Otay! Here's chapter seven! *hands out cookies to hobbit13, Hikage Kitsune, and Kelsey* And we have a winner for the mystery card! *waves little flag around* Kelsey got it, it's Necross Exodia, or Exodia Necross, or whatever you call it… so she gets… um… hey Kelsey, I just realized I don't know your favorite character. ^^; So instead, you get a little sugar statue of all the characters and you can melt them and shape a big one of your favorite if you want. Along with chibi plushies of all the characters.
Disclaimer: All I own is myself and a large pile of sweets… ooh, sweets… *drool*
Egyptian Shadow Destinies – Chapter Seven
The Rebels
"So… I guess we can start by saying that we're what Seth likes to call his little band of rebels," Seiyaryu continued. "Although that would be politically incorrect, since we never were for him in the first place. I mean, come on, we never liked him, so we can't exactly rebel against him…"
"Anyway," Dark Magician Girl said, shooting a glance at Seiyaryu, "it started fifteen years ago. Seth was starting to get restless again, probably because he knew the time was coming when the Realm would be unlocked again. He hid it well, though, at least from you three, so that you wouldn't know what he was up to. We're still not exactly sure, but we think it had to do with the birth of your reincarnations."
"Of course," Malik mumbled. "Yugi, Ryou, and I are all fifteen… and I think Kaiba just turned sixteen."
"Yes… so anyway, it was around that time that Seth started recruiting monsters for his own personal army. Most of them were those used in the Shadow Games whose masters were of such unimportance that they weren't reincarnated into this age. Naturally, they'd start getting restless, cooped up here for so long, so many of them were eager to cause a bit of destruction… and those who had a personal grudge against you, Yami, or those who were out for revenge wanted to come into the real world and cause a bit of havoc. Those were the ones who joined up with Seth, along with those Dark- and Fiend-types who just like causing mass chaos." A Chaos Mage put in.
"And of course, you have those who would support us," a Wingweaver explained. "Those would be mostly Light- and Fairy-types, who would be most opposed to Seth's plan to conquer the world… him being evil and all. Also, the smaller monsters, with attacks under 1000, also help us, because Seth thinks they're too weak to be of any use, so they have to look to us for protection. They're useful when it comes to his Crush Card viruses."
"And what about those monsters that are, say, both Fairy- and Dark-types?" Yugi asked. "If the two conflict, then what happens?"
Gemini Elf shrugged. "It depends on what their dominant type is. You have some like Doma, the Angel of Silence, who are on Seth's side, and then you have a few on our side. Most of them prefer to stay neutral, but they know that they have to make a decision eventually. But weren't we explaining how exactly we got into this situation?"
Seiyaryu blinked. "Yeah, huh… anyway, we'd known for a couple thousand years that Seth was building his little castle to keep us out, and to prepare for this occasion, but we didn't do much about it, other than occasionally blasting away a couple stones. We couldn't do much at the time, because he was destined to come back…"
"What's up with all this destiny stuff?" Malik demanded. "You say it's fate, that it's preordained and all that stuff, so you think that no matter what you do, you can't change that?"
Yami nodded. "It was part of the spell that we used five thousand years ago: to seal away the Shadow Realm, we had to lock him away, and then face him again five thousand years later. If we defeated him that time, then the Realm would never open again."
"So I'm guessing we're destined to beat him?" Malik asked. When the monsters nodded agreement, he continued, "So why don't we just sit back and enjoy ourselves because we know we'll beat him when the time comes?"
Nearly everyone sweatdropped and fell over. "It doesn't work that way," Wingweaver muttered.
"Yeah? It should! So why not?"
Chaos Mage stared at him blankly. "The prophecy only says that you'll defeat him. It mentions nothing about the consequences or what could happen before."
"Meaning what, exactly?" Yugi asked.
"Meaning your friend could die, you all could beat Seth but die in the process, Seth could cause the world to explode, killing everyone, including himself, you could beat Seth but have some greater power rise against you, etc., etc."
"That's not good…" Bakura murmured. The humans and spirits nodded fervent agreement.
"So, if all that's destiny and is already determined, then why should we bother to do anything about it?" Malik asked. "If it's all going to come to the same destructive end anyway…"
"We didn't say that," Seiyaryu said. "There are different paths, different meanings to the word destiny. If someone said it was destined to happen, then that would mean that at least one path would come to that end, but not all of them. If someone was destined to be great, there are many ways: they could become a great artist, a king, a criminal mastermind, a scientist, or even a great slacker." Sweatdrops all around. "Okay, okay, maybe the last one's a little out there, but you get the point."
"So if there are different paths, different ways for things to turn out that are all 'fated to be,' doesn't that kind of defy the meaning of the word destiny?" Yami asked.
Dark Magician Girl shrugged. "You tell me. It was you humans that came up with the word, not us. Besides, you never know, the prophecy might also tell what's going to happen in a parallel universe, without bothering to mention to mention the fact that it won't happen in this one."
"So the whole point of the last few minutes was to say that we have no idea what's going to happen, it could be anything, the prophecies are screwed, and that Isis could've been wrong every single time she looked into the future?" Marik asked. At the nods he received, he smirked. "That's a good one. I'll remember that for the next time I see her."
"…anyway. If you'll remember, the whole point of us coming to the Shadow Realm was NOT to philosophize with Duel Monsters, but to rescue Ryou," Bakura stated.
Seiyaryu blinked at him. "Please tell me how exactly you plan to do that."
"We don't. That's the whole problem," Yugi said. "The whole thing was just a vague idea from the beginning that we'd just go to Seth's castle, somehow get in, somehow find Ryou, and somehow escape in one piece."
"That's a lot of somehows," Gemini Elf commented. "What you need is a plan."
"Isn't that what I just said?" Seiyaryu protested. On the whole, the group ignored her. She sighed. "Fine. If you're going to get into the castle and cause a little mayhem, you have to take me with you."
"We can't. You're too big," Chaos Mage pointed out. "The best chance we have is to not alert the whole place, which means we have to sneak in. That means the five mortals – sorry, mortals and spirits – and a few humanoid monsters. Three would be good: one to cover the front, the other the back, and the last to just hang around and help out when needed."
"You mean as a scout." Wingweaver said. Chaos Mage nodded, and she continued, "Okay, first off, to get in, you need to get them to open the gates. The only way to do that is to have someone come in or go out, and that might be a problem. So, what we'll need first is a distraction. Then, the eight that are going in will enter and go to the dungeons and try to find this Ryou person."
"One problem with that," Yami pointed out. "Does anyone know where exactly the dungeons are?"
Silence came over the group, until Gyakutenno Megami spoke up. "I was one of the ones who, ah, 'helped' Seth to build the castle-"
"In other words, she delayed it as much and as subtly as possible," Seiyaryu put in.
"-and I was able to sneak out a copy of the blueprints," the fairy continued, choosing to ignore Seiyaryu's comment. "I thought it might come in handy." She beckoned to a Kuriboh, who squeaked slightly and floated forward, handing Yami the blueprint. He unrolled it and stared at it in confusion for a moment.
Bakura peered over his shoulder. "That's a really, really big castle," he commented, then started pointing to near the bottom of the map. "There's where the dungeons are – underground, of course. Classic. Just in case the place ever floods, so the prisoners are the first to go-"
"Get on with it," Yami growled, causing Bakura to smirk slightly.
"Okay, okay. Well, this is the first dungeon level – basement level three. It goes down about five floors, and apparently, it's a huge maze. Ryou could be anywhere in those five floors."
"What's that right there?" Malik asked, pointing to a dotted line in the eighth basement level, the last dungeon floor. It seemed to cut off a little square from the rest of the place. Bakura peered at it for a second.
"Well, my guess is that it's a super-secret, heavily-guarded cell. Probably hard to notice unless you know it's there."
"Do you think that's where they're keeping Ryou?" Yugi asked. The tomb robber paused, then shook his head.
"Probably not. I'd say that's probably where they're keeping Mokuba. Seth is probably more worried about Kaiba finding his brother than us finding Ryou."
"So that means we'll have to search all five floors to find him?" Marik asked. "This'll take a long, long time…"
Bakura shrugged, grinning. "You forgot my little compass," he said, pulling it out of his pocket where he had stored it for safekeeping. "We can find Ryou in no time, except we'll have to trace our path on the map."
Chaos Mage shook her head. "Unfortunately, that won't work. My guess is that Seth has probably locked your friend's magic up, so as soon as you enter the castle, that compass won't work. You'll have to search each cell separately."
"Oh." A pause. "Marik's right. This'll take a long, long time…"
"Well, that's why you should be glad there's going to be eight of you," Gemini Elf said brightly. "You can split into four pairs of two and search the dungeons that way. One pair per floor, and then all of you can meet up again and then search the last floor, if you haven't found him by then."
Yami nodded. "Great. That'll work. So we need to work out the details and who exactly is going to be doing what…" He sweatdropped as he noticed Seiyaryu poring over the map. "What're you doing?"
She pointed one clawed wing to the top of the blueprint. "This is where Seth's rooms are, along with the rooms of his top officials. If you want to go and trash them, you'll have to go up at least twenty floors. And the last time I checked, there's no elevator on this floor plan." An evil grin slowly formed. "That is, unless you want that to be part of the distraction?"
An identical grin appeared on Bakura's face. "I think you have an idea there."
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A police officer stood, staring at Joey and Tristan with one eyebrow raised. The huge crater where the school soccer field was had been roped off with yellow tape. "So you're saying that a Blue-Eyes White Dragon did this?" he asked skeptically. The two boys nodded vigorously, and the officer sighed. "I think you kids have been playing too many video games."
"Wha-" Joey protested, annoyed. "I'm telling ya, a dragon did this! It was really here!"
"Right," the officer muttered, scribbling something on his yellow notepad and beckoning one of his subordinates under. He whispered something in her ear, and she nodded and scrambled off. "So tell me, if this dragon was really here, then where did it go?"
"That's easy. It was destroyed by another Blue-Eyes."
"Oh? And where did that Blue-Eyes go?"
"Yugi recalled it to its card," Joey said.
"And who is this Yugi?" The officer questioned.
"A friend of ours. He goes here." Tristan told him, waving his hand in the vague direction of the school.
The officer sighed and tucked the yellow notepad away. "So you're saying that your friend Yugi has a Blue-Eyes." The two boys nodded, thinking that they were finally getting somewhere. "And you think that he has a Blue-Eyes?" Again, they nodded. "I hope you two know that I'm not stupid."
"Coulda fooled me," Joey muttered under his breath. Luckily, the officer didn't catch it.
"I know for a fact that there are exactly three Blue-Eyes White Dragons in existence, and they all belong to Mr. Seto Kaiba. Who, I might add, has gone missing since the incident here. Do you two happen to know where he went?"
Joey and Tristan exchanged nervous glances. "Um… no?"
The officer sighed. "I know you two know something. Where is he?"
Joey decided that, if they were going to confuse the officer, they might as well go all the way. "In the Shadow Realm. Where the monsters live."
"Ah," the police muttered, trying to think up a good excuse to get away from these two nutcases. "And why do you think your friend Yugi has a Blue-Eyes?"
"Because he does," Tristan answered promptly. "We saw it. There are actually four Blue-Eyes in the world, did you know that?"
"Riight… I think you kids spend too much time daydreaming." A white van pulling up into the school parking lot caught the man's attention, and he turned towards it. "I'm done with you two now. You can go over and meet them." He waved a hand in the direction of the van, where three people were coming out, two of whom were carrying straitjackets.
"What!" Joey yelped. "We're not crazy, and I can prove it to you!" He pulled out his deck and grabbed a card. "Flame Swordsman, go!" The Swordsman appeared, swinging its sword and ready for battle. The appearance of the monsters stopped everyone dead in their tracks, and Joey grinned. "See? Told ya."
The officer blinked. O_o "…"
Joey stared at him. "Hey, are you listening to me?"
O_o "…"
"HEY!! Earth to officer whatever-your-name-is! Come in, officer whatever-your-name-is!" Joey turned to his Flame Swordsman. "Can you get this guy to listen to me?"
The Swordsman nodded. "As you wish." He walked up to the man and waved his sword in front of his face. The officer stared at him for a moment, then collapsed in a dead faint.
Joey and Tristan blinked a couple times. "Okay…" A scream and an inhuman screech caught their attention, and they turned towards the noise, grinning as they recognized an Insect Queen rearing up about a mile away. Joey recalled his Swordsman to his card and he and Tristan ran off in that direction.
"Hope you believe us now, because you're going to be seeing a lot more of these monsters before this mess is over!" Tristan called over his shoulder. The men and women left behind stared after them, blinking a bit. One of them glanced down at the straitjacket in his hands, seriously considering putting it on himself. Then he glanced around him, shrugged, and decided it to put it on the unconscious officer instead.
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Ryou cursed uncharacteristically as the rock he was holding cut into his thumb, leaving a small trickle of blood on his finger. He stuck it into his mouth for a second, then, hearing footsteps coming towards him, hid the rock behind his back and took his finger out of his mouth.
The footsteps belonged to Seth and Kaiba, coming back from their visit with Mokuba. The priest looked to be in a slightly better mood, so Ryou asked, "So how did you like your little trip to the lower dungeons?"
Seth spared him barely a glance. "Why would you want to know?"
Ryou smiled innocently at him. "Well, I didn't hear any screams or pleas for mercy echoing up to here, so I'm guessing you weren't practicing your torture techniques. What were you doing down there if you weren't hurting someone for your own sadistic pleasure?"
Seth snorted and walked away, not even bothering to give Ryou an answer. The British teenager grumbled for a moment before turning to Kaiba. "I don't suppose you'd be nice enough to smash that little bottle over there?" he asked, indicating the one that had rolled into the cell opposite him. Kaiba glanced at him, then at the bottle, and slammed the cell door shut. It locked, leaving the bottle stuck there, where Ryou had no hope of getting to it. He followed Seth out of the dungeons.
"So much for that," Ryou muttered to himself, then went back to his work. A few minutes later, he was able to lever the plate out of the wall, and it fell to the ground with a loud clanking. Ryou winced, waiting to see if anyone came down to check out the noise. When no one appeared, he went to the task of trying to free his hands from the manacles. Luckily, the magic had dissipated as soon as the chains came loose, so he was able to break the chains away from the plate directly. He still had them hanging from his arms, but Ryou supposed that was a good thing. It was some sort of weapon, at least. Now to getting out of the cell itself…
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Kaiba followed Seth up to his private rooms, where they were shortly joined by Zake. The former high priest created a little "window" from which they could see the real world, where Seth had summoned various monsters to cause a bit of chaos in the absence of the Pharaoh and his friends. The Insect Queen was wreaking havoc in downtown Domino, and a Gadget Soldier was smashing up the hillsides north of the city. The priest smiled in satisfaction.
"That should keep them busy, at least for a while. Then in that time, the rest of my followers will emerge out of hiding. After that, the monsters will be seen worldwide… and they will take over the Earth, leaving it to me."
"That's all good and well and perfect and all, but just make sure they don't tear down Kaiba Corp." Kaiba said sarcastically. Seth glanced at him, a Cheshire grin starting to appear on his face.
"They don't have to, Seto. That's the only building in Domino that will be spared. And then the poor homeless public will blame the whole thing on you, because everyone knows that Kaiba Corp.'s the manufacturer of the holograms," he stated.
Kaiba's eyes narrowed slightly. "So you're planning on making me the scapegoat in this whole mess."
"In a way, yes," the priest purred. "After all, you are helping me, aren't you? And I'm the one doing this, which means you also carry some of the blame. And besides, the public won't believe you if you claim that you never wanted the monsters to destroy the city. After all, you're one of the villains in this situation, and no one ever believes the villains."
Kaiba growled softly, but said nothing. What could he do if his brother's life was on the line? Nothing, absolutely nothing, and Seth knew it. Smirking, the priest turned away.
"What about the Pharaoh?" Zake questioned quietly. "He and his 'friends' are still here in the Shadow Realm, and by now they've met up with the rebels."
Seth chuckled softly. "Once again, you underestimate my genius." The other two glanced at him questioningly, and he shrugged. "If you've forgotten, I hold all the cards. I have the monsters attacking their beloved Domino City as we speak. Their little friend is my captive, and knowing that Pharaoh, he won't leave until he manages to get the brat back. No, there's no threat on that front. They may have met, and they may have made an alliance, but sooner or later, they're going to have to come to this castle, and when that happens, we'll be ready for them."
"And what if they actually manage to get Ryou back?" Kaiba asked, testing to see if Seth could fill in the obvious hole in his plan.
"Oh, don't worry, they won't," Seth answered, choosing to ignore the fact that the teenager had used their prisoner's name. "And besides, even if they do… when they get back to the real world, I'm afraid that they might have a few unpleasant surprises waiting for them…"
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The Insect Queen was much, much bigger up close. Tristan supposed he might have expected it, seeing as how large the Blue-Eyes was, but this was still way too big for his liking. And in the world of Duel Monsters, bigger usually meant better. That was the case here, seeing how the monster they were facing was level seven and had 2200 attack. And then, of course, you had to count the fact that it was powered up by the number of insects on the field, and it laid an insect egg every time it destroyed something, thus boosting its attack… all in all, not a good thing.
As they watched, the Queen blasted another building to smithereens, sending rats scurrying out in all directions. As if by accident, she stepped on one, immediately laying another egg as soon as it was gone. Joey sighed in frustration, growling as he watched the Queen grow even bigger as her attack skyrocketed, making it a total of 4200. Luckily, all the people that had been there had run away – and judging by the uneaten food on the restaurant tables, they had left in a hurry.
Another building, another few rats, a couple thousand more attack points… Joey groaned, turning to Tristan in despair. "How the heck are we supposed to be able to do this if that Insect Queen has that many attack points and just gets more with every blast?"
Tristan simply grinned. "Watch and learn, my friend." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his deck, shuffling through it calmly and apparently unaware of the gigantic insect before him, growing bigger every minute. "Hm… here it is," he said, pulling a card out just as the Insect Queen noticed them. It advanced on the pair, mandibles clicking audibly as it came closer to them.
"Well, whatever your secret weapon is, you'd better hurry up and use it before that Queen devours us!" Joey yelped, backing away as quickly as he could.
"Alrighty then… watch and learn!" Tristan held up the card in traditional duelist style, yelling its name as the effect activated. "Reverse Trap!"
Joey blinked, slightly clueless as to what exactly the trap did. "And its effect is what exactly?"
He was answered by the Queen's screech as the little creature from the card came to life, its puppet-like hands reaching forward and grasping the queen by the two clicking teeth. As the insect's scream tore at their ears, it started growing visibly smaller… and smaller… and smaller…
"How do you like that?" Tristan yelled, the wild grin on his face not having disappeared anytime within the last few minutes. "Reverse Trap's effect: it takes all the attack points a monster's gained and subtracts them from the original attack of the monster!" He paused, thinking that over for a minute. "And vice versa, too, but that's not really important at the moment."
What could be considered of importance was the size of the Insect Queen. It had been shrinking while Tristan talked (and shrieking the whole time, I might add), and right now, it was only about the size of one of Kaiba's holograms, as opposed to bigger-than-a-skyscraper. It screamed again, loosing a considerably smaller blast in the direction of the two boys, who dodged it with barely a thought. Instead, the attack whizzed past them, to crash right into the side of a Mercedes-Benz and causing it to explode. Joey and Tristan winced.
"Ouch… and that looked new, too. What a shame," Tristan muttered.
Joey laughed. "If it's that new, what do you want to bet the owner doesn't have insurance?"
Tristan sweatdropped. "Let's just say that I don't want to bet." He stared down at the Insect Queen, which was now no bigger than an ordinary housefly. In fact, they wouldn't have noticed her at all, except for the fact that she was buzzing angrily around his feet. He stared at the Queen for a moment, deep in thought. "Hey Joey, want to do the honors?"
The blond shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He walked up to the Insect Queen and stomped. The monster fell to the floor, buzzing weakly for a few seconds before she disappeared. Joey grinned, crossing his arms. "Well, that wasn't too hard." His smile faded as he felt a surge of magic come from farther north, and another monster reared up, so far away that he could barely see it. "Don't tell me…"
"Yeah," Tristan sighed, annoyed. "Another one. C'mon, let's go."
"But we'll never make it in time!" Joey complained, glancing around. His eyes lit up as soon as he saw one of the cars that had been abandoned on the side of the road. "Unless…"
Tristan smirked. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I guess so," Joey remarked, sprinting towards it. "If so, then I'm driving!"
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Grandpa Muto stared out the door of the Game Shop dismally, watching the chaos occurring outside and wondering where Yugi was. This was one of the things his grandson was supposed to prevent, wasn't it? So where had he gone?
Turning to the news that was playing on TV, he noticed in a far corner of his mind that there were currently two monsters attacking the city, one downtown and the other further north, and that, if eyewitness accounts were to be believed, a Blue-Eyes White Dragon or two had been seen battling at the school, and had left the soccer field as a crater. Wait… at the school?
Grandpa snapped to attention as he heard that, staring avidly at the screen as one hysterical witness described what had happened to the reporters. She claimed that one dragon had just appeared, and they had run away… and then another had come out of nowhere, and the two fought… one of the dragons won and destroyed the other one shortly afterward before it too disappeared.
"Yugi," Solomon whispered quietly. "So that's what he's been up to!" He had no doubt that the winning dragon was the Blue-Eyes he had given Yugi. Why else would it disappear after it had destroyed the other Blue-Eyes? It's not like it went on a rampage or something afterwards… the TV switched to coverage of the Insect Queen's attack, but now there was nothing to show, except for a couple destroyed buildings and cars. As the newspeople were left to wonder what exactly had happened, Grandpa smiled inwardly, sure that Yugi and his friends had had something to do with it.
Getting a sudden idea, he reached for the phone and dialed a number. After a few beeps, he was rewarded with a, "I'm sorry, but this number does not exist. Please hang up and try again."
He frowned. There was no way that Yugi's cell number shouldn't work unless it had been destroyed… and if it was destroyed, than Yugi had probably been too. But no casualties had been reported on the news, so what was going on? Making a quick decision, he ransacked the house for his grandson's address book and flipped through the pages until he came to the last entry. Malik Ishtar. He traced a line from the name to the phone number and dialed it, hoping at least to get Malik's sister. It was common knowledge that Ryou lived alone, so it was no use calling his number while the monsters were roaming around.
The phone rang a couple times before someone picked it up. "Hello?" an anxious-sounding female voice asked on the other end.
"Um, yes. Are you Isis Ishtar?" Grandpa asked.
"Yes. What's this about?" Isis asked, now sounding more worried than before.
"Well, my grandson Yugi's a friend of your brother, and I was wondering if you've seen either of them since the monster attacks started…"
"No, I haven't," Isis answered, sighing. "They're not here. I already called Ryou Bakura's house, too, but no one picked up. I was just about to call you."
"That's not good," Grandpa muttered, glancing out the window to where he could just barely see the Gadget Soldier wreaking havoc uptown. He sighed, watching as the military helicopters tried to bring it down, only to get swatted aside by flies.
"No, it's not," Isis said softly. "I'm going out to look for them."
"With all these monsters running around? No way!"
"Yes way," Isis answered, determined. "I'm going. Goodbye." She hung up the phone.
Grandpa slowly placed the phone back in its receiver. It wouldn't be a bad idea to look for them, but with all those monsters… he made his decision. If Isis was willing to go out there in search of her brother, he would do the same for Yugi.
He slipped outside, putting his deck into his pocket. Knowing Yugi and his friends, they were probably near where the Gadget Soldier was. Of course, there was no way he could tell that to Isis. He doubted that Malik had told her about the monsters.
Walking through the streets, he glanced up to see that the Gadget Soldier was still there and unopposed. He sighed; where were they? Deciding that he should take a shortcut to get there, hopefully to find Yugi and his friends, he cut into a dark alleyway that led in the general direction of the monster.
Grandpa blinked as he noticed flashes of light inside the alley. Wondering what was going on, he quickened his pace slightly, his hand going to his pocket. Soon enough, he came to a gang of about ten people, all standing in a circle in the middle of the alley and surrounding a Koumori Dragon. One of them, obviously the leader, drew out a Duel Monsters card. "Pumpking, the King of Ghosts!" The monster appeared in another flash of light, as the dragon that had been sacrificed to summon it screamed and burst into a thousand pieces.
The gang leader chuckled. "I can't believe no one ever figured out this could happen before," he said, seemingly delighted. "Now let's go. We have a city to destroy, innocent people to terrorize, gangs to get revenge on…"
Grandpa hesitated for a moment before he stepped forward. "I won't let you do it."
The whole gang turned on him, obviously surprised to see someone else there. "What did you say?" one of them demanded.
"I said I won't let you hurt anyone in the city," Solomon repeated, his voice stronger now.
"And what are you going to do about it, old man?" the leader sneered.
In response, Grandpa whipped out his deck. "Zombyra the Dark!" The monster appeared, roaring, and its master pointed to the Pumpking. "Destroy it!" His monster darted forward, and a second later, there was no sign that the Pumpking had ever been there.
The gang stood in shock and silence for a while, staring at the place where the monster had been, before their leader finally snapped out of it. "What did you do that for?!?"
Solomon just glared at him. "I won't let you hurt innocent people!"
One of the gang members hissed. "Oh, you're in for it now, Gramps…" As the gang all began to draw knives from out of nowhere, a single thought flashed through Solomon's mind.
'WHAT have I gotten myself into?'
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"Alright, so let's go over this one more time," Yami muttered. "Here's the plan:
"We'll start off with a distraction. Seiyaryu, Wingweaver, that's your job, since you can fly and thus it's easier to get away." Both monsters nodded.
"So let's get this straight: we can attack whatever part of the castle we want, as long as it gets them out of there and opens the gate for you guys?" Seiyaryu asked. Yami nodded, and she grinned. "Awesome. I have just received express permission to trash Seth's rooms."
"…anyway. After a while, they'll lure the army away, where those monsters with attack 1500 or more and that are somewhat fast will be waiting. There'll be something of a skirmish there, to draw Seth's attention away from home and also to enable something of a quick getaway, when we leave." Yami continued.
Picking up where the Pharaoh had left off, Bakura said, "While the monsters are out and the gates are open, me, Yami, Yugi, Marik, and Malik will sneak in, accompanied by Gemini Elf, Dark Magician Girl, and Chaos Mage. We'll keep the formation where Gemini Elf scouts ahead and takes care of any stray monsters, since technically, there's two of them, and DMG and Chaos Mage can play front and rear guard. We'll stay that way until we reach the dungeons, basement level two."
"From there, we split up into four pairs of two and search each level separately. Yugi and Malik will search the first floor, Yami and Dark Magician Girl will take the second level, Chaos Mage and Bakura, the third, and Gemini Elf and I will take the last floor. We'll meet up by the stairs leading up from the second dungeon level after three hours. If we've found Ryou, great, and if not, we'll head down to the last level," Marik said.
"And then, if we have time and depending on the status of the battle, which will be told to us by one of the smaller flying monsters," Yami began, gesturing to one of the Key Maces, who bowed and giggled, "we'll see if we can cause some damage inside the castle, maybe check to see what's going on in the real world, and see if we can find any hints as to what they're doing next."
"Wait, you're not planning to fight Seth while all his forces are away?" Gyakutenno Megami asked.
Yami shook his head. "No, not on his home field, and preferably not in the Shadow Realm. It would take too great a toll on us that way."
Gemini Elf exhaled slowly. "Right. Okay, are we ready?"
Nods all around. Seiyaryu grinned, that crazy, psychotic grin that only appears when someone's going on a destruction spree or a suicide mission. "In that case, let's do it!"
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*sighs* And finally done! Sorry that it's shorter than usual, but I really wanted to get it done by today and the real action starts next chapter. I promise you, that and the chapter afterwards will be loads of fun, and probably longer than usual, too. ^_^ Anyways, since we have a five-day weekend next week, I'll be able to work on it a lot more… when I'm done watching Gundam Wing marathons, of course. ^_~
As usual, REVIEW!!! I live for reviews!!! Reviewers get cotton candy, tie-dyed into whatever colors you feel like to make it prettier! And no flames, unless you want me to laugh and throw it back into your face. Flames will be used to… um… hmm… I'm running out of ideas here XD. Well, anyway, flames will be used to set my school on fire… no idea why. It's just that I've been complaining about bringing sharp and pointy objects to school and blowing up the chemistry lab lately. Anyway, remember to leave a nice review!