Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami; Crimson Spell is copyright Ayano Yamane, Tokuma Shoten Publishing, Kitty Media, and SuBLime. No infringement or disrespect of the intellectual property rights held by the owners of existing copyrights of Yu-Gi-Oh! or its derivative works, or of Crimson Spell or its derivative works, is intended by this non-profit, noncommercial amateur fan fiction.
AN: Just when I thought I was done with YGO, along came Higuchimon's story Breaking of Tradition to awaken a four-year-old plot bunny. Since my last two stories were on the Dark and Ponderously Plotted side, I decided it might be nice to spin out something frothy and not outlined to death to balance them out. Anime canon, with dub names (though not necessarily dub personalities).
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The Cerulean Spell, Chapter 1: The Cursed Prince
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Waking up in a dense tangle of brownish-yellow vegetation to find himself dressed like an RPG swashbuckler wasn't exactly what Joey had expected to experience in the first moments of his first-ever Worldwide Virtual Tournament, but then, considering all the wacky things that generally happened whenever he and his friends had anything to do with Kaiba Corporation, it wasn't nearly as bad at it could have been. He wasn't wearing a fur toga, for example, and as far as he knew no one was trapped inside a robot monkey body.
He sat up, feeling a weight in the pocket of his pants (or were they breeches?) It was his deck: he thumbed through his cards quickly to make sure they were all there, then stood. "Yugi!" he yelled. "Tristan!" The three of them—he and Yugi as duelists, Tristan as a spectator—had signed up for the virtual tournament, which was being broadcast live on pay-per-view channels. He'd expected that they would have zoned in as a group, in some central starting area, but it looked like there was a bit of atmosphere-building before the dueling started. Which was okay, he supposed, as long as it didn't go on too long.
Most of the plants were taller than he was, but since there were ridges in the hard-packed soil around him he figured maybe what looked like dead weeds were actually crops. Joey was no farmer, but he figured that crops meant people had to be somewhere nearby. He turned in a circle, craning his neck to see above the plants, and saw what looked like the rooftop of a castle tower. He'd have preferred to know where he was (and where the others were) and what was going on before he started walking, but as no one had answered him and he didn't see any dinosaurs or flaming blimps between himself and the castle, it seemed a reasonable place to go.
As he pushed through the field toward the castle he started going through the rest of his pockets, hoping to find some doubloons or game tokens or whatever this VR was going to use as coin, but he found zip, which was surprising. Not that he'd expected a jangly bag of gold hanging from his belt—this was Kaiba's tournament, after all, so nothing would be that easy—but from the way he was dressed he figured his character was supposed to be rich—the jacket was fancy, the leather boots were classy, the shirt was ruffly, and the hilt of his sword had gems!
He pulled the sword from its sheath. He was no expert, but in his opinion the blade not only looked bad-ass, it had lots of scratches, as if it had seen plenty of action. It felt good in his hand, too, very natural, and since it did a decent job on the weed-crops in his path he kept it out just in case he had to fight a dinosaur or a flaming blimp or a crazed robot monkey. Before he got to the castle.
... and speaking of crazed robot monkeys—"Tristan? Yugi? Anybody?"
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He'd been making so much noise tromping through the field that he didn't hear the fighting until he was practically on top of it.
When he heard people calling for help he ran through the rest of the weeds and onto a dirt road. To his left, the road led to a small drawbridge just outside the castle, where a half-dozen villagers—mostly old people—were being menaced by two tall, wispy demon-looking things. Joey ran toward them, pulling the first Duel Monster he found in his deck and holding it in the air.
Nothing happened.
Shoving his deck into his pocket, he yelled a battle cry to try to get the demons to attack him instead of the old people.
The demons ignored, him.
He took the first one down by slicing though its skinny legs, and then, as the second one turned toward him—opening wide the swirly circle of smoke it had in place of a mouth— Joey jabbed the sword into its middle with both hands. It exploded into shreds like a popped balloon.
"There are more coming!" one of the old women cried, and pointed to the mass of darkness emerging from the field.
"Get into the castle!" Joey yelled. "I'll hold 'em off!"
"But your majesty—!"
Wow, he was a king or something? Very cool: he'd better play the part. "No, go!" He gripped the sword with both hands and stood ready, wondering how long this cut scene or role-play or whatever it was going to run before the actual dueling started.
As the villagers hurried past him and across the drawbridge, there was a commotion from the castle. "They've broken in!" one of the villagers shouted as two palace guards backed out of the castle gate, battling a lizard-like creature.
Shit. Should he stay here and defend until the gate could be closed, or go inside to help? He wavered until a high, childish scream sliced through the air.
"Serenity?!" That decided it: he was going inside. He sprinted across the drawbridge, then grabbed a rope to help the villagers raise it. The moat looked too shallow to stop the monsters completely, but maybe it would slow them long enough for everyone to get inside safely.
Leaving the villagers to close and bar the castle gate, Joey hacked at lizards and wispy smoke demons, trying to scan for his sister. He hadn't even known she was attending! Was she dueling—
An alien-octopus looking thing was reaching for a little kid kid cowering behind a wounded guard. Joey jumped and slashed, reducing the creature to a pile of slimy chopped tentacles, then helped the guard up. "Just like making takoyaki," he said with a grin, but an instant later the hall echoed with the sound of splintering wood. "Going kinda far with this, aren't ya, Kaiba?" he muttered, then shouted, "Everyone, hurry to safety!"
The kid, who between sobbing gulps was calling him "Val," was clinging to him in terror, so Joey picked him (her?) up and ran toward a important-looking door that looked like it might have something useful inside.
Unfortunately, the door had no lock. Sliding his sword through the door handles to buy some time, he turned and looked for a place to hide the kid—and realized that he'd made a huge mistake. The room had no exit and nowhere to hide, as it was empty except for a raised platform with a coffin-like box.
The heavy door shuddered.
"Shit!" He ran up to the coffin, thinking maybe the kid could hide inside while he fought off the demons.
He lifted the lid. Inside was a great-sword, its hilt set with an enormous black opal. As he drew the sword from its sheath a jolt went through him; as he stared down at the blade—which was glowing with blue light—the edges of his vision sparkled and pulsed …
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When he came to he knew something had happened, but he wasn't sure what.
He was standing in the main hall of the castle. All around him were dead demons—piles of them—and his fancy coat, his classy boots, and his ruffly shirt were soaked with black goo and slime. His heart was pounding, he was breathing like a dirty phone call, and in his hand the sword's bright blue blade dripped with even more goo and slime.
Palace guards and villagers began to tiptoe out of hiding, staring fearfully at him and at the carnage.
He half-laughed, "Did I do all this?"
The guards and villagers nodded slowly.
"Wow, I er, I wish I could remember it," he said. "I … really? I took out all these? By myself?"
"The strength of the demon-god flowed into you the instant you touched the cursed blade," said a very old man. "And now possesses you."
"Whoa, whoa, hang on," Joey said, stepping over a pile of demon-parts. "You mean I saved your lives and now I'm sharing my body with a demon?"
"We are forever grateful, my liege," said the old man, but he, as well as all the others, backed up whenever Joey moved.
Joey blew his hair—which, of course, also had bits of demon in it, very disgusting—out of his eyes and said loudly at the castle's ceiling, "Okay Kaiba, ha ha, very funny. Can I please just duel now?"
"We will prepare provisions for your journey," the old man said.
"Journey?"
"In the great forest dwells a sorcerer named Halvir: only he can break the curse." To his credit, the old man looked as unhappy about sending Joey away as Joey felt about being sent. "We will provide amulets that will protect you and those you meet from the great evil that now resides within you until such time as the sorcerer completes his magic." The old guy wiped his eyes as if he was crying."'I am sorry we cannot do more for you, Prince Valdrigr."
Joey sighed. Not only had he lost his friends and become possessed, but now he'd been demoted from a king to a prince. So far this so-called tournament sucked. "Any chance I can wash up and get some clothes with less demon gut decoration before I go?"
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By the time he'd washed the goo and blood out of his hair he'd decided he wasn't going to let Kaiba's underhanded tricks discourage him: if there were hoops, he was gonna keep jumping through 'em until Kaiba got tired of putting them out.
"Well, at least I'm the prince this time," he chuckled as he dressed. Nope, he wasn't going to let this get him down. He was going to call it an adventure, and as long as he found Yugi and Tristan soon so that they could all adventure together he wouldn't mind that much if he ran out of time to duel.
Of course, if he didn't get to duel he was definitely gonna be asking Kaiba Corporation for a refund.
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.: To be continued : .
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For those unfamiliar with Crimson Spell I will mention right here that it is a yaoi manga set in a fantasy (i.e., dungeons and dragons and wizards, oh my) setting. If that sentence made you suspect that this crossover will have m/m elements ... well, you're not wrong. The manga—which is stunningly drawn—is at times NSFW ... VERY NSFW. It is also romantic, funny, and suspenseful. This story will not be explicit, but it will get lime-y now and again, will have occasional fade-to-black interludes, and WILL be heavy on innuendo.
If any of that isn't to your liking, you probably won't want to read future chapters. Just sayin'.
For those who DO want to read up a bit on Crimson Spell (it was licensed for a while, went out of print and into licensing limbo for several years, and then was picked up by SuBLime, who are scheduled to start reprinting it in December 2013), I recommend wikipedia, the manga reviews listed in the wiki article, or the brief writeup I did here:
silverr DOT dreamwidth DOT org SLASH 58304 DOT html
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(03) 6 October 2013 ~ minor edits