Hey guys, please excuse the crappy editing. I had a dreadful day.
Chapter 16: The Front Line in Hell
It was what Atemu imagined standing in Hiroshima that day would've been like. The world shook. Light penetrated right through Atemu's eyelids but, passing over him, left him utterly untouched. Nothing could've prepared any of them for the force of the wave. The Seers for their part barely had time to twitch at the sound of Atreyu's booming voice before light vaporised right through the mammoth trolls, the bats, thousands of them shattered and eradicated in a brutal instant where Atreyu, totally uncaring if he destroyed the whole damn nest, unleashed his full fury.
Light consumed everything, burnt the whole world, consuming sound in an inferno and slowly, reluctantly, ebbed.
They stood all of them shaken, even Amar looked queasy, and amazed Yusei padded himself with his hands as Nephele exhaled with relief. The burning light had ripped through them and left their little unit utterly unblemished, untouched, where it had washed away sharp edged gigantic Seers. In the stunned, frozen, silence that immediately followed Atreyu ignored their awed stares.
The inner ring seemed devoid of all life, empty, the clucking, the chirping and rotting humidity swept off the table as an eerie absence of sound rippled over them. The air had cleared with a new lightness as if Atreyu had burnt off the sweaty rancid undercurrent. Morphis paused, parting his lips, to ask if they were alone and then-
In the outer ring shrieking began. The Seers howled. In the nooks and crannies of the inner ring that screaming doubled, rebounding, as more and more Seers stirred from their sleep in the aftershock of the horror and raised the alarm. Suddenly there were dozens of them seeping out of the walls, from every shadow, multiplying by the second till Atemu was sure there were hundreds more of them in the inner ring alone.
"Arms up boys!" Amar ordered.
Atemu hardly had time to think, to breathe, before the Needle was out of its scabbard and in his hand. He was sure it was the Needle that drew Atemu's hand to its hilt rather than the synapses of his own mind because then he was slicing. The Seer horde was upon them as the face of an army in total disarray and he was cutting through them like butter with the glowing sword Atreyu had entrusted to him. It seemed to tug him of its own accord into grand, weightless, sweeping motions as his mind struggled to catch up to his body.
Yusei, Morphis, Drea, Nephele, Amar, Seviticus, Timaeus and Atreyu were shouting spells that rang in his ears. Amar and Seviticus had drawn their Lances. Atreyu bounded, jumped off the head of one Seer to slice off the head of another with the crimson Lance of Lazarus. Timaeus raised his knee to his chest to kick at grovelling goffer like monstrosity which had come out of the earth itself. Yusei was miraculously holding his own. Morphis and Nephele had come back to back. Drea had become vicious.
It was utter discord.
The Needle would not let Atemu stop spinning on his feet, giving him only glances of what was happening beyond his nose as he fended off another unfamiliar creature. Atreyu was murderous with the Lance of Lazarus, gloriously effortless, slicing with one hand and directing tendrils of magic with the other.
The horde separated them across the ballroom like courtyard of the inner ring, seething between them and widening the gap on all sides, yet none of his companions had yet to panic. Spells ruptured, exploded, in flowing tendrils of light. Atemu could feel their strands of magic, their energy, he could feel Seviticus split a Seer bull in two with a spell while Nephele ripped out the heart of a batlike beast with his bare hand in the same quick, flourishing, motion Atemu might use to pluck an apple.
This was not going to be easy. They would be fighting all night at this rate caught in the seemingly endless swell of the nest. Yet Atemu could feel the stamina of his companions, feel their bravery and confidence swelling and ricocheting off each other till it feed together to give them all some netted sense of unity.
Atreyu was shining, his power had swelled angrily and from the corner of his eye Atemu could see the unlucky Seer who brushed Atreyu's hip with its tentacle evaporate into not so much as dust. With Atreyu here they just might win but if they left to find Cassidia would the others cope?
Yusei would. Yusei had found his feet, had taken to this like a fish to water, and as Atemu lunged his sword through another vague alien shape he was aware that Yusei was holding his ground against ten or more with his spells too ferocious to back down. The boy was on the verge of unlocking his Champion potential, it seemed to crash against his inside brutally trying to escape, his signal flaring up and down in intensity. Almost instinctively it seemed Yusie cried:
"SUMMON!" and sweeping his hand across the air seemed to find he suddenly had a heavy silver bow in his hands. Struck by it, bemused, Yusei gave himself no time to ponder and drawing the cord back by his fingers, arrowless, channelled and released so the bow shot a blast of magic through a pack flinging them aside and shattering into the opposing wall. Then the boy didn't seem to stop firing, didn't question it, just moved like he was supposed to.
Atemu was in awe of him. The Needle lengthened and shortened in between his own fingers, thrummed and as Atemu tried to lunge forward suddenly tugged him back like a fish hook in his navel.
"CHARGED ERUPTION!" Atreyu's spell eradicated the wave of Seers before him where Atemu had attempted to rush and exhaling the Specialist tightened his fingers round the Needle which knew better than even he did. "Tem!"
Atreyu had never called him that.
The Faen landed before him and rushing Atemu cut at the beast behind him as Atreyu cut at those behind the Specialist. They came back to back, hitting into each other, and seemingly bound rocked together.
"Like the party?" Atreyu supposed over his shoulder.
"You do this often?" Atemu snorted in a sweep.
"More than you'd think." The Faen cackled tightly. "We need to break away to the Sanctum!"
"I know!" He grumbled. "How do you suggest we do that? In case you didn't notice we have a minor infestation here!"
"Ye of little faith!" Atreyu snorted smashing the twin heads of the trident-esque Lance through the head of a troll. "We-"
An ominous crack snapped overhead.
The Seers shrieked suddenly, silencing Atreyu, great hulking bats beating their bodies against the roof of the domed nest in an attempt to escape. Their masses shook the great archways overhead and unstably propped as they were the great stone mantles began to crumble, groaning, as they tumbled.
Atemu pivoted round to Atreyu as the stone began to fall. Across the way, some twenty metres, Seviticus and Morphis looked to be caught under the shadow of a great pillar, some thirty feet across and some hundred feet long, as fighting off a parry of bottom feeders they were unable to flee. Atmeu watched the horrified look of recognition spark across Morphis' face. Instinctively Atemu lurched to grab Atreyu round the waist and heaved the Faen into his chest, refusing to let Atreyu throw himself to their aid in the seconds between their companions and the impact.
Atreyu screamed blindly, fighting against Atemu, hand outstretched-
Seviticus and Morphis trembled, thrown together, the Seers around them scattering as the grand claws of one of Timaeus' proud beastly paws came to rest around them protectively and flexing his back the dragon let the pillar crash against him and break into monolithic pieces.
"Stunning!" Morphis laughed jovially, moment of terror broken, transfixed by the shape and quality of Timaeus' alternate form as he peaked out from round the talons.
"This is no time for compliments Morph!" Seviticus grunted grasping the Knight by the elbow and, weaving from under Timaeus claws, dragged them to face the latest horde of Seers as the dust settled from the pillars and rumbled the layers of the nest ominously.
"Thank you!" Morphis cried over his shoulder to the Atlantean, sword heaved overhead, lurching into combat to drive his scabbard against the head of some hideous spider woman.
"My boy," Atreyu moaned in Atemu's arms, and hefting the Faen Atemu pulled him further back attempting to get them into a run. The Seers had scattered in the momentary chaos. This was their chance to escape.
"We have to go Trey!" He warned. "The nest is coming out in full force! If we don't go now we might never get to the Queen!"
"R-right!" The Faen struggled, finding his feet and forcing himself to twist in Atemu's arms and grasping the Reaper's hand let them run.
The Seers had come out in their full masses now. What of the rioters Atreyu had destroyed were quickly being replaced by the plethora of Seers forms and types some filling the nest to breaking point. How the others would keep them from breaking free and maintain the levy Atemu was not certain nor concerned. They could do it. He was sure somehow but his mind was too full to think of it. His duty was to take Atreyu to the Queen and his greatest current wonder was how he would safely bring them there with this array, menagerie, of Seers in shapes and colours he had never laid eyes on. Truly they had entered into the bowels of Hell.
Atemu's boots pounded against the stone, darting, diving as Atreyu hugged his side and they tried to clear ground while the Seers were staggering to regroup. Another pillar came tumbling down, a massive obelisk, crashing behind them where Atemu's head had been not twenty seconds previously. The sounds of shouting had not stopped, Atreyu threw spells round them with the same hand he held the Lance in as though firing a laser from its crimson tip, trying to ward off and clear their way as Atemu scrambled. He spotted the staircase, slimy and uneven, up into the levels of the dome which faced into the courtyard and crying out felt himself pound harder to reach it.
He tugged at Atreyu's wrist, the Faen hurried up the first few stairs ahead of him and heaving, panting in an inhale, Atemu followed.
They hit the first long corridor like level which ran the course of the wall of the dome on one side and on the other opened up totally to the courtyard immediately bellow where the fighting continued. Atemu glanced, swinging the Needle as he and Atreyu came against what resistance they found.
Bellow them Nephele was tossed, petite body skidding across the stone, by the imposing fist of a Bull Seer: the same type of masculine creature that had once impersonated Jenzar to attempt an assassination of Atreyu and a brother of the beast which now, centaur like but morphing continuously between monstrous faces, seemed intent on destroying one of their kin. Atemu swung again against his current foe, almost backed over the edge of the ledge above Nephele and holding the Seer off with his sword saw it over his shoulder as he tried to keep his stance without falling.
Struggling onto his elbows the Timer was in pain, clearly beaten down, failing to find his feet on the crumbling stone shaking around him as his head spun. Atemu longed to help, too distracted, as his mind whirred for an appropriate spell. He couldn't run back down, couldn't leave Atreyu now…
"Child!" Amar tarried in from an upper level on the opposite side of the dome, caught in the same dilemma as Atemu, as he forced back another batlike Seer attempting to bite through his armour and rip at his cloak.
"MIRROR FORCE!"
Drea grunted it, seeming to appear out of nowhere in the seething mass of creatures, planting himself on stable footing between Nephele and the charging Bull Seer. The creature hit his force field, contorting, writhing up it as it expanded, Medusa reminiscent, up the sheer defence the Sequester had summoned.
"D-Drea?" Nephele stumbled quaking onto his hands and knees.
"No one-" the Sequester grunted hissing towards the Bull Seer as he poured his energy into the forced field and attempted to push it back from them, "-is allowed to maim you! I'm the only one who's allowed to make you miserable! This hellion is just going to have to take a number!"
"Drea…?" The Timer breathed weakly, arms tightening, resolved as he pushed to force himself stumbling onto his feet and wrapping his arms round the Sequester relieved some of the pressure of the onslaught by giving the other something to lean into. "Let's destroy it!"
"Together then!" The Sequester dismissed sharply. "Ready? One, two-"
"ANNIHILATION!"
Atemu felt himself breath again, kicking at the Seer before him, casting another wary glance over his shoulder to see the Bull Seer explode in a grotesque, gruesome, mess of gunk and limbs. Nephele clung to Drea for a second but as the nearest Seers closed in on them again the Sequester roughly forced the Timer off him and screaming flew back into battle like a harpy.
With that, heart lurching back into his chest, Atemu returned himself fully to the service of Atreyu.
These souls weren't his family in the same way they were Atreyu's but he found he cared deeply for each and every one of them. To lose any of them would be a terrible burden.
"Atemu! Here!" Atreyu hollered, slicing at a Seer as he held open a veined, black, door he had wrenched open from the wall.
Picking up his feet Atemu jogged, darting, and ducking ahead of him the Faen disappeared into the undiscovered passage. As Atemu tumbled through it Atreyu slammed the door shut behind them, Seers beating into it like wild beasts, and turning the Faen ran ahead. Atemu forced his body off his panting hands and knees after him, the Needle glowing radiantly in his hand, Atreyu sparkling ahead enough to fill the dark passage with light.
The floor was uneven, the passage a catacomb prickled with bones that crunched beneath Atemu's feet as his heart rattled in his chest. It twisted, left and right, in sharp corners and driven Atemu found they were running down deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth.
"We must be getting- Ah!" Atreyu shrieked, stumbling back, Atemu running into his back.
The Faen held Atemu back, stiffening, and pressing his mouth to the Faen's earlobe Atemu gasped as his gaze followed Atreyu's light down the dank corridor. Hands, thick to skeletal, stuck from the ceiling, the walls, the floor… groping senselessly while they waited for something to wander into their web.
Atreyu paused, bit his lip, and Atemu frowned.
"What are they?" He whispered.
"Security, sensors," Atreyu replied lowly. "We must be getting close to the Sanctum."
"They'll tell Cassidia we're approaching." He supplied in conclusion and nodding languidly Atreyu raised waved one milky, flawless, hand before them.
"ERADICATE!" He hissed.
The hands, all of them, vanished sparking up the distant regions of the long catacomb into the far distance as they were destroyed. Horrified Atemu found himself beginning to yell at the Faen before he was silenced by a single, cold, finger brushing his lips.
"Let Cassidia know we're coming." He spat eyes flashing beneath the coils of his ebony fringe. "Let Cassidia know I'm coming for her."
"We must hurry then," Atemu sighed warily, the Faen's vengeance would not be dissuaded by anything he said. "We're almost there."
Nodding curtly, Atreyu pivoted and kicking up his feet resumed their jog down the now stripped corridor into the bowels of the ruined earth beneath the nest.
There was no other way, no other channel, and Atemu was sure they had been running for long uneasy moments waiting for something to emerge. He was beginning to doubt if they were headed in the right direction, desiring to turn back, cautious of being trapped but Atreyu relentless still pushed them on. What is this was a trap? A false trail?
"I can feel her," the Faen murmured harshly, "I can feel…"
"What?" Atemu whispered.
"Something else…" Atreyu hesitated as he slowed their pace but in the silence between them Atemu heard it, the thumping, and glancing down saw the Lance of Lazarus pulsing, beating, like a heart in Atreyu's grasp.
Atemu held back his voice as they passed through a tight arch way into a pitch black void. Stone rolled out under their feet and as Atreyu moved out from under the arch way, from the catacomb, into the new space the Faen's sparkling light cut through the shadows like a beacon. The Needle and Atreyu glowed, light permeating the Faen's skin and through his armour, and the effect was more keenly visible here in the utter darkness.
Atreyu's combined lights sent beams up into the shadows and told Atemu that there were in some massive, perhaps empty, chamber which stretched out far before them in all directions reaching beyond where Atreyu's light diffused, withered, into insignificance. They stood, in the cold death of the place which was tomb like in its ancient silence as if some dwarf mine carved out in a mountain side by a dragon.
Here Atemu could not hear the fighting in the inner ring of the nest, the lightning of Tartarus, or the moans of beasts. All he could make out now was his breathing, Atreyu's breathing, and the insistent thumping of the Lance of Lazarus between the Faen's fingers. The thrumming, the drum beat, of the Lance created a monster somewhere in the shadows with the help of Atemu's imagination.
Atreyu's eyes roved the emptiness sceptically, untrusting, with his ancient understanding and seemed not to be able to feel anything in the darkness within his reach. Could Atreyu read the pulses of this dimension? Or was the home of the Seers too hectic to follow? He had found their hidden door into the sanctum but how much could be hidden from him Atemu wondered. He inhaled, waiting for Atreyu to make a move reactant to make a misstep of his own unless ordered. Suspicious but clearly unable to sense anything Atreyu nodded to him.
"Stay close." He whispered.
"Which way?" Atemu muttered lowly.
"Straight ahead."
Atreyu took a steady step, then another, Atemu followed two paces behind and their clopping boots echoed in the shadows giving him some idea of the spatial vastness of the void. Atreyu's light stretched ahead and shrunk behind. Over his shoulder Atemu could see the door becoming vaguer till it lost definition and they were afloat in a sea of darkness with no compass but Atreyu's instinct.
As Atemu's head came back round he knew something was wrong. His stomach fell, Atreyu's step became more uncertain and like Orpheus in the underworld Atemu was tempted to look back where they had come rather than dig forward. Something was wrong.
Atreyu had almost stopped his progress, Atemu had paused, and straining his ears and his eyes the Reaper lurched when a sheer, black, wall rose up with a whoosh between he and Atreyu.
"Atemu!" The Faen screamed.
"Trey!" Atemu ran forward senselessly, fist hitting the surface of the wall, and head whipping left to right found that more had sprung up round him.
The Needle flickered in his hand, still glowing radiantly enough to be his lantern, and furious he had let them be separated Atemu swore vehemently.
"Trey?" He called again. "Trey can you hear me!"
"It's a maze!" Atreyu's voice called faintly back over the wall which to Atemu seemed to stretch up towards the ceiling.
"Can you break through the walls?" Atemu shouted.
"Not without damaging the place!" Atreyu warned. "I don't know what we'll risk if I destroy it! We'll have to find a way to each other! Use the Needle! It's connected to me!"
"I'll try!" He swore. "I'm coming!"
Cursing Atemu exhaled heavily through his nostrils and poured his focus to the Needle. It sparkled in his hand, blade shimmering, and sighing he closeted his self loathing for later.
"Come on then," he urged to himself, to Yami, to the Needle casting his eye unhappily round the corners of this labyrinth. "We best find him."
The Needle flared, lighting his way, and struck by a strange impulse Atemu held the sword aloft and extending his arm pointed its tip to the left. Nothing, at first, and still curious he pointed it to his right like the Needle of a compass. From the tip of the Needle a thin, glistening, beam of light extended into the darkness.
The Needle, fixed to Atreyu, was leading the way.
Heaving with relief Atemu once more placed himself into its knowing hands. He trusted it with his life and even more so with Atreyu's. Pacing himself, unsure of what each corner would bring Atemu took each step with the blade carefully.
Right, left, right, left, left… deeper and deeper into the maze which stretched unfamiliar and seamlessly dull for what felt like miles. Atemu pushed himself onward. He was a bodyguard. He could not abandon his charge. He would be with Atreyu when they faced Cassidia. He would not let the Faen face that alone. He only prayed that Atreyu, tempted by the pulsing of the Lance of Lazarus, wouldn't be driven to follow it to Jenzar or some trap. Atemu knew in his heart that Atreyu was mellower, more reasonable, than his imagination suggested but time was not in their favour and the Faen had not been particularly mellow this evening. Truer yet the night was wearing on and their companions couldn't struggle in the nest above forever.
The light strand extending from the tip of the Veil's Needle spluttered as Atemu meet a fork in the road. He turned the sword his way and that but the beam would not flare back to life. Was the Needle lost? Had Atreyu been lost? Atemu frowned, desperate but frozen as he tried to consider what he could do now.
Cursing quietly the cast his eyes to either side of him, unsure where to go, straining his mind to remember some gamblers rule or clue that might aid him now. Nothing came to mind and thoughtful he gazed at the wall before him. Was it just that he was here at his destination? Was Atreyu hidden somewhere?
The wall before him, seamless and faultless, was still but as Atemu gazed at it the surface slowly, ever so slowly, began to bubble…?
Like the surface of a primordial pool the wall bubbled, churning, a cauldron and moisture ran down its surface to the rocky floor. Atemu frowned, watched, waited…
A tendril of darkness shot out like a tentacle from the wall and hissing Atemu dogged it but the Needle was struck from his hand and scattered to his side. He lunged for it. Another tendril punctured the wall and coming free of it tackled Atemu to the stone. A second, a third, joined the first and pinning him forced him to the ground where they drove themselves into the stone like stakes.
Atemu squirmed. The weight of the tendrils pinning him to the ground had the heavy, warm, tenderness of arms attempting to manhandle him. They were dark, inhuman, and seemingly trapped he felt them constrict around him. Claustrophobia, suffocation, came to him and fighting Atemu tried in vain to reach for the light of the Needle just beyond his reach.
"Found you."
It was a whisper. Soft and coolly calm.
"Trey?" Atemu struggled, trying to work himself onto his elbows and spotting the Faen found himself caught trying to speak. Atreyu's lithe body had come through the cauldron surface of the wall, dragging the Lance behind him, glancing about him and settling on Atemu moved closer. "Please I-"
Atreyu's boot came down on his neck with steady, firm, pressure that forced him flat upon his back and crushed his windpipe to almost silence. The pressure did not abate but was insistent and panicking for reason Atemu fumbled.
"T-trey?" He croaked hoarsely.
"Shh," the Faen ordered contrastingly gentle juxtaposed against the harshness of his stance, "I don't have much time Atemu."
"What are you doing?" He croaked as the tendrils tightened till the bones grinded within his limbs. They would crush him.
"Disposing of you," Atreyu whispered gently in explanation. "If I do it now I can blame the Seers for it. You understand. Never fear Atemu. I'll tell them you vanished into the pit a hero"
"Why?" Atemu panicked.
"Do I need a reason?" The Faen snorted sweetly. "I'm stronger and older than you. What's to stop me from removing your soul from your body and making sure you never reincarnate? If you really need a reason I suppose there's plenty: you're still a traitor, a liar, a fake and I can't have Jenzar thinking I'm a whore because I've been filling in time with you while he's been gone, can I?"
"Ngh!" The Reaper struggled, legs contorting against the binds to try and force the strength in his thighs to heave him free.
"I'll make it quick," Atreyu promised, tightening the Lance between his fingers as he raised it over head intent to lacerate through Atemu's chest. "Trust me. Jenzar would've tortured you."
"No!"
"Bye Tem." He sighed.
"FATAL SPLINTERS!"
Atreyu and Atemu alike had only a second's glance, the words hitting them, before raw blades of magic lacerated through Atreyu and shattering him tore the Faen to bloody pieces. Atemu lurched, the tendrils round him suddenly abating, and rumbling the maze began to melt round him. It started to fade to nothingness simultaneously, bubbling like the spot on the wall Atreyu had emerged from, as Yusei slid to his side to assist the Reaper back onto his feet with wandering hands that instinctively ferreted for wounds.
"Are you alright?" The boy demanded stoutly.
"Aye, thanks to you," Atemu praised rubbing his hand against the aching length of his neck at the memory.
"Did I just…?"
"That wasn't Atreyu," the Reaper assured the young Champion, "there's no way."
"I hoped you'd say that," Yusei chuckled weakly, hands easing off Atemu as the monolithic walls of the maze dissipated their last to sickening smoking goo about their feet.
Clinging against each other, coming back to back, Yusei and Atemu were instinctively cautious as the dust settled and they spread their eyes round the once more vast empty darkness of this inner dome of the nest. Gazing over the plain Atemu caught sight of Atreyu's light, a beacon, immediately as the Faen barrelled towards them.
"Yusei!" He cried in awe. "You followed us!"
"I'm sorry," the young man insisted, "I had a bad feeling."
"You're genius." Atreyu insisted stubbornly, reaching them to thread his arms round Atemu's neck and throw his body into the Reapers'. "Are you alright?"
"Thanks to our friends." He promised hands skirting the Faen's hips. "What was that?"
"A Shadow Ghoul," the other elaborated, "a nasty type of Seer used for defence. They create illusions like that maze. I didn't feel it before it was too late and then I didn't think I'd get to you in time."
"We must be getting close then," Yusei supposed. "If the beasts are throwing up such defences we must be encroaching upon their inner sanctum."
"Aye," Atreyu mused solemnly, "I can feel the power. We've almost reached the Queen I'm sure. Where were the others when you left?"
"Amar, Timaeus, Nephele and the General Reapers have secured the exits. Morphis, Sev and Drea are scouring the nest to drive more out. I lost track of Cobalt."
"Probably spying," Atreyu dismissed, "you best stay with us. Come on."
"We're to storm the Queen?"
"Atemu and I are to storm the Queen," the Faen corrected, palm settling over Yusei's cheek. "You're to watch our backs. If she tries to escape you're to slow her down and if she defeats us I want you to go gather the others to finish her. I won't die without knowing she's doomed."
"Aye Sir," the boy consented without argument, "I'll do my best."
"I know you will." Atreyu smiled. "Let's go."
Nodding Atemu knelt to pluck up the Veil's Needle aware of how the sentient unease of the darkness had somewhat abated at the destruction of the Shadow Ghoul and its maze.
The door they reached to Cassidia was misleadingly inconspicuous. Atemu could barely hear his own breathing over the palpitations of the Lance of Lazarus between Atreyu's fingers when they reached it. Taunt, Atreyu gave a reluctantly smiling nod to Yusei who responded in kind.
"Good luck," Yusei murmured, "I know you'll win."
"Be on your guard," the Faen warned, "I might not be able to give you much time to escape and you'll have to make light of your own once I leave."
"I'll manage." He promised. "Good luck Atemu."
"Thank you brother," the Reaper mourned, would he see Yusei again? Would he leave this place with Atreyu?
Atreyu's fingers brushed the door and in short, graceful, motions the Faen opened the way and took the first step into the sanctum where Cassidia, Queen of a Seer nest, was lying expectantly in wait for their approach. Atemu followed, his fingers painfully tense round the hilt of the Needle and as Atreyu closed the door between they and Yusei he found not a grand chamber but a low ceiling expanse cut, crisscrossed, by dark hung curtains which encroached upon any sense of space.
Atreyu rippled, the Lance pounded like a drum, and with its twin trident tip before him Atreyu took the step further.
Silence permeated round them, swirling, as Atreyu brushed aside the first curtain with the tip of his Lance and their feet crept over the rock. Was there a dragon waiting for them in this pit? Atemu found himself almost sure there was. The temperature here was not bitterly cold like the one they had just exited, instead it was hung with the humidity of volcanic heat which seemed to bleed from the faceless walls.
"My heart is pierced by Cupid," Atreyu lilted, lush voice unfurling through the darkness. "I disdain all glittering gold. There is nothing can console but my jolly sailor bold…"
The Faen was glittering, almost dripping with power, soft voice ringing with the clear clarity of a bell's chime. It was a warning.
"His hair it hangs in ringlets, his eyes as black as coal, my happiness attend him wherever he may go…"
Atemu could feel nothing, hear nothing, but Atreyu's twinkling voice spreading through the shrouded darkness and at its sound something else seemed to shrink, hissing, back.
"From Rower Hill to Blackwall I'll wander, weep and moan all for my jolly sailor. Until he sails home…"
The curtains they drifted through felt like the waves of an oily sea and the unfurled, parting round a shore line, as they approached a light which came neither from the Needle nor from Atreyu.
"A fig for his riches, his merchandise and gold. True love has grafted my heart. Give me my sailor bold…"
Atreyu's tone was melodic. The drenching dank eeriness of the darkness more embodied by his song and again Atemu heard the warning in it. Atreyu was letting them be known and letting it be known he was utterly inconsolable to negotiations. Hopefully it would put any retainers to the Queen off attacking.
"My heart is pierced by Cupid. I disdain all glittering gold. There can console me by my jolly sailor bold…"
The Faen drifted off the note as he brushed aside the veil between them and this mysterious external light to reveal it to them.
Before a throne, bellow the dais, a burning light glowed unattended within a glass column. Atemu gasped, air evacuating his lungs, and feet motioning with spirit of their own Atreyu crept ever closer to graze his fingers along the glass. The light doubled, almost blinding, illuminating the shadowy corners and cutting through the curtains to give Atemu a brief glimpse of the body in the throne above them. The Lance of Lazarus thrummed in Atreyu's grasp, thumping, glowing crimson.
"My heart is pierced by Cupid. I disdain all glittering gold. There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold?"
Atemu startled, Atreyu's eyes flickered from the vessel of light and in the throne that disgusting thing Atemu had glimpsed sung back to the Faen curiously in a pretty, girlish, lilt. Atemu had thought, foolishly, that what he had seen in the throne was a long abandoned corpse. What he had seen, that terrible rotten thing, was that…?
"Cassidia," Atreyu rumbled.
"Sweetling Meatbag," Cassidia crooned and in the shadow of the light which did not stretch to her Atemu could almost have believe the voice was that of a petite little girl. "Must've been so lonely without your weapon, we've been keeping him safe in the Lost and Found, did you know a Champion soul can power a nest for four hundred years?"
Her voice excitedly, so simple, like a child fretting joyously over a miraculous toy and Atreyu's Needle began to pound between Atemu's fingers, to heat, to ripple with righteous fury that shimmered reflected just beneath the surface of the Faen's lighted profile. Atreyu's breath fluttered, not with fear but rather with rage.
Something rustled the curtains behind them, surrounding them, and tightening his grasp on the Needle as it began to burn Atemu tried to strain his eyes to make out the shapes creeping in around them.
"Should we see what a Faen core can do?" Cassidia chirped merrily. "I've always wanted one!"
"So that's what this was about," Atreyu mused. "You've finally thought of a way to remove Faens from the equation and increase your own power. Those Seers have been trying to steal my soul, my core, after you removed my Champion from my defences and now that didn't work Jenzar's become bait…"
"Well I needed practice before I asked Denn-Elec and Vegas to play."
"Amar and Sev's Faens," he murmured, "if you had all three of Earth's Faens under wraps you could wreck hell on the Veil. That's surprisingly well thought out for a species that hates order. Who helped you with that or are you really such a nasty bitch?"
"Mama will have to slap you for that whore." The Queen warned, sing-song, and delighted. "Then Mama's going to eat your ducklings."
Whether Cassidia meant Yusei and Atemu or Jenzar and Atreyu's children Nephele, Morphis and Drea it was a very foolish threat to make. If it had come from anything less than a Seer Queen Atemu would've said a prayer for them but Cassidia, well, there was the real chance that she could hold her own against Atreyu.
"You're not going to touch me." The Faen promised. "You lay a finger on me and I'll turn my core inside out. I'll shatter myself into so many pieces I'll obliterate you right along with me. If you regenerate you'll never be a Queen again. Who we are, what we are, as we exist now will be destroyed. We'll never reform in the same shape."
"And all your friends will die in the explosion." Cassidia warned shrilly, mocking, a little girl watching the climax of a children's film. "You'll never see the Prince again."
"I can die knowing he loved me till the bitter end." Atreyu supposed. "Besides, my family might be in danger but so are you. You've got just as much to lose."
"Oh that's no fun!" She whined. "Besides, I can't let you all go home. If I let the Prince out you and he will destroy me anyway because I know the big bad secret to stopping you."
"We will," the Faen promised, "but I can't make you release him."
"We're stuck then." Cassidia sighed. "What should we play now?"
They were at an impasse then. Two interlocked powers holding their draw viciously to maintain themselves and their goals. Atreyu's bolstered light didn't wane for a thoughtful second but the Needle cooled from its fury in Atemu's fingers and face taunt the Reaper would've demonstrated his relief unless he knew better than to do so. The Faen ran his fingers along the vessel of Jenzar's trapped soul and seemed to consider, head tilting ever so subtly as he regarded this light that was the captured Champion's soul.
His lips pursed a fraction, brow creased, fingers tracing over the glass. He was looking at something, for something, but what Atemu couldn't imagine. The light within the vessel seemed one gluttonous, shapeless, mass to his untrained eye. Atreyu however, he reminded himself, could see veins of energy and understand magic maybe even capture a message from Jenzar when the Champion was trapped in this intangible form? The Faen let his hand drift off the glass, unresolved and unassured in whatever he had been searching for both raised his chin to Cassidia.
"Why don't we settle this like the Queens of Earth?" He murmured. "Your strongest warrior against mine. If I win then you let Jenzar free and we will destroy you. If you win then you can have my soul as well."
It was a gambler's suggestion, crazy nearly, but more strategic than letting the two biggest players in the Hive batter against each other bluntly. Atreyu must've known, as Amar must've known, that something like this might happen. Cassidia would always know in any scenario that they were coming to besiege her as soon as they were found in the nest and being found was inevitable. Jenzar's condition was a wild card which meant not much more planning could be made so something like this too was inevitable. It all fell suddenly to Atemu.
It was inevitable that Atreyu couldn't outright attack Cassidia at the first impasse so it made no wonderment of the fact the Faen hadn't hide their arrival. It was inevitable too that something like this would happen and then that Cassidia too would be in a corner. Both ends of this tug of war had been caught from the beginning Atemu realized terribly. The generals had known they'd end with a stalemate breaker in overtime. Amar, Sev, Atreyu and the Gate Keeper must've planned for this. Of course, Atemu rued, of course then Yugi would be so paralysed with fear. This had always been a crazy, play it by ear, battle to fight. Yet, as Cassidia made clear, she had to be destroyed either way.
This was, if such a thing existed, raw and cruel fate. Atemu saw it. It was almost destiny then that Cassidia was so effortlessly swift to reply simply:
"You can't use your Champion."
"Fine," Atreyu permitted, "but my man gets the Lance of Lazarus or my Needle."
"Agreed."
"Then why don't we take this back up to the inner ring?"
"You prepare your toy and I'll prepare mine," Cassidia dismissed jovially, child's tone never wavering.
In the inner ring Amar and the others had left the place nearly abandoned. The remaining, fierce, Seers and the more standard spider Seers amassed like fodder had clustered round the edges of the inner ring. The general Reapers must have still been guarding the exits in the outer ring but there in the inner ring Amar had gathered all of their community together back-to-back on all sides defensively. They had become a unit but Cassidia must've somehow sent out a pulse which told the Seers not to attack so instead with beady black eyes they chirped, cicada like, watching, and waiting over their intruders.
Yusei hugged close between Atreyu and Atemu as they resumed the fray from the inner sanctum and smartly took a place between Morphis and Cobalt in the circle. Amar frowned, Atreyu beckoned and for a tense moment the Faen explained their predicament.
"I understand." Amar nodded solemnly. "You have a plan to tip our favours?"
"I have one," the Faen prefaced, "best start praying. If it fails I can't guarantee you much time to think of an escape for you and the others. I doubt Cassidia will just let you go free."
"I wouldn't abandon you." The redhead swore.
"Never mind me," Atreyu hissed flippantly, "I can die here with Jenzar if have to but Denn's waiting for you at home. You and Sev have to protect Earth if anything happens. You're the only man I trust to get my children out of here. I refuse to let them die in this awful place."
"They would for you."
"A good parent doesn't ask them too," the Faen snapped, "now promise me you'll forget about me and turn all your energies to getting the other's from here."
"I…" the red head clutched Atreyu's forearms in his curled, gloved, fingers and appeared to deliberate. Strategy won out. "I promise. Even if she takes you prisoner too we can still return one day. If she takes you and Jenzar then Denn, Vegas, Sev and I will come to save you."
"Have a damn good plan when you do." Atreyu warned but seemed contented at least that Amar would now have more information to go off of in the event of another needed strike. If Atreyu failed but the others escaped then this had at least been a successful scouting. "Now go keep the other's prepped. I have to get Atemu ready."
"Atemu?" Amar blinked.
"Me?" Atemu flared baulking from his sympathetic idling.
"Amar go," Atreyu ordered softly, pushing the Champion back and nodding the redhead stubbornly dragged himself across the rocky shelf back to the anxious others. "Atemu I have an idea. Not a very good one mind but if you trust me then I think we can win this."
"Atreyu…" he fumbled, "I would do anything you asked, I would fight for you this second, but surely you don't want to risk so much on a Specialist as weak as myself? Surely Seviticus or Amar are better equipped! With your Needle and their own Lances then-"
"It won't be enough." The Faen dismissed taking Atemu's hand in his as his other bore Jenzar's Lance of Lazarus. "Listen to me. I want you to use Jenzar's Lance. I honestly believe with it in your hands then we can win. If you can activate its emergency mode then nothing Cassidia's warrior can throw at you will suffice to quell it. Then we'll win."
"But I don't know how!" Atemu panicked. "I won't be responsible for having your soul taken prisoner!"
"Trust it." Atreyu hissed, squeezing Atemu's fingers viciously in his, "I believe you can do this. I trust your heart and I trust Jenzar's. The Lance responds to, understands, the hearts of others. To protect everyone here, to protect me, I honestly believe the Lance will unfurl its secret for you to do so."
"Why?" He pleaded. "I am a traitor. I have been weak. I am naturally Jenzar's enemy, I would take his place, why should his weapon help me?"
"I can't explain it to you Atemu," the Faen murmured. "I can't be sure yet myself why I would vest my fate in this but I will. I have hope, I have courage, and I trust you. Please, just have faith in me. Just try your best. Just be yourself. Just be as wonderful as you always have been and then maybe…I… please."
Blind faith was their last resort. This was what Atreyu would throw his last hand in on, a wild card, a crazy idea he himself couldn't totally reason but would follow on instinct alone. What did Atreyu's eyes see that Atemu could not? That Amar could not? Why now? Why this? Atemu was sure his heart would break if he had to return to the Hive and say: 'I am the reason Atreyu Damestaire, Third Faen of Earth, is gone'. That would be a cross too great to bear. He could not stand to know that he may yet be the reason that Yugi's body would die, empty, without a soul as young and beautiful, warm and soft, as it was today.
He was sure still that Jenzar's heart, Jenzar's Lance, would know immediately the dark, jealous, nature of his dreams for Atreyu and that to touch the Champion's weapon may very well destroy him before the battle had even begun. He had avoided it now for so long. He had repulsed from the Lance of Lazarus in all the forms it took and had till now been so careful to run away from it. Could he really use it as he had used Atreyu's Needle? With his core inactive, hidden, and his own magic too weak to forge a weapon of his own how could he bear the Lance? What if Amar could not orchestrate an escape when he failed? Denn-Elec and Vegas, Amar and Seviticus' Faens, may lose their Champions and be left unguarded. If they fell than Earth would be doomed, the Veil would be in chaos, order would be compromised irrevocably.
Worse still: Cobalt and Timaeus who had come with them here may lose their own souls, Cobalt who was Kaiba with a little brother and a smile that made Joey happy. Ryou would have no one beside him but Bakura. Yusei would never discover he was a Champion, never find his own Faen on whatever far off planet he lived on when he was awake. Morphis, Drea and Nephele who had so oft been the pride and joy, the children, of Jenzar Fraveous and Atreyu Damestaire would be lost. With them would go the last manifestation of Atreyu and Jenzar's love, with them would go the last souls who would carry memories of them perfectly in love throughout time, with them a part of Atreyu would die eternally.
How could Atemu bear that?
"Atemu," Atreyu whispered carelessly, dropping the Lance to take Atemu's cheeks in his grasp and draw them close to each other. "Don't give up. I have almost given up who I was in Sanctuary. I know sometimes Yugi and I might seem worlds apart but I believe in you just as much as he does."
"I don't want to fail you." He cringed.
"No matter what happens," the Faen murmured their noses brushing as Atreyu hushed himself so low Atemu had to strain himself to hear, "I want you to know I love you."
"You…" Atemu's breath caught in his throat, hand fumbling over Atreyu's nearly frightened, pained, face. To hear it from steadfast eternally loyal Atreyu, to hear it from Yugi, to finally have it meant this way was…"Really?"
"Just as much as Jenzar, the same way," he promised. "I mean it."
"I love you too." He hushed. "I wish we'd met in the first life."
"I know," the Faen whined softly, "but you can do this."
"I'll try." Atemu sighed pained. "If I win though…"
"If you win," Atreyu promised feverishly reverent, "everything will somehow be okay. I just know it."
"How?" He struggled to fathom.
"I can't explain it." The Faen murmured. "I just know."
"I suppose," Atemu laughed, letting his hand waver across Atreyu's cheek. "The word of a Faen should be good enough for me."
1 A bit of fan art for chapter 13 or 14 (the Venice dance hunt) by Pika92 is up on Livejournal under the user name Saitoki under the 4th of August entry. Also there's a gorgeous little lol doujinshi in the July 15th entry!
2 Oh god long combat chapter… Is it wrong that however cliché and sappy this chapter is I have a fuck tonne of fun writing it?
3 "Jolly Sailor Bold" is an old British song about the trial and tribulations of loving poor sailors. It's gorgeous. You can find a full version of it on youtube that's incredibly eerie.
4 Okay so, strategically, the Gate Keeper, Trey and Amar haven't done anything massively underhanded. It's natural in types of warfare for both sides to be stuck in some way. Sometimes war is more geared towards the defender or the attacker. In a lot of cases it makes more sense not to tell the ground soldiers the big plan either because, however logical it is, it panics them. In this case they had to force Cassidia into a point where they were both stalemated so by forcing her to take some kind of new action with them they could change the balance. That make any sense?
5 Ahem: OH MY GOD JENZAR! Yes indeed he has been captive of the Seers. He's currently intangible. More on him next time~
6 Yep. Trey said, clearly and plainly, he loves Atemu. I know Yugi had said it in not so many words but I know it means something entirely different to mean to hear Atreyusay it himself. Maybe you disagree?
7 BIG HINT: 'Mirror Force' is a trap card and 'Shadow Ghoul' is a monster card in Duel Monsters. Not a coincidence~
Hope you guys get a giggle out of this. Love you all loads. Have a fab week!