Dang, Jen, overreact much? I mean Blackheart is just an eldritch horror riding around in the body of your cousin. He's not that scarey that you have to be mean to Karen. And yeah, Blackheart pwns Lawrence and leaves his power in tact too. Surely he isn't going to play Monty and Lawrence's inexplicable friendship against itself for the evulz.
Oh, and yay for Pegasus appearing soon! I love writing for that guy!
Chapter TwelveHidden Knowledge
Karen
I hung up the phone. Everything was arranged. It was time to call back the team. I dialed Monty’s phone. His answer sounded groggy, “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“No,” he answered, “Blackheart got me and Sarah, and Max and Kris. Maybe more of us too, I don't know.”
Dammit. “Okay, get back here. It’s time to put my plan into action. I’ll call Lawrence and Tucker. Can you handle getting in touch with everyone else?”
“Sure Boss. See you when we get there.”
He hung up. I called Lawrence and then Tucker, and then I sat back and waited.
Tucker and Amanda arrived first, followed by Rocky and Kimi. Then Max, Kris, Sarah, and Monty. Jen and Lawrence showed up last. Jen was a little upset.
“You bitch!” she cried. She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me to my feet. “You knew we couldn’t beat Blackheart, didn’t you? You sent my sister out there alone and she was attacked. If Blackheart had wanted to he could have killed her!”
“No,” I said, slapping her hand away, “she wasn’t alone. She was with Max, one of the strongest Duelists we have. Maybe splitting us up was a bad idea, I don’t know. All I know is that we all agreed that we had to act, and that splitting into groups of two was our best chance of finding Blackheart.”
Jen glared at me for several more seconds, and then her face softened. ”Yeah,” she said, “you’re right, sorry.” She walked over to one of the couched across from me and sat down next to her sister, checking her up and down for lasting wounds as Kris insisted that she was fine.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “it’s nothing. And anyway, that part of the plan is done. We need to know more about Blackheart, and I figured that if anyone would have the knowledge that we need it would be the man that gave the Duel Force its mission: Maxamillion Pegasus.”
“Pegasus?” said Rocky. “That’s right, he taught you a lot of what you know about dueling, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “He still considers me his top student so he keeps in touch, mostly be email, but I have his direct number. I called him. He’s chartering us a jet to New York where we’ll find a car waiting to take us to the Industrial Illusions New York office. Our flight leaves in an hour.
“We can’t all go,” said Lawrence. “Even if we can’t beat Blackheart, which seems to be the consensus, we still can’t leave him unchecked.”
He smiled wickedly, “I volunteer.”
“I’ll stay too,” said Rocky, looking at Lawrence with mild contempt, “to make sure Lawrence isn’t left unchecked.”
“Those of us who have already lost our Souls to Blackheart should stay too,” said Monty. “We won’t be any good against Blackheart in a Shadow Game without our powers, but the way I feel after that duel, I doubt I’d be good to anyone in any situation.”
I thought about that. I wasn’t blind to the fact that Sarah, Max, Kris, and Monty were all clearly exhausted. They needed a rest.
“Alright,” I said, nodding agreement, “Jen, Tucker, Amanda, Kimi, and I will go. The rest of you stay.”
I interrupted Max, who seemed about to protest, “I mean it.”
“I’m all for some down time,” said Max. “I was gonna say, I think you should hang onto this.” He handed me a card. I was surprised when I saw it, but I nodded and placed it in my deck.
I led my team of four to the bus stop at the corner. The next bus was due any minute. We’d take it to the airport and catch our flight. Hopefully the info that Teacher had for us would be worth it.
After arriving at the airport we located the I2 company car that was waiting for us. It took us to Pegasus’ New York office where we were led to a large conference room several floors up with wide windows overlooking the city. It was several minutes before anyone entered. When they did, it wasn’t Pegasus, but a secretary. “We at I2 are sorry for the inconvenience,” he told us, “but your meeting with Mr. Pegasus has been moved to his resort at the Duelist Kingdom.”
So we were driven back to the airport where we boarded another jet to Duelist Kingdom. As we flew toward our goal I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening back home.
Lawrence
I had managed to lose Rocky a while ago and was patrolling the city alone. I knew that super goody-two-shoes Rocky would be at least a decent match for Blackheart alone, and I wanted to prove that I could stand up to him too.
It wasn’t too long before I saw him. He was walking straight toward me, full of confidence. He summoned the Dark Disk and stood to face me.
“It’s about time I found you Lawrence,” he said. “I have a special purpose for you.”
“Blah blah blah, whatever. Are we gonna duel or not?”
“Of course. I assume that if you win you want me to release this body and return to the darkness from which I came?” He spoke like he knew that I didn’t really care one way or another. He was reminding me to care. It was a way of taunting me, of telling me that it didn’t matter what the terms of the game were, because he was going to win.
“Yeah,” I said impatiently, “sure, whatever. I move first.” I switched on my Duel Disk and drew my opening hand. “I start out with ‘Graceful Charity’. I draw three cards and then discarded ‘Luster Dragon’ and ‘Spear Dragon’.
“Next,” I continued insistently, “I play ‘Trade-In’, discarding ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’ to draw again.”
I drew two cards, and I smiled darkly, “Now I play ‘Ancient Rules’ and ‘Monster Reborn’, summoning two copies of the ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’, one from my hand and one from the Graveyard!” two large white dragons with fierce blue eyes appeared behind me. They roared in unison (ATK: 3000 (each)).
“Next,” I said, “I summon ‘The Light – Hexed-Sealed Fusion’, sacrificing all three monsters to summon a fusion monster.”
‘The Light’, a monster that looked like a jumble of light and metal and flesh, merged with one of the dragons, and then they both merged with the other dragon. There was a flash, and suddenly, in their place was one dragon with three heads. All three heads roared, as I declared, “arise, ‘Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon’ (ATK: 4500)!”
“Finally, I play the last card in my hand, ‘Super Rejuvenation’,” I finished. “My turn ends and I draw five cards, one for every dragon that I sacrificed or discarded during my turn.”
I drew a whole new hand, and gave Blackheart a look that dared him to beat my combo, dared him to overcome my ‘Ultimate Dragon’.
“Impressive move,” said Blackheart, but his tone said that he was not at all impressed. He was mocking me.
“I begin with ‘Pot of Greed’,” Blackheart continued, “drawing two cards.”
He drew and looked over his new hand, “You summoned a very strong monster, but I can summon strong monsters too. I discard ‘Dark Creator’ to Special Summon ‘Dark Grepher’.” An evil-looking warrior appeared wearing black dragon-skin armor and carrying a longsword (ATK: 1700).
“Next,” Blackheart declared, sneering, “I activate ‘Dark Grepher’’s effect, discarding the Dark monster ‘Bowganian’ to discard the Dark monster ‘Blowback Dragon’ from my deck. Now, because I have exactly three Dark monsters in my Graveyard I can Special Summon the fiercest of all Dragon-type monsters, ‘Dark Armed Dragon’!”
Behind Blackheart in a swirling aura of dark light and wind appeared a figure. The aura dispersed, revealing a huge, armored black dragon with blades covering his body and sharp, vicious claws (ATK: 2800).
“My ‘Dark Armed Dragon’ has a power called Dark Mambele,” Blackheart explained. “I remove ‘Blowback Dragon’ from play to destroy your ‘Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon’!” ‘Dark Armed Dragon’ slashed, creating a curved dark energy blade that flew toward my monster, slicing him in half down the middle.
“Finally,” said Blackheart, “I pay two thousand Life Points to activate ‘Dimension Fusion’, summoning ‘Blowback Dragon’ to the field.” The air above my opponent rippled and the armless, pistol-headed mechanical dragon appeared with a roar that sounded like grinding gears (ATK: 2300).
“‘Dark Grepher’, attack!” Blackheart commanded. The warrior ran toward me and slashed across my chest (8000-1700=6300). I gasped, feeling as if I’d really been cut.
“Now I activate ‘Limiter Removal’, doubling the attack of my ‘Blowback Dragon’ and I attack with him as well.” The mechanical dragon fired a single shot at me (ATK: 2300x2=4600/LP: 6300-4600=1700), and I nearly passed out. I looked up at Blackheart’s final monster. I’m not stupid, I knew what was coming, but I remained defiant.
“And finally,” Blackheart commanded, “my Spirit attacks. ‘Dark Armed Dragon’, Black Flame Tornado!” ‘Dark Armed Dragon’ breathed fire that swirled into a funnel and slammed into me, throwing me to the ground, singeing my clothes (1700-2800=0).
Blackheart walked up and stood over me. “Take my Soul,” I said. “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”
“I don’t want your Soul,” he said. “No, I have much bigger plans for you.” The Shadows fell away from us, and he turned and walked away.
Karen
Teacher met us at the entrance to the castle, well-concealed desperation gleaming in his one visible eye. desperation which no one else seemed to notice. From there he led us to a room filled with Egyptian artifacts. There was an enlarged photo of a large Egyptian tablet on the wall. Pegasus went to stand by the photo. “I am glad that you got a hold of me when you did, Karen. I was about to contact you myself.”
He gestured to the image on the wall, “This, as some of you know, is the tablet telling of the legendary Forgotten Duelist. The final passage inscribed here was until recently untranslatable. I could find no one with the knowledge to decipher such a dialect. But just recently I was able to read it with only a simple understanding of hieroglyphics. It tells of the return of the Duelist’s dark side in much greater detail.
“The passage is prophesy,” said Teacher, “meant to warn of the danger that will arise immediately upon the dark side’s return. It says that as The Forgotten Duelist’s return draws near, his dark side will manifest in the body of The New Duelist, that being the new incarnation of The Forgotten Duelist in modern times, taking that Duelist and all power associated with them for his own purposes. It also says that his dark reach would break the Duelist’s Souls and put allegiances to the test.”
“The New Duelist”, I thought. That must mean John. The prophesy is about Blackheart taking him over.
I expected Teacher to continue, but he said nothing else.
“Why couldn't you read the passage before recently?” I asked.
“I do not know,” Teacher replied, “but I think that it was perhaps Blackheart's own contribution to the casting of The Duelist's Curse. An addendum to the spell which prevented us from learning all that we would need to know to possibly predict or even prevent Blackheart's return.”
“And that’s all,” I said, knowing the answer, “there's nothing about how to stop Blackheart once he returns?”
“No,” said Teacher, “but I never expected that there would be. I’ve always known, as you all have as well, I’m sure, that there is only one who can defeat Blackheart.”
“The Duelist,” I said.
“Yes,” Teacher replied. “The story of The Forgotten Duelist ends with the promise that after his evil side’s return, The Duelist will himself return to renew his age old battle. Until the final passage became legible, it was unclear exactly when The Duelist would return to challenge his ancient enemy, but now it is quite clear. The symbols referring to The Duelist’s return indicate that his return is near and, when used in this context, mean very near. Blackheart doesn’t know it, but The Duelist will soon return, ready to destroy him. You just have to delay Blackheart until it can happen.”
I sighed and looked around at the worried faces of my friends, “That’s going to be more difficult than you might think.”
Card of the Day:
Dark Armed Dragon
Played by: Blackheart
Any monster which can make a complete fool of Lawrence always wins this slot, period.
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