Stocking didn't know what to think at the moment. She was dueling against Brief in the match that would show him, as well as the general public, that she was the better duelist, even if only she and Brief would know as to why she was so determined to win in the first place. Her Darkness Neosphere stood tall with the sinister aura that made the semi-peaceful expression on her face unnoticeable, was what prevented Brief's Number 17: Leviathan Dragon from attacking her a turn ago. Sure, his Scrap-Iron Scarecrow prevented her from destroying his mighty Xyz monster, but it was weaker than her ace, and would still be 1000 points short even if he detatched the second material.
Then, everything fell apart after Louis forced his way into the room. Not only was he a Ghost, but he was a stage 2 Ghost, a term that meant he could transform into something more dangerous than his base form. If she had time to enjoy the battle before her, she would of made a pun about how he acted like a Lv monster, jumping from Lv 4 to Lv 8, but sadly, she didn't have that luxury, and proceeded to fling her high heels at the dragon Ghost, watching them bounce pathetically off its body.
"Is that the best you could do bitch? HERE'S MY REPLY!" Louis opened its mouth and shot a few large energy blasts, an attack that would of killed her on the spot if she was anyone else. However, she was Stocking Anarchy, an Angel of Heaven, and she had Stripe 1&2 by her side, and quickly transformed them into their combat form in order to slice the incoming sphere in half, somehow making them hit the stage around her.
'I should probably call back the projectors shouldn't I?' Stocking thought to herself before she realized that Louis was gliding towards her with all three heads collecting energy for some attack, and ran towards him with Stripe 1&2 connecting to the hilt, spinning them to create her offensive shield. However, the two dragon heads separated from the body, taking on a more metallic form than the Rainbow Dragon-ish form Louis had, and were going to trap her. If she jumped above the two, then she'd leave herself open for Louis to bite her, although she could of possibly used one of the two metal dragons as a stepping stone to get above Louis and stab his head. If she stayed on the ground; however, she would be crushed by the two metal dragons, which was an outcome she didn't like at all.
"Jump now!" Stocking jumped, widening her eyes at the sight of Panty, who somehow obtained a second pair of panties, and transformed Blacklace into an automatic rifle and began to release a horde of bullets upon Louis, causing him to fly off path and collide into the wall. Seeing the main threat gone for a short amount of time, she focused on the two metal dragons before her, watching as they were about to fly upwards to swallow her whole, when one of them was pelted by smoke bombs, causing it to pause and enter a coughing fit. This random distraction was what she needed to stab the other dragon in its eye.
'If its body is metal, then striking at it would be pointless. So I need to go for the one thing that isn't metal...' "Its eye!" Despite the loud, painful scream that came from the dragon, her wound wasn't deep enough to reach its brain, allowing it to slap her down to the floor with its tail, yet made no further moves to crush her. She was lucky to not have a broken bone, though her right shoulder was now out of place, a simple fix. Before she could make an attempt to put her shoulder back in place, Louis came upon her with hate in his eyes, and its teeth covered in its blood. Did he bite himself, was the thought that entered her mind as she tried to jump away.
Tried, being the key word, as a well place slam of one of the dragon's tails made the ground shake, msking her lose her footing and land on her butt, right as Louis came upon her and was ready to release the small burst of energy that it collected in its mouth. This was the end. She couldn't dodge fast enough, and even if she could, she'd be slapped back in front of Louis by one of the metal dragons, who were giving Panty more trouble than she thought possible. A flash of light later, and she heard a loud, pain filled scream, but it wasn't her own. No, one look showed her Brief standing in front of her with his arms spread out in front of him. What was odd about the sight before her was the familiar sight of the card that, in a way, peaked her interest in Yu-Gi-Oh.
"Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis..." It stood as large as Louis, its golden armor shining brighter than the sun, though its energy wings, she was sure they were energy and not real, glowed as they folded in front of it, blocking the oncoming attack Louis sent at her. Brief plucked three cards from his hand, why he still had his full hand of cards, she didn't know, and watched as he send them to the graveyard.
"I activate Overlord of Heliopolis' effect! By detatching one material from it, I can send as many monsters from my hand or side of the field to the graveyard in order to destroy an equal amount on the field! Heliopolis, release your might upon our enemy!" The mighty Xyz dragon roared, flapping its wings once that sent a pair of bright red energy at the metal dragons, slicing them in half. As for Louis, it recieved the direct attention of the mighty dragon, as it slammed itself into the Ghost and bit its neck.
"I SHALL NOT DIE!" Louis slapped its tail at Heliopolis' head, stunning it long enough for it to shoot a quick energy blast at its head, which allowed it to escape its hold and began to glow. She lost track of what was happening, as she noticed that Brief was not only bleeding around the back of his head, but was showing signs of fainting by how he began to sway from side to side. He looked at her, his eyes showing just how exhausted he must of been and smiled at her.
"I'm glad...So glad that I could protect you this time...Stocking-cha..." Brief suddenly fell to the floor, his duel disk suddenly losing power to keep Heliopolis on the field.
"Brief!" A sudden blast of energy was what prevented her from reaching him, causing her to return her sight upon Louis, who now had the dead metal dragons absorbed into its body. What was different about this fusion was, whereas the three dragon heads were lively, there was only Louis's body, though the flesh of the dead dragons were covering the various wounds he gained during the battle. She didn't want Louis to reach Heaven. She didn't care about their personal history together, despite how pointless their meeting was. No, all she cared about was seeing this Ghost dead before her feet like the worm it is!
With no sign of warning, she threw Stripe 1 at Louis, making a sprint for Louis as the Ghost dodged the holy weapon. She stabbed the underbelly of the Ghost, running even faster, ignoring the feeling of its blood pouring on her back as she hoped to make it bleed out. It flew a bit off the ground, allowing her to grab Stripe 1 and channeled her hatrid into her weapons, hoping for Louis to come straight at her. As long as she aimed for its head, she should be able to kill it with ease.
'That IT was once a human.' A voice spoke to her. It was true, Louis was once a male, a boy, who she somehow had a hand in killing. That didn't matter to her though, and was the main reason she referred to this Ghost as an it, despite it clearly having a gender. Her wish came true, she realized, as Louis glided towards her with a small onslaught of energy blasts coming her way. This time, she had no reason to worry about Brief, as she moved away from the stage he laid, and sliced each oncoming blast in half, angering Louis, who slammed its tail to the ground, causing the ground to shake.
"DIE!" Stocking and Louis shouted at the same time, though for their own reasons. Stocking, unlike last time, jumped at the right time, avoiding the intense vibrations that caused her trouble before, and landed on Louis' snout, performing a spinning slice with speed that would make a master green with envy. Despite feeling great joy at seeing the blood that poured from wound, she forgot about the exploding factor each Ghost had, and found herself hitting the wall HARD, and couldn't activate her Angel form to help her safely fly down to the floor. So, she couldn't help but to be surprised when she felt herself being grabbed by a pair of gentle arms, and felt the familiar feeling of the wind current a pair of wings provided, and turned to see the faint image of someone she didn't expect to see.
"Stay safe..." The being said before disappearing before her eyes. Stocking didn't realize she was standing until she saw Panty and Kona running towards her with what looked to be a few doctors with stretchers coming her way. She felt the last remaing bit of strength she had leave her, and dropped Stripe 1&2 before falling to the ground.
'Mother...why?' Was her last thought before she knew no more.
"Why did you save her?" The being, unexpecting the sudden intruder, turned to the source of the voice and brought upon the intruder's throat its armored wing. This merely made the intruder chuckle with a feral grin upon its face, a sight that made the being sick to its stomach. "You knew that she would of reached out to her subconscious and did the exact same thing my chosen did earlier."
"You don't know that." It replied, simply using its wing to slap the intruder to the wall, rather than allow itself to fall to the temptation of piercing the intruder's throat, no matter how good of an idea it sounded. The intruder chuckled once again, causing it to wonder why the intruder had to love pain to the point of obsession. "Just because your cursed pawn has the ability to tap into darkness and bring about such a creature doesn't mean that she will do the same!"
"Ah, but that is where you are wrong. You felt the energy spike and intervened before it could come to bear its fruit to her. Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be so concerned about her ability now should I? I should question the reason you saved the daughter that you hate so much."
"Shut up, agent of Hell!" She shouted, holy energy pulsing from her very soul to collide into the intruder before her eyes. Though the intruder showed an expression of pain, he stood in place with his eyes never leaving hers. Why did he have the ability to follow her at every turn while she walked among the mortals?
"Ah, but I am not like THAT MAN, now am I?" That made her appear behind him, her hands wrapped around his throat with every intent of strangling the life out of his body. However, she was met by a trio of energy swords blocking her path, causing her to slap the wall with her wings and watched as the broke under her strike. "You mad? Well, it doesn't matter now does it? As long as those two are together, the energy those two hone inside them shall grow, and they'll be attracted to one another no matter how far you pull them apart."
"It will not come if I have anything to say about it!"
"But you can't." The man interjected, causing her to frown and prepared herself to strike him down. "You made it impossible for yourself to have any say about Stocking, as she must collect the coins of Heaven in order to be able to return home, but with more than half of her coins being taken from Garterbelt, she can't return in time before her power fully manifests. Not to mention all of the damages and problems she causes without her sister's aid, giving reason of the council of Heaven to keep your daughters on Earth until the end of the world itself. Then again, do you really think your daughter really wants to return to the side of the same woman who-"
"Don't you dare bring him up! He is dead and his memory shall be honored as such!" The man laughed at her, disappearing in a dark mist that causing her holy energy to shiver at the feeling. Why did he have such a connection to that twisted energy?
"Continue tricking yourself if you must, but I have important things to do soon, and it wouldn't benefit me at all to waste my time with a foolish widow who can't come to light of her own actions. Until the end my dear." When she was sure that the foul energy was gone from the area she relaxed a bit, looking down at the hospital where her daughters, as well as that cursed boy were resting. She could only pray that, in time, Stocking would cease her hate for her, and that she would see reason as to why she did what she did to their father. With that, she disappeared, knowing that she would have to ensure that her own plans wouldn't falter to that man's agenda.
When Stocking woke up the next day, she was surprised to see Sal and Panty sleeping on separate chairs, each covered by a blanket most likely provided by a nurse. It wasn't hard for her to tell that she was in a hospital, as she had to visit several children in the past who were injured by their Ghost pruifications. Though, she couldn't deny her confusion as to why they brought her here rather than take her back to the church where she could rest and be out of bed in a day, two tops if she didn't have enough sweets during the first day. she looked at the desk to her right and saw her duel disk was laying on top of it, deck and projectors in their proper places, a sight that caused her to smile. Not a drop of Ghost blood got on it, which was great since Ghost blood was VERY troublesome to remove from clothing, and her cards were clean as well.
"Heh, glad to see you're alright Stocking-chan." Stocking widened her eyes and turned to her left. There, in the bed right next to hers, was Brief, who had his head wrapped in bandages and a bandaid on his left cheek, smiling at her. Right as she was about to speak, and attempt to escaping her bed, Brief shook his head and pointed to Sal and Panty. "Don't, they just went to sleep not too long ago Stocking. They've been worried sick about you."
"I can understand Sal..." Stocking glanced at her sister, who looked as if something was troubling her in her dream. "But Panty?" Brief nodded, and pointed at her sister.
"She was refusing to leave your side until Sal slapped her and told her that you wouldn't want her to act like a bully to get her way in such a situation. She was the one who, from what Sal said, grabbed your projectors and had Kona shut down your duel disk since she didn't want to break it." Stocking couldn't help but to frown at the smile Brief had as he talked about Panty, and felt an odd feeling crawl into her heart.
"You're not saying all of this because you're back to crushing on my sister, are you?" Brief shook his head and waved his arms a bit towards her.
"I only have feelings for you Stocking-chain! Wait, no, what I meant was..." She couldn't stop herself from giggling as the odd sensation was crushed by the happiness she felt from his words. She smirked at him and looked away.
"Just because you have feelings for me doesn't mean you can continue to call me Stocking-chan Brief." A thought suddenly struck her, causing her to glance back at her duel disk before she returned her attention to the nerd by her side. "So what has Kona said about our duel? Are we going to duel again in order to showcase the duel disks, or do we not get to duel like that again?" Brief smiled at her, but shrugged and looked up at the roof.
"Kona was thankful for what you did to exterminate the Ghost, but he said that our duel wouldn't be recorded as an official match due to that interruption. He also said that, while he can't mark either of us a winner, he can give us another shot at dueling one another, though he left out any details as to how he was going to do that." That made sense, but she didn't like being kept in the dark. She was kept in the dark for most of her life as she grew up, and, despite how nice and playful Kona was to them, still didn't mean he was as good and pure hearted as he made himself out to be. Brief began to speak again, causing her to return her attention. "I, personally, believe you won since you had the stronger monster on the field. If I somehow had my Utopia on the field, then I might of found a way to get past your Darkness Neosphere, but since I didn't, you would of won."
"Nope," Stocking replied as she shook her head, "You had that Scrap-Iron Scarecrow out, which would of made it impossible until I could summon Adreus, since I forgot to add in Mystical Space Typhoons I believe." At that, the two shared a short, quiet laugh, looking at one another before they looked away. She suddenly felt a yawn come from her and suddenly found herself laying down on the bed, rather than sitting up, and turned to Brief, who did the same.
"We should get back to bed. The nurse said that you should be able to leave tomorrow, though I'm sure Panty will pull you out within the next few hours. We've only been here for about eight hours since the incident, if you were wondering." That made sense, only because it was still dark outside, leaving her unsure as to how many days passed by, though she was happy to find out not a day went past her.
"Yea, you're right. Goodnight Brief-kun."
"G-goodn-night Stocking-chan!" Brief whispered in a happy tone before turning to his side, leaving his back exposed. She could of sworn she saw a mark on the back of his neck, but she couldn't tell with the lights being off. So, with nothing else to do, she closed her eys, thinking about how she hoped she could leave with her sister, Sal, and Brief tomorrow so she could take them back to the church and make them some sweets. Or, in Panty's case, a batch of spicy salsa as thanks for helping her.
'Well, in Sal's case its more of a way to show off that I'm okay.' Stocking tagged on to her initial thought, unknowingly causing her to recall how Brief's Heliopolis was able to actually damage Louis, something that should of been impossible, yet was not. Sadly, the thought would leave her mind as she entered the realm of sleep, and wouldn't be brought back to light for quite the while, as all she would dream about is dueling against Brief and Sal, with Panty and Garterbelt cheering from the sidelines as Kona announced the match to the crowd of fans surrounding them all.
-Author Notes-
As usual, I don't own Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, nor do I own Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D, or Yu-Gi-Oh Zexal. I got a hell of a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, as well as a Stocking keychain as a gift from my girlfriend, but that is it. Anyway, hello one and all! I apologize for the long wait to an update, but here it is, and I have decided that this story shall be one I'll be continuing. I do apologize, again, for leaving it off at such a point in the story; however, this is the end of the introduction arc, and the next arc of the story will be QUITE interesting, if I do say so myself. Now then, time to respond to reviews!
Snow299: As usual, thank you for reviewing and I'm pleased to hear that you liked the chapter.
HotelKatz: The blaming didn't happen in this chapter, though it might happen in the next one. I'm glad to see someone is interested in the Akuma sisters learning how to play the game!
The Lord of Pages: Yea, I'm sure that if he really was able to stay as sexy Brief all the time he would get some mad tail from every girl, and possibly a few guys, in every episode. Then again, I'm glad he wasn't shown as sexy Brief until the end of the series. I do hope the scene with their mother amused you, yet also gave you a bit of a headache to figure out what exactly they're talking about.
As usual, please review everyone!
