In this chapter the duel begins. Joey faces the strange cards and tactics with all his might, and discovers a missing friend.





Joey flexed his arms and took a ready stance. He drew his cards and so did his opponent.



"I'll go first." Said Joey's opponent, the masked leader of the underground card traders.



Joey raised an eyebrow. "I'm the challenger, shouldn't I get to go first?"



The leader shook their head. "I'm the boss here. I'll go first if I want."



Joey sighed. This was going to be one long duel, he could feel it.



"Right, first move. I'll set one card face down and summon Dunames Dark Witch in attack mode!" In a flash the high-tech fairy with large angelic wings appeared, eyes closed and hands locked in prayer. "Your move, tough guy."



Joey drew his card, then stopped a moment. "Hm, Dunames Dark Witch? That monster seems familiar somehow. I've seen it played once before, but I don't quite remember. Ah well, right now I'll just focus on blasting it."



"I'll summon Zombyra the Dark! I'll set two cards face down as well. Now Zombyra, dice that fairy with your Dark Cutter attack!" With that, the warrior lifted a hand into the air and it crackled with dark energy. It swung it down and a blade of black lighting burst forth and streaked towards it's target. Moments before it hit, the air in front of the Dark Witch shimmered, and a giant reflective surface appeared out of nowhere.



"Sorry, but my Mirror Wall trap card will cut your monster's attack short! Cut it by half, to be exact." The Dark warrior shuddered and fell to it's knees as it's dark energy rebounded off the Mirror Wall and struck it. "Now Dunames Dark Witch, show him real power!" The Dark Witch unclasped it's hands and drifted slowly towards Zombyra. She gently placed a hand on his cheek and Zombyra collapsed instantly, exploding into polygons and fading away. "Clean and elegant, without waste."



Joey grit his teeth, his life points falling to 6950. "Not the best way to start the duel." He thought. "At least I'll have my Fairy Box to defend me. Hm, now I know I've seen that Mirror Wall card somewhere before. But where?"



"If you're quite finished blundering through your turn, I'd like to continue the duel."



"All right already! Take your turn!"



"My pleasure." The leader drew, then clearly smiled despite the mask. "If you had any plans to save yourself with your traps, you were sadly mistaken. I'll play Harpy's Feather Duster!"



The card hologram appeared and a Harpy with large wings flew from it. It quickly swept across Joey's face down cards, destroying them. It flew back into the card and vanished. Joey gasped sharply as he finally connected all the clues.



"Dunames Dark Witch, Mirror Wall, and Harpy's Feather Duster? I only know one duelist that uses those cards!" Joey interrupted the duel, calling out to his opponent. "Mai! Don't you recognize me? It's me, Joey Wheeler!"



The masked leader looked sharply at him and took a step back. There was a long silence, until, "Joey? Is that really you?" 'Mai' reached up and removed the mask shrouding the face. "Joey!"



"Huh? You're not Mai. You're familiar though..."



"It's me, Tea!" Joey's eyes widened, recognizing his lost friend. She looked a little different, not just because she was dressed in robes. She looked like she had aged about 4 years. Her face had a small metal plate attached to it and her hair appeared to be made of frayed metal cabling that one could easily mistake for actual hair. There was no mistaking her as she smiled at her friend.



"Tea! It is you! I can hardly believe I found you!" Joey started to take a step towards her.



"Joey! Stop where you are!" Joey froze in place as the smile disappeared from her face.



"Huh? But why?"



"We're in the middle of a duel, Joey. If you take one more step it will be considered a major infraction of the rules and the Judgemasters will be summoned right away!"



"Huh? Isn't that why you have that guy there judging for us?"



The judge looked at Joey, cold eyes staring at him from behind the mask. "Approaching a duelist during the course of a duel is considered a type 6 offence, the most severe. Proximity beacons would be automatically activated and everyone within miles would know instantly that someone broke a type 6 rule, especially the Judgemasters. Recommend waiting until duel is completed to approach."



Joey looked hurt. "I guess I gotta win too, if I want those cards."



Tea nodded, looking equally upset. "Yes, Joey. I'm so sorry..."



"No worries, Tea. I'm still game if you are!"



Tea smiled, putting her mask back on but removing the mouth guard. "Sorry Joseph, but it seems to me that there isn't much of a game left! You're completely defenceless, and my deck is full of surprises."



"Yeah? Well you can take your surprises and stuff 'em, because I'm not through yet!"



"We shall see! Dunames Dark Witch, attack his life points directly!"

The Dark Witch put her hands close together, and a ball of white energy swelled between them. She thrust her hand forward and the energy streaked forward, enveloping Joey briefly in a cage of hot lightning. Joey tensed up, but said nothing as his life points dropped to 5150.



"Not bad, but I'll always be badder!" Joey drew his card. "I'll use Fissure to get your pesky Witch outta my hair!" The ground opened up beneath the Dark Witch and swallowed her before slamming shut again. "Now I'll summon Alligator Sword in attack mode!" A humanoid alligator wielding a sword appeared, and snarled. "Attack her with Reptile Slash!" The Alligator Sword took a fighting stance, then charged at Tea. It swung it's sword faster than either of their eyes could track it, and Tea's life points dropped to 6500 "Now I'll set one card face down and end my turn."



"You shouldn't have used such a weak monster as your only defence. I'll summon Zolga, in attack mode!" A machine-like monster with a large flowing purple cloak appeared. It stared at Joey with it's single pulsing red eye. "Now Zolga, trash his Alligator Sword!"



The monster turned it's focus on the Alligator Sword. It's eye began pulsing, slowly at first, then gaining speed and intensity. Suddenly a red beam burst forth from the eye and struck forth to destroy Alligator Sword. Before the beam connected, there was a bright flash, and there in front of Alligator Sword stood three mages dressed in purple. The middle one held a small charm, which was smoking slightly where the beam had struck it. They faded away and there stood Alligator Sword, unharmed.



"Huh? I don't understand."



"I'm surprised at you, Tea. You were the one that first showed me that move, after all."



Tea gasped sharply. "Waboku! I can't believe you used one of my old cards to stop my attack!"



"Believe it. Just because it's an old move doesn't mean it's no good, ya know. I think I may wind up teaching you something before this duel is over."



Tea chuckled. "Sorry Joey, but this duel will end a lot sooner than you think. I'll place one card face down and end my turn."



Joey drew his card and looked at Zolga. "Hm, I read about those new Fairy-type monsters in that rule book I borrowed from Mokuba. I think when you sacrifice Zolga to summon a monster you gain 2000 life points. That sure would give me the edge in this duel. Right, here goes nothin'."



"I'll play Change of Heart and take control of your Zolga!" The Change of Heart appeared in it's angelic form. It hovered and smiled politely a moment, then in the blink of an eye transformed into it's devil form. The Zolga began to glow an eerie purple and it slowly flew over to Joey's side of the field and stopped. "Good, now I'll sacrifice Zolga and Alligator sword to summon Sword Hunter!" The Sword Hunter card appeared behind the two monsters, and they both began to glow. The Sword Hunter drew both monsters into itself, but Zolga left behind a ghostly red spirit, which drifted towards Joey and vanished. His life points rose to 7150. The offering accepted, Sword Hunter emerged and brandished his two large swords.



"Looks like I turned the tables on ya, Sword Hunter will slice and dice ya and those cards will be mine! Sword Hunter, attack!"



Sword Hunter raised it's sword and prepared to attack, when the room seemed to darken and the middle of the field glowed with an odd blue light. A green grid drew itself across the field and the blue light grew into a blue orb that distorted the grid where it made contact.



"What's goin' on here?" Joey could feel a slight tugging in the air, like something was pulling him towards the blue orb in the middle of the field. "Sword Hunter, forget about that thing and attack! Hunter's Sword of Battle!"



Sword Hunter leapt forward and started to swing it's sword, until it came near the blue orb. Sword Hunter's weapon was immediately pulled down and stuck in the middle of the light. The large Hunter pulled hard on it's sword and freed it, staggering back to Joey's side of the field. The monster looked at him and shook its head slowly.



"I'm surprised you decided to attack, even though you didn't know what was happening on the field. Quite reckless Joey, I hope you don't make more mistakes like that in the future."



"Hey, what gives Tea?" Joey didn't like being left in the dark so often, having to keep asking over and over what was going on. It was frustrating for him to be outmatched by his friend, especially when he had so many pressing questions for her.



"Gravity Bind, Joey. Monsters level 4 and over cannot attack while this is on the field. You're lucky it wasn't something worse or you would have lost your monster and possibly the duel."



"Yeah well, I'll figure something out, I guess." Joey lowered his head, his spirits obviously dampened by this new turn of events.



"Chin up, Joey. You'll get through this. You've gotten through lots of tough duels before, and I just know you'll make it through this okay too. Don't ever give up."



Joey looked up at Tea. She was obviously blushing under her mask.



"Oh, uh, old habits die hard I guess."



Joey smiled, knowing his friend was still there with him even now gave him his strength back. "Thanks. I'll be more careful. It's your turn now."



Tea nodded. "I'll play Graceful Charity." A woman dressed in white appeared before Tea. She held out a pillow with three cards on it, which Tea took. She thought a moment, then placed two cards on the pillow. "And I'll discard Agido and Kelbek." The woman in white bowed, then disappeared. "And now I'll summon Hysteric Fairy and end my turn."



Joey looked curiously at the Hysteric Fairy. The Fairy looked back and adjusted it's glasses, turning it's nose up at him. "Funny," he thought, "doesn't look all that hysteric to me." Joey drew his card.



"Well, with that Gravity Bind in play I can't attack with my stronger monsters. Then again, neither can she. This means we've got a stalemate at the moment. She's probably got some way to get rid of that card or has figured some way around it, so I gotta be ready when the time comes."



"I'll set three cards face down, then put this monster in defence mode. I'll also switch Sword Hunter into defence mode." Four face down cards appeared, and Sword Hunter kneeled down, crossing it's swords in front of it's face. "And that'll end my turn."



"Preparing for the worst, are we? As you should."



"Hey, if it's anything Yugi taught me, it's that I've gotta be ready for anything and follow my instincts."



Tea seemed to sadden for a moment. She mouthed Yugi's name and looked away for a moment. She turned back quickly and tried to act as if nothing happened.



"I'll play Painful Choice. This card lets me select five cards from my deck. You then select one of those cards and it goes into my hand. The rest go to my graveyard." Tea searched her deck a moment, then placed the cards she chose down and they appeared as holograms before Joey. He looked at them carefully.



"Hm. Kelbek, Zolga, Agido, Airknight Parshath, and United we Stand. I remember Yugi telling me one time that United we Stand was one of the most powerful equip cards in the game. Better not let her have that Airknight thing either, it's probably got some crazy effect that'll wipe the floor with me."



"I'll choose Zolga to go to your hand, and the rest will go to your graveyard." Tea nodded and discarded the four cards.



"All right, I'll summon the Zolga in attack mode. Then I'll activate Hysteric Fairy's special ability. It lets me sacrifice two monsters on the field to increase my life points by 1000." The Fairy and Zolga disappeared, and Tea's life points rose to 7500. "Better be ready Joey, because when I make my move it'll mean the end of this duel. You can bet on it."



"You just worry about what you'll do when I turn the tables on ya, Tea." Joey drew his card and looked at his hand. He smiled, satisfied. "I'll set another monster in defence mode and end my turn."



"Very well. Prepare yourself Joey, because it ends now! I'll first play Cheerful Coffin. This lets me discard up to three monsters from my hand." With that, three coffins appeared. One with a Hysteric Fairy, and two with Dancing Fairys. The lids slammed shut and the coffins slid quietly into the ground. "Now, I'll summon Mudora in attack mode!" A humanoid monster appeared. It wore ancient Egyptian clothing and wielded a knife that was glowing a soft yellow. "Mudora gains 200 extra attack points for every fairy monster in my graveyard. By my count, that's 11 monsters for an extra 2200 attack points, giving it 3500 in total." Mudora's knife began glowing brighter and brighter until it was difficult to look at.



"That's one tough monster." Joey scoffed. "Too bad it can't attack cuz of your Gravity Bind."



"I know, I've prepared for that as well. I'll use the equip magic card Demotion on Mudora. This will lower Mudora's level by 2, which means he is immune to the effect of the Gravity Bind!" The Dark Ruler Ha Des appeared behind Mudora and snapped it's fingers. Mudora seemed to wither and weaken, but it's attack points stayed the same.



"Finally, I'll use Mage Power on Mudora. This will give him an extra 500 attack points for every magic or trap card I have on the field. I'll also play Fairy Meteor Crush, so even if your monsters are in defence mode you'll take damage. Now I'll set cards in my remaining spaces to maximize attack. Mudora is 6500 attack points strong now, Joey! This is the end of the line!"



Joey tried to take a deep breath, but it came out ragged. He couldn't stop his hands from shaking. "Man, if I make one wrong move now, I'm history! Everything I do now has to go just right or it'll all be for nothing."



"Mudora, destroy his first face down monster! Magic Knife Slash!"



Mudora swung it's knife, and a large, narrow wave of energy seared forward and sliced his monster in half. The Princess of Tsurugi revealed itself a second before vanishing. The wave of energy continued past the monster and hit Joey hard. He couldn't help crying out in pain as his life points dropped by 5800, leaving him with a sparse 1350 remaining. Joey's lip was bleeding, but he didn't wipe it off. He struggled to keep himself on his feet.



"Tough break Tea, the Princess of Tsurugi's special ability makes you lose 500 life points for every magic and trap card you've got." With that, her life points dropped to 4500.



"Joey, this is the only time I'm going to ask you. Please, forfeit now. You might get hurt worse if you're attacked again, you might even..."



"No, Tea. I can't just give up because things are looking bad for me right now. If I had done that instead of standing my ground, I would never have gotten into Battle City, or Duelist Kingdom. In fact, Yugi and me wouldn't be such good pals if I just chickened out of everything. Sometimes I gotta take a chance, Tea. Right now is one of those times!"



With that, Joey drew his card and looked at Tea fiercely.



"Get ready, because the tables are about to turn! I'll switch my face down Monster into attack mode! Gearfried the Iron Knight!" The iron warrior stood fast, looking almost as nervous as Joey felt earlier. "Now I'll activate my face down card, Collected Power! This is a variation on a trick Yugi told me he used one time. In this case I won't have to destroy the monster, because Gearfried will do it for me!" The Collected Power trap card equips any monster I want with all the equipment magic cards on the field. And because of Gearfried's ability, all the cards are destroyed!" The Demotion and Mage Power cards shattered and Tea frowned.



"You've stopped my monster from attacking, but it's still too powerful Joey."



"I know. I've seen the same trick used before, discarding monsters to power up another one, that's why I've got this ready. I activate my other face down card, Fiend Comedian!" A goblin-like monster appeared. It was dressed like a game show host and was flipping a coin that was red on one side and green on the other. It leered at both duelists. "That guy is gonna toss a coin. If it lands on the green side, then all the cards in your graveyard will be removed from the game. If it lands on the red, I have to discard cards from my deck equal to the number in your graveyard."



Tea's eyes widened. "Joey! If this doesn't work, you'll have all but lost! Are you sure you want to do this?"



Joey nodded solemnly. "Go Fiend Comedian!"



The monster walked into the middle of the field and laughed, which sounded like a high pitched squeal. It tossed the coin high into the air. It spun rapidly and came back down as fast as it went up. It landed with a hard clank on the ground.



Mudora's attack points dropped back down to 1600.



"Yes! It worked!"



Tea clasped her hands against her mouth. "I can't believe I just said that!"

Joey sighed deeply. "Man, I need to stop drinking coffee, I'm all wound up. Or maybe I need more. Okay Tea, I'm gonna finish this. I'll use Dian Keto the Cure Master to raise my life points by 1000, giving me enough to use Graverobber. I'll use it to take your Mage Power out of your graveyard. Now I'll sacrifice my Sword Hunter to summon Jinzo, that'll negate the effect of your Gravity Bind. I'll pay 2000 life points to use Mage Power on Jinzo. I'll set one more card face down to raise Jinzo's attack points to 4400. Now, Jinzo attack Mudora and Gearfried finish it off."



The two monsters attacked and Mudora, along with the last of Tea's life points, were gone. All the holograms faded away. The judge stood up.



"Duel completed. Winner is the challenger, Joey Wheeler. You have earned the right to trade the cards. Please do not forget to retrieve them." The judge looked awkwardly at Joey and Tea, who did not make a single move since the duel ended. "I'll just uh, find something to do elsewhere then. Pardon me." The judge quickly scurried out of sight.



Joey and Tea stood looking at each other, neither saying anything. Joey slowly walked towards Tea, and she removed her mask and did the same. They stopped a foot apart.



Joey shakily tried to find his voice. "I'm glad I found you. I wasn't really sure if I would see anyone again."



Tea nodded. She slowly embraced Joey and began softly sobbing into his chest. Joey put his arms around her and there they stood.



It was an hour later. The trade had been made, and now Joey and Tea sat on a large sofa together in Tea's private study. The light in the room was brighter than any others Joey had seen since he arrived, but was still soft. They both held mugs of hot chocolate.



"I arrived here four years and six months ago, to this day actually." Tea said. "I was lucky, when I got here Mai found me pretty quick. She had arrived a year earlier and set up this little card trading ring."



Joey chuckled. "That explains the decorating. Leave it to Mai to turn a gloomy cave like this into her own little palace."



Tea nodded. "Yeah, whatever that girl wants, she gets. She and I made a pretty good team around here. She would duel people to get things we needed, and I would ask homeless people with some dueling skill to join us. It got us through about 3 years, and then KaibaCorp got word that there was an underground card store that had rare cards. So, the Judgemasters and KaibaCorp's elite strode in and wrecked the place. They dueled everyone and destroyed them in no time. They caved in the hideout, and a lot of us didn't make it out. I got stuck under some rubble and I was pretty badly hurt. They took Mai, I'm guessing she's living out her days in prison now. I managed to get myself to a doctor and he had to do some pretty serious work on me. I had to get this metal plate put in my face to replace the damaged part, and I got these wires implanted in me to replace all the hair I lost." She ran her fingers through the coarse cabling. "After that, I managed to get some of the women back and we rebuilt the hideout."



Joey interrupted for a moment. "Women? You mean, all the members of this little underground society are women?"



Tea nodded. "Sure. That's how Mai wanted it." She raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong with that?"



The colour drained from Joey's face as he remembered hitting that masked guard in the face. Twice. "No, no it's nothing."



Tea shook her head. "Anyway, things have been pretty much the same since then. We managed to salvage all the rare cards Mai had won, so we kept on supplying them to people. Of course we had to keep the rarest under lock and key, which is why someone has to duel the leader if they want them."



Joey nodded. "I only got here a little while ago. It looks like that everyone not only got sent into the future, but got sent at different points in the future too. That means everybody else could be here already, or maybe nobody else will show up for another few years."



"I'm glad you're here though, Joey. I've been so lonely since Mai was taken away. I'd been hoping that someday someone would find me." She put an arm around Joey's waist and rested her head against his shoulder. "And I'm glad it was you."



Joey smiled and didn't respond. He nodded thoughtfully for a few moments. "Tea, have you heard anything about Yugi?"



Tea held Joey a little tighter. "I heard a rumour when I had first gotten here that a young man with a Dark Magician had gotten sent to prison. Something about having too many rare and powerful cards."



Joey sighed. "We'll get him back Tea. We'll get everyone together and figure out a way to fix this mess. I think the best thing to do right now is look for clues and see if anyone else is here too."



Tea nodded. "Good idea. We should head to the training grounds a little ways off and ask around. The ladies here are very good duelists, they should be able to hold the fort for a while." They stood up and walked into the main entrance area, and to Joey's horror, there lay Mokuba sound asleep on the stone floor.



"Oh man! I forgot we left Mokuba waiting!"



"Mokuba? That's Kaiba's little brother there?"



"Oh man, he's gonna kill me when he wakes up."







Joey and Tea are reunited and now they, with Mokuba, will travel to the training grounds to find any information about their friends. Next chapter, Mokuba recovers from serious bedsores as the trio travels forth. Tea is acting a little strangely towards Joey, what could it be?