Everyone had gone home to get ready for the trip. They packed nonperishable food, lots of water, and dressed themselves in the lightest summer clothing they had. They had all put on sunscreen, except for Yugi. According to him, Loramyshan skin didn't burn. The sun on Astalan mountains was harsh and his kind had to develop a protective layer of zinc oxide beneath the skin.
Atem was packing up the last of the food when a knock came at the door. "It must be the others," Atem said.
Yugi nodded and went to let them in. "Hey, guys!" he said as the throng of Union members piled into his home.
"Hey, Yug', ya ready?" Joey asked. He carried a backpack and was dressed in a tank top and some cargo shorts.
Yugi sighed. "As ready as ever, Joe," he admitted.
Tea looked concerned. "Something wrong, Yugi?" Yugi nodded. "I bet you're worried about the weather." She was dressed in short shorts and a tube top. Yugi noticed Joey and Tristan trying repeatedly to rein in their eyes in case Atem noticed and had them stoned to death.
"I'll be alright, Tea," Yugi remembered something. "Oh yeah, Atem wanted to speak with you."
"Really?" Tea asked. "OK."
She walked into the kitchen, where Atem was sitting with his backpack full of supplies. "Hello, Tea," he said fondly.
"Hey. Yugi said that there was something you wanted to tell me?" asked Tea.
Atem nodded. "Wait here a moment." He left the room and Tea loitered patiently for a while. After a few minutes, Atem came back in, carrying a wrapped box.
Tea gasped. "Presents? For me?"
"It is Valentine's Day, Tea, regardless of where we're going later on." He held the box out to her.
She pouted for a moment. "I didn't get you anything. I'm so sorry. I didn't think that you would be into that sort of thing, since it wasn't invented when you grew up."
Atem shook his head. "I'll admit, I wouldn't have gotten you anything either if Yugi hadn't told me what Valentine's was all about. Don't worry, and just enjoy the gift."
Tea tore open the package with reckless abandon and eventually pulled out the elegant, cotton candy pink sun dress. "Oh, it's just the one I wanted!" she said, hugging the soft fabric to her exposed stomach.
"I'm glad you like it, Tea," he said, and slowly raised her hand and kissed it.
Tea blushed. Even his old-fashioned ways were hopelessly romantic.
"Hey, what da heck are you two doin' in dere?" Joey bellowed from the entry-way. "We gotta go save the Tomb of Gerd, or whatever!"
"It's the Tomb of Grend, Joey!" Yugi rebuked from downstairs.
Atem and Tea smiled. The moment was officially ruined.
Yugi and the others strolled back into Klyndeneya after lunch. Yugi waved cheerfully in Terzen's direction. He was still in his human form to help him deal with the heat on their way through Rosterfeld.
"Yugi! Your weapons have come in!" Terzen greeted. He gestured to the back room, officially inviting Yugi to enter. Yugi walked off as Tea sat down at the bar.
"Hello, Terzen," she said, smiling sweetly. "I love what you've done with your hair!"
She was one of the few humans that would have noticed that the Kryllian had shaved his head. He laughed, obviously thrilled that someone liked it. "Thank you, lass," he said, running six digits over his scalp. "Just had it done last night."
"Well, it looks great," she said as she snacked on some beer nuts, which were situated next to some pebbles and something that looked like moss.
Yugi walked out of the back room carrying a small arsenal. He stumbled under the collective weight and piled them onto the counter. "Here's everything," Yugi panted.
He picked out a thin, flat sword in a hard leather sheath. That must have been the Getya sword he selected earlier. He took it and fastened the belt it was attached to around his waist. Then he handed a bow and a quiver full of swan-feather arrows to Tea, and he gave a six foot long oak staff to Tristan. The iron knuckles went to Joey and the broadsword went to Atem.
"Awesome!" Joey said, slipping the knuckles up his fingers. Atem situated his sword so that it could be easily unsheathed by his left hand.
"So you all are ready to go?" Terzen asked. "I've programmed that port to send you straight to Trendestad."
"Sure thing, Terzen. We'll see you later," Yugi said, and headed toward the nearest port. He stepped in and his figure flickered and faded.
"Next," said Terzen.
The others walked forward. They had to admit, traveling to another planet was a little nerve-wracking. But if Yugi could do it, so could they. Atem walked forward and stepped into the port. Yugi had expressly instructed him to close his eyes, so he pressed them tightly together and when he opened them, he was on the other side.
Trendestad was the capital port of the Kryllian Federation, and it was naturally bustling with activity. Humans and Kryllians walked from bazaar to bazaar, buying exotic things from extraterrestrial craftsmen. The maze of streets was paved with sand-covered cinder-block, and the buildings were made of bright red clay. It was a striking contrast to the bright blue sky, which loomed cloudlessly over Atem as he stepped out of the port.
"Amazing…" Atem breathed, looking around him at all the sights he had to see. Yugi was standing a ways off, talking to a Kryllian animatedly. Atem nearly fell as Tea, Joey, Tristan piled off the port after him, knocking him forward.
"Check it out," Joey said, gazing at the scenery. "Dis place is wicked."
"Hey, there's Yugi!" Tea noticed, pointing in the hybrid's direction. They walked over to him and overheard his conversation.
"I'm going to need two of the bigger ones and one of the smaller ones." Yugi bargained with a Kryllian clad in a roughly sew hide.
"Why so specific, good sir?" the Kryllian asked slyly. "Why not just get five of any sort? You and your fellow riders will be much more comfortable."
Yugi glared at him and spoke with a commanding voice that sounded foreign on him. "Comfort is not an issue. You will get me what I asked for."
The Kryllian scowled and went into a nearby shop. "Hey, Yugi. Haggling with the shop owners?" Tristan asked cheerfully.
Yugi nodded. "We need rides to get to the Tomb. I'm trying to save rasta, at least until we get our paid for this mission."
The shopkeeper walked back out, carrying the reins of three sizeable and vicious-looking hounds. They were easily as tall as Joey, and they growled at the gang as green saliva dripped from their serrated teeth. "Whoa!" Joey exclaimed, backing quickly up with the others. "You expect us ta ride these things?"
Yugi slid his card into a nearby account reader and took the reins of the beasts himself. "They're harmless, at least to their owners. They'll help you a lot if you get into a fight on the open road, though." He passed the reins of the bigger ones to Atem and Joey and leaped nimbly on the back of the smaller. "Come on, don't be shy."
Tea immediately hurried to Atem's side. "I'm with him," she said. It wasn't as if she didn't trust Joey and Tristan… Then again, maybe it was.
Atem smiled at her, and then mounted the drederstein and lifted Tea up to ride behind him. Joey and Tristan were not so graceful. At first they argued about who would be in front, and then they had difficulty getting on the creature at all. "We're up; we're good," Joey said finally, as Tristan bitterly sat behind him.
Yugi winked. "Good," he said briefly, and then kicked his drederstein into a gallop, heading out the east gate into Rosterfeld.
"Can we stop for a while?" Tea asked, panting in the extreme heat. Regardless of the sunscreen, her skin had turned the color of a cooked lobster. She was sweating profusely, like all of the others. Yugi was taking it worse than any of them. He had appeared to be half-asleep for the last half-hour or so, and was sweating so much that it looked like he was melting.
"I think we should rest for a while," Atem said, noticing Yugi's exhaustion as well. He guided his drederstein into the shade of a gargantuan rock and lightly dismounted. Unlike the rest of his friends, Atem was made for this sort of weather. The sting of the sand and the burn of the sun were like security blankets.
Joey, Tristan, and Yugi were not so nimble. Joey and Tristan tripped over each other as they landed on the golden sand and Yugi nearly collapsed onto the ground. "Are you alright, Yugi?" Atem asked. He helped Yugi stand upright, and Yugi nodded.
"I'll be okay," Yugi said tiredly. "But Loramysha weren't built for this sort of weather…" He held his head and swooned.
"Let's eat something. I'm starving," Tea said, opening her backpack and taking out some water and some beef jerky. She offered the water to Yugi, who took it gratefully.
They snacked in silence for a while. "Hey, Yug'?" Joey asked. "When are you going to eat somethin'?"
Yugi looked up. Had he been sleeping with his eyes open again? "Oh, uh, I guess I could eat now…"
"I mean there's a big rock just behind ya," Tristan commented. He wasn't as interested in Yugi's well being as he pretended to be. Really, he just wanted to see Yugi eat stone.
Yugi quickly transformed, and then took a Swiss-army knife out of his pocket and stabbed it into a protruding section of the boulder, causing a chuck to fall off. He picked it up with his hand and easily sunk his teeth into it. He grimaced. "Sandstone…"
Tea watched with wide eyes as Yugi casually chewed on the stone. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" he asked innocently.
"Chew rock!" she answered. "That stuff can be hard! How can you bite it without your teeth falling off?"
Yugi swallowed and opened his mouth, revealing pointed teeth. "Loramysha can release a highly acidic spit that coats their teeth. It dissolves the rock in seconds."
Joey shook his head in admiration. "You all got a lot of tricks up your sleeves…"
Yugi brushed the sand off his hands and changed back into a human. He pointed off into the distance. "Do you see that bulge in the rock over there? That's the Tomb. We're getting close."
"And then our first mission can really begin," Atem said. They would be working their way through an ancient tomb to destroy a humongous snake, and then they would go back to Earth to get payment from an alien. To them, it was nothing unusual.