Spinning Compass

Ruathar's story (World of Warcraft)

2010-02-16T16:00:11Z

Wrote this back in the fall. It's the backstory for my main RP character in WoW, so a working knowledge of Warcraft lore is helpful, but I hope it can be understood even without it. Just in case, I'm gonna post a timeline with helpful links in a comment for anybody who needs it.

I'm thinking of redoing this in a different voice just for practice, but here's the original.

I
The island they picked for their new lair was perfect. Most of it was taken up by a single steep rock formation, with a large outcrop at its peak that was nearly like a cave, and from which they could see the whole island almost. Zaman flew up to the summit of the small mountain and then back again, grinning widely through his razor teeth. “It’s perfect,” he said.

Rudormi lay in the shade, one eye open and her head resting on the cool ground with her undersized claws. It had been a long flight, really, to get here, farther than she’d ever been offshore. Zaman was older and he often forgot about these things. That wasn’t always bad. He often forgot that she was younger and the smallest and weakest of their clutch, even when the other whelps all remembered. She was his favorite sister and so it was her he’d decided to take along, only her, when he ran away from home.

“It’s perfect,” he said, “you can see everything from up there. We’ll be masters of this island.”

“Zaman, I’m tired,” she said through a yawn.

He looked at her out the side of his big head. “Tired? What are you tired for? You’re not tired.” He nudged her with his snout until she got up and hissed at him, but he only smiled.

She could tell he was smiling. A dragon’s smile is subtle; their mouths are so wide anyway that to mortal eyes it looks like a smile whether or not they are actually doing it. But she knew his smile and she liked it in spite of herself. It was like he could take all the happiness of all the ages into himself and show it to her a little at a time.

He was her favorite brother, and so she’d agreed to come along.

* * *
There was some food on the island but not a whole lot. The island had a little flat part where grass grew and trees and there was a herd of wild pigs that lived there. Zaman killed two of the pigs and Rudormi killed one and they ate them there among the trees.

The pigs would not last them very long, Rudormi knew, because her brother at least was in that stage where his body stopped growing steadily and began to grow very fast instead. He was nearing fifteen feet long now though she was only coming up on nine. They would never stop growing of course, but they would slow down eventually, and he would do it before she would and then she would be bigger than him because she was a girl.

She could not imagine being bigger than Zaman, but Zaman said he could. “One day you’ll be bigger than Alexstrasza even,” he had told her once but she couldn’t imagine that either. She had never seen the Dragonqueen and neither had he, but Alexstrasza was supposed to be very, very big. Teacher had told him not to exaggerate.

“There weren’t very many pigs,” Rudormi told him when they came back to the outcropping. Before them the sun was setting in the same direction as home. “We’re going to run out if we stay here very long.”

“Are you homesick?” he asked her suddenly.

She bristled, not because he was wrong but because he was right. “No,” she said.

“And you like it here?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s—it’s perfect.”

He settled down and wrapped his tail around him and rested his head on the ground. “Then don’t complain so much.” And he smiled at her again. He was always smiling.

* * *
On the second day Zaman killed three pigs and she ate his leftovers. She didn’t need so much. In the afternoon was when they saw the white sails coming in from the north.

Rudormi saw them first but Zaman was the first to know they were sails. Then they made a game of guessing who was on board. Right away they ruled out elves because it was a very ugly boat. Zaman guessed that they were goblins and Rudormi guessed that they were trolls, and in the end they were both right but there were also dwarves and some bigger dwarves that were humans and a couple of gnolls even. The gnolls they knew only from pictures and only because Zaman liked to study all the different things that wore clothes.

The ship came closer and closer and finally it was clear they were going to put in at their island. Zaman guessed it was at the other cave, on the east and down in the water, that they were going to and it looked like he was right from the way they turned and put up their sails.

“They can’t do that,” said Zaman—not angry, still smiling.

“They’ll probably leave soon,” said Rudormi. She said this because there were no buildings on the island that they could see, and also because of his smile. It was different from his usual smile, the one that she liked—this was the smile he used when he teased his less-favorite little sisters, because they were picking on his Ru or because he couldn’t tease the other boys who were mostly bigger than him.

“Ru,” he said, “we’re the masters of this island. We can’t just let anyone in who wants to come here. Right?” –and he winked.

They were probably here before us, Rudormi thought. But he was her favorite brother and the only one who called her Ru, and she said, “Right!”

So they leapt down from their perch together, following the boat around the curve of the island until it began to turn in toward the cleft in the rocks (as Zaman had said it would), and then Zaman spread his wide wings and lifted himself up onto his back legs and roared. In the open air it would have been a weak roar, since his chest wasn’t its full size yet, but the rocks made his voice echo like ten dragons. Emboldened, Rudormi joined him in roaring, and then they dove for the ship, Zaman first.

For many years afterward, those few seconds they spent in freefall toward the ship together spun themselves out through the fabric of Rudormi’s memory as a long and happy holiday. The crew looked up almost like a single being and yet each one’s face wore a slightly different look of surprise and terror. The quicker ones began to duck, and at the stern the captain took hold of her hat as if they had come specifically to pluck it from her head. Zaman darted between the first and second mast and Rudormi between the second and third and then they rose again. He was laughing, and soon she realized she was laughing too, though she didn’t know why exactly, and he said something that was lost in the wind as they peaked and doubled back.

On the second pass a harpoon sliced through Zaman’s wing.

Rudormi didn’t realize it until she was out over the water again, and too late she heard his distressed scream, and she turned and saw him on the deck, struggling, his scales and the deck and the crew all stained and splattered in red—

She shrieked his name, something that sounded like his name, and dove at the deck with her claws forward and lightning crackling in her teeth. Her claws swept at the crew and at their legs, but their swords bit through her still-soft scales. She saw them pick up the bloodstained rope and pull and the barbed harpoon ripped fresh into Zaman’s wing and he screamed again, his golden eyes wild with pain and with arrogance freshly crushed.

Above her on the high deck she saw the face of the captain under the shade of her hat, barking orders to her crew and then the stings and swords were gone and the crew retreated to the far corners of the ship. She held out her hands and light wove itself around them.

Rudormi roared her brother’s name and he replied only with a crippled whimper. She ran to him and nipped at the blood-soaked wing, at the metal thing embedded in her favorite brother, trying desperately to free him. She would free him, and they would go home together, and Teacher would scold them fiercely but really be glad to see them as she always was, and then they would laze together on rocks and bake their scales to perfect hardness under the desert sun, and talk about the time they barely escaped from that ship and how Zaman got the hole in his wing—

The sleep spell struck her and Zaman both at once, like a cotton-wrapped sledge between her temples and she slumped against him while he collapsed to the deck, her neck falling over his, his wing over hers. Between the planks underneath them her spilled blood ran together with his and mingled with the pitch, pulsing through the veins of the ship and bobbing up and down with it in the turbulent waters. All else was silent and still.

II
Thorandyn was supposed to be working. That was what his master thought he was doing, and he had every intention of doing it at some point. For now his condition prevented him, that being: a deep and persistent apathy toward it.

He took his time shuffling along the road that connected his father’s estate with his best friend’s father’s estate. It was only about an hour and a half’s walk normally but the apathy had him bent on stretching it into two at least. The apathy was his other best friend and he was always reluctant to part with it. Because of this he stayed at his friends’ houses quite often, usually while on assignment, but it was more as an indulgence to his condition than because he liked them particularly. But now the last one had thrown him out and he would have to go home where he could not say he was taking a break.

The assignment his master had given him was long and involved and designed specifically to take him a month to complete. All but a week of that had passed now, but he had plenty of time. Most of it he could copy out of a book in his father’s library, and the rest—since this was a report on habits of magical entities or some nonsense like that—he could get from his father’s menagerie.

Finally he came to the grounds, and later to the manor itself. He asked a question to one of the constructs in the anteroom and the answer quickened his pace to a walk.

Now he stood in the library, which was vast. He was not there for the books. The books he could take advantage of anytime he wanted, but the menagerie he could only enter while his father was away, which the construct said he was.

He reached a recess in the wall where there was a tall, empty vase. He gestured to it and murmured a set of words he had learned surreptitiously in his childhood, and the vase and the recess faded away to reveal the passageway sloping downward behind it.

Father had had the menagerie for as long as Thorandyn could remember and he was always showing it off to important guests. His two children had never been allowed in, first because they were children and later because they were adults, but this had not stopped him or his brother. Of course his brother had lost interest in it quickly, as he did with most things, but Thorandyn always felt drawn back to it. The tenants changed often and kept it interesting, and anyway it was a sunny, peaceful garden where he could go and not be disturbed by anyone but the animals, just so long as his father was away. His father used it for much the same thing.

It was then, as he walked along the bank of the artificial stream with his knapsack still slung over his shoulder, and as he looked about at the gilt cages and noted That one is new, that one is new, that one is still alive?—it was then that he saw the very newest addition, lying like a sculpture of bronze in the centermost cage, perfectly still except for one slitted green eye, which was trained intently on him.

* * *
The dragon did not speak to him until the third time they met, which was nearly two months later, and by then he had already deduced quite a bit about it. By its size it had to be very young. On the soft skin of its belly there was a complex circular brand that had to be an arcane seal. (That would be his father’s work.) And if the seal wasn’t enough, it was securely held down with chains that seemed a bit small for it.

Thorandyn lay quietly on the bench across from it, his eyes passing over the words in his book without reading them. After half an hour he noticed motion from the cage. He looked up to find the dragon lifting its head, just slightly, and looking down at him.

A low growl arose and metamorphosed to a husky tenor. “What book is that?” it said.

He met its stare for a moment. “So you can talk?”

It tilted its head, still waiting, so at length he sat up straight and sighed and read off the title. It was nearly longer than the book itself. At the end he looked up again but the dragon had put its head back down.

“It’s about frost magic basically,” Thorandyn went on eventually. He shut it without marking his place. “Can’t say I blame you for being bored. It’s a terrible book.”

The dragon closed its eyes. Momentarily the elf considered returning to his reading, but his curiosity was piqued and the book really was terrible. He leaned forward.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

The dragon opened one eye again. “Yes,” it said. “Do you?”

He smiled but didn’t laugh. “It’s Thorandyn.”

The dragon watched him closely but didn’t smile. “Rudormi,” it said.

* * *
They spoke more often after that, although in reality the high elf did most of the talking. Rudormi’s contribution was mainly questions. You study magic? (Yes.) Can you show me? (He did, discreetly.) Do you enjoy it? (That one he avoided.)

After a while he had to give up on getting any work done while he was there. Rudormi had never seen a real elf prior to him and his father and his father’s important guests, and she was always brimming with quiet curiosity about him and his world. For his part Thorandyn told her everything, and she always listened attentively. He told her what he knew about magic and he told her about Silvermoon and his friends there, and on later visits about his master and the unflattering things his master often said about him and usually to his face.

Rudormi in turn told him the story of her capture, even though it was still very close to her. In this way he discovered how she could be so calm even after months chained down like an animal. “Zaman—“ (that was her brother) “—will come and find me,” she said.

“It’s been five or six months now, hasn’t it?” he said. “And didn’t you say he was wounded?”

She shook her head. “That won’t stop him. He’ll come and find me.”

After that Thorandyn kept half an eye on the skies, looking for a flash of gold that would swoop down and wipe his father’s estate off the map. Maybe out of time altogether. The bronze dragons were guardians over that, weren’t they?—or so he read. Once or twice (or maybe more than that) he caught himself nearly hoping for it.

But Zaman never materialized over Quel’Thalas, and gradually Thorandyn realized he was not coming despite what Rudormi insisted.

In the meantime he did what he could—loosened her bonds a little, altered the spell on the constructs to bring her better food. The seal on her stomach he could not do anything about, even had the spell been weak enough for him to remove, which it wasn’t. But as it was the mere thought of calling down his father’s wrath sent a chill through his body.

Yet in spite of that he found himself risking the menagerie more and more often. Now when his father was only away for the morning—and now when he was merely engaged in his study. One evening they heard voices unexpectedly and Thorandyn escaped his father’s eyes and those of his guests only by hiding under the low bridge in the pond, up to his chin in the water. After they left he emerged dripping wet and Rudormi laughed, a low rumbling sound in her chest.

“Oh, be quiet,” he said.

She sat on her haunches. “They were whispering to your father. I hope they didn’t see you.”

“I don’t think they did,” he said.

But the next morning Thorandyn’s father called him to his study. They spoke with raised voices, and after that the door to the menagerie would not open again for him no matter how many times he said the right words, because they were no longer the right words.

He did not see Rudormi again for a long time.

III
She awoke in the middle of the night to footsteps and she raised her head. The menagerie remained dark, though, and from that it seemed as if someone was sneaking in. She wanted to call out, but then thought that her voice might make them disappear and she was silent.

A minute later someone in a long cloak approached her cage and lowered his hood. She recognized the long white-blond hair immediately since his father’s was black. “Thorandyn!”

Thorandyn held a finger up to his lips and she shushed herself. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out, began fiddling with the cage.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in,” he whispered. “Someone caught me in here and he changed the spell over the door.”

That made sense. She had worried. “Are you all right?”

The elf glanced over his shoulder, then returned to work. “Yes. For the moment anyway. There, got it.” Four of the bars began retracting upwards and Thorandyn stepped into the cage to work on her shackles, and abruptly she realized he was setting her free.

“Thank you,” she said.

He met her eyes, startled, then averted them. “You can thank me some other time. From somewhere safe.”

His voice sounded unusually urgent, and she let him work. At last four of the five shackles were off and she stretched her limbs for the first time in what felt like eternity.

“Hold still. I’ve almost got it,” he said.

She held still again. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

He kept working silently until the final shackle fell from her neck. Then with his hand he guided her down from the cage. “Quel’Thalas is under attack,” he said at last. “The Horde’s tamed dragons to ride against us, apparently.”

“What?” Rudormi’s head reared straight up.

“I don’t know how the brutes managed it. Word’s been sent to our allies in Lordaeron, but they’re in no hurry to respond, of course.”

The implications ran silently through her head. Maybe there had been a mistake. Maybe the orcs had enlisted some kind of creature that looked like a dragon but wasn’t. Taming her kin? A dragon was too intelligent, too noble to be tamed.

Something in her thought, But they’ve tamed you, and she tried to forget it.

“I’m taking you to Silvermoon,” said Thorandyn. “It’s well-defended. Even if they make it that far you should be safe there. Er—your kind can take the form of elves, can’t they?” he added.

She hesitated. “Yes.”

He heard it. “Can you?” he asked.

“I know how,” she said. “I’ve never done it before.” Zaman could do it already and was quite adept at it. He loved trying on new forms like they were new clothes. But for Rudormi’s part she had never been able to manage it. She had tried, of course, during her imprisonment, but she had always been the smallest and weakest and never could. She came close then, once, but not quite. And then after the father had put his mark on her stomach nothing happened at all.

“It’s the mark,” she said. “It stops me. Can you get it off?”

Thorandyn paused, sighed, shook his head slowly. Rubbed his temples. “I wish I could. Father’s magic is decades beyond mine. I can’t even break the enchantment he put on the door.”

She tilted her head. “You’re here, though.”

He held up a silver pendant with a smooth blue gem set in the center. “He forgot the key. Let me think for a moment.” He set it down on a nearby bench and turned away.

“Shouldn’t we set the others loose, too?” she asked, looking to the cages, but now he was approaching her, walking quickly.

“There’s no time,” he said. “Now listen. I can’t take the seal off, but I may be able to suppress it. Probably not for long, but enough for you to transform. Can you do that?”

She wasn’t sure, but she nodded.

He raised his hands in front of him and closed his eyes. Opened them again. “You know you won’t have much time. And it could be painful.”

There was concern in his voice, and she nodded again more firmly. “I can do it.”

“All right.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again and this time began muttering his spell. Cords of violet light danced around his hands and around her body, prying at the mark on her stomach and at the magic that wove it into her flesh. Already she felt it and felt it resisting, bracing itself against her while it pushed back hard against him.

“Now,” he said.

Obligingly she squeezed her eyes shut tight, and there she saw herself as she was, all shimmering scales and razor teeth and leather wings. She remembered what Zaman had told her before. That is not you. It’s only your body, your shell, and ours aren’t fixed and brittle like the mortals’. As for us we can bend them as it suits us—you see?

She tried to bend. But the magic was still too strong, stiffened her bones so that with every move they felt about to shatter within her. The seconds were too much. She loosed a scream to where the sky should have been and let go altogether.

Only Thorandyn heard it, blasted into his long ears directly, but his spell did not break. He altered his stance, his pale blue eyes unblinking, glowing defiantly against the darkness. “Try it again,” he said. His voice sounded strained.

She pulled in a deep breath through her nostrils and did as he said. It hurt the second time as much as the first almost. But this time, slowly and slowly, finally her body moved as she willed it. The darkened menagerie whirled around her and grew beneath her. Her limbs stuck out in the wrong directions and parts of her struck the ground where it shouldn’t have been. Half her body withdrew into her and left no trace of its presence and it hurt.

Zaman was almost there and she saw him comforting her, almost heard him saying It takes some getting used to I know, but you’re more than strong enough, Ru, aren’t you? and she almost saw his smile (the kind one, which she liked) but now it was carried away beneath the sound of breaking.

Rudormi thought, You’re wrong.

Then it was over.

Her pain ebbed with the light but did not disappear with it. When at last she opened her eyes again she saw only a pair of soft, naked hands holding her away from the ground. After some time she realized they were hers.

There was a dull thump ahead of her and when she looked up he lay there, prone.

“Thorandyn!” she shouted—the new mouth felt so strange and it was someone else’s voice that came out, lilting, like bells instead of drums. She scrambled to him on all fours but he was already pushing himself upright.

“I’m all right,” he grunted. “I’ll be all right.” His face was glistening.

After a moment, when he was sitting again, he said, “You did it.”

She nodded and the strange hair bobbed with her head. “Because of you.” Their eyes stayed together for a long moment. Strange eyes, now that she saw them up close. Like blue flames.

Then Thorandyn coughed and looked away. He fumbled behind him and produced another something he’d brought along, made of cloth and folded neatly. “Here. Put this on.”

She was clumsy with it though, and he soon got up sighing and helped her pull the robe over her head. Then he took her by the arm and led her running on unfamiliar legs through unfamiliar halls, stumbling after him around darkened turns and up unexpected steps, until at last they emerged panting into the rain. Water poured over and through her and the hair clung to her face, the robe to her skin like a net tightening, and clinging to him in the hawkstrider’s saddle she shivered until long after dawn.

IV
After war’s end he taught her everything. How to dress, how to speak, how to behave and she soaked it all in like an eager apprentice. She even tried to learn a little of his magic (just enough to defend herself) but the mark of her bondage prevented her even that.

They knew her as Ruathar now, and he called her Ruathar since there was no one else to. There was a small house where she stayed and he hired someone to come once a week with food and things, every time someone different who would not remember her face. Many days he came himself as he once had, told her everything as he once had. She told him less; she had little to tell.

He was trying so hard to help her. He lied to his master and cast him off. He sought from the other mages as much help as he could without betraying her to their friend (his father). But in time he came less and less to see her and she suspected why: the books that he never spoke of but that she glimpsed now and again, bound all in black with strange green symbols—these kept him away.

He was trying so hard, and she told herself that she did not doubt him. She could not doubt him any more than she could doubt her own blood.

She sat in the window with her books and she read the street. They all walked in different ways, she noticed, and had a game with herself of guessing the sort of person in the walk. There were those with loud walks and loud voices, or those who walked very quickly and hunched over like thieves. Thorandyn’s walk, when she could watch it, was like and unlike them all; his head high but not too high, his stride quick but not too quick, more perfectly measured every time she saw him. It became the walk of a stranger, one who she knew better through his words and yet she could tell, now, that he no longer told her everything.

* * *
And where was her brother? It was years and more now since the island, and what of him?

She sat in her window and read the street. She whispered to herself in the ancient tongue, weird and unnatural when hissed between flat teeth.

“I do not doubt you.”

But she knew. She had known it since the escape, since the menagerie, since standing alone on the auction block with chains too tight about her ankles and muzzling her. She had realized often, and every time tried vainly to forget, that Zaman was not coming for her.
She had realized often, too, that Thorandyn was only mortal. That however hard he tried, there was little he could really do for her as he was. And she could never quite forget that either.

They were of two different and separate worlds. She was not Ruathar; she was Rudormi. She was dragonkin, a child of Nozdormu the Timeless One, and one day she too would grow up and join her brothers and sisters and forebears at his right wing, protecting the way that things had been and should be. And that was how it should be.

Yet here she lay, a caged beast. She had a door, locked only from her side, and she had books that he brought her sometimes. She had a mirror that showed her a stranger’s face, the pink skin and the unmoving bones, the bright empty green eyes, the soft delicate hands, frozen and pale. She had the mark on her stomach trapping her in this stiff brittle shell. She had Thorandyn.

“I do not… doubt you.”

It sounded even stranger in the elves’ language.

She had to fly, and she had no wings.

* * *
Shortly after that she got in trouble with him. She did this by going out walking to taste the air, and by walking into a great open plaza that earlier in the day had been filled with people (though now there were only a few handfuls, congregated about the doors). Someone obliged to bring their children along had let them run loose, and these were at fault, since they gave her the idea to follow them up into the tree, where Thorandyn found her.

“Get down from there, all of you, this instant!” The children dropped one by one like apples and scurried away to wait until he was gone. Rudormi lowered herself down carefully and found him at her shoulder, his mouth bent to her ear hissing, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I,” she began, but he caught her by the shoulder before she could pull away. His fingernails had grown and they bit into her like teeth.

“I’ve told you not to go out alone,” he snapped, “do you have any idea what could have happened to you? I thought for certain he’d found you—”

“Please let go of me,” she said, words shaking.

“What’s this?”—that was a third voice, coming from her right (his left)—“What’s this, Thorandyn, accosting innocent girls on the street again?”

Slowly Thorandyn let go of her, and said carefully, “Yseldin.”

The newcomer looked like his father, with black hair and a long nose, but he was not. In another moment Thorandyn reluctantly introduced him as his older brother. Rudormi had not known he had one. Then he introduced her as Ruathar and told his brother the lie they had agreed upon, where she was just someone he’d found fleeing from the war and dragonfire and then taken it upon himself to look after her since she had no family, and she listened to the lie and found it distasteful.

“Do you not trust him?” she asked him later as he walked her home by himself. “He’s your own blood, isn’t he?” But Thorandyn didn’t answer.

The brothers’ paths did not cross too often, which was a shame, because when she did see Yseldin she rather liked him. He had a deep voice that he used to tell funny jokes, and then to explain them to her since she didn’t understand, and with his magic—he was a mage, too—he would sometimes conjure up things that made her laugh. Thorandyn was always very tense when his brother was there, though, and very quiet for a while after he left, and she found that strange. They both were nice enough.

V
Some terrible thing was coming. Thorandyn didn’t tell her that but she knew it anyway, from a foul wind in the south and the fear she read in the street, the walkers hurrying and shouting and looking over their shoulders again and again. Before long he came to her again and told her she was leaving. He took her to a secluded place in the city and told her to stay there.

“What is it? What is it?” she said again. “The Horde?”

“If only it was.” He held her shoulders. “I’ll be back for you once it’s safe to come out. Wait here and stay out of sight. Promise me you’ll wait here.”

She nodded.

“Promise,” he said.

“I promise,” she said, and that was the last she saw of him.

* * *
It was Yseldin who came for her when the wind broke down the walls and the dead rode in on it. She had tried to wait, but they came running, running with the flesh swinging from the bone like rags. They filled the street below her amid screams and the sound of fires blooming. She heard them on the stairs, and she fell through the window with a handful of her collar still in their putrid hands.

Below the world was filled with them from edge to edge. It reeked of burning and rotting flesh and corrupted magic and screams, and the stench sank into her, suffocating. She saw elves fleeing any way they could and the dead pursuing them, relentless. Down the street someone ran too slowly and a ghoul sank its rotten claws into their neck and claimed the head.

Rudormi opened her mouth to scream and no sound came out. There was no air in her lungs anymore, only that hideous stench. But her feet knew and her legs ran on their own.

She wanted to fly. If she had her wings still and were bigger she would fly up over the falling city and rain down thunder on the terrible dead. She would stop their time and then pick them off one by one, she would save everything from them.

Well, no. Her heart was not strong enough for that. But she would find Thorandyn and take him away and they would be safe away, together. But she had no wings, only a great black mark on her stomach and on her bones. She cursed it as she fled.

Yseldin found her and just as quickly he was there. She did not recognize him at first, with his robes and his black hair tattered and stained and matted with blood and his face caked in gore and dirt. He was not smiling but his eyes shone fiercely. “With me!” he bellowed and he seized her by the shoulders and pulled her close to his body, and before she could ask her fearful questions he forced them both through a pinhole in space to elsewhere.

When she opened her eyes they were somewhere else where the reach of the dead had already passed and left only stragglers. He left her there, near but not touched by the flames, with a group of frightened people and a tall woman elf barking orders. “Stay with them,” he told her.

“Where’s Thorandyn?” she asked.

Yseldin hesitated and his eyes hardened, but it was not at her.

“He’s not coming back,” he said, and then he disappeared.

* * *
They moved through the night and into the morning. By the time they reached the boats the group was halved, dead beneath the dead or else lost in the dark. Rudormi’s body moved with them but her heart was somewhere else, wrenched out of her and left behind to burn with the city.

Yseldin caught up with them partway through the night and brought more frightened elves with him, and then he stayed with her, guiding her by the arm. Once out at sea, even in the overcrowded boats they were a bit safer, but in the morning the beginnings of a storm drove them into a cove, and she remembered their island, remembered the pain in Zaman’s eyes, the terror in his roar as they tore at his wings. Had Thorandyn made a sound like that? She imagined she could hear him again but his voice never faltered, never rose or fell. Even dying she could not see fear in his blazing eyes.

She sat huddled under a damp blanket before a damp fire. Through the opening of the cove she could see the sun rising. A dark shape moved toward her and she realized it was Yseldin, though now he walked with a limp and his robes were torn badly. He had washed his face clean of the gore but the brine made the gashes on his face red and angry.

“Ruathar. Are you all right?” he asked. She nodded, very slowly, and he sat down nearby her. He smelled terrible, but they all did.

“He’s really gone?” she said.

Yseldin was silent for a while. “I’m sorry,” he said. “He… you were very close.”

He was my best friend, she thought. She said, “He was your brother.”

His brother sighed. “It’s been ages. I hardly knew him anymore. I never saw him save when he was out with you. It was strange now that I think about it. We were both students of the arcane. I’d long had my suspicions, but…”

He said the rest only to his thoughts. Rudormi raised her head to him.

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing. Nothing.”

They stared at the fire together, watching it gasp for air in the cove’s dankness. Eventually Yseldin waved two fingers at it and his magic fed its warmth.

“They say that—that it’s worse not knowing,” he said. “But to know, to see it, to have proof of his deali—proof of his fate, I mean. It tears at me.”

The flame grew brighter still and Rudormi withdrew her feet from its lashing tendrils.

“I wish I hadn’t known,” he said, terse. “I wish I hadn’t seen him. At least then I would have someone to look for.”

She thought of her brother.

“What if…”

She thought of her other siblings, darting in and out of space as soon as their wings would hold them. She thought of the drakes, young and proud, and the elder wyrms glittering like living gold in the hot sunlight. She thought of Nozdormu, the Timeless One whom she had seen only twice in her short life, whose singular mastery of the ages towered far above the rest of his flight, the rest of the world and everything that moved forward or back. She thought of the Keepers of Time whom he appointed to make sure things remained as they were and should be.

But she thought too of Zaman and of the bloodstained deck and his terrible cries. She thought of Thorandyn in the fires, his eyes dark but still empty of fear.

Her face still threatened to break like old glass, but her green eyes glowed a little brighter.

“Maybe there’s still hope,” she whispered airlessly.

2010-02-12

2010-02-12T22:06:23Z

I wanna try something new, where I try and write for a half hour each day and see what happens. Please excuse the mess.

Magic was not, by any means, an exact science. But it was a science, nonetheless. Pike wasn't one of those hippies who danced around a pentagram with candles lit and drinking chicken blood, or whatever the hell they did these days. He was a scientist above all, and he gave this new science what it really needed.

His boy was along today. Ordinarily Pike wouldn't have brought him. Pushing ten years old, he was just getting to that stage where a kid turns away from chaos and becomes a four-foot agent of pure evil. If Jack had at least shown some potential, any kind of scientific aptitude, it wouldn't have been so unbearable, but all the kid wanted to do lately was bang on everything within reach. Like a heavy metal drummer with none of the talent. To his credit, he could hold still long enough to make a decent assistant, still. Now and then. When he felt like it.

Give it another year or two, and he'd run out of uses for him altogether.

A loud clanging noise echoed through the makeshift lab, actually a now-defunct airplane hangar. Pike didn't bother looking up from the workbench. "Jack? What'd I tell you?"

In the other corner, Jack moved sheepishly away from the pipe. "Sorry, Dad."

His father let out a deep sigh, the third one in five minutes, and returned to his work. Everything was ready, almost. He picked up the empty-looking jar beside him, scrutinized it suspiciously, then shook it until its six-inch-tall occupant appeared. The sprite shot him a displeased look through the glass, but said nothing. Pike's lips turned upward. Say what you would about these creatures, but to their credit, at least they couldn't speak.

A dull tapping sound broke the silence, and his face twisted back into a frown. "Jack!"

"Sorry."

Pike rolled his eyes. "Get over here, boy, we've got work to do."

Jack trotted obediently to the bench. He was small for his age, scrawny. The last time he'd seen the boy's mother, she'd gone off on a tirade accusing him of starving the kid. "Do you even feed him," of course he fed him. Sometimes kids just grew up tiny no matter how much you fed him, and it wasn't his fault she couldn't get that through her bleach-burned brain.

"What're we doing?" Jack asked, examining the tools on the table. He reached toward one, but his father slapped his hand away, drawing a yelp.

"Don't touch anything!" Pike boomed. The boy shrank back, startled, as his father pointed to a chair situated nearby.

[fanfic] Dreaded Letter Format

2009-08-04T14:24:42Z

Somehow I got the idea of MIO posting anon to customers_suck, and this happened.

Dear Scary Juraikan Lady,

This is called a "computer." It's very important to my job. Actually, I can't process your request without it. Therefore, if the computer is down, there is nothing I can do about your request until it's fixed. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, and the fact that you don't understand technology, but it's no reason to bang on my desk and threaten to kill me.

Or for that matter, to set off a bomb in my office. (I WISH I WAS JOKING. D8)

(And while we're at it:)

Dear SJL's posse,

If you really didn't want to go to jail, maybe you should've, I don't know, stopped her? What did you think was going to happen?

Hoping you all rot in maximum security,
Me

[Edited the next day]
Dear SJL and co.,

sasdfkjas;l WHY ARE YOU BACK and why am I still required to be nice to you after you blew up my office

I told you, I can't do anything until the computer is back online. PLEASE GO AWAY. Fix it yourself if you're in such a hurry.

Come with me in the Wayback Machine... [pt. 2]

2008-01-08T18:07:08Z

First part goes here.

Title: Yami
Author: Tafkae. Yes, sadly, I wrote this. It’s my first Yugioh fanfic, from clear back in 2002. As you can see, I kind of sucked back then.
Rating: It hurts if I look at it for more than a few minutes.

Full Name (including any titles): some made-up Japanese shit
Full Species(es): Fudge monster? It has tentacles, I think.
Hair Color (include adjectives): no hair
Eye Color (include adjectives): it might have eyes
Unusual Markings/Colorations/Physical Features: made of darkness and fudge? not as tasty as it sounds, I assure you.
Special Possessions (if any): anti-plastic?

Origin: A mysterious statue, though this isn’t revealed until the... *shudder* sequel.
Connections To Canon Characters: pretends to be them to cause car accidents. No, seriously!
Special Abilities: KAMEHAMEHA
Other Annoying Traits: A duel of god-moding proportions, a villain with no clear motivation or goal, Yugi abuse (again), and obvious quotes that I must have thought were clever five years ago.

I Say/Notes: On the plus side, my spelling and grammar were typically pretty good. On the minus side, I thought this was clever when I wrote it. And to this day, nobody has told me it isn’t! (Except my YGO muses, who I think have always had the good sense to hate it...)

Yami
by TAFKAE

Chapter 4: Things Are Not Always As They Seem

Yami: An astute observation. I’ve been mistaken for a bad guy a few times.
Joey: Was that before or after this fic?
Yami: Both, and during. I can’t figure out why.
Joey: Maybe people are getting the wrong idea because you’re kind of a prick when you’re dueling.
Yami: Do you want to go back in the box?
Joey: No! No, sorry, sorry, sorry...

~*~*~

It was several hours later. Tristan had phoned Yugi's house (apartment?)

Joey: Which is it?
Yami: House. It’s upstairs from the game shop, but it’s still a stand-alone building, not a complex.
Joey: What’s this about Stand-Alone Complex?
Yami: You really do only listen to every other word I say! D8<

and gotten his grandfather to come and pick everyone up from school, and now Yugi was lying on the sofa in the living room while Téa rested peacefully on a sleeping mat nearby.

Joey: That’s weird. We usually take you guys to the hospital when stuff like this happens.

Tristan and Joey were passing the time by reading comic books. "After all," Joey would defend, "Yugi's grandpa *did* say he probably needed a little rest."

Yami: And since Grandpa’s a trained medical professional, we can just take his word for it.
Joey: What? Your gramps is a doctor?
Yami: ........ Yes, Joey. He’s going to Africa all the time to volunteer in hospitals. I hear he’s this close to finding a cure for AIDS. He and Dr. Highwind are even writing a book together about it.
Joey: ...... *suspiciously* Are you bein’ sarcastic?

"Pshaw," Tristan retorted. "I say we wake him up. Or sock him in the nose."

Yami: Way to go, Nurse Tristan. Stay away from me.

"Don't say stuff like that, man," Joey replied seriously. "It's still Yugi, after all."

"Yeah, it's still Yugi," Tristan grumbled sarcastically. "Sure, Yugi can and would do something like that to Téa…"

Joey: If he thought it’d get him laid, mayb—
Yami: *WHAP*

Just then, Yugi stirred. Joey and Tristan looked over the tops of Avengers #98 and Bionicle #2 just in time to see him sit up and rub his head. "Unh…" He looked at them and managed a half-smile. "Hi, guys…"

Yami: *as Yugi* I see you’re fiddling while Rome burns, as usual.
Joey: *as himself* Dude, Avengers #98, though! You know how long I’ve been waiting for these to come out in Japanese? You’d fiddle too!
Yami: *as Yugi* Yeah, if I wasn’t burning...

"Good to see you back in the action, Yugi," Joey said. "Unless, of course, you're Yami tryin' to trick me again, in which case you're gonna have a bloody nose in about ten seconds."

Yami: That long?

"I thought you said we weren't gonna sock him in the nose," Tristan pointed out.

Joey paused. "I never said that."

"So what the heck is going on inside your little head, Yugi?" Tristan continued almost before Joey had finished.

Joey: I wouldn’t call your head “little.” “Gigantic and porcupine-like,” maybe.
Yami: Hey, it— ... well, yeah.

Yugi sighed. "I'm really sorry, guys…" He hung his head, and looked distractedly at Téa's motionless form. "I'm sorry I did all that…"

"Hey, it wasn't your fault," Joey reassured him.

Yugi looked up. "But I did find out one thing. It wasn't Yami's fault, either."

"WHAT?!" his friends shouted in unison.

Joey and Yami: WHAT?!
Yami: I think, for once, the situation deserves the poor formatting. I mean, WHAT?!
Joey: Yeah, seriously! You just spent three chapters showin’ everybody what a Big Damn Villain you’ve turned into, and now...?
Yami: Senselessly beat up my friends, caused a 27-car pileup, went missing for several days, impersonated my alter ego, challenged you to a card game, lost, stole Téa’s soul... AND NOW IT WASN’T EVEN ME?
Joey: To think, all that effort gone to waste.
Yami: *idea!* Unless fic-me is actually impersonating Yugi right now to lie and say he’s innocent.
Joey: I really hope that’s it. I mean, if it’s not you doin’ all this shit, and it’s not Yugi, then who does that even leave?

"Actually, it does kinda make sense," Joey pondered aloud. "Never in my wildest dreams have I had a hope of beating Yugi at Duel Monsters…"

Joey: And why is fic-me so gorram self-deprecating?!

He looked up. "So who was it?"

"I'm not sure," Yugi replied, closing his eyes gently. "I could try and check, but it's getting awfully crowded…"

Joey: *as River* It’s getting very crowded in here!
Yami: No touching guns.

~*~*~

Crowded though it was, it was quiet in the soul room. There were two forms that he could see lying in midair in the darkness.

Yami: When did my soul room become outer space?
Joey: No, no, it’s got the Door to Darkness or something.
Yami: It’s my head. Gravity still applies in my head, thanks.

One was Téa, and the other…

"Yami!" Yugi shouted, floating to his alter ego's side. He laid his hands on him and shook vigorously. "Yami, are you all right?"

There was no reply.

Yami: *as River* It’s just an object. It doesn’t mean what you think.
Joey: What’s it mean then?
Yami: It means I’m freaking dead. AGAIN.

Yugi darted to Téa and took her by the shoulders. "Téa! Wake up! Somebody…!" A chill of fear ran down his spine. Was Téa dead? Was Yami dead? Was he… alone…?

Yami: Don’t you and Tristan count for something? Hell, doesn’t Grandpa count?
Joey: Yugi gets lonely without the voices telling him what to do.
Yami: Oh, I’ve been downgraded to a schizo-voice now?
Joey: Yeah, only you don’t stop with medication.
Yami: Far be it from me to let a few pills bring me down.

His question was answered by a quiet moan from Téa. "Wh…" She sat up and rubbed her head. "Yugi?"

Yugi smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. "It's all right, Téa."

His friend looked around in utter confusion. "Where are we? What happened?"

"I'm not exactly sure," Yugi replied, glancing across to Yami, who still hadn't moved. "Stay here. I think Yami knows."

Yami: *as Yugi* ... If he’s alive, that is.

Téa gave him an odd look. "Why are both of you in the same place at the same time?"

"Technically, we always are," Yugi replied,

Joey: *as Téa* Okay, Captain Literal, now how about a real explanation?

having flown to Yami and brought him to a closer proximity to Téa. "But I do know it's not his fault that this happened."

"His fault that what happened?" Téa demanded. "There's a lot you're not telling me, Yugi."

"It's quite simple," said a voice that sounded like sugar but flowed like hot fudge.

Yami and Joey: ...........
Yami: There... there are no words.
Joey: Yami, why are you keepin’ a fudge monster in your brainspace?
Yami: I ... don’t know. Maybe to keep people from moving until they draw a red card?

A shadow became outlined against the shadows, with bright, green, glowing eyes and not much else. "I've given your soul a new home…"

Joey: In outer space?
Yami: *deadpan* Take me out to the black. Tell them I ain’t comin’ back.

"So it was you this whole time," Yugi snapped. "You enjoy making people suffer, don't you?!"

"It's my favorite thing to do," the shadow responded.

Joey: Man, Lord Licorice is not gonna be happy about this fudge monster one-upping him.

"Thank you for making yourself so readily available. I could do anything I wanted and blame it on your little alter ego while he slept." A tentacle-like shadow eased outward and stroked Yami's face. "So convenient…"

Yami: AKDFALKDFJL WHAT THE FUCK TENTACLE RAPE NOW?!
Joey: I OFFICIALLY NEVER WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES ON INSIDE YOUR HEAD AGAIN.
Yami: I SWEAR IT ISN’T NORMALLY LIKE THIS!

"Leave me alone. Leave us all alone," Yugi corrected himself, almost pleadingly. "And leave my friends out of it. I don't even know who you are!"

Joey: *as the monster* I am Ferdinand Fudge! I rule over Fudgy Falls, but that’s not enough! Now I’m going to overthrow King Kandy, too!
Yami: *as Lord Licorice* Not if I have anything to say about it, you camera hog!

The shadow chuckled. "I was called Niikaso a long time ago… now I'm just a demon without a name…

Joey: So why did you tell us your name? And what does Niikaso mean, anyway?
Yami: *Japanese-English dictionary in hand* It looks like a compound of “nii” and “kaso,” meaning “second place” and “plastic,” respectively.
Joey: .... Its name is Second-Place Plastic.
Yami: Yep.
Joey: That’s retarded. “Ferdinand Fudge” was so much better.
Yami: Times like these I’m glad I keep that vial of anti-plastic in my backpack.

and you've let down your guard, Yugi Moto!"

Yugi's eyes widened, but he didn't have a second to think before the shadow raced past him, heading out, to control his body again. "NO!" he shouted.

"Stop!" Téa yelled.

Just then, the shadow did.

Joey: Well, Téa does have a really authoritative voice.
Yami: ... No, not really.

It whirled around, looking for a reason. "What?!"

Yami: *deadpan* I just want you to know, I found a reason for me to change how I used to be, a reason to start over new, and the reason is you.

Yugi looked around, too, and everyone noticed at the same time - Yami had one hand wrapped around a corner of the shadow, his eyes still closed, but he had that cocky smirk on his face. "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you very well," he taunted. "Was it Yugi who let down his guard, or you…?"

Yami: *as Kanda Yuu* I never let down my guard. Well, hardly ever. STFU. *goes off to his grumpy corner*

The shadow growled. "Of all the times for you to decide to wake up!"

"I've been awake," Yami explained. His eyes flew open. "You're going down all the way."

Joey: You heard the man, Ferdinand. Go down right now. All the way. *points*
Yami: *deeply disturbed* Joey, I really think you should reconsider that...

With that, Yami and the shadow formerly known as Niikaso (sorry, couldn't resist writing that!)

Yami: Oh, for crying out loud! Bad enough your username comes from that tired excuse for a joke.
Joey: The author’s new name is now “Tsfkan.” Sorry, couldn’t resist saying that!
Yami: Yes, you could’ve, actually.
Joey: She could’ve too. What’s your point?

took up positions on either side of an invisible field. It was obvious they were going to fight.

Yami: HUR, NO. I’ll just make up the guest bedroom for Ferdinand and we’ll all be like one big happy family.

"Your move," Yami stated.

The shadow yelled and charged. Yami's hands glowed, and he caught it effortlessly. You could almost smell it burning as it screamed and backed away. "What the hell was that?!"

"A little trick I learned a long time ago," he replied confidently. "Come and get me, if you can."

Joey: I think you’re just making up powers for yourself now.
Yami: I didn’t make that one up. Burning Hands is a real spell in some version of Dungeons and Dragons, I think.
Joey: You think.
Yami: I haven’t really been able to get back into LARPing since that whole mess with Bakura.

The shadow growled, then charged again…

Joey: Hey Yami, how do you keep a fudge monster from charging?
Yami: Take away its credit card!
Both: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

~*~*~

"Hey Tristan?"

Tristan looked up from the comic book he'd started on again. "Yeah?"

Joey pointed at Yugi's body. "Uh, it's not good when they start going into convulsions, is it?"

Joey: NO. GENERALLY IT’S NOT.
Yami: CALL AN AMBULANCE OR SOMETHING. GOOD LORD.

~*~*~

Yami and the shadow were going at it full-force, Yami shooting things out of his hands and the shadow simply recoiling and coming back.

Joey: Oh so that’s your kink, is it?
Yami: Go to hell.

Téa was watching anxiously until she heard a small moan from beside her. Yugi was kneeling down, with both hands on his head, apparently in some sort of pain. Téa kneeled down beside him and put one hand on his shoulder. "Yugi, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

Yami: How are they kneeling? There’s no floor.

Yugi's eyes, shut tight, twitched. "I feel like… like I'm being … ripped apart…!" he muttered.

Joey: So, what? Your powers come from draining Yugi’s soul or something?
Yami: Of course not. What do you think this is, Chrno Crusade?

Téa's eyes widened. She looked up at the combatants. Every time one of them hurt the other, she could feel Yugi shudder under her hand. It didn't take long for her to make the connection. She rapidly stood. "Stop it!" she shouted as loud as she could. "You're killing him!"

Yami looked over in mixed shock and concern, leaving him wide open for a hit from the shadow. It passed right through him. He screamed in unison with Yugi.

Joey: Ferdinand 1, Yami 0.
Yami: I know I left my bottle of anti-fudge around here somewhere...

~*~*~

"Damnit," Joey moaned. "I don't know what's going on in there, but something has got to be done about it!" His eyes landed on the Millenium Puzzle, and after a brief second of thought, his hand advanced toward it as well. He pulled back as it started glowing. "Damn!"

Joey: That thing sure glows a lot, doesn’t it?
Yami: Yeah. Look at this. *holds up the Puzzle and makes it glow in different colors*
Joey: Shiny... *_*

Tristan frowned. "Chill out, Joey. There's really nothing we can do right now."

Joey: The best first aid for a seizure is no first aid at all.

"Nothing we can do my ass!" Joey shouted,

Yami: Oh so that’s your kink, is it?
Joey: Go to hell twice.

and he took hold of the puzzle around Yugi's neck, and tore it off, snapping the cord that held it in place.

~*~*~

Yami's eyes went wide. "No…"

Without leaving any time for anyone to figure out what was going on, Yami and the shadow disappeared. Yugi looked up in shock. "Yami!"

Téa took a nervous step back. "What the hell just happened?"

Yugi looked back and forth in total disbelief. "They… they're gone… Yami's gone…"

Joey: Oh, come on. Like this has never happened before.
Yami: Yeah, only this time it wasn’t his own damn fault.
Joey: Actually, I think it is, if you read the sequel.
Yami: *facepalm* Son of a...

~*~*~

"This thing's a lot more trouble than it's worth," Joey muttered, eyeing the puzzle on the table. His eyes turned to Yugi, who seemed to have quieted down considerably. "Well, least it worked."

Joey: Would that really work?
Yami: Maybe, if the table’s, like... three hundred feet away. We’ve got a pretty strong bond and all.
Joey: Your house isn’t even that big.
Yami: Try insulating it with comic books. Maybe that’ll do it.

"I don't know if that was the right thing to do, Joey," Tristan said cautiously.

Joey's eyes flashed to the side. "Eh… well, if it wasn't, it's a little late now…"

Yami: I’m so glad we have your medical expertise here to help us.
Joey: I been takin’ lessons from your grandpa and Dr. Highwind.
Yami: I don’t think I want to know what kind of lessons you mean.

Just then Yugi sat bolt upright, breathing heavily. "Wha- ?"

"Hey, welcome back to the land of the living, Yug," Joey hailed.

Yugi didn't seem to hear him. He looked frantically to one side, then the other, before noticing the Puzzle resting safely on the table. He jumped up and ran to get it. "The Puzzle -!"

Joey: It’s like you’re a crackhead and we’re taunting you by leaving a couple kilos on the table.
Yami: ... It is, isn’t it? Only I’m the couple kilos, in this case.
Joey: Millennium Crack. May stunt growth and cause homoerotic, narcissistic hallucinations.
Yami: I don’t cause those kind of hallucinations.

Joey grabbed him by the wrist as he passed. "I had to do somethin'," he explained.

"Let me go! I have to get it!" Yugi shouted, struggling to get free.

This only caused Joey to hold tighter. "You don't get it, Yugi! Whatever just happened would've killed you!"

Yugi felt Téa's silent assent in the back of his mind.

Joey: Hey, I just realized something. Does this mean you got Téa inside you?
Yami: .... *headdesk* Yes, Joey, it does. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that.
Joey: Geez, that is wrong on so many levels. O_O
Yami: I know, Joey. That’s why I didn’t mention it.

He looked at Tristan, who nodded sternly. After a brief pause, he sighed and sat down on the floor. "Then what are we going to do?" His eyes landed on Téa's body, which was still stretched out across the floor. "I really don't know what I can do…"

Joey: I can think of a few things.
Yami: You so much as touch her, I’ve got a few penalty games I’ve been itching to try out...

"Uh…" Joey put one hand behind his head. "We can pray."

Tristan bonked him. "That's not gonna help!"

Yami: I didn’t have you figured as the religious type, Joey.
Joey: Neither did I.
Yami: Especially not if you let Tristan keep “bonking” you right and left.
Joey: Yeah, he’s—hey, what’re you implicating?

Yugi sat quietly, deep in thought. Does this mean I have to be alone now? he wondered. I don't know if I could deal with being alone!

Joey: Nevermind that he dealt with it for like, the first fifteen years of his life.
Yami: *deadpan, as Yugi* I’m addicted to you. Don’t you know that you’re toxic?

Don't worry, Téa's voice reassured him. We'll figure this out and get it under control, and we'll do it together. After all, what're friends for?

He smiled slightly. You're right. I'm not sure how, but we'll do it.

*CHAPTER END*

Damn, I'm good! Read, review, and stay tuned! In the immortal words of Paul Revere, "The climax is coming! The climax is coming!"

Yami: Huh, that sounds kinda like what I said to your mom last night.
Joey: Nice. *they high five*

Yami
by TAFKAE

Chapter 5: That's When I Get Mad

Yami: Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve been mad since this story started.
Joey: IAWTC.

~*~*~

"You don't seriously think this is gonna work?" Tristan asked skeptically.

Joey: *as Yugi* Damn it, Tristan, who’s the quantum physicist here, you or me?
Yami: But when he tried to watch the fight, he realized it had turned into a carrot.
Joey: ... Yerwot?
Yami: ... Obviously, you’re not the quantum physicist here.
Joey: Who said I was?

Yugi closed his eyes and sighed, then opened them again, never taking them off the Puzzle in front of him. "I'm not sure, but I have to try. This might be the only chance we have."

"Well, it better work," Joey stated. "I guess we gotta do what it takes sometimes."

Yami: This is begging for another deadpan song reference, but I don’t know any with those lyrics.

Yugi was already tying the Puzzle around his neck, feeling the turbulent struggle within that was now suddenly in his mind again… He winced and sat down on the sofa. "I'll be back,"

Joey: *as the Terminator* ... in mah next two sequels, ja.

he promised, but more to himself than to anyone else. And with a quick shift of consciousness, he was back in the middle again.

Yami: *groan* How does that help?
Joey: What?
Yami: Yugi’s jumping back into the fray to try and help me out.
Joey: Yeah, power of friendship and all that, right?
Yami: ... Except my hands are glowing, and I’m fighting a fudge monster from outer space. Frankly, he’s probably just going to get in the way.
Joey: That’s kind of a harsh thing to say...
Yami: *ignoring him* No, I do mean it, Yugi. The last time you tried, you nearly got us both killed. ... It’s the truth and you know it!
Joey: .......

~*~*~

Joey: Oh, hey! An ASCII picture of the fudge monster!
Yami: *still at Yugi* I know. And I told you to stop. It’s not my fault you’re so stubborn about these things.
Joey: ... Okay, dude, feel free to join the sporking again when you’re done being crazy...

Yami and the demon were both pretty worn down. Yami was bruised and breathing heavily. It was hard to tell his opponent's condition except for the breathing heavily part.

Joey: Fudge can breathe now?

But they were still at it, still at each other's throats, still trying to bring each other down to hell.

Yami: Yet for all that, I can’t tell what we’re actually doing.
Joey: Fighting?
Yami: But how? Do I connect with a right hook to the jaw, sending the fudge monster spiraling off into the distance until it vanishes into the collective subconscious in a speck of light?
Joey: For one thing, that’s not really your style. For another thing, that would require it having jaws.
Yami: Tch, details.

Téa watched anxiously. Yugi did not.

Joey: He was too busy screaming like a wuss.
Yami: Yugi takes offense.
Joey: Ah, tell him to stop being such a wuss.

It was obvious he was trying to control the pain he felt whenever one of the combatants landed a hit on the other, but he stood straight and tall, and looked more like his alter ego than himself.

Yami: Stop that. We’ve had enough mistaken identity in this fic without you impersonating me too.
Joey: Can I impersonate you too?
Yami: Hell no. You’d suck at it.

"You have to stop!" he shouted. "This won't solve anything!"

Yami: I disagree. I think killing it six ways from Sunday will solve the problem of it trying to maim us.
Joey: That’s assuming you can kill it.
Yami: I just wonder why fic-me hasn’t made it think it’s on top of a sundae about to be devoured, piece by piece, by a giant five-year-old. That’s what I’d do, I think.
Joey: ... if you were evil?
Yami: *confused* No, when I’m good.
Joey: We seriously need to get your sense of morality examined.
Yami: What?

Neither one listened. Finally, the two took up positions opposite each other, and Yami spoke up. "How about one last hit?" he offered, but it was more a statement than a question. "Then we can decide who wins."

"Fine with me," the demon's voice rasped.

Joey: It’s like David and Goliath, but with more tentacle rape!
Yami: So Ferdinand there is about to get stoned.
Joey: This whole fic is stoned.
Yami: That’s true.

"No!" Yugi yelled. "Please, you have to stop!"

Yami's hands were engulfed in a dark red aura.

Yami: We already have a word for a dark red aura. It’s blood.
Joey: There’s a dark red aura around my eyes.
Yami: You might want to have a doctor look at that.
Joey: I’ll ask your gramps when we get back.

Two pseudopods of the demon were surrounded by a dark blue one.

Joey: Look at this. It doesn’t even have feet and it’s kicking your ass.
Yami: Surrounded by a dark blue what? Pseudopod?

"Let's do this," Yami growled, and at the exact same moment, the bursts of dark light were fired at each other.

Yami and Joey: KAMEHAMEHAAAAAAAAAAA!

It was hard to tell what happened next. One moment there was nothing between the opponents, and the next there was Yugi, arms and legs outstretched,

Joey: Yeah. No “Pokémon: The First Movie” ripoff there at all.
Yami: Told you he’d get in the way.

screaming one word that echoed in everyone's minds - "STOP!!"

Joey: *holds up a stop sign*
Yami: ... Joey, where did you get that?
Joey: The T-intersection by my house.
Yami: Truly you are the king of misdemeanors.

"Yugi!" Téa shouted, reaching one hand out toward him, then drawing it back to protect her eyes from the flash that followed.

Yami: Say cheese.
Joey: Did Yugi just explode?
Yami: Yes. And we have pictures to prove it.

"Fool!" the shadow screeched.

Yami grimaced, shielding his own face from the wind. Yugi…

A few seconds later, all was still. Yugi fell limply to the ground, landing facedown.

Yami: I thought we’d established there was no ground?
Joey: No time for logic. Think of kittens. *rocking back and forth*
Yami: What is it with you and kittens?
Joey: You tell me, Mister Worships Cats!

Téa ran over, her eyes watering. "Yugi!" She kneeled down beside him and rolled him onto his back. She didn't have to look at his face to know…

"You killed him…!" she whispered, then screamed. "YOU KILLED HIM!"

Joey: Yeah, way to go, man. You killed him again.
Yami: There you go again! Every time he dies, you automatically blame me.

~*~*~

The next thing Joey and Tristan heard were a few stifled sobs in Téa's direction. Joey glanced over. She was curling up into a ball. "Hey, it worked after all!" he exclaimed, though Tristan had already noticed.

Tristan smiled. "Great!" He crawled over (it would have been wasted effort to stand up) and sat beside her. "Hey, Téa, are you all right?"

Joey: No, dumbass, she’s crying. Even we’re not that oblivious.
Yami: That’s debatable. I use this moment to point out neither of you have girlfriends.
Joey: Wha- hey, neither do you!
Yami: I have a friend who thinks she’s my girlfriend. That qualifies.

Téa sniffled and whispered something incomprehensible.

"What?"

"Please, God," she whispered. "Please let this all be just a dream…"

Tristan took her by the shoulder with one hand and shook gently. "Téa, wake up. It's all right now."

Joey: Meanwhile, Yugi was still having a seizure.

Téa looked into his eyes, which widened. Hers was an expression of desperation, of someone who had just witnessed something terrible, something so awful it didn't even have a name…

Yami: What, “Yugi throwing himself between two Kamehameha Waves”? That’s a name.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She sniffed quietly. "It's Yugi…"

"What about 'im?" Joey prompted.

Téa barely managed to get the words out before breaking into uncontrollable sobs again. "He's dead."

Joey: *as himself* Ah, shit. Not again.
Yami: *as Tristan* Good thing we got the extended warranty.
Joey: *as himself* Free replacement in thirty days or your money back!
Yami: *as Tristan* It’s almost enough to make you wonder when human cloning became legal!

~*~*~

"You bastard," Yami snarled. "That was my friend."

The demon seemed to scowl, even without a face. "He got in the way, of his own free will, a very unwise decision." It waved a pseudopod dismissively in the air. "His sacrifice was nothing more than symbolic. That's why martyrdom doesn't work."

Joey: ... Yami, translate?
Yami: “Dude, it was his idea to jump into the fight like a moron. He was trying to get you pissed off at me, but he failed. I’m a big stupid fudge monster with no face or hands. Hur hur hurr. 8B”
Joey: I think I got that last part on my own, thanks.

"It worked all right," Yami replied. "You can steal my identity, and you can pretend I'm evil…" He clenched one fist at his side. "…but when you hurt my friends…" His eyes flew open, full of rage, ready to kill. "…that's when I get mad!!"

Joey: So if I steal your credit card and use it to buy a death ray, you won’t be mad until I shoot it at someone you like?
Yami: I don’t have a credit card.
Joey: Wallet?
Yami: Not exactly mine.
Joey: Looted your tomb?
Yami: It’s probably been picked dry already.

His entire form this time was surrounded by the same dark red aura as before. "You're going to wish you were never spawned!" he roared. With no further warning, he shot toward the demon with everything he had.

"Fool!" it shouted. "You can't banish me to the shadow realm. Your puny powers are nothing compared to mine!"

Yami: *as himself* Can’t banish you to the shadow realm? Well, damn, I guess I’ll have to settle for killing you.

Yami was face to face with it now, his eyes flaring with a spark of confidence and two of fury. "You don't deserve to go to the shadow realm," he hissed, his hands raised and radiating with power. "You hurt my friends. Prepare to die."

Joey: MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA. YOU KEELED MY FATHER.
Yami: PREPARE TO BE SENT TO THE SHADOW REALM WHEREVER THE HELL THAT IS.

The demon's eyes went wide, but only for a second, and then Yami's hands were twisted, and then everything was twisted, and then the demon realized that it was because it was twisting, and it let out a scream, and then its darkness closed in upon itself, pulling all its influence out of Yugi's mind with it. Yami shouted and obliterated the small black hole into nothingness.

As suddenly as it had started, it was over.

Yami: You know what I said about wishing she would write what I actually did?
Joey: Yeah?
Yami: I take it back. This makes no sense at all.

Yami sat down hard to catch his breath. It was over, and all his friends were safe, now. Then he remembered Yugi… He sighed and lowered his head. Now he was alone…

Joey: It’s Tickle Me Emo!
Yami: Don’t you fucking dare.

His attention was caught by a small speck of motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head just in time to see Yugi sit up and rub his head. His eyes widened for a second, then narrowed again with a hint of a smile.

Yugi groaned. "What happened? I feel like I've been hit by a bus…"

Joey: That’s what it feels like to be struck by inspiration!
Yami: No, that’s what it feels like to be struck by a shitty plot device.

"You died," Yami stated simply. "Welcome back."

Yugi's face showed an air of confusion. "Back…? How did you…?"

Joey: Last night, I found out that the guardian of the Shadow Games gets nine lives after they die the first time!
Yami: AAAAAAAAUGH! *channeling the sporker, headdesks multiple times*

"I didn't." Yami closed his eyes. "To be honest, I don't know how it happened." He opened them again and looked at Yugi. "Get some rest. You'll need it."

"Yami?"

Yami cast him a questioning look.

Joey: Because he’s fishing for compliments.

"For a while there, I was… I was really afraid I'd lost you." Yugi looked down and to the side.

Yami: A bite!
Joey: Feels like a lunker!

"So was I," Yami admitted in a tone that said he didn't like admitting things. "I felt like I'd lost a part of myself, until I realized we're not a part of each other…" He trailed off, as though he wasn't done talking. When Yugi didn't respond, his counterpart stood and closed his eyes. "We are each other."

Yami: Hmmmm, not exactly.
Joey: .... Is it supposed to sound like you’re gay for your alter ego?
Yami: I hope not. That would be really awkward.
Joey: *shudders*

Yugi looked up. Something in his expression showed understanding. "Yes… that almost makes sense. Both of us…"

Yami laughed quietly. "So how about telling your friends you're alive?"

Joey: *as Yugi* I’m sure they don’t care.
Yami: They like Avengers #34273528 and Bionicle #864563 better than us.
Joey: They’re more interesting than this story, that’s for sure.

~*~*~

"Gone…?" Joey still couldn't believe it. No way, no how, could Yugi be dead.

Téa had mostly stopped crying now. "I don't know… what…" and she broke into tears again.

Joey: BUHUHUHUHU! ;o;
Yami: BOHAHAHAHA! 8D

Just then, Yugi's fingers quivered. The hand that was hanging off the sofa curled slowly, almost imperceptibly, into a fist. Tristan was the first to notice. "Hey guys…" He pointed.

"Alive?" someone asked, either Joey or Téa, or maybe both.

Yugi almost heard the voices, but not really. He couldn't seem to climb out of the crevasse of his own mind, but finally, he reached the surface and gently opened his eyes.

"…Yugi?" Joey ventured.

Yugi managed a small smile. "Hi," he replied weakly. "I need… to tell you…"

Joey: *as Yugi* When I die again... Joey can have all my cards...
Yami: Look, I’m not falling for that again.

A drop or two of joy fell down Téa's face. "Tell us what?"

Yami: ... “A drop or two of joy”? What kind of joy are we talking here?
Joey: Almond Joy?
Yami: Joy buzzers?

"I'm not… I'm not dead…" Yugi whispered, and then his eyes closed, and the world was silent again, except for the relief and gratitude his friends were feeling inside…

Joey: I’m pretty sure relief and gratitude are still silent.
Yami: “And they all went mute. The end.”

*/CHAPTER*
*/STORY*

Yami: I don’t think those are valid HTML tags.
Joey: It’s okay, it ain’t valid HTML syntax either.
Yami: ... You know the word “syntax”?

The story is over, the battle's been won,
But the war that they're fighting, now that's far from done.
Stay tuned for the sequel, I'm giving 'em hell!
(Same bat time, same bat chann-ell.)

Joey: ... Worst. Poem. Ever.
Yami: Worse than Edgar Guest?
Joey: Yes.

Oh, by the way, please read and review…
That's how I know if I should write a part two.

Yami: THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. DO NOT READ AND REVIEW.
Joey: FOR THE GOOD OF THE CITY!
Yami: NAY, THE WORLD!
Joey: WHY ARE WE YELLING?

~*~*~

Yu-gi-oh Philosophy: Inside every good guy is a bad guy screaming to get out… if the good guy has a Millennium Item, that is.

Yami: ... That’s so untrue I shouldn’t even dignify it with a response.
Joey: So who all has the Millennium Thingamajiggers?
Yami: Me, Bakura, Malik, Shadi, Pegasus, and Isis.
Joey: Out of those, how many have multiple personalities?
Yami: The first three. And Malik doesn’t count because he’s insane on his own.
Joey: So between you and Bakura, how many of those alter egos are actually evil?
Yami: Just Bakura’s.
Joey: I don’t think that counts as “every good guy” then.
Yami: Not by a long shot.
Joey: That’s the end, though?
Yami: Yes, and about damn time. *gets up*
Joey: Wait, wait, what have we learned from this? We gotta learn something.
Yami: How’s this. Inside every stupid fanbrat is the potential to become something greater.
Joey: What do you mean?
Yami: Six years later, the author of this story is still writing. She’s a stuck-up canon whore, too.
Joey: Wow. That’s slightly better than a fanbrat.
Yami: Agreed. Now let’s get out of here and never speak of this again.
Joey: Right behind ya!

END

Come with me in the Wayback Machine...

2008-01-08T18:05:58Z

Title: Yami
Author: Tafkae. Yes, sadly, I wrote this. It’s my first Yugioh fanfic, from clear back in 2002. As you can see, I kind of sucked back then.
Rating: It hurts if I look at it for more than a few minutes.

Full Name (including any titles): some made-up Japanese shit
Full Species(es): Fudge monster? It has tentacles, I think.
Hair Color (include adjectives): no hair
Eye Color (include adjectives): it might have eyes
Unusual Markings/Colorations/Physical Features: made of darkness and fudge? not as tasty as it sounds, I assure you.
Special Possessions (if any): anti-plastic?

Origin: A mysterious statue, though this isn’t revealed until the... *shudder* sequel.
Connections To Canon Characters: pretends to be them to cause car accidents. No, seriously!
Special Abilities: KAMEHAMEHA
Other Annoying Traits: A duel of god-moding proportions, a villain with no clear motivation or goal, Yugi abuse (again), and obvious quotes that I must have thought were clever five years ago.

I Say/Notes: On the plus side, my spelling and grammar were typically pretty good. On the minus side, I thought this was clever when I wrote it. And to this day, nobody has told me it isn’t! (Except my YGO muses, who I think have always had the good sense to hate it...)

Yami
by TAFKAE

Yami: ... That has got to be the most uncreative title I’ve ever seen.
Joey: On the plus side, since you’re in the title, that means you can’t die, right?
Yami: I’m kind of immortal, Joey.
Joey: *shrug* Better safe than sorry.

Chapter 1: Dreams Do Come True

Joey: Oh, geez. Don’t tell me this is gonna be some kinda chick flick!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, and I hardly know the characters since I hardly ever watch it, but I love it anyway!

Yami: I think this is the kind of girl who’d propose after the first date.
Joey: SWEET! Sign me up!

~*~*~

Joey slapped Yugi on the back as he caught up with him in the hallway. "Hey Yugi, what's up?"

Yami: *as Yugi, deadpans* The sky.

"Oh hi Joey, nothing much," his friend replied, but he looked bummed.

Joey shot him a concerned look. "What's the matter? You okay?"

"I had a weird dream last night," Yugi replied.

Joey: That’s not really answerin’ my question, kiddo.

"Let's hear it," his schoolmate responded.

"I was playing Duel Monsters against someone," he stated. "I couldn't see their face. But for every move I made, he had a trap planted. He always knew exactly what I was going to do."

Joey: So... now you’re seein’ Pegasus in your dreams. That’s not creepy at all.
Yami: *shudders* It’s bad enough seeing him when I’m awake.

"Rough," Joey breathed.

Yami: ... Is that how you like it, Joey?
Joey: HEY, HEY, HEY! This show is rated Y7! ... And no.

"Yeah, but that's not the worst of it. I lost horribly, and the spotlight shone on the other guy to say he was the winner…" Yugi paused, as if he wasn't sure what to say next.

Joey: Now, I could understand ya bein’ all mopey if you’d actually lost a game of Duel Monsters, but you’re all mopey just because you dreamed it? LAME.

"Well? Who was it?"

Yami: Thousand yen says it’s Weevil.
Joey: No, it’s totally Rex Raptor.
Yami: You’re on.

For the first time that day, Yugi actually looked into Joey's eyes, with a very serious air in his own. "It was Yami."

Yami: Yo.
Joey: Is that even possible?
Yami: Well, it was a dream.
Joey: No, I meant the thing about having air in your eyes.
Yami: Oh. You’re right, that’s not possible.

Joey backpedaled and fell over onto something soft.

Joey: *as himself* Thank goodness this pile of goose feathers was here in the middle of the hallway to break my fall!
Yami: *sneezes*

"WHAT!!? Yami? That's not -"

Yami: *as Joey* ... his name!
Joey: It’s not?
Yami: Well, it sort of is, but only in the English dub. 4Kids has this weird idea that all characters need their own name.
Joey: Sheesh, the heck makes them think that?

"I don't mean to bug you, Joey," Tristan growled, "but could you please get off me?"

Joey mumbled an apology and got off, then helped Tristan up. "Freakish, man," he whispered. "You think it means anything?"

Yami: That depends on whether you liked it.

"What, you falling on top of him?" Téa asked. "It could mean you're -"

Joey: *as Téa* clumsy!
Yami: *as Téa* wearing butter shoes!
Joey: ... “Butter shoes”?
Yami: I hear they’re popular with ganguros.

"Can it, Téa," Joey interrupted. Téa laughed. Tristan frowned.

Yami: Everyone died. Yugi approved.

Yugi just watched them patiently, then spoke up. "Come on guys, this is important."

His friends looked at him. "What's important?" Tristan asked.

Joey: The letter ‘e’.
Yami: Money.
Joey: Oxygen.
Yami: The sugar bowl.

"I have this weird feeling, like something's seriously wrong with Yami." Yugi's eyes drifted to the left. "I haven't heard a word out of him all day, and that's just not like him."

Yami: Yes, because we all know I’m a chatterbox who’s constantly kibitzing in his host’s everyday life.
Joey: .... You’re not?
Yami: You don’t know me very well, do you.

"Well, you'd know better than we would," Téa said matter-of-factly. "We only see him when you're dueling, and even then he really only talks to the opponent."

Joey: *as Téa* And you know why that is? Because he hates us.
Yami: Look, just because I’m not a socialite...

"I know. But still…" Yugi looked disconcertedly back at his friends, silent.

Tristan nodded. "We'll be careful."

Joey: Of what?
Yami: Bears. Bears that shoot laser beams out of their eyes.
Joey: SWEET! I want one.

"Thanks."

"I'm not sure what we should be careful of, but -"

Yami and Joey: BEARS.

Téa whacked him on the head. "We'll keep an eye on you, just in case something happens."

"That's good," Yugi replied. "I'm not sure if anything actually is going to happen, but if it does, I know I can count on you guys."

Joey: I’m not sure anything is actually going to happen either. So far this is pretty boring.
Yami: But you know the minute your back is turned, he’s going to turn into a werewolf or something.

Joey gave him a thumbs-up. "Hey, what're friends for?"

Joey: Besides mooching food and money from?

~*~*~

"…and that means that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the squares of the legs, added together…"

Joey: ... Wait, isn’t that that Pythagorean thing? We learned that in like, sixth grade.
Yami: It’s official – Domino City’s public school system SUCKS.

Yugi sighed. The teacher was starting to drone again. He looked over at Joey's desk. Joey was leaning back, his mouth wide open, and a slight buzzing sound coming out.

Yami: Shouldn’t have eaten that beehive for breakfast.
Joey: What can I say? Me want Honeycomb.

'He's fast asleep,' Yugi thought, and yawned. 'I could use some sleep too…' Relaxing, he laid his head down in his arms and shut his eyes.

Yami: *shakes head disappointedly* Delinquents, the both of you. You should be ashamed.

Then he heard it. He wasn't sure if it was real or just part of a dream, but he heard it. Laughter… evil laughter… but who…?

Yami appeared in front of him.

Joey: Do I see this happening?
Yami: No, you’re at the tavern.
Joey: Cool, I get drunk!

"Hello, Yugi," he said, a confident smirk on his face.

"Yami? What's going on? You've been so quiet…"

Yami: Which is so much different from normal... 9_9

Yami just smiled even more. "I've been waiting, Yugi… waiting for you to let down your guard like this."

Joey: OH SNAP! I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! YOU ARE AN EVIL MASTERMIND!
Yami: *facepalm* Shut up before you hurt yourself.

"What are you talking about?"

"I want your soul," he said simply. "And I will take it!" With those words, he rushed toward the boy whose body he used so often.

Joey: .... Um... wow. Talk about your poor choice of words.
Yami: Oh, good God. *buries face in hands*

"Yami, what are you doing?" Yugi shouted, backing away a step or two. Yami said nothing as he rushed past, kicking up a breeze. The other's hair fluttered. "Yami!" he screamed.

Yami: To prove how evil I am, I will now FLY HARMLESSLY PAST YOU!
Joey: I’d now like to nominate Yami for the “Worst Villain Ever” award.
Yami: I WILL POSSIBLY EVEN MESS UP YOUR HAIR A LITTLE! D8

"Yugi!" the teacher shouted, snapping him back to reality. He sat up abruptly and looked at her; she was scowling. "I asked you a question."

Yugi lowered his head. "Sorry, ma'am, I guess I fell asleep…"

The class laughed, but just then Joey let out a tremendous SNXXXXXXX! and suddenly everyone was laughing at him instead.

Yami: What’s a “SNXXXXXXX!”?
Joey: Either a rodent or a disgusting bodily function, I think.
Yami: I hope it’s the former. R.O.U.S. problems are easier to handle.

The teacher stormed over to his desk and rapped him sharply on the head with a ruler. Joey instantly became more alert. "OW!!!"

Joey: Yeah, getting hit on the head with a piece of metal will do that.
Yami: *as the teacher* ... and if you bring one more SNXXXXXXX! to school, I will give you twenty lashes with a wet noodle!!
Joey: Isn’t that illegal?

"I'm ashamed," she growled. "Both of you will be serving detention this afternoon. I'll let Mr. Kohl decide what to do with you."

Yami and Joey: Who?

Joey and Yugi exchanged a nervous glance. Mr. Kohl was the assistant principal with a mean streak three miles wide and the charm of an eel.

Joey: An eel three miles wide?
Yami: *sings bass* You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as charming as an eel, Mr. Kohl... I wouldn’t touch you with a ... thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole!
Joey: *snicker* Hey, that actually rhymes. Do it again.
Yami: Sorry, I just used up my yearly allotment of Christmas spirit.

And after hearing about detention experiences with him, no one ever passed within a mile of his office if they didn't have to.

Joey: ... OH MY GOD. HE MOLESTS KIDS IN DETENTION.
Yami: No, that’s only in “special detention.”
Joey: How’s that different from regular detention?
Yami: Regular detention doesn’t have as much molesting.
Joey: *shivers*

~*~*~

Kold Kohl was what they called him. And they had good reason to. He could split hairs with that toothy grin, uneven moustache sitting on top of it and the way his eyes seemed to pierce into your soul and leave it feeling remotely like Swiss cheese..

Joey: I’m imagining a guy with a cheese hat, knives instead of eyeballs, and half a mustache.
Yami: And yet, none of this has anything to do with being cold.
Joey: *thinks* Cheese is cold, maybe?

"So I hear you boys fell asleep in class," he said evilly. "Well, I have the perfect chore for you…"

Joey and Yugi exchanged another nervous glance…

~*~*~

…and the next thing they knew, they were washing the floor in the cafeteria.

Joey: PHEW! At least it’s not molestation.
Yami: Isn’t washing the floors part of our class duties anyway?
Joey: No, 5A class has the cafeteria, I think.
Yami: We have a cafeteria?

Joey picked up a banana peel and tossed it into a trash can. "Disgustin'. Nobody ever picks up their mess around here."

Yugi distractedly moved the sponge he was using around in little circles on the floor.

Yami: We already have a word for “moving the sponge in circles.” It’s “scrubbing.”

"I need you to hear something, Joey."

Yami: *as Yugi* I got the soundtrack for “The Mummy Returns,” see...

Joey looked over at him as he tossed a tater tot at the trash can, missed, and ignored it. "What?"

Joey: *as himself* Gimme your tots.
Yami: No, get your own.

"When I fell asleep in class…" Yugi looked down. "Something happened. Something almost happened," he corrected himself.

Yami: Wow, really? It looked to me like ABSOLUTELY NOTHING happened.
Joey: No, you flew around and cackled menacingly. Like the Wicked Witch of the West, but with less monkeys.
Yami: Fewer monkeys.
Joey: Shup you faced.

"What was that?"

"Yami…" He sighed. "Something's happened to him. He said he wanted my soul and he'd been waiting for me to let down my guard…"

Joey: *as the Wicked Witch of the West* I’ll get you, Yugi’s Soul! And your little dog, too!
Yami: What would I want with you?
Joey: Huh?

Joey's gaze suddenly turned serious. "You're sure?"

Yami: *as Yugi* NOOOOO. I’M JUST MAKING THIS UP FOR FUN.
Joey: *finally gets it* Did you just call me a dog?!

His friend nodded. "Positive. Something's very wrong with Yami. And I have a feeling that if I fall asleep again, he's going to take over and do… something or other…"

"And you don't know what."

"But it has to be bad." Yugi shook his head. "I don't know. I don't… I feel like I'm trapped…"

Joey: Question! If you’re gonna take over Yugi and be evil and shit, why wait till he’s asleep?
Yami: Because lying menacingly in wait is the EVIL thing to do!
Joey: And even if you turned inexplicably evil, what would you do, anyway?
Yami: ..... *has to think about that one*

~*~*~

Eventually the cafeteria was finished and they had moved on, but Joey did most of the work himself. It was quite a while later when he realized his compatriot was missing.

Yami: Way to ditch your friends, hero.
Joey: So, what, was I talking to myself all the way home or something?

After retracing his steps for several minutes, he reached the cafeteria –

- where Yugi was sprawled on the floor,

Joey: bleeding from the head.

fast asleep.

Joey: Ah, shit, wrong again.

Joey shook him gently. "Yugi, wake up."

Yugi sat up and rubbed his head. "Joey?" he asked.

"Yeah. You okay?" Joey just couldn't get over the fact that something looked different about his friend, and it bothered him.

Yami: Yugi, on the other hand, hadn’t yet noticed that he’d turned green.

Yugi stood and looked around. Just then, Joey noticed.

The marks on his forehead. The shape of his eyes. The flare on the back of his coat.

Joey gasped. "Yami…" he murmured.

Yami: ......... What??
Joey: You have marks on your forehead? Lemme seeeeee.
Yami: *stiffarms him* What I wonder is why you didn’t include “he was taller,” or “his hairstyle had changed slightly.”
Joey: I was too busy starin’ into your BYOOTEEFUL EYEZ.
Yami: ...... *twitch*

Yami Yugi looked Joey in the eye and smirked. Too fast for anyone to see, his foot came forward and connected with the pit of Joey's stomach. The latter doubled over in pain and in the few seconds before he blacked out, wheezed,

"Yami… why would you…"

Yami smirked again. "Because you are weak, and I am strong."

Joey: So, have you thought up an answer?
Yami: For what?
Joey: What you would do if you turned inexplicably evil all of a sudden.
Yami: Apparently, I’d beat up all my friends for the hell of it.
Joey: That’s not evil, that’s just being a jackass.
Yami: ...... and then I’d, uh... take over the world?
Joey: Hm, getting there, but you’re really just not villain material.
Yami: That’s why I’m a hero, you dolt.

*CHAPTER END*

You like? I need ideas for chapter 2, so if you want more, please review!

Joey: Why’d she start the story if she doesn’t know what to write about?
Yami: Why doesn’t she just come up with her own ideas?
Joey: Let’s flame her.
Yami: Agreed.

Yami
by TAFKAE

Chapter 2: Let's Duel!

Joey: Better idea. Let’s not.

A/N: Thanks to all my readers for your support and wonderful ideas! I love my fans!

Yami and Joey: WHY DO YOU HAVE FANS?

Oh, and no disclaimer this time, because disclaimers SUCK!!! BWAHAHA! DIE, DISCLAIMERS!!! TAKE THAT, FCC!!

Yami: ... You could just discreetly leave it out. You did a disclaimer last chapter anyway, so you’re pretty much covered.
Joey: *FCC = French Cheese Cake? Mmmm.*

~*~*~

He could feel him.

Joey: .... up, anytime he wanted.
Yami: *thwap*

The sun had dawned on the next morning, and Yami was far from the school.

Yami: There we go. I’d beat up my friends and then skip school. Now that’s evil!

No doubt that kid's friends had found him by now. Well, no hurry. Let them come. And they would come. And he would kill them, slowly, one by one.

Joey: With what? Your duel deck?
Yami: Yes.
Joey: Dude, Mythbusters proved you can’t use playing cards as lethal weapons.
Yami: Really? Someone needs to tell Yami no Bakura that. >_>

Still, he could feel the boy's influence on the back corner of his mind. He didn't want to, and tried to drown it out, but he'd definitely gotten too used to him. Maybe this was how he felt when Yami wasn't in control. No matter, he was now, and that was all that counted.

Yami: ... No idea what this paragraph is supposed to mean.
Joey: TL;DR

He glanced over at the pile of totaled cars that had swerved to avoid him on that deserted road, and half-smiled. He just couldn't get over that look on the drivers' faces just moments before they died.

Joey: Wait, wait. If it’s a deserted road, where did all the cars come from?
Yami: I’d beat up my friends, skip school, stand out in the middle of the freeway and cause car accidents. Now that’s evil!
Joey: I heard about a drunk guy who did that once.
Yami: What happened to him?
Joey: He got hit by a semi-truck and died.

Not that it would have hurt if they'd hit him. He was too strong for that.

Yami: ..... Laws of physics, people. Getting hit by a car usually hurts.
Joey: Unless it kills you instantly.
Yami: Oh, but I have superhuman strength all of a sudden, so it’s cool.

In the end, it was strength that ruled. Might didn't have to be Right, so long as it was Might.

He had Might. Nothing else mattered.

Joey: EVIL superhuman strength! *flexes*
Yami: And did he mention he’s EVIL?

~*~*~

"Yugi did it?"

"No," Joey corrected, nursing his injured stomach. "Yami Yugi, you lunkhead. Yami. Yugi was right, something's wrong with him.

Joey: O RLY? What was your first clue?

OW! Watch it, Téa!"

"Sorry," she grumbled. "It wouldn't hurt as much if you'd hold still. Now hold still and let me bandage it."

Yami: Don’t we have a school nurse for this?
Joey: Or a hospital?

"Yeah," Tristan added. Joey glared at him before he decided to say anything else stupid.

"He's gotten stronger," Téa murmured. "Yugi normally couldn't make you bleed like this."

Yami: I would also get knives installed in my shoes before beating up my friends for no reason.
Joey: I dunno, I think Yugi could probably make me bleed if he kicked me in the face hard enough.
Yami: But why would he want to? I’m the inexplicably-evil-all-of-a-sudden one, remember?

"I'm not bleeding that bad."

Tristan pointed to the bloodstain on the linoleum floor. "Yes, you are. Look at that."

Joey: JESUS CRAP ON A STICK. CALL AN AMBULANCE OR SOMETHING, YOU IDIOTS.

"I did. I had my goddamn face planted in it all goddamn night. DAMNIT Téa, I said watch it!"

"If you don't watch your language, I'm going to get the saltshaker."

Yami: *as Téa* This show is rated Y7, you know!
Joey: *as himself* So your threat has no meaning, as physical violence is frowned upon here.
Yami: *as Téa* Be that as it may, I can do anything I want offscreen. ^_^
Joey: *as himself* I’d better call an ambulance preemptively.

"All right, all right, jeez." Joey sighed. "We have to find him. Yugi did say something about Yami wanting his soul…"

"Hope he doesn't eat it, like Winnowill."

Yami: Who?
Joey: I think she’s from Elftrek or something.
Yami: You mean Elfquest?
Joey: Yeah, that’s the one!
Yami: Does she eat souls?
Joey: Hell if I remember.

"Get your head out of your comic books for a change, Tristan."

"Watch it, Téa, that really smarts!"

"Oh, don't be such a baby."

"Goo goo."

"Shut up, Tristan."

"Woogie woogie woo."

"Shut up, Tristan!"

"A boo boo bOWW!!!"

Joey: What happened to all the “said Joey,” “said Tristan,” and “said Téa”s?
Yami: All the saids had detention.

Téa kissed her fist and went back to Joey. "I said shut up."

"What'd I do?!?" Tristan wailed, clutching his black eye.

Joey: Did you beat up Tristan, too?
Yami: I think that one was Téa.
Joey: Oh my God, now Téa’s evil too?!
Yami: Yes. She will be my queen in my new world of evilness and stuff.

Joey stood up the instant Téa finished the bandages. He didn't bother to put on his shirt, just ran outside and stopped a foot or two short of the chain-link fence. "YAMI!!!!!"

Joey: Chain-link? What is this, a prison?
Yami: It’s a government-run public school.
Joey: Oh. I guess that’s close enough.

There was an echo.

~*~*~

Miles away, Yami heard it… and laughed.

Yami: So I have super-strength and super-hearing now?
Joey: And a super-laugh.
Yami: Muahahahahaha.
Joey: .... That was sort of a mediocre-laugh. But with a little bit of work...

~*~*~

Two days later…

"Yugi's absent again?" the teacher sighed.

"I think he got the flu, ma'am," Joey lied.

Yami: “Aren’t his parents worried?” the teacher cried.
Joey: Joey shook his head. “No, they died.”

"All right, then," she sighed again. "Take out your books and turn to page 426."

As the class did so, the door swung open and Yugi slowly walked in.

Téa gasped. Tristan and Joey narrowed their eyes…

"Sorry I'm late," said Yugi. "My bike broke and I had to walk."

Joey: You have a bike?
Yami: *as Roger* He promised me drugs, women, and a new dirtbike. BIIIIKE
Joey: And now we must find some way to make this next load of crap funny.

To which all three of his friends gave a confused look.

He sat down at the table and swung his backpack over the back of his chair. "Hey guys," he whispered as the teacher continued droning.

"It's about time," Joey sighed. "What happened? Did you find out what's wrong with him?"

Joey: Have you thought of anything funny for this part yet?

Yugi shook his head. "Not yet, but I'm trying."

Yami: Yeah, what he said.

"How'd you get back?" Téa asked eagerly.

Her friend shrugged. "I'm not really sure. He just kind of… let go…"

Yami: Least. Convincing. Answer. EVER.

"That's weird," said Joey.

"I know," Yugi replied. Then he sat up straight. "Anybody up for a game of Duel Monsters at break?"

Joey: Dude, stop taking your evil-plot cues from Yami no Bakura.
Yami: To prove how evil I am, I will now eat this raw steak in a very messy way!

Joey opened his mouth to say something, but Téa interjected before he had a chance to. "Yugi, this is no time for dueling. We never know when he might show up again."

Joey: Téa, this is no time for common sense. Think of the kittens.
Yami: .... Kittens??
Joey: Yami, this is no time for common sense...

"That's true," Yugi returned, "but I think I might be able to get him under control then. He never turns down a duel if he's offered one."

Joey: And that’s the best way to get him “under control.”
Yami: Something about it just sounds kind of counterproductive to me.

"Ya got that right." Joey tilted his head just a bit. "I'll do it. As a friend, I accept your challenge." He held out one hand.

Yami: What, now you’re making me pay to duel you?
Joey: 100 batt for standard. 180 batt for priority. 250 batt for express.
Yami: What qualifies as express?
Joey: ..... um ...

Yugi shook it. "Right away at break."

Joey: That?

"Gotcha," the other whispered before leaning back into his seat and slumping down for a nap.

Yami: So everyone in this story has narcolepsy?
Joey: No, just the comic relief character. 9_9

~*~*~

"Are you ready?" Tristan asked with much ceremonial flair.

Joey: ARE THE JUDGES READY?
Yami: This isn’t Final Fantasy Tactics.
Joey: IS THE ENSEMBLE READY?
Yami: *whips out a pair of timpani mallets*
Joey: DOMINO HIGH SCHOOL MAY TAKE THE FLOOR IN COMPETITION.

"Yes," they both replied, Yugi with a serious expression on his face, and Joey with an almost lighthearted one.

Yami: Card games are SERIOUS BUSINESS.
Joey: I thought they were ALMOST LIGHTHEARTED BUSINESS.
Yami: Nope. SERIOUS.
Joey: But he bit it in Book Five, didn’t he?
Yami: ...... ???

"Then let the duel begin!" Tristan shouted, alerting the entire class to the match and bringing them running over with excited cries of "Yugi versus Joey?" "Yeah, the best in the world dueling the worst!" "Ten bucks on Yugi!" "Fifty cents on Joey!"

Joey: GEE THANKS FOR THE VOTE OF CONFIDENCE GUYS.
Yami: Why are they betting in American money? We’re in Japan.

Yugi slid five cards off the top of his deck and launched into thought,

Joey: Like a space rocket! FWHOOOSH.

as Joey did the same and almost immediately set the Archangel Warrior into attack mode.

Yami: I don’t think that’s a real card.
Joey: Well, made-up cards are only banned in tournaments, right?
Yami: No, I’m pretty sure that’s still cheating. And you know how we deal with cheaters, right, Joey?
Joey: Why are you looking at me like that? Get the hell away.

Yugi thought more carefully before laying down the Dark Magician.

"Geez, what is it with you and starting every match with the Dark Magician?" Joey joked.

Yami: I don’t. I play him when he’s convenient to the plot.
Joey: No, you totally do.
Yami: You don’t want me to remember you cheating, do you, Joey? +_+
Joey: NO SIR

Yugi simply said, "Your move." There was no emotion in his voice, and Joey assumed he'd gone into autopilot and was carrying on a heated discussion with Yami.

Yami: If by “heated discussion” you mean “we were sitting around a figurative brazier and talking it out like the civilized people we are,” then sure.
Joey: ... Did you just say “brassiere”?
Yami: *facepalm*

"All right then," he replied, thinking carefully again, but quickly setting an Azalea Gnome (one of almost fifteen in his deck) to defense.

Yami: *sputters at this flagrant violation of the rules* What the- THREE to a deck. MAXIMUM. THREE.
Joey: What the hell’s an “Azalea Gnome,” anyway?
Yami: FAIL. SO MUCH FAIL. GOOD LORD.

Suddenly, things began to fade into black. The class stood around the table, stock-still, outlined in the darkness, nearby and still distant. Joey looked back and forth. "Hey, what the heck -?"

"The stakes have increased," said a voice he knew too well.

Joey: HOLYSHIT VAMPIRES.
Yami: What the... oh. Stakes. =_=

He looked back at his friend. Yugi was still holding the cards in one hand, but his eyes had sharpened and his expression had changed to a downright evil one. "Yami," Joey breathed.

Joey: How do your sharpen your eyes, anyway? Wouldn’t that hurt?
Yami: Not as much as blinking. *blink* Ow.

"I knew you'd fall right into my trap," Yami answered. "You're so gullible."

"Trap? But Yugi said -"

Yami: *as Mal* TRAP!!

"Yugi," Yami interrupted, "has not yet awakened, and will not until I want him to, which isn't likely to happen at all. I simply took his place for a while, and raised the stakes."

Joey: .... Yerwot?
Yami: *deadpan* I’m going to be a master of disguise.
Joey: You switched brains with Yami no Bakura. I swear to God you did.
Yami: That doesn’t surprise me at this point.

"Whaddaya mean, 'raised the stakes'?" Joey demanded.

"Simple," Yami returned. "If you lose -" he pointed at Téa "- her soul will belong to me."

Joey: ... It doesn’t already?
Yami: She thinks it does.
Joey: Then you could just, I don’t know, ask her for it.
Yami: What I wonder is how stealing Téa’s soul is going to further my evil plot at all.
Joey: Before we answer that, don’t we have to figure out what your evil plot is first?

Joey's eyes went wide, then narrowed. "You're bluffing. Only one person who can do that, and that's that creep Pegasus."

Yami: *as himself* Who said I’m not Pegasus?
Joey: CONSPIRACY!

"He gets that ability from the Millennium eye. You think I might find it difficult?"

Joey: “Eye” is always capitalized. It’s a proper pronoun.
Yami: That’s “I”, Joey.
Joey: That’s what Eye said!

"You wouldn't. Not to Téa."

"Try me."

Joey: ... big boy.
Yami: *thwap*

Joey growled. "Fine. But I won't lose."

"Neither will I," Yami replied calmly.

Yami: LOGIC ERROR. POSSIBILITIES ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.
Joey: We’re all winners here! Just like the guidance counselor said.
Yami: She was calling you a loser behind your back.
Joey: .... I know

*CHAPTER END*

Yami
by TAFKAE

Chapter 3: Playing Dirty

Yami: But keeping clean.
Joey: With Orbitz Gum!

~*~*~

Joey surveyed his hand. He was screwed, and he knew it. His wasn't the best deck in the world, and he wasn't the best duelist in the world, and battling Yami Yugi, or even regular Yugi, would end him up losing pitifully.

Yami: GRAMMAR. GRAMMAR.
Joey: It doesn’t come when it’s called. ... And I ain’t that bad!!

What was it you always said, Yugi? he thought. Believe in the cards. Trust the cards. Well, I hope his own philosophy works against him.

Joey: Believe in the plot device. Stack your deck well and no power in the ‘verse can stop you.
Yami: *defensively* You can’t prove I do that.

He was awakened from his thoughts by Yami's eternally-patient-and-yet-not-all-that-patient voice. "Your move."

Yami: ... “Eternally-patient-and-yet-not-all-that-patient.”
Joey: Antidisestablishmentar... um... shit. Can I start over?
Yami: Just say “cool and collected” or something...
Joey: Cool and collected or ... antidisinfectant...? @_@

He looked over his hand again. Sword and Shield wouldn't do him any good right now. Korello the Black wouldn't do him much good either with its attack power of 1300.

Yami: If you’re gonna make up cards, at least make them more god-modey.
Joey: Alternatively, I could make a legal deck.
Yami: Yes, but if you play by the rules I have no excuse to be a complete douchebag to you.
Joey: So that’s why you turned evil? Because fic-me is breaking the rules?
Yami: No, that’s why I stay good. But you were close.

In fact, there wasn't one card in his hand that would help him at all. So he pulled out one from the top of his deck and looked at it. He could never have been prepared for what he saw.

Oh, he knew his deck. He knew it well. He also knew that the Starlight Virgin was one of the rarest cards in existence.

Yami: THAT MIGHT BE BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST.

It had an attack power of 2800, a defense of 2400, and a random attack that had a forty-one point five percent chance of being Starlight Magic and fifty-eight percent of being Virgin's Kiss.

Joey: Not that that makes any difference.
Yami: The Kiss one probably causes Confuse or something.
Joey: Wait, we have status ailments in this game?
Yami: No. But we don’t have three-quarters of your deck, either.

(He couldn't remember what the other point five percent was a chance of.)

Yami: Five hundred yen says it’s an Exodia rip-off.
Joey: You’re on.

But what he knew most of all was that he didn't have one.

Yami: THAT MIGHT BE BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST.

Tucking it in his hand, he deployed Korello to attack mode and decided to save the Virgin for later, though he had no clue how it had ended up in his deck.

Joey: I think it’s coming on to me.
Yami: *as Starlight Virgin* Take me sir. Take me hard.

"You're hiding something," Yami taunted. "I know you're hiding something."

Joey: *devious grin* You have no idea whether I’m hiding something.
Yami: *mutters* Fuck.

"Just move already," Joey snapped.

Yami: *does a halfhearted little dance*
Joey: ...... o_o?
Yami: *deadpan* I like to move it, move it.

"Very well." Yami pulled a card from his hand and laid it down. "I summon the Poisonwraith!"

Yami: We could build an entire booster pack from the cards you pulled out of your ass for this duel.
Joey: You think it’d sell?
Yami: Sure, if the Starlight Virgin’s naked.
Joey: You think it’d sell in America?
Yami: Who cares?

From nowhere a giant Poisonwraith appeared out of the ground and twitched.

Joey: What’s it look like?
Yami: Twitchy?
Joey: Like a Heartless?
Yami: Ahahaha. From now on the Poisonwraith is a fifteen-foot-tall Black Mushroom.
Joey: *sporfle*

Its size dwarfed the Dark Magician, whom Yami instantly commanded, "Dark Magician - Dark Magic attack!"

Korello was annihilated instantly, and Joey's life points dropped to 1700. But that wasn't all that happened. As his monster disintegrated, he felt a sharp pain run briefly through his body, almost enough to make him cry out, and just enough to make him slump over a little and hold a rail for support.

Yami: *as himself* Welcome to the Shadow Games, bitch.

"Oh, did that hurt? I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you," Yami taunted. "In this game, whatever your monster feels, you will feel as well. Do you enjoy the pain of defeat?"

Joey: No.
Yami: I’d be worried if you did.

"I ain't defeated yet, Yami," Joey growled. "And remember, this is gonna hurt you as much as it hurts me -"

Yami: What are you, my mother?
Joey: Your mom’s been dead for like ten thousand years.
Yami: Oh, right. Thanks for bringing that up. 9_9

With that, he switched the Archangel Warrior to attack mode and with the Staff of Justice attack, vaporized the Dark Magician. Yami shouted and stumbled backwards a few steps, life points at 1675.

Joey: *as the author* I CAN DO THE MATHEMATICS!!

"How do ya like that, ya double-crossin' sonuvabitch?" Joey snarled.

Yami: HEY, HEY, HEY. This show is rated Y7. ... and no.

Yami wiped some blood off his lip and took his former place again. "Not bad, but the name-calling is very immature."

"That's me." Joey smirked and tilted his head. "Your move."

"All right." Yami pointed forward, past his Poisonwraith. "Poisonwraith, Poisoned Souls attack!"

Yami: Now, remember that the Poisonwraith is a fifteen-foot-tall Black Mushroom Heartless...

Green goop spouted from the monster's mouth and covered the Azalea Gnome and Archangel Warrior.

Joey: SLIME GEYSER!

Joey felt a twinge in his right arm, then his vision blurred slightly, outlines bleeding into each other, and he started feeling dizzy.

"That the - whoa!" he shouted as he almost fell over and grabbed the rail to keep him from doing so. "That the best you can do?!"

Yami: ..... yes. That is the best I can do. As we all know, I’m a terrible duelist.
Joey: Aw, don’t put yourself down like that.

"Pain is temporary," Yami chuckled, "but poison lasts a long, long time."

Joey: ... that is, it would if we had status ailments in this game.
Yami: Yeah, what is this, an RPG?

Joey's eyes narrowed. "Poison or no poison, I'm still gonna kick your butt."

Yami smiled cockily. "Look again."

Joey did. The Gnome's hit points were dropping dramatically, and so were those of the Archangel. He had to act fast, or he'd lose the last monsters he had on the field. "Archangel Warrior…" He slumped over the table. "Radiant Earth!"

Yami: How come your made-up monsters get multiple attacks? This isn’t Pokémon.
Joey: Hey, don’t try to out-God-mode the master. *grin*
Yami: Wouldn’t dream of it. 9_9

The ground glowed. The Poisonwraith looked down in shock as its legs disintegrated. Its torso and head followed, and Yami's life points dropped to 1225 as he winced and stumbled forward, with no Wraith.

Yami: Worry not, my little the-one-up friend. Your passing shall be avenged.
Joey: Oh, is that what just happened?

"How's tha -" Joey stopped when he realized his Azalea Gnome was gone, too, its lesser hit points no match for the efficacious venom.

Joey: STEP AWAY FROM THE THESAURUS.
Yami: What is this crazy talk about “hit points”? This isn’t Magic TCG.

His own life points were at 1400, but the poison had dulled the pain enough that he hadn't felt much at all. Thinking fast, or as fast as he could under the influence of the poison, he yanked a card off his deck and looked at it.

Trust in the cards, he thought. So it does work. He slammed the card onto the table. "I summon the Cleansing Mist!"

Joey: HOW CONVENIENT.

Yami jumped back. He obviously hadn't been expecting it. The Archangel's hit points jumped back to their original 2000, and this time Joey could see it clearly. "Thanks for teaching me to trust the cards, Yami," he laughed. "Never woulda known the Mist was right there without 'cha!"

Yami: Bullshit. You couldn’t have known it was there, unless...
Joey: Hey, whoa, slow down. I don’t stack my deck any more than you stack yours.
Yami: .... I’ll let it slide this time. THIS TIME.

Yami scowled. "I suppose that was my mistake."

"Or maybe," Joey suggested, "you know you were gonna go evil like this all along, somehow, and you cared too much to leave us defenseless."

Yami: I think you’re reading too much into this, Joey.

"I don't care about you," his opponent snapped. "I'm just having a little fun."

"Why are you acting like this?" Joey wondered aloud. "It's not like you."

Joey: Yeah, what, you, be a jackass while you’re dueling? UNHEARD OF.
Yami: You’re treading a thin line.

Yami growled and pulled a card out of his deck, then slammed it down. "I summon Nuriko the White!"

A young woman appeared out of the ground. She was Japanese, in a white kimono with sleeves that fell six inches past her hands. She didn't look strong, and not by her stats, either.

Joey: Oh, that’s what happened to that one classmate of ours who disappeared.
Yami: I will not make an off-color joke for this segment. That might have been appropriate five thousand years ago, but not today.

1400:1800. Easy, Joey thought. Rest easy, Téa. You're safe in my capable hands.

Yami: *as Téa* Forgive me for not feeling reassured.
Joey: Hey!!

"Archangel Warrior, Staff of Justice!"

The Warrior obeyed. Nuriko crouched down and glowed slightly. As the Staff came closer, it slowed, and slowed, until finally the Warrior was straining just to hold it still, and then it was vaporized, along with its owner…

Joey stumbled back with a shout. His life points had fallen to 950. "What the hell was that?!" he shouted. "There's no way she coulda gotten it! Not the Archangel Warrior!"

Joey: I AGREE. WHAT THE FUCK.

He was interrupted by Yami's cold laugh. "You don't know Nuriko very well, do you? She may not be very strong physically, but she has a powerful psychic shield…"

Joey: REPEAT, WHAT THE FUCK.
Yami: SECONDED. THIS ISN’T A VIDEO GAME.

"Nothing's gonna get the best of me!" Joey yelled. "Nothing!" And with that word, he swiftly yanked the Starlight Virgin out of his hand and slammed it onto the field.

Yami jumped. "WHAT? You - there's no way you could - I know for a FACT you don't have - but - "

Yami: Yes. Because I keep track of every card you have in your deck at all times.
Joey: Shh! I don’t get to see you freak out like this very often.
Yami: That’s because I never freak out like that.

"Hey, until I found it in my deck, I didn't think I had one either," Joey pointed out. "But anyway…" He pointed out onto the field, where Nuriko stood stalwart. "You're goin' down, Yami!"

Joey: *as Ark* Prepare yourself! Gladiatoooooor!!!

"I don't think so…" Yami replied, regaining his composure. He pulled a card out of his hand. "I waited exactly for the right moment to do this." And laid it down on the table. "Magical Clones!"

Joey: That almost sounds like a real card.
Yami: No, that’s Hats. This one’s still made up.

Within a half-second, there were eight Nurikos on the field. Joey jumped. "Whata?!"

"Feh." Yami tilted his head. "Only one is the real Nuriko. The others have the same abilities, and they can hurt you very badly. They'll only all disappear if you destroy the real one."

Joey's eyes went wide. Oh, great! How the heck am I gonna tell which one's the real Nuriko?!

Yami: The real one has a shadow. That’s always how it works.
Joey: Do things still have shadows in Shadow Games?
Yami: ..... Well, in that case, you’re proper fucked.

"It's your move," Yami continued. "Use it wisely. It's the only chance you'll get to actually use your new Starlight Virgin."

Joey: Can’t I take her home and use her another time?
Yami: You’re done.
Joey: I promise I’ll be gentle.

One move to figure out which one is the real one… A drop of sweat ran down Joey's face as his eyes darted from one Nuriko, to another, to another, to another… and then…

"Starlight Virgin," he commanded, "attack that one! The one with a shadow!"

Yami: Called it.

"It's no use, Joey," Yami stated. "Remember what happened to your Archangel?"

Joey flicked him off.

Yami: *as Joey* Look! My middle finger proves how badass I am.
Joey: Little do they know, in Japan, that’s just how we say hello!
Yami: Um... no it’s not.
Joey: You mean my dad was lying to me all these years? That bastard!!

"Look, Yami, if you wanna question my strategy, do it when you're on my side! Starlight Virgin…" He pointed with the more appropriate finger now. "Use Roulette!"

Joey: Russian Roulette, that is.
Yami: With a semiautomatic. Just to be sure.

Roulette… it chooses one random attack of the ones she can do… Virgin's Kiss or Starlight Magic…it's gotta be one of those… unless…

With no warning at all, the woman's hands glowed, and came back, and shot forth a blast so powerful…

"OF COURSE!" Joey yelled. "The last point five percent is the chance of it being Obliterate!"

Yami: I SO CALLED IT. Pay up.
Joey: Can it wait for my paycheck next week?
Yami: You don’t have a job.
Joey: *grumbles, fishes in his pockets for change*

"No!" Yami screamed. "I can't lose! Not to you!"

Yami: *as himself* You’re just the comic relief!!
Joey: Welcome to the God-Mode Games, bitch.

He raised his hand in Téa's direction. It glowed slightly. Joey didn't even notice, because just then Obliterate hit the eight Nurikos, annihilating each and every last one of them, and sending Yami's life points spiraling down to zero.

Yami: *deadpan* You spin me right round, baby, right round. Like a record baby, right round, round round.

Yami screamed, and fell backwards onto the floor, and then it was over. The black faded out, and the world came back to life.

Joey: Earth-that-was is back? Fuck this shit! *jumps up*
Yami: Joey, we’re on Earth-that-was. And it’s still Earth-that-is.
Joey: But it’s dead. Or a zombie. Earth is a zombie?

"Wha - what the heck just happened?" someone asked.

"Yugi! Is he okay?"

"When're they gonna start?"

"Hey, Joey!" Tristan shouted over the roar of the crowd. "I need an explanation here!"

He was supporting the unconscious Téa in his arms.

Yami: *as Téa* I’d say you’re in more of a supporting role.
Joey: *as Tristan* Téa, please.

Joey's eyes widened. "He… he did it anyway…"

Yami: To prove I am evil, I have gone back on my word and stolen Téa’s soul despite that that breaks every last one of the rules I’ve sworn to uphold.
Joey: That seems kind of like overreacting. You’re a real sore loser, pal.
Yami: Well... yes. But I’m not that bad.

*CHAPTER END*

Please review! I love reviews! And if you have the time, please read and review my other stories too! *grin grin*

Joey: YOUR EARLIER STORIES ARE WORSE.
Yami: Seriously?
Joey: I know, it doesn’t sound possible, but it’s true.

(OH BUT IT GETS BETTER.)