Jungle Fever – By Ashford2ashford

Disclaimers: …………………………………..you know by now….

Rating: R! For…..Rare Hunter!

Pairing(s): Random!

Other things: This is it! The end of a saga! The beginning of the dark Trials! Let's go! Or as they say in Japan "Iku zo!"

The Final Chapter – Fight For Your Life Pandora

The jungle was silent. Too silent. Nothing was stirring. Not even the animals. Not one sound. Just silence…and then something. Yes…there was something. The sound of panting…no…did it sound more like snarling now? Was it human? Animal? No one could tell the difference…not until they saw him. Even then…it was hard to tell man and beast apart…

He was running on his hind legs, in foul parody of a man, and his trail was marked my stumbling and knocking into things. Leaves broke under his paws…feet…and twigs snapped as his weight brushed past them. Eyes as wide as dinner plates, bloodshot but still retaining a strange form of crimson and sapphire that they may have once had, his hair a tangled mane now, still blue in colour, but growing increasingly darker as the days drew on. His body was covered in blood, scratches, scars, bites, open wounds, and dirt, and his crazed expression made him look more feral than maybe he actually was. Lips pulled back, tightened into a snarl, panting as he ran, teeth revealed as if he were an animal, saliva dripping from his mouth, dangling from his chin, haggard gasps and grunts torn from his throat, a confusion of what used to be a man.

Behind those eyes it was clear. He had seen too much. Heard too much. Been in too much. Much like the tiger that is at its fiercest when faced with death, he was running to his own. There was a name that drove him there, and on closing in on the male…they were being growled from his lips with each pant.
Repeated so that they were becoming a mantra.

"Seeker…Seeker…Seeker…"

Finally, he tore through the brush into an open area that was nothing but green in the midst of the jungle, and he didn't stop. He carried on going, carried on panicking…and carried on towards his final resting place. There were names in his mind too, names that were tugging him that extra mile. Lumis – an extra mile for a shot well aimed, Umbra – another mile for a trap well set, a mask torn from a face, and finally Strings – two miles for a lover that never admitted his love.

The tears began to pour, the heart began to burn, the legs began to ache, and he stumbled once and fell to his knees, sinking into the dirt beneath him, clenching mud and leaves in his cracked dirt-stained hands. He stayed there. His energy was gone; the fall had taken it out of him. With the very thought of the names within his mind, a little humanity was restored and he began to feel what every human must accept at some point in their lives…his limit.

"Seeker…" With a breathless cry, he looked up towards the heavens, where the clouds were beginning to form over the jungle, black and menacing. In the distance, over the trees, thunder rumbled and lighting flashed…he could sense the storm coming. A sob wracked his being and he slammed the ground with the last of his strength, sure he was safe in this mud hole anyway.

"Why? Why, Seeker? Where did it all go wrong?" There was no one to answer him, only the rustle of the leaves as the storm began to make its move…

Easy. It was all too easy. The trail was marked out like it were written in gold on the jungle floor, not an ounce of care to covering the tracks. A snapped twig, a bloodstained leaf, and in most cases areas of dirt and wood ripped from the ground by stumbling footsteps. He had been here…of that there was definitely no doubt. But there was someone else to be wary of. The hunter took a piece of cloth out of his pocket. It had belonged to the mime – Strings – and had come from the pants he had come in…but it wasn't a trophy.

It stayed in the hunters pocket as he followed the trail, red with its own dye and the colour of blood. It had become crumpled and stained, and there were even marks of crimson where blood had been dripped onto it…but it still wasn't a trophy.

Seeker, the hunter, looked over the jungle from a high area where it was clear someone had dropped down moments before, and he saw the oncoming storm. His head cocked, his matted hair flicked to one side, he stared with amusement and held out his hand, a single drop of rain landing directly in his palm. More followed, and soon it became hard to see through the torrent of falling water, the entire jungle covered in the liquid. Dirt became mud, and then became a trap, leaves became wet, and then snapped under the water's weight, and Seeker's sense of smell could detect nothing more than the musky wet smell of the jungle in the rain. Already, the markings and the blood trail were becoming masked by the damage of the rain. Seeker frowned. He looked at the cloth in his pocket again. It became wet and the blood and colour began to flow from it, turning back into the dirty white it had once been…and it still wasn't any closer to becoming a trophy…because, for it to become a trophy…the person it had belonged to would have to be dead…

Mud and rain clogged Alec Pandora Hallworth's vision and made him wince in irritation. He had wondered what it would be like in the rain season of the jungle and now he knew, and despised it. Since he had fallen, he had recovered a little and now sat in deep mourning in a pile of soaking wet leaves, his arms folded around his knees, his eyes closing.

Whenever he closed them, it seemed, he thought of nothing but Strings, could still see the mime's soft smile, the first smile he had ever given anyone…and he could still see the frenzied attack on Seeker, the blood pouring, the cries of pain and he could hear the rifle firing…

Choking again, his body shaking due to the amounts of tears and dry sobs coming from his lips, Pandora sank into the mud, wondering where it all went wrong. The GHOULS had been family, friends, allies, and some of them had been more than that. All five of them vowed to stick together, all watching each other's back. When the Battle City tournament had happened, it had been a fall from grace for all of them, with each one being taken down as Yugi's winning streak continued throughout.
He looked up.
It had to be Yugi's fault. They had begun to die as the duellist had begun to win. Maybe this was Seeker's intention? Because the GHOULS had failed in their attack upon the little duellist and had each proved to be a failure in some sense of the word, maybe Seeker was trying his hardest to prove that he, above all GHOULS, was not a failure, and that in survival and hunting he was indeed the superior of all of them. Not a failure in some childish game of death, but the pick of the bunch, the pick out of all of them, the very best…the very best GHOUL. The one who deserved the life over the death (he had proved this by killing off the rest of the GHOULS and therefore restoring his faith in both himself and their old master, maybe trying to show off what Malik had lost in firing them?)

The magician whimpered. That couldn't be it. If that was the case than the other four would have tried to prove themselves also. Lumis and Umbra were the best acrobats in the GHOULS, Strings the strategic mime, and he himself, Pandora the magician, would have certainly been the best at illusion and escaping (in fact, Pandora had already proved this by escaping from a security guard armed hospital when the nurses and doctors had confined him to one room because Yugi and his companions had revealed that he was a wanted GHOUL) So if Seeker's reason for doing this was what he had figured, then it would make no sense at all.

With the mud becoming even more soft and wet underneath his fingertips, Pandora decided that if he were going to die, it would certainly NOT be by the rain! Shakily and wet with rain and tears, his hair dripping wet and stuck to his face, his arms and knees and body caked in mud, the magician stood and started to slow jog into the shelter of the trees in front of him, all too aware of the gunshots that had been issued before. Looking back behind him, he disappeared…

A leaf snapped and then a tree trunk splintered into a shower of splinters. Each splinter fell into the mud and rain and then disappeared as a heavy footfall took one step forward onto it, squishing it underfoot. The mud-licked boots withdrew from the supposedly deepening puddle and then a shaggy mane of hair obscured dripping features as the head looked in the direction of the jungle floor.

Seeker withdrew his fist from the tree trunk and then cursed his temper with every curse he could think of. Mixing with the rain and beginning to throb and sting with each raindrop, a numbness flowing over his hand, blood began to pour from a wound opened with the insertion of his anger into the nearest tree trunk. Biting his lip and then opening his lips slightly in a pained grimace, the hunter began to pick splinters and bark out of the wound, licking it clean like a wounded tiger when he was sure it was clean.
However, like the wounded tiger, when he was injured, Seeker was twice as deadly. The hunter became more animal than human when pain heightened his senses, and even as the pain began to ebb he could now hear even the tiniest drop of rain on a single leaf and despite the pouring rain he could hear the tiny scratches of animals running in the undergrowth, and despite their paws scrabbling and splashing through water…he could now hear sobbing and pained gasps from far in the distance. He could hear bare feet splashing through puddles, stumbling and half swimming half sloshing through the deeper areas of rain. In his mind he could picture sounds much like the firm grip of slippery hands on small leaved shrubs, pulling a heavy mass to some form of safety, and then he could picture the wet and energy-drained figure crawling its way out of a rain-made pool and then lying there; breathing heavy and very tired.

Then the pain was gone, and the senses were dulled, Seeker blinking in confusion and then curling up his upper lip into a snarl fit to make a lion tremble. His brow creased into anger and then his eyebrows tightened into a horrific vision of anger. Eyes turned into angered slits and then it looked as though his entire body was taking on the animal that he may have been inside. Moving one claw-like hand up to rest like a talon gripping to the previously mentioned tree trunk, Seeker began to chuckle to himself – his entire body taking on an imagined physical appearance of hate and malice.
He knew it was Pandora. He would rather it were "the one that got away" as he called it, but he supposed that his main source of sport would have to do. In fact, the only reason he had worked himself up into a fit of anger in the first place had been because of the fact that the rain had made his targeting of any kind of prey dull and useless. With the discovery of the injured and tagged magician without having used his tracker, his rage had turned to hate and he had decided that if Pandora was against him, then so be it.

The human tiger gathered himself and then pushed aside the overhanging plant-life; his prey minutes away from his clawed grasp…

Knee-deep in water, his upper half lay on a 'bank' of sorts, Alec 'Pandora' Hallworth lay injured and breathless, completely unaware that, just a few minutes away from where he was, someone had previously made an accurate mental image of his current state and was now coming for him…

Pandora's eyes remained closed, his breathing ragged and pained. He had outrun even himself when he had flung himself into the fray of the jungle and now…well…a man not used to running had run…and had tired himself out. Unable to move for more than a few minutes, he lay there thinking, wondering if Seeker had died or if it had been Strings to fall to the bullet. Such thoughts saddened him, but they were also harsh realities too…

"Strings."
Pandora remembered when he had first laid eyes on the human doll, and had remembered thinking hardly anything of him, more wrapped up in the memory of Cadeline and his own depression to care about anyone but himself. Even in the regular meetings that Malik-sama insisted on having, Pandora had barely even looked at the other GHOUL, let alone anyone else. In fact, it was Seeker who first insisted that the GHOULS work together as a team instead of ignoring each other's existence. He had even held small team building sessions in a small warehouse on the outside of town near the docks, and the five person main organisation of GHOULS was born. They were THE original GHOULS and they worked as a team.

-TOKEN FLASHBACK SEQUENCE-

"It isn't no good us all sittin' here actin' like we don't know each other!"
Pandora looked up from adjusting his duel disk and stared over at the other member of GHOULS, his eyebrows raised slightly from behind the mask. He noticed two other GHOULS were staring at him also, and finally a third showed no interest, but looked at him nonetheless.
The other GHOUL sat back on his chair – or rather straddled it – and then looked at the four with a slight knowing grin on his face.

"The name's Seeker. I'm twenty-seven, ex-hunter, poacher, and wilderness tracker. What about you boys? Go on…don't be shy." He cast an amused glance and then another GHOUL spoke up.
"My name is Lumis. I'm twenty-five. I'm an ex-acrobat and performer. This is my partner Umbra. We're a two man duelling team." The one known as Umbra nodded along with this information, adding "and I'm twenty-eight" to the end of it.
Pandora felt all eyes on him, so he looked up, noticing the interest in his rather bizarre mask, and feeling his fear returning. He quickly blurted out, "My name is Pandora. I'm twenty-three. I'm an ex-magician."
The fifth person looked up at all of them and then his eyes remained blank, as though he was acting abnormal. Everyone looked at him, saying nothing, half-expecting him to speak, and probably wondering what he sounded like. He remained silent. Until Malik-sama walked through the door and grinned horribly.
"His name is Strings. He was about seventeen, maybe eighteen when he died. It's been years since then. He's an ex-murderer…"

-END OF TOKEN FLASHBACK-

Looking back on the memory now, Pandora shook his head to himself and then sighed. He had been slightly intimidated when Malik-sama had announced that the human doll was actually dead, but it seemed now like he had rather envied Strings for that. Each GHOUL had a sob story to tell, each one had a horrible memory that threatened to drive each one of them insane. Not a single GHOUL was left without some insanity inside them…anyone save Strings.
He had no worries, no responsibilities, and certainly didn't have to worry about the imminent danger of being killed in action. In fact, he cared not for anything. It became accepted that this was Strings' way, and no one questioned it.

Pandora rolled over in his ditch and looked up at the rain pouring down from the sky, his eyes closing whenever a drop hit them. The rain washed his body clean, but it also disguised the scratches and blood into the ground beneath him. His eyes closed in some unknown world, his breathing slowing, his chest rising and falling; he was using the techniques used in performing – the ones he used for calming himself down. If he were to panic as he had been, then he would maybe fall into a trap or make a stupid mistake.
He slowed all senses and then thought more of the GHOULS. Strings. He recalled it now as if it had been yesterday. When the mime had stepped into yet again another meeting, everyone more wary of him that time, only because of what Malik-sama had said. Seeker had remained as growling and as predatory as ever, but the mime seemed different this time. This time it was a meeting of the end. He recalled he himself had been lay on a couch of some sort, a bandage around his right kneecap, drinking water greedily as Lumis supported the cup for him. His gaze was fixed on Seeker, who was pacing like a caged lion, and was smoking every moment he got. Umbra was seated across from Pandora, in an old chair that had belonged to his father and that he had dragged to this area (they were in a run-down building, having no where else to go) and he said nothing. The four GHOULS were recovering from a sort of escape attempt – Pandora had been in hospital until now and had simply walked out as if nothing was the matter, limping down the streets, blood dripping wherever he went. It had taken Seeker's keen senses and the speed and agility of Lumis to get him safely into the van and away from danger.

Strings had been sat there in the back of the van with Umbra, the latter of which managed to draw Pandora onto his lap to safety, one hand rested on the damaged knee, whilst Lumis dove into the passenger seat of the van, telling Seeker to "put his foot down" so to speak. Of course when they got to the abandoned building, they had all sat there in silence, and Pandora had been eager to accept the hospitality of the 'Yami no Kamen' and the 'Hikari no Kamen'. Water and bandages offered to him as if he were a soldier in a war.

CLICK!

Pandora's reality came surging back to him at the sound of a gun being cocked, and he looked upwards from his ditch to see the trees parting for the most frightening spectacle he had ever seen.
Seeker…
In all his gory glory…
With a rifle in his hand and a huge demented grin on his face…
Covered in blood, rain, sweat, and reeking of death…

"Seeker."
Pandora's face showed signs of shock, and he shakily pulled himself out of the ditch to face the manic face of the death before him.
"Pandora. You survived all this and then you made one mistake. Slowing down and swimming in a ditch like a coward…" The rifle rose to eyes level, Pandora's eyebrows rose.
"Seeker…you don't have to do this."
"I know, boy."
"Why are you doing this?"
"Why? Why?" Seeker cackled and then smiled again, amused, "Typical. Like the villain you want me to reveal my big plot, eh Pandora? Very well. I'll give you the final awareness. The final explanations before you become my trophy.
"After battle city, I'd assumed that like the 'team' we were, the GHOULS would stay together, helping each other through the poverty and the pain. But of course, we all insisted on going our own separate ways, even the silent doll insisted, and he couldn't speak! I left you all on that fateful day…and I became something else. Something other than the GHOUL, other than the Rare Hunter, other than Seeker – The Exodia Master. Pandora, I became what I'd always been…the prey! Malik-sama found me, not long after we separated, and said that the evil in his heart had been banished to the shadows. I gave him my regards and left him there, so he could return to wherever he wished to go, but there was always this nagging feeling in the back of my head…a feeling that something wasn't right…
"I heard voices. I heard Yami no Mariku's voice. He was still around. In a spiritual form…you'd know all about that wouldn't you, Pandora? Spirits and angels and magic and all that? I heard you'd studied it for a spell. Spell! Get it? Ahem. Anyways, he wanted a body…and he got one…mine. He'd lay dormant inside of Malik-sama until he could seize the opportunity to get another host. He's inside me, Pandora…inside my mind. He made me lure you all here; made me hunt you all…just so he could show you all what it means to fail…what it means to die before the might of the future destroyer. He offered me a chance to save one friend…that was you Pandora…and you know why. We were friends in Battle City…best friends…"

Pandora's eyes widened more so and he whimpered. The Sennen eye was glowing on Seeker's head, and he realised that the reason behind the pain and suffering hadn't been because of any of the GHOULS…it had been because they escaped punishment once, and now the death was coming for them…to finish what he started…the pain and destruction…

"Mariku!" Pandora shouted, his voice returning at last, his eyes wide and connected to the barrel of the gun, wondering whether he would soon feel a thousand year pain entering itself into his twenty-five year old skull, "Stop…please…stop this madness. I surrender…please…I surrender. I take Seeker's offer. I'll be his. Just please…stop this madness. Stop it…"

Seeker's face was twisted into a sly smirk and Pandora felt his knees tremble and buckle beneath him, falling to kneel in the muddy ground beneath the taller GHOUL, his fingers digging into the wet floor as the rain continued to pour. A hand was placed on his wet and muddy hair, and he felt pain as the hair was gripped in one tight fist, his entire body being forced upwards, the cold steel of the gun barrel in his gut as he rose from his knees, to a crouch, and then to his feet. His eyes connected with Seeker's; blue connected to ice.

"Finally. You realise my power, don't you?"
Pandora thanked the gods for this opportunity. He bowed his head and broke eye contact, his mind registering that not many people get second chances.

Poor Seeker. This was the problem for him. Mariku's spirit found a GHOUL to host in instead of the one he was destined for. I could kill Mariku for this. Putting Seeker through all that pain. Right now, though, I can't do anything…I'll just have to live it out…

"Y-yes. I've realised it now, Mariku. Please don't kill me. I'll do whatever you want." Pandora was shaking, trembling, his eyes wide and his lips shaking and wet in the rain, but he had to do this…even if it meant doing the worst things he could think of.

"Really?" Seeker stalked towards him and placed a wet arm around Pandora's already soaking back, his tongue darting over his lips in anticipation. He leaned his head close to the magician's and then connected their lips harshly, licking and biting at the rain's moisture on the soft pink petal-like lips.

Don't let me die…Lord please don't let me die.

Even in the pouring rain, Mariku controlled Seeker to do these things – no shelter, no going back, but here and now…Pandora's first command. Hands were at his waist, tugging at the only piece of clothing Pandora had on him. Tears formed at the corners of the magician's eyes, but the rain hid them from being noticed. This was it…he slowly recalled a musical he had been to see once, one in London with his sister when she had been alive. He recalled a lyric that stood out to him in the closing act of the play.

You've passed the point of no return.

The storm broke. Lightning flashed above the treetops and Pandora shivered, his entire body shaking with fear. His thoughts became random, going from his early years to the time with the GHOULS.

Passed the point of no return…

The lyric repeated itself in his head as he saw his father walking on the stage to perform an escaping trick…and never returning. His oldest brother and his mother talking on the phone to him shortly before the truck hit their car. His second older brother and his third brother swimming happily with Pandora and their sister shortly before the shark attack that killed them. Finally, his sister lying there dying of an incurable disease, her face raised to him in pain, her dying words "I'm so sorry" playing through his head like the cruel recordings of the many magic tricks and failed attempts that cost him his face.

Point of no return…

Is that what would happen next? He would join them, and pass that point also?
He hadn't even registered that he was now lay naked in the middle of a strange jungle with Seeker's head rising and falling between his legs, strong hands holding the mage's legs apart.

I've…passed…the…point…of…no…return…

The mage's head turned to the sky above and the pained screams echoed into the night…

(AN: Sex scene? I think not. Not on But I think you can imagine what happens next, ne? Oh well…back to the story…)

Day break.

Pandora awoke in pain.

Seeker's body lay next to his in something soft.

A bed.

The mage's eyes flickered and then opened. He was lay back in the cabin that he had started this terrifying ordeal in, and his entire body ached. He remembered the previous night vaguely, some details still sketchy, but wondered if he had heard right…

Flash back - Pandora's POV

I felt his touch, I screamed both their names, both men sharing one body, and I took both abuse and rape. Something made me stop though, something made me wince in pain, and something made me hope for a future. As Seeker's body (I've taken to calling it that now since it's technically not Seeker in there anymore) dragged me back home, using some rope from a trap he had set to bind my wrists painfully, I noticed a trio of faces in the trees around us, one that I prayed I wasn't hallucinating. It was Strings, Lumis and Umbra, and all three were watching my slavery with wide and terrified eyes. I prayed it wasn't a dream…I really did…but they were gone when I looked back again, and then it was time to face the music as the cabin approached.
He turned to me…and what he said chilled me…

"In the morning, there is a helicopter coming to this cabin, from my personal contacts. We will go to an island and you will play a game with death, Pandora. That will be your punishment instead of staying here and dying. I see that further back you noticed us being followed. I expected them to survive. After all, how do you kill one as acrobatic as Lumis in quicksand, shoot accurately at someone jumping through the trees, and kill someone who managed to scramble away despite you shooting at him?
"Anyway, mage, there's a matter to address. Those three will be hunted down again, but they too shall join us in our game of death…against you! You will be forced to survive, Pandora. Survive and release Seeker from his prison in his mind, or die and allow everyone you care about, grew up with, and ever loved to die! It's not a hard choice is it? I set up this jungle area to test you and the GHOULS to your abilities, but only you showed the true skill to join in with the true Shadow games.
"Until now, Pandora, this has been a game in my eyes. Ironically enough, you were 'game' too weren't you? Ku, ku, ku. Ahh. I'm sorry. Please allow me to continue (like I had a choice). Anyway, you shall all be taken to the island where the final test shall begin."

"Why?" I choked out, my voice raw with all the screaming, "Why are you doing this?"

He smirked and simply replied, "The GHOULS failed me. If they think they can go back to living their lives, then they have another thing coming. You shall all face this test, face my challenge, and you shall either rise up against it, or die trying! This will prove your worthiness to live. If I have to fade into nothing soon (Of course. Without Malik-sama, Mariku cannot exist for long! That was his reason for taking Seeker's body. To clear up the unfinished business!) then I'll have to make sure that the GHOULS are worthy of living of dying! Now come…you must sleep…for when we get to the island…the true Shadow Game shall begin.



Pandora stared out at the jungle, listening, wondering how long it would be until Strings, Lumis, and Umbra had this talk with the new Mariku? No doubt he would hunt them too, and force them to join his sick game of death and life, but until then…he would be alone…and forced to wait for the inevitable.

EPILOGUE – THE BEGINNING OF THE END

I sat in the helicopter with my eyes fixed on the three people I hadn't expected to be in there with me. Malik-sama looked up at me with a pained expression, recognising me, but finding it hard to underneath all the scars and hair. Rishido turned to me also and then whispered something to Malik-sama, something about me no doubt. Malik-sama looked at me closely and then his eyes widened.

'Pandora?' He mouthed to me. I nodded sadly; he looked down. It was like he was remembering something. 'I'm sorry' He mouthed again, 'I'm sorry.' I shook my head. I was the one who should be sorry. All this had been out of the result of failures. Ishizu was there also, her smile warming my heart, but it didn't thaw my frozen soul. We all looked out of the windows of the helicopter, looking down as Mariku's demon's, his agents, tore the jungle apart looking for the other three GHOULS, and all of us must have known that they would have been caught…it was an inevitability.

I closed my eyes.

The dark games, the Shadow Games, would begin soon, and then the real fight would begin. The three companions in the helicopter – Malik-sama, Rishido, and Ishizu – I guessed they were here because of the same reasons as the GHOULS were here.
Had they been in a jungle as we had?
The bags under their eyes, the sickness that clung to Rishido, the scratches on their faces, hands, feet, and bodies, and the fact that they wore next to nothing as we had said yes. They had experienced this. They were probably thinking the same about me.

I was filled with bitter hate and resentment.

I wanted to kill Mariku there and then…but he was sat in the front inside Seeker. The risk was too great. The pain was too much.

I looked out of the window again and breathed on the glass, making a ghost of the forest beneath me (AN: ooh. Very metaphorical, Ashford!) and then I sighed.

"Let the Shadow Games begin…"

TO BE CONTINUED IN: THE SHADOWED MIRROR SAGA

A message from Ashford2ashford:

Hey guys. I hope you all enjoyed reading Jungle Fever as I did writing it, and sorry about it getting more than a little confusing at the end. I tend to do that sometimes. It was originally planned out to end this way – it started as an RPG – so I tried to keep to the storyline! Anyways, I hope you'll all read "The Shadowed Mirror Saga" and find out how the trials of the GHOULS and the Tomb Keepers end. Until then, goodbye for now!