Yu-Gi-Oh E-Quest: Malefic Wars

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 31: Part 2: She's Back?

EPISODE THIRTY-ONE

Rainbow and Pinkie were fussy as Vic held them tightly to keep them from running over to the dueling area.

“Let us go!” shouted Rainbow.

“They’re going to lose the duel!! THEY’RE GOING TO LOSE THE DUEL!!” wailed Pinkie.

Vic was aware of this, but he couldn’t let the girls try and put a stop to it, not at the risk of also losing their souls.

Still, he didn’t like that his friends were about to bite the dust!

“They’ve got to do something!” cried Cadance

“There’s nothing they CAN do!” said Vic. “Even I can’t see a way out of this.”

The trio laughed and snickered at the three helpless Titans.

“These new cards are totally righteous.” said Sapphire, and he glared at Kori. “Now it’s payback for when you beat me before.”

“Agreed.” hissed Khaos, and he looked past the Titans at the spectators “And the rest of you will soon follow, because we’re coming after you next, and then it will be no difficult task to find your remaining colleagues.”

The spectators and the duelists were a mix of fury and fear.

“Enough of this chattering!” growled Violet. “Let’s finish these punks… now!”

Her comrades agreed, and they each shouted up to their monsters.

“Starving Venom…!”

“Crystal Wing…!”

“Dark Requiem…!”

“…ATTACK NOW!!!”

The dragons all complied, and with their massive might… Kori, Dick, and Raven were blasted off their feet, flat on the ground, and their life points knocked out.

“NOOOOO…!!!” The spectators all shouted.

Dick, Kori, and Raven lay twitching on the ground, weak and tired, but still in complete and total shock and shame.

“I don’t believe…” said Dick “…We actually lost.”

“This can’t be happening!” cried Kori.

“Ohh…!” Raven groaned while rubbing her head.

Then things got way worse; the lightning was starting to rumble overhead.

Kori jumped into Dick’s lap in fear, practically bruising his legs, and choking him in her arms.

“Hold me, Dick!”

“Can’t… breathe…!” Dick groaned.

Raven was trembling.

Pinkie couldn’t bear to watch and turned away. Cadance did to.

The trio looked up with glee as the lightning was ready to strike and turn their opponents into cards…

Suddenly, the lightning did strike, but it veered off course!

“What the-- what’s going on?” wailed Sapphire.

Everyone looked up and saw the lightning bolts flying over towards one of the buildings.

That’s when everyone saw her… that shadowy stranger, standing on the roof and absorbing the lightning into a single card she was holding up.

“Who or what is that?” asked Raven.

The creature stood on the edge of the building.

She had long hair billowing in the winds, and she was wearing a black, shadowy overcoat, which also fluttered in the wind.

She snickered wickedly as she leapt off the five-story tall building, much to everyone’s horror, but then to their surprise, she landed safely on her feet in the street below without much harm.

“Hey! Who do you think you are?!” bellowed Violet. “You just ruined our victory here!”

The girl moved in closer and closer and hissed wickedly “…And I plan to ruin far more than you think.”

Rainbow and Pinkie gasped.

“That voice!” cried Pinkie.

“It can’t be…?” added Rainbow.

As the girl came in closer, her hair was shown to be red and yellow streaked, only with sharper, lightning-shaped ends and longer threads. Then her face came into view, and the others couldn’t believe their eyes.

“…Sunset?” said Kori.

It was her, but her skin was paler, her eyes were seething red with evil, and she had glowing yellow streaks down the sides of her face.

“That’s right… I’m baaa-aaack.”

“Sunset…!” Pinkie squealed with joy. She would have rushed over and tackled her to the ground in a big hug, but Vic still held her back yelling “Whoa! Whoa! Stop…! Something’s up with her.”

“She looks so… different.” remarked Cadance “…So evil!”

The Prince Brothers observed Sunset’s arrival, as well as her interference.

“So, it’s finally happened.” said Rubeus. “She has unlocked the power that we gave her.”

Loki scoffed, “Well, she sure took her sweet time, but did she have to prevent those fools from losing their souls too?!”

“Calm yourself.” said Rubeus. “With those duelists still around, it makes this all the better for us. This way, they can still duel and provide us with more power than ever.”

He looked over at the generator, which was still flaring up and continuing to create more small portals within the Malefic World.

The holes were tiny now, revealing images of other cities in the Human World, which would all soon be sucked into darkness just as Jump City’s remains.

Celestia saw Sunset had returned, and she clenched her quivering fists. Now she had a chance to duel her again, and finally finish her off for good.

While no one was watching, she slipped away silently.

That’s when Loki turned round. “Celestia…? Where is she?” but then he immediately got the idea. “She’s slipped off without my consent!”

Rubeus, as outraged as he felt, decided to let it be. “She still seems to possess a mind of her own, but I suppose this could be useful. She has proven her strength already and provided us with vast amounts of power.”

Loki growled softly, but agreed, “Very well… I just hope we can keep her in line is all. No Princess of mine shall put our plans in jeopardy.”

Rubeus’ mind seemed to ponder over something else-- something rather secretive.

“No way!” protested Rainbow “Sunset used to be evil, but she’s learned since then. She’s one of us.”

Sunset only snickered, “Those times and those gifts were nothing but a waste of time. I now have more power than I ever could have dreamed of; thanks to this…” she held up the very card she used to absorb the lightning.

Everyone recognized it almost immediately.

“It’s the mystery card!” cried Kori.

“Impossible!” wailed Dick. “I got rid of that thing; chucked it off a cliff.”

Sunset glared at him as she packed the card away, “A very fruitless and amateur attempt.”

The Terrible Trio still looked mad with a vengeance.

“You will pay dearly for your interference.” threatened Khaos.

“Are you three still here?” sneered Sunset. “This matter no longer concerns you; therefore I insist you leave at once.”

Sapphire chuckled, and then scoffed “... I don’t think so.” and he called to his comrades “Let’s toast this punkette.”

The others agreed, and charged at her with their duel disks ready, but Sunset only sighed “…The hard way it is then.”

Rather than arming her duel disk or even a card, her evil eyes began to glow brightly with malefic energy, which she then fired, creating a big explosions. The updraft of which sent the trio flying up, up, and away across the crumpling city.

Pinkie shuddered at this new power. “I thought magic didn’t work here?”

Cadance shook her head, “It’s Malefic Magic; the one thing, other than duel energy, that actually works here.”

The three Titans got up and raced to their friends.

“You had me worried there.” said Vic. “You guys okay.”

“Just a little drained.” replied Dick. “I actually thought we were goners.”

“We still have a problem!” Rainbow pointed out as Sunset was still glaring at everyone.

“Now, who would like to be my first victim?” she hissed wickedly.

The friends had no idea. They couldn’t just duel her, not in her present condition and certainly not knowing what kind of dueling strategy she had now.

Suddenly, Dick noticed the crumpling wall behind Sunset and a small rock down by his own foot.

“Get ready to run!” he whispered to the others.

Before the others could ask or react, Dick kicked the stone, sending it just past Sunset’s head and hitting the wall behind her.

“What are you doing?!” Rainbow scolded “Are you trying to hurt her?!”

“That was a big mistake!” Sunset growled, but suddenly, the wall behind her began to crumple and collapse, creating a huge cloud of dust.

“Run, now!!” shouted Dick.

Sunset coughed and hacked as the dust settled, and she noticed the group had gone.

“You can’t get away from me!” she shouted, and began to rush round the corner, but she couldn’t see the group anywhere. Since they couldn’t have gotten very far, they had to have taken refuge in one of the nearby buildings.

Growling furiously, she fired a magical blast form her hand, blowing up the wall of an old convenience store. They weren’t there.

“I’ll find you creeps yet,” she swore, “Even if I have to break down this already broken city piece-by-piece!”

She went off on her rampage slowly kicking down doors, or blasting walls away, which gave the group time to come out of hiding and dash even further away to avoid being found or blasted. In a city that wide there were more than millions of places to duck in cover, but it would still only be a matter of time before Sunset would find them.

“Dang…! I have never seen her like this before.” said Rainbow.

“I don’t even want to see her like this.” cried Pinkie. “There’s got to be a way to help her.”

Cadance felt like her brain was positively breaking. First Celestia was brainwashed by evil, and now Sunset too, which were only one par with the fact that her other friends and dear husband were no longer with them.

Which made her realize, “Twilight! She doesn’t know about this!”

Kori’s head perked up. “Neither does Terra… or Gar.”

Far off on the other side of the city, Gar had won several duels now against Karle. Every time he won she would activate the duel beam and duel him all over again.

Each and every duel exhausted Gar more, and more, while she herself was still fit as a fiddle, yet seething with evil rage and pride.

She had just ordered her Lunalight Leo Dancer to attack him directly, which it did, striking him with a ton of damage, knocking him hard to the ground, and leaving him with only 100 life points left.

Gar was so weak by now for having blown so much energy on his victories, and being shocked so much by the vast amounts of damage he had taken.

He barely found the strength to get up again, but he managed.

His face coverings were starting to come loose, and he struggled to keep them tight.

“What’s the matter?” taunted Karle. “You don’t want me to see your face? I kind of would like to, just once before I crush you like the loser you are!”

Hearing such words infuriated Gar to the point where he felt a slight bit of wind growing in him again.

“No one… sees my face!” he growled in an exhausted, angry tone. “…And I am no loser!”

Karle snickered, “Oooh, sounds like I struck a nerve. I think I’ll go two-for-two, by activate the spell EXCHANGE!”

“What? Exchange…?!” exclaimed Gar.

“That’s right, now we each take one card from each other’s hand, and it shouldn’t be hard for you… since I only have one card, and here you are...” she tossed her card straight for him, which he managed to catch…

…But he took one look at the card and gasped. “No! Not this!!”

It was CHANGE OF HEART; the one card he positively despised more than any other in the entire game.

Just holding it instantly brought on his memories of himself and Terra, their failed romance, and her dumping him…!

“Things Change, Beast Boy! The girl you want me to be is just a memory.”

That, combined with his weariness, Gar clutched his chest in pain, and fell down on one knee quivering in weariness and outrage.

Karle snickered and she could see his hand already. He had four Exodia card in hand, and she helped herself to Exodia’s head.

“Without this, there’s no way you can summon The Forbidden One now, which means, once and for all, I will finish you, and claim the revenge I so richly deserve!”

Really, she was actually expecting Gar to pass out from weariness after giving him such a shock with that Change of Heart card, which she had gathered from defeating Maleficans all over.

…But Gar suddenly bolted upright, and glared at her furiously through his loosening covers.

“No! You still have some fight left in you?!” Karle growled. “What do I have to do to get you done already?!”

“You…!!” Gar thundered “You made a big mistake by giving me this card, and I’m going to make you pay!!”

He drew his next card! “Perfect! I use PILLAGER! It lets me retrieve the Exodia Head you just stole from me!”

Karle growled, but was forced to hand the card back to him.

“And now I reveal my facedown card, MONSTER REINCARNATION! I can now discard this worthless Change of Heart… and regain Exodia’s Left Arm which I sent to the graveyard earlier!

…Thus, Exodia is complete once more!”

Karle wailed in outrage as the monsters creature appeared before her again.

“Exodia… OBLITERATE!!”

Karle was struck hard once more; all her life points were gone, and she slammed hard onto the ground.

As dirty as she was, she was still nowhere near as tired or as weak, while Gar was a total mess. He didn’t look like he’d be able to handle one more duel.

Karle slowly got to her feet, and the green glowing on her head was now brighter than ever. It was even starting to push through and reveal itself as that green diamond that was part of the transformation ring Sci-Twi used to turn into Karle for the tournament.

“That’s it!” Gar thought “That must be the source of her power; the very thing that keeps her going. If I can just destroy it…!”

He was starting to feel his eyes grow heavy and blurry.

Karle snickered as she eyes at him, and raised her arm to blast him into another duel. “This time… it’s the last time!” she hissed.

Just as she was about to fire the beam, another duel beam struck her duel disk.

“Huh? What’s going on?”

That’s when Sci-Twi leapt down from a ledge, having fired the beam from Applejack’s duel disk. “You’ve dueled him enough!” she scolded. “Now, you face me; Creator to Creation.”

Gar could hardly believe what he was seeing.

“Gar…!” Terra called to him as she leapt down near him.

“Te…rra?” he groaned softly, but he really didn’t want her to help him, no matter how much pain he was in. “Get away!” he growled as he stepped back.

“I want to help you.”

“I said stay back!” he groaned, but finally he collapsed from total exhaustion, and Terra scooped him up in her arms. “Oh, Gar…!”

“Terra…” Sci-Twi called, and she threw at her Twilight and Spike’s soul cards, “Watch them for me will you?” then she turned to face Karle. “…This is going to get rough!”

Terra agreed, and stuffed the two cards in her front jacket pocket. Then she scooped Gar up, which was hard because he was so much taller and heavier than she remembered him from years back.

Twilight noticed a long flat slab of rock like a stretcher nearby. “Lay him down there.”

Terra dragged Gar as best she could to the slab and lay him down on his back.

Spike was still amazed that after all Gar had done to Terra and the others, she was still able to show him compassion, then again, now that he knew what Terra had done to him years back it was still hard to decide who really was in the right.

Karle glared Sci-Twi wickedly. “Well, well… wanting to get back in the game, eh? You’re either very brave, or very stupid. I should know, why else would have created me to duel all your battles for you.”

Sci-Twi clenched her fist. “You were just a mistake; born from a clear accident. You’ve been nothing but trouble since day one.”

Karle shook her head pitifully while clicking her tongue. “Sticks and Stones...

The fact remains you still relied on me. You couldn’t duel your way out of a paper bag; especially during the last duel… remember?!”

Sci-Twi cringed…

She remembered; dueling Gar in the Friendship Cup Tournament, but her identity was discovered by Celestia forcing her to shed her alter-ego, and in the end she lost the duel to Gar.

She shook it all off and insisted, “I came to get my deck from you, and to put a stop to you once and for all.”

Karle snickered, “I’m twice the duelist you’ll ever be, and I would have destroyed Masquerade for good had you not interfered!

I’ll deal with you first, and then I’ll finish him off.”

Terra heard this, and she stood before Gar like a bodyguard.

“I hope she knows what she’s doing.” said Spike.

“She’s just trying to protect him, Spike.” replied Twilight.

“No…” retorted Spike and he hinted at Sci-Twi, and Twilight understood.

They, as well as Terra wondered how Sci-Twi could possibly finish Karle off… when she couldn’t be finished.

But Sci-Twi had already seen the green diamond appearing out of Karle’s head, and she knew what she had to do.

She looked down at her deck, which she had spent a while re-stacking from the cards she had used; most of which came from her friends.

She could even see their faces around the deck…

“Rarity…

Fluttershy…

Applejack…

…I know you’re here with me, in spirit and in these cards. I’m doing this for you, and for everyone else.”

Meanwhile, in an area consisting of huge trash piles and wrecked cars and oil drums…

Violet, Sapphire, and Khaos each burst through the wreckage, feeling deeply outraged and humiliated.

“I don’t believe it!!” thundered Sapphire. “We actually had those punks at our mercy and with our new cards too!”

Violet brushed the dust out of her, hair and then off her robe. She was still thinking about Sunset and how different she was now.

“She has the power… the power of The Great One.”

She kept picturing Sunset holding up that card, and the awesome power it possessed.

Khaos pondered deeply, “The masters instructed us to duel Sunset strictly so she would unlock it, and she has, but it seems the power is far greater than we thought; for it has dormant for a very long time.”

“So… what?” asked Sapphire.

Khaos clenched his fists. “We must report to their majesties at once. Perhaps they will explain better.”

“What?” wailed Sapphire “I’m not letting that Sunset creep get away with what she did to us, and what about those other punks? We have to deal with them too!”

“I know there’s another out there I’d like to get even with.” said Violet. She referred to Gar and how she suffered defeat to him.

Still, Khaos was insistent, “We should report back! We must know just their majesties wish done now. It’ll be far smarter than rushing into action without much of a plan now.

Remember, the next time we come across Sunset, she may very well have the power to even get rid of us the next time we see her.”

Unable to argue with that the others complied… and together all three of them jumped onto their clouds and headed off.

Sunset was still blasting buildings open. “You’re beginning to make me angry, you twerps! I want to duel!

Come out!!

…DUEL ME!!!”

She blasted another wall, causing the entire building to fall down onto a broken freeway in clouds of dust and mountains of rubble.

While she was raging and rampaging about, the group had taken time to make it blocks away.

“Wouldn’t it just be so much easier to hop along the roofs like you heroes do?” asked Rainbow.

“We can’t. She’d spot us too easily.” replied Dick “Somehow I don’t think dueling her is a smart idea right now.”

Kori agreed, “Especially since she has the power to manipulate the lightning.”

This disturbed everyone greatly. What if Sunset was capable of reversing the lightning’s blast; so even if any of them won a duel, they would still lose their soul?!

Pinkie halted in her tracks, feeling such a shiver run up her spine. “I’m so freaked out I can barely move!”

Raven gave her a soft whack to the head, snapping her out of it.

“…Okay, I feel better now, but we’ve got to find the others.”

Cadance turned to Vic. “Can’t you scan for them?”

“I got worse problems right now.” said Vic “My power-cell isn’t looking so hot.”

He was right as he showed everyone his meter, which was nearing thirty-five percent. “Ordinary electricity only keeps me charged up for so long; not like the super tech we got back home.

I need some kind of power up.”

“Yeah, but how…?” asked Raven “It’s not like there’s any power in this dead city.”

“Maybe not…” said Rainbow “But I think I know how we can make some.” she hinted at a dilapidated gym across the street, which still had some equipment lying around and probably inside.

They were far enough away from Sunset to figure she wouldn’t find them and give everyone a chance, so they headed over and looked inside.

There were a few treadmills, and pedaling machines, not looking clean, but still seemingly useful. There were even some old tool kits in the maintenance closet.

“Let’s get busy.” said Dick.

Working together, they managed to get the machines work, and attached old, dead cables to them, and wrapping them in bits of felt and rubber which would generate static electricity.

Vic managed to connect more wires to his charging system. “Okay, hit it!”

Rainbow on a pedal-bike, and Pinkie on the treadmill-- the girls began to get their legs pumping, gently so as not to start any fires.

The electricity actually started showing and flowing along the wires, and into Vic’s chest.

He checked his com, and the meter was very slowly starting to rise. “Ha-Ha! We just brought electricity back into the city.”

The two Equestria girls smiled at one another, and kept up the pace.

Eventually, they got tired, and they had to give the machines a rest so as not to burn things up. Kori and Dick then took over and pumped more power into Vic’s cells, boosting it past fifty-percent.

“Boo-Yah!” he cheered, only for Raven to put her hand over his mouth. “Will you keep quiet! Sunset will hear us!”

Vic nodded frightfully.

Raven then sat down by herself with a grouchy expression on her face.

“What’s with her?” Cadance whispered to Pinkie and Rainbow.

“She’s been getting grouchy ever since we fled the scene.” said Rainbow.

“Maybe she’s just upset that she nearly lost her soul?” suggested Pinkie, and she decided to walk over and tried to warm up to her.

“Why so down in the rage, Rae?” she asked cheerfully.

Raven looked up very slowly; her grouchy stare sent a chill up her spine again.

“I’m perfectly fine…” Raven grumbled “Considering I very nearly lost my soul, we’re still trapped in this dark world, and now here we are going on a wild chase across this city.”

She pulled a card out from her deck, “…All because of this crazy game!”

She silently thought to herself, “And the fact that the biggest pain of life is still out there, and we’re actually acting concerned about him.”

Naturally, she was thinking of Gar; still just as enraged with him as ever.

“It’s even worse yet.” said Vic “With those vortexes still opening in the sky; more cities are going to fall into this place.” he paused and looked upset “That means more and more people are going to get hurt… or turned into cards.”

Dick and Kori stopped going for a moment.

“All the more reason for us to find the Prince Brothers and stop them for good.” said Dick.

“But we can’t find them.” added Kori “Only the Terrible Trio or Celestia know where their hideout is, and they just never tell us no matter how many times we duel them.”

Cadance cringed angrily, still enraged for the Maleficans. “Because of them, Shining Armor turned himself into a card.” she grumbled softly.

She squeezed a broken cable in her hands, accidently lathering them around her wrists. “Oh, no!” she groaned, but Rainbow took one look at her and she jumped up, “That’s it.”

Everyone turned to face her.

“What’s it?” asked Pinkie.

“We’ll force the answer out.” Rainbow explained, and she grabbed a broken volleyball net, “We can capture the trio, wrap them up tight, and make them tell us what we want to know, or else…!”

She was starting to freak the others out the way she watching like some hunter, but they couldn’t really argue with that.

“A few problems though,” Dick said as he began to pedal again, and Kori starting walking on the treadmill, “Even if we do find any member of the trio, how do we know we can really bind them down?”

“We don’t.” replied Raven “They have Malefic Magic too, and they probably have some kind of powers we’ve not seen yet.”

Silence followed as everyone looked back and forth at one another.

“We’re open to other options.” said Kori.

For now, all they could do was keep charging Vic up, and hope they could hurry and get back to finding the others.

Karle continued to glared Sci-Twi down, and they were both ready for what was sure to be the biggest and greatest, not to mention most dangerous duel they’d ever face.

To Be Continued...