Astral Dragon: Howdy all you readers out there! The name's Astral Dragon, but you can just call me Astral, or AD. You know, whatever floats your boat. Today (by which I mean the 13th, since I didn't get this onto the site when I started it) is my birthday, and as my present to myself, I am posting my first piece of writing here on I'm so excited! The first chapter of my first fic ever! I hope you all like it. The idea for this story came to me, if I'm remembering correctly, as I stood in line to get some Mongolian Barbeque at the mall, looking at a fresh pack of Yu-Gi-Oh CCG cards, and remembering another fanfic I had read on this site. It's going to be a Yami/Tea romance/adventure story, but as they say, the journey is more important than the destination, so I'm not including any complete story summaries, except maybe after its done. I hope that you Seto/Tea or Yoai/Yuri fans won't let any couple prejudices keep you from reading the story. Now, its time to get this thing started, and I can't think of any better way than the traditional beginning to almost any story: forcing a random anime character to do the disclaimer for me! KENSHIN HIMURA! FRONT AND CENTER!
Kenshin: Oro! Oh, I suppose I should read this… Disclaimer: Astral Dragon does not own Yu-Gi-Oh, that he does not. It seems as though his bank account would have more than three digits in the balance statement if he did. However, he does own any and all original characters used, and requests permission if anyone else wishes to use them. Thank you for your attention!
AD: GET OF THE STAGE YOU SPOTLIGHT HOGGING SAMURAI!
Kenshin: ARRRGGGgggg…..
AD: Boy, that felt great! Now that that's settled, lets get on with the show!
Oh, and by the way, as a note, Italics indicate thoughts, unless they are an entire section by themselves, in which case they are flashbacks.
Chapter 1: Intruder
In the early hours of the morning, the sun peeked through the skyscrapers of Domino City, casting parts of the city into shadow, while covering others in a warm orange hue. From his perch on the edge of the Kaiba Corporation Headquarters' roof, Seto Kaiba observed this contrast of light and darkness with only passing interest. Even though the beauty of the scene was not lost upon him, the young CEO's mind was occupied with more pressing concerns. Foremost among these was the mysterious letter he held in his hand.
It didn't seem like much; ordinary envelope, plain stationary, in fact, the only immediately apparent oddity was the lack of a signature and return address. The letters contents, however, were anything but normal. The letter consisted of two lines, which read:
"Meet me on the Kaiba Corp roof in the morning. If you are not there, I will be forced to come and find you."
Poorly veiled threat aside, Seto would dismiss such a mad letter out of hand under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, an apparent break-in at the Kaiba Mansion was not "normal circumstances." Why someone would go to the trouble of getting through the mansion's extensive security just to deliver a letter was perplexing enough. But even more so was the fact that none of the security cameras, which were arrayed in a pattern specifically designed by Seto to cover every inch of his home's grounds, had detected the messenger entering or leaving the compound, only his attaching of the letter to the front door.
This would have been unsettling to anyone, but the elder Kaiba was especially perturbed. Not that he would have admitted it to anyone, but the events of the Battle City tournament had, at least subconsciously, made it difficult for the skeptical executive to deny the existence of magic. And that's exactly what this seemed like; the man had appeared by magic, and disappeared the same way. Lost in his own thoughts, Seto failed to notice another presence until an unknown voice rang out behind him.
"Good morning Seto Kaiba." the voice said. It was a strong voice, used to giving commands, deep, but not especially so. It reminded him of Yugi's voice (Authors Note: By which he means Yami's voice, of course) in some ways, but more… sinister. Turning away from the cityscape, Seto was greeted by a man shrouded in a long black cloak. Only the man's face was visible. It was a handsome face, with pale blue eyes, well-defined features and no particular oddities. Except, of course, for the Egyptian symbol know as the Eye of Horus glowing brightly on his forehead. Recognizing the symbol from whenever Marik began using his mind tricks during Battle City, Kaiba was immediately put on guard, though he managed to maintain his nonchalant stance.
"Since you must be the man from last night, I suppose asking how you got past my security would be pointless." the teenaged tycoon mused. He was rewarded with silence. "Well," he went on, "assuming you have one of those Millennium Items, which would seem most likely considering that unsightly eye on your forehead, I assume you want to duel with me for 'my soul,' or some other nonsense. Let's just get this over with." Kaiba reached into his pocket for his dueling deck, but paused as a black-gloved hand extended from the stranger's billowing cloak, grasping a golden disk, about the size of a CD, with the same eye symbol carved into its center. Suddenly, the unknown figure spoke up.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mister Kaiba, but I don't have time for games." Before Seto had a chance to react, an intense golden light filled his field of vision, and with a cry of surprise, he lost consciousness.
Bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED! This single thought rang through Marik Ishtar's mind over and over again, and there was no relief in sight. He was sitting on an extremely comfortable leather couch, in the entertainment room of the lavish mansion recently purchased by his sister, Ishizu, in an attempt to remain close to the pharaoh in case he had need of her. To Marik, however, this place was nothing more than a comfortable prison. He was confined here, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, under his sister's orders, as a penance for his mind-controlling, world-dominating antics during Battle City. He remembered the argument he'd had with her over it as if it were yesterday…
"But Ishizu, it wasn't MY fault I was trying to take over the world and kill the pharaoh! It was all the spirit of the rod's influence!" he had pleaded. His normally vague and mysterious sister had glared at him and replied in a very blunt manner.
"Don't give me that little brother! You may have half-convinced the others that you were a poor, defenseless victim in all this, which is probably why King Yami allowed you to keep the Millennium Rod, but I know better. Whether or not you wanted to take over the world, your childish resentment towards your destiny and the Pharaoh only helped Malik influence you. Thus, you were at least partly responsible for the reckless endangerment of Yami and all his friends. Fortunately for you, I will be lenient because you have already served a measure of punishment at Malik's hand. Your sentence is confinement to this house for the next two months. Consider yourself grounded."
"Oh sure Ishizu," he raged sarcastically to the empty room, "having my body stolen, part of my soul sent to the shadow realm, and the Winged Dragon of Ra taken from me couldn't possiblybe sufficient punishment." Sighing, Marik went back to contemplating what he could do to entertain himself. Even though he had already finished his first month of confinement, he had exhausted virtually any and all interests for himself.
With Odion and his Rare Hunters mobilized by his sister to search Egypt for artifacts and information that would help reveal more of Yami's destiny, and Ishizu herself spending days at a time at Domino Museum working her way through waist-high stacks of research books, Marik was almost always alone, so conversation or any other group activity was out. He had seen the same soap operas and talk shows so many times he had started to guess what the people would say before they said it…
Marik sat dejectedly on the couch, barely awake, staring blankly into the TV screen. With a supreme effort, he managed to move his index finger just enough to click the remote control's channel button. The channel changed, and the screen showed a man in his early twenties speaking to a similarly aged woman. "Mary," he said, "this is hard for me, but…"
"I'm in love with your sister, even though your mother is carrying my child," Marik announced dejectedly, predicting what the next line would be.
"I'm in love with your sister, even though your mother is carrying my child!"
After hearing the woman give a decidedly fake gasp, Marik flipped the channel again. This time, the screen showed a redheaded woman in her late fifties interviewing a couple that could only be described as trashy.
"Joan has something to share with you Ted," the host informed the male of the pair.
"Ted…" his girl began slowly.
"I'm actually a man, and I'm sleeping with your best friend," the ex-rare hunter murmured, again predicting the next sentence.
"I'm actually a man, and I'm sleeping with your best friend!"
A disgusted Marik clicked the remote again, hoping to find something a bit less repetitive. What he found was yet another talk show, this one featuring a smarmy looking man with a bushy moustache as the host talking to an obviously rebellious teenager.
"So, Mona, why did you call your mother a bleep?" he asked her in the manner one would a three-year-old.
"She doesn't understand me. I need to be my own woman, and make my own decisions," Marik sighed out, preparing to fall asleep, possibly without even bothering to shut his eyes.
"She doesn't understand me. I need to be my own woman, and make my own decisions."
A few minutes later, snoring began to emit from the teen as his still-open eyes stared blankly into space.
He had polished his motorcycle so many times, he had worn through the paint. So he had repainted it. Then he repeated the cycle. Twice. He had tried to occupy himself with his boxes upon boxes and mountains upon mountains of rare and powerful duel monsters cards, but you could only stare at Skull Archfiend of Lightning and Goblin's Secret Remedy for so long before you got tired of it. He had even begun resorting to sleeping for eleven hours a day just to pass time, but when he woke up, he still had to fill thirteen more. Feeling beaten, the former tomb-keeper slumped down into the couch, and likely would have spent the rest of the day staring at the wall in a catatonic state had he not heard an enormous bang from another room.
Rising swiftly, he crept through the house's corridors, ending up in the room on the left side of the entrance hall, and peaked around the corner. The Egyptian teen was delighted to discover the banging sound had been the front door being forced open, and the one who had done the forcing was a man dressed in a black cloak, standing with his back to Marik, apparently admiring the rather impressive entryway; an open room with a 30 foot ceiling and a grand staircase to the upper levels, decorated with various vases and paintings.
A robber! he thought to himself, this should entertain me for at least an hour! Taking the Millennium Rod from his back pocket, Marik stepped out into the open, aimed, and cast his mind control spell at the intruder. "Welcome to the house of Ishtar, my new Mind-slave!" he called to the black-clad thief. He sent a mental command to the man to turn around, and though the rest of his face was hidden by his cloak's hood, Marik saw the Eye of Horus glowing on his forehead quite clearly. Unfortunately, the teen didn't know this wasn't because of his spell.
He discovered this very quickly, as the man raised his hand of his own accord, and sent a wave of shadow magic at Marik, knocking him over. For a split second after he hit the ground, his mind struggled over whether to be shocked or enraged. He decided on the latter.
Leaping up, the dirty blond boy stared at the stranger with indignation. "I don't know who you are," he said "or where you learned to use shadow magic, but to be frank, I don't really care. Now, lets get on with it!"
By way of response, the intruder drew a single Duel Monsters card from his cloak's pocket. Marik stifled a laugh. "So, not man enough to duel me? Plan to summon your monster in corporeal form? Fine." Reaching into his own pocket, and drawing a card of his own, Marik grinned.
"This may not mean anything to you," he began "But I was once the leader of the Rare Hunters. That means I have access to the rarest and most powerful cards in the world. So if you think you have any chance, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken." This said, Marik revealed the card he had chosen to his attacker. " I doubt some low level assassin or other flunky would have heard of a card this powerful, but trust me, now would be a good time to start trembling." Focusing his shadow magic through the card, Marik cried out "I summon Chaos Emperor Dragon, Envoy of the End!"
Behind the teenaged duelist, an immense shape began to materialize. The bat-like wings, scaly skin and vaguely reptilian head identified the creature as a dragon. Almost completely blue, the monster had silvery metallic plates all over its body, almost like a suit of armor. A jet of fiery red hair betrayed the illusion of tranquility the beast's coloring provided, personifying its chaotic, destructive nature. The dragon radiated an aura of pure, unadulterated power.
It let out a mighty roar, and Marik laughed hysterically as the intruder continued to simply stand there. "Scarred stiff fool?" he asked, "I don't blame you. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I won't use his special ability; it would completely destroy my sister's new house, and everything in it, except for me. But 3000 attack points should be more than enough to defeat anything you can muster." Casually slipping his hand back into his pocket, Marik thought to himself, Especially with my shadow spell trap to protect him.
Staring intently at Marik's dragon, the unknown man maintained his air of confidence. Seemingly unworried, he held his card above his head, and focused. Within moments, a rip opened up in mid-air behind him, and streams of inky purple fog began to billow out of it. Ah, a shadow realm portal Marik mused. A bit overdramatic, but it'll get the job of summoning done, I suppose. Now lets just see what this fool… Marik's train of thought came to an abrupt halt as he saw what had emerged from the portal: an enormous blue hand.
Suddenly feeling a deep chill down his spine, he shouted, "B...but that's impossible! This must be some sort of trick!" But no amount of disbelief on the part of the former tomb-keeper could stop the hand from forcing the dimensional rift further open, to reveal its owner's full, awe-inspiring figure.
Standing at least twenty feet tall, the monstrous warrior glanced down at Marik's ten-foot high dragon with contempt. The demonic wings, spiked head and shoulders, and layer upon layer of muscle were imposing enough. However, the true horror of this colossus was its face. Its mouth was fixed somewhere between a fierce grimace and a demon's grin. And it eyes… its eyes glowed blood red, and seemed to cast their fiery gaze directly into Marik's soul. It was a face that could display only one emotion: hate. Marik Ishtar felt a deep terror, knowing this was no hologram. He was staring into the face of a god. His opponent's creature was the Egyptian God monster, Obelisk the Tormentor.
AD:Ooooh… cliffhanger. I bet all the Marik fans out there are hating me right now. That's right, both of them. Ok, jokes aside, please review! I need to know how I'm doing. Feel free to pick out glaring grammatical errors, but please don't flame me. I'm fragile. Well, that's it. My first story ever. Hope you like it, and look forward to the next chapter!
Further Authors notes: I've edited this story twice now, so please let me know if I missed anything. The eye of horus, for those who didn't guess, is the symbol on the millennium items, at least that what I've heard on the net. If I've heard wrong, let me know. Also, I'll be taking some liberties with the battle city arc's ending for these setup chapters, so please bear with me and let them go.
Next time: How's Marik going to get out of this one? And what happened to Seto? And, oh yea, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE! Find out next episode! Same Yu-Gi-Time, Same Yu-Gi-Website!