In a barren locker room next to Pandora’s mystical chamber, stands one Roy McCoy, drained but not tired, with a slump and a cross of his arms in his position. Pandora sits by him, hugging one of her legs with her phone in her free hand. “Alright! That was twelve duels in one day… How are you feeling?”
Roy rolls his eyes at Pandora’s question, chugging down what feels like to him water bottle number thirty. “Like I just spent the day doing nothing. Pandora, what the hell were those fights? I thought we were supposed to be going for number one… No way were any of those guys I killed close to breaking the top one hundred!”
With an annoyed sigh, the samurai tosses his bottle in the recycling bin, then puts his hands in his coat pockets, huffing as he sits down next to her. His manager seems annoyed too, for the exact opposite reasons, shifting next to him with her arms folded over her chest. “Roy, what do you want me to do? You’re not even two days into being a student here and you’re demanding top-dollar fights.”
“So I’m not capable?” Roy’s glare escapes his sunglasses, Pandora meeting it with an equally intense gaze.
“I never said that. A duel goes two ways, you know. I can’t just book you and then you fight someone.”
“Why not?! I proved to these people I can fight just by stepping through the halls! This crap is mind-numbing.”
Pandora scoffs at him. “Sorry, ‘fight the new kid without any powers’ doesn’t seem so appealing to top dogs. Just be patient and take what we can get.” Pandora sits parallel to Roy, turning so her back faces him. She huffs, turning her phone on before sending the finished list to her fixer, her shoulders low and her face careless.
Roy blinks, tilting his head in confusion. “Patient? Dude, I keep mowing down these lowlifes. How many more chumps do I have to plow through before you set me up with something worth a damn?”
She sighs, rolling her eyes without even glancing at his. “You sound ungrateful when you say things like that.”
That one rebuttal blows Roy’s emotional state off the handle. His heartbeat explodes with adrenaline as he pops off the chair and stomps in front of Pandora. “Ungrateful?! Don’t you dare start that! All I’ve done since being here is fight battles for YOU! Without so much as a thank you, might I add?” He squints his shaded eyes at her disgruntled face.
This, combined with the feeling of hunger starting to peek its ugly head in Pandora’s body, causes her eye to twitch and her teeth to grit. “So why didn’t you say no?! I never forced you to do a damn thing, Roy.”
“And what’s with that, too?”
She glances at him. “With what?”
“I’m just Roy now. What happened to that nickname?”
Pandora shifts, throwing her hands over her lap. “The one you said you hated? That one?”
Roy glances at the ceiling, shaking his head. “Whatever! The point is, you’ve got a problem.” He points an accusatory finger her way. “I’m here working my ass off trying to fix it, and instead of speeding the process along, you’re setting me up to fight bums! Worst of all? You’re treating me like a complete stranger!”
Coinciding with Roy’s last breath, Pandora reads the fixer's message:
work harder
Her entire body shakes in rage as she angrily points a finger at Roy.
“Because we ARE strangers, Roy! Look at us for one goddamn second, do we look like friends?! I had a job, you offered your service, that’s where we stand. Manager and duelist! There’s more to my life than this! …Unlike you, I don’t take pleasure in stacking bodies!” With her chest puffing up and down, only avoiding full-on bawling due to her nails tearing the flesh on her palms, Pandora starts off towards the door. “I can’t deal with this right now.” Her voice breaks.
Roy simply stands there. Like a picture hanging on the wall ever so close to being asymmetrical, Roy’s understanding of Pandora isn’t what he thought it was. He listens for the sound of the heavy door opening, a sadness hidden behind cloudy shades, his hands forming to fists as he takes a deep breath in to soak up the pain. Of all of the weapons he’s dodged, blocked, and even taken head-on, Pandora’s words cut him the deepest.
“So it was all a lie, huh?” Finally finding the words he wanted to say in the scrambled mess that was his brain, Roy turns to face the vampire’s back, catching her right before she can vanish from the room completely. “Giving me that tour of the school, feeding me at lunch, showing me that locker of yours… All of it was some fucking facade to you. You need a do-boy, and as if Santa Claus himself dropped me down the chimney, there I was. The solution to every single problem, like a dog caught on a leash. I wouldn’t bite back. Well, surprise.” He waves his arms around mockingly.
Pandora doesn’t dare turn back, tears forming in her eyes. “Or maybe the solution to my problem isn’t relying on other people. Bye, Roy.” The samurai couldn’t have known by the cold, rugged tone of her voice, but Pandora is absolutely bawling, to the point where the second she closes the door behind her, all the vampire can do is slide down the door like a fly freshly swatted, her face engulfed in her black-blood-stained hands as she cries.
Pandora cries.
Yet again, thrust into this cruel world without someone to have her back. All she can manage to do is cry.
And once again, the only person she can think to blame for it all is herself.
“Tch… Typical. Whatever, I’m gonna get some grub.” Exiting the door opposite the one Pandora left from, Roy’s hands jerk into his coat pocket.
The halls are empty, which didn’t surprise him. The time is around 10:30 in the evening; curfew was an hour ago.
So, of course, no one would see the samurai go into a slashing spree.
Marble statue heads, window veils, any unfortunate pieces of furniture, all of it hacked to bits in a couple of swift strikes.
No matter how much he cuts, his anger remains. He stops himself after destroying the torso of a feminine looking snake headed statue. “This isn’t the type of anger I can just destroy shit to. If Pandora won’t give me a good fight, then I’ll find one myself!” He shouts, his voice echoing throughout the empty halls.
PEW!
As if called in by his inner thoughts, a bullet whizzes right by his feet! Seamlessly, he swings around to meet a second one with the middle of his blade, cutting it in half effortlessly. “Hey asshole, you missed!” He shouts.
“I can assure you that was only a warning, loud mouth.” Stepping out of the shadows is a green-haired punk holding a shiny, golden pistol. The one eye not covered by a stupid strand of hair is laser-focused on Roy. The samurai can’t help but smile.
“The look in this guy's eye, his form, his smoking gun. This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill duelist… This guy is gonna try to kill me.” He mutters to himself, just before yelling out, “Warning shots are excuses made by shitty marksmen. Is that what you are? Maybe you should get your skill up before challenging m–”
BOOM!
“A-Ah! S-Shit!”
Without warning, a bullet is fired into his shoulder. Clean entrance, even cleaner exit. “W-what the?! No one before ever tried to fight me during a monologue!” He grunts, stumbling with one hand over the spurting wound. “My suspicions were proven absolutely correct about this guy. He’s a cold-blooded killer! …Just like me.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
A sultry, poppy voice startles him from his quieter monologue and constant moans of pain. “Hey! Not to bother you… But do you agree to the duel terms with Ace here?” Popping up behind Roy is a dark blue-haired girl, who makes him jump in the air from surprise.
“W-Who the hell are you?! When did you–”
“Names Liz Beth, his manager. I know this is probably super rude, just springing a fight on you like this, but that’s the name of our game! So uh, yeah, you wanna duel?” Her casual salesman attitude completely catches Roy off guard, who jumps behind a table as another bullet whizzes by his head. Liz Beth walks casually behind the table, kneeling down for her own safety.
“D-Do I even have a choice?!”
She shrugs. “Eh? I guess not. Usually fighting goes on and the managers work out the terms… Say, what happened to Pandora?” Liz Beth is utterly calm as she waves a piece of paper and a pen towards Roy.
“Who cares?” Roy pants, blood soaking his hand with deep crimson.
“If she’s not here, you’ve got to sign this. It’s like a waiver showing you acknowledge that you agreed to a duel before you got attacked.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t!”
“I dunno, man, that quip you said at the start sure sounded like you wanted to fight.”
“I do want to fight! Give me the damn paper!” The samurai angrily snatches the sheet away from the blue-haired manager, signs it with a sloppy signature, and hands it back. “Is that good?!” Blood droplets paint the floor between them.
“Perfect– Actually, your handwriting kind of sucks.”
“Can you let us fight?!”
“Shiiit, my bad, was I in your way?” She smiles condescendingly, standing up before cupping her hands over her mouth. “Hey Ace! You got this! Swiss cheese his ass!” Liz Beth looks back down at Roy like a four year old looks at her mom after getting caught stealing from the cookie jar. “Nothing personal though, good luck to you too… Welcome to the Bloodbath!” In an instant, she’s gone! Roy takes a second to ponder what happened, but shakes his head to focus on the task at hand. He attempts to get a look at Ace by leaning out of the table, only for a storm of bullets to blow past his face. He leans back, readying his katana.
“You’re an impatient asshole, you know that?!” He crouches, jumps into the air, and quickly cuts a hail of bullets before rolling out to his right, behind a statue standee that no longer holds a statue. Even with his agility, he narrowly avoids the bullets, including a close call as one grazes his cheek, a splat of blood running down his face and dripping off his sculpted chin.
“Dammit! Do you ever run out of ammo?!” Roy slurs, talking more out of the right side of his face than his left.
The bullet hell stops as Ace speaks. “Quick eject high capacity. You’re fast; now try your luck with two guns.”
“Two wha–!”
Roy’s jaw hangs open as his attacker goes airborne using a frontflip, pulling a second silver gun out of his shirt pocket. His eyes watch as one bullet glides past his vision, his body reacting as one exits cleanly out of his ankle.
“G-Gah! D-Dammit!” Having little time to assess his wound, the samurai rolls over behind one of the remaining statues that survived his previous rampage as Ace lands further away. Even putting pressure on his injured ankle sends a burning pain up his leg.
A bad shoulder,
A stinging cheek,
An even worse ankle…
“T-This is back-to-the-wall combat. I could.. die! A-and while I feel like I should be fearing for my life against this situation… I can’t help but feel a ghastly thrill!” He chuckles, his heart rate doubling with adrenaline. “You’re giving it all you’ve got, huh? How rude of me not to reciprocate!”
“That’s why I’m here. I’m no ordinary opponent... I am a somber reminder of your death. I’m the snake who lurks behind the tall grass, awaiting you to stick your hand in carelessly.” Ace states, slowly walking toward Roy’s voice.
“Carelessly? You keep talking about me like I’m some novice! I’ve killed plenty of gunslingers! Believe it or not… I’m a pretty damn good shot myself!” Roy turns his sword sideways, taking only a second to consider the trajectory he’d send it before letting it rip through the air toward his foe.
“A novice? Not at all. You fight professionally.” Ace quickly blocks the blade with his twin pistols, a pair of twin kodiaks, one engraved in silver, the other gold. He’s getting closer. Roy pants, waiting for him. “The issue you have? A thinly veiled box of tricks!” As if replaying a scene from a movie, Ace swiftly throws out his knee in anticipation of Roy’s next move.
As the samurai races behind his sword to cover space, the wind is completely knocked out of him following the knee received by his emo assailant.
“All the skill in the world, yet not a single impressive move. You’re starting to bore me, Roy McCoy.” With two guns pointing at his face and his katana being kicked across the room, the samurai is officially pinned.
“Nowhere to run. From all the footage I had seen of you, I was sure you’d be more of an issue.” A hardened face watches the samurai for any last ditch efforts.
“S-Sorry to disappoint a fan.” Roy spits on the ground, a small smirk on his lips.
Ace grimaces. “You’re staring death in the face, a barrel to each of your eyes, and yet you joke. Are you insane or simply stupid?”
“A-A bit of both… H-Heh, though if you’ve watched me long enough, y-you’d know I have a slogan.”
“Hm?” Keeping his eyes square on his opponent’s arms, Ace readies himself to fire into his shoulders again.
“S-Strike hard…”
Ace’s eyes roll as he slips his fingers against the cold steel of the triggers.
“S-S-Strike first…”
“You’ve lost this duel. Goodnight.”
“NO MERCY!”
Right as Ace’s fingers engulf the triggers of his guns, his eyes widen as pain flows up his body, pinpointing itself to his netherregion! Simply put, the toe of Roy’s boot met with his testicles in a collision no man would ever wish on their worst enemy, both guns firing as they fall out of his hands.
Roy’s voice is barely above a groan now, his face pale and red at the same time. “Th-that isn’t actually my motto! Have you ever seen “The Karate Kid”?! J-Johnny Lawrence of Cobra Kai goes up against D-Daniel Larusso a-and–”
“Sh-Shut up!” Ace grabs his silver Kodiak and aims. Roy’s upper hand is lost immediately as another gunshot roars through the air, this time without a hitch.
On target to Roy’s abdomen.
“G-Gets told to…”
Nothing.
Enveloped into darkness…
The light hum of industrial lights.
The nauseating smell of ammonia.
Roy clutches at the painfully uncomfortable cot sheets below him, his eyes staring at the beige-stained ceiling above him.
Did he… Lose?
“You’re awake. How are you feeling? Sorry about uh… Ace shooting you in the stomach. Saw you kick him in the balls. A little cheap, don’t you think?” Turning his head to the chair beside him, he sees Liz Beth. Her blue hair is put neatly into a ponytail as she puts the magazine she was reading onto her lap, which was neatly folded, allowing the fishnet stockings she wears to let her legs breathe.
“I-I’m alive?” Roy mutters.
“Yup. Trust me, I’m surprised too. I thought Ace would surely blow you away after you smacked his nads like that! Anyway, we’ve been in shifts. Checking in on ya to make sure you aren’t too lonely.”
“H-He’s been checking in on me?”
“Yuuup. See? Underneath all that blue hair dye, he’s a nice guy.” The girl grins.
“Tell him I said he can go fuck himself.” Roy coughs.
“Why don’t you tell me yourself?” Stomping in to ruin the mood is Ace. Roy shuts his eyes to avoid contact with the guy who put him here.
“God, how humiliating… why didn’t you just kill me?”
“C’mon, you two. No one died! What doesn’t kill you makes you batshit crazier, right?” Liz Beth adds her two cents, only to be met with a brooding silence. With a defeated sigh, she takes Ace’s waist in her arms.
“You’re back early… My watch shift on him doesn’t end for another thirty minutes. Were you just that anxious to see me~?” She purses her lips, which are dangerously close to kissing his cheek. Roy cringes behind closed lids, not just from the physical pain either.
“He’s got a visitor. Figured I’d let you know.” Ace states coldly.
“A visitor? Ooooh… Well, send them in! Gives you and I some alone time.” She draws a circle on his chest over and over, her sharp nail scratching him.
“Gives you time to send in that paperwork from our duel. Three days late, really?” Ace replies, again, coldly.
The two turn toward and walk out of the door, closing it behind them.
Roy sighs. “..Would this have happened if Pandora was still here?” He thinks aloud.
“Probably not. Psht, That’s probably what’s about to happen. She’ll run in, scold me for being an idiot, and then we’ll get more Taco Bell. Just like whenever the hero loses in the movies.” The patch on his cheek, bandages around his bare shoulder and the gauze on his foot sting less now, yet the holes still feel uncomfortable in his skin.
As he hears the door open once more, he sighs.
“Look, you were right. I got in over my head, and now here I am. Couped up in bed after getting my ass kicked by an emo. I’ll stick to the small fries for now… Just… Take me back as your duelist? We’ll go underground if we have to!”
No response.
“Pandora? I don’t hear you yelling, or even one of your drum bursting eye rolls. You there?” Peeking his head over his chest with his closed eyes fluttered open, he realized the source of the overwhelming silence.
Pandora wasn’t his visitor.
Instead, a small statured girl decked out in a beige bat hoodie stands before his bed. Her curly brown hair and bright red eyes pierce Roy to his core. Not with fear… But an instant admiration.
“Underground? Over your head? Roy, there isn’t a single person in this school who isn’t talking about you!” With her palms meeting her knees, the girl smirks. The two are officially face-to-face!
“I’m Aurora Alucard. If you do me the favor of letting me manage you… We can take over this school, you and I! One ranked match at a time. What do you say?” The pale, outstretched hand she puts out for the samurai stares at him like a key to a locked door. Not a singular door with one destination, but a door with endless possibilities. One that, if opened, can change the entire course of his life forever.
“Okay… Let’s get to work then, Aurora.” In a triumphant handshake, the deed is done. A new manager is just what he needs after the past few days. Aurora gives a smug smirk, while Roy talks to himself. “My goal is clear now… I need to be number one, not for the benefit of a girl, but for myself.
For my revenge.”