Yu-Gi-Oh!
INSURRECTION
PROLOGUE
Yugi Muto sat collapsed on the fissured floor of the KaibaCorp duel dome. His deck was now scattered, his duel disk having exploded. The concrete polymers of the dome's structure were falling around them. Above him, towered Anubis, a shale black anthropomorphized jackal, as tall as an office building.
Next to Yugi, sat Kaiba whom was just as exhausted as he was, clutching his arm in pain. Above on a catwalk, he looked up to see his friends, Joey, Tristan and Tea. With them was Kaiba's younger brother Mokuba. Behind them stood Maximillion Pegasus holding up two cards. Toon Dark Magician Girl and Blue Eyes Toon Dragon. Above him were the beings depicted on the cards' illustrations holding up a large chunk of debris. Only there was no duel disk.
He remembered now. Anubis, in this last attempt at Victory, his final shadow game was a duel where the monsters were real. However a game implied that both sides had a fair chance at victory but Joey Wheeler, Yugi's best friend had just tried to fight Anubis with his Gilford the Lightning and Gearfried the Iron Knight yet neither monster had left a scratch. The rules may have applied to them but they might as well have stayed with holographic monsters. This was no shadow game. This was a shadow condition.
"These Toon monsters won't last long," said Pegasus. "We have to get out of here while we still have the chance!"
"Yugi, I know you can take this creep down!" called Joey's encouraging voice, still full of life.
"That's right, 'cause we'll be with you all the way!" called another voice. A more feminine voice. It was Yugi's childhood friend, Tea. She held up her hand, reminding Yugi of the smiley face she had drawn on all their hands. Joey and Tristan held up their hands.
"ALWAYS!" They shouted in unison. Yugi held up his hand showing that he also remembered. He was too embarrassed to say this to Tea but sometimes when he looked down at his hand, he still saw the ink.
"Fine! Fine! Let's go already!" cried Pegasus as he pushed everyone into the elevator of the duel dome.
Kaiba saw the doors of the elevator close on Mokuba's frightened face. He clutched at the locket around his neck. The one with his oldest picture of Mokuba behind the glass. A torn half of a picture of both of them in a chess game. He had to atone for his mistake for the sake of his brother. If only he had listened to him. If only he had listened to Yugi. How could he have understood the gravity of what was happening? How could he have known? He then saw it among the cards Anubis had scattered like litter.
"How can we beat a real monster?" Yugi's frightened voice, snapped Kaiba out of his trance. Kaiba picked up the card that he needed.
"How? With a real monster! Yugi!" With his good arm, Kaiba tossed the card to him. Yugi caught the card in his hand and looked downwards to it. It's brown and black back graphic was facing upward, it's text, stats and portrait inverted.
"What is it?" Yugi asked with the hope draining from his voice.
"The only card that can beat him..." Yugi turned the card upward. Kaiba was right. Yugi was totally surprised that this was the card Kaiba tossed to him. He had expected to toss Yugi one of his cards but instead Kaiba trusted Yugi with a card that he had come to love almost as much as he loved his Obelisk. Then again...Kaiba had a habit of letting Yugi use rare cards from his own collection to defeat evil psychopaths. Yugi, with all his might, held the card up.
"I summon Blue Eyes Shining Dragon!" Yugi's voice, now reinvigorated with courage echoed through what was left of the duel dome. The holograms did not do the beauty of this dragon any justice. Sleek and majestic, the marble white dragon of unmatched luster climbed into the sky, dissolving the shadows around it. The ultimate amalgamation of machine and dragon. Refined and perfect in all aspects, the dragon was a bright star against Anubis' night.
Another hand reached up to take the card. It was the Pharaoh who dwelled inside of Yugi's Millenium Puzzle. He smiled to the boy who's soul he shared a vessel with. The two then looked up to their weapon.
"DESTROY ANUBIS!" they both commanded in unison. "SHINING NOVA ATTACK!" Anubis looked up to the dragon and blasted it with his dark flames. The Dragon's Shining nova formed a bubble of light around it that no darkness could permeate. Several rays of light extended from the bubble, almost hitting Anubis. Any second now, Anubis would be neutralized. Any second now Anubis would be inert. No more.
The bubble then started to fade and lose its bluish hue. The rays were growing shorter, retracting. A great popping noise for a second changed the color composition of the isolated environment the Shining Nova created for the dragon, inverting it like a negative photograph or an X ray reading. The bubble created by the Shining Nova lost its structural integrity like a soap bubble popping at one one hundredth of the speed the human eye saw it. The dragons' radiance was gone. The white metal lost its luster. The jaws of Yugi and Kaiba dropped as their hearts sank.
"THAT..." cried Kaiba. "THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE! HOW CAN THIS BE!" How was irrelevant. Why was irrelevant. On that night, the darkness had won. Hitting the ground, the dragon shattered into unrecognizable shards as it hit the ground like a glass statue hitting the floor. The dragon was permanently dead. Darkness had won.
