Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"The hell is going on? Who dropped you through that hole?" Jack demanded as he tried to regain control of the conversation. Who had these people 'invited' or was inviting themselves over? While behind him he felt, instead of saw, Crow flit away. Dipping away through a door to once again seek a way out of the building.
Something was terribly wrong with the group, Isao had no reaction or comment to Jack's questions. He just... walked away like there wasn't an angry blond stalking up behind him demanding answers. The walls were trying to move in conflicting waves, flowing forward then rippling back into where they were. Bulging waves forming in a manner that enforced the idea that the walls were developing veins. Faintly, the ground could be felt to tremble in the distance where the group walked and Jack couldn't tell where they were going.
It could have been to the front of the building, it would have made the most sense. If so, and given the complete lack of interaction from the Movement, Crow might have been able to just run down said hallway. But the way their fixation ebbed and flowed first to go after Jack and Crow, now to completely ignore the pair. This wasn't something Divine would do, it didn't fit the profile of the man as far as Jack knew.
A punch to the jaw of a lackey did nothing after all, and Jack wasn't sure if one to Isao's face would do much better. Lights were buckling and shattering as the floor began to sink down in such a way that Jack couldn't confidently walk anymore. The floor felt loose, almost springy in a way that he didn't like. Sinking was one thing, springy made him think there was something under him, something net like, but what would be down there?
"Oi! Is the building coming to life?" He demanded when the wall to the left suddenly tilted crashing towards them and sending Jack diving into a spare room on instinct. The wall toppled over to the side and leaned against it partner wall, creating a through way for the rest of the hallway. Leaving Jack looking around the room he was in with a growing dread that the walls themselves would fall on him next.
No shouts or cries of pain. No one from Movement rushed into the room and there was only silence in the distance. Jack rushed to the hallway stuck his head outside to see where the Movement members he 'had' encountered were. Further down the hallway was the answer, the freaking 'wall' tumbling towards them wasn't enough to get their attention? They were bent down to accommodate the wall but over all, they just kept moving. Even as the ground shook and sank in response to some force.
Leaving Jack with a growing sense of apprehension. His Mark was not responding in any way so if this was a threat, it wasn't targeting him or Crow. If it was a threat to the Movement, there was only so much sympathy that Jack was willing to offer. But he was now far less willing to stay inside, the feeling of danger was overwhelming to the point that he resigned himself to bending his tall, proud frame and walking after Isao's group.
He couldn't take the door that Crow had, or maybe he could, but he couldn't tell if the fallen wall was just the wall or if the other wall had fallen on 'it' as well. In the sparking blackness of the passage he moved further down the hallway. Following the sound of foot steps and the unwelcomed silence of any still remaining duel spirits. 'Strange to think something like this can be going on and the Crimson Dragon wouldn't respond to this. Or Yugi... does he know?'
A soft growl rumbled against the walls, rising and falling in such a way that Jack couldn't help but hear laughter. Feminine laughter echoed down at the end of the hallway where the ground shook. The lights had all been shattered so there was nothing to steady and consistent to illuminate this sudden darken tunnel to the other side. So all he could do was walk steadily towards that laughter while his mind built images of people on conveyor belts.
Human sacrifices.
Jack could smell fresh air, but there was no light coming from the end of the hallway. Thus whatever was allowing the outside air in, was further off than before. 'Crow 'did' say this place had turned into a maze...' he thought.
In the distance he could hear a voice, distant enough he couldn't make out words. Concrete under his feet finally shattered completely. Below him what remained of emergency lights appeared amid the darkness. So few and far between they were more taunting than help, as they illuminated nothing save the fact that they were there.
Every step Jack now had to test to see if there was something under foot. Whatever wiring that was still remaining sank and swayed with each step. Forcing Jack to abandon his confident stride or angry crouched stalk as he moved along. The air was choked with dust, with his hand a poor mask against the debris. His body ached now from the hell of the past two days, his tall frame which usually allowed him to lord over the general public was ill suited to this old man posture. Tingling pricks against his shoulders and down his spine.
This wasn't the type of workout that came from a gym. But Carly's apartment didn't 'have' a private indoor Gym for him to work out in. A situation that was starting to tell as the bruises under his riding suit ached with something mounting fierce. Each step was slow and exploratory as the noises around him worried him.
Buckling, the wall pinning him to this tiny corridor began to sink against him with whatever strength it had finally gone.
'Just wonderful,' Jack thought with an almost vicious scowl crossing his face. 'Now' he had to decide if the, barely surviving metal mesh, wiring keeping him on the ground level could handle the stress if he tried to move the wall.
When the walls themselves began to sag and pull back. Giving Jack a much needed sigh, followed by cough from the dust, of relief. Daylight momentarily blinded him while dust reversed its fall into gravity and rose up into the air. Revealing the ceiling of the building that had fallen in places leaving a patchwork of the original building. Next to him, amid the veins that had grown through out the walls, a single red rose blossomed into being. From fairly near bud to full rose, which only brought one thing, one 'person' to mind.
'Well shit...' Jack thought as he blinked through the dust and saw just 'what' Isao was 'waiting' for. Standing at the end of the hallway was Black Rose Dragon, a raucous grin on her face, while her vines held up the walls before flicking them off to the back of the building. It flattened the rest of the walls of the building going back. Before buckling the back wall and causing the roof to tilt dangerously further back and down.
Her neck was curved down into an arch with her bright pink eyes fairly glowing with delight at the destruction she was inflicting. A veritable round two from the night before while at her side was Aki, standing there in her full Black Rose Witch hooded robe.
She was maskless, and her hair pin power suppressor was gone, while Isao was pinned before her via Black Rose Witch. Just bound up and hanging there, with all the duel spirits that Jack had encountered in the same bound state. Without the wall pinning him down he was able to right himself, so he looked down to check the state of the floor. Wondering passively if it would be difficult to reach her when he realized that he had been mistaken.
There was no wire mesh holding him up, rather it was a host of of plant roots. Standing on Aki's deck for all intents and purposes. His Mark was unresponsive, she wasn't tapping into extra power to pull this off, or reacting so over the top emotional that it was being broadcasted to the other Signers. Which on the plus side meant that the twins weren't being given a... 'Are the twins here? Today's a school day right? So they shouldn't...' he thought distantly.
"Where is the antidote..."
Jack could hear Aki asking, her voice tightly controlled and perhaps that was the only reason his Mark wasn't glowing. Regardless, she was angry, he could see that now with the intense focus she was giving Isao.
'But if she's here... she must have a copter with her! If we can reach Crow and pick up the antidote from him.'
It was the last thought he had before the ground, Aki's vines, turned against him.
The floor rose up, wrapping around his legs and up his torso. Whatever remained of standing walls were rapidly covered by black roses and blacker thorns. Only that one red rose remained near where Jack had been standing. While the veins snaked around the duel spirits and their partners alike, dangling their still frames.
Jack looked about and as much as he wanted to stay focused on anger about this group and what they did to Yusei.
This cold pit of fear was forming in his stomach.
"They look dead..." He muttered as he looked at the other Movement members, 'needing' to see them move. Struggle. Cry out. Something, anything! Instead they hung there, either unconscious or dead. Sure Aki's dragon threw walls across the room, but they couldn't 'all' be dead...
A low rumble shivered the veins until it shook him as a low voice murmured, "they do don't they?"
The voice startled Jack into looking around, but in a field of black there was no way to really know who spoke... But... nooo...
"They're..." sniff... "Its like the very essence that gives them their identity is gone... So who got to them Jack?"
"Archfiend?" Jack continued looking around. Now that he was actually paying attention he could faintly sense a powerful presence near by. Leading him to realize that apparently Aki was putting out enough power to let other duel spirits start to manifest... though... "Can you materialize?"
"No, but come on, who did this to these people?" Archfiend murmured as he looked around the room.
"You don't know? This isn't something a duel spirit can do?" Jack asked as he struggled against the vines wrapped around his arms. "Aki! Damn it woman cut this out we need to get Crow!" He tried to call out, but amid the settling dust there wasn't enough air for him to call out strongly over the distance.
"Crow? Oh I saw him on my way in, as for this? I don't know, I'm just a dragon you have to ask a magician or witch," Archfiend explained.
"Why won't she..." Jack growled at himself before turning to look at the closest 'source' he had for the Archfiends' voice. "Tell that idiot woman we need to get to Crow! He has the antidote!" He ordered, for which Archfiend didn't vocalize any sense of confirmation, but the feeling that Jack had realized was Archfiend slipped away from him, moving forward towards Aki.
"We were told to wait for you..."
"Wait? I know your game Isao!" Aki retorted, looking into Isao's lifeless eyes, soullessly staring back at her. Something was wrong, and that awareness sang keenly along her nerves. This wasn't Divines' work, hypnosis was one thing, but she couldn't shake that this was something different. Something off.
The building itself was ruined, but in the center a black flame twisted around itself as a churning pillar that she could almost feel a chill of absence. The black flames of her Black Rose was warm, the black of rich soil, the warmth of the fire of life itself. When it rose she could feel creation stir into action, this? A counterfeit flame that was seeping into all of the Duel Spirits connected to the Movement.
"We need you to introduce us to your friend. The boy like you," Isao replied, with an eerie dead voice. Whatever existed of his spirit gone. Even around him, the black flames were consuming all of them...
"Archfiend? You're here correct?" Aki asked as she felt the massive dragon slide in from Jack's direction.
"Yeah, Jack wanted me..."
"I want you to destroy that black flame..." She instructed.
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Archfiend demanded in a prideful huff as he observed the black flame. 'Go get Crow. Go get Aki. Go destroy that flame...' Archfiend thought to himself in annoyance as he eyed the wilting grass around its base. 'Like Crow can even understand me, he's not a true dragon...' he thought as the flame rose above his head. It wasn't a good thing that she was seeing things from the Duel Spirit world in the Human world. But if this was why the humans and dangling spirits smelled off...
His face twisted into something of a sneer as he took a deep breath, 'Crimson dragon, whose flames burn away corruption, lend my flames your pure strength.' With the prayer invoked, he felt the God Dragon's power ignite within himself. The ignition to his own flame augmenting it to a purification flame, its warmth calling back those days before Fairy's imprisonment.
Those days when it was Moon Rose who performed the purification rites, not him.
"Oh Divine Crimson Dragon, whose breath is life and whose flame purifies the world! Lend me your strength! Aid me to purify this corruption!" The priestess called out, standing bravely before a spawn of the Earthbound. The camp fire before her was a dying ember compared to the monster looming before her. Moon Rose stood behind her, moon white petals unfurled as she roared in challenge. Her black soil colored body defiant as she spewed flames against the abominations feet. From it rising a white flame that unfurled as a rose itself, burning as it swept past the limbs, until it was glowing with the brilliance of a clear crystal in the dark of night...
His flame was no where near as pretty, just a solid pillar of flame that rose up from the ground. But Archfiend could see it work, the corruption being purged as easily now as the abomination was back then. He could see and feel the presence of the Crimson Dragon and its connection to their God.
Archfiend turned back to face the pair and found a moment of clarity in Black Rose Dragon's eyes as she looked at the flames. It was a perfect time to snark about how this was 'her' job not his, remind her that she was shirking her duties. But her petals were red, the edges of her root like body tinted in blood. For once the snark and pride could not leave his throat, and he just moved so she could see it. 'Could the purification flames purify you of your madness?' With Fairy back and knowing where to find LifeStream the flames and the look roused a sudden longing. Long crushed under Archfiends' foot as he accepted long ago they were gone.
'Bah, Stardust is turning me into a sentimental fool too,' Archfiend thought with a silent, self induced snarl.
Staring at a friend who had been destroyed by circumstances beyond her control and he, too, dumb to help. Words were Stardust and Ancient Fairy's stock in trade, he was just the big muscle and God he would have given anything for it to go back to the way it was before. So he could be just the warrior and not the priest...
For those not privy to the Dragons' thoughts though, the flames that died, weakened their holds on the Movement members. Just like that, he could smell the return of normal scents, the flicker of a wolf tail. Movement was coming back to its senses and the moment Aki realized that... Well she 'had' been muttering to herself about 'discipline' as they soared here from Neo Domino.
"hngh... Aki? Ahh what are you doing here?" Isao began in confusion that was quickly clearing up into alarm. He took stock of the vines holding him in the air, and his fellow members who were sluggishly coming around. Over his shoulder he could see the walls had been knocked down, and the aura of an unsummoned bipedal dragon next to Aki.
"You know why I'm here," she stated as the vines began to squeeze tighter on him.
"In your Witch robes, makes me think you've come back to us," Isao replied as he tried to push back against the vines with no luck. Yet he sounded a bit triumphant, for what he could sound like that wasn't choked and struggling.
"I just don't want my clothes getting ruined by what you're making me do," Aki replied coldly.
"JACK!" Crow stumbled back into the building, took one look at Aki, saw Jack and ran over. His expression muted by the dust as he rushed to the blond.