A quick one shot to show what readers would be in for if they choose the crossover option on that poll. I'll leave it up for another week to give everybody a chance to read this and decide for themselves. Of course, this is just a prototype one-shot, the real thing might be a bit different.
I will also make a second one-shot tomorrow for the other YuGiOh crossover idea that I had. I'll decide between the two depending on the reviews and my own preferences.
The non-crossover story would be much more straightforward. A simple OC storyline in the world of Yugioh, with a few twists and turns thrown in for fun of course. Most likely taking place in Duel Academy though not limited to pre-5ds cards.
Anyways, on to the one shot.
There were once tales of ancient magic, monsters, and otherworldly powers being used by those with a connection to the past. Manifesting these powers via the world's most popular and widespread game. Duel Monsters. Maybe at some point, these stories would have been swept under the rug, but now? In a world where superpowers, heroes, and villains are a daily reality?
Well. Let's just say that the game of Duel Monsters became more than a simple game. It became a game of shadows in the truest sense, hidden from the world and used to both protect and threaten it.
Of course, even with the revelations that quirks brought, not many picked up on the old legends. And those who did made sure to keep such things secret due to the nature of the powers that Maximillion Pegasus had unearthed. The man himself showed what could happen if such power fell into the wrong hands.
Subtlety was needed. This, both heroes and villains agreed on. However, the owners of the game, be it the creator Pegasus or the main distributor Seto Kaiba, decided to spread the card game to the entire world. Building whole academies that taught kids from around the world how to duel. Of course, this was not their only purpose.
Hell, they even tried to advertise the game with some wacky motorcycle-themed duels a few decades into the game's run. Though that practice fell through after the novelty wore off and the speed duel tracks proved too cost-prohibitive to keep.
Of course, once quirks became commonplace both hero organizations and certain villains decided to dip their hands into the pie. Soon, duel monsters became a major and highly encouraged club activity in hero schools all across the planet. As for the villain side of things, they preferred to keep their cards even closer to their chest.
To the average person, and the students themselves, the dueling clubs were an innocuous decision that was easily brushed off. But to those in the know? It was a training ground for future mystical powerhouses that would serve society alongside their fellow quirked heroes. Of course, these magic users were rare, far rarer than powerful quirk users. As a result, to this day there has only been a handful of magic-using heroes, and even then most only had supplemental abilities at best.
"The statistics don't lie, it would seem that either those with high levels of duel energy are vanishingly rare. Or perhaps, we have simply overlooked an important variable…" And just like that, principal Nezu of U.A signed off on the acceptance of the quirkless into the hero course, provided that they take a certain extra test beforehand of course.
"Let's hope my hunch is correct. Oh well, even if it isn't this should be entertaining at the very least." And just like that, on a whim, a rodent made a decision that would echo across the world and history itself. For this decision gave birth to one of the greatest heroes to ever live.
The new King of Games.
Years later, Aldera Junior High
"I keep telling you Kacchan, blasting through your entire hand like that on the first turn just leaves you wide open. Especially when your burn deck has no real draw power or searching options besides your Flamvell Dogs. If you keep doing that then I'll just keep blowing up your field." Izuku lectured to his raging classmate. And moments later proved his point with a Raigeki that allowed the green duelist to finish off his opponent with multiple direct attacks.
"Fuck off Deku, that was just bad luck, if I'd gotten my combo pieces earlier you would have been dead on turn two!" The scowling blonde made excuses but nobody took him seriously. When it came to Duel Monsters everyone knew that Katsuki Bakugo was mediocre at best, while his opponent, Izuku Midoriya was one of the best. The complete reverse of their usual social standing.
For you see, Izuku Midoriya was quirkless. Usually, this would be a stigma that not many could get past, a trait that would have led to social isolation and bullying. However, Izuku had another trait that made up for his quirklessness almost to the point where his social status rivaled his much more powerful classmate Katsuki.
He was by far the best duelist in his school, and likely in the whole city if he was being realistic. It wasn't even that he put much thought into his deck or strategies either. He played the Elemental HERO archetype simply because he enjoyed the aesthetics. He loved heroes so it only made sense for him to play with them.
Lord knew they weren't very competitively viable, yet he never had a problem with them.
'Maybe fate thought that I may as well have good luck in card games if I was going to be quirkless.' Izuku normally wouldn't be the type to believe in such things, but considering what he read that morning on the news(of which he checked multiple sources to be absolutely sure), could anybody blame him?
'U.A now allowing the quirkless into their hero course! What is the principal thinking?!' 'Quirkless students now allowed to be heroes, pending a mysterious new exam.' 'New entrance exam for the quirkless at U.A?'
And so on, there were dozens of stories saying roughly the same thing. U.A was now allowing quirkless people to attend their hero course, but only if they could pass some kind of new exam that they came up with...Needless to say, Izuku nearly had a heart attack at the news and signed up immediately without a second thought.
Those would come later. Like at school, for example, and two days before the exam, the place and time where his anxieties were at their peak. "What the hell was I thinking?! What kind of test would it even be? It's probably something physical, should I start working out? Would that even matter at this point? How much progress can I really make in a few days anyway?" *Bang! "Ack!"
"Keep your mouth shut Deku, I'm trying to concentrate here. Besides, you shouldn't get your hopes up. I bet the shit they're pulling at U.A is just some PR garbage. There's no way that they'll actually let a bunch of powerless morons into the hero course." The explosive boy said derisively. Though if he were being honest those words were hollow. If there was one thing that the two boys shared, it was their mutual respect for heroes and hero schools.
"Maybe, maybe not. Either way, It doesn't hurt to try...By the way, you missed the timing on Chthonian Blast-" "SHUT THE FUCK UP DEKU! I REALIZED IT THE MOMENT I DID IT!"
Bakugo did not win a game that day.
Two days later, U.A quirkless entrance exam
Upon entering the building where the exam was to take place, Izuku already knew that he would be in for the long haul. Right away there was a room filled with a handful of other quirkless hero hopefuls. It would seem that they'd be taking the regular written exam before anything else. After all, if they couldn't even get into U.A's general course, why bother going for the hero course?
A few minutes after arriving the doors to their exam rooms slammed shut at the exact moment that the clock hit their expected arrival time, catching everyone's attention. "Times up, anyone who failed to get here on time can just go home, you don't belong at U.A." A voice spoke from the center of the room which Izuku would bet gave many of the U.A hopefuls whiplash. He knew that it almost did it to him when his head whipped around to see the...Human caterpillar?
"My name is Aizawa Shouta, sit down at least one desk away from another contestant and get started on your written exam. You have three hours to finish and will be given an hour to eat before the second part of the exam begins...What are you waiting for? Time has already been called." Nobody needed to be told three times.
Hours of intense written exams and a half-dead Izuku later
Thankfully, none of the test questions were too far from what Izuku had studied for so he was fairly sure that he passed. It would have been pretty embarrassing if he couldn't even get into U.A when his aspirations were aimed as high as they were. The tests were graded rather quickly too, so after a half hour's break the three hopefuls that passed, Izuku included, now official U.A students made their way to individual rooms where the second half of the test would begin.
"Ara ara, I got the cute one, lucky me." ...No way. Izuku had to take a physical step back and a full three seconds to process who and what was in front of him. It was Midnight herself, in full costume, with an old-school duel disk, and he was in a room alone with her.
"Pinching yourself? No need schoolboy, this isn't a dream, no matter how many you've had that started like this. I'm your proctor for this exam. And yes, it's exactly what you think it is. Head over to that terminal and build a deck for yourself, you won't have to worry about rarity, we have damn near every card ever printed so go wild." Izuku looked at where Midnight pointed to and noticed that there was indeed a computer terminal with what he assumed was a card dispenser attached to it. The second exam was a duel? Was he really this lucky?
"I won't need it, I always carry my deck around just in case. I'll take you up on the duel disk though." A few decades ago such a thing would be viewed as odd, maybe even laughable. But nowadays? Duels were used to settle anything from petty arguments to haggling for a better price at certain stores. You never knew when you'd need to duel at a moment's notice. Duel disks were a bit more pricey though.
"How well prepared, maybe you'll be the one. Let's not waste any time then. I'll give you the first turn, show me what you got!" Midnight said while activating her duel disk and drawing five cards. Izuku sighed in relief and did the same. His deck was best off when going first.
His opening hand was: Reinforcement of the Army, Stratos, Solid Soldier, Mask Change, and Miracle Fusion.
"...Alright, to start things out I'll activate the spell card Reinforcement of the Army!" He held up the card and inserted it into his disk. "With it, I'll search for Elemental Hero Solid Man! Next, I'll summon him and immediately use his effect. With it, I can special summon another level 4 hero monster from my hand, and I pick Elemental Hero Stratos, who I'll also activate the effect of, allowing me to search another Hero monster from my deck." He did so, picking out Elemental Hero Voltic before shuffling his deck.
"Finally I'll set one card face down and end my turn, your move Midnight-sensei." Midnight seemed both amused and impressed by his first turn.
"Two monsters and searches on your first turn? Not bad, and you use the hero archetype, how appropriate. I'm impressed by the way, you're already calling me sensei before the duel is even done. My turn, I draw!" She did so and smirked. "I'll start off by playing Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy your face down."
"Not so fast, I activate my face down before it gets destroyed. Mask Change, it lets me swap out one of my heroes for a fusion monster of the same attribute. I choose Stratos and use him to fusion summon Elemental Hero Blast in attack mode!" Midnight smirked, further impressed by the move.
"Not bad, but not good enough. I set two face downs and normal summon Blackwing Sirocco thanks to his effect, next I'll special summon Blackwing Gale right after. But don't worry, they won't stay here for long because I'm going to use them for a synchro summon. Come on out, Blackwing Dragon! Now quick, attack his Hero Blast!" The attack went through but not without a response.
"Before he's destroyed I'll activate Blast's effect. By sacrificing 500 life points I can destroy one of your face down cards. I choose the one on the left!" Midnight grimaced as her face down mirror force was destroyed.
"Fair enough, still though, that just means you'll take those 500 points along with the battle damage!" It was Izuku's turn to grimace from the loss of 600 additional points, leaving him with 6900 life points total. "I think I'll leave it at that. Your move kid."
Izuku racked his brain as he drew, trying to think of what could get past the impressive synchro monster in front of him. He took a look at his new card and smirked. This will do. "I activate Pot of Desires! With it I banish the top 10 cards from my deck and in exchange, I'm able to draw two more cards." He took a look at both what he discarded and what he drew and smiled once again.
"I summon my second copy of Elemental Hero Solid Soldier and activate his effect to special summon the Elemental Hero Voltic." That should do it.
"Next, I'll activate the spell card Monster Reborn to bring back a monster from my graveyard, I choose Stratos, which triggers his own effect, I use it to destroy your other face down card!" Once again, Midnight was visibly annoyed as her second trap Magic Jammer was destroyed.
"All right, now that your back row is empty I can start my combo in earnest. I activate the spell card Polymerization!" Izuku was getting into this duel now, so much so that he never noticed that the spell he held up glowed a dull yellow, a fact that did not go unnoticed by his test proctor.
'There! A visible sign of duel energy, Nezu was right after all...Still, let's see if it's enough for him to win.' Midnight started to sweat a bit, the magical energy coming off of her opponent could be felt by those who had access to similar powers. And to her, this kid had some potent energy indeed.
"With it, I'll fuse my Stratos, with Solid Soldier to fusion summon Elemental Hero Great Tornado, his effect immediately activates, all face up monsters you control have their stats halved!" And just like that, Blackwing Dragon went from a powerful threat to a mediocre monster.
"Looks like you got me, are you going to attack?" Midnight asked, knowing that she couldn't defend with anything on her field, his hand didn't have any good hand traps either so she expected Izuku to capitalize on that.
"Not just yet, I still have this card in my hand, I activate Miracle Fusion!" Again, a soft glow came and went, staying only just long enough for Izuku to write it off as a trick of the light. "I use it to banish Elemental Hero Voltic and the Elemental Hero Solid Man from my graveyard. With them, I'll summon Elemental Hero The Shining in attack mode." And thanks to its effect, with six Elemental Heroes already banished thanks to Pot of Desires and Miracle Fusion, it came out with a monstrous 5400 attack points rather than its usual 2600.
"Now I'll attack, first with Great Tornado to destroy your dragon." And just like that, the dragon was slain with a burst of holographic wind. One which mysteriously sent a very real breeze across the testing room. "Next with Solid Soldier, and finally with The Shining for a grand total of 8100 points of damage!" Izuku was far too into the duel to notice, however, but Midnight very easily picked up on it when the lethal damage hit her, the pain was hard to miss.
Midnight: 0LP, WINNER: IZUKU
But she wasn't a hero for nothing, she hid the pain well and made note of it for later. 'This kid is really good, both in his actual dueling skill and in raw power. He definitely earned his spot in the hero course.' Izuku let out a sigh of relief, he was worried that he'd choke at any moment but was overjoyed that he made it through.
"Congratulations Midoriya, you're in. You'll receive an email later this week giving you the details of when and how to prepare for orientation. Don't be late, ah, and expect a call from our principal at around the same time. Something tells me that he'll be interested in meeting such a talented young man." Izuku struggled to remember everything Midnight said while he tried to stop shivering. She was going to be one of his teachers right?
'Man. Kacchan might not be the most dangerous person I'll have to deal with at U.A after all.' Oh poor naive Izuku, he had no idea.
So, how was it? If you're wondering about the rules I'm playing by, it's basically the Synchro era ruleset but with some more modern-ish cards like Pot of Desires. In the actual story, I do plan on including the XYZ monsters somewhere down the line but for the start, it will only be fusions and synchros...And rituals but let's be real nobody uses those.
Well, that's it for now, I hope those who read enjoyed it and that you all have a great day.
Update: I Realized I made a mistake with Fusion Recycling Plant's effect so I just switched it out with a polymerization. Everything else is pretty much the same.