks began to shake.
"Ah!" Yugi yelped as he jumped back, holding Kuriboh tighter to his chest. Both girls immediately turned around, ready for a fight, when they saw the rubble too. The rocks continued to shake as their blackened edges melted away to show untouched green stone beneath. Once the rocks were clean, they began to roll towards each other. Once they found a partner, they immediately reconnected as if they had never broken apart. The rocks didn't just attach to the nearest stone, though, but instead seemed to be heading for specific partners, even if that meant they had to roll right into Yugi's legs.
Yugi was taken by surprise at the speeding rocks. They blew the wind out of him, and he nearly fell back before Gandora caught him. She then picked him up and started running for it. Yugi was about to ask what was up when he noticed Silent had also jumped onto the dragon's back and held on tight.
"I thought we had more time! We have to get out of here before it fully fixes itself. Or else we might be rebuilt into a wall!" Gandora yelled as the small rock piles remade themselves into green bricks around them.
As Gandora charged through the rebuilding palace, bricks seemed to jump on top of each other as random tapestries re-spun themselves from thin air and hung themselves on these new walls. The speed at which this happened got faster and harder with every brick added. Soon the group was being entombed by flying bricks and magically appearing furniture.
Yugi saw why everyone latched onto Gandora, as she could run the fastest, but even her long strides didn't seem like they would be long enough. Yugi had to cover his head, and Kuriboh's still sleeping body when a whole dining set's worth of chairs rebuilt themselves from splinters and came flying at Gandora. The dragon took the damage, blocking Yugi and Silent the best she could as her ruby orbs glowed brighter. Yugi then looked ahead to see bricks flying past them. There seemed to be one last wall in their way, but it was rebuilding the fastest. There was a hole Gandora could jump through, but by the time she would get to it, this crazy building would have blocked it up.
"Gandora, use your breath on that wall!" Yugi ordered on instinct. It was the same voice he used for ordering his monsters to attack in duels. Gandora immediately obeyed, opening her maw as red light blasted out. But it wasn't her darker crimson. It was a blazing scarlet fireball. Simultaneously, a spark came from the Millennium Puzzle. Yugi didn't have time to dwell on that as Gandora's blast shot right through the rebuilding wall. The shot sent shrapnel everywhere, making a hole before the palace closed in on them. Gandora leaped through the hole, collapsing in the open meadow with a crash to rival the building's frenzied construction noise.
Gandora then let Yugi go, and Silent quickly jumped off her. The two were fine, and Gandora could have been worse. They all looked back at the green palace. While the rest of the building was finishing fixing itself, Gandora's new hole remained broken and unmagically touched. The two then looked farther up the mountain to see Gandora's stream of scarlet breath did not stop at the building. It had kept going, making jagged holes through rebuilding gates, tablets, and contraptions up ahead. In fact, it was still going farther up the mountain, not stopping even though Gandora had stopped breathing it.
"Woah." Yugi couldn't help but say. Silent, her eyes trapped on the destruction, reached over and patted Gandora on the side. Yugi looked to the dragon as she got up. She was just as surprised as the rest of them when it came to the power of her breath.
"Was that supposed to happen?" Yugi asked. Both Silent and he looked up at the frozen dragon. Gandora then shook her head and smiled wide.
"Of course, I am a being of destruction after all! I've… just never had it be that destructive before." She admitted. She then looked down at her body and took account of her wounds and the light levels in her ruby orbs. Yugi noticed as her eyes widen when she saw that her orbs were still glowing brightly.
"Is something wrong?"
"No… Usually, when I use something as powerful and focused as a breath attack, it drains a lot of my built-up power. It seems I still have a lot left, though." She said as she tapped an orb on her shoulder and then shook her arm. That light level did not lower, so she shrugged. "I must have more power built up than I thought." She shrugged.
Yugi nodded to her, though he had to hide a frown. More power meant she was more injured than even she thought.
Silent Magician got the two's attention as she pointed up the mountain's peak past the clouds. The scarlet streak that had been Gandora's breath finally petered out right before the top.
"A lot more power than I thought," Gandora repeated before shrugging again and walking forward. Silent also started, not even looking back at the building that almost buried them. Yugi couldn't stop looking at the structures that just remade themselves.
"You guys aren't going to question that?" Yugi asked as he ran to catch up with the two.
"Question what?" Gandora asked. Silent also looked back at Yugi with the same questioning expression.
"The buildings fixing themselves? This whole area is magically repairing itself, and I'm just supposed to accept it?"
"The human world doesn't fix itself every month?" Gandora asked. Yugi shook his head. "How does anything get fixed after wars or battles then?"
"We either have to work together and fix it, or leave it for time to figure out," Yugi explained.
"How is anything still around then?" Gandora asked. Silent then went to Yugi's side and made him lift his arm. She shook his arm back and forth and then gestured to Gandora's muscled arms. "Right, humans aren't made to fight like us monsters are," Gandora said as she patted Yugi's head. The three then started walking again. "In a world where every creature loves to duel, the environment gets pretty torn up. While I love a blackened forest or a newly created ravine, most monsters don't. There is magic in every domain that will fix the land to a predetermined state every month or so. I'm guessing Dark Magician Girl would be the one to control the fixed state in this land. She might have even sped up the healing this time to compensate for the other Gandora."
Yugi could only shake his head. He should be used to facts like this. This truly was a different world from his. Then he realized something that put a smile on his face.
"Wait, does that mean the Gandora destroyed homes and forest have been fixed?' Yugi asked. Gandora looked down at him with a sad smile, and Silent continued without looking back.
"If they were part of the before state, then yes. I know for sure that forest by Dark Magician Girl's castle has regrown by now." Gandora said.
"That's great!" Yugi cheered, then he noticed Silent's, well, silence. "But not everything's been fixed, has it?"
Gandora could only give another shrug. "The predetermined state could have been chosen before other houses were made. Those houses wouldn't have been fixed in that case. That's why we have to get to the wishing well, I suppose. So more stuff isn't destroyed by the Gandora."
Yugi fell silent and nodded. So, it wasn't a perfect fix, but it was better than nothing. Then something Gandora said made Yugi look up at her in surprise. She didn't refer to the Gandora as "her people." The dragon was once again focused on the peak. Yugi focused on the journey before him, but he hoped that this was a sign of growth. He hoped.
The group continued to travel for the peak, still unimpeded even though everything was fixed. Because of Gandora's super-powered attack, there was a climbable hole in every roadblock. As they climbed through, Yugi found himself fascinated. A completely different culture made these buildings and statues that they were skipping. He couldn't help but stare. He found himself studying the fixed structures (the ones without a newly created hole) and noticed something. Even though things were fixed, they still didn't have the creepy perfection everything else in this land had.
"Why aren't they perfect?" Yugi asked as he switched the STILL sleeping Kuriboh over to his other arm so he could point. The two girls turned to see what he was asking about. Silent seemed confused, but Gandora then snapped her clawed fingers.
"That is a question I had too. I noticed that the month I lived on the mountain before getting the nerve to go up to the wishing well. Why are things always perfect, but when they are fixed after being destroyed, they're not?" Gandora asked. Silent looked between them like they were speaking gibberish. Yugi wouldn't blame her for how badly Gandora asked that.
"Um, you know how things are unnervingly perfect?" Yugi tried to ask. Once again, Silent shook her head. Gandora groaned and gestured for Yugi to continue on.
"She doesn't see it, little one. I'm guessing as the Domain of the Beast's Silent Magician, she probably doesn't notice a difference." Gandora whispered to Yugi before returning to climbing the mountain.
Yugi looked back to Silent Magician, who was not happy to be whispered about. "You really don't feel strange here, like everything around you is fake?" Yugi asked. Silent tilted her head and walked slower with Yugi. He then tried to point her towards some parts of the environment that had that unnatural perfection. Then he pointed to the destruction and fixed areas. Silent looked over them, and Yugi could tell she really tried to see what he was showing. Then she reached out and tried to summon her magic. A blue spark came for a split second.
"Fake?" she wrote before the word fell apart.
"Not quite fake. I know this world is real, but… did your parents ever have some vase or china doll you couldn't touch? It was often the most beautiful thing in the house, but you knew if you touched it, your parents would kill you? This entire land has that feeling. Like just me stepping on this grass is going to get me reprimanded because it's so perfect?" Yugi tried. Silent still seemed just as confused.
"The Silent archetype doesn't have parents! They are born when the last oldest dies! Now come on, slowpokes!" Gandora yelled farther up the mountain. "We have wishes to make!" This got the two to race to catch up with Gandora, but Yugi had more questions.
If this land is so different from his, then it makes sense that these nearly immortal creatures would have different lives too. Silent only talked about her childhood friend during their journey up the mountain, so this was the first Yugi heard anything about the Silent archetype as a whole.
"You didn't have parents?" Yugi asked, hoping he wasn't rude. Silent smiled at him and nodded. She then waved her hand and spoke using as little magic as she could.
"After Legend Knights trapped by Dartz, Silent protect borders. We any type, any level. Fit anywhere," she wrote. This made Yugi think back to his Silent Magician and Swordsman card.
"Really?"
"Yes. Guard more too. Why think I come on suicide mission for wishing with only one human help?" Silent soundlessly chuckled. "What more, human just met?" Yugi felt his cheeks gain a red tint as he shrugged.
"I didn't think of that. I just thought you had a real sense of justice or something like that to volunteer to come with me."
Silent then reached over and pulled Yugi into a friendly hug, ignoring Kuriboh's half-awake squeaks. "Glad come."
"Me too, if you didn't… I don't think I could have done this alone." Yugi grinned. "So, your whole species are protectors?" Yugi asked, impressed more and more by the petite mage. Up ahead, Gandora guffawed so hard she almost got caught in a hole in a wall she was trying to crawl through. Silent's face immediately fell into a frown as she crossed her arms disapprovingly.
"Maybe they were protectors once. Now they are more of mercenaries than any guardians." Gandora just kept laughing. Yugi worriedly glanced to Silent to see if another fight was going to break out. But instead, he saw all of the mage's happiness leave her face. She only looked down at her shoes. Gandora then continued, "They were supposed to be non-partial when they replaced the Legendary Knights, but that was thrown away a long time ago. Power was just too enticing. Why else do you think the Legendary Knights went right back to their old job?"
Yugi kept looking to Silent for her side of the story, but she did everything she could to not lock eyes with him. Her shoulders slumped as she looked away, like a child after being scolded.
Yugi bit the edge of his lip as he tried to find something to say. "Well, ignoring them, you seem like a real protector to me. You saved our butts more times than I can count with your levitation magic."
Silent looked up with wide, bright eyes. Her mouth was slightly open in surprise. Then she shook her head, the light disappearing from her eyes.
"She right." That was all she wrote.
"Hey!" Both Yugi and Silent looked up the path at Gandora. She had stopped her hurried climb and was looking back at the two.
"Don't go misinterpreting my words. I said the other Silents were bad apples, but all Gandora know the Silent Magician of the Domain of the Beasts is not one of them. You were exiled long before the others went bad." Gandora said. Both Silent and Yugi stopped in their tracks. Yugi was shocked that Gandora would defend Silent like this after nearly an hour of not even acknowledging each other. Silent looked just as awed.
"Wait, wait, exiled?! Am I allowed to know the full story here?" Yugi just about whispered. It felt like if he talked any louder, he would be ruining something.
"Yes, what is the full story?" Gandora said, her intense gaze on Silent. Silent for the first time, shrunk from the dragon's look.
"I not Silent in their eyes. Happy to not be. Exiled self here-" Silent wrote. She tried to do more, but her magic sputtered out.
Yugi once again found himself flabbergasted at his friends' lives. He couldn't hide his horrified face as he read her last words. He then tried looking around for something she could write or carve on. The only things around were the perfect mountain rocks and the less perfect metal scraps of what used to be puzzles before Gandora's breath blew through.
"When you can communicate again, and we fix this land, I am sitting both you two down. We are figuring out your sad backstories!" Yugi said while pointing at the two. The two seemed surprised at the bite in his voice. "Ok? Now let's keep going. The faster we fix everything else, the faster I can really talk to you guys." Yugi said as he started heading up again. "I want to help. So don't go running off."
The two girls remained quietly stunned, then Yugi glanced behind him to see the girls look at each other, shrug, and follow him. As the two silently followed, Yugi wished he had the speech skills of Téa or even had her by his side then. What was next? Was Kuriboh going to come out and admit they were abandoned as a child? Yugi could only shake that thought away and focus on keeping up his smile. It was one thing he felt he could do to help in this situation.
…
They were at one of the last puzzles when Gandora seemed to get very excited all of a sudden. Her tail started swishing wildly back and forth. The group was currently in a stone maze that would have been tricky if Gandora's breath hadn't made one path for them.
"Wait, guys," Gandora said as she stopped and started staring at a blank wall.
"What is it-?" Yugi began before Gandora reared back her fist and punched right through the wall. With how powerful her breath had been earlier, Yugi was afraid the punch would be so strong that the whole place would come down on them. Yet, the punch only made a hole big enough for Gandora's fist, which was still a human-sized hole but nothing as amazing as her last attack. Gandora seemed confused by this as she too looked over her fist.
"Needed to get some destruction out?" Yugi asked, now used to her need to wreck things.
"No, well, yes, but that wasn't the only thing I was trying to do!" She said as she punched again and this time ripped a hole barely big enough for her to crawl into. Her orbs no longer had any light in them.
Gandora gestured for the two to step back, and she crawled inside first. A few silent seconds later, her excited voice came from within. "I knew it was here! Come on, come on!" she just about squeaked. Yugi and Silent looked at each other, shrugged, and crawled through the pitch-black hole.
On the other side was a closed-off room. It was only lit by two blue burning torches and was so small Gandora had to crouch down. She was smiling wide with her tail wiggling like crazy. In front of her was a golden box on a pedestal. Yugi noticed that this box was about as big as the one that carried the Millennium Puzzle's pieces. But instead of having hieroglyphic carvings on them, it had monsters of every kind scrawled across it.
"Woah, watch it, Gandora! You're going to swipe us off the mountain at this rate." Yugi giggled as he and Silent jumped over her happy tail. He and the mage stood in front of the box and looked around the room. It had no other doors or windows. It seemed like the only way in was to break the wall.
"Sorry, I simply recognize this place. It is where the wishing well guardian met me before. If you fail a riddle earlier, a trap door opens, and you fall in here." She then gestured to the ceiling where Yugi could make out the thin outlines of a double-door.
"Real?" Silent barely wrote.
"Yep, at the time, I didn't have enough damage to break out, so he freed me," Gandora explained.
"What was the well guardian like?" Yugi asked.
"He was kind but… intense and occasionally creepy. I've seen him help some of the mountain residences the month I lived up here, but he never talked to me. He would only stare at me from a distance. When he did talk to me, he kept making his voice unnaturally deeper, sticking out his chin, and talking like he was superior to me. I believe he was trying to scare me off my path." Gandora then shook her head (hard to do in this cramped space). "But that doesn't matter now. Look at this Yugi!" Her voice got unusually high as she pointed at a stain on the wall behind the box. She then grabbed Yugi and pushed him forward. She, bursting with excitement, looked from Yugi to the wall.
Yugi could only raise an eyebrow. At this point, he was used to Gandora's quick emotional changes. Still, the usually stoic dragon getting excited like this was new. He looked to her for some explanation.
"Well? I thought this one would be best. So I waited until we got here." She said, excitement still in her voice.
"What?" Yugi asked.
"A riddle! I remembered this one even stumped the well guardian, and since I couldn't blow my way out, he let me skip it and all other puzzles ahead." She smiled, clearly proud that she had brought Yugi to this.
"Oh!" Yugi then turned to the wall and looked closer to see what he thought was filth was actually brown words.
"Well, you said you liked riddles, so here we are!" Gandora said as she put her hands together and tried stretching out her wings in pride. Of course, it was too cramped of a space for her to truly unfold.
"Thank you for remembering." Yugi grinned. Silent then tapped on the two and pointed out the hole they just came in.
"Oh, we can wait on the wishing well a little while. If you need a reason for being here, then we are resting." Gandora said. Silent tapped her foot on the ground and crossed her arms. "You can wait for a few seconds. I had my eyes on this place the entire walk up once Yugi said he wanted to do a riddle." Gandora smiled a sly smile. She then pointed at Yugi with her thumb. At that time, Yugi studied the hard-to-read words and only turned away when he felt the spirits' eyes on his back. He tried to hide it, but he was really excited about a mystic riddle in this barely lit room.
Silent sighed a defeated sigh and then walked over. She took the sleeping Kuriboh from Yugi's arms and looked at the riddle too. She looked over the dirty script, and after the two worked at picking out the words from the ash, this was what was written,
Two humans duel, and one immediately loses as soon as the battle starts. None attack and nothing was in the graveyard.
"Hmm." Yugi sat down as he thought it over. Silent followed, and the two soon went quiet.
"Human's dueling..." Yugi murmured to himself. As the two sat quietly for a minute, Gandora lost her excitement and started becoming more irritated.
"What's the point of a riddle if it takes this long?" Gandora eventually groaned.
"Patience," Yugi said as he smiled at Gandora and patted her snout. "I'm very thankful that you thought of me enough to bring me here, but now you're stuck. I'm not leaving until I solve this. The point of a riddle is to work through it, slow as that might be. Hmm, two humans duel…."
Silent then snapped her fingers and traced her finger over the riddle and wrote: "They talked it out and decided not to fight." Though she had nothing on her finger, the words became white on the stone. Once it was all written out, the words remained for a moment, then glowed red and disappeared.
"I don't think that was it. This was a full blow duel won even before the first punch." Yugi said. Silent then wrote "Surrender," but that was also not the answer.
"Why are you still trying? You got it wrong." Gandora asked.
"Again, that's the fun of a riddle. I'm not a fan of riddles that punish you for wrong answers. The whole point is to use your failures to find the answer. That is always what my grandpa said… Wait! Grandpa!" Yugi then jumped up and wrote, "One had all five pieces of Exodia first hand." The words were white, then glowed a bright green and disappeared. Then the golden box snapped opened.
"What?" Gandora asked.
"Exodia immediately wins a duel if you have all his pieces. My Grandpa used to have them." Yugi said proudly. He looked down in the box and saw a gold key with Exodia carved on it. He picked it up and looked around. He then glanced at the box again and realized one of the monsters on it looked like a keyhole. He put the key's prongs to the carving, and almost like they were magnetized, they clicked together. A wall then fell open beside them, making Gandora jump and hit her head on the ceiling. Yugi would have apologized for that if Gandora didn't give him a cheesy grin and a thumbs-up.
"You did it!" Gandora cheered as she stood up outside. They were now closer to the peak than if they had followed the path Gandora's breath made.
"Wow, again, thank you, Gandora. Thanks to this pit stop, we are now farther along." Yugi said as he patted an orb on her leg. If dragons could blush, Yugi thought she would have done so.
"I did something right…." She whispered more to herself. That didn't stop Yugi from hearing it. He was distracted by Silent running up to his side and pointing at the disappearing name Exodia back in the room.
"Exodia? Yes, those were my Grandpa's cards. Sadly, we don't have them anymore." Yugi sighed. This got Gandora's attention as both freaked out over Yugi's family once owning such a card.
"Exodia is one of the strongest duel spirits! It literally had to be traped between the dimensions to stop its uncontrollable anger!" Gandora gasped.
The group continued up the last leg of the mountain as they grilled him over his family's card ownership. Yugi could only rub the back of his head in embarrassment.
"My Grandpa had a lot of rare cards that he gave to me. Another rare card he had was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon."
Gandora and Silent Magician stopped in their tracks and slowly turned back to Yugi.
"A Blue-Eyes? Does your grandpa have some rare magic attractor?!" Gandora laughed as she put a hand on her hip. Silent then pulled Yugi's sleeve. Her face told Yugi she wanted to know more.
"More about the Blue-Eyes? Err… The thing is, I really didn't know her that well."
"The Blue-Eyes was a she?!" Gandora added, still laughing at Yugi's rare connections he treated as normal.
"She was, or I'm pretty sure she was a girl. She was initially Arthur Hawkins's card until he gave it to my Grandpa. I used to see her spirit growing up. She never talked or even interacted with me, but she was always a comforting presence. I tried to tell my family about her, but I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut about invisible dragons.
"My Grandpa eventually gave the card to me. She was pivotal to saving the Pharaoh in one of his first battles with Kaiba, back when Kaiba was… not so good. Then the card was ripped in half by Kaiba when my Grandpa lost to him later." Yugi saw as an extreme shiver went up both duel spirits' spines when they heard about the ripping. Even Gandora couldn't hide her horror.
"Well… I hope that dragon got back to our world before she ripped. The Blue-Eyes species is small enough as it is." Gandora said while crossing her arms. Silent Magician looked up to Yugi with wide worried eyes.
"I don't know if she got back in time. I didn't see her spirit around when the card ripped if that means anything. Why is the Blue-Eyes in such small numbers?" Yugi asked as he turned back to Gandora.
"There used to be tons of them. They were one of the few monsters the Legendary Knights fully trusted. Blue-Eyes could go through any border and often did to be the eyes and claws the Knights needed. Then the war with Dartz and the Great Leviathan happened." Gandora said. "All the eyed dragons were on the front lines since they were the strongest. Only one Red-Eyes and four Blue-Eyes came back. We thought that the Blue-Eyes species would continue and replace the Knights since two males and two females remained. However, as fate would have it, the four couldn't stand each other. They all went their separate ways, and us monsters had to find new guards." Gandora explained as she quickly glanced over to Silent. Silent didn't meet anyone's eyes again.
"But I see at least three Blue-Eyes together all the time. Kaiba has three cards, and those spirits never leave his side." Yugi asked. He had seen many times how protective those spirits were to their card partner. Even putting aside their seeming hatred of the Pharaoh to save Seto during the duel with Noah.
"I don't know all the details; this is all dragon rumors, but if I have heard right… Blue-Eyes need to pledge themselves to the strong, specifically humans. It's in their instincts. One female Blue-Eyes-probably not your Grandpa's dragon-found a spirit partner over five thousand years ago. After that, she never came back to the Duel Monsters world. I don't know who she found, but it must have been good because the two males followed her a few years ago. I think they tried to bring the other female with them, but she said no. Apparently, the two males were very offended by this rejection." Gandora then grinned down at Yugi like there was a shared secret between them.
"What?" Yugi asked.
"You haven't guessed? Ooooh, then I have a riddle for you!" Gandora happily said, a new skip in her step, which is quite a feat for a two-story-high dragon. "Who said no because she pledged herself to the Pharoah's family, is colored nothing, and has skies in her face?" As the three walked, Yugi looked up with raised eyebrows as Gandora giddily looked down at him. He couldn't help but grin back at her riddle-making skills. It wasn't the best riddle, but the fact she was attempting to do something she found annoying for him made it one of his favorites.
"My Grandpa's Blue-Eyes?" Yugi smiled. Gandora clapped and continued grinning. Something neither Yugi nor Silent had seen a Gandora do for so long.
"I riddled!" Gandora cheered.
"Yes, you did!" Yugi also cheered.
Silent rolled her eyes, but not in the mean way Yugi had seen earlier. He saw this eye roll from his friends when Joey and Tristan were bickering, or Seto was being edgy. This was so different from earlier. He may have called them this the entire adventure, but he felt like friends truly surrounded him for the first time. If only his family and friends could be here for this. If only the Pharaoh could be here for this.
'If only the Pharaoh could stay.'
Yugi's smile fell, but he replaced it quickly. He then shook that thought away as speedily as he could. He kept up his grin for the others, but now it was fake. He hated how one stray thought could take all his happiness in an instant. It had been like this all the last year. It had even been something bothering Yugi the entire time up the mountain. Yugi had felt a timer on every happy experience. The Pharoah was leaving. While the Pharaoh promised to stay by his side, Yugi knew that was a temporary promise. He didn't know how, but he knew the Pharaoh was going to leave soon. What would happen to all the magic in Yugi's life if the Pharaoh left, including these duel monsters? What would happen to Yugi?
"There's the well!" Gandora voice crashed into his thoughts. Sure enough, over the next rise was the mountain's peak and an admittedly average looking well. Gandora then frantically grabbed everyone and flew to the best of her abilities. She was still too hurt to fly fully, but gliding on mountain winds was just as fast.
In front of them was a small flattened area, the tallest on the mountain. They could see everything this unnervingly perfect land had to offer, even a new black scar growing across the valley below, most likely the other Gandora. Only the ledge behind them was out of their sight.
In front of them was a well about as tall as Joey. Its white stone was just like Yugi had seen in fairy-tale books. It had a simple wooden roof over the wheel the connected to the bucket that could be dipped below for water. The water was too low down to see, but Yugi could hear drips echoing around its base. Yugi wondered if anyone had actually drunk from this well because he sure wasn't going to. In fact, he wasn't even going to talk, just in case it could be interpreted as a wish.
Oppositely Gandora was now chattering on. She gestured around and pointed to where the well guardian once slept and where the other Gandora were teleported in.
"Gandora!" Yugi, half-whispered half yelled. "Don't we have to be careful what we say so… you know?" Yugi gestured to the well.
"Huh? Oh, don't worry about a thing. I already used my lifetime wish." Gandora happily explained. The excitement was seen coursing through her entire body. Yugi then looked to Silent, who seemed just as excited, if not a little nervous. Kuriboh was still asleep in Silent's arms. Yugi wondered if they should wake the puffball but decided to let them sleep. Kuriboh deserved rest after saving them these last two days.
"So, what do we have to do?" Yugi asked.
"Your wish has to be in one sentence, grammatically correct in whatever language you speak in. If you can, don't use names; the well doesn't distinguish creatures by names very well. It does distinguish species, though, but it has to be in whole groups. So, you could say human and mean all humans, or in our case, Gandora." Gandora explained. Yugi felt like he needed a pen and paper to remember all this.
"Is that it?" Yugi asked.
"There's probably more. When the well guardian was explaining this to me, I really didn't listen past those rules." Gandora shrugged. Yugi then looked around the mountain top. He could see everything, yet…
"Where is the well guardian?" Yugi asked.
Gandora bristled for a moment, then sighed. "He didn't like how his wish got rid of the Knights. He then tried to stop my wish by jumping into the well when it lit up." She said in a sad tone. "He's probably with the Knights."
"Did you at least get your wish?" Yugi asked. He had been interested to know what her wish was the entire way up here, especially since she admitted wanting her chick back. He didn't say anything until now, not wanting to push Gandora and hoping she would bring it up of her own volition.
"I suppose I did, just not in the way I thought." Gandora then smiled wide, showing all her razor-sharp teeth. Yugi took a tentative step back. Why did he feel like she was referring to him?
Silent then pushed past the two and looked over the well in awe. She gestured the others over, and they looked down into the well's darkness. Down at the bottom, where the water dripped, a small radiance began to grow. It was white in color, and then as the light grew, it became blue, then it flicked to magenta. It suddenly stopped growing at basketball-sized and repeatedly switched between blue and magenta.
"It is ready for your wishes," Gandora said. Yugi and Silent looked at each other and nodded.
"First thing first, get the Knights, then move the Gandora," Yugi whispered. Not because he was worried it would hear. Out of respect for the area suddenly seemed to have.
Silent's face took on a determined look and turned to the glow. She began to write something in the air when Gandora suddenly roared.
Yugi and Silent jumped and turned to see Gandora fall backward, or more accurately, was pulled back by red and black ropes attached to her wings. When she fell to the ground, the ropes suddenly multiplied, and a pitch-black webbing seemed to creep across her body and cover her. She fought and roared, but this seemingly thin rope held her down.
"Gandora!" Yugi screamed. He tried to run to her side but then saw a magical silver slash flying towards Silent Magician. He moved before he could think. It hit Yugi squarely in the chest and knocked the air out of him. He flew back and crashed into the wishing well's stone base with a crack.
While the impact hurt, the magical slash was agonizing. It felt like a shadow magic attack, but this one lingered. It burned.
Like any attack in the Duel Monsters world, it didn't affect his clothes, but the slash across his chest and side began to bleed like a sword had swung through him. Yugi looked up, his vision blurred as Silent Magician ran to his side, worry and fear evident in her eyes. Then another attack from this unknown assailant came flying towards them. Yugi barely had enough energy to warn Silent. It was useless as the little mage did not have the magic to stop it as she was thrown aside; Kuriboh was thrown out of her hands simultaneously. Yugi reached out for her but found it made the already burning wound scream. He clutched at his chest and looked up to see a group of little humanoids, all wearing blue and white.
"No, no!" Gandora cried from under her web prison. Her voice held none of her usual strength and instead sounded terrified.
In front of this mob of little humans was a green-skinned swordsman. Yugi recognized him from the card packet he opened with the Pharaoh. This one was much shorter and younger than his card.
"Silent Swordsman?" Yugi barely said. This got the little boy's attention. He at first seemed annoyed with Yugi, but then his eyes widened when he saw the Millennium Puzzle around Yugi's neck.
As this was happening, a group of four similar beings was walking to Gandora's side, each holding a single black rope that led to the web prison. The closer they got, the more Gandora fought, her own crimson eyes wide with fear. Then the four suddenly glowed blue and were thrown from their feet. Yugi turned to see Silent, with a similar wound to his, standing and holding her hand out. Her eyes were blazing with blue magic in a way Yugi had never seen before. Her mouth turned down in a frown with a literal azure fire burning in her eyes.
Yugi felt strength return to him seeing Silent Magician standing against these assailants. Yugi slowly worked himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the well. He then used his other hand to grab the hilt of his swords still slung over his back. Silent monsters immediately went into an attack formation. They were more trained than either Yugi or Silent Magician, but those two were not backing down.
Then Silent Swordsman raised his hand. The group stopped and stood to attention. Silent Swordsman then quietly walked up to the two by the well, keeping his hands in the air and far from his oversized sword. Then, once he knew he had the two's attention, he slowly moved one hand to his sword hilt. Yugi jumped to stop him, but Silent Magician made him pause. She watched as the swordsman's blade began to glow in silver light, then slashing words appeared in the air.
"I believe we have a misunderstanding here. Silent Magician, my old friend, and the great Pharaoh, we meant no harm. We could not see over the edge and believed you to be Gandora too."
After Yugi read those words, he didn't believe him for a second. There is no way they could have mistaken their tiny silhouettes for giant dragons. Silent Magician seemed less skeptical; in fact, she looked shocked. More letters then appeared.
"We are simply here to collect the Warrior army's property."