Well, that escalated quickly, didn't it? One second Sarah is making fun of Nate, and everyone is being badass, and the next second the mystery man has them in a vice. On the bright side, we do finally get to see the mystery man again, and even though we don't learn any more about his motivations, we get a bit more about his personality. Like John, he projects an air of being sure of himself, and he clearly prefers a position of control. Unlike John, however, he's obviously selfish, and cares nothing for anyone other than himself. And this villain is a human being, not a demon, or the repressed dark aspects of a person's psyche given form. This reflects the fact that human beings have the capacity for the worst evil.
The confrontation clearly begins here, but the actual duels will begin next week when Sarah battles Deschutes Lew, a Duelist who attacks safely from behind unbreakable walls, bypassing all conventional defenses. Sarah is also skilled with combined defensive and offensive tactics, but is she adaptable enough to defeat a Card Professor? I guess we'll find out!
Chapter Sixteen
The Dark Factory
The Interior of the factory was dark. The few open windows, and the even fewer in-tact, grime-covered windows weren’t nearly enough to fill every corner of the large room with light.
“Kinda dark in here,” said Nate, his voice shaky.
“Don’t worry Nate,” Sarah jibed, “just because you can’t see your reflection right now it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. Besides, it won’t be dark for long. Kris? Nimrod? A little help please.”
There were two flashes, one red, and the other a sort of electric blue, and suddenly half of the room’s remaining light bulbs flickered halfway back to life, and a bright yellow fireball formed hovering above Tucker’s outstretched hand.
“There,” Sarah said, quite satisfied with herself and her team, “that’s much better.”
“You bet it is,” Nate replied, giving Jen what he must have thought was the sexy eyes. Jen punched him in the stomach.
“Do that again,” she told him, “and the next one breaks teeth.”
“Adorable,” came an obnoxious-sounding voice from somewhere deeper into the factory, and for the first time I really looked around and studied our new surroundings.
We were in a huge, high-ceilinged open room, trash, glass and metal debris littering the floor. Five long assembly lines stretched across the room, each in a different state of disrepair. The lights which hadn’t come back to life were burnt out, broken, or simply gone. Overall it looked exactly like I had expected looking at it from the outside, until I looked further in toward the back of the room, opposite the entrance.
There, makeshift steel walks connected together in a half circle that ringed a series of platforms leading up to several large metal doors of varying sizes. There were eight in all, spread ten to fifteen feet apart, numbered one through eight, left to right. Two figures waited in front of each doors three, four, five and six, and lone figures waited for us before doors one, two, and seven.
Standing in front of door seven was a tall, rugged-looking young man with a goatee, and white hair that came down past his collar. In front of door six stood a pretty blond goth girl, and a disinterested-looking man with his blond hair tucked under a beanie cap, small round glasses sitting high on his nose. Guarding door five were two figures who I recognized from Sarah’s phone description of Mendo Cino and Klamath Osler. Door four was graced by the presence of a guy even creepier-looking than Max, with spiky black hair, wearing black eyeliner, smiling wickedly, and a third recognizable figure: James. Next to them, at door three, stood a mean-looking guy with brown hair, wearing a vest and jeans, and a youngish guy with elfish features and spiky white hair. In front of doors two and one stood Richie Merced and Depre Scott respectively. Richie glared at us, but Depre seemed nonplussed. He looked stern, but he stood with his Duel Disk at his side, non-threateningly, like an afterthought.
“Richie,” Karen said, “we’ve met your new ringleader’s challenge. Let us through.”
“You didn’t think that it would be so easy, did you Sister?” Richie replied. “The newest number one Card Professor wants you put through your paces. To reach him, you must defeat us,” he gestured to the figures spread out before us, “the Card Professors Guild, the most powerful Duel Monsters mercenaries in the world! Only those of you who win will be allowed to face him.”
Richie looked us over, and when his eyes fell upon Reiko, his cocky, arrogant expression faltered. I saw, not really sympathy or compassion, but something closer to pity, and maybe regret. I realized that, despite how much he genuinely didn’t like some of us, he didn’t really want to fight this mystery man’s fight any more than we did. He was able to keep up appearances in front of us, his assigned foes, but his conviction faltered with the thought of his team mate, now a potential target for their rightful team leader. I glanced over at Karen. She’d seen it, too. Understanding passed between us.
“Cut the crap, Richie,” I said. “As genuinely angry as I’m sure you are about a lot of things, you don’t really want to fight us. Not here, not today.”
I looked to each Card Professor in turn, “None of you want to fight us, I can see it in your eyes! Let us through. Let us handle this, and it won’t matter what your nameless leader says anymore.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” the awkward-looking Klamath mumbled. The lone man in front of door seven curled his lips in begrudging agreement, but I still hadn’t convinced them.
“Depre,” I said, addressing the highest ranking Card Professor present, “what do you say? Will you let us pass?”
“Please, Depre,” said Karen. “I know you never felt close to me when we were younger, and I’m sorry for that. I know you never really hated me, like I never really hated you. We were kids. Kids are hard on each other. I forgive you, and I hope you’ve forgiven me.”
She looked from Depre to Richie and then back, “Both of you. Depre, these people know you. They’ve worked with you. They’ll follow your lead. I’m asking you as a sister, please stand with us by standing aside and allowing us through.”
No one said anything. All eyes on both sides were on Depre, waiting for his reply. He looked down at his feet, thoughtfully, for almost three full minutes before he looked up again and met Karen’s eyes, his own eyes sad, “I’m sorry Karen, I really am, but I have orders. We were hired, and the payment is too good to pass up.”
“We already know about that,” I told him. “You don’t have to fear for your lives. We will defeat him.”
But it was clear now that the Card Professors wouldn’t simply step out of the way. If I was going to prevent unnecessary conflict, I would need to play a different card. I turned slowly and called out, “Do you hear me you murderous bastard? I won’t play your game! You can’t threaten us anymore! You want the Duel Force? Well here we are! Come out and fight us, or we’re leaving!”
There was a pause, and then I felt the shadows around us ripple, and the mystery man appeared between us and the Card Professors, facing me, turning his blade slowly in his hands, wearing an epic smug face almost as good as mine.
“I can appreciate your reluctance to play,” he said simply. “After all, I’ve been neglectful. I have yet to fill you in on all of the proposed rules. Once you hear them, you’ll realize that you actually have no choice but to play.”
“We don’t?” I asked stubbornly.
“No,” he answered calmly, “you don’t. See, I’ve neglected to share the stakes of the contest that I’ve proposed. You can go home if that’s what you want. You can refuse to fight. If you do, then I’ll pick a city, and I’ll kill one hundred people. Don’t think I can’t, either. Our abilities are similar enough that you know it’s true. I’ll kill them, and then I’ll move on to a different city and I’ll do the same thing. If you appear to try and stop me, I’ll jump around randomly until you lose my trail, and I’ll start again. Can you and your hero complex live with that? Could you live with knowing that people are dying because you didn’t want to play with me?”
I swallowed, a bead of nervous sweat running down my face. I could call his bluff. I’m a gamer, after all, and calling bluffs is a big part of any game. There was just one problem. as I looked into the mystery man’s eyes, glittering with a wicked glee that I only ever saw in my darkest of nightmares, I was sure of one thing above all others: he wasn’t bluffing.
I was shaken, and my enemy knew it, but I didn’t care. “Fine,” I submitted, “I’ll play.”
The mystery man smiled, “Excellent.” Then the shadows rippled, he was gone, and it was my turn to smile. After all, I had one more card to play before I would be willing to finally give in.
Gotcha!
My Soul of Darkness flashed, and I jumped forward, through the same ripple in the Shadows that the mystery man had made, following after him. I saw him there, waiting for me. He’d anticipated my move, and he was completely unworried. I saw him squeeze a small box between his fingers, and suddenly I was back where I’d started. I fell heavily to my knees, breathing heavily. My Duel Disk transformed back to normal. I felt like my entire body had been pinched.
“John!” Karen cried, dropping down to her knees at my side.
“What’s going on?” Tucker asked, shocked as his fireball disappeared with a PUFFFFffff.
I stood up slowly, “Can’t you feel it? He’s cut us off from our magic somehow. We’re powerless.”
Karen stood up again as well, and looked around, just as metal sheeting fell into place over the entrance doors, and bars slid into place over all of the windows. “I heard rumors about this,” said Karen, “but I never knew it had been finished. It’s why Yami took this place specifically to use as his training ground. Some of the smarter people under his influence thought that the natural magnetic properties of this place, enhanced through technology, could block Shadow Magic. That way everyone who fought here would have to rely on only their natural advantages. It would serve to make things more personal, and more savage, and it gave Yami, the one in control of this place, the only real advantage.”
I didn’t say a word. We were trapped, and the magic that we had relied on for so long couldn’t save us anymore. I looked to the others. They were as shell-shocked as I was, but it was clear that we all knew what to do. We turned back to face off against the Card Professors, who were still waiting. Sarah stepped up to door number seven. Karen stepped up to face Richie in front of door two. Amanda and Nate stepped up to door three. Max and Jen moved to stand before door four. Tucker and Frost approached door five. Kris and Jenna stepped up to door six.
Finally, I stepped up to face the true leader of the Card Professors, Depre Scott, leader to leader, in front of door one. Depre gave me a sad half smile and said, “See you inside.”
The figures of the Card Professors shimmered and flickered out. Holograms, I thought. After all, in a place without magic, technology was the only magic that mattered. The seven doors began to open, creaking and whining with each inch that they gave. I waited for clearance enough to step inside, where I knew that my next opponent actually waited.
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