Chapter Eleven

Lock, Stock, and two Smoking Dragons

Téa sat agitated in the chair that those mindless Rare Hunter's had bound her too. Though despite her lack of mobility, she was plenty energetic and quite peeved about her situation. She screamed at the top of her lungs occasionally just to startle the two guys she knew were still guarding outside the door and tilted the chair just enough so that the noise it made while rocking back and forth would irritate them into coming in and yelling at her. It had happened once and it was a sense of satisfaction that she had never felt before.

Another chief concern poking at her mind was whether or not Mokuba Kaiba made it out safely. Well, it seemed like he got away but could those Rare Hunter's have caught him again? If they did, she didn't want to think about what they would do to him for making the escape attempt. She did, however, know what Seto Kaiba would do to them if he found out his little brother was harmed in any way. The repercussions would be something they would suffer with for the rest of their living days. Now that was a becalming thought...

Then she heard the familiar creaking of the rusty hinges on the door and when she saw the person enter this time, it wasn't at all whom she expected.

"Joey, it's you! I'm so glad your okay! You've gotta help me out of this chair so we can escape from this rat hole!"

He didn't move or speak.

"Hello? Earth to Joey."

Again, no response. Only the continued look straight down at the floor.

"C'mon, joke's over."

"I am not Joey you fool." Her friend, or someone who looked just like him, said with a hint of annoyance on his lips. Téa gasped at the lifeless reflection in Joey's eyes and his haunting voice, which seemed to be a combination of two completely different voices. One was Joey's but the other sounded foreign and not like anyone she knew.

"That's not funny!"

Then from behind her possessed friend stepped in that strange man who had a dozen small hieroglyphic symbols tattooed onto his face. The hood of his Rare Hunter cowl was thrown up over his head so that she could only see his glossed-over gray eyes and that characteristically stiff upper lip.

"Odion," Joey said in a half-whisper. "Take her out of here and bring her to the preparation chamber. She will soon become like her friend." He said smiling, then turning around and preparing to walk out of the small, closet-like room. "And you will soon think nothing but what I command, little girl."

Téa, despite how much she wanted to scream for the first time of actual importance today, couldn't form the sound before Odion stepped forward and clamped his hand over her mouth.

*~*~*~*~*

Deirdre looked at the card he had just drawn and at first didn't think it could be anything that would help him. However, upon further mental scouring, he knew that Griff had something in his deck, probably not far away, that could make this play gamebreaking. But, at the moment it had no purpose, so Deirdre quickly looked over his side of the playing domain and then his hand.

The only monster that remained guarding his life points was the Lady Assailant of Flames but her attack score was far too low to launch an attack against either of the opposing monsters.

And for the first time in his life, Deirdre looked at his competition not as mere holographic images, but as real challengers against a personal title. Shining Abyss, though resembling little more than a large iron paperweight, occasionally moved its arms and twisted its neck to look around at the crowd. St. Joan was much more alive, as she heaved with the breath in her lungs and even smiled and winked at Deirdre when he looked at her face.

His monster showed real fear though strong resolve. She was willing to die for her master, or whoever Deirdre was to her. The Lady Assailant of Flames looked over her shoulder into Deirdre's eyes and he met her gaze. Then, with a renewed vigor, the green-haired assassin turned back to the overwhelming odds and tightened her stance.

"Okay." Deirdre said quietly and nodded to himself, gathering his confidence and taking a card out of his hand. "Okay, Griff. I lay one card face-down and then play the Mirror Image magic card, splitting my Lady Assailant of Flames into two identical monsters."

Still in defense mode, his monster wavered and sparked then split-off into an exact duplicate of the original, both with the same power and defense and both beaming with confidence.

"I end my turn, Griff."

"Because what else can you do, Deirdre?!" Griff laughed and drew a card, then held it up so his opponent could see. "I play Pot of Greed, allowing me to draw two cards in exchange for this one." Griff did just that, crossing his Duel Disk over his chest and drawing two cards from his deck. He looked at his two new cards passively, then looking up at his opponent with an overjoyed expression that said plenty without words. "Tell me something, Deirdre. Did you watch cartoons when you were a child?"

'Oh no.' He thought. 'I remember Pegasus talking like this during the Duelist Kingdom championship on KCSK. He's going to play it.'

"I know what you're going to play now, Griff! So just lay it down."

He nodded and revealed the top part of his card from his hand. "You know, I gained more than just knowledge of dueling from Master Pegasus, Deirdre! I also developed a taste for fine wines, his sense of humor, a love of some of his favored hobbies. Would you like to see some of my artwork after this?"

"I said get on with it." He seethed.

"Very well, then. I play Toon World!"

The ground in the center of the field began to twist and break apart into chunks that vanished once they were a few feet off the ground. In the midst of this appeared a swirling black vortex from which a purple hardback book appeared accompanied by some rather comical music. The book then flew open revealing its contents. A silhouetted city topped off with visible sound effects burst forth, followed by the startled reactions of the crowd and their whispered comments.

"Behold! Your destruction incarnate, my friend!" Griff said while gesturing at his two monsters who both seemed to understand what was about to occur and seemed gratified for it. "And now watch the true magic of it all! My book will absorb my two monsters on the field and safely secure them within the books impenetrable hardback bindings!"

A cloud of white smoke belched from the book and swallowed up the Shining Abyss and St. Joan, taking them into the book and slamming itself shut afterwards.

"And now they make a come-back appearance in their super-powered toon forms!"

His two monsters then jumped back out and landed on the field now resembling cartoon characters, but nothing any intelligent parent would allow their children to watch on television. Shining Abyss retained its hourglass shape though it was noticeably smaller and in place of its spherical glass eyes were now bright white balls with spinning coils in the middle. A long pink tongue dangled from where its mouth probably would have been and its head was warped into a black and red jesters cap complete with jingling bells.

St. Joan underwent the less drastic of the two transformations but she looked no less ridiculous. Her hair had gone from its once vibrant red too a more effervescent look that was colored bright purple. Her armor had gone from polished silver to a pale green with the face of a fat-nosed dragon on the breastplate. She still held her lustrous bow but now the arrows didn't stay confined to a quiver, but instead all had small faces on the tips and floated around her, thrusting towards Deirdre's monsters in an awfully threatening manner. But then again, what else would animate arrow parodies be doing?

"I'll finish this now, Deirdre! I'm going to wipe you out of this game and into duelist oblivion!" Griff's trademark smile didn't fade, in fact it only further twisted making him look even more foreboding. "I now sacrifice my two monsters and summon the Blue-Eyes White Dragon!"

Griff's two monsters burst into iridescent white flames and shot into a rippling rift in the air, which was then followed up by a tremendous explosion and the formation of the outline of a massive beast with a long serpentine neck and an eclipsing wingspan. But before it could take that shape, the Toon World book turned on its axle and flashed the unfinished being like it had taken a photo. Instead of taking on its natural form the creature dramatically shortened. Once the foggy haze lifted, a small little dragon sat on the ground gnawing on its tail. Its attention averted when it saw the twin Lady Assailant's of Flames and it quickly floated into the air and let out a little peep of a growl.

The audience was laughing at the sheer implausibility of such a monster, but it seemed to love every minute of it, as was its master, Griff Terrace, who had his hands on his hips and threw back his head, letting out a grave chuckle. "Look into the eyes of the ultimate destroyer, Deirdre! The Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon is unstoppable! The next turn will be your last!"

"Really now?" Deirdre chided, then drew his next card and was pleased with the results. 'I have an idea, Ahmose. You know what I'm thinking, right?'

'Yes,' the disembodied voice echoed inside of Deirdre's head. 'And it is a good one. But that alone will not win you this and you know of what I speak. Do you think you have the rest of the duel mapped out?'

"Yeah, I do think."

'Then play your card. You'll soon be regarded as a truly legendary duelist. This will be a victory that you can be proud of yourself for overcoming and one that I can be proud of for you because it will be good practice for the one that will soon decide so many lives.'

"All right," he said aloud, temporarily sobering Griff's cocky smile. "Griff, your about to lose! I play one card face-down and end my turn!"

"Pathetic! Unless that single card is all five pieces of Exodia or the letters needed to spell out the Destiny Board I'm afraid that you're about to lose! Blue-Eyes! Attack those weak women with White Lightning!"

Griff's absurd little dragon cackled and sucked in a great breath, bloating its light blue stomach and then discharging an incredibly powerful bolt of rosy plasma, which raced across the field and impacted with one of Deirdre's two Lady Assailant of Flames, obliterating it with nothing more than a loud boom and a cloud of smoke. But because of its defensive position, causing no life point damage.

"And that is what will soon become of your dreams of victory." Griff said with a shrouded grin.

"Not likely." Deirdre said pressing the button that activated his magic card. "I play the trap card DNA Surgery, which allows me to change any one type that I choose into any other type, and I chose to turn all Pyro-type monsters into Fiend-type monsters!"

Griff raised his eyebrow. "What is the point of that?"

"This!" The challenger announced by throwing down a monster card. "I remove three Fiend-type monsters from my Graveyard and summon Dark Necrofear in defense mode!" Appearing just like it did in the battle with Bones, a hairless and sickeningly gaunt creature appeared, narrowing its gaze and blanketing the holographic playing field with an aura of darkness.

The Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon, however, simply laughed, as did its master. "That is your big move? That is what you think is going to win the game for you? It has a powerful defense I grant you that but it cannot possibly survive just one attack from my dragon! Attack with White Lightning my monster!"

Again, the cartoon monstrosity released a scorching explosion of energy, removing Dark Necrofear from the game even before it could launch a single attack.

"Kinda makes all that work seem pointless. Doesn't it, my friend?"

Deirdre smiled and shook his head. "Oh, if you had only read the instruction manual a little bit closer, Griff."

'Yes, my young friend! Defeat him! Fulfill your long-awaited goal!'

"This is the end for you and your winning streak."

'He doesn't know what is coming! Make him pay for all of his chastising!'

The huge audience, which was once alive with applause and enthusiastic whistling, was now eerily silent. When before no one cheered Deirdre Masako in favor of the much more famous and popular Griff Terrace, now neither of them were currently being celebrated. And just before finishing the game, a flicker of absolute evil blazed in Deirdre's eyes. "I activate Dark Necrofear's effect, which allows me to control any one monster on your side of the field if it is sent to the Graveyard! And I choose your Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon!"

Griff's jaw dropped to the ground just like one of his cartoon monsters. "Impossible! You can't possibly have planned such a thing! I demand you stop this immediately!"

"You're going to lose like I planned, Griff. I doubt even your mentor Pegasus could get out of something like this! I play Polymerization, fusing the Hinotama Soul from my hand and your Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon together into the truly unstoppable Volcano Dragon!"

Griff and his loyal fans watched in mute horror as his strongest monster cringed and began to dissolve into millions of fleeting particles, which then combined with the light of the monster in Deirdre's hand, becoming a giant crimson winged lizard. Veins of magma etched its body and its wings seemed to have been sculpted from molten lava. The creature stretched to its full upright height and spread its magnificent wingspan, spattering the ground with ash and embers.

Deirdre crossed his arms in proud satisfaction of the beast then turned back to his foe, who was quaking with fear. Other people in the crowd spoke in hushed tones things like "that isn't possible!" and "Griff can't lose! He's never lost before!" But of all these only one truly made Deirdre know that he had bested the best. "That's the end of it."

'I knew you had it in you my friend. Now, finish him off! He didn't show you any mercy so none should be returned!'

"Th-that just isn't possible..." he stammered, truly unable to comprehend that anyone could make a defeating move over him. He was the apprentice of the man who created the game! The same man who had only ever been defeated once, but Griff had never been defeated. He was superior to Pegasus! The student had surpassed the teacher!

"This is how it works, Griff. My monster doesn't have a set form of fusion. The Hinotama Soul fused with any Dragon monster will produce the Volcano Dragon, but based on the dragon sacrificed for the fusion, it gains five hundred points of attack for every five hundred points of attack divisible from the original dragon. Altogether, your Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon had five hundred occur in its attack score six times, and normally the Volcano Dragon only has an attack score of 2100. But after that very generous boost, its attack score is now 5100, meaning that your life points are in serious jeopardy."

"N-no...please!"

"Volcano Dragon, attack! Molten Fire Eruption!"

The great dragon exhaled a puff of smoke from its mouth before rearing back its head and releasing a reverberating howl. It then came back and sprayed a thick stream of black boiling lava from its mouth, which splattered around and across Griff, causing him to drop to his knees and his life points to plummet from 3450 to zero.

"And I win."

Absolute silence. Everyone was dead quiet, even the spirit of the Millennium Balance couldn't form the words needed for this occasion. However, it quickly passed when one lone voice rose up that made up for all others. Skylar had been in the crowd watching the entire time but did not inform her friend of her arrival. Only now did her frantic applause and hooting begin and in unison, all others joined in. The show of support for Deirdre was deafening and breathtaking.

Still louder than everyone else, Skylar pushed through the crowd and tackled Deirdre with a crushing hug. Only his peripheral vision warned him and gave him the split-second needed to retain his balance.

It seemed then that Deirdre snapped out of a trance. He looked up in confusion, completely unaware that Skylar was hanging on him and that he had just defeated one of the best duelists in the world. Wondering if perhaps it had been Ahmose, he spoke to the spirit.

'Well, what do you think? Am I ready for this big world-saving chore of yours?'

'Maybe, child. If nothing else I think it will be entertaining to watch your attempt.'

'Yeah, well lucky for me that I didn't listen to any of your oh-so perfect advice or I wouldn't feel the satisfaction that I do now. Hint the sarcasm.'

'I caught it, Deirdre. I didn't help you through most of that duel for a reason. Because if I had it would first have demeaned your accomplishment, and second of all I wouldn't have known that your plenty capable by yourself. You don't need me to tell you anything during duels.'

'No, but if I ask will you give it?'

The spirit didn't respond for a few seconds but then fired back. 'Only if you're in deep.'

Griff had yet to get to his feet but was forced to do so when his opponent walked over and held out his opened hand. "We agreed upon two locator cards and your rarest card. And I know that it is Toon World so don't hand me anything else."

"Fine!" Griff shouted, rising to his feet and nearly knocking Deirdre and Skylar off theirs. "You think this matters, kid? Huh?! Your still not even the same decimal of talent that I am! You can take these stupid cards," he shoved all three agreed upon cards into Deirdre's hands, "and then you can get ready to hand them back, because I am going to challenge you again and next time it'll be for your career as a duelist!"

Deirdre simply pocketed the three cards and walked away, ignoring whatever else Griff had to yell.

"Mark my words, you useless little nobody! You'll lose next time! I swear it! YOU HEAR ME?!!"

"What a jerk." Skylar said with a cheerful smile.

He nodded. "Tell me about it."

The crowd began to dissipate, and now their topic of conversation was again on the champion Griff Terrace, but no longer about how strong a duelist he was, but how much of a poor sport he was. He took one last look around, saw no one including his usual entourage of beautiful women, and with a final frustrated shout, he stomped away.

His legs feeling weak, Deirdre stumbled over to the bench that he had first experienced his alternate personality at, and collapsed with a grunt. Skylar knew he was tired, and understandably so. It had been a close match and for most of it he was losing. Sitting on the edge of ones proverbial seat for nearly half-an-hour took quite a toll.

"So," Skylar said sitting down next to him. "Hows about a victory smoothie, huh? My treat."

Deirdre smirked but shook his head. "No, but thank you."

"Well, your welcome...I guess."

"For more than just the smoothie offer," he said looking up into her large, beautiful eyes. "I've known you for such a short time but you've already become my best friend. I am lucky to have you by my side, Skylar."

Skylar looked stunned, then blushed and turned away to hide her burning cheeks. "Umm...thank you."

He again gave a slow, solemn nod. Then out of a force of habit, looked down at his watch which told him that it was still not even nine o' clock yet. He looked back up at Skylar, who was still trying to drive away the flushing, and then caught a brief shiver of her bare arms, which prompted him to take off his brown bombers jacket and slip it around her shoulders.

She gratefully pulled it tighter then accepted his hand when he rose to his feet. "Well. What now?" Deirdre asked.

She shrugged as he gently pulled her up. "Breakfast?"

"Didn't you eat before you left this morning?"

"Yeah," she said with a slow nod. "But watching that duel caused me to lose a few pounds due to extreme cardio-nervousness."

"Oh," he murmured, looking down at the ground and kicking some of the dirt away with the heel of his shoe. "Well, let's go to that Italian place down the street. I hear they make really good steak omelets."

"Omelets are Italian?"

"Who knows? Neither is pizza and believe it or not, the French did not make French fries. They were made by the Americans."

"Really?"

"Really." He confirmed.

"Huh. Weird."

After a second of silence, "Very."

Skylar began with a slow chuckle, and then Deirdre joined in with the same. Soon they were both writhing in full-throated laughter.

*~*~*~*~*

A sleek, silver train pulled into the station and after releasing its built-up steam, opened its sliding doors and began to unload the passengers. Among the last too get off were Tristan and Serenity, simply because she was still wearing bandages which blinded her recovering eyes. The two walked out hand-in-hand and waiting for them not far away was Espa Roba, who was holding a bouquet of red roses. Tristan saw the gift and began to boil with anger.

"Hello, you two." Espa said walking over with the flowers held ahead of him. Tristan seriously considered snatching them out of his hand and tossing them away (after all, Serenity wouldn't have been able to see it) but Espa was just a bit quicker and pushed them under her nose. "These are for you, my darling Serenity. Roses as beautiful as the girl I am giving them too."

"Oh, Espa? Is that you?" She said leaning forward a bit as if she could tell who it was by smell alone.

"It is."

"Well, then thank you! That is so sweet." She hugged the flowers against her chest while slowly rotating back and forth at the waste.

Tristan grumbled something under his breath, then gently but more forcefully than usual, took her by the shoulders and turned her around. "Don't listen for a sec, okay, Serenity?" Tristan loomed over Espa, looking like he was just a few pegs of insanity away from mauling the false psychic. "You're killing my game, Espa! I'm trying to make it in good with Serenity and the first thing you do when we pull up is give her flowers!" He half-whispered, half-screamed.

Serenity, still holding the bouquet, sniffed the flowers and giggled happily.

"Hey, I didn't know this was a competition!" Espa fired back quietly. "Besides! She likes me more, it's obvious!"

All the color then drained out of Tristan's face, a sure sign that he was about to massacre the blue-haired boy, but then Serenity turned back around and intervened. "So, are we ready to head to Battle City? I want to see if Joey is dueling again today."

"Why yes we are, my sweet!" Espa beamed, taking her hand in his and skipping off with her. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see Tristan drag his thumb across his throat, threatening to decapitate him. Espa ignored him, and with a heavy-hearted sigh, Tristan put his hands in his jacket pockets and plodded along after them.

Author's Note: Pharaoh, that was for you. In fact, I even had a bit of fun paring up Espa and Serenity. After all, one can only dump so much seriousness into a chapter before they have to add some comedy. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it because I plan on getting more in-depth next chapter. So, until then.