My Time in Battle City [Tales of Luna, Book 1]

Chapter 12

Luna braced herself, ready to stop Joey from attacking Marik. But the blonde boy simply looked Marik up and down once before turning to Luna once again.

"Care to explain what's going on?" Joey asked as all three of them ascended at a slow but steady pace. "Last time we talked about this guy, you seemed certain that he was behind everything, including my sister's death."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I didn't kill an-" Marik paused for a second as if thinking things over. "Was this before or after my Ra attacked Domino?"

"My sister Serenity died last year while I was at the Duel Kingdom Tournament!" Joey raised his voice, making Luna's anxiety go slightly over the edge.

"Joey-" She was about to explain how Marik was also played by Noah.

"Was your sister in Egypt?" Marik asked, seeming genuinely curious.

"What?" Joey looked more confused than ever. "No, why does that mat-"

"Then it wasn't me!" Marik opened his arms as if he had been absolved of some divine sentence. "At least, I don't think it was me. I think it's fairly certain that it wasn't me, directly."

Joey looked incredulous as he looked back again to Luna.

"Just, exactly, how many people has this guy killed?" Joey asked, seeming more overwhelmed than angry. "He has to pay for all that."

"He will." Luna assured him.

"I will?" Marik asked.

"Again, dude!" Luna yelled, not being able to believe how oblivious Marik seemed to social cues. "Not helping!"

Marik looked like he wanted to ask something before he pursed his lips and shrugged.

"What matters right now is that Marik agreed to help us until we can put a stop to Noah Kaiba."

"Who?" Joey asked, maintaining his confused look.

Poor guy is more lost than a blind guy in a fire fight.

"The big twerp in the sky." Marik explained before turning to Luna. "See, I'm not the only one that didn't know him, stop throwing that name around like its common knowledge."

"There's yet another Kaiba?" Joey looked more like his old self making statements like this. "Who can handle that many Kaib-"

A huge explosion interrupted them from a few floors above them, making them shudder just from the sheer noise of it all. Shards of glass rained down on the three as the smoke and blast separated them from Jaden and Mokuba.

"Mokuba!" Luna yelled and flew up faster, but another explosion happened right beside her, making her dragon back away.

Before she could look up again, two more explosions happened, one near Marik and another near Joey.

"Stay away from the building, something is targeting us!" Marik yelled.

"Molten Fireballs!" Joey yelled, making his dragon shoot into the building despite Luna not having been able to see anything moving inside.

"We should get to Mokuba and Jaden!" Luna interjected before her two companions could go full attack mode on the Tower.

"You don't think we'll just be easier to hit if we clump up together?" Marik asked, still not easily conveying whether he was being sarcastic or not.

"Maybe we should separate, go different directions and regroup with Jaden and Mokuba." Joey suggested. "Once we are all together again, we can try to coordinate an attack."