Chapter 36: Rise of the Beast
The boy's body twitched. Twitched and cracked. Shuddered. T.R watched something black move, move out, sprout out, like some kind of horrible plant. Maybe that was what it was. It cracked and shuddered, slid out of the body's back. Something ebony back. Then seven more grew out of that back.
T.R watched has those eight twig like things stretched and grew, larger and larger, pulling up out of the shuddering body, out of its back, watched a great ebony monster that his mind just disallowed for him to see fully. All he could see were the golden sickish yellow eyes growing larger and angrier, more inhuman by the moment. He watched it grow further still even when a voice vibrated through the air like poisonous gas.
"Hmmmm…you defeated my vessel. I thank you for that…" it whispered inhumanly. Its voice echoing into the very deep cracks of your head. Seeping in and threatening to rip you to shreds. Something deep dark and hungry. Something that would not be denied this meal paralyzed in front of him. Him.
It opened its mouth to take a bite out of him in that place in his mind, but suddenly the body shivered and howled like a wounded beast as Tomb Robber's mind was suddenly filled with the brightest green light he had ever seen. He can hear someone yelling, a man, the Pharaoh, actually, and feels a pair of arms grab him, grab him and pulls him off his feet.
Wind clears his eyes and he finds himself off the ground, flying up to the ceiling. He looks and hears the flapping of leaf filled wings, sees her determined face and feels her tight hold around his chest, keeping him from falling to his death. Felt the fear in her head shoved aside.
You okay? He asked in his mind. He felt her grin. Felt a bubbly weirdness there. Yeah, just trying not to get killed, floating into his head like a summer breeze. She swerved suddenly, scaring him shitless as they twisted away from one of the black claws, shying away from falling. He could hear the Pharaoh yelling down there, could feel the Puzzle's burning magic with his Ring and knew there was soon going to be hell to pay.
Yami charged up for the attack his life. Joey was down. Marik was no where to be found. Bakura knocked unconscious. Mat dead. And the beast was waving, trying to snatch Kaede and the thief out of the sky. Yugi was inside; his essence was shaking with rage like nothing he had ever felt. Yami took it felt his own great dark rage grow in it; make it bigger and more powerful than ever before.
Fully charged, Yami's hair fluttered in the net force of it, his pupils smallest they could go, his hands hovering in touching distance of the puzzle, burning like a newly born star, burning with all the emotion in each of their souls. Burning like eternity.
And the yellow eyes of the black emperor look at him. Look at him reflecting the same glowing gold it had survived in for so long. Looks at him and reminds him of how old it actually is. Older than ancient Egypt. So very old.
Yami clutched the puzzle with his hands and bellowed letting out a wave of the that grand power, taking much of the energy out of him, flying and spiraling around flying in disks of rapid light, flying right into those gold eyes.
They hit. Pounded on the black beast. Pounded while Yami gasped for breath and held Yugi tightly inside his head, protecting him with his consciousness. Watching with slightly glazed eyes as the creature howled and screeched. He watched Kaede fly over it, T.R dangling in her arms, to see it fall. Watched in horror as a huge black limp swatted her out of the sky. Watched her plummeting, holding him tightly like a teddy bear as the ground waited to catch them in its deadly embrace.
Yami struggled to get up, struggled to get something, anything, out of himself to save the two of them, save them from death. He struggled to get up, kept trying to get up, and finally lifted himself, for a moment. The next he was sure he would fall when something white flew at him. He didn't even have a chance of dodging. Pretty soon he was slammed against the wall, bound there, struggling weakly, as a horrible laughing grew stronger and stronger.
Yami looked up and felt his eyes bulge in utter horror.
The girl had been caught by a paw-hand, curled inside talons. Her head was down, her arms over the side of that grip. Knocked unconscious. She looked like a doll, wings crumbled and broken. A defeated angel with green wings.
It wasn't the worse of it.
Tomb Robber. He couldn't stop staring at the Tomb Robber's form. Wasn't able. The black sharp morphed stick of a thing…it had…had. Yami could hear someone screaming and first thought it was TombRobber, still alive and feeling the pain of being impaled. But then he realized it was himself and stopped, shaking with the horror of knowing it was his fault he was dead.
He watched the beast crack off that limp, watching it throw it away as if it were nothing as it stared at the girl. Stared hungrily. So ravished. He could see clear liquid seeping out of its battered form and realized what it was. What it had to be.
"King of Sand must find madam before It eats…"
Before It eats.
It was drooling.
He watched with something beyond terror as the beast lifted her above its form, watching ravenously with its golden orbs, with the eagerness of a cat rubbing against your legs when you start to open the cat food can. Felt sick by it, watching helplessly as it opened its weakened mouth. To swallow her whole. Felt close to fainting when a sudden blast of red hot flame hit it square in its gapping maw, between the huge white fangs. Listened amazed as it howled in pain to the voice growling over it.
"Take your hands of my sister, you bastard." He growled with an inhuman voice.
His eyes held flecks of crimson rage in the sea of hazel behind his outstretched arms, narrowed and full of power despite the wounds pained on him from head to toe. In his hands, pointed out straight and true, the golden rod seemed to glow in his grip. Its eye sang with similar fiery anger.
Mat.
The ebony king turned its mass, its two golden sun discs eyes in his direction, slowly. The girl hung limp in its coal claw, unconscious but alive. It ignored her, and focused all Its attention on Matt. The brother straightened his stance, holding the rod out at it, like a sword, removed his left hand and held his side, but never once took his eyes off the beast.
The thing laughed.
"You think you stand a chance against me? Now?" A sickening gurgling croak of a laugh jumped out behind his pin toothed maw.
"Stand down now and I won't kill you." It remarked lazily.
A blast three times the size of the first shot out of the rod like a bullet, and spread like molten lava. The King barely dodged the mass of fire, swerving to the left hard, and sent a mass of black, like a whip, towards the spot where Matt was. 'Was' was the keyword here. A ripping pain spread like fire from the blacken side as Matt reappeared in the thing's vision, jumping away with the entire rod engulfed in bright red flame. Another whip move. Matt dodged. Swung the rod and had the fire bite again.
Yami struggled in his slimy bonds. Even with the help of the puzzle it was of no use. It was drained. He was stuck plastered to the wall like some piece of gum. Absolutely useless. Still he gritted his teeth and pulled with all his might for freedom and found it unrewarding. He glanced to the floor and found Joey still on the floor. Bakura in the same way, horrifyingly similar to a corpse. And to the base of the tree…
He forced his eyes away, not willing to think of how it was probably his fault that the thief was dead. No, he would not think of that now. Instead he focused on Yugi's sleeping essence and hoped he'd wake up soon. Wake up soon because he knew Mat wasn't going to last long. He could see his strength weakening. The Monster knew it.
Yami looked back down at the restraints, feeling the boiling rage starting to bubble past the killing edge. If Matt went down, he would be the only one to do anything, which he could do nothing, and he'd be forced to watch the thing devour the fallen green-winged woman, and the eating of the rest of his comrades, for that matter, to which if he watched that he hoped the Blackness would kill him soon after.
Being dead was better than the torture those images would bring him later.
Book Dragon: "Please Review."