victory_road | Roll 4

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Video 1: February 21

[The video clicks on to show Ryou, except...he looks a lot more upset than he normally does, doesn't he?]

You know what? I'm tired of being pushed around and used as a perfect little 'landlord' by a spirit who was happy to see my friends comatose or dead. I'm tired of being blamed for what the Spirit did even though none of it was my fault. I just want a break, but I can't even get that here because I had a Carnivine chasing me everywhere I went and jumping me for a month!

[Behind him, a Hisuian Zoroark and a Chimecho can be seen. The Chimecho looks concerned and floats forward as if to interrupt, but the Zoroark just shakes her head no. Let Ryou vent, it's fine.]

Video 2: February 22

[The next day heralds another video from Ryou, except he's now looking a lot more sheepish than yesterday.]

I'm sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have made that public for everyone to see. I just had a lot on my mind.

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[Radley is definitely concerned by the post, and ... well, this information explained a few things that had puzzled him in his Battle City DVD. He might have thought it was insane before, but now ...]

That's awful. I'm really sorry you've been going through so much.

[And the latter sounds like something else cruel the Snorunt did. Radley is angry, but tries not to show it. Ryou is upset enough.]

It is awful, isn't it? I don't even know what the Spirit did a lot of the time, because all the possessions left blanks in my memory! I could just find myself somewhere and have no idea how I got there, or wake up to find all my friends comatose with no idea why!

[That Chimecho in the background looks like she really wants to interrupt this Alolan Raichu pancake fueled rant, but holds off. If this is apparently fine, then she'll trust that this is fine.]

[Radley stares, aghast.]

Did they get better?

Yes, thankfully.

[Even in his anger, there is a hint of relief at that much.]

It wasn't just comas though. The Spirit would take their souls and trap them in character miniatures so that I could keep playing with them forever - which was not what I wanted!

[Ryou huffs, trying to calm down but unable to.]

[Radley is even more horrified and creeped out now.]

What the hell?! How is that even possible?!

[He would probably rather not know.]

Magic, that's how.

[Perhaps thankfully, Ryou isn't going too far into how all that was possible.]

At least the Spirit stopped doing that after a while, but then he just switched to pretending he had somehow turned 'good' and that he wanted to help so that I would keep wearing the Ring he was bound to. And I wanted to believe it, too! I wanted to think it could be true!

... Yeah, that figures.

[And this other info sounds terribly naive, but ... Radley had kept believing he could win Kalin over too. When you really long for something, sometimes a certain naivete or denial is involved. He won't criticize.]

That would have been wonderful, if it could have only been true. I'm sorry it wasn't.

[Marik suppresses his urge to grin, instead just smirking slightly. Between hiccups, that is. He can just blame the curl to his lips being from the hiccups.]

... Did they seriously blame you for his actions?

Edited 2023-02-22 03:46 (UTC)

[Thankfully for Marik, Ryou's mad enough that he doesn't notice that smirk.]

Aigami sure did! He blamed me for killing Shadi, even though he saw the Spirit do it! He hunted me down and tried to kill me over it!

[Are you proud of yourself for feeding into this, Marik?]

[Of course he is. He's winning brownie points with his "old friend." It's exactly what the Spirit wanted to happen.]

Because you're an easy target, more than likely. Which is foolish considering that killing you won't get rid of the Spirit.

No one truly understands the Items like we do. The abilities that they give you. In your and Atem's case though, you got the added bonus of being worn as a skinsuit.

[Even Marik himself hitched a ride.

This would be far more dramatic if he wasn't hiccupping between every other sentence.]

I'm pleased to hear you're going to start standing up for yourself.

Yeah, because using the Ring like a compass to find things sure made up for being used as a vessel for a vengeful spirit.

[Ignore that bitter, cold tone. it's fine.]

Thanks, though. I'm sick and tired of just taking whatever happens to me without pushing back. Do you know how many times I transferred schools to get away from my bad reputation when the Spirit was stealing people's souls? Too many times!

It's convenient for them. You're just a tool they can use when they need.

[Just like Bakura was for the creation of the Millennium Items and Zorc.

He recognizes that slight voice shift. While he knows the Spirit isn't in there, it's pleasing to see his presence still lingers in a way.]

I can only imagine.

You don't need to deal with any of that anymore though. You're a free man. You get to carve your own path in life.

You know you have my full support on whatever you decide - as long as it makes you happy.

Somehow this doesn't sound like you've just picked a bad match with a ghost type pokemon. What's going on?

[He's more curious than he lets on for -private- reasons, but he's trying to play it cool.]

I used to have a haunted amulet that held an angry spirit who wanted revenge against my friend, that's what was wrong! If it were just a problem with a Ghost type, then Banshee knows to help me stop it.

[In the background, Banshee perks up at her name, apparently proud that she's the one Ryou asked to help him if he ever got possessed again.]

[He said 'on', not 'wrong', but somebody is apparently too agitated to notice right now. IV barely resists raising an amused eyebrow and smirk as he meets eyes with the Banshee in the background.]

Okay. And why does some musty angry spirit have beef with one of your friends? That doesn't sound like what a Barian or Astral being would do at all.

Because one of my friends is the spirit of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh and the spirit who
kept possessing me wanted revenge against him for the destruction of his village. Atem didn't even order it, he was just connected by being part of the monarchy!

[Well, the Spirit also wanted to summon in Zorc, but the focus is on his issues with Atem and the fact that Atem hadn't been the one to order it, let alone knew what happened until he was told.]

Sounds like a typical royals problem, then.

[More importantly, what's up with just casually saying that you're friends with an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh?! Either this guy is a lot more of a loon than IV first assumed or something seriously weird is going on here!]

How did your 'friend' handle that mess?

I'd say to ask him if he were still here, but he's not. I didn't get to see how he handled it in the end because I was apparently-

[Insert air quotes here.]

-'Too evil to help'. Never mind that I was wearing that cursed Ring when that Scales test was done, I was the only one barred. All I know is that he and our friends managed to get rid of the Spirit while I was busy being possessed again.

[Can you imagine how it feels to wake up from a possession and find out the Spirit who was tormenting you for years is now gone, for good? Ryou knows.]

'Too evil', huh?

[His gaze turns knowing for a second.]

Be glad they at least had the decency to give you an obvious nonsense excuse. What kind of scales did they use to detect something like that? And where'd the Pharaoh guy go?

[He would try to imagine it, but the crest that both possesses and protects his soul is still firmly branded onto his body. Maybe having somebody else to blame would have been nicer than knowing that it's always been only you yourself, one way or another.]

The Millennium Scales. There were seven Millennium Items, artifacts from Ancient Egypt with special powers. Two of them also had spirits bound to them.

[Ah, so that's where these spirits came from.]

A man named Shadi was the owner of the Scales and insisted on doing the test. [By the tone of his voice, he really doesn't like Shadi.] I had the Ring, which was one of the two with a spirit bound to it. Apparently it was too hard for Shadi to ask me to take the Ring off and test again, because I was just 'too evil' according to the Scales! It couldn't be the Spirit of the Ring throwing the Scales off!

[Ryou huffs, still frustrated with that incident and still affected by those odd pancakes.

As for where the pharaoh went-]

He was sent on to the afterlife. Atem was actually here for a bit, like us, but he left. Went back home.

[He almost could have guessed. IV lowers his head and subtly moves his camera a bit, so that Ryou can't see the smirk forming on his face. This sounds entirely too much like one of those horror adventure stories he's loved as a kid, he can't help but get excited over this!

Once he's sure he has his face back under control he smiles briefly again, faking empathy.]

I'm sorry.

That sounds like you were dealt a really dirty hand, and that on every aspect of it. I take it that there was no way to deal with that spirit of yours besides possession and it being exercised?

We had to deal with the Spirit several times, usually by beating him at his own game. Literally, he liked tabletop gaming and Duel Monsters and kept turning them into Shadow Games.

[The next part is said in a tone of extreme bitterness, a cold edge creeping in as he thinks about what happened.]

He managed to come back every time, except for the last. And he had me convinced that he had turned good, so I'd keep wearing the Ring for him.

What is it with it always being games and spirits needing to turn them deadly? I assume that's what a Shadow Game means?

[Because oh brother, let him tell you about the killer games they have where he comes from.]

....at least you only have 2 in 7, rather than 1 in 100 things and all are possessive as shit.

[Wait, he's supposed to be polite while in public, still.]

Pardon my language.

That's roughly what a Shadow Game is.

[Ryou's next words are almost snarled, his anger directed at what the Spirit had done to his friends.]

The Spirit used to seal the souls of my friends into their tabletop minis so I could 'keep playing with them forever' as some sort of fucked up wish granting thing. I suppose I should be lucky everyone was put back in their bodies eventually, but...

[But it was still confusing and frightening to go through that. And who knows how Ryou's previous friends feel about him after the fact, even if he was possessed.

The only thing that sort of brings him out of that particular rage is the mention of 100 possessive things that IV apparently knows about, and even then he's still mad.]

1 in 100? What in the world were you dealing with?

[IV just groans and shakes his head in a silent 'damn, called it!']

I'm sorry. I know it means way too little with a situation like that, but I truly am. Were you and your friends aware of what was going on?

[He feels like he has heard a similar tale not too long ago. Ah, yeah, Yuzu and her story of people being turned into cards. Different game pieces, same idea.

His expression turns guarded as he ponders how to wrap up everything he knows about the Numbers, and how to say as little as possible while profiting the most of it at the same time.]

The key to an interdimensional bomb, simply put. Think Heaven and Hell wanting to take that final jab at each other, except that they need to first blast a way through the mortal realm to be able to do that. That roughly paints the picture.

Not at first. I'd try to play a game only to lose time and wake up to find everyone else comatose with no idea why it kept happening. I only found out when the Spirit finally revealed himself to me after I'd had that damn Ring for over five years.

[Five years of not knowing why he kept having memory gaps or why his friends kept going comatose. And that's not counting the time after he found out about the Spirit, where he knew he was being possessed but didn't stop himself from wearing the Ring.

As for the Number cards...]

...What the hell. That's horrible.

[What else does he say to that?]

War tends to be. [IV shrugs his shoulders. He doesn't care about what happens to either the Barian or the Astral Realm, but he very much minds the way his family was dragged into their stupid fights.]

I'm one of those people who try to collect those fragments and keep them from possessing people. You endured those uncanny events for a long time.

[Or rather: he was amazingly dense to only realize the common factor after so long. But IV still wants to be on Ryou's good side for now.]

From the sound of it, a lot on your mind is putting it rather mildly...

I guess it is putting it mildly.

[He rubs the back of his head with his hand, looking kind of awkward about the whole thing.]

I don't know what got into me there. I think I was just upset and needed to vent.

[What got into him was the Raichu provided pancakes.]

I believe there was something affecting a number of people, in various ways.

*was he affected? he has no intention of admitting it if he can*

Ah, maybe I shouldn't have eaten those pancakes, then...

[It's not hard to guess what the trigger was, considering that Alolan Raichu delivered pancakes are kind of weird...

But then again, what's also weird is that he talked about the possessions and the Spirit so openly. Normally it's a very awkward topic at best these days, and now it's all out in the open.]

I don't usually talk about that topic most of the time.

It isn't the sort of topic most would talk about lightly, no.

*he would know, after all*

That said, the feelings you expressed on the subject are also quite understandable.

Mm...

[Give him a moment to think here. It's already been made public that he was possessed by an ancient spirit for a while, so no point in being quiet about it now.]

...There was a lot that happened with the Spirit that kept possessing me, and I don't remember most of what he did. I've been hoping to catch a break now that he's gone, but I haven't been able to do that yet.

[Prime example: the Carnivine incident.]

This place is prone to making things difficult for people, at times.

... However, even then, I hope you can still take some consolation in the fact that your mind is still whole and your own, at the very least.

*did his expression soften a bit on that last bit? maybe you imagined it...*

Thanks.

[Ryou manages a slight smile.]

I don't have the Ring anymore, and I told one of my Pokémon to stop me if I ever become possessed again, so I think I should be safe now.

*Sion nods approvingly at that*

An understandable precaution, and certainly most Pokemon are quite strong enough to carry it out.

That said, they do tend to instinctively be inclined to obey their trainers, so if it's a concern of yours, I'd recommend working with a couple to train them to discern what is and isn't you acting in your right mind. While it can take some effort it's quite possible to teach them to respond to alternatives, or stop listening to 'you' temporarily.

[Oof, while she doesn't know much about Ryou or his situation, she only needs to take context clues into consideration to think she has a pretty solid idea of what's going on. Which is why she's choosing her words carefully while gently petting a jolteon that's curled up in her lap.]

If it helps, I believe that your actions here would speak volumes about how you are when you are not being possessed by whoever or whatever this "Spirit" is. I don't know the full details, obviously, but I do not think anyone would blame you for being tired of being used like that.

[If only she had any idea of who this Spirit was and the shenanigans associated with him that she had to deal with, oh well.]

I know it's not much, but maybe try taking some time for yourself now that you don't have to deal with that Carnivine to unwind? That's what I would do, anyway.

Tell that to Shadi and his idea of testing for me for evil with the Scales. He knew I had the Ring and he still decided I was 'the evil one'.

[That incident is still a sore point with him, especially now that he knows that Bobasa and Shadi were one and the same.

The suggestion of taking time for himself gets a frustrated sigh from him, the knowledge of what his luck is generally like weighing on him more than it normally would.]

As long as nothing else weird happens, I can try.

[He thought he saw a game store somewhere in Goldenrod, maybe he should check that out at some point.]

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