[FICbit]: oops i lied jay it wasn't a readmore here's your fic
Characters: Tsukomo Yuuma, Solo, Hoshikawa Subaru, No. 96: Black Mist
Rating: PG-13...ish?
Warnings: uh, there's 96, so tentacles? nothing super bad though
Notes: uh, Jay's prompt was: Yuma being attacked by Solo and Black Mist cornering Subaru. So yeah. Stuff happens.
Summary: Uh, no summary. Just some vague nonexistent plot and two connected scenarios concerning the prompt. Yay. I guess it's set some time after Star Force 3 and somewhere based after ZeXal II Episode 11/12/13? Whichever one results in grevious comaly damage to Astral.
“Where. Is. He.”
Yuuma found himself backing away from the admittedly intimidating teen who had shown up in front of him just mere moments ago. He appeared to be one or two years younger than him-but with his glaring red eyes and undaunted stance, it made him look like as if he stood just as tall as Yuuma, if not taller.
“Who the heck are you talking about?! What are you saying, showing up all of a sudden?” Yuuma retorted, pumping his voice full of bravado. Since when was he one to back down? He couldn’t, especially not now, when he was helpless to assist with what was happening…
“You know who I’m talking about,” the boy hissed back, making Yuuma recoil. “Don’t pretend. He was just here moments ago. Rockman.” The last word was bit out in an angry growl, but even with that extra intimidation factor, Yuuma couldn’t help but process the words with confusion instead of fear. What the hell was a Rock…whatever? But then…the person who had just left…
“You don’t mean…Subaru? What the heck do you want with him?!” Yuuma didn’t get what was going on. He was never good at understanding things when they came on so quickly, and having all these events happening all at once was too much to process. If only that kid would just give him some time to think!
“I have to delete him,” the younger boy snarled in a tone that no child his age should have been able to accomplish. “He knows that I was coming. He never runs from me.” He sought out Yuuma’s eyes and bore into them, the intensity rooting Yuuma to the spot.
“If he runs, even when I’m nearby, even when he knows that we have to fight, that means something more important is going on. That means that he has to protect his precious bonds with his precious friends, and the only one around here is you. So, out with it. Where did he go?!”
Yuuma didn’t respond at first, only staring at the younger boy’s intent expression. What was he talking about, deletion? That didn’t mean he wanted to-?
“Heck no, I’m not telling you! You want to-to off him, don’t you?! I’m not telling you a thing!” He stood his ground defiantly, only to have the boy glare at him even harder.
“Is that so…”
“Yeah!” Yuuma felt his courage rise, even despite a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that wouldn’t cease, something telling him that he shouldn’t be assertive. That part of him he always ignored (wouldn’t it be terrible, reverting back to his old, insecure self?) unless Astral was around. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Before he could get another word out, before he could even have a chance to regret his words, there was a flash of purple light in front of him, and the smaller boy had disappeared. In his place was a boy who somehow seemed taller, perhaps due to the bulky black and red boots he wore. A sword was held up to his neck, a twisted purplish blade that rippled with energy, giving it the illusion of it actually moving, flowing (but swords couldn’t do that, they were solid, right?). He could barely look past the blade to see the black catsuit, the X-shaped visor, the right fist engulfed in glowing violet flames.
“Rockman always shows when others are in trouble. That’s what they always said…”
Yuuma visibly flinched, barely noticing the trail of sweat that had slowly begun to drip down his neck until the blade was slowly withdrawn.
“I know for a fact that when Rockman’s friends are targeted, his anger is unleashed tenfold.” The boy-warrior?-tsked and shook his head. “He is not one I would use those tactics on, not anymore. He has…he does not deserve that. I would prefer to fight him on equal grounds…”
The sword came to rest at the boy’s side, and despite the seemingly relaxed position, Yuuma somehow felt that the arm holding it was tense, ready to move (slice) within a moment.
“Rockman doesn’t need your protection. He knows I’m coming, and he waits for me. He doesn’t fear it, so you shouldn’t either. But if he’s not here now, then he’s in danger, and I cannot-”The boy stopped, huffed, then scowled.
“I cannot allow that to happen. He has something of mine, and if it’s lost for good…”
“So you just want to…to…to do that just because he has something that belongs to you?!”
“It’s not that simple!!!” The warrior snarled, the fires around his fist flared, and the sword…hissed? Yuuma blinked, not quite sure he had heard the garbled, staticy sound buzzing just under the range of his hearing, then shook his head and ignored it.
“If…if things were just that simple…I…he’d…he wouldn’t be able to win, I…I would have had it already.”
It was the first time that Yuuma had seen an emotion other than the stoic anger cross the white-haired boy’s face. It looked almost like…helplessness? Whatever it was, it was gone quickly.
“It…he…I…” He hesitated, before turning his face downwards, finally looking his age for the briefest of moments.
“There’s a bond…” he mumbled quietly. Yuuma could barely hear it. A silence settled between them, and Yuuma, on closer inspection, couldn’t help but be reminded of someone. Someone else who had pushed others away for the sake of his own goals, would never say directly to anyone what their true emotions were unless forced out of them with a duel. Blink, purple hair replaced white, blink again and it was back to normal, and Yuuma smiled.
“Subaru…Rockman…I don’t exactly understand what happened.” Yuuma’s expression settled into a puzzled frown, and the boy looked up. “Black Mist…he had shown himself again, while Astral was trying to recover, and somehow Subaru could see him with his strange glasses. Before Black Mist could do anything, Subaru did something, there was a flash of green light and he had changed…now that I think about it, that must be what you mean by ‘Rockman,’ doesn’t it?”
Indeed, the boy’s expression had become more focused, intent, to the point that his only response to Yuuma’s question was a nod.
“Yeah, well, whatever he did, it made Black Mist interested, that a person could follow into the…insub…substan-something, whatever! That he could follow Black Mist, I mean. And when he challenged Subar-Rockman to a duel, I think S-Rockman thought he meant an actual fight, because he started firing at him with some kind of machine gun! Anyways, it made Black Mist flee, but not before I heard Astral calling from inside…I threw Hope to Rockman, and he went after Black Mist…I don’t even know what good Hope can be to him, if he’s not even dueling, but…!” Yuuma shook his head.
“I don’t even know where they went off to. They just seemed to…vanish, somehow. I thought I saw a streak of light, but…” Yuuma gripped the Emperor’s Key tightly, not knowing what to do. It felt strange, gripping the key for any sign of Astral when he knew that the alien wasn’t there, but it was all he could do to try and sense out something, anything, that would help him find his friend.
He was jolted out of his reverie by the warrior forcefully grabbing him by the hoodie on his vest, pulling him closer with a surprising amount of strength.
“You’re coming with me.”
“H-hey, wait a second-yyyaaaaarggghhh!”
With nothing but a jolt of vertigo and nausea as an explanation, they were both gone from that spot.
0-0-0-0-0
Rockman growled softly to himself as the black being smoothly glided around his attacks. It was flexible and amorphous, freely changing shape to avoid being hurt. The only thing unceasing was it constantly wearing Astral’s face as if trying to taunt him.
It didn’t matter. He had fought his friends before. He was already familiar with the feeling of anger, despair; and he knew the resolve needed to face them down to save them. He had done this before…he could do this again. It was as simple as that. Even when one black tentacle caught his free arm, restricting his movements…he didn’t panic, calmly going through his mind for some sort of strategy that could work against a fluid, always changing opponent.
Fluid…
“Battle Card, Freeze Knuckle!” His arm changed from the sword it had previously been to a big, bulky fist, and he slammed it into the black rope holding his arm down. As he had hoped, the arm began to freeze, immediately losing all flexibility as it became entrapped in ice.
“Battle Card, Sword!” Again, the sword reappeared, slamming into the frozen limb and shattering it into multiple pieces and freeing his arm. He noted the look of shock on the being’s face, grimaced, and charged in to strike another decisive blow.
He found himself facing a giant gaping maw and he leapt back, staring in shock at the large monstrosity that had sprouted in front of Black Mist. A behemoth with fiery eyes and a large demonic mouth on its chest, long limbs adorned with claws that proved to be just as flexible as the smaller being’s dark tentacles.
“This is my true form!” Black Mist cackled, and as he went on in a spiel boasting of its power, Rockman found himself desperately dodging a series of whip-like attacks that came faster than the normal eye could see.
“I didn’t want to do this…but…” Rockman grimaced. Hopefully this would have no consequences, using this sort of dangerous corrosive power in a place that was unfamiliar with it. “Activate the Noise Program, War-Rock!”
Immediately, Rockman felt a surge of foreign power, and he would have recoiled if he wasn’t so engrossed in leaping away from attacks, trying to avoid being cornered by Black Mist. That was more Noise than he expected, his battle shouldn’t have generated that much! Unless…of course! He had been able to use his Visualizer to substitute for those virtual reality visors, those D-Gazers! That meant that whatever overworld technology they were using to enhance their duels and their virtual reality…it must have been similar enough to the denpa technology back home! These people were producing some kind of waste akin to Noise, and they may or may not have already known-but no matter now, he realized. He had to think of these things later, for now he had to worry about protecting Hope from Black Mist, and trying to defeat that Number!
“Illegal Card: Sword Fighter!” The familiar Crimson misted around his hand, burning as it shifted his Hunter into a thin saber-like blade that encased his whole arm. As if on command, his arm moved at a blinding speed to match the multiple whipping attacks, and he could barely keep track of all the moves he was countering. While he had stopped Black Mist’s advance, he wasn’t progressing forward, and Rockman sweated under the stress of keeping up such a rapid pace of attack. He had to think of something else, and quick-
“Yaaaaah!” Rockman hadn’t noticed the tail of the large creature slowly snaking behind him while he was engrossed with countering the arm’s rapidfire attacks. He didn’t even realize the tail was that flexible, not until it suddenly curled around one leg and yanked him upward, resulting in him dangling helplessly upside down even as he struggled to get free. Twisting and turning in an attempt to get the tail to release his leg did no good.
“Battle Card, Freeze Knuckle!” Again the blue fist appeared, but even as he tried to reorient himself to strike at the tail, a tentacle was easily able to grab at the wrist and yank it away, rendering it useless.
“You really think the same trick would work twice?!” Black Mist crowed triumphantly, making Subaru grunt in frustration. He forcibly tried to move his arm, using all the strength he could muster to point the fist directly at the behemoth that was Black Mist’s true form.
“Battle Card, Gatling Gun!”The fist changed into the familiar machine gun, but just as its barrels began to spin, that increasingly familiar black gunk ensnared it, halting its movements and jamming its systems, forcing the weapon to vanish. His left hand was now completely engulfed in the stuff, and he couldn’t help but let out a scream of pain as his arm was forcibly yanked behind his back, effectively binding him. Still, he couldn’t give up!
“B-battle ca-aaamph!” Now his mouth and nose was covered, effectively smothering him and breaking his concentration. Instinctively, his free arm reached to pry the gunk off his face, fingernails desperately grabbing at the substance that just seemed to slip out of them and cling all the tighter to his face. Abruptly another cry escaped him as the other arm was decisively yanked away from his face and bound to his back, rendering him completely helpless.
“You put up a surprisingly good fight, for someone unable to duel,” he heard the voice taunting him, and he began to struggle again, even as he felt the bonds squeeze tighter. “But now I must retrieve that Number back from you. You really shouldn’t have it, after all.”
Rockman continued to struggle, but he had been held upside down for far too long, and his head was starting to spin. His vision blurred, his struggles lessened, and he felt his eyes starting to close despite his every effort to stay conscious. More tentacles began to ensnare him, binding his upper torso even more effectively and halting his already weakening efforts to break his arms free.
“Don’t worry. This will end quickly enough.”
Blackness was encroaching on his vision. He strained to stay awake, but he could barely sense anything right now, only the barest hint of a voice still distant, different from the being taunting him right now. No…he couldn’t place it right now, but…it was…familiar…
“Oi…Rockman-!”
0-0-FIN-0-0
[A/N]: oh boo I think Freeze Knuckle is an Illegal Card in the third games too oh well never mind it's a regular card here suck it it's late i don't feel like rewriting
Rating: PG-13...ish?
Warnings: uh, there's 96, so tentacles? nothing super bad though
Notes: uh, Jay's prompt was: Yuma being attacked by Solo and Black Mist cornering Subaru. So yeah. Stuff happens.
Summary: Uh, no summary. Just some vague nonexistent plot and two connected scenarios concerning the prompt. Yay. I guess it's set some time after Star Force 3 and somewhere based after ZeXal II Episode 11/12/13? Whichever one results in grevious comaly damage to Astral.
“Where. Is. He.”
Yuuma found himself backing away from the admittedly intimidating teen who had shown up in front of him just mere moments ago. He appeared to be one or two years younger than him-but with his glaring red eyes and undaunted stance, it made him look like as if he stood just as tall as Yuuma, if not taller.
“Who the heck are you talking about?! What are you saying, showing up all of a sudden?” Yuuma retorted, pumping his voice full of bravado. Since when was he one to back down? He couldn’t, especially not now, when he was helpless to assist with what was happening…
“You know who I’m talking about,” the boy hissed back, making Yuuma recoil. “Don’t pretend. He was just here moments ago. Rockman.” The last word was bit out in an angry growl, but even with that extra intimidation factor, Yuuma couldn’t help but process the words with confusion instead of fear. What the hell was a Rock…whatever? But then…the person who had just left…
“You don’t mean…Subaru? What the heck do you want with him?!” Yuuma didn’t get what was going on. He was never good at understanding things when they came on so quickly, and having all these events happening all at once was too much to process. If only that kid would just give him some time to think!
“I have to delete him,” the younger boy snarled in a tone that no child his age should have been able to accomplish. “He knows that I was coming. He never runs from me.” He sought out Yuuma’s eyes and bore into them, the intensity rooting Yuuma to the spot.
“If he runs, even when I’m nearby, even when he knows that we have to fight, that means something more important is going on. That means that he has to protect his precious bonds with his precious friends, and the only one around here is you. So, out with it. Where did he go?!”
Yuuma didn’t respond at first, only staring at the younger boy’s intent expression. What was he talking about, deletion? That didn’t mean he wanted to-?
“Heck no, I’m not telling you! You want to-to off him, don’t you?! I’m not telling you a thing!” He stood his ground defiantly, only to have the boy glare at him even harder.
“Is that so…”
“Yeah!” Yuuma felt his courage rise, even despite a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that wouldn’t cease, something telling him that he shouldn’t be assertive. That part of him he always ignored (wouldn’t it be terrible, reverting back to his old, insecure self?) unless Astral was around. “What are you gonna do about it?”
Before he could get another word out, before he could even have a chance to regret his words, there was a flash of purple light in front of him, and the smaller boy had disappeared. In his place was a boy who somehow seemed taller, perhaps due to the bulky black and red boots he wore. A sword was held up to his neck, a twisted purplish blade that rippled with energy, giving it the illusion of it actually moving, flowing (but swords couldn’t do that, they were solid, right?). He could barely look past the blade to see the black catsuit, the X-shaped visor, the right fist engulfed in glowing violet flames.
“Rockman always shows when others are in trouble. That’s what they always said…”
Yuuma visibly flinched, barely noticing the trail of sweat that had slowly begun to drip down his neck until the blade was slowly withdrawn.
“I know for a fact that when Rockman’s friends are targeted, his anger is unleashed tenfold.” The boy-warrior?-tsked and shook his head. “He is not one I would use those tactics on, not anymore. He has…he does not deserve that. I would prefer to fight him on equal grounds…”
The sword came to rest at the boy’s side, and despite the seemingly relaxed position, Yuuma somehow felt that the arm holding it was tense, ready to move (slice) within a moment.
“Rockman doesn’t need your protection. He knows I’m coming, and he waits for me. He doesn’t fear it, so you shouldn’t either. But if he’s not here now, then he’s in danger, and I cannot-”The boy stopped, huffed, then scowled.
“I cannot allow that to happen. He has something of mine, and if it’s lost for good…”
“So you just want to…to…to do that just because he has something that belongs to you?!”
“It’s not that simple!!!” The warrior snarled, the fires around his fist flared, and the sword…hissed? Yuuma blinked, not quite sure he had heard the garbled, staticy sound buzzing just under the range of his hearing, then shook his head and ignored it.
“If…if things were just that simple…I…he’d…he wouldn’t be able to win, I…I would have had it already.”
It was the first time that Yuuma had seen an emotion other than the stoic anger cross the white-haired boy’s face. It looked almost like…helplessness? Whatever it was, it was gone quickly.
“It…he…I…” He hesitated, before turning his face downwards, finally looking his age for the briefest of moments.
“There’s a bond…” he mumbled quietly. Yuuma could barely hear it. A silence settled between them, and Yuuma, on closer inspection, couldn’t help but be reminded of someone. Someone else who had pushed others away for the sake of his own goals, would never say directly to anyone what their true emotions were unless forced out of them with a duel. Blink, purple hair replaced white, blink again and it was back to normal, and Yuuma smiled.
“Subaru…Rockman…I don’t exactly understand what happened.” Yuuma’s expression settled into a puzzled frown, and the boy looked up. “Black Mist…he had shown himself again, while Astral was trying to recover, and somehow Subaru could see him with his strange glasses. Before Black Mist could do anything, Subaru did something, there was a flash of green light and he had changed…now that I think about it, that must be what you mean by ‘Rockman,’ doesn’t it?”
Indeed, the boy’s expression had become more focused, intent, to the point that his only response to Yuuma’s question was a nod.
“Yeah, well, whatever he did, it made Black Mist interested, that a person could follow into the…insub…substan-something, whatever! That he could follow Black Mist, I mean. And when he challenged Subar-Rockman to a duel, I think S-Rockman thought he meant an actual fight, because he started firing at him with some kind of machine gun! Anyways, it made Black Mist flee, but not before I heard Astral calling from inside…I threw Hope to Rockman, and he went after Black Mist…I don’t even know what good Hope can be to him, if he’s not even dueling, but…!” Yuuma shook his head.
“I don’t even know where they went off to. They just seemed to…vanish, somehow. I thought I saw a streak of light, but…” Yuuma gripped the Emperor’s Key tightly, not knowing what to do. It felt strange, gripping the key for any sign of Astral when he knew that the alien wasn’t there, but it was all he could do to try and sense out something, anything, that would help him find his friend.
He was jolted out of his reverie by the warrior forcefully grabbing him by the hoodie on his vest, pulling him closer with a surprising amount of strength.
“You’re coming with me.”
“H-hey, wait a second-yyyaaaaarggghhh!”
With nothing but a jolt of vertigo and nausea as an explanation, they were both gone from that spot.
0-0-0-0-0
Rockman growled softly to himself as the black being smoothly glided around his attacks. It was flexible and amorphous, freely changing shape to avoid being hurt. The only thing unceasing was it constantly wearing Astral’s face as if trying to taunt him.
It didn’t matter. He had fought his friends before. He was already familiar with the feeling of anger, despair; and he knew the resolve needed to face them down to save them. He had done this before…he could do this again. It was as simple as that. Even when one black tentacle caught his free arm, restricting his movements…he didn’t panic, calmly going through his mind for some sort of strategy that could work against a fluid, always changing opponent.
Fluid…
“Battle Card, Freeze Knuckle!” His arm changed from the sword it had previously been to a big, bulky fist, and he slammed it into the black rope holding his arm down. As he had hoped, the arm began to freeze, immediately losing all flexibility as it became entrapped in ice.
“Battle Card, Sword!” Again, the sword reappeared, slamming into the frozen limb and shattering it into multiple pieces and freeing his arm. He noted the look of shock on the being’s face, grimaced, and charged in to strike another decisive blow.
He found himself facing a giant gaping maw and he leapt back, staring in shock at the large monstrosity that had sprouted in front of Black Mist. A behemoth with fiery eyes and a large demonic mouth on its chest, long limbs adorned with claws that proved to be just as flexible as the smaller being’s dark tentacles.
“This is my true form!” Black Mist cackled, and as he went on in a spiel boasting of its power, Rockman found himself desperately dodging a series of whip-like attacks that came faster than the normal eye could see.
“I didn’t want to do this…but…” Rockman grimaced. Hopefully this would have no consequences, using this sort of dangerous corrosive power in a place that was unfamiliar with it. “Activate the Noise Program, War-Rock!”
Immediately, Rockman felt a surge of foreign power, and he would have recoiled if he wasn’t so engrossed in leaping away from attacks, trying to avoid being cornered by Black Mist. That was more Noise than he expected, his battle shouldn’t have generated that much! Unless…of course! He had been able to use his Visualizer to substitute for those virtual reality visors, those D-Gazers! That meant that whatever overworld technology they were using to enhance their duels and their virtual reality…it must have been similar enough to the denpa technology back home! These people were producing some kind of waste akin to Noise, and they may or may not have already known-but no matter now, he realized. He had to think of these things later, for now he had to worry about protecting Hope from Black Mist, and trying to defeat that Number!
“Illegal Card: Sword Fighter!” The familiar Crimson misted around his hand, burning as it shifted his Hunter into a thin saber-like blade that encased his whole arm. As if on command, his arm moved at a blinding speed to match the multiple whipping attacks, and he could barely keep track of all the moves he was countering. While he had stopped Black Mist’s advance, he wasn’t progressing forward, and Rockman sweated under the stress of keeping up such a rapid pace of attack. He had to think of something else, and quick-
“Yaaaaah!” Rockman hadn’t noticed the tail of the large creature slowly snaking behind him while he was engrossed with countering the arm’s rapidfire attacks. He didn’t even realize the tail was that flexible, not until it suddenly curled around one leg and yanked him upward, resulting in him dangling helplessly upside down even as he struggled to get free. Twisting and turning in an attempt to get the tail to release his leg did no good.
“Battle Card, Freeze Knuckle!” Again the blue fist appeared, but even as he tried to reorient himself to strike at the tail, a tentacle was easily able to grab at the wrist and yank it away, rendering it useless.
“You really think the same trick would work twice?!” Black Mist crowed triumphantly, making Subaru grunt in frustration. He forcibly tried to move his arm, using all the strength he could muster to point the fist directly at the behemoth that was Black Mist’s true form.
“Battle Card, Gatling Gun!”The fist changed into the familiar machine gun, but just as its barrels began to spin, that increasingly familiar black gunk ensnared it, halting its movements and jamming its systems, forcing the weapon to vanish. His left hand was now completely engulfed in the stuff, and he couldn’t help but let out a scream of pain as his arm was forcibly yanked behind his back, effectively binding him. Still, he couldn’t give up!
“B-battle ca-aaamph!” Now his mouth and nose was covered, effectively smothering him and breaking his concentration. Instinctively, his free arm reached to pry the gunk off his face, fingernails desperately grabbing at the substance that just seemed to slip out of them and cling all the tighter to his face. Abruptly another cry escaped him as the other arm was decisively yanked away from his face and bound to his back, rendering him completely helpless.
“You put up a surprisingly good fight, for someone unable to duel,” he heard the voice taunting him, and he began to struggle again, even as he felt the bonds squeeze tighter. “But now I must retrieve that Number back from you. You really shouldn’t have it, after all.”
Rockman continued to struggle, but he had been held upside down for far too long, and his head was starting to spin. His vision blurred, his struggles lessened, and he felt his eyes starting to close despite his every effort to stay conscious. More tentacles began to ensnare him, binding his upper torso even more effectively and halting his already weakening efforts to break his arms free.
“Don’t worry. This will end quickly enough.”
Blackness was encroaching on his vision. He strained to stay awake, but he could barely sense anything right now, only the barest hint of a voice still distant, different from the being taunting him right now. No…he couldn’t place it right now, but…it was…familiar…
“Oi…Rockman-!”
0-0-FIN-0-0
[A/N]: oh boo I think Freeze Knuckle is an Illegal Card in the third games too oh well never mind it's a regular card here suck it it's late i don't feel like rewriting