Here it is, Chapter 1! This chapter will take place in a mini arc between Yugi's victory against Kaiba, and when Yugi's Grandpa gets his soul kidnapped by Pegasus. I have also just revised this chapter, improving things here and there. Now then on with the disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, or any of it's spinoffs. All content belongs to it's respective owners. I only take credit for my OCs and custom arcs. I have also just revised this chapter, improving things here and there.
Chapter 1, Domino City and the Chance Cup
Draco and Lizzie exited the Ether Gateway only for it to disappear behind them. Lizzie noticed that for some reason Draco had been replaced by a teal-haired teenager with light green eyes, wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts.
It took her only a moment to recognize that it was still Draco "Draco? How did you do that!? You're-" She started before Draco interrupted her "Human? I know, I'll explain later, I promise. Now, let's see where in Japan we actually are at the moment." 'Well that seemed kind of rude, cutting me off while I speak!' Lizzie thought grumpily as he went to a nearby bus stop, bought a local guide map and started reading. Lizzie walked over to his side and tried to read over Draco's shoulder 'It's a good thing I took lessons in Japanese back in school, otherwise I wouldn't be able to read this. Which brings about the question: how the heck is Draco able to even read, or even buy this?! He comes from another dang dimension, he shouldn't be able to read Earth languages *period*' . Just when she started reading the guide, Draco grunted in annoyance, which caused Lizzie to flinch slightly "Sorry, I just wanted to check the guide, because I can't afford to buy my own…" she tried to apologize, only for Draco to shake his head miserably and say "No Lassie, I should be apologizing to you, for I've let you down"
Lizzie had a puzzled expression on her face "why do you say that? You got me back to my world didn't you? So there's nothing to worry about, right?" she asked with a worried tone. "Not quite, Lady Liz. Look here." He pointed to the local map "we are currently in Domino City. Now in all of your studies on Japan, and I know you extensively studied whatever you could on the subject, did you ever read of a major city called Domino?" .
Lizzie thought about this hard as several people passed by, and the urban noise continued. Finally she answered "You're right, there is no Domino City in Japan, unless..." then it all clicked in her mind "oh no. You don't think…!" Draco nodded gloomily "I'm afraid I miscalculated. While we did get sent to 'Earth', we still got sent to the wrong dimension. In essence, we are now in a parallel dimension where history took a different course. Here many disputes can and have been solved by playing a popular card game with monsters like me in them. They call it 'Duel Monsters', or so I remember." he explained.
Lizzie's eyes widened in shock briefly, but she quickly managed to calm herself. "Ok, so if we're going to be stuck here for awhile, I guess we should try to find a game shop and learn how to play this 'Duel Monsters' game. Sounds fun, right Draco?" As Lizzie grinned when she stated this, Draco stared at her with a look that practically said 'seriously?', then shrugged and said "Suit yourself, I'll play along. But remember what's most important, ok?" Lizzie dutifully agreed, still remembering that she needed to get home before her family and small handful of friends got too worried.
About three and a half hours later involving asking for directions, Lizzie getting pickpocketed, dropping the map down a sewer grate, accidentally stopping a bank robbery and Draco getting them hopelessly lost twice, the pair of dimensional travelers wound up at a small game shop. "Kame Games. Does this look good enough for you?" Lizzie bobbed her head up and down excitedly "Yeah, yeah, yeah! This is perfect, a humble start is often the best, isn't that right? Imagine, champion material Duel Monsters players starting off in a small game shop!" She jogged in place while saying this enthusiastically. 'Overly enthusiastic in my opinion' Draco thought with a sweat drop and a small frown 'I've only known Lady Liz for a few hours, and I can already tell that her erratic personality is going to be more than a handful…' although he did observe that the human seemed to have developed a coping system in which she forced herself to act happy when extremely depressed, guessing her sorrow being visible earlier due to the initial shock of the likely chance that she could have been missing for years in her dimension.
The duo walked into the shop, and saw an old man wearing overalls, presumably the shop owner, checking the stock. Draco walked up to the man and cleared his throat. The elderly man turned around, and addressed him "ah, welcome sirs, may I help you today? I have a decent selection of games in stock, if you're interested." Draco chuckled as Lizzie smirked at the concept of somebody mistaking her for a guy, then the disguised monster answered respectfully "That would be nice sir. You see, we would like to purchase some Duel Monsters cards, and *she*" he pointed his thumb behind him toward Lizzie "would like to be taught how to play the game." The man looked at them for a short moment, Lizzie in particular, now realizing she was a woman, then smiled in a way that Lizzie could describe as grandfatherly "very well, I think I can arrange some lessons for your… lady friend? Plus my other pupils could use some student rivalry. By the way, I believe we should introduce ourselves first, my name is Solomon Moto, I own this shop, and what are you two named?"
After the introductions and a first-time customer discount, the two friends were allowed to pick the cards for their decks, with Solomon helping Lizzie while Draco built his own deck on his own, having apparently been familiar enough with the game to work on his deck by himself. Lizzie looked through the cards, fascinated by their great variety "Hey, Mr. Moto, what kind of card is this? it looks pretty neat! and what about these ones?" Solomon looked at the cards she was referring to "that card is a reptile type monster, Gale Lizard. Its great for returning strong monsters back to your opponent's hand, and these two are Ceasefire and Magic Cylinder, both are good traps for dealing damage to the other duelist's life points, but Ceasefire can also be used to foil the flip effects of enemy monsters, while Magic Cylinder..."
Eventually Lizzie settled with a Reptile-Themed deck, and Draco finished his deck as well. Just when they were finished the door opened and five teenagers walked in. One of them was short, with his hair being part blonde, part purple and had violet eyes like Solomon, he wore a blue jacket with a black shirt underneath with pants, as well as a pyramid-shaped pendant with an Egyptian-styled eye on the front. Another had dirty blonde hair, hazel eyes, and wore blue jeans, a white t-shirt and an open green jacket with a raised collar, he looked to be around Lizzie's age. The third person had lightly tanned skin, brown hair and eyes, and wore a long brown coat, a white shirt beneath that and some black jeans. His hair spiked forward in a pretty ridiculous manner in both Draco's and Lizzie's opinions, but neither bothered to mention it. The fourth teenager was a girl Lizzie's age with brown hair and blue eyes, she wore a pink coat with a fancy white shirt beneath it and a blue tie. The last one seemed to trail behind the rest, he had short brown hair and steel-grey eyes, and he wore a plain black shirt and blue camo shorts, with two black bracelets on his arms. The boy with the pendant said "Grandpa, I'm home! Oh, hi there. Are you two here card shopping?" Draco smiled "Yes, we came here to buy Duel Monster cards for our first dueling decks. I'm Draco, and this is my friend Liz. She is going learning to play the game for the very first time here with Mr. Moto. What are your names?" the blonde/purple haired kid introduced himself first "my name is Yugi Moto, my grandpa runs this game shop, and these are my friends." the blonde haired teen waved his hand and spoke with a Brooklyn accent "what's up, man? The name's Joey Wheeler, future dueling champion. Nice to meet ya!" the one with the black bracelets was the next to introduce himself, and he did so with a calm, even-toned voice "I'm Michael, and I've just started learning to play Duel Monsters like you two and Joey here are. Pleased to make your acquaintance." The tan skinned teenager was next to introduce himself "I'm Tristan Taylor, and this is Téa Gardner." The only girl of the group, apparently named Téa gave the two newcomers a warm smile "we're not training with Yugi's Grandpa like you two, but still I think we will be good friends." Lizzie returned the smile with another one "Likewise, I truly hope we can be great friends too! Maybe we can chat between training sessions"
The day went on from there starting with lessons on the rules of Duel Monsters: Each player starts with 2000 life points, or LP, and uses a deck ranging from 40 to 60 cards. Whoever brings the other player's LP to 0 is the winner. Players summon monster cards to do battle with the other player's monsters. Monsters have two types of fighting positions, each with a certain number of points each, the two positions being Attack Mode, or Atk and Defense Mode, or Def. the one with the higher attack or defense points than the other monster's attack or defense points, based on their position wins the fight and deals Life point damage if the destroyed monster was in attack mode. In addition to monsters there are also spell cards, which can be played the turn they are put on the field, and traps which have to be set face-down for a turn before use.
After the basics of the game were shown to the two rookies, they ended up hanging out with Yugi and the others for the day. they went to the park for lunch, and eventually Téa started a small conversation with Lizzie as the group ate "So, Lizzie, where are you from? you haven't told us yet." Lizzie looked up from a cup of veggie ramen and smiled "Well, I come from Florida, but my dad came from Ireland, and moved to the U.S. so that be with mom , apparently." Téa noticed a slight tinge of sadness upon mention of the other girl's parents, but decided not to pry, instead changing the subject "How exactly are you and that Draco guy related?" Lizzie continued to demolish her ramen cup at an alarming rate before she finally responded "Well, we met recently and found that we got along well, so we're traveling together for awhile." She finished her noodle cup, then looked around and noted the others current conditions, including Michael, who had been running from Tristan after planting ice cubes under the latter's shirt. Then everyone present did a double take on their appearances. apparently while the girls were conversing, Michael had the audacity to start a food fight, and some of the boys ended up getting quite messy. Joey had noodles splattered across his face, and tomato stains on his white t-shirt, Tristan had carrots stuffed up his nose and what was left of Draco's rice ball was plastered on the back of Tristan's pants, but surprisingly, Draco himself was nowhere to be found. Michael himself was by far the worst off, his entire body was drenched in broth, he had sushi stuck conveniently to where his eyes were supposed to be, and his hair was protruding forward, making his hair look nearly identical to Tristan's. Everyone stared at each other, then themselves and laughed their heads off, before they all headed home to clean up while Lizzie went to look for Draco. Lizzie guessed that he got lost again and sighed wearily 'This is going to take awhile. Last time, he ended up at a bank during a robbery, and I found him doing unspeakable things to the thugs with a cane, a soccer ball and a set of silverware.' she shivered upon remembering what she had witnessed and set off to find her friend before he got himself into even more trouble.
Lizzie found Draco wandering around the foot of a skyscraper belonging to some company Lizzie didn't recognize and called his name. Draco turned and greeted her "oh, hello milady. Sorry I left but food fights just aren't my thing" he grimaced as he continued speaking "that and Michael stole my rice ball for it, how rude of him!"
Lizzie chuckled lightly and looked around. The skyscraper belonged to a company called Kaibacorp, while the surrounding area consisted of a courtyard and several smaller businesses. Lizzie then asked Draco some questions as they walked back to Kame Games "Draco, I've been wondering, how come you can take on a human form? Is that normal for monsters or something?"
the aspiring knight blinked then slowly answered his travelling companion's questions "Well, it's not necessarily a common occurrence, but when monsters physically enter the human world, they are most often required to use a sealing spell in order to mask our nonhuman identities. As a result, we can only use our true forms in the case of an emergency. Exceptions do exist though..." he explained quietly, trying not to attract attention from the few pedestrians in the area, while clutching his pendant. Lizzie nodded quietly and they continued on their way back to Kame Games
Draco spoke with Lizzie that night when they finally got home "Lady Liz, once again, I humbly apologize for my failure to get you home. I will help you return to your family, and protect you at all costs. I swear this to you, and as such I wish to give you this." He handed her a Duel Monsters card, and when she flipped it over, it was none other than Gagagigo himself "This is my personal contract card, and as long as you own that particular card, I shall always be there for you, should you wish it."
Lizzie let out a soft gasp. She heard about contract cards from Draco on the way to the Ether Gate, and from what she had heard, it's a very serious act of trust among Duel Monster spirits to give their personal card to a human, for doing so is something akin to an oath that utterly binds the monster and human, on both contract recipients' terms of mind you. She looked at the card, then back to Draco "Are you sure you wish to go through with this? I'll do it, but in return, you must speak to me like good friends normally do, is that fair?" Draco smiled and nodded, his face looking like a child's on Christmas Morning "Aye, friends by oath and bond it is… Lizzie"
The card began to glow with light, and a wisp of life energy from Draco entered the card, binding part of his soul to the card "It is done. Draco E. Timaeus, at your service, my friend and liege!" he did small bow then said "It's getting late, we'd best get some sleep. It's going to be quite the day tomorrow, I wager!" Lizzie agreed, then with a "good night" , she went to sleep in one of Kame Games' spare rooms, as they had nowhere else to stay, and some time that day, Solomon had offered them a place to stay and a part-time job at the shop for the time being.
As Lizzie got into bed, she reviewed everything that happened recently, from the boy in the warehouse, to meeting Yugi and his friends and finally to the spirit contract she made with Draco. 'I have friends, again. But… for how long this time?' eventually she shrugged off that disturbing afterthought, then drifted off to sleep.
When Draco was sure she was fast asleep, he turned to where Solomon was standing by the door into the shop itself "You'll keep our secret as promised, then?" he asked seriously. Grandpa Muto laughed good-naturedly "Of course I shall, and as promised, I'll train your girlfriend how to become a professional duelist. And remember that she won't get special treatment" Draco visibly blushed upon hearing Grandpa Muto calling Lizzie his 'girlfriend' "Can it, it's not like that at all! He denied, then silently cursing at himself, having once again bungled part of his personal code of conduct; treat the elderly with due respect. Grandpa Muto chuckled, then left Draco to rest for the night. As he got into his bed, he tried thinking about the events of the day
The next couple weeks went by, and despite her near-unpredictable personality, Lizzie made fast friends with Yugi's group, particularly Téa, who often told her about the rest of the group, like how Yugi beat the world champion, Seto Kaiba, and Lizzie was thrilled when she was told Yugi's Grandpa was once an archeologist, and voiced her own wish to become one too, like her parents and her uncle Innes.
That day, a small, but popular annual Duel Monsters tournament was being held, with 23,000 yen, which if Lizzie's studies on currency exchange rates were correct, was equal to roughly 205 dollars, and a set of rare cards, many of which were categories of monster never heard of before until today, as the possible prizes for the top four duelists. Draco, viewing this as an excellent opportunity to test himself and Lizzie, decided to enter them into the tournament, much to Lizzie's excitement. The tournament took place tomorrow at 4:00 pm, which gave the two aspiring duelists plenty of time to practice and get to Kaibaland on time for the tournament, which was apparently known as the Chance Cup.
When they arrived the next day, they checked in with the receptionist and headed to the area where the eight competitors would gather and the matchups would commence.
The other noteworthy contestants were a young man with red-brown hair named Penn Wolfgang, who traveled all the way from Europe to test his dueling and culinary skills and a high school student named Katsumi Inoue, who had a pretty good tournament record in the past. The first round had gone by quickly with the before mentioned duelists making it to the semifinals, with Draco dueling Wolfgang, and Lizzie dueling Inoue.
"And now we shall commence the start of the semifinals! Starting off will be two duelists from overseas, first is a fine duelist straight from Germany, its Penn Wolfgang!" the crowd cheered as the red haired man entered the dueling field on the red platform "and on the other end of the field is a newcomer to the dueling career, introducing Draco Errant!" a smaller part of the crowd cheered for the newcomer, including Yugi and the others, who had come to watch them in their first tournament. As the platforms raised up, Draco called over to his opponent "Come, let us share an honorable duel together, good sir!" Wolfgang smiled heartily and responded equally so "Agreed, let's make this a duel to remember!".
When the field was finally set, the two men shuffled their decks then shouted in unison "Duel!" and the game was on. "I'll start first" Draco stated and drew his initial hand. the cards he drew were Blade Knight, Dragon Treasure, Pitch-Dark Dragon, Twin Twisters and . then there was the card he drew for starting first a warrior monster called Shine Knight. after thinking his options over, he made his move "I'll place a monster facedown, and set two other facedown cards. Your move" Wolfgang smiled then drew his card "I'll start by summoning Skull Red Bird in Attack Mode!" a bird with red plumage and golden yellow knives as wing feathers appeared on the dueling field and let out a battle screech (Level 4, Atk/Def:1550/1200) followed by Wolfgang declaring an attack on Draco's facedown monster.
Draco's monster was revealed to be Shine Knight after all (Level 3, Atk/Def: 400/1900). It's radiant armor blocked the attack as it struck back with its sword, reducing the unfortunate chef's Life Points to 1650. Penn sighed, then wordlessly placed two facedown cards and ended his turn.
Draco drew a card and smiled lightly and stated his move "First, I'll summon Robot Buster Destruction Sword in Attack Mode!" a six-legged dragon like monster with fur and feathered wings appeared on the field, carrying a sword of energy in its mouth (Level 4, Attack/1600, Def/1200.) "Robot Buster, Attack Wolfgang's Skull Red Bird!" the Dragon sped over to the red feathered bird and slashed three times at it, destroying it ad reducing Wolfgang's Life Points to 1600.
Up in the stands, while the others were cheering for Draco, Lizzie was lost in thought, fascinated by the dueling potential that she and the aspiring knight had shown during their first tournament, and was pretty amazed. In her last duel, Lizzie had made the duel do a total 180 degree turn, disrupting her opponents strategy by forcing the Giant Germs he kept returning to his deck, then field to repeat damage, into a state of vulnerability by using a combination of Block Attack, Lion Alligator and Spawn Alligator to bring her foe's Life Points to 0 just when everyone thought she would lose 'Maybe Grandpa Muto and Draco are onto something with this Heart of the Cards business. Believe in your deck, and you can achieve pretty much anything...' she thought with a smirk thinking about the story about Yugi beating Kaiba in a duel, despite Yugi being faced with three Blue Eyes White Dragons at once, then joined in on cheering with her newfound friends.
Draco was glad that Yugi and the others were here to support him and Lizzie, who also was rooting for him for this duel, and seemed to be enjoying this tournament quite a bit. she just seemed so different, so... alive when Duel Monsters was involved, quite different from how she seemed so depressed when she woke up in his tent in the Mythic Realms. 'Maybe this dimensional incident is for the best, she looks happier than she ever did before all... this...?' he paused as those last few words sank in. Before all this? But they had never met before now, so how could he- a sudden surge of memories raced through Draco's mind until they focused on one of his childhood memories
-It was some eight years ago, after his parents and older siblings died, leaving him and his kid brother Caleb orphaned at an early age. They wandered across the continent, barely scavenging what they needed to survive. It was one day that he encountered *that* man, the man who saved him and little Caleb and taught him what he needed to protect his brother. The man had dirty blonde hair and ice blue eyes and a diagonal scar across his left eye. He wore medieval soldier's armor, twin swords hanging from his belt. the man said something to the two children and offered Draco his hand, and he eventually accepted it-
Draco smiled widely, he had never regretted the decision he made back then, and never will. He briefly wondered why that memory came to mind, but dismissed the thought for the time being, and resumed the duel "That ends my turn, it's your move, Wolfgang." Wolfgang nodded and drew his next card and began his turn " I summon the Bistro Butcher in attack mode!" a goblin like chef monster appeared on the field, it's right hand replaced with a metal hook, while it wielded a large butcher knife in its left hand (Level 4, Atk/Def:1800/1000) "I attack your Robot Buster Destruction Sword with Bistro Butcher!" the goblin cut the dragon down to size, despite its best effort to fight back, on the sidelines, Lizzie felt bad for the monster. Draco's Life Points dropped to 1800 before Penn continued speaking "Of course, due to his effect, Bistro Butcher serves you two cards to make up for the Life Points used for ingredients. And with that I end my turn."
Draco drew two more cards; Dark Blade and Spikeshield with Chain before drawing Field Commander Rahz and beginning his turn in earnest "I will summon Dark Blade in attack mode and attack your Bistro Butcher, destroying them both!" a warrior clad in pitch black armor with twin swords materialized onto the field and struck out at the Bistro Butcher (Level 4, Atk/Def:1800/1500), but Wolfgang abruptly activated one of his facedowns "I play my Sword of Deep-Seated, increasing my Butcher's attack by 500 points. Better luck next time!" the swordsman was destroyed by the goblin's new weapon, and Draco's Life Points decreased to 1300, causing Draco to draw two more cards, Wall of Disruption and Buster Blader! If he could just survive one more turn... "I end my turn with a facedown."
Wolfgang drew another card "I set one monster face down, and place a facedown card. then I attack your Shine Knight with my Bistro Butcher!" the goblin chef commenced his attack, but it was quickly averted when Draco played his trap "I activate Spikeshield with Chain, increasing Shine Knight's attack by 500, then adding it's new attack to its defense when attacked" the trap left Wolfgang with 1100 Life Points. the chef ended his turn, and Draco started his next one
"I now summon one of my best monsters, Buster Blader, to attack your Butcher!" a swordsman in purple-hued armor draws his sword (Level 7, Atk/Def: 2600/2300) and defeats the Bistro Butcher, reducing Wolfgang's Life Points to 800 and Draco ends his turn. Wolfgang draws his next card, but as it turns out Sword of Deep-Seated always returns to the top of the deck when destroyed, so he had to end his turn. Draco drew another card, set it facedown and destroyed Wolfgang's facedown Boar Soldier with Buster Blader, but much to his later embarrassment, he forgot to switch Shine Knight to attack mode for a finisher before ending his turn.
Penn drew his next card, then grinned "It's now time for the main course! I play the Hamburger Recipe ritual card, then send my Crab Turtle from my hand to the Graveyard to ritual summon Hungry Burger!" the monster that appeared was a giant burger with sharp , pointy teeth (Level 6, Atk/Def:2000/1850) "next, I add the special ingredient; Ritual Weapon, giving it a total of 3500 attack points, and attack your Buster Blader!" the evil-looking burger glowed in a pale blue light and attacked the Swordsman. However, Draco returned Penn's grin and performed his biggest chain so far "Not so fast, I activate my facedown; Wall of disruption to decrease your monster burger by 800 attack points" Hungry Burger's attack then went from 3500 to 2700 "next I play Twin Twisters, by discarding my Blade Knight, I can destroy your facedown and Ritual Weapon. And finally, I play the spell Karma of the Destruction Swordsman, removing two monsters of the same type from the game to increase Buster Blader's attack by 1000" the spirits of Dark Blade and Blade Knight channel their power to the swordsman before disappearing, then Buster Blader attacked Hungry Burger, leaving Draco the winner.
The crowd cheered over the rookie's triumph as the announcer shouted "Ladies and gentlemen, this was a splendid match, but it seems that the newcomer Draco Errant has emerged as the victor, and will be moving on to the finals. We will take a one hour break before the next match. Until then, folks!" before he returned to his friends, he walked over to his defeated opponent "Well played, Mr. Wolfgang, you put up a good fight, whether you know it or not. We should have a rematch some time" he offered the chef his hand, and Wolfgang shook his hand with respect "You dueled fantastically yourself, Draco sir. Perhaps you would like to bring some friends to my new restaurant after the Chance Cup is over. The first two helpings will be on the house, and the burgers are the customers' favorite!" Draco flashed a friendly grin "looking forward to it, good sir" Wolfgang gave Draco the directions to his restaurant then Draco turned and returned to where his friends were. Yugi and the others congratulated him then Draco spoke up "Oh guess what? We're getting free food after the tournament ends! Who wants Burgers?" he said the last three words very slowly. Yugi looked so happy, he might burst "Sounds good! Let's drop by once the tournament is over!" Lizzie raised her hand quickly "only if they have vegetarian burgers." Everyone stared at her "What? Eating meat makes me sick, so I'm a vegetarian." 'I'll have to remember that…' Draco noted in his mind as they went to the arcade to hang out before Lizzie's match.
There you have it, The first duel in the story. I made quite a few mistakes during the first draft of this chapter, including a pretty anticlimactic duel and many things still unexplained, so I changed the content a little, and added some more. Hopefully, this version will prove to be more satisfying. Until the next Duel!