Here we go again... I find it quite surprising that I've been able to remember what the heck I was going to do with this, actually. Hope you like it.

Vienna Highway, en route to the Danube, 12. 02:14 am

The good thing about adrenaline is that it tends to block out pain receptors. This is something Yugi is currently finding very useful.

They're going as fast as they can, given the state of the streets of Vienna right now. And Vienna had, from the looks of things, never been particularly big on road travel anyway. Half the main streets are blocked off and Joey has turned the map over so many times that Yugi's sure he doesn't have any idea where they're going.

'Right, it's a right here!'

'Mutt do you even know how to read that map?'

'Don't take me for an idiot, it ain't my fault these squiggly lines all look the same, I know where I'm— Uh, no wait, wait, go back, we were supposed to take a left at... never mind.'

And then there are the monsters to deal with, because there was no way they were going to get out of the airport without using fog-lights and those very same lights are drawing the monsters too them more effectively than either Ryou or Yugi's light alone. They come from every corner, ever sewer, every patch of darkness they pass by, drawn to the shifting light of the moving vehicle and shifting in the light like ghosts.

Disturbingly solid ghosts that thud quite loudly when they hit the fender.

'Ah— Kaiba, be careful!'

'Do you want to get though this alive or not?' Kaiba snaps, turning the steering wheel and veering into as hard left. 'Enough with the back seat driving!'

'Aw, man, this is like something out of a videogame. Only worse. Only about a million times worse! At least in the videogames you don't have to worry about killin' the monsters! The whole point is to kill the monsters!'

'Oh cool it, Tristan, you'd think you'd never been up against demons before!' Téa is clutching the overhead support in her attempt not to be sent flying through an open window.

'Not ones that've taken human form after bein' poisoned by shadow magic we haven't,' Joey snaps.

'Pipe down, Mutt! Yami, how far to the river?'

'Not far. I'm guess

'You call that not far?'

'In terms of magical energy displacement it isn't, there are some species that can teleport that distance!' Yami snaps.

Yugi groans impatiently. 'Guys seriously, this isn't the time for card game rivalries!'

Téa is... laughing. He doesn't think even she is entirely sure why. 'Oh, god I missed you guys... can't imagine why, but—'

'Save the speeches for later, Gardner!' Kaiba snaps, and that's the last thing he says before his expression changes from enraged to horrified, as one of the creatures on the hood of the vehicle blocks his view for just a few seconds too long and, for the second time so far today, Yugi finds himself being thrown clean off the road.

Looks like this is going to be even harder than they had anticipated.

Flight Bound for Heathrow International Airport, London. 2:10 am.

'My momma lives in that place.'

Odion feels a slightly chill race up his spine as he turns to face the small child sitting in the seat opposite. She can't me much older than five – the same age as master Marik was when he took on his duty as Tomb keeper. Too young. It takes him a moment to work out that it's him the girl is talking to.

'Oh?'

'Yeah, she moved after she and daddy decided not to stay together anymore. And I stayed with daddy.'

Odion has no idea what to say to that. If his master and mistress hear the conversation then they're paying it no heed, and frankly, Odion isn't used to interacting with children under any circumstance. Not normal children, anyhow. 'Do you think the black skies have hurt my momma?'

'I am sure your mother is fine.' It's a lie, but occasionally, the truth can be a painful thing. The girl's father hushes her, says something about not bothering the other passengers, and the girl falls silent, clutching the older man's arm in a virtual death grip.

Odion grits his teeth, clenches his fists, and tries not to think about children being dragged into a hell they don't deserve to face.

'There are too many people involved in this,' Marik mutters into his ear. 'It's like the end of the world all over again, Odion. The darkness keeps spreading, it won't stop.'

Only twenty thousand miles to Washington DC...

Vienna Highway, 12. 02:19 am

Another extremely useful thing about adrenaline –it means that Yami's shadow magic activates very, very spontaneously. Fast enough for a wall of darkness to cushion them as their vehicle is tossed onto its side and judders against the pavement. Fast enough to prevent Téa's head from colliding hard against a broken window and to keep Bakura from being thrown right out of his chair.

Joey still ends up on top of Kaiba, but given the circumstances...

'Ngh. Mutt... I'm gonna give you about... three seconds to get off of me.'

'Urgh, hey, man don't think I'm here by choice... everyone okay? Téa? Bakura? Yuge? Mai?'

'Think so,' Téa croaks after a moment.

'Urgh... Same here, hun,' Mai mutters. 'So much for my new hairstyle though... and I think I lost a damned heel.'

'Yes, I think I'm fine, thank you.'

'Nggh. Yeah, other me, I'm alright.'

'M'fine too, Joe, thanks fer askin'.'

'Aw, pipe down Tristan, you were farthest away from the bit of the car that hit the wall, weren't ya? I'm surwe you were cushioned by Mai's hair—' THWAP! — 'Ow!'

Yugi takes a second to gather his bearings, suppress the pain in his spine, and look around. At some point, they'd lost one of the monster-people that had been clinging to the roof of the car. The other two are now limping away from the wall, limbs twisted at even more precarious angles than they had been before. They stumble about searching blindly, crashing into each other and keening as they feel their way back to the light. They find Bakura first, and Yugi sees the boy repressing a shudder as they reach out to touch his hair, still torn between pulling away as they do so. Living Bug Zapper. Right.

'A-ah, um... uh... g-good shadow people. B-behave now.'

'As my partner recently reminded me, Bakura, they aren't pets,' Yami sounds vaguely amused as he helps Yugi to his feet and turns to offer aid to Téa. Téa, however, appears to ignore his outstretched hand for one long moment. 'Téa? Are you alright?'

'I... yes but, Yami, look.'

She's still gazing at the monsters. And now so is everybody else, and... The monsters aren't behaving normally. Not that Normal is exactly the first word you'd come up with to describe them anyway. There're... fumbling, staggering, pushing against the walls in the manner of someone finding their way by touch alone, rubbing at their faces, and making small, painful, keening sounds that it hurts to hear.

'Man, what's with those things?' Joey asks.

You mean asides from the obvious? Kaiba snorts.

'Actually yeah, Kaiba, asides from the obvious,' Joey mutters, and something in his tone of voice makes Kaiba look up and pay attention for once. 'What's with them? It's like they dunno where we are.'

'I think they're blind, or something,' Téa whispers nervously, and Yugi is struck by how true that is.

'They probably are, now,' Yami says softly. 'The darkness transforming them has already destroyed half their senses; the ones it deems useless like taste, and touch. All they can feel now is light, and the absence of it.

It's a pitiful sight. The creatures fumble in the darkness, seeming barely human at all now in their reactions and behaviour. Almost all the signs of their former sentience have gone. Yugi shivers. 'It's not fair... They didn't deserve this. Nobody in this place deserved it.'

'I don't get it,' Tristan mutters, wiping a spot of blood from his chin. 'I mean... why did they come to Yugi anyway? Why just these few and not all the others? The rest of em' still seem hell bent on trying to destroy us.'

'Well,' Yami coughs. A meaningful cough, the kind that says "I'm about to tell you something you won't like". 'Actually, so would these ones have been before, if Yugi hadn't acted as he did.' Yugi and Yami exchange a glance, and now their eyes are met by the eyes of everybody else.

'Uh, yeah, care to explain that, hun?' Mai asks.

'Well... I guess I kind of held them here,' Yugi said, softly, now gazing at the fumbling creatures again. 'I used Yami's real name. Once they'd heard it they were bound to it, the same way they'd be bound by shadow magic.'

Kaiba glares. 'For them I bet that's like being bound to a red hot stove. You could kill them, just by being too close you know. '

'They were going to kill us Kaiba,' Yami snaps. 'We didn't have any choice.'

'You could have destroyed them when you had the chance. That was an option. It would've been less painful for them than this.'

Another brief, exchanged glimpse.

'Why Kaiba,' Mai says in a voice dripping with sarcasm (her mood apparently made none the better by the blood on her face. 'I wasn't aware that you'd taken up growing a conscience in your spare time.'

'Oh for goodness sakes,' Téa snaps impatiently, and her voice has the same affect it always has on them – that of forcing everyone into a dull, anxious silence. 'his isn't the time for that you guys. Look if we can still get to the river then... then everything will be alright. We can help... them. We can fix the darkness, can't we, Yami?'

She's looking at Yami with such a firm, unyielding expression that saying no to her would be like telling a child he couldn't have a new bike for Christmas. In truth he doesn't know how likely their actions are to fix all of this. It might just leave all of Europe a wasteland filled with the bodies of the dead. He doesn't even know how they're going to fix the problem when they get there. Somehow he has a feeling they won't be able to duel it into submission, and light powers are Yugi's department. '...of course. Téa's right, there's still a chance.'

The thought seems to cheer them, if only for a second... and then a chill sweeps through the air like a breath of cold wind, even though the air is calm. Yugi shivers, sensing what is coming before anybody else does. Except for Bakura, who is now looking at Yugi with a scared expression.

'Uh, yeah I hate to rain on the self confidence parade...' Mai coughs. 'But...'

Whatever Mai's "but" was going to be, nobody needed to find out, because the next minute was when an almost-human hand half the side of a wall clambers over the top of the nearest building, screeching fit to wake the dead. Which, he supposes, is exactly what it's doing.

Domino City Airport, 09:15 am

'When I was very little, I got lost in a park' Serenity says quietly.

'Really? How terrible for you,' Not-Bakura mutters dryly.

'Well actually yes... at the time, it was very frightening. It was called Marbre Park: it wasn't the kind of park with swings or seesaws, but the woodland kind, with picnic tables and dark tunnels through the trees. I used to love going there all the time before mom and dad got divorced. When we were still a family.'

Silence. Well, that's better than another retort she supposes.

'I had really wanted to go that day, and the park wasn't far from my aunt's house so off I went. I was so silly... Of course the park doesn't seem nearly so big now, but at the time I was very small. I was out there for hours, and it was getting dark. I hated the dark...'

'So you should.'

'I-If you say so.' Serenity scowls. This conversation isn't going the way she'd hoped, but then, she hadn't expected much else from Bakura's other-self. She wishes Duke would hurry up and get back with the coffee (even though she doesn't especially like coffee, she hadn't the heart to say so). And then she smiles faintly as she remembers. '...And then Joey came and found me.

Yeah, I here it's a real weakness of the breed of older brothers, Not-Bakura rolls his eyes again, but Serenity is resolute. He's going to hear this, whether he takes it seriously or not.

'That's just it. Joey wasn't even living with us at the time. He was living three cities away, back in Domino. But sooner or later mom must've had to call my dad and tell him I was missing, and of course Joey found out. He was only seven years old, but he must've taken money from dad's wallet or something. He took two buses all the way to Marbre Park to look for me. He was the one who found me. He says...' she pauses frowning. 'It'll sound strange, but he says he felt his way to me. He could sense me in the woodland and the trees in a way nobody else could. He found me.'

There's a long moment of silence. 'And I suppose you're going somewhere with this little foray into your memories, hm?'

'Yes,' Serenity says, drawing herself upright. 'Because this is the same thing. 'Because that's what I'm doing right now, I think... I can feel him, even though he's so far away. If I believe we can find him, then we will.'

'Really?' Not-Bakura doesn't look convinced... but he doesn't look entirely sceptical either. Serenity prides herself on being able to read people quite well. Even evil spirits from other worlds. And then he sniggers. 'If you say so, Mouse. But neither of our special ones are stuck in a perfectly harmless human park in the middle of some boring woodland now, are they, hm? More like the middle of hell on earth.'

'It doesn't matter,' Serenity says, 'Wherever they are the principle is still the same. I'm sure you understand that better than you think you do, Bakura.'

Not-Bakura opens his mouth as if to say something, but shuts it again when he sees Duke stumbling back to them through the crowds of people with coffee cups grasped in both hands.

Serenity believes in her brother. She grabs hold of that thought and clings to it tightly with both hands. They'll find him. She's certain they will.

Vienna Highway. 02:20 am

'Oh-kay, that's uh... kinda...'

'Humongous? Gigantic? Massive beyond conceivable belief? Zork sized?'

'I was going to say it's fucking huge, but your way works too.' Mai snaps.

Huge is the right word. It looks kind of like what would happen if you took about a thousand of these one-time human freaks and merged them into one.

'Guess we didn't take into account a few things.' Yami mutters. He's looking up at the thing with as close to calm as he ever gets, watching as it shrieks and stumbles and clambers over the building, smashing the rock beneath its pearly white fists which don't look as if they should even resemble hands. Its eyes burn empty in its head, its face stretched out in disturbing angles. The creatures gathered around Yugi shriek and panic, sensing its presence.

'T-take into account a few things? Like what?!' Téa wails.

'Like the fact that there's a zoo somewhere around here. I imagine that thing used to be an elephant.'

This probably would've been a lot funnier if that creature hadn't looked so capable of goring them to death with one sweep, and if it hadn't been clambering over buildings like a spider, smashing everything in its path and shrieking in a way that sounds like a shadow demon gone horribly, horribly wrong. The looks Yami gets are rivalled only by the ones the monster did. 'You've got to be kidding me?' Mai snaps. 'Yami, you're telling me that... that thing's a mutant pachyderm?!'

'Unless there's some other creature in Vienna that could conceivably look like that and be that big after being infected with shadow magic, then yes.' He sounds calm, but the hand he has still gripping Yugi's says otherwise.

'Great. Just great,' Kaiba mutters. 'We need to get away from that thing. I don't think its intelligence is too hampered by this.'

'In other words, let's get the hell out of here!' Bakura snaps, in an uncharacteristic display of explicit that probably would have stunned them all into silence had they not had bigger things to worry about right now.

They turn and run.

NB: I don't know if you'll find this interesting, but "Marbre" is French for "Marble" – as the Genius that is Scribbler taught me, It fits to have places surrounding domino also named after toys.