//------------------------------// // Episode 2: Hungry for Trouble. // Story: Yu-Gi-Oh E-Quest: Malefic Wars // by DakariKingMykan //------------------------------// EPISODE TWO The Brothers sat in their lair, impressed with all the energy gathered from the previous duel. Rubeus was especially pleased, especially the way Sunset had dueled. “She still has no clue yet.” he said “She’ll play a more vital role in our conquest than she thinks. Right Loki…?” His brother didn’t answer; he was far too busy thinking of ways to impress someone else he had on his mind-- Celestia. “Should we have a queen-sized bed or king-sized?” he wondered “I wonder what dress a Malefic Queen should have.” Rubeus shook his head grimly at him. His brother looked up, “What? Just making preparations for when she joins the family.” Dismayed, Rubeus could only sigh, “You still believe she can be persuaded?” Loki stood and looked seriously at his brother. “She won’t be able to resist. Then again, she won’t have much of a choice anyway.” Celestia hadn’t had a single dizzy spell ever since her last one, during the tournament. For now, she and the group were helping to care for Sunset. “How are you feeling now?” she asked. “I feel fine…” replied Sunset. “I just needed some rest, but I tell you… I’ve never had a duel like that before. I felt like I was going to pass out.” Rainbow held up the card which the Melefican was imprisoned in. Unlike previous entrapments, he was now nothing more than flat picture on the card. Unlike Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike…! Sunset gasped and quickly felt through her jacket pockets, and pulled out the two cards. “It’s about time you got us out.” grumbled Spike. Princess Twilight could only smile up at all her friends and they beamed down at her. Sci-Twi, which was a preferred nickname for her when in the vicinity of the princess, “I’m so happy you two are safe.” said Sunset. “Uh… they’re not really safe yet.” Raven pointed out. “We still have figure out how to release them.” Everyone agreed, and felt the only people who knew to them would be The Brothers, and they were hiding… somewhere out there in the ever expanding dark realm. All ways looked the same-- dark building, dark lands, dark mountains, and wide open areas which lead to who knew where. There were practically a million places where they would be hiding. “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Dick “We’re all in this together now, and we’ll all look out for each other just like we did in the tournament.” Everyone else agreed, except for one…! Gar had remained by himself ever since the duel ended. He pulled up the turtleneck on his shirt so that it went past his mouth, and then he took the remains of his tattered sphere-hood and broke it up into a long strip that he was able to lather around his head like a cowl, one again covering nearly his entire face. To complete the ensemble, he pulled out of his pocket a pair of dark thick sunglasses to wear over his eyes. “Gar… what are you doing?” asked Dick. He wouldn’t answer him or even look his way, and he began to walk of. “Hey!!” shouted Rainbow as she dashed over and stopped in front of him “Where do you think you’re going?” Still not stopping, Gar answered, “I’m going to find those two creeps.” “And just how do you intend to?” called Sunset. “The traditional way-- Look!” Everyone was already turned off by his attitude, but the Titans weren’t going to take this-- now that they knew who he was. It was Kori who ran up to him first. “Gar, wait please!” He wouldn’t stop, until she finally stood in front of him. “Get out of my way!” “No! Not until we talk about this.” Gar was really growing impatient. “I’m not going to play along with you idiots!” “Hey!” snapped Dick “Don’t you talk to Kori like that ever again!” Gar turned to look at him sharply. “I can do anything I want, however I want, whenever I want, to whomever I want.” Raven approached him furiously. “Are you even the slightest bit aware, that you came so close to doing me serious injury?!” She referred to their last duel when he sent her slamming into the wall and broke her duel disk. Even though his face was still covered, they could all see his remorseless expression. Terra was almost afraid to approach him. “I can survive just as fine without you guys.” “No, you can’t!” bellowed Rainbow. “Look, we get that you don’t like us. In fact, I hate your guts, but we’re all in this together, and the best chance we have is by staying together.” Everyone agreed, but Gar was completely unmoved. “I don’t need help, especially from a bunch of wannabe super heroes like you Equestrians, or a bunch of traitors like the Titans!” Everyone, even Princess Twilight felt horribly struck by his words, and it was becoming quite clear there was no reasoning with him… …But Terra wasn’t willing to give up so easily. She finally found her courage and approached him. “Gar… please, listen to me. I know it’s been a long time, and I know how you feel, but please, can’t we just try and talk this over? I want to make things right.” He spoke very deeply and gruffly at her. “Get away from me!” She backed away from him as if he was pointing a gun at her, and he turned and began to walk away into the dark lands. “And one last thing…” he called to them “…The name is “Masquerade!” Then he was gone. “We can’t just let him go off like that.” said Fluttershy. “What choice do we have?” asked Vic. “He doesn’t want to work with us.” Rainbow blew at her bangs, “We don’t need that jerk! Let him get turned into a card for all I care.” “Rainbow… that is enough!” snapped Celestia. “All this insulting, blaming and anger… We don’t need things to get any worse.” “She’s right.” agreed Sunset. “Much as I’m not fond of his yelling at us, if we run into again, we should keep trying to reason with him.” Rarity nodded… Pinkie nodded… Sci-Twi agreed to it herself. “He may be a jerk, and he’s nasty, and I have a big score to settle with him… but nobody deserves the situation we’re in.” Princess Twilight felt like shedding a tear for the acts of morality being shown. Even the Titans didn’t really want to give up on him. “He was one of us once.” said Dick “He was a Teen Titan, and we sort of… drove him away.” The other Titans looked extremely remorseful and guilty; especially Terra-- She still hadn’t told them the one most desperate part of her side of the story. Kori agreed too, but she like her teammates were still very heart-struck. “I just can’t believe-- he was gone for five years, and he was in front of us all the time?” “We searched for him,” said Dick. “I never thought we’d ever find him again… or like this—so angry, so callous and cold.” “…Or so skilled.” said Vic. He referred to his cunning, his gamer skills, and his athletics, not to mention an incredible world-wide reputation. Raven said nothing; she still wasn’t so sure how to feel about this. She was still horribly infuriated with him, and she had good reason. All she was rather interested in at the moment was getting out of this realm. “If we run into Gar again… whatever…” she thought to herself. Spike didn’t take kindly to how cold the Titans seemed to act. “They sound like they had no faith in him.” he whispered to Sci-Twi. Terra seemed a little crushed after being rejected by him, until Sunset came up to her. “You okay?” She didn’t know how to answer, still overcome by all the shocking revelations, and haunted by her past. “Whatever you think.” was all she could come up with. With that settled, everyone huddled together to talk about what to do next, unaware that they were being observed, by someone other than The Brothers. High atop a cliff, overlooking the area where the group stood chatting, a cold, shadowy figure, wearing, what appeared to be, tattered bedsheets like a robe and hood, stood observing them all… …She looked straight at Sci-Twi, and she snickered at her. In the slight brightness, a familiar looking duel disk was shown on her arm-- Sci-Twi’s duel disk! That’s when Sci-Twi finally noticed. “My deck…! My duel disk…!” She had left them in her suite on the airship, and the airship had since disappeared, as well as the remains of the Titans’ crashed camper. “How am I supposed to survive or help if I can’t duel?” Raven looked at her bare wrist where he duel disk would be if it weren’t still broken, and gone--left on the ship as well. “There’s not much we can do about that now, is there?” asked Pinkie. Everyone agreed, and that’s when Shining Armor finally confronted his sister about that. “You were dueling all this time, and you were pretending to be somebody else?” Twilight gulped put her hands behind her back and looked down shamefully. “I wanted to tell you all right away.” said Spike. Sci-Twi looked down at the card him sternly. Everyone looked at Sci-Twi, and even though many had already forgiven her for what she did as Karle, her brother and his wife still pretty upset by it. They didn’t yell at him, but Shining Armor didn’t know how ashamed of her to be. “Twily… just why…? Why would you do such things?” Sci-Twi looked on the verge of tears, and so Pinkie Pie decided to fill in the facts for him. “Well…” she took a deep breath and then went off on one of her fast pace blabs. “She really wanted to get revenge on Masquerade, so she made this program which changed her into Karle to make her a super strong duelist, but things got out of hand, and Karle ended up having a conscience of her own to make us all miserable, and after she lost she felt really ashamed, but we’ve moved past it all and forgave her, so now everything’s fine.” She panted heavily trying to catch her breath. Cadance and Shining Armor were baffled, and their heads were ringing, but they sort of got the drift. Sci-Twi confessed to them. “It was my battle, and I didn’t want to make it everyone else’s problem, but I did anyway. I created a monster!” Rather than talk it to her even more, her brother just hugged her, in understanding how she felt. Princess Twilight sighed from her card. “Excuse me…?” wailed Rainbow “I hate to break up this little heart-to-heart moment, but do you think we could get going all ready?! The sooner we find those creepy brothers, the quicker we’ll get out of this place.” “Right…” agreed Sunset. “And I have just the idea of where to start looking; we need to confront more Maleficans.” “What?!” snapped Rarity. “She’s not seriously is she?” shuddered Fluttershy. Applejack could tell just by looking at her, “Eeyup, she’s serious.” Dick actually agreed with her. “If we confront the Maleficans, maybe we’ll find information about where to find The Brothers.” The other Titans agreed, but they were still skeptical. “And what if they just decide to duel us?” asked Vic. “I mean you saw what happened; losing ain’t an option here.” Everyone took this into consideration, especially since they had no super powers to battle with or protect themselves with. Still, there were no other options, and everyone decided it was time to head out. …While that hooded figure continued to observe them, and she snickered wickedly. “I’ll see you all when the time comes.” then she slinked off into the darkness and was gone herself. The brothers continued to observe the teams moving out and traveling together. “Just look at them…” said Rubeus “A whole flock of stray sheep heading into the land of the wolves.” Loki snickered, “Well, this won’t be much fun. We’ll just have to spread things out a bit.” His brother agreed and he turned round looking over a railing where a whole swarm of Malefican stood and bowed to their prince. “You all know the plan?” he asked “You have been outfitted with great dueling powers and skills that will assist you in this conquest. Go out there, and serve us well.” The Maleficans all cheered and wooed. “And remember…!” thundered Loki. He showed an image of Celestia, “Leave this one out of it! Anyone who even dares to duel her shall answer to be deadly! UNDERSTAND?!!” The Maleficans all shuddered in fear, but they promised to obey, and they all headed off. Rubeus rubbed his eyes in dismay. The team had walked a long ways, and Pinkie’s stomach began to growl. “Oops. Guess I sort of skipped my snack.” Then she suddenly realized and asked, “Uh… did anyone happen to bring any food with them?” Everyone’s expressions all became concerned. Some of the others were starting to feel hungry too, but not one had a single morsel of food with them. “Oh, no!” groaned Pinkie. “How are we supposed to survive here without any food?! I got to eat something! I’ve just got to!!” Much anyone would have told her to calm down; the seriousness was far too overwhelming. “Do they even HAVE any food in this realm?” asked Terra. Everyone turned to look at Sunset, but she hadn’t the faintest idea. She even consulted Princess Twilight, but she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I hardly know much of this world myself, and I’ve been trapped like this for a while now.” “That makes two of us.” said Spike. Sci-Twi had already deduced, “Given the fact there isn’t any sunlight here, and the grounds are just sand and lacking the proper nutrients… it’s highly improbable for any food to grow and flourish… at least the kind that we know of.” “Great. I feel full on knowledge now.” grumbled Raven. Suddenly, Terra sniffed the air. “That smells like fresh cooking.” Everyone else could smell it too. “What an astounding aroma…!” said Rarity. “But where is it coming from?” wondered Applejack. Rainbow didn’t care. “Let me at it!” and she dashed off in the direction of the scent. “Rainbow, come back here!” shouted Luna. “It could be a trap!!” but Rainbow had already disappeared around the bend of a large building. “Let’s move!” snapped Dick, and everyone dashed off after Rainbow, running around the same bend she did, and they all skidded to a halt at what lay before them! There were many tables spread out with all kinds of foods, like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Pinkie and Applejack drooled with their eyes glimmering at the wide spread. Sci-Twi was incredibly baffled. “How is this possible? Where could all this food come from?” Seeing as Rainbow was already enjoying having her fill, and munching at all the food she could… “CHOW TIME!!” chirped Pinkie, and she and several of the others rushed over. “Wait!!” called Kori. “That food, it could be--!” but she was cut off when Terra, Vic, and even her own husband rushed over seeing how safe it was. “Well, if you can’t beat them, join them.” said Raven. The grownups couldn’t disagree, and soon everyone was having a marvellous fill. Princess Twilight and Spike didn’t have to eat, as they were mere souls trapped in cards, and never got hungry. Princess Twilight didn’t seem so optimistic anyway. “Luna could have been right… this could be a trap.” Sunset swallowed a mouth full of food, and she began to stuff her pockets with many of the wrapped foods. “Well, nothing so far.” she said “Besides, we’ll have to take what we can get.” The others agreed and began to take their own share of wrapped food and filled their pockets up. Sci-Twi was still baffled and she kept wonder how the food could possibly be here, and properly prepared as well. “Maybe it’s some kind of magic?” she suggested. “You’re correct about that…” hissed a sinister voice, which made everyone jump. “Who said that?” called Shining Armor. Suddenly, all the remaining food began to disappear, and then the tables themselves. “What’s happening?” cried Celestia. Sunset looked all around and felt they all really had stepped into a trap. This was confirmed when a Malefican stepped out from around a corner. “I’m glad you all enjoyed this feast. Just try not to lose it.” He stepped down into the open, and as well as having an ordinary Melfican appearance, he seemed to have bits of food and utensils for pieces of armor-- noodles for one shoulder pad, a pudding dessert as another, and a large fork and knife on a dish as a chest-piece. “Are you the one who created all this?” asked Fluttershy. The Malefican snickered. “Naturally, after all… with the kind of duel energy I have been vested with and the very cards that I hold, it is no difficult task to create such culinary concoctions.” “Duel energy!” thought Sunset “So that’s it.” Sci-Twi thought the same thing, “Somehow, by combining Malefic Magic with dueling cards, they can make certain things happen.” Princess Twilight was astounded at the thought someone could use such magic. This was also terrible for the friends, because since none of them could use Malefic Magic, meant they couldn’t harness or use duel energy either. Sunset’s features hardened and she spoke clear at the creature. “Your masters, Rubeus and Loki, where are they? You’d better tell us!” All the others nodded in agreement, but the Maelfican snickered. “Funny you should mention their highnesses, I was given strict orders to serve you all the food you so enjoyed…” “Hey, we asked you a question, Bub!” growled Rainbow. “Ooh, someone’s getting a little spicy.” taunted The Malefican “Well, as I was saying… I do have my orders.” He held up a single card, the “Twin Twisters” “What’s he doing?!” cried Kori. Before anyone could question, the creature had magically conjured stronger winds to billow straight at the groups. Everyone groaned, and some held onto one another as the winds only got stronger and stronger! Even though Vic’s Sonic Cannon couldn’t function, some of his equipment could as it was mere technology, not super powers. Out from his backside, a small hatch opened, firing a set of anchor ropes. The anchors drilled into the ground and would hold him securely. “YO’, GRAB ON!!” he shouted to the others. Celestia and Luna managed to make it to him and held onto him tightly-- Vic Was rather aroused having Celestia this close to him, still having a slight crush on her, and Sunset was the only other one able to grab on to… …But all the others were lifted up by the strong gusts and began to fly up, up, and away, soaring in different directions across the realm. “NOOOOO…!!” cried Sunset. Then they were gone, and the winds died down, leaving only Sunset, Vic, and the two sisters left. “They’re gone!” cried Celestia. “They really are!” added Luna, with tears coming to her eyes. “No…! They can’t be!” Sunset whimpered with sadness. She still had Princess Twilight’s soul card with her, but her heart was aching after just losing nearly all her friends and the others. Even Vic was feeling shaky, but more due to his resisting the winds. The Malefican stowed his card away. “So, you fools managed to stick around eh?” he taunted “Ah, well… guess some foods are just harder to break up.” The gang didn’t take kind to his tone. “Yo’ man! I’ve had just about enough of you and your mockery!” yelled Vic. “Now tell us where your masters are before we really get mad!” The Malefican simply flicked his noddle-like epaulet, refusing to budge. “It’s not going to help. He won’t talk.” said Sunset. Vic finally lost patience and marched straight over towards him. “Vic, don’t!” called Celestia. “You can’t fight him!” added Luna, but the Malefican could already see this was going to get ugly. “You want more?” he asked teasingly. “Well, lucky for you I can always whip up a second course.” He then held out his duel disk, which shot a magical beam straight at Vic’s automatically activating it. “Oh, no!” cried Sunset “The Maleficans must also have the power to force us into duels!” The sisters could hardly believe it themselves. “What the-- I don’t want to duel you. I want answers.” growled Vic. “Sorry, but the order has been taken, and I aim to serve...” replied the Malefican. “Of course, if you wish to surrender, that’s fine-- if you don’t mind spending the rest of eternity as a card.” Vic could see there was no way out. His disk was already engaged and glowing, and there was no way he was willing to forfeit and give his life so easily. “Fine...! You want a duel, you got one! At least I can make you suffer for what you just did to our friends!” The Malefican was most pleased as he continued to glare Vic down, while Sunset and the ladies could only watch from way back. “Be careful, Vic.” called Sunset. Vic only hoped he would be able to do that himself.