The walls shook ever so slightly as Skyler slammed open his door and marched into his apartment. The less-than-inviting room looked like a bomb had gone off in it, and the smell of dampness hung in the air, but right now, Skyler couldn't care less. It may be a dump, but it was the only place he had – somewhere he could find a modicum of peace after a difficult hunt.

He removed his dueling equipment and tossed it carelessly onto the small table at the edge of the room, paying no heed as the Extra Deck box swung open, spilling his Number cards across the table. The man slumped into a chair by the window, snatched up the nearest bottle, and began chugging the contents down at an alarming rate. When the bottle was half empty, he slammed it down on the table beside him and sank back in his chair, groaning and massaging the aching join of his robotic arm.

There was good reason for his grief. He'd just managed to pry a new Number away from a random holder, adding to his vastly diminished collection. He no longer cared about how strong his Numbers were – instead, he was solely focussed on rebuilding his collection as fast as possible. And he was doing well. He hadn't run into Lithon or the Deltas recently, which had given him time to do some free hunting, which had bolstered his reserves of Numbers nicely. All in all, he should have been pretty cheerful.

And yet...

He couldn't escape it. It had started not long after his chaotic duel against two of the Deltas, where the girl had managed to evolve her Number into a Chaos Number... followed swiftly by the boy who 'lead' them. According to the girl, her Number had undergone this evolution because he had hurt her friends. This had caused the infectious desire for revenge to fester inside her, until it broke its boundaries completely in a wave of pure power that had left him in a crumpled heap on the floor. Her words from that day still haunted him:

"As long as you continued to go around hurting people and indiscriminately tearing their lives apart, someone like me was always going to be coming for you. The more people you hurt, the more people you created who would want revenge on you. And eventually, you ended up making someone so angry, and hurt them and their friends so badly, that revenge was all they could think about…"

"Don't you understand what you're doing, Skyler? You were hurt by the Professor, I get that. But looking what you're doing now – all these people, all your victims, you're inflicting the same fate on them as was inflicted on you. Why can't you understand? Keeping up this cycle won't undo what the Professor did to you. It'll only make things worse and worse…"

"You're slowly bringing about the destruction of the world, and you don't even realise it…"

He clamped his hands over his ears, desperately trying to shut out the voices of the past.

Anyway, ever since then, something had changed inside him. It was no longer easy to extract Numbers from holders. Now, every time he knelt down beside them and placed his cold metal fingers against their hearts, all he could see was her. Her, raging at him for destroying her friends' lives. Her, desperately fighting to survive his Numbers' onslaught in any way she could. Her, rising up and doing the unthinkable; transcending the state of regular Numbers to gain the power she needed to win. Her, with her endless anger and sorrow echoing in his mind, mingling with the fresh screams of each new victim, the amalgamation stirring up an intense wave of grief inside him again and again, making it almost impossible to concentrate on the extraction.

Then there was the Numbers themselves. He had ten of the accursed things now, counting his original, which was a pathetic amount compared to the Deltas. Those kids had a huge quantity of Numbers, including several of his own most powerful ones like Alpha Centauri and Sonicboom Dragon. They also possessed at least four Chaos Numbers. It made his skin crawl to think about, but he knew that if he was to come against the Deltas in the near future, he'd be swept aside in an instant. And what chance did he have against the Professor if he couldn't even defeat that cretin's protégés?

He was losing the war. It was as simple as that.

Today was particularly grievous. It was the anniversary. Exactly one year ago today, Skyler's life had been ripped apart by that madman, Usur. That day had seen the destruction of everything Skyler cared about, leaving him a hollowed-out husk of a man, with only his sorrow and his desire for revenge keeping him going over the months.

It was the most painful, humiliating day of his entire life, and try as he had to fix things, nothing had worked. Pleading had been pointless. Searching had proved fruitless. And fighting had only brought him more pain and suffering. This cacophony of agonising thoughts whirled around in his head, blocking out all sense of reason and remorse, and reducing him to little more than an animal – a slave to the primal desire to inflict as much pain to everyone else as he could, no matter his own suffering.

And thus the broken man buried his head in his hands and sobbed, grieving for his losses, and cursing the Professor with every fibre of his being.

He was being watched.

'You know nothing of pain yet,' the quiet watcher thought to herself sadly. 'I'm sorry, Skyler. I'm so so sorry. But tomorrow is the day you die again…'

Fun Fact #1: Alright, we've stalled for long enough. It's about time we finally delve into the mysterious world of Skyler backstory. Enjoy.

Fun Fact #2: Since Professor Usur plays such a hefty part in Skyler's backstory, expect to see plenty of revelations regarding him too. Keane, Esta, and the Stranger will also be making their respective appearances. Basically, we have the whole gang here except Lithon, who's still off scheming with the Barians.

Fun Fact #3: Honestly, this Chapter could have been a lot longer if we'd just combined it with the start of the next Chapter. Unfortunately, it just didn't feel right. This is a very dark scene already, and we found that simply proceeding straight into the next Chapter rather ruins the impact of this one. So for now, you'll have to put up with a rather short prelude I'm afraid.