Dress Me Like a Hero, Give Me the Mask of a Villain

The doorway was missing a door, and a decent doorframe, for that matter, but with all ceiling lights long since degraded to an unusable state, it didn't make a difference. With long fingers curling around the handle of his gun, and crouched against the beaten up drywall, Marik mused that he had all the cover he needed and a weapon to guard him if he didn't. Squinting into the grey black blobs in his vision beyond the doorway, he thought that it was unlikely anyone was inside anyway. The long room, perhaps once planned to be used for conferences, only had one other entrance, and the door Marik knew was across from him backed onto a short thin hall intended for the roughed in bathrooms.

He edged his way into the room, nonetheless, keeping himself low. He almost imagined he could see the wood planks boarding up the windows, but the grey colour melded so easily into the black all around him that he couldn't be sure. Something sat in the middle of the room, heavily, with a tarp over it —probably wood or some other material, like insulation.

Perhaps his shoe had scraped a little too harshly against the concrete, but something like a catch in a throat met his ears, ever so briefly. It could have just been his shoe, but...

Marik promptly raised his gun and opened fire at the greyness over the tarp, hovering at the other door.

Thuick, went his gun, and there was a harsh snap as the ammunition met some object Marik couldn't see. A sound that most definitely identified as a human breath rang out harshly in the air, and Marik squeezed the trigger again. The greyness across from him dropped quickly into the floor, and there was a dull thump as it took cover, obstructed by the tarp. Marik kept low as he started around it, trying to cut the person off from the door, but ignoring the idea of covering his own entrance. It was possible the person didn't know there were two doorways.

As he came around the side, eyes unblinking and staring hard at the mess of blackness in his sightline, his arm jerked out and felt around in the air. He kicked out his foot, and at last was irritated. The person was far quieter than him, it seemed, and had slipped away from him to somewhere else without him noticing. Marik held his breath and listened for any noise whatsoever. But, there was nothing.

Straightening fully, he made it a priority to get back to Odion and made his way out of the room, gun held at the ready. But as he left the area, he encountered no one.

After several turns down the hall —with its own dangers, as many open doorways and barely framed in rooms as there were— Marik came to the corner office that he'd claimed as his base, as it were. Five short taps on the door. It was answered not a second later, and Odion stood framed by candlelight, a block of unyielding muscle and cruelness. But Marik flashed him a scowl at the softness in his gaze.

Over Odion's shoulder, Joey sat cross-legged on the cold floor, can of soda in one hand and a pair of die in the other. "Hey, Marik," he called cheerfully, "we just started a game of Dungeon Dice Monsters. Granted, it's not as fun without the fancy lightshow and the holographic stuff, but we've got a whole set of figurines and—"

"What do you think you're doing?" Marik said in exasperation, as Odion stepped aside dutifully, shutting the door behind them when Marik stepped in to glare down at the blond.

"I know," Joey said thoughtfully, "I'm not much of a hostage. I haven't even tried to escape yet. I suppose I should do that, huh?"

Marik faltered.

Odion put in carefully, "It might make the game more interesting," as he eyed Marik's frown.

"I ran into one of your friends on this floor," Marik changed the subject, "tried hitting him with my paintball gun but he dodged, I think. Well, I might have got one hit in. The point is this location will be found out pretty quickly. We need to change rooms."

Joey swallowed the last of his soda, and pointed out, "You didn't get a good look at who it was?" Then, he looked a bit sheepish at realizing how dark it likely was in the rest of the construction building. He answered his own question. "It could have been Téa. She's got some good reflexes."

"Too short. I might have fired over his head, now that I think about it." Said Marik, frowning some more, for good measure.

"Okay, Yuugi."

There was a bit of silence as Odion cleaned up the game board, much to Joey's disappointment. "I should have shot at him some more," Marik grumbled suddenly.

"Don't worry," Joey reassured him with a laugh, "you'll get plenty of more chances to act like a decent villain."

Dropping the game's figurines into a box, Odion held out a hand for the dice, only to have Joey flick them in with the other game pieces. "Next time we'll both go out, and corner Yuugi while he's still wandering this level?" Odion suggested mildly.

"Fine." Then, as an afterthought, Marik went over and pressed his ear against the door, listening attentively. There seemed to be no movement outside. "Come on," he said with a grin, "Kaiba has the advantage of knowing the layout of this building inside and out, so I don't want to run into him too early into our game. Let's go before someone else comes along."

The candles were blown out and put away. Odion put a hand on Joey's shoulder half-heartedly, pushing him out the door; Joey's hands were too full with the bags containing food and games to object much. Marik took point and led them down the hall. "We should break open the chips," Joey said hopefully to Odion.

"Quiet, prisoner," said Odion automatically.

"...You should try making your voice a little deeper. Sounds more threatening that way."

Odion coughed. "Like this?"

"Yeah, that's good."

"Got any all-dressed chips?"

"Wait," Joey paused. Considering. "Now you just sound creepy."

"It's really strange, having everything so..."

The wandering thought ended on a hovering note, bitten off the tip of his tongue with barely a wince. Joey made a face. It was probably best not to speak the thought aloud.

Someone finished his statement for him, however. "Peaceful." Yuugi, thumb rotating his control stick, moving his character on-screen to face a different direction. Yuugi with an attentive look on his face. But his words had sounded contemplative.

"Yeah," Joey went on with a frown, "peaceful. And not stressful and stuff. It's almost making me stressed, in a weird sense, you know? Like I should be worried about something but since there's nothing to be worried about I gotta worry about why there's nothing to worry about. Does that make sense?"

His awkward words made barely an impression on the face of his friend currently gaming, but Tristan, on the couch behind him, mumbled around a mouthful of chips, "Not really. But I think I kinda get what you're getting at. Feels like we should be preparing for something awful, just 'cause it doesn't make sense that we won't ever be in awful situations again. At least not like the things we faced before, anyway."

Téa, curled cat-like on the floor beside Joey, her hands occupied holding a glass of juice, made a face. "But you know all magic and true evil has disappeared from the world, since the final—"

"Still," Joey interrupted with a huff, "we've been doing crazy stuff for so long, I just..."

"Don't know how to be a teenager anymore?"

They all turned to glance at Marik, coming in from the kitchen with a slice of pizza in one hand. Odion followed with the pizza box, and set it on the coffee table. At this point, Yuugi paused his game and peered up at them. "We'll help you figure out how to have fun. That's part of what this is," he gestured around him to the impromptu semi-party atmosphere they had going. Though the group of them gathered were more tired, than anything. "Remembering how to have fun. And we needed to end all of this world ending stuff with a happy note."

Marik backtracked. "Ah...I wasn't saying that to draw attention to the...very different time I had growing up. I meant to join in on the conversation. I know how you feel, Joey. It feels weird trying to...settle down."

"What do you expect?" Kaiba said in exasperation, looking up from his dull examination of emails on his laptop's screen, "everything has only recently ended. You can't honestly expect your life, or your perspective on it at least, to change so quickly."

"So how long?" Marik countered, "weeks? Months? Years?"

Joey snorted. "Oh, why bother trying to change it anyway? Who says your life should be normal? I kinda liked that running around being a hero stuff." At several looks from his friends, Joey coughed. He amended, "Well, I mean that, it'd be nice to have that without all the, uh, real danger. I guess."

Minds began to wander as the silence set in. Someone sighed. Yuugi clicked buttons on his controller in a methodical fashion, and watched his character on screen avoid certain death to later destroy two enemies with a single blow.

Then Tristan said, "I can already feel the boredom that will be my life."

Joey muttered, "No more card games with lives on the line, huh..."

Téa murmured, "No more friends getting kidnapped."

"No sudden trips to exotic locations," Kaiba put in.

"Lots of schoolwork, in the near future, to catch up on. Job applications. And college prep work." Yuugi thought aloud.

More silence.

"I kind of want to pretend we suddenly need to take more time off for important adventure stuff," Joey said seriously.

Then, Marik wondered...

"Why don't we?"

The paintball game, which had somehow morphed into some odd re-enactment of the old battle they had all participated in, was played with only some seriousness by the players in the battleground of a construction building owned by Kaiba. They found themselves falling into roles more naturally than expected: Marik, taking Joey prisoner after Joey had nailed him with paint a few times too many. Not wanting to let him gain anymore points, Marik had demanded Odion watch him while he went on the hunt for other targets. Kaiba went almost immediately for Yuugi, who had already formed an alliance with his other friends. Ryou seemed to switch between sides, not quite making a decision on where to keep his loyalties. The eight players, armed with enough paint pellets and junk food to last them through the night, were given full permission by Kaiba to be unconcerned about the amount of paint they got on their surroundings. And so the game had went on.

Three levels up from the main floor, Marik led Odion and Joey to the stairwell to switch floors. There was a decent wall of spare wood piled down one hallway a floor below, now that he thought about it. It would make a serviceable blockade, if they could move it a little, against whatever attack strategies the others could come up with. Unless they weren't really planning at all, and were just coming at him. Then there was no real need for him to come up with counter strategies for plans that were never coming. Still, Marik decided he wanted that location.

They shuffled over to the stairs, ears only picking up the noises of the plastic bags in Joey's hands. Marik peered carefully over the rail, and got a splat of paint in the face.

Joey snickered but obeyed as Odion jerked his arm down to crouch. Marik was already bringing his gun around the railing, firing, but the assailant ducked under a flight of stairs and was out of his field of view in an instant. Not that he could see much aside from a vaguely humanoid shape.

"What colour do you think Marik's head is?" Joey half-whispered to Odion.

"There seems to be a lot of green paint in the pellets, and blue," Odion remarked back, "perhaps green."

Marik shot a glare over his shoulder, and the two of them clamped their mouths shut, but Joey only opened it again when he turned back around. "That's like war paint then," Joey argued, "not really funny. More cool than funny."

Odion was silent as Marik hissed for them to be quiet, before bounding down the stairs and firing intermittingly over the railing. Joey raised his eyebrows as if to say, 'What's his problem?'

"He takes games, especially war games, very seriously," Odion told him.

"Sounds like Kaiba."

Quite suddenly there was a clamour of noise, thumping and banging and clattering as it seemed like something toppled down the stairs. Alarmed, Odion jumped to his feet, with Joey following a second later. "Marik?" They both yelled.

"M'alright," Marik groaned.

Someone else said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't even see you come up behind me. It really is dark in here."

"Ryou?" Marik asked, squinting, picking himself up from the ground. His gun seemed to be missing. A human shape peered down at him, and fumbled toward the ground to pick up what was possibly his weapon.

"Yes," said Ryou, and carefully descended to hand him the gun back. Marik accepted warily. "If you like, we can be allies for a while? It's no good trying to fight while your head is aching. I mean, you probably hit it, right?"

Above, Odion and Joey listened as Marik calmly described how he had effectively curled into a roll and had manoeuvred his arms to protect his head, because he was apparently prepared at all times for sudden falls. Joey felt it was an appropriate time to wonder, "Do you suppose there are now imprints of green paint in the shape of Marik's face all over the stairs? They could be stepping all over...art."

A strangled note of a laugh left Odion's throat. "Don't tell Marik that."

They joined Marik and Ryou below them, and Ryou was introduced by Marik with a short, "He's with us now."

"Chips?" Joey said, and snapped open a bag while awkwardly juggling the other things he was carrying.

"Thank-you."

Mouths full, and with two people scanning the way before them instead of one, they safely made it to the hallway with the pile of wood. Odion was given the task of setting up a block before the stairwell, the only difficult position to defend, while Marik and Ryou sort of reorganized the wood to go across the hall instead of down it. On either side of them, empty offices offered no threat and so Joey set about relighting candles to give them more light. At last they could see Marik's face. It was most definitely green.

"All right," Marik started, "Ryou and I are off to clear the floor and nail everyone we find with paint. You two stay here."

"You still have my gun," Joey reminded him, "how am I going to help defend the area if I don't have a gun?"

Mostly busy wiping the paint on his sleeve, Marik, Joey noticed, handled his cheek gently as if he were in pain. Well, the pellets could certainly cause some nasty bruising. Likely Marik's whole jaw was sore. "You're a prisoner," Ryou returned for Marik, "if you want it back I suppose you'll have to use force?"

A slightly green-tinted smirk was revealed once Marik dropped his splattered arm. "I like the idea of dual-wielding. So I think I'll keep it."

"Well, fine then," Joey grumbled as the two headed off.

Odion offered him the bag of chips as condolences for his lost weapon, which Joey accepted heartily. "We could try and set up that game we had going again," Odion suggested.

Crunch. "I don't—" crunch, "—really want to. Marik thinks he can just delegate you to do the boring jobs and tell me to sit in the corner just because he's getting sick of getting shot at so many times," Joey gave the chips in his palm an annoyed look. Odion's face scrunched as if he couldn't quite see how Joey thought he could be bored. "Well, we shouldn't stand for it." His voice took on a different tone. The chips were set down. Joey swept his arms up dramatically. "In a spur of the moment drastic decision, the wrongfully imprisoned hero —that's me— and Marik's loyal companion —you— decide to turn against him and make him a walking goo monster, covered from head to foot in green!"

At this point, Odion wandered down the hall, glancing through rooms. Joey followed him as he rambled. In one room, Odion made for the electrical cord sitting next to the wall. As he began curling it around his hands, Joey stopped and muttered, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I was going to tie you up."

"Okay, now I'm definitely stealing your gun," Joey warned, before tackling him. Or at least, attempting to. Odion easily sidestepped and caught his arm as he passed, coiling a length of the cord around it in a few swift wrist movements. Joey spun on his foot without a thought, driving his leg forward into a kick meant to knock the taller man off his balance. But Odion reacted quickly, and flung his weight towards him, and the hand still clenched around his arm forced Joey to fall over. In another second, his second arm was wrapped up with the first in the cord, and tied behind his back. Odion looked partially satisfied.

"As you can see," Odion told him, straightening, "my allegiance with Marik is not to be broken."

Heaving several exaggerated sighs, Joey wriggled his fingers and hands and found the bonds rather tight. He was stuck. "Even for the hilarity of seeing him covered in green?"

"For Marik, that would be losing. And I won't see him lose." Odion answered promptly.

Joey was confused by the comment. "It's a different game than cards, though. I could cover Tristan in paint and he wouldn't see it as a loss. Maybe he'd see me as a jerk, but sometimes friends are jerks to each other. Or something. He'd get over it."

After thinking for a moment, Odion sat down beside him. "He's my brother. Would you shoot paint at Serenity?"

"No...but she's a girl," Joey rebuked. Odion was silent at that. Rolling his shoulders back, Joey tried to see if he could worm his arms out without untying the cord at all, but again it seemed too tight. He frowned. "With this, I'm sure to be rescued even more. I'm clearly being abused here."

There was a halting, "Because you're out of range of the chips?"

After a few seconds with no reply, Joey choked out, "Was that a joke? From you?" And he gaped a little in disbelief.

"I was mocking you," Odion felt he had to remind him. But a short, quiet laugh was bumbling in his throat.

The blond looked back at him as though the mere idea was scandalous. "Maybe you're just tired," Joey settled on saying.

Shifting on the hard floor, Odion nodded. "We're all tired. It's quite late at night, after all."

"We should have waited till tomorrow, instead of starting so late."

"We couldn't have known the game would go on quite so long, though."

A creeping realization was coming over Joey, as they sat there, though it took him a while to figure out what it was. But the more he blinked into the barely lit hallway, the more he thought it was odd that Odion wasn't out there. Then he said suddenly, "Shouldn't you be holding down the fort? Checking for incoming targets?"

More shifting. A brief sigh. "Hmm. I suppose."

Some snickering. "Better be careful about that. It'll upset Marik's paintball dictator rulings. Can't go off making decisions without his approval, now."

"Ryou's going to turn on him," Odion said thoughtfully, "or Marik will turn on Ryou. And then he won't be needing to worry about what I'm doing back here."

Joey shifted on the floor too, and thought that Kaiba should have provided chairs. "We could —er, you could— go off, make your own base. Make it the stairwell. Set up blocks on all the floors. Catch everyone trying to move around."

"Too time consuming."

"Settle down, start up a paintball store. Become an entrepreneur while he's off conquering the main level."

"I could execute the damsel in distress while he's away."

"Too much bother, right? Wait. Damsel? Seriously? Well, then, you're a robot."

"That sounds fine. I could have built-in lasers."

Their odd conversation was interrupted by the sound of scuffling against the floor. Which was okay, considering the talk had started to get into that senseless drivel that came from tiredness and sugar. The sound was like footsteps, only they sounded like they were climbing over the wood beams. Joey prepared to shout for his friends, and Odion quickly clamped his hand over his mouth, but the blond wasn't to be deterred. He shot to his feet, drew a breath, and Odion leaped up, snatching the cord with his fingers and dragging Joey against his chest to pin his movements. The hand muffled the beginnings of a sound from his mouth. Odion held him firmly, listening for the scuffling sound.

Wondering at the strength behind the muscles keeping him still, Joey dropped his gaze to his feet and had the thought that perhaps he could work his ankles around Odion's ankles, pull him down somehow, and then bolt...admittedly, it wasn't a very well thought out plan. This was because as he wrapped his legs under Odion's and slammed his knees into the backs of Odion's knees, tugging with his ankles to pitch him over, he never considered that he no longer had any ground to stand on once Odion fell.

Marik entered the room. His first thought was a garble of confusion. His first words were just the same. "Ah...uh?"

Odion and Joey seemed to be engaged with kicking each other while trying to roll over one another.

"What do you think you're doing?" He said, and meant it. He had no idea what they were doing. Only...it had looked a bit more like Odion had been straddling Joey —trussed up Joey, his mind added— when he first walked in.

Thankfully, they both hastily got up at the intrusion. "He was trying to get away," Odion said, almost lamely.

Marik just stared in suspiciousness. "...If you say so. Now. Ryou defected. Well...I might have given him reason to. But at this point, we're all exhausted. So we're giving this game five or so more minutes. Have your gun? Good. We'll go make a last effort. Everyone's all on the main floor." Odion nodded.

The two of them started for the doorway, but Joey broke in, "Hey, what about me?"

"You do seem to be...tied up at the moment," Marik said with a shrug, "you can stay."

They left quietly. Joey glared at the four walls of the office and wriggled in his bonds some more. Well...at least there was no one stopping him from eating the rest of the chips. If he could eat them with his hands tied behind his back, anyway.

"I should have shot at Kaiba some more," he grumbled.

(end)