Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Takahashi Kazuki.
"Shoot."
Mariku fumbled to pick up the pen he dropped. Another jolt sent it rolling underneath a bus seat and out of reach. He sighed and tossed the crossword puzzle book he was messing around with onto the empty seat beside him. His mother had packed that novelty item with his things so that he could entertain himself on his travels, but he had quickly lost interest. With nothing else to do, Mariku glanced at the other occupants on the shuttle bus. Although there were many empty seats, there were a lot more aliens on the bus than he expected to see. From the back of the bus, Mariku had a clear view of a pair of Numms sorting through their tech pads, a snoring Dracovun hunched over in his seat, and a Striver who glared when their eyes locked. Mariku shifted his gaze out the window.
Diplo Spaceport ½ Mile
The edges of his lips twitched up. He was almost there—he was almost there! Despite having to wake up at some ungodly hour, attempt to tame his wild hair, and not miss his bus, Mariku was suddenly filled with energy. His foot tapped away at the metal floor as he watched the dome of the spaceport get closer and closer. Ships and hovercrafts moved around the Diplo Spaceport and Mariku's eyes lit up with anticipation. Even before the shuttle came to a complete stop, Mariku was already standing up, hastily stuffing his crossword puzzle book into his travel pack and hoisting his luggage down the bus aisle. The Numms grumbled when his luggage knocked against one of their own suitcases, but he paid them no mind. A ding signaled the shuttle's stop.
Mariku jumped out, boots clunking against the pavement. With a slight bounce in his step, he pushed his way through the slowly growing crowd and into the air-conditioned dome. The sun was just beginning to rise and with it, roused weary travelers. Unlike on the shuttle, there were significantly more humans out and about. Overhead, a feminine voice spouted times and take offs—Mariku pulled out a sheet of paper from his back pocket, double checking that the ship he booked hadn't left yet.
"Oh thank the gods." He closed his eyes and after a moment, let a wide grin split his lips.
With renewed vigor, he strode forwards. Clutching the ticket close to his chest as if he expected it to be snatched away, Mariku tilted his head this way and that. Various words in different languages flashed by and he had to squint to make sense of the signs. He had always been particularly good at deciphering alien languages, but he had a hard time adjusting to the bright holographic texts on the signs.
Growing up, he never got the chance to experience half of the technological advances the rest of society enjoyed. It was to be expected though. Living in the poor parts of Egypt meant that most of the words on signs and books stayed still (mostly because of malfunctions), and you'd be damn lucky if you got your hands on an AppleTech that released seasons ago. Although not ideal, his hard childhood served as a driving force, pushing him forwards. As a kid, Mariku always dreamed of pulling himself out of the slums and making sure that his name was remembered. There was no way he was going to let himself become a nameless nobody, dying in some decrepit alley after getting brutally mugged by a junkie.
So, despite his mother's concerns, as soon as he graduated high school, Mariku went to the closest boot camp in the city. He endured a year of grueling training and asshole instructors until he finally proved his worth and received a letter of invitation to the Intergalactic Academy.
His mother slapped him once he returned home. And then embraced him so tightly that his love leaked out in tears. "I'm so proud of you, habibi."
With all the money they were able to scrounge up, Mariku bought tickets for the cheapest shuttle buses and managed to score a sweet deal on a spaceflight. He left Egypt in less than a week.
"Oi, watch it!"
Mariku felt himself slip, and only by the good graces of whatever deity watching over him, managed to right himself up before his head could make friends with the tiled floor. He grimaced when he noticed the goop he stepped in—probably left from one of the slimier alien species that he didn't know the name of. He turned to give a half-hearted apology, however, the janitor's vacuum stretched out to snatch Mariku's foot. Just as suddenly as it had happened, the vacuum released his foot and the janitor snarled, a bit of drool dripping from his oversized mouth.
"Don't drag that muck around!"
Without waiting for a reply, the janitor shuffled past him to continue vacuuming up the slime, all the while grumbling under his breath about underpaid wages and spacey humans. Mariku shook his head to clear his irritation and glanced at his ticket. Hangar C19. If only he knew where that was…
It had taken him a worryingly amount of time, but Mariku finally found it. Stepping into the dimly lit hangar, he maneuvered around scattered boxes and spaceship parts until he reached the relatively cleared out section for ships. It was much quieter within the hangar compared to the crowded walkways; the sharp sounds of tools clanking against their metal surroundings seemed to ring around the area, and he could hear scattered parts of conversations as he passed various crewmen and their ships.
"Mystical Elf, Cyber Blader, Sacred Crane, Gemini…" Mariku muttered to himself. None of them were his ship.
As he passed by more ships, he was beginning to worry that he missed his flight after all. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. A small ship (compared to the massive giants that surrounded it) was docked at the back of the hangar. Emblazoned in bright blue text—and surprisingly in English—across the side of the ship was the name, Amane. The ship's silhouette vaguely reminded Mariku of the U. people several millennia ago once thought aliens beamed humans up in. At the top of the ship, he could see someone busy cleaning the barrel of the large gun mounted there. On the ground, standing by the entrance of the ship were two figures—a human and… a pluophilo? Upon his approach, they both looked up from the screen of a scroll. Now that Mariku could get a closer look, he was sure that one of the figures was indeed a pluophilo. The blue-skinned alien stood tall, curving coral pink spikes on his head gave the impression of messy hair, and clear eyes stared back at Marik's own dark violet. The pluophilo offered him a smile which he hesitantly returned.
"Ah! Looks like our last passenger finally made it," the other figure said, snapping the scroll in his hands shut. "Setsuna, go warm up the ship and prepare for takeoff—and get Vera down from there. She should know that the gun doesn't need any cleaning."
"Yes sir!" The pluophilo saluted good-naturedly and strode off, cupping webbed hands around his mouth and shouting, "C'mon Vera! You're not fooling anyone; it's time to do some real work!" The only response Setsuna got was a rude gesture before Vera climbed inside the ship through a latch at the top.
The figure, who might not be as human as Mariku thought, chuckled at their exchange. On closer inspection, Mariku noticed that the strands of his startling white hair looked like feathers and his equally pale skin seemed to emanate an ethereal glow.
"You're not human, are you?" Mariku blurted out. His mother would've smacked him for that. "Er—sorry."
A slender white eyebrow quirked up, warm brown eyes silently laughing at Mariku's flustered expression. "Only half. I'm part Seraphim if you haven't guessed it." The half-breed stuck out a gloved hand. "I'm Ryou by the way; captain of the Amane."
"Mariku." He hid his surprise—for such a gentle looking person, Ryou had a firm grip.
"I figured. We were supposed to take off twenty minutes ago, but not all of our passengers showed up." Ryou sent him a stern look. However, its severity was disrupted by a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"You were waiting for me?" Mariku's eyes widened this time. He played with the straps of his travel pack, suddenly feeling awkward. "You didn't have to, ya know. Don't you have a schedule to keep?"
Ryou shrugged and started walking towards the ship's entrance, motioning Mariku to follow. "It's no big deal, really. The Amane isn't like those commercial spaceships. She flies whenever everyone's good and ready—most of the passengers I take are pretty easygoing too."
"Well, uh, thanks." Mariku replied lamely, stepping through the doors and handing Ryou his ticket. The interior of the ship was bright and clean. From the entrance, two hallways branched out. Ryou jerked his head to the left and Mariku followed.
"That's the kitchen," Ryou said as they passed by a door. "You can take the daily rations whenever you want." They continued walking for a while until Ryou stopped in front of some stairs. "This leads up to the control center. I've got to go watch over the crew now, but I'm sure you'll be fine on your own. This hallway basically goes in a circle, so you can't get lost. There's only two other passengers on this flight, so take your pick on rooms." Ryou smiled and gave a friendly pat on the shoulder. "The crew's rooms, including mine, are back by the entrance if you ever need anything. You can come up to the control center to hang out once you've settled in though." With that, the young captain made his way up the stairs.
Mariku watched him leave. Although he had met many half-breeds in his life, it was the first time he met a Seraphim. He couldn't remember what planet that species was from, but he remembered learning in school that Seraphims rarely left their homeland, preferring to keep their distance from other species—mainly the ones that were prone to quarreling. It was a bit odd to think that a Seraphim would've mated with a human, a race that's had a long history of wars. Mariku shrugged and continued walking down the corridor. Love was love, he supposed.
Like Ryou had said, two of the rooms were already taken, the red lights on the scanners by the doors indicating that its occupants didn't want to be disturbed. This left only four rooms to pick from. Mariku shifted from foot to foot, eventually deciding to pick the room furthest from the others. It was closer to the kitchen.
Placing his thumb on the scanner, the lights turned on, flickering blue before turning green. The metal door slid open and Mariku stepped through, dragging his luggage behind him and plopping his travel pack onto the bed attached to the wall. The room was quite bare, save for a small desk and chair by the bed. There was a long horizontal window in front of the desk and Mariku could see the ship slowly rise upward. To his right was a door that led to a tiny bathroom and next to it was an even tinier closet. Mariku won't complain though. He wasn't expecting a five-star spaceship for the price he was paying.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he let out a sigh. He felt the nervousness that had crept up on him dissipate, excitement slowly returning. Glancing out the window, he saw that they had already left Diplo Spaceport. They were steadily gaining altitude and reached space in a matter of minutes. Overhead, Mariku heard a ding followed by Ryou's soothing voice.
"In a few seconds the Amane will be entering a jump. Please brace yourselves."
Taking one last glance at Earth, Mariku burned the image into his mind and tensed as he felt a jolt. The scene outside turned into a blur, and he knew that he wasn't going to see it again for a long time. From this moment on, his life had changed.
A/N: Hello lovelies! I'm suddenly in a writing mood and have decided to give it another go. If you've read my previous stories, you'd know I have a habit of leaving them dead (or just deleting them). But! Now that I'm back to writing-and let's hope my writing has gotten better-maybe this will be the first story I finish. Since I'm still in school, don't expect updates to be frequent. I'll try my best to keep on track though.
I'd also like to give credit to Acetonperoxid and their story Supernova, which inspired me to make my own Sci-fi AU. Unfortunately, they've abandoned it. And just when it was getting good!
