Snowflakes kissed Marduk's cheek as the battlefield reverted to the school's field. The difference between the two sometimes seemed negligible.
"You only won 'cause of cheap tricks!" the freshman whined.
Marduk cackled through his panting, exhaling clouds of carbon dioxide and contempt. "Don't like, don't play!"
The boy marched off.
Marduk lingered. Dead grass and the ice that blanketed it crunched beneath his shifting weight. His global ranking may have been stagnating. He may have brawled substantially less for the past few months, and had to work harder to win the few brawls he did have. He may have been a tiny insect in a world too vast and horrifying to understand. But he was still the reviled emperor of the schoolyard, decay and hypothermia his throne.
It wasn't enough, but it was something.
When shivering got stale, Marduk trekked home. Winter meant no biking, and definitely no park escapades to unwind. Not unless he felt like being found dead from exposure by a 5-year old the morning after.
Marduk closed the front door behind him and prayed to nothingness the kitchen was unoccupied. His prayers went unheard as usual.
Marduk's sister activated her Insufferable Asshole ability card when he tried curing his rumbling stomach, so he waited until her shadow passed the crack under his bedroom door before slipping out and trying again. The stacks of dirty dishes from the rest of his family, filing the sink and lining every possible countertop, deterred him from cooking anything remotely decent.
Easy, nutritionally functional peanut butter sandwich in hand, he returned to his desk and picked up where he left off.
Unsurprisingly, searching "masked brawler" on the main Bakugan forum mostly turned up results about himself and Erra. Their tag team disbanding was the best news ever for a lot of brawlers. Some, who Marduk knew were not close with Erra, voiced their support for her "escaping Marduk's bad influence". It seemed vitriolic, presumptuous comments would be Marduk's online legacy until he died. Or a cataclysmic event wiped out the internet.
A part of Marduk begged the universe for an apocalypse.
Marduk quickly checked the leaderboards. Erra was still climbing the ranks on her own, albeit more slowly. Great. Awesome. Good for her.
A handful of threads on the forum mentioned a mysterious, lone, masked figure sending all their Bakugan to the Doom Dimension. Even fewer mentioned him offering the commenter or someone they knew a Doom card. One speculated it was Marduk behind it all…
Welp. That was enough internet for one lifetime.
It was only when Marduk closed his computer, shifting his gaze to the view outside, that he noticed the Bakugan on his windowsill.
"Hello," it said.
Marduk jumped to his feet. "What the f-"
"Do not be alarmed," it assured him with a gravelly, booming voice that was the opposite of assuring. "My name is Vladitor. I come seeking a partnership, human."
Marduk thought about bolting out of the room, realized how embarrassed he'd feel if he did that, and then tentatively approached the window.
The Darkus Bakugan ball before him was opened to reveal articulated limbs. Marduk assumed pretty easily its true form was a humanoid with its angular, boot-like feet, plated arms with closed fist decals on either side, and an obsidian helmet with bright red horns on top. An equally red, jewel-like marking lay flat on the Bakugan's chest.
Marduk wondered how much someone would pay for such a rare, cool-looking Bakugan.
"What are you do-... how did you get in my house?!"
"I stowed myself in your garment the day before. It is a noble, powerful vestment. You wear the colours of Darkus well."
Marduk looked down at his coat.
"...Thanks. I improved it a lot. Had to get a few things from the thrift store to get it how I wanted."
Vladitor paused. "What is…"
"It's a store where people get, like, used stuff. At low prices. But that's kinda not important right now. What is important is: how can you talk? You're a toy."
Vladitor levitated towards him because of course it could. (Not that that was any weirder than cards falling from the sky and balls turning into monsters.) "I am no toy, human."
Marduk resisted the urge to swat at the possessed figurine like he would a mosquito. "My name's Marduk."
"I am no toy, Marduk. I am a being of immense power, and I believe we could both benefit from an… alliance."
Marduk sat back in his desk chair, combing his bangs away from his face. "You want me to brawl with you," he said flatly.
"More precisely, I want you to help me rule all Bakugan."
Marduk took a second to process what he'd just heard, and then snickered. "Seriously?"
Vladitor landed on Marduk's desk, the orange glow from his lamp casting the Bakugan's shadow across the surface.
"I heard of your reputation from passing humans after I arrived on this planet, searching for a brawler worthy of battling alongside me. And today, I witnessed the truth of your reputation firsthand. You are the first human I have encountered with a distinctly Darkus look about you, and you have brawling prowess to match it."
Marduk reclined further into his chair, stared up at the yellowish-white ceiling, and grimaced. "I appreciate the interest and confidence and… whatever, but in case you haven't heard, I don't play much anymore."
Vladitor turned away for a second. "Let me prove my worth on the battlefield. I promise you will rediscover the thrill of the fight, and once you do, I will ensure you have a place at my side as we preside over every being across our dimensions. Bakugan, humans, they will all grovel at our feet."
Marduk ran a hand through his hair again, and went over his theories.
1) This was very much still a toy, one whose AI was programmed by its elusive creators to encourage top brawlers to keep playing. For some reason.
2) Bakugan were aliens, and he'd just been given a call to action or whatever that thing he'd half-heard about in English class was. One that could give him back his easy victories. His upward mobility in the brawling scene.
Plus, what teenager didn't want to rule the world?
"Alright," Marduk replied, looking Vladitor in what he assumed were its eyes. "Tomorrow. Show me what you've got."
Vladitor let out a hearty laugh, its whole body moving to it. "I will not disappoint, Marduk."
Marduk's eyes brightened ever so slightly.
"So, just to confirm, you're an alien? Uh, welcome to Earth, I guess?"
"I have been here for several of your world's light and dark cycles."
Marduk blinked. "Still. Let's get to know each other on a personal and species level. First contact and what not."
Vladitor made a pensive sound. "Very well. What would you like to know?"
"Uh, I guess first off… ok, do Bakugan have genders the way humans do? Like, you're a boy?"
"I am male, yes," Vladitor replied curtly.
Marduk nodded. "Cool. Another thing-"
So. Bakugan were aliens from another dimension.
As much as Marduk liked to believe they were just very, very advanced playthings using holograms and sensory tricks and stuff to work, the whole entering-a-battlefield-detached-from-reality thing kinda debunked that. Along with the obvious fact their strength had tangible effects. A gust of wind from a Ventus Bakugan knocking him off his feet. Water from an Aquos Bakugan drenching him. Subterra Bakugan making the ground quake.
Vladitor's strength was no different as he stampeded across Gate Cards, leaping into the air with more grace than his size suggested was possible, cleaving his enemies with his battle ax in one ferocious, thunderous strike.
His streak of easy victories may not have quelled Marduk's resentment for the game, nor every predator masquerading as a person who played it, but it still felt better than anything since Erra. Marduk climbed the leaderboard again, earning a spot in the top 100 and the ire of everyone he'd crushed to reach it. He was an unstoppable force of nature once more.
Life didn't completely suck.
When it truly sunk in that the game pieces brawlers pitted against one another were real, were alive, Marduk immediately asked Vladitor what the Doom Dimension was like.
He didn't like Vladitor's answer.
"I was banished there by the Legendary Soldiers as punishment for attempting to take over Vestroia," Vladitor told him. He opened up his ball form atop Marduk's computer, and stared off into space. The digital display below him, in tandem with the faint moonlight spilling in from the window, barely illuminated his features.
"l am one of the most powerful Bakugan to ever live," he continued with enough gravitas to really sell his eons upon eons of existence. "But in the end, even I succumbed to the Doom Dimension's noxious energy. It siphoned my life force, reducing me to nothing more than a petrified husk, my consciousness doomed to an eternity of staring through frozen eyes at a field of statues while it wasted away."
All Marduk could reply with was, "That… sucks."
Vladitor gave a full-bodied nod. "Indeed. If not for Vestroia shattering and raining down upon your world, I would not have been freed."
Marduk moved from his chair to his bed and collapsed onto it, trying to reconcile the weirdness of Vladitor's vernacular with the vision of his Serpenoid's cold, lifeless eyes.
That night, Marduk's restless gaze glued itself to his bedroom ceiling. He found sleep lost in a maze of hypotheticals.
Marduk shook the melted snow off the swing before sitting down on it.
"This reminds me of the stories I'd uncovered of Old Vestroia's diverse landscape," Vladitor spoke from his spot in the sand, murky, half-snowy puddles splattered around his miniature form. He dipped a foot into one, holding it there for a moment before stepping out. "Before the Soldiers split the dimension into six realms for each Attribute, long before the latest catastrophe that brought us to Earth. A once glorious world reduced to a shadow of its former self in an instant."
"So the coloured galaxies in the battlefield's sky are those split Attribute worlds?"
"Yes. The violet beauty, Darkus, was my home. It entertained me for a while, but it grew… tiresome."
Marduk swung absentmindedly, raking paths in the sand with his new boots after every descent. He related to an entire alien universe too much for comfort.
"Is there any way to, like, fix everything? Send all Bakugan and cards back where they came from, combine the Attribute spaces and stuff?"
"Perhaps once I regain my previous strength through our battles, once we surpass all others, I can mend what was broken. I can remake Vestroia in my own image to something more desirable."
Marduk stopped swinging. "I'll help you get there. I promise."
"Thank you," Vladitor said. He hovered up to Marduk. "For an Attributeless human child, you are surprisingly formidable. I underestimated your species when I first arrived, and did not imagine that my first ally in ages would be a puny creature from another dimension. But now, I cannot imagine doing this without you. You have my gratitude."
Marduk smiled a genuine smile for the first time in a while, though lack of practice had rendered it small. "Thanks, I try. You've helped me, too, you know. After Erra, I… you gave me something to wake up to. Something that wasn't the same shitty people every day. For a giant, ax murderer alien trapped in a ball, you're more human than anyone else I know."
Vladitor looked away from Marduk, then back at him. Both in ball and full form, Marduk usually couldn't tell if he was smiling (or if he even had the anatomy to smile). This time, he liked to think he could.
"Do you think…" Marduk trailed off. The streetlamps flickered to life. "Do you think it was, like… this is gonna sound stupid, but, uh, destiny? That we met. That we're kinda after the same thing? With all this talk of parallel dimensions and aliens that weirdly look like Earth life, it just feels… more possible than it did a while ago. Like humans and Bakugan are parallels, too."
Vladitor landed on Marduk's shoulder. "Convergent evolution of our worlds' species notwithstanding, no."
Marduk snorted as a cloud obscured the setting sun. "Yeah?"
Vladitor huffed. "Destiny did not guide me to the glories I unearthed in my quest to reign over my world. Destiny only smiled upon me cruelly when I faced defeat at the hands of those who opposed my glories. Destiny failed to find me a suitable partner until we met."
Vladitor returned to the sand to stand. "The reflections we see in one another are what we choose to see, what we discover as we grow closer, as we find meaning in chaos. Fate is not set in stone, it is sought out, fought for to the death. In a life controlled by circumstance, by those who choose to be obstacles in my path, I refuse to mistake the power I've acquired, the choices I made and their consequences, as inevitability. Neither should you."
…
Marduk sat there for an infinite, silent moment.
"Mommy! Freak!"
A boy circled the park fence, his mother tailing him.
"We don't call strangers freaks!" the mom called out. She stole a glance at Marduk, mouthed a sorry, then looked away.
Not out loud, at least, Marduk heard in his head. You'll learn that when you're older.
Marduk abandoned the swing and park altogether. Strolling back home, he couldn't figure out if Vladitor's words were comforting.
"Haha, that's what you deserve!"
Marduk caught Vladitor effortlessly. The crowd of students who'd willingly endangered themselves to watch the spectacle let out both cheers and curses in equal measure.
Brawlers and spectators alike closed the field, summer sun spilling onto them once more. Some of the bystanders went over to console their fuming friend, while the rest dispersed to enjoy the last day of classes.
Marduk wove through his classmates like a shark through a school of fish. All of them knew to give him a wide berth-
"That was really cool how you stood up to him," a voice suspiciously directed at Marduk interrupted his stride.
Marduk gave his very divided attention to the boy chatting him up in his peripheral. He recognized him from a few classes.
"Kinda wish I'd beaten you to it," the classmate added, laughing nervously. "Maybe once summer break's ov-"
"Don't think you're safe just 'cause you're sucking up to me."
His classmate winced. "I'm not-"
Marduk walked off towards the bike rack. With the school year behind him, he had a few lessons of his own to teach.
Lamp posts cast their gorgeously (according to Marduk) eerie glow over the grocery store parking lot.
"What? No big, bad, Bakugan army just to rub it in?" the former 91st best Bakugan player demanded through her laboured breaths. "I'm kinda disappointed I didn't get the full package."
Marduk adjusted his mask. Sweating was by far his least favourite part about pulverizing lesser brawlers.
"I stopped needing to prove I'm strong a long time ago," he shot back.
The brawler made an unimpressed sound that pierced Marduk's bubble of aloofness as easily as Vladitor's Dark Sphere Impact ability had pierced her Subterra Rattleoid's skull.
"You're kind of infamous in the brawling scene," she said.
Marduk didn't bother paying attention to her as he put his Field Card away. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Not a compliment."
Marduk glanced up this time, half-pretending to look insulted.
"Someone's gonna push you off the ladder when you're almost at the top," she drawled, picking her purse up from the concrete block behind her, "and the people you stepped on on your way up? They won't be there to catch you."
Marduk turned the sulk levels up to maximum exaggeration. If he hadn't absolutely hated the idea of getting on stage, he would've dominated his school's theater club.
Scenery chewing over, Marduk replied, "Sounds like a sore loser. We did what we came here to do. Move on. Thanks for the Bakugan Points."
The girl rolled her eyes and droned back with a stone cold tone, "Who hurt you?"
The brawler hopped on her bike, heading into the night under the glare of both the street lights and a bitter Marduk.
Vladitor broke out of his loose grip and unfurled. "Another well-earned victory."
Marduk shrugged, then sat down on one of the concrete barriers nearby. He finished the second half of his ready-to-eat sandwich (stolen food was the best kind of food), then pushed himself back up. "Let's go."
"Marduk."
Marduk's blood turned cold.
The voice came from everywhere at once. Deep. Unfamiliar. And fully aware of him.
The dark of night suddenly didn't feel as tame as it used to.
"Who… where are you?" Marduk growled to the icy incandescence of the parking lot.
The lot stood soundless.
Then, a few paces ahead, a white rectangle popped into existence.
Marduk's breath caught in his throat. The uniform, horizontal… thing stood at the height of a doorway, rotating in a way that felt malicious. It assaulted Marduk's retinas as it spun and spun and spun then slowed and sloowed and slooowed until, finally, it came to a rest.
From within the tear in reality, a figure stepped out.
"It's nice to finally meet you in the flesh," he spoke. The glowing, white card in his hand dimmed by the time he pocketed it. The portal closed behind the new arrival, letting Marduk determine how wary he should be.
The stranger's mask hid both eyes with its 2 upside-down, rounded triangles made from a reflective, opaque blue material. They left everywhere from his nose to his mouth clear. A jaggedly accented, red-and-black frame at the top of the mask divided it from the stranger's towering blond hair, which defied both conventional fashion sense and gravity.
Marduk inhaled sharply. "You're the guy who gave Erra the Doom Card."
The other masked boy's lips twitched into an uncanny smile. Marduk couldn't settle on a label for him, his brain switching between "alluring", "weird", and "unnerving" all at once.
"Guilty as charged," the stranger replied, stepping under a dead lamp post. Marduk could faintly make out a long, white coat adorned with a bunch of useless, buttoned flaps. Possibly less useless were the three asymmetrical belts around his muted, purple pants. "You may call me Masquerade."
Marduk forced himself to cackle through the tightness in his chest. "Wow, what an original nickname. Did you pick it yourself?"
"Says the kid who named himself after a Mesopotamian god," Masquerade retorted. "I know your mom didn't pick that gem for you. She was too busy planning your lifetime of misery, I'm sure."
A car zoomed by on the street further down. The stretched tension snapped back into place.
"You know nothing about me," Marduk snarled.
"Oh, but you're wrong."
Masquerade gestured to him with a lazily raised hand. Red-and-black striped fingerless gloves slash wrist warmers stopped just short of both his elbows, and a purple BakuPod was attached to his wrist. Given a different first impression, Marduk would've been inclined to ask where he could get his own pair. "I do a thorough background check on those who… interest me."
Vladitor, floating in place, glanced back at Marduk briefly. "What is that supposed to mean, human boy?" he asked.
"Ah, Vladitor, right? Bold of you to assume I'm human. And a boy."
"I will smite you all the same if you hurt him."
Good guardian Bakugan, Marduk thought. You deserve a treat.
Masquerade assessed Vladitor, then hummed. "Not in that form, you won't, but I digress. I humble myself before you both to ask for your cooperation in a brawling-related matter."
"My alliance quota's full," Marduk hissed. "And I don't do tag teams anymore. Kinda thanks to you, actually."
Masquerade leaned against the dead lamp post next to him, crossing his arms. "No tag teams required. You'd simply do what you're best at. Well, one of the best at."
Marduk eased his clenched fists. "Yeah? Who's the lucky victim?"
Masquerade tapped out a few commands on his BakuPod. Marduk's own BakuPod beeped.
"There's more than one," Masquerade finally spoke as Marduk tapped on the brawler profile linked in the anonymous message. "Consider the first a test before the real target."
Marduk eyed the ranking next to the boy's profile picture. It was higher than his. Much higher.
"Didn't know you had that much confidence in me," Marduk taunted, pacing back and forth.
"Vladitor has helped you reach the top 100 in almost no time at all," Masquerade explained, abandoning the lamp post and lowering his arms. "If my theory's correct, and it's always correct, you'll be more than capable of taking him down."
"On that, we can agree," Vladitor spoke, hovering over to Marduk. "Though I question your intentions. Why proposition us? Are you not strong enough to challenge them yourself?"
Masquerade gave Vladitor a look that Marduk knew from experience included a raised eyebrow hidden under his mask. "I'm a busy man. Don't mistake convenience for desperation."
Marduk may not have known Masquerade's motives, but he did know the word "man" didn't apply to him yet. Deep voice notwithstanding.
"Sure," Marduk sneered, coming to a halt and bringing a hand to his hip. "What I'm more curious about is why you think I'd ever want to help you?"
Masquerade tilted his head like an animal hearing a frequency only it could pick up on. "Think of it less like you helping me, and more like me giving you your best shot at getting what you want. Crushing every last insect that calls itself a brawler or a Bakugan. Holding power beyond most sapient beings' wildest dreams. Speaking of-"
Masquerade pulled out a card from his coat pocket and threw it at Marduk's feet with expert precision.
The skull print's haunting, red eyes bore a hole through Marduk's soul.
Vladitor gasped. All the time they'd spent together, Marduk couldn't remember him ever making a sound like that.
"A fragment of…" he murmured. "How could… its power is… enthralling."
Marduk stared at the Doom Card longer than he'd have liked, then picked it up gingerly. It felt just like every other card, which somehow registered as worse than if it hadn't.
"I don't need your handouts to beat people," he grumbled, still transfixed on it. All the things he left unsaid swarmed inside his stomach like a bunch of very angry Pyrus Monaruses.
Masquerade shrugged. "I don't care how you beat the opposition, but the option's always there. Along with this."
Masquerade pulled out another card, this time one that looked like a regular Field Card from a distance. It looked no different up close when Masquerade flashed towards him and handed it over.
Marduk recoiled, then steeled himself.
Vladitor kept floating in a begrudging stasis. Marduk could only imagine his sense of powerlessness, being stuck in a barely mobile marble. At the very least, he was still a choking hazard to toddlers. And maybe Masquerade, too, if he played his cards wrong.
"You can go anywhere you've seen, even places you've never been," Masquerade told him, still smiling his pursed lip smile. "Helps with tracking down targets. Again, just an option."
Marduk locked eyes with his reflection in Masquerade's mask. For some reason, he had an unfounded suspicion it was more than a stylistic choice.
"So. You in?" Masquerade asked, voice smooth as glass. He took a step back, letting Marduk breathe with some semblance of ease.
Marduk looked to Vladitor.
"It seems our goals align," Vladitor spoke gruffly. "For now. And if that changes, you will not pose a threat."
Masquerade nodded in amusement. To Marduk, he asked, "And you?"
Marduk pocketed the Doom Card and what he dubbed the Teleportation Card, which was… honestly, it was absurd, thinking of those two words mashed together in any serious capacity. But absurdity had been Marduk's norm for so long that he just rolled with it. He now had a gateway to a world of death and a personal wormhole at his fingertips. It felt borderline criminal.
"If brawling's all you want from me, then no problem."
"Glad to hear it. I'll stay in touch."
Masquerade sauntered away. He pulled out his Teleportation Card, which shined white under his silent command. The blinding portal reappeared.
"One more question."
Masquerade looked past his shoulder.
"Why now?" Marduk demanded, the calm and collected persona he'd rehearsed for so long passing out halfway between the "why" and "now". "You must've known about me when you gave Erra the same offer. Why didn't you ask me then?"
Masquerade faced the portal again, his hazy silhouette framed against the frigid light. "You have some new qualifications you didn't have back then. Vladitor, a spot in the top one hundred, and… well, you weren't as suitable for the role. Now, you are."
Before Marduk could properly phrase the dozens of new questions floating in his head, Masquerade stepped through the portal and disappeared along with it.
Marduk checked his BakuPod. Masquerade's message was gone, leaving behind the opened brawler profile for "Dan".
Marduk sucked in a breath, then walked through the portal he'd conjured in front of his bedroom door. The beach welcomed him on the other side.
Vladitor leaped off his shoulder.
"It is idyllic," he proclaimed to the rolling waves and rocky shore. "Could do with a touch more Darkus, though,"
"Oh yeah," Marduk chimed, tilting his head back and squinting into the painfully bright cyan canvas overhead. "If you ever get strong enough to redo the sky, please make the sun less horrible."
"Will do," Vladitor chuckled.
They lingered there just long enough before being outside of both their elements bothered them too much.
Marduk stepped out next onto the tallest building in the city. He basked in the feeling of being on top of the world, the cityscape stretching towards horizons far beyond his shitty little corner of it.
Then he peered over the edge.
Marduk promptly decided he'd only be on top of the world from ground level in the future.
Destination 3 saw Marduk grabbing armfuls of non-perishable food from the closed grocery store's aisles.
"I will never not find it odd how you humans require matter for sustenance," Vladitor commented from the carpeted bedroom floor as Marduk stored his loot inside his closet. "Storing surrounding Attribute energy or that which is gained from other Bakugan is much more efficient."
"That does sound pretty sweet," Marduk sighed longingly, closing the closet door and shifting around to sit against it. "Stealing life from others, especially. Humans suck. Being human sucks."
"I can only imagine," Vladitor mused. "Though perhaps if you did not lack sustenance in your home, among other things, you would feel differently."
Marduk nodded without a word.
When sunset settled in, Marduk resolved to just get it over with.
Vladitor's G-power had increased faster than any other Bakugan Marduk used. He clung to that knowledge as they teleported to the backyard of the house. A house he wished he got to see in person under better conditions.
Beholding the modern, well-maintained exterior, its thriving garden of daisies standing serene off to the side, unlocked a dormant anger in Marduk.
When Erra came out through the back door on the hour and spotted him, that anger woke up in full.
"What are you doing here?" Erra barked, dropping the bookmarked novel and reading light in her hands, stomping down the steps onto the grass. Marduk recognized her black and yellow, floral-patterned T-shirt, her faded, blue jean shorts. He stifled his nostalgia. "How'd you even, like, get here?"
Marduk held up his Teleportation Card.
"Oh please, you wanna lose ag-?"
Marduk vanished into a spinning portal, then reappeared behind her.
"I won't be the one losing," Marduk whispered.
Erra jolted into a full 180 degree spin. Marduk felt better already.
"H-how…?" Erra stammered.
Marduk shoved both hands into his coat pockets. "I ran into your friend, Masquerade. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot you don't have any friends. Not real ones, anyway."
Erra gawked at him.
"I bet he didn't give you this neat trick," he mocked. "Makes you wonder what I have that you don't."
"You… ha, you just keep proving how right I was to cut you out of my life," Erra spat, the dying day engulfing her in an orange aura. Even now, she somehow found a way to sound chipper.
"I believe I broke up with you," Marduk cut her off with a smirk. "When you chose self-righteousness over human decency. Just like every other idiot on the planet you think you're so above."
Erra brought a hand to her pearlescent waist pack. From it, she drew a Field Card.
"I'm still ranked higher than you, Darkus Double Standard."
Marduk pulled out his own Field Card, his heartbeat shaking his core with all the power of a heavy metal band. "That'll make this even sweeter."
Erra put as much distance between them as the yard would allow. Marduk did the same.
The thin, red band on the horizon gave way to bluish-purple twilight as the two cried out for the last time to one another, "Field, open!"
When they hit the battlefield, Marduk uttered a single, euphoric phrase, devoid of any shits given.
"Doom Card, set!"
Marduk lost one Bakugan, his Hynoid, to the beckoning void. It almost felt like a pyrrhic victory. Almost.
Erra looked on, dumbfounded, at the empty space where Charybdis used to be. She failed to catch her Gate Card when it miniaturized and fell before her.
Prying herself out of her inner turmoil, Erra grunted, "Get your overcompensation over with. I don't even care at this point."
Marduk's arms stayed firmly by his side.
Erra's expression could've extinguished vampires. "For fuck's sake, just put me out of m-"
Vladitor's shadow washed over Erra. Erra gaped at him.
For the first time all brawl, the Bakugan spoke.
"If there is a Doom Dimension for humans who think they are gods, I... will... send you there."
Erra's eyes widened, and Marduk knew, with certainty, that she felt the same fear he did that day at the bridge.
As Vladitor's ax descended on a shrieking Erra, Marduk smiled.
"I still think you should have let me kill her," Vladitor moaned from Marduk's pocket.
Rain drizzled down on them, not enough to even mildly drench Marduk's tailcoat. Dark spots where droplets had landed in the sand painted the park in a poetic, pinprick pattern.
Both stars and false vacuums alike watched from above without a care as Marduk scooped toy shovelful after toy shovelful of sand from the hole he made. When he reached the strange, fabric bedrock beneath the sea of grains, Marduk pulled out his Doom Card. Then Erra's.
He dropped the cards in with zero grace, filled the hole back up as compactly as possible, and teleported home.