Marduk lost. In style, of course.
The battlefield dissipated to let the late summer chill spill back onto Marduk's skin. A train bolted past the blissfully desolate platform the two of them had decided would make for a cool brawling spot. Which it totally was.
Marduk kneeled and picked up Darkus Serpenoid from the concrete. He took off his mask and stored it in his inner coat pocket.
"You keep getting better!" Erra assured him, stashing her own mask in her galaxy print backpack. "And we're obviously gonna beat them anyway."
"Don't patronize me," Marduk huffed with performative indignity. He slotted Serpenoid into the Bakugan holder attached to his waist. Rest well, he told it telepathically.
The two made their way off the platform and towards the main street. Shops Marduk had never heard of lined either side. Buildings taller than the squat residential ones in his area made him feel like a predator prowling a concrete jungle.
"How'd you get so strong when you barely had cards and Bakugan to start with?" Marduk piped up over the sound of car engines and horns courtesy of rush hour.
"I watched people play, like, a lot," Erra answered, making a beeline for the nearest coffee shop. "Friends. Cool, dorky strangers like you. Etcetera."
Marduk broke into a smile. "Flirt."
Erra blew Marduk a kiss as he opened the shop door for her.
"Gentleman. But yeah, uh, I obviously still had to practice like everyone else, and traded cards with friends and ex-friends and strangers and stuff, which helped my loadout suck less. God, I wish I could've snagged a ton like you. Like, that must've made it so easy to get good."
Marduk pursed his lips and focused on the illegible chalkboard menu overhead. "Yeah, I got pretty lucky, but climbing the leaderboard still took skill."
The aroma of baked goods and hot drinks he couldn't afford taunted Marduk, but Erra made sure they didn't for long. Soon, they were stepping outside with beverages and goodies in hand.
"Oh, I also stole some awesome Bakugan from a classmate when they weren't looking," Erra blurted, mischief sculpting her features. It reminded Marduk of the fairy mythology he vaguely recalled learning in history class at some point. Fairy. Erra. Fairra.
Marduk examined her. "Really?"
Erra stretched her "yeah" out through song, shrugging nonchalantly. "But they deserved it and I needed them more! So…"
Marduk nodded curtly. His BakuPod served as a testament to the benefits of theft, even if it was from a store shelf and not a real person.
As they made their way down less crowded residential streets, cups grew emptier, and snacks disappeared into their stomachs.
Erra scampered forward, spun around, and kept walking backwards.
"Do you think the Bakugan we first got reflect who we are?" she asked.
Marduk shielded his eyes from a lawn sprinkler spewing a multi-pronged stream of water all over him before replying, "Nah, getting the ones we got just seemed like a coincidence. Why?"
Erra, unfazed by the free shower, pried three of her Bakugan out of her own holder: Aquos Charybdis, Ventus Scylloid, and Haos Mantris. Marduk knew them well, from how they looked when they fell to his own Bakugan, to how they looked when they refused to. Moreso the latter.
"'Cause they're exactly what I love, you know? Sea monsters, strong girls that are also monsters, and… well, okay, you gave me my beloved light bug, but still, why would these two be the ones I get first? Like, I know it's a game and all, but maybe in a way it's the universe giving us what we want?"
Marduk's Serpenoid practically called to him from his waist.
Marduk let out a "hm", then elaborated with, "It's possible, sure, but I also got Haos Bakugan when the cards came down, and I don't like white and yellow much. Maybe as a secondary colour sometimes, sure, but to main them in a game? Gross. Never."
Erra snorted, then looked down. "True. I dunno, just food for thought. To accompany our food food."
Erra twirled back around and continued strolling along merrily. Marduk took the opportunity to loosen his facial muscles and let his mind wander.
If the universe cared about people enough to give them cool game pieces and new friends, why didn't it care enough to help them when it really mattered? When they begged for that help every night while lying restless in a shitty bed in a shitty home?
Marduk couldn't find the answer by the time they arrived at the right address. They waited by the curb for just a moment. When the alarms on both their BakuPods went off, Marduk and Erra put their masks back on.
The front door of the house swung open, and out stepped their opponents: 128 and 129. Sure, they had names, but Marduk had no interest in them.
129 was a tall girl while 128 was a boy who wasn't quite as tall, yet still had a few inches above Marduk. Being twins, as the online brawling community had informed him, they shared the same wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, and strong jawlines. Marduk tried not to linger on 128's chiselled features for too long.
"Hey!" 128 greeted them, hopping down the short front step and jogging over to them. Warmth radiated off him everywhere from his expressions to his effortless movements, as if space for this guy wasn't the same viscous ocean Marduk had to wade through every day.
Yep. Pyrus user. 100%.
"You find our place okay?" 128 asked as he slowed to a stop a few paces away. Marduk desperately wanted to take a step back, or maybe even towards him, but willed himself to look unfazed.
"Yep," Marduk managed, moving in as coolly as possible to accept 128's hand when he extended it. Somehow, his intrinsic heat latched itself to Marduk's entire being and refused to let go, even when their hands had separated.
"Yeah, no problems at all," Erra replied. "Thanks for having us. It's truly an honour to beat you on your home turf!"
128 laughed as 129 joined her brother's side. Even his laugh was full of warmth. The only label Marduk could put on his gut reaction to it was hate, but that didn't feel right. At all.
"So I guess we can skip the pleasantries?" 129 shot back at Erra, playfully pulling out a Field Card from her pocket. Marduk noted the Darkus Bakugan in the holder next to said pocket. A brawler with taste, a part of him thought before Marduk could shove it back to whatever shrouded recesses of his subconscious it emerged from.
Marduk smirked. It had taken some time, but masking his humanity was finally as easy as masking his face. "May the best brawlers win."
The four of them nodded, and moved towards the road.
Field Cards in hand, a chorus of "Field, open!" echoed through the sleepy, suburban street. It was almost impossible to notice the world slowing down amidst the pre-existing stillness as the battlefield blossomed forth.
If Marduk had to summarize the brawl in one sentence, it would be: throwing balls while standing in one spot could be surprisingly strenuous.
It didn't help that 128 and 129 were fiercer than Marduk and Erra predicted. And nauseatingly chipper. Even when their Bakugan gradually (and Marduk meant gradually) toppled over, 128 still shouted, "I've never seen someone do that before!" or "That was so cool!"
Despite how much he wanted to turn his arms into snakes just to sour their mood, Marduk couldn't remember the last time he had that much fun in a brawl.
The last 2 enemy Bakugan yielded to the combined might of Marduk's Serpenoid and Erra's Charybdis, especially the latter. Marduk knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of its unbridled, serpentine, excessively toothy wrath. He didn't envy his opponents.
128 and 129 took a moment to process the inert, glorified marbles at their feet.
"Good game!" 129 hollered, brushing her disheveled hair back.
Marduk caught his victorious Serpenoid in his hand. He stowed it away, then pulled out his Field Card.
"What? No, do the thing," Erra interjected.
Marduk gave her a confused look. She smiled her usual, practically fluorescent smile, but it felt… flat.
"I dunno, they… they're not worth it."
Marduk checked back in on 128, who was taking in the nearly empty battlefield, save for a lonely Gate Card courtesy of Marduk. The joy of brawling washed over the Pyrus brawler, propagating outward like a supernova. Impossibly bright.
Erra scrunched her face, her smile warping. "Why go soft on them? You haven't before."
Marduk brought his hand to his coat pocket and froze. His legion of Bakugan lay dormant, waiting for his command to unleash them in all their shadow-clad glory.
Erra nodded at his hand.
Marduk didn't know what compelled him: Erra or muscle memory. All he knew was his Bakugan formed a writhing mass of shrieking and screeching and rumbling terror before him, and all 128 and 129 could do was stare up at their unhinged jaws and alien eyes and titanic heights and scream out in return.
Marduk called them back, and the battlefield vanished. Summer stillness returned to them like nothing ever happened, but that stillness didn't extend to Marduk's mind. Or heartbeat.
"What the hell?!" 129 exclaimed, taking a menacing step towards Marduk, only for 128 to hold a hand out and stop her. "So you're not just 'brutal', huh?! You're a straight up asshole?!"
128 examined Marduk and Erra with a fire completely unlike the one he'd started the brawl with.
Erra twirled around. Breezily, she said, "Let's go."
129 stormed off into her house, her brother switching from wanting to stop her with his hand to reaching out with it. He lingered on the ashen asphalt, lost in thoughts Marduk could barely imagine, before their eyes met one last time.
"Never come back."
Marduk's body stood petrified under the boy's glare until he followed his sister back inside. The door slammed behind him.
All of Marduk's masks stayed right where they needed to be as he turned around and joined Erra's side.
His old global ranking wasn't the only thing Marduk left behind on that street.
Marduk worried about the little things.
Sometimes, it was how Erra talked about other brawlers.
"That guy deserves to have his Bakugan taken."
"Oh my god, she's another pure Haos brawler. You're unoriginal, sweetie!"
Sometimes, it was how Erra talked to him.
"You're, like, the only friend I have who hates people as much as I do."
"We've got a reputation to uphold! They don't deserve your pity."
And sometimes, it was just how merciless she could be.
Yet no matter how bad Erra was, whether on the battlefield or outside of it, most of the whispers Marduk heard around the city, most of the comments about their tag team online, were about Marduk's ruthlessness.
Marduk used the same tactics indiscriminately over and over to Erra's approval. The same condescending smile and tone. The same intimidation. He even liked it in a weird, twisted way. Marduk didn't want to know what would happen if he stopped liking it, if he gave up the persona, the routine, the power. Would he regress into the version of himself that existed before cards fell from the sky? Before the world became a playground for him to conquer?
He wouldn't let that happen.
Marduk talked to Erra online less as late summer turned into early fall, even when he had his computer privileges reinstated. Sleeplessness, family, and feigned attempts to pass his classes accounted for half of his silence, but the other half was all him. They'd talk enough to catch up and coordinate more tag team brawls, but the days of them staying up late to share life stories, loud music, or wordless company were drifting further and further away.
A few weeks into the new school year, Erra texted Marduk.
Erra: The coolest thing ever just happened and I've got something to show for it! It's a surprise. :)
The crisp autumn afternoon creeped through Marduk's coat as he walked his bike through Bakugan Park. To Marduk's annoyance, the sun persisted in the sky, blinding him on his way to the fountain. His mask's semi-opaque left eye only shielded him a bit.
As Marduk walked, what were once curt glances from other brawlers had evolved into uncomfortably prolonged stares, and the usual whispers were reduced to a painful, furious silence. Marduk didn't know whether to revel or drown in it.
Erra sat at a bench facing away from the cascading water behind her, mask and pastel blue headphones on, fingers tapping to a slow, imperceptible beat. She was the same person she'd always been, and yet Marduk took his time chaining his bike to the bike rack before approaching her.
"Oh, hey!" Erra greeted him. She brought her headphones to her neck and rose to hug him.
"Hey," Marduk managed mid-embrace. He could hear a distinctly not loud song from her headphones. When they parted, he slipped back into their usual rapport easily. "So what's the surprise?" he asked. "New Bakugan?"
Nearby, a dad and his son flicked a few coins into the fountain.
"All will be revealed in due time, my son," Erra assured him with a grin-wink combo. She turned her music player off. "First, let's find some brawlers eager to lose!"
Marduk let Erra lead the way. They scoured the park for brawlers like cavemen hunting for their next meal, except every potential meal's disdainful look (or, by contrast, deliberate avoidance of eye contact altogether) kept them from feasting. Being a top brawler was somehow lonelier than being a nobody.
"Hey!"
Marduk glanced behind him.
An androgynous-looking person and a girl, both around Marduk and Erra's age, marched over to them, Field Cards gripped between their fingers. Just some more old stepping stones to his current spot on the leaderboard, Marduk remembered.
The nonbinary brawler pointed at Marduk like they were shining a spotlight on him. Everyone in the immediate vicinity turned to him. "You. You had no right to pull that crap on us last time. You had no right to do that to anyone. Like, what's wrong with you?"
Marduk smirked. A hollow gesture, but one that made Marduk feel untouchable. "Ha, please, no need to hold a grudge. Just gotta put weaker brawlers in their place. It's nothing personal."
"Yeah, lighten up, it's just a game," Erra pitched in, crossing her arms and joining his side. Despite everything, at that moment, they were still friends. Still partners in crime. Still the most fearsome brawlers in the city.
"Hurting real people isn't part of the game," the girl brawler growled. "Rematch. Now."
A guy shouted from the sidelines, "Kick their asses!"
Marduk casually whipped out his Field Card.
"Field, open!"
Otherworldly white. Swirling skies. Boundless horizons. Besides darkness, the battlefield was Marduk's true element. Words and people might have been hard, but destroying his opposition came as naturally to him as breathing air.
"Surprise time," Erra murmured.
From her pocket, Erra pulled out a card unlike any Marduk had ever seen before. The Attribute symbols were nowhere to be found, instead replaced by a graphic, alien-looking skull with glowing, red eyes. Its badassery was palpable.
"Doom Card, set." No overt declaration. No fuss. Erra simply released her already tenuous hold on the card, letting it fall to the ground. Its descent was eerily linear.
When it touched down, the card sank through the ground as easily as a coin in a fountain, leaving no trace.
"The hell's that?!" the brawler demanded.
Erra winked at Marduk. Marduk's gut was the third thing to sink that afternoon.
Gate Cards soon splayed themselves out on the terrain between the two teams.
"Bakugan, brawl!" the rival brawler cried out, lobbing what Marduk soon made out to be a Haos Bakugan onto the field. It bounced a couple of times, halted, and unfurled with a burst of energy. A Hynoid emerged: a tan, wolf-like creature with longer, silver-furred accents. Segmented gold, silver, tan, and black armour covered its legs. Marduk owned one in Darkus, and knew the Bakugan trading community was still begging for people with their own to part with them.
It would be a joy to see a prized Bakugan like Hynoid fall in battle.
Marduk looked Erra's way with a wordless question. In return, she asked, "Mind if I go?"
Marduk shrugged.
Erra reached down for Aquos Charybdis, tossing it onto the Gate Card with a frenzied energy.
Marduk never got tired of seeing Charybdis in full form.
At a glance, it looked like a reasonably rare Wormquake, which was already a brawler's worst nightmare. But Charybdis's even larger size, stormy blue colouring, and seemingly infinite supply of eyes encircling its mouth set it apart from its lookalike. Anything with a long, eel-like body and equally limitless stock of teeth was a sight to behold. It reminded Marduk for the umpteenth time why he loved this game.
The brawler called out, "Gate Card, open!"
The giant card below both behemoths glowed yellow. Light snaked out of it and coiled around Hynoid's limbs in a gentle embrace, imbuing it with ethereal power.
Hynoid lunged first.
Charybdis wormed its way out of reach, then again, and again. Hynoid kept up, clawing at it in relentless pursuit.
When Hynoid finally landed a blow, the trembling shriek that Charybdis emitted reverberated through Marduk's body. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. The rush was intoxicating.
"Ability card, activate!" Erra exclaimed. "Torrential Tyrant!"
Charybdis was enveloped in its own vivid, cyan glow. It opened its gaping maw, matching light shining from within its throat. The light grew from a small dot in the center to an imposing presence waiting for the right moment to-
A stream of water burst out of Charybdis' mouth.
Hynoid was knocked back long before it could react. When the weaponized geyser died down, the Bakugan struggled to regain its footing, only to collapse from the strain.
Marduk told Erra, "Flawless as usual."
Erra's eyes met his. "Wait for it."
Marduk blinked.
When he faced the fallen Hynoid again, he couldn't blink again even when he tried.
Across the battlefield, above and behind Hynoid, was a hole.
Marduk watched, paralyzed, as the airborne fissure expanded, exposing a featureless realm of purple light and pitch black from its depths. He tried and failed to understand how that purple light didn't glow the way it should've.
Marduk could've swore the thing called to him.
The once serene battlefield air moved around Marduk and towards the rift. His hair danced wildly alongside Hynoid's fur in the ominous, artificial wind.
Then, like gravity had been hijacked, the Bakugan fell back and upwards.
It was only when Hynoid had been thoroughly swallowed that the spatial aberration closed. Like it had never been there.
Its owner screamed.
"What did you do?!"
Marduk regained control of his body long enough to face Erra.
"I sent your Bakugan away forever, and your other toys are next!" Erra cheered, a maniacal grin plastered to her face.
Marduk's jaw tightened. She'd done it. Erra had done what no Bakugan had done in ages.
She terrified him.
"Wh…?" Marduk didn't know what he was asking, so he stopped trying.
"Let's keep going!" Erra demanded. Still smiling. "Unless you're scared!"
Something inside Marduk made him take a vacation from being fully present. The rest of the brawl sailed by with him operating on autopilot and nothing more. With each fallen Bakugan, the void reappeared. Beckoning them. Refusing to take their owners' desperate "No's!" for an answer.
When Marduk's trademark show of strength faded along with the battlefield, their opponents stayed motionless for a long, long time.
Erra headed back in the direction of the fountain. The Doom Card had long since rematerialized in her hand along with the Field Card, and she pocketed it like it was nothing. Like death itself wasn't grazing her thigh.
A bystander approached the losing duo. "They get you, too?"
Marduk didn't stick around to hear how they could possibly explain to the stranger what just happened. He tailed after Erra, timidly at first, then with purpose.
When they reached the bike rack by the fountain, Marduk snapped. "What was that?"
Erra swiveled back around, as light on her feet as butterflies in flight.
"I met this guy with a mask like us! He was like, 'Do you want this cool card that'll help you beat people? It'll send losing Bakugan to the Doom Dimension,' and I was like, 'Hell yeah, that sounds dumb but rad!' And he just gave it to me with the only condition being that I, like, use it? Like, in general, but also against certain brawlers sometimes who I'd already wanna challenge anyway. Wasn't it cool?!"
Marduk took a step back and crossed his arms as if that would protect his gut from its own sickened state. "Yeah, it's cool, but that felt… I don't know, dirty? Where'd their Bakugan go, exactly?"
Erra shrugged. "Back to the digital void from whence they came? Who knows! Those two deserved it anyway. Remember the last brawl?"
Marduk didn't say anything.
"Is this gonna be a problem?" Erra questioned him, crossing her own arms to match Marduk. It felt like its own kind of attack, only one without physical contact or a flowery card name. "People suck! You know that, I know that, so let's keep them out of our scene. You can even try the Doom Card yourself and see how good it feels to really put them in their place."
Marduk unlocked his bike from the rack. "I don't… I need to think about it."
Erra breathed out an "okay?" in a tone that Marduk knew would, with absolute certainty, haunt him until the day he died. Still, she let him leave.
When Marduk reached the street, he pedaled as fast as he could back home. He decided he would never go back to that park again.
The notifications from Erra's messages stopped after a few days, giving way to a silence Marduk had never experienced before. He'd already known the silence of being alone; a dark, cold, and comforting thing. But this silence was loud and everywhere he went and Marduk couldn't breathe or think except when he thought too much and-
This was not a lonely silence. This was a silence of being known. Watched. Despised.
Was that what friendship was supposed to feel like?
Rarely, between sleepless nights, family, meetings with school staff about his absences and performance, and being crushed under the weight of reality itself in his bed, Marduk's thoughts were just lucid enough to process everything. To plan what he would do next.
As he sat on his usual chilling swing in the nearby park, stars infiltrating his vision, Marduk opened his BakuPod's chat client. In the conversation with Erra, he typed, Can we meet up?
Despite the midday sun bathing him in its rays, Marduk shivered, and the pre-winter cold wasn't entirely to blame.
Marduk leaned against the bridge's railing, his coat sleeves completely covering his hands. Nearly barren trees blocked his view, so he focused on the quaint stream running under the bridge instead. Leaves in various, resplendent stages of decomposition swirled around his feet.
Marduk debated leaving. But he stayed put.
The storm inside him stayed, too.
Footsteps snapped Marduk out of the closest thing he had to peace.
"I'm here."
Erra's pastel outfit lay dormant under her earthen coat, an eclipse in human form. She stared warily at him.
"You're here," Marduk replied, the cold creeping into his words, too.
Erra surveyed him for a generous moment. "Yeah. Haven't heard from you in a while."
Marduk could do nothing but nod.
"So," Erra blurted, "still debating whether I'm some... I dunno, like, evil demon?"
Marduk blinked away the exhaustion, hunger, and betrayal, then hardened his gaze. "You ripped people's Bakugan away from them like it was nothing."
"And?" Erra barked. "We deserve to win more than them, than any of those fake idiots. I have the power to play this game better than them, and I'm gonna use it. I thought as my tag team partner, my friend, you'd be happy about that."
Marduk's fingers flexed instinctively, threatening to turn into fists. "I was happy until you kept pressuring me to look like an asshole in brawls."
"I made you look like an asshole?" Erra countered, eyebrows furrowed. The waters cascaded softly below in tandem with the rustling of leaves. "You were already doing that look-at-my-Bakugan-army-and-weep crap before I even met you!"
Marduk's heart threatened to erupt out of his chest and turn into a second sun. "Not to ev-"
"You disappoint me," Erra interjected. "We hung out all this time. You got to know me. Only to turn out fake like everyone else. I actually thought you were cool!"
Marduk scowled. "I'm the fake one? You're just another power-tripping, stereotypical bully."
"Right back at you, hypocrite," Erra retorted. "Honestly, I should've expected nothing less from a Darkus brawler."
Marduk's Field Card found itself in his hands a split second later.
Erra scoffed. She reached lazily into her coat pocket, pulling out her own.
"You think you can beat someone in the top one hundred? Fine."
Marduk took a deep breath, mustered every ounce of courage and spite within him, and bellowed, "Field, Open!"
Marduk's Stinglash was the first to fall into the Doom Dimension.
Then it was Erra's Haos Monarus. Then Marduk's Mantris. Then Erra's Ventus Scylloid, an achievement that drained Marduk's face of what little colour it had to begin with.
Marduk held Serpenoid's sphere up, dread flowing out of him. He hoped Serpenoid couldn't feel it. He hoped, if the worst happened, Serpenoid couldn't feel anything.
Marduk looked up at Aquos Charybdis. Its gargantuan form blocking out parts of the sky. Its maw a Doom Dimension in its own right. It swayed and slithered and howled a deafening, horrible sound unlike anything Earth had come up with over billions of years.
Marduk stole a glance at Erra, who beamed with all the warmth of a snowstorm. A laugh without a laugh. A scathing comment without a scathing comment.
Marduk took a step back and aimed. He cried out with a fury that threatened to rival Charybdis'.
"Bakugan, brawl!"
The bridge stood dead under the sun's gaze. Marduk did the same.
Erra returned Charybdis, along with every other Bakugan she'd brought out in the end, back to her various holders and pockets. It only made Marduk's empty holder weigh that much heavier on him.
Erra took a Haos Bakugan out of her pocket, and flung it at Marduk's feet. It met his black, studded and leather-strapped shoes, and stopped.
"You can have your Mantris back. Never needed it, anyway."
Marduk lifted his head. He wished he'd worn his mask. Maybe then, he could've at least partially hid how broken he looked.
Erra sighed. "Welp. We had something nice between us. For a bit, at least."
As she turned around, she sang, "Don't bother challenging me again, Marduk. Goodbyyye!"
Marduk watched her go until she was a tiny speck in the distance.
Marduk parked his bike in the garage. The bombardment of questions and accusations from his mom were just white noise to him as he walked through the front door and made a beeline for his bedroom.
When Marduk closed his door behind him, he screamed.