Yu-Gi-Oh! Reaper - Chapter Eight

This one was a lot harder to write than I thought. The characters have to run through a lot of emotions in a very short time. I thought that that would make things easier, since they would go from emotion to emotion more quickly, but I could not have been more wrong. Especially the big scene between Max and El near the end was hard to work through. I found my head wanting to switch gears every two seconds, every time I hit a creative snag. I think it turned out okay, especially since I spent a ton of extra time on it, even pushing the next chapter of DF Book 7 back a day to do so. I don't know, though. Read it and let me know. Either way, this one is a milestone for this story in more ways than one, and this chapter and the next one set the rest of the story into motion.

Chapter Eight

Arlen Cord

Max awoke with no memory of his dreams. He didn’t mind, as most of the dreams that he had were nightmares from the minds of his victims. His sleep had been so restful that he actually had to stir to regain consciousness, where he was used to being able to just spring back up. It was a feeling for which Max found himself nostalgic, and yet felt disconcerting, as it made him feel far less alert than he preferred to be. Blinking sleep from his eyes, Max turned over and surveyed the room. He’d almost forgotten about his house guest, so he was mildly surprised to see her.

El was already awake, sitting at the table where Max kept his things. She heard him stir, and she turned to look at him with a wry smirk. “About time you woke up,” she told him, “I’ve been up for hours.”

Max found his feet and stepped up beside her, “What time is it?”

“Eight in the morning,” El replied. “A little late for you to go Batman-ing around the city, but just in time for me to share what I found online, which I think is the important thing today.”

“Yeah, okay,” Max said, glancing, annoyed, at his alarm clock, which had been unplugged in favor of El’s device chargers. On the table in front of her sat the blank cell phone, with her jury-rigged device plugged into it, the screen alight. Plugged into the side of the phone was a projector, which shone a holographic keyboard onto the tabletop. Even as she looked back, away from the amalgam of devices, El typed away with perfect accuracy.

“What did you find?” Max asked.

“Well,” El replied, “I had to follow a pretty long paper trail, and for a second I thought I wasn’t going to find anything, but then I managed to hack my way into some old records from an old hospital near Rockland County. It looks like Professor Cord has been there under long term care almost since the attack.”

“Was he injured?” Max asked.

“No,” El answered, “worse. He spoke out about what he saw, and between that and general persistent unstable behavior, they committed him.”

“What’s security like?” Max inquired.

“Pretty standard, from what I can tell,” El told him, looking back at the screen, “but it’s not like they put the details of that stuff online. I think I could get in, though. I can’t use my past relationship with Professor Cord, since I don’t have any way of proving my identity anymore, but it isn’t like I don’t have experience breaking and entering at this point in my life.”

“You won’t need to break in,” Max told her. “I can get us in. It’ll be a little more difficult to move two of us through the ventilation system, but I accomplished it last night, when I brought us here.”

“That’s true,” El remarked, “that would be how you get into places. That smoke power. Can you use that power to get us there? How does it work?”

Max considered this for a second. El seemed genuinely interested in his abilities, and sharing with her was the prudent thing to do, but Max preferred to keep the limits of his abilities a secret. El was his ally, but that didn’t make him much more comfortable. Then he looked her in the eyes. It was something that he rarely did with his friends. In fact Max couldn’t remember a time that he’d looked someone in the eyes who wasn’t an enemy, until El had come along. His blue eyes met her green ones, and he was reminded of the scene in El’s mind the night before, and how much trust she had put in him. He couldn’t help but trust her back.

“I can get us there,” said Max, “since Rockland County isn’t too far from here, but it’ll be taxing, and it wouldn’t be much faster than a slow car ride, and that’s if I push myself, but in general I can only travel as far as I could on foot, I just don’t have to deal with navigating around obstacles.”

El nodded and considered that for a second. “Well then,” she said, “we’ll find a ride out that way, and then you can get us into the building. No reason for you to wear yourself out.”

Max was puzzled, “Why not?”

El looked even more confused, “Because there are other ways to accomplish our goals. You don’t need to push yourself to the limit every single day. This life is rough, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take your time and rebuild you constitution from time to time.”

She looked away, back at the phone, which she unhooked from the jury-rigged device, “And besides, I don’t want you to wear yourself out. I like talking to you. Which I can’t do if you pass out from exhaustion.”

Max frowned, “You just say that because I’m damaged enough that we understand each other.”

“Does that really matter?” El replied with a little chuckle. “After all, isn’t that why most people become friends?”

The pair blushed. Neither of them knew what to say at this point, and El was quick to change the subject. She pointed to the box of personal effects that Max had removed his hooded shirt from the night before and said, “So I got curious and went snooping a little, and I saw that you have Duel Monsters cards in there. And one of the Disk things. Do you play?”

“I used to,” Max replied. “Before I set out to become the Reaper, I fought a lot of Shadow Games that involved Duel Monsters, and I expected more of the same in this life, too, so I brought my cards and my Duel Disk along. But now I only bring them with me if I know that a threat involves the game.”

El nodded, and she said, “I used to play when I was younger. I doubt I’d remember how, now. Maybe once this is all over you can refresh my memory, and we’ll have a duel.”

“That isn’t a good idea,” Max told her frankly. “When I fight, even in a duel, I always treat my opponent as an enemy, even if they’re normally my ally. I wouldn’t be a good teacher.”

“I don’t know about that,” El replied. “I learn well under pressure.”

Max thought about that for a second. He didn’t want to think of El as his enemy again, and he certainly didn’t want her to see him as an enemy, not after their last encounter. But for the first time since Max had lost the friend who had taught him the game, the thought of dueling sounded like fun. “Okay,” he agreed, “you have a deal. But right now we have more important things to do. It’s still early. If we leave now, we should be able to reach the hospital by tonight. We shouldn’t waste any time.”

“You’re right,” El agreed. “The longer we wait, the longer the killer has to get further away from me again. I won’t let him escape, not this time. Not when I’m so close.”

Reminded of her mission, El was all business again. She got up and packed her gear. Max picked up his still blood-stained but dry cloak and shirt, and quickly changed back into his standard outfit, ready to set out on the next leg of their journey.

In the end, the journey to the old hospital did rely heavily on Max’s magic after all. He used his powers to transport them out of the city proper, and onto a truck heading in the correct direction. They changed vehicles twice, as needed, and once they were within a comfortable walking distance of the facility, Max simply transported them there. It was easier to move the two of them now than it had been the night before. Maybe it was simply a matter of having done so once before, or maybe it was something else, something less tangible, but either way Max didn’t dwell on it. By six that evening, the duo were outside the facility main building, looking up at a window on the third floor.

“According to the records,” El said, her expression all business, “that’s his room. It’s late enough that I don’t imagine he’d be anywhere else.”

“Did the records say anything about his state of mind?” Max asked.

“Stable enough,” El replied, “why?”

“Because,” Max told her, standing to his full height within the shadow of the aged stone ivy-covered building, “if his condition is too sensitive, this might cause a few problems.”

As he spoke, the shadows on his body, especially the shadow which his hood cast upon his face, deepened. Smoke poured from beneath his cloak and from within his sleeves, wrapping he and El completely. They dissolved to smoke, and they rose through the air, seeping through the slim cracks in the window frame. Inside the comfortably-furnished living quarters, an aging man slunk back from the window, from the living smoke curling around it. Hastily, Max willed himself and El to reform. The man picked up a lamp, prepared to throw it at the intruders, but El removed her helmet and said, “Professor Cord, wait. It’s me, Ellie. You used to work with my parents.”

“The grim reaper!” Cord exclaimed, pointing at Max. Reluctantly, Max took down his hood, and he looked the elderly man in the eyes.

“Professor Cord,” he said calmly, “I’m not the grim reaper. I just dress this way to scare bad people, and to hide my face from my enemies. But you aren’t my enemy. You’re a friend of Ellie, so you’re my friend as well.”

“And just like I needed your help to survive all those years ago,” El told the still-frightened man, “I need your help again to find the person who killed my parents. Your friends. You’re the only person I know who might have the information I need to find him. Please, Professor Cord, will you help me?”

Arlen Cord blinked, his breathing slowing and growing steadier. He set the lamp back down, and looked El up and down. His eyes flashed with recognition, and he smiled.

“Ellie,” he said, “I haven’t seen you in years. You were just a little girl. Now look at you, all grown up!”

El nodded, “Yeah, It’s been a while, and it’s good to see you, Professor, but we’re here for a reason. We need to know everything you know about the dig where my parents died. Why were they there? What were they trying to find? No one seems to know, and finding out might be the key to finding their killer, the key to finding him and bringing him to justice.”

Arlen Cord went from excited to see his old friend to profoundly sad. “I tried to tell them,” he said. “I tried to tell the police all about it. About what they found, and what he wanted. But they didn’t listen. They never listen.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” El told Professor Cord, “because it isn’t the authorities who will be taking care of this.”

Her features hardened, “I’m going to take him down. I’m going to catch him, and make him pay for what he did.”

It took a moment, but Arlen Cord realized what El was saying, and the look of horror returned to his eyes. “No,” he said. “No, no! I told them that I’d protect you from him. It was the last thing that I said to them. I won’t tell you anything that will lead you to that man.”

Now it was El’s turn to look horrified. She surged forward, “You have to! Please, Professor, I’ve devoted my life to this! If I don’t find this man, my parents’ deaths will go unavenged, and I’ll have wasted years of my life. I have to find him!”

Arlen Cord slunk away from her as she advanced, “No, I won’t. Just go.”

“No!” El cried. She stepped forward and reached out to grab the old man. Realizing that the situation was getting out of hand, Max surged forward, gliding on a puff of smoke, and grabbed El’s arm. She reacted on instinct, striking at him with her free arm, but Max avoided her strike with little effort and turned her away from Professor Cord, to face him instead.

“What’s your plan here?” he asked her, calmly, “are you going to hurt an old man, a friend of your family, to learn what you need? How does that make you any different from the man that you want to stop, if you hurt people in pursuit of your goals?”

The aggression seeped from El’s expression, and realization struck. She couldn’t believe what she’d been about to do. Coming so close to one of her goals, to actually learning the goals of her obsession, she’d almost lost herself. She relaxed, and Max let go of her arm. “You’re right,” she said. She turned to Professor Cord and said, “Thank you, Professor, for honoring my parents’ wishes. It was good seeing you again.”

She turned back to Max, “Let’s go. There’s nothing for us here.”

Max nodded, and he put his hood up again. He stepped, with El at his side, up to the window, and in an instant, the two of them dissolved and seeped through into the outside once again. The two coiled through the air until they were a good distance away from the institution, above a populated section of town.

They fell to the ground and reformed behind a dilapidated motel building. It was too late for them to head back to the city, so El dug into her bag and produced a lock picking kit. Wordlessly she picked the lock on one of the rooms, and she and Max stepped inside. El tossed her bag in the corner, and dropped to her knees, tearing up, not out of sorrow, but out of frustration.

“I was so close to a breakthrough,” she gasped. “I thought for sure that I was about to learn why my parents were killed, and that would lead me to their killer. That my journey would be over.”

“I can understand why you’re upset,” said Max simply. “You’ve obsessed over this all for so long that it’s all you can think about, but at the same time it’s exhausting, and you just want to find a way for it to be over.”

El looked up at him angrily, “Wouldn’t you!?”

Max didn’t answer right away. He had, in only a single day and night, become as close to El as he had to anyone else in his entire life, but even despite this, he was reluctant to share the secrets of his past. It was something which he’d only done once before, when he’d needed to prove himself to a group of potential allies, and even then he hadn’t told them everything. But looking into El’s eyes, past the aggression, he could see that she wasn’t just snapping back at him. She needed an answer. She needed to know that someone else out there felt the same way that she did. To feel that someone understood her pain, and her obsession. Without another moment of hesitation, Max met that need.

“I have,” he said. He stepped past El and sat down on the tightly-made bed. El found her feet, and she sat down beside him as he spoke.

“My full name,” he said, “is Martin Allen Xavier III. I go by Max because it’s what my parents called me. They died when I was young. I was supposed to inherit their company, their legacy, after they passed, once I came of age, but their lawyer and several prominent members of their board of directors conspired to wrest controlling interest from my parents’ estate and liquidate the company, setting themselves up for life, but screwing me and everyone else associated with the company at the same time. They took my parents’ legacy and turned it into one of unemployment and betrayal.

"I was stuck in the foster system for years. It was the worst time of my life, and I don’t know that I would have made it through if not for a really good friend who I met at an orphanage. Then he died too, and my life fell apart for years. I only pieced it back together into what it is now a few years ago.

“I initially set out to do this, this vigilante thing, with the secret hope that I could bring the people who ruined my parents’ legacy to justice. I’ve never told anyone that before, but it’s the truth. And I even know who most of them are. But it doesn’t matter, because they technically didn’t commit any crimes. I could give them a Penalty, but most of them are different people now, with families who depend on them. Hurting these men would mean hurting their families.

"I could kill them, but it presents the same problem, and my parents and my friend wouldn’t want that. They’d be okay with me taking a life in defense of myself or others. They weren’t stupid. But killing a bunch defenseless old men? They’d never approve. And what’s the point of avenging my parents and bringing the people of who wronged them to justice if I have to betray them to do it?”

He looked over at El, meeting her eyes, “So I can’t do anything about it. For years I dreamed about how wonderful things would be once I completed my mission. I obsessed over it in secret, and when I finally got out here, doing this, and I realized that I couldn’t accomplish my mission in a non-violent way, I seriously considered killing those people, and anyone else who got in my way. And there would have been a lot. I’m not omnipotent. People could have and would have gotten in my way. But despite all of that I still consider it every day.

"It’s the desires of my parents, and a promise I made to my friend to do good that keeps me in line, and keeps me fighting to help people. So I understand what you’re feeling, and I promise I’m here to help you deal with it in whatever way you decide to. Whether you decide to keep going after this guy or not, I’ll be there to help in any way I can until you’re able to move on.”

El was taken aback. She didn’t know how to respond to Max’s declaration, and at the same time Max was surprised that he’d made it. He had his own goals, and they didn’t line up with El’s crusade. Yet, despite this, he felt no desire to take it back. He’d meant every word. He felt a connection to El that he’d never felt before. He didn’t know what to call it, if it was friendship, understanding, attraction, or something more, but it was there, and it took everything that the two had been through for him to see it, and it was in that same moment when El realized that she felt the same way, that it was because of this connection that she’d come to trust Max so quickly.

Almost as if she didn’t quite know what she was doing, El reached up and lowered Max’s hood so that she could see his face. Max, despite rejecting the touch of others for most of his life, found that he didn’t recoil as she leaned in, and she kissed him. Even more surprising, he found that he was kissing her back. Ignoring his still-present physical pain, and caring nothing for his emotional reservations, Max gave in to raw desire, and he and El fell into each others’ arms.

Unknown to Max and El, as they’d left the institution in Rockland County, New York, a figure watched them from the shadows. He recognized the girl who had been pursuing him, even disguised and wrapped in magic. Originally he’d found it amusing when she’d teamed with the aimless vigilante called the Reaper, and so he’d been surprised when she’d made her way out of the city in pursuit of a new lead. With concentration and effort, he shimmered and disappeared into the shadows, reappearing in the room that his pursuers had just left, and he found himself face to face with Professor Arlen Cord.

The figure laughed hysterically, and he removed a blade from his waste. “It’s good to see you again, Arlen.”

“Y-You!” Arlen Cord spat. He shrunk back, away from the new appearance.

“You can’t escape me, Arlen,” the figure said, in a maniacal voice, “especially not a second time. But I’m glad you’re still alive. I’m looking for something, Arlen, something that I never found at the dig site all those years ago. You’re going to tell me where to find it.”

“O-or you’ll kill me?” the elderly professor stammered.

The figure laughed again, “No, Arlen. You’re going to tell me, and I’m going to kill you.”

He laughed yet again, raised his blade, and he went to work.

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