“Nice guy. Absolutely capital fella.” Phil remarked with a wave toward the now-departing Mako. The fisherman was accompanied by a team of two black-suited security guards who had dropped down from ropes from the ramparts soon after the duel had concluded. A bit of an overkill way to make sure defeated competitors left the island, but hey, it was Pegasus’s show, and at least the guards were being chill about it.

  It did strike Phil as somewhat strange. Were all the defeated duelists escorted back to the ferry with an armed guard in the manga? Or was this something new? Both of the security guards appeared highly alert, their eyes scanning around the area for something, or someone. Moreover, Phil could see faint bumps on the part of their jackets under their left shoulders, indicating some sort of under-the-shoulder holster for a handgun. Similar to the sniper on the ramparts, these two guards were packing heat.

  But that was that, and this was this. No matter how the security guards wanted to carry themselves or the situation on the island wanted to change, the fact was that there were no more duelists in sight to challenge. Phil and Jean were alone, with only the sniper on the ramparts and the distant retreating figures of Mako and the guards for company.

  “Yugi and Joey went off to the wasteland, yes?” Jean suddenly spoke. Phil glanced over. There was a sly look in his brother’s face. Not one which spoke of a desire to ambush their friends with a duel, but more of a glimmering curiosity over the possibility of Yugi’s group stumbling into enough duelists to perhaps share one or two with their beautiful bearded friends.

  Phil held out his fist to bump Jean’s. “I like the words you say, Frenchman. Wasteland it is. Bye sniper dude!” He waved to the distant sniper on the ramparts, Jean quickly mimicking his gesture. The sniper did not wave back.

  The walk was quick, no more than ten minutes away from the castle walls where Jean had dueled Mako. Though calling it a 'wasteland' might have been some amount of disservice to the area. Certainly, it lacked the abundant vegetation of the hellhole that was the forest, but it wasn't quite a rocky, dust-ridden shithole like the card art for the field spell ‘Wasteland’ would have suggested. It was rocky, sure, with a few dead trees sparsely scattered around, but leafy green bushes were still somewhat plentiful. The number of visible battle boxes was small. Only a few, each appearing to be a fair distance between each other, could be seen, and none of them contained even a single duelist.

  “There.” Phil pointed over to the only other moving figures in the area. That was the best feature of the wasteland. With the lack of trees and other features that could provide cover, it was pretty damn easy to see other people.

  Jean squinted his eyes to look in the direction of Phil’s finger, a hand held over his brows to block out the glare of the sun.

  “A bandana man. Oui, that fellow is pretty large.”

  “I bet he eats his Wheaties.” Phil couldn’t help but agree. Even from a distance, it was clear to Phil who the man wearing an American flag bandana was, even before factoring in the man's leather jacket, dark sunglasses, and deep red shirt.

  Bandit Keith.

  Phil led Jean closer. He couldn’t see Yugi and the gang, but Bandit Keith and his three lackeys were all present. Did that mean this was before Joey’s duel with Bonz, or after? It was hard to say for sure. The four men – Bandit Keith, some spiky-haired dude, a guy with stupid-looking glasses that rested low on his nose, and the ghastly-looking Bonz, were gathered around the mouth of a cave while wrapped up in serious discussion.

  Such was the depth of their discussion that Phil and Jean went entirely unnoticed in their approach, even as the pair came to a halt as close as twenty feet away from Bandit Keith. That was when Phil finally discovered where in the timeline they were, as the four men apparently came to a decision, and, to the accompaniment of the faint, hoarse yells of Joey and Tristan from within the cave, began to roll a large round boulder over the mouth of the cave.

  “Should we…” Jean cocked his head as he hesitantly spoke.

  “Stop them?” Phil shrugged. "Naw. It's a dick move, but the chips aboveground are drying up."

  Jean made a soft noise of understanding as they watched the four men struggle to heave the boulder into place. "There are duelists underground?"

  “Player killers. Plus a path into the castle.”

  “That means…” Jean began, turning to face Phil while Phil did the same, and they spoke their next words in perfect unison. “It’s time for them to build character!”

  That combined cheer was enough to alert Bandit Keith, who, after giving the final push to nudge the boulder fully into place, spun around to face them with a wary look and a curse already falling from his lips.

  “Who the fuck are you two?”

  “Merde, I don’t speak English. Phil, what did Monsieur Bandana say?”

  "He wants to know who we are," Phil whispered back to him.

  “What did the French bastard say!” Bandit Keith shouted angrily.

  Phil turned back to him with an exasperated look. “He called you Mr. Bandana and wanted to know what you said. He doesn’t speak English. Do you know Japanese or something? Jean speaks it decent enough to get by.”

  "But you're speaking English to him…" Bonz said before Bandit Keith could retort, confusion written across his face. Phil waved his hand non-committedly through the air.

  “Potato potahto.”

  “Whatever! I’ll deal with you two later.” Bandit Keith shouted. Then, ignoring Phil and Jean in favor of turning to his lackeys, Bandit Keith rolled up his sleeves. “Zygor. Sid. Bonz. You aren’t worth keeping around anymore. Give me your chips.”

  “What?” Bonz exclaimed, “No way!” The ghastly teen backed up, holding his deck in his hand. “Yeah, sure, that Joey kid beat me, but that doesn’t mean I’m out of the tournament! Your advice was crap, that’s all! I don’t need it anymore! Zygor, Sid, let’s bounce!”

  Bandit Keith let out an evil grin, holding up a threatening fist. “You need to work on your English. When did I say you had a choice?”

  Bonz only had time to let out a surprised “Wha-“ before Bandit Keith's fist crashed into his face to break his nose in one solid strike. Bonz stumbled back in shock, his face a mask of blood. The spiky-haired man, Zygor, rushed in with a yell of anger, but Bandit Keith was already moving. Catching Zygor's fist in his hand, Bandit Keith squeezed until Zygor's knuckles made several rather-unhealthy popping noises, forcing the man to his knees with a hoarse scream of pure pain. Yet, the burly American didn't stop there. With a sadistic grin, he continued to squeeze while Sid, glasses askew on his face, watched on in horror.

  Phil and Jean moved in, but they could only make it a few feet before a gut-wrenching ‘cracking’ sound came from Zygor’s fist, followed by a sobbing wail of pain. Bandit Keith released the man, who immediately doubled over with his broken hand cradled to his chest.

  “Hey! Easy! Easy, man!” Sid finally shouted. His hand scrabbled through his pockets to pull out five star chips, with Zygor shakily doing the same with his unbroken hand. They then tossed the chips over to Keith, who casually caught them.

  "Oi, you've got your chips," Phil said as he and Jean came to a stand between Keith and his former lackeys.

  Bandit Keith’s sadistic grin morphed into an angry sneer. “Fuck off. This ain’t your business.”

  The sound of movement behind Phil signaled the rapid retreat of Bonz and co, but Phil continued to warily eye the American.

  “Fuck off? Naw, fuck you. I don’t care about some dumbass little girl’s spat between you and your minions, but breaking spiky-hairs hand is going too far.”

  Even though Bandit Keith was now outnumbered, with his minions running in the direction of the ferry dock, the man did not show any sort of fear at all.

  “Big man, huh?” Bandit Keith sneered. “Well, I got news for you, fuckface. I don’t give a shit ‘bout what you care or don’t care about. So you and your pussy-ass Frenchie friend are gonna walk away, or I’ll be more than happy to hand out the consequences.”

  “In a duel?” Phil raised an eyebrow. “I’d be fucking delighted.”

  But Bandit Keith’s grin widened. His hand darted under his black biker’s jacket to reveal a flash of cold steel.

  “Naw. I have ten star chips now. I don’t need yours.” Bandit Keith said. In his hand was a snub-nosed revolver. Phil’s eyes tightened. In the corner of his eye, he could see that Bonz and the other two lackeys were far gone. It was only him, Jean, and Bandit Keith.

  “See, I ain’t some stupid shithead,” Bandit Keith continued. He kept his revolver trained on Phil and Jean. “Those three idiots were nothing. Rough ‘em up a bit and they run off crying and pissing themselves for mommy. You two? I get the feeling you wouldn’t be like that.”

  “So, what’s it gonna be?” Phil cooly replied. His mind raced for answers. To his left he could see Jean’s posture. His brother’s body was tense, like a compressed spring ready to launch itself at the slightest of opportunities.

  “I’m here for two things – the fucking fat pile of cash for the winner, and the promise of wiping that smirk off the face of the fucker that ruined my life. And here’s the thing. I don’t need more competition. Heh. Blame yourselves for not being pussies like those losers I just sent packing. You might’ve lived if you had been.”

  This was the second time in his life Phil had stared directly down the barrel of a loaded gun. Like the time before, all those years ago when he was shot and killed in his local game store, Phil could feel his thoughts move at a lightspeed.

  Fact: Bandit Keith had a loaded gun.

  Fact: Bandit Keith wanted Phil and Jean out of the running.

  Fact: Bandit Keith believed that if he tried to beat them up, Phil and Jean still wouldn't leave.

  Fact: The cave was blocked. There was nowhere else for Phil and Jean to be trapped.

  Fact: Bandit Keith, at least in the manga, was capable of murder. He had tried to kill Pegasus after being disqualified in the semi-finals.

  Fact: Bandit Keith was going to kill them.

  That final fact was the clearest of them all. Bandit Keith was still wearing a pair of sunglasses, but the shading on them was not particularly dark. His eyes could still be seen, and they were as cold, merciless, and empty as chips of ice.

  As Bandit Keith’s thumb moved to cock back the hammer of his snub-nosed revolver, Phil and Jean burst forward in perfect sync, without even needing to share a single word between each other.

  “You-“ Was all Bandit Keith could yell before Jean, running low to the ground, and Phil, dashing at full height, both hit him in brutal tackles that sent all three men spinning to the ground in a cloud of dust. The gun discharged, a shot barking off into the sky.

  “I got it!” Shouted Jean, wrestling the gun from Bandit Keith’s grip. Phil punched the man twice in the face, but Keith was strong – strong enough to match Joey, even. His hand lashed out, sending Phil spinning away, and then Keith headbutted Jean with such visceral rage that the Frenchman was briefly stunned. Bandit Keith rose to a half-kneel, but his right hand was empty. Jean had successfully loosened his grip on the gun enough so that the weapon had come to a rest on the ground a foot away.

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  With a curse of rage, Bandit Keith launched himself toward the fallen revolver, but by now Jean was recovered enough to shoulder-check him and send the man veering off course. Phil lunged forward, wasting not a single second as he hit the ground, tasting a mouthful of dust and blood as he did. Bandit Keith was right behind him – several hammer-like blows to his back, hitting hard enough that Phil could feel his bones creak, slammed away at his body, but the gun was now within his reach.

  Phil grasped it by the handle, rolled on his back, and moved to throw it into the distance, but Bandit Keith was on him before Phil’s arm could complete its arc. Keith’s fists rained down upon Phil, splitting skin, cracking bones, and even breaking off several teeth. Phil’s grip weakened, and Keith abandoned his flurry of strikes to wrench apart Phil’s fingers, sending the gun to the ground once more.

  Phil let out a hoarse shout of pain as his pinky finger was snapped like a raw carrot stick. But as soon as his finger was broken, the great weight on his stomach vanished.

  It was not Jean this time. His brother was still several feet away, reeling from a blow of Bandit Keith’s.

  No, it was Lumina. Her form flickering in and out of existence and her face a mask of fury, Lumina buried a foot in Bandit Keith’s groin and then struck with mechanical precision with her fists, advancing with each blow that saw the burly man stagger backward. But only half her blows actually landed.

  Every half-second she faded from reality, still visible to Phil, but otherwise non-corporeal. Her magic was still low, low enough that she could only briefly interact with the real world, and it was getting worse by the second. Her fist would smash into Bandit Keith’s face to bring forth a spray of blood, and then her follow-up strike would flicker away as her magic dipped even lower. Soon the number of her blows landing fell to a third, and then a fourth – enough for Bandit Keith to brush past her with bullish rage, his nose shattered, blood bubbling out of his mouth, and his left arm snapped like a twig, but still moving. Still laser-focused on the gun resting on the ground.

  Lumina sent a brutal haymaker rushing toward his head, but right as it would have landed, her body fully disappeared. Bandit Keith ran forward uninterrupted. His hand reached toward the revolver.

  Lumina let out a shout of pure rage only Phil could hear and, with a vein pulsing in her forehead, became corporeal once more. But for once, Phil was faster than her. The gun was snatched up in a bloodied hand, but not by Bandit Keith.

  It was by Phil.

  There were no words exchanged between Phil and Bandit Keith at that moment. No last-minute quips, not even a moment of a shared silent stare. The men were no more than three feet away from each other. Phil was still half-kneeling on the ground. Bandit Keith was mid-lunge. Jean was sprinting forward, his head lowered and shoulder readied to tackle the American.

  And in the span of less than a second, Phil’s pointer finger provided the five-odd pounds of pressure required to fully pull the trigger of the snub-nosed revolver in his left hand. The distance was such that Phil’s aim, as steady as it was, hardly even mattered.

  Three gunshots split the air, and then there was silence underlaid by a faint buzzing sound. Phil winced, shaking his head back and forth a few times. No matter how he shook his head, the buzzing remained in his ears. He’d forgotten how loud guns were without earplugs.

  “That’s that.” Jean panted, doubled over with his hands on his knees. He hardly paid any attention to the still body of Bandit Keith.

  “That’s that.” Phil echoed. He leaned close to the body. Bandit Keith’s eyes were glassy in death. His face had fallen slack from its final snarl of anger. “Dumb son of a bitch. We coulda’ walked our separate ways. No one had to die.” He looked at the sky. The clouds still hung overhead, unbothered by the concerns of petty mortals.

  Next to him, Lumina stared at her hand in annoyance. “Damn it.” She grumbled. “I could have beaten him into a coma if I’d just had a bit more…”

  Phil knew fully well what she meant, and he sent her a reassuring smile as soon as Lumina’s gaze crossed his. He owed her enough as it was for keeping his new body alive through the withdrawal symptoms and providing translation magic, even if D.3.S. had shouldered a small portion of the burden now that the great frog was partially recovered. Adding onto that, there was also how she'd helped with Chet, the apartment fire, and more.

  Jean let out a grunt of agreement. “Nice shooting, Tex.” His words ended with a hiss of pain, and he looked down at his chest. "Ugh. I think he played a xylophone on my ribs.”

  Phil grinned to reveal two missing front teeth in his smile. “Thanks. I’ve dropped by the range a few different times with friends back home in good ol’ ‘Murica. A different life from now, I guess.”

  It had been a standard three-shot spread to the chest. Simple and clean. Phil slid the cylinder of the revolver open to show one bullet left, while his other hand busied itself with using the hem of his shirt to wipe any possible fingerprints off the body of the gun. By his math… three into Keith’s chest, then he could have sworn it was just one into the air in the struggle…

  “Some poor sap got on the business end of this before.” Phil realized. But there was little he could do with that information now. Jean knew that just as well as he did, so without commenting, the two men crouched over Bandit Keith’s body. His jacket was slightly askew from how he’d landed in the dust, revealing the partially obscured forms of several decks kept in specially made holsters sewn on the inside of the biker jacket.

  “Taking a dead man’s cards…” Jean muttered, poking at the black jacket absentmindedly. He glanced at Phil, seemingly curious as to his friend’s opinion.

  Phil shrugged. It was similar to what he’d noticed about himself during that night in Blue Friday. He’d had more time to think by now. To talk with Lumina, to muddle in his own ponderings.

  “I’m strangely comfortable with that.”

  That brought a smile to Jean’s bloodied face. “Monsieur Phil, I hoped I was not alone! Come, we shall see the spoils of war.”

  Phil shook the last bullet free of the revolver’s cylinder, closed it shut, and tossed the weapon on the ground. As useful as it had been in his hands against Bandit Keith, Phil did truly prefer solving things in literally any other way than that, including but not limited to feeding his enemy(s) to D.3.S. Frog.

  “Machine… zombie… LV… phantom beast… a really weird fire/water union deck… oh, haven’t seen that type before.”

  Jean pulled out a stack of cards to show Phil.

  “Spirit.” Phil read out the monster type. “Right. I’ve seen them before. Lost with ‘em too, if you believe me. Most of them suck balls, other than Asura Priest (1700/1200), which can attack every monster on your opponent’s field once each, and Tsukuyomi (1100/1400), which can flip face-down any monster on the field. Well, I guess there’s one or two more that are usable, but those are mostly situational.”

  Jean let out a snort of laughter. “I’m glad, my brother, that you are not the type to fall into shock after such a whirlwind encounter.”

  “I used to.” Said Phil. He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

  Jean then stood, looking to an empty patch of air near Phil’s shoulder. Gesturing with his chin, he asked, “Is Madame there?”

  Phil pointed toward his other shoulder, where Lumina actually was.

  “It appears, Madame Lumina, this Frenchman owes yet another debt to you.”

  Lumina made to move her hands, but soon frowned as her body refused to become corporeal. After a few more attempts, she gave up and looked over to Phil.

  “Tell Jean it’s my pleasure. Plus… heh, I do love a good dust-up.” Then her face took on another look of annoyance. “Not as much when I can’t stay in the entire fight, though…”

  Phil only repeated the first part of her reply to Jean. He reached over and patted Lumina on the arm. Strangely enough, though Lumina was not currently in a state of being where she could interact with the world, his hand didn’t go through her arm. It rested on it, her limb feeling slightly warm to the touch.

  Lumina looked at his hand with surprise coloring her face. Her head swiveled between Phil’s hand, his face, and Jean’s. Jean’s eyes were not fully locked onto Lumina, but were instead just focused on the general area that Phil had pointed out.

  “Can you see her?” Phil checked, just in case.

  Jean shook his head sideways. “No.”

  “But you can touch me…”

  “Does that mean I’m dead?” Phil joked.

  “No… I don’t think so…” Lumina once more glanced at his hand. “I… think we’re just more in-tune now, as a duelist and duel spirit. Even back at the academy, you probably could have done the same with D.3.S. from the get-go.”

  And in response to that, along with the continued presence of the dead body near his feet, Phil could only say one extremely profound sentence:

  “That’s wack, mate.”

  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  For the second time of the day, the radio of a black-suited security guard guarding the ramparts buzzed to life. It was not the same man who had observed Jean and Mako duel, though he wielded the same rifle. This was a new guard, fresh from taking over the afternoon shift in preparation for the evening shift.

  “Keith’s down.” He spoke.

  The radio crackled in response. “Dead?”

  “He took three shots to the chest from a .45 snub-nose at a distance of a few feet. He’s dead.”

  “Then that is that.”

  “What about the two men who killed him?”

  “Duelists?”

  The guard peered through the scope of his rifle. It was faint, but both men were wearing dueling gauntlets. No longer were they kneeling over the corpse. In their hands… a glint of light from the sun flashed off small pieces of metal. Star chips, he presumed. They were likely splitting the chips from the dead man.

  “Aye.”

  “Have they hurt anyone else?”

  "Besides shoving Weevil Underwood in a trash can on the ferry? No." Internally, the man remarked to himself that if not for the later circumstances of Weevil Underwood’s fate, that situation could have been better classified as a comedy moment instead of someone getting hurt.

  “Then Master Pegasus decrees them to be left well alone. He never planned for Keith to leave the island alive, provided that man did not experience a sudden and rapid change in personality. As he attempted to murder two duelists, assaulted three more, and trapped Yugi Muto underground with no intention of releasing him, Master Pegasus does not believe that change would have ever come.”

  “Roger that.”

  The man leaned into a more comfortable position from where he lay on the ramparts. When Seto Kaiba had appeared, a brief burst of energy had consumed the castle before being quickly suppressed once the teenage CEO of Kaiba Corp had disappeared behind the solid iron portcullis. Clearly, Master Pegasus was worried more magic wackjobs would appear like they had in the castle, but he was beginning to wonder if it was just a one-off situation. His hand took out a cigarette from his breast pocket, while his other hand struck a match. He took a grateful puff.

  “STUPID!”

  A voice sounding not unlike the cawing shriek of a bird trying to take on human speech jolted the guard out of his thoughts. Somehow, in the few seconds that he had been distracted, a large stork wearing bright red boots had landed on the ramparts next to him.

  “What have you seen~ stupid stupid stupid human? Through that far~ seeing eye of yours? You will tell me, yes, yes?”

  The guard’s mouth hung open in a perfect ‘o’. He’d seen a few strange things before in service to Maximillion Pegasus, but this… it took the cake. But the oddities did not stop there.

  “Mark?” The guard said in disbelief as the face of a recently missing fellow security guard came into view via the man desperately heaving himself over the side of the ramparts.

  “Jack.” Mark acknowledged through gasping breaths.

  Jack’s hand inched close to the handgun holstered at his waist. “Mark. You okay?”

  Mark affixed him with a stare that looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I’m being forced to attend to a magical talking bird.”

  “SHUT!” The stork screeched, leaving Jack’s ears ringing. Mark’s hands, he noticed, had darted up to cover his ears with practiced speed before the stork had even begun to scream.

  "Don't waste your piece," Mark spoke with an exhausted voice, having waited a few seconds for Jack to regain his hearing. “He’ll just eat it like he did mine.”

  “Eat it…” Jack echoed, caught in the absurdity of it all.

  But all Mark could do was nod tiredly before the stork’s beak darted forward to snatch up Jack’s radio, where it disappeared down the bird’s bobbing gullet like it was a particularly juicy fish. The stork stalked closer to Jack until its burning yellow eyes were almost touching Jack’s own.

  “Tell me. What. Did. You. See. Stupid, stupid man-creature.”

  Jack shakily opened his mouth. “I-I… Bandit Keith is dead. He chose the wrong duelists to bully. They killed him in self-defense with his own gun.”

  “And?”

  “Uh… uh…”

  “Anything supernatural?” Came Mark’s tired voice from where he leaned against the cool stones making up the ramparts.

  “Yes!” Jack said with renewed vigor, as if the words themselves were a lifeline rescuing him from the insane bird with its terrifying, sword-like beak.

  “Speak then~, stupid human.”

  “A crazy man broke into the castle! I didn’t see him, but one of the guys had to clean up the aftermath! It was like a rabid bear tore through our guys! Master Pegasus personally dealt with him! He was called… he was called…”

  Try as he might, Jack took several seconds to recall the strange madman's name, or what Maximillion Pegasus had said it was. Though the unblinking stare of the stork, which felt like it was gazing into his very soul for the truth, hardly helped push Jack's memory along.

  “Purple Fall! It was Purple Fall!”

  The stork’s beak fell away.

  “Purple Fall…” The stork said, its tongue poking out of its beak like it was tasting the very words themselves. “Dead?”

  Jack frantically nodded.

  “Good.”

  The stork turned away to face the inner part of the castle. Then it spoke. This time its words were not quite as harsh. They were soft, almost humanlike, with a hint of an emotion Jack couldn’t quite put his finger on inside of them.

  “I wonder… human, have you heard your master speak the name, Pink… Winter?”

  Upon saying that name, the stork’s expression twisted into one of pure, undiluted hatred, and the name was spat out like it was the most disgusting taste to ever exist.

  Jack frantically shook his head no.

  “Pity.” The stork said, his voice back to what was no more than a soft whisper. “Human!” The stork’s voice suddenly rose to the accompaniment of a ferociously clacking beak, “With me! Ready your access card! We~ must search the castle, yes we must. We must!”

  “I-“ Jack made to say, but the stork’s renewed screeching interrupted him immediately. With each screeched word, the stork's neck bobbed up and down, and its feet, still encased in little red boots, shuffled in place.

  “Shut up! Shut up! Stupid, stupid human! Shut! Shut! Silence! Quiet!”

  The wall of sound was enough to send Jack falling backward in shock as the stork advanced threateningly, and then moved past him as if Jack’s very existence was only worth the mildest of contempt.

  “Jack, good to see a friendly face,” Mark muttered, rushing past Jack as well with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I think he’ll kill me if I run. You might not want to report this, don’t want the crazy bastard to rip your eyes out with his beak. He will." Mark's face took on a look of half-remembered horror. “I’ve… seen him do it. We ran into some cult psycho in the mountains…and…” Mark let the sentence die out with a look of utter revulsion at the memory.

  Jack could only wordlessly stare at his coworker as the stork and the man, an extremely unlikely pair as it was, rushed down the ramparts to the castle grounds below.

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