Many Mitres

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Disc: YuGiOh GX ain't mine. Buzz off.

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O, my brother.

O, brother. My dearest brother, you have gone astray. The good Sheppard has gone away, let you fall into hell.

You are standing there, looking out upon it's fires, unsigned by the volcano's heat even as it buffets your coat- your dead black coat- with embers. But you, being you, do not burn in its wrath.

The teachers always tell us to stay away from it, stay away from the volcano's fire. Yet we have been here before.

We have dueled here before. And now we will Duel here again.

Still standing there, face to the fire back to me. How long before you notice the bug crawling up behind you? I am kidding myself, of course; you know I'm here, you simply refuse to acknowledge me, the bug, the worm, the weak boy with glasses who, by some joke of fate, is your brother.

They call you the Hell Kaiser, is what I've heard. The good Sheppard has already tried to return you to the flock. Didn't work- you were never part of the flock, even at school.

So what makes me think I will fare any differently? You are, or were, the Kaiser. The pride of this academy whose ground we stand upon. My jacket is yellow, not even blue, never mind the zenith of what that blue represents.

O my brother, what has happened to you?

Now you step back from the edge of the crater, conveying with a single step my answer- the real world happened to you. What it's done to you, I can't imagine. How to undo it, I can't begin to guess…

But I have to try.

I can see in your stance that you are planning to resist this. Scratch that- you don't even consider me a factor. You never need words to express complete disrespect for something, and right now, my brother, you have a lot of disrespecting to do.

The good Sheppard. The students of our school. Your opponents in the pro league. Your favorite card. Everyone. Everything.

Our friends have failed to dissuade you. Big Brother- the one who has been truer to that title than you could ever hope to be- hasn't tried yet. He's busy. He's got his own problems, and this one is mine alone.

I can't pretend your eyes and your voice and your mocking laughter does not hurt me. It does. All three have changed from the brother I once knew, the one I always aspired to be.

O dear brother, you have fallen far. I can no longer look upto you, but down. Do you think I did so because of your Dueling skills alone? Because of your title? None of these compare to your inner strength.

That's right. Laugh at the challenge. Takethe glasses from my face, and crush them beneath your black boot. I don't need them for this- I have come prepared. I know the text and power of every card in my deck off by heart. I know you have done the same for the Reverse Cyber Deck you hold.

Rescueroid. Steamroid. Cyber Blaster. Vehicroid Connection Zone. Power Bond, and Limiter Removal, both of which you also hold. We have Removed our Limits, left them back at the school where they belong.

You have grown, but so have I. My jacket is yellow where it used to be red. My deck is a deck where it was once a pile of cards hastily assembled to resemble one. Power Bond is viable to me where, as you well know, once it was not.

I squint hard, now devoid of protection from the embers and black soot you have endured the entire time you were up here. Without glasses, your form is fuzzy and indistinct to me, flickering in the light as though it is slowly melting away from the heat. You have accepted the challenge, and fully expect to floor a maggot such as myself within the first round, as you have done to so many others before. Future Fusion, or maybe Overload Fusion, Cyber DarkDragon attack… boom. Another loser. Another victim.

I will have to be certain you are disappointed this time, Hell Kaiser. Hell Emperor. Brother. Like I said, I have come prepared.

Why do this, you ask? I know nothing beyond the cushy boundaries of this academy, nothing about the pressure, the fatigue, the crushing frustration, the evil inclinationthat drove the 'perfect' Kaiser astray, to become anathema to everything he once stood for.

I say different, until you show me proof that the real world is the way you say it is.

If you still remember, this school raised us to have no faith but that of the Goddess of Fortune. While I pray for her favor, I know that no matter what happens, I have to try. Why?

Because I am your brother still. Now it is my turn to bear you away from evil.

For a moment, I see you wince at this, an old memory that brings you pain. The soot has blackened the sky above us to a sunless abyss. You allow the orange sparks to illuminate your face with their light, the only light left in the world.

"You know nothing of Hell."

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M: After my last YGO tale, I never thought I'd do it again, but certain events of the second season of GX prompted this, combined with a drabble similar to this one, called 'Changes'. As you might guess, I was feeling a mite depressed when I wrote this, but I think it fit the mood well. It is only the anticipation of a conflict we all know must happen.

- In case you can't tell, 'the good Sheppard' Principal Sheppard.