Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX.
Chapter 9: The Enemy Within
Chazz had been walking aimlessly through the jungle for an uncertain amount of time. He had no idea how long he had been walking or where he was in the forest, but when he first left Jaden and the others he didn't really care. He just needed to get away, as far away from Jaden and Alexis as he could. He had to get away from them because he couldn't take what he had just seen. The moment that Chazz had seen Alexis tap into Yubel's power to defeat Lamia was the moment that Chazz had a dark realization; that he had lost Alexis forever.
It wasn't simply the fact that Alexis clearly seemed to love Jaden instead of him. What Chazz saw at the end of that duel was that Jaden and Yubel had somehow corrupted Alexis. The supernatural chaos that Jaden drew towards him had somehow enveloped Alexis, infected her and made her into something not human like Jaden. Alexis still seemed like the same person, but now the chaos that Jaden drew towards him like a lightning rod would be drawn to her as well. To Chazz, Alexis had become another one of Jaden's casualties.
As Chazz continued walking, he soon noticed that everything around him had somehow become shrouded in a thick white mist. The ground under his feet had also become muddier. The mist kept getting stronger and stronger as Chazz kept walking. He wondered once or twice if the mist was a sign that he should turn back, but he decided against that because he still couldn't face Alexis and what she had become. Eventually Chazz reached the place where the mist was strongest, a giant pond or lake hidden deep in the jungle.
"Uh, boss?" Ojama Yellow spoke as he appeared next to Chazz's head. "Don'cha think we should turn back now? I mean I understand why ya left an' all, but this place seems kinda dangerous."
"You're probably right," Chazz grudgingly admitted. "Besides, looks like we've hit a dead end."
Just as Chazz was about to turn back, he heard the sound of a woman's laughter coming from behind him. The laughter seemed to have a strange echoing quality to it that Chazz just didn't like. Before Chazz could call out to the woman to show herself, a ball of white light struck his back. The light had a coldness to it that caused his whole body to feel numb. A split second after it had entered him, the light ball shot out of his chest and towards the lake. Chazz felt as though he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him.
As Chazz caught his breath and normal sensation returned to him, he looked and saw Lucia floating above the lake. Her left hand was behind her back, and floating above the flat palm of her right hand was a yellow ball of light that resembled a seed.
"Who are you?" Chazz demanded to know. "More importantly, what are you and what the hell did you just do to me?"
"Who I am isn't important right now," Lucia told him. "And don't worry. I've done nothing to harm you. I just needed to borrow a little piece of your heart to run an experiment."
Lucia then dropped the seed-like ball of light into the water. A few moments later a strange plant sprouted from the water's surface. The plant grew larger and changed shape in a matter of seconds, and soon it turned into what looked like a wooden sculpture of Chazz. As the sculpture finished forming, a strange glowing green moss covered its left shoulder and its entire waist. Suddenly the eyelids of the sculpture snapped open with the sound of a piece of wood being broken in half, revealing that the eyes behind them were nothing more than small glowing green balls of phosphorescent light.
The lips of the sculpture's face curved into a sneer. "Hey there, Chazz. How's it going?"
"What… what the hell?" a startled Chazz exclaimed as he took a step back. "What is this?"
"Just a golem I made using the indigenous plant life and the darkest parts of yourself," Lucia answered. "He's also going to be your opponent."
"So you're working with Viper," Chazz realized.
"More like he works for me, but that's as accurate an assessment as any," Lucia confirmed. "In any case, the only way you can leave this place now is if you defeat your double. I think you'll find that the mist I have surrounding this area will be too thick for you to find your way back." She then turned to look at Chazz's plant duplicate. "Hmm… now what should I call you?"
"How about Shrub?" the plant creature responded. "Seems appropriate, don't you think?"
"Yes. I suppose it is," Lucia agreed. "Now then Chazz, unless you can defeat Mr. Shrub, there's no way you'll be leaving this lake alive. Understood?"
"I should warn you though Chazz, there's no way you can defeat me," Shrub confidently declared as a duel disk complete with a deck sprouted from his left arm. "After all, I'm you."
"We'll see about that!" Chazz declared as he activated his own duel disk in response. "There's no way in hell that some talking Chia Pet version of me can be me!"
Despite the heavy brush, Axel was able to clearly follow Chazz's path through the jungle. His skills as a tracker were quite good, especially when it came to following someone like Chazz who had no skills when it came to hiding his own trail and didn't even try to. Jaden and Alexis were following close behind, doing their best to stay out of Axel's way as he did his work.
"I hope we don't end up getting lost ourselves trying to find Chazz," Alexis remarked.
"That shouldn't be a problem," Axel assured her. "I have a pretty good idea where we are in relation to the trail to Viper's base. We'll be fine as long as we take the same path back."
"I wish I knew why Chazz just suddenly bolted like that," Jaden spoke.
"I can't be sure, but I think it had something to do with that Cyber Queen monster that Alexis had summoned during her duel with Lamia," Axel theorized. "After she summoned it, I glanced at Chazz and saw that he had a look of surprise and disgust. I don't really get why though."
"Great! So now Chazz has a problem with my relationship with Alexis too," Yubel deduced as she appeared next to Jaden. "Not that I'm surprised though."
"Anyway, I don't know what the hell Chazz's problem is, but we had better find him soon," Axel declared. "Otherwise it could be at least another day before we can finally get to Viper and put an end to this."
"I'll be making the first move since we're playing on my turf," Shrub declared as he drew his first card. "I summon Mushroom Gnome in Defense Mode!"
Appearing on Shrub's side of the field was a short tan humanoid creature with a pointed red had with yellow spots on top of its head resembling a mushroom cap. It wore a tattered off-white shirt with long sleeves and a pair of long dark-brown pants. On its face was a long grey beard, and it had a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a mouth filled with yellow teeth that was curved in a sinister grin.
"That ends my turn," Shrub announced.
Chazz drew his first card. "I summon V-Tiger Jet in Attack Mode!"
On cue, the tiger-like jetfighter materialized on Chazz's side of the battlefield.
"Next I play the Continuous Spell, Frontline Base!" Chazz announced. "Using the effect of Frontline Base, I summon W-Wing Catapult to the field!"
The larger blue box-like aircraft appeared on the field next to Tiger Jet.
"Now I combine V-Tiger Jet and W-Wing Catapult to summon VW-Tiger Catapult!" Chazz announced.
Sparks of electricity flew as Tiger Jet docked onto the back of the larger aircraft, and in seconds they had combined into a more powerful aerial vehicle.
"I activate Tiger Catapult's effect!" Chazz announced. "By discarding one card from my hand, I can change the battle position of one of my opponent's monsters! I use Tiger Catapult's effect to switch Mushroom Gnome to Attack Mode!"
As Chazz placed a card from his hand into his duel disk's Graveyard slot, Tiger Catapult suddenly fired to small black missiles from its launchers. The missiles struck Mushroom Gnome and created a small explosion that knocked the fungus imp onto his rear.
"That weird monster of yours only has 500 ATK, so this is gonna hurt," Chazz declared. "I attack Murshoom Gnome with Tiger Catapult! Air Claw Blitz!"
Tiger Catapult opened fire with every weapon it was armed with. Each projectile fired by the aircraft struck Mushroom Gnome and destroyed it with a flash of fire and smoke. When the smoke cleared, the life points of Chazz's plant doppelgänger had dropped to 2500.
Shrub merely chuckled. "I now activate one of the effects of Primeval Jungle! When a Plant monster is destroyed, I can use the effect of Primeval Jungle to summon a level four or lower Plant monster from my deck to take its place! I summon Armed Mandrake LV3 in Attack Mode!"
Appearing on the field in Mushroom Gnome's place was a strange infant-like creature that resembled a root vegetable of some sort. It had rough yellowish skin covered in clumps of dirt, along with sort arms and legs with stubby fingers and toes. Its face lacked a nose, but it had small beady red eyes and a large mouth. Growing from the top of its head was a large green plant sprout with two leaves.
"Armed Mandrake?" Chazz spoke with a raised eyebrow.
"Well I had to give your copy a suitable ace monster," Lucia spoke from where she watched from above, sitting on nothing in the air with her head propped up on her hands. "Think of it as an homage to your Armed Dragon."
"The effect of Armed Mandrake LV3 now kicks in!" Shrub announced. "When Armed Mandrake is pulled from the soil and special summoned to the field, his cry lowers the ATK of all other monsters on the field by 300!"
On cue, Armed Mandrake's eyes widened and it let out a horrid indescribable shriek that forced Chazz to cover his ears. The noise also caused Tiger Catapult to spark with electricity and drop its ATK to 1700.
"Got any more moves left, hotshot?" Shrub asked mockingly.
"I'll end my turn there," Chazz announced. "But that freaky monster of yours changes nothing! In the end, I'm still going to beat you!"
"Who do you think you're kidding, Chazz?" Shrub responded. "You forget one very important thing. I'm you, and I know the truth about what lies in your heart. The truth is that you're weak! That's why Jaden has been able to walk all over you almost every single time you've faced each other. You lacked the strength to defeat him, and because of that, you were too weak to protect Alexis from him."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Chazz told him.
"That's why you ran away from Jaden and the others earlier!" Shrub continued. "You couldn't face the fact that you had failed Alexis! That in the end you could never overcome Jaden! And because of that, Alexis has been lost to you forever!"
"SHUT UP!" Chazz shouted.
"You right. Talking right now is pointless," Shrub declared as he drew his next card. "I'm going to show you how weak you are by destroying you in this duel. Now then! During my Standby Phase, Armed Mandrake evolves from LV3 to LV5!"
Suddenly Armed Mandrak began to grow and change shape. Its rough skin turned a light brown almost like wood. While its stubby legs remained the same shape as before, its arms grew longer and had gained large hands with a row of spikes growing from the knuckles. Its rear end had also grown a short tail with a small black spike growing from the back of the tip. The plant creature's face had also morphed to have a short snout almost like that of a lizard or a dragon.
"I summon Weed Imp in Attack Mode!" Shrub announced.
Materializing next to Armed Mandrake was a short slender humanoid creature wearing a sort of green suit. The collar of this suit was made from the leaves of a dandelion. Its face was light green and had yellow eyes, a long pointed nose, and a grinning mouth filled with short white fangs. It had long pointed ears and a head of dandelion seeds in place of hair.
"Next I activate the effect of Mushroom Gnome!" Shrub announced. "By removing Mushroom Gnome from the Graveyard, I can summon two Spore Tokens to the field!"
Appearing next to Weed Imp were two small round clouds of made of a strange yellow-brown mist. Each cloud had a pair of sinister red eyes and chuckled in a high-pitched voice.
"I now activate the effect of Armed Mandrake LV5!" Shrub announced. "By sacrificing any number of Plant monsters I control other than Armed Mandrake, I can decrease the ATK of one monster my opponent controls by 600 times the number of monsters sacrificed! I sacrifice Weed Imp and my two Spore Tokens to reduce Tiger Catapult's ATK by 1800!"
Weed Imp and the two Spore Tokens shattered into particles of gold light as small twisters of wind surrounded each one of them. As the twisters subsided, Armed Mandrake let out another horrid shriek that forced Chazz to cover his ears again. Tiger Catapult wobbled in the air and sparked with electricity as the blast of sound dropped its ATK down to zero.
"Armed Mandrake! Attack Tiger Catapult!" Shrub commanded. "Poison Scream!"
The plant monster let out another horrible blast of sound the struck Tiger Catapult, causing it to explode in a blast of fire and smoke. The attack caused Chazz's life points to drop to 1600.
"I end my turn there!" Shrub announced. "And at the end of a turn when it destroyed a monster in battle, Armed Mandrake evolves from LV5 to LV7!"
Suddenly Armed Mandrake grew even larger and changed shape yet again. Its skin had turned an even darker shade of brown, and large curved black spikes like thorns grew from each of its shoulders. Its snout grew longer, as did its tail, which gained a row of long black thorn along its back. A pair of large red eyes with slit pupils also snapped open on its chest, and the middle of its stomach gained a large vertical mouth filled with sharp white fangs.
"Like I told you before Chazz, you're weak!" Shrub declared. "And on my next turn, I'm about to show you just how weak you are!"
Author's Note: I think I may have mentioned before that when I came up with the idea for this story, I was going to leave Alexis out of it entirely. While making Alexis a part of this story's cast made it much better, it also created kind of a problem. I had four main characters, and Viper only had a team of three assassins. For me, the only way to change that was to go back and retcon the epilogue to VR Duelists, and I felt like that would've been too much work. Of course things kind of worked out better this way, as Shrub (as unoriginal as he might be) is an opponent that forces Chazz to confront some of his inner demons.
It sort of goes without saying that every monster that Shrub has used in this duel is made up. There was no way of getting around that since Plant monsters weren't really usable until 5D's.
Please review and let me know what you think.