Chapter 7: Inevitable

A popular cartoon joke is the "fall through the floor" sight gag.

It is usually executed as such: a character, for some reason, is intensely pacing back and forth. The person does this for so long that the floor wears out and the person falls through it. Of course, in real life this would be nearly impossible. Your shoes and feet would wear out long before you weakened a floor via constant motion and weight on it to fall through it.

Nevertheless, Joey was doing his best to mimic the actions of the sight gag. Not so much the "fall through the floor" bit as the "pace intensely" bit. He didn't know what else to do: Yugi was in the hospital.

"Joey, RELAX. The doctors said he'd probably be released this morning. It's ok." Tea said. The cops had taken her statement while she was being treated for her minor cuts and bruises, and she had spent the night at the same hospital for observation. Part of her wondered if she should be reacting worse: she had nearly been raped last night, as well as that terrible experience with those brutal thugs who had hurt Yugi. However, the incident had somehow distanced itself from her and become unreal, more like a dream then an actual experience. She wondered if she would be feeling this way if the guy…Tea shuddered and banished that line of thought to oblivion.

"There's no guarantee, Tea. There could be unseen complications, or he could have some weird brain disease that the impact woke up, or…!"

"Joey, you've seen too much ER! Now quit pacing before you wear a hole in the floor!"

Somewhere off in the distance came the sound of something collapsing. Joey and Tea looked quizzingly at the end of a hallway as some repairmen ran by. Joey overheard a snatch of yelled conversation as they ran past "That's the forth wall this week!".

"Don't let that fool you, hospital life is really quite dull." Yugi's voice suddenly said. Joey and Tea turned to see their friend, who had come through a door while they were looking in the direction of the noise.

"Yugi!" Tea said, as she got up. She would have hugged him, had the doctor not stopped her with a gesture.

"He's relatively ok, but I don't think grabbing him would be a good idea." The doctor said. Indeed, Yugi had a large bandage on his head, which messed up his fancy hairstyle.

"It looks worse then it feels." Yugi said, indicating the bandage.

"Yes, he's a lucky child. If he'd been half a step close to the man who did this, he probably wouldn't be standing here right now. Well Mr. Muto, you have the pills we gave you. Take the bandage off in a few days to see if the swelling has gone down, and remember to take the medicine for the next couple of weeks. Just because you were lucky doesn't give you an excuse to be careless." The doctor said, and turned on his heel and left, heading to whatever new task he had to do in the frantic world of hospital medicine.

"Man Yug, I wish I couldn't been there. Could've helped you somehow…" Joey said.

"It's ok Joey. It's not like you're physic or anything…how are you Tea?"

"Ok…I guess…" Tea said. She didn't FEEL too bad. Did that mean she was ok?

"Oh! Joey! The bandits…what happened? Yami said he saw them being dragged off behind a car of all things…!"

"You got me Yug. Tristan's here too, he went to get a paper…didn't your friend see anything else?"

"He didn't say…don't know why he would keep anything from me…" Yugi said, picking up the Millennium Puzzle from the chain around his neck and looking at it. He was about to speak to Yami when he saw a rush of brown in the corner of his eye.

"Yugi! How you doing buddy?" Tristan said, holding a paper to his chest. The text Yugi could see around Tristan's arm was upside down, so he couldn't read anything.

"Better then I look." Yugi said. "What's in the paper?"

"They found the Dine and Dashers. Or what's left of them…" Tristan said, tossing the paper on a nearby table. The front page was plastered with the story, with the best photos of the crime scene the newspaper could get.

"Ugh. I almost feel sorry for those punks." Joey said, reading some of the details.

"It gets worse. In a way. You said the guy jumped you outside the D-Arena, right Tea?" Tristan asked.

"Yeah."

Tristan opened the paper. Page 2 was more on the demise of the Dine and Dashers. Page 3 had the story of what had been found near the D-Arena.

"Geez! He was killed…too? What…what happened that night?" Tea said in shock.

"It says here he was decapitated…geez, first the car and then that. Must have been a full moon or something." Joey said.

Yugi was about to say something, when a nurse pushing a wheelchair-bound patient bumped into Yugi. He apologized and moved out of the way.

"We shouldn't say here guys, we're getting in the way. Let's go to Grandpa's…say, why isn't he here?"

"Police spoke with him a long time. By the end he was so tired that once he got news that you were basically ok he immediately dozed off. Man, it must suck to get old." Joey said.

"Well, in any case let's go back to the Kame Shop. Maybe we can learn some more about what happened last night."

In the dark chambers of his Soul Room, Yugi's appeared and waited. Not five seconds later, Yami appeared.

"I assume you saw what I saw." Yugi said.

"I did. And I can't say I'm sorry. Those men were brutal scum, and died as they lived." Yami said.

"Well, I don't…in any case…uh, Yami?" Yugi said, pointing.

"What?" Yami said. He looked in a pool of water that happened to be nearby (Soul Rooms tended to be ever shifting in their looks and possessions, though the core of the being they represented remained the same) and saw what Yugi was talking about. He tended to manifest himself as a mirror image of his aibou, abet older, and he had been doing that for so long he had inadvertently put a bandage around his head. He smirked and it disappeared.

"You're too much like me in some aspects." Yugi said, grinning. The grin quickly faded. "Yami, did you see who was driving the car?"

"No. The angle was wrong, and even if it wasn't, two screaming men tend to catch your eye. Yet I have to wonder… Tea came from the D-Arena, right?"

"Yeah."

"And her…attacker was found dead there as well."

"Yeah…man…hey, you don't think…?"

"That it may have been done by the same person? Quick possible. The savagery of one act mirrors the other. I don't know who did this, but I'm just glad his rage was turned on those who would hurt us and not us."

"But…what's going to happen next?"

"If it was the same person, I feel pity for whoever arouses his anger next."

Yami was partly right: someone who had aroused V's anger was in trouble. Fortunately for him, it wasn't the bloodletting kind.

The D-Arena had been, as V had expected, closed when he had shown up, as the police poured over the crime scene that V had contributed too. There was a large crowd there already, so V had simply mingled and waited. With the cash cow this arena was, Kaiba would surely be in the midst of pulling strings to get it opened ASAP. Besides, there was no evidence inside the facility to find anyway. In any case, the facility had opened roughly 20 minutes after V had arrived, and he had gone in to duel.

He had lost a few more duels to kids, and then something had caught his eye and ear. A group of unpleasant looking kids had ganged up on two others, basically forcing them into a duel for a card one of the two had. The two kids had haggled the duel into being "no trap cards". Unfortunately, the public machines could not be modified to enforce this rule, so the only thing the kid had was the lead nasty kid's word. And sure enough, the nasty kid had used a trap card and gone on to win. The other child had protested this cheating, but it was quite clear that the gang of kids was now prepared to resort to more physical methods to get the car they wanted. Angered, V had stepped in and challenged the lead punk kid.

And he hadn't held back this time. A vicious opening barrage had knocked the Lead Punk Kid's life points down to 300 before the kid had managed to erect a defense. After that it seemed the duel had turned against V, as the punk chipped at his life points. He was down to 1200, and the punk was getting extremely cocky.

Too bad for him, as he didn't realize he was about to walk right into a trap.

"Ok, next I play the Brayblade!" the punk kid said, as he laid a card down. A spinning disk hologram appeared.

V and the punk kid stared at it.

"I SAID BRAYBLADE! BRAYBLADE! NOT BEYBLADE! WRONG ANIME, MORON!" the punk kid yelled. The spinning disk hologram vanished and was replaced with a weird donkey creature with a sword (1200/800).

V had two cards face down on the field. The punk tried to end the duel, only to have V's Wakobu card stop the attack.

"You can't hide forever!" the punk taunted.

"No need. I play Queen's Double, in attack mode." V said. The Queen's Double appeared. (350/300)

"What a stupid card! Let's end this! I play Mystery Hand!" the punk said. The Mystery Hand appeared (500/500). "And now I sacrifice the Mystery Hand and the Brayblade to bring out the terrible BEAST CREATURE!"

An orange scaly lizard-wolf monster appeared (1800/1500). The dramatic way the punk had announced his new monster made V unable to resist.

"OH NO! It's not just a beast! It's not just a creature! It's a…BEAST CREATURE!" V said in mock horror, and pretended to hide behind his dueling platform.

"You should be scared. Let's finish this! Beast Creature, kill that Queen's Doable!" the punk kid said.

"How original. Activate other face down card." V said. Three robed women appeared and stopped the Beast Creature's attack.

"Another Wakobu? You chicken! Quit running away!"

"I'm not retreating, I'm advancing in another direction. And it has served me well. This duel is over."

"No it isn't! My monster is way more powerful then yours!"

"Don't you know what the Queen's Double can do?"

"Suck?" the punk kid said. V could swear the female hologram of the Queen's Double actually looked cross at that comment.

"No. It can attack life points directly."

"Hah! But…"

"You have 300 life points left, moron. How many attack points does my Queen have?"

The look on the punk's face as his effort to go for raw power over precision blew up in his face as V's trap snapped shut was worth it all.

"Goodbye. Queen's Double, finish it off." V said calmly. The punk kid yelled in surprise and rage as the Queen's Double went around his Beast Creature and took the rest of his life points. V got off his platform and went over to the now sullen leader.

"Give me the card you promised." V said calmly.

"No!"

"You cheated to win it. Cheaters never prosper. Now, the card. Or we could take it up with the gamekeepers here. I hear the frown on deals broken."

The punk kid looked like he had swallowed a lemon, as he angrily reached into his pocket and gave back the Wingweaver card he had "won."

"There. That will be all. Ta." V said, and turned to leave.

The punk kid took a swing at V's back.

None of the other people really saw what happened, as V whirled and grabbed the punk's arm, yanking him violently off the ground and face to face with V. The kid yelled in pain and then went deathly quiet as he looked into V's intense, burning gaze. V had stared down far more potent foes with this look then the punk kid, and it was the equivalent of using a whole can of Raid on one insect.

"A word to the wise, child. Don't hunt what you can't kill." V said quietly, and dropped the kid. He landed on his ass and just stared dumbly as V turned and walked away.

The eyes of the man he had dueled that day would haunt the rest of his days.

V gave the card back to the two children, accepted their thanks, and went on his way. He needed a drink. He bought one and headed to the exit to the dueling arena. There were some benches there, right outside the tunnel which lead to the D-Arena's other facilities, and it was the quietest place in a place filled with constant noise. V sat down, stretched his legs out, and stared at the ceiling, sipping his drink.

He didn't have to wait long for something to happen.

"I told you it was a bad idea." Rex said as he took a swig of his soda bottle. Weevil didn't reply, but his furious glare said it all. Out of the small amount of respect Rex had for his semi-friend/always-rival, Rex didn't say anything else. He didn't really have to. The situation did it all, and he found it pretty funny. Even more so because he had called it.

The whole thing had started about five days ago. Rex and Weevil were firmly in the "Wanna-D" camp, thinking anyone who had to pay for the chance for cards was lacking the true essence of a duelist. However, Rex had been intrigued about Kaiba "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge" after seeing it on TV a few times, and had decided, on a  whim, to see if he could go sign up on it. He was certain he could avoid the wet and rather painful fates that usually happened to anyone who went on the show and win something good. So Rex had headed for the D-Arena.

Weevil had come with him for a different reason. One of the features in the large arcade was something called "Speaker's Corner", where people could get in a soundproofed booth (the place was noisy) and put in money to speak their opinions on stuff. You usually only had two minutes, but if you put in more money, you could speak longer (however, unless you were exceptionally entertaining, you could expect your long speech to be heavily cut, if it aired at all). Every two weeks the D-Arena would put a bunch of the recorded bits together and play them on the screens in the arcade and gift shop for an hour.

Recently, a glut of kids reading poetry had started an unofficial poetry contest. The editors had played along and started running "rank" poems on every show (from 1-3). Weevil had, unfortunately, been inspired by this, and had come with his own poem. Rex had told him, REPEATLY, that it was a bad idea, especially after skimming Weevil's little ode. But Weevil hadn't listened.

Rex had found he was too early to sign up for the next installment of MEEC, but Weevil had had no problem reading his poem. An 8 ½ minute long sonata about the glory of (what else), bugs.

Rex had come back this day to sign up, and had. Weevil came along to "see my great poem at No 1!". Rex had known that wasn't going to be the case, but even HE hadn't expected the utter hilarity of what had happened.

They had aired Weevil's poem, all right, and in total, without cuts. But it hadn't been in the poem rank section. It had been the "Mort of the Month" bit for that month (Rex had no idea who Mort was, but he assumed it was someone the editors knew who they had thought was very stupid). While Weevil had read his poem, the editors had put in "speech bubbles" with snarky (abet funny and clever comments), drawn on his image with those programs sports broadcasters used to show how plays and such had gone down, and done various other jokes. Overall over 50 jokes were made at Weevil's expense, and the whole arena had been roaring at the end.

Weevil was, understandably, utterly furious. Rex gave him credit for not throwing a fit right then and there though: he apparently knew, as Rex did, that it would just draw attention to him, and a volley of new jokes would be made as soon as people realize this month "mort" was in their midst. So the two of them had gotten drinks (Rex's treat, which was rare, but a small part of him did feel bad at how his semi-friend had been treated, even though Rex KNEW he had set himself up for it), and tried to leave as quietly as possible so that no one would see Weevil and make fun of them.

And so they had gone, with Weevil taking a big sip of his drink.

And not paying attention to where he was going.

And tripping over the long legs of V, who was looking at the ceiling and not able to see the small child walk towards him.

Weevil landed on his drink, squashing it and spraying him with soda as the cheap cup exploded. A second later, Weevil exploded.

"YOU DID THAT ON PURPOSE YOU BASTARD! IT'S NOT FUNNY! YOU ARE NOT FUNNY!" Weevil roared, cutting off V's apology and surprising Rex. He had no idea Weevil could roar. Weevil was the calm, sneaky type, not the raging type.

"Whoa! Look kid I'm sorry, I didn't see you…" V tried to say, sitting up.

"LIAR! SHUT UP!" Weevil said, and then to Rex's great surprise he actually took a swing at V. Man, Weevil WAS angry!

Not like his anger would help him in a combat situation. The first punch missed outright, and V put his hands on Weevil's shoulders to try and calm him down. Weevil took a few more swings, but his range was too short, and Rex had to keep from laughing again as the old cartoon cliché played out with Weevil's swipes just missing V and V's arms keeping Weevil from getting any closer.

"Kid, I'm sorry. Calm down. Calm DOWN." V said, nicely but firmly. And Weevil seemed to listen, though Rex bet it was more of a realization of how foolish he looked then him actually listening to V. Weevil stepped back and adjusted his glasses.

"You spilled my drink. Did you think that was funny?"

"No kid. Accident. Look, I'll buy you a new one…" V said, standing up and rummaging in his pockets.

"It's not the drink! It's the principle! You can't…I oughtta…!" Weevil said.

Then V, while looking for his money, turned slightly, and his deck fell on his pocket. Weevil looked at it, and then a look of sudden angry realization came into his eyes.

"Forget the drink! You have insulted the great Weevil Underwood, bug duelist extraordinaire, and you must be punished! Ergo, I challenge you a duel!" Weevil said. He knew just how to feel better about himself and all those idiots laughing at his insight about the beauty of insects: use his insect cards to tear a duelist apart. And this tall guy looked perfect: Weevil could just see him laughing in his ignorance. How dare he! He would show him!

"Oh, you sure I can't make this up to you by buying you another Pepsi?" V asked.

"No, you coward! You will duel me, and be devoured as if a swarm of army ants rose up and covered your being!"

"…..Ok. If that's what you want." V said.

And then he and Weevil took a few steps…each going in the opposite direction of the other: Weevil towards an exit, V back into the D-Arena. The two stopped, confused.

"Where are you going?" Weevil asked.

"Uhhhh, my cards only work in here…hence…" V said.

Weevil looked at Rex, and then the two of them started laughing.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA! A Wanna-D! This will be even easier then I thought!" Weevil laughed.

"You know, how you get cards doesn't really matter…" V said.

"That's what you think! But you're just a lesser in the end, no matter what you claim! Now, since you're so pathetic we can't even leave the arena, we may as well get going so I can trash you and show you how much better a pure duelist is!"

"Good luck on that Weevil. Looks like it's rush hour." Ex said, indicating the noisy lines of public machines. Indeed, all were full, and most had lineups.

"Bah! Of course the Wanna-D can hide behind…"

"I'll pay for a private arena." V said quietly.

"….Well then, fine! You should! It's an honour that a pure duelist like I would challenge a mere Wanna-D! And you'll find out why in a moment, uh, whoever you are!"

"The name is V."

"Well V, you are about to be crushed! Don't believe me if you will, but in the end you have no idea what you are getting into!" Weevil said, his anger having turned into cocky anticipation of an easy and satisfyingly crushing victory. He headed for the nearest private arena entrance.

V had been holding his deck in his hands after it had fallen out, and as Weevil headed for the door, Rex behind him, V did a hand snapped and sprayed out the cards in his hands. He found his special weapon and took it out.

The eyes in the card seemed to gleam back at his.

Yes, it was time.

"Neither do you." V said, and followed.

"Ok Wanna-D! Do you want to play by Duelist Kingdom rules or Battle City? Either way, you are going to get squashed!"

"Battle City." V said. The two of them were in the private arena now, and after the loud noise and flashy lighting of the public arena V was relishing the quiet.

"Very well! Prepare yourself Wanna-D! You're going to be my leading example of how great bugs are!"

"And I say this duel's lifespan will be shorter then a dayfly's." V said, trying an insect-themed pun in return. He grimaced inwardly. No, he wouldn't be using that motif.

"I think not! Now, let's start so we can finish!"

"Fine." V said, as he stared across the playing field at Weevil, Weevil met his gaze.

"Let's duel!"

To Be Continued.