Hi everyone!!!!! It's been kinda hard to get around to writing this chapter, with tests and exams quickly approaching, but here it is! This one was also kinda hard to write, because I had several ideas for how it should go, but I think this way was the best. And, because it took me so long to upload this chapter, I decided to make this one extra long!
By the way, there are a lot of episodes that I will have to skip, because they are the episodes where Joey and Yugi win their locator cards, and it would take forever to write all of them… But anyways, enjoy!
And, also, a big thanks to everyone who enjoys and has been supporting this fic. You guys rock!
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series. I do, however, own my OC's in this story, Nina and Brian.
Chapter 4
The next day, I woke up to find that I was in the same room as last night.
"So that really wasn't a dream… That really did happen! We really are in Domino city!" I thought, excited about the new things Brian and I could do today.
Roughly around that time, my friend began to wake up slowly in the room next to mine. He got of his room and mumbled a good morning, before heading to the kitchen for his breakfast. I laughed at this; ever since I had known him, he had never been much of a morning person.
I went to the kitchen to fix my own meal, and afterward we both got ready to take a walk around town.
When we were ready to leave, we heard someone ring the doorbell. I went to answer it, and saw Ryou with a worried expression on his face.
"Ryou, what happened?"
"Yugi just called me. He said that he needs our help!"
"Why?"
"Yugi got a call from Joey's mother this morning, saying that Joey never made it to the hospital. His sister says that she won't get the operation unless he's there, but we can't find him! He just called Tristan and Tea too, to get more people out there looking for him."
"Ok, hang on a minute, and we'll go with you." We both got ready, and followed Ryou to go and meet the gang.
A couple of moments later, Tristan arrived in a motorcycle, and took off his helmet. "I just finished searching through the places Joey usually hangs out at. There's no sign of him!"
"Now what?"
"We have to split up and search the rest of the city. Ryou and I will search around this area." said Yugi.
"Then I'll search around the city." said Tristan.
"And I'll go to the warehouse district." said Tea.
"I guess me and Nina will search the park."
We all split up and started our search. Half way towards the park, I turned to Brian and asked him why he didn't just say where Joey was.
"How where we gonna explain it? We only know him for around a day and a half, and suddenly we know where he went running off to?"
"Yeah, I guess it would be hard to explain that…"
"Besides, we never know, it is possible he's just walking around the city now, and he decided to stop at the beach when Tristan found him."
So we arrived at the park, and searched around for a few minutes, but there no sign of Joey anywhere.
"I guess we better go and see the beach, there's no point in just sitting here…" said Brian. So we walked towards the beach, to find that Tristan was already there, trying to talk some sense back into Joey.
"Wow… I never thought I'd see this scene outside of the Japanese version…"
We approached them, just as Tristan was yelling at Joey, grabbing Joey's by his shirt.
"What are you doing here? You should be at the hospital!"
When Joey fell back down, he started to sob. Tristan, surprised to see his friend act so uncharacteristically, asked him what was wrong.
"Yesterday on the way to the hospital, I was stopped by three guys wearing purple cloaks, who called themselves "Rare Hunters". They go around, challenging other duelists to unfair duels, and stealing their rare cards. I lost the game, and he took my Red Eyes."
Tristan then knelt down next to his friend. "You can worry about that later, Serenity needs you!"
Joey turns away from him. "You don't get it! To me, the Red Eyes is the key to victory!" Tristan replies that, if Joey doesn't get to the hospital soon, his sister won't have the operation. "She wants you to be there to encourage her!"
However, Joey still seemed depressed, saying that he wouldn't be able to comfort her. Tristan then decided that talking isn't going to get him anywhere, so he decides to punch Joey, knocking him back. As we were watching the whole scene, Brian and I winced.
"That had to hurt…"
"I can't believe you're giving up on your sister because of a card game! I can see that you and Yugi love playing it, but right now, there are more important things on the line!"
Joey looked at Tristan, finally seeing the truth in his friend's words, and nodded. "You're right, let's go to the hospital!"
They both get on Tristan's motorcycle, and ride off on the direction of the hospital.
"Well, now what?"
"I guess we have to go meet Yugi and the others, and tell them that Tristan found Joey, and has taken him to see Serenity."
Brian nodded and we took off towards the meeting place, where Yugi, Tea and Ryou were waiting.
"Did you find him?"
"No, Tristan did. He made Joey come back to his senses, and they're on their way to go see Serenity."
They all sighed in relief. "At least we know that he's safe." said Tea.
"Yeah, but what will he do when he gets there?"
"I'm sure they will be fine." said Yugi. We all nodded, and decided to return home, after a full day of searching.
Several days passed after that little incident, and a lot happened since then; Yugi and Joey were just two locator cards away from the finals, and we didn't know much about Bakura. Lately, he's been going around town on his own, but I knew that he would make it to the finals, so I wasn't really worried.
Brian and I also had five locator cards each, and today, we where on our way to the park to try and gain our last card.
"Who do you think we should challenge?" he asked.
"I dunno. We'll probably have to duel someone like the other people we dueled."
We arrived at the park and started to look for anyone who had a Duel Disk on. And, fortunately, we found the perfect duo to duel.
"Well, look who it is…"
"Who?"
I pointed at two kids: one had a closed green jacket with a beetle pattern on the front and black shorts, while the other had a green jacket, a red beanie cap, and brown trousers.
"Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor…" Brain said, smirking. "Sure, I've always wanted to beat them in a real duel!" then, he turned to them and shouted. "Hey, you two, with the Duel Disks!"
"What do you want?" asked Weevil.
"You two are duelists, right? How about a duel for your Locator cards?"
"Forget it! We don't want to duel two nobodies like you!"
"Hey, wait, I know you two…" I said.
"Oh, so you recognized me as the Japanese Duel Monsters champion, Weevil Underwood?"
"And I was the runner up. My name's Rex Raptor!"
"No, I was just talking to one of my friends, called Joey, the other day, and he said that Rex was beat by a kid that pretended to have psychic powers, and that he beat Weevil and took his Locator Card." I said thoughtfully. Weevil and Rex sweatdropped.
"W-well, that's not true, because, as you can see, we're still in this tournament!"
"Yeah, and we can beat anybody that crosses our path!"
"Well, if you think you're so tough, how about this: we'll do a Tag Duel. The first team whose Life Points reach zero loses, and the winning team gets all the Locator Cards and the losing Team's rarest cards."
They started to talk amongst themselves, but soon came to an agreement.
"Let's do it!"
"I'll start!" said Weevil. "Behold the awesome power of my Insect army! I set one card face down, Set one monster, and end my turn."
"Some power... You can't even summon a powerful monster to attack? You have to hide behind them?" asked Brian, taunting him.
However, Weevil just snickered. "You will see the power of my deck soon enough! Hehehehe!!!"
"My turn! I summon Giant Rat! Attack his face down card!" said Brian.
"Not so fast! I activate my trap card, Negate Attack!"
Brian's monster suddenly hit a barrier, and was sent back, as Weevil's monster staid intact on the field.
"That monster must have a powerful effect, if he wants to protect it that bad..." I thought, as I watched Weevil laugh as Brian could do nothing more that set a card face down on the field, and end his turn. Then it suddenly occurred to me what he was planning. "Oh no..."
"Brian! That monster is the Parasite Paracide!"
"What?" He looked at me shocked, as Weevil continued to laugh.
"So you finally figured out our strategy, huh? But it's too late, because all your monsters will soon become infected!!!"
"Yeah, and we will be on our way to the Battle City Finals!!" Rex said, as he flip summoned Weevil's monster, and sure enough, it was the Parasite Paracide. The monster suddenly attacked Brian's deck, and hid somewhere in his cards.
"Now, I'll Special Summon my Gilasaurus, and Tribute it to Summon my Sword Arm of Dragon! Now, destroy Giant Rat!"
The huge dinosaur slashed through Giant Rat with his tail, destroying it and dropping our Life Points to 3650.
"Then I activate my monster's effect, and Summon a monster that has 1500 ATK points or less to the field." Brian said, summoning Giant Soldier of Stone. However, when he was shuffling his deck, his face went pale.
"What's wrong?"
"The next card I'm about to draw... It's Weevil's card!"
"Then that means that on your next turn..."
"All your monster will become infected, and will be turned into bugs!!!" said Weevil, and started to laugh again.
"Then I guess we better finish this duel quickly. I summon Dunames Dark Witch. Attack Rex's dinosaur!"
"No! My monster!" Rex cried, as his Life Points dropped.
"Now, Giant Soldier of Stone, attack their Life Points directly!" The stone beast swung his sword at our two opponents, lowering their Life Points to a total of 2650.
"You still haven't won! My turn. I summon Leghul, and now I activate my monster's effect, and attack your Life Points directly!!"
Weevil's monster crawled his way towards me and attacked me directly, causing me to flinch.
"How can this thing hurt me? It's just a hologram!!" I thought as my Life Points hit 3350.
"And finally, I activate Insect Barrier. Now all your monsters won't be able to attack our Life Points, as long as this card remains on the field."
"I guess it's my turn now..." said Brian. I knew that he really didn't want to draw that monster, but he had no choice, as the monster emerged on the field and began to infect both our monsters. "I set one monster face down, and end my turn."
"Now it's time you felt the rage of my dinosaurs! I Summon Mad Sword Beast, in attack mode! Now, send that face down monster back to the Stone Age! And because of its effect, you take damage equal to the difference of my dinosaur's ATK points and your monster's DEF points! And Leghul, attack them directly!" The face down card was flipped, revealing Baron of the Fiend Sword, who immediately got destroyed, dropping our Life Points to 2450.
"The situation looks bad. We can't attack with any of our monsters, and we can't Tribute Summon any High leveled monsters, because the ones on the field are infected by the Parasite!" I thought. "The only thing to do now is to wait for the right card to appear." I put the Giant Soldier of Stone in defense mode, and ended my turn.
On the next turn, Weevil just attacked us with Leghul, and summoned Pinch Hopper.
Brian looked hopefully at his deck, trying to think of a strategy to get our monsters free. As he drew, he got a smile on his face, and set his newly acquired monster in the field face down.
"Now who's hiding behind their monsters?" asked Rex, taunting Brian. "Mad Sword Beast, attack that face down card!"
"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you.."
"Why not?"
As in response to Rex's question, a monster came out of the flipped card. And that monster was...
"A Man-Eater Bug?!" asked Weevil, looking scared as the bug started to search for a target.
"That's right. I've had one in my deck all along, and as someone who uses a deck built around Insects, you should know that when this card is flipped, it can destroy any monster on the field. And I choose to destroy the Parasite Paracide!"
The Man-Eater Bug leaped and attacked the Parasite, and got destroyed in the process. Our Life Points were now at 1650.
"Now that our monsters are finally free, the real duel can start! I Tribute my Dunames Dark Witch, to Summon Airknight Parshath. Attack his Mad Sword Beast!" My monster complied, swinging his sword, and destroying the monster.
On the next turn, all that Weevil could do was to set Soldier Ant, and end his turn.
"It's time to finish this! I Tribute my Giant Soldier of Stone to Summon Machine King! And now I activate my trap card, DNA Surgery! This allows me to pick one type of monster, and as long as this card stays on the field, all monsters that are summoned become that type. And I pick Machine!"
Suddenly, all our monsters began to turn into machines.
"No!!! My bug army!!!"
"Their not the ones you should be worried about!" Brian said, as his Machine King's ATK power began to rise. "My Machine King gains 100 ATK points for every Machine Type on the field, and right now there are five of them, bringing my monster's power to 2700. Now, attack Leghul!"
Weevil looked on, as his monster was sent to the Graveyard, and as Airknight Parshath attacked his face down monster, making them lose the Duel.
"Dammit! Our scheme was foolproof!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Legally, we're not in the tournament anymore, but we still had a good deck and a Duel Disk, so we scammed some kids out of their Locator Cards, and took their rare cards..."
"So that's how they're still in the tournament..."
"But Kaiba is sure to notice that and disqualify us now." said Rex, looking down. But he looked back up, with a smirk on his face. "But if we have to leave this tournament, at least it wasn't because of a fluke win by some punk kids." He said, handing me a Locator Card, and his rarest card: Tri-Horned Dragon. "Maybe we will get to duel someday again."
Weevil, however, was not taking defeat as smoothly as Rex.
"No!!!! I refuse to lose like this!!!"
"Those are the rules, Weevil."
He glared at us, but handed over a Locator Card and Javelin Beetle to Brian. "This isn't over! I will have my rematch!"
As they walked away, I turned to my friend and we started to celebrate. "We're in the finals!"
"Not a moment too soon, the finals are supposed to take place tonight!"
We continued to celebrate, but it wouldn't last long. I looked behind him, watching a familiar figure.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't look now, but there's a Steve behind us."
"In that case, I think there's only one thing to do..." We both nodded at each other, and broke into a run in the opposite direction.
We ran down the street, trying to get somewhere safe, but our efforts proved to be useless as more Rare Hunters cornered us and knocked us out. Before we fell into the blackness, I heard one of them say: "Master Marik will be very pleased that we finally managed to capture these two..."
A few hours later, we woke up in what looked like a warehouse, full of crates and boxes.
"Ow... my aching head..."
"We have got to stop passing out so often, afterward we just feel like we had a bad hangover..."
"I just hope it wasn't another dimension jump, I don't think I could take being sent to somewhere like 5D's..." I said, gripping my head. Don't get me wrong, I like Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's, but the last thing I needed was to get run over by a motorcycle.
"I would finish that joke, but I really don't feel like it right now..." Brian said, as he slowly got up, using one of the crates as support.
As soon as we were able to get back on our feet, three cloaked people came in.
"Master Marik demands to see both his new prisoners. Move!" the one on the front said.
The ones behind him quickly grabbed us and lead us out of the room we were in, and down a corridor that lead to a bigger room, that had torches on either side of the walls, and a throne like chair in the opposite side of the room from we were standing, in which sat a cloaked figure that I knew was Marik.
"Master Marik, we have brought the ones you seek."
"Very good. You may return to your guarding posts." The three henchmen did as they were told, and left the room. As soon as they were gone, Marik turned to us.
"So these are the two duelists who came from another dimension..."
We were shocked that he knew about our true origins, but still tried to pretend like we didn't know what he was talking about.
"What are you..."
"Don't play dumb with me! Your little friend has already told me everything!"
"Who?"
Marik smirked. "The last person person you two saw before you arrived in this dimension."
We thought about what he meant for a second, and then it came to us.
"Bakura?!"
"Yes. He found out about a dimension where this one existed only as a product as someone's imagination. But what he found more intriguing is that they also knew about events that haven't happened yet. So he formulated a plan to bring someone from that world to this one, and make them give him all the information he needed."
"And how do you know all this?" asked Brian.
"Because Bakura and I are now allies. He is going to help me reclaim the power of the Pharaoh, and rule the world!" Marik said, laughing.
I looked at him, and started laughing as an idea crossed my mind. " You know, I believe that is called Thiefshipping..."
Brian started laughing at that statement, and Marik just looked at me confused. "You believe what is called what now?"
Brian, still trying to hold back tears, shook his head. "You really don't want to know..."
Marik just shrugged and ignored that, as he turned away from us. I asked him why we were there.
"You have been brought here to make sure that you fulfill your part in our plan." Marik simply answered.
"And what makes you so sure that we are going to do that?" asked Brian.
Marik turned back to face us, with a smirk on his face. "Because I have a, how should I put this, a small "insurance"."
""Insurance"..."
Marik then snapped his fingers, and two more of his Rare Hunters came in with another prisoner. One with white hair, that had bandages on his left arm.
"Ryou!"
"It would be a shame if he got hurt even more, now wouldn't it?"
I ran over to Ryou, who was on the floor unconscious, and with a knife wound on his arm, no doubt caused by the dagger hidden inside the Millennium Rod. I clenched my fists and glared at Marik.
"So, will you cooperate?"
"Never, you-" started Brian, but I interrupted him.
"What do you need to know?"
"What?"
The young Ishtar smirked. "All in due time. You will get more information on what we want from you two exactly soon enough. In the mean time, I believe you have a tournament to get to."
I nodded, and he told us to leave, saying not to tell any of this meeting to the Pharaoh, or any of his friends, or a fate worst then Ryou's would await us.
Once we were outside, Brian started to yell at me. "Why did you agree to do that?"
"I didn't have a choice!"
"Like hell you didn't. You just didn't want to chose any other option!"
"Can you give me a little bit more faith? I have a plan."
"Oh yeah? Like what?"
"When the time comes, you and everyone else will find out."
Brian sighed. "Well, I just hope it's a good plan.."
I put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, it'll be alright. Now, let's get to that blimp!"
He slapped his forehead. "That's right!" He took out his Duel Disk, and put all the Locator Cards on it, showing a hologram of the map of the city, with a mark indicating where the tournament was being held. We followed the map to the Kaiba Corp Stadium, where Kaiba and Mokuba were awaiting the finalists.
"Hey Nina, check it out; it's Hans and Grubber. They will be needing to see our Locator Cards before they will be letting us pass!"
We both started to laugh, which made Kaiba look in our direction.
"So, you two finally made it to the finals?" asked Kaiba.
"I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to give you another chance at that Blue Eyes, now could I?"
Kaiba glared at me when he remembered the defeated a few days before, at the hands of his most trusted card.
Just then, Yugi and the gang showed up, and Kaiba didn't look too pleased that Joey made it to the finals.
"Hey, you guys made it!" said Joey, greeting us.
"We wouldn't miss it for the world!"
"Now all that's left is to see who the other finalists are."
Then, another person join the group of finalists.
"Hey look, it's Namu!" said Joey. "He was the one who helped Ryou." He and Tea then explained the whole situation to Yugi, and introduced him to Namu.
"Namu" joined the group and smiled warmly, saying that it was just a fluke that he was there.
Afterward, Ryou joined us the stadium. Everyone else was too shocked that he had maintained his decision to compete, even though he had been injured and should be recovering at the hospital. However, he diverted their attention from him, by saying that another duelist was approaching. He was a tall guy, wearing a purple cloak.
"That's Odion. So now the only person missing is Ishizu..."
"Hey, that's that guy Marik! He was the one who captured us!" said Joey, trying to go punch Odion.
"Captured?" Brian asked, trying to act like he didn't know what was going on.
Yugi shook his head. "It's a long story, we'll tell you later."
"Attention, duelists!" said one of Kaiba's men. "This stadium is not where the finals will be taking place. The real site shall arrive shortly." At that moment, a huge aircraft whit the words "Kaiba Craft 3" landed a few feet away from us, in the center of the half built Stadium.
Mokuba then told everyone to get on board, and Odion, Marik, Mai, Yugi, Ryou, Joey, Brian and me all got into the ship after showing our tournament ID's. However, because they didn't have any, when Tea, Tristan, Serenity and Duke tried to go in as well, they were stopped by Kaiba's men.
They all try to plead with them to let them pass, but to no avail. Finally, Mokuba tells them to let the rest of the gang in.
"These are Mr. Kaiba's rules, we can't do anything!"
"Please, Seto, let then aboard." says Mokuba. Kaiba just shrugs.
"Whatever."
Taking that as a permission to go aboard, the gang rush inside, and as he is walking up the steps of the blimp, Kaiba tells the guards to begin take-off immediately.
"Mr. Kaiba, there's one duelist missing." One of his security guards said.
"I don't care. The most important thing in this tournament - the three God cards – are already on board." He then turned around, and went up the stairs.
I decided to hurry up, and go to the observation lounge, where everyone was watching the city below.
"Hey, Nina, Brian, you guys still haven't met our friends, yet, right?" said Joey, calling us over. "This is Duke, that's Mai, and my sister Serenity."
"Hi!"
They all greeted us, and wished us good luck in the tournament.
"By the way, Joey, thanks for bringing me here." said Serenity, turning to Joey.
Her brother just laughed. "It's just one of the many good things about having a champ in the family!"
Kaiba snickered at that comment. "Please Wheeler. Everyone knows that the only reason your even on this blimp is because of a fluke. Don't get your hopes too high – it will be long way down, and last time I checked, monkeys can't fly."
Joey looked pretty steamed at that comment, but Kaiba turned to Yugi, telling him that he should put Slifer in his deck, because he intend to win it. By the time the tournament was over, he would be the greatest duelist in the world, with all three Egyptian God cards.
Then, we all retired to our rooms, which were locked and could only be opened by using our ID's.
Me and Brian went to our room, and tried to go over some card strategies, but ended up just laughing at all the noise that was coming from Joey's room, where everyone sort of decided to throw a party.
After a while, we heard a voice sound through the blimp. "Attention duelists!The finals are about to begin. Please everyone report to the main hall."
I got up and turned to Brian. "I swear, if he says "Attention duelists" one more time, I'm just going to ask if his hair has something to tell us."
"I guess it must be a guard thing."
We got out of the room and headed to the main hall. Everyone else was already there, and one Kaiba's men, who was next to a lottery machine shaped like a Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon, was explaining the rules.
"Every duelist was given one number upon entering the blimp. First, there will be a lottery to determine who will duel first. The second pair of duelists won't be selected until the first duel has ended, so the duelists won't know who they are dueling until just before the duel starts. Does everyone know their numbers?"
I looked down at my tournament card, and saw that my number was 10. Brian's card said his was 9.
The lottery machine in front of us was turned on, and the numbers inside started to spin. After a while, one of the Dragon's heads swallowed up a ball and rolled out into a trough, revealing the number 6.
Ryou laughed nervously, saying that he wasn't expecting to be chosen so early. The others kept asking him if he was alright, and kept telling him that he should return to his room and rest.
But then the second number was selected, and it was...
"Number ten!"
Brian and I looked at each other shocked, and my breath got caught in my throat.
"What?"
Well, there you have it. It was a bit longer than I expected, but it's to make up for my absence. What will Nina do now, now that she has to duel her favorite character in what could very well be a Shadow Duel? Find out on the next chapter of "I hope this isn't a dream!".