First Rachel fails to save a kid, and now this happens. Yeah, this is the rough part I mentioned a few chapters back. I can't even think of a way to tear this character down further than this.
Chapter Sixteen
Timothy
Rocky
I stepped out of the corridor and looked around. Prof and Marco were standing nearby. Prof was yammering on about something while Marco tried desperately to pretend that he was somewhere else.
“Hey, Robert!” said Prof cheerfully as soon as he saw me. He turned and walked toward me, leaving Marco breathing a sigh of relief. “I met a member of Emperor’s Four in the corridor,” Prof began happily, “and after I beat him, I ended up here. I realized pretty quickly that all four corridors actually led right here. Their entire purpose of the corridors was clearly just to separate any intruders from one another and make them easier to defeat! Quite clever. I really expected Rachel to find her way out next, after me, so you can only imagine how surprised I was when Marco was the first to join me, followed by you! Pretty interesting, eh?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, feigning agreement, “just riveting.”
“You don’t sound very sincere,” said Prof.
“Hmmm,” I replied, “maybe that’s because I’m not.” I ignored Prof’s hurt look and asked, “So obviously you guys won. How strong were your opponents?”
“Mine was a more than decent player,” Marco answered. “Really good, actually. But he was freakin’ crazy, and it got in the way of his playing. In fact, he seemed to think he couldn’t lose because of some kind of destiny Emperor told him he had.”
“My opponent was also very strong,” said Prof. “He used a dangerous fusion of Burn and Power strategies that would have been lethal if he hadn’t been so stupid. I mean dirt stupid. He was so convinced of his power that I think Emperor must have coaxed him as well.”
“The opponent I battled almost beat me,” I told them, “but only because I let his combo sneak up on me, and because he wasn’t prepared for my more indirect offensives. All it took was a lucky draw and some creative thinking to ensure the win.”
Prof picked up on my train of thought, and his expression turned thoughtful, “It doesn’t sound like any of us fought against a Duelist strong enough to defeat a member of Team One. Which means-.”
“Which means,” Marco said, the revelation clicking for him as well, “that the Emperor’s Four could only have beaten Team One if someone told them how to ahead of time. Emperor probably observed Team One in the field, selected four Duelists who he thought would be suited against them, and then coached the Four on how to win. He probably coached them on how to beat those bodyguard guys too.”
“Marcus and Raphael,” Prof corrected. “Yes, my thoughts exactly.”
“If he took the time to coach his boys on how to beat the others, then why didn’t he coach them on how to beat us, too?” Marco wondered.
“There are two options,” I replied. “Either Emperor was careless, or a much more likely reason. The same reason Emperor basically teleported us here himself. Emperor didn’t really want us to lose. He just wanted us to think he did.”
“Wait a minute,” came a voice behind me. I turned to see Rachel emerging from the final corridor. “I only caught the end of that, but I got the gist. Do you really think that this entire defense was just Emperor’s attempt to lull us into a false sense of security? To get us to drop our guard as we draw closer to him? That he did all of this not because he wants us beaten, but because he wants us here for some unknown reason?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “I do.”
Rachel looked confused, “Why?”
“Only one possibility,” said Prof.
“Yeah,” I said. “Emperor must need one or more of us to complete whatever plan he’s cooked up. More specifically, he needs one or more of us here to get whatever it is that he needs from us.”
“So do we keep going then?” Marco asked Prof. I got the feeling that if the answer were no, that he wouldn’t be happy about it.
“Tim’s life is at stake here,” Rachel answered before anyone else could speak, turning toward the only path ahead. “We don’t have a choice.”
She started forward with conviction, and the rest of us followed.
Rachel
As we entered the next and, hopefully, the final corridor, I made note of the fact that while it was easily as long as the others, it was comparatively much bigger and brighter. I didn’t notice much else beyond that and the great amount of detail carved into everything from the walls to the torch mounts hanging from them. I was trying to distract myself from thinking about Zero, and about what I’d been forced to do to him. Even though I’d been the first into the corridor, I soon drifted absent-mindedly to the back of the group. Prof was too busy boring Marco with random observations to notice, and Marco was too busy being bored likewise, but Rocky wasn’t at all preoccupied, and is just an annoyingly observant person in general. Soon he drifted back to walk by my side.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You look like something’s on your mind.”
Out of habit I summoned up my anger, my greatest defense, and the only real defense mechanism that ever seemed appropriate for someone as offensive as me. I felt my face flush with anger, but then I remembered that Rocky had been the first to volunteer to come with me and rescue Tim. Whether I liked it or not, he deserved an answer to his question. He had to understand who he’d thrown in with. I sighed, the anger leaving my body with my breath, and replied, “Yeah, something is bothering me.”
I thought about how to proceed. What if Rocky didn’t understand? What if he thought I was a monster and he left, taking the others with him? Could I carry on alone?
But I did owe Rocky the truth. I liked that he was my friend, and I wanted him to remain my friend, so I had to be honest.
So I asked, “Did your opponent seem like he was being manipulated by Emperor? I mean, like, magically manipulated?”
“No,” he answered. “It was pretty apparent that he was genuinely bad, or at the very least that he was fighting me of his own accord. I don’t think Emperor would risk surrounding himself with an inner circle that didn’t share his views willingly.”
“You’re wrong,” I told him. “That’s what I thought too, but we were both wrong. Your opponent may have been acting of his own free will, but my opponent was clearly being manipulated by the Shadow Millennium Rod. I didn’t realize until after the Shadow Duel began. The Emperor’s Four weren’t dueling using their own magical items. They were using Emperor’s power focused through magic crystals. And because it was Emperor’s intension for the losers to die, well…you know. I thought I could stop the duel by breaking Emperor’s hold on Zero, but he still ended up dying.”
Rocky nodded slowly, frowning, but he wasn’t upset. He was nodding his understanding. For some reason, when I saw that Rocky wasn’t upset, that made me mad.
“Don’t you get it?” I demanded. “I killed an innocent boy! Even worse, I managed to snap him out of Emperor’s control first, and then I killed him!”
“Yeah,” Rocky replied calmly, “I get it. But I understand why you did what you did. There is more than one life at stake here. Emperor can’t be allowed to gain the power he’s seeking. Plus, Emperor has Tim. You have to get Tim back, because you love him.”
I felt myself blush and I looked away. I couldn’t decide whether I was embarrassed, or if I was pissed that Rocky had been so matter-of-fact about something that I’d never had the courage to admit to myself.
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed,” Rocky said with a bit of a smile. “No one can help whether or not they love someone.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to what he was saying, or to what I was feeling. After all, I spend most of my time trying to hide my emotions. So I steeled myself up and nodded.
“Tim’s always been there for me,” I began, compelled to defend my feelings for him. “He knows what I’m like. How damaged I am. He knows all of it, but he sees right past it. When I need someone to take my pain and my anger out on, Tim is always there for me. He even taught me to fight so that I’d have an outlet for my frustration. Ever since I came to the Elite I’ve been horrible, and he’s never once held it against me.”
“He sounds like a great guy,” said Rocky. He seemed about to say more, but he stopped suddenly. The way he spoke about love made me wonder if he was speaking from experience. I might have asked him, but our conversation was interrupted.
“Hey kids,” said Prof, calling back to us from several yards ahead, “it looks like we’re here.” As Rocky and I moved to join our allies, Prof gestured up at the end of the corridor, at the pair of massive stone, gold-inlaid doors that ended it, blocking our way.
Rocky walked up to the doors and touched them. His Soul flickered. He stepped back, “There are two rooms beyond here. One looks like some kind of throne room. The other is a large chamber with some kind of platform.”
“Can you make out any people?” Prof asked him.
Rocky shook his head, “Whatever power Emperor is using to cloud my powers is as strong here as ever. I’m lucky I can see as much as I do.”
“Tim’s close,” I said. I could feel it. “He’s here, somewhere behind those doors. This must be Emperor’s chamber. I’d bet money that Emperor’s waiting for us behind these doors, in the throne room.”
“Then let’s give Emperor what he’s been waiting for,” said Rocky, suddenly determined. He cracked his knuckles and his Soul glowed bright. He gestured, and the immense doors swung open, revealing a huge, brightly lit room, ornately decorated with rows of colored hieroglyphs lined with gold, all depicting men hard at work, pouring metal into a massive mold. There was a smaller, single door opposite us. Next to the door someone had constructed a raised platform from blocks of stone. Atop the platform, seated upon an ornate throne, was a cloaked figure. The figure rose to his feet, clapping slowly.
I felt my familiar rage return, Emperor!
The four of us charged into the room. We were all there for our own reasons. I wanted to save Tim from his captor. Prof thought Tim too important to abandon. Marco and his other self wanted a shot at the leader of the Order. Rocky just wanted to save people. Different reasons, but they all boiled down to one common desire. We all wanted more than anything else to defeat Emperor.
I voiced my desire with a force equaling my rage, “Give us Timothy!”
“You four did very well getting this far,” said Emperor, ignoring us, arrogance tainting what would have otherwise been an attractive, husky-sounding voice. “You must think very highly of yourselves, having beaten my lieutenants.”
“We already figured out that this whole situation was rigged from the start to lull us here, and that those four were never supposed to defeat us,” Prof replied defiantly. “Let me guess. You told them that we were far weaker than Team One, Marcus and Raphael, and that they didn’t need any coaching to defeat us, all so that we’d beat them and end up with a false sense of security?”
Emperor’s mouth, barely visible behind his hood, curled into a wide, wicked smile, “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. Either way, my plan was a success. You are here, and the deaths of those four stooges saves me from the trouble of disposing of them myself later.”
I felt my anger flare, and I cried out, “Enough talking! I know you have Tim locked away in that chamber behind you. I said give him back!”
There was a pause. We stood facing off with Emperor in silence, until he began to laugh. I was horrified to realize that I recognized that laugh…
“I thought you’d have figured it out by now, Rachel,” said Emperor. “I can’t give you Timothy.”
He took down his hood, and the four of us gasped.
“I am Timothy!”
Everything seemed to slow down suddenly. I couldn’t breathe as I studied the face of my enemy. Studied the face of the man I loved. He was wearing his hair differently, so that his bangs fell over the left side of his face, but there was no mistaking him.
Timothy was Emperor.
He always had been, I realized. It was how Emperor had known about the weakness in Gregory’s security spells. It was how he could coach the Emperor’s four to defeat the Elite’s strongest members. It all made sense. The only thing I didn’t understand was why.
I felt something hot running down my cheeks, and my knees began to shake before finally giving in. I fell to my knees, and as I knelt there, unable to move, I hung my head and I cried.
Rocky
Emperor lowered his hood, and Rachel collapsed, falling to her knees, sobbing so hard that I worried she wasn’t getting enough air. I dropped to my knees beside her.
“Rachel,” I said as soothingly as I could, “come on. Come on, be strong. Please, we still need you.”
“Yes,” said Emperor sweetly, sounding more like Tim now, “get up Rachel. ‘We’ need you.”
“Why?” I demanded as I helped a trembling, still-sobbing Rachel to her feet, supporting her. “Why did you do this?!”
“Don’t get so upset, Robert,” Tim answered.
“Why shouldn’t I be upset?!” I cried. “You betrayed everyone! You betrayed your team, you betrayed your brother, and you betrayed Rachel!”
“Of course I didn’t betray Rachel,” said Emperor, his calm faltering momentarily. “I did all of this for Rachel!”
I was taken aback, “What do you mean?”
“Rachel’s parents were killed in an attack on her home, over something as trivial as a home invasion,” Emperor explained. “Sure, the invaders were searching for a Shadow Item, which is a bit more serious than the typical theft, but really that makes my point even more valid. People everywhere break into homes, mug men and women on the street at night, rob convenience store owners at gunpoint. Men and women lose their jobs and their homes. They starve and die. They are betrayed daily by a corrupt governments run by politicians who are only concerned with lining their own pockets. And that’s just the United States! There are even worse things happening everywhere, all across the planet, all because no one really cares enough to do something about all of the death and destruction throughout this world!
"There’s only one way to prevent these atrocities and make sure people stop hurting each other," Emperor concluded. "Someone has to step up and take upon himself the burden of seizing and ruling this world! Of remolding it through force into a world with no pain. No anger! This is my only goal. I’ve had to make sacrifices. I knew Greg would never understand what I meant to do, so I simply removed him from the equation.”
“You’re crazy,” said Marco.
“And how,” Prof asked, “do you plan to ‘reshape’ the entire world?”
Emperor smiled, “Like this!” All in one motion Emperor threw back his cloak, the motion of it pushing his hair away from his face, and he drew two objects from his belt, holding them up in triumph. His left eye was gone, replaced by a black metallic ball with a silver Wdjat Eye molded into it, the Shadow Millennium Eye. Around his neck he wore the Shadow Millennium Pendant and the Shadow Millennium Ring, along with another, key-shaped pendant that I could only assume was the much sought-after Shadow Millennium Key. In his right hand he held a set of scales, and in his left hand he carried the short staff that could manipulate minds, the Shadow Millennium Rod, its silver eye glowing faintly.
Six items! I gasped.
“I see,” said Prof. “But why only six? Couldn’t little Timmy find all seven?”
Emperor’s smile widened, “That’s why you’re here. Well, more specifically, that’s why Rachel is here.” He looked the still-shocked Rachel in the eyes and said, “Poor Rachel. She never did understand the power she wields.”
“What does this have to do with Rachel?” I demanded.
“You see,” said Emperor, “the seven Shadow Millennium Items are most powerful when together, when their power is amplified through the Shadow Millennium Pendant. But their power has the potential to become even greater than that! When possession of the Shadow Millennium Items is passed to a single wielder in the temple where they were forged, and their powers are focused through the Pendant, they resonate with the temple, unlocking a magical power so great that it is second only to the long-lost power of the Millennium Items, a power greater than even the Duelist’s Souls. But there is a catch. At least one of the Items must change hands within the temple itself. That means that for my powers to be awakened, I must gain possession of seventh Item within the temple.”
Realization overcame Prof. He looked around at the paintings on the walls, paintings of men pouring metal into a massive mold set atop a platform. “This is that place, isn’t it?” He asked. “The Shadow Millennium Items were forged here, in that room behind you.”
Emperor nodded. I ignored him, demanding once again, “What does this have to do with Rachel?!”
Emperor smiled arrogantly, looked right into my eyes and said, “The seventh and final Shadow Millennium Item is the Shadow Millennium Necklace.”
It took a second for the significance of Emperor’s statement to sink in, and then everything fell into place. “Rachel’s necklace,” I said. “Her necklace is the final Item, isn’t it?”
Emperor’s only reply was his smile. Then he looked Rachel in the eyes and said, “Now my dear, give me the Necklace, and we will rule this world together!”
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