Yami jerked awake and realized he'd been propped up against the cold stone wall of a cell, and the rough texture left an odd imprint on his cheek.
He rubbed at it and slowly took in his surroundings.
First, there were unsightly cuffs around his wrists, joined together by a large chain, followed by one of the hideous magical collars only reserved for beasts with levels higher than 1,000. The metal weighed heavily down on his shoulders, and Yami winced, sitting up again and attempting to heal himself before feeling a horrible headache bearing down on him the moment he tried. The collar prevented the tiniest bit of magic.
Oh. Hell.
Second, there was only one window, and it was covered with so much magic, the view outside was foggy, obscured by the thick web of spells cast over it. So this was prison… He'd heard so many rumors about it and now, he'd finally see it for himself…from the inside, an eventuality he knew would happen because he kept saving dragons and other monsters from magical slaughter.
Third, it was loud. Only one set of wooden slats separated him from the cell beside him, and he could hear everything, from noisy eating, to rough grunts, and many languages of creatures shouting loudly to be heard through the commotion, trying to have a conversation through the din.
Yami winced and clapped a hand to his head, the headache worsening, so he took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. His robes had been replaced with standard-issue prison wear—a black cloth top with no sleeves, and plain, matching black pants. His jewelry had been taken, and even his shoes had been switched out. Perfect. Just great. Now to find a way out of here….
He caught a glimpse of his neighbor through the slats and recoiled internally when he was met with large bulging eyes and fins sticking out from the sides of a scaly head. T-Terrifying…!
"Mage…!" His neighbor's eyes widened and shone. "What level? What did you do?"
Yami swallowed thinly and struggled to get comfortable sitting with the heavy collar on his shoulders as he replied evenly, "My…level is not important…. I was protecting a child demon…"
"Eyyyy, you eat babies?" The fish monster bared his sharp rows and teeth in a smile, and Yami had never wanted the ability to cast Appraisals back more than anything. What was he called? It appeared the only way to find out was to...ask, but cautiously.
"No, I don't eat babies. Do you?" Yami asked roughly, rustling the heavy chain between his cuffs, hating it more and more. "What might you be called? I can't cast, as you can see, so please remind me of your species."
"Unnamed Mage, I am called Baron!" The fish monster boasted, his forked tongue flicking out as he leaned harder into the wooden bars to give Yami a terrifying view of his lower body, which was dark green, muscular, covered in shiny scales, webbed feet, and a thick, striking tail with sharp fins lining the tip.
"Species, please…" Yami said weakly, unable to stop staring at his very human hands that were sporting giant claws. A sea…demon perhaps? He'd never seen one this large…or one that spoke fluent Elvish.
"The humans fear me!" The monster fish continued gleefully, eager to have a partner to converse with who would listen. "They call me…a ssssea monster! Demon of the sssea! A Sahaugin! Leader and fierce warrior of the untamable waters!"
The hissing dialect was emphasized in his words, and Yami could only nod.
Right, of course. He'd only encountered these creatures in egg-form, or in tiny schools of children, because…the Districts had sent mages there to slaughter them. He'd saved a couple of eggs over the past hundred years, releasing them back into other bodies of water.
Perhaps…was it too much to hope that this was one of them…?
Then did all my saved creatures end up in prison?! Yami reeled as he thumped his head painfully back against the wall, the futility of his actions overwhelming him the heavier the collar weighed down on his shoulders.
"Sad Mage… Speak!" The Baron insisted, curling one of his large fists around the wooden slat which was somehow smaller than his enormous forearm. "What became of the demon child? What clan? Red? Blue?...Moon or Sun?"
"They took him to…a growth facility," Yami replied in a tiny voice, his eyes burning with a terrible fire that felt like tears. "Prison…for children…eventually to be trained by the army. He's…born of the Blue clan, I think…based on the questing scroll, but they could be wrong. They're always classifying creatures wrong on those scrolls…"
"Did the child commit violence? Why are you here if the child is in a facility?" The fish monster asked brashly, shaking the wooden bars, eager to hear a story. "What is your name? Tell me so I may know it, to tell my friend here in the next cell."
Yami blinked his tears back and leaned against the rough wall, looking the lizard water-monster straight in his bulging eyes as he said clearly, "Atem. My name is Atem."
An odd silence settled over the cell, and Yami realized…it was because everyone was listening. Even the ox monster sitting in the cell across the walkway had quieted down and was eyeing him with beady eyes.
The fish demon sat down heavily with a thump that shook the ground, and Yami sat up higher, wondering why everyone had gotten so quiet. Oh hell.
He was about to become the most hated person here.
Every monster he thought he'd freed wasn't living a good life at all…!
"You are Mage Atem! You can't be here!" The fish monster insisted, his tongue flicking out over his rows of sharp teeth as he twisted his head around all the way around and shouted over his shoulder, "Mage Atem is in the cell beside me! Pass it on!"
"Don't! Why are you telling everyone?!" Yami cried, his terror rising as the monster stared silently at him with its large beady eyes. "Please leave me alone—"
"I am king of the sea because of you," the monster boasted, patting a thick fist to his muscular, scaly chest. "My father told me tales of how a Mage with spiky hair saved my mother's eggs during a war! He died and left me and my brothers to be king! He gives his thanks to Mage Atem!"
And now…he's here… No longer in the sea, Yami thought sadly, but his sentiment wasn't echoed, because there was an ecstatic cheer of happiness coming from the neighboring cells as word got passed around.
"Mage…Atem…!" The ox man across the way rammed his horns against the bars, shaking the magical air around them as he collided with a barrier, and he continued ramming himself against the bars, trying to splinter the wood.
"Stop! Don't draw attention—!" Yami cried, but it was too late, the ox man had backed up against the far wall to brace himself for one final ram to the cheers of the other inmates.
The ox man charged at the wooden bars, breaking through them with a resounding crack, followed by a steady fizzle of blue light as the magical threads split apart.
He broke the security thread! Someone will be down here soon! Yami thought fearfully as the ox man ran at his cell bars with red hot rage, his aura dark green as he slammed his body against the front of Yami's cell door.
"Yes! Free him!" The fish monster jeered, punching his fist at the bars in front of him. "Harder, Maw! HARDER!"
Yami could only sit there helpless, as the ox man let out an ear-splitting roar and charged through his cell bars, splintering the wood and the magical barrier with his horns, the momentum taking him to the back wall of Yami's cell. His shoulder crashed into the wall, crumbling it and leaving an ox-man sized imprint as he shook himself off and stood up, punching the air with a large fist, roaring with victory.
Shaken and petrified, Yami pressed himself harder up against the wall and threw his hands up over his face, shrinking his knees up to his elbows in a defensive pose. S-Such violence…! There was nowhere to escape to after this…!
A rough tug on the chains between his wrists nearly dragged him across the floor, and Yami felt his arms ache by the way he was being yanked forward so fast. The ox-man had hooked his front tusks over the chain and was gnawing at it with his rounded teeth, grunting in frustration while the fish monster beside him was yelling encouragement, their voices drowned out by the hair-raising shrieking, singing, and roaring from the other monsters.
"Ow…" Yami said weakly, trying to let himself down from the great height he was dangling at. The ox man had him by the arms and was swinging him around like a rag doll while taking instructions from the fish monster.
"Wrong link, idiot! Left, no, THAT ONE! Yes, put it on the ground and step on it! Your teeth won't do!"
Yami felt himself being dropped and the air was knocked out of him when his shoulder hit the cold floor, the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh! just as a large hoof came stamping down towards his face.
He let out a furious yell and rolled away, feeling his wrists burn as the hoof came down between the metal link and shattered so hard, his bones rattled, and he felt as if a great weight had been lifted off his arms. The magical link between his cuffs had been broken! He could…cast?
Amazed, Yami attempted a healing spell and instantly felt his bruised shoulder stop aching. Oh, thank—
"GET BACK IN YOUR CELL!" The fish monster hissed, thumping the bars as the magical threads began to weave themselves back together.
The ox-man charged through the broken threads, bellowing at the top of his lungs as a team of cloaked mages came teleporting into the hallway of the prison.
Shocked, Yami hid his broken cuffs with a quick illusion spell and mended his crumbled wall with magic, seeing the mages pinpoint the ox man as the problem and advance on him with their hands outstretched.
"Leave him alone!" Yami shouted, but he wasn't heard through the chaotic din of the other monsters shouting over him.
Flashes of white and green light erupted from the corner, and the bars were mended, along with an added layer of protection, and the walls had been frosted, isolating the beast in his cell.
The mages kept their hoods on, and their faces concealed as they teleported out quickly, leaving everything clean and undamaged as if nothing had happened.
Exhausted, Yami leaned back against the wall and let his breath out in a slow huff, his shoulders still heavy from the collar, which he realized was an anti-teleportation cuff and a level dampener. Great. But at least his hands were free…which meant….
He reached his hands out through the wooden bars and slowly began to cast at a distance, picking apart the isolation spell that had been cast on the ox-man's cell. The creature was pacing around inside, thumping his chest and still roaring with happiness at his success while the harpy ladies beside him were waving demurely at him and shouting encouragement at him, "Mage Atem! We remember you! You saved our part of the forest from burning down! My aunt and sister still live in the trees that you saved!"
Yami felt a bead of sweat roll down the side of his cheek as he grimaced and recognized the cast work belonging to Mage Alxysies, a girl who always took shortcuts during their exams to fool the headmaster, so working her spell backwards was almost too easy…
The frosted barrier melted away, and the ox man appeared against the bars, making an obscene gesture with his thick hands, hanging his tongue out and laughing boisterously, completely unfazed by what had happened. The harpy ladies were reaching out to lovingly scratch the man on his snout as he shoved his head through the bars to accept their petting.
Shaken, Yami withdrew his trembling hands and went to sit back down on the lone bench, blinking rapidly and trying to gather his bearings while the monster beside him was continuously raining praise down on him.
"You are a noble mage! You are kind! Break out of here and save more of our eggs! I can sit here for a millennium and free you again and again every time you land back in here!"
"Appraise…" Yami muttered, casting it on himself and staring at the palm of his hand.
Level…102. Due to the dampening, anti-travel collar.
His health and mana were all low.
That explained why he was so exhausted from merely picking apart someone else's spell.
He needed a nap.
"Mage Atem! Can you break out?" The fish monster asked furiously, shaking the bars with his large fists. "We will lie for you!"
"Yes, yes!"
Yami could hear the other monsters chorusing down the hallway, and he was touched.
"I'm…too weak right now. I need to recover," he replied, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes. "I'm going to sleep and meditate."
"HE'S SLEEPING. EVERYONE SHUT UP!" The fish monster roared, twisting his head around 360 again to yell at the top of his lungs. "He can't help us if he's weak!"
I can't help anyone right now, Yami thought miserably as he shut his eyes, but was made to open them again by the fish-demon thumping on the bars.
"For you, Mage Atem," the monster said, passing a silky blanket through the side bars. "Regards from our Dark Queen, four cells down."
Yami accepted the blanket graciously with both hands, feeling it weigh in his arms impressively with five, thick layers of spider silk. I-Impressive! There was a queen spider here?! Hopefully, not the one that they had captured in the forest that one time…he'd gone out there with Seto to relocate a herd into another cave….
Don't think about it! Yami fumed to himself as he wrapped himself up on the blanket and found it surprisingly comfortable. Now that his hands had been freed, he was welcome to make the bench softer, and the wall spongy to the touch, so he could lean his head on it and…pretend he wasn't in prison.
What a luxurious blanket to be had…! The District markets would pay thousands of gold for it if only they knew that a Queen was willingly weaving down here for prisoners like himself…
Yami drifted off, his mind still buzzing, but the warmth of the blanket helped, and the quiet from the other inmates helped.
Seto sat down in the classroom and immediately felt something was off.
The desks weren't desks. They were long benches, lecture-hall style, and the presenter was a magical mirage of a beautiful elf.
"Let the indoctrination begin," Bakura muttered beside him, and he was dragged to sit in the very front instead of the back corner where he'd been aiming.
"What the f—hey! I'm not sitting right in front of that thing!" Seto hissed, trying to yank his arm away from Bakura's grip before the white-haired boy leaned into his face to breathe, "it never looks down, and it records straight ahead, left and right as it turns its head. The front is the blind spot. Come."
Biting the tip of his tongue, Seto let himself be pulled into a seat that was already occupied by a tiny pixy, and Bakura hissed at the fairy.
"Move. This has always been my seat!"
"Shut up! We can fucking share!" Seto raged, unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth as he inched himself into the spot beside the fairy, being careful not to sit on it. "Now tell me about this place."
"We're in prison, what's there to know?" Bakura hissed, glaring down at the fairy between them. "Move or I'll breathe fire on you—"
"He can't do that," Seto interrupted, lowering his hand to let the fairy climb into it, but the fairy stared distrustfully at it and didn't move.
Bakura gaped at Kaiba, watching him interact kindly with a tiny creature, and his anger towards the CEO rose.
"I don't trust half-humans," the fairy said flatly, eyeing the nicely rounded nails on Seto's hand. "Go away. The Moon Demon can stay, but I'm not moving for you."
S-Seriously?! Seto reeled as he used his other hand to take off the cloaking ring from his pinky to see dark, sharp nails re-emerge from the tips of his fingers. There.
The fairy let out a terrified squeak and flew away, zooming straight up to the ceiling and darting to the corner of the classroom.
Oh, that…didn't go as planned.
"You're not him," Bakura said flatly as he noticed the slitted pupils on the blue-eyed child. "You merely share physical characteristics and a name. Who gave you the name, Seto?"
"My guardian, Yami." Seto ventured, wondering what story he should spin for this white-haired boy to gain his sympathy. "He traveled to another dimension and saw humans with brown hair and blue eyes on book covers and named me Seto."
A total fucking lie, but pretty close to the truth.
"Horrific. I know exactly what dimension that is," Bakura said with a roll of his eyes. "Change your name. He named you after a human monster."
Seto swallowed visibly and lowered his head, acting shameful. Yeah, he could...agree with that.
The elf mirage in front of them began speaking, and he noticed the sound was muffled, because Bakura had cast a muffling spell around them.
"This goes on for hours, and then we are fed again, and then we are put to bed," Bakura growled, glaring up at the elf mirage. "That's why I said we should suck up to Elf Dartz. Anyone who looks like that and will sympathize with monsters like us should be sucked up to."
"We're not monsters," Seto said automatically, hearing Yami come out of his mouth the second he said it, and Bakura gave him a funny look.
"Where have you been raised? Under a rock?" Bakura snapped, giving him a glare. "Look at us. Look at them. We play by their rules, and we get to live, get it? Doesn't matter how powerful you are, play the game and survive, or has your guardian taught you nothing?"
"My guardian is a savior," Seto said firmly, still advocating for Yami and thinking he would do so with his last breath. "He relocated herds of spiders that were being burned out, and I helped. He raised a damaged dragon egg and now that dragon lives happily in a city. He's saved many more, but I can't count them all."
Bakura made a face and stuck out his split tongue.
"So there are people like him that exist," Bakura sneered, pulling his eyelid down to make another face. "But you still ended up here, so he failed."
Seto grit his teeth and said nothing, his blood silently boiling. He'd endure Bakura's taunts if he'd gain something from it…
"Tell me something useful," Seto demanded, glancing up briefly at the elf mirage before focusing back to Bakura's red orbed eyes. "If we're left alone now, can't we just run out the front doors?"
"Nope. Anti-travel barriers, and unless you know how to unweave something, we're stuck here," Bakura said plainly, rolling his eyes. "Only way kids leave is through the draft."
Draft?! Seto swallowed thinly, hating what he was hearing.
"Think of this as—how do humans say it—boot camp, pre-army training," Bakrua said with a gleam in his eye. "It's a training camp and we only leave if they pick us because we've grown up to be powerful. So we need to leave before that happens."
Horrified, Seto could only nod.
Cool. Cool, so once they got drafted, they'd die fighting for some shitty cause against other monsters? He couldn't see himself doing that.
"We get magical training too, which Master Dartz is in charge of, and you can't hide anything from that elf," Bakura continued with a tight smile. "He sees all. He might not even be full elf. The crystal he's wearing around his neck is an illusionist's gem. He's something else underneath. I'm trying to find out what, but I'm not sure if that will get us out of here faster."
"Then snatch it off," Seto offered and Bakura gave him a wry smile.
"Because it's that easy," Bakura rolled his eyes again and flicked a strand of his white hair out of his face. "Getting out is the priority. Let's focus on that. The headmaster is merely an obstacle. You'll get to observe the grounds the longer you're here. And stop wearing human clothes under a mage's cloak. You're irritating me with everything about the way you look."
Seto grimaced and replied through gritted teeth, "this was how I survived, and these were my tools. I pretended to be half-dragon, half-elf."
How prestigious, Bakura bared his teeth tiredly and closed his eyes after lacing his hands behind his head, kicking his feet up on the bench in front of him, yawning.
Seto glanced at him nervously and felt the muffling barrier fade away, and the elf's voice flooded the room, "….You will move with respect amongst other species… You will not harm or raise your magic towards anyone higher in class to you…"
Yuck, Seto grimaced and nudged Bakura. "How do I cast a muffling spell?"
"Figure it out. Baby." Came the reply, so Seto let out a sigh and drew on what little knowledge he had about casting. Most of it was from watching Yami do it, so…hand raised…feeling 'centered' was part of it…willpower, maybe? And then…
Something silvery erupted from his palm and frazzled the mirage in front of him, and Seto leaned back to gape in horror as the elf melted into a large puddle on the floor but continued to talk. UH…?! That was wrong?!
"Nice, do it again until he vanishes!" Bakura jeered, and Seto shook his head, his fear rinsing.
"I don't want to get in trouble!"
"Fine! Then fix it!" Bakura hissed, and Seto shrugged desperately, "I don't know how! I don't know anything about anything!"
He tore the mage's hat off to show Bakura his horn stumps, seeing the other demon boy's eyes widen and then narrow.
"They affect everything I do, apparently," Seto said flatly as the silvery puddle of the elf mirage kept mumbling from the floor, and he found himself slowly surrounded by the other creatures as they approached him out from behind their benches, peeking at him cautiously.
Even the fairy from earlier hovered down near his ear to take a closer look, and then darted away after letting out another high-pitched squeak.
"Oh you've been maimed. Nice," Bakura said with a maddening grin. "I was born without horns, one less thing for me to worry about."
"Well, good for you!" Seto hissed, feeling his eyes heat up. He was fed up with everyone reacting to his broken horns like it was a deformity or handicap…. because it was, and it made him feel shitty.
"Heal!" One grasshopper-headed kid called, holding his hand outstretched with flat fingers, and a burst of golden light hit Seto square in the chest before he could brace himself, and he stumbled back, his ass hitting the seat as he fell with an oof!
His body was burning white-hot, so he hopefully crept his fingers up to touch his horns, feeling a flat stump. Yeah…that didn't work—
"HEAL! Heal!" Someone else was stepping up to try, and Seto winced as a couple of pixies came zooming towards him, scattering something sparkly over his head. He shook it out of his hair, seeing the dust fall into his lap and fix the holes in his robes he'd made earlier from his tears, but other than that…nothing.
"Wait! STOP!" Bakura shrieked, climbing over the bench to get away from the soaring arcs of light coming from the back of the room as other children threw healing spells at him, and they all either were absorbed by his body, making his vision flare brightly for a second, or they bounced off and hit the ground before disappearing.
"Let's try all at once!" The grasshopper-headed kid cried, rushing forward to pull Seto up to his feet and placing him at the front of the room, leaving him there and then dashing back to join the other kids in the seats.
"Ready? ...HEAL!"
Seto stared at the strange array of monsters before him, once again feeling extremely out of place, like it was a weird dream or a hallucination. There were puffy monsters with insect antenna, tiny fairies, tall, skeletal undead monsters, and animal hybrids, all holding a single limb outwards to cast a healing spell…to help him…for some reason he didn't know why, but the white ball of light from their combined casting was hurtling at him so fast, Seto cheerfully wondered if he would die.
He planted his feet apart and lowered his head, feeling a giant wind knock him over and lift him clear off his feet, causing him to fly back against the wall, hitting it so hard, his entire back stung and the air was knocked out of him so violently, he saw stars.
Bits of the wall crumbled behind his shoulders, scraping his skin as he slid to the ground, but he felt no pain because he was so loaded up on Heal, that his entire body was tingling.
He glanced down at his hands, seeing his skin glowing strangely, and he reached up to touch his horns, telling himself not to hope.
He brushed his fingertips across a stump and sighed.
Yeah, it wasn't going to be that easy.
Standing up shakily, he dusted himself off and was about to thank everyone when the door swung open with a bang! And the headmaster rushed inside, his silvery-blue hair flying behind him as he surveyed the giant crater on the wall, the child demon standing in the debris looking dazed and overly healed, while all the other children were huddled fearfully in the back of the room, watching them.
"His idea!" Bakura called, eager to rat out the grasshopper hybrid. "Mr. Bug-eyes over here."
A couple of other monsters turned to hiss at him, and Dartz's eyes landed on the tops of Seto's head, grimacing in sympathy at the dull stumps that had been ground down to the very roots.
"Does it hurt?" He asked, and there was a ringing silence before the child answered with one word as he'd been doing all along.
"No."
"We must talk. Come to my office. Follow me," Dartz said, holding his hand outstretched, waiting for it to be held, but the child gave him a reproachful look and crossed his tiny arms with a headshake.
It takes time, Dartz told himself as he threw one last look at the destroyed mirage on the ground and decided not to comment on it.
"Self-study, no fighting!" He called over his shoulder, and walked out into the setting sun, hearing small footsteps behind him, and he chanced a glance behind him, seeing silent tears streaming down the kid's face, and his chest tightened with an odd feeling.
Maybe permanent and real change was possible with this one.
He would nurture this child demon named Seto until he was capable of leaving this place…and then hope he would rule the world, because the world needed changing.
Author's note:
oooo what is dartz's species? Leviathan? Hahahaha
hope yamis ok in monster jail, looks like he's among friends
And seto too, even though they both don't know it