Blade of the Pharaoh

The wind howled like thousand lost souls from the Shadow Realm, the rain continued to fall as if strengthened by Nanalea, Goddess of the Rains.

Lighting flashed as it struck the earth, behooved by the Thunder Goddess herself to search for the fleeing remnants of the Orc army that attacked Karad-Antha.

The Orcs and goblins oinked, whimpered, snorted, and grunted as they raced across the darkness of the forest to find their only safe haven. An ancient Celtran ruin with an underwater transportation system that would lead them to safety.

But the leader of the broken unit knew it wasn't them that needed to be transported across. He held something precious in his pack. Something he needed to guard with his life, otherwise, he would be met with a punishment far worse than death.

"Over 'ere!" shouted an Orc named Dizz-EE. "I see it!" Dizz-EE was unique in that he possessed the skill to hack, a craft mighty useful when dealing with the nights of Eredas, who thrived with modern technology. He led the leader of his unit and the other Orcs down a hill to a building of sand-colored stone, buried in the grass and covered with vines. "This is it!" he said.

"How do we get inside!" shouted his leader.

Dizz-EE removed a crude tablet from his backpack, which shone brightly in the dark due to the red lights on the side and the big green screen on the center. His leader did not like that thing. It was like a beacon signaling to their enemy. He broke a tab on the wall, which revealed an ancient terminal, still working after thousands of years.

"Well, hurry up!" the leader shouted.

"I'm goin' as fast as I can!" Dizz-EE said, typing away at his tablet. His thick fingers and long nails made the task rather difficult. Also, this technology was strange to him. "This hardware's ancient!" he shouted. "It's gonna take a while to bypass but it's not impossible."

"Do hurry up!" said the leader. "That Divine Beast is still out there. It could be trailing us right now."

"Yer makin' me nervous!" said Dizz-EE. The thought of Slifer the Sky Dragon hunting him down was nerve-racking, to say the least. He also knew of the treasure his leader was carrying. "So you found it, eh?"

"That's none of your damn business!" his superior snapped. "Just do your job and get us inside. Now!"

A minute later, Dizz-EE bypassed the security systems and the door slid open. Miraculously, there were still lights lining the floors and the ceiling of the dark hallway inside. Just when the Orcs thought they were safe, they heard rocks tumbling down the side of the mountain.

Dizz-EE heard what he thought was thunder. But knowing his luck tonight, that was not the case. He looked up and saw something moving against the inky-purple sky. And he saw them. Big, glowing, golden eyes looming over the tops of the mountains. Then, long, bony, red fingers ensnared the mountains. There was a loud snarl that sounded across the forest.

Slifer. He found them.

"RUN!" shouted DIZZ-EE.

He and his leader dashed inside before the others lost themselves in a panicked frenzy. The sound of Slifer roaring outside gave him a sudden burst of speed, and he bolted into the stone hallway of the Celtran ruin.

"RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" shouted an Orc. "He comes with him! He comes with Slifer!"

No...it can't be...not him!

Dizz-EE spotted a terminal nearby and hacked it so he could close the doors behind him. He did not care if he left his fellow troops outside. Those doors needed to close at once. When the doors began to seal themselves, the other Orcs started to push and shove, trying to get to safety. One Orc could only get his arm through the crack. He howled in fear as the door closed and broke his arm off.

"That outta hold 'im off!" said Dizz-EE.

"Good work," said his leader. "Come on. We make for the pier. There's supposed to be an underwater transit system in there or something. It should lead us to a nearby ruin that's close to the fleet." He slammed his back against the wall. "Odiva's damning beauty! What are we gonna tell them. Anubis. Bakura. Marik! Dartz! They're all dead."

"We don't know that for sure."

"But Lord Anubis is gone! I saw him take a direct hit from Slifer's attack. He was too weak. He couldn't even take on the allies coming. He's gone. What are we going to do now?"

"Take it easy, Cap'n. When we regroup, we'll get our revenge. We'll get those bloody Termnnians. But we need to stop dawdling. The longer we linger here, the closer he'll get to us."

Dizz-EE and the Orc leader directed their companions down a neverending maze of hallways. There were little lounges here and there with windows giving views of the bottom of the lake.

"We must be under Lake Leogun," said Dizz-EE. "The pier should be down this way."

They then traversed over a bridge that stretched a couple of feet over a garden of beautiful golden flowers that looked like tiny suns. The walls surrounding the garden had carvings of women eating the flowers and then walking around impregnated as they held hands across fields of flowers. The hieroglyphics shimmered with blue light with each second.

"Will you look at that," said Dizz-EE. "Wot do you suppose all this is?"

"I don't know and I don't care," said the Orc leader. "If it's not the pier, it's not relevant."

He and Dizz-EE crossed the bridge, which led to another door that was sealed with a terminal. Once he got to work, the shouting began.

"HE'S INSIDE!" shouted an Orc. "ACCKK!"

"Seal the doors behind us!" shouted the Orc leader.

Dizz-EE worked as hard as he could. The screams and grunts of slaughtered Orcs were getting closer. The last of the unit crowded inside the hallway that led to the chamber with the bridge and garden as soon as the doors closed.

The archers ran into the hall, stopping in front of the doors. They knelt and notched their arrows, ready to strike down their foe with a volley.

Meanwhile, the phalanx got behind them and held up their shields and spears, while the regular infantry took the rear, bashing their swords against their shields and shouting heroically, for they knew this was going to be their final stand. Dizz-EE got to work on the terminal, but it was proving to be rather difficult.

BANG!

Something pounded on the other side of the door.

BANG!

"DIZZ-EE, HURRY UP!" the leader yelled in horror. "WOT'S TAKIN' SO LONG!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying!"

BANG!

"Hold him back until we get the doors open!" the leader commanded. He realized the enemy needed to go down a long hallway full of at least fifty of his soldiers before he could even think of getting to the bridge.

He was going to lose quite a number of his troops, but their deaths would hopefully buy Dizz-EE time to hack the ancient security systems and open the doors. "Slaughter him! I know you can! We 'ave 'im outnumbered an 'undred to one! We can do this!"

The Orcs howled and grunted. They were ready.

BANG!

"Come on porcupine head, we're ready for ya!"

WHAM!

The doors collapsed and a cloud of dust filled the hallway. The archers fired their arrows. A flash of gold from the dust and they scattered and fell like twigs. "Reload!" shouted the lead archer. His subordinates notched their arrows again.

Silence. Dead silence, save for the tiny bits of debris still rolling from the ruin of the doors on the floor. And then...footsteps. The Orcs leading at the front whimpered and took a few steps back when they saw a flash of gold through the smoke.

And then they saw him. There was no mistaking it. It was the great hero of Emboldor. The Leader of the Eyar. The Voice of the High King...The King of Games. Yami Yugi stepped out of the smoke, his body wrapped in a black cloak, which he ripped off once he saw the Orcs standing there in front of him.

He was now naked from the waist up, clad in a plateskirt of shimmering steel and blue cloth. His legs were armored in matching heavy greaves and his wrists cocooned in thick vambraces. Around his neck, hanging from a thick metal chain, the Millennium Puzzle seemed to glow like a flame, filling the Orcs with fear. A golden Wdjat burned brightly on his forehead and his eyes were glowing white-hot with no pupils. He looked like a soulless killing machine, ready to strike the Orcs down with no mercy.

"FIRE!" the commanding archer shouted.

The marksmen released their arrows. Suddenly the Millennium Puzzle pulsed and sent the arrows scattering in all directions.

"RELOAD!"

The Orcs readied their arrows again but froze when Yami Yugi held up both his hands. For a moment, the fell monsters saw what looked like a smaller, younger version of the Eyar standing right beside him. And like a ghost, the young one vanished. Purple orbs formed over his palms and arcane circles orbited over his forearms and biceps.

The orbs flew off his palms and then formed into two tall beings. Two Dark Magicians. One was clad in purple armored robes; that one belonged to him. And the other had blackish-blue armored mage's robes. The Dark Magician's skin was pale blue and his hair was like silver. This one belonged to Aibo — the 'other' him.

The Orchish archers dropped their weapons. The Dark Magician. The tales they heard of that monster were legendary, but to see two of them doused all their confidence like a candle in the rain.

Yami Yugi then held up two cards.

A Flame Swordsman and a spell card called Knight's Title. He threw the Flame Swordsman card at his Dark Magician, fusing his soul together with the flaming warrior's. The Dark Magician was consumed by flames, which dispersed to reveal a new monster clad in red and black armor and shrouded with a thick cloak.

The new monster was named Dark Flare Knight. Then the other Dark Magician was transformed into a magical knight simply known as Dark Magician Knight. Yami then reached for the sword on his back, hanging from a leather baldric over his torso.

It was no ordinary blade.

It was a Lightforged Sword, a mythical weapon crafted by the Goddesses thousands of years ago during the time before the ages. The sword looked like sunlight made into solid steel. It let out a beautiful humming noise like silver bells during the Yule Season. It was a tranquil, soothing sound, but to the Orcs, it was the sound of their doom.

Without warning, Yami sprinted forward and struck down the Orc archers one by one. When the blade sliced through his foes, it melted their armor and cooked their flesh upon impact. When the blade swung it sounded like a choir of angels singing at once and the trail of light it left behind lit the darkness. The phalanx charged forward, hoping to overpower Yami.

Dark Flare Knight and Dark Magician Knight held up both their palms and grabbed four of them with telekinesis. Their bodies went stiff and they hovered over the air. Yami sliced their bodies with his Lightforged Sword as he passed by.

He tackled one of the shields of the phalanx, and with great force, knocking them over. The Orcs tumbled stupidly over one another and then Dark Flare Knight and Dark Magician Knight joined in on the slaughter, cutting down the vile creatures with extreme prejudice as if each stroke of their blades was purifying the world of a terrible cancer.

"HURRY UP!" shouted the Orc leader.

Dizz-EE could not move. Even though Yami and his magical knights were over two yards away down the hall, he could see the carnage from where he was. He saw his brethren being cut down and blasted by the spell Dark Magic Attack, which shattered the body like glass.

There was nothing left of some of them. The magicians were getting closer. Dizz-EE could see the hate for his kind burning in their eyes. The walls of the hall ran black with their tarry blood and their screams were a hellish choir of fear and agony.

"NO! NO! NO! NO!" pleaded an Orc. Yami sliced his body vertically in half with the greatest of ease and continued stalking down the hall, chasing down the fleeing Orcs and fighting those brave or stupid enough to challenge him.

A group of archers stormed in and released a volley of arrows toward Yami. Dark Magician Knight took control of each and every one of them with just a thought and manipulated their flight as he gracefully waved his arms around.

Dark Flare Knight charged forward in front of Yami and held up his orange glass sword. When the arrows flew past it, they were lit on fire. When the arrows struck, they caused small explosions that maimed or killed the remaining Orcs in the hallway.

"IS THAT DOOR OPEN YET!" shouted the Orc leader.

"I c-can't!" babbled Dizz-EE.

"HERE!" the leader handed him the item in his bag. It was another Millennium Item. The Millennium Ring, which belonged to Bakura. "Take it!" he shouted. "Take it and get out of here! Get that back to the fleet and retreat back to Unuk-Shadar!"

"But you'll die!"

"I'm going to die if I go back anyway. Get out of here. Don't let Yugi Muto get his hands on that! GO!"

Dizz-EE did as he was told and worked even faster to try and unlock the terminal. He didn't dare look at the carnage, that would only slow him down.

Finally, mercifully, he made it through and unlocked the door. He didn't even wait for it to open.

He pushed it apart with his claws until his fingers broke. The pain mattered not to him anymore, he was so overcome with fear that he didn't feel anything else. Once he made it through the doors, he ran for his life.

He could still hear his fellow Orcs crying out in anguish and some even begging for mercy. The metallic hum of the magical attacks tearing them apart rang until they could be heard no more. Dizz-EE found the pier at last.

It was a chamber hundreds of feet tall made of glass and emerald-like steel. Beautiful lanterns illuminated the stairway down to the submersible, still glowing after thousands of years.

Dizz-EE hacked the terminal to the sub and got inside. He fumbled around the controls for a moment, wondering what the hell any of them did.

BANG!

He looked up and saw Yami and his two magical knights coming down towards him.

"NO! NO! NO!" he sobbed. "Odiva have mercy! Please, don't do this to me!" he banged his fists on the dashboard.

The lights turned off and the submersible plopped into the water and zoomed out of the pier like a torpedo.

He didn't know how he did it, but he did it. He got the underwater transport to start moving. He looked back and wished he hadn't.

As the submersible sped away, he saw Yami Yugi standing on the pier with his two tall knights on either side of him. The magical sword of light-steel burned in his grip and dripped with the blood of his comrades. Finally, the image was blocked by a spiral gate.

Dizz-EE leaned back in his chair breathing heavily. He was joyful to know he just survived such an ordeal.

Slifer the Sky Dragon. The legendary cavalry of House Taylor. And the wrath of Master Yu-Gi-Oh.

His lips trembled as he gripped the Millennium Ring, hanging on his broken fingers.

As the sub took him farther and farther into the ocean, he began to sob and mourned the loss of his fallen friends.

"I'm alive," he said. "I'm alive."