(AN: In this chapter, a scene in complete italics represents a flashback. This is definitely the longest chapter I've ever written, period. Enjoy!)
Another shiny day at the game shop. The rays from the sunlight started to beam through Yugi's angled bedroom window. The area starts to glow with all of the sun's brightness.
Yugi is in his bed again, having a good sleep. His eyelids start to flutter and opened slowly as he makes a soft, moaning sound. His droopy eyes scan around the pentagonal room, realizing he's back to reality. He sits up, rubbing his eyes with his right palm.
Yugi then looks around the room, still alone. After a few minutes, he stretches his arms wide and yawned.
He smiles, "Another goodnight's sleep for me."
With eyes wide open, he hops off his bed and walked over to his mirror. He wants to make sure that his eyes aren't baggy or dark. As he faces the mirror, nothing under his eyes.
He feels very happy. He stopped having that terrible dream about that evil, winged man. He hasn't been having it for a week.
As he lines the under part of his left eye with his finger, Yugi spots an object shining from the sun, a snapshot picture taped on the top-left corner of the mirror. He detaches it from the glass and took a closer look.
The snapshot is a picture of Yami and friends having a picnic. Yugi smiles at this image. They all looked so happy together.
Yugi felt happy with this picture, but has a touch of sadness in his heart. He really misses Yami. He was like a brother to him, aside from the similar features. Just looking at him only made him miss him even more.
(Warning: To avoid spoilers, please do not read this flashback if you have not seen the anime's last episode, and scroll down to the next set of bold parentheses to read the present time again.)
Yugi's smile slowly morphs into a frown. He still remembers the last time they've seen each other. When they found out the Pharoah's real name, Atem, they arrived in his tomb in Egypt. As soon as they gathered all seven millenium items, Yugi and Atem separated into two. In order to decide whether Atem returns to rest or not, he and Yugi had an epic duel. Since Yugi won that duel, Atem is finally sent to peace. Yugi could still remember the last time he and anyone seen Atem, the day they said their final goodbyes.
In the Pharoah's tomb, Atem stands in front of the shining gateway to his true home, with his face facing the stone floor, and eyes closed. The teary-eyed Yugi stood on the same layer as he. Tea, Joey, and Tristan stood close to Yugi as everyone else, Solomon, Bakura, Duke, Seto, Mokuba, Marik, Odion, and Ishizu, stood far behind, having their bodies illuminated by the light and preparing to watch Atem disappear into the shining, bright light.
Joey, Tea, and Tristan also had some tears forming in their eyes. They have all been through so much together since they lives changed ever since they met the Pharoah. Seeing the Pharoah leave was too hard for them.
They didn't want Yami to leave, especially Yugi. Yami didn't really want to, either, but it was for the best. His people needed a wise ruler.
Joey and Tristan wiped the tears off their faces, but Tea still has tears falling down her own face.
[Goodbye, Atem... and good luck], thought Tea as she places a hand over her heart.
Before Atem begins to walk into the light, Joey decided to make his final farewells. With tears still bubbling in his eyes, the blonde teen raises his right fist, with a proud smile in his face. "Hey! Pharaoh! I hate to break the terrible news to 'ya, but you're not goin' anywhere..."
Atem gasps as he lifted his head up and shot his eyes open in response of surprise.
Joey continued, "... 'cause everything you've given us stays right here, in our hearts!"
With a smile of his own, Atem turns his head to the others and nodded, "Right!"
"Like we always say: 'it's your move!'" said Yugi with a proud attitude of his own.
Atem faces back to the light. He extends his right arm and gave everybody a thumbs up before walking into the light.
With their tears sparkling from the light, Yugi, Tea, Joey, and Tristan stood tall and proud as everyone watches from behind.
When Atem is about to enter, his leather clothing morphs into his royal purple cape. As the cape blows upward, he reveals to be wearing his traditional, Egyptian pharaoh attire.
His loyal servants appears in front of him, waiting to reunite with their young king at long last. As Atem finally disappears into the light, the doors that opened the passageway begins to close slowly.
Tea tries to run after the pharaoh, but Joey stops her by grabbing her shoulder. The door finally closes, revealing the Eye of Anubis on it,causing the room to go dark, never to be opened again.
"He's gone," said Tea as she whimper in sorrow.
"Well, Pharaoh, goodbye..." said Yugi as tears falls down his face again. Everybody stood inside the tomb. Everything was in complete silence.
(This flashback scene is over. Now back to the present.)
Yugi stands in front of the mirror with the snapshot still in his fingertips. His eyes begin to produce tears. He missed Yami so much. His life was so tough before he solved the Millenium Puzzle and freed Yami's spirit. He was a very close friend.
While Yugi wipes the tears off with one of his pajama sleeves, a he heard his telephone ringing. He turns to the phone, it is located at the far desk from his bed. He sticks the picture back on the mirror and walks towards the phone. He picks up the phone, pressed the green button, and answered, "Hello?"
Yugi hears Tea's voice from the phone, "Hey, Yugi? It's me, Tea."
"Oh, hey, Tea. What's up?"
"Well, it's Saturday, and I don't have any plans, and I'm pretty sure you don't, either. Soooo, you wanna hang out? Just you and me?"
Yugi blushes and hesitated, "Uh, sure. How about I meet you at the front of that new mall, at 12:00 PM?"
"Sounds awesome! I'll be there. Later, Yugi!"
"See you soon, Tea!" Yugi hears Tea hanging up the phone as he does the same. Yugi smiles and his blushing fades away when he seems to cheer up as he's about to hang out with one of his best friends.
Maybe hanging out with Tea will take my mind off the Pharaoh, he thought. Or at least I hope so.
Yugi arrives at the front of the new mall he mentioned. He wears his usual leather pants and jacket, with his black undershirt and matching shoes.
The spiky-haired teen is surrounded by a small sea of people walking in or out of the tall building. He stood there alone and looks up at the building. It's cylindrical, it's about five floors tall, and the wall is made of shiny glass that anyone can see through. The sun gives the glass a bright, glistening shine, making the mall beautiful and easy to spot from far distances.
Yugi heard that this mall made its grand opening about a month ago. He also heard that it has been nominated "Best Mall In Domino City". He's very much surprised that neither Kaiba or Pegasus built this mall.
Yugi looks around to see if Tea's around yet. There is no sign of her yet. He lifts his wrist up and took a good look at his wristwatch, it indicates that it is noon. Yugi frowned and thought, Hmm, Tea should be here about now.
As he hears nothing but indistinct voices from the people around him, Yugi suddenly hears a faint voice yelling his name. He takes his eyes off his watch and looks around, seeing only people passing by. The voice has gotten closer and louder. After a few more seconds, he looks from behind and saw Tea running towards him.
The brunette wears a green tanktop with blue skinny jeans and caramel-brown boots. She has a long-strap purse around her left shoulder that matches the color of her boots. She also has five differently colored bracelets around her right wrist, which she is using to wave to Yugi.
Yugi turned to face her, smiled, and waved back, "Hey, Tea!"
When the two teens meet, there is no more crowd around, gor now. Yugi and Tea looks up at the new mall. They can see the big sign on top of the entrance that says "Welcome to Domino Heights".
"So this place is called Domino Heights, huh?" asked Tea with her right hand on her hip.
"Yep," Yugi said, "it was nominated the best mall in the city."
"Cool. Why don't we go in?" Tea looks down at Yugi.
Yugi looked up at her and nodded, "Yeah!"
As the two teenagers stood in the middle of the bottom floor, they look around the exterior of the mall. There are fountains and palm trees everywhere on the main floor. Yugi sees two glass elevators on the opposite sides of the building. Tea can see the higher floors connected to the elevators. They can also see a large on the ceiling. The sun beams through the glass building and makes everywhere bright enough, making the use of artificial lighting unnecessary during daytime.
Yugi and Tea both looked around in amazement. "Wow! This place looks amazing!" Tea exclaimed.
"Yeah! Not only this mall looks good, but thanks to the glass walls letting the sun's light into the inside, we could also save a lot of energy," Yugi informed.
"Yeah! And I heard that the walls and windows here are all made of special glass that prevents them from causing a greenhouse effect and prevents the place from being too bright! I just love it when we have a place that's both fun and helps the environment."
They could smell the food from the food courts and the popcorn from the theater sections on the same floor. And they could also see chandeliers hanging off the ceilings under each floor.
Tea looks down at her short friend, "So, where do you want to go first, Yugi?"
Yugi blushes as he looks down to the floor and thinks for a minute. He hardly remembers the last time he and Tea hang out, with just the two of them. When they do, it's mostly Yami that hangs out with her.
Yami...
Just thinking about him again makes his heart ache. He should be happy for him, but he never loses a friend so close to him, and not just literally.
Tea looks down at Yugi with worried eyes, "Yugi?"
The short boy snaps out of thought and looks up at her taller friend. He looks down again with hands behind his back, blushing once more, "Well, um, how about we go see a movie together?" His reddened face gets even darker by the minute.
Tea smiled and nodded, "Sure."
Yugi and Tea went to the movie theater and watched a romantic, action, comedy. They laughed during the comedy parts, they were mind-blown through the explosive action scenes, and through the kissing scenes, Tea held Yugi in jovial tears. Being wrapped around in the girl's arms made Yugi blush hard again. He's lucky they're sitting in the back row alone, or else people would be staring, making him even more embarrassed.
After the movie, they went upstairs and discovered a futuristic-looking arcade. The games there are modern, and one of them happens to be an arcade demo version of the latest video game, Super Smash Brother Brawl. Even though the game is already released, they decided to keep the demo version out for those who wants to see how fun them game is before they buy an original copy, and Yugi and Tea are one of those people.
The demo version is a 2-player game, so Yugi and Tea decided to try it out. When they got there turn, they select there own characters to fight one another. Yugi chose a psychic boy named Lucas, and Tea picked a beautiful princess named Peach.
As they spent two minutes fighting each other in a battlefield, Tea won against Yugi by one K.O. point. Yugi wanted to congratulate her, but he was already too embarrassed as a group of boys from behind snickered at him because he just got beat by a princess.
When they left the arcade, Yugi and Tea got hungry and went back downstairs to eat at the food court.
When they finished eating, they decided to do a little shopping (and by "a little", I mean "A LOT"). Yugi didn't mind shopping for about an hour with Tea. They tried on some new clothes, made agreements and disagreements on what or what NOT to wear.
It's now 7:00 in the afternoon. When the sun went down, chandeliers turns on automatically, like street lights. The mall will always be given lighting through the dark, whether it's daytime or nighttime.
An elevator elevated down to the first floor, and when it opens, it revealed Yugi and Tea standing inside. They each holding two shopping bags in their hands, but Tea's bags are bigger and heavier-looking.
Yugi looked down at her bags with concern, "Hey, Tea, is it really necessary to buy that much clothes?"
"You seriously have a lot to learn about our gender, Yugi," she responded.
"Well, anyway, I should probably get back home," said Yugi as they both walked of the elevator, "I gotta get home for dinner in twenty minutes."
After they walked out, they looked up at the chandeliers.
"Wow! Look at the chandeliers, Yugi!" The lights made Tea's eyes sparkle.
"Yeah! I'm liking this fancy touch to this mall."
Before they headed towards the exit, Tea takes a look at the food court and spotted a familiar person sitting in a table alone, sipping on a drink. The person is a blonde woman wearing a white shirt under a purple jacket with a matching skirt and matching sleeves. She has on black boots and a black pouch strapped around her left thigh.
"Hey, is that Mai?" wondered Tea.
"Huh? Where?" asked Yugi.
Yugi looks to the direction to where Tea just pointed to. The spike-haired boy spotted the same blonde lady, "Hey, maybe that is her. But the last time we saw her, we saved her, you, and the others from the Orichalcos. After that, we haven't heard much of her. Come on, let's go see."
"Okay."
The teenagers walked to the food court. They walked close to the table where the woman is sitting.
"Hey, Mai?" The woman paused her drinking and turned to face two teens walking towards her while carrying shopping bags in their hands.
The purple-eyed woman blinked and responded, "Yugi? Tea?"
The said teens smiled as she remembered her.
"Hey! Long time, no see!" said Tea.
"How are you doing?" asked Yugi.
"Fine," she replied quietly as she sips her drink.
Tea stares at the blonde in concern. She and Yugi both understands what she's one through. She joins this biker gang which turned out to be a group of soul stealers whose boss is a 10,000-year-old, originally good evil king with goals to bring back Atlantis, overthrow the Pharaoh, and rule the world. Yami, Joey, and Kaiba managed to stop that evil mastermind and saved the victims, including Mai. The evil king, known as Dartz, become good again and lived forever in peace with his daughter and father.
After Mai's soul was saved, the gang hasn't heard much from her since. They understand what she's gone through; loneliness, despair, neglect during her childhood, and others.
Not wanting to mention those terrible memories to Mai, Tea decided to speak positively, "So, uh, this mall looks pretty cool, huh, Mai?"
"It's alright, I guess," Mai shrugged. "I looked at some nice gems at the jewelry department and some perfumes at the beauty section."
"Well, it's good to see you again, Mai," said Yugi. Yugi's not sure if Mai is happy to see them again. But she's always been so alone. Why wouldn't she be happy? "We thought, maybe, you could use some company, since you seem to be by yourself."
"Thanks, Yugi. Congratulations on winning that third tournament, by the way."
Yugi and Tea gave a surprised look. Tea responded, "You mean the KC Grand Championship?"
"Yeah. I watched the last duel between Yugi and that purple-headed kid from the big screen on one of the buildings."
"Oh! Well, thanks." Just then, a ringtone sounded out from Yugi's left pants pocket. "Oh, hang on a sec," Yugi dropped the bag on his left hand and used that hand to dig into the pocket. After he grabbed something metallic, he pulled it out to reveal a purple cellphone in his hand.
Yugi's grandpa bought him a new cellphone for finally doing better after getting rid of that nightmare. He bought him a purple one because it matches the same color as Yugi's favorite Duel Monsters card: The Dark Magician.
Yugi flips open the phone, pressed the call button, and answered, "Hello? Oh, hey, Joey!"
Mai gasped before looking at the boy after she heard that name.
"What's that?" Yugi continues, "What? Really? No way! Yes, but- Ok, I'll- Yes I- Yeah, I'll tell the others. Ok, bye." He closed his phone and puts it back in his pocket.
"What did Joey want, Yugi?" Tea asked.
Yugi frowned, "Oh, I wish I have time to tell you, but I really need to get home for dinner."
"You know," Mai spoke up as she takes a sip of her drink again, "I guess I could give you two a ride. I t should be quicker than just walking."
Yugi and Tea was surprised, but in a happy way. Yugi asks, "Wow, thanks, Mai!"
Mai faces the teens, smiling, "Well, consider it as a returned favor for saving me and my other friends' souls from the Orichalcos." The blonde then gave them a sassy wink.
Yugi had made it to his house after a car ride from Mai two hours ago. He made it in time for dinner with his grandpa. They had a nice dine. They talked and shared laughs the entire time. His grandpa made gooey cinnamon rolls for dessert. Yugi told him that was one of the best treats he ever made.
Yugi is currently in his room, trying to set up his game helmet. When he unboxed it, it was only the helmet, a manual, and some pieces of Styrofoam still remaining in the box, some were scattered around his bed along with the helmet just sitting there. When Joey called, he told Yugi that he and Tristan travelled into a virtual reality world, which is the world of Super Smash Brothers. They dressed up as their favorite characters and battled tons of enemies.
The spike-headed teen reads the manual, "Let's see. The instructions say that you must find a safe place to lay your body down while you activate your gaming helmet."
"Ok. Got it," Tea's voice is heard from the house phone lying next to Yugi's helmet. The phone is on speaker. "And next, when you find a safe environment, put the helmet on and activate it by turning on the 'On' button located at the back of the helmet."
"Ok," Yugi picks up the helmet. The portable machine is actually quite lighter than it looks. He rotated the helmet to see the back. When he does, he sees a small button with a green activation symbol on it. Yugi wonders if that's all they have to do. "So, when you put on the helmet and turn it on, what happens next?"
Tea speaks as if she is reading the manual from her helmet, "'After you put on your helmet and activate it, you will be given 10 seconds to lay your body on a bed or on a comfortable surface. After 10 seconds, your mind will connect to the game, leaving your body on Sleep Mode. Once your mind enters the game, your mind cannot go back to your body until you log off.' You got that, Yugi?"
"Yes," Yugi nodded, "So, our bodies won't operate again until we log off the game?"
"Exactly."
"Um, okay." I have a weird feeling about this, he thought worriedly. "Okay, I'll meet at the game with the others, Tea."
"Okay, Yugi. See you soon!"
After Yugi ends the call, he removes everything off his bed and set them on his desk. He then sits on his bed and tries to put on the helmet. He was very surprised that he managed to fit all of that big, spiky hair into that thing. Yugi wraps behind his chin with the strap of the helmet.
"Ok, here goes nothing," he said to himself. He reaches to the back of the helmet and pressed the button, making the symbol glow light-green. Finally, he lays his body flat on his bed. Black visors appeared in front of Yugi's eyes. He sees a countdown running on the top-right corner.
"Countdown initiated," said a female computer voice as she starts counting, "10, 9, 8, 7..."
Yugi hopes for the best that nothing goes haywire.
"...6, 5, 4..."
I really hope this will end well, he thought nervously.
"3, 2, 1."
After the countdown, nothing happened.
"What?" Yugi said surprisingly, "Hmm, I guess mine was a d-" Before he has a chance to finish talking, his eyes widened to a ding sound before slowly closing all the way down, leaving his mind blurry.
FINALLY! I finally got this chapter done! Now, before you guys start asking, let me explain some details in this chapter. The reason I'm explaining about what happened on season 4 is because I'm posting this story as both a regular fic and a crossover, and some people may not know everything that happened in the show. ALSO, believe it or not, I did not get the virtual helmet idea from "Sword Art Online", I actually came up with it before I've heard of that anime. And no, they will not be trapped in the game, they get to log off anytime. I'll probably edit this chapter sometime. Bye! ;)