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 4

The invitations were completely forgotten the next day after he woke up to Yugi’s distress and bolted into the corridor between rooms to find out what was wrong and found Yugi had finally come around enough to notice the state of his soul room.

The pair of them worked together for most of the day to start shifting through the damaged and broken toys within Yugi’s room, setting those that were still mostly whole safely to one side, while they worked to try and shore up or piece together the ones that they could save and put aside those that were empty with the hope of recovering what had been lost later.

There was still an awful lot of work to do when Yugi started drifting off again, but the teen didn’t agree to rest until Yami had promised him that the moment he was up to it, they would spend as much time as was needed fixing the damage where they could. It was dangerous, Yami reminded his light, for him to tamper with the soul room too much at the best of times, yet alone while Yugi was so weak and his soul in such a fragile state and it was quite possible that some of the damage would undo itself if Yugi just allowed himself to rest properly.

Yugi backed down at that, agreeing to wait until he was fully recovered, but Yami could tell something about the way he had phrased it had bothered the teen, who had flopped down on the bed, turned his back on Yami and fallen asleep so swiftly that if Yugi hadn’t been so injured, Yami would have suspected him to be faking it.

Over the course of that day and most of the next, Yami spent most of his time flitting between the infirmary, helping Yugi build protections in his mind to stop this sort of thing from happening again, and the Gryffindor tower, catching some sleep. He was pleased to see Yugi perk up a bit again when Harry came around at dusk of the following day, though neither of them were allowed out of the hospital wing yet.

By the End of Term banquet Yugi had, physically at least, seemed to regain most of his bounciness, though Yami could still sense the pain beneath the surface and Harry, who had been tired and lethargic for a couple of days as he recovered from his fight with Quirrelmort, s Joey was calling him, was back to his old self. This meant that Madam Pomfrey had no excuse to not follow Professor Dumbledore’s orders that both of them were to be allowed to go to the feast.

They were released the afternoon before to give them time to pack to leave the following day. Once they were away from the quiet infirmary, however, Yami and the others had to do what they could to protect Yugi and Harry from the hordes of students who wanted to know everything that had happened down in the mirror room and hadn’t been able to get any information from the others.  It wasn’t easy though and it was a relief when they all piled onto the train.

It didn’t take Yugi long to settle at Yami’s side and fall asleep and they settled in quietly, discussing their plans for the summer and cheering up Harry when they realised how little he wanted to go back to the Dursleys by coming up with more and more elaborate plans for kidnapping him and bringing him to Japan.

Finally, when they tired of that topic, having run out of things to do that wouldn’t leave the Dursleys with long term scarring, Kari brought up something that had been bothering her since the leaving feast.

“I know this is going to sound ungrateful and everything else, but does anyone else think Professor Dumbledore was wrong to give us those extra points at the feast?” She asked with a frown, causing the others to look at her.

This prompted a discussion about the fact that where anyone else could have been expelled for some of the stunts they had pulled and at least would have lost house points, they had been given points in front of the whole school AFTER Slytherin had been announced as the winners. In hindsight it wasn’t very fair to anyone who had worked hard to earn their house points over the course of the year.

By the time they had settled between them that, if they went back to Hogwarts next year, they would earn the House Cup rather than steal it at the last minute, they had arrived at Kings Cross Station and the group parted ways after a minor set to with Harry’s uncle.

Clanverse whatif: Yugi and Harry and the Broken Chains: Part 3

By the time the pair of them had been through the chest, Yugi was pale and shaking and Yami was ready to slaughter someone. They had tendered their resignation from Hogwarts twice before, once before they had even started at the madhouse Dumbledore had the audacity to call a school. The way they had remembered it, though, the Headmaster had shown up, given them the basics about the school and they had jumped at the chance without a second thought.

In hindsight it was so out of character for them he should have been wary, but it just hadn’t occurred to him.

The second time they had tried to withdraw was worse. Most of the broken and damaged memories weren’t actually the fault of the wizards doing the sealing. No, that had happened because Yami had failed in his most important task and Voldemort had gotten into Yugi’s soul room in an attempt to possess him and the pair of them had fought.

It was a net loss of about three years worth of memories, most of them from between the time Yugi had solved the Puzzle and gone to Hogwarts. Thankfully though there weren’t many of them that were in a huge chunk together and with the ‘fuzzy’ memories regained, Yugi was easily able to piece together his history a bit better.

Yugi had been in a lot of pain after the fight. Voldemort’s attacks on his soul had left him in a dire state. It had only been through Yami’s intervention that he was still here. The wizards would have removed him from Yami’s side if they had had their way, placing him in St. Mungo’s long term care ward where he would have been kept sedated ‘for his own good.’

Yami, of course, had said no. Firmly. So firmly in fact it had ended in a Shadow Game between the Pharaoh and the Headmaster. Though Yami didn’t remember the Game, suggesting that it had been wiped from his mind, it had obviously ended in their favour. It was after that game that they had tried to withdraw from the school.

They had remembered none of this before they had found the chest. The memories that they had had before hand spoke of a swift recovery and little to no interact with healers or teachers.

The final set of memories they had found were of events that had transpired over the last school year. Things like Yugi’s Shadow Game against Draco and the battle against the basilisk had been hidden away in the chest. Yami had seen the memories before, Yugi had shared them with him after he had come round from the petrifaction. Yugi, however, felt like he was seeing events for the first time.

“They have to be doing this to the others too.” Yugi mumbled as he tried to settle down, the truth of how close he and Harry had come to dying multiple times and how little Dumbledore seemed to care for the safety of his students seriously worrying him. Yugi’s eyes widened he thought about the fact that most of the memories that had been sealed away involved Harry. “Harry!” Yugi yelped, “We promised we’d check up on him!”

“I know.” Yami nodded, having caught the man in the process of editing the duplicate of that particular memory. “But I was more concerned about...”

“Yami, we left him with the Dursleys.” Yugi interrupted, “The Dursleys! We know what they’re like. Harry’s told us multiple times, apparently. And they took our memories of that away!” Yugi paused, determination creeping into his features, “We have to go get him.”

“How?” Yami asked, not disagreeing with his other self, but trying to think through the logistics of kidnapping their friend and bringing him to Japan. “And are we bringing Hermione and Ron too?”

“Ideally.” Yugi was thoughtful, “There’s no way their memories haven’t been tampered with somewhere along the line. But I’m not sure how to do it without worrying their families or alerting Dumbledore.”

“Even if we just go and get Harry we’re going to need help.” Yami admitted, “We couldn’t smuggle him back on a plane and we don’t, exactly, have any way to get to England without...what?” Yami asked warily as Yugi got a speculative look.

“Mahado, the Dark Magician.” Yugi explained, “He’s still hanging around right?”

“As are the rest of the Duel Monsters we accidently summoned.” Yami nodded.

“He might have a way of travelling we haven’t considered, or a few spells we could use.” Yugi pointed out, “And even if he hasn’t, he might be able to help us find one. He’s a fully trained magician after all, we’re still students.”

That was a surprisingly good idea and Yami couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t gone to Mahado regarding what he could teach them before.

“Let’s talk to the others, then we’ll make rescue plans.” Yami grinned at him, a vaguely vindictive smirk that spoke of trouble ahead for their adversaries. “Don’t worry. Now we know that they’re doing, they won’t be getting away with it again. I won’t let them.”

Clanverse whatif: Yugi and Harry and the Broken Chains: Part 2

Yami didn’t answer, he didn’t need to as he searched the room for magicks that shouldn’t be there. Yugi swiftly joined him, not sure what his darker self was looking for but very aware that it had to be something bad if Yami was this ticked off. Between them it didn’t take long to discover the locked chest hidden away under the bed in the corner of the room.

“Don’t touch it. Not yet.” Yami cautioned when Yugi moved to drag it out, certain that the chest, which looked a lot like the one he used in real life for his Hogwarts equipment, was not something he recognised. The hikari moved back, allowing his dark first access to the storage trunk.

Yami scowled as he defused the trap that had been set, his anger only getting worse as he realised that someone had not only changed things in Yugi’s soul room, but had been setting up traps against the room’s own owner. Once it was safe, he and Yugi pulled out the heavy wooden box.

“I didn’t set that up.” Yugi worried at his darker self, his hand brushing the wooden surface. Under normal circumstances he would have marvelled at how real the texture was, despite this all being in his head, but right now he was too worried to consider it.

“I know.” Yami was focused on the lock as he tried to break the spell holding it shut only to look chagrined when Yugi reached under the bed, felt around for a bit and then pulled the key out.

“Wizards are lazy.” Yugi reminded his darker self as he put the key in the lock, “And they wouldn’t want to spend ages casting the spells if they were worried about getting caught. You terrify them, remember?”

Yami just looked smug at that, even as he took Yugi’s hand off of the key and turned it himself, expecting a trap. Shockingly there wasn’t one, but when they looked at the items in the chest it was rather disturbing to discover over half of them were broken or damaged.

Yugi let out a soft gasp as he beheld the sight. Each of these things, be them toys or games or trophies or pictures, held a memory or a group of related memories. If they were damaged or broken, it was highly possible the memory inside would be corrupted or worse, lost forever.

“Careful.” Yami murmured as Yugi reached for one of the few undamaged ones.

Yugi didn’t reply, too intent on regaining his sealed memories. Instead he just picked up the first item, a small, rather fancy looking mirror with some sort of message above it that looked like it should be in latin but was in fact just mirror writing, and let the memory sweep him away.

Clanverse whatif: Yugi and Harry and the Broken Chains: Part 1

It had been a long time since Yami had activated a Shadow Game. Most of his dealings with the dark realm in more recent years had been instigated by someone else. However the Shadows were more than willing to answer his furious call, descending upon the fool of a wizard who dared try to erase his memories of the previous school year.

The wizard didn’t stand a chance. The Shadows were hungry and Yami was more than willing to let them feast. The Pharaoh dragged the truth out of his attacker, that he had been hired by the International Confederate of Wizards to ‘encourage’ them to return to Hogwarts in September, before allowing the darkness to sweep him away.

He knew what had brought this on. They had sent letters to the school just a few days ago, withdrawing from Hogwarts. With everything that had happened there during the school year Yami had managed to convince Yugi that it was better for everyone if they stayed away. Of course if Yugi wasn’t going, Kari and Joey had no interest in disappearing for nine months of the year and Ombre went where her hikari went. If Kari wasn’t going, neither was she. Yami had also spoken to Kaiba who was refusing to go anywhere near that madhouse that they called a school and would not be sending Mokuba back either.

This was quite obviously the response to their letters and Yami was ready to destroy anyone who had agreed that this was a good idea.

For the first time he was glad that the Puzzle guarded its secrets so carefully. The wizard had been casting spells when Yami had found him, but the ‘memories’ he had been carefully editing had been fakes, generated by the Puzzle in order to confuse and confound anyone trying to find anything useful. All the spells had done was alert Yami to a foreign presence in his mind and give the Pharaoh some idea of what the enemy was trying to do.

He slipped out of his soul room, stepping over the body of the mindless wreck of a wizard and headed for Yugi’s bedroom. His hikari had to be told about this affront. He knew Yugi would try and talk him out of taking vengeance, but he still had to be told. When he reached Yugi’s room, however, he found his hikari led on his bed, pouring over his potions’ text book and frowning at a piece of parchment.

“Yugi?” Yami asked, confused.

“Can you check this for me?” Yugi asked, looking up at him with a hopeful expression.

“I thought we weren’t bothering with doing the homework since we aren’t going back.” Yami replied, dread sinking in as he realised that he hadn’t seen Yugi for a couple of hours.

“Ah... uhh, Yami...” Yugi trailed off, looking sheepish as the Pharaoh moved across the room, “I wanted to talk to you about...” He trailed off as he felt the Pharaoh’s anger flare up. It wasn’t aimed at him but he was in a foul mood and Yugi could feel the Shadows just waiting to lash out at the slightest provocation, “Yami? What’s wrong?”

“Yugi, I need you to come with me a minute.” The Pharaoh’s anger was obvious in his tone and Yugi quickly closed his text book, pushing his parchment to one side and scrambling to his feet.

“Sure, where...?” Yugi paused, confusion obvious as his darker self pushed him sitting. “What’s going on?” The hikari asked, worried now. Yami was acting weird and Yugi didn’t know what was causing it.

“Just come with me to your soul room.” The Pharaoh didn’t explain. Yugi didn’t need him to. He trusted Yami without question, acting weird or not, and he took a deep breath before mentally ‘stepping back’ into the corridor between his mind and Yami’s.

The Pharaoh was waiting for him, the powerful spirit’s anger manifesting as an aura of shadows that roiled and blazed like flames. Yugi didn’t understand what was going on, or why Yami was so furious when he had seemed so happy earlier, but he knew he had to try to calm him. He reached out, putting his hand on Yami’s arm, concerned confusion etched on his features.

“Yami. Please talk to me.” Yugi ignored the pins and needles in his hand and arm where they contacted with the dark energy, “What’s happened?”

“There was someone in my soul room.” Yami explained, hesitating at the door to Yugi’s soul room until Yugi preceded him and pulled him in after, shaking his head in amusement at Yami’s actions. No matter how many times Yugi told the spirit who had once shared his body that he was welcome in Yugi’s soul room any time, Yami always waited until Yugi had invited him in to enter.

Then what Yami had said actually sank in.

“Someone in your...” Yugi’s eyes widened, shock obvious.

“Well, in the maze that makes it up.” Yami shrugged, already scanning the room and noting that it looked different from how he remembered it being this morning, causing the shadows surrounding him to flare up once again for a moment before Yugi let out a sharp, pained hiss and pulled away from him. Almost instantly the Pharaoh pulled the power back within himself and opened his mouth to apologise, only to note that Yugi was looking around his soul room, implications already sinking in.

“You think they got in here first.” Yugi suddenly understood his darker self’s anger far too well.