Yu-Gi-Oh: Shining Destiny
Author's Notes: Thank you all for reading my latest attempt at fan fiction. Hopefully, this story will be many firsts for me. It will be my first Yu-Gi-Oh fan fiction, my first attempt at writing duel monsters duels, and my first non-romance piece.
A few notes on the story structure and dueling system: This story takes place around fifty years after the events that occurred in both Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GX. All characters that are taken from both series do not belong to me. All cards belong to the creators of the Yu-Gi-Oh dueling cards, except for those I create.
As for the dueling system, just like in real duels, both duelists will start out with 8,000 LP. Tributes must be made for higher level monsters. However, monsters may be placed in face-up defense mode.
As the rain continued to pound outside of the school building, many of the students inside had taken to different activities during their inside recess. Some were working on puzzles or playing board games, a few were drawing, while some had decided on just sitting on the floor and talking, but the majority of the class had all decided on their favorite past-time, playing Duel Monsters.
The year was 2086, around fifty years after Maxamillion Pegasus' creation of the game and it was as strong as ever. Over the course of those years the popularity of the game had only decreased once, in the 2040's, when many of the top duelists of the world passed away, leaving many people uninterested in the game. This, however, was quickly resolved when Anthony Claremont took over as head of Industrial Illusions. No one was surprised by Claremont's new position in the company, as Pegasus had made the announcement many years before passing away. After the death's of both Yugi Moto and Seto Kaiba, Pegasus knew his time was coming soon, and so he sent out a challenge to anyone that wished to take over his company after he died. The contestants were asked to do two things in order to win his position, first were to create ten new cards, each one following a strict set of guidelines, and secondly, they must have used those cards in a functioning deck and beat the other competitors in a winner-take-all tournament.
Not only did Claremont sweep the tournament that year, but he also did it using a toon deck, one he said that he had been working on for years. After the tournament, Pegasus collected the cards that were created by the competitors and had them sealed away, in case they were ever needed again. Anthony was then named standing President of Industrial Illusions and would become President whenever Pegasus passed away.
After taking control, Claremont's began churning out new cards that revolutionized the dueling world with new rules and effects that kept all the duelist on their toes, but his major achievement were the tournaments he held annually. No one knew how he chose the competitors for each tournament, but each year the line-up would be a mix of no names and big shots in the dueling world, with prizes that rivaled any other competition. All of this information, however, was well-known to the children who were dueling right now.
Out of all those children who were dueling, none of them seemed more into it then the two dueling in one of the corners. One of the female and the other male, both looked at the cards in their hands and on the field in complete contemplation. The girl was sixteen years old, with brown eyes and dark, red hair. She was rather thin, and wore a blue T-Shirt and jeans.
The guy was sixteen as well, with brown eyes and short brown hair. He wore a black T-shirt and khaki pants.
So far, the duel was not looking good for the girl, her LP stood at 1,700 while the boys was at 5,900. On the girls side of the field was one face-down monster card she had just tributed out and two face-down cards with two cards in her hand. The boy had Super-Electromagnetic Voltech Dragon that he brought out lat turn with his battery man AA (3400/1000) as well all three of his Batteryman AA, one he brought back last turn with his Call of the Haunted (3000/0000 x3), he also had one face-down and Call of the Haunted in his magic and trap zone and three cards in his hand, and unfortunately, it was his turn.
Drawing his card, he smirked a bit as he looked at the girl. "So, Bethany, any chance of you just forfeiting right now and saving yourself the damage your about to take?" he asked, waving his new card in front of her. Bethany glared at him for a moment and stuck her tongue out, signaling her answer. "Fine fine, then I guess I'll have my Batteryman attack your face-down."
Bethany's glare turned into a smirk as she flipped over her card, revealing a Millennium Shield (0000/3000). "Sorry Josh, looks like my shield is just as strong as your little sparker" Bethany said, waving her hand at Josh. Josh glared for a moment before regaining his composure.
"Whatever, it just means you'll lose by a little less. I'll have my dragon attack your shield and destroy it." Bethany smiled again as she flipped over her two face-downs.
"I'll activate my Castle Walls trap card and strengthen my shields defense by 500 points, and then I'll chain it to my Continuous Destruction Punch, meaning that not only do you lose life points, but your dragons destroyed in the process.
Bethany: 1,700 LP
Josh: 5,800 LP
Josh shrugged as he placed his dragon in the graveyard and waved at Bethany, signaling the end of his turn. Drawing her next card, Bethany smiled as she saw which one it was. "I'm guessing you just drew your favorite monster." he said, raising his eyebrow.
"Yep" replied Bethany, "but I don't think I'll summon him now."
"More like you can't summon him now" corrected Josh.
"Whatever, it's not like I need him anyway, I can still win with my other cards. First, I'll remove six of my rock-type monsters from play to summon my Megarock Dragon (4200/4200)" she said as she took six of her monster cards and placed them off to the side, "then I'll summon my Lost Guardian in defense mode, and thanks to my Megarock Dragon, his defense is unbeatable! (100/4200)"
Josh merely shrugged again as he waited for Bethany to continue her turn. Seeing the boredom in his face, she quickly became angry, "fine then, I'll have my dragon destroy one of your Batterymen!"
Bethany: 1,700 LP
Josh: 4,600 LP
Josh nodded as he placed one of his Batterymen in the graveyard. "And now your other two Batterymen are weakened thanks to their missing comrade." Bethany pointed out (3000/0000) (2000/0000)
"So now what are you going to do" she asked as she ended her turn. Drawing his next card, Josh let out a small laugh.
"Well, since you called out your heavy hitters, I guess it's about time for me to get serious. I'll summon out Freed the Brave Wanderer (1700/1200)." Bethany let out a small gulp, as she knew quite well what his effect was.
"And now, per his effect, I'll remove my Voltech Dragon and Batteryman from play to destroy your dragon." Josh said, as he removed the two cards from his graveyard, "and since that monster was a NOMI, I don't expect to see it for the rest of the duel." Bethany glared at Josh as she removed her dragon from the field and began her next turn.
Looking at her latest card, her glare was once again replaced by a smile. "I'll move both my Guardian and my Shield into attack position, and then I'll play my Shield and Sword magic card!" Josh raised his eyebrow as his Wanderers stats were flipped around (1700/1200) (1200/1700), while both of Bethany's monsters were increased in power thanks to the swap (0000/3000) (3000/0000) (100/4200) (4200/100).
"And now, I'll have my Shield attack your Wanderer!" Bethany said. Her victory, however, was short-lived, as Josh flipped over his face-down and revealed it to be a Negate Attack. Looking at the cards in her hand one more time, Bethany looked up at Josh. "I..end my turn."
Josh smiled a little as he drew his next card. "I know this is overkill, but I can't resist. I play my Luminous Spark field card to give each of my monsters a small boost." Bethany let out a small yelp as each of Josh's monster's were powered up further. (2000/0000 x2) (2500/0000 x2) (1700/1200) (2200/800).
"And now, I'll have my monsters attack yours, which will win me the game." Josh concluded, a full-blown smirk on his face as he collected his cards.
"Fine fine, you won this time, but I'll win the next round." Bethany said, only getting angrier when Josh merely waved his hand at her and walked off to join another group. After collection her cards, Bethany walked over to a desk were another young girl was sitting. This girl, like Bethany, had brown eyes, although her hair was blonde and her body was more matured then Bethany's. Wearing a red shirt and jeans, she was currently looking through her deck, until Bethany tapped on her shoulder.
Looking up, the girl saw the expression on Bethany's face. "So I'm guessing you lost again" said the girl.
"Yep, and this time I was really close too" Bethany replied, pulling a chair up to the girl's desk and taking a seat.
"Well. If it makes you feel any better, I've never beaten him either" said the girl, laying her deck on the desk.
"Tara. That's not really helping the fact that this is the twenty-seventh time he's beaten me this year." whined Bethany.
"I'm sorry, but seriously, maybe it's your deck. I mean, it is constructed rather differently" said Tara.
"What do you mean by that" asked Bethany, sounding somewhat offended.
"Think about it this way: out of all the cards in your deck, over one-fourth of them are devoted to bringing out your favorite monster" answered Tara.
"And?" asked Bethany, sounding impatient.
"And the other cards are focused around a total-defense strategy" finished Tara.
"So? The total-defense strategy has been in my family for generations" answered Bethany.
"And that would be fine if your favorite card was Exxod, Master of the Guard; but your deck strategy and favorite card have nothing in common. As I see it, you either need to create a new deck or drop your favorite card from your current deck."
Bethany pulled out her deck and began leafing through it, pulling out one particular card. "Maybe your right, maybe this card is more trouble then it's worth" she said as she placed the card back into the deck.
"But hey, don't worry about it. I know! Why don't we go to the card shop after school and see what kind of cards they have for your deck" offered Tara. Bethany though for a moment before nodding her head at Tara's proposal.
By the time classes were out, the rain had stopped for the most part, with only a light mist falling down. Making their way out of the school, the two girls walked down the block and into town, until they were in front of a small store that read "Game Palace." Inside the store, tables with duel mats on them filled most of the area, with pictures of every kind of duel monster were plastered on the wall. Against the back wall stood a glass counter that had numerous binders on top of it and hundreds of loose cards inside the case.
At the sound of the door opening, a man in his late 40's walked into the main area through a door that lead into the back carrying a small box in his hands. Looking rather old, he had a thinning hairline that was pure grey and pair of thick glasses on. He wore a light green turtleneck sweater and a pair of khakis.
"Ah, girls," the man said, putting the box on the counter and picking up an envelope that lay on top of it, "I'm glad you came, I was just about to call your houses."
"What for Mr. Villar?" asked Tara. At that moment, the store's door opened up again as Josh made his way inside the store, looking somewhat surprised to see Bethany and Tara already there.
"Ah, even better! This will save me so much time" Mr. Villar said, making his way from behind the counter, "I got the most interesting letter today, and it concerns all of you."
Pulling a piece of paper out of the envelope, he quickly scanned over it before handing it to Tara to read aloud.
"Allan Villar, I Anthony Claremont wish to congratulate you for owning one of the one-hundred stores in the world that we have chosen to participate in the latest tournament to celebrate to release of our latest series, Shining Destiny. As owner of this store, you must select the three top duelists from your store to fly to Duelist's Island to participate in the upcoming tournament. Travel expenses and lodging fees will be paid for, and the prize for winning this tournament will be a cash prize of five-hundred thousand dollars to the store that sponsored the winning duelist, as well as a mystery prize for the duelist that wins. The tournament will begin in two weeks, so I wish both you and your chosen duelists the best of luck. Sincerely, Anthony Claremont."
The three duelists stared at the paper for a few more seconds, making sure they read it correctly.
"So, let me get this straight," started Josh, "Claremont is sponsoring a huge tournament, and you've decided to chose us three as your top duelists?"
"That's right!" responded Mr. Villar, "you three have placed top honors in each tournament I've held here at the store, so it's natural to send you all to complete for the gold!"
Suddenly, Mr. Villar snapped his fingers together as he walked behind the counter again. "I almost forgot, along with that letter I received a box of booster packs for the Shining Destiny series," he said as he opened the box, showing the three it's contents, "if you all want to, you can see if there are any cards you want to add to your deck."
Bethany and Tara took out their decks and began to leaf through them, seeing which cards they could do without. Josh, on the other hand, took out his deck and placed it on the counter as Mr. Villar gave him a strange look.
"The reason I came in here in the first place was to trade in all the cards in my current deck. My Electo-static deck has become too boring to play and I finally decided on a deck style that would always keep the game interesting."
Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and handed it to Mr. Villar.
"These are the cards I'll need for my new deck. It's short a few, so I'll see what the new packs have to make my deck game-worthy."
At the mention of a new deck, Bethany began to look at her deck again. What Tara had said was true, her deck was a mixture of her favorite card and her families strategy. As of right now, she could beat the average duelist in her town, but if she were to go up against the top duelists in the world, there's no chance she could win.
"What's wrong?" asked Tara, "thinking of redoing your deck too?"
"Yeah," replied Bethany, "I'm just not sure which direction to go in. What about you and your deck?"
Tara shook her head, "my decks strategy was created by my grandmother and won her countless numbers of duels, and luckily for me, her favorite monster turned out to be my favorite monster as well."
Bethany nodded in agreement as she pulled out her favorite card again, "guess it's time for me to decide."
Duelist Island
A man in his 30's sat in a large armchair, dressed in an expensive looking red suit. His black hair was tied back, reaching the bottom of his back. Looking through a book of names, he looked up as a man in a black suit entered the room.
"Mr. Claremont sir, it's been confirmed that each of the stores that was selected has received their invitation, and many of them have already sent in the names of those they are sending."
Giving out a small chuckle, Claremont placed the book on a nearby table before placing his hands on his lap. "Excellent, it looks like this tournament will turn out like I expected."
"There's more sir. Apparently, after reading about the large prize amount, many of the stores went out and hired professional duelists to duel for them."
Claremont chuckled again, "even better, this will ensure that this tournament will help me acquire just what I'm looking for."
Bethany at on her bed, her current deck and hundreds of other cards sprawled all around her.
"Alright, if I chose to keep my favorite card, I can use this style of deck, but if I keep with family tradition, I can add these cards. The problem is choosing which style of deck to use."
Looking through the cards one last time, Bethany let out a large sigh before reaching over to her nightstand and grabbing a coin.
"Alright, heads I keep my favorite card, tails I keep the family deck style."
Holding the coin in her hand for a few more seconds, she threw it in the air, letting in land on the bed before looking at it.
"Alright then, looks like this is it."
That's it for the first chapter! In the next chapter: Bethany, Tara and Josh make it to Duelists Island and find out just what the rules for this tournament are. We'll also get to see Claremont in a demonstration duel, all in the next chapter, "A New Twist"
As a side note, this will probably end up being a chapter-a-week story, but right now I need help deciding on something. I'm not sure whether I want to incorporate the deck master style into this tournament. Please review this chapter and say whether or not it would be a good idea to add this in. I'm also in need of a beta-reader for this story, for if anyone's interested, please add that into your review as well, Thanks!