After the Light

see part one for details

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Yugi stood against an outside wall in the afternoon sun staring forlornly at his shoes. The rest of his friends were gathered around him quietly as his grandfather and Seto argued with the security guard at the door about tickets and age restrictions.

From inside the arena a loud clamorous cheer erupted from within which lingered for a time. The guard dismissed them saying the round was over and they could wait here. Seto's polar blue eyes flashed in agitation and he took up a post against the hot brick. People began to stream through the doorway, all talking in excited pitched voices as they replayed the events of the game, none taking any note of the unlikely group gathered in wait. Still more time passed as the gang began to grumble about the heat and the sun. The crowd dissipated and thinned until once again the gang was left alone by the door baking against the wall in the Egyptian late afternoon.

The door opened amid the dusty silence to reveal the silhouette of a young woman. The shadow of her feminine curves distorted by a pack hoisted casually over her shoulder and by long spiky hair that seemed to have a life all its own. She stepped out into the bright golden rays of the sun from the cool caress of the dark. Erratic yellow bangs swayed in a manner undisputedly akin to her younger brother. Her body was clad in a full black leather skin that left her shoulders and neck bare with golden ornamentation across the upper chest and armslow low her clavicle the organic lines framed a square in which a card was placed. The image of a green entwining tree echoed in the patterns of her clothing and the pendant she wore upon her hair, the band disappearing beneath her yellow bangs. Beyond the bangs long green hair flowed around as though spurred by an electrical current. She wore tall boots of black and a gold band on the cuff above her knees. While golden and leather arm guards decorated her forearms. She raised her eyes and blinked against the harsh daylight with a forlorn expression and remained standing framed by the doorway to the arena. Abruptly the bag hit the ground and the figure lunged forward with a squeal and launched herself onto the surprised form of Sugoroku Mutou. "Grandpa!"

The elderly man squeaked in surprise as he felt his ribs groan under the pressure of her hug. "Maeve!"

A bright smile broke over her solemn features and her large eyes twinkled. "I'm so glad to see you, it's been so frigging long, how are you? You taking your vitamins? Where's my Yugi?" all was said in nearly one breath. There was a second round of cries of excitement as Yugi plowed into them. The three fell to the ground in a group hug of I missed yous.

"Wow, Yuug, I din' know yer sis was hot!" Joey said staring in open amazement.

"Joey!" Anzu smacked him upside the head.

Seto rolled his eyes.

They were joined by a group of individuals clad much the same as Maeve, their voices raised in banter, debate, frustration, and one belting out the lyrics to 'The Last Saskatchewan Pirate'* by the Arrogant Worms complete with melodramatic reenactment. His hair was long black and in rough dread locks, his skin tone was olive and his eyes brown as he sang at the top of his lungs. Abruptly he grabbed Seto and spun him around, he yanked Duke, Ryou and even picked up Mokuba and spun him around as he sang and leaped about. He wore a black bana wia with a skull and cross bones, an eyebrow ring and a number of earrings decorated his lobes. He stuck out his tongue to show off a fine tongue ring. His nails were painted black while his leather uniform was a baggy pant and duvet. The designs woven into the breast met to house a card with a stern, blue clad wizard.

"Knock it off, Dick." Grumbled a man who was bare chested wearing leather pants and ties around his muscular arms. His hair was black with orange-stripped highlights and his eyes were a hard green giving him a tiger-like appearance. He wore a golden collar that draped over his shoulders and housed a card like the others. His card possessed an image of a Crowned Lord sitting on clouds.

"Lighten up Decimus," the other flicked a hand dismissively in his direction.

"We need to discuss strategy for our next round of play."

"But we just finished one round, we need a breather!"

"No one breathes more excessively you you do Dick." A rough voice commented snidely as a tall, willowy faun skinned woman with indigo streaked hair stepped up beside the one referred to as Decimus. She wore the same style of leather suite as Maeve but hers was adorned with belts and pockets. The card over her chest depicted a warrior woman wreathed in flame.

Two more figures joined them, one a tall and lanky young man wearing a blue scarf, and with matching blue spiked hair possessing a card with a metallic dragon on it. The other was a shorter boy with black hair and a minstrel on his card.

The Mutou's got to their feet and managed to get themselves straitened out. "Oh, yes, introductions. This is Richard…or Dick as we call him," Maeve pointed to the man with dread locks who bowed extravagantly to all present. "Decimus," the bare chested man nodded curtly. "Indie," the woman grunted. "Bob," she pointed to the blue haired man who grinned and waved. "Fey," the dark haired one smiled politely. "They're my partners in this mess, and I'm Maeve." She raised her hand and waved to Yugi's friends. "Hi, who are you?"

"These are my friends," Yugi said gazing up, though not far up as his sister wasn't terribly taller then him, with his large eyes and taking his sister's hand. "Joey, Honda, Anzu, Ryou, Duke, Malik, Isis, Seto and Mokuba Kaiba."

Introductions and handshakes went around. Joey and Honda were both trying to hit on the women while Anzu was fending off a group of butterflies gathering in her stomach as she stood near Decimus.

"Seto Kaiba…a pleasure to meet you. I keep up with Yugi's gaming and I must say you are a highly talented duelist." Maeve commented as she shook Seto's hand.

"Thank you." Seto accepted the compliment with little grace being as he already knew he was talented. "I couldn't win against your brother though."

"He had an unfair advantage." Maeve shrugged.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow.

"He's a Mutou. We're relentless in our own way." She grinned wickedly.

"So I've discovered." Seto stated. "You also tend to attract strange acquaintances and harbor a belief in the life of inanimate objects."

Maeve's smile turned enigmatic, "fate brings people together for a reason, and many an object has an essence if not a soul or life of its own."

"Please tell me you're not going to start preaching that the duel cards have souls as well?" He grumbled.

"Of course the cards have a soul." She laughed and patted Seto on the head. "Though I think you've already learned thatm?"m?" she glanced at Yugi who nodded solemnly.

Seto glared at her.

"So yer sayin' that these pieces of paper have feelings?" Joey asked dubiously.

"Well…no. The individual cards don't have a soul…but an energy and that comes from the original creation of the image…." Maeve made a face. "I've no idea how to explain this so it makes any manner of sense, just trust me when I say your deck has a power of its own and you need to respect it."

"What if you don't?" Asked Mokuba.

"It'll come back to bite you in the ass." Maeve stated with a grin.

"Mind you, if you enjoy ass biting as some present, disrespect away!" Dick piped in with a smirk and a glance at Indie. The tall woman growled at him and promptly kicked him in the rear. The blue haired man made a motion with his hands at the woman. She glared at him and promptly lunged. Bob bolted and ran threw and around those gathered while Indie chased after him threatening his castration.

Decimus looked decidedly bored. Maeve just shook her head sadly as she wrapped an arm around Yugi's shoulders. "They try and kill one another on an bi-hourly basis…you get used to it."

"Oh my!" Ryou exclaimed as he found himself being used as a human shield by Bob and Indie was throwing punches around him. Bob made another number of motions with his hands towards the woman and dove behind Isis.

Indie howled and lunged for him. "Take that back or I swear I'll make your second death infinitely more painful than your first!" Isis gasped as Indie's fist mist her face by a scant inch and struck Bob in the shoulder.

"Hey! Leave my sister out of this!" Malik roared and yanked Isis out of Bob's grip. Slugging the other man for good measure.

Bob reeled and made a lunge to take cover behind Fey but Indie tackled him to the ground and began to rain punches on him.

"Isn't someone going to stop them?" Yugi asked.

"…give them a minute." Maeve responded.

"Not unless you want Indie to beat you to match your hair." Dick commented. Anzu yelped and jumped around and gave Dick a glare. The sound of a slap resounding through the parking lot was heard as her hand met his face.

"how DARE you!" She shrieked.

"Whad he do Anzu?" Honda demanded rolling up his sleeves.

"He pinched my bum."

"Ow…" Dick rubbed his cheek and whimpered.

"You need to watch his hands. They tend to wander." Decimus commented dissmisively.

Indie was stalking away from Bob. She stopped and punched Malik in the arm and sent him flying to the ground.

"What was that for?" he demanded as his sister helped him to his feet.

"That's for hitting Bob." She turned and stalked to to hover beside Decimus.

Bob crawled to his feet uneasily; his eyes widened as he reached down and frantically picked up his scarf. He hurriedly wrapped it around his pale neck, but not before an ugly scar was revealed to those gathered that covered the width of his throat.

Anzu gasped while the others' eyes widened. Ryou's hand went up and touched his own neck protectively. "What happened to him?" Yugi questioned in concern.

Bob wrapped the scarf securely around his neck and looked down, abruptly he bolted from the group into the parking lot.

"Bob! No! It's ok! Shit." Maeve flinched.

Indie was already running after him. Fey not far behind. "I'd better go help…catch up with you at the hotel Maeve." Dick called as he tore off after the others. Decimus went not far behind at a slower pace.

Maeve sighed. "Bob's very sensitive about his scar. He doesn't like for people to see it, which is why he always wears the scarf."

"But why does he have it?" Isis wondered.

Maeve glanced around and smiled sadly. "He got involved som some bad people…and did some bad things…I don't think it's right of me to get into his past really without his permission. But, what I can tell you is that there was a bad…incident…in which Bob lost his parents, he survived but his throat was slashed…he's always blamed himself for it. He's a mute now… "

"That's awful!" Anzu exclaimed, the others agreed quietly.

Maeve shrugged helplessly. "It is, it changed him, and he deals with it in his own way. Don't pity him. He hates people who try to befriend him because they feel sorry for him…in all honesty I love the guy but he's a bit of an at at times. Which is why we're friends. Since I can tell him off with love." She smiled. "He's got issues…hell, we've all got issues…actually, I think the whole world has issues."

"What issues does Decimus have?" Anzu asked.

Maeve blinked at her with large green tinted eyes. "Don't go lusting after Decimus…he's got more issues than most."

Anzu flushed. "I'm not lusting after -"

Maeve raised her eyebrows. "Oh please, anytime he enters the room the women start drooling and some of the men do too. He's a sexy bastard, but he's still a bastard. He's not going to let you get close to him. He'd have mind-blowing sex and then cast you aside. He's got other problems to deal with and hates getting close to ne.\ne."

"What problems?" Isis asked.

Maeve glanced about and whispered in a conspirators tone. "He eats babies."

Yugi gasped and many of those there went wide-eyed. "You're joking." Seto grumbled as he held Mokuba a bit closer.

"Yes, actually, I am. But if anyone would…it would be Decimus."

Grandptou tou was chuckling. "That's my girl!" He slapped her on the shoulder affectionately. "So, did you win your tournament?"

She smiled at her grandpa, then looked down sadly. "No, we lost this round, Fey fell into a trap and we lost Bob getting him out, he'll have to start from the first tomorrow and catch up. Fey managed to earn us a few new tricks though. Indie and Decimus went the wrong way and before they got turned around they were too far behind the leaders to make a come back. Dick did well, he managed to boost our weapons arsenal and magic points during the game, but he got slaughtered against an opponent red Mage."

The looks on the faces of those gathered clearly stated they were lost. "What about you? did you do well?" Yugi asked.

"Er…no. I went out to assassinate another character…and I succeeded there. But I ended up in the tomb vault with the King of Thieves. Which meant I wasted a great deal of time there, so someone else managed to get past the obstacles and solve the riddle to claim the key and win."

"The King of Thieves?" Ryou asked in wonder. "What do you mean by you wasted time there?"

"Well…er…" she looked at her grandpa and Yugi and blushed. "In a previous game he stole my heart card. Which means I can't fight him because my character is in love with him. You have a bunch of character cards as well as spell, weapon and other cards you can collect during the game to increase your character's power. Only you have your character cards from the beginning. One of these is your heart card. Which you only have one of and it can be given to anyone you wish…anyway, the King of Thieves stole mine. So anytime my character and him are in the same room on the game map…stuff…happens."

"What kind of stuff?" Asked Malik curiously.

"The stuff that makes this game an NC-17 rating." She grumbled.

Yugi's mouth dropped open, Ryou blushed, while Seto blinked in surprise. "You mean, you have sex in the game?" Duke asked.

"No…I don't have sex. My character does. There's a bit of a difference there. I'm standing on the side of the map while my character is in it doing all the work." Maeve defended.

Joey had a rather whimsical look on his face. "Ya need ta tell me more about this game."

"Shadow's Light RPG is rather similar to Duel Monsters in some respects…except you only get one monster and you're it. The rest of the cards are used to give your 'monster' accessories such as magic and weapons to use to get through the obstacles on the map. You start out with nothing but your 'monster' and your character cards. As you progress you earn other cards as well as experience and skill points to use them. ave ave life points as well. It's not difficult to understand the concept. It's quite another thing to actually play it though. It takes a lot of resignation. I'd be happy to go over all the rules and stuff later if you want." She shrugged.

"Yeah! Can we watch a game?" Joey asked.

"Maybe I could sneak you in to watch the next round." Maeve shrugged. "We'll see."

"Cool!" Honda exclaimed.

"I'd be interested in seeing this." Malik countered.

"A new game would be fun to check out." Duke added.

"So would I, it would be good to see the competition's technology," mused Seto.

Ryou smiled. "I'd like to go too."

"And I," Isis added.

"I'd better go to keep an eye on Joey." Anzu muttered.

"I'm in." Grandpa Mutou chirped.

"Me too!" Mokuba

"Er…sorry hun, I think you're too young to go in there just yet." Maeve smiled at the younger Kaiba. To which Seto grunted in agreement. To which Mokuba pouted and stomped his foot. "What about you Yugi?" Maeve asked.

The small youth was looking at his sneakers with a sad expression. He had wanted to ask Yami to only have the gaping hole in his awareness of where Yami had once been answer. The raw knot of loneliness chaffed in his belly. His Yami was gone. What fun was there in games when he was gone?