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.

Digital Distraction: Part 35

It was unsurprisingly dim lit beyond the curtain. The same sort of holographic torches as in the dining hall were spread unevenly around the room and didn’t light the room particularly well. She could see well enough get a grip on the layout though.

The huge throne was what caught her attention though and she froze when she realised that there was a huge man in heavy looking black armour and a helmet that covered his face, on the giant obsidian throne. She hadn’t seen him on the security cameras and she knew that no one could have followed her in.

When he didn’t seem to react to her presence, she figured he had to be a hologram whose programming hadn’t been fully activated yet and risked entering the room further, taking in the painting on the floor that looked like it was a magic circle of some variety.

She made her way over and recognised it, on closer inspection, as the magic circle the ShadowSwords had thrown her into when they had planned on sacrificing her to the Shadows four years ago, leaving her confused. Pegasus had told her that they planned on sacrificing every player coming to the beta test, but the circle here wasn’t big enough for that.

Either Pegasus had fed her false information or there was something going on here that she didn’t know about.

She risked turning her back on the hologram on the throne to see if there was some way that she could disturb the seal on the floor, to put paid, at least, to this part of their plans.

It wasn’t hard to come up with an idea. She pulled her purse out of her bag and fumbled around for a coin. She tried scratching at the paint and was pleased when the paint started to chip away.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” Dani had just enough time to let out a startled squeak and start turning around before an arm coated in black armour wrapped around her chest and she was dragged away from the circle.

“Let me go!” She struggled and kicked out, trying to break free from what was obviously not a hologram as she was dragged to a heavy metal door in the wall opposite the generically evil looking dark throne. “Let me...ack!” She yelped as she was slammed against the wall and held there by the throat by a gloved hand, the metal of it cutting into her neck as his hand pressed firmly, partially cutting off her airways and distracting her enough to allow the man to unlock the door with his other hand as she focused more on trying to get his hand away from her neck than she did on what he was up to.

The door opened before she could free herself and the armoured knight quite literally chucked her inside. She hit the granite floor with a pained yelp as the door slammed closed and locked behind her, leaving her trapped in a almost lightless room that, from what she could tell only had one way out.

“Well shit.” She grumbled as she backed away from the metal door, her eyes still adjusting to the fact that the only light was the dim stream coming in under the door. Suddenly her foot hit something on the floor that let out a weak whimper. She knelt down to feel for the cause of the sound, only for her hands to find a person shaped form, with their hands bound behind their back and their ankles tied together.

“Yami?” She asked, swiftly untying him, blindfold and all and helping him sit when it became obvious he couldn’t on his own, reaching in her backpack for a bottle of water when he tried to reply only for his voice to crack. “Here, drink this.”

Dani had to pull the bottle away when he tried to down the whole lot in one sitting, wincing he let out a piteous moan. “I know. I know.” Dani tried to reassure him, “But if you drink too much at once you could drown yourself and then your brother would kill me.”

“Ya...Yami?” The teen asked after another few mouthfuls. Dani frowned slightly, she couldn’t make out who she was talking to properly but it didn’t sound like the Yugi she had been talking to on the boat.

“Which Yugi are you?” She couldn’t help but ask, confusion obvious in her tone. She felt the body leant against her flinch and hastened to add, “It doesn’t matter, but if you’re the one who was kidnapped, I thought you were Yami.”

“N...No.” The teenager replied still tripping over his words as his voice croaked again. “Yami...uses my name...has done for years.” Yugi chugged down the last of the bottle. “A...Any more?”

“Water?” Dani asked, when she felt Yugi nod, she pulled a sandwich out of her bag. “Eat first, you’ve got to be...” She was pleased and highly amused when Yugi snatched the sandwich from her hands, his eyes long adjusted to the darkness after being blindfolded for two days. “There’s more in the bag.” She told him, as he scoffed it rapidly.

“Thank you.” Yugi said between mouthfuls, sounding grateful even as he took the other sandwich from her.

“You’re welcome, Yugi.” Dani informed him, “Do you think you’ll be able to walk soon?”

“My legs are sore and stiff but I can try.” Yugi replied honestly.

“Okay, you fill up while I check the door.” She nudged the bag closer to him, “Just remember to drink slowly.” She reminded him as she pulled a set of hairpins out of the bag and edged over towards the door, feeling it for the keyhole.

“Who are you?” Yugi asked as she searched the door blind.

“My name’s Danielle, my friends call me Dani, my reader call me D.M.G.” She told him, grinning when she found the keyhole, “And we are getting the hell out of here.”

C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 29

“Hey!” Tea protested as she was shoved into a stone cell hard enough to stumble, preventing her from trying to bolt out before the heavy metal door slammed shut.

“Shut up.” The hooded mook who was locking her cell door growled, his companion limping slightly where she had driven her rather heavy boot into his foot.

“Why should I?” Tea demanded, glaring at him through the small barred window in the huge metal door.

“Because if you want to get out of here, you’ll shut up and do what you’re told.” The hooded creep informed her. “After all, the only people who know you’re here are our men. Your friend’s been drugged so heavily, if he wakes up in time for the ritual he’ll be lucky.”

Tea winced, having been pulled away from Yami, who they had taken to another part of the castle. They needed him. They had only survived the last few hundred ‘End of the World’ scenarios because the Pharaoh had been there to save the day. If Yami wasn’t going to wake up in time, she were in a lot of trouble and so was everyone on the island.

The mook seemed pleased at that reaction and he and his companion stalked off, leaving Tea alone in the dungeons.

She hadn’t expected to get thrown in the dungeon when she had been dragged out of the secret tunnels. She didn’t know what she had expected, but being separated from Yami and dragged down to the lower dungeon level hadn’t been on her list.

She had hoped to at least pass Yugi when she had realised where she was being taken but she hadn’t seen any sign of him which really worried her. She didn’t know if her friends had already managed to get him out or whether he was being held in a different part of the castle, and she was worried that, now they had Yami, they had had gotten rid of Yugi.

Yami would never forgive himself if he survived this and Yugi didn’t.

Tea didn’t bother pacing the cell, instead barging the door just once before spending the first ten minutes trying to get her arm through the bars on the door to allow her to either pick the lock or work out some other way of escaping.

When that didn’t work, she moved away from the door for a little bit to work out another way of opening the door.

She had no intention of being the damsel in distress again. She was sick of it. She had been planning on taking self defence lessons for that exact reason. Annoyingly they had been due to start next week.

Still she wasn’t as helpless as the bad guys thought she was. They hadn’t bothered to check her bag, believing her to be less of a threat then the King of Games. That meant she still had everything that she had packed ‘just in case.’ Including the set of lock picks she had been practising with ever since Marik had kidnapped her. She just had to, somehow, manage to reach the lock on the other side of the door.

She would have picked the lock from her side, except she didn’t appear to have a keyhole she could use to do so.

“I have to have something in here I can use.” Tea grouched as she went through her backpack, “I packed everything bar the kitchen si...ah ha!” She grinned as she pulled a small spool of crafting wire from her bag. “Let’s see if this works...”