Crimson snarled as he threw the scotch bottle across the room and into the fireplace, the flames at once rising up as more fuel was given to them.

"Fucking asswipes!" he roared in frustration. "They think they can threaten me? ME!?"

His current lot of stooges, made up of shark-like demons and shifty imps, wisely backed away from him as he continued to rant. The dead messenger on the ground, a pathetic Sinner Demon who had thought that they could talk back to him just because he'd been born on fucking Earth, was enough proof that it was best to stay quiet and let Crimson bleed out his anger before daring to speak.

"We have been planning this move for weeks now… our way of showing that no one… fucking no one… runs things like I do…" He began to pace, reaching up and straightening his suit jacket.

Things had not been going well for him ever since the botched kidnapping of Fizzirolli.

The stupid fucking clown was supposed to be his magna opus. The thing that told every other piece of shit in Hell, not just the Greed Ring, that he was the one they should fear. He had not only taken from a Prince but he had forced him to back down and live with the knowledge that he had been beaten. The contract had been a stroke of genius, for it turned a crime into a tidy little business deal. Crimson would have the lion's share of the rooster's fucking profit rolling into his bank account and he'd have to allow it to happen with a fucking smile on each one of his cock skull sucking heads. Crimson would have a legit empire that would then, in turn, fuel his criminal empire.

And oh… he had PLANS.

Striker on his payroll in full and paid to keep his fucking mouth shut and to stop complaining about anything and everything. Assassins hired to take out his competition and allow him to more easily roll in. A few down on their luck Overlords selling their souls to him; not in the way that Sinner Demons did it but with paper and ink that would still bind them right to Crimson and make them the perfect parts of his organization. New members for his inner crew because the current ones weren't fit to clean his shoes and also managed to fuck up cleaning his shoes.

Most of all though… he had plans for that waste of cum that was his boy.

'Little fucker thought he could fuck up MY plans? Heheh… I always warned him not to get attached to anything.' That had been Moxie's mistake: he'd let Crimson know he cared about things. That cock sucking boss of his. The mangy hellhound mutt. And the little wifey. Oh… that had been Moxie's biggest mistake. Letting Crimson know about the precious little wife was a MASSIVE fucking error and he was going to make sure that his boy spent the rest of his days regretting it.

Killing her would have been too easy. No… Crimson had other plans. He knew she was a farm girl so he'd first buy up her family farm after they had a bad season or two. Seasons turned rotten thanks to him, of course. Any other attempt at them trying to get ahead would fail so that she was utterly desperate to save them when Crimson rolled in with what one Sinner Demon had told him was an "Indecent Proposal". Moxie's little wifey would get her family farm back if she spent one night with him. That was it. One night.

Of course, Crimson would make it a night she'd never forget. He already had some of Valentino's Love Potion on hand and he was sure that if he passed it to some of the brainiacs that were always looking to experiment with things they could make it even more potent. Increase her sensitivity so that even the lightest touch had her gushing. Give her the greatest night of her life so that any time spent with Moxie would be painful. Make her addicted to Crimson so eventually she crawled back to him. Smirk as his pathetic brat saw his wife happily reduce herself to a cum-drunk whore all for a chance to be with him again, with Crimson being kind and paying for a single romp for his boy…

But none of that fucking mattered if he didn't have the cash to do any of it!

The fucking clown Moxie worked for had fucked up the kidnapping and Crimson had been forced to delay any vengeance on that ball gurgling bitch because he had too many of his goons looking for their money which Crimson didn't have. He'd handled it like he always did, by brutally killing any that got too uppity, but it had been a waste of time and cost him a lot of his crew. That had forced him to go back to the drawing board and he'd finally… FINALLY… come up with a new plan.

The Fallen Slums were where all the new Sinner Demons arrived when they ended up in Hell and those fuckers had no idea what Hell was actually liked. His talks with a few of the newly arrived Sinner Demons, dragged before him by his men whimpering and trembling, had let him know just what they expected. The way to get a new and powerful team together was by nabbing the Sinner Demons as they showed up and getting them to sign their existence over to him. And to do that he needed a base in the Fallen Slums, so he could be ready when a Sinner slammed down to Hell.

And now the building he had been planning just for that had been taken over by some fucking new arrivals that didn't have the decency to find a ditch to die in?

Crimson took several slow breaths.

"Get everyone gathered up," he told one of his men. "I don't care what else they were doing. What plans they had or schemes they were working on. Everything is dropped… now. Get them all here and then we are going to get every gun we have. See what we have in terms of Angelic Steel… no, you fuckers aren't getting any, that's just for me. I barely trust you with Hell Steel. We get Angelic Steel and we do something big and showy."

"And… what's that boss?" one of his goons asked.

"We are gonna have a good ol' fashion public execution," Crimson said with a dark grin.

~MC~MC~MC~

"Sorry luv… ya tried, ya failed, ya done." Velvette smirked as she gathered up her cards and took the ticket from the fuming Sinner Demon she'd just beaten. He had droned on and on about how he was going to win because HE had played the card game before he had died and only gotten better in Hell. If that was true he must have been shit on Earth because he barely qualified as crap in Hell. She had taken him out rather quickly, and he was left sitting at the table just gawking at his cards, wondering how it had gone all wrong.

Velvette shook her head; it wasn't even entertaining to mock him, he was so pathetic.

'People don't get there is an art form ta takin' the piss out of someone,' she thought to herself as she began to roam around the ballroom, looking to see if there was anyone else she wanted to target. No one knew how long the current round would be so it was important that she build up her tickets so she moved on… but it was also important that she not rush into things. Would do no good if she tackled someone that was too powerful and ended up backsliding. 'Need ta find the right mix of deservin' it and patheticness in order for ya ta truly win.' Velvette wasn't some keyboard jockey who screamed 'Gay!' every time someone said something she didn't like. Never mind that she was bi as fuckin' sunshine it was just lazy. No… there was an art to destroying someone and you needed the right partner.

Kinda like duel monsters.

'Maybe that's why the game has exploded like it has,' she thought to herself as she paused to watch a hellhound taking on some bitch with an iron for a face and dripping water all over even though her clothing was completely dry. The Hellhound was fucking HUGE, nearly as big as Zeezi though not as wildly dressed as the Overlord. She was also a rather skilled duelist as she was quickly countering everything that the Sinner Demon, who was running some kind of cutsey robot deck made up of household appliances (because why not just go with a cliché?), was trying to throw out. 'Hell is all about knowing when to make your move.'

Velvette knew what others thought of her. That they saw her as a wunderkind who stumbled into success… or that she was some stupid brat that claimed she did all her own work when it was really Vox who ran things. But that wasn't the case at all. Yes, she had decided to get close to Vox and Valentino because they were rising up in power and she knew even though she was a grown woman she looked like loli bait in a place filled with pedos. But she had also worked very hard to build her brand… and still did. She might be able to be a bit more daring than she had been in the past but she still had to select her targets carefully and with thought, less she attract too much attention to herself and get smacked down. It was one think to mock Camilla Carmine… it was another to go insulting an Ars Goetia or one of the Princes.

'And it's the same with Duel Monsters. Knowing when to play defense, when to risk going on the attack, when its wise to demand a duel and when its better to walk away. Duel Monsters is just Hell's constant political games dolled up with images of fictional monsters… rather than the real ones.'

She glanced over and spotted someone who was currently playing the political game AND duel monsters at that moment.

"How's he doin'?" Velvette asked another Sinner Demon, this one that clearly had been killed in a rockslide if the mangled climbing gear that was embedded in their flesh was any clue.

"Oh!" the Sinner demon said in shock, staring at her in awe. "You… you're Velvette!"

"Am I?" she said with a teasing smile. "I kid, I kid, of course I'm Velvette, luv. Now tell me how things are goin' here?"

"Um… well…" the Demon swallowed nervously. "Lyle, that's the tall guy, he's summoned this VW Tiger Jet thing while Edwin Cerberus has out his twin headed dragon except it doesn't actually have two heads. If that makes sense?"

"Oh, it does, it does," Velvette said before taking out her phone and turning her back to the duel before she switched to Selfie mode. "Hey bitches!" she said as she hit record. "Just here at the Hellfire Gala… ya, I bet you're jealous as shit and wish you could be here! But don't worry, I plan ta keep ya informed and ya can always watch it over on Vox Sports!" She flashed a bowfinger. "For all my haters hopin' I'd be drummed out early I'm afraid you'll have to wallow in misery for a bit more because I just won my first duel! Now I'm watchin' Edwin Cerberus take on… well, I don't know who the fuck he is but we'll see if I should learn his fucking name soon enough!"

When she turned back to the duel though she found that Edwin was just glancing at her, a single eyebrow raised. She smirked and gestured at her phone.

"Just buildin' up your rep, luv."

"Sometimes its better to let someone else build something… especially when they have the bullprints." But the smirk he wore took any insult that might have been in his words away and she merely shrug her shoulders.

"Then I'm using you to continue building myself up."

"That sounds more likely."

"Can we focus on the duel?" his opponent said. "After all, I am about ready to utterly destroy you." Edwin merely waved his hand dismissively. "Now then, I will equip my Heavy Mech Support Armor to my VW Tiger Jet." He laid down the card which was… well, honestly it was as boring of a monster card as one could summon. Just a red, gray, and white block of a thing. That was it. Didn't even have guns on it. "And… I end… my turn." He tried to say it with sinister intent but all malice was lost when he was just ending his turn.

"Oh man, maybe I should lay my hand down on my deck after that brilliant move," Edwin jested and Velvette snickered at that.

"You very much should!" his foe said, not getting at all that Edwin was being sarcastic. "My VW Tiger Jet is just one of the MANY deadly machines I have in my deck! To face it down is to have a taste of what is to come… and perhaps it is far too rich for the likes of you." He laughed at that, a high pitched demented sound even for Hell and it had Velvette wondering just who the fuck had invited his demented ass to their tournament.

Edwin though merely drew his next card instead. "Let's see what happens here… I will shift my Mementolan Horn back into attack mode-"

"And I will shift if back into defense mode by discarding this card!" his foe said. Edwin though merely nodded and ended his turn.

"This is gonna get real fuckin' boring if you two just keep passin' back and forth," Velvette complained. "People want action and excitement and sudden twists! Not… prolonged bullshit!" She turned to walk away from them, ready to apologize to her fans for wasting their time, only for Edwin to speak up.

"I pity you if that's what your sex life has taught you."

"…wot?" Velvette said, freezing up.

"All those Two Pump Chumps you've dealt with have really failed to teach you how to do things properly, haven't they? Not shown you that sometimes it all about teasing things out, prolonging and keeping the other person on the edge of their seat…" He slowly began to stroke the top of one of his cards and Velvette was sure she wasn't the only one that was staring at his fingers and wondering what else they could stroke, "…until you suddenly go in for the grand finale."

"Heh, you think I don't know that," Velvette complained. She took a step back towards him and leaned in a taunting smile on her face. "I'm one of the Vees. That means I get only the best to feed my hunger. Whatever I want, I get. And they know how to get it to me right away. Keep tellin' yourself you are some gift ta demons… all I see is a slow ass duel."

But Edwin merely raised an eyebrow before going back to his cards, his foe whispering to his husband or whoever the fuck the short ball guy next to him was.

"Fucker don't know what he's talkin' about," she muttered only to glance down at her phone and see that the post about her watching his duel was now filled with all sorts of emojis, most of them using variations of eggplants and sprits of water. She scoffed and looked back up at Edwin and said, just before his opponent could speak, "You know whose my partner? Valentino. Every naughty film you've ever seen has come from his studio. I have my pick and choose of all his workers… the best of the best."

"The best," Edwin commented slowly, still refusing to look at her. "The ones that fake it for a living and fill everyone's heads with the lies about what sex is really like?" He looked up but not at Velvette but rather his opponent. "You're move, Lyle."

"Yes… of course!" newly named Lyle said. "I will summon my Y Dragon Head!"

Velvette looked at the card, not quite sure what it was called Y Dragon Head. Oh, it was a dragon… and it naturally had a head… but the image of the robotic red dragon just looked like, well, a red dragon robot. Nothing with the letter Y or anything about its head to truly stand out. So at once she focused more on Edwin and his insults, barely registering that there was a camera drone hovering near by; Vox clearly wanting to capture the two of them verbally sparring.

"They fuck for a livin', luv."

"They fake fucking for a living," Edwin counter. "Be it with a client or on film. Act like literally every single action is the most orgasmic thing in the world. That someone stroking a single nipple is equal to a full on squirt. That their feet or their hands or whatever else are suddenly the most sensitive zones on their bodies. That a 5 minute fuck that is a constant pounding can instantly make someone explode." He scoffed. "Maybe some men are like that but in reality it is stop and go, pause and start, finding that perfect rhythm and then stopping it purely because you want to see what happens if you switch it up."

"He does have a point," a new voice said and Velvette turned to tell the fucker off for interrupting them only for her eyes to go wide when fucking Asmodeus moved to stand beside her. She quickly recovered and shamelessly moved in to grab a selfie of the two of them, Asmodeus just standing there though and not posing… because he was focused on Edwin. "So many people don't understand what it truly means to engage in carnal pleasures. They've seen too much of the fake stuff and don't realize the power of the true!" He balled his hands up into fists and closed his eyes. "It ain't a race… is a marathon. Filled with truth."

"And sometimes it a really if you trust your partners!" Asmodeus' partner Fizzirolli declared, popping up on the Prince's shoulder. "Hey Edwin, how's the duel?"

"Pretty good," Edwin said and Velvette's mind raced that Edwin Cerberus was friends with a Prince. She knew he had connections to Stolas of the Ars Goetia but a prince?! Why the fuck hadn't she been told that? Unless no one else knew and she'd just broken that gossip… in which case fuck ya, go her! "Getting distracted out of mourning for Velvette's sad sex life."

"It ain't sad ya limp dick staller," Velvette snapped.

Edwin got the most cocky and condescending smile on his face. "Isn't it?"

"I for one never much cared for sex," Lyle commented. "Such an icky affair. Now, if it were clean and smooth like the joining to two machines…" he took out his deck. "For example, like me using my Field Spell to take out my Z Metal Tank and equip it to my Y Head Dragon?" He laid the new card, a yellow machine with a single eye and two heavy but armored yellow treads on either side. "That would be different! Behold my YZ- Tank Dragon! And I will now equip another Heavy Mech Support Armor but this time to my YZ Tank Dragon!" He leaned over the table and said menacingly to Edwin, "This is the end of the duel."

Edwin stared at him before slowly looking at Velvette. "And yeah, it might be nice sometimes to be with a whore but it will never be as fun as a willing partner, one that wants to explore with you. What's the use if they blow their load and then leave you cold and sticky on the bed while they go on to the next poor sap?"

"He's right," Admodeus commented.

"Pay attention to this duel!" Lyle screeched. "I now discard my final card to use my YZ Tank Dragon's special effect, which allows me to destroy the Mementolan Horn that was serving as the only protection for your lifepoints! And now I attack directly for the win! I move on, you are done, tremble in terror!" He threw back his head and laughed.

Edwin… slowly reached towards his graveyard.

"And with that… you seal your doom."

"…I'm sorry, what?"

"This deck… is a very special deck." He tapped his cards. "Each monster is one that was left behind, forgotten, abandoned by others as people went after stronger or more interesting cards. They were the rejects and the failures. But… they weren't meant to be left behind forever. They were found by another… one who saw their potential and transformed them into creatures that could help it show off its true might."

His eyes flashed and the only sound, beside his voice, was the notification alarm of Velvette' phone and people reacted to the Live Stream.

"When you destroyed Mementolan Horn you made it that I had five Memento Cards in my graveyard." He began to pull them out: a small fairy, a bone dragon, a furball, a goblin, a sea horse. "And by returning these cards to my deck I can us summon the monster that I sent to my graveyard my first turm with Foolish Burial: The Lord of the Forgotten." He slowly stood up and pulled out the final card from his graveyard. "I summon forth Mementoal Tecuhtlica- Combined Creation."

The drones flew in to get a better shot of the card. Velvette didn't blame them, for Cecelia had gone all out with the artwork. It was a great towering bone dragon covered in different bones, with its arms being the neck and skull bones of other long dead monsters. Fitted all over its body were different crystals and it was depicted in roaring out to the world its existence.

It was also FAR more powerful than any card on Lyle's side of the field.

"And now you have discarded the final card from your hand, meaning you have no way to stop me from attacking once my turn begins." The dark grin on hislips nearly split his face apart. "That's the problem with talking shit… sometimes it comes flying riiiiight back at you."

But Lyle huffed at that. "And you shouldn't believe that things are over just because you claim they are! You can only attack one of my monsters, not both! And thanks to my Heavy Mech Support equips none of them will be destroyed as the Supports will take the blows instead. Next turn I will draw again and I will be able to deal with that collection of bones that looks like some pot smoking Art Student's failed Mid Term Project."

"True… if my Mementoal Tecuhtlica- Combined Creation couldn't also attack every monster on your side of the field." Edwin gathered up his cards as the small Life Point reader on the table trickled down to zero on Lyle's side (Lyle-0000)

"I… wait, what?" Lyle said, looking at the field and trying to figure out just what had happened.

"Admittedly it would have been far more entertaining if we were using holograms but…" He shrugged his shoulders before reaching over and smoothly drawing Lyle's ticket over to him. "Thanks." He turned to Asmodeus. "How are you two doing?"

"Well, I'm not dueling," Asmodeus said. "But Froggy here has already won his first duel."

"Nice," Edwin said only to blink when Velvette grabbed him by the arm. "Uh… if you want a duel-" he said, ripping his arm away from her.

But Velvette grabbed at him again, this time catching his hand and holding it. "Listen here, you don't get to talk a big fucking game and then not prove you can back it up. This place has private rooms; I fucking just checked. You and I are gonna have some fun before the next round."

"I don't think there will be enough time for that…" Edwin said but Velvette, determined to prove to him that she had a FAR more satisfying sex life than him, merely continued to tug at his hand. "Hey!" Edwin roared and she twisted around to see his hair burning and eyes glowing. "No means fucking no."

"You really turnin' down a chance ta be with me?" She scoffed at that. "Then you are a fool."

"I'm turning down you distracting me so I don't move on in this tournament," Edwin declared. "Afterwards? Sure, I might be game for a tumble but we do it fucking right."

"And how is that? We get a hotel room?"

"Dinner, maybe a movie or a play, walk along someplace where I don't have to worry about being mugged, and then we see."

"Heh, ya wanna feed me before ya fuck me? Works for me."

"Then it's a date!"

And with that Edwin stormed off.

"Yeah, it fuckin' is!" Velvette smirked… before looking down at her phone to see Sinnergram blowing up with people squealing about "Velvette and Edwin Cerberus dating". "Wait, wot?" she said in confusion. "We ain't goin' on a fuckin' date!"

"I think that's what you just agreed to," Asmodeus said smoothly.

Velvette replayed what had just happened and realize… yes… yes, she had just agreed to go out on a date with Edwin.

She… had never been on a date before.

Back when she was alive it had been dealing with her prudish fucking parents and then she'd died before she really got to date heavily. And in Hell it was all just quick and fast flings. Scratching the itch and moving on.

But this was… a date. A date date. Like… what people did that weren't just looking for a cheap fast thrill.

Velvette smacked her lips together and forced herself to smile and swagger through the ballroom… even though she suddenly felt very nervous.

~MC~MC~MC~

Ishizu let out a sigh of relief as she pulled back the last stone and stared at the cask of water. She wanted to rush it and rip the lid off and dunk her head inside but her iron will slammed down and made her act rationally. This water was precious and needed to be treated as such. Thus she slowly picked up the nozzle she had selected and placed it in the right spot, forcing her hand to stay steady as she gripped the hammer with her other hand.

'I need to do this right,' she thought to herself, weighing the tool. 'Every strike will be water wasted.' This was something her Millennium Necklace couldn't truly help her with. She saw a thousand different futures. Ones where she drove the nozzle in with a single stroke, sealing it into the barrel and allowing her to pour out the water without a single drop lost. Others where it took several hits and the precious water dripped and ran down to the floor before she was able to hammer it in cleanly. Horrible ones where her strike was crooked and it leaked the entire time, so that every moment she stood there the constant drip-drip-drip of the life blood of the Nile taunted her. One particularly nasty one showed her hitting a seam and causing the cask to shatter, spraying her with water before it all gushed out on the stone and Ishizu, in her desperation in that vision, dropped to her hands and knees and licked at the floor like a dog.

There was nothing the Necklace could do to help her. Because it all rested on her physical strength.

Strength that was rapidly leaving her.

She's been trapped in the tombs for what felt like a week but it was hard to tell. She didn't dare leave and check to see what the skies were like, lest the moon be out and she be spotted. But she'd made the mistake, in her grief, of staying too long trying to look for the books and scrolls and eventually realized that she'd drunk too much water to ever hope to cross the desert in the middle of the day. Thus why she had gone after the cask… she needed to refill her canteens if she had any hope of leaving.

'It will be a very difficult journey,' she thought to herself bitterly, looking down at her bare feet. There had been no food in the tombs and she'd been forced to use the last of her water last night to boil the leather of her boots. It had tasted horrible but it had given her SOMETHING to eat but now she would have to try and wrap her feet in cloth before setting out. 'I will need extra water in case it takes me longer to get back to civilization.'

And what she would do after that point…

She shook her head. She could focus on that later.

'Except that is the entire point, isn't it?' a voice whispered in her head. It was filled with doubt and questions, things she hadn't felt for quite a long time. Perhaps not since the Millennium Necklace? 'Zorc every day hammers upon his prison within the Millennium Puzzle and now because of you there is not power that can stop him. The Pharaoh's memories will remain locked away and he will not be able to defeat him without knowing what to do…'

Ishizu frowned at that and lifted the hammer once more. She would deal with that-

"Well… what do we have here?"

She whipped around and stared at the figure. Bald, lightly tanned skin. Wearing a suit and sunglasses.

Carrying a large nasty looking gun.

Ishizu cursed her loss of focus and moved to hurl the hammer at his head only for the man to fire. She felt herself struck but it wasn't a bullet that hit her. No… no it was something else. The gun had been far too quiet, for one thing. She reached over and felt a dart-like object now sticking out of her neck and moved to pull it out only for her body to collapse bonelessly to the floor.

The figure smirked and Ishizu tried to move as he approached but her body refused to move at all. 'Some kind of muscle relaxer,' she realized. 'I… I need to…' she struggled but her body betrayed her, refusing to move or respond. So, as she had always done… Ishizu called upon the Millennium Necklace.

And what she saw horrified her.

The man before her appeared throughout history. A thousand times. Always at the beck and call of Gozaburo Kaiba.

His personal assassin.

She flinched as he pressed the barrel of his gun to her throat once more.

"We… have a lot to talk about."

And then he pulled the trigger and Ishizu knew no more.