/ Duel Universe
/ Author: The Cowboy of Oklahoma
/ Ch 32: A Golden Light
/ word count: 2728
Castle of Rulers:
Dark Magician Girl and General Gregory Marcellus were still in talks about what to do about the current situation that, once they had completed the task, they would bring their ideas to the rest of the council tomorrow. Maiden with Eyes of Blue had left to inform her clan's men and beasts alike, that there will be a stronger monster presence in and around the human encampment. Aerial patrols and increased ground surveillance. Dark Magician Girl and Marcellus were just finishing the talk for what would best be the pattern of patrols and how far out any aerial lookouts should go when a beam of power shot out into the night sky. Dark Magician Girl sensed it first, then felt the overwhelming evil spreading from its origin point. She and the General both moved to look out the window at the incident. The beam had come from the human encampment, and there seemed to be a cloud of darkness surrounding the Oceanica.
"I can almost feel that gnawing at the back of my mind. Whatever this is, it is going to be the end of the human race if it isn't stopped." He noted.
"General, we may already be too late," She said.
They watched as the darkness deepened, lightning shot out of the vessel and then shot back into it. The Oceanica was almost completely enveloped and visuals were near impossible. It stayed like this for several minutes, when suddenly, part of the darkness just left. Dark Magician Girl noticed it immediately, and so did the rest of the monsters that had now gathered at the castle to ask their ruler what was going on. Much of the human council had responded to the alarms on their ships and had flown down to the castle because it was furthest from the epicenter.
"Dark Magician Girl, what is going on here!?" Ambassador Zhang asked. "All of the alarms onboard our ships sounded off. Anyone that was asleep, is wide awake now."
"It's what's happening over there, Ambassador," Marcellus answered. "Something is happening at the Oceanica. It's possibly the thing Steve Bensen is doing that Lieutenant Commander Carson warned us about."
"What are our options General?" Commander Anastasia asked. "We must contain this immediately!"
"There is nothing any of you can do now." Dark Magician Girl spoke up. "It is too late for any of us to stop what is going on."
Just then, a growing, glowing shimmer appeared from the direction of the Oceanica, and it caught everyone's attention.
"Woah!" Anastasia said aloud.
Murmurs around her confirmed everyone was surprised.
"I...I can feel it." A monster said amongst the rest gathered.
"It's so warm, and caring." Sage with Eyes of Blue noted. "Mistress!?"
"Yes. Warm, caring, healing. I haven't felt such a wave of emotion in three millennia. Not since…" Dark Magician Girl's words were cut short.
Another beam of energy shot out of the Oceanica. A very familiar surge of energy rushed over everyone present.
"Was that? Isn't that? Didn't we feel that before!?" Murmurs from everyone trying to confirm just what was happening.
"Ka'an." Dark Magician Girl whispered under her breath.
A massive beam of energy shot back down from the clouds onto the Oceanica, illuminating it perfectly for all to see. A rush of energy shot out in all directions, anyone that could sense it, felt a familiar sense of power and purpose, but there was something else, it wasn't full of hate and anger like last time. This time it enveloped and intensified the prior feelings of warmth, caring, and healing. Carrying it, and its apparent effects, across the entire encampment, and all the way to the castle. One of the soldiers standing with their charge noticed how a small fresh wound, a new training scar, was healing rapidly.
"Commander!" They called out, grabbing the attention of Anastasia. "My wound, it is healed."
"Let me see that!?" Anastasia said, grabbing the soldier and pulling him closer to look.
He was right, the scar, a scar she herself had inflicted that very day when they spared that morning. It was closing faster than humanly possible.
"I don't believe it," She said.
"Oh, this feels so good." A monster said out loud.
The look on their face was of sheer bliss.
"It's orgasmic." A feminine monster noted as she held herself close.
Dark Magician Girl stood before everyone, her arms stretched out as if she were floating in this radiant energy. The look on her face told Marcellus that she was feeling the best she's ever felt in a long while.
The darkness was dispersed, the radiant glow finally began to die down, and the monsters that were closest to it finally were slowly becoming like themselves again. They each wore looks filled with pleasure and bliss, one had even fallen down and had really made a mess of themselves feeling so good. Every human, from the encampment to the orbiting vessels above the world had noticed all the wounds, old and new, healing as if they had never happened. People began to awaken in the encampment from their unintended sleep. Wounded in the hospitals all got out of their beds and walked around as if nothing was wrong with them. Including a young woman who had just been brought in a few hours ago.
"Wha..what's happening?" Akiza asked of everyone and no one in particular.
The medics on call here were at a loss as to what to say to anyone. This was an impossibility in medical science. Outside, people everywhere began moving about, many were moving towards the resources building. Nearly everyone was looking for food since many haven't eaten in days.
"What's happened? Where are we? What day is it?" Questions began coming from everyone. And only about four dozen, not including anyone that was off-world, could attempt to answer the questions. A figure was seen coming out of the Oceanica, she was limping a bit, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Brier was walking around, not quite as in a daze as most, but still unsure as to what was going on. She noticed Shelly making her way towards the medic center.
"Shelly!" She called out.
Shelly was somewhat in a daze herself, and as Brier got closer to her, noticed that she had been crying.
"Shelly? What's wrong?" She asked her friend.
"Ka...Ka'an, he came..then he left again. And he didn't say a word to me outside of a duel." Shelly said, then began moving towards the center again.
"Shelly, talk to me! What happened!? How is it that EVERYONE is suddenly awake and looking like none of this weird sleep problem ever occurred!?" Brier questioned her friend.
Shelly only half-listened to Brier's questions, giving a response that didn't answer any of them.
"Aki...Akiza. I need to reach Aki." Shelly said, sounding a bit out of it.
Brier didn't push the issue further, instead deciding to go with her.
"Okay, Akiza, medical center?" Brier asked.
Shelly just nodded.
Brier put her arm around Shelly and they walked together towards the center. At the center, Akiza saw the two women coming from her makeshift window and met them at the door.
"Shelly!" Akiza sounded elated, then deflated when she saw the state her sister was in. "Shelly?"
Brier told her where she found Shelly, and that Shelly had seen Ka'an but was gone by the time she got there.
"She hasn't told me anything beyond wanting to come here to you," Brier explained.
Akiza was sitting in the waiting room holding Shelly close. She had never seen her adoptive big sister so out of it before. She was so full of life and bouncy, aside from the time Ka'an disappeared a few weeks ago, but even then wasn't a wreck like this.
"So Ka'an was there, somewhere, and he saw you, and he never said a word?" Akiza asked, eliciting a response from her sister.
"I was dueling Bensen again, this time he got the upper hand and I was almost eliminated," Shelly said. "Then Ka'an showed up out of the blue and took over the duel from me. He seemed to struggle a little but in the end, got out the same god card he beat up the fiends with. Then after that, everything changed. His dueling, when he played a certain monster, it healed everything around him. Even my broken leg. But he wouldn't talk to me, he barely even looked at me. He just beat Bensen, then left." She explained.
Brier and Akiza didn't know what to do or say. They got a medic to check her supposed broken leg and found it to be strained only.
"Ice it down and relax for a day and it should be mostly gone," is all they would say.
"I'll take Shelly back to our shared quarters, why don't you go and find the General and see what he has to say about all this," Akiza told Brier.
"Agreed. And I promise to tell you and Shelly just what I find out." Brier said.
The group parted ways and headed to their intended destinations. Brier moved to a community communicator and called up to the America Platform, asking to speak with General Marcellus.
"The General is in a meeting right now and won't be back for another hour ma'am, is there a message.." the communicator was disengaged as Brier turned it off.
"A meeting huh, that means he's planetside. The Castle!" Brier said and then made her way to a short-range transport or monster that could fly her there quickly.
She found a small yellow-orange dragon with wings and small horns on its head, laying on the ground, seemingly intently focused on flowers and the bugs buzzing around them.
"Excuse me?" She said, tentatively stepping up to it.
The little dragon noticed her and turned to give her its full attention, even going so far as to wag its tail like a dog.
"Uh, hi, can you help me get to that place up there?" She said cautiously, pointing to the castle, then screamed. "Iiiiieeeeeeee!"
She found herself dangling by her waist as the small dragon had launched into the air and grabbed her along the way. The site of the encampment was getting smaller, distant, and upside-down from her position.
"Hey! Can you slow down a bit please!" She screamed.
The Baby Dragon didn't seem to hear her or flat out ignored her and zoomed straight for the castle. Brier struggled to get her upper half pointed so she could see just where they were headed, and all she saw when she did was a massive stone wall approaching fast.
"UP! UP! UP! UP!" was all she could think to scream and was rewarded with blue skies in her view.
The Baby Dragon went high into the air, clearing the castle, and then kept going. Brier screamed for all that she was worth, unaware that a much larger dragon was approaching from the rear and fast. A roar caught her attention and she looked down to see a much larger orange dragon with white hairs, and greying horns come up beneath them. The two dragons seemed to roar back and forth a bit before they both tumbled down out of the air with a screaming Brier between them. After what seemed like forever to Brier, the dragons landed safely on top of the castle and next to a doorway that led down. Brier got a few steps away from her makeshift ride and apparent savior, promptly barfing what food she hadn't realized she had in her stomach. The Baby Dragon yipped a bit and the older dragon rumbled a reply. Brier chose to ignore them and headed down the stairs. As she made her way down, she took careful measures to fix some of her now disheveled looks. Reaching the landing she quickly made her way to the meeting room and looked for the General. Finally noticing him, she made her way around the table with as much of her military experience as she could muster. The conversation she heard was about how many monsters to allow into the human encampment at a single time. If a variety or just a single clan should be allowed. It all revolved around the encampment for some reason. She leaned down and whispered in his ear for a moment of his time. He excused himself and promptly got up and they stepped several feet away from everyone else.
"What is it, Sergeant Brier?" He asked in a hushed tone.
"Well sir, it's much the same as what you were discussing at the table. In the encampment, people are waking, and asking questions as to what just happened, and very few have answers to give, or are unable to give them." She said quietly.
"You interrupted me from this meeting for that?" He said incredulously.
"Yes sir!" She replied a bit stern, "and I'd do it again since I am one of those affected by whatever happened here and as much as we are mostly military personnel, we are still humans that are getting very tired of the secrets!" She added.
Marcellus regarded her for a moment, then sighed. "Very well Sergeant, but don't make this a habit. Former Major Steve Bensen was causing trouble in the encampment, at the Oceanica to be specific, and Lieutenant Commander Carson went to deal with the problem alone. I do not know the details or how it happened, but from here we witnessed that something or someone fought for the humans and defeated Bensen. It is rumored that Captain Freeman was involved but I can't confirm that." He explained.
"Well I can, Shelly, Lieutenant Commander Carson came out of the Oceanica mumbling something about seeing Ka'an, I mean Captain Freeman, and he defeated Bensen because she was unable to. Then he left without a word," She said.
"How is the Lieutenant?" He asked.
"She appears shell-shocked actually. Whatever happened in there and she seems too distraught to talk about all the details." She explained.
"If her duel disk was active the whole time, it should have recorded everything that happened. Go and retrieve it, and get it analyzed. Then we should have many of our answers." He said. "And Brier?"
"Yes sir?" She replied.
"Try not to disrupt too many of these meetings in the future." He warned.
She grinned sheepishly, "no promises General." Then she left the meeting as quietly as she could.
Marcellus thought for a bit before rejoining the conversation at the table. When he returned, someone said something about expanding the encampments' boundaries.
"What's this now?" He asked.
"Oh General, we think, as much as we have adequate space for a campsite, which is what the area the encampment is in, we could use with some legroom. We'll still keep everything in tents and temporary constructs, but we could have some decently defined walking paths and scattered landing pads for smaller transports, and.." they were going to keep talking, but Marcellus interrupted.
"Excuse me, so what you're wanting to do now is make our camp into a small town, rather a very large town, seeing as we have 2 billion humans here until we can cleanse the Earth and return home." Marcellus elaborated.
"2.91 billion humans to be exact." A mechanical monster noted. "We did a thorough count of every single human that arrived and there have been 17 births since your arrival. So.." again Marcellus interrupted.
"The point is..we shouldn't be trying to make this place feel more like home than it already is. Some are even thinking about living here permanently after we save the Earth. I know we've discussed this, and we're all very much aware that even after we are able to remove the goo, or darkness, we will still need to wait a while before we can truly live on the planet and survive." He explained. "We are only going to be here for as long as we need to finish repairing the..our planet's surface. But we first need to focus on getting rid of that blackness that has invaded our world. Once that is done, then we'll talk about the next phase of the plan. So until this war is over, get used to your accommodations!"