Chapter 8: Justice
"Balance—Re-establishes order, that is the balance between Law and Duty, between Good and Evil"—The Egyptian Tarot
Blood...
She was coated, she was tasting and drinking and sweating blood.
Tawny eyes slowly opened to look down the corridor at the locked room, the golden symbol of Wadjet glowing at her, inviting and barring her from entry.
Inside of her, Itert was calmer but still in a small rage, though something seemed to awaken it to another point.
She had stalked a different direction, and now rounded back to a point she had not gone down, noticing someone run away but not caring too much. She saw a heavy wooden door with a silver handle, and she knew that she had to go inside.
Destiny pushed her forward.
A strange feeling held her back, at least for the time. A familiar hand and face stopped her, facing her as he did when she was a child and he was teaching her to defend herself. Women were often not warriors but he had seen that she would be one, and had taught her what he could before—
Before—
Blood and anger coated her and stopped her memories of herself, while the monsters within her raged and helped her drink up the blood.
The ghost before her turned and looked at his twin walked in with a woman that had red hair and a man with a small knot of hair on the back of his head.
She wanted to go forward to them, but she didn't remember them, only that they were not those to kill. But within the room were those to kill, those to harm for their transgressions against her other, those who had—
Who had—
stop
She would kill them all, all those who would betray the ones who were hers, all those who had harmed the Valley of the Kings. She protected that valley, how dare they—
stop it
More hands and faces, but the one she noticed was the man in front of her, who had first stopped her, and a growl escaped her throat before she tried to lunge but the other hands and faces stopped her.
Mes-ensenef, my younger sister, only surviving member of the Court of Atemu, and one called Sakhmet, the Mighty One, REMEMBER YOURSELF! 1
The blood and anger dropped away as she gasped, her memory flooded with the last time such a rage had taken over her. The cursed thief had nearly used the spirits of Kul Eruna to kill her sebah and some of the other priests who had been there. Mahaado as the Magnus of Illusions had appeared to save her sebah and told him the truth of his father's knowledge about the village.
The spirits had tried to attack her but had been repelled by nine spirits, the spirits of her family, showing her strange kinship with the cursed thief.
And then she and Mahaado had begun their attacks...more accurately, she had allowed the anger of herself and of her monsters to take hold, and then later joined with them, becoming rage and the embodiment of the Eye of Re.
When she had been awoken from that, her wounds had doubled, many of the priests and those who had served in her sebah's court were dead, and Akunadin had forced her other to fight her sebah.
Then her sebah had given himself up to save his home, and had died, his body gone, the Pendant now a Puzzle...
"My brother," she whispered, "release me. Let me go in and fight with my friends."
In a moment, sister, he said, smiling. He did indeed look like Phileas had the man been younger and tanned, his eyes twinkling as he saw that she had regained herself.
"Thank you...thank you for reviving me."
There is no Mana here to revive you, nor any others. It took a good deal of time last time for you to remember yourself, and this time was no different. There are only a few living souls in this castle now.
She didn't realize she had killed so many...and found herself uncaring for the men. All of them had served the League and all of them had a hand in this, so they had to be punished.
"I will wait."
-o-
"I thought I smelled something."
Gregory glared as Phileas Fogg, Rebecca Fogg, and a dark man walked in. Zalika smirked as the dark man pulled out a kukri knife and she laughed. "Brother. You dare come here to confront me?"
"You have stolen that which is not yours, sister, and I fully intend to stop your plans and to take them back to their proper places."
Zalika laughed as she held up her own knife, curved much like the sword that the woman used. "Are you so sure of that? You were gifted with the Item that should've been mine. Our brother has the Scales, and you are the first of a long line who gained the Tauk yet were a male? I will gain all the Items if I can, and revive the Pharaoh as well as the ways of Ma'at, and set this all right."
"It is right, you are too blinded by the darkness in your heart to see it."
Phileas looked to Saim and then to Zalika before saying, "Well, I suppose we can allow these two to settle their sibling rivalry. Rebecca, if you would be so kind as to ensure that we don't have anyone interrupting, I and Count Gregory have some unfinished business of our own."
"Of course, Phileas," Rebecca said, moving back as Gregory fused his parts together long enough to pull out a large sword from nearby.
Phileas fired as Saim and Zalika charged each other and Gregory deflected the first blast before heading towards his rival.
-o-
The man ran, heading for the outside. If he got there, he wouldn't have to deal with the woman, the insane woman who had killed everyone, who would kill everyone.
The demon, the one—
Heavy hands grabbed him just as he saw daylight and he was stopped, seeing men in dark clothing from the lands of the Sahara. One man in particular held a pair of golden scales, a white feather in his dark turban.
"No!" the man said, "I won't go back in! Please! That demon-woman...she's killed everyone."
"The demon-woman?" the man with the scales said in the same halted English as the man Saim from before, "Tell me what you know of her, and perhaps your life will be spared."
-o-
She was getting impatient.
While the monsters inside of her raged only slightly, she knew somehow that her time to enter was coming up and she needed to get nearer to the door. However, the spirits of her family weren't letting her move, insisting that a specific sign would appear that would show her the right time.
By Ra, if I don't get in there soon someone might get hurt, or die. I'm not going to let that happen again to anyone I've let into my heart. Not again!
She suddenly blinked when she saw Jules Verne walk around the corner, the Millennium Rod in his hand, held very much like a priest would hold it, and shadows covering his eyes.
"Jules? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, his voice odd, "don't worry about me. We should worry about the others."
She blinked, feeling the restraints of her family leave as she moved forward towards Jules. "What are you talking about? What's wrong?"
"They must be punished. The Divine Law of Ma'at demands it."
"...Jules...what--." She stopped as he looked up at her and gave a confident smirk that was not his own. His normally chocolate-colored eyes were now a deep blue color, and held confidence and arrogance like none she had seen before. Almost instinctively, Itert appeared next to her and walked over to nuzzle the free hand, 'Jules' allowing his hand to pet the large griffin.
She stood frozen in shock before he turned back to her. "It's good to see you too, Sakhmet."
"...Seto?"
1—Her real name is Mes-ensenef, which translated means "born of blood". The Phileas-look alike is her older brother, who was supposed to be a great swordsman before he and the rest of her family were killed. The spoiler here only is the name of the court she belonged to, with Atemu being the actual name of her 'sebah'. In the manga and the anime, when the Pharaoh goes after Bakura in Kul Eruna, Bakura calls upon the souls of those who had been used to make the Millennium Items to help him kill the Pharaoh. They also help protect Bakura's monster from harm. Despite only having nine 'ghosts' attached to her, these are all her family members and thus they are often very powerful in both stopping harm from happening to her, and from her harming anyone else when she needs to calm down. And yeah, she can go berserk. She has three bloodthirsty monsters in her, and all of them have qualities of a lioness. She gets angry, Mr. Bigglesworth gets upset, and people die.
Chapter 9: Judgment
"Renewal—A moment which everything will change and in which everything will no longer be important."—The Egyptian Tarot
Sparks flew as the two knives once more clashed and Saim's got the edge, cutting a long line across Zalika's cheek. Blood trickled down and her glare turned murderous. One hand itched for the gun she had gotten ready for him, but she had decided to save it for the last, for the moment when he thought that his victory was at hand.
Saim had been meek, but when it came to knife-fighting, he was the best of the three siblings.
Thus Zalika had her hidden gun. She knew that when it was time, she would use it against her brother, and take his Item.
She moved to repay him for the scar she would have, but he easily blocked it and sent her backwards towards the wall. She had only enough time to cast a look and see that Gregory was not faring much better against Fogg. The Englishman at least had all of his parts together, and because of that he had much more stamina then the decaying Crusader.
Her brief glance over at Gregory nearly cost her the blade she wielded, and she turned back to her own fight.
She would destroy her brother, kill him, let him fail when he thought he had succeeded! For everything that had happened to her, he would pay!
She jumped away from him and gave him a wicked smile. "I curse your line, my brother. Win or lose, the line which bears the Tauk shall always have their siblings turn against them. They will be those who must face up against them, or those who must find another to face them. Your line will produce another traitor, and perhaps he will even kill the Pharaoh! 1"
"No," Saim told her, "my line may have another traitor, as you curse us with, but this traitor will help to deliver the Pharaoh to the Door, and to his way into the afterlife. That is my own curse, that yours will come to pass, but fail instead, just as your plan and actions will fail you."
Rage boiled in her, and with a loud curse she lunged at him, intent on killing him with the knife instead of the gun. He dare tell her how her curse will end? He dare say that his line will help the Nameless Pharaoh anyway?
He will die!
She forgot her original plan to allow him to think he won, instead attacking with all of her rage before pulling the gun and cocking back the hammer, then with a sadistic smile at his look of horror, squeezing the trigger.
-o-
Phileas found himself having only a slightly rough time against Gregory. It appeared that the man wasn't as good as he thought, and easily overestimated in this case.
Phileas quickly dodged the sword strike to see that a few of the guards were causing Rebecca little trouble, but not enough for him to worry about. He parried a second strike with a confident smirk on his face while seeing that Saim, at least at the moment, had an upper hand against his sister.
The Count breathed heavily against whatever strain there was for him at this time, and glared at Fogg. Phileas gave a confident smirk. "A little old for this, Count? Perhaps you should give up."
"Never," Gregory said, now coming at Phileas in a straight charge, almost too fast for Phileas to properly dodge or even think of what to do before the sword ran him through...
-o-
She walked over to Jules and the purring Itert before looking at the door. "Why did you do that, Seto?"
"He allowed it. He is watching, and won't allow me to hurt his friends. Besides," the same smirk, "this could possibly be what happens to our Pharaoh when the Puzzle is completed. I might as well see how things are for him."
"Still as arrogant as ever," her hand fell onto the door, "Then we have no choice, do we?"
Jules/Seto nodded, and with that Itert disappeared back into her, and she opened the door quickly.
-o-
Before her shot was made, or the blade met it's mark, the door burst open, and Zalika pulled away, seeing a boy who had to be Jules and the traitor Mighty One enter into the fray, the Mighty One helping the red-haired Englishwoman to cut down the last of the guards. The boy simply stood there, looking over to her and glaring, the Millennium Rod in his hand, and his cool blue eyes judging her for all that he must consider as her misdeeds. She raised her gun, a new target in sight, and began to pull the trigger as he raised the Rod and said something in Egyptian.
Her surprise made her pause, not noticing her brother heading forward to stop her had also paused as was now backing away quickly. That was a spell of Summoning! But—
She looked down below her feet and realized her folly too late, as the ground beneath her glowed a brilliant blue-white color, and from one end of the stone tablet rose the head of the White Beast. Blue eyes regarded her with hatred before the white-scaled dragon opened its mouth to roar and Zalika, scared, tried to fire upon it.
The monster didn't bother to attack with the lightning it created, instead going down to snap at the woman, taking off the top half of her body in one clean swipe. To the side, Saim watched in awe and horror, feeling sadness that his sister had died, but not so much because of her misdeeds.
I hope you find some rest, sister, but I know that it will not be in the Court of Osiris.
Then two questions came to mind. One was how Jules knew the spell of Summoning. The next was why Jules' normally brown eyes were now a blue color.
-o-
Gregory had succeeded in putting Phileas off-balance, but in a bad way for him, allowing Phileas to duck instead of move, and thus exposing most of the equipment that kept him going. Phileas made what work he could as he got out, severing two or so of the tubes that had kept the parts of Gregory together or, in some cases, suspended, and causing them to fall useless to the floor. Gregory wheezed as his air-supply was beginning to cut off and Phileas, with one last look of disgust, put his sword through the Count's head. The eyes of the Crusader grew dim and then blank before what was left of his body fell over, shatter into the three remaining pieces that were left.
"Now," Phileas muttered, "stay dead."
"He will," the woman said, "I don't think that he could be deader. Unless there are monks around who have a soft spot for insane Crusaders."
"He doesn't get to be lucky twice," Jules said, his voice off, and Phileas quickly looked at him before Jules gave a smirk that he never would've worn at all. "I suggest you get your sword."
Phileas frowned but did so, wiping it off before he noticed that the huge white dragon was still around, looking at Jules with a...longing?...expression.
What the hell happened to him in that room?
Jules said something in Egyptian that Phileas recognized as an order of attack, and the monster turned before a large ball of white lightning appeared in its open mouth and streamed out towards the corpse of Gregory. In a flash, not even the smell of burned flesh was left.
The woman snorted. "Show off."
Jules gave her a smile. "So?"
Rebecca looked at Jules with an odd look as well, telling Phileas she knew that something was up as well, and Phileas was the one who spoke on the matter. "Alright, now what the bloody hell is going on?"
Another voice answered for him. "What is going on is a new trial; a trial to see which one of you is worthy of the sacred Items."
-o-
Saim turned suddenly at the voice and glared, his hand around the knife gripping it a little too tightly as he said, "Brother."
"Saim," his brother, Seftut, glared to him, "you are here against orders. I am the head of the Tombkeepers who guard the Door of the Afterlife, as well as the Sacred Tablet. You have already been punished for your transgression...was that not enough?"
The Mighty One growled at Saim's brother and stepped between the two. "Enough, both of you. They will not take the trial of the Items, nor will you do anything to impede our exit from this place. We were here because of your folly, and now that it has been corrected, we will leave."
Seftut proved to have as much sense as the captive which Phileas and Rebecca Fogg had found. "You are nothing to us, traitor. Step aside, and speak not to your betters."
Jules Verne, strangely enough, was the one to speak up, and in the old Egyptian as well. "She is your better, not the other way around. She was made a Priestess-Warrior by Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen for saving his son from the Spider-Queen and her Cult, and you dare say she is not your better?"
"That's enough," the Mighty One replied in Egyptian as well, "You may have his body, but it does not give you the right to speak as such, my other. You forget, this is still the world of the Living; you have come here for some purpose, and when that is done, you must return to the Land of the Dead."
"Those weren't just my words," Jules said, and Saim finally added, also in old Egyptian, "Mighty One, you are no more below them then I am, and I am the youngest son of our father."
"You speak out of turn!" Seftut said, but Saim shook his head.
"I don't. My time here has taught me that. I will not bow to you as I did in that vision, nor will I listen to you speak ill of the Mighty One. She has waited as long as the Tombkeepers for the return of the Pharaoh, longer even, and suffered more then us. Unlike us, who marry and change with each generation, she remains, the only member of his court still alive." Saim now glared at his brother who held the Scales, feeling somehow stronger then he had before. "She is the Mighty One, the one who protected the Pharaoh from harm until the end, and the one who has become my friend. They," he motioned to Phileas and Rebecca Fogg, as well as Jules Verne, "have become my friends. When we are free of this place, I will tell them the location of the Pharaoh's lost tomb."
Seftut glared at him, the Scales starting to tilt until Jules walked in front and held up the Millennium Rod and the Millennium Eye. She, in turn, held out her arm, allowing the Millennium Ankh to appear. Only the Rod glowed in response; the Eye twisted and sailed over to the Scales before settling on one of them, while the Ankh moved to a man with vacant looking eyes that she remembered from somewhere, though his name escaped her at the moment 2. Jules' now blue eyes glared at Seftut before the Egyptian seemed to realize exactly what had gone on.
Seftut glared at the Foggs, then at Jules and the Mighty One, but his harshest remained for Saim. Saim met the glare, feeling his heart tear. He lost both of his siblings today...but he was free of the tyranny of Kul Eruna and the Tombkeepers there.
"Then stay in the Tomb, and protect the Memory of the Pharaoh. Whoever wishes to join you from our clan will be free to."
Saim nodded his thanks only briefly, and Seftut turned and barked his harsh order to leave the castle.
As the men left, the Foggs looked at Jules, who looked back with a small smirk. "I had to ensure that certain things happened. Your friend cannot use the Millennium Items, but my Soul is bonded to the Rod. In whatever place, Life or Death, it calls to me, and allows me to manipulate what I must."
"So you took over our friend's body?" Rebecca asked, the subject obviously painful for her.
"Not as that man Lazarus did. Your friend is aware of what is going on, and free to stop me from anything. His holding of the Book of Knowledge allows it."
"I'm confused," Phileas put in.
"You would be."
"Now I know you're not Verne. But beside that...are you quite done? Because like Lazarus or not, your possessing our friend's body is quite unnerving."
Verne opened his mouth to speak but the Mighty One put a hand on his head. "Seto, stop it. Let him go."
A sigh came. "Very well. But I miss you."
"I miss you as well. Still...tell me that in the Land of the Dead, you and the one who had the White Beast are--."
A light flush came onto Verne's cheeks. "She is there, yes. And...we are happy."
A sad smile came across the Mighty One's face. "I'm glad. You have no idea how glad I am...though I wish it didn't take you until Death to be reunited."
Verne gave his own sad smile. "We all await you. The time of the Pharaoh's return is near. By the time this calendar reaches the second millennia of their Holy King's birth, he will arrive 3."
The Mighty One blinked back surprise, and between that, Verne closed his eyes, and reopened them as Jules Verne, the spirit forever gone from him.
1—This curse is a mention of Marik and Ishizu (Isis) Ishtar, from the Battle City part of Yugioh. Those two are from a long line of Tombkeepers who watched over the Pharaoh's tomb. However, you have two divisions of Tombkeepers: one who protects the King's Memory and who have the Rod and Necklace, and those who protect the Door, and who have the rest of the Items, except the Puzzle. I just have the reason why they were split up here. As for Saim's 'counter curse', that is actually spoiler territory, so I really don't want to go there, other then to say that Marik is not all that bad. Sadistic and evil, sure, but there is a good kid in there somewhere, but you have to watch all through Battle City to see it come back out.
Again, no spoilers for those who might watch it, though if you ask in a review I might be a snitch and say more.
2—The man mentioned is Shada, a man who might be rather old or young, no one can tell. He ends up gaining control of the Tombkeepers. You first meet him in the original manga as the holder of the Millennium Scales and the Millennium Ankh. Later, you learn that he met with Pegasus and gave him the trial of the Millennium Eye. Due to the fact that he seems older then he looks, I added in the fact that he was there, as well as him having met Sakhmet before.
3—According to the Yugioh manga and some of the show, the Millennium Puzzle, or at least the tomb, was officially discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. However, all those who went in died, and the last words uttered was "The Shadow Games". In the 1960s, Yugi's grandfather, who at the time was a gambler, went into the tomb to play 'the hardest game ever', and ended up being saved by the spirit of the Pharaoh, and gained the Puzzle. In the 1990s, after about seven or eight years working on it, it was finished by Yugi and the Pharaoh was unleashed. This is Seto giving Sakhmet hope for her future. And I said "By this calendar" because I'm fairly sure that the Egyptians used a completely different calendar. The Chinese have a different one as well, which is far older then ours, and Muslim calendars are also different from ours, mainly because I think they're based off a lunar calendar.
