Hey Beautifuls, thanks for all your well wishes last week. This chapter is a little bit longer than usual and hopefully very enjoyable. Have fun kiddos!
Chapter 17: All Hail the King
"What is that?" Atemu murmured tensely as Cassidia finally joined them inside the inner ring.
Under the clearer light, her full profile exposed, Atemu could not have imagined anything worse. For her diminutive little voice her body was the full, plump, form of a woman. Black hair hung limp in chunks from her scalp, her eye sockets sat as rotten orifices, her cheeks seemed split to contort her smile painfully wide and her body which could have almost been human appeared a rotting, wounded, visage which trailed her lower intestines behind her with each step.
"It's an illusion." Atreyu dismissed smoothly. "Don't pay it any attention. Be more concerned with what she's brought with her; a Mannequin Prince."
"What?" The Reaper frowned casting his eyes back to Cassidia's side where an equally dreadful body followed woodenly on a chain leash.
The thing seemed puppet like. It was sheened, plastic almost, from head to toe with moulded, stiff, features. Atemu was reminded of an old naked Ken doll Yami had once found. Seamless as the creature was even its face was painted on in the style of some fifties department store mannequin. The smile it held fixed was eerily cheery as it moved by its own motivations to follow Cassidia brokenly.
"Don't let it fool you." Atreyu warned. "It's incredibly dangerous. You can't afford to take your eyes off it for a second."
"No cheating!" Cassidia warned, sing song and shrill from her mutilated face, as she held a glowing glass vessel aloft in one hand to demonstrate to Atreyu that she still held Jenzar in her clutches. "Give the toy a weapon and let's play!"
"You'll get your game!" Atreyu spat over his shoulder, sighing, plucking the Lance of the Lazarus from the stone to present to Atemu. "Be very careful."
"I will." Atemu promised handing the Needle to Atreyu in response. The sword the Needle had taken the form of vanished and darted back to reform tucked behind Atreyu's slender ear as a thin silver needle. Tempting fate and hesitant to take the Lance Atemu fleetingly stole the seconds to press his lips to Atreyu's forehead.
"Whore!" Cassidia cackled.
The Seers chirped like uproarious birds those that had the lungs or the vocal cords to do so laughing nastily with their Queen. Atemu ignored them, Atreyu ignored them, and with a morose smile the Faen gestured to the Lance of Lazarus solemnly with his eyes.
"I'll do my best." Atemu promised and with a heavy heart took the Lance from Atreyu's musician's fingers into his darker paws.
The initial tension eased as the Lance, thumping still, appeared to try and discern who Atemu was. A strange pulse of energy ran through his limbs as he touched it, held it between his hands, and though the Lance of Lazarus did not burn him and held its shape as the two pronged crimson trident all at once it seemed to weigh an exuberant amount.
Atreyu stepped back, cringed, as Atemu stumbled to adjust to the sudden influx of weight and groaning tried to take a more effective starting stance with the unwieldy Lance. The Seers laughed.
Did Atreyu recant his strategic decision? Give the mulled expression upon his face as he backed from Atemu and settled somewhere on the stone to stand between Atemu and their companions the Reaper couldn't be sure what the Faen was thinking. He himself was intensely fearful. The Lance didn't seem to be resisting him but its weight was amazingly surreal. The Lance had taken a very strong, very slender, shape but it held the load of a full grown man in it as Atemu tried to contemplate fighting with it. It wasn't like the Needle, it wouldn't lightly drag him along, he was quite certain.
They may already have been doomed.
No! Yami frazzled within him. We have to do this, we have to win, Jenzar may not like us but he wouldn't just let Atreyu be ruined.
Atemu tried to gather it, heard the rumble of the thought, as the Mannequin Prince hobbled into its starting position. Yes, perhaps Yami was right, whether he and Jenzar were rivals they both loved Atreyu so, surely, they could unify on that single willed desire.
The Lance, to Atemu's great surprise, lightened. Not completely but a fraction of the weight which made it unbearable to hold aloft diminished and, marvelling, the Reaper supposed Yami must've been right. Lurching, stabilising, as he tried to accommodate himself to the weight of the Lance Atemu prepared himself.
"Go!" Cassidia ordered shrilly and the Mannequin Prince animated immediately.
"Ah!" Atemu cringed, forced to fling the Lance up between his hands, across himself, as the Mannequin's stiff hand was attempting to come down upon his skull in a flicker of an instant.
Damn it was fast!
Strong too, Atemu rued, feet skidding between the weight of the Lance and the force of the stiff wooden arm trying to bear down on him all at once. He grunted, raising his knee to his chest, kicking out against the chest of the Mannequin in a lash motion. It was enough to surprise the doll and send it back a foot or two but at the same lightning speed it rediscovered its footing and lunged back with the opposing arm. Atemu was forced to shift the central focus of his weight, change the pivot of the Lance between his fingers, to continue the defensive and felt his calves protest at the effort expelled.
If he remained on the defensive like this he'd never win. The Mannequin however apparently had little interest in prolonging this attacking and whipping its arm back came down on Atemu from another angle. The Reaper barely countered, wrists shaking, between the heft of the Lance and the unnatural speed of the Mannequin Prince he was more sluggish than he should've been. If he'd had Atreyu's Needle pumping power into him, tugging him with effortless speed, than this would've been only too easy but Atreyu had insisted he take the Lance. Why?
Not really the time to overthink it, Yami warned cringing inside him, and grunting under another barrage Atemu concurred.
The Seers were cackling, whinnying like beasts, Atemu was vaguely aware but he had no real focus to take in the tense, wary, faces of his nervous companions as he struggled for himself. He needed to be faster now.
The Mannequin lashed, right, left… Atemu fumbled to block still unable to turn to the offensive and feeling the effort of every motion. The doll came at him, one-two, and a lash of that great strength knocked Atemu off his feet and sent him rolling over himself, skidding, across the rock till he was four or five feet away coughing. The Lance had escaped his fingers and the Mannequin merely watched, unperturbed and teasingly patient, as Atemu struggled onto his hands and knees to retrieve it.
His fingers fumbled over his side. Between the slits of his armour a stray piece of rock had sliced at his side and running his dirty, dusty, fingers along it he hissed as his other hand fished to find the Lance.
As his fingers brushed the crimson metal, aching, bruised, the most peculiar thing happened. His hand fastened round the body of the Lance and the paper cut like sting in his side evaporated blisteringly. Atemu's free hand flickered, finding the wound gone, and glancing over the Lance took it awed back into his hands.
You really are on my side! He decided to himself, realizing the implications, Jenzar had healed him! At the influx of confidence the Lance of Lazarus was suddenly natural, almost weightless, in his fingers but careful not to show the sudden, incredible, ease Atemu raised his chin to the Mannequin and straining resumed his position. He could do this!
The Mannequin lunged and grunting Atemu smacked, slashed, at the incoming arm of the doll with the trident tip of the Lance. The doll shambled back, thrown over itself, and struggling rickety to its flat feet Atemu saw the plastic like flesh of the arm was splintered in cracks.
"Yes!" Nephele hissed under his breath somewhere over Atemu's shoulder and, relieved beyond adulation, Atemu found himself grinning.
He could do this.
The Lance warmed in his fingers, suddenly seemed more responsive, more alive, and resumed with a confidence in himself and in Jenzar Atemu felt his focus become less panicked. He had his speed back.
"Don't celebrate yet." Atreyu warned to Nephele and perplexed Atemu watched as, twisting its barely articulated head the Mannequin Prince regarded its splintered, shattered, arm.
The doll waved it and, underneath the plastic, Atemu saw something ripple through the cracks. Something more physical, more natural, found room to move in the cracks Atemu had made and curling the new limb shattered the plastic encasing it clean off by curling at the elbow.
"Good lord!" Yusei reeled and Atemu felt his stomach drop coldly.
The arm which bulked free of the plastic coating was double the size of the original and appeared to belong to an entirely different entity. It was massive, muscled, under a pelt of white hair like the bulking arm of a great ivory Gorilla. Its fingers bare of hair were big, black, taken to talons at their tips and disgusted Atemu could not fathom how the Mannequin stayed upright with the weight distribution.
The Mannequin leant more into the weight of that side, cartoonish, but lunging the doll bought down its beastly arm. Atemu threw himself, lunging away as the fist crunched the rock which had just been beneath his feet. Its speed hadn't decreased at the increase in size but apparently the doll's strength had at least in that arm. Damn!
Atemu parried, keeping his feet, trying to reaccustom himself to the movement of the beast. The lightness of the Lance gave him time now to think. Apparently stripping at the Mannequin's limbs would do him no good. If anything it had made the creature more dangerous. Atemu needed to destroy it somehow. He needed to look beyond those monstrous appearances to find some fatalistic weak point to exploit but were to hit?
In a second of reflection, reflexivity, the beast's fist collided with Atemu and as the armour shattered, flung back, he found himself crying out in pain. Atemu's back hit the stone, rolled, but he refused to let go of the Lance squeezing it between his fingers desperately as his life line while the shattered armour of his chest plate crackled inward cutting at his torso. It hurt, intensely, and rolling onto his arms and legs Atemu found himself unable to hold back the strained grunt lodged in his throat.
His eyes found Atreyu but the Faen stood relatively unmoved. Apathetic? Surrendered? Atemu's heart twisted.
No, Atreyu won't cry for us, a knowing voice rebutted stubbornly proud in Atemu's head. He won't look weak before the Seers. He won't look scared for us because, if he does, it implies he doesn't think we can win.
Wait…
That wasn't Yami's voice…
Atemu had almost thought it was for a second and, horrified, he had no time to run from the next attack of the Mannequin forced instead to roll from the slam of its fist into the rock. Pushing himself to his feet he ran to try and create some distance between himself and it as his mind reeled. He spun to keep the creature in his sights and mentally railing found his insides shouting:
Jenzar!? How?
Your guess is as good as mine! The dumbfounded baritone sung back to Atemu's amazement as if some bizarre layer of Yami's voice inside his head.
The vessel which contained Jenzar's soul had begun to glow brighter in Cassidia's hand but relatively unnoticed and the Lance, still thumping, was suddenly growing warm and smooth as flesh to the fingertips of Atemu's gloved hands. Jenzar's mind was in contact with his. Was this what Atreyu had anticipated? The Champion didn't sound vengeful nor, actually, did he sound particularly intimidating to Atemu. Handsome? Yes, imposing? Not really. At least not in the way the Reaper had imagined his voice to be.
The Mannequin lunged.
Chest! Chest! Jenzar's voice ordered in his head as Atemu scrambled away from the attack. Most life forms keep their centre of power in the biggest section of the body because there's more padding! Go for the chest!
"Right!" Atemu floundered under his breath and, across the field, Atreyu blinked curiously as the Reaper began to speak to himself panic drawing his own voice out of his throat thoughtlessly.
The Mannequin lashed for him, charging, and steading himself between his feet Atemu forced himself to lunge forward and drive the double tip of the Lance through the plastic of the dolls' chest. The initial shell cracked and the Lance slid into solid, soft, flesh underneath. The beast stopped, leaning into Atemu's weight, shaking and kicking at its chest, drawing his leg up, Atemu wrenched the Lance free to stagger back carefully.
Good one! Jenzar cheered jovially in his head with almost boyish relief.
The beast shook, like a broken clockwork toy stuck on the spot, and as its chest plastic cracked the veins extended to its second arm, it's legs, breaking…
Uh-oh… Jenzar piped quietly between Atemu's temples.
The plastic cracked, flew off the beast, and revealed a matching set of limbs. It's torso expanded three fold, its legs doubled, it seemed to lurch on its legs and arms like a Gorilla and if it had stood tall Atemu was sure it would've been a solid nine feet.
"No!" He panicked.
Sorry! Sorry!Jenzar floundered.
"That made it worse!" Atemu swore angrily forced to run as the beast came for him throwing both hands locked above its head and smacking them down furiously.
You try giving instructions from a bottle! The Champion shot back defensively. There was the King's roar Atemu had been expecting but even now the tone was tame and half apologetic in its haplessness.
Atemu had no time to stop. The beast seemed faster now, impossibly so, unrestricted by the plastic of its doll case body and unable to stop moving he was beginning to pant under the assaults of the Mannequin Prince. What bright ideas would the Champion have now?
Cut its head off! Jenzar called suddenly as the idea came bursting to him.
Oh yes because your last plan went so well! Atemu hollered at their mental circus.
Just lob its freaking head off! The Champion ordered as frenzied, as panicked, as Atemu.
"Damn it!" Atemu spat, rounding back to stab blindly at the beast.
Cut! Cut! Not stab! No stab! Jenzar screamed inside him as the Lance shattered the diminished nearly human face of the Mannequin doll.
"No!" Atreyu moaned, frustrated, as the plastic shattered free.
What he said! Jenzar panicked almost angry, on the bridge of parental concern and hapless frustration as he tried to guide Atemu.
The Mannequin's true head was hideous; a long snout like shape with sagging, unnaturally full and slobbering lips that hung limply open round a tightly set jaw of sharp teeth. Each razor fang looked about the size of Atemu's fingers and while it had no eyes it only added to the doggish ungodly nature of the monstrosity.
Oh dear… Jenzar murmured. This is bad…
Any more bright ideas genius? Atemu snapped, backing up, heart palpating as the Mannequin now freshly exposed sniffed the air like a lumbering dog.
Um…Thinking…? The Champion answered.
Thinking? What am I supposed to do while you're thinking?!
Staying alive would be a good start! Jenzar supposed, no longer angry, rather more empathic once again with their disaster as if he too might be destroyed with Atemu's failure.
The beast charged. Atemu barely saw it move. It was fatally fast now it was free of its binds and unable to do much more than block he found himself battered across the plateau. His companions hissed and Drea or Nephele even seemed to squeak as the Mannequin Prince sent Atemu sailing into the far wall shattering the back plate of his armour. Atreyu held his ground, tense and though increasingly distraught kept himself placated while the Seers cackled.
"Not doing too well is he?" Cassidia teased. "Want to swap him out for a substitute? Maybe a Champion who actually knows how to use that thing?"
"He'll win," Atreyu concluded stubbornly, unyieldingly poised.
Atemu, for his part, could only focus on breathing and, at all costs, keeping hold of the Lance. Without the Lance of Lazarus he would be utterly helpless. He had no magic strong enough to batter this monster back and the Lance, while he was struggling to unlock enough power to defeat the Mannequin with it, still healed his minor wounds. Even then however there was only so much the Lance could seem to do about his injuries, about the deep bruising, and as the beast came down on him again Atemu had no time to hobble up instead forced to roll.
He was sluggish now, bruised and battered and beaten, barely evading the worst of the blows hobbling half onto his feet. The Mannequin flung him back down. The back of Atemu's skull rattled against the stone and made his head spin. The beast's hands and feet straddled over him and lunging with its mouth, those great teeth, the Mannequin tried to eat him.
Atemu threw his arms up taunt, away from himself, with the Lance between his palms hooking in across the beast's mouth to hold its gnashing teeth at bay like the bit of a bridle. The effort with which it bore down on him an attempt snap was feral and with his body aching Atemu wasn't sure how much longer he could hold it off.
Why won't the emergency mode work? He panicked, gritting his teeth. I'm going to die here!
The Lance doesn't care if I die and it doesn't care if you die, Jenzar rued apologetically, I'm sorry Atemu but it won't unlock its potential for our sake. It doesn't work like that. Even a Champion has to accept their defeat sometimes.
Tell me how to use it!
It's not something I can tell you how to do.
Atreyu's counting on me! He insisted. I can't lose!
If Trey thinks you can win then you can. Jenzar assured sincerely.
Atemu wasn't so sure. Jenzar trusted Atreyu entirely, it was so apparent with the Champion's tone ringing in his ears, but Atemu wondered if Atreyu had too much faith in himself. Had the Faen miscalculated? Atemu couldn't do this! He didn't have enough magic to back up the Lance, didn't have enough experience to know what to do, frankly didn't have enough of anything to save them. Atreyu would be trapped here with Jenzar, Atemu would be obliterated by this dreadful thing and then their companions would suffer.
Earth, home, was a distant idea as he tried insistently to keep the beast off him. It was leaning in closer and Atemu's elbows were faltering under the pressure. He was about to lose.
What if Amar couldn't get them all out? What if? What if? It compounded inside him, running on repeat, and he could see it as the beast's teeth almost grazed his nose and his forearms trembled. He couldn't see Yami's life flashing over him, rather, he could see them dying: Atreyu gone, Amar and Sev gone, Timaeus destroyed, the Reapers slaughtered, Cobalt massacred, Yusei cut down and Jenzar's children evaporated. With them there would be the death of order, of family, of innate human goodness and righteousness in so many brisk layers because of Atemu's short comings. They had faith in him. Atreyu had faith in him, Atreyu and Yugi, who loved him and who would be imprisoned on one side of the Veil and die on the other.
If Atemu could be destroyed for them he would. If he could ruin his soul irreparably to save them here he would. These were people he loved, Yami loved, and more than the fear of losing his own immortality or afterlife was the fear of these souls loosing theirs. To destroy the bodies Amar, Atreyu and those the others had journeyed from would do nothing to their souls but to destroy their souls here was to destroy them forever. It was an unfathomable idea and Atemu couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the thought of these people, good people, being obliterated.
Atreyu was… Atreyu loved him. Atemu had that. Yami had that. He'd die for that. For Atreyu to be destroyed and Yugi removed from the lives of their friends back home was to kill a star. Yugi never gave up. Yugi could live and fight where Atemu would surrender and fail. Yugi could keep going, with or without Atemu or Jenzar, for all of time if he had to. He would protect these people and the people of Earth in a way Atemu never would. Atemu would die for Yugi, for Atreyu, if only he could take this sorry piece of hell down with him.
The Lance thrummed and between Atemu's fingers began to glow.
The Reaper felt a surge of confusion followed immediately by a sense of valiant victory that came bursting from Jenzar in support. The Lance grew brighter, making Atemu wince and as it glowed the Mannequin suddenly shrieked, roaring, and lurched back to fondle its burnt, withered, gums in agony. To Atemu the Lance did not burn, not him anyway, and just as he considered in that second he might be able to defeat the Mannequin Prince the Lance became intangible.
Jenzar's mind pulled away from his at the loss of contact and Atemu grasped after the Lance but the crimson light had already shot up towards the canopy roof of the nest zooming up almost out of view like a firecracker. There was an inhale between them, the Mannequin seemed lost, and waiting on his hands and knees Atemu was rocked back in the pulse that suddenly shot out like a shockwave from the ceiling down.
The Seers quietened, Atemu's companions hushed, and above them all the crimson ball of light began unfolding, stretching, quadrupling till coils of red had unfurled to writhe seething over their heads. Long, snake like, loops of crimson tangled and curled round towards them, sinking its attention down to the nesting floor, and as the light faded the image of the reformed Lance was now strikingly clear to Atemu, Atreyu and every terrified Seer in the nest.
"Slifer!" Morphis cried in knowing amazement.
"My God…" Atemu mumbled in awe.
Sure enough, at his sacrifice or his summons, the Lance had revealed its emergency form. A monolithic titan of a dragon, coiled brilliantly vermillion, Chinese almost in style and double jawed.
Cassidia dropped the jar containing Jenzar, ruined jaw falling into stutters and turning to make an order of her panicked populace Slifer split open his upper jaw and let loose the wrath of an eternity upon her.
The sound the dragon made rattled the entire nest, drove everything from Atemu's eardrums with thunderous clash, and the raw white light of the blast eradicated everything as it penetrated the skin of his eyelids. Only at the frayed edges of the blast, as the thunder of the roar receded, could Atemu make out the fading screeches of the Seers.
Atemu's arms dropped, ears ringing, as the light faded to reveal what was left of the world. The walls of the nest seemed molten, glowing volcanically, and as Atemu fumbled he could find neither head nor tail nor remnant of any Seer Queen or Mannequin Prince or otherwise. Atreyu was utterly unblemished and behind him their companions cloistered round Amar were untouched. The Lance, in its ultimate mode as Slifer had cloistered them utterly against its own righteous vengeance.
A glance passed between them in the desolation of the nest, a sense, that they were fatally alone. Everything that had been under Cassidia's control, including the Queen herself, was gone. If these Seers regenerated it would take centuries for their traces to clump together and reform. Cassidia would probably never piece herself back together in any significant fashion to pose a threat or even to remember how.
They'd won.
Morphis was the first to give a strangled little cheer and, laughing, Timaeus walloped the back of Yusei's shoulders with one firm hand. Nephele and Drea were still clutched together tensely and, bouncing, Nephele cooed. Amar, Sev and Atreyu passed between each other the most restrained little sighs of relief and pivoting Atreyu's gaze settled on Atemu sprawled upon the stone. The Faen glittered with a soft contented affection and sitting back on his knees Atemu took in that precious smile. Atreyu had such faith in him.
He wanted to speak but the Lance of Lazarus, the dragon, which had crumbled the nest suddenly retracted into crimson light. Lightning crackled where the red and white light met and at once something entirely new sparkled into Atreyu's eyes which entirely destroyed all focus. The attention of the room shifted, spun, and Atreyu ran.
The Faen's armour all but evaporated as he moved, nearly fevered, leaving him suddenly barefoot once more and as the condensed light pulled into a nexus Atemu caught sight of it: the man who emerged where the lightning struck stone.
"JENZ!"
Atreyu's arms fastened round his neck as he collided with the new manifestation and the fearsome visage Atemu acquainted himself with in the faded light hefted the Faen off his feet to spin them effortlessly. As Atemu forced his weight into his palms, resting on his arms, he could finally take in the whole picture: the magnificent black armour, tight honey arms, dark glyphic tattoo, the vicious crimson eyes, that proud figure which was lean, imposing and handsome …
"Trey." Jenzar Fraveous purred in a solemn, reverent, baritone as he tilted his face down to the Faen bundled squeezed up against him and smiled. "Oh my only one…"
"Jenz," Atreyu seemed to swoon awed, clutching tighter as Jenzar's hand ran over his cheek and purring the Faen turned into it like a cat letting the Champion cradle his face and kiss his temple. "It's really you."
The power emanating from the pair of them seemed to interlock at the acknowledgement into one distinct incredible pulse and Atemu had never felt something so powerful in all his time in the Reaper Core. It was transfixing. Atreyu, caught between a beaming smile and frantic tears, was radiating brilliantly with a diamond clarity not seen, Atemu guessed, for four centuries. Jenzar himself carried such stunning imposition in this form he seemed to be at least seven foot tall and rather than jealous or sorrowful Atemu was rendered too bemused to react. That something, someone, worthy of Atreyu's splendour could be real was entirely perplexing. Yet they matched.
Jenzar Fraveous was all there finally magnificent, real, and free to be resurrected. All hail the king as they would say Atemu thought to himself with a lazy, naively unfretted, happiness. Atreyu had plainly never been happier and to see that was payment enough for Atemu he supposed.
"That," Jenzar preface with a laughing smile as he glanced to Atemu still holding Atreyu so tight the Faen's toes did not brush the ground, "was amazing. You got it! That's what it means to be Champion! Not to know you'll win no matter but the circumstance but to keep fighting even in the face of certain defeat! Not for pride, glory or even you own life but sincerely and solely for the people you love. It takes real intention, real sacrifice, to make Slifer appear like he did for you."
"I…" in the face of such innocently compassionate eloquence Atemu was not sure how to respond. Jenzar meant every word, it showed in the way of his face, and he meant it without an ounce of arrogance, jealousy or sarcasm. It didn't rankle Atemu rather he found the Champion's smile was too contagious to turn down. "Thank you for helping me."
"Lot of help I was!" Jenzar laughed. "Though, Love, that has to be one of your most suicidal gambles. Didn't think the stakes were high enough?"
"Oh hush," Atreyu snorted but couldn't contain his smile, "I played that so safe I'm bor-"
Jenzar's form flickered harshly his outline blurring like static over an old TV screen and Atreyu grasped his biceps in a tense, startled, panic.
"What's happening?" He demanded.
The Champion resettled into his form, blinking and gathering himself found the startled Faen in his arms.
"Shh," Jenzar ordered pressing the Faen's cheek back against his shoulder as he kissed the top of his head, "I'm alright Love. Listen: Cassidia impersonated you, made me think you were wounded, and she fooled me just long enough for the Seers to attack. It was a trap. In the battle to take me prisoner and remove the Lance from me they damaged me."
"Then your core…" Atreyu moaned, fingers curling round a shoulder plate. "Will you…?"
"My core's all here," he promised calmly, "but they ripped off my astral body and the first few layers of my soul. That's all. With any luck there's still time in which I can find the skin they tore off before it dies for want of power to sustain it."
"A part of you…?" The Faen mumbled slowly to himself. An epiphany appeared to manifest to Atreyu and head darting up from where it had lulled against Jenzar to meet the Champion's eyes sharply he declared: "Yes I know! Of course!It escaped to Sanctuary. It hid there with Third Star. I think she gave it enough power to go looking for you and I. I think it manage to reincarnate on Earth with what little it had."
"You're sure?" Jenzar tensed.
"Aye, aye," Atreyu nodded frantically a beaming joy spreading across him. "I'm almost certain! It's on Earth! I can take you to it!"
"Then I'll have you back in my arms properly within hours," the Champion decided. "How long till morning?"
"Not long now," the Faen cooed, "we can still make it there before dawn."
"Then the others-" Jenzar started round to Amar but kicking up the Lance of Lazarus from where it had fallen clattering and tossing it the redheaded Champion flung it into Jenzar's responsive hand.
"You can thank us later." Amar laughed weakly and Atemu thought that, perhaps, the redhead was on the cusp of relieved tears. "There's not a moment to spare. Go get yourself a body and sew your soul back together so I can scold you tonight!"
"Aye Sir!" Jenzar laughed smile splendid, handsome, as he turned back to Atreyu and seemed to spot Atemu. "Thank you. I'll repay you for this. You have my word."
Atemu unable to speak under the weight of that glorious, humble, sincerity coupled within Jenzar managed only to shake his head.
"Never mind," he rasped. "It was well worth it."
"Soon Atemu," Atreyu laughed strangely. "I'll see you when we get home. You were incredible."
"Thank you…?" He blinked.
"Godspeed," Seviticus called chuckling. "Let's hope Atreyu can keep you out of trouble till your feet are back on solid ground. We'll make sure everyone else gets home safe."
"We can only hope," Jenzar chuckled, "I'll be home tonight to thank you all properly. So help me, I will be back in the Hive again tonight, be safe!"
Beside him Atemu felt Yusei and Morphis kneel to help him back to his feet and as they leant towards him, in a glimmering flash, Atreyu and Jenzar were gone entirely like a vanishing nova.
"Good job," Yusei thrust his hand out, and taking it Atemu couldn't help but smile at the boy's stiff demeanour. Unshakable Yusei was.
"Thank-" Atemu couldn't finish as, unable to wait any longer, Morphis drew the other Specialist into a bear hug. "M-Morph?"
"I can't thank you enough!" Morphis blabbered. "You can't imagine how grateful our family will always be to you!"
"Oh stop fussing over him Morph," Drea snorted, shoving the Knight aside to move forward himself for a word but ducking under both of them Nephele was too quick to throw his arms round Atemu's neck. "Oh for heaven's sake! The bloody pair of you are as bad as each other!"
Nephele peppered Atemu's cheek with kisses and, chuckling, Atemu squeezed him closer. He had never felt like he had siblings but Yami's big brother complex for Joey Wheeler seemed to have crept into Atemu.
"Alright, alright," Sev chuckled, "fantastic work Atemu. I was worried for you for a moment there but you held yourself with valour."
"Truly impressive," Timaeus assured over the green Champion but made no motion to touch Atemu.
"I think we can all agree Atemu Pheramora is thoroughly forgiven and adored." Amar decided grasping Atemu's shoulder as he slipped between Yusei and the Specialist smoothly. "I think we can also agree everyone else held themselves very well also. Now, how about we get all of you home to rest? I think we deserve it. We can celebrate tomorrow once Atreyu and Jenzar return."
"You'll have to pry Morph and Neph off Atemu at this rate." Drea snorted.
"Don't I get an embrace from you as well?" Atemu teased. "It would be a shame not to have a full set of rewards from Jenzar and Atreyu's children."
Drea coloured, seemed taken aback and laughed again in that way he appeared to when someone threw him a loop unexpectedly. Shaking his head slipped passed Nephele into the tight space of bodies amassed around Atemu and lay himself into the Specialist's chest. Atemu held him firmly. Drea may have been the odd one out of the trinity but he was still, beneath his swagger, a very sweet young man and Atemu could be consoled for what they seemed to share in unreciprocated love.
"If you want," Drea whispered gently into his ear, "my offer still stands. I wouldn't mind your company for a while. Now Atreyu and Jenzar are back together neither of us can separate them."
"Who would really want to destroy something like that?" Atemu sighed but found himself giving the Sequester a secret little glimmer of compassion in his eyes. "I'll think about it."
"You're a pretty impressive Specialist," Drea winked patting his cheek teasingly, all that sass creeping back as the dark little Sequester regained his face. "No wonder you got Trey all wet for you. I haven't ever seen him look at someone, except my father, the way he looked at you before the fight."
"I'm no Jenzar Fraveous," Atemu shrugged, "but I think I'm pretty damn decent."
"Long as you know." Drea grinned.
"Hey, Amar," Atemu supposed over Drea's shoulder as his hands fell easily to the Sequester's waist, "did Cobalt and the general Reapers fair alright?"
"Didn't lose anyone," Amar promised. "We have ourselves a clear, decisive, victory tonight. Let me tell you Atemu there is nothing I like more than knowing I can go home and tell Denn that everyone made it out."
Yami woke, not softly, but in a lurch.
His phase out should've gone smoothly and found him languid in his body but it was as if Yami had hit the mattress, been smacked, and winded he sprung at the waist to find his hands. His heart pounded, marathon fast, in his chest and as Yami inhaled he knew something unnatural was happening.
The whole world spun instantaneously.
Yami wrenched, hand grasping his mouth, and kicking at the blankets found it very hard to untangle himself clumsily from the bedding. He shook, he trembled, his heart throbbed in his ears and half crawling, stumbling, Yami found himself falling.
He hit the carpet hard. Bones rattling, every limb quaking uncontrollably, and unable to find his balance any better was hopeless to try and find his feet. He crawled, dragged, shaking still on his hands and knees and doubling in on himself found the uncontrollable urge to vomit too immense with hold. He struggled against it, hacked to cough splattering chunks of black, gelatinous, inky fluid over the cream carpet.
Compelled by stupid instinct, inbuilt cleanliness from years in his culture, Yami tried again to make it to his feet and shamble into the bathroom. His fingers twisted in the gunk as he tried and stumbling upright he only made it another step or two before another tight wave of black fluid was escaping in dying hacks that left him unable to breathe. It stained his shirt, hit the carpet, and wrenching up air Yami scrambled to escape the next wave.
How he managed with his body failing, the world spinning, his temples throbbing and his heart pounding with gunshots as nausea ripped through him would be a mystery but somehow his hands found the toilet seat and, barely able to keep himself on his hands and knees in the spasms, Yami finally found himself gagging real substance into the bowl.
It seemed to go on forever, wrenching and reeling, trying to struggle for breath through the vomit as it came over him in sequences. His knuckles tightened against the seat, he was sure he was crying, and in the bile and the coppery slick taste of blood Yami prayed for it all to just stop. He was sure he must be dying. Something was wrong. So wrong.
The blood, the black gunk, the pus and the nothingness that was strung out from him didn't seem humanly possible. Where did it come from? Yami had never experienced this, never in all his late nights, felt this world ending kind of horrible queasiness that smacked him about as if it was drowning him. He was sure he was vomiting a lifetime of disgust. Inner cancers and old stalely scabbed wounds all seemed to be escaping. It was as if every vile miasma inside him was jumping board like rats from a sinking ship to make way for something else that shot through him like a lightning bolt.
It stopped. Just when Yami had given up hope it would ever end. The nausea however was the only thing that withdrew, very sharply, as if it had been cauterized at the source. Something seemed to have cut the head from some terrible medusa within Yami and falling back into the wall he shook with every breath racking through him. He palpated to fill his lungs with new air, shaking, and as he curled his face into his knees he could hear nothing else but his throbbing heart pounding relentlessly in his ears.
Slowly…
Oh so slowly…
Breathe, he ordered himself, breathe…
Sluggishly but surely the spasms faded till his limbs softened once again with renewed self-control. His mind slowed till sleepiness and exhaustion fell back in a curtaining uncertainly. His heart crept gently, ebbing, and easing till it was finally steadied.
The exhaustion came naturally then, heavy, but a cool breeze trickled up in his gut just as the dust seemed to have fallen languidly into place like centuries of muck replacing itself after the Pharaoh's tomb was freshly invaded.
The pulse of his steady heart thrummed inside his chest. With every drum beat of his beating heart the thrum, the pulse, of some great cold light expanded and grew inside. Freshness, lightness, cool and new and amazing seeped slowly from the cavity of his chest. It escaped through his shoulders and Yami felt them ease. It ran through his thighs and Yami relaxed them, throwing his head back into the wall slowly his spin seemed to rebuild taller.
Was this…his core…?
The cool was soothing after the queasiness. That post vomit sense of immediate swift relief. It stretched to his toes, his fingers, tingled in every single pore of his living body.
He closed his eyes. He felt gently compelled to in the natural way of a dying animal but Yami knew he wasn't dying most acutely in that second. Energy, life, radiance brilliant and pure and increasingly warm crimson was flooding him. Wait… could…?
Yami felt himself reposed, reclined comfortably, the greatness of the glory that rang out like heaven's choirs seeming to push at the bounds of his skin. He accepted it. It felt good. He felt regenerated.
It was nearly as if before his very eyes life was returning to a withered corpse; a life that returned plumpness to his skin and light to his eyes. His heart beat and with every, single, thump he felt more of it rebuild his insides. He could've been convinced every cell within him was resuming its original, cleansed, form and with it the systems of his body may as well have started running backwards, running the right way, for the first time in all his life.
He was unclogged, unfettered, utterly unbound and Yami knew in that second he was finally, perfectly, himself. His real self.
There was a tide, something coming next, and Yami could see it rising towards him, rushing, like a child on the shore watching the crest of a wave coming in knowing it was about to battering, whoosh, through him. He saw it, he knew it almost before it hit, and unafraid he welcomed it.
It hit.
He remembered everything.
Everything that had ever happened came crashing down on him simultaneously and whacking him off his feet Yami knew the entire course of universal history in an instant.
It all made divine, puzzle pieces in place, sense. Like God had snapped his fingers Yami suddenly understood.
It was him.
The thin, evaporating, line that had sat between he and Atemu was eradicated like wind tossing up ash and immediately he was Jenzar. There was no divide. They were the same down to the morsels. They infused, invading every inch of each other, energy suffusing into every cell and Yami was finally, completely, wholly himself.
His mind, his heart, had been ready for this but his core had been missing and now that he and Jenzar were one, now he was him again, now he was Jenzar the flood gates had been unleashed.
He saw it: Sanctuary. Glorious, magnificent, Sanctuary. The crystal topper to the whole universe as far as Jenzar's fickle, adoring, heart was concerned. The Christians could have their Heaven, the Hindu souls their Nirvana, for Jenzar there was only Sanctuary where he, for what had been a short eternity, had experienced the greatest, most innocent, bliss. The Hive was dull by comparison. Homely but bland and amongst his brothers because it's image was poisoned by the golden key he possessed to Sanctuary. The place Jenzar always longed to return to.
He remembered that city was alive. Third Star, the Faens, had built it and infused it and it changed every day, every second, a living organism they had borne like their first child. Trees sprung up and shrunk back springing birds of paradise one day and diamonds the next. The Faens were infused with creativity, never satisfied, never content, but always happy. They wanted, every second, to show the bemused Champions who lulled with them how much they loved them by always adding to their dream paradise. So every day Jenzar woke to something new, something fresh and unseen.
They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were tired and made love where ever they fell. There was no privacy, no possessions, they were a unit in a mass family network dictated and ruled solely by love. There was no order, no rules, because they needed none. They were inbuilt into them in natural kindness. They were never mad, never lonely, never embarrassed.
Faens showed every inch of themselves if they were struck by it. Clothes were for fun not necessity or survival then and their Champions would make love to them, unable to resist, at any given second. They had never been ashamed, never cared, Jenzar had never understood why they should have been. The Faens worshiped love in all its manifestations. Every bit of it was magnificent to them however it appeared either as wishing stone trees or as two bodies intertwining.
Vegas Helldreem, Seviticus Prodious' Faen, had filled every window with stained glass on a whim. Jenzar remembered Vegas, wheat blonde hair and sunset russet orange eyes round a dazzling smile. Vegas was so light Seviticus could throw him five feet in the air and catch him. Vegas had been the first one to figure out how to make fireworks and had been the favourite of the day for it.
They'd wanted a ball but Atreyu, Denn-Elec and half a dozen others had wanted to repaint the ceiling in the ballroom in the hours before. They had. Till the entire white ceiling was an amassed cluster of painted, precise, butterflies whose wings truly fluttered overhead in their canopy. They'd spent so long playing at it, making it, that Denn-Elec and Atreyu had not bothered washing, had not cared, and Jenzar had swept a paint splattered Atreyu up into his arms to dance. The Faens had been so exerted from their painting that the party quickly turned to dinner and by the end of the night they had all fallen asleep at their places along the grand table.
They were always laughing, always touching, always kissing. He remembered his dear friend Amar and remembered those secret smiles they gave each other. He remembered Amar hoisting Denn-Elec onto his back. Remembered Denn-Elec's fluttering blue hair and chocolaty eyes. Remembered the glass beads Denn was drenched with. Remembered how the Faen had clung to redheaded, green-eyed, Amar and how the Champion had swooned with adoration. Jenzar remembered waking with his head in Amar's lap, Denn-Elec rubbing his face into Jenzar's side as they sprawled on the tiles. Jenzar remembered looking up to see Atreyu with his head on Amar's shoulder and his arm round the redhead's chest and feeling no jealousy but instead perfect happiness.
They used to sing. Not words just a long chanting procession of sounds that filled the walls of Sanctuary at all hours of the day and night. It had been a literal, sounded, expression of contentment when the soul was too overflowing to contain it. Jenzar remembered that was what they danced to. He remembered their costumes, thrown together, remembered Denn-Elec with his dove wings and knew Atreyu didn't like the style. He'd tried his hand once, clumsily, at shaping and making butterfly wings for Atreyu. Those were his Faen's favourite wings, always throughout all of time, and Atreyu had laughed and smiled at the silly pair Jenzar had made for him and refused stubbornly to take them off.
He remembered exploring every star, their adventurers, finding beaches and worlds and creatures in a vast new universe.
Jenzar remembered summoning the Lance of Lazarus for the first time. Remembered the ripple of new, unexperienced, emotions when they stormed Atlantis and Jenzar had become a Champion, an upstart, a hero to his own bemusement. He remembered how Timaeus had lunged to strike them, remember suddenly holding the Lance out of nothingness and swiping had torn at the Guardian's face. He remembered the feeling, the anger, and the bloodlust that came with a fierce protectiveness. No one hurt his Faen, no one threatened Atreyu, and no one hurt what was so truly love. He remembered promising, for all of time, to keep it that way.
He remembered the first time they cried. He recalled leaving Sanctuary. Saw the last revel and how every Faen and Champion had laughing and sobbing come closer than any force in the universe could've deemed possible. He remembered falling asleep in his home for the last time desperately pressed with Amar, Denn-Elec and Atreyu: his first family.
He remembered learning to make love in a new way. In their second life when everything was strange and different. He remembered Atreyu in his lap on a windowsill, remembered the Faen's toes touching the wood grain of the floor, thrusting and making life for the first time.
He could see Morphis. That perfect looking glass which showed him from the outside how beautifully, consuming, Atreyu loved. He remembered the Faen kissing the child, their child, remembered the heart breaking wonder of that ripe fruit they had made. All the loving trepidation and envy for his perfect, spell binding, boy. Their first born son… Jenzar remembered knowing him yet being so foreign to Morphis. He had envied how sweetly, completely, the child could love Atreyu and felt clumsy. He remembered how Morphis was always a little amazed by Jenzar himself, awed and envious of how his father could protect them and how Jenzar's power engulfed and dwarfed Morphis'. He remembered adoring that boy. He remembered pulling him into his lap when Morphis found the courage to ask for Jenzar and rubbing their noses and foreheads together. Seeing the child that was a piece of both of them, a soul provided with a body by them, perfect.
He remembered Drea at once; the child, the little Sequester, who was a foreign and strange being. He was different type of soul to the three of them. He remembered Drea always with his arms outstretched, always reaching, always climbing. Jenzar remembered throwing the child above his head with his arms outstretched and giving Drea his smile, which the child deserved, and seeing Drea glow with happiness.
He remembered Nephele so suddenly. He was their thoughtful, shy, little Timer who wanted to hold Morphis' hand and would cry when he couldn't get up into Jenzar's arms. Jenzar remembered how Drea and Nephele would, sharing his lap, consent only to share him with each other. He remembered the soft, adoring, envy Atreyu flickered for them. Jenzar remembered these three, pristine, little lives who were their first children and who had been to them, though they loved them, Oedipus and Electra as children always were to their parents.
Jenzar remembered the first time Atreyu died. He recalled the agonising horror of every tiny second of watching Atreyu leave him. Remember the Faen's utter anguished terror of the unknown. Remembered thinking he could never bear it. Remembered knowing that he would never be able to leave Atreyu or stop loving him. Knowing, certain, that this pain he had felt when Atreyu had died for the first time was the strength of their bond. Their love had buried, intruded, upon his very soul and without Atreyu there was no Jenzar.
He saw lifetimes upon lifetimes in a whirr. Atreyu skewering him, pushing harsh steel through his torso, and then the Faen's body shattered into bloody broken pieces in a gladiator's arena. He remembered planets before Earth stretching back billions of years. Remembered a progression of lives watching Atreyu bloom and then wither in each progressive mortal disguise. Remembered singing in a mud hut by the filthy river. Jenzar remembered finding Morphis as a ringlet bearing girl named Claudia in one life and hiding in a house filled with dead bodies during a plague with Atreyu in another. Jenzar remembered burning alive and being crushed under chariots. Jenzar remembered Atreyu flinging himself from cliff tops into rocky shores and drinking poison. He remembered laboratories, mines, castles, space ships and mountains. Jenzar remembered their lives as men, women and children.
Jenzar could see temples and Pharaoh's chambers and pagan, demon, idols dancing under the moon. Jenzar remembered sinking between Atreyu's thighs, feeling the Faen purr beneath him, remembered always finding a way to be one again whatever form they took.
Jenzar remembered older than all of it, remembered older than time, the very beginning when there seemed to be only two things in all of existence: himself and the world.
That was the start of the first life.
He had sat in the grass, naked and dumbstruck, all alone but not knowing he was alone. He knew somehow, in a time before words or logic, that he had been part of something and now was independent of it. He had known the whole universe had once being one entity and was now scattered but not it in such a linear and human fashion more in primal instinctiveness.
Jenzar had sat there, bemused, and wandered idly along new river banks as the first eyes to ever see them. He had fallen asleep in the lavender, orchids and daffodils before they had names. He had been so small and unaware.
He remembered waking to something else. Something other than himself which was sentient in a way the flowers and the sky were not and which was staring giddily at him. That other thing, tiny and white and smiling, had crept a little closer with nature's curiosity and what Jenzar did not then recognise as Reapers' instinct flared him to caution. The other had reached out, touched his nose with its fingertip with a beaming, fascinated, smile and Jenzar had realized they were the same shape of being.
The touch had been soft, fresh, and warm in a ruddy mortal way. Jenzar had blinked, caution tossed aside, they crawled a little closer like kittens and suddenly in awash of fearlessness were all hands to grope at each other's warmth. It had been new. They had liked the feel of each other with their innocent hands and Jenzar had pulled the other thing to him and they had curled round each other to hide amongst the strands of grass.
They didn't know names then but their names had been the first thing spoken at the dawn of time when the universe was forged four billion years ago. Jenzar had found himself. Discovering he had a voice had said 'Jenzar Fraveous' because it was true and right. It was a summary of his soul. Then his companion had opened his mouth and out came 'Atreyu Damestaire' and as the other creature was the same as Jenzar yet not him it seemed right their words should be different. Still those first words, they hardly understood, were wondrous and just as Jenzar had thought very quickly his companion was the prettiest thing in this vast new universe he had thought his name was spectacular. 'Atreyu Damestaire' had been the third and fourth words Jenzar had ever spoken and they had repeated their names to each other, cooing, under that frozen sun for what could've been hours or centuries as time did not yet exist.
They had found each other at the dawn of time and never since wanted for a second to be apart. Jenzar had never loved anything or anyone as he loved Atreyu. There was no contest. They were a complete entity fused together. Jenzar would never leave him, would never stop loving Atreyu, and never wanted to. The pain, the cruelty, the myriad of names and faces they'd assumed over four billion years had not yet had the power to erase or to withdraw what had been established by something beyond any understanding. They could never be parted. What Jenzar felt for Atreyu was just the deepest expression of what Yami felt for Yugi. Perfectly synchronised it was Yami understood instantly as the truest piece of love he had ever encountered.
That was how they had bared each other over four billion years. Not like an old married couple squabbling and growing ever sicker of each other from an initial perfect moment of coincidental meeting. No, Atreyu and Jenzar defined mortality's view of love with real love. It was a timeless, universal, love which was out of anyone's power to break. This was the godlike mystery which made them possible, made them tick, and that no human being would ever truly fathom. This was absolute love, infinity love, and the Faens and their Champions were perhaps then the engineers and pioneers of love itself as a concept in the universe. They had the secret.
Yami's supposition that Jenzar may not have loved Yugi, Atreyu, enough to appreciate the Faen at once was rendered absurd. Yami's fickle human conception of love was void, petty, useless compared to this supernova of sensation which broke the laws of being and viciously resettled them. If this was the full ferocity of what Jenzar, of what Yami, felt then there wasn't a human being who had ever lived who was more perfectly, totally, loved than Yugi was. Human love lived on a blade of grass in the universe of love the Faens and their Champions held.
1 Oedipus and Electra are Greek myths. Oedipus married his mother and Electra her father. Freud had this concept that children in a sort of subconscious way want their opposite sex parent and see their same sex parent as competition (not necessarily in a sexual way). I think all mums and dads will tell you that sometimes they're a little jealous of how their kids love their partner or how much their partners love their children. It's not a bad thing it just one of the weird ironies and mysteries of parenting I think.
That's all I think I need to say~
Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. It's a frantic, messy, disaster but if I did anything right it got you all a bit frenzied.
See you next week!