Well, this chapter was a pain in the ass. I had forgotten completely about this story until a few days ago. I had some major writers block about a quarter of the way into the chapter. First, let me apologize for many TL;DR paragraphs. i had to get through my OC's back story, and I figured this would be the fastest and easiest way.
I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I know I do, even if because it begins set up for several what I hope to be completely kick ass scenes on down the road.
Rob of Eternal Fire, I hope this chapter's length is more to your tastes.
Thanks for all the reviews.
Undying Signer, Chapter 4 – Explanations.
"Allow me to introduce my master, the Fifth Signer, the Undying Signer," said the heavily accented voice of the Vampire Lord.
Vampire Lord made a sweeping motion with his hand, gesturing to a figure behind him. At first, all Yusei and Aki could see was the undead dragon staring back at them. But then it began to descend back into the ground. And then they could see the clear silhouette of a man lit by the violet flames in the background. But something was odd about it. His left arm was much thinner than his right arm. The figure turned to them, and with a throb, Yuseis and Akis birthmarks began to glow.
The mysterious man began to walk toward them. As he did, the violet hellfire behind him began to die down. It was then that Yusei and Aki noticed that the street and buildings were actually scorched, and the ground where the dragon rose up from now had a large hole in it. In short, the dragon, the hellfire and Vampire Lord weren't simply SolidVision illusions created by the duel disk. They were real.
Once the fire died down, Yusei and Aki got their first good look at the supposed Fifth Signer. He stood about as tall as Yusei, and had magenta hair with black streaks. He looked to be around his mid-twenties. He had a warm, yet foolish looking grin on his face, and had ice blue eyes. Eyes that showed that he had seen his fair share of pain and strife during his life. The most defining characteristic of him though, was that he was missing his left arm from the elbow down, which was replaced by a crude robotic arm that looked like it had been made of scraps, like the kind one would find desecrating Satellite. The arm was thin, and looked like it had been through the wringer a few times. It also looked to have been modified several times, including the attachment of a duel disk.
The Fifth stopped about five feet in front of them and looked them over.
"Looks like you guys have been having a time of it huh?" he said. "Though we probably should be going. No doubt that Security will be sending backup for those guys."
"Uh… right…" muttered a confused Yusei. "But how're you going to follow us? Aki is already taking the sidecar. I guess I could drop her off and double back for you…"
"Oh! You don't have to worry about that. I've got my own transportation," said the Fifth as Vampire Lord, who had slunk off while Yusei and Aki were entranced by the man's silhouette, brought a D-Wheel around to the Fifth. But when Yusei took a closer look at it, he noticed something odd.
"What's wrong with your D-Wheel… er…"
"Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself," said the man with an apologetic chuckle. He opened his eyes and regarded them with a surprising amount of friendliness. "My name is Aku, and there is nothing wrong with this machine, but it's not a D-Wheel."
"What do you mean it's not a D-Wheel? What is it then?" asked Yusei.
"It's a motorcycle. People around the world use them just as transportation. I hate riding duels, so I got this baby."
"Well, even so, why not get a D-Wheel, it works just fine as transportation," countered Yusei.
"I got this because you can't force a motorcycle into a riding duel. So while Security is trying to catch me with their forced SolidVision, I can just keep on driving," said Aku as he put his helmet on.
As this discussion was going on, Vampire Lord was helping Aki back into the sidecar, and holding the bag out of the floor while she got comfortable.
"Yeah, I can see your point, but…" At that moment, sirens could be heard in the distance, getting closer with each passing second.
"OK kiddies, I think it's time to go. If you would be so kind, please lead the way," said Aku.
Yusei jumped onto the driver's seat of Saiga's D-Wheel as Aku started up his motorcycle.
"Vampire Lord, follow us, but stay out of sight," said Aku to the lavender skinned man. Vampire Lord gave a nod of understanding and sunk into the shadow that the D-Wheel cast.
Aku gave Yusei and Aki a nod before Yusei sped off with Aku right behind him. By the time Security arrived, they were long gone.
-=SYNCHRO SUMMON: SCENE CHANGE!=-
"Yattah!! I can't wait for big bro and big sis to get here!" yelled Rua excitedly.
"Can't you settle down?" asked an irritated Ruka.
"What?! Ruka! How can you be so calm at a time like this?! Argh! It's your hip coolness about everything that drives me insane!!"
Everyone else sweat dropped at Ruas shenanigans.
All of a sudden, they heard the doorbell ring.
"Who is it?" asked Ruka into the intercom leading to the ground floor.
"It's me," said Yuseis voice. "I've Aki, and the Fifth is with us as well."
The Fifth? Already?! was the thoughts of everyone in the room as Ruka replied "OK Yusei, come on up."
A few minutes later Yusei opened the door and held it open for the two newcomers, Aki, still in her hoodie that she had disguised herself with was carrying her magenta duel disk with her deck in place inside of it. She looked somewhat nervous, after all, the only ones she actually knew by name were Yusei, Jack, and the man walking behind her, the supposed Fifth, who she now knew was called Aku.
Speaking of Aku, he walked in behind the young woman with a somewhat large backpack slung across his right shoulder. He looked around at the apartment before giving a low whistle.
"Wow, this is a hell of a place," said Aku, turning his attention to all the people in the apartment who were staring back at him. Some (Jack) with a bit more suspicion than others.
"Um… hi," said Aku, starting to get a little nervous in the face of Jacks death stares.
"Who are you?" asked Jack, in the best 'royal king' tone he could manage.
"Uh, m-my name is Aku. P-Pleased to make your acquaintance!" said Aku, rather quickly. After all, Jack was a very intimidating man, even if he had been dethroned.
Aku felt as though Jack was becoming larger and larger, looming over him with that piercing gaze. He was so overwhelmed by Jacks presence that he didn't notice that Jack had backed him up against the wall.
"Jack Atlas! You stop that right now!" came the irritated voice of Mikage.
Jack turned to his girlfriend, who was giving him a glare to rival his own with her hands on her hips.
Yusei chuckled as his best friend got into a glaring contest with the woman. Apparently, in the time that they had been dating, Jack had rubbed off on Mikage. Because of this, she had developed quite the backbone, which was certainly something you needed to if you were going to spend lots of time around the intimidating man.
The couple continued to glare at each other, neither one giving an inch until finally Jack decided that scaring the new guy wasn't worth dealing with an irate Mikage for the rest of the night, and possibly the next day. Jack shut his eyes and turned away.
"Fine," said Jack as he walked away.
Aku let out a sigh of relief and Mikage turned to him with a warm smile on her face.
"Well Aku, it's nice to meet you. I hope that we can become friends," said Mikage.
Aku offered a smile back to her. "Thank you Miss…"
"Oh! That's right, my name is Mikage."
"Miss Mikage. I do hope we can become friends," said Aku. He then leaned in closer to her and dropped his voice down to a whisper. "Jack isn't always like that is he?"
"Well, you get used to it," said Mikage, a little embarrassed for her boyfriend.
Eventually, everyone made it around the room to introduce themselves to each other. Mikage went to the kitchen to prepare some refreshments while everyone else sat down in the spacious living room of the apartment to figure out their next moves.
After a few hours of talking though, they had nothing. After a while, Yusei said "Honestly, I think we may have to go and ask Godwin about what we should do. He seems to be better informed than we are."
While most in the group agreed, Aku, who had taken the mechanical part of his arm off grimaced. "You guys can go if you want, but there's no way in hell I'm going to go see that bastard," said Aku.
"And what's wrong with Godwin? I mean, I haven't agreed with all of his laws, but he's not that bad a guy is he?" asked Yusei.
"Yeah. I mean, he can't be as bad as that jerk Divine," added an obviously not bitter Aki.
A dark look passed over Akus face as he leaned forward resting his head on the back of his good hand. "Let me tell you a little story about Rex Godwin and Divine…"
-=ATTACK WITH SCENE CHANGE!=-
Back at the Arcadia Movement headquarters, two men were standing in front of Divines desk while he observed two new prospects for his psychic army duel.
"Sir, we followed Aki as she got into a D-Wheel with an unknown person. Shortly thereafter Security had engaged them in a pursuit. The chase lasted about half an hour, with the D-Wheel staying just out of estimated range of forced SolidVision range. And then when the D-Wheel was just within range, it appears a psychic duelist intervened, crashing the Security vehicle and the newcomer left with Aki and the unknown," reported the taller of the two grunts.
Divine perked up slightly at the mention of a psychic duelist. With any luck, he could get this new one when he went to get Aki back. "Well well. So a stranger dislikes my old friend Rex as much as we do? Tell me, how did he intervene?" asked Divine.
"Well sir, he formed a dragon that knocked the vehicle over and blew purple fire at Security."
At this statement, Divine whipped his chair around to face the grunts, who flinched at the sudden movement.
Glaring at the two, Divine asked "This dragon… What did it look like?"
"Well sir, it was a big grey dragon that kind of jumped up out of the ground."
"Yeah, and it looked like some kind of zombie or something, you could see its heart and everything!" added the short grunt.
Divine sunk back into his chair and placed a hand over half his face, and did something that the grunts did not expect. He laughed. Divine threw his head back and laughed his ass off.
-=MEANWHILE=-
At Security headquarters, an officer was showing the recorded footage that had been retrieved from the unit that had wrecked while chasing an illegal D-Wheel. The footage from the camera mounted on the dash was showing a typical pursuit. A man with bandages on the left side of his face, wearing a hat operating a green D-Wheel with a sidecar. In the sidecar was a woman, who looked awful familiar, especially with those magenta locks that weren't covered by the hoodie, but Rex couldn't quite place who she was. Rex heard the officers in the recording talking.
"…as soon as they slow down to go through a turn, we'll have them," came the voice of one of the officers.
Within two minutes came the important part. "And here we go! Initiate forced riding duel!"
Almost as soon as those words were uttered, the Security paddy-wagon ran smack dab right into a big grey object with a glowing red something, and then static.
"What did they encounter?"asked Rex.
"Let me do a frame by frame and let's see," replied the officer. The images slowed down until they found the frame of the big grey thing as its top portion was right in the middle of the screen. It was fuzzy at first, but as the officer played with the contrast and sharpness of the image, it became a clear picture of a large grey dragon with curved horns, blood red eyes and rotting skin.
Rex blinked in surprise. This was a monster he was very familiar with. Rexs eyes narrowed.
-=SPLITSCREEN!=-
"It's him," said Rex and Divine simultaneously.
-=BACK AT TOPS=-
As the group looked expectantly at Aku, he took a breath before getting started.
"First, there's a couple things you need to know about psychic dueling. There are three main branches. Mental, Physical and Emotional. Or Mind, Body and Spirit, or Wisdom, Power and Courage, whichever you prefer.
All psychic duelists are born into one of the three branches, and each with varying levels of power and proficiency. I myself belong to the physical branch. That means I can use my abilities to physically manifest monsters, spells and traps, like so," Aku snapped his fingers and Vampire Lord rose up out of the shadows made by the couch Aku was sitting on.
Everyone who had not met Vampire Lord jumped. Aku leaned his head back to look at the monster. "OK V Lord, time to meet everybody," said Aku bringing his attention back to the group.
"This is Yusei and Aki, who you've met, and behind him is Jack, and there is Yanagi, Himuro, Rua, Ruka and Mikage. Everyone, this is my good friend, Vampire Lord."
Vampire lord gave the group a sweeping bow, which got a muttered greeting in response.
"Anyway, back to the story. From an early time in my life, when I was about five or so, my Signer birthmark appeared. My parents and I had no idea what it was. Unfortunately, that was shortly after my psychic abilities started to manifest. Even before the birthmark, I had trouble controlling my powers, and to make matters worse, the birthmark acted as an amplifier for my powers, which led to an accidental explosion inside the house. From that point on, my parents looked at me with fear. Over the next year, I attempted to get a handle on my powers, but it didn't really work.
"Around that time, my mother became pregnant, and had given birth to my little sister. For the safety of my mother and my newborn sister, I just stopped dueling altogether, and the accidents stopped as well.
"When I turned seven, I traded another boy at school for what would become my ace monster for several years. Vampire Lord. When I got home, I wasn't sure if my powers were still there, since I hadn't actually dueled in ages. I concentrated on the card I had traded for, and he manifested. And became my first real friend, and with his help, I learned to control my powers, for the most part anyway.
"Eventually, when my sister was three, dad taught her to play duel monsters, and she came to me for games when no one else was around. And we would play. I had taught her things, strategies from card combos to the 'poker face'. She would always be so happy when she beat dad. And he would be happy for her. Life was good.
"Then came the day when a man came to the house searching for my father. I was eleven at the time, and I believe that the guy was trying force dad to cooperate in some type of political scandal. To his credit, dad outright refused him. Then the man signaled some guys he had waiting outside. They pulled guns and threatened to kill us all. That's when I stepped forward, with my duel disk on my arm and V Lord behind me. The man laughed at me and said 'What the hell do you think you're going to do kid?!' as he pointed the gun right at me. That's really the first time I can remember being that angry, and for the first time in many years, my birthmark started to glow. After that, all I can recall is having V Lord become the Vampire Genesis and letting him rip the guys apart. All in all, it wasn't a pretty picture.
"I guess I scared my parents pretty badly, and quite frankly, I scared myself. I was ashamed that I had made V Lord do something so gruesome and terrible. And to add insult to injury, my parents and I got into a huge fight. They called me a demon, a monster, and travesty and a freak. And then they kicked me out. I said goodbye to my sister, gathered my dueling equipment and was sent away forever.
"With nowhere to go, I wandered the streets of Neo Domino for months. V Lord would help me by stealing food for me, or intimidating those who tried to gang up on me. But eventually, the weariness took its toll, and I collapsed on a random persons front steps.
"When I woke up, there was a boy a few years older than me with his older brother standing over me. And that's the first time I met Rex Godwin and his older brother Rudger. I ended up staying with them, and I also met Rex's friend Divine, who was called Drew at that point. I also learned that Rex and Divine were psychic duelists, like me. Though Rex belonged to the Emotional branch and Divine was of the Mental branch."
"What can those branches do Mr. Aku?" asked a very interested Ruka.
"Well, from observing Rex and Divine, I guess the best summarization would be that Emotional branch members can actually influence how people feel, and the stronger you are in that area, the more influence you have. Anyone who comes within earshot of Rex can be affected, and his powers almost always work, often without the target even realizing it.
"As for the Mental branch, those who use its powers can connect to the minds of others, inducing hallucinations or even, if the user is powerful enough, gaining control over a person's mind," said Aku.
Aki gasped at this, and Yusei finally understood what Vampire Lord was saying to him during that first dream. But if these two had such power, why wasn't everyone under their control?
"If that's so, then why isn't everyone hypnotized?!" exclaimed Jack, voicing Yuseis question.
"Divine needs a bit of one on one time, at least a day to bring someone under his control, and truth be told, anyone who has an ounce of logic in their head can resist Godwin to some degree."
"While that's very useful to know, would you mind finishing your story please?" asked Mikage, who was one to always want in on the details.
"OK. Rex's brother Rudger had taken an interest in my birthmark, even going so far as to get a tattoo of it on his left arm. I didn't know what the big deal was other than it glowed when I felt a very strong emotion, and that always seemed to amplify my powers. But Rudger threw himself into research, and found the legend of the People of the Stars, the Signers and the Dark Signers. Pretty much everything I know about the subject came from him. Eventually though, he became a scientist. I don't know where or what's happened to him since though.
"After several years of Rex, Divine and I hanging out all the time, we figured out that we could actually teach our powers to each other. Essentially, all psychic duelists have the ability to learn from all three branches, but you're just born with a natural affinity to one branch. With our newfound powers, we decided to make an organization that would teach new psychic duelists how to control their powers, in hopes of reintroducing them into society. We decided to call it the 'Arcadia Movement'
"As we gathered members, it quickly became apparent, that three of us were the most powerful. As time went on and the Arcadia Movement got larger and larger, Rex and I noticed that somewhere along the way, Divine had gone askew. He decided that he hated normal people, and would make them suffer much more than they had made us suffer. He began to use the Arcadia Movement as a front for creating an army of psychic duelists. He just wanted to watch the city burn.
"Having been betrayed by Divine, Rex and I left the Arcadia Movement, and decided to join a force that would directly oppose him: Security. As part of the education required to join Security he and I became interns, mine at KaibaCorp and he became a scientist's intern, so he could be close to his brother I suppose.
"Re-entering the Security program after our internships, he challenged me to a duel. This wasn't such a big deal since the three of us used to duel all the time. I honestly hadn't realized something had changed until I felt him use his psychic powers, using the abilities that I TAUGHT HIM to manifest his monster and cut my arm off! As I dropped to the ground, bleeding like hell, he ran up and grabbed my arm and ran off with it, mumbling like a fucking nut job about becoming a god or some such nonsense.
"I passed out, but luckily, V Lord had kept me from dying. He used the psychic energy I had put into him over the years to pull a healing monster into this world to help me. I owe him my life… And from there, I went into hiding from the both of them, swearing my revenge on Rex for taking my arm. Bastard. I only realized what a power boost it gave me after I lost it, but I've recently built my power up to where it was when it was cut off. And that's my story," said Aku, taking several deep breaths after telling such a long story.
Jack looked at Aku before speaking. "Did you know Rex is missing his left arm? Wouldn't have something to do with it would you?"
As everyone looked up at Jack in surprise from the revelation, Aku chuckled.
"Well, y'know. 'An arm for an arm'."
The group sweatdropped.
Mikage looked at the clock, which read half past midnight. "OK guys, I think it's time we all turn in, we can figure out what to do tomorrow," she said.
"But I'm not tired!" yawned Rua.
"Idiot," mumbled Ruka.
Yusei chuckled. A lot of things had happened that day, and things would process much easier after a good night's rest. "Come on guys, let's hit the hay," he said as he got up and stretched.
"OK Yusei. Miss Aki, I can show you to your room," offered Ruka. "Rua, why don't you show Aku to a room. I think there's still some space in the attic; it should still be clean and have a bed in there too."
"Yeah, yeah, ok, don't nag," said Rua to his sister.
As everyone started to go their respective rooms, Aku paused for a moment.
"Mikage?" asked Aku. "Do you duel?"
"Well, I used to, but I can't compare to Jack, so I haven't dueled in a long time," she replied.
Opening one of his bags, Aku pulled out a giant plastic case. It was full of cards and spare duel disk parts.
"This box of cards is good for everyone to use, just take what you guys need," called Aku to everyone as he rummaged through some of the lower compartments.
"Aha!" he said, pulling out a deck and handing it to Mikage. "No offense Mikage, but if someone in our group doesn't duel, our enemies could use that. It's better that everyone be able to fight, just in case something happens."
"Thank you, I'll look over it and get Jack to help me test it tomorrow," said Mikage. "Goodnight Aku."
"Night."
Everyone called out goodnight to each other as Rua and Aku ascended the stairs into the attic where Aku would be sleeping. When they got there, Aku was thoroughly impressed. It was very clean for an attic, and surprisingly clear of things. There was a bed and a desk with a lamp on it, and a dresser. It was obviously intended to be a spare bedroom at some point. The only thing that seemed out of place was an old truck against the wall.
"Hey Rua, what's that?"
"That? It's some old trunk that belonged to our great grandfather. We've never been able to get it open though."
"Never open huh?" muttered Aku as he reattached his mechanical arm. He pulled a cap off the index finger and revealed a lock pick. The two sat down for a few minutes to fiddle with the chest. After some initial struggle with the lock being stuck from decades of being unused, they managed to pop the lid open.
Inside was several photo albums, journals, DVDs, an old dark blue jacket and a box of duel monsters cards.
"Cards?! In this old thing? I wonder what Great Grandpa had?!" exclaimed Rua as he started to pull things out.
"Whoa, hold on there. Why don't you wait until morning? That way you and your sister can go through them together?" suggested Aku.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, she'll get really mad if I go through it all tonight. But I'm really curious about him!"
"Well, how about looking through a photo album. Often times, those will tell a better story than a collection of cards."
"Alright…" said Rua, pulling out an album. "Good night Aku."
"G'night Rua," came the sleepy response.
When Rua got back to his room, he opened up the album and looked at the first few pages. There was his great grandfather, standing at the edge of a forest or a cliff or in front of what looked like a small apartment building painted tan with red doors and a red roof. He was a short man, with small glasses that didn't have the earpieces and that didn't even come close to being big enough for his large eyes. Rua took a look at some of his great grandpas friends that were in the pictures with him. There was a very attractive blonde girl in a white and blue outfit that had a very short skirt, and the top looked like it had some difficulty staying in one piece with her rather large chest. Another person was a black haired kid that had some seriously crazy hair that stuck out front in three spikes and two on the back of his head that stuck straight up. He wore a dark burgundy shirt and a long black coat. There were also pictures of several others, one boy was very tan and had yellow bandana on his head and what looked like a necklace of teeth. Another was a boy wearing an impeccably white suit and he had grey hair. But the person who showed up more in any of the photos, other than his ancestor, was a boy with brown hair and a red blazer, almost always with a large grin on his face holding up a peace sign or something silly like that.
As Rua put the album down to go to sleep, he thought that if his great grandfather had such an interesting and fun looking group of friends, then Rua would be excited to learn all he could about him.