Yu-Gi-Oh!
Christmas, Caroling, and Scary Ghost Stories
By Lucky_Ladybug
Notes: The characters from the show are not mine. The other characters and the story are mine! This takes place in my post-series Pendulum Swings verse, which redeemed the Big Five, Yami Bakura, and Lumis and Umbra, among others. I largely use the manga version of Duke's intro, as I don't like how the anime intro made him so shallow. This is going to be another story partially inspired by a dream. I'm also going to use Miho/Ribbon from the manga and the Toei anime, but I'm calling her by her dub name Melody, used in the game Dungeon Dice Monsters, to separate her from the Toei series. Her personality won't be exactly like the Toei series, as I figure since Miho doesn't exist in the main anime series, I can kind of create some of her personality for that version.
Chapter One
Lector had settled in front of the fireplace with a book that December evening. But although it was a favorite, his thoughts were soon wandering.
It had been a long year, filled with many unusual and often dangerous adventures. There had been so much heartache and so many times he and the rest had been pushed to the brink of their endurance. They had also made a few new friends on some of their ventures. Things were peaceful again now, but he could never help wondering, as did the others, what would happen next.
The sound of the doorbell brought him up with a start. Who would that be? They weren't expecting anyone. Maybe Mokuba or Yugi was dropping in to spread some Christmas cheer. He smiled a bit at that thought.
"Mr. Lector?"
He looked up at his maid's voice. But then he saw, and nothing more needed to be said. His eyes went wide. "Evangeline?! Angelique?!"
His younger sister skipped into the room and into his arms. "Démas!" she exclaimed.
Lector hugged her close, still in amazement. "What brings you here, Evangeline?"
"What better time to take Téa up on her offer to visit than at Christmastime?" Evangeline smiled. "I wanted to be with my older brother for Christmas. And I didn't want to invite you out to spend Christmas in a ghost house, so coming here was the best option."
"We won't impose," Evangeline's best friend Angelique interjected. "We have rooms at the hotel."
"It's not an imposition at all," Lector protested. "I am very happy you both came!" He smiled. "Tell me, though, how are things back in New Orleans? You always loved Christmas there, Evangeline. . . ."
"I know," Evangeline said, "and being where it snows every year feels strange, I'll tell you that! Things are alright back home, for the most part, but it's still hard to fully feel good about Mother and Marie and the boys. I'm probably the closest to Adele, and mostly because of Gabriel. She really is trying, though. I appreciate that a lot. I hope someday I can really feel good about all the family again." She made a face, and Lector rather suspected that Phillipe, at least, was still making it very clear that he hated Lector for having been their father's favorite in the past.
"I hope so too," Lector said.
"Well, enough about that!" Evangeline danced over to the window and looked out at the snow-covered yard. "Tell me everything, Démas! How has life been treating you here lately?"
Lector managed a weak smirk. "It's . . . certainly been interesting. Things are rarely dull in Domino City."
"Why do I have the feeling that's not entirely a positive statement?" Evangeline remarked.
"Unfortunately, it's not," Lector agreed. "It seems that chaos follows us no matter where we are."
"Well, if you feel like talking about it, I am certainly all ears!" Evangeline declared.
"I am afraid it would take many hours to describe all that's happened," Lector said, "but we can certainly visit about that while you're here. For now, however . . ." He walked to the doorway. "I'll let the others know you're here. They'll be happy to see you too. Then we can all talk together."
"Wonderful!" Evangeline smiled.
xxxx
Téa frowned as she watched Melody fumble and drop her side of the garland they were putting up at Mr. Thorton's holiday store. Téa hadn't planned to take on seasonal work here this year, but when Mr. Thorton had called and told her they were short-handed so close to Christmas and begged her to come, she hadn't had the heart to refuse. She had also discovered that Melody, a girl she knew from school, was working here this year too. Melody was flighty and loved typical girl things such as fashion and the mall, but was also a big fan of Duke's Dungeon Dice Monsters game. Téa hadn't expected to see her here, but even moreso, she hadn't expected her to be so preoccupied.
"What's wrong, Melody?" she finally asked.
"Huh? Oh." Melody just sighed. "It's nothing, really. Melody just . . . didn't get a lot of sleep last night. . . ." One of her oddities was that she often spoke of herself in the third person. Everyone who knew her had just learned to deal with it.
"Excited about Christmas, are we?" Téa smiled playfully.
"Yeah, Melody is, but . . ." Melody shook her head. Looking around furtively, she at last leaned in and whispered, "You're always investigating weird stuff, aren't you?"
"Um . . ." Téa blinked, put on the spot. "Well, it does seem to turn out that way."
"Good!" Melody looked brighter for the first time that day. "Then maybe you can help us with our ghosts."
Mentally Téa cringed. "Ghosts? You have ghosts in your house?"
Melody gave a firm nod. "We sure do! And they're really being a pain!"
"I thought you moved into a new house recently," Téa said in dismay.
"We've been there a while," Melody said. "We can't even live in part of it because of the ghosts!"
That sounded a lot like the problem with Evangeline's house. Téa replied, "Then why don't you move again?!"
"We all love the house," Melody frowned. "Plus, it's all we've got. It took everything we had to move this time! We can't do it again."
Téa shuddered. That would be a horrible situation. "I'll talk to everyone," she said, "but we might not be able to do anything. Two of our friends live in a haunted house and we haven't been able to do anything about that."
"If you'd just try, that would mean so much," Melody said.
"We'll definitely do that," Téa said. But she couldn't help picturing Joey's tearful and horrified reaction when he was told.
xxxx
Téa was definitely right that the last thing Joey wanted to do was go ghost-busting again. After her shift at work, she went to the Game Shop to talk to Yugi and the others and found them engaged in Capsule Monsters on the living room coffee table.
"I dunno, Yug," Joey was saying. "It's got its own charm, but it's no Duel Monsters."
"I like Duel Monsters the best too, Joey," Yugi said, "but it's still fun to try other games too."
"And any game that uses the Duel Monsters characters always gets used against us by creeps," Tristan complained.
"Yeah, no kidding," Joey frowned. "I wonder why that is." Then he paused as Tristan's words really sank in. ". . . So you're counting Dungeon Dice Monsters in that statement too, aren't you?"
Tristan shrugged. "It's true, isn't it? Duke was being a creep when he strongarmed Yugi into that duel."
Yugi sighed. "Well, he did have his reasons. And he found he couldn't go through with what his dad wanted. . . ."
"I know, I know!" Tristan retorted. "I'm just saying."
Téa decided this was a good time to make her presence known and get the subject changed.
"Hi, guys," she chirped.
Everyone looked up in varying stages of relief to be interrupted.
"Hey, Téa!" they chorused.
"What's up?" Joey added.
"Well . . ." Téa came over and set her bag down before sitting on the couch. "You know Melody, from school?"
"Yeah. What about her?" Joey asked.
"She asked me for help today," Téa said slowly.
"With what?" Tristan frowned.
Téa took a deep breath. "Her house is haunted."
Dead silence, followed by an anguished cry from Joey as he flopped over the back of the couch. "Say it ain't so!" He slapped his forehead. "Why do they always come to us for help about that?! We're not ghostbusters!"
Yugi chuckled but sighed. "Did you tell her we probably couldn't do anything?" he said to Téa.
"Yeah, but I also said we'd try," Téa said.
Joey moaned.
"What kinds of ghosts do they have?" Atem asked as he came into the room with mugs of hot chocolate.
"You know, I'm not sure," Téa said as she took one. "But Melody said she hadn't got much sleep because of them."
"Who can blame her?!" Joey exclaimed.
"She really seemed freaked out," Téa sighed.
"We could go over right now and try to help," Yugi said.
"We might as well, since we know we'll be ending up over there anyway," Tristan said. He started to get up.
Yugi gave a sad sigh. ". . . You know, Tristan, Melody's a nice girl," he said.
"Yeah, she is," Téa said.
"There's a lot of nice girls," Tristan said as he turned away, "but only one Serenity."
Téa gave Yugi a helpless look. Tristan was still hung up on Serenity. Sometimes it seemed he would never heal from her choosing Duke instead of him. She loved Tristan dearly, but in a brotherly way—which was not what he wanted.
Joey sighed too. "Serenity's one of a kind, alright. But . . . hey, why don't we go see what's up over there?"
"You're actually willing to go into a ghost nest, Joey?" Téa blinked.
"We're goin' anyway, like Tristan said," Joey grunted. "And we don't wanna leave a nice girl in misery, do we?"
Yugi smiled a bit. "No, we don't."
xxxx
Lector wasn't surprised when he went to round up the others and found Nesbitt enraptured by The Mandalorian. Crump was also sitting near him, staring at the screen.
Lector chuckled. "You two. . . ."
"Hey, this little guy is adorable!" Crump exclaimed.
"And the ship and the special effects are incredible!" Nesbitt said.
Evangeline came up beside Lector and laughed. "Well, you're both right! Angelique and I love watching this show too."
Nesbitt jumped a mile. "Evangeline?!" He fumbled for the remote and paused the screen. He and Crump both got up.
"This is great!" Crump exclaimed. "What are you doing here, Evangeline?!"
"We're here for Christmas!" Evangeline said, gesturing to Angelique as she came over too.
"That's perfect!" Crump said. "Do Gansley and Johnson know yet?"
"We haven't found them yet," Lector said.
"Here we are, actually," Johnson announced as he and Gansley appeared from behind the increasing group.
"Wonderful!" Evangeline smiled. "And now that you're all here, I do have something to tell you, Démas—something I found out about the Berserk Dragon that's our family's protector." She linked arms with him.
Lector quirked an eyebrow. "You found out more secrets from the house?"
"Pretty much!" Evangeline nodded. She took an old black book out from her flowing, flowery dress. "This journal tells the tale. I discovered it in the nook from the North Wing! The Berserk Dragon protected our distant ancestors from Haiti during a big battle against the forces of evil. It was defeated and killed, but it cared so much about our family that it cast a spell on itself to come back as the undead to keep protecting them!"
Crump gave a low whistle. "That's quite a story."
"It most certainly is," Lector said in surprise. "Who wrote the journal?"
"A many-great-grandmother named Marie," Evangeline said. "I think it's who our Marie was named for." She held out the journal. "I wanted to bring it over so you could read it too, Démas."
"Thank you," Lector said. He accepted it and cracked it open, being careful of the ancient pages. "This is most certainly a family treasure."
"It is," Evangeline beamed.
Suddenly Lector's phone dinged and he looked down at it in surprise. "It looks like Yugi and the others are still having problems with ghosts right here in town," he said. "A friend of theirs from school asked them to help with a problem she's having in her house."
"Well," Crump mused, "we did warn ya that you wouldn't be getting away from weird stuff by coming here."
"That's true, you did," Evangeline said. "So are you going to help Yugi with this problem?"
"Yugi let us know about it so we'd be aware they might need help," Lector said. "But you two just got here. You shouldn't have to plunge into another supernatural problem immediately."
Evangeline glanced at Angelique. "Oh, that's alright," she said with a wave of her hand. "If Yugi and the others need help, we want to be involved!"
Angelique nodded. "That's right. They're our friends too!"
Lector smiled. "If you're sure."
"We're sure," Evangeline said. "Let's go see what these ghosts are up to and put a stop to it!"
"You're probably gonna regret that, but okay!" Crump said. "Let's get going."
The group headed out.
