A/N: Written for the Ultimate Fanfic Challenge 200 prompts, prompt #202 – arrogance. Additional authors notes at the end for anyone interested. :D

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That Standing Gate
Prologue

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It was a gate that had been claimed and sealed by a team of five almost as soon as the game began, and since then no-one had managed to open it. What lay beyond remained a secret to everybody save those five, and whoever ventured too close to try and see, or to ask, were forced back by their overwhelming strength.

It became known in the years to come as The Standing Gate: the one gate in the history of the game that had been sealed and never reopened again. Some people thought the end of the game lay beyond that: something that could make them eternally powerful, unbeatable. Others, few and far between, thought it was the failsafe: the thing that would shut down that virtual world forever.

But no facts were ever released, no rumours confirmed. All the players knew was that the guardians were strong, too strong to beat. No-one even knew who they were in real life: just that they were five and there, a constant. Some wondered if they existed in real life at all, or were just NPCs, a permanent part of the game. They barely even knew about their decks, their strategies; no-one who lost to them could recall anything beyond the shadow of a magnificent dragon – and even the appearance of that dragon changed: anything from long and slender and transparent like the wind to sturdy and blowing red like molten lava from a volcano that framed the five indistinct human figures.

The Standing Gate became a legend in a corner of that virtual world few dared now to go. Away from it, the game went on. They duelled each other one on one like knights aiming for a higher rank. They waged battles on anywhere that could become a battlefield in magnificent battle royales that were restrained by few but absolute rules. They gained and lost power; they won, they lost, they grew. A few names went on to become famous, until others pushed them down into the rivers of the past. The thrones that belonged to the highest scoring team frequently changed hands. New people from the bottom surged up. The game world grew more entertaining, more ruthless. The buildings, the cities, all of them had been remade.

But the Standing Gate was something that hadn't changed, its peak barely visible in the black land in the west, untouchable and coveted. Because the unspoken agreement had spread: whoever could defeat those mysterious guardians and open the gate would be the ultimate victors in the game.

And while it was just a game, just a virtual world they enjoyed, there was many a child who wanted that…despite what they could potentially unleash from its confines. Because all of it: the battles in which they threw their cards – their monsters and spells and traps – to strike and defend, the wars in which all the conventional rules were tossed aside to go against positional power, the territories they gained and modified to turn into their own kingdoms and advantage and a maze of tricks and traps against invaders…all of it was a magnificent game in a virtual world. The fighters were people, mostly children, who left their ordinary lives outside and returned to them afterwards, wearing their avatars, their virtual personas, like anyone in a RPG would.

Not one of them thought that what lay beyond the gate they aspired towards could be something with enough power to destroy them all.

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Post A/N: The prologue sort of just introduces the main conflict and the role; the next chapter will introduce specific characters and action. Probably not a one-on-one duel right off the bat, but maybe a "war" battle royale. :D

The virtual world is a mix between the world of Digimon Frontier and the world of 5D's. Duel Runners are more means for transportation to remote areas, but battles with them can take place on highway areas (places with long stretch of road). If you're somewhere with a large amount of space in general, it'll still be a regular duel; it's only in the specified roads that you can turbo duel.

The following stuff will be demonstrated in more detail in future chapters, but in case you're curious about the mechanics of this game world…

Gaining territory has to do with an area's fractal code; if you control the fractal code, you control the area. It has a sensory mechanism; you win a duel against the old owner to win rights to it, and then you own that territory until someone wins it off you. If someone finds it, you're automatically engaged the next time you log on, hence the traps (using card effects eg. trap hole to make a hole in the ground for someone to fall into) to stop people from finding them easily…because, as a player, you don't want to spend every playing moment defending your territory.

You gain points by winning one on one duels (depending on the difference in rank) and scoring hits against any opponent in a "war" battle royale without dropping your life to 0. The life in the battle royale is the same as the life in an ordinary duel, ie. 8000, however in "war" battle royale, any amount you're engaged in within a session of playing the game (between logging on and logging off) you'll have the same 8000 points. For ordinary duels, ie. one on one, your points are renewed to 8000 whenever you go up against a new opponent.

The five duellists who guard the gate aren't on the list of players, which is part of the reason why people wonder whether they might be NPCs (non playable characters). Hence why the top five keep on changing, and yet no-one's managed to beat those five yet (as far as everyone knows of course).