Deathdealer
Writer's Note: A few people are probably coming into this fic thinking there's been a mistake.
And when they realize there isn't, they're probably thinking "Ash, what the hell are you DOING?"
"Why are you, a man once known for making many people's stomach turn in sickening DBZ Horror fics, doing writing a YU-GI-OH fanfic!??!?!?!?"
The answer is, it grew on me.
As some know, I once wrote popular and messy DBZ fanfics, and where I live, Yu-Gi-Oh comes on before DBZ. So I got into watching it while waiting for DBZ, and it grew on me. I admit, I thought it was silly at first (not knowing about the whole Yugi/Yami thing, I thought it was weird how Yugi kept switching looks and voices and started making fun of it like the animators couldn't make up their minds on which to use!), but eventually it started interesting me. It's happened before, it'll probably happen again.
Anyway, my job is VERY boring, and I have TONS of time to think. And I think of weird things to past the time. My 40+ page wrestling humour fic? That was the result of one very long dull day. I've had many other ideas, and this one came to me eventually, and it was just begging to be written. So I will do so.
As I have seen the dub, I will use the dub names. This story will also have very short chapters to insure quick updating. Also, I need some help. Does anyone know of a site which lists ALL the cards certain characters use? I know the major ones, but I also need to know the minor ones and different stuff that Yugi and co have in their decks (the main characters mostly). If no one can help me, I suppose I can always use the card listings in the video games, but those may be inaccurate. Also, this takes place after Battle City: could anyone tell me what happened to the Egyptian God Cards after that storyline? Were they destroyed? Does Yugi have them? Or something else?
Also, some of you, older fans of mine, may recognize the character I am using here. Before you ask "Why the heck does he know about this game and why is he playing it?", you will just have to read "Ballads of the Physics Police" by BobCat. The answer is in there, and it's also a very good fic. I will write so that no backstory is needed for people who do not know my work, so if those same older fans ask "Why is so and so acting like this?", it's a plot point. It'll eventually be explained.
Oh yes, the "piss off Seto Fangirls" bit. While that was in the tagline to hopefully draw you into the story, I do not like Seto Kaiba, and that will be reflected in the plot. But do not despair! I am no idiotic Mary Sue writer, oh no. Rather, I will take up a challenge: to drive all the people out there who like Seto Kaiba nuts, in a way that will make them want more chapters to find out what happens, rather then writing flames. Don't think I can do it?
Let's try anyway. Let's go!
Chapter 1: New Blood
Before we begin this tale, let us speak first of darkness.
Darkness is the absence of light, but it is often far more then that. Although the lack of illumination may cause the technical thing know as "darkness", it is often linked to other things. It is supposedly the colour of malice and dread, the pitch and tone that speaks of bad intentions. So many kinds of darkness. The crazy twisting of the lunatic, the cold unfeeling pierce of the sociopath, the overwhelming and suffocating tint of a megalomaniac.
And some are far worse….
But there are also positive kinds of darkness, ones that speak of peace, calm, and rest,
Let us look into a room suffused with such a darkness. It is the room of a child, who we find on the bed, sleeping calmly.
The child speaks of the innocence we are all destined to lose. His hair has a style that is to say, at least, unique: shaped into spiked locks that seemingly defy gravity without the aid of hair gel, of strange colours, including a bright gold, that would be impossible to achieve without a dye of some kind. His wide round eyes are closed, and the breathing from his small frame is slow and calm. This child rests peacefully in the darkness, unafraid of anything it could possibly hide.
Perhaps for more then one reason.
(Writer's Note: As far as I can tell, Yami has no actual physical form of his own. He can switch his visage with Yugi's, and appear to Yugi in a spirit form of some kind, but in some stories I have read it appears he also has physical form. So, in this fic, he does as well. If this is wrong, please explain to me why…)
Let us look now at the other figure in this room. This one does not sleep, but instead stares out the window, out at the night, as if pondering the darkness out there, perhaps pontificating if it contains the malice that this room lacks. He could be the sleeping child's older brother: for but a slightly height and different posture, and changes in hairstyle and eyes (the child's eyes speak of innocence, but the other's speak of experience, some of it bitter, and time…so much time…), they are identical. Perhaps the child sleeps so peacefully because of this near twin of his presence in the room.
The older figure, whom we know is called Yami, is not in such a peaceful state. While not alarmed, he has been staring out into the night for some time not, almost as if he is waiting for something. For all his abilities, Yami is not precognitive: the future holds as much uncertainty to him as it does to anyway (barring the occasionally power mad lunatic after his Millennium Puzzle, of course).
Yet he cannot shake the feeling that something is happening, something out there, that could eventually bring great peril to him and the child he guards.
Now let us go out into the night. Let us travel across the city known as Domino. While this world is perhaps not quite as imprisoned in the hand basket so many societies seem to be heading towards hell in, every city has it's share of creatures that prefer the darkness to the light.
But they are small fry.
Instead, we are about to meet perhaps the darkest of all things…
There was nothing special about the lot: it was like thousands across the planet. Strewn with trash, discarded pieces of various vices and sins littering the ground along with rubbish no longer needed by any man. Nothing lives here: organic life or humans. Nothing but the endless spread of stone and steel.
Nothing to appreciate what is to come.
The first indication that something is happening is the sudden overpowering stench of ozone. A wind stirs and then blows, tossing lighter pieces of trash in the air. Unfortunately, we have no strange man to film them and interpret them as a metaphor for how life is beautiful, which is too bad…
Because something far beyond that is about to happen.
With a sudden noise that is best described as a cross between a tearing noise and a bellow of an angry giant, the air SPLITS. It rips as if it was composed of paper, reality breaking apart and revealing a white void that crackles and snaps, as if in anger.
The vacant lot regards this little violation of most of the laws of physics with the same air of detachment that vacant lots have, mostly because they are, well, vacant lots.
The white void spits sparks, and then it spits out something else.
The figure emerges from the whiteness and exits the tear with some force, but he (for we can see it is a he) lands with the grace of a cat, knees bending to absorb the impact.
He stands. Behind him the void crackles, as if it is not happy to be called into existence in such a cruddy place.
The man pays it no mind. Instead, he simply raises an arm and gestures at the void. It crackles one more time and then slowly closes back up. In seconds reality is whole again, the only indication it was ever there the stench of ozone.
The man, in contrast to the whiteness he stepped out of, is a study in black. Black is all he wears, from the black boots on his feet to the black shine of the strange one-piece outfit he wears to the black of his long hair, which lies over his face.
He brushes it back.
He is a tall man, taunt with highly developed but not oversized muscle. His face is fairly handsome, in a dark Gothic way. Perhaps there is some Mediterranean blood in his family, or perhaps he merely avoids light just enough to have a slight dusky tone without going pale. His eyes are a dark blue, highly alert. Perhaps the most noticeable thing about his face is the scar. It starts above his right eye, cutting down past the blue and white orb, miraculously not having removed the optic tool in it's application as it progressed down. It stops about halfway down the cheek and climbs back up, finishing near the ear, forming a letter V.
The man blinks and observes his surroundings.
"………Good."
His tone is calm, with a strong undercurrent of steel. It is a voice that has seen many things, and perhaps more importantly, learned good lessons from them.
"Well….fairly nice place…suppose they invested their money well…" the man says, although who he is addressing is not known: perhaps he is addressing the vacant lot itself. If he is, it is clear he has no idea about money investment.
"Well, I'm here…now…to play the game I will need cards. To get cards I will need funds. And since I do not relish the concept of getting a job, I will have to find other methods to obtain what I need. But if I was dropped off where I wanted to be, that shouldn't be a problem…" the man says, and turns, heading for a destination known only to him.
Back to the bedroom we go, as Yami's observations of the night is suddenly interrupted by a growing feeling of unease. He had had a notion that something was slightly off when he started his night vigil, but now he is sure of it.
Something has happened.
Good or bad, he does not know.
But something…
The bar was loud and noisy, blaring it's existence as if it had something to prove. To what is not sure. Perhaps it is trying to impress the vacant lots.
The bar is filled with men that would seem out of place in a futuristic Japanese city, but then again, all worlds carry their oddities. Perhaps in this world, instead of making the trek to Sturgis, South Dakota, the men in this bar head for someplace in Asia, and stop here along the way.
The men are remarkably similar. They're all large (more so then most average humans) they all possess rather large amounts of body hair, their personal hygiene leaves something to be desired, and they all dress in leather, despite the fact that weather wasn't always permitting. They drink alcohol in copious amounts, shoot pool, and speak to each other in tones that are more benefiting a lawn mover, in which they also seem to be having a competition oh who can use the most dirty words, despite the need to use such words or not.
Not the most pleasant place on the surface, but the underneath is even filthier. Near the back, three men talk. One is noticeable: he's a giant even among this group of large men. His head is shaved bald, and his look is quite unpleasant, even among men he would seemingly be at ease at. The details of what the three are discussing are not important, but let us just say for the most part, they are immoral, illegal, and highly disgusting. All bikers get a bad rap by the actions of the men like these, the men who fill the bar.
It would take something special to get the attention from the raucous clatter that fills the bar.
Someone violently kicking the door off its hinges works quite well.
An uncommon hush falls over the bar as the door lands and the man walks in. There is no hesitation in his step: he knows his actions and trusts them totally.
"Gentlemen!" the man says, with a slight sarcastic undertone that no one in this establishment has the intelligence to notice. He takes a few steps and scoops up a nearby mug of alcohol: he drinks and then spits it out.
"Ugh! Swill. But then again, what could I expect…"
"Who the fuck are you?" one of the bikers, a redhead with a long greasy head of hair and beard, known to his brothers as Firethrust (another thing about bikers: they tend to give themselves strange codenames that cause a few people to laugh at the in-joke associated with said name and leave the rest of us scratching our heads in puzzlement), said.
"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm….Ah. You may call me…V." the man said. Or V said. If that is not his name, he must be concealing it for a reason. For now, we shall know him as V.
"Why the hell…" some other biker sputters (an odd thing, to hear such a large and presumingly tough man sputter).
"Ah well, you see, I have a problem. I need money! And now!" V says. He speaks in a way that suggests he is more giving a speech on a stage, rather then speaking to a large group of angry (and big) men. "So, I figured I could look around and find a place like this and you people could help me out with a generous donation…"
"…….Ice this numbnut!" another redhead, known strangely as Hydrant (and let us feel relief at NOT knowing where that name came from) said, as he took two steps to but him within striking distance of V.
"Look people, you can make two decisions in this situation…" V said, seemingly not noticing the angry biker about to punch his head off.
Hydrant swung.
In a blur of motion, V's arm snapped up and caught Hydrant's fist in a death grip.
"YOU JUST MADE THE WRONG ONE."
Hydrant suddenly got a sensation of great pain as V twisted his arm violently, and he opened his mouth to yell. But in the process of twisting his arm, V has maneuvered himself behind Hydrant. Hydrant last's memory was the feeling of very strong fingers on his left cheek before V savagely pulled, breaking his neck and nearly twisting his head off. The sound of a neck breaking is nothing like it is in the movies, usually, but this act was done so fiercely the sound was actually LOUDER.
Another second of silence.
"GET THE FUCKER!"
V waited two seconds to see which members of the gang would resort to firearms, and then he shoved the body of Hydrant at them with great force, knocking them over. Some of them tried to fire anyway, and hence did great damage to the nearby walls and ceiling, and in one guy's case, the head of a grey-haired man across the room.
V was just as ready for the ones who wanted to use hand-to-hand combat. The first one received a vicious kick to the chest that was a powerful as it was precise, snapping two ribs back and jabbing the broken ends into the heart and one lung. As the biker went down, V placed a hand on his back and vaulted over, swinging his leg out and slamming it across two bearded faces. He landed near a poor table, vaulted over the edge as one of them tried to smash a pool stick across his face, and caught the following backhand swing, pulling the swinger to him and slamming his palm into his face. The man went down, his brain pieced with shards of his nasal bone, as V swung and broke the stick over the head of another man who had actually gotten up and managed to aim a gun at him.
A beer gutted man charged at him, bellowing. He may as well have painted a target on himself, as V rammed the broken end of the stick into his huge gut so hard that it pierced out through his back. As the big-and-now-pierced gutted man's roar charged from rage to pain, V flipped over the man, grabbed the bloody end of the stick on the other side, and yanked, pulling the stick all the way through and getting an immediate re-use out of it as he jammed the broken end into the throat of another biker.
One of the few thin men in the group came at him, a switchblade in his hand. He raised his hand to swipe at him, but V's arm got there first, grabbing the man's forearm and drastically changing it's course, as he yanked the knife backwards and up, laying the thin man's throat open to the bone. The thin man gave one bloody gurgle and collapsed on the pool table.
V's eyes saw one of the biker's with guns getting up just as he saw a pool ball within reach. The man aimed at him as he snatched the large wooden ball off the table and hurled it. The ball bounced off the man's head with a satisfying KLONK!, knocking him stupid(er).
"Hollow. Just as I thought." V commented. The loud sound of a shotgun cocking caught his attention, and he turned.
The barman, himself a large man, had drawn out his weapon and cocked it, aiming it at V.
V dove to the ground as it went off, splattering some poor fool behind him. The floor, slick with blood, was easy to slide on, as he shoved himself across the floor and leapt up in front of the bar like a demented jack in the box, snapping out his leg and kicking the shotgun aside. He slammed his hand down and used it as a fulcrum on the bar surface to land safely behind it. He snatched up a bottle of some kind of alcohol and slammed it down on the edge of the bar, shattering it. The barman had recovered by now, and tried to aim his shotgun at V again. He got a face-full of broken glass shards, and he screamed and dropped the gun as he clawed at his shredded visage.
"DIE YOU CRAZY FUCKER!" Some biker yelled at V. That saved him, as V turned his head, saw the biker aiming a pistol at him, and took a quick step to the right, behind the barman whom he had just mutilated. The biker, who had little experience but great practice with firearms, followed the movement and instinctively fired. He hit the barman instead of V, but that didn't stop him from firing twice more, putting the barman out of his misery.
V snatched up the barman's shotgun and aimed to return fire, but the barman's body slumped and threw off his aim, blasting a hole in the pool table next to his opponent. Shrieking, the biker fired again, and V grabbed the back of the barman's vest and jerked him up to use as cover again.
"DIE! DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the biker with the gun kept screaming, and evidence of a brain surfaced as he grabbed the body of the thin man V had killed a few seconds ago up and held it in front of him as his own shield as he fired three more times. The bullets thudded into the body V held before him as he re-cocked the shotgun.
"Hey buddy, rule number 1 when using corpses as cover…" V said, and then shoved the body aside and aimed. "DON'T HIDE BEHIND THE THIN GUY!"
The lethal blast of steel pellets blew through the thin man's corpse and ventilated the gunman, who pitched backwards with a gurgle. V re-cocked his gun and blew the head off another close biker, then re-cocked again and showed the last standing biker why it was best to keep your guts inside you.
That was it for the bikers: none were left standing. V re-cocked the shotgun anyway and carefully stepped out, looking for movement.
He found it all right, as sometime before V had made his entrance, the bald giant and the two he was speaking to had retired to the back. When the noise had begun, something managed to keep them from charging out until the noise had stopped. It had now, and they had emerged.
Their good planning ended there: they had neglected to draw their guns when they came out.
V blew away the first one before he could blink and intercepted the second one in mid-draw, blasting the pieces of his handgun back and through him. He aimed at the bald giant and pulled the trigger, but the shotgun just issued a dry click this time. V looked at it, and then tossed it aside.
The bald giant had seemed fairly calm, but whatever control he had had gone out the window when V had summarily executed his two goons. He said a muttered curse that didn't sound like English and swung at V.
V dodged aside and retaliated with a backhand so fierce that despite having 4 inches and about 70 pounds on V the bald giant was still floor. He cursed again as he got up, and V recognized the language: German.
Then he noticed something dangling around the bald giant's neck, something that had apparently been behind his short until V had struck him, a necklace with a symbol.
An Iron Cross.
"Well well, a Nazi. Or is it Neo-Nazi? Odd thing to find in a biker gang, but then again, whose to say how you run things here…?" V said, shrugging.
"Verdammt gutter trash! I will not stand for this!" the Nazi cursed as he got up
"Why not?" V asked.
"My blood is perfect, stronger and purer then yours! AND YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS AFFRONT!" The Nazi, in the grip of delusional righteousness, screamed, and swung.
V dodged aside, drawing back his fist, and pistoning it forward. The whole bar filled with a sickening cracking/tearing noise. The Nazi screamed.
"Your blood is stronger? Your blood is purer? Your blood is perfect?"
V twisted his arm. The Nazy screamed again.
"Your blood is also on the floor…"
"ARRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHH!"
"On my hand…."
"AIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Running down my arm…"
"AAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Coming out of your mouth…"
V jerked his arm back and the bald Nazi giant fell, his head slamming into the floor. A second later, V dropped his heart down next to him.
"And coming out of that rather large hole in your chest. I'd say I'm better off with my impure blood. I haven't lost any of it." V said. He reached down and picked up the Cross.
"Pity, really. This symbol used to mean other things, including good luck. Then your system picked it up and now everyone associates it with pure evil. Even more tragic is how pointless your whole system was. Do you know how much genetic difference exists between you, me, a Jew, an African native, and an Eskimo fisherman? None whatsoever. Your vaunted racial purity never existed. Fools, one and all. But that doesn't make your money any less worthy…"
V went through the Nazi's pockets, picking anything that resembled paper currency. He ignored coins and cards: he didn't have time to puzzle over that stuff. He went through the bar, rifling the pockets of all the bikers. Some were still alive, but most didn't offer any resistance: the lone one who tried was silenced with a savage punch to the jaw. After picking everyone's pockets and the cash register, V decided their might be more funds in the back and headed there.
He was back there for a bit, but not because there was an excess of money. When he re-emerged, his expression had hardened, and he was carrying a belt of some kind, with small round objects attached to it. He found one of the bikers that was still alive and look into his battered face.
"Nice place you have back there."
"Ugghhhhhh?" the biker known as Firethrust murmured.
"Lots of nice guns. Some nice drugs, I would assume. What's not so nice is that woman I found tied to the chair. What's ever worse is the rather unpleasant condition her corpse is in."
Firethrust's dull expression just infuriated V more.
"Where'd she come from? Snatch her off the street? Some poor prostitute you figured wouldn't be missed? Or maybe just someone you saw and decided you wanted? You think that brings you power, what you did? That it makes you worthy? YOU PATHETIC COWARDS." V hissed.
Firethrust remained incomprehensive. V snorted and held up the belt.
"But like I said, nice weapons. Especially this grenade belt you got here?"
A quick jerk of V's arm, and several loops of metal suddenly clattered to the floor in front of Firethrust.
"OOPS! I seem to have accidentally pulled out every single pin! Silly me!" V said, and tossed the grenade belt towards the back as he stood up and walked through the door. Firethrust seemed to have enough brains left to understand what had just happened, as he began making a weird keening groan of distress.
V ignored him as he walked out the door and across the parking lot filled with bikes.
The bar went up in a violent explosion around him, bathing his back in intense heat. He stopped and took a long breath, even as flaming debris crashed down around him. He paid it no mind at all, as if he was untouchable.
"That's better. Now…" V said, as he looked at the large clump of somewhat bloodied money in his hand. "Time to go buy some cards. And then…the real game starts."
As the fire raged behind him, V walked off into the darkness, holding his head high, seemingly looking at something. Bright flames danced behind him, and dark flames of terrible joy danced in his eyes.
"Wanna play?"
Yugi sat up with a gasp, startling Yami by the window.
"Yugi! Are you ok?" Yami said, getting up and heading over to the young child.
"Yeah…nightmare…maybe…it certainly wasn't pleasant…" Yugi said.
"What was it?"
"I don't remember what happened before, but I saw these burning flames, and then this dark figure walked out of them, and he seemed to look in my eyes with this terrible blackness in his vision and he said "Wanna play?". And then I woke up." Yugi said.
Yami was silent.
"Maybe I should lay off the pepperoni pizza and chocolate sauce before I…Yami? Yami? Are you ok?"
Yami stayed silent.
Yugi's face filled with apprehension as he came to a conclusion.
"It wasn't just a dream, was it?" Yugi said. "It meant something. And you know. You feel something. Is it bad?"
"Bad…no…I wouldn't say it was bad…but I do have this strange feeling…" Yami said, as he looked back out the window. The darkness inside and out had been deserted by the peace that reigned over it earlier: now it held only possibilities…be they grand or horrid.
"I don't sense any evil, like the vibes I was getting a little before Malik showed up. But I am definitely sensing something…dangerous. Yes. Very dangerous. But I can't tell if it's a threat or something else."
Yami looked back at the young child who was his best friend and fellow gamemaster.
"But I had think we had better be on our guard. Or we could regret it."
His last words were a mere whisper. Yugi barely heard him speak.
"Or someone else might."
To Be Continued.