Disclimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Tipping back the paper cup, I drain the dregs of my lukewarm hot chocolate before aiming the cup at a nearby trashcan. It goes in with ting! and I grin just a bit. Slipping my sunglasses off my head, I catch movement in the corner of the mirrored lenses before I slip them over my eyes. Turning to watch the show, I see a kid halfway down the street struggling with some goons. My eyebrows raise, it doesn't take a genius to see he doesn't belong with them. Adjusting my coat, I start their way.
"Hey!" I hail as I get closer. All the parties freeze, and the kid looks relieved. Two of the goons catch hold of the kid, while the third takes a step towards me. I smirk and cross my arms. "Listen up, Wise Guy," I tell the thug. "Here's how it's gonna go down. You drop the kid and I let you walk away from this. We understand each other?" He laughs a bit at me, and his buddies yack it up. "You're a pretty little thing," he tells me, "And since I'm in such a good mood today, I'll let you keep walking and forget what you've seen. Sound good, Cupcake?"
My smile turns dangerous. I take a few steps forward and come within touching distance. "Cupcake?" I question, my voice sickly sweet. He smiles, not seeming to realize how thoroughly he's pissed me off. My head tilts to the side, and I inform him, "I prefer 'Your Worst Nightmare'." As soon as the words left my mouth, I swung out my foot and kicked the side of his knee in, making him drop to the pavement. Before he can respond I land another blow on his stomach with my steel toed boots, and walk out of his range towards his buddies. One of them rushes forward and meets me head on, a punch already flying my way. I dodge it by coming closer to him and stomp on his foot. As I turn around I use my elbow to break his nose, and then flip him over my shoulder and let him slam into the brick wall and then join his buddy on the now bloody concrete.
My body doesn't move quite quick enough, so goon number three lands a firm punch on my torso, and I almost crumple but force myself upright again. Thankfully, he's still trying to hold onto the kid with one hand, so it's not that hard to knock him out with a few well-placed punches as the kid distracts him at exactly the right moment. After another few moments, all three goons are lying in a groaning, semi-unconscious heap on the pavement. Bent half over, I lean on the wall a second and catch my breath. Surprisingly, the kid didn't run as soon as he was free. Obviously, he lacked serious fight and flight instincts. Most likely how they caught him in the first. Probably stemming from confidence, stupidity, or he's used to having someone around to protect him.
The kid has a mop of messy dark hair, and darkish purple-grey eyes to match. He's wearing jeans, and a striped shirt under a beige vest, with a visible Duel Monsters card necklace over the shirt. He's watching me with something like respect, and gratitude clear on his face. He's a couple years younger than me, and the innocence of a younger kid shines in his eyes. I try to give him my most reassuring grin, and am gratified when he gives me one back. I raise back up to my full height, breath caught, and extend a black-nail polished and lace gloved hand towards him. He takes it after a pause, and we shake hands.
"So," I begin, "You got someone around here to keep an eye on you?" Gesturing a hand towards the pile of hired flesh, "You seem feel popular today, and I'd hate to have you walk away from one mess only to fall in with another group of meatheads." He considers my words for a moment, and nods. "Yeah," he tells me. "Big Brother can't be too far from here," he finishes.
"Right," I raise an eyebrow at that. "Well, does 'Big Brother' have a cell phone you can call?" I asked as I dug out my own and held it out towards the kid. He nodded, and grabbed the out dated, scratched up cell. He dialed a few numbers, but his only answer was a dial tone. "Okay," I tried to remain chipper for the kid's sake. "Where exactly is your brother supposed to be right now?" The kid just kind of shook his head, and explained, "He's watching the Battle City tournament." I nodded a bit in understanding. Battle City covered a lot of ground. After a few minutes of talking, we decided to just keep walking around until we saw 'Big Brother'.
It didn't take a long time to make our way towards downtown Domino City. I hadn't been in the area long, but even I could see how unusually crowded the city was. Battle City was a big deal, and if I was still playing card games, I knew I would have been one of those entries with a duel disc strapped to my arm, trying my luck against anyone I could find. The kid liked watching the duels, I could tell in the way his eyes followed every game we passes. "You a duelist?" I asked him. He started, as if he had been caught up in the game we were near. It was pretty fierce, and it looked like a close match. It was only with great reluctance that he kept walking with me. "I know how to play," the kid answered me.
I made a small noise of understanding. "I think everyone knows how to play," I confessed to him conspiratorially. "Just not everyone is an exhibitionist like these yahoos," I finished. He got an odd look on his face, like he didn't know whether he was allowed to laugh or not. At my encouraging grin he giggled a bit. It was good to see the kid lighten up a bit. I was almost worried that the afternoon's events might be traumatizing, but it seemed like he was already bouncing back. The duelist with his back to us won the duel. His friends gathered around him to congratulate him, and when they turned around, they seemed to recognize me. Or rather, they recognized the kid, I realized, as a spiky haired fellow cried out, "Mokuba!" And the kid's head perked up.
"Hey Yugi," The kid called back as the group approached us. "Oh no," I said under my breath. The kid turned to look at me. "Don't tell me," I told him, "That your big brother is one of those performing monkeys who play a children's card game for fun on the weekends?" The kid (Who I now knew to be Mokuba) laughed a little. They reached us, and I turned to Mokuba and asked, "So which yahoo is your big brother?" He just shook his head. I did my best to fade into the background, which I was surprisingly good at that. I ignored all direct questions, and simply let the kid do the talking. Turns out, none of the performing monkeys were 'Big Brother'. In a quick flurry of dialogue, the story was disclosed. The kid painted me as more of a hero than I preferred, which drew attention back to me.
The Spikey-Haired-One ("Yugi") turned towards me, and extended a hand. "We thank you for taking care of a friend of ours," he spoke in a deep voice, and had a calm, serious expression on his face. We shook hands lightly, and I did my best to ignore an odd, familiar feeling tingle that engulfed my hand. It wasn't the butterflies of a crush, but it was more like the shivers of returning to a place you knew when you were young, and being able to see nothing but the changes. Letting go of his hand, I turned and knelt down so that I was face to face with the kid. "You trust them to keep you safe?" I asked him. He nodded a little hesitantly, seeming to understand where I was going. Pulling a marker out of my leather jacket, I took one of the kid's hands and wrote a number on it. "You need anything," I tell him, "Anything at all, you call this number, and you ask to talk to Scarlet. They'll call me, and take care of you in-between. Okay?" I asked to make sure he understood. The kid nodded vigorously his understand. Standing up, I reached out a hand and messed up his messy dark hair. "You take of yourself now, you hear?" I told the kid. Turning to the leader of the little group, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few crumpled bills. "You take the kid to get some ice cream, okay?" I told the spikey haired one. "He's had a rough day," I finished, and stuffed the bills into his hand.
They all seemed a little frozen at my abrupt exit, and stared after me as I disappeared off into the crowd of duelists and spectators. If those people were lucky at all, they'd never see me again.
Author's Note: This is just a little something I dreamed up. This is the first thing I've ever posted for this section, so be gentle, yeah?
I know it's not great. In fact, it's not even very good. That's why it's a fragment. I don't think I'll continue this.
But please don't use Scarlet. She's my OC. I'm actually writing an original novel about her. So this is like a mini-crossover with a book that hasn't even been published. I wrote this because someone read a songfic I wrote a couple years back, and told me they didn't really like it that much purely because it was a songfic. So, I decided that it would be a good idea to write this, so that they could see that I have become a better writer. They've posted a few stories using this Yu-Gi-Oh, and I've always loved the series, so I figured I might as well have Scarlet drop in here convienently. And yeah, I do know that nobody tried to kidnap Mokuba during Battle City, but I figured that if Marik had finished off Yugi earlier, he would have kidnapped Mokuba next to use as bait to get Kaiba to show up so that Marik could try and get Obelisk the Tormentor off him. So this is technically alternate universe.
Right now, I'm going to post this as complete. But the chances are good that it will get updated at some point. I will most likely use this a writer's block cure. If people like it enough, then updates will get more regular. So, tell me what you think and drop me a line.
Lot's of Love,
Dustfinger's Cheering Section
P.S. Not counting the AN, this chapter is one thousand, five hundred, and sixty one words long (1,564).
