My gauntlets rapped against the wooden door. The Scorpions had taken up residence in a cave far removed from the king's castle. The peephole in the door slid open and I could see Meanae's eyes glaring at me.
"What do you want?" she growled, throwing daggers into my soul with that dread look in her eyes.
"It is good to see you again as well, Meanae. I have business to discuss with Don."
A look of suspicion crossed her eyes, "You aren't here to arrest him on the King's orders?"
"I will admit that the King is the reason why I have come, but he sent me here with a different purpose in mind than to arrest Don or any of the Scorpions."
A voice boomed a hearty laugh from deeper inside the cave, "Let him in, love, it is always a pleasure to do business with military men." Meanae let me in, but she kept watching me warily, almost as though she kept expecting me to suddenly draw and strike at any moment in time.
The rest of the gang watched me just as Meanae did, but Don Zaloog had a more jovial mood about him. He motioned for me to sit down as Meanae joined him on a small sofa.
"What's your pleasure, monsieur? You know that the Scorpions are always ready for any mission involving special operations. What will it be this time, extraction from the Realm of Shadows, interference with the politics in the Different Dimension?" he said in his best businessman swagger.
"Think more along the lines of strategic personnel placement."
"Where, if I may be so bold as to ask?"
"Earth." I couldn't help but smile beneath my helmet as I saw the look of shock dawn upon him and the rest of the Dark Scorpions. Don regained himself rather quickly, however, which impressed me.
"And what type of personnel will we be planting on Earth, and where?"
"Me, and I don't know or care. The King has sent me on a mission to defeat The Light." I let the full meaning of those words sink in as I paused. "As you can probably now tell, the war with the Light of Destruction is far from over. The entity cannot be wholly destroyed, and the King has made it my task to be the next to defeat The Light. Some duel spirits swore their allegiance to The Light, and while they may be in hiding now, they won't be forever. I need to be ready to fight in what manner they choose, as there is no point in defeating them on my terms."
Don Zaloog glanced at a worn and faded machine hanging on the wall above him, what the people of Earth refer to as a duel disk. I never learned that method of combat, I'd always thought it a silly waste of time that one could instead be using to lop off heads, but the method had proven to be at least somewhat effective. I supposed that my lack of knowledge concerning dueling was one of my great flaws. I watched as Don lost all hint of his jovial attitude and gave way to the strategist that successfully planned so many heists.
"They'll want to fight on Earth, far away from here. You'll need to learn how to duel. I can get you there, but I have one condition." he eventually said.
"And that condition would be?" I asked.
"We're going with you." Nobody in the cave was as surprised as I was. "You're going to be needing some serious help out there, especially with The Light being the inevitable enemy."
"Thank you, your assistance is appreciated." I relented.
"Don't thank me yet, I need to make a call. There is a certain witch who should be able to aid us."
"Wouldn't any witch do?"
"She's good at keeping secrets." he replied.
I hadn't quite expected what came next. Within a couple of days, I saw one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I saw a woman swoop through the skies on a pair of angelic wings, her purple hair flowing behind her as the wind whipped against a tight yellow dress. She landed in front of me, piercing the ground with her spear so as it wouldn't move. I was thankful that she couldn't see the facial expression behind my helmet, those small white horns of hers were more than enough to arouse my curiosity.
"Are you ready for this?" she asked, practically teasing me with her words.
"I… I, uh, yes. I'm ready." I stammered, stopping myself from reaching out to grab hold of those horns.
She lifted her spear from the ground and wrote glyphs into a pentagram in the dirt. She dropped her spear and began to chant and I saw that the markings in the ground were glowing.
Then everything went wrong, a sword made of light, or at least what I thought was a sword made of light, descended upon me. My armor barely stopped it before I spun around and drew, cutting the person who had attacked me in half, a woman with medium length blonde hair and a tight black jumpsuit.
The witch screamed, "No, no, no, no! This wasn't supposed to-"
A blinding flash of light cut off the rest of her words.
Martha opened the door to her orphanage in Satellite. What she saw on her doorstep was a fairly common occurrence, unfortunately, but some of the circumstances were odd. A baby, practically a newborn, was wrapped in swaddling clothes inside of a basket. Next to the child was an old duel disk that dated back the first days of the mythical Duel Academy. Martha hadn't seen one of those in years. Inside the disk were six cards, Don Zaloog and a single copy of each of the rest of the Dark Scorpion series monsters. There was also a note attached to the disk, reading:
His name is Wilhelm Jernigan. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I had no choice but to leave him with you. The disk is his if he can fix it. He has no family living on this Earth. Please, take care of him. You'll find his DoB on the back of this note. I'm sorry. Thank you.
Martha sighed and spoke to herself like she always did when she was anxious and alone, "I hate it when stuff like this happens, but he only looks to be a bit older than Yusei. I'm sure that he'll get along just fine with the rest of the boys, once they're all older, of course."