Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5ds.
A/N: I need a unified theme for each chapter, rather than just cutting them off when I feel like it. It's getting really hard thinking of good chapter names.
"Hey," I gently shook Crow by the shoulder. "You okay?"
"Hmm!" Large blue eyes snapped opened in terror and alarm, Crow struggled in vain against his bonds, hard enough to rattle the wooden floorboards on the second floor.
"I'm going to take off the gag, can you promise me not to scream?" I asked gently. Crow looked a lot younger than the other three Enforcers, realizing that I had put him through this made me feel more than a little guilty.
Crow nodded, "what happened? Who are you?" he asked urgently as soon as he was able.
"My name is Yuki Tono," I replied with as friendly a smile as I could manage.
"Yuki?" Crow grinned, flashing pearly white teeth that suggest a lack of candy consumption, "I know you, you're the new girl who's trying to fix the Satellite."
Well, he's not making this any easier. I rubbed my neck uncomfortably. The only alternative I had, other than kidnapping Crow, is blackmailing Rex Goodwin, and that just seemed like an even worse idea.
"Wait," Crow looked like he was finally coming to his sense, his face crunched up in concentration, "I remember a really big guy coming towards me on a duel runner. I thought he was going to challenge me to a duel, but then he just knocked me out!"
Yeah, that sounds like Greiger, I scratched my head sheepishly.
"So you had him bring me here!" Crow finally realized, seeing that I made no move to untie him.
"Um... Right," I breathed out heavily, deciding to cut to the case, "I'm the one who got you here. I need you to help me rescue a friend from Sector Security."
"And you kidnapped me!" Crow replied accusingly, "what makes you think I'll have anything to do with you?"
"Well, I am robbing the Sector, and trying to rescue an innocent man, it's not like I'm doing something bad." I defended my position, making a futile attempt at convincing him before this turns ugly, "and we can discuss the details of payments if you're interested."
Crow's eyes flickered a little as he considered my proposal. Raising kids in the Satellite, while you're still a kid yourself, was bound to have its challenges, so any sort of income was not to be turned down lightly.
"No," He turned down the offer finally, "I don't trust you. When the time comes, I think you'll squawk to Domino, or leave me hanging in the branches."
"I can pay you up front," I tried again, secretly surprised that he even considered my suggestion, "or we can involve third party that you trust." Preferably not Yusei since he'd be kidnapped next.
"I said no." Crow remained adamant despite his position of being tied up on the floor, "I stick to my own course, and I don't fly with the likes of you."
Maybe I should've asked him nicely first, I realized in hindsight. I never considered that he would agree to risking his life to save a stranger, so 'asking' didn't occur to me until a little too late. If I had a little bit more time, if I had been a little calmer and actually discussed the idea with those around me... Then again, even if Crow conceded, I don't think Yusei would, so I'd have to end up kidnapping him, which means in the end, I'd still lose Crow's willing assistance.
"Well," I said instead, "I'm afraid that may not be entirely up to you."
"What do you mean?" Crow asked in alarm, lifting his upper body off the floor.
"Umm…" I paused uncomfortably, still not great at whole being-villainous business.
"The kids who live with you are with us now," Vincent walked in confidently, not at all disguising the fact that he had been eavesdropping on this entire conversation, "They're receiving the best education, regular exercise and three meals a day. How long that lasts, is entirely up to you."
Crow cringed backwards as though hit, his large blue eyes trained on me, brimming with anger and betrayal.
I looked away.
"How could you?" He lashed out angrily at Vincent, "What did those kids ever do to you?"
"I really am sorry," I apologized and meant it. I knew Vincent was trying to draw the fire away but I can't exactly let him take the heat for my decision, "but I need your help in this Crow, and I'll do anything to secure it."
"Fine then!" Crow replied, fury burning in his eyes, "I'll help you, but let those kids go."
"You know it doesn't work like that," I answered patiently, "You must complete the mission first."
"And what if you don't follow up on your promise?" Crow demanded.
"You have my word," I offered what little assurances I could, "or if you'd prefer some sort of collateral…"
"How dare you compare those kids to collateral?" Crow raged, "Your 'word' doesn't mean a thing to me! Tell you what, I'll duel you," Crow said resolutely. "You always duel for the other person's most valuable card, right?" That's not exactly true or a reputation I wanted, but Crow continued without giving me a chance to correct him.
"I'll duel you for the kids you kidnapped." 'Invited', I thought weakly in my head.
"If I win, you let those kids go, if you win, I'll give you my rarest card, the Black-winged Dragon – Black Feather (lv8, lv8, 2800/1600)."
I didn't need the card, or want the card that was the symbol of his Signer status, but it would be excellent payment for his assistance during the raid, so I consented with some confidence. Surely, if I can beat Kalin using only a Chaos deck, I could beat Crow with a Six-Samurai deck. I thought naively, utterly oblivious to the magical forces at work.
"Let's duel," We both said together.
Turn 1, Crow's Turn, Crow 4000 LP, Yuki 4000 LP
Crow drew his first card, "I summon Blackwing- Zephros the Elite (lv4, 1600/1000) to the field in attack mode. Next, when I have a Blackwing monster on the field, I can special summon Blackwing- Bora the Spear (lv4, 1700/800) onto the field in attack mode. I'll place one card facedown and end my turn."
Turn 2, Yuki's Turn, Crow 4000 LP, Yuki 4000 LP
I drew next and stared at my hand unbelievingly. The six cards in my hand ran as follows: Mystical Space Typhoon, Heavy Storm, United We Stand, Cunning of the Six Samurai, Gateway of the Six, and Grandmaster of the Six Samurai (lv5, 2100/800).
If you're not familiar with these cards, that's five spell cards and one level 5 monster. Not a single monster I could summon to the field, and not a single card that can destroy monsters or stall/negate an attack. Crow already had two monsters with a total of 3300 attack on his field.
"I set two cards facedown," I announced, looked at his facedown card hopefully, "Then I play, Mystic Space Typhoon to destroy your facedown card."
"I activate my trap," Crow smirked, "Icarus Attack, by tributing one Blackwing monster on my field, I can destroy two cards on your side of the field, and I'll tribute Blackwing- Zephros the Elite, to destroy both of your facedown cards.
That's exactly what I hoped he'd do, by sacrificing the spells Heavy Storm and Cunning of the Six Samurai, he was one monster down, and thus hopefully, wouldn't have enough attack to wipe me out next turn.
"I place one more card face-down and end my turn." I announced, more than a little annoyed at my hand.
Turn 3, Crow's Turn, Crow 4000 LP, Yuki 4000 LP
"Is that all you got?" Crow taunted, "I told you my birds would fly circles around you. I summon, Blackwing- Blizzard the Far (lv2, tuner) from my hand, when this monster is normal summoned, I can bring one lv 4 or below Blackwing monster back from the grave in defense mode, and I choose my Blackwing- Zephros the Elite. I tune my Blizzard the Far with my Bora the Spear to special summon, Blackwing Armed Wing (lv6, 2300/1000)."
He was playing very cautiously, leaving a monster in defense mode just in case, no doubt suspecting Mirror Force as my trap. I groaned silently. If only he knew.
"Blackwing Armed Wing, attack!" Crow commanded, and my life points dropped to 1700. "That's really all you got?" He asked in sincere surprise.
Turn 4, Yuki's Turn, Crow 4000 LP, Yuki 1700 LP
I made no audible response as he ended his turn, closing my eyes and hoping for the best- aka any monster I could summon. The card I received was Six Samurai United, a spell card that allows the user to place one counter on it for every Six Samurai monster summoned, up to 2, and draw one card for each counter. An excellent card of course, except my problem was that I had no monsters to summon to begin with!
"I forfeit the duel!" I grumbled, utterly pissed off.
"Really? I barely took off," Crow asked, temporarily forgetting our animosity, "They said you were pretty good."
I showed him my hand and even he couldn't help sniggering. Seven cards and not a single monster I could summon.
"Rematch," I demanded angrily.
"Hey! A deal' a deal!" Crow protested with equal anger.
"The deal's off. We duel again, that's my offer, take it or leave it." I had other ways of making Crow do what I wanted, but I felt a vague disquietude about my last duel. I can't quite place it, but something felt off. It's one thing to lose, but quite another to lose like this, it's like something out there had it out for me.
I went first in our second duel, and again, for the first two draws, I had no monsters nor a single card that would bring a monster into my hand. I forfeited the game on the 3 turn this time. What are the freaking odds?
Actually, I paused as the thought occurred to me, what are the odds?
Calculus had killed me, but before being forced to calculate things that didn't exist, I understood most of the math I came into contact with.
So I had a 40 card deck. I flipped through it, 14 of those 40 cards were cards that were not a lv4 or below monster, could not bring such a monster into my hand and didn't negate any attacks. So the odds of drawing 7 of these cards in a row… I really needed a calculator for this, but I was too embarrassed to go borrow Nervin's computer to calculate what the exact chances were of me losing this badly.
Crow looked at me curiously as I crouched in a corner after forfeiting the duel, drawing on dirt with a stick (paper was expensive, remember?). "What are you doing?" He asked cautiously. Not having any education beyond grade school, he didn't understand even the simpler math. (It truly is a miracle that Yusei Fudo is more capable than any scientist in Domino City even though he never received any education.)
"I'm trying to figure out how I could've lost that badly." I muttered darkly in response.
"You can't win a duel with numbers, you have to trust in your deck and trust in yourself." Crow laughed, eyes still bright from his victories.
Since he hadn't been a sore winner, I didn't remind him that it wasn't smart to mock your captors.
Instead, I ignored him. My chances of drawing 7 cards in a row without being able to summon a single monster was, roughly, 1/5500. Sure that happens, but let's just say the odds are against it. To have that happen twice in a row though, brings us to less than 1 in 25 million. Now those are lottery-winning odds.
Crow couldn't have cheated, he's not the type, nor did he ever get the chance. But… That's not to say somebody, or rather something could not cheat on his behalf.
"Well?" Crow asked, "Are you going to claim bad luck again?" I ignored him. If my suspicions were true, I had much, much bigger problems.
"Wait here," I said as I rushed out the door to find Nervin, I needed an accurate statistical model on the 'luck' involved in each card Crow and I drew, to see if and how either the Crimson Dragon, the Blackwing Dragon or just Fate is affecting our duels.
It was an ultimate nightmare of many mortals, myself included, to have your fate dictated before you even made a move. I feared it may have just came true for me.
…
"Hi Crow," Nervin greeted my orange-haired opponent awkwardly, "What brings you here?" I forgot, of course they would know each other. In my frenzy, I had also forgotten that Nervin doesn't know about Crow's acquisition (ie. our acquisition of Crow), or how he got here.
"Nervin! So that's where you are!" Crow hugged Nervin close, "Did she kidnap you too?" He asked before I could stop him.
"Okay, okay, that's enough chitchat," I had to interrupt, braving Nervin's suspicious glances.
It was a simple model I had Nervin construct, so he tells me. Each given card was allotted a value of 1-3, 1 being a bad draw and 3 being a good draw. The duel disk would record each card drawn, Nervin would allot each card with a number as they're drawn, then calculate the cumulative odds of us each drawing the cards we did. He's not a great duelist, but he knew enough about the game to score the cards appropriately.
"What are we dueling for?" Crow asked suspiciously. "Are-"
"Yes, yes," I said quickly before he could say any more, "I'll hold up my end of the bargain from our last duel. Tell you what, defeat me enough times, and I'll let you go."
"That shouldn't be too hard," Crow smirked, sounding relieved at my response (and for some reason choosing to trust it), "How many times do you want to lose?"
"Let him go?" Nervin asked surprised, "Yuki, what are you talking about?"
"Nervin," I looked at him pleadingly, "just trust me this once. I'm trying to figure something out."
Like exactly how much magical assistance the supernatural allies of a future Signer were willing and able to provide him.
Nervin nodded with visible reservations, he must think I was trying to choose between the path of light and darkness or some crazy philosophical stuff like that.
"Lose once," I warned Crow, "and you're here for a very long time." Just to make sure that whatever magic that may be helping Crow knew that there was a lot riding on each duel.
Crow gritted his teeth and agreed.
Even with the help of the Crimson Dragon, he can't possibly win all his duels, right?
Elsewhere in the Satellite, non-villainous plans were progressing much more smoothly.
"Done!" Yusei stood up triumphantly, even his naturally stoic expression dissolved into a smile as the teen examined the results of his handiwork. Even though it was night, and the sunlight never reaches these tunnels even during the day, he could almost feel its rays shining light on his and his friends' future.
"Woah!" Tank ogled the ride, reaching his hand out and withdrawing just before he touched it.
"Nice work Yusei," Blitz tried to hide the elation behind a worldly demeanor, he was betrayed by his hands shaking in excitement and his eyes glued to the red runner.
"This is so cool!" Rally said in awe, "It looks amazing Yusei!"
"It was good that you saw the spare parts when you did," Yusei praised the small redhead, "otherwise it would've taken at least another three months."
"Let's take it for a test run!" Rally suggested hopefully. Being the youngest in the group, he was still small enough to fit comfortably on the backseat, maybe he could go for a ride when Yusei came back from his duel with Jack.
Tank quickly give Blitz a look.
"Yusei," Blitz said, "Why don't you take Rally for a ride to celebrate? We have more than enough time tonight. When you come back, we would have designed the optimum route in the tunnels to fully simulate the conditions of riding to Domino City."
Rally looked at Yusei hopefully, then looked away with some difficulty, "no, I can't do that Yusei. This runner is all of our hope to get to Domino City, I can just ride it for fun."
"Riding is supposed to be fun," Yusei smiled one of his rare smiles, holding Rally up under his arms and placing him on the backseat, then getting on himself "we'll go around the Satellite, I know a couple of roads above ground that the Sector never checks."
Rally could barely contain his excitement as he grabbed onto the back of Yusei's jacket. Laughter, a sound so rare in these tunnels, rang out dangerously until Tank warned him to stop, so they didn't attract any unwanted attention.
With his feet on the accelerator, Yusei quickly raced out of sight, a happy Rally sitting behind him and smiling ear-to-ear.
Tank looked visibly relaxed as they faded out of sight.
"So?" Tank looked at Blitz, "what are we going to do about Nervin?"
Yusei was still oblivious to Nervin's location, the two men had purposely omitted that fact so the leader of their gang would not go out recklessly and put himself into even more danger. They had thought the runner would take months, by which time Nervin would have hopefully gotten back to his senses and came back from whatever group he had joined. Unfortunately for Nervin, the runner has been completed months before schedule, thus both of them were at a loss.
"We have to tell him!" Blitz said, "We can't just leave him behind."
"And what? Have him expose us?" Tank retorted, pulling on his own short brown hair in frustration, "I don't want to leave him behind, Blitz, but I don't know if we can trust him right now."
"He has a right to know, as much as any of us," Blitz argued half-heartedly. Tank had a point, and all of them were on red alert after what happened with Jack.
"Even if it means he'd screw it up for the rest of us?" Tank demanded.
"Tell you what," Blitz rubbed his thin stubble, "let's test him. We'll make up something, drag him from the Magicians, see if he'll come back and help us."
They would call Nervin back at dawn, and see if he was still the friend they remembered. Thus decided, the two men opened a map of Domino City and began planning Yusei's simulation route so he could test them when he got back.
Even with the help of the Crimson Dragon, he can't possibly win all his duels, I had thought.
And that's how, by the next morning, I had lost 21 duels in a row to Crow Hogan.
The likelihood of him drawing the exact cards he needed at the exact time for each of these duels, according to the ridiculously complicated formula Nervin worked up, was less than 0.1%.
Not wanting to show weakness in front of my opponent, I had managed to struggle onto the hallway before my emotions finally got the better of me. Leaning against the wall just outside the door, I let myself slide down until I was sitting on the ground, hiding my face and my tears between my knees.
I never thought I'd be this broken up over a card game.
In my defense, there's a reason for the anger/fear-fueled breakdown. In one of my luckier duels against Crow, I had seen a flash of a dragon behind him as he drew Monster Reborn, the one card that could have saved him in that game. That's when I recognized the cause of Crow's lucky draws, the Crimson Dragon offering assistance to its protege.
I can never beat Crow with that Lizard in the way. I was defeated, once and for all. I haven't been this dejected since I realized which world I was in. It's the powerlessness of having done all that you can, and realizing it was not enough, and would never be enough. The dread of having a truly insurmountable obstacle in your path, one whose powers you cannot even begin to comprehend. The unavoidable fate of failure through no fault of your own.
It's reasonably safe to assume the same 'stroke of luck' would befall all the other protagonists and many of the magically-assisted villains, leaving me in the backdrop as the helpless damsel in distress praying for a victory I cannot influence. I thought I could control destiny, turns out it just didn't bother with peons until we upset its plans. For the first time in this world, I felt true despair.
"Yuki, it's okay," Galen knelt down beside me, "so you lost a couple of duels, you're still a good duelist. He just got lucky, you can see it in those numbers Nervin came up with." Nervin had left early this morning citing something personal. Distress was written all over his face but he was resolute in refusing our involvement (that was his word choice, I said 'help'). Galen replaced him as our 'score keeper'.
Yeah, lucky. Lucky that he was the mortal chosen by a giant supernatural lizard to turn the fate of humanity to a direction it desired, lucky that lizard happened to win, lucky Destiny itself was in his corner.
"Crow won't affect operations much," even Vincent admitted reluctantly. The leader of the Magicians had watched my duels with Crow with some concern, "just give him what he wants and stay out of his way. The Enforcers are like a hurricane, it's much easier just to wait and let it die out."
Part of me agreed, it wanted to relax, to let things be, to follow the flows of fate where it may. The other part wanted chocolate and steak, especially steak.
Had Japan, and the rest of the world, been living a fully modernized lifestyle, or at least guaranteed a living standard I could tolerate, I might have taken the easier way out, wait for the plot to finish, and just enjoyed the higher standard of living that would magically appear. As it stands, even after the bridge was constructed, even if Domino City suddenly had lost all qualms about it new Satellite citizens (many with a criminal past), I can't imagine our lives miraculously improve. I cannot realistically expect Neo Domino, with its population of two hundred thousand people, to provide opportunities for the half a million people in the Satellite. That kind of migration would only move the slums to a different part of the city rather than dissolve them.
I wanted chocolate, meat, clean water, fresh fruits and vegetables, and the other 'luxuries' of life the previous world had granted liberally- that required living better than 90% of the population in this idealized anime world. So I had the options of fighting magically enhanced dragons now, or fighting bureaucrats and politicians after the plot concludes. I'll take the dragons any day.
"I need help," I muttered darkly. If the main characters can't be defeated, I just have to get them on my side. Not Yusei yet, that would attract too much attention from Rex Goodwin, but some of the others were not under such careful scrutiny. I'll shift the emphasis to non-duel based actions of course, I'll lose a shortcut, but that's still an acceptable level of loss. The Crimson Dragon controlling our fates though, remains a concern.
"Yuki?" Galen asked carefully, "what happened? You sounded really scary for a second. Oomph, why did you elbow me Vincent? Stop doing it, I'll fight you!"
"I just had to figure something out," I smiled at the ground, remembering the man who had shown me the same mirthless grin, "like how to fight when Destiny is not on your side."
"Yu-,Yu-,Yuki," Cyril ran into the hallway breathlessly, almost barged into the room Crow was locked in before he saw me sitting on the floor. "Yuki! Come, quick! He's looking for you! He's at the front door already."
"Hmm!" I mumbled a protest and wiped the tears off my face before I lifted my head up. Still busy sulking, I didn't appreciate having to deal with any more problems today. A hush fell throughout the hallway, I looked up in surprise to see shock and horror on Cyril's face. "Who are we talking about?" I asked suspiciously.
"Kessler's back," Cyril whispered.
A/N: I debated between a 'why did you kidnap me when you could've just asked for help?' Crow, and a 'how could you do something this evil' Crow. I finally decided on the second one, the first one was frankly more entertaining for me, but it made Crow either too naïve or too good an actor.
A/N 2: Since the dragons chose their owners already, we can assume that the Signers have been chosen, with or without having been marked, i.e. Crow was destined to be a Signer from the beginning. Which is why this yet undisclosed 'magic' went to drastic measures to prevent Yuki from getting her hand on this card.
...
And this will be a happy story... somehow...