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 historical rebellions, past character death, major character death, rape, violence, loss of agency, gore, alcohol, and pregnancy.

Chapter 12: Obsidian

Mala Pukar burns.

She's old and bitter and angry, encased in the molten lava of a god that is not her's, a devil that she's called up from the deep. Mala wants to think that it was her utter fear of the Millennium Eye that drove her to call upon Apep, but it's not. It was the tempting offer that the god had been whispering in her ear since the moment Reiko Kitamori stepped back into her life.

Mala had seen her at a distance, in the marketplace while she was standing in front of the grocer's stall, surrounding by her army of chained Unspeakable soldiers. It had just been for a second; out of the corner of eye, Mala spotted a small, Japanese woman standing on the roof of a building, cloaked in shadow, before she'd disappeared without a sound. Mala had thought that it had just been her imagination, as witches and wizards made a horrifying cracking sound as they forced themselves between the barriers of time and space. She'd thought that she was just being paranoid.

At eighty-nine, it was the first time she'd ever slipped up. It was also her last.

Mala should have sent her soldiers after Kitamori. Mala should have had them drag her before her, so that she could wrap a small, worn length of robe around her thin wrists, binding her will to Mala's forever. If she had, Mala Pukar could have marched on the British and forced them out of her country, kept their wizarding filth out of her land.

Instead, Mala dies when Reiko Kitamori fires a silent Killing Curse from three kilometers away, right through the mudbrick of her shack. And in the instant of a second before she dies, Mana remembers who she is.

Reiko Kitamori stands before Mala again. And she hates this girl, has hated her from the moment the witch appeared in the UCSF Medical Center. Amanda's pushed it down underneath a false sense of caring, let this girl into her car, into her home, the one she shares with Matt. She's put on a smile, laughed at her jokes, all while this rage had been simmering just beneath the surface.

You killed me, she thinks, as Amanda, as Mala, as Mana. I'll kill you.

Apep chuckles within her mind, like a lonely candle in a dark room, Let me help you, little girl. I am yours to command. Let me slay your enemies for you.

Mala Pukar grins bloody molten fire. Amanda Green roars deep and rushes forwards. High Priestess Mana searches for the small tendril of magic that connects them to the rope on Reiko Kitamori's arm, and pulls.

Reiko Kitamori is the biggest goddamn idiot on the face of the earth.

What the hell am I doing? She thinks. She'd had her chance to take on Pegasus, to tear him down and make him pay for what he'd done to her all those years ago, to rip any information that he had on Gara's location or that of her child from his slimy hands, but like a god damned coward, she'd frozen. Just like she'd had in the American Ministry of Magic, the night after she'd slept with Keith for the first time. Just like she'd had when he'd turned to her after Trista confiscated their evidence from the Archives, slipping back into the role of Plant #1,014.

[Orders: "You never contact them, you hear me! Never!"
MonsterMonsterMONSTER
I HATE YOU]

But Bakura and Atem had stepped in front of her and unleashed a tidal wave of power nearly knocked Reiko off her feet, their eyes glowing divine gold as a third, terrible eye opened on their foreheads. And in that moment, Reiko had known exactly who they were.

The part of her that sat next to Pete Coppermine (who had once insisted that she call him Misha, back during their time in the Seedling program; an eight year old saying that it was all he'd had left of his life before the Department had pulled him from the arms of his dead parents) during James Andrews' lecture of ancient mage culture and history has a million questions: how and when and what the fuck being the most prominent. Because if what Reiko saw back there was real, then two of the Three Kings of legend are alive and well, having performed the only successful attempt at revival to ever be recorded.

And now they're about to face down the man that raped her, because after everything that she's gone through, Reiko is still too fucking weak to take on a divine weapon. She hates herself, but she knows that it's the truth.

So instead, Reiko had followed the Lady fucking Pharaoh's last sane thought before she'd activated the Millennium fucking Pendant, and run for the helicopters.

Except, Amanda Green lost control of the ancient Egyptian demon god she's taken the form of and it had attacked Pete and the rest of her old team. And Reiko, with her bleeding heart, had stepped in front of them. But she'd forgotten the binding rope. That was her first mistake. Her second was thinking that turning her back on the battle surging between the Kings and Pegasus was a smart idea.

The island shakes, the earth cracking beneath her feet as Reiko feels Mala Pukar's magic shoot through her veins, tainted by the cold, volcanic power of Apep that travels along with it. It grabs hold of everything that she is and wrenches her arms around, pointing the tips of her wands to her throat. Reiko feels her own magic welling up without her command, casting the deadly green curse against her will, when Pete Coppermine - glorious, self sacrificing Misha - grabs hold of both of her wands and snaps them in half.

It's well intentioned, but only makes the situation worse in the long run.

Unarmed, Reiko Kitamori is still a viable weapon to Amanda Green, so she has Reiko use the broken remains of the wands in her hands as knives, slashing at Pete's throat, nearly catching him before he stumbled back. Green closes Reiko's jaw so she can't warn him as her body continues to fight on, so Reiko shuts her eyes, goes deep inside of herself, and gets to work.

Mala Pukar had been a deadly, intelligent woman, but she hadn't had the firepower that Amanda Green currently has access to, which is why Green must have so much trouble controlling the gods that she merges with. Green had theorized that her staff was too powerful for her to form a solid connection, but that didn't make any sense - the staff was powered by Green's own magic and whatever she's done during her cycle as Mazatl shouldn't have any effect on the connection between mortal and divine now. So it must be something else…

Think, damn it! Come on, Reiko grits her teeth as Keith, Mook, and Scott join the fray. Above them Apep slithers forwards, molten lava dripping from between huge stalactite fangs, the ground hissing and quaking with every second she wastes. As Reiko's body flings out her leg and breaks Mook's ribs with a solid kick, she can see Pegasus fighting against gods of his own, barely managing to hold his ground.

He's not as powerful as them, as Mala wasn't as powerful as Amanda is, and suddenly it hits her. Pegasus has no idea how to use the Eye. And Mala didn't know - or simply couldn't - summon up the gods. She had no divine backing, so she had to make due with the low-level power that she had access to.

Reiko thinks back to the briefing she'd been given the day she's gotten the assignment to kill Pukar. Blaine Garrish had handed her a file one morning, leaning coolly against the wall just outside Helena Hendrix's office. In those first few decades, Reiko had noticed how close he and Hendrix seemed to be, to the point where she's theorized that they might be lovers, and then slowly watched the two of them grow apart.

Pukar had had little to no contact with mages her entire life, brought on by the British non-magical colonization of India which followed the magical invasion of British conquerors, wiping out any traces of native magical powers before the muggle world could see them on the battlefield. The only mage that the Department believed that Pukar had ever known had been Kusika Dhebar, a mage fighter in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, who must have passed on his knowledge of rope magic to her. But Dhebar had died only a few months after meeting Pukar, so whatever training had taken place had been short, rushed, and most of all, incomplete.

But Pukar had taken what she'd learned from him and used it to fight for India's freedom, taking her longest-held captive at the age of eighteen and holding the witch's will for nearly fifty years until she died of old age. Pukar had never had an entire army at her command, but her forces ranged in numbers from two to twenty at any given time.

She'd dedicated her life to her country, went unmarried throughout her entire life, and died so alone that it took three weeks for someone to discover her body. Reiko almost pities her.

But Reiko had studied Pukar's ropes (and Dhebar's, by association) before she began her mission. She knows them, like the back of her own hand. And most of all, she knows the magic that flows through them. Reiko has been testing and poking at her own binding since Amanda Green tied it to her wrist the day she'd surrendered herself into mage custody, and it is utterly identical to the ones that she'd seen back then, to the one that she'd seen on Cyril Weller's wrist after the mage raid on the American Archives.

So that means that Green hadn't improved on Dhebar's techniques, which means that she hadn't been taught rope magic in any of her other previous cycles. Meaning that, despite her increased power due to her current connection with the gods, Green believes that her rope work as Pukar was as good as it could get.

And that means that, unlike Pegasus, Reiko knows how to remove them.

[Cyril Weller could have lived had Reiko gotten to him before Pegasus did. But that would have blown her cover before she was ready to reveal herself.]

[The mission took priority. So she let Weller die.]

The only problem is that it takes magic to do so. And Pete wrecked her wands.

Reiko smirks, I can fix that.

Green and Apep had ordered her body to fight her old team, which it's doing fantastically. Keith isn't moving, curled up in a heap on the ground. Mook has pushed barely conscious Scott behind her, but she's bleeding badly and barely managing to hold her own body upright. Pete is the only one still fighting, but that's because Reiko's subconscious is fighting as much as it can not to hurt him.

He offered me bread and was starved for five days because of it. We kept each other alive, she remembers. I will not kill him.

Reiko dislocates her own jaw forcing it open.

"Wand!" She manages to get out before Apep and Green forces it shut again. Reiko doesn't scream, but the pain nearly blinds her.

Pete stumbles in shock at her admission and it nearly costs him his life when she ducks under his guard and almost crushes his windpipe. But something in him must trust her, some part of Misha that is still alive after almost a year of believing that he was someone else, because Pete slips his wand into her palm and backs up as far as he can.

It's not a wand that belongs to her, because she hasn't won it, but Misha had always had wands made of Alder, a helpful and loyal wood. It's a gamble, but this wand might just trust her to use it, just this once.

Please, Reiko prays. She hears a woman's laughter, bloody and warlike and smelling like sand and death and rot, feels the scorching brush of lion's fir against her skin. She grits her teeth and pushes against the binding so hard that her arm snaps, pointing the tip of Misha's wand at the rope on his wrist, and uses whatever blessing Sekhmet has given her to force Green's magic off of her.

The flash of light is blinding and the blast knocks them all off their feet. Reiko hits the dirt next to Pete, and when she groans, it's of her own volition. She opens her eyes just in time to see Green's rope wither away.

Apep and Green roar together, and behind them, the battle of the gods rages on. But Reiko can deal with that now that she's got her own will back. She pushes herself to her feet, grabs her jaw, and pushes it back into its socket, coughing around the blood that leaks from her broken nose. Beside her, Pete stands and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"I knew you couldn't be all bad," he says with a sad smile that reminds her so painfully of the friend she'd had in him just over a year ago. It's sweet, tender moment between them, which is utterly ruined when Mook tackles the two of them into the ground, nearly avoiding getting burned to death by Apep's molten fire.

"You absolute idiots!" Mook hisses, huddling behind a raised section of earth with a dazed looking Scott and a punch-drunk Keith. The island shakes again and above them, the sky is cracked open with thousands of lightning bolts streaking in between green-grey, churning clouds. "Now we're down to one wand."

Mook holds up the burnt remains of her own wand and Reiko watches as it blows away in the gale-storm winds. The island cracks in front of them and Keith grabs Scott just in time to keep him from falling into the ocean with the rest of the ground.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" Keith shouts. Out in the distance, Reiko can see the blinking lights of the mages' helicopters, hovering on the horizon. If they can calm Green down, then maybe one of them will come back for them.

"Move!" Scott shouts and they all just manage to dodge another stream of lava that melts the rock they'd hidden behind into the ocean, the water hissing and boiling below.

"Shit! Shit! Fuck!" Keith swears as they run for cover behind one of the crumbling walls.

"Do we still have a wand?" Mook shouts.

"Yes!" Pete says, enthusiastically shaking it in front of himself.

"You!" She rounds on Reiko, "Was the historian bit part of your cover or do you actually know things?"

Reiko blinks, surprised by the turn of events, and manages to nod before ducking down low as Green sends a wave of flame above their heads.

"Alright! That is an ancient Egyptian god! Tell us how to kill it before it kills us!" Mook points towards the great snake with a shaking finger.

Reiko swallows, racking her brain for any information, "Green's merged with Apep, who's the Egyptian equivalent of the Devil. He and Ra fight each other every day so that the sun would rise each morning, and every morning Ra would come out victorious."

"How'd Ra do that?" Pete asks. When Keith gives him an incredulous look, he shrugs, "What? Maybe we can do something similar?"

"I don't know about Ra, but the priests would build effigies of him, chop them up, and burn the pieces," Reiko recites.

"I don't think we're gonna be hacking him up with one wand," Keith growls.

"But we can burn him," Scott says, gritting his teeth and holding his bloody side. When they turn to him, he continues, "Ra is a sun god. We can produce sunlight hot enough to burn him with it." When Reiko raises an eyebrow at him, he shrugs, "I must have taken the same classes as you during training. With James Andrews, correct?"

"That son of a bitch…" Keith hisses, "If we get out of here, he's a dead man."

Green lets out another roar, one that shakes the island so much that Reiko can feel the ground give beneath her feet. This is it. This is the only chance they've got.

They stand.

Apep sees them and crashes forwards, slithering its way across the island and setting fire to everything it comes in contact with. Pete stretches his wand out in front of him. Reiko steps in close and wraps her palm around his. Keith follows, then Mook, and finally Scott. Reiko glances skyward, looking past the lightning storm above them, into the realm of the gods, and prays for something - anything - from Sekhmet.

The goddess roars above them, defiant to the end, and together they shout, "Lumos Solem!"

The blast of sunlight hits Apep dead in the face, sending the great beast crashing backwards and over the eastern cliff. The ocean below surges upwards, with boiling water flying nearly a hundred feet high. Reiko rushes forwards against all good sense, past the scorched earth, and skids to a halt before she reaches the side.

"Amanda!" She shouts into the void, "Amanda, please!"

There's a grunt beneath her and Reiko throws herself onto the ground, reaching over the side with her good arm. Clinging to the rock below, Amanda Green hangs on to the cliff face by her fingertips.

"Grab my hand!" Reiko calls out.

Amanda looks up at her, eyes widening when she sees Reiko.

"Why?" She asks, "You know I hate you, so why?!"

"Just take my hand, please," Reiko begs her. She doesn't want to see this girl die again.

But it's too late. The island groans, low and deep, and crumbles. Reiko screams as Amanda's grip fails, her blond hair billowing around her face as she falls towards the dark waves below.

A black blur shoots across Reiko's field of vision and Amanda disappears from sight. Reiko swings her head around just in time to see the Spellcaster disappearing into the clouds on the back of the Black Dragon, arms clutching at Duke Devlin as they speed towards the helicopters.

Someone grabs Reiko's legs and tugs her away from the cliffside before it slides into the ocean. Pete pulls her to her feet, shouting, "What the fuck are you doing?!"

"I- I thought-" She stammers out before he crushes her in a hug. Over Pete's shoulder, he can see Mook staring off at the escaping mages.

She whispers, "Pegasus put up an apparition ward. We can't get off the island."

Reiko realizes then that Mook hadn't been staring at the helicopters. She'd been staring at the horizon, for a daybreak she might never see.

But others would. Gara and her baby would. And that had to be enough for now.

"They're not coming back, are they?" Pete asks, his voice muffled in the crook of Reiko's neck.

Reiko pulls away from Pete and looks at her friend, eyes red-rimmed from tears, and sees that he is young.

"No," she says, finally, as brutally honest as the dying island they stood on. "They're not."

The next morning, Queen Nurnuk the Last sees the mages to the front foyer, giving Seto Kaiba her final farewells in the form of a firm embrace. He promises to contact her as soon as they return home.

She smiles. She likes him, for all that he is human.

When she returns to her office, she sees that she is not alone. Nurnuk sighs, thinking sadly, So, it's today then.

But her mother didn't raise a daughter without manners, so she calmly walks over to her personal store and pulls a bottle of red wine from the shelves, "Would you like a drink?"

The witch, a young girl with dark eyes and dark hair, shrugs, leaning back in Nurnuk's chair and kicking her feet up onto the desk, "Sure."

Nurnuk pours them each a glass and hands it to the witch, siping slightly as the human downs her drink like a shot. Nurnuk doesn't blink and calmly offers a refill.

"You know, you've got to be the politest person I've ever assassinated before," the witch's lips stretch into something that might have been a smile had it been genuine.

"You've assassinated many people before, then?" Nurnuk asks.

The witch shrugs, "Isn't supposed to be my job, but our usual girl is taking some personal time right now, so I'm having to pick up the slack."

"Ah," Nurnuk nods. "Would it be too much to ask that I might know the name of my murderer?"

"Not really," the witch leans forwards and offers her hand for a human handshake. "Trista Latner. I'd say nice to meet you, but considering the circumstances…"

"Likewise," Nurnuk sits down in the seat opposite to Latner and takes her hand, trying not to look too uncomfortable. While humans may consider this gesture a form of casual greeting, to goblins, the touching of hands was usually reserved for your most intimate lovers. Most humans either didn't know this or didn't care. Nurnuk suspects that Latner might be one of that later group. "So, why now?"

Latner shrugs again, "Look, it's nothing that you actually did. You've suspected that we've been slowly picking off the goblin royal line for years now. I'm just the lucky girl who got to do the job."

"Did you kill my did sisters? Allus and Ulnok?" Nurnuk asks suddenly, unable to hold it in. "Did you kill my mother?"

"I did. All of her sisters, too. And their mother. And their father before them, as well," Latner says, sickeningly honest.

Let her see that you're angry. Just like you let Pharaoh Seth see your fear, she remembers her mother's lessons. Let them see what you need them to see.

"But no one beyond that," Latner continues on. "I wasn't part of the Department to pick off Filgus and those who came before him. But, wow, it never fails to amaze me that you lot still exist after all these years. Back in my early years, the schools always taught that the goblin royal family died with King Graggor a hundred or so years ago. And yet here you are, the last of the line of Lurtet. This is a historical moment, right here. Maybe I should write another book? How about Children of the Goldsinger? That's got a nice ring to it, right?"

Latner sighs, pulling her feet off of Nurnuk's desk and drinking the rest of her wine, "Well, it's been nice talking to you- seriously, I didn't get to do this much with you sisters. But I really do want you to know that it wasn't personal. Ever since the mages started coming back in force, we've had way too much on our plate to have to hold up our end of the bargain with your kind. You understand, right?"

"No. But then again, I'm a goblin, and you're just a human," Nurnuk says, setting down her drink.

Latner sneers, "See, now you remind me of your sisters."

The witch points her wand at Nurnuk. And the Goblin Queen laughs.

Latner pauses, "What? What's so funny?"

"You humans are all the same. Your noses are so short that even when you manage to look beyond them, you can never see the whole truth," Nurnuk says when her laughter dies down.

"What are you talking about?" Latner growls.

"You know, I'm honestly surprised Seth never figured it out, considering his parentage," she leans back in her chair, rocking it ever so slightly. "A bit of a disappointment really."

"What the hell are you talking about?" The witch shouts.

"What do you know about the Legend of the Three Kings, specifically surrounding that of their origin?" Nurnuk asks, letting her hand finally show.

"What has that got to do with anything?" Latner spits, the tip of her wand shaking from rage.

"The Lady Pharaoh's father, Pharaoh Aknamkanon, was one of a set of twins. Supposedly, right after their birth, the royal midwife forgot which one was which, so they had no idea which boy was the eldest and therefore, the old Pharaoh's heir," Nurnuk explains. "My mother, Queen Fradlast, was always a huge fan of the stories that sprouted from the legend, and she told me and my sisters that story every night before we went to bed. She always made us guess which brother was the real heir. Personally, I always guessed Aknadin."

She can see the gears of Latner's mind spinning, trying to work it all out. Nurnuk grins the moment she sees the witch understand.

"You… You aren't..."

"My mother gave birth to a set of twin girls, the first in nearly eight generations. And she was smart. She told the midwife to take my sister and I away, to swap us, and never tell her which one was the eldest. The woman did as she was told before killing herself, so no one would ever know the truth," the Goblin Queen sneers.

"But you are Queen. You were crowned," Latner shouts, grappling for any purchase she could find.

"Actually, I wasn't. Not in the official ceremony anyways. My sister went sat through that dull affair while I had a much more private crowning a few hours later. You see, we've swapped in and out of each other's lives so often that hardly anyone can tell us apart. Even Seth couldn't tell the difference between the two of us, and we swapped twice with him." Nurnuk laughs.

"Your husband-"

"Is my sister's husband, as well. He's the only one who could tell the difference between the two of us. We're his Nurnuks and he is our Srags, our trusted protector," Nurnuk smiles sadly. "I alerted him to your presence when I opened this bottle," she points to the opened vintage on the table. "Srags never had a talent for metal or stonework, but he can do wonders with glass."

"And yet your trusted protector isn't exactly bursting in here to save you, is he?" Latner grins savagely.

"He won't," Nurnuk shakes her head. "He'll be doing his duty, getting Queen Nurnuk to safety."

"You are the Queen!" Latner screams futilely, "You are the elder of the two daughters!"

"Maybe I am," Nurnuk shrugs. "In which case, the power of the goblin race will transfer to my sister and she will carry within her the magic of Lurtet, until the day she dies and can pass it down to her children. Or maybe I'm not, and my sister has always carried the Goldsinger's power within her, and my death with serve to buy just enough time to hide Queen Nurnuk in a place where the Department can never reach her. Either way, we win."

"Avada Kadavra!" Latner screams in frustration, her wand flashing green.

Queen Nurnuk the Last dies victorious with a mad grin on her face.

In the secret vault deep beneath Gringotts Bank, Queen Nurnuk the Last raises her head as she feels the connection that she has with her sister flicker and die.

"It is done," she says, and she allows a single tear to roll down her cheek. Her husband walks beside her in the dark, holding her hand tightly. A small glowing light passes by them, casting their faces with shadows before floating onwards, illuminating Kuirmet, who walks before them.

"We will remember her," Srags weeps more openly than her. Nurnuk and her sister had been prepared to die for each other since birth. Srags had only been let in on the secret the night they'd married each other nine years ago.

"We will avenge her," Nurnuk vows, the haze of a vision swirling before her. In it, she sees the Daughter of Albion and Amane Andrews, standing together in the Great Hall of Camelot. Destiny has such a funny way of coming to fruition, she thinks bittersweetly.

Their path takes a sharp turn upwards and Nurnuk's stomach churns at the thought of her sister lying dead in their office. She rests a hand over the slight curve of her belly and knows that it was all worth it.

"If it's a girl, we should name it after her," Srags says, rubbing his thumb against her palm.

Nurnuk chuckles wetly, "Isn't it a bit self centered, naming a child after yourself?"

"Nurnuk, she was not you. And you are not her," Srags implores. "Her sacrifice will give our baby life. It would be the greatest honour we could possibly give her."

"She would have been a wonderful mother," Nurnuk says.

"She would have the child rotten," Srags laughs. "She would have snuck them sweets before supper and let them get away with far, far too much."

"She would have," Nurnuk nods, a small grin appearing on her face.

"Your Majesty," Kuirmet addresses them. "We are almost at the exit."

Nurnuk nods, gripping Lurtet's treasure hard in her hand, "Very well. Shall we?"

The tunnel opens up onto the surface and Nurnuk steps out into the sunlight for the first time in her entire life. She blinks, raising a hand to shield her eyes, and breathes in the fresh air.

"It's beautiful," Nurnuk whispers, admiring the architecture of the muggle structures that lined the streets, the metal and wood and stone that went into building the modern land of Britain. She wishes that her sister could have been here to see it.

A muggle automobile speeds towards them on the road and Kuirmet sticks his thumb out so that the driver can see them. The van slows down and comes to a complete stop beside them. The window rolls down and Seto Kaiba leans out the window with a very confused look upon his face.

"Your Majesty? What…? Why are you here?"

Nurnuk looks him in the eye and allows him to see the fear that she needs him to see, "The Department just made an attempt on my life. We barely managed to escape."

"We seek sanctuary in the city of San Francisco," Srags implores.

Seto blinks, scanning his eyes over Nurnuk, before Pharaoh Seth nods, "Of course. Get in."

Nurnuk clambers into the backseat of the van, while Catherine the driver comments about how Serenity Wheeler had made a good call when she said they should leave their old car behind and steal the mini-van parked beside them. When they pull out onto the road, Seth looks back through the seats at Nurnuk, presses two fingers to his lips and draws them down his neck in the goblin symbol of sympathy.

He knows, she thinks, glancing over at the girl who had once been Shaleona. She must have figured it out when she touched Kuirmet and told Seth last night.

She flicks her wrist at her temple in thanks. Seth nods, offers her a tiny smile, and turns back to stare at the road.

And finally, because she is safe, Nurnuk allows herself to cry.

Hello again!

I'd like to thank those who reviewed for the last chapter: Tz342, RogueDragonPrincess, Moonfirekitsune, Tsuyomaru1a, dragomira, anita15, Rita Mu, green lilah, and nequam-tenshi. You guys are awesome!

So in this chapter we learn that there are in fact a pair of Nurnuks, not just the one. In order to explain which Nurnuk is in which scene, I'm going to refer to them as Pregnant!Nurnuk and NotPregnant!Nurnuk, as opposed to 'One' and 'Two', since I don't want to give away which one actually was the heir. You are welcome to guess, though, as I have left a clue.

NotPregnant!Nurnuk was the one who is in their introductory scene with Amane, back in chapter five. She is also the goblin that greets Seto and co. in her office (chapter eight) and makes the contract discussing the terms of their alliance (chapter ten).

Then, during Bill's introduction, we actually witness a switch between the two (chapter twelve). NotPregnant!Nurnuk uses a Notice-Me-Not spell to ensure that Bill does not see her. Meanwhile, Pregnant!Nurnuk swaps in while Kuirmet distracts them all (minus Serenity who already knows) with his conversation with Bill and then proceeds to lead Seto down into the chamber that has Luggus's treasure.

Finally, we have NotPregnant!Nurnuk swapping in again in order to say goodbye to Seto and co. She is killed by Trista Latner.

Until next time,
AlcatrazOutpatient