Chapter Nine

It was distressing enough to be chased up and down the halls by soulless bodies. But Yugi and the others were just getting accustomed to the strangeness when both Gansley and Nesbitt stiffened and their eyes took on an alive look.

"Well, Lector, it looks like you've been making some new alliances," Gansley sneered.

Everyone jumped.

"Gansley?!" Lector stared. "Are you . . . yourself again?"

"We both are," Nesbitt said, "thanks to some nutcase who just released us from the Shadow Realm!"

"I'm here too," Johnson spoke up, coming forward. "And now we've got a few things to ask you!"

"This is crazy!" Joey yelped, messing up his hair. "They were zombies and now they're just not?!"

"It sounds like Yami Marik is at work again," Atem said gravely. "Only instead of coming out himself, this time he sent the rest of the Big Five back to this plane of existence."

"Well, that's just great," Tristan said in frustrated disgust. "Now what?"

"Now you can start explaining why you are cavorting with the enemy, Lector." Gansley glowered and looked expectantly at his associate.

"I am not, as you put it, 'cavorting with the enemy,' Mr. Gansley," Lector snapped. "As a matter of fact, I'm being forced to choose between working for Mr. Kaiba or Dr. Alice Portman during this crisis. She's the one who revived all your bodies without your souls! She obviously didn't care whether you were around to take possession of your bodies or not. She just has a bone to pick with Mr. Kaiba herself and wants to use us for her little experiment!"

"Dr. Portman?" Gansley snorted. "That off-kilter woman who reported to you when Gozaburo ran the company?"

"That's right," Lector said.

"Anyone would be better than Seto Kaiba," Nesbitt said, his eyes filled with hatred.

"I don't know that Dr. Portman would be," Lector retorted.

"Also, how did you even get back in the first place?" Johnson asked. "Did you deliberately come back without us?"

"No!" Lector exclaimed. "I don't even know how I got back. I just woke up here." He glowered. "But would it even matter if I decided to go off on my own? You already made it clear that you were through with me when you just let Khu put me in the darkness. I owe you nothing!"

"We didn't know you would be pulled into the darkness and become part of it," Gansley said. "That is the honest truth."

"We didn't want you to suffer that fate, Lector," Nesbitt said.

Lector frowned, his eyes showing he was conflicted. He had really felt he had known that, yet seeing them and talking to them was bringing back all the pain he had felt back then. They hadn't had the chance to resolve their problems before he had ended up back here. And he hadn't had much chance to even think about the Big Five and his place with them and what the others thought of him since waking up on the mortal plane. Or more precisely, he hadn't let himself have the chance. Just like with the knowledge that he had helped betray Gozaburo, the memory of being betrayed by those he had trusted had stabbed him deeply. He hadn't wanted to think about it or about the possibility that they all hated him for making it back when they hadn't. They had spent so much time together that they had become his closest, and really, his only friends. He had long fallen out of touch with any friends back in New Orleans, and they didn't know him the way these four did.

That was a strange and somewhat unsettling thought, especially if it was all over. Former friends made the most dangerous enemies.

Without warning a beam of light shot out from somewhere and blasted him to the floor. He cried out in surprise and pain.

Seto started. "What the . . ." He looked around for the source, as did everyone else.

"Lector?!" Mokuba couldn't refrain from exclaiming over the loudspeaker. "What happened?!"

"Someone just struck him down," Seto said.

They didn't have far to look. Khu stepped out of the shadows, his eyes dark, his smoking staff in his hands.

"And that's just the beginning," he said coldly. "I won't forgive you for possessing me."

Yami Bakura went several shades of pale. "Khu. . . ."

"Yami Marik set you free too?!" Bakura exclaimed in outrage. "Why on Earth . . ."

"I don't really care why," Khu said. "I don't know him and I don't like him. But I do appreciate the assistance." As Lector started to try to push himself up, Khu blasted him again and sent him down.

Gansley stepped in the way. "Now just a minute . . . !"

Khu's lip curled. "Get out of my way, old man. Surely all of you want your chance with him as well. But I'm going first, whether you like it or not."

Nesbitt frowned, looking somewhat conflicted. Lector had ruined his chance to take revenge on Seto by killing Mokuba. He was still angry about that. But Nesbitt really hadn't wanted Lector to be assimilated into the darkness, as Khu had tried to do. And it didn't really give him any satisfaction to see Lector repeatedly shot down now.

"Lector, are you alright?" he asked when the other man once again struggled to move.

"Yes." Lector pushed himself to his knees and then upright. "Well? What are you going to do about me? It seems to me that we should be focusing our energy on getting Dr. Portman stopped."

"Should we?" Gansley chuckled. "After all, she healed our bodies so we could use them right away. So what if they ran around for a while without our spirits in them? We wanted to terrorize Seto Kaiba anyway."

Lector looked at him in disbelief. "Well, then suit yourself," he finally snapped. "I don't want to see Mokuba hurt. I'm going to help Mr. Kaiba see that he's safe."

Johnson frowned, adjusting his glasses. "You really have acquired new alliances, haven't you, Lector. You're really not one of us anymore."

"I always cared about Mokuba," Lector retorted. "I hated seeing Seto Kaiba use him. And I hated when Gansley and Nesbitt tried to kill him. I haven't changed my alliances. I'm just sick of trying all these revenge schemes that only backfire on us. We're all stuck in a rut, Johnson. If you can't see that, then there's nothing I can do about it." He turned to go. "I'll see all of you later."

Seto regarded his old enemies with a dark look. "And if you even think of helping Portman, you'll all regret it," he vowed. Then he took off running.

"You'll have me to answer to later too!" Joey exclaimed, shaking a fist at Johnson and Nesbitt in particular. "And I'm sure Tristan would also like a piece of you for how you made a monkey out of him in Noa's world!"

"Hey," Tristan suddenly realized, "isn't someone missing? Where's Crump?"

"Hmm." Gansley smirked. "That strange character said that Crump would like the location of his body."

Yugi went sheet-white. "Oh no! Téa!"

Atem started. "That must be it!" he cried in horror. "Crump is at the mall!"

Yugi pulled out his phone, hurriedly dialing Téa's number. When there was no answer, he pulled the device back and stared at it in disbelieving horror. "And he may have already gotten to her, guys," he gasped. "What are we going to do?!"

"There's more than enough people here to look for Mokuba and Marik," Tristan said. "You guys should go find Téa."

Solomon nodded. "We can go in the truck. We shouldn't waste a moment!"

"Okay." Yugi bit his lip. He hated to leave the scene of this madness, but if Crump was with Téa, who knew what madness he was causing there. He couldn't just do nothing.

"Be careful," Lector said in concern.

Yugi looked to him in surprise. "Thanks. We will be."

"I wonder if we should go too, Yami," Bakura worried.

Yami Bakura grunted. "The Pharaoh should go so he can send Crump back to the Shadow Realm. I should stay here to do the same with the others."

"That's a good point," Bakura admitted.

Outside, a car screeched to a halt in the driveway. "What's going on?!" came Duke's voice.

Joey immediately perked up. "Serenity!" Both he and Tristan ran to the doorway. Indeed, Serenity was getting out of the car along with Duke.

Nesbitt just shook his head. "What a madhouse."

Lector frowned at him. "I'm going to get back to looking for Mokuba, and Dr. Portman," he said. "I don't have time to deal with this Khu person right now."

Khu glared at him. "If you don't make time now, you will regret it later."

"Then I'll have to regret it later." Lector ran down the hall, followed by Bakura.

Yami Bakura growled. Muttering curses under his breath, he looked from his descendant to the Big Three. "I could send you all away right now," he said.

"You could, only I would stop you," Khu replied. His staff crackled in his hand.

Yami Bakura snarled. "I will deal with you as well. But right now, I don't want Bakura to run into that mad scientist." With that, he ran after the boy.

Gansley waited until everyone had either started off after Seto's group or hurried outside to meet the new arrivals. "The question is, gentlemen, what shall we do now?" he mused. "We could align with Dr. Portman. She revived our bodies, and she wants to bring cruelty and suffering on Seto Kaiba just as we do, even if not for the same reasons."

"If we align with her, it's unlikely Lector will agree with us," Johnson said. "Then what will we do with him?"

"I'd say Khu wants to be the one to do something with him," Gansley said.

"And are we going to let him?" Nesbitt wondered.

"I don't know," Gansley mused. "Lector did violate our trust by protecting Mokuba on more than one occasion."

"But we didn't like when Khu trapped him in the darkness," Nesbitt said.

"I don't see how we can still accept him as part of the team, nor does it seem he even still wants to be," Johnson said. "But I don't like the idea of just abandoning him to Khu."

"For now, let's just observe what's happening," Gansley said. "Perhaps by the time Dr. Portman is found, we'll have decided what to do."

Khu glared at them. "If you interfere with my settling a score, I'll make sure none of you get to enjoy this second chance," he vowed.

Nesbitt looked to him with a start. He couldn't deny that he was disturbed. All of them had felt that way about getting vengeance on Seto. Most of them still did. But it seemed so much different to be threatened over their former associate . . . to see someone that hateful over him. . . .

"Are you really that obsessed with Lector just for stopping you from killing a kid?" Nesbitt asked. "He did the same thing to me and I don't want to bash his brains in."

"It's not that," Khu said. "It's that by doing that, he stopped me from finishing my business of three thousand years ago. That was my first chance to get back to it since then. All of you can surely understand that, can't you?"

"Yes," Gansley said. "We certainly can."

"But what is your business?" Johnson wondered. "After three thousand years, who is even still around other than the Pharaoh and that thief?"

"My business is none of your business," Khu darkly retorted.

"It is if you want to kill Lector," Nesbitt said.

"Oh?" Khu's eyes flickered, and he slung his staff over one shoulder. "Don't tell me he means that much to you. Or maybe you just want the privilege of killing him yourselves?"

"We don't want to kill him," Nesbitt insisted.

"Are you really ready to give up your lives for him?" Khu persisted. "He doesn't even like you anymore."

"He betrayed our trust . . . and we betrayed his," Johnson said. "But I saw something in his eyes when he was being chased by our soulless bodies. It badly shook him up. No, I would say it hurt him to see us like that."

"How odd," Gansley mused. "We have worked together for so long and shared our suffering all along the way. Now it seems odd to think of not being together in this latest chapter of our existence. If you try to kill Lector, yes, we will try to stop you."

"And you will fail," Khu immediately responded. "I have magic. None of you do." He turned away. "I'll look forward to terminating all of you as examples of my power. You're just lucky I want to eat first. I haven't eaten in three thousand years. Now that I'm free of the Shadow Realm, I'm suddenly very hungry."

Fear flashed through Johnson's eyes. When Khu walked off towards the kitchen, the lawyer looked back to his comrades. "What are we going to do?!" he hissed. "He has a perfect point. We never should have got mixed up with him! Lector was right that we've been going in circles that always backfire on us."

Gansley sighed, heavily. "I only see one choice. We will have to convince one of the magic users to help us. We know they want to get rid of Khu. And after Lector has shown he can be an ally, they don't want him hurt either."

"It would probably be easier to convince the Pharaoh than the thief," Nesbitt said.

"Unfortunately, the Pharaoh is leaving," Gansley said. "We'll have to work with the thief."

"And what about Crump?" Nesbitt wondered. "Will he go along with us?"

"Probably," Gansley said. "But I don't know how we'll get word to him."

"I have to say, it was odd to hear you come out in favor of Lector," Johnson said. "Don't you always say that if one employee proves inadequate, you'll just fire them and get someone else?"

"Yes, and that is still my policy," Gansley said. "But Lector isn't merely an employee, is he?"

The others fell silent. It was true; they all felt the same bond that Lector did, after all the time they had spent together. It was strange to realize they could still care about another human being after all that they had done and the hateful feelings towards Seto and Yugi and the rest of the group that they still had. But they knew they didn't feel right about abandoning Lector, especially after what Khu had tried to do to him in the Shadow Realm.

"So it's a group decision then," Gansley said. "We will do what we can to protect Lector from Khu, no matter what it takes."

Johnson and Nesbitt nodded, solemnly. Against Khu, it might take all that they had.

xxxx

Téa had been screaming and kicking in vain all the way through the mall and down into the basement. Anyone who tried to stop Crump from carting her off had been forcefully pushed away with almost superhuman strength. It wasn't until they reached the bottom and he dumped Téa on the floor that he suddenly blinked in bewilderment and seemed to come back to himself. "Huh? What? . . ."

Téa winced, rubbing at her hip. "What do you mean 'what'?" she snapped. "You've been dragging me all over creation, Crump!"

"Téa Gardner?!" Crump stared at her. Then, slowly, he started to smirk. "That weird guy was right. I like the location of my body very much."

Téa swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding furiously, but she hardly wanted to show her fear to this creep. "So what are you going to do?" she snapped. "You were yelling 'Destroy Kaiba.' Yeah, like taking me is going to help you do that." She folded her arms.

"Hmm. Well, it's an interesting concept, at least," Crump laughed. "I guess I was just looking for any excuse to see you again."

Téa scowled. "Coming from you, I can't even say that's flattering. And hey, what did you mean about some weird guy?!"

"I dunno. He was in that Shadow Realm place with us and he said he was going to send us back to our bodies because he liked chaos." Crump shrugged. "Some crazy guy with spiky hair and lots of veins."

"Yami Marik!" Téa moaned.

"Eh. Well, whoever. So I guess the question now is, what now?" Crump looked her up and down.

"I'm sure mall security will be breaking down the door any minute," Téa said with more than a little pleasure. "And I'll make sure they cart you off."

"What if I just let you go?" Crump suggested. "After all, I mean, I wasn't even in my body when it abducted you!"

"Yeah, like you can explain that to mall security. 'I've got the perfect explanation, Officers! My body was acting on its own! I wasn't even in it!'" Téa rolled her eyes. "Like they'd ever believe you."

"So I'll let you go before they get here," Crump countered. "I should figure out where the others went anyway. You're right that taking you doesn't even help with getting back at Kaiba." He paused. "Or would it?" He suddenly smirked. "I remember when I possessed him and he fought back so hard to save you."

"That was just because he didn't want his body used to hurt anyone," Téa insisted, even as she was surprised by the words coming out of her mouth. "It had nothing to do with me personally!" She looked away. "I mean, we don't even like each other. Or we didn't. I mean . . ." She flushed in frustration.

Crump laughed. "I wonder if the lady is protesting too much."

Téa stared. "What?! I am not!"

"And you were so upset when you thought we'd managed to kill him," Crump remembered.

"Because that was horrible!" Téa snapped, clenching her fists. "Of course I don't want him dead! Just like I wouldn't want any of the others dead!"

"So he's one of the group now," Crump mused. "Then at the very least, he may think of you as a friend." He grabbed for her wrist. "Taking you might just be a good idea after all."

Téa cried out in alarm. "You're crazy! Kaiba doesn't think of any of us as friends!" She strained against him. "Come on! You can't get out of here with me! There's no way to get past all the people!"

Crump simply continued to pull her along. "Let's see if there's another way out before we decide that," he said.