I led the way to the Giant's tower, carefully finding a path that the car could follow. Ahead of us, lightning would flare up, each time revealing the mark in the clouds.
He was always the most dramatic of us all. It seems like dying only made that worse.
The thought had barely crossed my mind when a completely different mark lit up the sky to my left, "Is that a whale?"
Trudge called over to me, "Was there a Dark Signer with a whale mark?"
I shook my head, "No. There was spider, monkey, which we just defeated, giant, lizard, and hummingbird. No whales. Which means that they got another person dragged into this insanity."
Luna yelled, "My mark isn't glowing, so who is dueling them?"
"I have absolutely no idea. But we're about to find out!"
Turning sharply, I rushed towards the new mark, hearing swearing coming from behind me as Trudge attempted to follow.
Glancing behind me, I locked eyes with him, "You don't have to follow. In fact, it would probably be better for you not to come near the duel."
Luna yelled to be heard over the engines, "Don't worry, Yusei. I can protect both of them, even if the Dark Signer summons their Earthbound Immortal."
A smile crept onto my face, "If you really want to, I guess I can't stop you. I'll go ahead and find the duelists, and you can follow my signal."
Trudge nodded, confirming that my chip could still be tracked. Looking around, I found a way for me to jump into the dueling track, and launched myself into the fray.
The longer I drove, the more damage I could see from the duel. Giant gashes made the 'track' hard to get through, but I somehow managed.
Finally I could see light ahead of me.
"Yusei? Is that you?" a familiar voice called out.
As I got closer, I saw two of Crow's monsters, Bora and Mistral, flying above his Blackbird.
"Jonathan, what in the freaking world are you doing?!"
He smiled bashfully at me, "Diverting someone who wants to kill my little sister."
"Who'd want to kill me except Kiryu?"
I looked at his opponent, and almost lost control, "Geiger? What are...why are you a Dark Signer?"
Chills ran up my spine as his eyes locked with mine, "I am going to get my revenge on Goodwin, even if it's the last thing I do, and since you stopped me, I'm going to kill you too!"
My head whipped back to Crow, "You need to stop it right now! Let me handle it, I've dueled him before."
Crow shook his head, "Even though it's you asking, I can't. The fog took my kids, and I will do anything I can to completely destroy those who took them from me!"
I froze, "The children?"
"I'm sorry, Yusei. They were the reason I kept going, and now that they're gone, I have nothing left. This is my battle, and even if I lose, at least I'll get to be with them again."
My brother's shoulders started shaking as he kept talking, "I had no one until you and Jack took me in. My parents both died in a fire when I was little, leaving me to scavenge for everything I needed. Duel Monsters saved me. That's how I made my friends, that's how I learned to read and do math, that's how I met you two. I wanted to pass that onto kids like me who had no parents. I wanted to make it so that no one else knew how I felt. Then the Dark Signers turned my hopes to dust."
Something occurred to me as the two of them glared at each other, "You both are fighting to save your hometown and those you love, can't you see that?"
Crow screamed, "Then what do you want us to do, hug and make up? No way! I'll destroy this Dark Signer!"
So many emotions were flying through my head, but what ended up coming out was, "Stubborn, idiotic men and their freaking egos. I'm just going to hope that one of you regrows the brain that you lost."
Geiger nodded, "Then let us start dueling again! I summon my Spell Reactor RE!"
I looked at his field and froze, Here comes Sky Fire. And there go Crow's life points.
Sure enough, "I send my three Reactors to the graveyard to special summon Flying Fortress Sky-Fire!"
Helplessness filled me as Geiger destroyed Mistral with his monster's special ability, then attacked Bora.
Crow held out his hand, "Since you destroyed Mistral, I can negate damage once during this turn!"
I could almost see the gears turning in Crow's head as he started his turn, summoning a monster I was very familiar with: Vayu, the Emblem of Honor. You could use it's special ability from the graveyard, meaning that it getting destroyed would help Crow instead of hindering him.
Sure enough, Geiger immediately destroyed his monster, sending Crow flying forward. Crow had to extend the wings of his runner in order to keep him from flying off the track.
Geiger was trying to brag when Crow interrupted, "Thank you for doing that favor for me. When Vaya is in the graveyard, I can remove it and one non-tuner to Synchro Summon. I bring forth my Blackwing Armor Master!"
I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Crow was getting a pretty good hang of things.
He proved it by summoning Gale using its special ability, "Armor Master, take out his Sky Fire!"
A smile crept across my face as I saw the token get left behind, "Then I remove the wedge counter from your monster to drop its points to 0 for the rest of the turn. Now Gale, take out his Fortress!"
We both watched happily as his monster was destroyed, sending him out of control into the supports for a bridge.
I shot past the crash, catching up with my brother, who smiled at me with exhaustion filling his eyes, "How's that for someone who isn't a Signer?"
"Crow, don't underestimate him."
The words had just escaped my mouth when Geiger came out of the smoke, catching up to us.
"I can now summon Dark Submarine from the graveyard!"
My blood went cold, "Dark Tuner."
Crow glanced over at me, "What?"
"Brace yourself Crow, the duel is about to kick into high gear."
We watched together as Geiger summoned what looked like a giant airplane carrier flying in the sky.
Crow scoffed, "Just because it's big, doesn't mean that it's useful."
Geiger scowled at him, "Once per turn it can bring Sky Fire back from the graveyard. So I would reevaluate your opinion if I were you."
Crap. He has everything he needs. But I doubt that I can persuade Crow to let me take over.
"Sky Fire's ability destroys Armor Master, and then it attacks your Gale the Whirlwind."
A bone chilling scream came out of Crow as he spun out of control, crashing into the ground. He tumbled for several feet before coming to a stop.
Pulling to a stop, I crouched next to Crow, "Please, let me finish this duel for you. I don't want you to get hurt for me!"
He dragged himself to his runner, "I won't give up until I don't have any life left in me! They took my kids from me, they aren't taking my sister too!"
"Fine then."
Crow tried to rev his engine, but it kept struggling. I reached out with my powers, finding the gear that had fallen out of place and nudged it back into place. Unfortunately for me, separating my powers was not something I could do, meaning that I also could feel Crow's emotions as I did so. I felt Crow's emotions, pain (both physical and mental), exhaustion, but most of all, love. Love for me and the children, and this trash heap we called home.
Watching him pull himself onto his runner was emotionally painful, and he focused his attention on Geiger, "Let's keep going until we can't move any more!"
He struggled to draw a card, "I end my turn. And before you say anything, Geiger, remember that I have two cards on the field, and one of them could destroy every monster on your field. Choose carefully."
Geiger used his monster's special ability to destroy the card on Crow's left, and I felt his confidence improve.
As Geiger announced the direct attack, Crow countered with Backlash, which really did destroy all of Geiger's monsters, "You weren't lying!"
Crow smirked, "I haven't lied since the day I was born."
Which has gotten you into heaps of trouble.
"I activate the spell, Contaminated Earth. If two level 5 or above monsters were destroyed this turn, I can summon an Earthbound Immortal. Come forth, Chacu Challua!"
Crow placed down another card, "I summon Blackwing Fane the Steel Chain! Due to his special ability, he can attack you directly!"
I'm just starting to understand what Martha meant by saying that we were going to send her to the grave early. We're all crazy. This duel might send ME to my grave.
Luckily for Crow, the attack hit. Immediately after that, Crow pointed at the Earthbound Immortal, "Then Fane's special effect comes into play, forcing your Immortal into defense mode for the next two turns."
Geiger laughed, "My Immortal has no weakness. If it doesn't attack, it deals half of its defense points to you as damage."
Horror spread through my body as the whale sunk into the ground, burrowing towards Crow. As it made contact, Crow nearly spun out of control again as Geiger continued to laugh, "Then I activate Basara, which lets me release a monster to destroy a monster that is a higher level than the one released. So I summon Dark Sea Rescue in order to sacrifice it to destroy your Fane! Then you take 800 points of damage."
"I activate Stun Grenades, which negates any effect that would destroy my monster and you take 500 points of damage!"
My heart rate started to slow down to a normal pace as Geiger's face filled with fury as his life points dropped. Ignoring the fury, Crow started his turn, and when he saw his card, a huge smile spread across his face, "I summon Blizzard the Far North! When he is summoned, I can bring back a monster from my graveyard! Then I fuse them together to create Silverwind the Ascendant!"
A smile spread across my face as Crow explained, "His special ability is that if I skip his attack, up to two monsters with less defense points than his attack points are destroyed."
Geiger froze after hearing that, "What?"
As Crow was about to activate the effect, he froze, "Who are they?"
I followed his line of vision to the whale as Geiger yelled at Crow to get on with it.
"Geiger, just look at your stupid monster for once!"
He stopped talking and obeyed me, "What are the people of my village doing inside my Immortal?"
I pulled up in between the two of them, "Those are the people from your village?"
The two most prevalent kids looked like him, minus the serious muscles.
He nodded, "There's no doubt. But that means it wasn't the Crimson Dragon that destroyed them, it was the Dark Signers!"
His duel runner slowed down, "I'm sorry about all of this, Yusei. I shouldn't have been so hasty to judge."
As I slowed down to look at him, I noticed his eyes were back to normal. He started reaching for the screen when he jerked, his eyes and facial mark glowing the same ominous purple as the mark on his arm.
"I will destroy the light of this world and any who defend it."
Jerking again, his eye reverted just long enough for him to speak, "End this now, Crow. Before I lose control of myself! Free the people inside of the Immortal!"
The third time, his body jerked so violently it scared me, "If you aren't going to fight, then I'll destroy you! Earthbound Immortal, attack him directly!"
My voice could only be described as a scream, "Crow, don't let Geiger down! You've got to finish this!"
He nodded, "I use my facedown Parasite Mind to steal your trap Basara and use it. I send my Blackwing to the graveyard to destroy Chacu Challua!"
The giant whale turned into a light snow, slowly dissolving as it fell into the ground.
Crow pulled to a stop, "Did you see that, Yusei? I took down a Dark Signer!"
A loud crack came from above us, and I saw part of a building starting to fall right towards Crow, "Look out!"
Out of nowhere, Geiger crashed into Crow, sending him flying out of the way.
I jumped the pile of rubble as Crow cried out, "Geiger!"
Scrambling off my runner, I joined Crow at Geiger's side, who was shouting, "Why did you save my life?"
Geiger slowly turned to him, "You saved my people. Make sure you save yours and raise them well."
He turned to me, "Sorry about everything, Yusei. You were right. Destroy the Dark Signers."
Just like Demak, he turned into dust, and I sighed, "Dark Signers are going down."
A/N: Thanks to Lets-Go-To-Vermont and Dark Lord of the Fallen Angels for reviewing on the original version of this chapter.
