Yu-Gi-Oh: A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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This was a complete and total disaster of a trip, there was no way that it could be considered anything else. The sky was clear, Ra sailed along patiently basking the world in His Divine Light, that light casting a warm glow upon the sand in the desert. The slight shimmer of light that rose from the sand making it look more like a hazy dream than a reality. Even as Ra was preparing to descend down into the western horizon and face the realm of the dead.
Normally that's how Set saw it.
The shimmer now made the desert look like a nightmare, for every man that stood against them, the heat of the desert made it appear triple. It could have been just 15 armed men, but appeared to be 45, and that wasn't even the number the pair saw. It felt impossible with the numbers before them, for every slain man two or more were crawling over his corpse to come after them. A well and true nightmare, with only two young adults left standing to protect the Prince.
The air was filled with the sound of neighing horses and men murmuring off in the distance, with Mana whimpering in fear as she clung to the prince. The little furball Kuriboh that the Prince was fond of summoning had attempted to protect them, hovering before the soldiers. Floating up and down, it gave its best intimidating 'Kurr' sound. But it was a hovering hairball with eyes and limbs, not the most scariest sight to behold.
Nor strong enough to be seen, while Set and Mahaado were trained and could see the little Spirit, the soldiers appeared to have no realization that such a being was present at all. Which was a good indicator that the Prince was exhausted as well. They were at their limits, all the soldiers and servants who had been in attendance for the Prince were either dead or with the main host serving the Pharaoh. While the four of them had been harried through out the whole day with no real rest. The world wobbled in Set's vision occasionally, as he felt his own blood drip down his limbs.
The Kurr began ramming its fluffy self through the soldiers that marched towards the quartet only to ghost through them. It was pathetic as it was sad, the poor spirit was aware of its limited ability and being ignored was clearly frustrating it. But they were out of options, the small group had been chased to the edge of the sharp cliff drop off that would drop them into the Valley of the Queens.
Mana was bawling and hearing her fear was upsetting, she was a 'baby' and for an infant to understand the danger that they were in? It felt like a horrible disgrace to Set, but they were at a dead end with no strength to do anything further. She had a few cuts on her, last time Set could even 'see' the girl, while all the soldiers had been dedicated to not cutting the Prince.
For which said Prince was trying very hard not to scream or cry, but it would be insane to think the Prince wasn't scared of the situation they found themselves in.
The sword Set carried was heavy with thick drying blood, a violent testimony to the long battle they had been invested in. His clothes were stained in blood, both his own and the enemy, with rips and tears littering it. His breathes were ragged as sweat dripped down his face into his eyes, each opponent a layer of exhaustion like the blood on the sword.
It gave him a whole new level of insight into how hard the soldiers of the Pharaoh worked to protect the kingdom. Not to mention the heaping amounts of respect he found himself giving the soldiers, that they could do twice the stuff he had been taught in these conditions.
Mahaado knelt behind him, but for all he knew Set wouldn't have been surprised if Mahaado had passed out fully. The magician in training truly proved his might in this trying time, his spells slaughtering scores of their enemies. Despite how passive Mahaado was while in the presence of his Master or the Pharaoh, he had proven his value in protecting the prince.
But Mahaado had reached his limit with a well placed arrow through his side, and the enemy had figured out how to deal with the pair. If Set dropped his focus on them to tend to Mahaado they would bum rush them, while on the other hand if he didn't do anything, Mahaado was going to die of blood loss at this point. Another reason to curse the High Magician for his abuse towards Mahaado. The guy should have been stronger than this, instead of constantly whipped and beaten down. Mahaado was proven able to endure blood loss, but an arrow through the side was completely different.
There were no orders to hand over the Prince, why ask for what they could take after all? Instead the group began to fan out trapping the quartet in a semi circle with the lethal fall of the cliff behind Set as their only 'out'. Instead a few spears were stuck out at the group, ready to stab Set the moment he resumed defending his charges. The dead at his feet were silent testimony to his determination to stay in this lost cause.
It had been over a day at this point, there had been no food or rest for them, and Mana was in some state of shock or another. The prince was probably worse off in the mental state, unlike Mana he could follow grown conversations to a point. He had a grasp of certain topics and the situation was clear enough to him that he didn't try to sass Set or Mahaado. He did as instructed, staying quiet and trying to help keep Mana quiet.
Exhaustion had finally dragged Set down, the rush of battle had faded and all that was left was exhaustion. It was difficult to hold the sword in his hands, and he didn't see where the spear had come from until he was dragged down to his left knee. The long shaft of the spear just sort of appeared between blinks of an eye. Yanking it out even as he saw several other spear men bearing down on them, and he knew there was no way to get the Prince out.
"You bad people, daddy is going to punish criminals like you!" The princes' attempt at a bravado tone of voice came from a distance, far enough away that to Set it sounded more like a whisper on the wind.
The world was becoming increasingly dark as he felt someone grab him and drag him along backwards. The princes' voice was becoming a distant shriek with the fading light of the day, leaving Set wondering if he would be forgiven for letting the Prince down? The sight of the Prince being grabbed by their enemies was replaced with the edge of the cliff with Mahaado and Mana following him down.
Beyond Mana, high above in the prick of light he could see a light blossom like a lotus surrounded by dark mud. It expanded wider and wider, until it began melting itself into a shape. The light began to take a form that pushed pain and exhaustion that had consumed Set away. Sharpening his view to the awareness that the trio had been thrown off the cliff overseeing the Valley of the Queens. Yet as terrible as that knowledge was, he couldn't fully take his eyes off the being before him. Clearly a Goddess, the light became solidified, a Goddess adorn in armor, and with divine wings spread behind her.
Her face was warm, a mother reaching to her babe as her hands extended downward only for cracks raced up them like puzzle pieces. The shell of this being couldn't contain its light, and the hand that reached for him lost its soft feminine shape, swelling into thick powerful fingers. What had been one light fractured into three, and when the hand reached him, it cradled him easily. A solid hand turned from a pristine white to a darker shade, growing darker and darker while lifting him up. What had been a Goddess of Light was now a God of Stone in deep blue, deep chested and fearsome.
It held him aloft breaking its eye contact with him to look outward, beyond; the spell of seeing such raw power broken freed Set to look around. Off to his right a massive red snake like dragon was soaring into the sky, with three pairs of wings as terrible as they were massive. In one clawed fist, Set could see Mahaado resting in it, his eyes closed and probably still out of it.
A shriek that was both bird and something otherworldly distracted Set, as a large amalgamation of a bird of prey and cat soared up into the sky. Set could see it, too, clutched Mana in its clawed front paw, and the tiniest of hands were holding on for dear life. He rushed to the edge of the hand and looked down, where the enemies that had chased them over and over began retreating. While the Prince, the tiniest speck of color along the pale sand stood. Ridged in posture as Set watched, the Red Dragon swooped down.
It was then that Set realized this dragon had 'two' mouths and both were opening up one sucking in air. The larger mouth then spewed out an unending stream of white hot flame setting fire to even the sand in divine flame. Even as it did so its long, serpentine body began coiling around the Prince in a protective gesture. The clawed hand that held Mahaado began lowering to the ground, while the golden beast swooped off and rained gold flames onto the retreating forms...
Heat surpassing the destruction of his village consumed the area causing it to become incredibly hard to look at. It was almost the same really, criminals were running amok only to be struck down by a righteous God. While normal flames cooked their way through the flesh of his mother and fellow villagers, the criminals died in the flames of a white dragon with blue eyes. Now they were cooked in flames that exceeded that great dragon.
When the fires retreated back then the smell of cooked human flesh consumed the air. Now as he watched, black stains of burned human fat were all that was left of the humans who fled, as their bodies burned away so quickly it never had a chance to become charred flesh or ash. Just black stains of burned human fat spotting the ground melted into the shards of glass.
"Ma'at protect us!" Set began whimpering as he crawl back against the hand that held him until his back was against its palm. When Set suddenly feared this being would forget the lowly mortal it carried and would crush Set's small human body in its Godly grip. The fingers, these large and mighty digits were calloused with years of experience in holding a weapon, started curling up. Forming a fist, ready to slam down and punch the ground below them as another attack against these enemies.
Only for the fingers to stop.
Perhaps Set had been mistaken, the gesture was not one of a God about to strike. Instead it merely was caging Set in for his own protection? From inside the loosely held hand he could hear nothing of the world outside. Whatever world ending destruction these beings unleashed was almost completely lost to him. While the hand he was sitting on did nothing but hold him, the body moved and he could hear a distant explosion. Leaving Set trapped and only able to sit there in quiet terror as he worried over the Prince, Maha and Mana. Silence followed until suddenly the hand shifted, and began opening which sent Set tumbling to the ground like one of the Princes' wooden toy animals.
Over and over he rolled until he hit the ground and could look up at the mighty being that had caught him. Huge, Godly built with rippling muscles and what looked like a crude structure of wings on its back. The face was cold, hard as it righted itself up with its lower half lost into the Valley of the Queens.
The wind gusted up as the red serpent being took to the air, swooping along until it could coil its own body up away from the Valley while the Golden beast... tried to put down Mana. It had landed, its paw that held Mana held out and close to the ground. And while Set could 'see' Mana's feet touching the ground, he couldn't see her, only her hands.
Which logically meant that she was too terrified to let go and didn't realize she 'needed' to let go. Only this was Mana, and instead she was laughing as any child enjoying herself. Perhaps she missed the terrible destruction the pair wrought on their own. Despite being held in the clawed fist of a God it had not been mindless. For all the destruction it had brought about the Divine Beast was trying to, as gently as one with a massive huge talon could, get her dislodged.
"Mana!" Set was startled at how broken his voice sounded to his ears, cracked and weak, it took several tries before he could even 'project' his voice. Even as he struggled to stand on his own two unsteady feet. "Mana let it go, it needs to leave!"
Mana stuck her head around, once her eyes caught sight of Set, she gave her big, cheery grin. She let go of the talon to walk to Set, and the Divine Beast 'immediately' retracted its talon and spread its wings. The light of the sun glinted off its wings as it took up its own position, putting the quartet in the center of a triangle. While Mana did a toddling version of a skip step over to Set, her voice already squeaking out baby words.
Set nearly fell upon her when he reached her, falling to his knees, as he tried to pick her up. Earning him a confused and startled yelp out of her, "Maha! Rince Rince!" she crooned and began squirming to go to the other members of their group.
All the better for Set, because he needed to check on them as well... any distraction from the responsibility now gone. The prince had yet to react to them, and seemed oblivious to the presence of the Divine beings that had suddenly appeared. He knew the Prince needed a certain level of focus when he called Kuriboh, this would be undoubtedly no different.
Only the Prince wasn't moving. Or seemingly aware of the environment around him any longer. With Set unable to shake this unpleasantly helpless feeling consuming him at this point as he struggled through the heated sand. The red dragon may have attempted to shield the Prince from the heat of its fire, but Set could feel it off the dragon in waves. Or perhaps it didn't bother the prince because it was 'his' own divine flames. While Set was just a lowly mortal, and subject to such divine presence, regardless hot or no, he was the only one able to check on the prince.
As he closed in on the pair, Mana toddling her way after Set, he saw Mahaado slowly come around and Set could positively have kissed the guy for that. Mahaado had a far better grip on Ka beasts than Set. Given his close nature to the Prince the Gods would surely be willing to listen to Maha more than to a street child adopted by the Prince.
'Of course the Gods will listen to Mahaado, he's been training for the Priesthood, he knows the divine words to set them at ease.' So watching Mahaado look over the prince, then around, then 'up' started giving Set a sense of dread. Because when 'Mahaado' looked startled, alarmed or scared, that was Set's cue to share those same feelings.
"Lord Prince, you must call them back within yourself!"
Set heard Mahaado comment in worry and concern, as he pushed himself to walk faster and began closing the distance between himself and their prince. As though sound was magnified here, or it was some aspect of these... Wait... these were 'Ka Beasts'? Beasts that came from the 'Prince'?!
How was that even 'possible'? Limited though his education on the matter was, Set didn't remembered seeing 'one' being that split into 'three'. There 'were' times when a person had a pair of beasts, but they served a single purpose, akin to a well trained horse and rider working as one. "But he had 'one', it broke into these three..." Set informed Mahaado, deciding the rest of the details could wait a bit.
"What?" Mahaado looked at him, his face drawn and pale before shaking his head, "that isn't good, his Ka Beast is too strong for one so young to be summoned... He probably couldn't keep it in its original form."
"Is that why they're uh... still here?" Set asked as Mahaado pulled the Prince into his lap as he sat on the ground.
"Lord Prince you need to recall them, the threat has passed..."
"Are you sure they're not divine messengers? Are you sure that they're Ka Beasts? Because They wiped out everything that opposed him," Set mentioned as he dropped to the painful ground as his legs gave out. "What do we do now?"
"We get him to reseal them into himself. So long as they're out they're going to keep doing what he instructed them to do, on their own they are no threat to us. But the Prince is unresponsive and 'that' is the danger, he needs food and rest. Keeping them out and staying in this state will destroy 'anything' that approaches the prince..."
Mahaado left the sentence ominously hanging letting Set voice out the rest of the sentence. "So if the royal guards come to get us. Good bye guards, good bye palace, good bye homeland, good bye anything that can be considered a threat."
'So how do we do 'that'?' Set wondered as Mana toddled herself over to Mahaado, her thumb in her mouth.
"Maha hole!" she stuck her free arm out, clearly wanting some time on Mahaado's lap as well.
And with a one path mind straighter than the path of a fired arrow, the princes' head snapped around to look at the little girl before giving a possessive, all be it distracted, "Minnnnnne!"