Warnings: Fair bit of violence – but no decapitations or similarly over the top stuff. Which, come to think of it, probably makes things worse in terms of impact.

Length: 2,864 words.

Time Period: Same AU as the other Mari(k)onette oneshots – this one begins shortly after Mari(k)onette: Memory Never Dies ends.

It's not necessary to read them all in order, though it probably helps a little bit. If you wish to read all eight one-shots in the order in which they were written (the order that gives you the best story arc out of it), you can find all of them on my profile - use this order:

Mari(k)onette: Yesterday Never Forgets

Mari(k)onette: Today Never Ends

Mari(k)onette: Tomorrow Never Comes

Mari(k)onette: That Never Happened

Mari(k)onette: Loyalty Never Works

Mari(k)onette: Memory Never Dies

Mari(k)onette: Gambling Never Pays

Mari(k)onette: StopStart, PlayPause

Handicap: 'There are three rules that will apply to all fics this round:

1. I must state what one typical/logical path of the particular ship might be, or a common path if there is one (for instance, Mai is likely to be tortured or lose her memory if the pairing is Illusionshipping)... and then do the exact opposite.

2. All my stories in this round have to take place in one single AU created from a nightmarish combination of the two most crack AU ideas I have written down over the last four rounds. The stories must take place in the same AU, and need to reference each other somehow – the catch is that I currently don't know whether I will get my desired adopt pairings or not, and I can only write two of the fics at any one time (I have to do the first two before I can take on the third, and after that can only take one adopt pairing at a time.) The stories must be able to be read as individual one-shots.

3. The story must be written in an unusual POV and/or tense.'

Feedback: Concrit, babble, whatever isn't total flaming, I'm cool with that. For concrit, I'm kinda thinking that this is a bit dialogue - heavy in places. Not so sure how well that one works for the pacing...

POV Used: 'Normal' (third person present) - because in my stories, it tends to be bloody hard to find. Cop–out? Yes. Am I supposed to be writing this? Nope. Am I doing it anyway? Totally.

Pairing To Be Inverted: Barshipping (Keith X Yugi X Jounouchi X Honda), the sort of thing one doesn't see so often. Not the sort of crack I'd normally ship, since it's pretty hard to put all four characters in unique positions. The best way to run this one would probably be BK vs everyone else, in the mother of all crackish stupid court cases. Or something like that, anyway.

Thus, I declare that this will begin as Joey and Tristan vs Yugi, with Keith on both sides, and going for the horror side of that which is crack.

Brace yourself!

Marikonette: Gambling Never Pays

Ever since Yami: Yugi got its - ah, no - his memories back, he's found that his host has become much stronger than before. That tentative, guiding touch is still there; but now it seems to have a certain sort of force behind it. Once upon a nightmare, it would simply lead the demon, and there was a choice of whether or not to follow – but now, there is no real choice in the matter. Not that the host has ever actually forced Yami: Yugi to do something against his own will, it's just that the potential for it is there now.

The silver lining is of course that the host has a strong enough presence to talk for long periods of time without tiring or falling asleep. Delighted by this, the puppet enjoys gentle conversation with him most days now – and once in a while, the creature will even let the host take control of the body for a few hours. The host certainly seems to enjoy this from time to time, and Yami: Yugi likes to see him happy.

Someday, he knows, the host will send him back to the dark forever; and he'll be pretty content when that happens – without Rebecca for company, the demon's existence is beyond dull. Hide in the chapel during the day, eat spiders or deck monsters at night. Dark Magician – grilled Kuriboh ribs with barbecue sauce don't even taste as good as they used to; not since it - he, mustn't forget that! - went to Burger World with Rebecca. What he'd give to taste a chicken burger again…

Would you give me an hour? The thought is soft and not his own, a gentle prod at the very edges of his consciousness. The mouth turns downwards, the creature considering this offer.

Is that truly all you ask in exchange? No longer?

I only ask for an hour, since that is all the time I will need to set things up. You can trust me.

And the demon nods; that's true enough. Yugi has never hurt his master in the past – though Yami: Yugi has never seen what goes on whilst Yugi has been in control, he's never found himself to be injured after waking up. With a sigh, he hands the reins of the body over to his host, allowing his thoughts to slow to a grinding halt.

But even slowed, the memories he's always kept so close to his chest do not die. Maybe they never will.

The bar's full of smoke and grease; the stench of alcohol pervades every nook and cranny in the building. It's noisy, it's crowded – in other words, the perfect place for wads of money to change hands, for Monsters to take victims.

It's also here that the boy with the ridiculous tri–coloured hair sidles up to the blonde "You."

The American drains his glass, banging it down on the table. "Call me Keith, shorty. Bandit Keith."

"Whatever. I've a proposition for you."

Blue eyes brighten in greed; although the bounty hunter does not look at the shorter boy to his left, preferring to gaze straight ahead. After all, this is a guy who he'll be killing soon enough – once Keith's set his prospective employer up, and received his pay, he'll undoubtedly lure the guy into some dark alleyway and get a gun pressed against his head. It's Keith's creed, really: Kill those who are weaker than you, unless they have something you can take – and once you've taken it, then you kill them. After all, if you show mercy, they'll only rise up and kill you.

Bandit Keith leans forwards, resting his elbows on the table. "So, what is it?"

The stranger nods curtly, though his purple eyes are full of fear. "Take me to Burger World, and make sure a girl called Anzu Mazaki is there. You have forty–five minutes from now."

An odd sort of request, but one Keith decides can certainly be twisted to trap his own customer. "I can do that."

"Then here's your down payment." The gold idol lands on the table with a solid thunk. "There's more where that came from." A soft, knowing smile. "Quite a bit more."

The blonde tenses, staring at the ancient carvings. "So, you're Death's grandkid." And the Second Puppet's host, he adds silently, sneaking a rather unprofessional sideways look at his benefactor, just to confirm that it's Yugi Moto. The Sivath are trying to hunt down this one. Imagine the sort of money I'd get out of this…

"Well, are you going to take the job? I could always find someone el–"

"No, no. I'll take it." A slight leer, a just barely noticeable curl of the lip. "I never back down from a challenge, after all." Keith stands to leave, tucking the idol into his jacket pocket. "Come on. I'll take you into Burger World, then I'll make some phone calls, get you the girl. Heck, you can even consider me your bodyguard. Sound good?"

Without waiting for an answer, he walks away, muscling his way towards the door.

This is going to be the deal of the century.

Keith's loyalty never works for anyone.

Standing opposite the disused Burger World is not a pleasant experience. The old building is dilapidated, to the point where the burger logo on the sign is quite literally hanging off the metal scaffolding. There's countless spots where the roof tiles have fallen off, some of the broken pieces of ceramic visible in the gutter. The place hasn't been used, not since the day the secret liquor stock the place kept became… well, not so secret. Apparently, the fireball was absolutely fantastic, so much so that no–one inside the building (or indeed, in the ten–metre radius around it) actually remembered that they should maybe attempt to somehow not get incinerated.

Imagine, then, what it must feel like to walk towards that old restaurant, wondering if those scorch marks might have once been humans, or if those little black flakes on the gravel once formed someone's prized dog. Imagine what it must feel like to walk towards that sad reminder of days gone by, the wind howling in your ears and the rain pounding on your back.

Now, think of it about a thousand times worse. That awful feeling is roughly equivalent to the opinions of the two teens now slipping across the road, heading towards the darkened restaurant.

They pause before the revolving door – the glass, solidified once more at the bottom of the twisted metal framework, and the paint burnt away. The shorter of the duo, a blonde with a pretty damn strange hairstyle, doesn't look impressed. "I told you so, Tristan. It's a prank, we should have known. So, let's just–"

"CONGRATULATIONS!" , the loudspeakers howl, and they both jump – the blonde actually yelps and grabs his companion for comfort. There's a silence, then Tristan sort of looks at his buddy, who mumbles a quick "Sorry" and backs off.

The brunette smirks. "If I was nastier, Joey, I'd make a dog joke."

"Don't. You. Dare."

BANG!

"Eep!"

And the building before them comes to life, the neon signs bursting into light with an almighty crack. After a pause, the loudspeakers rattle, cough, and start again – this time, the message instead dies into a pitiful whine.

"CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON TWO TICKETS TO LSSSSSKKKKkkkk…"

Tristan nods as Joey disentangles himself from his companion's arms a third time. "Looks like we've found our guy."

Sure enough, silhouetted quite clearly in the window, is the Second Puppet, trying very hard not to talk to a man the two Sivath can only guess is Bandit Keith. The short teen, true to the reports, holds his head low, refusing to look the man in the eyes, lips only moving a fraction in short, one syllable answers. The dead giveaway is of course the huge, golden, pyramidal pendant around his neck – the Millennium Puzzle.

Joey cracks his knuckles.

"Let's move."

Fortunately, they've both agreed beforehand to pretend that what they're going to do never happened.

"Ah, here we go!" The man stands with a look of utterly false joy as the newcomers enter. "Yugi, meet Joey and Tristan."

Seated at the plastic café table Keith must have pinched from somewhere, the short boy shuffles his feet against the scorched floor in discomfort; there's something distinctly off about those two, but he's not quite sure what. Keith holds out his hand towards them, palm up. "My payment, please."

With a grunt, the blonde hands over a wad of bills. "Here ya go."

Keith grins and winks at Yugi over his shoulder – the other two are glaring daggers at the teen. "These guys owed me money before, so they figured they'd bring it along for today." He indicates seats on either side of Yugi; but they don't sit – just stand right behind him, so close that he can feel their breath on his neck.

Something's very, very wrong.

If tomorrow arrives for him, he decides, he's going to be damn lucky.

…Oh wait, tomorrow never actually comes.

They chat – or rather, Keith chats, the other two just stand in silence. Eventually, the American closes his big mouth, and looks around him in some annoyance. "You're all pretty quiet tonight."

The teen shifts in his seat, suddenly nervous – Keith's grin's gone savage, and those two guys are still right behind him. "So, uh… Where's the girl?"

"Well. Thing is, if you know what I mean, she's not here."

"Say wha–"

Joey springs from behind, ripping the Millennium Puzzle off Yugi's neck and tossing it to the other teen. "Catch!"

"H–hey!" But that's about as far as Yugi gets, because then the two strangers are dragging him off his chair and wrestling him to the ground. Tristan lands a good knee to the smaller boy's stomach, winding him – though somehow, Yugi figures that that wasn't actually intentional.

"Alright," the other teen growls out, "this is how it's gonna work. You're gonna get up nice and slowly, with your hands over your he–" He stops abruptly, Tristan freezing in position with a similarly dumbfounded look.

This likely has something to do with the cold, hard gun muzzles digging into the smalls of their backs.

"Aheh. 'Hands up', all right," Bandit Keith laughs as Yugi scrambles forwards, showing them a card. The gold lettering across the top glints in the yellow light: 'Barrel Dragon'. To be honest, the creature is ill–named – 'Gun Dragon' might have been a better idea for the huge three–headed hydra behind them, what with each head in fact being a gigantic locked and loaded machine gun.

The American grins, shark–like. "Suckers."

"Keith, you b–"

"Save it for later, punks." The American tilts his head to either side. "So, Yugi. What do you think?" He holds out his hand once again. "I did tell you to consider me your bodyguard. These guys were gonna kill you, so I thought I'd throw them in as a special bonus."

Yugi frowns in confusion. "But they weren't going to kill me. They weren't trying to hurt me or anything."

Keith laughs long and loudly, throwing his head right back and letting the restaurant vibrate with his m mirth. "Hahaha! Kids these days. Too scared to throw a punch?" He smirks, putting a hand on Yugi's head and mussing his hair. "Well, don't worry. I'll demonstrate."

Stepping past the smaller boy, he proceeds to give Joey the beating of his life, pressing one boot on the Sivath's neck to keep him down as he rains blows upon him, bruising and bashing. "Come on – gimme a scream, weakling!"

But the blonde only grits his teeth, taking the pain without another word. When Keith finally steps back, he's a wreck, a shadow of his former self. With a gasp, the smaller teen goes running to Joey's side. "Are you all right?"

One angry eye opens, glaring murder. "Yugi, you bastard… I knew you were behind this… "

"I'm not! Why would I ask for this?!"

"Don't… lie to me. Are you happy?"

There's an awful silence, then a shove from Keith sends Yugi sprawling.

"He wasn't lying", Tristan murmurs to his companion, only to be silenced by a strike from Keith – a backhand across the face that sends him reeling.

"Did I ever say that you could talk?" The American goes to kick the Sivath in the chest. "Haven't finished yet!"

And suddenly, Yugi is in front of Tristan, arms stretched out to either side in a protective gesture.

Screaming.

"S–stop it!"

Keith's eyes narrow. "Whaddaya doing? These guys were gonna kill you. Come on, you can get your revenge now. Hit them! Kick them!"

"It was a misunderstanding! They would have stopped when they figured it out!" A short pause, then he seems to break: "I can't do that to strangers!"

Bandit Keith growls. "Huh, and most people hate those that try to kill them." A shrug. "Well, whatever. You'll have to hand over some of that treasure of yours for the beating I just gave them, though. Bodyguard charges." He smirks cruelly when he sees Yugi's shock. "See, here's how it works: I'm gonna beat up these two every day. And when you're satisfied with the day's work, then you can pay me." He holds out his hand a third time. "So cough up, or I'll keep going."

There's a long silence.

"Come on, whaddaya say? Unsatisfied because I didn't hit them enough?"

"N–no! I won't let you hurt them!"

With a sigh that really doesn't match that shark–like grin he's sporting, the American takes Yugi by the collar, lifting the vertically challenged teen into the air. "Then I'll just have to give you a lesson, hmm?" The knuckles of his right hand touch the boy's nose, then they draw back – Keith is aiming. "Consider this a warning."

WHAM!

"Eyyyaaa–ack!"

There's blood on the floor where Yugi lies gasping, his scream cut short by Keith's boot being forced into his mouth. The red liquid's coming out of his nose, and he clutches at it in terror, instinctively curling into a pitiful ball to try and defend himself. Keith looms above him, and just for a single, glorious instant, the world is all at the American's mercy, it's on its knees, and damn if he won't drain it dry until he gets what he wants.

"Not so smug now, are we… Puppet?" He holds out one boot; "Go on. Lick."

"I'm not the Puppet", Yugi whispers, his eyes alight. "But if you want, I can show y–"

WHAM!

"What did I say before?!", the American snarls, kicking the boy directly in the mouth, making blood drip onto the wooden floor of the restaurant. "No talking unless I say so!" Keith then addresses the two Sivath behind him, without even looking at them: "Now, I'm willing to cut you two a deal. Gimme some more money, and I'll let you two go. Even knock this guy out as part of the bargain."

Silence greets him, and he growls. "Hey, are you deaf?"

That's when he turns, and Joey's right there. Crouching, in his face, and grinning like a zombie; the bruises and cuts and missing tooth only improving that particular likeness. Tristan stands at his shoulder – both of them are glaring murder. There's no time to summon a monster, Keith knows that much. Still, maybe they just came to gave him his payment – yes, that must be it–

So, he keeps his expression leering and confident. "I said, are you deaf? Didn't you hear me?"

The blonde's voice is soft, a contradiction when you consider his hard expression. "We're not deaf. But you're certainly dead."

The fist meeting Keith's nose is the last thing he registers. (1)

And so for him, today never seems to damn well end… (2)

Tristan looks down at the American with scorn. "Bastard. Come on, Jou." He turns to leave, then pauses when he doesn't hear Joey's footfalls behind him. "Hey, you coming?"

The blonde stares intently into the semi–conscious, half lidded eyes of the Second Puppet's host. "Shouldn't we take what we came here for?"

"…Nah. Think, he saved our lives. We owe him something at least."

Joey grins, a slow, honest smile. "Good to see that someone agrees with me for once. Call an ambulance." With a flourish, he hangs the cord of the Millennium Puzzle around the other teen's neck. "We're quits now. 'Kay?"

"Couldn't we be friends?"

A long silence.

"…Well, maybe."

Not that Yugi can actually hear that – he's already descended into the clutches of sweet, sweet unconsciousness, eyes fluttering closed and breathing deepening. He'll be all right, though – the medics will find him and Keith, and shunt them off to the hospital.

Speaking of which, the American isn't exactly out cold yet; he's been drifting in and out. So, he's heard the whole conversation, and deep inside, he seethes. Someday, Keith decides, he will come after his attackers, try again and again to turn the tables, bash his head against that particular wall until he gets through.

Because his pride has been hurt.

Because he desires revenge.

And so, Yesterday Never Forgets.

Notes:

1. If you recognized where the vast majority of the beat–up scene's dialogue was drawn from, then well done; if not, go and have a look through the very first chapter of the YGO manga. The actual scenario may have been seriously twisted, but there's still so, so many references to it in this one.

2. Someone inserted the titles of the other six one–shots into the text? What do you mean, it was all part of this ten–page plan I've got here? Of course it wasn't! I DENY YOUR ACCUSATIONS!

UAB

The writing of what I referred to in my mind as first "The Formidable Five", then "The Stressful Six", then "The Suicide Seven", and ultimately "The Exacting Eight" was quite definitely not a smooth ride, at all. Every last one of my handicaps and plans was foiled at various stages. Here's the basics of what happened over the course of the 'Hellweek', with the important points in bold (and even then, it's pretty long...):

- First off, adopt pairings I was really hoping to snare were either completed for their round or taken before I could get there. This caused much frustration, along with the realization that by picking this particular handicap, I had done something extraordinarily stupid - if I wasn't creative, I was clearly going to screwball quite badly. This caused more trauma that it should have.

- The main fic went relatively well, though it did go a little long for my liking. To be honest, my problems only really started when I went to write Adopt One... and then remembered that someone ran a second–person perspective late in the previous round - and a damn good one to boot, which forced me to backflip out of respect for the fic and its author, attempting something different. None of these attempts worked; because of course my whole plot was minimal, being based off the usage of second person. Besides, I didn't want to give up what I'd set; certainly not on the final stretch. Ultimately, I refused to back down from the original challenge set for the fic, running the tense anyway - while worrying myself sick, of course.

- There was also a disturbingly large number of fics in the previous round with weirdo formats (which didn't seem to happen in the first three rounds, but who am I to complain?). That had the end effect of me pushing myself quite hard to not write in a weirdo format for the majority of the time, which affected Adopt Two in particular. Ultimately, I failed - especially given the constraints of my handicap.

- Sometime after that point, there was a removal of the fics limit originally imposed on me, the one that kept me from taking any more than two adopts at any one time (for a total of three fics per round). This had the unfortunate effect of yours truly forgetting that the contest was in fact on, which ultimately led to the creation of Adopt Three (the aptly named 'That Never Happened'), a train wreck in terms of what I call 'sucking up to the judges'. To be honest, that fic went even further than the rant-qualities of even Adopt One before it: It actively insulted half the fanbase, with a slew of deliberately badly - written paragraphs. Special care was given to the misspelling of words and the inclusion of as many examples of horrible writing as possible.

- An extreme combination of perfectionist-driven dissatisfaction and sheer embarrassment with Adopt Three put me on a crazed crusade to somehow prove that I was waaaaaay better than that. Which is, in a nutshell, why no less than eight fics came to be written that round, totaling over thirty-one thousand words, twenty eight thousand of which were written in just one week - a fairly impressive feat in terms of productivity. Even during the writing of the Shipping Lampooned oneshot series, things never breached 17,500 words in a week, and they likely never will for me. The extension of the writing period only added to the utter mayhem that was my mind, and I just wrote and wrote and wrote, somehow managing to work in enough time to leap over tests and complete essays as I did so. That resulted in the creation of Adopts Four, Five, and Six (explaining why Five is short and Four and Six are somewhat similar in their plot - Four was probably the most major disappointment there, due to being unable to develop half of the perspective properly, while Six jumped one of the handicaps), plus the heavy edits of the first three adopts and the main pairing. This part of the week in particular was an absolutely crazy, exhausting, exhilarating run.

- Sadly, the cracking pace backfired big time on my (already dwindling) mental health around the point I finished Adopts Five and Six (Memory Never Ends and this one respectively), and made the critical mistake of examining my work. Whilst certainly a brave effort, writing seven fics (six adopts plus my main) seemed to have proven itself as no more than a embarrassing and exhausting exercise that only demonstrated my utter lack of discipline. I am currently half-convinced of this.

- Eventually, through a combination of relentless self-bashing, boredom and sheer temptation, I began to look rather carefully at the adopt pairing lists... again. Before long, I found myself lamenting as to why I took on that pairing, when this pairing would have been better, or this one would have been so awesome, or... well, you get the picture. And so, the very day the votes were due (because my location is ahead of American time by between eleven and fifteen hours), Adopt Seven made its way into the competition.

And that's the ridiculous account of how the eight-fic run happened. Each one has its own drawbacks, its own flaws, its own tone, its own advantages and disadvantages. I tried to keep them all different in their tone - so I've got pretty mixed feelings about each one.