Marduk's left eye still ached slightly underneath his mask from the makeup remover he'd pressed into it. Such was the price of perfecting his eyeliner skills for the right.
He ignored the "You're still going out dressed like that?" from his dad as he exited the bathroom and passed the living room. Upon closing his door behind him and exhaling in lieu of screaming his demons out, Marduk set the portal between his room and the alleyway he'd seen online.
Marduk never predicted he'd go down in the school yearbook as most likely to jump a random person from a dingy alley while wearing a mask, yet there he was. Jumping imminent. Dinginess abound.
Marduk stuck his head out and took in his first taste of Wardington, Japan. Of freedom from his hometown. Foreign, squat storefronts with unrecognizable names stood on the main street, pedestrians and cars rolling by in pre-rush hour lethargy. In the distance, poking through the canopy of trees and rooftop tilings, a train bolted down an elevated railway. Marduk daydreamed of taking that train back to an apartment he was able to call his own, of seeing that train outside his window every day.
"Marduk?"
Marduk looked down at Vladitor, perched on his shoulder.
"I assumed at first it was commonplace among related humans to interact with one another… the way yours do. Perhaps as a rite of passage, or just by nature. But now I wonder: is that not a normal occurrence?"
Marduk leaned against the grimy, crimson brick wall behind him.
"No. Or, maybe? I don't have, like, statistics or anything, but it's not stuff a good family does, even if a lot of families do it, you know?"
Vladitor met his gaze.
"You should defeat them in battle."
"Like… a Bakugan brawl?"
"No, I mean true combat."
Marduk laughed like a maniac. Score two for the judgemental Wardington citizens who were already giving him weird looks as they passed by. Score three 'cause he was talking to what still amounted to an overcomplicated toy like a pirate captain convening with their pet parrot.
"I know slaying your enemies is your answer to most problems, Vlad, but I don't think violence can solve this one."
Vladitor floated off to Marduk's side, obscuring himself from the alley exterior. "Why not?"
Marduk let his head fall so he was side-eyeing Vladitor. "'Cause it's illegal?"
"A rule stating you cannot defend yourself against a threat is a meaningless rule."
Marduk shrugged. "Yeah, but it's like… they're not attacking first..."
"But they are attacking first," Vladitor insisted, and Marduk did his best to juggle both acknowledgement, and disbelief over having this conversation to begin with. "Perhaps… hm, have I told you about the Cores of Vestroia?"
Marduk knew they both knew the answer to that, but he nonetheless shook his head.
"As you know, certain Bakugan possess abilities that steal energy from their opponents, their 'Gs' as you brawlers put it. These are typically found in Darkus, the Attribute dimension closest to the Doom Dimension. These evolved traits, these manifestations of Doom that inevitably consume a Bakugan upon their death, are all the product of the Silent Core."
Vladitor turned his attention to a frail weed growing where tarred ground met tan pavement, its lanky shadow melding with the greater shadow of the alley.
"The Silent Core is the Infinity Core's shadow. Both have existed intrinsically since the dawn of Vestroia. While the Infinity Core grants vitality, the Silent Core negates it."
A man playing music loudly from his phone passed the alley entrance. Marduk shot a death glare in his general direction until the audio grew fainter.
"Doom energy has its beneficial uses. Achieving one's ambitions. Securing one's territory. Self-defense. 'Slaying enemies'. The cause of its deadliness is in part how it is not heralded by tooth and claw. It is unassuming, indirect, silent. It leaves no superficial wounds, but its sinister mechanism of action and the resulting… sensations destroy both body and mind from within. It is hate and misery and fear incarnate. It is… it's negativity in its purest form."
Vladitor dropped ever so slightly in the air. Marduk held up a hand to steady him. He didn't know if it was his still relatively weakened state, a traumatic flashback, or his deliberate use of a contraction for possibly the first time ever, that had taken its toll. Possibly all the above.
"In Vestroia, a battle is a matter of survival," Vladitor continued with a faltering breath. "Whether the enemy attacks with scorching infernos or patiently drains another's life before their eyes, it's all just a glorified means to the same end: death. And when faced with predation of any kind, it's the right of every Bakugan being preyed upon to fight back. I see no reason the same shouldn't apply to humans."
Marduk sighed. Almost a decade and a half of life, and yet that single sound held an air of eternity more befitting of Vladitor.
"That's a nice thought." Marduk's eyes welled with tears despite his best efforts to blink them into submission. "But Earth isn't Vestroia. Fighting back just makes things worse. People aren't allowed to… to act on their nature like animals or Bakugan. They just have to let the predators-" His voice grew weaker "-do their thing. Let bad things happen. Die quietly. Or go far away, I guess. Like fight or flight, but without the fight."
Vladitor's jewel red eyes were as static as ever, but they saw through Marduk regardless, burrowing all the way to whatever cores dwelled inside broken boys.
"But you can't go far away easily, nor permanently."
Marduk stared into the too blue sky and grimaced. He let out a curt, "Yeah."
"And they are hurting you."
"Yeah?"
"And it's killing you."
"Yeah."
Vladitor returned to Marduk's shoulder. "They should not be getting away with it."
"...Yeah."
Marduk faced the street. His tears dissipated without ever leaving his eyes.
"I'll message you later!" a barely pubescent voice shouted somewhere off to the side. A red-clad boy walked by moments later, just as Masquerade's vanishing text had promised.
Marduk stepped out onto the sidewalk. "You're Dan, right?"
Dan turned around. Curious, crimson eyes scanned Marduk through messy brown tufts and the unmistakable lens of an expert brawler. Marduk almost felt flattered at the conclusions those eyes reached, but nothing smothered the immediate disgust he felt being in the Pyrus main's presence.
An illusion of 128 overlaid itself on Dan. Beating him became all the more necessary.
"That's the best Pyrus brawler in the world to you!" Dan jeered, his mid-pubescent voice more insufferable than boiling water in a kettle.
Marduk countered coolly, "Pretty sure that title goes to Chan Lee."
"Yeah, well, who are you? Another edgy, masked freak who thinks he can take me on?"
Marduk crossed his arms and flexed how fluent he'd become in competitive gamer boy dialect through sheer duration of exposure. "That's Marduk to you, and I don't think I can. I know."
Dan's face lit up for some reason. Ugh. "Hm… you got a Doom Card?"
Marduk shook his head. "Just the strongest Bakugan you'll ever face. Should be more than enough to take you down!"
Vladitor rose in the air. "Face me if you dare."
Dan pinched out a Bakugan from his waist holder. "Eh, why not, could use some practice before the Battle Royale. Come on, Drago!"
"Let's do this!"
The red Bakugan the gravelly voice originated from opened up in Dan's palm, revealing its draconic form. Marduk stayed stoic at the sight of another talking Bakugan as both boys retrieved their Field Cards and fanned out along the alley. Their battle cries echoed off the walls, and then time stood still.
At night, Marduk got an anonymous BakuPod message. A picture of an underground parking lot preceded the words, "Well done".
Marduk hoisted himself out of bed and, in what was definitely not a figurative flash, teleported to said parking lot. Stepping out into it, the overbearing scent of pent-up gasoline infiltrated Marduk's sinuses.
Masquerade stepped out from behind a pillar. Marduk's risk for a premature heart attack doubled.
"Couldn't have picked a cooler place to meet up?" Marduk demanded.
"I'd recommend showing my master the respect he deserves," a raspy voice hissed.
A Darkus Bakugan leaped out of Masquerade's coat and opened up before him, revealing its wingless dragon-esque form.
"Thank you, Hydranoid, but I think Marduk's earned the right to be a little cocky. He beat Dan so hard, the little brat dropped out of the Battle Royale."
Hydranoid closed mid-air and retreated back into Masquerade's coat.
Marduk's smirk lasted a whole 0.37 seconds under Masquerade's obstructed stare. "It was too easy. If this was the test, the real mission should be a walk in the park."
Masquerade's smirk lasted substantially longer. He input scant commands into his BakuPod. Marduk opened the brawler profile linked in his messages, shielding the dimmed screen from the hideous glare of overhead fluorescence.
The ranking next to the brawler's name gave Marduk pause.
"You're joking, right? He's weaker than Dan!"
"You were weaker than Dan," Masquerade rebutted. "And this new friend of his has gone undefeated in every tournament he's participated in. All thanks to this one Bakugan…"
Marduk's BakuPod chimed. He was welcomed by a picture of another Darkus, dragonesque Bakugan ball, this one with a wider frame and wings.
"Leonidas," Masquerade said with a tone that suggested the name itself was a joke. "A curiosity. Not many Bakugan can claim they belong to a unique species, but this one's truly one of a kind, with power rivaling that of your precious Vladitor."
Vladitor's silence atop Marduk's shoulder spoke volumes.
Marduk lowered his BakuPod. "And you're, let me guess, too busy to fight him yourself? Or is being the number one globally ranked brawler too important to risk losing?"
"Oh, I'll face them in time," Masquerade drawled, hand raised in a wordless promise to the universe. Marduk made his own wordless promise that he would speed up his own inescapable descent into stereotypical evil just to rival Masquerade. "Once you've scanned Leonidas in battle and relayed everything you've learned to me first. Afterwards, there'll be further incentive in store for your continued service. Something special for Vladitor."
With that, Masquerade vanished.
Vladitor finally spoke. "I have no idea what possible 'incentive' he could procure, but I will destroy this Leonidas on the battlefield nonetheless."
Marduk pulled out his Teleport Card.
Vladitor interjected with an, "Allow me."
Marduk raised an eyebrow.
A purple aura propagated from Vladitor. Then came translucent geometries, sluggish ripples in space like a falling leaf touching down on a pond. Shadowy particle effects engulfed Marduk's world. He held his breath.
When light returned to Marduk's retinas, they were back in his room.
"How did you…?"
"Defeating Drago must have been a tipping point in the restoration of my powers. Imagine the scope of my abilities once I defeat Leonidas!"
Marduk smirked devilishly, then scrutinized his Teleportation Card. "You kinda power-creeped this, huh?"
"I… am sure that human phrase is appropriate. No harm in holding onto it, however. At least to convince Masquerade of our temporary allegiance."
Marduk made a sound of acknowledgement, then went to work removing his eyeliner in the bathroom.
Saccharine voices from the living room TV wafted into Marduk's room as he crawled into bed, drifting uncomfortably off to sleep, his pillow and stolen earplugs doing a half-assed job. Thoughts swam through his mind as it shut down for the night: thoughts of cores, dying without dying, and striking his prey.
Marduk analyzed the tournament broadcast on his desktop, sleep deprivation and eye strain interrupting his concentration every few seconds. Evil schemes felt more tedious to come up with than stories made them out to be.
Wardington boasted an official, high-tech Bakugan tournament arena made by the corporation that sold the BakuPod. Marduk definitely didn't help fund the ludicrous construction budget, but he nonetheless fantasized about playing there. Not that he could've participated in the Battle Royale that day even if he'd qualified. Hence: scheming.
After a few more minutes of haphazard thought, Marduk's brain threw rationalization in the trash. He wasn't the best at concocting evil plots, but if his family's snide comments were any indication, he was the best at being a drama queen.
Marduk waited for the tournament finals to start airing, and then put his grand entrance in motion.
Vladitor's warp brought him to a hidden corner of the arena behind the oh-god-that's-a-lot-of-people audience. The shockingly realistic, holographic structures below set the stage for the 4 brawlers occupying the spotlight: shifting sands, ancient-looking constructs, groaning soil, all in various desert shades of brown and orange. All so a few privileged people could play a game.
Marduk briefly wondered if he held the title of 'poorest person to set foot in the arena ever' as he put up with the audience's sickly sweet cheers and stared down Leonidas' partner from his vantage point. "Mattia".
Marduk wished he could censor the name in his head, but seeing him in person made it very, very difficult. He was a boy Marduk's age, with peach skin; short black hair barring longer, side-swept bangs; violet eyes and matching BakuPod; a short-sleeved hoodie, athletic pants (with twin dangling chains off to one side), fingerless gloves, and combat boots (all in respectable shades of black). A thin, well-groomed mustache gave the teen a conniving bad guy energy Marduk envied. He joked to himself that Mattia should've been a Pyrus brawler.
…The right word to describe what Marduk felt hit him like a train.
He still hated him, though.
The overhead digital display and accompanying speakers interrupted Marduk's ruminations with the audiovisual equivalent of an asteroid impact.
"Game: Start!"
The audience erupted in thunderous approval. Marduk started sweating. Damn coat.
Marduk waited through turn after turn, brawl after brawl. Mattia lost his Darkus Fear Ripper in an earlier battle, then navigated his Reaper through his comeback.
Finally, Mattia threw Leonidas out.
Marduk thanked Vestroia endlessly for making dragons real. Leonidas did the entire concept of them justice, far more than Dan's Dragonoid ever could. The Darkus Bakugan roared into the heavens, tooth-filled maw agape, muscles rippling with unbridled rage, as the glow that ushered him into his full form subsided. Claws, wings, and myriad horns atop his head brandished deep, purple accents. Those, along with the whites of his sclera and the light(ish) grey, hardened scales protecting his belly, served as spots of brightness against the otherwise midnight canvas that was Darkus Leonidas.
Marduk raised his BakuPod and initiated the scan. When the results appeared, Marduk had to double-check them.
"He's almost as strong as you," Marduk grumbled.
Vladitor floated off his shoulder, stopping a foot in front of him. "He feels… different. Yet familiar."
"How so?"
Vladitor made no further comment.
The battle raged. The Gate Card under Leonidas revealed itself, yet its light failed to cast out his innate shadows.
Leonidas become a flurry of gnashing teeth, lashing tail, and raking claws. The opposing Subterra Gorem's heavyset punches barely kept up with him. Every attempt at connecting fist to flesh was met with a dodge, a laceration, another dodge, a leap into the air with a single, powerful wingbeat...
Marduk and Vladitor both watched intently, stone still.
Mattia held up an Ability Card and yelled, "Alpha Blaster!"
Leonidas rose once more in the air. A light formed in his mouth, volatile and furious. He unhinged his jaw, and let the energy beam loose onto the Gorem below, reducing it to an amorphous, brown energy first, then a ball that fell to its owner's feet.
"Mattia is the winner!" the speakers announced.
All Bakugan and cards returned to their owners' grasps. Elation and a post-battle handshake session with his opponents kept Mattia on the battlefield as the arena gradually emptied itself of people. Some cleaning staff sweeped the seating area, and a few of Mattia's friends occupied the railing sectioning it off from the central brawling space. Dan stood among them, cheering for Mattia only to slink back into a sullen state when no one was looking.
Once the tournament broadcast overhead cut to black, he nodded to Vladitor with a mischievous smile. Vladitor nodded back, flying off his shoulder and circling around Mattia, purple aura tailing him.
Between spaces, Marduk called out through callous laughter.
"You call that a battle? That was nothing!"
Marduk plopped himself down on his desk chair and tore off his mask. Vladitor flew over to his desk, hovering before the computer monitor.
After a solid few seconds of mourning, Marduk broke the silence. "They just got lucky."
Vladitor stared into his reflection in the dormant display. "I lost."
Contempt punctuated the two meager syllables. A marked difference from the aloof reaction he'd given Leonidas just moments ago. Marduk wondered what kind of look lay under Vladitor's helmet, whether he was even capable of taking it off, whether all his armour had become such an integral part of him as a Bakugan that it was simply inseparable from his real body.
"I… lost… to a Bakugan born from the Doom Dimension."
Marduk leaned forward between his legs, head hanging low. "How is being born from the Doom Dimension even possible?"
Vladitor said nothing.
"Too bad he didn't accept," Marduk continued. "Not that we'll need him on our side. You'll get stronger in no time."
The vacant expression Vladitor offered him was that of an ancient, sapient entity whose self-assuredness had shattered for the second time in their entire, millennia-long lifespan. Marduk couldn't wrap his head around how someone like that could be reduced to...
Marduk broke free from it to stare at the hedge beyond his window. In the moonless night, he replayed the brawl in his head, wondering how he failed so badly.
Visions of Erra invaded the dark of night. Then Mattia. Then every other brawler that came and went from his life like a star popping into existence only to peter out, leaving spectral afterimages in their wake. Each one a face he'd never forget. Faces with names. Faces that hated him.
The feeling was mutual.
Marduk tossed his still clutched mask onto his bed, took off his coat, and went to the bathroom. He removed his eyeliner. Splashed water on his face. Stared at his reflection in the grimy mirror. Feeling. Mutual.
Marduk returned to his room to find Masquerade leaning against a wall.
"Strike one," Masquerade sighed. Marduk couldn't get over how yet another person didn't knock on his door before entering, and only entered to chastise him. "You're lucky I give out second chances. Don't expect a third."
Vladitor snarled, joining Marduk's side. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll reacquaint yourself with the Doom Dimension, is what it means," Masquerade answered with ease.
Both Marduk and Vladitor glowered.
"Kidding. Forgive me. My boss doesn't take failure well, and I've taken to doing the same. Perhaps you need more… positive reinforcement."
Teleportation Card in hand, Masquerade called a portal in front of the window.
"Vestroia," Vladitor said, fusing depth and softness. Marduk never felt homesick a day in his life, but he'd imagined it enough to recognize it in that one word.
"My boss would like to meet one of the few nearly unbeatable Bakugan in all of Vestroia's history," Masquerade told him. "One of the few Bakugan whose reputation precedes him. Get in his good graces, and you might just walk away with power beyond anything you've ever gained in your conquests."
Vladitor hovered over until he was inches away from Masquerade's face. "What kind of power?"
Masquerade gestured to the portal. "I'm sure you're tasting the answer already. It flows through all who serve him."
Vladitor paused, then turned back to Marduk.
"You don't have to come with me if you don't want to."
Marduk opened his mouth to protest, then closed it at Vladitor's somber demeanour. He nodded instead.
Vladitor sized up the portal.
"I will be in my full form with all my abilities at my disposal. If anything unexpected were to happen, I'd wager I could annihilate you and your pet Hydranoid on my way to the Doom Dimension."
Hydranoid hissed inside Masquerade's coat.
Masquerade approached the portal, its pure, white glow failing to illuminate what lay underneath his mask. "I don't doubt it," he deadpanned.
Vladitor eyed Marduk one last time. "I'll be back."
Marduk let Vladitor and Masquerade disappear into the portal. As it blinked out, Marduk knew what to name the feeling hammering away inside his chest. First time for everything, he supposed.
For once, Marduk wished time could move faster.
Marduk had gotten a decent winning streak going in the online card game on his computer by the time Vladitor emerged from the portal.
Marduk leaped out of his chair. "What happened? Are you ok?"
"I'm fine," Vladitor assured him with a weak chuckle. "I… you're not going to believe this."
"I'll believe anything at this point."
"...I am a Haos Humanoid."
"...The humanoid part tracks."
"That was a joke."
"I know."
Vladitor floated wearily to Marduk's bed, resting on the faded, red comforter spread out on it. Marduk sat by his side.
"I saw the Silent Core," Vladitor blurted. "What's more, there was a Bakugan within the Silent Core. An Attributeless Bakugan. Calls himself Naga."
Marduk stared stupefied. "Attributeless? How's that even possible?"
"An evolutionary defect, according to Naga. I never imagined they were more than fairy tales about Old Vestroia. As it turns out, they are very real and very rare. They call themselves the White Ones. No Attribute called to them during the splitting of Vestroia, so they found themselves trapped in the spaces between, doomed to drift and to stagnate in their powerlessness for eternity."
Marduk knew Vladitor didn't need oxygen to survive, but he took a breath through his mouthless mouth anyway.
"Naga found the Infinity Core and Silent Core. In his attempt to control both, he merged with the Silent Core accidentally, casting the Infinity Core to Earth in the process. That cataclysm is why Vestroia shattered and rained down upon your world. That is how I was freed. Naga detected my consciousness still petrified in the Doom Dimension, and released me. He tracked me down so that I may servehim."
Marduk lowered himself back onto his mattress, getting a good view of the band posters hanging above him, their logos barely decipherable amidst the stylized, branching words composing them. "Wow. Everything… makes sense and doesn't."
"There's more. Naga and another odd human, Hal-G, channeled a portion of the Silent Core's into an artifact that would elevate a chosen Bakugan to a higher status in Naga's army: the Silent Orb. Hal-G promised I could have it on the condition that next time, we take out Leonidas. His power and immunity to Doom energy could pose a threat to Naga's plans if left unchecked."
Marduk took a deep breath of his own.
"So we remove Leonidas from the equation, you get the Silent Orb, Naga gets… to do… whatever, and then what?"
"Well, if I receive the Silent Orb, I will become a god among Bakugan," Vladitor declared, reveling in the idea. "Our dream of dominating both our worlds will be realized. We may play Naga and Masquerade's game for now, but when they least suspect it, I will take the Silent Core myself, perhaps after locating the Infinity Core and seizing its power as my own!"
Marduk sat up in bed, fingers tightening around the fabric beneath them. Conquering the world didn't feel like a dumb, nebulous idea relegated to cartoon villain plots anymore. It felt tangible. Close.
In his tiny body in his tiny bed in his tiny room in his tiny home on a tiny speck of dirt drifting through one of innumerable dimensions, Marduk felt larger than life.
The dread blossomed not long after, and Marduk couldn't pinpoint why.
Mercifully, only a fraction of the top 10 brawlers in the world were impossible to track down. It didn't matter. It was enough for Marduk to take out the majority of them who flaunted their celebrity status online, who showed off their lavish, loving homes through photos and video tours, their brawling hot spots, their schools.
As each one fell, Vladitor's Gs skyrocketed.
Marduk rolled over against the early morning sunlight spilling in from the window, put on his BakuPod that lay beside his pillow, and opened up the global rankings. Just to make sure yesterday's brawl hadn't been a dream.
…
Marduk: 1
Marduk willed the number to elicit anything inside of him, but it simply stared back, just a bunch of unblinking pixels on a screen.
Marduk's gaze wandered down to Masquerade's "2". He hoped he and Hydranoid didn't take it personally, especially since Marduk only stole his title through increasing his total Bakugan Points.
Marduk wondered if anyone had sent Masquerade a congratulatory message when he'd become the best brawler, or if Marduk's inbox, despite being filled to the brim with dozens of challenges from brawlers around the world, was supposed to feel so empty.
The summer marched onward in a haze of omnipresent sunlight and sweat. It didn't help that Marduk adamantly wore his coat wherever he went.
Masquerade had thanked Marduk via anonymous text for the information he'd given him about Leonidas, then put him on standby for further instructions. With every challenge deleted from his inbox, Marduk had nothing to spend his weeks doing besides waking up, being woken up, arguing with his family, avoiding arguments with his family, blaring every obscure variant of metal music under the sun, contemplating DIY clothing projects before deciding he was too tired to follow through on them, watching the Maximum Battle tournament unfold on his BakuPod's pathetic screen, hearing Mattia be declared as the winner, dying a little more inside as he imagined himself standing where he stood instead.
A few hours after the broadcast ended, Marduk's BakuPod chimed with an anonymous message notification.
Time for your second chance.
While he wasn't able to participate in the Bakugan Master Cup, Marduk nonetheless took to its stage once more, gloating in Mattia and Dan's faces alongside Masquerade. Marduk's mood improved for a solid second afterwards.
Mattia's narrowed eyes stared back at him each time Marduk closed his that day.
Marduk couldn't remember the last time he'd received a non-challenge-related message in his inbox that wasn't from Masquerade.
Hello Marduk,
You are cordially invited to participate in the Ultimate Battle Tournament-
Marduk confirmed his participation without hesitation.