I really agonized for, like, a whole three seconds over whether I should post a second chapter from this book, or another chapter of Reaper, but this book is longer and getting a later start, so it won out. This chapter is a little short-ish compared to some of my others (though not by much, really), but soooo much happens. Seriously, just read it. Shit gets real very quickly.
I haven't worked out a schedule governing the posting of these chapters alongside Reaper yet, though you should expect at least one more of these at least before another Reaper goes up. I want the climax of this book to go up at the same time as the climax of Reaper, so that the climax of the latter feels like a flashback within this book. In fact all of Reaper could be though of as Max thinking back to the important recent events of Reaper, where he actually worked with other people again for the first time in months, as he deals with once again teaming up with his old friends and allies from DF. That's why I feel that I can post them alongside each other at all.
Chapter One
An Eventful Day
My name’s John. I’m a Duelist, and a Professional Duelist at that. That means that I’m someone who plays the card game Duel Monsters not only to have fun, but to entertain, and to make a living. I’d only recently started, and I didn’t have any kind of gimmick or anything yet (I don’t think I’ll need one, either), but a Pro I was nonetheless. It was a dream come true, but I had another dream to make come true today, as I walked back to my seat in the second to lowest level of a spacious stadium built by Industrial Illusions for Duel Monsters events. In the seat next to mine was my girlfriend, Karen.
She was beautiful, with big, wavy brown hair and these enchanting kinda amber-brown eyes that were lighter (and in the case of her hair, neater) than my unkempt dark brown hair and eyes. Her face was soft, with these cute little freckly things on her nose, and while she usually looked really kind and approachable, I knew that she could also look really intense if she wanted to. She wasn’t wearing her nerd glasses today, but she was wearing this really stylish flow-y pink top that accentuated her figure. Hanging out with Karen so much, I was really starting to think that I was perpetually under-dressed in my usual jeans and t-shirt, and the worn and torn black over-shirt that I rarely took off. She didn’t look particularly happy as I approached, but I pretended I didn’t notice as I sat down and put my arm around her shoulder.
“This is great, isn’t it?” I asked, looking down on a duel concluding below. “It was nice of Pegasus to give us the month up until the start of the next big tournament season to just kinda do whatever.”
“Yes,” said Karen flatly, “it was nice of Teacher to give us some time off, even me, despite the fact that I’m a designer, not a Pro Duelist. It was nice of him to give us some spending money, enough to do pretty much whatever we can think of. Dinner in Italy, or France. Hell, we coulda gone to Disney World. But what does my loving, if clueless, Pro Duelist boyfriend insist that we do? Visit a regional placement tournament in Columbus Ohio!”
“Hey,” I retorted, “some of these kids are really good. I’m getting loads of ideas for my deck.”
I was lying, of course. I didn’t even want to be here all that much, but it was important for what I had planned. An old friend and rival of mine, a guy names Richard, had recently been hired here as the stadium manager, and he owed me a favor from the time that I’d passed out during a duel with him and he’d won on the technicality (long story). I’d kept in touch with him more or less for a while, and when I heard about his new position, it just seemed too perfect.
Of course Karen was smart, and so she was on to me, even if she didn’t know everything. “Come on, John,” she said, exasperated, “these Duelists are worlds below your level. Why are we really here?”
Thankfully I didn’t have to answer, because at that moment Richard stepped out onto the stadium floor and announced the end of the duel and the winner over a microphone. He then announced that the next round, which was the finals, would begin shortly.
“First, however,” he said, “I have something important to bring to your attention. I usually wouldn’t come out here and address the crowd myself, but today a friend of mine asked me to make an exception. So I’d like to announce that we have someone important in the audience today. Up in the second row, we have John Sieger, the former head of Team Duel Force, and one-time world champion, from right here in Ohio!”
The crowd roared (I’m pretty famous, you know), preventing Richard from saying anything else. A stadium camera trained on me, and I appeared up on the screen that usually displayed the dueling action below.
“So this is why we’re really here,” Karen demanded, definitely angry now, “to stroke your ego?”
I just smiled stupidly and waved, waiting for the noise to die down enough for Richard to continue. It did, just as Karen was standing up to leave in a tizzy.
“However,” Richard said, “that’s not the important person that I want to bring to your attention today. The important person is here with John, because he has something to say to her.”
Karen stopped abruptly, and turned back toward me. She had no idea what was going on, until she realized that, instead of sitting in my seat, or following after her, I was kneeling. She took a tentative step toward me, and I saw realization dawn in her eyes. Apparently the crowd figured it out, too, because the entire room fell silent.
“Karen,” I said, “you’re an amazing person. You’re smarter than me, and you’re better looking than me, and yet for some reason you tolerate all of the dumb stuff I do, which makes you way more patient than I am. You know the stuff I’ve done, you know who I really am, and you still love me. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re already a part of me, and I want you to be by my side forever.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small black box, popping it open on a hinge to reveal the sparkling, diamond-encrusted silver band within, which I offered to the stunned young woman before me. It had been given to me by Pegasus for this very moment weeks ago, when I’d told him what I intended to do, which was the real reason that he’d given us the time off.
“Karen Dunn,” I concluded, “don’t make me have to live my life feeling incomplete. Marry me.”
Karen had teared up, but her gaze was steely and serious as she allowed my words to take root in her mind. That was the look that I’d fallen in love with during our first meeting, even as it was directed at me in battle. However, I saw something there as well that had become all too characteristic of Karen in recent years, and it made me uneasy. I saw uncertainty there, the same uncertainty that had worn Karen down over the years and made her give up playing Duel Monsters, despite the fact that she enjoyed it, and was one of the strongest Duelists that I’d ever met. It terrified me, and time seemed to drag on, seconds becoming hours.
Long, excruciating hours.
And then, just when I was sure that this was at the top of a long list of all of the stupid things that I had ever done, that Karen was going to laugh at me and tell me no and humiliate me in front of everyone, Karen smiled and spoke the greatest three-letter word in the entire English language.
“Duh,” she said, “of course I will.”
I sighed dramatically, “Oh good, I was worried that I’d just made a huge fool of myself.”
She laughed, “You’ll get a chance to make a fool of yourself before the day’s up, I’m sure.”
I slid the ring onto her outstretched finger, and I stood up, wrapped my arms around her, and kissed her. In front of a few hundred people. Who all started cheering. Karen blushed, pulled away from me, and shrunk down into her seat, trying not to be seen. I laughed at her, and sat down beside her.
The tournament continued. I hadn’t realized that, once I’d announced my presence to the arena, that I’d be obligated to stay until the end. Thankfully there was only the final round left, even if it was a long game. Once it was over, I was asked to congratulate the winner, a twelve-year-old kid named Jack something. It was more than a bit awkward. On the bright side, Karen wasn’t as upset about us being here anymore. In fact she was pretty darn happy all evening and all night. It was a good night.
The next morning Karen and I woke up with the sun in our not-quite-modest room in the local Columbus Hilton. We ordered room service for breakfast, on Pegasus’ dime, of course. He obviously cared about Karen a lot, since he’s basically told me that I could spend whatever I felt I needed to this month to make her happy. She and I just spent time together in the room while we ate, enjoying each other’s company, but soon our food was gone, and we were left with a dilemma, mainly that we still had most of a month to spend together, and Columbus Ohio only had maybe two interesting places in it. So, by the following afternoon, we had chartered a small passenger jet, upon which she and I were to only two passengers, and were on our way to Orlando.
It turns out Karen hadn’t been joking about Disney World.
With our carry-on luggage in hand, we boarded the jet, which was nice, if a bit cramped, and had set out for our destination. We expected it to be a smooth, carefree flight, so we were surprised when the plane exploded.
The Reaper
I was running in the low light of early evening, crossing rooftops on a cloud of dark smoke which billowed from beneath my long, shadowy purple cloak, pursuing a random thug who had stolen a Shadow Item from a woman on the street below. The item, a black metal band with silver charms, was actually one of the few random Shadow-Item-related crimes that I’d dealt with during my time as the vigilante The Reaper, and the first since...since then. After all, even in a world plagued by magical duels, regular crime is still more common.
My target was strong. He was fast and healthy, and he clearly had experience evading pursuers. Even with my powers I was having trouble keeping up with him. Yet I wasn’t really worried. I’d dealt with worse than this man before. I suppose it also didn’t hurt matters that I didn’t really feel much of anything these days, worry included.
I smiled under my hood, behind shadows conjured specifically to hide the details of my face, This is the part that I enjoy.
For dramatic flair as much as practicality, the smoke billowing behind me magnified immensely in a second’s time. It didn’t just push me along, it propelled me forward, and upward into the air. I was above my target now, casting my shadow over him. My cloak billowed out behind me like the wings of an avenging demon, or the Angel of Death from whom I took my name. My quarry looked up, but I transformed myself entirely into black smoke and dispersed, coiling around him, and reforming directly in his path. He stumbled backward, desperate and afraid.
My eyes, still hidden behind manufactured darkness, locked with his. His will was weak. I saw his deepest fears, and through them I was given full view of his heart and mind. I plucked some basic information from his mind, just enough to sound like I knew him, like I’d come for him specifically. It all added to the carefully cultivated illusion associated with my persona.
“Adam Jefferies,” I said, filtering my voice through a layer of magic to deepen and disguise it, adding to the effect, “you trespassed on the souls of your victims when you stole something precious from them.”
“What the shit is this,” Adam, who went by something less pleasant on the street, demanded, “who are you?”
“Repent,” I told Adam, ignoring his question, “or face a game.”
“A-a game, what the hell? What kind of game?”
I smiled, amused. This guy had stolen a Shadow Item, thinking it was a simple piece of jewelry, not knowing of its true nature. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“A Shadow Game,” I told him. “It’s pretty simple, really. It’s more like a test really, and if you pass I’ll let you go. Unfortunately for you, you really don’t have a choice in whether you play or not.”
Adam stepped back, but he found himself suddenly surrounded by deepening shadows that rose up around him like a daunting wall, blotting out the sun.
“What’s going on?”
“Our game,” I told him, “has started, and the rules are simple. All you have to do to win and go free is to tell me that you won’t ever steal again.”
I saw the fear on the punkish Adam’s face begin to dissolve. He was a skilled liar, and so he was sure that he had gotten off easily. With a deep breath, he spoke, “Well of course I’ll steal again.”
His eyes went wide with shock. Adam gasped and struggled to backpedal and save face. “Wait,” he said hastily, “what I meant to say is that if I’d had the chance I would have ganked the little bitch that I stole this from. She reminded me of an ex of mine who-.”
His face turned pale. He was utterly horrified by what was coming out of his mouth, not because it wasn’t true, but because it wasn’t what he’d intended to say at all.
I smiled wickedly, “Oh Adam, I feel bad for you. A Shadow Game has the power to show the truth of one’s soul. In a Shadow Game, an honorable man shows honor, a coward shows cowardice, and a piece of scum like you shows just how disgusting he is on the inside. Your mouth might have been able to lie to me, but your heart cannot.”
The wall of Shadows around us melted away, into dark smoke which swirled around Adam menacingly until his body was entirely obscured. “Penalty Game,” I told him, “Experience of Death!”
Adam screamed, his voice muffled by the physical darkness swirling around him, as he was shown sights so horrifying that only Hell itself could have been worse. I listened dispassionately until the Shadows fell away, and Adam Jefferies collapsed upon the rooftop where our confrontation had taken place, catatonic. I reached down to remove the Shadow Item from his hand with the intention of leaving it somewhere that it would be found by its rightful owners, but I was interrupted by a loud explosion overhead. The Shadow Item forgotten, I dissolved into smoke and surged into the air.
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