Sneak Peek: Chapter 16: Yugi and Harry and the Shadow Treaty

Yes, I finally have this chapter with my beta reader!

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Joey was confused for the ten seconds it took for him to re-orientate himself and take in the gates of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Then it hit him that they had been teleported away from the fight at the Ministry of Magic and dropped off here. Considering that they had been outmatched and outnumbered, it would not have been a bad thing but there was an issue. A rather big issue. Both Yugi and Harry had been left behind.

“Take us back!” Joey furiously demanded as he glared around at the pair of mages who had side-along apperated them to the school gates, far away from the battle.

“So you can do what?” Moody, the real Moody, asked derisively, “Stand around and get yourself and others killed because you tried to fight someone who’s older, better trained and sneakier than you? You’ve not even taken your fifth year yet and if you could summon those creatures of yours, you would have done by now. If you go back now, you’ll get killed.”

“But...” Joey trailed off when Hermione put a hand on his arm.

“Moody’s right. Even if Harry and Yugi are still there, we’d be in the way.” She murmured quietly as he glowered down her. Her expression told him that she liked it as little as he did, but as per usual she had a much more level head about the situation. “They’d never forgive themselves if we got killed going back for them.”

“The others will be here with your friends in a minute.” Moody’s accomplice, a young woman whose hair could not seem to make up its mind what colour it was, spoke up, trying to reassure them. “I’m sure they’re fine.”

Joey let out an irritated huff. No, they were not ‘fine.’ He knew that already. Even before Harry had nearly fallen, clutching his right arm, Joey had felt like someone had grabbed his heart and squeezed. Just for a moment, but the sensation and the lingering ache afterwards was worryingly familiar. There was nothing physically wrong with him, but he knew what had caused it.

It was a warning. An alarm call. A scream for backup.

Yugi was hurt. Badly.

Harry’s collapse and explanation had only confirmed what he had already known. On its own that would have been bad enough, but the discomfort had only intensified as time went on which was why he wanted to go back so badly. He did not need to though as Professor Lupin arrived in a stream of white and a swirl of white smoke which deposited the werewolf and Harry amongst their group.

Professor Lupin rushed past them, Harry in tow and carrying something in his arms. Hermione did not get a glimpse of what he had, but Joey did and he froze up in horrified shock for a moment before rushing to catch up, all thoughts of going back to the Ministry forgotten.

The trip to the hospital wing had never seemed longer as they raced through the surprisingly full corridors and Joey did not know what to do. Instead he hesitated by the infirmary’s door as the werewolf laid Atem on the nearest bed and called for the school’s healer.

“Yugi...” He breathed as he stepped into the ward, Hermione’s shocked gasp going unnoticed in the face of the reality of seeing his best friend led on a hospital bed, unconscious, deathly pale and bleeding profusely.

SneakPeek: Ennead: For Those We Love: Chapter 4

THIS CHAPTER IS WITH THE BETA READER, I FINISHED THE CHAPTER LAST NIGHT, HENCE WHY THERE WAS NO UPDATE YESTERDAY.  

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“Yuge?” Jou asked, worried, as Oneesan stalked into the room, pieces of cardboard in one hand, dueling glove in the other, golden box poking out of her jacket pocket. He didn’t think he had ever seen the spirit of the Puzzle stay this angry after a Challenge. There were times that had come close, but Oneesan’s rage normally burned out pretty quickly, taking the magic with it. At the moment, however, he could just glimpse the darkness still swirling around her frame and from the looks on the faces of the others, they could too, “You alright?”

“Yes, but he won’t be.” Oneesan snapped, slumping onto the mat and shoving the duelling glove at him. “Here. That insect won’t be needing it anymore.”

“Insect?” Jou examined the glove, noting that there was already a star chip inserted in it as Anzu quietly asked, “You don’t mean Haga?”

“Someone’s going to notice if you’ve driven Haga nuts.” Honda hissed at Oneesan, glancing around and glad that almost everyone had gone back to sleep even as he wished Bakura’s Challenge had not opened his eyes to the magic loose in the world around him. Seeing the Shadows cling to ‘Yugi’s’ frame was creepy, “Can you fix him?”

“He cheated.” Oneesan shrugged, causing the Anzu and Honda to wince, while Bakura let out a resigned sigh. They knew the dangers of cheating during a Challenge. Haga wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. “Besides,” Yugi’s other self continued, “He deserved everything he got.”

“What did he do?” Anzu asked, frowning.

Oneesan’s response was to reveal the pieces of cardboard. Jou swore loudly enough to wake some of the other duelists as he realised what they were.

“He ripped up Exodia?!” Anzu yelped.

“Now you see why I’m quite so ticked?” The ancient ex-Pharaoh asked as she put the pieces away in the box her spares.

Sneakpeak: - Ennead: For Those We Love: Chapter 4

“Stupid bimbo.” Haga grumbled as he rolled the dice and failed, yet again, to get the right number. His last seven rolls had been the same.

Glancing over at Yugi only irritated him further. She seemed to be having all the luck. Once again she was fitting a piece of her statue into place, the second bulbous eye slipping into place easily, leaving just two legs left to insert into the antlike carapace.

He was sure she had to be cheating. That her calm facade was a mask, hiding a smug smirk as she fiddled her rolls in order to cheat him out of victory. No one’s luck was as good as she was trying to make out hers was.

She glanced over at him, waiting for him to take his turn so she could cheat and put one of the last legs in. He just knew it. Anger bubbled away in side him as he picked his die up. She had no right to test him, to judge him.

Yes, she was technically World Champion at his game but that was only down to sheer dumb luck. She would never have defeated Kaiba if it had not been for the fact she had drawn Exodia out of her deck. Now the cards were his. If he couldn’t have them, no one could. Especially not some jumped up rookie duelist. They were wasted on her.

“Finally.” He grouched as he rolled a one, allowing him to add a leg to his almost limbless statue, anger roiling away under the surface as Yugi turned away to take her own turn.

He considered his options. He was not going to win. That much was becoming obvious. She would have to have an insanely bad run of luck to lose now. She was just too far ahead.

But there was something he could do to stop her winning. Their statues and the parts that went with them were colour coded. His green and hers purple. If he stole one of her leg pieces, she couldn’t finish her statue.

He picked up one of the purple legs, grimacing as he tried to work out how such a wimpy looking girl could lift such heavy parts with such ease. He didn’t think to wonder why the purple leg felt like it weighed a ton as he staggered over to his statue and slid the leg into place.

Out of nowhere a wind started up, pushing him away from the now mismatched statue, making him stumble backwards and trip over one of the eye pieces belonging to his statue, hitting the floor with a yelp.

“Well, that was predictable.” Yugi scowled at him as he rubbed his rear, moving away from her statue and stalking towards him, darkness flaring up around her like flames. “Though I did expect it would happen earlier.”

Haga’s smart-alec comment died in his throat as he stared up at her. This wasn’t the Yugi he had talked to earlier. The innocent looking girl with wide, purple eyes, from earlier was gone. Instead this was a vengeful teenager with sharp red eyes and a scowl, who seemed to control the darkness around them like it was an extension of her.

“You cheated Haga.” She informed him, “And for that you will pay.”

“I...I...” Haga stammered, his hand slipping into the pocket where he had stowed the Exodia cards, “He...Here!” He offered them, “You can have them...”

“It’s a little late for that, Haga.” She snapped at him, glowering, “If you had played by the rules, that would have been enough. Now, however...”

Haga started trembling, fear and anger mingling, as he pulled his hand back and stared up at her. The flames that surrounded her were as cold as ice and as they licked around his feet he could feel his toes going numb.

She was a sorceress, there was no other explanation for it. That was how she had been cheating. She had been using her magic to rig the game!

Anger overtook him as the chill continued up his legs and he realised that he had never stood a chance. That she was stood there, looking down on him, judging him.

How dare she? How dare she?!

Well he could get one last shot in before she cast whatever horrible spell she was planning to cast.

“You think you’re so great.” Haga snarled, getting to his feet, “You’re just like everyone else, a lying, cheating cow.” He glowered at her, “You think you’re above everyone else? Just because you can make people see things and create things from nothing?” His expression shifted, to one of a vicious smirk, “Well say goodbye to Exodia.”

He had just enough time to tear the stack of cards in half before the Shadows swarmed him.

Sneakpeak: Shadow Treaty Chapter 15

‘Three down, ten to go.’ Atem mused as he darted between the shelves full of prophecies. It hadn’t taken long to start thinning the herd. Even before he had explained the rules, two of the Death Eaters had tried to hex his friends and another had aimed his way. All three had earned a Penalty for doing so.

He hadn’t had time to weave anything more complex so the rules were really quite simple. Magic was banned for the duration of the game bar, of course, what held the game together and all the Death Eaters had to do to ‘win’ was catch him. If they managed to do that, his life was forfeit.

However there was no way for the Death Eaters to interact with the world around them, the Shadows were ensuring that and if Atem made it to the door, the ten remaining Death Eaters would lose and be trapped in this limbo forever.

That was if they didn’t cheat.

                                                                                                                   

Atem didn’t expect them to play fair. They were Death Eaters, vile disgusting scum who preyed on the weak and ambushed the strong. He couldn’t know for certain but he wouldn’t have been surprised if some of the men he was facing had been involved in the attack that had claimed his Grandfather’s life or had been there the night Kari had been murdered.

“Easy Yami.” Yugi’s voice echoed in his head, trying to soothe him as he heard footsteps heading his way and darted down the aisle, “We’ll win and then they won’t be able to hurt anyone else. But we need to keep our heads in the Game for that.”

The Pharaoh let out a quiet huff at his other half’s words. Yugi was right, getting riled up over what they had done would distract him from the Game at hand. They were horrible wastes of space, worthless rotten souls with power they didn’t deserve but the Death Eaters were his opponents and while he would much rather have sent all of them to Shadow Realm without a second glance, Yugi had insisted that this would give their friends, who could have been caught in the crossfire if the Death Eaters had tried to fight back, a better chance at escaping.

He could hear the Death Eaters trying to co-ordinate. Their voices carried well in the silence that had fallen over the room once Joey had dragged Harry and Hermione out of the door. They seemed to lack a way to communicate quietly without magic, but he wasn’t going to complain. Every time they tried to get a plan together, Atem could hear them and prepare to counter it. It was, worryingly, almost laughably easy.

It was almost, Atem realised with a grimace, as if the Death Eaters he was playing against were the stupid ones, the cannon fodder, the ones that were sent out first to wear down the enemies before the big guns moved in.

“You don’t think...?” Atem could sense Yugi paling as the hikari worked out what was going on in the same moment he did.

‘This is just a diversion.’ The Pharaoh nodded as he changed direction, narrowly avoiding being spotted by a pair of Death Eaters, ‘We need to end this and get to the others. They could be in trouble.’

‘Could be’ was wishful thinking and they both knew it as they darted towards the entrance to the Hall of Prophecy, only to find that three of the remaining Death Eaters were covering the door, blocking their exit.

“We need to lure them away.” Yugi’s thought bounced across the link as Atem pulled away from the door, backing up behind a bookcase so he couldn’t be seen by the guards. “Or we’re not getting out that door.”

Atem was fully aware of that, the question was how. They couldn’t take anything off the shelves to break them and cause a noise, there were spells in place to prevent just that even if they’d been able to interact with the world around them. He didn’t really want to show himself to the Death Eaters, not when he expected them to attempt to hex him on sight, despite the rules in place to try and prevent it from happening.

The choice was taken out of his hands though when a Death Eater came from the other direction, called, “There he is!” and he had to dart out from behind the shelving unit before the call attracted too much attention.

It wasn’t entirely successful. The call had drawn at least three of his opponents to the nearby aisles and Atem’s earlier suspicion was confirmed when he had to duck a bolt of green light that narrowly passed over his head as he rolled under it and struck the Death Eater behind him, killing the man on the spot and sending the caster into a Penalty.

The third Death Eater tried to tackle Atem as he rolled to his feet and kept running, only to miss and tumble into the shelves, which didn’t register the impact in the slightest.

The Pharaoh kept going even as he heard the Death Eater who had fallen calling to his comrades. They converged on the sound, giving Atem a chance to get several aisles away and regain his breath, listening carefully and grimacing when he realised that his opponents had finally gotten smart and were talking in low enough voices that he couldn’t hear them.

With five of the original thirteen down and three more guarding the exit, covering all three direct routes to the door, that left five who were actively chasing him and most likely involved in the quiet conference that was going on a few aisles over. He was doing well to have taken it down by that many, but he wasn’t going to relax yet. It only took one to catch him and then he would, most likely, be killed and Yugi would die with him.

He needed a way to get the guards away from their posts so he could slip through the doors but unlike the Death Eaters he wasn’t going to cheat and use magic to aid him.

“Hey Yami?” Yugi asked as they heard the sounds of movement, the enclave of Death Eaters breaking up to enact whatever plan they had come up with to trap them, “I have an idea...”