Wow -so I finished exams a little while ago, and I've finally gotten around to updating this. Mm... things are getting tense as we near the end of the fanfic and I've turned to writing less dark and disturbing Kingdom Hearts fanfiction to make me feel better, especially with my protagonist out of commission -it feels weird not to write from Lorna's POV :( But I'm not abandoning this. I'm staying with you until the very end. And the end is sooo deliciously close mwahaha
Ishizu bites her lip, glancing at Sun's unconscious form on the ground. Could she be right? Is Sun's body inhuman? Does it die? Does it even bleed? She watches the husk dueling her brother with narrowed eyes. Is Lorna even in there? She doubts it; judging by what Sun has told her, their spirits must be in the Inbetween -although how these demons have come to use the empty bodies as vessels is a mystery to her. Have they always been there? Are they never safe from this strange demonic possession? It reminds her a bit of the darkness overshadowing her brother, but she can tell it's not quite the same.
It's Marik's main phase now, and his smirk is inhumanly wide and his eyes are lidded, blood vessels straining against the skin around them, which gives her brother the appearance of one who hasn't slept in weeks. "I activate Common Sacrifice!" he announces, turning over a card on his disk that had been face-down for a couple of turns now. "Now, I'm sure you're just dying to know what this does, and don't worry, because I intend on delivering!" He cackles as the card's hologram turns up to reveal its image. "With this card, I can use two of your monsters as sacrifices to summon my own monster! So come on out, Zoa!"
Just as Marik speaks, he slams a card down onto his duel disk beside his god card. Before the monster materializes, however, two of the husk's monsters, Forgiving Maiden and Fabled Ganashia, are engulfed in white light, completely gone once the light fades. This is the cue for Zoa (2600/1900) to appear, though he hardly looks imposing next to the sheer size of the Winged Dragon of Ra hovering beside it. The giant winged beast doesn't even budge from its place to make room, simply flapping its enormous wings in a disinterested manner.
With three monsters protecting it rather than six, defeating the husk seems more attainable. He still has the problem of the two weakest monsters on the field, Shining Abyss (2100/1800) and Rogue Doll (2100/1000), which both cannot be destroyed unless she has something weaker on the field. Luckily for him, however, there is still her Dunames Dark Witch (2300/1050), which can be disposed of very easily with either of his monsters.
Due the fact that Zoa was special summoned, Marik still has the ability to add another monster to his arsenal, but nothing in his hand is strong enough to stand up to the two monsters on the thing's side of the field, so he decides against it. "Now, it's time for me to take your monster down! Winged Dragon of Ra, destroy her witch!"
The husk raises its arms over its face, anticipating the attack and Ra opens its jaw wide to unleash a powerful blaze cannon, causing the witch to instantly disintegrate. Marik grimaces at the sight of her two monsters. He knows he can't attack either of them -quite an interesting way to exploit the power of that seal…
Yami Marik: 100
Lorna?: 1800
Marik bares his teeth in a grin. More than half-way there… And I think I know just the thing to work around those two pesky monsters…
Serenity lets out another shriek, clutching Ryou's shoulder more tightly than ever. The boy, still injured, struggles under their joint weight, trying not to collapse in a heap on the ground and dragging the girl with him. Malik seems uninterested in helping them past this point, so he would have to depend on his own strength for the time being, which doesn't feel very abundant considering the vague sense of numbness he still feels pooling at each of his joints. The only thing he can do is make sure he stays completely still, because he doubts he can get back up if he falls.
Malik can feel his heart seizing up, endeavoring to keep up a steady rhythm while his body tries to remember what it's meant to be doing. He doesn't even want to watch, but he can't keep his eyes off of her. Lorna's skin looks pale in the magical light of the Seal of Orichalcos -and as much as he'd like to attribute it to the poor lighting, he can't help but feel like she's gradually appearing more corpse-like the longer she stays in there.
The one noise that accompanies the sound of her screaming is the sound of Peten laughing -his voice growing in volume like it's trying to compete with every other sound in the empty plain. The Solitude suddenly feels very empty. Something brushes past Malik's shoulder and he realizes that every prisoner in this realm is trying to escape.
"Serenity?" a voice softly whispers in the young girl's ear. "Serenity, shh… you'll be okay. It's not real. What you're feeling is not real."
Ryou turns his gaze to the source of the noise and gasps softly. "Mai? You're okay?"
The tall, blonde woman nods gently. "This is where Marik sent me after he… won our duel. I'm still a bit dizzy, but…" She lets out a loud and heavy sigh. "This place is falling apart. We need to get out of here."
"M-Mai-" Serenity struggles with the word, prying her eyes open to look at the newcomer. "I can't… leave… N-Not yet!"
Mai turns her head to look at Lorna; the girl's back is facing them, but she still recognizes her. "The girl who came back from the dead… You think you can help her like that?" she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. "You can barely stand -both of you." And with a cursory glance over her shoulder, she adds, "Can't prince charming over there save her?"
"Malik?" Ryou asks, silently mulling over the possibility in his mind.
His thoughts are interrupted by an incredulous and slightly alarmed "Marik?" Mai's eyes are wide, watching the boy's golden back suspiciously. She finds herself grabbing her two friends and inching back towards the Solitude's gate, which is white with spiritual essence due to the mass exodus caused by the instability of the realm. "We need to get out. Now!"
"Mai! No!" Serenity weakly objects, pushing against Mai's shoulder. "We have to stay… I have to protect her!" she cries, the words spilling out of her lips on an instinct.
"Why?" Mai questions back staunchly. "Says who?" Her ears perk up to the animalistic, shrieking laughter sounding from deeper in the plain -a sound akin to a feverish hyena. Just beyond Lorna, she can see two figures, one steely and solemn, and the other yelling something indistinct to the elevated girl. "Says this asshole?" she murmurs, her eyes following the movement of his lips, trying to make sense of the sounds coming out.
"I- Yes…" Serenity replies, biting her lip.
Mai scoffs and shakes her head dismissively. "Doesn't look like the most reliable person, if you ask me. No, I'm taking you back. Joey would strangle me if he found out I left his baby sister in a place like this." With renewed determination, she grabs Serenity's arm and glares at Ryou to help her push the girl towards the bright light. "Let's get out of here."
Ryou casts a lingering glance towards the spirit of the ring and he almost catches the creature giving him a curt nod before training his eyes on the gateway instead, limping there with every bit of energy he can muster.
Just behind him, a weak and unconscious Lorna has wrapped her fingers around the shaft of her lance and begun to tear the weapon out of her chest. Her face is frozen, her voice caught in her throat -or perhaps gagged by the dark matter that spilled out through her mouth even now. Once the sharp tip is nearly out of her body, the sudden wide part of the tip snags on her skin. Marik watches her with a dry mouth; he can't see everything due to her back being to him, but he doesn't need to see everything to know that the twitching of her body means that she's ripping the lance through her skin, trying to dislodge it. Her small, choked gasps are barely audible now.
It's a sick curiosity that keeps Zorc watching as she finally removes the weapon and drops it at her side with a dull thud. As soon as the hole in her chest is opened, the storm is back, stuck within the bounds of the Seal of Orichalcos, but with every ounce of ferocity that it had previously possessed. With that, Lorna's body begins to rise within the endlessly tall pillar of light emitted by the seal below her. "What's happening to her?" he asks his brother, who is currently standing with his arms spread as if trying to physically embrace the image displayed before him. "What have you done?"
"This is the beginning, Zorc. This is our salvation. Atlantis will be reborn," Zaleon whispers, not even looking at the demon as he speaks.
Zorc raises his eyebrows but lets out a derisive chuckle nonetheless. "Atlantis? What infantile goals you have, brother. And here I thought I was the immature one."
"Infantile?" Zaleon asks, glancing over his shoulder. "Infantile or inspired? Soon we'll be home. Everyone is waiting for us."
"Everyone?" he asks incredulously. "Everyone is dead," Zorc snaps. "And so are you."
Zaleon chuckles, taking his clown mask by the top edge and peeling it off of his face. He lets the thing fall into the dead weeds at his feet. "Inspired, is it not?" He lets out one long sigh, as though letting a pleasant memory pass through his thoughts. "As for your question, Lorna no longer exists. The Warden is now recreating the girl in her image… like a true goddess."
"You think too highly of that woman, Zaleon. That's what killed you back then… and now… Well, after ten thousand years, I've found that history tends to repeat itself."
"You've never trusted women, Zorc," Zaleon teases. "Perhaps you need to find yourself a girlfriend."
Zorc snorts and tries to get a good look at Lorna through the storm clouds and debris, but she's too high up, and he doubts he'd see the same girl he met in that morgue earlier that day. He'll never forget those black eyes that bore into his own on that fateful day ten thousand years ago, and he'll never forgive them either…
Malik feels his breath becoming heavy as he tries to make out his friend's figure at the center of the hurricane, but he can't. He knows this feeling well; he's felt it before when Malik summoned the Winged Dragon of Ra. His transmogrification grows stronger when its counterpart has been summoned, and it's taking every bit of concentration he has not to give in to the Egyptian god's feral whims.
Marik, can you hear me?
Marik… Marik… Can you hear me?
Marik grimaces, putting a hand to his throbbing head. "What?" he hisses, observing the empty air to his left as it begins to display the wispy and translucent image of a boy he knows all too well. "Malik?"
Marik, you need to listen to me. Do you know where Lorna is? H-Her body?
He shifts his eyes slightly, centering his vision on the husk in Lorna's image, its skin still bubbling and boiling like a putrid, flesh-colored broth. "Yes. Why don't you turn around and see for yourself," he replies, noting the way the husk cocks its head to the side curiously; he must look like he's speaking to himself -not that he cares what that thing's opinion of him is. The phantom image of Malik turns around cautiously, flinching at the sight of the husk. "What is it you want?" Yami Marik asks him, drawing a card from his deck. "I'm a bit busy here."
The husk hadn't done much after Marik destroyed its strongest monster. It didn't replace it, but it did set down either a trap card or a magic card, which Marik only vaguely registers as a threat to his streak of luck.
Do you remember the man who infiltrated your rare hunters and challenged us to a duel this morning?
The thought makes Marik turn up his nose. Yes. He does remember… The man had no doubt been after the new third resident of Marik's mind, though his luck ran out quite early. He was not much of a challenge to Marik or his darker side, but it is curious that he managed to get onto Marik's ship so easily; the man must have been hunting them for quite a while. Malik hasn't said much about his identity, but Marik pieced enough together to know that his existence is no coincidence.
He gave us a crystal when we beat him -a fragment of a crystal. D-Do you have it on you right now?
"What do you want this crystal of yours for?"
That seal must be giving you a hard time.
This piques his interest. "Are you telling me that you can get rid of it?"
A pause and then… Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Marik's head turns to the side abruptly, his eyes meeting Ishizu's. "Sister-dearest… Would you mind fetching something for me? Something of great importance?"
Ishizu is so taken aback by the attention he's paying her all of a sudden, so lost in her own thoughts, that she doesn't even understand the words he's saying at first. "Something important?"
He rolls his eyes at her, shifting his weight impatiently. "It's in a velvet pouch -under my pillow."
Ishizu takes a moment to commit the instructions to memory. "U-Under your… Yes. Alright. I'll be back soon."
Her back has barely turned and Marik's voice stops her in her tracks. "Ishizu, there may be others like these two." There are unsaid words weighing down the air between them, and Ishizu nods with understanding before setting off on her task.
Yami Marik: 100
Lorna?: 1800
Once the woman is gone, Marik's full attention is on his opponent. He yanks out a spell from his hand and smirks. "Your days are numbered, creature. I may not know what this seal of yours does to the loser of the duel, but I know it can't be pleasant." This garners a reaction from the thing, albeit a slight one; its face twitches, its expression still blank and unreadable. However, Marik knows he's managed to jar it. "I'm going to activate a useful spell called Cross Draw of Destiny. As you may have guessed, this card requires that we each draw a single card from our hands -"
Just then, the husk butts in with a chained trap card. "Not so fast! I'm activating Solemn Wishes in addition to your spell. That way, I will gain five hundred life points for every card either of us draws!"
Marik tightens his jaw and relaxes it. It's desperate. It's just desperate. I can do this. Refusing to acknowledge the husk's trap, he continues his explanation. "If either of us manages to draw a monster card, we can special summon that monster to our opponent's side of the field in defense position -and we gain life points equal to its attack!"
The both of them reach into their decks, pulling out a single card each. Marik takes a look at his card before revealing it -it's just the kind of card he had hoped for. The husk draws as well, its expression indicating that its draw was completely inconsequential. One thousand life points are added to its total life points as a result.
"I've drawn a monster it seems," the husk drawls in a breathy voice. It turns the card on its side and tosses it through the air at Marik, who deftly catches it between his fingers. The monster is called Honest (1100/1900) and appears to be one of Lorna's pathetically weak fairies that probably has an effect that Marik doesn't plan on taking advantage of. The monster materializes on Marik's side of the field as he summons it, kneeling down with its wings closed over its body defensively.
"Just your luck," Marik states, smirking as he does. "I've drawn a monster as well." He tosses his own monster, Melchid the Four-Face Beast (1500/1200), to Lorna's husk, waiting for it to appear on his opponent's side of the field. It hovers in stark contrast to Lorna's light monsters –a dark fiend monster with four terrifying faces that watch you no matter what angle you stare at it from.
Yami Marik: 1600
Lorna?: 3900
"And that's not the end of my turn!" he calls out. "I must thank you for the monster you kindly donated! I may not be able to switch it to attack mode this turn, but I can do much better!" His hand is nearly empty now, but he doesn't care as long as he has just the card he needs. "I'm going to sacrifice Honest to summon Helpoemer!" With two thousand attack points, it isn't the strongest card on the field, but it's strong enough to destroy Melchid. "And now that Shining Abyss and Rogue Doll are no longer your weakest monsters, they can now be destroyed!" He laughs now, his enjoyment of this duel truly kicking in at that moment. "I now transform my Winged Dragon of Ra into Egyptian God Phoenix and activate its effect! By removing one thousand of my life points, I can destroy one of your monsters. And I think I'll choose your Shining Abyss!"
Yami Marik: 600
Lorna?: 3900
With a screech so loud it shakes the entire room, Ra's metallic exoskeleton changes entirely to flames and it releases a torrent of fire that completely engulfs the robotic looking creature, turning it to holographic dust. As soon as the attack is over, Ra reverts to its original form, curling up in front of its master, waiting for his next command.
"And the fun doesn't end there," he announces with an impish leer "Now I'm going to wipe out the rest of your life-points!"
Marik, wait until Ishizu brings back the crystal!
"If you think I'm going to wait, then you haven't spent enough time in my head!" Marik snarls at the spirit beside him.
The husk's face droops for a moment, its eyes closed, and, intrigued, Marik stops to see what it's doing. Its shoulders drop and then shudder; it lets its arms hang limply at its side. A small intake of breath is what leads Marik to acknowledge the fact that what the thing is doing now is… sobbing. "Are you afraid now, abomination?" he taunts, raising his voice to make sure it hears him. "You should be!"
Its reaction is less subdued that Marik expects it to be, as it raises its head, revealing to him the wet trails going down its face. "I'm sorry, Viola," it weeps -no; she weeps. The voice emerging from those lips much more delicate and feminine than the unearthly crooning that the husk made when it spoke.
"L-Lorna?" he stammers, unsure how to feel about this development. This isn't a husk. This is the girl. "The fuck are you talking about?" he growls, frustrated with the lack of control he feels. He's one command away from winning this duel, but for some reason, he can't even bring himself to say those last definitive words.
The girl's hands go to her face and she rubs her eyes with her knuckles. Her eyes open and they're remarkably human -dark brown and red-rimmed. "Stop killing me. I don't want to die," she utters with bated breath.
It knows it's going to lose and it's throwing her under the bus. Malik whispers, his existence having been all but forgotten by Marik.
"Marik!" a voice cries out, interrupting the strange exchange, and Yami Marik has never been so relieved to see his pain of a sister emerging through the stairwell door. She has her hand wrapped around a small velvet package -the crystal. "I have it -" Just then, Ishizu catches sight of the girl. "Is that…" she doesn't even finish her sentence, taking several hesitant steps towards the two.
"What now?" Marik shoots a cross look at his doppelganger beside him.
I… Malik starts, licking his lips, his eyes never leaving the girl. I… Ishizu… Tell her to give the crystal here. As soon as it breaches the seal, it will break.
"How do you know all this?"
T-Trust me. I can't stay here. I have to go.
Malik blinks, finding his surroundings bleakly familiar; he's in the Solitude again, his armor burning his skin. Ra is angry and he can't blame him -not after what Horakhty told him. Whatever has taken ahold of Lorna is an ancient evil that has been trying to achieve godhood for millennia.
In a flash, the circular seal constricting around the body in the sky until there is nothing left to hold the small feminine body in the sky aloft, which means that Marik and Ishizu managed to get rid of the seal on their end. The disappearance of the seal causes the storm to expand once more with mighty gusts shooting out in every direction. The body begins to freefall to the ground, jolting Malik to action, his body moving of its own accord as it dashes to the space that the seal had once occupied. He holds his arms out to catch the girl before something big and heavy slams into him, throwing him a few feet away.
He yelps, pushing against the large body. "Don't be stupid!" the monster growled -Zorc.
"What do you mean?" Malik complained, shoving Zorc away just enough to see Lorna slam into the ground -but it never happens.
How she manages to land on her feet from that height completely mystifies him. It's not even Lorna anymore -not her face, not her body, not her essence. The woman that descends is someone he doesn't know, but one that makes the Winged Dragon of Ra scream against the inside of his skull. She's beautiful in the ethereal kind of way, with pale plump lips and narrow eyes black complemented by long black lashes. Her hair is long and dark, softly moving with the wind. The only thing indicating that this body once belonged to someone else is the fact that this woman is still donning the armor that had previously adorned Lorna's body.
"What did you bastards do to her?" he grunts, dragging himself out of the monster's grasp.
"Your girlfriend's gone," Zorc informs him, as he reaches for the blade on his belt. "Stay back. This bitch is mine!" Malik can scarcely get a word out before Zorc is lunging towards the angelic being.
She raises a delicate hand and signs with a sly smirk on her face. "Zorc," she says with her hands. Extending her hands to her sides, she lets a pair of abundant wings spread from her back. With a flash, there are several sharp points surrounding her, and it takes only one snap of her fingers for them to come soaring in their direction.
Zorc raises his blade to counter the lances, leaving Malik to fend for himself. The boy winces in pain as they bounce off of the golden metal plating on his forearm. Zorc's dark and muscular hand roughly grasps Malik's raised arm and he hisses impatiently at him. "If you don't want to die, then you'll fight back."
Malik let out a sigh of exhaustion as he got to his feet with some urging on Zorc's part. "I thought this bitch was yours," he murmurs, clenching and unclenching his fingers, testing out his gauntlets. It isn't like he expected to be fighting by the side of Yu-Gi-Oh's main antagonist when he was first thrust into this universe. All the same, he isn't planning on dying, so he'd have to drop his all his reservations for the duration of this fight -Ra certainly isn't complaining so perhaps Zorc has the right idea for now. "Who is this woman, Zorc?" he asks, trying to figure out his next move.
Likewise, Zorc is also holding up his sword defensively and trying to anticipate the woman's next attack "This woman… This demon is the Queen of Atlantis."
Lorna's life-points hit zero with a satisfying buzzing noise and her body collapses lifelessly at the dueling pedestal. Tentatively, Ishizu comes closer to her, waiting for any signs of movement. With no ancient seals or shadow magic, this duel shouldn't have caused any lasting damage to her; nevertheless, looking at her causes a chill to strike her heart, her heartbeat leaping abruptly before resuming its steady pulse. With the duel over, the pedestal has been lowered, making it easier for Ishizu to climb up and check the girl's vitality.
The startling pound of Marik's heavy boots on the floor echoes in the hangar. He's already turned off his duel disk and put his cards away and is now walking away from the site nonchalantly.
"Marik," Ishizu stops him, unsure of what she wants to say. She only knows that they can't just part ways without at least speaking about this and acknowledging it.
"What do you want?" he asks without turning around. "I have nothing to say to you. This was an interesting… distraction… but I think I'll see what else this place has to offer. I'll leave these two stiffs to you." With that, he steps through the door and leaves Ishizu alone on the roof of the blimp with the two unconscious women.
She frowns and moves to gather Lorna's fallen deck, which was scattered all over the floor when its owner fell. Her mind wanders to the vision she saw when she touched Sun's body. She still doesn't know what to make of it, but it's clear that this is something unrelated to Pharaoh and ancient Egypt; there is another evil at work here and she's unsure if her Millennium item will be able to anticipate the dangers lying ahead.
I know Marik doesn't have Zoa and Common Sacrifice. Fite me me. I also realized too late that the husk had three monsters that were tied for second weakest (at 1600 atk -or 2100 with the Seal of Orichalcos), sooo I just took the one with the lowest level -in case you were wondering. (also why does lorna have so many 1600 atk monsters?) Tbh it makes me a bit nervous to write about duels when it's been quite a while since I rewatched the series -so I hope you don't mind any weird rulings with Ra bc fuck Ra.
I'm not too satisfied with this chapter -but idk I gave it my all considering the writing dump I'm in atm I probably could have done better description-wise and with the wording and everything but I'm not about to spend 4 months on this chapter when there are like only a couple of chapters left of this fanfic haha