"What in the world happened…?" Atem wondered. He'd escaped the battle just long enough to get a look at the duel between Serena and Kaiba; both had taken damage while he was gone, and Dreadroot still stood tall over Laquari. Kaiba had somehow managed to bring Vorse Raider to the field, but his claim to have a card to kill Dreadroot seemed to be little more than a mind game as Kaiba drew. Atem opened his mouth to call support to Kaiba, but got knocked to the side by an unfamiliar face.
"…Queen Beryl, I'll assume," He said as he got up. The woman standing before him had red eyes and an evil face, which was twisting into an evil smirk as she nodded. "So. You were the tool Bakura revived. You're pathetic to think that Bakura cares anything for your plans," He spat.
"On the contrary, Pharaoh. I know he doesn't give a damn. I don't plan on keeping this partnership up any longer than I have to. That ancient failure is more annoying than all of the Sailor Scouts combined," She said, making a face. "But you stand in the way of me and the destruction of the Sailor Scouts, and for that you must be eliminated!" She said as she swung on him. He ducked and kicked out, which Beryl jumped to avoid. Atem was no superhero, but he wasn't a slouch either.
"People much worse than you have tried to exterminate me, Beryl. And so far, I'm still standing!" He said as he swept her legs out from under her. She leapt back up, narrowly avoiding a punch to the gut before taking one to the face anyway.
"Old hag," Rei muttered as she cocked her fist again. She gave a sideways glance to Atem. "Get over to the duel, back Kaiba up. It looks like he's gonna need the help," She said. "Mars Flamre Mandela!" She yelled, summoning the disks she'd used to cut Yugi from his bonds in the Negaverse and tossing them at Beryl. Atem nodded and took off toward the Shadow Game.
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"Kaiba!" Atem yelled as he came up on the duel. Kaiba had his new card that he'd drawn for his turn in his hand and turned his head to Atem upon hearing the cry.
"Save it, Atem! I have business to attend to. Serena, your God's power will be its downfall! I chose my Vorse Raider for a reason," He said. Atem frowned. What was so special about Vorse Raider? Good ATK, sure, but Dreadroot's effect dropped it below even 1000 ATK.
Atem's eyes widened as that last thought as memories flashed through his head.
I play Shrink! Now that my Ryu-Kishin-Powered is weaker than 1000 ATK…
I play Saggi, the Dark Clown!
"I see you realized what I did. Took you long enough, Atem," Seto said with a smirk. Hearing Serena growing increasingly impatient, he turned back. "Here we go! I play the Crush Card Virus! I need a Dark monster weaker than 1000 points to sacrifice for it, and your Dreadroot has weakened Vorse Raider enough to make it so!" He said.
"Crush Card Virus? What's that?" Serena wondered. Kaiba laughed.
"A disease that festers within a weak monster, eventually annihilating its host and infecting every enemy monster on the field, in your hand and in your deck stronger than 1500 ATK!" He told her. Vorse Raider exploded, sending a purple cloud over to Serena's field. Dreadroot stopped floating as the virus took effect, crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust before shattering. Serena's hand, full of high-powered Gladiators, was also forced to be discarded. All that remained was Laquari, now back to full strength and her facedown cards.
"NO!" Kaiba turned around sharply to see Bakura in a furious frenzy. "Kaiba, you prat! Without Dreadroot with her, Serena will go back to her normal state!" He yelled, practically dancing with rage.
"That was rather the point," Kaiba said, vaguely amused. Even as he spoke, he could feel Dreadroot's influence weakening. At the same time, the last of Bakura's Dark World forces were being dealt with and the Negaverse entourage found themselves facing an extremely angry group of Sailor Scouts, Duel Monsters and Atem.
Bakura growled and leapt at Kaiba, snagging back one of his Grapha cards. "You said you didn't want to hurt her, Kaiba?! That's fine! I'll do it for you!" He screamed as Grapha emerged with a roar. It turned to Serena, who was free enough from Dreadroot's spell to notice that the dragon meant to fry her. She screamed and Kaiba's eyes darted around.
"This is gonna hurt," He muttered. He ran full-bore and launched himself at Serena, who was sent the ground and out of the way of the dragon's attack. Kaiba wasn't so lucky; the dark energy blast sent him flying through the air, stopping only when he ironically enough hit a stop sign. He felt his consciousness waning even as he slid down the front of the sign, was vaguely aware of his name being screamed, then all was dark.
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"Kaiba!" Atem shouted as his rival was struck by Grapha's blast. A moment too late, Buster Blader decapitated it, Atem's other monsters having assisted the present Sailor Scouts in defeating Bakura's Dark World soldiers. Atem turned toward Queen Beryl with a fury only the likes of Marik, Dartz and Bakura had ever seen. Even she quailed under the radiance of righteous anger that he exuded as he advanced on her.
"Bakura, we are outmatched and outnumbered. This is not a wise fight to continue," She said. Bakura's eyes darted from one opponent to another, considering the odds before he finally agreed. He summoned his shadow powers again, this time to cause a dimensional rift.
"Whenever Seto wakes up from being cracked by Grapha, let him know that I'll be back for those other two dragons," Bakura threatened before they backed into the portal. Rebecca charged forward but Amy put out a hand.
"Not worth it," She said even as the rift closed. Rebecca chose not to argue; she knew in her heart that the elder Scout was right. Amy's attention turned from the current Sailor Moon to Kaiba, who already had Serena and Atem attending to him.
"Is he going to be alright?" She asked as they looked him over. He'd already been injured somewhat from Dreadroot's attack, but he pretty much looked terrible now. A laceration here and there, a few nasty bruises blooming on his body. "Seto, you in there?" Amy asked, peering down.
He groaned and opened his eyes. "Good. Follow my finger, eyes only," Amy instructed. Kaiba didn't bother talking back, choosing rather to do as told. "No concussion, luckily enough," Amy announced. "Give him some room," She told the group as Kaiba began to make his way back to his feet. He stood once, buckled at the knees, caught himself and stood again.
"Is… uhm… is the girl safe?" Kaiba head was still cloudy, but he was alive and that was more than some could say about having fought Bakura's shadow monsters. Everyone looked over to Serena, who was staring- no, glaring at the ground.
"…I'll go check," Rebecca volunteered before rushing over to her predecessor. "…Serena?" She asked tentatively. Following her gaze, she saw Serena giving The Wicked Dreadroot a hateful look. "Oh. Serena… are you alright?" She asked.
"No. I'm not alright in the least," Serena moaned. "I was a jerk to my friends, a bitch to people who didn't even know me and caused harm to innocent people. I'm supposed to be a hero, but I let a simple piece of evil magic take me. And now Kaiba's seriously hurt because he saved me from getting blasted," She said before she spat on the card.
"You didn't let anything happen. You couldn't have known what that card would do, what it was, the chain reaction between the shadow energy in your Moon Prism and the card…" Rebecca trailed off, unsure of how to console the girl she'd never even met until now. Rebecca saw a shadow darken the ground under her and looked up to see Atem.
"Kaiba will be just fine. He's a little worse for the wear, but he's ok. Well enough to give a few brief sarcastic remarks, a genuine thanks for making sure he was alive and yet again mispronouncing my name, anyway," Atem added with a small smile. He noticed that Serena was starting to cry and turned to Rebecca. "Go back to the others. Regroup with the rest of our company, tell them what's happened. We'll meet you back at the Sailor's hotel," He said. Rebecca nodded but hesitated.
"Wait. I think I'm done with this," She said, changing back to her normal clothes as she removed the Moon Prism from her neck. Atem grasped it in his hand and nodded, sending Rebecca on her way.
"Serena… this was not your fault. I've been where you're at right now," He said, taking a seat next to the girl. Serena sniffed and looked up, questioning. Atem sighed as the memories swept over him.
"I play this Magic card, Exchange!" Rafael said with a sinister smile. Atem frowned, unsure of why he'd play it; they each only had one card in hand. Atem tried to shake the concern as they traded cards, Rafael commenting on how useless Necromancy was by taunting the Pharaoh yet again about his disrespect for the monsters he used.
"What do you find so funny?" Atem glanced over his shoulder before looking at the card. "Oh no! Not the Seal of Orichalcos!" Even as he looked at the card, the Orichalcos stone around his neck began to glow. Atem tried to fight the increasing feeling of darkness welling up inside him, but finally he snapped.
"I play the Seal of Orichalcos!" Atem made to put the card on his disk, but Yugi hung on to his arm. "What are you doing? Let go!" He demanded.
"No! You can't play that card, it's evil!" Yugi pleaded. Atem ignored him and played the Field Spell, proceeding to burn away Rafael's Life Points by ridding himself of any monster he deemed too weak to keep; which in this case, this duel, was all of them.
"It was only when I lost the duel, after Yugi had sacrificed his soul in place of my own that I realized just what I had done," Atem finished, having relayed the entire story to Serena. She sat mesmerized as he spoke, closing her eyes when he was finally done. "Rafael was right; there is darkness in all of us. But more importantly," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder, "there is light as well. Dreadroot brought the darkness out. It's your job now to bring the light back," He said.
"I… I suppose so. I think Rebecca is best off with the Moon Prism for the time being," Serena said. Atem stared at her, shocked. "I have a score to settle not with the Negaverse, but with that old white-haired ass Bakura. He's the one that dug those cards up, he's the one that gave Dreadroot to Neflite and he's the reason I was possessed. He's gonna pay, and I won't need anything but these right here to do it," She said with calm anger, indicating the cards in her duel disk.
Atem smiled. "Spoken like a true duelist. It seems as though you and Amy have a knack for the game that the other Scouts don't quite seem to. Lita and Rei are a bit too hotheaded and rush recklessly into things and Mina is the precise opposite," He commented as the pair watched the sun set above the lake. "You know, there are still quite a few strong opponents on the street. You might be able to win your sixth locator before the night is through," He suggested.
"Now that I'm not under the influence of Bakura's darkness, you mean?" Serena asked. He nodded. "Speaking of which… what do we do with it? Destroy it?" She wondered, looking down at the card. Atem frowned and picked it up. "Some beings have no light inside them… this is one of them. It would not be in our favor for Bakura to regain possession of it, but I highly doubt it will so easily be destroyed without consequence. We'll ask Kaiba to store it somewhere, preferably a remote area where no one will find it," He said finally.
Serena nodded. "Sounds good to me. Speaking of Kaiba… we need to find him," She said. Atem gave her an odd look. "I never got the chance to thank him for taking the hit in my place," She explained. Atem nodded in understanding and the pair took off for KaibaCorp.
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Seto Kaiba paced back and forth in his office. He was torn between rage, frantic panic and pain from his sacrificial play for Serena. That explained the pain. But the rage and panic came from an assault that had happened but moments ago. Queen Beryl herself had personally came into KaibaCorp headquarters disguised as a random duelist. She'd asked to speak to Kaiba on the pretense of wanting to exchange her "faulty" duel disk for a new one.
Seto's instincts had told him that something was odd about the request, but the disks were a new model and it was possible that there was a bug or two; several instances had been reported of life point readouts not loading, certain holograms looking odd, that sort of thing. He'd grabbed a new model and taken the elevator downstairs to find his floor secretary knocked unconscious and Beryl waiting at the elevator to hit him across the face, enough to send the already-weakened man into the elevator.
"I told the clerk I needed a new disk," Beryl had snapped. "I just didn't specify whose," she'd added cheekily as she quickly tossed him out of the elevator and shut the door. By the time he was up the stairs and to his office, Beryl was gone as was his duel disk, deck and six locator cards. On his desk was a note:
"Meet in front of Domino City High School at nine tonight and bring the Graphas." It was unsigned, but Kaiba could take a pretty educated guess. He growled for the fifth time in ten minutes and looked at the clock. "Six-thirty… two hours to decide," He muttered. He glanced again at his office phone. Yes, they owed him a favor for what he'd done earlier. But his pride was a very difficult thing to put aside.
Kaiba's head jerked up as yet again he could swear he heard the cries of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon. A year ago, he would have thought it was an illusion from the stress, but after everything he'd learned about his ancestry he knew it was more likely that it was no illusion. His most prized monsters, the dragons that had carried him through countless battles and stayed by him from the very beginning of his career were calling to their master to be released.
That thought made his blood boil over the edge of his pride. He reached out, snagged the phone and began dialing numbers.
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"Hold on," Atem said as the pair walked toward the KaibaCorp building. Serena stopped, having heard Atem's phone go off. Atem pulled it out and flipped it open. "Hello? Kaiba? Wait, wait, hold on. What now? …I'd say you're joking, but I highly doubt it. Let us in the main door, we're on our way. We'll settle this, Serena should be happy to help," He said. Atem put his phone back and swore.
"Looks like someone got to KaibaCorp before we did. They continued their assault, apparently, because he was attacked by Beryl. In addition, his entire Deck and locator cards are being held ransom for Bakura's remaining two Grapha cards," He told her even as they ran. Serena's mouth dropped, then curved into a wicked snarl.
"You're right. I'll be more than happy to knock some heads," she said.