̷A̷t̷e̷m̷ (
knifemonopoly) wrote2021-02-05 06:28 pm
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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, PLAYER1. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 10.11.0.0.01 *** PLAYER1 has joined 10.11.0.0.01 <PLAYER1> If you're looking for someone you knew as Yugi before June, you've found him! It's Atem, leave a message. | ||||
to: <Player1> from: <hotrod>
[ no context no identification no nothin just. this ]
<Player1>
No, why?
<hotrod>
[ seriously how has this not occurred to the
hm
let's sweeten the pot ]
I'd do it myself but we both know you're the superior duelist.
[ IT'S NOT EVEN A LIE! amazing. ]
<Player1>
Are you sure you have the right number? If you're looking for a duelist, try Lucius the Eternal! He'll tell you until the death of the universe -- literally! -- about his swordplay.
<hotrod>
Oh, gods. What the hell. ]
Duel Monsters. For those of our day and age, it possesses powers as infinite as our own strengths of heart. The Millennium Items seem dormant, but there's nothing saying they're not capable of being re-awoken now that the Fog's hold on this peninsula has loosened.
So unless you're hiding any other resurrected Pharaohs, yes, I mean you. Please don't make me ask the Ring-Spirit. He's lost on my behalf twice already. It's embarrassing.
<Player1>
Duel Monsters...I knew it became popular after my time, but I didn't realize the game had any inherent power, besides what the Millennium Items can do to any game. Or what holograms can do to the human mind! It's possible to make the game magic, and play for high stakes, but it's not the game I'd have guessed the Fog God would respond to!
You're suggesting we give the Millennium Items their power back, and play a game of Duel Monsters with her...with the stakes being our release from Ryslig?
[Just to make sure he's got this straight.]
<hotrod> (link is not icly there i am just obnoxious)
A pity said "Gods" aren't here to fight by your side. Ra's flames would vanquish any Fog!
[ not that he is biased!! it's a metaphor!!! sun!! fire!! fog!!! totally just for the metaphor!!!! moot point anyway khahahaha ]
<Player1>
But does the Fog God even have a deck??
Instead of asking THAT reasonable question, Atem decides to clarify a more immediate point.]
The Gods of dueling...do you mean the Egyptian God Cards?
<hotrod>
[ hope is the thing with feathers
on fire
it can't be, though, right, right, that would make no sense, right ]
<Player1>
<hotrod>
are you trying to tell him that ryslig delivered to them everything necessary to restore the pharaoh's memories
AND THEN WRECKED ALL OF IT SO NONE OF IT IS USABLE
is that really how his long-term stay here is gonna start?? you tryin to pick a fight, peninsula????!??!?!?!?! do you have any inkling, any IDEA, who marik ishtar is, who marik ishtar knows, yugi can probably put the tablet back together like a giant puzzle (if all the pieces are on the beach) and-
....hey wait back up ]
Define...not in very...good condition.
<Player1>
<hotrod>
But after this message there is a pause. And then ]
dfihwiqgew'oih
<Player1>
<hotrod>
....honestly, if Marik were thinking a little more clearly he might realize this is, perhaps, proof his plan will not work, as no one is being smote for such blasphemy. But he is not thinking clearly.
He is thinking like Marik.So. ]Give me your address.
[ WHAT TIME IS IT? WHAT DAY IS IT? DOES THIS MAKE THINGS HELLA AWKWARD CONSIDERING ALL THE THREADS HE HAS GOING WITH THE MEMBERS OF THIS HOUSEHOLD?
WHY SHOULD MARIK ISHTAR CARE FOR ANY OF THESE CONCERNS??? ]
<Player1>
[Will this be explosive? Atem expects it will be. But he won't avoid it! He's done what he could for the
soggod cards, with all the care of someone who knows these are Important To Somebody...but the Kame gameshop didn't usually deal in card restoration! So, this is one area of gaming where he's not an expert...]<hotrod> - > action
[ And Marik lists a time that's quite a bit shorter than one might expect, given Bavan traffic.
Does someone knock on the door precisely after this increment of time has passed, regardless?
Of fucking course! DAMN, HE'S GOOD!
(Just...ignore the rubber squealing that happened like a minute or so before the knock happened.) ]
action!!
Huh. That's...impressively punctual. Unless it isn't Marik, and this scene's about to take a hard left -- but, no. It is. The door into the goth little apartment with a blanket nest near the one uncurtained window opens.]
They're over here.
[Because what else would this be about? Atem leads the way to the coffee table, which is an actual coffin, where three very dirty damaged cards are laid out on a clean hand-towel.
Behold: Obxlxs the Torn, Saint Drag of Osiris, and the.....something or other of Ra.
How many people have died for these??]
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[ But his opining about living quarters that are not his SWEET-ASS PENTHOUSE is abruptly cut off when he sees the object of his quest, and reacts as if some invisible third party has punched him in the immaculately-toned gut. Complete with a slight bending over. Jaw dropping. ]
T-that....!!
[ It had been bad to hear they were damaged, on the computer. His mind had gone all kinds of places and then worked itself back to a convincing argument about how it couldn't possibly be that bad, the Pharaoh has made miracles happen before, etc., something something every now and then he listens to his sister, destiny, something. But this....This.
Marik sinks to his knees in front of the coffin, bag thudding unneeded to the ground (sticking the cards in a book will...probably not help, here). The problem with hope is that when it leaves your body there's a hole where before you hadn't realized you were empty.
He's going to murder Ryslig. Like. As a concept. He's going to figure out a way to make it pay. He had an entire custom-built table created to house one of these things once, that's how valuable they are, how important they are for the future of the -
It's blasphemy, is what it is! The symbols of a King!
Marik trembles. He wants to explode. But he can't move. ]
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But Atem doesn't make fun. He knows how much these cards can mean to people, knows miracles can be worked through them, if your heart is aligned with them...so, seeing Marik lose it like this, dropping to his knees in despair, evokes sympathy more than scorn.]
I know. It's bad...they were never meant to withstand being in the ocean.
There might be a way to restore them magically...but it'll take time. I don't have many coins left to trade with Mana, and bringing back any magic they had will cost much more than just cleaning them up.
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...the gods for whom he endured a lifetime of pain, so easily rendered USELESS.... ]
2/2 i had to make an icon for this
[ The pieces start clicking into place for Marik. Ryslig tossed him out of the vortex, but it's also been tossing things that could aid them, or be of value, taking great pleasure in destroying them. The memorial tablet the long-lost Priest erected for his rival-slash-friend - and now, these, the source of that friend's power - Marik himself - ]
It's mocking us. Trying to demonstrate its power over us. But the fact it's compelled to make us abandon this tactic is proof it's AFRAID! Even if we don't have the God Cards, the Fog is scared we'll challenge her to a Duel....she's trying to DETER us!
[ That has to be it. It makes sense to Marik, and therefore is the only possible solution. He grabs his bag, starts pulling books out - pulls a case of cards out, too, puts it on the counter.
this is why his pockets are so huge]I'll try to salvage them anyway, out of respect. These are spares I happened to have on me. Fortify your deck.
[ A depressingly large number of the cards in that case are burn or lockdown. Whoever assembled this card collection duels like an absolute dickhead. ]
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[suddenly, cards.
Atem picks them up, flips through them -- he barely recognizes any of these. He takes in descriptions, abilities, stats, even as he answers, in a tone full of doubt:]
It's true this place is demonstrating its power...but I'm not sure it's meant to stop us from playing a specific game, or assurance that we'll succeed in this specific tactic.
[Shuffle shuffle shuffle go the cards, whispering in his hands.]
You're right that it's meant to make us feel helpless. This place will try to convince you that there's nothing left for you where you came from, and Ryslig is your home now...taking things that matter to you and breaking them may very well be part of that! This might be meant to horrify you.
[He separates a few cards, placing them between his fingers -- just two or three.]
Still...of course, I'll try it. Yugi's been here two months already, and he won't be able to avoid feeding much longer. We have to get out, before he's forced to make that choice -- whether to feed on a soul of his own volition, or lose his mind trying not to!
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[ Yes, that makes...that makes sense. (Well, not the part where he had been told he was only half-right. Marik is always full-right. Atem will see. It's okay.) The Pharaoh is preoccupied with the well-being of his partner, who is in the process of growing monstrous. He's working with the same time crunch Marik is, except on another person's behalf. So Yugi is going to have to feed on souls.....
He's going to starve. Marik knows it. Yugi Mutou is quite possibly the only person on the planet who can rival Marik's sister for the title of Incredibly Decent Human Being. No wonder the Pharaoh is so tense, so grasping at straws. He probably hasn't been making time for - other things Marik has plans to counteract - as a result, too.
But Marik can use this.
While his brain schemes, Marik's hands keep moving, securing each of the cards within nice clean leaves of different books and setting them down to press and dry. He'll shift them to new pages, further into the books, once some of the moisture has been absorbed. Marik Ishtar is rather shit at giving up. ]
I don't want to see that happen to Yugi either. [ A pause, picking up the final God Card. Oh, Ra, Ra, what has the nasty humid lady done to you, this was not how you were meant to return to your Pharaoh in glory.
When he thinks he's waited enough for brooding effect, he adds, casually: ] It's bad enough that it's happened to Ryou.
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The way Atem's eyes flick up isn't an obvious tell, but all the cobras on his head, which have been low-key agitated over the damage to the cards and the fear for Yugi, stand up straight.
They totally talked. It's in the past, and Atem doesn't plan to make anything of it, but he totally knows. It takes a moment for calm to return, Atem's calm reply takes just a moment too long.]
It is. He's had to live with something terrible, in order to avoid something worse...that's a cruel feeding type. I wouldn't wish it on anyone!
[He's not going to say what living with it has done to Ryou, not until he knows how things stand between the two of them. But it's been hard, anyone who knows Ryou can tell that much.]
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behold, the fabled "takahashi villain cut-in reaction panel"
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1/2
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wow self CW DISORDERED THINKING ESP OF A FAMILY ABUSE VARIETY
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cw child abuse & its psychological aftereffects
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now that I know he doesn't go to the penthouse.....
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OH MY GOD RS'S BELLA IS IN THE SUBCULT?? omg
the mods said "5 humans, half are traitors", so, 2 real converts, 2 traitors, 1 fangirl....
amazing.
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