Chapter NineA Distress Call;
The Elite Under Attack!
Of course Prof wanted to pick James’ replacement himself. When he saw Marco duel against Charlie and access Shadow Magic without the need for a Shadow Item, Prof was intrigued. He asked Marco to fill the open position. I couldn’t tell if Prof fully trusted Marco, but Charlie definitely trusted him, so I kept an open mind. I tried to get to know Marco. He was a little distant, very smart, and very quiet, but he seemed nice enough. He was almost the exact opposite of his dark side, who was openly abrasive, arrogant, and full of swagger. I’d planned on taking the next few days to get to know the kid better and form a real opinion, but I didn’t have the time. The next morning Team Two was called to Greg’s office.
“What’s going on?” Prof asked as soon as he arrived. The rest of us were already waiting for him. He still looked tired. His teleportation trick yesterday had really taken its toll.
“I’ve received a communication from my brother,” said Greg.
“That was fast,” I said, letting my enthusiasm get the best of me. “When do they get back with the next item? It was the Shadow Key, right, the one that you said looks like a giant key on a string?”
Maybe Prof was right, I hoped. Maybe whatever fate he calculated for me can be prevented after all!
“The news isn’t quite so good I’m afraid,” said Greg. That’s when I noticed the anxiety flashing behind his purposefully unexpressive eyes. Something was very, very wrong. “Tim sent me a message via his Shadow Item,” he explained. “I’d like to show it to the five of you.”
Greg removed a pendant from behind his shirt. It was a dark metal ring with an inverted triangle inside and two slightly curved spikes hanging from small loops on the sides. In the center of the triangle was a symbol I recognized, a slightly stylized silver Wdjat Eye, the mark of a Shadow Item.
“This is a big deal, Greg,” said Prof, “showing them your item.”
“Desperate times,” said Greg simply.
“Wait,” said Rachel, “are you kidding? Is that really-?”
“The Shadow Millennium Ring?” Greg asked. “Yes, it is. The Shadow Millennium Item with the power to connect its wielder’s spirit with inanimate items and manipulate them. It is how I control so many computers at one time. How I manipulate so much information so easily. It is also how I manage to observe so many places and watch for shadow items, a task that requires dozens upon dozens of Order scouts to accomplish for the other side. I go around, planting a bit of myself into the places that I need to observe, and for as long as I live, it’s like I have a small presence there. I use the ring to connect those parts of myself with the part in my computer mainframe, creating an extensive data link that is reinforced by magic. It is physically draining, but it allows me to keep track of everywhere that I have ever been.”
I looked at the screens on the wall of Greg’s office, at the images and data dancing across them. Hundreds and hundreds of instances of information every few seconds. They were each a piece of Greg’s consciousness relaying information back to him.
“Greg is very fortunate,” said Prof. “His I.Q. is very high. A bit higher than mine actually. If his mind were any weaker there is no way that he would be able to keep up with so much information in real time. I can barely follow a third of it myself.”
“Moving on,” said Greg, speaking loudly and making clear that the conversation needed to get back on track. He held up his Shadow Millennium Ring, and the random images and data cleared from the screen, making way for a new image. It was Timothy. He was in a chamber connecting with a tunnel, the walls littered with hieroglyphics. Some kind of Egyptian ruins. The light was dim and inconsistent, like torch light. Even in the weak light I could see the barely controlled fear in Tim’s eyes.
“Greg,” he said, “I’m sending this to you in a burst that I hope those magic computers of yours will catch. We were closing in on the Shadow Key when we were ambushed by a group of four Duelists calling themselves the Emperor’s Four. They already got Marshal and Cook. Jeff and David are trying to hold them back until I can finish with this, but they won’t last long. These guys are good. Their name suggests that they’re Emperor’s personal squad. The guy that Prof beat at the museum was probably part of this group before he was killed, and we all know how strong he was. These guys are twice as strong at least! Greg, you gotta get someone here to help us. I don’t know if Prof found a new fifth yet, but either way we could really use Team Two’s-.”
He was interrupted by an explosion of fire from within the tunnel behind him. The flames tossed a tall, muscular African-American man into the chamber with Tim. The man stood and lifted his duel disk just in time for a red-skinned, spiked-club-wielding demon to hit him across the left side of his face. The man fell and didn’t rise.
“Jeff!” Tim cried.
There was a crackle and the image faded away.
I couldn’t help but glance over at Rachel. She was trying to look blank and uncaring, but it looked like she was about to choke. She was worried about Tim. I looked away quickly, before she could see me watching her.
“Tim asked for Team Two,” said Greg. “He believes that you can help Team One. Unfortunately Tim didn’t get the opportunity to tell us whether or not he was able to retrieve and secure the Shadow Key. We must assume that he had it when he was attacked, which is why we absolutely cannot allow him to be captured. That’s why I’m sending you five to find my brother and the Duelists who defeated Team One.”
“Wait a second,” I demanded, “how can we beat a group of Duelists who can defeat the strongest Duelists in the Elite?”
I was worried, and I could tell that the others were worried as well, especially Marco, the only member of the team with less experience in the Elite than me, and Rachel, who had a very personal stake in the situation.
Greg looked sad as he answered my question, “You are not the Elite’s strongest, but you are our most resourceful. You will have to figure out a way. You are Team One now.”
“With my help,” said Greg, a few minutes later, once we had prepared to leave, “you can pool your strength and transport directly to the ruins you saw in Tim's transmission. You all, save our newest recruit, experienced the power of teleportation when Prof brought you back from your last mission using nothing but magic. I must stress how rarely this power is used, and why. Teleportation is dangerous. It threatens to drain the caster. When a team does use teleportation, they usually do so by pooling the energy of their entire team to cast the spell. This takes several seconds longer than if the spell is cast by a single person, but it is much safer.
"Also," Greg continued, "teleportation is only ever used to make a hasty return to base. There are security protocols in place here, created through the magic of my Ring, which prevent anyone who has never been here from teleporting inside, and anyone inside from teleporting out, so as to make it harder for prisoners to escape us. However, I can lower these defenses, allowing teleportation from within the base. But my defensive spells are all interconnected. Lowering one, even for a second, lowers all other base defenses as well, including the magical intruder alarm and the spell that prevents enemy magic users from finding this place with magic. I can only risk disabling the spell for a few seconds.”
He tried not to lose his cool by stressing the point too much, but it was pretty clear that this really was a desperate move, and one that Greg hated even suggesting. I decided then not to hold back in the coming battle, no matter what. I didn’t want to let this man, who was putting everything on the line, down. So as soon as we appeared outside of the ruins, I reached out into the ruins with my Soul, trying to sense if anyone was there. It was a long shot, but it turned out to be well worth it, as doing so unlocked a new power of my Soul.
“Whoa,” I said.
“What is it?” Prof asked.
“My Soul,” I answered. “It’s like I can feel everything that the rocks in the ruins touch. Like a radar or sonar of some kind. It’s fuzzy and I’m not sure how to make sense of it yet, but it’s something.”
“Can you tell if Tim’s okay?” Rachel asked, trying valiantly to hide her desperation.
I strained, trying to sort out the images flowing through my head.
I wish I had some of Greg’s high I.Q. right about now, I thought.
“I don’t think anyone’s moving in there,” I answered, “but I could be wrong. I’ve never used this power before. I can’t really make heads or tails of what I’m seeing yet.”
“Okay,” said Prof, “Rocky, keep to the front, and keep that Shield Disk of yours up. We need to be ready for anything we might find in there. Rachel, I need you to focus. Your Shadow Item has the most offensive power. You’ll follow behind Rocky and handle counterattacks. Marco and Charlie will go next. I’ll take up the rear and focus on repelling any attacks that may come from behind.”
The four of us nodded. We lined up and started moving. The tunnel was dark. Prof lit up the red crystal in his pendant and held it up over his head, providing some light. Still, we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us. We were all on guard. Everyone was quiet, even Prof, who likes talking. To be fair though, he seems to enjoy exchanging information in general. I looked back at the faces of my team mates. I barely knew anything about Team One’s strength and I was scared of the ones who had beaten them, so I could only imagine how Charlie, Prof and Rachel felt. Marco was probably even worse off. He didn’t know a thing about Team One. Based on the things he’d said during his brief time with us it seemed that he looked up to Team One, considering them something like living legends. I don’t know of a single person alive who isn’t afraid to fight someone who can kill a legend.
Not to mention the simple fact that we were in a tunnel in Egypt looking for a group of our allies who had likely been killed by a group of villains who used magical items to turn trading cards into weapons. Not for the first time I wondered if I was insane.
I’m still not sure that I’m not.
I’d been so deep in thought that I hadn’t noticed the light up ahead until we had already reached the chamber. It was huge, shaped like a rounded rectangle. The floor was littered with valuable artifacts made of gold and silver that came in every shape and size, glinting in the light of the remaining torches.
“It’s a form of defense,” said Prof, glancing around at the treasure that surrounded us. “The people who built this ancient vault filled this chamber with unbelievable treasures hoping that it would satisfy anyone who came plundering, preventing them from entering the next room. Proof that something of extraordinary value is, or was, hidden here.”
Treasure wasn’t the only thing hidden in the room, however, as we were about to find out.
“Hey, over here!” cried Rachel, who had pushed ahead. She was standing behind a pile of gold coins, looking down at the floor. The rest of us moved to stand by her side. There we found a mousy little Asian girl, probably Chinese or Korean, slumped unmoving against the pile. For a second I was shocked breathless. At first glance she looked a lot like Kimi.
“Cook,” said Prof. “She’s a member of Team One.”
Charlie bent down and checked her pulse. “She’s gone,” he said. “It doesn’t look intentional. More like someone tried to remove her soul in a Penalty Game, but her body couldn’t take the shock. It’s rare, but it happens.”
“I found another one,” said Rachel, who had moved off again. We joined her by one of eight tunnels that branched off from this chamber. She was standing over a tall, slightly heavyset young man with sandy blonde hair. His eyes were open, and he was breathing, but it was obvious that his soul was gone. It was creepy, those empty, hollow eyes, so I reached down and closed them.
“This would be Marshal,” I reasoned. We’ll find David in this tunnel, and Jeff in the room at its end. Tim too, if he fell like the others.”
“Tim didn’t fall,” said Rachel with absolute conviction, but I could tell that she was worried.
“Yeah, well,” I said with a slight smile, “either way we have to keep going. But no matter what, we’ll find Tim and bring him back.”
I half expected Rachel to be angry, since I was very obviously speaking to her, but to my relief (since I’m not a fan of being punched) her expression actually softened, and she nodded.
I turned to Prof, “It looks like they went this way. What do you think?”
“I agree,” Prof said. He was staying close to Marco, trying to be supportive. Marco’s eyes were fierce and observant, but his hands were shaky. Still, he was handling this well for a kid. Prof held up his pendant and illuminated the tunnel. It curved not too far ahead. Sure enough someone else was visible, slumped over just before the curve. He had bushy red hair and freckles. He was breathing, but barely. He had a cut across his left shoulder, and his shirt was stained with blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.
“He’ll be okay,” said Prof. “We need to keep going.” Prof took the lead, moving urgently. He knew what our chances were of finding Tim alive. Tim was, after all, the co-founder of the Elite. Our enemies tended to want him dead, and Emperor was likely no exception.
We pressed forward and soon found ourselves in a second chamber. In the rear of the chamber was a pedestal with a key-shaped indentation in it, the resting place of the Shadow Millennium Key, now missing. In the middle of the floor was the final member of Tim’s Team One, Jeff, but that was it. The room was otherwise empty.
Tim was gone.
Prof walked over to the pedestal to examine it. Charlie knelt down beside Jeff to check him, and Jeff stirred
“Jeff’s still here!” Charlie cried, and instantly we were at his side. Charlie helped Jeff sit up, just as Jeff opened his eyes weakly. “You’re okay,” said Charlie. “We’re gonna get you outta here.”
Jeff coughed violently, and when he was able to he said, “They took ’im. Tim used his Shadow Item to send the Shadow Key away, so they took ’im. They only didn’t banish me so that I could deliver a message: we don’t get Tim back until we bring Emperor the Shadow Key.”
“Where did he send the Key?” Marco asked.
“Dunno,” said Jeff, and suddenly he was coughing again. He was in bad shape.
“Okay,” said Prof, “Charlie, take Jeff back to HQ and get him to medical, then check in with Greg. Let him know what’s going on here. The rest of us will continue to investigate the situation.”
Charlie nodded and helped Jeff to his feet. We put our hands on Charlie’s shoulders and focused, lending him our power, and he and Jeff disappeared in a cloud of shadowy black smoke.
“What now?” I asked Prof.
“Yeah,” said Rachel, “we need to get the Key from HQ and use it to get Tim back from Emperor.”
“Except,” said Prof, “that there’s no way the Key is at HQ. Based on what we saw in Tim’s message, he likely sent the Key away right after the connection failed. If he’d sent it to HQ, we would have known before we left.”
“Then where is it?” Rachel demanded.
“Only Tim would know,” Prof answered.
“Then what the Hell are we gonna do?!” Rachel cried. She wasn’t taking this well, and it was clear to everyone that she was about to snap.
“If they want us to bring the Key,” I said, “then they’ll have left us a way to find their headquarters, so we can make the delivery. Even if we don’t find the Key, we can find their base, and we will find Emperor, and when we do, I’ll go get Tim myself.”
“No, you won't,” said Prof, "because I plan to go with you."
“Me too,” said Marco, “especially if it means a shot at Emperor. The other me really wants to fight him.”
“You mean you guys really care that much about getting Tim back?” Rachel asked. “I figured that you guys would be more concerned with protecting the Items than about saving Tim. Why do you care?”
“I care,” I said, “because I’m your friend whether you like it or not, and you care.”
“Besides,” said Prof, “Tim’s one of our strongest members. Even if we do save the Key, we might still lose the coming battle without him. Having him around is good calculating.”
Rachel looked from me, to Prof, to Marco, and back to me, dumbfounded. We looked back at her with looks that conveyed varying levels of support and determination. Rachel didn’t seem to get why we would risk anything for her, but after a few moments she shook off her confusion.
“If you guys really wanna be stupid along with me,” she said, “then let’s go. Let’s find whatever we need to find Tim.”
She turned and began searching, and the rest of us followed suit.
Greg
I watched as Prof’s team disappeared, off toward their destination. I felt dizzy, which was to be expected after the strain of helping Prof and the others to make their trip, but I quickly shook it off. I had to reactivate the magical barrier that surrounded HQ, that acted as our alarm system, and as a barrier keeping anyone who didn’t already know how from teleporting into the compound. These things combined with the fact that the barrier made transport out of the compound impossible made my system almost perfect.
Even though I’d created this impressive system, I didn’t take the time to feel pride upon reinstating it like some people might. Instead I went right back to work. In only seven seconds the barrier was back up. It was almost impossible for anyone who didn’t already know a great deal about Elite HQ to teleport into the compound in seven seconds. In fact, it was so unlikely that I wrote it off as an impossibility.
I walked to my desk and sat down, closing my eyes and allowing myself some time to rest. I’d long since become accustomed to the constant strain that use of my Item put on my body, but additional strain was still enough to nearly push me over the edge. I allowed myself to drift into unconsciousness, and I remained that way for a few minutes before I sensed a presence in my office with me. A malevolent presence. I opened my eyes and launched myself to my left, rolling to my feet, just in time to avoid a thrusting blade aimed right at my heart.
Marcus
Raphael and I were waiting in the shadows in the secluded section of corridor outside of Greg’s office when we sensed the presence of someone passing right by us, shrouded in Shadows, into the very room that we guarded. I turned along with Raphael and looked through the figure’s shroud just in time to see the train of his cloak pass through the doorway.
“We have to go in,” I said unnecessarily, but as my old friend and I took a step forward we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by deepening darkness. We turned around to face the interior of the corridor and found ourselves face to face with four cloaked figures, their faces shrouded in the darkness beneath their hoods. One of them, the shortest of the figures, stood in the front. He had long powder blue hair peeking out from beneath his hood. He was clearly the leader. Behind him stood two figures of average height and one very large, muscular figure, his build very similar to Raph’s. Based on their body types, they were all male.
“No more of you will get past us,” said Raph.
“We, the Emperor’s Four,” said the leader, “don’t need to get past you. We only need to prevent you from entering that room and interfering with our master’s plans.”
I tried to hide my shock, “So you’re saying that that was Emperor who just passed by us?”
“It doesn’t matter who ended up where,” said Raph confidently. “Our master can handle any one Duelist with ease. His skills are unmatched. And we can handle any number of lackeys.”
I smiled, “That’s right. And if it’s a Shadow Game you want, it’s a Shadow Game you’ll get.”
“Well,” said one of the average-sized foes, “this should prove to be exciting.” He and the leader stepped away from the other two and faced me. The others faced Raphael, and the duels began.
Next Chapter >>
No comments:
Post a Comment