Hello everyone. This might be a little weird to hear, but this isn't actually cyclonzgirl, but YamiHeart, another writer on . We decided to write this story together, so I'm writing this chapter, cyclonzgirl will write the one after that, and so on and so forth.
I don't want to wrtie to much in the first chapter here so that you can all process that two people are writing this and not one, so I'll just get the big stuff out of the way:
I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, and neither does cyclonzgirl.
Please enjoy our story.^^
It had started out as a normal day for the young teenager Yugi Mutou. School had finished and he was looking forward to going home and seeing Atem and Grandpa at the Kame Game Shop where he lived. Yugi remembered the day he had dueled Atem so that he could go to the afterlife. When the gods had seen how much sadness the loss of Atem made all his friends, they granted Atem his own body and allowed him to stay among the living. With nowhere else to go, Atem stayed at the place he had called home when he was in Yugi's body, but Atem didn't really have the need for High School, so he just stayed home and helped Grandpa attract customers (when you can advertise that you have the King of Games at your shop, you notice business increase a little).
Yugi had to walk home alone that day because Jonouchi and the rest of the gang had other plans, but Yugi didn't mind. People always treated him as if he couldn't do anything by himself without getting seriously injured, so he finally felt as though people were beginning to look at him with a higher respect.
"I wonder how surprised Atem will be when I come home all by myself." Yugi mused.
"Excuse me young boy…" A scratchy voice said.
Yugi looked up to see a sort of gypsy-looking woman adorned with a rag and randomly beaded dress and a cloth covering half her face. The half of her face the cloth didn't conceal had two, wide, emerald-green eyes. Her hair was thick and black and fell all around her.
"Can I help you ma'm?" Yugi asked, trying to make sure the nervousness the woman made him feel didn't show in his voice.
"Would you make a poor beggar woman's day and take this?" The woman took Yugi's hand and opened it up. In his palm she dropped a silver ring.
It was a quite curious ring. The actual part of the ring that wrapped around your finger was made up of thorns, like on a rosebush. In the middle of the ring there was a single black gem that was just the right size so that it didn't look obnoxious on the ring. Yugi thought he saw a hint of red run through the gem, but when he looked again he didn't see it anymore.
"I can't accept something like this." The ring sent a shiver up Yugi's spine, although he couldn't figure out why. He tried to hands the ring back to the woman, but she refused to take it back.
"No, no, no. You must take it. The ring was made for you." The woman insisted.
"For me? But why?"
"It's a very special ring." Yugi began to turn the ring around to try to figure out what was so special about it. But the only things on the ring were the thorn design and the giant black gemstone. "It will make you everything you want to be, and more."
This definitely made Yugi not want the ring. He had lived through enough in his 17 years of life to know that anything that promised to make you something you weren't wasn't a good idea to have.
"Thank you very much, but it's not my style." This time Yugi grabbed the woman's hand and put the ring in her palm.
Yugi proceeded to walk past the strange woman who, even though she had a cloth over her mouth, had an expression of shock on her face that Yugi could see quite clearly.
"Fine. If that's how you want it, I'll just have to force you to wear this ring." The woman thought as she slowly dispersed into the air.
"That lady was too weird. Maybe I should walk with others. Oh well, I'm almost home now." Yugi sprinted the rest of the way home, partly because he was always eager to see Atem and Grandpa and partly because he didn't want that lady following him.
Yugi threw the door open to the Game Shop and called out "I'm Hoooooooome!"
"And you're late." Atem said with a smile as he entered the room. He was wearing a frilly apron and held a ladle in his hand, which meant he was attempting to cook dinner again.
"Atem!" Yugi ran towards Atem and gave him a big hug.
"Hello little one." Atem ruffled Yugi's hair with his free hand and leaned against the wall.
"What held you up Yugi? I didn't see any of your friends with you." Grandpa came into the room after he closed the business portion of the house.
Yugi wasn't sure how to respond. He knew that if he told the two older men that a random woman came up to him and tried to give him a freaky ring they would both become extremely worried about nothing. So instead, he made up an excuse.
"I had to stay at school and help Ryo with classroom duty because the guy who usually does it with him was sick today." Yugi dropped his backpack on the ground and plopped himself down at the table to prepare himself for whatever gruel Atem cooked. Atem wasn't very good at cooking, but he said he had to do his share in the chores around the house.
"It's only fair that I do my fair share of the work to repay you guys for letting me stay here." He had said. Atem probably would have been repaying them better if he didn't cook, but Grandpa and Yugi never said anything and ate whatever Atem made without a single complaint.
"That was nice of you Yugi." Grandpa said as he also sat himself down and prepared for the worst. "So…Atem, what's for dinner?"
Atem straightened up and smiled even bigger than when Yugi had come home.
"You guys are really going to enjoy tonight's meal!" Atem ran into the kitchen and the sound of the oven opening was followed by coughing and the smell of smoke. Grandpa and Yugi grimaced. Atem came out of the kitchen holding with ovenmits on his hands and a pot with smoke coming out of it. Atem plopped it on the table and stood proudly. "I present Ramen."
"Y-you put the ramen inside the oven?" Yugi asked nervously.
"Of course. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"
Yugi and Grandpa looked at each other and looked into the pot. Whatever was in the pot wasn't ramen. Random things floated around a rusty red liquid that began to bubble in some places. A skull made of smoke arose out of the pot and muttered the word "Death" before disappearing. The smell was rancid, and it took all of Yugi and Grandpa's strength not to barf right on the spot.
"What…did you put in the ramen?" Grandpa asked hesitantly, not sure if he really wanted to know.
"Just the normal stuff: marshmallows, tomatoes, chicken broth, apples, ketchup, salt, pepper, sugar, pork bits, eggs, milk, pickles, cheddar cheese, and noodles." Atem counted all the ingredients on his fingers, and with each one Grandpa and Yugi dreaded the dish more and more.
"Yum…" Yugi said uneasily.
"Go ahead Yugi, you can try it first." Grandpa said with an awkward smile.
"No, go ahead. I insist."
"Ha, ha. Don't worry you two, I made enough that you can both have it at the same time." Atem instantly produced two bowls and spoons from behind his back and placed them down at the two terrified men's spots. Atem poured the deadly mixture into the bowls and waited anxiously for Yugi and Grandpa to try it and tell him what they thought.
"Bottoms up." Yugi said before both men dipped their spoons and ate the goo that sat before them.
The instant it touched their lips both Yugi and Grandpa wanted to spit it out, but they ate the entire spoonful while fighting off every gag reflex in their body.
"Is it good?" Atem asked anxiously. All Yugi and Grandpa could do was shake their heads "yes."
"Yes! I did it! Another amazing meal by me! I'm so good; I could have my own show on Food Network! Yahoo!" Atem ran out of the room in excitement at his achievement. As soon as they were sure he was gone, both Yugi and Grandpa spit out the "ramen" and dumped their entire bowls back into the pot.
"*SIGH* I'll clean up Atem's "ramen", Yugi. You can head up to your room, I'll send up something edible for you in there." Grandpa said as he took the pot into the kitchen.
"Thanks Grandpa, I will." Yugi got up from the table and headed to his room. Atem's ecstatic screams could be heard all the way into Yugi's room, which only made Yugi laugh.
"Well, at least he's happy." Yugi thought as he closed the door and turned on the light. That's when something caught Yugi's eye.
"What the…?" Yugi walked over to his desk and picked up a silver ring with a thorn design and a black gemstone. "But, how?"
"I told you, that ring was made for you." The scratchy voice of the gypsy-woman said.
Oh no! The best part? Since cyclonzgirl and I are writing each chapter without telling the other what's going to happen next, I don't know what's going to happen next either! So let's both come back and check out what happens next!
Oh, and PLEASE comment! I know I love to read comments, and i'm sure cyclonzgirl does too!
Thank you for reading!^^