Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Broken Shards of Pottery ❯ Prologue

Malik Ishtar was the type of demonic presence not to be taken lightly.

Beneath the adolescent body and the unnerving indigo eyes-- those who had dared to call them 'pretty' or, worse, 'feminine', were long dead-- yes, beneath those rather misleading traits was a cunning and a strength that was ruthless to the core. All those who somehow failed to learn this simple yet elegant fact usually found themselves six feet under, a thousand scarabs gnawing at their decaying flesh for all eternity.

There were those precious few, however, who outright refused to acknowledge the reality of Malik's total domination, and, worse yet-- who got away with it. The fact that there were people who actually managed to escape his hysteric bouts of mass murder did not please him, not at all. The supplement fact that those people happened to include the pharaoh and his damned brat of a consort pleased him even less.

And so he began to plot. Revenge, of course, was his foremost thought-- but revenge of what sort, he wondered? A gory, bloody revenge with lots and lots of mangling and killing and blood and death and destruction? Or perhaps something a bit less bloody?

Blood, of course, was always his first option. But sometimes desperate times called for desperate measures. There would be no blood this time, he told himself. He needed something that ran deeper.

Vaguely, he felt traces of his yami's annoyance at having the chance of blood and death ripped from his clutching hands, and tried to ignore it for the moment.

But what ran deeper than crimson strands, rivers of red marking painted paths down porcelain skin? Malik mused thoughtfully. Treachery? Betrayal? One could never be sure, for fate had a way of using events in her own twisted game. There was always a chance that something would go horribly, horribly wrong, straying from the path he had set.

It was then that he found the book. Or perhaps, cliché as it may sound, it was the one that found him.

For the past several days, Malik had holed himself up in the depths of his family's ancient Egyptian book collection, poring intensely over ancient texts and manuscripts, straining his eyes just to be able to make out the faded writings on pages fragile with age.

He had been ignoring both his own plans of world domination and his Rare Hunters for close to a fortnight, and the lack of sleep was finally beginning to affect him, clawing at his mind like a physical thing. His body needed sleep, craved the sweet release of slumber, for if he hadn't been pulling what these islanders called an 'all-nighter', he had been tossing and turning fitfully, brain rolling plans and ideas over and over in his head.

To be frank, he was obsessed; obsessed with revenge. The idea clouded his mind and drove him ever onward, it pushed him farther that even he thought he could have gone. And still he searched; and still, he found nothing. Nothing was exactly right for his purposes, nothing had that sort of flair that he was known for. The ideas for vengeance these books presented (or accounted, as the case may be) were too simple, too inelegant. He needed something that positively reeked of maliciousness and evil.

He needed something that would break a soul and sever the ties of the god-forsaken per-aa's friendship with those brats of his forever. [1]

And nothing, absolutely nothing in these would do. Cursing in fluent Egyptian, Malik angrily swept his hands through the documents scattered across the old oak desk, disturbing and disorganizing papers as they fell haphazardly onto the floor. In a fit of rage, he clutched the book he had been studying and threw it across the room at a bookshelf, uncaring of the ancient artifact's well being. The book hit the shelf with a resounding thump, then fell ungracefully to the floor, pages ruffling in irritation.

The room fell silent once again, and with an angry sigh Malik dropped himself into his comfortable office chair, limbs splaying ungracefully. What was he going to do? There was nothing, in all those books, that he could work with. He had checked them all through time and again. The knowledge that spanned centuries, his family's knowledge that he had always taken great pride in, had failed him. The blonde reached up and rubbed his blurry eyes wearily.

Thump.

Purple eyes blinked and grew understandably wary. He had given explicit instructions not to be disturbed whatever the reason, even if both the High Priest and the per-aa suddenly showed up at his door, completely naked and offering him their Kami no Cards for free-- although he imagined that particular scenario was highly unlikely, but amusing. He knew his Rare Hunters would not dare to disobey him, so the question was-- who had disturbed the room?

Whoever it was, they were going to see their own blood before their eyes before he was through with them. Perhaps it was time he engaged in a bit of stress relief, Malik mused darkly.

He stood, all of his usual inherent grace restored to him at the completion of his unnatural fit of anger, and carefully searched the room. When he was finished, however, he had found nothing-- no Rare Hunter cowering in the face of his sleep-deprived irritation, no enemy spy concealed in the shadows. There was not a single presence in the place besides his exalted self.

What, then, had made that sound?

Inexplicably, his violet gaze was drawn towards the corner near his desk, where the manuscript he had thrown now lay quietly. Now that he thought about it, the noise had been rather close at hand...

On the floor lay two books. Malik felt one eyebrow rise in surprise, and darted a glance towards the bookshelves behind the fallen tomes. Indeed, there was a spot missing for the toppled book. Damnit. He had been hoping for a bit of blood and mutilation to brighten up his dreary day. There went that plan.

Eye narrowed at the false hope he had harbored, the blond ambled across the room, stopping in front of the small pile of books. He glared suspiciously at the 'other' book for a moment, cursed inventively (something involving a misbegotten son of a dung beetle and a certain pharaoh), and then cautiously picked up the book-- one never could tell with these older books. Some of them had yet to be de-contaminated of the lingering traces of malignant spells.

When nothing outright happened at his touch (he heaved a purely mental sigh when his past experience of being electrocuted wasn't repeated; once had been quite enough for him), he lifted the book for his inspection, running his hands cautiously over the worn cover. Books didn't just fall off of shelves all of sudden, a good half a minute after anything had hit then. Especially-- he lined the tome up with the hole in the line of books it had vacated-- when the book was so tightly packed in as to resemble a sardine.

Malik 'hmm'ed and brought the book back to himself, running a casual eye over the faded words that graced the cover.

'Kemet: Spells and Summonings'. [2] A lone blonde eyebrow rose at the words. Dark Magic? How had this escaped his notice before? He had made sure to cover every inch of the libraries his family held. And yet here was undeniable proof that he had not done as he thought he had done. Malik scowled darkly, annoyed at his own incompetence. He expected such behavior out of his Rare Hunters, but from himself it was a disgrace.

Malik was not happy. But, perhaps... he would be? His mind finished the thought as a question, and he redirected his attention back to the book lying docilely in his darkly tanned hands, sliding a finger under the worn cover and slowly slipping it open. He was amazed at how smoothly it did so, and even more amazed at what he found inside.

Every other book he had researched on his required subject had been old, faded and worn, the words a challenge to make out properly. The cover of this particular one had been as worn as any of the others, if not more so, but...

The book was written entirely in hieroglyphs, as he had expected from a book of his native country. And, though he knew anything in this particular section of the library had to be two thousand years old or more, the word-pictures were so bright and crisp that it seemed they had only been etched onto the pages hours ago. Malik ran a tanned finger smoothly across the presented images, and imagined he could feel the realities and shapes of the various objects on the papyrus-- though of course the sensation was only in his mind.

And then he dropped the book in disgust; if such a waste of magic had been used to preserve the actual text, then the spells would be the next thing up from useless. It was the creating sorcerer's job to infuse each spell he wrote with a bit of magic to make it work, but if all the magic was used to make the book look pretty, then there would be none left to aid the actual spells. Only an apprentice mage would do something so utterly stupid.

Unless, of course-- he paused, eyes once again drawn to the book, which had fallen open to a random page when he had dropped it-- the sorcerer was so powerful that he could afford to waste magic on theatrics, in which case...

Malik smiled, and it was not a nice smile. Once again he leaned down and picked up the volume, eyes instantly alighting on the first spell it had fallen open to, and he blanched. A love potion? What kind of dark magic was a love potion? Perhaps he had been correct in his assessment of the tome's creator the first time, after all. He began to read...

And Malik laughed, in utter delight. It was perfect!

It took him the better part of a week, but he managed to gather the ingredients needed for the spell together. Strange though it may seem, he only had to look at the list once to know explicitly everything that was on it; it was almost like the book was whispering to him, telling him what he needed. Helping him. The hardest item to find on the list, by far, was the single human heart, but he eventually managed.

His Rare Hunters began to fear being summoned to the study that had become his miniature dungeon after that particular incident; the screams had echoed in the halls for a full half hour, though not a single soul came to check on him. His minions were smarter that he had originally thought.

The rest of the week was spent on the process of actually concoction the solution, which was difficult and very involved. He pored over the words inscribed in the book whenever possible, checking and double checking his work time and again, making sure he did everything down to the last second. He wanted to make the pharaoh pay, and pay dearly.

Finally, finally, it was finished, and he allowed himself a small, satisfied smirk as he watched the potion steep in the container he had used. In a few hours times it would be completely ready, and then he would make his move.

But, Malik wondered, how to use it? And-- more puzzling yet-- who to use it on? One of per-aa's friends of course, but, specifically, which one? He would have to think about it a bit; the Egyptian wanted this plan to have the best effect it possibly could, and for that, he needed to think it through. He couldn't afford to mess this up.

Two days later, once his Rare Hunters had begun to stop cowering and sniveling so reverently (though they always stood in awe of him, by nature of who he was), as he was walking down the street, Malik spotted something bright and disgustingly neon pink fluttering against a telephone pole. Interested, he crossed the rode, unheeding of any oncoming cars, and scanned the words that lined the page. His face twisted into a picture of maniac glee as he read the flyer, and when he was done, he ripped the page off of the pole and folded it, stuffing it into a pocket to peruse for later planning.

Seto Kaiba was holding a Battle City convention soon, open to any participating duelists and one friend each. Malik knew that the pharaoh would be there without a doubt, his little cheerleading squad tagging along for the ride. It was the perfect opportunity, and just what Malik had been looking for. He wasn't one to ignore when opportunity knocked. In fact, he liked to make his own chances.

Soon, the pharaoh would fall, and Malik would make sure to be there to kick viciously at his broken pieces.

[1] - Per-aa - I believe this is the word used in Egyptian to refer to the pharaoh. It means something like 'great house' and usually meant the one who dwelled in the great house, the pharaoh.

[2] - Kemet - I also believe this is what the Egyptians actually called Egypt, but I could be wrong on both of these points. Fun fact: Did you know that the Egyptians referred to themselves as the 'Children of the Sun'?

*grins* So, what did you think? Is that a convincing enough Malik for ya? Sorry if it's not, but I've only seen a few episodes with him in it...

Anyway, the rest of the cast should be coming in the next chapter or so, and that's when the plot really begins to get started, so stay tuned, everyone, and please remember: every author loves C&C, especially to make his/her fic better!

Push the little purple button! *pokes* ^.^;