This story was made by my friends Dan "Maximus" Vetrano and Matt "Spade" Hall. Neither them nor I owns Yu-gi-oh.
Chapter 1: The Challenge
The final match of the World Duel Monsters Championships was about to begin. It came as no surprise to anyone that the final match pitted the two top ranked duelists in the world against each other, Yugi Moto versus his archrival Seto Kaiba. For three long years Kaiba had been waiting for this day, a chance to finally defeat Yugi and reclaim his title as the #1 duelist in the world. Ever since that fateful duel when Yugi assembled the mighty Exodia and handed Kaiba his first defeat ever, Kaiba had been waiting for an opportunity to even the score. Many times in the past he had fought fiercely against his foe, but somehow Yugi always prevailed. Kaiba was determined not to fall again. As he and Yugi stepped into the arena for the finals the look on Kaiba's face was one of true determination. This time he wanted victory more than he had ever had before. As was the case for all of their previous duels, Yugi remained confident in his power to defeat Kaiba. He had all of his friends cheering him from the sidelines. Although the Millennium Puzzle that used to hang around Yugi's neck had been destroyed some 6 months ago, hr could still feel the presence of The Pharaoh inside of him. The two contestants took their places on opposite sides of the arena, presented each others deck to be shuffled and cut by the referee and waited for the coin toss. Yugi called tails, and lost. Kaiba elected to go first in the duel. With that both players had their life points set to 4000 and drew 5 cards.
"It's time for you to finally taste defeat Yugi." the arrogant as always Kaiba blared to his opponent. "I'll start by placing two cards face down and summoning Vorce Raider in Attack Mode!!!" "Go Ahead."
Yugi confidently drew his sixth card. Unfortunately nothing in his hand could defeat Vorce Raider. Kaiba's Monster had 1900 Attack Points.
"I'll place one card face down, and set one monster in defense mode and end my turn."
With that Kaiba drew his next card. As he looked at it the smile on his face began to grow.
"Now to let the pain commence Yugi! You should have known that sooner or later your little 'Heart of the Cards' speeches and your luck would run out and my superior skill and deck would prevail."
"Enough Kaiba!!" retorted the champion. "After all this time do you still not believe in putting your heart into your cards?"
"For the last time Yugi, I'm sick of your speeches!!" Kaiba told Yugi. "Now I'll summon Spear Dragon in Attack Mode. And just for added measure, I'll equip my dragon with this!! The Black Pendant, raising it's attack power from 1900 to 2400" Now Spear Dragon, Attack with Cyclone Blast"
At this command Kaiba's Dragon opened its mouth and released a swirling ball of wind directly at Yugi's face-down monster. Upon impact the monster was revealed to be Giant Soldier of Stone, with a Defense rating of 2000. Yugi's soldier withstood the blast as best he could but ultimately was destroyed by it. Yugi's life points then dropped down to 3600 due to Spear Dragon's ability to inflict damage to life points even by destroying monsters in defense mode. Kaiba chuckled gleefully at this sight.
"Ha Ha Ha!!" The cocky challenger laughed. "And that was only the beginning. Now Vorce Raider attack his life points directly!!"
With this, Vorce Raider threw his axe at Yugi and connected sending a shock down his body as well as the bodies of the crowd of 25,000 packed into the stadium watching this shocking duel. Only two turns in and Yugi was down to 1700 Life points while Kaiba still had all 4000 of his.
"Come on Yugi!! You can do it" Shouted Tea Gardner from the stands.
Cheering was all she could do at this point and she knew Yugi would need all the support he could get right now.
"Yeah Yug!! Turn this around like always and whoop 'Rich-Boy' over there!" Joey Wheeler yelled out in support of his friend.
At this point Yugi could feel the power from his friends flowing from inside of him. He needed to pull another of his famed "Heart of the Cards" moments in his draw and he did.
"You still don't believe in the Heart of the Cards Kaiba??" Then how do you explain this? I activate Dark Magic Curtain! At the cost of half of my Life Points, I can Special Summon any Dark Magician from my Deck. And I chose Dark Magician Girl!"
As Yugi's Life Points dropped down to 850 a black curtain appeared on his side of the field. It rose up and quickly dropped down disappearing. When it was gone, there stood Dark Magician Girl. At 2000 Attack points she could easily defeat Kaiba's Vorce Raider or Spear Dragon, since it had switched to defense mode after it had attacked. But Yugi wasn't done yet.
"Now I play my face-down card, Sage's Stone." Since I have out a Dark Magician Girl this will allow me to summon Dark Magician."
Now things got interesting for now a magical circle appeared on the ground beneath Dark Magician Girl and Dark Magician sprang up from within the circle and stood beside Dark Magician Girl.
"Dark Magician, attack his Vorce Raider, Dark Magic Attack!!!"
Yugi's Dark Magician pointed his staff at Kaiba's Vorce Raider and released a burst of energy towards him. Vorce Raider was destroyed instantly on impact causing Kaiba to lose 600 life points. Yugi then ordered Dark Magician Girl to attack Spear Dragon. She defeated it easily but by doing so destroyed Kaiba's Black Pendant causing Yugi to lose another 500 life points, leaving him with only 350 remaining, to Kaiba's 3400. But with his two strong monsters on the field, Yugi felt he had hope.
"This Duel is far from over Kaiba." Yugi confidently told his opponent.
The crowd roared in approval. Soon a chant of "Yugi-Yugi-Yugi" broke out. This started to anger Kaiba even more.
"Arrrrrrrrgh, That's it Yugi!! You're going down, RIGHT NOW!!!" "My move! I activate Premature Burial. By paying 800 life points I can revive my Vorce Raider. Next I activate the magic card Cost Down. By discarding Lord of Dragons from my hand I downgrade all monsters in my hand by two stars. Allowing me to sacrifice Vorce Raider to summon forth my Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!!!!"
And the mighty dragon emerged forth from onto the field and roared with all its ferocity.
"Blue-Eyes attack his Dark Magician with White Lightning!!"
Kaiba's Dragon reared its head back and released a burst of lightening at Yugi's Dark Magician. Dark Magician tried to resist the force of the blast but to no avail. Dark Magician was destroyed. Yugi's life points dropped down to zero, and at once all of the monsters on the playing field were gone as the holographic projectors turned off.
"The winner and NEW world Duel Monsters Champion, Seto Kaiba!" Came the voice over the public address system.
As the two contestants descended from their respective playing stations of the dueling platform the crowd fell silent. Joey, Tea, and Tristan all ran over to Yugi in order to console him. No one expected Yugi to lose so easily to his arch nemesis in the Finals. Only the voice of the new champion broke the awkward silence. He took a microphone and began a tirade against Yugi.
"Yugi!!! At long last your reign is over and I am once again the best duelist in the world. I have beaten you at last!! All your talk about 'The Heart of the Cards couldn't save you today. It takes skill to win at this game, and powerful monsters in your deck. And I have both and you and everyone else here knows it. I am Seto Kaiba and there is no one that is superior to me."
For about 10 seconds there was once again complete silence in the arena. Then out of nowhere there emerged the sound of applause. Not a roaring standing ovation type of cheer, but rather the sound of one person clapping his hands methodically. The clapping grew louder and louder until there emerged on the arena floor a single man clapping his hands. He was fairly tall and appeared to be muscular despite his slightly heavy physique. He was dressed in a black double breasted P-Coat and jeans. He also had sunglasses on. As he approached the center of the arena he began to speak.
"Impressive win there Seto my boy" He said very non-chalantly as if he did not have a care in the world. "A bit rough around the edges but still impressive nonetheless. Although there was one very big problem with your performance. You see all I hear from you is how much you think 'This game is all about power.' Well I hate to tell you this but with that kind of attitude you'll never be a true champion. I tell you what, tomorrow night at around 7 O'clock head over to a place called Game Sanctuary. It's about 10 miles east of here, and I'll show you just how pathetic you really are. My Card"
The man then handed to Kaiba a business card. He then approached Yugi and gave him a business card as well.
"You can come as well. I and my associates have some things you might enjoy seeing."
Once he had done this, the man turned around and proceeded to leave the arena. Kaiba became enraged at the thought of some upstart challenging him to a duel.
"Do you know who you are messing with mister? I am Seto Kaiba! I am the World Champion. Who do you think you are to dare challenge me to a duel!!?"
The mystery man stopped, but he remained silent.
Kaiba shouted again at the man "Who are you? Answer Me!!!!!"
The man then turned his head slightly and said one word in response: "Horus."
He then continued on his way out of the arena. At this point Kaiba was too furious to even think about his victory. All he wanted to do was to find this man named Horus and defeat him and silence him for good.
Kaiba did not bother to look at the card, but Yugi did. He showed it to the gang. It seemed ordinary enough. It showed three men standing next to each other; Horus appeared in the center and two others at his sides. In the background was a Celtic cross. When the card got around to Tea, her eyes glazed over with shock. She looked as though she had seen a ghost. Her eyes remained transfixed on the words beneath the three men.
"The Saints"