Author's Note: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! Or Witch Hunter Robin (though the former as a birthday gift would be highly appreciated). I dedicate this chapter to Iggy, Ohmyknee, and the Pocket-Sized Lawyer™. If you don't get it, don't strain yourself.


Black Shadows: Prologue


The normal sounds of night were the only things that he could hear.

Jacob looked around the half-dead forest, his sharp eyes missing nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

Where…where is she?

A cold breeze slithered through the trees, and Jacob drew his cloak around himself.

A movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to look over his shoulder.

Finally.

A teenage girl walked up the paved road gutted with potholes, her cloak swooping magnificently in the wind. She looked no more than 15, but looks were deceiving in The Game. Jacob estimated her to be around or slightly less than 300.

At least, he hoped she was. Any older, and she'd be much stronger than he was.

He gritted his teeth against the thought, and silently slipped through the thinning treeline to a rocky grove he had located earlier. Hiding in a wedge between two of the biggest boulders, he peeped over a medium-sized boulder to keep an eye on the Player.

She seemed not to notice anything wrong, but Jacob noticed immediately that her stride had quickened ever so slightly. As her cloak whipped back in a particularly strong gust of wind, Jacob gasped.

On her waist, the girl had several chain belts. Considering some of the outfits Jacob had seen they would have been nothing out of the ordinary. What was intimidating about the belts were the runes hanging off the sides.

And Jacob knew that those weren't human runes.

A Dragon.

Jacob realized he had been holding his breath, and so he breathed in. Rather loudly, in fact. Actually, he had gasped in air so loud that the girl stopped for a fraction of a second to whip her cat-slitted pupils over to a rocky grotto, where she saw nothing. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at it for a moment, before checking her digital watch. She then set off up the road again, faster than ever.

Jacob cautiously removed his head from beneath his arms, his heart racing. I need to be more careful, he thought ruefully.

Peeking through the gap where he had fallen out of, Jacob saw that the girl was nearly at the top of the hill. Swearing silently, he lithely bounded into the ever-thinning undergrowth, barely keeping up with the girl's stride. He checked his watch at the same time she did, and grinned to himself as the girl swore.

The grin vanished off his face, however, as he saw the girl run.

His jaw was on the ground before he remembered that he had spent months planning his ambush, and as such needed to keep up with her.

Except that he was finding it rather difficult to keep his cover while he was sprinting at top speed. Even as fast as he was, he couldn't keep up with the girl. Her legs were a blur, and Jacob estimated that she could easily outrun a car. Or a train. Or a plane, as a matter of fact, if the rumors about Dragons were true.

Distantly, Jacob realized that the sounds of the night had faded.

He nearly tripped when he saw how close they had come to the Fog. But he kept running, and so did she.

Hitting the Fog was like hitting a wall of water at thirty miles per hour. It hurt, and the pain only intensified, but the girl kept running, so Jacob did too.

After what seemed like several years, but was probably only a minute, they had come out of the other side. Jacob found himself once again racing through trees and bushes. Soon he found himself in the Gardens that flanked the Castle's Rim.

Jacob was gasping for air, but the hissing and bubbling of the Lava that separated the Rim from the Castle covered it.

Still running at an astounding speed, the girl reached the Bridge. The Bridge was wooden, and looked as though it would fall apart at any second, but the girl seemed undeterred as she approached it. She leapt, and seemed to hang in the air for a moment, cloak billowing out around her in a black halo, before she nimbly landed on the other side, right at the Castle's Gate.

Jacob abandoned all pretense and began to bound across the bridge, hitting every fifth plank or so. Still, the Bridge was over 1000 planks long, so the girl had plenty of time to whip her head around and glare at him.

Her blue eyes were like ice, and Jacob slowed for a moment, before she turned back to the Gate, tucking a stray strand of her curly blond hair behind her ear. Jacob swore, and picked up the pace as the girl put her hands on each Door, and pushed. The 50-foot Doors groaned on their hinges, before swinging open, revealing the Iceking's Hall.

Ignoring the checkered tiles and the 100-foot soaring windows, the girl strode broadly across the hall, toward the giant slab that had a strange Dragon on it. Because of the Rules, Jacob had never seen what the End was in the Castle, and as such he had no idea what species it was.

The girl was halfway to the End before Jacob had reached the end of the Bridge. He could no longer clearly think for lack of air, and so he pulled a vial from his pocket and splashed some of the white liquid in his mouth. Instantly he found his breath, and he began to run again. As soon as he had gone a fourth of the way to the End, the Doors swung shut and the Gate closed.

Jacob tried to run faster, but the girl had already reached the other end of the hall, gone up the stairs, and she placed her hands on the End. The Dragon's eyes began to glow as blue as the girl's had done, and in their light, Jacob saw its form more clearly.

Its arching neck and rounded head with dagger-like teeth gave Jacob the impression that this was not a Dragon that you meddled in the affairs with lightly. The enormous size of it only added to the effect.

Soon, the Dragon was outlined in blue light, and Jacob saw the swirling characters begin to glide across its surface. The girl stepped back, and Jacob shouted, "NO!"

But he was too late, as the characters swirled faster and faster until the End was the Door of Light, and the girl a black shadow outlined in its brilliance. Jacob struggled to run faster, even though he knew he was too late.

Thirty steps more…

A Pillar of Light burst from the Door, through the ceiling.

Twenty steps more…

A roar filled the chamber, and Jacob knew it came from the Dragon that was on the End.

Ten steps more…

The girl laughed, and stepped into the Light. The Pillar swelled before fading, the roar receding with it.

Jacob leapt up the small set of steps to slam his hands on the blank Slab that had once been the End.

I was so close! I'm sorry…Abraham…David…I failed you. I couldn't stop their messenger.

And the Castle faded, leaving Jacob standing in a black forest, lush and full of life.

The normal sounds of night were the only things that he could hear.


Author's Note: Well, that was unusual. However, like usual, it will take me a while to update. Anyway, Love and Peace! SPORK! Kaiser out.