by Matt Morwell
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Author's Note: This is the sequel to Shielded Destiny, and if you haven't read that story yet, I encourage you to do so, as it has several key elements you will miss otherwise. As with SD, this is an Alternate Universe story whose focus is on original characters, and it's based on an eclectic assortment of Yu-Gi-Oh! lore, ranging across all spectra. I'm putting a great amount of effort into this story, so I hope you will give it (and SD) a chance, and I also hope you will enjoy what I've put together thus far.
Warning: This story incorporates strong language and some drug usage. I do not endorse either one, but they are both necessary for the purposes of these first few chapters.
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Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt...!
A hand swept through the air and violently smacked the top of the alarm clock; the machine was knocked off the bedside table, and its short power cord was yanked out of the wall from the force of its fall. The abused machine became silent.
A groan emanated from under the dark covers of the bed, and an unnaturally dark-haired head poked up from under them to glance around the room. The face attached to the head scrunched up in annoyance. Damn, I'm still alive. That's six thousand, five hundred nine days in a row now.
The covers were thrown aside and carelessly discarded to the floor, revealing a long, wiry body clad in black shorts and muscle shirt. When people got to know him long enough, they tended to decide he was either color-blind or simply didn't care much for any sort of lively clothing. In his drawers, you would find black shirts, black pants, and black socks. Not a single color other than black would a person find... except maybe the darkest shade of blue, and that happened to be a pair of boxers. And then you would find yourself in a world of trouble when -- God forbid -- he saw you picking through his underwear drawer.
"Lay off my damned underwear drawer," he would say. And then he would hit you. Hard.
It was never a question, when he hit someone, of whether the victim actually deserved the hit or not. At least, not in his mind, it wasn't. He hit people because he felt like it, whenever he felt like it. He'd had his share of officers come to the door and warn him that assault and battery was a crime.
This almost amused him. Of course, I never hit people with a battery. I wonder what would happen if I did. Assault and battery with battery? Better yet, assault and battery with an assault rifle... on which a battery-powered flashlight rests!
There was a knock at the door. His eyes narrowed. Damn it.
"Kyle? Are you awake yet?"
"No, Ma, I'm snoring my ass off. You should come in and see. I look like an old man. I've got no ass at all."
"Kyle! How many times have I told you not to use obscenities in this household?"
He laughed mirthlessly. "Saying it's not doing any damned good."
"Kyle!" the voice squealed angrily. "We just got a call from the school. You missed class again yesterday?"
"Had better places to be," he responded simply. He took his time in choosing his clothing for the day. Really, he didn't need to bother. It all looked the same and was all equally uncomfortable. No one would dare steal the stuff.
The door swung open at this, and he found himself confronted by a very disapproving blond woman in a business suit. She glared at him. "The comments on your midterm report are bad enough as it is. We don't need -- Kyle!" She immediately turned away from him.
He grinned, his shorts and boxers now around his ankles. "Well, then, dammit, Ma, don't barge in on me like that. I'm never dressed before 7:15, you know that. It's only 7:05."
She harrumphed. "Well, it's certainly nothing I haven't seen before. I hope you're more modest than this in the classroom."
"Hm! That's something I haven't tried."
"Kyle!"
He crossed his arms; apparently he wasn't planning on hiking his shorts back up. "Hey, besides, you saw it plenty when you were spanking me, right? I'd keep turning over so Dad wouldn't belt it. Helluva lotta good that did me, huh?"
"Frankly, you could use a spanking right about now," she hissed. "You're acting so childish, Kyle."
"Aww! Mommy, you're makin' me cwy!" Kyle mockingly rubbed his eyes. "My ass hurts! Make it feew bwetter an' kiss it!" He turned around and bent over in front of her.
WHAP!
"Ow! Damn it!" Kyle shot upright, twisted around, and glared at his mother, who was now blowing on her hand in an attempt to alleviate the burning sensation that had accompanied the force of the slap.
"That's what you get for being vulgar," she scolded. "By all rights, you deserve more, but I really don't have the time to deal with it now. Get dressed. Your father will make sure you get to school on time."
She turned heel and left Kyle standing there, rubbing his rear end. He grumbled as he pulled his shorts back up. "Ow... ow-ow-ow... it's the rare baboon..."
He rolled his eyes as he began to dig for clothing. Yep... this is definitely one of my better days.
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Kyle tried as hard as he could to feign sleep. His head was lolling to one side, his eyes were closed and shifting around, his mouth was half-open... he had even faked a couple of guys out once into believing he was dead. He found it worth the effort to see the looks on their faces when he'd abruptly grabbed their wrists.
His father wasn't buying it. The man let out a loud sigh. "Kyle, why do you have to do this? Do you have some innate desire to just throw it all into the toilet?"
I've put enough cherry bombs in toilets to last several flushes! Kyle thought cheerfully, recalling his 8th grade year. Oh, that had been something... that teacher's clothing had been entirely soaked.
He rocked his head toward the driver's side, but snapped out of it when his father gave his head a rude shove back to the other side. "Hey! Lay off my damned head."
"Kyle," his father said sternly. "I don't know where you got the impression that you're being even remotely funny with the sleeping act, but it, like so many others, is wearing your mother and I thin."
"'Your mother and me', dammit," Kyle growled. "Get your damned vocabulary straightened out."
His father glared at him. "Your reputation for vocabulary is only a liability when you insist on cursing the way you do."
"Well, what the hell're you gonna do about it?" Kyle smirked. "Show my ass your belt buckle again? My ass misses your belt so much, y'know... they got to be such good friends! What happened?"
"Shut your mouth."
Kyle rolled his eyes at the order, but nevertheless complied and lightly banged his head against the passenger window.
His father sighed. "Kyle... what is it you're trying to prove in this constant rebellion? Are you trying to be 'cool'? Are you trying to sully my life with this nonsense?"
"Probably the latter," the teen responded. "I'm not too worried about being 'cool'. Those people are damned idiots."
"Cursing," his father warned. "You have a wider vocabulary. Use it."
"Those people are damned foolish idiots."
His father sighed again. "Kyle... I sincerely hope you have a child whose views differ as radically from your own as yours differ from mine."
Kyle blinked in surprise. "What, you're not gonna wish I have a kid just like me?"
"You would enjoy it far too much."
Kyle snorted. "And don't you forget it."
"I won't, make no mistake," the man replied, silently noting that his son had now responded to him twice without cursing.
A corner was turned, and nothing was said for a time. His father was the one to break the silence -- of course. "Your midterm grades look excellent, Kyle. You're well on the way to becoming a doctor."
"How many times do I have to tell you I don't want to be a damned doctor?" Kyle groused.
"It's what's best for you, son. Just imagine the money you'd make... how well-off you'd be. Financial security is a very important thing these days. The more you have, the better off you are."
Kyle shook his head. "No way. The more you've got, the more you risk losing. No point. I don't want to be a goddamned doctor."
"Kyle, stop cursing or I'll be assigning homework for you in addition to whatever your teachers give you."
"Yeah, right. It stands. I don't want to be a doctor."
"Don't knock it if you haven't tried it," his father said reasonably.
"Have you ever tried writing?"
His father scoffed at this. "Writing is a silly profession, Kyle. I honestly don't know why you would want to pursue such a career, except in perhaps reports for magazines. But book-writing... that is quite the silly thing. Beneath you."
"Have you ever tried it?"
"I don't need to."
Kyle growled. "Don't knock it if you haven't tried it, you damned hypocrite."
"That's enough!" His father stopped the car and glared at him. "I've had it with all this. You'd best start shaping up, or you're never going to make it in this world. You'll stay the same nothing and nobody that you are to society now for the rest of your life. My status won't support you. You have to earn your own. The medical profession is the best place for that, and it's where you're going. And that's that."
The cabin virtually echoed with the words for several moments. Kyle said nothing in response.
The car began moving again.
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There was an empty table in the lunchroom.
And nobody dared take it.
That was because someone had already laid claim to it, at the beginning of the school year. Everyone knew it was his table. No one else's. If there were no empty seats left at the other tables, students would go to the far wall, grab spare chairs, and crowd in. If tables couldn't be crowded any further, they stood and roamed around, occasionally exchanging pleasantries with good-humored teachers.
But never did they consider that empty table.
Because it was his.
Five minutes late to lunch, Kyle McCraine slumped into one of the four chairs at the table and tossed his bulging backpack onto the surface. He released an annoyed sigh and slouched into one of the seats. He was quite happy to at least be by himself. He derived only small pleasure from it, but it was pleasure, nonetheless.
Better than that damned teacher trying to wake me up all the time. Now I can at least get some rest, he thought. Or better yet...
He pulled out a ripped and faded folder from his backpack, ignoring the stares from other tables, and removed a random paper from the many papers that kept the folder full to overflowing. This one, like so many others, was crumpled and ripped, and virtually covered in a combination of ink and pencil lead.
If one were to look closely at what forms the ink and lead had taken on the papers within the folder, one would have seen pages and pages covered in a massive, splintered, curse-riddled diatribe against his family, his school, his classmates, his teachers, and his life. And then one would likely have found himself gasping for breath, as looking in that folder – or over Kyle's shoulder for just about anything directly in front of him – tended to earn people an elbow to the gut.
He'd gotten himself suspended numerous times for fighting, there was no mistake of that. If he felt like hitting someone, he hit someone. It was just that simple. He'd tread the line several times where expulsion was considered, and many times his parents had brought up home schooling. They'd even gotten him into it once. It only lasted a day; the teacher had left in an outrage, demanding compensation for each and every bite mark.
He let out a little chuckle at that. Some of those bites had almost been enough to draw blood. He'd have been a lot more proud of himself if he'd managed that; as it was, he was proud that he'd driven the teacher off at all. And happy. I don't need some damned private tutor giving me lessons at home. That's my house, dammit. As much as I may hate it, it's all I got, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some teacher barge in and blow my privacy. Damn straight.
He began to scribble random lines into the margins of the paper he'd selected – those were the only blank spaces left on it. Soon he'd have to rip another one out of his notebook. He sighed. Damned nuisance. That notebook only had five pages left to it, and he'd already doodled on those. He didn't fancy himself to be an artist, but drawing was something else he enjoyed. Besides, it pisses my teachers off whenever I give them papers with drawings all over them.
He began to lose track of time as he continued to write. He was annoyed; it was all the same stuff, just rehashed. He didn't want to keep saying the same thing a million times over. He wanted something new. He glanced up at the clock.
Five minutes 'til the next class. Damn. Well, I suppose I could get a move-on. I can pay attention in Literature class, at the very least. Not like the damn teacher cares whether I do or not.
As he passed by one of the tables on his way out of the cafeteria, his left hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of fries from some poor loser's Styrofoam tray. The kid glared at Kyle's back and muttered, "Asshole."
You'd better believe it, Kyle thought, as he munched on the fries.
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Kyle took his time in going to Phys. Ed. He hated that class with a passion – which was not uncommon, since most students in secondary education hated that class with a passion. The difference between him and most students, however, was that he only dressed out for it every other day. On the days he didn't dress out, he sat in the bleachers and wrote. Wisely, people left him alone. Inevitably, at the beginning of the year, there'd be a few poor, dumb kids who'd bother him about it – it had happened to him every year since 7th grade, when he first started the notebook that later expanded to the folder – but after an angry stare (or worse, a hit), they stopped asking and stayed far away from him.
When he dressed out, his preferred for of participation was weight-lifting. He always did that by himself. He avoided the barbell – rules stated someone needed to spot a bar-lifter and he wasn't about to partner with anyone – and instead focused on the machines.
If there was one thing his teachers could count on him for, it was consistency. He always dressed out every other day, and save for sickness, he was one to hold to that schedule. Yesterday he'd skipped school entirely; that had been a no-dress day.
He trudged into the locker room three minutes late. Half the guys were already dressed out; the rest were well on the way. He threw his backpack atop the locker row – it was much too full to fit in his assigned locker – and discarded his overcoat and pants. Shorts, shirt, and shoes were all he needed, and he always made sure to have his gym clothes on under his street clothes on his dress days.
He caught several venomous glances from his classmates, which only prompted him to grin. He couldn't care less if they hated him. The fact that they even expended energy in taking notice of him – not to mention hating him! – was something that amused him no end. Idiots, damned idiots. They shouldn't bother. After all, what point is there in hating some random asshole? Quite entertaining.
He traipsed out to the gym floor. As usual, the underclassmen were staring at the tattoos that adorned his arms and legs. They weren't huge tattoos, but they fascinated the kids that were too young to have them yet. He paid them no mind. He barely paid attention to what happened around him in gym class half the time, anyway. Occasionally he'd listen for a teacher's instructions just so he could do the exact opposite. Every day, the teacher told them to run five laps around the gym, and every day the teacher would have to yell at Kyle to start running forward and in the right direction. Those who weren't aware of his reputation or had, by some miracle, not run afoul of him, laughed whenever this happened. Those who knew him kept their mouths shut and stuck with an angry scowl. It had gotten old for them.
On the third lap, Kyle found himself gasping for breath. God, I could use a cigarette right about now... maybe after class. Find some random smoker, give him a buck or two, have a smoke, then urinate on the school's cornerstone before Dad gets here. Hell yeah.
When the laps were finished, the class was given a myriad of options for strenuous exercise. Kyle, not surprisingly, chose the weight room. Few went there; all the better, was his opinion. Less idiots.
Wordlessly, he entered the weight room and began his work on the machines. His body sank into the monotony of routine. He could have drifted to sleep and still he would have continued his regime automatically.
There was a radio playing in the background. Several students were gathering around it in silent amazement; even the teacher was listening raptly. He rolled his eyes at them. Why bother focusing on the damned news? What're you assholes here for? Don't you dare waste time without letting me in on it. My grade depends on you paying attention to me, you damned fool of a teacher. The volume was turned up, but he barely registered the words filtering through the little machine... something to do with blue eyes and "Kaiba." He'd heard of Kaiba – more specifically, the Kaiba Corporation. It was based in Japan but had outlets all over the world. That company was always looking for a good lawyer or twenty. The head of the company, as he understood it, was some sort of genius boy billionaire. Almost as unscrupulous as Kyle was, and certainly ruthless... though obviously, whatever Kaiba had done, he'd done a better job of it that Kyle. Look at me, I'm still stuck here in this miserable shit-hole and he's making something of himself. He's putting all his damned knowledge to use, and it's giving him a helluva payoff. Not me, though. All I do is run around and make an ass of myself. And maybe try to get other people in the process. Maybe Dad's right. I'll never make anything of myself. Never amount to anything. Being an ass is all I've got.
Isn't it...?
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Author's Notes: I'm aware that there's hardly any involvement in the YGO universe at this point; bear with me as I continue. There will be more, much more. Meantime... review, please!