This has been something I've been working on for a little while, and it's kind of been distracting me from my posted works. Here, it's online now, brain, you happy? Obviously inspired by VR game isekai animes like Sword Art Online (although I haven't watched Sword Art Online) but the main point of inspiration for this beast is actually DnD! (which is why somewhere I have each character's DnD class written down even though those are never mentioned in the story). Bit of a challenge for you guys - can you guess based on personality alone which avatar belongs to which Yu-Gi-Oh character? Just to make it harder, some of the avatars are genderbent - just FYI - although ages are basically the same. Ready? Go!
Let The Game Begin
They were floating in a star-studded nothingness, rainbow colors lazily orbiting them. When they looked down at themselves, they just saw more nothing. A brighter nothing, a nothing that might have even looked vaguely humanoid if they searched for it - but still nothing.
Their gaze darted around. Then they thought back - how had they gotten here?
They couldn't remember. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't muster up the tiniest scrap of memory from before becoming aware of this spinning expanse of stars. Nothing about what they looked like, where they had come from, or how they had found themselves in this place.
Panic set in as they realized they didn't even remember their own name!
Then, out of the nothingness, a screen appeared.
It was edged in rainbow, like the nebula blanketing them, but the screen gave off a faint blue glow that felt strangely clinical.
On the screen were two buttons labeled with text, that they had to take a moment to decipher.
Boy Or Girl?
They looked at the screen in confusion, before registering that the screen was asking them to identify themselves as male or female.
One problem - they didn't remember that about themselves either.
They debated for a little while, before reaching a hand - only visible as a slight distortion in the air - and pressing one of the buttons.
Immediately, the screen changed, instead showing a longer list of buttons.
Choose Your Race
Elf
Fairy
Fairykin
Harpy
Therian
Merfolk
Dragon
Half-Dragon
Vampire
Halfling
Human
Demon
They regarded the choices, not sure what any of these creatures described were, or, just like with their sex, which of them they had been prior to finding themselves here. They finally pressed one of the buttons at random, hoping it was the right one, advancing to the next screen.
They were immediately presented by a dozen swatches of different skin tones, ranging from light to dark. Again, they debated which one to choose, unable to recall anything about what they actually looked like, before eventually defaulting to the first choice they were drawn to.
The same thing happened with the next screen - eyes - and the screen after that - hair.
The last few slides were solely concerned with clothing selection. Here, they were able to relax a bit more on the options, since clothing had nothing to do with their lost self that they could no longer remember. After deciding which options they wanted, they quickly touched those buttons, finding that a check mark appeared by each choice.
The screen that appeared next had a sort of slot machine, above which were the words, What Is Your Name?
They pulled the lever, causing the slot machine to cycle between hundreds of different letter combinations in the course of a minute, before stopping on one in particular. The lever vanished, and they guessed that was meant to be their choice.
They looked at it, trying to burn it into their brain. They whispered it out loud with their nonexistent mouth.
The screen with their name vanished, followed by one simply reading, Let the game begin.
They were suddenly falling, plummeting down through the spinning stars, which were growing brighter and brighter.
Then they couldn't distinguish individual stars, they were glowing so brightly.
And then they woke up - every one of them - out in the open, armed with only a bag over their shoulder and a scrap of parchment inside, which had a simple, six-word message written on it in harsh black ink.
Kill to survive. Survive to win.