The tears were coming now.
Down on his hands and knees, his belongings scattered around him, he had never felt so humiliated. So beaten. So utterly broken. He was so distracted by his desperate circumstances that he barely noticed the three trading cards that had slipped from his backpack and onto the tile flooring. To any stranger, the cards would have represented nothing more than fragile pieces of paper with exotic artwork transcribed upon them. But they were more. They were much more. These three "trading cards" had the power to change the fate of the world.
In front of him, towering in their arrogance, his tormentors wore grins of malicious victory. He knew he should've never opposed them. He was no athlete. He certainly wasn't a martial artist. Still, he couldn't ignore a group of thugs bullying a helpless lower-classman and that had cost him a lot. Perhaps too much. His pride, for one, but they had taken something much worse from him. The boy they had previously preyed upon wasn't much to speak of either. Pale, frail, and scrawny, with long black hair that covered his watery eyes, the boy was practically inviting the older boys' torment. But that wasn't an excuse. Not to him. Not to Billy.
And so he had done what any good Samaritan would have done. He came to the defenseless boy's aid. He had done the right thing, but now he was suffering. Because now his secret was out and the grins on his tormentors faces proved that much. Tears stung at the back of his eyes like hot daggers. He couldn't bare to level his gaze with theirs, nor with the boy whom he had failed to protect. The very same boy he had often exchange casual glances in the hallways with. The one he was slowly becoming friends with. The one he liked, though he'd never have admitted it. Not in a million years. But he knew now, and so did they. That was the worse part.
"Look guys," one of his tormentors said with smug satisfaction. "This one still plays with trading cards!"
A roar of laughter rose from the gang of thugs and Billy felt his teeth grit together. There was nothing he could do. No amount of anger would grant him the strength to put them in their place. He had tried being civil about it before. Tried talking them out of their destructive path, but they wouldn't listen to him. Now they were going to hurt him, just as they had already hurt his raven-haired companion. Even now, Billy could see the bruising on his friend's pale complexion. Every time his eyes grazed the sight of them, he would feel a hellish flame flicker inside of him.
It made him want to make them pay.
Justice lies with the Egyptian gods...!
So enraptured was he by his own self-loathing, that he had barely noticed the ghostly voice whispering in his head. When he comprehended its words, his mind immediately began to whirl with a thousand questions. But, inevitably, his eyes fell upon the three cards that had fallen from his backpack. They were indeed trading cards. Duel Monsters was a popular game on campus, and was played by a multitude of the geeks and "slightly nerdy" during lunch period. But these three cards were different. Unique. The most powerful in the game. There were stories that the trio of cards had a dark origin, but Billy had never payed them any mind. Duel Monsters was just a game, and teenagers loved to make up stories. Still, he found himself wondering: The Egyptian gods?
"Man, forget him!" another thug said as he turned his sights back to Billy's fallen friend. "We have unfinished business to take care of."
No!
The word of defiance rose like the flame of a candle from deep within Billy's chest. He had failed his friend once; He would not fail him a second time. A stray tear fell free of its duct and dripped onto the artwork of the nearest card. The identity of the monster etched into the card was unmistakable. The blue background alone gave the card away to Billy without the teen ever having to lay eyes on its name. And, much like the older teens towering above him, the monster on the card was also a 'tormentor'.
Again the voice came, but this time it was booming. It was a thundering, commanding voice, that threatened to split his skull from one end to the next:
Justice is in the name of the Egyptian gods!
Billy knew at once what he had to do. The tear stained blue card held the answer. Empowered by a sudden surge of mysterious courage, the blonde-headed teen snatched the card off of the tile and stood to his full height. Next to the group of teenage bullies, he was a less-than-intimidating sight. When they saw him rise, brown eyes full of defiance, they all smirked with varying degrees of amusement. Who was he kidding anyways? They had already beaten him once. And when they saw the card clutched firmly in his right hand, they howled with laughter.
"What're you gonna do, pint?" another of them laughed. "Give us a paper cut?"
"That's enough!" Billy found his own voice surprising. It was loud and authoritative, as if the voice that had been in his head just moments before was now speaking through him. But it had been his voice he had heard. There was no mistaking it.
"This kid's serious!" the first thug said and he seemed genuinely mystified.
"Guess we'll have to finish him off!" another replied, which earned him rousing support from his cohorts.
"Hold on! There's something you seem to have forgotten!" Billy barked back as the flames of his mysterious confidence roared into an inferno. "Allow me to remind you... I can call the Egyptian gods!"
Well, that certainly stunned his tormentors. Shock overcame them at first, then wild laughter. To any stranger, even these bullying teens, the card in his hand was just that. A card. Nameless and worthless. Part of a game played by children. Billy knew their names, however, and he knew the stories that surrounded them. He had never believed them, of course, but he was beginning to. The voice in his head was stronger now, unbearably so, and it demanded one thing.
Justice in the name of the Egyptian gods!
And so it came as no surprise to him when the words came flowing out. Words, spoken in his mind in an ancient tongue that was lost to him, but came forth from his mouth in perfect English. The words of an ancient chant that had been lost for nearly five thousand years, and had been reserved for the chosen pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Words that held the power to give birth to a 'tormentor':
"Legendary gods of Egypt, please hear my call. In the name of every pharaoh that came before, I now beseech thee!"
The voice that then, audibly, boomed throughout the halls of the school building did not speak in English. The sound froze the bullies in their tracks, caused Billy's raven-haired friend to look to the heavens, and Billy himself to experience sudden goosebumps across his flesh. The meaning of the disembodied voice's words were lost on all but him. He understood them. Somehow.
Awaken, mighty Obelisk! And rid his presence of this darkness!
Hundreds of thousands of miles away, buried beneath the sands of Egypt, an ancient magic awakened. The call was felt there and the response erupted from ancient stone tablet that bore the image of an ancient beast that had struck fear into the hearts of Egypt's ancient enemies. Light flooded the tomb chamber and erupted from deep underground, traveling in an instant across a seemingly impossible distance to answer to ghostly call that summoned it.
Divine light flooded the school hallways as the ancient one arrived in thunderous glory. The shockwave knocked the bullies back, but Billy stood tall, as if compelled by the mystical energies he suddenly commanded to stand by the divine beast that had answered his pleas. The card in his hand was radiating a deep sapphire light and seemed to pulsate with ancient power.
"Behold!" his voice rang out in triumph. "Obelisk the Tormentor!"
The Egyptian god finally appeared from within the column of light. It's eyes of scarlet gazed down upon its summoner's frightened enemies, but it was unsympathetic. After all, Obelisk the Tormentor didn't get his name by pitying the miserable fools who incurred the wrath of those who could summon him. The beast began to stretch its limbs within the tower of magical light that enveloped it in preparation for an attack. Below it, in control of his destiny for the first time, Billy was equally unsympathetic towards his former tormentors' plights. And, having played Duel Monsters for so long, he knew the words he needed to finish the job.
"Obelisk the Tormentor, attack! Fist of Fury!"
The god monster drew back its enormous fist, which was suddenly engulfed by hellish flames, and struck. The older teens told themselves, many of them aloud, that what they were seeing couldn't be real. The card had, after all, just been a trading card. To them. But the three Egyptian gods cards were beyond their understanding. The power of one could bring down a nation. All three together could force the world to its knees. Their denial was silenced as Obelisk's fist found its mark.
And all was embers.
A/N: This little gem popped into my head while I was working on the next chapter for the Trunks story I'm working on. It's a one-shot, so their won't be a sequel or anything. It is based off of a scenario in a story I was reading the other night and this scene just leaped into my head. The name of the main character, though bland, comes from said story. Obviously it also finds roots in the famous Yu-Gi-Oh! scene in which the Pharaoh Atem summons Obelisk to deal with Bakrua and Diabound. Anyways, I found it a fun little one-shot to do. Happy New Years folks!
Later.