The Three Kings: Strike
Disclaimer (1): 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.
Disclaimer (2): Midway Atoll is an unorganized, unincorporated territory belonging to the United States of America.
Warning: Mentions of hijacking, kidnapping, gore, murder, theft, the abandonment of a child, internalized misogyny, internalized racism, violence, and minor character(s) death.
Chapter 8: Allies
"Welcome," Cassie says as the last of her bone white wings disappear into her back, "to the Cerulean."
Bakura is officially impressed.
Floating forty five miles off the coast of Sand Island, the Cerulean seems to be a miracle of engineering, a metal island constructed in the middle of the ocean. Bakura takes a glance over the side, shielding his eyes from the harsh winds, and sees the water churning beneath them as the ship glides along towards it's target.
Behind him, Joey has wrapped Cassie in a thick blanket, screening her naked body from the prying eyes of the pirates on board. Clutching his own sheet around his waist like a poorly wrapped up toga, the two of them shuffle into the large tower located on the portside bow, shouldering past a woman who seemed intent on staring Cassie down.
The two of them had spent the last hour and a half shuttling their team from Kauai to the ship in dragon form. Atem had ridden on Cassie's back, while Bakura had begged off a lift from Joey. He's perfectly fine manipulating the air around him to propel himself into the air- it's how he'd gotten down the coastline so quickly in order to talk with Keith. He could probably fly halfway around the world if he wanted to.
In that moment, Bakura thinks, inexplicably, of Amane, before he tamps down on it entirely. You don't deserve to be in her life anymore, after what you did, he thinks to himself. She's better off thinking that you're dead.
"Wow…" Atem whispers beside him. He turns and offers her a grin.
Before the mages of San Francisco set out yesterday afternoon, Atem had disappeared for a few hours and had come back with her thick red hair woven into dreadlocks, combat boots, and bag full of clothes that she apparently bought at an army surplus store before proceeding to jam a baseball cap over his head.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, she'd also got herself some make up, as Atem had applied her eyeliner and lipstick before leaving the house. Somehow, in all their flights, she had yet to smudge it.
"Yeah. Wow," he says back to her. "Four days in and you're elbow deep into a military campaign. Seto at least waited a moment before sending me off to completely wreck the American Ministry of Magic."
"So when the King Commander finally shows up-" Atem starts but Bakura cuts her off, laughing.
"I give him two hours before he's marching on the International Confederation of Wizards," he grins. Atem elbows him in the side, eyes dancing with mirth before they sour ever so slightly.
Bakura turns and watches as Amanda and Tea pull a bound Reiko Kitamori across the deck.
The witch is blindfolded, her hands held together with zip ties and Amanda's binding rope wrapped out her wrist. Kitamori looks a little green and Bakura suspects that it's from both the plane ride out of San Francisco that was quickly followed up by the thousand mile flight on the back of a dragon where she'd been completely unable to see the entire time, air hurtling past her at breakneck speeds. Bakura's actually surprised that she hadn't thrown up.
He jinxes it when Kitamori falls to her knees just outside of the tower and vomits uncontrollably all over the floor.
"Oh my god, are you alright?" Amanda is asking when Bakura and Atem get close enough.
"I'm… I'm fine. I just… urgh," and that's all they get out of their prisoner before she's back to hurling up what's left in her guts.
"Seasick?" Atem asks and Bakura watches as Kitamori tracks her voice to determine her location, head turning in a way that, had the witch not been blindfolded, would have resulted in direct eye contact.
"No. But you already knew that," Kitamori says, mouth turning upwards in a weak attempt at a smile. "Just… nerves, I guess."
"Tell the truth now," Amanda says softly and- wow, Kitamori actually manages to hesitate for a full second before the Spellcaster's binding takes hold.
"I am telling the truth," she mutters under her breath. "It's just nerves. I promise."
Amanda makes silent eye contact with Atem, who's undoubtedly watching her spell for any signs that Kitamori had found a way around it. When she nods, Amanda lets out a sigh of relief.
"Come on. We'll get you inside and clean you up," Amanda says as she helps the witch to her feet. "Tea? I'll see you later?"
"Of course," Tea answers, giving her girlfriend a kiss before gesturing to her backpack, addressing Bakura and Atem. "I've got to go get set up in communications."
She waves goodbye before walking off.
"And we've got a date with Cassie's mom," Bakura reminds Atem, who nods and heads inside the tower with him a step behind.
The captain of the Cerulean looks very little like her daughter, who's tall and sturdily built, arms thick with corded muscle. In contrast, Cassie's mother is even shorter than Bakura- hell, she's shorter than Atem. There's a single, beady black eye left in her skull and a head shaved bald, her face lined with age and covered in sun-weathered, nut brown skin. Inky, black tattoos cover her arms and heavily scarred knuckles, and she stands as if her right knee has been broken one too many times.
Bakura immediately takes a liking to her. And judging by how her lips peel back into a grin, revealing yellowing teeth, she likes him too.
"Bakura," he says, introducing himself. When she takes his hand, her grip is bruisingly tight.
"Captain Betina Peres Almeida," she returns. When she turns to Atem, Almeida asks, "And you are?"
"Atem."
"Short names for short people," Almeida sneers.
Bakura offers her a crooked smirk in return, "Look who's talking."
Almeida snorts before sitting down in the captain's chair, feet up on the dash of the ship she controlled, "Anyone ever told you that you'd better watch that smart mouth of yours?"
"A few. I vividly remember my mother threatening to cut out my tongue if I didn't stop calling my father's wife a mean bitch," Bakura tells her.
"Hmmph, and how old were you then?"
Bakura shrugs, "Probably four."
"Hah! Still haven't learned, have you, boy?" Almeida laughs, "And what about you, girly? Your mother ever threaten to cut out your tongue? No…" Her smile turns cruel, "No, you probably came from a good home with a good family and never had to work a day in your life. Don't tell me, I know your type. You can smell it on them, can't you? Eh, Bakura?"
Atem opened her mouth to speak, but Bakura sends her a look at makes her stop
The thing is, there probably wasn't anything Atem could say in order to convince Almeida that she hadn't lived a life of privilege. Mostly because, well, Atem had been born into royalty and experienced all the perks that came with it, so Almeida wasn't exactly wrong on that front. But also because, in Bakura's experience, women like Almeida- women who moved to cut down other women without knowing a damn thing about them, usually had no interest in hearing what they had to say in the first place.
It makes Bakura feel a little gross inside and his opinion of Almeida lowers a considerable amount.
"Atem's past isn't what we're here to discuss," Bakura says, his smirk dropping as he moved to the control panel that Almeida had propped her feet up on. He hops up onto it, elbows resting on his knees, legs spread wide and taking up as much room as he can. "We've come to discuss the terms of our arrangement."
Almeida waves him off, "I know, I know. You want me circling an island that doesn't exist on any map, let my daughter play with some helicopters and then take you all back to the mainland when your done."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," Atem says.
"That's as complicated as it needs to be, querida," Almeida coos at her.
Bakura is so glad for Atem's nearly unbreakable poker face, because the only reason he knows that she's three seconds away from punching this woman is because he knows her all too well.
"We need you to stay just beyond the horizon," Bakura stresses. "They won't be able to track you, as long as you stay out of sight-"
"Oh relax, Bakura. You think that this is my first run in with wizards?" Almeida rolls her sole remaining eye. She doesn't wear an eyepatch, leaving the empty socket hollow in what Bakura assumes is an intimidation tactic. "We run into them all the time whenever we swing by Cape Town. Hell, we do quite a bit of trade with the fuckers up by Porto-Novo."
"Really?" Bakura questions, but isn't too surprised. He know what 'trade' means, in his line of work.
Almeida shrugs, "Well… Trade is a bit of an exaggeration. I take their gold and, sometimes, they get to live, maybe even work for me. It's just good business."
Bakura doesn't know if he has room to talk. His title is literally the Thief King. Except, that wasn't the point of his question. The fact that Almeida assumed that he didn't know what she was talking about meant that she had no idea who he was or, for that matter, who Atem was. Which means that Cassie probably hasn't guessed, either. Or if she has, didn't feel the need to share that information.
"What I'm saying is, that I know how to navigate around their anti-muggle shielding," Almeida says.
"Non-magic," Atem corrects her, her expression grim.
"Hmmm?"
"Non-magic, not-"
"Don't correct me, little girl. I can call myself whatever I want. And I don't need you magic-types telling me what's what, like you know a damn thing," Almeida rolls her eyes. "Besides, if you are so desperate for my help, then what good are you mages anyways? Let's be real, the world is probably better off without your fights. Maybe I'll just back out, save my crew the trouble."
Bakura can literally see the moment that Atem has enough. To be fair, Bakura's right there with her.
Atem blinks, flicks her hand, and the lights flicker once before they go out entirely. The computer screens around them go blank and the sound of the ship shutting down echoes around them. Below, shouts of confusion ring out from the deck and the hallways of the command tower.
Almeida jumps up in her chair, "O que? O que está acontecendo? Por que estamos
-" She reaches for a radio, "Kebade! Meron! Come in!"
"You're going to listen," Atem says, her voice cold.
"Shut up, girl! I don't have time for this," Almeida shouts without looking up, throwing the radio down when she gets no response and pressing buttons on the control panel. "Maldição, se este é o rato da minha filha, então eu vou-"
"It's not your 'daughter's rat'. This is me," Atem says, raising her hand and twisting her fingers, turning them towards the starboard side. Immediately, the engines turn on and the Cerulean starts to move forwards again, tilting towards the right.
"Look, we really wanted to do this nicely," Bakura sighs, kicking his feet against the consol he's sitting on. "But since it doesn't look like you're not going to co-operate…"
"You think you can scare me, you little bastard?" Almeida curses, "This is my ship! Mine!"
"And now it's ours," he shrugs. Almeida lashed out with her fist, but Bakura just let it pass through him, phasing in and out of existence as he waited for the right moment. Before she could reach for the gun on her hip, Bakura kicks out with his foot and catches her bad knee to stun her, blasting a wave of air at the same time to knock her off her feet. She flew backwards, straight into Atem.
The Lady Pharaoh returns control to the ship, letting its engines return to their regularly scheduled route and concentrating on Almeida with her entire mind. She'd slipped into the captain's nervous system and done something so that Almeida's whole body seemed to seize up, leaving her unable to move.
"See, Cassie told us about you before we came here," Bakura tells her, sliding off the console and standing up as straight as his spine would allow him. "She says you abandoned her and her father the moment it became convenient for you. She told us about how you run this ship, how you put your people through the ringer just to see if they can survive. She told us your kill count, the charges leveled against you, how you'll never see the inside of a cell if you're ever caught- at best, it's a firing squad for you. She told us a lot.
"But, you see, I don't think that's the whole story," Bakura continued on, watching as Almeida's eye twitched in it's socket, the only thing she seemed able to move. "Because I know people like you. So I don't really agree with Cassie on one thing. I don't think you abandoned her and her father because it was convenient. I think you let them go because it's was the smart thing to do.
"On January 1st, 1987, the Maudelyn, a yacht containing the son of the aging French Vice-Admiral, Gérôme Bleu, goes missing off the coast of Liberia. Ransom demands are made four months later, an absurd amount of government money changes hands, but Raymond Bleu is not seen or heard of for just over a year," Bakura recounts the old newspaper article he'd found online while they'd been in Kauai. "When he is, he's got a baby girl in his arms."
"The daughter he had with you," Atem points out and lets Almeida go. The captain doesn't fall, but she does stumble forwards a few steps, moving her weight of her bad leg. She glares at her feet before spitting on the floor.
"Raymond was a fool…," Almeida snorts, but it's almost sad. Like she missed him. "Foolish enough that, when he got kidnapped, he tried to charm the only woman with his stupid grin and stupid face and his stupid, stupid laugh. And I was just as stupid, too. For falling for it."
She laughs and it sounds broken, lonely, and tired. "He bought me my Cerulean with the ransom money, after he found out I was pregnant. It was a wedding gift, he said, to me, the prettiest girl in the world. He was practically part of the crew by then, laughing and drinking, stealing and killing with the best of us. Kebade told him he must have been blind to think that, but it was sweet and I loved him for it. And I could just pretend that he wasn't some billionaire pirralho with a fiance waiting back at home for him.
"So why'd you leave them behind?" Bakura asks.
"Why do you think? They found us somehow," Almeida snaps. "The Cerulean isn't exactly a speedboat. We can't stay hidden forever, even in the ocean. And back then, we could barely even pilot this thing. So when his father tracked us down, I dumped Raymond and Cassandra on the nearest island so they'd stop chasing my crew, give us some time to escape." The captain sighs and moves to the window, staring out a thousand miles ahead. "Last I heard of Raymold Bleu, he'd married his fiance and had four sons by her. I didn't even know Cassandra was still alive, let alone living with him, until Raymond called me and told me how she'd been lost at sea. I found her clinging to a buoy with seagulls pecking at her skin two days later."
"Wizards did that to her, you know?" Atem says, but Almeida cuts her off.
"I know what they did. Do you think I'm that stupid? I know what they did to my baby," Almeida shouts. "And now she wants to go back in, fight them again, after they almost killed her. You lot aren't worth a drop of her blood. No one in this world is."
"What Cassie decides to do is her business. No one is forcing her to fight. She's doing it because she believes that it's the right thing to do, even if it's so much easier to sit back and ignore what's going on," Bakura tells her. "You know what it's like to make hard choices. You made one to save her and her father the day you left them on that beach."
"You could have gunned Gérôme's ships down. The weapons on board this model of ship are easy enough to launch- you could have figured it out, if you wanted to. But you gave Raymond and Cassandra up, because you knew that life for them would be better if you did," Atem tells her. "Maybe it's time you tell your daughter that?"
"She doesn't want to listen to me," Almeida admits, turning back towards them.
"Maybe it's time you gave her a reason to," Atem says in return.
Almeida regards the two of them for a moment, silent in her judgement, before snorting and placing her hands on her hips, "Oh, what the hell? I'm sixty-three. I've lived too long and haven't got that many years left in me anyways. Fine. You bastards have a ship to fight your wars. But you listen to me, you fuckers. If there is a single hair out of place on Cassandra's head, I'll kill you both. Do you understand?"
Bakura nods and steps forwards, offering his hand. Almeida blinks, spits in her palm, and slaps their hands together. She grins at the grimace on Atem's face.
"Too gross for you, querida?" She asks.
This time, Atem just sighs, "A little. What can I say? I'm used to signing papers."
Almeida throws her head back and laughs, "Papers? You can stop a ship with your mind and they have you signing papers?!"
Atem finally, finally, offers her a smile, "Well, someone's got to do them."
"Papers… Merda, another fucking politician," Almeida chuckles, unbelieving. "What's it with people like you settling for people like us?"
Bakura feels the back of his neck heat up, shameful embarrassment sweeping over him. But then Atem speaks, "Settling? If anyone was doing that, it was Bakura. The gods know that he could have gone with less complicated options."
And Bakura can't help but laugh. Because if he doesn't his mask is going to crack.
It's something that he realizes is necessary for ruling, that sometimes, you had to be willing to outright lie to people to get them to do what you need them to. Because Cassie had explained enough of what really happened between Betina Peres Almeida and Raymond Bleu for both him and Atem to know that no matter what Almeida might do or promise, there's no way that Cassie will let her back into her life.
But they need the Cerulean, and they need it captained by Almeida and her crew, not controlled by Atem. Because they need Atem on the island, not holed up here using all of her concentration to keep a ship moving in a circle around a dot on a map. So Bakura will lie to a woman who just wants to get to know her estranged daughter, lie through his fucking teeth, because that's what needs to happen to get them on and off that godforsaken island with all their people.
So the Thief King laughs and so does the Lady Pharaoh. Because right now they're not Bakura and Atem.
Because right now, they are Kings.
Cassie's satellite phone begins to ring the moment that she finishes strapping the last of her gear into place. She looks at the caller ID for a few seconds to make sure that she recognizes the person on the other end- because the one and only time she'd picked up without doing that, it had been an unlucky telemarketer from Dubai trying to sell her car insurance while she was in the middle of a mission in Madrid.
As it stand, exactly four people on the planet have the ability to call this number. The first one is Odion Ishtar, the man behind the moniker of both Scorpion King and Lord Jackal. The second is Leo, who takes it upon himself to call her up randomly to talk about anything under the sun. The thing about them is that, if they call her during an opp, they know better than to expect an answer.
But the final two people are her mother and father, back at home in France. And Cassie has literally answered them in the middle of battle before because there isn't a force on earth that could stop her from picking up the phone when they call.
Raymond and Nathalie Bleu, along with all of Cassie's brothers, went through three long days when she was eighteen not knowing if she was alive or dead before receiving a call from the Cerulean. She'll never make them wait that long ever again.
"Maman! Papa!" She smiles as she answers the call, slipping into the French language. "How are you?"
Cassie is apparently on speaker phone, because all she hears is the chorus of shouts from her brothers in the background, Henry's voice standing out amongst all of them as he excitedly screams in a way that reminds her that he's barely eleven years old.
"Well, that answers that…" Cassie laughs.
"Cassie…" Her father sounds concerned, "Lord knows that it should be me who's asking that question. Has she-"
"Almeida barely seems to be able to make eye contact with me, let alone strike up a conversation," Cassie says, rolling her eyes. "Not that I'd want her to start one in the first place."
"And you haven't mentioned-"
"Papa, come on. You know that I'm not going to tell her that," Cassie scowls.
"I know, I know. I just… I worry. Ever since she's come back into our lives, it's been one thing after another," Raymond sighs on the other end of the phone.
"You did what you had to do, papa, and I am thankful for it," Cassie tells him.
"How long until you ship out?" Her mother asks, all business. Cassie smiles from the familiarity. Leave it to Nathalie Bleu to remain calm in such tense circumstances. She's always admired that about her mother.
"Not long. We're just loading up the choppers now," she answers, hoping that neither of them catch the thing she wants to fly over their heads.
Except, both her parents are seasoned politicians, and wishing for something like that is just unrealistic.
"Choppers? Plural? Who's piloting the second one?" Her father asks.
Cassie glances towards the bow, where the second wave of the invasion are getting settled in the open cargo hold of the helicopter. The pilot is leaning against the side, a cigarette hanging from her mouth, starring Cassie down just like she has since they first landed here.
Feeling uncomfortable, she looks away.
"Tadesse's gonna do it," she answers.
There's a tense few seconds of silence before her mother asks, "Which one's that again? The first mate?"
"No. Not Kebede. His kid, Meron," she corrects them in stilted sentences.
"Oh," her father says, and that's the end of that conversation.
"Yeah. Look, I gotta go. I promise I'll call once I'm back on the Cerulean, okay?" Cassie tucks the phone in between her ear and her shoulder, leaning down to tie the shoelaces of her boot.
"Be careful, my darling," her father whispers softly and she can feel his love for her pouring through the phone.
"I know, papa, maman. J'taime."
"J'taime ausie," he says back and her brothers pipe in in the background and, god, she misses them so, so much. It's been over a year since she's been home and she's missed all of them growing up. Alexis was in university now and Rémi's just started grad school. She can remember when they were just babies in the nursery, how she'd watched their tiny faces with utter fascination.
Fucking Department, she swears, and then hangs up the phone.
A shadow falls over her. Cassie looks up and sees the pilot of the second helicopter standing above her. Cassie sighs, and finishes with her shoelace to buy a few seconds to compose her expression.
"Meron," she says when she straightens up. Meron Tadesse tosses her cigarette onto the deck of the Cerulean and puts it out under the heel of her boat. Cassie tries to think about how her old major would make her scrub the toilets for a week if he saw her doing that.
"Cassandra," Meron offers in return. She's younger than Cassie by a few years, but her pitch black skin has weathered in a way that makes her look older than she is. Her short black hair is curled tight to her skull and her left index finger has been cut off at the first knuckle.
She has her mother's eyes, Cassie thinks but doesn't dare voice aloud.
"Is there something I can help you with?" She asks tightly.
"Yeah, actually," Meron shrugs. "Tell your red head friend over there that if she fucks with my engines again, I don't care what kind of crazy mage she is, I'll put a bullet in her skull."
Cassie glances over to where Atem is strapping herself into the second helicopter before looking back at Meron, "Tell her yourself. You are the engineer on this ship after all."
Meron frowns, "Don't tell me how to do my job."
"I'm not. Just making a recommendation," Cassie says nonchalantly. "How's Lee?"
Meron hesitates for a second, as if unsure of how to talk to Cassie about who she assumes is the pirate's boyfriend, "Fine. Kenny and I are fine. How's that computer genius you hang out with all the time?"
"Leo is as well as can be expected," Cassie answers. She nods, their pleasantries exchanged, and ends the conversation.
Cassie turns around and walks away. A hand comes down hard on her shoulder and Cassie reacts, moving to flip Meron. But the pirate is just as fast, just as well trained, and moving in mid air, shifting her weight to throw Cassie off balance and-
They both end up falling to the deck, rolling around and exchanging punches, clawing and tearing at each other. Cassie tries to blast Meron off her with a controlled burst of electricity, but Meron counters, pulling her wand from its holster and crying out some word that forces Cassie's limbs to lock up, making her fall to the ground.
Meron straddles her and smirks, raising her fist and-
Cassie wrenches herself free, her powers of healing throwing the spell off her, and kicks Meron hard in the stomach. As the pirate slides backwards, she slashes her wand through the air and clips Cassie with another spell. Pain jolts down her arm and she shouts, trying to orient herself. But that's just enough time for Meron to catch herself and begin her counter attack, launching herself once against at Cassie.
"What is going on here?!"
The voice makes Meron stop in her tracks, but not Cassie, who lands a blow that knocks the pirate back to the deck. Cassie looks up to see Kebede, the Cerulean's massive first mate, his own wand pointed at both of them. Without a word, his spell launches them feet first into the air and leaves them there dangling.
"This is foolishness," Kebede growls, his voice impossibly low and thick with his accent. "Here we are, heading out to raid the most dangerous island on the face of the earth, and you two have decided to act more like children than the grown women you are. Shame on both of you."
"She started it!" Meron snaps, her teeth bloody.
"And I am ending it," Kebede says back, dropping them both on the ground. "I pulled you both from your mother and I will throw you both into the ocean if I have to. Now go!"
He drops them unceremoniously on the deck and points towards the choppers, banishing them back to their duties. Cassie scowls openly at Meron, transforming her teeth into that of the White Dragon, only to see the pirate-witch make a threatening motion with her wand.
Kebebe barks again, "Enough!"
Cassie slinks back to the helicopter, trying not to feel the eyes from every single person to deck as she slides into the cockpit. Slipping the radio headset over here ears, she hears the voice of Tea Gardner speaking from atop the Cerulean's commander tower.
"Who… Who was that?" The girl (and that's all Gardner is, just a little girl in way over her head) asks.
Cassie flips on the engines and starts her checks of the engine. Looking across at the bow, she can see Meron doing the same thing as the blades of the chopper begin to turn.
"That's Captain Almeida's daughter," she says.
"Oh... Oh," Gardner says awkwardly. "Um… They have wizards on board here?"
"Yeah. Like, a quarter the crew. They got a bunch of mages, too. Most people connected to the criminal underground have magical ties. Now, can you give me the coordinates so we can get this show on the road," Cassie snaps as her powers of self-healing remove the headache from behind her eyes.
"Oh, um… yeah. One sec'... Here you go," the girl says and onboard GPS flashes with a location in the middle of the sea as she inputs the data.
"Thanks," Cassie says and then addresses the crew behind her, pulling back on the controls to get them airboard (a few seconds before Meron, she observes with a smirk). "Alright, everyone! Please keep your hands and feet within the helicopter at all times, unless you're making a jump, in which case, feel fucking free to do whatever you want."
"I'm gonna be sick," comes Joey Wheeler's voice through the radio.
"Please don't," Cassie fires back at they move away from the Cerulean and fly over open waters, Meron's chopper following along fifty meters back. "Some poor schmuck is going to have to clean that later and it's not going to be me."
"Dude, how the fuck can you travel at a million miles an hour as a freaking dragon, but you get airsick on a chopper?" Duke Devlin questions before there's the unmistakable sound of Wheeler retching into what Cassie hopes is a paper bag. "Oh god, gross!"
"It's different, Duke!" Wheeler shouts back.
"No, it's not!"
It's so reminiscent of the old, playful fights she's used to have with Rémi and Alexis, with Stephané and even little Henry- god, she misses them so much.
I want to go home, she thinks, lonely and desperate. I just want to go home.
Just then, the satellite phone pings and Cassie will never understand how he does it, but Leo has impossibility sent her a text message.
be safe
She smiles softly, thinking of the sickly boy back in Toronto, working for the Jackals from a bed that some days he didn't even have the strength to leave. Cassie reaches for the phone and sends back:
always
The island comes into view just as the sun dips below the horizon, the lights from the windows flickering in the darkness. Bakura watches at the helicopter banks around the cliffline and rises above the cloud line.
"Can they hear the blades?" Duke whispers as he looks out the window.
"No," Cassie's voice cracks through the radio. "We're high enough up that it shouldn't be a problem."
"'Shouldn't?'" Duke echoes, but his concerns go unanswered.
"Why did we think that dropping down would be a good idea?" Joey's voice is muffled from where he's hidden his face in between his knees. The guy's been green the entire trip, unable to keep anything that they try to get him to eat down.
"I'll be controlling our descent," Bakura mutters, touching the Millennium Ring under his gear. His vision inverts and he sees the names of the souls patrolling the island. They have no idea we're here. This won't be a fight. It'll be a slaughter.
He swallows hard around the pit lodged in his throat, Is this was Aknadin felt like as he looks upon Kul Elna for the first time? But then he decides that, no, a monster like Aknadin would never have felt a hint of remorse.
"Let's do this," Amanda says, her voice low and dangerously calm. She clutches her staff in one hand, a gun in another.
Bakura has a handgun strapped to his leg himself, another smaller piece attached to his ankle. He and the others are dressed in military fatigues that Duke had apparently got at a discount from the 'guys' he got their weaponry from, all but Amanda. The Spellcaster stood out in bright contrast, wearing the bright yellow and white of Monthu, the Egyptian god of warfare and military valor. After she wraps a long, dark coat around her body, cinching the knot of the belt around her waist, Amanda looks as ready for battle as he's ever seen her.
"I'm going to open the cargo door," Cassie says from the cockpit. "Once you've cleared the cliff, I'll contact the other chopper, so the second wave can come through."
"Okay," Bakura says and nods even though he knows that Cassie can't see him.
"Amanda, I love you," Gardner's voice comes over the radio from where's she's safe on the Cerulean. "Come home safe."
"I love you, too. I have to go. I'll be back as soon as I can," Amanda says softly, gently touching the headset before lifting it from her head. Bakura and the others follow suit and the door at the back of the chopper opens up.
The wind rushes in and they all have to grab that the loops of fabric hanging from the ceiling for balance. Bakura reaches out with his magic and gains control. He nods to the others and, with all the grace of the circus performer he used to be, flings himself into the open air.
He loves the feeling of the wind around him, loves it like it's a part of himself. Bakura throws his hands out, his legs out, and embraces it like a lost sister, like it's Amane or… He falters, just for a second, and realizes that he can't remember the name of his own sister, of his mother or either of his grandparents. But he can't lose concentration now, not when the lives of his friends are in his hands, so he focuses himself and grabs hold of the air.
Bakura sends a current upwards, slowing their fall until they're practically floating downwards at a slow pace. They land on the island with nothing more than a soft whisper, invisible in the dark.
For a moment, all they do is breathe in the darkness.
Then, Bakura reaches out with the most subtle power of the Millennium Ring and his vision inverts once more and he sees the figures of the Unspeakables walking around the open grounds before them. He nods, holding this knowledge within him, and Joey, Amanda, and Duke all press their palms to his skin.
He and Atem had talked this over with Joey and Seto before they'd even decided that it would be a good idea to fully activate either one of the Millennium Items, since there was always the fact that the person on the island who was using one was going to know that a divine weapon was active. But, Seto and Joey both agreed that, as people who had used one of the Items before, there was no way of being able to tell who a wielder was or where they were.
So as far as the Eye's new master would know, someone was using a weapon, but any other questions would remain a mystery.
And so-
At exactly 11:00pm SST, a series of events occur around the world.
A man jerks upright in his bed, coughing up blood into a wad of kleenex, until his older brother comes rushing into the room.
Two people, one dead and one very much alive, catch themselves against the wall, gasping suddenly in surprise.
Maximillion Pegasus rolls unceremoniously rolls out of bed and onto the floor, clutching the golden orb that is lodged in his head. "Who…?!" He thrashed wildly and runs out the door.
Albus Dumbledore pauses in the middle of an interview with a potential new teacher and clutches his robes under his desk so tightly that his knuckles turn white.
A shattered mess of a soul bites it own tongue and clamps down on the mind of Quirinus Quirrell, refusing to let him show any reaction to the horrendous pain they both feel in front of the soul's greatest adversary.
A diary belonging to a former Hogwarts student shakes it's way across the stone depths of the Malfoy Manor, trying to head towards the door of the room it's in.
A mystical ring of unearthly power rattles around on the floor of the last property belonging to the House of Gaunt as sparks fly from the stone inlayed in the plain golden band.
A locket hidden within a dresser in London clatters around it's confinement, nearly breaking the lock placed upon the drawer by old elven magic.
A cup, hidden deep within a Gringotts vault, jumps from golden pile to golden pile, causing everything that it touches to multiply over and over again.
A beautiful diadem leaps into the air and knocks over a pile of books, trapping itself beneath them.
A boy with green eyes and a lightning scar jumps out of his seat at school, causing his cousin to point and laugh wildly.
And finally, a woman with thick red hair and blue eyes looks across the room at a man called Blaine Garrish and Aloc Flint and countless other names and frowns. "This is unexpected," the woman says. "We may need to act quickly."
-so Bakura activates the Millennium Ring and brands the names and locations of the Unspeakables on the cliff into the very souls of his companions.
"Whoa… So that's what yours feels like," Joey murmurs under his breath.
"Did the Scale feel different?" Bakura asks.
Joey nods, "Yeah. Less soul stuff. More morality. Intent. Judgement."
He doesn't say anything else, so Bakura gives the go ahead. It's time.
Covering their faces and hair with black baseball hats and bandanas, they moved silently across the grassy cliff at a steady pace. Bakura led the group, remembering the island and it's building from the time he'd spent here as both Ryou Andrews and the Spirit of the Ring. It feels a bit like he's sleepwalking, like he's moving through a place that he's intimately familiar with and yet has never stepped food on in his entire life.
I died on these cliffs, he allows himself to think before focusing on the task at hand.
They meet their first wizard a few minutes in and Duke ensures that he's not a problem by firing a single round through his silencer. The wizard drops to the ground before he even knows something is wrong. Joey picks up the wand that the Unspeakable didn't have time to draw and flings it over the cliff. Bakura hears a small splash, barely noticeable against the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below.
As quickly and efficiently as they can, the four of them clear the plains surrounding the fortress in the middle of the island. At one point, Bakura stops the breathing of a witch by taking control of the very air in her lungs, giving her just enough time to get a glimpse of her killer before she dies. He remembers her face from Ryou's memories; she'd been one of the two witches who'd thrown him into the cell with Rex, Weevil, and Rebecca.
She doesn't recognize him now - not that he expects her to. After the life leaves her body, Bakura pockets her wand, using his ability to steal other people's powers to give him the ability to use wizarding magic once more.
As soon as all the lights from the souls of the patrol team go out, the four of them reconvene on the eastern cliffside. Amanda pulls out a length of rope from the pocket of her coat and starts to tie a series of knots in it, muttering under her breath.
"~The waiting is over. No more needs to be said. We have reached the goal we have worked hard to obtain.~"
Bakura doesn't see the result of her spell, but that's the whole point. Within a few minutes, they get their response in the form of Atem descending down a rope with Kitamori, Kebede, and Almeida in toe. They are quickly followed by about twenty other magics (mage and wizard both) and non-magics from San Francisco and the Cerulean.
"Alright, you know the plan," Bakura says. "Try to remain under the radar until the anti-technology spell goes down."
"Good luck everyone. Gods watch over us all," Atem whispers. "Kitamori, you're with us."
The witch nods, pulling her wands from the side holsters. She refused a gun, Bakura notices. Not that he blames her. He's not exactly sure how well he's going to fair using one, having never even held a gun in his life before this point.
They split into three groups: Bakura's group of Atem and Kitamori are going after the spell's anchor as well as finding Maximillion Pegasus. Another group, led by Duke and Joey were heading towards the dungeons to collect their kidnapped friends. And finally, Amanda's group would hold the cliff and wait for the helicopters to come down, at which point they'd be joined by Cassie and Meron.
It's a good plan, Bakura thinks as he and the two women flatten themselves against the wall next to the entrance to the Department of Mysteries. As long as nothing goes wrong- He catches himself just in time. Famous last words? Thoughts?. Even if they weren't verbalized, it was probably for the best not to jinx it.
"If they still think I'm dead, they probably haven't changed the access spells," Kitamori says, waving her wand at the front door. It doesn't open. "Shit."
"Shit, indeed," Atem nods. "Bakura? If you may?"
Bakura grabs hold of both their hands and sends his powers of both invisibility and intangibility coursing through them, pulling them through the entranceway of the fortress.
"Which way?" He asks Atem, who presses her free hand into the stone wall beside them, reading the spells imprinted in them.
"The power is radiating from that direction," she tells him, pointing towards a archway on the left side.
The Department's fortress is made up of a series of corridors that all look exactly alike, making it frighteningly easy to get lost in. If it weren't for Atem guiding them, Bakura doesn't know how long it would take him to clear the entire building.
Along the way, they pass by a wizard who looks to be barely out of his teens slumped against the walls, dead eyes wide with terror. A little further down the hall is a room filled with the broken and bloody bodies of five Unspeakables. Bakura feels Kitamori tense up a bit and asks, "Did you know them?"
"No," she says, final.
They move on.
The spell's path leads them up five flights of stairs and down another series of twisting monochrome corridors before they are finally greeted by a simple wooden door.
"The door's warded by some very complex spellwork," Atem says. "I don't know how long it will take me to break it."
"Could you show me?" Kitamori asks, "Maybe I know something?"
Bakura smirks, "You know, neither of you clearly knows the first thing about breaking into something. Why don't you just ask the expert?"
"You're a thief?" Kitamori asks at the same time that Atem says, "Oh, and what's your plan, then?"
He catches the grin on her lips and knows that Atem is genuinely asking and not making fun of him. Bakura shrugs, "The same way we got around the access spells around front." When Kitamori blinks at him, he chuckles, "People are always so concerned about locking the door up with magic that they never guard the walls around it."
"That's… Well, you're not wrong," the witch raises a brow, but Bakura can see her brain working behind her eyes.
Beyond the door is an office, with a gaudy looking desk surrounded by shelves filled with moving wizarding pictures. A single figure stars in the grand majority of them: a man with long salt and pepper hair, tied in a horse tale at the back of his neck.
When Kitamori refuses to even look at them, Atem makes a guess, "Is that Pegasus?"
"Yes," the witch answers, looking as green as Joey had on the chopper ride over. Her hand moves towards her stomach before she pushes it down to her sides and-
Oh.
"He got me pregnant when I was seventeen," Kitamori admits. "Right before they sent me to kill Ariana Dumbledore. When I asked her to, Helena helped me get rid of it, helped me to make sure that I could never get pregnant again. I was so, so happy to not have to have his baby that I killed for her whenever she wanted."
"I'm sorry," Atem whispers, eyes down.
"It was a long time ago. I thought I'd be over it, but then I saw him again for the first time a few months ago, and I could barely keep the memories down," the witch laughs in a way that shows that she found nothing about this funny. "Pegasus… he looked me dead in the eye and commanded me exactly like he used to… but he never even recognized me, not once."
"Did he know? About…?" Bakura gestures vaguely.
"No. Thank Merlin," Kitamori shakes her head and changes the topic. "Where's the spell coming from?"
Atem glances around the room before settling her gaze on the plaque behind the dress, "There."
The plaque, Bakura notes, is a congradulations towards Pegasus for the creation of the mage conversation program. He swallows hard, thinking of Ryou and all the pain and torture that he'd had to go through just so that this bastard could get this damn hunk of metal with his name carved in it, just so that the Department could make a quick buck.
Atem pulls the plaque from the wall and sits down in the desk chair, tinkering with spellwork that only she can see.
"This shouldn't take me too long," she says. "Three minutes. Tops."
"Let me see the magic," Bakura says. "If we work together, we can get it done in one."
When Atem touches his wrist, she injects her power into his magic, allowing him to see the shifting ruins and symbols that made up the spell attached to the plaque. It would look almost like a giant spiderweb, had the lines not been so crisp and clean that it was almost like someone had used a ruler to draw them. The edges of the web stretched out beyond the plaque, adhering themselves to the pin on the nail on the wall, then run along the very brickwork of the room.
Bakura looks up to see Reiko Kitamori staring at them, blinking in fascination, "Wait, so you can actually see magic?"
"See it. Manipulate it. It's all just energy at the end of the day," Atem says without looking up.
"How have we never heard of you before?" Kitamori mutters, almost to herself. Bakura holds back a snort.
"Look, there's an alarm system built into it," Bakura points towards one of the inner circle of the web, one that shifts between deep red and a bruise-like purple every few seconds.
"And a secondary alarm, in case we cut that one," Atem says, guiding his gaze towards one of the innermost point.
"You'll have to take out both at the same time before you tackle the web," Bakura nods.
"We might not have enough time for that," Kitamori says, and a crack echoes through the room.
The house elf that appears before them is ugly and wrinkled, with wisps of hair on his head and upper lip. The rag clinging to his skinny hips is covered in dirt and grime.
"Master commanded Croquet to defend the room. Master does not like traitors," the elf's mouth peals back to reveal rows and rows of blunted teeth. He moves to snap his fingers.
Atem throws out her hand at the same time that Bakura does the same. The elf's magic lances almost half a foot in front of him before Atem's powers stop them cold. Croquet wheezes, the air from his lungs suddenly limited. Kitamori's wand arches through the air, and a green beam of light hits the elf dead in the chest. He clams up, huge eyes widening even further, before he falls back with a thud.
"Hurry up. If Pegasus calls for the elf and it doesn't respond, he'll know something's gone wrong," Kitamori says, moving around the desk and opening one of the drawers, leafing through the files inside. "Come on… come on…"
"What are you looking for?" Bakura asks as Atem refocuses on the plaque.
"Pegasus may have been a complete bastard, but he was a meticulous bastard. He kept files on everything. Here," Kitamori hands Bakura a stack of papers. "You'll find these useful."
Bakura scans the files and raises an eyebrow at the witch. She gives him one in return, "What?"
"Why are you being so helpful?"
"Aside from the fact that Green is giving me no choice?" Kitamori shakes her hand at him, showing off the rope circlet that hangs from her wrist, "I seriously doubt that you guys came all this way just to break your people out of Department custody. No, you've got ulterior motives. And I'm helping because I think your endgame lines up with mine."
Bakura regards her for a few seconds, watching as Kitamori flips through the folders, her mouth twitching as she read each title. I like her, he thinks. Shit.
"We're good," Atem says from behind them both, replacing the plaque on the wall. She pulls her radio from her pocket. "This is Atem, to Chopper One and Two. Cassie, Meron, can you read me?"
"Loud and clear, Atem. Good to hear from you," comes Cassie's voice, muffled slightly by the static. "We're going to land on the cliff."
"Awesome," Bakura says into his own radio. "Tea, you there?"
Somewhere just over the horizon, Tea Gardner was sitting in the command tower of the Cerulean, armed with a laptop and an internet connection. Bakura imagines her smiling when she responds, "Hell yeah! We've got a live satellite feed and missiles locked and loaded. Tell us once you're off, and we'll fire."
"We've just landed," says Meron.
"Can anyone get in contact with the extraction team?" Comes the voice of Captain Almeida, "I can't get a hold of Tadesse."
And just then, an alarm goes off, bright red and screeching loud. Kitamori looks up.
"Damn it!" She calls, grabbing hold of both Bakura and Atem. She twists and Bakura catches the fleeting feeling of something squeezing him from all around before he is brought back to his senses.
She's tried to disapparate, but they hadn't moved.
"No!" Kitamori flings herself towards the door, pointing her wand at the lock. "Alohamora!"
The door remains locked.
"Did you-" Bakura turns to Atem, but she shakes her head.
"There's no way that I set off the alarm. I cut the primary and the secondary at the same time," she tells him.
"Doesn't matter. The island is in lockdown. Pegasus would have ensured that this was the safest room in this building. We can't get out," Kitamori sends a series of targeted blasting charms around the office. Bakura watches them zip through the air and exploding at key points: corners, cracks in the floor, a sheet of stone that used to be a window. None of it has any effect.
Bakura swallows, "Atem. We need to stop this."
"I know," she closes her eyes. "Take cover. I'm going to overload everything."
"What?" Kitamori tries to ask, but Bakura drags her underneath the desk.
"Get a shield around us. Squat. Head between your knees. Cover your eyes and ears," he orders her. "And whatever you do, do not look up."
There's a spark from behind them and a tingling in Bakura's skin. He watches as Kitamori's hair stands straight up and knows that his own is doing the same. It's all the warning that they get. Bakura shoves Kitamori's head down just as her shield goes up and the first bolt strikes the wall beside them. Then a second and a third, and before long, there's been too many to count.
The entire office smells like smoke and burnt rubber, the heat so intense that Bakura thinks he might pass out. He's so used to his own power, the quick, cold slashes of wind, both exact as a needle and blunt as a hammer depending on his need. He's forgotten the raw explosive power behind Atem, her divine control of natural lightning. He's forgotten how terrifying she could be.
When she lets up, there isn't much left of Pegasus's office. The only thing that is not currently on fire is the files that Kitamori had shoved into Bakura's arms. The stone around them is pitch black and the wooden desk about them has been reduced to ash along with all the books and shelves that had lined the now non-existent back wall. The ocean crashes against the cliff behind them
Atem stands in the middle of the floor untouched, electricity arching off of her arms and legs. The wall to the hallway has been melted into a pile of black, hardening slime.
The alarm is off. That's probably the only good thing.
The hallway swarms with Unspeakables responding to the carnage. Bakura leaps up, propelling himself forwards with a rush of air, and lands in the middle of it all. He blasts them up into what remains of the ceiling, hearing bones shatter, before propelling them downwards and then flinging them out onto the cliff.
"How has the Department never heard of you two before?" Kitamori asks again, her voice lower than a whisper.
Bakura looks at her out of the corner of his eye, "They have heard of us."
"They just haven't realized it yet," Atem finishes. "Now, let's go see what triggered the alarm."
Hello guys!
I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Moonfirekitsune, Tz342, green lilah, dragomira, Rita Mu, and anita15. You guys are awesome!
So apparently, I'm obsessed with creating family trees for characters. Like, when I was first fleshing out Cassie's character, I was like... huh, maybe I should figure out what exactly her family looks like so that I can have some interested background character to mention in her POV scenes. And then suddenly, I've got nearly three generations of Bleu's and four generations of Almeida's worth of original characters. I need help.
Meron Tadesse, Cassie's half-sister, was a complete gem that came out of it all, though. I really do like her, even though she's had to deal with some terrible things in her life. I mean, her inferiority complex regarding Cassandra certainly comes as a result of her mother constantly comparing the two of them - even back when Meron was very young and Almeida had known Cassie only as an infant.
Before I get too ahead of myself, I do want to talk about some of the characters featured in this chapter who have some not so savory aspects to their character.
Cassie has some internalized racism that she really needs to real with regarding Meron. Cassie may be mixed herself (Almeida's mother was Thai and her father mixed Portuguese and native Brazilian), but she was raised by a very white, upper class family in France. She views Meron (who's father is from Ethiopia) as this sort of knock off copy of her that can never truly measure up, and part of that is because Meron is black, though she doesn't realize this consciously. She will be called out on it eventually, but it will be a part of her character until then.
On the other hand, we have Almeida, who is a female misogynist, and it shows. She's very dismissive of Atem and attempts to ally herself with Bakura by tearing her down. She's also a really shitty parent and, generally, a really shitty person. Her relationship with Raymond was not the love story that she makes it out to be (more will be revealed later). Almeida is an interested character, but she is not a good person. It's probably why I enjoy writing her, as she is so flawed.
Anyways, I hope that you enjoy this chapter and I hope to post again soon.
Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient