Disclaimer: I do not own Jackie Chan Adventurs or Yu Gi Oh.
Betaed by: Zim'smostloyalservant
Author's Note: And now we gwt the movies. The second and third probably released direct to DVD.
Interlude of Ages
aka: Her Aftermath & Their Movies
Rain had never fallen in the Shadow Netherworld. The waters were pulled from the air by the hands of Yade Khan, ready made. Drops falling from the sky in a sprinkle or deluge? Unheard of.
But now it began to sprinkle. Droplets of glowing purple struck the stone, splattering, their glow almost vanishing. But the sprinkle strengthened, becoming a steady fall. In the dark waters, the purple reached out and connected. Pulsing and clumping, and even dividing. Likewise on land, upon the grounds, the rooftops, the walkways, and many corridors, the purple liquid puddled and pooled.
After briefly beefing up to a deluge, the rain tapered off. And a new sound was heard, growing louder.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!" Yade Khan screamed, as once molten gold pinged into the ground, breaking under impact and chiming with a strange cheeriness.
She struck the plains outside the already broken Shrine of Souls. The impact made the damaged structure collapse, and the stone of the plains buckle and crack as a crater formed in the solid rock. The liquid was hurled back, leaving the stone around the crater black and barren before the collapsed ruin. The gold also scattered amongst the cracks and rises of the once flat plains, as if once more nuggets waiting to be mined.
Yade Khan groaned, putting a hand to the throbbing, glowing purple scar over her eye. The eye shone a bright and sickly yellow through her eyelid and hand.
Moving, her tendrils lifted her head and coiled around it. Her face and neck were quickly covered as the mass drew tight. Then she scooted her torso into the bottom of the crater, her back on the concave stone, and pulled her tail over herself.
With only the coils visible in their steady rise and fall, they were pulled down tight, compressing down and on themselves. Unspoken magic weaved through the air, and claylike shadow spun into existence, pouring down on the injured Yade Khan. Once every piece of her was concealed from sight and packed tight upon itself, Yade Khan screamed to herself, not a bit of the sound escaping.
Several days, or what passed for them, came and went. Having screamed, the pained elder being passed out.
Hidden from all, Yade Khan slept.
Earth (Yade Khan Edition)
Yade Khan: The Forbidden Cards
When the alarm woke Brenner, he was surprised. By the time he used the quick-change spell he had developed to instantly don his suit ensemble, he was certain.
Someone was breaking into that vault.
It seemed a tad late — things had been quiet for a year now.
He assumed it was just someone after the valuables; after all, sometimes burglary is just burglary. But just in case, rather than summon the guards, Brenner tapped his amulet, and stepped into shadows.
Emerging into the corridor outside the vault, he wrinkled his nose at the bare bulb light fixtures lighting the concrete hall. Yeah, as a secret passage, he had to do a lot of this personally, and as a rush job, not very theme-fitting with his castle. But still, just because you don't expect strangers in your closet is no excuse to make it look like a set from a B-horror flick.
Then he realized the shadow snarl trap that should leave the intruder trapped in the open vault door was not triggered. No, narrowing his gaze mystically, he realized it had been triggered. And countered.
Drawing on magic and dark vision, he stepped over the threshold just as glass shattered.
"What do you think you are doing?" Brenner demanded of the robed figure with their back to him. They had ignored the ugly antiques Brenner had no place or buyer for, and his father's gold bric-a-brac. They instead had gone straight for that display case.
Maybe he should have put it in a safe after all?
The figure did not answer him. But he knew those robes.
"A Shadow Walker. I heard from Trace and the others that some of you were still sulking about. What, not content to run back to your deserts and mountain desolations after your goddess discarded you like old toys?" Brenner taunted.
He readied an attack when there was no answer. This could not go to a duel. Not if they knew what those cards were.
The figure turned, and glowing red eyes lit up the face under the cowl. Brenner stopped his blast, stunned.
"Amara?" Brenner asked. Her blast was prompt and sent him flying backward into the wall.
"No longer," she said, walking past him as he struggled to stand through the daze.
"Tell the Vanquisher and the Betrayer. The Dark Queen rises once more," she commanded. Then darkness washed over Brenner.
X X X
"The Forbidden Cards?" Trace demanded of the tele-screen on Alonso's office wall.
"Yes, three cards that I developed but never released or even used in my deck. I assumed no one, even Yade Khan, knew about them. But, well, it's pretty plain she always had more of a leg up on me than I gave her credit for," Brenner admitted.
"Dark Queen's Favor, I tore it in half. It shouldn't still be playable," Gragas said. He was looking down at his floor. The spot his former favorite card's likeness had occupied was now blank white marble.
"With shadow magic and skill, the cards can be repaired," Brenner explained, "It was to be a trump in case of unforeseen circumstances."
"And I just left it there on the temple floor," Gragas grumbled. Mildred chimed her cane against the desk for attention.
"So wait, Amara is possessed by a card? Alonso's card? Even if the cards have spirits, we've never heard of this. And it happened before she got her hands on them," Mildred said.
"Each card is unique, but Yade Khan designed that one herself. I kept an eye on it just in case before. And when you freed me, I thought it was safely destroyed by Gragas and the remains by the monks. Seems I assumed far too much."
"The Forbidden Cards. What do they do, Brenner?" Trace demanded.
"I can tell you thoroughly on two. But the third… I designed that one in a creative flush after a nightmare and sent it off. Its effects are fairly tame, but holding it in my hand I realized both that I didn't understand how I came up with it, and that I had never felt more vulnerable than holding it in my hand."
"Well, greeeaat," Mildred huffed.
X X X
"This cannot be!" Dark Queen screamed, as her life points reached red zero. At the other corner of the dueling platform, Amara slumped, freed from the manipulation. The Dark Queen cried out, as the soul shards she had been absorbing leaked out and the Yade Khan card became visible inside her head.
"The Forbidden Cards, your rivalry!" she yelled at Gragas and Trace as they came down from their own podiums. Gragas chuckled as one of the card spirit's tendrils evaporated from her head.
"Please, you're not even the real Yade Khan. Just an overpowered card thinking it is," Gragas laughed.
"It?! I am a she!" Dark Queen snapped, growing more translucent.
"I have it on good authority that the real Yade Khan was lacking in genitals of any sort. So, nope."
"You bastard! I was your trump! I helped you! I loved you, but you cast me aside TWICE!"
"What can I say? I don't like clingy girls?"
"So, we have confirmation you like girls. Oh, the tears of the fanboys!" Mildred said, sawing away at the bindings on Fukuro with her Swiss Army knife.
"Ow! Hey! Pay attention!" Fukuro snapped, as she cut into his arm.
"Oh, sorry, that was completely by accident. I am blind, you know. It has nothing to do with you not backing me up on that whole harassment from your macho idol earlier," Mildred shrugged. She resumed cutting, and he cried out again.
"Ow! Damnit!"
"KREEE!" Dark Queen shrieked, leaping onto the dueling floor. She shattered blow the waist, but her arms pulled her forward even as she evaporated and chipped away. Trace took a step back, but Alonso grinned and reached into his leather jacket.
The Queen's last pair of arms gave out, and she skidded to a stop before them, little more than a shadow of a head and torso, her card suspended between slitted red eyes.
Gragas pressed his gun to the insubstantial forehead.
"And bang," he said. Trace struck down on his hand. The bullet tore through the shadow flesh but missed the card.
"Ifrrigin hateyuuu!" the card spirit slurred, before vanishing. Trace snatched the card out of the air and glared at Gragas as he tucked it into his own coat pocket.
"Looking to improve your deck?" Gragas asked, eyebrow raised.
"Actually, just somewhat leery about watching a sentient magic being with identity issues being gunned down like a rabid animal. You wouldn't get it," Trace said.
"Hey gits, still tied up! And I think Mildred may be trying to kill me! A little help?" Fukuro called out from the pillars in the observatory.
"Nah, never cared for you, really. You never wear a real shirt," Gragas said, turning to leave.
"On my way!" Trace called, patting his pocket to make sure. They were just fortunate Amara never played the final card.
Oh crap, he had forgot about Amara!
X X X
Zaben chuckled, turning off the monitor. It never hurt to learn more about your opponents. And they knew nothing of what was truly coming.
Getting up from his chair, the scarred man crossed the dusty catacomb to a well-kept wooden table illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. Tomes with red marked pages were set about, and a number of decks. But centered before the work bench upon a chalk drawn array of symbols, was the third Forbidden Card. Brenner's hidden shame among hidden shames.
Zaben smiled as he picked up, Omega: The End.
"The False Goddess provided a fine distraction. As if a mere card could have come to life without a masterful wizard's aid! But no matter — by the time they realize the extent of what they have overlooked, it will be too late. For everything," Zaben smiled.
Shadow Netherworld:
In her tightly locked darkness, Yade's eye throbbed, and a moment later her body followed suit. She'd groan if she could move enough to do it. But no, she was still too weak.
She wasn't going anywhere for a while.
Yade Khan: Endgame
Gragas smirked as Pale Eyes destroyed another monster. Wind blew through the field, rippling the grass but not affecting the images from his and the enemy's duel disks at all.
"Huh, you made a mistake starting with me," Gragas said, as lightning flashed in the approaching storm.
His opponent did not reply, drawing a card and considering their hand.
"I knew you would crawl out of your hole eventually. And you say you have that missing Forbidden Card? Putting you in your place would be satisfying on its own, but cleaning up the last of Yade Khan and Brenner's mess with Trace being none the wiser until after the fact? Ha! Is it my birthday?" Gragas wondered aloud.
A lightning flash revealed a scowl beneath the cowl his opponent wore.
"I had forgotten how annoying you are, brat. Soon it will all end, but I wanted to minimize how much I had to deal with you regardless," Zaben said. He placed a card down on the disk, and four black pillars rose around them, chains erupting.
"OMEGA: THE END!" Zaben declared.
Soon:
Zaben walked over to Alonso's abandoned disk and picked it up. He plucked the Pale Eyes Blue Dragon card from its spot, and after a moment's hesitation, shrugged and put the rest of the cards into the waterproof compartment.
The storm truly broke, but the water did not touch the wizard. He looked up at the display of nature's power, unimpressed.
"A symbol of renewal and also destruction. The destruction that comes soon, will be without renewal. No nightmares, no dreams. Only, the end. But still, this was only the first. So many cards in the young king's hand to pluck," Zaben mused, as he vanished into the darkness.
X X X
"And you didn't notice it was gone?" King demanded of the monks. The heads of the orders bowed their heads in shame, including the young Shadow monk.
"Much like the theft of Omega was covered using Amara and the Dark Queen as a lightning rod, so too did Zaben take the Elemental Seal from our vaults as we closely observed your and Alonso Gragas' battle. It is no excuse, but it is the truth."
"Truthfully, we did not regard it to be as dangerous as Zaben has revealed it to be with the Gragas Tower incident," the lovely wind monk added.
"Then you remember it?" Trace demanded.
"Only with prompting from you. Zaben tapped into Oblivion to not only make the site of his first great defeat vanish, but make it seem to the world that it never was."
"Yet his threat seems flawed. He speaks of a true oblivion of having never been. But while the memory of the tower vanished, the impact it had, as for example your duels there, was merely twisted to fit the new narrative. I think that his aspirations of universal destruction are not just malign, but utterly flawed."
"Yet a reasonable facsimile of oblivion is still unacceptable. He could have targeted others, other Sun Souls, but he wants me and Cheherezad as the final two for his plan, and he took Alonso and my friends. Sane or not, delusional or his so-called new enlightenment — Zaben is still a vengeful man seeking to settle old grudges. Though I hate him more than I should, it seems, I understand my judgement may be flawed," Trace noted.
"There is no need to rush in. If you alone are what he wants, he bides by your timetable."
"No. According to the message, he already used it on a girl. Someone close to me who now I can't remember, who no record exists of! It may be a bluff, but it might be this feeling of something missing that has dogged me for years… And if not, I will not risk even one of them. Not even Gragas."
"Very well then, he awaits you in the hidden temple of Yade Khan that housed the center of the Shadow Walker cult for ages of silence from their dark mistress. A haunted place of emptiness now, wherein dwells a haunted and empty man," the head monk stated.
"Show me the way," Trace and King demanded in tandem.
X X X
The Refuge of Shadows. Despite everything, Trace had expected something… else. After all, for millennia, Yade Khan had been absent, the Shadow Walkers' magic dwindling, surely it would have lost much of its malicious edge and become something more palpable for the generations of people who had worshipped here and watched the world go by.
He hoped other such hidden temples were indeed the case. But this one, it moved between encroaching tightness to void-like vastness in the mountain. The scenes depicted on the walls… other temples may have shown miracles or acts of scriptural worthiness. Here it was death, conquest, and terror of every kind the ancient world and shadow magic could bring forth.
"I know it well, Trace," King spoke, "My allies of old and I saw many of these wretched places of obscenity cleansed and torn down. This is a relic of the Himinate, either built by Yade Khan's ancient followers against their defeat, or raised by the survivors of my war to better pass down their legacy of atrocity."
"It's been vandalized," Trace noted. The statues and carved reliefs, without exception so far, had the face of Yade Khan gouged out. New, Trace thought, running a gloved hand over a depiction of Yade Khan making her love to Boaz "the Great". Not fresh, but not old either, he decided.
Zaben. It could have been others, spiteful cultists that had been bound by terror and then revolted. Or the devout who had raged at their goddess coming short of their expectations.
But it wasn't. Like the piles of Shadow Walker corpses in the atrium, this was Zaben's work. Had those Shadow Walkers been rebels, would-be usurpers? Or the faithful, who had come seeking Zaben's counsel only to find death at their leader's hands?
Yade Khan's malevolence did not reign here, Trace admitted. This was something else. A corpse of a place, madness and decay reigned here. This was Zaben's sanctuary away from all light and reason as he plotted the downfall of all.
By the light of the sword, they journeyed deeper into the darkness where the madman awaited.
X X X
The throne Zaben sat on was shorn at a sharp angle at the top; Trace assumed it had been more iconography of Yade Khan. The throne room was wrecked, apparently having been near plastered with depiction of the dark goddess. The only decoration to stand unblemished was the great carved relief of the Himinions who ruled over the ancient Himinate. So it would seem that despite having, in his own words, disowned his former faith, Zaben retained some respect for his predecessors.
A large space before the throne was cleared, and a great clay jar rested before Zaben's end of the square, mist circling it.
"Well then, let us begin," Zaben said. He rose from his throne and pulled on the disk that had been resting on the armrest. He threw back his hood, and pulled the cloak off, revealing a white vest and pants underneath, contrasted with battered desert boots of light brown. It also showed off the scars Yade Khan had inflicted on him.
"That jar. The people you have taken," Trace said.
"Just so. You honored my demand to come alone, so it may please you to know it will not just be the two of us. Omega has revealed particulars to me. And I savor this particular one. When we duel, those I sealed will come forth attuned to what cards we play. Well, a single particular card. Not sure if it will be only monsters or effect cards as well. Shall we find out?"
"…What if they are sent to the graveyard?" Trace demanded.
"I cannot say. But to be clear, they will appear in my cards as well as yours. So, will you be willing to strike your friends, or Gragas, down to stop me?"
King answered him.
"Considering you desire to obliterate everyone anyway, I don't see how not striking them down and failing to stop you is a viable option. It would not be the first time I stepped over the bodies of dear friends and allies to achieve our shared dream of victory," the ancient ruler and warrior answered flatly.
X X X
"I resent this immensely," Gragas said. Still, he stood still as the more humanoid version of the Pale Eyed Blue Dragon.
"Of course you do. Why do you think I took the time to steal your favorite card?" Zaben asked. Putting a card face down in defense mode, he ended his turn.
"Zaben, you have changed since last time we met. If this is to be a duel to our ends, won't you tell me why? It's clear you are no longer following Yade Khan, much less trying to avenge her," Trace asked.
"Hmm, well, I don't think you are entitled to an answer. But why not?
"I devoted my life to Yade Khan, as did my ancestors, despite our power waning the longer she was gone and the hatred every other creed felt toward us. It was not because we thought she was some misunderstood benevolent deity or some such nonsense. It was because of her power, you see. Truthfully, no one realized Cheherezad sealed her. We thought she turned her back on us for failure. And our devotion would be rewarded with power.
"But Yade Khan, and her power, you showed me it was not worth it. Not like Brenner's stupid jerkass realization, mind you. It's not that what we did was wrong, I realized, just pointless. I mean, even Brenner's stupid ideas about happiness through immortality. I have lived in Third World hell holes and First World high-rises, and everyone finds reason to bitch and moan and feel miserable! Heck, Gragas and Brenner are one-percenters, and they still act like life has been so unfair to them.
"Well, no, to be fair, they're not wrong. It's just life isn't fair to anyone. Look at you. You're having trouble with the whole education and job outlook when by rights, the masses should be worshipping you and tearing down their princes' fortunes to throw the wealth at your feet.
"Life any life, goes badly. Just a matter of time. Even Yade Khan, I now realize, was just another pathetic wretch who even with ages to live and ultimate power could hardly stand dealing with being alive.
"So with the Seal, and three Sun Souls, I am going to do myself and everyone else a favor. Get us all out of the Hell that is existence."
"Zaben, insanity aside, I felt Omega when you used it before. Can you not sense it's not just void? Something is behind that mask! Something worse than Yade Khan was! You're being played!" King objected.
"…You'll say anything to cling to the Hell that is being. Sad, but predictable — it took utter defeat and my goddess casually forsaking me so many times to let me see clearly. Now either forfeit or make your move. I yearn for the embrace of cessation," Zaben said, showing off his teeth.
"I play Magician of Night in attack mode," Trace declared. The jar flared, and Trace wondered who would occupy the role. He hoped it would be Tai, proof that those sent to the graveyard returned.
It wasn't Tai.
"Uh, okay. Hello?" Jon dressed as Highland Warrior said. The brunette girl dressed as the Magician of Night turned to look at him and Trace, her eyes opened to reveal themselves as pure white. She smiled.
"You brought me back," she said.
"Who are you?" Trace asked.
"What? What?! I'm %$#^#& ." Trace couldn't hear the name; looking to his enscrolled friend he got a shrug. Then Trace realized it.
"You're the one he took away," Trace said. She looked down at herself.
"Well, at least it didn't get a skimpy cut. This is the card you chose for me."
She looked to Zaben and bared her teeth.
"Let's destroy him, Trace," she said, hefting the magician's staff.
An Epic Duel Later:
Wielding the Staff of Harmony with its blinding aura, the Magician of Night struck the ground amidst the laid out Ritual Effect. The vanished floor beneath the pillars returned like receding water, revealing ground. Oblivion shattering and the world surging back into place, the upgrade's secondary effect went into affect, a crimson scythe blade emerging from the staff's tip.
"Zaaabeeennn!" she screamed as Trace reappeared along with his foe. She struck him across the chest, though as part of the game it was only life points lost. Ticking down to zero.
The Soul Jar exploded.
"It can't be! Foolish girl, you have denied us all the succor of nonexistence!" Zaben screamed as people started to appear around the room in flashes of light.
The Magician of Night raised a hand and one finger to him, and vanished.
Trace turned his head before the woman dressed normally appeared next to him.
"Mildred," he said. She smiled, but it slipped when she tilted her head, the sight regained as part of the game having slipped away again.
"AAAAAA! AAAAAA!" Zaben screamed, falling back to his throne. He was clawing at his head, drawing blood in gasps; even his victims stood stunned. Trace frowned, advancing on the man as he braced himself against his grand seat.
"This was our chance! To be free! I was going to make it right! She lied, but this…"
"Zaben, you were deceived again. It's time to surrender," Trace said. Tearing paper turned his head — Gragas had retrieved the Omega card from Zaben's discarded disk, and torn it in half. As he pulled out a lighter, Trace turned his attention back to Zaben.
"Over?" the madman muttered, "Maybe for me! But you will wish it had ended! There is a final card to be played yet, foolish mortals! Vengeance on you for all your defiance! It will come! And sooner than you expect! I knew you may prevail! So your victory you will come to regret!"
As Zaben ranted, Mildred stepped up beside Trace, grabbing his shoulder, and aiming a revolver with her other hand.
"IT SHALL COME, THE-"
Mildred fired as Trace realized what she was holding.
BANG BANG BANG
BANG BANG BANG
The bullets riddled Zaben's torso. Pausing after the first three to aim again, Mildred emptied the revolver into him. Eyes wide with shock, the last leader of the Shadow Walkers collapsed back on his broken throne, his white turning red.
"What the hell?!" Trace shouted.
"I was done with him," Mildred spat.
"Wait, so can you…?" Jon asked.
"See? No, but he was talking a lot."
"Oh, that's BS. Revolvers aren't even that accurate-"
CLICK
Gragas blinked at the gun pointed at him.
"…"
"…"
"Well, I'm out of bullets, hungry, tired, and freshly restored from that nightmare. I am going home," Mildred declared, pulling Trace into a one-armed hug.
Trace took the tired woman from the room, the others watching and looking to Zaben's corpse.
"Should we be worried?" Tai asked.
"Where did she get that?" Fukuro wondered.
"Is it a problem that I'm feeling quite attracted to her right now?" Gragas asked the room in general, rubbing his chin in thought.
"Yes. You are very messed up, Gragas," Jon said, deciding to follow after Trace and Mildred.
Post Credits Scene!:
The room was cast in shadows, the darkness broken by a single blue-flamed candle.
The eerie light illuminated part of an array drawn on the floor, and the shadows it cast revealed more candles along the perimeter. And an ancient helm, adored with blue-dyed horse hair sat in its center. Though the helm's open face was turned toward the candle, no light penetrated its interior.
The final candle flared high, and puffed out. A humming rose in the room, and the array began to appear in the unseen darkness, glowing red spreading and revealing through it like flowing blood.
Within the helm, two red eyes opened.
The Shadow Netherworld:
The eye hurt, she wanted to pluck it out. Cast it away. She was certain if she did, the pain would fade. But what then?
Yade did not want to think, did not want to dig out of this grave.
Even the unread books in her library only taunted her with how finite the diversion was to eternity. The old distractions, her building, creating. It seemed ridiculous now.
If any snakes still lived, she could not deny they were without meaning. Their true nature was nothing but spite and other negative emotions, screamed into darkness across so many worlds congealing. Even as pets they cared nothing for her; she was but a power to compel their aggression.
Without the pain to preoccupy her, she would act, on inaction. Without it, she could truly see if she could just stop thinking. Transform her body into just more stone among stones, with no mind, no memory, no recognition of what was lost.
She did not stir, she did not rest. She waited in the darkness of her grave, hoping to die.
Yade Khan: Evil Reborn
The screams faded away, and the shadows dissolved like vapor, leaving one man standing in the room. With a wave of his hand, he called the mist to himself, and it gathered around him, solidifying into a black robe settling over his form.
Stepping from the center of the room, he walked over the empty robes and made his way to the lever on the wall. Pulling it, the shutters creaked open, the gears working, letting the sunshine through.
He looked over the men struggling to their feet.
"Five, as I expected," the man said. His lips pulled into a smile beneath pure black eyes.
"My Lord Boaz! The others!" one of the men cried out, going back to one knee, grabbing an empty robe.
"To return to the flesh and my greatest apex of power, more than freely given energy was needed. A necessary sacrifice," Boaz said. Forming a fist, shadows engulfed it. He struck the wall with a backhanded blow, carving a gash out and sending shards flying.
"But the Himinate! You said! You said we would restore the Himinate. But they're dead!" the loud Shadow Walker objected.
A tendril of shadow sprang up from the man's own shadow, throttling his neck.
"The new Himinate will not be built on the backs of failures. Had my Shadow Walkers not betrayed me, Yade Khan and I would have been reigning over this world for millennia. And you lot today, you failed my mother goddess. My lover. You five were strong enough to resist becoming part of my flesh and power restored. Rejoice in that. Together we will tear the world down and rebuild it in the image of Yade Khan. But if I must do it alone, so be it," Himinion Boaz declared. The tendril released the man, who gasped for breath. First the others, and then the protester, kowtowed before Boaz the Great.
"Very well then. I took their knowledge of this modern era into myself as well. Forget about the ghost and the others. We attack the Elemental Orders. Do not worry, I will handle them, I merely need your hands to carry what I cannot touch," Boaz admitted, and formed a spear from shadows.
X X X
The group stood assembled once more in Gragas' office, this time joined by several of the Elemental monks, all of whom looked disheveled, several sporting bandages over serious-looking wounds. But that wasn't what held everyone's attention — the monks were magically displaying a hologram-like image of what had transpired at their central temple that left them in this state and sent them fleeing to their allies.
The images depicted a figure shrouded in shadows storming the temple, slaughtering the monks of all colors, but seeming to save a special cruelty for any of the few Shadow monks unlucky enough to get in its way. Almost unnoticed amongst this slaughter was the small group of Shadow Walkers following in this monster's wake, darting in and out of view, seemingly grabbing objects as they went, though these disappeared into their robes too fast to identify them.
After a few uncomfortable minutes of the group watching this and listening to the monks' narration of the events being shown, the monks dispersed the images, allowing an uncomfortable silence to fall over the room.
Naturally, Alonso was the first person to break it.
"So, Yade Khan's dead boyfriend came back to life and kicked your asses," he said, resting his chin on his clasped hands, "You could have just said that much without the light show."
"Dude, seriously, did you have your sense of tact surgically removed?" Jon asked with a frown.
"This must be Zaben's final gambit," Trace said, cutting off the argument, "His last words were that he had one last threat in store for us. Resurrecting Boaz must have been it."
"Okay, so what does he want?" Mildred asked the monks.
"During the attack, the Shadow Walkers stole back several shadow magic-based artifacts that we retrieved from them at various points over the centuries, especially after their recent collapse following Yade Khan's defeat," the Fire monk explained, "We had hoped to repurpose her corrupted magic to good use, or failing that, at least keep it sealed away for good. But now it is in Boaz's possession."
"And with that much shadow magic at his disposal, in addition to his already formidable abilities, there's no telling what he'll be able to do," the Water monk said.
"Well, that's not ominous at all," Tai muttered.
X X X
"What is it? I can feel that," Alonso said, as they looked up at the dark night sky.
The still empty necropolis where Zaben had made his last stand loomed behind them and their campfire. The monks were watching the unseen, along with Gragas, and King, Trace realized.
"It's Boaz. He has worked an incredible spell. He has destroyed the artifacts he stole, and others besides no doubt. And is using it to draw all of the tainted shadow energy in the world to one spot," the Shadow monk said.
Alonso pulled out his pilfered Shadow Walker medallion, which shimmered, but remained firm. Grinning, he replaced it in his jacket pocket.
"Not all. Hmm, perhaps Brenner was able to resist with his talisman as well?" Alonso wondered.
"What is Boaz doing with it?" Trace asked.
"I don't know," the young monk admitted, lowering his face.
'But it can't be anything good,' hung unspoken in the air between everyone.
"However, I can tell where it is going. I know where Boaz is," the monk said, straightening up.
London:
"Holy crap!" Trace shouted, looking at the screen on Gracia's office wall.
"Tell me this is a bad joke?" Jon asked.
"Yeah, live action movie that should have just been an anime or something?" Tai chimed in.
"It's a live feed. Apparently the governments are keeping it under wraps for the moment. I expect that to change any minute," Gracia said.
On the split screen, they saw monster cards, walking, flying, and other such over the countryside, and judging by the words, heading toward cities.
"Boaz has unleashed the power of the monster cards," the head monk supplied.
"He's controlling this? He can't be that powerful!" Gragas objected.
"He is not. But he doesn't need to be. If his goal is destruction, he merely needs to summon them to physical form and point them in the right direction while stoking their aggression," the monk continued.
"But why? What does he get out of it?" Mildred asked.
"Advantage," Gragas said, eyes widening in recognition. He continued talking as he picked up the remote from Gracia's desk and flicked through the feeds.
"Even if he is a genius, Boaz is a fish out of water for this era. And Yade Khan, who was stronger than him, and Zaben, who was better adapted, both failed. So Boaz is going to topple the board so he will start on zero like everyone else in the game of a new era. Holed up on Asgard in Brenner's old castle, he probably has it set up magically to ride out this kaiju age he has unleashed. He can watch, learn, and act at his leisure while everyone else struggles to survive or save. It's what I would do in his situation," Gragas admitted.
"Can we do anything? I doubt even the human sized warrior monsters are interested in a card game," Fukuro pointed out, nervously looking out the window at the London skyline, checking to see if any monsters had arrived in the city yet.
"Can we just shoot them?" Gragas asked.
"What he said," Mildred quipped.
"Yes, but they are magic. Results likely vary," the monk said. The monks reached into their robes and removed talismans with the appropriate jewels in the center.
"These may even the playing field. Buy time. While you," the Water monk said, pointing to Trace, "Confront Boaz at the source."
X X X
They had come back. They had stood on this very dock snd looked up at that castle. Not so long ago, as far as time was measured he supposed, but it felt like a lifetime.
What happened before this island had been a prelude. Here, the war against the corrupted shadow had begun in earnest, the true players starting to peek from behind the scenes. He had had no idea, nor had King and everyone else, that there was more at work than the plots of a sorcerer and the conspiracies and power plays of billionaires.
Then there had been many. Yade Khan had still been a game more than anything else. A festive veneer… no, not a veneer. It had been real, but it had been a reality they had already started to slip from. Away from the stage and into the backstage.
Brenner's island looked deserted and forlorn before them now. A neglected set that the cast had returned to, its once overwhelming scope reduced by experience.
And also the giant monsters menacing them. Those were new too.
X X X
"Will they be alright?" Trace asked King as they ducked behind the railing. The staircase up to the castle, they had made it with his friends summoning their attuned monster each, to fight Boaz's unleashed ones. Stronger for that bond, but Boaz had called on mighty destroyers to belay them.
Only his first three had come, the ones from the start. The others, including Gragas, had set off to defend the world alongside the monks. Gragas, rather than try to insert himself in the thick of things or protect Gracia, had chosen to defend their home town with Pale Eyes. He claimed it was his turf, but Trace thought the man was finally moving beyond the need to be at the center.
Which was inconvenient, as he would prefer his rival to be here lending heavyweight support to his friends now!
And he had lost Magician of Night. His card had been the one called when Mildred used her medallion. And not like the other summons — they had become one again, with Magician Mildred flying off to battle, eager to wield that power again.
He had to duel Boaz, and one of his best cards had apparently become more attached to his girlfriend. And he felt guilty about being-
"Trace! No time to ponder! I can't offer you assurances because there aren't any. It's a battle, and your friends are loosed like arrows now. Their fate is beyond your control. They are counting on us to end this, whatever happens to them," King told him.
"Right, let's go!" Trace said, getting to his feet he ran up the stairs built into the cliff, taking them three at a time, the castle looming ever closer, seeming to leer down as it did of old. Jumping clear to the landing, he was faced with that locked gate again.
And a Shadow Walker.
"How many times will you people plague the world?!" Trace demanded of the enrobed man, as the wind carried the sounds of warring beasts and warriors to them.
The Shadow Walker pulled back his hood, revealing a deeply tanned face, a shaved head, and dark eyes with bags under them.
"I am called Ulaz. My comrades have been sent forth to guide the monsters against your friends. I am to stop you here or die in the attempt," Ulaz said.
Trace drew the sword, prepared to duel or fight. Ulaz pulled a remote control from somewhere and used his thumb to hit a three digit code. The gates swung open without a sound.
…
…
"Zaben betrayed us. He killed my father, and my uncles. Boaz was supposed to save us. Instead, he killed my friends. He told us he could have regenerated; it might have taken three years, but he had what he needed. They flocked to the returned hero Himinion of our children's bedtime stories, and he slaughtered them because it was convenient. Yade Khan forsake me. I will show you the way, Mighty Defiers," Ulaz said. He turned and walked through the gates.
Trace and King considered a moment, then followed.
X X X
"He will not duel you with the modern game. He is not Zaben; he is of a darker, more brutal time, and so are his games. You must force him to your rules. Genius that he is, only at your game could you ever best him," Ulza said as they walked by the light of an electric lantern through the surprisingly utilitarian basement of the castle.
"I can't force him to duel me," Trace pointed out.
"You can if you have the right wager."
Ulaz keyed in another code at a steel curtain doorway, and it rose up, revealing something very out of place — a large tank of red liquid, shaped slightly like a lightbulb. A prop more suited for sci-fi. And something black hung suspended within. Trace walked up to it, King at his side.
"King, is that…?"
"Impossible," King whispered, terrified.
"Yes. That is not Yade Khan. Boaz only delayed as much as he did because of frantic efforts to find a way back to her. But that door is not just closed, it no longer exists. But she left something behind. Boaz drew on pretty much all the tainted artifacts, empowered by her essence, if only to a trifling degree. And basically you have here a clone of Yade Khan. Not much now, and it may never equal the original, but still beyond anything this world is supposed to have," Ulaz said.
"So Boaz, lacking his old god and lover, is making a new one?" King demanded. How dare Boaz go against everything they had worked for in ending her tragic terror?
"No. Boaz is denied his goddess, mother, and lover. He will not bear replacements. When this is grown sufficiently, he will slip his mortal flesh and take this empty vessel for his own. Yade Khan shared secrets with him far beyond anything shared by voice or record with anyone else. Knowing her better than anyone, he will fill his want for her by becoming her. If he can't be by the side of his great love, he will instead settle for being her and fulfilling her dreams," Ulaz sighed. Trace paid little mind to the weary man, such insanity.
"Yade Khan… even gone, you inspire such tragedy. Can I finally end it today!?" King shouted, as Trace raised the sword.
"No," a deep voice said.
"AHHH!" Ulaz screamed and was overcome by a mass of reed-thin tendrils that pulled him back into the darkness. Trace cast the light toward him; some burned away, but not before the man burst apart from hundreds of constrictions.
"No!" They yelled as the tendrils vanished, leaving the ruin of a man behind.
Boaz the Dawn Swallower stepped into the light.
He did look like an older Alonso Gragas. If Gragas had fallen deeper into darkness and radiated not arrogance but an utter assurance he was better than all under the heavens, and cold eyes were replaced with a look that dismissed everything as inadequate and his property. He also had a a close-trimmed beard. Hmm, that part was an improvement. Also, he wore a black robe and seemingly no leather. Also an improvement over Gragas.
"Yet again I am betrayed by shortsighted fools," Boaz declared. He did not spare a look for the man he killed, the faithful servant betrayed so many times by those he had followed.
They pointed the sword toward the embryo. Boaz stopped, frowning.
"Duel me, in Yade Khan. Or I destroy it. You probably could kill me, but not before I did it. And there isn't enough essence left in this reality to try again."
"…And your pact is that if I duel you in your game, you will back down?"
Trace nodded.
"Very well. To the rooftop. Let the sun witness your fall before I defy the dawn yet again!"
X X X
Trace frowned, looking over the field, the carnage of the monsters tearing the island apart around them. He had not seen his friends' monsters or Mildred for some rounds now. Were they dead, as Boaz claimed? The fiend himself was smirking wide, assured of his victory.
"Your gambit has come to naught. The Apprentice of Night could not draw on the Moon Array enough to pierce my Bolster of Darkness. You have only one move left before Gargantuan can attack again. And that will send your life points beyond zero. There's only one card that could save you, and you gave it away! Hahaha! It only goes to show it — in the end, your foolish sentimentalism has cost you your life, and soon the destruction of all you sought to protect. The strong, willing to sacrifice for conquest, are the ones who will inherit the earth over the broken corpses of the meek," Boaz gloated.
Trace drew his card, and sighed, sadness seeping through him. The feeling seemed clear to Boaz, who chuckled.
"Ah yes, no doubt you hoped for some miracle. You have had enough of those. Time to end the dreams and awaken to the nightmare. Make your losing move!" the Himinion commanded.
"I play, Magician of Night!" Trace declared, slamming the card down on his disk. The magician appeared on the field and moved to the activating array, Apprentice bowing and moving aside for the master.
"What!" Boaz roared, eyes wide, "Inmpossible! You let that girl take it! I saw, she still has it in the battle!"
"Yes, my magician expressed my desire to protect Mildred by going to her, and she trusted my deck as much as her own to let it, without thinking. But cards are rarely one of a kind. This card was given to me, by Ulaz! Consider this the returned rage of all the loyal followers you betrayed, you selfish monster of a man! Magician of Night! End this!" Trace commanded. The magician fired the array. The Bolster buckled and gave way, and Gargantuan, the mighty attacker and weak defender, was consumed like butter before a blowtorch.
Boaz's points plummeted to zero. The monsters vanished, and a heaviness to the air Trace had stopped noticing vanished.
X X X
"Well, guess he did it," Alonso Gragas said, from his saddle atop Pale Eyes Blue Dragon. The monsters attacking the city were gone. Though sirens and screams continued to rise.
"But still, this is a disaster. And what comes next?" Gragas said, looking over the ravaged cityscape.
"Pale Eyes! Let us go, I want to make sure this matter is settled," Gragas commanded.
X X X
"You stopped my array with that wager," Boaz said as he pressed Trace back into the minaret. The shadows strained against Trace and King's barrier. Trace wondered if he should jump; the fall may be easer to escape than the shadows.
Boaz moved closer, his cloak indistinguishable from the shadows radiating out of him.
"And so what? I have lost nothing today but replaceable magic and useless minions. It will take some time, but once I flee here with the vessel, I will start over. And killing you two will not gain me the Sun Souls, but they will reincarnate. Toddlers should be less troublesome to deal with in round two. Now, DIE!" Boaz bellowed, rushing forward through his shadows to punch the barrier himself, which ruptured under the impact. The shadows pulled back, and Boaz grabbed the sword swung at him in one hand. Sniffing in contempt, Boaz ripped the sword from Trace's hand, coating it in shadow and tossing it over his shoulder.
Trace punched him in the face. Boaz's head jerked, and with the fist still pressed against his cheek, turned his head back to face Trace. In the midst of the glaring contest, Trace remembered to draw on magic. The punches started landing before he could.
"Games! Even magic! If you want to win, never forget how much can be settled simply by old fashioned beatings! Die like the peasant upstart you are!" Boaz commanded, raining down blow after blow.
Pausing for a fraction of a second, Boaz leapt into the air, trailing shadows, a machete cutting through the space he had occupied. Cyborg Trooper looked up after him and jets fired from its feet, taking it in pursuit. Tai ran up to Trace, not sparing a glance for the battle starting in the sky.
"Trace, ah man, brutal," Tai said.
"Tai, you're alive," Trace muttered, spitting out blood between the words.
"Yeah, so are the others. Mildred got pile-drived into the ground, and Brenner and Jon are digging her out. Oh yeah, we found Brenner tied to a rock. He didn't have any cards, but he had some badass magic to help out."
A whistling cut through the air, before Cyborg Trooper bounced into the ground. Pieces of metal and drops of blood flying outward, it faded before the second bounce. Boaz hovered down, cloak flapping about him, and Tai took a stance between him and Trace.
"Well, I suppose I deserved that. So, let's just blow up the castle and all here in the bargain, shall we?" Boaz said. Holding out a hand, shadows began to swirl into a sphere, an angry red light ignited in the center.
Darkness fell over them, and Boaz looked up, surprised. The ancient Shadow Walker started to say something, before Pale Eyes Blue Dragon swatted him down into the roof with the full force of its landing.
X X X
Boaz cried out as he broke through each floor; the castle structure had stopped the dragon two floors or so in, but the force still propelled him more than his shadows could slow. And they were shredded away, leaving him subservient to the impact.
Finally, he only dented stone and came to a stop.
"Blast it! How did that duel use up so much power? Those weakling Walkers, they did not give me a proper grasp on what these duels could do," Boaz cursed, getting to his feet.
Looking up the hole, he heard the Dragon coming. It was tearing apart the castle, coming for him.
Yes, he could probably beat it. But Brenner was loose, along with another monster summon, and that girl had become Magician of the Night. More enemies could come soon, if the pretender had arrived so quickly.
The Boaz realized where he was, and grinned. The recipient of his great love was before him in its suspension fluid.
Circumstances may have overcome Boaz the Great, but Yade Khan would yet reign supreme.
Coating his right hand in shadows, he stabbed into his own chest, grabbing the beating heart.
X X X
"Wait, so he's growing a new Yade Khan!?" Jon said, holding up his hands in the time out gesture. Brenner frowned from his spot kneeling by Trace, healing some of his injuries with a dark mist. The old tycoon spoke up.
"Didn't we already do that villainous plot?"
"Well, that was a card, this is a clone. Bit of genre mix, guess they're running out of ideas?" Tai remarked.
Mildred, still fused with Magician of Night, turned toward the hole in the roof, which expanded again as the dragon roared out of sight.
"Well, I'll go down and kill it," she said.
Gragas chuckled from where he sat on the wall, his talisman glowing purple and a similar aura over his closed eyes, "Don't bother, Pale Eyes has just reached the basement, she will destroy them both."
"And my castle," Brenner grumbled.
"Overdue villain tax, dude," Jon said to Brenner.
Brenner started to say something to that, when Gragas cried out, and nearly fell back off the wall. Mildred grabbed his forearm and threw him onto the roof instead. Pale Eyes roared out of sight, then the hole burst outward again as the dragon was hurled out of its passage and flew in an arc over the ledge Gragas had nearly gone over.
Those on the roof stood still, eyes still up at the dragon in flight, barely missing them in its ejection.
"Well, that can't be good," King said.
A primal shriek cut through the air, and everyone's attention snapped back to the hole in the wall as the entire castle seemed to shake. Tendrils of shadow magic came surging out of the hole and wrapped around every stone in the wall and tore it open, the hole now more of a massive crater in the side of the castle, awash in the dark un-light of the shadows. And as it and the dust from the crushed stone receded, a figure hovered into the air above the group.
It wasn't nearly as large as the true Yade Khan had been, but still stood taller than any human. An aura of darkness surrounded it, and when its eyes snapped open, they weren't the blazing red that Yade Khan had possessed, but two empty voids of shadow in the creature's skull.
"Now," it said in a whispered hiss that somehow rang like a bellow, in a mixture of Yade Khan and Boaz's voices, "You die."
It opened its mouth wide, too wide.
'Way too wide!' Trace thought.
Shadow erupted from the toothless maw, surging toward them. Trace got to his feet, raising the sword, but was stopped as robed figures appeared in front of him. The High Monks, including the black-robed Shadow, stood between them and the oncoming darkness. An aurora sprang up as they raised their hands, and the darkness struck it as a wave against a seawall.
The Boaz Yade creature roared, a high-pitched croaking sound, and fired again, this blast actually buckling the barrier.
The third one did not budge it.
"Insects! You insects! How dare you! I escape, I return!" it declared, shrill and hoarse. To Trace's surprise, the monks dropped their barrier. Trace watched the enemy plop to the ground, its coating of misty shadow dispersing.
It was not Yade Khan, not just smaller but not nearly as impressive. Instead of the mass of tendrils, it had only two, that hung limp like oversized fleshy pigtails. Trace felt he had seen that in a movie somewhere.
The tail was thinner and shorter, and judging by the way it now flopped around, barely moving the creature, it was not strong enough to slither. And when it fell forward to pull itself on its arms, he realized the upper arms lacked any fingers, with only thumbs on vestigial hands. The lower arms, while powerful, seemed to lack bones or shapes, just tentacles really, which served to actually pull the creature.
Toward them, as it tried to flee. The eye sockets were empty, it was blind.
When it reared up as best it could, shrieking at them, he noticed it wasn't even as endowed in the chest as the original. Probably bad that it occurred to him to notice, Trace admitted. And her chest was shrinking?
No, it was all shrinking.
"Ahhh! No, my power! Obey, expand! Be strong, flesh! Obey! Boaz will not fail! Only by others does Boaz fail. Yade Kan, invincible! I invincible! Fear! Flee! Fear! Flee!" the thing that had been Boaz shrieked as it shrank. The voice grew higher in pitch, and the body oddly became more sane, the tail not shrinking as swiftly, becoming what he assumed was proper proportioned, the shrinking arms acquiring what they lost. Even glowing red eyes appearing and igniting in time for her to weep as it reached childish size.
Trace wasn't sure if the mantra of "fear and flee" was directed to them, or itself.
At least at about what he would call a toddler state, the creature was small but actually healthy in its otherworldly way. It coiled upon itself, shrieking high and earsplitting, a small wavering dome of shadow rising over it as it crawled over itself.
"…"
"…"
"What?" Trace and King managed.
The monk of Shadow turned to face them, pulling back his hood, revealing a handsome dark face and sad brown eyes.
"Boaz overplayed his hand. Or rather, you forced his hand. He no doubt planned to possess this flesh when it had far more time to mature and time for him to test it to better understand the safe way to achieve his goal. The vessel was not ready at all. It was stretched beyond its means to accommodate a mind and power it was not ready to contain or use. And the flesh won out, returning to the stablest state it could. Boaz's power and mind, I dare say most of the memories and traits that made him what he was, were forced out of it. All that's left now is a mostly blank slate of a mind and soul in a young body; all with no real understanding of anything," Shadow said. The other monks were already whispering in conference.
"So, do we kill it?" Mildred asked, gesturing with the Magician's staff.
"Should we? Yade Khan's power is tainted, but the creature is arguably innocent now," another monk spoke up.
"You said mostly clean slate, I think that might be the key?" Tai said, looking warily at the writhing mass under the dome.
"Yes, but I see what they mean. Even Yade Khan was an innocent once. Boaz too, I expect. Do we punish the child for the parents' sins, or offer a chance-" Trace was cut off as electric fire blazed past them all.
The projectile struck the Boaz Yade's dome, which crumpled, and with a shrieking cry the creature was silhouetted and disintegrated. And another tower of the castle collapsed, being struck by the attack.
All heads turned to the strange sight of the Pale Eyes Blue Dragon peeking over the wall, just enough to have it mouth open for the attack. It actually looked a bit sheepish, tilting its head as it closed its mouth.
"Hehehehaha, atta girl," Alonso chuckled, stepping over to pat his dragon on the head. He smiled at the shocked looks and glares.
"What? This bastard saved you a moral dilemma with likely disastrous mercy options. You're welcome," Gragas said.
Shadow Netherworld:
How long had it been? Hours, years, ages, or mere moments? There was no way to tell, she did not even have breaths to count. Even stopping her hearts did not still her blood from flowing. She had restarted the hearts because the strain was more pain. She had not even realized she had picked up two spares. And when had her brain left her head, exactly?
She had pulled the clay down bit by bit and hardened it. Involuntary movements like attempted breath no longer strained the tomb. She did not know if it could withstand an attempt to escape.
Her eye, how it hurt, the burning poison reaching out from that cursed orb with roots into all of her. She could break free, rise enough to cast it away into the void of this realm, then bury herself properly.
Jade Chan, had defeated her. Others had been involved, but Jade Chan had been key. Across all the time and distance, the root of what she had been had faced off against what she had become.
She wasn't Jade Chan. Jade died a long time ago, hadn't she? Something worse, something lesser, had taken the spot, and tricked itself into thinking…
'What was that?' Yade Khan wondered, sensing something.
One Ill-Conceived Holiday Special Later, Iran:
They stood in the meadow, watching King look over the scenery under the bright, blazing sun. This was the place he had chosen. Was he thinking on it not changing despite everything, or contemplating that something once stood here with no trace remaining?
"Trace, let's begin," Cheherezad said, turning to face them. Brenner and Gragas stepped forward and placed their shadow medallions on the relatively flat stone they had gathered around. Trace adjusted his grip on the sword.
And swung it down, light trailing it. The talismans split and dissolved, burning as the dust trailed off, reddish sparks carrying beautifully in the wind.
"And now, the last trace of Yade Khan and her taint of the world is gone. My purpose for lingering has lapsed," King smiled as he said it.
"You, you're certain?" Trace asked, grip on the sword tightening, whitening his knuckles.
"Yes," King looked briefly over the hills and green. He continued talking, still looking elsewhere.
"I am pleased to have seen the world grow and move forward. Not that I like all the choices civilization has made, mind you. But this was the point, to give others tomorrow, we fought then. I am honored to have seen it, to have protected, to have known… some of you," he said, looking to Gragas, who just shrugged.
"But my time is past, in all senses, and Trace, you have surpassed me. Once, you needed me to stand between you and the darkness, but it was you who defeated Yade Khan, and the one who gathered people to stand against the evils that tried to revive her legacy. And vengeance tainted my quest so long ago. The evil wore away at me. But your compassion, even to Yade Khan, Zaben, Boaz's creation, it only grew. You will be more than a warrior — as magic grows and changes, you will be an advocate even for those others dismiss. Because of you, I can go to seek what lies beyond with no regrets," King Cheherezad proclaimed.
Trace wanted to say so much. This was not sudden; since Boaz, it had been building. But it seemed there still needed to be more.
"Thank you for everything," was what he settled on. And reached into the sword with his own magic. He felt King, Cheherezad, the voice and face that first rose to aid him against the traffickers, and then against such a long line of foes. And even beyond battle, a friend, despite the spirit's attempts to isolate himself beyond need.
And amongst all the good, there was indeed weariness, and the grief that was perhaps unique to those who felt the conviction they had lingered far beyond their time. Correct or incorrect, the wish from the deepest reaches, was release. Laid bare by his friend's consent, it was much like grasping a doorknob and pulling it wide.
Trace came back to himself, and the glow left the sword once more, this time to never return. The sight of the ancient spirit did not fade away or even turn away. Rather, he seemed to stretch, or retreat without moving. It was bizarre and wonderful, and the spirit gave that same two-fingered salute they had all used back in school, before his eyes focused on something unseen, and with a smile on his face…
Gone.
Brenner put a hand on Trace's shoulder, which made Trace realize he was crying.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by Gragas walking away. Still, the lack of snark was, from him, a high mark of respect, Trace decided. Brenner broke the silence, stepping away from Trace.
"So, it's done then. What began in antiquity has concluded. A disease that plagued the world for ages is now cured completely," Brenner said wistfully. The man adjusted his fine hat as the wind picked up. Trace dried his tears and nodded.
"Yes, who knows how magic will develop without that part of the spectrum suppressed to keep Yade Khan's influence in check? You two, with your connections, will be important. The masquerade will have to end eventually-"
"Why? We can always spam Wizards of Time to send all but the most affected areas back in a retcon like we did with Boaz's kaiju deal," Gragas pointed out.
"Didn't the monks say doing that too often would break reality?" Brenner asked.
"Ahem! Eventually, it will get out, so we need to prepare both the masses and the magical for that. Neither are ready yet, but I think they will be in mine and Gragas' lifetime," Trace finished.
"Well, I never!" Brenner huffed jovially at the possible insult. Tipping his hat, the well-dressed Dane began to walk off, "Well, even though my games aren't addictive anymore, I still have a mega-corp to manage."
"What happened to that idea of schools for the game?" Gragas asked.
"Oh, that was just some fanart that the internet ran wild with. I mean, a summer camp is one thing, but who could build a curriculum and what not out of this? I mean, I helped make it, and I find it a strange notion. Well, till next time," Brenner said, and a helicopter popped down from somewhere, bearing his company logo. It touched down, forcing the former wizard to hold onto his hat as the door was pulled open by one of his old goons.
"Dramatic as-" Trace began, when a second, fancier helicopter touched down, the cockpit opening to let Gragas climb in.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! Can't you people just use cars like normal people!?" Trace demanded, as the wind threatened to actually mess up his sculpted hair.
"At what point did you think we were normal?!" Brenner asked, before slamming the door on his copter shut.
"Just jealous!" Gragas declared, before the canopy slid shut, and the chopper lifted off.
Trace would admit he was angrier than he should be, watching the reformed — well, somewhat reformed — but still egomaniac one-percenters fly off.
"Well, this I will keep as a memento. I hope you are at peace," Trace said, picking the sword up from where it had fallen in the grass.
Reaching the dirt tract that was the closest thing to a road to this site, Trace smiled at the woman sitting shotgun, head moving to the beat from the red headphones she wore. Despite the headphones, Mildred turned her face to him as he approached.
She smiled, and he returned it, glad her training on the side was helping her detect people with her own magic. Her bonding with Magician of the Night had provided a hint; it was, after all, an avatar of the true shadow element of the world.
A wisp of shadow opened the door for him, and Trace climbed in and pulled the key out of his pocket. Mildred put a hand in his lap.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Sad, yes. But, it's just life, you know? You wonder what next, and deal with it, till you're done," Trace remarked. She smacked him over the hand with two fingers.
"No philosophizing until I've had at least two drinks," She reminded him, holding one finger up in warning.
"Yes dear," he chuckled.
"And next is lunch, I smelled something good at the last town. So first lunch, them life. Now high mother fucking ho, Silver! Time for the sunset scene!" Mildred said, pointing forward with her finger. Trace laughed at her absurdity and profanity, and gunning the car's motor wheeled it around and they tore back down the road to whatever came next.
Shadow Netherworld:
A pulsing? Yes, waves of shadow energy, traveling like ripples through the Realm. They reached her even here in her tomb?
They distracted her from the pain. She felt them pass into her. Not through her. But around her as it continued outward.
Hmm, yes. Yes, it did not just disperse in her body. It lingered for an instant. Trying to rebound. The sensation was minute. Tugging at her. Tugging her toward something?
How could such a thing be? She was alone in the dark.
Wasn't she?
Yade moved, and stone cracked. Her coils broke through the cracked clay sending shards flying as the ground buckled, and her upper body rose clear of the rubble as her tail flexed, destroying the tomb in its shifting.
Why could she not see?
"Oh, right," she tried to say. And her tendrils unwound from her head and neck. Yade took her first unobstructed breath in however long, and then her bad eye tried to stab out the back of her head.
Snarling, a hand went to her face, and three fingers pulled the tainted eye out of her head. The pain subsided, and Yade slumped in relief, collapsing on coils and broken clay.
The eye sizzled and Jade held it up between thumb and forefinger, her good eye narrowed. As she watched, it burned away her body gunk with disgusting sizzles and pops, and crystalized into a rigid ruby sphere, with a bright spot of golden light glowing in its center.
"Freaky," Yade said.
Raising both her upper hands to her face, she felt at her head. From the muscles that supported her tendrils, assumedly exiting her brain to nether regions once held by her lower digestive tract, the bundles of nerves… Hmm, it would take some time to grow a new eye, the damage to herself being what it was. For now, she would restore some symmetry.
Another pulse tugged at her.
Hmm, so she would hold off a bit on remodeling her face. Pulling the last of her length free from the bottom of the crater, Yade slithered up to the rim.
X X X
Yade was stunned, her good eye wide open, taking in the walkway before her.
It was her Grand Shadow Palace. She knew every piece of it, its layout memorized, and time was the only thing other than her or the shadow water to affect it.
And yet it had changed in the years she had lain, trying to not be, in the crater.
Moss, lichens, and… Yes, tiny frail ferns, clinging to the stones with wispy roots extending into the black waters.
The plain had not been as comparatively lush as this, likely due to the lack of shadow water. But the sight of anything living and growing here had stunned her. And now this! That first sight had seemingly been the least of it.
And things moved, against the wind. Pressing a clawed finger against a clump of moss the size of her palm sent three tiny insects fleeing. They would be practically invisible to a lesser eye. She frowned as her attempt to poke one crushed it. Depth perception. She willed the ruined eye to repair, and it rebounded her efforts with an annoying backlash.
Frowning, she pulled her former eye out of the pouch she had stashed it in. The close proximity burned her a bit where it touched the soft inner flesh, but pain had been her companion in the darkness.
Hmm, yes. Trace, or perhaps Cheherezad? That pure combined elemental energy of the Sun Souls united. Seed spilled onto her own vast magical power and sprinkled across this land.
Heh, how embarrassing — she had made life, and couldn't be certain who the father was. Whatever would her family say? Ha! The notion amused her so much she took a deep breath and chortled, curling tight on herself and crying a few black tears from her remaining eye.
Fascinating though, she thought, the laughing fit ending. But the pulse came again, and it demanded attention, and was there more than one?
Stowing the eye stone in her left pouch, she floated off the ground and slithered through the air, so as to not disturb this ecosystem further.
She needed to take this seriously, she noted.
X X X
Jade wasn't sure what she expected to find following the pulses, and it was indeed more than one source, but it was not this.
"A baby?" Yade said. It was male, naked, and its limbs shorter and its torso scrawnier than she recalled human babies having. And it was blue, covered in delicate scales that reflected the light of her glowing red eye. At her voice, its eyes cracked open and shined crimson.
She drew upward, pulling her tendrils over her face, bracing for a fearful wail.
One that didn't come. But instead a gurgle, and another pulse emanating from the baby. Drawing her down.
Drawing back her tendrils, she saw he was smiling at her. And shivering on the black stone floor, seemingly having crawled from what she assumed was the cradle of ferns that had served as some sort of nest nearby.
With thoughtless impulse, she followed the magic call and touched down to scoop up the babe in her upper right arm. Her body surface was a mess of differing temperatures, a result of her basically eldritch physiology, but apparently she picked a good spot to nestle it against her torso, as he relaxed.
Then three more pulses tugged at her attention.
"Oh boy," Yade said, stunned.
Sometime Later:
Four babies, it had turned out. All tired, hungry, and happy to see Yade.
They had been in a variety of places, all near or in a nest grown from the meager foliage. She wondered if that was magic on their part growing such things, or the life itself was protecting them as they developed out here?
It had been a hectic time. One nest had been on a rooftop, and the child precariously close to potentially falling off when she swept in.
After gathering them up, things had gotten busy.
Now Yade sat on her coils, bathed in the red light of the sun that orbited the floating isle. The addition of a night and day cycle, and some magical tweaking of experiments on bugs and plants, had yielded interesting results.
While the swamp ring that was formerly the water ring had been her most abundant success, parts of the palace proper she had elected to keep fairly sterile, for diversity's sake. She had spent months reveling in this victory — the Plain of Vermillion Waves.
It had taken producing a lot more water to operate the pinwheel style irrigation coming from the palace wall. Followed by a new wall at the border creating, along with a fine depression, an outer ring of the shadow water she was now just thinking of as water. And finally, grinding the upper layer of the plains into a powder. And now, it was blanketed in an earthier breed of moss that sent up red stalks about a foot into the air. The moss itself was about four inches thick on the soil, giving way pleasantly as Yade uncoiled to slither over the plains.
She noted some of the larger fern trees she had bred inside had not only broken through the grass layer, but grown larger than previously shown. And the irrigation system was not uniform — her former tomb had become a pond where the several swamp plants competed on the shoreline with the Vermillion plants.
Life that was not her in this place. The shadow snakes remained, meandering about and following her whim, but they were silent and not nearly so intriguing as the insects, beetles, and water bugs making their life cycles through here.
Speaking of life cycles, Yade closed her eye and shifted her senses to her expanded abdominal pouch. Yes, all four still sleeping.
She had not slept since the tomb, there had been far too much to do.
Hmm, including looking at herself. She could conjure up a mirror of polished-to-reflect shadow in fairly short order. But her magicking muscles were too sore after everything with little reprieve for such frivolity.
Besides, the Tomb Pond was close at hand. Yade slithered through the red stalks, her bulk leaving a trail in the moss. She wasn't worried about crushing it. In small doses or very controlled ones, she had discovered her naturally-emanated chi promoted life of this variety instead of killing it, like on Earth.
Reaching the pond shore, Yade stretched herself over the red reeds streaked with blue veins to look at the calm dark waters. And more importantly, at her face staring back at her.
Her magic manipulations had been tied up in first saving this ecosystem, and now nudging it into its full potential with climate change and direct involvement, and the attention the children demanded. This all meant that she had no time to regrow an eye. So she had simply improved and enlarged her remaining one to be up to the task, moving it into the center.
This had required doing something with her nose to accommodate the room her greater eye demanded. She had simply meant to flatten it some, but she now saw her body had taken the simple command farther either then or over time.
Two serpentine slits replaced her nose, and they were on the end of a short but definite muzzle that stretchered her mouth and lower face out some. Feeling along its length, it fit her face quite well in touch as well as sight, the surprise at it giving way to embarrassment at the oversight so long.
Finally, her torso had thickened. Her old pouches had seamlessly stored tidbits, with her having discarded a number of useless organs. But making herself a cradle and incubator to perfectly heal the malnourished, exposed children had required more organs, and plenty of well-padded space.
She had of course restored her breasts to functionality. And given four babes, she had added another set to herself, not nearly so complex as an eye would have been, and an actual urgent need. All told, her well-defined muscles were quite obscured from sight, if no less potent.
Jade Chan had been revolted, and perhaps in part undone, by her body "softening" from aging and a more sedentary existence behind a desk where she did more good than simply another agent in the field. She had also hastily driven Paco away when he proposed, her knowledge he wanted children long known.
Jade Chan had been terrified of moving on from what she saw as the best version of herself, that of the young, physically near-perfect and free of so many ties martial artist leader, and adventurer. Yade Khan could see little at all left of that woman in her reflection, and while there was some sadness at the traces fading, it was with a mature farewell that she parted.
Jade Chan was her, but she was not Jade Chan. She had become something else, someone else, perhaps finally growing up fully as human Jade had never quite committed to.
Yes, it had been right and proper to be faced with the image of what she had once been. To both remind her how far she had come, and to begin awakening her shame at her own immature actions.
She was an eldritch fertility goddess; like the light and life of this world, she had made herself anew. The past would guide her with its follies and virtues, the story of her life and those that had crossed with it. But it would be used to make a future for Yade Khan, and the great adventure that truly began with these little ones resting within her.
Author's Note:
Well that's sets us up well for the Fourth Age: Mother.
And we bid a fond farewell to the card anime parody. This really grew on me. And while their role here ends I find myself intrigued by this unexpectedly appealing world. It calls back to my older original woks of comedy parody. Perhaps this idea could be a core to returning to that style in my OW? It certainly would not be hard to remove JCA references and such. Hmm.
Another project, just what I need. Oh well.
Long days and pleasant nights you all.