[OPEN] Mission 156

[soul_mods]

Characters: Open to participants who signed up here.
Location: Lake Tahoe, CA
Rating: Various.
Time: March 27th, late morning.
Description: The second of the three Madness emitters outside Death City is the target for this mission. Bundle up, everyone -- it's gonna be a cold one.

The mission begins late in the morning, to allow the mission-goers as much sunlight as possible in the warmest part of the day. Not that it'll help much… Temperatures are well below freezing already -- unnatural even for early Spring in the mountains -- and a howling snowstorm threatens to blot out the sun, beginning up the mountain where the slope just begins to rise sharply.

The slopes themselves are fairly barren: a windswept-looking tree here, a cabin that may have once belonged to the snow patrol there, maybe a Madness-crazed bear or mountain lion. Those braving the storm are lucky enough to see five feet in front of their face in these conditions!

Those brave few who manage to make it to the top (enduring falling temperatures and defeating the corrupted fauna and hulking kishin yeti along the way) may come across their goal at the very summit of the half-mile-high mountain: the Madness emitter itself, in the eye of the storm… And one last obstacle: the Witch guarding it.



OOC NOTES.
- The event summary post containing all relevant links is located here.
- Make your own threads, but please indicate in your subject line [CHARACTER(S) | LOCATION | OPEN/CLOSED]
- If you have any further questions, the mod thread on the coordination post is here!

Comments

[shiromadoushi]

As if there were any way for him to find out about it except by asking.

Bakura gave a touch of a wry smile. "You ask as if I've seen him do anything other than be confused about finding himself 3,000 years in the future..."

[feelsgoodinyou]

He scoffed at the reply. "I'd be very surprised if 'being surprised' was all he did."

[shiromadoushi]

"He didn't even know what card games were.... it's all just been Yuugi-kun and I trying to explain things and him being standoffish..." Bakura explained with a shrug, shifting his shoulders a little to try and find a way to hold in the heat better.

[feelsgoodinyou]

Okay, that earned him an amused look. "He just arrived and is obviously not the one you're familiar with and you guys had nothing better to do than to talk with him about that silly card game?"

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura's smile was almost sheepish. "We thought it might help break the ice a little..."

[feelsgoodinyou]

"With a game he has never heard about. Excuse me for calling you idiots if I haven't already done it before." He all but rolled his eyes as he climbed over an ice-covered rock.

[shiromadoushi]

"A game is a game, right?" Bakura shrugged, carefully following over, doing his best not to slip. "And it seemed to help..."

[feelsgoodinyou]

"Not really." He stopped for a moment to scout for hidden kishin eggs as he waited for his host to follow him down. Damn, he just wasn't getting warm anymore and his head felt as if it had a lump the size of an egg by now! "Dark or ceremonial games were something different than what you guys play for fun."

[shiromadoushi]

"But the game's based on the old ones, right?" Bakura asked, skittering a little before catching his balance. "So we thought it would be close enough... and he did say it was a bit similar."

[feelsgoodinyou]

"The old one was either a duel to the death or for judging criminals." He said it with a touch of mirth, feeling amused at how morbid that had to make it look to the modern youth. "The rules were a bit different and so were the monsters."

[shiromadoushi]

"So more like Duelist Kingdom?" Bakura asked, almost idly. "With how many of those games had that sort of consequence..."

[feelsgoodinyou]

"Duelist Kingdom?" He barked out a haughty laugh. "That's like comparing an earthworm to a mighty cobra!"

[shiromadoushi]

"Eh? It was that bad...?" Bakura blinked. "With how many of those duels were people trying to kill Yuugi-kun..."

[feelsgoodinyou]

"Yeah, but how many of them died? How many had their souls torn to shreds one way or another, with no chance of ever recovering what they lost?" He sounded increasingly amused as he went on. "How many tries did you have before you got 'punished'? No, that thing was a mere child's game, yadounushi."

[shiromadoushi]

"I don't know... I don't think that the other Yuugi-kun would..." Bakura trailed off uncomfortably. "I didn't realize..." he finally finished, voice soft.

[feelsgoodinyou]

He stopped in what he was doing and gave him an amused look. "The he would do what? Use his powers to punish people? He was a Pharaoh once, you know? Ordering executions is nothing new to him."

[shiromadoushi]

"But that was different..."

It was a weak protest, unsure and unhappy.

[feelsgoodinyou]

"And that's why I'm saying that you can't compare most of those corporate-sponsored modern duels with the ones we had back then." Shaking his head, he started walking again. Back then they had been fights, not things you did for fun.

[shiromadoushi]

"Sorry..." Bakura's eyes were back on his feet again as he tried not to sway in the wind. Aaaa, he needed to sleep...! But he needed to be someplace warm first...!

[feelsgoodinyou]

He snorted, missing his host's struggles as he concentrated in blacking out his own multitude of aches as he kept going. It got easy after a while, with all the small symptoms growing together into one unhealthy buzz that was lurking at the edges of his mind.

At least the lump on his head was pulsing angrily enough that it destroyed any temptation for sleep that he might have otherwise felt as well.

"For what?"

[shiromadoushi]

"For thinking they were at all similar..."

There was a patch of ice lurking under the snow that made it especially treacherous and Bakura felt his foot start to slip. With a small startled cry he reached out to grab hold of his double's shoulder to keep himself upright.

[feelsgoodinyou]

He cursed as he was suddenly pulled down from behind. For a perilous moment Bakura was utterly distracted trying to stable them both rather than falling down together with his host.

It was the exact same moment as another yeti-like kishin egg burst from where it had laid in ambush and rushed them.

[shiromadoushi]

"Oh shi--"

Of all the times to be caught off guard...! He didn't have enough energy to roll another attack, he was sure of it!

But there wasn't any choice...

Steeling himself, he closed his eyes, the small white dice attaching firmly to his doubles palm as Bakura tried to asses the spirit's energy as well as his own.

Just one more shot. Just one more... Surely they had enough between them... Or else they'd be dead!

[feelsgoodinyou]

Bakura cursed as well as he jerked his left arm up and thrust it into the beasts maw before it could sink it's teeth into his neck instead.

"The other hand!!"

The barked order was all he did as a warning as he made a flailing move to get the die from his free into his caught hand, aiming more badly than well at the thing's head. At the same time he slammed the gates of their resonance down once more, revealing an amount of negative emotions that had barely depleted from the last time Ryou had drawn upon them. The only difference was that they were calmer now, more restrained in a treacherous balance that could turn into an angry maelstrom once more at every moment's notion.

[shiromadoushi]

It was like moving on automatic, Bakura reacting without thought, channeling everything he could, unable to add much of anything of his own to the mix.

It hurt. It burned like acid as it ran through him, hollowing him out further, the white light harsh and blinding as it slammed into the monster.

He fell back into his human form, collapsing to his knees, entire body shaking and face deathly pale.