Marik: Do I get my dearie Andry back?

MM: Hmmm…let us/me see…have you been a good little boy?

Marik, flourishing the Millennium Rod: Of course!

MM, raising eyebrow(s): Okay, fine. What are you up to?

Marik, gapes and stares: Well, obviously to torture people with!

MM, folding arms together: Uh-huh. A good little boy, eh?

Marik: NOOO! You said "have you been"! In the past!

MM: And as compared to now, two seconds ago is the past!

Marik: STOP STALLING! You don't own Yugioh, so you have no right to keep Andry from my torture plans!

MM, tackling Marik: ANDRY is MY/OUR character! Enjoy the story!

Chapter 11

Autumn of the Angels

Andromeda's smooth, supple h and rested within Marik's as she stepped out of the yacht, wearing her blank, demeaning grin. The setting sun blazed a mellow orange, its rays striking the yawning sea like a quiver of arrows. The clouds curved around its magnificence, sleeping one atop the other as they prepared to ride out the night. A few bloated seagulls drifted at the van guard of the approaching night breeze, stretching their wings to work off their last fish feast.

Looking down at his human puppet, Marik admired thecopper-tinged seas and how andromeda's white-board eyes reflected it so perfectly. His fingers slid between hers, squeezing her cool skin with his furnace-hot ones.

Stepping onto the bank, he pulled her along, his hair a sheet of molten gold under the light of dusk. Smiling, he slid his arm around her waist.

"My obedient puppet, do you know what this is?" he asked, free hand gesturing at the shuddering warehouses, the rusting chains frozen in time, and the bronze-leafed trees. A memory from childhood snuck into his mind, a story that Rishid had told him at bed time when the blond Egyptian was still a child, after Marik's initiation into the Tomb Keeper's clan.

He eyed the sun, the Eye of Ra, as it snuggled into its blanket ofclouds, the tip of its glowing head peeking out for a goodnight kiss. He smiled down almost gently at the mind-controlled Andromeda, knowing that she could never hear him or ever remember his stories, his words, or his actions if he did them now.

"Andry, darling, it's autumn. There's a story about autumn."

He hesitated, feet carrying him and his captive toward the warehouses where Rishid and the Rare Hunters gathered and faithfully awaited their attendance.

"In autumn, everything dies. Nothing but decay all around. Golden death from the trees. Richness covering the ground wherever the four seasons exist in their turmoil and harmony.

His eyes took in the remnants of the trees, the dried and withered leaves swirling out to sea. Somewhere far out, under the streaks of light from the dying sun, black, sleek form dashed through the waters, flipping and clicking to communicate, dashing away in joy and fun that Marik no longer understood. Sparks cut through the swathes of darkness dawning upon the earth, twinkling valiantly to keep away the fear and keep up the good cheer that so often goes missing. At night, when the monsters come, at night, when the tears dare run, at night, when the weapons come to shrivel flesh and bone. He focused on the stars, the pinpricks of the outside world that he had longed for and wished upon as a child, looking through the single, fake well of his underground home.

"In autumn, the angels come to collect the dead, collect the year's sadness, anger, and pain. Sometimes, when there's a lot of tragedy and fear, you can see them, here and about—teaching, collecting. Little patches of warmth. When they touch you, or when you see them, everything suddenly calms, and comfort washes over your soul. Everything becomes all right, no matter what is happening, what is destroying your soul. Those times are special. The doors to Heaven seem to open to let them out."

Patting Andromeda lightly, he gazed away at something far beyond the hills of Domino, past the shadows casting themselves across the stalwart city.

The sun sank beneath the lapping waves, on its way through the underworld yet again.

"The angels cry and cry for everyone with a broken heart, a deceased friend, a child who longs for a dream, for every orphan who still hasn't found love and home. Their tears flow out and drown out everything, drown out the worries, the blood, the shadows. They heal, those angels' tears," he concluded, hand reaching forward to open the warehouse door. "But if they cry too much, the whole world will disappear under those relentless torrents, like back in the time of Noah and his ark."

He prodded Andromeda soothingly in the small of her back and followed her into the deep darkness snoozing below. Quickly, their muffled footsteps marked their passage across the warehouses and down the steps into the secret labyrinth concealed beneath.

"Here we go, Andry," he murmured savagely as they hit the bottom. Swerving around the memorized corners, he opened the gold-laden door and shoved her in. Shades dancing in the drunken violet depths of his eyes, he licked his lips. "Here is your autumn of the angels."

Dancing drunkenly under the dome of flickering flames, the shadows stretched out their arms, toward the new arrivals. Warmly colored bricks lined the walls and floor, welcoming al visitors. At the center of the chamber, a boy laid stretched upon the ground. His hands curled into fists, Derek flexed, trying to shake off the manacles eating greedily into his wrists. The fetters around his ankles clicked against the stone paving as he crawled to his knees. Grunting, the Academ brother gazed up at his tormentor, then to his sister.

"Andromeda, get away from him."

Glaring at Marik, he jerked uselessly at the chains feartlessly latching him to the ground.

"Marik brought me to see you," Andromeda replied blandly, walking up to Derek and kneeling down. She let her hair slide in from of her face, framing her lackluster eyes and deepening the shadows devouring her face.

Sighing, Derek shook his head, noting the blank innocence of her eyes. Suddenly, as if a shroud had fallen away, dozens of Rare Hunters filled his vision, lining the walls and door like a human coral reef. Sweeping his cape around, Marik nodded approvingly at the barricade and marched to the front of the chamber, climbing the steps and collapsing leisurely into the dimly lit throne languishing at the top. Crossing his legs, Marik drummed his fingers absentmindedly upon the arm of his seat as Andromeda slid to the side of the chamber.

"Derek Academ. Do you know why we're here?" the master asked, voice ringing intrepidly in the cozy danger of the chamber.

His future victim gazed obstinately at his feet, disregarding the laser-sharp gaze boring into his neck. "No."

Whistling lightly to himself, Marik stroked his scepter affectionately. "Well, I'd hate to hurt someone as kind and devout as you and leave you believing that it was all for no apparent reason, Academ," he announced grandly, magnanimity animating his tone.

"I am here to punish you for hating me, and trying to help a fellow prisoner escape. In case you're wondering about how you arrived here, you wree under my mind control," he clarified, as an extra bestowment of mercy. The boy on display remained quiet.

"Awww, being brave for your sister, I see? I believe you've already figure out that she is no longer…with us, shall we say?"

A grave, gleeful chuckle rose amongst the hooded figures.

"We can't procrastinate forever, though. My good servants had already obtained for me twelve Locator Cards. You are amongst the good, Academ," he praised, waving his scepter as Derek refused to look up. Still, he continued on. "So, Rishid and I cannot possibly be late for the Battle City Finals."

Standing up, he spun to face Andromeda.

"Ready, sweet pea?"

He fingered the Millennium Rod, letting its eye purr ominously with a golden glow.

Andromeda opened the box in front of her. "Yes, Master."

Grinning, Marik pointed to the loop glistening in the far left corner of the box. "That should do for now."

Reaching into the directed area, Andromeda closed her fingers around the cool, polished leather. Ceremonially, she removed it from its nest and cradled its loop in the palm of one hand.

A whip.

It drooped lovingly toward her hair, its scythe-like edge a scream away from her cheek.

"Go ahead, darling. Don't keep us in suspense."

Chuckling deeply, Marik loitered in the accompanying laughter of his servants. Andromeda nodded. "Yes, Master."

Slowly, she marched to her brother.

Derek kneeled before his sister, eyes fixed upon the alien smile fixed upon Marik's gorgeous features. A million thoughts tried to flood his brain, but found themselves dammed up by the impenetrable concrete wall of fear. His ears noted the pulsing of his veins as blood tapped his eardrums, and his lungs expanded wider and wider for a share of the fleeing oxygen.

"Andry, what are you doing?! Wake up!"

Deafly, Andromeda's hand rose, the whip tip sliding from her fingertips to rear back in cobra fashion.

Her arm flashed forward.

With a short whoosh, the whip cleaved through the air. Cracking, its blade bit into Derek's relaxed back, bathing itself in his blood as his muscles tensed in agony. Biting his lip, he willed the tears to stay away as the very first watery intruder nibbled at the corner of his eye. Forcing down the rising groan, he relaxed again, finding that his back didn't scream as much when his muscles aren't bunched together. Twitching in anticipation of the next stroke, he dilated his lungs again, slowing the crazed beating of his heart as it tried to escape from his rib cage.

"Andry…"

Arm a blur, Andromeda flourished the whip again, a grin cocking one corner of her lips as the sickly sound of squelching flesh made Derek tense again. This time, a small groan escaped, making the bored and snoozing Marik light up with a sneer.

"Andromeda, don't be so gentle with your brother. Siblings like toe yell at each other and tussle," Marik elucidated, remembering his currently horrendous relationship with his sister, Ishizu Ishtar. In fact, as he climbed out from the vault under the burning Egyptian sands with the Winged Dragon of Ra in his pocket, he had threatened to murder her sister if she got in his way. His own flesh and blood.

Probably not the best way to get that self-righteous ninny on my side, he admitted to himself.

Nodding, Andromeda reared the whip back farther. Without stop, she lashed again and again at the stretched-out body splayed before her feet. Giving up all pretense of brevity and endurance, Derek opened his mouth, allowing the sighs and grunts all an escape passage from the prison of his mind. Blank as the sky on a cloudless nigh, his brain sang him lullabies until he closed his eyes, his back kindly dimming its sense receptors to dull the aching.

"Andry…Andry…"

Quietly, he reflected on their parents, on their old, faithful home that now stood abandoned on the side of the road, its lonely window-eyes gazing into the distance for any sign of its masters. The leaves must be flooding the lawn now, he thought to himself, muscles contracting yet again as the whip feasted upon him. He twitched spasmodically, trying to time and avoid the next crack of the weapon.

Watch over her, out parents said, he bemoaned, watch over your little sister…

Like a rampant robot, Andromeda's arm wound itself, then released, whirling up and down, up and down, up and—

"Stop."

Andromeda's hand froze in midair, the snake-like leather strip wriggling from her fingertips, as the Millennium Rod glowed. Marik's cool, satisfied voice rang across the room, recoiling from the warmth of the stones making up the sides of the confinement. With a wave of his scepter, Marik lifted his control over Andromeda.

"Wake up now, dearie/"

Moaning, Andromeda rubbed her eyes with her one empty hand, eyelids fluttering as if she was trying to wake up in the early morning, before dawn had yawned and kissed the skies. Her lips opened, then closed, attempting to form a question as she drank in the sight of all those hooded figures surrounding her. Grandly, Marik rose from his throne, easing himself down the steps and toward the Academs, one shivering on the ground, and the other blinking blankly.

Andromeda turned and caught sight of the violet-eyed teen.

"Marik, what's going on?" Slowly, a memory cut through the haze in her brain. The ship cabin. Marik's attack. The still-present ache in her back from its luncheon with the wall.

She blanched. "Marik. What did you do to me? Where am I? Where is my brother?"

Raising one thin eyebrow after his usual quirky fashion, he strolled lazily up to her, content mockery dancing in the depths of his swirling lavender irises.

"Look down at your feet, love."

Fuming as she remembered the past few hours, she gazed down at the mentioned spot quickly, ready to turn away, and—

"DEREK!"

Falling to her knees, she felt something heavy slide from her hand.

"Annnd…now look at you hand!" Marik ordered, like a professional movie director rather than a villain tearing apart an orphan family.

Understanding dawning in her eyes, Andromeda eyed the blood-encrusted whip dangling from her fingers. For a moment, it drifted there, an image from a horror movie. Then, slowly, the blood absconded from her cheeks, and her indigo eyes welled up and grew into two wave-tossed oceans. With a scream that made the walls shrink back in fear, she wrapped her arms around Derek's bleeding form as he turned to face her, sitting up and letting the rivulets of crimson paint his back. The whip hit the ground, still reveling in the glory of its last flogging. Andromeda's hands gently touched her brother's raw flesh, heart twisting itself in its chains every time he flinched. His blood moistened her fingers, the scarlet cuddling up to her nails and skin.

"I'm sorry, brother."

The words fell over each other in their tumble from her mouth. She choked lightly as a hiccup victoriously battled its way out of her lungs.

"It's okay, sister," Derek whispered, the tears finally escaping from their stations and flooding down his cheeks to ooze along, parachuting onto Andromeda's wide-flung hair. "It's not your fault."

Chuckling deeply, Marik took a step forward, leaned over, and picked up the abandoned whip. "Aww, what a picture-perfect scene. A Kodak moment!"

The room burst into merry mirth as the Rare Hunters laughed their hearts out, glaring at the siblings clinging to each other in the center. Only one robust, black form remained quiet, his left eye peering from is dress of hieroglyph scars to the man that he had sworn to protect.

"Let's continue, shall we?"

Twisting his hand into her hair, he jerked back on her head. "Stop acting so lovingly. I'm still sore over that slap, you know," he seethed, "so you're not going to mount a pair of wings and soar out of this."

Throwing her onto the ground in a heap, he deftly swung his boot into her side, gloating at the whimper that issued from her little mouth.

"Since you appear so indisposed, I think I'll carry on with the punishment myself."

Wheeling around, his hand rose, the handle of the eager whip gleaming in the firelight. With a light flick of his wrist, the sharp tip came slicing down.

"NO!"

A blur of white and russet shot forward, stretching across the scar-spattered flesh in front. Chuckling, Marik tipped his fingers. With a dissatisfied screech, the whip swerved.

Andromeda's muscles tensed, a gasp rising up in her throat at the contemptuous tickle upon her back. The room filled with reverberating laughter again as the Hunters mused at her dramatic reaction. Pushing herself back up, Andromeda felt the scarlet dancing in her cheeks, turning them into two perfect lava pools.

Her mind whirled in a daze as she felt the cold kiss of the air upon her back. Mournfully, her fingers explored the gap, tracing the horizontal rip on her shirt. The strap of her undergarment laid crippled, by a long gash, too, though it still ardently clung around her chest. A tiny strip of her back tingled, from rib to rib, as if needles were dancing on her skin. Suddenly, smooth, hot skin touched her back, striking the exposed flesh with a practiced pressure and whirl. Closing her eyes, she fought down the butterflies squealing in her stomach as the familiar lavender-myrrh scent entranced her nostrils, an exotic mirage from the Egyptian deserts. Goosebumps trampled the smooth battlefields of her skin, nerves unable to stem the pleasure pouring through her veins from the stroke of Marik's fingers.

"Stop…please…now…you madman…"

obediently, he withdrew, fluffing up her hair instead. Gradually, she sank down like a melting ice cream sundae left out on the summer sidewalk. She felt unnervingly cold without his touch, as if a sliver of an icicle was sliding down her shirt. Ousting that from her head, she reeled up an image of Yami instead, that time when they were watching Kaiba trying to dance and being jostled by the crowd.

Marik avoided her downcast eyes with obvious ease, looking to Rishid instead. "Take Derek and bandage him" he commanded, tone dripping with sarcastic mercy. Sweeping a bow rishid walked up, unlocked the shackles on the half-lifeless Academ brother with a click of keys and chains, loaded up the quasi-corpse onto his shoulder, and slithered out the door.

A minute tiptoed past, afraid to break the silence tightening the drawstrings of the atmosphere. Andromeda let out a snivel, hands still clenched around air. Her eyes started blankly out from behind the curtain of her fine hair. Breathing thinning to a virtual standstill, she ran a trembling hand through the brown thicket crowding the back of her head.

"I hate you."

Marik shook his head, periwinkle eyes studying her constantly moving hand. "What?"

She turned like a haunted ragdoll, a sinister smile plaguing her usually pleasant features.

"I hate you."

Widening his eyes, Marik opened his arms, spinning around and looking with pretend disbelief etched across his cheeks. A nervous, then boisterous guffaw overcame Rare Hunters.

"She hates me, she says! She hates me! What an unexpected turn of events!" Smiling at the deep throttle of the men's voices resonating across the chamber, the blond Ishtar twirled his Millennium Rod. Cupping Andromeda's face in one hand, he cooed into her ear, warm breath prickling her nerves. "Aww, I hate you too, my turtledove."

Smoke swirling endlessly across the windowpane of her eyes, Andromeda allowed her sheer hatred to burn, nourished by the sneer marring the howling Ishtar's sculpted features. Before her logic could scream "halt," her fist had flown over her shoulder and landed right below his belt.

Like a world-class symphonic orchestra, the medley of high and low laughter ceased, dangling precariously over an invisible precipice. Marik's tanned face changed as the soil does during a blizzard. Layer by layer, the red of life drained and his lilac eyes crinkled over and hardened glistening metallically. Half keeling over, he grasped his knees, arms trembling with a symphony of agony and fury. Finally, his lips opened, hissed words leaping through the barrier of his grinding teeth.

"You…impotent…truculent…IEW-SET!"

Cursing in Egyyptian, Marik swung one hand, its back catching Andromeda on the ear and sending her flying like a cannonball halfway across the chamber. With a muffled thud, her shoulder dug into the unconscious stones. Flopping onto her back, she laid still, eyes picking out a spider crawling upside down across the ceiling. She heard Marik shout something in the distance as her vision filled with a flash of a rainbow.

Then, she fell away.

"Andry…:

Curled in the simple white bed, Derek swung a wilted fist as Rishid gently rolled his patient over onto his stomach, flattening him out to examine the wound. Sighing, he dug into the inner pocket of his robe, fingers closing decisively around the item that he had taken without permission from his step brother's chamber. Prying open the papyrus-woven lid, he scooped out some of the throbbing lotion.

"Lie still, Academ," he muttered, watching the boy convulse in delirium as the balm sank into his wounds. Glowing and reaching out with butter tentacles like a giant fungus, it crawled along, connecting cuts and zipping his flushed together, microscopic surgeons at their best.

"What's this?" Derek muttered, face buried in his pillow.

Rishid remained quiet, eyes regarding the one thing that could have saved his precious little brother's sanity—and prevented that dark side from emerging at all. But then he would have had to stay in those tombs…he'll never get used to liking that, Rishid argued, balancing out the outcomes.

Derek turned his head, relief softening his callousing features. "It's healing me. My back doesn't hurt any more."

Looking down at his moistened fingers, Rishid closed the box, hiding it back within the depths of his robe.

"This, Academ, is angel's tears."

Marik, mouth hanging wide open: Ouch. A whip?!

MM: Hey, better than letting you murder them!

Marik, walking over to hug MM: Oh. Thanks

MM: Errr, Marik, you're jabbing a dagger into my/our back(s).

Marik: I know.

MM:………….just when I/we thought that things were getting brighter!!! Seneb-ti till next time!