Chapter 44

'Just how much longer is this going to take,' Re's voice seethed with more than mild levels of anger. 'I told you I didn't want you to keep me waiting around for too long.'

'Maybe we should play whilst we wait Re,' Na clapped his hands together, 'there are so many games we could play right now.'

'No,' Gan glared at him, 'there will be no playing for either of you. Not until after we get what we want.'

'Why do you have to be such a spoilsport?' Na pouted. 'I'm bored. Re's bored. We could have so much fun here. Why can't we play a little?'

'Because I say so.'

'Since when were you our leader little sibling?' Re glared at her.

'Since I was the first one holding a child,' Gan stared challengingly back at him, 'or had you forgotten how essential to our plan this is?'

'Your plan is ridicules and you know it.'

'No, my plan is genius and you're just sore because you didn't think of it first.'

'Like you actually thought of it,' Re brought his face as close to Gan's as he could, 'it was all pure coincidence the first time, an accident even.'

'The first one might have been by chance, but this little brat wasn't. And considering just how powerful he is, I don't exactly need anyone or anything else,' a self-satisfied smirk pulled across her face. 'Don't you get it Re, as long as I have this child in my arms, I don't need either of you, but you still need me. So for now that makes me the leader and if I say you're not allowed to play, then you're not allowed to play.'

'Okay,' Win took a deep breath in as his eyes surveyed the four of them, 'since I was recreated for a reason, I doubt any of you will object to me taking control here.'

'Of course not,' Kaiba smiled.

'So I guess I need to start with an explanation then. After all Soul didn't exactly tell you everything you needed to know. But then you can't exactly blame him, explaining things doesn't come naturally to him.'

'He said something about turning darkness into light,' Joey pressed his lips together in thought.

'I know what he said,' Win tilted his head to one side, 'he is a part of me right now, remember?'

'Sorry.'

'I'm not angry at you; I know you like to have some semblance of control over a situation. And what Soul told you is exactly what needs to happen, because if darkness becomes light then it's no longer darkness; if it's no longer darkness then it's no longer a threat to us. Of course the Reganna spread themselves much thinner than I did, so once we know what we're going to do works we'll need to spread the information to the other Realms and Plains as best we can.'

'What do you mean?' SK licked his lips.

'Stopping the Reganna in this reality will not be the end of the story. Not by a long shot. It will mean we will probably never have to deal with them again personally, but there will be others in other realities who will. And since they won't have the Mistresses or me around to help them we need to know turning darkness into light really does work. That way we can tell them what they need to do and let them figure out the how.'

'Okay...' SK's felt more than a little confused, 'but I don't understand; why has it taken you so long to figure out that you need to turn the darkness into light?'

'This information came to me from a future version of Body who passed it onto Soul, before Soul made it back to his own time. Body was living in a world were the light was dying, so it didn't take him long to figure out why. Once he had he made it his mission to try and reverse the process somehow, but all his attempts failed; the darkness had spread itself too far by that point. His only hope was to get the information back here to a time before the infection really took hold and hope that somehow we would be able to stop the spread and cure the multiverse.'

'You make the darkness sound like some kind of disease,' SK shook his head, 'like evil is little more than an illness which needs to be stamped out.'

'You're confusing darkness with evil,' Win took several steps towards him, 'you perceive the Reganna as being evil because they are destructive, they lust after death, misery and torture, they revel in cruelty, anarchy and chaos and you do not. In truth the Reganna are everything you have been told to believe is evil, but only because you have been told to believe these things are evil. Back when all this began we knew better,' he glanced towards Joey and Kaiba, 'or at least we thought we did. We tried our best to nurture them, but the truth is all we did was patronise them. They reacted by magnifying their destructive capabilities to the point where we had no choice but to stop them and deem these traits they possess as evil. But evil and darkness are not the same thing.'

'Err... you do know you just made them sound like the exact same thing, right?' SK stared at him.

'That's because I have a tendency to tangent,' Win gave a light laugh, 'what I meant to say was that evil is a choice of behaviour, whereas darkness is just a state of being.'

'Then why didn't you just say that?' SK licked his lips again. 'Why go through that whole... tangent?'

'It's just the way I am.'

'Are you sure you're supposed to behave like this?' SK frowned at him, before turning his gaze towards Kaiba and Joey. 'Are you sure he's supposed to behave like this?'

'Is there something wrong with the way I'm behaving?' Win was suddenly right in front of SK with his hands on his shoulders.

'Yes,' SK drew out the word as much as he dared.

'And what is that exactly?'

'I... I... uh...' SK's tongue skated across his lips. 'I don't know; I just get this feeling something's not quite right about you.'

'And so soon after you were thinking I was the most attractive man you'd ever seen,' Win smirked, before pulling away from him and turning his attention back towards the others. 'Now, we need to discuss Crovell.'

'What?' Joey frowned, clearly as caught out by the change in conversation as the rest of them.

'We need to talk about Crovell, he is the only thing standing between us and assured victory right now.'

'Impossible,' Joey shook his head, 'I mean, he's my son.'

'Yes and he's also Gan's,' Win folded his arms. 'Your youngest son was born a perfect balance, meaning he can be easily influenced by them.'

'Wait, youngest son?' SK licked his lips again.

'Oh come on,' Duke rolled his eyes, 'even I know that one. Remember he's talking just about the First, not the First and Joey.'

'Set, Du and Sta,' he groaned, 'I never actually thought about Crovell being related to them before.'

'Truth be told I only put two and two together because of something Catilin told me,' Duke nervously scratched the back of his neck. 'Although at the time I found myself more... weirded out at the thought of Sta being Du and Set's father and brother.'

'You can't apply your mortal sensibilities to us,' Joey glared at him, 'we are not obliged to follow your rules or codes of conduct. Besides, you have no idea what happened back then.'

'You slept with your own son,' SK stared at Joey, 'it doesn't matter how or why it happened, it still happened. More than once considering the fact Du and Sta aren't twins by any stretch of the imagination. You may have different sensibilities to us, but you can't just say we have no idea what happened like our feelings on the matter don't count.'

'You're feelings on the matter don't count,' Win shot him a look. 'And we're also getting sidetracked; I believe I was trying to explain why Crovell in their hands is so much of a threat to us.' He turned his attention back towards Joey and Kaiba. 'Which of you has the axe pendent now?'

Joey held it up for him.

'You mind?'

'Go ahead.'

Slowly Win passed his hand over the pendent, transforming it back into the Elemental Axe.

'The advantage of having the combined power of three women,' Win smirked. 'Well now at least we know we're dealing with the real thing and why the Reganna haven't attacked us yet and probably won't for quite some time.'

'How can you be so sure?' Joey's glazed eyes studied him curiously.

'My dear girl, knowledge and power might help a being control the weapon, but this Axe was design for one person and one person only. And only he can use it to its full extent, with no nasty side effects.'

'Wait, are you saying that person is Crovell?' SK felt his jaw drop open. 'But... he's just a baby.'

'Aye and a pretty powerful one at that. Or hadn't you been paying attention.'

'The Elemental Axe is a deceptive name,' Kaiba gave an amused half laugh, 'because it doesn't just harness the power of the Eight Elementals, it controls all Ten Orders of Power.'

'Ten Orders of Power?' Duke frowned.

'Ohpayo, Elta, Flayer, Riana, Gera, Wai, Ayrna, Sli, Strek and Reama,' the words rolled out of his mouth. 'The weapon is a balance to be wielded by other balances.'

'But wait, doesn't that mean you and Na should be able to use it without side effects too?' SK frowned.

'No, not to its full extent,' he shook his head. 'We may have the balance needed to keep the weapon in check, but we don't have the power to unlock the weapons full potential. You see whoever designed the Elemental Axe had only one user in mind. And that user was the Blue Wolf of Chaos. That user was Crovell Lutoni.'