A/N: After Kaiba Corp. cracks the secret to time travel, the world of Duel Monsters is changed forever. Duelists now use the most modern cards and decks for maximum potential, but there is one catch to which all Advanced players must succumb: Industrial Illusions' Ban List. As a dark power rises, Yugi is reunited with Yami one final time to save the world from total destruction! Enjoy!
A Whole New Realm
Chapter One: The List
"Yugi, get up! It's ten o'clock in the morning and your old man needs your help," Solomon said, banging the door with his fist to get his grandson's attention.
"Oh, Grandpa, can I have five more minutes?" Yugi pleaded, pulling the covers over his head to avoid the rays of sunlight peaking behind his window's curtain.
"Yugi, if you stayed up on Dueling Network last night without my permission again . . . you'll be grounded and won't be in any more tournaments for months to come!"
"NO! I'll be right there!" Yugi leaped out of bed, swung open the curtain and rushed to the door. His grandfather stood with a tray of food: a classic American breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast accompanied with a glass of orange juice.
"Just kidding. It's only eight-thirty" Solomon said, smiling and squinting his eyes at Yugi.
"Ugh Grandpa, that's the second time this week," Yugi said, meandering his way back to bed and crashing face first on the pillow. Solomon chuckled and set the tray of food on Yugi's night stand.
"Well, eat your breakfast and come help me organize the store. It's going to be a very busy day. Everyone is going crazy for those new Duel Monsters cards. Now hurry up – eat. We only have a half an hour before the store opens."
Reluctantly, Yugi rose from his bed once more and stared at his delicious plate for a few seconds before both his stomach and mind succumbed, forcing his hand to begin shoveling in the food with his fork. When he finally managed to look up from his half-eaten plate, he noticed his deck on the other side of the room. Yugi stopped chewing. He had forgot to set his alarm. The new ban list for Duel Monsters had already been released earlier this morning. He gobbled down the rest of his plate, haphazardly made his bed and attended to his daily chores. He had to get to Domino City Plaza before the huge mob of duelists arrived there first. Yugi just couldn't stand the crowd these days.
Ever since Kaiba Corp. cracked the secret to time travel, the city was as compact as Manhattan Island. Duelists from other time periods were walking through the streets, traffic jams occurred all day and the subway became the most prominent form of transportation. For Solomon, however, Kaiba Corp.'s breakthrough meant money - lots of it. People of the present would pile into the shop to buy the new, yet economically priced, meta-game cards from the future. Of course, selling cards was the most profitable element of the meta-game. The actual game itself would never be the same.
Duel Monsters was now forever controlled by the Industrial Illusions' ban list: a devious scheme created by Industrial Illusions' CEO Maximilian Pegasus to make more money. By banning cards or even restricting the amount of copies a duelist could run of a certain card, it guaranteed the destruction of the most popular decks of the time to make way for a "new meta-game," – the most recent meta-decks. However, not all duelists succumbed to the ban list.
When the meta-games began, duelists divided themselves into Advanced players (duelists who use no banned cards), Traditional players (those who only run one copy of a banned card) and the Unlimited players (those who do not acknowledge the limits of any cards and run multiple copies of banned cards). As the King of Games, Yugi had no choice but to change his deck to meet the requirements of the list. But today, he was quite nervous. His Spellbook of Prophecy deck was ranked at tier one along with Seto Kaiba's Dragon Ruler deck. While this may initially seem like a good thing, Yugi was certain it gave Industrial illusions just the bait it needed to destroy the deck.
After Yugi had finished his chores, he hurried to his room and dressed. After he changed, he looked at his mirror across from his bed. He felt empty inside. He was missing his millennium puzzle. He was missing Yami . . .
Yugi quickly grabbed his brush and tended to his radical hair to try to get the pharaoh out of his head. But no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to let go of Yami. They experienced so much together. Every duel they had ever fought, every time they had saved the world, every normal experience they shared together. It was all gone in an instant - just one duel. And now the only possible way of ever seeing the pharaoh again was at the bottom of an abyss.
There was a knock on the door.
"Yug! Are you in there?" A Brooklyn accented voice called from the other side of the door.
"Joey!" Yugi said. He opened the door and nearly tackled his friend over the stairs with a hug.
"Jeez! What's gotten into you, ya' big baby?" Joey said, looking for a way to get his friend to stop squeezing him. He got what he wished for, but realized he had hit the rough subject of the pharaoh's departure.
"Come on," he said. "We gotta get to Domino City Plaza now."
"Uh ye, but um, how exactly are we getting there? By the time we walk there, we'll be sweating and the crowd will be tremendous. Traffic is going to be nuts in that area and train fairs have probably hit an all time high this morning."
"Don't worry about it, Yug. I got this all under control."
"I'm sure you do," Yugi remarked with hints of skepticism and sarcasm. "Hey Grandpa! Joey and I are going to Domino City Plaza.
"Okay, well you two be careful, they're a lot of crooks in that area nowadays," Solomon warned. "Those ungrateful people from the future. No respect."
"Thanks, Grandpa."
"See ya' Gramps." Joey said.
Yugi hustled through the front door as his friend calmly followed and shut it behind him. Yugi was baffled. There sat Mai Valentine in the driver's seat of her convertible with her legs resting on the steering wheel.
"Hey boys," Mai said. "Care to hop in the car?"
Yugi looked back at Joey. "This is your plan? I told you traffic is going to be a nightmare!"
Mai let out a laugh. "Yugi, have you even met me? I know the back street of this city like no other. Trust me. We'll be there in no time."
Yugi had stopped looking at Mai from the moment she had called his name. In the back seat of the car was a girl with two pigtails, glasses and a short blue skirt. She had been staring at Yugi ever since he walked out the door and would not even think about taking her eye off of his.
"Hey, Yugi," she said, trying not to sound awkward.
"Hi, Rebecca." Yugi said as he swallowed down a lump in his throat.
"'Dis just got awkward," Joey remarked.
"Will somebody get in the damn car?" Mai yelled. Yugi quickly got in the back as Joey hopped in the shotgun seat with Mai. Not long after they were racing through the wind with nothing to stop them.
After finding a secure place to park, they settled for a five-minute walk to the plaza. On the way, Mai and Joey locked hands and began to talk about something amongst them. Yugi broke the silence between him and Rebecca so they could do more than just awkwardly glance at each other every two seconds.
"So Rebecca," he said. "What deck are you running these days?"
"Oh, I'm playing a Herald of Perfection now. I stopped running dragons because they are so overused. Besides, that's more of Kaiba's forte anyway. As you know, my first deck, shadow ghouls, is not competitive at all."
"So fairies huh? That suites you. I'm sure you kick butt with that."
"Oh please don't flatter me. I'm not nearly as good as you are with that Spellbook of Prophecy deck you use Mister King of Games."
Yugi was suddenly overwhelmed with grief again. The only reason he had become King of Games was because of Yami. Without him, there was no way he could have been strong enough to defeat any opponent in a duel, including Kaiba.
Rebecca caught onto Yugi's reaction to her statement. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine," he replied. "I'm just tired."
Unbeknown to either of them, Joey had been listening. Joey looked for a topic to shoot around the four of them when they saw the center plaza. "Hey guys, come on. Let's run. We're almost there."
It was a longer run than was expected. By the time they reached the center, the gang had started to break a sweat in the middle of a crowd of other duelists. The sun was blazing hot. There wasn't a cloud to be seen for miles
"Remind me never to listen to Joey when it comes to distances," said Mai.
"Relax, girl. Jeez." Joey said.
Yugi looked at the screens around the plaza. "That's odd."
"Huh?" the others replied in unison.
"Why isn't the list showing? It's usually on all day."
"Probably some technical difficulties," Rebecca reassured.
"Hey guys, I think Mister Trillionare is about to make a grand entrance," Mai remarked pointing to a helicopter with the quite visible letters KC making a decent – in the middle of the plaza.
"Everybody, move. INCOMING!" Joey shouted as the chopper neared. People in the crowd began to make their way out of the square while the duelists somehow managed to stay nearby. The helicopter came down with a cacophony of noise and gradually the blades rotated slower and slower. As the door opened, Kaiba emerged from the shadows into the open sun.
"Well, if it isn't the geek squad," Kaiba remarked, his white trench coat flapping in the wind underneath the ever-slowing helicopter blades.
"Just who do ya' think your calling geeks, rich boy?" Joey said.
"Well, that's obvious, isn't it?"
"Why you little . . ."
"Joey, now is not the time," Yugi said, holding back his friend.
"Ah Yugi, I didn't see you there," Kaiba remarked. "Are you ready for your cards to be banned?"
"Your deck is in jeopardy just like mine, Kaiba, and you know it. Otherwise, you wouldn't even be here."
Kaiba glared at Yugi with animosity. Deep down he knew Yugi was right, but he would never admit it. Not even if it meant his life.
"Good Morning, Duelists!" said a flamboyant voice. Soon enough Maximilian Pegasus appeared before the crowd in his usual red vest and a glass of Pinot Noir in his left hand. "I know it's a little bit early for me to be drinking wine, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Well, now that I have you all here - *ahem* Yugi Boy, Kaiba Boy -, I'd just like to remind you that you all have until this September 1st to change your deck format if you want to compete in Advanced format tournaments. Now we know we can't and probably won't satisfy every duelist out there. In fact I'm sure a lot can hurt you, but back here at Industrial Illusions we tried to do our very best to appeal to all duelists. And now, without further adieu, I present . . . the new ban list!"
What followed was apocryphal. In a flash Pegasus was gone and the list appeared on the screen.
"That bastard!" Kaiba said. Mai's jaw dropped. Rebecca stared in amazement. The crowds began to murmur.
"What kinda stunt is this?" Joey said, shaking his fist at the screen
"It's no trick Joey," Yugi said. "Pegasus has done it. He's ruined us all."
A/N: Just finished reediting these 3 chapters. What you guys think? Anybody have clue where I'm going with this? Heck, I don't even know! Please review, follow, favorite and subscribe! Love you guys.
- Triton101