SC: Whoo! I'm still riding the high wave from that last chapter. It's got me all goose-bump-y! Anyway, I had an unanticipated Reader reaction to that last chapter (more like Reader rage! Some of you guys got mad!). I didn't expect such a turnout. I wanted such a turnout, but I didn't expect it.
A note before we move on: I am well aware of how to spell Slypher. I know it is spelled Slifer in the English anime/on the card (I have the card, darn it). However, I have my reasons why I spell it this way: one, his real name is Osiris, so in technicality Slifer is wrong too; two, there is no way in bloody Hades that I'm about to honor the guy whom helped to ruin the YGO dub by typing his last name every sentence; and three, the spelling Slypher just looks more god-like and mighty. Seriously, look at them! Slifer, Slypher. Slifer, Slypher. It just looks better spelled Slypher! (At least to me…)
Attention! This chapter and the next two or three chapters do not follow the game plot. We are diverging from the game so that I can wrap up this bit of plot. After everything here is settled, we'll go back to the game plot.
I just hope I don't get my head chewed off before then…
ThunderstrokeBetween two gentle hills swathed in rippling grass nestled a small village. The houses were made of wood and straw, held together with mud or bits of rope. They lined the only road through town and had many awnings so their inhabitants could set up shop and sell their wares to whomever happened to travel through. A hundred people visiting the village at one time would be a grace. It was quiet here, only occasionally disrupted by they braying of sheep or the laughter of a gaggle of young children chasing each other through the street.
At the crown of the tallest hill was a huge tree, its boughs as thick as a man's torso. It had long since died, leaving only its hard, dried up trunk and branches, and yet the villagers had never cut it down. The trees around it had been cleared away, but that one remained to serve as a reminder of their past. It was legend amongst them that the tree was the marker for their town, the reason their ancestors had chosen this place to settle down. Many believed that it was guarding the village from evil, as disease and famine had never plagued them in all the years it had stood. It had a plethora of names, from "Our Watchful Protector" to "That Ol' Tree." Celebrations were often held at its base, and to many children climbing its towering limbs was a badge of true greatness.
Soon the sky began to darken over the small village. The farmers moved their sheep into their sheds; the shopkeepers took their wares inside. Life in this village did not prolong much after darkness. Candles in the windows were blown out no more than an hour after the sun had set, and then all was frozen in the night. In the silvery moonlight the image seemed unreal, a flat, too-still world drawn in strokes of quicksilver.
Thick clouds rolled over the moon and blotted out its silver light. The stars in turn winked out as the ashen clouds continued to fill the sky. These clouds looked heavy with rain, yet were traveling so quickly it seemed they would pass by before letting loose their load of water. Once there was no more sky, the clouds halted. They solidified the heavens and became a seal against all light. Thunder rumbled weakly overhead, waiting.
In the darkness the old tree on the hill was a towering tangle of twisted iron, creaking and groaning with the night wind that had arisen. The thunder stirred more anxiously now. Suddenly a bolt of red lightning lanced downward from the solid clouds and struck the tree. A deafening crack sounded as several smaller limbs snapped off from the force and fell to the ground. What remained of the tree began to burn at the ends of its branches. In the center of this wreath of flame, something stirred.
"Ah, yes. I remember this place." Eyes aglow from the growing fire studied the distant village in thought. "The mortals sojourning here during my reign rejoiced upon my banishment and settled permanently. They celebrated, blasphemed my name, and wished all forms of torture and ridicule upon me."
By now the tree was thoroughly burning, choking the air with smoke. Someone down in the village must have awakened with the sound because there came a cry of "Fire! Our Guardian is on fire!" People were rushing out of their homes and running to the top of the hill, carrying buckets of water or sand.
"Torture and ridicule, entities well acquainted with me. I watched these mortals from my prison in heaven, surveyed as they replaced their thoughts of malcontent with those of happiness and duty. They lived on, forgetting that they had once defiled my name and made a mockery of my power, until not one soul remembered my existence in times past. I cursed them then, for their naïveté." Lips curled back to reveal glistening fangs. "I now invoke my curse."
The villager at the head of the rush reached the top and stared up at the tree in disbelief. He couldn't believe it; the tree that had been here as long as he'd lived was now burning away… He then saw something, an outline, distorted by the smoke and embers.
"There's something there!" he cried to the others as they reached the top of the hill. They looked and saw the same shape he did standing on one of the branches. A slight wind shifted the smoke and a pair of eyes became visible. "It's a person!"
As soon as he said it, he realized that those eyes were an unholy yellow, unwavering, brighter than the fire on the tree and inexplicably more terrifying. A rattling screech came from the thing in the tree, a sound distinctly inhuman, accompanied by just as inhuman a voice:
"Nay, mortal, a God!" it shrieked, and dove upon him.
Everything swirled; the earth itself rocked back and forth beneath her like the deck of a ship cast in a storm. Nothing had a solid footing on her: time, space, her thoughts… not even her heart could keep still as Téa listened to the tale of Yugi's fate. Half the time she was so numb to it all that she would blank on whoever was speaking and he would have to repeat himself. She tried her best to understand it all, and yet all the while her heart was miles away, crying, screaming out a thousand Why?s.
Why? Why had Yugi done it? What in a thousand worlds could have driven him so far from himself and so deeply into such evil? Téa couldn't bring herself to comprehend an answer.
Tristan, still the least gripped by sorrow (though closer to it after a second encounter), drew their attention. He reminded them that the longer they stayed here inert, the more time Slypher would have to do who knows what. The god had proclaimed his desire for destruction previously. They knew he would not wait to enact it. So far, it was unclear to them how much power he possessed while in Yugi's body, but he was undoubtedly only going to get stronger. Already he proved he could command lightning. Who knew what other forces would bend to his will? If they waited, their chances of saving Yugi would diminish. On this they all immediately agreed.
How the strands of friendship, passive in times of peace, do tighten in the throes of darkness.
The four of them could not do anything without Mai, Fizdis, and Shimon. The first task was to reunite with them. They too would be needed in the effort to recover Yugi's heart.
The first man had been felled easily, claws thrust cleanly through his gasping throat. Pausing for the slightest of moments, hands still submerged in the man, Slypher relished in the feeling of blood against his scales. So long, so excruciatingly long had it been since his last killing, since the last time he could so freely strike as he wished. A rough gurgling sound came from the dead man's open mouth as frothy blood bubbled up from within.
Clear of the smoke and fire, Slypher's form could be seen, spikes, fangs, claws all gleaming red. The other villagers were struck with horror. "A demon!" Not one of them had ever seen such a terrible creature, yet all at once they knew: such was a creature borne from Hell.
One of them, brave soul, stepped forward. "You have destroyed our Guardian! You have destroyed that which protected us from evil, and now you have come to unleash all it has shielded us from! We will not stand for that!" He hurled the water in the bucket he held at Slypher and then charged outright.
The water came, and yet Slypher simply bent, moved so lithely that not one droplet met scale. Just as effortlessly his tail came around to the front. The charging man screeched to a halt to have the point of the blade press against his throat.
"You are right; you will not stand." The blade drove through and created a glorious fountain of blood. "None may stand beneath the will of God!"
There were several loud gasps and screams as Slypher yanked his tail out forcefully, thus severing the man's head. None of the villagers could move. They were all paralyzed, enraptured by fear and those unholy auric eyes. "As your ancestors condemned me to an eternity of agony," Slypher spoke in a voice more forceful than the roaring flames behind him, "so shall I condemn thee to the fire and ice of Hades!"
Blood. The Romans had less of it on their swords than did the claws and tail of that hatred incarnate. The song of a thousand men's blades whirling in battle sings quieter than did his tail that night. His whole effort, his whole essence surged forth into every killing, every single soul he slew. Each lasted only a few seconds, yet each was a few seconds of the heaven he had been so denied. Elderly, slashed down by his tail. Young, screaming as he tore them open and killed from the inside. Those that tried to flee, feeling the tender snap of their backs and neck. He omitted not one soul, and he made sure each was rendered into an unrecognizable mangled mess. These were no longer the bodies of men. They were shreds of flesh, splinters of bone, and blobs of internal matter, all basted with that sweet red wine.
As the guardian tree burned away into the night Slypher relished in all his creation. Everywhere death, smoke, and blood. Thunder above proclaimed the victory of God in a sickening chorus. He sat, and in the midst of those he killed he licked himself. He licked the blood from his hands and claws. He licked every last drop from his tail. When all was done he tipped his head back and laughed.
As the four of them raced to find Mai, Fizdis, and Shimon again, the sky rattled with thunder. It shook them in the air even as they flew. There were no clouds in the sky.
It was a message meant for them. The thunder sang of murder. Slypher had already killed. He was already unleashing his thousand-year rage upon the world, and barely an hour had passed. They quickened their pace. Their chance stretched thinner, and their bonds grew tighter.
The thunder sounded in another place. Here, to the southwest, another town quivered down to its foundations. The night rocked, but no one fretted the sound. Those out and about looked up at the sky at the sound but did not think anything of it. This was a city forged of stone. It thrived on business and trade. People strode up and down the streets all night, using their time off from work to chat with friends and stop by the local pubs. Dark clouds were coming: another storm no doubt. After all, it was the rainy season. They shrugged it off with the intention to wait it out with a few rounds of ale.
The tallest building in town was an old church with a steeple that doubled as a clock tower. The hands chimed midnight, the witching hour. A twisted bolt of red lightning struck the cross atop the tower, yet because no thunder heralded its arrival it went unnoticed in the town below. Leaning on the cross with an air of half-amusement Slypher swept his mirror gaze across the endless blocks of stone below.
"A civilization of stone." The faltering light of the stars darkened on his reflective eyes. Clouds had almost completely covered the town. Slypher's brow creased the slightest bit. "Stone," he repeated, "a labyrinth… Impossible, to lure all these souls to my wrath without effort. Most assuredly the fleetest souls, in cowardice worthy of their ancestor's descendants, would drive away their brethren souls nearby… a hunt, thus." A sliver of fang caught the last star's gleam. "A savor though it is."
The god clad in mortal flesh stood fully. "Many souls cling together here. Here may be a place that I can use to my advantage…" His tail curled up behind him, poised like a scorpion's. The wind swayed through his stolen locks for a moment before he drove the point of his tail into his own shoulder. The blade sank into his flesh, blood dripping from the gash. Slypher did not flinch. He removed the blade and repeated the action to the second shoulder. He stood unfazed as rivers of crimson splattered on the roof and stained the whitewashed cross. With a wicked keenness he peeled off two scales from the back of his hand, then planted one each into the open wounds. He held for a moment thus, reveling in the pouring blood, its scent invigorating him. After some moments had passed a bolt came down to him, struck him, and revitalized him. The wounds closed up as though they had never been.
Slypher inhaled the blood-tainted air. It was a choice prelude to lightning.
In the streets below a young couple held hands as they traipsed through town. They laughed lightly and spoke words of love to each other in soft voices. As they passed an alleyway the young woman tugged on the arm of her paramour and pointed into the darkness. She thought she had seen something within its depths. Not one to leave his love frightened the young man stepped broadly into the alley. The young woman followed uneasily just behind.
After finding nothing the young man turned back to reassure his love. He found her wound inseparably beneath crimson coils and diamond needles. "A fine choice for the first death…" the demon holding her hissed. The young man had no time to cry out as the demon pierced her throat with its fangs. It was only a sheer instant before a blade plunged through his head.
Two souls dead, out of the hundreds that lived within the stone labyrinth. Slypher was in no mood to be patient with his wrath and hunt out each soul, yet revealing himself would only scatter them, as he had already assessed. This did not trouble the God of Heaven, however. The rumbling clouds overhead assured him that his third option awaited his slightest command. He leapt straight up and landed on all fours on the nearest roof.
"Let us now see how the mortals will react to the sky's anger…"
The sky opened itself to his will. It became an extension of himself, an entity that served him so acutely that not one breath existed between his thought and its action. He accepted the heavens' servitude and raised his hand, a single clawed finger poised above the unsuspecting town. A flick of his wrist sealed the town to his ordinance. Eight pillars of red lightning, to each of the directions of the earth, struck in a ring around the town's perimeter. Rather than dissipate soon after, they held in place, towering columns of electricity that chained the earth to the sky. They would hold the mortals within their boundaries for their master's purposes.
"Now that they cannot flee, they are but prey." Slypher's eyes sparkled with the crackling red light. Already people on the streets below were panicking at the sight of the lightning and convoluted sky. He watched them point at the sky and scramble about with divertisement set into the angles of his face. Many of them fled inside nearby buildings to escape the vengeful "storm."
Slypher's tail twisted and waved behind him, filled with a restless excitement. "They believe a stone edifice to be their savior… Albeit veracity as a defense to my onslaught, iwis it is nothing against my vengeance…" His whole body began crackling with red sparks. With eyes ablaze, he let loose a screech above the town and released the heavens.
SH-KRASH!
A fork came down upon one of the buildings. The force blew the structure apart, glass and stone flying outward in all directions. The people that had been inside were crushed under debris or incinerated, and others in the streets surrounding it crumpled as missiles of rock struck them in the head or chest. The screams that arose and the jolt in the air galvanized Slypher even more.
"Hell begins…" he hissed.
He leapt from the rooftop and landed in the street. He spied a man nearby, bleeding from his head and moaning. Slypher vaporized him with lightning summoned from his hand. Seconds later half a dozen bolts came down and destroyed the nearest buildings. More screams filled the air.
This continued. Slypher unleashed electricity to drive the people into the open and then laid waste to them with claws and tail. Each soul slain increased his own power. He could feel it growing steadily as the number he killed climbed higher. The seeds he had sown slurped up the energy ravenously. Already their roots had burrowed deep into his shoulders. A hundred souls each they required. Once he gave them this they would bloom like marvelous flowers.
Slypher came upon the church. Inside dozens of people huddled together in terror of what preyed outside. He smirked his fanged smirk and fired a blast of lightning from his tail. Unlike the other buildings in town the church was made of mostly wood. It exploded in an instant; everything that didn't burn up immediately was set ablaze. The roof, a mass of flames, collapsed on its occupants. Slypher felt their deaths and swelled. Thirty-nine souls killed with one shot. He was close now, and could feel his back tingling.
He watched the wreckage burn for a while. The haunting dance of orange fire and sparks of red electricity atop splintered black fields played before him. Combined these things pushed him to muse over his new reality. Once before, a thousand years ago, in his prior reign, these things had been his constant. The lightning was his eternal servant. Fire arose wherever the lightning appeared, destroying alongside it. Together they raged with him against all those that would defy him. Now, even after all these centuries, they were still by his side.
This reign would be different, thought Slypher, his nostalgia fading away and returning to his smooth arrogance. Not only had he gained his freedom, but also those that had sealed him away so long ago were long dead. He sneered at their memory, those mages that had driven him from the earth. The act in itself had been agonizing enough, let alone the torture he had endured in the prison they drove him to. He smirked to himself, finally turning away from the blaze. No, that would be a worry to him no longer. Now that he was of mortal flesh, he couldn't be banished from the mortal plane.
Speaking of mortal flesh… "Despite my divinity, this body is still mortal… It is still subject to all of its mortal conventions." For some time now Slypher had felt something odd centered on his stomach. "What is this state called? Ah, yes… hunger. A taxing mortal need… Soon I will make this body immune to such pointless demands. For now, however, it can be dealt with, and at this time it hinders me not…"
He felt several more surges of power within. Some of the people had tried to run from the city, only to have great arms break away from the pillars and smother them.
So far in his killing, Slypher had gone easily on his prey, ending their lives quickly. Now though a wicked idea was in his head, a way to kill two birds with one stone. Screeching, he jumped up and leapt across the remaining rooftops.
A young girl, shy of twelve, grasped her father's hand. "Father!"
"Shh, my girl, it's all right, it's all right," the father whispered back, stroked the top of her sandy head.
"My father, why have the gods sent us this wrath? What sins have we committed?"
He pulled her through the streets quickly. "Evil appears where it is least deserved, my daughter." He glanced at the roaring flames where the church had once stood as they ran past it. His wife and two sons had gone there for safety. He had stayed behind to pull his only daughter free from the stone that had been their home. His throat tightened but he continued to run.
"Evil is naught but a double-edged sword. What you say strikes you was stricken by you first."
"What?" The father heard the voice but had no time to respond as something heavy slammed into him. He fell to the cobbled street, his forehead smacking it hard. He just heard his daughter scream before blacking out.
The sight of a blood-colored creature standing before her immediately silenced the girl's scream. It had yellow eyes like an animal's that bore into her obsessively. Its tail lashed the air as though it were its own being, like a snake eager to share in the creature it coexisted with's killings. It stood on bandy legs radiating an aura of dense heat.
"A demon," she breathed, "sent by the gods… Tell me, why did the gods send you to punish us so?" she asked of the creature bravely.
"Naïve girl," it hissed in reply, "I am God."
She could not move as it seized her. Sparks danced around its frame and jumped to her. The static burned her arms and legs with a fire unlike anything she had ever felt. It was not just a fire of pain. It was the fire of a hatred that had smoldered for aeons. Soon the sparks did their job: they paralyzed her, leaving her immobile in the demon's grasp.
Slypher grasped the girl tightly. He didn't care that his claws dug into her shoulders and made her bleed. Yes, this girl seemed a fit enough choice. She would take care of his mortal body and its conventions. Though she couldn't move, her eyes were still open, and they widened in horror as Slypher bent down and lowered his teeth to her thigh. Ivory fangs traced faint lines against her skin.
Slypher bit down.
Through her paralysis the girl screamed. Blood pooled into Slypher's mouth and he swallowed. The taste was even more luscious than he had remembered. Holding her flesh between his teeth he wrenched his head back. A great chunk tore from her thigh; its shredded ends flung droplets of blood everywhere. The girl howled, tears poured from her eyes, and yet she could not move an inch from the demon's claws.
Slypher swallowed and licked his fangs freely. "How arresting," he thought aloud. "Perhaps 'hunger' is not so useless a thing…" Blood was filling up the wound he had created and Slypher bent to lap it up. He tasted iron as the warm liquid drained down his throat. He enjoyed its flavor, as it was not unlike the coppery scent that filled the air each time one of his lightning bolts struck. Soon the flow of blood slowed. Slypher remedied that by ripping off another piece of meat. Again the girl howled but heaven was deaf to her.
The father lying on the street stirred. He groaned as the pain in his head stabbed at his brain again and again. He laid there immobile, trying to remember what had happened. Then he heard his daughter's scream. With a speed he should not have had in his state, he rolled over quickly – and saw the most horrifying thing in his life. Nothing. Nothing in the world was as frightening to him as this. He would rather see her dead and at peace than alive while a monster devoured her.
"Demon!" he roared. "Spawn of Hell!" Slypher turned to look over his shoulder. Blood dripped from his mouth and the piece of flesh he held in his teeth. The father felt a wave of nausea overtake him along with trembling legs. "You destroy everything in your path, man or building! You have stolen the lives of those I love tonight! You slowly take the life of my daughter while I stand here! But I will not let you steal her soul by tormenting her with a death such as this!"
Slypher chewed openly and swallowed before answering. "Her soul I have no interest in," he snarled, "but yours can be put to my use."
"Father, run!" screamed the girl, but it was too late: without so much as moving from where he stood Slypher lashed his tail across the man and left a gash from his neck to his thigh. He gurgled up blood and pitched backwards. A lake of crimson formed around him.
Slypher felt a rush in his power. "Yes, yes!" That had been the two hundredth soul. The two scales he had planted within himself were finally ready to emerge. Slypher pulled back from the girl and let her drop to the ground. She watched with wide eyes as his back drew into an arch. His shoulder blades bulged and shifted as though there were something alive inside fighting to get out. Then without warning there came a sickening ripping sound: the ripping of flesh. In a shower of blood a pair of wings burst from his shoulders, unfurling into the tainted night air. Like bat's wings they were crimson leather stretched across pointed bone. Rivulets of blood traced crisscrossed paths across new scales and dripped onto the stone below. As a dog shakes excess water from its coat, so did he remove the blood from his wings. They hung from his shoulder blades, half-open and limp.
Slypher eyed them with a frown. "So. They are not quite ready for flight. They will require more souls to develop the muscle structures necessary." He turned back to look at the girl lying helpless on the street. "Yet that is easily accomplished…"
The night fell into blackness. The only light came from yellow hollows and the glint of pearled fangs.
"You need to move faster," said Mai.
"Like this?"
"No, faster!" she yelled as Fizdis tried to dodge her Harpie's swift kicks. To occupy their time while waiting for Yugi and the others to return, Mai was teaching Fizdis some battle techniques. It was already dark, but she wasn't sleepy. She couldn't afford to be. Night was when Scott's army was most likely to swoop in from the rear. Yugi had trusted her to be a defense, and she wasn't about to let him down. Sure, it was as boring as a day when the mall was closed, but for now she could tolerate standing around and waiting. Though, she promised herself to make Yugi put her on the front lines next time. She was itching for a good fight to show up all these cocky boys, mainly Joey. Oh, how delightful Joey's face would be when she destroyed more enemy monsters than he did… She couldn't wait. For now, though, she was satisfied with watching Fizdis and Uraby combat her Harpie Lady. Uraby ran quickly, trying to dodge and strike simultaneously, but he couldn't compete with his winged opponent.
"Stop!" called Fizdis. Uraby skidded to a halt, just before the Harpie dove. She swooped but missed, and in that time Uraby rammed his head into her.
"Good job!" Mai said with a smile.
"You are improving," said Shimon, beaming.
Mai nodded. "I'll bet next time you'll land a hit on her before she has a chance to even move!" Honestly, she was proud of Fizdis. She was really starting to get the hang of combat. Before she had been uneasy, more reaction than proaction. Now there was a glimmer in her eyes that arose with her success and made her shine with confidence.
Just then, a ground-shaking roll of thunder filled the air. Fizdis let out an "Eep!" and clung to Uraby's neck. All three resistance members looked up at the sky. Even the stars seemed to shudder at the sound.
"What was that?" asked Fizdis.
"Mai!" They turned and saw Red-Eyes Black Dragon flying straight for them. Atop it, Joey's vibrant blonde hair flared in the wind. Written all over his face, filling in the sound of his words, was panic.
"Joey!" Mai blurted. "What on Earth are you doing here?"
"We have no time," he said. "Get on Curse of Dragon now. We're leaving."
"What's going on? Tell me!"
"We have no time." The rigidity in his voice scared her so much that she did it without question. Red-Eyes picked Fizdis up by the back of her robe and practically threw her onto Curse of Dragon's back. Then it took off immediately, flying with all the speed it had before it landed. Curse of Dragon and Kaiser Dragon were forced to flap frantically to catch up.
Mai steered her dragon to fly next to Red-Eyes. "Joey! What is going on?" she demanded.
He wouldn't look her in the eye. "Did you hear his thunder?"
"We heard thunder, but his? Whose?"
"Where did it come from?"
"Joey, it's dark! How do you expect me to know–?"
"Where?"
"Master Joey, I believe it came from the west," Shimon cut in.
Joey still didn't look at any of them. "Good. That's where we're going." Red-Eyes let out a roar deep in his throat. He swooped suddenly out of his path, heading now to the west.
By now, Mai was angry. "Joey, what are we doing? Tell me! Where are the others?"
He muttered to himself. "The west. Good. He hasn't moved…"
"Are you listening to me?" Mai huffed. "Where are Téa, Tristan, and Ryou? What about Yugi? Why did you leave him?"
Joey finally looked at her, and she saw in his eyes something hollow, empty… was it despair?
She looked lower. Around his neck were two dark purple stones, as dull as ordinary rocks. They hung like dead weights against his chest. She took in a sharp breath.
"Those are Yugi's…"
She looked back up at Joey's face. His expression only verified her perceptions. "Something's happened to him." Joey averted his gaze, confirming her statement without speaking a single word. Mai felt an unexplainable wave come over her. "It can't be…"
"Something happened to Yugi?" exclaimed Fizdis. If her immediate concern for him hadn't presided she would have been stunned into silence. "Is he all right? Is he hurt?"
"He's… I… I can't answer that," murmured Joey, his eyes fixed onto Red-Eyes's back.
Mai heard his faint words and took them the worst way possible. "You can't mean that he's dea–"
"No!" Joey countered in a voice not his own. Mai shut up and watched as he diminished until he was hardly there at all. "But death might be better."
They flew forever westward, until into their sights came a hunkering dark mass. A cloud of black smoke suffocated the earth. It smeared the air and stole the breath of all those viewing it. As they neared they saw sharp protrusions of stone scattered like gravestones across the area.
"It… It's a city!" blurted Fizdis.
"It's been completely destroyed." Mai glanced fretfully again at Joey. By what?
They landed at the fringes of the ruined city. Beneath their feet the soil was singed black. As they stepped carefully into the city they passed over a trench carved forcefully around it like a moat, its bottom blackened and cracked with heat. The ground here radiated warmth to them. It had been created recently.
Destruction permeated the air they breathed. The stone buildings had been so destroyed that the ground lay barren where they stood and the once-clear streets were filled with rubble. Even though they searched in earnest, the resistance couldn't find a building still intact. Everything had been decimated.
"Look at this place…" breathed Mai, her words like the spectral mist now rolling in from the east.
"Joey!" called a voice. Everyone started and turned to see the owner. It was Ryou, his brilliant hair dulled to pewter in the darkened atmosphere. Beside him were Tristan and Téa, the latter on Seiyaryu's back. Even though there was still a fair distance between them Mai could see a lifeless look in Seiyaryu's eyes. Sparkling sapphire, now a dull navy color, looked on the world listlessly. Its angular features curved away into sadness. Even the warm pink of its scales had grayed along with the rest. As it paced slowly towards her Mai couldn't help but think of a wilted rose swaying in a winter wind.
Fizdis rushed over to them, eager to reunite with them and perhaps work out of them the news Joey couldn't say, but when she saw their expressions she herself could say nothing. They were looking at the razed town as though their very hearts were the things so defiled.
Téa's eyes flickered with a dozen unreadable emotions at once. "Oh…" Tears began welling up against desolate sapphires. "Yugi…"
"We were too late to stop him," Ryou whispered as water threatened to fill his eyes as well.
Mai looked around at all of them and was flabbergasted. "Stop him?" she asked. "You can't mean that Yugi did this, do you?"
There was silence, and in that silence they heard a lone note waver on the smoldering air like a bird's lamenting peep after a forest fire. "Help…"
Everyone stiffened. "Did you hear that?" asked Tristan.
"It came from over here!" Joey was already bounding off in the direction of the sound. He moved as quickly as he could over the jagged stones and soon came upon a slightly more open area. Off to the left, half buried by debris, a young girl lied semi-conscious with thin trails of blood etched onto her face.
"Holy crap! It's a girl!" he cried over his shoulder. "She's hurt!" Joey turned back to the girl and knelt beside her. "Are you okay?"
The girl's eyelids sagged over glazed eyes. "My father," she murmured, her hand reaching weakly for something in the distance. Joey followed her arm and saw a corpse soaking in a thick pool of blood. He blanched. The man was dead, and yet the girl kept calling out for him. "Father, papa… Don't be so far away… Come back…"
The others arrived and were shocked to see the slaughtered man. Fizdis swayed on her feet and clutched onto the nearest thing, which was Ryou. She gripped his jacket and pressed her eyes to his shoulder so she couldn't see. He patted her arm gently even though he himself felt like doing much the same thing.
"Tristan, help me get this off of her," said Joey, motioning to the pile of rocks that covered her from the waist down. While the two of them set to work grunting and heaving the stones off of her, Téa took up Joey's spot kneeling at the girl's side.
"Don't worry," she soothed. "You're going to be okay. We're going to help you." She said these things, and yet her dimmed eyes mirrored the state of her heart. This poor girl – caught up in the destruction, a part of it against her own will – was like Yugi. Téa saw what Slypher had done to the town. She saw the man he had killed. She knew there were countless others like him. All of this done by Yugi's hands, but not his heart. What little remained of her fractured spirit despaired over such fates both he and this girl had been dealt.
The girl's eyes fluttered and swiveled unseeingly up to her. "No…" she mumbled. "I am going to die… The gods have willed it…"
"You're not gonna' die!" countered Joey as he and Tristan lifted another rock. "I don't care what the hell the gods say! We ain't gonna' let it happen!"
"The god that came to destroy us did so because it is his divine judgment. It is our fate to die."
"The hell that demon's a god!" roared Joey. He couldn't believe the things this girl was saying. She was so young, and yet she accepted her predestined death as would a man at the end of his days. "There is no 'divine judgment' about any of this! He just wants to kill everyone!" He heaved away the last rock, and choked on what was revealed beneath.
A great puddle of blood greeted his eyes first, slowly expanding with each drop that spilled from the wound in her thigh. When it hit Joey just what that wound was, he felt himself sicken. Never had he seen an injury bad enough to make him nauseous at the sight of it until he saw her leg. Bone. That was all that was there: an off-white rod stained with red and brown. The skin and muscles around it were gone, peeled away like a banana's soft cover. Below her knee everything was normal, her flesh still intact. Her entire thigh was simply gone. Gristly strands of tendons stuck out from the edges of that empty space. Their twisted ends indicated the force that had been used to rip them in half. Worse yet, Joey now saw, there were incisions on her bone as though something had been scratching at it. He realized with horror what they were.
Teeth marks.
Teeth marks.
"Shit." The word was out of his mouth before Joey had even fully grasped the situation. Only something with powerful teeth could leave such marks on bone, and he knew what. He could visualize in his mind with gruesome clarity the inch-long fangs carving them as they gnawed on helpless prey.
Téa's hand instantly covered her mouth. "Oh my God–!"
"Shit, shit, shit!" Joey swore again. "Damn him! Damn that infernal demon! Damn that no good demon Slypher!" (1)
"Slypher?" Mai echoed, shock evident in her eyes. "Slypher the Sky Dragon? The God? What does he have anything to do with anything?" When no one made to answer she moved and stood demandingly in front of Joey. "I want to know what's going on, Joey. I want to know what happened to Yugi, what happened to this town, and why you won't tell me about it."
Joey looked at her, defeated. His throat worked hard to force out his next words: "Mai. I know I should've told you what happened first thing, but I just couldn't…
"I'll keep a long story short. We faced Scott in the town, just like we planned. After a… turn of events… Yugi summoned Slypher." He held up his hand to stop Mai from exclaiming in surprise. "And afterwards, Slypher decided he didn't want to go back…"
"He wanted revenge on the continent," said Ryou. "He needed a means to stay here so he wouldn't have to go back to heaven."
"And now he's using Yugi to destroy everything…" Téa finished sadly.
Everyone looked down at the young girl. She was dead.
"He's using Lord Yugi? By what means?" asked Shimon.
"The worst one possible," Joey answered. "Slypher's possessed him and is using his body to kill."
Another silence gripped them. Those just hearing the truth were shocked, and those who already knew it were more deeply moved by sadness.
Fizdis was the first of them to speak. "We must get him back!"
"We all want him back," said Ryou softly. "But after seeing this," deep eyes flickered across the city ruins, "it almost seems imposs–"
"No. Don't even say that." Joey's eyes were as bitingly bitter as his words. "It ain't impossible because we have to do it. Not just because we want to… We have to get him back to save the continent from Slypher. We have to get him back to stop Slypher from killing thousands of people. We have to getYugi back to save him from being controlled by a demon."
The blonde's speech lifted the hearts of those around him up from the dark waters of hopelessness they had been sinking into. Re-ignited sparks of determination burned in their eyes just as the sun was cresting the horizon. New light shining on the town dispersed the tainted haze that had constricted the air. As they breathed in the new dawn, Joey spoke again to complete their ties:
"It will take all of us to take on Slypher, but we won't stop until we do."
(One) – This sentence (the whole paragraph even) made me die. You may think it strange, but I have this major issue with curse words. I hate them. I refuse to say them. I go ahead and put them in my stories to be realistic (since no one but me screams "Fishcake!" in stressful situations), but this is the first time I've ever used the s-word in spoken, written, or typed English. It killed me, but I thought it was the only way to capture the moment.
SC: WARLHAAGGLH! I'm so sorry. I meant to get this finished faster. I really did. The end-of-the-school-year blah caught me, though. I'm sorry… Plus, this chapter annoyed the crud out of me because it doesn't sound like my style at all. I know I can't really be the judge, but when I look at this chapter it just doesn't seem to follow the previous chapters at all. Argh.
I'll be writing like heck now, though. From the day I post this chapter, school for me ends the next day. That means: SUMMER. Anyone who's been here long enough may remember how quickly the chapters came over the summer. Yep.
This chapter was supposed to be a little boring… The next chapter is where the face-off takes place. There'll be some action then. Hopefully I won't ruin it with my awful writing of fight scenes.
Thank you for reading, and please review! I'll need them while I visit New England/Canada so I won't be so homesick!