I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of its characters.
When I woke up the next morning the first thing I did was go to Enforcer HQ where I found Jack, wantonly staring off into the distance.
"Hey, Jack," I said as I clapped his shoulder. "Something go wrong with your last girl?"
"Says the guy who left us behind to see a girl yesterday." Jack smiled.
"Glad to know that my brothers are all snooping into my private life." I laughed.
"Glad to hear it, Wil. What are you doing back here?" he asked.
"I just wanted to know what I'd missed," I replied.
"Kalin is figuring out who our next target is going to be. We've only got a few more gangs to take out, but they're the worst of the lot. Make sure that your deck is ready for action." Jack said.
"You don't think that some of these guys might try something funny?" I asked.
"Well…" Jack hesitated. "Duel gangs rarely resort to violence. Tradition and honor require us to resolve matters with our decks, but the gangs who are left are feared for a reason."
"Then we'd better bring blades with us, just in case," I remarked.
Jack smiled, "You're just looking for an excuse to wear a knife."
"Maybe. I still haven't worked out the kinks in hiding a tanto in my duel disk." I said.
"Then don't hide it there, strap it to your leg under your jeans," Jack said.
"Maybe, Jack, maybe… See ya later, I'm going back home. And good luck with the girl." I turned around and took a few steps before I realized that there was a third party in front of Enforcer HQ. A woman dressed all in blue.
"Um… Hello, Wilhelm." Anna said. She was holding a small black clutch and was shaking slightly.
Jack turned around and his eyes went wide, "Wilhelm you Son-of-a-Kuriboh, you could've at least introduced us to your girl before running off with her yesterday!"
I punched Jack in the face, hard. He hit the ground laughing.
"That isn't what happened, and she isn't my girl," I said. Jack stood back up and gave Anna a sly look, like a dragon about to snatch its prey.
"Then she's single?" he asked. Then I punched him again, but this time in the gut, forcing him to double over in pain and fall to the ground in the fetal position.
I smiled at Anna, "Sorry about my friend, here, Anna. Anyway, what are you doing here? I thought you worked the lines at the plant."
"Normally, yes, I do." she sighed. "I've gotten permission from my advisor not to go to work today. I'm getting my things from my old apartment."
"Then what are you doing here?" I asked.
"I need help moving some of my furniture. I don't have the time nor the patience necessary to empty them all, move the contents, then go back and get the furniture one piece at a time, then -"
"I get it. I'm ready to help out. Just say the word." I cut her off.
"Good," she said as she turned around. She started walking away before she craned her head back to give me a glance and say, "Are you coming?"
"What? Yeah, yeah, of course, I am." I said, walking past where I'd left Jack. I could hear him snicker slightly as we left the courtyard in front of the three-story ruin that was Enforcer HQ.
I grunted as I lifted a small dresser onto a trailer that Yusei had been able to dig up. It was hooked up to the prototype duel runner. Yusei had been very kind in loaning them both to me for helping Anna out. He said that he'd needed an excuse to go scrounging for more usable parts anyway. Anna hadn't stopped looking at the runner ever since I pulled up in it outside her old home.
"Hey, Anna," I said. "You like the runner?"
"Runner? I hadn't realized that this beast would be used for a children's card game," she said, smiling as she was inspecting some of the inner workings and wirings of the runner.
"It's not…" I sighed. "I know that you play it too, don't try to deny it."
"What?" she spun around and looked at me, worried.
"The posters on your wall, and I accidentally caught sight of some of your notes," I explained, raising my hands in surrender. She stomped up to me with a look of fury on her face, as though she were about to slap me with her clutch, then she stopped and took a deep breath.
"At least my future doesn't rely on the game." she said.
"What future? You work at the plant." I said, going back inside to fetch another piece of furniture."
"I have hobbies, like you. I happen to be very adept with the mechanics of vehicles, like cars and motorcycles." Anna huffed.
"Do you now? Then why work at the plant?" I asked, putting a small table into the trailer.
"Because there are no job opportunities with my skillset right now. But someday I'll get out of this bottomless trap hole, and then I'll find a job in a motorbike repair shop, become fabulously popular, marry someone rich, and live out the rest of my life in luxury," she said triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air in the general direction of Neo Domino City.
"Those are pretty high hopes, that you've got there, ma'am," I said. Anna blushed and lowered her arm.
"Just you wait and see, Wilhelm. I'll do it," she said, kneeling down to inspect the runner further.
"Why not just come into your own wealth by working for it?" I asked.
"That's the first part, and then I get to a point where I don't have to work anymore. I'll have done my part for the productivity of society," she said.
I heaved another piece of furniture onto the trailer, "Well, ma'am, if you're so good with bikes what do you think can be done to fix up this one?"
"Easy," she replied. Anna proceeded to all but disassemble some of the internals, I couldn't make heads or tails of it, but then she put them all back in, leaving a few out. "Also," she said. "There should be a wrench inside. Could you bring it out for me?"
"Will do," I chuckled. I went inside and came out with a lamp and the wrench, "Here you go." She took it from me without even a glance and started tightening things, getting on her back to get underneath the runner a little better.
I left her to keep working on the runner while I was grabbing more stuff from inside. Eventually, leaning on the runner watching her work, I asked, "Are you sure that all this stuff is going to fit in your new place?"
Anna got out from under the runner, miraculously she was still clean. She took a look at the nearly full trailer, "If not I can pawn it off someplace for some spare coin."
"Good," I replied. "I cleaned that place out, except for the stuff you've already got in your new place."
"Much appreciated," Anna smiled. "How do you propose we both get all this back to my place? I'm not going to walk while you drive."
"Oh." I hadn't thought about that. "I guess we could both try to fit on the runner."
Anna reached up to touch my cheek and her eyes twinkled with her smile, "Please, Wilhelm, there's only enough padding for one of us to ride safely. It looks like you'll have to race me there in your boots."
"New plan, then," I grinned. I rearranged a few of the items in the trailer so that a chair was front and center, "Your throne awaits, princess."
Anna, however, was already sitting on the runner, wearing the helmet Yusei had loaned me, "Better get on it, then, princess, or you'll be left behind." She revved the engine and just by hearing the sound I could tell that it had some new level of power. I immediately jumped into the chair in the trailer and did my best to hold as Anna sped us away. Within fifteen minutes we were in front of her new place, where I got out, visibly frazzled, and unhooked the trailer.
Anna stepped off the runner, took off the helmet and put her hair back in place with her left hand. "Are you ready to start unloading this mess?" she asked.
I picked up a dresser in response, "Just tell me where."
The unloading took longer than the loading, but Anna already knew exactly where she wanted everything and was more than willing to help out lugging the larger pieces into her apartment. We were nearly done when I heard the sound of an engine outside, and it wasn't from the runner we'd brought. I ran outside, seeing a motorcycle riding off with a smaller person on the back of the bike, Immediately making me think of a kid. More disconcerting was the bit where the kid had a sackcloth over its head.
"Anna, do you have a spare folding knife?" I asked, walking hurriedly back inside.
"No, why?" she was confused.
"I think that I just saw a kidnapping. I'm going after the perpetrator on the runner." I said.
"And if he has a gun?" Anna's face turned into one of worry.
"Then I'm just recon. I can grab the rest of the Enforcers if that becomes necessary." I stepped onto the runner and got comfortable. Anna came out with her arms folded and her lips pursed.
"Just make sure to come back alive, ok?" she said.
"Why care so much, I thought I was just another duel ganger?" I grinned, grabbing the helmet.
Anna pecked me on the cheek, then said, "You're useful."
My smile was wide as I put on the helmet, "See you later, Anna."
I could hear her say, "See ya," as I revved the engine and sped off, following the trail of the motorcycle with the kid. It didn't take me long to find the bike parked in front of an old bowling alley. I dismounted and went inside, where I was surprised to see Itsuki tied to a chair and a couple of mohawked brutes sitting by him.
"Why'd we grab this kid again?" one of them asked.
"Boss said he'd work as collateral, whatever that means."
"I thinks I do," the first one said. "We is supposed to make him a bargaining chip, just in case the Enforcers come knockin on our door.
"Or maybe, you boys just became our next target," I said, breaking out of the shadows and leaning against the door frame.
"Wha- Where'd you come from?" the second asked, jumping out of his chair. The first drew a knife and lunged for me. I stepped to the side and pulled at his arm so that he stumbled and kept going, getting his knife stuck in the wood while he fell to the ground. I knelt down and drove the edge of my right hand into the back of his neck, just enough to keep him down for the rest of the fight. By that time the other guy had a knife out too, so I took the first knife out of the wall and held it in a reverse grip out in front of me. The second thug came at me, slashing in a frenzy. I couldn't hope to block all of his strikes, so I just moved out of the way. He threw a side-slash at my head and I crouched, then stood back up and drove my shoulder into his chin. He tried to move back, doubling over and clutching at his face with his free hand, glaring at me through his fingers, but I threw a roundhouse kick into the side of his rising head, knocking him to the ground.
"You'll pay for that!" he screamed with his bleeding, broken nose.
"Will I now?" I said smugly. Then something flew past my face and it stung. Reaching up to where I could feel the stinging I felt something warm. I immediately knew it was blood. I looked over and I could see a third man with a mohawk holding a set of throwing needles between his fingers in his left hand, and a single one ready to be thrown in his right. I ducked behind a nearby derelict arcade game and could hear the needle lodge itself in the screen on the other side. Mr. Bloody-&-Broken came around the corner and came at me with the knife again, giving me a minor cut on the side of my belly due to a failed dodge. I swept his legs and knelt one knee on his neck once he was on the ground. He dropped the knife to try to push at my knee, so I grabbed his knife in my other hand. I stood up and kicked him in the gut so that he wouldn't try to get up, then remembered to duck just before another needle came flying at where my head was just a moment before and stuck in the wall.
"You'd better come out, Enforcer, or your friend is gonna die." The third thug warned. I poked my head around the corner, my breathing ragged, and saw the thug holding a needle at Itsuki's throat.
"You're a stinking Coward!" I cried.
"Says the boy hiding behind a game system!" he retorted.
"Wil, I'm scared!" Itsuki was practically crying. Then he got slapped by the thug.
"Shut up, kid!" he spat. I took the opportunity to slide the knives into a part of the game system where I could grab one or both easily, then I took hold of the second thug's legs and threw him at the legs of Itsuki's chair. The third thug cried out and when I looked I could see that both he and the chair had been knocked over. I grabbed the knives and ran over to see the thug lying on the ground facing me, his hands splayed out and his needles dropped. I drove one of the knives into his right shoulder and he screamed. I held the point of the other knife to his throat, just enough so that a tiny bead of blood trickled down the edge of the blade. Then a bead of my own blood fell onto his face from the cut on my cheek.
I got up and said, "Don't mess with the Enforcers. We don't appreciate preemptive retaliation." He nodded his head vigorously. I cut the ropes binding Itsuki to the chair, then I took him outside, where we got on the runner and went home. I dropped the knife on the way out.
"Wilhelm, what happened to you?" Martha cried. She had been a good foster mother, taking care of me and the rest of the Enforcers since we were young. We always went back to her to see if she needed anything, or if we needed to get patched up. Martha had been a nurse before the explosion that separated Satellite from Neo Domino City.
"I rescued Itsuki from a band of mohawked idiots. They had knives." I said, weary.
"Come and sit down. I have some rubbing alcohol somewhere with some gauze." Martha guided me to chair and the kitchen table and made me take off my vest and shirt so that she could see the wounds. Then she came back and cleaned the wound, making me wince from the pain before she put the bandage on and wrapped me up with Gauze. Soon enough, the rest of the Enforcers walked in.
"Wil! Who did this?" Kalin asked.
"Mohawks. They kidnapped Itsuki. I was lucky enough to see them do it, so I followed them and took him back." I answered.
"Mohawks… Do you mean Dirty Works?" Crow said. Kalin's face paled.
"They can't be allowed to get away with this!" Jack yelled. "Nobody hurts the Enforcers this way!"
"I think they already paid, Jack." Yusei said. "If this is the state that Wil is in then I can only wonder what sorry state the other guys were reduced to."
"Even so," added Kalin. "We need to show everyone else that we can't be messed with like this, publicly, and honorably. We hit them with disks at the ready tomorrow." I did my best to raise a salute, despite how tired I was.
"Don't worry," Jack said. "You don't have to do much of the duelling, Wil, you've already done enough. We'll only need you there for publicity's sake." Crow, however, was narrowing his eyes at Kalin, but didn't say a word.
"Could someone send word to Anna that I'm still alive?" I said.
"Already taken care of, Wil." Yusei said. "She came running into the hideout telling us about how stupid you had been, running after them on your own, and asked if you'd gotten back yet from recon. We told her that we had only just gotten word that you had gone to Martha's. You'd better go talk to her sometime soon."
"Thanks, feel free to take the runner back. Anna made some improvements." then I fell asleep in my chair.