Queen's note: This is a continual trade story with AmethystClaw on DA (not sure if she has an acount here), and fun to write to boot XD I know the monster isn't exactly the same as in the show or manga, but I wanted a difference between card and 'reality.'
Crosswise
Awareness came slowly, he drifted in and out of conscious for a few minutes. Or it could have been a few years, he really didn't have a grasp on that part of his brain that had the mental watch. So it took a while before he realized that maybe he should wake up. At the very least start clawing at the pieces of his mind and trying to fit them back together the right way.
As bad as it may sound, he was actually used to being knocked unconscious at this point in his life. Either from good old fashion fistfights or the magical crap from the shiny one of his best friends had. Not to mention the others.
When he was able to sort out he was not in one of the normally positions after being knocked unconscious. Not in a locker room, or nurses' office, or hospital, or his bed (or a bed at one of his friends' houses)...the ground...
Jounouichi 'Joey' Wheeler, was made aware of a splitting headache first of all. Meaning his forced nap was from the magical crap not a fish, or a fist to the head.
Don't ask about the fish, really, don't.
Back to waking up where he wasn't used to. Given it was something magic based, and he wasn't being dragged- something again was sad to admit that he was used to- that left being carried. Only, who could carry him? Joey new he wasn't the biggest but he wasn't as small as his friend Yugi. He was still being carried, and from the pressure on his front, the tender softer stomach and it felt like the lower edge of his rib cage was caught on an edge or ridge of... metal? The parts that were in contact to his either savor or kidnapper were warm, but the rest of his frame was starting to shiver, making a large something (a hand?) tighten around his legs.
What the hell?
Joey cracked open one eye, seeing only hazy, colored shapes around him. The dark smudge directly below him and the wall of red and orange he was apparently on, was moving away from him. A tread mill? Why was he draped passed out on a tread mill? …did the gym or an equipment store or something like that try and eat him?
Naw, that wasn't really his brand of luck.
The young man squinted both eyes open, trying to clear them he reached up to rub the back of his wrist against one. His right hand came up short, tugged on by something black that was wrapping and twisting around his wrist and hand. "The hell?" Joey blurted aloud, struggling more actively as what heat he had been getting from the 'wall' was suddenly drained away as the darkness attached to him. It left him shivering and almost hypothermic within the minute.
Within the time that it took the wall to realize what was happening and shift it's grip on Joey's legs, holding uncomfortably tight to his knees to keep the young man in place as it twisted around. A blade flashed out in the dim light, swinging up and backwards to slice through the living shadow. There was a soft hiss as the shadows retreated from their target, the remnants hanging front the bond's wrist dissolving into mist then fading away.
"The hell man!" Joey struggled weakly but still struggled. Though far from young he was still young enough not to realize that wiggling was undignified. Then again if he did know, Joey was the type to fling that kind of dignity out the metaphorical window. The problem was that the living wall he was riding on wasn't expecting a wiggly teenager. Nor apparently how to hold onto one, for the next thing the young man knew he was meeting the ground as gravity reintroduced itself to Joey by way of the face.
Some things just needed to be said despite being too obvious or not, it just needed to be said.
"...ow man, ow." Joey gasped as he rolled over from being half sprawled on his front, to laying on his back. Mostly so his rump wasn't aimed up at the sky where it could be vulnerable to any magics flying around. He'd learned his lesson about staying either upright or flat on the ground thank you.
The young man rubbed one hand on his shirt before scrubbing at his face for a moment before he froze. Startled as his whole forearm was engulfed by a very large hand. Joey stared at the callused hand, and felt his stomach drop down for a visit and a chat with his batter after looking beyond the hand.
Somewhere in his brain, something went fizzt!
Mostly because Joey was starting at a set of dark eyes that were much older, and though human like, where not human at all. Those eyes regarding him like he was just so much raw meat as the massive frame of the other being lifted the arm it held captured in it's grip. It made Joey give a Yugi-style squeak as he was manipulated to sit up.
Standing, the living wall would be a good eight, maybe eight and a half feet tall. Broad in the shoulders, and thus the chest, the living wall was human…ish in his physical form, and clearly male in build. That build was also covered with rock-solid muscles, massive in a way but not in a ridiculous budging the being still put Joey's forming muscles to complete shame.
Dark eyes, that had irises the same black as his pupils, were old and had fathomless years of battle experience.
What parts of his frame wasn't clad in thick, rusty red colored armor there was black fabric of pants and shirt, and a silver horned helmet. The being had just as thick boots on that protected large feet from not just the hazards of the ground but able to keep traction while fighting. That long broad sword was just as impressive on its owner, resting on the ground just to Joey's left. It was a strange red-ish orange metal, colored metal not painted as evidence by the nicks and warn groves. Not to say the sword wasn't sharp, Joey could also see that with his bugged out eyes locked onto the sword as it rose up over him.
I'm toasty. The teen thought in numb horror at the same time the being's form fitted into place onto his mind. Oh gods, Ra, that's the flame swordsman. One of my monsters is going to turn me in to sliced toast!