Chapter Sixteen
Esprit Sur Le Feu
Skylar awoke with a gasp and her body shuttering, expelling a wet cough followed by a terrible hacking. She found she was unable to move, but could still look around through eyes crusted over with dried blood. She heard sirens and people were swarming around her, everyone saying some stupid and obvious thing like "don't move!" or "does it hurt?" and if she could she'd tell them all to blow off, quite uncharacteristic of her but at the moment Skylar wasn't in the kind and caring mood. She was angry. In fact she was furious. Deirdre had betrayed her...no, he wouldn't. He was her best friend regardless of the short time they had known each other. It was something else. Deirdre even said that someone, or something, a five thousand year old...? She couldn't remember...her head hurt so much...
Now the severity of the situation kicked in. Tears stung her eyes as she tried to ignore the badgering crowd and the approaching sirens to focus on what she did that would make him hate her so much. What would drive someone to just spontaneously try to kill you?
"That's it," she thought, closing her eyes to shut off the flow of tears. "It wasn't him, it was someone else making him do it. Deirdre...he needs my help."
A younger man, early twenties, was kneeling down at Skylar's side, apparently checking her for injuries or possibly groaping her in her weakened state. Regardless, her trembling hand suddenly gained unfathomable strength and shot up like a rocket, grabbing the man by his shoulder and using it as a brace to hoist herself back on her feet. Even the people who were around just for the show started to scream at her, telling her to stay still but she ignored them and lifted herself up to her knees. From there, the man whom she was leaning on grabbed her arm to steady her, and she wobbled too her feet.
"Miss! Are you going to be all right? You really should stay down, I mean you've suffered head trau--"
Skylar's other hand lurched out and took the man by his shirt collar. She leveled with him at nose-point, burrowing holes into him with her crimson gaze. "Wh-where...where are the Battle City finals being held at?"
The man, fearing for his life now, shook his head. "No one knows, miss. The broadcast just aires on KCTV and some of the news channels even say that its signal can't be traced."
Skylar frowned and shook her head, releasing the man and turning away, pushing through the mob with a level of physical might that only someone in her frame of mind could possess. "I'll find it...myself..."
An ambulance then pulled up and two men hopped out, dashing right by Skylar and making their way through the crowd. Only when someone told them that the injured girl had just gotten up and walked off did they look back in the direction, which she had just left. Skylar was nowhere to be seen.
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The Battle City finale was coming up on its conclusion. The last battle, featuring the formidable combination of Mai Valentine, the seductive showstress, and Marik, the completely insane possessor of the Millennium Rod. Those events climaxed with Marik winning decisively through use of evil magic and trickery. He annihilated his opponent and sentenced her to a eternity of torture within the Shadow Realm. Her physical body lay comatose in a hospital bed onboard Seto Kaiba's KCTV broadcasting blimp.
Whether or not her mind could be rescued at this point was unknown. Her closest friends (and consequently her only friends) Joey, Téa, Tristan, Duke, Yugi (currently manifested in his more easily antagonized and more protective form), Serenity, and an equally injured and unconscious Bakura in a separate bed a few feet away. Even Kaiba was in the room, brooding by the door, not so much afraid for Mai's safety but the majority of the competitors in his greatly invested tournament we're there and he had to protect that investment. Of course, wherever his big brother went, Mokuba did too. He was, as always, loyally at Seto's side.
"So Yug, you can...ya know, 'fix' her, right?" Joey asked innocently, looking at his immediate right to Yami Yugi.
Expelling a deep, sorrowful breath, Yami Yugi shook his head mournfully. "I do not know, Joey. I can and will try, but at this point, with Marik still onboard and exerting a level of control over her confinement within the Shadow Realm, I doubt anything I tried would be effective."
"Sounds like a white flag if I ever heard one." Duke commented, kneeling down at Mai's bedside.
"He isn't giving up!" Téa shouted, stomping her foot. That caused a fairly startled reaction from Duke but he didn't say anything. "He said he'd try and we can't ask any more of him!"
"And while you're all here crying over spilt milk," Seto began, a grin creeping across his long face, "I still have a tournament to finish. So if you wouldn't all mind moving back to the roulette room we can get this thing back on schedule. Nothing short of this ship being shot down will stop my tournament!"
"Glad too see your spirits haven't been dampened by this tragedy, Kaiba." Joey said, not looking at his most hated nemesis, instead keeping a stern lookout for any change in Mai's condition.
"Once again I'm the only person here who can see the pointlessness of sitting around and bawling like little children. Now if you don't get up and move to the roulette room I'll disqualify you all and declare myself the winner by default!"
Joey's teeth grinded so hard they nearly shattered. He shot too his feet, stormed over to Kaiba and jammed his finger into his chest. "I swear you are the most heartless and disgusting son-of-a-bi--"
Yugi gasped and rose to his feet slowly. The others looked at him curiously and asked what the problem was but he didn't respond. Joey continued to rip into Kaiba, unaware of Yugi's well-known and well-respected expression of impending doom. "Excuse me, everyone." He said calmly, his eyes narrowing a bit. "I must go...check something out." Spinning on his heel Yami Yugi exited the room, causing a concerned question from Joey. He responded with a simple hand gesture and then was gone from sight.
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Marik's face twisted into a sinister sneer as he stood glaring out of the window in his guest room. Rain streaked the glass, adding an even more threatening expression when seen in conjunction with his reflection. "Ah, come back at last have we my wandering sheep? Good, I think I could make better use out of your wonderful artifact than you ever could." Marik cackled and turned around, briskly stepping out of his room and vanishing down the corridor.
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Yugi ran as fast as his legs could carry him through the winding passageways of the blimp, dodging frantically by a few butlers and maids without so much as an apology when he nearly sent them sprawling. Finally he reached his destination, the door that led up to the top of the blimp where the holographic arena was situated. He climbed up the short set of stairs and threw open the attic-style double doors.
He stepped out and held up his forearm to shield his face from the stinging rain, searching for the ancient presence he felt back in the infirmary. He saw nothing but heard behind him a slow, methodical approach. He turned and saw the wild silver hair of his greatest foe, Marik, enter into the storm.
"Marik! What are you doing up here?" Yugi then stopped, realizing that he knew the answer to his question. "You felt it too?"
He smiled and nodded, looking directly up into the bleak thunderclouds, closing his eyes as if gaining some sick pleasure from the bullet-like rain. "Oh yes, pharoah, it is unmistakable. A Millennium Item always gives off a powerful energy that I can sense for miles." He frowned and looked back down at Yugi. "Strange that I only just sensed it recently..."
"That is because I chose to mask it." Another voice said, some distance away and balancing precariously on the slippery edge of the blimp, but apparently having no difficulty in keeping his footing. Deirdre, or more specifically Ahmose controlling Deirdre, walked forward slowly and menacingly, nothing but a blank drawl on his weatherworn face. Yami Deirdre slowly lifted up his right hand, which adorned the beautifully sumptuous Millennium Balance and pointed it towards Marik. The scales tipped slowly left as if something had been placed in it. "A grim future indeed." He commented, then swung the Balance over in Yugi's direction, this time the weights leveled off in the center, favoring neither direction. "Yours is harder to determine...which is good, means it will be more of a surprise to see how it unfolds."
Yami Deirdre continued to walk forward until he was in a triangular formation with the other too. Each one eyed the other, no one trusting that some potentially fatal strike could be made.
Each of them possessed the means to do as such, and each knew it.
"I declare a Shadow Game." Yami Deirdre announced, his eyes darting back and forth between his two adversaries. "Either of you can go first, it matters not, but regardless the loser must hand over their Millennium Item as a prize. That winner will then go on to face the remaining person, and whomever wins that match will claim all three and be that much closer to ultimate power."
"I accept." Marik said immediately, knowing a good opportunity when he heard it.
"I do not." Yugi said. "I have more important matters to attend to now then this petty bid for power."
Marik chuckled and shook his Rod at Yugi like he was scolding a child. "If that is the case I will encourage your participation, pharoah. If you do not accept the challenge I will make it utterly impossible for you to recover Ms. Valentine's mind from the Shadow Realm. I'll reduce it to dust and you'll be left with nothing but an empty husk lying forever in a hospital bed."
Yugi snarled, in a truly animalistic fashion, and began to squeeze his hands together imagining that Marik's neck was in his grasp. He shot his head at Deirdre, who remained stone cold and stoic through it all. Yugi turned back to Marik and nodded slowly, his hair slowly being weighed down by the water soaking into it. "You have no honor Marik, but very well."
"Excellent." Yami Deirdre said with hard-nosed delight. "Who wants to be my first victim?"
"I will be your first opponent." Yugi corrected, not caring that Marik was about to volunteer but cut him off. "And once I am finished with you I'll make sure that Deirdre is freed from your stranglehold."
Internally, Ahmose laughed aloud, knowing that the original host of this body was likely beyond salvation at this point. Pulling Deirdre out of the depths of his mental prison now would be nearly impossible. Still, the pharoah was known for doing just that and being over-confident could lead to his downfall. He knew Yugi was good, in fact he was excellent, unbeatable even, and it would be a truly titanic battle.
"If I am too win, I must use every ability at my disposal." Ahmose grew stern and serious again, eyeing his opponent. "I know you, Yugi. You'll try everything in your power to free Deirdre from my control during the fight, just as a means to get yourself off the hook and be spared a crushing defeat. Well, it won't work...I won't let it. I'll dig Deirdre's mind out of the depths and kill him with my bare hands if I have too but you won't break through to him!"
"Let's duel!" Yami Deirdre blurted and began to walk past the two, bumping purposely against Marik's shoulder as he did, and approached his side of the dueling platform. Behind him, Yugi took his position as well while Marik, now a bit peeved, kept a murderous snarl on his face as he strided down into the spectators box.
When both players were on the sensors, the arena hummed to life and the Life Point counters reset to 4000. Yugi's held up the arm which his Duel Disk was strapped to and activated the card panel, popping his deck out of his rear pants pocket and slipping it into the deck slot.
Yami Deirdre's Millennium Balance began to take on a soft golden glow and slimmed down into its compact ring state. He held up his other arm, which now adorned a Duel Disk as where it did not before, and did the same, activating the panel and pushing his newly revamped deck into the reader.
"Ready?" Deirdre mocked, taking a crouched, battle-ready stance.
"I think you'll be regretting his decision when I'm finished, Ahmose." Yugi shot back and drew his starting hand, then an extra one for the beginning of his turn phase. "I play two cards face down," he said almost immediately, lifting them from his hand and slipping them into two of the five available magic or trap slots. "And I also play Obnoxious Celtic Guardian in attack mode!" Materializing from an array of shimmering pixels, an armor-clad being wielding a sharp sword and sharper ears appeared, using a quick swat with his available hand to dispurse the cloak off of his shoulder. 1400/1200
"That'll end my turn."
"Good. And that'll likely be the best you can manage this duel." Deirdre slipped a card from his deck and looked at it, allowing a faint grin to creep through the defenses of his normally stoic expression. "I place one card face down and summon Raging Flame Sprite in attack mode!" Coming up from the sleek surface of the field like it was surfacing from water, a candle appeared. The candle flickered for a moment before exploding into a towering inferno from which a small being wearing a wide-brimmed hat emerged. He cackled and wringed his hands together in anticipation for battle. The fire and the candle from which it was produced vanished back into digital nothingness. 100/200
"Flame Sprite attack Yugi directly!"
The little monster snickered and leapt forward, bouncing several times in place before taking high into the air and spitting out a little orb of flame, which struck Yugi square in the heart. He cringed but stood his ground, looking angrily up at the creature as it bounded back to its masters side of the field.
Yugi's life points dropped a mere one hundred points, from 4000 to 3900, but that wasn't the impressive part. Yugi watched with some measure of uncertainty as the little beasts' attack points shot up by a whole one thousand points. Yugi's face showed plenty of shock, enough to cause Yami Deirdre a quick fit of laughter.
"And it'll do that every time I attack, pharoah! Within four turns I can have you beaten and I'll make sure that I do!" Deirdre's monster seemed to share his enthusiasm.
"You seem to forget that I have a monster with quite a bit more attack power than yours just itching to put your Pyro monster in its place, Ahmose!" Yugi quickly snatched the card afforded to him on his new turn and thrust out his extended finger towards the Flame Sprite. "Obnoxious Celtic Guardian, sword slam attack!"
Yugi's elf smiled and readied his blade, dashing forward and taking to the air, prepared to bisect the miniscule Sprite. Deirdre's confident expression seemed to give Yugi immediate doubts about the successfulness of this move.
"Activate trap! Blaze Barrier!" Yami Deirdre's face-down trap rose up, revealing itself as a powerful defensive wall. A huge pillar of fire erupted from the ground and knocked the Celtic Guardian right out of the sky, sending him spiraling back down to Yugi's side of the field, even dislodging the sword from his grasp. "And that'll happen every time, pharoah! No monster without sixteen hundred attack points or more can break through my Blaze Barrier. And as an added bonus, no magic or trap card can dispel it! Only powerful monsters can defeat my fiery defense!"
"Four more turns, pharoah," Ahmose gleefully thought. "Just four more turns before I claim your mantle as king and begin my ascention. I hope you're ready, because soon you'll end up just like poor little Deirdre!"
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At the bottom of a seemingly endless tunnel, sort of like he had been thrown down a well and the mouth had been sealed off, Deirdre lay unconscious and naked, not only defeated in body but also in mind. He could barely think, he had almost no reasoning power, and he could not move; he didn't possess the abilities needed to perceive his surroundings. He knew it was cold and that was all. He knew that before he lost the ability to see and feel, he killed his best friend even though he himself didn't remember dealing the blow. He was in such a fragile state that even trying to remember what might have occurred seemed like an unreachable goal. He strained, and outward his body quivered as he put in all the strength he had remaining to focus on one particular event...the hostile takeover.
And that was enough to give him a name with which to direct his voice. "Ah...mose...let me...go..."
He heard no reply and asked again.
"Ah...mose...let me go."
Again. Silence.
"Ahmose! LET ME GO!"
Then he heard laughter. Harsh, contemptful laughter. Apparently this time he was on his own.
