Author's Note: Hi people! Here's another story that I've had lying around for a while and never got the chance to post. Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or Sailor Moon. If I did.. well I'd be in my jet sipping margaritas.
"You're serious about this?" she said staring gob smacked at the genius of the five senshi.
"Very. Now, all we need is to set up a deck for you," Ami grinned innocently, as Rei's face turned an interesting shade of red that symbolized an impending temper tantrum.
"ME? I thought we agreed to Minako! What the hell do I know about some stupid Magic the Gathering rip-off," Rei's cheeks puffed as she began to hyperventilate.
"Well, I've heard that you know quite a lot," Ami grinned like a chesire-cat and the other occupants of the room actually began to shudder. Mizuno Ami had never looked so scary in her life, not even when she forced Usagi to do math homework.
"Heard? Heard what?" Usagi timidly asked, as she peeked her head up from one of Rei's newly bought mangas. She may have been known to zone out when something important was going on, but she would never miss the opportunity to humiliate Rei, even if it was a small humiliation.
"Someone at the company found out I was hacking. Apparently they recognized Rei's name. He even called her Rei-chan," Ami's chesire grinned widened so much that her smile might have been enough to blind Usagi. Rei's eyes widened in horror as she slid closer to Ami in a threatening manner; her eyes daring the girl to open her mouth and finish the story.
Minako turned her gaze away from Ami, and turned to stare at Rei curiously, "So that's why you're so against this? Someone's got some blackmail material on you or something?"
"You could say that," Rei mumbled out, burying her face in her head, hoping that this conversation would end already.
"Blackmail? Ha, it's more like an aff-" Ami's sentence was cut off by Rei slammed her hand over the girl's mouth.
"Shut up already. I'll do whatever the hell you want just… STOP. TALKING." Rei gritted out, grinding her teeth together in anger. Ami nodded and pulled out a pile of cards held together by a thick rubber band. She slid them over to Rei, who undid the band and began shuffling through the cards. Minako and Usagi, who had secretly decided to leaver Rei's secret alone until they could corner Ami later, leaned over Rei's shoulder to stare at the colorful pictures printed on the thick paper cards.
"Oh! You should pick that one!" Usagi pointed to one card labeled "Solar Flare Dragon." Rei smiled, finding the dragon beautiful in a horrific way, as she pulled it from the pile in her hand, and placed it on the table.
"I suggest building a fire and dragon deck, while incorporating either wind, dark or earth elements. You don't want something that'll completely clash with your personality, because you probably won't get very far in the competition with them," Ami added helpfully as she pulled out a couple of cards labeled Molten Behemoth, Blazing Inpachi, Ryu-Ran, Summoned Skull, and Man-Eater Bug.
"Yeah, Yeah. I know what I'm doing."
"Aren't you a bit young for this?" the girl of 12 summers smiled coyly at his blunt comment. The aura of royalty that he had come to expect from her had been extremely diminished by the clothing that lacked modesty and the smears of dirt that covered her arms. Clearly her customers earlier that day had not been the cultured type.
"Some of us don't have a fancy title added to our names like you. We work to survive and we use what we have as work," she spoke monotonously, taking a small sip from the cup from the table that separated the two.
"Ha! You really expect me to believe that this job isn't just a cover for something bigger you've got planned?" he stared into her eyes, trying to figure out what exactly was going on in the conniving little wench's mind.
Finishing the contents in the cup, the girl flicked her long black hair, the only part of her body that hadn't been dirtied, over her shoulder, and began a slow walk out of the tent, her hips swinging the bells hanging from her waist. The bells let out an echo with every step she took. As she opened the flap to the tent, his voice cut through the silence. "You really gave up on thievery?"
She smiled wickedly, glad that her back was facing him as she whispered, "I never said that, Thief King." Glad that she had gotten the last word, even though she regretted not being able to see his reaction, she stepped out of the tent and closed the flap behind her.
Grinning to himself, the Thief King noticed a single cold coin left on the table. The front of the coin had a slightly distorted eye carved into it. "Wench," he mumbled as he slid the coin into one of the folds of his cloak and followed the young brothel girl out of the tent.
"I feel like a hooker," Rei growled as she tried to pull the skirt down lower, at least so that it would meet the top of the red fishnet stockings. Minako grinned to herself as she pulled Rei's long hair into a ponytail, and tied it with a black ribbon.
"You look menacing. Scary enough to kill the dead."
"It's 'raise the dea- never mind. Just pass me the stupid death trap." Minako slid from the couch and grabbed at the arm-guard like discus. Slapping a skull and cross bone sticker onto it, she helped strap it onto Rei's forearm as Rei rolled her eyes.
The five senshi were staying on the 11th floor of a decent sized hotel in the middle of Domino City. A couple of blocks away, Usagi and Makoto were hired to work in the hotel that most of the contestants had checked into. Usagi was a cleaning lady, while Makoto joined on as an extra chef on the kitchen staff. Ami was in a room across the hall from Minako and Rei's room, where she spent most of her time researching the supernatural occurrences that had been going on in the city for the past year. Most of the articles on the events talked about the monsters of the Duel Monsters game coming alive and attacking people. Ami wondered if maybe the attacks had been staged for the publicity of Kaiba Corp. Deep down she hoped that they weren't. Life had become too repetitive without the youma attacks or apocalyptic threats.
Peering at the time at the corner of the computer screen, Ami did a double take. They were going to be late for the starting ceremony. She quickly shut down the four computers in her room, and ran down the hall to help Minako forcibly pull Rei out of her self imposed prison. After seeing the battle outfit Minako had chosen for her, Rei had thrown it under her bed, convinced that she wouldn't actually have to wear it. Of course, Minako had stolen all of the clothes Rei had packed, forcing Rei to don the fishnets and hooker heels.
"AH!" Usagi screamed, throwing up the pillowcases she had been holding. Two guys stood blocking the doorway entrance to the room. "Who the hell are you people?"
"This is our room," the taller of the two boys said as he dropped the two suitcases he was holding, and pulled out a room key from his jeans pocket. Usagi took deep breaths as she tried to get over her initial shocks to seeing the boy, as she blushed in embarrassment.
"Oh," she paused, trying to think of a way to retain what was left of her dignity. "I knew that."
The two boys were trying as hard as they could not to burst into laughter as they watched her wrinkle her eyebrows together, seemingly in deep thought. "You guys are here for the Duel Monsters thing, right?"
Glancing at the white, blue and red system strapped to his arm, the smaller boy with tri-colored hair smiled sheepishly. "What gave it away?" Usagi giggled at her own obvious statement, as she picked up the pillowcases and threw them into the cart standing to the side of her. She grabbed the handle to the cleaning supplies cart as she began to wheel out of the room to leave the two boys to settle into their room.
"Well, um, good luck," she smiled as the boys stepped away from the doorway and let her pass. Before they closed the door behind her, she whispered a polite goodbye and began humming to herself as she moved onto the next room.
The past 23 months had been spent far away from the capital city and glancing at the completely different person in front of him, he wondered if he had stayed away for too long. Gone was the long, silky hair and beaded clothing of her previous profession; it had been replaced by battle scars, uneven chin length hair, and thick rags that covered every part of her body, except her legs. If he had been randomly walking by her on the street, he wouldn't have even noticed she was there.
Though he admitted to missing her, he hadn't thought of the girl or her absence from his life, until she had stolen from him. 'Once a thief, always a thief,' he thought as he kept his gaze focused on the gold scabbard and dagger that was clutched in her hand.
"Truthfully, I wasn't even interesting in this little trinket," she spoke, her voice lower and smoother than he remembered. Unsheathing the dagger, she ran her finger over the side of the blade, smiling wickedly when it drew blood. "Until, of course, I heard it was in your possession. I wanted to see if I'd be able to take it, and I was. I'm quite proud of myself."
"Now, what do you plan to do? Sell it?" he may have been furious when he had first chased her into the alleyway they were currently standing in, but now her was more amused by the game she started.
"I might. How much does it mean to you? Are you willing to pay to get it back?"
"I could just kill you and take it back," he subconsciously felt for the short bladed sword strapped to his side.
"You won't," she said with complete confidence. "I'd take you down with me." She twirled the dagger around expertly.
"Is that supposed to scare me?"
"Yes."
"Why should it?"
"Death's your biggest fear. Attack me and I promise you death. Besides, the dead can't get the revenge you've been pining for since you were a child." She flicked her wrist, throwing the dagger into the wall near his head. He casually glanced over at it, before smirking at her. She returned the smirk happily. Revenge was a language that they both spoke fluently.
The large screen that showed the image of the chocolate haired billionaire seemed exaggerated and unnecessary. Did he really have to hang from a blimp? Nothing he said was remotely important or interesting, and it seemed like it was just a scare tactic.
"And then you wonder why I dislike him?" Rei leaned over and whispered to Ami. Minako had been voted to stay in the hotel and watch the televised event on the small screen in their room. If she noticed anything strange that the two girls might miss, she was to call the communicator to report it to them.
"It's because you're so alike," Ami whispered in return, blue visor covering her eyes as she typed away on the blue mini-computer rested in her palm. She scanned the crowd, and paused to gaze at a porcupine haired boy that had given off a strange energy signal. A couple of seconds later, the signal disappeared and Ami shrugged it off as a glitch. The boy didn't look powerful enough to hold that much energy and her computer had been glitching since she arrived at Domino. Maybe it had broken in its old age?
"Me and him? We have about as much in common as bunnies and dinosaurs!" Rei huffed, still glaring up at the widescreen hanging off the side of a Kaiba Corp owned building. Maybe if she glared hard enough the screen would burst into flames. Or maybe the guy on the screen would. She hoped for the latter.
"If I were Minako, I'd say you were in denial."
"We'll you're not so hush u-"
"He's finished his speech. The mission begins now."
Author's Note: Chapter One: End. Hope you guys liked it. Review and I might continue.