I worked out Rain’s design for when the DOMA arc in 5D’s plot I have cooked up for after Ark Cradle! @/MaxYanori was kind enough to bring it to life im ecstatic 😭😭 along with a doodle about how Placido feels about this development
Sure we have the Kalin endgame but we NEED to discuss the Primo smooch and the Carly flirting. Rain and Carly both are bi disasters. (I guess I write everyone as bi disasters BUT ANYWAY)
Rain and Kalin meet during the Team Satisfaction days, and she ends up joining the team after Jack challenges her and the duel ends in a tie (yes he is furious about the outcome). With proof she can hold her own in a duel, there's no opposition to her becoming a member. She met Kalin first, who brought her to the team as a stop off--he mainly wanted to bring her to Martha for help since Rain is a hopelessly lost amnesiac. She naturally latches onto him since he was the first person she saw, and she sees him as a leader she will follow no matter what is asked of her. FOR EXAMPLE (excerpt)
---------------
Before I could speak, a crash threw me off my feet. Rough voices shouted, “They’re in here!”
Securities flooded the large hall. The man leading the charge adjusted his yellow scarf as he stepped forth. His moustache wriggled when he spoke. “Well, well, well. We’ve finally cornered the famous Team Satisfaction! A couple of you, that is. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t resist.”
Kalin and I stood back to back. I ducked my head to peek at him. It was the first time I had ever seen him afraid. “I swear I covered my tracks. I swear… dammit. The team, my deck, everything, I’ll lose everything if-”
He noticed me watching. Kalin whispered, “It’s alright, Rain. We have to go with them, or else-”
I removed my deck from its slot, sifted through the contents, and held out a spell card: Rage with Eyes of Blue. Crimson streamed upward from my feet. Three red pillars formed among the Securities.
The ruby crumbled to unveil three Blue-Eyes White Dragons in a triangle formation. The glow of their azure eyes cut through scarlet. The trio roared in unison. Translucent red like crimson ghosts crawled from the dragons’ feet. The red washed outward. The ghoulish energy crashed over the Securities in a tsunami.
The Securities dropped like flies. The dragons faded, and the red dispersed. My knees buckled. My deck splattered on the floor. I tried to move my limbs, but they wouldn’t work.
Kalin flipped around once, twice to search the premises. There were no signs of movement in the massive building. He said, “What- what did you do?”
My hands had landed in my lap. I tried to ball my fists, twitch my fingers, anything. No luck. I murmured, “Rage knocked them out.”
He clutched his forehead. “I thought you killed them.”
“Would you like me to?”
A weighty breath racked his shoulders. His expression showed nothing less than horror. “No. No, Rain, never do something like that.”
“I thought that’s why you brought me.” I dipped my chin so my bangs shadowed my eyes. “You said leverage is important. Didn’t you ask me along because my powers give you that?”
He fell to his knees and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Listen. I asked you to partner with me because I wanted to spend more time with you. Now that they know about your powers, you…”
“I messed up,” I murmured.
“Nah, just- promise you’ll use those powers as little as possible, okay? I know I got a little ahead of myself earlier, but we’re not trying to scare or kill anybody.”
My throat tightened. I stared at my knees. My fingers moved this time. I bunched up my baggy pants in my tight grip. Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I whimpered, “I’m s-sorry.”
“Are you crying? Soft or scary, you gotta pick one!”
The tears streamed down my cheeks. I peered up at him through the slices in my bangs, expecting anger, but he showed panic. I hiccupped and asked, “I’m s-scary?”
He quickly said, “What? No! Who said that?”
“Kalin, I, I asked what I did earlier because I thought it’s what you wanted.”
“Why would that matter?”
“I just want to be useful.”
Kalin grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck. He gathered up the scattered cards of my fallen deck, grasped my wrist, and placed the deck onto my palm. “You’re fine. You did bail us out, but, Rain. You’re already an incredible duelist. You’re useful just being yourself. You don’t need the powers or any other shit, got it?”
The last of the tears sprinkled the burnt ground. I swiped my knuckle beneath my eyes and swallowed a deep breath. “Got it.”
---------------
Kalin very much pushes for her to be her own person. TS takes over the Satellite but Kalin works ceaselessly and his paranoia worsens. Jack and Crow both leave the team, and Kalin kicks Rain out of it. She's totally heartbroken until Yusei finds her and convinces her he's lying to her and not being himself at allll. End result is, Kalin does the whole canon bombing Security and is on the verge of arrest until Rain crashes her D-Wheel into them and allows him a chance to escape. She gets arrested instead, he is apprehended a few days later, they end up in the same Facility cell in the City's stronghold of a jail. Kalin grows weaker and eventually dies--his body disappears, ominously, and the same night a huge red dragon flies into Rain
She breaks out of the Facility but barely manages to keep upright through her grief along with having to keep out of sight as a fugitive. She ends up in the Arcadia Movement, reunites with the Signers when it falls, and they learn about the Dark Signers
After flying to the Satellite, their first night has Yusei VS a Dark Signer, and Rain runs to help after Yusei crashes
---------------
My pulse skyrocketed. The way my name rolled off his tongue should only exist in my memories. He threw down his hood, and horror paralyzed me. I attempted to utter my partner’s name but the words couldn’t find air. Drowning would be no different. Kalin’s eyes were solid black outside the hazel iris, and the glyph I had seen in the night shone purple on his arm. Dark red stained the criminal mark lining the left side of his face. Kalin rushed forward and pulled me against him. My cheek pressed against his chest, and-
His heart beat.
“Rain, I’m so glad you’re okay!”
The months I’d spent miserable, lonely, mourning – he’d been alive the whole time. I shoved him off and he stumbled backwards, looking confused and hurt. I yelled, “You think you can just show up and act like everything’s fine?”
Sadness laced into his distressed plea. “Why’re you acting like this?”
“Y-You’re a Dark Signer. I know what that means. You’re here to kill Yusei!”
“Oh. You know about…” He ran his hand through his hair. The ordinary gesture struck me with how wrong everything about the moment was. It was really him, my partner, but no, it wasn’t. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be like this. I went to the ends of the earth trying to find you. I really did. You have no idea.”
“Is that supposed to matter?” I shrieked. “You want my friend dead!”
Kalin shook his head. “He only acts like your friend. He’s the reason you ended up in the Facility – in the City at all and went through that shit.”
“No.” The word rode on my exhale. “No, that was my decision to save you. I can see now that was a mistake.”
The wince I earned ordinarily would have shattered me. The sting of betrayal smothered my empathy. Kalin reached for me and said, “Look, partner, I can explain-”
I slapped his hand away and snapped, “Don’t call me that. My real partner died.”
I couldn’t hold his stare or keep up my volume when I next spoke.
“And should have stayed that way.”
I turned my back on the stranger. My shoulders shook. My anger slipped away like grains of sand in the wind. As I ran away from Kalin, my tears shone silver in the moonlight.
---------------
The Signers doubt her bc of how Kalin talked about her, Rain runs away to the hideout where he finds her and we get a fun moment of mild spice :') and Rain swears she's gonna be the one to beat him
They fight in a turbo duel! Blood is drawn, both of them fighting to save the other (in concept, Kalin winning means Rain becomes a Dark Signer and survives the apocalypse, Rain winning means she can steal his dark sign thanks to the Crimson Dragon and he will return to life)
And we get ALL THE ANGST because Kalin fiiinally tells the truth, that he did the big bombing because Security saw Rain as public enemy #1 (all Satellite psychics are locked up forever) and Kalin had a goal of becoming worse in their eyes so they would forget about hunting her down. Then in the Facility, they only gave them barely enough food for one person so he gave it all to her
Then a sobbing Rain wins and takes the dark sign of Ccapac Apu woooo :o) Crimson Dragon vessel now also a Dark Signer what could possibly go wrong? (ominous note plays)
Rain's memories return because she's literally a trap Roman/Uru used against the Signers; she is half-Duel Monster who hates humanity and chooses not to seal the Reactor and so the King of the Underworld rises
Kalin finds her anyway, breaks through to her and sees her as the person in the Satellite who talked to Martha's flowers rather than the individual who slaughtered hundreds in the Seal of Orichalcos to summon the Great Leviathan in original Atlantis thousands of years ago (real)
Both partners agree that, despite the terrible things they've done, they swear to live on together and earn back their place in the world by doing good
A friend named them darkbondshipping because Yusei gets a nice line when Roman is shocked Kalin and Rain connect despite everything; he says "There are bonds in darkness as there are in light"
AND they do and she beats Godwin and yay woo then bc of all the dang damage she's taken from a crash VS Kalin and etc. she falls comatose for five months. NOW WE GET SEASON 2 and CRASH TOWN and btw Ccapac Apu the Earthbound Immortal is still around since Rain still has the dark sign, and it decides to curse everybody in New Domino to forget Rain ever existed, including Kalin
He wakes up in her hospital room HOLDING HER HAND having no clue who tf this person is and, having forgotten their promise to live on, heads on out to Crash Town to die
I've already gone into a lot, but yesss angsty reunion where one side has lost memories and a very angry Rain (she changes a lot when she's no longer an amnesiac) NOT LETTING HIM DIE. Just a couple of murderers holding hands n junk.
---------------
Rain said, “Well, when I became wrapped up in my own anger and want for revenge, I kind of lost those things about myself. It’s like my hobbies were replaced by counting the scars other people gave me.
“So I was wondering about you. Seems like you still like dueling. After it rains, do you think you’d still run through the puddles and laugh? Would you still enjoy playing pranks on your friends? Does it still give you joy to help and protect people? Or did it all go away when you became a Dark Signer?”
I couldn’t breathe. My eyes refused to focus, and the blood roaring in my ears drowned out my own thoughts.
“It’s okay.” Her voice sounded distant and detached. “You don’t have to be afraid.”
“You know.”
“Yeah. I know your whole ‘story.’ While I haven’t said your haunting words, they’re true. You’re not suffering alone, I’m right here with you, and- I don’t have much belief left, but you can have it all.”
My vision sharpened on her blue eyes. Apathy defined them. “How- why? If you know what I’ve done, you have to understand what I deserve!”
“When we first talked here, you only wanted to ask if I was okay. You-”
She gasped and clutched at her midsection. I observed her shaking hand and said, “You were in a riding duel accident five months ago, which was when… Rain, you were a part of the war, weren’t you? It wasn’t just some crash. You dueled a Dark Signer!”
She tucked her hands into their opposite elbows. “Yeah. Devack.”
My pulse quickened. “Devack didn’t use a runner.”
Her eyes thinned the slightest amount. The laugh that escaped her gave me chills. “Okay. Alright, Kalin.”
Rain’s gaze fell onto me and within burned something I hadn’t seen in her before but recognized. The necklace at her throat seemed to glow. “You stole five months of my life away. You nearly killed me. It’s your fault everyone forgot me, and I see you in my nightmares.”
Each word constricted my lungs further. It couldn’t be the truth. I never dueled her. But she was telling the truth, her truth. The way she looked in the hospital was so… broken, and I did that?
She shot to her feet and gripped my collar. The unfettered fury in her expression was as familiar to me as the mark on my face. “You’re right. I’ve kept you alive all this time because you owe me.”
That look.
That look – the cold rage it conveyed told me she was here for her revenge on me. Her hold on me tightened. Rain leaned over me; I braced myself. She tugged me closer, and-
She kissed me. Every ounce of my tension eased, my heartbeat slowing to a steady thrum matching hers. She backed off slowly and brushed back the hair in my face. “You won’t die, not as long as I’m around.”
No, I had to for what I did, and especially if I really did that to her – See? I, I wanted… damn her lips were soft, and what was that warmth, like nothing was wrong in the world? No, oh, goddammit- I was such a-
Rain brushed past me and tied on her gun belt. She withdrew a card from her deck, and a green, alien monster materialized beside her. It kicked the door into splinters. Night air spilled into the room. I opened my mouth to say something, but my brain was still trying to process what had happened? And that- she could have left the whole time, but she didn’t?
She stopped at the doorframe and glanced back. “I know your little liar game, Kalin. I said my partner died, but I didn’t say he was dead.”
Then she was gone, one with the starlight and darkness. The tremble of my hands hadn’t left with her.
---------------
There is all the wild stuff in S2 with androids and dragons and eldritch floating castles oh my. They stay mostly strong thru it, him being very tender in learning about her fear from her past SA, her dealing with lingering anger issues and learning from his newfound pacifism (which he sticks to quite admirably considering Primo exists), them both working thru depression and finding confidence in themselves and each other. BUT, Kalin is both a workaholic and a compulsive liar, and this results in a temporary breakup since Rain has a lot of trust issue related trauma. Then he gets a nice haircut and is the only one who knows her birthday and rents out an entire planetarium show for just them, and wouldn't ya know it, they get back together :3c
The story essentially serves as a double redemption arc for Rain and Kalin, who both in a sense grow to the point where they face the worse version of themselves--who they once were or very well could have become--recoil in horror and have to come out in top. In a children's CARD GAME WOOO-
They are very much bound together in feeling like outcasts, going too far in taking out their sense of justice(Kalin to Security/Yusei/the world, Rain to all humans because of those who treated her poorly), both suffer from tunnel vision, both clinging to each other while battling mental illness. By the end of the story, he's the standoffish intimidating cowboy and she's the bubbly one excited to make friends with EVERYONE
(Rain dyes her hair black bc trauma, Primo chooses the butler appearance she complimented ONE TIME after she furiously destroys his old body with a dang sword, they are so in hate with each other, IM NOT WORRIED ABOUT IT)
Primo/Rain happened accidentally ok. I WANTED TO MAKE A FOIL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL VILLAIN AND THEN THEY FELL IN LOVE BECAUSE THEY HAD SO MUCH IN COMMON? Both fish out of water, him from the desolate future and her from the ancient past; both have experience losing total faith in humanity; and both have survived through the loss of a partner.
He starts out straight out HATING her. She's annoying and frustrating and disrespectful. She hates him right back since their first meeting, he kidnaps her and essentially brainwashes her to test the Signers' dueling skills, AND ON TOP OF THAT HE'S A SECTOR SECURITY DIRECTOR
They have very strong feuds and threaten each other every second breath. Then he shows flashes of a protective streak, like when the City mobs want Rain thrown out of the WRGP and he publicly stands up and says the WRGP welcomes all backgrounds whether someone is a psychic, Satellite, etc. She catches moments of his feeling so lost and out of place and hopeless for the future and wants to be his hope
Ah yes, and because of plot reasons both Antinomy/Bruno and Antithesis/Misaki make attempts on Rain's life, and Z-ONE has given the directive for Primo to protect whoever the androids target. He doesn't know it at first but finds out he has a duty to protect this woman he hates :DD
He devises a manipulative plan to make Rain distrust the Signers and her partner, and it WORKS so she joins Team New World and trusts Primo enough to call on him if she's in danger from the androids
HOW does his plan work?
---------------
“I can explain everything,” I said. “Unfortunately for you Signers, you have been duped. Rain Orichalcum is destined to be your inherent enemy. I’ll show you why.”
Rain turned to me with apprehension. “Wh-what do you…”
I pulled her beloved Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon from my pocket and held it sideways. “Show your dark sign or I will destroy the card.”
“No,” she whimpered. “No, please, don’t-”
My fingers twitched. She reached forward with her right arm. The violet shine of the Giant’s symbol lit up her forearm. Her eyes shifted to black. Red filled her criminal mark like a bloody scar.
Akiza Izinski’s hands flew to cover her mouth. Yusei Fudo was stiff with shock. Jack Atlas bellowed nonsense in rage. Crow Hogan was the one to shout the facts. “Rain’s- you’re a Dark Signer!”
“It all makes sense,” Yusei said. “You worked with Kalin, and you still have a grudge for him. You’ve been plotting against us from the second you met us.”
“No. No, please, I just wanted-” Rain fell to her knees. “I just wanted to save him. That’s all I wanted. You weren’t supposed to forget me. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I just wanted him to live.”
I crawled forward and whispered, “See, Rain? A selfish world punishes selfless actions. But… the world can always change.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Crow asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jack exclaimed. “They’ve been working together the entire time! The kidnapping was a ploy!”
“Please say it’s not true,” Akiza said.
“It’s not, it’s not!” Tears ran over Rain’s crimson criminal mark. She looked to me with desperation in her dark eyes and whimpered, “Why did you do this to me?”
I said, “Because I-”
My vision was flickering. The fluids running out of my wound would soon run dry, and I would shut off. I muttered, “I love you, Rain Orichalcum.”
Her dark eyes widened. Amidst her surprise, I wrapped my arms around her neck, pulled her towards me, and pressed my lips to hers. The last of my life force leaked away. My final moment was encapsulated by an incredible warmth, sensation of happiness, and intense closeness I swore I’d never know again. There was a problem, an error, a flaw in the plan.
Because my last words spoken were meant to be a lie.
It was supposed to be a lie
-static-
---------------
They are a TOTAL mess but idc they're so entertaining in their banter that I still love to write one shots with them. They connect in hopelessness and grow hopeful side-by-side by him finding the beauty in the world through her seeing the wonder in it, and her showing him he can trust his own actions whether than leave it all up to Z-ONE, affecting him so much he admits the name he shouldn't to her and she calls him by it as he requests: Aporia
APORAIN APORAIN <3
Because of their relationship, Aporia goes from ends justify the means to growing empathy. He can believe his existence in current era will shift to a different timeline and bright future and doesn't have to do the Ark Cradle and all
then Z-ONE (alternate character here, a terrifying antagonist with a hidden identity) ruins it all.
WELL, I have talked much about my two favorite ships. If you read all the rambles and excerpts, tysm! All the characters mean a whole lot to me
(Reminder I'm just a writer - all artist credits in the alt text!)
Well well well it appears to once again be Friday, so here’s your Placido x Rain propaganda of the week, this time from a current WIP
—art by @/durandalexe !!!
“I’m sorry to wake you up like this. Ha, it’s kind of funny. I’m surprised you just sleep in a bed. Like me.”
“What were you expecting? A damn charging dock?”
“What’s that?” she asked. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Of course this reanimated fossil would be clueless. Rain continued, “I’m also kind of shocked you sleep in all of your clothes, but I’m grateful.”
I grit my teeth to mask my embarrassment. “Can you get on with whatever you rudely intruded into my room for?”
She avoided my eyes. “I really need help with something. I tried to figure it out myself, but it’s impossible. I got all frustrated and just wanted to sleep and now it’s three in the morning!”
“Out with it,” I demanded.
Rain twiddled her thumbs. Pink flooded her face. “I c-can’t figure out how to take it off.”
I didn’t have to ask what “it” was. My focus flicked down to her breasts instantly, and I could slap myself for it. I buried my face in my hands and groaned. “They’re hooks!”
She gasped. “How did you know? Do you wear one?”
“No! No, I’ve… had experience handling them.”
“Oh! That makes you the perfect candidate to help me.”
