A/N: Well chaps, I have OFFICIALLY had my first day off, and so I have a new chapter for y'all- yes, I really DON'T have anything better to do with my life. Well, I have done other things today, which is probably why it's a little shorter than normal, but let's not worry about that. It's the Christmas holidays, yay!! That means my exams are OVER, but so is the awesome trip to London we prefects got yesterday. (Sob) It was so much fun… Even if I did think, for a few happy moments, that I could go in, FREE, to the International Manga and Anime Festival. Alas, it was not to be. (Sob again) It matters not! It was still a fantastic day! Oh, and I shall dedicate this chapter to my good pal Scooby2408, despite the fact she hasn't read this for a while, for helping me with my fear of heights that only comes upon me when I'm standing on the ground looking how high we go; but, oddly, not when we are up there. Heh. Read her fic, yo, if you dare- because I'm so OBVIOUSLY the star. Not that Alyssa's totally like me, but yeah.
Disclaimer- I'm too lazy to make these original anymore.
I must apologise for making you all read the scene where Penny falls out of the plane again. I promise, this is the last time. ;) Besides, Mokuba FINALLY puts in an appearance, and, as a bonus, there's even one from Tristan! Plus FORESHADOWING! Can I please have points for effort?
Fourteen- A Rebel
As discussed in the previous chapter, it does appear that no man-made method can 'create' a superhero, but rather that it is something already present in the blood or genetics of the 'hero' themselves. Like many cases of genetics, it seems to run in families or present in those under certain conditions. However, these 'powers' are usually found dormant, the result of which is that most people who have the potential be 'heroes' may never know; which would certainly explain the rarity of them. Even so, sometimes powers do not present themselves naturally, but, like some mental illnesses, appear to awaken in times of extreme emotional activity or when placed under sudden, climatic, duress. This suggests that the abilities lie in the brain, of which we use so little, and that, if the right key could be found, we could unlock the powers to improve everyone's lives.
From the controversial paper entitled "The Natural Abilities of 'Super' Heroes"; by Prof. Kiyoshi Bakura, who gambled his entire career on this theory- and lost.
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"My mom. My brother." Penelope whispered. "I won't let you do this!" She suddenly launched herself at him, hurling her whole body towards him, landing a punch on his face before he grabbed her arm and twisted her around, and she dropped out of the hatch.
"You've got nice names." The girl said. "Mine's Penelope."
Amane stared at the spot where her friend used to be. The wind continued to whistle through the now empty hatch. The Pyromaniac began his methodical work again, as though nothing had happened; and the attack and throw had happened so quickly, Amane could almost pretend that her oldest friend had not just been thrown out of a plane.
"You're… you're lying…" He said, uncertainly. "No-one can hear anyone else's thoughts!"
"We can." The four said together. "And sometimes… We can hear yours, to."
Almost.
"You…" She hissed, but he did not turn around. "You… You're going to regret that. I'll make you regret that. You killed her! You killed her! I won't forgive you! You killed her! I won't forgive you!"
"Do keep it down." He said, tiredly.
"But it could be a trap." Penelope pointed out. "…Or, it could be a good thing. He gives us good things sometimes to." She looked at Ryou for a clue, but he merely smiled, giving none. "Graah… Now I'm curious to…"
Amane shook with rage, some long since dormant feeling stirring inside her.
"You killed her. I won't stand for that. You won't get away with it…"
She snarled.
"It says that you stay in the game forever." Ryou read out from the text on screen. Then, almost thoughtfully, he added "To stay forever in Monster World, with no escape, and no way back to friends, or family, or life as you know it… Trapped."
"I what?" Jason asked, before suddenly falling over the box they were using as a table, scattering polythene trees in his wake.
Pyro turned at last at the scratched, rough, almost inhuman sounds being forced out from the dark sections her heart and gurgling out of her throat at last, snarling, gasping, growling. She knew from his face that something was happening. He looked terrified, but to her it was wonderful, and she opened her arms to embrace it. It was power. Power she'd known was locked away inside her somewhere that was at last coming to help her.
Amane placed the book on the ground closer to her, and thought very hard about it floating, but it remained resolutely on the ground.
"…Try to get the air to lift it up rather then getting the book itself to move." Ryou suggested after a painfully long time. "That's what I did. I think. If I can do it, I bet you can! Concentrate!"
Amane nodded.
But the book didn't move. It never moved.
The hair on her arms and neck was standing on end. No, it was bristling. Growing. So too were her fingers, cruel, serrated blades forming from them, and she used them to slice through the ropes that bound them as her muscles tensed and gained strength. She smiled in cold delight at this new found power as her mouth began to stretch out of proportion, allowing her teeth to become the shape for a carnivore. The strength of the moon was flooding her, and even as she stood, half wolf, half human, some grotesque mutation half way between, she knew exactly what she was going to do with them.
He had killed Penny, and he could not be allowed to get away with it.
"Don't worry." Ryou repeated firmly.
"I don't." Amane assured him, sighing. "I just hate being left behind." Then she shrugged, as Ryou hesitated. "Go on then, Faceless! Go catch yourself another criminal!"
Now it was her turn to be the hero.
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Seto awoke slowly, trying to decide what his head felt like. Eventually choosing that it felt as though his brain was being fed slowly into a cement mixer, he dragged his dry, bruised eyes open, the dull light stinging them, the lids feeling like sandpaper scraping back into his head. But this was no time to be feeling sorry for himself, and he certainly didn't intend to let it get in his way. Not that he had much of a choice. He was weak, awfully so, hardly able to maintain consciousness. He was surprised he had woken up at all. First of all, he had been beaten badly, so he shouldn't have woken up so quickly- although this could have been a result of his powers, and he couldn't see or think straight right now, so who was he to judge the time?- and then, of course, there was the fact he was still alive. He didn't understand why they appeared to have chained him up, his arms being held up limply above his head, instead of killing him. It was all surprising, but, luckily, he once again had the pleasure of Amon's company, and he would undoubtedly explain what was going on.
The man walked leisurely towards his prisoner, and lifted Seto's head, forcing him to look at him.
"Enjoying yourself, Seto?"
Seto did not take easily to this. If his mouth were not so dry, barren, cracked, he would have spat into the foul thing's eye. He had lost his soul long ago, and was no longer a man.
Seto only hoped that did not apply to him to. What happened next assured him it did not.
"Have you accepted it now, Seto? Has it finally sunk in? Do you see that without your powers, you're nothing? That without the Trust, you'll get nowhere except death? You're on your last chance- give in. Give up. Join us."
Was that it? They wanted him alive? But, then why…?
"No…" He whispered, wishing his voice would come out stronger.
"Still need convincing? Well, luckily, we came prepared…" Amon laughed cruelly, and wrenched Seto's head to the side. "Take a look, Seto. Take a good long look!"
"Mokuba…I…" Suddenly, Seto became terribly aware of the lies he had told Mokuba over the years, too ashamed of what he'd done in the past to reveal his powers even to the only one he could trust. Well, if he hadn't known before, his brother certainly did now. Mokuba, sweating, bleeding from the corner of his mouth and forehead, smiled weakly.
"Hey, Big Brother…" He said, softly. Seto saw pity, worry, fear, in those eyes. He must be in a bad way to have Mokuba look at him like that. "Don't you worry, Seto. I'll get us out of here."
"I wouldn't bet on that, squirt." Amon replied gleefully, running his finger along the edge of the blade he was holding. It drew blood even from that most delicate of touches, and he brought it to bear on Mokuba's neck. The boy bit his lip, shying away as much as he could from the knife, but it was no use. Mokuba was bound as tightly as his brother. "What do you say, Seto?" Amon grinned. "Do we have a deal?"
"Big Brother, no!"
The room fell still, silent, like a video that had been paused, waiting for Seto to hit play. Amon continued to smile. Seto had no doubt that he would do it, but the thing was, Seto would never let him. Amon knew that.
"You're messing with my mind…" Seto accused, the sound barely coming out. Perhaps they did not hear him, but they did not react. His mind working furiously at this, he said it again, more loudly. "You're messing with my mind! Go on then! If you're going to stab him, do it! Do it!"
"Seto…" Mokuba whispered quietly at this traitorous betrayal. Amon hesitated.
"Oh, come on. We both know you won't really let me do it. Why not use your powers, Seto? Too weak? Aww, shame… Well then, there's no option but to join us."
"Or you could do it." Seto maintained, calmly. "What are you going to do, Amon?" The answer was, apparently, nothing; as he stood, uncertain.
"Seto!" Mokuba yelled suddenly, tears rolling down his cheeks. "How could you do this?! You promised you'd look after me! Please, Seto, you can't be serious!"
"Do you… trust me, Mokuba?"
"You're going to let him stab me!"
Seto smirked. "Well then. Go ahead, Aiolos. Stab him. Kill him, if you can."
"I…" Amon frowned. "Screw this, you heartless bastard! I'll kill you instead!" He leapt forward, knife outstretched, plunged it deep into Seto's stomach. Seto snapped, jerking forward at the sudden pain, and then woke up lying on a concrete floor.
He closed his eyes slowly in relief. His gamble had paid off. It had all been one of Tanith's illusions, and as soon as he'd presented it with a situation it had not been expecting, the game had begun to break down, until he'd beaten it. But thank goodness, thank goodness, it had been a game; albeit a dangerous one. The feelings of relief were washed away by those of nausea, and the result was not pleasant. Coughing viciously, Seto rolled onto his other side and slowly, painfully, began to drag himself up off the floor, taking stock of his injuries- which, thankfully, were not so bad as he had imagined. His stomach held a dull throb from the amount of times it had been kicked and punched, he'd somehow gained a sliced arm and a second black eye, and his legs did not want to move. But that was all ineffectual. It didn't matter how weak he was, how mentally exhausted he was. Sometimes, the only way to defeat someone was to know their strategy and adapt to it. It would mean using his powers. But while the lackeys were all out after Masquerade, the Head of the Trust would be all alone. Life was like a game of chess. You had to keep your moves hidden and once the king was taken down the game was won; regardless of how many pieces were on the board. Seto had only one piece left. But, whichever way it went, the game would end now. He pulled his discarded coat out from where it lay defeated under a fallen section of roof plaster. Brushing it off, he put the coat on regardless and limped for the hole in the wall that had once served as a door. They were not defeated yet.
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"You…!" Pyro stammered in disbelief. "You have powers to?! But… but… Why didn't you use them before now?!"
"They've only just kicked in." Amane informed him, taking a step forward. She could feel the sudden strength and support in her legs as her own muscles, toned from the dance classes she'd been taking in school with Téa, fused with the sinews that would keep a wolf running and running until it's target could not run anymore. "Convenient, don't you think?"
For a moment, her captor seemed unsure, pausing even in his work of tossing balloons out of the plane, but then, with a kind of feverish determination, started lighting them and throwing them out at an incredible pace. Growling, Amane threw herself at him. Half turning into a wolf probably was not the most glamorous or indeed logical power it was possibly to have, perhaps not even the most helpful, but she was going to use them now, and use them as best she could. As her coiled muscles released, she sprung toward him, and the Pyromaniac fell beneath the full force. Amane held him down, her new found claws curling around his shoulders, causing blood to flow. On one level she was sickened, but in truth she was not really aware of what she was doing. She was the wolf now, and the wolf could smell blood and burning and a million other scents. It was like a brown bag had been lifted from her head, and, suddenly, she could sense everything. She revelled in this new found world.
"Get off me!" He screamed, and as Amane did not seem like she was going to comply he took hold of her shoulders instead and threw her off, kicking and pushing her away towards the hatch, knocking loads of the prepared balloons out after their fellows. The fact he seemed to intend Amane the same thing registered somewhere in her mind and she became even angrier. It was down to kill or be killed. She intended the former, the animal mind wanted to win, and she wanted to get her revenge. She was more then willing to go along with the animal instincts. He killed Penelope. He wanted to kill her, and kill her brother. She'd rip him to pieces.
She leapt again, stretching out her arms to slash at his face, then his chest, then his stomach. Panting, he finally evaded. The wounds were not deep, but they were annoying. He jumped at her now, but she ducked, managing to place a nasty scratch on his leg. He tumbled backwards, and looked up fearfully as she glared down at him. She curled those clawed fingers around his shirt and pinned him up against the wall with strength she never knew she had. She looked into his eyes, and he prayed that the tiniest glint of mercy would creep into them. She gave out a low rumbling sound that just slipped into his hearing, but gave no action.
"Amane?"
She whipped her head around, snarling; but on seeing the shocked expression staring back at her, she softened.
"Ryou…? I… He…" She sagged suddenly, as the Pyromaniac took advantage of the opportunity and smacked her around the head, taking advantage of her momentary stunned state to twist their positions around and smash her lithe body into the metal walls of the plane, and then again, to make sure the job was done. Disgusted, he threw her to one side, and, sighing slightly as she hit the floor, Amane lay still.
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The pause in the falling stars did not go unnoticed on the streets of Domino. Tristan looked up from where he stood in a row of people passing buckets along to try and douse a blaze in one of the houses on the street and blinked.
"Has it stopped…?" he wondered aloud.
"The house is still burning regardless!" The person next to him complained. "Would you grab this already?"
Tristan nodded, taking the bucket and passing it on, before taking another. The flames continued to leap into the air, but were behaving for now. Besides, how long could it possibly be before the fire brigade got to them…?
However, all the fire brigade's attention was currently focused on the hospital, where sick people had been dragged from beds or wheeled out in them in order to evacuate, and now they stood watching helplessly as the fire-fighters did their best to douse the half dozen blazes that had broken out in various places. Almost certainly, the hospital had been one of the worse effected places, and as Téa stood silently before it, she suddenly realised she could not stay here. She did not know where Joey and Serenity had run off to, nor if Yugi and Ryou had made it home safely, or even what these fires had to do with them. But it was too much like the old days, where Yugi's puzzle and title had attracted so much trouble, for her to believe it was nothing to do with any of them. She headed towards the Game Shop, which, like her own home, had already been ravaged by fire. Sitting and looking out of the window there was Yugi, who currently had a lot on his mind. They'd been lucky in that the fire started at their home had really only damaged that one room, and most of their stock was salvageable- people seemed quite happy to take advantage of a 'Slightly fire damaged 50 Off' deal. But not today. Today, the city was burning, and Yugi could no longer sit and watch. He stood up.
"Grandpa! I'm going out!"
Grandpa could have tried to stop him, but he knew he would fail. He had been expecting the decision any minute now, so let him go, and hoped he be able to do something. Yugi hoped the same thing, but knew he could do nothing until he knew what was going on. But nobody knew what was going on; except, perhaps, for a certain friend of his, who stood, unaware he was being hunted, arguing with the police.
"You said yourself!" Masquerade snapped, irritated, to Police Chief Ayako. "You said you didn't have any idea what to do! I know I can help them… please…"
"Listen, son, I'll be the first to finally admit it," Ayako began tiredly. "You've been a great deal of help to us, but there's still a hostage up there and an entire city at stake; and no-one knows what he wants. I can't let you go up there, not alone, and certainly not with these two girls."
"I know what he wants." Masquerade informed her coolly. "He wants me. Let me go up there. I can do this. I have to- I care about the city and about Am- the hostage as much as you do! Let me go!"
"I said no." Ayako said, firmly. "Now stop before I arrest you for wasting police time."
"We're going anyway." Masquerade said, swallowing and reaching out towards Penelope and Serenity as the burning paper balloons began to fall like flaming snow again. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the guns that had been previously aimed at the aeroplane were turned on him. He swallowed again.
"I'm sorry." Ayako said, sounding as though she actually meant it. "Stay there, and they won't have to do anything. Any move will now be counted as trying to thwart police operations and, as an act of terrorism, gives us the right to shoot." She looked away, and added quietly. "You could risk it, but please… I'm asking you, please don't risk it!"
"I…" Masquerade hesitated, his thoughts unreadable hidden behind the mask.
Joey, watching unseen from a small alleyway nearby, cursed silently under his breath. He didn't want Serenity going up onto the plane, and he certainly didn't want to see her full of more holes than Swiss cheese; but he did want to let her make her own choices, and, more importantly, he wanted Amane, who was almost certainly the 'hostage' rescued. The person he trusted most with his sister was Ryou, but surely, in his absence, this guy was the next best thing. Only a Superhero could rescue Amane while protecting his sister, and save the city while he was about it- Joey had read enough comic books to know that. And so, as Masquerade continued to hesitate, he crept forward.
"I…" Masquerade stammered again, shuffling slightly, torn between his sister and his… friends. He could almost certainly avoid their shots if he flew suddenly and fast, but then he'd have to leave the other two behind in the line of fire. Yet, if he didn't go, Amane would…
"Take off your mask." Ayako instructed. "It's over, kid. Take off the mask, and we'll see how things go from there. Maybe we can help."
Slowly, he raised his hands to his mask, and began to uncertainly pull it up.
They were interrupted by a car alarm going off as someone climbed purposefully up onto the roof of it. "Listen up!" He yelled.
"Joey…?" Serenity stifled the words and tried to look as though she didn't know him.
"I have a message from the guy up there!" Joey yelled, stabbing a finger at the plane in the sky. "So you better all listen!" He tried to ignore the guns now trained on him. Ayako stepped forward.
"Who are you? What do you know?"
"He's gonna burn down the city! He'll do it! He's a mad man, calls himself 'The Pyromaniac'."
"We know! Just tell us who you are!"
"I'm just a person with vested interests in this here case." Joey replied, trying to sound dangerous and mysterious while trying to ignore his rationality which was sobbing at the fact that, if he wasn't shot, he was almost certainly going to be arrested. "And I'm telling you, he's going to keep dropping those balloons until…"
"Until? What are his demands? Until when?"
"Until he runs out of them. And then…"
Good question… Joey thought, worried. Outside, he showed no concern. "And then… he'll move onto bombs!"
Yeah. Great one there, idiot.
"How do you know all this?" Ayako demanded. "And what can we do to stop him?"
"Nothing! You can't do anything!" Joey concluded, hopping down off the car. "Leave it to those who can!" He pointed behind them, to where the only sign Masquerade had ever been there was his mask, lying discarded on the floor.
"What?!" Ayako shouted, turning back to where the blond kid had been. He was gone to, racing away down an alleyway. "Darn it! Get after him! Find out what he knows and how he knows it!"
Hopping over a fence, Joey heard this, and hoped Masquerade did to.
They better appreciate this… He growled mentally, running down the conjoining street and away.
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His footsteps, painfully slow, echoed on the tiled floors as his dusty boots clicked along them. He only met three people in the building's deserted bows and two had the good sense to ignore him. The third found himself smacking into a wall at high velocity, causing Seto to smile tiredly. He still had it. This building was just like any other office block that he'd spent years in, and he'd broken into it easily. Things were not boding well for the Trust Master. He walked up the stairs slowly, heart pounding a little more then he'd have liked it to, clasping the banister more tightly than strictly necessary, and the whole time the words of that darn fortune teller were running through his head as they had been blown on the wind after him. "It could even save you making a grave error. It could save many lives… maybe even your life…". Still, he didn't believe in fortune tellers. Unfortunately, in recent years, he'd come to learn that things he didn't believe in weren't necessarily false. With this comforting thought, Seto pushed the door before him open. He did not pause to knock.
The Trust Master turned, but did not seem surprised to see him standing there. He looked Seto up and down, and then tutted. "If there's one thing I hate," he commented, passionately. "It's a job left half-done. Well, you may as well sit down Seto- you look dead on your feet."
Seto stood motionless.
"Come on, boy!" The man said, impatient now. "It's not a challenge to your dominance if we're both sitting down, is it?" To prove the point, he sank into a large chair on the opposite side of the desk. Seto strode over to it and decided to speak before sitting down.
"Just to make one thing very clear." He said, slowly. "I could attack you any time I wanted to. In fact, I do want to. You do not have the upper hand."
"Just sit down." The Trust Master said, as though to an insolent child.
Seto complied simply because it had been quite a walk and, in his current state, it was better to sit down than to fall. They fell silent for a moment, and then he leant forward to speak into the intercom on his desk.
"Yes, Mr Fallon?"
"I'd like a coffee, I think. Seto?"
He glared.
"Bring two. And perhaps some bandages, my guest has a rather nasty cut on his arm. And tell Eric to get 'that' room ready." He smiled slightly at Seto. "I have something to show you."
"I'm sure." Seto answered wryly. "You know why I'm here, and it's not to join you. Why prolong the inevitable, Rais?"
Rais Fallon, a man Seto recognised as himself in forty years, smirked back. "So impatient, youth today. Believe me, you'll be glad you waited… Please, follow me."
He pressed a button on his desk and, suddenly, part of the floor slid smoothly back to reveal a staircase; and Seto was fairly certain most floors didn't do that. Beckoning to him, Fallon began to head down them, and, just because there seemed to be no other choice, and because he was far too curious for his own good, Seto followed him down the floodlight staircase and into the devil's lair.
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"There's only one way in!" Penelope yelled over the rushing wind, trying to ignore the embarrassment at being carried up under one arm in such away as well as the amazement at flying. "And that's through the hatch!"
"Where the balloons are coming out?" Serenity shouted back. "Will that work?"
"I can try!" Ryou put in, sounding a little strained. The girls may have felt as though they were light as feathers, and, indeed, with the extra support from the air, they almost were; but it was still more weight than he was used to and so was beginning to take it's toll as the air around them became thicker and thicker with the mini hot air balloons that would ignite to become such a danger lower down. It was getting harder and harder to find room to fit the three of them through the gaps to. Up ahead looked almost impossible. He scanned the space, and found there was none. He felt perhaps he would have had more luck were it not for the fact he was having to hold very tightly onto Serenity who, try as he might, he could not help but think of as-
This was all very inappropriate right now. Perhaps Ryou would have drawn some comfort had he known Serenity's thought patterns were running along very similar lines.
"Ryou!" Penelope screamed, and he had to swerve to avoid a falling balloon. Unfortunately, this knocked him askew, and, as he tried to right himself, his shoulder was forced right into one of the flames just beginning to ignite the paper above it. Yelping, he shook his arm, and let go of Penelope.
In Ryou's defence, he reacted quickly, turning around and heading downwards; but even his colossal speed was not enough when still carrying one passenger and trying to avoid fiery balls of death.
"I won't reach her!" He screamed. "I won't get her!"
"No!" Serenity answered, the first word that came into her shocked head. Ryou wouldn't be able to get her. She really would die this time. Unless…
She'd never been able to do it before, but she had to now.
Serenity stretched out her arm. That's what it felt like- that she stretched out her arm and it continued to stretch and stretch clear through the sky, and she could bend it at any point, as though there were no bones there at all. It was only a gap of a metre or two, but in terms of arm length, it seemed an eternity until she snatched hold of a terrified girl's collar.
"You…" Ryou gasped in relief. "Are amazing…"
"Make her light!" Serenity begged, hysterically. "Make her light! Do something! I can't hold her!"
"Ah! Sorry!"
Between them, they hauled Penelope back up, and once she was more or less safely back in Ryou's singed arms, they all gave a sigh of relief, Ryou apologising profusely; almost unable to stop. Penelope slapped him weakly.
"I never want to fly 'Ryou' again…" She muttered. "Thanks for the save, Serenity."
"Oh… you're welcome…"
"You're amazing." Ryou repeated, smiling at her. "I mean it."
"…T…thank you, Ryou…"
"Not the time!" Penelope howled. "Ryou, look where you're going, please!"
"I know where I'm going…"
"Our certain doom?"
"No. Through the hatch." Ryou bit his lip hesitantly. "Then certain doom." Nether the less, an instant later, they breezed through the hatch during a lull in the balloons, where a most unexpected sight met their eyes.
A tail. A large, bushy, grey and white tail. That's what appeared to be growing out of his sister. And fluffy, fuzzy grey ears above a shock of white hair. Slightly bowed legs and lithe, slightly greying forearms, holding a man to the wall with claws that seemed to have grown like fingernails. And yet, he knew her.
"Amane?"
She turned with a sound that was more wolf than human, her eyes yellowed and her teeth elongated. For a moment, the fear remained in the man's eyes, blood leaking from grazes on his arms and legs. What had happened to her…? And what had she been about to do?
"Ryou…? I… He…" She sagged suddenly, as the Pyromaniac took advantage of the opportunity and smacked her around the head, taking advantage of her momentary stunned state to twist their positions around and smash her lithe body into the metal walls of the plane, and then again, to make sure the job was done. Disgusted, he threw her to one side, and, sighing slightly as she hit the floor, Amane lay still.
Ryou had no concern for his opponent as he ran over to his sister, so missed, and now appearing so strangely. He didn't care, and neither did the other two as they came over with him, and tried desperately to wake her.
"Amane! Amane!"
He felt something cold and round pressing into the back of his head. It was not the first time he had felt it. There had been that occasion in the Supermarket queue. And then he had felt the effects in Penelope's house. He froze. The Pyromaniac began to laugh.
"He shot them. My Rachel… My Sarah… Do you get it now? Are you feeling what they felt? Are you praying for your life right now? Do you feel what they did? Are you suffering?" Ryou felt the vibration right through his skull as the safety catch was taken off. "…Tell me, Ryou Thomas Bakura, how useful are your skills against a real weapon?"
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'Love' is a very strange thing. Surely, with something as wide and as varied in form as love, they shouldn't all be put under one umbrella. There's the love you have for your favourite foods, or a warm bed on a winter morning, or the smell of mown grass, or something like that. Then there's something stronger, where you feel conflicted, where even when a person can annoy you to the point of hatred you still love them, because you've known them all your life; your brother, your sister, a friend. Yes, I think you do love your friends in a way to. There's the widest form of love, which makes you want to protect complete strangers on the street, or on the other side of the world, the 'love' that makes you feel it's your duty to use your powers for 'good'. There's unrequited love and tragic love and love that shatters; there's love you never realise you've had until it's gone, and sometimes you miss it when you can't put your finger on what it is; as I still do all these years after I lost my parents. There's the love that makes you cling onto someone, that took me here after just one person, that makes Penelope hold onto her brother when really he's not even there anymore. There's a love that makes you trust one person above anyone else, want to protect them more then anyone, like Kaiba always chasing after his brother even when he's so heartless to everyone else. But there's something more. There's the love you realise you have when you look forward to seeing someone, even if nothing happens, if you're never bored around them, if you're not sure if it will last forever but want to treasure it while it lasts, and if you couldn't possibly tell them.
Love makes people do awfully funny things. But I suppose that, really, what makes our 'soul' is the same thing that makes us 'love'. Perhaps love, for all it's ins and outs and ups and downs, is what makes us human. And I would very much like to remain human, because sometimes it hasn't felt like it; even here, beside my sister who appears to be changing into a wolf, I feel less then human and less then myself. I'm not even sure who I am yet. If I survive, I think I'll go to try and find out. Perhaps they'd like to come with me, these friends of mine.
But first, I have to get us all out of here. Alive.
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A/N: Well, there we have it! I shall try to update once more before Christmas, but the closer we get to the Big J's b'day, the busier it gets! When I say 'once more', I actually mean 'Twice more', because, as usual, I shall not be posting the final full chapter until I have also written the epilogue, which will be posted the day after. I can't believe we're almost at the end of the fic! Let us limp towards it just as we limp towards the end of 2006 with some final rhetorical questions:
Who will emerge triumphant? Seto or the Trust? Ryou or the Pyromaniac? Joey or the police? Who gets an impromptu haircut? How cold is a freezer? Who is flying the plane? Who will get out of there alive…? Please join me within the next few days for A Superhero Story Chapter Fifteen- A Hero…