INTERLUDE TWO
"Are we being too harsh on him?"
In this place that wasn't quite a place, the question was asked with a voice that wasn't quite a voice. Still, the one the question was meant for responded in the same voiceless way.
"It has been a hard day for him. Perhaps it was too much at one time."
Two purple lights faced each other. One of them, the naturally more vibrant one, brightened slightly. "Do you seek to out-kind me with the young one?"
"N-no, it's just that Yugi's distress was so..."
"Peace, I only tease. Though to make Yugi the target of such a competition would be..."
"...would be more appropriate on another occasion. We have enough to keep track of now."
"Very true. Are you still comfortable with your role? Has there been enough variation from what we expected that we need to synchronize?"
"No, my role has gone according to plan."
"Good. Since our aspects are so close to one another, if we do synchronize, it might weaken the charade. Have you plans for your further actions?"
"Yes, as soon as this plot of yours start to accelerate."
"This plot of ours."
"Well, yes, I suppose so... Still, until this is over it seems as if it is your plot, and not quite mine."
"I struggle a bit with this separation, too."
"Who would have realized that the Atelier, which we thought was for the comfort of the others in the Magic Box, was for our comfort, as well," the slighter dimmer light said slowly.
"What I worry about, in all of this, is how the separation is affecting him," the other light responded.
"Is–is that a cause for concern?" Despite the fact there was no sound to convey tone of voice, or enough feature to show expression, the entity's shock came through quite clearly.
"I don't know. I hope not."
Chapter Sixteen – Yugi Meets the Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos (again)
"You are unbelievable!"
Yami looked up listlessly to see Yugi, hands on hips, glaring up at him. "What do you mean?"
"This moping around has got to stop, Yami. All of us are sorry about what happened to the Purple Knight, but that can't stop us from moving forward." Yugi's attitude softened slightly.
Yami shrugged. "What difference does it make? What difference does anything make? If all our actions are fated as his was, what can possibly..."
"Yami! Our actions aren't 'fated', you know that. Look, I don't like to see you so saddened by this, but I won't have you take your upset out on your dragon." Yugi gestured and the skeletal dragon advanced toward them. "You've got to learn how to work with your dragon in order to..."
Yami went back to staring at the ground where his shadow stretched away from the afternoon sun. He interrupted, "Curse of Dragon is the weakest of the three dragons, Yugi, and I'm the strongest of the lords. There's no need for me to learn how to work with the thing."
"'Curse of Dragon'?" Yugi asked in a low, soft voice.
Yami shrugged. "The damn beast was cursed which is why the Purple Knight had to sacrifice himself. End of discussion."
Yugi grit his teeth and closed his eyes. He counted to ten. Twice. He finally heaved a deep sigh. Yami had been like this for several days, ever since they'd lost the Knights – well, transformed two of them and lost the third. "You're a moron," he finally said. Yami stared at him blankly. Yugi knew that counting wasn't going to work in keeping his anger in check any longer. "Go ahead and mope all you want. Push everyone away! Do the exact same thing to your dragon that you did to your knight and then wonder why you're so miserable. I don't care!"
He turned and stalked off, gesturing sharply for the Dragon of Shadows to follow him. The dragon cast what seemed to be an unhappy look toward the disconsolate Lord of Shadows before turning away and following the Hero. His skeletal tail dragged on the ground.
"Is that what I'm doing?" Yami asked himself in a low voice. He looked down at his hands. "Why is it that death seems to follow and swirl about me? Shadows aren't evil, and neither is darkness. Why... Why did my friend have to die?" Yami paused and amended his question. "No, he was already dead." He shook his head against the pain, and added in a whisper, "Why did my friend have to leave?"
"Yuge's right. Yami's gotta stop sulking and get his rear in gear. We don't know when the Chaos Dragon is going to attack again," Lord Joey said.
"Agreed. I simply stated that I understand his disappointment in the trade-off. That bag of bones shaped like a dragon seems worthless. His knight may have been dead, but at least it could fight."
Yugi caught the exchange as he returned to camp, and counted to twenty – twice – in two different languages before he trusted himself to speak and not shriek at the lords.
"Need I remind you lords that appearances can be deceiving?" Yugi deliberately pulled himself up to his full height, which was anything but impressive, and emphasized their shared title with a lightly mocking emphasis. "I believe the Shadow Dragon will be important in the coming battles. If either of you doesn't believe me, you are welcome – no, I demand that you gather your forces, your sword, and your dragon, and leave now. I need your trust and belief far more than I need your power."
Lord Joey and Lord Seto each blinked at him, and neither one could hold Yugi's gaze for more than a moment.
"Hmph. Not a pushover." A slightly rueful smile passed across Seto's lips. "Very well, Hero. You have the – wholehearted – support of the Lord of Ice and Dragons, as well as his forces. How about you?" Seto turned and smirked at Joey.
"He has my support!" Joey snapped. He balled his fists. "He doesn't even have to ask!"
"I just hope you have the full support of the Lord of Shadows when the time comes," Seto said. He straightened from where he was leaning against one of the support pillars of their command tent and added, "I will take Tekhenu out and practice with my troops. None of us is used to my former White Knight being so massive – or so powerful. I need to adjust some of our battle tactics."
"Good idea. I'm not used to battling with a dragon on my side at all. Perhaps our forces should spar one another? So I can figure out how best to use Daire's abilities?"
"Hmm. He is a dragon. Perhaps you should place him with my troops and let me command him."
"Over my dead body!" Joey yelled into Seto's face.
"Easily arranged." Seto retorted. "Oh, very well. He is the Dragon of the Fire Lord. I suppose his talents would be put to their best use under your command."
"Damn straight."
"Besides, it would take a dragon to protect you properly in the next battle. I don't believe your Warriors are up to the task."
"Hey!"
The two lords continued to argue with one another and trade insults as they walked out of earshot. Only a few minutes later, the sounds of battle, Warriors against Dragons, shook the camp. Yugi knew Seto and Joey were only sparring, and not fighting for real. Perhaps they were letting off steam for both themselves and their troops in the mock battle, as well as accustoming their forces to the presence of the massively powerful Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon among them.
"What am I supposed to do?" Yugi asked himself softly. "I don't know how to break Yami out of..."
He was interrupted as he was nudged, gently, from behind. Yugi whirled and found himself looking into the somehow intelligent red glow residing in the Shadow Dragon's eye sockets. "It's not your fault!" Yugi quickly reassured. "I'm certain Yami will come around, and realize how powerful and helpful you are. He's just so saddened by losing the Purple Knight that he's... Well, he's mourning. He..." Yugi stopped babbling. "Me? You're speaking, in my mind, to me? But I'm not the Lord of Shadows!"
The skeletal dragon thrashed his tail once emphatically.
"Okay, but I don't know what..." Yugi agreed with the dragon's intent, that he was somehow receiving, and clambered up on the beast's back. "It's not like I can direct the Shadows or anything." The Shadow Dragon's giant shrug nearly dislodged Yugi from his back. "Hey!"
Curse of Dragon, so named by his lord, gathered his strength in his haunches, and launched himself and the Hero skyward.
Yugi surveyed the utter chaos of the battlefield below from the massive back of the skeletal Shadow Dragon. The mystic beast had an eerie aura that kept all but the Shades away, and it had proven to be quite adept at evading their attacks. With the Hero up and out of the way of the battle below, Lord Seto and Lord Joey were able to unleash their powers more fully upon their foes.
For his part, Yugi kept directing the Shadow Dragon to strafe Chaos's forces and cursed that Yami had taken off – again. Yugi had to hand it to the Lord of Shadows, when he moped, he moped with a vengeance. Even Yami's Shadows where nowhere to be seen in the fight below. If not for Curse of Dragon's invisible, but highly effective breath weapon taking down the Shades, the battle would have gone very badly for the good guys.
Despite the absent lord, it seemed as if Yugi and the Lords Seto and Joey with only the Dragons and Warriors at their command, might be able to win this battle – at least until the Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos made his dramatic appearance.
Yugi moaned when the sun seemed to go out. "No, no!" Indigo clouds tattered and torn by massive bolts of green lightning appeared suddenly all around him. "This can't be happening, not now!" The nearest clouds writhed, moaned, and gibbered with half-seen tormented faces trapped within their roiling substance. The screams which had been disturbing when he had seen them from the ground before were absolutely appalling from this proximity.
"Yugi!" Lord Joey shouted from the ground. "You better get down here where it's safe!"
Lord Seto didn't say a thing. He merely sprouted white, leathery wings and took to the air. Tekhenu, the dragon who had formerly been the White Knight, flew above his lord to offer him some sort of cover from this disastrous turn of events.
"But you know there's no place that's safe from me, don't you, my sumptuous tidbit?" The Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos didn't even bother to flap his wings to remain airborne. His massive bulk floated in the sky in clear defiance of the law of gravity.
"I'm not afraid of you!" Yugi shouted.
The Chaos Dragon rocked back on his tail at that. His tongue, long but not forked, flicked in and out rapidly as a snake's would. "I don't believe you. Your fear is a delicious amuse-bouche whetting my appetite for the grand feast to come." The Lord Dragon stretched and seemed to cover the length of the sky. His great, triangular head lazily dropped down, so he could see the open area under himself and spy the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Lord Seto trying to close on him from below. "Really? Do you think I'd fall for the same trick again?"
His massive tail whipped out and caught the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in the chest, effortlessly hurling the mighty beast to the ground. Faster than Yugi's eyes could follow, the Chaos Dragon's tail snapped again, throwing Lord Seto in the same way to crash atop his Guardian Dragon.
Desperate to pull the dangerous Lord Dragon's attention away from where Seto struggled to regain his bearings below, Yugi urged the Shadow Dragon to fly closer and shouted. "What do you want?"
"Ah, Hero. Have I not been abundantly clear about that?" The massive dragon contrived to look mock-sorrowful with his fearsome features and clucked his tongue. "I want for you to grow sufficiently as the Hero to offer me a credible challenge. You're so close, but not quite ready to face me. Not seriously."
"This isn't a game!" Yugi growled.
The Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos seemed amused. "Isn't everything a game when seen from the right perspective?"
"People have died!"
"People die every day."
"People have died because of your actions!"
"Interesting that you would claim that. Who, exactly, has died from my actions? I believe, Hero, there are more who have been taken out by your actions than by mine."
That shook Yugi. Was what the Lord Dragon claimed true? After all, he had been the one who retrieved each of the swords that served as the keys to unlock the dragons for the three Kindly Lords – but the price had been the lives of each of the lord's Knights. Or, if not the life, at least for two of them, a dramatically altered existence. The Purple Knight, however...
"Don't listen to him, Yuge! The Red Knight wants me to tell you he's far more content the way he is now!" Lord Joey shouted up at him. To punctuate his point, he lifted his sword, which blazed fiercely in agreement.
"Your actions freed Tekhenu from the prison of a weaker form," Seto told him. "Do not credit anything the Chaos Dragon claims."
"Feh. They are lesser beings. They have no idea what they are prattling about," the Lord Dragon claimed.
"Perhaps that is true," Seto called. "But what is also true is that my people have suffered. Not the Dragons who serve as my battle forces, but the ordinary people living peacefully upon my land. Some of them have been merely killed, but others, if they are ever seen again after they've been taken, are soulless shells of who they had once been – transformed into his Shades."
"Yeah. Just look down here, Yugi. Look at all the fallen Warriors and Dragons. He commands the Knaves, and Drakors, and Shades! Whatever they do is on him, not on you!" Joey agreed.
Yugi looked back at the Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos. The mighty beast grinned, not at all contritely. "What they say is true, but, the Warriors and Dragons would not have been here at all to fight if you had not gathered them together. Consider this, Hero. Whatever guilt you wish to ascribe to me must be assumed by you as well."
Yugi couldn't help his tiny nod. It was almost as if the Chaos Dragon was trying to tell him something, something important, something with a far deeper meaning than what the surface of the words would indicate...
"Ah, doubt. It blends so nicely with your fear. But, my palate grows bored. Fear alone no longer suffices. Let's see what your mortal terror tastes like!"
His incredibly fast and undeniably accurate tail whipped out again and struck in the center of the breastbone of the Dragon of the Shadow Lord. The Curse of Dragon's mouth opened in a soundless bugle as the target bone shattered, and all of his bones flew apart. No longer supported on the back of a flying creature, Yugi plummeted toward the ground amid the broken bits of bone that had been Curse of Dragon.
"And, just so you don't have any misgivings that your paltry powers can do anything to interrupt my feast," The Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos glared at the two Lords and breathed out a roiling miasma of clouds filled with shrieking spectral faces and wild spikes of electricity right at them, that quickly hid them, as well as the ground, from sight.
"YUGI!" Joey's shout rang with a tone of despair.
Author's notes –
I went around and around and around with the Lord Dragon of Blackness and Chaos about his line containing the word 'amuse-bouche'. It's not at all a common word, wandering into use into the English language from French, and indicating a specific sort of appetizer. Amuse-bouche refers to a small portion, only a bite or two, offered by the chef to his or her patrons to tease their taste buds, as opposed to an appetizer one can order from a menu. I wanted to use the word appetizer in the story for clarity and reader understanding. The Lord Dragon insisted that 'appetizer' did not have the right je ne sais quoi to convey the meaning as well as amuse-bouche. I have no idea why the Lord Dragon is insisting that French be a feature in his dialogue in this story but one doesn't argue with a dragon – especially when part of his name/title contains the word "chaos". (I just wonder where he learned how to speak French – and why he's better at it than me!)
Next chapter teaser – Chapter Eighteen – A Turn for the Worse