twinpharaohs | [Locked: April, Bakura/Malik] Dominion Trip!

"I'll do my best," Yami answers with a small smile. Then he closes his eyes, and, the All-Seeing Eye flashing briefly on his forehead, brings them into the Shadow Realm.

It's an appropriate name. There's no discernable geography, and very little ambient light. What light there is consists entirely of dim blues, reds, and violets. Nothing appears to be in the vicinity, but then, in the low light, it can be difficult to tell for most people.

Yami exhales slowly, opening his eyes and quickly surveying their surroundings. "So far, so good," he says. "Come on. Don't let go of my hand." He starts off in what would be a western direction, in the material world.

Then, somewhere, in the distance, an inhuman roar sounds. Yami's eyes widen, and he swears in ancient Egyptian. "We're going to be in trouble if we can't beat whatever that was to the waypoint," he says quietly. "Almost like they can sense me when I turn up..." he adds in a sub-vocal mutter.

April adjusted to the low-light situation by using some of her vampire abilities. She kept her hand secured in Yami's.

The roar made her flinch slightly. "What is it?"

"Shadow Monster, most likely," Yami answers, quickening his pace. "Won't know what variety until it gets here, and we'll want to be gone by then."

And then he steps in something black and slimy. Not that it's easy to tell that it's black in this light. But it's definitely slimy. And it starts crawling up his leg, the rest of the puddle also rising up in thin streams, like viscous, gravity-defying ink. "Ra's beak!" Yami curses, pulling his leg away from the puddle, black stuff still clinging to his trousers.

I think the Shadow Games got some ideas from the Darkness in Fable III, Yugi notes.

Yami snorts briefly in response. Hopefully it doesn't have the same effect as the stuff in the game. Then he staggers, the edges of his vision starting to blur, legs beginning to feel stiff.

((OOC: Alas, it does have the same effect. The goop acts as a paralytic and also steadily drains away sight and some life force.))

April provides support when Yami staggers. "I am not sure what the effect is... but the health of your aura has started to fail."

Yami grimaces, blinking several times. "I've seen this before. Granted, that was in a video game, and I've no clue where the Shadow Games came up with the idea, because I'm fairly sure they haven't played that game. Help me out of this stuff, and don't step in it. It's a paralytic, and it'll slowly blind you." He squints a little, trying to clear out the blurry edges around his field of vision, to no avail. "My vision's already starting to go..."

Moving carefully to grab a hold of Yami's collar, and not touching the goo herself, April lifted and removed him from the source of the affection. "Can you move yourself?"

Yami grits his teeth and tries moving his stiff and tingling leg. He's able to take a few awkward steps away from the puddle of goop. "Awkwardly," he answers. "But in my experience, where there's one puddle of that stuff, there's more." He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, the blurred edges fading only a little from his vision. "I can barely see... we need light."

He closes his eyes again, more gently this time, and whispers, "Netrey-Neb Ra, redi wi Chedjedjewet-Tjen."

The All-Seeing Eye appears on Yami's forehead again, blazing brightly, along with a sword-shaped beam of light in Yami's hand. April gets one of those light-swords too. Ra is apparently feeling quite generous today.

Yami's eyes survey their surroundings, now much more brightly illuminated. There's still no visible geography, but they are surrounded by the black goop, along with several indistinct shapes seemingly made of shadows, with glowing red eyes. There are a variety of different shapes, from humanoid things to monsters that very much resemble dragons or other mythical beasts, and not just those from Egyptian mythology either. The shapes run the gamut of cultures, from Norse to Greek and Roman to Mayan, with, of course the obligatory Egyptian beasties.

Behind all of those shades is a monster that acutally seems kind of thin and gangly. Its head is huge compared to its body. It has six eyes, several spikes protruding from its head, and is quite pale. It has no legs. Unlike the creatures surrounding it, it is quite distinct and visible.

"Oh come on," Yami sighs, exasperated, directing his words to the monster behind the shades. "The Crawler? Really? Can't You be more original?"

"Per-a'a Tepeysa-Yami," the head beast hisses. "We know not what you mean. You are responsible for this."

April was a little surprised by the light-sword and is grateful for the training she received as a child, and recently refreshed with Prince Arthur to weild the weapon.

Being surrounded by monsters is not a good thing. And when one speaks to Yami, April keep silent. But ready.

Yami glances back to April for a moment, making sure none of the Shades behind them have tried to attack her. Then he says, in a whisper he's almost certain only she can hear, "We have two options. We can stand and fight, or create a distraction and run like Hell. I won't decide which without your input." He pauses. "Though I have to advise that the former will likely get us killed."

Returning his attention to the Crawler, he asks, a whimsical note in his voice, "Responsible for what, specifically? This ambush? I am fairly certain I had nothing to do with the planning of it."

"You entered here. Trapped Us here," the Crawler answers. "You are responsible."

"And if I'd let You roam free, my country and people would have been destroyed," Yami answers, all trace of humour gone from his voice. "Possibly the rest of the world. You're a cancer, Crawler. Don't think I don't recognize that."

The Crawler chuckles. "We never doubted it for a moment, Per-a'a. It does not change the fact that you broke your ancestor's pact."

April knows she can run fast, but Yami might not be recovered from the paralysis attack. She can fight well enough, just the shear numbers of Shades are a little disconcerting.

"What is best for your situation?" April was concerned for Yami.

Yami grimaces and keeps his voice low. "I was taught some basic self-defense and swordplay when I was a teenager, but I never had cause to use it; I relied on my friend Methos and the rest of Royal Guard for defense. Yugi has been practicing Tae Kwon Do for about a year now." He grimaces. "If it were just Yugi and I here we'd have about even odds of making it through alive if we fought."

He attempts to move his leg a little; it's still stiff and tingling, but it's getting better. "I'm not sure how fast I'll be able to run," he adds. "Leg's not fully recovered, and I don't precisely have a very long stride, given my height."

For the moment, he decides to ignore the Crawler's comment about a pact with one of his ancestors, though the thought is quite disturbing. It's hard for him to believe anyone in his family would've made a deal with such a dark force.

"I too only have basic self-defense and swordplay. I can run fast, but I do not want to leave you behind."

April considers her options. "Perhaps my other powers?"

Yami continues to survey the area, eyes flicking all over the place. The Shades are making this disturbing hissing noise, and he winces a little as he hears it.

"What have you got on hand?" he asks, quietly.

"Some psychic abilities. I could try to make it appear like we disappeared. If they have minds..."

"Oh, they have minds," Yami answers. "At least, the Crawler certainly does. And if he's mimicking the Darkness in Fable III like Yugi and I think he is, his mind is likely linked to those of the Shades. That just might work."

"Then here goes nothing..."

April knew it would cause a situation that would possibly put her in danger, but she had to close her eyes to do this. And slowly she extended her psychic gifts towards the Crawler.

It would sound a little like that old Star Wars joke, but April was basically implanting the information that 'these are not the people that you seek'. Making it seem like Yami and April had disappeared from sight.

Ahhh, the old Jedi Mind Trick. If she were here, one of the narration's other muses would be proud. The SHades start rubbernecking around, suddenly confused, and Yami takes the opportunity to rip a hole in the air with his light-sword. (Alas, it's not a lightsabre. That would've been awesome.)

"It worked," he tells April. "Come on, while they're distracted!" He grabs her hand and starts for the tear.

The Crawler lets out a roar of rage as it realizes what's happened. It takes a swipe at Yami, but misses. Then it screams, "Per-a'a! We have already exacted Our revenge on the sorcerer who performed the ritual! But you, who broke Narmer's pact, We will destroy even further than We did your Vizier! We will destroy you, Tepeysa-Yami!"

And on that note, they emerge in Dominion City proper; not in front of the Turtle Game Shop, as Yugi had originally intended, but in front of a rather large and lovely mansion. Yami glances around, eyes wide, then sighs, "Joy. We come out on the Kaiba Grounds." Then there's a flash of gold light from the Puzzle, and Yugi's standing in Yami's place, while Yami appears beside him, transluscent once more.

"That was exciting," Yugi notes, panting. "Let's not do that again. And let's also get going before Kaiba's Yugi-sense starts tingling." They start off towards the street on that note.

April was glad to be back in the real world. Though still wondered about the words that the Crawler had declared. Or the disappointment about their location from Yami.

"Does that happen a lot?"

"What? The Shadow Games ambushing me the moment I set foot in the Shadow Realm?" Yami asks. "Thankfully, no. Usually they're not so close at hand." He pushes a hand through his blond bangs, shaking his head. "It... worries me. What it said about Narmer..."

"I think your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is the least of our problems," Yugi says quietly. "I'm more worried about what it said about Malik..."

April unfortunately didn't know who Narmer was, and only recalled a bit about Malik. "Should we address what it said?"

Yugi and Yami both nod, almost in unison. "Most of it is disconcerting," Yami said. "...Then again, I don't know why I thought it would be otherwise. We are talking about the Shadow Games, after all. They've pretty much always been out to destroy... Well. Not the world, but humanity, I suppose." He looks over at April. "If you have any questions about what went on in there, now's as good a time to ask as any."

"I really don't understand a thing about the Shadow Games. Or why those creatures were blaming you for their state. Any information you could provide to me would be nice."

Yami stops walking for a moment before beginning to pace back and forth a little.

"The Shadow Games..." he begins, trailing off before inhaling deeply and continuing, "They're... sort of a malevolent force, bent on destroying or corrupting humanity. They need people to use Their power. It makes Them stronger. They can... grant supernatural abilities to mortals. When I was alive—more specifically, when I was still a child—it was thought that the only people who had Shadow Powers were members of the royal family. Shortly before I became Pharaoh, we discovered otherwise. Eight people outside of the royal family manifested Shadow Powers.

"I knew then that Their influence was spreading, and quickly. I'd experienced the destruction They'd wrought first-hand: my best friend lost his father in one attack. My wife was orphaned during the same attack." He pauses. "That was before I married her, of course."

He resumes walking towards the Turtle Game Shop after a short silence. "As I said to the Crawler... the Shadow Games are a cancer. By the time I took the throne, it had spread far. My country and people were in danger. I vowed to find a way to end their influence. To... cut out the tumour, to return to the cancer metaphor."

A half-minute of silence later, he adds, "My efforts to do so are what killed me. I orchestrated the ritual that imprisoned the Shadow Games in that demi-plane we just visited. That's why They hate me, why They blame me... Why They wish to destroy me."

"I understand imprisoning bad things to another dimension. Clark had to banish The Scourge to a side-dimension, to protect me. And I am sure they still blame me."

"But why is their demi-plane so large? If it has been centuries since their last visits... they should be weak. Right?"

"Not just centuries. Millennia. As for the Shadow Realm, one of the reasons it's so large is because it's merged with the Spirit World. Malik figured that out shortly after he and Bakura came to Dominion. It's one of the reasons we can use it to travel from place to place quickly. Malik says geography in the Spirit World doesn't match up to geography in the real world, so it's a quick way to get places that are physically far apart from one another."

"The Shadow Powers, though," Yugi says, thoughtfully. "They travel in bloodlines. As long as people still manifest them, the Shadow Games have a way of drawing power. And with nine separate people manifesting them when Yami was alive, each of them with families... they'll have lots of descendants at this point."

Yami nods. "Including the Mutou family," he says, winking at Yugi. "Atanu probably manifested Shadow Powers when he was a teenager. After I died." He shrugs. "Bottom line, the Games had a way of drawing power, through the continued manifestation of their Powers in our bloodlines."

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And now I'm going to borrow stuff from Fable III.

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Ancient Egyptian says: "Blessed Lord Ra, lend me Your Light". ...I hope.

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Explanation is WAY off from YGO! canon >.> But then, they are AU.

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