Original Yu-Gi-Oh Series
Parallel
Chapter 038
Originally Written: Friday, April 15, 2022 1132AM to 1211PM
. . . . .
Joey stared at not-Marik across from him in the dueling arena. He was a tall man with dark skin, wearing the cloak of the rare hunter's highest ranked individuals. And he was not a 'Marik'. A man like Marik would have a certain stance about himself, a certain personality to him. It would be disgusting, and make him want to turn the other way. He wasn't Marik. He was at best a lackey. A high ranking one, but a lackey.
Neither Bakura or Seto had come to see the duel, but he hadn't expected them to. Ishizu however, seemed to be paying more attention to this duel than the previous one. She was certainly less bored. He wondered what her stake in this was. Being in a gang at such a high ranking quickly taught him how to read an area even better than he previously could, so he could say with confidence that...
"Someone on this ship named Marik is hiding like a fuckin' coward, and it ain't you, big guy." He announced, activating his duel disk. "But don't worry, I'ma sniff the jerk out anyway. Whether or not ya want me to."
To everyone's annoyance, Joey spent every turn of his duel reminding not-Marik that he wasn't Marik. Try as she might to not do so, Ishizu eventually dropped to the floor, laughing. Duke hadn't fallen to the floor, but he was laughing while shaking his head and leaning on Mokuba.
"What is Joey doing?" Serenity tried to hide a nervous smile.
Tristan looked around the duel arena with just his eyes. He chuckled. "You think this is annoying, right? But maybe it's kind of amusing. Always fun laughing at a dude embarrassing himself. So look for the angriest dude here. That's Marik." He whispered. "No way he'd miss this duel, and no way would he find this funny."
Most of the group's eyes landed on Namu. Roland looked like he was about to yell at Joey to shut up, but he couldn't because Joey technically wasn't breaking any rules. Namu, however, looked like he wanted to strangle him or throw him off the blimp. Not-Marik looked mostly bored, even as he taunted Joey with trap card after trap card.
Tea grabbed Yugi, who tried to walk over to Namu. "Throwing him off the blimp gets you automatically disqualified and thrown in jail." She whispered.
"I just wanna chat. Get to know him." Yugi smiled sweetly.
"Come stand next to me Bruce Lee." Tea pulled him around so Namu wasn't in his vision any longer.
Joey didn't find The Winged Dragon of Ra not-Marik summoned too scary. The problem was he could tell something was off about it. Slifer made him both want to duck and run at the same time. Ra gave him nothing. Joey frowned, and pointed to the sphere of gold floating above them. "I'm startin' to think you think I'm dumb, Marik. I'd bet my entire deck that card is fake."
"Fuck you!" Namu shouted. "Y-you uncultured dog! We're gonna skin you, cook you and make the Pharaoh eat you!" Strands of his hair started to rise.
"Can I throw him off now?" Yugi asked, "Because that's disgusting and uncalled for."
"That's what set you off? Not the fact that he keeps talking in plural first person?" Mokuba shivered. "Creepy."
"Was he really?" Yugi looked at him.
"Yes." Duke pushed Mokuba behind him. "By 'we', I'm pretty sure he means 'himself'."
Joey couldn't see the eye on Namu's forehead, but he knew Yugi would tell him it was there later. He grinned and jumped up, clenching a fist in a personal victory "I knew it! No way you got Kaiba's will! I can do that to him for a half hour and he don't blink a damn eye! I don't even get a 'Shut up, Joey!'"
Namu moved to climb up onto the arena, Millennium Rod in hand.
Joey spread his legs, and waved his hands, as if motioning him to come. "Bring it!"
"And be disqualified." Roland snapped, pointing at both of them. "This is a Dueling arena, not an MMA arena."
Namu growled, but dropped back down. Not-Marik's mood switched from uninterested calm, to rage. The scowl on his face was almost as bad as Hirutani's when Joey told him he was quitting the gang, whether or not he wanted him to.
"Allow me." Not-Marik hissed. "This ingrate has insulted us enough."
"You better! Or we'll skin you too!" Namu shouted. Power Joey couldn't see, yet still intimidated him, flowed around the boy, making his hair float upwards even more.
Joey readied his duel disk, and nodded, letting not-Marik know to take his best shot, because it was the only shot he would get.
A/N: I love writing Parallel Joey.