Unedited right now. Happy Birthday CHILLPENGUIN

The night instantly went from dark and normal to dreadful and still dark as Kayda walked down the streets of Neo Neo Neo City. It was horrible, she was already failing her role as the protagonist. She didn't win the first duel of the story and she didn't even have viable motives – and on top of it, she went berserk mode during the FIRST DUEL. She was getting tired of Dark Rebellion's anger issues, and she knew she would have done everyone a favor if she just got rid of the card, but somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. It was a really badass card, and if didn't criticize her every thought and movement, she might have willingly used it in a duel every once in while – even if didn't even belong to her.

She yawned and stretched as she walked leisurely through the dark streets of Neo Neo Neo. Even after all the commotion, the night felt like a quiet one. She shoved her hands into her pockets and kicked at a stone as she walked. Oh well, she failed one night. Everyone had their down times every now and again.

She frowned as she passed a kid sleeping in an alley corner between a flower shop and a leather store. One part of her wanted to do something, leave him some money or a hunk of bread, at least something – but her reasoning caught up with her and she picked up her step instead of slowing down. There was nothing that could be done for kids like that; nothing that she could do. No Number for her, no supplies for the week. No supplies, no food. As much as Kayda wanted to help, she also had to look out for number 1 (not Number One – never mind, you get it) and that was herself.

Kayda stormed her way across the town until she came to an old rundown apartment building. With a dash of anime logic, and some natural badass (um, athletic) ability she jumped up from the street and flipped onto the fire escape. For a moment she paused and gave the city an obligatory glance over like so many of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Protagonists before her. This place looks like the inside of the VRains, she thought sourly. Just less purple with more summoning methods. She shrugged and turned away to start trudging up what would end up being five flights of stairs.

She was gasping by the time she made it to the roof, and she was half expecting Dark Rebellion to make some comment about a completed anime trope, but he stayed quiet. It was unusual for him to be so silent. Everytime she did pretty much anything, he would comment about how either Yuto or Ruri did it first. It was pretty annoying – but now she would have given her next meal for him to break the silence – preferably with an explanation on what the Hell just happened.

Finally she took a seat on the edge of the roof and pulled out the card. That seemed to wake the dimensional dragon right up.

I swear if you drop me off this bluff, the next time I see you I will Lightning Disobey your ass so hard, you'll be blasted back to the Xyz dimension straight into Heartland tower.

"Your aim isn't that good. Now plot dump, please who the Hell was that guy, and what was that dragon?"

You know if you watched all the way through Zexal, I wouldn't have to be sitting here explaining this.

Kayda held out her arm over the street and loosened her hold by a fraction.

Okay, jeez. Stop that, you are horrible to your trading cards. How dare you? I am a legacy dragon.

"I'm not horrible to my trading cards, I'm just horrible to you. Now talk. I didn't get through all of Arc-V either. Too depressing, reminded me a lot of the girl who sells the shampoo down on the corner of Legacy and Canon."

Well you remember how this dimension came to be, right? The first four Yu-Gi-Oh! shows were each their own timeline, but then they all got destroyed to create the unified world of the Arc-V timeline, but then Zarc happened, blah blah blah?

Kayda nodded.

A lot of portals became unstable during that time. A lot of people fell into them, a lot of people jumped, and some were pushed in the hopes that what was on the other side was better than total destruction.

"You're guessing that the guy we just met is one of those people?"

I'm not guessing; I know. Because unlike you, I did get past episode 13 of Zexal.

"You're not going to let that go are you?"

The author is a Zexal fangirl, and her main target audience is one penguin and other Zexal fangirls -- I am never going to let you live it down. Now if I'm allowed to continue...

Kayda nodded and pulled her arm away from the edge.

That guy you just dueled is a legacy character all right. I didn't recognize since I think he's grown about two feet since we last saw him in the show, but you would obviously know who he was if you had just stuck around for another episode or two because he was central to the plot of the first half of Zexal. Seriously, why did you quit at 12 episodes exactly? It got better –

"Get to the point please, this supposed to be a filler chapter for laughs and so far all we've done is plot dump and other serious stuff like that."

This book doesn't have a plot, now hush. Honestly I knew I felt something fishy when he started using Photon monsters. Haruto is Kaito Tenjo's little brother in Zexal, Kaito's deck was all Photon-y and light-y and starry and stuff like that. My best guess is that Hart suffered the same fate as you.

"He got shoved into a portal and somehow ended up into this plot void between dimensions?"

Exactly. And I'm sure we can harass the details out of him in a couple chapters or so –

"We're not going to harass a legacy character." Kayda lifted the trading card so that she was staring into its tiny, almost invisible, painted cardboard eyes. "I don't care if he's only the kid brother of a legacy character. That dragon in his extra deck meant business. And you didn't seem to react any better, may I add."

Sorry.

She was about to go into a very emotional and emo lecture about how sorry didn't cut it and that the card better learn how to treat people before those people were lost, when a gentle tap of footsteps caused her to pause midbreath. Kayda quickly slid the card back into her case and lifted one of her legs over the edge. People in the city had a bad habit of pouncing from the shadows, they thought it made them cool and dark when all it really did was increase the amount of people who got pushed off roofs by 30%.

She would know since she's done that plenty of times. Out of habit, she activated the monster blade of her duel disk and waited, hunched over the purple glow, for the stranger to become less strange. A guy about her age with blue anime hair and a tuxedo t-shirt stepped out of the dark. She lowered her arm.

"Luke," she nodded and moved her leg back over the edge.

"Did you get any Numbers tonight?" He asked and sat down on the ledge next to her.

Kayda shook her head. "Nope." She looked at the ground far below. "Sorry."

"Eh, not your fault. The more numbers you find, the less there are to be found." There was a pause. "Let's get some cake tomorrow. I just sold that batch of cards I've been working on. Turns out a lot of archetypes in the underground are still in need of draw cards. Fusions are ruling that place because they are the only ones with any real draw power at the moment. The lot I made sold in like two seconds." He laughed lightly and leaned back on his hands. "I'm charging double next time."

Kayda nodded, and he turned to quickly to face her with a half hidden grin. "But look what I managed to save." He held up a card for her to see.

She took it from him and let out a laugh. "Wight Writer's Blank Page?"

He nodded excitedly. "If you have a level four or higher Wight Writer on your field banish any number of cards from your field, grave, or hand, and you can draw the same amount of cards from you deck."

"Awesome."

They fell into an awkward silence.

"Should we just cut to tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah sure, end scene, not like people need to know who I am or anything." He rolled his eyes.

"Oh jeez, I'm sorry." Kayda smacked her face and shook her head. "I was so wrapped up in myself that I forgot that my friends still need character development."

His red eye flashed in the dark, most would have found in threatening, she saw the humor in them. "I'm only your best friend, Kayda. There's a 60 plus chance that I won't get any development in this book at all."

"Hey I at least want to try. We can cut the shot to a pan of us just sort of sitting looking over the city, and I can voiceover or something."

"Seems forced."

"What in this book isn't?"

"Okay, but then we end scene."

Kayda nodded and looked sullenly over the city. In this void between dimensions she had met many different people, from the characters who had been thrown from their original shows to OCs who made no sense in the name of the plot whatsoever. She had met too many, forgotten to many names, all the faces that went with them. And she moved forward with her life regretting each and every person she'd never talk to again. Some she had beaten in duels, others she's just pass on the street and pretend she didn't see.

Yet the guy sitting next to her never failed to draw her out. Luke, the card maker from the dueling underground, was a shark among guppies with a talent that made him inexpensable. He made the cards for the greatest, Hell he even created her a deck archetype when she refused to use dark phantoms. Luke had the potential to be an even more interesting character than she was –

"Everyone in this story has the potential to be a more interesting character than you are at the moment. Right now you're kinda whiny with no redeeming traits, and you didn't even win your first duel," Luke interjected nonchalantly.

"Okay, that's it. No character development for you this chapter. End scene."


"What? Goddamni –"

--

Kayda stared at the street. To someone she might have looked thoughtful – or thought provoking if you were the thoughtful type – but in all reality, she was just watching a bird fly away with a duel monster's card in its beak. She really liked birds, but she still couldn't understand why for the life of her. Her power to break the fourth wall were in full swing, but unfortunately her status as main character made her blind to any really important information that was blatantly obvious to everyone else.

Suddenly a jacket fell out of the sky and landed on her head, momentarily blinding her. She pulled it off and looked up to find Luke waving down at her. He motioned for her to wait a second before leaping down two levels of the fire escape, then down to the pavement next to her with a stumbly stage bow. Kayda slid the jacket on under her cape before giving him a quick nod. "Ready then?"

He nodded in turn. "Into the VRains!"

"Wrong show."

"This isn't even a show."

Kayda rolled her eyes. "Let's try and be normal teenagers today. Okay? I'm not the protagonist, you're not the card maker. Let's just pretend we're not two anime characters in a poorly written fanfic and have a normal day."

"Where did you get an insane idea like that?"

"Discord chat, they think that this is a normal story."

"Sounds boring, needs more card games," he stated pointedly and crossed his arms.

Kayda grabbed him by the sleeve of his black shirt and started dragging him toward the main plaza of Neo Neo Neo, which for the most part only existed as one city despite being its own dimension. The plaza existed on four levels, with all the necessary stuff on the ground and the more interesting and specialized things going up as the levels got progressively higher. Each floor was connected with a series of ladders – because ladders were much sexier than stairs, and a thousand times sexier than elevators. It was a good thing that people went to the upper levels and never got more than they could carry in a backpack or in one hand, because that made climbing down the high inconvenient ladders even more inconvenient.

Kayda jumped to the nearest ladder and called over her shoulder. "Let's get to Level 3 three before that tiny egao person comes after us with the shampoo again."

"I still don't see what you have against Friendship. She's a really nice girl and that shampoo of hers works great." Luke flipped his hair out of his eyes and shot her a cheeky grin. Kayda bit down the urge to jump down and knock him off the ladder.

"You use it too?" She asked, unamused.

"It makes my hair soft – why are you giving me that look, please don't kill me."

Kayda hmphed and kept on climbing. She really had no rational reason why she shouldn't like the egao shampoo, other than the fact that she was supposed to be an edgy character with little valid reason to smile. All that egao would ruin what little street cred she had as a badass duel who so far hasn't won an on page duel.

"You know you can still smile and be badass at the same time. I'd say that the the Emma character would look good on you."

"Sorry, but I prefer dark and moody." Kayda climbed onto the ledge and reached down to help Luke up to his feet. "Okay let's stop talking about this. All this chatter of smiles is making me depressed and I'm one of those characters who can pull of edgy without being sad about it. I think they moved the cake stand to the other side of the – " She was right in the middle of her sentence when she almost tripped over a very short girl. The girl had purple and black hair just like she did and there was a very large sock draped over her shoulder.

The girl's face lit up with a bright smile as she looked up at Kayda. "You look like you have a lot of life problems. You should buy some egao shampoo! As the main character of a YGO show, you need to smile more."

"Well Yusaku doesn't smile a lot," Kayda pointed out cautiously.

A small smile slowly spread over the bulk of Friendship's face, causing Kayda's neck to break out in a cold sweat.

"Oh, don't you even worry about that." Friendship chirped cynically as she tossed her fluffy egao locks. "He'll be next, just you wait."

Kayda slowly started backing away. "I'm just going to leave now..." The two of them managed to get three steps from the egao merchant when a young woman stepped in their path and shoved a colorful pamphlet in Kayda's face.

"Have you accepted your love for our dear Lord and Savior Dylan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Everything?"

Kayda could feel the blood running from her face so fast that her head began to spin. She quickly spun around with a throw of her cape and ran after Friendship and her cart full of egao themed beauty products. "You were saying about the smiles, my good friend?"

There was a twinkle in her eye as Friendship accepted them with open arms.

Two hours later...

Kayda was secretly wondering what would have happened if she had listened to the recruiter from the Church of YGO Everything, because the way it was going with Friendship, she was wondering if she would ever smile again,

Meanwhile, Luke seemed to be having a good time. He and Friendship were chatting, mostly smack about her, while they walked. Luke was carrying a bag of egao shampoo over one shoulder and there was a sock on his head. The three of them were walking toward the Level 3 bakery where all the best cake was sold. Kayda was really in it for the spinach pastries, but everyone always looked at her weird when she said it out loud, so this time she cast a sidelong glance at her best friend and the one shot appearance side character and decided to dive into the bakery ahead of them before she could be lectured for both her lack of smiles and her taste in baked goods.

Of course when she walked in there was a guy in brown aviator jacket standing on the glass display, stepping on someone's face as he threatened the guy behind the counter. "I'm looking for something so I would appreciate if you just told me where I can find the illusive nerd character rival of the story so I can kidnap someone really close to him and bribe him into doing my every bidding."

Kayda cleared her through. "Excuse me, can this wait for a little bit I need some baked goods and a cup of coffee before my head explodes. I've had a bad week."

"It's going to have to wait, hun. " The weirdly orange haired villain person stated with his back to her. "I don't even want to be in this dimension, and I might have to kill this guy to make a point." He gestured to the young man whose face he was stepping on. " – but hey if I kill him you can take all the pastries you want, I personal don't give two shits about the economy of this place."

Kayda sat back on a table and nodded. "Alright. Proceed."

Kayda, you are the main character, Dark Rebellion thundered in her head. At the very least, challenge him to a card game so it half looks like you care.

"But you see the thing is, I don't."

A couple seconds ticked by and she suddenly had a change of heart – mostly because the young man had worked at the pastry shop ever since the two of them were kids, and she would have been sad to see his face smashed into a glass wall and get blood all over the food. She took a step forward. "The nerd badass rival hasn't even been introduced yet. You're wasting your time with him."

The villain turned around and shot her a purple look of confusion. "Damnit, really?"

She nodded. "I'm the protagonist. I know these things."

He took a sigh and kicked the counter boy in the head one last time before dumping him onto the floor. "Sorry then..." He brushed off his jacket awkwardly.

Kayda lifted up her duel disk. "Do you want to card game this out or...?"

"Don't bother." He raised his hands and jumped to the floor. "I'll go quietly." He kept a careful eye on her as he slipped out the front door. Kayda was just helping the bakery guy sit up when a loud disturbance of screaming and yelling caused her to leave him behind holding a towel to his face.

Outside, Luke and Friendship were chasing down the villain guy, lobbing bottle of shampoo at him. They were just about to catch him when he turned a corner and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Kayda quickly ran up to meet with a pastry box tucked under her arm. "What are you guys doing throwing shampoo at people?"

"Do you not know who that is?" Friendship stamped her tiny foot in the happiest anger imaginable.

Luke put a hand on Friendship's shoulder and shook his head. "She hasn't gotten all the way through Zexal."

"No one is ever going to let that go are they –"

"Kayda that guy's name is Vector," Luke interjected.

"So?"

"He was a villain over in the Zexal universe," he explained seriously. "But that's not the problem."

"And what is...?"

"He was the second to last main boss villain in the Zexal universe. Kayda, he's a main character."

Her pastry box fell to the ground. "All the main characters of the first four shows were destroyed...it's not possible."

"Well he's here now, and he wants something..."

"He wants to find the rival of the show," Kayda whispered almost to herself. The three of them looked over to shadows where the Vector guy had disappeared. "I wonder what he wants..."

Unbeknownst to them, a stranger in the darkness was stepping out from the shadows. The ribbings on her tunic glowed a gentle cyan and her white hair stood out stark against the dark where she stood. "Another legacy character eh?" She chuckled gently and turned and closed a tab on her D-Pad. "So all of you will disappear. There is only one legacy character that matters."

Her words lingered on the wind as she walked away.

Only one.