The night was quiet despite the heavy traffic in the roads. But this was what the busy city of Birmingham was like at night.
But Birmingham tonight was going to be home to something different, something that involved the sixteen year old Alistair who was currently walking home.
Al could be a sociable person most of the time. He could sometimes crack jokes, he could sometimes ask girls out, and he could sometimes be an open and warm person. But sometimes was appearing less and less recently.
He didn't question why he was keeping so much to himself recently, but he did. He couldn't help himself. It was as if he knew that all bonds should be broken sooner rather than later.
Hidden behind his hooded black shirt he kept walking down the empty streets of Birmingham. He slipped his pale hands out of his pockets and ran them through his dark hair.
"Tonight feels different" he murmured to himself before reaching into his pockets again and closing his hand around a metal crucifix he carried around with him. He didn't know why he needed something to reassure him he was going to be okay but he still felt he needed it.
He kept walking, the time passed. Perhaps half an hour went by. He only had five minutes walk left before he got home. Or so he thought. After more than five minutes he stopped walking as he realised there was a problem. He looked around him. He was sure that he had walked past the same closed shops more than twice. He also noticed how not one car had come past since he began walking.
He looked around. There was no one else on the streets, "What the…" he murmured to himself. Then he heard a noise, the sound of a beast like panting in his ears.
He snapped around in panic trying to find the source of the noise holding in a gasp of fright that threatened to break out. But he found the source of the noise. Sitting at his feet was a Black Labrador. It seemed normal enough, but perhaps a distinguishing factor about it was that its eyes were white. He had never seen a Black Labrador with such brilliant pearl coloured eyes.
"Hello there" He whispered down to the dog that wagged its tail before getting to its feet. It sniffed his feet for a moment before suddenly dashing off at an incredible speed.
"Woah there dog where's the fire?" He called out as the dog sprinted off, he ran after it out of impulse, but it was only a matter of moments before he suddenly started questioning how stupid he was being.
He didn't stop running however, because now he noticed where the dog had run off to, a dark alley between two shops that seemed to be unnaturally dark.
"Hello?" he called into the darkness unsure of what to do next. Keep walking or move towards the darkness?
But he had no time to actually answer the question. Something lashed out of the shadows, a blue hand that gripped his throat before dragging him into the shadows. He barely had any time to so much as choke a cry for help.
---
His head was pounding as Al awoke. He felt a bruise on the top of his head. The first thing he did was get up and grip the crucifix in his pocket between his fingers. He felt cold metal against his fingers and let out a sigh of relief before looking around. He could see nothing but endless black but he wasn't afraid so long as he held onto the crucifix in his pocket.
He gave out a yelp as suddenly bright light cut through the darkness. He shielded his eyes from the light as the room was lit up. Slowly however he managed to open his eyes. He observed the room he was in, a stone room lit up with not a trace of darkness or shadows, all except Al's shadow.
"My shadow wants to talk to me…right?" he called out his eyes narrowing on the shadow.
He would be lying to himself if he wasn't surprised by what happened next. His shadow crawled up from the floor, a perfect pitch black silhouette that mimicked his own body all except for his right arm in which hung a jet black duel disk.
"Well well you're a bit out of the ordinary aren't you?" The shadow asked a nonexistent grin on his face, "Usually by now they start screaming and asking God for help"
Al just scowled at the shadow his eyes shifting from the shadow to the duel disk that hung on his arm.
"I've seen one of those before" he spoke out to the shadow, "A duel disk? Why would a supernatural being like you need a duel disk?"
"Well you see kid out of all the games people play Duel Monsters seems to be the one where most people have no clue what their doing" The duel disk on his arm opened up to reveal the card zones and a total of eight thousand life points in blood red numbers.
"So many of our victims have been novices like you that have no idea what their doing…so it makes easy prey" he spoke before thrusting his free hand forward.
"Now you have two choices you play me in a game you know nothing about for the chance to have your life spared…or you forfeit in which you shall be torn apart by the shadow realm" The shadows voice was deep and dark and threatened to break every nerve in Al's body. But Al stood tall. He knew he only had one option.
"I accept"
The shadow chuckled before pointing at him with one arm, "Well allow me to give you a duel disk and deck before we begi-" The shadow was cut off as a light suddenly began to pour from Al's wrist. A silver metal suddenly began to form from his wrist into the shape of a duel disk. A deck appeared in the slot and a total of eight thousand life points appeared in the display.
"How did you do that?" The shadow exclaimed caught off guard by the sight.
"I don't know" Al replied his voice had a slight tone of humour in it as he held the duel disk in front of his face. Why didn't this faze him? He should be scared, terrified, he was in a strange place with no one to protect him. But yet though the question was important. He didn't care in the slightest, "But if you want to back out I'm sure the shadow realm won't mind 'tearing your body' to shreds as you put it?"
The shadow growled towards him. The smug little brat was too confident.
"You go first" He spoke with a little grin on his face at the shadow, "I want you to show me how to play"
The shadow growled again before drawing five cards. He picked one of them and slapped down the card against a card zone.
"I play Giant Orc in attack mode" A giant green orc with a club appeared from the darkness beneath their feet (2200/0) "Then I will play one card face down"
Al looked up at the Giant Orc. It growled at him just like the shadow and swung its club around its head roaring at him in a threatening matter.
It was unnatural. He had never seen a creature like it, and it made him laugh. A lot, he couldn't stop laughing in fact. He drew five cards from his deck before looking through the hand trying to contain burst of laughter.
"What's so funny?" The shadow called out its dark hazy fists clenched.
"I don't know I just expected monsters to be a little more scary than they actually are I'll play in attack mode the Insect Knight" (1900) Al slapped the card down without a moments pause before a creature than looked like a grasshopper appeared with a sword and shield in its hands.
"I play Torrential Tribute to destroy both are monsters because you summoned a monster!" The trap card flipped up on the shadows side of the field and a giant burst of blue energy enveloped both monsters, Al merely just chuckled as his monster was blown away.
"You don't trust me do you? You got rid of my monster even though it was less powerful than yours…" He grinned before playing two cards on the field "Two cards face down your turn"
The shadow drew another card "I play graceful charity" A card with an angel holding light in between it's hands appeared on the field "I now draw three cards and discard two to the graveyard before playing one card face down and one card in defence mode your move"
"Why my move shadow?" Al called out with another chuckle "Come on don't tell me you don't have another monster to attack me with? I'm wide open!" he said before drawing another card.
"I now play in attack mode Berserk Gorilla that must attack every turn!" A giant red gorilla appeared before shooting out a breath of flame at the defence card (2000/1000)
"You destroyed my Giant Germ when it gets destroyed-"
"500 life points are deducted from me and you can summon two Giant Germs….but your not going to are you?" He asked before coughing as a decaying sickness filled his lungs.
"You only have two don't you?" Al asked in between coughs.
Al's life point's: 7500
The shadow seemed taken back as another Giant Germ appeared on the field in place of the other one, a huge purple cell that pulsated with the feel of sickness. (1000/500)
"It's my turn…I sacrifice my Giant Germ for Beast of Talwar" The Germ disappeared without a trace before a black demon wielding two blades appeared in its place (2400/2150)
"Talwar attack his Gori-"
"I play Negate attack" The demon lunged but met with the trap card and the glowing barrier it produced.
"It stops your attack and ends your battle phase but don't worry because next turn I have to attack your Talwar don't I? Because of Gorilla's effect"
He drew a card from his deck before looking at Talwar and then the shadow, "I now play premature burial by reducing my life points by 800"
Al Life points: 6700
"I now play Mystical space typhoon from my hand to destroy your premature burial" The shadow slammed down the card, a storm was created over the premature burial card. Al just began to laugh maniacally in a response.
"No you won't I activate Magic Drain" A trap with a green demon like creature draining an old looking warrior flipped up "If you can discard a magic card from your hand you can destroy my premature burial…if not then I can negate mystical space typhoon"
His eyes narrowed on the shadow "I know why you won't because the magic cards in your deck are too valuable" The shadow seemed to look at its hand before shaking its head and sighing.
Insect knight emerged from the earth below poised for attack" Now I'll play my own mystical space typhoon to destroy the bottomless trap hole you have face down"
"What!" The shadow hissed as the same storm came and swept his card away with a fierce lightning bolt.
"You heard me the card you have face down is your bottomless trap hole which can send a summoned monster out of play but that isn't going to happen pal because I want to summon my Barrel Dragon!" The two monsters disappeared in a cloud of steam before a metal dragon with gun barrels for arms and a head appeared in their places.
(2600/2300)
"Now I flip three coins and if two of them land on heads I can destroy your monster" Three silver coins appeared in Al's hand before he threw them into the air. They all landed in a clutter on the floor. He grinned to himself before looking towards the Beast of Talwar.
"Two heads means your monster goes bye bye" He pointed at the creature before the dragon fired twice at the monster destroying it in a burst of explosions.
"Now attack shadow over there" He said with a little smirk before the dragon fired with the last remaining cannon at the shadow. The projectile crashed into the shadow engulfing it in a cloud of fire and smoke. Behind the cloud of destruction was the sound of the shadow wailing in pain.
Shadows life points: 5400
As the smoke cleared he looked towards the shadow. He was surprised as the shadow emerged clutching its chest with a gloved hand. One of the shadows legs had been blown apart.
"Bloody hell…are you ok?" Even if he was a shadow this thing clearly still felt pain. It snarled at him before drawing another card from its deck.
"I now play my own premature burial card to bring back a giant germ which I then sacrifice to summon another monster"
Shadows life points: 4600
The card was played again and the germ rose from the ground before exploding into a shadow like mist before forming again into a new monster.
"I now play Dark Ruler Ha des" The creature was dressed in a strange yellow costume with a skull on the front of its chest. Its skin was blue and it had red eyes, in one hand it held a wine glass filled with red liquid.
(2450/1600)
"Dark Ruler makes all fiend monsters on the field gain the ability to negate the effects of monsters they destroy…I'll now play on Barrel Dragon…"
"Tribute to the doomed" Al answered for him as the shadow discarded a card to the graveyard to activate a card with a mummy wrapping up a man in bandages.
"It destroys one of your monsters by discarding a card to the graveyard" The same mummy appeared from out of the ground dragging the barrel dragon into the ground with him.
Al didn't blink twice at the sight. He more braced himself. He could almost feel the next attack about to take place.
"I now remove 3 fiend monsters from play to summon Dark Necrofear in attack mode"
The spirits of different fiends from his graveyard appeared from the ground and twisted into the form of a new monster. It was female. Despite it's looks. It had no hair, it was bright blue and had red eyes and wore silver armour. In its hands it held a wooden doll that had its head bashed in and was missing all its limbs other than one arm.
"Now I attack you with both of them"
Dark Ruler cackled as he lunged at Al throwing his wine glass at him causing it to break over the teens head. Necrofear then lunged at him and hit with in the chest with the wooden doll before causing him to keel over.
Al's life points: 2850
He was hurt badly. There was glass in his head and there was blood running down his face. And as for being hit by that doll he felt an abnormal bruise form under where the doll had hit him. But he stood up. He was still confident he could win…
He drew a card "I now play Kelbek in attack mode"
Kelbek appeared in a burst of light, it was a strange looking machine that was light brown and looked slightly like a satellite except it had two arms and an arrow like head. (1500/1800)
"This card when attacked returns the cards that attack it to the owners hand at the end of the damage step" Though he read the effect proudly he paused. He had made an error. Because of the dark ruler Kelbek's effect would not activate. He would be dead by the end of the battle phase.
"I…I play two cards face down too" He called out a trickle of fear running down his back.
The shadow seemed to acknowledge this as he clicked his fingers. The two fiend monsters began to laugh in unison on his command, mind games; this was just what Al needed.
"I will now attack your Kelbek with Dark Necrofear" He announced before the monster lunged at Kelbek. The doll in her hands suddenly flying out of her grasp and shooting towards Kelbek with its hand outstretched, a ball of blue fire emerging from the palm of its one arm and shooting out at Kelbek.
"I'm afraid not…" He muttered with a smirk as one of the cards flipped up and revealed two cylinder objects with question marks on them.
"Magic cylinder takes the attack from Necrofear and deals the damage to you directly" The shadow gasped before crying out as it's body was enveloped with blue fire as one cylinder transported the flame to the other and right back at the shadow.
Shadows life points: 2400
It writhed in pain but seemed more angered than hurt.
"God why do you want to do this you're in pain? And what the-" Al was cut off as he watched the shadow emerge from the flames. Its body was now whole. It was a throbbing, bleeding mass of burnt blue flesh with veins running over its face and beady red eyes. This was the true form of his attacker this was the creature that had pulled him into the shadows.
The shadow creature slowly began to point towards Al; blood was dripping from the burned flesh of his body. His red eyes narrowed on Al before his fist clenched.
"Because in the end it's worth it Dark Ruler Attack!"
The dark ruler lunged again this time charging darkness into the skull robe he wore and sending a blast of energy from the skull mouth. It was about to hit Kelbek…when it met with a shield.
"I now play the card Draining shield it works like Magic Cylinder but in reverse as it negates your attack and adds the attack of your monster to my life points"
Al's life points: 5300
"I'll…Ill end my turn" The creature growled at him its fists clenched.
Al sighed before drawing a card "I play two cards face down before sacrificing my Kelbek to summon Horus Black Flame Dragon level 6 to the field"
Two cards appeared face down before Kelbek disappeared behind black flames. A new monster appeared. It looked like a bird with a metal body its beak opened to breath a small flicker of black flame.
(2300/1600)
"And I'll attack your Necrofear!" The bird dragon opened its beak again and shot out a huge blast of dark fire which engulfed Necrofear minus the puppet it held in its arms.
Shadow's life points: 2300
"Now your dragons mine…I now use Necrofear as an equip card to seize control of Horus level 6!" The untouched doll flew at the dragon placing a hand on the dragons head. The dragon began to twist and turn as if struggling before suddenly the creature began to take a few steps towards the shadows side of the field, its eyes now blue.
"I don't think so…" Al murmured. Horus disappeared behind a barrier of black flame. A new beast suddenly began to rise from behind it. Something that was much bigger.
It was like Horus except its head looked more dragon than bird. It also now had arms and its body was more than three times the size of the last dragon.
(3000/1800)
"This is Horus the Black Flame Dragon level 8" Al spoke proudly with a wide smirk on his face "He has the ability to negate any spell card I want to negate"
"Why the hell should that matter?" The wounded creature asked blood splattering over his black duel disk as he talked.
"Well it doesn't really I just thought you should know…oh and by the way since I sacrificed Horus level 6 Necrofear goes to the graveyard with him" he spoke with a little smirk.
"Surely that can't be allowed!" The creature snapped at Al who just laughed at the look on his scarred vein filled face.
"Well I got to admit you nearly got me but you see considering one of the conditions of the Horus level up is that if it's equipped with equip cards I'm going to be able to a sacrifice it at the end of the turn and get rid of the equip card it's original form was equipped with….yeah I'd say it's fair" Al said with another laugh cracking his knuckles.
"Now it's your turn and be warned if you don't come up with something that has over 3000 attack points then you'll be killed in the next turn" he spoke the cheerful look now wiped of his face as the shadow drew another card.
Now the shadow was shaking. This was not how it was supposed to be. Mario had duelled with a kid and killed him in minutes. He had been informed this was the best way to defeat the children in the shadow realm. Why did this kid seem to know everything about his deck and strategies? Why couldn't he kill this kid!
"It's my move and now I'll take your advice and sacrifice Dark Ruler to summon something twice as powerful!"
The dark ruler howled with laughter as dark flame surrounded his body. His creature did not cry out or even give a choke of pain as the flame engulfed him before red armour suddenly attached itself to Dark Ruler's limbs and body.
A creature was being made out of Dark Ruler. A creature complete covered with red armour, parts of it's chest and biceps a dark blue colour while white strands of hair appeared out of it's knuckles and head. Its head was a helmet with two horns and a yellow pearl in between its menacing eyes.
"This is Great Maju Garzett and when I tribute summon him his attack power becomes twice the power of the original monster I used to sacrifice him" The shadow smirked as the creature glowed with a dark aura.
(4900/0)
"Now Great Maju Garzett attack his Horus dragon!" The shadow commanded as the demon knight grabbed the dragon by the head and raised it's free hand back to punch its head clean off.
"Yes kill him!" Shadow yelled out fighting through the pain of his burning body as he laughed maniacally.
But the monster never finished its attack. It was stopped by a pain deep in its stomach. The pain grew and grew until it became a fierce burning sensation. It howled in agony letting go of Horus and clutching its chest. The shadow had stopped laughing and now stared at his monster as its body began to smoke.
"W…what's happening?"
A trap card on Al's side of the field had been flipped up "The cards called Blast Held by a Tribute" Al announced as the trap card revealed a man holding a strange flesh covered bomb that looked like it was about to explode.
"This card can be activated when a tribute summoned monster attacks…when it does it gets destroyed by the bomb planted inside the tribute monster and with it you lose 1000 of your life points" Al explained the effect with a smirk on his face as he watched the shadow begin to back away as his monster writhed and struggled. He was trying to suppress the bomb.
"Die" Al muttered before the creature exploded scattering chunks of armour, bits of flesh and splattered the floor with blood. As for the shadow he received a lesser punishment as he was thrown back from the blast of the bomb.
Shadows life points: 1300
"Now it's my turn" Al drew one card before looking towards the shadow who was now shivering in fear as the Horus dragon now towered over him it's mouth opened prepared to fire a jet of searing black flame all over him.
"You want to know Shadow?" Al called out his expression calm as he walked over to the side of his huge monster, "You want to know why I knew you're every move?"
The shadow looked towards him and nodded slowly unable to speak.
"Because for one thing I knew about duel monsters from the start I'm no novice" Al spoke the words with a grin on his face watching the burned face of the shadow creature look towards him shocked.
"And two you're using my old fiend deck Horus…ATTACK!" He yelled his eyes narrowed on the shadow the dragon threw back its head a ball of black flame growing in its mouth.
"Grand Black Flame Inferno!" He declared the attack not caring that he made it up on the spot. The dragon sent a wave of black flame over the Shadow, the sounds of his pain only urging it on as he was disintegrated in the wave of black flame.
Al looked over the inferno before looking up at his monster. Should he feel guilty that he had just taken a life? Should he weep and swear never to do it again? Was he going to need to start feeding Horus? Just what the hell did a Black Flame Dragon eat?
But for now he knew just what to do. Watch his dragon in its finest moment before turning to the charred corpse of his enemy before murmuring….
"Get your own cards thief
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Well then another chapter done…and I believe it's time again to go visit duel academy don't you? Please review