Yu-Gi-Oh! DE/DA Crossover Special!: A Threat To Us All - Chapter Twelve

And finally the end is upon us. We see the battle come to an end, there is a twist ending, which I did allude to earlier. We also get to see not just some of John's dark power, but some of the personality of the thing that has formed from that power, though not really because here John was trying to hold that personality back, so what we have here is more like a mix of John's mind and Dark John's mind, kind of like when John and Hiro would merge minds.

And yes, Dark John will get a follow up later on where the plot thread of its existence, which has been ongoing since the first book, will finally be resolved.

Now that this is over, I will be moving on to my final "character study" spinoff, about Max, called Yu-Gi-Oh! Reaper. This is going to be a hard one to write, as its not my usual style. Updates will not come every day. It'll be more like once a week, really. Then after that, the Duel Force will reunite for one more adventure! Aside from specials and stuff. And maybe one more book down the line, I'm not sure.



Chapter Twelve

The Heart of Darkness

I stared down at the last card in my hand. With both cards, I'd had some leeway, but now I'd have to draw exactly the right thing to even survive the turn. I could think of one card in my deck which could win me the duel right then and there, but even so late in the game, with so much of my deck gone, drawing it in one turn without Destiny Draw was incredibly slim. My head was starting to hurt, now. I could feel my dark energy tickling the back of my mind, looking to bleed through, but I wasn't desperate enough to let that happen, not yet.

I concentrated again. I tried to transform my Soul of Darkness into the Soul of Chaos. New Soul meant new Destiny Draw. Just as before, however, I couldn't find the mental balance to pull it off. The only other way I knew to call the Soul without Hiro's help was by finding balance amidst a crisis, and between the pressure of the Shadow Game, the whispering, itching sound in my head, and my situation in game all screaming at me at once, I just couldn't do it. I stared at that card, nearer to panic than I'd ever been before. I know now that some of what I felt at the time came from another source, from the darkness locked within my heart itself, looking to drive me to let it loose, but back then, I didn't know that. All I knew was that I was running out of time, and second chances.

Then I heard a subdued yelp of pain, and I turned to see Prof fall to an attack from a warrior-like monster made of Shadows which stood beside one of the many minions of the Core Creature. Three larger monsters stood by three other Shadow Minions, and as one, all of the Minions turned toward me, but I barely noticed. I was busy looking at Karen, lying on the ground, unmoving. Through the darkness that swirled all around us all, I couldn't see if she, or any of the others, were breathing.

That's when it became too much. I was no longer fighting for the greater good, or to defend myself, I was fighting to save Karen. I still didn't know the intentions of the multifaceted creature hovering above us, but if I fell, Karen would be left completely exposed. Anything could happen. I panicked, unable to think, and then, for some reason, my eyes were drawn to the unconscious form of Marco. I remembered something, and my panic subsided, replaced by anger. I looked once again at Karen, and then back at the thing which had hurt her, and I let that dark power out.

After all, I thought, if some kid can do it, so can I.

Now, looking back, I have no idea what I was thinking. I'd lived with that darkness my entire life. Even before magic, before I knew the nature of it, or how dangerous it really was, I knew to keep it bottled deep inside, because if I didn't, I might not be able to put it back again. I could feel, even as I let go, that that power had the potential to grow into something that put all of the evils that I'd ever fought to shame, but in that moment I didn't care. All I could think about was Karen, lying helpless, and saving her from the thing that had made her that way in the first place.

A black aura flared up around me, vaporizing the monsters controlled by the four Shadow Minions, and pushing the entire horde back away from me and my foe. With effort, I was able to reign the aura in, creating more like a barrier around me, so as not to hurt the other, and with even more effort I managed to hold onto myself, not letting the mind which drives my darkness overcome me, though I could feel it scratching away at the back of my mind. If I took too long, it would overcome me, there was no other way about it.

Not only that, but I could already feel the darkness blackening my heart, tainting it, driving the light out of it, bit by bit. My hair fluttering in my own aura blackened, as I imagine my eyes did as well. My mind became clear and calculating, as it often had when I'd merged with Hiro, however this was different. I was just as cold as I was calculating, and just as indifferent as I was clear, and the longer the darkness licked my soul, the worse it got. I could feel it happening, but with each passing second, I cared just a little less. I was renewed, however, and that meant just one thing: the duel was as good as over.

I smiled darkly and reached for the top card of my deck, my hand burning with dark fire. I pulled the card, dark energy pulsing from my hand, knocking my opponent back, and I called, "Dark Draw!"

Finally I'd drawn it, the one card which could turn this entire duel around, and the best reason for playing the last card left in my hand. I showed my opponent the other card first, and I declared, "I activate 'Soul Release'."

The spirits of five monsters emerged from my Graveyard and shimmered and faded away. Energy from them passed through my 'Soul Absorption' card and into me, and my Life Points increased again (1600 -> 4100).

My dark smile widened, "You don't even know it, but you lose. You would loose either way, really. As strong as I am now I could rip you apart as easily as I'd break an egg, but that's not nearly as fun. Instead I play my most powerful card, 'Dimension Fusion', opening up the Different Dimension and allowing each of us to call to battle as many monsters as possible that we have removed from play."

The air shimmered overhead, and several monsters emerged from nowhere. My opponent's 'Phantom Skyblaster' reappeared, and my own 'Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning', 'The Fiend Megacyber', 'Megacyber Girl', 'Dark Master - Zorc', and 'Darkflare Dragon' dropped to the ground at my side. Several of my monsters benefited from my opponent's own Field Spell card, but their Attack points didn't matter. With only two thousand Life Points left, any one of them could finish my opponent with a direct attack.

"I control this duel," I told my opponent, coolly and arrogantly, "and there's nothing more that you can do about it. My 'Black Luster Soldier' uses his Chaos Blade once again to send your 'Gorz, Emissary of Darkness' out of play."

I waited, but when my monster didn't respond my smile finally faded. I looked to my monster, and I could feel defiance rolling off of not just him, but all of them. Where I should have found this disturbing, in my current state I found it more interesting than anything else. Without even thinking, I reached out with the Soul of Darkness and I seized control of their minds, forcing them to obey. Their eyes went blank, and 'Black Luster Soldier' swung his blade, banishing 'Gorz' from the field in a wave of light. With him gone, my monsters would have no trouble getting through his remaining defense.

With a thought, I commanded 'Megacyber Girl' to crush the 'Skyblaster', and she did, rushing forward on her bladed feet like a skater, and spinning and slicing the demon in half in a flash of white and yellow. My opponent was completely open now.

I took a moment to take everything in. I still had three powerful monsters ready to attack and destroy the Core Creature, and the other Shadow beings with it. I could even feel something resembling fear coming from the Creature, and I was enjoying it. This thing had threatened and attacked us. It had hurt Karen. I could feel it in my mind, and I hated it. It didn't deserve to exist. It was foul, and it was a threat to my power. I hated it from the many fragmented minds of its many aspects, right down to the strong, intelligent human mind buried deep within it.

"I finish it," I announced, but I'd begun to feel that something was wrong. Some detail was eating away at the back of my mind, some detail that the darkness flowing through me was preventing me from seeing clearly. With another thought, 'Fiend Megacyber' raised a fist, charged with energy, and sprung forward to strike the killing blow, but, thank God, it was at that moment that the detail clicked.

"Wait," I said aloud, "a human mind?!"

That's when my mind truly cleared, rather than just sharpening. I could suddenly see what I'd allowed myself to become. I was disgusted. My stomach churned, and I had to struggle to keep it from turning itself out. I had taken the form of a malicious thing which looked down on anything which didn't serve its purpose. I'd allowed myself to become the kind of thing that I fight against. I beat back my revulsion, and I did the only thing that I could think to do to begin to set things right.

I called out, "'Megacyber', stop your attack," but at the same moment I noticed that he'd already stopped. My moment of realization had broken the hold I'd put on my monster, and he'd stopped the attack himself, looking back at me, apprehensive, but expectant. I nodded, assuring the only monster which had been part of my deck since its conception that I was, indeed myself again.

I looked up at the Core Creature. Not the avatar that I'd been fighting, but the swirling entity itself. Darkness still flowed through me, through my Soul of Darkness, making my powers stronger. I could sense the truth, but it didn't make sense. "How," I wondered, "can you be human?"

I took a moment to think, and I had an epiphany, Wait a minute. The Elite girl, Rachel, she said something that kinda reminds me of this. She told me all about that guy, Greg Hendriks, who was killed by Emperor.

I looked down at the artifact which I wore along with my Soul of Darkness, He used to wear this Shadow Millennium Ring, using it the spread pieces of his soul all over the world so that he could be basically omniscient.

I looked up at the Creature again, and felt the many fractured spirits which made it up.

Not fractured spirits, I realized, spirit fragments!

I remembered the Elite describing this thing's actions, how it first went for Prof, but now I was wondering if maybe it wasn't Prof it wanted, but the Ring which he, at the time, had worn, and its powers.

Then I thought, it came after me. With my darkness, I probably have more Duel Energy than anyone else on the planet. Amplified by my Soul and a couple of Shadow Millennium Items, it would be enough to cast one hell of a spell.

I'd begun to form a very clear idea of what this thing was, and what it was really after. Using so much of my willpower that it was physically exhausting, I managed to actually force my darkness under my control, despite its very vocal protests in the back of my mind, for only a few seconds while I focused that dark power through the Shadow Millennium Ring, jump-starting its powers.

The revelation of what the Creature was allowing me to overcome my darkness also served to restore balance to my heart, and in a flash of yellow light my dark purple soul with a shining yellow image of a large crescent moon wrapping a distant sun turned half purple and half yellow, the yellow half adorned with a purple moon, and the purple half adorned with a yellow sun. It had become the Soul of Chaos, a power which rivaled the darkness inside me, and made it much easier to handle, though the two powers certainly didn't like to mix.

Using more power than I've ever even imagined using for anything before, I reached out and I connected my Soul to each separate spirit fragment in the Creature, through the Ring, and I pulled them all together, linking them to each other. The Creature swirled violently and lowered to the ground, sweeping up all of its various aspects, and then condensing down, down, down into the shape of a human being.

My Soul returned to normal and I pushed the last of my darkness back into the depths of my heart as the last of the Shadows fell away from him, and there he stood in the avatar of the Core Creature's place. He wasn't wearing any clothing, so it was easy to see how muscular he was. He was tall, with spiky brown hair and sharp features. He looked surprised, stumbling, but I caught him, and I watched as the intelligence returned to his dark eyes. I didn't recognize him personally, but as I helped him to find his footing, wrapping his shadow around his body, forming for him a stark black shirt and a pair of black jeans, I said, "Gregory Hendriks, I'm John, an ally to Rocky Stone."

I stepped back from the disoriented man, and I removed the Shadow Millennium Ring from around my neck, handing it to him, "I think this belongs to you."

I sat with everyone while the Elite told him everything. This powerful-looking young man who I could imagine taking the worst news in stride completely fell apart when he first heard that he'd been dead, and that it had been his own brother who'd killed him. We sat at a row of tables lining the arena room wall, where members would have gathered to eat and socialize while the base was in use. Greg sat at a table all his own, hunched over. He didn't seem to want anyone near him. When they finished their story, there was silence for several minutes, and then Greg finally spoke.

"I'm not Gregory Hendriks," he said simply.

He looked over at the Shadow Millennium Ring, lying on the ground nearby where he'd dropped it, "I'm just leftover pieces of him, put back together into something that looks and sounds like Gregory Hendriks. The real Greg is dead, I don't belong here."

He closed his eyes sorrowfully, "My own brother, and I didn't even see it."

He kicked the Ring away. It skitted loudly across the stone floor, coming to a stop after a few yards. None of us knew what to say, except for Rachel. With a look of anger and frustration on her face, she stood up, walked over to Greg, and she punched him in the face. We were all shocked, too much so to say or do anything, though Rocky groaned a little, his eyes wider than I thought they could be.

"You asshole," Rachel said, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, "none of us saw it, and believe me, some of us were more likely to see it than even you. Tim tricked everyone."

She paused, and I could feel the weight of her words. Tim had tricked her, too, and that was a particularly painful fact to her, more painful than I expected it would have been had he been simply a colleague or a friend. Suddenly I felt like I was spying on her, but then she continued, and I kept right on listening.

"And as for whether or not you're really Greg," she almost spat, as if she were disgusted, "I don't think you are."

"Rachel," Prof gasped, "don't say that!"

"But he isn't," she insisted vehemently, never looking away from Greg, who refused to react to what was happening around him, "just look at him, sitting around and feeling sorry for himself. Greg wouldn't do that. He'd still feel it. I know he feels stuff, but he'd keep functioning through it all, and he'd work it out , because he's strong. He's the strongest person I know."

She glared down at him, "The way I see it, it's your choice who you are, and you decided not to be Greg the moment you said it out loud."

She wound up to punch him again, but the moment before her fist would have met with his face, his palm came up and caught the blow. Greg stood up, imposingly, towering over Rachel who wasn't so short herself, being about my height. His face was stern. Rachel looked up at him and smiled, "Welcome back, Greg."

There was celebrating after than. Prof, Rocky, and a reluctant Marco brought the surviving food and water from an adjoining chamber and we all ate and drank something, and then the Elite members led the rest of us into another adjoining chamber: a complete synthetic environment complete with grass and trees, kept alive by UV lights in the high ceiling, powered by the same solar panels and generators which kept the rest of this base running, and an artificial stream.

The majority of our group played soccer on a field far from the door, using a worn old ball which had clearly seen a lot of use. Even the reserved Charlie kicked the ball around a bit, Marco, Prof and Greg watching from the sidelines as he made a complete fool of himself. Karen prodded me to join in. I'm pretty good at soccer, I've had to be to help my sister practice over the years, but I refused, blaming exhaustion from the spell I'd cast, even though that had since passed. Instead I sat against the base of a nearby three and watched them play until they seemed tired of playing and began talking about parting ways.

I followed the group back into the arena room. Ria, who had really bonded with Rachel in the midst of competition, was reluctant to say goodbye to her new friend, and Rachel was busy reassuring her that they'd keep in touch. That's when Greg approached me. I was apprehensive. I couldn't be sure how much he remembered from his time as a disembodied creature. I was worried that he'd bring up my actions, or that he's somehow deduced the source of my great Duel Energy, and that he wanted to confront me, but instead he offered me his hand.

"Thank you," he said, "for saving my life, or putting me back together, or whatever it is that you did. You must be very powerful."

I shook the offered hand, and I, relieved, shot him a goofy smile and assured him that it was nothing, really, that my Soul had known what to do, and that I hadn't really done much at all.

"Either way," said Greg, "thank you. I hope you and I meet again some day, but as allies, not enemies."

He smiled, and then his face went stern again as he turned to his people and said loudly to Prof, "So, I assume that because this place is still operational that you failed to inform my benefactors of my death. Two years ago."

"Well," Prof responded, a big placating smile spread across his face, "I figured it wasn't that big a deal. This way we've got a place to go, just in case."

"It's fine," said Greg, looking toward the infirmary, clearly feeling guilty, "it means I can remain here and make sure Raphael gets back on his feet."

"And we'll be right there with you," said Rachel with a cheeky grin, indicating herself, Marcus, Marco, Charlie, and Prof, "you know none of us have any lives to get back to."

"We do, though," said Kimi, taking Rocky's arm territorially, "so we're gonna go."

"Yeah," Rocky agreed, "but Rachel, don't be a stranger."

"Except do," Kimi added with a false smile, and with a flash of her Soul, they were gone.

"We need to go, too," I told everyone, "we're supposed to be on our way somewhere."

"But good luck," said Karen, smiling, "and if you ever need us again, we'll be there."

There was some nodding and some goodbye-ing, and as soon as it died down my Soul flashed, and the Shadows reached up and grasped us, pulling us through them like a door. A moment later Karen, Ria, Thomas and I appeared on the deck of Pegasus' ship amidst astonished crew members who looked as if they'd been searching for us.

"Hey," I said, "what're you guys doing up on deck? We're supposed to be sailing to New York!"

I guess these guys were used to strange stuff happening, having worked for Pegasus, because they took this in stride, returning to their various posts. I grinned stupidly the way that everyone expected me to, but it was all an act. I got the feeling that it would be a while before I felt like myself again. I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd been like after I'd let my dark power out. The mind locked away with that power was even worse, and I'd risked letting it out as well, and that was inexcusable.

I remembered how, under the influence of that darkness, I'd thought that foul things didn't deserve to exist, but I had been the foul thing in that duel. As my friends returned to their previously interrupted activities, I stood there, unsure of what to do next.

If foul things don't deserve to exist, I thought, then do I?

Card of the Day:

Soul Release

Played by: John

There really isn't much of a standout card in this chapter. John pretty much just wins with his usual cards. So I put "Soul Release" here, since it is a highly underused card, and one which hasn't made it into the Card of the Day section yet before. I made my own version of the card on yugiohcardmaker.net that has the original Japanese art for the card combined with the original English wording (which is the wording on my own personal copy), just to make it a little more interesting.

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