Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave
As soon as Marik touched the familiar gold of warped and torn souls, he could feel the connection to his magic strengthen again. In the pit of his stomach, fear churned and stabbed into him. The Lord of the Shadows was set to war with him, and what was worse was Marik’s approach to handle the situation.
People tend to take Marik as a fool, as an idiot. As a child. And while those things we true in their own way, Marik was, after all, a tomb keeper. One born in darkness, one who became darkness, and one who rose up out of the underground to submerge himself into the underworld of crime.
“Alright, here goes nothing,” he said to the Theif King’s Ka, feigning a smile. The creature stared down at him, its face still, yet its body conveying intense worry. The corners of Marik’s mouth dropped, as well with his eyes, as he closed himself away from the apartment.
The racing of his heart instantly felt like it was beating in slow motion. He began to devour the anxiety of the moment, the dread, for an emotion- for a sensation far more sinister. He could feel the scars carved into his back begin to heat. The dull burning churning into a piercing tongue of fire, the hieroglyphs taking shape in his mind. Loneliness. Terror. The swelling of lamentation after lamentation began to ravage his psych as he reached out to embrace the agony.
He could feel the screams build and disappear in his belly and throat, the raw strain of a cry for help that was never answered claw at his neck. The knife sliced into him again and again, meticulously, beveling the memories of a corpse into his body. The sadistic and uncaring hands of his only parent bestowing an inheritance of isolation and torment for him to carry and pass down to his own children.
The man who, over and over again, sliced into his smooth, youthful skin. The person who got a rise from torturing his own son, binding him since conception to darkness. His body was ravaged day after day, the burning steel, like molten talons, carving into his muscle and nerves, over and over again, burning salts rubbed into his fresh wounds every day to keep his wounds from healing, until his young shape permanently took the form of what his tribe decreed. Father. The person who chained him. The person who blighted his innocence. The person who was the knife that carved a fate he never asked to carry. The person who forced his own will onto his body.
“Well, well, well... Look at what the cat dragged in.”
The Egyptian opened his mind’s eye and found himself swallowed in a pool of darkness. A shadow swirled, the only source of light, besides that being radiated from Marik’s body in a soft glow, was the shape of the Eye of Wdjat. A twisted grin of sharp teeth molded itself from the shadows. “And what do I owe the ‘pleasure’ of my ‘hikari’ visiting me?”
“Wait. Don’t tell me. It’s something stupid isn’t it? Lost your house keys or something?” A dark chuckle echoed straightly after. “Aahh... I’m hilarious...”
Marik frowned, looking up at the Eye. “Melvin...”
“Hmm? What was that? Did you say something? I do need you to be a little louder when speaking to me. It’s kind of hard to hear over the sounds of my past self’s screaming.” A light suddenly shone to Marik’s left, revealing a child crying in a corner.
“There there... I’m here for you,” a voice spoke quietly to the child. A smaller shadow, about the same size of the child, stretched out beside him. It rubbed his back comfortingly.
“You- you are?” the child sniffled, looking up at the shadow hopefully.
“Of course,” the benevolent and soft voice assured him. “I’m here to murder you.” The shadow formed a stake in its hand and rose it above its head, driving it over and over into the child’s neck. The shadow’s grin exceeded almost past its face as the child screamed, hopelessly being plowed by the shaft. Marik stumbled back, watching the killing take place. As the shadow released the child, he slumped motionlessly onto the stone floor, gurgling in its own blood, his blonde hair being stained by gore and mud. The shadow stood over the child, and slowly lifted his head, smiling at Marik, its spiky hair rising upwards.
“Ahhhh, good times,” the larger shadow spoke endearingly. The tendrils of nightshade began to swirl, a man similar to Marik stepping out. His muscles were taunt, unnaturally contorted against him, and his hair spiked upwards as if electrified. “So.... You are here for a reason, are you not... Marik?”
The Egyptian nodded. “Actually, I am,” he said in a grave voice. As terrifying as that display was, he had to keep focus. If only the trembling in his hands could stop. “I need your help.”
A cackle immediately broke from Melvin’s lips, echoing through the darkness and shaking the place. Marik dipped down to keep his balance through the trembling of the chambers. “Ahh- help? You?!”
His face fell. “Oh Gods, you’re serious. You’re.. actually serious.” He sighed and sat mid air, cross legged. “So...” He waved his hand. “Go on.”
Marik stood up, straight and tall, his chin lifted squarely to his darker half. “I’ve challenged Zorc to a Shadow Game.”
“I am not!” Marik interjected. He bit his lip, his nose crinkling. “I’ve challenged Zorc to a Shadow Game, and if I lose, we both get eradicated. For good.”
“Mmhmm. Yeah, sure. How?” Melvin said boredly. His other half seriously could not be that stupid.
“If I lose, Zorc has the winner’s right to obliterate us permanently. No multiverse, no next life reincarnation... Done.”
“Fuck....” Melvin glared at the tomb keeper. “You REALLY fucked up this time. You are the creme de le crop of fuck ups. Good job, fuck-a-roony.” Melvin sighed, and began playing with his hair. “So, why do you need my help? How do you need it, better phrase.”
“That’s where my plan comes in,” Marik continued. “A good villain is prepared for any outcome.”
“You’re not a good....” Melvin sighed. “Whatever, go on.”
“I’ll need us to cooperate in the Shadow Game.”
Marik huffed. “This is our existence we’re talking about!” he screamed.
“So? It was your decision to accept the terms. Not my fault...”
“Listen... I’ll make a deal with you.”
“I’m dead serious.” Marik stared up at Melvin. He took his rod, a psychic version of it, and carved a symbol into his chest, drawing blood. “I’ll even make a blood pact.”
Melvin was suddenly an inch from Marik’s face, his eyes widened supernaturally, his lower half a body of shadows. “Ooooohhhhh,” he panted, lust in his eyes. “A blood pact you say? Two contracts in a row today? My, you are a gambler...”
“I’ll let you pick the conditions, too,” Marik said, his face unaltering though the murderous shadow was but an inch from him, breathing laboriously onto him. Suddenly, he was pinned. A sinuous hand had shackled him by the wrist, and the weight of Melvin’s body was on top of him.
“Is that so, Hikari?” the other breathed on his ear. He grasped Marik by the chin tightly. Marik could feel the hot air panting on his ear and the spiky hair brush against his face. Marik’s heart felt like it was ready to burst out of his chest, the air was punched out of his body. As the hair nuzzled against him, he felt something warm and wet press against the skin of his throat. “Ohhh, Hikari... I can’t wait....” he heard the other say in a low and raspy voice. His tongue trailed up his neck, to his cheek.
Melvin pecked him on the collarbone before suddenly releasing him. Marik laid still, stunned by the sudden advance, unsure and terrified of what had happened. Melvin stood over him. “In that case,” he said, removing his violet robes. He took the dagger out of the rod and began to carve the same symbol in the same place on his own chest, complimenting Marik’s. A red line formed from the perfectly even toned skin. “We have a deal.”
Marik’s heart was pounding in his ears, he barely could make sense of what Melvin had agreed to. He nodded, trying to regain sense of being, as he propped himself up. “Then it’s settled...” Marik looked into the glossy eyes of the other.
Marik extended his hand. “Just in case the Lord of Shadows out bests us....” Melvin titled his head to the side, smiling cockily at his lighter side. His foolish, stupid, naive, yet calculating other half.
“I guess we have the same idea,” Melvin laughed. Their hands clasped, and in the blink of an eye, the image of their psychic rods shone.
“Let’s kick some ass,” the unified tomb keeper laughed.
