Song Bird Duelists

A Tale of Love and Betrayal in The Satellite

By: June

Chapter One: Meet Your Narrator

I yawned, waking up languidly at four in the morning in the bed at our place in Satellite. Swan lay in the bed next to mine, her almost white platinum blonde hair fluffed over her face as she snored softly. I smirked. My twin never could master the art of sleeping without doing something stupid. Like her limbs splaying everywhere, or her mouth hanging open, or those soft, almost delicate snores she made. I snagged my jet black feather hair pins, the fraternal twin to Swan's white feather and cubic zirconia hair pins, and put them both into the jewelry box I kept solely for this purpose. If anyone saw me with it on they might make the connection between my two lives. The different things about the hair pieces were that they were decorated with black paint and had an onyx stone instead of a cubic zirconia. Sing and I prided ourselves on how similar we were; even though we were fraternal twins, we were as close as any pair of sisters living in the Satellite of New Domino City could ever be. I only knew another trio who was ever as close as we were.

My name is Raeven Soong. My twin is Sing Soong, and we ruled the Dueling Underground in the Satellite as the Swan and the Raven, the Songbirds. Sing is the sweet one, comparatively. I'm her strength and guile on the dueling field; she's the flashy, gorgeous distraction to our opponents. Sing's ethereal build, lush platinum hair and contrasting black eyes made for a bewitching combination that distracts from my own darker strength. She could keep the eyes of any man off of me, leaving me free to lay the groundwork for our inevitable wins. The opponents never know what hit them when my Herald summons my ultimate monsters to blow them away, literally. There had been a few times we had lost, but those had been when we were still learning how to duel together.

Now, at least, we never lost a match. Depending on the opponent and whether we dueled together, our opponents usually got out alive. If I dueled alone, however, my opponents inevitably ended up dead. Probably what instilled so much fear into the dueling residents of our district. I mean, who wouldn't fear a girl (or a pair of girls) who could take you down from the inside out with your own worst fears and leave you raving mad or worse?

But I'm getting off topic.

I rose from the ragged bed and fished out my street clothes. The situation in Satellite may have improved when Team 5Ds had pushed the bridge through, but many of the Satellite's residents still were labeled trash. Filthy, inferior. We simply took revenge for those who couldn't fight back against the stuck up assholes in New Domino. I dressed in the black long sleeved beatnik top, a long matching skirt and black furry boots. It was nearing Christmas time, and the Satellite could be mercilessly cold some days. It was even worse at night with no sun and a cold wind howling around your bare ears. I should know, having been a street rat of the Satellite all the days of my life. Until now. I was going to have honest work that didn't involve dueling so I could always be sure of money in my pocket; money that would pay for my and my sister's shelter without us having to resort to stealing again. I would never be a helpless Satellite orphaned brat, and neither would my sister be ever again. However, I had never truly been helpless.

The irony to my life was that no one ever suspected that the taciturn Raeven Soong, aspiring cook, was the somewhat glamorous and powerful psychic duelist Raven, co- ruler of a whole Dueling Kingdom. Or, rather, a Queen-dom ever since the Enforcers left the Satellite for New Domino and other places. I smiled quietly. Cooking in my own restaurant was only a fallback dream, because I was living my dream life right now. No connections besides my sister, nothing to worry about except keeping my duel deck in top form and my sister from losing our tandem duels and our duel runners running. Fairly relaxed, for a duelist's life. I never went to tournaments in foreign places because tournaments like that stressed Sing out badly. Tournaments stressed Sing out badly enough to make her the exact reverse of the sweetie she usually was.

Slipping my two decks into a hip pouch and my duel disk on my arm, I knew I was ready to go. I had two decks mainly so my disguise would be maintained, but I loved both decks and their ultimate monsters. Thantos and Rave Queen worked great in tandem too, but Thantos was strictly for turbo duels while Rave Queen was for both.

I shook my head crossly, realizing I was getting off track yet again. In both dueling and cooking, you could never afford to get off track. In dueling, especially Turbo Dueling, if you got distracted, it could well cost your life and worse, the duel. In cooking, you could get seriously injured if you weren't paying attention. I sighed and put my hair back into its typical ponytail. Time to go to work. I went out into the bitterly cold air of November, shuddering and wishing I had remembered my jacket when I had visited Martha's house last night. I just had to share my victory with the woman who had saved me from starving to death many times when I was a child. We had celebrated with cup ramen I had brought and some more expensive sweet treats. I had treated all the little brats still up at the hour I visited my Mother reluctantly, under prodding from Martha. I had never really liked spending time with the kids.

It reminded me too much of when Martha had found us, starving, three years old and alone except for each other on her doorstep.

I practically owed my life to the Hispanic woman. Martha had taught me how to cook, and I had taken to it like a duck to water. She was so proud of my skills, just like I had imagined a real mother would have been. I smiled as I stuck my hands in the pockets of my beatnik skirt. Martha had been the only mother I had ever known. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried not to think of the mean boy who had dogged my steps at my time in Martha's house. Blond haired and violet eyed, he had ridiculed me for being a weak duelist time after time. However, when he started hurling abuse at Sing when her psychic power had awakened, I had jumped him. Even if he was two years older and gave me a black eye during the fight, I had gotten stronger for it. Not long after the fight I found out about my own psychic gifts, which were stronger than Sing's.

And darker. MUCH darker.

Martha had cheered me up some after this incident with the blond boy, but what had really lifted my spirits was a burning drive that this had instilled in me. I would never again be helpless before a male's abuse. Not so weak now am I boy? I thought rather spitefully as I kicked a can on the still cracked and broken sidewalk.

Signs of the Satellite's desolation was still everywhere in my neighborhood. Hulking structures of concrete menaced you from the shadows of the pre-dawn light, the sidewalk overgrown with weeds and trash still choking spots even on the streets. I lived here mostly because it was all a struggling cook on a pinch-penny salary could afford, as well as it was close to the Duel Arena. It kept down suspicion of our Dueling prize money and Sing and I could walk to our arena in complete secrecy. Then again, no opponent had ever managed to get our black and white masks off. As I said, no opponent had defeated us for years. Some had come close, yes, but never actually managed it. I smiled at the good memories flickering through my mind as I passed the massive, Coliseum like structure that housed most of Satellite's Turbo Duels. I blew a kiss to the massive iron gates, winking my grey eyes at the door so many of my opponents entered and never came out. I turned back to the sidewalk, humming softly as I headed to the Desiree, the diner style resteraunt I worked in.

Little did I know a cawing crow had preceded me.

Crow will join the story later, I promise! This is my first time inserting an OC as a main charecter into a YuGiOh! 5Ds fic. What do you think of Raeven? Is she at all fitting for Crow? What do you think of the Coliseum-like Duel Arena? Please Please review and tell me what you think! :)

Any ideas for the direction of this story are very welcome. I started this a while ago and I have been dying to post it and share it with all of you. ^^ Be paitent with me please, but a bit of nagging me to update is appreciated. :) Thank you.

-June