The Magicians' Realm Chapter 90: Genetics, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Important milestone, ladies and gents: welcome to chapter 90! And wow, it's been a while—so long in fact that I have no documents in my doc manager here on FF. ^^; I'm sorry, but motivation has been on other stories and when it was with this one it was with Book III. So I have less work to do later, but for now….Let's talk Chaos, and cover some of the background notes I wrote down for this story in dialogue form.

Teana is quoting the Bible here, specifically Exodus 20:13. And most of that conversation and the stances taken stems from me being Christian and therefore viewing evolution as nothing but bunk (please don't get me started, you'd get a whole thesis on the matter).

Also sort of took notes from Marvel with how they switched the superhero source from radiation to genetics in the early 2000s and their Ultimates universe….And referenced Robert Heinlein. Hopefully it all comes together.

Movies this week are George of the Jungle and Phantom of the Opera:

George of the Jungle—heard good things about this, and happened to catch it and tape it on the TV. It was edited for television, but fairly decent—I'm looking for an excuse to recycle the 'aw-inspiring' and 'shake-a-leg' bits. And why don't we see Brendan Fraser around anymore?...

Phantom of the Opera—got a bug in my ear about this one, and like George of the Jungle, caught it and taped it on the TV (both of them were on at roughly one in the morning, so taping them was a must). I always hear grief about Gerard Butler in this, but I liked his performance, even if my opinion of the film is kind of middling.

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Yes, he does…and yes, no wonder. Yes, well, everyone's expecting Yami to be off his rocker after a thousand years in limbo—no one was expecting that he was like this all the time.

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! No it's not. D: Don't worry, I disappeared to—scheduling is just hectic. And yes, make sure you do well. And that does all sound busy—good luck! That—actually makes more sense than just 'yes I see the fence you have around your yard, but kids off the street will still get into your pool unless you have a fence around it.' Why couldn't the state explain it like that?...

FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Well, hopefully this chapter pleases. Of course! Ah…but I've been waiting quite some time to make that reference, so I'm glad it's out there now. :) No, not Horus! Sort of—they're described as a cross between crows and owls with magic mixed in, but if you look at crows and owls at their basic structures, they actually resemble each other quite well. Well it's good that you wouldn't be surprised, because you're right (again, wow). No, we can't give our favorite beanpole Magician any peace, where's the fun in that? I…might go for that at some point, actually…hope this chapter fits the bill!

References:

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

They spent about fifteen minutes discussing why experimenting on frogs was an improvement over experimenting on rats—as in Doctor Finkelstein regaled them on the subject while Teana and Yami nodded and pretended to be taken with the topic at hand—by which time Doctor Grouse arrived.

Doctor Grouse had some wisps of hair and was not wheelchair-bound, but otherwise reminded Teana very much of Doctor Finkelstein. Introductions were made, more tea was served, and Teana was resigning herself to a minimum of another fifteen minutes of hearing about topics that were of no interest to her in the name of being polite.

"So," Doctor Finkelstein said, once things were squared away. "Teana had an interest in hearing about our genetic theories."

"Oh, how wonderful," Doctor Grouse said, smiling at her—Teana returned the smile and hoped it wasn't tense. "Where shall we start?"

"At the beginning—not the very beginning, the part that relates directly to our theories."

"Yes, we already know what happened at the very beginning," Yami said, sounding teasing.

"Yes. Well, to start, we have to go to before the Age of Chaos, when the Great Cataclysm ended the Age of the Ancients."

"I'm listening," Teana said, when it became obvious they were waiting for her to say something.

"Good. Now, from what we can uncover from the Ancients, we can tell that they had highly advanced technology, were even able to advance it further after the Age of Chaos started, but lacked the moral compunction that governs our actions."

"Okay…."

"I hear skepticism in your voice—my reasoning as to reanimating the dead is to better understand how our human bodies work, not play above my station. But in the Age of Ancients, they discarded their former teachings and set themselves adrift with their own governings, and therefore lost the morals and guidance that would have steered them away from their later actions."

"So this is an Aesop I'm listening to?"

Doctor Finkelstein sighed. "We're getting to the point. What do you do when you take everything that tells you right from wrong and rid yourself of it?"

Teana blinked. "I don't understand the question."

"Maybe I could phrase it differently," Doctor Grouse said, having reinvigorated himself with tea. "Murder is wrong. We know this how?"

"'Thou shalt not kill.'"

"Yes. Now, imagine if you will, that someone decided that those Ten Commandments did not apply to them, that they weren't going to abide by them. As a matter of fact, they apply to no one. Is murder still wrong, without those tenets to tell you so?"

"I…would hope so."

"You would. But if no action is wrong, then anything you do is right—are you getting where I'm going with this?"

"Unfortunately."

"So the Ancients lost their compunctions for avoiding certain events, and decided to play above station," Doctor Finkelstein continued. "And in doing so, they decided to alter humanity as we know it.

"There is a substance, within the very cells of your body, which the Ancients studied—barely even understood a tenth of it, but decided to experiment with how it worked," Doctor Finkelstein said, looking offended. "Go off half-cocked, futz with this strand and that, making animals and plants into twisted versions of themselves—and then deciding to turn their attention upon their own race. To see if they couldn't make themselves better."

"The Ancients believed in a concept called evolution, which purported that we're always changing," Doctor Grouse said, by way of explanation.

"Yes. And lo and behold, they made a royal mess of quite a few people.

"And then they made Chaos.

"We, in our younger years, managed to find some documentation of what happened," Doctor Finkelstein continued. "And the general gist of it was that once they got the one to work, they tried a second one and got something completely different. Well, scientific research dictates that you experiment again and again to see if you get the same outcome, so they did—theoretically, they activated something buried deep within the human genome, something that produced this Chaos; other theories purport that it was external and affected the human genetic makeup. Either way, by this time, their mistake was taking over, and that led to the Age of Chaos."

Teana took a drink of her tea in the lull, trying to get rid of the general ick feeling the story had left her with, realized they were waiting for a comment. "And then what?"

"And then the Age of Chaos ended, with all the Chaos vanishing," Doctor Grouse said. "General theory is that it got too cold for the Chaos to survive, and that they're all in hibernation somewhere waiting for the weather to flux back to where they can tolerate it again."

"And I'm guessing your theory is different."

"We believe that the Chaos regressed back into humanity," Doctor Finkelstein said, with the air of someone imparting a great secret.

"And they think that's what gives Magicians their juice," Yami added, giving Teana a sideways look that said very clearly to her that he was indulging them. "Of course, it's just a theory."

"Yes," Doctor Finkelstein said, looking like it was killing him to admit that. "What would really cinch it would be if we could get someone from before the Age of Chaos affected humanity so—but of course, that's impossible."

"Yes—it even seeped into the ground and the corpses beneath it," Doctor Grouse said.

"Do what?" Teana asked.

"The Chaos substance that they used to experiment with and create the Chaos Creatures with—the Chaos shed the substance—released it with every breath they took—which affected the rest of the world and resulted in a complete alteration of life as they knew it."

"Except, of course, those who went to live in space," Doctor Finkelstein added, sipping at his tea.

Teana exchanged glances with Yami, who shrugged, before looking back at them. "I'm sorry, living in space? Like on the moon space?"

"Yes indeed—put people on the moon and Mars. Might still have them up there—many generations removed, of course. And again, nothing we can offer any concrete evidence on, seeing as how we currently lack a telescope powerful enough to see that far."

"And their documentation suggests that they wouldn't have surface compounds anyway," Doctor Grouse said.

Teana looked blankly at Yami.

"You'd like that book," Yami said, taking another sip of tea. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Apparently lunar people are why we have craters."

Okay, she had had enough. "Oh dear me, look at the time," she said, checking her wrist. "I wanted to get to the florist's before they closed—and you said something about taking me to dinner."

"I did?" Yami asked.

"You did."

"Far be it from us to keep a lady waiting," Doctor Grouse said, standing as Teana stood. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Teana."

"Likewise," Teana said, shaking his hand and smiling blandly and telling herself she could drop it all as soon as she escaped. Not that they weren't nice old men, but….

There were some things she was just more comfortable not thinking about.

*/*\*

"Did he say anything about meeting up anywhere?"

"That probably would have been a smart thing to do," Yuki admitted.

Anzu rubbed her face, apparently at her wit's end with Magicians in general and Yami in particular.

"We could go to our house," Yuki suggested. "Eat lunch, maybe."

"Lunch would be great, but then I'd have to get back to work," Anzu said, running her fingers through her hair.

"What do you mean, work? This is important!"

"I know that, but right now there isn't a single adult who knows what's going on. By the way, that's bad. I don't know what a bunch of—well, kids are going to do about the most dangerous Magician in a millennium coming back from the dead!"

"Technically, he didn't come back from the dead," Yuki pointed out. "he's still dead, he's just not in limbo anymore."

"Gee, I stand corrected then."

Any response Yuki was going to make was cut off by a muted thump from nearby. They looked to see a crumpled black umbrella on the pavement nearby, frantic flapping in the air somewhere.

That meant bird—Yuki looked up to see Horus flying away as fast as he could—

No, wait…that was too big for Horus.

Yuki looked down at the crumpled umbrella again, crossed over to it with a growing weight in his stomach.

"Horus!" he yelped, when what he suspected revealed itself to be true—the bird was on the ground, wings folded up and beak open like he was gasping. Drop to his knees, gently touch the ribs…yes, still breathing. Yuki heaved a sigh of relief. Not that he was certain that a bird made of magic could die, but….

"Should you be moving him?" Anzu asked, as Yuki gingerly picked him up and cradled him against his chest.

"I don't know," Yuki admitted, standing up. "But he's made of magic—Yami can fix him, as soon as we find him."

"And we're back to that problem again," Anzu sighed, looking around.

Horus made a sort of wheezing noise, prompting them both to look at him. "Horus, are you all right?" Yuki asked—he had to ask.

"Bird," Horus wheezed. "That other bird…."

"That big one?"

Horus nodded, worked his beak before speaking again. "That was…that was the guy you all are looking for.

"That was Yami Skellington."