The Three Kings: Strike
Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Studios, and TV Tokyo. Harry Potter is owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Arthur A. Levine Books, and Warner Bros. Please support the official releases.
Warning: Mentions of pedophila, past character death, and gore.
Chapter 2: The Fog of War
"No."
Seto doesn't like the plan. Atem is not surprised.
She likes that about him. She prefers having members of her council to not all have the same opinion as her. Not only does that make the debates that they have infinitely less boring, but it also means that all options would be argued. It's probably the reason why the gods had chosen to split the power of the crown amongst three people from three very different backgrounds. So Atem understands the reasoning behind all of this.
It's just that right now, she doesn't have time for this. People are going to be showing up for this meeting in half an hour and the leadership of the San Francisco mage cause needs to be seen as a united front, not whatever it is now.
"It's a good idea," Atem says dryly, feeling like she's repeated those exact words four times in the last forty five minutes - except, it's not just a feeling, she actually has.
"Splitting our forces is not a good idea," Seto stresses. "We're already stretched thin as it is. If we're really are going to attack this island stronghold, we need as many people at our backs as we can. We can't afford to have half of our people going off to England for a plan that might not work."
"It's not going to be half our force," Bakura rolls his eyes, slumping back into the wingback chair he's sitting on and kicking his feet up onto the table. Atem resists the urge to swat at his legs. "It's going to be a small group, no more than six people. Too large a group will attract attention."
"All the more reason why Seto shouldn't be the one in charge of that force, if we decide to do it. We should, Bakura," Joey leans forwards. "Us thieves operate better in smaller units. You guys are too used to commanding armies, not insurgent forces."
"~Thief, you have been warned, beware of finding more than treasure there~" Bakura hums. When Atem, Seto, and Joey look at him in question, he smirks, "It's part of the rhyme engraved on the doors of every Gringotts Bank. Even if we were to go, goblins don't take too kindly to thieves. We wouldn't make as much of an impression as the great and powerful Pharaoh Seth. Sending the Thief King would be an insult that we can't afford right now."
Atem nods along, "And even then, the whole point of the mission is insurance, just in case something does go wrong. We can't afford to show our full hand, not when we're still recovering from this attack-"
"We just showed them that we could withstand whatever they could throw at us-" Seto starts, but Atem cuts him off.
"Seth, this wasn't a full battle. Anyone can see that," she snaps. "If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead. The Department is one thing, but we don't have the abilities to stand against the full force of the wizarding world and you know that." Seto scowls at her, but she continues on, "They came to take prisoners, for what reason? They're looking for something - information, maybe - because otherwise, they'd have focused more on killing us."
Killing is easy, Atem thinks. Subduing, now that's a challenge. She imagines trying to keep all those mages and non-magics in check, trying to keep Mokuba and Matthew from trying to cause all kinds of chaos, and it brings a small smile to her face. We're coming for you. I promise.
"I don't trust the witch," Joey says suddenly, cutting through their argument. There's a moment of silence before Bakura starts speaking.
"I don't either. I don't think any of us really do."
Atem watches as Seto raises an eyebrow. Clearly, he's surprised by that admission, though he's not going to admit it.
"I trust her anger," Atem says. "But do I trust Reiko Kitamori? No. It's hard to trust someone who's clearly playing both sides."
Bakura nods. "And if this Helena Hendrix's divine weapon is capable of reversing aging, then the fact that Kitamori doesn't look all the one hundred and twenty-"
"One hundred and thirty five," Atem interrupts.
"All the one hundred and thirty five years that she is," Bakura concedes, "means that Kitamori still has powerful allies within the Department of Mysteries. Hendrix knows that she's here. Hendrix knows that she's going 'off the books'," Bakura uses actual finger quotes. It's kind of adorable. "And she's supporting it. But then again, Mai didn't catch Kitamori in a lie, so maybe Hendrix doesn't know everything."
And that's the most important part: Mai Valentine didn't detect a lie. From what Atem remembers of her powers, Mai's lie detection couldn't be fooled, not even by mental shields or wards. She compared the words a person spoke to the very timeline of the universe. If Kitamori had felt the urge to hide anything, she would have had to couch it within complete truths.
"It's still dangerous trusting her," Seto says. "Once she has Pegasus, there's nothing stopping her from turning on us."
"But if her end game really is to take down the Department, eventually she'll have to drop even Helena Hendrix as an ally. Unless she's planning on flying completely solo, she'll need someone on her side," Joey muses. When Seto gives him a pointed look, he shrugs, "What? It's a good point. Even you have to admit that."
"At the end of the day, she's agreed to lead us to the island and help us to find our people in exchange for Maximillion Pegasus," Bakura spits out the man's name like a curse, and not for a second does Atem disagree. "As much as the fucker disgusts me, if nothing else we can use him as leverage against Kitamori if she decides to betray us. The ball is in our court here."
"We still shouldn't be splitting our forces," Seto brings back the same point he's been pushing all afternoon. "Especially if we're completely unsure of Kitamori's intentions."
"We should split them, especially because we're unsure," Atem counters. "We need insurance, Seto. We need to still have something to use as a bargaining chip in case something goes terribly wrong. You're the best negotiator I've ever seen," she tells him. "If anyone can get them to listen to us, it's you."
"It's not going to work-"
"Is this because you genuinely think my plan is stupid or because you aren't going after Mokuba?" Atem finally snaps at him. Seto goes silent, fingers drumming on the table. I'm right. "Well?"
"He's my brother, Atem. He's our brother. And you just came back. I should be the one going-"
"Do you think I don't know that?" She tries to get through to him, "Do you think that this doesn't kill me inside, sending you to the other side of the world? Because it does, but we have to prioritize-"
"You think I don't know that?" He shouts back at her, "Damn it, Atem, I've already lost my brother to these monsters and- and you just want to go after them with less than a full force-"
"I am full capable of-"
"I can't lose you again!" Seto stands up suddenly. The bottom of Atem's stomach drops. "I can't. You just came back and it's been so long, I just can't-" Seto covers his hand with his mouth, unable to continue.
Atem's brain actually struggles to process this. Logically, she knows that Seth had had to live on after she died, but it isn't until this moment that she understands that he'd had to live on while being unable to publicly mourn her passing. That she'd done the same thing to him than Bakura blamed her father for doing to her.
"Seth..." she says softly, reaching out ever so slowly, like he was a scared animal.
"You were dead, Atem. Everyone was dead, everyone we grew up with, all but Mana. And we had to put everything back together because you were gone and-" Seto takes a shuddering breath, "-and I can't lose you again, not to these people. Don't… don't ask me to be on the other side of the fucking world while you go off to fight again."
Seto looks so tired when he slumps back in his chair, face hiding in his hands. Atem pinches her lips together as she struggles with her emotions, not sure whether to control the urge to hold him or not. Her mother always taught her to guard her feelings, to maintain a solid wall between herself and even those she loves. Atem has always been more of her mother's heir than her father's, she likes to think. But then Bakura nudges her ever so slightly and gives her this look and Atem knows that right now, Seto needs his sister and not his Pharaoh.
"Brother," she whispers, moving from her chair to kneel before him on the floor. When she covers his large hand with her smaller one, Seto looks at her in shock. "Seth, listen to me. I'll be alright. I promise you. I swear it, by all the gods, old and new."
"Atem, what…?" He's shaking so badly, staring at her like she's gone mad. Has he forgotten that I loved him? Has he forgotten that, if I could die, I would die for him in a heartbeat?
"And if I'm not," she continues, "I know that you'll pull Mokuba and I out of it, no matter what."
Seto's jaw clenches so tight that Atem can hear his teeth grinding against one another. When he finally speaks, he says, "You shouldn't kneel before me, sister."
She frowns, thinking that he's missed her point, "I'm not your King, not now."
"I know. I'm not yours, either," Seto shrugs, trying to look indifferent. We're equals. That's what he's trying to say.
"You royals, making things so complicated," Bakura huffs, rolling his eyes and breaking the tension in the room. "Can't even make up after a fight without making a production out of it."
"Yes, I suppose we should just take a page out of your book, Bakura, and sulk for days on end and refuse to talk to anyone," Atem throws back at him, a small smirk on her face.
"...I don't sulk for days," he pouts.
"No, no, you really do," Joey grins. "'Jono, they don't like me anymore.' 'Jono, I don't want to talk about it.' 'Jono, I love them so much, I wanna have their babies-"
"I don't sound like that," Bakura whines.
"You totally do," Joey practically cackles.
"This sounds like a bit more than hypothetical. When did he say that?" Atem asks Joey carefully, feeling her face heat up. When she glances at Bakura out of the corner of her eye, she can see that he's blushing too.
"Oh, around that time where you guys figured who you were. We didn't know it at the time, though. It just seemed like you three all had a fight," Joey laughs. "But this guy-"
"Wait, was that around the time where you started snapping at people?" Seto frowns, turning to look down at Atem. Her grin slips from her face. Oh no. "Around the autumn equinox?"
"No," Atem lies, vehemently. She gets to her feet and sits down as gracefully as she can back in her seat.
"Yeah, it was," Joey cackles. "Oh my god, you were are pouting!"
"Nearly tore my head off for bumping into you in the hallway," Seto chimes in, a small smile working its way onto his face for the first time that afternoon.
"That's adorable," Joey says.
"It. Didn't. Happen," she implores. She looks over at Bakura again, only to find him staring back, this soft little look in his eyes.
"Really?" He asks quietly.
"I didn't pout," she says stubbornly, but then taps her heel to his ankle. "Just like you didn't sulk."
Bakura has a lot of smiles, mostly crooked smirks and cocky grins, making him look like all kinds of trouble when combined with the dashing scar and nose that's clearly been broken twice. But occasionally, his mouth curves into this small, shy smile, and it's like someone unleashed a flock of butterflies inside her chest.
He does this now, fingers twisting in his shirt. He lets out a tiny little laugh and he's so utterly beautiful that Atem almost kisses him.
But the moment doesn't last. It's back to business as soon as Seto opens his mouth.
"If I'm going to England, I need something to convince the goblins to listen to us," Seto says, sounding resigned.
"How's your Gobbledegook?" Bakura asks, naming the goblin's mother tongue.
"I haven't been fluent for several cycles," he admits. Atem wonders if languages can carry over from previous lives. She's going to guess that they don't, considering that both Seto and Amanda had look confused when she spoke to them in their old language. She thought in an old mixture of Ancient Egyptian and English herself, even though she could speak nearly a dozen languages fluently. "The last time I learned Gobbledegook, it was in the early 1600s."
"What were you doing?" Bakura asks.
"Trying to assassinate a witch named Isidore Greengrass. She was leading this group called the Coalition of Sacred Brothers, who were the Department of their day. We were trying to strike back," Seto shook his head. "We allied ourselves with the goblins, because they were angry about how the King Ragnuk's sword hadn't been returned again-"
"Ragnuk's sword?" Atem asks.
"Also known as the Sword of Gryffindor," Seto explains. "It's goblin made, but Gryffindor's descendants didn't return it after his death."
Atem frowns. It was part of the contract when someone commissioned a goblin made artifact, they would respect goblin tradition and have the artifact returned to the craftsman upon their death. If this sword was commissioned by a King, then there was probably some powerful spells interwoven into the metal. She almost wants to get her hands on it, to feel the powerful magic coursing through it, to watch the ancient ruins pulsing just below the surface.
"Anyways, the goblins took over an inn that Greengrass was staying in and we sent in a Polish mage named Tomisław Brzozowski. They ended up sinking the inn with Greengrass inside. Brzozowski escaped, but he was hunted down within the week. Soon after that, wizards went into hiding and the goblins went with them," Seto sighs. "I think they've switched sides."
"So we need something big to offer them, something to convince them to uphold our ancient alliance," Atem says.
"Blood," Bakura says suddenly. "The alliance was signed in blood, so let's give them blood."
"Bakura, we're not going to fight anyone for them, not when we're trying to win our own battles," she reminds him.
"No. We give them actual blood," he says. Her eyes widen, Oh. They know.
"Gold blood is this mythic thing amongst wizards, so it's probably the same amongst goblins. I read about it at Hogwarts," he explains. "Not only would it prove that we're actually here, but according to legend, it has incredible magical properties. Even if that's just a legend, it would be one hell of a gift."
Atem barely hears Bakura's explanation, though. All she can think about is the fact that Bakura is talking about the fact that they have gold blood to people that aren't her or the King Commander. They'd promised each other all those years ago that they'd never tell anyone until it became obvious that they weren't aging anymore. Atem knows that it had been a selfish decision, but one that she can't find in herself to regret. Had they declared their immortality early in their rule, their eventual deaths would have crushed their country's moral. Even then, if they had lived… she doesn't want to think of how her friend's and family's faces would have withered and aged while she stayed young, how she would have watched them die.
Instead, they watched her die. There's a certain amount of irony in that.
"Promise them us, remind them of the alliance we made all those years ago. Promise them-" Bakura starts, but then Joey says.
"Tell them about the Archives."
Seto jerks his head towards Joey.
"Seriously, you should have seen the stuff down there. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet all $39.05 of my life savings that there's some goblin made stuff down there that they'd like back," Joey nods.
"We'd need more than just the suggestion," Seto says, pausing for a moment before continuing. "...If I took a long a few thieves, a few that wouldn't be recognized, we could make a pit stop in Philadelphia first."
"They'll be ready for us this time. Let's face it, the only reason that raid went as well as it did was because nobody was expecting it," Bakura points out.
"I know that," Seto scoffs, a hint of their earlier dislike of each other making itself known. "But you're not the only one capable of plans."
"And you've got one?"
"Give me a layout of the interior and Vivian Wong and, yes, I'll have one."
The two of them stare at each other for a moment, daring the other to say something. Atem watches as a white aura rolls off of Bakura, curling in the air like smoke and mist, reaching out with thin tendrils towards her brother, unconsciously issuing a challenge of strength. Seto responds with his own silver magic, streaked with azure, flowing like liquid metal. No one in the room can see this hidden battle except her, but she suspects that Joey can feel it.
And then, unexpectedly, Bakura backs off. Atem raises an eyebrow. This is new.
There's something different between the two of them, something that she suspects traces back to the secret that Bakura had revealed to her in the burnt out remains of the Turtle Game Shop. Seth and Bakura killed Aknadin. He may not have held the knife, but Seth helped murder his own father. The two most unlikely people had put aside their dislike for one another and worked together to take down the man that had taken so much from so many, becoming Aknadin's judge, jury, and executioner.
Atem wonders if she'd been angry when she'd found out all those years ago. She wonders if she'd been relieved.
"Fine. But be careful," Bakura stresses.
"Careful? Bakura, if I didn't know better, I'd think that you cared," Joey teases.
Bakura snorts, but offers nothing else and that's practically an admission, in an of itself. A small smile works its way onto her lips. It would figure that it would take a few millennia for those two to start liking each other.
"Vivian Wong, then. Who else do you want for your team, Seto?" Atem asks.
He ponders it over for a minute before answering, "I'll wait until we see who the Jackals are sending us to give you a final answer, but put Mai on my list. Rafael, too. I'm going to need some muscle. Your sister," he turns to Joey, who gives a tense nod.
"Mai's going to kill you for leaving her without a babysitter," Bakura comments.
"Maya has a child in this cycle?" Atem asks, feeling slightly lost. She glances at Bakura again, catches him staring at her. She doesn't know why, not really, but she doubts it has anything to do with-
"We can't," Atem whispers late one night, fingers turning the cow's head charm in her hand, the moonlight glancing off the features of Hathor. She's not going to cry, "We'd outlive them."
"I know," he says, his voice thick with emotion. "I know, love. It's alright."
"I can't-"
The memory cuts out just before she says the King Commander's name. She forces herself to hold Bakura's gaze as he answers her question.
"A daughter. Haley," he says. "She's sweet. You'd like her."
Does he remember? She wants to ask him about the night they'd agreed not to have any children, about how they'd agreed never to tell anyone why she'd never fallen pregnant during the years they'd been together. Atem remembers visiting Hathor's temple, praying for the goddess to not make her a mother the one time her monthly blood had not come on time, and how the Mistress of the West had sent it to her the very next day.
Bakura nods slightly, softly, and a little bit sadly, and she knows that he does.
"Alister will take care of her," Joey says. "He and Raf are Haley's godparents. And if anything goes wrong…" He doesn't dare continue, but the rest of the sentence hangs over them like a blade.
"Joey, you… you go with Atem and Bakura," Seto says, his voice tight. He glances over at his friend, "You'll do more good with them."
"I know, man. I know. It's alright." There's this charged look between the two of them and for a moment she thinks that- no, Bes and Qetesh and Osiris, she knows that there's something more that these two have not worked out for themselves. Atem realizes in that moment just how much she's missed out on.
"We've got company coming down the halls," Bakura says suddenly, his hand touching his stomach. Atem can't see the magic of the Millennium Ring working - and that is something that she will never get used to - but she follows suit and touches the Puzzle, hidden in Amanda's cloaking spell around her neck.
The world inverts for a second as the divine weapon's powers seep into her body, amplifying her ability to sense and control energy to the point where she can see through the walls and beneath the floors. Atem spots the flaring lights of four nervous systems walking towards Seto's front door, watches as their phones send off signals towards the satellites roughly twelve thousand five hundred and five two miles above her head. There's six more squashed together in the elevator; fifteen have chosen to brave the condo's staircase.
There's a knock at the door.
"It's time to be Kings," Bakura says gravely as Seto stands up to let their guests in.
Atem runs her hands through her thick red hair, wondering if the hairdresser that Atem went to is still alive.
"Yes," she agrees. "Yes. It's time."
Pete helps Solomon Mutuo back to his cell after Pegasus finishes with him and thinks that he's never seen a man look more broken before in his life. And it's the worst feeling in the world, because Mutuo looks like every bit the grandfather that he is and Pete can't help but see the same misery in him as that kid in the kitchen, hunched over his mother and desperately trying to bring her back to life. They need to move faster, though, because the last place Pete wants to be right now is anywhere within Pegasus's sight.
The old man is barely coherent, blood dripping from his nose, when Pete unlocks the door. Mokuba Kaiba is immediately on his feet, teeth bared.
"What did you do to him?!"
"Just… Just fucking help me with him, okay?" Pete gasps. He'd hauled Mutuo over his shoulders as soon as he could and booked it down the hallway and now he's panting. "Get his other side."
"M-Moku… Mon-Monthu…" Mutuo stammers, eyes darting back and forth in their sockets. Pete is a little bit concerned because Kaiba just jumps when calls him something that isn't his name and actually does what Pete asks of him. Together, they set Mutuo down on the moldy old cot in the corner of the room.
"What did you do to him?" Kaiba asks again, voice tense with anger.
"I didn't- I-" Pete can't even comprehend what's happening. Between Reiko's betrayal and whatever the hell Pegasus has done to his face, he's shaking and three seconds away from throwing up.
"The Eye…" Mutuo wheezes. "Monthu… H-h-he… The Eye."
Kaiba is not saying anything. He's just staring at Mutuo with such a look of horror that Pete knows, somewhere in the back of his mind where he's not in a complete and utter panic, that the mages know something about what's going on.
"Pegasus, the guy in charge-" Pete is talking before he can shut himself up. "He's lost it- He cut out his eyeball and-"
"No," Kaiba gasps. "Holy fuck, shit, you have the Millennium Eye?"
Pete thinks that that's probably what the golden thing in Pegasus's eye socket is called because it looks like he's stuck a bloody golden orb in his head and then used it to pull someone's brain apart, "You know what it is?"
"You're an Unspeakable and you don't?"
Pete thinks that it's a little unreasonable that nobody seems to grasp the concept that he works for the Department of Mysteries. Secrets are part of the job.
"What does it do?"
"I'm not fucking telling you!"
"Fuck kid, it nearly killed you friend! It could kill you, too!"
"I would rather die than give you anything!"
"Monthu…" Mutuo rasps again and Pete loses Kaiba's attention again. "Monthu… He- he-"
"Grandpa, don't… just rest. Come on, old man, it's okay-"
"He knows about Atem."
Mokuba Kaiba goes completely white. His jaw flaps open once, twice, and then brings a shaking hand to cover his mouth.
"Atem…" Kaiba says this person's name with such a level of reverence, such a level of horror, that Pete wonders just who this guy is.
Kaiba is swearing under his breath, grasping desperately for Mutuo's hand.
"He knows everything, doesn't he?" Kaiba whispers, "He knows about Bakura, too." Mutuo shakes with something that might be a nod, might be a shuddering gasp. Kaiba asks, "Does he know about cycling?"
"Y… y…" Mutuo can barely speak. Kaiba sits down on the floor, head in his hands, a picture of defeat.
"What is the Millennium Eye?" Pete asks again. Kaiba peaks out from between his fingers and the narrowing of his eyes is the only warning Pete gets.
Kaiba launches himself at Pete, fingers wrapping around his neck and pushing him to the ground. He struggles for breath, wand slipping from his hand as he claws at Kaiba's grip. Darkness invades the sides of his vision, the kid's face all that he can see, eyes full of rage and fear and-
Pete gets his leg up in between their bodies and violently kicks at Kaiba's stomach until the guy lets go, coughing blood. They both roll onto their side, trying to force air into their lungs. A wave of hysteria hits Pete just then and he laughs his throat absolutely raw.
What the fuck is going on? He wonders, Reiko, what were you thinking? What did you do to me? What am I going to do now?
Keith is falling apart by the seams, having downed a bottle of firewhiskey hidden in his office as soon as Latner disappeared. Tilla has been obsessively trying to find out everything she can on Kiyoshi. Lew is dead and Reiko is just gone, disappearing behind enemy lines and, fuck, Merlin, god-
He hasn't told anyone why he went to Keith with those scrolls that day, but something tells him that if he looks Pegasus in the eye, that's not going to matter. It had been in the days after Ryou Andrews' explosive death. He and Reiko had become friends after she'd helped heal him after Andrews' stabbed him with a wand. They'd been talking to each other on one of the balconies, leaning over the railing and Pete's heart had been thumping in his chest because the sun had hit Reiko's face just right and she was laughing and he'd felt like he'd known her his entire life.
Pete had brought up the rumour that some of the higher up were talking about taking back the mage stronghold of San Francisco, that he'd lived in San Francisco when he was younger, but then Reiko suddenly had this look on her face, like she'd lost something irreplaceable. She'd tried to cover it up and it's only now that he realizes that this had either been a slip in her cover or something she'd faked in order to gain sympathy, but in the moment it had worked and Pete was stumbling over words to get Reiko to smile again.
Reiko, though… She'd refused to tell him why she'd been so sad, instead insisting that Pete should find out who was in charge of that mission and tell them that he could help. She'd said nothing about recommending her to the team, so there wasn't any reason for him telling Keith about her after their meeting other than that he wanted to work with her. But Latner had said that she'd implanted the idea in him somehow and Pete doesn't know what to do.
So he laughs, cackling there on the cold floor of a cell with two muggles after one of them tried to murder him. Pete Coppermine laughs until he throws up, laughs until Mokuba Kaiba tries to go for his neck again, laughs while he grabs his wand and knocks the kid out cold. Laughs until he passes out himself.
He's done. He's so fucking done with all of this. Pete is angry and terrified and just wants this all to be over.
What am I going to do? He thinks. What am I going to do?
Hello again!
I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Trafalgar Thunderbird Law, dragomira, Rita Mu, green lilah, anita15, CrimsonStrawberry17, Chuchutu, Tz342, Evilkitten3, and Dana Sto Helit. You guys are awesome!
Sorry that I can't stay and talk for long. I'm literally about to head out the door. But if you have any comments or questions, please leave a review and I'll be able to answer them.
Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient