Chapter 19: Joey vs V: Dog Day Afternoon
(Life Point Count: Joey 3200, V 100)
The new fusion of Joey's, the Legendary White Whale Commander, zoomed in the Magician of Faith that had been a key part in V's plan, a plan that had failed.
But that was why there were backups.
"Not so fast Joey! Reveal face down card!" V said, and Joey realized that V did still have a card face down, one he'd laid a while ago. "Activate the magic card Chronosis Mercy!"
"Another Chronosis card…" Mai said. Her mind wasn't really on those cards though. The duel had been going for a bit, and V had yet to use…it.
Maybe Joey would beat him before he did, but…
"This time altering magic card causes a skip in time. You still launched your attack, and I'm still here, but somewhere in transition your attack just kinda…well…" V said, as the LWWC returned to its position, its attack negated. Joey's euphoria faded.
"Well, you may have escaped me, but not for long!" Joey said.
"Maybe. I play Alter of Sacrificial Compassion! This allows me to absorb my monster's defense points into my life points." V said, as his Magician of Faith and Hinotoma Soul disappeared and V's life points went back up to 1000. "Then I'll lay a monster card face down and another card and end my turn."
"Well V, I can't quite apply your logical nonsense that you were using earlier, but I can get an idea that you barely avoided my last attack, and will do anything to avoid another. Including bluff! So White Whale, attack his face down monster card!"
The giant whale swooped it, the fisherman raising his huge harpoon.
"Not smart." V said.
The LWWC struck the card, and it briefly appeared and then shattered. And then a void appeared where it had vanished.
"HEY!" Joey yelled.
"That was a Dimensional Warrior (1200/1000). Attacking it removed both it and your whale from play. So bye bye fishy." V said, as the LWWC was sucked into nothingness and destroyed. Joey growled.
"Hey, I thought you said it was a mammal!" Joey said.
"Whatever." V replied. "Destroying my face down card also activated my Mourn of the Fallen magic card, so I can draw four new cards." V said, and did so.
"They won't do you any good though!" Joey suddenly called. V looked up. Joey was smirking and holding up a card.
"I just re-read this. Apparently there was a special ability I didn't note. When the Legendary White Whale Commander is destroyed, I can special summon any monster with up to six stars from my hand! And I just happen to have a card for that! COME FORTH INSECT QUEEN!" Joey yelled, as the gigantic female monster (2200/2400) appeared.
"Huh. Thought he was going to use Jinzo. Guess he hasn't drawn it yet." Tristan said.
"Nice card. Would have expected this more from another guy I dueled earlier though." V said.
"Was his name Weevil by any chance?" Joey asked.
"Yes, how did you know?"
"I won this off of him."
"Oh well, good for you." V said.
"Maybe. Weevil was a cheating sneaky creep, but he had some nice moves. So I decided to steal one. Come forth Cockroach Knight!" Joey said, as the ugly bug monster (800/900) appeared.
"That must be why Joey used Insect Queen! He had Cockroach Knight in his hand as well!" Tea said.
"That's my brother. Not only great on his own, but great using other people's moves as well." Serenity said.
"And if you didn't notice, your life points are wide open, so even though you saved yourself from my White Whale, you're just bug food instead! So eat up Queen, and make me proud!" Joey said. The Insect Queen ate the Cockroach Knight and then charged forward to attack.
"Not today. I play Chronosis Distortion!" V said, pulling a card from his hand.
"ANOTHER one? Does he have the full set?" Mai asked.
"Another error in time has happened Joey! In this time, you and I are where we are, but in another time, what's to say you're not…somewhere else…say…where I am now?" V said, as a shifting field of light appeared before V and the Insect Queen ran into it. Joey arched an eyebrow, and then he yelled as the Insect Queen returned, now running the other way and striking him with a direct blow, dropping his life points down to 1000.
"Ow…" Joey said, pulling himself back up.
"It's ok Joey! You can still win!" Serenity said.
"Yeah! Go Joey, go!" Tea added.
"Very supportive group you have." V said.
"They've always been there for me. If my deck doesn't win it for me, they will. Can you say the same?" Joey asked.
"Maybe not, but I have great faith in my own abilities…" V said as he drew. He stared, and then he sighed.
"Sorry Joey. This duel just ended."
A cold chill ran down Mai's spine. He'd drawn it.
"Ah blow it out your ear! I still got plenty more!" Joey said.
"You're great Joey. You truly are. But I play to win, and it's time." V said, as he drew a card and placed it on the field. "First I play Scapegoat."
"Hey hey, great minds think alike!" Joey said.
"I suppose, but I have a different use for this card. Do you recognize this card Joey?" V said, holding out another one. Joey squinted.
"Nope." He said.
"It's called Mathemagician. Useful card, can be used a few different ways. But here's the way I'm going to use it." V said, as the goats all suddenly lined up.
"Using this card, I can assign each of these creatures a number. It can be any monster, but the Scapegoat cards are useful because you get so many at once. The thing is, for the number you choose, you have to pay that amount of life points in hundreds. The number I assign is 2, so I pay 200 points for each goat." V said, as his life points dropped to 200 as he paid the 800 life point cost. A small number 2 appeared on each goat's forehead.
"What follows is the trick. Between each monster, I can place a mathematical sign. I can only use two of the same sign, and not in a row. Once I place the signs, the number adds up, and whatever number I get, I can immediately summon a monster with that number of stars to the field. And the signs I choose, in order, are plus, multiple, plus."
The signs appeared between the Scapegoats.
2 plus 2 times 2 plus 2…
Joey did the math.
"Hey V, I think for all your talking you didn't think it through! You messed up!" Joey said, though in his gut a trickle of nervousness had begun to bloom.
"No I didn't." V said quietly.
"But two plus two is four…and four times two is eight…and eight plus two is ten!"
"You paid attention in school, I see."
"But that's impossible! The only monsters with ten stars are…"
Brief pause, and then V reached into his hand and plucked out the card.
Joey's eyes nearly bugged straight out of his head.
"NO!"
"Oh yes." V said, and thrust the card over his head. "COME FORTH MIGHTY BEAST! BRING ME VICTORY!"
"NO! IT CAN'T BE HIM! NO! NO! NO!!!!!!!!" Joey yelled, more in absolutely disbelief then in actual fear. It had to be a trick. A new card. It couldn't be the…
"It seems you know of this card, Joey." V said, as lightning suddenly exploded through the room, causing Joey's fan club to dive for cover. "Then you should know its power! So come forth, saint dragon god of the skies! You called him Sleifer, but I call him by his true name! OSIRIS!!!!!!!!!!" V yelled, as throughout the room a long and massive body suddenly looped through, twisting and bunching up against everything, as a massive twin-jawed head of the Saint Dragon God Osiris, aka Sleifer the Sky Dragon, floated down next to V, who looked very pleased.
"And now…"
"GIMME OUTTA HERE!" Joey yelled. V arched an eyebrow: Joey was actually trying to get off the dueling platform. And his friends looked like they wanted to run away as well, except Sleifer/Osiris's body was in their way. His huge form REALLY cramped the room.
"Joey, where are you going?"
"YOU FOOL! YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT CARD! YUGI HAS IT! IT'S LOCKED UP! AND HE'D HAVE TOLD ME IF IT WAS STOLEN!" Joey yelled, his voice filled with fear.
"Well of course. This is a D-Card."
"WHAT? LEMME OUTTA HERE! RUN! EVERYONE!" Joey screamed.
"Joey stop that."
"No! You don't understand! The God Cards can only be summoned by their proper cards! If you use fake cards, they'll kill you! You fool, how did you get an Egyptian God D-Card? That thing will kill us all! RUN WHILE YOU CAN!"
"Joey…"
"HE'LL KILL US!"
"JOEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" V thundered, actually managing to piece through Joey's veil of panic. And that panic wasn't just for his own well-being. He'd experienced it first hand what had happened, when Rishid, under Malik's orders, had tried to call Ra using the fake version of the God card. Ra had struck both Rishid and him down, and Joey was in no mood to relieve that experience, much less expose his friends and his sister to that risk. That fool V, how did he ever…
"Joey, it won't smite you."
"You don't know! YOU IDIOT! YOU DON'T KNOW!" Joey screamed.
"I know more then you think. Relax. It won't destroy us. We have a…mutual agreement." V said.
There was something in V's tone that gave Joey pause, as well as the others, as they got up from where they had either fallen or stumbled from trying to get around Osiris/Sleifer's body, which pretty much blocked all the exits.
"You…what?"
"I know what I have here. It won't smite you. It will duel and then it will go. Right, Osiris?" V said, looking over. Osiris looked pretty cross actually, his huge toothy mouth looking slightly more clenched then usual.
Still with his knees shaking, barely able to hold his cards, Joey stood up to face V again.
"That's better. Now let's finish our duel." V said.
"Joey!" Mai was yelling. Joey looked over. "This is what I was trying to tell you about! He has Sleifer in his hand!"
"OSIRIS. His name is OSIRIS." V said. "How in the hell did you garble Osiris into Sleifer? That's like garbling, say, Gazelle, King of Mythical Beasts, into something like, er, "Cornwind Evilman". You know? Really, geez." V said. (Writer's Note: Yes, I know that in the American version that Sleifer comes from the name of a producer of the show, so don't bother pointing that out.)
"You…say you can control Sli, er, Osiris?"
"Control it? No. But we can work together." V said.
"You don't have something called a Millennium Item do you?" Joey asked.
"No."
"Do you know anyone who was born in ancient Egypt?"
"Can't say so."
Joey boggled. God Cards were extremely powerful and dangerous. Even Yugi had barely been able to control his. Yet here was V, lacking Yugi's special powers, with Osiris called to his side of the field…
"And as I was about to say before you freaked, I combo that with these two cards: Pot of Greed, and Blessed Dice!" V said, as the green smiling pot card flipped up even as an angel appeared and rolled a die. "This will multiply the amount of cards Pot of Greed will give me."
"Oh no." Joey said.
The die rolled and flipped, and finally landed on a three.
"Three time two! Six cards!" V said, as he drew them. "Add those to the one card in my hand, and Osiris has a total of 7000 attack points!" V said, as Osiris powered up fully to its 7000/7000 stats granted by V.
"I…I, aw man, geez, who…can…gah, geezus…" Joey said, still stunned and shocked. "I don't know…what can…"
"Joey? You ok?"
"I…man…no won't give up…but how can I…he…man…I…"
"Joey!"
Joey's ears picked up. That was Mai's voice.
"You can still do it Joey! I believe you can!" Mai said.
"Yeah buddy! Who cares if he had a God Card!"
"Yeah, you still have us Joey!"
"Go big brother!"
"I'll admit Joey, this wasn't exactly the most fair trick. Apparently this card isn't all that common, and it commands special abilities beyond other cards, so how could you have properly prepared for it…but then maybe that's the mark of a true duelist…then again, maybe it's foolish to assume that…then again, you said you were so great…but then AGAIN, I like you Joey. So I have an offer for you." V said.
"An offer? What?"
"Your main weapon is luck, so I'll push mine. I'll give you three turns to come up with a counter move to use against Osiris. Three turns. I won't attack. I won't defend. I won't play any other cards. I'll do nothing. But after three turns, if you can't save yourself, I finish this. Deal?"
Joey looked at V.
"Don't think of it as pity. Think of it as, say, a willful tactical mistake." V said.
Joey blinked.
"Ok! I'll do it! And you'll regret it V!" Joey said.
"Oh I'm sure you truly wish that." V said, as Osiris floated around him. "But I doubt your wish and reality will match up."
To Be Concluded