Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds

Ghosts of Crash Town

By Lucky_Ladybug

Notes: The characters from the show and the Over the Nexus game are not mine. Any other characters and the story are mine! This takes place in my post-series timeline and continues from my multi-chapter And in the Darkness Bind Them. It's not a sequel, but it does deal with the emotional fall-out from what happened there, although the main plot is unrelated to that story. This story mostly deals with my concept that there is a supernatural force hanging over Crash Town and why. In my timeline, Kalin has become very close friends with his former boss Radley. I portray Radley as fairly nice because he never struck me as being nasty like Lawton, Malcolm, and Barbara are. I also set Domino City in America, as per the localization in the dub of YGO Classic, and will involve some YGO Classic characters now and then throughout the story since it gets into the lore I've set up about the surrounding area. I also briefly reference various YGO Classic characters, as the 5Ds cast and the Classic cast have met in several fics now.

Chapter One

Kalin fell to his knees in the ebbing water on the shores of the castle grounds. The lifeless, bedraggled body lay in front of him, bleeding from several remaining cruel wounds and so very still after the plunge into the ocean from the castle ledge high above them. It was obvious to everyone that he was dead, but Kalin couldn't accept it. He looked so cold and sad, completely drenched from the frigid waters and unnaturally pale from his injuries.

Injuries, not death. He wasn't dead. . . .

Kalin reached down, scooping him up in one swift motion and wrapping him in a quilt he had taken from the castle. "Radley . . . please wake up," he rasped. "Please come back, like you did once before. . . ." He held the body close, longing for a shiver or a moan or anything that would tell him his friend was actually alive.

But there was nothing.

Kalin jumped a mile as he started awake on the couch. Another nightmare—kneeling at the edge of the water in the Duel Monsters' world, cradling Radley's lifeless body. . . . No matter how Kalin pleaded and how much he performed CPR and artificial respiration, there was never any response. His friend was gone.

He looked over at Radley now, very much alive as he slumped against the couch and half-leaned against Kalin while Kalin kept an arm around him. It still seemed unreal to feel him breathing.

The worst part about that nightmare was that it had really happened. Radley was miraculously alive again, but he had died saving everyone from Lawton's cruelty on that misadventure and both of them were having a hard time coping with their traumatized feelings because of it. Kalin needed to keep reassuring himself that Radley was alive, and Radley himself seemed to want that assurance. His nightmares were about falling and hitting the water and dying—and about Kalin dying, as he had gone through a scare of believing Kalin dead in a mining accident not so long ago.

They had talked with Yusei, and with some of their friends through the portal. Yusei himself often needed to keep reassuring himself that Kalin and Bruno were alive again, although Bruno still didn't remember being Bruno and was appearing as Antinomy. Sometimes Yusei got up in the night and just watched Antinomy for a while until he could believe again that him being back wasn't the dream.

Lumis and Umbra had become traumatized for months after a horror when Lumis had been thrown out a window courtesy of a corrupted Bandit Keith and killed, then brought back as a servant of an evil force known as the Negative Rings. When the evil force had been defeated, Lumis had stayed alive as himself. Umbra had needed so badly to keep convincing himself that Lumis was alive that for months he had kept coming in and kneeling next to his friend's bed, keeping his hand on Lumis's heart to reassure himself it was beating. They were finally recovering from that, but still had occasional setbacks.

The Big Five often checked on each other during the night after traumatic experiences. They had suffered more than a few. Lector and Nesbitt had grown so close that they usually ended up sharing a bed for a while to give each other the reassurance that they were alright.

Kalin couldn't quite picture himself and Radley doing that, and twin beds weren't good for sharing anyway. But their method of dealing with things seemed to be falling asleep together on the couch night after night. After a while they'd get up and go to bed for real . . . sometimes. When the nightmares and the pain were especially bad, they usually just stayed on the couch all night. It wasn't terribly comfortable, but it provided emotional support and peace of mind.

The funny thing was, they hadn't actually talked it out and deliberately agreed to do this. It was more of a silent agreement. For once, each knew exactly what the other wanted and it was his own desire as well. They had come so far from those early days in Crash Town when Radley had continually tried to reach out to Kalin and Kalin had been too wrapped up in self-hatred to respond or even to recognize what Radley wanted.

Radley jumped a mile now too, his eyes flying open. He breathed heavily as he took in the scene and slowly recognized that everything was alright. When he looked over at Kalin, Kalin looked back.

"Oh . . ." Radley sighed and sank deeper into the couch. "Do you think we're ever going to recover, Kalin? It's been weeks now."

Kalin sighed. "Apparently Lumis and Umbra struggled for almost a year. Of course, in their case, they're all each other has and they've bonded extremely closely because of that. . . ."

Radley frowned. "But even if someone has other loved ones, each one is unique. The hole from one dying can't be filled by someone else."

"No, it can't," Kalin said. "Gansley told us that Lector and Nesbitt absolutely break without each other. That's ironic, given how they couldn't stand each other at first. . . ." He trailed off and stared at the wall without focusing on it. "And even though I have other loved ones, I couldn't take losing you."

Radley looked like he was still having a hard time grasping that as well, after how Kalin had spurned him for almost two months. "I . . . I had no idea how badly it would hurt you," he said quietly. "I knew you'd be upset, and I didn't want to die, but . . . I wonder if I thought you'd get over it. . . ." He shook his head. "It's a moot point, though. . . . I had to do what I did to stop Lawton from blowing everything up and killing who knows how many of the group. . . ."

"I know." Kalin was still looking at the wall. "And I'll never forgive him for that."

Radley looked at him in concern. "Kalin . . ."

"Don't worry, I won't go after him," Kalin said. "I won't lose myself in darkness. But that doesn't mean I won't hate him."

Radley could hardly fault him for that. He was angry at everything Lawton had done too. ". . . I've heard it said that hatred is like drinking poison and thinking it won't hurt you," he said.

"I know," Kalin said. "And if I'm going to believe what Pastor Green says, I'll have to stop somehow. But right now I can't do that." He looked back to Radley. "Yusei has a gift for forgiveness that I just don't have. You seem to have it, though."

"I don't know if I'd say I've forgiven Lawton either," Radley frowned. "He was ready and willing to murder who knows how many of my friends, including you. He didn't even care if his brother and his wife died."

"Maybe you haven't forgiven him," Kalin amended, "but you forgave the Bunch for abandoning you when Lawton took over the town. And . . . you forgave me for hurting you so much."

"I saw their anguish when I was dead," Radley said. "They never stopped caring about me; they were just so afraid of Lawton. And when I really understood your behavior, I couldn't not forgive you."

"I wonder if they're jealous of me," Kalin said.

"They're not," Radley insisted. "They were all really upset when we thought you were dead. They think of you as one of us now."

"But we're not all like, say, the Big Five, completely close to each other," Kalin said. "Billy has become so reserved. And I try, but I wonder if I don't trust him and Clint and Virgil now. . . . After they betrayed you once, I wonder if they would again."

"That's only reasonable to wonder," Radley said. "But I believe they are still so distraught and devastated over what happened that they will never betray me again. If you had seen what I saw when Billy found my body . . ." He shuddered. "I have never heard more haunting screams and cries." He sighed. "I wonder if that's why I had an out of body experience that time, so I could really witness that grief and know the Bunch still loved me."

"Maybe." Kalin frowned. "I still wonder why you had to die at all either time if you were going to be allowed to live. When I died the first time, it was my choice in order to give into the darkness. The second time, it was the just consequences of my having accepted the darkness. I'm alive now because the Goodwin Brothers sacrificed themselves to bring me and the other Dark Signers back. But for you . . . you didn't deserve it either time it happened. You died because Malcolm's Crew tortured you to death when you were trying to save Jordan. Then you died to save everyone from Lawton when he tried to take over the Duel Monsters' world." He clenched a fist. "It wasn't right."

Radley wearily shook his head. "I don't feel like puzzling over it. I want to just focus on that I'm alive now."

"And so do I, but sometimes I can't stop the thoughts," Kalin said. "I also still can't understand why you saw all the dead pointing at you in the cemetery here. It wasn't your fault they were dead, no matter what you think. I keep wondering if there was some other meaning to it."

"I can't think what," Radley said.

"Well, you said none of them spoke," Kalin said. "Maybe you only thought they were accusing you. What if they meant something like 'You're not supposed to be here. Go back'?"

Radley quirked an eyebrow. "Maybe. But I made it pretty clear I didn't understand the message, in that case. They should have explained themselves." He sighed. "But then that's one of the biggest problems in this world—people not explaining themselves."

"I'd like to know in general why there's some supernatural force hanging over the town," Kalin said. "There hasn't been much chance to explore that."

"I doubt there's any way to learn the answer to that," Radley scoffed.

"I wonder if it's left-over from Crash Town's days as a silver mine during the Old West," Kalin said. "Maybe something happened back then that set it off."

"There's that haunted ghost town up in the canyons," Radley said. "Cooperstown or whatever it's called. Would there really be two of them so close by?"

"Why not?" Kalin shrugged. "A lot of things went wrong in those old settlements. Mining accidents, and shoot-outs, and tragedies while building or farming. . . . I've heard a lot about feelings of unrest in such towns and their cemeteries."

". . . That makes sense," Radley conceded. "I've heard things like that as well. There's a ghost town down in Utah that suffered several such tragedies and the cemetery there is supposed to feel very restless. Just looking at the place is chilling somehow."

"You saw it?" Kalin said in surprise.

"I saw a YouTube video of it," Radley said. "I was trying to find videos of supernatural goings-on in town and found that instead."

"Do you know how this town got its original name?" Kalin wondered.

"I asked Klaus about that," Radley said. "The general lore is that there was a war between two settlers in town during the Old West days and one of them finally got so angry that he took his rifle and shot the other man as he was driving his carriage. The horses went out of control from fright and crashed into the plateau, where the cemetery is now. And they named it Crash Town."

Kalin grunted. "Morbid."

"Not to mention unsettling and eerie, considering that Malcolm and I had a war going on in the present-day," Radley said. "Maybe the supernatural force is the spirits of those settlers and our war reawakened them and they cursed the town. It sounds loco, but . . ."

"It's hard to say what's really crazy these days," Kalin said.

"Klaus mentioned that some people in the Old West believed the town was cursed by the war," Radley said. "Some thought that's why there were so many accidents in the silver mine and why the silver soon dried up. Honestly, though, there were probably so many accidents because the mine wasn't properly set up. I had to do a lot with it to get it ready for mining when we moved here."

"There could be a lot of factors," Kalin said. "Maybe if we try to solve the mysteries of the town, it will help us get our minds on something else for a while and help us heal."

"Or it will give us more to be distressed about," Radley said.

"The cemetery seems to only be for miners," Kalin said. "Is there a more general cemetery from the Old West days?"

"Yes," Radley said. "It's half-hidden now behind the trees and brush. What markers are left are tangled up in the plant life. There's also some sunken graves. It's not a pretty sight. The Bunch and I were riding around one day and we stumbled on it by accident. Biff almost fell in one of the sunken graves and was hysterical."

"You'll have to warn me when we get close to it," Kalin deadpanned.

Seeing that Kalin clearly didn't remember any sight of the old cemetery from when he had mysteriously astral-projected to Radley, he opted not to mention it. "There's really not much to see that would be helpful," he objected. "Most of the names are worn away."

"I'd like to try anyway," Kalin said. "If I can even find one name and look up who they were, it might help."

"It's possible that residents in New Domino City would know something too," Radley said. "Of course, no one would still be alive from the original Crash Town, but if there's a historical society or something like that that still preserves the state's past, they might have whatever records still exist from back then."

"That's a great idea," Kalin said. "We should ride out there and look into that. Then we can visit Yusei and the others too." He got up from the couch. "Let's try to get some decent sleep and maybe we can go out there tomorrow."

"You're really into this idea," Radley said in a bit of amusement. But he was happy to see Kalin perking up. "Alright, we'll see what happens." He started down the hall to his room. "Goodnight."

Kalin went into his room next to it. "Goodnight."

xxxx

Radley was up making breakfast by the time Kalin got up in the morning. As the owner of the town's diner, he had an interest in cooking and often tested out possible new menu items at home before taking them public. Kalin was used to it and looked forward to it; the experiments had always been good so far.

"Good morning," Radley greeted, catching sight of Kalin out of the corner of his eye.

"Good morning," Kalin smiled, and slipped in at the table to watch Radley work. It still seemed incredible—impossible, even—to see him alive and well, moving about the kitchen as though nothing had happened. Of course, he knew Radley himself had that same awe about it. More than once he had woke up on the couch, clutching Kalin for dear life and breathing heavily, the memories of his fatal fall into the water written in his eyes.

Some of the times when Radley awoke, however, he was haunted over the memories of thinking Kalin was dead, rather than himself. Kalin didn't have too much trauma from that incident himself—the mine tunnel collapsing could hardly compare with things such as the memories of what he had done as a Dark Signer. But knowing how badly it had hurt Radley and his other loved ones pained him deeply. Sometimes he saw Radley looking at him with the same awe that he felt now as he watched Radley cook.

But Kalin really didn't want to think too long about that. He took out his phone. "I think I'll call Yusei and let him know we're coming today," he said. "I'll make sure it's a good time for a visit."

"Yes, you should do that," Radley said. "Although we should visit the historical society first; those don't stay open long." And then he paused with a frown as something else occurred to him.

"What is it?" Kalin blinked.

"Those kinds of places can have high standards and high levels of suspicion. I've known some to not even let people have a backpack or a purse in there in case they might try to steal something." He rolled his eyes.

". . . You mean you wonder if you'd even be allowed inside," Kalin realized.

"Yeah." Radley turned to get something out of the cupboard and the sunlight caught the glint from his earring. "If they're even suspicious of respectable-looking people, they're really going to have a heyday with me. They probably won't like your long hair either; it's longer than mine." He was right; although he had started to let his shoulder-length hair grow out a bit more, Kalin's nearly hit the middle of his back by now.

Kalin frowned. "You'd think that after all these years, such superficial prejudice would be gone."

"Sometimes I think people need to have someone to look down on," Radley grunted. "It makes them feel big. I can't even say I'm immune to that; I like looking down on bullies and insulting them."

"At least you focus on bullies, people who have already proved they're unkind and not trustworthy," Kalin said. "That's far different from just discriminating over hair length and jewelry."

"And looking like you lead a motorcycle gang, which I do," Radley said with a grim smirk.

"If all the motorcycle gangs were like yours, we'd be in good shape." Kalin turned his phone over in his hands. "Well, all we can do is try. Maybe if they won't let us in, we can ask Akiza or one of the others."

"Maybe," Radley said.

Kalin finally dialed Yusei's number and propped the phone up on the vase in the center of the table. When the screen dinged to life and the garage became visible as the call was answered, he came to attention. "Hello? Yusei?"

Instead, he heard a strange motor close to the phone and a furry silhouette suddenly appeared, rubbing the screen back and forth.

". . . What's that?" Radley asked.

"I think . . . a cat just answered the phone?" Kalin deadpanned.

Suddenly Yusei appeared, scooping the phone away from the friendly feline. "Kalin!" He smiled. "Hey, what's up?"

"Hey, Yusei." Kalin smirked. "What's going on with your new answering service?"

"Oh . . . that's Bruno's cat," Yusei explained.

"I thought he was allergic," Kalin said in surprise.

"So far, no," Yusei said. "After we got home from the Duel Monsters' world, he kept talking about a cat and finally took me out to the place where he first washed up on shore as Bruno. I don't know how he remembered it. But he said there was a stray cat around, and it came out and went right to him. It seemed to recognize him even as Antinomy. He wanted to adopt it, and I hoped maybe it would help restore some of his memories."

"Has it helped?" Kalin asked.

Yusei glanced over his shoulder to where Antinomy had picked up the cat and was talking lovingly to it. "I think it has," he said. "At least, he's starting to behave more like Bruno sometimes instead of always Antinomy."

"That's wonderful, Yusei," Kalin smiled. Ever since Bruno's mysterious, amnesiac restoration—as a human and not an android—the problem of how to get him to remember everything had loomed large over Team 5Ds—and on Kalin too, as he wanted to see Yusei's friend fully remember being his friend.

Yusei smiled too. "Yeah. So, what's up on your end?"

"Well, I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be in the City today," Kalin said. "We'd like to stop by for a visit, if that's alright."

That perked Yusei up. "Sure, that's great! We're not planning to go anywhere, so you guys can come by any time."

"It will probably be in the afternoon sometime," Kalin said. "We're trying to solve the mystery of why the town is haunted and we need to visit the historical society to try to learn about the town and its inhabitants from the Old West days. Oh, and . . . it might not be just me and Radley coming," he realized. "The Bunch is due here for our morning ride soon."

Yusei blinked in surprise. ". . . Well, sure, that's fine too," he said as he recovered. "Just as long as they know not to play rough with an animal."

"I don't think there'll be any problems, but we'll remind them anyway," Kalin said. "Thanks, Yusei. We'll see you then." They exchanged Goodbyes and hung up.

Radley brought triple cheese omelettes and bacon to the table and sat down. "It sounds like things are interesting there," he commented.

Kalin nodded and started in on an omelette. "I hope Bruno really will remember everything soon," he said. "Yusei is overjoyed he's alive at all, but I know it's been hurting him that Bruno doesn't remember anything except the need to protect Yusei and that he's been acting so reserved and aloof."

"That would be hard," Radley said. "Without your memories, who even are you?"

"At least he does still have part of his core personality," Kalin said. "Maybe Antinomy really is who he is completely."

"Although that wouldn't explain, then, why the first time he had amnesia he was Bruno," Radley said. "I think Bruno must be part of who he really is too." He shook his head. "It's confusing; the two are extremely different, from what Yusei has told us."

Kalin nodded. "If he does get all his memories back, I really wonder what he's going to be like. He won't have to pretend to be someone he's not anymore or conceal part of who he is, like he did in the past. It's encouraging, though, that he's showing more of the Bruno side of his personality with the cat."

"It is." Radley started to eat too. "I hope I never get amnesia. Or you."

Kalin certainly hoped likewise. "This is delicious, by the way," he said. "Are you going to put it on the breakfast menu at the diner?"

"Breakfast and lunch," Radley smirked.