Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal AUs
Prologue
Disclaimer:I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal.
See bottom for notes.
Night had fallen over Heartland City. Everything was peaceful and quiet. The night was clear, the moon shone brightly in the sky, and all the stars were twinkling. A gentle breeze sifted through the trees, making a gentle rustling sound, adding to the insects' nightly chorus.
For once all was calm. It was hard to believe that just a month or two ago the place had been the battleground for an interstellar war. But for now it was all over. No more mind-controlling Duel Monster cards, Tournaments hosted by corrupt alien politicians, hostile alien takeovers, or card games on roller-coasters.
Of course, there were plenty of other weird things that happened in the city on a day-to-day basis, but for now, everything was just calm, peaceful, and quiet.
Well, almost everything.
Yuma Tsukumo, was for once not the cause of the singular disturbance in the Tsukumo household.
He was, however, awakened by it.
The black and pink haired boy half-way opened his ruby russet eyes and blinked them blearily. Once his vision had slightly cleared, he looked around his room for the disturbance. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Everything was blanketed in a comforting night-time calm. Shifting slightly in his hammock he stretched slightly and turned his head to see Astral hovering slightly a few feet away from Yuma's head. Yuma smiled slightly. Astral must have fallen asleep like that again. He tried not to stare at Astral's blue glow for too long, because he didn't want to ruin his night vision. Apparently whatever the alien Astral being had done to regenerate his energy in the key before no longer worked, and he now had to sleep to regain energy, something they quickly discovered after his return to Earth. So now Astral usually slept either near Yuma or with him, whether it be on his actual bed, beneath his hammock in a sleeping bag, or, on one memorable occasion staying up all night stargazing, in the hammock itself. This had ended with them both falling to the floor in shock the next morning, waking up the whole household. Though, occasionally, especially when watching all-night marathons of Different Dimension ESPer Robin, Astral would just fall asleep where he stood… or floated.
Yuma's smile grew as he slipped out of his hammock, still not spotting whatever had caused the disturbance, so he figured it must have come from outside of his room. His tan bare feet gently touched the green rug beneath his hammock, barley making a sound. He took a second to stretch out his still dormant muscles, waiting for the pins and needles feeling to fade.
Whatever had caused him to wake, it hadn't come from his room. He would have to slip out and investigate. But before that…
Yuma tiptoed over to where Astral floated, being careful not to wake him. He would get a stiff neck sleeping standing up again. Yuma reached out and gently grabbed Astral's glowing blue hand slowly guiding him towards the hammock. Considering he was still floating, it would be easier to get him into the hammock than into the sleeping bag. They really needed to get him a real bed.
"C'mon, Astral," he whispered quietly, nudging him in front of the hammock.
It wasn't hard to get him to follow since he was still floating, and surprisingly, still weightless. There had been a couple of times when someone would try to nudge Astral awake and suddenly find him chained to the laws of gravity once again. Yuma wondered if this counted as sleepwalking… sleepfloating, whatever.
Yuma sighed as they stopped, Astral's head bobbing like a ragdoll's.
Man, he must be really out of it, Yuma thought, normally he's an incredibly light sleeper.
"Go on, get in," Yuma whispered again.
He gently touched the tips of each of Astral's feet, causing him to pull them up against his body. Now that he was curled up in fetal position in mid-air, Yuma worked quickly to shove him into the hammock. Once he was laying down Astral unfurled back into a ragdoll position, arms and legs splayed out haphazardly. Yuma to stop and wonder if Obaa-chan or Akari hadn't slipped something to him before bed to make sure that he actually slept instead of watching reruns all night.
The thought shattered when Astral curled into himself and shivered. Yuma chuckled quietly while grabbing one of the thicker blankets to toss over his friend. Astral calmed almost immediately after and fell back into a deeper sleep.
Now that Astral was taken care of, Yuma went back to investigating. Astral's breathing had quieted so Yuma strained his ears to listen for anything out of the ordinary. Soon he picked up very faint noises. It sounded like someone was in the basement.
The basement had more or less been his parents' laboratory. Since their disappearance all those years ago it had been shut down, locked up, and forgotten, Obaa-chan not wanting them anywhere near the dangerous equipment. However, since their parents return it had once again been put into use.
Yuma carefully slid out of the attic, shimmying down the rope into his actual bedroom. After landing quietly, he silently padded down the stairs, and wound his way through the house to the next set that lead to the basement. He was extra careful as he crept past Obomi, who was in stand-by mode in one of the corners. No need for her to alert everybody and wake them up.
Yuma shivered as he hit the first of the concrete steps, but his feet quickly got used to the cold. As he hit the bottom step, the sounds of someone typing and muttering to themselves under their breath was heard. Yuma padded down the narrow corridor and turned to see the heavy wooden door to his parents' lab left ajar, the shiny metal key still in the knob.
Whoever it was must have gotten fed up with whatever they were doing, because a loud "Argh!" was heard and it sounded like they kicked something heavy.
Yuma rubbed his eyes blearily at the introduction of the computer lights until a figure came into focus.
"Tou-chan?" he asked, "What are you still doing up?"
"Yuma!" Kazumo Tsukumo jolted, then turned around in his swivel chair to face his son, "I'm sorry, Yuma, did I wake you?"
"No. I heard noises so I went to go and investigate. Astral fell asleep sta- …er, floating up again." Yuma answered, not wanting to interrupt his father's work.
"I think the noises you heard were from me," Kazumo smiled warmly, "You must have amazing hearing to have heard it in the attic though."
Yuma chuckled sheepishly. While he was still a fairly deep sleeper, the amount of people coming in and out of his room without him knowing it and just the fact alone of surviving an interstellar war, had both sharpened his hearing and made him incredibly paranoid. Though he still trusted people openly ad tried to bond with everyone he met, he was still weary of people rummaging through his stuff while he was asleep, especially now that Astral wasn't awake all night to keep watch. And not just enemies or strangers either. (Thank you, Cathy.) Whether it was a friend needing a safe place to crash for the night, or someone stirring up some kind of duel related trouble, Yuma wanted to be well aware of it. Even if it meant jolting awake at out of the ordinary sounds.
"I'm sorry if I was being too loud," his father's voice brought him out of his reverie.
"Oh, no, it's no trouble, Tou-chan. I just wanted to know what was going on. I'm the only one awake." Yuma added the last sentence quickly as he saw the question forming on his father's lips.
Kazuma nodded and smiled.
"What are you doing anyways?" Yuma asked, suddenly remembering that his father staying up working this way was very out of the ordinary. Glancing at the clock on the corner of the computer screen, he realized that it was actually early morning.
"Ah. I'm researching Alternate Universes." He said, the thrill of scientific discovery bringing a twinkle back to his eyes.
"You mean like the Astral and Barian Worlds?" Yuma asked. His father motioned for him to pull up one of the other swivel chairs and sit down. He did.
"Uh… Well, no. Not exactly," he answered, trying to think of how best to explain it.
"I'm not just talking about alternate worlds in our own Universe, like the Astral and Barian Worlds, that we can reach through wormholes and space travel. I'm talking about Alternate Universes, carbon copies of this world in all ways except for a few. Worlds with minor little differences that change the whole dynamics of the world. Multiple Earths where just one little thing is different from the next. …Think the Butterfly Effect, but with Universes instead of Time Travel," Kazuma explained.
Yuma nodded. Despite what most people thought, he was not a complete idiot, and he had grown up hearing about things like the Butterfly Effect and Alternate Dimensions. Such crazy theories and things came to him as easily as breathing. However, that wasn't much help in things like school.
"You mean, like a Multiverse?" Yuma asked.
Kazuma gave a blank expression for only a split second before he answered, "No. I mean Alternate Universes. A Multiverse is multiple Earths or Universes that range from slightly different to radically different due to a slight change in a timeline."
"That's what you just said."
"No. A Multiverse has to do with just timeline differences. An Alternate Universe can be the result of timeline changes or other things."
"It still sounds like a Multiverse to me. …But I think I get what you're saying," Yuma said.
Kazuma nodded knowing that he didn't have to explain any further. That was Yuma-speak for 'I grasp the concept, but I'm not quite sure how to put it into words'. They really needed to work on building the boy's vocabulary. Astral had been good for that so far, but a few more lessons wouldn't hurt.
"So… In one of these 'Alternate Universe', I could be like a merman, or a girl, or an Astral Being, or something like that?" Yuma asked, interested, eyes alight with curiosity.
Kazuma nodded, turning towards the screen again and pulling up what he had been working on, "That's right. And there are many other possibilities that you couldn't even begin to imagine."
The screen now showed Yuma a rough idea of what those alternate worlds would look like.
"Coooool!" Yuma exclaimed, eyes sparkling, "I wonder if all of the 'other me's' have the Kattobingu Spirit too."
Kazuma chuckled lightly, "Yuma, no matter what universe you're in you will always have your Kattobingu Spirit."
"Yeah, Kattobingu!" Yuma exclaimed, before turning his attention back to the screen.
"I wonder what there all like," he breathed after a moment.
"Yeah," Kazuma agreed, "Wouldn't it be neat to find out?"
So sitting with his father on their own moonlit night, Yuma gazed at the moons of others worlds, wondering what they would be like, not realizing that they were closer than they seemed.
FrenchFryGirl: Alrighty then! So I'm back. And first things first, I apologize for my three year absence. A lot has been going on in my life for these past three years and I just haven't had the time to write at all. So for those of you reading my Legend Of Zelda stories, I'm sorry to say, but those have been discontinued. I will leave them up for anyone who enjoys reading what's already there, but I will not be adding anymore to them. For those of you who haven't read those, please disregard that. All you need to know is that I've been absent for about three years and I'm finally back, so I may be a bit rusty.
As for this particular story; Here's how it works:
I used the few Japanese words that I do know that are used by the characters in the anime itself, because this is supposed to be the Canon Universe. I will not be doing this in later chapters. I will either use their English names, or drop the usage of honorifics. I also will leave words like Mom, Dad, and Grandma in English. The reason for this being that I don't really understand how Japanese honorifics work all that well, and I'd rather just not use them than use them and sound like an idiot. I'm sorry if this confuses or upsets anyone.
This is meant to be my catch-all for the AUs that I come up with for this fandom. I will post one chapter for each AU, probably the beginning of the story for that AU. The next chapter will switch to another AU. I will only continue with an AU if I get enough requests for it.
That said, if anyone wants to take an AU as the first chapter of a story and run with it, then by all means, do it. So long as you don't claim it as your own or copy/paste the first chapter you don't even have to ask. These almost double up as prompts to get people writing more for this fandom, because there aren't nearly enough fics in the Zexal section. I'll try to take care of the world building part at the start of each chapter.
That said, if you have any prompts, suggestions, or AUs you want to see, by all means, send them to me. I need ideas! So long as it's not just a one word prompt (I see enough of those already), then I'll see what I can do. Some rules for that, however:
Only ask once! I cannot stress this enough. Hopefully, I won't disappear for as long of a period as last time, but I'm still in school. If I don't have time for it, then I just don't have time for it. Nothing against anyone personally.
I can do pairings. However, the most you will end up getting is fluffy tender moments that could probably be taken for strong friendship. I see most of the "pairings" as a brotherly kind of thing anyways (like that tender moment between Yuma and Astral above). Also, while I'm still too young to know for sure, I'm beginning to highly suspect that I am asexual. You'll be lucky if you can get me to write anyone kissing romantically. (And yes, you can be kissed platonically. Half of my family is from Europe so I'm kind of used to it. I'm lucky if I can even get my American friends to hug me without looking at me weird.) So if you want anything further than holding ands and cuddling, you'll have to go somewhere else.
Also, I am uncomfortable doing anything with too many religious overtones. Please just keep that in mind.
Do not ask for crossovers. This is not in the crossover section for a reason. This includes anything Disney. A mermaid AU will not follow the plotline of The Little Mermaid.
Do not ask for anything that could have possibly happened in Canon. Including Future Fics and What-ifs? This is for Alternate Universes, not Alternate Timelines. (Though I may do that later if I get enough requests for it.)
I can't think of any more rules. If I do or something comes up, I'll add it to here. Feel free to be as specific or as vague as you want with your suggestions (so long as it's more than one word).
Just one final forewarning. I like to write. Like, a lot. If you are not into heavy reading, turn back now. These are meant for world building, so each chapter could be well over 5,000 words. Most of the stories I see for this fandom are between 1,000-2,000 words, so I decided to do this for the heavy readers like me.
I think I'll stop there for now. I already have the first chapter typed up, and I am putting the final touches on revising it. I also already have several more already planned out, so it may be some time before I can get any request done anyways.
That's all for now.
-FFG (FrenchFryGirl)