Heroes
of the Multiverse
by
Ari Rockefeller
Boy,
do I need to get back to writing. My job
has been killing my brain cells, and this will serve as a great way to
rejuvenate my creative energies.
Usual
disclaimers apply. These characters do
no belong to me.
It was getting late. Well, not late
late, but it was getting to be around dinner time. The sun hadn’t gone down completely yet, but
it went down enough to disappear half way behind the city skyline and bathe the
city in an orange-yellow light. The
streets outside the convention center were closed, mostly because the destruction
caused by Megas’ fight with Big O tore up the streets, and tied up
traffic in all directions.
Inside the convention center – well,
what was left of it – Goku, Tuxedo Mask and Ash Ketchum had finally narrowed
down the crowd of thousands of heroes and well-to-do bounty hunters and
mercenaries to thirty-two. And they were
a strange assortment of heroes, too.
Some were male, some were female, and some were either robots or unable
to determine just by looking at them (what with full body armor and helmets and
such). There were some variations in
their levels of conviction, but ultimately, every hero honestly wanted to be
part of this team.
“Stupid girl and her stupid ideas. Why the hell do I have to waste my time
standing around when I could be out slaughtering demons?”
For the most part.
While some felt reluctance about
this whole ordeal, such as Roger Smith, the half-human-half-demon Inu-Yasha
openly expressed his disinterest with this whole hero’s audition thing. He really, really didn’t want to be a part of this, but “that girl” Kagome,
convinced him otherwise…mostly because she kept repeating the word “Sit!” –
which causes the necklace he wears to glow and make his body hit the ground
with tremendous force – until he complied.
And while his lack of interest was pretty apparent, he nonetheless
impressed the three other heroes holding the tryouts.
And now here he was (minus Kagome),
along with a bunch of other freaks in a strange city that reminded him of a
much larger
“Okay…” Goku explained, getting the
group’s attention, “first I want to thank every one of you who have made it
this far. You’ve done pretty well for
yourselves.” Some started to applaud in
appreciation, but others, like Inu-Yasha stayed quiet. “Yes, thank you.” Goku cleared his throat. “But anyway, you’ve all made it to the second
round of the audition, and now it’s time for things to get just a little more
intense.” His hand lashed out in a blur
that no one could see, and when it became visible again, he was holding Ash
Ketchum’s hat.
“Hey!” Ash called out,
suddenly missing his favorite accessory.
“We’re going to take all of your
names and put them into a hat,” he explained.
“This one.”
“Hey, why’s it gotta be my hat?” Ash
asked, a little irritated, but still smirking slightly.
“Because you were standing closer,”
Goku answered. “Anyway, we’re gonna draw
your names out of a hat, two at a time.
You two will then battle one another.
This will serve as a test of your combat skills. And…while this is a competition, remember,
you’re all heroes here. Try not to kill
one another, alright? You’re not any
good to us or the rest of The City if you’re wounded, dead, or whatever. So then…” He swept the little folded pieces
of paper up off the table, and dumped them into Ash’s hat. He held the hat by the brim and mixed them
up, waving the hat around like it was a frying pan, and he was cooking
something, even snapping his wrist on occasion and making the pieces of paper
pop out.
He plucked a piece of paper out and
opened it.
Some of the heroes on hand weren’t
too thrilled with Goku’s display. Some
groaned in tedium, some merely rolled their eyes. Inu-Yasha was part of the former. It was bad enough he didn’t want to really be
here – he had made that apparent more than once – but this guy’s joking wasn’t
helping much. After all, wasn’t he the one talking about how serious of
an event this was? What a hypocrite.
“Our first fighter is…Inu-Yasha.”
The half-dog-demon’s ears perked
up. All of a sudden, the displeasure he
was feeling disappeared. A smirk
developed on his face, the notion of tearing one of these so-called “heroes” to
bits very entertaining.
“That’s me,” the half-demon said.
“Alright, then.” Goku tossed around the names in the hat
again. “And our second participant will
be…” He drew another slip of paper, and unfolded it. “Kazuma Kuwabara.”
Kazuma suddenly perked up like he
just heard a dinner bell. He ran over to
where Goku (and now Inu-Yasha) were standing, skidded to a halt, and bowed to
Goku. “It is an honor to fight for you,
Goku,” he said.
Goku stepped back, a little unready
for Kuwabara’s enthusiasm. Sure it was
nice to see the kid was grateful, but what would happen if the guy doesn’t make
the cut? Naturally he’d be upset, but
that would just be something the kid would have to deal with. He’ll deal with it when it comes,
though. If it comes.
“Very well, then,” Goku said evenly. “Everyone else please clear the area, as
we’re going to need plenty of room.” He
noticed the other heroes moved toward the back wall of the room – well, what’s
left of it – the one that was adjacent to the city streets. “And if one of you could keep an eye out for
any oncoming traffic, that would help, too,” Goku added.
CHAPTER IX
MAKING THE CUT
As instructed, the other candidates
moved off to the side, allowing Kuwabara and Inu-Yasha room to move. The two exchanged menacing glares as they circled
one another, trying to psyche one another out.
They also took this time to size up the opposition. They each made assumptions about one another,
if only to themselves.
First, there was this
half-demon. Kuwabara’s knowledge on
Inu-Yasha was limited, based only on what he and Urameshi heard during
briefings delivered by Koenma upon their entrance into the Multiverse. From what he knew, he was the child of a
demon father and a human mother, who reverted to full human on nights under a
new moon (usually for three or four nights in a row). He had a handful of demonic powers and
nigh-unholy strength at his disposal, all thanks to his demon heritage. And from what Kuwabara saw, he wielded a
katana blade. The blade in question,
though, didn’t look like it was in good shape.
Its handle was tattered and falling apart. He didn’t want to think about what kind of
shape the blade was in. He’d be a fool
to rely on it.
Meanwhile, Inu-Yasha had made a few
assumptions about this Kuwabara guy himself.
He appeared to be just an ordinary human in a blue uniform and a goofy
red pompadour. Sure he looked tough, but
he figured this Kuwabara guy thought he was tough by human standards. Inu-Yasha figured this guy would get torn
apart (literally) by even a mediocre demon in his world. Okay, so he could sense some spiritual strength within the human, but did he even know how
to use it? This felt like it would be a
complete waste of Inu-Yasha’s time. Even
worse, it’s not like he knew how to consume hat kind of energy, making it not
go to waste. Oh, well.
Everyone else in the room was against
the walls, watching two combatants stare each other down. “Whenever you’re ready,” Goku shouted,
waiting for one of them to make a move.
Kuwabara wasted no time getting into
a fighting stance. While Kuwabara
favored brawling during combat, he did have some training in martial arts, such
as Wu-shu and a few forms of “soft” styles of kung fu. The only form in which Urameshi or the others
caught wind of it is occasionally he would start battles in a fighting stance
of that of Mantis-style kung fu—most of his weight on his back foot while only
the heel of his front foot was on the ground, and his hands loosely hanging in
front of him a bit, with the thumb of each hand pressed against the index and
middle fingers.
Inu-Yasha, on the other hand, didn’t
take this battle seriously, and his completely lax attitude was made pretty
apparent. He stood with his arms folded,
looking this would-be hero over with more than a bit of scorn in his eyes.
“This is it?” Inu-Yasha
grumbled. “I have to fight you?”
“Heh, that’s right,” Kuwabara said
with a smirk. His attitude quickly
changed. “Wait, what’s that supposed to
mean?”
“Do I really have to spell it out?”
He did a hair toss, his arms still folded.
“You’re just a pathetic human, a nobody that’s not even worth killing.”
“What?!” Kuwabara growled loudly, and stepped forward,
right in the half-demon’s face. “I’m
gonna make you eat those words, you filthy mongrel!”
“This I have to see. What could you possibly have that could
possibly stop me?”
“I got plenty.” Kuwabara stepped back. “Observe!”
Kuwabara brought his hands together, and concentrated his energy into
his fists. It manifested in a
three-and-a-half foot long column of orange-yellow energy. “SPIRIT SWORD!” he shouted. He separated his hands, and the glowing
Spirit Sword stuck out of his clenched right hand. He stood in a side stance with his sword hand
held forward, with the sword parallel to the ground.
“Big deal! Even I have
one of those!” Inu-Yasha retaliated by
reaching for his katana. As he drew it
out, a white aura ignited around it like fire, its blade changing from a
46-inch long beat-to-shit sliver of steel to a much longer, much larger, and
much wider blade. Also, the crossguard
on the hilt was now the size of a dinner plate, and covered in white fur. The sword in question was now as keen as the
day it was taken off the forge, and even though it was roughly six feet long
(five feet before it started to curve), Inu-Yasha had absolutely no trouble
wielding the falchion with either one hand or two. “Say hello to the Tetsusaiga, a sword capable
of slaying one hundred demons in a single swing!” He smiled.
“How does that strike you?”
Kuwabara’s response wasn’t very
eloquent. Instead of exchanging another
round of banter with the dog demon, he simply snapped his left hand up, and channeled
more of his spirit energy. Another beam
of light emerged, manifesting itself into another Spirit Sword. He smiled, and the others thought they saw
his teeth sparkle for just a second.
Inu-Yasha glared at Kuwabara. “Oh great, now you’re just out to piss me
off,” he grumbled. “So what can you do
with those things? Anything?”
Kuwabara didn’t answer that taunt
with words, but with actions. And with a
yell, Kuwabara ran forward with a yell, right towards Inu-Yasha. Inu-Yasha parried a swing from one of
Kuwabara’s swords with his own, then ducked underneath a cross slash from the
free sword hand. The dog demon attacked,
bringing his Tetsusaiga down hard in an overhead slash. Kuwabara jumped back out of the way, and the
impact of the sword split the ground between them. What followed next was a series of slashes,
dodges and parries that resulted in a few near misses and scrapes for both
fighters, but no major damage done.
But that wouldn’t be the case for
long.
Inu-Yasha swung his sword in another
overhead attack, a move that Kuwabara blocked by crossing his two Spirit Swords
in an X fashion and catching the Tetsusaiga where the two beams met. Just what Inu-Yasha wanted. The dog demon whipped his back leg forward,
and slammed it into Kuwabara’s stomach.
Kuwabara was sent onto his back, rolling backward a few feet and ending
up in a seated position. He looked up
just in time to see Inu-Yasha wind up and swing his massive sword like a
baseball bat. Kuwabara didn’t react as
fast as he would’ve liked, and caught the edge of the blade. He pulled himself back, but the Tetsusaiga
still ripped right across his shirt, shredding the fabric like it was nothing,
and putting a long laceration horizontally across his chest.
Kuwabara rose slowly to his
feet. While he wasn’t afraid of blood
per se, the sight of his clothes covered in his
own blood did unnerve him just a bit.
He held his left arm over the wound on his chest, still determined to
win this fight. With the Spirit Sword
still glowing in his left hand, Kuwabara pushed his attack the best he
could. Even when wounded, Kuwabara was
holding his own against the much more feral and (now) much more powerful
Inu-Yasha. Not one to stop fighting
until he gets himself killed (and “going out like a bitch” is something that
Urameshi would never let him forget),
Kuwabara attacked with wide arcing slashes of varying height with his other
Spirit Sword. Inu-Yasha parried or
dodged them easily, and countered with a lunging slash with his clawed left
hand. Kuwabara rolled backward again,
but this time on his own fruition. As he
did, he thrust his swords out, the blades catching Inu-Yasha around his collar,
an inch or so away from each shoulder joint.
The dog demon growled in anger, and
a little in pain. He ran at his
opponent, focusing his energy into the Tetsusaiga. A strong gust of wind picked up in the room
just before Inu-Yasha attacked. “WIND
SCAR!” he shouted. Though Kuwabara crossed
his swords out in front of him in an effort to block, he was swept up by the
force of the blow, and blown clear to the other side of the room. The attack, and the impact from the landing,
took its toll on Kuwabara, and his energy was depleted to the point where one
of his Spirit Swords extinguished.
Inu-Yasha saw his opportunity, and
would not let it go to waste. He leapt
into the air and cleared half the distance between him and Kuwabara in a
fraction of a second. But that’s as far
as he would get.
“Sit,
boy!”
Those words made Inu-Yasha literally
stop in mid-air, the necklace he was wearing suddenly glowing brightly. He barely had enough time to register an Oh, god damn it in his head before he
rocketed to the ground with a loud WHUD! equally as fast. He remained pinned to the ground for a few
seconds. Everyone turned to see just who
shouted that magic phrase that decommissioned the dog demon.
The girl had black hair, and was
wearing a green and white Japanese schoolgirl’s uniform—a green skirt with a
green sailor collar, and a red scarf around her neck and beneath the
collar. Brown loafers adorned her feet,
white socks going halfway up her calf on each leg.
“Inu-Yasha! What is wrong with you?” the girl asked.
He grumbled as he pulled himself to
his feet. “Damn it, Kagome,” Inu-Yasha
spat, “what what’s your problem?” He
stormed over to Kagome, still pretty bitter.
“Couldn’t you see I was winning?”
“You don’t have to kill the poor
guy!” Kagome retaliated. “You two are on
the same side, you know!”
“You think I care about that,
Kagome?”
“Okay, okay,” Goku interrupted. “I think we’ve seen what we’ve needed to see
from you two. Great performance from the
both of you.” He motioned to the
entrance. “Could we get some medics in
here, please?”
Within a few seconds, two teams of
field medics – one to each of the wounded heroes – entered and began patching
up Kuwabara and Inu-Yasha.
* * * * *
“Look, I’m not saying you did a bad
job,” Yusuke said to his friend.
Kuwabara was seated on the ground, leaning back on his hands. His shirt was open, and most of his chest was
covered in athletic tape and ace bandages.
“It’s just that if it weren’t for that girl…tagging Inu-Yasha out, he
would’ve cut you in half—literally.”
“No, he wouldn’t’ve!” Kuwabara
said. “I had that mutt right where I
wanted him!”
Yusuke scoffed. “I saw that.
I also like how you deflected most of his sword attacks with the part of
your body where your vital organs are housed.”
“Damn it, Urameshi—urrg!” Kuwabara tried to stand up, but as he did, he
was overwhelmed by pain caused by his wound.
He barely got to his knees before he settled back down to his original
position.
“Dude, just calm down. You’ll just agitate your injuries.”
With a disgusted growl, Kuwabara
settled down. His body was still sore,
but his pride had suffered even greater injuries.
* * * * *
Link fell back on his left,
sword-wielding hand, using it to spring backward after an assault by Samus
Aran, a galactic bounty hunter – and often under the employment of the Galactic
Federation – in an orange and yellow power suit (a highly advanced suit of body
armor), with a red chest plate and red helmet, capped with a green blaster on
her right forearm. The Hylian swordsman
vaulted on his planted arm back to his feet, and in a smooth motion, drew his
bow from out of his satchel, complete with arrow, ready to fire. He let it fly, and Samus, seeing it coming,
quickly rolled to the side, the arrow clipping the large, right shoulder
section of the armor. The arrow carried
an ice enchantment, as noted by the layer of ice that covered the part of the
armor for a few seconds.
Samus took aim, and the end of the
suit’s cannon shifted into Missile mode.
A small explosion heralded the launching of a missile roughly half the
length of the barrel, and it sailed towards Link. Link retaliated by quickly stuffing his bow
back into his satchel and plucked a shiny, red boomerang. He whipped his hand forward, releasing the
boomerang. It sparkled as it flew toward
the oncoming missile, the impact causing the missile to explode and the
boomerang to fly back to its owner roughly twice as fast as it was thrown.
Samus’ arm cannon reverted to
Blaster mode, and Link went on the move.
He circle-strafed the galactic bounty hunter with his shield deflecting
numerous blaster shots with his shield, colored blue and silver and made from
tempered steel. The shield did its job
well, deflecting the softball-sized blasts of energy and protecting him from
harm. Here, both fighters changed
tactics.
Link ran forward with his shield
forward and the Master Sword ready to strike, while Samus switched to a
different beam. Instead of orange balls
of plasma, the cannon now shot out three purple-white strands of electricity
weaving in and out of one another. While
they didn’t go through Link’s shield, they did send a high level of electricity
through it, shocking Link and stopping his attack. Samus charged forward, jumped, and swung the
arm cannon arm downward, knocking Link to his back. Then, the bounty hunter curled into the fetal
position in mid-air, but oddly enough, morphed into a ball about a meter in
diameter. A light beedoop! was heard, and ball-Samus landed on Link’s chest and
rolled off, dropping a small bomb in its wake.
The bomb detonated on Link’s chest, the explosion sending him skidding a
few feet away.
Samus reverted to normal form, but
was a bit disoriented—an inevitable drawback of Morph Ball mode. Samus hadn’t recovered completely, and was
wide open for Link’s attack. With a loud
kiay, Link slashed with his sword, knocking down Samus but doing little damage
to Samus’ Power Suit. He swung his sword
in an upward arc, once, twice, and a third time. The first two slashes popped Samus up, and
the third sent Samus several feet into the air.
While his target was airborne, Link jumped up, and with another kiay,
slammed his sword into Samus’ chest plate.
The bounty hunter rolled away from Link upon hitting the ground, and was
ready to attack again.
But so was Link. Link pulled another tool out of his bag of
tricks—his Hookshot. He aimed it at
Samus, lining up the red laser scope right at the spot where his sword struck a
few moments ago, and pulled the trigger.
The arrow-shaped head raced to its target in no time, and found its
target. Normally, the Hookshot pulls its
target toward the user (unless the target is a wall, a platform, or something
of that matter). If it couldn’t be
reeled in, it simply struck, then returned to the user. This was a different case. Since the Power Suit wearing Samus had
between 30 and 40 pounds on Link and the
end of the Hookshot lodged itself in Samus’ armor, there was only one logically
possible solution—the Hookshot and its
owner were reeled toward the target.
Link wasn’t too worried, as he would
often use this tool to ascend higher places.
All it took was a small mid-flight correction to go from surprise to
attack. Samus made the same correction
as well. As Link rocketed toward Samus,
Master Sword ready to strike, Samus leaned far back, the arm cannon charging
all the while. Link realized what the
sound was, but couldn’t stop Samus’ attack.
As soon as he was directly above
Samus, Link was hit by a large, blue-white blast of energy, which rocketed Link
straight up and through the ceiling, the swordsman screaming in disbelief and
pain all the way.
The other heroes and the three
sponsors looked up in surprise at the hole Link – well, Samus, actually – put
in the ceiling. “Jeez!” Tuxedo Mask shouted.
Then, everyone started looking
around. “Where the hell did he go?” Goku
asked.
* * * * *
High above downtown
“
“Bow down and worship us, punks!”
Err chimed in.
“The Mooninites now own this city.”
“And we own you, as a result!”
“It is the worst kind of subjugation
imaginable, Err—subjugation on a technicality.”
“Owning by proxy, bitches!” In the midst of their ranting, Err caught
something out of the corner of his eye.
He glanced at the monitor, and saw a green object flying toward their
spaceship at a pretty high speed. “Hey,
what’s that?”
“Quiet, Err,” Ignignokt
answered. “I’m giving a diatribe to the
citizens of this pathetic little city.”
“No, really, man! You gotta see this!”
“Err, what could possibly be more
important than the verbal beat down I’m subjecting this city to?”
“Dude, get over here! I saw something out the window!” As much as he didn’t want to, Ignignokt
walked over to Err and looked out the window.
All he saw was the same
The green Mooninite remained silent.
“It’s the same
“Look, dude, I’m serious! I saw some green dude fly up from the
streets!”
“Well I don’t see this ‘green dude’
anywhere, Err. You’re obviously
hallucinating.”
“That’s it, I’ll show you a hallucin—AAAAAAAH!” It was at that same moment that the “green
dude” Err saw earlier – Link, after being blasted straight out of the
convention center – flew above their ship, hung there for a few seconds, and
then came down, crashing into the Mooninites’ ship on the way. Link was deflected, but the Mooninites’ ship
was sent spiraling out of control, and hit a building with a small explosion.
* * * * *
The other candidates cheered Samus’
victory. Or Link’s grandiose exit. It was hard to tell. “Well…” Goku started. “That was a fine performance…by both of
you. I’d thank Link too, but as you can
see, it’ll be a while before he gets back here.”
A sharp crack of static indicated
Samus’ radio clicking on. “I try,” Samus
said. “Even though he has such modest
technology, his fighting spirit is very impressive.” Another sharp crack of static came with her
turning off her communicator.
Ash was a little more enthused by
what he saw. He ran over to Samus with
Pikachu on his shoulder and a bright smile on his face. “Dude!” Ash started. “That was awesome, man!”
The bounty hunter looked down at the
young hero. Ash could see his and
Pikachu’s reflection in this guy’s visor.
Then, he reached back with his left hand and found the latch that held
his helmet in place, and with a sharp hiss, opened the latch. Then he removed his helmet, and everyone
could see his face for the first time.
It was nothing they expected. For one, they were expecting…well, a male face. What they got instead is the smiling face of
a beautiful woman with long, blond hair.
A beautiful woman with long, blond
hair.
A Beautiful woman.
Beautiful.
Woman.
Most of the other candidates were
just as surprised, but no one could capture the surprise everyone was feeling
quite like the wide-eyed Ash Ketchum.
Oh,
boy, Samus thought, I know where this
is going…
“HE’S A WHAT?!” Ash shouted.
Samus merely laughed.
* * * * *
“It’s time to duel!” shouted the
next hero. On his left arm he wore a
large, metallic, electronic device, known only by people of his caliber – known
in his world as “duelists” – known as a “Duel Disc.” The Duel Disc system developed by KaibaCorp,
used “Solid Vision” technology to generate the images of cards that are associated
with “dueling”. Each half of the large
bladelike piece was sticking out the top and bottom of his forearm, but they
did not stay that way for long. On top
of this Duel Disc was a slot, just large enough to insert a deck of playing
cards. He did just that, but the cards
he used weren’t an ordinary deck of 52.
Instead, there were 40 smaller cards, with a brown back with a black oval
on them. As he inserted the cards, the
two pieces of the disc came together, forming a long blue and white blade of
sorts. This blade of the Duel Disc
wouldn’t be used for slashing—rather, it would be used as slots for the
cards. He brandished his Duel Disc
wielding arm, the LEDs glowing brightly.
This would be a first for Yugi Muto, the King of Games, as he almost
never directly combated his opponents.
“Duel?” his opponent asked. “Heh, you’ll have to excuse me; I left my
flintlocks at home.” His opponent was
clad in black pants, boots, and a shirt with white gloves (clothing that easily
covered his artificial limbs) underneath a long, red overcoat. A devotee to modern science, technology and
alchemy, Edward Elrich turned his nose up at the notions of things such as
magic. He assumed a fighting stance,
while his opponent, much to the Fullmetal Alchemist’s confusion…drew five cards
form his deck, and a second later, a sixth.
“I’m afraid your definition of
‘dueling’ is a bit outdated,” Yugi retorted.
“I, however, speak of playing the game Duel Monsters!”
Ed’s expression dropped. Here he was, ready to fight, going up against
someone who was here to play a card game. His face was wrought with disbelief. He couldn’t possibly be the only one who
thought this was ridiculous.
“Um…yeah.” Ed tossed his long blond braided hair. “You do know you’re in the middle of a fight,
right? I just wanna make sure you and I
are on the same page here.”
“I would be more concerned about
your own safety,” Yugi retaliated. “It’s
in your best interest to get with the program!”
He took a card from his hand, and laid it face-up on the disc. “I summon Gazelle, the King of Mythical
Beasts, in attack mode!” There was a
flash of light, and a large, four-legged beast emerged in front of Yugi.
“Wait—what?” Now Ed was highly
confused. “What is that thing? A hologram?”
Ed turned to the other heroes watching.
“Hey, check it out, everybody!
This guy’s gonna fight me using a bunch of holograms!” He laughed heartily, which not many others
did in kind. See, as Ed was mocking his
opponent, he diverted his attention from him.
Thus, he failed to notice Yugi ordering his monster to attack.
Ed heard the loud roar of the beast,
but didn’t turn around in time quick enough to react. So, he got several slashes from the beast’s
claws down his back, shredding his long, red overcoat. Ed shrieked and turned around, and was face
to maw with the snarling Gazelle. His heart
was going a mile a second. As the creature
swung its claws again, Ed regained his wits about him and was able to dodge the
attacks. He rolled over one shoulder
away from the beast, and readied himself.
He clapped his hands, the act producing a louder “clapping” sound, as if
it echoed on its own volition. Then, Ed
smoothed his now glowing left hand over his right forearm, the Auto-Mail
underneath reshaping into a long, triangular blade over his fist a half a meter
long.
“What? How did you do that?” Yugi gasped. “What magic is that?”
“That’s the thing,” Ed said with a
smirk. He lunged at Gazelle and slashed
with his weaponized arm, cutting a long, clean gash in its right flank. The beast screamed as light poured from the
wound before exploding like glass a second later. “It’s no magic—it’s the science of alchemy!” And with that, he charged right at the King
of Games, his Auto-Mail blade gleaming in the sunlight.
Yugi was not deterred. In fact, he actually smirked when Ed failed
to notice the hologram of a Duel Monsters card face down a few feet in
front of him. So, he took some delight
in Edward’s shocked screams when he set foot on the hologram and found himself
bound by a magical seal and suspended a few feet off the ground.
“I should’ve said something sooner,”
Yugi stated. “Alchemy is not a
science…it is a fallacy.”
“What the hell is this?!” Ed
shouted.
“It’s a Trap Card,” Yugi
explained. “The Spellbinding
Circle! Under normal game play, the
Spellbinding Circle freezes a monster in place, meaning it can’t attack or
change from Attack to Defense mode, or vice versa. But in this case, it’ll merely stop you dead
in your tracks, which is good enough for now.”
Ed lost his cool again. “Let me down from here!” he wailed, his arms
flailing. The magic of the trap card not
only held Ed in place, but immobilized the lower half of his body. This made the wild flailing of his arms even
more comical.
“Now then…” He drew another card,
looked at it, and played it. “I summon
the Obnoxious Celtic Guardian, in attack mode!” Another flash of light heralded
the appearance of an Elfish knight with green armor and a long cape. Yugi pointed to the still trapped and still
flailing Ed Elrich. “Attack!” With a yell, the Obnoxious Celtic Guardian
jumped toward the Fullmetal alchemist, its sword drawn back and ready to cut Ed
in half.
Ed, in his defense, reacted quickly
enough. He clapped his hands again, and
placed them on the effects of the trap “card”.
The circle glowed brightly, and then dissolved in a cloud of multicolored
gasses. Now no longer bound by the
trap’s effects, Ed dropped to the floor, out of the way of the Celtic
Guardian’s attack.
Ed ignored the Guardian, now that
his primary target was in sight. He took
off as fast as his legs (real and Auto-Mail) could take him. He didn’t see any card holograms in between
him and the techno-summoner, so he figured he was in the clear.
“Big Shield Gardna!” Yugi shouted,
playing another creature card. “Protect
me!” Ed wasn’t ready for the massive
human warrior carrying an equally massive shield. So, in his haste, he crashed hard into the
shield. The guardian stood his ground as
Ed bounced off the shield with a loud clang.
Yugi smirked.
Once Ed pulled himself from up off
the ground, he took a second to assess the situation. Yugi was hiding behind a man-beast carrying a
shield that covered everything from its neck to its knees. By now, the Celtic Guardian that Yugi
summoned earlier had recovered its failed attack, but it wasn’t his concern at
the moment. What Ed needed, he thought,
was a weapon.
This guy’s shield would work just
fine.
Ed clapped his hands, and slapped
them against the Gardna’s shield. The
shield glowed, and when Ed pulled his hands away, disintegrated into thousands
of light particles. The particles, on
Ed’s command, reformed in his hands into a long halberd, an ornamental dragon
wrapped around the blade. One quick
slash from the now defenseless Gardna was all it took to destroy it. Then, Ed spun the heavy weapon around in his
hands, showing a surprising display of skill with the weapon.
After his impressive moves with the
halberd, Ed stood before Yugi ready to strike.
Then, he heard the yell of the Obnoxious Celtic Guardian he squared off
with earlier from behind him. He stepped
backwards, looking over one shoulder, and slammed the spike-capped bottom end
of the halberd into the charging creature.
It struck dead center in its chest armor, causing the creature to scream
before shattering.
“As I said,” Ed said, “this is the
power of alchemy!”
“Alchemy is a joke!” Yugi
retaliated. “You must realize this!”
“Alchemy’s no joke, it’s a science! Certainly better than that magic you keep
slinging around!” Ed shouted, and swung
his spear at Yugi. Yugi, relatively unarmed,
did his best dodging the attacks. “And
just like any other science, when placed against magic, it’ll win every
time!” Ed swung his halberd overhead,
but Yugi ducked out of the way at the last second. The blade hit the ground with a loud
thump. “That’s the way the world works, buddy! Science beat magic! History trumps
“And big beats little, right?” Yugi
asked. Ed’s face turned pale. “Much in the same way that larger organisms are
superior to smaller ones…”
Then, Ed’s face turned red. He jumped to his feet and retaliated at
Yugi’s harsh words the only way he knew how.
“WHO YOU CALLING SO SMALL HE COULD
LIVE IN A HOUSE OF CARDS?!”
In the process of taunting his
opponent, Yugi Muto suddenly forgot he was taller than Ed by a whole head (a
head and a half if Yugi’s hair was included).
Through one simple, off-hand remark, Yugi stumbled across Ed Elrich’s
prime weakness—his Napoleon complex and
the massive sensitivity he has about being short. As Ed threw a temper tantrum, Yugi drew
another card, and, pleased with what card he drew, and set it in one of the
Magic/Trap slots on the Disc. The enraged
Ed failed to notice the trap he laid, and charged as fast as he could right at
Yugi.
The
second he stepped on the holographic card, the trap was sprung, and Ed found himself
getting blown back a good 20 feet. The
spear he was wielding flew out of his hand.
He pulled himself to his feet, slowly.
“Not another goddamn trap card,” he grumbled.
“Indeed,”
Yugi proclaimed. “My Mirror Force trap
card makes short work of any attackers!
And now, to finish this…” He drew
another card, added another hand from his hand to it, and played both at the
same time. “I play two copies of Dark
Magical Curtain!” Two dark green stage
curtains crowned with magical hexes appeared, fluttering from an unseen gust of
wind. “This Magic card allows me to
summon one monster with the phrase ‘Dark Magician’ in the card’s title. And I have the perfect two dark magicians,
right here!” The curtains parted, and
two wizards emerged from it. One was a
tall male clad in purple and black robes, wielding a green magic staff. The other was a shorter female wearing a
scanty pastel blue and pink outfit and wielding a matching magic wand. “Behold!
The Dark Magician and the Dark Magician Girl!” Both magicians struck poses while standing
back to back.
“Oh,
for the love of God…” Ed moaned to himself.
Yugi
pointed at Ed. “Go, my Dark
Magicians! Attack!” Then, the two wizards raised their staffs
above their heads, their ends touching. Two
black orbs of magic materialized at the ends of the staffs, which eventually
merged into one much larger ball. They
aimed their building magic at the still downed Edward, and let it fly. The ball of black magic screeched like a
comet as it closed the distance to its target, and exploded upon impact. A scream could be heard above the explosion,
the scream of Edward Elrich, as he skidded across the floor to the other side
of the room. Ed was defeated.
A
large, metal suit of armor ran towards the defeated alchemist. He kneeled when he reached him, gently
pulling him up to a sitting position. “Brother!”
he shouted. Surprisingly, the person in
the armor had the voice of an eight-year-old boy. “Are you okay, brother? What happened?”
Ed
grunted lowly as his eyes focused on the suit of armor that had the soul of
Alphonse Elrich bound to it. “I got my
ass handed to me, Al,” he mumbled.
*
* * * *
“Um…am
I the only one who thinks this is a bit of a mismatch?” Vash the Stampede
asked.
Several
yards in front of him was his opponent, of a sort. It was a big, round, pink…thing no more than two and a half feet
tall, with tiny little pink appendages on its sides that served as arms, and
large, red feet. Its speech was a
mash-up of high-pitched yells and grunts.
“Is
there something wrong?” Tuxedo Mask asked.
“Well…yeah,
kinda,” Vash said, rubbing the back of his head. “I just feel a little bit weird fighting this
little pink…thing.”
“Well,
just do what you can against Kirby here,” Goku added. “Good luck!”
Vash
ran his hand through his very spiky hair as he looked at the three main
heroes. This situation wasn’t the most
comfortable for the Humanoid Typhoon. He
looked down at the little pink mass—
Hey…he thought, where’d he go?
Vash’s
questions were answered when he looked up and saw the pink puffball flying a
few feet in front of him. He was about a
foot taller and about half a foot wider, as Kirby had to fill his body with air
to float. He then opened his mouth,
returning to normal size and losing the ability to fly, but as he dropped to the
ground, he inhaled. Hard.
Vash
suddenly felt like he was getting sucked into a jet intake as Kirby opened his
mouth. Every loose part of his attire
(most notably his jacket) was pulled in Kirby’s direction, followed by Vash’s
glasses, then his pistol, and then Vash himself.
“OH
GOD!” he screamed as he was being sucked in.
His long, wailing scream was cut off as Kirby fully inhaled him and
closed his mouth.
Kirby
paused for a long second, then swallowed.
He returned to his normal size in the process, but when he did, a small
explosion of energy popped out of him in the shape of a star, and crashed to
the ground behind him. When it did, it
turned into Vash the Stampede.
Apparently,
Kirby had ejected Vash from his system in a matter most disturbing. “I feel icky,” Vash whimpered, adjusting his
glasses. He frantically scrambled to his
feet and faced his opponent. “Alright,
just what the hell did you do to me, you…little…pink…” Vash’s expression
dropped as he took on Kirby’s new look.
Kirby
looked like a small, round, pink version of Vash the Stampede, complete with a
red coat custom tailored to Kirby’s form, glasses, and blond, spiky hair.
Suffice
to say, Vash had no idea what to make of it.
“WHAT THE JESUS IS THIS?!” Vash yelled.
Kirby’s
expression was just as blank as ever as he faced Vash. He blinked slowly. What no one else (save from the guys who had
Kirby’s dossier on file) was that inhaling and swallowing his opponents allowed
him to take on the powers and abilities of that enemy.
As
well as some of their personality traits.
He drew his right arm back, held it there for a second, then thrust it
outward. “Love…and…PEACE!” his high voice
squeaked.
Vash’s
jaw was on the floor. “Holy crap! Did you guys hear that?!” he shouted. “That’s awesome!” The one personality trait Kirby managed to
copy was Vash’s famous “Love and Peace” mantra.
And although Kirby had no opposable digits, the twist of the last inch
or so of his outstretched arm mimicked Vash’s crossed fingers the best it
could.
Kirby
mimicked the gesture again. “Love…and…PEACE!”
Vash’s
clenched fists trembled with giddiness. Waterfall-tears
cascaded down his face. “THIS IS THE COOLEST
THING I’VE EVER SEEN IM MY LIFE!”
The
rest of the “battle” was spent with Vash the Stampede and Kirby in his best
Vash the Stampede cosplay standing side-by-side, repeatedly throwing up the
crossed-finger gesture and chanting “LOVE AND PEACE! LOVE AND PEACE! LOVE AND PEACE!”
*
* * * *
Several
empty pizza boxes were stacked on the other end of a folding table as Goku,
Tuxedo Mask and Ash Ketchum discussed the merits and shortcomings of all the
applicants. At the end of the night,
they had narrowed the field of thirty-two down to sixteen—some “won” their
matches earlier, some didn’t. Their
victory wasn’t the only thing to go by.
Attitudes also had to be accounted for, as well as things like control
and restraint.
In
the end, they were satisfied with the sixteen they chose.
“Excellent
work tonight, guys,” Goku said. “Tomorrow
we’ll meet back here with—” he flashed a stack of dossiers for emphasis, “these
guys and put them through the other half of the auditions.”
“Works
for me,” Tuxedo Mask said.
“I
don’t know about you guys, but I’m heading back to my place and turning in,”
Goku added. “We gotta be up bright and
early tomorrow.” He glanced at Ash as he said that last bit. “You’re welcome to stay at my house tonight
if you need to, Ash.”
“You
sure you don’t mind?” he asked.
Goku
shrugged. “No, it’s no problem at all.”
“Well,
I might as well head out, too,” Tuxedo Mask said. He jumped up, using his magic to keep him
afloat before flying off. “See you
tomorrow,” he called.
Goku
and Ash watched him fly off until he disappeared. Then, Goku turned to Ash. “Let’s go.”
He put his hand on Ash’s head, Pikachu moving to Ash’s other shoulder,
and triggered his Instant Transmission.
In the blink of an eye, the two heroes and the Pokémon disappeared.
TO BE CONTINUED……………