Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5Ds.
I arrived in Neo Domino City late Saturday afternoon. Technically, I was invited rather than being arrested this time, though there was no practical difference. Four security officers escorted me into Rex Goodwin's office before retreating, I heard the distinct click of the door being locked behind me.
"Yuki," Rex Goodwin stood up and walked around his desk to greet me with outstretched arms. His smile looked slightly more sincere than last time; to be more precise, he put more effort into faking the smile than he did last time because he now thinks I am a Signer. "I'm glad you made it."
"So am I," I didn't bother hiding my exhaustion and dropped into the very comfortable sofa, "Met quite a bit of trouble as you know. You really need stop arming your security forces with trading cards and duel disks, so they wouldn't be completely useless when anything comes up."
"Yes, well." Goodwin left the comment, "Can I get you a drink?"
"I wouldn't say no to a scotch," I replied out of sheer habit, "And make it double."
Goodwin raised an eyebrow at the request, silently reminding me satellites probably never tasted alcohol in their lives. Oh well, I've been needing a drink for the past month, and I deserve one after the night I just had. There're easier ways for him poison me. Goodwin obliged and handed me a glass.
He placed his own glass on the table without touching it, "Now that you're here, I thought we might get to the reason why you came."
"You mean Fortune Cup?" I asked surprised, not sure if it was a rhetorical question.
"The Fortune Cup is why I wanted you here, but that's not why you came is it?" Goodwin replied with a candid smile. "I realize there isn't much Domino can do at this point to your little venture at the Satellite-"
"You're too humble," I said sarcastically. Modern life is interdependent in a million and one ways. As a tiny island off the coast of a slightly larger island, the Satellite is highly dependent on the rest of Domino and the world to survive. For one thing, we don't produce food.
"Well," Goodwin smiled again, this time I actually saw the laughter in his eyes, "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say. I apologize for the crude analogy but I must ensure that everyone in my tournament performs to their utmost potential next week. So I have a proposal for you."
"I'm listening," I replied.
"I know you've been looking for information on the Momentum, so if you win the Fortune Cup," Rex Goodwin smiled, "Or performs to my satisfaction during the event, I don't see why I can't lend the Momentum to the Satellite for the time being."
"Perform to your satisfaction?" I repeated skeptically.
"I need to confirm the identities of the five Signers, as you well know." Goodwin replied.
So he wanted an incentive to make sure my Signer mark would show up, at which point he promises to hand me the Momentum. I'm not sure if he'll hold up his end of the bargain, but it wouldn't matter because I can't hold up mine.
"I heard about the replica you built, but Zigzix cannot build the Core, so it's still useless," Goodwin looked amused, "I don't see why I can't lend the actual Momentum to a Signer controlling the Satellite."
It felt strange, Goodwin noted, to offer genuine help with no ulterior motives. But this girl is doing exactly what he had wanted to but could not do while he was in the Satellite. Watching her success, however brief it will be, would be like fulfilling the dream that crashed when he fell off Daedalus Bridge.
"Thank you Goodwin-sama!" I was generally pleased with my faked enthusiasm. I had to pretend to be enthusiastic because technically, he's offering to lend me the Momentum. Since he honestly thinks that I was a Signer, and expects the mark to show up on my arm.
But I'm not!
Even though every other human being thinks otherwise at this point, I'm not a Signer.
I gulped half of the drink in my hand, nearly choking on the toxic fluid before remembering this wasn't the body I was used to. In the flash of pain, it also escaped my mind that my brain didn't build up any alcohol tolerance yet. Busy with my own plans, I missed the glint in Rex Goodwin's eyes when he looked at the drink in my hand.
"Now, the reason I wanted to speak to you is far more urgent." He paused to make sure he had my full attention, which is nearly impossible when I've had half a drink in me (this body is 4'8 with no alcohol tolerance). I must have faked it well enough, he continued regardless, "Now that you've proven yourself to be a Signer, there're some things you must know."
"Huh?" I looked up agreeably if a little lost, ready to humor him now that he had (technically) offered Momentum as the reward for my cooperation.
"Zero Reverse," Rex Goodwin said meaningfully, "What happened seventeen years ago and what is to come. I'm sure you already got an inkling of it in the Satellite."
"From your brother," I added naturally, biting down on my tongue a little too late.
I should mention that I'm a talkative drunk. And not the kind that talks nonsense. I'm a little slower, but my brain remains entirely functional, the only part offline is the part that tells me what not to say.
"My brother?" Rex Goodwin repeated, truly alarmed for the first time since I met him. He bristled up, towering over me even while sitting, "And how did you come to know this?" He didn't bother denying my assertion.
"The family resemblance is uncanny?" I said while searching desperately for a better excuse, "And Sayer tends to ramble when he's threatened."
Goodwin looked down briefly, his eyes unreadable, before looking up again. "There're many things I don't know about you, clearly nobody does." He paused while I squirmed a little, taking another sip to hide my discomfort. Rex Goodwin refilled my glass casually. "But I have no interest in your sources of information right now. A far greater threat looms around the corner and we need your help to stop it. You are aware?" He decided whatever else, everything else, can be treated as inconsequential as long as it didn't distract from his plan. Once he succeeds, none of these trivial problems would matter ever again.
"Uh-huh," I nodded, "Dark Signers."
"That is correct. You have already defeated one Dark Signer, there will be others. Unless they are all defeated, our entire world will fall to the Shadows. It's your duty, no, your Fate as a Signer to face this great Evil." He stood up facing me, put his right hand on his left breast and bowed solemnly, "I'm asking you, Yuki, for all of humanity, to shoulder the burden Destiny has laid upon you."
I tilted my head back and squinted a little looking at him, feeling generally sulky and offended. He's appealing to my pride, the same thing he did with Jack. I thought I was better than Jack and deserved more consideration. Drunk me waited for over ten seconds before motioning for him to straighten up again. I could see the anger in his eyes, but I knew he thought he needed me too much to do anything about it.
"Defeat all Dark Signers so people don't keep disappearing around the Satellite. Yeah, I got the memo." I replied sarcastically, "What do you have to do with it?" The ignorance in that question is obviously fake, given that I knew his relationship with Roman. Rex Goodwin acted like he didn't notice.
"I don't know how much you know already," Goodwin said, staring out the window vacantly as though looking at something only he could see. "Seventeen years ago, Professor Fudo unleashed a powerful force of Evil when he created the Momentum, and it took hold of my brother."
I smirked. Rex Goodwin is choosing his words very carefully, probably not sure how much I know or how I know it. Goodwin finished his drink as though pained by the memory, an act that had led me to unconsciously do the same.
"Roman had taken control of the project by then, Professor Fudo had tried to lock Pandora back into its box, but it was too late. So he sealed the destructive potentials of the Momentum into five cards, and asked me to gather the five Signers who would inherit this power to fight the forces of Darkness when the time comes." Goodwin said, turning to face me, "The time has come."
"I have been trying to locate the Signers for years, so they may join forces and defeat my brother. You are one of the Chosen, Yuki," Goodwin looked suspiciously at the teenager finishing her third drink, wondering how much she would remember or even be able to process. "You must fulfill your destiny and battle the Dark Signers in a duel. I love my brother, but Roman must be defeated, for the Evil he unleashed and will unleash again onto this world."
"I don't know, Roman isn't all that bad," I slurred. Seeing as Roman just save two people I knew, I couldn't help defending him, "You should know. Okay, okay. So imagine if you were working on the project of the century that would produce unlimited energy at no cost at all, eradicate poverty worldwide, bring about harmony and prosperity to the human race forever and ever and so on and so forth."
Rex Goodwin gave me a look, right, he was actually there.
"Anyways, so you guys almost succeed when the lead scientist is suddenly like, 'we're scraping the project once and for all. Because of the weather.
Because we always get bad weather when we do these experiments, I decided the power plant we built must be causing crazy climate changes throughout the world, even though we have designed nothing to that effect and I have no idea how that might happen.
In addition, even though I'm determined to shut this machine down at all costs in spite of its potential to change humanity forever, I have unnecessarily designed an unlocking mechanism in the form of five children's trading cards.'
At that point, are you really at fault for taking the project away from him?" I finished in a giggling mess on the couch.
Imagine if somebody at NASA discovered a machine that would let the human race prosper on Mars, then locked it up so it could only be opened with specific Pokemon cards. Would his assistant really be at fault for taking the project away from him?
I thought what I said was reasonably funny and waited accordingly for laughter. Instead, Goodwin scrutinized me with a cryptic look.
"What would you have done then?" He asked.
"I dunno," I admitted, still laughing at my own joke, "Probably try to take over the world with it." Drunk me said reasonably, my unconsciousness convinced that I still lived in a world where comments like 'taking over the world' would be recognized as a joke.
"I see," Rex Goodwin said. He had not expected the darker side of the Light of the Satellite, but it really shouldn't come as a surprise. If even Roman had fallen victim to the darkness of his heart, nobody can be immune.
It looks like Yuki Tono's unexpected intoxication might come to his advantage. He had decided against drugging any of the Signers for fear of angering the Crimson Dragon, but luring her to her own undoing was entirely fair game. "And what do you think about Yusei?" He grasped the opportunity to get more information out of the Signer.
"I'd hit that." I responded. Four drinks in, I saw nothing out of the ordinary with discussing this topic with Rex Goodwin, "I feel like Yusei's just gonna be really good time you know, like he'd do everything you like and worry about how to make you feel better and all that. See, it goes Yusei, then Kalin a very distant second, Jack a close third, and Crow' still too young so he's off limits. I mean I can't anymore, obviously, not with him and Akiza and all. I like her, she's adorable. But that does mean Yusei's off-limits, which is too bad..."
Goodwin stared, almost choking on her response. That was not quite the type of answer he had in mind.
"What about your own gang, Organization Z I think they call it?" Rex Goodwin did wonder about Tono's attitude towards many other potential Signers, but thought he'd stop asking about people for a while.
"Ugh, don't remind me," I finished the rest of the shot at the thought. "Should've just gone with Team Rocket."
Rex Goodwin took the glass away, feeling like that's quite drunk enough.
"You know, you should join us!" My eyes lit up as the 'brilliant' idea occurred to me. I always sort of liked Goodwin. Let's be honest, I was never the 'sacrifice myself to save the world' type, I doubt many people were in my reality. In Goodwin's place, I might have made the same decisions he did, if not worse.
"I what?" Goodwin's metal hand twitched, crushing the glass in his hand.
"Join us!" I continued obliviously, "You know, I just realized how hard it is to run a place? And it's, like, really, really hard. Then you have to run all of Domino! We need somebody like that, to, you know, do the work." I laughed sheepishly. Truth is, running even a start-up company (which I still insist that we are no matter what anybody says) is really, really hard when you're stuck with an illiterate workforce and barely literate management team.
Rex Goodwin blanked at the incoherent offer, feeling more tempted than he thought possible. His human hand shook as he cleared away the mess. But it's all too late now.
Ten years ago, he had made a pact with Yliaster. They would provide him with the technology necessary to build a bridge connecting the Satellite with Domino City, in exchange, he would act as their pawn in Domino City, preparing for and preventing the inevitable. He had naively thought he might actually build the bridge, the last thing he would do for the Satellite before abandoning it forever.
"Maybe before Zero Reverse," Rex Goodwin replied with a rueful smile that the green-haired duelist completely missed. Before he knew about Yliaster, before the Ruler of the Netherworld, before even the Crimson Dragon. Before he knew gods used this world as a battlefield, and the entire dimension might crumple at the whim of the supernatural. Before all of that, he would have followed her to hell and back.
"Why? You know I don't know exactly what happened in Zero Reverse? It was all very vague." I was immediately led off on the tangent. 'It' was referring to the anime of course, thankfully Goodwin thought I was referring to the censors he's put on the information.
"You want the whole story?" Goodwin laughed lightly at the idea.
He looked down at the teenager curled up harmlessly on his sofa, looking marginally interested, half drunk, and almost certainly not going to remember any of this in this morning, and felt safe in telling the whole truth for once.
"Have you seen the apocalypse, Yuki? I have." He began softly, talking more to himself than anybody else.
"There was first a light, then the sky collapsed and everything went dark. Mortals struggling to fight powers beyond their comprehension, failing like they knew they would, it was laughable, it would have been laughable if it wasn't for all the blood. Just blood, everywhere, I thought every person in the world must have been drained dry!" Rex said with an uncharacteristic vehemence, the recollections affecting him more than he expected.
"Uh-huh," The green eyes that looked at him struggled to stay open with some difficulty, clearly not having heard a word he just said. He continued nonetheless.
"I had managed to escape our Research Facility for what we now call the Satellite, and I stood at the shore watching the City burn. Watching its people bleed. They ran around in circles like rats, wondering if it was divine punishment or natural disaster. That day, I was the only one who saw the world fall apart and understood why.
Sometimes, I think I still am."
His monolog was interrupted by quiet snoring on the sofa, his only audience had fallen sound asleep while he was talking. She fell asleep, leaving herself defenseless against somebody who had wanted her harm only weeks ago. If this woman is from the Satellite, he went to clown college.
Of course, Yuki's logic went 'if he wanted to kill me, I'm screwed anyways, why bother', and that's a little beyond Rex Goodwin's understanding at this point.
Rex Goodwin shifted awkwardly, looking furtively, even guiltily around, then positioned himself behind the sofa, as though he was on the same side as the woman sleeping on it, as though he had succeeded in leading the change in the Satellite ten years ago. As though he was still Good.
In another life, he might have completed that bridge. In another life, he might build the Satellite up from shambles. Another life where he was the hero.
But not this one. In this life, he has two gods to fight.
And then he would be god.
Ara wore a light blue sweater under an oversized tracksuit of a similar color, sitting on the table with her feet dangling off the sides, eating a bucket of fried chicken with her bare hands. Her hair was cut to slightly longer than Roman's, the cut strands were collected and organized carefully at the side of the table.
"I'm going to strangle Sayer with it," Ara followed Vincent's eyes to the pile and explained casually.
Vincent had to do a double take. It was Ara. The same attractive features, perfect figure, flawless skin. But in the hour he had left for his first duel, she made the transformation from a beautiful swan to ugly duckling.
"Are you okay?" He asked cautiously.
"Never been better!" Ara turned and greeted him with a toothy smile. She hopped off the table, wiping her hands on the Dark Signer cloak she was using as table cloth.
"Do you want me to get you something else to wear?" Vincent asked again.
"What, this?" Ara laughed. Not the soft smile or flirtatious grin he had seen from her previously, but a full-throated roar of laughter. "Don't you dare! This is actually comfortable. If my old clothes hadn't been destroyed, I would have burned them myself."
"I don't need the power of seduction anymore, I have real power." She explained with a smirk.
"Real power?" Vincent repeated. "I thought you were in Arcadia?" And he had been jealous of psychic duelists' powers for years. '
"But I was never psychic," Ara shrugged, "I lied my way into their training program before I could starve to death in the Satellite. They finally gave up on me when they realized I was never going to be a psychic duelist."
Ara made light of the matter but Vincent immediately tensed up. Arcadia takes in hundreds of people from Satellite every year to train into psychic duelists, she's the first he's heard of who left the program without becoming psychic or dead.
"I think you never looked better." He complimented sincerely. Ara had a life and energy about her that he never even seen while she was in the Zephyrs.
"Thanks. Oh wait, I couldn't care less what you think." Ara grinned, getting up to look for more food now that she could afford it.
Vincent glanced at Ara stuffing her face, Demak grooming his pet monkey, and thought back to whatever it was that possessed Roman, who is now determined to use trading cards to defeat mostly unarmed teenagers instead of literally anything else.
"I have a feeling this is more messed up than my last team," he muttered to nobody in particular.
"I always knew this baby would take me into Domino City," Crow patted his duel runner, his laughter echoing in the sewers, "Never thought it'd be legal though."
"Technically, it's not legal until we get there," Yusei reminded him seriously. "Remember, we have permits to stay in Domino, but we're still riding under the radar when we get there through the garbage chutes and we only have three minutes."
"Yeah, yeah. You've said it a hundred times already Yusei," Crow dismissed his concerns, "Don't worry about it, let's go already."
"I'm glad I'm sharing this ride with you," Yusei turned to his friend and said seriously.
"Me too. I always knew you'd make it, if it helps." Crow scratched his nose. If not quite under these circumstances.
"Let's go," Yusei glanced at his duel disk (now with the highly-advanced function of a watch), "Domino's waiting."
* In the sub but not dub version (I think), Lazar is seen speaking to Yliaster, making it clear that he was at least spying on Goodwin. I personally thought it sounded more like Lazar was poised to replace Goodwin when he gets the chance.
A/N: Yay! Plot! Do you feel the plot coming? :P