Yu-Gi-Oh! DF Book Seven: Their Most Dangerous Enemy - Chapter Six

There honestly isn't a whole lot to this chapter. We get our first confrontation between our heroes and the mystery man, and Max totally saves Reiko, who starts crushing on him immediately. This plays into what I think is the most interesting thing here: the establishment of new character dynamics, and just general updating of the character statuses and relationships. Overall, though, this chapter is just setup for the next one, which will serve to establish the rest of the plot of the book, and to remedy the plots of DF and Yu-Gi-Oh! R and mesh them together. We will get to see an interaction between Karen and two other "children" of Pegasus, and honestly it's something that I've been looking forward to writing for a while, since I haven't really done anything with Karen's backstory, save establish the basics.

Because absolutely nothing wraps up in this chapter, I've decided to post one more of these before going back to Reaper. It isn't quite the balance I was going for, but it'll work out overall, I think. I'm really enjoying writing both of these stories, guys. I hope someone starts to enjoy reading them eventually...

Chapter Six

The Mystery Swordsman

Acting on instinct, I separated the blade-like duel field from the rest of my Duel Disk, forming a sword, and I lunged forward. I thrust my blade into the path of my opponent’s blade, and our weapons clashed. The mysterious arrival halted his advance and stepped back as I stepped up to face him. We both struck furiously, deflecting blow after blow, but after only a few moments, even allowing the enhanced senses granted by my Soul of Darkness to guide my blade, it was clear to me that he would overwhelm me. He was considerably more skilled, and gifted with magic very similar to my own. My mind raced, searching for a way out of this, convinced that I was about to fall, but I’d forgotten one thing.

I have friends.

Suddenly Max was beside me, sliding forward on a cloud of smoke. He reached beneath his cloak and removed a custom sickle-shaped Duel Disk which, like mine, was sharp like a blade. He threw it, and our foe ducked back and ducked beneath the large spinning blade, raising his own blade just in time to deflect a barrage of three knives which shot from beneath Max’s cloak. He ducked once more as Max’s Sickle Disk curved back, returning to its master’s hand. He was distracted, giving me the opening I needed to get in close, pressing him hard, driving him back, away from his target.

“That won’t work,” he said. “The girl failed me. Her life is mine.”

“Her life is hers!” Max declared fiercely, surprising me with his outspoken defiance. He let another three blades fly, but our foe twisted out of their path and turned his blade in his hand. He shifted into the Shadows. I felt him move past me, toward the girl, who was being helped to her feet by Karen. I reached out with my Soul, connecting with a nearby shadow and dissolving into it. I surged through the darkness. I was faster than him in the shadows, but I wasn't quite fast enough to cut him off. He emerged, his sword raised, ready to strike the finishing blow. But he'd failed to account for the presence of Karen.

She looked at him with a fierceness in her eyes that I'd seen before, directed at me in battle. Her Soul of Imagination shimmered with rainbow light, and a wall of light appeared between herself and Reiko, and the mystery man, deflecting his blow with ease. The young man scowled, and he reentered the darkness to circumvent Karen's wall, but by now I had overtaken him, cutting him off, emerging from the Shadows in his path, deflecting another strike of his blade off of my deck loader which, in this form, acted as a buckler. The recoil from the strike sent his blade flailing wide.

“Anything you can do,” I said, raising my blade high over my head and bringing it down hard, “I can do better!”

My blade was inches from striking its target when my foe sprung back, out of my reach, and directly into the path of a high kick launched by Max. He was knocked back, but he raised his sword again. Max summoned up tendrils of smoke, reaching out and retrieving his knives, preparing for the renewal of the conflict. I held my sword at the ready.

However, rather than resume his attack, our opponent stood up tall, holding his blade non-confrontationally at his side. Still wearing that amused smile, he said, “Well done. You leaped into action in defense of the girl, just as I expected you would. Keep her. I honestly don’t care what happens to her, and I don’t need her for my plans. Sending her here was just a means to test you. I needed to know your most recent strategies, and I needed to see your, let’s say, additional skills in action first hand.”

“You’re the one who destroyed our plane,” I realized. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Who I am,” the mystery man replied, “isn’t important yet, but I have no issue with you knowing what I want. I want to defeat you, John, the Dark Duelist. I’m coming for you.”

“Good luck,” I told him with a chuckle. “I case you already forgot, I just kicked your ass.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” the mystery man countered, gesturing at me tisk-tiskingly with his finger, “that you were wearing down for a minute there, before your friend joined in. That doesn’t mean that you can beat me. It just confirms what I already suspected: next time we fight, I must make sure you face me alone.

“Oh,” he added, almost like an afterthought, “before I go, you should know, I watched your entire duel through the Shadows, and I learned something that you might find interesting. You can’t beat me with blades, and, as powerful as you are, you can’t beat me in a duel, either.”

He turned his blade in his hand, stepped back, and he was gone.

Karen and I spent the next few minutes trying to calm the still-fearful Reiko Kitamori, not that I blame her. Despite outward appearances, I still get scared every time someone tries to kill me. Surprisingly, despite my charming wit and Karen’s endless niceness, it wasn’t either of us who managed to calm the girl, it was Max. He took her suddenly by the shoulders and turned her toward him, diverting her fear and attention to him, and giving him her ear. Startled and shaking, she met his eyes.

“Listen,” Max said, almost gently, “You’re safe now. We aren’t going to hurt you, and the guy who was after you has let you go. Even if he does go back on his word, you’ll be alright as long as you stay with us. I will protect you, I promise.”

Reiko stared into Max’s intense blue eyes. Slowly she stopped shaking, and she started to blush. Still blushing, she found her footing again and took up position at Max’s side, clutching his cloak like a security blanket.

I struggled to suppress a smile, Oh, this could get interesting.

“Okay,” I wondered aloud, “what do we do now? How do we pursue this?”

“Don’t bother thinking too hard about that,” came an unknown voice from behind me, and I sighed, “because we’re about to tell you, on behalf of our leader.”

Great, I thought, sarcastic for my benefit alone as I turned to face our latest would-be mortal enemy.

Sarah

After my disastrous duel with Nate the Ridiculous, I called up Tucker and our other recent member, the troubled girl Frost, and asked them to meet us at what had recently become our favorite hangout/meeting place, Wilson’s Cards. Mr. Wilson was out of town for a few weeks, but even while he was gone he allowed us to use the place, which was nice. It was centrally located between the part of town where I lived, where my cousins lived, and where Tucker lived, while the mall was not. Of course the girls, Captain Ego and I all arrived at the same time. Tucker arrived a few minutes later with Frost in tow. Even though Frost had been staying with me and my mom, I rarely saw her. She spent a lot of time with Tucker, who was taking a break from classes to get Frost re-acclimated to the world.

See, Frost is an interesting case. A couple months back, the iteration of the team at that time, mainly little ol’ blond me, the flaky, dark-haired but still reliable girly girl Kris, the stylistically unique, frizzy-haired Jenna, the lanky, eternally blunt Amanda, The tall, red-haired idiot street brawler Tucker, and Max, were baited into attacking a group with magical powers who wanted to add our magic to theirs. During his duel with Frost, in a rare moment of actual intellectual thought, Tucker had realized that something was up with the odd girl, and he’d somehow managed to merge his spirit into hers, discovering in the process that people have literal rooms in their souls, which can be reorganized by an outside force, allowing that force control of the person (this quite literally terrifies me, fyi).

The baddie big kahuna, codename Mask, had used his Shadow Item, the Shadow Sword, to cut his way into Frost’s room of the soul, and made her into his servant, leaving a part of himself behind in the guise of Frost’s darker side. Mask beat that aspect and drove it out, but the process left scars, and Frost didn’t totally recover herself after the fact. Since Tucker was the one who saved her, she trusted him the most, and she had been spending time with him, hoping that experience would help her to recover her memories. Tucker didn’t seem to mind, either. Part of it is because he feels responsible for her, but I don’t think it hurts anything that Frost is slim but curvy, with the skin and face of a supermodel, and hauntingly beautiful shoulder-length hair, turned cool blue by exposure to the magic of her magic item, the Shadow Soul of Ice.

As the two walked in, Frost stood near Tucker, her face stern, looking around apprehensively. She doesn’t dislike us, but she still doesn’t really feel comfortable around anyone.

“Hey, Sarah,” Tucker said jovially as he stepped into the room. Then he saw Nate, and his entire attitude changed, “Oh God, I thought you were kidding.”

“Unfortunately no,” I told him. “Believe me, I’m as upset by this as you are.”

As Tucker and I exchanged words, Nate sized up Frost and then approached her, swaggering extravagantly, “Well hello honey, Wanna-.”

He was interrupted suddenly by a particularly terrifying look from Tucker. See, when Tucker gets angry, he literally gets fire in his eyes. Needless to say, Nate shrunk away from Tucker and Frost and retreated to the back of the room amongst tables and wall-mounted cases containing old video games, whimpering like a scared puppy.

“Are we seriously just here to welcome Nate?” Tucker asked, genuinely annoyed, something which was rare enough that I was a little taken aback.

I wasn’t sure how to react to a bad attitude from Tucker, so I snapped, “Shut up. Like it or not, Nate technically earned a chance.”

“You know, she’s right, Paul,” Frost told Tucker, a playful smirk on her face, using his first name, something which not even John, his best friend, can get away with. “After all, I’m a former enemy and you guys let me on the team. I know I wasn’t responsible for my actions, douchebag is only a rung or two down from former enemy on the ladder of evil, but I think we can at least try to be accepting of this half-wit pretty boy.”

Completely missing the point, Nate sighed happily, smiling, and said, “Nate is pretty.”

I smiled at Frost’s statement. As quiet and nice as she usually was, I sometimes forget that she could be a smartass, like me and my brother. Cute and sarcastic, a combination which I am personally quite partial to. I shot an appreciative smirk in Frost’s direction, and I was a little puzzled when she quickly looked away from me, refusing to meet my eye. Still, I didn’t dwell on it.

“Okay,” said Tucker, still wary of Nate, “I guess I can resist kicking Nate’s ass, at least for a while.”

Nate sighed again, “Nate has a nice ass, too.”

“Okay,” I said hastily, anxious to get away from Nate as quickly as possible, “that’s enough socializing for now. You all may go.”

“She’s right, but I think maybe you should stick around so you don’t miss anything important.”

I jumped at the sound of the mysterious voice, and I turned along with the rest of the Duel Force toward the entrance to the back room of the store. There stood two unknown male figures. One was short and weird-looking with dark hair, and the other was tall, about Tucker’s height, with light hair, wearing a condescending smirk. I was the tall one who had spoken.

“Greetings,” he continued, “from the Card Professors Guild.”

Jen

I looked at myself in the mirror, at the brown spot atop my head where my natural color was beginning to show through at the roots. The rest of my hair was black, save for the streaks of purple and red in my bangs.

“Well,” I said to myself, smiling menacingly, my brown eyes flashing, “that just won’t do. Prepare to die, natural hair color!”

I grabbed the color treatment comb from the do it yourself hair treatment kit on the hotel vanity and combed the hair color solution violently into my scalp. I’d done this so many times at this point that it was second nature to me, and only took a few minutes. Soon I was rinsing the solution out of my hair in the bathroom sink and admiring my handiwork in the mirror with a satisfied smile.

From there, I returned to the main room and hopped up onto the bed, picking the remote control up off of the side table. The hotel had Netflix, and I was way too behind on Psyche. I was halfway through an episode when there was a knock on the door. I paused the video and walked over to stand by the threshold to the outside world and asked, “Who is it? You’re interrupting my Dulé Hill time.”

“It’s Christopher,” was the response.

“Oh,” I said, unlatching the door, “well that’s okay then.”

I pulled the door open and found my teammate, leader of Team Beatdown, standing in the hallway, his light brown hair cut short, his eyes as intense as ever, wearing a denim jacket over a white t-shirt, and dark jeans. He was leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe, frowning.

“You missed our team meeting,” he said, “again.”

“You saw my roots,” I argued, pointing at my hair, “I absolutely had to touch them up.”

“I think our team meetings are more important than your hair, Jen,” Christopher replied, exasperated.

“Nothing,” I replied, mock seriously, “is more important than my hair. Besides, I already knew what you were going to say: ‘Good job me, almost as good a job Jen, everyone else please try to suck less’.”

Christopher raised an eyebrow, “That’s actually pretty close. You just got one thing wrong.”

“Oh yeah,” I asked, “what’s that?”

Christopher smiled, “I wouldn’t have said ‘almost’.”

I smiled back at him, “Aw, the boss man shoots a compliment my way. That doesn’t happen very often.”

“That’s because you already know what I think of you,” Christopher replied sweetly. He leaned in, and we kissed. “And now I wish I could stick around,” he said reluctantly as he pulled away, “but I can’t. I gotta meet with Mike and go over his part in our plan for next match in more detail. He isn’t quite getting it. I’d ask you to come along, since this is your plan we’re talking about, but I don’t see the point. Besides, sometimes I think I’m better at explaining your thoughts than you are.”

He looked past me at the mostly-dark hotel room, “You cool here? You got something to do?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, “didn’t you hear me mention Dulé Hill?”

“Right,” Christopher replied with a chuckle. “I never could get into that show. Have fun.”

“Of course,” I said hastily, “I wouldn’t mind if you forgot about Mike and we did something together.”

“Sorry,” he said, and I could tell that he really was, “but I’m team leader. I have responsibilities. But we’ll find some time soon.”

I nodded, and before I knew it, Christopher was gone. I sighed, Now I’m gonna be distracted and I won’t be able to get back into the show.

I sighed again and walked over to the sink, filling a glass with water. I was on my way back to the bed when I heard another knock at the door. I set my glass down on the side table and turned toward the door excitedly, “Decide to blow off your meeting with Mike after all?”

I pulled the door open, expecting to see Christopher there. I certainly didn’t expect to see what I saw.

“James?” I exclaimed, stunned by the sight of the Duelist whom I’d replaced on Christopher’s team.

A wicked grin spread across James’ angular face and he said, “Hello Jen.”

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