Still on the Yu-Gi-Oh thing. I've also been rewatching Stargate. And thus, this was born. Hopefully it actually makes sense, unlike most of the Yu-Gi-Oh/Stargate crossovers I've read.
Daniel watched the card game from his spot in the shadows in his spirit form. Things were far worse than he assumed when the Others had given him this mission. He was to find and rescue an Ascended Being somewhere in Japan, who had been trapped in some sort of ancient Egyptian artifact. This creature, who was known primarily as the Pharaoh (Daniel was fairly certain he had a name, but he couldn't really remember it), had been lost sometime between three thousand and five thousand years ago. Recently the Pharaoh had been reawakened. The signal the Others had picked up from him led straight to Domino City, Japan.
Daniel easily found the Pharaoh, but the problem was that he had no idea how to free him. He was trapped inside an artifact called the Millennium Puzzle. Daniel had never heard of it before, but from what he could tell it wasn't any Goa'uld technology. The Puzzle was in the hands of a goth Japanese teenager, whose name was Yuugi. The kid was shorter than most his age, not counting his spiked tri-colored hair (black with red highlights and blond bangs), which still would have left him a bit on the short side. Since finding him, Daniel had never seen him without the Puzzle, usually on a chain around his neck.
Daniel followed Yuugi around for the next few days, pondering the Puzzle. No matter what he did, he couldn't unlock it. It appeared that the kid had already done something toward that end, because the Pharaoh was able to leave the Puzzle for a short while. He could manifest in spirit form, and take possession of the boy's body, both with and without his knowledge. But Daniel had no idea how he'd done that.
And now, after following Yuugi around for what felt like a year, Daniel realized that there was much more going on than a trapped Ascended. There were actually at least two of them, and there was apparently some sort of conflict between them, but Daniel couldn't imagine what it was. Whatever it was though, the second one was willing to do anything to win whatever game it was they were playing. Even if it meant causing harm to mortals.
That second Ascended was ruthless. He was trapped too, in a pendant similar to the Yuugi's Millennium Puzzle. Daniel had seen him take possession of the white-haired boy who wore the artifact (Daniel hadn't gotten a first name, but he responded to Bakura), without his knowledge. He suspected the Ascended had actually injured the boy while in possession of his body, and that was confirmed during one of the "duels" he engaged in with Yuugi.
The "duels" were actually card games, and Daniel was surprised, and a little shocked, by how seriously these kids took them. It was as if the fate of the very world depended on the outcome of each game. He was even more surprised by the fact that the Pharaoh, and the other Ascended, took them just as seriously, if not even more so. Daniel hadn't yet figured out the rules to the game, but the interesting part was the hologram projections. The player wore a device on their left arm, which threw holograms surrounded by a weak force-field onto a playing field. Daniel was impressed, and doubly so when he found out the man who created them wasn't much older than the kid who held the Millennium Puzzle.
The game Daniel was watching now was between the white-haired boy, the Ascended in control, and a blond Egyptian teenager named Marik. Daniel felt sorry for this kid. Apparently he had a split personality, and the second one was currently in control. This one was as cruel as the second Ascended, maybe even crueler. He wondered what could have happened in Marik's past to cause such an extreme split. The original personality, though misguided and largely influenced by the second, was overall a good person.
Daniel started out of his thoughts when he and the game players were suddenly surrounded by purple fog. Somehow, the game had been taken to the threshold of a separate dimension. He looked to Bakura, but the Ascended being possessing him looked just as confused as he was. So, not him then. But who? The only creature Daniel could think of that could even travel across the different planes of existence was the Ascended, and he was fairly certain he hadn't done it.
He inched closer to the game, noting the confident, if slightly insane look on the Egyptian's face. Well, at least someone had an idea of what was happening. As Daniel got closer, he noticed a second figure standing near the other Ascended. It was just an inch or two taller than him, with light hair and golden skin.
Daniel had just realized what that figure was when the Egyptian looked right through him. "I know what you're here for." Despite himself, Daniel shuddered at that voice. There was something familiar about it, the way it seemed to echo in his mind. But he couldn't place it. The white-haired Ascended started talking.
"Before we start, someone would like to have a word with you."
Daniel started. Could the other Ascended see him, even while using a mortal's eyes? He'd never taken possession of anyone before, so he wasn't sure if he retained the power to see other Ascended. But Bakura wasn't referring to him. It was the shadowy figure of the good Marik that spoke. He pointed a furious finger at the evil Marik and took a step forward, although he didn't go far from his white-haired friend.
"Get out of my head, you friggin' bodysnatcher!" the teenager shouted, a bit over-dramatically, Daniel thought.
"Ha!" the second personality laughed. "Fat chance."
Daniel quickly lost interest as the game went on, as he usually did. The players were always melodramatic, as if the loss of a card game meant the end of their lives. While they played, Daniel allowed himself to get lost in his thoughts. Mostly he thought about the SGC. If he regretted anything from his death, it was not being able to see his friends on SG-1. He missed going through the Stargate and learning about alien cultures. Of course, being Ascended he could still learn all he wanted about as many alien cultures as he wanted without Jack breathing down his neck about something that was supposedly more important, but it wasn't quite the same.
A small explosion near Bakura's arm yanked him out of his thoughts. Strange. Those duel disk things the kids used to play their card games didn't normally do that. Bakura was lucky he wasn't hurt.
On the other side of the playing field, a giant gold monster appeared behind Marik's second personality. Its head reminded Daniel of the headdresses Ra's Jaffa wore, and its wings appeared to be feathered. It looked almost like an oversized chicken. Evil Marik gave an insane laugh, causing his entire body to shake. Then, the surrounding fog started to pull him in.
"Well, that's not good," Daniel muttered. The Egyptian teenager's body was dissolving into the shadows, tendrils wafting away like smoke, until there was nothing left of him except his left eye and arm. And yet, that crazy laugh still hung in the air. And then Daniel noticed him, sitting on the Ra-dragon's shoulders, still laughing like a maniac.
The dragon leaped into the air, its beak opened wide. A ball of fire sparked in the back of its throat as it roared, and then the fireball shot at Bakura. Fortunately it was just a hologram, so the white-haired boy wasn't hurt, but Marik's first personality took the brunt of it. Daniel looked closer.
The attack was actually on two planes. There was the hologram, but there was another, the flames glowing an odd purple, that was meant for the good Marik. The boy's shirt disintegrated as he was engulfed in fire, and Daniel watched as the shadows pulled him in. "Really not good," Daniel muttered.
More insane laughter as Bakura's life points ticked down to zero, and now he was disappearing into shadows just as Marik's evil personality had. Now, Daniel was left with a choice, that was really no choice at all. The Others would have him remain, free the Pharoah, and leave the other two behind. To rescue them would be interfering, and that was against the rules.
Screw the rules.
As Marik's dark side rematerialized himself, Daniel slipped away through the shadows.