Author's Note and Disclaimer: Since this fic is a crossover between Yu-Gi-Oh! and Guys and Dolls, at times I have decided to incorporate dialogue from the 1955 Guys and Dolls film into this fic where appropriate. So... getting all that out of the way. If it's a clever line, I assure you, I didn't write it. It's probably from the 1955 film.
I own nothing except my undying love of Trustshipping.
At the time, no one saw it coming. In hindsight, it was fairly obvious. Domino City had been reeling from the latest wave of destruction. The government, in the way that lifetime bureaucrats and politicians do, blamed the opposition for the problems and only stepped down amid protests.
First came the Zoning Ordinances, which spelled out exactly where plein air dueling was allowed to occur. Quite stringent ordinances restricting plein air dueling to the outskirts of Domino. The legislation was passed only months after the latest wave of chaos, when a foolhardy group of kids with too much money and too many powerful cards had leveled an entire neighborhood in the wealthy center of Domino, hospitalizing thirty citizens in the process and destroying a wing of the Domino Museum of Art and Artefacts. (Of course, many argued, now that the upper crust were feeling the pain that had plagued citizens of lower incomes for a decade, only now did the government act to "restore the greatness of our city.") Ishizu Ishtar, the recently hired Director of the Domino Museum, had campaigned passionately for the passage of the ordinances. She had been trapped for 34 hours under debris, and had begun meeting with officials while still in her hospital bed.
Next came the TDDMRs: the Temporary Duel Disk Manufactures Regulations. The move was greeted favorably, though less widely so. The restrictions prohibited the manufacture of new duel disks and made it harder for inexperienced players to get their hands on the technology, a move that many experienced duelists found satisfactory. There were murmurs of dissent, mostly buzzing around KaibaCorp, but those were soon drowned out by the public, scared and clamoring for more.
Next came the Card Acquisition Restrictions, a move that pained the creator of Duel Monsters, the eccentric recluse Maximillian Pegasus. But still, he acquiesced, and spread the word to Industrial Illusions that the Domino account was forever closed, that no duelists in Domino were permitted to purchase new cards. As expected, the black market for cards sprang up almost overnight while many venerable gaming shops roiled, but the duelists who had created strong decks in the years prior were not largely bothered. They resorted to playing their civilized games in the most private of clubs, where money and favors got them what they wanted.
Was it the idealistic new Mayor Devlin, working overtime? Had the anti-duelist lobby finally gotten its dollars into the pertinent pockets of Domino's legislature? At a greater and greater rate laws were being proposed and approved. Soon duel disks were banned outright from being sold. Soon possession became a misdemeanor, punishable by a hefty fine. Misdemeanors became felonies, requiring jail time. Soon only those duelists who were able to get money into the right pockets were able to keep their decks, which were pronounced illegal not long after. First fines, then mandatory jail time. The mayor appointed a special order of Regulators, led by Officer Bakura, who had the mayor's ear and was known for his …creative approaches to crime solving. A veritable exodus occurred shortly thereafter, and many famous duelists fled Domino, including the menacing, if slightly ridiculous, former champion Bandit Keith.
Next came the most heartbreaking move for many: all game shops that sold any Duel Monsters supplies, paraphernalia, or memorabilia, were closed abruptly, with no compensation from the city. It was a truly heartbreaking move for one Yugi Moto, who had grown up above his grandfather's game shop and from these humble beginnings had risen to the ranks of the top duelists worldwide. Honest, loyal, vertically challenged Yugi Moto watched his grandfather close up shop for the last time and burn every last card in the building and in that moment, Yugi broke.
When the city finally did the inevitable and banned all duels indefinitely, punishable with life in prison for any offenders and/or accomplices, many of the duelists who stayed in the city shrugged, sighed, hung up their hats, and found other work. Mai Valentine, the buxom blonde former champion, had split from town. The other duelists sank beneath the slick surface of the city streets and played their games wherever they could: in basements, in alleyways in the dead of night, in back rooms of seedy cafes where no one was looking, and in sewers (although that was a last resort). Yugi Moto soon found himself as the de facto head of the underground duels, and with the muscle provided by his lifelong friends Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor, both "ex"-duelists themselves, he soon became the go-to man a duelist looking for one of his "floating card games".
When Seto Kaiba suddenly announced he was taking a leave of absence from KaibaCorp and from Domino "explore new options in design and in investments", many suspected that it was politics that did him in. That a coalition of officials had banished him and his company, without whom the infamous duel disk would never have been created, from Domino. Soon Domino was without its most eligible bachelor and, more importantly, its chief innovator and job creator. Seto had put his precocious younger brother Mokuba in charge as interim CEO, but still stocks plummeted. Seto and his life soon became a myth, a legacy, with people remembering him as a mysterious, talented duelist, a martyr, a fallen angel.
Officer Bakura and his Regulators (some would say gang) began roving Domino, sniffing out any whiff of a duel. Yugi's floating games were the worst kept secret in Domino, but somehow Bakura was unable to pin anything on him. He prowled around restaurants, around cafes, around the now-deserted arenas and stadiums, and around the club where Yugi's girlfriend, Téa, worked as a dancer, but he'd been unlucky as of yet.
And so life in Domino went on. On the surface, it was gleaming and bright: the main source of the city's pain and misery had been successfully banned. Mayor Devlin was young, healthy, and popular, and, with a coalition of politicians behind him, pledged a renewal and rebuilding effort. He and Ishizu Ishtar spearheaded a new initiative, designed to turn duelists away from their destructive games and towards the arts. Office Bakura was brining in fewer and fewer violators every day. But if one were to chip away at the brightness with their fingernail, it crumbled and revealed its weakness, revealed the rotten flesh of Domino City beneath the polish, a festering sore that grew sicker daily.
But what of Yugi, the "King of Games", the innocent turned crimelord? What of Ishizu Ishtar, the piercingly intelligent art and artifact expert, whose efforts seemed more futile and more foolish each day? What of Seto Kaiba, the haughty billionaire genius, who had fled the city?