Chapter Eight
Kalin's feelings were mixed as everyone gathered back together and Radley read more of the diary aloud. Prince Kalin felt very strongly about Prince Ramon, and about how they were meant to be together. It was sweet and sad and beautiful. In turn, from what he had written of things Prince Ramon had said, those feelings were returned wholeheartedly. That was comforting and moving. But the diary seemed to have very little in the way of answers on the evil being or any clues about its return. Mostly it was filled with Prince Kalin's desperation not to lose his cherished friend and wondering how they could always be together as they both longed to do.
"It doesn't even say anything about the kingdoms or what they are or where they are," Radley frowned after a while. "I thought there might be some hints about that."
"So we'll have to check out all the castles around, right?!" Scotch exclaimed, sounding far too eager for such an overwhelming venture.
Radley had to chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so. But honestly, maybe the castles we want aren't even still standing."
"There'd surely be castle ruins, at least," Antonio said. "It would be very difficult for a structure like that to vanish altogether."
"We should try to find the guy who wrote this article too," Radley said. "The university's not far from here. Let's see what he has to say."
"Should we call first?" Billy asked.
"Normally I'd say Yes," Radley said. "But in this case, I think just blowing in on him might be better. It seems pretty weird to me that he hasn't tried to reach out to the Ramon family when he thinks the Prince might be real. Calling first would give him the chance to skip or to come up with a cover story."
"Yeah, I guess that's true," Scotch frowned. "But why would he be bad?"
"Who knows," Radley sighed wearily. "Maybe he's not. But it's only respectful and common sense to try to contact the people whose ancestor you're interested in and writing about. Not doing that says to me that he could have something to hide."
Kalin nodded. "It's strange."
"So what are we doing first?" Billy asked.
"Talking to that guy would be faster than the castle search . . . probably," Radley said wryly. "Let's do that first and then start looking up the castles' history. If any aren't known, we'll go give them a closer look."
"Works for me," Virgil said.
Radley absently fingered his pendant as they started down the hall. ". . . You know, I wonder how my pendant being part of the legend fits in with its backstory as the fail-safe to stop the Eon Items," he remarked.
"The what now?" Scotch blinked.
"It's a long story," Radley said. "But it sure must have had a wild journey."
"Is there anyone who might know the full story?" Kalin wondered.
Radley sighed. "Probably not unless the Valkyries know, and I'm not anxious to talk to them again. But we do what we have to do, right?"
"Valkyries?!" Scotch exclaimed.
"The Duel Monster ones," Radley said. "They operate on a very strict 'need-to-know' basis."
"Well, we need to know!" Scotch declared.
That brought a smirk. "We do, but if they don't agree, we're out of luck."
Valentina was listening to everything, intrigued. "This is something we don't know about," she said. "You will tell us, won't you, Radley?"
"All that I can," Radley promised. "Which isn't enough." He sighed.
"We can only do what we can," Valentina said kindly.
Radley expounded on his strange adventure as the group walked down the hall. Everyone listened attentively to his tale of how he had time-traveled thirty years in the past and ended up helping Yugi Muto and his friends prevent Ragnarok. He omitted the part about being hurt by a Valkyrie's sword while protecting Siegfried von Schroeder. Kalin knew of it because he had seen the scar, but the Bunch were still ignorant and Radley was content to keep them so.
"That is so epic you were part of that!" Scotch gushed. "The world's always safe when you're around, Radley!"
Radley had to laugh. "Honestly, I wasn't really that involved in that mess. It was just that I had the pendant, so I was part of it in that way. Siegfried was the real hero there."
"But he couldn't have done anything if you hadn't been there to give him the pendant!" Scotch said. "You're so awesome!"
Now Radley was blushing. "What else could I do? I didn't want the world destroyed!"
"You could have not believed the weird story!" Scotch said.
"Okay, I'll give you that one!" Radley laughed. "It was pretty out there."
"It's all very intriguing," Antonio said. "There's nothing in the legend about the pendant's backstory other than that it's been in the Ramon family for generations, passed from one to the next. Perhaps our earliest ancestors were the white mages responsible for its creation!"
"I also wonder how it left the family," Radley said. "I bought it in an antique mall!"
"It wasn't found after the Princes sealed the evil away," Valentina said. "When they fell to the ground from the sky where the last leg of the battle took place, it must have landed somewhere else!"
"Yeah, I guess so," Radley frowned.
"So how do we talk to these Valkyries?" Antonio asked.
Radley winced. "I'd either have to use my pendant or go get a portal-opening device from some friends back home," he said. "I'd kind of rather conserve my strength to use if the evil comes back. Why don't we just go talk to the professor right now and worry about the Valkyries later?"
Kalin nodded. The less Radley had to use his pendant, the better. "Let's go."
Valentina and Antonio wanted to meet the man too, so they got in their car and led the others' motorcycles down the highway and to the university, which was less than thirty minutes from their home. The highway was lush and green on both sides, providing for very pleasant scenery as they drove.
"I can't deny I wish it looked like this between Satisfaction Town and New Domino City," Radley remarked.
"Do you think what Zero Reverse did to the area will ever heal?" Kalin wondered.
"In time, maybe," Radley said. "Or maybe not. The land might be too damaged. But some things still grow there, so I'd say there's hope."
Kalin looked thoughtful. He supposed that made sense. It was nice to think about, at least—but strange to picture the area as green as Radley had said people claimed it had once looked. Perhaps sometime on one of their visits to the past to see their friends, they would have to look for curiosity's sake.
He came to attention as they pulled up at the university campus.
"What if the guy's not here?" Scotch wondered.
"If he's not, we should be able to get some info from other staff members here," Radley said. "Maybe even his home address." He walked over to a campus directory and studied it briefly. "His building should be over here." He nodded straight ahead.
"Let's go then," Kalin said.
Radley led them into the building and then down the hall to the man's office. "Anastasius Contreras," he read. "This is it."
". . . Anastasius?" Billy repeated. "That doesn't sound Spanish."
"It's old Greek," Radley said absently, "but I don't remember what it means." He knocked on the door.
All were gratified to hear a response. "Enter."
Radley opened the door and they all walked inside. But before he could so much as get one word in, the professor took one look at him and Kalin and nearly fainted.
Radley rushed over to support him. "Hey, easy now," he soothed. "We're just a bunch of guys who want to talk to you about an article you put up online."
Anastasius raised a trembling hand to his forehead. "The princes," he rasped. "It's you—both of you!"
"Well, maybe," Radley said. "The resemblance is pretty striking. I'm Radley Ramon and this is Kalin Kessler." He introduced Valentina and Antonio as well as all of the Bunch.
Anastasius was still in a daze as he introduced himself. "Oh, but you already know my name, don't you? If you read the article. . . ."
"Yeah," Radley said. "But we'd like to know more about why you wrote it . . . and why you didn't even contact the families involved about it."
"I tried to contact a woman named Lucia Ramon about it," was the reply. "She was no help whatsoever and insisted that I would find no help from anyone in the family."
"How ridiculous!" Valentina fumed. "Most of the Ramon family celebrates the legend!"
Radley folded his arms. "So you bought what she said hook, line, and sinker and didn't even try reaching out to anyone else?"
"That's just stupid," Virgil scoffed.
"My specialty is myths and legends, not people," Anastasius defended. "I hoped that if anyone did feel differently, they would contact me after seeing my article . . . as all of you have."
"So why did you write about it?" Virgil asked.
"It's a fascinating and beautiful story," was the reply. "I'd never heard anything like it, something that sounded like a fairytale about friendship and brotherhood instead of romance. I had to document it! It's mostly faded out of public knowledge by now and that is a travesty. I want to rekindle interest in it. I'm thinking of writing a book." He gestured to a small folder on his desk. "For that, however, I'll need to speak to people in the families."
"We will give you all the information you could need or want," Valentina promised, "including access to taking pictures of our collection of artwork!"
Radley shot her a worried look. The thought of letting a stranger in to go through priceless art sounded concerning even if it wasn't art involving himself and Kalin. He still wasn't sure he fully believed or trusted this person.
The professor didn't notice. "That would be wonderful!" he exclaimed. "May I come out today?"
"Of course!" Valentina said. "There's no sense waiting longer than is necessary!"
"Then I will come after classes are over, around four," he said.
Radley frowned, running through the conversation again in his mind. "How did you even find out about the legend or get a copy of that one painting at all?" he wondered.
"Many of the people who still know about it are connoisseurs of art," Anastasius said. "I was researching the artist and found that painting of his. It was so intriguing, I had to know more."
That was actually a mostly believable story. But it was that mostly that was still hanging Radley up. He waited to speak until they said Goodbye and left, not wanting to humiliate his generous relatives. But as soon as they were out of earshot, he said, "Grandmama, Grandpapa, do you really think it's a good idea to let a complete stranger see all of your collection? You have no idea if he's telling the truth and everything you've got is valuable!"
"It is strange that he accepted Lucia's word as absolute fact and didn't even make one more effort," Antonio said. "If someone's really into a thing, they don't give up after one failure."
Kalin looked deeply concerned too. "Something doesn't feel right," he agreed. "We should try to find out more about him before bringing him there."
Valentina was troubled now. "Do you really think he might be planning harm?" she worried.
"We're just not sure," Radley said kindly. "That's why we feel like we need to be careful. He could be an art thief, for all we'd know."
Virgil was already looking him up on his phone. "It says he's been here for twenty years and is really revered," he frowned. He was uneasy too and didn't like that it looked like maybe they were worrying unnecessarily.
Radley sighed. ". . . Let's talk to some of his students or the dean. Or all of them. Let's see what they think of him."
The story they got was mostly the same over the next hour. The students mostly had good things to say, but they also noted that he was a strange person who semi-frequently inserted dark topics into their lessons.
"Dark topics?" Radley quirked an eyebrow.
"Yeah, things like what we think of dictator rule and why it's not always a bad thing, or the nature of the Devil, or the history of cults," was the reply from one. Others nodded agreement.
"Why would he bring up things like that?" Radley asked. "Doesn't he teach a class about world art?"
A shrug. "It's part of understanding human nature and the history of the world, he says. And only by understanding that can we understand art."
"Does he get in trouble?" Radley wondered.
"He's always careful to make it fit something in the lesson," another said. "And . . . I don't know, it's weird, but the dean seems kind of afraid of him."
Kalin looked skeptical. "Why?"
"Who knows, man. A couple of times he almost did get in trouble, but for some reason the dean backed down at the last minute and said he was overreacting."
"We need to get to class now," a girl spoke up.
"Oh. Yeah, sure," Radley said. "Thanks for talking to us."
As they let the students move on, the group stood in bewildered thought.
"This is just off-the-wall weird," Virgil said. "Not the lessons so much, but the way the dean's acting."
Radley nodded. "Let's hope he's available for us to talk to now."
He was, and though he was friendly and amiable at first, his mood swiftly changed to tense worry when they began questioning him about Anastasius.
"He's been here for twenty years," the dean said. As he spoke, he got up from his chair and started running his hands over his desk. "It just seemed a shame to fire him over such little things."
"Little? Talking about inappropriate subjects in class is little?" Radley retorted.
"You've had complaints," Kalin added.
"Some of the students think you're afraid of him," Radley said.
"Nonsense!" the dean snorted. "It's not like that at all."
"Okay then. Do you know anything about what he was doing before he came here?" Radley asked.
"Not much," the dean said. "The only thing he ever mentioned was that he'd worked with a man named Devack on some projects to better the world."
The name meant nothing to most of those there, but Kalin went several shades of white. "Devack?! Are you sure?!"
". . . It's an unusual name, so I remembered it," the dean said with a frown. "Why? Who is he?"
"The only Devack I know was involved in cults," Kalin said. "He wasn't bettering the world; he almost destroyed it!" Alongside me, he silently added.
Now the dean paled. "Are you sure?! There must be other people with that name!"
"Call him in and ask him," Radley said. He was keeping his voice even, although he shot a worried look at Kalin.
"I . . . I'll do that right now!" The dean grabbed his phone.
Soon the professor was in the office, looking more than a little annoyed. "What is this about?" he demanded. "I have a lesson to prepare for this afternoon's class!"
"What is today's topic?" the dean asked.
The man looked right at Radley and Kalin as he replied. "The princes of Spanish legend and how they've stirred the creative imagination."
The dean sighed. It wasn't out of line with the class's subject. He laced his fingers on the desk. "These men tell me there was a man named Devack involved in destructive cults. Is that the Devack you knew?"
To Anastasius's credit, he didn't look shaken or shocked at all. "What if he was?" he replied, eerily calmly.
"Then you know we'll have to investigate your association with him more closely," said the dean. "If you took part in any of those destructive cults, it would be grounds for dismissal."
No one was expecting the chill that suddenly swept across the room. Anastasius suddenly seemed very different, no longer the mild-mannered professor but a dangerous being possessing a dark power. A black aura burst forth from his body, fanning and dancing around him as he glowered at the horrified dean with oddly burning eyes. "Oh, but we don't want to do that, we?" His voice was low, deadly, and yet it echoed throughout the room.
The dean began to quake. "See here, Anastasius! You . . . you can't keep using your tricks to intimidate me! This is serious!"
"Is it now?" The aura continued to ripple out from his body, threatening to consume everyone in the entire room. Scotch yelped, moving closer to Radley and Biff.
"Yes!" the dean snapped. "It is! Combined with your frequent wandering into unacceptable class subjects, it sounds as though you still hold to those ideals and want to recruit some of these impressionable students into your questionable fold!"
"But you know what will happen if you try to dismiss me, don't you?" Anastasius replied. The aura moved closer to the dean.
The older man trembled more violently. "Why . . . why are you doing this?! Why do you want to stay so badly?!
"Because . . . this is my home."
It felt like everyone was frozen, watching the scene while being helpless to act. But suddenly Radley stepped forward, calm despite his inward alarm and terror. "Hey, come on. Let's just cool off and talk about this," he said. "Stop being such a big bully and act your age."
Anastasius turned his angry eyes to Radley, smoldering, endless. Radley fell back, shaken. He had never seen anything like that before. Even Kalin's eyes as a Dark Signer, filled with evil though they were, hadn't carried this same depth of malevolence.
And then, just like that, the look was gone, the aura was gone, and the room was a normal temperature once again. Anastasius looked angry, but not murderous.
Radley could only stare. Had he imagined everything? But no—judging from how everyone else was looking around and the Bunch was clustering closer to him, they were all equally bewildered.
"Well?" Anastasius finally spoke.
"Of course you can stay, Anastasius," the dean weakly said.
Anastasius smiled. "That's all I wanted to hear. Now if you'll excuse me." He turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him.
The dean slumped back, pale and drained. "You see what I mean?" he moaned. "Something just isn't right about him. I wondered if I was going crazy, but I can see that all of you saw it too."
"We sure did," Radley frowned. "The question is, what was up with that?! How did he do that?!"
Kalin looked worn-out. "And unfortunately, we might have to find Devack to get any answers."
The dean loosened his tie and got up for a glass of water from the water cooler. "I wouldn't know where to start."
"We'll figure it out," Radley said, shooting Kalin another concerned look.
"And what will we do? We've already invited that horrible man to look at our collection!" Valentina moaned. "If we tell him he can't come after all, he'll probably use the same thing on us!"
"Yeah," Radley frowned. It really was a problem. He didn't want that creep anywhere near the villa, but would they be able to protect it and themselves from him?
Kalin's eyes darted about, showing he was conflicted. Before Radley could speak, Kalin grabbed his friend's arm and pulled him aside. "I need to talk to you."
"We do need to talk," Radley agreed. "What about this Devack guy? How do you know him?"
"He was one of the Dark Signers," Kalin sighed. "I didn't know him well; I don't think any of us did, except maybe Roman. He kept to himself when he wasn't muttering or ranting about remaking the world."
"Oh," Radley frowned, not sure what else to say. Kalin was still often close-lipped about the details of life as a Dark Signer and Radley never pushed, not wanting to make him relive a time that was so painful he had wanted to commit suicide as penance for being a part of it.
"I'll probably have to try talking to him if we find him, since I'm the only one who knows him at all," Kalin said wearily. "And meanwhile, the only way I can even think of to protect us from this guy coming over would be if I could harness my powers to counteract his. But we both know they rarely work as they're supposed to or when I want them to."
It was definitely a worrisome problem, but Radley didn't want to make Kalin feel worse than he already did. "We'll figure something out," he said. "Maybe I can dump him in another dimension." He was joking and they both knew it. Radley didn't want to use his pendant's abilities on any mortal.
"They say to keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Kalin said. "Maybe we need to let him come to try to figure out what his interest even is with the Princes. It's hard to believe it's pure and innocent."
"Yeah, no kidding," Radley frowned. "That's a good point, unfortunately. We'll probably have to let the visit go on as scheduled, for multiple reasons. We can also start looking for Devack. Do you think he'd be in New Domino City?"
"I honestly have no idea," Kalin grunted.
"If he would be, we could ask Yusei to talk to him, maybe," Radley mused.
"He might not agree to talk to Yusei," Kalin said. "Not that there's any guarantee he'd talk to me either."
"Let's go back to the villa and see what we can turn up," Radley encouraged.
"Do you think your great-great-grandparents will agree to have the guy still come?" Kalin wondered.
"Is there much choice?" Radley said wryly. "We already didn't know how we'd keep him away. And I think you're right that at least we stand a possible chance of learning something important if we let him come. There has to be a reason why he's so interested."
"Maybe he just wants the Princes' power," Kalin suggested.
"If he does, we need to know that," Radley said. "Come on, let's go back over to the others and tell them what we're thinking."
Kalin went, albeit more reluctantly.
The group listened. Although they were definitely concerned about Radley's and Kalin's decisions, at the same time they supported them. And so, still worried about what the afternoon would bring, they all headed back to the villa to research and prepare.