John's confrontation with the mystery Duelist finally begins. We don't learn his motivations yet in this chapter, but I will say that they are pretty familiar at this point, but that his reasoning is based on a line of reasoning that doesn't really make sense to John, because there is this history between the two young men that only one of them knows about. The mystery man has been fuming for years, blaming John for his misfortunes, all while John didn't even know that the young man existed.
What we do get in this chapter specifically is a couple of big bombshells about John's family. If you go back and look, the clues to these things being true have been woven into the story since Reign of the Reaper. Earlier than that, actually, since the first mention of John's first deck was all the way back in Gather the Duel Force. I've even included clues as to who the mysterious uncle mentioned in this chapter actually is. Yes, we've met him before.
I have included a Card of the Day this chapter, even though the duel between John and the mystery man doesn't start until next chapter.
I have included a Card of the Day this chapter, even though the duel between John and the mystery man doesn't start until next chapter.
Chapter Thirty
Different Perspectives
I was a little surprised when Depre's response to his loss was to laugh. It wasn't a long, hysterical laugh or anything like that, just a short, hearty belly laugh.
"That's twice in three days," Depre said with an amused little half smile playing at his lips, "that I've been beaten that easily. I really should be upset. I've built a career on my reputation as a Duelist and little else. But I'm not. I mentioned before that the new Number One is as much a danger to the Card Professors as he is to you. I don't know anything specific, but it's obvious that this guy has some kind of greater plan. He thinks that he deserves to beat you, that you prevented him from obtaining something that he feels that he's owed. That much is clear from his ramblings. I don't know what that something is, or what his greater plan is, but I can't imagine a scenario where it's any good for anyone but him.
"You have to beat him, John, the Dark Duelist. He's serious, and he won't hesitate to kill to get what he wants. He killed one of my fellow guide members just to make that point."
I hung my head, "Yeah, Reiko told us."
"Then you know how serious this is. Someone like that, they'll do anything. He will do anything to get the revenge on you that he feels he deserves. And as far as I can tell, he can do it. At best, as a Duelist, you're his equal. And I've found in my time playing this game that the hardest foe to fight is your equal. Someone weaker than you is easily beaten if you keep your head. A stronger enemy can grow overconfident and make a mistake. But an equal enemy is kept on his toes by every move you make, and you're kept on your toes likewise. Victory can come down to something as uncontrollable as chance."
I nodded, "I'll keep that in mind."
Depre nodded back, and stepped off of his trigger. It snapped back up, level with the floor, and the doors behind him slid open with a loud metallic grinding sound.
"Will you be alright here?" I asked Depre. I didn't really care all that much. He'd been pretty awful to Karen, after all. But he had also given me advice, so I felt that I owed him one.
"I'll be fine," he told me. "One minute after your duel with him begins, the door you entered through will open automatically, and I'll be able to leave."
That settled, I looked past Depre without another word. Behind the doors was a dimly lit corridor. The lighting was so poor that I couldn't see its end. Despite that, I walked briskly toward it. I did my best to ignore Depre's intense gaze as I passed him by, because I could see the fear hidden within them, his eyes a mirror of my own.
After spending a few minutes in the corridor, which was perfectly straight, I stepped into the final chamber of the Dark Factory. It was no wonder that I hadn't been able to see the end of the corridor until I'd actually come to it. The room was huge. Probably half as wide as a football field is long, and almost as deep. The walls were the same bare metal as the rest of the building. They were covered in loose, broken machinery. The floors further into the room were taken up by a series of broken assembly lines, smashed consoles, and various pieces of heavy machinery in different states of disrepair. I looked to my right and saw six other corridors which no doubt led to six other doors, to six other rooms, five of which housed the Duel Force and their duels.
Although, I realized, they really should have finished their duels by now. Granted, I don't know the strength of every member of the Duel Force personally anymore, but I trust Sarah's judgment enough that I'm sure they're all on par with each other. So where are they? I haven't even heard any of the other doors slide open yet.
I shook my head, I don't have time to worry about that now. Worst case scenario, they lose and have to leave.
I stepped forward, toward the almost completely dark center of the room, away from the safety lights that rimmed the upper walls. I'd taken only a few steps when, suddenly, several overhead lights flickered on, revealing a larger than usual duel stage that receded back into itself like a pit. The entire thing was surrounded by a metal rail. Standing on the raised lip around the arena was the mystery man.
"Welcome," he said magnanimously, "to the final stage."
His face twisted into a wicked smile, "With emphasis on final."
I stepped forward, into the lip of the arena, hefted myself over the railing, and dropped down into the arena itself, saying, "You know, everyone keeps talking about you. How dangerous you are. How powerful you are. How much you want to defeat me for some reason or another. But I honestly don't really care about that. If you go out of control, I'll stop you. It's what I do. But that's not why I'm here today."
I looked over at the mystery man, and pointed at him accusatorily, "You said that, if I made it here, if I met your challenge, you'd tell me what happened to my dad. I've promised to duel you, and I intend to keep that promise, as long as you keep yours. What do you know?"
"Not much, actually," the mystery man said mischievously. "I don't actually know what happened to him. And if you think back, you'll remember that I never said that I did. I just said that I would tell you something that you didn't know. The truth is, years ago, before you were born, you father used to use Duel Monsters to fight against dark forced the same way that you do."
I was honestly, completely surprised, "What?"
My hands were shaking. No matter how much I bore down, I couldn't get them under control. I had to force what I'd just learned to sink in, because it refused to do it on its own.
"And that isn't all that I know," the mystery man continued, as he met my eyes. "Your mother fought by your father's side. She knew all about his exploits, and she never told you."
This, the most shocking piece of information so far, sort of overloaded my brain. It lost it's capacity to question what it was hearing, and I was snapped out of my stupor. I gave the mystery Duelist what I can only describe as a death stare. "You're lying," I declared, "my mom wouldn't keep something that important from me."
"Are you sure?" the mystery man asked. I was about to insist that yes, I was, but I just couldn't. Despite how ridiculous this guy was, he had an air of honesty to him. He was borderline nuts, but he wasn't lying. As I followed that train of thought, I remembered something. I used to use a different deck, one that I didn't remember building. It was the deck that I'd used when I'd taught my mom to duel when I was really little.
Except, I realized suddenly, I don't actually remember teaching my mom the game. I've been playing pretty much since I can remember, and so has she, and the only reason that I ever assumed that that I was the one to teach her was because that's what she told me when I asked. I remember the two of us dueling when I was really young. I just figured that that was when I'd taught her to play, but what if it was the other way around?
"Just so you know," the mystery man told me, "I've deactivated the magical suppressor in this room."
He showed me a small box with a single button labeled on/off, and then continued, "It might still be a little more difficult than usual, since the nature of this place disrupts magic a bit, but you can leave if you want to."
I tested it out, concentrating on my Soul, and seeing it shimmer blacklight purple from its place around my neck. My powers were working.
"Don't go anywhere, whoever you are," I told the mystery man, "I'll be right back."
There was a little more resistance than usual as I dissolved into the shadows around me, but in just a moment, I was gone.
I emerged from the shadows in my old room. Bare walls. Cluttered desk. A couple of dusty shelves, A simple full-sized bed. A TV. A window with the shades drawn. A lamp in the corner that I'd barely ever used. And cards everywhere. Technically I still lived at home, so most of my things were still here, including all of my spare Duel Monsters cards. I walked over to one of the two doors, the one which wasn't open to a hallway lined with old photos, and I pulled it open as well. Behind it was a messy closet. Only one object stood out apart from the pile of junk within it. It was a small box. I bent down and picked it up.
I turned, and walked over to sit on the edge of my bed. I opened the box, and I removed my first deck. When someone who actually knew that I still had this deck, like Sarah or Tucker, brought it up, I told them that it wasn't really anything special. Just a deck cobbled together with older cards, with an emphasis on Dinosaurs.
I'd tell them that I didn't remember building it, but that I still felt too connected to it to take it apart. I had taken a couple of things from it in the past. My 'Red-Eyes Black Dragon', 'Heavy Storm' and 'Monster Reborn' had come from this deck. I thumbed through it, and stopped and smiled when I came to 'Black Tyranno'. It was the most powerful monster in the deck since a couple years back, when I'd somehow lost the deck's strongest Fusion monster, and it was the monster in this deck that I'd always felt the biggest connection to.
I sat on my bed for a few minutes, and just looked at that card. An idea was starting to form in my head. That's when my mom walked by and saw me in her peripheral vision. She was momentarily startled, but then she smiled and stepped into my doorway, "Hey, I didn't hear you come in. What's up?"
"Mom," I asked, still looking at the old deck, "where did I get this?"
I looked up at her, just in time to see her happy, welcoming expression turn solemn, the way that her expression always changed when she thought about dad, and I knew. My expression must have changed as well, because I could tell that she knew that I knew.
She sighed, "I think maybe it's time that we had a talk."
Mom sat down beside me. She asked what I'd managed to figure out, and I told her what I knew. She nodded along with all of it, and finally, when I was finished, she spoke.
"You're right," she told me. "Your dad, his foster brother and me, we used to fight people who used Duel Monsters to hurt people using the Shadow Games. I told you once that your dad and I were part of a group allowed early access to the cards, as part of a beta test of sorts, before the official release. Your uncle was too. The game was still called Magic and Wizards back then. It wasn't long before people started using the game to take what they wanted from other. Your dad and his brother, they were these huge rivals, always trying to one-up each other. I met them at an event for the pre-release of the game in our area."
She smiled, "I didn't want anything to do with them at first. They were just too much. But then the three of us were attacked by Duelist's from one of the towns that got the game even earlier than us, who had Shadow Charms. We fought them off, and took their charms for ourselves. I got a bracelet, your dad got a pendant, and your uncle got a ring. Each had a distinct power, unique to that item. We bonded in the fires of adversity. After that, the three of us were barely apart.
"In the following weeks, we learned how the Shadow Charms worked, that they could turn any form of competition into a Shadow Game, but that this process worked best with Duel Monsters. Your uncle wanted to learn more about the Charms, but not use them. I wanted to hide them somewhere. But your dad wanted to use the Charms to become heroes. Your uncle, never one to back down from any challenge presented by his brother, agreed. I did too, just so I could keep an eye on the two of them. We stopped regular baddies, and Duel Monster's related attacks, and we gathered up several more Charms, hiding them away so that no one would be able to use them."
So far I hadn't said anything. I didn't know what to say. But it was then that a revelation just poured out, out of my control. "That's why you've always been so good at Duel Monsters," I blurted, "and why you were never really surprised by all of the magical stuff that I've been involved with."
"That's right," mom replied.
"Okay then," I wondered, on a roll now, "why haven't I ever met this uncle guy?"
Mom frowned, suddenly, and her voice darkened. "Eventually," she said, "we drew the attention of a gang of Shadow Duelists from out of town. They sent three enforcers to deal with us. We fought them, hard, and we won. But that wasn't the end of it. Their leader, and his two best lieutenants, came to town to stop us. By then both boys had come to care about me, in completely different ways. The enemy guessed that that was true, and they managed to use me to draw the two of them in. Your dad and I managed to come out of the resulting conflict relatively unscathed. Your uncle wasn't so lucky."
"And what happened to dad after that?" I asked.
Mom half-smiled, as if that question brought up memories that felt bittersweet, "After we got married, your dad and I tried to disappear so that we could live a normal life, and raise a family, without any of our enemies finding us. But despite that, every once in a while, a threat would appear, and your dad would go off and take care of it. All of the times that your father was away from home when you were young, he was out protecting us, dealing with those threats all on his own.
"He continued to bring back the Charms belonging to the Duelists he defeated, and hide them away. Eventually he upgraded to a new deck, so that he could leave his original deck to you in case he didn't come back. And then, once, when I was pregnant with your sister, he left again. He said that he'd found a way to stop them from coming anymore. He never came back, but enemies stopped coming to challenge us, so I like to think that, whatever he had planned, it worked."
I nodded. I hadn't known my dad well, but hearing this story, I felt like I actually always had. What he'd done for my mom and me and Sarah, it's what I would have done. Mom and I sat in silence for a few more minutes as I let the new information sink in, and mom let it sink in that I now knew everything. Then, finally, I thumbed through my dad's deck again, and I removed two cards from it, shuffling them into mine. I looked down, and gripped the hem of my worn and faded old black overshirt. Dad had left me this. I wore it because it made me feel like he was with me. But today, I didn't just need him to stand by my side. I needed him to help me fight.
"Thanks, mom," I said, as I stood up, straightening my overshirt reflexively, "but I have to go. I have something to do."
"They will keep coming," she told me, completely and utterly serious, the way that I could sometimes be when I demanded the attention of the entire room. "As long as there is even one person left out there who wants the power you have, and remembers who has it, they will keep coming."
I didn't answer. Instead, I stepped into the darkness, and I disappeared.
Next Chapter >>
Although, I realized, they really should have finished their duels by now. Granted, I don't know the strength of every member of the Duel Force personally anymore, but I trust Sarah's judgment enough that I'm sure they're all on par with each other. So where are they? I haven't even heard any of the other doors slide open yet.
I shook my head, I don't have time to worry about that now. Worst case scenario, they lose and have to leave.
I stepped forward, toward the almost completely dark center of the room, away from the safety lights that rimmed the upper walls. I'd taken only a few steps when, suddenly, several overhead lights flickered on, revealing a larger than usual duel stage that receded back into itself like a pit. The entire thing was surrounded by a metal rail. Standing on the raised lip around the arena was the mystery man.
"Welcome," he said magnanimously, "to the final stage."
His face twisted into a wicked smile, "With emphasis on final."
I stepped forward, into the lip of the arena, hefted myself over the railing, and dropped down into the arena itself, saying, "You know, everyone keeps talking about you. How dangerous you are. How powerful you are. How much you want to defeat me for some reason or another. But I honestly don't really care about that. If you go out of control, I'll stop you. It's what I do. But that's not why I'm here today."
I looked over at the mystery man, and pointed at him accusatorily, "You said that, if I made it here, if I met your challenge, you'd tell me what happened to my dad. I've promised to duel you, and I intend to keep that promise, as long as you keep yours. What do you know?"
"Not much, actually," the mystery man said mischievously. "I don't actually know what happened to him. And if you think back, you'll remember that I never said that I did. I just said that I would tell you something that you didn't know. The truth is, years ago, before you were born, you father used to use Duel Monsters to fight against dark forced the same way that you do."
I was honestly, completely surprised, "What?"
My hands were shaking. No matter how much I bore down, I couldn't get them under control. I had to force what I'd just learned to sink in, because it refused to do it on its own.
"And that isn't all that I know," the mystery man continued, as he met my eyes. "Your mother fought by your father's side. She knew all about his exploits, and she never told you."
This, the most shocking piece of information so far, sort of overloaded my brain. It lost it's capacity to question what it was hearing, and I was snapped out of my stupor. I gave the mystery Duelist what I can only describe as a death stare. "You're lying," I declared, "my mom wouldn't keep something that important from me."
"Are you sure?" the mystery man asked. I was about to insist that yes, I was, but I just couldn't. Despite how ridiculous this guy was, he had an air of honesty to him. He was borderline nuts, but he wasn't lying. As I followed that train of thought, I remembered something. I used to use a different deck, one that I didn't remember building. It was the deck that I'd used when I'd taught my mom to duel when I was really little.
Except, I realized suddenly, I don't actually remember teaching my mom the game. I've been playing pretty much since I can remember, and so has she, and the only reason that I ever assumed that that I was the one to teach her was because that's what she told me when I asked. I remember the two of us dueling when I was really young. I just figured that that was when I'd taught her to play, but what if it was the other way around?
"Just so you know," the mystery man told me, "I've deactivated the magical suppressor in this room."
He showed me a small box with a single button labeled on/off, and then continued, "It might still be a little more difficult than usual, since the nature of this place disrupts magic a bit, but you can leave if you want to."
I tested it out, concentrating on my Soul, and seeing it shimmer blacklight purple from its place around my neck. My powers were working.
"Don't go anywhere, whoever you are," I told the mystery man, "I'll be right back."
There was a little more resistance than usual as I dissolved into the shadows around me, but in just a moment, I was gone.
I emerged from the shadows in my old room. Bare walls. Cluttered desk. A couple of dusty shelves, A simple full-sized bed. A TV. A window with the shades drawn. A lamp in the corner that I'd barely ever used. And cards everywhere. Technically I still lived at home, so most of my things were still here, including all of my spare Duel Monsters cards. I walked over to one of the two doors, the one which wasn't open to a hallway lined with old photos, and I pulled it open as well. Behind it was a messy closet. Only one object stood out apart from the pile of junk within it. It was a small box. I bent down and picked it up.
I turned, and walked over to sit on the edge of my bed. I opened the box, and I removed my first deck. When someone who actually knew that I still had this deck, like Sarah or Tucker, brought it up, I told them that it wasn't really anything special. Just a deck cobbled together with older cards, with an emphasis on Dinosaurs.
I'd tell them that I didn't remember building it, but that I still felt too connected to it to take it apart. I had taken a couple of things from it in the past. My 'Red-Eyes Black Dragon', 'Heavy Storm' and 'Monster Reborn' had come from this deck. I thumbed through it, and stopped and smiled when I came to 'Black Tyranno'. It was the most powerful monster in the deck since a couple years back, when I'd somehow lost the deck's strongest Fusion monster, and it was the monster in this deck that I'd always felt the biggest connection to.
I sat on my bed for a few minutes, and just looked at that card. An idea was starting to form in my head. That's when my mom walked by and saw me in her peripheral vision. She was momentarily startled, but then she smiled and stepped into my doorway, "Hey, I didn't hear you come in. What's up?"
"Mom," I asked, still looking at the old deck, "where did I get this?"
I looked up at her, just in time to see her happy, welcoming expression turn solemn, the way that her expression always changed when she thought about dad, and I knew. My expression must have changed as well, because I could tell that she knew that I knew.
She sighed, "I think maybe it's time that we had a talk."
Mom sat down beside me. She asked what I'd managed to figure out, and I told her what I knew. She nodded along with all of it, and finally, when I was finished, she spoke.
"You're right," she told me. "Your dad, his foster brother and me, we used to fight people who used Duel Monsters to hurt people using the Shadow Games. I told you once that your dad and I were part of a group allowed early access to the cards, as part of a beta test of sorts, before the official release. Your uncle was too. The game was still called Magic and Wizards back then. It wasn't long before people started using the game to take what they wanted from other. Your dad and his brother, they were these huge rivals, always trying to one-up each other. I met them at an event for the pre-release of the game in our area."
She smiled, "I didn't want anything to do with them at first. They were just too much. But then the three of us were attacked by Duelist's from one of the towns that got the game even earlier than us, who had Shadow Charms. We fought them off, and took their charms for ourselves. I got a bracelet, your dad got a pendant, and your uncle got a ring. Each had a distinct power, unique to that item. We bonded in the fires of adversity. After that, the three of us were barely apart.
"In the following weeks, we learned how the Shadow Charms worked, that they could turn any form of competition into a Shadow Game, but that this process worked best with Duel Monsters. Your uncle wanted to learn more about the Charms, but not use them. I wanted to hide them somewhere. But your dad wanted to use the Charms to become heroes. Your uncle, never one to back down from any challenge presented by his brother, agreed. I did too, just so I could keep an eye on the two of them. We stopped regular baddies, and Duel Monster's related attacks, and we gathered up several more Charms, hiding them away so that no one would be able to use them."
So far I hadn't said anything. I didn't know what to say. But it was then that a revelation just poured out, out of my control. "That's why you've always been so good at Duel Monsters," I blurted, "and why you were never really surprised by all of the magical stuff that I've been involved with."
"That's right," mom replied.
"Okay then," I wondered, on a roll now, "why haven't I ever met this uncle guy?"
Mom frowned, suddenly, and her voice darkened. "Eventually," she said, "we drew the attention of a gang of Shadow Duelists from out of town. They sent three enforcers to deal with us. We fought them, hard, and we won. But that wasn't the end of it. Their leader, and his two best lieutenants, came to town to stop us. By then both boys had come to care about me, in completely different ways. The enemy guessed that that was true, and they managed to use me to draw the two of them in. Your dad and I managed to come out of the resulting conflict relatively unscathed. Your uncle wasn't so lucky."
"And what happened to dad after that?" I asked.
Mom half-smiled, as if that question brought up memories that felt bittersweet, "After we got married, your dad and I tried to disappear so that we could live a normal life, and raise a family, without any of our enemies finding us. But despite that, every once in a while, a threat would appear, and your dad would go off and take care of it. All of the times that your father was away from home when you were young, he was out protecting us, dealing with those threats all on his own.
"He continued to bring back the Charms belonging to the Duelists he defeated, and hide them away. Eventually he upgraded to a new deck, so that he could leave his original deck to you in case he didn't come back. And then, once, when I was pregnant with your sister, he left again. He said that he'd found a way to stop them from coming anymore. He never came back, but enemies stopped coming to challenge us, so I like to think that, whatever he had planned, it worked."
I nodded. I hadn't known my dad well, but hearing this story, I felt like I actually always had. What he'd done for my mom and me and Sarah, it's what I would have done. Mom and I sat in silence for a few more minutes as I let the new information sink in, and mom let it sink in that I now knew everything. Then, finally, I thumbed through my dad's deck again, and I removed two cards from it, shuffling them into mine. I looked down, and gripped the hem of my worn and faded old black overshirt. Dad had left me this. I wore it because it made me feel like he was with me. But today, I didn't just need him to stand by my side. I needed him to help me fight.
"Thanks, mom," I said, as I stood up, straightening my overshirt reflexively, "but I have to go. I have something to do."
"They will keep coming," she told me, completely and utterly serious, the way that I could sometimes be when I demanded the attention of the entire room. "As long as there is even one person left out there who wants the power you have, and remembers who has it, they will keep coming."
I didn't answer. Instead, I stepped into the darkness, and I disappeared.
Card of the Day:
Black Tyranno
Played (Many Times) by: Thomas Sieger
Yes, this is John's dad's favorite monster, and his signature finishing card. It earns this spot on those merits.
Next Chapter >>
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