The Wrong Card

The Wrong Card

I still don't own YuGiOh. I had cards, but they were stolen by mischievous kitties.

They were close, very close to victory. There was only more one card needed to end the duel and avenge the injury done to their masters.

The enemy, a boastful yet cowardly thug who did not deserve the title of duelist, had but one monster left to shield him from their anger. Cosmo Queen, a powerful monster to be sure, but power alone would not save him.

The fool had thought to assure his victory by paying others to force their masters from the tournament. The attack had been so sudden that even the shadows had no time to raise a defense. When the young master was placed in the care of the doctors repairing his broken fingers, his other self was left powerless to find and punish those responsible.

Yet in friendship is a power that burns away the darkness of greed and envy. So it was that the one called Jonouchi took his friend's deck and vowed to defeat the enemy with it. With the aid of the ring bearers, their foe was swiftly found. The shadows were summoned and the duel began.

Though Jonouchi's dueling style was wilder and more reckless than they were accustomed to, they joined their determination to his, and soon enough their leader, the favorite of the masters, was on the field.

There! The card had been drawn! The keys to victory were in Jonouchi's hand- IF-he played them in the proper order.

Thousand Knives was played. Dark Magician lashed out, destroying Cosmo Queen. Now the fool was wide open to attack. His arrogance had been replaced by stark fear as he became aware of the shadows that swarmed around them, waiting for the penalty game that would soon follow. While it would be satisfying to attack now and give back some measure of their master's pain, he would still have three hundred life points left afterward. Better to have one final power up and a decisive end to it.

So they waited in the space between seconds. Those that came to fight, and those that came to bear witness, they all waited for Jonouchi's next move.

"Rush Recklessly!" Jonouchi's voice rang out triumphantly. Dark Magician readied himself, feeling the power beginning to surge through him. Then, something went wrong.

Blinding hot pain shot through him. He put his hand to his head, then froze, feeling a mixture of horror and nausea. No! It could not be! SURELY HE LOOKED AT THE CARD BEFORE HE PLAYED IT??

Unfortunately, it was as he feared. The thief's obnoxious laughter was proof enough even without the pain. Yet the power-up had come through. The card HAD been used legally even if it was not the card announced. And now the attack was being called. For the sake of his masters he would see it through. After that, however……..

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Jonouchi had done it. He had taken down the creep who had hurt his best friend. And he had done it with Yugi's deck. Yeah, the creep had thought removing Yugi from the tournament was all he would need to win it all, so it was poetic justice that Yugi's deck had taken HIM out.

That last move had been sweet. "Good thing Yugi had added Rush Recklessly to his deck." Jonouchi thought, looking at the cards in his hand. Time Seal, Magical Hats, Rush Recklessly…..wait, what? How could the card still be in his hand? They had gotten the extra seven hundred attack points, so what card HAD he played? Then, he remembered. Yugi had ANOTHER equipment spell card, one that also gave a seven-hundred-point attack boost.

"Oh, shit!" He had barely glanced at his hand as he played the card. And it was becoming all too apparent that it had been the WRONG card!

"Jonouchi." The voice rumbling ominously in his head sounded rather lacking in understanding or forgiveness. In fact, it sounded like the voice of a monster that had just about had it with duelists who just threw random cards on the field, seemingly without looking at them.

"I don't wanna look. I don't wanna look." Of course, he looked.

The irate gleam in the spellcaster's eyes COULD have been a product of his guilty imagination, but Jonouchi knew better. He was sure it had a lot more to do with the Horn Of The Unicorn stuck smack in the middle of Dark Magician's forehead.

Duelist and monster faced each other in excruciating silence. Jonouchi thinking he would do ANYTHING to erase the preceding five minutes. Dancing naked in the school cafeteria would be a reasonable price to pay. Hell, he'd dance naked in Kaiba's living room to get out of this!

Dark Magician meanwhile, was glaring in a manner that suggested he was fighting the overwhelming urge to impale Jonouchi with his new "accessory". Finally grasping the base of the horn, he snapped it off with a pained grunt and hurled it in the general direction of the still-cackling thief.

"Jonouchi, without your help, we could not have avenged our masters, and for that you do have our gratitude. However, when our masters have recovered, it would best if you did not rush to duel them. It would be rather 'reckless' on your part."

Jonouchi was a doofus, but he was by no means dumb. From that day on, he would double and triple check every card he played. Also, for the foreseeable future, he would stay far away from Yugi's Dark Magician.

The End

A/n. Thank you DragonDancer5150 for making my stories readable.