Ennead Afterlife: Dark Side, The Pharaoh's Alerted

It had been a long day of ruling and the Pharaoh was looking forward to just spending some time with her brother and friends and playing some games as she headed for her chambers, then, in the evening, as she had been doing for the last couple of years, she could check in on her friends in the living world before bed. Not that she was too worried about them. While Imoto still had the occasional magical issue pop up, her friends had been mostly safe since she had moved on and Yugi had temporarily retired from the competitive Dueling circuit. The only one she was particularly worried about was Kaiba and even that was more because she did not like his odds of maintaining his sanity when he realised she could not be summoned back if he completed the Puzzle again, then because she was afraid someone was going to kill him.

“Sister.” The Pharaoh grinned as her brother joined her in the corridor, “You up for Senet tonight? I'm going to beat you this time.”

“You haven't beaten me ye...” The Pharaoh's gloating was cut off by a sudden feeling of power being ripped out of her, causing a cry of pain as she stumbled and fell to her knees as a bolt of blue energy raced away from her and out of the nearest window.

“Sister!” Atem knelt next to her, looking worried, supporting her. “What just happened?”

“I...I'm not sure...” Her reply did not reassure him but it was honest as she tried to assess what had just happened. “I...I think someone just summoned Obelisk...”

“What?! But only you can do that!” Atem yelped, his face pale.

“Me or Imoto...” She agreed, pushing herself onto her feet. “And possibly one other...I need my mirror.”

“Let me help.” Her brother insisted on having her lean on him, despite the fact she felt okay bar the sudden loss of one of the God Monsters that rested within her soul. The pair headed straight for her bedchambers and the large, enchanted mirror within. The Pharaoh had begged Anubis for this mirror to the living world and she still owed him for allowing her to have it. It was enchanted so she could see, but not interact with her friends in the world of the living. Normally that was enough, but today, as she pressed her palm against it and called up it's magic worry coursed through her, “Show me the one who has summoned Obelisk the Tormentor.”

Kaiba appeared on it's reflective surface, duelling some guy who was clearly using magic at the Ceremonial Duel site where she had fought her final Duel with her sister. She did not entirely understand what was going on, but she could clearly see that Kaiba had dug up all the Puzzle pieces and it looked like his opponent wanted them. Obelisk returned to her when Kaiba's adversary, a man the CEO called Diva, fled the magical duel in favour of chasing Mokuba, but she was too caught up in what was going on to pay attention to anything except the rather satisfying head butt that Mokuba dealt out to Diva, knocking him away from the Puzzle pieces.

“Sister?” Atem asked her as she sat back, allowing the magic to fade as Kaiba jetted off to wherever he was headed next.

“One second, brother.” She murmured, putting her hand against the glass again, “Show me Mutou Yugi.” She specified, wanting to know that her precious little sister was okay. Atem let out a frustrated huff when Yugi appeared in the mirror but the Pharaoh was relieved to see her doing something as mundane as her homework.

“Your vessel is fine, sister.” Atem spoke without thinking and then backed up quickly when the Pharaoh gave him the darkest glare she had ever aimed his way.

“Imoto is much more than just my vessel, Atem. She is half of me. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.” The Pharaoh hissed out, furious, “How many times do I have to remind you of that?”

“She's a mortal commoner.” Atem reminded her. “She's not of our caste.”

“Technically she's a noble merchant and Ra's representative on Earth.” The Pharaoh corrected him, as she got up to leave, “And when she finally joins us here, when it's her time, she will be ruling at my side as my other half, as is her right.” Atem scowled, “What?”

“She's not you.” Atem protested, “I accept your right to rule over us since you were Pharaoh, not me, but she's not Egyptian. She doesn't know our ways and customs. You can't expect our people to accept her.”

“What would it take for you to accept her?” The Pharaoh challenged, planning to deal with this when she got back, sick and tired of the constant jibes from her brother about her little sister. Especially after everything Imoto had gone through to protect the world and help her get to the afterlife.

“What did she do? To earn this level of respect and trust from you?” Atem asked.

“I've told you...”

“Told me, but not shown me. Call it up on the mirror. Let me see for myself.”

“I don't have time for this, Atem.” The Pharaoh scowled at him as she headed for the door, “I need to get to the gates. If someone magical is after the Puzzle, I might be needed.”

“You can't go back. You know that, right?” Atem pointed out as he blocked her path, “So what's the rush? Anubis isn't going to let you break through the gates even if your Puzzle gets completed again.”

The Pharaoh stared at him, trying to work out if he was serious or not. “Brother…I need to go…why won’t you see that?”

“I do, I just…” He hesitated then sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “I just don’t want you to get stuck on that side of the gates again.”

She paused at that, “Atem…”

“I know…I know I can’t stop you…That I shouldn’t stop you but…” Atem pulled her into a hug, “I can’t lose you. Not again.” She felt him trembling and hugged back, hoping to soothe his worried mind, realising that a lot of his bloody-mindedness over Imoto was him being worried about her trying to go back to the world of the living and getting trapped again.

“You won’t lose me.” The Pharaoh promised, “I just can’t leave Imoto to face this alone if there’s anything I can do to help her. Not when this is over my Puzzle.”

“Pendant.” Atem corrected sullenly as he pulled away, trying not to look like he’d been crying.

“Not anymore brother.” She sighed. “It shattered, remember? It’s a Puzzle now.”

Atem did not answer for a moment or two, then he sighed and moved aside. “Go…but I do want to meet this sister of ours one day. If she’s as amazing as you insist she is, I’m going to love her…”

“Oh you will.” She promised, “And Atem?”

“Yes, sister?” He asked, looking a little worried for her.

“Thank you.” She darted for the door, pausing as she slipped out to promise, “I’ll be back soon.”

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, ‘Weneed 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 finallygotten 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...”

Clanverse: Shadow Treaty Missing Scene

Takes place between Chapters 9 and 10

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It had been bad enough when something had sliced across the link, cutting him off from Yugi and preventing him from doing anything to find his friend except go to his last location. When fear crashed across the link from Yami just milliseconds before Harry lost the link completely, the English Wizard knew something had just gone very, very wrong.

Yami didn’t getfrightened. In the four years he had known the Pharaoh, Harry had never known Yami to be scared of anything. But he had been in the final moments before the link had shattered. Terrified of something.

Harry didn’t know what but it scared him. Knowing that there was something out there that could frighten the Pharaoh. Especially when Yami’s fear had been followed by the complete disappearance of the link. The logical part of him reminded him that the link had been playing up all summer. Every time Yugi and Yami had been in a Shadow Game the bond had disappeared, leaving Harry panicking and even without magic messing with it it had been fragile.

Still something was different this time, something within him screamed bloody murder and vengeance and everything else along those lines. His heart knew, before Wolf could let out his mournful howl and the wails of every Duel Monster in the park could rise along with it.

Yami Mutou was dead.

Truly dead this time. Not just suspected or unconfirmed. The Duel Monsters could feel it, the shift in the balance of power as the Shadows latched onto Yugi, the new Pharaoh, feeding the maelstrom of pain and power that had risen in the centre of the park.

Without having to think Harry knew what was causing it, his own heart echoed with the same pain and grief as part of himself suddenly vanished.

This wave of magic, this tornado of light, shadows, grief and pain, was Yugi’s scream as half of his soul was ripped away.

Without thinking Harry darted for the tornado. Yugi was alive, for now at least, but Harry knew what would happen. With Yami dead, Yugi wouldn’t want to live. Not after the steady decline he had suffered during second year. They all knew what would happen. Yugi would slowly lose his mind and his grip on his powers, until he burned himself out.

Harry could easily see Yugi not even thinking about that possibility. Instead he could easily see the scream of Yugi’s soul being turned on whoever had caused the death of the Pharaoh and taking them both out.

He couldn’t let it happen. He didn’t want it to happen. He needed his friend just as badly as Yugi needed him. Without Yugi and Yami to keep him from sinking into misery every time the populace turned on him he didn’t think he could cope with Hogwarts, or life in general. He needed their unconditional support, the unconditional support of all of his friends in fact.

And it had already been proved that without Yugi the gang would fall apart. Yugi was the glue that held them together. Last summer, when Yugi’s soul had been stolen, the team had dissolved, almost irreparably. They needed Yugi.

Harry tumbled as the tornado of power vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Rolling to his feet, he caught a glint of gold and silver in the undergrowth. He pulled on the metal chain, dragging what it was connected to out of the bushes.

Seeing the Millennium Puzzle discarded as if it was a piece of trash drove the worry into anger as he took off again. The item was his friend’s greatest treasure and the symbol of the bond they had all made. To see it covered in dirt and muck infuriated him.

He slipped the chain over his head as he continued running, only to stumble again as Yami’s darkness slipped into place in his mind. Realising that Yami must have been sent back to the Puzzle upon his demise he used a trick he had learned from Yugi. Somehow he managed to keep enough of his mind on his sprint to prevent him from injuring himself, while the rest slipped into the Puzzle.

The corridor was dim. Yugi’s door, which usually provided the most light was sealed tight, closed for the first time since Harry had joined the bond. Yami’s on the other hand, was wide open and the corridor was wet, as was the entrance to the Pharaoh’s soul room. Inside, still within the puddle, Yami was led on the ground, unconscious, almost as if he’d been washed into the room.

“Yami!” Harry darted forward, shaking the Pharaoh, trying to wake him. “Yami wake up!” Harry frowned when Yami let out a pained groan and tried the one thing that would alwaysbring Yami round in one shot, “Yugi needs you!”

“Yugi?” Yami asked, eyes opening slowly as he tried to pull himself together, “I can’t…”

“He’s still alive.” Harry promised the Pharaoh, hoping that the disappearance of the tornado didn’t mean he was a liar. “I’m going to him now.” Harry paused, let out a deep breath and then made an offer he was not entirely ready to make as he helped Yami to his feet, “Take over.”

“Harry…” Yami trailed off, hesitation at taking over his friend’s body warring with his innate desire to ensure Yugi’s safety.

“Go!” Harry shoved him towards the door.

Yami didn’t need any more encouragement to dart out into the corridor and take control of Harry’s body in order to rescue the light half of his soul.

Harry had known he wouldn’t.