Chapter 29- Life Crisis
The fiends began randomly firing their SAWs in all directions. Some bullets struck the ground right next to Drake's hand. He pulled out his M-24 and open fire. Two fiends went down from the first burst he let loose. He could hear the sound of the others shooting in all directions. Drake rolled sideways to avoid a fiend who had leveled his weapon on him and capped the fiend in the head. The efficiency with which he was killing these beasts was almost sickening, at least to him.
After this is over, Drake thought, I never want to kill anything ever again. He heard a scream of pain from his left. Julie had taken a shot to the shoulder, which had shattered the instant it was hit. She had convulsed on impulse and was now clutching her destroyed shoulder, bleeding horribly. Drake shot the fiend who had been aiming at her in the head, then let loose a full auto burst that consumed the rest of his clip. He released the clip and reached into his pocket for a new one. He snapped the new clip into place and opened up on another fully auto burst, ripping apart two fiends. There seemed to be an almost endless supply of the monsters. There were at least twenty still alive. Three more were cut down by Keith's spam fire. Flynn's burst took out another. Still more came.
Some more shots hit the ground near Drake and kicked something up into his eyes. For a moment he was blinded, and while he was still blinded, he heard another scream of pain. He frantically rubbed his eyes, trying to get the stuff out. He heard the loud thump of some more fiends dying and falling to the ground. Finally his vision cleared up. He leveled his rifle on the nearest fiend and capped it in the head, then turned on another and shot it too. The bodies were piling up and they still kept coming. Drake shot three more and he heard Flynn and Keith take down at least eight more. There were only three left. Flynn launched his last grenade and killed all three in one blast.
"Is everyone okay?" Sarge called.
"No!" Drake said. He was looking at Julie. Evidently in all the noise he hadn't heard her cry out. Drake couldn't figure out how he couldn't have. She had been shot three times- once in the shoulder and twice in the lower back. She was lying in a (thankfully small) pool of her own blood and breathing shallowly. Drake crawled over to her prone form. She looked up without moving her head.
"I… I'm sorry." She said faintly. "I… I was too slow."
"It's not your fault! Don't give up, you're going to be okay! Don't worry…" Drake sat there, feeling helpless.
"Thank… thank you for being my friend… it was fun… ugh…" she closed her eyes.
"No! Don't die! Stay with me! Please…" Drake tried to stop the flow of the blood with something, anything, but he just couldn't. She smiled.
"Don't worry… about me. I wasn't that useful anyway."
"Yes, you were! You were with us! You were part of our group! Please… don't die…" Julie smiled again, closed her eyes, and stopped breathing. Drake stood and faced the fiend. His wounded leg threatened to give out but held. "You…"
The fiend smiled an ugly smile. "You've never had a comrade die, have you? Now you feel my pain, all the pain you have caused me by killing my fellow fiends."
"Except that you guys don't die forever! You come back!"
The fiend smiled his ugly smile again. "Yes, there is that. Your friend can never come back."
Drake almost tore him to pieces with his bare hands. "You bastard! I'm going to kill you!"
"Let's do this as civilized men, at least." The fiend said, and activated his duel disk.
"Fine. I'll tear you to shreds with my deck, then!" Drake activated his duel disk.
"Let's duel!"
Drake: 4000Fiend: 4000
"I'll go first!" said the fiend. He drew his card and smiled his ugly smile again. That smile was beginning to bug Drake. "I set one monster in defense mode and end my turn!"
"Fine then!" Drake drew his card. "I'll kill you soon. I summon my Skilled Dark Magician (Dark/Spellcaster/Effect, 1900/1700) in attack mode! Attack his monster!"
"Ha! Witch of the Black Forest! Now I can pull a monster from my deck! I choose Goblin Elite Attack Force!"
"It doesn't matter when I set this card. I end my turn."
"I draw! Then I destroy your face-down, indubitably Trap Hole, with Mystical Space Typhoon!" Drake scowled. "Then I summon my Goblin Elite Attack Force (Earth/Warrior/Effect, 2200/1500) in attack mode! Destroy his magician!"
Drake: 3700Fiend: 4000
"Hmph. Weak." Drake said.
"I set a card face-down and end my turn."
"Ha! Now your Goblins are in defense mode!" Drake drew a card. "I summon Skilled White Magician (Light/Spellcaster/Effect, 1700/1900) in attack mode! Destroy the Goblins!"
"I activate Sakuretsu Armor! Now your monster is destroyed!"
"Crap! I set one card and end my turn."
"My turn, then!" said the fiend, and drew a card. "I activate another Space Typhoon!" Drake's facedown Mirror Force was destroyed. "Then I activate Book of Taiyo, which forces my Goblins into attack mode! Then I equip them with not one, but two Malevolent Nuzzlers, giving them 3600 attack points! Attack directly!"
Drake: 100Fiend: 4000
"Drake's getting mutilated out there!" Keith said. He and Flynn had quickly realized what was going on. "He's only got 100 life points left!"
Drake clutched at his heart, which, for a moment, had stopped beating. Intense pain radiated through his body from the last attack. He felt, once again, as if he had no energy left. But then he remembered Julie, and the rage gave him the strength to fight. "I will destroy you this turn!"
"Ha! You have 100 life points, not even enough to supply the cost of a wimpy little card that wouldn't help you at all! My Goblins can beat anything you throw at me!"
"Except that they're in defense mode."
"Not for long, because I play another Book of Taiyo to switch them back to attack mode! Then I end my turn."
"Grr…" Drake drew a card. He began to laugh, almost in an evil way.
"Uh, Flynn, I don't like that, do you?" Keith asked.
"No. Drake is not an evil laugh person, though I must admit it is rather effective." Flynn said. "He's either lost it, or he is in a blind rage and is about to mutilate his opponent."
"I summon Mpirian Warrior (Light/Warrior/Effect, 1500/1200) in attack mode! This allows me to special summon up to two more from my deck!"
"So? Even with them you still can't break through my Goblins!"
"I activate Burning Soul Sword! I can use it to sacrifice monsters to give one of my monsters more attack points! So, I equip it to Mpirian Warrior and sacrifice his two compatriots to raise his attack points to 4500!"
"That's still not enough to kill me!"
"I activate Mpirian Soul Empower! Now I can remove monsters from my graveyard to give him even more power! So, as I am in a destructive mode, I'll remove all the monsters in the graveyard to give him even more attack points! To be exact, he now has 11100 attack points!"
"Isn't that a bit excessive?" Keith asked.
"Uh, I think that's what Drake is going for." Flynn said.
"Mpirian Warrior, obliterate him!"
Drake: 100Fiend: 0
The fiend exploded, like his brothers before him (well, they weren't exactly brothers but you know what I mean). Drake stared at the bloody mess, still not completely satisfied with the fiend's final fate. Flynn slowly approached him.
"Drake." He said. "Wasn't that a bit much?"
"No, damn it, he deserved every bit of it." Drake said. "I crushed his soul like he crushed Julie's dreams."
"There's just one fallacy there."
"What are you taking about?" Drake said, ready to rip Flynn up next.
"Julie isn't dead yet. She's still hanging on, if only by a thread. Something strange happened after you started dueling that guy. This strange white aura surrounded her and somehow, someway, all her wounds began to heal. They're still pretty bad, and she's still only barely alive, but she should make it."
"Oh, God." Drake said. "I'm sorry. That was rather irrational of me."
"Don't worry, it's okay. We all would have probably done the same thing you did."
"I know. But that does not make it acceptable." Drake turned away. This incident embarrassed him. He should have controlled his anger better. Keith walked over, supporting Julie, who, despite being rather pale and unable to support her own weight, looked fine.
"Are we going to get going?" Keith asked. Sarge nodded.
"Yeah, we need to get to the other side of the Shadow Realm. We had better start before reinforcements get here. And I think I know a shortcut."
"Where?" Julie said weakly. Flynn just smiled.
"Follow me."