The usual disclaimers apply: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, Duel Links, or the characters portrayed, save for Rabbit. Please enjoy! Things are really starting to heat up.

*occasionally chapters are edited, just to make them fit the persona of the Discordian better.


Chapter 8

Garoga

I wasn't expecting to be dumped in a dog pile of people, but lo and behold, here I am, in the middle of the pile, my curly hair falling over my face. I let out a low groan, back arcing with pain. I don't think we were supposed to all be dropped in the same place, and being that it was one after the other, there was no time to move out the way before we were landed on, shoved aside, and fallen into a heap of people.

I wriggled my way out of the heap and stood, backing away. I counted the people there and established everyone had arrived, though probably not as fashionably as they'd like.

"Hello again," I greeted, rubbing my arm. It was probably going to bruise. The cobblestone was not a particularly nice thing to land on.

"What the hell?" An Australian accent drawled. A slender man drew himself from the crowd with probably a little more dignity than I had done and stood. He was tall, pale, his eyes vaguely amused, with short hair close to his scalp, more like a light fuzz than anything a slightly stretched ear, and strong brows.

"I dunno," a muffled voice said, another body emerging and leaving the final one lying there. The final one propped himself up on his elbows and looked up lazily.

"Okay, so," I said, "we didn't exactly have a lot of time for introductions."

The Australian gave me a quick once-over. I winced. If another person mistakes me for a girl, I'm gonna be a little bit irked. I only recently had a problem with that, and let's say I'm dense enough that I didn't even realise that the woman was a) flirting with me and b) thought I was a woman. I mean, I'm a little chubby, but I didn't realise people would think I was… never mind.

"Eater of Boomerangs," he introduced.

"Eater," I repeated, my brow quirking slightly, "of Boomerangs… okay."

His teeth flashed and he gave a mischievous chuckle, "Either way, just plain Eater is fine."

The guy on the floor barked a short laugh.

I frowned, "why are you still on the floor?"

He shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.

"Anyway, I'm Garoga, or Gar, if you prefer," I continued. My face still felt hot.

"Bonz," the man-now-known-as-Bonz said, clambering to his feet.

"So," I recanted, "we have Bonz, Eater and…?"

I turned to look at the other male, taking in a long glance. He had dark skin, wiry-looking glasses, and deep brown eyes, with short, curly hair. He looked quite smart, in casual clothing. He looked at me and gave a little grin, "Right to Ruination. Ruin if you don't want a mouthful."

"I love a good mouthful," Eater chimed in.

There was a small bubble of laughter from the group.

"Right, so what's the plan?" Ruin asked, glancing around. "This place is really dark. I guess it's supposed to be night time."

A shrieking noise echoed through the air, making us all twist in confusion.

"What was that?" I wondered aloud.

There was another flash and a body crumpled to the ground, landing on top of Bonz, who grunted with pain, face scrunching up. A young man jumped up almost immediately, rolling his shoulders. He had extremely long hair the colour of dark honey and a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He was pale, with a little stubble around his chin.

"Hi," he said quickly, flashing a quick grin, "Kaiba sent me in to guide you all to a safe place until he and Yugi get here. You can call me Vermilingus or Verm. You're probably a bit confused by that though... err. Well, you see, there's a bit of an issue inside the system and you could be in, ah, potential danger. Well, there's nothing potential about it. Now, the exit hasn't been placed yet, and Mister Kaiba won't risk coming until it has been, I'm afraid. There was a similar issue a few years back, you see…"

We all wore similar faces of confusion.

I blinked, "I'm sorry? What? Of all of that, the only words I really was, 'Kaiba', and, 'Verm.'"

The air seemed to blow out Verm's sail as he tried to reconfigure what he was going to say.

"Okay, so. There's a problem with the system. I'm here to protect you from the system until-"

A sharp feminine howl of agony pierced through the air, punctuated with a different, loud sobbing noise from nearby. Whoever it was couldn't have been far. Without any kind of discussion, the five of us bolted towards the scream. Now, I'm not exactly the bravest person, but there was something in that scream that made us all race towards it. It was like hearing a child shriek after it falls off a swing, but worse. Whoever this is was in real pain. I could hear it in the scream.

"We shouldn't do this," Verm shouted, mid-run, "this is dangerous."

There was another scream, so loud now it sent goose bumps rippling down my arms. My hair bounced around my shoulders. My breath was ragged but still, we ran. We could see someone running down the street, white coat flaring behind them. Two people were racing along after her, shrieking.

She twisted down a back-alley and we heard a door slam.

We stumbled back, crouching into the shadows. A moment later the two chasers appeared, obviously confused. Another minute and they strode off, turning a corner. We went down the alleyway quietly, sneaking with bated breath.

"In there!" Bonz hissed from the front, bursting through the door of a homely building. He pointed at the door-handle, which gleamed in the moonlight, save for a bloody handprint. We raced up the stairs and through the only door. It shut behind us, revealing a girl covered in blood, a sharp gold rod in her hand. She was sobbing violently, as though she was in pain. She sounded wretched, but… I swallowed thickly. The blood wasn't hers. She backed away from the body, doubling over, her fists clenched with absolute rage. She looked like she wanted to punch the wall in.

"What happened?" Bonz said urgently.

She snarled, fiery hair falling over her face, her fingers clawing around the sharp rod, her words coming out in short bursts "we were… we were trying to get away from Marik and Bakura, and Rabbit, she dropped the rod so I grabbed it… I went for Marik but he shoved her in front of me," she heaved, exhaling shakily, forcing herself to unclench her fist "it went through her shoulder. She was bleeding so damn badly…"

"Where is she now?" Verm said, quickly pushing his way to her side. His hand grasped the slippery item slowly, his other hand splayed in an I'm-not-going-to-hurt-you kind of way, fingers staining red, and he took it from her quickly.

"I don't know," she said, "I ran, there were too many of them, I couldn't…"

She shook her head, distressed, and raised her hands to cover her face, nails drawn as though she was going to scratch jagged lines down her face, her shoulders shaking.

"If you were being chased, then we need to move," I said, "'cos if we could hear you from the fountain, then they'll be coming."

She nodded, shoving her hair back with her hands. She looked manic.

"We need to find the others," she insisted.

"Where were you last grouped up?" Verm said. Like watching a tennis ball bounce between players, my eyes darted between the two of them, almost entranced.

"We were all hiding in one of the houses near the PVP Arena. There were three of us, we'd already lost Boxer… we were trying to hide since we'd managed to piss off Marik, Bakura, and Kaiba so badly. We got in, and then they, the Harpies, followed us." She glanced at Verm, explaining, "When Rabbit and Cube escaped the PVP Arena, all the monsters went batshit crazy. The Blue Eyes chick bit Cube's leg, and the Harpies..."

She trailed off, looking out the window uneasily, "they could come hunting us anytime now."

Verm paused, taking her in quickly, "you're Manda, right?"

She gave a jerky nod.

"So, Manda, Rabbit, Cube, and Boxer were in group A. According to you, only one might be fatally injured. The other two are MIA."

Another nod, and a thick swallow along with it.

"What a shitty situation," Eater mused. I nodded uneasily. I got the feeling Eater wasn't taking this seriously. I felt pretty removed from the situation myself, given how quickly we'd been shoved into it.

"Anyway, basically, they separated us from Cube and then… you know the rest."

"If Marik has an injured person, then I think that needs to be our first priority," Bonz said, "there've been loads of rumours about him being… vindictive at best. Especially when it comes to duels."
"They're weirdly obsessed with dueling us," Manda said, "they could just beat the shit out of us and kill us, but they really want to duel us…"

Verm nodded, "it's part of the core programming, maybe the hacker didn't think to strip it away."

"Hacker?" Manda said, twisting around, her eyebrows slanted. Her hysteria seemed to be ebbing away as she calmed.

Verm almost looked guilty as he updated her.

"Plan," Eater interjected, "you take the majority of the group to the safe location like you planned, and you allow a few of us to go, scout, like, search for the missing people and bring them back."

Verm's face set into a hesitant frown.

"That would worry me," he admitted, "I can't afford to lose anyone here."

He paused and then took in a sharp breath, "I need to tell you something. It's important. I need you to be as careful as possible around here. You must have noticed by now that you feel pain, that your muscles spasm and ache? Well, it gets worse."

"How could it get much worse?" Eater said, lips turning into a lopsided grin, "what, is it one of those, 'you die in the dream, you die in real life' things? A bit of Nightmare on Elm Street?"

"Don't joke about this," Verm rebuffed, "because this game can actually kill you."

Eater's smile dropped. My face went slack with shock.

"Are you kidding me," I breathed, "I would never have signed up for this if I knew it could kill me! This is supposed to be a fun game, not some crazy conspiracy to get the players murdered!"

Eater shrugged, "well, I dunno about you guys, but I'm suing Kaiba."

Verm rolled his eyes, "you can try, but I'm pretty sure his lawyers can kick yours to the curb."

I grimaced tightly.

"Whatever," Manda interrupted, "we need to go to look for the others."

"Well aren't you a one track record," Eater joked, patting her shoulder, "shall we, then?"

She tensed at the contact, forcing herself to relax, "we shall."

Verm's jaw tightened while he considered the possibilities.

"you'll go anyway," he concluded with a sigh, "so… the best I can think of is we barricade ourselves in here for now."

"I'm going," Manda stated, "I'm going to punch the living shit out of them."

"So, Manda, Eater… anyone else?"

Ruin, who'd kept pretty quiet throughout the whole ordeal finally spoke up, "I'll go with those two, and that's it. Everyone else stays here, and stay together."

I shook my head, pressing on, "no. I'm coming too. I'm not about to let someone get hurt if I can help."

Vern groaned, "at this point, we may as well all go. Seriously… that just leaves two."

His face set in stone, he spoke with no room for argument, "Manda, Ruin, stay with me. Eater, Garoga, go look for the others. I'm going to move the group down a few houses, and leave one of the potted plants by the doorstep, just in case they decide to come and track the blood. They aren't smart enough to consider what a moved plant pot might mean, I don't think."

"Right," I agreed, "but try to make sure the plant isn't too obviously out of place."

I turned to Verm, "and I want to take the rod with me. It'd do in a pinch for a weapon."

He nodded, handing over the object. The blood was sticky against my palm. I tried not to think about who the blood belonged to.


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