Chapter 5
Let's Play a Time Game
Regan felt like someone had just put a gun to her head and threatened to fire it. "I just I did feel calmer on that stressful situation like there was someone else taking in the situation and allowing it to run like a cold, one thing at a time."
"DM was also saying some crazy stuff up there. He was talking to us like Regan wasn't even in the room, but someone else." Tristan also answered in thought.
"Your spirit is communicating a lot better than he did in the beginning." Yugi stated happily pointing at Atem. Atem made a priceless face that everyone giggled to it.
-TING-TING-TING-BEEP-
"It's eleven, let's go get back what he has stolen and send that scum packing." She announced, and then thought to herself, 'Maybe getting to know the spirit better will help us in the long run.'
Regan stood up from her seat then ran towards the hallway.
"Hey where are you going?" Téa asked and Regan stopped.
"I have to go get something from upstairs your group should go ahead and start at the far end of the park while we start at the closer end and meet in the middle... I'll call you when we leave." Regan answered.
"What did you forget?" Atem asked.
Regan started to run up the stairs and yelled. "I don't know."
When she got to the top of the stairs, she ran to her bedroom to find Phoenix sleeping on her bed. She closed the door and locked it. She took off her puzzle and looked at it sharply. "Okay princess, I don't know who you are, but I know you can help us defeat this demon."
Phoenix looked at her funny then went back to his sleep. She waited a few minutes then heard the shouts of Joey from downstairs. She shook her head and placed the puzzle back on and turned around to grab the door handle.
When she did, Phoenix started to hiss then started to purr. Regan turned around to see if he was having a nightmare, but saw something even stranger. Phoenix was being petted by a teenager sitting on the bed.
The teenager stood up and was about five foot five with piercing green eyes. She had the same hairstyle as Regan only the teenager had five golden-yellow streaks forming a star starting from the middle of her head with tinted ends the colour of blood. 'Heh, that hairstyle looks cool.'
"I'm glad that you like my hair." The teenager said as the male cat followed her walk towards Regan.
"How come you are wearing the same thing as me?" Regan asked looking at the teen's cloths.
"Because I felt like wearing this." The spirit answered, "You said you wanted help, well you've got it."
"Good because that guy isn't human." Regan answered in relief.
The teenager giggled, "What gave that away? The fact that he liked your arm or that he wants to meet in a public place at midnight."
"Well I'm sorry for taking away your new roommate, but we have to go rescue a few people and the rest of the world, so watch the house while I gone." Regan whispered to the cat as she stroked his nose all the way to his tail.
"Meow" Phoenix protested.
Regan felt tears coming to the corner of her eyes, "Don't worry I decide when I die, today and tomorrow are not those days."
Phoenix rubbed against Regan's leg as she stood up from her crouching position as if to say good luck.
"Let's go." Regan said and the spirit disappeared.
Regan left the room and ran down the stairs leaving the cat at the door.
"Are you ready to go?" Joey asked as Regan grabbed her new duel disk from the handy shelf and placed it on.
She nodded and the three left the realm of light to the realm of darkness. They started to walk and she text Téa saying that they had left.
"So how big is the park?" She asked breaking the silence.
"Big enough to hide in stay in between the two of us the gangs are at full bloom." Tristan answered cautiously and Regan did as she was told. 'The last thing I need is to be assaulted by a group of perverts.'
About twenty minutes later they reached the entrance of the park, and she could see the darkness expelling from the park. They walked into the park and continued to walk for several minutes in silence.
"We should have brought flashlights." Joey spoke daring to break the silence.
"The iPhone has everything." Regan answered tapping on the flashlight app.
The makeshift flashlight shone brightly through the darkness and they continued to walk in silence waiting for even the tiniest of noise off in the distance. The farther they walk, though the dimmer the light became.
"Dammit! He doesn't want us to know which way we are going." Regan stated turning off the light for it wasn't even glowing anymore.
"He probably wants us to watch us struggle on this moonless night." Tristan stated.
'Moonless? Wait tonight is the new moon. The darkest time of the month to easily draw enough power to do some incredibly scary stuff... Why in the hell would Shadi place us in this kind of position?'
"How about we report to the other team and then you two can play a game until something crazy happens. Sound okay?" Regan asked.
"Yeah sounds pretty decent to me." Joey answered in the darkness.
Regan dialled in the Téa's number.
} Téa here, what's up? {
`We are at a standstill so we are just going to wait until Dark Matter decides to start his game. `
} Same with us, we'll call if something happens. {
`Ditto till then`
Regan hung up the phone and gave it to Tristan on the app Tap-Tap.
"Joey you are going to be eliminated from the game." Tristan announced.
"No way, I need to get to the top." Joey challenged. The two males got right into playing as Regan stood guard.
There was nothing out there in the blackness so either the gangs of the park knew better then to come into a dark filled nightmare or they just didn't want to deal with the rumbustious children behind her. The game came to an end with Joey as the loser with terrible sportsmanship. He decided to throw the phone at his opponent. Regan ran to its rescue and saved it before it could hit its target.
"What do you think you are doing? This is an eight hundred dollar phone."
($800CAD = 60 400Yen)
"Hey at least we killed some time, speaking of which what is the ti-" Joey stated, but didn't finish.
Regan looked up at him in confusion to see no expression in either Joey's or Tristan's face. "Hey guys, Hello?" She waved her hand in front of their faces. She stopped and quickly remembered the pain in her arm. She looked at the time on her phone.
'11:58 will at 11:59 there should be something happening.' She thought to herself. Then all of a sudden, Joey and Tristan started to run in perfect tune towards the centre on the park.
She chased them at full speed and still had trouble keeping up. She thought that she should call Tea, but Tea beat her to it.
`Hey, what's up on your end? `
} Yugi here, something's wrong Téa, She started running and she won't stop or answer to our calls. {
`Same with Joey and Tristan, Dark Matter has a great sense of humour`.
} That's not funny. Well I guess we will meet up, when DM decides to bring us to our destination. {
`Yup`
}/static/ {
Regan hung up the phone and placed it back into her pocket.
'Dammit, Yugi and Atem are on their own with Dark Matter and we are stuck out here with two running rag dolls.' She thought in anger.
"We are heading towards the demon, and I sense his rage. Are you nervous?" The spirit asked showing yup beside her.
"No, I feel the rage coming from ahead and that rage is fuelling my strength, I am not losing any more people. We may have lost the battle, but I won't lose the war."
"That's the way a true heart should speak, now I will join you in this war; losing is not an option." The Spirit stated and the puzzle did its funny trick which allowed the Spirit and Regan to act as one.
A purple and black cloud started to appear with Joey and Tristan leading the way. They ran into the cloud and she didn't hesitate to follow. When she reached the other side of the wall, she saw herself in a fowl smelling, sphere shape room with the floor invisible, but where she stepped it was flat.
She noticed Dark Matter at the other end of the sphere which was about fifty feet away sitting on a park bench enjoying himself looking at a scene to her right. She turned to see Yugi and Atem in a tag duel with two rubbed things that had hunched backs and boney hands.
"I activate Hinotama." Robed thing one said with a metallic sounding voice.
"I counter with De-spell." Yugi said as a card flipped up.
"Hahaha! No you don't, because I activate my own De-spell. This eliminates your De-spell, you are no match for us mortals." Robed thing two stated with a voice that's sounded like nails on a chalk board mixed with a table saw.
Out of the sky a bunch of meteors fell striking Yugi and Atem making them fly backwards about ten to fifteen feet.
"Are you guys alright?" Regan yelled as she ran over to them.
"We're ... fine." Atem grunted as he got up.
"You could have fooled me." Regan said helping Yugi up so he wouldn't reopen his wound.
"This isn't the park anymore; we are in a realm which my master created. Unfortunately the pharaoh locked him away five thousand years ago." Dark Matter stated from the bench. "Then this boy unlocked the lock and released my master only to destroy him in the end six months ago."
Regan looked at Yugi who seemed to have recovered then back at Dark Matter. "We know what happened just tell us where everyone is."
"Oh I see you and the spirit of the River's Puzzle are getting along happily; well to bad that you aren't going to be here-wait." Dark Matter got up from his bench and it disappeared. "Let me rephrase that... too bad that you are going to be in here; the Shadow Realm for eternally. Wahahahahaha!"
Question marks started to fly between the three bodies on the other side of the field.
"What kind of threat was that? You screwed up right in the middle of it, plus you added way to much drama." Regan asked with very little patience towards the threat.
"Can you just answer the question?" Yugi asked.
"I'll get to them in a moment; right now I want to ask is that do you want to know why no one besides me and that guardian remember what happened on that dreadful day?" Dark Matter asked with interest.
Regan looked at her partner, then at her to friends that were left. They all wanted to know, but would it be wise to have that knowledge.
"What- what happened?" Atem asked in hesitation.
"Well I do like playing with minds, so I'll tell you the end of the battle, but of course the spirits that were at the scene will remember every detail." Dark Matter stated moving his arms as he talked. "To keep an entire kingdom under control and to calm the future pharaoh; the princess erased every living and dead being's mind about her very existence except for the guardian's. She erased the history and her very being so no one would be able to repeat what happened. Actually after thinking about it for five millennia it was a brilliant move, but you forget to erase the enemy's mind; am I right Nile?"
As soon as the spirit's name entered Regan's ears a powerful jolt ran through her head. She clenched her jaw to keep herself from yelling at the pain of the spirit and her own little jolt of surprise and placed her hands on her head as she fell to her knees. She peeked at the two beside her and noticed that they got that same powerful fun flash.
Yugi was already starting to recover, but Atem was in worse shape. Despite the physical pain; he looked like he was battling off some painful memories and it was killing him from the inside.
"You fiend, what did you do?" She yelled getting back to her feet and Dark Matter laughed. "What do you think?"
Atem grunted and she turned towards it to receive a sharp shiver down her spine. Atem was releasing pulses of rage that wanted to knock her back down. She would same that he looked beyond pissed, but that just wouldn't cover it.
"You will regret the day you were ever born!" Atem growled with rage.
"Now, it's not like you could have prevented it. Saying that is like saying you could beat my master with a tooth pick, it just doesn't happen." Dark Matter stated with a grin then continued. "Now let me introduce the spectators of today's game. You know the first four."
Four tubes came out of the darkness and became transparent.
"Mom!"
"Grandpa!" Regan and Yugi yelled after one another.
"Seto, what's going on?" The shaggy haired bay asked from beside Seto's tube, with Jade's tube on the other side. Then she remember his name; Mokuba.
"I don't know, but I'm going to get us out." Seto stated with certainty, which made Regan feel even guiltier.
"Good luck with that, your freedom rests in their hands." Dark Matter answered with distaste. "Now meet the newest spectators from left to right starting with the one beside Seto Kaiba we have: Joey Wheeler, Téa Gardner, and Tristan Taylor, controlling their bodies was as easy as rolling some dice."
Three more tubes came out of the darkness as Yugi yelled, "Don't mock them!"
"Oh great I'm stuck beside Kaiba. Yugi; if you don't get me outta here soon your friend might go insane from being near this rich boy." Joey complained as Tristan tried punching the tube and failed miserably.
Téa just stood there in her tube looking at Atem.
"Now that everyone has arrived, let's go over the game rules; no millennium magic allowed, so that means Atem and Nile you are back seating today." Dark Matter stated snapping his fingers.
A wall appeared out of the darkness and Atem was thrown against it about five feet off the ground with a heavy grunt. He was chained with thick chains and Regan noticed that Nile was beside him also chained. She turned around back to Dark matter, and then got a not so fun feeling in her stomach, almost like nausea mixed with a partial headache. She shook her head trying to disregard the feeling.
"Why do I feel like I have the flu?" Yugi asked DM.
"The blood I took from you has been transformed into a toxin infecting your bodies as soon as the Millennium items you two wear around your necks were switched off..." Dark Matter answered, "Here I'll give you a chance to save yourselves and one person each or you can stay and die."
"You still would have enough sacrifices to raise enough chaos to bring back Zorc so what is the point?" Yugi asked in confusion.
"I just thought it would be funner to kill you from the inside out." Dark Matter answered happily.
Regan lowered her head to the floor in wonder.
"Regan are you... what?" Yugi was about to ask her something, when she started to laugh.
"She's lost it." Tristan stated putting his hand on his face.
"Not yet, first of all 'funner' is not a word. Second, I find it funny how you think that we came all this way just to leave everyone behind except for two. If you haven't noticed we may have lost the battle, but we are not losing the war; so fuck off and give up." Regan stated proudly.
"Regan! Inappropriate language." Her mother scolded.
"You do realize you are stuck in a death trap and she is trying to save your life." Seto responded to Mom.
"Well it is still inappropriate." She argued.
"So..." Dark Matter interrupted the tube buddies, "If most of these people are related to Yugi's life, what are you doing here besides saving your mother? You could just leave and take your mother; I have nothing against you Regan."
"I created an action and I am not letting others suffer the consequence. I am making sure everyone gets out of here alive and well, which means you stand in my way of doing so." Regan stated firmly with a hint of guilt.
"Ah so I see." Dark Matter said nodding his head. "Well I don't like your appearance for our game. Let's try this."
He snapped his fingers again and a body mirror came out from nowhere and landed beside her.
"What the hell kind of game am I playing here?" She asked as she looked in the mirror. She wore an ancient Egyptian, white battle skirt and a tube top. The outfit wasn't the issue and neither were the two small swords attached to a leather belt, Okay maybe a little because that meant she wasn't fighting in a card duel anymore.
"You are a pervert Dark Matter!" Tristan yelled at Dark Matter.
"Joey, you're drooling, can't you see that your life was on a board of wood and now is on a thin thread." Mokuba stated with annoyance.
"Love the support." Regan yelled as she played with her issue, there were two golden-yellow streaks in her hair and blood red tips.
"There much better, that other colour was too blah and this appearance gives you more characteristic, and changes the mood a bit." Dark Matter announced as she swiped the mirror away.
"So you want me to fight an old school duel?" she asked
"Yeah... hey this isn't old school."
"No it's just out dated." Seto stated.
Regan and Yugi looked at each other.
"Are you ready for this?' Yugi asked.
"I'm sure the catch of this will back fire on him." She whispered to him nodding and thought to herself. 'Oh I am so dead.'
"Ready when you are." Yugi taunted to their opponent.
"Well then Yugi, you are going to duel against those to lovely demons over there while I'll fight Regan." Dark Matter stated.
"That's no fair!" Téa yelled. "Two against one and how is she supposed to fight with swords, nobody has used them since the gun was invented."
"Those are the rules Miss. Gardner and they have already agreed to them." Dark Matter stated ignoring Téa's complaints, "Besides it isn't a sword fight, it's an Aura duel."
"An Aura duel?" Yugi asked to her.
"There's our catch. Now let's see how this goes."
"Tea you have to trust us that we will overcome this, it's the only way." Yugi told her.
"If you are going to say a friendship speech Téa, zip it because it won't help them. They are on their own." Seto said just as Tea was about to say something. She closed her mouth and nodded.