Chapter Twelve

Several minutes earlier, while Crump and Téa had still been working their way through the trees, Yugi's group had indeed arrived at the cabin.

"Well, it doesn't look like anyone's there," Yugi said slowly.

"But they could be," Solomon frowned.

"Yeah," Tristan said in disgust. "Maybe whatever Crump's doing in there, he didn't want the lights on to do it."

"Honestly, I'm sure that if he was really trying to do something inappropriate to Téa, she would be screaming and kicking," Atem said. "We'd probably hear all kinds of sounds." He started to get out of the truck. "But we should look around anyway."

"It could be a soundproof place," Tristan said.

Behind them, Duke's car came to a stop as well. "Soundproof?" Joey echoed as he leaped over the closed door of the convertible. "Yeah, I could totally picture that creep Johnson doin' somethin' like that! And Crump would totally take advantage of it!"

Serenity gasped. "That's horrible! Poor Téa!"

Suddenly realizing what he had said, Joey looked chagrined.

"But Téa would definitely get the upper hand," Tristan quickly said.

Duke rolled his eyes. "Unless she couldn't," he said. "Serenity doesn't have to be sheltered. I feel like a broken record saying that all the time."

Serenity took several steps forward. "Let's get in there and make sure Téa's alright," she pleaded.

"Oh, Téa is fine. All of you, on the other hand, are most certainly not."

Everyone looked up with a jerk. Khu was standing on the roof of the cabin. In a moment he had jumped down to the ground, sneering at all of them.

"Khu?!" Atem burst out. "What is this?!"

"This," Khu responded calmly, as he pointed his staff at all of them, "is a trap. Ruination!"

xxxx

Everyone in Seto's group was dreading what they might see when they finally got to the cabin. Téa especially was tied up in knots. What had caused the explosion? Had Khu killed many people with a dark magic spell, just as he had threatened? Was Atem dead? Yugi? Everyone else?

"You're going to break your fingers if you're not careful."

She jumped a mile. Seto was looking at her with a deep frown. Almost unconsciously, she had been wringing her hands and sometimes grabbing the fingers of one hand with her other hand and squeezing tightly. She had also got into the limousine for some reason, instead of riding with the Bakuras. The limousine was quite crowded by this point.

"I can't help it!" she cried. "We don't know what's happened up there. The others might be . . ." She swallowed hard.

"They can't be," Mokuba said in horror. "They've gotta have pulled through somehow!"

"That explosion looked very bad," Marik grimly said, "but I won't count them out yet either. Especially when the Pharaoh was part of that group."

Still, as they approached the cabin and the limo stopped, Téa squeezed her eyes shut. If her loved ones were laying all over, she couldn't bear to see. . . .

"They're okay!" Mokuba exclaimed.

Téa's eyes flew open. "Huh?!"

Indeed, Yugi was coming towards them. "Guys!" His eyes shone with worry. "Khu's completely lost it! It's not safe for you to be here!"

The van pulled up behind the limo. "How did you survive that blast?" Yami Bakura demanded as he got out.

"Atem made a barrier with the Infinity Puzzle," Yugi said. "Neither of us even knew he could do that with it! But he did, almost unconsciously. And we're safe!" He smiled, but it wavered. "I don't think he can hold it for much longer, though. . . . It takes a lot of energy to generate it."

The air sparked and the barrier faded seconds later. Atem gasped, falling to one knee. "We have to banish Khu to the Shadow Realm again before he generates enough power for another blast," he choked out.

Yami Bakura growled. "Then we shall do it. The Ring will surely cooperate for this."

Khu was suddenly right in front of him. "Maybe it will, but I won't let you use its power." The staff sparked with electricity and connected with the Infinity Ring.

Yami Bakura screamed. Every part of his body felt on fire with the force of the magical electric shock.

"Oh!" Bakura cried in horror. He lunged, tackling Khu around the waist. "Stop it! Stop it!"

Yami Bakura stared through bleary eyes as the electricity finally stopped charging into his body. "Bakura," he whispered. His strength gone, he collapsed into the grass.

Khu snarled, striking Bakura on the head with the rod part of the staff. He scrambled out from under the dazed boy, pointing his staff at the rest of the group. "You see? There's nothing you can do to stop me. I'll take you down one by one if I can't take you out all at once."

Atem snarled. "You'll never win, Khu."

"Oh? I think I will," Khu sneered.

Seto pushed Mokuba behind him. "Run, Mokuba!" he ordered. "Get out of here! You might have a chance to escape."

But Mokuba stiffened in horror. "I'm not leaving you, Seto!" he cried. "If you and Marik and everyone dies here . . . life is pointless." Tears filled his eyes.

Khu paused, watching the exchange as something flickered through his eyes, perhaps a long-ago memory of being with his half-brother, Atem's priest Seto.

Then Lector stepped in front of him. "Look at them," he said. "Are you going to destroy their lives? I hated Mokuba's brother so much that I was willing to destroy him in whatever way I could. I'm still angry at Mr. Kaiba for things he did. But that child still loves him in spite of everything. I'm not going to interfere in their lives anymore, no matter how I feel about Mr. Kaiba."

Khu's eyes grew cold again and he pointed his staff at Lector. "I am. But first, you're the next to go, Lector."

"Oh no, he's not!" Crump suddenly ran at Khu, grabbing him from behind and raising the arm with the staff. It fired harmlessly into the air.

Johnson grabbed Khu from the side. "This case is closed," he insisted.

Khu snarled a curse at them both as he struggled. "You will not defeat me!" he screamed. "Lector, you're dead. And so are the rest of you!"

"Wrong," Crump said through gritted teeth. "Lector will survive this, and so will we. There's a ninety-nine percent chance that you're going to fail."

"I have to recharge my magic longer before I can use Ruination again," Khu said, "but there are other spells I can use on you." He roared something in Egyptian and the staff responded, sending out a smaller version of the magical shockwave from earlier.

Lector stared in horror as Crump and Johnson were violently thrown back. His mind went blank. Without thinking, he tried to run towards them.

Immediately Gansley and Nesbitt tackled him, pushing him towards the rest of the group. "Get back," Gansley growled.

"No!" Lector stumbled and turned.

"What's happening?!" Téa screamed.

The shockwave quickly knocked everyone off their feet. Dead silence reigned.

Standing on a nearby hill, close enough to see but far enough to be spared, Dr. Portman stared in fascination. "What have you unleashed by releasing that man with the staff?" she asked the stranger who had brought her there to observe.

"Utter and complete chaos," Yami Marik sneered. "You wanted to break Seto Kaiba and Yami Bakura. Well, Yami Bakura is going to be furious, alright, and it will be interesting to see how Seto Kaiba feels. But the one you have truly devastated is Lector. I highly doubt that any of his friends will survive this blast. They were too close to the epicenter."

"Hmm." Portman smirked, adjusting her glasses. "This will be interesting to observe indeed."

xxxx

Everything was still when Lector opened his eyes an indeterminable amount of time later. For a moment he didn't remember what had happened moments before. Instead there was just the amazement of waking up alive, in his body, which he had felt every time he had awakened since being allowed back. But when the first thing he caught sight of as he focused was a limp hand, he jumped a mile and woke up the rest of the way. "What?!"

He pushed himself up. Gansley was laying near him, not moving. Nesbitt was sprawled in another direction.

Now he remembered. Khu's shockwave. . . . Gansley and Nesbitt had tried to push him away from the worst of it. . . . All those kids and the two ancient Egyptians were laying beyond him, clearly breathing. But Gansley and Nesbitt . . .

He swallowed hard. Gansley was older than the rest of them, and his heart wasn't in the best condition. Maybe the force of the blast had . . .

Slowly he reached out, feeling for a pulse. As he had really half-expected but fully dreaded, there was nothing. He rocked back. "Dead," he whispered.

Quickly he crawled over to Nesbitt, shaking him on the shoulder. He, on the other hand, was the youngest. He really should have been able to withstand the blast. . . .

"Hey!" Lector called, raising his voice. "Nesbitt . . . !"

Nothing. When he gingerly reached to feel the other's neck, there was no throb.

Horror filled his eyes. They were both gone. And Johnson and Crump, having been practically on top of the blast . . .

He whipped around to look towards the hill. Yes, they were both still laying in the strange positions where they had fallen, certainly looking very dead. There was little to no chance that they weren't.

"I'm the only one left," he realized in disbelief.

"And soon you won't be here either."

He whirled. Khu, his clothes badly torn and his body bruised and bleeding, was standing over him with the business end of the staff pointed right at him.

Anger built up in his heart. "You were holding the staff when it went off!" he cried. "How did you survive the blast when they didn't?!"

Khu sneered at him. "I put a barrier around myself. You see, Lector? I always should have been the son Ahknadin dwelled on and showed interest in. My brother never wanted power at all, and yet Ahknadin only cared about him!"

"You're insane!" Lector grabbed the end of the staff. "And you murdered my friends. I won't forgive you for this!"

"You'll be joining them," Khu retorted. "I never would have thought they would all be that foolish."

Suddenly he was tackled from the side and away from Lector. "We still have a score to settle," came Yami Bakura's dark voice. Despite looking very ragged and hurt from the electrical blast he had taken, he was determined to finish this. He pinned Khu to the ground. "You pretended to be my friend and left me for dead. I won't stand for you coming back to cause more trouble."

Khu cursed him in Egyptian and shoved him away. "Then let's have an all-out battle, shall we?" He gripped the staff. "My staff against your Infinity Ring."

"Fine!" Yami Bakura snarled. He got up, the Ring glowing. "To bring you down will certainly be a good act."

The magic from the Items collided. For a moment they seemed equal. Then the Ring overpowered the staff and Khu was blown off his feet.

Atem stumbled up now, regaining consciousness to the sounds of the battle. "Bakura . . ." He brought a hand to his head. It was a relief to see the former thief able to move as well as he was doing, after seeing him so brutally electrocuted. He would stand by, allowing Yami Bakura to have this moment to fight the one who had almost killed him as a boy, but he would jump in to help if he was needed. It looked, however, that Yami Bakura had the situation well in hand.

"Be gone," Yami Bakura ordered. "Go back to the shadows!"

Purple fog started to envelope Khu. Undaunted, he glowered at Yami Bakura with utter hatred. "This isn't over yet," he vowed.

"Maybe not, but this feels like closure right here," Yami Bakura sneered. "Farewell."

Khu vanished with another curse.

The adrenaline rush over, Yami Bakura stumbled and fell to one knee in the grass. He snarled, but forced himself to limp over to where Bakura was still laying after Khu had clubbed him. "Bakura . . ." He fell to his knees again, this time lifting the limp body into his arms.

Bakura stirred, half-opening soft brown eyes. "Yami? . . . You're alright?" he mumbled.

"I'm fine," Yami Bakura growled.

Bakura managed a smile and snuggled closer, still not fully conscious.

With the danger past, Atem was now looking for Yugi, his eyes filled with worry. But Yugi was rising out of the grass, confused, as were most of the others. Mokuba, who had fallen near Seto, hugged him with a frantic cry.

Lector jerked and looked over. Seto was very still. If he was dead now, how would Lector take it, especially knowing how Mokuba would take it? Was that boy just blindly adoring Seto, or did he see something that very few others did?

Téa gasped, a hand flying to her mouth. "No . . . Kaiba. . . ."

Yugi blinked back tears. "Oh no. . . ."

Marik stumbled over to his friend and knelt down, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Is he breathing?"

"I . . . I don't know," Mokuba quavered. "I think so? But maybe I'm just imagining it because . . . because he has to be breathing. He has to. . . ." He moved aside to let Marik come closer and examine the fallen boy.

Finally Seto moved. "Mokuba? . . ."

Marik relaxed in relief. "He's right here."

Overjoyed, Mokuba hugged him again, tears of joy coming to his eyes. "Oh Seto. . . . You're okay. . . ."

Lector looked away. So Seto Kaiba had cheated death yet again. But that wasn't the case for the other members of the Big Five. Lector had stumbled up, limping to where Crump and Johnson were laying. Just as he had feared, they were dead too.

Suddenly Mokuba remembered Lector. He looked up with a start, seeing the hopelessness and horror in Lector's eyes. "Oh no," he whispered. "Lector. . . ."

Lector didn't meet the boy's earnest look. "He killed them all," he choked out. "They all jumped in to protect me. . . ."

Yami Bakura swore under his breath.

"Why would they do that?" Lector trembled. "We were all serious businessmen. We didn't believe in illogical things like friendship. . . . Nesbitt didn't even always want to be a team player. . . . He tried to leave Noa's world when he thought he could, even though the rest of us were still stuck."

"Apparently they did believe in friendship," Yami Bakura grunted, "even Nesbitt." He hesitated. "I'm sorry."

Lector stared sorrowfully at the lifeless bodies. "I . . . I'll have to see to all of their funerals. No one else will do it. . . ."

Yami Bakura couldn't deny that was likely true. Still, in another way he was somewhat surprised. "None of them had any families?"

Lector gave a helpless shrug. "Some of them did, but they grew apart from them." Memories swirled through his mind—the wife Gansley had taken as a "good investment," who had taken the children and left him because she didn't want to be seen as a business decision. . . . The parents Crump had tried to distance himself from because of their constant arguing and lack of concern for him. . . . The parents and brothers and sisters Lector had drifted apart from in New Orleans. . . . His father had always been angry at him for changing the spelling of his last name to something easier for others to remember. It was a ridiculous thing to use as a reason for alienation, and of course there had been other reasons too. But while Lector had still technically been welcome, there had always been a tension at home and he had decided he didn't need or want that. Occasionally his siblings had still reached out to him, and he had responded, but to his knowledge they had never visited or tried to find out about his condition since he had fallen into that coma. After the truth about the Big Five's actions against Seto Kaiba had come out, he could believe that he was no longer welcome at home. He would contact them and let them know he was alright, but he had no idea how that would go and he dreaded it.

Then again, he had dreaded encountering the Big Four again, fearing their rejection, and it had not happened.

"Funny how the five of us ended up being a strange family . . ." he said at last.

Yami Bakura grunted. "It happens."

"Maybe I want to be the one to arrange everything," Lector continued. He sounded and looked blank. "I came to know them so much more than even their families probably did. And . . . it's the only thing I can do for them now."

"There is one other thing," Yami Bakura said. "You can live, as they obviously wanted you to."

"Right now, I'm not sure how to," Lector muttered.

"I didn't know either, when my entire village was massacred," Yami Bakura said. "At least you do have family still alive. You should go back to them."

Lector gave a blank nod. "I suppose."

"Lector. . . ."

Lector turned at the sound of the plaintive voice. Mokuba was standing there, blinking back tears. "Lector, I'm so sorry. . . ."

How strange, to have all this sympathy and concern, both because of what he had done and what the others had done. He stared at Mokuba, then away. "They finally had the chance to live again," he said, "and they gave it up for me. They thought they'd make it out too, but . . . they didn't. . . ."

"I guess . . . they really cared about you, Lector," Mokuba said softly. "Everybody should have someone who cares that much. . . ."

Lector slowly ran his hand over Gansley's cane, abandoned in the dirt. "But . . . if you lose them all, you have nothing left."

Mokuba looked down. He knew he would feel that life was pointless without his closest loved ones. He had expressed that very thought right before the blast. He could understand how Lector felt.

A flash of light brought their attention up. A small child with flowing mint-green hair was standing in front of them with a kind smile and four translucent orbs in her hands.

Bakura gasped. "You! You came with Shadi when he brought the Infinity Ring for Yami!"

"Yes," she said softly, musically. "And I'm here now for a similar reason."

Yami Bakura stiffened, a hand going to the Ring. From the look passing through his eyes, it was clear that he wondered and feared if she meant his time was up, that he had failed Shadi's test and now it was his lot to fade into the darkness. When she stepped closer to Lector, Yami Bakura relaxed.

"Who are you?" Lector breathed.

"My name is Kasumi," she replied, "and I'm here to bring your friends back to you."

"You . . . are?!" Lector stared at her.

Yami Bakura quirked an eyebrow. "After all they did?" He grunted. "You really are in the second chance business, aren't you."

"They all have a long way to go," Kasumi admitted. "But to care enough about any person as to give up their lives for them, well . . . I would say that they certainly have a start down a decent path. If you keep encouraging them, who knows where they'll end up when their lives truly do end." She stepped back with a happy laugh, releasing the orbs from her hands. They soared in the air, then gradually descended into each still body. The four men began to stir.

Lector was still in disbelieving awe. "You're alive!" he exclaimed. "You're all alive!"

Gansley looked up at him with bleary eyes. "And so are you, Lector," he said. "We all made it."

None of them quite seemed to know how to behave. They weren't physically affectionate types. But from their eyes as they all drew near each other, they were overjoyed that they had all made it out alive and were together. As they stood looking at each other, stunned and amazed and overwhelmed by the miracle, they finally opted to forget about common protocol and they embraced.

"You're still one of us, Lector," Johnson said. "You always will be."

"And you're still my friends," Lector said. "I could never forget that."

"So, where do we go from here?" Crump wondered. "If we're not trying to get revenge on Mr. Kaiba anymore. . . ."

"We could try going into business for ourselves," Gansley said.

"Doing what?" Nesbitt raised an eyebrow.

"We should try something that might put us positively in the public eye," Gansley said. "Crump, I believe you had an idea for a wildlife preserve focusing on penguins?"

Crump started. "Yeah, with some theme-park attractions thrown in. But no one was willing to take a chance on it. Including you guys."

"With so much talk of conservation and preserving the environment these days, it might be the right time to try it," Gansley mused.

"It certainly could give us some good publicity," Johnson said.

"We'll have a meeting and discuss it further," Gansley said. "But for now, let's go back home and be grateful we're all alive."

Nesbitt looked lukewarm about the idea of the venture, but he just nodded. "Let's."

Lector looked to him. "If you really wanted, Nesbitt, you could go off on your own to build weapons somewhere again. . . ."

"Yeah, I could," Nesbitt agreed. "Maybe. If I haven't been blacklisted everywhere." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Anyway . . . I'd rather stay with all of you right now."

"I'm glad of it," Lector said. "It wouldn't be the same without you."

Everyone else had been standing to the side, observing the reunion. Mokuba beamed. "I'm glad they're all okay. I didn't really think I'd ever care what happened to those guys, but it was too awful when Lector was all alone without them. I know how he felt." He looked down. "As long as they don't try to hurt us, I think everything will be fine."

"Heh. Hopefully," Seto said. "I'm still going to keep an eye on them, especially Nesbitt. But I have to admit it sounds like they're ready and willing to move on, so I am too."

Yami Bakura looked to Kasumi. "How do you have the power to grant second chances?" he asked.

"Let's say I was authorized to have the power," Kasumi smiled. "I'm an angel." She winked at him. "And honestly, Bakura, you're doing much better on your quest than you think you are. Listen to your friends; they know." Then in a shimmer, she was gone.

Bakura smiled too, and hugged Yami Bakura from the side. "We do know, Yami," he said. "It's just as I've been saying all along."

"Yes," Yami Bakura mused. "You have."

On the hill, Dr. Portman stepped back, losing interest in the scene. "So, they're all alive," she mused.

"They always seem to manage to pull through somehow," Yami Marik remarked. "And when they don't, the afterlife chimes in to help out."

"That's fascinating in and of itself," Portman said.

"Are you still planning to try breaking Seto Kaiba and Yami Bakura?" Yami Marik asked.

"Of course," Portman smiled. "This little misadventure is only the beginning. I'll slip into the shadows for a time, plotting and planning, and then I'll strike again when they least expect it."

Veins popped out across Yami Marik's face. "Excellent." He grinned wildly and vanished, taking the cruel scientist with him.