Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this. Krystal Fox and associated characters belong to Nintendo, Yu-gi-oh belongs to Konami and Revelations of the Seal of Orichalcos belongs to Dead Soldier Productions.

Meanwhile with Slade, Cora, Brandon and Alyseus.

As Slade, Cora, Brandon and Alyseus fly their ship away from the Eclipse Duel academy, and just after Slade had finished his story, Alyseus gets a message,

"Who is this?" Alyseus asked as he opened the communication. A tall, fair-skinned young man appeared on the screens, whom Brandon and Cora immediately recognised.

"Hey Bryce, long time no see" Brandon said. Alyseus looked back and said, "You know him?"

"Yeah, we know him, he went to the Eclipse Duel Academy with us a long time ago" Cora replied. Alyseus turned back and asked, "What do you want?"

"Firstly, it's good to see both of you again Brandon and Cora. Secondly, Alyseus,s did you get the message I sent you?", Alyseus shook his head, and said "No, I haven't"

"OK, then I'll summarise it to you quickly. If you come to Australia, I can help you in your fight against Valtor. If you do come here, you can catch Valtor by surprise. Though I should also mention that there's a third party in this as well that I'd like your help to fight as well" Bryce said.

"So, what do you think?" Alyseus asked. Cora replied with "Yeah, I'm in" while Brandon said "Alright, I'm OK", finally, Slade said "I don't trust him, but I'll go with it for now"

"Alright, then we'll accept your offer, let's go to Australia" Alyseus said. Bryce nodded, said "Alright, I'll see you soon" and the communication was cut.

About half-an-hour later, Alyseus had steered the ship into Adelaide Airport. As Alyseus, Cora, Brandon and Slade disembarked from the remains of Adelaide Airport, Bryce walked up to the four of them and, pointing to the remains of Adelaide Airport, asked Alyseus, "Now do you believe me when I said that I couldn't attend your tournament Alyseus?"

"Yeah, Now I believe you" Alyseus said, looking at the ruined airport. Bryce then walked up and embraced Cora, who returned the embrace, and asked "How are you going?"

"I'm going well, how about you?" Bryce replied. Cora replied with "I'm doing alright" Bryce then shook hands with Brandon and said, "Long time no see Brandon, how are you going?"

"I'm going well" Brandon replied. Bryce then looked at Slade. Looking back at Brandon, he asked "You're going to introduce me to your new friend?"

"I'm Slade" Slade said, putting his hand out. Bryce looked back, shook Slade's hand, then said "Bryce, nice to meet you Slade"

"So, what are we going to do?" Alyseus asked. Bryce replied with "Well first, we've got to head to Adelaide Oval. I think Brandon, Cora and Slade might need deck upgrades for the upcoming battles", At this Alyseus nodded, and they departed.

As Slade, Cora, Bryce, Brandon and Alyseus enter the area underneath the stadium, Brandon asked "What is this place?"

"It's underground, underneath Adelaide Oval. Usually only current and former Duel Monsters Champions are allowed down here, but I'll make an exception for you guys and gal. You'll need to improve your decks if you want to stand a chance against Valtor and the third party. There are a number of retrained versions of Normal Monsters you have in your decks currently, I recommend using them" Bryce replied.

While Slade, Cora and Brandon are looking through the cards for upgrades to their decks, Bryce asked "Can I have a quick word with you Alyseus?". Alyseus replied with "Sure" and they went to a small, disused classroom off the card area.

"What do you want to discuss?" Alyseus asked. Bryce considered for a moment, then said "Well first off, I want to apologise for not attending your tournament, I sent a message through my manager to you, did you get it?"

"Yes, I did" Alyseus replied.

Flashback

*Alyseus gets a call*

"Hello" Alyseus said. Bryce's Manager then said "Sorry Alyseus, but Bryce isn't coming to your tournament"

"What do you mean, he's not coming?" Alyseus asked. Bryce's manager replied with "The local international airport was bombed late yesterday, he's stuck in Australia"

"Only one of the contestants has arrived. If one of them is not coming, then what about the other two?" Alyseus asked. Bryce's manager then replied with "Hikari Sado and Devin are on their way, but they got delayed because of the attack"

"Well they're late. I don't appreciate tardiness. Besides, we can't have a tournament with only three people. I don't feel right about giving anyone a bye because that would supply an unfair advantage" Alyseus said.

"That's fair, I know the problems that can be caused by an unfair advantages" Bryce's manager replied. Alyseus briefly looked around, then said "Alright I think I have a solution". Bryce's manager then said "A solution? Great! May the rest of your tournament go well, and hopefully Bryce gets to duel you later"

"I'll talk to you later, bye" Alyseus said. Bryce's manager replied with "Talk to you later, sorry about this, bye"

End of flashback

Alyseus then asked, "What are you talking about with this "third wheel"?" to which Bryce put his hand into his chest pocket, and withdrew half-a-dozen photos.

"This" Bryce said. He showed each of the photos to Alyseus, who said "I've never played Star Fox, sorry" Bryce nodded, but ploughed on anyway.

"From what you said there, Valtor's played Star Fox. Anyway, one of the games in the Star Fox series, Assault, has these guys, known as Ruffians, that are one of the villains of a level mid-way through the story. This is what I meant by "Third Wheel", another group of people fighting against everybody on Earth" Bryce said.

"Who's leading this group?" Alyseus asked. Bryce replied with "There's very few people who can be leading this organisation. Andrew Oikonny is one who's potentially leading. The other people are members of Star Wolf. Wolf O'Donnell, Leon Powalski, Panther Caroso or Krystal Fox " Alyseus nodded, then asked "What are they planning?"

"As to that, I don't know, sorry" Bryce replied. Alyseus nodded, then said "Should we head back?" to which Bryce replied "Yeah, you don't need to power-up your deck?"

"No, what about you?" Alyseus asked. Bryce shook his head, and said "My deck is powerful enough as it is"

Meanwhile with Slade and Cora

As Slade and Cora are building their decks, a dark figure appeared before them and said, "Miss Connors, Mr. Slade, we meet at last" making Slade and Cora jump to their feet.

"Who are you?" both Slade and Cora asked, while Slade added "And how did you get in here?"

"I am here to offer you assistance on your journey" the dark figure said. Cora asked sceptically "Why should we trust you?"

"You have no choice. Several hours from now Valtor's clones will storm this city, some duellists will fall, while others will join him. In your present state you are no match for Valtor, so I've come to give you power, just as I appeared before Brandon Blaine" the dark figure said. He then gave two boxes, one to Cora and one to Slade.

"What is this?" Cora asked. The dark figure replied with "It's a gift. They chose you"

"But, this card's blank" Cora said, but when they looked up, the figure was gone. Slade looked up while holding his card and said "What a strange man"

As Valtor's speech ringed out through the screens, Brandon and Slade watching one, while Bryce and Alyseus watched the other. As the broadcast ends, Brandon said "Don't you find it strange that Valtor and Alyseus look exactly the same?"

"It's not strange at all. Alyseus was created as a clone of Valtor. In fact, he was the very first clone" Sade replied.

"What is this sci-fi nonsense? Cloning? WHAT?" Brandon asked, confused. Slade clarified with "Valtor always wanted an army of supporters, what better supporter than yourself?"

"We can't trust him" Brandon declared. Slade calmly explained "He doesn't seem to want to give us to Valtor, he seems to resent him. Bryce does too, but I'm sensing he's more worried about something else"

"And speaking of Bryce, what the fuck is he talking about with this 'third party', how do we know that isn't a trap" Brandon asked. Slade replied with "I don't know, ask him yourself"

"And what's this 'secret base' and form some kind of 'resistance', how do we know he's not, pumping us up for Valtor" Brandon said. Bryce, listening from nearby, shook his head and said "Ugh, Brandon's become a conspiracy theorist. This whole thing just became twice as hard as it already is" Bryce said. He then added "I'll go handle this" before walking up to Brandon, and said "Hey Brandon, what will it take to get you to trust us, or at least me?"

"You two will have to earn our trust" Brandon said. Bryce then grabbed a card from his deck, and said "I can sense you have The Eye of Timaeus. Here, is another one of those dragons" and Bryce showed the Tail of Serpontous.

"The Eye of Timaeus and the Claw of Hermos fuse with monsters, while Fang of Critias fuses with Trap Cards. What do you think the Tail of Serpontous fuses with?"

"Spell cards?" Brandon asked, to which Bryce nodded. Brandon then said "Alright, I'll be keeping my eyes on both of you from now on" to which Bryce nodded, then said "That's perfectly understandable"

"Hey, Slade and I have cards just like that one" came a voice from behind. Turning around, they saw Cora Connors standing behind them. Slade looked at Cora, then said "True. Which one of Critias or Hermos do we have?"

"Dunno. The Tail of Serpontous has got me out of some tough situations, it helped me drive Tess Kuro off when she last challenged me, and defeated several Star Fox Assault Ruffians when they attacked the Uni" Bryce said. Brandon added "I got the same card, it was blank initially, but it became the Eye or Timaeus, gave me exactly what I needed to defeat Larthinox"

"We have to go. There's something we need to do before we take on Valtor" Alyseus said.

"No, we need to help the people" Brandon replied. Alyseys replied with "What?"

"The people. Who are in trouble right now" Brandon said. Alyseus went to argue, but Slade added "I agree with Brandon"

"You don't understand, I've fought Valtor before, I've used an Egyptian God card, not even that wasn't enough to defeat him" Alyseus said.

"We'll have time to go looking for your mystery person" Slade said. Brandon added "Yes for once I agree with Slade"

"If we go out there and try to fight that many fucking clones, we'd just get sealed. The third party that has been hanging around in Australia for several months vanished about a week ago, at the time there were hundreds of them, and they're stronger than the average one of Valtor's clones, yet they fled when Valtor came knocking, what chance do we have?" Bryce asked. he then said "Look, I have a third idea. I think I know who Alyseus is talking about, but my manager's been missing since shortly after his call to you. Hikari Sado's manager, however, is not. I know where he is. However, to get there, we're going to need to battle a few clones" Bryce said.

"Where does he live?" Alyseus asked. Bryce replied with "University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes campus. We're going to need disguises to get there though, if we defeat 5 Clones, and only 5 clones, we should be OK"

"How do we do that though?" Cora asked. Bryce replied with "We find a small unit, break the 5 off individually, and defeat them. I'll use this" (At this Bryce produces a small, red orb with a blue 5 on it) "to split them off so each of us can fight the clone best suited to our deck's strategies. We can then use that to get our disguises and travel to Mawson Lakes"

"Sounds like a good compromise" Slade said. Alyseus nodded, and said "I'm for it". Brandon and Cora said, "I'm still unsure, but I'll go along with it" and at this, Bryce said "Follow me" and they departed.