(Ivy's P.O.V.)
I awoke the next morning in a way that fell short of pleasant.
"Wake UP! WAKE up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, WAKE...UP!"
"Holy shit!" Ebon cried out, performing a half-circle flip in his bed before falling to the floor in a heap of blankets.
I gasped, and a painful jolt of shock ran through my chest. Pawing at it, I rolled over as quickly as I could to identify the source of the rude awakening. It somehow didn't surprise me that it was another card person. This one was rather non-descript, just another unfortunate soul dressed in some weird costume, Water Omotics, from the looks of it.
"Sorry guys and girls, but it's time to report to the training rooms!" she piped cheerily, swishing her long blue hair back over one shoulder. I mentally cringed at how little she was wearing.
"Ugh... training room?" Ebon inquired, rubbing his head and untangling himself from the bedspread.
"Yup!" the girl said, walking over to Will and leaning over, her chest seeming to get in the way. "Yoo-hoo, Red-Eyes! Up and at 'em!"
Will, shockingly, hadn't been alerted by her rude entry. He dozed peacefully, twitching his tail every so often. Blaine followed the girl who threatened to wake up his brother.
"...Let him sleep a bit longer, please." He said in his non-obtrusive voice. "He... doesn't get to rest often. Just a few more minutes, I-I'll wake him up..."
The girl looked over at him uncaringly, and said in a dismissive tone, "Nope, sorry. Orders are orders." And with that, she pushed at Will's head, and said, "Come on cutie! Wake up!!!"
And he did. I think being called "cutie" shocked his brain into consciousness.
"What the..." he muttered, shaking out his head. He turned to look up at the girl, who smiled beamingly down at him. I frowned again.
"Good morning Red-Eyes! Or, should I call you... what was it? Oh yes, Will?"
He blinked, no doubt calculating her, and with one hand still on his head, said, "Will's fine. Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm no one special. But you have to get up to go training, okay?"
I decided then that I didn't like this girl at ALL. I felt exceedingly bad for Will anyway, and it upset me to see this girl treating him like some sort of play thing. It was painfully obvious that she was full-on hitting on him; the way she swiveled her hips suggestively, or swished her hair so that it cascaded down her bare shoulders in a taunting manner.
I heard a snort. Ebon had one ebyebrow cocked in the air, and wore witheringly skeptical expression. His arms were crossed as usual, the staff dangling from one hand. His dark grey eyes drifted over to me, and we exchanged a look that said we would look after Will.
"Bye-bye everybody! Doppelganger will be by shortly to lead you all down to the room!" with that, Water Omotics dashed out the door, but not before pecking Will on the cheek. She closed the door half-heartedly, leaving us confused, sleep-deprived, and in Ebon's case, grouchy.
"What a..." Ebon rolled his eyes, apparently lacking in a proper noun for our hostess. He gave Will a pitying look, and, gesturing to his "infected" cheek, said, "Better sanitize that."
Will shook his head out, whether to wake up or recover from shock, I wasn't sure. "Whatever. Let's just... clean up the room or something."
Blaine blinked. "Clean? Will, are you feeling alright?"
Will snapped his head up, offended. "Are you suggesting that I don't help you clean up? I KNOW HOW TO WASH TOWELS!" he crowed in triumph.
Blaine just smiled, and nodded.
***
As it turned out, we didn't have to wait very long for Doppelganger to show up.
"You again?" Ebon exclaimed when the door was flung open again.
It was none other than the "car salesman" from last night, whom had jumped down from the ceiling and insulted us more times than I could count.
"Yup, what did I tell you? You'll be seeing a lot of me around here." He gave me a wink, which I ignored. "So, what say we got going? Madame doesn't enjoy waiting, and she's so very interested in her new cards."
Will growled, and Ebon glared. Blaine did his best frown, which looked like a sad pout, and I just avoided those magenta eyes altogether.
We followed him down the stairs, around a so many corners that I lost track after 31, and across a bridge that seemed to shoot straight down on either side with a drop that looked like the bowels of hell. I wasn't too worried, but still: I hoped these dragon wings were practical, in case the bridge decided to give out.
Ebon, I found, had an extreme fear of heights.
"I am NOT crossing that bridge."
"Hmmm? What's the matter?" I inquired, looking back after I had taken a few steps. Will was bravely forging ahead, followed by Blaine who was so near behind him that he was stepping on his Will's clawed feet with his boots. Doppelganger led us, walking on the knife-thin edge of the side rail with the grace of something feline. Ebon crossed his arms.
"I'll find a different way across."
"Ebon, I... think this is the only route."
"...Maybe not." He tried to sound nonchalant, but I caught the twitch under his left eye.
"Come on, it'll be ok! If anything happens, I'll catch you, ok?"
I could tell that he was about to ask why THAT would help, so I motioned my head to my wings. He looked touched, but doubtful.
"Ivy, do you really think those wings will. support human weight?"
"Why not?"
I looked toward the group; they were about halfway across, and Will turned around and blinked. "Hey, hurry it up!"
"Ok, ok..." Ebon said reluctantly, throwing his arms down in defeat. "I'll go." I smiled reassuringly and walked forward on the bridge. We caught up to Will and Blaine, who waited up. About three-quarters of the way across, I was feeling pretty confident.
And then, the world started to shake up and down.
"Wh-WHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Ebon shouted in a manner very different from his usual calm/collected demeanor.
"Up and... down, and UP! And... down, and UP!" Doppelganger drawled, jumping lazily on the ropes. The entire bridge swayed in a rubber-band effect, and I began to feel nauseas.
"Hey you bastard! Stop that!" Will grumbled, holding on to the side with one claw and swiping at the offender with the other.
"Whoops! Missed." Doppelganger stated, as he stretched out of the way. He laughed and said, "What's the harm of a little fun? You guys are so uptight." With that, he stepped lithely down from the ropes and turned around. "But enough of that. Let's keep on going, shall we? Almost there."
Blaine stepped shakily past Will, who wanted him off first, and onto solid ground gratefully. I followed, and turned around to help Ebon off. However, Ebon was not right behind me like I thought. He was on the ground, with one hand on the rope siding, and the other on the floorboards.
"Oh, Ebon... it's ok." I said, walking backwards and helping him up.
He was breathing heavily, but aside from that, he didn't show his anxiety beyond stiffness in his back and a pale, staring gaze to the floor. He recovered in a few seconds, and went from alabaster to hot crimson in under three seconds.
"WHY that little SON of a BITCH! I'll have his head on a STICK for that!" He roared, storming off the bridge and past a bewildered Will. I had a feeling he didn't know that Ebon's anger could match his own.
"...Whoa."
I couldn't have put it better myself.
***
Well, Doppelganger had been right about one thing; we'd barely made another two turns when,
"We're he-re."
He pushed open a set of large, stone doors (with the air of someone very important) and revealed to us what had to be-
"The biggest damn gym I've EVER seen in my life," muttered Will.
There was everything from your basic weight training machines, to punching bags (all of them well-used), to things I'd never seen before, like a large mote with odd dark forms shifting beneath the surface, and half-hoops of fire. However, the main feature was in the center of the room, four main features to be exact.
"Duel platforms...?" Blaine wondered aloud.
Doppelganger cocked an eyebrow at him. "What were you expecting? Merry-go- rounds?"
Blaine looked disgruntled, but was too busy taking in the sights to care. Enormous lights stretched high to the ceilings, glaring down upon the color- coded rectangles that cards were to lay on. Those "card" slots were obviously for us.
I don't know why, but it didn't sink in until just then, the weight of what these irritating wings and oversized claws meant. I was a Duel Monster. Duel monsters... dueled. Duel monsters could be defeated, and sent to the graveyard, attacked from any angle with daggers, fire blasts, song notes, magic... anything.
We were not safe behind our hands of cards anymore. Now, we were the warriors.
I'd always had strong empathy with my cards. I'd never sent one out as a sacrifice, unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't like cards like the Black Forest Witch, or Shadow Ghoul, who were only "useful" when it or other cards were sacrificed. I liked cards that I could feel a bond with; cards that were special. They were my well-loved troops, and I was their commander. I'd never lost respect for them. They did all the work; I just told them where to go.
Now things were different. Now I was a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Powerful, yes, but wiped out in an instant by say, a Trap Hole. Ebon and Will were in more danger than I, and Blaine most of all.
I gulped.
"Anxious, Ivy?" Doppelganger half sneered, half sincerely inquired. "Don't fret; you'll have your turn soon."
It was only then that it registered in my brain that the one duel field that was active was currently in use.
On Player One's side, an earth monster, Gaia the Fierce Knight, was rearing into an assault upon his violet steed. Player Two only had one card on the field, Doma the Angel of Silence in attack mode. It was over before I had time to properly gawk. Player Two's life points to negative 500. 'Odd,' I thought. 'They don't stop the count-down at zero...'
The victor breathed a shaky sigh of relief, and stepped down from the platform.
I was more interested in what was happening to Doma, however. He had vanished from the field, in the way that holographic card images vanish during one of those expensive, high-class duels that I never got to participate in. However, he re-appeared on the outside of the platform, crumpled on the floor. Gaia looked away.
"Bravo."
I turned around without really needing to; I recognized the voice as the girl with the lavender eyes, who had dragged us here in the first place. She was clapping mildly, once every three or four seconds, and strolling over to the winner. He was silent, examining the floor.
"You've done well, Gaia. Why so blue?" She gave him a penetrating look, and pushed his armor-clad shoulder in the direction of the exit. "Go on now. Off to your quarters."
Hey muttered something, and took a hold of his horse's reigns. With a sharp tug, he led it out behind him, without so much as a second glance back.
Before addressing us, the girl walked over to Doma, who was moving slightly, to my shock. I had honestly thought he was...
"Get up, you pathetic excuse for a Duel Monster. Kuriboh is more honorable than you are." She kicked him slightly in the ribs, causing him to groan. When he refused to get up, she sighed a long-suffering sigh, and put a hand to her forehead. "Call the medical team..."
"Right away, ma'am." Doppelganger replied, walking to the exit.
Will decided to speak up then.
"What kind of place are you running?! How could you make those people fight like that?!"
"People?" The girl said, and nothing more.
Will was silent for a moment. "Yes, PEOPLE. If you think that we're going to do that, you are SADLY mistaken."
She blinked placidly. "No one can FORCE you to do anything, now can they? It's ultimately up to you what choices you make in your life. I can't manhandle you onto the field and take your hand to make you swipe at your enemy, can I? Red-Eyes, I didn't MAKE those two monsters fight. It was their choice, as it will be yours."
Ebon came to his defense. "Well, in that case, I suppose it's ultimately our choice whether we want to destroy this entire place right now and go home, huh?"
"I suppose so."
"Fine." Ebon lifted his staff decisively to the largest window, and said with conviction, "Dark Magic Attack!"
Her staff did what I can only describe as humming, before shooting out a blast of black energy swirled with light blue light. The force of it knocked Ebon a good six feet backwards, and we all watched as it lanced towards the window, and hit.
I closed my eyes, deciding that broken glass would hurt most if it landed there, and waited, wings spread.
Nothing happened.
Carefully I opened one eye, and peered cautiously at the window.
It was completely intact, not one single scratch. I frowned.
"What kind of place... is this...?"
The girl smiled, no doubt amused. "I probably should have mentioned that your attacks won't work to level these walls. Think of yourselves as holograms, or just as cards," she said. "Effective against one another, in your own world. Useless against me in mine."
I bit my lip hard, until I tasted blood. It was all I could do to keep from screaming in frustration. We were more trapped here than I thought.
"...But wait..." Blaine softly said, speaking up for the first time in a while. "...If we're useless in the physical world... then how come we can still open doors and pick things up? What about non-spell casters, who have superhuman strength or weapons...?"
I blinked at Blaine, surprised. I'd forgotten how insightful he could be.
The girl seemed unpleasantly surprised as well. "Smart, aren't you? Well, you think about that for a while. In the meantime..." She swept a pale arm towards the abandoned Duel platform. "Duel."
Will snorted. "Right. Sure, we'll go do that now." He crossed his arms and lowered his chin, setting his features to automatic 'glare' mode.
Ebon laughed, and crossed her arms as well, although more cockily than indignantly.
I put my hand on Blaine's shoulder. He seemed to shrink beneath my touch, uncomfortable from human contact.
The girl stared for barely a moment. Then, she walked over to Blaine and I.
Turning to Ebon and Will, she said, "I'll give you five very good reason's for obeying me, Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon." She put one of her cold, stiff fingers to my throat, and I broke out instantly in goosebumps. Her flesh felt dead.
"One." She continued, gesturing to herself. "I'm quite interested to see how my new additions can battle. Two. You can learn first hand how things work around here."
The color drained from Ebon's face. "And reasons... three and four would be..."
"You're friends' lives." She drew an ivory dagger out of seemingly thin air, and pressed it to my throat. I immediately let go of Blaine, whom I'd been clutching subconsciously, so that he may escape, but she saw this, and hooked an arm around his waist. He struggled and pushed at it, but for all the good it seemed to be doing, he could have been shoving at an iron bar. She pulled back her fingers, and touched the nails to his armor, gashing a hole in it with no effort. It was only then that I took time to notice her hands. They were nothing short of abnormal. Instead of regular, wimpy human fingernails, she had sharpened lead looking cones, which gradually gradated back into flesh as her fingers reached her palms.
"Ivy! Blaine!" Ebon exclaimed. "Why you fu-"
"Do you want your loved ones to suffer? Get on the platform. I don't have all day." All the while her voice remained unchanged.
Will, who had been in shock beforehand, snapped out of it.
"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF THEM!!!" He all but bellowed, making to leap at our captor's throat.
A flick of her wrist, and suddenly, a thin line of pain shot across my neck. I gasped slightly, and put my fingers up to it. Warm liquid was just pooling, nowhere near enough to drip down my neck. It still hurt, a little.
"IVY!" shouted Ebon.
"Do it now. You don't want them to die, and neither do I. They are quite necessary." I couldn't see her expression, but I had a feeling that the girl was staring mildly off at a wall or something, from the bored way she spoke. As if she had a hundred and ten much more pressing matters to deal with.
"It's alright Ebon, we'll be alright!" I tried to say in my most reassuring voice. It came out instead, slightly strained, and in a tone that said 'I'm not gonna make it, go on without me!'
Ebon's shoulders went from overly tensed to slack. A sinking sensation curdled in my stomach.
"I'll do whatever you want me to."
"No, Ebon! Will," I looked at him pleadingly. HE wouldn't give in, would he?
"Don't hurt them..." He murmured, stepping backward and lifting up his hands in defeat. "I'll do it to."
"No, no Will..." Blaine murmured, his voice muffled from being squeezed too tightly. "Don't fight, Will! You might get hurt, we don't know how things work here..."
Will looked over at his brother with the eyes of someone trying to stay aloft in raging waters. Lost in dull panic, confused, and afraid, deep down. "I can't let her hurt you."
I tugged and pulled, flapped my wings and squirmed. The knife dug deeper into my cut, forcing a bit more blood out, but only enough to make one solitary stream. I could see it now, red staining out onto the white plate of dragon's armor across my chest.
"Stop, Ivy. It's alright, we'll be fine." Ebon said, giving me a thumbs up that was much less convincing than he would have liked. We were just a bundle of false bravado, weren't we?
Blaine lowered his head and moaned. "Please let us go..."
The girl ignored him completely, and led us with two sharp tugs over to the platform. "Well?" she inquired Will and Ebon.
Clutching his staff in his right hand, Ebon moved up onto the field quickly, as if he was trying to do so before he lost his nerve. Will jumped on after him, wings flaring out for a brief second before lowering again. They automatically went to stand on the same side of the field, side-by- side. There was no space for them to stand to be in a deck or a hand of cards.
The girl showed no objections to their immediate battle entering, but had a problem with one other thing.
"Stand on opposite sides. You're not going to be fighting anyone else today."
"What?!" Ebon snapped, eyes narrowing.
"You heard me. Red-Eyes on one side. Dark Magician on the other. It will be a versus match. You are almost evenly leveled."
Will refused to budge at first. Ebon crossed his arms, and looked about ready to change his mind on the whole dueling thing. However, one look at us persuaded both of them to oblige.
I felt worse than horrible. Ebon had always protected me, even when we were just shy of three years old. He'd been my best friend during my parent's divorce, the rock I could stand on, and tried to fill the hole that appeared im my life when my older brother disappeared. I'd vowed to myself that I would take better care of my life, so he wouldn't have to worry about me so much.
And here I was, my safety forcing him to fight, and perhaps fall, against Will.
And Will... he was already the most paranoid person I knew. He loved his brothers with all his heart and soul, caring for them like a father. They lived with their grandparents, and both Kennie and Blaine were either too young, or too mild-mannered to defend against 'the sins of the world' as Will put it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to hold back the tears. We hadn't even seen Kennie yet, I was so afraid for him. He was so young, so curious and unsuspecting of the conspiracy that seeped from the very floorboards and rafters of this castle. He could be anywhere, with anyone like Doppelganger, or that girl, or the one who now held a stained knife to my throat.
I found myself hoping dearly that he wasn't here with us, that maybe he had gotten lost in the woods back home, and was lost. Cold, hungry maybe, but safe. Safer than he would be here.
"Let me explain the rules."
"We KNOW the goddamned rules to Duel Monsters!" Will snapped.
The girl seethed in irritation briefly, before returning to indifference. "I know that. Why else would I have summoned you here? It's too much trouble to teach new cards how to play the game. I look for experienced players. But that's off-topic. I'm talking about MY rules."
Blaine lifted his head slightly for better listening, and I smiled just a little. Blaine was much smarter than people gave him credit for; I knew that if anyone could think up a flaw to this girl's system, it was he.
"You have a winner, and a loser in Duel Monsters. Regardless. I allow no 'draws'," she continued, shifting slightly, and giving me a fraction of an inch in which to breathe. "By however many life-points you loose by in the end, days are subtracted from your stay here."
"What? Days subtracted from our stay?" I asked, bewildered.
"Yes. You start out with the number of days equal to that of your average beginning life-points in a game of Duel Monsters. 8000."
Silence took us for a moment as we registered this.
"That's... almost 22 years..." muttered Ebon, sitting down hard.
"Get up." She snapped. Then, continuing, she said, "there are two ways to get out of here. One is to wait until your sentence is through. The other," I could tell that she smiled. "... is to win many a duel. Say you defeat your opponent by 500 life points, like our dear friend Gaia did earlier today. That would add 500 days to Doma's sentence, and subtract 500 from Gaia's."
"... So it doesn't matter how many life points you have at the end of a duel, so long as you win?" Ebon asked gruffly.
"Precisely."
"That'll take FOREVER!" Exclaimed Will, getting up. "How many of these stupid games do we get to play each day?"
"One game that counts per month. In here, your ultimate life points aren't affected. However," she said. "When I enter you in a tournament, that is when it truly counts."
"But what if more than one monster is on the field during a win?" I inquired.
"Then the points are subtracted from the two monsters that won and lost the duel."
"And what is the duel is won due to a magic card?"
"Well, I suppose that's just too bad." She shrugged.
"But what about that Doppelganger guy? He's a magic or trap card! He'll never get out?" I said, not really sure why this bothered me at all.
"He chose to come here. Magic and trap card roles are only given to those who wish to stay." The girl seemed to be nearly dazed with boredom. "Let's get on with the duel, you've all been taught the rules. Life points: set. Duel lights: on."
The holographic lights blared on, and in the air, the bland numbers 8-0-0- 0, appeared, slowly.
Ebon seemed to go stiff for a moment, as if unsure whether to go through with it or not. Will just blinked slowly and tried not to implode, from the way he was shaking. They locked eyes with one another, and exchanged the noble, yet horribly sad look of comrades-in-arms.
"Let the games begin."
***
{A/N: ... And chapter 6. Tell me what you think!
Oh, and I removed those passages because of... suggestiveness. I'm confused, I don't know whether to leave my story generally as-is, or tamper with it some more. (sigh) R/R would SUPER help. I am loooooost!!!!}
I awoke the next morning in a way that fell short of pleasant.
"Wake UP! WAKE up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, WAKE...UP!"
"Holy shit!" Ebon cried out, performing a half-circle flip in his bed before falling to the floor in a heap of blankets.
I gasped, and a painful jolt of shock ran through my chest. Pawing at it, I rolled over as quickly as I could to identify the source of the rude awakening. It somehow didn't surprise me that it was another card person. This one was rather non-descript, just another unfortunate soul dressed in some weird costume, Water Omotics, from the looks of it.
"Sorry guys and girls, but it's time to report to the training rooms!" she piped cheerily, swishing her long blue hair back over one shoulder. I mentally cringed at how little she was wearing.
"Ugh... training room?" Ebon inquired, rubbing his head and untangling himself from the bedspread.
"Yup!" the girl said, walking over to Will and leaning over, her chest seeming to get in the way. "Yoo-hoo, Red-Eyes! Up and at 'em!"
Will, shockingly, hadn't been alerted by her rude entry. He dozed peacefully, twitching his tail every so often. Blaine followed the girl who threatened to wake up his brother.
"...Let him sleep a bit longer, please." He said in his non-obtrusive voice. "He... doesn't get to rest often. Just a few more minutes, I-I'll wake him up..."
The girl looked over at him uncaringly, and said in a dismissive tone, "Nope, sorry. Orders are orders." And with that, she pushed at Will's head, and said, "Come on cutie! Wake up!!!"
And he did. I think being called "cutie" shocked his brain into consciousness.
"What the..." he muttered, shaking out his head. He turned to look up at the girl, who smiled beamingly down at him. I frowned again.
"Good morning Red-Eyes! Or, should I call you... what was it? Oh yes, Will?"
He blinked, no doubt calculating her, and with one hand still on his head, said, "Will's fine. Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm no one special. But you have to get up to go training, okay?"
I decided then that I didn't like this girl at ALL. I felt exceedingly bad for Will anyway, and it upset me to see this girl treating him like some sort of play thing. It was painfully obvious that she was full-on hitting on him; the way she swiveled her hips suggestively, or swished her hair so that it cascaded down her bare shoulders in a taunting manner.
I heard a snort. Ebon had one ebyebrow cocked in the air, and wore witheringly skeptical expression. His arms were crossed as usual, the staff dangling from one hand. His dark grey eyes drifted over to me, and we exchanged a look that said we would look after Will.
"Bye-bye everybody! Doppelganger will be by shortly to lead you all down to the room!" with that, Water Omotics dashed out the door, but not before pecking Will on the cheek. She closed the door half-heartedly, leaving us confused, sleep-deprived, and in Ebon's case, grouchy.
"What a..." Ebon rolled his eyes, apparently lacking in a proper noun for our hostess. He gave Will a pitying look, and, gesturing to his "infected" cheek, said, "Better sanitize that."
Will shook his head out, whether to wake up or recover from shock, I wasn't sure. "Whatever. Let's just... clean up the room or something."
Blaine blinked. "Clean? Will, are you feeling alright?"
Will snapped his head up, offended. "Are you suggesting that I don't help you clean up? I KNOW HOW TO WASH TOWELS!" he crowed in triumph.
Blaine just smiled, and nodded.
***
As it turned out, we didn't have to wait very long for Doppelganger to show up.
"You again?" Ebon exclaimed when the door was flung open again.
It was none other than the "car salesman" from last night, whom had jumped down from the ceiling and insulted us more times than I could count.
"Yup, what did I tell you? You'll be seeing a lot of me around here." He gave me a wink, which I ignored. "So, what say we got going? Madame doesn't enjoy waiting, and she's so very interested in her new cards."
Will growled, and Ebon glared. Blaine did his best frown, which looked like a sad pout, and I just avoided those magenta eyes altogether.
We followed him down the stairs, around a so many corners that I lost track after 31, and across a bridge that seemed to shoot straight down on either side with a drop that looked like the bowels of hell. I wasn't too worried, but still: I hoped these dragon wings were practical, in case the bridge decided to give out.
Ebon, I found, had an extreme fear of heights.
"I am NOT crossing that bridge."
"Hmmm? What's the matter?" I inquired, looking back after I had taken a few steps. Will was bravely forging ahead, followed by Blaine who was so near behind him that he was stepping on his Will's clawed feet with his boots. Doppelganger led us, walking on the knife-thin edge of the side rail with the grace of something feline. Ebon crossed his arms.
"I'll find a different way across."
"Ebon, I... think this is the only route."
"...Maybe not." He tried to sound nonchalant, but I caught the twitch under his left eye.
"Come on, it'll be ok! If anything happens, I'll catch you, ok?"
I could tell that he was about to ask why THAT would help, so I motioned my head to my wings. He looked touched, but doubtful.
"Ivy, do you really think those wings will. support human weight?"
"Why not?"
I looked toward the group; they were about halfway across, and Will turned around and blinked. "Hey, hurry it up!"
"Ok, ok..." Ebon said reluctantly, throwing his arms down in defeat. "I'll go." I smiled reassuringly and walked forward on the bridge. We caught up to Will and Blaine, who waited up. About three-quarters of the way across, I was feeling pretty confident.
And then, the world started to shake up and down.
"Wh-WHOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Ebon shouted in a manner very different from his usual calm/collected demeanor.
"Up and... down, and UP! And... down, and UP!" Doppelganger drawled, jumping lazily on the ropes. The entire bridge swayed in a rubber-band effect, and I began to feel nauseas.
"Hey you bastard! Stop that!" Will grumbled, holding on to the side with one claw and swiping at the offender with the other.
"Whoops! Missed." Doppelganger stated, as he stretched out of the way. He laughed and said, "What's the harm of a little fun? You guys are so uptight." With that, he stepped lithely down from the ropes and turned around. "But enough of that. Let's keep on going, shall we? Almost there."
Blaine stepped shakily past Will, who wanted him off first, and onto solid ground gratefully. I followed, and turned around to help Ebon off. However, Ebon was not right behind me like I thought. He was on the ground, with one hand on the rope siding, and the other on the floorboards.
"Oh, Ebon... it's ok." I said, walking backwards and helping him up.
He was breathing heavily, but aside from that, he didn't show his anxiety beyond stiffness in his back and a pale, staring gaze to the floor. He recovered in a few seconds, and went from alabaster to hot crimson in under three seconds.
"WHY that little SON of a BITCH! I'll have his head on a STICK for that!" He roared, storming off the bridge and past a bewildered Will. I had a feeling he didn't know that Ebon's anger could match his own.
"...Whoa."
I couldn't have put it better myself.
***
Well, Doppelganger had been right about one thing; we'd barely made another two turns when,
"We're he-re."
He pushed open a set of large, stone doors (with the air of someone very important) and revealed to us what had to be-
"The biggest damn gym I've EVER seen in my life," muttered Will.
There was everything from your basic weight training machines, to punching bags (all of them well-used), to things I'd never seen before, like a large mote with odd dark forms shifting beneath the surface, and half-hoops of fire. However, the main feature was in the center of the room, four main features to be exact.
"Duel platforms...?" Blaine wondered aloud.
Doppelganger cocked an eyebrow at him. "What were you expecting? Merry-go- rounds?"
Blaine looked disgruntled, but was too busy taking in the sights to care. Enormous lights stretched high to the ceilings, glaring down upon the color- coded rectangles that cards were to lay on. Those "card" slots were obviously for us.
I don't know why, but it didn't sink in until just then, the weight of what these irritating wings and oversized claws meant. I was a Duel Monster. Duel monsters... dueled. Duel monsters could be defeated, and sent to the graveyard, attacked from any angle with daggers, fire blasts, song notes, magic... anything.
We were not safe behind our hands of cards anymore. Now, we were the warriors.
I'd always had strong empathy with my cards. I'd never sent one out as a sacrifice, unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't like cards like the Black Forest Witch, or Shadow Ghoul, who were only "useful" when it or other cards were sacrificed. I liked cards that I could feel a bond with; cards that were special. They were my well-loved troops, and I was their commander. I'd never lost respect for them. They did all the work; I just told them where to go.
Now things were different. Now I was a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Powerful, yes, but wiped out in an instant by say, a Trap Hole. Ebon and Will were in more danger than I, and Blaine most of all.
I gulped.
"Anxious, Ivy?" Doppelganger half sneered, half sincerely inquired. "Don't fret; you'll have your turn soon."
It was only then that it registered in my brain that the one duel field that was active was currently in use.
On Player One's side, an earth monster, Gaia the Fierce Knight, was rearing into an assault upon his violet steed. Player Two only had one card on the field, Doma the Angel of Silence in attack mode. It was over before I had time to properly gawk. Player Two's life points to negative 500. 'Odd,' I thought. 'They don't stop the count-down at zero...'
The victor breathed a shaky sigh of relief, and stepped down from the platform.
I was more interested in what was happening to Doma, however. He had vanished from the field, in the way that holographic card images vanish during one of those expensive, high-class duels that I never got to participate in. However, he re-appeared on the outside of the platform, crumpled on the floor. Gaia looked away.
"Bravo."
I turned around without really needing to; I recognized the voice as the girl with the lavender eyes, who had dragged us here in the first place. She was clapping mildly, once every three or four seconds, and strolling over to the winner. He was silent, examining the floor.
"You've done well, Gaia. Why so blue?" She gave him a penetrating look, and pushed his armor-clad shoulder in the direction of the exit. "Go on now. Off to your quarters."
Hey muttered something, and took a hold of his horse's reigns. With a sharp tug, he led it out behind him, without so much as a second glance back.
Before addressing us, the girl walked over to Doma, who was moving slightly, to my shock. I had honestly thought he was...
"Get up, you pathetic excuse for a Duel Monster. Kuriboh is more honorable than you are." She kicked him slightly in the ribs, causing him to groan. When he refused to get up, she sighed a long-suffering sigh, and put a hand to her forehead. "Call the medical team..."
"Right away, ma'am." Doppelganger replied, walking to the exit.
Will decided to speak up then.
"What kind of place are you running?! How could you make those people fight like that?!"
"People?" The girl said, and nothing more.
Will was silent for a moment. "Yes, PEOPLE. If you think that we're going to do that, you are SADLY mistaken."
She blinked placidly. "No one can FORCE you to do anything, now can they? It's ultimately up to you what choices you make in your life. I can't manhandle you onto the field and take your hand to make you swipe at your enemy, can I? Red-Eyes, I didn't MAKE those two monsters fight. It was their choice, as it will be yours."
Ebon came to his defense. "Well, in that case, I suppose it's ultimately our choice whether we want to destroy this entire place right now and go home, huh?"
"I suppose so."
"Fine." Ebon lifted his staff decisively to the largest window, and said with conviction, "Dark Magic Attack!"
Her staff did what I can only describe as humming, before shooting out a blast of black energy swirled with light blue light. The force of it knocked Ebon a good six feet backwards, and we all watched as it lanced towards the window, and hit.
I closed my eyes, deciding that broken glass would hurt most if it landed there, and waited, wings spread.
Nothing happened.
Carefully I opened one eye, and peered cautiously at the window.
It was completely intact, not one single scratch. I frowned.
"What kind of place... is this...?"
The girl smiled, no doubt amused. "I probably should have mentioned that your attacks won't work to level these walls. Think of yourselves as holograms, or just as cards," she said. "Effective against one another, in your own world. Useless against me in mine."
I bit my lip hard, until I tasted blood. It was all I could do to keep from screaming in frustration. We were more trapped here than I thought.
"...But wait..." Blaine softly said, speaking up for the first time in a while. "...If we're useless in the physical world... then how come we can still open doors and pick things up? What about non-spell casters, who have superhuman strength or weapons...?"
I blinked at Blaine, surprised. I'd forgotten how insightful he could be.
The girl seemed unpleasantly surprised as well. "Smart, aren't you? Well, you think about that for a while. In the meantime..." She swept a pale arm towards the abandoned Duel platform. "Duel."
Will snorted. "Right. Sure, we'll go do that now." He crossed his arms and lowered his chin, setting his features to automatic 'glare' mode.
Ebon laughed, and crossed her arms as well, although more cockily than indignantly.
I put my hand on Blaine's shoulder. He seemed to shrink beneath my touch, uncomfortable from human contact.
The girl stared for barely a moment. Then, she walked over to Blaine and I.
Turning to Ebon and Will, she said, "I'll give you five very good reason's for obeying me, Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon." She put one of her cold, stiff fingers to my throat, and I broke out instantly in goosebumps. Her flesh felt dead.
"One." She continued, gesturing to herself. "I'm quite interested to see how my new additions can battle. Two. You can learn first hand how things work around here."
The color drained from Ebon's face. "And reasons... three and four would be..."
"You're friends' lives." She drew an ivory dagger out of seemingly thin air, and pressed it to my throat. I immediately let go of Blaine, whom I'd been clutching subconsciously, so that he may escape, but she saw this, and hooked an arm around his waist. He struggled and pushed at it, but for all the good it seemed to be doing, he could have been shoving at an iron bar. She pulled back her fingers, and touched the nails to his armor, gashing a hole in it with no effort. It was only then that I took time to notice her hands. They were nothing short of abnormal. Instead of regular, wimpy human fingernails, she had sharpened lead looking cones, which gradually gradated back into flesh as her fingers reached her palms.
"Ivy! Blaine!" Ebon exclaimed. "Why you fu-"
"Do you want your loved ones to suffer? Get on the platform. I don't have all day." All the while her voice remained unchanged.
Will, who had been in shock beforehand, snapped out of it.
"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF THEM!!!" He all but bellowed, making to leap at our captor's throat.
A flick of her wrist, and suddenly, a thin line of pain shot across my neck. I gasped slightly, and put my fingers up to it. Warm liquid was just pooling, nowhere near enough to drip down my neck. It still hurt, a little.
"IVY!" shouted Ebon.
"Do it now. You don't want them to die, and neither do I. They are quite necessary." I couldn't see her expression, but I had a feeling that the girl was staring mildly off at a wall or something, from the bored way she spoke. As if she had a hundred and ten much more pressing matters to deal with.
"It's alright Ebon, we'll be alright!" I tried to say in my most reassuring voice. It came out instead, slightly strained, and in a tone that said 'I'm not gonna make it, go on without me!'
Ebon's shoulders went from overly tensed to slack. A sinking sensation curdled in my stomach.
"I'll do whatever you want me to."
"No, Ebon! Will," I looked at him pleadingly. HE wouldn't give in, would he?
"Don't hurt them..." He murmured, stepping backward and lifting up his hands in defeat. "I'll do it to."
"No, no Will..." Blaine murmured, his voice muffled from being squeezed too tightly. "Don't fight, Will! You might get hurt, we don't know how things work here..."
Will looked over at his brother with the eyes of someone trying to stay aloft in raging waters. Lost in dull panic, confused, and afraid, deep down. "I can't let her hurt you."
I tugged and pulled, flapped my wings and squirmed. The knife dug deeper into my cut, forcing a bit more blood out, but only enough to make one solitary stream. I could see it now, red staining out onto the white plate of dragon's armor across my chest.
"Stop, Ivy. It's alright, we'll be fine." Ebon said, giving me a thumbs up that was much less convincing than he would have liked. We were just a bundle of false bravado, weren't we?
Blaine lowered his head and moaned. "Please let us go..."
The girl ignored him completely, and led us with two sharp tugs over to the platform. "Well?" she inquired Will and Ebon.
Clutching his staff in his right hand, Ebon moved up onto the field quickly, as if he was trying to do so before he lost his nerve. Will jumped on after him, wings flaring out for a brief second before lowering again. They automatically went to stand on the same side of the field, side-by- side. There was no space for them to stand to be in a deck or a hand of cards.
The girl showed no objections to their immediate battle entering, but had a problem with one other thing.
"Stand on opposite sides. You're not going to be fighting anyone else today."
"What?!" Ebon snapped, eyes narrowing.
"You heard me. Red-Eyes on one side. Dark Magician on the other. It will be a versus match. You are almost evenly leveled."
Will refused to budge at first. Ebon crossed his arms, and looked about ready to change his mind on the whole dueling thing. However, one look at us persuaded both of them to oblige.
I felt worse than horrible. Ebon had always protected me, even when we were just shy of three years old. He'd been my best friend during my parent's divorce, the rock I could stand on, and tried to fill the hole that appeared im my life when my older brother disappeared. I'd vowed to myself that I would take better care of my life, so he wouldn't have to worry about me so much.
And here I was, my safety forcing him to fight, and perhaps fall, against Will.
And Will... he was already the most paranoid person I knew. He loved his brothers with all his heart and soul, caring for them like a father. They lived with their grandparents, and both Kennie and Blaine were either too young, or too mild-mannered to defend against 'the sins of the world' as Will put it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to hold back the tears. We hadn't even seen Kennie yet, I was so afraid for him. He was so young, so curious and unsuspecting of the conspiracy that seeped from the very floorboards and rafters of this castle. He could be anywhere, with anyone like Doppelganger, or that girl, or the one who now held a stained knife to my throat.
I found myself hoping dearly that he wasn't here with us, that maybe he had gotten lost in the woods back home, and was lost. Cold, hungry maybe, but safe. Safer than he would be here.
"Let me explain the rules."
"We KNOW the goddamned rules to Duel Monsters!" Will snapped.
The girl seethed in irritation briefly, before returning to indifference. "I know that. Why else would I have summoned you here? It's too much trouble to teach new cards how to play the game. I look for experienced players. But that's off-topic. I'm talking about MY rules."
Blaine lifted his head slightly for better listening, and I smiled just a little. Blaine was much smarter than people gave him credit for; I knew that if anyone could think up a flaw to this girl's system, it was he.
"You have a winner, and a loser in Duel Monsters. Regardless. I allow no 'draws'," she continued, shifting slightly, and giving me a fraction of an inch in which to breathe. "By however many life-points you loose by in the end, days are subtracted from your stay here."
"What? Days subtracted from our stay?" I asked, bewildered.
"Yes. You start out with the number of days equal to that of your average beginning life-points in a game of Duel Monsters. 8000."
Silence took us for a moment as we registered this.
"That's... almost 22 years..." muttered Ebon, sitting down hard.
"Get up." She snapped. Then, continuing, she said, "there are two ways to get out of here. One is to wait until your sentence is through. The other," I could tell that she smiled. "... is to win many a duel. Say you defeat your opponent by 500 life points, like our dear friend Gaia did earlier today. That would add 500 days to Doma's sentence, and subtract 500 from Gaia's."
"... So it doesn't matter how many life points you have at the end of a duel, so long as you win?" Ebon asked gruffly.
"Precisely."
"That'll take FOREVER!" Exclaimed Will, getting up. "How many of these stupid games do we get to play each day?"
"One game that counts per month. In here, your ultimate life points aren't affected. However," she said. "When I enter you in a tournament, that is when it truly counts."
"But what if more than one monster is on the field during a win?" I inquired.
"Then the points are subtracted from the two monsters that won and lost the duel."
"And what is the duel is won due to a magic card?"
"Well, I suppose that's just too bad." She shrugged.
"But what about that Doppelganger guy? He's a magic or trap card! He'll never get out?" I said, not really sure why this bothered me at all.
"He chose to come here. Magic and trap card roles are only given to those who wish to stay." The girl seemed to be nearly dazed with boredom. "Let's get on with the duel, you've all been taught the rules. Life points: set. Duel lights: on."
The holographic lights blared on, and in the air, the bland numbers 8-0-0- 0, appeared, slowly.
Ebon seemed to go stiff for a moment, as if unsure whether to go through with it or not. Will just blinked slowly and tried not to implode, from the way he was shaking. They locked eyes with one another, and exchanged the noble, yet horribly sad look of comrades-in-arms.
"Let the games begin."
***
{A/N: ... And chapter 6. Tell me what you think!
Oh, and I removed those passages because of... suggestiveness. I'm confused, I don't know whether to leave my story generally as-is, or tamper with it some more. (sigh) R/R would SUPER help. I am loooooost!!!!}