"This is the last place I expected to see you, Fujiki."
The Cyberse Duelist raised his eyes from the grill he tended to and looked at the young man and girl in front of him. Evan smiled at the sixteen years old and looked at the menu, thinking of what to order. He was surprised to see that Yusaku was still going to the hotdog van, even after Hanoi was defeated and LINK VRAINS was destroyed. Has the Cyberse Duelist caught on with the facts surrounding everyone's death? That thought worried Evan a great deal. He still had to make preparations before he could take Playmaker down once and for all – Everything had to be timed correctly, he couldn't allow failure, no matter how small and insignificant, every detail had a much larger meaning in the grand plan of things.
"I'm only working here when Shoichi's busy," Yusaku stated.
"Visiting his brother, isn't he?" Avice asked.
"With Hanoi gone, he has more time for that, so yes." Yusaku nodded, again. "He says that there has been an improvement, it won't be more than a few months before his brother would be able to fully return back to the world."
"I'm happy to hear that the Center I suggested has a positive result on Shoichi's brother," Evan said. "Anyway, we will want two normal hotdogs. One with ketchup on it and one with mayonnaise."
"Right away." Yusaku nodded. "If you don't mind me asking, how is Roxanna doing? I haven't heard of her for a few weeks. She's also not responding to any of the messages that Shoichi wrote her."
"She had to go out of town for a few months that should be why she's not responding." Eva smiled politely. "The war against Hanoi affected her, so she needed some time on her own, to gather her mind. Her problems were reaching too… deep, if you get what I mean."
"Yeah… I think that I do." Yusaku sighed. "The results of this fight left all of us scarred. When I began this crusade, I never thought just how many people could be hurt. Even though I tried to protect everyone… in the end, I could barely save a single person."
"It was a tragedy." Evan rubbed the back of his neck. "But we should focus on rebuilding, rather than mourning what has already been. And you don't seem so good, after the time that has passed."
"My revenge was everything I had," Yusaku argued. "After you defeat me, I thought I found a new purpose, the purpose of saving everyone else from being hurt by Hanoi the same way I was, but I failed at that too."
"It's not easy, I know that," Evan said. "The pain, the self-loathing, the thought of how it would have been different if you did it differently, those regrets will eat at you for the rest of your life. You'll never escape them, but why don't you let your guard down for a bit?"
"Let my guard down?" Yusaku raised an eyebrow.
"Separate yourself from what you know, and try communicating with the people around you," Avice said. "Shoichi and Roxy weren't the only ones who fought beside you, right? We were there too, Go, Blue Angel. They all fought beside you, and even if you don't see it, you've already built a bond with all of them."
"We're going to go visit the pool with Aoi tomorrow," Evan added. "You should come too, it would help you relax after everything that happened."
"I'm not sure about that," Yusaku muttered, precariously. "If I go, Shoichi won't have who to leave in charge of the hotdog truck."
"Come on, I'm sure that he won't mind being in charge of his own business for a day – in fact, I think he would encourage you to come with us," Avice said.
"That's true but…" Shoichi would without question encourage Yusaku to go and have fun with others, but Yusaku wasn't interested. He had never been out with a group before, and he had no interest in trying it out.
"Great then!" Evan said. "We'll come to take you from your home tomorrow at eleven before noon. Just, tell me your address, so I know where to go."
"Yes, right." Yusaku sighed. It seemed that he would have to go with them, despite his protests. Tomorrow was going to be an annoying day for the Cyberse Duelist and he was absolutely sure in that prediction.
Just because the war was over, that didn't mean that Yusaku could suddenly deal with humans. There were only two people he felt safe around, and sadly, neither of them was here for him now. He thought, that maybe now that he has finally been able to find peace, Roxy would be there to help him get used to being part of the rest of society, but she wasn't there anymore. He was just as alone as he was during the Hanoi Incident, during those ten years of constant nightmares.
"STOP IT!"
Firera screamed, thrashing around against the data restraints that held her in place as bolt after bolt of electricity tore her body apart, only for it to be forcefully regenerated and then destroyed again. Despite how many weeks the monster spent there, trapped and tortured, its will to fight back remained, though after so long, her hope was starting to burn out. No one came to save her, Aqua was gone, she didn't know what happened to Roxy, and Playmaker was too blind to see the lies placed in front of him.
Vermilya turned the volume down, silencing Firera's screams. She programmed the bolts of electricity and the data recovering program to their maximal potential and turned toward another computer screen, ignoring the Duel Monster's silent plea for mercy. Evan placed her in the laboratory to research Firera's program and learn how Cyberse monsters were made, said that if he could replicate some of Playmaker's stronger monsters, their power would be unrivaled. But no matter how many different methods she used, Vermilya was unable to find the code inside Firera. Not the code needed for creating Cyberse cards, nor the code that gave her free will.
"How's the operation going?" Evan stepped into the room.
"Without success." Vermilya sighed. "I couldn't find anything similar to 'DNA' in her codes. It's bold of me to say this, but maybe you should start looking for a different way to get access to Playmaker's Decode Talker."
"I'm not doing this for his Decode Talker." Evan crossed his arms. "But you shouldn't worry, I got a plan B ready. Well, maybe you should worry since you're going to be doing most of the hard work there."
"I guess it won't be legal?" Vermilya leaned back into her chair and smirked.
"You'll break into Yusaku's house and scan his Cyberse cards while he's at the pool with us. I'll give you everything that you'll need, including several viruses to place inside the data of his cards."
"I'm not surprised to hear that." Vermilya sighed.
"I'm sure that you'll love it." Evan patted her on the back. "By the way, have you turned Firera's volume down?"
"I can't work while listening to her screams." Vermilya shrugged. "Do you want me to turn them back up?"
"I want to talk with her," Evan explained.
Vermilya nodded and turned back to the keyboard. She typed in several codes, reducing the bolts of lightning until they completely stopped, giving the Cyberse monster a chance to catch a break from its weeks-long torment. Afterward, she raised the volume enough for both her and Evan to be able to hear what Firera would say back. Once all of that was done, Vermilya just leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms behind the back of her head – ready to watch the show.
"Firera?" Evan called out. "Can you hear me?"
"What… do… you…" the Cyberse monster looked up toward its tormentor with bolts of electricity still shooting through her body, trying to repair the damage done, not to her body, but to her psyche.
"Want?" Evan cut her off. "It scares you to think about it, doesn't it? What could I want from you when I already have everything? Don't worry, all I want of you, for now, is to talk to me. To listen to my questions and to answer them honestly, without any mind games."
"Where… Roxy?" Firera asked with a broken voice that hasn't fully been repaired.
"She's dead," Evan stated. "You saw me dump her in the sea. She drowned, just as I ordered her to do."
"No…" Firera's eyes widened, despite the pain that she was going through; those few words broke her 'heart'.
Her partner was no more, she was left alone, in an eternal trap without any escape routes, without the chance to think of any escape routes. The speed at which they continued to break and repair her program, didn't give her a chance to calculate a way out, and after several weeks, most of her functions needed time to reboot. It was perfectly calculated on Evan's side. He was going to talk with her for only as long, as he was sure she wouldn't be able to think of any way to escape, then he would return her to the torture.
"Why… you… kill…"
"Killing is the ultimate act of mercy," Evan stated. "By killing the tormented, you set them free from their pain, by killing those who enjoy life, you rid the world of its abominations. And Roxy? She was a soul that was meant to die many years ago. A soul that I so selfishly tried to keep for my own, to build into my ultimate gift for this world – my daughter."
"Monster…" Firera hissed.
"Indeed, that's what she turned out to be." Evan nodded, deliberately changing the addressee of the insult. "She was meant to contain all the best aspects of me, but instead she turned weak and pacifistic. A child hated by the world itself for its ignorance. But maybe you could learn. If you accept me, I'll give you enlightenment, I will open your eyes for the truth hiding behind the many masks of this world."
"Never…" Firera growled. "You… lose…"
"To whom?!" Evan yelled back. "Playmaker? He was born from Yusaku's own weakness and inability to cope with one bad moment in his life! He's nothing compared to the image of evil itself! That's what none of you understands! I'm not a man! I'm the personification of the darkest side of all people! If you can't see my superiority, then you're just another piece of rubbish that this world doesn't need! Vermilya, do it!"
The NitroGear Duelist nodded and moved back to the keyboard, placing in the codes needed for the bolts of lightning to start tearing at Firera's body once again. The volume was quickly turned down, silencing Firera's screams as her body began to be torn apart and healed, only to be torn apart again a moment later.
"I'll leave you to take care of things here." Evan turned toward his subordinate. "Once you think this is enough, return her to the special cell and then come to me. I'll prepare all of the equipment you needed to pull off that mission."
"Understood." Vermilya nodded.
Evan smiled and walked out, slamming the metal door behind himself. There were many other places that had to be visited, many more preparations to be made before the final war started.
Yusaku sighed, waiting outside his building. He looked at the clock of his wrist every twenty or so seconds to see what time it was, only to realize that he had no clock on his hand, and then to repeat the process again twenty seconds later. He was sure that it has turned eleven o'clock a few minutes ago, but the siblings that were supposed to take him haven't come yet. He really didn't want to go along with the idea and was hoping to somehow avoid it, but he also didn't want to come off as rude. Mostly because he got a call from Shoichi yesterday because Evan apparently didn't trust Yusaku's word, telling him to go and make some friends.
Hopefully, they have chosen to dish him. But that aside, this was one of the rare times when the hacker could be seen wearing something different from his school uniform. Specifically for this occasion, Yusaku was dressed in a short-sleeved white T-shirt, with dark blue shorts and sandals. He had never gone to a pool before in his entire life, so he didn't know how to swim, nor what equipment one needed when going to pool.
The hacker looked at his wrist one more time and sighed – more in relief that disappointment. He spun around on his feet and turned to walk back into his apartment when suddenly a red and black Chevrolet Camaro came out of the corner and stopped in front of his apartment. Biting his lips, the hacker turned his head slowly around to see if the people inside the car were…
"Get in loser, we're going to pool!" Evan shouted.
And now Yusaku was both annoyed that he would have to spend the rest of his day with people he didn't even consider friends and embarrassed that he was called a loser in public. Usually, he wouldn't care so much about being insulted, but for some reason, seeing Aoi on the backseat, looking straight at him with a risen eyebrow, caused the Cyberse duelist to feel a bit uneasy.
Nevertheless, the teenager placed his hands into the pockets on his pants, acting confidently, and walked to the car. He sat on the front seat, right next to Evan, while behind him were Avice and Aoi, along with several bags. Were these bags for the pool? Now Yusaku was feeling even worse for being empty-handed. They were definitely thinking that he was expecting to use their stuff – or that was at least what Yusaku was thinking.
And sure enough, Aoi noticed his… lack of bags, so she leaned forward and asked him about. "Fujiki, I think that you have forgotten your luggage."
"Actually…" Yusaku rubbed the back of his head. "I have never gone to a pool before so…"
"Swimwear?" Evan asked.
"I'm wearing it," Yusaku confirmed.
"Then I guess that you have a set of extra underwear to switch to after you get your swimwear wet, right?" Evan narrowed his eyes.
And as he expected, Yusaku didn't give a positive response. The teenager hacker only managed to stare back at him blankly. It was exactly that face of an absolute idiot that made Evan realize how much of his nerves and time he was about to waste on that single day.
"I thought that swimwear was waterproof, since people use it to, swim," Yusaku finally spoke up, causing the girls on the backseat to burst into laughter while Evan slammed his head into the steering wheel.
"I didn't think that I needed a second pair of underwear!" Yusaku argued, trying to make them understand, but his words just kept backfiring, causing the laughter of the girls to become louder, and even Evan chuckled at how bad Yusaku was at existing in a society.
"I knew that you were anti-social, but this level of ignorance is just…" Thankfully, Evan stopped himself before he said something that would cause Aoi to gasp. "Ok then. Girls, it seems that we'll need to help Yusaku pack-up his underwear."
"Wait, don't!"
And so, five minutes later, Yusaku came back into the car with a small bag. It was nowhere near the size of the ones placed in-between Aoi and Avice, but it had the most important things that Yusaku thought he could need. Still, he looked down in embarrassment, from making a fool out of himself. Aoi and Avice were still finding it funny that he forgot the most basic of things, but they were no longer laughing, as doing so, would be like bullying Yusaku at this point.
Aoi was also curious about why Yusaku's social skills were so bad. She had always thought that he was just anti-social, but now, she saw him different. It was like, he was locked away from society like something kept him trapped inside. It was a very strange feeling that she was getting out of him, and worse than that, this feeling was actually reminding her of someone. Or more specifically, of someone's words that she heard a month and something ago. A certain duelist who went through such a horrible experience that it left him scarred and unable to rehabilitate and join society fully.
But there was no way that the two of them were the same, right? Aoi bit her lip in thought. They were similarly cold, but Playmaker was accepted as a hero, he was risking his life fighting against the Knights of Hanoi. She couldn't see Yusaku doing the same thing, and maybe, she wasn't supposed to. When she tried to think back to Yusaku, Aoi remembered only that he was the one who found her soon after she was infected by Hanoi's virus during the duel with Playmaker and that he was distant with everyone. Aside from these two things, she didn't know almost anything else about him. Not even his family, or where he came from. He was a mystery in her eyes, just like Playmaker used to be.
It took them around fifteen minutes to get to the water park of Den City. The place wasn't very unique, but it surprised Yusaku how many students were here with their families. It seemed that after LINK VRAINS was destroyed, the survivors choose to spend their free time outside with friends and family instead of staying inside, staring at a screen, or by risking their lives by entering another virtual reality.
"We will go change," Aoi said, as she and Avice walked off toward the changing rooms, leaving the boys on their own.
"What now?" Yusaku instinctively asked his older companion.
"Well, I'll go change while you find us a place to stay." Evan shrugged before leaving the poor hacker on his own service
"Right…" Yusaku sighed. And that was exactly why he didn't want to go with other people.
Doing errands such as this one, was something Vermilya had already gotten used to, maybe too used to. Her calm breathing, the slow beating of her heart, the relaxed motions on her arms as she manipulated the lock with her lock picks should be unnatural when trying to break into someone's house during daylight. And yet, she was calm as if that was nothing, and to her, it was. Breaking into someone's house was nothing compared to the more questionable and immoral stuff that she had been helping the Greysons to work on during the past few weeks.
Eventually, the door of Yusaku's apartment opened and the girl walked inside slowly, closing the door behind herself. The decision to break into Yusaku's home wasn't a sudden one that Evan made at the last moment. He has been planning for it, preparing, taking in every possibility, and finding a way to counter it. Basically, everything that would happen here, in the span of an hour, was already planned in advance. There was no uncertainty, which was reassuring but also worrying.
"Master, are you here?" a robotic voice called from downstairs, causing Vermilya to quickly duck.
It was a robot maid, just great. Vermilya narrowed her eyes and quickly reached into one of the multiple pouches on her belt and pulled out a disk-like device. The girl threw the disk over the stairs and on the floor below. It was an EMP of some sort, small, covering a limited area, but good enough if there were only a few devices you wanted to shut down – like in this situation.
"What's thi-" the robotic voice began to speak when suddenly, it stopped.
The device had worked. Roboppy was temporally disabled, and wouldn't cause any problems, so now it was time to get to work. Standing up, Vermilya quickly went down the stairs and began to look around. Yusaku's home… looked even worse than the one she was raised into, she could even see the bricks and aside from a table, several chairs and other things that were a necessity for any living quarters, the place looked… blank.
"You're a smart guy, Fujiki." Vermilya mused. "You wouldn't place your deck at an obvious place. But no hideout you've thought of is safe from me."
Vermilya reached into another of her pouches and pulled out a black tablet. She turned it toward the wall and a blue light came out of the device, scanning the wall until…
"Heh, jackpot."
"Haha, stop that!" Aoi laughed, covering her face.
"But where would be the fun in that?" Avice asked as continued to throw water at the girl.
The two of them continued to laugh as they swam around in the pool. Even though their actions looked childish, Aoi didn't care, she rarely had time to relax and just have fun with friends, mostly because she barely had any friends. So to her, even childish activities such as spending time in the pool, playing with Avice were much cherished moments.
Meanwhile, Yusaku watched them from the edge of the pool with a half-bored expression. Due to the Lost Incident, he had spent the last ten years of his life, locked into his own mind, wrestling against the never-ending nightmares. Because of that, he had missed a lot of things and was lacking multiple skills that others had. One such skill was as the ability to swim. He never learned how to swim, but he did have swimwear in case he ever needs it. He was thinking to maybe enter if the pool was shallow enough, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case, so he was just sitting there, and all of that was just a waste of time to him.
"Why don't you go have fun with them?" Evan asked.
The older male sat down on the bench next to the hacker and leaned back, letting the rays of light to fall onto his body, and give him a good suntan.
"I'm not interested," Yusaku replied casually. "What about you?"
"I can't swim." Evan shrugged. "Don't want to either. Walking on solid ground is much better in my opinion."
Well, they at least had something in common, which was their inability to swim. In fact, it was a funny coincidence that Avice and Aoi both used LIGHT attributed decks and could swim, while he and Evan used DARK and couldn't. Well, Yusaku's deck wasn't completely DARK, but his ace was a DARK monster, so technically…
"It's tragic you know," Evan continued. "So many children lost the chance to visit the pool because of the Knights of Hanoi. These victims, they will never have the chance to spent time with their family and friends ever again."
"I don't think that the Knights of Hanoi were the ones who detonated the Tower of Hanoi," Yusaku commented.
"Oh?" Evan looked at the hacker. "What makes you think so?"
"Revolver is an honorable duelist," Yusaku said. "He keeps his words and accepts defeat."
"He was following a goal, Yusaku." Evan sighed. "In order to achieve their goals, humans are ready to do anything, including stamping their own pride. But I do wonder, is there a way to find out who activated the Tower then?"
"No, unfortunately." Yusaku shook his head. "Everything was erased, including all of the data. There's no way to replay that moment. The evidence is lost."
"That's… unfortunately." Evan sighed. "All we can do now is to try and rebuild what was destroyed. It still feels… wrong. So many lives, lost, taken away forcefully, and the criminal responsible for it still is unknown. Will always, remain hidden, safe from justice."
"Is that why you called me here?" Yusaku asked. "To talk about that?"
"No, there's far more to it." Evan chuckled. "I called you to come with me because I wanted to see how much you've grown since your defeat. I want to see, if you thought about my words, learned from them."
"I'm starting to, yes." Yusaku nodded. "Kusanagi, Ai, Roxy, everyone who fought with me, they were most than just people who shared the same goal as me. They helped me, they did everything that was within their strength; they cared for me. They all thought of me as a friend, but I was too blinded with my hatred to notice that."
"It's ok." Evan put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "I proud to hear how far you've come since our duel."
"Thanks." Yusaku nodded.
"I guess you're already bored to death," Evan said, standing up. "There's a coffee nearby, should we go have a drink while waiting for the girls to get tired?"
"That's the first good idea for the day." Yusaku stood up as well. "How long do you think it will take them to get tired?"
"Well, Aoi rarely visits her home as it is, so take a guess," Evan smirked.
That sentence, actually made Yusaku smile a little. It meant that this was going to end soon, which was the only part of the day that he was looking forward to.
"Where are you going, Fujiki?" But unfortunately, a female voice caused Yusaku to pause and looked behind him.
It was Aoi. She had come to the edge of the pool and looked at the boy. Yusaku couldn't explain what it was, but he felt something at the sight of Aoi's wet, half-naked body. He was, after all, a teenager, and even if he spent the last few years doing nothing but fighting the Knights of Hanoi and his own demons, the power of his hormones was taking control over him without his knowledge or understanding.
"Don't mind me," Yusaku said. "I'll just go have a coffee."
"You haven't swim at all." Aoi pointed out. "Are you afraid?"
"No." For some reason, Yusaku's voice raised. It was a detail that Aoi didn't miss either.
"Come on, don't be shy." Aoi smiled and reached out, grabbing Yusaku's arm.
"I said-" Yusaku opened his mouth to protest, but it was already over.
Due to Aoi's move coming out of nowhere, and the ground under Yusaku's wet already being slippery, with a single pull, the Zaizen was able to get the hacker to dive face-first into the water.
And boy, that didn't go well.
At first, Aoi chuckled at Yusaku's reaction, but then, she quickly began to panic. Why was she panicking? Well, it was because Yusaku didn't swim back up, and instead was frantically throwing his arms and legs around at the bottom of the pool. He couldn't swim, but worse than that, his body was so tense that it was causing him to sink like an anchor.
In the end, shortly after this incident, the group choose that it was best for them to just go home before they gave Yusaku another traumatic memory. The sun was still high in the sky when Evan drove Aoi and Yusaku to their respective homes. And despite what happened at the pool, the trip back was much livelier, at least on Yusaku and Aoi's part. Aoi's tries to apologize after the incident had actually caused the two of them to start to talk to each other. The conversation itself wasn't important, and neither of them remembered it the next day, but it felt some form of lasting feeling inside their hearts, like, each of them had finally met someone who could understand them. Not fully, of course, but there was a chemistry that neither of them could have denied.
And after that long and tiring day was over, Evan was finally able to get back home and relax. The Greysons walked out of the car and Evan closed the garage behind them, after which, they both walked into the room next door – the makeshift laboratory that Evan and Vermilya used to obtain information about the Ignis and their enemies.
Firera was no longer in the torture device, having been moved to a digital prison that caused distortions to the core of her programs, which made calculating an escape route practically impossible for her.
And Vermilya was there too, sitting behind a table with the belt Evan gave her for the mission on the tabletop.
"How was your day?" The Nitro duelist turned in her chair and greeted the duo with a mischievous smirk.
"It had its ups and downs," Evan commented. "But more importantly, did you get the job done?"
"I found out that he had a special room to log into LINK VRAINS from, it was kept hidden behind a fake wall, believe it or not." Vermilya sighed. "He has been keeping his Cyberse cards hidden there, and believe me when I tell you, you've never seen such a large pile of cards before. Took me an hour and a half to get all of them scanned."
"Our own versions of Playmaker's most powerful cards – finally within our grasp." Evan smiled. "What about the virus. Did you upload it?"
"I did." Vermilya nodded. "But don't you think that Ai will notice it when it comes back from the Cyberse World? If it comes back?"
"Ai will come back, you can be sure of it," Evan said. "And it won't notice a thing either. The DARK Ignis is too carefree and lazy to bother double-checking Yusaku's cards. As long as you install a virus that isn't plain obvious, it can get easily pass Ai's notice."
"You're talking like you have experience in the area," Vermilya noted.
"What's going to happen now?" Avice asked. "I know what your plan is, but are you sure that it's worth it?"
Evan didn't respond to the question. Was it worth killing thousands of human beings, and planning to destroy the lives of that many more? To Evan that was an easy question, and the answer would have been a loud and resounding, yes. Human life, people say, was priceless, and they were right, in a sense. Human life had no price, it couldn't be turned into money, because taken on its own, with its own free will - human was useless. Humans, like everything else, were just a resource, and only the most skillful could use that resource properly, to build the world that they wanted.
Evan didn't say that, because while Avice was questioning his morality, he was able also questioning her own views. He couldn't have his sister's will be tempted by feelings of regret or compassion. The two of them were brought into being to lead, therefore they had to see every living being as nothing more than a tool elevate them to their goals. This was their city, their country, their world, their reality. For, this order they created, this group of six, was made only for those who valued self-determination over all else that existence offered.
It was a group, where a single member's views couldn't usurp the minds over all others. A group where every other member would focus on acquiring their own power. They weren't like the Knights of Hanoi, who plead royalty to a single mad man, they weren't SOL where everyone was fighting over the same rank or position, backstabbing and betraying each other.
They were the Destiny Gears - the selected few who refused to be carried by destiny, and who forged it instead. A group where everyone was allowed to follow their own passion, but only within limits that wouldn't clash with the rest, a group where there was no blind loyalty, there could never be any teamwork between its members, unless their goals aligned. Roxy wasn't able to see it, she couldn't comprehend the idea of fighting for only yourself, for using others to reach your destined place, which was why she was a defect, a masterpiece turned into a heinous parody of itself.
And Takuma? If Evan had to rate him based only upon his actions, then Takuma would have been the perfect embodiment of what this group was about, manipulating, using others as tools to do your dirty work, he had learned and mastered all of it. But his goal was his ultimate undoing. Uniting the world, bringing all of humanity together in his wannabe paradise – he was a fool. His pride made him forget that the power one dreamed to obtain, can reach only as far as the other's dreams. He thought that because he learned from the best, because he was taught from the best there was that he knew everything, that there wasn't hidden knowledge Evan kept away from him, and worse than that, he thought that it was his right to turn the rest of the group into slaves, stripe them of their will and run them around like puppets.
In the end, he had to be put down for the good of the entire group.
That was why they were gears. There was no such thing as the main gear. Yes, they had a leader, yes, it was Evan, but he didn't stand above the rest, he simply lead them because he was the best strategist, the most talented manipulator, and lier. An alliance built upon hatred, like theirs, was a fragile one at best, for it to work, everyone had to have a function, a separate goal that levitates the others and that's levitated by them. Like gears in a clock, they couldn't function if every member wasn't moving correctly.
And after a long time, I finally updated! So, as you might have noticed from the title of this page, this chapter is part of a group of "Special" chapters that are basically about stuff that happened between S1 and S2 of VRAINS. The idea is for these chapters to 3-4 in total, and to have them basically set-up some of the stuff that will happen in S2, as well as introduce a few things that I won't mention, because you will see them when the next chapters are posted.
So, today also is the end of S2. Or it was yesterday, depends on where you live. And to be honest, the only thing I cared about was Revolver vs Lightning, mostly because of how funny Revolver's talk about justice and evil was, given what he did in S1. I'm also not happy with the result of the duel because, in order for the writers to make Revolver look cool for the next structure deck, Lightning's entire strategy had to focus around him breaking the arms and legs of his deck to give Bitchvolver a fighting chance. Also, could Lightning be Evan's lost twin brother from another species? (By the way, I haven't watched the second half of S2 and just looked at a few screenshots on message boards. Yes, that's how stupidly simple the entire thing was to understand. #DecodebetterthanFirewall.)
A small trivia about this chapter, the original version was supposed to have a duel Evan & Avice vs Yusaku & Aoi, in which I would have shown one of the new decks that Evan would use in S2, but I ended up scrapped it because it was kind of pointless.
I want to also say that I'm surprised by how many reviews the last chapter got. Thank you all for the reviews. But before I respond to those reviews, I'll thank to byunnee and Lisa Russell for following and favoriting, as well as thanks to anyone else who might have followed/favorited but for whom I've not gotten any notification.
And now to the reviews!
InsertName: Well, not everyone is dead. Yusaku is still alive, and having him be the only one alive is basically how VRAINS has been so far, so...
Guest: The thing with Evan getting wrecked is pretty funny to me because it basically can't happen unless he does some super stupid misplay at the end.
SakushiRyu: Honestly, Evan has been compared to Fullcross on several occasions, mostly because of how they both use OP decks or at least used since Fullcross has apparently changed to a new deck. But... all I can say is, every author wants to see their character being the better one, so, I'm dunno.
Guest: I can't answer if Yusaku will answer Roxy, but given the way she has been mentioned this chapter... it might be too late for that?
RedEyesMaster: I really hate the idea of OC being friends with, and being cared about/loved by the core characters of a story. So I try to keep Roxy at a distance from the others. Also, AvicexRoxy was the original/safer ship I was intending to go with, but I gave up because Evan views Roxy as his daughter and Avice is his sister, so that made it feel weird.
Vivian Lee: Thank you!
And now, I'll also respond to reviews from the one-shot, Destiny Gears: Diary! because it's a one-shot and responding to it there, would kind of kill the idea of it being a one-shot.
Insertname: Well, as I said, even the unexpected can happen.
ThePLOThand: Yes to the first question. About the second, to me, anything that isn't part of the main story and is posted aside from it IS side info, so sorry for mislabeling your work.
So that's all of it. One long A/N, a lot of reviews, and a semi-decent chapter. Mission accomplished! Thanks for reading, if you feel like it, please leave a review, and that's it for today!
Diabolic Tracer out!